Validity of homeopathy?

[Erik von Nein]

I recently had a conversation with a friends mother who's big into homeopathy after saying to my friend that homeopathy's effect is placebo. What I got from her was a series of statements that seemed pretty suspect. The first of which was a basic rundown of homeopathy; that "like cures like", such as giving something that makes you vomit in small doses to cure vomitting (errr ...), that incredibly diluted medicine is more effective than non-diluted medicine (err ...) and that each individual had a specific regime tailored to their particular person.

After that came a series of "proofs": the counter to the placebo statement was that it works on young children and pets and the counter to why it wasn't accepted by modern medicine is that modern medicine has its own screw ups. Lastly she made a claim that, during the cholera epidemic in the U.S. non-homeopathic hospitals had a death rate of 50% (rather conveniently round number) while homeopathic hospitals had one of 16%.

Frankly, little of it makes sense, especially since the active ingrediant in homeopathic "medicine" is in the parts-per-thousand and the parts-per-million. I've heard people talk about how homeopathy relies on "water memory" and such like that, but never really understood the real criticism (usually because they didn't delve more beyond that). I'd try Google, but I'm unsure what sites would be most reliable and I trust you guys more. Heh.

Though, I can see how tailoring the remedies to the patient's specific medical history is a good thing, as well as increased time spent on a specific patient making said patient feel better, but the rest of it just seems far too suspect.

[nickolay1]

Your friend's mother is full of shit.

Homeopathy uses the "C" scale, where the dilution is 1/(100^C). A preparation "stronger" than about 13C statistically no longer has any of the original molecules remaining. However, dilutions of up to 200C are used.

The water memory is also total bullshit. Since any water has been in contact with millions of substances throughout its existence, by the logic of homeopaths, regular tap water should be the cure for every possible ailment.

[Erik von Nein]

Yeah, I figured the whole dillution thing was complete bullfuckery, as well as the whole water memory stuff. I was wondering about the claims for it working on pets and the cholera epidemic claim. They both smell of shit, especially since I have to wonder if they pets wouldn't have gotten better on their own without homeopathy (especially since they said "Well, if it's not the right cure, then it doesn't do anything bad!").

[Alyrium Denryle]

The first of which was a basic rundown of homeopathy; that "like cures like",

Tell her that this simply violates causation. WHich it does. And that the mechanism by which it works is BS. Yes, molecules vibrate. No, those vibrations do not have an effect on the binding properties of those molecules other than determining when and when they do not react during a collision with another molecule. Additionally these vibrations are not transfered to water, which vibrates on its own in accordance with the temperature of the water in question.

that incredibly diluted medicine is more effective than non-diluted medicine (err ...)

Chem 116: Molecules are MORE LIKELY to interact when there are more of them, because the statistical probability of a collision increases. Even if it were true that the vibrations left behind in a a substance as a result of dilution would do a damn thing, the dilution means that there are few sources of those vibrations in the system and the chances of any reaction occurring within the body are low as a result.

After that came a series of "proofs": the counter to the placebo statement was that it works on young children

Placebos work especially well on young children. Just being doted over by their parents will help even a baby overcome illness. Pets are the same way. The worried owner and the interactions with said owner relieves the animals stress and helps its immune system fight off the disease. Additionally, most illnesses get better anyway. If you are vomiting, chances are you are vomiting because you are something that disagreed with your stomach. Once your stomach gets rid of it, it goes away.

and pets and the counter to why it wasn't accepted by modern medicine is that modern medicine has its own screw ups.

WHat? Like having side effects? Like being wrong and admitting to it because it is based on real science?

Lastly she made a claim that, during the cholera epidemic in the U.S. non-homeopathic hospitals had a death rate of 50% (rather conveniently round number) while homeopathic hospitals had one of 16%.

Two Words: Biased sample.

The homeopathy clinic gets to bias their results by only selecting certain patients (and dont have the really sick ones pulled kicking and screaming through theri doors like a hospital in a public health crisis will), and the patients that do not get better on homeopathy will probably go to hospital. Quess what that means?
_________________

[Erik von Nein]

WHat? Like having side effects? Like being wrong and admitting to it because it is based on real science?

No, it was because there are drug and medical device recalls, as well as side effects. I guess that's a knock against it because, like I said, homeopathy apparently doesn't do harm if it's the wrong treatment. Or something.

Two Words: Biased sample.

The homeopathy clinic gets to bias their results by only selecting certain patients (and dont have the really sick ones pulled kicking and screaming through theri doors like a hospital in a public health crisis will), and the patients that do not get better on homeopathy will probably go to hospital. Quess what that means?

Yeah, it sounds so suspicious as it is, but I included it (well, for the humor) to see if anyone else had heard that claim before.

[DPDarkPrimus]

If homeopathy works, then wouldn't diluting dangerous chemicals for use as cleaners actually make them more dangerous?

[Stark]

If homeopathy works, then wouldn't diluting dangerous chemicals for use as cleaners actually make them more dangerous?

LOL! Clearly the highest concentration of toxic cleaning chemicals (for instance) should be used, since the diluted mix usually used will 'remember' it's properties anyway.

Strangely, these stronger diluted solutions demonstrate less effect on actual surfaces... so clearly homeopathy only works on intelligent matter like HUMAN CELLS!

Homeopathy is hilariously stupid.

[Darth Wong]

It sounds like your friend's mother is just spouting made-up statistics in order to bolster her case. Ask her for documented controlled double-blind medical studies.

If I'm arguing with an engineer about a professional disagreement, I will usually expect that both of us are honestly attempting to represent the facts as best we can, to the best of our knowledge. However, arguing with woo-woo mystics, creationists, and other assorted flunkies is totally different: in that case, you cannot assume that they are either honest or diligent. They are not above simply making up facts to support their case, or expressing half-remembered vague notions as if they're something they spent a great deal of time studying, or misrepresenting hearsay as solid reporting.

[darthbob88]

Yeah. I remember hearing about the homeopath who drank tap water and died of an overdose. Remind her that if efficacy is inversely proportional to concentration, then pure distilled water should be a miracle drug.

[Vendetta]

Nah, apparently it only works if you shake it in a particular way in between each dilution

Lastly she made a claim that, during the cholera epidemic in the U.S. non-homeopathic hospitals had a death rate of 50% (rather conveniently round number) while homeopathic hospitals had one of 16%.

A mangled account of real fact. The cholera epidemic in question was in London in 1854, not the US. However, the statistics are quite accurate.

In order to understand those statistics, however, you have to also take into account the extant medical practise in 1854. The Middlesex hosptal (the one which produced the 53% death rate for cholera and choleraic diarrhea), was using standard medical practise of the time, which included such marvels as bloodletting. In essence, they were actively killing their patients.

By doing nothing at all beyond keeping patients isolated in a relatively hygenic environment, the London Homeopathic Hospital allowed the majority of it's patients to fight off the disease and survive. Homeopathy didn't cure a single case of cholera, but it also didn't kill anyone who would otherwise have survived.

Before you take the argument further, read this. It gives you all the information you need about why homeopathy doesn't work, but how it might still be useful in certain cases.

[Zor]

Tell her to watch the second episode of Richard Dawkins the Enemies of Reason, it rather soundly discredits it.

Zor

[Erik von Nein]

Darth Wong

She's not one to make up facts out of the air, usually. I assume the stuff she was talking about is stuff she read, since she then told me that, if I ever wanted more information she could give it to me. Not that I don't think what she was talking about wasn't misrepresented or made up.

Vendetta

Thanks for the link. I'll read it over. Also, thanks for the explaination of where those statistics came from.

[Vendetta]

Tell her to watch the second episode of Richard Dawkins the Enemies of Reason, it rather soundly discredits it.

Zor

Randi has done a lot on Homeopathy as well.

One of his things during lectures on the non-functionality of homeopathy is to down three packets of homeopathic sleeping pills at the start of the lecture, and promptly fail to fall asleep.

There's a video of him on Youtube giving one of these talks.

[Zablorg]

do they attempt to explain how the water "remembers" anything?


If so I'm fairly sure one could manipulate its mechanisms to make some sort of computer, or at least a memory storage system.

[Rye]

If Homeopathy worked, you could drink a bit of seawater and be cured of all worldly ills.

[Stuart]

I recently had a conversation with a friends mother who's big into homeopathy after saying to my friend that homeopathy's effect is placebo. What I got from her was a series of statements that seemed pretty suspect. The first of which was a basic rundown of homeopathy; that "like cures like", such as giving something that makes you vomit in small doses to cure vomitting (errr ...), that incredibly diluted medicine is more effective than non-diluted medicine (err ...) and that each individual had a specific regime tailored to their particular person.

After that came a series of "proofs": the counter to the placebo statement was that it works on young children and pets and the counter to why it wasn't accepted by modern medicine is that modern medicine has its own screw ups. Lastly she made a claim that, during the cholera epidemic in the U.S. non-homeopathic hospitals had a death rate of 50% (rather conveniently round number) while homeopathic hospitals had one of 16%.

Frankly, little of it makes sense, especially since the active ingrediant in homeopathic "medicine" is in the parts-per-thousand and the parts-per-million. I've heard people talk about how homeopathy relies on "water memory" and such like that, but never really understood the real criticism (usually because they didn't delve more beyond that). I'd try Google, but I'm unsure what sites would be most reliable and I trust you guys more. Heh.

Though, I can see how tailoring the remedies to the patient's specific medical history is a good thing, as well as increased time spent on a specific patient making said patient feel better, but the rest of it just seems far too suspect.

Try this website. It mangles and macerates homeopathic "medicine". Steve Barrett is good people, I've spoken with him in relation to a project I was working on and he's very knowledgable.

[Zixinus]

Since any water has been in contact with millions of substances throughout its existence, by the logic of homeopaths, regular tap water should be the cure for every possible ailment.

If Homeopathy worked, you could drink a bit of seawater and be cured of all worldly ills.

Actually, since there are more things dangerous to people then good, and the fact that any cure that actually works can be just as much a poison as a medicine, drinking a bit of seawater should kill. After all, that water must have met more nasty stuff then nice stuff, no?

[Rye]

Nasty stuff and nice stuff are the "same thing" in homosepathy, they just believe at lower concentrations (for instance one drop in the world's oceans) it will cure you of whatever ailments you have. Consequentially, if you did just get a drop of some seawater, as per the water cycle, it's probably had dilute contact with just about everything, meaning it should be a catch-all homeopathic solution.

[nickolay1]

At the "stronger" homeopathy concentrations, it can be slightly more dilute - like one drop in a sphere of water hundreds of light-years in diameter.

[Ted C]

I recently had a conversation with a friends mother who's big into homeopathy after saying to my friend that homeopathy's effect is placebo. What I got from her was a series of statements that seemed pretty suspect. The first of which was a basic rundown of homeopathy; that "like cures like",

"Like cures like" is a completely unsubstantiated claim that Hahnemann pulled out of his ass.

such as giving something that makes you vomit in small doses to cure vomitting (errr ...), that incredibly diluted medicine is more effective than non-diluted medicine (err ...)

Another idiotic claim that depends on the mythical "memory" of water. Many homeopathic "remedies" are so dilute that they don't even contain one molecule of the active ingredient, yet these are considered the most potent.

and that each individual had a specific regime tailored to their particular person.

Any moron could watch how real medicine gets practiced and notice that all treatments aren't equally effective for all patients.

After that came a series of "proofs": the counter to the placebo statement was that it works on young children and pets and the counter to why it wasn't accepted by modern medicine is that modern medicine has its own screw ups.

I suppose the fact that homeopathic "medicine" routinely fails to perform better than placebo in clinical trials is lost on her.

Lastly she made a claim that, during the cholera epidemic in the U.S. non-homeopathic hospitals had a death rate of 50% (rather conveniently round number) while homeopathic hospitals had one of 16%.

I'm sure she provided a source for that claim.

Frankly, little of it makes sense, especially since the active ingrediant in homeopathic "medicine" is in the parts-per-thousand and the parts-per-million. I've heard people talk about how homeopathy relies on "water memory" and such like that, but never really understood the real criticism (usually because they didn't delve more beyond that). I'd try Google, but I'm unsure what sites would be most reliable and I trust you guys more. Heh.

The general idea is that water "remembers" what used to be mixed with it after it has been diluted a few billion times until the "active" ingredient is no longer present at all. The "memory" of the ingredient in the water triggers an immune response in the patient that cures the condition.

Of course, the practical upshot of this hare-brained idea is that rainwater or seawater should cure everything.

Though, I can see how tailoring the remedies to the patient's specific medical history is a good thing, as well as increased time spent on a specific patient making said patient feel better, but the rest of it just seems far too suspect.

It's not suspect: it's bullshit. There's no scientific support for any of it. In fact, every decent scientific evaluation of homeopathy has shown that it's crap.

[Ted C]

No, it was because there are drug and medical device recalls, as well as side effects. I guess that's a knock against it because, like I said, homeopathy apparently doesn't do harm if it's the wrong treatment. Or something.

Of course homeopathy doesn't cause any direct harm; it's just water! What she needs to get through her head is that it doesn't do any good, either.

Real medicine has side-effects because it actually does something.

[Admiral Valdemar]

The placebo effect is a funny thing. It can be used to validate a personal belief in a therapy when no professional organisation can find anything above chance effects in double-blind studies. Unless a person has paid attention in science class or works in the field, they'll likely be dismissive of such arguments against "alternative" medicine. If it works, it becomes medicine. There is no alternative; either it works, or it's a source of income for con artists.

"There's no such thing as miracles or the supernatural -- only cutting-edge technology."

[Korvan]

There's an easy experiment you can do to see if water has any "memory" on what has been dissolved in it.

Start with some distilled water, set aside some as a control. Add some battery acid to another sample and set aside part of that as another control. Go through the dilution process to whatever is a standard concentration used in homeopathy.

Then, run direct current through each of the samples and measure the current. If the water has any "memory", the diluted sample should show more current than the distilled control sample. I'm pretty sure that the amount of current going through the homeopathic sample will be, say 0.

[Darth Wong]

There's an easy experiment you can do to see if water has any "memory" on what has been dissolved in it.

Start with some distilled water, set aside some as a control. Add some battery acid to another sample and set aside part of that as another control. Go through the dilution process to whatever is a standard concentration used in homeopathy.

Then, run direct current through each of the samples and measure the current. If the water has any "memory", the diluted sample should show more current than the distilled control sample. I'm pretty sure that the amount of current going through the homeopathic sample will be, say 0.

They will simply deny that this is the kind of memory which water has. You can never completely disprove an assertion which is too vague to allow for testable predictions.

[Norseman]

I think I should point out a few relevant facts. First of all Hahnemann was genuinely an innovator in several fields, he was one of the first doctors to actively test the medicine he was using. He was also one of the first to change his methodology when it was obvious that he was causing more harm than good.

In short when he started giving people full dosages of his medication, which included such things as arsenic, they very often got sicker. However when he dilluted the dosage they tended to get better. Which makes sense since they were no longer being poisoned.

Meanwhile school medicine, regular medicine, believed that disease was due to a single unitary cause such as: Irritable bowels; muscle spasms; nerve spasms; over or under-stimulation of the nervous system; excessively high levels of blood.

The methods they used to cure disease were depressingly similar: blood-letting, purging, puking, calomel (mercuric chloride), mercury compounds, arsenic etc etc. It was very hard to distinguish between this sort of medicine, and actively trying to poison a patient. Indeed several court cases revolved around whether or not the patient had been given arsenic as medicine or as poison!

Certainly Hahnemanns ideas of dilution and what have you didn't make any less sense than regular medicine at the same time. His treatments certainly worked a lot better for the simple reason that the patient was given a safe place to rest, lots of water, and wasn't bled or poisoned.

As for the 1854 Cholera incident; It's one of the more shameful chapters in the history of modern medicine. I read about how doctors at the time argue that the homeopaths were only accepting patients with minor ailments; that they were cooking the books; etc etc. None of which was true, the homeopathic hospitals were, and had to be, more effective than the regular ones.

What this means is that for several decades the Homeopaths were able to offer a product that was demonstrably better, one that would stand up to any amount of statistical scrutiny. So they built a strong customer base, they could imbue their patient with a perfectly justifiable dislike of regular medicine. With this in place they had the funds to weather the impact of genuinely effective medicine, so that in many places big crash didn't come before the 1900s!

The only problem is that school medicine, regular medicine, has changed a lot. Homeopathy has stayed exactly the same, there were some developments and some genuine research in the 19th Century but even that had ceased by the 1920s.

Honestly homeopathy had a fair go; they had over twenty schools in the US alone. They had hundreds of hospitals all over the world. People from Russia to America tested it, and found it better than school medicine. Even so, even with all of this money and support, it failed to resist the competition from regular medicine. I think that's the best evidence you could ask for.