Prince Charles: I use homeopathy in animals to cut antibiotic use | Life and style | The Guardian
http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle ... biotic-use

I also give my kids and animals water quite regularly to keep them healthy. It works a treat.



Although when they're ill though I give them medicine. Because you know, homoeopathy is [LIFTED] and all.

Homeopathy, at best, is a demonstration of the placebo effect in action. Which, you know, is a genuine thing.
I suspect however that the placebo effect has rapidly diminishing returns in animals - I could believe that primates might exhibit something similar in certain circumstances but cows is probably pushing it.

Is the placebo effect even a thing in animals? Surely it revolves around the fact that you believe that what you are being given is going to cure you. How would you explain that to an animal such as a horse or cow?


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There is a little bit of evidence in pets that there's kind of an associative placebo effect - if you give someone's dog a placebo, the change in the owner's behaviour due to the placebo effect on them can have a measurable effect on the dog's health within certain limitations.

I doubt very much this would apply to livestock though. The association between farm animal and farmer isn't the same as between pet and owner.

Jon

I guess that if the animal associated seeing a particular person when they were ill then feeling better afterwards that could be considered a sort of placebo effect but it would really be associated with the person (or possibly what they were wearing) and I would also expect the 'feeling better' part would have to kick in pretty damned fast otherwise the association wouldn't really be there.
Some pets undoubtedly get a type of noceabo (sp? - opposite of the placebo effect) effect from going to the vets as they can associate it with unpleasant things happening and/or the smell of other animals who are sick and/or worried has an impact. I doubt you get the same thing with large farm animals because the vet will normally be coming to them.

Homeopathy

How does it go again?..

What do you call alternative medicine that works?

Ans: Medicine

Turns out if you take science, then you dilute all the science out of it, you can still claim it's science.

Our most recent cat addition (we got her three years ago after being pretty much abandoned by previous owner) was treated homoeopathically for everything, including vaccinations. Our vet rolled his eyes and then sank in all the stuff that a cat needs to fight off the nasties. Obviously, we don” know what her general health was like prior to us getting her, but I expect that she could have been better - and certainly not at risk - if she had been treated properly.