Japanese Officials Blast Homeopathy
September 5th, 2010
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We often hear of how homeopathy or other alternative medicine offers something that “western” medicine can’t. The fact of the matter is that modern science-based medicine is hardly a western phenomenon and quack medicine is not confided to traditional Asian or other Eastern medicine. Countries like Japan, Taiwan, South Korea and increasingly China are on the cutting edge or real, science-based medicine, but just like the rest of the world, the East faces a serious problem with quackery.
Homeopathy, of course, is actually a concept that originated in Germany, although it has spread worldwide and has taken root everywhere from India to the UK. Doctors and health officials around the world, whether they are America, British or Japanese all have to deal with the continued threats of ignorance-based quackery, even as real medicine continues to improve.
Recent comments by officials in Japan really highlight the international problem that quackery has become.
Japan’s medical authorities slam ‘absurd’ homeopathy
TOKYO — The physician to Japanese Emperor Akihito and top scientists have slammed homeopathy as an “absurd” medicine, urging health workers to stay clear of the alternative treatment as it grows in popularity.
“I cannot help but feel strong bewilderment” over the recent rise in homeopathy’s use as a treatment in Japan, said Ichiro Kanazawa, who chairs the prestigious Science Council of Japan.
“The reason is that it ignores science,” Kanazawa, who is also the medical supervisor for Japan’s Imperial Household Agency, said in a statement.
The controversy has been fuelled by reports that a two-month-old baby girl died last year of a cerebral haemorrhage in Japan after she was given a homeopathic remedy instead of the normal treatment of vitamin K.
Homeopathic medicines use materials derived from flora, fauna and minerals, and their preparation includes the heavy dilution of the raw materials, according to the World Health Organization.
“In some cases, the dilution is so high that it is almost impossible to find one molecule of the original raw material,” the WHO said in a February report.
Kanazawa argued that “because it is only water, of course it has no therapeutic effects, not to mention ’side effects’”.
Arguments supporting homeopathy have “no scientific basis and are nothing but absurd”, he said, stressing that medical workers “must exclude non-science such as homeopathy and play the role of spreading true science”.
Several other groups of scientists and medics have issued statements supporting Kanazawa.
“The Japan Medical Association (JMA), along with the Japanese Association of Medical Sciences, totally agrees with the content” of Kanazawa’s message, JMA president Katsuyuki Haranaka said.
The Japan Homeopathic Medical Association, grouping more than 500 occupational homeopaths, launched a counter-offensive by citing studies on the medicine’s positive effects.
“The stance of judging that it has no effect because it cannot be explained by conventional theories is unscientific and we are taken aback,” the association said in an email message to AFP.
But Kanazawa, while noting that using homeopathy is an individual choice, said “the big problem is that patients may miss the opportunity to receive solid, effective treatments because they engage in homeopathy”.
It’s sad that it took the death of a child to bring this issue to the forefront. Unfortunately, this is all too often the case. The death of children in the United States, Australia and elsewhere have also been linked to parents who choose voodoo treatments over real medicine. In such societies, where medical knowledge and care is so advanced, such tragedies should never happen. But they do, and when they do, the best we can hope is that they may at least provide a lesson that will prevent additional unnecessary deaths in the future.
This entry was posted on Sunday, September 5th, 2010 at 12:35 am and is filed under Bad Science, Culture, Events, Quackery. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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September 5th, 2010 at 1:49 am
It is interesting to note that in my (limited) understand of Japanese culture, to say unequivocally “This Is So” is a huge faux pas. That this statement does just that and doesn’t couch it in terms of likelihoods and tendencies should suggest how serious this issue is.
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September 5th, 2010 at 8:19 am
I’m not familiar with Japanese culture to any real degree, but sometimes being absolutely blunt, even if it’s considered rude, is necessary if it’s an important enough issue. Of course this is a very serious issue and there should be no doubt about the fact that homeopathy is useless. It goes to show how widespread this is. It’s also sad to realize that the most advanced societies all over the world are threatened by something so downright stupid! We’ve come so far and yet it seems everywhere you go this persistent idiotic idea is still threatening to undo what medicine has achieved.
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September 5th, 2010 at 10:37 am
Homeopathy is having a bad year. From a scientific point of view, it has had a couple of bad centuries. Despite the science, homeopathy has persevered through a combination of cultural inertia and political support. What is encouraging, is that the political support seems to be eroding. While it would be nice to think this was the product of critical thinking, and the rejection of the unscientific nonsense that these treatments are based on, the underlying drive seems to be rising health care costs, and insurers that are getting fed up with paying for treatments that do not work.
Thus this is developing into yet another case where the game will be won because reality always bats last.
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September 5th, 2010 at 11:57 pm
When it comes to healthcare programs (whether nationally funded or private insurance) there should be no controversy when it comes to things like homeopathy. Healthcare coverage is obligated to pay for *healthcare* meaning medicine. Real, working, valid medicine that improves and maintains good health. They are not obligated to pay for magic water, enchanted potions, unvalidated bull**** and quackery. That does no good and wastes perfectly good money that could help someone else.
Since when do people get to **Choose** what is covered based on their own definition? Hell, they could say “I believe that piles of gold bullion make me feel better, so the health insurance has to pay for that.” It has to be medically valid!
It’s like any insurance that there has to be a standard for what is covered. if you get in a car accident, for example, your insurance may give some choice where to take the car, but they will surely require it be a licensed, certified body shop and not some unqualified idiot to do the estimates and repair. If you didn’t have basic standards for the measures covered there would be an open invite to abuse.
Why is it that people think they have the right to unlimited *choice* when they are expecting it to be paid for by a program that has legitimate need for standards?
Pay for the quackery with your own gooddamned dollar or Yen or whatever. That’s perfectly fair and still gives you the “choice” if you can afford it, and if you can’t afford it, well you’re no worse off anyway, because it’s just magic water!
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September 6th, 2010 at 1:22 am
Q said:
Thing is homeopathy (and chiropractic) have been particularly good at getting people from their ‘professions’, elected to public office, and from there have pushed to have their practices recognized. Basically they are con artists anyway, so it probably is an easy segue into politics for anyone that goes in for this type of quakery to begin with.
This habit of political involvement is the reason that they established the veneer of respectability to begin with. It has only been skyrocketing healthcare costs that have finally cut the legs out from under them, and reduced their influence in the halls of power.
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January 29th, 2011 at 7:52 am
one must know when to use homeopathy and when to refer patients to hospitals.
all pathies have their own limitations that does not mean its totally useless.
modern medicine cant cure a lot of diseases …that does not make it totally useless……?
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January 29th, 2011 at 8:15 am
Dr.L.Kumar said:
Homeopathy can’t cure any diseases. It is therefore essential that homeopaths refer their, um… ‘patients’ to real medical professionals if there is any danger that their illnesses could get to the stage where they might interfere with that client’s ability to provide a living for their homeopath.
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