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Record W143202021

Homeopaths need to show-and-tell.

2003· letter· en· W143202021 on OpenAlexaboutno aff
Danny W. Scott

Bibliographic record

VenuePubMed · 2003
Typeletter
Languageen
FieldMedicine
TopicComplementary and Alternative Medicine Studies
Canadian institutionsnot available
Fundersnot available
KeywordsHomeopathyHomeopathic medicineMedicineAlternative medicineAtopic dermatitisFamily medicinePlaceboVeterinary medicineTraditional medicineDermatologyPathology
DOInot available

Abstract

fetched live from OpenAlex

Dear Sir, Our recent article (Can Vet J 2002;43:601–603) on the treatment of canine atopic dermatitis with a commercial homeopathic remedy certainly provoked a lot of commentary (1). One of the recurring criticisms of our study was that homeopathic veterinarians would not prescribe such a “combination cocktail” product, as all remedies must be individualized for each patient. To that effect, we think the readers of The Canadian Veterinary Journal will be interested in the results of a small follow-up study. Our original intent was to carry out a 2-phase project on canine atopic dermatitis. Phase 1 was the placebo-controlled, blinded study in which the commercial remedy (Skin and Seborrhea Remedy; HomeoPet, West Hampton Beach, New York, USA) was used. The results of phase 1 have been published. In phase 2, dogs that had failed to benefit from the commercial remedy were then to be treated with specific, individualized homeopathic remedies. To this end, a homeopathic veterinarian, who is the veterinary consultant to HomeoPet, designed a 9-page, 87-question questionnaire that was filled out by the dog owners. The completed questionnaire — a lengthy, in-depth probing of each dog's health, environment, behavior, and so forth — was returned to the homeopathic veterinarian, who then prescribed a specific, individualized remedy(s) for each dog. Each remedy was administered orally as a single agent, for a 3-week period.a Five dogs from our recent article (1) progressed on to phase 2: Case 1 received Mercury 30c Case 3 received Sulfur 6c, then Sulfur 6x Case 4 received Pulsatilla 30c, then Urtica urens 6c, then Lachesis 6c Case 5 received Natmur 30c Case 11 received Lycopodium No dog had any reduction in its level of pruritus. Clearly, this is a small study. However, at least it is in print! Special, individualized homeopathic remedies — prescribed by a homeopathic veterinarian — were of no benefit to 5 dogs with atopic dermatitis.

Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.

How this classification was reachedexpand

Full frame machine prediction

Teacher imitation

Not calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.

metaresearch head score (Codex)0.005
metaresearch head score (Gemma)0.033
Version: metacan-v3-hybrid-931329e0061cValidation status: machine_predicted_unvalidated
Candidate categoriesnone
Consensus categoriesnone
DomainCandidate signal: none · Consensus signal: none
Study designCandidate signal: Not applicable · Consensus signal: Not applicable
GenreCandidate signal: Commentary · Consensus signal: Commentary
Teacher disagreement score0.046
Threshold uncertainty score0.155

Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)

CategoryCodexGemma
Metaresearch0.0050.033
Meta-epidemiology (narrow)0.0010.001
Meta-epidemiology (broad)0.0010.001
Bibliometrics0.0010.000
Science and technology studies0.0030.003
Scholarly communication0.0050.011
Open science0.0020.003
Research integrity0.0190.028
Insufficient payload (model declined to judge)0.0460.034

Machine scores (provisional)

The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.

Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.

Opus teacher head0.053
GPT teacher head0.269
Teacher spread0.216 · how far apart the two teachers sit on this one work
Validation statusscore_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from it

Classification

machine, unvalidated

Machine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.

The models applied no category: nothing in the taxonomy fit this work.
Study designNot applicable
Domainnot available
GenreCommentary

How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".

Quick stats

Citations5
Published2003
Admission routes1
Has abstractyes

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