Jury Clears Homeopathy

Federal jury clears producer, marketer, and seller of homeopathic products in $255m class … Tucker Ellis

“Bell testified about her scientific studies in multiple chemical sensitivity and homeopathy, including how “nanoparticles” and “nanobubbles” can have an effect in biological cells. Dr. Bell opined, “It is very clear that nanoparticles in low doses are capable of capable of creating hermetic effects…similar to vaccine.” Dr. Bell explained how “hormesis” is a medical principle that describes how small doses of a substance can trigger the opposite effect of high doses of the same substance.”

USA September 18 2015

In a class action of importance to producers, marketers, and sellers of homeopathic products, on Friday, September 18, 2015, a federal jury in the false advertising trial of Allen, et al. v. Hylands, Inc., et al., Case No. 2:12-cv-01150 (“Hylands”) took less than a day to find defendants did not breach any express warranty or violate the California Consumer Legal Remedies Act, California Civil Code sections 1750 et seq.

The putative class plaintiffs sued defendants Hylands, Inc. and Standard Homeopathic Company alleging they made false and misleading representations about the effectiveness of the active ingredients in 12 homeopathic products produced, marketed, and sold by the defendants throughout the United States.

Homeopathic products are derived from botanical, mineral or biological substances and are classified as either over-the-counter (OTC) or prescription medicines. In contrast to conventional (allopathic) medicines, homeopathic remedies are predicated in part on the “principle of dilutions” under which active ingredients are thought to be more clinically useful or effective when they are significantly diluted, typically with purified water or an alcohol solution.

Homeopathic remedies and their packaging are not reviewed by the Food and Drug Administration (“FDA”). Homeopathic remedies, however, are classified as drugs under, and subject to, the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, and thus, must comply with the labeling requirements of the Act. The FDA has stated that it is not aware of any scientific evidence that homeopathic products are effective.

Back in August 2014, a California federal district court judge certified a nationwide class of purchasers of 10 of the products covering February 2008 to the present. The plaintiffs claimed defendants’ 12 homeopathic products, including some intended for infants and children, did not work as advertised because they were so diluted that the ingredients were “effectively non-existent” and the products were therefore not effective for their intended uses. The plaintiffs also alleged the homeopathic products labeling claims of “100% Natural,” “All Natural,” and “Natural” were untrue as the products purportedly contained synthetic chemicals, synthetically derived or chemically reduced elements, artificially produced elements, and/or dangerous or potentially dangerous ingredients.

The trial in Hylands spanned approximately two weeks and included expert testimony from both sides. Plaintiffs’ expert, Dr. Noel Rose, the director of John Hopkins’ Center of Autoimmune Disease Research testified as a medical expert, having reviewed materials provided by the plaintiffs’ counsel, as well as his own research into clinical and compilation studies, expert reports, published journal reports and the Hyland’s products and their labels. Dr. Rose stated, “[In] my opinion, there is no sound scientific or medical evidence that they provide any benefit to patients with medical conditions, such as those described and indicated on the labels, beyond the placebo effect.”

Defendants kicked off their defense by calling Dr. Iris Bell, a former Harvard psychiatry instructor and holder of a doctorate degree from Stanford University in neuro- and biobehavioral sciences who has consulted with Highlands, Inc. to design clinical trials. Bell testified about her scientific studies in multiple chemical sensitivity and homeopathy, including how “nanoparticles” and “nanobubbles” can have an effect in biological cells. Dr. Bell opined, “It is very clear that nanoparticles in low doses are capable of capable of creating hermetic effects…similar to vaccine.” Dr. Bell explained how “hormesis” is a medical principle that describes how small doses of a substance can trigger the opposite effect of high doses of the same substance.

Although the plaintiffs initially sought full refunds worth $350 million, plaintiffs’ counsel wrapped up closing arguments with a demand of $255 million for allegedly tricking consumers into purchasing “simple sugar pills” that provide no medical benefit. The jury of six women and three men did not agree, and needed less than a day to deliberate.

Tucker Ellis – Ronie M. Schmelz, Matthew I. Kaplan and Ndubisi Ezeolu

http://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=7d9b009a-e041-422c-b9cc-bb0437958523

Management of Upper Respiratory Tract Infections

Management of Upper Respiratory Tract Infections by Different Medical Practices, Including Homeopathy, and Consumption of Antibiotics in Primary Care: The EPI3 Cohort Study in France 2007–2008

Lamiae Grimaldi-Bensouda,1,2,* Bernard Bégaud,3 Michel Rossignol,4,5 Bernard Avouac,1 France Lert,6 Frederic Rouillon,7 Jacques Bénichou,8,9 Jacques Massol,10 Gerard Duru,11 Anne-Marie Magnier,12 Lucien Abenhaim,13,14 and Didier Guillemot15,16
C. Mary Schooling, Editor
Author information ► Article notes ► Copyright and License information ►
This article has been cited by other articles in PMC.
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Abstract
Background

Prescribing of antibiotics for upper respiratory tract infections (URTI) varies substantially in primary care.
Objectives

To describe and compare antibiotic and antipyretic/anti-inflammatory drugs use, URTI symptoms’ resolution and occurrence of potentially-associated infections in patients seeking care from general practitioners (GPs) who exclusively prescribe conventional medications (GP-CM), regularly prescribe homeopathy within a mixed practice (GP-Mx), or are certified homeopathic GPs (GP-Ho).
Method

The EPI3 survey was a nationwide population-based study of a representative sample of 825 GPs and their patients in France (2007–2008). GP recruitment was stratified by self-declared homeopathic prescribing preferences. Adults and children with confirmed URTI were asked to participate in a standardized telephone interview at inclusion, one-, three- and twelve-month follow up. Study outcomes included medication consumption, URTI symptoms’ resolution and potentially-associated infections (sinusitis or otitis media/externa) as reported by patients. Analyses included calibration to account for non-respondents and groups were compared using multivate analyses adjusting for baseline differences with a propensity score.
Results

518 adults and children with URTI (79.3% rhinopharyngitis) were included (36.9% response rate comparable between groups). As opposed to GP-CM patients, patients in the GP-Ho group showed significantly lower consumption of antibiotics (Odds ratio (OR) = 0.43, 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.27–0.68) and antipyretic/anti-inflammatory drugs (OR = 0.54, 95% CI: 0.38–0.76) with similar evolution in related symptoms (OR = 1.16, 95% CI: 0.64–2.10). An excess of potentially-associated infections (OR = 1.70, 95% CI: 0.90–3.20) was observed in the GP-Ho group (not statistically significant). No difference was found between GP-CM and GP-Mx patients.
Conclusion

Patients who chose to consult GPs certified in homeopathy used less antibiotics and antipyretic/anti-inflammatory drugs for URTI than those seen by GPs prescribing conventional medications. No difference was observed in patients consulting GPs within mixed-practice. A non-statistically significant excess was estimated through modelling for associated infections in the GP-Ho group and needs to be further studied.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3960096/

WWNLD What Would Nobel Laureates Do?

What Nobel Laureates said on Homeopathy June 5, 2012 · homeopathy

homeopathiccures ♦ October 5, 2015 ♦ Leave a comment

by Dr. Nancy Malik BHMS

Nobel laureates, doctors, scientists, professors and science writers had plenty to say on homeopathy.

Nobel Laureates agreed that there’s strong evidence for Homeopathy [click to tweet]. Homeopathic remedies act as they are supposed to. By the end of year 2013, there have been 5 Nobel laureates in support of Homeopathy, 1 in opposition and 857 have not stated any opinion on Homeopathy.

1. Emil Adolf von Behring (1905)

The Father of Immunology

Emil Adolf von Behring (1854–1917) won the first Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine in 1901 for his discovery of the diphtheria antitoxin.

FATHER OF IMMUNOLOGY Emil Behring asked to suppress his successful work on Homeopathy. He discovered that homeopathic medicine enhances immunogenic activity. Behring wrote: “Samuel Hahnemann was right when he took his starting point in the symptoms of patients.”

Ref: Coulter, Harris L, Divided Legacy: A History of the Schism in Medical Thought, Volume IV: Twentieth-Century Medicine: The Bacteriological Era. The North Atlantic Books, Berkley, 1994, p. 96

In 1892 Behring actually experimented with serial (homeopathic) dilutions and found paradoxically enhanced immunogenic activity, but he was advised to suppress this experiment due to the aid and comfort it would provide to homeopaths. Only after he won the Nobel Prize did he feel comfortable in making public these experiments. In 1905, Behring admitted that colleagues remonstrated with him not to make such remarks public ‘since it was grist for the mill of homeopathy’.

Ref: ibid p.97

Behring broke from orthodox medical tradition by recognizing the value of the homeopathic law of similar in 1905

Ref: Dana Ullman http://bit.ly/HdOryq

He asserted that vaccination is, in part, derived from the homeopathic principle of similars. “In spite of all scientific speculations and experiments regarding smallpox vaccination, Jenner’s discovery remained an erratic blocking medicine, till the biochemically thinking Pasteur, devoid of all medical classroom knowledge, traced the origin of this therapeutic block to a principle which cannot better be characterized than by Hahnemann’s word: homeopathic. Indeed, what else causes the epidemiological immunity in sheep, vaccinated against anthrax than the influence previously exerted by a virus, similar in character to that of the fatal anthrax virus? And by what technical term could we more appropriately speak of this influence, exerted by a similar virus than by Hahnemann’s word “homeopathy”? I am touching here upon a subject anathematized till very recently by medical penalty: but if I am to present these problems in historical illumination, dogmatic imprecations must not deter me….only the road of Homeopathy lead to my goal.”

Ref: Behring, A. Emil von, Moderne phthisiogenetische und phthisoitherapeutische: Probleme in historischer Beleuchtung. Margurg: Selbsteverlag des Verfassers, 1905, http://bit.ly/YVpoZs

Behring concludes, ‘If I were confronted with a hitherto incurable disease and could see no way to treat it other than with homeopathy, I can assure you that I would not be deterred from following this course by dogmatic considerations’.

Ref: http://sueyounghistories.com/archives/2008/07/08/emil-adolf-von-behring-and-homeopathy-2/

2. Brian David Josephson (1997)
Nobel Laureate – Physics 1973

Nobel Laureate – Physics 1973

“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.”

Dr. Brian D. Josephson’s (Emeritus Professor, University of Cambridge) responding to an article in the New Scientist (October 18, 1997) Ref: How Homeopathic Medicines Work: Nanopharmacology At Its Best 3. Luc Antoine Montagnier (2009)

Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2008

“Nobel Laureate Luc Montagnier is to science what homeopathy is to medicine” ~Nancy Malik

Interdisciplinary Sciences: Life Sciences (SpringerL­ink)
Nanostructures in highly diluted biological samples of bacteria and virus DNA produces electromagnetic signals (2009) FULL TEXT

Luc Montagnier observed that potentised bacteria and virus DNA sequence emits electro-magnetic signals (low frequency radio waves) at 5C and 6C potencies and forms specific nano-structures which lasts 48 hours and are responsible for the EM effects measured. The EM signature changed with dilution levels but was unaffected by the initial concentration and remained even after the remaining DNA fragments were destroyed by chemical agents. However the EM signal was sensitive to heat over 70 degrees C and freezing -80 degrees C. Not only that, DNA sequences were recreated from its EM signature in pure water. That means EM signals were transmitted to pure water (that never had a DNA in it) placed in a container nearby in 18 hours. He reproduced his results 12 times.

Discussion on Luc Montagnier paper by Society of Homeopaths, Institute of Science in Society,Homeopathy World Community

Dr. Luc Montagnier, the French virologist said about homeopathy, “High Dilutions of something are not nothing…”

Nobel laureate Montagnier says homeopathic medicine is “real” phenomenon & Benveniste is today’s Galileo

Nobel laureate Luc Montagnier escapes intellectu­al terrorism and he currently works as a full-time professor at Shanghai Jiaotong University in China. He, in an interview in Science (24 Dec 2010) said, “”I am told that some people have reproduced Benveniste’s results (showing effects from homeopathic doses), but they [Europe] are afraid to publish it [homeopathy] because of the intellectu¬¬al terror from people who don’t understand it.” He concluded the interview by saying, “These are real phenomena which deserve further study.”

It shows intellectu­al terror the so-called science puts up on homeopathy and homeopaths

Water has a memory

Nobel Prize Winner does homeopathic study; with supportive findings.

Nobel Prize winner reports effects of homeopathic dilutions

Luc Montagnier delivered talk on “Electromagnetic Waves & Water Properties” in UNESCO Headquarter on 8th Oct 2014

4. Ervin Laszlo (2004)
Hungary

Twice nominated for Nobel Peace Prize 2004/5

“Water has a remarkable capacity to register and conserve information, as indicated by, amongst other things, homeopathic remedies that remain effective even when not a single molecule of the original substance remains in a dilution”,

-Dr. Ervin Laszlo, Professor of ‘Systems Theory’ and the author of book ‘Science and the Akashic Field’, 2004, p. 53.

5. Rabindranath Tagore (1936)
indian writer

Nobel Prize in Literature 1913

“I have long been an ardent believer in the science of Homeopathy and i fell happy that it has got now a greater hold in India than even in the land of its origin. It is not merely a collection of a few medicines but a real science with a rational philosophy as its base. We require more scientific interest and inquiry into the matter with special stress upon the Indian environment.”

Ref: Bagchi, A. K. Rabindranath Tagore and His Medical World. New Delhi: Konark Publishers, 2000

6. Mother Teresa (1950)
Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu

Nobel Peace Prize 1979

Mother Teresa added homeopathic care to the services at her missions. She opened her first charitable homeopathic dispensary in Calcutta in 1950. At present, four charitable homeopathic dispensaries are run under the guidance of the Mother’s Missionaries of Charity

Ref: Dana Ullman, The Homeopathic Revolution: WhyFamous people and cultural heroes love homeopathy

7. Mahatma Gandhi (1936)

Nominated 5 times Nobel Peace Prize between 1937-1948

“Homeopathy is the latest and refined method of treating patients economically and nonviolently. Government must encourage and patronize it in our country. Late Dr. Hahnemann was a man of superior intellectual power and means of saving of human life having a unique medical nerve. I bow before his skill and the Herculean and humanitarian labour he did. His memory wakes us again and you are to follow him, but the opponents hate the existence of the principles and practice of homeopathy which in reality cures a larger percentage of cases than any other method of treatment and it is beyond all doubt safer and more economical and the most complete medical science.”
-Mahatama Gandhi, 30 Aug 1936

Ref: Das, 1950; All India Homeopathic Medical Conference, 1968, http://sueyounghistories.com/archives/2009/07/26/mohandas-karamchand-gandhi-1869-%E2%80%93-1948/

“Homeopathy is the most modern and the most intelligent way to economically and nonviolent sick to treat. The government must promote in our country and support.”

-Ghandi cited in Martin Schmitz (ed.), Strömungen der Homöopathie, KVC Verlag Essen, Essen 2002

Gandhi also persuaded people to study homeopathy

https://drnancymalik.wordpress.com/2012/06/05/nobel-prize-winners-on-homeopathy/

I would also love to see Ananda More's film about homeopathy in Vancouver

See her succinct article here. It fills my heart with good stuff.

Attack of the Killer Pseudoskeptics

I’ve hit that rite of passage – that thorn in the side of every homeopath in the public eye.  When anonymous, self-proclaimed skeptics start to harass you with email, Twitter, and Facebook posts that refer to poorly-designed studies in order to prove that homeopathy doesn’t work. These people are demonstrating blatant hypocrisy when they use cherry-picked, fundamentally flawed studies to support their unscientific perspectives while simultaneously accusing homeopaths of the same.  If the same standards or faulty methods were used to study pharmaceutical medicine, we would find very few medications that could be termed evidence-based!

What do I use the term “pseudoskeptic”? Well, first, because they love to use the word “pseudoscience” as a derogatory umbrella term for any research whose results don’t fit into their limited paradigm. Second, because a real skeptic is someone who critically analyzes the data from both sides with an open mind, a true scientist unprejudiced to finding the unexpected. Pseudoskeptics pretend to genuinely have an open mind in order to hide their actual agenda of ridiculing and discrediting. They fail to apply the same critical eye to research that defends the orthodox perspective.

So the most recent link I’ve been receiving and have seen on social media is the following:

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/homeopathy-therapeutic-dead-end-systematic-review-no-evidence-it-works-a6884356.html

The above article refers to a study published by the National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia. Now before I pass you to the experts and their explanations as to why this study is fatally inadequate, I would like to quietly point out that the study was never published in a peer-reviewed journal – mirroring the skeptics’ favourite line of attack when it comes to homeopathic studies.

I would like to raise the question as to why studies like the one above receive so much media attention, while peer-reviewed, quality studies that have a positive outcome for homeopathy are completely ignored by mainstream media? For example, how many of you non-homeopaths out there are familiar withDr. Robert Mathie’s systematic review of individualized homeopathy – the only meta-analysis of homeopathy to consider model validity in its study design? This means that he only included studies in which homeopathy is studied in the way homeopaths actually practice in the real world. No other meta-analysis has done that!

Now let’s listen to what the folks at the Homeopathic Research Institute have to say about the NHMRC’s systematic review of homeopathy (read in blue). You can read their extensive concerns about the study here.

We maintain that the conclusions of the NHMRC report are inconsistent with the evidence.

The inaccuracy of the NHMRCs conclusions stem primarily from one fundamental flaw at the heart of this report – the NHMRC reviewers considered the results of all trials for one condition together as a whole, even though the individual trials were assessing very different types of homeopathic treatment.

To illustrate this flaw, the NHMRC reviewers asked, “Is homeopathy effective for condition A?’, working from the premise that a positive trial showing that one homeopathic treatment is effective is somehow negated by a negative trial which shows that a completely different homeopathic treatment for that same condition is ineffective. This is a bizarre and unprecedented way of assessing scientific evidence. In conventional research the question asked would be, “Is treatment X effective for condition A?”, not “Is conventional medicine effective for condition A?” based on combining the results of all drug trials together. Some treatments work, some don’t. The whole point of medical research is to establish which treatments are useful and which are of no value. This is no different in homeopathy.

So, this is like saying, Let’s see if pharmaceutical medicine is good for headaches. In my hypothetical systematic review we’ll examine a study that shows NSAIDs work for headaches, then look at another study that shows blood pressure medication doesn’t, and another study that says statin medicines don’t help headaches. I then conclude that pharmaceutical medicine is not effective for treating headaches.

Secondly, we are deeply perplexed as to the reasons for the exclusion of some of the best evidence for key clinical conditions. In brief:

• Jacobs et al performed meta-analysis a meta-analysis of the treatment of childhood diarrhea using homeopathy in 2003, N=242 in placebo controlled trials, p-value = 0.008. This meta-analysis was excluded … why? [Link]
• Wiesenauer & Lüdtke conducted a meta-analysis into the treatment of hayfever in 1996, N=752 in placebo controlled RCTs, p-value <0.0001. This meta-analysis was excluded. Again we ask ourselves why? [Link]
• Schneider et al conducted a meta-analysis of non-inferiority trials of homeopathy compared to usual care for the treatment of vertigo, N=1388, non-inferiority was clearly demonstrated. Again excluded, again why? [Link]

Now let’s hear Dana Ullman’s critique of the study’s parameters. Dana is referring to a BMJ blog entry foundhere:

What this BMJ article conveniently failed to report and what the Australian government’s press material failed to acknowledge was that ANY study that with less than 150 subjects was deemed “inadequate” by this report, and thus, the dozens of studies that have shown the efficacy of homeopathy in treating many ailments were totally thrown out and ignored, including many “high quality” randomized double-blind, placebo controlled trials that have been published in The Lancet, BMJ, Cancer, Pediatrics, Chest, Rheumatology, Pediatrics Infectious Disease Journal, British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology, European Journal of Pediatrics, and many others!

Further, unless there were at least three studies conducted by three separate groups of researchers, with each study having over 150 subjects, the results were deemed to be “unreliable.”

By not acknowledging these arbitrary guidelines, the BMJ and the Australian government are showing “bad faith” and are purposefully seeking to misinform the medical community and the general public.

Based on these definitions of what “adequate” and “reliable” research, the vast majority of conventional drugs on the market today would also be deemed to be INEFFECTIVE and UNPROVEN.

In fact, when the BMJ’s “Clinical Evidence” analyzed common medical treatments to evaluate which are supported by sufficient reliable evidence, they reviewed approximately 3,000 treatments and found only 11% were found to be beneficial (1). It should be noted and emphasized that the BMJ deemed 20 subjects to be a more reasonable guideline (2). If using the similar guidelines as the Australian government, only between 1% and 5% of medical treatments would be deemed to be “effective,” and virtually every surgical procedure would be consider “unproven.” Is Glasziou or the BMJ asserting that virtually all of medical treatment and surgical procedure be deemed unproven and ineffective? If not, then why use unrealistic and arbitrary guidelines for evaluating homeopathy? Are some extremely serious biases in evidence here instead of good science?

Also, Paul Glasziou doesn’t seem to understand the real implications of his assertion that any study that has a P-value of .05 would suggest that this treatment had a 5% chance of occurring by sheer random chance. Based on the BMJ’s review of clinical research in the entire field of medicine having less than 5% efficacy, it could easily be assumed that many of these studies may have happened by chance, thereby suggesting that there is virtually no evidence for the entire field of medical treatment.

For the record, Dr. Glasziou has conveniently ignored the many studies testing homeopathic treatment that has significantly better than a p-value of .05. Chest published a study on the homeopathic treatment of people with COPD with a p-value of 0.0001 (3). David Reilly and his team at the University of Glasgow conducted a series of four studies on patients with various types of respiratory allergies, two of which were published in the BMJ and one in the Lancet. Although their studies included over 200 patients, no single study included more than 150 patients, and therefore, ALL of the evidence from these high-quality trials were completely ignored, even though a review of the four trials found a p-value of 0.0007 (4). Even an editorial reviewing Reilly’s research has acknowledged that it is highly unlikely that these results are due to random happenstance (5).

Or wasn’t it convenient that the Australian government’s report ignored a study on the homeopathic treatment of people with pancreatic cancer that showed that 39% of patients with this extremely serious chronic illness survived five years (6), even though no other study has ever found a five-year survival rate of greater than 1%. For the record, this study was not even considered by Dr. Glasziou’s report because it reviewed only 44 patients and was not a placebo-controlled trial, and yet, I challenge Dr. Glasziou or anyone to report results anywhere that can be comparable.

Courts of law do not determine guilty or innocence only based on double-blind or placebo controlled trials. They report on all evidence.

References:

(1) What conclusions have Clinical Evidence drawn about what works, what doesn’t based on randomised controlled trial evidence? BMJ, 2015. 

(2) Nuts, bolts, and tiny little screws: how Clinical Evidence works. BMJ, 2015.

(3) Frass, M, Dielacher, C, Linkesch, M, et al. Influence of potassium dichromate on tracheal secretions in critically ill patients, Chest, March, 2005;127:936-941. 

(4) 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. 

(5) This week in the BMJ. Homoeopathic dilutions may be better than placebo. BMJ 2000;321:0.

(6) Chatterjee A, Biswas J, Chatterjee A, Bhattacharya S, Mukhopadhyay B, Mandal S. Psorinum therapy in treating stomach, gall bladder, pancreatic, and liver cancers: a prospective clinical study. Evid Based Complement Alternat Med. 2011;2011:724743. An abstract of the above study was published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology

I tried to shorten Dana’s comments, but I found it all pretty relevant. So, in conclusion – you have to take everything from the pseudoskeptics with a grain of salt. The only way to sift through all the nonsense is to be able to identify what makes for good science and what makes for scientism. Unfortunately, with all of their convenient omissions, obfuscations, and failure to comprehend basic statistical principals, they don’t make that very easy.

Ananda

http://magicpillsmovie.com/pseudo-skeptics/

Just One Drop - the story behind the homeopathy controversy by Health Action Network Society (HANS)

Just One Drop - In Vancouver, October 17th, 2017

by Health Action Network Society (HANS)

Description

Part of the Health Action Film Series, JUST ONE DROP tells the little known story of homeopathy: the most controversial system of medicine. To many, homeopathy seems implausible. They fear it is purely a placebo effect or worse, a form of deception or quackery. Yet, homeopathy has been around for over 200 years and is used by millions of people around the world. The film explores the controversy, reveals the rich history, dispels myths and misconceptions, and asks whether or not homeopathy been given a fair shake.

Panel discussion to follow screening.

The Just One Drop trailer may be viewed here.

https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/just-one-drop-the-story-behind-the-homeopathy-controversy-tickets-37436307002

CEASE Therapy for PANDAS, ASD, Aspergers, ADHD and more

In this fascinating and touching documentary Dr. Tinus Smits (†2010) explains his treatment method, and parents of ill children tell their experience with vaccine damage and the amazing improvements with Dr. Smits' therapy. It includes dramatic before-and-after stories of children cured of vaccination damage. 25 years ago he stood in front of the class, teaching French.

Review of the Film “Vaxxed: From Cover-Up to Catastrophe”

I looked at the data that the CDC whistleblower was providing to Andy and Brian and it is the most compelling evidence of fraud I have ever seen in my life. I realized in that moment that I was looking at probably the biggest story of my lifetime. As a journalist, I realized it was a story I had to tell. – Del Bigtree, Producer of Vaxxed from Cover-Up to Catastrophe

Practically from the opening scene, the film Vaxxed grabs our attention and doesn’t let go until it has elicited every ounce of empathy and outrage the human heart is capable of. Back in 2013, William Thompson, PhD, a senior scientist at the CDC was so wracked with guilt about his participation in a CDC study on the timing of the MMR vaccine and autism that he finally picked up the phone and called Brian Hooker, PhD, biologist and autism dad, to tell him where to look for the evidence of CDC deception. Vaxxed is the story of what followed, revealing evidence of collusion, corruption, and fraud at the very agency charged with protecting the public health.

The film was accepted by and then unceremoniously ejected from the Tribeca Film Festival after a firestorm of media attention which almost unanimously condemned the film even though not a single reporter had seen it. The media attention may have turned out to be a blessing in disguise, however, as it has many people who haven’t investigated the topic before asking, Why? What is so special about this film that so many people wanted to kill it? And so it was that the film opened last night to a packed house at Angelika Film Center in New York City. As a long-time New Yorker, there was a particular thrill to seeing this film at this theater. Angelika is my very favorite theater in New York. I have many vivid memories of terrific and thought-provoking films seen there, while surprisingly I have no clear recollection of any films screened at the Tribeca Film Festival.

Dr. Andrew Wakefield, who started his adult life as a research gastroenterologist studying Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis at the Royal Free Hospital in London, had his career destroyed by a case series he wrote with twelve other eminent gastroenterologists and researchers back in 1998 that suggested the possibility that the severe bowel disease they were seeing in children with autism might be associated with the measles virus found in their guts. Parents of eight of the twelve children in the series reported that their children had been developing normally or close to it until they received the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine (MMR). Scientific researchers look for patterns; they don’t spend their time and energy on random guesses out of the blue. If a researcher finds a pattern in what they’re seeing, that’s usually a good sign that there’s something there to investigate. Wakefield et al’s research was merely suggestive and didn’t draw any conclusions, but it clearly touched a nerve in some very powerful circles as this case series is used as a touchstone in virtually any argument involving vaccines and autism.

The fascinating thing to me is that the facts about this research are almost universally mischaracterized in the media to the point that we get comments from people all the time making wildly inaccurate statements like “that doctor was convicted of fraud and sent to jail!”, “Wakefield admitted he made it all up,” or “he performed dangerous and unnecessary procedures on children.” (Wakefield was not a clinician; he performed zero procedures on children, and the person who did perform most of these supposedly “unnecessary” medical procedures, Dr. John Walker-Smith, had his medical license reinstated when a judge reversed the previous GMC finding.) The whole thing would be comical if the effect of silencing debate and investigation were not having such a horrendous impact on so many children’s health.

Dr. Wakefield had already turned his efforts toward documentary filmmaking (a previous effort, Who Killed Alex Spourdalakis?, is among the most affecting and thought-provoking films I have ever seen) when Dr. Hooker called him and told him what Dr. Thompson was saying. Dr. Wakefield encouraged Dr. Hooker to record the conversations without Dr. Thompson’s knowledge to ensure that there was a record of his statements in case something happened to Dr. Thompson to make him change his mind. This was totally legal as both Dr. Thompson and Dr. Hooker were in states where one-party consent is all that is required for recording. Dr. Hooker re-analyzed the data that he obtained at Dr. Thompson’s suggestion, and it was damning. The re-analysis was peer-reviewed and published in Translational Neurodegeneration in August of 2014, then later retracted when the journal received a barrage of attacks similar to what happened to the Tribeca Film Festival.

Prior to beginning the original study, there was a six-month research plan written up. The research plan was intended to make the study unassailable, unlike the CDC’s Verstraeten Thimerosal study which was riddled with problems from the outset (explained beautifully in Trace Amounts, another documentary that came out last year). But, again, researchers ran into trouble right away. When they crunched the numbers, they found two very strong associations between the timing of MMR and autism. In African-American boys, autism was 3.4 times as common in children who had received the MMR before 36 months of age than it was in children who were given the vaccine after they turned three. In addition, children who had been developing normally for the first twelve months of life and later developed autism were more than seven times as likely to have had MMR before the age of three as at later time. As Dr. Wakefield rightly points out in the film, all the children in the study were given the MMR – it was only the timing that varied – and the effects were quite strong. How strong would the effect have been if they had compared children who had the vaccine before 18 months (as is recommended by the CDC in order to be “on time”) with children who had never received the vaccine at all?

But no one knows because the CDC didn’t publish the data. Instead of publishing what they found and doing the follow-on studies that should have been performed, they set about systematically getting rid of the strong signals they had found. Instead of following the unassailable research plan, they figured out a way to plausibly dump 40% of the data by requiring Georgia birth certificates. This reduced the amplitude of the signal itself as well as the statistical power of the study, meaning that whatever signal they did find could be explained away as “not statistically significant.” Not only did they discard the data for the purposes of publication, however, they literally threw the data away. Fortunately, Dr. Thompson, realizing that this was at best unethical and at worst illegal, kept copies of all the data.

This study was eventually published in 2004, four years after it began, and it was immediately taken to the Institute of Medicine, a supposedly independent organization, who used this study to recommend that no more investigation be done on the subject. At the time, the study was referenced in virtually every media outlet as “proof” that “vaccines don’t cause autism.” (Though any scientist worth their salt would know it was nothing of the kind even if it weren’t fraudulent.) Thompson rightfully complained to Dr. Hooker in 2013 that we had already lost 10 years of research because of the CDC’s paralysis around anything related to autism and vaccines. If that’s not enough to make your blood boil, you haven’t been paying attention.

At the beginning of 2009, five years after this study and the Verstraeten study were published, Julie Gerberding left her job as Director of the CDC to take a lucrative position at Merck, the maker of the MMR, running their vaccine division. It’s not hard to see that Merck was quite pleased with the work she did for them.

As a bystander who has watched closely as all the events in the film were taking place, I have been indignant at the wholesale ignoring of the evidence that our children have been sold down the river by powerful and cynical collusion between CDC and corporate interests. Del Bigtree, as a producer of The Doctors, an influential medical program that often received information from the CDC, couldn’t chase the story down himself when it broke, but as a journalist with a nose for a good story, he assumed that within two weeks it would break in every major news outlet. Not only did that not happen, no major news outlet has ever brought up the subject without the obvious agenda of “debunking” the story. (As a matter of fact, my fellow Thinking Mom L.J. Goes and myself are among the very few people who have ever been able to comment on the controversy on mainstream television.) This should have been Pulitzer-Prize-winning material, and yet no one was touching it. That was when Bigtree realized that all of television (and indeed the print media as well) is controlled by pharmaceutical advertising dollars.

It is clear, both here and in the U.K., that what the respective health agencies are protecting is not children’s health, but their vaccine programs. The “collateral damage” of this policy, the broken lives of previously healthy children, is poignantly portrayed in the film by interviews with parents of affected children like Polly Tommey, another of the film’s producers, and Dr. Hooker.

I know many of the people involved in the making of the film, but one of the most potent testimonies came from a mother I don’t know. Shirley Ealey brought her African-American boy-and-girl twins to a well-baby visit where a nurse lined up three shots each, including the MMR. When her daughter reacted by screaming, Ealey was distracted and didn’t notice that the nurse accidentally gave four of the shots to her son. Ealey asked where the missing shot had gone, whereupon the nurse realized she had given Ealey’s son a double dose of the MMR. Ealey was so upset that she whisked her children out of the office without letting her daughter get the remaining vaccines. At the time of the filming, Ealey’s twins were 19 years old. While her daughter speaks three languages, plays classical piano, and is an honor student, her son sits next to her on the couch happily watching Blue’s Clues on his iPad. Ealey’s tears as she contemplates the the stark contrasts in her twins’ development and what her son lost forever at that well-baby visit will haunt me for the rest of my life.

Perhaps my favorite part of the film is when Bigtree goes back to some of his old colleagues from The Doctors, where he worked for seven years before leaving to help make this film. Bigtree presents the documents to family medicine practitioner Dr. Rachael Ross and pediatrician Dr. Jim Sears, who are both cheerfully and confidently “pro-vaccine” (as always, I find myself irritated by the ridiculous premise that attitudes around a nuanced subject like vaccines can be reduced to the binary states of “pro-vaccine” and “anti-vaccine”) before reading them and both visibly shaken by what they have read afterward. When Bigtree asks what Dr. Ross would say to the next parent who comes into her office asking about the MMR, she says she would tell the truth. She will not be giving it her own children (Dr. Ross had a baby girl in November of 2015), and she worries about what we are doing to children’s brains.

Indeed. She is by no means alone in that.

I recently watched the movie Spotlight about how journalists at the Boston Globe uncovered the tremendously damaging way that the Catholic church was handling sexual abuse charges against their priests. The journalists were blocked time and again by people willing to collude with the church in denying what they clearly knew was happening, but that just made the journalists more determined than ever to get to the truth. They were finally able to publish enough of the truth that they made it impossible for the Catholic church to continue institutional policies that allowed children’s lives to be destroyed.

Because of the current stranglehold that pharmaceutical dollars have on mainstream media, this story is even harder to get out. Just as in that situation, a powerful interest group is working day and night to suppress the facts — they know children’s lives are being destroyed by their policies and they just don’t care. Fortunately, the filmmakers of Vaxxed: From Cover-Up to Catastrophe know that, in this era of increased communication and transparency, mainstream media censorship can only postpone the truth getting out, not prevent it. So they threw their hearts, minds, and souls into this film as a way of circumventing that censorship. And they did a damned fine job of telling a difficult story that needs to be told.

Now it’s your turn to do what you can to get the message out there. See the film. Share information about it on Facebook and Twitter. Encourage everyone you know to see it — especially if they are not already familiar with the facts. Just like the journalists at the Boston Globe did, let’s make it impossible for this powerful organization to continue those policies that are sacrificing children’s lives to some bizarre conception of the Greater Good.

~ Professor

http://thinkingmomsrevolution.com/vaxxed-cover-catastrophe/

Another Homeopathy Documentary in the works

Includes worldwide 'visual testimonials'! A much anticipated release.

People who have used homeopathy have a lot of positive and dramatic stuff to say about it!

“Very simple, it DOES work. No need to have faith; when you get the right remedy it works. I suffered with 7 years of Chronic Fatigue syndrome that was completely cured with homeopathy.”

— Happy Homeopathic Client

“I was amazed since my parents have always used homeopathic medication for hayfever and other allergies.”

— Skeptic

#HomeopathyWorks

“[With] this recent batch of remedies... J.A. has continued to make remarkable progress. During the course of the last month he has eaten foods with egg and dairy in them without any reaction! Previous months, we conquered re-introducing wheat successfully. He has maintained good health as well. Thank you for everything you are doing.”

— I.A., father of a 17-year-old who previously had lifelong allergic reactions to wheat, eggs and dairy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsTavOuvb0Q

Reversing Autism

Alison’s Mum tells her story… I have a 6-year-old daughter Alison, with Aspergers, who has been treated with constitutional homeopathy for just over a year.

She was not a healthy or settled baby and I ended up having to wean her at 3 months as she didn’t tolerate my breast milk and I had to put on her on an elemental formula for protein allergies and Losec for reflux. By the time she was 1-year-old she still didn’t tolerate any food and the next years were spent managing her health with a limited diet as she got older and some biomedical supplements.

When we started homeopathy the things I wanted help with was her behavior and some physical health symptoms. She is a very sensitive child and has lots of allergies that can bring on sensory seeking behavior and at the time of our first consult she had become very bossy, argumentative, defiant and inflexible. She was demanding and not coping with much in general. She also was having constipation problems and reflux and some other physical issues.

I remember the day of her first dose as being a particularly difficult day for us. I was so keen to give her the indicated remedy to see if it helped. She was in a very bad mood and being very rude. I gave her a sniff of the bottle as we always start gentle with her being so sensitive and within 15 minutes she came up to me where I was sitting on the rocking chair and asked for a cuddle. She climbed onto me and just melted into me in a way I hadn’t felt before. She was far more balanced, settled and relaxed. This was a really strong noticeable response and from that moment on I have focused on healing her with constitutional homeopathy.

As she had more doses we had more breakthroughs with behavior and her health symptoms were improving too.

She regularly used to be unreachable. So for example she may wake up one morning and decide to be a fairy and then she would stay in that persona all day. It would be hard to reach her and even though it was easy because she was happy amusing herself as a fairy, it was like I had lost her. After improving on the homeopathy and not going into her own world so often, I noticed she would express her feelings to me when things were upsetting her. So I assume she was escaping reality into her own world previously where-as now she is in the moment and able to express what is upsetting her.

There are so many little changes that are huge to me such as her initiating holding my hand in public, compared to previously where I would have to force her to hold my hand to cross a road for example. She didn’t like holding hands at all. There are also health improvements. Her diet is increasing and she is not sensitive to so many foods. Her tolerance of allergens is improving.

I have 6 weekly appointments with her homeopath and I keep a diary of her improvements so I have notes for the past year. As I read over them, it really confirms how far she has come in that year. Her progress is steady. I don’t expect a quick fix because she came into this world with several issues and developed more as she grew older so it is going to take time and persistence to undo them. But I would rather heal her gently with homeopathy and know that she is healed rather than manage or suppress her symptoms long term with diet and lifestyle changes and medications.

I use homeopathy on the whole family now and am grateful that my daughter’s health issues have directed me to learn about homeopathy as it is now impacting us all in a positive way.

Life is so much easier with homeopathy and now when people meet my daughter for the first time, they don’t recognize her as being on the spectrum.

Practitioner Comment

Some children with Asperger syndrome progress rapidly and lose their diagnosis within the first few months of homeopathic treatment while others make slow, steady gains over many years. Most however, like Alison, progress somewhere between the two extremes. The end results are just as heart-warming though, irrespective of the rate of improvement.

For many children with autism and Asperger syndrome, hypersensitivity of the immune system to various foods and environmental allergens is a problem but in Alison’s case, this was more severe than usual. To minimize any aggravating effects she was started on “sniff” rather than oral doses of her remedy and as you can see from her mother’s story, they were still effective. If you would like to read more of this method for dosing hypersensitive people, visit: http://homeopathyplus.com.au/i-sniff-at-homeopathy/

Treating Homeopath: Fran Sheffield Homeopathy Plus! T: +612 (2) 4304 0822 W: www.homeopathyplus.com.au August 28, 2013

http://homeopathyplus.com.au/reversing-autism-alisons-story/

Reversing Autism

Alison’s Mum tells her story… I have a 6-year-old daughter Alison, with Aspergers, who has been treated with constitutional homeopathy for just over a year.

She was not a healthy or settled baby and I ended up having to wean her at 3 months as she didn’t tolerate my breast milk and I had to put on her on an elemental formula for protein allergies and Losec for reflux. By the time she was 1-year-old she still didn’t tolerate any food and the next years were spent managing her health with a limited diet as she got older and some biomedical supplements.

When we started homeopathy the things I wanted help with was her behavior and some physical health symptoms. She is a very sensitive child and has lots of allergies that can bring on sensory seeking behavior and at the time of our first consult she had become very bossy, argumentative, defiant and inflexible. She was demanding and not coping with much in general. She also was having constipation problems and reflux and some other physical issues.

I remember the day of her first dose as being a particularly difficult day for us. I was so keen to give her the indicated remedy to see if it helped. She was in a very bad mood and being very rude. I gave her a sniff of the bottle as we always start gentle with her being so sensitive and within 15 minutes she came up to me where I was sitting on the rocking chair and asked for a cuddle. She climbed onto me and just melted into me in a way I hadn’t felt before. She was far more balanced, settled and relaxed. This was a really strong noticeable response and from that moment on I have focused on healing her with constitutional homeopathy.

As she had more doses we had more breakthroughs with behavior and her health symptoms were improving too.

She regularly used to be unreachable. So for example she may wake up one morning and decide to be a fairy and then she would stay in that persona all day. It would be hard to reach her and even though it was easy because she was happy amusing herself as a fairy, it was like I had lost her. After improving on the homeopathy and not going into her own world so often, I noticed she would express her feelings to me when things were upsetting her. So I assume she was escaping reality into her own world previously where-as now she is in the moment and able to express what is upsetting her.

There are so many little changes that are huge to me such as her initiating holding my hand in public, compared to previously where I would have to force her to hold my hand to cross a road for example. She didn’t like holding hands at all. There are also health improvements. Her diet is increasing and she is not sensitive to so many foods. Her tolerance of allergens is improving.

I have 6 weekly appointments with her homeopath and I keep a diary of her improvements so I have notes for the past year. As I read over them, it really confirms how far she has come in that year. Her progress is steady. I don’t expect a quick fix because she came into this world with several issues and developed more as she grew older so it is going to take time and persistence to undo them. But I would rather heal her gently with homeopathy and know that she is healed rather than manage or suppress her symptoms long term with diet and lifestyle changes and medications.

I use homeopathy on the whole family now and am grateful that my daughter’s health issues have directed me to learn about homeopathy as it is now impacting us all in a positive way.

Life is so much easier with homeopathy and now when people meet my daughter for the first time, they don’t recognize her as being on the spectrum.

Practitioner Comment

Some children with Asperger syndrome progress rapidly and lose their diagnosis within the first few months of homeopathic treatment while others make slow, steady gains over many years. Most however, like Alison, progress somewhere between the two extremes. The end results are just as heart-warming though, irrespective of the rate of improvement.

For many children with autism and Asperger syndrome, hypersensitivity of the immune system to various foods and environmental allergens is a problem but in Alison’s case, this was more severe than usual. To minimize any aggravating effects she was started on “sniff” rather than oral doses of her remedy and as you can see from her mother’s story, they were still effective. If you would like to read more of this method for dosing hypersensitive people, visit: http://homeopathyplus.com.au/i-sniff-at-homeopathy/

Treating Homeopath: Fran Sheffield Homeopathy Plus! T: +612 (2) 4304 0822 W: www.homeopathyplus.com.au August 28, 2013

http://homeopathyplus.com.au/reversing-autism-alisons-story/

Homeopathic Detox of Childhood Vaccinations – Results from Preliminary Study

“Anna;
Thank you for outlining the general concept of what Homeopathic Professionals are doing with people with Autism and ADHD and PANDAS. CEASE Therapy implements some of the same principles used within your work shown in this study. I consider myself very fortunate to have learned the specialty of CEASE Therapy so that I can apply what this training to all my work for clients in need. It is important to share information on the work we do and it is often difficult to put it in a format for people to follow easily. You’ve put a lot of extra work, time and effort in making this accessible and usable for people. I appreciate that and hope it is well shared amongst curious people.”

By Anna Rayner on October 23, 2015

In September 2014 I advertised for volunteers to take part in a trial of homeopathic detox of the childhood vaccinations.   Here are the results.

Introduction

This is a preliminary qualitative study looking at the effects of an 8 week course of Homeopathic Detox Therapy (HDT) to detoxify residual elements of the childhood vaccinations.

From a homeopathic perspective, vaccines can cause ongoing harm within the body.  This is thought to be due to a combination of unresolved viral elements in addition to ongoing damage caused by adjuvants such as aluminium hydroxide, formaldehyde, MSG, antibiotics and animal DNA.

Administering the vaccines in homeopathic form is observed to stimulate observable physical detoxification reactions and results in an improvement in chronic symptoms following the 8 week course of remedies.  This project aims to identify the kind of improvements and reactions that can be expected with such an approach.

Design

The vaccination detoxification pack was offered to those parents who observed a temporal link between vaccination and the onset of their child’s health issues.  

130 vaccination packs were sent out, with instructions on how to administer the remedies.  The pack included homoeopathically potentised* versions of the childhood vaccines as a ‘poly’ ascending remedy series (30C, 200C, 1M, 10M).  A ‘Saturday’ remedy of Carcinosin Cum Cuprum and a daily morning remedy Nux Vomica, 6C for liver support was also provided.  Participants were asked to report their observations during, and up to 2 weeks after the end of detox. The course duration was 8 weeks (2 weeks at each of the 4 potencies).

Results

Of the 130 participants that were sent packs, 43 participants did not respond to the follow-up email.  They were then classed as non-participant.  Of the remaining 87 participants, 73 reported improvements in symptoms following the course of detox,  6 experienced temporary aggravations during the course without improvements afterwards, and 8 reported no observable effects.  Some parents completed an ATEC both before and after the round of treatment. Of those who did, the majority showed a lower ATEC following treatment.  In future studies, there should be an emphasis of measurable data from the ATEC test both before and after treatment.

OBSERVATIONS:

Common improvements reported following the vaccination detox:

• increased comprehension & learning / awareness of external world
• increase in attention span
• language / cognitive improvements
• decreased stimming
• decreased anxiety
• appetite changes
• decrease in hyperactive behaviour
• reduction in emotional outbursts
• improved empathy
• improved eye-contact

Common aggravations reported during the 8 week detox phase

• fevers
• rashes
• diarrhoea
• loss of appetite
• sweating (particularly at night)
• increased emotional outbursts / tantrums
• toilet ‘accidents’ increased (temporary)
• hyperactivity temporarily increased
• defiant behaviours
• increase in stimming / hand-flapping / obsessive behaviours.

Lessons Learned

A follow-up consultation was scheduled with those participants who did not show improvement during the course.  A full case history was taken.

In the majority of these cases, there were events in the timeline which were of greater significance (from the perspective of the Homeopathic Detox Therapy model) in the child’s health issues.  Most commonly, this was hormonal or steroid intervention.  It became apparent that hormonal disruptors should be dealt with before tackling the vaccinations.  This is in line with the HDT model, which states that synthetic hormones (including steroids) are often the most damaging of allopathic interventions.

Whilst outcomes were positive, it became clear that the best outcome with HDT requires a full case history to be taken, rather than a ‘one size fits all‘ approach, even when a cohort has a shared aetiology (vaccination).

Following on from the project in the many cases I have treated since, the importance of other toxins has become more apparent.  For example, certain antibiotics have been observed to be extremely damaging and are a more significant ‘aetiology’ than the vaccines in certain instances.  Anaesthetics and Oxytocin during labour are also very significant in the timeline.  In short, as clinical data is amassed, it becomes apparent that vaccines are just one of many damaging allopathic interventions which can cause chronic health problems in children.

This said, it is my belief that vaccinations are one of the most damaging events in a child’s timeline.  This is due to their propensity to cause long-term immune dysfunction.  The ‘injected’ nature of administration makes them extremely harmful as this bypasses primary immune response. This can be very problematic in susceptible children.  In addition, I have grave concerns regarding the toxic nature of the adjuvants,  in particular heavy metals (aluminium hydroxide and thimerosal) which are known neurotoxins.

Conclusion

HDT is observed in this study to be a promising treatment for vaccination damage.  It is most effective when administered alongside an appropriate dietary regime and orthomolecular support to aid detox of displaced heavy metals (zinc and selenium in particular).  In this preliminary study, younger children were observed to make greater gains from treatment. Parents should therefore be encouraged to seek treatment as soon as they suspect that their child has been adversely effected by vaccination.

In addition, reading the case notes from hundreds of responders (only 130 were used due to funding constraints), one could see some very clear repetitive patterns of decline. One of the most striking observations was the consistent suppression of fevers and gastrointestinal symptoms following vaccination using paracetamol preparations and antibiotics. It is often this combination that preceded a rapid decline in health and a descent into the autistic picture.  Parents who wish to partake in vaccination programmes should be properly educated about the dangers of suppressing any associated fever.  This is in line with findings from a study in Cuba, where paracetamol is not recommended following vaccination, and where incidence of autism is significantly lower than the UK and the USA.

In general, a rule of thumb for parents would be to question and research any recommended medical intervention for their children.  The risks often outweigh the benefits.  The lack of research investigating the long-term effects of vaccinations in children means that by consenting to these practices, the child is effectively a ‘guinea pig’, who is partaking in the experiment without informed consent.  I would urge parents to proceed with caution, in spite of any proclamations that a drug or vaccine is ‘perfectly safe’.  There is no such thing, as will be apparent from the long list of side effects in any package insert.

Please contact me (annaraynerhomeopath@gmail.com)  if you would like more information regarding HDT for your child.

Parental Accounts from 8 Week Vaccination Detox  

Here are a selection of parental accounts provided:

Participant 1

NA finished the detox on 5/4/15.  The fits of anger diminished following the accelerated course of Tuberculinum.  Today, we are no longer seeing any of the anger which was so problematic.

I have noticed he is more present that before we started treatment.  He engages in less stimming, and even when it does appear, it tends to be much shorter in duration.  He is now more calm and is communicating far better with me.  I truly notice a great improvement, and I now see the possibility of a ‘normal’ child when I observe him.  Of course he has many things still to learn, but he is much more cooperative in his behaviour, and he is calmer and more receptive.

Participant 2

What you read will make it quite obvious what EM and those of us around have experienced.  It has been wonderful watching and feeling her really and enjoying close contact, touch and affection now in the same way her brother does.  Before, when I wanted to cuddle her she would squirm away.  Now she is actively enjoying cuddles saying ‘hmm, mummy, I love this.  I want to stay like this forever‘. It feels AMAZING. Her confidence has also increased to a higher level.

Here are some of my observations:

• Increase in eye-contact, and appropriate use of greetings with strangers
• Increase in pretend play
• Huge increase in affectionate behaviour – cuddles etc.
• Appropriate speech, more elaborate speech, use of ‘I’ rather than 3rd person.
• Helping around house – reports it is to ‘help mummy’.  This level of empathy has never happened before.

Participant 3

ATEC score at start of vaccination detox:  99    ATEC score on follow-up:  53

Physical observations during detox:

• Changes in bowel movements
• Increased sweating and thirst
• increased energy
• Night waking when remedy was given

Behavioural changes:

• Increased irritability due to more awareness of surroundings
• Increase in creative play / interest in outside world – more aware and connected to surroundings
• Increase in vocalisations – at the beginning of the treatment began saying 3 word sentences
• Increase in hand-flapping during the detox
• Increased attention span
• More adventurous appetite – trying new foods.  Used to scream at new foods.
• Improved motor control – drawing.
• Increased interaction with caregiver – started giving kisses
• Eye contact – much better
• Anxiety levels – increased initially.
• Did regress in potty training, and also making us feed him where he used to feed himself.
• Started waving, saying bye bye, and hi
• In general much more connected to surroundings.

Participant 4

I just want share with you my experience during AD’s 8 week vaccination detox process.

We finished 8 weeks on march 26/15.

* I see his changes especially expressing himself, better social skills and more focus.

* His health is much better – he is not falling sick so often

* During the detox process, I saw many toxins getting out, especially from the skin (rashes etc.)

I want to really thank you..he is getting much much better.

Participant 5

Here is our summary of the detox that we started in November 2014.

First week, slept far better than usual.  Was eating less than usual.  He wasn’t coping with unplanned events at all well, and kept closing his eyes.  His stools changed consistency and were more often than usual.  Week 2: a spectacular regression!  Incredibly irritated / irascible, hardly spoke, angrily crying, lots of stereotyped behaviours.  Diarrhoea and nausea for 3 days, very tired.  This however passed.

We started the Vaccination Detox on 22/12/14.  We had a very good period – LB was very connected, sleeping well, responding to questions more – everyone was remarking on his progress (at school for example).  On 5/2/15 we had another regression.  He was agitated, lots of stimming, moving like a robot, echolalia.  He did however have a large appetite, and was sleeping well.  After the end of the detox things settled back down, and he remains much calmer, better connected, and more responsive to his external environment.

We look forward to continuing treatment.

Participant 6

We are happy to inform you about the successful completion of the vaccination detox protocol. Great results we can corroborate. Eye contact improvement, conduct improvement, the attention periods are bigger and is more interested in other tasks and activities, the  facial expressions are more vivid and he is more interested in interpreting them.

Other important improvement are a number of new foods added to his diet, and he is a lot more interested on taste new foods. It is a big improvement in that area for us.

We are extremely interested in the other detox protocols that may help our son further.

Participant 7 

We just finished treatment and we are very pleased! AW is showing more comprehension and communication, improvement in bilateral coordination (she just learned hiw to pedal her bike after 3 years of trying!), less OCD behavior, willing to try new foods, showing more independence (she wants to do what others do and doesn’t want help).

For the first time in her life I am able to take her to the playground and just watch her! She is also coming close to other kids, greeting them and interacting more with them. We only saw some periods when she was more sensory and cranky, also some days waking up at night, but nothing compared to where she was years ago when she would wake up in the middle of the night and be awake for hours and showing OCD behavior. I wish I could give you a huge hug. THANK YOU! What do we do next? She still has lots to catch up. Is there anything else that can help her? Love homeopathy!!!

Participant 8

JP changed significantly during the protocol.  He often had fever after the Nux Vomica 6CH in the morning, marked skin rashes also.  Better eye/hand coordination, and increased ability in art – better able to hold a pen.  His comprehension was notably increased, and he was more rapidly understanding instructions.  He had new interest in food.  Since the start of the constant rounds of antibiotics following MMR, he has been severely picky.  He would only eat about 3 different foods.  I noticed during the detox he started to be naturally curious about food, and eat spontaneously (new foods).  The smell of the dinner cooking would now make him laugh.  He did have some constipation throughout the detox.  He now has more energy, and is much more curious about the world around him.  He can now show me when I ask him where something is hurting.  This is entirely new.  There is an increase in showing his emotions, crying when sad etc.  He seems to now have ‘life in his eyes’.  After the vaccination detox receptive language is ++++

Participant 9

BA is doing great and continues to speak more and more every day. Just night potty trained himself. He refused a night diaper 4 nights ago and has had a dry bed every morning. Will sometimes even get up and pee in the middle of the night”.

Additional observations from mother’s notes during the 8 weeks:

• Increase in vocab;
• More ‘humour’ observed
• Making himself laugh more.
• Singing a great deal.
• More ‘enquiries’ about the world around him – externalising.
• Saying ‘bye bye’ unprompted.
• Increase in spontaneous learning of new skills.

Participants 10 & 11

We started the vaccine protocol in November 2014. After a week of treatment, Twin1’s behavior improved, there was more language, his anxiety diminished and he was following more complexed instructions.

After another week Twin2 started with the screaming and hand-flapping. He did a lot of talking but not in a conversation, he was trying though to communicate. There were no sleeping disturbances but there were with their appetite.

Twin1 was really dependent of his mom. Their faeces were very smelly and with dark residues, like soil. No constipation was present. After 1 month of treatment, Twin1, started hitting his mom, pulling her hair and pressing her breasts really hard.  At times he was happy, then furious, will start to hit her and then kissed her. Something really significant was that Twin1 was usually very anxious and with the treatment the anxiety disappeared.  At week 8, there was vomiting and a skin reaction around the lip area of Twin1. He presented cracked, fissured and peeled lips.  No more hitting Mom and we continue to see positive results.

Participant 12

Physically when we started, he had rashes on his face and torso that lasted a few weeks.  He had runny nose and increased thirst as well. Behaviorally, the day after a dose, he would be crankier, more oppositional.

Overall, his receptive and expressive language has increased a lot.  He has initiated more pretend play, has initiated play with his brother.  He will sit and do homework for a longer period of time.  He was always affectionate, but only with me but will now go to his teachers, father, brother and ask for hugs on his own.  He knows the time for bathtime/bedtime and will ask us to take him to bath or bed.  He imitates speech more and knows he needs to verbally ask for things and that has increased a lot.  The change he has had in play and understanding and his behavior has been very noticeable to us at home, and by school and therapists.

His ATEC score went from a 23 to 17 over the 8 weeks.

Participant 13

OCTOBER 11/2014: 1st week:  loose stools, rash and headache..  2nd week: still with rash. Prominent red tiny marks (rash looking not blisters like on Ch.pox), on both arms and his checks

.

OCTOBER 21/2014: ANGER which lasted the whole rest of the course.

Thursday, Nov, 02, 2014 5 week” POLY VACC 1M: parasites on stool

Nov, 20, 2014: final day of the detox course.

Nov, 25, 2014: A flare of creativity. He wanted and decided to “write a book” (he told me what to write) he was also the illustrator.

 He remained mad and very very bad behavior all remaining month and December. 2014 but it settled down.

Jan, 2015:  TEACHER TOLD ME HE IS DOING AWESOME!!

Participant 14

Throughout the vaccination detox, we noticed rashes (eczema flares localized on JH’s right thigh and upper right buttock and keratosis pilaris on his arms, legs, and cheeks), a change in bowel movements (daily and appropriate color/consistency), minor cold symptoms on and off consisting of a runny/stuffy nose and cough, and positive appetite changes (eating more food and a much wider variety of food!).

During the detox, we saw some behavioral changes in terms of irritability and anger as well as crying easily. As we got to the 10M potency, we began to see changes in speech and language–more complete sentences and Jack explaining what he wants/needs. JH seems to have a better understanding of explanations and stories on TV too. We feel the biggest changes occurred with the improvement in bowel movements and the changes in his appetite. JH used to be more limited in his diet and ate too little. Now he’s eating what we eat, and as much as we eat most of the time!

When we started the vaccination detox, JHs ATEC score was a 28. As of this week, his ATEC score is a 17! We are so thrilled!

We would love to continue treating JH with homeopathic remedies! I’m sure there are many things on his timeline that are still affecting him and we’d like to help him continue to heal!

Participant 15

We finished the 8 week vaccine detox, I am very very happy with the results I saw in my son.

His reactions were high fever, very hard to lower it down, the fever always was next day  after giving the poly 200. He missed school and also slept a lot in the night like 13 hours in a row which is very atypical in him.  We saw little rashes on face, and one day with vomit, like 3 times, and both boys had very hard days in behavior on sundays (after the ccc dosage on saturdays).  I can definitely say in particular my youngest son has a lot of positive changes: his hyperactivity decreased, better mood, more social interaction, better attention, initiation in play requesting to play, more expressive language,  now he is watching t.v. understanding what is happening and laughing at jokes on cartoons, before  it was hard for him to entertain himself, he was not interested in tv.

nb: in the follow up consultation it was found that the older brother had a lot of steroid exposures, which we are now clearing.  This often ‘blocks’ remedy action, and as a matter of course I would now address this ‘layer’ as a first prescription.  

Participant 16

We saw a NOTICABLE increase in J’s social skills.  His desire to engage and be included in activities (patiently playing boardgames, going to the park and wanting to play basketball with others instead of digging in the sand by himself,  joining discussions with appropriate and relevant contributions) was noticed not only by us but by extended family members as well.

We saw an increase in him initiating affection- hugs, snuggles, tickling.

Something that he has never done before, he talked about a bullying incident that happened to him several years ago, before his recovery from his autism symptoms. He brought it up and said he’d like to one day ask the boys who hurt him why they did it. I had to pick my jaw up off the floor!

He has been extremely redirectable/agreeable. Also, his ability to verbalize his feelings, especially anger/frustration/sadness, has been amazing.

His ability to focus has increased.

There seems to be a calmness to him now that wasn’t there before.

Needless to say, even though J was already recovered from his autism symptoms, we cannot believe the progress we have seen in him the past few months.

J did not have any negative side effects that we noticed. No rashes, fevers, etc.

I want to thank you so much for having J participate in the detox trial! We had never tried homeopathy before, but now I wish we would have.

Participant 17

Initially starting homeopathy, we saw increased hyperactivity and had to revert to some calming techniques we hadn’t used in quite some time.  However, in just a few days, his words were clearer and he was having more meaningful and age appropriate conversations. During the second week, we had an unusual meltdown and stubborn behavior.  But, before the second week was out, he became interested in age appropriate television. The last 6 weeks were full of gains of self awareness, self discipline and self-learning.  We couldn’t be more pleased with this protocol, as we have tried many treatments over the past 7 years.

Participant 18

We started poly vacc detox on September 29th on my 4,5 year old son, the first signs of detox appeared two days later: I noticed his thirst and fatiguability at once, a week later, he  wetted his pants daytime unexpectedly, he also went several times a day to the toilet, urinating and moving his bowels more, his urine had an unusual strong smell. At the same time, I observed positive change in his social skills: he was playing adequately whereas I had never observed this before to that degree. In fact, all along the detox course, my son improved his skills by playing a wide range of games: from a set of stamps to a board game. He also started writing, drawing and painting at home, sharing with us. The quality of his hair was improved I noticed a month later, it passed from rough and mat to smooth and shiny. I acknowledge language skills and interactions have improved by a lot 20 days after starting, for instance, asking meaningful questions like « what’s in that box over there? » or expressing himself clearly like « a bit more, please »( for food or playing). He also learnt how to sulk and rebel against us using words adequately. I also witness that during the detox course he was more hyper, more sensitive to sounds and stereotypies reemerged a few times. His ATEC before poly vacc detox was 57 and after it came down to 31.

Participant 19

We did the detox early this year. We started in 01/15 and ended the detox in 02/15. Fortunately, we had great results. I noticed a lot of RJ’s sensory issues improved. Less sensitive to noise. Able to eat different foods with different consistencies. Less sensitive to clothes. We can pretty much dress him in anything now. The best and greatest result has been his cognitive function and more language. 

During the detox it self we noticed his behavior became a problem again. Definitely a regression with more tantrums, attention seeking behavior, elopement, and avoidance to any demand placed on him. It was a though 8 weeks, but all worth it. No fevers that I noticed or cold like symptoms. The only changes that were noticeable was the regression in behavior. 

I wanted to reach out to you about doing a second round of the detox. 

* diluted beyond the point of material dose using the sequential dilution succussion methodology.

About Anna Rayner

Anna Rayner is a homeopath specialising in the treatment of Autistic Spectrum Disorders. She works via Skype, and also in Earlsfield, South West London. She offers a free 15 minute Skype consultation to prospective clients.

Glutathione: The Mother of All Antioxidants

It's the most important molecule you need to stay healthy and prevent disease -- yet you've probably never heard of it. It's the secret to prevent aging, cancer, heart disease, dementia and more, and necessary to treat everything from autism to Alzheimer's disease. There are more than 89,000 medical articles about it -- but your doctor doesn't know how address the epidemic deficiency of this critical life-giving molecule ...

What is it? I'm talking about the mother of all antioxidants, the master detoxifier and maestro of the immune system: GLUTATHIONE (pronounced "gloota-thigh-own").

The good news is that your body produces its own glutathione. The bad news is that poor diet, pollution, toxins, medications, stress, trauma, aging, infections and radiation all deplete your glutathione.

This leaves you susceptible to unrestrained cell disintegration from oxidative stress, free radicals, infections and cancer. And your liver gets overloaded and damaged, making it unable to do its job of detoxification.

In treating chronically ill patients with Functional Medicine for more than 10 years, I have discovered that glutathione deficiency is found in nearly all very ill patients. These include people with chronic fatigue syndrome, heart disease, cancer, chronic infections, autoimmune disease, diabetes, autism, Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, arthritis, asthma, kidney problems, liver disease and more.

At first I thought that this was just a coincidental finding, but over the years I have come to realize that our ability to produce and maintain a high level of glutathione is critical to recovery from nearly all chronic illness -- and to preventing disease and maintaining optimal health and performance. The authors of those 76,000 medical articles on glutathione I mentioned earlier have found the same thing!

So in today's blog I want to explain what glutathione is, why it's important and give you 9 tips that will help you optimize your glutathione levels, improve your detoxification system and protect help yourself from chronic illness.

What is Glutathione?

Glutathione is a very simple molecule that is produced naturally all the time in your body. It is a combination of three simple building blocks of protein or amino acids -- cysteine, glycine and glutamine.

The secret of its power is the sulfur (SH) chemical groups it contains. Sulfur is a sticky, smelly molecule. It acts like fly paper and all the bad things in the body stick onto it, including free radicals and toxins like mercury and other heavy metals.

Normally glutathione is recycled in the body -- except when the toxic load becomes too great. And that explains why we are in such trouble ...

In my practice, I test the genes involved in glutathione metabolism. These are the genes involved in producing enzymes that allow the body to create and recycle glutathione in the body. These genes have many names, such as GSTM1, GSTP1 and more.

These genes impaired in some people for a variety of important reasons. We humans evolved in a time before the 80,000 toxic industrial chemicals found in our environment today were introduced into our world, before electromagnetic radiation was everywhere and before we polluted our skies, lakes, rivers, oceans and teeth with mercury and lead.

That is why most people survived with the basic version of the genetic detoxification software encoded in our DNA, which is mediocre at ridding the body of toxins. At the time humans evolved we just didn't need more. Who knew we would be poisoning ourselves and eating a processed, nutrient-depleted diet thousands of years later?

Because most of us didn't require additional detoxification software, almost of half of the population now has a limited capacity to get rid of toxins. These people are missing GSTM1 function -- one of the most important genes needed in the process of creating and recycling glutathione in the body.

Nearly all my very sick patients are missing this function. The one-third of our population that suffers from chronic disease is missing this essential gene. That includes me. Twenty years ago I became mercury poisoned and suffered from chronic fatigue syndrome due to this very problem. My GSTM1 function was inadequate and I didn't produce enough glutathione as a result. Eventually, my body broke down and I became extremely ill ...

This is the same problem I see in so many of my patients. They are missing this critical gene and they descend into disease as a result. Let me explain how this happens ...

The Importance of Glutathione in Protecting Against Chronic Illness

Glutathione is critical for one simple reason: It recycles antioxidants. You see, dealing with free radicals is like handing off a hot potato. They get passed around from vitamin C to vitamin E to lipoic acid and then finally to glutathione which cools off the free radicals and recycles other antioxidants. After this happens, the body can "reduce" or regenerate another protective glutathione molecule and we are back in business.

However, problems occur when we are overwhelmed with too much oxidative stress or too many toxins. Then the glutathione becomes depleted and we can no longer protect ourselves against free radicals, infections, or cancer and we can't get rid of toxins. This leads to further sickness and soon we are in the downward spiral of chronic illness.

But that's not all. Glutathione is also critical in helping your immune system do its job of fighting infections and preventing cancer. That's why studies show that it can help in the treatment of AIDS.(i)

Glutathione is also the most critical and integral part of your detoxification system. All the toxins stick onto glutathione, which then carries them into the bile and the stool -- and out of your body.

And lastly, it also helps us reach peak mental and physical function. Research has shown that raised glutathione levels decrease muscle damage, reduce recovery time, increase strength and endurance and shift metabolism from fat production to muscle development.

If you are sick or old or are just not in peak shape, you likely have glutathione deficiency. In fact, the top British medical journal, the Lancet, found the highest glutathione levels in healthy young people, lower levels in healthy elderly, lower still in sick elderly and the lowest of all in the hospitalized elderly. (ii)

Keeping yourself healthy, boosting your performance, preventing disease and aging well depends on keeping your glutathione levels high. I'll say it again ... Glutathione is so important because it is responsible for keeping so many of the keys to UltraWellness optimized.

It is critical for immune function and controlling inflammation. It is the master detoxifier and the body's main antioxidant, protecting our cells and making our energy metabolism run well.

And the good news is that you can do many things to increase this natural and critical molecule in your body. You can eat glutathione-boosting foods. You can exercise. And you can take glutathione-boosting supplements. Let's review more specifics about each.

9 Tips to Optimize your Glutathione Levels

These 9 tips will help you improve your glutathione levels, improve your health, optimize your performance and live a long, healthy life.

Eat Foods that Support Glutathione Production

1. Consume sulfur-rich foods. The main ones in the diet are garlic, onions and the cruciferous vegetables (broccoli, kale, collards, cabbage, cauliflower, watercress, etc.).

2. Try bioactive whey protein. This is great source of cysteine and the amino acid building blocks for glutathione synthesis. As you know, I am not a big fan of dairy. But this is an exception -- with a few warnings. The whey protein MUST be bioactive and made from non-denatured proteins ("denaturing" refers to the breakdown of the normal protein structure). Choose non-pasteurized and non-industrially produced milk that contains no pesticides, hormones, or antibiotics. Immunocal is a prescription bioactive non-denatured whey protein that is even listed in the Physician's Desk Reference.

Exercise for Your Way to More Glutathione

3. Exercise boosts your glutathione levels and thereby helps boost your immune system, improve detoxification and enhance your body's own antioxidant defenses. Start slow and build up to 30 minutes a day of vigorous aerobic exercise like walking or jogging, or play various sports. Strength training for 20 minutes 3 times a week is also helpful.

Take Glutathione Supporting Supplements

One would think it would be easy just to take glutathione as a pill, but the body digests protein -- so you wouldn't get the benefits if you did it this way. However, the production and recycling of glutathione in the body requires many different nutrients and you CAN take these. Here are the main supplements that need to be taken consistently to boost glutathione. Besides taking a multivitamin and fish oil, supporting my glutathione levels with these supplements is the most important thing I do every day for my personal health.

4. N-acetyl-cysteine. This has been used for years to help treat asthma and lung disease and to treat people with life-threatening liver failure from Tylenol overdose. In fact, I first learned about it in medical school while working in the emergency room. It is even given to prevent kidney damage from dyes used during x-ray studies.

5. Alpha lipoic acid. This is a close second to glutathione in importance in our cells and is involved in energy production, blood sugar control, brain health and detoxification. The body usually makes it, but given all the stresses we are under, we often become depleted.

6. Methylation nutrients (folate and vitamins B6 and B12). These are perhaps the most critical to keep the body producing glutathione. Methylation and the production and recycling of glutathione are the two most important biochemical functions in your body. Take folate (especially in the active form of 5 methyltetrahydrofolate), B6 (in active form of P5P) and B12 (in the active form of methylcobalamin).

7. Selenium. This important mineral helps the body recycle and produce more glutathione.

8. A family of antioxidants including vitamins C and E (in the form of mixed tocopherols), work together to recycle glutathione.

9. Milk thistle (silymarin) has long been used in liver disease and helps boost glutathione levels.

So use these nine tips and see how they work to help you optimzie your glutathione levels. When you do, you will take one more step to lifelong vibrant health.

Now I'd like to hear from you...

Had you ever heard of this important nutrient before?

Have you tried any of the advice in this article?

What effects have you noticed on your health?

Please leave your thoughts by adding a comment below.

To your good health,

Mark Hyman, M.D.

References

(i) De Rosa SC, Zaretsky MD, Dubs JG, Roederer M, Anderson M, Green A, Mitra D, Watanabe N, Nakamura H, Tjioe I, Deresinski SC, Moore WA, Ela SW, Parks D, Herzenberg LA, Herzenberg LA. N-acetylcysteine replenishes glutathione in HIV infection. Eur J Clin Invest. 2000 Oct;30(10):915-29

(ii) Nuttall S, Martin U, Sinclair A, Kendall M. 1998. Glutathione: in sickness and in health. The Lancet 351(9103):645-646

Mark Hyman, M.D. practicing physician and founder of The UltraWellness Center is a pioneer in functional medicine. Dr. Hyman is now sharing the 7 ways to tap into your body's natural ability to heal itself. You can follow him on Twitter, connect with him on LinkedIn, watch his videos on Youtube and become a fan on Facebook.

Follow Mark Hyman, MD on Twitter: www.twitter.com/markhymanmd

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-mark-hyman/glutathione-the-mother-of_b_530494.html

Influence of pediatric vaccines on social behavior in the rhesus monkey

NBTS P02

Influence of pediatric vaccines on social behavior in the rhesus monkey

• B. Curtis^a,
• K. Morrisroe^a,
• V. Yutuc^a,
• C. Ferrier^a,
• G.P. Sackett^a,
• L. Hewitson^b

doi:10.1016/j.ntt.2014.04.047

Pediatric vaccines have been considered controversial due to potential negative effects on development, particularly impaired social interaction and communication, hyperactivity, and repetitive stereotyped behaviors that are characteristic of autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Some reports suggest that exposure to ethyl mercury (EtHg), in the form of thimerosal, in pediatric vaccines may play a causative role in such negative effects. Male infant rhesus macaques (n = 79) were assigned at birth to one of six study groups (12–16 subjects/group) as follows: (1) the pediatric vaccination schedule from the 1990s including thimerosal-containing vaccines (TCVs), (2) the same 1990s schedule but accelerated to accommodate the developmental trajectory of the infant rhesus macaque, (3) TCVs only (saline placebo for Mumps–Measles–Rubella [MMR]), (4) MMR only (other injections replaced with saline placebo), (5) the expanded vaccine regimen from 2008 (where fewer vaccines contained thimerosal), or (6) a control group following the 1990s schedule with all vaccines replaced with saline placebo. Subjects began socializing at approximately 25 days of age and were socialized 5 days per week in a 4-monkey peer group. Social behavior data, collected between 15 and 18 months of age using a computer system capturing a variety of social and non-social behaviors, were included in this analysis. Data were analyzed using repeated measure ANOVAs with Dunnett's test post-hoc procedures following significant experimental group or group × age interactions. No significant differences in non-social or social behavior were found when comparing the animals in the vaccine groups to controls. The data do not provide any evidence of abnormal social behavior in rhesus macaques exposed to low-dose thimerosal and should provide reassurance that TCVs do not contribute to the negative effects associated with ASD. Support from the Johnson Family, the Ted Lindsay Foundation, and SafeMinds is gratefully acknowledged.

Copyright © 2014 Published by Elsevier Inc.

http://www.somethingtosayproductions.com/

Homeopathy for ADHD: Hocus Pocus or Science? By Deborah Mitchell

Parents of children with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) face daily challenges and questions concerning how to best cope with, manage, and help their kids. Moms and dads who are not satisfied with a purely conventional medicine approach, typically because of questionable safety and effectiveness of medications, often turn to other options. Should parents consider homeopathy for ADHD? Some practitioners and researchers vote yes, and they point to the success they have witnessed in their practice and their studies. Many others, however, are not convinced about the value of homeopathy in general nor its use for this neurodevelopmental condition in particular.

Recently I interviewed Beth Landau-Halpern, a Toronto-based, classically trained homeopath who uses a wide range of natural approaches to treat ADHD, including nutritional medicine, relaxation techniques, and natural supplements along with homeopathy. Many but not all of her patients are already taking medications. Her natural therapies can both complement and enhance a child’s treatment program.

Homeopathy and ADHD: Two Studies

Landau-Halpern talked about her involvement in two studies of homeopathy and ADHD as well as about her experiences with her treatment approach overall. The two studies—one pilot study already completed and a new study currently underway that was initiated based on the findings of the first—involved evaluation of the impact of homeopathic remedies on children with ADHD.

The particulars of the first study were explained to me by one of Landau-Halpern’s colleagues, David Brulé, a research associate at the University of Toronto and owner of Riverdale Homeopathic Clinic.A total of 35 children were enrolled in the study, which involved an initial consultation with one of two homeopaths and then nine follow-up consultations.

Eighty percent of the participants completed all 10 consultations over an average of 12.1 months. During that time, a mean of three homeopathic remedies were prescribed for the children from a selection of more than three dozen options. The two found to be the most effective were phosphorus and tuberculinum. Parents were questioned about their child’s diet, but while Brulé said “diet works” for kids with ADHD, this factor was not emphasized in the study.

Overall the findings were positive: 63 percent achieved significant improvement in behavioral symptoms, and the benefits were generally observed at the seventh to eighth consultation. All of this good news prompted the researchers to plan another, larger study, which is now underway.

Based on her observations of participants in this study, Landau-Halpern explained that “most of the clients responded well to the homeopathic remedies, although it sometimes took a few months to find the most beneficial remedy.” This caveat was especially true, she said, among kids who were taking medication since “many of their ‘symptoms’ were masked” by the drugs. Overall, she believed the children’s behavioral symptoms were the most affected by the remedies, “those that the stimulant drugs don’t really affect in any case.”

What about the effect of diet and natural supplements on these patients who were taking homeopathic remedies? Landau-Halpern pointed out that many of the parents were finding it difficult to deal with the challenges of ADHD, so she did not normally introduce dietary suggestions. At the same time, she emphasized that “an optimized diet is obviously important” as are supplements, although she did not stress them in the study.

The new study, which currently is recruiting participants, will follow 180 children with ADHD. Unlike the earlier study, parents will be asked if they are using therapeutic dietary changes. (Download the announcement for recruitment into the new study.)

In her private practice, Landau-Halpern often recommends supplements for children with ADHD, especially omega-3 fatty acids. In addition she suggests B vitamins, iron, magnesium, vitamin D, zinc, and multivitamins, depending on the individual child. She also addresses diet.

When looking at the diet of a child who has ADHD, Landau-Halpern pointed out that while every child responds to preservatives, artificial colors, and artificial flavors differently, “in general, they have absolutely no place in any child’s diet—ADHD or not.” She also emphasized that eliminating these substances “can bring about huge improvements in all sorts of pathological behaviors and physical symptoms.”

In fact, cutting out foods that contain preservatives and artificial additives is the first advice she offers parents of kids with ADHD. Why? Because it works. “For some children, simply removing foods that impair their neurological function can make an enormous difference,” and that includes refined, processed foods containing artificial ingredients and preservatives as well as those to which children have a hypersensitivity.

A review in Current Psychiatry Reports that evaluated evidence for dietary and nutritional treatments, as well as homeopathy, for ADHD noted that “Controlled studies support the elimination of artificial food dyes to reduce ADHD symptoms, and that multivitamin/mineral supplements and especially essential fatty acids are suggested. Evidence for the effectiveness of homeopathy for ADHD, however, was reported to be minimal.

Read more about kids and artificial colors

That could be changing, however, as researchers continue to conduct more comprehensive studies. Therefore, for parents of children with ADHD, alternative and complementary options such as homeopathy and nutritional medicine, including the elimination of artificial dyes and flavors and preservatives, should be considered and discussed with the appropriate healthcare professionals.

http://naturallysavvy.com/nest/homeopathy-for-adhd-hocus-pocus-or-science