I'm a big fan of placebo. The really cool thing is you can give someone a placebo without 'tricking' them. i.e. "Take this placebo and you'll get better". Give them placebo+ and they'll get better even faster.
Just use tap water and save 4 million quid.
Homoeopathy is just tap-water and sugar pills. Nothing more, nothing less. The amount of water needed to dilute a 'remedy' to 30c would be several million times larger than the planet on what we sit. There is no science behind it, no scientific evidence, it's plain woo.
As we were on the subject of Ben Goldacre, he mentioned that it's interesting how placebos work in terms of two sugar pills often work better than one, four better than two, and an intravenous saline solution (with no 'active ingredients') tends to work even better. He also mentioned in his talk I went to see that not enough money has been spent on the placebo effect and that used correctly, it could actually save the NHS a lot of money.
The problem with homoeopathy is that people are using it instead of tried and tested 'medicines' for serious conditions. People are peddling it as science and as an 'alternative' to medical treatments that have had to undergo clinical trials, peer-review, strict scrutiny and rule-following before they ever come close to humans. Homoeopathy doesn't help with serious ailments, and when it is touted as a way of avoiding or treating malaria, AIDS, TB and other fatal illnesses then it's a dangerous thing.
I'll dig out an article that explains how homoeopathy is meant to work. It's almost comical.
Talking of comedy, this is excellent:
I thought that some research had showed that even though homepathic 'water' should have no traces of the other original added chemical, it did not in the end act just as pure water did?
I'm amazed though that people can become better simply by listening to some Indie rock, does this work with any other bands?
I did hear once from some dude who is very big in the Health Psychology field that among those things found to affect the outcome of illnesses 'prayer, and retrospective prayer' were shown to have an effect.
Apart from that, the power of the mind over illness should not be underestimated, maybe at play with homeopathy.
""The latest piece of research tackling this issue is to be presented to a British Psychological Society conference in Winchester.
Professor Leslie Walker, from the University of Hull, looked at 80 women diagnosed with breast cancer.
All received exactly the same treatment and emotional support, but half also received training in relaxation techniques - they were taught to visualise their body's defences "overcoming" the cancer cells.
The women were judged as having a better quality of life than those who only received treatments plus emotional support.
And when their white blood cells were examined, they were found to be significantly different. ""
Author