homeopathy... aibu to say i think of it's a crock of crap?

[ILetHimKeep20Quid]

Was at my brothers for dinner yesterday. My baby has a touch of eczema. As a chronic sufferer myself I roll my eyes whenever people start on the 'oh have you tried this' thing but smile and nod. I have used steroid creams in the past, of various strengths, to deal with outbreaks. I'm well versed in the treatment.

So, the wee touch my ds has isn't concerning me and I'm moisturizing him regularly.

Cue my sil practically gushing over her homeopath (not just a normal one. He's a gp but does this on the side it seems).

I smiled and nodded. Not wanting to get into the whole thing. But she would not give up. So I asked 'what is homeopathy?'

Apparently, get this, water has a memory. What the actual fuck? How can water have a memory?

Some people believe in homeopathy just as ardently as others believe in religion. We are allowed to say that we believe homeopathy is a crock, but not that a particular religion is.

Things have changed over the last few years haven't they?

filee777 I will give you my piano, one of my legs and my wife

dances.
Need to see that again.

It's shite. I had a glass of sugared water that remembered some basil, and my third nipple still hasn't gone.

My dad got basil pills to improve his memory but kept forgetting to take them.

Some people believe in homeopathy just as ardently as others believe in religion. We are allowed to say that we believe homeopathy is a crock, but not that a particular religion is.

Plenty of people say religion is rubbish. In any case I think there is a difference in that by definition religion is a belief, whereas proponents of homeopathy claim it is proper medicine. If they only claimed that homeopathy was a belief system then I wouldn't have as much of a problem with it.

ilethimkeep
Someone please post a link for TIM minchin's piece on homeopathy.
Pretty please.

yup religions don't make provable claims (or the smart ones don't anyway). So we have no evidence that they are wrong.

Homeopathy does make provable claims (to make people better more effectively than placebo). So when we have evidence that they are wrong they are actually wrong. And they are...wrong that is. Totally.

You might well be expected to respect someone's belief in something undefinable and unprovable that is bigger than themselves and helps explain (to them) the purpose of life etc.....but you are not at all expected to respect someone's belief that 2+2=5.

Hopefully the difference is pretty clear...

Onlytheonce - there is a heck of a lot more evidence for homeopathy than there is for religion and it does a lot less harm

Each to their own. There is so much we don't understand.

oohdaddy just because religion is worse doesn't make homeopathy harmless. It sucks NHS money away from proper treatment and encourages false hope and ineffectual treatments in genuinely ill people, while taking their money.

oohdaddypig Can you post links to the evidence for homeopathy (by which I assume you mean evidence for the efficacy of homeopathy)?

There is no empirical evidence for the efficacy of homeopathy.

My religion doesn't cost me 90£ a month.
I don't expect miracles and it's more an attitude towards life.

I also distrust religions (sects) that charge people percentages of their income, which go to greedy ministers.

And my local church runs a fabulous toddler group.

The issue is being respectful towards any strongly held belief, be it religion, homeopathy or anything else that provides comfort to people.

There is plenty of evidence that homeopathy has a placebo effect (with no side affects). That's probably a lot more than a lot of the medicines handed out by the NHS, cheaper and with way fewer downsides.

I haven't a bloody clue if it actually works or not. But I wish people would stop being so rude about it when there are things a million times worse to be concerned about.

£90 a month?! My local health shops sells remedies for under a fiver.

oohdaddypig why should we be respectful of a strongly held belief when it is demonstrably wrong?

homeopathy does do harm because it i) diverts NHS funds from proper medicine, ii) some people will pursue a homeopathic remedy instead of a conventional treatment that actually works.

Who was it that said you have a right to your own opinions, but not the right to your own facts?

That is why it is ok to be rude about homeopathy. The facts are there. It does not work.

I was gutted when I brought Teetha for my crying, teething baby. I got it home and realised it said it was homeopathic.
I've never opened it, it would be useless.

Did teach me to read labels better before buying though.

Why do I have to be respectful to "any strongly held belief"?

Teetha probably would have worked, actually.

Most babies would stop crying if you rubbed icing sugar in their gums.

Exactly, curlew. To go to extremes, what price FGM, forced marriage and child marriage? I am not about to respect those, but they are very strongly held beliefs.

I said upthread, I had a friend who took two preschoolers to a malerial part of Africa on homeopathy alone, no vaccinations or anti-malerials. They didn't stay long as they all got ill, but not with maleria as it happens, so of course now she believes it worked.

That kind of behaviour is not harmless.

scary

Well you are wrong - homeopathy does work based on the placebo affect. It's cheap. Hardly any NHS funds are diverted - and less so each year - and I find this less offensive than some of the many other ways nhs funds are used.

Let me be clear - I'm not a supporter of homeopathy - but I find the constant homeopathy bashing extremely rude to those people for whom it helps. And it does help them, lack of empirical evidence, or not.

There is plenty of evidence that homeopathy has a placebo effect (with no side affects). That's probably a lot more than a lot of the medicines handed out by the NHS, cheaper and with way fewer downsides.

Huh? You don't understand the placebo effect or side effects, do you? Any medicine that has effects, has side effects. The reason homeopathy has no side effects is because, save the placebo effect, it has no effects. A pill given to you by the NHS that didn't relieve your symptoms medically would still elicit the placebo effect.

Homoeopathy is harmless until you get people thinking they can cure their serious illness with it, and then dying or getting much sicker with a disease that could have been treated cheaply and easily with actual medicine.