A landmark paper on homeopathy and cancer has appeared in the February 2010 issue of the International Journal of Oncology. Scientists at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center (MDA), led by Moshe Frenkel, MD, have confirmed the ability of four homeopathic remedies to induce apoptosis (programmed cell death) in breast cancer cell lines in the laboratory. The scientists in question were from the Integrative Medicine Program, the Department of Molecular Pathology, and the Department of Melanoma Medical Oncology of MDA. Their two Indian collaborators were from the Banerji Homeopathic Research Foundation, Kolkata, India, where these same remedies are employed clinically with apparent success. The four ultra-dilute remedies in question were Carcinosin, Phytolacca, Conium and Thuja.
"The remedies exerted preferential cytotoxic effects against the two breast cancer cell lines, causing cell cycle delay/arrest and apoptosis" the authors wrote.
It was particularly interesting that the cell-killing effects of two of the remedies investigated in this study, Carcinosin and Phytolacca, appeared similar to the activity of paclitaxel (Taxol), the most commonly used chemotherapeutic drug for breast cancer, when it was tested in the same two adenocarcinoma cell lines investigated in this study.
http://www.cancerdecisions.com/content/view/414/2/lang,english/
The problem with homeopathy is not that it doesn’t work. Clearly for some it does and studies demonstrate that in some cases. In fact, the immune system is capable of clearing many conditions including cancer given the right stimulation. Most early medications were developed from botanicals. The real problem is that there is little regulation and standardization. There are too many willing to take advantage which makes it difficult to have confidence in the supplements and so on. There are also so many very effective “medicines” that it is painful to see a patient treated with an unproven supplement for a condition that requires prompt and aggressive treatment to prevent long term problems. I favor a realistic combination of allopathic and homeopathic medicine with respect to both disciplines.
This sounds like a lot of hooey. But homeopathy is scientific bunk! Garbage!
As if any alty is suddenly going to start believing what scientists have been saying!
Anyhow, this extremely poor study was doomed from the start:
It uses alcohol as a dilutent, not water.
Alcohol will kill cells in a petri dish as this ‘study’ has shown (so will bleach, gasoline, disinfectant etc)
But the most critical flaw of all is that it uses NO statistics.
None.
This puts it on an academic level somewhat lower than an undergrads year 1 assignment. It’s such a fatal flaw that it renders the whole ‘study’ defunct. Any study that does not statistically examine its results is not a study. In fact, it’s such a mess and so poorly done that if this journal is going to recover from such an embarrassment, it’s going to have to withdraw this study from publication (that’s my prediction anyway).
Anyway, it’s been suitably dissected by far greater minds than mine, real cancer researchers say it sucks too! http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2010/03/a_homeopathic_bit_of_breast_cancer_scien.php#more
If the Scientists at the University of Texas have proof that homoeopathy does work I have some great news for them, James Randi would love to donate $1,000,000 towards a new wing for them, or set up a scholarship for more quacks.
http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/1m-challenge.html
http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/swift-blog/581-homeopathy-qualifies-for-the-million-dollar-challenge.html
“Homeopathy DOES NOT WORK. It’s quackery, pure and simple. It’s a farce, a fake, and flummery. Prove it works, and win the million dollars.” James Randi.
Well obviously you can’t believe that study because it was done by doctors, and as we all know doctors are all in the pocket of “big pharma” and therefore cannot be trusted.
Just one of the major flaws found in their study has to do with the cell death that constitute the crux of the study.
So here we have results for all three cell lines, two cancerous and one control, and they are all treated with a control (the 87% alcohol solvent) or the remedies and death measured by MTT assay. Here’s how they describe it in the text;
“Interestingly, the inhibitory effects on cell viability of the remedies in both the MCF-7 and MDA-MB-231 cells were distinctly greater for each of the doses tested than those seen in cells treated only with solvent.”
Which translates as the treatments killed the cells better than the solvent alone. Okay, so it looks like it did when you eye ball the histograms, but they have no evidence for this – they didn’t do stats, therefore they cannot say this!
But why not keep the fail going;
“MCF-7 cells were found to be more sensitive to all four remedies than the MDA-MB-231 cells”.
Again no statistics, so this statement cannot be confirmed. When you do science properly and you run statistical analysis, you are entitled to say,
“MCF-7 cells were found to be significantly more sensitive to all four remedies than the MDA-MB-231 cells”.
Unless you’re these authors, then you just get a great big FAIL stamp on your work.
Also note that they state that the control treatment (that is the solvent) also induced cell death in all cell types;
“As shown in Fig. 1A, the solvent reduced the viability of all three cell types; the overall reduction in cells at different doses of solvent was about 30% for MCF-7, 20-30% for MDA-MB-231 and 20% for HMLE cells.”
Ummm, hold on a sec.
This is your control treatment, which means it should not be causing cell death. It is designed to be inert, functioning as a carrier of your treatment, in order that you can measure the impact of the treatment alone. If your solvent or vehicle is killing your cells you have a fundamental problem. You need to go back to the drawing board and find a different solvent to deliver your treatment.
This is a very big problem right here.
If the cell death induced by the solvent is significant, then the rest of the paper is worthless. But because there are no stats here, there is no way to tell if death by the solvent is significant. According to the above statement, the alcohol killed ~30% of the cancer cells compared to no treatment at all. Although this effect was increased when the treatment was present, there remains a large problem with your model if your solvent is killing the cells.
Perhaps this explains why there are no stats in this paper? Because they may in fact show that the “inert” solvent also significantly kills the cancer cells?
Once again, there is no way to know this without access to the raw data, or the statistical analysis.
Oh you’re back.
Dave and Sharp have said it all (great answers guys). I have nothing to ad. The study was akin to something high schoolers would produce. With the absence of any statistics, the “study” is worthless.
You people really need to learn how to interpret information. One of the worst attempts to justify homoeopathy I have ever seen, almost as bad as DocB’s a few weeks ago. I have new found respect for Tony I copypaste. At least he put forward worthy arguments.
EPIC FAIL.
(On the plus side Cyndiann, well done for having the backbone to allow us skeptics to answer, rather than blocking us. -Truthseeker et al, Onlymatch4u, Minx, Janie and SoulQuack, take note!)
Landmark?! Flyspeck would be a better description.
Dave and Sharp have already dissected this terrible study quite well. The fact you think this is proof of anything, shows how low the Alties are willing to set the bar for confirmation bias. I had already debunked that one a few weeks ago, though damned if I can find the answer. However…your link is to a partial report on a biased website run by notorious AltMed promotor and quack, Ralph Moss. The actual study is published in an online “junk journal”….basically, it is not peer reviewed, and pretty much anybody can publish anything. That is not off to a good start.
http://www.spandidos-publications.com/ijo/36/2/395
The entire article is not available without joining, and I’m not going to do that. However, we don’t know any of the details of the study, what kind of controls etc. Though it is ostensibly through the University of Texas (NOT one of your nations premier institutes of higher learning, BTW. I’m sure they do fine work, but they are known more for football than cancer research)…the authors did their work through an obscure Indian homeopathic “institute”.
One must consider there are very strong inherent biases as this is a study conducted by true believers…which is why these sorts of studies need peer review and scrupulous attention to blinding and randomization.
Also…one small obscure study is PROOF of nothing. And just to be pedantic, the term ‘proof’ really only applies to mathematics (eg, there are long proofs that 1+1=2) All that we do in science is provide evidence in support of a hypothesis, or evidence that fails to support a hypothesis. Since science is a constantly learning, self-correcting process, there is never any definitive proof of anything.
I also find it a bit ironic, that someone who usually hangs out here and at Curezone lambasting doctors, scientists , Big Pharma and science and knowedge or education in general is now citing those very sources when they appear to (!!) support your preconceived beliefs.
As well, Orac (Dr David Gorski…an actual breast cancer researcher and clinician) managed to obtain a copy of the actual paper, and has done a very thorough ripping of it, linked by Dave above.
However, good on you for at least attempting to ask a serious question. (Better than the recent Skepdoc, Rhianna and Dave are the same person silliness of one of your cohort)
Dave and Sharp32548 nailed it. Read their answers and learn from them. I learned a lot. Thanks guys!
I think this is how debates between alt med proponents and skeptics should go. Proponents say something, give evidence and skeptics try to refute it. No mention of big pharma, paid hacks or any other BS from Truthseeker and his ilk.
It is not a landmark paper. The journal doesn’t even claim to review for content, only for grammar and style.
This is an unblinded study done by researchers with a VERY STRONG interest in a positive result, and the results are indistinguishable from the solvent-only control. That’s why the results are all essentially the same for the different products.
This is a classic example of wishful thinking or outright deception on the part of the researchers, and as one reviewer wrote, an EPIC FAIL on the part of the journal reviewers (if there were any).
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2010/03/a_homeopathic_bit_of_breast_cancer_scien.php#more
Nonsense is published all the time. This is just another example.
One (bad) study and you are claiming proof? Even one good study would not constitute proof. You have to look at the entire body of research and evidence, among other things. With respect, you alties must learn about scientific method. For the sake of your patients at least.
A thorough and sound debunking of this paper by Dr Rachael Dunlop can be read here: http://scepticsbook.com/ You’ll have to scroll down.
Here is an excerpt:
“I won’t even bother dealing with the discussion and conclusions, because by my analysis, they are based on flawed data.
One thing I will say about Homeopathy Plus! yelling “Homeopathy as good as chemotherapy for breast cancer” is not a conclusion you can draw from this study.
For all the reasons I have addressed above as well as the really obvious point that these studies were conducted in cell culture. This is a very different situation to a whole animal.
Cells bathing in a bath of homeopathy is very different to the processes which occur in vivo, for example the treatment must survive the low pH of the stomach, cross the gut, escape metabolism in the liver and get to the site of the cancer then do it’s job. This is a very complex process and very difficult to control. Studies in cell culture can provide data about the mechanism of action of a compound, but rarely do they relate to the processes in a human.
Never extrapolate results from a culture dish to a whole animal. You will undoubtedly be wrong and look like a fool.”
That should be sufficient evidence that homeopathy works. Alas, you could present countless studies further verifying these findings until you are blue in the face, and it will do nothing to assuage the alleged skeptics on this site. See things from their perspective though, they are not up here of their own volition, rather, like marionettes, recieving instructions on what to say by the real drug industry spin doctors behind the scenes. Their continual use of adolescent lingo like ” epic fail”, “dude”, etc makes one contemplate whether these guys were marketing school dropouts before they came to roost in this section.
Daves answer fires on all cylinders. Whether anyone likes it or not, its the best answer you have here – and Sharps gives some great support to the assertion as well.
Bravo fella’s
It’s not even a proper study !!
And why have you now blocked all the skeptics who answered your question? Thats cowardly. and we are all laughing at you by the way http://.answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylc=X3oDMTB1a2x0anY5BF9TAzIxMTU1MDA0NDMEc2VjA3BlZXBfZQRzbGsDcQ–?qid=20100309183945AAcyGTW
FAIL FAIL FAIL
Many of the above skeptics think that just because they write LIES that they are TRUE (they are NOT!). Sharp32548 something thinks that alcohol is inert…it is not. These “skeptics” are simply scientific fundamentalists who, like tea party political activists, are deluded. They are pseudo-scientists. Ignore them…and they will go away, just like virtually all of their conventional drugs go away after they are adequately tested and found to cause more harm than good.