19 Jan 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.