Fwd: The Homeopathic Hit Squad

[Guest guest]

" Elaine "

Fri, 5 Mar 2004 22:25:13 -0800

The Homeopathic Hit Squad

 

 

http://www.anomalist.com/gonzoscience/homeopathic.html

Gonzo Science

 

The Homeopathic Hit Squad

 

A Column by Jim Richardson and Allen Richardson

 

When homeopathy was scientifically confirmed, the offending scientists

received a visit from the homeopathic hit squad. Their mission: to rub out

the career of the chief scientist-heretic, French immunologist Dr. Jacques

Benveniste. What is the homeopathic heresy, and how did top science journal

Nature attempt to eliminate the Benveniste threat?

 

Most homeopathic remedies involve curing illness with extremely low doses of

homeopathic medicine. Homeopathic cures are often diluted in water to the

point where not a single molecule of the original substance actually

remains. All you have left is water, which yet shows a curative effect. This

is known as the " infinite dilution " claim.

 

This notion, if true, could smash the mechanistic laws of chemistry,

biochemistry, and pharmacology, wherein something must be present in order

to react with something else. But could water have a kind of " memory " ?

 

In 1985, Benveniste and his team experimented with ways to block allergic

reactions. Allergic reactions are caused in part by substances like

histamine, which are stored in granules inside white blood cells. You can

degranulate the granules, and stop the allergic reaction, by using a

substance known as algE. What Benveniste dared to try was to infinitely

dilute the algE, and then to test its degranulating effects. As predicted by

the homeopaths, it worked. Subsequently, six other labs in France, Italy,

Israel, and Canada replicated Benveniste's results.

 

Then Nature got involved. They published Benveniste's results in 1988,

kindly thrusting him into the spotlight, and proceeded to make an example of

him. The indications are that Nature, the foremost scientific journal in the

world, published the Benveniste findings solely to publicly knock them down,

and not to inform the scientific world of important new results. For

instance: Nature suspected Benveniste of committing fraud, yet published his

work anyway. Also, they could have held up publication for four weeks until

they had finished the " investigation " they sicced on his lab. And they

published his work even though the negative results of their " investigation "

were a foregone conclusion. The message was clear: don't color outside the

lines, or we'll make with the mad smack-down. Nature had sent out a hit

squad.

 

The squad consisted of Nature editor and physicist J. Maddox; organic

chemist W. Stewart; and none other than professional magician James " the

Amazing " Randi, whose specialty is uncovering fraud. Benveniste was left to

point out that of the two actual scientists on the squad, neither was an

immunologist. Also according to Benveniste, the squad waltzed into his lab

and were rude and disruptive as they rooted about for fraud like hogs

digging for truffles. Then they went back to their journal and published a

report that said in essence, " We didn't find anything wrong, but we are

certain that Benveniste is incorrect (and by extension, so are all the labs

who verified his work). "

 

Since the hit squad incident, various studies have tossed the issue back and

forth like a ping-pong ball, with the studies that prove Benveniste wrong

getting published in Nature, and the other studies dry up and blow away. And

many scientists don't even want to touch the issue and risk getting a hit

squad of their own. Benveniste answers his critics in the letters column of

Nature, which is the only print he sees these days since the hit squad

incident resulted in his loss of funding, equipment, lab space, and standing

in the scientific community.

 

A pan-European effort, involving double-blind trials in four labs across

Europe, recently convened to put down the struggling heresy for good like a

mad dog. The results, reported March 15th, 2001, in the British paper

Guardian Unlimited, contained bad news for the skeptics. The pan-European

effort totally vindicated Benveniste and the " infinite dilution " claim of

the homeopaths. Three of the four labs found statistically significant

results from their infinite dilutions, as compared to placebos, and lab #4

came close.

 

The findings have split the sceptical community like a log. One pan-European

scientist, Professor Madeliene Ennis, a former sceptic, has converted. She

points to the airtight methodology of the pan-European tests and says it's

time to " start searching for a rational explanation for our findings. "

 

A possible explanation for the memory of water includes the theory of

" morphic resonance, " which allows a " ghost " molecule to imprint itself in

the vibratory structure of the water. If that theory pans out, we are seeing

a seismic tremor in the history of science, involving nothing less than the

breakdown of mechanism, and the rise of energy fields as the major players.

Alternatively, some recent research has suggested that homeopathically

" diluted' substance " might actually be more concentrated instead, in a

perfectly mechanistic way that heretofore had gone unknown. If this is true,

it arguably leaves even more egg on the faces of Nature's homeopathic hit

squad, and their infinitely diluted imaginations.

 

Recommended Reading: The Memory of Water: Homoeopathy and the Battle of

Ideas in the New Science by Michel Schiff; see also Jacques Benveniste's

website: DigiBio Research Laboratory.

..

Copyright 2001 by Jim Richardson and Allen Richardson

 

/

 

 

 

 

 

 

Search - Find what you’re looking for faster.