What harm can it do?
So I am on my homeopathy kick again (you'll see why tomorrow) and I felt that I should comment on the news article of parents being found guilty of manslaughter of their own child.
To make a long story short, a homeopath and his wife had a child with eczema who suffered her entire short nine months of life being treated with homeopathic "remedies" before dying of infection.
The whole story is extremely sad - medication would have treated her eczema just fine. Instead, she suffered painful sores all over her body, and was severely malnourished due to the fact that her body required so much energy to combat infections and work at curing her sores.
The couple took their child to conventional medical practitioners, but continually abandoned conventional medicine in favor of homeopathy.
To quote Petter in a conversation he and I had the other day:
It seems as though all we have to do to combat homeopathy is plainly state the underlying principals, point out cases like this in which individuals have died horrible, miserable, easily preventable deaths, and let the cookies crumble.
For those of you who think alternative medicine is safe - it may possibly be a safe substance without "side effects", but it's only as safe as not treating a disease at all is safe.
To make a long story short, a homeopath and his wife had a child with eczema who suffered her entire short nine months of life being treated with homeopathic "remedies" before dying of infection.
The whole story is extremely sad - medication would have treated her eczema just fine. Instead, she suffered painful sores all over her body, and was severely malnourished due to the fact that her body required so much energy to combat infections and work at curing her sores.
The couple took their child to conventional medical practitioners, but continually abandoned conventional medicine in favor of homeopathy.
To quote Petter in a conversation he and I had the other day:
The first is that I think a wonderful way to combat the particular quackery of homeopathy would be a large-scale campaign that doesn’t even bother with criticism, but just calmly and impartially disseminates the core principles of homeopathy
1. Like cures like: If a substance causes a symptom when you’re healthy, it will cure that same symptom if you get it from being sick.
2. Dilution (with succussion) increases potency: The less of the active substance is in a remedy, the more powerful it gets (especially if you shake it in a particular manner).
It seems as though all we have to do to combat homeopathy is plainly state the underlying principals, point out cases like this in which individuals have died horrible, miserable, easily preventable deaths, and let the cookies crumble.
For those of you who think alternative medicine is safe - it may possibly be a safe substance without "side effects", but it's only as safe as not treating a disease at all is safe.
Labels: alternative medicine, Petter, skepticism
posted by Ziztur
at
3:00 PM
11 Comments:
Let me see if I understand this. Arsenic cures cancer and Diluted sulfuric acid is stronger than concentrated sulfuric acid?
yes, http://www.herbs2000.com/homeopathy/arsenicum.htm
and yes, http://drugs-about.com/drugs/sulfuricum-acidum-seroyal.html
The fact that people can be that stupid is slightly disturbing.
I wonder how many people can. The reason I quite seriously believe that the above would be a useful campaign is that I strongly suspect that many people who waste their money on homeopathy don’t actually realise what bullshit it is founded upon.
I have a bad feeling my little tin of PRID got this going.
Head on apply directly to the bullshit
Nope - you'll know what sparked this in about five minutes when my blog gets updated...
Hmm... an article is coming to me...
"What are the principles of homeopathy?
1) Dilution: Dilute the active ingredient until it's completely gone.*
2) Succussion: Shake the solution in a special way during each dilution step.**
* Homeopathic solutions are commonly so dilute that the odds of finding even one molecule of the 'active ingredient' are quite small.
** I suppose I should look up a description of just how to do 'succussion' somewhere.
I always liked those principles. If they worked you could do such great things, like instantaneously get sober. Just take some D20 (or whatsitsname) globuli of ethanol after a night of binge drinking, and voila, your sober again :D
Or even better (or worse, depending on your perspective) take some blood-pressure medicine, dilute it umpteen times, trick your victim into consuming it, and watch it explode... A perfect murder, since there is NO TRACE of any poisonous substance *evillol*
Or, in short: What a huge pile of horse manure!
Ahh.. homeopathy is just so absurd.
Quotes from http://www.lausci.com/Lau3.htm
" Homeopathy is a method of treatment that supports the body's own healing mechanism. It 's based on the law of similars "like cures like". A homeopathic remedy is an extremely pure, natural substance that has been diluted many times. In large quantities these subtances would cause the same symptoms the patient is trying to cure. In small, pure, diluted doses, it is not only safe and free from side effects, but it will trigger the body to heal itself. Example: Allium cepa is a remedy that is used for watery eyes and runny nose, it is created from red onion. If you've cut open a red onion you'll notice the same symptoms. When the body creates a similar "symptom picture" to Allium cepa and you take a dose of Allium cepa, it activates the body to go about the process of stopping watery eyes and a runny nose.
Homeopathic remedies are regulated and manufactured under strict quality controls by the United States Food and Drug Administration-FDA. Homeopathic remedies come in several forms tablets, powders, liquids and ointments. Tablets are the most common and popular. Tablets are sugar pills with the liquid remedy infused. They are taken sublingually (dissolved under the tongue)."
" Homeopathic remedies are classified into three levels of potencies. X,C and M refer to 10, 100 and 1,000 in terms of the amount of dilution. The confusing and amazing aspect of Homeopathy is that the more a tincture is diluted, the more potent it becomes. So, while a C is more dilute than an X, the C is more potent. The M classification is very potent and is usually prescribed by Homeopathic physicians.
Homeopathic remedies begin with part of the original substance dissolved in alcohol, called the mother tincture. The mother tincture is then diluted many times. After each dilution the solution is shaken or "succussed", this shaking activates the remedy. The solution is then made into pills, powders, tinctures or creams. A 1X potency is created by mixing 1 part of the mother tincture and 9 parts alcohol or distilled water. In each successive number (increasing the potency 2X, 3X, 6X ), 1 part is taken from the previous potency and diluted according to the new potency.
Example: A 3X remedy (10x10x10=1000) has one part of the 2X remedy to 999 parts of alcohol or distilled water.
What does this mean to you when you are trying to select the remedy and potency?
1) The higher the potency (30th potency) the more confident you need to be that you have selected the correct remedy.
2) Use the lower potency (6th potency) when you are uncertain of the remedy.
3) Higher potencies take less doses. Lower potencies take more doses.
4) A general rule is double the C potency number to get the equivalent X potency.
15C = 30X
6C = 12X "
Really.
** from "Wholehealthnow.com", a source of much future mirth, I expect...
"Succussion is the forceful pounding of the liquid dilution against a firm but resilient surface"
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