Homeopathic remedies recalled for containing real medicine

http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-03/25/homeopathy-contains-medicine

by lukashed • 12 years ago

103 152 12 years ago

wired.co.uk

MattBearman• 12 years ago

I was really expecting this to the on The Onion...

Ygg23• 12 years ago

At first I thought it was early April fools.

ama729• 12 years ago

That's something I don't understand, how can homeopathic remedies even be sold? The manufacturer can't prove the health benefits they claim and the product don't contain the element on the bottle.

It's just complete nonsense.

Ygg23• 12 years ago

Actually no, homeopathic contains minute traces of cause of disease...

Basically if you are hit by a blue car, they need a homeopathic traces of blue color to 'cure' you.

fetbaffe• 12 years ago

Exactly.

http://youtu.be/HMGIbOGu8q0

seren3• 12 years ago

Only in some case, a "nosode", i.e a trace of the disease, is used. But it is not systematic. For example, oscillococcinum [0] which is sold as a flu remedy, is famous for containing some cells from a duck liver.

If I remember correctly a single duck is raised every year, and due to the dilution, is enough to produce the millions of dose.

I am not sure what makes more sense, the nosode or the duck liver...

[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oscillococcinum

blueskin_2• 12 years ago

Not really. Most homeopathic placebos are diluted to the point that you'd need to take anywhere from billions of doses up to get even a single molecule of the 'ingredient'. They are literally just water. Not ot mention that in most cases, the 'cause' is based on a speculative or outright fictional 'link'. For example, one of the most well known placebos is Oscillococcinum, which claims duck liver/heart 'causes' flu. It is also diluted to the point that, to quote, "As there are only about 10^80 atoms in the entire observable universe, a dilution of one molecule in the observable universe would be about 40C. Oscillococcinum would thus require 10^320 more universes to simply have one molecule in the final substance."

ekianjo10• 12 years ago

Actually no, homeopathic contains minute traces of cause of disease...

Above certain dilutions it goes beyond the Avogadro figure and there should be no molecules/proteins left of the original disease agent.

lotu• 12 years ago

They are sold as a supplement and they fall fine into that catagory.

jejones3141• 12 years ago

As lotu says, they're sold as supplements.

Of course, homeopathic "remedies" are uniquely adapted to our litigious society--since they can have no effects, they can have no side effects, and thus you'll never see ads from lawyers looking to sue over side effects of homeopathy.

aestra16• 12 years ago

since they can have no effects, they can have no side effects

Completely and totally incorrect.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nocebo

In medicine, a nocebo (Latin for "I shall harm") is a harmless substance that creates harmful effects in a patient who takes it.

Basically, you think "I'm taking medication, that could cause side effects," that thinking it and of itself can causes side effects!! It's like a reverse placebo.

Also see:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2hO4_UEe-4 (watch this short video, it give a great rundown on the nocebo effect, including examples)

and people are thinking they are getting specific side effects....at least they are searching about them.

http://i.imgur.com/lskvrtI.png

MicroBerto3• 12 years ago

Actually, they're not sold as supplements all the time either. They're in some sort of weird gray area that is in between medicine and supplements:

"The legal status of homeopathic remedies in the United States is unique. In 1938, the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act was sponsored by Senator Royal Copeland who also happened to be a homeopathic physician. The senator wrote wording into his bill that recognized all products listed in the Homeopathic Pharmacopeia of the United States as drugs and made them subject to regulation by the federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The legislation passed, and as a result, homeopathic products are legally sold in food stores, pharmacies, and elsewhere as a unique category of drug.

Despite such widespread use, the FDA regulates homeopathic preparations much less stringently than conventional drugs. Homeopathic products are not required to prove effectiveness or safety. Some regulations do apply. For example, homeopathic products can only be sold without a prescription if they are specifically for self-limiting conditions such as the common cold. Products marketed for severe conditions such as cancer are prescription-only."

Source: http://www.webmd.com/vitamins-supplements/ingredientmono-115...

That gray area has done a lot of damage to a lot of people.

lnanek2• 12 years ago

It's nonsense, but people pay $100 more for differently labeled bottled water too, so I guess this takes advantage of similar non-sensical behaviors.

fishy929• 12 years ago

Agreed. I wouldn't say either should be illegal though, as suggested by ama729.

bbanyc• 12 years ago

The primary sponsor of the Federal Food, Drug, & Cosmetic Act was a homeopathic physician. He put an exemption in.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_S._Copeland

Ihmahr• 12 years ago

I just keep being amazed that literate people buy this stuff. What also bugs me about this (apart from their stupidity) is that people look at me strangely when I decline 'medicine' on the basis that it is homeopathic. The reaction is similar when someone is refusing to drink alcohol. "Really, why not?"

seren3• 12 years ago

I don't believe homeopathy works. However, I have seen studies mentioning that a placebo effect (which has a real measurable impact) can be triggered just by knowing you are taking a remedy, even if you know the remedy is bogus. So somehow, you are tricking yourself that you are going to get better. So in a way, you could get better by taking homeopathy even if it has nothing to do with what is (or rather is not!) in the pills.

I don't see much harm in taking homeopathy for a common cold for example, however for anything more serious, you are probably endangering yourself.

driverdan2• 12 years ago

Placebos can change your attitude but cannot cure anything. You may feel better but in reality nothing has changed other than the feeling.

dllthomas2• 12 years ago

You're harming yourself in that you're paying a steep mark-up. You can probably find a cheaper placebo that's no less effective.

aestra16• 12 years ago

apart from their stupidity

That's harsh. The average consumer doesn't have the time/expertise to go through scientific research on homeopathic medicine. Someone tells them "this is going to work" and they believe them. It might be sad, but not all humans are skeptical nor to they have the time or energy to invest in research. They may not even be aware they are buying homeopathic medicine. Homeopathic medicine is sold near the real medicine, once I picked up a pill bottle on the shelf (while buying another thing) because it caught my eye. I was like "I didn't know they could treat this." I turned it over to read the ingredients and that's when I noticed it was homeopathy. If I was in the store looking for a cure, I could have easily just picked up whatever I saw that was a "remedy" for what I was experiencing. My mother even once bought some homeopathic medicine because of a marketing campaign, having no idea it was homeopathy, and actually, I didn't know at first either, I didn't look closely at the label, it wasn't until later I saw it was. While purchasing medicine, do you turn over the bottle, examine each ingredient, then look up the science behind them? For example there "no good evidence for or against the effectiveness of OTC medications in acute cough"[1] and is probably just a placebo,[2] yet people take cough syrup all the time. Even heroin was developed to be a non-additive cough suppressant, and was marketed as such. [3]

[1] http://summaries.cochrane.org/CD001831/over-the-counter-otc-...

[2] http://www.uptodate.com/contents/acute-bronchitis-in-adults-...

[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heroin

mikeash3• 12 years ago

I agree in general, but when it comes to medicine then people absolutely need to make the time to research the stuff.

I mean, I can't fathom this question:

While purchasing medicine, do you turn over the bottle, examine each ingredient, then look up the science behind them?

Who says "no" to this?! Is that really a thing?

I swear, there is no hope for humanity.

pknight• 12 years ago

I have never taken homeopathic medicine but I am fascinated by the placebo effect.

It is one of the best researched effects (because most studies have a treatment group just with placebo) with very real results. Homeopathy for some people just seems to be a good vehicle for tapping into placebo. So yes, even if you're 'smart' and 'educated' it pays to reap the benefits of that mechanism. It would be shortsighted to paint these people as lesser than.

The irony is that people who feel compelled to discredit alternative approaches that have little scientific consensus are actually campaigning to take away an approach that works for some people, purely because it doesn't sit well with their beliefs.

Different story, of course, is criticising the way alternative medicine is practised. I believe there is as much malpractice and fraud there as there is in mainstream medicine and the food industry, which is a pity. This story just points out a very troubling production problems. Worser still is that this is not unique to one homeopathic production company, you can find similarly outrageous problems in other industries as well.

speeder5• 12 years ago

The article ends as a crazy agressive criticism of homeopathy in general, mixing the issues of manufacturing that also happen to normal medicine with real concerns and conflating the two, but what really ticks me off is leaving in the closing paragraph a phrase that use age of a practice as an insult.

Saying that something should have been left in some old era implies that people of that era are inferior to us, the fact that all past eras are targeted, make me think there is some sort of superiority thinking tied to being in the current age, like if current humans are inherently better.

As someone that has some practices and beliefs that were actually more common in the past, I personally hear that sort of argument a lot, and I think lots people don't realize that when they diss the past, they also diss lots of things important to them ( like, printing press... Created to print the bible no less... )

EDIT: alright, I get it, the enemy of my enemy is my friend, criticising the writing style of someone criticising something you dislike, even if I dislike it too, is reason to get blasted with downvotes.

JohnTHaller• 12 years ago

Unlike some natural remedies which are later proven to be right based thousands of years of use in ancient times, Homeopathy is completely and totally bogus. It's based on absolutely nothing. Not science, not observation, not tradition. It's based entirely on one guy, who, in ~1800, thought that 'like cures like'. So, if you have a fever, why not take something else that causes you to get hot? It's also based on the idea that water has a memory of things it comes in contact with. So, they dilute it thousands and thousands of times until the water or sugar pill has no molecules at all of the thing that is supposed to be treating you. In the end, it's a sugar pill that has a placebo effect on some people. There's no logic, science, or medicine to it at all.

Pro tip: If water really did have a memory and diluting things made them stronger, then all water everywhere would cure everything. Including terrorism since Bin Laden was buried at sea.

speeder5• 12 years ago

I don't disagree with that, I disagree with how the article was written, I am not defending homeopathy, I am among other things criticizing for example the conflating of the issues you mentioned with manufacturing issues that also happen with normal medicine.

clef• 12 years ago

If water had a memory, with all the toxic stuff we dilute in it, we'd all be dead.

kjjw2• 12 years ago

Your understanding of what the article says has gone beyond what the article actually says.

The article discusses medical practice and knowledge. Which in past centuries has clearly been inferior.

speeder5• 12 years ago

Not necessarily, I personally have a disease that was treated better before 1970 than it is today.

mikeash3• 12 years ago

I don't see that paragraph as implying that people of the 19th century are inferior to us. Rather, I see it as stating in a cute and short way that people figured out that homeopathy was bogus long ago, and it should have stopped then.

In other words, it's not "this from the 19th century and therefore stupid," but rather, "this was debunked a very long time ago and it's ridiculous that anybody continues to use it."

logfromblammo• 12 years ago

This could probably be explained by a sufficiently detailed computer simulation of human society.

Some people, those with the lowest amount of faith in unsubstantiated beliefs, debunked homeopathy according to their own standards. They proved that it did not work better than the placebo effect, one of their existing and well-substantiated beliefs, resulting from a through examination of the simple question: "What if the effects of this treatment are all attributable to the patient believing that it should work?"

A large fraction of humanity, probably an overwhelming majority, has not been trained to examine the world scientifically. Many have been indoctrinated into religions or nonscientific pedagogies from a very early age. For those people, it is not sufficient to prove that a treatment does not work better than placebo to stop using it. It must be proven to not work at all.

Clearly, homeopathy activates the placebo effect. Thus, scientifically minded people reject it as a treatment. For everyone else, they find that it either works for them, or they can move on to a different placebo that does work. They may be wondering why scientific people work so hard to debunk placebos, because they are really just limiting the number of placebos they could be using.

noja3• 12 years ago

Why do so many homeopathic remedies contain ingredients? I mean they have multiple things listed on the label that are actual things. Doesn't that make them not homeopathic?

SideburnsOfDoom6• 12 years ago

Why do so many homeopathic remedies contain ingredients?

To bulk out the pill until it is visible to the naked eye.

noja3• 12 years ago

But these ingredients aren't bulkers. I'll collect some examples next time I see some.

Alex3917• 12 years ago

The idea that homeopathic medicine doesn't contain any ingredients is just a lie propagated by HN and other websites. It's just something that people who are too dumb to read actual books like to repeat to make themselves feel smart.

chrisbennet• 12 years ago

Whenever I hear about homeopathy I think of this wonder rant ("Storm") by Tim Minchin : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhGuXCuDb1U

sjwright• 12 years ago

"It's a miracle! Take physics and bin it! Water has memory! And whilst its memory of a long lost drop of onion juice is infinite, it somehow forgets all the poo it's had in it."

SideburnsOfDoom6• 12 years ago

The water forgets the previous substances that were in it, when a trained homoeopath hits it with magic paddle. Yes, that's really how it's suggested to work: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeopathy#Preparation

ekianjo10• 12 years ago

The saddest thing is that in some countries (like France...) Homeopathic medicines are actually reimbursed by social security (and therefore paid for by everyone who pays taxes). We're still waiting for double-blind, vs placebo, clinical trials to show how efficacious they really are.

mrcsparker• 12 years ago

Along the same line, I always think about this Mitchell and Webb bit:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMGIbOGu8q0

rayiner• 12 years ago

It's getting popular. The other day, my wife and I were looking for some teething gel. All we could find was homeopathic ("contains no benzocaine!") shit. Including products from brands I previously considered reputable.

pgt• 12 years ago

Great beat poem. Here is the live performance: http://youtu.be/KtYkyB35zkk

pron• 12 years ago

Nice and true, obviously. But I do think that hard-sciences folks, when it comes to this very issue, sometimes refuse to understand what it is that they're seeing; worse - they refuse to examine it. It's understandable as unscientific views are infuriatingly ignorant, but that's no justification!

Why is it that in an age of science and technology and their palpable, measurable advantages, do so many people intentionally choose to "hate on" science? What is it that's missing, at least for them?

As an imperfect product of nature, rather than perfect observers of it, we are subject to illusions and delusions, that from a phenomenological perspective are as real to us (or as important to us) as gravity. People have the ability to never consider walking out the window but to believe in astrology at the same time, and that's probably not going to change. And yes, people are going to die as a result of intentional ignorance, but people die of many things, many of them are just as stupid.

Instead of constantly trying to fight this, I've been trying to open myself to these views, not because of any physical reality they possess (as they possess absolutely none), but because of their phenomenological reality, and what they teach us of human nature.

greggman• 12 years ago

Maybe I'm mis-understanding your point but the issue isn't just about "phenomenological reality". It's about real harm http://whatstheharm.net/

fab13n• 12 years ago

Why is it that [...] so many people intentionally choose to "hate on" science?

My impression is that people miss the Devil. You know, the horny guy with the pitchfork: something well identified, to hate personally, almost anthropomorphically, for everything that goes wrong with their lives, with the world, and with their lack of control and understanding of it.

Disclaimers:

1) the ravings that follow are grounded in anecdotal and mostly Western-European observations. They only partially and imperfectly apply to the USA, but that you'll find significant similarities.

2) I'm intentionally caricaturing to get my point across. Just keep the grain of truth deep inside.

Consider the caricature of the homeopathic believer: ecologist, liberal, anti-vaccine, anti-big-corps, who might have graduated in humanities but probably not in sciences, who sort-of believes in astrology, completely believes in every alternative medicine that either uses a couple of greek-sounding big words to explain its "theoretical foundation", or draws from extreme-oriental mysticism. Easily sympathetic to conspiracy theories, especially when it's about big money colluding to destroy the ecosystem or maintain suffering populations into poverty.

This person is typically defiant of organized religions, be it Catholicism or conservative protestantism. But although she--she seems to be majoritarily female--rejected organized religions, she still needs identifiable, if possible anthropomorphic, incarnations of Good and Evil to worship and hate respectively. Ecology is her Pachamama, a thinly veiled reboot of the Mother-Goddess cult. Science, this mysterious and powerful thing that's used by corporations to shape the world and sometimes dehumanize it, is the instrument of Evil. And her reactions to science at large, including medicine, are uncannily similar to her (great-?)grand-mother's reaction to the Devil. First she'll pretend it doesn't work; if it's too obvious that it does, then she'll be convinced that nasty side effects are going to haunt those who use it, and she'll be desperate to believe in any hollier alternative. And when her religious views contradict her obvious immediate interests, she'll use science, but first she's temporarily unplug any part of her intellect that might see the contradictions between her faith and her acts.

This could probably be fixed, by offering less counter-productive ways for people to indulge into their religious feelings. Established mainstream religions don't cut it anymore for most people in Europe, and for increasingly more people in the USA, especially those of liberal inclination. They need a better alternative religion than anti-scientific new-age cults. The difficulty in engineering such an alternative is that in order to work, it must be non-obvious that cults are manufactured by humans...

DanBC4• 12 years ago

It is fascinating. It's also interesting when otherwise rational, smart, people believe weird things.

http://www.michaelshermer.com/2002/09/smart-people-believe-w...

I know people with degree (good degrees, good English universities) in Chemistry who believe in and use homeopathy.

It's baffling.

singularityyy• 12 years ago

Does anyone know why homoeopathic remedies are so common in India? Even my very educated Indian friends seem to use them with a surprising frequency, sometimes over actual medicines.

yen2232• 12 years ago

"This medicine is effective because it contains salicylic acid, which suppresses the activity of cyclooxygenase (COX), an enzyme that is responsible for the production of pro-inflammatory mediators."

versus

"This plant is effective because it's 100% natural!"

7 out of 10 times, people will go for the explanation that's easier to understand.

aestra16• 12 years ago

Salicylic acid is natural! It comes from the bark of the willow tree. It has been known since ancient times, presumably they used to consume willow bark. We then figured out the active ingredient in willow bark. However, asprin is acetylsalicylic acid, which is produced form salicylic acid to remove the side effects of salicylic acid.

pramalin• 12 years ago

My be because there are many government homeopathy colleges and hospitals.

KumarAseem5• 12 years ago

I am from India and I also am a regular user of homeopathy. In case it was all placebo and fools your brain in thinking that you are actually taking some real stuff in and not just sugar and water and you see the effect physically on your body then you would have found mention of this in Ayurveda and Yoga since both stress on meditation which is a way to control your own energy and mind state and by doing meditation you would have been able to cure your body of every disease.

And allopathy is a major money earner for a lot of corporations and they go to every effort to tell the people that any other medicine system be it unani, ayurveda, acupuncture, acupressure, homeopathy, etc are false and bad.

In case you have not tried homeopathy then give it a go for small illness like fever, diarrhea, body pains, etc and test it for yourself. Also go to a doctor who is recommended by someone. Doctor's knowledge is the most important part in homeopathy as it is in all other non-allopathic systems.

aestra16• 12 years ago

And allopathy is a major money earner for a lot of corporations and they go to every effort to tell the people that any other medicine system be it unani, ayurveda, acupuncture, acupressure, homeopathy, etc are false and bad.

Incorrect to a large degree. If alternative medicine was proven to work, then it would just become medicine. (or "allopathy" as you call it) We are always studying alternative medicine and some make the cut and get promoted to medicine. Some don't have enough research yet, and we are working on it. Is asprin "allopathy"? Well it was derived from an ancient practice of chewing/eating bark from a willow tree. We found the active ingredient, and isolated it. Now it is just known as medicine.

That being said, there are political and economic reasons to treat/not treat study/not study, but that isn't the 100% norm.

arjie• 12 years ago

In India, homeopathic remedies are considered to be in the same category as herbal medicine and any discovery of effectiveness of some aspect of herbal medicine is counted in favor of all 'alternative' medicine. Many of these herbal remedies do contain an active ingredient, and so such discoveries are frequent. Vague stuff like turmeric being anti carcinogenic also reinforces the idea that there are secret remedies in nature far more effective than the stuff man makes.

In addition, primary health care is poor in India, so everyone knows of a story of some member of the family having a poor experience in the organised health care sector. This leads to many people's search for 'something better' at a time when they're particularly vulnerable.

I would also be remiss if I did not mention that at least some degree of cultural chauvinism is responsible. To some, the West has ignored Eastern knowledge of medicine, and there is, at least among some, a belief that there are secrets unknown to modern science.

My parents are surgeons in India, and while what I've said is my opinion, it is derived in part from what I remember to be their experience.

eponeponepon2• 12 years ago

This really ought to be hilarious; but then you realise that they're talking about penicillin. If one batch of one type of snakeoil distributed by one pack of charlatans has turned out to contain an antibiotic, how many others do too? And how many people out there are merrily munching down a couple of homeopathic sugar-pills when their piles flare up and making amazing new antibiotic-resistant bacterial strains?

Homeopathy is actively harmful.

SideburnsOfDoom6• 12 years ago

Unintentionally taking penicillin can be quite bad: some people are allergic to it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penicillin_drug_reaction

eponeponepon2• 12 years ago

Sure, but that can happen to an individual with any substance - I might take any given medicine that I haven't had before and turn out to be viciously allergic. But if I take a homeopathic 'remedy' that contains an antibiotic previously usable to treat, say, E. coli, and have no noticeable reaction to it, then I just silently create a new strain of E. coli in my gut that happens to now be immune to the antibiotic, just itching to be caught by someone else when I forget to scrub my hands thoroughly... nothing bad happens to the individual, but the species suffers for my gullibility.

brazzy3• 12 years ago

I really don't see how accidental contamination during production makes Homeopathy more harmful than anythign else that can be contaminated. Would you also conclude that "Chinese food is actively harmful?" because someone somewhere made some dim sum that contained things it shouldn't?

Homeopathy is harmful because it's a bunch of patent nonsense that does nothing and people spend billions on it that could be used for something productive.

ronaldx• 12 years ago

Sure, but:

1. Homeopathy is probably less harmful than whatever was prescribed as placebo in the past, and whatever would be prescribed in its absence. That is, in many cases it's literally replacing antibiotics in this role. That's makes it a net positive on this point.

2. Putting anything in your body is actively harmful in the sense that you describe. Most foodstuff/most everything contains pretty nasty bacterial strains and any number of contaminants. Anything is potentially allergenic to a proportion of the population.

3. That one homeopath made a mistake is bad, but does not damn the whole industry. We would not judge any other industry on the basis of one bad actor/one mistake.

MicroBerto3• 12 years ago

It's "actively" harmful in that it's indirectly harmful, if that makes any sense.

The fact that it exists (and in such force) means that it is being used to replace modern medicine by several individuals. That is the true crime.

Supplementing with some snake oil typically won't kill you. But using it to replace a real doctor's visit very well might. And that's basically the attitude that this industry has bred.

BuildTheRobots2• 12 years ago

To everyone commenting on the insanity of homeopathy and how it has no scientific basis (which I don't believe it does), I'd point out that surely it's just a form of placebo -and placebos have been scientifically proven to work, even when you know about them [1].

[1] http://www.ted.com/talks/eric_mead_the_magic_of_the_placebo

Nursie• 12 years ago

This is true.

However for conditions where a placebo is not suitable, homeopathy may well keep people away from real medicine. There have been several high-profile examples of homeopaths keeping folks away from 'allopathic' medicine, eventually killing them. But even in the more passive sense this can be true - the simple existence of snake-oil, even without the homeopath persuading the patient to stay away from mainstream medicine, can delay treatment.

rmc5• 12 years ago

Ah, but homoepathic proponants claim it works better than a placebo.

BuildTheRobots2• 12 years ago

Interesting, different placebos have different effects. Injections are seen as 'better' than pills and have more of an effect.

If you believe homoeopathy is better than medicine, then yes, I can see it holding more authority than a prescription.

Argorak2• 12 years ago

I am waiting for the moment where those people realize that a lot of food contains salicylates, acetylsalicylic acid (Aspirin) among them. Just by habit of nature.

I lived with a person that had an intolerance (sometimes called "asprine intolerance") and it is basically impossible to keep your diet free from that.[1]

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salicylate_intolerance#Treatmen...

rmc5• 12 years ago

Penicillin allergy is different. It's not just "oh I feel a bit unwell for a few days", it's fatal. And penicillin is not a common substance.

Argorak2• 12 years ago

Not questioning that, but it questions the idea of not taking any medications at all. Where do you make the cut?

userbinator• 12 years ago

I see this happen once in a while, and I've always believed that this is how they can keep the whole scam running - put some real medicine in them, so that it does have a beneficial effect, and the users will continue to preach about its efficacy. Add just enough to have a real effect, but e.g. not to all batches, so you don't (easily) get caught.

jacquesm• 12 years ago

I have this vague sense of unease about this...

dhimes• 12 years ago

Here, have some water.

k-mcgrady• 12 years ago

I just skimmed the article but I didn't see any mention that the company was being punished for this. As someone allergic to penicillin that's quite concerning. I'd never take homeopathic remedies but not only was this a stupid abuse of antibiotics it could hurt people.

aestra16• 12 years ago

The article doesn't say directly, but it could have been accidental, just like the discovery of penicillin.

produced during fermentation

That's what it says, that seems to imply to me that it was accidental.

cfontes• 12 years ago

I had an old math professor that used to say:

"Lottery is a special tax aimed at people who are really bad in math"

I guess Homeopathy is a tax (health and money one) for people who are really bad in Chemistry and Biology.

Sniperfish2• 12 years ago

Unfortunately - given the OP article - through misuse of antibiotics the consumer of homeopathic treatments is playing lottery with more than just their health. A lottery where the losers also cause society to lose.

"Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is resistance of a microorganism to an antimicrobial medicine to which it was originally sensitive....The misuse of antimicrobial medicines accelerates this natural phenomenon."[1]

[1] http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs194/en/

MicroBerto3• 12 years ago

When building our site/engine, I struggled with what to do with product categories such as Homeopathy.

I find that much of it is actively harmful to users, especially when they truly need real medical care. It's the indirect consequences (not seeing a real doctor for your ailments) that are far worse than the potential direct side effects.

But at the same time, people are searching for it, so they might as well get it from us / through us.

So my solution was to write a negative analysis of the homeopathy category, drop it so that it can only be found if you are actively searching for it, and kind of never speak of it again.

Won't spam, but you can see the link to my site in my profile if you care and search for the category.

At the end of the day, I do love the supplement/nutrition industry, but this kind of stuff makes my blood boil.

aestra16• 12 years ago

I do love the supplement/nutrition industry

Why? It is almost entirely unregulated and unsupervised. They have been known to contain unlisted ingredients, none of the ingredients they say, and dosages that differ wildly from what they are labeled as. I saw a movie where they just put some random shit into a pill (flour and stuff) and started marketing it as a supplement. This was apparently legal.

http://www.livescience.com/40357-herbal-products-unlisted-in...

In the study, nearly 60 percent of herbal products tested contained plant substances not listed on the label. In nearly a third of products, the main ingredient was substituted with a different product. More than 20 percent of products contained fillers such as rice, wheat and soybeans, in addition to the main ingredient.
Overall, out of the 12 companies that produce herbal supplements included in the study, just two had products with no substitutions, fillers or contaminants, the researchers said
Such unlisted ingredients may pose health hazards for consumers, the researchers said. For example, one produced was labeled as St. John's wort, but actually contained the laxative plant Senna alexandrina. The laxative is not recommended for long turn use, and can cause serious side effects, such as chronic diarrhea and liver damage.
2011 study of 131 herbal tea products found that 33 percent were contaminated.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/26/health/policy/26herbal.htm...

Nearly all of the herbal dietary supplements tested in a Congressional investigation contained trace amounts of lead and other contaminants
The levels of heavy metals — including mercury, cadmium and arsenic — did not exceed thresholds considered dangerous, the investigators found. However, 16 of the 40 supplements tested contained pesticide residues that appeared to exceed legal limits, the investigators found. In some cases, the government has not set allowable levels of these pesticides because of a paucity of scientific research.
Among the witnesses at the hearing will be Dr. Tod Cooperman, president of ConsumerLab.com, a company that has tested over 2,000 dietary supplements made by more than 300 manufacturers and has found that one in four have quality problems. According to Dr. Cooperman’s written testimony, the most common problems are supplements that lack adequate quantities of the indicated ingredients and those contaminated with heavy metals.
Travis T. Tygart, chief executive of the United States Anti-Doping Agency, wrote a letter to the committee saying that some athletes have been rendered ineligible for international competitions because they took supplements that contained steroids not listed on the products’ labels. There are thousands of supplements available for sale that contain steroids or other harmful ingredients, he wrote.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1852683/

Case Presentation
A 54-year-old woman was referred to the University of California, Davis, Occupational Medicine Clinic with a 2-year history of worsening alopecia and memory loss. She also reported having a rash, increasing fatigue, nausea, and vomiting, disabling her to the point where she could no longer work full-time. A thorough exposure history revealed that she took daily kelp supplements. A urine sample showed an arsenic level of 83.6 μg/g creatinine (normal < 50 μg/g creatinine). A sample from her kelp supplements contained 8.5 mg/kg (ppm) arsenic. Within weeks of discontinuing the supplements, her symptoms resolved and arsenic blood and urine levels were undetectable.

http://www.researchgate.net/publication/5292535_Nutritional_...

These investigations showed that nutritional supplements contained prohibited stimulants as ephedrines, caffeine, methylenedioxymetamphetamie and sibutramine, which were not declared on the labels. An international study performed in 2001 and 2002 on 634 nutritional supplements that were purchased in 13 different countries showed that about 15% of the nonhormonal nutritional supplements were contaminated with anabolic-androgenic steroids (mainly prohormones).
In 2005 vitamin C, multivitamin and magnesium tablets were confiscated, which contained crosscontaminations of stanozolol and metandienone. Since 2002 new ‘designer’ steroids such as prostanozol, methasterone, androstatrienedione etc. have been offered on the nutritional supplement market. In the near future also cross-contaminations with these steroids are expected. Recently a nutritional supplement for weight loss was found to contain the b2-agonist clenbuterol. The application of such nutritional supplements is connected with a high risk of inadvertent doping cases and a health risk.

This actually worries me a lot, since I am required to take an iron supplement because of chronic iron deficiency. If I get the tablets from the pharmacist (I have a prescription) they just repackage the over the counter stuff and charge me triple the price. There's no way to tell if I'm getting medical grade iron.

faster• 12 years ago

Did you hear about the homeopathic terrorists? They put nothing in the water supply.

aestra16• 12 years ago

Not the first time this has happened. Zicam was marketed as homeopathy, but recalled because it had real active ingredients in it. (slightly diluted zinc acetate and zinc gluconate) They caused some people to lose their sense of smell.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zicam

DanBC4• 12 years ago

Did you read the article before commenting?

aestra16• 12 years ago

Yes, I actually did read it, but I seemed to have a brain fart and didn't actually notice it mentioned Zicam. Or I most likely just didn't retain the information.

I must be getting old.

Homeopathic remedies recalled for containing real medicine

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