Homeopathic overdoses are homeopathically dangerous
Today is the day of the worldwide homeopathic overdose that originally started with groups of skeptics throughout the UK — the 1023 Campaign — planning a protest (or a demonstration, in the literal sense of the word) in front of a high street pharmacy chain against their insistence on selling homeopathic products, despite repeated scientific analysis and practical demonstrations proving they are no better than the placebo effect.
I had arranged to attend the Oxford Skeptics in the Pub event due to take place near Radcliffe Camera, but — despite getting everything prepared last night, including programming my satnav for a carpark near the event — I forgot to set my alarm. I admit it: I am an idiot.
So I dropped an email apology to the organiser and prepared to ‘overdose’ at home… without the homeopathic protection of homeopathic medical services against this homeopathic act of homeopathic self harm. Homeopathically dangerous, I’m sure you’ll agree.
At precisely 10:23 this morning, I broke the seal and emptied the contents of my pre-purchased container of “30c Homeopathic potency of Sepia officinalis” — as it says in bold red lettering on the label — into my camera’s lens cap and then swallowed it all (minus the lens cap) in one sugary, children’s sweets-like gulp, washed down with a few mouthfuls of water. It’s now some time later and I’m feeling homeopathically ill, the world is homeopathically spinning around me, and I think I may homeopathically pass out anytime soon. Or put another way: I’m typing this blog post while drinking a nice cup of tea, and considering making myself a late breakfast. I am, by all accounts, homeopathically dead.
And while I couldn’t quite work out how to take photos while in the process of swallowing the sugar pills, I did take some. Behold! The mighty power of the sugar pill!
Pics 1 & 2: Note the therapeutic indications line in the second image.
Pic 3: Every pillule emptied into my camera’s lens cap.
Pic 4: Oh look, it’s 10:23! We know what that time means…
Pic 5: All gone! Sweet sugary goodness… and utter pseudoscientific bollocks.
You only have my word to go on that I committed homeopathic harakiri today (although my cat witnessed it, I’m not sure she’d be suitable to give testimony), but in this article alone I have provided orders of magnitude more evidence of me swallowing these pills than exists for the efficacy of homeopathy. I did indeed swallow them all in one gulp, and it’s over 90 minutes since I did so and the world (or my world, at least) has not ended. And I paid £4.99 for the privilege.
If you think that homeopathy has helped someone you know, then neither of you understand the importance of the placebo effect. Please learn about it — it’s a very real effect with measurable positive results. Ultimately there is no direct harm in taking homeopathic products (as all 1023 campaigners have proven today), but there is harm in taking these products instead of seeking medical advice. Particularly if they have an ailment where earlier diagnosis can make the difference, or affect long-term health or even life. They may feel better taking these pills for a little while, but eventually even they’ll stop working as the problem gets worse and by then it may well be too late.
But I’m not trying to convince you of anything that’s not provable or measurable. Do your own research and come to your own conclusions — even if a thousand or more skeptics around the world ‘overdosing’ on homeopathic products isn’t enough to convince you (for some Twilight Zone reason). Perhaps pick up a book by an actual scientist and medical doctor, and examine what research they’ve done to research their conclusions. I’d highly recommend Bad Science by Ben Goldacre (Amazon or Amazon UK), as it’s very readable, full of information (including this topic), and it’s all supportable by evidence.
Update: Thanks to Antony, we have some video footage of the the Oxford event:
1023 Homeopathic Overdose – Oxford
Update 2: Courtesy of Science, Reason and Critical Thinking, we have some video footage of the Southampton event:
Update 3: Richard Saunders, Skeptic Zone ringleader, and Sydney skeptics have some footage of the event in Sydney, Australia:
ten23 Homeopathy Protest – Sydney 2010
Update 4: Courtesy of Kylie Sturgess, footage from my home town’s skeptical group, Perth Skeptics:
The 1023 Event with the Perth Skeptics
Update 5: And now the walls begin to fall. The New Zealand Council of Homeopaths has just admitted that… Homeopathy: There’s Nothing In It! It’s only a matter of time before the rest of the homeopathy industry worldwide admit the same or begin circling the wagons. Either way, the truth is now public knowledge and we should see less of this:
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Do you feel more sepia-toned yet?
Why, yes! I look in the mirror and I see… Wait, that’d be a no.
Forwarded from an email from Brian Bulkowski (email address provided) who seems to have had some problem submitting a comment; he wrote:
Sir:
The comment section of the blog was non-operational, so I take a minute to drop a line.
By taking so many pills at once, you may have under-dosed. In order to increase potency of a homeopathic, you should clearly take a smaller dose. Thus, you’ve reduced the potency of your 30c to maybe 28.7c. Instead, take half a pill to double the effectiveness.
Right?
—
Website: http://bulkowski.org/
@Brian Bulkowski
Thank you for your message, Brian.
First, let me correct you. It’s not the 10×23 (i.e. 230) protest. It’s 10^23 (100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000) campaign. It taken from Avogadro’s Constant (6.022 x 10^23) which, if you’re not familiar with it, is covered in middle/junior school science (the Internet will be full of information).
I mean absolutely no disrespect to you as an individual — and I hope you can understand the distinction between “you” and what you “say”, as it applies to argument — but what you have said is utter tosh. Even if you believe the magical thinking that says less of something is really more, then we are talking infinitesimal amounts of the homeopathic solution. A 30C solution contains no molecules of the original ingredient (ignoring the massive problem with how the original ingredient came to be chosen), so 1,000 times nothing is still nothing.
To take the leap of faith to then say, “Aha! But that’s what makes it so powerful!” is beyond science. And by that I do not mean beyond the understanding of science — I mean beyond the natural world. And once we’ve gone there, we’re talking about angels, gods, ghosts, alien abduction, astral projection, chiropractic, reiki, chi/qi, traditional acupuncture, and other fantastical nonsense that spews out of the minds and mouths of men, and are therefore beyond the realms of rational, intellectual and reasonable discussion. It becomes no different to arguing reality with a religious believer… or anal probing with an alien abduction believer, for that matter.
The problem is that people who take this instead of actual medicine are unwittingly risking their lives (by potentially not treating a serious illness) just so the people who sell it can have nice houses, cars, luxury yachts, etc. Please read and understand the placebo effect, and then understand that’s exactly what those who take these preparations are experiencing. It can and does have positive effects, as I’ve said in the article.
Ultimately, this exercise was about getting a high street pharmacy chain (who once had customers that, quite rightly, trusted them) to remove the snake oil from its shelves. It as not about converting true believers. Life is too short to waste that kind of time.
Lastly, entertaining the notion that less really is more, that means the person who only tastes the tiniest flake or crumb of a homeopathic pill should be dead in seconds. Orly?
“The problem is that people who take this instead of actual medicine are unwittingly risking their lives (by potentially not treating a serious illness) just so the people who sell it can have nice houses, cars, luxury yachts, etc.”
You are kidding me right???
There is virtually no money to be made in Homeopathy, the pills themselves are sold cheaply and produced cheaply and every homepath I’ve ever met does not live ‘large’ as you presume they do.
I think you have mistaken homeopaths with Pharmacuetical companies who rake in billions pushing medication that is often enough not properly tested (thalidomide, Vioxx ringing any bells).
The number one cause of death in America, according to JAMA (Journal of the American Medical Association) is medical errors that include modern medicine.
People should be able to choose how they want to treat themselves, I personally see no harm of treating a head ache with homeopathy, should I ever find anything more serious liek a lump where it shouldn’t be… I’m off to the doctors pronto!
Nitpicking about how much income homeopaths have, ignoring the entire point of the experiment: Science has proven over and over again, the stuff does not do anything at all.
However much money they make, homeopaths make their living selling sugar-pill bullcrap that’s been scientifically proven worthless to sick people. A person makes even one dollar off that, that person is a scam artist. End of story.
Don’t take your eye off the ball. The point of this entire event has been to prove (AGAIN) that these pills don’t do anything. They don’t do anything. They don’t do anything. They don’t do anything.
That’s funny because anyone I’ve ever talked to about Homeopathy that use it frequently are very satisfied customers and have no reservations about the effectiveness.
Surely if those that actually use Homeopathy are happy about the results who are you to tell them they don’t work just because you don’t understand the science (and yes there is a lot of science research out there testifying the significance of Homeophic treatments) behind it.
I’m sure you’re a very nice person. But I have to disagree. Anecdotes from random people you’ve talked to does not comprise scientific evidence. Real data-gathering. Double-blinded studies. Carefully monitored experiments. Those are the tools of science, not, “some guy I talked to says he felt better.” That’s correlation, not causation, and the placebo effect. If I’m walking down the street whistling “Camptown Races” and then find a $20 bill, that does not mean that whistling “Camptown Races” makes me wealthy. Those are just two events that occurred. If taking a sugar pill makes me think I’m better, that doesn’t necessarily mean I’m better. The difference is, my own experience is highly subjective and the world is an objective place.
I’m highly skeptical that there is any valid science behind homeopathy, frankly. For homeopathy to work, first you’ve got to prove that the “law of similars” is true. So therefore, the cure for a snake bite is more snake venom? The cure for arsenic poisoning is more arsenic? The cure for malaria is more malaria? And don’t claim this is how vaccines work, because it isn’t — vaccines are used to provoke the immune system into producing antibodies to specific viruses. The antibodies you produce are what cure the viral infection, not the vaccine itself.
Second, you’ve got to prove that diluting a substance makes it more powerful. Take a capful of orange juice and pour it into a quart of water. That means it’s got more vitamins in it than the jug of orange juice? Of course not. It’s a quart of water with a capful of orange juice in it. And pouring a capful of that mixture into another quart of water makes it more “orange juice-ish” than regular orange juice? No. And a capful of that mixture poured into ANOTHER quart of water gives it more vitamins than the plain old carton of orange juice? Surely not. Diluting this mixture in quarts of water again and again, 15 or 30 or 60 or 300 times, makes the vitamins ever more potent than just pure orange juice? Or is it more likely you’re just diluting what’s essentially just water into more water?
Third, you’ve got to prove that water has a memory. It’s a molecule of 2 hydrogen atoms and an oxygen atom — there’s no mechanism by which a molecule of water can “remember” things.
How then did the London Homoeopathic Hospital cure three times as many people during the cholera epidemic in 1854? With placebo’s????
Conducted in Nicaragua in association with the University of Washington and the University of Guadalajara, this randomized double-blind, placebo-controlled study of 81 children showed that an individually chosen remedy provided statistically significant improvement of the children’s diarrhea as compared to those given a placebo.
A study of the homeopathic treatment of migraine headache was conducted in Italy.8 Sixty patients were randomized and entered into a double-blind, placebo-controlled trial. While only 17% of patients given a placebo experienced relief of their migraine pain, an impressive 93% of patients given an individualized homeopathic medicine experienced good results.
A randomized double-blind, placebo-controlled trial was performed on 175 Dutch children suffering from recurrent upper respiratory tract infections. The study found that the children given homeopathic medicines had a 16% better daily symptom score than children given a placebo.
I could go on but I’m not going to as the list would get too long and will likely be deleted.
If your still not convinced then maybe former Nobel Prize winner Luc Montagnier recent paper of June 2009 might raise a few eyebrows about Electromagnetic signals and DNA.
Word for word. I’m afraid that copypasta does not an argument refute.
They didn’t cure more, they lost a lower percentage compared to other hospitals, they also treated fewer patients for cholera, considerably fewer patients (61) than, for example the Middlesex Hospital – 231.
These figures of course do not take into account the point in the progression of the illness at which the patients attended the hospital.
It might be wise to remember that some of the recorded sick/dead at the Middlesex were staff members, which may or may not indicate dubious sanitary conditions in the hospital which would only have exacerbated the issue.
Three trials do not proof make.
Your quoted figures do not take into account comparative trials between the homeopathic remedies and those wacky conventional medicines that people insist upon using.
With regards to your ‘statistically significant improvement’, this means nothing without quoting the statistics.
Here’s my account of the protest (I was quite flattered when the Berkshire Humanists asked me for it). Sorry you couldn’t join us in Oxford. Glad you found a way to join in anyway.
http://www.berkshirehumanists.org.uk/?p=2383
@Antony
I saw the post on the BH website, but didn’t realise it was you. Good on you, and thanks for contributing to BH – we need all the contributors we can get.
Shame I couldn’t make it, and would have been nice to finally catch up with you, but never mind. There’s plenty more woo to batter into submission, so there’ll always be another time.
I can’t form an opinion of what happened at the London Homeopathic Hospital in 1854 because I don’t know what OTHER treatments those patients were given besides sugar pills. Did they bathe patients, or did they not? Were those patients in a more sterile and clean environment than at other hospitals, or a less sterile one? What different treatments were patients given at other hospitals — this is 1854, not the most advanced time for medicine. You’d need to eliminate every other variable to compare results accurately on this one point. You can’t compare results with so many other variables present in the equation.
A similar study in Honduras in 2006 (yours was from 1994) featuring a greater number of children suffering from diarrhea than the Nicaragua study shows “no significant difference” between children treated with magical fairy-dust pills or placebo. http://bit.ly/bDFTES Other studies do show some correlation between homeopathic remedies and small increases in relief. This is something scientists should study more to make sure they can repeat the results and lock down exactly why and how it should work, because childhood diarrhea is a horrible scourge in developing countries. Is it because the children getting homeopathic treatment are basically also getting standard oral rehydration therapy? Or is it something magical? I don’t know. Whatever it is, there’s a problem to be solved and I’d like scientists to find out exactly what works.
Here’s a meta-analysis of homeopathy clinical trials in childhood and adolescence ailments, including upper respiratory tract infections: http://bit.ly/5uCkHZ “The evidence from rigorous clinical trials of any type of therapeutic or preventive intervention testing homeopathy for childhood and adolescence ailments is not convincing enough for recommendations in any condition.”
The study I think you’re referring to about the kids with URTI compared homeopathic care vs. self-prescribed homeopathic care. It didn’t compare homeopathy vs. medicine. http://bit.ly/bW8aQp I found another study comparing kids with URTI taking homeopathy or placebo, and found “no effect over placebo.” http://bit.ly/cxsRqB
This (http://bit.ly/cV9UGt) meta-analysis of several trials studying headache pain and homeopathy mentions one in which H was better than placebo and three in which it was equal to placebo. It’s not found to be harmful — how could it be? there’s nothing in there and headaches are harmless — but generally not helpful either. So why waste the money?
The fact remains that the principles upon which homeopathy are founded (the law of similars, the law of infinitesimals, magical “succussion”) make absolutely no logical sense, cannot be proven to work, and are not founded in reality. If anyone can prove they work and can distinguish a homeopathic dilution from water, there’s a man in Florida who’ll gladly give that person a million dollars. Or listen to the New Zealand Council of Homeopaths, who now acknowledge openly and grudgingly that there are no material substances “in the diluted remedies that form the basis of this multi-million-dollar industry.” http://bit.ly/ce6OYn . But whatever. I’m done.
“I don’t know what OTHER treatments those patients were given besides sugar pills.”
Some of the homeopahtical ingredients were listed as: camphor, copper, hellebore and arsenic, no mention of sugar I’m afraid.
The cases of cholera was varied is stages in both hospitals.
Of the 61 cases of cholera treated (at the Homeopahtical Hospital), 10 died, a percentage of 16.4; of the 331 cases of choleraic and simple diarrhœa trated, 1 died. The neighbouring Middlesex Hospital received 231 cases of cholera and 47 cases of choleraic diarrhœa. Of the cholera patients treated 123 died, a fatality rate of 53.2 per cent.
There is a lot more studies done that are found on Pubmed that favour Homeopathical treatments, I’m not going to list them but follow this link if you like: http://avilian.co.uk/2008/08/scientific-research-and-homeopathy-in-vitro-and-related-studies/
I think a lot more research still needs to be done and Luc Montagniers’ recent studies prove promising, but each to their own opinion I guess.
“It might be wise to remember that some of the recorded sick/dead at the Middlesex were staff members”
Actually it was only 1 staff member, a nurse.
“Three trials do not proof make.”
Yoda’s cousin you are not!