Homeopathy: Pure Water or Pure Nonsense?
Most homeopathy users believe that it's some kind of herbal remedy. Is it?
Filed under Alternative Medicine, Consumer Ripoffs
| Skeptoid #34 March 22, 2007 Podcast transcript | Listen | Subscribe Also available in Greek |
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Today we're going to take a tiny sugar pill, infused with specially charged water, and cure our ills in a novel way. For today's topic is homeopathy, one of my favorite of the many popular alternative medicine systems. Homeopathy has a large following, but I suspect that a large number of its customers don't really understand what it is. For example, I asked two friends who are homeopathy users, on separate occasions, to tell me about it. By coincidence both were attempting to treat headaches. Both friends had the same general understanding of what homeopathy is: They said it was essentially an herbal remedy, and that the small pills they were taking contained some sort of herbal extract. They could not have been more wrong. I wonder if they would continue taking it if they knew what homeopathy really is.
Samuel Hahnemann was a German physician. In the late 1700's, all medical conditions were believed to be caused by an imbalance in the four basic bodily humors: blood, phlegm, black bile, and yellow bile. Conventional medical practice was to attempt to equalize these humors by such practices as bloodletting, purging, or leeching. Hahnemann observed that these practices often caused more problems than they solved, and so he set about developing a better, safer way to balance the four humors. He reasoned that the body may be able to balance its own humors, if given a sort of "kick start" by administering a small dose of whatever poison or toxin was thought to cause the imbalance. He called this the Law of Similars. The obvious problem was that administering poisons and toxins would kill the patient, so he devised a system of massively diluting the ingredients with water. Hahnemann claimed that greater dilutions had greater effect in balancing bodily humors, and he called this the Law of Infinitesimals. His dilutions were as high as 1 part in 1030. This proportion is vastly larger than one grain of sand in all the deserts and all the beaches and oceans on the Earth. He published his theory in 1807, and homeopathy was born.
And then Hahnemann did a very subtle, a very clever, little thing. He made up a word. The word he invented is allopathy. Allopathy is Hahnemann's name for all evidence-based medical sciences. That's right: every medical discipline you've ever heard of — including internal medicine, oncology, neurology, cardiology, psychiatry, pathology, surgery, infectious disease, hematology, geriatrics, gastroenterology, ophthalmology, radiology, orthopedics, nephrology, urology, pharmacology, emergency medicine and critical care — they're all simply allopathy. Allopathy is only one word, so it's no better than homeopathy. They're equals. You have the musings of one guy 200 years ago on one hand, and on the other you have everything medical science has taught hundreds of thousands of researchers since then. Homeopathy vs. allopathy. It's nice to be able to conveniently dismiss so much with just one word. This makes it possible to offer the innocent patient Door A or Door B. Knowing nothing further about either choice beyond its one-word name, the innocent victim will probably take whichever the practitioner advises.
Homeopathy shares one very important component with most other alternative medicine systems. It was developed a long time ago, by one man, during a time when almost nothing useful or true was known about medicine, and it is rigidly required to stay frozen in time with the same original ancient worldview. Homeopathy, like other alternative medicine systems, does not, cannot, must not grow, evolve, or improve as we learn more about the human body. If it did adapt to new knowledge, it would cease to be homeopathy and would be something different.
This ability to include and adapt to new knowledge is the central strength of modern medicine. When we learn new things about the body, when we find a better way to treat a condition, we adapt. We publish the results and we train doctors on the new techniques. Every day, the knowledge base that modern medicine is built upon grows. The collective experience of researchers and doctors grows. But for homeopathy, and other alternative medicine systems, the knowledge base stays frozen in 1807. AIDS drugs, for example, are so much better now than they were just ten years ago, and ten years from now, they'll be even better (there may even be a cure). But with homeopathy, AIDS is treated the same way that any unknown illness was treated in 1807: with a vial of water, possibly containing a few molecules of some compound that are hoped might stimulate a balance of bodily humors.
Dilutions of homeopathic products that are sold today usually range from 6X to 30X. This is homeopathy's system for measuring the dilution, and it doesn't mean 1 part in 6 or 1 part in 30. X represents the roman numeral 10. A 6X dilution means one part in 106, or one in one million. A 30X dilution means one part in 1030, or one followed by 30 zeros. A few products are even marketed using the C scale, roman numeral 100. 30C is 10030. That's a staggering number; it's 1 followed by 60 zeros, about the number of atoms in our galaxy. In 1807, they knew more about mathematics and chemistry than they did about medicine, and it was known that there is a maximum dilution possible in chemistry. Some decades later it was learned that this proportion is related to Avogadro's constant, about 6 × 1023. Beyond this limit, where many of Hahnemann's dilutions lay, they are in fact no longer dilutions but are chemically considered to be pure water. So Hahnemann designed a workaround. Hahnemann thought that if a solution was agitated enough, the water would retain a spiritual imprint of the original substance, and could then be diluted without limit. The water is often added to sugar pills for remedies designed to be taken in a pill form. So when you buy homeopathic pills sold today, you're actually buying sugar, water, or alcohol that's "channeling" (for lack of a better term) some described substance. The substance itself no longer remains, except for a few millionth-part molecules in the lowest dilutions.
Let's look again at Avogadro's number. 6 × 1023 atoms is called a mole, a term any chemistry student is familiar with. How big is that number? Well, if you had 500 sheets of paper, you'd have a stack about two and a half inches high, like a ream that you'd buy at the stationery store. If you had 6 × 1023 sheets of paper, your stack would reach all the way from the Earth to the Sun. And not only that: it would reach that distance four hundred million times. Think about that for a moment. One sheet of paper, in a stack that's 400,000,000 times the distance from the Earth to the Sun. That's a typical homeopathic dilution. Sounds pretty potent, doesn't it?
One explanation made by some homeopaths is that it works the same way as a vaccine: putting a tiny amount of a disease-causing agent into the body — not enough to cause the disease, but enough to stimulate the body's natural defenses into fighting off that disease. Well, this is indeed the way a vaccine works, but it's got nothing to do with the way Hahnemann defined homeopathy. Vaccines are used to prevent an illness which does not yet exist in the body by triggering the production of preventive antibodies; and homeopathy is used to fight a disease already in the body, in which case any antibodies would already be in production. The number of the antibodies triggered by a vaccine can be measured in the bloodstream, whereas homeopathy is not intended to, and does not, produce any measurable reaction. Vaccines insert inert versions of the disease-causing agents into the body, where homeopathic substances are the same as that which causes the disease. Finally and most obviously, vaccines contain a large and fully measurable amount of active ingredient, whereas homeopathic remedies contain no measurable active ingredient. So homeopathy can indeed be said to work just like a vaccine; well, at least, it works just like a spiritual imprint of a vaccine.
So why do so many people claim that it works, and swear by it? Homeopathy has been tested over and over again, and though most studies show its effects to be consistent with the placebo effect, a surprisingly large number of studies do show that homeopathy produces results superior to a placebo. But in every one of these cases, doubts have been raised about the quality of evidence in the studies. According to the National Institutes of Health, "Problems include weaknesses in design and/or reporting, choice of measuring techniques, small numbers of participants, and difficulties in replicating results." A favorite study of homeopaths is that of the British Medical Journal in 1991, a meta-analysis of 107 controlled trials over a 25 year period. The majority of the studies did show some positive results, and homeopaths stop there. They stop short of the Journal's final conclusion, which was "At the moment the evidence of clinical trials is positive but not sufficient to draw definitive conclusions because most of the trials are of low methodological quality and because of the unknown role of publication bias." If you need the term "publication bias" translated, it means that the studies showing positive results were conducted and/or published by the homeopathy industry. The British Medical Journal went on to say "This indicates that there is a legitimate case for further evaluation of homeopathy, but only by means of well performed trials."
Well, good luck to you, gentlemen. The UK Society of Homeopaths has stated "It has been established beyond doubt that the randomized controlled trial is not a fitting research tool with which to test homeopathy." In other words, homeopathy has given itself a Get Out of Jail Free card. Tests are not adequate to test them. If you perform a clinical trial, and find that homeopathy is no more effective than a placebo, the reason for the failure is that homeopathy should not be tested. Claimed immunity from scientific scrutiny should stand out as a huge red flag. When you hear anyone defend their claim by stating that its effect cannot be detected through testing, be skeptical.
The upside of homeopathy is that it's not going to hurt anyone, since it lacks any measurable active ingredients. And when treating conditions that are not life threatening, like headaches or fatigue, there's no harm done. There is massive harm done when practitioners or store owners recommend homeopathy as a replacement for real medical treatment when a serious illness exists. Be vigilant, and protect the health of your family, your friends, and yourself.
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© 2007 Skeptoid Media, Inc. Copyright information
References & Further Reading
BBC. "Homoeopathy's benefit questioned." BBC News. BBC, 26 Aug. 2005. Web. 20 Mar. 2007. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/4183916.stm>
Kleijnen J, Knipschild P. "Clinical trials of homoeopathy." British Medical Journal. 9 Feb. 1991, 302(6772): 316-23.
NCAHF. "NCAHF Position Paper on Homeopathy." National Council Against Health Fraud. The National Council Against Health Fraud, Inc., 1 Feb. 1994. Web. 22 Mar. 2007. <http://www.ncahf.org/pp/homeop.html>
Shang, A., Huwiler-Müntener, K., Nartley, L. "Are the clinical effects of homoeopathy placebo effects? Comparative study of placebo-controlled trials of homoeopathy and allopathy." The Lancet. 27 Aug. 2005, Volume 366, Issue 9487: 726-732.
Singh S., Ernst E. Trick or treatment: the undeniable facts about alternative medicine. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2008. 91-144.
Reference this article:
Dunning, Brian.
"Homeopathy: Pure Water or Pure Nonsense?" Skeptoid Podcast. Skeptoid Media, Inc.,
22 Mar 2007. Web.
6 Sep 2010. <http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4034>
Discuss!
Remember, you should always read with skepticism the comments of anyone too lame to put their real name & city.
By the way...
A recent medical/dental report into drinking large volumes of bottled water [mineral water] concluded that the increase of child-tooth decay was due to low concentrations of fluoride in the bottled water.
And did you hear about the woman in the USA who died from drinking too much water, to win a Wii in a competition...Just harmless fun!
Griff...
neil griffiths, Cardiff uk
March 23, 2007 1:06am
Oh an I got this from the horses mouth...so to speak...
At Hindu ceremonies e.g. funerals etc. they pass around a drink, which amongst other things, contains...cow's URINE.
It's well known...I suppose they like getting PISSED on the stuff, but I'll stop taking the PISS now, and Mooove on to something else...
Griff...
neil griffiths, Cardiff uk
March 25, 2007 4:47pm
One time, while sitting in a doctor's waiting room, I heard two women talking. One of them clearly had flu-like symptoms. The sick one said, "I can't believe how much this prescription costs! That's why I take homeopathic medicines." The other woman, without missing a beat, said, "and that's why you're here." I wanted to cheer, but chose not to.
J. D. Mack, Silver Spring, MD
March 27, 2007 8:53am
May be someone out there knows...A cousin of mine once bragged of this gut who took so much vitamin C in an attempt to ward-off flu that it gave him diarrhoea...He's feeling better then, obviously.
Griff...
neil griffiths, Cardiff uk
March 29, 2007 5:18am
Gut? that should be 'guy'... but since I'm here again...vitamin A is toxic in large amounts, and is fat soluble so it stays in your system building up & up...
Griff...so much for spell check!
neil griffiths, Cardiff uk
March 29, 2007 5:20am
I've only just found your podcast - it's great!
In this episode you explained that publication bias is when all of the results collated in the meta analysis were published in homeopathy magazines. That is not what the term means. It's a general term that refers to the fact that negative results are seldom published, so regardless of the publication, a result showing that homeopathy (or a legitimate treatment of some kind) does not work is unlikely to be available for meta analysis. The implication is a skewing of the collated results towards a positive effect.
Eran Segev, Sydney, Australia
April 01, 2007 8:38pm
I'm a pharmacist working in palliative care and although my logical brain finds homeopathy difficult to explain, I chose to use it for my very long-term and slowly worsening constipation problem for which I did not want to take drugs as they would only make my inactive gut give up more. (I tried all the dietary approaches) After a few different remedies worked, then stopped working, we hit on one that not only changed my symptoms but after just 2 weeks of taking the remedy I have not suffered since and this was over a year ago. Conventional medicine is good, but not as sophisticated as we would like and maybe, just maybe we can't explain in the same scientific way how some complementary therapies work. I have to use evidence-based practice in my work with drugs but I am open to other approaches as long as they do not harm. Why not be open !
margaret, london
May 01, 2007 6:06am
I would suggest Margaret looks at other possible coincidental reasons for her cure. She may have picked up a mild GI infection from work or from the homeopathic
sugary water which caused her bowels to open. The most frequent cause of constipation is insufficient fluids in the diet or highly refined diets - any change there? Guiness or Old Peculiar is good for curing constipation too!
David, Manchester
May 24, 2007 10:30am
I tried to kill myself with homeopathic medicines,but failed miserably. I'll have to wait till I get a real life threatnin' disease,abandon scientific medicine, then have another shot at it.100% certainty of extinction
Marius vanderLubbe, Nullabor Plain,Australia
June 24, 2007 8:14pm
Here's how I think the "logic" of homeopathy works:
Taking something that makes your current symptoms worse would be the last thing you'd want to do, so taking less of it must be a better idea. So taking much, much, much, much less of it must be much, much, much, much better, so in fact must be a cure... Read a homeopathic number of "much"es is the previous :-)
To claim that homeopathy is harmless (which is the best that can reasonably be hoped for), is to assume that it is being used to treat benign conditions. When homeopathic clinics in Africa claim to be protecting people from contracting malaria, which kills hundreds of thousands each year, rather than providing simple treatments that are actually effective (cheap mosquito nets have been shown to reduce rates of the disease by around 50%), then it is liable to lead to the deaths of uncountable numbers of people and is dangerous in the extreme. When they claim to provide AIDS vaccines, then it is quite simply criminal.
I find it difficult to believe that many sellers of homeopathic products actually believe they are selling products with any therapeutic value, and are hence true "snake-oil" salesmen. Hence I think that the "manufacturing process" is probably skipped in many cases, and the sugar pills that are sold are simply repackaged (and vastly marked up) sugar pills. Since no conceivable test can show that the product has or hasn't gone through the manufacturing process, they're hardly likely to be caught out.
Daniel, Sydney, Australia
December 30, 2007 7:45pm
My children were lactose intolerant until about age of 2 years. Some ill-informed woman tried to talk me into giving a homeopathic remedy to my little ones, (they aren't so little now). We debated back and forth until that woman finally realized that I understood the level of undetectable minuteness of the magic ingredients. I finally was able to explain my stubborn refusal was due to the inert ingredients, not the nert ones! The first listed ingredient of her magic pills was lactose. Lactose wasn't inert when my twins got any, it was NERT! I read about homeopathy after I'd read about Mithradides, (uh oh, I didn't spell check his name... he was a king who'd sampled small amounts of toxins daily to develop immunity against poisoning by assassins; I think he was later stabbed).
Mrs. Sherman, Spokane, Washington
January 30, 2008 11:37pm
Daniel from Sydney....Please explain to my goat why she became more cooperative, sweet and approachable after I got a homeopathic remedy prescribed for her. She doesn't understand the placebo affect. She was like that for two years. In a month, she changed. I think animals are the best advocates to show it works. Why it works, I can't explain. However, I believe there is true science behind it and it just hasn't been discovered yet. Some people think it's is evil. Like the church back in the middle ages, science was considered evil. They thought the world was flat. However, had they looked in the Old Testament in Isaiah they would have seen it is a sphere...and for those of you that read, "circle", the old Hebrew is translated as sphere or globe. Just as they certainly didn't know it all back then, I don't think we know it all now. Oh yes, our son's former MD/pediatrition was also a homepathic practitioner. She once saw a child's bump that looked like a small doorknob go down on his forehead in minutes after using Arnica Montana on him.
Also, I had a chronic shoulder problem. I knew there was inflamation that got worse from an additional injury. So I took Arnica Montana 200c. In two days, the problem was gone. I took it one evening. The next day, I could hardly lift my arm. This is called, "The agitation period". The next morning, I had a new arm! Amazing recovery.
Chris, Anytown, USA
May 02, 2008 1:46pm
Who knows why your goat got better? It could have easily gotten better on its own, as is the nature of all animals. To conclude that it was due to the homeopathy is a post hoc rationalization. Yours was an uncontrolled test.
Homeopathy has been tested innumerable times, and it has always been found to be without any clinical value.
Eric Schulman, Corona, CA
May 02, 2008 1:53pm
Million Dollar Challenges to Allopaths
http://www.spontaneouscreation.org/SC/$75,000VaccineOffer.htm
Dr. Nancy Malik, Gurgaon, India
June 07, 2008 7:21am
The writer is very wrong. Homeopathy works very well and is not a placebo effect. I have witnessed it many times and use it often. I have benefited from it greatly. It is stupid to say what you say about it, once it cures you then your opinion will not be the same. It cures many diseases that allopathy medicine can never cure and without any side affects at all unlike allopathic medicine.
Tiff, London
June 18, 2008 4:45pm
Yeah, I totally agree with "Tiff". I mean, it's just like apples! I'm 25 and I don't have brain cancer... and I've eaten apples every week! Apples stop brain cancer!
"Homeopathy works very well and is not a placebo effect. I have witnessed it many times and use it often."
- You don't see the contradiction between these two sentences? I'll clue you in: you use it often because you believe in it. It makes you feel better because of the placebo effect. You don't THINK it's the placebo effect because, well, if you did, there would BE no placebo effect. You could prove skeptics wrong by publishing a double-blind study in a journal. Can't do that? What a shame... all those people who test cancer drugs? They can prove it works.
"It cures many diseases that allopathy medicine can never cure..."
-Like what?
"...and without any side affects at all unlike allopathic medicine"
- Because it's water. Water doesn't have side effects, unless you drink waaaay too much of it. Real medicine (your silly little phrase does not deserve repeating) has REAL effects- good and, yes bad too.
eric thorn, Seoul, ROK
June 21, 2008 1:17pm
I note that the homeopathy spammer "Nancy Malik" has appeared with the off the dubious challenge by Jock Doubleday. Funny how they leave off the the contract that has all sorts of silly qualifiers. Things like being subjected to a psychiatric evaluation, having to read a bunch of stupid books and being tested on them! See:
http://www.spontaneouscreation.org/SC/ContractPartA.htm
HCN, Wacky Washington Way out West
August 30, 2008 11:00am
Chris,
When you "treated" your goat with the homeopathic medicine did you spend a month kicking in the door to the barn, violently throwing the medicine at its head, then yell at it to start drinking? Or, did you spend a month with it, giving it some up close and comfortable TLC while you "treated" it. Animals don't understand placebo effect, sure, but they don't really have to. Medicine working or placebo effect are hardly the only two explanations for a favorable outcome. Especially with animals.
Don't you think it's equally as likely that your goat became more approachable simply by you regularly approaching it? Some animals aren't inherently trusting.
Also, not to blow your mind here, but placebo effect IS still on the table. While your goat isn't smart enough to fool itself, you just might be. Perhaps YOU are still the one perceiving effects that aren't there. You were, after all, expecting to see some noticeable results. "More approachable than it used to be" is pretty ambiguous. Also, I doubt you cataloged the goats behavior carefully and have gone pack to compare "results".
Jeremy Lindgren (vita10gy), Eau Claire, WI
September 29, 2008 1:39pm
When I give my dog a homeopathic remedy and he immediately stops vomiting after doing so for 2-3 days, is that placebo? When I give my foal (young horse) Arnica for a bleeding wound and it IMMEDIATELY stops bleeding, is that placebo? The reason that many conventional "trials" do not support homeopathy is because they are not individualized to the patient--the old hammer/nail routine. Avogadro's number means nothing in light of quantum physics, which has now lent its weight to homeopathy's claims. Go read about "water memory". Go read some of the studies by well respected quantum physicists. Your ignorance is exceeded only by your extreme arrogance.
Joi, Boston, Mass
October 26, 2008 3:15am
With your Dog, yes. It is also confirmation bias. How many times have you given your dog something and it did not stop vomiting? Did the stomach ailment just go away over time? There could be any number of explanations that would work for you.
As for the horse, the results are consistent with the scientifically tested uses of arnica. "Arnica preparations used topically have been demonstrated to act as an anti-inflammatory and assist normal healing processes by facilitating transport of blood and fluid accumulations through a dilating action of subcutaneous blood capillaries." Thereis nothing homeopathic about this example because Arnica use has been embraced by western science for almost a 100 years. In facet, I am using an arnica derivative right now. It is called Absorbine Jr.
Here is the definition for water memory. "Water memory is a scientifically refuted speculation that water is capable of retaining a memory of particles once dissolved in it, even after being diluted so much that the chance of even one molecule remaining in the quantity being used is minuscule." Has been refuted scientifically, by 20/20 of all things.
Joseph Furguson, Brawley, Ca
October 30, 2008 7:26am
Joseph.
1) The Arnica that Joi was giving her foal was homeopathically prepared (i.e. beyond Avogadro's number) - it was not herbal. There is a difference and by confirming you use and support Arnica confirms you support homeopathy (whether you realize it or not).
2) I am doing homeopathic research right now It is fantastic. Here is something I am using in my publication - Veterinarians have used homeopathy for the treatment of bovine mastitis for many years and a 2005 Indian study demonstrated that homeopathic remedies had a recovery rate of 86.6% as compared to antibiotic treatment, with only a 59.2% recovery rate . That's quite a difference and there is no placebo here. There are many of these studies.
As for what I have seen it "cure" - autism / eczema (that hadn't been affected by ANYTHING else), anxiety, depression, pains that doctors cannot explain...the list goes on and on.
I often wonder why people continue to write these articles and offer comments that they don't think it works. What a waste of time to keep refuting something and being so negative. Why not try to put your energy into something more positive and productive.
Take Care.
Taya van Waterschoot, Oakville, Ontario, Canada
November 04, 2008 6:51pm
Okay Taya, Let's analyze claim claim about veterinarians and homeopathy.
How many veterinarians are using homeopathy? Is it 1, 10, or 100? Also, how many studies have you found talking about the use of Homeopathy on animals? Again, is is many, or just one?
Do you know the name of the study you referenced?
I did some checking through my school's Scholarly Journal Database and I only found only one study. The abstract says that the homeopathic cures goes very far into letting the owners think they are helping. My guess would be that the only reason that "mainstream vets" are questioning the validity of these claims is because the study has yet to be peered reviewed.
Now, as for productive uses of time, this is what you wrote:
"I still find it hilarious that, instead of providing the evidence for your claim,
I often wonder why people continue to write these articles and offer comments that they don't think it works. What a waste of time to keep refuting something and being so negative. Why not try to put your energy into something more positive and productive."
Since what counts as productive use of our lives is entirely a subjective assertion, I think that telling people that their cargo-cult science this is a productive waste of my time.
Next time, can you restort to debunking "mainstream" science without using the ad hominum logical falliacy. If your claims are valid, then you don't need logical falliacys.
Joseph Furguson, Brawley Ca
November 04, 2008 7:32pm
In this podcast, you say:
"If you need the term "publication bias" translated, it means that the studies showing positive results were conducted and/or published by the homeopathy industry."
This is incorrect - you've actually described 'conflict of interest,' not 'publication bias.' The latter refers to the fact that "positive" trial results - i.e., those that find that something works - are (much) more likely to be published, or for that matter submitted for publication, than "negative" or "null" findings.
This creates particular problems - biases - for meta-analyses, which are specifically designed to synthesize findings across a body of published evidence. In particular, if positive trial results are disproportionately likely to be published, relative to negative/null trial results, the overall distribution of published evidence is skewed towards positive findings. This is what "publication bias" refers to.
Michael Schoenbaum, Bethesda, MD
December 03, 2008 12:22pm
A friend of mine tried to commit suicide using homeopathic remedies. He took an underdose.
Peter, Telford UK
December 23, 2008 6:24am
I think this article might be of interest to this topic.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/blog/2009/feb/06/homeopathy-homeopathic-nhs-placebo-effect
Laurence, Canterbury, England.
February 10, 2009 6:02am
A baby has died recently here because the parents chose to treat eczema with homeopathy instead of "real" medicine. When the mother was in pain from gall stones however it was straight off to the hospital. Needless to say, the baby died a horrible, horrible death and the parents are currently in our court system facing various charges.
Adrian, Brisbane, Australia
June 24, 2009 3:23am
Homeopathy (Micro doses Mega Results) cures even when Conventional Allopathic Medicine (CAM) fails
Dr. Nancy Malik, Gurgaon, India
July 10, 2009 11:21am
Homeopathy cures thirst.
CAM stands for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, which includes homeopathy.
Max, Boston, MA
July 10, 2009 12:22pm
Homeopathy 4 Everyone, the world's largest and most popular e-journal on homeopathy with 37,000 active subscriptions in 200 countries. It's free. It's available at www.hpathy.com/ezine
Dr. Nancy Malik, Gurgaon, India
August 09, 2009 1:04am
That's a lot of words to just say "it's crap."
Kathy Ross, Parkersburg, WV
October 24, 2009 5:31am
Why does homeopathy continue in this age ? The science community needs to step up and remind the world what it has given it. It needs better PR. Homeopathy and other alternative medicines should be eradicated and the only way to do that is to lift the veil and explain how empty most alt medicine is. I think all skeptics should step up the attack on homeopathy and we should help educate people where ever possible so that no other babies like the one in Australia ( treated for a skin irritation with homeopathy ) die needlessly.
ryan, australia, queensland
November 05, 2009 6:05pm
Evidence-based modern homeopathy is the scientific revolution (fastest growing medicine in the world) in the 21st century
Dr. Nancy Malik, Gurgaon, India
December 15, 2009 10:48am
Well, I've had an allergic illness for many years and not one "modern" doctor has realized what it is. When I decided to visit a homeopath it felt stupid but he actually found an illness that has symptoms which match 100% to what I've had. He showed me. Also the medicine he gave has been the only one that has helped and I've tried about 6 different types of "modern" medicine. Now I feel just like I felt 4 years ago and I owe that to homeopathy. It has shown me that the problem is with me stressing, and overall my life habits.
I think it's good to be skeptic but if something makes you feel better, it's worth trying.
Simo, Jamsa/ Finland
December 29, 2009 8:07am
This may amuse many of you, from the UK's 'Indepdendent' newspaper:
In what is being billed as "rationalism's Kool-Aid moment", a mass "overdose" is being planned next week in protest at the marketing of homoeopathic medicines.
More than 300 people who style themselves as "homoeopathy sceptics" will each swallow an entire bottle of homoeopathic pills in protest at the continued marketing of homoeopathic medicines by Boots, the high street chemist chain.
The protest is due to take place at 10.23am on Saturday 30 January. It is organised by the "10.23 Group", who take their name from Avogadro's constant, which they claim proves that homoeopathy cannot work.
Full story:
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/homoeopathy-sceptics-plan-mass-overdose-1875453.html
Jonathan Savage, London
January 22, 2010 9:04am
Also of interest is the recent UK hearing which has concluded that "millions are wasted by the NHS every year" on homoeopathy:
Full discussion here. Result of hearing at about page 5:
http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=157087
Safe-Keeper, Norway
February 24, 2010 2:02am
first go and study homeopathy ,then talk about it .
come to india and see how many people getting cured by homeopathy.
Dr Lokesh Kumar, India
May 13, 2010 7:15am
Good argument indeed. But I got treated for sinus problems which I had for several years. And nothing or any available medicine seemed to have helped. I also took Homeopathic medicine for my fibroid. I have no fibroid growth or any sinus any more. I love this system.
I am now a Homeopath myself and have helped plenty of people to rid of troubles plaguing them for decades.
I suppose 30 to 40 % people around the world who take homeopathic treatments and are well must be from some other planet. Or maybe relieving of symptoms on all western medicines seems like good cures for this writer.
Joyce Singha, USA
June 06, 2010 4:24pm
Come up with some real, objective clinical or scientific evidence and I will happily embrace any alternative therapy....and no, 'I gave it to my goat and it worked' does NOT constitute evidence. Every day, I'm more and more baffled by the gullible being swindled by the irrational.
PB, Sydney, Oz
June 08, 2010 3:34pm
Why is scientific evidence more important than real life case stories from people who have used the remedies successfully? My eledest son NEARLY DIED from an adverse reaction to antibiotics and my second son was treated with 4 different bouts of antibiotics for an ear infection between 9 & 10 months old. Dr's wanted to do an emergency ear tube surgery it was so bad, THE ANTIBIOTICS WERE NOT WORKING, and they feared menangitis could set in. I finally turned to homeopathy as I was afraid of the anesthetic on my tiny baby and after 10 days of homeopathy there was no evidence of any ear infection, let alone a severe one. Homeopathy did for my son what alopathic medicine could not and since has treated both children effectively - without the risk of almost dying or being subjected to surgeries. Are you telling me my 11 month old baby experienced the placebo effect - give me a break. In my opinion the term Placebo is a crutch for non believers who don't even have the wherewithall to test the remedies for themeslves before they use the term to tell other people who have had success that they are idiots for believing. I have so many stories from so many people who have found success with homeopathy and I can tell you we are not idiots, we have simply found a way to treat aillments that could not be treated the "traditonal way". And by the way, many of us tried the "traditonal way" first and olnly turned to Homeopathy when alopathic medicine failed us.
Diana, Burlington, Canada
June 22, 2010 10:29am
Some people are allergic to antibiotics, it doesn't make antibiotics evil or toxic, thousands of people are cured by them. Your son is likely one of the unlucky people who are allergic. The reason subjective personal accounts are not as valid as scientific data is probability; some people out of a sample will get better by themselves or get worse; that's why large scale, double-blind, placebo controlled studies are done, to get a clear picture on the affect on most people. Subjective stories are emotive, but they are JUST anecdotes. Placebo is not a 'crutch for those who won't believe'; it's very powerful (pacemakers improve heart rhythms after being inserted but before being switched on, fake operations improve angina etc). Also, was the infection your son had from an antibiotic-resistant strain of bacteria? They exist as well. Homeopathy has been tested -extensively (in the UK a fair few trials have been done anyway, not sure about the US). In properly conducted studies it NEVER (after meta-analysis) performs better than placebo.
Cam, Leicester, UK
June 22, 2010 2:51pm
a cunning comic about homeopathy:
http://xkcd.com/765/
point the mouse to the picture to read the extra-part.
:)
Sascha, Bielefeld
July 12, 2010 3:25am
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Quiz:
There are 2 doors:
One that Leads to Homeopathy and certain DEATH...
The other Leads to Allopathy, and proper medical attention...
Outside the 2 doors are two people, 1 man, 1 woman...
They both wear white lab. coats and look respectable...
One of them always tells lies; the other always tells the truth...
One of the doors leads to Homeopathy and most likely DEATH; the other leads to Allopathy, and proper medical attention!
You can ask 1 question to 1 person to decide which door to go through...
What question will you ask...?
Griff...
neil griffiths, Cardiff uk
March 23, 2007 1:03am