Interview With Dana Ullman, An Expert On Homeopathy

[Guest guest]

NaturalNews.com

October 3 2008

 

http://www.naturalnews.com/024393.html

 

Interview With Dana Ullman, An Expert on Homeopathy

by Louise Mclean

 

 

(NaturalNews) Dana Ullman has written numerous articles for

magazines, academic journals, authored many books, organized

conferences for homeopaths (for 20 years he organized the annual

conference for the National Center for Homeopathy in the U.S.) and is

often quoted in various media and internet sites. This interview will

also cover his book The Homeopathic Revolution: Why Famous People and

Cultural Heroes Choose Homeopathy. The website for his book is

(www.homeopathicrevolution.com) . His main website is:

(www.homeopathic.com) .

 

14th August 2008 Interview by Louise Mclean

 

Early on Sunday morning, 3rd August, I rushed out to Heathrow Airport

to meet Dana, who was flying home to San Francisco after his summer

holiday in Italy. Despite a little mix up, we nonetheless found each

other and managed to fit in a breakfast interview. Dana was full of

energy and enthusiasm and here is what he had to say on a multitude

of topics concerning homeopathy.

 

Louise: How long did it take you to research your book, The

Homeopathic Revolution?!

 

Dana: I'm laughing because it is something that I have been working

on for several decades! In fact I have always collected what I

consider fascinating facts and figures about homeopathy. So I have

collected the historical and present day information in various files

about famous people. Good writing is weaving together bodies of

information but the actual writing of the book went relatively fast,

over a year's period of time. I also admit to experiencing a fair

amount of magic on a regular basis. What I mean is that whenever I

would start working on a chapter on politicians or peacemakers,

corporate leaders or philanthropists, I would actively seek, read

books, go online and then all of a sudden someone would email me some

vital information which would just happen to be about the chapter

that I was working on!

 

Louise: Amazing synchronicity!

 

Dana: Yes, even beyond synchronicity. I am just always amazed at the

regular experiences of `coincidence'. It is remarkable and it also

let me know I was on the right track. The 16th century French

essayist, Michel de Montaigne, once wrote: " No wind blows on a ship

without a port of destination. " When we are doing good work, the

Universe ultimately supports it. A wind seems to come to help one's

journey. That's not to say there aren't obstacles. To me part of the

hero's journey is accepting the obstacles and not being put off by

them but seeing them as steps on the way and then all of a sudden

some gift would be given to me of yet more evidence that I should

consider.

 

The idea for the book came shortly after Coretta Scott King (Martin

Luther King's wife) passed away and the media in America highlighted

the fact that she died in an alternative medicine hospital in Mexico

where she was seeking out homeopathic treatment. As soon as I read

that, I literally threw down the gauntlet and said to myself, `That

does it! Here's yet another person people know and respect who sought

out and/or appreciated homeopathy.' Maybe it was too late in her life

but at least she sought it out. And I said I am going to connect the

dots of all the most famous people who had some kind of treatment or

experience of homeopathy.

 

At first I wasn't certain that I was going to have enough information

for a book. Well the book ended up being almost 400 pages! I had more

than enough information. It is like the work that Sue Young

(http://homeopathy.wildfalcon.com/) is doing on a regular basis which

I appreciate greatly. She has been running with a lot of this

historical information and the internet certainly makes our lives a

lot easier in terms of finding it.

 

I never expected to find stories of 7 different Popes, let alone 11

American Presidents and so many other Heads of State. I never

expected to find so many literary greats and so many cultural heroes,

names we all know and respect.

 

I will tell you a personal story about my father who was a

paediatrician and an allergist. When I got into homeopathy he was

sceptical because he didn't know what it was. In the 1980s I

mentioned to him that Yehudi Menhuin was the President of one of the

top homeopathy organisations in the U.K. My father had once had the

opportunity to become a professional violinist and he had always had

the highest regard for Yehudi Menhuin because he was not only a great

musician but also a wonderful philanthropist and so he was very moved

to hear that this man was an advocate of homeopathy.

 

Sometimes a person needs convincing about homeopathy by research,

others need a personal experience and other times people need to know

that someone they have heard of and admire uses it. I simply try and

tell people whatever they need to know to convince them that they

should investigate it or try it.

 

I have written a lot about research in homeopathy and I've written a

lot about how people can use the medicines at home to treat

themselves and their families. The third strategy is to simply show

that so many of the most successful, most respected and even most

famous people in the last 200 years have been advocates. This is all

part of a body of evidence that will encourage people who may not be

familiar with homeopathy to consider becoming familiar with it.

 

Louise: And so have you found a lot of outlets for the book or is it

mainly on your website and on the internet?

 

Dana: I have to admit that it is challenging getting the word out.

There is a lot of noise we all experience from the news, various

medias and the internet. So although the book has gone into its

second printing, I expected it to be into its eight printing or tenth

printing by now. I expected this book to really hit a nerve in a

profound way and even possibly be on a best seller's list. So it has

not reached my personal expectations. It's a very popular book but I

expected it to be more of a breakthrough book.

 

Louise: Are you able to get it into bookshops?

 

Dana: One never knows where a book is. You see it on Amazon, you see

it on various sources, I don't know where it is in the world.

 

Louise: I feel there is a kind of media censorship with homeopathy.

 

Dana: Sadly the world doesn't know much about homeopathy, so I have

some sensitivity to bookshop stores that may not want to sell the

homeopathy books because they don't sell that well. The difference

with The Homeopathic Revolution is that whether one is interested in

homeopathy or not, we all have an interest in knowing what successful

people do to help them become successful. How they become healthy is

an integral part of someone's creativity and/or success so I thought

this book would touch a nerve in people. It has begun to but, of

course, we have a long way to go.

 

Louise: I think that homeopathy has just started to have a revival in

America since the days when the AMA contributed to making it almost

die out. I am very pleased to see that homeopathy is taking off there

at the moment. Mike Adams who runs (www.naturalnews.com) has recently

been putting out articles on homeopathy which he didn't do in the

past and he has a huge email list reaching millions. It's great

because we've got to get it promoted which you and I are both in to.

Get the word out: `It works, it works, it works!'

 

But what we are worried about at the moment over here, is that via EU

regulation, they might say only people who have state registered

qualifications will be allowed to practise. That will mean the

qualifications gained at our private colleges may not be recognised.

But EU regulation can only be imposed when all 27 member countries

have ratified it which has not happened yet.

 

Dana: I think one of the reasons why the attacks are getting stronger

is also because the professional homeopaths are stronger here in

Europe. So they are going after them here.

 

Homeopathy is still quite small in the U.S. I think what is happening

in England is interesting in terms of all the attacks. I think the

attacks are taking place because of homeopathy's integration within

the mainstream, that it is being taught in various Universities and

the medicines are being sold in Boots and various mainstream

pharmacies. So that is threatening. To be candid, I look forward to

the time when homeopathy is attacked in America because that will

mean that homeopathy is achieving some degree of integration that is

threatening.

 

Louise: It's almost like there's no such thing as bad news. If it's

attacked in the newspapers, then people will ask `what's this?' and

want to know about it. Before that, they may never have heard of it.

 

Dana: I don't want to say the attacks homeopathy is experiencing is

good news and I don't think any bad news is good news. I am just

saying it is a symptom of a disease and it's a symptom of

homeopathy's successes that it is being attacked and that it's worthy

of attack.

 

Louise: What they do is first they completely ignore you. For years

there was nothing in the media at all about homeopathy in the U.K.,

nothing. They kept it out. Homeopathy has become so popular and they

don't know what to do, so then they have to attack it.

 

Dana: The media is funny because they will cover you to bring you up

and they'll cover you to bring you down -- this sells in newspapers,

magazines and TV.

 

Louise: Are there any restriction for homeopathic practitioners in

America -- I suppose it depends upon the state you live in?

 

Dana: Every state has its own laws. California and Minnesota are the

freer states. Most other states are not enforcing restrictions

because the medical board are investigating doctors doing dangerous

medical practices, which is a higher risk problem than a natural

healer. I do predict there will be some district attorneys who might

go after homeopaths if they think that they are dangerous, charging a

lot of money, making exaggerated claims or if someone complains. I

also predict that some of the spooks, as you call them, will create

these bogus complaints just to get more investigations going.

 

Louise: They do that and make a big thing in the newspapers, holding

one practitioner up as an example, in order to send a clear message

to the rest of us. Fortunately there are few legal cases against

natural practitioners.

 

Dana: I read that great book by Martin Walker, Dirty Medicine

(http://www.slingshotpublications.com/) , I love him. When his book

came out I bought 100 copies from him and I sold some and I gave a

bunch away. He is one of these people who has a backbone and he

really showed how the quack busters are so much more livid in England

compared to anywhere else. These guys are just crazed, they are so

certain of their limited point of view. They diminish anything. You

are damned if you do and damned if you don't. You point to research

and they want more. I'm all for more but you just have to acknowledge

what's there. When you look at the body of evidence -- all the basic

science, all the empirical work, all the historical work. I think one

has to be very sceptical to believe it is all psychic abilities and

placebo response. When these spooks say homeopathy is for the birds,

I agree with them it is for the birds and every other living creature

on the planet!

 

Ultimately in the 21st century, I strongly believe that homeopathy

represents the very modern if not futuristic medical paradigm because

to me it is a form of nano-pharmacology. I like that word because

nano is the only word in our language which means both very very

small and very powerful. I encourage my colleagues to use it too and

use the word nanodoses. Part of its definition means one billionth

but its real origins come from the word which simply means very small

and so I don't think of it as simply a billionth. It is very small

and very powerful.

 

If you think of what an ideal drug should do, to me an ideal drug

should be something that augments immuno-competence and that's what

homeopathy does. I don't mean simply strengthen the immune system

because the immune system doesn't always need strengthening.

Sometimes it's too hyperactive and that is what auto-immune disease

is all about. In other words homeopathic medicines can and will

augment immune response when necessary and they will tonify it when

it's overactive... and that's what we are seeing again and again in

the clinical practice of homeopathy.

 

Louise: Balances out the system.

 

Dana: In fact there is a new study that is coming out shortly which

is a re-analysis of the 2005 Lancet review of Shang. The researchers

got it accepted in a major international journal of research. What

they have finally done is what Shang didn't do. He didn't review all

of the high calibre research but only a small part of it. He ignored

comprehensive analysis entirely. I think he knew exactly what it was

but he didn't want to report on it, as it was too positive. Instead

he only reported on trials with very large numbers of subjects

because when you do that, most of those studies use one remedy for

everybody without any degree of individuality.

 

Louise: We individualise.

 

Dana: We do individualise but sometimes the single remedy or the

formulas will work for a broad number of people.

 

Louise: Like Mixed Pollen for hay fever.

 

Dana: That's right or Oscillococcinum. But for some reason they did

not include any of David Reilly's research,

(http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/abstract...) . I don't know why they

ignored it.

 

Louise: It was too positive.

 

Dana: In fact they had a remark in the Shang article published in the

Lancet, where they specifically made reference to trials on

respiratory ailments and that the results were robust, but they said

they couldn't trust them because there were only 8 studies. But then

again they based their entire analysis on 8 homeopathic studies and 6

conventional ones. So they can't have it both ways and this new

journal article in the Journal of Clinical Epidemiology which is

ranked as one of the top international journals of reviews of

research, has accepted the new studies.

 

I also want to let you know there have been a number of new plant

studies that some Swiss and Italian researchers have conducted,

showing powerful effects of homeopathic doses on plants.

 

Louise: I don't think that's the Placebo Effect! So did you meet the

researchers when you were on holiday in Italy?

 

Dana: No, I met them two years ago in London at the Royal London

Homeopathic Hospital conference. Stephan Baumgartner is a leader in

the group.

 

Louise: Very interesting.

 

Dana: There was a group of mostly physicians and scientists who I

also met in London 2 years ago at the same conference. They came with

a large contingent of researchers. If you have read the journal

Homeopathy of the U.K. Faculty of Homeopathy, it is the best academic

journal with the best information on research.

 

Louise: I heard that Professor Edzard Ernst is on the Editorial board

of Homeopathy.

 

Dana: Yes, he is on their editorial board but I don't mind having

dialogue with our critics.

 

Louise: He used homeopathy and he thought it was great and now he is

saying the opposite.

 

Dana: It is a tad ironic that one of his own studies in 1990 tested a

homeopathic formula in the treatment of people with varicose veins,

and it showed positive results!

 

Louise: This thing about plants is interesting as a homeopathic

practitioner in the U.S., Phyllis Geordic, was also telling me about

this and how they use it in their garden and how their plants grow so

much better.

 

Dana: There is a book that has come out called Homeopathy for Farming

and Gardening and I want more people to investigate and read it and

expand upon it further to see what works and what doesn't. I believe

that homeopathy really is going to be one of the important

technologies for the future, not just for medicine but for planetary

health, plant health, for ecological disasters even. I wonder what we

can do there?

 

Louise: It's amazing and once we start proving how it works in the

garden, they really do have to shut up about the placebo effect!

 

Dana: One of my other bodies of information that I am very proud of,

which a lot of people are not familiar with, is the ebook I wrote

called Homeopathic Family Medicine

(http://www.homeopathic.com/store/hfm/eb...) . This is the most up to

date and comprehensive body of information on clinical research

verifying the efficacy of homeopathy and it is an ebook because I

update it every 3 or 4 months. I have several hundred clinical trials

that are referenced. Each of them is referenced according to the

disease for which they are known to treat. As an ebook, it is

organised according to a disease, so you can read about what research

has been done to treat people with asthma or allergies or arthritis

or ADD or whatever. There is over a 100 ailments provided in this

ebook. There isn't research on every one of them but it is amazing

how many for which there is research. It is usually double blind,

placebo controlled trials, though sometimes there are other types of

studies that are done that have been published in peer reviewed

journals which are worthy of reference.

 

Because a number of people really do need convincing through seeing

the research, I am always shocked about how few homeopaths know

anything about our scientific evidence. It is not that homeopaths

need this information for their own convincing, they don't. Even the

patient in front of them doesn't need it but the patient's spouse

does, the patient's neighbours do, the patient's in-laws do. We are

all surrounded by certain people who are sceptical for whom it is

good to have this information.

 

I have been disappointed many times at the ignorance of homeopaths

about our body of scientific evidence. It's almost as though most

homeopaths don't give a damn about what evidence there is or isn't.

Some homeopaths even say that research is impossible with homeopathy

because the medicines have to be individualised. They don't

understand that you can do research that allows for individual

treatment. It's tricky to do that but it's all doable and more

important, it has been done. There have been studies of some of the

single remedies and some of the formula products which have shown

beneficial results. Not all research is positive and you can do a

trial in a tricky way so it fails and there have been plenty of those

studies done but still the bulk of research on homeopathy has had

positive results.

 

Louise: And even when you put all that evidence to the Quackbusters

on these websites and blogs, they still ignore it, don't they?

 

Dana: Yes, absolutely (laughs). I have in front of me a very powerful

statement by one of the world's leading skeptics of not just

homeopathy but of other alternative stuff. It's a man named Martin

Gardner and it comes from a magazine called The Skeptical Enquirer --

one of those magazines full of articles published by skeptics. They

have a special article about Sir Arthur C. Clark, the science fiction

writer who wrote the book which became the movie `2001 A Space

Odyssey'. Martin Gardner quotes Clark and I love this quote: `A

sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is

possible, he is almost certainly right; that something is impossible,

he is very probably wrong.' I fully agree.

 

Ultimately many of our skeptics insist that homeopathy is magic or

that it is completely placebo but guess what, you can't do what we do

in homeopathy through placebo. Besides all the body of scientific

evidence, when one does even a cursory review of homeopathy's

history, you cannot explain so many of the successes that we've

experienced -- in treating infectious diseases, epidemics, treating

people with very serious chronic illness and life-saving conditions

that would normally kill people and having such good results with

homeopathy.

 

Louise: Absolutely and when you see a child's high fever go down

within minutes or a haemorrhage stop practically instantly after the

right remedy, you have to see it to believe it. In acutes, that's

when you really see the magic happen. Do you have a busy practice?

 

Dana: No, I don't. I don't see patients. I spend all my time writing

about homeopathy, teaching homeopathy, publishing books. You may or

may not know it, my company Homeopathic Educational Services has co-

published about 35 different books with a Berkeley company called

North Atlantic Books. I usually bring the books to them and we co-

publish them together. North Atlantic and my company have published

some of the best modern homeopathic books, ranging from a couple of

books by Whitmont, Bailey's Homeopathic Psychology, Paul Herscu's The

Homeopathic Treatment of Children, Hamilton's Homeopathic Medicines

for Cats and Dogs, Peter Chappell's Emotional Healing with

Homeopathy. These are an integral part of the modern body of

information and if you notice, all these books are extremely

reasonably priced. So I have always been committed to making

information available at as reasonable a price as possible. To me

that is part of my own personal ethic.

 

Louise: In a way you're more into promoting homeopathy, which is

really good, because that's what we need to do.

 

Dana: I myself took it seriously and at the same time found the means

of providing information about it. I think there's a tendency among

homeopaths to talk to themselves and to talk to the already converted

and just expect people to come to them when they're ready. I think

sometimes you need to rattle the bushes and wake people up who may

not initially have a prediliction towards homeopathy -- to at least

have them consider it.

 

I also found in writing the book The Homeopathic Revolution that not

only were there 7 different Popes that used or advocated for it but I

found a whole host of other clergy and spiritual leaders ranging from

leading Muslim clerics and Rabbis to Eastern gurus and so my hope is

that homeopathy becomes one of the means for common ground that can

be used to realise that we are all in this together. Even if we have

different beliefs, we can have some agreed upon understandings about

health and healing which we can share with each other and benefit

from each other and heal each other.

 

Louise: Yes, unite the religions a bit.

 

Dana: Boy, do we need that one!

 

Louise: Is there anything else that you would like to say?

 

Dana: I hope that homeopaths will consider the importance of

supporting homeopathic companies first. If a homeopathic company has

a product, buy it from them. Support our own organisations. Support

our own companies before rushing off to Amazon and some of the other

discount websites. I have also read that some people use machines to

make homeopathic medicines as a way of not having to buy them from

the pharmacies.

 

Louise: Radionics machines.

 

Dana: I really hope that people realise how damaging that can be to

our industry and I do believe that it is important that we support

our industry in order to achieve the success that we're due.

 

Louise: Keep it alive. I agree.

 

Dana: I do devote a lot of my time and effort in getting the word out

for homeopathy. However, due to all of my volunteer efforts, I need

support from fellow advocates for homeopathy. I need people to

consider donating money to these active media efforts. If, by chance,

someone could come forward with some significant financial support, I

would hire a professional PR person with whom I could create an

active media response team that would make homeopathy a " household

word " .

 

If your life (or someone close to you) has benefitted greatly from

homeopathy, I sincerely hope that you reach out to me and/or to other

individuals or organizations who are really making a difference. It

is amazing how a reasonable little amount of money can create a

significant effect. I hope that someone out there reaches out to help

me put homeopathy on the map.

 

Copyright Louise Mclean 2008

Reprinted with permission

 

Author's Note: Interviews are conducted to present the opinions and

ideas of people who are doing important work to further the cause of

Homeopathy. The views expressed may not always necessarily reflect

those of the Author.

 

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About the author

Louise Mclean, LCCH MHMA, is a homeopathic practitioner with 20 years

experience. She is also the Editor of Zeus Information Service which

came into being in February 2003. Its purpose is to help unify the

Worldwide Health Freedom movement – people and organisations who

believe in the value of natural health therapies and want to continue

using them. Subscribers receive free Zeus News bulletins containing

important articles from the global press and top websites – on Health

Freedom, Alternative Medicine, Homeopathy, Pharma, Environment, GM

Food, Vaccines andPolitics. The subject of health is extremely wide

ranging and Zeus presents articles on a host of key subjects

affecting it.

 

 

 

 

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