When you or your child is sick and all you care about is relief, you’ll perk up at any promise a pill bottle makes. But some of those packages hold no medicine at all, just homeopathic “remedies.” Australians spend around $1.2 billion per year on non-prescription vitamins, herbal remedies and natural medicines. Their makers are legally allowed to lie to you and say these products can improve your health or provide relief to ailments, even though they absolutely definitely do not.
Illustration by Sam Woolley. Snake oil salesman photo by Carol Highsmith.
How We Know Homeopathy Is Useless
Homeopathic doesn’t mean natural, or herbal, or home remedy. Drugs labelled homeopathic are considered “low risk medicine” that fall under the category of “complementary medicine” that is regulated by the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA). But there have been persistent problems with labelling on homeopathic goods for a long time.
Take coffee, for example. Coffee keeps you awake. So homeopathic companies may mix one part of a raw coffee bean preparation (“Coffea cruda”) with one million parts water, and uses this in their cold and cough as a sleep aid.
Caffeine doesn’t work this way. Even if it was 1 part per million caffeine (rather than one part per million raw coffee bean, which is not pure caffeine), there is no way that diluting it would turn it into a sleep aid.
This theory comes from the days before we knew that bacteria and viruses cause disease, and before we knew that substances are made of molecules. It turns out that some homeopathic dilutions are so extreme that your chances are better at winning the lottery than at finding a single molecule of the original substance in the bottle you buy at the drugstore. According to Guardian Australia: “By diluting these substances in water or alcohol, homeopaths claim the resulting mixture retains a “memory” of the original substance that triggers a healing response in the body.”
Homeopaths recognise this, shrug, and say “something other than molecules” (i.e., magic) must be at work. So when you buy a homeopathic medication, you’re paying ten dollars or so for a tiny bottle of mostly water. Or sometimes it’s a little packet of sugar pills. If this stuff is prepared according to FDA regulations, it has absolutely no medicine in it — but can still say on the package that it will cure your cough and cold.
It Is Totally Legal for Homeopathic Drug Makers to Lie to You
In Australia, all medicines come under the control of the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) but homeopathic preparations are not usually registered with the TGA and some may be exempt from the TGA good manufacturing practice (GMP) requirements.
While TGA does have guideline when it comes to claims made on the labels of complementary medicines, they’re not very strict on enforcing it. Companies that make homeopathic goods can conduct test that are not statistically or scientifically significant to ‘validate’ the effectiveness of their drugs.
Texts that are often used on those drugs are based on “provings” that describe what the drug does to healthy people. If a homeopath says that something is clinically proven, they don’t mean that they have tested whether it works against disease; it means that they have collected data on what it does to people who don’t have the disease.
This means that the symptoms a drug causes in healthy people, and the symptoms it is meant to cure, are conveniently the same.
Shop Carefully to Avoid These Useless ‘Drugs’
In truth, these fake remedies are only safe if the ingredients are actually at homeopathic doses, and if the makers haven’t snuck any herbal medicines into the “inactive ingredients” list.
It’s best to avoid homeopathic remedies entirely. They might be harmful, and even in the best case they’re a ripoff.
The placebo effect is a real thing, but if you feel the need to invoke it, go for some chicken soup or lemon tea instead of giving money to people that are lying to you for profit. It’s ridiculous that our drugstores are full of this garbage, and that adherents of an obsolete medical theory get a special carve-out in the drug laws of 2016. Don’t buy this crap.
Comments
10 responses to “Don’t Waste Your Money On Homeopathic ‘Drugs’”
Tell that to Queen Elizabeth and the royal family who use it.
Seriously? An Appeal to Authority argument?
In one hand we have an old lady
In the other we have Scientific medical Fact
I think ill stick with the science.
I cannot tell if you are being serious. The queen uses it so therefore its good? Are you thick?
I trump your Queen refrence with Several studies done by several thousand scientists showing homeopathic medicine is a bunch of bullshit
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/1800-studies-later-scientists-conclude-homeopathy-doesnt-work-180954534/?no-ist
The royals have used homeopapthy for at least a hundred years. Why would they use it when they have access to anything and everything?
Athletes, well known people, famous people, medically trained doctors and the rest of the populace use it. For something that does not cannot work homeopathy is still going strong. Why is this? Sceptics hate what they do not understand and would not try, yet they know it does not work!
A little research an open mind and trying it out may change peoples minds.
Hey, Want to know why your Shitty homeopathic medicine works in rare cases?
Two words
PLACEBO EFFECT
Nothing to do with the medicine itself, Just gullible morons believing it will work.
Well, it’s easy to refute homeopathy when talk in terms of mathematics and maths is the mother of all sciences.
BUT
Taking about scientific approach, we all know for a scientific experiment
It must be well documented
It must be reproducible
It’s open for all.
And homeopathy have it all.
For how long you can expect a fake and pseudo medical system to survive???
It’s been nearly a century for homeopathy to exist in the world and its still growing despite the usual resistance from the like of you!
I personally have a case of myesthenia gravis who himself is an allopathic doctor and is under treatment since last 6 months and his symptoms are controlled by 90%.
If only this case is placebo effect, then this placebo effect and pseudo science is better then multi billion dollar medical industry.
False again.
Homeopathic cures have been tested in lab enviroments using strict scientific controls the results claimed cannot be produced.
Some hippy moron who smokes to much is not evidence. Anecdotal evidence is not scientific evidence.
Ill stick with proven medican fact thanks. Not snake oil. Perhaps try reading the link i provided above. Its backed up by thousands of studies. What have you got?
SO.. I did a little bit of research, as you suggested, and obtained the National Health and Medical Research Council’s report on the effectiveness of homeopathy .. I’ve pasted in the first paragraph for those who feel it’s too much to read. Also there’s the link to the page where I obtained the publication at the bottom.
TL/DR: It’s rubbish.
“Based on the assessment of the evidence of effectiveness of homeopathy, NHMRC concludes that there are no health conditions for which there is reliable evidence that homeopathy is effective.
Homeopathy should not be used to treat health conditions that are chronic, serious, or could become serious. People who choose homeopathy may put their health at risk if they reject or delay treatments for which there is good evidence for safety and effectiveness. People who are considering whether to use homeopathy should first get advice from a registered health practitioner.* Those who use homeopathy should tell their health practitioner and should keep taking any prescribed treatments.
The National Health and Medical Research Council expects that the Australian public will be offered treatments and therapies based on the best available evidence.”
https://www.nhmrc.gov.au/guidelines-publications/cam02?
Beth is absolutely ignorant and is looking at Homeopathy from materialistic point of view and hence is trying to understand it from the allopathic point if view whu h us based on material presence.
Beth needs to be open minded and look beyond. Homeopathy us 100% scientific. If Beth knows, there is something called vital force, it will be ready for him to understand. I can site him many examples but instead he should know that there are many adpe ts that the do called scientific community has no answer.
Dies he k.iw there is something called level of health. Is there any way to measure this? Does Beth know that there are basically three levels, physical, emotional and mental? Is there any measure for measuring the intensity or quality of love, sorrow, pain, anxiety, etc? His do called Allopathy science fails in these regards but Homeopathy has remedies that helps.
He has not understood the science and mathematics behind the dilution, potencies and principles of ‘minimum dose’. Here even perhaps the mathematicians will fail to give it a value.
However, what is more important is that Homeopathy foes work. Homeopathy had often succeeded where the so called scientific Allopathic system of remedies have miserably failed.
Beth should also be aware that many Stalwarts of Homeopathy were Allopathic doctors.
While there had been changes nd revisions in Allopathic findings, Homeopathy has been maintaining it’s revelations all through.
Finally. Beth had no right to pass judgement without fully understanding the sciences and thereby misguiding people. Homeopathy is safe and answers to many do called incurable diseases, even Cancer!!! Look at the the successful case studies.
There are some typographical errors in my comments and do not know how to correct them but hope you can make the meanings out.
Let me add that I have been a patient of Homeopathy for many years and know if many people, including my family who are on Homeopathy medications with 100% success.
There is a case in the family where the Allopathic top physicians failed to diagnose measles and wanted to operate the child without even knowing the cause. Homeopathy physician cured the case.
Can Beth or any doctors day how can they operate measles, huh!???
While Allopathy treats a named disease, Homeopathy treats by collection of presenting symptoms.
Allopathic medication is palliative while the objective of Homeopathy system is to effect a ‘gentle and permanent cure’
Anyone who claims a 100% success rate for anything is a fucking liar or a con artist who is lying badly. Anyone who believes them is a complete and utter moron, you are the reason clickbait and telemarketers exist.
I think, we are in here for a discussion and share our success or failure of the Homeopathy or Allopathy sciences. But the kind of language used us not expected in a forum of gentlemen or women.
Both sciences have a their merits and demerits.
I am an individual and a patient and now practitioner of Homeopathy. Have some respect for such peoples, unless you are a mouthorgan of any Allopathy community who hires some guys to sabotage a science, who are frustrated and adopt such practices to mask their failures.
Further to add to your knowledge, it’s the wrong understanding of the science who tries to conduct strict scientific controls research fails to realise that their approach to conducting reasearch, as us find for Allopathic ways us wrong, as there us a major difference between the concept of the two sciences.
You must realise that no two persons in this world have been or are or will ever be alike hence, the results are aught to be different.
Enlighten yourself that finally the remedies are prescribed, upon ‘individualizing’ of the case followed by proper repertoirising, if you at all understand these meanings.
Please educate yourselves, before being judgemental and accusing, with due respect to you all.
If nothing in homoeopathic medicine….so why many more peoples are coming in homoeopathy..for their chronic disease to get treatment…Many more chronic cases successfully treated by me..with mental wellness as well as pathological changes…so how it happen…in case of Hepatitis B..Psorysis…Eczema…Dengue…Chickenguniya…where patient was near to death..
In case of low plateles as 8000…
So i want to say and giving challenges to whom…they are telling nothing in Homoeopathic medicine…In any type of Acute and Chronic cases…you can check which medicine will cure the case first…
So dont make any rumers..to see the growth of homoeopathy…I have seen in homoeopathy…only a person that’s have nothing knowledge of homoeopathy..only that person are Barking…