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--- en:misc:talk-qa-schwarcz-saine [2013/02/07 11:10]
legatum [QUESTION 7]
+++ en:misc:talk-qa-schwarcz-saine [2013/02/07 11:19]
legatum [QUESTION 8]
@@ Line 215: / Line 215: @@
 » http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulation_and_prevalence_of_homeopathy )] [(A European Council for Classical Homeopathy Report. //The Recognition and Regulation of Homeopathy in Europe//. June 2007.
 » www.homeopathy-ecch.eu)].
+===== QUESTION 8 =====
+**The National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine in the US has spent 1.4 billion dollars in ten years investigating all sorts of alternative treatments, including homeopathy. How is it that it has been unable to find any evidence that homeopathy provides benefits that are superior to those of a placebo?**
+This is wrong, as the following EEG and fibromyalgia studies[(Bell IR, Lewis DA, Lewis SE, Schwartz G. EEG alpha sensitization in individualized homeopathic treatment of fibromyalgia. //International Journal of Neuroscience// 2004; 114: 1195-1120. )] [(Bell IR, Lewis DA, Brooks AJ, Schwartz GE, Lewis SE, Walsh BT, Baldwin CM. Improved clinical status in fibromyalgia patients treated with individualized homeopathic remedies versus placebo //Rheumatology// 2004; 43: 577–582.)], were funded by a number of grants from the NIH/NCCAM and researchers found differences from placebo in all of these studies. The fibromyalgia study was the second study on that condition to show that homeopathy is beneficial. Fisher et al. first published their study in British Medical Journal, and Bell et al. published theirs in Rheumatology, as mentioned in the answer to question 3.
+Others studies on homeopathy funded by the NIH/NCCAM grants have been published in peer-review journals in recent years include the one in Sleep Medicine on young adults with coffee-related insomnia. Researchers found that polysomnography (PSG) offers a modern methodology for evaluating the objective effects of taking homeopathic remedies that clinicians claim exert effects on sleep quality in susceptible individuals. Animal studies have previously shown changes in non-rapid eye movement sleep with certain homeopathic remedies. Verum remedies significantly increased PSG total sleep time and non-rapid eye movement sleep, as well as awakenings and stage changes. Changes in actigraphic and self-rated scale effects were not significant[(Bell IR, Howerter A, Jackson N, Aickin M, Baldwin CM, Bootzin RR. Effects of homeopathic medicines on polysomnographic sleep of young adults with histories of coffee-related insomnia. //Sleep Medicine// 2011; 12: 505–511.)]. In another study, researchers found out that EEG alpha offers an objective biomarker of remedy effects for future studies and potential method for distinguishing time-dependent effects of specific remedies and remedy potencies from one another[(Brooks AJ, Bell IR, Howerter A, Jackson N, Aickin M. Short-term effects of repeated olfactory administration of homeopathic Sulphur or Pulsatilla on electroencephalographic alpha power in healthy young adults. //Homeopathy// 2011; 100: 203-211.)]. In a third study, it was found that EEG cordance provided a minimally invasive technique for assessing objective nonlinear physiologic effects of two different homeopathic remedies salient to the individuals who received them. These findings open the door for additional neuroimaging research on nonlinear psychophysiologic effects of specific homeopathic remedies[(Bell IR, Howerter A, Jackson N, Brooks AJ, Schwartz GE. Multiweek resting EEG cordance change patterns from repeated olfactory activation with two constitutionally salient homeopathic remedies in healthy young adults. Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine 2012; 18: 445-453.)].
+Research on homeopathy funded by the NCCAM in its 20 years of existence has been quite limited to most likely less than 1% of its total budget. Today, junior researchers most likely risk their career and of being kicked out of tenure track if they focus on homeopathy. Also as there are very few researchers applying for grants to research homeopathy, there is little funding. Since there is little funding and few homeopathy researchers in the US, there has not been larger scale funding to replicate findings. There are structural problems with "peer review" for larger applications to do larger clinical trials, which means no CAM researchers, let alone homeopaths, are on review committees. The bias against homeopathy creates a self-fulfilling prophecy—no academic advancement for researchers pursuing homeopathic studies and no true CAM peers on the grant reviews if someone does send in studies.
+===== QUESTION 9 =====
+**Can you make a comparison between the number of years of education a homeopath receives versus that of a medical doctor as well as the residency requirements?**
+The training requirements for becoming a homeopath vary from one country to another, as can be seen in the answer to question 7. However, the preparation I have always recommended for a person interested in pursuing a career in homeopathy has been the following: first, to obtain a wide-spread education in liberal arts and science with particular emphases on philosophy, psychology, biology, arts and science. Second, this should be followed by medical training, preferably one that offers homeopathy as parts of its curriculum, as it is given in all the accredited naturopathic medical schools in North America[(See the Association of Acredited Naturopathic Medical Colleges:
+» http://www.aanmc.org/ )].
+A specialty can be pursued, such as pediatrics, gynecology, psychiatry, cardiology, etc., but always keeping homeopathy as the main focus. Following this training, a specialty in homeopathy should be pursued in a postgraduate training, like I pursued after graduation from naturopathic medical college in order to obtain my board certification in the Homeopathic Academy of Naturopathic Physicians.
+The question seems to insinuate that homeopathic training is subpar with the one received by an allopathic family medicine practitioner. It is likely to be the opposite. Once, while I was the acting secretary of the Council on Homeopathic Education, a US-based organization, we had a meeting on which I was the only non-MD on that board (as I hold a doctorate of naturopathic medicine (ND)). If my memory serves me well, there were a cardiologist, a psychiatrist, a radiologist and a few family practitioners sitting on the council at that time. They unanimously agreed that homeopathy had so far been the most difficult discipline they had had to learn in all their training, and a greater amount of work and experience was required in order to master it than any other discipline they had to learn.
+In essence, aside from therapeutics, a first class homeopathic physician must know human beings in health and disease and from genes to psyche, and understand the factors, conditions and influences needed for optimal health and be able to recognize all the possible causes of diseases. In 1862, Carroll Dunham explained in details in a long essay the requirement needed for becoming a homeopathic physician and the importance of being an excellent diagnostician. He wrote, "When first brought into the presence of a concrete case of disease, the business of the physician is to ascertain what branch of medical science he is called upon to exercise. Is the case one which requires hygienic management, or therapeutic, or both, or is the patient beyond the reach of art?
+To answer these questions a diagnosis and prognosis must be made, and to make these, a knowledge of the remote and proximate causes and of the course and determination of diseases is required. In a word, a knowledge of physiology and pathology is indispensable on the very threshold of medical practice and beforeany question of therapeutics has arisen[([[en:ahr:dunham-c-homoeopathy-the-science-of-therapeutics-158-10408|Dunham C. Homoeopathy, the science of therapeutics]]. American Homoeopathic Review 1862-1863; 3: 9-15, 61-71, 103-111, 156-162, 203-210, 263-273, 305-313.)]."
 ===== References =====

Legatum Homeopathicum

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