Quackery

Most of my "Complementary & Alternative Medicine" lectures this semester have focused on particular "alternative" treatment methods, and why they are completely invalid.

Today, we talked about homeopathy.

There are several underlying principles to homeopathy.

1. You can cure your symptoms by ingesting a small amount of something that, in a larger amount, would cause those same symptoms. Case in point: If you have a cold (runny nose and watery eyes), you can ingest a tincture of onion (since onion also causes runny nose and watery eyes).

2. The substances that you use for your remedy are to be diluted greatly in water.

3. The more diluted the substance is, the more powerful it is.

Let's continue with the "I have a cold, I better take some onion" example. Here's how you make your homeopathic onion remedy.

Step 1: Grind up some onion to make onion juice. You now have a "mother tincture."

Step 2: Take 1 drop of the mother tincture and add it to 99 drops of water. Shake thoroughly. You now have a 1:100 dilution of onion tincture in water. This is called a "1C" dilution, as you have diluted your mother tincture 1 time in a 100-part (C being the Roman numeral for 100) dilution.

Step 3: Take 1 drop of the 1C dilution and add it to 99 drops of water. Shake thoroughly. You now have a 1:10,000 dilution. This is the 2C dilution.

Steps 4-infinity: Repeat the dilutions, adding 1 drop of the previous dilution to 99 drops of water. You can continue until you have anywhere from about a 6C to a 30C dilution.

Note, clever readers, that at some point before you get to a 30C dilution, you have a less than 1 in a billion chance of having even a single molecule of onion left in your dilution.

Once you have reached the desired level of dilution, you can "prescribe" the onion remedy for your cold-suffering patient with instructions such as "Take 15 drops under the tongue 4 times daily." As a seasoned homeopath, you will of course recognize that the "stronger" dilutions (30C being much stronger than 6C) can only be "prescribed" by the experts.

And voila, of course your cold will be gone!

I hope I've convinced you that this type of homeopathy is utter nonsense and can clearly have no effect other than as a placebo (which, granted, can be pretty awesome).

And, of course, when you've diluted onion (or whatever more dangerous substance you choose to use, such as lead, rabies virus, arsenic, or tuberculosis-infected cow tissue) to this degree, the odds of it doing you any harm are very slim. So a lot of mainstream veterinarians, when their clients inquire about the use of homeopathy in their pets, will advise the clients that they probably won't be hurting their animals.

The problem comes when a pet owner (or even a veterinarian or self-proclaimed homeopath) chooses to use strictly homeopathic remedies instead of pursuing a traditional diagnosis or treatment for their animal's condition.

You have got to watch this hilarious spoof video of a homeopathic ER doctor unsuccessfully treating a patient, followed by some commiserating with a fellow doctor at the bar after his patient dies. It's only 2.5 minutes long and it's totally worth your time! Click here.