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Threat Analysis:
(Why forces with ulterior motive love to hate
homeopathy?)
Dr. Dhiraj Nanda
Over the past few years,
forces with ulterior motive have focused their efforts
in the various parts of world to malign homoeopathy.
Time and again, homoeopathy is being attacked for being
unscientific beyond any rational explanation.
The question is why do these people love to hate
homeopathy? Let us analyze some facts to know why a
certain segment of people love to hate homoeopathy.
Methodology of attacks
Most of the attacks are well-placed editorials and
articles in prominent newspapers and magazines.
For example, Michael Baum and Edzard Ernst have
published a commentary in the November 2009 issue of the
American Journal of Medicine in which they state, “A
belief in homeopathy exceeds the tolerance of an open
mind. We should start on the premise that homeopathy
cannot work and that positive evidence reflects
publication bias or design flaws until proved
otherwise.”
The authors also insist on citing a single negative
meta-analysis study ignoring many positive studies in
respected publications, including two other
meta-analyses that showed positive results.
Critical Analysis of the above
attack
Michael Baum and Edzard Ernst appear to be completely
ignorant of homeopathy and its effectiveness. For
example, their article incorrectly uses the term
“potentation” instead of “potentization” for the method
used to manufacture homeopathic remedies.
What all these attacks keep ignoring is that increasing
number of scientific studies that indicate that some
kind of signature of the original substance
is embedded in a potentized ultradilution.
In a 2007 paper by Professor Rustom Roy, the founding
director of the Materials Research Laboratory at Penn
State and one of the world's leading experts on the
structure of water, it was demonstrated that lab
instruments
could pick up energetic signatures in
ultradilutions that were not only specific to individual
homeopathic remedies, but to specific potencies of these
remedies.
Indeed, science has backed up the phenomenon of
potentization for over 20 years. In 1988, Nobel Prize
nominee and medical researcher Jacques Benveniste turned
the course of his life upside down when he discovered
that ultradilutions could retain substance-specific
properties. In particular, he found that a certain
antibody could be serially diluted and succussed beyond
the point where a single molecule could remain, but
still cause the same effects.
Naturally, the skeptics quickly attacked Benveniste. But
he continued his work and further demonstrated that the
electromagnetic signature of an ultradilution could be
recorded electronically, transmitted via Email, replayed
into water, and still achieve the same
substance-specific effects in the laboratory.
Eventually, Benveniste’s results were replicated. Most
recently, a 2009 paper by Nobel Prize winner Luc
Montagnier underscored the power of ultradilutions too.
Peeping into history
It’s not the first time that homoeopathy has been
attacked by forces with ulterior motive. Even 200 years
ago, these forces had opposed homeopathy and attacked it
soon after birth, because the existing systems of
medicine felt threatened by goodness of homoeopathy.
Hahnemann, father and founder of homoeopathy, a
respected allopathic MD doctor, chemist and a pioneer in
the field of hygiene, discovered and developed the
principles of homeopathy. He was forced to move
frequently during his life because the local German
apothecaries objected to the fact that he created his
own medicines rather than use theirs. There were
repeated attacks on the new science of healing developed
by Hahnemann.
Knowing the facts
In fact, lots of efforts were put by these forces with
ulterior motive against homeopathy in the United States
during the mid of the 19th century, where
homeopathy had achieved a strong presence by 1840.
According to some sources, in 1847, the American Medical
Association (AMA) was formed specifically to fight the
battle against homeopathy.
Most homeopaths of the 1800s were former allopaths who
abandoned their allopathic practice as they found
Hahnemann’s system to be more successful in battling
cholera, typhus, yellow fever, diptheria, influenza, and
other epidemics of the 1800s. In retaliation, many
doctors who starting practicing homoeopathy were
expelled for failing to comply.
Is homeopathy a threat to
conventional medicine and pharma business of today?
Low cost of medicines: Ultra-diluted medicines used in
homoeopathy are manufactured by using a specialized
method to raise the latent power of medicines called as
Potentization. The cost of medicines in ultra diluted
form is extremely low as compared to substance in crude.
It may be just a fraction of the cost.
Low profits: Low the cost of medicines means fewer
profits as compared to that of conventional medicines.
Non-suppressive: The medicines are selected on natural
law, law of simlars, stimulate body to heal itself. The
ultra- diluted medicines start the healing that is
non-suppressive. When disease is not suppressed, there
are fewer new diseases to treat, resulting in less sales
of medicines and subsequently monetary loss for pharma
industry.
Efficacy in common as well as rare conditions:
Homoeopathy is survived last 200 years. This is because
it is based on solid scientific basis that is
efficacious in common as well uncommon, rare and
complicated conditions.
Non-toxic: The process of potentization makes
homoeopathic medicines non-toxic. Non-toxic medicines
have less side-effect. Fewer side-effects means less
sale of medicines for side-effects suffered.
So we see that growth of homoeopathy means less business
for conventional medicines and pharma industry.
Homoeonomics VS Economics
Homeopathy is much more difficult to practice than
allopathy. Individualization is a key principle in
homoeopathic prescription. A homoeopath has to select a
remedy for the diseased individual and not for the
disease. This remedy is not only based on the main
complaint, but their entire symptom picture that
includes emotional, mental, and behavioral, the physical
symptoms and also stress factors faced by the patient.
It is not easy and quick. A practitioner of
classical homeopathy may need at least two hours
for an initial case interview and may spend just as long
deciding upon the
constitutional remedy. This process
also requires active involvement of the patients in
their own treatment, because symptoms are gathered not
by machines or by using tests, but through direct
communication between patient and homeopath.
Homoeopathy - not good economic
sense
No expensive medicines or tests or equipment needed. No
five-minute appointments reimbursed a shot. Homoeopathy
requires long appointments, time for case analysis, and
patients who must participate in the healing process?
Not very lucrative in economic sense, neither for pharma-industry
nor for the insurance company, so why allow it grow?
Just to serve the suffering humanity. No, not at all.
Conclusion
Forces with ulterior motives love to hate homeopathy
because homoeopathy is one of the most threatening
alternative modalities – financially, philosophically,
and therapeutically. |
