July 2011 Classical Medicine Newsletter

 

 

2 July 2011

 

Happy 4th of July to you and yours. Here's hoping it's a pleasant weekend in your part of the world.

 

It just so happens that homeopathy shows up as a common thread in the three most-read posts on the Classical Medicine Journal last month, in three completely different situations from three different parts of the world. And in honor of our nation's Independence Day, read on to learn about ground-breaking research into the mechanics of acupuncture being performed by a team from the U. S. of A. (the U. of Rochester Medical Center, to be specific). The best of the east meets the best of the west and the whole world is the better for it.

 

Leading the pack is the one story to read if there's time to read no others - the results of a landmark research study using a homeopathic vaccine to immunize millions of people against leptospirosis, a particularly awful sounding flu-like affliction spread by contaminated water in steamy climates. It has descriptive common names like Swineherd's disease; Rice-field, Cane-cutter, Swamp and/or Mud fever; oh, and also, Rat Catcher's Yellows. Very rare in the continental US, leptospirosis is still a big problem in poor counties with tropical climates. Countries like Cuba. In 2007, in the face of a projected crisis, 2.1 million Cubans took a homeopathic vaccine made from four strains of leptospira. An amazing 90% decrease in disease incidence was recorded in the vaccinated area. Great results in '08, too. So why no headlines when this was first published in 2010? Perhaps because the vaccine cost only $200,000 and took just one week to manufacture? Or because the research came from Cuba? Or because it's a bit difficult to dismiss the results as placebo effect?

 

British rocker Roger Daltrey, lead singer and founder of The Who, needs no convincing. He's an out-spoken proponent who pronounced in a (London) Times Online interview, "Homeopathy saved my son's life."  His son Jamie, now adult, was 9 months old when he developed gastrointestinal issues so severe he became completely emaciated. Doctors exhausted all the conventional tests and treatments but Jaime got sicker and sicker. In desperation and ready to try anything, Daltrey called a local homeopath whom he found listed in the Yellow Pages.Within two weeks of treatment, Jamie was gaining weight and on his way to recovery. Now just for the sake of asking, isn't the placebo effect hard to argue when the patient is only 9 months old?

 

On the other side of the globe from London, reports on the impact of the Fukushima Daiichi meltdown in Japan continue to surface and CMJ readers continue to be drawn to the excerpt from a longer Huffington Post story by Dana Ullman, Homeopathy for Radiation Poisoning.

 

And tried-and-true acupuncture is beginning to get a little more respect as new research identifies a beneficial link between the molecule adenosine and acupuncture. Published online May 30 in Nature Neuroscience, the research furthers western scientists' understanding of acupuncture's pain-killing effects. "It’s clear that acupuncture may activate a number of different mechanisms,” says Josephine P. Briggs, M.D., director of the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine at the National Institutes of Health. “This carefully performed study identifies adenosine as a new player in the process. It’s an interesting contribution to our growing understanding of the complex intervention which is acupuncture." Too bad mice have to suffer the hurt paws and genetic modification and all, but it's encouraging that some researchers are opening their eyes to the benefits of a system that's been continually practiced for over 4,000 years. It's interesting (and a bit disturbing, perhaps) that the next idea is to use these benefits to magnify the impact of pharmaceuticals.

 

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