Homoeoprophylaxis Is it Homoeopathy?

Shilpa Bhouraskar interviews Dr. Isaac Golden.

Shilpa:
Hi this is Shilpa here. Now last week, I wrote to all the members of the Homoeopathy
network asking for a favour and it was asking about your frank opinion on
Homoeoprophylaxis.
It has been such a wonderful response and it absolutely exceeded my wildest
expectations. Ive
read close to about a hundred emails and I have to apologise I could not reply to
each one of you
but I have read every one of those emails. And that was the time I decided that I
would put those
questions together and I will forward them to the one and only one person who has
been a leader
in this field of Homoeoprophylaxis. And thats the reason I went and contacted Dr.
Isaac
regarding this specific request. Now Ive been communicating with Dr. Isaac since
the last few
months because Ive been fortunate to have been working with him on a very
exciting project. So
I decided to have him personally answer these questions, because all these
questions were so
vital and they were coming from practitioners who were using the protocol and 50
percent of the
people who replied to me said they are using some form of Homoeoprophylaxis. So
having him
personally answer those questions would be of great value for these people. Now
today, Dr. Isaac
has kindly agreed to answer them for us and thats why Im going to welcome him
and I thank
you once again for connecting with us.
Now we are communicating long distance so Ill apologize for some of the
interruptions
in advance but Im really sure that we will get some valuable inputs from Dr. Isaac in
this
conversation. So thank you once again and Ill turn over to Dr. Isaac.
Thank you very much for connecting with us Isaac and Ive been getting so many
emails
and such a lot of interest through the Homoeopathic network. So I had a few
questions, so that,
you know, we can understand a bit more about this wonderful approach youve been
researching
for such a long time. How did you come up with this approach for Homeoprophylaxis
and how
did it really start for you in the first place?
Dr. Isaac:
Yes, of course, Im not the first person to use homoeopathic immunisation or
Homoeoprophylaxis, that was Dr. Hahnemann back in 1798. Many of the greatest

prescribers
from Boenninghausen. Hering, Kent through to the modern day masters also used it
as well.
Most of the time they used in epidemic situations and I guess the contribution I have
made is to
use it in an endemic as opposed to an epidemic situation where in other words, there
is a level of
certain diseases in the community all the time.
They may strike from time to time as this happened in Australia with whooping cough
over
the last couple of years really and the reason for that spike as much as anything else
is being the
fact that the strain of the organism circulating in the community no longer matches
the strain
used in the vaccine and once again great advantage that Homoeopathy has in
situations like this.
Basically I decided back in 1985 to design a long term program which parents who
were
not happy to use vaccinations to protect against infectious disease could use as an
alternative.
So my only experience with immunization actually started some years before that
because
my original professional training was in economics and finance.
So I was a very orthodox person who was always interested in natural health matters
but
didnt really study it, didnt know a lot, for example, about the possible potential
consequences
of vaccination. So my first children were vaccinated. One of them was vaccine
damaged and that
led me to start to examine vaccination itself. And there was very little information out
there at the
time.
The material by the late Professor Robert Mendelsohn. which many people will
probably be
familiar with. You know was almost all we could get our hands on. But it got me
interested but it
also got me collecting data becauseDr. Robert Mendelsohn had said that vaccines
had not been as
effective as they were made out.
So I actually wrote to health departments in Australia, America, England and in other
countries as well to try and get the raw data and some of that is published in my
major book on
the topic and Ive published it over the years elsewhere. And so when I became
interested in
complementary medicine and then interested in homoeopathy, I was amazed to find
that
Hahnemann had actually used homoeopathy to prevent infectious diseases as well
as treat. Now I
know that many colleges dont actually teach that. They teach the lower stimulus
only relates to

treatment and that when we are talking about prevention its not actually part of
mainstream or
classical homoeopathy. That is actually incorrect that the law of stimulus is much
broader than
just treatment and therefore you using it in an appropriate way to prevention is totally
homoeopathic, if the method is used appropriately, so I then designed in 1985 a long
term
program that parents could use if they wish and then started collecting data and
thats really
where its led from there to here.
Shilpa:
Right, so you mentioned the law of similars is very broad and that its not just about
curing, its also about preventing, and, can you talk about that a bit more, like in what
way?
Dr. Isaac:
Well for example, Hahnemanns first use of the law of similars to prevent, was using
a
remedy belladonna to prevent scarlet fever. Now he came across this by chance
because there was
an epidemic of scarlet fever moving through the area, and he had been treating a
young girl for a
completely different condition using the remedy belladonna. And he found that in fact
, rather
family members got the disease but she didnt. Now he also realized of cause,
belladonna was
being used by him and some of his colleagues to actually treat scarlet fever. And so
he reasoned
that may be the reason she did not get the disease was because shed been using
the remedy that
was similar to the disease remedy already. And so he then started giving belladonna
and found
that it was a very effective prophylactic and as the time went on as I said
Boenninghausen and
many of the very well known early homoeopaths all used Homoeoprophylaxis
without hesitation
because it worked and was consistent with the law of stimulus in the sense that a
substance
which can cause symptoms in a healthy person can prevent similar symptoms in a
person who is
not yet exposed to the organism causing those symptoms. You can re-write the law
of similars
totally consistently with the use of Homoeoprophylaxis over the years.
Shilpa:
Yes, so what made you do a PHD on this whole subject?
Dr. Isaac:
Now I started collecting data in 1986 and of cause I was writing articles and
eventually

books on the topic. And one evening I was invited to speak in a conference which
covered a wide
range of topics. It wasnt a homoeopathic specific conference that I spoke about
homoeopathic
immunization. Also at the conference there was a professor of medicine, Professor
[unclear]
Sally who is an oncologist, he is a cancer surgeon, a professor of medicine and he
was speaking
on his speciality which was psychoimmunotherapy. And So we met there and he
listened to me
and I listened to him of cause and discussed the possibility of doing a doctorate
using the data
that I had been collecting. This was the largest collection of data like this in the
world, quite a
unique collection of data. The reason really why I accepted his invitation was
because it gave me
an opportunity to have orthodox people, a professor of medicine and my core
supervisor was a
medical epidemiologist, actually look at the data and tell me if there were
weaknesses, tell me if
there were ways that I could make the data collection better.
Shilpa:
Thank you very much doctor for sharing your journey with us. Now I have been
reading all
these emails and there have been a few top questions. One of those questions was;
they can
understand using prophylaxis in an epidemic situation but what is the logic behind
using
prophylaxis without any ongoing epidemic?
Dr. Isaac:
Very good question. And a very very fair question because I know there are
practitioners,
homoeopathic practitioners out there who say, right we understand, we know that
Hahnemannn
and BoenningHausen and all of these great homoeopaths used homoeopathic
immunization. But
they all used it in acute epidemic situations. So how come now you are saying it is
okay to use it
in long term situations?
Well its very very simple actually. There are some diseases that are circulating all
the time
in our community. They flare up from time to time and then they settle down.
Whooping cough
is a prime example. It usually flares up every four or so years. Its been going for a
bit longer this
time. So were talking in early 2013 and its been probably been going for a year and
a half, the
so called flare up.

So its very active in many parts of the community. So what are you going to say to a
parent who says, I dont want my new born to get whooping cough. And lets face it,
thats a
really sensible position for the parent to take because thats when whooping cough is
at its most
serious, the younger the infant. So we dont have to say, okay, we define an
epidemic when such
and such a percentage of the community gets the disease.
We wont do anything until this percentage is reached and then once the percentage
is
reached we will do something. I mean that, sorry, its just not logical. The thing is this,
we have a
method which can actually offer those parents protection now and to say to those
parents, no you
should wait until another 150 children get it and then we will work out a genus
epidemic or that
you are going to wait until then or one of your child has to be one of the people who
get the
disease before we can tell somebody else its okay to prevent it.
You can see how ridiculous it sounds when you think about it. So Im not being in any
way
being dismissive of the point. The point is a very good one but the point is different
now to what
it was in Hahnemanns time.
They didnt necessarily have something like whooping cough that was endemic as
opposed
to epidemic in their community. And if they did I have absolutely no doubt
Hahnemann would
want to try and prevent it. And the reason I have no doubt of that is what Hahnemann
himself
mentioned in his lesser writings.
And so one of the things I say to people is that if they have concerns, real genuine
concerns
about this, is go to list of writings, Hahnemanns list of writings and read what he has
to say
about disease prevention. And he speaks at the beginning of the essay about the
cure and
prevention of scarlet fever. He speaks most eloquently about how even though we
have a
wonderful system of treatment i.e . homoeopathy [unclear] to prevent suffering than
have to treat
it.
And thats where Im coming from. So I am following very very closely in
Hahnemanns
footsteps I believe by doing what I am doing because Im just doing exactly what he
said our
aspirations should be.
Now the other situation is with diseases that are endemic in our community that are
not

particularly active. Lets take meningococcal meningitis as an example. We know it

isnt in the
Australian community because there are regular cases. There are many many fewer
cases than
with say whooping cough. So with meningococcal meningitis, I would say prevention
is
worthwhile because of the potential serious ailments. The likelihood of acquiring the
disease is
very low. The potential seriousness of the disease is extremely high. It could kill you
in 24 or 48
hours.
Given that we have a system that is comfortably effective and is non toxic, we can
say
why not use the method. Now its very interesting because this leads to another
question and that
is what is the evidence of long term safety.
When I did my doctorate from 2000 to 2004, the main purpose of the doctorate was
to
look at my long term goals from 1986 to 2004. It gave me the opportunity to do a
new piece of
research and the only reason for this new piece of research was to give evidence to
my
homoeopathic colleagues who quite reasonably raised the question if you give a
child a number
of high potency remedies once a month or once every few months over a period of
years, will
this in any way weaken the vital force.
What is the evidence about the effect of long term Homeoprophylaxis on the vital
force.
And so the second part of my research at the University, in Melbourne was to look
exactly at this
question. And so what I did I got groups of parents who had given Homoeopathic
immunization
to their children, parents who had vaccinated their children, parents who used
constitutional or
general strengthening as a form of immunization and parents who did nothing at all,
nothing
specific at all to try and prevent infectious diseases. I looked at those four groups of
parents and
then I looked at five conditions. I looked at asthma, eczema, ear and hearing
problems,
allergies and behavioural problems.
And I looked at children aged between 4 and 14 years of age. There is no point of
looking
at children who were young because you dont get an idea of the long term health.
There is no
point of looking at children who were too old because too many other compounding
effects and
between 4 and 12 or 4 and 14 is generally accepted by many researcher s as being
an appropriate

age range to look at.

When I looked at that and in the course that you and I have been working on, all this
evidence will actually show the results of this analysis. And one of them Ill share
briefly over
here, were not going to go over the whole thing is that the evidence that is available
shows that
the use of an appropriate long term, I mean prophylaxis regime actually strengthens
the
childrens health.
I was very surprised with the findings of the research because I had expected that
the
constitutionally protected group would have been the healthiest as measured by the
lowest
incidence of those five conditions. And in fact it wasnt that, the homoeopathic
immunized group
had the lowest incidence of those five conditions. And so the question was why, and
the answer
almost certainly comes from what Hahnemann said when he talked about people
doing regular
provings, that how it could be beneficial that appropriately conducted provings could
actually
make the person healthier.
You see what we are doing with the very carefully designed long term
Homeoprophylaxis
program, is that we are not giving lots of doses of the same remedy close to each
other. We have
a single dose and a triple dose which effectively is one strong single dose and then
nothing for a
year probably unless there is high level of acute exposure. And so giving doses of
the medicine a
year apart is not going to cause approval except in very very rare circumstances. Its
not
impossible but its highly unlikely.
What we are also doing by doing this is stimulating, challenging on a very very subtle
level the persons immune system. So the task is sometimes getting a simple
infectious disease
even a common cold, if its allowed to run its course and treated well , you can
actually build out
the persons general immunity. Thats a grading orthodox medicine as well as a
natural
medicine in general.
What we are doing with Homeoprophylaxis is very similar to that except the
stimulation,
the challenge is on such a subtle level that it doesnt do damage. There are very
good reasons
when you think about it carefully for understanding how a properly run long term
program can
actually be beneficial and thats what the data shows.

Shilpa:
Now there are many members who are students and they were quite interested in
offering
Homoeopathic prophylaxis for their future clients, but they were unsure who their real
clients are
and what was the scope of using this tool in actual clinical practice, so lets talk about
that.
Youve created a program which has been used by so many parents and so many
practitioners
over the years. So how many patients have you had who have been using your
program?
Dr. Isaac:
Thats a hard question to answer. I mean there are two groups: one group are people
who
got the program directly from me. We supply a lot programs to practitioners not just
homoeopaths but all sorts of practitioners around the country. And thats particularly
valuable
because Im not allowed to actually post programs into state appearance. So I dont
and I
havent ever since I was threatened by the TGA for $ 27000 fine if I did.
So I havent done it ever since that day. But of course its totally appropriate to supply
colleagues and so its a bit hard to know exactly where the full members are. Plus
there is yet
another group and possibly the largest group and that is homeopathic practitioners
around the
country who are actually using the program but doing it themselves, preparing the
program
themselves and many homeopaths do that.
I mean I would be conservatively guessing about 15000 families. Some of those
families
have a number of children that are almost certainly, you know, Im either
underestimating or
overestimating by a few thousands but that would be of some guidance over the
years.
Shilpa:
Who are the parents or who are clients who actually come and ask for homeopathic
immunization?
Dr. Isaac:
Its changed actually Shilpa. I mean, when I first started, most of the parents, well if
not
most a significant minority were people who had given one or more by accident, had
problems
with that and were looking for an option or people who had friends whose children
had had
problems and were looking for options. These days the profile has changed a bit.
There are many
more people coming now who have never given any vaccines. That would be the

clear majority
of parents now who have never used any vaccines.
Some of them are people who are familiar with homeopathy. Many of them are. The
majority of people who use this program, this is the first time they have used
homeopathy for
anything. And in fact it often leads them to beliefs that using homeopathy for simple
first aid
conditions at home.
So its wonderful to see that it can be a vehicle for education. I mean these are
parents who
maybe have looked much through the internet and found all the scary stuff about
vaccines or
theyve had friends who have had problems with their own children, with vaccination,
then they
have started searching for alternatives or options for vaccination, come across
homeopathic
immunization and then gotten in touch with me. So that structure of type of patient
has changed.
There are many more people now who have only or are only intending to use
homeopathic
immunization. But there is a minority now of people who have given one or two, who
have used
rounds of vaccines and then decided that they didnt want to use anymore and
switched. The
thing is, their programs are very flexible.
So we can easily accommodate both sorts of parents, whether vaccines have been
used on
their children before or not, whether they started at very early age, I normally
recommend
starting at one month of age but sometimes some people come in and their child is 2
years of age
and they havent had vaccines, they havent had homeopathic immunization. We
really now want
to do something.
Shilpa:
And what sort of, who are the practitioners who offer these programs? Would they
just be
homeopathic practitioners in your experience?
Dr. Isaac:
No, I mean homeopathic practitioners are the ones I know most about, but there is
quite a
large number of current practice who get programs from me because current
practice in general
are pretty aware about the adverse effects of many vaccines on some children. And
certainly
naturopaths, nutritionists, people like that , and Ive even got, and I will say this with
a hoarse
voice, one or two doctors. But we dont mention that too much.

Shilpa:
Thank you very much Isaac. Now there is one last request before we wrap up for
today
because I know you have very short time with us. But there is an important question
many
practitioners asked and that was about the risk elimination and the fear of litigation
when they
offer Homeoprophylaxis and I think its so important for practitioners to be able to
offer this sort
of call with integrity and confidence.
So Im wondering if you could be able to answer that question in another session
with us ?
Dr. Isaac:
Certainly certain questions like legal responsibilities and how you deal with doctors
and
other family members, if some of the people want to hear a few opinions about that
sort of thing,
Id be very happy to do that.
Shilpa:
Thank you so much Isaac. So if you are listening to this and if you have any
questions
which you want Dr. Isaac to personally answer for you, just put them down below this
video and
well make sure that we can do that for you next time. So thank you very much for
listening and
I look forward to get in touch with you next time. Thank you.
Dr. Isaac:
Thank you, thank you Shilpa.
Interview (c) 2013 Shilpa Bhouraskar & Dr. Isaac Golden