Comments from CBC Marketplace show on Homeopathy

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Homeopathy helps millions of people everyday, with both acute and chronic conditions. If Erica Johnson was really investigating homeopathy she'd look at both sides of the issue. There is over 200 years of clinical evidence that it works. It works on babies & animals as well, and they are not influenced by a placebo effect. Our health care system now is a 'for profit' industry, and the growing interest in alternative medicines is taking money from the pockets of big business. No wonder they create these skeptics groups! It's guerrilla marketing at it's finest. And too bad a journalist, who's supposed to be unbiased, is supporting their tactics.

`Krista Leonard

Comments on CBC Marketplace Homeopathy expose

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I strongly object to the title of the program, "Cure or Con?" The title itself reveals a bias against homeopathy. The problem similar to the question "when did you stop beating your wife?" There is an unfair and unwarranted implied aspersion that there is something immoral or dishonest about homeopathy and homeopathic treatment.

To be sure, homeopathy is poorly understood in the West, especially in the Media.

Worse yet, there is an organized movement among "professional skeptics," who have zero experience with homeopathy, and who are motivated by either a misguided sense of righteousness, or by pharmaceutical industry slush funds to slur an therapeutic practice that has more than 200 years of clinical success. There is a wave of anti-homeopathy media stories now, and the timing is no accident;there is an organized campaign against homeopathy by various organizations that are funded in part by the pharmaceutical industry. This is part of an effort to stamp out competition and it is nothing new, but the sophistication of the campaign to slur homeopathic is greater than ever in the past.

Homeopathy is primarily an energetic practice, and the mechanism of action is more like that of acupuncture than of herbal or pharmaceutical medicines. Persons who cannot conceive that energy medicine is vital and effective get anxious about homeopathy and they demand that homeopathy explain itself in material terms, which it may not easily do. The block-heads who cannot conceive of energy medicine then shriek that homeopathy is not real or a sham in the way that Chicken Little forewarns that the sky is falling. Of course the sky is not falling, and of course homeopathy is not a con.

It's a shame that the journalists here are too simple minded to fairly evaluate homeopathy on it's own terms and to interview patients who have unquestionably benefited from homeopathic treatment.

Homeopathic patients are not fools and homeopathic practitioners are not dishonest con artists as the title of segment show would imply.

I am a professional homeopath. I am Canadian and I earned my Permanent Resident Status in the U.S. on the basis of my professional credentials as a homeopath. If the U.S. Immigration Service, quite a conservative organizaton will accept my credentials, this says something about the quality of my profession.

I've been in practice since 1994 and I trained in the United Kingdom. There is no doubt that homeopathy works. I could not, if I had a conscience offer services which did not lead to a benefit.

Sincerely your,

John

Comments from CBC Marketplace show on Homeopathy

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Question: Why did the CBC not consult with leading Homeopathic doctors for conclusive evidence on the efficacy of Homeopathy? It seems your research is lacking thoroughness.

I would like to offer a link from a fellow homeopath, Bryce Wylde. On his website, he offers a growing list of evidence for, and in favour of Homeopathy.
Please read, in particular: “Homeopathy: The Evidence From Basic Research”. A memorandum submitted by Dr. Peter Fisher. See also “Memorandum Submitted By The British Homeopathic Association” by Robert T. Mathie, PhD. Perhaps upon a more thorough review, your conclusions would have been more positive towards Homeopathy.

Homeopathy is a regulated health profession in Ontario. The Ontario government is confident that homeopathy plays a valuable and significant role in the provision of health care to patients. It is unfortunate that the CBC could not conclude the same.

Sincerely,

Paul Inkpen
D.H.M.H.S., Homeopath.

Comments from CBC Marketplace show on Homeopathy

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Canada's first female doctor, Emily Howard Jennings Stowe (1831-1903), a Canadian physician who led campaigns to provide women access to medical schools. She founded Women's College Hospital in Toronto, and was trained as a HOMEOPATH.

~Eman Naveb

My complaint letter to CBC

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Hello CBC,

I am in shock that CBC can have such blatantly biased so-called journalism. Your trailer on the show about Homeopathy has already claimed that Naturopaths do Chiropractic work. I believe neither of their associations will be happy to see their modality misrepresented. Obviously, people are passionate about their right to choose Homeopathy if they have found that it works for them. This trailer for the Marketplace episode is riddled with outright falsities portrayed as fact.
1. The study to find out what is in Homeopathic Remedies has never been done before in Canada (CBC is not the first to conduct this test).
2. That Homeopathic Scientific Studies are all self published or observational with no control group.
3. That Doctors explain the success that people find with Homeopathy with the placebo effect.
4. That Naturopaths do Chiropractic work.

You are insulting your very own consumers. I used to have high regard for CBC. I am incredibly disappointed. I know that the supporters of Homeopathy are (or used to be) supporters of CBC. We are a forward-thinking, politically aware, higher educated populace.

This show is doing an overall disservice to CBC's reputation.
Please respond to my concerns about how these inaccuracies were able to get past the CBC editors. I look forward to your explanation of what will be done to ensure that this kind of biased 'reporting' will not occur in the future.

Sincerely,
Elena Cecchetto DCH, CCH, RSHom(NA)

PS - Some references that Erica Johnson and team had in their hands but probably won't look at.

http://montagnier.net/montagnier/index.php/publications/
http://www.cam.org.nz/
http://www.bepress.com/journals/hm.html
http://www.homeonetresearch.ca/
http://www.incamresearch.ca/

Comments from CBC Marketplace show on Homeopathy

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Animals and children have no idea that the tiny white granule they have just been given is supposed to cure their ailment - yet we have some of the best results from animals and children.

...care to explain that one away with the placebo effect?

Comments from CBC Marketplace show on Homeopathy

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If CBC would like to understand Homeopathy, an empirical science with a long and rich history, they should consult Homeopaths with education and expertise in this area. Without this input this is surely a biased, unbalanced report.

~Linda G Miller, CCH, RSHom(NA)

Comments from Marketplace show on Homeopathy

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Just from this advance advertising, it sounds like Erica Johnson and the Marketplace researchers have approached the subject of homeopathy with a foregone conclusion - " it's a scam".

There is, in fact, plenty of scientific proof that homeopathy works, but it seems they didn't even bother to look at it.

Instead,they took the word of the " skeptics" ( i.e. a group of pharmaceutically - funded cyber- bullies, who are aggressively spreading lies about homeopathy).

When will Marketplace be doing its exposé of them?

Too bad Marketplace did not, instead, approach the subject with an open mind, and interview the ( unpaid ) homeopathic research scientists, the hard - working ( and poorly paid) homeopathic practitioners, and some of the thousands of delighted patients whose lives have been transformed and even saved by this gentle, simple treatment.
~Pat Deacon