You say you want everyone to address the misstatements in skepchiks video rather than addressing the faults with homeopathy, but you can’t separate the two. Her comments are ABOUT the flaws in homeopathy and to evaluate her comments you have to evaluate homeopathy. You seem to want everyone to accept that homeopathy is a legitimate type of treatment and move on from there but skeptics arent going to do that. So with that in mind, as per your request lets evaluate the “misinformation” in her video.
suede - 15 November 2011 08:53 PM
I thought part of what skeptics do is because they are against falsehoods and misinformation, so let’s take a look at “Skepchick’s” youtube Homeophobia rant.
Skepchick: Homeopathy and the FDA
@:05 - She claims Homeopathy is a “scam.” OK, where’s the proof of that?
She doesn’t have to prove that its scam. The onus is on homeopathy to prove its an effective treatment. Something it has not done after more than a century.
suede - 15 November 2011 08:53 PM
Btw, Homeopathy has been around for over 200 years, there’s no patents on it, hundreds of companies produce homeopathic remedies, hundreds of thousands of doctors and practitioners practice it, the UK royals use it, is a multi-billion dollar industry, and by all signs keeps growing in popularity. Wow, wouldn’t that make homeopathy the most successful medicine-related “scam” to date?!
As I’ve said in previous posts, the volume of people using this type of treatment ( and I question your numbers for which you offer no reliable source) is not an indication of its effectiveness. People do lots of stupid things and they do them in large numbers. Despite your protest, religion is a very good comparison. Homeopathy is based on faith not science. People such as yourself WANT to believe that homeopathy works and will continue to use it despite the complete lack of evidence.
suede - 15 November 2011 08:53 PM
@:07 - She tries to minimize the efficacy of Herbs by claiming Herbs can sometimes have a “small” effect. Herbs have been proven over and over again to have more of an effect than some FDA approved drugs. How could someone with her alleged intelligence not know this?
This is a very accurate comment. Herbs are mostly useless. The small number of herbal compounds that have a therapeutic effect do so because they have a drug in them not because they have some magical power. By definition anything that has biological activity IS a drug. Purveyors of herbs simply havent taken the time or cared enough to figure out what the compound is in there that has therapeutic value nor have they made any effort to figure out what the possible side effects are. The vast majority of herbs are just ineffective and useless and some are downright harmful but as she said some do have a minimal effect. her comment is quite accurate
suede - 15 November 2011 08:53 PM
@:25 - She says according to Homeopathy, if you consume fecal matter and get E. Coli, the “Homeopathic cure” would be to consume more fecal matter. Um, no. A Homeopathic cure option for this would be to take homeopathically prepared E. Coli.
And perhaps you could explain in biological terms exactly how homeopathically prepared ecoli is different than any other sort of e.coli? Aside from diluting it down until there is not a single ecoli organism left in the solution. So essentially you have water. I don’t see how this is a treatment. You say its not the memory effect that has been used as an explanation in the past so then what IS the mechanism by which this is supposed to work? If there IS some ecoli left then explain to me how it has changed during this process and why that makes it a safe treatment. While we are at it perhaps you could explain the biological nature of the theory that “like treats like” which is a homeopathic theory. For you to critisize her comments you have to explain what is incorrect about them.
suede - 15 November 2011 08:53 PM
@:40 - Her description of how Homeopathic remedies are made is wrong (surprise!). She says the dilution process is by taking one part of a substance and drop in the amount of a glass of water then shake it, then take a drop of that and drop it into the amount of a swimming pool and mix it, then take a drop of that and drop it into the amount of the ocean and mix it. Homeopaths don’t add a “mixed” drop to an amount larger than the base amount of water, but to the exact same amount. So if you start by adding a drop of a substance to 10 drops of water, after shaking it (called “successioning”), they take one drop of that and add it to a new 10 drops of water. Then so on and so on to the desired potency.
This is a ridiculous complaint. Skepchick is making an editorial comment and has exaggerated for effect to make a point. Perhaps you didnt understand that. And what difference would it make weather you dumped it in a huge pool or diluted it a thousand times in smaller containers. Seriously, you cant even explain the scientific basis of homeopathic methods but youre going to quibble about little detail of how the preparation is made?
suede - 15 November 2011 08:53 PM
@1:15 - Says according to Homeopathy, water has a memory. Where does Homeopathy ever say that? Some Homeopaths speculate that’s how Homeopathy might work. Why didn’t she make that disclaimer?
She doesnt need to make a disclaimer. This is a theory proposed by practitioners of homeopathy. If you dont like the fact that this is being presented as the only theory behind the mechanism of homeopathy then homeopathy has only itself to blame. After all these years it has yet to come up with a cogent scientific theory for its claimed benefits. Her comment about water memory is accurate in that it is the only method that homeopathy has proposed.
suede - 15 November 2011 08:53 PM
@1:30 - Tries to be funny by bringing up the thought of “sewage water” for the theory some Homeopaths have that water can retain a memory after successioning for some kind of “Ewww!” factor. Regardless of the obvious flaw in her comparison, she shoots herself in her own foot. According to the way she thinks Homeopaths think Homeopathy works, since drinking sewage water would obviously cause a lot of illness in people, using water with the “memory” of sewage water and potencizing it would make an effective homeopathic remedy!
I dont really understand the point you are trying to make here
suede - 15 November 2011 08:53 PM
@1:59 - She brings up how she thinks Homeopathy can harm by avoiding “real doctors” and “real medicine” for dangerous diseases. Funny she doesn’t say how many people per year are “harmed” by Homeopathy in this way (or how that more people get injured or die from “real doctors” using “real medicine” than I would say all of Alt medicine COMBINED!).
I can’t give you a number because I doubt this is tracked anywhere but as a physician I can tell you about a case i saw as a resident when a 25 year old woman presented to our ER after being treated by a homeopath for several weeks with “ink of cuttlefish” for a febrile illness. She was acutely ill and barely clinging to life when she came to the ER and died within a matter of hours from an overwhelming bacterial infection. This woman would be alive today if she had been under the care of a real doctor form the begining. This is only one death but even one is too many whe the total number of people cured of illness through homeopathy is zero. Skepchik didn’t make outlandish claims that vast numbers of people are injured by homeopathy she just said that this is a potential serious problem and my example shows that she is right.
suede - 15 November 2011 08:53 PM
@2:42 - She mentions your “CFI On Campus” movement will be holding protests at campuses “across the country” to petition the FDA to crack down on the “purveyors of homeopathy.” Again, she fails to give a number of how many people in the U.S. are actually harmed by Homeopathy per year. What if it was only 10 people per year? Multiple campus protests for only 10 people per year?! How about the 100,000’s of people who get injured or die from needless medications or surgeries by those “real doctors” who practice “real medicine”? No, apparently Homeopathy is the bigger scourge.
But at least “real doctors” actually cure illness and disease. There are side effects to real treatments but even the “worst meds” that have been pulled from the market like vioxx for example, helped thousands of people for every one person who sustained a significant side effect and treatments like appendectomy save thousands of lives every year for each person who has a significant surgical complication. Homeopathy cures no one and treats nothing so every single person harmed is unacceptable.
suede - 15 November 2011 08:53 PM
Skepchick’s video is full of errors and faulty logic. Are you guys going to “Stand for Science” and correct her?
Yes we are and homeopathy has no science behind it t all, so here we stand. If you learned a little bit about science yourself perhaps we wouldnt be having this arguement
