Dana Ullman

Dana Ullman
Born Gregory Dana Ullman
(1951-12-22) December 22, 1951
Hollywood, California, U.S.
Citizenship United States
Education MPH, University of California, Berkeley
Alma mater University of California at Berkeley
Occupation Instructor, academic, journalist
Known for Promotion of homeopathy and integrative medicine, alternative medicine
Website http://www.homeopathic.com

Gregory Dana Ullman (born December 22, 1951) is an American author, publisher, journalist, practitioner, and proponent in the field of homeopathy. He is a regular contributor to The Huffington Post.[1]

Career

Ullman received his MPH from the University of California at Berkeley, and co-taught a course on homeopathy at University of California at San Francisco for four years.[2] Ullman is described by UC Berkeley’s alumni magazine as “a leading homeopath” and a prime mover and spokesperson for homeopathy in the United States today.[2]

Ullman served as a member of the Advisory Council of the Alternative Medicine Center at Columbia University's College of Physicians and Surgeons.[3] In previous years he served as chairperson for the National Center for Homeopathy's Annual Conference,[4] and has been a consultant to Harvard Medical School's Center to Assess Alternative Therapy for Chronic Illness.[5] He has spoken at universities, medical schools, pharmacy schools, and hospitals.[5]

Journalist John Stossel of ABC News described Ullman as "homeopathy's foremost spokesman."[6] Anastasia Toufexis of Time Magazine described him as a "leading proselytizer of homeopathy".[7]

He was called as an expert witness in a class action against a homeopathy vendor for misleading marketing claims. The judge said:

The Defendant presented the testimony of Gregory Dana Ullman who is a homeopathic practitioner. He outlined the theory of homeopathic treatment and presented his opinion as to the value and effectiveness of homeopathic remedies. The Court found Mr. Ullman’s testimony to be not credible. Mr. Ullman’s bias in favor of homeopathy and against conventional medicine was readily apparent from his testimony. He admitted that he was not an impartial expert but rather is a passionate advocate of homeopathy. He posted on Twitter that he views conventional medicine as witchcraft. He opined that conventional medical science cannot be trusted.
[...]
Mr. Ullman's testimony was unhelpful in understanding the purported efficacy of the ingredients of SnoreStop to reduce the symptoms of snoring. Although he is familiar with the theory of homeopathic treatment, his opinions regarding its effectiveness was unsupported and biased. The Court gave no weight to his testimony.

Views and controversies

See also: Water memory

Ullman was interviewed on the American Broadcasting Company program 20/20 in a segment about homeopathy (January 30, 2004).[6] He claimed that homeopathic preparations of extremely high dilution, i.e. those likely to contain zero molecules of the original substance, are effective because, he said, "the water gets impregnated with the information or memory of the original substance."[6] When asked to suggest a laboratory experiment that 20/20 could independently conduct as a way to test the legitimacy of homeopathy, Ullman recommended the Ennis experiment, a study that seemed to show that ultra-dilute solutions of histamine, diluted to the levels used in homeopathic remedies, could affect cells just as the controls did.[8][9][10] The result of 20/20's experiment was negative; the homeopathic dilution failed to produce a measurable effect when compared to plain water.[6] He claimed the test was flawed as it was not a direct replication of Ennis' work.[11][12] However, this experiment and one run by the BBC were ruled to be valid by independent experts commissioned by the BBC.[13] However, other experts considered this study seriously flawed. A review of this study that was published in the New Scientist deemed that it was too small to give definitive results. Further, the producer of the Horizon showed even acknowledged that there were problems with the counting methods used in this study.[14] Additional problems was the fact that the BBC explicitly asserted that their experiment was a replication of Ennis study, but Ennis herself discovered that there were major differences between the two study. The tv study was developed and conducted by laboratory technician who didn’t hold a graduate degree and had never previously conducted and published a study on basophils.[15]

In an editorial in The Journal of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology,[16] editor-in-chief Gerald Weissmann criticized the scientific basis of homeopathy and included Dana Ullman in his criticism. Weissmann criticized Ullman for recommending, during the 2001 anthrax attacks in the USA, the use of the homeopathic preparation called Anthracinum to prevent infection.[17]

Ullman claimed he recommended Anthracinium for people who are at high risk of infection and who decline ciprofloxacin because of concerns over its side effects. While Ullman expressed concern about vendors "taking advantage of people wrapped up in the fear of the situation", he said "It would be irresponsible for us not to provide something that might be helpful."[17] There is no evidence for the efficacy of Anthracinum, which is derived from nosodes gathered from infected pigs, and then diluted to "a point where no molecules of the disease product remain."[16][17] In a right-of-reply letter, Ullman depicted Weissmann's editorial as an "unscientific critique" of homeopathy and cited five peer-reviewed studies.[18] Weissmann responded: "Mr. Ullman is clearly a devotee of his art, and I respect his opinions. I'm afraid that I view Mr. Ullman’s references to the efficacy of homeopathy as modern versions of those Dr Holmes distrusted," and went on to quote from a well-known critique of homeopathy by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.: "...such cases deserve very little confidence. Yet they may sound well enough, one at a time, to those who are not fully aware of the fallacies of medical evidence."[19][20]

Bibliography

Other writings

Ullman's letters and writings have appeared in The Western Journal of Medicine, Social Policy, Utne Reader, The Futurist, The Arthritis Foundation's Guide to Alternative Medicine, Atlanta: Arthritis Foundation, (J. Horstman) 1999 and The Reader's Digest Family Guide to Natural Medicine.[4]

References

  1. "The Huffington Post -Dana Ullman". Retrieved 2016-10-27.
  2. 1 2 California Alumni Association (February 1999). "Q&A with Dana Ullman". Alumni Magazine. University of California Berkeley's California Alumni Association. Archived from the original on 20 August 2013. Retrieved 2008-01-22.
  3. "Dana Ullman profile". Archived from the original on 27 July 2009. Retrieved 2008-01-25.
  4. 1 2 Dana Ullman, M.P.H. "Homeopathic Educational Services". Archived from the original on 4 April 2009. Retrieved 2008-01-26.
  5. 1 2 Penguin Group USA. "About Dana Ullman". Retrieved 2008-01-24.
  6. 1 2 3 4 Stossel, John (2008). "Homeopathic Remedies-Can Water Really Remember?". 20/20. ABC News. Retrieved 2008-01-22.
  7. Toufexis, Anastasia (1995-09-25). "Is Homeopathy Good Medicine?". Time Magazine. Retrieved 2008-01-22.
  8. "13 Things That Do Not Make Sense". New Scientist (2491): 30. 2005-03-19. Retrieved 2007-03-04. 4. Belfast Homeopathy Results
  9. ""We are unable to explain our findings and are reporting them to encourage others to investigate this phenomenon."Brown, VG; Ennis, M. (2001). "Flow-cytometric analysis of basophil activation: inhibition by histamine at conventional and homeopathic concentrations". Inflammation Research (50): 47–48.
  10. Belon, M.; Cumps J; Ennis M; Mannaioni PF; Sainte-Laudy J; Roberfroid M; Wiegant F.A.C. (1999). "Inhibition of human basophil degranulation by successive histamine dilutions: results of a European multi-centre trial". Inflammation Research. 48 (48): s17–s18. doi:10.1007/s000110050376. PMID 10350142.
  11. "John Stossel and 20/20's Program on Homeopathy: Junk Science Creates Junk Journalism When TV Science Creates Science Fiction", homeopathic.com; accessed May 4, 2014.
  12. Homeopathic Educational Services
  13. Williams, Nathan (2003-11-26). "Homeopathy: The test". Retrieved 2008-01-27. Homeopathy is back where it started without any credible scientific explanation. That won't stop millions of people putting their faith in it, but science is confident. Homeopathy is impossible.
  14. "E-mail from Professor Ennis on the specific differences in her study and the studies by ABC News (20/20) and the BBC". Retrieved 2016-10-27.
  15. Robert Matthews (2002-12-07). "TV homeopathy trial was 'flawed'". New Scientist. Retrieved 2016-10-27.
  16. 1 2 Weissmann, Gerald (2006). "Homeopathy: Holmes, Hogwarts, and the Prince of Wales". The FASEB Journal. Retrieved 2008-05-21.
  17. 1 2 3 Garsombke, Kate (2001-10-29). "Alternative Remedies for Anthrax". AlterNet. Archived from the original on June 30, 2004. Retrieved 2013-04-08.
  18. Ullman, Dana (2006). "Let's have a serious discussion of nanopharmacology and homeopathy". The FASEB Journal.
  19. Weissmann, Gerald (2006). "Response to: Let's have a serious discussion of nanopharmacology and homeopathy". The FASEB Journal.
  20. Holmes, O. H. (1892) "Homeopathy and Its Kindred Delusions" at Wikisource; retrieved 2013-11-27.

External links

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