Why it is unethical to use homeopathy on horses

tallyho! said:
Danny Vet... vets routinely use medicines that are not proven and some have been disproven routinely.

Metformin for laminitis. No evidence. (No large trials with dose ranging or dose confirmation for equids)

Sarcoid tratements. Some only have anecdotal evidence.

Far from advocating homeopathy, I'm merely supporting choice.
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1. No-one is trying to stop choice. Homeopathy will still be available. It is illegal for a non vet to diagnose a horse, it is not illegal for a homeopath to treat it.

2. All the drugs used on horses do something even if they aren't an effective treatment for the disease they are being used for. Homeopathy is proven to do absolutely nothing whatsoever on animals, and placebo effect only in humans.
 
Of course homeopathy is nonsense .Unfortunately the difference between sense and nonsense rather depends on how much we know. I was amused by one or two posters who refereed to water as H20. It isnt . Water is very odd stuff!. Its so common that we tend to forget just how odd its propertys are in comparison with similar molecules. The truth is that water is really H(2n) O(n) as all of what we laughingly call water molecules are really linked together by hydrogen bonding into a sort of super molecule . We laugh at the idea of water having a memory yet drop an alien molecule into pure water and you will affect the electron distribution of every atom present. My highly educated brain tells me that its all nonsense but that is not the same as not true.
 
Interesting thread.....however just to throw a spanner in the works I read somewhere online recently that a remedy (Kali Bich I think) had been trialled in an intensive care setting for human patients and the patients treated with that compared to the placebo group had significantly less problems with mucus on the chest, as a result that intensive care unit and others within in that particular health authority now make it routine for its ITU patients to have the remedy now.....I was thinking it was either in the U.K or U.S but in view of the earlier post regarding the NHS opinion on homeopathy I am guessing its probably the U.s. apologies for going slightly off track from the thread topic but wondered if anyone else had read or heard this?
 
Homeopathy is complete and utter nonsense and as the op says it is unethical to use.
Fine to try it as on minor non painful conditions as a last resort as it will do nothing.. not fine to use it on an animal in pain as a 'last resort' as the animal will remain in pain for a longer period of time.
Use it on yourself - use something htat does something on your horses.
 
rosiesue said:
Interesting thread.....however just to throw a spanner in the works I read somewhere online recently that a remedy (Kali Bich I think) had been trialled in an intensive care setting for human patients and the patients treated with that compared to the placebo group had significantly less problems with mucus on the chest, as a result that intensive care unit and others within in that particular health authority now make it routine for its ITU patients to have the remedy now.....I was thinking it was either in the U.K or U.S but in view of the earlier post regarding the NHS opinion on homeopathy I am guessing its probably the U.s. apologies for going slightly off track from the thread topic but wondered if anyone else had read or heard this?
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I've found evidence of that trial but can't seem to copy the link. There are references to approximately 45 other clinical trials and/ meta-analyses throughout this article though... http://www.wholehealthnow.com/homeopathy_pro/research_2.html
 
Mike007 said:
Of course homeopathy is nonsense .Unfortunately the difference between sense and nonsense rather depends on how much we know. I was amused by one or two posters who refereed to water as H20. It isnt . Water is very odd stuff!. Its so common that we tend to forget just how odd its propertys are in comparison with similar molecules. The truth is that water is really H(2n) O(n) as all of what we laughingly call water molecules are really linked together by hydrogen bonding into a sort of super molecule . We laugh at the idea of water having a memory yet drop an alien molecule into pure water and you will affect the electron distribution of every atom present. My highly educated brain tells me that its all nonsense but that is not the same as not true.
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My deeply uneducated brain enjoyed this post! Homeopathy is illogical - yet I've seen it appear to work and nothing I've read here yet has swayed me towards signing the petition.
 
Mike007 said:
Of course homeopathy is nonsense .Unfortunately the difference between sense and nonsense rather depends on how much we know. I was amused by one or two posters who refereed to water as H20. It isnt . Water is very odd stuff!. Its so common that we tend to forget just how odd its propertys are in comparison with similar molecules. The truth is that water is really H(2n) O(n) as all of what we laughingly call water molecules are really linked together by hydrogen bonding into a sort of super molecule . We laugh at the idea of water having a memory yet drop an alien molecule into pure water and you will affect the electron distribution of every atom present. My highly educated brain tells me that its all nonsense but that is not the same as not true.
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Can you point me to an explanation please Mike. I can't find any reference to H(2n)O(n) on Google.
 
Orca said:
I've found evidence of that trial but can't seem to copy the link. There are references to approximately 45 other clinical trials and/ meta-analyses throughout this article though... http://www.wholehealthnow.com/homeopathy_pro/research_2.html
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My understanding is that there isn't a single properly conducted double blind trial (where the people giving out the medicine don't know what's in it) where homeopathy performs any better to a 95% confidence level than a placebo.

That article doesn't change that. And really, to refer to grouping together three of your own tiny trials and calling them a meta study is completely laughable.
 
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Orca said:
I've found evidence of that trial but can't seem to copy the link. There are references to approximately 45 other clinical trials and/ meta-analyses throughout this article though... http://www.wholehealthnow.com/homeopathy_pro/research_2.html
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Thanks Orca, I will have a go later when I go on iPad as easier, it was the hospital one I found so interesting, I don't imagine consultants etc involved in intensive care settings are prone to flights of fancy. I will see if I can manage a link later.
 
ycbm said:
My understanding is that there isn't a single properly conducted double blind trial (where the people giving out the medicine don't know what's in it) where homeopathy performs any better to a 95% confidence level than a placebo.

That article doesn't change that. And really, to refer to grouping together three of your own tiny trials and calling them a meta study is completely laughable.
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I have to agree re meta-analysis. I'm hoping to have time to read the article properly today. The trial rosiesue refers to was a double blind, as far as I recall.

rosiesue said:
Thanks Orca, I will have a go later when I go on iPad as easier, it was the hospital one I found so interesting, I don't imagine consultants etc involved in intensive care settings are prone to flights of fancy. I will see if I can manage a link later.
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rosiesue said:
Thanks Orca, I will have a go later when I go on iPad as easier, it was the hospital one I found so interesting, I don't imagine consultants etc involved in intensive care settings are prone to flights of fancy. I will see if I can manage a link later.
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They are prone to exactly the same problems of extrapolation from a tiny, tiny number of people where chance produced a result as everyone else. I'll bet my bottom dollar that in twenty years time their patients on average behave no differently than any other hospital using exactly the same regime without the magic water.
 
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Orca said:
I have to agree re meta-analysis. I'm hoping to have time to read the article properly today. The trial rosiesue refers to was a double blind, as far as I recall.
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Yes, it was, , but on numbers so tiny it can easily be chance. Let's wait a few years and see proper numbers and replication by other doctors before we get too excited.
 
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ycbm said:
Can you point me to an explanation please Mike. I can't find any reference to H(2n)O(n) on Google.
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Try reading up on hydrogen bonding. The point is that atoms in a molecule are linked by their electron clouds .Hydrogen bonding links the electron clouds of otherwise separate molecules and they interact and could in some senses be considered as one huge molecule . (the n is simply the number of H2O "molecules"involved).
 
ycbm said:
Yes, it was, , but on numbers so tiny it can easily be chance. Let's wait a few years and see proper numbers and replication by other doctors before we get too excited.
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I'm not excited but I do find it interesting ��.

I also find the concept of placebo by proxy interesting. That is being put forward as the reason for people appearing to see improvement in children and animals after receiving homeopathy but is it a proven theory? Genuine question. If homeopathy doesn't work, I'm interested in understanding why it consistently appears to, to so many people. I know people believe in the impossible all of the time but the concept of transferring the placebo effect to another is something I'm not familiar with.
 
Mike007 said:
Of course homeopathy is nonsense .Unfortunately the difference between sense and nonsense rather depends on how much we know. I was amused by one or two posters who refereed to water as H20. It isnt . Water is very odd stuff!. Its so common that we tend to forget just how odd its propertys are in comparison with similar molecules. The truth is that water is really H(2n) O(n) as all of what we laughingly call water molecules are really linked together by hydrogen bonding into a sort of super molecule . We laugh at the idea of water having a memory yet drop an alien molecule into pure water and you will affect the electron distribution of every atom present. My highly educated brain tells me that its all nonsense but that is not the same as not true.
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Oh come on. I'm perfectly familiar with the concept of hydrogen bonding, but using that rationale to sneer at people describing water as H2O (which is scientifically acceptable) is absurd. Water molecules interact - everyone with even a rudimentary grasp of biology knows this. Almost all molecules can, or will, interact with other local molecules. That doesn't mean they're all magically linked over distances with the capacity for memory...
 
Orca said:
Genuine question. If homeopathy doesn't work, I'm interested in understanding why it consistently appears to, to so many people. I know people believe in the impossible all of the time but the concept of transferring the placebo effect to another is something I'm not familiar with.
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Very good question!

Here are two very good links that explain that very question:

Why homeopathy works
https://www.vetsurgeon.org/microsites/private/rational-medicine/p/homeopathy-works.aspx

Ben Goldacre is a doctor who studies this kind of phenomenon:
http://youtu.be/O1Q3jZw4FGs
 
I agree that it is indeed concerning if people seek a non proven remedy in preference to medical help for those that are reliant on us but in the case of chronic issues if all else has failed and the animal is not actively suffering then i see no reason why homeopathy should not be tried..... I myself use it for the animals in my care, I also use herbs.....The vet, however is my first port of call.....which brings me to an interesting scenario, many years ago I had a goat, who kept coming into milk...a maiden milker I think the term would be, mastitis was a problem....and no matter what the vet tried we were failing....nothing was clearing it....it was becoming a chronic problem.....in the end he just said " well we have tried everything and nothing is shifting it....she seems happy enough ......" So as a last ditch resort a couple of weeks after her last lot of failed injections and creams etc I tried a homeopathic remedy, saw what I thought looked like a slight improvement but was not convinced...so added another in, she was on 2 remedies and that udder cleared up and she never had it again.....she lived a long happy life there after....now we could say she was going to get better anyway....it was just coincidence...all of that....yet when my vet came out next to one of the horses, he asked how Winnie was (goat) I suggested he went and looked.....he was amazed and asked how so I did tell him what I had put her on.....he wrote it down, he said to me that up until then he had always thought of it as kind of thing that makes the owner feel better and although the remedy would not do any good it would not do any harm either (his words not mine) however he left my place that day absolutely fascinated and I think his mind had been opened a bit to the possibility that maybe, just maybe, homeopathy may have more to it than he thought.....as I say coincidence? May well be.....but the vet asked after Winnie every time he visited and the answer was always the same.....no more problems......oh and many years later he would smile at me out of the blue and " say remember that goat? With that mastitis? " And his eyes would twinkle and he would say it intrigued him I talk of him in the past tense as he has sadly passed, taking his wonderful open mind with him.....
 
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Mike007 said:
Of course homeopathy is nonsense .Unfortunately the difference between sense and nonsense rather depends on how much we know. I was amused by one or two posters who refereed to water as H20. It isnt . Water is very odd stuff!. Its so common that we tend to forget just how odd its propertys are in comparison with similar molecules. The truth is that water is really H(2n) O(n) as all of what we laughingly call water molecules are really linked together by hydrogen bonding into a sort of super molecule . We laugh at the idea of water having a memory yet drop an alien molecule into pure water and you will affect the electron distribution of every atom present. My highly educated brain tells me that its all nonsense but that is not the same as not true.
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At what strength of interaction between like molecules would one be wrong to refer to the 'naive' chemical formula. Benzene is C6H6. Or maybe you would argue it is not, and that what we laughingly call benzene molecules are really linked via pi-stacking? I was taught that what usually counts to qualify something to be a molecule, with a molecular weight and formula, for organic compounds at least, is covalent bonding. Yes, there are grey areas - like DNA, where the strands are linked with hydrogen bonds - but it seems a bit extreme to say that water isn't H2O or benzene isn't C6H6 or ethanol isn't C2H5OH.
 
And does water behave like a small molecule with a molecular weight of 18 . No it most definitely doesn't ! The hydrogen bonds are no less real than any other form of bond despite the inconvenient contradiction of mankind's attempt to stick labels on things.
 
Erm, nobody is dismissing the significance of hydrogen bonding, or the properties it gives water - heck, I teach an entire module about it year in, year out. It just doesn't exactly work the way you describe...
 
JFTD said:
Erm, nobody is dismissing the significance of hydrogen bonding, or the properties it gives water - heck, I teach an entire module about it year in, year out. It just doesn't exactly work the way you describe...
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No of course it doesnt work exactly the way I describe. But then ,in fairness what you teach in your module isnt exactly the truth either . No offence intended. One of the great skills of a good teacher is to know when to "dumb something down". So for example in schools Newtonian physics is taught . Relativity and quantum mechanics are avoided . In this thread I feel that some people have been rather too quick to scorn Homeopathy on the basis of some rather basic and questionable assumptions .
Quantum entanglement was up until recently a nonsense idea until it was demonstrated. We have no idea still if its effects can be demonstrated beyond the subatomic level. I suspect that there is a lot of myth and mystery attached to Homeopathy but I cant dismiss it out of hand because we now know "God does play dice"
 
Mike, I get your point in layman's terms, I think. You are saying that if you put one molecule of chlorine into a litre of water, what you get is a litre of dilute hydrochloric acid. But are you really suggesting that if you remove that one molecule of chlorine from that litre of water, that the water does not return to being pure water, but somehow retains a memory of having once been weak hydrochloric acid? My understanding is that's exactly what homeopathy is saying.

And If you are not ruling out homeopathy, then what is your position on it being impossible to show anything but a placebo effect on any suitably sized double blind clinical trial?
 
Mike007 said:
One of the great skills of a good teacher is to know when to "dumb something down".
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I don't dumb it down because I don't teach lower levels... The concepts of relativity and (basic) quantum theory are taught in schools, by the way.

The key point here is that we aren't talking about something which simply hasn't been proven or disproven - we're talking about something which has been extensively studied and shown to have no effect. It's not really comparable with quantum entanglement on any level. Homeopathy claims to have clear effects at a detectable level, and yet repeatedly has been shown not to in a number of well constructed trials. Whilst vets do prescribe drugs which have not been tested in horses, and this is far from ideal, it is a different kettle of fish for vets to offer treatments which have repeatedly been shown to have no effect.
 
'Not proven' is an entirely different concept from 'proven to have no effect'.

All medical treatments start 'non proven'. They start with a hypothesis which is tested in laboratories, or evolves from anecdotal evidence, or develops from animal studies, etc. before moving on to human trials. At that stage there is some evidence that this may work but it is not proven. Generally treatments have to be fully tested before they are made widely available as this allows us to confirm the therapeutic benefits, identify side-effects and risks, etc. However it is not necessarily unethical to prescribe not proven therapies. In desperate cases, e.g. terminal conditions where all other options have been exhausted, it is ethical to try out not proven therapies in the hope they work.

'Proven not to work' interventions, like homeopathy, are always unethical because they have been shown not to have an effect. In addition they may offer false hope and cause patients to give up on conventional therapies, sometimes with catastrophic results.

While we have the right to refuse any kind of treatment and chose homeopathy for ourselves, we do not have the right to make such a choice on behalf of our horses. We are responsible for our horses' welfare and this specifically includes the duty to seek veterinary help if they are unwell (and veterinary is a by-word for efficacious here).

There have been cases of parents being prosecuted for 'treating' their children with homeopathic remedies rather than medicine and the children dying as a result. The same case could be made for horses although I doubt anyone would go to the trouble of prosecuting the owners.

http://deadstate.org/parents-charge...ating-toddlers-ear-infection-with-homeopathy/

The point of the OP as I understand it is exactly that vets have a duty of care to provide teatment and not magic water and it is unethical of them to prescribe homeopathy given that it has been proven to have no effect.
 
Booboo I agree with everything else you are saying, but people DO have a right to treat their animals with whatever they want. A vet must diagnose, but anyone can treat.

Of course it's illegal not to give effective treatment (when it is available) to a sick horse. But most problems resolve with time anyway, so an owner giving sugar pills or expensive water is likely to see a result anyway. One of the two reasons, the other being wishful thinking, that people think homeopathy on horses works.

I had a horse rolling around in agony with colic once. By the time the vet arrived he was on his feet eating. If I'd given him homeopathy in the meantime I would have been telling the world it cures colic!
 
ycbm said:
Booboo I agree with everything else you are saying, but people DO have a right to treat their animals with whatever they want. A vet must diagnose, but anyone can treat.
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Almost... People can only treat their own animals, not other people's. And even then, it is illegal for them to perform acts of veterinary surgery (eg castration) on their Own animals. Also, if suffering was caused they could be prosecuted for animal cruelty in extreme cases.

ycbm said:
I had a horse rolling around in agony with colic once. By the time the vet arrived he was on his feet eating. If I'd given him homeopathy in the meantime I would have been telling the world it cures colic!
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Your are exactly right, is happens all the time, and people have often give ske kind of drench/homeopathy/crystal healing while vet is en route and then swear by it afterwards!
 
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