Why do I care that my friends might be taking sugar pills? Read my previous article about my motivations for exchanging Angry Words With Friends.
TLDR: Homeopathy is a gateway placebo.
Check whatstheharm.net to find out more. The potential harm is that patients may be taking sugar pills to cure their cancer, this is not an exaggeration.
Raise your hand if you think water has memory? Good! I’m guessing you’ve simply never heard about homeopathy, which claims to violate the laws of chemistry by diluting a substance until there is no ‘active ingredient’ left in it. It’s not your fault that homeopathic remedies are sold in many U.S. drug stores, packaged in an identical manner and placed on shelves next to real medicine. Can you think of a situation that you might want fast-acting medicine? Choose poorly at your local WalMart and you might instead purchase a placebo treatment for your pink eye or yeast infection (it’ll hopefully clear up in a few days on it’s own) AND AT 50% MORE THAN REAL MEDICINE. Now that you know, you should be angry that people are intentionally marketing these shams.
Spotting the red flags of pseudoscience becomes a little easier over time. When you realize that it would be very simple and lucrative for a small mischievous company to create a fake product using the same gimmick, you start to look at gimmicky products more critically. Did you ever take Airborne? That’s exactly what this company did successfully, and admitted to doing, selling you a placebo cold remedy. Despite being found out, fined, and settling a class-action lawsuit, their products are still on shelves. This is why I care enough to tell my friends about it.
Not sure what words to look for during Infomercials? We made it a game:
Here's your tiny coffee, what'd you say to upset Wylona?
ROB
Just that the medicine she's taking is a placebo.
MITCH
If it makes her feel better, why do you care?
ROB
Because it's not helping her get better!
MITCH
But why take it away from her if she enjoys it?
ROB
Wouldn't you want to know that a certain birth control was fake?
MITCH
That's not funny.
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I blame homeopathy on Paracelsus. He started it all when he said, “There are no poisons, only poisonous doses.” However, there is at least one instance of homeopathy working. Mercurial diuretics were used from the 16th century until the 1960’s. They work by blocking the reabsorption of sodium by the kidneys. Mercury poisoning, however, makes it impossible to urinate. An example of this is Tycho Brahe. The 16th century astronomer. Kepler worked for him near the end of his life (there is a school of thought that Kepler murdered Brahe for his research, Brahe’s research is what enabled Kepler to form his 3 laws of planetary motion). Brahe made and used mercurial diuretics, and was eventually murdered using mercury as a poison.
Well you have stumbled across an area of specific interest and expertise of mine; Tycho and Johan. We’re on a first name basis, and you can read my illustrated cautionary tale about them in the next Skeptic magazine!
Kepler may well have murdered Brahe, but he didn’t do it with mercury. Brahe’s body was exhumed in 2010 and findings have been released that show low traces of mercury, which means he may have died of a ruptured bladder after all. They also show that his famous false nose was not made of precious metals either. Even with science history, be skeptical of anecdotes without evidence!
Ah, well. The book I was basing my statement of him being poisoned off of was published in 2004 and the authors quoted a 1996 test that had showed high concentrations of mercury in the roots of his mustache. I prefer Tycho over Kepler. He was more fun to read about. If you haven’t read it, I’d like to suggest the book, “Heavenly Intrigue: Johannes Kepler, Tycho Brahe, and the Murder Behind One of History’s Greatest Scientific Discoveries” as some interesting reading. I must admit that I think the authors preferred Tycho to Johannes, so their impartiality was in question. My previous statement about difficulty urinating being a symptom of mercury poisoning stands, though.
I do agree that the vast majority of homeopathy is pseudoscience.
Perhaps using the word “homeopathy” to talk about the relationship between mercurial diuretics and mercury poisoning have opposite effects was incorrect. After all, the medication is prescribed by real doctors and in therapeutic doses, not infinitesimal doses dissolved in vast quantities of water. I feel bad about spouting what I’d read concerning Tycho and Johannes. I’ll take it as a reminder that I need to be aware of my own biases and not let them overrule my skepticism. It’s a struggle because I’m an enthusiastic person.
Sorry, the phrase “placebo prophylactic” makes me think “sugar condoms”. Or maybe “edible condoms” — isn’t that a thing already? But then, THAT phrasing makes me visualize them as being made from something like fruit roll-ups…
Haha! I was thinking sugar pills – Oh man, that’s hilarious.
I read an article, perhaps about someone well-known who I cannot remember at the moment, and it quoted someone close to the individual as saying that the person was so despondent that she took a whole bottle of homeopathic pills–here I started laughing, despite feeling terrible for the person and like a horrible human being for the laughter–and that they were so scared and rushed her to the emergency room, where here stomach was pumped. Again, though I felt badly for the person and her family and like a complete jerk for finding anything about it funny, I couldn’t help but chuckling a little harder at each detail after the concept of a homeopathic overdose.
Ben and I have attempted this overdose numerous times on stage, it always gets a fest audible gasps from the crowd!
Why are these “medicines” allowed to be sold without a suitable Government Wallet Health warning or even better, banned outright? That also goes for Chinese Medicine cures for impotence and all the other crystal Eastern mystic, ancient healing rubbish.
A quote I like, that I can’t remember the source of: “You know what they call alternative medicine that works? Medicine.”