Homeopathy is building an empire. A registered charity based in the UK, called Frontline Homeopathy, exports this alternative “medicine” to the poorest parts of the world to “promote homeopathy as an effective, low cost primary health care system in communities disadvantaged by social, economic and political circumstances.”
In other words, Western homeopaths set up quack clinics in Africa where homeopathy is foisted upon poverty-stricken, unsuspecting victims. But what do they do? Well, their unnamed blogger from their project in south-west Senegal tells us in terrifying detail. Here’s an extract from her “Day in the life of a flip-flop homeopath”.
“I haven’t yet had my morning kankaliba (a hot drink made with local leaves and renowned for its health benefits) but the first patient has already arrived. Fortunately, it’s not the malaria season yet, when I invariably open my bedroom door at 7 am - adorned only with a towel - to find a queue of deathly sick people waiting to see me.
“Nevertheless, this gentleman doesn’t look very well at all – he can hardly stand and his breathing is stertorous to say the least, so I quickly usher him into the clinic.
Cheikhouna, 30, is a bush-taxi driver from Touba, Senegal’s holiest city, located some 350 miles away in the north of the country. This may not sound very far, but on these roads, with the heat, dust and pollution, it’s an extremely long trek that has taken him some five days to complete.
“He was already suffering from a cold on leaving Touba, and has also been fasting (ie taking no food or water from dawn to dusk each day) and despite his symptoms getting steadily worse he kept on driving. Once at his final destination point of Kafountine, he went even further downhill - in a strange village where he has no family and just one friend - and his presenting state is of concern, to put it mildly.
“His breath is coming in short sharp gasps, his expression is panic-stricken, and his speech so rapid that my pretty basic Wolof is stretched to the limit. He rattles out that he feels freezing inside, despite being very hot to the touch and an outside temperature of 35° even at this time in the morning.“He has sharp, needle-like pains in all the joints, especially the knees and wrsits, and is experiencing frequent bout of violent coughing which, though painless, result in the expectoration of large amounts of thick yellow mucous (ie pus).
“He has no appetite at all but wants little sips of water all the time. His blood pressure is 100/60, pulse extremely fast and thready. However, internally I’m in such a hyper state by this point that I can’t even concentrate enough to count his pulse rate, let alone sit down to repertorise [sic] the case! I suspect Cheikhouna has the beginnings of acute viral pneumonia, and listening to his lungs is a frightening experience – both sound amost totally blocked, with the air passing through in wheezes and squeals.
“The patient has now been here several minutes and is turning a worrying shade of grey, having to bend far forwards in order to drag some oxygen into his suffering lungs. I’d given him a dose of Aconite 200 immediately after his arrival, but we are nevertheless both in a state of acute panic.
“I’m now used to this—being in a state of acute panic, that is—so manage not to show it. However, my emotional state enables me to pinpoint the indicated remedy, despite my brain feeling totally scattered and unable to analyse the presenting symtoms.
“Arsenicum 200 is duly prescribed and it at least calms me down enough to be able to drink my kankaliba while keeping the patient under observation!
“By 9 am several more patients are waiting outside and, while Cheikhouna can hardly be described as ‘cured’, his breathing is noticeably less laboured and his skin colour much healthier. Plus the waves of panic I’d been feeling and which almost immediately abated on giving the Ars convince me it’s the right remedy.
“He’s eager to get back to his friend, so I send him off with strict instructions to take the remedy on an hourly basis and come back if necessary, and by 4pm at the latest.”
So, presented with someone who had acute viral pneumonia, and is presumably in desperate need of antibiotics, the “flip-flop homeopath” prescribes “Aconite 200″ and “Arsenicum 200″. These homeopathic medicines have no scientific evidence to support their effectiveness, and at best only act as placebos. Frontline Homeopathy is one of the most alarming Western organisations to ply its trade in Africa since the days of empire. The charity abuses the trust of its victims, claiming to treat, with alternative medicine, diseases that require diagnosis, antibiotics and medicine which has been scientifically proven to work.
The charity claims to currently run projects in the following countries: Iraq, Romania, Senegal, Kenya, Nicaragua, Nepal and Sri Lanka.
[To be continued...]
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25 responses
i’m a professional in the field of aeronautics. i have been given tonnes of antibiotics and other medicines like quinines vaccinations analgesics and what not. in spite of all this i was not well even for a week. no sooner one disease was suppressed by antibiotics or other allopathic agents another used to sprung up. once a friend suggested to try homeopathy. i was a skeptic like you saying how can a alcohol drop or sugar globule help us when we take these in kgs. since the time i studied homeopathy myself there was no looking back. my migraine was gone, my rheumatoid arthritis was cured never to return. my son and daughter who were having tonsils enlarged and because of this fever every week or two in spite of antibiotics were cured permanently. I’m thanking my friend who suggested me homeopathy everyday for the last 36 years. may i suggest that you study and try homeopathy and then only comment. otherwise your article does not carry any meaning.
i’m a professional in the field of aeronautics. i have been given tonnes of antibiotics and other medicines like quinines vaccinations analgesics and what not. in spite of all this i was not well even for a week. no sooner one disease was suppressed by antibiotics or other allopathic agents another used to sprung up. once a friend suggested to try homeopathy. i was a skeptic like you saying how can a alcohol drop or sugar globule help us when we take these in kgs. since the time i studied homeopathy myself there was no looking back. my migraine was gone, my rheumatoid arthritis was cured never to return. my son and daughter who were having tonsils enlarged and because of this fever every week or two in spite of antibiotics were cured permanently. I’m thanking my friend who suggested me homeopathy everyday for the last 36 years. may i suggest that you study and try homeopathy and then only comment. otherwise your article does not carry any meaning. i know any positive comment about any good experience about lifes experience about homeopathy will not be published as you a unreasonable skeptic.
To be honest Rabindra, you sound like a hypochondriac. And if your doctor prescribed antibiotics for migraines I suggest you get him or her investigated.
Show me some scientific evidence which suggests that your “cures” were not placebo induced.
Sadly for homeopaths, placebo can’t cure malaria. It can’t cure scabies. And it certainly can’t cure acute viral pneumonia, which Frontline Homeopathy has, in this case, “treated”.
The idea of homeopathy as a viable form of treatment is laughable in a middle-class Western environment.
In Africa, it is inexcusable and dangerous.
Agreed, Will - dangerous and lethal. One has to ask: has this “flip-flop homeopath” actually killed anyone by advising them against taking proper medicines for life-threatening diseases? Is the man she describes still alive?
If you’d undertaken some serious scientific research, Mr. Thompson, and scrolled down a little further, you’d have found this update on Cheikhouna, the first patient with the fever:
“Updates on the day’s other patients….
Cheikhouna, the Touba taxi-driver, who arrived at 8.30am with what I suspected as acute viral pneumonia, came to see me daily over the next week and continued on Arsenicum 1M bd. His breathing had improved immeasurably, with the only remaining symptom being the painless expectoration of vast amounts of mucous first thing on rising. This was definitely a sign of gradual cure, since the colour became progressively lighter and the consistency less gluey as the days went by, plus he was eating well and his energy levels were high. So high, in fact, that I had to almost physically restrain him from jumping straight back into his car and embarking on the 350-mile journey home. Eight days later, however, I did finally agree that he was in a fit state to drive. The next morning, returning from the well with a bucket of water in each hand, the sound of an insistent car horn just behind nearly made me drop the lot! Thinking I was about to be run over, I dodged quickly out of the way as a bright green taxi ambled past, the driver maniacally waving, grinning and beeping as his carload of passengers looked bemusedly on. Yep, it was Cheikhouna — the same man who just a week earlier had practically crawled into the clinic on his hands and knees. I dropped my buckets, waved and grinned back, then watched him zoom off into the distance like the Dukes of Hazzard, leaving a trail of dust behind him…”
I you need any help with further intensive research projects, just let me know.
Just for the record, I’m no homeopath, prefering health living to lifestyle ‘cures’ and generic industrial-strength drugs when I’m feeling ill.
All the best
Neil Palmer
Feastofpalmer.com
Neil, read your post again:
“His breathing had improved immeasurably, with the only remaining symptom being the painless expectoration of vast amounts of mucous first thing on rising.”
The only remaining symptom!?
I’m no Doctor, but it sounds like a pretty serious one to me - Mucus suggests infection, a course of antibiotics probably being the best course of action.
The fact is, homeopathy should not be prescribed to someone with such serious symptoms.
God knows what “health living” is…
Diagnosis from third-hand descriptions of symptoms sounds like just another form of quackery to me. But then again I’m not a medical professional. In fact, neither are you, if you’re still an undergraduate student.
My only point was that the man was still alive after being dealt with by a homeopath. Thompson was suggesting that the homeopath may kill someone and showed some concern for the man’s wellbeing. In fact, he’d recovered from the fever and shortness of breath that he’d first shown up with. Whether he’s still alive now and symptom free is another matter.
And “health living”? Why, it’s “healthy living” with the “y” missed out. It’s what we purveyors of counterknowledge.call a typo.
“Whether he’s still alive now and symptom free is another matter.”
That’s precisely what Damian Thompson was questioning.
And it’s not quackery to suggest that someone coughing up “vast amounts of mucus” needs proper medical treatment.
Viral pneumonia is not usually treated with drugs. Also the viral type produces a small amount of phlegm, white or colourless. Copious infected (coloured) mucus is typical of bacterial pneumonia. The change of colour indicates the treatment may actually have been doing something. This doesn’t surprise me as homeopathy was commonly used in pneumonia throughout the 19th century, with much better results than bloodletting or doing nothing. Facts are generally more interesting than uneducated opinion.
It looks like excellent prescribing to me. A change from green mucous which indicates bacterial presence, to clear is an improvement in symptoms.
Antibiotics are overprescribed in the west and become less and less effective as a result. They don’t always work and have knock on effects for useful bacteria in the body. Why then do we think they would be effective in Africa?
Well now- estimated four per cent of all hospital beds in the United Kingdom are taken up with patients suffering from the iatrogenic effects of conventional medicine or we could say, a lot of sick people put there by the misadventures of conventional medicine.
And lets see, how many wrongful death suits filed against conventional medical doctors? How many people died from Vioxx alone prior to it being discovered as a dangerous drug and deemed dangerous?
A big problem. So what to do? What to do?
Well lets denigrate ONE homeopath! Attack homeopathy! Yea, great solution. What a great solution!
The elderly gentleman in question arrived with the symptoms of acute pneumonia, diagnosed by journalist Damian as viral pneumonia (which will NOT respond to anti-biotics I may add ), and after receiving two homeopathic remedies, this nearly dead gentleman left to go meet up with his buddies!! The relieved homeopath told him to return in a few hours to be checked up on by her.
So what is the problem! None! Another wonderful story of homeopathy’s amazing ability to cure.
Just one question for all you quacks responding to this post:
Tell me exactly how “arsenicum 200″ could have worked to improve this man’s condition?
I will posting again on the scandal of Frontline Homeopathy tomorrow…
Oh I get it Will Heaven - This web site is about hiding the real conspiracies (eg. pharmaceutical) by saying that you are exposing conspiracies- how uncharacteristically clever!
Heaven………forget iI….you are not going to engage us in explaining homeopathy to you. My experience in that realm is summed up with:
“Casting pearls before the swine”
No insult intended!
“Casting pearls before the swine.”
Are those real pearls then?
‘Homeopathy is building an empire. ”
You mean western medicine hasnt built an empire? One that thru its freelance hit men ,like you, seeks to attack and destroy any competition,and the right of free choice.
‘In other words, Western homeopaths set up quack clinics in Africa where homeopathy is foisted upon poverty-stricken, unsuspecting victims.’
No, Will, not other words.
This campaign of demonisation you are on damien portrays you as a pathological obsessive, bent on removing peoples freedom and right to choose their cure.
‘To be continued’…You mean we can expect more of your obsessive complusive attacks on medicl freedom?
Well lets just say that anything we do not completely understand and cannot explain in terms of our infinite universal knowledge of everything…simply just cannot be…it simply cannot exist i tell you!!
We have reached such a degree of illumination why bother to even pursue science at all.
I am of course being sarcastic and yes it is the lowest form of wit.
Hmm……God ? …..say no more!
Just read ‘counterknowledge’
what can I say…..talk about tarring all with the same brush.
well if evoution is true homeopathy cant possibly work can it? oops slipping in to sarcasm again.
anyway homeopathy works well for me and many close to me.
What we need to remember is that the bulk of scientific research is carried out and funded by the corporate sector, who also …..oh bollox…..no i am not a conspiracy theorist.
why is it that for both sides its all or nothing…its all a conspiracy from moon landings to holocaust denial via 911, or else its all bullshit and we must believe what we are spoon fed on tv and take what government and corporations tell us as gospel. im bored and you probably are too!!
Are comments not moderated on this site, how did this shite get here?
Sorry about that Steve - that one slipped through the net.
It appears this “Charity” is bust ,some £100k spent, no names , accounts missing for FIVE years.
All goes to show how incompetent and useless the Charity commissioners are.
The New Scientist did a piece on homeopathy a few years ago and came to the conclusion that there was evidence that it worked but for reasons that cannot be fully explained.
Trevor, I don’t know if The New Scientist concluded that there was evidence that homeopathy worked, or if they merely reported that Madeline Ennis had performed experiments which looked like evidence that homeopathy worked and no one had yet repeated those experiments under more controlled conditions. In either case, however, “The New Scientist” should hardly be regarded as the be-all end-all, especially after their recent massively misleading sensation-seeking “Darwin Was Wrong” cover.
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