Tagged: homeopathy
Homeopathic overdose – rebuttal
Contrarian would not have thought it possible for a defense of quackery to set me chuckling and nodding my head, but my old pal Warren Reed has done it. [Previous installments here and here.] Knowing that the best defense is a good offense, Reed began by catching me in the act of scientific error:
Amedeo Avogadro
One of the few things I remember from Nat. Sci. 3 is Avogadro’s Number — 6.023 x 10**23. So it isn’t roughly 10**23 as you state — it’s actually 6 times that. Six is called The Republican Constant – any Republican can stretch the truth by a factor of six without raising an eyebrow on Fox News. Journalists often get the same exemption.
But we don’t read Contrarian just for the science. More puzzling is the notion that a group of pub-crawling Brits is claiming to know what constitutes “proper medical assistance.” Of the reasons for healing—the passage of time, the placebo effect, natural defenses—”proper medical assistance” is on the list, but is an evanescent concept at best. It depends on many of the same principles for success as Homeopathy. Take two aspirin and call me in the morning.
More after the jump.
UK skeptics plan mass homeopathic overdose
A British group calling itself 10-23* will stage a mass self-inflicted overdose of homeopathic remedies to protest the Boots pharmacy chain’s continued sale of the worthless** nostrums. At 10:23 a.m., January 30, 300 protesters will down a whole bottle of homeopathic pills each. The joke is that homeopathic mixtures have been diluted so many times, they no longer contain any of the original putative active ingredient.
From an open letter to the Boots chain:
The majority of people do not have the time or inclination to check whether the scientific literature supports the claims of efficacy made by products such as homeopathy. We trust brands such as Boots to check the facts for us, to provide sound medical advice that is in our interest and supply only those products with a demonstrable medical benefit.
We don’t expect to find products on the shelf at our local pharmacy which do not work.
Not only are these products ineffective, they can also be dangerous. Patients may delay seeking proper medical assistance because they believe homeopathy can treat their condition. Until recently, the Boots website even went so far as to tell patients that “after taking a homeopathic medicine your symptoms may become slightly worse,” and that this is “a sign that the body’s natural energies have started to counteract the illness”. Advice such as this directly encourages patients to wait before seeking real medical attention, even when their condition deteriorates.
Contrarian has long been astounded that regulatory authorities permit the sale of so-called remedies containing no active ingredients. Homeopathy takes snake oil salesmanship to a new level of fraudulence. The 10-23 website offers a good deconstruction of the theory underlying this persistent quackery.
* The group’s name derives from Avogadro’s constant, roughly 10 to the 23rd power, which, broadly speaking, places an upper limit on the number of molecules in a given volume of liquid or gas. Successive dilutions used in the preparation of homeopathic elixirs reduce the amount of the original ingredient beyond this number, with the result that not a single molecule remains. What’s left in the bottle is literally sugar water.
** In 2005, the respected British journal The Lancet carried out an exhaustive meta-analysis of all reported studies of homeopathic treatments and concluded that any apparent benefits were attributable to the placebo effect. [Free, but registration required.]
Hat tip: C. C.
Homeopathy
Speaking of bad science, here’s an early, poetic screed on homeopathy attributed* to Rev. George Washington Doane (1799-1859), professor of belles-lettres at Washington (now Trinity) College, Hartford, Connecticut; rector of Christ church, Boston; and, later, Episcopal bishop of New Jersey:
Take a little rum
The less you take the better
Pour it in the lakes
Of Wener or of Wetter.Dip a spoonful out
And mind you don’t get groggy,
Pour it in the lake
Of Winnipissiogie.Stir the mixture well
Lest it prove inferior,
Then put half a drop
Into Lake Superior.Every other day
Take a drop in water,
You’ll be better soon
Or at least you oughter.
* A few sources sources attribute Lines on Homeopathy to Rev. Doane’s son, Rev. William Crosswell Doane (1832 – 1913), Episcopal bishop of Albany.
How do placebos work?
Skeptic magazine documents our current (somewhat frail) understanding of placebos:
We not only know placebos “work,” we know there is a hierarchy of effectiveness:
- Placebo injections work better than placebo pills
- Capsules work better than tablets
- Big pills work better than small
- The more doses a day, the better
- The more expensive, the better
- The color of the pill makes a difference
- Telling the patient, “This will relieve your pain” works better than saying “This might help.”
