Dilution solution

Homeopath says yea to personalized
remedies, nay to bogus products

by CHRIS BARRY

Name: Judyann Kathleen McNamara

Age: 53

Occupation: Homeopath

Bio: When this effervescent NDG flower first came to investigate homeopathy—treating patients with heavily diluted preparations that supposedly reproduce the symptoms of whatever’s ailing them—she’d been working at a national organization devoted to bio-medical research. Born with a nasty birth defect that resulted in her thymus gland being removed, leaving her with a virtually non-existent auto-immune system, Judyann spent her first 30-something years constantly knocking back antibiotics until her body wouldn’t accept them anymore. Just as the grim reaper was making his way to her door, her research doing “measuring light transmission among living cells” convinced her “that the body is clearly a lot more than just chemicals—it wouldn’t be as intelligent and organized if that were the case,” a revelation which led her to begin investigating naturopathy and homeopathy. After undergoing minor homeopathic treatments for her condition 15 years ago, Judyann became healthy as a horse and “never needed to take antibiotics again.” In 2005, she opened the Montreal Institute of Classical Homeopathy, which, this fall, will be accepting its first new crop of students in four years. To learn more: homeopathymontreal.com.

One reason why there’s less scientific evidence supporting homeopathy than one might expect: “Because with homeopathy, by design, each remedy is for a specific individual. You can take 10 people with arthritis, but they’ll each need a different homeopathic remedy. So how do you do a clinical trial like that? You can’t.”

Given the lack of regulation governing all the so-called homeopathic products on the market, couldn’t a person just fart into a Mason jar and market their methane as homeopathic aromatherapy to curb one’s appetite or as a stop-smoking aid? “These products are a total waste of time. They’re not homeopathy but an abuse that discredits homeopathy. It’s bullshit, there are no, for example, homeopathic remedies to help you quit smoking. The way it works with homeopathy is that the homeopath you meet has to find out who you are on the deepest level and find the remedy for you. There is no one, say, anti-nicotine remedy as might exist in allopathy. With pharmaceutical drugs, you might have one remedy for one disease, where with homeopathy, you have a medicine for a person.”

Two places where homeopathy is covered under Medicare: Ontario and B.C. “And by most insurance companies. What they all realize is that one visit to the homeopath could save them thousands of dollars in medical costs. Studies at Harvard University, which is very into holistic care, have estimated that if complementary medicine were used across the board, medical costs would be reduced by 90 per cent.”

One place where it isn’t covered: Quebec. “Politically, homeopathy is a hot potato. The pharmaceutical industry is not especially supportive of homeopathy, you understand. Nevertheless, homeopaths are not anti-allopathy, there’s a lot of collaboration between open-minded people in the medical profession and homeopaths.”

Last book read: A Journey Into the Human Core, by Dr. Dinesh Chauhan.

Musical preferences: Hildegard von Bingen, Nagwa, Pink Floyd.

Words of wisdom: “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

Comments: dimwit@hdot.net