Saturday Quack – Homeopathy

Homeopathy is a popular but questionable form of therapy that began about 200 years ago. It’s based on the concept that diseases represent a disturbance in the body's ability to heal itself and that only a small stimulus is needed to begin the healing process. The smaller the dose, the more powerful the effect. This is clearly opposite to the usual finding with medicines – that the greater the dose, the greater the response.

Homeopathic products are made from minerals and plant substances that are diluted, and then one part of the diluted medicine is further diluted, and the process is repeated a number of times. Dilutions of 1 to 10 are designated by the Roman numeral X (1X = 1/10, 6X = 1/1,000,000). Most homeopathic remedies today range from 1 in 1,000,000 to 1 in 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 dilutions.

It’s not surprising that there is no conclusive evidence that highly dilute homeopathic remedies are different from placebos. There’s virtually no chance that even one molecule of original substance would remain after extreme dilutions. But proponents believe that the vigorous shaking with each step of dilution leaves behind a spirit-like essence - "no longer perceptible to the senses" – so that even when the last molecule is gone, a "memory" of the substance is retained.

Since most homeopathic remedies contain no detectable amount of the active ingredient, it’s impossible to test whether they contain what their label says. Unlike most potent drugs, they have not been proven effective against disease by double-blind clinical testing. In fact, the vast majority of homeopathic products have never even been tested.

In view of the above, it’s no wonder that I don’t believe in homeopathy. And I feel very sorry for those who may spend a lot of money, and postpone more effective treatments, in following this most questionable therapeutic approach. There must be an awful lot of them – just Google “homeopathy”, there are 10,000,000 entries!

Comments

[Karen Kline]

My goodness. The Queen of England has a homeopathist as well as an alleopathic doctor.

During the Influenza epidemic of 1918, more people who were using homeopathy survived, than did others. I understand that these statistics were largely buried by the then forming AMA...

I know that homeopathy works for some things because I have consistently had success for over a decade.

Homeopathy is also a vastly less expensive form of health care, and not everyone can afford a doctor these days.

I recently had tetanus because I could not get a doctor in Santa Fe to see me because I didn't have enough money to pay what they wanted.

For tetanus, the homeopathic remedies were insufficient, and until I got sufficient Metronidazol, I was very sick indeed.