robblewis

Comment Threads

• minamisan commented on If woowoos ran the emergency room
  Watching that sketch wouldn't be completely satisfying without reading the predictable Homeopathy defender comments here (all Anonymous so far, for some reason). Now I'm waiting for the invitations to read lengthy articles on Homeopathy websites which 'prove' its efficacy, and sobs of 'hurtful comments' towards people who've wasted years and spent thousands of dollars studying bottles of water with funny names....
• Lester commented on If woowoos ran the emergency room
  That can't possibly qualify as homeopathy, it has an active ingredient. The marketing, however, is beginning to blur. Zicam called itself homeopathic, but it had Zinc in it. Plenty of herbals have medicinal effects, sure. That's the basis of modern medicine. Aspirin, after all, came from willow tree bark. Taxol came from a yew tree. The NIH, I believe, runs the Natural Products Repository, with samples from plants and animals all over the world. I think rapamycin, which came from a fungus on Easter Island, is an example of something from the repository (although I could be wrong) As someone...
• GuidoDavid commented on If woowoos ran the emergency room
  Only 40 comments and somebody already complained of "witch burning". My, poor witches were laughed to death while making obscene amounts of money, right?...
• guidomax commented on If woowoos ran the emergency room
  For anyone interested in reading a well-formed (and funny, and shocking) critique of homeopathic methods, I'd recommend getting a copy of Bad Science by Ben Goldacre. He has an excellent weekly column in the Guardian, too. (RSS) One of his arguments (if I paraphrase correctly) is that there's thinking that an 'intervention' (i.e. someone going to see a practicioner and getting a 'prescription') can have a positive effect, even if the pills he is taking have no effect whatsoever - the placebo effect. The mere act of going to see someone and talking over your problem with them, outside of...
• kezza commented on If woowoos ran the emergency room
  Previous post from one of the ANONYMOUS ... "Not all homeopathic meds are so diluted that they contain zero ingredient". I'm afraid I will have to pick you up on that ... *by definition* homoeopathic medicines are *so* dilute that, statistically, there are no molecules of active ingredient present in virtually all samples. (Picture this for an idea ... imagine a world where the oceans are made of pure water and imagine I take one drop of active ingredient and drop it into the ocean in America, then travel to Europe and fill a little bottle from the same ocean...