Homoeoprophylaxis – A Reply to David Little

 by

Dr Isaac Golden

David and I have briefly debated this topic over the last 2 decades. Previously he appeared to advocate constitutional protection with occasional genus epidemicus prevention, whereas since 1985 I have made available a program of long-term prevention using mainly nosodes against diseases that were present in my community (Australia) but not epidemic. His recent contribution appears to now accept the use of nosodes more than previously.

May I begin by saying that David has provided an invaluable summary and introduction to the topic of homoeoprophylaxis – those who appreciate his massive contribution to homoeopathy in general would expect nothing less. I support almost everything he says, including his warnings against using inappropriate HP programs, especially with high potencies over the long-term. However I would like to share some research findings which show that it is possible to design and safely use long-term HP without risk to the recipient.

Individualised HP programs are the preferred option, but not practical in the majority of cases. I have recently returned from the Nosodes 2008 conference in Cuba, where we were given an example of 5,000,000 doses of the Leptospirosis Nosode being distributed in certain regions in 2007, and 4,500,000 doses in 2008. This is HP on a massive scale, and makes the goal of taking constitutional cases for every recipient simply impossible.

In my own experience, involving thousands rather than millions of people, most of the users of my long-term HP program had never experienced homoeopathy before, and most would have been unable or unwilling to go through a constitutional consultation. Further, most recipients were infants, where the practitioner often must make an educated guess at a constitutional remedy given that a thorough questioning of the patient is not possible. Thus individualising HP is often an unachievable ideal.

David actually covered this point well with his own comments and those from the Medical Advance.

Another point relates to need. In my own program I cover just six diseases in my main program – whooping cough, polio, tetanus, meningococcal disease, pneumococcal disease and Hib[1]. David correctly points out that diseases like whooping cough can be effectively treated using homoeopathy. However in practice, not many people have on call a homoeopath of David’s quality and experience. All these diseases are potentially serious, and at times fatal. All are present in the Australian community, and whilst not in epidemic proportions do have modest peaks on a regular basis. Whilst one option is to wait until there is a peak in your own area, what parent wants their child to be amongst the first cases to allow a peak to be declared and a genus epidemicus remedy to be found? If it can be demonstrated that a long-term method of protection is possible which is relatively effective and safe, it certainly makes sense for parents to consider that option for their infants.

Finally, David speaks out against delaying constitutional and anti-miasmic treatment for years whilst using a long-term HP program. I totally agree. I have always stated in the instructions accompanying my program that the program should be delayed if chronic treatment is indicated.

One area where we may disagree is relating to the extent of coverage offered by constitutional treatment compared to disease-specific prevention. In practice we find that even generally healthy people can get simple infectious diseases, which often have great intensity over a short period. If the acute miasm (the infectious disease) is energetically more intense than the chronic miasm, then as Hahnemann pointed out in the Organon, the stronger dis-similar disease will suspend the weaker until it runs its course or is successfully treated, at which time the weaker will re-emerge.

All of the above is by way of background to the evidence which I would like to present in two parts.

 

1. Effectiveness of HP

 David gave some examples of the effectiveness of short-term HP in epidemic situations. We find that an effectiveness of around 90% is common. This has been experienced over two centuries with great reliability. It should be noted that this is very comparable to the stated effectiveness of many vaccines.

My own data collection relating to my long-term HP program began in 1986, and concluded in 2004 when I submitted my data to medical people as part of a Doctoral program at Swinburne University in Victoria, Australia. It was the first time that an orthodox Australian University had accepted doctoral research on a homoeopathic topic. My reason for doing this in my 50’s  (I suspect David and I are similar ages) was the ensure that my data was scrutinised by medical experts. One of my supervisors was a Professor of Medicine, and the other a medical epidemiologist.

My data showed an effectiveness of my long-term HP program of 90.4% (95% CI: 87.6% - 93.3%)[2].

So we find that once again, an effectiveness of appropriate HP programs of around 90% being supported.

 

2. Safety of HP

A second part of my research at Swinburne University was directly aimed at quantifying the safety of a long-term HP program. I had for years measured this by looking the rate of short term reactions to my program (these are reported to occur in 1.6% of doses), and general statements by parents concerning the general wellbeing of their children, which were generally very positive. However I wanted to try to measure safety with even more rigour.

To this end I examined 4 groups of children aged between 4 and 13 years of age. The groups were differentiated according to the method of immunization used by their parents: vaccinated, used HP, used constitutional/general protection, used no specific method of prevention.

For each group I examined the incidence of 5 conditions: asthma, eczema/skin problems, allergies, ear/hearing problems, and behavioural problems. This yielded a matrix with 20 variables, and is shown below. Odds ratios and Chi Squared probability measurements were applied to the data.

Note that all diagnoses were made by GP’s, and that the figures in bold are those which are statistically significant (P≤0.05).

The results show that the use of an appropriate long-term HP program compares very well with all other groups in terms of having the lowest incidence of the conditions studied. This is important, because if a long-term HP program using high potencies (I use 200c and 10M potencies) had a negative impact on the recipients, one would expect an increase in the long-term incidence of some of the conditions, which is exactly what we find when looking at the experience of the vaccinated children.

The most dramatic single finding of the study was that vaccinated children have a 15 times greater chance of becoming asthmatic than children using HP, with a Chi Squared probability >99.9%- a strong result. Interestingly, this result was of great interest to the Cuban doctors I spoke to, because Cuba is a highly vaccinated population with asthma rates mirroring those of western populations.

 

Condit-ion: GP Diagnoses	Measurement	Method
		HP-only	Vaccines only	General only	Nothing
Asthma	Odds Ratio	0.124	1.89	0.49	0.69
	Chi Test  P	0.0006	0.0007	0.13	6.5E-40
Eczema	Odds Ratio	0.239	1.76	0.225	0.665
	Chi Test  P	0.0097	0.006	0.025	6.5E-40
Ear/Hearing	Odds Ratio	0.703	1.517	0.599	0.401
	Chi Test  P	0.364	0.04	0.282	9.4E-41
Allergies	Odds Ratio	0.307	1.518	0.446	0.608
	Chi Test  P	0.038	0.061	0.171	5.8E-40
Behaviour	Odds Ratio	0.541	0.784	1.675	0.784
	Chi Test  P	0.055	0.613	0.049	1.2E-40

  

Finally, I was very impressed with David’s outline of conditions potentially arising from vaccine damage. He has made a valuable contribution which all readers should study, given that chronic vaccine damage is often difficult to pick in the clinic since it often occurs years after the vaccine.

I have also been very interested in this area, and have attempted to quantify the long-term damage caused by vaccines. In my most recent book Vaccine Damaged Children: Treatment, Prevention, Reasons[3], I show the symptom-profiles of a number of vaccines.

The profiles were developed by examining cases that had been cured using potencies of suspected vaccines. The fact that the symptoms were removed by the vaccine potencies, and the patients’ general health typically improved considerably, showed that the vaccine must have been at least part of the cause of the symptoms. The Figure below shows a symptom comparison of the DPT and MMR vaccines according to my clinical experience.

To my surprise the MMR vaccine showed a greater impact on behavioural and ADHD problems than the DPT vaccine, as well as showing more developmental and interactive/austic problems which I had suspected. It was unsurprising to find that skin problems were a real issue with the DPT vaccine, and that GIT problems featured with the MMR vaccine.

One question is whether good constitutional treatment would have produced the same healing results. In some cases it may have, but my experience is that is there is a significant layer of disturbance cause by vaccine damage which may prevent constitutional treatment from being fully effective until the layer is removed. I would be very interested to hear David’s experience on this point.

My opinion for many years has been that vaccination can have significant negative long-term health impacts on recipients, most of which are never recognised due to the significant time between the vaccine and symptoms of the resulting damage. Appropriate long-term HP programs offer a very safe and comparably effective choice for parents to use, as the only certain way to prevent vaccine damage is – don’t be vaccinated. Homoeopathy also offers excellent treatment against infectious diseases. It also offers a way to rebuild a person’s wellbeing and hence their quality of life with constitutional treatment.

Conclusion

The purpose of my contribution has been to support the very thorough examination of homoeoprophylaxis by David Little, who is one of our most eminent practitioners and authors. My documented experience supports the general thrust of David’s arguments, but may also provide evidence that the appropriate use of long-term HP is both very effective and extremely safe.

We must be flexible, and be able to use the most appropriate HP method demanded by the particular circumstances and needs of our patients. Homoeopathy allows considerable flexibility, and provides a powerful tool both in prevention and treatment.

Dr Isaac Golden is currently Head of School of Holistic Medicine, Endeavour College of Natural Health (the largest provider of natural medicine education in the southern hemisphere). He has been a homoeopathic practitioner since 1984, and founded the Australasian College of Hahnemannian Homoeopathy in 1990 to provide distance education in homoeopathy. He has written 10 books on homoeopathy.

He may be contacted via his website a www.homstudy.net