Is anyone else fed up with Dr Frank's views on Homoeopathic Medicine?

Question

I think the main problem Dr Frank has with Homeopathy is Doctors like himself have a fear of believing in any medicine where there is not always a proven scientific set of results to back up the remedy. Whilst I do understand Dr Franks point of view to a certain extent; Dr Frank should kindly keep quiet about what he doesn't have the knowledge to talk about. Conventional medicine will only ever treat the symptom of an illness. Homeopathy treats the problem and has proven effective for millions of people. Also don't you find his arogence and excuse for his rudness annoying?his excuse is,"who would you rather have, a doctor that was right or a doctor that was liked? How about one that is polite yet truthful? The words power trip come into mind.. What are your views?

I'm sure Dr Frank will have one of his, 'copy and paste' answers for this one!

Rhianna x

Answer 1

MiiiiaaaaoooooooooooooooooowwwwWWWWWW

" I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death you have a right to say it.! "

LIVE n LET LIVE people in glass houses should'nt throw stones............................

Answer 2

I suspect Dr Frank has more knowledge about it than you think, he no doubt reads his medical journals and keeps up with the latest information so that he can do his job, much as I have to do.

All the stuff I have to read contains not only information about conventional medicine, but also about acupuncture, homeopathy, etc, so I suspect Dr Frank reads this sort of thing too.

I expect he also saw the article in the media about how the Society of Homeopaths breached their own Code of Ethics & Practice on their website more than once recently, so I can understand his distrust of it.  And how they have been stopped from  suggesting the use of Malaria officinalis 30c  for malaria prevention due to the fact that there is no evidence to support its effectiveness.  

I think it has its uses, most definitely, I have recommended herbal methods for minor problems, and always will if they are proven to work, but if I was in a situation where I needed urgent medical treatment, I know which type of treatment I would prefer. If I had cancer and was offered acupuncture or methotrexate, I know which one I would go for.

And for the person who had the opinion that he may not be a real GP, unless you have had some sort of medical training yourself to be able to understand his medical comments, you arent really in an informed position to comment on whether or not he is real.

If he isnt, he is a pretty good impersonator!

And no, I am not a fellow GP, I am a dispenser in a pharmacy.

I offer the advice I think is best, whether thats referring someone to a GP or suggesting they try something like St Johns Wort or  a Bach flower remedy.

Maybe he can be a bit abrupt, but I would rather heed his advice from his years of intensive training, than some homeopath who has done a part time college course.

Answer 3

Very fed up to be honest but I just let comments on Homeopathy go over my head now!

Its the best way believe me-- People like him are just feeling threatened by something they have no experience or personal knowledge of.

Arguing with them just makes them worse and they then quote more stupid ill founded statements!

IGNORE!

Answer 4

(Edits in regards to what others have said on this

1) "and don't get vaccinated against malaria."  I just finished a college microbiology course that focused specifically one protozoa; and one of the many topics was "why there is no working vaccine for malaria."  Anyone who makes a claim with it's existence as a premise is rather ignorant of conventional medical science.

2) The one big point lightning skipped is that conventional remedies are dramatically more expensive than alternative ones.  Homeopathic remedies are normally under 5 bucks, while allopathic treatments easily go into the hundreds of thousands.  Additionally, most alt med practicioners don't sell their wares under the authoritive threat "that you will 'die' (or have some equivalantly horrible fate happen to you)."

It's quite common for cancer patients to be forced to fork over more than 100k for a cancer treatment that ends up producing results worse than placebo.  On the flip side, assuming homeopathy at best is a placebo, they wasted pocket change for something which was completely harmless.  If you want to start invoking the grand moral pronouncements, you need to go after your own profession which sells stuff through fear and then extorts the patients leaving them with grievous bodily harm afterwards.  I know hundreds of cases where this has happened with allopaths.

If you have the choice between something which is free and harmless or something which breaks the bank and can kill you, is there even any point nitpicking over biased claims of efficacy?

end edits)

Truthfully, Dr Frank isn't one of the worse ones on here in regards to that, so I'm not close to the fed up point with him (more just the ignore category).  It does bother me that they relentlessly flame and troll the subject, and when you back them into corners with logical arguments (which they solicit) to challenge their blatant assertions they normally just use a juvenile generic insult and drop the argument (instead of adhering to the science and reason they purport themselves to expound).

To some extent I have compassion for them and can empathize with where they're coming from since they were brainwashed in (industry funded) medical school to purport these (industry favored) beliefs.  If I was forced to spend years in grueling school soley to promote business interests I'd feel pretty shafted.  Since most people don't really have the natural ability to question their own assumptions and look at things objectively, it's hence very understandable that some people will relentlessly troll places like YA to protect their beliefs (and eliminate cognitive dissonance).  You can get frustrated and upset by their behavior, or just feel bad and compassionate for them.

The three main objections I have to their behavior beyond that are:

I hate having to have my viewpoints be held to an absurdly higher standard of truth than theirs (although I normally still win with that handicap so in a way it reaffirms my own).

If they are a trained physician who can "make a difference helping people or doing medicial research," why are they wasting large portions of their time pro bono to attack "loonies and quacks?"

and that sometimes they completely turn people off from alternative medicine by their trolling.  Fortunately, allopathy has basically lost this front in the PR war (people who have already progressed to coming here for health information), and there are enough people floating around here to correct any flames they put up on alt med questions.

Hope you like that answer :P   I said most of my viewpoints in regards to this subject.

Answer 5

What a load of c**p - Dr Frank - if you want to talk about the placebo effect how about when they gave Parkinsons patients a placebo and the patients actually had a better result than the parkinsons drugs - does that mean the Drs stop giving the patients the pills? Oh no ofcourse not - Conventional medicine is big business right?! and dont tell me you dont get little bonuses from the drug companies.

I have endless medical trials conducted by scientists that show time and again that conventional medicine also works as a placebo but that doesnt discount it does it? so why does it discount alternative medicines.

Answer 6

Homeopathy is based on magical and fantastic ideas for which there is no evidence (in fact there is overwhelming evidence against).

Anyway can say "homeopathy cured me" but what doctors need is proof before they can recommend it.

There are no rules which state that this section is only for quacks and followers of quackery, therefore sceptics and scientists are equally entitled to their opinions.

Lightnin: you are very wrong. NOT everyone agrees it is harmless. It is not harmless when a patient tries to treat bowel symptoms (which turn out to be cancer) by visiting a quack and using his/her homeopathic potions. This happened to a patient who eventually showed up in the NHS trust I work in.

This is the problem. Quacks are untrained and have no supervised experience of examining patients. They therefore have no understanding of anatomy, and do not recognise serious symptoms.

Homeoquacks are recommending homeopathy instead of malarial or measles vaccinations. As a result cases of child measles in the UK are now on the increase and tourists are coming back with malaria.

Quacks flog their woo to AIDS victims in Africa - they hold conferences to work out the best way to scam money from HIV clinics.

On the basic level, sick people (and hypochondriacs) are being conned out of money they probably can't afford for awful advice and "remedies" which are just bottles of water and no more.

So, no, your quackery is far from harmless.

(I know you don't understand this, but attacking real medicine does not in any way justify quackery)

Answer 7

He is entitled to his opinions. He has spent decades treating illness and probably knows more than any of us about the human body.

Answer 8

The thing is mate, that people have to start taking responsibility for their own health in the first place and try their absolute best to not need to go the Doctor in the first place by eating fresh whole foods in as close to their natural state as possible and ditch all the prepackaged and junky type foods and sodas and soft drinks and alcohol and pump up their intake of fresh filtered water ......  and learn how to effectively manage their stress levels ..........  Doctors, Homeopaths, Naturopaths, Herbalists and the like are all mere mortals and can only ever give health and nutritional advice to their best of their understanding and knowledge ♥

Afterall, we're here for a good time, not a long time .........  people usually ridicule what they either can't comprehend or don't believe because they have never learned any other way to communicate .........   eh, let it go mate, don't let it crush your independance and spirit ....... live & let live i say ...............;0)

peace 2 u

Answer 9

Personally if i was sick I'd rather have a treatment the had a " proven scientific set of results to back up the remedy" rather than a treatment which basically consists of pure water, has absolutely no scientific basis and which the vast majority of clinical trials have shown (not surprisingly) to be no more effective than a placebo!

Answer 10

I agree 100% !! Doctors have this overblown self image and study one segment -a biased segment of the world around them!! They have closed their minds and have become sheep within their own community and have ceased being TRUE scientists and observers !!!

They have also become pawns of the drug companies who-if they cannot patent something to bilk millions from the world will disclaim any possibility of alternate means of treatment being effective!!!

   As far as where drugs come from!! The drug companies steal the ideas from nature then try to replicate them in a laboratory using artificial means and compounds to simulate the effects that natural substances can create!! They fall hideously short ,creating drugs with side effects that can do more harm and even possible death -as has been shown in the recent past!!!! ALL for the sake of the almighty dollar!!

We no longer have doctors or professionals in this country dedicated to curing anything but their own greed and super-ego!!!!!!!!

Answer 11

The NHS wastes tons of money every day.  The fact that they have chosen to waste more on homeopathic mumbo jumbo just proves that we need to be ditching the welfare state.

Homeopathy treats the whole body... bull.

The treatments are designed to minimise symptoms so the patient feels better.  Meanwhile the condition may be progressing.

And to suggest that mainstream medicine only treats the symptoms... well try taking a walk around a cancer ward.  Mainstream medicine will treat the root cause if it can, even if that leaves the patient feeling temporarily like snot, with the big picture being the goal.

And the idea that these 'herbal remedies' are better than filling yourself full of drugs, where do you think the 'drugs' come from anyway! Its just they are tried tested and proven!

You lay into Dr Frank for being narrow minded and talking nonsense.  Kettle. Pot. Black. methinks!

Answer 12

I agree with you a good example, is Acupuncture few years ago it was a no no, because they did test that suited them, now a lot of the Medical Profession are using it

Answer 13

I'm sick of the whole debate about homeopathy.

I actually don't care if it is the homeopathic medicine, the relationship between the therapist & patient, placebo or something else which is responsible for a condition improving.

The worst anti-homeopathy advocates can say its "its a fake and a scam", "it doesn't work" blah blah blah...

Everyone agrees it is harmless so the worst that will happen if someone uses it it they will be no worse off than they were before.

Homeopathy doesn't kill 100,000 people in the US from adverse drug reactions and is not responsible for 3 - 6% of emergency hospital admisions (depending on which country) because of adverse reactions. The bottom line is IT DOES NO HARM.

This is a fundamental aspect of the hippocratic oath that doctors should perhaps revisit and look at again.

Millions of consultations take place in GP surgeries in the UK per annum (how many in the reest of the developed world?) with conditions that cannot be effectively treated by allopathy.

How many of these patients will still walk out with a prescription Dr. Frank?

How come no one says a word about this?

Is it because the funding of GP's is indirect so everyone lets them continue milking the system with inefective treatment rather than let someone else have a go?

Do Allopaths beleive thay have exclusive rights to healthcare?

How about we have a centrally funded testing body that test all remedies both allopathic and non allopathic? all the other therapies will get tested using decent trials (Not necesarily RCT) and the ridiculous practice of allopaths sponsoring drug trials for products they developed would end.

I aint afraid of the results from independent testing of my therapy, we've had opposers of us with vested interest discredit us for years coming up with so called scientific evidence telling everyone we are quacks but still manage to exist. We managed to exist and grow because peolle voted with their feet and got better!!! In the UK people trusted osteopaths to get them well rather than a free service on the NHS.

I've just received an E-mail from a friend studying physiotherapy in New Zealand. She's recently been learning C-spine techniques and she was very surprised to learn they originated from Osteopathic practice.

Well what do you know.....In spite of everything allopaths have done to stop us practicing we now have conventional medicine imitating our methods and techniques!

Dr. Andrew Still did say that only the best things are subject to counterfit.

Interestingly in spite of constant protestations from the allopathic world they have failed to succeed in their goal of exclusive rights to healthcare. This is because everyone else realises Allopaths do not have this exclusivity. I wish they could acknowledge this.

I'd actually look forward to independent trials I'm sure we would come out favourably provided we used a decent testing model. I think most therapists from the altmed world would welcome unbiased independent scrutiny. We'd get even more Allopaths refering to us if this was the case.

Added:

###Lightnin: you are very wrong. NOT everyone agrees it is harmless. It is not harmless when a patient tries to treat bowel symptoms (which turn out to be cancer) by visiting a quack and using his/her homeopathic potions. This happened to a patient who eventually showed up in the NHS trust I work in.###

That is really unfortunate.

Percentage wise how does this compare to patients who die from adverse drug reactions or during surgery etc. If it isn't favourable to allopaths should we ban all surgery and prescribing?

###This is the problem. Quacks are untrained, have no supervised experience of examining patients and therefore have no understanding of anatomy, and do not notice serious symptoms.###

The problem is not knowing limitations. Homeopathy suffers from the same ridiculous idea as allopaths and a lot of other systems of medicine. They think they can treat anything. Knowing your limitations and what to refer on is key to safety.

I did 1000 hours of clinical supervised treatment before being allowed to take my final clinical exam and qualify.

Before I was allowed to go anywhere near the public I was fully practiced in systems exams, Neuro & muscle testing, orthopaedic examination, case history taking etc.

You have raised a significant point though. I think anyone who handles the health of the public should have suitable skill and competance to do these things I have mentioned. Currently they are not.

Let me tell you what a group of A&E doctors missed 2 weeks ago. A lady presented to my clinic with Clonus, altered sensation, sudden weight loss and dificulties with balance.

These signs are indicative of serious Neuro pathology among other things. She was told to go home and not be so silly cos she was having a panic attack!

They missed this because they didn't do a thorough enough case history and clinical exam.

She came and saw me the next day and I sent her straight back to her GP with a letter detailing my findings so it wouldn't be missed again.

Does it surprise you Allopaths miss things too? In spite of all the years of training and supervised experience of examining patients, trust me, they miss things..... frequently!!!

We all miss things because nobody is a text book. If they were it would be easy.

###Homeopathy is not harmless when homeoquacks are recommending homeopathy instead of malarial or measles vaccinations (cases of child measles in the UK are now on the increase and tourists are coming back from Africa with malaria).###

Measles is on the increase as parents aren't immunising because of the triple vaccine scares. If I had kids I would risk them getting measles than risk Autism. I caught measles as a child and just like millions of others I got over it within 2 weeks without being harmed.

What is this vaccine for maleria? I wasn't aware one existed. I was under the impression you have to take drugs like Larium to prevent maleria which aren't that effective.

I know several people who took it and still ended up with maleria. I treated someone this afternoon who was in exactly this situation.

People have always come back from africa with Maleria, this is nothing new.

###Quacks are also recommending their woo to AIDS victims in Africa - they are holding conferences about it, and working out the best way to scam money from HIV clinics in Africa.###

OK. In these clinics access to anti-retroviral drugs is denied or unavailable because it is too expensive or because of denialists like the South African president who refuse to acknowledge that HIV causes AIDS but is actually trying to eradicate the Zulu population. Homeopathy offers an affordable treatment where in reality there is NO OPTION.

##On the basic level, sick people (and hypochondriacs) are being conned out of money they probably can't afford for awful advice and "remedies" which are just bottles of water and no more.##

It's their money and their health let them spend it and manage it accordingly. As health carers do we own our patients? Have we the right to dictate how they manage their health?

###So, no, your quackery is far from harmless.###

I do appreciate your point.

That poor patient didn't find it harmless but that was one in millions. Don't forget there are many patients who suffer adverse reactions and death as a result of mistakes by Allopaths or things just going wrong.

##(I know you don't understand this, but attacking real medicine does not in any way justify quackery)###

I do understand this unfortunately you don't. You will find quackery in what you call 'real medicine' (everyone else calls it allopathy) just as often as in other medical systems.

Answer 14

Sorry pal, it just doesn't work, just because people, for some reason delight in mumbo jumbo, and seem to get some sort of perverse pleasure in trying to avoid conventional medicine, does not make it a viable alternate. Homeopathy is worthless, it just won't work because you want it to, or would like to believe it does. I would like to go to bed and wish I had a ton of gold when I woke up in he morning, however much I wish it were true, its just not going to happen!

Why get cross with me, just because I give an answer that you don't like. I am just as entitled to give my opinion as an answer as you are.

( Sorry Patrick Oldie, but despite the fact that acupuncture is used in conventional hospital surroundings, a recent large scale double blind cross over study, showed it to be no more successful than the placebo effect, all be it a powerful one, of random needle insertion! This study was mentioned on the main TV news and in the lay press.)

Wow this is fun, it is becoming quite an interesting debate, though you might wonder what any of us are still doing tapping away at our keyboards at this time of night!

Answer 15

I certainly agree.

Dr Frank: The double blind studies don't even have a controlled subject. Just a random experiment that can only be explained with the placebo.

The apparatus MUST include patients who are treated with a REAL acupunturist, and another with some chinese resturant chef doing "random insertion of needles".  Furthermore, they MUST be repeated to rule out experimental error. Obviously, people like you aren't very critical thinkers. for you to leave out such an obvious necessity required in EVERY investigation, you'd hardly be deserving of the "doctor" title.

Telf: Nobody here is saying allopathic medicine doesn't work. We're saying homeopathic medicine yields longer lives for patients than those treated with allopathy. The thing is, problems treated with conventional medicine can resurface. with homeopathic medicine, this certainly isn't the case.  

Try taking a peep into the medical history of cancer patients. most of them don't even get to the "big picture".

Answer 16

I agree 100% Do we actually have any proof this man is Dr? His arrogance annoys everyone.Personally I'd like to see this DR Franks credentials!