Greetings to all members,
The Universe watches and waits. Those who conform to Natural Laws, seeking
holistic truths, are the Universe's proteges.
Why Water "Clumping" Does Not
Support Homeopathic Theory
Stephen Barrett, M.D.
On November 7, 2001, with the teaser, "homeopathy isn't all hokum," New
Scientist magazine's Web site published an article that began:
It is a chance discovery so unexpected it defies belief and threatens to
reignite debate about whether there is a scientific basis for thinking
homeopathic medicines really work.......
http://lewfh.tripod.com/bioresonanthomeostasisandwellbeing/
The article to which this referred was published in Chemical Communications,
the journal of the Royal Society of Chemistry [2]. Since the article does not
mention homeopathy, I asked one of its authors (Kurt E. Geckeler, M.D., Ph.D.)
whether the study implied anything about it. He replied:
As you stated correctly, the word homeopathy is not mentioned in the original
paper and the study itself has nothing to do with it. It only states that on
dilution (up to mM conc.) of a number of substances in water, an increase of
particle size was observed. It was a laboratory study -- everything beyond that
is speculation at this point. What journalists make out of our publication is
beyond our control. Nevertheless, if confirmed, it might have implications in
many different areas [3].
Homeopathic products are prepared by repeatedly diluting the original
substance so that the each dilution is 1/10th or 1/100th as concentrated as the
previous one. The clumping of molecules simply means that instead of each
dilution taking a random sample of the molecules in a solution, it might take
more-- or less -- than would be expected with an even distribution. (In other
words, if molecules of a substance clumps in one place, there will be fewer
molecules in other places.) With repeated dilution, the ultimate number of
"active ingredient" molecules would approach zero whether clumping occurs or
not. Clumping would not increase the number of molecules as the "active
ingredient" is repeatedly diluted, so the remedy cannot grow stronger as the
solution becomes more dilute.
Nor does Dr. Geckeler's experiment support homeopathy's absurd notion that
water can "remember" molecules that are no longer there.
References
Coghlin A. Bizarre chemical discovery gives homeopathic hint. New Scientist,
Nov 10, 2001, pp 4-5.
Samal A, Geckeler KE. Unexpected solute aggregation in water on dilution.
Chemical Communications 2224-2225, 2001.
E-mail message from Dr. Geckler to Dr. Barrett, November 12, 2001.
***********************
Thanks for the memory
Experiments have backed what was once a scientific 'heresy', says Lionel
Milgrom
Lionel Milgrom
Guardian
Thursday March 15, 2001
About homeopathy, Professor Madeleine Ennis of Queen's University Belfast is,
like most scientists, deeply sceptical. That a medicinal compound diluted out
of existence should still exert a therapeutic effect is an affront to
conventional biochemistry and pharmacology, based as they are on direct and
palpable molecular events. The same goes for a possible explanation of how
homoeopathy works: that water somehow retains a "memory" of things once
dissolved in it.
This last notion, famously promoted by French biologist Dr Jacques Benveniste,
cost him his laboratories, his funding, and ultimately his international
scientific credibility. However, it did not deter Professor Ennis who, being a
scientist, was not afraid to try to prove Benveniste wrong. So, more than a
decade after Benveniste's excommunication from the scientific mainstream, she
jumped at the chance to join a large pan-European research team, hoping finally
to lay the Benveniste "heresy" to rest. But she was in for a shock: for the
team's latest results controversially now suggest that Benveniste might have
been right all along.
Back in 1985, Benveniste began experimenting with human white blood cells
involved in allergic reactions, called basophils. These possess tiny granules
containing substances such as histamine, partly responsible for the allergic
response. The granules can be stained with a special dye, but they can be
decolourised (degranulated) by a substance called anti-immunoglobulin E or
aIgE. That much is standard science. What Benveniste claimed so controversially
was that he continued to observe basophil degranulation even when the aIgE had
been diluted out of existence, but only as long as each dilution step, as with
the preparation of homoeopathic remedies, was accompanied by strong agitation.
After many experiments, in 1988 Benveniste managed to get an account of his
work published in Nature, speculating that the water used in the experiments
must have retained a "memory" of the original dissolved aIgE. Homoeopaths
rejoiced, convinced that here at last was the hard evidence they needed to make
homoeopathy scientifically respectable. Celebration was short-lived.
Spearheaded by a Nature team that famously included a magician (who could find
no fault with Benveniste's methods - only his results), Benveniste was
pilloried by the scientific establishment.
A British attempt (by scientists at London's University College, published in
Nature in 1993) to reproduce Benveniste's findings failed. Benveniste has been
striving ever since to get other independent laboratories to repeat his work,
claiming that negative findings like those of the British team were the result
of misunderstandings of his experimental protocols. Enter Professor Ennis and
the pan-European research effort.
A consortium of four independent research laboratories in France, Italy,
Belgium, and Holland, led by Professor M Roberfroid at Belgium's Catholic
University of Louvain in Brussels, used a refinement of Benveniste's original
experiment that examined another aspect of basophil activation. The team knew
that activation of basophil degranulation by aIgE leads to powerful mediators
being released, including large amounts of histamine, which sets up a negative
feedback cycle that curbs its own release. So the experiment the pan-European
team planned involved comparing inhibition of basophil aIgE-induced
degranulation with "ghost" dilutions of histamine against control solutions of
pure water.
In order to make sure no bias was introduced into the experiment by the
scientists from the four laboratories involved, they were all "blinded" to the
contents of their test solutions. In other words, they did not know whether the
solutions they were adding to the basophil-aIgE reaction contained ghost
amounts of histamine or just pure water. But that's not all. The ghost
histamine solutions and the controls were prepared in three different
laboratories that had nothing further to do with the trial.
The whole experiment was coordinated by an independent researcher who coded all
the solutions and collated the data, but was not involved in any of the testing
or analysis of the data from the experiment. Not much room, therefore, for
fraud or wishful thinking. So the results when they came were a complete
surprise.
Three of the four labs involved in the trial reported a statistically
significant inhibition of the basophil degranulation reaction by the ghost
histamine solutions compared with the controls. The fourth lab gave a result
that was almost significant, so the total result over all four labs was
positive for the ghost histamine solutions.
Still, Professor Ennis was not satisfied. "In this particular trial, we stained
the basophils with a dye and then hand-counted those left coloured after the
histamine- inhibition reaction. You could argue that human error might enter at
this stage." So she used a previously developed counting protocol that could be
entirely automated. This involved tagging activated basophils with a monoclonal
antibody that could be observed via fluorescence and measured by machine.
The result, shortly to be published in Inflammation Research, was the same:
histamine solutions, both at pharmacological concentrations and diluted out of
existence, lead to statistically significant inhibition of basophile activation
by aIgE, confirming previous work in this area.
"Despite my reservations against the science of homoeopathy," says Ennis, "the
results compel me to suspend my disbelief and to start searching for a rational
explanation for our findings." She is at pains to point out that the
pan-European team have not reproduced Benveniste's findings nor attempted to do
so.
Jacques Benveniste is unimpressed. "They've arrived at precisely where we
started 12 years ago!" he says. Benveniste believes he already knows what
constitutes the water-memory effect and claims to be able to record and
transmit the "signals" of biochemical substances around the world via the
internet. These, he claims, cause changes in biological tissues as if the
substance was actually present.
The consequences for science if Benveniste and Ennis are right could be earth
shattering, requiring a complete re-evaluation of how we understand the
workings of chemistry, biochemistry, and pharmacology.
One thing however seems certain. Either Benveniste will now be brought in from
the cold, or Professor Ennis and the rest of the scientists involved in the
pan-European experiment could be joining him there.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003
With regards
Lew
--------- Original Message ---------
DATE: Sat, 09 Aug 2003 21:52:14
From: "Lew FH" <[email protected]>
To: [email protected]
Cc:
> Thanks jr, for this down-to-earth demonstration of the responding waves from
> the Universe's spherical resonances.
>
> [ Stefanatos ( 1997 , 228 ) tells us that the " electromagnetic fields
> (EMF) emanating from bacteria,viruses and toxic substances affect the cells
> of the body and weaken its constitution. " So vital force is identified quite
> explicitly
>with electromagnetic fields and said to be the cause of disease. But somehow
>the life energies of the body are balanced by bioenergetic therapies.
> " No antibiotic or drug, no matter how powerful, will save an animal or
> human being if the vital force of healing is suppressed or lacking" (
> Stefanatos
>1997,229 ). So health or sickness is determined by who wins the battle between
> Good and Bad electromagnetic waves in the body." ]
>
> Oxygen is magnetic.
>
>With regards
> Lew
>
>--------- Original Message ---------
>
>DATE: Sat, 09 Aug 2003 18:30:41
>From: [email protected]
>To: [email protected]
>Cc:
>
>>http://escribe.com/health/thesilverlist/m61880.html
>>
>>Whatever it was didn't come through, BUT these photos
>>were found at the site:
>>"...I was very curious about if the hydrogen peroxide
>>really does make the particles smaller, so I asked
>>my brother Brian who works for a water reclamation
>>plant if they would have a way for me to see what
>>the CS looks like before and after adding the
>>peroxide...
>>The picture on the left is CS without
>>Hydrogen Peroxide...On the right is with the (H2O2)":
>>http://www.msrebel.com/colloidal_silver_ms_treatment.htm
>>jr
>>
>>
>>--
>>The silver-list is a moderated forum for discussion of colloidal silver.
>>
>>Instructions for unsubscribing may be found at: http://silverlist.org
>>
>>To post, address your message to: [email protected]
>>
>>Silver-list archive: http://escribe.com/health/thesilverlist/index.html
>>
>>List maintainer: Mike Devour <[email protected]>
>>
>>
>
>
>
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