A still shot taken during the video production of “Massage For Relaxation in 1985 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Well, it had to happen sooner or later. Yesterday I came across my first suspicious “massage therapist” trying to drum up custom for herself via an association that exists to help and protect vulnerable people.

Background: for those who don’t already know this, I do some volunteer work for the education and health committees of a local LGBT association. With the recent election of François Hollande, who is not only favourable to equal marriage and adoption rights, but also to ending the systematic exclusion of gay men from donating blood, last night’s meeting was obviously going to be very much HIV-oriented. Plus we hadn’t argued about the ethics of the Truvada tests for ages.

We arrive a little early, and learn that the committee chairman won’t be there, but is sending along a masseuse who wants to present the services she wants to offer to our members. This instantly raises a red flag: it is not how I would expect a kosher paramedical professional to go about things. Chalking up one WTF point to her discredit before this person even arrives, I warn that this had better be real massage, because if it turns out to be Reiki I shall be extremely curt.

“What’s Reiki?” comes the cry. I am in the middle of explaining that it’s basically healing by the laying-on of hands when the Masseuse in question appears, so I STFU. We are polite and welcoming: after all, everyone is innocent until proven guilty. The other committee members turn up, as do guests from other associations. Concerted action is a wonderful thing. Also, Pride Month is nearly upon us: a great time for piss-ups and STI prevention campaigns. Our deputy chairwoman deems it prudent to let the therapist have her say first, so we can all get on with the rest of our business.

I’m not going to name the woman and, in any case, I strongly suspect the methodology is standard procedure. However, starting out by saying you’ve already done Magnetism is probably a bad idea. I surreptitiously move the WTFometer pointer up a notch, while bearing in mind that she may have mended her ways since. Yes, I can be a tolerant and forgiving Teapot, even sober.

She uses the word bien-être. Hmm. I have further doubts, as this could be translated either as ‘feeling good’ or as ‘wellness’. Given the context, this is not looking good, but nothing clearly objectionable so far. After all, relaxing massage isn’t that difficult and it can give a little moral lift when you’re feeling down.

Ah, but she wants to take charge of HIV+ folk from A to Z. We collectively beg her pardon and ask what she means by that. She means from when they first receive the test results and are maybe upset and depressed, right through to… um…

OK, we get it. One extra-large WTF point, serving for six, with cheesy topping. That’s nine in all. We have now twigged that she wants to use the association as a way of leeching onto the vulnerable. I enquire, with masterful self-control, what she means by “taking charge”.

“Well, not just massage. I can be there for them if they just need to talk, you know, be a friend.”

The WTFometer is now off the scale and I am fighting back memories of the Dingle-Scrayen horror. She really does want to play at ministering angels, and has not the faintest idea of how arrogant and patronising this is. So is she a qualified psychologist or social worker? No.

She is at least a qualified masseuse? Oh yes. She brings out her diplomas, which show she has completed modules I and II in a tiny private school we’ve never heard of. One of the guys has a girlfriend who is a massage therapist with a State-recognised diploma. He manages to keep a straight face.

So she would like us to recommend her to our members. Awkward. Fortunately, rules and regulations come to our aid. It’s impossible: the law doesn’t let us do that, even for 100% genuine, accept-no-imitation medics. We must always give a choice. She’s on her own, so no choice would be available. She can’t use our premises either, because she charges for her services – we’ll get to that – and we’re housed by the Town Council. The most we can do is sponsor a try-for-free evening in a local gay or lesbian club. Our chairwoman innocently enquires as to how long a massage lasts (up to 1 hour – this is not standard massage. I smell reiki) and how much it costs. We are told she doesn’t want to profit from or exclude those with low incomes, so a massage can cost from €30 to €50 for a full hour. That’s a bit steep, considering a fully qualified massage- or physiotherapist with years of study under their belt would be charging about the same, but covered at least in part by the Health Service.

How much would she charge us if we sponsored, say, six hours’ worth of free-to-try massage at one of the clubs, then? €300, which is her top rate. Nice. We’re neither made of money nor completely fucking stupid. And the promise of giving us a cut on any work she gets through us leaves our chairwoman, who knows that this commission would be achieved by simply adding the extra to the price of a massage, deeply unimpressed.

Ah, the presentation is over, at long last. Get this idiot out of here, she’s driving me nuts. As a gesture of goodwill, our chairwoman offers her a bottle of scented massage oil that one of our members, who manufactures the stuff, left as a present for anybody who wanted it. This elicits the throwaway comment that she uses differently scented oils depending on the pathologies of the person she’s massaging. Bingo!

“Is this aromatherapy?” sez I, all innocent-like. Yes it is, and she does reiki too.

I am reliably informed that my face was an absolute picture when I heard this.

I managed to keep control until she was out of earshot. I do not think anybody remaining in the room afterwards is still unaware of my thoughts on aromatherapy, reiki and magnetism. I may have thrown in homeopathy for good measure. Fucking vampires, preying on the vulnerable just to give themselves a feeling of importance.

My outburst causes a certain amount of hilarity: it’s the first time anyone here has seen me genuinely worked up over anything. The only real objection to my statement that I would categorically oppose giving this woman or anyone like her any form of free access to anybody is the well-worn: “some people say it makes them feel better, so shouldn’t they at least have access to it?” I explain that it’s the placebo effect, which could just as easily be achieved with a cup of tea and a biscuit.

We finish the meeting, which is quite productive apart from that. I am detailed off to explain to our usual chairman why we shouldn’t let quacks near our members and given the woman’s business cards, along with a huge wink, for ‘safe keeping’.

I get home at a reasonable hour, grab a late dinner and post a quick summary of the event on Twitter. This morning, I find this reply:

@anarchic_teapot: These modalities are great for bringing dis-eased mental patterns to the Light of Awareness where they can be resolved.—
Hope Johnson (@HopeWJohnson) May 23, 2012

Fuckwit ahoy! Hope W Johnson, stand by to be WTFometered.

Old homeopathic remedy, Hepar sulph. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

So the UK’s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) has decided to review and consolidate legislation on medicines in the UK, with the stated aim of making the whole thing simpler to wade through. A laudable aim, and one that more lawsmiths should bear in mind. I recall my law tutor at Stirling University commencing his dissection of a newly-passed Act with “The primary aim of the legislators in drafting this law was to make it as complex and incomprehensible as possible, and in this they succeeded admirably.”

Tidying up a legal framework and ironing out consistencies is a good idea. Of course, when that happens there’s also the temptation to actually remove loopholes in the existing law, and that’s when the squawking starts. Those who’ve exploited loopholes, or quietly got on with illegal activities that were largely ignored because the texts weren’t sufficiently clear, generally don’t like it when the smokescreen is lifted.

Your access to homeopathic medicines is under threat!

screams the headline. We’ll let the ‘medicines’ misnomer pass for now. so what are these dingbats wetting their panties over? Well, they reckon:

If the current proposals by the MHRA are endorsed by government the following would occur:

• You would no longer able to get homeopathic medicines by phone or online 
  (…)
• Homeopaths would not be able to dispense or prescribe medicines to you 
  (…)
• You would have to get your homeopathic medicines personally at a handful of licenced (sic) homeopathic pharmacies in Britain 
  (…)

I’m not going to dissect this, because Andy Lewis has already done so with his usual efficiency over at The Quackometer. Go read the article, it’s good stuff and there are a number of very pertinent comments, especially by the inimitable Warhelmet, whose own blog is alas no more. Briefly, the upshot is that the current situation, where anybody can set up as a homeopath and make their own magic water and sugar pills, would cease to be. And the hotbeds of whackjobbery that supply the basic ingredients of lactose tabs and water dropper bottles to these lunatics would lose a huge chunk of revenue as well. An example? Step forward Ainsworths, suppliers of weapons-grade WTF to HRH the Prince of Wales.

Anyway, I reckon what they should have been squealing about is this, re registration of homeopathic products:

95.—(1) This Part applies to a homoeopathic medicinal product (a “registrable homoeopathic medicinal product”) that meets the following conditions.
(2) Condition A is that the product is administered orally or externally.

Which presumably rules out nose drops, suppositories and injectable anthroposophical crap. But the next one is a real beaut:

(3) Condition B is that no specific therapeutic indication appears—
(a) on the labelling of the product; or
(b) in any information supplied with the product.

This means that if they want to be able to register a homeopathic remedy – presumably limited to pills, syrups, eye drops and creams – they cannot in fact make any claims of therapeutic benefit whatsoever. I don’t suppose it’ll stop the bastards doing it anyway; after all, it is already illegal to sell unlicensed homeopathic remedies in the UK, so they’re not going to be any more in breach of the law than before, at least on that score. What this might conceivably do, though, is make it a damn sight easier to point PC Plod in the general direction of homeopaths making their usual outrageous claims and get them arrested for practising medicine without a licence.

So our concerned homeopaths – who include Ainsworths and Helios – have set up a campaign to preserve their licence to print money:

Homeopathy Action Trust is the membership charity that supports public understanding of homeopathy, for the benefit of patients, students and practitioners alike.

Come off it: homeopaths don’t have patients. At best, they have clients. Now then, you may be chuckling in anticipation at the “supports public understanding” part, and well you might. Homeopaths have a remarkable propensity for shooting themselves in the foot. Before we move on to their mission statement, which was the real motivation behind today’s post, let’s all gaze in wonder upon this extract from their Terms and Conditions:

You may link to our home page, provided you do so in a way that is fair and legal and does not damage our reputation or take advantage of it

Fair and legal linking? Not quite sure what unfair or illegal linking might be, nor, to be blunt, what you could do about it if it existed. Damaging your reputation? How the fuck could anyone damage your reputation as professional homeopaths any more than you already do every time you open your mouths or put fingers to keyboard? As for taking advantage of said reputation: take a fresh YOU WISH every hour on the hour until you fully grasp the total fuckwitted impossibility of the magic cult you call homeopathy.

The T&Cs also stipulate – you’ll love this -

If you print off, copy or download any part of our site in breach of these terms of use, your right to use our site will cease immediately and you must, at our option, return or destroy any copies of the materials you have made.

They intend to enforce this how, exactly? Look guys, here’s a nice Fair Use flag for you to study. If ‘Fair Use’ is too hard for you to understand, just take the initial letters; the end result is the same. Let’s rip.

Our Vision, Mission and Values

Our Vision
A world in which homeopathy is universally accepted as a potent part of everyday life, in a society that promotes and protects choice in healthcare. A society that treats patients, practitioners and students of homeopathy fairly, positively and with respect.

Yes, yes, very nice. It’s their vision, let them dream. I’ll merely point out in passing that homeopathy is not part of healthcare and should never be, since is it merely an elaborate placebo. Also, respect is earned. Wittering on about miasms and dreams and quantum and nanoparticles and magical water memory won’t earn you any respect at all, astounding as that may seem. Anyway, here comes the priceless part:

Our Mission

To explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before?

To secure a vibrant future for homeopathy by:

Close. Nice play with “vibrant” there.

increasing awareness of homeopathy as a valid and effective healthcare option

It’s actually only valid if you opt not to have healthcare and, um, not effective for anything.

promoting education and research
providing information and support to patients, students and practitioners

That might be a wee bit counterproductive, you realise? Or am I being impertinent by assuming you mean honest, truthful and unbiased information? Feel free to put me straight on this.

galvanising and unifying the homeopathic community

I assume they mean ‘stimulate into action’ rather than ‘coat with a thin layer of zinc’. Galvanised homeopaths, eh? As long as they’re not lurching around the place like Frankenstein’s monster.

fostering a culture of clarity, openness, inclusivity and altruism

Clarity and openness? See my remarks on education and information above. If you can’t be arsed to refer to my previous remarks, consign under “I should fucking coco” and read on. I’ll believe the ‘altruism’ schtick when homeopaths stop trying to push fake medicines and potentially lethal philosophies on other people.

Our Values
Independence
Our independent status ensures integrity and politic-free, uncompromised activity

“Politic-free”, you will observe. Most intriguing. How in the name of sweet loving fuck do they reconcile this claim with the fact that this is an activist organisation set up to lobby MPs?

Clarity
The promotion of jargon-free, clear communication of homeopathy and its benefits

Ah. You’re going to have a problem with that one as well. Explain homeopathy clearly and without using pseudoscientific jargon to somebody with half an ounce of sense, and they’ll likely be wrestling you into a straitjacket before you can say “succussion”. On the plus side: the benefits are quickly and easily explained, since the only benefit is to your sales figures.

Determination
We will not cease in supporting activity that defends the legitimacy of homeopathy as a valid medical modality

You can fight ‘em on the beaches etc. as much as you damn well please, but you’d better be fighting with solid scientific evidence that homeopathy has at least as much medical value as real medicine. Don’t get too emotionally invested because, just between you and me, after over 200 years of not a shred of reliable evidence, it’s not looking too good.

Inspiration
Acknowledgement of the passion and enthusiasm that practitioners inspire in patients and students

Nah, that’s not inspiration, that’s indoctrination. Or maybe personality cult. That Hahnemann.guy has certainly been given guru status. In any case, that’s more evangelical church than medical. Not helping your case.

There’s a bit about collaboration, which just means “trying to recruit as many homeopaths as possible”. Then we get to the final juicy cherry on this over-egged cake of Stupid:

Responsibility
All our activity is underpinned by the practical and ecological efficiencies demanded of conscientious and responsible organisations

Look, Sunny Jim: a genuinely “conscientious and responsible organisation” wouldn’t be promoting homoe-fucking-opathy. If you were ecological, you wouldn’t be wasting good water or using vast quantities of mass-produced pilules made from animal protein.

Related articles

• Homeopaths in Panic over New Medicines Rules (quackometer.net)
• Active ingredients: None (zenosblog.com)

When I try to explain it to people — despite years of study and personal/professional experience — I wind up sounding like my worst woo-woo nightmare, stumbling over words like “energy,” “resonance” and “organism.”

And yet the alarm bells don’t go off. If you can’t explain it, you don’t understand it (that was one of Einstein’s, I believe). If, on the other hand, you’re pretty sure you have a strong grasp of the subject, and you feel embarrassed at explaining it because even you can smell the WTF rising off it, then maybe it really is a festering rash of vaccine-preventable Stupid on the arse of Society.

She actually touts two different currents of fuckwittery on her blog Words are Medicine, by the way. In addition to homeopathy there’s “verbal first aid” (+100 WTF points, achievement unlocked).on the strange basis that one (unreferenced) study is supposed to show that “psychotherapy can change brain chemistry as much as psychotropic medication.” Yeah. Me and the SO are taking that with a dose of salt so large it’ll probably send me into terminal hypernatræmia. I might look at that some other time.

Anyway, today’s special guest wants to share some great tips on that very first time you tremblingly consult a homeopath

A Primer in Classical Homeopathy: How to Make the Interview Easier and More Productive

I’ve been a psychotherapist for 25 years. I believe it’s an important part of my job to make my clients as comfortable as possible from the first phone contact. Despite all reasonable efforts, though, the first interview seems to still be somewhat awkward and difficult for new patients. Really, it’s very understandable. They don’t know me. They feel vulnerable and unsure because they don’t know exactly what’s expected. They’re sometimes not even fully clear about why they’re there except they know they want to feel better.

Interesting that she admits in as many words that clients… Clients or patients? She employs the words as though they’re interchangeable, yet they’re not. Medical professionals have patients; all other professions have clients. In fact, I’d tend to consider that a psychotherapist (a real one, i.e. a psychiatrist or clinical psychologist) would have patients, whereas a homeopath would have clients. I’m not sure what a social worker, which is what Judith Acosta’s main qualifications are in, should call their paying customers, but it sure as hell isn’t ‘patient’ (“And I’m damn sure in other countries she couldn’t legally call herself a psychotherapist either.” – an irate SO).

Back to the main rant. Whatever a homeopath’s marks should be called to their face, you’ll note that the homeopath is profiting from a state of confusion, liberally laced with ignorance about what homeopathy really is, on the part of the victim. The victim probably isn’t actually ill, just vaguely out of sorts, or maybe has a chronic problem which isn’t life-threatening, but is untreatable, or at least hard to treat, with real medicine (allergies, rheumatism etc). The stage is set, let the embamboozlement commence.

The homeopathic interview may be even more of an unknown for some people. Not only does it start with the same “unknowns” as the social work assessment, but it adds some new ones, like the simple but monumental fact that it turns allopathic or “standard” medical practice on its head. You may have called the homeopath to get rid of that recalcitrant psoriasis, but he or she keeps talking about whether you kick the covers off at night, how you feel about injustice, or whether your sadness is worse in the morning or at night.

So the homeopath confuses them further, and chips away at that tiny feeling of “I should be better” until the bewildered victim ends up believing Doctor Quack has sharper insight than medical doctors because he/she is taking so much more into account. It’s standard procedure for charlatans: tell your victim they’ve got something they didn’t know they had, or that it’s worse than they thought, then promise them the cure. Which will take time. And patience. And money.

I think what burns me up most about these arsebrained fake therapies isn’t just that they operate and self-perpetuate using the same viral infection methods as sects: draw the unwitting in on false pretences, feed them the little lies until they’re so emotionally invested that you can teach them the big lies and be confident they’ll swallow them and teach them in turn to others. It’s that most practitioners are themselves victims, both of indoctrination by their predecessors and their own fantasies of importance.

So how does Acosta go about priming a mark for indoctrination?

Preparing Yourself  Philosophically

One of the fortunate aspects of my practice is that I see people more frequently because the primary focus of it is mental health treatment. Even though it also takes physical conditions into account, people almost always call me because they’re sad, anxious, grief-stricken, panicked, or in some way emotionally distressed.

Excuse me for a moment while I pry this axe from the SO’s white-knuckled fists. Being “sad, anxious, grief-stricken, panicked, or in some way emotionally distressed” is not a mental health issue. It’s part of life. Anyone seeing a social worker because they’re distressed in some way is most likely in dire need of a cup of tea, a chat and some useful tips: what help is available for their problem, or how to get in touch with people in a similar situation. Perhaps even help filling in forms or making phone calls for those who can’t do it themselves for any reason (elderly, disabled, poor grasp of the language or paralysed by real depression, for example). Look, what I’m saying is: this is needlessly medicalising normal emotions and therefore dangerous fuckwittery.

Unless a person comes specifically to be treated homeopathically and has already had some experience with the philosophy and practice of classical homeopathy, I usually anticipate spending at least some time in the first or second session on education. I give material for reading, lead them to the National Center for Homeopathy website, and take as much time as he or she needs answering questions.

The NCH is hardly going to give an unbiased view, considering the complete bollocks they wrote about Edzard Ernst in a desperate, coordinated (several homeopathy sites published the same pitiful and mendacious whinge) and obvious attempt to discredit him and Simon Singh.

In my opinion, the best book for the starting patient is Impossible Cure by A. Lansky. It is written in clear, concise prose and doesn’t fall back on “homeospeak” so you can follow her all the way through. And hers is an amazing, personal story of hope.

Lansky? Her Impossible Cure has already been examined here, and pronounced vastly inferior to Andrex. It’s terrifying to a bowel-loosening degree. You may notice that Lansky provides information on homeopathy via email. Fuck alone knows what lies are being repeated via that medium.

OK, let’s debunk some Stupid before I pick up that axe. Note the frequent use of the word “cure”. We are not being circumspect here. The words “treat” or “may relieve”, or even “may be good for” are eschewed in favour of barefaced claims of medical cures. Even in the notoriously lax USA (Acosta lives in New York, apparently) I don’t think you’re allowed to claim homeopathy cures anything without proof.

The principles of classical homeopathy are the following:

Like cures like.

This is the manner of cure. It is also called the Law of Similars and it is the way all proper remedies are chosen.

It’s the way most homeopathic remedies are chosen. Classical homeopathy excludes the “nosode” (yes, there are even purists in bullshit) remedies. However, call me picky: I reckon the use of the phrase “all proper remedies” in this context is… How shall I put this? Misleading.

It means that the practitioner is going to ask you a host of questions intended to draw out information that will help him or her choose the remedy that is most “similar” to your totality of symptoms.

What a homeopath calls symptoms bears little resemblance to anybody else’s. Cancer, for example, is a symptom. As is feeling faint when hearing music (both dredged up from ABC Homeopathy’s monumental webshite).

The simplest example of the Law of Similars is what we do when we get grease on our hands. We clean it with soap (or, if you’re out in the garage, Goop), which is little more than fat. The soap removes the grease because it is grease.

I learned what detergents are in school at around age 13. We made our own soap as an exercise. No, soap is not grease, you uneducated, lazy shitmeister. It’s made from fat, certainly, but it isn’t fat. What was it Sen. Al Franken said to the homophobic moron again?

In a homeopathic case, it may look like this:  A little boy suddenly gets a raging fever with a pounding headache, dilated pupils, cheeks so red they could be purple and becomes delirious. The remedy a homeopath would choose (and there would be a couple of contenders) would have to produce those symptoms in a healthy person. By giving the remedy that would generate that particular type of febrile state to a person with it, it is cured.

Cured. No ifs or buts. Cured. That’s not just wrong, it’s potentially criminally wrong.

This is why quinine works curatively for malaria—because when it is given to a healthy person over and over, it creates symptoms similar to malaria. Like cures like.

Doesn’t quinine only produce those symptoms in a healthy person who’s allergic to quinine?

This principle goes back to Hippocrates

Bollocks. It goes back to that late 18th century dimwit Hahnemann, who just made it up as he went along.

Hering’s Law.

This is the road of cure in homeopathy. In simplest terms it refers to the way and the order in which the pathology will be healed. Cure moves from top down, from present to past, and from in to out (from the spiritual-mental-emotional down through the organs from most to least important and finally out to discharge in a benign way, e.g., a runny nose, brief diarrhea, fever, or skin eruption).

What. The. Fuck? Top down? What are you supposed to do, wash your hair with it? From present to past? I’ll believe that when homeopathy can unscramble an egg. As for “from in to out“, that noxious chunk of purulent WTF seems to mean that emotions get flushed out of the body (and how in the name of sweet loving fuck do they establish a hierarchy of importance among the organs?) via the shits or snot.

OH GOD, IF YOU EXIST KILL US ALL NOW. A giant meteorite would be fine. I know you have a plentiful stock out there in the Kuiper belt. Just wallop one over here, no questions asked. It’s probably best for all concerned.

One remedy at a time.

This is the technique of cure and it is an obvious but overlooked wisdom.

Actually, it’s not obvious, deary. I remember my philosophy tutor – whom I loathed – ripping into Marx for continually stating things were self-evident when they patently weren’t. He’d have had a field day with you. I shudder to think what he would have made of the gratuitous use of the word ‘wisdom’, although it is certain he would have been no kinder. When someone starts wittering about ‘wisdom’, especially in the context of unproven/disproven hypotheses like vitalistic healing, you can be 100% sure that what they’re spouting is about as far from wisdom as you can get while still remaining in the same Universe.

There’s some more guff about having to be patient. Well, if all you’re taking for your ailments are sugar pills and distilled water, you do indeed need to be patient while Nature takes the same damn course it would have taken anyway for far less money. Patience is a great virtue in the eyes of homeopaths. The more patient a customer is, the more money they can make out of him or her:

When patients ask me, “Well, how much time,” I have to say, “As long as your organism needs. You’ll tell me how much time.”

So this can go on until the money supply dries up or the penny drops for the mark. Then follow the usual attacks on ‘Western medicine’, merrily sidestepping the fact that homeopathy was invented by a German. In Germany. And has been exported by affluent white whackjobs to countries that really needed genuine healthcare.

Western practitioners often mistake the presenting problem for the only problem they need to cure, not having been trained to see the embedding of one pathology over the other or the inheritance one may have received from one’s ancestors.

Bollocks of the first water. Real doctors are quite capable of dealing with multiple pathologies and genetic predispositions. Having no cogent argument for their favoured mumbo-jumbo, homeopaths and other woomeisters resort to smears, lies and defamation.

These are levels of defense.

Eh? I had to go back to the original text, which I’m pruning a bit so as not to go on all night about fuckwittery I’ve already debollocksed many times, but that sentence really does follow the last quote and, as far as I can see, it is a complete non sequitur.

We know this by what happens in our relationships. First bad joke, we get a giggle and a snort. Second bad joke, we get a “cut it out.” Third bad joke, we get kicked in the shins.

You have some really fucking weird relationships, lady, if they get abusive that quickly. However, for assimilating any form of social interaction to medicine, you get a strike three round the lughole with the WTFometer as well.

It is common knowledge that when an organism is injured, it inflames. It is a mechanism of repair. Homeopaths trace what happens if the injury is not healed (by itself, with proper medicine or the removal of inflammatory agent): the inflammation worsens, leading to induration (hardening). If that is not healed, then the organism resorts to its last defense to save the whole. Thus a cancerous tumor or an ulcer is a result of this process at the genetic level.

There is so much wrong in that claim I reckon the best we can do is don the Hazmat gear and dispose of it as highly toxic waste. It contains more offensive shit than a slurry tank on a pig farm.

In homeopathy there are three basic levels:

Miasms. Only three this time? They should make their fucking minds up how many of the damn things there are. I’m cutting the rest of this section, since it’s all 100% certified weapons-grade Stupid and you can always get a good laugh over at the original site. For those who missed the previous episode: miasms are the homeopathic version of humours, the old theory of disease that was thoroughly discredited when the link was made between bacteria and disease.

Then there’s some spurious maths, presumably to convince the naïve that some science is involved somewhere. Avogadro gets a name-check.

The way I explain it to patients is this: Homeopathy is an energy delivery system, like a musical instrument or a beating heart or a scream of “fire” in an auditorium.

There you are. Naked vitalism. If the mark swallows this, she’s got them by the short and curlies. Once again, the comparisons are inappropriate as fuck. As a musician, I object to the first; as a living person with a basic grasp of anatomy, I sneer at the second; the third… Well, there’d better be a fire in that auditorium, or else the screamer will be severely WTFometered, just as you are being now, Ms Acosta.

So if the remedy is sulphur 30c, there are no molecules of sulphur in it. It acts on the vital force (and this is important!!!) by energetic resonance.

Energetic resonance. I think she means vibration, but that wouldn’t be a sufficiently high-falutin’ term when trying to sound as if you have access to some Secret Wisdom. I should probably shove a ™ on that: some mercenary little tit has probably already trademarked it.

It does not work on our bodies directly the same way that taking an aspirin or steroid does.

Well, no: lactose and water don’t have the same chemical composition as aspirin or steroids

It seems to work more along the lines of quantum physics than Newtonian law. (Poitevin, Bernard (2005). “Jacques Benveniste: a personal tribute”.

QUANTUM PHYSICS! *Drink*

No, you doughball, it doesn’t ‘seem’ to work that way at all, because you don’t understand quantum physics, nor the placebo effect. That’s a pity, because it’s the latter definition you really need and as a qualified social worker it’s something you should understand very well. By the way Benveniste was a tosser who couldn’t design a clinical trial properly and was thoroughly discredited and shamed, which is an excellent reason for binning the consequent ramblings about ‘water memory’, since there’s not a word of sense nor truth in them.

Some fun stuff: Acosta’s particular flavour of mumbo-jumbo forbids coffee. Pausing only briefly to wonder how many caffeine-withdrawal headaches she has sold to the customer as being “getting worse before you get better”, here are some more insane questions on stuff the homeopath “needs to know”:

Interior function (most important):

Creativity, compassion, forgiveness, centeredness, relatedness, empathy, adaptability, consistency in relationships, integrity/honesty, and consistency between intention and behavior.

Exterior function:

This may not coincide exactly with interior function. However, I believe and have found that our pathologies normally express themselves poetically or holographically.

Holograph (n.): a document entirely handwritten by its author. What the ever-lovin’…???? I am increasingly of the opinion that this is in fact an exercise in writing word salad.

You may recall the expression, “as above, so below.” It is true for us, as well. So we will ask you about situations that reveal your capacity for appropriate behavior (clothing, responsiveness to social cues), money management, job status, time management, socialization, housing.

I’m pretty certain my idiosyncratic clothes and the size of my flat have nothing to do with my allergic conjunctivitis.

Physiological function:

Parents’ medical history, personal medical history, current disease state (psoric, sycotic, syphilitic), diet (especially cravings and aversions), exercise, chronicity (how long the problem has persisted), periodicity (how often it occurs and whether there are specific cycles), and modalities (what makes it better or worse).

Fairly sure my parents’ medical history has nothing to do with my athlete’s foot either. Or mine, really. You either have it, or you don’t. I doubt me Mam’s traumatic anosmia (she fell off a motorbike while not wearing a helmet) is of any consequence except to her.

Spiritual function:

Rigidity, belief system, presence, judgment, fear.

I can’t even begin to comment on the above, because all that springs to my lips is one gigantic WTF. Would a practising Christian be given a different “remedy” for the same illness, compared to a Hindu or an atheist? Presumably total wimps and outright bastards would require different treatments for flu or cold sores. It’s just magic, carefully disguised to look like medicine until you actually look at it.

There’s no such thing as magic. Sometimes all you can do is be there and hold their hand. It won’t heal anything, but it can make the pain easier to bear. The soothing powers of a Wee Cup of Tea and a Biscuit, accompanied if necessary by practical advice and maybe a helping hand, are seriously underrated.

All Acosta’s sugar pills are useful for is sweetening the tea. Dangerous delusion.

In short, are you a complete idiot whose doctor has told him that there’s nothing wrong with his willy and who is convinced that there’s some magic formula that will turn him into a God of Sex with an erection like a stallion, because that’s what men are supposed to be like and women are supposed to want? Only it’s got to be something that looks cool, sophisticated and scientific, because you know there are loads of cheap’n'nasty set-ups running rip-off operations?

Fear not, my son, for I have just the scam for you: Man Power – Sprayology. It costs a mere $32 for a 1.38 oz spray bottle. A snip! Look at the classy presentation: it looks really professional, so it’s got to be kosher!

It’s homeopathic. Allegedly.

It’s fuckwittery. Of course.

Man Power

REJUVENATES THE MALE BODY

FDA-Regulated
Temporarily relieves the symptoms of low male energy including:

• decreased sexual desire and vitality
• muscular weakness
• irritability
• “the blues”

Recommended for: men who want to gain strength, improve mood
and increase their sexual desire naturally.

Ah, the WTF is indeed strong with this one, with blatant embamboozlement of the mark. Note the vagueness of the ‘symptoms’, a classic red flag for woo. Clicking on the link provided at ‘FDA-Regulated’ reveals that they’re claiming it’s an authorised homeopathic remedy. I have no idea how closely the FDA monitors the lucrative sugar pill and water market, but I would be intrigued to learn if even that claim stands up to scrutiny.

In any case, the symptoms would be better treated with a good night’s sleep in most cases. Laying off the booze and the herbal tobacco would also help. OK, so let’s be having the sales spiel. This should be good. WTFometers at the ready, proceed with caution:

Product benefits

The therapeutic benefits of the ingredients described below are from clinical evidence reported in the major homeopathic materia medicas accepted throughout the world.

Clinical evidence? Clinical evidence? For homeopathy? You have got to be kidding. That’s 3 WTF points and a YOU WISH right there.

SYMPTOMS RELIEVED

HAHAHAHAHAA snrk. Sorry.

Decrease in sexual desire and vitality

• Orchitinum (Testicular Extract) – treats male impotence, states of exhaustion and raises the level of vitality

Look, you know and I know that there’s no way I can respond to this assertion other than with a heartfelt cry of “Bollocks!” A quick search of the Internet reveals that homeopaths seem rather coy about saying exactly which animal provides its goolies for this. Presumably the idea is to confundle the reader into believing that the spray contains something akin to testosterone.

• Korean Ginseng (Aralia Quinquefolia) – supports sexual excitement

If you believed everything they say about ginseng… Well, it might conceivably have an effect since it’s said to be a muscle relaxant, but I doubt the concentration here would be sufficient. It’s rather odd, since the homeopathic “law of similars” means this product should logically only contain boner-killers, not something that might actually favourise erection. This suggests a profound ignorance of hard-on mechanics, which I would venture to suggest is a major handicap when trying to help someone get it up – if they are genuinely trying to help, and not just cynically cashing in on the Insecure Male market.

• Nuphar Luteum (European Pond)- for an absence of sexual desire and diminution of erections

Pond

Actually, they mean ‘water-lily’, not Pond. Like ginseng, the presence of Amy Pond would tend to favourise… OW! What? Oh, very well. I have been instructed to state that

Rory is awesome

and move on.

• Damiana (Turnera Aphrodisiaca) – relieves sexual nervousness and helps overcome impotency

Again, this plant is supposed to be an aphrodisiac. I’m really not seeing application of homeopathic principles here.

• Argentum Nitricum – stimulates desire

That’s silver nitrate, used for just about everything in homeopathy including – I swear this is true – coughing when singing high notes. Anyway, you can see where this is going: a mishmash of old herbal remedies and homeopathy. The list of ingredients reflects this, with the dilutions ranging from 1X (diluted 10 times) to 200C (diluted in more water than exists in the entire Universe). However, I think everybody will appreciate the instructions for use:

DIRECTIONS

For adult males only: 2 sprays under the tongue 3 times per day.

If Pregnant or nursing a baby, consult a health care professional before using.

I don’t think there’s anything to add to that last sentence.

Yes, Gazing with Braco (pronounced “Bratso”, it’s Croatian). Braco has a Great Gift. He gazes. For money.

Braco’s gaze is connected to our Sun, which is a conduit of nourishment for the spirit. When people come to a gazing session, they receive for their spirit.

Yeah, whatever you say, love. Anyway, that’s it. He doesn’t touch anyone, or speak. He gazes silently at a room full of standing punters for about five minutes. In woospeak this renders as:

As Braco gazes at us and we gaze back at him during sessions, our strongest support comes through our feelings in those moments, which anchor what is uniquely here for us. Many people report a gentle action taking place as Braco’s gift touches them during a gazing bringing forth deep feelings of love, joy or a sense of being seen for the very first. Others report experiencing heat or a fire-like sensation activating areas in the body. This interaction can even awaken lost or abandoned hopes for good health, life purpose and a positive future.

Don’t get all excited over the “fire-like sensation activating areas in the body“; he’s not all that hot. Just a very ordinary-looking guy. A pleasant enough face, but you have to be really trying to get any mystic vibes off him. And of course, that’s the whole point. He doesn’t do anything except stand there and look around, presumably with a neutral expression, or the slightly constipated one that passes for showing empathy with some. Obviously the build-up, the carefully-lit stage and the specially-composed music all contribute to the whole thing. But the point is: whatever people experience is 100% due to their own imagination. Sheer moneymaking genius.

Once Braco leaves the stage, the audience will be offered two minutes of silence to complete the integration of their experience. People may remain standing or reseat themselves after Braco leaves the stage.

It’s all very professionally done. Get a few folk to “TESTIFY!” (I love that number from Repo, A Genetic Opera), wind it up with a booster speech to tell people what just happened and then in with the next batch. Very slick indeed.

Next, the event host will return to the stage and offer an opportunity for several people in the audience to share their personal experiences.  Then the host will make any final announcements and everyone will be asked to exit the gazing room. The doors will then be closed to prepare the room for the next session.

Don’t forget the merch!

Braco DVDs, books and sun jewelry will be available on display in the lobby area for anyone wishing to bring home a tool to reconnect with the gift of Braco.

…Though why anyone would want a DVD of a guy standing there staring for 5 minutes escapes me. The jewellery is expensive and looks like the sort of cheap tat the less discerning 8-year-old might wear. A punk would reject it as too trashy. As for the books, well they’re potent stuff:

Books about Braco offer a highly personalized interaction and the body connects at the necessary material level with the book itself.

Fucking hell. Facepalm Central, change here for Fruitcake City and all points west.

Now then, this is the good bit. This is the part that will brighten your day while simultaneously releasing a huge and multicoloured flock of WTF in your immediate vicinity. Special health warning: the sheer power of Braco’s Gift may be too much for some:

Can children attend gazing sessions?

The energy could overburden children, so the sessions are not open for visitors under the age of 18. It is best to bring a photo of your child to a session.

What the ever lovin’ …? A masterly exercise in taking people for complete idiots. And there are complete idiots who fall for the whole schtick, live or online (of course he does live streaming, what a dumb question).

Hey, humanity! Evolution called. From now on, you’re to be known as Homo Fuckwittens. No buts. You don’t get to call yourself Homo Sapiens until the majority of you actually learn to think.

Related articles

• Would you pay $3 to look into this man’s tender eyes? (blogs.vancouversun.com)

PS Zemanta suggested Great Comet as a tag for this post. It knows me too well, I fear.

I couldn’t find a link which would enable me to indicate an illegal product. So I submitted a brief, but sharp, review. Amazon refused it, for no apparent reason (it complies with the guidelines, after all). I take this as explicitly condoning the sale of unlicensed pharmaceuticals.

Is Ms Streisand in the room?

Dear anarchic_teapot,
Thanks for submitting a customer review on Amazon. Your review could not be posted to the website in its current form. While we appreciate your time and comments, reviews must adhere to the following guidelines: http://www.amazon.com/review-guidelines We encourage you to revise your review and submit it again. A few common issues to keep in mind:	Raw Uterus Pills For Crossdressi… ~SOR, Inc.

Written reviews must be at least 20 words long. The ideal length is 75 to 500 words. Your review should focus on specific features of the product and your experience with it. Feedback on the seller or your shipment experience should be provided at www.amazon.com/feedback. We do not allow profane or obscene content. This applies to adult products too. Advertisements, promotional material or repeated posts that make the same point excessively are considered spam. Please do not include URLs external to Amazon or personally identifiable content in your review. We welcome your honest opinion about products – positive or negative. We do not remove reviews because they are critical. We believe all helpful information can inform our customers’ buying decisions. If you have questions about the product or opinions that do not fit the review format, please feel free to use the Customer Discussions feature on the product page.

Dangerous rubbish,April 18, 2012

By anarchic_teapot
This review is from: Raw Uterus Pills For Crossdressing, Transgender and Trasnvestite Men (Health and Beauty)
This is an attempt to sell hormones without a medical licence or prescription and targets the vulnerable and desperate. Why does Amazon accept products like this with no screening whatsoever? The Quack Miranda disclaimer in tiny print at the foot of the page is hardly an exoneration.

Just for info: no, I don’t get my kicks out of dressing up as a woman. Feel free to make jokes about it, though. I won’t be offended. Might even join in.

Dieting is about looking and feeling good, right?

In the whackosphere, nobody can hear you scream “Jesus P. Skateboarding Christ, what is it with these idiots?” Enter the latest in sheer fuckwittery: the K-E diet. Developed, invented, punted – whatever – by a Canadian anaesthetist/internist currently infesting the State of Florida: Oliver di Pietro.

Now the official website has no mention of the “diet”. However, it wasn’t hard to find what looks like the official brochure by searching the Internet: The K-E Diet (PDF file). Don’t bother looking up the website in there: it doesn’t seem to exist at the moment.

The K-E diet (also known as the KEN diet, supposedly invented by Gianfranco Cappello, an associate professor of general surgery in Italy) is quite simply a 10-day starvation diet. We’ve already seen one of those. The gimmick for this particular manifestation of the Fuckwit Fairy is that you have a feeding tube, inserted of course by our noble medic (or someone authorised by him to do this), to provide you with some protein, fat and the impression that you’re actually doing something medically safe.

From ABC News:

The program has dieters inserting a feeding tube into their nose that runs to the stomach. They’re fed a constant slow drip of protein and fat, mixed with water, which contains zero carbohydrates and totals 800 calories a day. Body fat is burned off through a process called ketosis, which leaves muscle intact, Dr. Oliver Di Pietro of Bay Harbor Islands, Fla., said.

Well, if you’re only taking in 800 calories a day, damn right you’re going to be burning off fat. You’re also going to feel tired and listless. There may well be other unpleasant effects, of which more anon. I now draw your attention to the zongo in the photo, who’s not exactly glowing with health and happiness. It looks like a police mugshot, only slightly less unnerving than the “after” photos on Faces of Meth.

Anyway, this ketosis thing. Here’s what WebMD has to say on the matter:

Low-carb diets can cause your body to go into a dangerous metabolic state called ketosis since your body burns fat instead of glucose for energy. During ketosis, the body forms substances known as ketones, which can cause organs to fail and result in gout, kidney stones, or kidney failure. Ketones can also dull a person’s appetite, cause nausea and bad breath. Ketosis can be prevented by eating at least 100 grams of carbohydrates a day.

So, maybe not such a good thing? You might argue that since it’s a medic doing the intubation, they would ask the appropriate questions and do a few essential tests beforehand? Do they buggery: the brochure simply tells you to “inform our staff“. This assumes everybody is fully aware of the state of their own health and that nobody lies. House M.D. would appreciate.

We’ll also lightly touch on the fact that losing 10lb in as many days is self-destructive WTFuckery of the highest order. Even if it’s actually possible without surgery, which I doubt. When dieting, aim for around 1lb per week on average, eat a healthy and balanced diet with limited calorie reduction, get some exercise (can’t do this if you’re exhausted from lack of nourishment) and – once you’re down to your target weight – stabilise by adjusting your calorie intake without losing all those good habits you learned while dieting. Then you stick to it for the rest of your life, which is what you should have done in the first place. Quarter-pounders and maxi fries with a large soda are for losers anyway.

Actually, that 10lb weight loss claim, illustrated by the usually misleading  “before” and “after” photos  (hey, if you lose that much weight so quickly, you should have floppy folds of skin on your gut. Where’s the floppy gut? – the SO) is also rendered as:

HOW MUCH WEIGHT CAN I LOSE?
• About 20 lbs.
• It is a non-invasive weight loss method which results in most patients losing approximately 1%* of their weight in 10 days, as long as you follow the program completely.

Now, I’m maybe not the world’s greatest mathematician, but if 20lb (9.07Kg) is equal to 1% of my bodyweight, then I calculate that means I weigh 2,000lb, or 907 Kg, That’s about the same as an Alfa Romeo 4C. If you were a pig, you’d die from being too heavy to move.

On the other hand, if you weigh 200lb and lose 1% of that, i.e. 2lb, in 10 days – well, that’s what you’d expect to lose with a normal calorie-counting diet. One that doesn’t cost nearly $150 a day.

That is beyond the realms of WTF. This guy, who’s supposed to be a qualified doctor (although, like all quacks, his qualification isn’t in the field he’s trying to make oodles of $$$ out of) doesn’t just promote a potentially dangerous diet including an unnecessary medical intervention. He doesn’t only make outrageous and misleading claims as to the amount of weight you can lose in a very short period. He doesn’t stop at showing doctored photos that look like they escaped from last year’s “one weird tip” scam. He thinks you can’t even count. FSM alone knows where he puts the decimal point when calculating drug dosages for his patients.

And to shaft you all the way, he’ll charge you $1,499 for the privilege of helping you make a total, foul-breathed, glassy-eyed laughing-stock of yourself.

Seriously, for that sort of money, you could follow a calorie-controlled weight loss plan that involves re-education. They’re not hard to find.  Even an old favourite like Weight-watchers will do. If you have health problems, your doctor may send you to see a dietician. Avoid nutritionists: anyone can call themselves that, whereas dietician is a regulated profession. But whichever of those courses you follow, at least you should still have your kidneys at the end of it, plus enough cash left over to buy a wedding dress that fits.

You know? The dress you should have bought in the first place?

Fun fact, for anyone in the USA who gets their hands on a copy of that brochure: there are no disclaimers.

Old Chinese medical chart on acupuncture meridians (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Because to be honest: I have. After all, everyone knows about the mythical meridians, but is that all this particular brand of exotic woo has to offer? Cackling gleefully, we prise open the lid.

High blood pressure affects half of people with diabetes in the UK, can acupuncture help? says the headline. Now, you and I know that the answer is “no”, but the woomeisters will conclude the opposite. The paper in question is here and immediately raised the following question in my untutored mind: where’s the fucking control group?

There isn’t one. I can’t read the study itself, as it’s in Chinese, but there’s certainly no mention of a control group in the abstract.

So, on with the fuckwittery. Here’s the article that had me rolling in the aisles, slightly shortened so that we get a good look at the insaner parts:

Diabetes UK said the most recent figures, from a national audit of more than 2 million people with the condition, showed just 50.7% were meeting their blood pressure target… Many people with diabetes need to take medication to lower their blood pressure.

So far, so good. This may well be true and is just setting the scene. Some of the causes of high blood pressure are listed here (webmd.com)

Can acupuncture help?

Since this is an acupuncturist writing, you know what their final conclusion will be. Takes all the suspense out of it. I love a good detective story, too. Now then, this is where things start getting lively, so form the wagons into a circle, grab your WTFometers and remember: don’t fire until you see the whites of their eyes.

In Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), hypertension or prehypertension is usually seen as a pattern of excess Heat or Stagnation affecting the Liver, Gallbladder, or Heart channels.

Uh-huh. Heat and Stagnation. If you say so, bub. This will be Disturbances in the Qi, which doesn’t exist, circulating along the meridians, which also don’t exist. At least it’s consistently fantastical. I’ll bung that a couple of WTF points to keep it busy and we’ll proceed cautiously, avoiding loose pebbles and dry sticks.

In some cases, there can be additional Phlegm patterns, which block the Heart channels or a Deficiency of Yin.

The thought of patterns of phlegm is making my stomach churn. Let me check… Yup, it’s partly the old, discredited notion of humours and partly the stuff you cough up when you’ve got bronchitis. Or maybe both. Eurgh. “Deficiency of Yin” does not refer to a sad lack of Billy Connolly in the area, although maybe it should. Yin and Yang, who are not the TCM equivalent of the Flower Pot Men (unfortunately), are another cornerstone of the Qi meridians philosophy. Note well that word: philosophy. We’re not talking about a type of therapy arrived at by experimentation, but something that someone – probably a number of someones – decided ought to be how things are. If this reminds you of medicine as practised in Europe and America as late as the 18th century, award yourself a biscuit.

Acupuncture points are selected that have been clinically found to create a hypotensive effect (e.g., relax the heart valves and lower their pressure at contraction and relaxation)…

“Clinically found”? Relax the heart valves, my Aunt Fanny. Hypertension doesn’t originate in the heart, it just makes the heart work harder.

Using points to calm the mind, rid the body of excess fire…

Insert curried egg joke here.

..tonify the yin..

And bring me a yin and tonic. How in the name of sweet loving fuck do you tonify a vaguely-defined philosophical concept?

…and regulate the Qi flow through the channels will help build lasting health long-term.

Even if Qi really existed – and not one properly conducted study has shown this – how would sticking the odd pin in it for a few minutes give long-lasting effects? Surely once you took the pin out, there would be no reason for the Qi not to return to where it was?

Acupuncture is also effective at relieving subjective symptoms and has no side effects.

Subjective symptoms = placebo effect. Cue round of thunderous applause for weaseling that in and trying to make it sound as if it’s something medical. No side effects? Well, for a start: those needles do in fact sting a wee bit, especially when they run the current through them. Anyone who tells you different is lying. As for potential dangers, try whatstheharm.net. Fortunately, nearly all acupuncturists use disposable needles these days, so infection is theoretically less of a risk, but there’s always the danger of hitting a vital organ.

Nevertheless, it’s all very well for acupuncture to be relatively harmless, but that does not imply it is an effective therapy. Quite the reverse, in fact. Like homeopathy, the complete lack of side effects suggests there is also a complete lack of effect, period.

Right, they’re nearly on us. Read the following and see how many methodological fuckups you can spot. A single, standard-issue WTFometer should allow you to detect at least one thing that renders the whole exercise totally pointless.

Fire at will.

To compare the therapeutic effect of electroacupuncture and western medication on blood pressure variability in young patients with hypertension.Chinese Affiliated Hospital of Shandong University of TCM has done a new research about this.Their sixty cases of hypertension in young patients were randomized into an electroacupuncture group and a western medication group, 30 cases in each one. In electroacupuncture group, electroacupuncture was applied on Quchi (LI 11) and Taichong (LR 3). In western medication group, Captopril was taken orally.

These clowns regularly spew out fuckwitted “trials” like this and then claim it proves acupuncture can treat all sorts of serious ailments. They are deluded liars. Don’t let them get away with it.

Related articles

• TCM Aplogetics (theness.com)
• What Is Traditional Chinese Medicine? (sciencebasedmedicine.org)

Tonight, this frothing ball of incoherent thought processes hove into view. The first tweet came out of the blue.

Related articles

• What planet do these people live on? (mycolleaguesareidiots.com)
• Reasonable Wank is getting his own post (reasonablehank.com)
• R-E-S-P-E-C-T find out what it means to…Meryl (reasonablehank.com)

1. What is homeopathy?

Homeopathy is an alternative therapy system invented by a late 18th century German called Samuel Hahnemann. At the time it had an edge over what then passed for medicine, which involved much cupping and bleeding, in the sense of not actively killing patients. Fortunately for us, many of whom might otherwise not have been alive today, mainstream medicine progressed very rapidly at much the same time with the discovery of hygiene, vaccination, bacteria and so on, up to the present day via antibiotics and anaesthetics. Unfortunately, Hahnemann based his theory on the ancient concept of bodily humours and even today homeopathy still has not acknowledged the existence of germ theory.

The main principle behind homeopathy is that taking a tiny amount of a substance that causes the same symptoms in a healthy person will stimulate the body to heal itself. Homeopaths call this the law of similars. There is no scientific evidence whatsoever to support it.

2. How does homeopathy work?

The short answer is: it doesn’t. More precisely, it has no medical value whatsoever. The only therapeutic effect homeopathic remedies are observed to produce is exactly the same as a placebo: an inert substance used to control the extent of the medical benefits of substances tested in clinical trials. A nice cup of tea and a chat would be equally beneficial in many cases.

In fact, the entire mindset behind homeopathy is profoundly unscientific. If a homeopath tells you otherwise, they are misleading you. For homeopathy to work, everything we know about physics, chemistry and biology would have to be wrong. The Universe as we know it could not exist and, therefore, neither would we.

3. Are homeopathic remedies safe?

Yes, as long as you do not take them instead of real medicine. Homeopathic remedies contain little or, more usually, no active ingredients. Make sure that you are not given lactose pills if you are lactose-intolerant, though. Oh, and it is also completely safe if you happen to be given the wrong homeopathic treatment for anything; since homeopathic remedies have no effect, they likewise have no side effects.

4. Why does my homeopath need to ask me so many questions on my first appointment?

Homeopaths will ask questions about feelings, dreams, childhood illnesses – possibly even your parents’ illnesses – because they believe they need “to understand you, your nature, your complaints and your disturbed mental and emotional state [sic] in order to reach to the core of your case” (from specialityclinic.com). Remember, they do not accept germ theory: instead, any malady stems from an imbalance in the humours, which they call miasms. They also consider that an imbalance can be transmitted between generations via miasms. They do not subscribe to genetic inheritance: miasms are a purely vitalistic concept.

In essence: if you fall ill – and the homeopathic concept of “ill” is very broad and vague – it is your or your parents’ fault.

5. Why do so many people recommend homeopathy if it doesn’t work?

There are several facets to this. Firstly, there are the people who take a homeopathic remedy, feel better, and think it was because of the homeopathy, when in fact the improvement may be due to several different phenomena, such as:

• placebo effect (the person believes they feel better because that’s the result they’ve been led to expect)
• natural history of the disease (most minor illnesses get better by themselves, while some more serious ones may have periods of remission)
• regression to the mean (the acute phase of a chronic condition subsiding naturally)

The last two correspond to confusing correlation with causation, i.e. assuming a specific action gave a particular result because it preceded it. It’s an elementary error that we are all guilty of at some time. As an example of this fallacy: yesterday I took my umbrella when I went out because the weather forecast predicted rain. Instead, there was sunshine, albeit cloudy. Today, the forecast was again for rain, but I forgot my umbrella and got soaked. Only an exceptionally naive or superstitious person would seriously argue that the presence or absence of an umbrella in my hand affected the weather. I also selectively remembered positive outcomes (often called cherry-picking) by saying “This happens every wretched time” when a moment’s thought would have brought to mind all the times I remembered the umbrella and used it, or left it at home and enjoyed a gloriously sunny day.

Secondly, there are those who genuinely believe in homeopathy, but are too emotionally invested in it to perceive the huge contradictions in their faith, and those living in the poorer parts of the world who do not have free access to full information about homeopathy.

Lastly, there are those who are fully aware that homeopathy is no more than a placebo, but sell it anyway, as a means of making money. Fortunately, this last group is very small. Unfortunately they can be very vocal and have been known to claim such-and-such a famous person (now conveniently dead) endorsed homeopathy. Of course, it isn’t because somebody famous, or many humbler folk, may believe something that it is automatically true. For one, we’d have far fewer corrupt governments because the people elected would be as honest and hardworking as their supporters perceive them to be.

6. How can anyone believe all that nonsense in this day and age?

A question I ask myself daily and to which I have absolutely no answer.

See also (on this blog – pearl-clutchers beware):

• Homeopathy FAQ
• Video of the day: Powers of ten  Will help visualise what homeopathic potentisations really mean in terms of active substance; a 12C remedy is one where the ‘mother tincture’ has been diluted 10²⁴ times; a more powerful 30C has been diluted 10⁶⁰ times, and so on.
• Have I Got Loons For You: Homeopathic proving
• Homeopathy Miasms: Fundamental Cause of Stupid
• In which we learn homeopathy is energy and I offer a prize (on vitalism)
  
• Homoeopathy multinational Boiron threatens Italian blogger (on potencies and how to make a homeopathic remedy)

Related articles elsewhere:

• World Homeopathy Awareness Week (jdc325.wordpress.com)
• Ask Surly Amy: Homeopathy (skepchick.org)
• The week to make people aware of homeopathic nonsense (WHAW) (doubtfulnews.com)
• WORLD HOMEOPATHY AWARENESS WEEK (discoverhomeopathy.co.uk)
• Boots boss admits they sell homeopathic remedies ‘because they’re popular, not because they work’ (dailymail.co.uk) The Mail, for crying out loud!
• Homeopathy: April 10 Marks the Beginning of a Lot of Foolishness (lizditz.typepad.com)