The Indian government has produced a number of ads that are now running on TV in the worlds second most populous nation. I guess it is cheaper to convince citizens that placebos are effective than it is to provide healthcare for the people. Watch as Indian tax payers money goes out the window!
Dara O’Briain on Homeopathy (and other nonsense)
Because homeopathic treatments are sold along side aspirin and Tylenol at the druggist, people assume these “remedies” are tested and effective. A simple look at the mathematics of homeopathy should do a lot to set one straight.
In his recent article, Homeopathy by the (mind-boggling) numbers (Times Online), Matt Parker does a great job breaking down the astronomical numbers involved in processing homeopathic treatments.
The arnica is diluted so much that there is only one molecule of it per 7 million billion billion billion billion pills.
It’s hard to comprehend numbers that large. If you were to buy that many pills from Boots, it would cost more than the gross domestic product of the UK. It’s more than the gross domestic product of the entire world. Since the dawn of civilisation. If every human being since the beginning of time had saved every last penny, denarius and sea-shell, we would still have not saved-up enough to purchase a single arnica molecule from Boots.
That Mitchell and Webb Look: Homeopathic A & E
“At 10:23am on January 30th, more than three hundred homeopathy sceptics nationwide will be taking part in a mass homeopathic ‘overdose’ in protest at Boots’ continued endorsement and sale of homeopathic remedies, and to raise public awareness about the fact that homeopathic remedies have nothing in them.
Homeopathy is an unscientific and absurd pseudoscience, yet it persists today as an accepted complementary medicine.
Ask many people what they think homeopathy is, and you’ll be told “it’s herbal medicine” or “it’s all-natural”. Few realise that it’s been proven not to work; even fewer know it involves substances so dilute that there’s nothing left in them. Homeopathy takes advantage of this uncertainty to sit alongside real, proven medicines on the shelves of our major pharmacies.
Sceptics and consumer rights activists will publicly swallow an entire bottle of homeopathic ‘pillules’ to demonstrate that these ‘remedies’, prepared according to a long-discredited 18th century ritual, are nothing but sugar pills.
The protest will raise public awareness about the reality of homeopathy, and put further pressure on Boots to live up to its responsibilites as the ’scientist on the high street’ and stop selling treatments which do not work.”
Read more at 1023.org.uk
Alexa Ray Joel Out Of Hospital After Homeopathic Overdose (MTV)
Homeopathy is a form of “alternative medicine” first proposed by German physician Samuel Hahnemann in 1796. In Homeopathy patients are treated with heavily diluted preparations which are thought to cause effects similar to the symptoms presented. Homeopathic remedies are prepared by shaking minute quantities of substances into large amounts of water.
It is supposed that the greater the dilution the greater its intended effect. Homeopaths call this process “potentization”. Dilution often continues until statistically, none of the original substance remains.
Richard Dawkins takes a look at Homeopathy.
James Randi explains Homeopathy
