Homeopathy and stuff and nonsense

[new_iconoclast]

These days it seems that it's become trendy to call any non-traditional medicine "homeopathic," including things like herbal teas and remedies, natural concentrates and oils, and so on. I suppose this is because of the number of people pushing homeopathy as an alternative to modern pharmaceutically-oriented medicine. I have no problem with herbal

Comments

[9thmoon]

Hm.

I swear by Oscillo. It's fantastic stuff.

[new_iconoclast]

I'm a firm believer in the efficacy of the placebo effect, also. I'm glad it works for you.

[9thmoon]

Well, so am I, but it doesn't make me feel better, it just shortens up the length of the misery. I don't feel any effect from it at all. Can that still count as placebo?

[new_iconoclast]

It must be placebo, since it is completely impossible for the substance itself to have any effect whatsoever - reducing duration, minimizing symptoms, anything - other than that which you could obtain by chugging Evian. The commonly-available brand is a 200C dilution. That's 1 ml of duck liver to every (10 to the 197th power) liters of water - a 1 followed by 197 zeros.

OTOH, imagine how low the manufacturing overhead must be. The liver of one duck could supply the Oscillo industry for a considerable number of years.

[kellykubellyboo]

I have been kept up at night by my husband railing against the use of the word homeopathic. He has family that are all into the oils and what not. He goes crazy about that kind of stuff.
And the last paragraph I had to read to my hubby and he laughed. Ducks beware.

[fishsupreme]

What I love about homeopathy is the convolutions its adherents go through to defend the fact that no double-blind trial -- and there have been many -- has ever shown any statistically significant effect from any homeopathic remedy. My favorite was the "scientist" who said that this proved that "the double-blind trial is an ineffective method for evaluating the efficacy of homeopathic claims."

The fact that no one has ever managed to demonstrate the efficacy of homeopathic remedies in a double-blind trial without several obvious flaws is all the more "remarkable" when you consider that a successful demonstration of homeopathy would warrant the Nobel Prize in physics, chemistry, and medicine, for revolutionizing our understanding of all three. If it worked, you'd think some scientists would be trying harder.

[amagdalyn]

Interesting - I didn't know that the word was so specific. I think in my mind it was synonymous with naturopathy.

[g33kgoddess]

I, too, always thought that "homeopathy" was akin to more natural medicines or old fashioned home remedies... "home remedy" / "homeopathy". Dictionary.com says: the method of treating disease by drugs, given in minute doses, that would produce in a healthy person symptoms similar to those of the disease.

I just wish I'd learned more from my "old country grandma" in Mississippi, who knew many home remedies made from roots, bark and plants she'd picked in the woods. Now she's too old to go rambling through the bramble to teach me anything.