A major centre of homeopathy will no longer be able to spend NHS money on the controversial practice.
The Royal London Hospital for Integrated Medicine - formerly the Royal London Homeopathic Hospital - will stop providing NHS-funded homeopathic remedies in April.
Homeopathy is based on the idea that "like cures like", but scientists says patients are getting nothing but sugar.
Campaigners said the move was "hugely significant and long overdue".
How homeopathic pills are made
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Homeopathy is based on the concept that diluting a version of a substance that causes illness has healing properties.
So pollen or grass could be used to create a homeopathic hay-fever remedy.
One part of the substance is mixed with 99 parts of water or alcohol, and this is repeated six times in a "6c" formulation or 30 times in a "30c" formulation.
The end result is combined with a lactose (sugar) tablet.
Homeopaths say the more diluted it is, the greater the effect.
Common homeopathic treatments are for asthma, ear infections, hay-fever, depression, stress, anxiety, allergy and arthritis.
The NHS itself says: "There is no good-quality evidence that homeopathy is effective as a treatment for any health condition."
The Royal London Hospital for Integrated Medicine has a long history with homeopathy. It was founded as the London Homoeopathic Hospital in 1849 by one of the first doctors to practise homeopathy in Britain.
But now patient leaflets say: "From 3 April 2018, the Royal London Hospital for Integrated Medicine (RLHIM) will no longer be providing NHS-funded homeopathic remedies for any patients as part of their routine care."
The hospital is run by University College London Hospitals NHS Trust.
A spokeswoman for the trust said: "No NHS funding will be spent on homeopathic medicines at the RLHIM."
It is just the latest clampdown on NHS homeopathy.
Simon Stevens, the chief executive of NHS England, has described homeopathy as "at best a placebo and a misuse of scarce NHS funds".
The Good Thinking Society, which has campaign for the NHS to stop spending money on homeopathy, said the latest move was "hugely significant, and long overdue".
Its project director, Michael Marshall, told the BBC: "This move means that London has now joined the vast majority of the country in consigning homeopathy to the history books.
"The only areas of the UK still wasting money on these disproven treatments are Bristol and Glasgow.
"Hopefully, sensible decisions will be made in those cities too, and we can finally move away from throwing limited NHS resources at these ineffective treatments."
I found following material very interesting about the topic of bias. I am very happy to share this material with all of you who are reading this blog post. Suggestions are welcome for addition of more links to the list below. Feel free to comment about this collection of links. I must thank Naidu sir for giving me this idea of collecting interesting things on my blog.
I have decided to put an end to this debate from my side now. Whenever people will ask me about it in future, I shall redirect them here.
I have said enough about it and have spent very precious time of my life thinking, talking and debating about it. But I do not find that I am getting results in proportion to efforts I have put in. If I would have put my efforts in other fields, maybe I would have gained much more than what I am getting today in my honest opinion. As a result I think that debating and even thinking about Ayurveda is a waste of time! It is like unsolved mathematical problem to me. I will be happy if I will be able to solve it, but no one can force me to solve it if I do not wish to.
My suggestion to people who feel interested by the problem is this - do it at your own risk and there is possibility of waste of time. I have really made many honest attempts but I don't understand it. It is confusing and contradictory. People in power are somehow not ready to listen anything about it. I have felt frustrated many times. I am not taking this decision to stop debating about it in one day or month. I have been thinking and reading intensely about this topic since many years. I would say since more than 13 years! So maybe there is a major flaw in the basic theories like Tridosha theory / hypothesis itself or I lack abilities to understand it.
Below I am referring to few articles, blog posts and discussions which interested people can go through. I will be updating this list time to time as and when it will be necessary.
Thanks and regards,
Dr. Abhijeet Safai --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Important links
They say that knowledge does not go waste. So read everything which comes to your way. Study whatever you can, and you will be fine. You will earn knowledge in the end.
But I do not believe in this. Life is finite and there is lot of knowledge in the world and it is increasing continually. If we will not plan and study important things, time will pass on and we would not have earned necessary knowledge, even after having the capacity to learn it.
So in this era of internet, and knowledge explosion, do not start reading every book which comes to your way or because simply available. Spend time selecting the book and then read it. Spend time choosing the appropriate course / education. Think what you will be doing after doing the course and then go ahead if the picture it creates matches with the one in your head. Or at least you are aware about the future at that time.
I do not mean to say that there should be no spontaneity and we should keep on doing all the things with proper planning all the time. But planning helps sometimes. That is all.
And most important, don't gain knowledge for the sake of gaining it. Because there are many who are trying to sell their books. Books are for us to read and gain knowlege. Not the other way round.
Dear friends, I really feel so. I really feel so that I would have been surely at a better position if I would not have had opted for it. There are many reasons for my this decision to write this blog but some of them are as follows:
1) The syllabus of BAMS is very old and much of it is useless in today's world in my opinion. People are not ready to change the syllabus and keep fighting logical fallacies.
2) You will have to learn the things which you do not like if you are a lover of science. Many of the things which we learn are unscientific or there is no scientific explanation. One has to only read them only because they appear in certain books.
3) There are no good job opportunities after BAMS. BAMS is not considered as science internationally. So taking post graduation education from other countries is a big problem. One really has to struggle harder.
4) There is lot of mental torcher from MBBS doctors when one BAMS tries to do good allopathic practice. Partially they seem right as they have got better education in terms of medicine than us. There are many issues about it. The lesser said the better.
5) So only if you want to have a doctor salutation behind your name, you can go for it. It gives so little scope that it is unacceptable to me at least.
So if you are thinking or if some one who is near to you is thinking to go for BAMS, please ask them to think again. They can go for it if they are still willing to go for it.
I will say that I am feeling good after being BAMS doctor only because we can practice allopathic medicine in the state of Maharashtra. I really did not like the syllabus and I strongly feel that it was a waste of time. I could have done so many great things in the time which I spent doing BAMS. It feels good when people give you respect as doctor but I really feel sorry for myself that a lot of time was wasted studying useless things. Many people do not think so and they find it useful. I really dont know how can they find all the things useful in the current syllabus.
Anyway. I feel that I have done my job of giving true feedback which I had not got when I took decision to do BAMS. Hope it will be useful to someone.
Richard Dawkins. Thats it. I would like to write only that much! I am so much in love with the logic of this person that I feel that telling the name of this person is more than enough. One important reason of not writing much about what I want to say is that I have not been able to read much of his books. As a result I have little knowledge about this person in that sense but the videos which I have seen on YouTube are simply great! Hence I would suggest other people reading this blog to try to understand what this person is and what he is trying to tell in his documentary film - 'Enemies of Reason'. I am quite sure that I will be watching this film again and again and again and again and again ...... But then why to tell others? Why not to listen to it quietly on my own? Why I am writing this blog or plan to write about it as and when I will get time?
The reason of writing this blog is again Richard Dawkins. He says and I agree to the fact that the scientific material is less in volume. And I feel that as it is less in volume, it is read less as a consequence as compared to other. Now it is our responsibility who love science to propagate scientific thinking. After understanding as how difficult it is do something in science on your own, we shall at least try to recommend good things which we read to others.
One more reason to write this blog is that I have feeling that I have been deprived of science as I took admission to BAMS. I do not want to all the burden of this thing on it alone but I also must be responsible for the same. Whatever may be the reason, my feeling is true and is very very intense. I do not want other people who are near and dear to me or those who are caring to read this blog to be deprived of science. I found this way the most efficient way to spread it as once we understand what good science is, we will automatically not fall in the trap of non scientific things, provided we are lovers of science.
I have no objection for the people who want to study non scientific things like arts!!! In fact I like art very much. My only concern is - let it be a conscious decision.
I hope that I will I will improve my writing style as your suggestions will come. I want to make this writing as sober as possible.
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SPL
