We’ve all heard of them. Parents who take their kids to deaths door using homeopathic remedies before grudgingly running them off to hospital. Now try and get them to admit that antibiotics are a friend of mankind and you will get a rabid assault on Big Medicine and the evils of antibiotics in particular. All over a glass of wine with a 14% alcohol content.
And how many screaming children have suffered garlic cloves shoved in their little ears before mommy wakes up and says oops, time to take baby to a real doctor.
Why do people still fall for this modern day witchcraft when there is study after university study to disprove it?
The James Randi foundation (who offer a million dollars to anyone who can prove the supernatural) famously had a pill popping day in 2009. People around the world consumed massive overdose quantities of homeopathic medicines to see what would happen. Of course absolutely nothing happened, because there is absolutely nothing in homeopathic pills except sugar.
Yet this snake oil has suddenly taken an almighty leap onto our pharmacy shelves and sits proudly alongside tried and tested products while riding on the coat-tails of science. In fact it should be banished to those new age fairs alongside magic crystals, reiki and those deformed pieces of organic fruit.
Homeopathic medicine is a placebo at best and a curse at worst because too many people believe it actually works, which can lead to leaving things too late.
Doesn’t it make sense to minimise our risks?
To quote James Randi: "Consumers have the right to know what they are buying. No one should walk out of a drugstore with a homeopathic product without knowing these basic facts: There is no credible evidence that the product does what it says. There is not one bit -- not a single atom -- of the claimed 'active ingredient' in the package, and no U.S. health agency has tested or approved the product."
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