Killed by Homeopathy

http://thonyc.wordpress.com/2012/12/08/killed-by-homeopathy/

by ColinWright • 14 years ago

63 180 14 years ago

thonyc.wordpress.com

jere2• 14 years ago

>The next time somebody tells you that homeopathy is harmless you can tell them that it killed one of the greatest mathematical minds of the nineteenth century on whose algebraic logic both the soft- and the hardware of your computer function.

Interesting, but as practiced homeopathy today is harmless (ignoring opportunity cost). It's basically the equivalent of drinking tap water.

ColinWright3• 14 years ago

Yes, but there are now more accounts being unearthed of people foregoing or declining conventional treatments because they have become convinced that homeopathy will cure them. Promoting homeopathy, if successful, can result in more deaths.

yason3• 14 years ago

That's stepping on the jurisdiction of those people over themselves. Everyone is entitled to believe in whatever they want to and live by that. They might die but it's their death, not other people's.

Mz38• 14 years ago

Prescription drugs kill lots of people too. No one ever cites that as reason to skip seeing a doctor.

Not to dismiss your valid concern, the problem is that when doctor's kill someone, the death gets blamed on a disease or on the patient not taking the medication correctly, etc. But when an alternative treatment is used and death occurs, it is used to smear all alternative treatments. The climate is already biased against meaningful discussion of such things.

monochromatic• 14 years ago

Eschewing real medicine because of your belief that tap water will cure your illness is harmful. I guess that's what you meant by "opportunity cost" though.

jere2• 14 years ago

Yes, it is.

SideburnsOfDoom3• 14 years ago

It can be a hell of an opportunity cost. For example this case: http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/-/breaking/13310801/woman... http://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/in_the_news/a1443763-Homeopath-b...

And this case: http://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/son-taken-away-by-mother-t...

and this case: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-12153074

VMG7• 14 years ago

Full reference at http://whatstheharm.net/index.html

rotskoff• 14 years ago

Steve Jobs?

rdtsc• 14 years ago

> (ignoring opportunity cost)

Opportunity cost when having cancer could mean dying from cancer while drinking sugar water. Yes placibo effect and all, but that's rather high cost if you ask me.

mikeash4• 14 years ago

Saying that homeopathy is harmless if you ignore the opportunity cost is like saying that guns are harmless if you ignore all the damage the bullet does when it hits your body. Both are true statements that are also completely useless.

newobj• 14 years ago

Homeopathy killed someone once. Allopathy killed someone once. I guess we're just screwed.

halviti3• 14 years ago

Terrible article.

My dad is a medical doctor. Because I spent a large amount of my life living in the same house as him does not make me a medical doctor.

If I tried to treat someone who was suffering from pneumonia, and they died because of something stupid that I did, would modern medicine be responsible?

You can hate on homeopathy all you want, but the conclusions being drawn here are utterly ridiculous, and anyone that finds themselves agreeing with this FUD suffers from a severe case of confirmation bias.

SideburnsOfDoom3• 14 years ago

Are you saying that homeopathy is effective when administered by someone who does know what they're doing?

Because the alternative conclusion is that homeopathy is never effective, and the conclusion being drawn is true.

halviti3• 14 years ago

No, please read. There are no conclusions to be drawn here.

Just because someone does something stupid does not mean anything.

There is no evidence that this woman ever studied homeopathy, or that this whole wet towel thing is even a treatment used by homeopaths.

dlytle3• 14 years ago

He's saying that homeopathy is not directly lethal when applied by someone who knows what they're doing.

There was a case recently where a woman was doing unlicensed "plastic surgery" by pumping rubber cement into incisions in people's butts. Her absolute incompetence can't be reasonably used as a critique against the plastic surgery industry.

There are plenty of perfectly good data points to use against homeopathy practitioners. This case is definitely not one of them.

pathy2• 14 years ago

Except homeopathy practitioners are not medical doctors and even "correctly applied" homeopathy will not cure anyone to begin with.

Drinking water (homeopathy) is not going to cure my (hypothetical) cancer, it will kill me since I (hypothetically) refuse other treatments.

mercurial• 14 years ago

On the other hand, drinking water would not have killed Boole.

stephencanon• 14 years ago

"Mainstream" medicine has almost certainly killed vastly more people than will ever be killed by homeopathy.

The difference, of course, is that it has also kept countless people alive (to say nothing of improving quality of life for others). Homeopathy has never kept anyone alive.

silvestrov• 14 years ago

"Mainstream" medicine has certainly saved vastly more people than will ever be saved by homeopathy.

glesica2• 14 years ago

There is also the problem of absolute versus relative numbers. Even discounting the number of people saved, mainstream medicine has possibly still killed more. But it has also been used on more people, hence the "mainstream" designation.

wissler3• 14 years ago

Homeopathy has never kept anyone alive.

I'm sure there are cases where it did, e.g. by virtue of offering something benign in place of something in the mainstream that might have killed.

People are comforted by the thought that modern medicine has completely transcended the barbarity of its own past, but doctors are humans and, on average, are subject to the same kinds of irrationality as everyone else is, and if you're unlucky enough to have to get up close to modern medicine and if you pay attention, you'll see the barbarism very clearly.

rmc2• 14 years ago

I'm sure there are cases where it did, e.g. by virtue of offering something benign in place of something in the mainstream that might have killed.

When homeopathy was invented about 150 years ago, it was actually safer than real medicine, but that's because real medicine was quite dangerous, and homeopathy wasn't actually any treatment, so the "doing nothing" approach (homeopathy) was safer than the current real medicine.

However real medicine has gotten a lot better.

btilly• 14 years ago

I'm married to a doctor. I could not agree with this comment more.

If you're sick, modern medicine is far and away your best hope. It is not kind. It is not wise. It does not maintain the standards that practitioners would like us to believe. Nor are those practitioners as knowledgeable and wise as they would like us (and themselves) to believe.

It is still your best hope. Flaws and all, you should depend on it for your life.

misnome• 14 years ago

> Homeopathy has never kept anyone alive.

I bet there are an awful lot of dehydration survivors that would disagree with you, there.

lutusp24• 14 years ago

>> Homeopathy has never kept anyone alive.

> I bet there are an awful lot of dehydration survivors that would disagree with you, there.

But those who survived dehydration didn't survive because of homeopathy, they survived because of the accompanying water. If an astrologer pulls someone out of a burning car, does that support the scientific standing of astrology?

kamaal3• 14 years ago

>>Homeopathy has never kept anyone alive.

Sorry but I call this 'Allophic Arrogance', Which basically results out of overzealous overconfidence in something. Hating something just because its old.

Ancient systems of medicines work all the time. Despite your dislike.

Around three years, back I had a serious mal absorption problem. In 8 months, I lost a straight 30 kgs. I was around 48 kgs and life was going no where. Allopathy doctors almost killed me, the only thing the ever did was trial and error. And if that didn't work send me through rounds and rounds of tests. Net result was burning a lot of money for no sight of cure.

Then Ayurveda came to my rescue. Life has been a blessing since. My problem vanished like a whisper. In fact everything the Ayurvedic doctor has told me has come true to today's date.

I know modern medicine has advanced stuff like vaccination and surgery. Which saves many lives. And we must be appreciative of that. But that doesn't mean, we need to belittle something else.

Different things works for different people. And if it works for them, who are we to say otherwise?

lutusp24• 14 years ago

> Different things works for different people. And if it works for them, who are we to say otherwise?

The classic defense of astrology. Welcome to the world of science, of objective, dispassionate research. Welcome to modern times, where people compare their ideas to reality.

You do remember reality, yes?

illuminate15• 14 years ago

"Sorry but I call this 'Allophic Arrogance', Which basically results out of overzealous overconfidence in something. Hating something just because its old."

There are little things more arrogant than using a false modality to attack evidence-based medicine.

delinka• 14 years ago

"...he was in all probability killed by homeopathy."

And that's where I stopped.

People do stupid things. Sometimes, someone dies. Happens with cars every day, and we blame the idiot (criminal charges, lawsuits, media coverage...) Happens with guns and the law blames the idiot while the media blames the guns. This blog author's in the group with the media blaming whatever fits the current agenda.

danso3• 14 years ago

Well yes, idiocy is the cause of such deaths, but to live life just as "well, idiocy strikes again" is to live life a little more fatalistic than most of us prefer. At the very least, if we can legitimately show that homeopathy is the result of idiocy, than it becomes easier to identify the idiots who may someday harm us if we leave our healthcare in their hands.

VMG7• 14 years ago

Can't be true.

Homeopathy says that the potency increases with dilution - since the blankets were very wet, they couldn't have had any effect.

dlytle3• 14 years ago

Homeopathy is a gigantic scam that depends solely upon the placebo effect. But this specific case is a really stupid one to use as an indictment. It's like railing against the liquor industry because someone was beaten/stabbed to death with a liquor bottle.

I think it's more appropriate to say that the improper application of homeopathy killed him - so, not unlike the improper application of any number of legitimate medical techniques. The difference here is that the proper application of medical techniques might have helped, whereas the proper application of homeopathic techniques would have done nothing.

VMG7• 14 years ago

Still, the fundamental idea of "Like cures like" is what stuck with his wife and was eventually fatal.

I'd chalk this death under "unscientific thought induced by homeopathic philosophy".

bitcartel• 14 years ago

This is serious stuff for Brits.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevensalzberg/2012/09/10/new-br...

"Well, this is one way to save money on health care. The new British Minister of Health, Jeremy Hunt, is a firm believer in homeopathy, which treats disease using magic water solutions that contain – well, only water."

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn22241-hail-jeremy-hunt...

"Hail Jeremy Hunt, the new minister for magic."

"The fortunes of the UK's National Health Service (NHS) are about to be transformed with the help of the magical waters of homeopathic medicine... the UK's new health minister, Jeremy Hunt – who replaced Andrew Lansley yesterday in a government reshuffle – thinks that homeopathy works, and should be provided at public expense by the NHS."

"John Krebs, professor of zoology at the University of Oxford, said: "There is overwhelming evidence that homeopathic medicine is not effective. It would be a real blow for those who want medicine to be science-based if the secretary of state were to promote homeopathy because of his personal beliefs."

pi18n• 14 years ago

How is it possible for these nutbars to get influential positions overseeing the very field they are nutty in? There are a bunch of US examples as well, so I'm assuming it's a global phenomenon. It doesn't make any sense, and honestly there should be a process to prevent people who believe in magic from informing policy.

riffraff2• 14 years ago

you are assuming people get put into a position overseeing X because they are competent in X, which is, most likely, a factor with minimal influence in the complex equation that determines who does what.

I mean, by definition someone who's specialization is "being a politician" can't have it as "being an expert of medicine & healthcare".

dmix2• 14 years ago

"The Iron Law of Bureaucracy"

The administrators are the ones who get power in government, not those who are dedicated to the goals of the field.

http://www.jerrypournelle.com/reports/jerryp/iron.html

naner• 14 years ago

I was pretty floored when I saw homeopathy cold remedies on the same shelf as actual cold medicine at a US Walgreens. I'm sure people who aren't very careful end up purchasing the homeopathic item by accident.

This bizarre experience made me wonder about the companies that formulate and produce this stuff. Do they actually go through the trouble of diluting things to ridiculous level or do they just skip the tedious part and sell inert capsules? You have to believe most people that work for these companies are con men and not actually true believers.

lukeschlather• 14 years ago

From a scientific perspective there may be a decent case for putting placebo cold medication next to the real stuff. If the real stuff has 50% efficacy but has side effects x, y, and z, there's something to be said for selling someone a 30% effective placebo with no real side effects. It makes us queasy, since you're effectively selling nothing, but at the same time nothing is not always nothing.

polyfractal8• 14 years ago

And, at the end of the day, the patient is just suffering from a cold. Medicine or no, they will get better in a week. Placebo can help alleviate discomfort and pain to some degree, because that is something the mind has some sway over. So in cases of simple illness...placebo is a somewhat valid medicine.

Now, when people start taking homeopathy for cancer or whatever, that's a different story.

EDIT: To be clear, I think it's kinda ridiculous they are allowed to sell it too. But I suppose it isn't too different from "nutritional supplements" that have ambiguous value.

debreuil• 14 years ago

Except pneumonia is from bacteria - you don't get it, or get worse from it based on temperature or wetness. It is important to be sure you are actually on the side of science before laughing at those who aren't.

sesqu• 14 years ago

Well, body temperature has been linked to immune system performance. So wet towels can arguably worsen a pneumonia.

GiraffeNecktie• 14 years ago

Except that wrapping someone in wet bedsheets has nothing whatsoever to do with homeopathy. Homeopathy might be a crock but this article is ridiculous.

eof• 14 years ago

I don't support tax-funded homeopathy by any stretch (and think it is almost certainly bollocks in and of itself); however, the story about the bed sheets is not homeopathy.

Perhaps you could still claim homeopathy did the killing because the wife in the story 'misapplied' the "like cure like" conjecture; as wet bedsheets are not a diluted-herb-magic-water-solution.

I have spent more than zero energy talking with people about spending energy being anti-homeopathy. I think homeopathy is fine, and not harmful.

Every single person I know personally that believes in homeopathy also uses traditional western medicine (with far more vigour and enthusiam than myself); though I suppose if people are rejecting antibiotics and instead sprinkling magic water on themselves then it's a problem, but I would still have a hard time seeing Homeopathy itself as harmful. It's just a game.

My personal relationship to true homeopathy (diluted magic water substances) is something like this:

- Seems really unlikely to me anything is happening.

- I could sooo easily be wrong about this, I recognize revolutions in our understanding of the universe happen frequently, and the future winners are always dismissed/laughed at while the old guard remain in power positions

- The people who believe in homeopathy are also generally much, much more emotive / socially intelligent / free with love / full of what appears to be healthy energy.

This leaves me extremely skeptical; but in the end open minded enough that I don't see any benefit to spending energy demonizing the ultimately non-harmful act of diluting flowers in water and thinking its magic.

Anything anti-science is ultimately harmful if it is taught as science; and no one should have to subsidize other's childish fancies; but so long as we aren't teaching homeopathy in medical schools, or using tax money to subsidize its use; I really don't see anything wrong with its existing.

And I do see this article to essentially be propaganda; whose only primary purpose is to demonize homeopathy, and I think this betrays some sort of chip on the shoulder of the author. Maybe I am projecting because I have seen this chip so often elsewhere; I just don't understand it.

I mean, who the f really cares--and, if you really aren't humble enough to recognize that your understanding of the world is not so perfect as to absolutely eliminate the possibility of some unrecognized mechanism of 'imprinting information onto matter' through this likely quackery--then you should take a quick read of the Structure of Scientific Revolutions.

tlrobinson• 14 years ago

"I think homeopathy is fine, and not harmful."

Extremely diluted water isn't harmful. Replacing real medicine with homeopathic treatments is.

robbrown451• 14 years ago

Putting a wet blanket on someone who had gotten sick from a downpour is not homeopathy. Unless the wet blanket is, statistically speaking, less than a molecule in size.

kmavm2• 14 years ago

I enjoy a good homeopathy-bash as much as the next guy, but Boole died of an infectious disease. The rain storm he walked through, and the wet blankets he was wrapped in, had nothing to do with the bacterium that killed him. The "cold sensations cause pneumonia" folklore this article relies on is as much magical thinking as the homeopathy it invites us to smugly chortle at.

dmix2• 14 years ago

If he used homeopathy instead of an available recognized medical treatment for the disease then the articles position still holds.

kmavm2• 14 years ago

It was 1864. There were not even a germ theory that had any power to explain his illness, let alone antibiotics with which to treat him.

prakster2• 14 years ago

Not afraid to say it: I have directly benefited from homeopathy. Specifically: Treated my heartburn with "Carbo Veg 30" and now it's gone. Don't care what anybody says or might think about the placebo effect - or any other argument, for that matter.

illuminate15• 14 years ago

Do you actually understand what homeopathy is?

Pills with active dry ingredients are not homeopathic, no matter what the label says.

http://skeptico.blogs.com/skeptico/2005/06/if_it_has_any_i.h...

prakster2• 14 years ago

No I don't, but that was not my point.

drchristo• 14 years ago

HOMEOPATHY WORKS AND IS THE MOST ADVANCED SCIENCE OF HEALING

Bignamini M, Saruggia M, Sansonetti G. Homeopathic Treatment of Anal Fissures using Nitricum acidum Berlin Journal on Research in Homoeopathy, 1, 4/5, 286-287, December 1991. Patients using Nitricum acidum 9C once daily in a double blind placebo controlled trial found subjective relief with the medicine over the placebo

.Kleijnen et al 'Clinical trials of homeopathy' Br Med J. 1991; 302: 316-23 Kleijnen reviewed by meta-analysis controlled trials in humans for evidence of efficacy. Of 105 trials with interpretable results there was a positive trend regardless of trial quality or the variety of Homeopathy used; 81 indicated positive results, 24 showed no positive effects. Publication bias and low methodological quality inhibit definite conclusions yet the evidence is positive. Over 50% of these reports were not published in English.

illuminate15• 14 years ago

"Publication bias and low methodological quality inhibit definite conclusions yet the evidence is positive."

The selection bias inherent to meta-analyses also leads to difficulty using any of them to "prove" the existence of homeopathy.

The principles are not science. If you cherry pick studies, you might eventually find some with a positive response.

Killed by Homeopathy

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