Irish Homeopaths Serving the Homeopathic Community in Ireland

The following is a press release from the Galway College of Homeopathy

Last Wednesday evening over 50 people attended an information evening about the use of homeopathy at which Mayor Niall O’Brollachain spoke about his personal use of homeopathy for himself and his children.

The Mayor, who is an advocate of homeopathy, told the audience that the only doctors’ bills he has incurred in the last years have been in relation to health checks for his wife during her pregnancies. He believes his use of homeopathy is an example of how it could potentially provide huge cost savings to be tapped into by the HSE

At the end of last November the UK Natural History Museum hosted a debate between Dr Peter Fisher, Clinical Director of the Royal London Homeopathic Hospital and Dr Ben Goldacre, medical writer and broadcaster, known for his "Bad Science" articles in the Guardian.

It's also worth seeing for the discussion among many homeopaths after the debate. The star of the show has to be Fisher's forensic deconstruction of the Shang et al, study on the basis of which the Lancet declared the "End of Homeopathy". Making a strong argument that the study, which in the end only looked at 8 studies on homeopathy, was probably an exercise in data trawling for a predetermined outcome.

Watch the video of the debate here:

November Newsletter from Alastair Yarrow and Diane Stauder

Is there a link between unpleasant early childhood experiences and SADS?

SADS, what are they? A biological disease or a psychological based recurrent problem?

There is the theory that levels of the "Happy hormone", Seratonin , are down due to a lack of sunlight. But who has ever given a blood sample to check for the appropriate dosage of the "biomedical" answer? Or even advised to avoid dark glasses?

SADS always seems to occur in the autumn with the falling levels of sunlight and the increasing hours of darkness. If it is a biological problem perhaps there is little that can be done naturally when we are told that pollution is cutting out the sunlight and with global warming there is actually more pollution held in the lower atmosphere to which the body reacts.

The Chikungunya Virus is a virulent alphavirus spread by the Yellow Fever Mosquito which has been sweeping through many northern and southern Indian states.

There is no vaccine and no conventional cure for the suspected 11 million cases in India (government figures). Indian authorities maintain that this is a non-fatal disease and that no deaths have occured from it as yet.

Christopher Smallwood, an economist with no bias or agenda, was asked to look at the incorporation of CAM into the UK NHS. The report was commissioned in association with FreshMinds market research consultants. Here is his article on the final report, published in the London Times last summer.

The full report is available here on the FreshMinds website

There really is a healthy alternative

Clodagh Sheehy has written a good article on Homeopathy for the Evening Herald entitled "Medical wonder or deceptive placebo? - Scientists shun it but one-in-four Europeans use it". It's about a Dublin family who have all benefited from Homeopathic treatment.

You'll find the article attached to this entry as a GIF graphic at the bottom of the page.

My favourite line: "A three month old baby doesn't know about the placebo effect and it still works"

India Express: Big pharma’s bitter pills

The Indian press is often the source of refreshingly clear eyed commentary on global affairs. You don't get direct criticism of big pharmaceutical companies so much here in the west, presumably because they're more of an embedded vested interest.

We also have the fear that complimentary practitioners have of offending the medical establishment and therefore not being "accepted". Even the term "complimentary" is reflective of this. Indian homeopaths have no such complexes as their modality is already recognised by the government and taught in universities.

There are plenty of reasons to suspect that the "inevitable" bird 'flu pandemic will go the way of the SARS scare. The virus may never make it out of the bird population into mammals and to say that it is about to is still a matter of increasingly wild speculation. Despite the fact that the human to human form of the disease doesn't even exist people are still talking about making vaccine for it. Meanwhile governments fill the coffers of pharma companies and we all get distracted from natural disasters, war and the price of oil.

Let's suppose for a moment that the threat is real and imminent. What homeopathic remedies can help you out? Well, it turns out that Helios in the UK are recommending Oscillococcinum as the remedy to prevent and treat such an outbreak.