A response to an article written on Lady Sheherazahde's Blog.

Have a look at this first then come back............the following is also pasted as a comment on the page if you don't want to - under my user name pianomarc.

BLOG POST




The way I see it, the MSS are raising awareness of a case of large scale deception - the stuff has no use and yet people are still allowed to sell it under the guise of a treatment for medical ailments...... the Muslim cleric is telling lies in the same way as the homoeopathic industry for the benefit of his belief...... I don't think a woman's cleavage could cause an earthquake, that's just plain stupid but ultimately harmless apart from the issue of women's rights and extremist interpretations. I don't think medicine should rely on any kind of belief for it to work, that's also just plain stupid and also potentially very harmful. Common sense seems to spur the majority into action regarding the former, but seems sadly lacking regarding the latter.

I also think that supporting these belief based phenomenon has much wider implications. Its is belief in witch-craft that gets humans to burn other humans alive in Kenya, graphic footage is available. Belief in homoeopathy also got a 9 month old baby killed by its parents for a relatively minor and treatable eczema. They are currently serving jail terms. I can provide a link to the Sydney Morning Herald's story.

I know of nothing more abhorrent than to push another living human being into a raging fire pit, or to think of a small child, unable to harbour her parents beliefs yet, dying in the way she did.

To compare what the MSS and 10-23 are trying to do with the Muslim clerics actions is nothing short of ridiculous. Some peoples beliefs get suspected Kenyan "witches" and some unfortunate Australian babies killed......not the same thing? Well, its that belief in something that isn't there that's done it for the both of them at the end of the day. Is one of them wrong or are both of them wrong?

Testing from the iPod

Wow, I don't think blogging can be any easier than this..... Stumbled on a free wifi connection in the shopping center and am sat on a park bench waiting for the kids to finish music class. Going to spend my birthday money on a nice bottle of olive oil and contemplate my first move against the outrageous prescription of a magnetic collar for an arthritic dog that a friend of a friend was given. I was a little unsure how to go about this so I emailed Marsh from the Mersey Side Skeptics and he basically told me to follow my instincts. It seems obvious to me that a magnetic collar will have no effect on the body - any body in normal fettle without added extras like steel pellets or knitting needles swallowed in error - because we would never survive the likes of MMR scans, as Marsh pointed out to me. I don't know why it is people get taken in by this and as long as there is a market for it, it will be gotten to market somehow. I hope to be able to report that I saved at least one poor soul from parting with almost £40......I have a feeling it's going to take more time and effort than is strictly necessary but nobody else is trying to stop him. Watch this space as they say....and many thanks to the MSS and Michael Marshall for the encouraging words.

http://www.merseysideskeptics.org.uk

Homoepathy proponents STILL fight back........

Many years ago we began studying all of these herbal and alternative therapies and the stuff that worked is now just called plain "medicine".........it was proved to have worked through proper investigation and testing. So far homoeopathy has not successfully been proven. Apart from the fact that the dilution makes no sense, its science just doesn't add up. People have a tendency still to believe these things work based on hear say and if they want to waste their money on it, then of course that's up to them, it's foolish to those of us who do have the ability to do our own thinking, but ultimately its very dangerous as can be seen by the DEAD child in the video who couldn't read the crap that's on its advertising nor understand any of the people saying "it worked for me". Lets just recap on the video, its not made up. That's a DEAD 9 month old baby who's parents were convicted and jailed because they held back on real medicine - that would have seen that this little baby was alive today - because they held a belief in this rubbish.... IF homeopathy DID work, why would they bother to print stuff like "does not cause drowsiness" on the label of homoepathic sleeping pills.... and why did that baby die of complications brought on by not treating its eczema that in its worst case, some cortiosteroid cream would have probably done the job. It may be just a coincidence that they were Indian and living on Australias "hippy coast" where all kinds of alternative stuff prevails.......they took the baby to India by the way for advice from a leading homoepath......nice advice!!

The main problem lies in the fact that homoepaths qualify each other, there is no government regulated body that overlooks their courses and people who embark upon these courses do feel that they are studying a genuine therapy and so are bound to feel a bit aggrieved when they pass out only to find that the world is looking at their craft now and people are actually questioning it form all angles. The people who say "it worked for me or my friend" are without realising it, deluding themselves and helping to motivate an industry that in some cases has the cheek and audacity to tell the world they can cure aids and malaria and sell pills to people who are in enough bother already for money they cannot afford. There is a serious enough problem with childhood diarrhea in Africa - which is mainly caused by bacteria and parasites, to you and I with a normally healthy diet, it would clear its self up after a few days providing there were no serious underlying causes - and if we have taken anything, say a homoepathic pill, we would indeed tend to think that it was that that had done the trick........its a different story in Africa, howeve,r and even real medicine struggles to cope. A supply of clean water would help, and I suppose homoepathy does offer us at least that, as there is not much else in it - but you cant go to these people and say, "if you BELIEVE in this it might work for you, it did on a friend of mine"..... they don't have time for that, they are dying in large numbers every day. I am talking about children here......

Its an individual choice to use these "cures" and that's up to you, but it does have wider implications - people DO DIE because this stuff exists, .... I know plenty of people also die because of illness that real medicine is struggling to come to terms with, but at least the doctors administering that stuff have real qualifications and are using real scientific protocol to
try to save lives. Their losses must be hard to bear - they want you to live after all, but to shun them in favour of a 300 year old unproven system based on "energy" and "belief" must be harder to swallow.