CEASE therapy or homeopathy, any luck?

Hi Guys,

FYI: AlanFreestone hasn't posted on the forum since 2015 when this thread was running.

If people want to believe in homeopathy then why criticise? If they benefit from the placebo affect when nothing else has worked then it has a value. When science has all of the answers then it would be time to get rid of all placebos but in the meantime...

I think you are getting there.

So can you see that your assertions of positive results are scientificaly flawed?

RidleyRumpus said:

[quote][/quote]

[quote][/quote]

[quote] As far as faith playing a part in the healing process, yes I'd agree with you that it can be very important. However I very often only deal with the parents of my patients...and only online. So it's unlikely that any sort of therapeutic relationship could be contributing to the child's improvements (especially as the majority all already taking supplements etc...my little sugar pills are just one more thing that their mum gives them to take)[/quote]

Alan 

You are showing here an ignorance of the placebo effect.

It does not matter that the patient is unaware of the nature of the treatment or even if they are being treated, if the person administering it knows then it will alter the outcome.

There is a reason why science insists on double blind trials.

I agree, double blind experiments are a very important scientific method.

Without it the results of experiments would be biased and next to useless.

Sometimes we measure the effectiveness of treatments by asking the patients opinion.  Such as depression.  This cannot be measured by instruments on a precise numerical scale, such as blood pressure.

Instead we ask the patient how he feels and compare this to how they felt before. ( A subjective numerical scale may be used).  If we didn't have double blind experiments and the depression patient knew he was getting a vitamin pill rather than the product of the latest technology.  It's very likely his response to the experiment would be #£#_&&.

When you say "However I very often only deal with the parents of my patients...and only online. So it's unlikely that any sort of therapeutic relationship could be contributing to the child's improvements" it demonstrates to me your ignorance of the scientific method. If the parents knew it was invalid, end of.

Your data is invalid as the parents and yourself knew that the patient was being "treated" with a remedy and hence this made any data evaluated invalid especially as those analysing the data were also those carrying out the evaluation. If the person doing the evaluation, in your case the parents or yourself or both, knew which patients were treated and which were not then the study is seriously flawed and is scientificaly irrelevent.

Just to clarify the term "DOUBLE BLIND" means that both the patient and people directly interacting with the patient are unaware of what treatment the patient is getting.  

This is to eliminate the effect of positive or negative effects of suggestion.

The effects of expectation and suggestion are another interrelated issue.  Where being positive and supportive can have beneficial effects.

How the health of mind and body interact is still largely unknown.

Robert124 said:

[quote][/quote]

[quote] As far as faith playing a part in the healing process, yes I'd agree with you that it can be very important. However I very often only deal with the parents of my patients...and only online. So it's unlikely that any sort of therapeutic relationship could be contributing to the child's improvements (especially as the majority all already taking supplements etc...my little sugar pills are just one more thing that their mum gives them to take)[/quote]

Alan 

You are showing here an ignorance of the placebo effect.

It does not matter that the patient is unaware of the nature of the treatment or even if they are being treated, if the person administering it knows then it will alter the outcome.

There is a reason why science insists on double blind trials.

I agree, double blind experiments are a very important scientific method.

Without it the results of experiments would be biased and next to useless.

Sometimes we measure the effectiveness of treatments by asking the patients opinion.  Such as depression.  This cannot be measured by instruments on a precise numerical scale, such as blood pressure.

Instead we ask the patient how he feels and compare this to how they felt before. ( A subjective numerical scale may be used).  If we didn't have double blind experiments and the depression patient knew he was getting a vitamin pill rather than the product of the latest technology.  It's very likely his response to the experiment would be #£#_&&.

When you say "However I very often only deal with the parents of my patients...and only online. So it's unlikely that any sort of therapeutic relationship could be contributing to the child's improvements" it demonstrates to me your ignorance of the scientific method. If the parents knew it was invalid, end of.

Your data is invalid as the parents and yourself knew that the patient was being "treated" with a remedy and hence this made any data evaluated invalid especially as those analysing the data were also those carrying out the evaluation. If the person doing the evaluation, in your case the parents or yourself or both, knew which patients were treated and which were not then the study is seriously flawed and is scientificaly irrelevent.

RidleyRumpus said:

[quote] As far as faith playing a part in the healing process, yes I'd agree with you that it can be very important. However I very often only deal with the parents of my patients...and only online. So it's unlikely that any sort of therapeutic relationship could be contributing to the child's improvements (especially as the majority all already taking supplements etc...my little sugar pills are just one more thing that their mum gives them to take)[/quote]

Alan 

You are showing here an ignorance of the placebo effect.

It does not matter that the patient is unaware of the nature of the treatment or even if they are being treated, if the person administering it knows then it will alter the outcome.

There is a reason why science insists on double blind trials.

I agree, double blind experiments are a very important scientific method.

Without it the results of experiments would be biased and next to useless.

Sometimes we measure the effectiveness of treatments by asking the patients opinion.  Such as depression.  This cannot be measured by instruments on a precise numerical scale, such as blood pressure.

Instead we ask the patient how he feels and compare this to how they felt before. ( A subjective numerical scale may be used).  If we didn't have double blind experiments and the depression patient knew he was getting a vitamin pill rather than the product of the latest technology.  It's very likely his response to the experiment would be #£#_&&.

AlanFreestone said:

As far as faith playing a part in the healing process, yes I'd agree with you that it can be very important. However I very often only deal with the parents of my patients...and only online. So it's unlikely that any sort of therapeutic relationship could be contributing to the child's improvements (especially as the majority all already taking supplements etc...my little sugar pills are just one more thing that their mum gives them to take)

Alan 

You are showing here an ignorance of the placebo effect.

It does not matter that the patient is unaware of the nature of the treatment or even if they are being treated, if the person administering it knows then it will alter the outcome.

There is a reason why science insists on double blind trials.

AlanFreestone said:

Apparently I'm not allowed to post any 'unsubstantiated claims' such as "I can show you my results with over 300 children" (with testimonials, letters from paediatricians & other specialists, test results showing decreases in toxic loads i.e mercury, aluminium, lead etc, ATEC scores dropping month-on-month). It seems bizarre that homeopathy detractors can make any sort of wild claim here without the need to back it up, but apparently I'm not even allowed to talk about results I have seen with my own eyes!

I'm fed up to the back teeth with this idea that autism can't be treated & that no-one knows the cause. I'm telling you it CAN be treated & the cause is almost always TOXICITY. I'm treating a child right now whose mum was taking methadone for heroin addiction throughout her pregancy. (tell me that can't have some detrimental effect on a developing foetus)

Either I'm a liar, my patients & I are in some sort of collective delusion, or there is something very interesting going on here. I urge those of you with open (yet critical) minds to examine this stuff.

No double blind scientific study has ever shown any effect from homeopathic treatment.

Please do not confuse scientific studies with being opinionated. Science is blind to preconceptions and personal, often not recognised, bias.

Personal observation is not.

zone_tripper said:

The only effect Homeopathy will have is make your wallet, purse, bank balance, or building society balance a lot lighter of hard cash!  It will also leave you with a possible credit card bill.

But from an evidence-based medical point of view, it will do absolutely nothing!  

Homeopathy is merely a modern-day equivalent of the snakeoil salesman of the 1800s American West.  It has no evidence-based, peer-reviewed, scienfic data to support its claims.  

Save your money!  

Dont lump snake oil in with homeopathy as things that do not have an effect, snake oil frequently did have an effect similar to some modern day heat rubs (en.wikipedia.org/.../Snake_oil), homeopathy on the other hand has not shown any effect in any scientific studies.

terrorhawk said:

as I'm concerned, we live in an illogical world full of things that we cannot explain with science.  

I know of very few things that cannot be explained by Science, please cite some for me. 

People talk of the placebo effect, this cannot apply to babies as thousands of mothers all over the world use homeopathic teething powders to comfort their children, and it works!  I don't care how it works, I only care that it does!

How do you "know" it works? No scientific study has shown any effect from homeopathic treatment. 

On the other hand the placebo effect is much more complicated than most people realise. If the person who gives you the (sugar) pills is wearing a white coat they will work better, if you are told they are expensive they will work better, if you are told they are expensive and that the blue must be taken after the red etc they will work better.

If the person who gives the pills out knows which one has the active* ingredients in then it alters the results. This is exactly the reason why scientific trials have to be double blind ie the people treating the patients must not know what they are treating them with.

*Of course in the case of homeopathy there is no "active" ingredients in the "remedies", even if the ingredient added would have had an effect it has been so diluted that there are no molecules in any one course of "treatment".

We were refered to the Homeopathy Hospital in Glasgow for my son's sleeping probelms. My son is a clever boy with wide understanding of science, and a healthy scepticism but the person we saw was a medical doctor who was also a homeopath. This gave my son confidence in him though he still checked online everything he was given. His remedy did include some of the more active ingredients and it did seem to help, though we will never know if it was a placebo effect. You could probably contact the hospital to ask for a list of practioners who you could trust. 

Good luck. 

My apologies to terrorhawk.

zone tripper, I would consider it more decent to quote me accurately enough to include the part about my conclusions. I most certainly didn't say that homeopathy 'cured' my sister, nor did I say that faith did, and I make no claims for either. My statements were factual, my opinions my own and honestly held, as are yours.

This same sister of mine died from a form of lung cancer, brought on by building work according to her consultant, and I just considered that to be ironic. Regarding your statement that faith didn't save your grandparents, I could just as easily say neither did modern medicine. This applies equally to my sister. This is immaterial to the fact that they are no longer with us, and I am sorry for your loss.

Once again, I would remind you that terrorhawk, as a loving, caring parent, asked a serious question. Instead of putting your point of view and leaving terrorhawk to consider it, you got into an increasingly fierce debate with a homeopathist, Alan, who also posted a point of view. It was distressing me because I felt, strongly, that it was an innapropriate distraction, and direspectful of terrorhawk's request for people to be gentle. You both put your views, and terrorhawk can form an opinion without being browbeaten.

That's why I asked Alan if he would please stop the debate because he came across to me as more likely to respond, whereas I didn't think that you would readily consider what you were doing. It is clear that you both advocate strongly for your respective views, and I welcome both for my own consideration. My only regret is that we cannot continue this discussion in private, on here.

We all have views that we strongly advocate for, but we try to emphasise that often, the most we can say is 'in my opinion'. That's what I think.

classic codger said:

My sister always reacted badly to antibiotics, 'though I'm not sure what relevance it had. When she was diagnosed with cervical cancer, she rejected new, scientific medicine in favour of homeopathy, and was still clear 25 years later. I am aware of the phenomenon of what the baffled medical tinkerers call spontaneous remission. It's probably easier to be baffled than to acknowledge that faith might have somehting to do with it.

Cervical Cancer is caused by a strain of the HPV virus. And if left untreated, the cancer can kill.  

I very much doubt that Homeopathy, i.e. overpriced little bottles of water, sugar pills, etc., has ever cured Cervical Cancer. Most likely, the cancer cells were eliminated by radiotherapy, chemotherapy, possible surgery to remove cancerous tissue, etc.  

It is likely that future cases will decline in number due to the introduction of the HPV vaccination programme, in collaboration with regular cervical screening.  

Faith, religious or otherwise, did not prevent my late grandfather dying of lung cancer.  Nor did it save my late grandmother from *** cancer.  

longman said:

Also it would be helpful if NAS could look into homeopathy qualifications and post some guidelines. There are genuine, fully accredited homeopathy degrees out there, but it is very complex.

In America you have to do a medical degree first and a homeopathy degree on top, so people will have two degrees after their names.

In the UK I cannot really find out what is the official line, which makes me wonder if there isn't one. There is a College for Homeopathic Education in London which uses several universities to provide the training and is possibly accedited by one of them.

But some courses here are accredited by American universities, which isn't quite the same thing, especially as in America they require a primary medical degree.

I keep seeing Honours LCHE degrees - but I cannot find out what they are. If they are Licentiates of the College of Homeopathic Education they shouldn't be Honours qualifications.

This is important if people are making ridiculous assertions like Mr Freestone's website:- "I simply don't accept that autism has to be a lifelong condition".

Statements like that would undermine the credibility of a good university - bringing it into disrepute - which can lead to a degree being withdrawn. So either the university accrediting such degrees doesn't care, or this isn't a proper accreditation.

I would hope that institutions awarding qualifications in homeopathy have a care that their graduates carry their qualification with pride, and don't bring it into disrepute.

The London Centre for Homeopathic Education offers a bsc (Hons) in Homeopathy; validated by the Middlesex University.  However, I could not find any other college or university in the UK offerring such a degree.  Indeed, many universities have dropped this degree over the past ten years!  

And august institutions such as Imperial College London do not appear to offer any degrees in alternative medicine, as far as I could ascetain from looking at the 2016 courses.  

By his own admission on his own website, Alan Freestone does not hold a degree in any field of medicine or science to be able to make an unsubstantiated claim like "Autism is caused by toxicity".  And when I asked, he has failed to provide any information regarding peer-reviewed studies to support such claims. By his own admission, he avoided my question entirely!

In addition to making the scientifically unsubstantiated claim that "Autism is caused by toxicity", on the home page of his website he has also repeated the internationally discredited claim regarding the MMR vaccine!

AlanFreestone said:

Hello classic codger

I've no intention of prolonging a 'debate' with zone tripper, however I felt it important to give my side of the argument in case the casual reader is left with a false impression of CEASE.

I would hope that my replies were contributing to this discussion, rather than hijacking it. I'm a CEASE therapist with a lot of experience in treating children with autism & I'm happy to answer any questions that people may have about the subject. 

As far as faith playing a part in the healing process, yes I'd agree with you that it can be very important. However I very often only deal with the parents of my patients...and only online. So it's unlikely that any sort of therapeutic relationship could be contributing to the child's improvements (especially as the majority all already taking supplements etc...my little sugar pills are just one more thing that their mum gives them to take)

Alan 

Alan,

I asked a series of rational questions, which any parent with an enquiring mind, a GCSE in Science, and a child with Autism might ask!

• Please provide links to peer-reviewed research papers, clinical trials, the clinical evidence-base, etc for homeopathy and CEASE.
• Please list your medical credentials; qualifications, professional memberships, and where one can read your phD thesis (if you have a phD from an accredited university or medical school).
• Please provide the same for your claim that Autism is caused by toxicity

classic codger said:

Alan, please can I ask you to stop your debate with zone tripper, who clearly has no idea what they're talking about. Your debate is hijacking a serious question.

I work for the NHS within Public Health, and am diagnoised with Autism.  So I do know what I'm talking about!

Hello classic codger

I've no intention of prolonging a 'debate' with zone tripper, however I felt it important to give my side of the argument in case the casual reader is left with a false impression of CEASE. :-)

I would hope that my replies were contributing to this discussion, rather than hijacking it. I'm a CEASE therapist with a lot of experience in treating children with autism & I'm happy to answer any questions that people may have about the subject. 

As far as faith playing a part in the healing process, yes I'd agree with you that it can be very important. However I very often only deal with the parents of my patients...and only online. So it's unlikely that any sort of therapeutic relationship could be contributing to the child's improvements (especially as the majority all already taking supplements etc...my little sugar pills are just one more thing that their mum gives them to take)

Alan 

Alan, please can I ask you to stop your debate with zone tripper, who clearly has no idea what they're talking about. Your debate is hijacking a serious question.

Hi terrorhawk

I've seen this therapy before although I don't know anyone who has tried it. However, it makes a lot of sense to me.

We know for a fact that our environment os toxicaly loaded, because our forefathers made it so. Homo Sapiens will always thus be a victim of its' own ignorance.

Homeopathy can be effective and I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it to anyone to try. This is a thoughtful treatment, and I fail to see what harm it can do EVEN if it does no good.

If your daughter gets worse before she gets better, that is exactly what homeopathy is designed to do as a sort of 'burn it off' process, I understand.

My sister always reacted badly to antibiotics, 'though I'm not sure what relevance it had. When she was diagnosed with cervical cancer, she rejected new, scientific medicine in favour of homeopathy, and was still clear 25 years later. I am aware of the phenomenon of what the baffled medical tinkerers call spontaneous remission. It's probably easier to be baffled than to acknowledge that faith might have somehting to do with it.

My view is that 'faith' heals. I think it's something to do with the body's ability to heal itself, and that the process is based on absolute faith. It follows that whatever you put your absolute faith in, it will work, be it 'modern medicine' homeopathy, or the laying on of hands. I make no other judgement, except to say that 'modern medicine' doesn't deserve any more or less faith than any other treatment.

I support any parent who wants to do their best for their child, and on the basis that your evaluation is just as valid as anyone else's, I'd say that if you feel you want to try it, go right ahead, it can't do any harm. Sadly, there isn't likely to be any 'proof' as such, any treatment involves both successes and failures.

Good wishes, and good luck.

AlanFreestone said:

Apparently I'm not allowed to post any 'unsubstantiated claims' such as "I can show you my results with over 300 children" (with testimonials, letters from paediatricians & other specialists, test results showing decreases in toxic loads i.e mercury, aluminium, lead etc, ATEC scores dropping month-on-month). It seems bizarre that homeopathy detractors can make any sort of wild claim here without the need to back it up, but apparently I'm not even allowed to talk about results I have seen with my own eyes!

I'm fed up to the back teeth with this idea that autism can't be treated & that no-one knows the cause. I'm telling you it CAN be treated & the cause is almost always TOXICITY. I'm treating a child right now whose mum was taking methadone for heroin addiction throughout her pregancy. (tell me that can't have some detrimental effect on a developing foetus)

Either I'm a liar, my patients & I are in some sort of collective delusion, or there is something very interesting going on here. I urge those of you with open (yet critical) minds to examine this stuff. 

Here is a factsheet from the NHS Southampton University Hospital on Methadone and Pregnancy...

www.uhs.nhs.uk/.../Methadoneandpregnancy-patientinformation.pdf

AlanFreestone said:

Apparently I'm not allowed to post any 'unsubstantiated claims' such as "I can show you my results with over 300 children" (with testimonials, letters from paediatricians & other specialists, test results showing decreases in toxic loads i.e mercury, aluminium, lead etc, ATEC scores dropping month-on-month). It seems bizarre that homeopathy detractors can make any sort of wild claim here without the need to back it up, but apparently I'm not even allowed to talk about results I have seen with my own eyes!

I'm fed up to the back teeth with this idea that autism can't be treated & that no-one knows the cause. I'm telling you it CAN be treated & the cause is almost always TOXICITY. I'm treating a child right now whose mum was taking methadone for heroin addiction throughout her pregancy. (tell me that can't have some detrimental effect on a developing foetus)

Either I'm a liar, my patients & I are in some sort of collective delusion, or there is something very interesting going on here. I urge those of you with open (yet critical) minds to examine this stuff. 

Please provide links to peer-reviewed research papers, clinical trials, the clinical evidence-base, etc for homeopathy and CEASE.

Please list your medical credentials; qualifications, professional memberships, and where one can read your phD thesis (if you have a phD from an accredited university or medical school).

Please provide the same for your claim that Autism is caused by toxicity.

And then I'll open my mind (and eye-lids).