Homoeopathic Assay

[The Don]

I'm sorry of this has been covered man, many times before but....

In the manufacture of, well almost anything, but in particular pharmaceuticals, product is taken "off the line" for testing to ensure that the levels of active ingredients are within tolerance and that nothing nasty has crept in. I suspect that regular testing and submission of the results of these tests form part of the licencing of the production facility.

I just wonder how a similar process would be conducted in a homoeopathic production facility. Clearly, impurirites could be checked but in terms of the amount of active ingredient, do you have to check for its abscence ?

How you check for 29C vs. 30C vs. 31C is beyond me. Any ideas (the more facecious the better)

[Rolfe]

Come to that, how do you tell 30C Belladonna from 200C arnica?

Come in Prester John, one of your favourite topics here!

Rolfe.

[Zep]

You HOMEOPATHICALLY check. That is, you take every 2³⁰th one off the line and check for one molecule of active ingredient. Simple, no?

[Prester John]

Originally posted by Rolfe
Come to that, how do you tell 30C Belladonna from 200C arnica?

Come in Prester John, one of your favourite topics here!

Rolfe.

Have patience, i'm doing what NH suggested ;)

[Capsid]

It's not a requirement. Even if they were to be licensed by the regulatory bodies then there must be no claim for a therapeutic effect.

The only check is if the homeopath watches the preparation made but other than that it could be just shaken water straight from the tap. Maybe not even that!

[Benguin]

I think I tried asking something like that on hpathy once .... they did claim it was possible, before my thread got burned.

[Corallinus]

Now, what is really the point of the reputable homeopathic pharmacies just putting tap water in bottles? It is not really worth their while at all and all the homeopathic pharmacies in England have a reputation to withhold and especially Helios.

Why not e-mail and ask them how they make their remedies? I am sure they would be more than glad to tell you. www.helios.co.uk.

[Dragonrock]

Originally posted by Corallinus
Now, what is really the point of the reputable homeopathic pharmacies just putting tap water in bottles? It is not really worth their while at all and all the homeopathic pharmacies in England have a reputation to withhold and especially Helios.

Why not e-mail and ask them how they make their remedies? I am sure they would be more than glad to tell you. www.helios.co.uk.

The question is not how do they make them, the question is, how do they ensure efficacy? How do they know that someone didn't put the wrong label on the wrong vial?

[Rolfe]

Originally posted by Corallinus
Now, what is really the point of the reputable homeopathic pharmacies just putting tap water in bottles? It is not really worth their while at all and all the homeopathic pharmacies in England have a reputation to withhold and especially Helios.

Why not e-mail and ask them how they make their remedies? I am sure they would be more than glad to tell you. www.helios.co.uk. You know, Corallinus, if you're not Naturalhealth/Homeoskeptic, you sure do sing from the same hymn sheet.

What we're talking about here is Quality Control and Quality Assurance. Part of that for any normal pharmaceutical manufacturing process is taking a random bottle from the production line and analysing it to make sure it has in it what is supposed to be in it. Yes, these people too are reputable, and what would be the point of them putting fake aspirin in their bottles, and they could tell you in great detail how they make the stuff too. But as well as that they have to be able to analyse it and prove nothing got accidentally mixed up or put on the wrong setting or whatever. What the Don is asking is, how would you do that for a homoeopathic product?

Now it just so happens that I saved a copy of that thread at H'pathy before it was deleted, so I know exactly what was said. A newbie started off by asking how she could be sure that a homoeopathic supplier was supplying the real deal. She was told to use somebody she trusted. She said, quite reasonably, that as a newbie, she didn't know whom to trust. She was then given the names of one or two homoeopathic pharmacies that experienced posters believed were trustworthy. So far so good.

Then Naturalhealth butted in and stated categorically that it was possible to analyse remedies to tell for sure that they really were what they claimed to be. Someone (Benguin?) asked did that only apply to low-potency remedies with molecules in them? Naturalhealth (who may or may not be Corallinus) then stated categorically that it was possible for all remedies. This is preserved in someone's sig line here! (Exarch?)

At this point the irrepressible Exarch spoiled the fun by bouncing in and announcing that if that was so, the person with this analytical secret was a sure thing for the JREF million dollars. And the thread was deleted within half an hour.

A little bird told me that the moderators at H'pathy were very displeased with Naturalhealth for posting such an embarrassing statement, and were speculating whether she might be a troll. They commented that she obviously knew nothing about homoeopathy and her claims to be a trained homoeopath were lies. (Just like her lies about being a qualified doctor, too.) Of course, the fact that such an analysis is impossible is a great embarassment to homoeopaths, and the less deluded of them are very careful never to allow such facts to appear in public if they can possibly help it.

So deal with it, Corallinus.

Rolfe.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Perhaps you can make a homeopathic litmus mixture that turns color when mixed with correctly manufactured homeopathic remedy?

Perhaps someone should buy this:

http://www.chipsbooks.com/goodmanu.htm

Here's another:

http://www.wholehealthnow.com/homeopathy_software/pharmacopia.html

~~ Paul

[Prester John]

Actually i have emailed Helios asking about quality control, we'll see if they answer me.
I did mention both the procedural quality assurance and testing of remedies for quality control. There is a difference you see, and whilst you can have procedures in place that will provide documentary evidence that you've made your magic water as you say you make it, QC of the samples is a little more difficult, and is the topic of this thread..................

[Prester John]

Still no reply from helios.

It is a simple question really.

[Prester John]

Got a reply, they just follow GMP, they're not compliant with the ISO 9000 series although they are working towards it. They perform NO testing on their remedies to confirm potency.


I will repeat for the sake of it:

NO TESTING IS PERFORMED ON REMEDIES AT HELIOS TO CONFIRM THEIR POTENCY.

I should say thank you to the helios homeopathic pharmacy for answering my enquiry, i'm sure the remedies they produce are made in the homeopathically correct way.

However back at ya Corallinus. (and Naturalhealth who insists they do test remedies at Helios).

PJ

[Eos of the Eons]

:D And the truth shall set you......free?

[The Don]

I'm sure they'll (Naturalhealth et al.) insist that the "remedies" are tested, just not for potency. Instead they're tested for errrrmm.......... making sure the labels are on straight and that's what Naturalhealth et al. meant;)

[Kumar]

Originally posted by The Don
I'm sorry of this has been covered man, many times before but....

In the manufacture of, well almost anything, but in particular pharmaceuticals, product is taken "off the line" for testing to ensure that the levels of active ingredients are within tolerance and that nothing nasty has crept in. I suspect that regular testing and submission of the results of these tests form part of the licencing of the production facility.

I just wonder how a similar process would be conducted in a homoeopathic production facility. Clearly, impurirites could be checked but in terms of the amount of active ingredient, do you have to check for its abscence ?

How you check for 29C vs. 30C vs. 31C is beyond me. Any ideas (the more facecious the better)

No need to check. It may depend on toxicity & adverses of the medicine to check. Due to this factor, it holds some special consideration. :)

[The Don]

Originally posted by Kumar
No need to check. It may depend on toxicity & adverses of the medicine to check. Due to this factor, it holds some special consideration. :)
So what you say is that if there are adverse reactions then you'd look into the problem. It's too late by then and anyway you'd have no way of telling whether the person had been misdiagnosed, misprescribed, was the victim of accidental (or deliberate mislabelling) or whether there was a problem with the manufacturing process.

[Prester John]

So Kumar will basically take it on trust that the remedies are manufactured correctly. Are you interested in some cut price remedies i have for sale ?

[Kumar]

Pls differanciate these dictionary definitions:-

Remedy: something that corrects or counteracts.

Medicine: a substance or preparation used in treating disease. A substance (as a drug or potion) used to treat something other than disease.

[The Don]

Homoeopathic preparations are referred to as "remedies" by their manufacturers. I have continued to follow this convention as a courtesy.

You might think that they are not referred to as "medicines" on the grounds that they would then be subject to full scale drug trials (which are expensive and in which they have always performed badly) and to the kinds of inspection of their production facilities and methods outlined in the opening post of this thread. I on the other hand could not possibly comment

[Prester John]

So will you buy a homeopathic remedy fro me Kumar ? I am guessing not,but that is because of your prior knowledge of my stance on homeopathy.

I recall hearing about some chinese medicine that the FDA investigated. It was for impotency, it worked actually. But then it contained Viagra, not something that accidentally gets into your herbal remedy. Now that is not about homeopathy but it does demonstrate how effective trust is as a self regualatory method.

[Rolfe]

"Remedy" means a number of things, but among these it is a slightly old-fashioned word for a medicine. There's nothing subtle about this, it's just that homoeopaths like to use old-fashioned terminology. You could call penicillin a "remedy" too if you wanted to.

Rolfe.

[Kumar]

Originally posted by Prester John
So will you buy a homeopathic remedy fro me Kumar ? I am guessing not,but that is because of your prior knowledge of my stance on homeopathy.



In homeopathy, mental, emotional symptoms can be more important than physical symptoms. If I would want to treat just on physical basis without involving the mind or brain than I may buy it.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

As a representative of the immoral, money-grubbing, death-in-a-bottle-selling pharmaceutical industry, I say we let the homeopaths continue on without interference. In exchange, we will alter our testing and manufacturing processes to match theirs. Y'all have no problem with that, right?

~~ Paul

[Badly Shaved Monkey]

Originally posted by Kumar
If I would want to treat just on physical basis without involving the mind or brain than I may buy it.

At last, a working definition of homeopathic practice: treatment without involving mind or brain.

[Kumar]

BSM, It was for buying from PJ, you are saying just opposite for buying from other regular sources.;)

[Benguin]

Kumar, what do reckon the error rate is in Homeopathic remedy preparation?

[Kumar]

I think it is quality & type active substance, proper potentization process, quality of carriers used etc. Indirect contaminations, as I mentioned, seems to be not in much consideratin, but I feel their effect can be important & so should be considered.

Somewhat you can read here. (http://www.hahnemannlabs.com/preparation.html)

[Rolfe]

Originally posted by Kumar
Somewhat you can read here. (http://www.hahnemannlabs.com/preparation.html) You know, strange though it may seem, I tend to think that these guys mostly really do what they say they do. There's a certain ritualistic mindset there which I think actually wants to perform the spell according to the book.

However, supposing the people were simply in it for the money. They know there's no way at all to tell the difference between a correctly-prepared remedy and the blank pellets. And they probably know pretty well that the customers can't tell the difference either. Somewhat as you can read here (http://www.geocities.com/healthbase/hypothetical_homeopath.html).

What is to stop them offering a cut-price deal simply supplying the blank pellets with the right labels on them? Save a fortune in labour costs and so on, and no way at all to get caught.

You see the dangers of a system you can't quality control?

Kumar, what do you think Prester John is really meaning by his offer of cheap remedies? Might he be trying to make a point here?

Rolfe.

[Benguin]

Ok, I wasn't asking for a description of the efficacy of preparation procedure, I take that as a given.

That link is very informative and interesting, but are they suggesting they have a line of qualified homeopaths banging vials on books? Well no, they have this quinn potentizer machine .. I can't fault the rigour in the preparation of it, but how have they ever tested it to make sure there is no unknown factor in human succusion that has been missed in their device?

In any case, if you do anything enough times you make a mistake, simple fact of life, even with a good machine.

I know of no process where errors don't creep in with sufficient repitition.

Are you postulating Homeopathy is an exception or would you like to speculate on the accuracy of preparation procedures to adhere to the theoretical ideal?

[Kumar]

Rolfe,

I understand PJ's intention to offer plain water or lactose in bottles. However there will be no taste or mimic in that water or lactose.

Benguin,

There may be a relation between checking/re-checking the mistakes & toxicity of the material to be checked.
:D

[Corallinus]

I don't really see what any homeopathic pharmacy would have to gain from not making the remedies properly.

I can only vouch for the pharmacies that I use in England, but as there are not that many it is not in their interests really. Also, all the pharmacies have a very good reputation. The ones that I mainly use are Helios, Ainsworths and Freemans in Scotland, there is also Nelsons and a couple of others I think that produce them.

They have nothing at all to gain from acting in this way.

Also, we all know that we would never buy remedies from PJ anyway. I always buy my remedies from Helios or at times, make them up myself. I do this with the LM potencies that I use a lot.

Why not e-mail some of the pharmacies direct and ask them if they just use plain labelled tap water with no succussion. I can tell you now that you will get laughed at though.

All the people who work in the homeopathic pharmacies are trained pharmacists who have taken courses in homeopathic pharmacy or they are trained and practicing homeopaths.

All the pharmacies have to have a pharmacist present at all times to ensure their quality control.

[Prester John]

I understand PJ's intention to offer plain water or lactose in bottles. However there will be no taste or mimic in that water or lactose.

So you think you can tell the difference between a homeopathically prepared remedy and a fake remedy made with the same carrier ? (when the remedy is of 12C potency or greater, i want mr avogadro on my side).

You could be $1,000,000 richer if you can do that.

[Kumar]

I feel, It should not be difficult for an experianced person provided similar non toxic lighter medicines are also proved accordingly & similarily-- for their effects.

[Zombified]

Originally posted by Corallinus
I don't really see what any homeopathic pharmacy would have to gain from not making the remedies properly.
How would you determine whether a mistake was made during the preparation, regardless of how principled or well-intentioned the preparer? That is, after the fact, without observing the process.

[Benguin]

Kumar & Corallinius

No-one is doubting the sincerity or quality of the homeo labs you use.

But two questions need to be answered;

1. Has anyone established that there automatic potentiser actually produces remedies of the same efficacy as your hand prepared one?

2. Any system (hand or machine) will have an error rate no matter how simple it is. Quality control (in one sense) is simply being aware how to identify the duffers from the successes, and hence, knowing the error rate of your system. The intention is to reduce the duffers that go out.

I've no idea how a medical lab works, but most manufacturing industries I work with use a similar technique. Once a run of product has been set up, the output can be divided into batches, usually based on a uniform supply from batches of raw material.

A sample of each output batch is then taken at random and tested (often destructively) to ensure it is what it says it is.

Even a good factory encounters variations within the batch, and the occasional duff batch ... they decide that if more than, say, 1% of a sample is duff the whole lot gets trashed (or auctioned to market traders to sell unlabelled).

How do the labs you use know if a prep mistake has been made? or what proportion of their remedies are not to spec?

[Kumar]

Benguin,


Better, you read it here. (http://nccam.nih.gov/health/homeopathy/) 6. How does the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulate homeopathic remedies?

[Rolfe]

Corallinus, I can't believe you still don't get it. You're not that dense.

Regular pharmaceutical companies are ethical too. And they have strict procedures in place to ensure that the manufacturing process is correclty performed. And they have pharmacology graduates supervising and all that sort of thing too. And they have no reason to do anything so stupid as trying to sell aspirin tablets with no aspirin in them.

Nevertheless, it is still very important as part of quality control that random samples of product be taken off for analysis to ensure that what is in them is indeed what it says on the bottle. It's the belt in the belt and braces system. It ensures that any inadvertent failures in the procedures are identified so that they can be corrected.

Now as we all know, there's no way at all to tell a bottle of 30C belladonna pills from the blank pills, or from a bottle of 200C pulsatilla. This is the area of concern which is being discussed.

Kumar, you've already started a thread in the "Million Dollar Challenge" forum area, but haven't said anything constructive at all about whether or not you can distinguish a homoeopathic remedy from a chemically-identical sham. If you think homoeopathic preparations have some sort of detectable "taste" or "mimic", then feel free. One million dollars awaits you.

However, think about it. The homoeopaths all know the prize exists. None of them is even trying for the money. All these trained and educated homoeopaths, and nobody knows how to detect this taste or mimic, or if they do , for some reason they neither want the money, nor want the public vindication of winning the Challenge.

The reason is that they know it can't be done. Do you think you know something they don't?

Rolfe.

[Benguin]

Originally posted by Rolfe
Regular pharmaceutical companies are ethical too. And they have strict procedures in place to ensure that the manufacturing process is correclty performed. And they have pharmacology graduates supervising and all that sort of thing too. And they have no reason to do anything so stupid as trying to sell aspirin tablets with no aspirin in them.

Whether or not they are ethical is beside the point, if they produced fake medication it would be identified easily and proven easily. If the aspirin was suspected chalk dust then just give a fatal dose to a mouse and see what happens.

How do we do this with a Homeopathic remedy? that is all we are asking? A method that doesn't involve killing rodents would be more than acceptable.

Kumar, the US FDA comment is interesting, more for what it does not say than what it says ....

Because of their long use in the United States, the U.S. Congress passed a law in 1938 declaring that homeopathic remedies are to be regulated by the FDA in the same manner as nonprescription, over-the-counter (OTC) drugs, which means that they can be purchased without a physician's prescription.


No bad thing. But not an endorsement either.


Today, although conventional prescription drugs and new OTC drugs must undergo thorough testing and review by the FDA for safety and effectiveness before they can be sold, this requirement does not apply to homeopathic remedies.

I wonder why ... so their safety and effectiveness are not verified.

I'm afraid you've advanced a logical fallacy, ignoratio elenchi , your evidence here weakens your case more than strengthens it.

Remedies on the market before 1962 have been accepted into the Homeopathic Pharmacopoeia of the United States based on historical use, rather than scientific evidence from clinical trials.

I'd love to know how they went about accepting anything post-62.

I notice from the link they've used to verify no side-effects (due to no active ingredients) the FDA were not at all happy with the US labs. (http://www.fda.gov/fdac/features/096_home.html). Unfortunately, I live in the UK and we don't really have anybody charged with monitoring bottles of water so we don't know what Helios is really like. It falls in a grey area between trading standards and, presumably, the RPS.

[Rolfe]

Originally posted by Benguin
Whether or not they are ethical is beside the point, if they produced fake medication it would be identified easily and proven easily. If the aspirin was suspected chalk dust then just give a fatal dose to a mouse and see what happens.Well, exactly my point. Corallinus and the rest of the homoeopaths repeatedly answer this question by banging on about how ethical the homoeopathic pharmacies are, and how they can be trusted to perform the ritual of the remedy preparation meticulously. I'm pointing out that regular pharmaceutical companies are no less ethical and no less meticulous, but post-production quality analysis is still important.

Pretty telling that the homoeopaths don't do it, because it's impossible.

I don't think you need to give aspirin to mice, that wouldn't be a very precise test of content anyway. I suspect that HPLC would be involved somewhere.

Kumar, all the FDA regs say is that homoeopathic remedies should be prepared how the homoeopaths dictate! Not much quality assurance there.

Rolfe.

[Benguin]

Well I'm no Pharmacologist (I have a sneaking suspicion you are, or something Bio-chemical ... ).

I reckon even I or Kumar/Corral could prove the point by killing a few mice though. Unless, that is, they are allergic Calcium Carbonate.

Are there any regular medicines out there (OTC or otherwise) for which a corroborative test does not exist?

I've heard some of the anti-depressives are on shaky ground for efficacy, but presumably 'active' ingredients could be found in a lab?

[Kumar]

Some sprituality, belief, honesty & good faith means few good things may still exist in few good systems.

[Benguin]

I'm not clear what you are trying to get at, do you think you could explain it to me step by step and show where belief/faith fits in?

[Zombified]

Originally posted by Benguin
I've heard some of the anti-depressives are on shaky ground for efficacy, but presumably 'active' ingredients could be found in a lab? Absolutely. The question of whether the contents of the bottle are actually what's printed on the label is completely seperate from whether it does what the advert claims. QC is purely the first, and is just a chemical test, generally a straightforward procedure.

The problem for the homeopath is that they claim 12C and 100C are different, but they have no way of distinguishing the two.

[Prester John]

Originally posted by Corallinus
I don't really see what any homeopathic pharmacy would have to gain from not making the remedies properly.

I can only vouch for the pharmacies that I use in England, but as there are not that many it is not in their interests really. Also, all the pharmacies have a very good reputation. The ones that I mainly use are Helios, Ainsworths and Freemans in Scotland, there is also Nelsons and a couple of others I think that produce them.

They have nothing at all to gain from acting in this way.

More Profits?

Also, we all know that we would never buy remedies from PJ anyway. I always buy my remedies from Helios or at times, make them up myself. I do this with the LM potencies that I use a lot.

That is because you have prior knowledge of my views about homeopathy, how do you know i don't work at Helios ?



Why not e-mail some of the pharmacies direct and ask them if they just use plain labelled tap water with no succussion. I can tell you now that you will get laughed at though.

Thats not the point, and anyway how do we know if they are lying ? People do that now and then .


All the people who work in the homeopathic pharmacies are trained pharmacists who have taken courses in homeopathic pharmacy or they are trained and practicing homeopaths.

So not real pharmacists but homeopaths. Additionally once more you ignore the point.This thread is not about the honesty of homeopathic pharmacies but about their ability to prove their remedies are what they claim them to be.

All the pharmacies have to have a pharmacist present at all times to ensure their quality control.

Yes but there is no way for you to test the actual remesies to differentiate between a 30C and a 40C potency. You are relying on the honesty of the homeopathic pharmacies. Whilst i believe that most people are honest, a lot are not. You cannot prove your remedies are what you say they are. You cannot prove your remedies do what you say they do.

Corralinus, what do you say about the inability, as confirmed by Helios, to actually test their remedies?

[Prester John]

Why not e-mail some of the pharmacies direct and ask them if they just use plain labelled tap water with no succussion. I can tell you now that you will get laughed at though

Major Strawman as well btw, we have never said this :D

[Psiload]

Question for Corallinus:

If I were to walk into Helios "Pharmacy", purchase several of their "remedies", walk out to the parking lot and empty half of the bottles and refill them with plain, old distilled water, and then march back into the building and challenge them to determine which was which... do you think they'd have the foggiest notion as to how to go about doing so?

How about if I offered them a million dollars for their troubles?

Companies like Pfizer and Merck will do it for free. Matter of fact... they're required by law to do just that.

[Rolfe]

Originally posted by Benguin
Well I'm no Pharmacologist (I have a sneaking suspicion you are, or something Bio-chemical ... ).Sorry, I thought you knew. I'm a veterinary clinical pathologist, with clinical biochemistry my specialist subject. I'm not that well up on drug assay techniques, but the toxicology lab we use seems to use HPLC a lot.

I guess you could tell whether or not there was something potentially toxic in the pills by dosing mice, but it would be very difficult indeed to tell aspirin from paracetamol without actually analysing something (OK, I know the toxic effects are different, but still, you'd analyse to confirm), and there's no way at all you could reliably tell 50 mg aspirin from 300 mg aspirin without an assay. I don't think it's exactly rocket science though!

Reading the homoepathy forums, I notice that quite often when someone reports that a remedy didn't work as expected, one of the suggested problems is often that it might have been purchased from an unreliable pharmacy. And there's some discrepancy between different posters about whom they recognise as "reliable".

Now if there were any suspicions at all that a regular pharmaceutical manufacturer was selling dud aspirin or paracetamol, it would be simplicity itself to get a sample of the product and simply analyse it to see if it had the right active ingredient in the right quantity. Seems to me that however implicitly Corallinus trusts Helios, there are other outfits out there about whom certain suspicions are held. Hey, maybe they're even pulling PJ's trick!

How to tell? No way at all! Is this what you want to trust your health to?

Rolfe.

[geni]

Originally posted by Rolfe
Sorry, I thought you knew. I'm a veterinary clinical pathologist, with clinical biochemistry my specialist subject. I'm not that well up on drug assay techniques, but the toxicology lab we use seems to use HPLC a lot.


The matrix for a drug though should be a lot simpular than what you are doing so if you simply want to know if the stuff is present a solvent extraction folowed by a simple IR scan should be enough.

[Benguin]

Originally posted by Rolfe
Sorry, I thought you knew. I'm a veterinary clinical pathologist, with clinical biochemistry my specialist subject. I'm not that well up on drug assay techniques, but the toxicology lab we use seems to use HPLC a lot.


I guessed you might veterinary and biochemical ... but didn't know.

I'm a highway engineer turned DB programmer, so I'm really on the edge of my knowledge with this stuff .... I could argue I'm descended from an incredible pharmicist, but that would be specious.


I guess you could tell whether or not there was something potentially toxic in the pills by dosing mice, but it would be very difficult indeed to tell aspirin from paracetamol without actually analysing something (OK, I know the toxic effects are different, but still, you'd analyse to confirm), and there's no way at all you could reliably tell 50 mg aspirin from 300 mg aspirin without an assay. I don't think it's exactly rocket science though!


I wasn't being nearly that scientific. I assume the fatal dose of aspirin for a mouse is known, assuming we are distinguishing between chalk dust and aspirin we've all we need to know then to work out if a packet of aspirin is bogus. Bear in mind we are comparing tap water to memory water with an unestablished 'efficacy'.

I was trying to reduce the concept to very simple terms for Kumar.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Psiload said:
If I were to walk into Helios "Pharmacy", purchase several of their "remedies", walk out to the parking lot and empty half of the bottles and refill them with plain, old distilled water, and then march back into the building and challenge them to determine which was which... do you think they'd have the foggiest notion as to how to go about doing so?
Excellent. Another approach: Leave the bottles out in the rain by mistake. The labels wash off. Take them back and ask the pharmacy to tell you which is which.

Wait a minute . . .

. . . I just sent an email to Helios with this question.

~~ Paul

[Eos of the Eons]

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

Excellent. Another approach: Leave the bottles out in the rain by mistake. The labels wash off. Take them back and ask the pharmacy to tell you which is which.

Wait a minute . . .

. . . I just sent an email to Helios with this question.

~~ Paul

I'm sure they will "guess", just doubt they can tell you how.

[Rolfe]

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

Excellent. Another approach: Leave the bottles out in the rain by mistake. The labels wash off. Take them back and ask the pharmacy to tell you which is which.

Wait a minute . . .

. . . I just sent an email to Helios with this question.

~~ Paul I thought about this one a couple of days ago, but concluded you'd never get a straight answer out of them. Why? Because they'd simply parrot what a real pharmacist would do if this happened to real medicines.

If it was a relatively trivial mix-up, the pills could be sorted by physical appearance - colour, shape, size etc. These are recorded, and pharmacists have exact data for everything. I have a feeling that you're not allowed to produce pills exactly the same as somebody else's something else - at least, there are coded letters on the things. So the first move would be to sort them out like that.

Of course, the homoeopaths use the same blank lactose or sucrose pills for everything, so this wouldn't apply, but they'd still weasel.

And the real get-out is the real pharmacist's absolute back-stop. In case of the slightest doubt, destroy the pills and re-dispense. They'd never go to the bother of ordering a specialist toxicology assay just to sort out a mis-labelled bottle of pills. So I'd take a large bet the homoeopaths will simply declare that the standard procedure in case of mix-up is destroy and re-dispense, and this is just the same for real medicine, so go away, Paul.

Rolfe.

[geni]

How about we have found an old (100 year) bottle of a homeopathic remedy but the lable has been damaged so we don't know what it is and we would be intersted in knowing. Of course I can think of problems with this as well.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Yes, Rolfe, that's obviously the right thing for the homeopathist to say. Maybe we could just say we're interested in knowing how they would determine which was which?

I guess not.

~~ Paul

[Prester John]

Where have all the homeopaths gone?

[EHocking]

Originally posted by Benguin

....
Kumar, the US FDA comment is interesting, more for what it does not say than what it says ....
....
Unfortunately, I live in the UK and we don't really have anybody charged with monitoring bottles of water so we don't know what Helios is really like. It falls in a grey area between trading standards and, presumably, the RPS.
Benguin, there certainly are regulators of Homeopathic preparations, including certain legislature in particular to Vetinerary application and administration.

I've quoted the House of Lords study on Complementary and Alternative medicines previously on this forum but here is the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regualtory Agency description of governing laws on homeopathy in the UK:
http://medicines.mhra.gov.uk/ourwork/licensingmeds/types/homoeopathic.htm

As well as the Guidance for for Manufacturers and Suppliers (a PDF) :
http://www.mca.gov.uk/inforesources/publications/gn17.pdf

Note these points under eligibility for registration:

- There must be no specific therapeutic indication included in the labeling or in any information relating to the product.
- It must be sufficiently dilute to guarantee safety.
- It must contain no more than one part per 10,000 of the mother tincture, and, where the active principle is a prescription only medicine (POM), it must contain no more than on part per 100 of the smallest dose used in allopathic medicine.

And yes, while a "Qualified Person" is required to oversee the manufacture, and this QP is not not required to be a Pharmicist as some poster has insisted previously. They can be a Chemist or a Biologist. They are there only to ensure the required tests and controls are carried out in accordance with the legal manufacturing and supply requirements.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Here is Helios's response to my query:
Dear Paul

Sorry there is no way of telling what the remedies in the bottles are now.

Regards Helios
I replied and asked that if this is so, how do they do manufacturing quality control?

~~ Paul

[Rolfe]

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos
I replied and asked that if this is so, how do they do manufacturing quality control?I fear they'll spot the intent behind that and activate brush-off mode. Do let us know wat they say!

Rolfe.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Further information from Helios:
Dear Paul

No one has yet invented a machine for measuring the energy of homeopathic
remedies. We quality control the material in the remedies such as the
alcohol, the carriers and the tinctures. It is a facinating area of
research, measuring energy remedies.

Regards Helios (Judi)

[The Don]

Perhaps they'd like to purchase my patent Invisible Pink Unicorn Enumerator (only $199,999.99) to assist them

[Psiload]

Originally posted by The Don
Perhaps they'd like to purchase my patent Invisible Pink Unicorn Enumerator (only $199,999.99) to assist them Heck... I'll be happy to sell them my Angels-dancing-on-the-head-of-a-pin Tabul-O-Meter for half that price. Dancing angels... another fascinating area of research.

[Psiload]

No one has yet invented a machine for measuring the energy of homeopathic.Correction:

No one has yet invented a machine for measuring the existence of homeopathic remedies.

There, that's better.

[Hellbound]

You know, all this brings up another point.

Forget quality control, how do they even know their processes are correctly producing the remedies? I mean, if there's no way to test them, how do they know that they aren't improperly shaking their 200Cs so that they're really only 20Cs? How in the world could you develop a process in the first place when you have no way to distinguish the results of that process?

It boggles the mind.

[Corallinus]

Hey, give them some credit. I think that all the people who work in the homeopathic pharmacies and the pharmacies themselves have been around long enough to know the difference between a 200 and a 30c potency.

Why don't you e-mail them if you really want to know more. They are normally very helpful indeed and are more than happy to answer legitimate questions regarding remedy preparation. It is either www.helios.co.uk or www.ainsworths.com.

[Hellbound]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Corallinus
[B]Hey, give them some credit. I think that all the people who work in the homeopathic pharmacies and the pharmacies themselves have been around long enough to know the difference between a 200 and a 30c potency.[QUOTE]

You missed the point.

How did the first person ever discover there was a difference? What if the machine or person that does the 200C succussion is out of alignment or uses an improper technique? How the heck would you figure out it's improper?

You completely missed the point here. How do YOU know that your 200C ptentcy is different from your 30C? Is there ANY relaible way to test, without "endangering" humans and animals?

In other words, assuming it actually did work, there's no way to test it until someone needs it, and when someone needs it it's a little late to be testing, isn't it?

The whole system is based on someone's guess...there's no way to determine that any potency above 12c is different from any other. How can you show that potentcy doesn't decrease after 12c? Maybe, according to an inverse less-is-more homeopathic law, effect actually decreases at ptencies higher than 12c?

No one can show this. It's simply not possible. Even helios replied that it is not possible.

Really, the whole thing's a house of cards with a mansion built on it. No one wants to poke too hard at the foundation.

[Corallinus]

I use Helios above the other pharmacies, not because of anything at all to do with the quality of their remedies, but because they are just more helpful than any of the others seem to be. They are quicker too and that really is the only reason. I did use Freemans in Scotland on one occassion and they were very good too.

If a chosen remedy does not work, the quality of the remedy is not the first thing that you would look at. If a chosen remedy does not work you firstly need to ask if it was the right remedy in the first place and then go from there. Also, did the patient in fact take the remedy in the first place.

These are the questions one would ask first before looking at the quality of the remedy.

[Corallinus]

Well basically what you do is give the remedy to the patient. You will expect to see different effects with different potencies and different effects in the patient as you go up in potency too.

[Prester John]

Originally posted by Corallinus
Well basically what you do is give the remedy to the patient. You will expect to see different effects with different potencies and different effects in the patient as you go up in potency too.

Except of course if you introduce blinding, whereby all the effects disapear. Funny that.

Why should we believe you ?

[Hellbound]

Originally posted by Corallinus
If a chosen remedy does not work, the quality of the remedy is not the first thing that you would look at. If a chosen remedy does not work you firstly need to ask if it was the right remedy in the first place and then go from there. Also, did the patient in fact take the remedy in the first place.

These are the questions one would ask first before looking at the quality of the remedy.

So, as a corrallary, I get a bottle of white pills from someone who tells me they are Vicadin. I take them for pain from a sprained ankle. If they don't work, the first thing I should do is try a different drug, rather than determine if it was actually Vicadin to begin with?

Thanks for confirming my reasoning in NEVER using a homeopath for any sort of treatment.

[Psiload]

Corallinus wrote:

Hey, give them some credit. I think that all the people who work in the homeopathic pharmacies and the pharmacies themselves have been around long enough to know the difference between a 200 and a 30c potency.

Go figger' they've chosen to eschew the easy million smackers and continue on with their work-a-day magic water shaking drudgery.

I'll give them credit for their dedication. If I posessed magical powers, I'd snatch Randi's cash and tell my boss to take my position and fill it.

I'm kooky like that.

[AlienX]

I suppose you could test the "Waters" quality, simply measuring the resistance will be an excellent indicator. The lower the resistance the more "impurities" that are present. If it's got a low resistance then it can't possibly be homeopathic - if it's <18mOhm then by definition it's like dirty dish water (at the levels were talking its more like a dirty slurry relatively) :-).

Main thing which really strikes me as being odd with Homeoapthy is the basic fact that when it started out a hundred odd years ago - without perfect clean room and a top of the range modern RO water unit how the hell do you get water pure enough to make these solutions in the first place?
A good modern RO unit will produce water of >18mOhm, a hundred years ago this wasn't possible!? - even this level of purity isn't good enough though :-).

When you make RO water in the lab it's got a shelf life of hours - depending upon its application. Thus not being totally up on the administation of these solutions they must be prepared at the time of use otherwise your solution is hideously contaminated.
To say a few atoms / molecules of contamination have no effect means that according to them homeopathy has no effect - you cant argue a mechinism to fit only what you like and ignore the other implications.

So miniscule contamination via the water used in the preparations according to their methodology must have a large impact at higher dilutions. If they say it doesn't then they are saying homeopathy does not work, If they say it does then they are saying homeopathy works but it's beyond the capabilities of anyone to produce them due to the inherant contamination issues.
The mind boggles at this as I can't personally see a way out of this argument for homeopathy - the water they use simply isn't pure enough - if they claim the water is "pure enough" for the application then they are saying Homeopathy doesn't work (well it can have a placebo effect?).

Would be interesting to see their analysis of the water they use as this is their basic raw material. Even more interesting would be seeing their shelf life data - as from my experience your talking a few hours max before the solution would be ruined via airborn contamination.

AX

[Kumar]

Some are standard/common contaminaions. I therefore mentioned:

carriers + contaminations as common in all types of remedies. The net differanciating effects should be due to active substance & potency differance in "molecular lower potencies" & due to potency differance in " ultra molecular higher remedies " in consideration of modren science present knowledge.

[Doc Dish]

Originally posted by Corallinus
...It is either www.helios.co.uk or www.ainsworths.com.

Interestingly, on the Ainsworths On-line magazine, under Developments in Homeopathic Research (http://www.ainsworths.com./onlinemagazine/ASPmag.asp?Article=17) I found the following...
Apart from forming multiple clusters of molecules (dimers, trimers etc), water has the ability to form large domains of up to 1015 molecules by hydrogen bonding.
Does this mean that Penta™ Water is homeopathic?

Also, the Developments in Homeopathic Research show (un)surprisingly little actual research...
Succussion does something but what? Succussion, that vigorous shaking at each stage of dilution, obviously has an important part to play in establishing an effect in the medium but this may be chemical or physical in nature.
...and then descends into a whinge about bias towards conventional medicine for insisting on proving that a drug is safe and effective before actually giving it to someone. For shame.

[Badly Shaved Monkey]

Cyril Smith has recorded frequencies in water and shown this to be time dependant. Homeopathy seems to be a resonance effect.

Frequencies in water, eh? I should have known that was the explanation.

I have been a fool to doubt homeopathy.