Changing Tactics

A good post was just put up on Amy Lansky's blog about how Big Pharma is changing tactics in order to try and eliminate homeopathic remedies. The following paragraph from Lansky's post is beautifully succinct:

"At first, the skeptics tried to assert that remedies were just sugar pills or plain old water. Then they tried to say that homeopathy was dangerous because people who used it weren’t seeking “proper medical treatment”. When this strategy failed, homeopathic “sugar pills” suddenly became dangerous drugs! Oblivious to the inconsistency behind this sudden change in tactic, the media (which even mainstream politicians acknowledge is bought-and-sold by Big Pharma) has been fed horror stories about “poisonous substances” in homeopathic baby teething tablets! Of course, these dire warnings ignore the fact that the “poison” has been diluted beyond any possible toxicity, even if a baby was given 1000 tablets. Nor were there any reports of harm. It’s all too ironic, given the fact that pharmaceutical drugs are killing people every day."

Placebo or Not?

I was watching a fascinating discussion between doctors Rupert Sheldrake and Bruce Lipton and, when they arrived at a point (at 44:40) in their talk about placebo, I knew I had to share it. For most of us who have studied and worked in the Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) area of health care, placebo is a familiar term - usually because skeptics say the remedies only work due to placebo. What's particularly interesting about the above-mentioned point on the topic is because it addresses not why a placebo effect occurs but rather why would it not work? In other words, what is preventing the placebo-healing in some individuals?

I've mentioned elsewhere that I have no problem with the placebo effect as an adjunct or enhancement of remedies - because the whole purpose is, after all, to create healing. Nevertheless, it remains a wonderful subject to consider whenever one is taking any kind of medicine.

If we take this kind of healing a step further, what exactly is this healing that happens without being attributed to a material medicine? Homeopathy and Flower Essences are known as energy or vibrational remedies. Is a placebo healing due to a similar unseen effect? Is it from us or from the invisible field around us? Is it through the assistance of beings from another realm we can't see, like angels? No one knows.