About the author

Alan V. Schmukler

Alan V. Schmukler is a homeopath, Chief Editor of Homeopathy for Everyone and author of ”Homeopathy An A to Z Home Handbook”, (also in French, German, Greek, Polish and Portuguese). He is Hpathy’s resident cartoonist and also produces Hpathy’s Tips & Secrets column and homeopathy Crossword puzzles each month. Alan is a recipient of the National Center for Homeopathy Martha Oelman Community Service Award. Visit Alan at his website: Here.

4 Comments

  • Alan, I am getting so tired of hearing that homeopathy is “only placebo”! So ridiculous when very often we try 5 or 10 remedies before something finally works. Interesting placebo “effect”–doesn’t kick in until the 10th remedy. But moreover, listen to this, according to medical journalist Jerome Burne’s article “Statin Wars”, the highly touted RCT is completely invalidated by the release form that all participants in the trial–including the placebo group– have to sign, namely that they know and accept that they may suffer the following side effects….”! Here is the quote from the article, which shows that the form contaminates and invalidates the trial:

    “It can be found on the People’s Pharmacy site in a post that looks at why RCTs are not a reliable way of gathering data on side effects.
    It makes the point that all patients in a trial have to sign a consent form, which includes the adverse events that they might suffer. One quoted study concludes: ‘Adverse events mentioned in informed consent (forms) might not only increase expectation effects but might also facilitate the perception and reporting of these symptoms.’”

    Oy!

  • So those RCT’s are not really blinded, because the subjects know what symptoms to expect. Of course, if you consider the fact that the “symptoms” allopathic drugs cause include permanent tissue damage and even death, it’s less likely to be a placebo effect. Aside from the point you make, the RCT’s are invalidated because the drug companies operate without any integrity, often publishing only the results they wanted, hiding serious side effects, hiring ghost writers to review the drugs favorably etc. Let me take it one step further. The January 2011 issue of Vanity Fair had an article about how drug companies have now moved some of their drugs testing to 3rd world countries, where there is NO oversight. The lure in test subject with a few dollars and don’t tell the subjects about the possible dangers. When subjects in the drug trials are damaged or die, the companies are not held to account. All this is done with malice aforethought. It’s as close to evil as you can get.

  • Alan, you’re right. They’re allowed to do a zillion trials on the same drug and only have to publish the one that came out favorably, the others are kept secret. The other thing is, the trials with negative outcomes teach them how to redo the trial so that that won’t happen again. Yes, I remember reading about their “trials” in 3rd world countries where there is no oversight whatsoever! Ugh!

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