Jeanette Winterson defends homeopathy

[Thing]

Jeanette Winterson, so-so author who never met a woo idea she didn't like (she used Tarot to choose which house to buy, I seem to remember) is paid by the Gaurdian to write a long, rambling, self important article defending homeopathy and gives the fee to the Maun homeopathy project, a clinic in Botswana.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,2209998,00.html

Typical quote:

Quote:

Objections to homeopathy begin with what are viewed as the impossible dilutions of the remedies, so that only nano amounts of the original active substance remain, and in some cases are only an imprint, or memory. Yet our recent discoveries in the world of the very small point to a whole new set of rules for the behaviour of nano-quantities. Thundering around in our Gulliver world, we were first shocked to find that splitting the atom allowed inconceivable amounts of energy to be released. Now, we are discovering that the properties of materials change as their size reaches the nano-scale. Bulk material should have constant physical properties, regardless of its size, but at the nano-scale this is not the case. In a solvent, such as water, nano particles can remain suspended, neither floating nor sinking, but permeating the solution. Such particles are also able to pass through cell walls, and they can cause biochemical change.

She also boasts that she reads 'New Scientist' every week.

[Mashuna]

Originally Posted by Thing

Jeanette Winterson, so-so author who never met a woo idea she didn't like (she used Tarot to choose which house to buy, I seem to remember) is paid by the Gaurdian to write a long, rambling, self important article defending homeopathy and gives the fee to the Maun homeopathy project, a clinic in Botswana.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,2209998,00.html

Hey, Oranges are Not the Only Fruit was a great book! As to the rest, this is why I don't take medical advice from authors.

Originally Posted by Thing

She also boasts that she reads 'New Scientist' every week.

She boasts that she 'takes' New Scientist every week. From what she's written, I'm not so sure about reading it .

[Mojo]

She also sees herself as trying to prevent a new "Dark Ages". Here's an excerpt from an interview published in the Bookseller 17th August 2007, p.19:

Quote:

I think of myself as a little scribe in the great abbeys of Cluny or Fontainbleu during the Dark Ages, desperately trying to hold onto something to pass on to another generation – I do! Because I think there is a bit of a Dark Ages in some ways, and I do think things need protecting and valuing.

I'm not convinced that she's part of the solution.

Here's another newspaper article: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/lif...cle1160470.ece

[Blue Wode]

Originally Posted by Thing

Jeanette Winterson, so-so author who never met a woo idea she didn't like (she used Tarot to choose which house to buy, I seem to remember) is paid by the Gaurdian to write a long, rambling, self important article defending homeopathy and gives the fee to the Maun homeopathy project, a clinic in Botswana.

-snip-

She also boasts that she reads 'New Scientist' every week.

According to Dana Ullman (MPH) she’s one of the literary greats...
http://www.homeopathicrevolution.com...f_contents.jsp

He puts her right up there with Yeats, Tennyson, Dickens, and Barbara Cartland.

[Nero]

As Ben Goldacre of BadScience fame was name checked in the article, a link to a discussion on this over at BadSience.net

http://badscience.net/forum/viewforum.php?f=3

[Alan G]

Quote:

This seems to be partly why tests used for conventional medicines fail when used to test homeopathy. Sceptics will say it is the medicines that fail, and not the trials, but if the medicines really are ineffective, why is it that so many people who have tried homeopathy have found that it makes a difference to their wellbeing?

Yes that's right, it's the tests that are broken, and the more people that believe something the truer it gets, absolutely spot on there.

[woowoowoo]

After taking one homeopathy tablet before going to bed,I fell into a particularly deep sleep and awoke to find my weeks long illness gone. Coincidence? placebo? Maybe - I didn't care, I was just glad to be well again.

My family were impressed and when my mum became ill she visited the same Homeopath and had a positive experience as well.

The Doctors had failed both myself and my mum - not his fault, he just didn't have anything that worked for us.

Would I use Homeopathy again? Sure, if the Doctor can't help.

But it doesn't work?

Well, I'll give it a go, anyway. It's my time and money.

It makes no sense?

I agree.

[Tirdun]

Originally Posted by woowoowoo

It makes no sense?
I agree.

I assume by "sick" you don't mean appendicitis or something that average, healthy adults won't simply get over in the normal course of things. Please make sure you seperate those categories and only take homeopathic meds for things like a cold or sore throat. You'll save your loved ones a traumatic trip to the ER. Also I beg you not to have or treat any children for illnesses.

[Cuddles]

Nano? Wow, she really has no clue what she is talking about.

[Thing]

Originally Posted by Mashuna

Hey, Oranges are Not the Only Fruit was a great book!

I found the TV adaptation to be very entertaining, it told an interesting story well, but the book I feel contains a lot of extraneous fluff which they were wise to cut out.

Anyway, couldn't she do more for the world by funding that elusive successful test of homeopathy that finally causes it to be accepted by the mainstream?

[Rolfe]

Originally Posted by Cuddles

Nano? Wow, she really has no clue what she is talking about.

My thoughts exactly. Every day I measure concentrations in biological fluids down to the nmol/l range. Some analytes even go down as far as pmol/l. (One thousandth of a nanomole.) Nothing unusual about it, and plenty biologically active. Whether taking a dose of a fraction of an ml of a solution in the nmol/l bracket would do anything is another story of course, but I doubt if she's thought so far.

Scientifically illiterate.

Pity she didn't mention Rao and Roy, really.

Rolfe.

[Madalch]

Originally Posted by Mashuna

She boasts that she 'takes' New Scientist every week. From what she's written, I'm not so sure about reading it.

Obviously, she took a page from one issue, succussed it with water to make a mother tincture, then diluted it down to C30, and she takes some of -that- every week.

[Blue Wode]

The Denialism duo have written a great critique of Ms Winterson's article:

http://scienceblogs.com/denialism/20...homeopathy.php

[Mojo]

Originally Posted by Cuddles

Nano? Wow, she really has no clue what she is talking about.

I'm sure she must mean "no-no".

Damn Grauniad typos!

[Blue Wode]

Another great critique.

Quote:

Jeanette Winterson has written In defence of Homeopathy in the Guardian. To save you having to read through her long-winded and meaningless article, I have translated it for you.

http://www.dougalstanton.net/blog/in...e-indefensible

[Big Les]

Originally Posted by woowoowoo

After taking one homeopathy tablet before going to bed,I fell into a particularly deep sleep and awoke to find my weeks long illness gone. Coincidence? placebo? Maybe - I didn't care, I was just glad to be well again.

My family were impressed and when my mum became ill she visited the same Homeopath and had a positive experience as well.

The Doctors had failed both myself and my mum - not his fault, he just didn't have anything that worked for us.

Would I use Homeopathy again? Sure, if the Doctor can't help.

But it doesn't work?

Well, I'll give it a go, anyway. It's my time and money.

It makes no sense?

I agree.

Your post is actually quite refreshing. You admit there's no evidence, that you don't know or care about efficacy - you've read criticisms but would rather ignore them because you just want to feel better. If all the woos just admitted that, we'd leave them alone! But no, they have to find pseudo-scientific justifications for their BS that draw more people in who might otherwise realise it's all a load of bollocks. Ignoring the criticisms and then making stuff up and flogging (or advocating) it to people, especially in lieu of proper treatments, is what we object to.

[Mojo]

The Little Black Duck has blogged on it.

[steenkh]

Originally Posted by Mojo

The Little Black Duck has blogged on it.

"Jeanette Winterson in Blistering Attack on Homeopathy": Did the "Little Black Duck" get this right?

[Blue Bubble]

Originally Posted by Mojo

The Little Black Duck has blogged on it.

Brilliant

[Calcas]

Part of her typical quote.

"In a solvent, such as water, nano particles can remain suspended, neither floating nor sinking, but permeating the solution. Such particles are also able to pass through cell walls, and they can cause biochemical change."

That's actually a brilliant pile of rubbish. I'm surprised that the makers of that bunk like "Head-On" and others don't actually try that whole line of Marketing.

"It works because the active ingredients are so small they can actually pass through cell walls and cause biochemical change."

The idiots would think, "that makes sense."

[Big Les]

Originally Posted by steenkh

"Jeanette Winterson in Blistering Attack on Homeopathy": Did the "Little Black Duck" get this right?

It's satire.

[Liszt]

Originally Posted by Big Les

Your post is actually quite refreshing. You admit there's no evidence, that you don't know or care about efficacy - you've read criticisms but would rather ignore them because you just want to feel better. If all the woos just admitted that, we'd leave them alone! But no, they have to find pseudo-scientific justifications for their BS that draw more people in who might otherwise realise it's all a load of bollocks. Ignoring the criticisms and then making stuff up and flogging (or advocating) it to people, especially in lieu of proper treatments, is what we object to.

I was once prescribed homeopathic treatmment by my doctor, who is a wise and brilliant man. (for shingles, which is something you never want to get). It worked completely - 2 days later and it was gone.

What does this mean?

[Nero]

Originally Posted by Liszt

I was once prescribed homeopathic treatmment by my doctor, who is a wise and brilliant man. (for shingles, which is something you never want to get). It worked completely - 2 days later and it was gone.

What does this mean?

What does it mean? Absolutely nothing. I too have suffered from shingles, I sympathise, it's not nice. The last time I had shingles, I took nothing, within a week it was gone.

It is self limiting (i.e. the visible symptoms go away), had it perhaps just run its course?

(I know that shingles never actually goes away, but the symptoms do.)

Just because something appears to work, doesn't mean that it does.

[Liszt]

Originally Posted by Nero

What does it mean? Absolutely nothing. I too have suffered from shingles, I sympathise, it's not nice. The last time I had shingles, I took nothing, within a week it was gone.

It is self limiting (i.e. the visible symptoms go away), had it perhaps just run its course?

(I know that shingles never actually goes away, but the symptoms do.)

Just because something appears to work, doesn't mean that it does.

You are probably right. But I was wondering what was going on in my doctors mind. Did he just prescribe a placebo? I have seen him about 6 times, and he only used homeopathic treatment once.

(yes, I had the symptoms for a week - took the med after 5 days, gone 2 days later)

[geni]

Originally Posted by Calcas

Part of her typical quote.

"In a solvent, such as water, nano particles can remain suspended, neither floating nor sinking, but permeating the solution. Such particles are also able to pass through cell walls, and they can cause biochemical change."

That's actually a brilliant pile of rubbish. I'm surprised that the makers of that bunk like "Head-On" and others don't actually try that whole line of Marketing.

"It works because the active ingredients are so small they can actually pass through cell walls and cause biochemical change."

The idiots would think, "that makes sense."

Well yes. The statment is completely true as long as you consider say an amino acid to be a nano particle.

[Nero]

Originally Posted by Liszt

I was wondering what was going on in my doctors mind

You'll have to ask your Doctor that one, else we'll just be supposing.

I bit like Homeopaths I guess.

[Liszt]

Originally Posted by Nero

You'll have to ask your Doctor that one, else we'll just be supposing.

I bit like Homeopaths I guess.

"10 years ago, you prescribed..." etc. He wouldn't go for it! He'd probably call security or something.

oh well. let's hope i get another attck, so I can not take aything and see what happens.

[Rolfe]

Sigh. We hear this time and time again. If the half of it was really as it was told, we wouldn't need controlled trials to convince reasonable people that there was an effect there, it would be self-evident, right up there with logs float and bricks fall downwards.

The fact is that very few people run around telling everybody about how they tried homoeopathy, and nothing happened. Like me. I was taken to a homoeopath for acne when I was about 14. Nothing happened. Does that prove homoeopathy doesn't work? Of course not. But the success stories, even cherry-picked and collected together as the homoeopaths like to do, prove nothing either.

What homoeopathy simply has to prove is that on average, homoeopathy is better than doing nothing. (Controlled of course for the effect of the therapeutic consultation, also known as the Hawthorne effect, where people tend to report feeling better just because they have had attention paid to them, not because of anything that was done.)

Every time anyone makes a reasonable fist of demonstrating that, this self-evident effect, this positive miracle cure, shyly retreats to the borders of statistical significance.

I do wonder why.

Rolfe.

[Mojo]

Originally Posted by Calcas

Part of her typical quote.

"In a solvent, such as water, nano particles can remain suspended, neither floating nor sinking, but permeating the solution. Such particles are also able to pass through cell walls, and they can cause biochemical change."

That's actually a brilliant pile of rubbish.

Well she does say (from the Bookseller interview quoted above):

Quote:

People are afraid of talking gibberish, afraid of writing things down which frighten them by their meaninglessness. Sometimes you have to do that.

I guess the "cell walls" bit would explain why homoeopathy works on vegetables.

[CB1]

Having read the article on Tuesday I immediately wrote an e-mail and fired it off to the letters page of the guardian and to Jeanette Winterson's agent asking them to forward it on. This was the e-mail.

"Having just read your article on Homeopathy in today's guardian, I would like to propose something. Could we arrange a meeting where you would attend having first procured a bottle of Homeopathic sleeping pills. I will then proceed to take the entire bottle and spend the next 5 hours, fully awake and explaining why your article and your understanding of Homeopathy and the scientific method is so inherently flawed.

Can I also presume you support other "alternative" therapies such as Reiki, Crystal healing and psychic surgery? After all, they all have testimonies of millions of people who claim the remedies work for them. They also share a very important characteristics with Homeopathy. Whenever they have undergone double blind clinical trial, they have all failed miserably. It's no good scratching your head trying to work out HOW homeopathy works, when all tests show that it doesn't work at all. It's a bit like spending your time trying to work out if Santa Claus could fit down chimney's without actually finding any evidence to suggest he IS going down them. Do the tests again and again, and if ever they produce a positive result, then come back and the scientific community will take notice and look into why the particular reaction is occurring. It is called "alternative medicine" for a reason; it doesn't work. If it did work, it would just be called "medicine."

So, I'll state my suggestion again. I will take an entire bottle of homeopathic sleeping tablets and somehow manage to stave off the sleep inducing effects of a pure water induced by the magic "homeopathic remedy." And I would also suggest that you start promoting every other form of healing to which people testify it worked."

I shall keep checking my inbox for a response, but I won't hold my breath.

Regards

CB

[Rolfe]

Now that's actually rather good (if you overlook the greengrocer's apostrophe!).

Shouting about the sleeping pill demonstration to actual homoeopaths usually accomplishes nothing, because they will reply
A. That the pills do not make one drowsy, they cure insomnia. If one is suffering from insomnia, they will help, but they will do nothing to someone who isn't. (I don't remember being told why they won't cause proving symptoms....)
B. That a dose is a dose is a dose. The whole bottle or one pill, it's all the same. So it's not like scarfing 28 Temazepam in a sitting, not at all.

However, posed to a muddle-head like that woman, who is probably not versed in the subtle art of homoeopathic excuse-generating, it might actually cause a small pause for reflection.

Rolfe.

[Thing]

Originally Posted by Rolfe

Shouting about the sleeping pill demonstration to actual homoeopaths usually accomplishes nothing, because they will reply
A. That the pills do not make one drowsy, they cure insomnia. If one is suffering from insomnia, they will help, but they will do nothing to someone who isn't. (I don't remember being told why they won't cause proving symptoms....)
B. That a dose is a dose is a dose. The whole bottle or one pill, it's all the same. So it's not like scarfing 28 Temazepam in a sitting, not at all.

However, posed to a muddle-head like that woman, who is probably not versed in the subtle art of homoeopathic excuse-generating, it might actually cause a small pause for reflection.

I doubt it, she's got a personal homeopath who'll whisk up a dose of no snake venom at the drop of a hat and must be on a decent retainer (she mentions on her slightly terrifying website that she believes in paying her staff well 'cos she's working class), I'm sure he/she keeps her well briefed.

[Nero]

I’m sure most of you have seen the reply article written by Ben Goldacre and published in today’s Guardian.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/20...sciencenews.g2

I know it’s on the JREF home page, but for the completeness of this thread I thought I’d link to it from here.

Lots of comments at Ben’s site:

http://www.badscience.net/

[Rolfe]

That is one of the best pieces of writing I've seen in a while.

Rolfe.

[Deetee]

Originally Posted by Rolfe

That is one of the best pieces of writing I've seen in a while.

Rolfe.

Seconded.

[Blue Wode]

An update.

Denis MacEoin…

Quote:

He has been married to homoeopath and health writer Beth MacEoin since 1975. Beth is the author of around 20 books on natural health, including the NMS book, Natural Medicine: A practical guide to family Health, which was published by Bloomsbury at the end of 1999, and "Homeopathy: Medicine for the 21st Century" (Kyle Cathie, 2006).

An advocate of alternative medicine since the 1960s, he has in more recent years taken a serious interest in the sociology and politics of medicine, and in the relations between CAM and conventional therapy. He regularly lectures to medical students on these topics. For many years, until its demise in 2003, he was chairman, then president of the Natural Medicines Society, a UK charity for the general public.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denis_MacEoin

…attacks Ben Goldacre, but defends Jeanette Winterson in today’s Comments section of the Guardian:

Quote:

There have been many attacks on homeopathy recently, but Ben Goldacre's is the least scientific of the lot.

Last week, novelist Jeanette Winterson published an intelligent and lucid account of why she believes homeopathy works.

Read on…
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/...s_showing.html

[Big Les]

Silly sod. What a total misrepresentation of Goldacre's writing.

Quote:

Goldacre's article was laden with his usual sarcasm. In it, he paraded his superior knowledge and accused homeopaths of "killing patients" and being "morons".

Did he only read the last two paragraphs or what? What he actually said;

Quote:

When I’m feeling generous, I think: homeopathy could have value as placebo, on the NHS even, although there are ethical considerations, and these serious cultural side-effects to be addressed.

But [i]when they’re suing people instead of arguing with them, telling people not to take their medical treatments, killing patients, running conferences on HIV fantasies, undermining the public’s understanding of evidence and, crucially, showing absolutely no sign of ever being able to engage in a sensible conversation about the perfectly simple ethical and cultural problems that their practice faces, I think: these people are just morons.

So to say he called homoeopaths morons is, ironically enough, to suggest that all homoeopaths engage in the activities he listed, which he himself didn't do. It takes wilful misreading to claim otherwise. And as for sarcasm, Ben is as inclusive and open to discussion as anyone on the side of reason in this non-debate. A lot more so than I would be.

[Michael C]

Originally Posted by Blue Wode

An update.

Denis MacEoin…

…attacks Ben Goldacre, but defends Jeanette Winterson in today’s Comments section of the Guardian:

Oh dear, what a bad article. MacEoin regurgitates this old argument:

Quote:

There has never been a proper trial of homeopathy. There have been countless trials based on the methodology applied to orthodox medicines, as if homeopathy is a form of orthodox medicine. Some have been positive, most negative. This proves nothing, because what they have tested was never homeopathy in the first place.

In orthodox trials, all patients in the "real" group are given the same drug for the same length of time. Homeopaths do not work like that. For one condition, they may select one of a dozen or more remedies, chosen after long and detailed interviews. They see patients repeatedly over the course of months or years, refining and changing prescriptions, and watching a steady development that follows a strong internal logic. It is a long process. But this is how homeopathy works: mangling it for the chance to jump on the clinical trial bandwagon is not science. No scientist of repute carries out tests of A by running trials of B. All the vaunted meta-analyses that proclaim the ineffectiveness of homeopathy are scientifically illiterate, as Ben Goldacre seems to be in this instance.

So all those clinical trials, many of them organised wholly or partly by homeopaths themselves, are a load of rubbish? The homeopaths haven't been able to do the right sort of trials? Has somebody been stopping them? Why doesn't Boiron organise a "proper" trial, dammit? They've got enough money. And it's so easy to do double-blind trials of homeopathy, since the only way to distinguish between different homeopathic remedies or placebos is to look at the label.

[steenkh]

Originally Posted by Denis MacEoin

hey see patients repeatedly over the course of months or years, refining and changing prescriptions, and watching a steady development that follows a strong internal logic. It is a long process.

A perfect description of how homoeopaths continue trying out sugar pills until the illness has cured itself!

[Big Les]

Amusingly enough, the commenter "BabaYaga", tries to claim that homoeopathy critics must be wrong about homoeopathy because they think they've seen through that as a hoax, yet they haven't seen through the US government's "hoax" of 9/11. This kind of logic is just breathtaking.

Homoeopathy supporter AND 9/11 conspiracy theorist. Priceless. Though just one responder, of course.