Homeopathy Does Help

Just before this negative article was published on BBC News a very good report on homeopathy was published showing strong scientific basis for this form of both medicine and lay care.

Generally speaking I would not consider homeopathy to be "alternative medicine", but a form of health care that has proven extremely beneficial to tens of thousands of people around the world over several hundred years.

Of course, when people benefit from something other than "mainstream, drug based medicine" we hear the attacks, not based on the naysayers reviewing any of the science behind the art.

I was often given homeopathic remedies as a child and I used them for my children.  I find they are still very beneficial  for the health of humans and animals as well.

Dana Ullman has written on homeopathy for children and infants.  Miranda Castro has written another useful book in this area.  Many others are available.

I note that this article makes no comparison between the deaths in children and infants from vaccines or mainstream drugs.

23 December 2010 Alternative remedies 'dangerous' for kids says report

 

By Dominic Hughes Health correspondent, BBC News

Alternative remedies can have side effects, particularly for vulnerable groups like children

Alternative remedies can be dangerous for children and even prove fatal if taken instead of conventional drugs, according to a new study.

The report warns of possible adverse reactions in youngsters who are given alternative remedies.
Researchers say parents sometimes think remedies are "more natural" with fewer side effects than conventional drugs.
But in nearly two thirds of the cases the side effects were rated as severe, life threatening or fatal.
The study, published in the journal Archives of Disease in Childhood, looked at 39 separate incidents reported to the Australian Paediatric Surveillance Unit between 2001 and 2003.
The children ranged from babies to 16 year olds.
Child deaths In 30 cases, the issues were "probably or definitely" related to complementary medicine, and in 17 the patient was regarded as being harmed by a failure to use conventional medicine.
The report says that all four deaths resulted from a failure to use conventional medicine.
One death involved an eight-month-old baby admitted to hospital "with malnutrition and septic shock following naturopathic treatment with a rice milk diet from the age of three months for 'congestion'".

"Inert remedies like homeopathy, even though they in themselves are harmless, can be life threatening when they replace effective treatments” Edzard Ernst Professor of Complementary Medicine, University of Exeter

"Another death involved a 10-month-old infant who presented with septic shock following treatment with homeopathic medicines and dietary restriction for chronic eczema," the authors say.

One child had multiple seizures after complementary and alternative medicines (CAMs) were used instead of anti-seizure drugs due to concerns about potential side effects.
The fourth death was of a child who needed blood-clotting drugs but was given complementary medicine instead.
The study found that parents used alternative therapies to treat anything from constipation to clotting disorders, and diabetes to cerebral palsy.
High and unacceptable rate The authors, from the Royal Children's Hospital in Melbourne, said: "Many of the adverse events associated with failure to use conventional medicine resulted from the family's belief in complementary and alternative medicine and determination to use it despite medical advice."
Dr William Van't Hoff, a consultant paediatrician and a spokesman for the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, says this is an important, well constructed study that demonstrates "a high and unacceptable rate of adverse events" associated with the use of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM).
"It's important to note that the four deaths related to the failure of the family to use conventional medicine. Probably the most important risk is that families abandon or delay the use of conventional medicine and rely on CAMs.
"The second concern is that CAMs can interact with other medicines or have toxic effects. There's a presumption that these are natural remedies and families don't appreciate this and may even attribute the toxic effect to the conventional therapy."
'Nonsense' Edzard Ernst, Professor of Complementary Medicine at Exeter University, says it is well known that alternative therapies can have side effects, especially in vulnerable groups like children.
"All of these treatments can have side effects but there's also a risk of alternative therapies replacing effective treatments.
"So inert remedies like homeopathy, even though they in themselves are harmless, can be life threatening when they replace effective treatments.
"Children don't make decisions themselves about their treatment; very often it is their parents, and parents can be misguided by the 50 million alternative medicine websites. The children are victims of lots of nonsense and false claims."

selections from Natural Health News (more than 30 posts)

Natural Health News: Homeopathy for Hypertension

Nov 24, 2010

Homeopathy, a branch of alternative medicine based on the Law of Similars, is one of the most effective hypertension treatments, in my opinion. Homeopathic theory views disease as a dynamic disturbance that affects the whole, ...

Natural Health News: Scientific Foundation for Homeopathy Discovered

Nov 29, 2010

French virologist Luc Montagnier stunned his colleagues at a prestigious international conference when he presented a new method for detecting viral infections that bore close parallels to the basic tenets of homeopathy. ...

Consumers Exploring Homeopathy

Apr 29, 2008

I am so convinced that homeopathy IS the medicine of the future that we chose this format- in our Simply4Health line - for the 21st Century version of BioSupplemente, in order to maintain it for perpetuity. ...

Homeopathy Does Work in spite of critics

May 25, 2008

Homeopathy is a centuries-old form of medicine that takes a substance that might otherwise cause symptoms or harm and dilutes it until the substance becomes virtually undetectable. Yet homeopathy's supporters say the infinitesimal ...

Read more »

Posted in: homeopathy

To Those Who Are On The Attack Against Supplements

I was looking for an image to use in an article  I am working on earlier today and literally stumbled upon an article against supplements with a very trendy, techy type chart.  

At the same time I literally stumbled upon a good article from an MDs magazine about using homeopathy for trigeminal neuralgia.

Resource 1
Resource 2

After perusing the homeopathic articles I went back to the chart and played around with it a little and discovered something quite interesting: The links go to articles that are limited in information toward supplements.

Hardly accurate, and hardly fair, at least in my book.  What a way to dis-inform people while using something beguiling to lure them in to a limited way of thinking about their health and what can improve it!

You have to be the judge, but my money will always be on the side of supplements for promoting and maintaining good health... 

Many of the supplements at the lower part of the chart have been used effectively over decades for positive health results.  It is difficult to overlay the biased type of studies relied on in mainstream medicine to show less than the already known benefits of vitamins, minerals, and herbs for health.  

If all these things were of no use or no benefit how is it that other than US cultures have relied on them for thousands of years, and even the medical system of pharmaceuticals in the US is based on these very things.


Take this as a jumping off point to learn about what you can do to protect and maintain your health.

And that's a fact, or my name isn't Edith Ann...

Read more »

Posted in: homeopathy,supplements

Thank You

Natural Health News Acknowledged Again

Read more »

Posted in: homeopathy

Scientific Foundation for Homeopathy Discovered

A NOBEL laureate who discovered the link between HIV and AIDS has suggested there could be a firm scientific foundation for homeopathy.

French virologist Luc Montagnier stunned his colleagues at a prestigious international conference when he presented a new method for detecting viral infections that bore close parallels to the basic tenets of homeopathy.
http://college-of-practical-homeopathy.com/scientific-basis-of-homeopathy.html

Read more »

Posted in: BMA,cph,Ellen Kramer,homeopathy,NHS,nobel peace prize,Professor Luc Montagnier,science,scientist,virologist,WDDTY

The Marvellous Health of Unvaccinated Children

Françoise Berthoud, MD [medical doctor, paediatrician]

June 25, 2010

Once upon a time, in April 2009 to be exact, I was invited to give a speech at a conference on vaccination.I was to talk after two of the best speakers France has to offer on the subject had their turn, journalist Sylvie Simon and biologist Michel Georget. At hearing them speak in the past, it was absolutely clear to me that the best option is to stay as far away from vaccines as possible. I just did not know what to do instead to best assure staying alive and well. As a paediatrician and homeopath qualified to speak on the subject, I decided to setup a conference called The Marvellous Health of Unvaccinated Children along with my friends, Sylvie and Michel. This work would later evolve into a book that analyses various life choices often made by families that do not vaccinate, including home birth, breastfeeding, simple therapies, good food (often vegetarian), a tranquil living environment and trust in the capacity of the body to heal itself.

In my life as a paediatrician, I had spent lots of time in dialogue with the parents who often needed to voice their fears about both disease and vaccines. We worked out together the best route for their children. Some chose not to vaccinate at all. Others held onto fear of disease, especially tetanus. In those cases, we postponed vaccination as much as possible and used a homeopathic protection and "cleansing" called nosode.

I worked in Switzerland where there is no real legal obligation to vaccinate, only great social pressure. In France, just a few kilometres from my office, there were four compulsory vaccinations at the time (BCG was fortunately removed in 2007, and three remain: Di Te Pol).

Some of the basis of my ability to speak on the marvellous health of unvaccinated children comes from my personal experience as a medical doctor, having collected years of feedback.

• “My child began coughing immediately after the vaccination.”
• “He has had constant ear aches since he was vaccinated.”
• “My 16 years old daughter is completely unvaccinated. She is almost never sick. If she does get sick, it’s two days at the most.”
• “The neighbour's kids followed normal vaccination guidelines. They are constantly sick and on antibiotics.”

That was not enough upon which to write a book; however. As it would turn out, I found these observations were paralleled over and over again all over the world. Follow me around the planet.

EUROPE

In England, Michel Odent, MD showed in two studies that children having received no Pertussis vaccine had 5-6 times less asthma than those who were vaccinated for it. The first study was on 450 babies from La Leche League; the second one on 125 children in a Steiner school. ⁽¹⁾

Throughout Europe, a group of mostly paediatricians studied 14,893 children in Steiner schools in Austria, Germany, Holland, Sweden and Switzerland and found that children living in "anthroposophist culture" (where vaccination is largely shunned) were in better health than the controls. ⁽²⁾

In Germany, one of the European Steiner schools study researchers wrote, “In the eastern part of Berlin before the fall of the wall, we saw less allergies than in the west. This population was poorer, nearer nature and less vaccinated.” Too much hygiene is not always good. As UK researcher and originator of the “hygiene hypothesis” David Strachan might say, "give us this day our daily germs".

In Spain, Xavier Uriarte, MD and J. Manuel Marín, MD published a study in 1999 on 314 children they followed between 1975 to 2000. ⁽³⁾ This group of children is characterized by a majority of homebirth or natural births, prolonged breastfeeding, no vaccinations, holistic health education and no allopathic medicine. There were no serious diseases, few hospitalisations (mostly for traumas), and 3.3% asthma compared to the 20% in the general population. And of course, a lot of money was spared!

USA

The rate of autism in the U.S. is now an unthinkable 1 in 100. Those who are unvaccinated boast numbers that run in shocking contrast to the nation’s statistics. As this article is directed to the American people, I will not go on at length here. Most of you know the work of your very own journalist Dan Olmsted showing the incredible absence of autism in the unvaccinated Amish communities of Pennsylvania and Ohio.

Further impressive is Chicago-based Homefirst Medical Clinic run by a group of doctors including medical director Mayer Eisenstein, MD, JD, MPH. They have no known autism and super-scarce allergies in their children, many of whom were home deliveries, and most of whom have had no vaccinations. In 1985, I translated to French U.S. paediatrician Robert Mendelssohn, MD's How to Raise a Healthy Child in Spite of Your Doctor. Now I find concrete result in the marvellous health of kids whose doctors are his pupils! I like these synchronicities in my life.

AUSTRALIA

In 1942, Leslie Owen Bailey, founder of the Natural Health Society of Australia, accepted guardianship of 85 children whose mothers were unable to care for them. Among these 85 children, no vaccinations were ever given, no drugs were ever taken or used, and no operations were ever performed. The only malady that occurred was when 34 of the children developed chicken pox. They were immediately put to bed and given only pure water or fresh fruit juice. They all recovered quickly without after-effects. Investigations revealed that these children whilst at school had been swapping their healthy lunches for unhealthy conventional foods, so this outbreak was not altogether surprising.

Many of these children inherited poor health due to a history of illness and malnourishment in their mothers. Despite this, and the fact that they were never breastfed nor could enjoy the normal bonding of mother to child, they were able to grow into sturdy, self-reliant children.

NEW ZEALAND

Two studies done in New Zealand in 1992 and 1995 show that the unvaccinated children clearly have less allergies, less otitis (ear aches), less tonsillitis, less running noses, less epilepsies and less ADHD. ⁽⁴⁾

JAPAN

An interesting period in Japan was 1975-1980, when a decision was made to begin the first vaccinations at two years of age instead of at two months. The reason was that more and more was discovered linking vaccines and cot-death (SIDS). A study was published in Pediatrics showing that from 1970 to January 1975, there were 57 cases of serious vaccine reactions, including 37 deaths. From February 1975 to August 1981 there were eight cases of serious vaccine reactions, including three deaths. Unfortunately for kids and their parents, the Japanese vaccination plan is now "normalized" again. The study shows well that the immune system is stronger at two years than at two months. How well would these kids have done had they not been vaccinated at all?

We find the same observation in a Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology study. Of 11,531 children studied at age seven, here are the results: vaccinated at two months, 13.8% are asthmatic, vaccinated between two and four months, 10.3%, vaccinated after four months, 5.9 %. Again, how well would these kids have done had they not been vaccinated at all?

THE LESSON LEARNED ON VACCINATION

As a concerned, compassionate and considerate paediatrician, I can only arrive at one conclusion.Unvaccinated children have by far the best chance of enjoying marvellous health. Any vaccination at all works to cripple the chances of this end.

www.imcv.info

Sources
1) www.birthworks.org/primalhealth

2) Allergic diseases and atopic sensitization in children related to farming and anthroposophic lifestyle - Persifal study. Allergy 2006, 61 (4) : 414-421.

3) www.vacunacionlibre.org

4) http://www.ias.org.nz

 

Read more »

Posted in: Francoise Berthoud MD. natural health,homeopathy,nosodes,nutrition,unvaccinated and healthy,vaccines

Homeopathy Must Be Saved

Prince Charles: Homeopathy must be saved from new EU rules

Read more »

Posted in: EU,homeopathy,Prince Charles,save homeopathy

Health Care Philosophy

The highest ideal of cure is rapid, gentle and permanent restoration of the health, or removal and annihilation of the disease in its whole extent, in the shortest, most reliable, and most harmless way, on easily comprehensible principles.

Samuel Hahnemann, founder of Homeopathy

Read more »

Posted in: cure,Hahnemann,health,homeopathy

Homeopathy Effective for FLU

"Ohio reported that 24,000 cases of flu treated allopathically had a mortality rate of 28.2% while 26,000 cases of flu treated homeopathically had a mortality rate of 1.05%."

Here's a good resource for more infomation.

Read more about homeopathy and FLU

Read more »

Posted in: avian flu,flu,H1N1,H5N1,homeopathy,homeopathy for flu,natural health news,natural news,swine flu

A Concern for All

I understand and believe in natural care. I have concerns too from time to time because of the many natural products now flooding the market that might not be as good as in years gone by.

Commercialism has its negative side, and along with that there is the worry that Big Pharma wants just too much control over natural products. That's a money issue, not a concern for health benefits.

What bothered me today is a UPI article on the synthetization of one element from the herb Club Moss.

Briefly, Club Moss has been used for many years as an effective diuretic that eases many conditions associated with suppressed urine, including the flushing of stones and gravel from the kidneys and gallbladder, accumulation of fluids in the tissues that produce swelling (edema), bladder irritation, cystitis, gout and rheumatoid arthritis. It is used in certain cases for Alzheimer's.

What Big Pharma fails yet to understand is that plants come as a whole. Singling out one elements may be beneficial is the lab or the short term, but this isn't the way things should be.

In its whole state, Club Moss has a number of Beneficial Uses:

Club Moss is a diuretic that has been used to treat chronic urinary complaints, such as mumps, dropsy (or edema, the accumulation of fluids in tissues that produces swelling), irritability of the bladder and cystitis.

Further supporting its diuretic applications, Club Moss helps to treat many ailments that are characterized by the suppression of urine, such as renal colic, stones and calculi in the kidneys and bladder (by helping to increase urine flow and flush debris through the system). This action also helps to relieve gout, hardening of the testes and rheumatoid arthritis.

Club Moss is said to be helpful in "women's complaints" and is thought to help treat irregular menstruation.

Used externally, Club Moss may be used as a dusting powder to relieve various skin diseases, such as eczema, itchy or irritated areas and erysipelas, and it can also be used to absorb fluids from injured tissues and as a powder to prevent chafing in infants. Moreover, it can be dusted on wounds to stop bleeding or inhaled to stop bleeding noses.

Club Moss is considered a stomachic that strengthens the function of the stomach, and as such, it has been used to aid digestion and ease gastritis. It is also thought to be an antispasmodic and nervine that helps to calm spasms, diarrhea, dysentery and hydrophobia.

The concern really is, "it's the whole herb that does the job".

Homeopathy Eases Cancer Therapy

NASHVILLE, April 16 (UPI) -- U.S. chemists say they have developed an efficient technique to produce the synthesized herbal alkaloid Serratezomine from the club moss Lycopodium serratum.

Vanderbilt University researchers said the moss -- a creeping, flowerless plant used in homeopathic medicine -- contains potent alkaloids. But the plant makes many of the compounds in extremely low amounts, hindering efforts to test their therapeutic value.

The scientists said their technique to synthesize Serratezomine is important because the alkaloid might have anti-cancer properties and could combat memory loss. The scientists said it took six years to develop the process because they had to invent entirely new chemical methods to complete the synthesis. But they said their success should make it easier to synthesize alkaloids and other natural compounds with therapeutic potential.

"This was a challenging problem," said Professor Jeffrey Johnston, who led the research. 'It takes years to develop a new chemical reaction and then apply it to the natural product target. So, once we start, we don't stop."

The study that included Aroop Chandra; Julie Pigza, Jeong-Seok Han and Daniel Mutnickwas was reported in the March 18 issue of the Journal of the American Chemical Society.

Read more »

Posted in: 2009,Big Pharma,Healing Herbs,homeopathy,natural health news,synthetic extracts

Homeopathy Heals

So often the mainstream media attacks all other than mainstream medical treatments for health issues. Homeopathy is one of the most attacked health options, but this time it seems as if it gets rave reviews.

Peanut allergy can be deadly for many people, but with this new twist on a homepathic proving, 'peanut' just made the front page.

"Enter oral immunotherapy. Twenty-nine severely allergic children spent a day in the hospital swallowing minuscule but slowly increasing doses of a specially prepared peanut flour, until they had a reaction. The child went home with a daily dose just under that reactive amount, usually equivalent to 1/1,000th of a peanut."

While this new term "oral immunotherapy" seems to have been coined by doctors at Duke University Medical Center and Arkansas Children's Hospital, the principle is the same - Like Cures Like.

Read more »

Posted in: 2009,homeopathy,Law of Similars,Like Cures Like,natural health news,natural news,peanut allergy