Login / RegisterHomeopathy offers an alternative for the flu
It is early September. My husband and I accompany Sahara (5) and Aysha (6) to their beginning-of-the-year school assembly with mixed feelings: it’s nice to get a bit more time to ourselves, yet summer was so much fun that we wish it weren’t over quite so soon. During the assembly, the principal mentions swine flu, a topic that has been mentioned a lot by the media during the past few months. The principal assures parents that the school will not be closed if some of the students become infected with swine flu. I am relieved to hear that, since I am very critical of all the scare tactics that the mainstream media has resorted to regarding the supposed swine-flu “epidemic”. Also, unlike many other parents, I am not worried at all if my kids are exposed to either the regular flu or the swine flu, because I have had years of formal training in classical homeopathy, a natural healing art that has been used successfully for the treatment of all types of flus for more than 200 years.
My kids will not be getting either the swine-flu shot or the regular flu shot this year. Thanks to long-term constitutional homeopathic treatment, my kids have a strong immunity. So I don’t even have to worry about protecting them against the flu, because most people who die from the flu have compromised immune systems. But if for some reason I were worried about my kids getting the flu, I would give them the homeopathic remedy influenzinum. Influenzinum is made from flu viruses and then prepared in a homeopathic manner so as to render it safe and nontoxic. It has been used for at least the past 150 years as a natural flu preventative. In 1998, the Société Franí§aise d’Homéopathie conducted a survey of 23 homeopathic doctors and 453 patients concerning their use of influenzinum as a flu preventative over a 10-year period. Results of the survey were remarkable. In approximately 90 percent of the cases, no instances of the flu occurred when influenzinum was used.
My children are young, and their immune systems are still developing, so there is a chance that they will end up getting the flu this year. If they do, I will be treating them confidently with homeopathy, which was used effectively to treat one of the deadliest strains of flu in history, the 1918 Spanish flu. During the Spanish flu, Americans who were treated with traditional medicine had a mortality rate of 28.2 percent, while those who were treated with homeopathic medicines only had a mortality rate of 1.05 percent, according to a report by the American Homeopathic Institute in 1921.
There are many possible remedies for the flu, depending upon the particular symptoms that the infected person is experiencing. During the Spanish flu, homeopathic gelsemium was the most frequently used remedy. In general, gelsemium is thought of as the number-one remedy for the flu. Homeopathic bryonia and Eupatorium perfoliatum are also very frequently used remedies.
Perhaps the most frustrating thing about homeopathy is that it is often difficult to decide between one homeopathic remedy and another. If you are not sure which remedy to use for the flu, a sure bet is Oscillococcinum. Oscillococcinum is a homeopathic remedy invented in 1925, made from the liver and heart of a Barbary duck. There have been two large double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trials measuring the efficacy of Oscillococcinum for the flu. The results of the first trial were published in 1989 in Britain’s Journal of Pharmacology, and the results of the second trial were published in 1998 in the Homeopathic Journal. The studies showed that Oscillococcinum reduces the duration of the flu, speeds recovery, and reduces flu symptoms such as pain, fever, and backache.
Homeopathy is a safe medicine for the flu, with no side effects; the same cannot be said for traditional flu treatments.
Sonya McLeod is a Vancouver homeopath. The views expressed in this column are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent the views of the Georgia Straight.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeopathy
The World Health Organization recent warned about its use for influenza:
http://sciencebasedpharmacy.wordpress.com/2009/08/21/world-health-organi...
http://www.somecanadianskeptic.com/2009/09/homeopathy-attempting-to-stri...
Also no Guillian Barre disease ( known flu vaccine side effect ).
Pharmacist Scott, the World Health Organization has NEVER warned against the use of homeopathy for the flu. A group of " scientists" funded by pharmaceutical companies sent out press releases, misleadingly giving the impression that the WHO was down on homeopathy. Their only statement is that it is not the treatment they recommend.
Steve, speaking about financial interests, what about the billions of dollars of our tax dollars being squandered on vaccines, and advertising for a vaccination that many Canadians do not support and are having nothing to do with ?
Good on you, Georgia Straight, for speaking for some of the rest of us.
And homeopathy does work in a spectacular way.
http://homeopathyresource.wordpress.com/2009/09/11/anti-homeopathy-lette...
Homeopathy has been show time and time again to be no better than a placebo -- that is, the best conclusion is that it IS a placebo. To promote the use of homeopathy for the prevention or treatment of a potentially fatal disease is very, very dangerous.
(I notice that Ms McLeod's blog is advertised at the side of this page -- if she's paying to advertise, and being allowed to write editorials, I smell a clear conflict of interest at the editorial level, here.)
Build up immunity naturally with vaccines and don't pin your hopes on soemthing that will do nothing for your immunity. I'll bet who penned this nonsense doesn't even know the difference between a virus and a bacteria!
Dangerous nonsense!!
What will be next on Straight.com- recommendations on using voodoo dolls to ward off AIDS?
Please provide citations. My understanding is that those so-called "official records" have been debunked. Think about it: 90 year-old "official records" stating that people (with a financial interest in the issue) saw tap-water prevent the flu ought to be scrutinized rather carefully, don't you think? Especially when such treatments have, in the modern era, repeatedly failed when subjected to careful study.
Unfortunately the facts tell otherwise. It was other interventions such as patient quarantine that made a difference, and even then only in a small percentage of cases. Homeopathy was NOT used as an official intervention in the 1918 flu epidemic. This legend has grown purely because Royal Copeland was the Director of the New York Department of Health at the time and he also happened to be a homeopath. However Copeland never directed that any homeopathy response be employed.
For more details, start reading here: http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=2238732
Not recommending a treatment and warning against its use are two sides of a very slim razor - the WHO rejects the use of homeopathy to treat the flu - whether the former or latter wording, the difference is only semantic. The WHO says it is inneffective and we should not use it. End of story.
The point is that homeopathy doesn't work. For anything. It's been tested, and it has failed. There's no good reason to believe it works, any more than there's good reason to think that rubbing a rabbit foot is going to bring you luck. It's being sold to you by people who are trying to make money, yet who hide behind the idea that, for some reason, unlike actual medicine, its effectiveness can't be tested -- so, you know, "trust us." How many products are you willing to buy on those terms?
Placebos *sometimes* work for *some* things, but they don't actually, like, kill viruses (for example). Their effect is largely psychological. They don't last, and they don't cure. People opting for homeopathy over vaccination are risking their children's lives.
Making something official which isn't official seems typical of the skeptics- they link to their own blogs and web sites as authorities but really just spread bad rumors about alternative health practices.
http://homeopathyresource.wordpress.com/2009/09/05/conventional-medical-...
It seems to me there is some pretty hysterical reactions here and typical of those roused up by an odd group of people called skeptics. Sense about Science an organization directly sponsored by drug companies has spread many of these misstatements as well as medical individuals who make "serious ethical breaches" described in the link.
My husband and I are in our late 50s enjoy great health and are medication free. We do have a medical doctor as well and would not hesitate in going to an emergency room in an emergency but would still use homeopathy to help with any healing.
Both my husband and I had serious health problems as children and also come from family backgrounds with serious illnesses. Plus considering that many of our acquaintances at our age are on various medications continuously we feel very fortunate that we are so healthy and feel that is because we have pursued homeopathic treatment. Thank you homeopaths!
This isn't about any group. I'm not a member of any groups, and I'm not funded by industry. Neither are most scientists. Drop by any department in the Science faculty of any university. Pick a physicist, chemist, or biologist at random. Ask whether they think homeopathy is even remotely plausible.
The claims made by homeopathy are physically implausible, and have *never* been backed up by evidence.
The reason skeptics jump all over garbage like this is because it kills. Homeopathy performs no better than placebo (exactly as one would expect of a 'medicine' that contains no active ingredients) in clinical trials--the type of trials that have to power to detect whether medical interventions actually work. Of course, if you prefer to go by your friend's aunt's chiropractor's second-cousin twice-removed's dog-walker's florist's testimony, then it works like a charm. Then again, if you talk to that florist's kid brother he'll tell you I'm Jesus. And charms don't work at all.
Feel free to impugn the reputation of all the skeptics, maligning them as shills for the pharma industry, though. (It's as close to real evidence as homepaths get, which is to say not very.) But since we're assuming nefarious monetary motives behind the provision of health, it's only fair to say that homepaths don't practice for sole love of helping people any more than pharmacists do--they're as eager to take a cheque as anyone. India's homepathic industry is projected to hit 26,000,000,000 INR (that's 26 billion rupees, or ~541 million USD) by next year: http://www.livemint.com/2007/12/09124324/Homeopathy-braces-to-be-Rs26bn....
Perhaps all the shills for Big Ayurveda should come clean about their motives, too. The green in that aura ain't Mother Earth--it's moolah, plain and simple.
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