Homeopathy Petition

[Minadin]

If you haven't yet signed the following petition (started by the JREF), please consider doing so now:

http://www.change.org/petitions/close-the-quack-medicine-loophole-for-homeopathic-remedies

Text of said petition is as follows:

Close the FDA loophole for Homeopathic Remedies

Dear Senator,

So-called "homeopathic remedies"—actually scam medications that contain no active ingredients—are exempt from certain FDA requirements because of a law passed more than 70 years ago. We urge you to close this loophole and make manufactures of these quack remedies play by the same rules as everyone else.

Drugs have to be tested for safety before they can be sold. Supplements have to carry disclaimers, telling consumers that their claims have not been evaluated by the FDA. But homeopathic remedies may be the only health products given a free pass to say they're intended to treat disease, without any proof at all that they work.

Manufacturers take millions of dollars a year from unsuspecting customers who often think they're buying real medicine. In fact, most homeopathic products are nothing but plain sugar pills with no active ingredients.

To protect consumers, please close this loophole. Require testing for homeopathic products and disclaimers for their health claims.

Here are the facts about homeopathic remedies:

-- No Ingredients: Homeopathic remedies are so extremely dilute that most do not contain a single atom of their claimed active ingredient. The most popular homeopathic remedy, oscillococcinum, is based on a dilution of one part duck liver to 10^400 parts of water. 10^400 is the number 1 with 400 zeroes after it. To make such a dilution, you’d have to mix a single molecule of duck liver with more matter than exists in the entire known universe.

-- No Testing: Homeopathic remedies are exempted from regulations requiring drugs to prove they’re effective and accurately labeled with respect to dosage and potency. What’s more, homeopathic remedies were never even tested by their inventors to make sure they work. Homeopathic remedies are invented by a process homeopaths call “proving”: they give a substance to a healthy person, observe the symptoms it causes, and then take it on faith that homeopathic doses of the same substance will cure those symptoms. For example, coffee causes sleeplessness—that’s all homeopaths need to know in order to prescribe homeopathically-diluted coffee as sleeping pills, called “coffea cruda.” According to homeopathic principles, there’s no need to test whether it actually helps anyone sleep.

-- No Facts: Major pharmacy chains like CVS, Walgreens, and Rite Aid sell useless homeopathic products right alongside real medicine, with no warning to consumers. Manufacturers and retailers profit by denying customers the facts they need to make up their minds. U.S. law exempts homeopathy from certain rules that govern drugs and nutritional supplements, so manufacturers can market homeopathic remedies for the treatment of illnesses despite the fact that reputable studies show homeopathy to work no better than dummy pills made of plain sugar.

Homeopathy used to be fairly benign and silly flim-flam for $$, but recently, I have at least 3 friends who are on this retarded 'homeopathic HGC' diet that limits them to 500 calories per day. Of course, they are losing weight, but they think it's due to the drops and not the fact that they are taking in less than 1/3 of their daily caloric needs.

Homeopathy is deceptive and dangerous.

 

[Turgor]

I'll gladly sign that petition. I'm taking care of my cousin's appartment and cats while he's visiting Cuba, and one of the letters he received was from a homeopath. I haven't opened it, but it looked like a confirmation of an appointment. I'm planning on asking him what he is going to see this homeopath for when he gets back (well, I'll let him settle in for a few days, I'm more interested in hearing his experiences first).

Does anyone have any tips on how to proceed after that? I'm worried it might just make him beleive all the more, considering the outcome of a previous discussion i had with him about 9/11 truthers, who have a strong case according to him.

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Edited by Agatha: 

Edited content more suitable to split thread

 

[Mojo]

Does anyone have any tips on how to proceed after that?

You could try explaining the dilutions. A lot of people (even those who use it) think that homoeopathy is just a sort of herbal medicine. It might be a good idea to have some evidence on hand - several people have flat out refused to believe me about the sort of dilutions it uses.

 

[Mojo]

I'm taking care of my cousin's appartment and cats while he's visiting Cuba, and one of the letters he received was from a homeopath.

I hope they weren't offering him prophylaxis for Leptospirosis.

 

[Emet]

Does anyone have any tips on how to proceed after that? I'm worried it might just make him beleive all the more, considering the outcome of a previous discussion i had with him about 9/11 truthers, who have a strong case according to him.

I don't know if he'd be open to reading good science, but there are several good sources about homeopathy:

http://www.homeowatch.org/

http://www.skepdic.com/homeo.html

SBM has >80 articles on the subject:
http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?cat=5

http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/homeopathy-awareness-week/

 

[ehcks]

I hope they weren't offering him prophylaxis for Leptospirosis.

From that article. I tried to set up the superscripts, might have missed one.

The biggest problem with this sort of homeopathy is that there is no medicine in the medicine. This intervention used mind-bending levels of dilution. Staring with “1 x 10⁶ bacteria/ml” and using Korvsakovian [sic] dilutions (plus succession) the manufacturers produced two potencies: “200°C [sic] (200 X 1:100 dilutions) and 10 MC (10⁴ X 1:100 dilutions)”

So the most concentrated form of the medicine diluted the initial preparation to one part in 10⁴⁰⁰! The highest potency represents a dilution of one part in 10²⁰⁰⁰⁰!!

I don't have a word for how ridiculous that number is. There isn't enough space in a million universes entirely full of water to have enough water to make that level of dilution.

Those aren't dilutions, those are delusions.

 

[Professor Yaffle]

Does anyone have any tips on how to proceed after that? I'm worried it might just make him beleive all the more, considering the outcome of a previous discussion i had with him about 9/11 truthers, who have a strong case according to him.

It doesn't all add up ...
The 'science' behind homeopathy

Homeopathic remedies are made by taking an ingredient, such as arsenic, and diluting it down so far that there is not a single molecule left in the dose that you get. The ingredients are selected on the basis of like cures like, so that a substance that causes sweating at normal doses, for example, would be used to treat sweating.

Many people confuse homeopathy with herbalism and do not realise just how far homeopathic remedies are diluted. The typical dilution is called "30C": this means that the original substance has been diluted by 1 drop in 100, 30 times. On the Society of Homeopaths site, in their "What is homeopathy?" section, they say that "30C contains less than 1 part per million of the original substance."

This is an understatement: a 30C homeopathic preparation is a dilution of 1 in 10030, or rather 1 in 1060, which means a 1 followed by 60 zeroes, or - let's be absolutely clear - a dilution of 1 in 1,000,000,000,000,000,000, 000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, 000,000,000,000,000.

To phrase that in the Society of Homeopaths' terms, we should say: "30C contains less than one part per million million million million million million million million million million of the original substance."

At a homeopathic dilution of 100C, which they sell routinely, and which homeopaths claim is even more powerful than 30C, the treating substance is diluted by more than the total number of atoms in the universe. Homeopathy was invented before we knew what atoms were, or how many there are, or how big they are. It has not changed its belief system in light of this information.
[snip]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2007/nov/16/sciencenews.g2

 

[Turgor]

Thanks ehcks, Mojo and Emet. I know about the dilution, but it's probably a good idea to have some sources for it at hand. I think I can get him to read some scientific articles, he just got his degree, although it is an MA.

Many thanks for that link to SBM, I remember reading an article there before but the site had slipped my mind. I'll be doing some reading tonight

ETA: also thanks to professor Yaffle, who posted while i was typing

 

[Turgor]

I hope they weren't offering him prophylaxis for Leptospirosis.

Oh wow, I hope that isn't the case either. That makes me slightly worried.

 

[Kumar]

Though I am not concerned because I use lower potencies(in which molecular presence can be justified). But if science is not yet become absolute & final and so, still miss & weakness in its understandings can be possible, how can it claim non-presence & non-effectiveness for absolute? "Yet unclear" is there in many many medical practices. If so, you can also file petitions about religions, GOD worshiping and other yet unclear practices--existing in people at mass all over the world since long back and with least advesities. Just check. I don't mind & shall be happy, if potencies with molecular presence come into practice.

 

[Minadin]

So, Kumar, may I assume that you and Bruce will not be signing the petition?

 

[Kumar]

So, Kumar, may I assume that you and Bruce will not be signing the petition?

I do support Absolute understandings. Moreover, I shall not want that ongoing research on many possibilties with added adavantage should stop. It should also be supported by Mr Randi to encourage people to research & take award.

 

[Emet]

So, Kumar, may I assume that you and Bruce will not be signing the petition?

I do support Absolute understandings. Moreover, I shall not want that ongoing research on many possibilties with added adavantage should stop. It should also be supported by Mr Randi to encourage people to research & take award.

I guess you received your answer, Minadin.

 

[RenaissanceBiker]

I signed it.

But if science is not yet become absolute & final and so, still miss & weakness in its understandings can be possible, how can it claim non-presence & non-effectiveness for absolute?

We discussed science, remember? Science will never be absolute and final. That's the beauty of it. It keeps getting better and better. Homeopathy is as bad or worse than your 5 elements philosophy. Really, how do you even reconcile these two very different ideas?

 

[Minadin]

I do support Absolute understandings. Moreover, I shall not want that ongoing research on many possibilties with added adavantage should stop. It should also be supported by Mr Randi to encourage people to research & take award.

In a way, the petition is asking that homeopathic remedies be given the same treatment and consideration as real western science-based medicines.

If these cures are as effective as advertised, shouldn't homeopaths see this development as a big step forward for them?

 

[Kumar]

I do agree that homeopathic applications can not be equal to modern medicines. These are two different type of systems(probably energetic & materialistic) & both may hold their own status. Therefore I support both, so indicated in my signatures.

 

[Fnord]

I'm sure that the readers of the petition (U.S. Congress) will take into account the national citizenship of each signator to assess the relevance of the petition.