More on Homeopathy

http://jme.bmj.com/content/36/3/130.full

An editorial of the Journal of Medical Ethics titled Homeopathy is where the harm is: five unethical effects of funding unscientific ‘remedies’.

Homeopathy/ Homeopatía

First of all I must tell you that I am against the use of Homeopathy and its inclusion in the public Health system. I have gatherred enough information to confidently say that it does not work beyond the placebo effect, and that it cannot work (it is not possible from a scientific point of view). I am not against Hopeopathic doctors. I give them the benefit of the doubt and assume that they have no bad intention, but instead are very badly missinformed.
I have found out that this is the Homeopathy Awareness week. But, hold on, this is not an official campaign to warn public against the lack of effectiveness and quackery of Homeopathy! It actually is a marketing manouever to try to convince consumers to buy Homeopathy.
For this reason I am writing this article. I think it is necessary to be aware of what homeopathy claims to be, and what it really is.

FIRST. Homeopathy claims that sympthoms of a disease can be treated with a very tiny quantity of a drug that, in higher doses, will give those same unwanted sympthoms.

SECOND. According to Hopeopathy, the more diluted the drug, the bigger the effect (i.e. benefit).

THIRD. In Homeopathy drugs are diluted over and over, until you get the bottle or pill or whatever treatment the patient ultimately gets. Having diluted the drug so many times, it is IMPOSSIBLE to find a single molecule of the original drug in the treatment that the patient will have. (This has been proven and most homeopaths accept this fact).

FOURTH. As a means to figure out an explanation for the supposed activity of an homeopathic treatment, homeopaths have invented the ackward and totally nonsense theory that "Water has memory".

FIFTH. When properly tested, Homeopaty has not proven to be more effective than placebo.

You can find some interesting links on homeopathy further down:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ZhmG97lYog
A BBC Horizon doccumentary about homeopathy. Very informative.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWE1tH93G9U
James Randi explains how Hoeopathy works

http://www.elmundo.es/blogs/elmundo/desde_el_mas_alla/2012/06/18/homeopatia-gruyere.html
A link to a spanish newspaper science section.

http://www.badscience.net/2007/11/the-lancet-benefits-and-risks-of-homoeopathy/
An article by Dr. Ben Goldacre

http://www.1023.org.uk/why-you-cant-trust-homeopathy.php


http://skepticbarista.wordpress.com/2012/06/14/homeopathy-awareness-week-are-you-aware/

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Primero de todo he de decir que estoy en contra del uso de la homeopatía y su inclusión en el sistema público de salud. He recopilado suficiente información para afirmar con confianza que no fuciona más allá del efecto placebo, y que no puede funcionar (no es posible desde un punto de vista científico). No tengo nada en contra de los médicos homeópatas. Les ofrezco el beneficio de la duda y pienso que no tiene mala intención, simplemente están mal informados.
Me he enterado de que esta es la Semana De Concienciación sobre Homeopatía. Pero cuidado! No se trata de una campaña oficial para advertir sobre los peligros del charlatanerismo, sino que es una maniobra de marketing para convencer al público de que consuma homeopatía.
Por ese motivo he escrito este artículo. Para avisar al público sobre lo que la Homeopatía dice ser y sobre lo que realmente es.

PRIMERO. La homeopatía afirma que un síntoma puede tratarse con cantidades muy pequeñas de una substancia que, en dosis más altas produce los mismos síntomas que se quieren tratar (Curioso!!).

SEGUNDO. Según la homeopatía, cuanto más diluida esté la substancia, mayor será su efecto (es decir, su pretendido beneficio).

TERCERO. En homeopatía las substancias se diluyen una y otra vez hasta obtener el tratamiento que se le administra al paciente. Habiendo diluido la substancia tantas veces es VIRTUALMENTE IMPOSIBLE encontrar una sola molécula de la substancia activa. (Esto se ha probado científicamente y la mayor parte de homeópatas lo aceptan).

CUARTO. Para obviar este problema, los homeópatas han inventado la fabulosa (y totalmente sin sentido) explicación  de que el agua "tiene memoria".

QUINTO. Cuando se estudia apropiadamente, la homeopatía NO es más efectiva que el placebo.

Online Bioethics courses // Cursos Online sobre Bioética

Links to Online Bioethics courses. Most of them are free. Although it has a 200 GBP fee, I especially recommend the University of Oxford “Bioethics for Beginners” (SEE BELOW).

Enlaces a cursos sobre Bioética en Internet. La mayoría son gratis. Aunque tiene un precio de 200 libras esterlinas, recomiendo especialmente el curso de la Universidad de Oxford “Bioethics for Begginers” (ver más abajo).

Johns Hopkins School of Public Health

Ethics of Human Subject Research

http://ocw.jhsph.edu/courses/EthicsHumanSubjectResearch/

University of Oxford

Bioethics for Beginners

http://www.conted.ox.ac.uk/courses/details.php?course_subject=Philosophy&id=V500-12&coursetype=100

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)

Bioethics

http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/linguistics-and-philosophy/24-06j-bioethics-spring-2009/

National Human Genome Research Institute

Health Professional Education

http://www.genome.gov/17517037#al-3

North Carolina State University

Bio-medical Ethics

http://distance.ncsu.edu/courses/course-details.php?id=PHI:325::601:FALL:2012

Cleveland Clinic

Office of Civic Education Initiatives

(Course for high school students)

http://www.clevelandclinic.org/civiceducation/realworld/bioethics.asp

Fisterra

(In Spanish)

http://www.fisterra.com/formacion/bioetica/

Dr Tom Kerns

North Seattle Community College

Introduction to Bioethics

http://www.bioethicscourse.info/

American College of Dentists

Courses Online Dental Ethics (CODE)

https://www.dentalethics.org/

Washington State University

Bioethics- Graduate Certificate

http://online.wsu.edu/future_students/dc_bioethics_grad.aspx

World Medical Association

Ethics Course

http://www.wma.net/en/70education/10onlinecourses/30ethics/index.html

Guidelines for patient safety // Directrices para la seguridad del paciente

Below you have the links to the guidelines for patient safety from the World Health Organization, the Joint Commission, and the International Medication Safety Network. The last link has some video resources from the FDA.

WHO guidelines for adverse event reporting and learning systems:
http://www.who.int/patientsafety/events/05/Reporting_Guidelines.pdf

WHO GUIDELINES FOR SAFE SURGERY:
http://gawande.com/documents/WHOGuidelinesforSafeSurgery.pdf

International Medication Safety Network
http://www.intmedsafe.net/contents/Resources.aspx

Joint Commission:
http://www.jcrinc.com/

Medication-related FDA Patient Safety videos provided in cooperation with ISMP
http://www.ismp.org/Tools/fdavideos.asp


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Más abajo tenéis los enlaces de las directrices y recursos sobre seguridad del paciente de la OMS, la Joint Commission, y la International Medication Safety Network. El último enlace contiene vídeos sobre seguridad del paciente de la FDA.


Guía de la OMS para la notificación de reacciones adversas y sistemas de aprendizaje:
http://www.who.int/patientsafety/events/05/Reporting_Guidelines.pdf

Guía de la OMS para SEGURIDAD EN LA CIRUGÍA:
http://gawande.com/documents/WHOGuidelinesforSafeSurgery.pdf

Joint Commission:
http://www.jcrinc.com/

International Medication Safety Network
http://www.intmedsafe.net/contents/Resources.aspx

Vídeos sobre seguridad del paciente de la FDA en cooperación con la ISMP
http://www.ismp.org/Tools/fdavideos.asp

Learning material for Cochrane reviewers // Material didáctico para revisores de Cochrane

This is a link with leanring material for those intending to do (or already engaged in) a systematic review for the Cochrane library. You can consult it on screen or print the 196 page PDF file.

http://www.cochrane-net.org/openlearning/


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Este es un enlace con material didáctico para los interesados en realizar (o ya involucrados en) una revisión sistemática para la Cochrane. Puede consultarse en pantalla o imprimirse un documento PDF de 196 páginas.

http://www.cochrane-net.org/openlearning/

RevMan tutorial in Youtube // Tutorial RevMan en Youtube

You can see a tutorial of the RevMan (the program used to do the Cochrane reviews) in this links:

Part 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6susM9BT0A

Part 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VqcNJ0UkGhg&feature=relmfu

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Podeis ver un tutorial sobre RevMan (el programa que se utiliza para realizar las revisiones sistemáticas de Cochrane) en estos enlaces:

Parte 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6susM9BT0A

Parte 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VqcNJ0UkGhg&feature=relmfu

Bayesian inference // Inferencia bayesiana

Links in English:

http://www.astro.cornell.edu/staff/loredo/bayes/


Links in Spanish:

http://www.ugr.es/~mcdiaz/bayes/


http://dxsp.sergas.es/ApliEdatos/Epidat/Ayuda/9-Ayuda%20An%E1lisis%20bayesiano.pdf


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Links en inglés:

http://www.astro.cornell.edu/staff/loredo/bayes/


Enlaces en español:


http://www.ugr.es/~mcdiaz/bayes/


http://dxsp.sergas.es/ApliEdatos/Epidat/Ayuda/9-Ayuda%20An%E1lisis%20bayesiano.pdf