REAL LIFE NEWS: HOMEOPATHIC REMEDIES RECALLED BECAUSE THEY ACTUALLY CONTAIN MEDICINE
by Hazed
It’s not often that a news story makes me chuckle – mostly the papers are full of doom and gloom, recession and conflict, death and destruction. But this story is so full of irony it still brings a smile to my face every time I think about it.
A homeopathy company is having to recall some of its medicines because they might actually contain some medicine!
You see, homeopathic products are not supposed to contain any active ingredients. The substance is diluted so many times, over and over, until a whole ocean of the medicine would contain less than a molecule of the stuff. The whole bizarre theory behind this is that by diluting the active ingredient, it somehow enhances its effect. Makes no sense to me!
So for homeopathic medicines to accidentally contain real medicines is just hugely amusing.
In this case, traces of a real antibiotic may have crept into the various preparations. This could be a problem if the people taking the remedies are allergic to antibiotics.
Now, I am sure some of my readers will disagree with me about homeopathy. But Hazed, they will say, I use homeopathic medicines, and they work. They stop my hayfever/reduce my bruises/help me sleep at night.
Well, I don’t dispute that. You may well find that they do what you expect them to do. But that’s because of the placebo effect. The human body and mind are strange things, and doctors have known for a long time that if you give somebody a sugar pill and tell them it’s medicine, they will react as if they have been given real medicine. Besides, sometimes things just get better on their own.
The reason I don’t believe in homeopathy is because it doesn’t make any sense. If it worked the way the proponents say it does, it would break the basic laws of chemistry. How can a remedy which has no trace of the active ingredient left in it actually do anything?
And no, water does not have a “memory” by which it can somehow cling onto the properties of one molecule even after it’s been diluted a million times. If it did, water would remember the salt from the ocean, the sewage from the pipes, the pollution from spills – and we’d never be able to drink it!
Still, I doubt I will convince any of you who believe in homeopathy to change your minds, because for those who believe in it, it’s a real matter of faith.
Bonus link: here’s a cartoon about the ineffectualness of homeopathic medicines:
http://xkcd.com/765/
