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Research into homeopathy: data falsification, fabrication and manipulation
- pixelpoet 2y agoI wish more German doctors would acknowledge what utter quackery homeopathy is. Three separate doctors wanted to prescribe me homeopathy stuff last year, ended up not getting any help at all.
- Joeri 2y agoI think doctors do this when they want to give you a placebo. Pharmacies don’t carry placebos but they sure do carry a lot of products that don’t do anything except make you believe you took some medicine.
- Angostura 2y agoHence the note that UK GPs would sometimes put on patient’s notes: TEETH Tried Everything Else Try Homeopathy
- sgerenser 2y agoIn the U.S., sometimes a medicine is marked as “homeopathic” just to avoid regulation, and actually does contain a real active ingredient. This is the case with zinc lozenges (for colds), which contain an actual therapeutic dose of zinc but are presumably marketed as “homeopathic” since the FDA doesn’t regulate herbal or homeopathic “treatments.” Not sure if anything like that happens in Germany as well though.
- gwd 2y agoIs that "homeopathic" or "herbal / dietary supplement"?
- sgerenser 2y agoIt’s not actually homeopathic, but for some reason it uses the word “homeopathic” on the packaging (I’ve seen it on multiple brands). Example: https://coldeeze.com/collections/lozenges https://coldeeze.com/collections/lozenges
- gwd 2y agoWeird! Particularly as searching for "homeopathic" on that page doesn't turn anything up. I guess it's one of those things where it might help and can't hurt: anyone who knows enough to know that "homeopathic" is bogus, can look at the ingredients and determine that it's actually got zinc.
- cbsmith 2y agoYup. Our doctor recommended "homeopathic" medicine that was actually pretty standard treatment.
- captn3m0 2y agothis should count as false advertising.
- plorkyeran 2y agohttps://www.arnicare.com/about/arnicare-topicals/arnicare-cream/ https://www.arnicare.com/about/arnicare-topicals/arnicare-cr... is another example I've seen. The active ingredient is "Arnica montana 1X HPUS 7%", meaning they start at 7% and do a single 10:1 dilution, resulting in .7%. This is a pretty normal strength for a normal non-homeopathic cream but it's pretending to be homeopathic to avoid FDA evaluation.
- TillE 2y agoI like the German doctors who offer acupuncture and aromatherapy and such. It's just as nonsensical, but at least it's probably relaxing.
- skrebbel 2y agoI had hayfever, it got worse every year. The pills worked but make me sleep half the day. After some years of that, my wife forced me to try all the hippie shit that I didn't believe in, and the acupuncture lady simply fixed it. Not reduced symptoms, just entirely gone, after a few treatments every year. It still doesn’t make sense to me. The only explanation I can think of is a placebo but wow placebos kick ass then!
- quitit 2y agoDiscussions I have with doctors and pharmacists about this situation are generally unproductive. There is this pervasive resistance to change and deep ties to traditional approaches. A large chunk of the problem is that many common self-selection and over-the-counter medications are only by a doctor's prescription in German speaking countries. Low risk medications, which in other countries a consumer can safely select and administer, are only available over-the-counter at pharmacies, other low risk medications require a script - examples of these include basic pain medication(OTC), NSAIDs(RX), PPIs(RX), skin treatments(OTC), anti-fungals(RX), anti-biotic drops(RX). Pharmacies also generally have short hours on Saturday, and are not open on Sundays. Combining these factors leads to people seeking out a "solution", and those "solutions" are either homeopathic or merely just alcohol, since neither require a health care professional's assistance. There is also no shortage of homeopathic stores that promise therapeutic benefits, such as addressing fertility issues and chronic pain. Regulators regulate medicine, so non-medicines often fly under the radar, even when they're promoting medical therapies. There's so many ways that this system fails in comparison to modern approaches: Should a woman not have a sufficient stock of pain killers on a sunday during period cramps, her options would be to either beg a neighbour, or got to the emergency department of a hospital. In other countries, she could simply visit a supermarket or convenience store. Children with head lice can't receive a treatment without a doctor's prescription, but there's no shortage of proven ineffective products stocking pharmacy shelves, hoping that some desperate parent will buy it just to see if it works. A person with conjunctivitis needs to first visit a doctor, potentially waiting hours just to get the script, then hope that the pharmacy is still open. (Doctor's offices are frequently bogged down with people visiting for minor ailments because they can't get basic medications without it.) In the realm of sexual health: While other countries have dispensing sexual health clinics with easy access to treatments and prophylactic medications, those afflicted in Germany and similar are often needlessly waiting, or worse simply spreading disease. With some medications and inoculations only available via a hospital appointment. Overall it breeds distrust in the medical system and promotes unhealthy, worthless, scammy "alternatives".
- munchler 2y agoHomeopathy is total BS, but the placebo effect is real. Is there a way that medical science can allow people to benefit from the latter without rewarding quacks who push the former?
- exe34 2y agoprescribe distilled water.
- munchler 2y agoRight, but how to do this while preserving the placebo effect? If the patient knows it’s “just” water, the effect is lost. Some sort of deliberate deception seems to be necessary, which raises ethical problems.
- exe34 2y agoI've found placebos work really well on me even when I know they're placebos.
- ravi_m 2y agoYeah, homeopathy works due to the placebo effect and further boosted by people that subscribe to the anti-allopathic or Western medicine religion. I think it should be studied similar to how people go to Godmen for healing and report success stories - placebo effect + religious faith / belief.
- skrebbel 2y agoI’ve never understood why this isn’t explored more. It’s like, at some point we discovered the placebo effect, which has got to have been a pretty shocking result, right? I just can’t fathom that the entire scientific community just went “ah, hm, right, placebo. I see. I guess we need to do our random-controlled-trials with a placebo control group now”. Wait, that’s it? Nobody went “wtf woa we can cure a % of people with empty pills, how does that work and how can we up the %?” I just don’t get it, it seems to me that the existence of the placebo effect is hard evidence that there’s a mind-body connection and we can cure body stuff with mind stuff (and vice versa, probably), so why does nearly all of that remain firmly in alternative woo-woo land?
- AlexandrB 2y agoWhat I don't get about homeopathy is that there's not even a plausible mechanism for it to work. So research into its effectiveness is like studying how well rocks repel tigers[1]. It seems necessary to show that a homeopathic "medicine" is substantially different than plain old water first. [1] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4GzMizVAl-0&pp=ygUTc2ltcHNvbnMgcm9jayB0aWdlcg%3D%3D https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4GzMizVAl-0&pp=ygUTc2ltcHNvbnM...
- thadt 2y agoI dunno, I'd make the bold claim that most rocks will repel almost all tigers when deployed energetically enough.
- lamename 2y agoMany people who are into homeopathy have no notion of "mechanism". They don't know to ask such questions, or perhaps they don't care to. In the worst case scenario, they accept lack of mechanism because "there are things science doesn't know", especially if their personal experience (random charlatan demonstration) is duped into belief.
- financltravsty 2y agoThe plausible mechanism is placebo which is mediated by the autonomous nervous system. The same mechanism at play with back pain via either chiropractic (placebo) and the majority of spinal surgeries (placebo). Engineers and logical types take everything too much at face value (e.g. astrology and personality types, as well as health and fitness). The reality is usually that neither camp /really/ knows what they're doing, but have plausible (to them) explanations. Though empiricism is much more mentally rigorous than woo-woo/sham. Generally, if the treatment achieves the patient's desired goals -- I don't think it matters (barring severe ethical concerns like body integrity dysphoria). People not generally educated in a Western background are more likely to be susceptible to placebo or "magic" (this includes the less educated in the anglosphere but also the majority in foreign countries). Barring life-saving procedures, most elective medicine is -- imco -- on a similar, if not slightly higher standing compared to homeopathy et al.
- fabian2k 2y ago
- secfirstmd 2y agoObligatory Mitchell and Webb: Homoeopathy Accident and Emergency Ward https://youtu.be/HMGIbOGu8q0 https://youtu.be/HMGIbOGu8q0
- cbsmith 2y agoSooo good.
- gumby 2y ago> 128th ‘German Medical Assembly’ recently declared that: “the use of homeopathy … is not an option that is compatible with rational medicine, the requirement for the best possible treatment and an appropriate understanding of medical responsibility and medical ethics”. I find this interesting because it was a German example a few years ago that demonstrated that homeopathy could be ethical in a specific case. My mother in law (in Germany) had cancer, and eventually things reached the point where any further chemotherapy was pointless. So she went home. But they stocked her up with homeopathic "therapies" and she was quite diligent in taking them in the morning and thropugh the day. At first I was appalled, but then I realised that they gave her a sense of agency over her care. I think this had important psychological value over the beginning of the terminal phase of her life. Now I can't believe this works for everyone -- I can't imagine I would waste my remaining time on such nonsense. But I don't think she had a good grasp of science (she always wanted one of her kids, or me, to go with her to the doctor and to explain things to her) and she never had any access to the Internet to look things up, so she was probably the ideal candidate to benefit from this nonsense. Drinking water out of tiny bottles isn't any different from praying at that stage of your life and that's considered acceptable and even unremarkable in certain circles. PS: The Ukraine war made me think of her cancer -- it was a very unusual one and I have always believed it was due to some Chernobyl fallout.
- gumby 2y agoIf homeopathy "theory" says that the water retains an "imprint" of other chemicals it encountered, clearly the tap water coming into your house is horribly contaminated with the fish pee, ozone (from UV purification treatment) and the pipes themselves. I briefly considered selling a device that would "reverse" those consequences so the water from your tap would be homeopathically neutralized. But it just seemed unethical to take advantage of the poorly educated. It's bad enough there are people selling crystals, bibles, and magic charms -- selling a scam-device like this is just as unethical.
- charles_f 2y ago> clearly the tap water coming into your house is horribly contaminated with the fish pee, ozone (from UV purification treatment) and the pipes themselves. But then, the next concept is "like cures like". Why do you think people are so immune to fish piss?
- brendoelfrendo 2y agoBoy, I bet all those people in Flint, Michigan are glad they're immune to lead now.
- charles_f 2y agoIf they get sick that's only because of the mercury in those vaccines.
- gumby 2y agoIs it supposed to be my fault, or the governor's fault that they chose to live in Flint and not Palo Alto or the Upper East Side of Manhattan? If you make bad choices, take responsibility and bear the consequences. That's the American Way. It ain't my problem, Jack!
- AnnikaL 2y agoWhat will you say to people in Palo Alto who experience earthquakes, or Manhattanites who experience flooding?
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- karaterobot 2y agoI have dry eyes, and years ago my optometrist basically ordered me to buy a particular brand of homeopathic eye drops to use every day. All the drops have to do is wash off the surface of my eyes, and we don't want them to do anything but that. His point was that because they're homeopathic, they won't actually do anything, and because they're a reputable homeopathic brand, you can be pretty sure they don't contain anything that accidentally does something. Homeopathy as a way to ensure you're not getting medicine. Interesting way to look at it, I thought.
- KennyBlanken 2y agoTwo years after Oncology said they'd take the whole thing Very Seriously and Do A Thorough Investigation, Frass's article is still up on Oncology's website - not a single disclosure, notice, etc when it should have been retracted: https://theoncologist.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/onco.13548 https://theoncologist.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.10... He even got caught modifying the procedures of his study part-way through: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9470608/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9470608/ What infuriates me is that health insurers in my jurisdiction are required to pay for "naturopathy." yet if I ask for the non-generic version of a medicine because the generics only have to deliver between 80% and 120% of what the non-generic does, different non-active ingredients, and different delivery / time release mechanisms...I get denied!
- popularrecluse 2y agoPackaging on homeopathic products should have at least the same size warnings as tobacco products.
- borbtactics 2y agoI still don't understand why these can be sold in American pharmacies.
- Apreche 2y agoThey couldn’t. But then a law called the DSHEA was passed that changed all the rules.
- spenczar5 2y agoI for one am glad they they sell clean water in pharmacies, and support its continued sale!
- Tagbert 2y agoBecause they are not labeled as medical products. It is a loophole.
- explaininjs 2y agoBecause every bottle is clearly labeled “The FDA has not evaluated this for treating any condition”. There are a great many products that the FDA hasn’t evaluated that are still sold, why should these be any different?
- calvinmorrison 2y agoBut why are businesses like CVS hawking snake oil while also having trained pharmacists on staff.
- Angostura 2y agoIt makes money
- KennyBlanken 2y agoMost pharmacies used to sell tobacco products (they only started to do so after a couple of states started banning the practice.) Walgreens still does (in states where it isn't banned from doing so). https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/pharmacy/walgreens-tests-tobacco-free-stores-but-won-t-stop-all-tobacco-sales.html https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/pharmacy/walgreens-tes... > "The safety of our patients is very important, but we also have to do what our customers are requiring us to do," Walgreens CEO Stefano Pessina told the WSJ. "We see that when we don’t sell tobacco, we have a lot of [negative] reactions."
- austin-cheney 2y agoHomeopathy is BS, but understanding of edible foraging and plant chemistry is surprisingly helpful for better health and diet. As an example onions and garlic do nothing to cure or address asthma. They do contain an active chemical that vaporized when they are cut which causes uncontrolled tear production. That same chemical agitates the throat in a way that arrests some amount of night coughing induced by asthma. Another example is that wild lettuce is a drug like opium. Opium is a thistle, as are artichokes, and thistles are closely related to the lactuca genus that comprises lettuce. The drugs in both opium and lettuce are found in the plant latex containing two analgesics and a depressant. Lettuce drug, lactucarium, is not known to be habit forming and is minor though. It is just recommended as a topical treatment for minor skin injuries. Another is that common fruits like pears, apples, and citrus contain drug like chemicals that alter the metabolism. This is super potent in grapefruit and has been known to cause fatal drug interactions in people on prescribed medicine. These chemicals are again magnified in commercial fruit juice since commercial fruit juice represents a high concentration of juice than found in actual fruit and without any fiber to slow digestion. If you find yourself mixing gold flakes with liquor and orange juice you might be inducing long term metal toxicity to your body even though gold is inert under normal dietary conditions.
- KennyBlanken 2y ago> Another is that common fruits like pears, apples, and citrus contain drug like chemicals that alter the metabolism. This is super potent in grapefruit and has been known to cause fatal drug interactions in people on prescribed medicine. Grapefruit does not "alter the metabolism." Furanocoumarin binds to a receptor in the gut which causes some medications to pass through the gut much faster than normal which affects the level of the medicine in the blood. That has nothing to do with "metabolism." It also only affects some medications. You might want to refrain from commenting on medicine until you have an actual science-based education in it.
- fabian2k 2y agoGrapefruit contains compounds that inhibit Cytochrome P450 and this will affect how various drugs will be metabolized. That is a very direct effect on metabolism and will affect a variety of drugs, but certainly not all of them.
- bratwurst3000 2y agoThe joke about homeopathy is that the guy that invented it knew that it didn’t work. He invented an heal plan that included fresh air and forrest walks and good food and exercise… the obvious today. But his patients wanted also medicine too … because you know that’s how people are apparently… so he invented homeopathy and the nice story to it. But people should primary do the other things. It’s funny that only his fake medicine is so successful today.
- ThinkBeat 2y agoI had horrible pollen allergies. My mother took me to a homeopath (in addition to regular doctors) She prescribed some tablets / pills to dissolve under the tunge, that had some pollen in them. It worked pretty well for allergies but not the best for teeth. Just building up resistance I would think. I know you can get similar treatment now from regular doctors. So my one and only interaction was fairly successful. I have never sought one out for anything else.
- pizza234 2y agoWell, it's interesting - based on your description, the medication you took is not homeopathic: > 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 in a preparation there is a measurable quantity of the active ingredient, then it's not an homeopathic preparation.
- munchler 2y agoOne of the problems with homeopathy is that many practitioners don’t understand what homeopathy actually means. It’s essentially synonymous with “naturopathy” for them.
- didgeoridoo 2y agoIndeed, that sounds more like a “naturopath” which can be both more effective and more dangerous than homeopathy because their remedies actually contain active ingredients (although in somewhat random and nonstandardized quantities).
- GenerocUsername 2y agoThat's not the entirety of homeopathy, just the most commonly shat on ridiculous homeopathic practice
- CoastalCoder 2y ago> That's not the entirety of homeopathy, just the most commonly shat on ridiculous homeopathic practice Uugh. It's really hard to productively discuss a topic when people have different definitions for the terms being used.
- charles_f 2y agoI regularly had arguments on homeopathy with some close family members. I stopped, because belief in homeopathy is the same kind of belief as belief in flat-earth, and you can't be cured off it. People get seduced by a somewhat internal logic. They get a fuzzy feeling of superiority in their discovery that the mainstream ignores. If you point out the absolute lack of evidence of any of what they believe in, it's because pharma is silencing them. They are excited to be enlightened, because only they can see how crooked big pharma is: they need you to be sick so you can buy their "allopathic medicine" (derogatory calling of drugs that actually work), so they're trying to kill homeopathy who would really save you ; which to be fair is not helped by the fact that pharmaceutical companies are indeed crooked and want you to be sick. I don't think there's any volume that can be said on homeopathy that will convince anyone who already believes in it that it's all a scam.
- thinkingtoilet 2y agoThere's more to it. I am someone who has had medical problems that took years to diagnose. I had doctors who were terrific and I had doctors be almost accusatory when the tests they ran came back negative. When the medical establishment fails you it's tough, and there plenty of snake oil salesmen who are happy to sell you a cure THE MEDICAL ESTABLISHMENT DOESN'T WANT YOU TO KNOW ABOUT!!! I can see the allure when there's literally no one else to turn to.
- strongpigeon 2y agoI've heard of a strategy that can help some people challenge their belief for issues like homeopathy or flat earth. The idea is to ask them to rate on a scale of 1-10 the strength of their belief. As in, "how convinced are you on a scale of 1-10 that the earth is flat?". If they give anything less than 10, you then follow up by asking them why that score and why not a higher or lower score as in (if they said e.g., 8/10): "What would make it a 9/10 or a 10/10?". Basically having them "ironman" the opposite side of the argument can cause people to start to think more objectively about the issue. However, if the person says 10/10 there apparently isn't much that can be done. I've never tried this myself as I don't have any flat earther or homeopathy believers in my entourage, but it does seem to make sense and I've used this to question some of my beliefs myself. Not saying it would work with your family members either though.
- pizza234 2y agoI'm a staunch supporter of homeopathic remedies. I drink more than 2 liters of homeopathic solution per day. /s
- nw05678 2y agoIf it worked and had the scientific evidence behind it then would be called medicine.
- o11c 2y agoIt depends on the target market. There are some medicines that do actually work, but they're advertised toward the people who believe in homeopathy, so they are labeled as homeopathic.
- worik 2y ago> There are some medicines that do actually work, but they're advertised toward the people who believe in homeopathy, so they are labeled as homeopathic. Really? That is a claim that could be backed with an example
- zaik 2y agoSomeone gives an example here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40886084 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40886084
- golergka 2y agoHow much of other modern research has the same amount of issues, but doesn't have any motivated critics to uncover it?
- AlbertCory 2y agoI've now known two people quite well, who either had cancer or their spouses did. Both of them went all-in for the woo-woo. One went to Mexico for it. Both are dead now. If you make it illegal in the US, they'll just get it from another country. Because some people are just susceptible to this stuff.
- jhawleypeters 2y agoIt’s comforting to think of medical professionals as competent and trustworthy, but it’s simply not universally true. Medical mistakes are the third leading cause of death in the U.S. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK499956/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK499956/ Homeopathy is basically mistake proof compared to real medicine, including a doctor visit. For a sufficiently minor ailment, avoiding risk of a potentially lethal mistake is just safer.
- musicale 2y agoWeren't zinc lozenges a homeopathic remedy?