Homeopathy

My first, and only, direct experience with homeopathy was a bottle of teething tablets I bought on the advice of a friend. That was a few years back. I didn't look closely at them at the time since they came recommended. The did kind of seem to work because whenever the baby was crying and we put one in his mouth he immediately stopped crying. Sometimes that was enough to coax him back to sleep, but often the effect wore off before that. In those cases typically multiple tablets didn't help.

So what does that mean scientifically? Bupkis. I have nothing to compare the tablets to and I have no idea whether they worked any better than a simple sugar pill would have. That's not science, that's an anecdote. Correlation is not causation, etc., etc.

Instead, here's a great article about homeopathy covering its history, theory and state of scientific research. The long and short of it is that to date no convincing evidence has been found to show that homeopathy is anything more than well shaken water. When that occurs it's only logical to conclude that it is in fact not a valid medicine. I mean, at some point we have to move on to other research and leave the losers behind.

I ended up throwing away the teething tablets before the next baby came along. I can't recall whether we ran out or I just chucked them on principle. Either way, I shan't be purchasing any more.

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7 Comments

A timely little story to

A timely little story to complement your post:

http://science.slashdot.org/story/09/06/17/2225246/FDA-Says-Homeopathic-Cure-Can-Cause-Loss-of-Smell

Re: A timely little story to

On the one hand, I can't say I'm surprised that a drug with no formalized testing causes harm. But then on the other hand I'm impressed that a homeopathic cure does anything at all. But in either case I'm disappointed. I wonder how many people really knew that this was a homeopathic medicine and had not undergone any testing, review, study, etc.

Re: Homeopathy saves

Your comment hardly warrants a response. The science bears out the fact that homeopathy is just water and performs no better or worse than placebo. Clearly there are many who will not be swayed by silly things like "science" or "facts" and instead will stubbornly stick to their incorrect notions. To those I have no hope of convincing so instead, how about a funny joke for those of us more in tune with reality. Imagine an emergency room run on homeopathic medicine. Enjoy.

Re: Homeopathy saves

Since I originally posted this blog entry, there was a major recall of a homeopathic medicine. Gee, who would have figured that releasing a product based on unproved science and without any testing would result in a product that causes harmful side effects. Duh!

Well that's your outcome but

Well that's your outcome but there are proven facts that homeopathy is very effective especially against FLU and Sinus problems. There are many cases where cold was occurring in people again and again even after taking huge doses of medicine and then someone suggested homeopathy for it and it really helped to eliminate it. So in my opinion it's the best and has no side effects too.

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