Homeopathy: Alternative Medicine's Biggest Scam

Contrary to popular misunderstanding, homeopathic medicine is not just an epithet for natural medicine of all kinds. Rather, it refers to the specific science (or pseudoscience) built around the "like treats like" philosophy, combined with the idea that extreme dilution of a drug can lead to stronger effects.

Homeopathy Defined: The "Like Treats Like" Pseudoscience

The founders of homeopathic medicine believed in what homeopaths call "The Law of Similars", or, in Latin, "similia similibus curentur" (like cures like). The general principle of homeopathic medicine states that, if a substances causes a certain effect in healthy individuals, it can cure the symptom in unhealthy individuals in an extreme dilution.

For example, blue cohosh, long known to induce labor in healthy pregnant women, is used by homeopaths to prevent pre-term labor. The plant is diluted in extreme (see below), put into a lactose pill or water mixture, and labeled by its scientific name, caulophyllum. The end product is believed to treat preterm labor even though the base substance has the opposite effect.

Extreme Dilution in Homeopathic Remedies

If a pregnant woman facing preterm labor were to ingest blue cohosh herb, it would most certainly trigger the problem to come to a head: she would face a very fast labor whether she was ready for it or not. But homeopathic remedies, even those based in arsenic and other poisons, do not actually cause harm to people.

This is not because they are truly effective: it is because they are completely ineffective. Homeopathic remedies are so extremely diluted that they usually contain none of the base, active substance, and, even if a few molecules are present, it is not enough to have a legitimate effect on the human body.

Homeopaths believe that a "medicine" becomes more powerful the more it is diluted. By homeopathic logic, a substance diluted five-hundred times is five-hundred times more powerful than the base material in treating the ailment. The most supposedly powerful homeopathic remedies do not contain a single molecule of the base substance itself.

The dilution level recommended by most homeopaths is 30C, which is so extremely diluted that it would require giving two billion doses per second, to every person on earth, for five billion years, to deliver a single molecule of the original material to any one of them. And many remedies are far more diluted than this concentration-- and, according to homeopathy, are this makes them more powerful.

How Homeopathy Defies Logic and Science

Several scientists have attempted to determine if any homeopathic remedies contain any active, medical substace, but all of these studies have so far been unable to differentiate homeopathic remedies from water or lactose pills. Obviously, by the standards of understood medicine, this means that they are no more effective than a placebo.

Any child-- and, certainly, and medical school graduate-- knows that one must ingest a larger amount of a substance, not a smaller amount, to receive a greater effect. The homeopathic concept that states that higher dilutions yield stronger results entirely contradicts the science of dose-dependent medicine.

Homeopathy is a form of magical thinking and superstition. Examples of this can be found in the practice used my many homeopaths to create more of a substance: plain placebos are put into a bottle that once contained a certain homeopathic "medicine". The suagr pills are shaken in the bottle, believed to have gained the powers of the bottle in which they are contained, and officially labeled and sold under that name.

Another example of this magical thinking, the "paper remedy" method, writes the name of the substance and its dose on a piece of paper and is then carried in the patient's pocket. While this sounds like utter quackery, it is no less effective than traditional homeopathic practices: neither one delivers a single molecule of an active substance to the patient.

Scientific Data Debunks Homeopathic Medicine

Evidence and data gathered to support homeopathic medicine is unavailable; no peer-reviewed studies conducted by anyone besides the companies that manufacture these drugs have yet yielded positive results. Several studies regarding homeopathy have shown that it is no more effective than a placebo in treating any common ailments.

Even proponents of natural and alternative medicine are generally skeptical about homeopathy. As Jack Killen, the active deputy director of the National Center of Complementary and Alternative Medicine states, "There is, to my knowledge, no condition for which homeopathy has been proven to be an effective treatment."

Homeopathic Remedies are Expensive Placebos

"But it works!" insist half of my clients. Almost all of my clients have had some anecdote to share regarding how well homeopathic remedies worked for them. Several proudly contend that their cold always goes away a few days after taking oscillococcinum, or that their depression disappears every time that they take a Bach flower remedy.

The placebo effect is certainly powerful, and, while many people try to convince themselves that they are experiencing a legitimate effect from the medicines, science tells us otherwise. It is the tendency of patients to attribute value to a medicine if they get better after after taking it--even though, as science says, the patient's cold would have gone away no more quickly had they taken a plain sugar pill.

The supporters of homeopathy often defend their stance regarding its efficacy by providing an anecdote stating that it worked for their young child or their pet. This ignores the fact that the sweetness of a lactose pill, in and of itself, can distract a child or animal from their discomfort or pain.

Homeopathy has become one of the most popular varieties of alternative medicine, outperforming legitimate natural medicines like herbalism, nutrition-based healing, and aromatherapy in some areas, in spite of the total lack of scientific data to support its efficacy. Conscientious consumers looking for real solutions, rather than overpriced placebo medicines based in junk science.