Dear Humanitarian:
When you see “USDA Certified Organic” on a meat, egg or dairy label, it seems reasonable to assume that the animals were raised under a program with high welfare standards. But that assumption is false. Current organic regulations devote only a few, very vague sentences to how animals are to be housed and treated. This has led to confusion and inconsistency among organic farmers; too often, when it comes to animal welfare, there is little difference between conventional and organic production.Thankfully the Livestock Committee of the National Organic Standards Board (NOSB) is trying to address the problem by recommending changes to the regulations governing physical alterations and space requirements and proposing new regulations on handling, transport, and slaughter. The recommendations are certainly a good start, but they fall short of creating a comprehensive animal welfare program for certified organic operations.
For example, the recommendations ban debeaking of chickens and tail docking of pigs and cattle, but place no limits on dehorning. And although, for the first time, minimum space requirements are being proposed, the amount of space allowed for growing pigs is no better than what is recommended by the National Pork Board for conventional industry production (i.e., factory farming).
WHAT YOU CAN DO:Until April 10, NOSB is accepting public comments on two sets of proposed animal welfare standards. Please take a couple of minutes to write to the Board to encourage it to strengthen the recommendations before they are forwarded on to the USDA. You can submit comments here by filling out the required contact information and either entering your comments directly on the form or attaching a separate document.To assist you, a sample comment is provided below. You can simply copy and paste the sample comment, but putting it in your own words will help give your comment more weight – just be sure to stay under the 2,000-character limit. And please mention if you are a regular consumer of organic products and/or an organic farmer. Sample CommentI am writing to comment on the Livestock Committee’s “Animal Welfare” and “Animal Handling, Transport, and Slaughter” proposals. The NOSB is to be commended for addressing the welfare of animals raised under the organic program. While the proposed recommendations represent a good start toward creating a comprehensive animal welfare program for organic production, several important changes are needed:1. The painful practice of dehorning should be prohibited. If disbudding is allowed, pain relief should be provided.2. Minimum weaning ages for mammals should be added.3. The proposed minimum space allowances, both indoor and outdoor, for growing pigs are seriously inadequate and offer no improvement over conventional production.4. Transport under 7-10 days of age should not be allowed except for medical treatment and, in addition to cattle, this prohibition should apply to other ruminants and pigs as well.5. The transport limit of 12 hours should be lowered to 6 hours for birds.6. Non-ambulatory animals should never be transported off the farm for sale or slaughter, and animals who go down during transport or at the slaughterhouse should be promptly and humanely euthanized. Making these modifications will lessen animal suffering and help bring organic standards closer to what consumers expect of the label. The Livestock Committee’s goal of making the organic seal “the gold standard” for humane treatment is commendable but can only be realized if the current recommendations are strengthened.
To submit your comment online, click here.To submit your comment via mail, send to: Ms. Patricia Atkins
National Organic Standards Board
USDA-AMS-NOP
1400 Independence Avenue, SW
Room 2646-So, Ag Stop 0268
Washington, DC 20250-0268
Identify docket number AMS-NOP-11-0014 on your comment and ensure that it is received by April 10. Please be sure to share our “Dear Humanitarian” eAlert with family, friends, and co-workers, and encourage them to submit a comment, too. As always, thank you very much for your help!
Sincerely,
Cathy Liss
President
Friday, August 12, 2011
Luc Montagnier, Nobel Prize Winner, Takes Homeopathy Seriously
Dr. Luc Montagnier, the French virologist who won the Nobel Prize in 2008 for discovering the AIDS virus, has surprised the scientific community with his strong support for homeopathic medicine.
In a remarkable interview published in Science magazine of December 24, 2010, (1) Professor Luc Montagnier, has expressed support for the often maligned and misunderstood medical specialty of homeopathic medicine. Although homeopathy has persisted for 200+ years throughout the world and has been the leading alternative treatment method used by physicians in Europe, (2) most conventional physicians and scientists have expressed skepticism about its efficacy due to the extremely small doses of medicines used.
Most clinical research conducted on homeopathic medicines that has been published in peer-review journals have shown positive clinical results,(3, 4) especially in the treatment of respiratory allergies (5, 6), influenza, (7) fibromyalgia, (8, 9) rheumatoid arthritis, (10) childhood diarrhea, (11) post-surgical abdominal surgery recovery, (12) attention deficit disorder, (13) and reduction in the side effects of conventional cancer treatments. (14) In addition to clinical trials, several hundred basic science studies have confirmed the biological activity of homeopathic medicines. One type of basic science trials, called in vitro studies, found 67 experiments (1/3 of them replications) and nearly 3/4 of all replications were positive. (15, 16)
In addition to the wide variety of basic science evidence and clinical research, further evidence for homeopathy resides in the fact that they gained widespread popularity in the U.S. and Europe during the 19th century due to the impressive results people experienced in the treatment of epidemics that raged during that time, including cholera, typhoid, yellow fever, scarlet fever, and influenza.
Montagnier, who is also founder and president of the World Foundation for AIDS Research and Prevention, asserted, "I can't say that homeopathy is right in everything. What I can say now is that the high dilutions (used in homeopathy) are right. High dilutions of something are not nothing. They are water structures which mimic the original molecules."
Here, Montagnier is making reference to his experimental research that confirms one of the controversial features of homeopathic medicine that uses doses of substances that undergo sequential dilution with vigorous shaking in-between each dilution. Although it is common for modern-day scientists to assume that none of the original molecules remain in solution, Montagnier's research (and other of many of his colleagues) has verified that electromagnetic signals of the original medicine remains in the water and has dramatic biological effects.
Montagnier has just taken a new position at Jiaotong University in Shanghai, China (this university is often referred to as "China's MIT"), where he will work in a new institute bearing his name. This work focuses on a new scientific movement at the crossroads of physics, biology, and medicine: the phenomenon of electromagnetic waves produced by DNA in water. He and his team will study both the theoretical basis and the possible applications in medicine.
Montagnier's new research is investigating the electromagnetic waves that he says emanate from the highly diluted DNA of various pathogens. Montagnier asserts, "What we have found is that DNA produces structural changes in water, which persist at very high dilutions, and which lead to resonant electromagnetic signals that we can measure. Not all DNA produces signals that we can detect with our device. The high-intensity signals come from bacterial and viral DNA."
Montagnier affirms that these new observations will lead to novel treatments for many common chronic diseases, including but not limited to autism, Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, and multiple sclerosis.
Montagnier first wrote about his findings in 2009, (17) and then, in mid-2010, he spoke at a prestigious meeting of fellow Nobelists where he expressed interest in homeopathy and the implications of this system of medicine. (18)
French retirement laws do not allow Montagnier, who is 78 years of age, to work at a public institute, thereby limiting access to research funding. Montagnier acknowledges that getting research funds from Big Pharma and certain other conventional research funding agencies is unlikely due to the atmosphere of antagonism to homeopathy and natural treatment options.
Support from Another Nobel Prize winner
Montagnier's new research evokes memories one of the most sensational stories in French science, often referred to as the 'Benveniste affair.' A highly respected immunologist Dr. Jacques Benveniste., who died in 2004, conducted a study which was replicated in three other university laboratories and that was published in Nature (19). Benveniste and other researchers used extremely diluted doses of substances that created an effect on a type of white blood cell called basophils.
Although Benveniste's work was supposedly debunked, (20) Montagnier considers Benveniste a "modern Galileo" who was far ahead of his day and time and who was attacked for investigating a medical and scientific subject that orthodoxy had mistakenly overlooked and even demonized.
In addition to Benveniste and Montagnier is the weighty opinion of Brian Josephson, Ph.D., who, like Montagnier, is a Nobel Prize-winning scientist.
Responding to an article on homeopathy in New Scientist, Josephson wrote:
Regarding your comments on claims made for homeopathy: criticisms centered around the vanishingly small number of solute molecules present in a solution after it has been repeatedly diluted are beside the point, since advocates of homeopathic remedies attribute their effects not to molecules present in the water, but to modifications of the water's structure.
Simple-minded analysis may suggest that water, being a fluid, cannot have a structure of the kind that such a picture would demand. But cases such as that of liquid crystals, which while flowing like an ordinary fluid can maintain an ordered structure over macroscopic distances, show the limitations of such ways of thinking. There have not, to the best of my knowledge, been any refutations of homeopathy that remain valid after this particular point is taken into account.
A related topic is the phenomenon, claimed by Jacques Benveniste's colleague Yolène Thomas and by others to be well established experimentally, known as "memory of water." If valid, this would be of greater significance than homeopathy itself, and it attests to the limited vision of the modern scientific community that, far from hastening to test such claims, the only response has been to dismiss them out of hand. (21)
Following his comments Josephson, who is an emeritus professor of Cambridge University in England, was asked by New Scientist editors how he became an advocate of unconventional ideas. He responded:
I went to a conference where the French immunologist Jacques Benveniste was talking for the first time about his discovery that water has a 'memory' of compounds that were once dissolved in it -- which might explain how homeopathy works. His findings provoked irrationally strong reactions from scientists, and I was struck by how badly he was treated. (22)
Josephson went on to describe how many scientists today suffer from "pathological disbelief;" that is, they maintain an unscientific attitude that is embodied by the statement "even if it were true I wouldn't believe it."
Even more recently, Josephson wryly responded to the chronic ignorance of homeopathy by its skeptics saying, "The idea that water can have a memory can be readily refuted by any one of a number of easily understood, invalid arguments."
In the new interview in Science, Montagnier also expressed real concern about the unscientific atmosphere that presently exists on certain unconventional subjects such as homeopathy, "I am told that some people have reproduced Benveniste's results, but they are afraid to publish it because of the intellectual terror from people who don't understand it."
Montagnier concluded the interview when asked if he is concerned that he is drifting into pseudoscience, he replied adamantly: "No, because it's not pseudoscience. It's not quackery. These are real phenomena which deserve further study."
The Misinformation That Skeptics Spread
It is remarkable enough that many skeptics of homeopathy actually say that there is "no research" that has shows that homeopathic medicines work. Such statements are clearly false, and yet, such assertions are common on the Internet and even in some peer-review articles. Just a little bit of searching can uncover many high quality studies that have been published in highly respected medical and scientific journals, including the Lancet, BMJ, Pediatrics, Pediatric Infectious Disease Journal, Chest and many others. Although some of these same journals have also published research with negative results to homeopathy, there is simply much more research that shows a positive rather than negative effect.
Misstatements and misinformation on homeopathy are predictable because this system of medicine provides a viable and significant threat to economic interests in medicine, let alone to the very philosophy and worldview of biomedicine. It is therefore not surprising that the British Medical Association had the sheer audacity to refer to homeopathy as "witchcraft." It is quite predictable that when one goes on a witch hunt, one inevitable finds "witches," especially when there are certain benefits to demonizing a potential competitor (homeopathy plays a much larger and more competitive role in Europe than it does in the USA).
Skeptics of homeopathy also have long asserted that homeopathic medicines have "nothing" in them because they are diluted too much. However, new research conducted at the respected Indian Institutes of Technology has confirmed the presence of "nanoparticles" of the starting materials even at extremely high dilutions. Researchers have demonstrated by Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM), electron diffraction and chemical analysis by Inductively Coupled Plasma-Atomic Emission Spectroscopy (ICP-AES), the presence of physical entities in these extreme dilutions. (24) In the light of this research, it can now be asserted that anyone who says or suggests that there is "nothing" in homeopathic medicines is either simply uninformed or is not being honest.
Because the researchers received confirmation of the existence of nanoparticles at two different homeopathic high potencies (30C and 200C) and because they tested four different medicines (Zincum met./zinc; Aurum met. /gold; Stannum met./tin; and Cuprum met./copper), the researchers concluded that this study provides "concrete evidence."
Although skeptics of homeopathy may assume that homeopathic doses are still too small to have any biological action, such assumptions have also been proven wrong. The multi-disciplinary field of small dose effects is called "hormesis," and approximately 1,000 studies from a wide variety of scientific specialties have confirmed significant and sometimes substantial biological effects from extremely small doses of certain substances on certain biological systems.
A special issue of the peer-review journal, Human and Experimental Toxicology (July 2010), devoted itself to the interface between hormesis and homeopathy. (25) The articles in this issue verify the power of homeopathic doses of various substances.
In closing, it should be noted that skepticism of any subject is important to the evolution of science and medicine. However, as noted above by Nobelist Brian Josephson, many scientists have a "pathological disbelief" in certain subjects that ultimately create an unhealthy and unscientific attitude blocks real truth and real science. Skepticism is at its best when its advocates do not try to cut off research or close down conversation of a subject but instead explore possible new (or old) ways to understand and verify strange but compelling phenomena. We all have this challenge as we explore and evaluate the biological and clinical effects of homeopathic medicines.
REFERENCES:
(1) Enserink M, Newsmaker Interview: Luc Montagnier, French Nobelist Escapes "Intellectual Terror" to Pursue Radical Ideas in China. Science 24 December 2010: Vol. 330 no. 6012 p. 1732. DOI: 10.1126/science.330.6012.1732
(2) Ullman D. Homeopathic Medicine: Europe's #1 Alternative for Doctors. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dana-ullman/homeopathic-medicine-euro_b_402490.html
(3) Linde L, Clausius N, Ramirez G, et al., "Are the Clinical Effects of Homoeopathy Placebo Effects? A Meta-analysis of Placebo-Controlled Trials," Lancet, September 20, 1997, 350:834-843.
(4) Lüdtke R, Rutten ALB. The conclusions on the effectiveness of homeopathy highly depend on the set of analyzed trials. Journal of Clinical Epidemiology. October 2008. doi: 10.1016/j.jclinepi.2008.06/015.
(5) Taylor, MA, Reilly, D, Llewellyn-Jones, RH, et al., Randomised controlled trial of homoeopathy versus placebo in perennial allergic rhinitis with overview of four trial Series, BMJ, August 19, 2000, 321:471-476.
(6) Ullman, D, Frass, M. A Review of Homeopathic Research in the Treatment of Respiratory Allergies. Alternative Medicine Review. 2010:15,1:48-58. http://www.thorne.com/altmedrev/.fulltext/15/1/48.pdf
(7) Vickers AJ. Homoeopathic Oscillococcinum for preventing and treating influenza and influenza-like syndromes. Cochrane Reviews. 2009.
(8) Bell IR, Lewis II DA, Brooks AJ, et al. Improved clinical status in fibromyalgia patients treated with individualized homeopathic remedies versus placebo, Rheumatology. 2004:1111-5.
(9) Fisher P, Greenwood A, Huskisson EC, et al., "Effect of Homoeopathic Treatment on Fibrositis (Primary Fibromyalgia)," BMJ, 299(August 5, 1989):365-6.
(10) Jonas, WB, Linde, Klaus, and Ramirez, Gilbert, "Homeopathy and Rheumatic Disease," Rheumatic Disease Clinics of North America, February 2000,1:117-123.
(11) Jacobs J, Jonas WB, Jimenez-Perez M, Crothers D, Homeopathy for Childhood Diarrhea: Combined Results and Metaanalysis from Three Randomized, Controlled Clinical Trials, Pediatr Infect Dis J, 2003;22:229-34.
(12) Barnes, J, Resch, KL, Ernst, E, "Homeopathy for Post-Operative Ileus: A Meta-Analysis," Journal of Clinical Gastroenterology, 1997, 25: 628-633.
(13) M, Thurneysen A. Homeopathic treatment of children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder: a randomised, double blind, placebo controlled crossover trial. Eur J Pediatr. 2005 Dec;164(12):758-67. Epub 2005 Jul 27.
(14) Kassab S, Cummings M, Berkovitz S, van Haselen R, Fisher P. Homeopathic medicines for adverse effects of cancer treatments. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews 2009, Issue 2.
(15) Witt CM, Bluth M, Albrecht H, Weisshuhn TE, Baumgartner S, Willich SN. The in vitro evidence for an effect of high homeopathic potencies--a systematic review of the literature. Complement Ther Med. 2007 Jun;15(2):128-38. Epub 2007 Mar 28.
(16) Endler PC, Thieves K, Reich C, Matthiessen P, Bonamin L, Scherr C, Baumgartner S. Repetitions of fundamental research models for homeopathically prepared dilutions beyond 10-23: a bibliometric study. Homeopathy, 2010; 99: 25-36.
(17) Luc Montagnier, Jamal Aissa, Stéphane Ferris, Jean-Luc Montagnier, Claude Lavallee, Electromagnetic Signals Are Produced by Aqueous Nanostructures Derived from Bacterial DNA Sequences. Interdiscip Sci Comput Life Sci (2009) 1: 81-90.
http://www.springerlink.com/content/0557v31188m3766x/fulltext.pdf
(18) Nobel laureate gives homeopathy a boost. The Australian. July 5, 2010. http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/health-science/nobel-laureate-gives-homeopathy-a-boost/story-e6frg8y6-1225887772305
(19) Davenas E, Beauvais F, Amara J, et al. (June 1988). "Human basophil degranulation triggered by very dilute antiserum against IgE". Nature 333 (6176): 816-8.
(20) Maddox J (June 1988). "Can a Greek tragedy be avoided?". Nature 333 (6176): 795-7.
(21) Josephson, B. D., Letter, New Scientist, November 1, 1997.
(22) George A. Lone Voices special: Take nobody's word for it. New Scientist. December 9, 2006.
(23) Personal communication. Brian Josephson to Dana Ullman. January 5, 2011.
(24) Chikramane PS, Suresh AK, Bellare JR, and Govind S. Extreme homeopathic dilutions retain starting materials: A nanoparticulate perspective. Homeopathy. Volume 99, Issue 4, October 2010, 231-242.
(25) Human and Experimental Toxicology, July 2010: http://het.sagepub.com/content/vol29/issue7/
To access free copies of these articles, see: http://www.siomi.it/siomifile/siomi_pdf/BELLE_newsletter.pdf
In a remarkable interview published in Science magazine of December 24, 2010, (1) Professor Luc Montagnier, has expressed support for the often maligned and misunderstood medical specialty of homeopathic medicine. Although homeopathy has persisted for 200+ years throughout the world and has been the leading alternative treatment method used by physicians in Europe, (2) most conventional physicians and scientists have expressed skepticism about its efficacy due to the extremely small doses of medicines used.
Most clinical research conducted on homeopathic medicines that has been published in peer-review journals have shown positive clinical results,(3, 4) especially in the treatment of respiratory allergies (5, 6), influenza, (7) fibromyalgia, (8, 9) rheumatoid arthritis, (10) childhood diarrhea, (11) post-surgical abdominal surgery recovery, (12) attention deficit disorder, (13) and reduction in the side effects of conventional cancer treatments. (14) In addition to clinical trials, several hundred basic science studies have confirmed the biological activity of homeopathic medicines. One type of basic science trials, called in vitro studies, found 67 experiments (1/3 of them replications) and nearly 3/4 of all replications were positive. (15, 16)
In addition to the wide variety of basic science evidence and clinical research, further evidence for homeopathy resides in the fact that they gained widespread popularity in the U.S. and Europe during the 19th century due to the impressive results people experienced in the treatment of epidemics that raged during that time, including cholera, typhoid, yellow fever, scarlet fever, and influenza.
Montagnier, who is also founder and president of the World Foundation for AIDS Research and Prevention, asserted, "I can't say that homeopathy is right in everything. What I can say now is that the high dilutions (used in homeopathy) are right. High dilutions of something are not nothing. They are water structures which mimic the original molecules."
Here, Montagnier is making reference to his experimental research that confirms one of the controversial features of homeopathic medicine that uses doses of substances that undergo sequential dilution with vigorous shaking in-between each dilution. Although it is common for modern-day scientists to assume that none of the original molecules remain in solution, Montagnier's research (and other of many of his colleagues) has verified that electromagnetic signals of the original medicine remains in the water and has dramatic biological effects.
Montagnier has just taken a new position at Jiaotong University in Shanghai, China (this university is often referred to as "China's MIT"), where he will work in a new institute bearing his name. This work focuses on a new scientific movement at the crossroads of physics, biology, and medicine: the phenomenon of electromagnetic waves produced by DNA in water. He and his team will study both the theoretical basis and the possible applications in medicine.
Montagnier's new research is investigating the electromagnetic waves that he says emanate from the highly diluted DNA of various pathogens. Montagnier asserts, "What we have found is that DNA produces structural changes in water, which persist at very high dilutions, and which lead to resonant electromagnetic signals that we can measure. Not all DNA produces signals that we can detect with our device. The high-intensity signals come from bacterial and viral DNA."
Montagnier affirms that these new observations will lead to novel treatments for many common chronic diseases, including but not limited to autism, Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, and multiple sclerosis.
Montagnier first wrote about his findings in 2009, (17) and then, in mid-2010, he spoke at a prestigious meeting of fellow Nobelists where he expressed interest in homeopathy and the implications of this system of medicine. (18)
French retirement laws do not allow Montagnier, who is 78 years of age, to work at a public institute, thereby limiting access to research funding. Montagnier acknowledges that getting research funds from Big Pharma and certain other conventional research funding agencies is unlikely due to the atmosphere of antagonism to homeopathy and natural treatment options.
Support from Another Nobel Prize winner
Montagnier's new research evokes memories one of the most sensational stories in French science, often referred to as the 'Benveniste affair.' A highly respected immunologist Dr. Jacques Benveniste., who died in 2004, conducted a study which was replicated in three other university laboratories and that was published in Nature (19). Benveniste and other researchers used extremely diluted doses of substances that created an effect on a type of white blood cell called basophils.
Although Benveniste's work was supposedly debunked, (20) Montagnier considers Benveniste a "modern Galileo" who was far ahead of his day and time and who was attacked for investigating a medical and scientific subject that orthodoxy had mistakenly overlooked and even demonized.
In addition to Benveniste and Montagnier is the weighty opinion of Brian Josephson, Ph.D., who, like Montagnier, is a Nobel Prize-winning scientist.
Responding to an article on homeopathy in New Scientist, Josephson wrote:
Regarding your comments on claims made for homeopathy: criticisms centered around the vanishingly small number of solute molecules present in a solution after it has been repeatedly diluted are beside the point, since advocates of homeopathic remedies attribute their effects not to molecules present in the water, but to modifications of the water's structure.
Simple-minded analysis may suggest that water, being a fluid, cannot have a structure of the kind that such a picture would demand. But cases such as that of liquid crystals, which while flowing like an ordinary fluid can maintain an ordered structure over macroscopic distances, show the limitations of such ways of thinking. There have not, to the best of my knowledge, been any refutations of homeopathy that remain valid after this particular point is taken into account.
A related topic is the phenomenon, claimed by Jacques Benveniste's colleague Yolène Thomas and by others to be well established experimentally, known as "memory of water." If valid, this would be of greater significance than homeopathy itself, and it attests to the limited vision of the modern scientific community that, far from hastening to test such claims, the only response has been to dismiss them out of hand. (21)
Following his comments Josephson, who is an emeritus professor of Cambridge University in England, was asked by New Scientist editors how he became an advocate of unconventional ideas. He responded:
I went to a conference where the French immunologist Jacques Benveniste was talking for the first time about his discovery that water has a 'memory' of compounds that were once dissolved in it -- which might explain how homeopathy works. His findings provoked irrationally strong reactions from scientists, and I was struck by how badly he was treated. (22)
Josephson went on to describe how many scientists today suffer from "pathological disbelief;" that is, they maintain an unscientific attitude that is embodied by the statement "even if it were true I wouldn't believe it."
Even more recently, Josephson wryly responded to the chronic ignorance of homeopathy by its skeptics saying, "The idea that water can have a memory can be readily refuted by any one of a number of easily understood, invalid arguments."
In the new interview in Science, Montagnier also expressed real concern about the unscientific atmosphere that presently exists on certain unconventional subjects such as homeopathy, "I am told that some people have reproduced Benveniste's results, but they are afraid to publish it because of the intellectual terror from people who don't understand it."
Montagnier concluded the interview when asked if he is concerned that he is drifting into pseudoscience, he replied adamantly: "No, because it's not pseudoscience. It's not quackery. These are real phenomena which deserve further study."
The Misinformation That Skeptics Spread
It is remarkable enough that many skeptics of homeopathy actually say that there is "no research" that has shows that homeopathic medicines work. Such statements are clearly false, and yet, such assertions are common on the Internet and even in some peer-review articles. Just a little bit of searching can uncover many high quality studies that have been published in highly respected medical and scientific journals, including the Lancet, BMJ, Pediatrics, Pediatric Infectious Disease Journal, Chest and many others. Although some of these same journals have also published research with negative results to homeopathy, there is simply much more research that shows a positive rather than negative effect.
Misstatements and misinformation on homeopathy are predictable because this system of medicine provides a viable and significant threat to economic interests in medicine, let alone to the very philosophy and worldview of biomedicine. It is therefore not surprising that the British Medical Association had the sheer audacity to refer to homeopathy as "witchcraft." It is quite predictable that when one goes on a witch hunt, one inevitable finds "witches," especially when there are certain benefits to demonizing a potential competitor (homeopathy plays a much larger and more competitive role in Europe than it does in the USA).
Skeptics of homeopathy also have long asserted that homeopathic medicines have "nothing" in them because they are diluted too much. However, new research conducted at the respected Indian Institutes of Technology has confirmed the presence of "nanoparticles" of the starting materials even at extremely high dilutions. Researchers have demonstrated by Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM), electron diffraction and chemical analysis by Inductively Coupled Plasma-Atomic Emission Spectroscopy (ICP-AES), the presence of physical entities in these extreme dilutions. (24) In the light of this research, it can now be asserted that anyone who says or suggests that there is "nothing" in homeopathic medicines is either simply uninformed or is not being honest.
Because the researchers received confirmation of the existence of nanoparticles at two different homeopathic high potencies (30C and 200C) and because they tested four different medicines (Zincum met./zinc; Aurum met. /gold; Stannum met./tin; and Cuprum met./copper), the researchers concluded that this study provides "concrete evidence."
Although skeptics of homeopathy may assume that homeopathic doses are still too small to have any biological action, such assumptions have also been proven wrong. The multi-disciplinary field of small dose effects is called "hormesis," and approximately 1,000 studies from a wide variety of scientific specialties have confirmed significant and sometimes substantial biological effects from extremely small doses of certain substances on certain biological systems.
A special issue of the peer-review journal, Human and Experimental Toxicology (July 2010), devoted itself to the interface between hormesis and homeopathy. (25) The articles in this issue verify the power of homeopathic doses of various substances.
In closing, it should be noted that skepticism of any subject is important to the evolution of science and medicine. However, as noted above by Nobelist Brian Josephson, many scientists have a "pathological disbelief" in certain subjects that ultimately create an unhealthy and unscientific attitude blocks real truth and real science. Skepticism is at its best when its advocates do not try to cut off research or close down conversation of a subject but instead explore possible new (or old) ways to understand and verify strange but compelling phenomena. We all have this challenge as we explore and evaluate the biological and clinical effects of homeopathic medicines.
REFERENCES:
(1) Enserink M, Newsmaker Interview: Luc Montagnier, French Nobelist Escapes "Intellectual Terror" to Pursue Radical Ideas in China. Science 24 December 2010: Vol. 330 no. 6012 p. 1732. DOI: 10.1126/science.330.6012.1732
(2) Ullman D. Homeopathic Medicine: Europe's #1 Alternative for Doctors. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dana-ullman/homeopathic-medicine-euro_b_402490.html
(3) Linde L, Clausius N, Ramirez G, et al., "Are the Clinical Effects of Homoeopathy Placebo Effects? A Meta-analysis of Placebo-Controlled Trials," Lancet, September 20, 1997, 350:834-843.
(4) Lüdtke R, Rutten ALB. The conclusions on the effectiveness of homeopathy highly depend on the set of analyzed trials. Journal of Clinical Epidemiology. October 2008. doi: 10.1016/j.jclinepi.2008.06/015.
(5) Taylor, MA, Reilly, D, Llewellyn-Jones, RH, et al., Randomised controlled trial of homoeopathy versus placebo in perennial allergic rhinitis with overview of four trial Series, BMJ, August 19, 2000, 321:471-476.
(6) Ullman, D, Frass, M. A Review of Homeopathic Research in the Treatment of Respiratory Allergies. Alternative Medicine Review. 2010:15,1:48-58. http://www.thorne.com/altmedrev/.fulltext/15/1/48.pdf
(7) Vickers AJ. Homoeopathic Oscillococcinum for preventing and treating influenza and influenza-like syndromes. Cochrane Reviews. 2009.
(8) Bell IR, Lewis II DA, Brooks AJ, et al. Improved clinical status in fibromyalgia patients treated with individualized homeopathic remedies versus placebo, Rheumatology. 2004:1111-5.
(9) Fisher P, Greenwood A, Huskisson EC, et al., "Effect of Homoeopathic Treatment on Fibrositis (Primary Fibromyalgia)," BMJ, 299(August 5, 1989):365-6.
(10) Jonas, WB, Linde, Klaus, and Ramirez, Gilbert, "Homeopathy and Rheumatic Disease," Rheumatic Disease Clinics of North America, February 2000,1:117-123.
(11) Jacobs J, Jonas WB, Jimenez-Perez M, Crothers D, Homeopathy for Childhood Diarrhea: Combined Results and Metaanalysis from Three Randomized, Controlled Clinical Trials, Pediatr Infect Dis J, 2003;22:229-34.
(12) Barnes, J, Resch, KL, Ernst, E, "Homeopathy for Post-Operative Ileus: A Meta-Analysis," Journal of Clinical Gastroenterology, 1997, 25: 628-633.
(13) M, Thurneysen A. Homeopathic treatment of children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder: a randomised, double blind, placebo controlled crossover trial. Eur J Pediatr. 2005 Dec;164(12):758-67. Epub 2005 Jul 27.
(14) Kassab S, Cummings M, Berkovitz S, van Haselen R, Fisher P. Homeopathic medicines for adverse effects of cancer treatments. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews 2009, Issue 2.
(15) Witt CM, Bluth M, Albrecht H, Weisshuhn TE, Baumgartner S, Willich SN. The in vitro evidence for an effect of high homeopathic potencies--a systematic review of the literature. Complement Ther Med. 2007 Jun;15(2):128-38. Epub 2007 Mar 28.
(16) Endler PC, Thieves K, Reich C, Matthiessen P, Bonamin L, Scherr C, Baumgartner S. Repetitions of fundamental research models for homeopathically prepared dilutions beyond 10-23: a bibliometric study. Homeopathy, 2010; 99: 25-36.
(17) Luc Montagnier, Jamal Aissa, Stéphane Ferris, Jean-Luc Montagnier, Claude Lavallee, Electromagnetic Signals Are Produced by Aqueous Nanostructures Derived from Bacterial DNA Sequences. Interdiscip Sci Comput Life Sci (2009) 1: 81-90.
http://www.springerlink.com/content/0557v31188m3766x/fulltext.pdf
(18) Nobel laureate gives homeopathy a boost. The Australian. July 5, 2010. http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/health-science/nobel-laureate-gives-homeopathy-a-boost/story-e6frg8y6-1225887772305
(19) Davenas E, Beauvais F, Amara J, et al. (June 1988). "Human basophil degranulation triggered by very dilute antiserum against IgE". Nature 333 (6176): 816-8.
(20) Maddox J (June 1988). "Can a Greek tragedy be avoided?". Nature 333 (6176): 795-7.
(21) Josephson, B. D., Letter, New Scientist, November 1, 1997.
(22) George A. Lone Voices special: Take nobody's word for it. New Scientist. December 9, 2006.
(23) Personal communication. Brian Josephson to Dana Ullman. January 5, 2011.
(24) Chikramane PS, Suresh AK, Bellare JR, and Govind S. Extreme homeopathic dilutions retain starting materials: A nanoparticulate perspective. Homeopathy. Volume 99, Issue 4, October 2010, 231-242.
(25) Human and Experimental Toxicology, July 2010: http://het.sagepub.com/content/vol29/issue7/
To access free copies of these articles, see: http://www.siomi.it/siomifile/siomi_pdf/BELLE_newsletter.pdf
Truth for Dogs .com Titer Info
New In-Office Titer Test for Dogs: Test Before Revaccinating
Posted: 11 Aug 2011 01:47 PM PDT
In-Office Titer Test KitBlood antibody titer testing (a simple blood test) is the best way to determine if an animal or human has received immunity from vaccination. (Just giving a vaccine proves only that you’ve given it, not that it worked.)
Testing your pup after her ”puppy shots” tells you if immunity was achieved, potentially eliminating unnecessary revaccination. (Remember, every vaccine brings with it the potential for adverse reactions, ranging from a fever to even death.) Testing a new adult dog, or a dog with unknown vaccination history, helps determine if further vaccination is necessary and tells you which vaccines, if any, to give. In the US, most experts recommend testing for parvovirus and distemper. Most other vaccines are either unnecessary in many areas or don’t confer immunity long enough to bother testing. At this time, titer testing is NOT a legal substitute for rabies vaccination.
If your vet doesn’t test titers as a routine matter before revaccinating, or if the cost is prohibitive, I hope you’ll tell your vet about a new inexpensive, quick in-office test. I am writing about it for information purposes only hoping it will help promote titer testing before routine revaccination. I do not profit financially from this new test. — Jan
To learn more about testing titers, including how often to test and why it is often safer and less expensive than revaccinating, read my article about titer testing. Upcoming is a short article sent to me by Biogal, the maker of the new test, the Canine VacciCheck. Test kits are available for dogs, cats and birds.Titer Testing Can Assist in Avoiding Core Vaccine Over Vaccination
Although most veterinarians agree vaccines are necessary to prevent serious canine and feline infectious diseases, the frequency in which pets are vaccinated is debated.
Why does this matter? Although vaccines are largely safe for healthy animals, adverse reactions, both minor and serious, do occur. This is particularly bad when vaccines were given unnecessarily because the animal didn’t need the vaccine in the first place.
It is known that dogs, after vaccination, often maintain protective antibody to the important core diseases Canine Hepatitis, Parvovirus and Distemper for three or more years. Blood studies have shown immunity for seven years or more. But how do we know that the antibody levels of our pets through vaccination are adequate?
Titer Testing to Determine Duration of Immunity (DOI)
Duration of immunity refers to the length of time an animal is able to resist disease.
Blood antibody tests can be used to demonstrate the DOI after vaccination for many vaccines, including all the core vaccines. When antibodies are present there should be no need to revaccinate the dog or cat for the specific disease tested. If antibody titer is absent, some vets believe a previously vaccinated dog should be revaccinated unless there is a medical basis for not so doing so. Studies have shown, however, that a dog that has had it’s “puppy shots” is likely immune for many years, even for life.
Previously, a significant drawback in performing antibody tests was the cost and the time to obtain results, as it required sending blood or serum to a lab. Consequently, many pets were unnecessarily needlessly vaccinated in the interest of time and money. . Times have changed.
A Concept Change in Titer Testing
The Canine VacciCheck is a rapid, simple, reliable and cost-effective antibody test useful in determining if a dog requires additional vaccination. It can also help determine the vaccination status of a dog with unknown vaccination history or help determine if puppies or kittens have developed immunity from vaccination.
What is also unique about the VacciCheck is that it s test provides a simultaneous result developed for all three core vaccines per test, and results are received within 20 minutes. Veterinary clinics and, shelters and therefore have a quick and simple in-office test that can be performed at a reasonable cost to the pet owner.
In the past, even though there was an intention by many pet owners and /or veterinarians to carry out titer testing for core vaccines as opposed toinstead of automatically revaccinating, the price of a titer test when compared to a vaccination was often prohibitive.
ThereforeAs a result, wWith thea price factor lessened via the use of the VacciCheck, veterinarians can send ‘annual health check’ reminders instead of Vaccination reminder cards for vaccines.
The ‘annual health check’ moves the emphasis from, and client expectation of, annual revaccination, thus saving the client money and eliminating adverse reactions from unnecessary vaccination.
Read what world renowned canine vaccination expert Dr. Ron Schultz wrote about this product.
Another article on vaccination that may be of interest:
Vaccinating Dogs: 10 Steps to Eliminating Unnecessary Shots
Posted: 11 Aug 2011 01:47 PM PDT
In-Office Titer Test KitBlood antibody titer testing (a simple blood test) is the best way to determine if an animal or human has received immunity from vaccination. (Just giving a vaccine proves only that you’ve given it, not that it worked.)
Testing your pup after her ”puppy shots” tells you if immunity was achieved, potentially eliminating unnecessary revaccination. (Remember, every vaccine brings with it the potential for adverse reactions, ranging from a fever to even death.) Testing a new adult dog, or a dog with unknown vaccination history, helps determine if further vaccination is necessary and tells you which vaccines, if any, to give. In the US, most experts recommend testing for parvovirus and distemper. Most other vaccines are either unnecessary in many areas or don’t confer immunity long enough to bother testing. At this time, titer testing is NOT a legal substitute for rabies vaccination.
If your vet doesn’t test titers as a routine matter before revaccinating, or if the cost is prohibitive, I hope you’ll tell your vet about a new inexpensive, quick in-office test. I am writing about it for information purposes only hoping it will help promote titer testing before routine revaccination. I do not profit financially from this new test. — Jan
To learn more about testing titers, including how often to test and why it is often safer and less expensive than revaccinating, read my article about titer testing. Upcoming is a short article sent to me by Biogal, the maker of the new test, the Canine VacciCheck. Test kits are available for dogs, cats and birds.Titer Testing Can Assist in Avoiding Core Vaccine Over Vaccination
Although most veterinarians agree vaccines are necessary to prevent serious canine and feline infectious diseases, the frequency in which pets are vaccinated is debated.
Why does this matter? Although vaccines are largely safe for healthy animals, adverse reactions, both minor and serious, do occur. This is particularly bad when vaccines were given unnecessarily because the animal didn’t need the vaccine in the first place.
It is known that dogs, after vaccination, often maintain protective antibody to the important core diseases Canine Hepatitis, Parvovirus and Distemper for three or more years. Blood studies have shown immunity for seven years or more. But how do we know that the antibody levels of our pets through vaccination are adequate?
Titer Testing to Determine Duration of Immunity (DOI)
Duration of immunity refers to the length of time an animal is able to resist disease.
Blood antibody tests can be used to demonstrate the DOI after vaccination for many vaccines, including all the core vaccines. When antibodies are present there should be no need to revaccinate the dog or cat for the specific disease tested. If antibody titer is absent, some vets believe a previously vaccinated dog should be revaccinated unless there is a medical basis for not so doing so. Studies have shown, however, that a dog that has had it’s “puppy shots” is likely immune for many years, even for life.
Previously, a significant drawback in performing antibody tests was the cost and the time to obtain results, as it required sending blood or serum to a lab. Consequently, many pets were unnecessarily needlessly vaccinated in the interest of time and money. . Times have changed.
A Concept Change in Titer Testing
The Canine VacciCheck is a rapid, simple, reliable and cost-effective antibody test useful in determining if a dog requires additional vaccination. It can also help determine the vaccination status of a dog with unknown vaccination history or help determine if puppies or kittens have developed immunity from vaccination.
What is also unique about the VacciCheck is that it s test provides a simultaneous result developed for all three core vaccines per test, and results are received within 20 minutes. Veterinary clinics and, shelters and therefore have a quick and simple in-office test that can be performed at a reasonable cost to the pet owner.
In the past, even though there was an intention by many pet owners and /or veterinarians to carry out titer testing for core vaccines as opposed toinstead of automatically revaccinating, the price of a titer test when compared to a vaccination was often prohibitive.
ThereforeAs a result, wWith thea price factor lessened via the use of the VacciCheck, veterinarians can send ‘annual health check’ reminders instead of Vaccination reminder cards for vaccines.
The ‘annual health check’ moves the emphasis from, and client expectation of, annual revaccination, thus saving the client money and eliminating adverse reactions from unnecessary vaccination.
Read what world renowned canine vaccination expert Dr. Ron Schultz wrote about this product.
Another article on vaccination that may be of interest:
Vaccinating Dogs: 10 Steps to Eliminating Unnecessary Shots
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