As the spread of COVID-19 has slowed its burn through the Navajo Nation, several Indigenous filmmakers and creators have managed to complete part of the production of a documentary. (Copy)

Healing Modality

Through pandemic, Indigenous creators film documentary about the parallels of homeopathy and traditional methods for holistic healing on Navajo Nation Donald Denetdeal is the primary consultant for the documentary on the Navajo holistic perspective of healing. | Jai Antonio

By Katherine Lewin

| September 29

Help keep local journalism fighting for you. Donate today to Friends of the Reporter.

As the spread of COVID-19 has slowed its burn through the Navajo Nation, several Indigenous filmmakers and creators have managed to complete part of the production of a documentary. Its focus is even more relevant in today's modern pandemic life: the striking parallels between homeopathy and traditional Navajo healing practices and how homeopathy could be used as another mode of healing on the reservation.

Hózhóogo Iiná—Homeopathy for Indigenous America, directed and produced by Leahn Cox and funded by donations to GoFundMe and a John Pinto Grant from the New Mexico Film Office, is both a personal and professional endeavor.

Cox is a member of the Navajo Nation who grew up in Gallup, though she now lives and works in Santa Fe. Her upbringing as a Diné woman and her experience and education in homeopathy and other healing arts drove her to start the project, which she plans to screen in chapter houses across the Navajo Nation, as well as in Albuquerque and border towns.

"I definitely have had interest in bringing homeopathy and making it more available in places with limited access to these types of alternative resources, particularly now in the Navajo Nation," Cox tells SFR. "I have been trying to offer [homeopathy] where I live, where I'm from, and to family members. But there's so much confusion and so that's one reason the film, I think, could put it in terms of understanding it in the sense of talking about ancient Indigenous knowledge."

Read more

x

The GoFundMe has raised $2,475 of a $20,000 goal. The state grant named after a late Navajo senator gave the project $5,000, which has funded the bulk of the work. Cox aims to raise at least another $5,000 to pay for an animator for a portion of Hózhóogo Iiná. She also hopes to turn it into a larger project where she explores the use of homeopathy in other Indigenous communities across North America.

Germans developed homeopathic medicine over 200 years ago, and based it on two main premises: that a disease can be cured by a substance that produces similar symptoms in healthy people and that the lower the dose of the medication, the greater its effectiveness, according to the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health. The medicines used in homeopathy come from plants, animals and minerals.

The fundamentals of homeopathy tie in neatly with Navajo traditional healing practices, Cox says.

"Homeopathy is about this vibrational signature of substances in the environment and you take it and inspire your own vitality to heal," Cox says. "So through ancient knowledge you have…this understanding there's an inner spirit form in our environment and that when you really understand that you use that knowledge for healing."

Cox interviews several people in Hózhóogo Iiná to get the connection across to viewers. Donald Denetdeal, one of the interviewees, is also the primary consultant for the project on the Navajo holistic perspective. Denetdeal is a retired professor of Navajo Studies from Diné College. In the documentary, he discusses the Navajo idea that an inner spirit existing within everything in nature is what's doing the healing, just as homeopathy recognizes an energy form in plants and other elements.

But Hózhóogo Iiná is about more than just the parallels between the two healing modalities, one formed many thousands of miles away and another here in the Southwest. The documentary intends to explore, in a practical way, the potential of the use of homeopathy on the Navajo Nation as well as to increase Indigenous peoples' interest in their own traditional healing.

"In this time of increasing health inequality and especially now, in quarantine, we have had to start thinking of utilizing the wisdom of our heritage when it comes to healing our communities," says project photographer and editor Dax Thomas, whose heritage is of Acoma and Laguna pueblos and who now lives and works in Laguna Pueblo.

"With homeopathy there is an inherent respect for nature and a holistic perspective that is certainly compatible with our traditional methods of healing. It could provide safe and effective solutions, especially in our rural areas where there are less options and a primary reliance on [Indian Health Service]. It supports self sufficiency—as we return to healing with nature around us—using
herbs, prayers."

As the spread of COVID-19 has slowed its burn through the Navajo Nation, several Indigenous filmmakers and creators have managed to complete part of the production of a documentary. (Copy)

Healing Modality

Through pandemic, Indigenous creators film documentary about the parallels of homeopathy and traditional methods for holistic healing on Navajo Nation Donald Denetdeal is the primary consultant for the documentary on the Navajo holistic perspective of healing. | Jai Antonio

By Katherine Lewin

| September 29

Help keep local journalism fighting for you. Donate today to Friends of the Reporter.

As the spread of COVID-19 has slowed its burn through the Navajo Nation, several Indigenous filmmakers and creators have managed to complete part of the production of a documentary. Its focus is even more relevant in today's modern pandemic life: the striking parallels between homeopathy and traditional Navajo healing practices and how homeopathy could be used as another mode of healing on the reservation.

Hózhóogo Iiná—Homeopathy for Indigenous America, directed and produced by Leahn Cox and funded by donations to GoFundMe and a John Pinto Grant from the New Mexico Film Office, is both a personal and professional endeavor.

Cox is a member of the Navajo Nation who grew up in Gallup, though she now lives and works in Santa Fe. Her upbringing as a Diné woman and her experience and education in homeopathy and other healing arts drove her to start the project, which she plans to screen in chapter houses across the Navajo Nation, as well as in Albuquerque and border towns.

"I definitely have had interest in bringing homeopathy and making it more available in places with limited access to these types of alternative resources, particularly now in the Navajo Nation," Cox tells SFR. "I have been trying to offer [homeopathy] where I live, where I'm from, and to family members. But there's so much confusion and so that's one reason the film, I think, could put it in terms of understanding it in the sense of talking about ancient Indigenous knowledge."

Read more

x

The GoFundMe has raised $2,475 of a $20,000 goal. The state grant named after a late Navajo senator gave the project $5,000, which has funded the bulk of the work. Cox aims to raise at least another $5,000 to pay for an animator for a portion of Hózhóogo Iiná. She also hopes to turn it into a larger project where she explores the use of homeopathy in other Indigenous communities across North America.

Germans developed homeopathic medicine over 200 years ago, and based it on two main premises: that a disease can be cured by a substance that produces similar symptoms in healthy people and that the lower the dose of the medication, the greater its effectiveness, according to the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health. The medicines used in homeopathy come from plants, animals and minerals.

The fundamentals of homeopathy tie in neatly with Navajo traditional healing practices, Cox says.

"Homeopathy is about this vibrational signature of substances in the environment and you take it and inspire your own vitality to heal," Cox says. "So through ancient knowledge you have…this understanding there's an inner spirit form in our environment and that when you really understand that you use that knowledge for healing."

Cox interviews several people in Hózhóogo Iiná to get the connection across to viewers. Donald Denetdeal, one of the interviewees, is also the primary consultant for the project on the Navajo holistic perspective. Denetdeal is a retired professor of Navajo Studies from Diné College. In the documentary, he discusses the Navajo idea that an inner spirit existing within everything in nature is what's doing the healing, just as homeopathy recognizes an energy form in plants and other elements.

But Hózhóogo Iiná is about more than just the parallels between the two healing modalities, one formed many thousands of miles away and another here in the Southwest. The documentary intends to explore, in a practical way, the potential of the use of homeopathy on the Navajo Nation as well as to increase Indigenous peoples' interest in their own traditional healing.

"In this time of increasing health inequality and especially now, in quarantine, we have had to start thinking of utilizing the wisdom of our heritage when it comes to healing our communities," says project photographer and editor Dax Thomas, whose heritage is of Acoma and Laguna pueblos and who now lives and works in Laguna Pueblo.

"With homeopathy there is an inherent respect for nature and a holistic perspective that is certainly compatible with our traditional methods of healing. It could provide safe and effective solutions, especially in our rural areas where there are less options and a primary reliance on [Indian Health Service]. It supports self sufficiency—as we return to healing with nature around us—using
herbs, prayers."

Indian Authorities Propose Use of Homeopathy to Prevent Coronavirus (Copy)

Critics of the practice say the guidance is irresponsible and could give users a false sense of security.

Alakananda Dasgupta

Feb 7, 2020

730

ABOVE: © ISTOCK.COM, VGAJIC

The Indian government’s Ministry of AYUSH, which promotes alternative medicine systems in the country, released a health advisory on January 29 that advocates the use of homeopathy and traditional remedies, such as Indian systems of medicine, to ward off infections of the newly circulating 2019-nCoV coronavirus. This includes the use of a homeopathic preparation called Arsenicum album 30C and two drops of sesame oil in each nostril each morning for prevention, and Unani medicines (treatments based on the teachings of Hippocrates and Galen) to mitigate symptoms of coronavirus infection. While AYUSH cites centuries of practitioners’ experiences with these products as evidence behind its advice, the media and the scientific community criticized the guidance as being counterproductive in dealing with a serious health emergency. 

“It is profoundly irresponsible of the Ministry of AYUSH to endorse homeopathy as this entirely undermines public understanding of science and medicine, and elevates pseudoscience with potentially dangerous consequences,” says David Robert Grimes, an Irish science writer who has published research showing homeopathy to be ineffective, in an email to The Scientist. Grimes has argued that the proposed mechanisms of homeopathy are implausible when analyzed from a physical and chemical perspective, and says that it is not surprising, therefore, that the biological effects of homeopathy cannot be measured in large-scale clinical trials. 

To date, more than 31,000 people in more than two dozen countries have been infected with 2019-nCoV, including three confirmed cases in India. According to the World Health Organization, there is no intervention yet identified that can treat the virus, although a number of studies are underway to find therapeutics and develop a vaccine. 

Using homeopathy as an alternative therapy risks forfeiting effective causative or symptomatic treatments or—if such treatments are not available—creating a false sense of security.

—Edzard Ernst, University of Exeter

Until then, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says the only way to prevent infection is to avoid contact with the virus and people who are sick, to wash your hands, and not touch your face. But the Central Council for Research In Homeopathy (CCRH) of the Ministry of AYUSH claims that there are other preventive options. 

Anil Khurana, who heads the CCRH, tells The Scientist that Arsenicum album 30C, a homeopathic solution prepared by diluting aqueous arsenic trioxide until little or no arsenic remains that is used in respiratory disorders and has been in widespread use for more than 220 years with a good safety record, was found to be an effective prophylactic during the swine flu epidemic in India in 2009. A study conducted by Robert Mathie of the British Homeopathic Association and his group, in collaboration with the CCRH, reported in Homeopathy that of the various homeopathic medicines given to patients with swine flu symptoms, Arsenicum album was most successful in reducing fever, cough, runny nose, sore throat, and headache. There was no control arm. In another, placebo-controlled trial conducted by the CCRH, homeopathic medicines were also found to reduce flu-like symptoms. 

These results led the CCRH to look to possible homeopathic interventions against the new coronavirus. Before any 2019-nCoV infections had turned up in India, scientists at CCRH collated the clinical features of a recent cluster of cases in China that was published in The Lancet on January 24, which they fed into a tool called the homeopathic repertory. The repertory is a database of historic texts on homeopathy, and when practitioners enter symptoms, the tool fetches the texts’ recommendations on which medicine needs to be given. “Every time we repertorize a patient, we are pretty much consulting all these generations of homeopaths that have contributed to this database,” says Bernado Merizalde, a homeopathy practitioner at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia and the prime general secretary of Liga Medicorum Homeopathica Internationalis, a homeopathic doctors’ association. By matching the clinical features, the repertory found Arsenicum album 30C to be a suitable fit for the current outbreak. 

See “Where Coronaviruses Come From”

The basic premise of homeopathy is that a medicine that produces a set of symptoms when given to a healthy person under controlled settings can be prescribed in a highly diluted form to a diseased person with those same symptoms, explains Kushal Banerjee, a homeopathic physician based in New Delhi. This is what is known as Similia similibus curentur in homeopathic parlance, a Latin phrase that means “like cures like.” Kalyan Banerjee, Kushal’s father and a renowned homeopathic practitioner, says that by boosting the immune system of the body, Arsenicum album can potentially reduce the virulence of the coronavirus, thereby tempering disease intensity.

“We don’t claim 100 percent protection with Arsenicum album. Just taking the medicine will not work,” says Khurana. “All general measures for airborne infections have to be taken.” He further adds that if people get infected, they should promptly seek medical care.

Such caveats do not assuage the concerns of homeopathy’s detractors, who say there is no rigorous scientific evidence to indicate homeopathic remedies can prevent coronavirus infection or mitigate symptoms. “The claim of some homeopaths that homeopathic remedies are effective in treating or preventing coronavirus infections is not based on any evidence at all,” Edzard Ernst, an emeritus professor at the University of Exeter in the UK and a critic of homeopathy, tells The Scientist in an email. Ernst points to a study that found no difference between Arsenicum album and a placebo in preventing fever after vaccination. Other studies in which homeopathy was found to be ineffective include one on acute respiratory tract infections, another on middle ear infections, and yet another on influenza-like illness.

“Using homeopathy as an alternative therapy risks forfeiting effective causative or symptomatic treatments or—if such treatments are not available—creating a false sense of security,” says Ernst. “In any case, it would be a waste of resources.”

See “Scientists Scrutinize New Coronavirus Genome for Answers”

Even among proponents of homeopathy, there is disagreement about the best way to prevent the coronavirus. Mitchell Fleisher, the second vice president of the American Institute of Homeopathy, says that the Lancet article that scientists at CCRH used to come up with their advice does not provide enough information on symptoms to make an accurate homeopathic prescription.

He says that perhaps the best way to validate the therapeutic value of homeopathy would be to perform a comparative clinical outcome study of acute coronaviral infection by giving individualized homeopathic medicines to one experimental group and allopathic medicines to another, with a minimum of 250 patients in each group. “A careful and honest, statistical analysis of the study results will speak the scientific truth,” he says.

Countering Fleisher’s proposal, Grimes says that this is completely unethical. “Homeopathy has no plausible mechanism of action, and it is downright irresponsible to suggest it in a trial for a serious potential pandemic. Large scale studies of homeopathy have clearly shown over decades the same result—that it simply does not work,” he says.

Alakananda Dasgupta is a freelance science journalist and physician based in New Delhi, India. Follow her on Twitter @AlakanandaDasg1 or email her at alakanandadasgupta@gmail.com.

https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/indian-authorities-propose-use-of-homeopathy-to-prevent-coronavirus-67075

As the spread of COVID-19 has slowed its burn through the Navajo Nation, several Indigenous filmmakers and creators have managed to complete part of the production of a documentary. (Copy)

Healing Modality

Through pandemic, Indigenous creators film documentary about the parallels of homeopathy and traditional methods for holistic healing on Navajo Nation Donald Denetdeal is the primary consultant for the documentary on the Navajo holistic perspective of healing. | Jai Antonio

By Katherine Lewin

| September 29

Help keep local journalism fighting for you. Donate today to Friends of the Reporter.

As the spread of COVID-19 has slowed its burn through the Navajo Nation, several Indigenous filmmakers and creators have managed to complete part of the production of a documentary. Its focus is even more relevant in today's modern pandemic life: the striking parallels between homeopathy and traditional Navajo healing practices and how homeopathy could be used as another mode of healing on the reservation.

Hózhóogo Iiná—Homeopathy for Indigenous America, directed and produced by Leahn Cox and funded by donations to GoFundMe and a John Pinto Grant from the New Mexico Film Office, is both a personal and professional endeavor.

Cox is a member of the Navajo Nation who grew up in Gallup, though she now lives and works in Santa Fe. Her upbringing as a Diné woman and her experience and education in homeopathy and other healing arts drove her to start the project, which she plans to screen in chapter houses across the Navajo Nation, as well as in Albuquerque and border towns.

"I definitely have had interest in bringing homeopathy and making it more available in places with limited access to these types of alternative resources, particularly now in the Navajo Nation," Cox tells SFR. "I have been trying to offer [homeopathy] where I live, where I'm from, and to family members. But there's so much confusion and so that's one reason the film, I think, could put it in terms of understanding it in the sense of talking about ancient Indigenous knowledge."

Read more

x

The GoFundMe has raised $2,475 of a $20,000 goal. The state grant named after a late Navajo senator gave the project $5,000, which has funded the bulk of the work. Cox aims to raise at least another $5,000 to pay for an animator for a portion of Hózhóogo Iiná. She also hopes to turn it into a larger project where she explores the use of homeopathy in other Indigenous communities across North America.

Germans developed homeopathic medicine over 200 years ago, and based it on two main premises: that a disease can be cured by a substance that produces similar symptoms in healthy people and that the lower the dose of the medication, the greater its effectiveness, according to the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health. The medicines used in homeopathy come from plants, animals and minerals.

The fundamentals of homeopathy tie in neatly with Navajo traditional healing practices, Cox says.

"Homeopathy is about this vibrational signature of substances in the environment and you take it and inspire your own vitality to heal," Cox says. "So through ancient knowledge you have…this understanding there's an inner spirit form in our environment and that when you really understand that you use that knowledge for healing."

Cox interviews several people in Hózhóogo Iiná to get the connection across to viewers. Donald Denetdeal, one of the interviewees, is also the primary consultant for the project on the Navajo holistic perspective. Denetdeal is a retired professor of Navajo Studies from Diné College. In the documentary, he discusses the Navajo idea that an inner spirit existing within everything in nature is what's doing the healing, just as homeopathy recognizes an energy form in plants and other elements.

But Hózhóogo Iiná is about more than just the parallels between the two healing modalities, one formed many thousands of miles away and another here in the Southwest. The documentary intends to explore, in a practical way, the potential of the use of homeopathy on the Navajo Nation as well as to increase Indigenous peoples' interest in their own traditional healing.

"In this time of increasing health inequality and especially now, in quarantine, we have had to start thinking of utilizing the wisdom of our heritage when it comes to healing our communities," says project photographer and editor Dax Thomas, whose heritage is of Acoma and Laguna pueblos and who now lives and works in Laguna Pueblo.

"With homeopathy there is an inherent respect for nature and a holistic perspective that is certainly compatible with our traditional methods of healing. It could provide safe and effective solutions, especially in our rural areas where there are less options and a primary reliance on [Indian Health Service]. It supports self sufficiency—as we return to healing with nature around us—using
herbs, prayers."

The Pandemic Tests Germany's Love Affair With Homeopathy (Copy)

BERLIN — As coronavirus continues to spread and doctors across the world scramble for an effective treatment, here in Germany we have some wonderful (some would say unbelievable news): The cure has been found.

The key, according to Germany's Hahnemann Society, is homeopathic medicine. "It has been shown that even the first seven days of the illness can be effectively treated," the organization's website announces triumphantly.

And the Hahnemann Society is not alone in vaunting the healing powers of homeopathy for COVID-19. Prominent Swiss doctor Jens Wurster claims to have used homeopathy to achieve "impressive treatment outcomes" for 70 patients, "both those with mild symptoms and severe cases."

The Locarno-based doctor has split opinion in German medicine. Before moving into COVID-19 treatment, he persuaded cancer patients to switch to homeopathic globules, earning himself a reputation among many as "an absolute charlatan," as oncology professor Jutta Hübner from Jena University Hospital succinctly puts it.

But Michaela Geiger, a doctor of integrated medicine and chair of the German Central Association of Homeopathic Physicians (GCAHP), sees things differently. "Just as mainstream medicine is still debating the best treatment, so is homeopathy," she says. Geiger sees Wurster's reports of healing through homeopathy "as a contribution to this ongoing exchange of experiences."

Homeopathy is the most popular alternative therapy in Germany. There are around 7,000 registered doctors in private practice who specialize in it, and half of Germans say that they have tried at least one homeopathic treatment, according to a survey by a homeopathic medicine manufacturer. Now the coronavirus pandemic has opened up a new, lucrative and almost boundless market.

Critics abound

In the early days of the virus, homeopaths in Germany held back. And at first, the GCHAP distanced itself from members who jumped on the opportunity to claim their globules had antiviral properties.

Since then, however, there has clearly been a change of heart. The Association is now calling for its members to document their homeopathic treatment of corona patients: "Against the current background of rising COVID-19 infections, with this project we can find out how homeopathy can contribute to treating COVID-19."

It wasn't long before scorn began pouring in from abroad. "German homeopaths launch a placebo offensive against corona," commented the Austrian newspaper Der Standard. "Scientists are tirelessly working to develop vaccines and treatments, and we hear again and again the sobering news that it will be a long wait before we have a vaccine. Meanwhile, German homeopaths are making reckless promises."

In Austria, homeopathy is generally regarded with suspicion, if not outright scorn. The Medical University of Vienna distanced itself from "charlatanism" and removed homeopathy from the syllabus.

In other countries too, the tide has turned against homeopaths. The French Ministry of Health has ruled out any health benefits from homeopathy, while the Spanish government classes it as "pseudoscience" that must be combated. And the European Academy of Sciences makes it clear that homeopathic treatments are no more effective than placebos. In the United States, homeopathic remedies on sale must display a clear label saying that they have no proven health benefits.

A piece of licorice has more medicinal content.

And in Germany? "In my view, it is completely irresponsible for doctors to treat COVID-19 patients using homeopathic methods," says Karl Lauterbach, a health expert with the Social Democratic Party. "The consequences for some patients could be deadly. Health insurance should not cover it and doctors should be forbidden from prescribing it."

Andrew Ullmann, a health expert with the Free Democratic Party, has a similar take. Patients should have to pay the cost of "these so-called therapies" themselves, he says. "For severe cases of COVID-19, my only recommendation is to see a qualified doctor."

In other countries too, the tide has turned against homeopaths. — Photo: Tampa Bay Times/ZUMAPRESS

Even Green Party members are distancing themselves from homeopathy. It should only be used as a complementary treatment, says Maria Klein-Schmeink, the party's health spokesperson.

A natural affinity

And yet, the fact remains that amid the confusion and fear of the pandemic, more and more people are turning to homeopathy. According to a survey by the Forsa Institute for Social Research and Statistical Analysis, two thirds of Germans would support the use of homeopathic remedies in treating COVID-19. That is not representative of the rest of Europe, or the world.

"Most people confuse homeopathy with natural remedies or plant-based medicine. That's a misunderstanding, a result of false labeling, which is enabled in Germany because sugar pills can be labeled as medicine," says Christian Lübbers, an eye, nose and throat specialist and spokesperson for Information Network Homeopathy.

"Studies have shown that only 17% of people know what homeopathy really is. But it's so simple: homeopathy is not plant-based medicine. It is a placebo," he adds.

Christian Weymayr, spokesperson for the group Münsteraner Kreis, which takes a critical stance toward homeopathy, agrees. "A piece of licorice has more medicinal content than homeopathic globules," he says. "People don't realize that homeopathy is ineffective because most people with COVID-19 only have mild symptoms."

Kreis goes on to say that in a climate of fear, when there will be a long wait for a vaccine, there is a growing danger that people will believe in things that give them false comfort.

That may well be the case in Germany. Homeopathic remedies can only be bought in pharmacies and their packaging is labeled with information about risks and side effects. Many health insurance companies will pay for them. And doctors often present their additional qualifications in homeopathy as if they were of equal value to their training in emergency medicine or diabetes treatment.

Dubious claims

The practice of homeopathy is contentious, and its critics often voice their opposition with something akin to hatred. The same goes for backers of the practice. In his blog, German homeopathy lobbyist and PR advisor Christian J. Becker boasts about journalists who have been "hit by complaints to the German Press Council."

Becker relies on audacious claims about history to justify the use of homeopathic remedies in the treatment of coronavirus. He says that during the 19th-century cholera epidemic, 92% of sufferers could have been healed through homeopathy, and that during the Spanish Flu epidemic, only 1% of hospital patients treated with homeopathy died, while the figure for those who underwent conventional treatment was 30%.

Doctor and homeopath Wolfgang Springer follows a similar argument, claiming that the success of homeopathic treatments during the historical epidemics of cholera, yellow fever, scarlet fever and encephalitis has been well documented.

What they fail to mention — or perhaps don't realize — is that the apparent success of homeopathy during the cholera outbreak, when the father of homeopathy Samuel Hahnemann was active, was because it had one advantage: It protected weakened patients from the harmful treatments of the time.

Alternative medicine only seemed to be effective, in other words, because the standard treatment of bloodletting and laxatives finished off most patients. Hahnemann's treatment, in contrast, involved camphor and mineral water.

https://worldcrunch.com/coronavirus/the-pandemic-tests-germany39s-love-affair-with-homeopathy

Steve Scrutton's Homeopathic Safe Medicine Post

Wednesday, 9 January 2019

Recent medical news indicating that conventional medicine is dangerous. So why is the public never told about any of it?

The history of conventional medicine is full of failures, horrors and patient disasters. In the 19th century it used techniques like blood letting and blistering, and drugs now recognised to be dangerous, like Laudanum, Calomel and Antimony. Many more pharmaceutical drugs followed during the 20th century, passing through Thalidomide, Fen-Phen, Baycol, Tysabri, Effexor, Avandia, Vioxx, and many, many more, listed on this link, but too numerous to mention here.

Past performance is always the best predictor of future performance.
So are today's drugs, the one's doctors are giving us now, any better? Regular readers of this blog will know that they are not. They are causing side effects, adverse reactions, that are generating the rapid increase of serious chronic illness and disease. Conventional medicine is well aware of this but in their pursuit of profit they are prepared to continue prescribing these dangerous drugs up to the point that doctors can no longer keep the truth from us.

The problem is that the harm being caused by pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines are never publicised. Our doctors, our national health services, our politicians and governments, and the mainstream media organisations, just don't bother to tell us.

So whilst we may be aware of some of the drugs and vaccines that have been banned and withdrawn in the past, few people are aware of the harm present day 'medications' are causing. To demonstrate this, I thought that I would bring together some of the recent news stories, since the recent holiday period, about the dangers that conventional medicine, and pharmaceutical drugs particularly, present to our health, THAT WE ARE JUST NOT TOLD ABOUT.

VACCINE CONTAMINANTS
This article states that there have been hundreds of articles in medical journals that have found stray viruses, aluminum, mercury, etc., in vaccines, and asks whether this happens in error, or is a regular occurrence. It refers to Italian and French researchers who looked at 44 vaccines, and found inorganic contaminants IN EVERY SINGLE ONE!

You will not find this reported anywhere in the mainstream media!
VACCINE BOMBSHELL This article states that a 'confidential' GlaxoSmithKline document, recently leaked to the press, showed that 36 infants had died in the last two years after having received the "6-in-1" vaccine, Infanrix Hexa.
Leaked to the press? Perhaps, but you will not find this reported in the mainstream media either!
MEDICAL SCIENCE DELIBERATELY HIDING HPV VACCINE DEATHS?
Drug manufacturers & regulators accused of concealing harm done to young girls by vaccine, including death permanent injury, and life threatening reactions

Reported just over a year ago, but hidden, dismissed and minimised by medical science - and, of course, censored by the mainstream media.
ANTIBIOTICS LINKED TO FATAL HEART CONDITION The Dr Mercola website has reported this month that Fluoroquinolone antibiotics, prescribed for upper respiratory and urinary tract infections, have been found to increase the risk of aortic dissection, which can lead to death. The article states that these antibiotics have long been associated with 'adverse events' that include psychiatric effects, kidney stones or failure, tendon rupture and retinal detachment leading to blindness.

If you think we might want to know about these dangerous side effects,  the mainstream media does not agree. They have never mentioned the new evidence.
These are just some of the articles I have come across since the holiday period. I could provide you with many more (check my Tweets (@stevescrutton), my Facebook page, or my Linkedin page, regularly for these. But the main point is that no-one should ever assume that the pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines that our doctors are giving us today are safe.

If we are not aware of the dangers of today's drugs it is because we are never told about them - until after hundreds, thousands, millions of patients have been seriously harmed by them!

https://safe-medicine.blogspot.com/2019/01/recent-medical-news-indicating-that.html

Fraudulent Australian 'Research'

This Australian Review which is quotes often as 'proving' homeopathy couldn't possibly work - is FRAUDULENT research. This type of research fraud happens more than the most skeptical mind would ever imagine. Especially in any corporate-run health/research system.

http://www.nhmrchomeopathy.com/procedural.html

A randomized placebo-controlled pilot study of Cat saliva 9cH and Histaminum 9cH in cat allergic adults.

Homeopathy. 2013 Apr;102(2):123-9. doi: 10.1016/j.homp.2013.02.007.

A randomized placebo-controlled pilot study of Cat saliva 9cH and Histaminum 9cH in cat allergic adults.

Naidoo P1, Pellow J.

Author information

Abstract

BACKGROUND:

Cat allergy is an abnormal immune response by the body to cat dander or saliva, leading to the development of a complex of symptoms which can negatively influence health. Cat saliva 9cH and Histaminum 9cH are indicated, according to isopathic principles, for the treatment of cat allergy, however no research has been done to date.

AIM:

To determine the effect of Cat saliva 9cH and Histaminum 9cH (combined) on cat allergic adults.

METHOD:

30 Participants with a positive test result for a cat allergy skin prick test (SPT) were recruited to a double-blind, randomised, placebo controlled clinical trial. Participants took two tablets twice daily for 4 weeks, and attended a follow-up consultation at the end of weeks 2 and 4. The measurement tool used was the SPT, conducted at the beginning and at the end of the study.

RESULTS:

Cat saliva 9cH and Histaminum 9cH produced a highly statistically significant reduction in the wheal diameter of the cat allergen SPT at the end of week 4. The placebo group showed no statistically significant change.

CONCLUSION:

The homeopathic medicine reduced the sensitivity reaction of cat allergic adults to cat allergen, according to the SPT. Future studies are warranted to further investigate the effect of Cat saliva and Histaminum and their role as a potential therapeutic option for this condition.

Copyright © 2013 The Faculty of Homeopathy. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

PMID: 23622262 DOI: 10.1016/j.homp.2013.02.007

8.2 Million Italians

In Italy there are over 5000 homeopathic physicians, 7000 pharmacies dispensing homeopathic medicines and 20 different laboratories. In a study in the early part of the last decade, 8.2 million Italians reported using homeopathy and approximately 90% of them said they were helped by the treatment.

Homeopathy does more than Placebo

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Lancet. 1994 Dec 10;344(8937):1601-6.

Is evidence for homoeopathy reproducible?

Reilly D1, Taylor MA, Beattie NG, Campbell JH, McSharry C, Aitchison TC, Carter R, Stevenson RD.

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Abstract

We tested, under independent conditions, the reproducibility of evidence from two previous trials that homoeopathy differs from placebo. The test model was again homoeopathic immunotherapy. 28 patients with allergic asthma, most of them sensitive to house-dust mite, were randomly allocated to receive either oral homoeopathic immunotherapy to their principal allergen or identical placebo. The test treatments were given as a complement to their unaltered conventional care. A daily visual analogue scale of overall symptom intensity was the outcome measure. A difference in visual analogue score in favour of homoeopathic immunotherapy appeared within one week of starting treatment and persisted for up to 8 weeks (p = 0.003). There were similar trends in respiratory function and bronchial reactivity tests. A meta-analysis of all three trials strengthened the evidence that homoeopathy does more than placebo (p = 0.0004). Is the reproducibility of evidence in favour of homoeopathy proof of its activity or proof of the clinical trial's capacity to produce false-positive results?

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=Reilly+d+AND+Taylor+ma+AND+Beattie

Homeopathy has a longer history integrated in hospitals than conventional medicine

History

How it all began...

The history of the Queen Elizabeth Health Complex can be traced back to 1894 when it used to be the Montreal Homeopathic Hospital. This institution which was reputed for its devoted nurses and efficient management was situated on McGill College Avenue until 1927. At that time the demand for more beds led to a public appeal for $500,000 which allowed the hospital to move to Marlowe Avenue, where the modern complex is currently located.

This hospital was the home of many firsts. For example, in 1942 curare was first used in clinical anaesthesia, and in 1943 the hospital pioneered the first post-operative recovery room in Canada. By 1951, the impressive medical and surgical advances accomplished by the hospital allowed it to acquire the new name of the Queen Elizabeth Hospital of Montreal, in honour of the wife of King George VI, Queen Elizabeth, who was soon to become the Queen Mother.

In December 1961, the completely renovated building was officially opened by the Premier of Quebec, Jean Lesage. It was “Canada’s largest little hospital”. The renovations had taken three years to complete and completely modernized the hospital facilities.

In June 1995, the Queen Elizabeth Hospital (QEH) became one of the Montreal-area acute-care hospitals to be slated for closure in response to a directive from the provincial government to cut the costs of health care provision. In the following year, the QEH Board of Directors, the QEH Foundation and other bodies and individuals in the community joined forces and decided to take matters into their own hands by forming the Centre-West Community Health Corporation (CWCHC) which became incorporated in June 1996. This project allows for the continued delivery of acute care services as well as the supply of a full spectrum of services to care, share, prevent and cure.

The CWCHC became a new, not-for-profit health organization with no government funding whose purpose was to provide as many medical and health promotion services to its community as possible on the premises of the former QEH. The Queen Elizabeth Health Complex, under the management of the CWCHC, is therefore a reincarnation and a new legal form for a century-old community institution. Its mission is to provide efficient, readily accessible medical services, complementary and alternative therapy, as well as emotional and mental health services that will contribute to improving the health of our community in accordance with the policies and guidelines of the Government of Quebec.

At a time when we are actively searching for tangible and long-term solutions to our health care needs, the Queen Elizabeth Health Complex (QEHC) offers an innovative and efficient health care model, providing a diverse range of community health care services - all under one roof. Ensuring ready access to both medical and alternative health services, the QEHC is an attractive option to avoid the overcrowding, delays and other inconveniences so often experienced in hospitals and CLSCs.

http://www.qehc.org/history