Homeopathy and Ayurveda will last despite all the scientific pontificating. Is science becoming another fanatic religion trying to shut out all opponents?
Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will spend its whole life believing it is stupid.” – Albert Einstein
It was Winston Churchill, who once said that there are three important things in anything anyone says: who says it, how does he say that and what does he say? Of those three, Churchill thought that the last part is the least important. That applies to the two outbursts of a knowledgeable but unwise mind that has not understood science fully. Today people in the field of western science think that there is no knowledge outside their domain. Western science is reductionist and understands this universe in bits and pieces ONLY. The whole is never comprehended in western science.
Few days ago, India-born Nobel laureate Venkatraman Ramakrishnan, while sparking off a controversy, called Homeopathy as ‘bogus and harmful practice’. The chemistry professor, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in chemistry in 2009, was speaking at the Punjab University at Chandigarh. “They (homoeopaths) take arsenic compounds and dilute it to such an extent that just a molecule is left. It will not make any effect on you. Your tap water has more arsenic. No one in chemistry believes in homoeopathy. It works because of placebo effect,” he was quoted as saying in a newspaper report.
Today fortunately, quantum physics makes it possible that we can “comprehend much more than what we can grasp with our five senses." Knowledgeable western scientists with their prefixes are always arrogant and do not have patience to know that they are a not the wisest. Knowledge is only second hand but wisdom is something that gets generated in one's own mind. Naturally knowledge is proud because it knows so much but wisdom is humble because it knows no more! Humility is the hallmark of good education.
I have heard it said that some of the previous Nobels in the same University were described by this man as people who have forgotten their subjects. If modern western reductionist medicine is that holy, why have we not been able to cure any disease so far and why have we added millions of sufferers from adverse drug reactions, one of the leading causes of death?
I shall quote here another great western scientist who got not one but TWO Nobel prizes, Linus Pauling. He once said and repeated it several times that “Everyone should know that most cancer research is largely a fraud, and that the major cancer research organisations are derelict in their duties to the people who support them.” What does our new Nobel got to say?
Another Nobel Laureate, Albert Szent Gyorgi wrote that " I do not know what cancer is as cancer cells work like normal cells and I do not know how we can kill cancer cells without killing normal cells." Under the microscope, the tombstones of the cells might look different but they act identically.
Marcia Angell, a long time editor of the most prestigious medical journal, had this to say about our research: “It is simply no longer possible to believe much of the clinical research that is published, or to rely on the judgment of trusted physicians or authoritative medical guidelines. I take no pleasure in this conclusion, which I reached slowly and reluctantly over my two decades as an editor of the New England Journal of Medicine.”
Hardin Jones of the New York Academy of Sciences said, “My studies have proved conclusively that untreated cancer patients live up to four times longer, than treated patients.”
Robert Willner had this to say about modern medicine, “Establishment medicine, with little or no evidence to support their barbaric use of the highly toxic drugs, continues to make fortunes while their patients spend their last days vomiting, debilitated, baldheaded and without dignity.”
How did I realise that immature minds sometimes make it to the Nobel? “Nobel lobbying skews prizes, chemist claims.”
Wolfram Koch, executive director of the German Chemical Society (GDCh) in Frankfurt, felt that they should also lobby in future.
Pride makes one to lose one's sense of proportions like what Shakespeare wrote:
“But man, proud man,
Dress'd in a little brief authority,
Most ignorant of what he's most assur'd—
His glassy essence—like an angry ape
Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven
As makes the angels weep; who, with our spleens,
Would all themselves laugh mortal.”
-William Shakespeare, Measure for Measure
I love this young man as he knows not what he speaks and he needs compassion. When he grows up he would realise his folly. Age has a mellowing effect on man. Homeopathy is a good science and any day is much better than western so called modern medicine, which is not a true science but a statistical science. Reductionist statistical non-science is good for business but bad for mankind. See what one thinking Nobel Laureate in medicine, (not dead western chemistry), Richard J Roberts, had to say about modern medicine:
“Because drug companies often are not as interested in healing you as in getting your money, so that investigation, suddenly, is diverted to the discovery of drugs that do not heal completely, but chronify the disease and make you experience an improvement that disappears when you stop taking the drug.”
“The drug that completely cures is not profitable,” says Roberts.
One big criticism against homeopathy is that it is only a Placebo. What is modern medicine? It is also a placebo only. The human body's healing comes from the inbuilt immune system. This elegant study from four universities, published in one of the so called prestigious journals, Science Translational Medicine, with Professor Bingel as the lead author (even Cambridge was involved in that study along with universities of Hamburg and Munich) clearly showed that even intravenous saline drip relieved pain ONLY when the patient believed that it is morphia as told by his doctor, the researcher. Morphia intravenously did not relieve pain when the doctor told the patient that it was not morphia. This is a very elaborate study.( Sci Transl Med 3, 70ra14 (2011); Ulrike Bingel, et al. Analgesic Benefit of the Opioid Remifentanil)
Another study from Harvard set up showed how even coronary artery disease gets completely relieved by a placebo surgery compared to real surgical revascularisations using laser tipped catheters. (J Am Coll Cardiol 2005;46:1812–9)
The bottom line is that human being is not a molecule in the chemistry laboratory to be treated as an inert object. Man has his consciousness; incidentally, the mind is not inside the brain as was the opinion of conventional neurology. The whole edifice of the western medical reductionist science base of randomised controlled studies has been now questioned as humans cannot be compared like molecules in the chemistry laboratory. (Rawlins M. The Harveian Oration of 2008. De Testimonio. On the evidence for decisions about the use of therapeutic interventions. Royal College of Physicians, 2008.)
Quantum physics has uprooted conventional scientific thinking. There is no perception without a perceiver. The new science of Biocentrism tells us that most studies on animals depend on the interaction of the animal's consciousness with that of the researcher. The results could be as much different when a male does the experiment compared to a female researcher! Most animal Studies in western medicine are thus a waste.
There are 125 Fundamental questions that western science has not been able to answer so far, writes an editorial in the journal Science on its 125the anniversary. Nobel Laureate Peter Medawar in his classic LIMITS OF SCIENCE admits that science is only an enterprise built to answer certain mundane questions. Science can never answer many esoteric questions and is not therefore the only method to acquire human wisdom. It is one of the methods. He says that science is built like a railway engine to move on a track. One cannot ask it to fly. That does not mean that science is useless. Never! It has its limited role to play. It is technology with huge money involved in it that has made science and scientists to lose their heads. The Pharma industry is behind this big money gamble and they do not want their rice bowl to be broken by Ayurveda and Homeopathy. I can understand them opposing homeopathy and Ayurveda but why does an academic break his head on that unless he has some strings pulling him from behind, the unseen hand?
Homeopathy is a kind of energy medicine. A chemist will not be able to detect any drug in homeopathic medicines as they are in nano and piko particles. One of the celebrated scientists at Penn State University, who died recently, Late Rustum Roy, had done extensive studies to show how homeopathy works. His papers are in Material Science Journals. Incidentally, Rustum was nominated for the NOBEL 21 times (a record) but did not get it as he did not have any lobby behind him! He was the first to show how Nano particles could be extracted using his SOL-GEL technic way back in 1954, which has been cited nearly 70,000 times since then. He also is the one to show how atomic hydrogen can be extracted from simple sea water to run any engine without nascent oxygen remaining there to damage the engine. Atomic hydrogen from water will leave water as a whole and hydrogen becomes a whole. He learnt this from the Poornam imam, Poornam adah principle in the Vedas.
Ayurveda is a different cup of tea. Ayurveda recognises the human body as a closed system in systems biology. The body has an enormous capacity to heal given a conducive environment. This is what is the need of the hour. Chemical molecules from outside are usually rejected inside the human system and sent to the liver for destruction. That is the cause for the recent epidemic of non-alcoholic cirrhosis. Please look into this study by Professor DC Wallace using his own MIT computer chip to track drugs. Ayurvedic drugs are holistic and are accepted as food by the human intelligence and are not destroyed. (Genetics 2008; 179: 727) another chemist and Nobel Laureate, John Von Neumann had defined science as, "making models, mathematical constructs, which with verbal jargon are supposed to work." If that were so modern western medicine is non-science because it uses linear mathematical model in a non-linear human system, a square plug in a round hole. Ayurveda, on the contrary, has a robust non-linear mathematical base.
In short, there have been attempts to denigrate homeopathy and Ayurveda from time immemorial. In addition these had not much support from the establishments, while western medicine has been promoted by governments all over. During the last swine flu fiasco all governments were encouraging selling Tamiflu. Even the World Health Organisation (WHO) was found in bed with the Pharma lobby, wrote British Medical Journal! Quantum physics further supports these two sciences with their quantum healing capacity.
The first American Homeopathic Association was started by regular western medical doctors as they found their system at that time in 19th Century to be obnoxious. But when the homeopaths started making money they started the American Medical Association fifty years later. See the joke of all these and one thing is very clear here. There is not an iota of science in all these business. This is all pure business. Homeopathy and Ayurveda will last despite all these scientific pontificating. Is science becoming another fanatic religion trying to shut out all opponents?
“The master in the art of living makes little distinction between his work and his play, his labour and his leisure, his mind and his body, his information and his recreation, his love and his religion. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence at whatever he does, leaving others to decide whether he is working or playing. To him he’s always doing both.”
-LP Jacks
(Professor Dr BM Hegde, a Padma Bhushan awardee in 2010, is an MD, PhD, FRCP (London, Edinburgh, Glasgow & Dublin), FACC and FAMS.)
Science is a unique religion all by itself. Brahmins and their Vedas to which "Hindus" lay claim are unique with their own teleologies (Bhaga Thyaga Nyaya, Arundhathi Darshana Nyaya and Aatma Darshana Nyaya). Western Science is primarily restricted to the equivalent of "Bagha Thyaga Nyaya".
Science is like Islam. On one hand it claims to be all things rational and human, yet its practitioners rely on interpretations that they turn into dogma for their ruthless personal advantage at the cost of humanity and civilization . What is Science? It is a language contrived to explain what is observed in Nature. Its limitations spring from the observer and the instruments of observation as well as the rules of its language. But the adversarial nature of its creation renders it defensive of its methods and conceptual vocabulary to the extent that it rejects alternate perceptions of the same reality that may be sought to be described otherwise. Like Law, Accountancy, Mathematics or any other man made subject.
Science, all too often, ignores blips outside an established curve within a narrow tunnel of study. Intuitively, it has always occurred to me that people evolved in different places from different types of apes as is visible by their complexion, facial features physical characteristics and so on as well as, most importantly, their genetically coded impulses that give unique shade and character to the universal tool making ability in waging war on "nature" . It seems self evident to me that the evolution of people into human beings is also proceeding along distinct time lines that are not entirely determined by survival and environmental factors restricted to the culture evolved as people alone. There are obvious atavistic differences in traits and character. Just as the espousal of the Swastika by the Third Reich made something lofty and noble into an unmentionable while distorting the History and meaning of "Aryans", "eugenics" as a politically incorrect concept put an end to many crucial fields of anthropological study. It may be necessary anthropologically and culturally, if not zoologically, to create sub categories within homo sapiens. One of the greatest conundrums in the nature of homo "sapiens", accentuated, as it were, by the rise and spread of Islam as also the constitutional veneration of incompetence, inability and backwardness in countries like India, in the present day, is, "If humans evolved from people, why are humans ruled by people?". Or, is there a counter evolutionary process of devolution also in constant play not only among Homo "Sapiens" but in other lower (or, perhaps, Higher strata) of the tree (or roots) of life.
(P.S.: I would take Dr. Hegde more seriously if he did not have a Padma Award and a Ph.D. like any Indian danseuse, cricketer or politician who knows how to butter its bread!
Then he goes on to attack Western Medicine ONLY by providing quotes from other people...not by substantiating his claims with any evidence or data. The few data he presents are lone outliers in truckloads of data that say exactly the opposite. For example, he quotes only placebo study in Science Translational Medicine to prove that Western Medicine is only based on Placebos and ignores thousands of other studies that describe the mechanism of action of painkillers that have been getting better and better each decade.
The author has the temerity to say..."What is modern medicine? It is also a placebo only. " and in another paragraph says ..."why has modern medicine not cured any disease so far ...." These are the most ridiculous statements ever made...there are mountains of evidence to show that most of modern medicine is not placebo and has cured a vast variety of diseases. Before the advent of modern medicine, we didnt know even the most basic things like the revolutionary germ theory which showed that specific germs caused specific diseases, we didn't know most details of human anatomy and physiology that have helped diagnose and cure a vast number of diseases from complex things such as heart valve malfunctions in babies to simpler things such as cataracts as causes of total blindness...we did not know about metabolites,minerals, vitamins and amino acids, the imbalance of which cause a multitude of different diseases like scurvy, goitre, gout and folic acid deficiencies which lead to malformed babies..just to name a few. We didnt know about our immune system that has helped us make very impressive gains in many different fields from autoimmune diseases to cancer.
In this article instead of citing evidence...he has quoted multiple scientists, philosophers, and even Winston Churchill and Shakespeare to make his point....why ? Simply because there is hardly any evidence to back his outrageous claims about Homeopathy and Ayurveda.
Sample this statement he makes : "modern western medicine is non-science because it uses linear mathematical model in a non-linear human system, a square plug in a round hole. Ayurveda, on the contrary, has a robust non-linear mathematical base."
What is the basis for this confident assertion ?
Honey and turmeric help a cough or sore throat. Both are proven antibiotic for wounds etc. Garlic is proven to reduce lipid levels in blood. Cinnamon helps reduce congestion.
Artemisinin - the best cure for Malaria was derived from Chinese herbal medicine. Asprin was discovered from traditional use of willow bark tea to treat fever.
But while a ayurvedic or herbalist would give you some actual honey & turmeric paste to consume, the homoeopathic system of medicine says that one should take only one 1 drop of honey or 1 grain of turmeric and dissolve it in 100 litres of water. And then take a few drops of that water and give it to patients as medicine.
From that entire solution, only 0.001% of it will contain any honey or turmeric. The rest 99.999% is basically water. But the entire 100 litres is considered medicine.
What few drops you get are almost guaranteed to contain no honey or turmeric. This is what the Professor was talking about. Chemically speaking, the homoeopathic medicine you consume is water and sugar only.
However, some Homoeopaths have now started changing practices. They have started putting actual real quantities of ingredients in their product. Basically they are becoming Herbalists but keeping the "brand" of Homoeopathy.
The big difference is that Allopathic and Ayurvedic / Herbal medicines have some active ingredient that WILL actually have an effect on your body - whether good or bad (most likely a bit of both - but good-effects more than balancing out the bad).
But homoeopathic medicine is prepared in such a manner that it contains only water and sugar (lactose).. If one takes homoeopathic medicine or plain water mixed with sugar pills, it is the same thing. (If anything tap water contains more of the base ingredient of homoeopathy - i.e. arsenic).
Only difference is that Homoeopath provides a strong psychological effect - of going to a doctor and getting some complicated looking medicine. Plus doctor will normally instruct you on improving your diet etc.. That is called Placebo effect.
Actually nothing wrong in using Placebo effect to help people feel better - Homoeopathy should embrace it rather than denying it.
But again herbal medicines contain an ACTIVE ingredient while Homoeopathic medicines are basically sugar + water. Though sometimes one sees herbal cures being sold as Homepathic
What kind of placebo would work on a toddler?
This is utter rubbish
Second, homoeopaths will often give very good dietary advice that makes a difference
Third, sugar acts as a painkiller in infants so to that extent they get relief when eating homoeopathic medicine
Also, some homoeopaths are putting herbal ingredients in thier medicines. These are not part of homoeopathy practice, but Indian homoeopaths sometime do it, and it can be useful.
Last, some unscrupulous homoeopaths put strong allopathic medicines and/or steroids in thier formulations which can show quick results but have risk of side-effects.
Fact is that classic homoeopathic medicine is supposed to be made of sugar and water.. So it cannot have any medicinal effect.
With all the best of medical science in the US at his disposal,Reagan actually turned his back on America’s cancer treatments—and lived another 19 years (after surgery) until he died of Alzheimer’s at age 93 in 2004.
There seems to be an enormous amount of cover-ups by the mainstream media and by the various cancer establishments.
Everything in the end comes from nature, including chemo drugs.Its a matter of actually knowing the compound you are using.
When it comes to homeopathy however, they are right. It is designed to be only water and sugar.
Any "medicine" is super-diluted so much - it is like putting a single drop of honey in hundred-litres of water and expecting the diluted solution to help with a sore throat.
I think the following scenario fits the expression.
A big pharma company wants to test a new drug it has developed and commissions a project in a prestigious university.Funds are provided .10 tests are performed where 3 tests give positive results and 7 tests negative.What should the conclusion be?-that the drug does not work.That is not how the system works though.The results of the 7 tests are discarded and the 3 test results are published in the prestigious journal owned by the big pharma itself that the results clearly show that this new drug is highly effective.
If anyone from the team dares to differ,he/she is quickly discredited and his/her career ruined forever.
Kudos to you yet again for twisting facts around elegant eloquency.
Sir i was mesmerized the first time i listened to you when i was in high school, later only to realize, most of the stuff u spoke about that day was mumbo jumbo without any evidence.
18 years from that day i am writing this.
I wont denounce Ayurveda fully as yet since it has the strength of trial and error for thousands of years, there might actually be some science behind it. I really hope someone as illustrious as you will actually fund and guide some original research into Ayurveda.
Now as far as Homeopathy is concerned, i fail to see the science in simply diluting medicines. I dare you to prove me wrong.
It originated in 17th centuary when much of the modern Allopathic practices were not yet in existence.
Sir ‘Allopathy too believed in a lot of unsubstantiated practices back then including therepeutic blood letting, most of which we dont practice nowadays. WE HAVE EVOLVED.
So homeopathy was started by an allopathy doctor who started diluting Allopathic drugs 300 years ago ( most of those drugs are no longer used in those forms cos they are harmful). Tell me the science involved in diluting 300 year old potentially harmful drugs and rendering them harmless.You are not actually treating anything are you.
Hell” they just give diluted Belladona for cough, which Allopathy has purified to Atropine and use it based on scientific pharmacokinetic properties. They are still using the crude form of atropine and using it to treat cough???? ( we use Atropine for cardiac emergencies and OP poisoning)there are simpler medicines for cough
.No science here.
Homeopathy is largely based on similia similibis curentur. So what you mean to say , the premise that you give a laxative to cure diarrhoea is scientifically sound???
As far as the article you cited on coronary revascularization. Did you really read the article??
The article compared a new unsubstantiated procedure i.e laser myocardial revascularization in patients who are otherwise not amenable to standard therapy (CABG and PTCA) to placebo and found that the new procedure is just as good as a placebo. Let me break it up for you, Laser myocardial revascularization is useless. So is placebo.On the other hand standard therapy CABG and PTCA are logarithmically better than placebo for Coronary artery disease.
Yes i read the editorial in NEJM. It is sad that lot of medical research is industry driven,and we as doctors need to do something about it. We need govt funding in research so that we are not dependant on big pharma for research, not denounce modern medicine and talk like medieval sages.
The Nanotechnology angle was just brilliant hogwash ( WOW). Do you actually read all these article s that you quote with unabashed authority.
Let me quote a line from DR Rustum’s article on material research and its relevance to homeopathy (“THIS PAPER DOES NOT DEAL IN ANY WAY WITH, AND HAS NO BEARING WHATSOEVER ON, THE CLINICAL EFFICACY OF ANY HOMEOPATHIC REMEDY”, This line is directly cut and pasted from that article.)
Sir when respected doctors like you go on a supporting spree to illfounded science it constitutes disservice to the society and humanity as a whole. I would humbly request you to at a bare minimum get your facts right.
Dr Sanu Anand
Physician and Intesivist.
Mumbai
There are hundreds of contemporary case records of cures of conditions like cancer, type 2 diabetes and addiction to conventional drugs which are documented with CT scans, x-rays, histopathological reports, blood work, other objective testing and physician and patient comments. They can be seen by googling "homeopathy cured case records".
Anyone who finds homeopathy has a friend for life!
Please cite one randomized control study which actually favors homeopathy... Real evidence, not anecdotes people tell their grandchildren.
That does not automatically elevate quackery and fake dangerous "medicine" methods such as Homeopathy to a reliable medical technology. Please never even bother to compare allopathy and homeopathy.
Some parts of Ayurveda may make sense but otherwise is not backed by any biology or biochemistry.
Let me give an example: One of my elderly relative had heart ailment and had undergone a bypass. Later, the family members rushed to a "reputed" ayur-doctor who recommended a Lehya for "strengthening the heart". Sadly the Lehya was nothing but 90% sugar and my relative is a diabetic and had to abandon Ayur-medicine when his blood sugar shot up to dangerous levels.
Bhupendra Madhiwalla