The Prince Charles; Prince of Wales, Lord of the Isles ... and Anti-Scientist?

[Babbler]

Look at the gem I found (look at the bottom of the page):

The Prince's herbal alternative

Prince Charles has apparently commissioned a study to find out if the British health-care system could save money by using alternative therapies instead of conventional medical treatments.

A leaked draft copy of the study, obtained by The Times newspaper, suggests that £480-million ($1-billion Canadian) could be trimmed from the country's medical bill if just 10 per cent of doctors offered homeopathy and other herbal remedies rather than prescription drugs. The study by Christopher Smallwood, a former chief economics adviser to Barclays Bank, projected a total of £3.5-billion in savings if other therapies were also used.

Ironically, a study in today's edition of The Lancet, a British-based medical journal, slams homeopathy. It concludes the therapy (highly diluted solutions of a substance suspected of provoking the condition in the first place) is no better than a placebo. If that's the case, Britain might save money in the short term with homeopathy, but end up with an undertreated, and perhaps sicker populous.

I can see why the Prince would like homoeopathy; monarchism and homoeopathy are peas in a pod; both being relics of the days before science. Homoeopathy, like astrology or creationism are those few ideas which, despite facts and reality, refuse to die this age of science and reason. They manged to hang on there; monarchism of any substance dying long ago. Perhaps the Prince of Wales wishes for a return to the age of ruling Kings?

Nah. He couldn't give up our modern ways, founded on the discoveries of the scientific revolution; nor the modern liberties (like remarrying after a devoice without founding your own church) the enlightenment brought us.

Yet another reason to dump the monarchy. :thumbdown

 

[Tank_Guy#3]

I think this is one of the worst Generations of Monarch's England has ever had.

 

[Taliesin]

Sounds pretty thick, all right. Perhaps Prince Charles should remember his own admonition not to "think you're better than you are and try to rise above your station" and keep his nose out of science.

and perhaps sicker populous.

It angers me when reputable newspapers print obvious orthographic errors such as this.

 

[Marla_Singer]

Homeopathy is rather popular in the UK. Saying that homeopathy doesn't have more effect than wheat flour is rather a provocating statement in Britain.

Well personally I have the opposite trouble. I never believe any medicine I swallow is efficient. I always believe it's crap. As such, I never have that placebo effect which means that the medicine I take has indeed no effect on me. Indeed, any medicine, even allopathy, has more effect if you believe in it than if you don't. As I know this, I try to persuade myself that those medicine are indeed efficient by saying me stuff like "tons of studies prove it works" or "that medicine have been used by tons of people before, we'd know it if it doesn't work', etc... Unfortunately, I can't persuade myself about this and medicine continues to have no effect on me.

However, there's still one medicine I believe in : it's the aspirin. That things do have effects on me I'm sure about it.

 

[SeleucusNicator]

Reminds me of one of the Habsburg monarchs who essentially set up a court at Prague and invited alchemists, mystics, and other pseudo-scientific frauds from across Europe to populate it.

 

[Tank_Guy#3]

I believe in advil, and the hospital stuff. The hospital stuff is the good sh!t, oxycontin, morphine, and vicaden. Now that stuff works.

 

[Marla_Singer]

I believe in advil, and the hospital stuff. The hospital stuff is the good sh!t, oxycontin, morphine, and vicaden. Now that stuff works.

Yeah indeed. I was talking about pharmaceutics, the thing you take for softer things, but you're right, it's hard to not believe in morphine.

 

[Maniacal]

Well, there ARE lots of plants that have medicional effects, it's jsut that were to stupid to reconize and compile everything b/c everone's devided into dif factions.

 

[Tank_Guy#3]

I know, in that case I like Advil.

 

[Babbler]

It angers me when reputable newspapers print obvious orthographic errors such as this.

Could be worst.

It could have been the National Post.

 

[HighlandWarrior]

natural medicines do exist, to deny this is admitting you're brainwashed by the drug companies.

 

[silver 2039]

Ummm I use homepothey and ayervedic medcine and trust me it works. I'm sure theres been a study done somewhere....
I try to avoid antibiotics when I can.

 

[The Last Conformist]

Prince Charles pseudoscientific sympathies are hardly news, are they?

 

[Verbose]

Reminds me of one of the Habsburg monarchs who essentially set up a court at Prague and invited alchemists, mystics, and other pseudo-scientific frauds from across Europe to populate it.

Rudolph.

But at least back in the 16th c. all that stuff was regarded as perfectly scientific.
Rudolph was just an ambitious monarch, who wanted the world on his fingertips.
Thrown in with the alchemists were astronomers like Tycho Brahe and Johannes Kepler.

Kepler at least comes across as an honest to god mystic if read in the original. The astronomical stuff was something on the side. (Much like the fact that Newton spent decades studying alchemy.)

As for Charles, he has this long standing interest in alternative stuff. It's years ago now, but once he did a stint with some bushmen in the Kalahari getting in touch with stuff.

 

[Hotpoint]

An article from the BBC yesterday

Homeopathy's benefit questioned
A leading medical journal has made a damning attack on homeopathy, saying it is no better than dummy drugs.

The Lancet says the time for more studies is over and doctors should be bold and honest with patients about homeopathy's "lack of benefit".

A Swiss-UK review of 110 trials found no convincing evidence the treatment worked any better than a placebo.

Advocates of homeopathy maintained the therapy, which works on the principle of treating like with like, does work.

Someone with an allergy, for example, who was using homeopathic medicines would attempt to beat it with an ultra-diluted dose of an agent that would cause the same symptoms.

The row over homeopathy has been raging for years.

In 2002, American illusionist James Randi offered $1m to anyone able to prove, under observed conditions in a laboratory, that homeopathic remedies can really cure people.

To date, no-one has passed the preliminary tests.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4183916.stm

 

[Winner]

Reminds me of one of the Habsburg monarchs who essentially set up a court at Prague and invited alchemists, mystics, and other pseudo-scientific frauds from across Europe to populate it.

Here, we call it a golden age

 

[Doc Tsiolkovski]

Someone with an allergy, for example, who was using homeopathic medicines would attempt to beat it with an ultra-diluted dose of an agent that would cause the same symptoms.

That has to be the worst example ever. .
You call that 'hyposensibilization', and it works without the shadow of a doubt against hayfever or allergy to bee or wasp poison. Not against contact allergies, of course.

Homoepathy is crap. But hey, lots of other 'alternative' methods have been proven to be BS as well, and still sell like sliced bread. As long as about a third of all sufferings are psychosomatic, no problems with that - imaginary medicine against imaginary diseases .

 

[stormbind]

Look at the gem I found (look at the bottom of the page):


I can see why the Prince would like homoeopathy; monarchism and homoeopathy are peas in a pod; both being relics of the days before science. Homoeopathy, like astrology or creationism are those few ideas which, despite facts and reality, refuse to die this age of science and reason. They manged to hang on there; monarchism of any substance dying long ago. Perhaps the Prince of Wales wishes for a return to the age of ruling Kings?

Nah. He couldn't give up our modern ways, founded on the discoveries of the scientific revolution; nor the modern liberties (like remarrying after a devoice without founding your own church) the enlightenment brought us.

Yet another reason to dump the monarchy. :thumbdown

The equivalent of a placebo may be all that much of the 'sick' population needs, freeing up valuable NHS resources for more serious cases.

 

[Aphex_Twin]

I remember reading that, upon testing his principles, Hanneman (the inventor of the stuff) made the following reasoning: "The greater the dillution [of the poison], the better the patient feels in the end. Ergo, we must dillute forever"

 

[stormbind]

Ummm I use homepothey and ayervedic medcine and trust me it works. I'm sure theres been a study done somewhere....
I try to avoid antibiotics when I can.

Interesting - could you post details?

With strict regards to the topic, the following may not count, but I have taken:

1. Ginkgo Biloba which really did improve my memory: It enabled me to recite Hamlet
2. Tea Tree Oil: Used it to fight an infection when treatments available on prescription had no effect
3. Alexander Technique to improve efficiency of movement (recognised for medicinal value by the NHS, but considered no more than an 'art' by US establishments)

The medical profession is always getting things wrong. I guess there's is not an exact science