14 ms·

Walmart, CVS face trial for homeopathic products next to real meds

166 points by dxs 4y ago

Overtonwindow 4y ago
For a short time I worked for a major natural health nonprofit. What I learned about homeopathy is that it has no actual medical benefit whatsoever, and at best causes a placebo effect. Additionally, the use of belladonna and nightshade in the production of many homeopathic products should be considered the same as if something was made with arsenic. There has never been a substantive, peer reviewed study showing the benefits of homeopathy anywhere, ever.
- dr_dshiv 4y ago
  That’s not true. There are plenty of studies (see reply on, for instance, childhood ADHD) showing the benefits of homeopathy as a placebo. The whole concept of homeopathy has always been a mental effect with increased safety over allopathic medicine—and as such, homeopathy remains valuable for home treatments. Better and safer than vitamins and most allopathic medicines precisely because they don’t have real effects. People aren’t machines and treatments don’t need to be rational to be helpful.
  - dr_dshiv 4y ago
    Just to back myself up here: consider childhood ADHD. Homeopathic pills have an effect size over 0.5 (half a standard deviation). Now, sure, maybe it’s a sugar pill and sure, maybe Ritalin is a better choice. But I think this example shows that homeopathy has an ethical place in human medicine. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41390-022-02127-3 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41390-022-02127-3
    - dr_dshiv 4y ago
      - carrotcarrot 4y ago
        It's one of the topics where the grey comments are the only ones with anything interesting to say. The rest are mainly repeating the correct opinion
    - pif 4y ago
      > A limitation of our analysis is, however, that the sample size of the individual studies was generally small [...] Thus, our results can be taken as an encouraging interim finding but should be corroborated by other, long-term studies.
      - dr_dshiv 4y ago
        To be clear, they analyzed 6 studies with an average of 52 patients. So, that’s about 300 or so kids.
      - carrotcarrot 4y ago
        All studies mention limitations (or are supposed to...). If the results were statistically significant this aside doesn't negate them.
    - korm 4y ago
      That is a meta analysis conducted by homeopathic doctors, on studies done by some "homeopathic institutes" and other such associations. It's curious how positive results only come from associates in an industry profiting from trying to convince you that their water, chemically indistinguishable from regular water, has magical healing properties through its memory of past events.
      - dr_dshiv 4y ago
        Water has memory! Or so says a popular snowman. In case you are curious, here is a rigorous research paper on the topic. It is extremely hard to evaluate. Any researcher who would try to do this sort of research is immediately suspect, so it takes a certain type. But I see no reason to dismiss a priori. See what you think (over 250 cites): Roy, R., Tiller, W. A., Bell, I., & Hoover, M. R. (2005). The structure of liquid water; novel insights from materials research; potential relevance to homeopathy. Materials Research Innovations, 9(4), 98-103. https://doi.org/10.1080/14328917.2005.11784911 https://doi.org/10.1080/14328917.2005.11784911
        korm 4y ago
        I know it does, and that has been cited countless times by homeopathic studies. The problem is that you still need magic for it to have a biological effect. They dismiss this criticism as undiscovered science, in much the same way fairies and leprechauns are undiscovered animals. They'll often cite quantum mechanics and even cosmology, the more esoteric the better, to try to shoehorn science into their beliefs.
        dr_dshiv 4y ago
        No, but really— try reading the article I shared. It’s pretty interesting.
    - vhold 4y ago
      I wouldn't downvote you, but I think you should be aware that meta-analysis is making the case that homeopathy is better than placebo and has an unknown mechanism of working, which is a much bolder claim than you originally made. I disagree with the results of the risk of bias assessments of the studies involved in that meta-analysis: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41390-022-02127-3/tables/1 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41390-022-02127-3/tables/1 Out of the 6 studies used, only 2 are from general research institutions. The other 4 are all specialists in homeopathy or private practices using homeopathy. Seems like the risk of bias there would be extremely high.
  - 1-more 4y ago
    > The whole concept of homeopathy has always been a mental effect Hahnemann's first homeopathic drug was to cure malaria. Are you saying it was meant to make you think you didn't have malaria?
    - dr_dshiv 4y ago
      https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1297514/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1297514/ Take a look at the long history of “like cures like.” I should take back my claim that it is “always” viewed as a mental effect— things get a bit squishy in the olden days.
      - 1-more 4y ago
        > Take a look at the long history of “like cures like.” I did. It has nothing to do with the claim that homeopathy was only ever meant to be a mental effect. If you claim that then you're doing God-of-the-gaps but with homeopathy. That document lists a great number of like-cures-like cures from long before Hahnemann. However of note is that they don't claim that dilution makes medicine stronger. Chemo and radiation make you sick as a dog but they cure cancer. If we allow "like cures like" to be the only meaning of homeopathy (its name itself a synecdoche for the dual claims of homeopathy) then tons of real medicine is homeopathy. I get the impression that you're in this field. I once worked at a military contractor where my job was either to waste the tax dollars of productive members of society or enforce a global hegemony that will end human life on earth. There was a path out of there for me, and I'm sure there's a path out of there for you.
        dr_dshiv 4y ago
        I’m not in the field. But thanks for reading. I don’t know when the dilution became part of the story. As you said, a lot of allopathic medicine is like cures like (such as vaccines).
        1-more 4y ago
        But "allopathic" means the opposite of "like cures like." Hahnemann created what we now call homeopathy and it included the dilution part. Also the like curing like is incidental to cures. It's the tail wagging the dog.
- mizzack 4y ago
  > Additionally, the use of belladonna and nightshade in the production of many homeopathic products should be considered the same as if something was made with arsenic. Hyoscyamine has been prescribed for decades https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyoscyamine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyoscyamine
  - woodruffw 4y ago
    This doesn't contradict what the GP said: you shouldn't ingest nightshade just because we've been able to extract and safely medicate its constituent chemicals.
lalaland1125 4y ago
The popularity of homeopathic medicine, a concept so obviously wrong that even someone who doesn't understand chemistry can debunk it in seconds, is fascinating. Why are people drawn to such absurdly wrong medical cures? This says something really interesting about human psychology IMHO. Like at least chiropractic and ineffective herbal remedies have a somewhat plausible (but wrong) mechanism of action.
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- snarf21 4y ago
  I think a lot of it is just about "trust". They don't trust the government so they definitely don't trust FDA approved drugs or Big Pharma. I mean there are people who actually believe that the Covid vaccines contain nano transmitter trackers put there by Bill Gates. When you tell them there is some root from Chile that solves their issue, they trust that more than something built in a lab. I think the thing we need to change is that all of these homeopathic "medicines" and vitamins need to go through some clinical rigor. They should have to show the actual benefit of taking Vitamin XXX. We also need testing of these items at random. There are lots of these items that don't even contain the thing they claim they do. It is $40 Billion industry that has marginal benefit and is an outright scam in some cases.
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- canadiantim 4y ago
  The fact that you dismiss herbs, the very basis of most modern pharmacology, suggests to me that you have an axe to grind.
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canadiantim 4y ago
I know I'm going to get downvoted for this, but the peer-reviewed literature actually does support some beneficial effect of homeopathic remedies for some very specific conditions. Simply go to pubmed and type in homeopathy and you'll find the first few results showing meta-analyses of the available literature (which is actually quite a lot of studies) and you'll find evidence for the effect being more than just placebo. I think unfortunately homeopathy has been demonized because I'm sure there is plenty of snake oil being sold as homeopathic remedies, but this has led to people dismissing it entirely. I guess the biggest reason people dismiss homeopathy is we don't have an understandable mechanism for its effect, but it does seem that there is indeed an effect greater than just a placebo. People can dismiss the science, but that doesn't seem very rational to me.
- beached_whale 4y ago
  To be blunt, no you won’t
  - civilized 4y ago
    I do not believe that homeopathy has an effect exceeding placebo, but... it is very easy to verify that the GP comment is at least partially correct: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?term=homeopathy https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?term=homeopathy Click on the link and you'll see that the top few results from PubMed for homeopathy do indeed include meta-analyses. On my side, the very first result is: #1 Homeopathy: meta-analyses of pooled clinical data. Hahn RG. Forsch Komplementmed. 2013;20(5):376-81. doi: 10.1159/000355916. Epub 2013 Oct 17. PMID: 24200828 Free article. Review. I highly doubt that the results depend on the user searching. The thing is, meta-analyses just don't prove as much as they're claimed to. There are meta-analyses "proving" all sorts of nonsense, like ESP: https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/04/28/the-control-group-is-out-of-control/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/04/28/the-control-group-is-o... Meta-analysis can't turn garbage into gold. If the studies in a meta-analysis are overwhelmingly low quality, the meta-analysis will also be unreliable.
    - beached_whale 4y ago
mistrial9 4y ago
- neaden 4y ago
  "after thousands of years of practices" It's important to note that much of what gets labelled as traditional Chinese medicine today is actually modern and invented by the Chinese government in the 60s.
  - 1-more 4y ago
    A thing I've heard repeated, but I've never seen a citation for, is that during the cultural revolution China had a problem of not enough doctors to see all the patients with aches and pains who were guaranteed to get health care. So they plucked acupuncture from obscurity and established that as the thing you give to people who would feel better having seen a professional but don't have anything curable wrong with them. But like I've said: I've read this once on a skeptic blog and heard it repeated possibly by another reader thereof but I've never seen a citation for this and it may be smug western bullshit meant to portray China as cynical. IDK.
    - neaden 4y ago
      My understanding is it was a mix of things. Mao had a barefoot doctor program which emphasized practical learning and getting medical practitioners to rural areas. These practitioners had some valuable knowledge for things like hygiene, but also didn't have access to western drugs so emphasized herbs and other remedies. This was combined with Mao's desire to differentiate China from the USSR and emphasize Chinese cultural unity.
- dekhn 4y ago
  I mean, some of the most prominent CM includes mercury and was highly toxic. You'd think people would notice that.
  - mistrial9 4y ago
dilap 4y ago
I find this rather obnoxious; if I wish to purchase a purely placebo homepathic remedy, let me. The idea that I will be confused and think the homepathic remedies are actual drugs because they are in the same aisle is absurd. "Thanks for a country where nobody's allowed to mind their own business." -- Thanksgiving Prayer, William Burroughs Edit: I have changed my opinion from "obnoxious" to "annoying" and retract my characterization of the danger of confusion as absurd -- per 3 comments, apparently people really are getting confused! So in light of the above, perhaps there is merit in more cleanly separating traditional pharmaceuticals and homeopathic remedies. It still seems heavy-handed to me personally to require it or file a lawsuit, but the case is not as without merit as I had originally assumed. I do continue to think this is actually just one battle in a war to prohibit alternative treatments entirely, which I still strongly disagree with, but time will tell if that's just paranoia on my part or well-founded.
- richbell 4y ago
  > I find this rather obnoxious; if I wish to purchase a purely placebo homepathic remedy, let me. Sure, just don't put placebo homeopathic "medicine" in deceptive packaging beside actual medicine. Put it in a section called "water and sugar pills" and clearly label that they contain no actual medical ingredients.
  - dr_dshiv 4y ago
    How about vitamin c? It has about the same level of efficacy as a placebo. https://www.cochranelibrary.com/content?templateType=abstract&urlTitle=/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD000980.pub4&doi=10.1002/14651858.CD000980.pub4&type=cdsr&contentLanguage= https://www.cochranelibrary.com/content?templateType=abstrac...
    - richbell 4y ago
      This isn't really a compelling counter because supplements are commonly criticized for not doing what they're purported to do. I would love for the FDA to enact more stringent regulation on supplements. That said, unlike homeopathic medicine vitamins can at least be argued to contain medicinal ingredients.
MarkusWandel 4y ago
My local pharmacy (in Canada, not the above) has this too. I asked the pharmacist and got a shrug... people ask for the stuff so they stock it.
- wollsmoth 4y ago
  I wandered into a "Pharmacy" that was completely homeopathic. I had the runs and urgently needed some immodium or something. It was like a nightmare.
  - shagie 4y ago
    Immodium is one of my "always have it stocked" things now. A few years ago, I had a bad case of the runs where Friday was "ok, that's uncomfortable" and Friday night was "this isn't good". Saturday was "I don't have enough energy to be able to safely drive a few blocks and back." I was able to call up a relative and they got some and dropped it off at my house. So that's always in my drug cabinet now so that I won't have that situation again. The chemistry part of it is neat: > It is an opioid with no significant absorption from the gut and does not cross the blood–brain barrier when used at normal doses. The "morphine giving you constipation" thing... this is the same, except that's all it does. I'll also note the WHO Model List of Essential Medicines - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WHO_Model_List_of_Essential_Medicines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WHO_Model_List_of_Essential_Me... - its under "Medicines for other common symptoms in palliative care" as Loperamide.
    - 1-more 4y ago
      I've heard of people using it to manage withdrawals when kicking opioid/opiate addictions. Indeed it would at least help with the diarrhea symptom when withdrawing. No idea how well it works.
      - shagie 4y ago
        Thus the "normal doses" part. The "unapproved use" section gets into that - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loperamide#Off-label/unapproved_use https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loperamide#Off-label/unapprove... > The primary intent of users has been to manage symptoms of opioid withdrawal such as diarrhea, although a small portion derive psychoactive effects at these higher doses. At these higher doses central nervous system penetration occurs and long term use may lead to tolerance, dependence, and withdrawal on abrupt cessation. Dubbing it "the poor man's methadone", clinicians warned that increased restrictions on the availability of prescription opioids passed in response to the opioid epidemic were prompting recreational users to turn to loperamide as an over-the-counter treatment for withdrawal symptoms.
daoist_shaman 4y ago
The brain is so powerful that just by believing something will work, it actually can work. This is the placebo response. We don’t know the mechanism [0] yet, but I think it is probably the same thing as manifestation [1]. I believe that visualization is powerful because once we have visualized something, we can start taking steps (either consciously or unconsciously) to actualize it. This could include reaching some goal, such as alleviating a disease state. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Placebo#Mechanisms https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Placebo#Mechanisms [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manifestation_(popular_psychology) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manifestation_(popular_psychol...
- driverdan 4y ago
  This is a misunderstanding of placebo. Placebos do not cure anything. They change the user's subjective observations. For example, they're effective for pain because pain is subjective.
  - tcoff91 4y ago
    The placebo effect has been demonstrated many times to actually be able to alter objective bio markers and lab test results. This is why it’s so critical to do placebo controlled studies of drugs to determine that they actually have efficacy beyond the placebo effect. Having said this, the placebo effect is no justification for medical deception. When people want medicine they shouldn’t get sold placebos that are marketed as actual medicine.
  - daoist_shaman 4y ago
    > A placebo presented as a stimulant may trigger an effect on heart rhythm and blood pressure, but when administered as a depressant, the opposite effect. If placebos have been experimentally observed to induce changes in their subjects, then it holds that placebos can be used to alleviate symptoms similarly to conventional medications. Comparing things to placebos does not imply that placebos have no effect. In some cases, placebos have very powerful effects, which is why we compare against them.
  - deleted 4y ago
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LarsAlereon 4y ago
Ugh, I got bit by this at Walgreens I think it was. Went to buy some zinc lozenges for a cold, didn't notice the tiny "homeopathic" text on the label, got lozenges made with ingredients that might have touched a zinc molecule once.
- carrotcarrot 4y ago
  Zinc is homeopathic though?
  - wincy 4y ago
    Homeopathy is a specific term that means “doesn’t actually have the substance in it”. I’m making no claims to the curative power of zinc but a lozenge with zinc in it is totally different from a “homeopathic zinc lozenge” which contains materials that were once mixed with zinc then diluted until no zinc remains. I’d be pretty mad if I bought “homeopathic gasoline” where someone puts a drop of gasoline into a million gallons of water then sells it to me as gasoline.
  - sbf501 4y ago
    This is interesting because people will buy supplements that have no scientific basis for efficacy (biotin, mega-doses of Vit-C, St John's Wort) but they will deride homeopathy, which also has no scientific basis for efficacy. I'm not bashing zinc, because I don't know the science, but I am bashing homeopathy. Openly. Show me some double-blind studies. Unless the placebo effect is what you are selling, in which case, say that. EDIT: Thanks for the info on St John's Wort! I should have picked a better example.
    - astura 4y ago
      St John's Wort has a scientific basis though https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=St+John%27s+Wort+double+blind https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=St+John%27s+Wort+double...
    - perth 4y ago
      Interestingly enough there’s significant clinical evidence of St. Johns Wart acting as an SSRI and most serotonin-based medications warn about taking St. J’s Wart. See the indications for this other antidepressant for serotonin syndrome (St. John’s is listed as a potential cause): https://www.rxlist.com/effexor-drug.htm https://www.rxlist.com/effexor-drug.htm
logicalmonster 4y ago
I'm not a fan of homeopathic "treatments", but if the main argument for this trial is "the products were too close to others" that seems like a bullshit case. Something's legality shouldn't hinge on its distance from other legal things or arrangement in a store. Either a thing is legal or illegal. Moving it 5 feet to the right or 2 shelves down shouldn't change its legality if it's already a legal product with whatever government warning labels and disclaimers are required. What's next? Suing an art supply store because they had markers on the same shelf as highlighters?
- neaden 4y ago
  If there is an aisle that says Cold Medicine, and you put a product that is in fact not cold medicine but something designed to look like cold medicine and trick people into buying it because they think it is cold medicine, then it sure looks like you are purposefully trying to deceive people.
- ceejayoz 4y ago
  > Suing an art supply store because they had markers on the same shelf as highlighters? I dunno, it seems a bit more like the store getting in trouble for having lead paint right next to the section labeled "edible paints!" without much of a line between them. In my grocery store (Wegmans) they're slapped in the general "cold and flu" section. See https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/pasted-image-0-copy.jpeg https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/paste... from the article.
- richbell 4y ago
  > the products were too close to others" that seems like a bullshit case It's deceptive. If you're in a pharmacy and see a number of cold and flu medicine grouped together on one shelf, you'd be pretty pissed if you bought one and didn't realize that it was just Mike & Ikes with no medicinal ingredients. Your marker and highlighter example is flawed because those are both useful for writing and are usually distinct in packaging and form.
  - RC_ITR 4y ago
sairahul82 4y ago
Homeopathy medicines are the best examples of the placebo effect. The common argument I often hear is that it worked for me in the past. Homeopathy people say it works slowly. It works slowly because you are giving your body enough time to cure itself. It works for some and some it doesn't work. Lot of people miss this basic logic. Some other people believe in homeopathy because it's a herbal medicine. These two are completely different. The fundamental logic of how Homeopathy medicine is created is flawed. From Wiki, "Homeopathic preparations are termed remedies and are made using homeopathic dilution. In this process, the selected substance is repeatedly diluted until the final product is chemically indistinguishable from the diluent." If you know basic chemistry you will know that this doesn't make sense.
- Semaphor 4y ago
  > repeatedly diluted until the final product is chemically indistinguishable from the diluent. That, at least according to Wikipedia [0], is only the case for C/D 12 and higher. It’s pretty clear to anyone, that weak (homeopathy says the higher the dilution, the stronger the effect) tinctures like D2 (so 1 part whatever in 100 parts water) will still be chemically distinct from just water. My parents use that as explanation why they use it and not the high concentrations (= high dilutions = pure water). Which requires more mental gymnastics than my brain can handle. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeopathic_dilutions#Potency_scales https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeopathic_dilutions#Potency_...
antisthenes 4y ago
Good. That's a start. IMO, homeopathic medicines should be packaged at least as prominently as cigarettes are labeled in the EU, e.g. big bold letters on every package that say "This is NOT real medicine" or "Pill shell only" or "Placebo Effect Only" I think oftentimes it gets a pass when it shouldn't due to certain factors: 1. Homeopathy shills are modern day Alchemists - they are really persuasive bullshit artists (trying to make money out of literal thin air) 2. Many people associate homeopathy with herbal remedies, which is ironic, because herbal remedies actually do have a measurable non-placebo effect. Many of the actual medicines are based on isolated plant compounds, etc. 3. It's still niche enough that it gets a pass, sort of like modern day Anti-vaxxers. So not a lot of harm from it simply due to being a small % of the population.
aimor 4y ago
I mistakenly bought homeopathic eye drops from a CVS once, for exactly this reason: I was in a rush, it was in between real medicine, I didn't notice the tiny "homeopathic" text on the package, and it was the lowest priced item. It didn't work, obviously, which is when I inspected the package more closely and was actually shocked (this was over 10 years ago) that CVS would sell homeopathics. I stopped shopping at CVS because of that, but they're not the only ones selling this junk. That experience got me reading up on what was and was not allowed to be sold in stores. Turns out consumers have to educate themselves: the US government doesn't sufficiently ensure items on store shelves are effective or even harmless.
- aidenn0 4y ago
  Same thing happened to my wife (but not eye drops). She was also in a rush. When I pointed out it said homeopathic on the back she was furious.
- hansvm 4y ago
  I think a good litmus test as to whether a thing is actually desired by consumers is how small the fine print is. Whether a person wants or does not want homeopathic sugar pills or organic food or whatever, they almost certainly want a label large and clear enough to distinguish the different sorts of goods. Stuffing that into fine print only serves to increase profits by deceiving people into paying more than they think they are for items less valuable than expected.
bastardoperator 4y ago
Homeopathic is just another word for bullshit. edit: Yeah downvote me, but look at every doctor selling these extremely high priced fake solutions to patients. When people with aids and cancer are getting sold what amounts to vitamins for tens of thousands of dollars, I'm sorry, but what else do you call it? There is no such thing as alternative medicine...
- bityard 4y ago
  It boggles my mind that my medical insurance covers homeopathic and chiropractic treatments. Which means that effectively, some portion of my astonishingly large medical insurance premium that I pay every month despite being in near-perfect health, goes to subsidize bullshit alternative medicine believers and lines the pockets of literal snake oil salespeople.
  - mindslight 4y ago
    The core dynamic of health "insurance" is to restrict access to health care to pay out less, so offering up fraudulent placebo treatments make a lot of sense. Just be glad they don't force you to try using (those specific) fake cures for a year before they'll cover real treatment.
elmolino89 4y ago
I think in many countries one can not open a pharmacy without a proper paperwork/personnel with university degrees etc. IMHO it would be beneficial if every pharmacy store was visibly divided into "pharmacy proper" and "shampoo/water/wrinkles-be-gone cosmetics". Homeopathy should be expelled to tarot and crystal balls stores.
tradertef 4y ago
My health care provider has chiropractors in the same office with MDs. I think it is the same thing.
- smsm42 4y ago
  It'd be the same thing if the chiropractor was actually sitting on the other side of the planet and would do movements that'd hurt you if you were in the same room with them, but the theory were that since the action is so weak as to be imperceptible by you, it is actually somehow healing you, and the further the chiropractor is from you, the stronger is the effect. In fact, I wonder why nobody is doing homeopathic chiroptactic via Zoom yet... Looks like a good startup idea.
  - chihuahua 4y ago
    I used to know some people who were pleased that they could received their Aura massage over the phone, as it saved the inconvenience of visiting their Aura massage provider in person. For those who are not fully caught up on Gwyneth Paltrow bullshit, an "Aura massage" involves a charlatan waving their hands near you, without touching you.
- zackmorris 4y ago
  I can't tell if you're supporting or criticizing chiropractic care, but I agree that its philosophy maybe aligns with homeopathic remedies. Someone has either had good results from chiro, or hasn't found a good practitioner yet IMHO. We forget that the body always heals itself, drugs are just a way to suppress an infection long enough for the immune system to catch up. I dunno, I would always recommend joint manipulation, massage, rehab/PT and other holistic and integrative approaches over surgery. I've known multiple people who have had stuff like back surgery and just not had a good result. Whereas athletes and gym rats like me come back from pretty significant injuries all the time. I view the body as fungible and almost an expression of the mind, not something that declines and needs all this medication. The magic pill is basically to show up and do the work, but nobody wants to believe that or that it's that simple, because practicing the discipline of proper exercise and nutrition can be hard. And frankly not always feasible in today's world which prioritizes external reward over internal health.
seer-zig 4y ago
I think this is as ironic as pharmacies selling cigarettes.
- birdiesanders 4y ago
  It is, but at least CVS stopped selling them years back. Now if only they could have a second stroke of rationality this would all be moot.
carapace 4y ago
Some thoughts... First things first, homeopathic remedies do help, but only if you're already mostly in tune in the first place. As a very crude metaphor, if you car is a little out of whack an oil change or lube job might be the thing, but if you've been in a serious accident no amount of pouring oil on the car will get the dents out, you gotta go to the boddy shop. Most of us are living in such a way (junk food, junk lifestyles) that homeopathic remedies are no better than placebos. (I don't really want to get into it, but, uh, water carries liquid crystal "echoes" of the chemicals, these can be detected and categorized by a simple reproducible protocol involving dripping water onto a transparent panel illuminated by polarized light, something like that. A Japanese scientist figured it out, but I lost the reference and haven't been able to locate it again. Sorry. If you're already in pretty good health then your system has what you might call "higher gain" on incoming stimuli, including the phantoms of the biomolecules encoded in the structures of the water molecules, which is enough to "remind" your system of, uh, balancing influences, without requiring actual "doses" of chemicals. Just like how hearing a faint echo of a song you like from, say, a passing car might make you recall it and groove to it all over again.) - - - - Anyway, second, the placebo effect, whatever it is, is real and very potent. The craziest thing I've heard about was placebo knee surgery. (O_o) A lot of approved medicines are no better than placebos. - - - - Third, yes, almost all supplements and herbal remedies that you can get over the counter are B.S. "What you have there are the ingredients for very expensive urine." as Dr, Cooper told Penny. (In my family it was the Vitamin C. Got a cold? Chew these C tablets. Nothing actually to it, vitamin C does not cure colds. It does affect your Ph balance which can affect your viscosity of mucus, however, that's not the reason we took it as kids. We took it because our parent though it was a kind of medicine, which it is not.) - - - - Last but not least, selling snake oil is an old and venerable custom here in America at least, and people like buying and using nostrums and potions. The last time the FDA tried to crack down on this stuff the public pushed back (the snake-oil sellers whipped them up a bit, but the general sentiment was "you'll take my magic beans from my cold, dead hands!" y'know?)
nortonham 4y ago
throw the f*cking book at them for marketing homeopathic shite next to real otc meds
breck 4y ago
Walmart and CVS you bastards. I've been buying your homeopathic products for years and am in perfect health—just think of how healthy I could have been had I been using "real meds"!
AlexandrB 4y ago
Everything you need to know about the ethics of the homeopathic industry can be gleaned from the 2016 poisoning of babies by homeopathic teething drugs: https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/01/fda-confirms-toxicity-of-homeopathic-baby-products-maker-refuses-to-recall/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/01/fda-confirms-toxicit... > After investigating reports that more than 400 babies were sickened and 10 died in connection with homeopathic teething products, the Food and Drug Administration confirmed Friday that it had indeed found elevated levels of the toxic substance, belladonna, in the products. > The National Center for Homeopathy, which has ties with Hyland’s, slammed the FDA, calling the agency’s warnings “arbitrary and capricious.” In an “action alert,” the organization went on to suggest that warning was prompted by “groups interested in seeing homeopathy destroyed” and led to “fear mongering” by the media.
- jinpa_zangpo 4y ago
  Although the levels in some of the products tested were elevated, in no case were the levels anywhere near a toxic dose. The amount of belladonna in the tablets were measured innanograms. https://cacmap.fda.gov/drugs/information-drug-class/laboratory-analysis-homeopathic-teething-tablets https://cacmap.fda.gov/drugs/information-drug-class/laborato...
yonatron 4y ago
"Homeopathy" - Hair of the dog that didn't bite you. -- JD Gershan
foxyv 4y ago
I wondered how the heck they get away with this. I guess they didn't.
todd8 4y ago
I briefly dated a woman from France that regularly took homeopathic “medicine”. It hold her that it didn’t do anything and her counter argument was that it was paid for though the French government health care system so it must be efficacious. I then said that just because some people believe the Moon affects our clouds doesn’t mean that it does; her reply was “everyone knows the Moon brings the rain.”
- davidguetta 4y ago
  I'm french and I believe there's at least 3 good reasons to have homeopathy in a state and reimbursed even if you don't believe in it: - Placebo effect always works, (improving by around ~ 20% your recorvery / curing process depending on the studies and metric). More importantly, and something which is often overlooked, it works EVEN IF YOU DON'T CONSCIOUSLY BELIEVE IN THE DRUG. - Homeopathy was given quite often at times where Doctors were generally prescribing too many antibiotics, especially to children, which we found later was generally detrimental to the immune system and promoting virus mutation. In general I believe there's way too many 'drugs' which are taken by the general population in mild cases which has the same effect. - There are a lot of people who sometimes are vaguely sick but don't really need something (like cold or some vaguely psychological stuff) who ARE going to take some shitty drug for the sake of feeling better, and such drugs are in general a lot more expensive than a tube of homeopathy is. So it also makes sense in the economic / healthcare viewpoint. Personally I had a lot of homeopathy young at a time when my general practitioner was super heavy handed an antibiotics and my parents wanted to try something else, and believe it or not it coincided to an quick improvement of my state. (from asmathic to not asmathic, from having heavy allergic reactions to mild ones later etc..). After that homeopathy was always the first line stuff I've took most of the time except for stuff like anginas which obviously require antibiotics (which funnily, that general practicioners are sometimes reluctant to give because "hey it could be viral"). Now, I'm honestly rarely sick in general, when I am it's super mild or invisible (ex: COVID) to the point I was shocked at the age of 27 that it was even possible to take a day off work or not being able to go do sport or party because you 'had a flu'. I literally though it was a joke when my collegue said that. Also I've recovered super fast from stuff which are supposed to take longer. Not sure how linked this is to the kind of treatment I had younger but I wouldn't change a bit now
davidguetta 4y ago
I'm french and I believe there's at least 3 good reasons to have homeopathy in a state, and reimbursed, even if you don't believe in it: - Placebo effect always works, (improving by around ~ 20% your recorvery / curing process depending on the studies and metric). More importantly, and something which is often overlooked, it works EVEN IF YOU DON'T CONSCIOUSLY BELIEVE IN THE DRUG. - Homeopathy was given quite often at times where Doctors were generally prescribing too many antibiotics, especially to children, which we found later was generally detrimental to the immune system and promoting virus mutation. In general I believe there's way too many 'drugs' which are taken by the general population in mild cases which has the same effect. Basically if you don't believe in Homeopathy 'doing nothing' might often be better that 'doing something'. - There are a lot of people who sometimes are vaguely sick but don't really need something (like cold or some vaguely psychological stuff) who ARE going to take some shitty drug for the sake of feeling better, and such drugs are in general a lot more expensive than a tube of homeopathy is. So it also makes sense in the economic / healthcare viewpoint. Personally I had a lot of homeopathy young at a time when my general practitioner was super heavy handed an antibiotics and my parents wanted to try something else, and believe it or not it coincided to an quick improvement of my state. (from asmathic to not asmathic, from having heavy allergic reactions to mild ones later etc..). After that homeopathy was always the first line stuff I've took most of the time except for stuff like anginas which obviously require antibiotics (which funnily, that general practicioners are sometimes reluctant to give because "hey it could be viral"). Now, I'm honestly rarely sick in general, when I am it's super mild or invisible (ex: COVID) to the point I was shocked at the age of 27 that it was even possible to take a day off work or not being able to go do sport or party because you 'had a flu'. I literally though it was a joke when my collegue said that. Also I've recovered super fast from stuff which are supposed to take longer. Not sure how linked this is to the kind of treatment I had younger but I wouldn't change a bit now
- BrandoElFollito 4y ago
  I am French too and our social security is already is such a deficit that subventionning chalk and water did not have a place. People are free to but them off course, from their pocket. Why don't we subvention sport, which would have much better effects? Boiron (the biggest homeopathy scam) is sueing anyone who publicly states the truth (that all double blind tests failed). Together with our law on squatters this is a national shame.

166 points by dxs 4y ago

For a short time I worked for a major natural health nonprofit. What I learned about homeopathy is that it has no actual medical benefit whatsoever, and at best causes a placebo effect. Additionally, the use of belladonna and nightshade in the production of many homeopathic products should be considered the same as if something was made with arsenic. There has never been a substantive, peer reviewed study showing the benefits of homeopathy anywhere, ever.

dr_dshiv 4y ago
That’s not true. There are plenty of studies (see reply on, for instance, childhood ADHD) showing the benefits of homeopathy as a placebo. The whole concept of homeopathy has always been a mental effect with increased safety over allopathic medicine—and as such, homeopathy remains valuable for home treatments. Better and safer than vitamins and most allopathic medicines precisely because they don’t have real effects. People aren’t machines and treatments don’t need to be rational to be helpful.
- dr_dshiv 4y ago
  Just to back myself up here: consider childhood ADHD. Homeopathic pills have an effect size over 0.5 (half a standard deviation). Now, sure, maybe it’s a sugar pill and sure, maybe Ritalin is a better choice. But I think this example shows that homeopathy has an ethical place in human medicine. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41390-022-02127-3 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41390-022-02127-3
  - dr_dshiv 4y ago
    - carrotcarrot 4y ago
      It's one of the topics where the grey comments are the only ones with anything interesting to say. The rest are mainly repeating the correct opinion
  - pif 4y ago
    > A limitation of our analysis is, however, that the sample size of the individual studies was generally small [...] Thus, our results can be taken as an encouraging interim finding but should be corroborated by other, long-term studies.
    - dr_dshiv 4y ago
      To be clear, they analyzed 6 studies with an average of 52 patients. So, that’s about 300 or so kids.
    - carrotcarrot 4y ago
      All studies mention limitations (or are supposed to...). If the results were statistically significant this aside doesn't negate them.
  - korm 4y ago
    That is a meta analysis conducted by homeopathic doctors, on studies done by some "homeopathic institutes" and other such associations. It's curious how positive results only come from associates in an industry profiting from trying to convince you that their water, chemically indistinguishable from regular water, has magical healing properties through its memory of past events.
    - dr_dshiv 4y ago
      Water has memory! Or so says a popular snowman. In case you are curious, here is a rigorous research paper on the topic. It is extremely hard to evaluate. Any researcher who would try to do this sort of research is immediately suspect, so it takes a certain type. But I see no reason to dismiss a priori. See what you think (over 250 cites): Roy, R., Tiller, W. A., Bell, I., & Hoover, M. R. (2005). The structure of liquid water; novel insights from materials research; potential relevance to homeopathy. Materials Research Innovations, 9(4), 98-103. https://doi.org/10.1080/14328917.2005.11784911 https://doi.org/10.1080/14328917.2005.11784911
      - korm 4y ago
        I know it does, and that has been cited countless times by homeopathic studies. The problem is that you still need magic for it to have a biological effect. They dismiss this criticism as undiscovered science, in much the same way fairies and leprechauns are undiscovered animals. They'll often cite quantum mechanics and even cosmology, the more esoteric the better, to try to shoehorn science into their beliefs.
        dr_dshiv 4y ago
        No, but really— try reading the article I shared. It’s pretty interesting.
  - vhold 4y ago
    I wouldn't downvote you, but I think you should be aware that meta-analysis is making the case that homeopathy is better than placebo and has an unknown mechanism of working, which is a much bolder claim than you originally made. I disagree with the results of the risk of bias assessments of the studies involved in that meta-analysis: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41390-022-02127-3/tables/1 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41390-022-02127-3/tables/1 Out of the 6 studies used, only 2 are from general research institutions. The other 4 are all specialists in homeopathy or private practices using homeopathy. Seems like the risk of bias there would be extremely high.
- 1-more 4y ago
  > The whole concept of homeopathy has always been a mental effect Hahnemann's first homeopathic drug was to cure malaria. Are you saying it was meant to make you think you didn't have malaria?
  - dr_dshiv 4y ago
    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1297514/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1297514/ Take a look at the long history of “like cures like.” I should take back my claim that it is “always” viewed as a mental effect— things get a bit squishy in the olden days.
    - 1-more 4y ago
      > Take a look at the long history of “like cures like.” I did. It has nothing to do with the claim that homeopathy was only ever meant to be a mental effect. If you claim that then you're doing God-of-the-gaps but with homeopathy. That document lists a great number of like-cures-like cures from long before Hahnemann. However of note is that they don't claim that dilution makes medicine stronger. Chemo and radiation make you sick as a dog but they cure cancer. If we allow "like cures like" to be the only meaning of homeopathy (its name itself a synecdoche for the dual claims of homeopathy) then tons of real medicine is homeopathy. I get the impression that you're in this field. I once worked at a military contractor where my job was either to waste the tax dollars of productive members of society or enforce a global hegemony that will end human life on earth. There was a path out of there for me, and I'm sure there's a path out of there for you.
      - dr_dshiv 4y ago
        I’m not in the field. But thanks for reading. I don’t know when the dilution became part of the story. As you said, a lot of allopathic medicine is like cures like (such as vaccines).
        1-more 4y ago
        But "allopathic" means the opposite of "like cures like." Hahnemann created what we now call homeopathy and it included the dilution part. Also the like curing like is incidental to cures. It's the tail wagging the dog.
mizzack 4y ago
> Additionally, the use of belladonna and nightshade in the production of many homeopathic products should be considered the same as if something was made with arsenic. Hyoscyamine has been prescribed for decades https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyoscyamine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyoscyamine
- woodruffw 4y ago
  This doesn't contradict what the GP said: you shouldn't ingest nightshade just because we've been able to extract and safely medicate its constituent chemicals.

lalaland1125 4y ago

The popularity of homeopathic medicine, a concept so obviously wrong that even someone who doesn't understand chemistry can debunk it in seconds, is fascinating. Why are people drawn to such absurdly wrong medical cures? This says something really interesting about human psychology IMHO. Like at least chiropractic and ineffective herbal remedies have a somewhat plausible (but wrong) mechanism of action.

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snarf21 4y ago
I think a lot of it is just about "trust". They don't trust the government so they definitely don't trust FDA approved drugs or Big Pharma. I mean there are people who actually believe that the Covid vaccines contain nano transmitter trackers put there by Bill Gates. When you tell them there is some root from Chile that solves their issue, they trust that more than something built in a lab. I think the thing we need to change is that all of these homeopathic "medicines" and vitamins need to go through some clinical rigor. They should have to show the actual benefit of taking Vitamin XXX. We also need testing of these items at random. There are lots of these items that don't even contain the thing they claim they do. It is $40 Billion industry that has marginal benefit and is an outright scam in some cases.
- deleted 4y ago
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canadiantim 4y ago
The fact that you dismiss herbs, the very basis of most modern pharmacology, suggests to me that you have an axe to grind.
- deleted 4y ago
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canadiantim 4y ago

I know I'm going to get downvoted for this, but the peer-reviewed literature actually does support some beneficial effect of homeopathic remedies for some very specific conditions. Simply go to pubmed and type in homeopathy and you'll find the first few results showing meta-analyses of the available literature (which is actually quite a lot of studies) and you'll find evidence for the effect being more than just placebo. I think unfortunately homeopathy has been demonized because I'm sure there is plenty of snake oil being sold as homeopathic remedies, but this has led to people dismissing it entirely. I guess the biggest reason people dismiss homeopathy is we don't have an understandable mechanism for its effect, but it does seem that there is indeed an effect greater than just a placebo. People can dismiss the science, but that doesn't seem very rational to me.

beached_whale 4y ago
To be blunt, no you won’t
- civilized 4y ago
  I do not believe that homeopathy has an effect exceeding placebo, but... it is very easy to verify that the GP comment is at least partially correct: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?term=homeopathy https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?term=homeopathy Click on the link and you'll see that the top few results from PubMed for homeopathy do indeed include meta-analyses. On my side, the very first result is: #1 Homeopathy: meta-analyses of pooled clinical data. Hahn RG. Forsch Komplementmed. 2013;20(5):376-81. doi: 10.1159/000355916. Epub 2013 Oct 17. PMID: 24200828 Free article. Review. I highly doubt that the results depend on the user searching. The thing is, meta-analyses just don't prove as much as they're claimed to. There are meta-analyses "proving" all sorts of nonsense, like ESP: https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/04/28/the-control-group-is-out-of-control/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/04/28/the-control-group-is-o... Meta-analysis can't turn garbage into gold. If the studies in a meta-analysis are overwhelmingly low quality, the meta-analysis will also be unreliable.
  - beached_whale 4y ago

mistrial9 4y ago

neaden 4y ago
"after thousands of years of practices" It's important to note that much of what gets labelled as traditional Chinese medicine today is actually modern and invented by the Chinese government in the 60s.
- 1-more 4y ago
  A thing I've heard repeated, but I've never seen a citation for, is that during the cultural revolution China had a problem of not enough doctors to see all the patients with aches and pains who were guaranteed to get health care. So they plucked acupuncture from obscurity and established that as the thing you give to people who would feel better having seen a professional but don't have anything curable wrong with them. But like I've said: I've read this once on a skeptic blog and heard it repeated possibly by another reader thereof but I've never seen a citation for this and it may be smug western bullshit meant to portray China as cynical. IDK.
  - neaden 4y ago
    My understanding is it was a mix of things. Mao had a barefoot doctor program which emphasized practical learning and getting medical practitioners to rural areas. These practitioners had some valuable knowledge for things like hygiene, but also didn't have access to western drugs so emphasized herbs and other remedies. This was combined with Mao's desire to differentiate China from the USSR and emphasize Chinese cultural unity.
dekhn 4y ago
I mean, some of the most prominent CM includes mercury and was highly toxic. You'd think people would notice that.
- mistrial9 4y ago

dilap 4y ago

I find this rather obnoxious; if I wish to purchase a purely placebo homepathic remedy, let me. The idea that I will be confused and think the homepathic remedies are actual drugs because they are in the same aisle is absurd. "Thanks for a country where nobody's allowed to mind their own business." -- Thanksgiving Prayer, William Burroughs Edit: I have changed my opinion from "obnoxious" to "annoying" and retract my characterization of the danger of confusion as absurd -- per 3 comments, apparently people really are getting confused! So in light of the above, perhaps there is merit in more cleanly separating traditional pharmaceuticals and homeopathic remedies. It still seems heavy-handed to me personally to require it or file a lawsuit, but the case is not as without merit as I had originally assumed. I do continue to think this is actually just one battle in a war to prohibit alternative treatments entirely, which I still strongly disagree with, but time will tell if that's just paranoia on my part or well-founded.

richbell 4y ago
> I find this rather obnoxious; if I wish to purchase a purely placebo homepathic remedy, let me. Sure, just don't put placebo homeopathic "medicine" in deceptive packaging beside actual medicine. Put it in a section called "water and sugar pills" and clearly label that they contain no actual medical ingredients.
- dr_dshiv 4y ago
  How about vitamin c? It has about the same level of efficacy as a placebo. https://www.cochranelibrary.com/content?templateType=abstract&urlTitle=/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD000980.pub4&doi=10.1002/14651858.CD000980.pub4&type=cdsr&contentLanguage= https://www.cochranelibrary.com/content?templateType=abstrac...
  - richbell 4y ago
    This isn't really a compelling counter because supplements are commonly criticized for not doing what they're purported to do. I would love for the FDA to enact more stringent regulation on supplements. That said, unlike homeopathic medicine vitamins can at least be argued to contain medicinal ingredients.

MarkusWandel 4y ago

My local pharmacy (in Canada, not the above) has this too. I asked the pharmacist and got a shrug... people ask for the stuff so they stock it.

wollsmoth 4y ago
I wandered into a "Pharmacy" that was completely homeopathic. I had the runs and urgently needed some immodium or something. It was like a nightmare.
- shagie 4y ago
  Immodium is one of my "always have it stocked" things now. A few years ago, I had a bad case of the runs where Friday was "ok, that's uncomfortable" and Friday night was "this isn't good". Saturday was "I don't have enough energy to be able to safely drive a few blocks and back." I was able to call up a relative and they got some and dropped it off at my house. So that's always in my drug cabinet now so that I won't have that situation again. The chemistry part of it is neat: > It is an opioid with no significant absorption from the gut and does not cross the blood–brain barrier when used at normal doses. The "morphine giving you constipation" thing... this is the same, except that's all it does. I'll also note the WHO Model List of Essential Medicines - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WHO_Model_List_of_Essential_Medicines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WHO_Model_List_of_Essential_Me... - its under "Medicines for other common symptoms in palliative care" as Loperamide.
  - 1-more 4y ago
    I've heard of people using it to manage withdrawals when kicking opioid/opiate addictions. Indeed it would at least help with the diarrhea symptom when withdrawing. No idea how well it works.
    - shagie 4y ago
      Thus the "normal doses" part. The "unapproved use" section gets into that - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loperamide#Off-label/unapproved_use https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loperamide#Off-label/unapprove... > The primary intent of users has been to manage symptoms of opioid withdrawal such as diarrhea, although a small portion derive psychoactive effects at these higher doses. At these higher doses central nervous system penetration occurs and long term use may lead to tolerance, dependence, and withdrawal on abrupt cessation. Dubbing it "the poor man's methadone", clinicians warned that increased restrictions on the availability of prescription opioids passed in response to the opioid epidemic were prompting recreational users to turn to loperamide as an over-the-counter treatment for withdrawal symptoms.

daoist_shaman 4y ago

The brain is so powerful that just by believing something will work, it actually can work. This is the placebo response. We don’t know the mechanism [0] yet, but I think it is probably the same thing as manifestation [1]. I believe that visualization is powerful because once we have visualized something, we can start taking steps (either consciously or unconsciously) to actualize it. This could include reaching some goal, such as alleviating a disease state. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Placebo#Mechanisms https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Placebo#Mechanisms [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manifestation_(popular_psychology) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manifestation_(popular_psychol...

driverdan 4y ago
This is a misunderstanding of placebo. Placebos do not cure anything. They change the user's subjective observations. For example, they're effective for pain because pain is subjective.
- tcoff91 4y ago
  The placebo effect has been demonstrated many times to actually be able to alter objective bio markers and lab test results. This is why it’s so critical to do placebo controlled studies of drugs to determine that they actually have efficacy beyond the placebo effect. Having said this, the placebo effect is no justification for medical deception. When people want medicine they shouldn’t get sold placebos that are marketed as actual medicine.
- daoist_shaman 4y ago
  > A placebo presented as a stimulant may trigger an effect on heart rhythm and blood pressure, but when administered as a depressant, the opposite effect. If placebos have been experimentally observed to induce changes in their subjects, then it holds that placebos can be used to alleviate symptoms similarly to conventional medications. Comparing things to placebos does not imply that placebos have no effect. In some cases, placebos have very powerful effects, which is why we compare against them.
- deleted 4y ago
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LarsAlereon 4y ago

Ugh, I got bit by this at Walgreens I think it was. Went to buy some zinc lozenges for a cold, didn't notice the tiny "homeopathic" text on the label, got lozenges made with ingredients that might have touched a zinc molecule once.

carrotcarrot 4y ago
Zinc is homeopathic though?
- wincy 4y ago
  Homeopathy is a specific term that means “doesn’t actually have the substance in it”. I’m making no claims to the curative power of zinc but a lozenge with zinc in it is totally different from a “homeopathic zinc lozenge” which contains materials that were once mixed with zinc then diluted until no zinc remains. I’d be pretty mad if I bought “homeopathic gasoline” where someone puts a drop of gasoline into a million gallons of water then sells it to me as gasoline.
- sbf501 4y ago
  This is interesting because people will buy supplements that have no scientific basis for efficacy (biotin, mega-doses of Vit-C, St John's Wort) but they will deride homeopathy, which also has no scientific basis for efficacy. I'm not bashing zinc, because I don't know the science, but I am bashing homeopathy. Openly. Show me some double-blind studies. Unless the placebo effect is what you are selling, in which case, say that. EDIT: Thanks for the info on St John's Wort! I should have picked a better example.
  - astura 4y ago
    St John's Wort has a scientific basis though https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=St+John%27s+Wort+double+blind https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=St+John%27s+Wort+double...
  - perth 4y ago
    Interestingly enough there’s significant clinical evidence of St. Johns Wart acting as an SSRI and most serotonin-based medications warn about taking St. J’s Wart. See the indications for this other antidepressant for serotonin syndrome (St. John’s is listed as a potential cause): https://www.rxlist.com/effexor-drug.htm https://www.rxlist.com/effexor-drug.htm

logicalmonster 4y ago

I'm not a fan of homeopathic "treatments", but if the main argument for this trial is "the products were too close to others" that seems like a bullshit case. Something's legality shouldn't hinge on its distance from other legal things or arrangement in a store. Either a thing is legal or illegal. Moving it 5 feet to the right or 2 shelves down shouldn't change its legality if it's already a legal product with whatever government warning labels and disclaimers are required. What's next? Suing an art supply store because they had markers on the same shelf as highlighters?

neaden 4y ago
If there is an aisle that says Cold Medicine, and you put a product that is in fact not cold medicine but something designed to look like cold medicine and trick people into buying it because they think it is cold medicine, then it sure looks like you are purposefully trying to deceive people.
ceejayoz 4y ago
> Suing an art supply store because they had markers on the same shelf as highlighters? I dunno, it seems a bit more like the store getting in trouble for having lead paint right next to the section labeled "edible paints!" without much of a line between them. In my grocery store (Wegmans) they're slapped in the general "cold and flu" section. See https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/pasted-image-0-copy.jpeg https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/paste... from the article.
richbell 4y ago
> the products were too close to others" that seems like a bullshit case It's deceptive. If you're in a pharmacy and see a number of cold and flu medicine grouped together on one shelf, you'd be pretty pissed if you bought one and didn't realize that it was just Mike & Ikes with no medicinal ingredients. Your marker and highlighter example is flawed because those are both useful for writing and are usually distinct in packaging and form.
- RC_ITR 4y ago

sairahul82 4y ago

Homeopathy medicines are the best examples of the placebo effect. The common argument I often hear is that it worked for me in the past. Homeopathy people say it works slowly. It works slowly because you are giving your body enough time to cure itself. It works for some and some it doesn't work. Lot of people miss this basic logic. Some other people believe in homeopathy because it's a herbal medicine. These two are completely different. The fundamental logic of how Homeopathy medicine is created is flawed. From Wiki, "Homeopathic preparations are termed remedies and are made using homeopathic dilution. In this process, the selected substance is repeatedly diluted until the final product is chemically indistinguishable from the diluent." If you know basic chemistry you will know that this doesn't make sense.

Semaphor 4y ago
> repeatedly diluted until the final product is chemically indistinguishable from the diluent. That, at least according to Wikipedia [0], is only the case for C/D 12 and higher. It’s pretty clear to anyone, that weak (homeopathy says the higher the dilution, the stronger the effect) tinctures like D2 (so 1 part whatever in 100 parts water) will still be chemically distinct from just water. My parents use that as explanation why they use it and not the high concentrations (= high dilutions = pure water). Which requires more mental gymnastics than my brain can handle. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeopathic_dilutions#Potency_scales https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeopathic_dilutions#Potency_...

antisthenes 4y ago

Good. That's a start. IMO, homeopathic medicines should be packaged at least as prominently as cigarettes are labeled in the EU, e.g. big bold letters on every package that say "This is NOT real medicine" or "Pill shell only" or "Placebo Effect Only" I think oftentimes it gets a pass when it shouldn't due to certain factors: 1. Homeopathy shills are modern day Alchemists - they are really persuasive bullshit artists (trying to make money out of literal thin air) 2. Many people associate homeopathy with herbal remedies, which is ironic, because herbal remedies actually do have a measurable non-placebo effect. Many of the actual medicines are based on isolated plant compounds, etc. 3. It's still niche enough that it gets a pass, sort of like modern day Anti-vaxxers. So not a lot of harm from it simply due to being a small % of the population.

aimor 4y ago

I mistakenly bought homeopathic eye drops from a CVS once, for exactly this reason: I was in a rush, it was in between real medicine, I didn't notice the tiny "homeopathic" text on the package, and it was the lowest priced item. It didn't work, obviously, which is when I inspected the package more closely and was actually shocked (this was over 10 years ago) that CVS would sell homeopathics. I stopped shopping at CVS because of that, but they're not the only ones selling this junk. That experience got me reading up on what was and was not allowed to be sold in stores. Turns out consumers have to educate themselves: the US government doesn't sufficiently ensure items on store shelves are effective or even harmless.

aidenn0 4y ago
Same thing happened to my wife (but not eye drops). She was also in a rush. When I pointed out it said homeopathic on the back she was furious.
hansvm 4y ago
I think a good litmus test as to whether a thing is actually desired by consumers is how small the fine print is. Whether a person wants or does not want homeopathic sugar pills or organic food or whatever, they almost certainly want a label large and clear enough to distinguish the different sorts of goods. Stuffing that into fine print only serves to increase profits by deceiving people into paying more than they think they are for items less valuable than expected.

bastardoperator 4y ago

Homeopathic is just another word for bullshit. edit: Yeah downvote me, but look at every doctor selling these extremely high priced fake solutions to patients. When people with aids and cancer are getting sold what amounts to vitamins for tens of thousands of dollars, I'm sorry, but what else do you call it? There is no such thing as alternative medicine...

bityard 4y ago
It boggles my mind that my medical insurance covers homeopathic and chiropractic treatments. Which means that effectively, some portion of my astonishingly large medical insurance premium that I pay every month despite being in near-perfect health, goes to subsidize bullshit alternative medicine believers and lines the pockets of literal snake oil salespeople.
- mindslight 4y ago
  The core dynamic of health "insurance" is to restrict access to health care to pay out less, so offering up fraudulent placebo treatments make a lot of sense. Just be glad they don't force you to try using (those specific) fake cures for a year before they'll cover real treatment.

elmolino89 4y ago

I think in many countries one can not open a pharmacy without a proper paperwork/personnel with university degrees etc. IMHO it would be beneficial if every pharmacy store was visibly divided into "pharmacy proper" and "shampoo/water/wrinkles-be-gone cosmetics". Homeopathy should be expelled to tarot and crystal balls stores.

tradertef 4y ago

My health care provider has chiropractors in the same office with MDs. I think it is the same thing.

smsm42 4y ago
It'd be the same thing if the chiropractor was actually sitting on the other side of the planet and would do movements that'd hurt you if you were in the same room with them, but the theory were that since the action is so weak as to be imperceptible by you, it is actually somehow healing you, and the further the chiropractor is from you, the stronger is the effect. In fact, I wonder why nobody is doing homeopathic chiroptactic via Zoom yet... Looks like a good startup idea.
- chihuahua 4y ago
  I used to know some people who were pleased that they could received their Aura massage over the phone, as it saved the inconvenience of visiting their Aura massage provider in person. For those who are not fully caught up on Gwyneth Paltrow bullshit, an "Aura massage" involves a charlatan waving their hands near you, without touching you.
zackmorris 4y ago
I can't tell if you're supporting or criticizing chiropractic care, but I agree that its philosophy maybe aligns with homeopathic remedies. Someone has either had good results from chiro, or hasn't found a good practitioner yet IMHO. We forget that the body always heals itself, drugs are just a way to suppress an infection long enough for the immune system to catch up. I dunno, I would always recommend joint manipulation, massage, rehab/PT and other holistic and integrative approaches over surgery. I've known multiple people who have had stuff like back surgery and just not had a good result. Whereas athletes and gym rats like me come back from pretty significant injuries all the time. I view the body as fungible and almost an expression of the mind, not something that declines and needs all this medication. The magic pill is basically to show up and do the work, but nobody wants to believe that or that it's that simple, because practicing the discipline of proper exercise and nutrition can be hard. And frankly not always feasible in today's world which prioritizes external reward over internal health.

seer-zig 4y ago

I think this is as ironic as pharmacies selling cigarettes.

birdiesanders 4y ago
It is, but at least CVS stopped selling them years back. Now if only they could have a second stroke of rationality this would all be moot.

carapace 4y ago

Some thoughts... First things first, homeopathic remedies do help, but only if you're already mostly in tune in the first place. As a very crude metaphor, if you car is a little out of whack an oil change or lube job might be the thing, but if you've been in a serious accident no amount of pouring oil on the car will get the dents out, you gotta go to the boddy shop. Most of us are living in such a way (junk food, junk lifestyles) that homeopathic remedies are no better than placebos. (I don't really want to get into it, but, uh, water carries liquid crystal "echoes" of the chemicals, these can be detected and categorized by a simple reproducible protocol involving dripping water onto a transparent panel illuminated by polarized light, something like that. A Japanese scientist figured it out, but I lost the reference and haven't been able to locate it again. Sorry. If you're already in pretty good health then your system has what you might call "higher gain" on incoming stimuli, including the phantoms of the biomolecules encoded in the structures of the water molecules, which is enough to "remind" your system of, uh, balancing influences, without requiring actual "doses" of chemicals. Just like how hearing a faint echo of a song you like from, say, a passing car might make you recall it and groove to it all over again.) - - - - Anyway, second, the placebo effect, whatever it is, is real and very potent. The craziest thing I've heard about was placebo knee surgery. (O_o) A lot of approved medicines are no better than placebos. - - - - Third, yes, almost all supplements and herbal remedies that you can get over the counter are B.S. "What you have there are the ingredients for very expensive urine." as Dr, Cooper told Penny. (In my family it was the Vitamin C. Got a cold? Chew these C tablets. Nothing actually to it, vitamin C does not cure colds. It does affect your Ph balance which can affect your viscosity of mucus, however, that's not the reason we took it as kids. We took it because our parent though it was a kind of medicine, which it is not.) - - - - Last but not least, selling snake oil is an old and venerable custom here in America at least, and people like buying and using nostrums and potions. The last time the FDA tried to crack down on this stuff the public pushed back (the snake-oil sellers whipped them up a bit, but the general sentiment was "you'll take my magic beans from my cold, dead hands!" y'know?)

nortonham 4y ago

throw the f*cking book at them for marketing homeopathic shite next to real otc meds

breck 4y ago

Walmart and CVS you bastards. I've been buying your homeopathic products for years and am in perfect health—just think of how healthy I could have been had I been using "real meds"!

AlexandrB 4y ago

Everything you need to know about the ethics of the homeopathic industry can be gleaned from the 2016 poisoning of babies by homeopathic teething drugs: https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/01/fda-confirms-toxicity-of-homeopathic-baby-products-maker-refuses-to-recall/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/01/fda-confirms-toxicit... > After investigating reports that more than 400 babies were sickened and 10 died in connection with homeopathic teething products, the Food and Drug Administration confirmed Friday that it had indeed found elevated levels of the toxic substance, belladonna, in the products. > The National Center for Homeopathy, which has ties with Hyland’s, slammed the FDA, calling the agency’s warnings “arbitrary and capricious.” In an “action alert,” the organization went on to suggest that warning was prompted by “groups interested in seeing homeopathy destroyed” and led to “fear mongering” by the media.

jinpa_zangpo 4y ago
Although the levels in some of the products tested were elevated, in no case were the levels anywhere near a toxic dose. The amount of belladonna in the tablets were measured innanograms. https://cacmap.fda.gov/drugs/information-drug-class/laboratory-analysis-homeopathic-teething-tablets https://cacmap.fda.gov/drugs/information-drug-class/laborato...

yonatron 4y ago

"Homeopathy" - Hair of the dog that didn't bite you. -- JD Gershan

foxyv 4y ago

I wondered how the heck they get away with this. I guess they didn't.

todd8 4y ago

I briefly dated a woman from France that regularly took homeopathic “medicine”. It hold her that it didn’t do anything and her counter argument was that it was paid for though the French government health care system so it must be efficacious. I then said that just because some people believe the Moon affects our clouds doesn’t mean that it does; her reply was “everyone knows the Moon brings the rain.”

davidguetta 4y ago
I'm french and I believe there's at least 3 good reasons to have homeopathy in a state and reimbursed even if you don't believe in it: - Placebo effect always works, (improving by around ~ 20% your recorvery / curing process depending on the studies and metric). More importantly, and something which is often overlooked, it works EVEN IF YOU DON'T CONSCIOUSLY BELIEVE IN THE DRUG. - Homeopathy was given quite often at times where Doctors were generally prescribing too many antibiotics, especially to children, which we found later was generally detrimental to the immune system and promoting virus mutation. In general I believe there's way too many 'drugs' which are taken by the general population in mild cases which has the same effect. - There are a lot of people who sometimes are vaguely sick but don't really need something (like cold or some vaguely psychological stuff) who ARE going to take some shitty drug for the sake of feeling better, and such drugs are in general a lot more expensive than a tube of homeopathy is. So it also makes sense in the economic / healthcare viewpoint. Personally I had a lot of homeopathy young at a time when my general practitioner was super heavy handed an antibiotics and my parents wanted to try something else, and believe it or not it coincided to an quick improvement of my state. (from asmathic to not asmathic, from having heavy allergic reactions to mild ones later etc..). After that homeopathy was always the first line stuff I've took most of the time except for stuff like anginas which obviously require antibiotics (which funnily, that general practicioners are sometimes reluctant to give because "hey it could be viral"). Now, I'm honestly rarely sick in general, when I am it's super mild or invisible (ex: COVID) to the point I was shocked at the age of 27 that it was even possible to take a day off work or not being able to go do sport or party because you 'had a flu'. I literally though it was a joke when my collegue said that. Also I've recovered super fast from stuff which are supposed to take longer. Not sure how linked this is to the kind of treatment I had younger but I wouldn't change a bit now

davidguetta 4y ago

I'm french and I believe there's at least 3 good reasons to have homeopathy in a state, and reimbursed, even if you don't believe in it: - Placebo effect always works, (improving by around ~ 20% your recorvery / curing process depending on the studies and metric). More importantly, and something which is often overlooked, it works EVEN IF YOU DON'T CONSCIOUSLY BELIEVE IN THE DRUG. - Homeopathy was given quite often at times where Doctors were generally prescribing too many antibiotics, especially to children, which we found later was generally detrimental to the immune system and promoting virus mutation. In general I believe there's way too many 'drugs' which are taken by the general population in mild cases which has the same effect. Basically if you don't believe in Homeopathy 'doing nothing' might often be better that 'doing something'. - There are a lot of people who sometimes are vaguely sick but don't really need something (like cold or some vaguely psychological stuff) who ARE going to take some shitty drug for the sake of feeling better, and such drugs are in general a lot more expensive than a tube of homeopathy is. So it also makes sense in the economic / healthcare viewpoint. Personally I had a lot of homeopathy young at a time when my general practitioner was super heavy handed an antibiotics and my parents wanted to try something else, and believe it or not it coincided to an quick improvement of my state. (from asmathic to not asmathic, from having heavy allergic reactions to mild ones later etc..). After that homeopathy was always the first line stuff I've took most of the time except for stuff like anginas which obviously require antibiotics (which funnily, that general practicioners are sometimes reluctant to give because "hey it could be viral"). Now, I'm honestly rarely sick in general, when I am it's super mild or invisible (ex: COVID) to the point I was shocked at the age of 27 that it was even possible to take a day off work or not being able to go do sport or party because you 'had a flu'. I literally though it was a joke when my collegue said that. Also I've recovered super fast from stuff which are supposed to take longer. Not sure how linked this is to the kind of treatment I had younger but I wouldn't change a bit now

BrandoElFollito 4y ago
I am French too and our social security is already is such a deficit that subventionning chalk and water did not have a place. People are free to but them off course, from their pocket. Why don't we subvention sport, which would have much better effects? Boiron (the biggest homeopathy scam) is sueing anyone who publicly states the truth (that all double blind tests failed). Together with our law on squatters this is a national shame.