It can’t cure – it can kill
People who believe in this ineffective baloney use it for things as life-threatening as heart-attacks and stroke. But people who don’t believe it, or don’t even know about it, are accidentally using them too – see any of the investigations CBC has done.
Very unfortunately, almost all the worst cases I’ve come across affect the very young. The medical ignorance that hurts them isn’t their own.
Should have used real medicine
- Australia (2002): Eczema is a condition that can affect ~15% of infants, causing dry red skin. It’s easily treatable, unless you’re a a college level homeopathic lecturer, in which case your “treatment” can kill and you go to jail.
- Canada (2012): This Alberta couple substituted immediate acute hospital care for olive leaf extract, garlic and ginger root. Might have been tastier, was definitely deadlier. Regrettably acquitted at trial.
- Italy (2017): A couple brought their 7-year old to a homeopath for an earache. Antibiotics would have saved his life.
- Canada (2023): An acupuncturist tells a patient who lost their thyroid to cancer that their thyroid would absolutely regrow – if they stopped taking their medication. They nearly die.
Should have used nothing at all
- Zicam (2000s): Despite being a “homeopathic” product that should have contained very little actual product, in 2009 Health Canada advised the disuse of this product as it could lead to loss of smell. Hundreds of lawsuits were filed and settled.
- Hyland’s Teething Gel (2010s): Demonstrating how hard it is to dilute water, their belladonna (aka nightshade) concoction for babies had inconsistent potency, leading to 10 deaths. I feel like if the company I worked for scammed parents so hard it killed even half that amount we’d be out of business, but this one is still operational.
Should count their lucky stars
The slippery slope is real
The fact that Health Canada is “playing along” with this encourages other types of fanciful thinking. Why bother with the effort of things like “evidence” and “reproducibility” when someone is ready to rubber-stamp your idle thoughts just as they are? Do you “feel” that gems help your aura? Go for it! Sticker on your phone to deflect EMF? Why not! Send $350k in government money to quacks rather than anyone who can help? It happened.
Even Naturopaths who are literally full of crap know that Homeopathy is full of crap. Here’s a Naturopathic lawyer dunking on Homeopathy as he attempts to prove his own weak case:
Gratl suggested a lack of scientific evidence for the use of fecal microbiota transplants (FMT) to treat autism isn’t necessarily relevant in this case.
“In certain respects, naturopaths may rely on science, but they are not bound by science,” Gratl said.
He explained that naturopathic practices can instead be based on anecdotes or historical knowledge, and later pointed out that the field includes homeopathy, “which some say involves magical thinking [and is] certainly non-scientific at its core.”
CBC – “Naturopaths ‘not bound by science,’ lawyer argues in B.C. hearing on fecal transplants for autism”