People killed, or otherwise maimed, by homeopathy

[BlackJack]

Homeopathy is a dangerous insanity. That being said, I felt like starting a nice little fun thread about it.

 

Just add the name of a person, prominent or otherwise, who was killed by following the tenets of homeopathy. Throw in a few links if you want to share the story but don't feel like typing it, or if you just want to be kind of odd, which I am going to be.

 

I'll start:

 

1. George Boole

 

http://www.cafepress.ca/mesozen.415847082

[blond_med]

If you think allopathic medicine is the only way to treat people, than that is viewing problems from a very narrow mindset. Yes, allopathic medicine is great for treating lots of illnesses but by no means it is that the ONLY way to cure diseases. I think it depends on the type of diseases (eg. an emergent illness cannot wait for homeopathic treatment to be effective, but a chronic condition could be alleviated by that). Rather than excluding other options, wouldn't it be better to integrate different solutions and finding the best and most complete treatment for a patient?

 

I've taken homeopathic treatments myself and have worked in a homeopathic doctor's office for years and none of the patients there died or had any acute reactions to the treatments. Most of them were actually very surprised at the effect of the supplements because like the majority of the public they were rather skeptical at first.

 

I'm not surprised that these alternative types of medicines are viewed badly in our society which is run by pharmaceutical companies pumping money to keep their products being sold. What I think is lacking with natural products is more research to prove their effectiveness and regulations on administering it.

 

Anyway, these are my 2 cents, don't take this as a personal attack... everyone can have a different opinion on this issue.

[Jochi1543]

Public health is where it's at, anyway.

[WaveSense]

Problem with what you're saying Blond_med is that there are few (if any) randomized prospective trials proving (or disproving) the effect of homopathic medicines. Without those, how can you say for certain that what you're doing is helping the patients? I think thats the reason they're looked upon as being bad in this society, not the evil conspiracy by the pharamceutical companies (okay maybe a little =D)

I personally don't care what the medicine is made of as long as it has been proven to work through the proper trials and studies. For the most part, the only proof of effectiveness is word of mouth and anecdotes and I wouldn't be surprised if alot of the success of these medications were nothing more than placebo effect.

[ploughboy]

It's water.

[A-Stark]

If you think allopathic medicine is the only way to treat people, than that is viewing problems from a very narrow mindset. Yes, allopathic medicine is great for treating lots of illnesses but by no means it is that the ONLY way to cure diseases. I think it depends on the type of diseases (eg. an emergent illness cannot wait for homeopathic treatment to be effective, but a chronic condition could be alleviated by that). Rather than excluding other options, wouldn't it be better to integrate different solutions and finding the best and most complete treatment for a patient?

 

No. "Treatments" which consist of essentially just water and trace amounts of a "like" compounds are pharmacologically and biologically implausible. "Like" does not treat "like", and the supposed distinction between so-called allopathic and homeopathic medicine has everything to do with a particular critique of 19th century medicine and little to nothing to do with modern practice (or any practice within the past century).

 

I've taken homeopathic treatments myself and have worked in a homeopathic doctor's office for years and none of the patients there died or had any acute reactions to the treatments. Most of them were actually very surprised at the effect of the supplements because like the majority of the public they were rather skeptical at first.

 

This would be known as the "interests declared" section. Most people don't have reactions to water with trace minerals in it. So these results are not terribly surprising.

 

I'm not surprised that these alternative types of medicines are viewed badly in our society which is run by pharmaceutical companies pumping money to keep their products being sold. What I think is lacking with natural products is more research to prove their effectiveness and regulations on administering it.

 

Except the research is not really lacking. And there's nothing more intrinsically "natural" about something isolated from a plant and something derived from medicinal chemistry research. They're both chemicals with particular mechanisms of action.

[physiology]

The horror stories go both ways.

 

It's all based on what the patient says right.

 

"My horrible MD vaccinated my son at 2 months, and now he has autism."

 

"My naturopath gave me this shot, and now I have fulminant liver failure, necessitating a liver transplant" (true story).

[AndrewB]

none of the patients there died or had any acute reactions to the treatments.

 

If they did it would ironically strengthen your argument. It's water. It ain't gonna hurt ya.

 

I get my daily homeopathy from the city water supply.

[Coach]

It's water.

 

Wrong!

It's expensive water.

[rmorelan]

Homeopathy is insanity. But we only have allopathic physicians to blame for failing their patients and creating the need for "alternative" medicine.

 

I would agree with that to a large extent.

 

This doctor shortage isn't helping either - something always springs up to fill any void.

[BlackJack]

We are all so serious here. Where are the smiles and ha-has?

 

Does anyone want to list person number 2?

[Rayven]

Does "drowning" count as death by homeopathy? Or does overdosing not count?

[Tango Charlie]

I'm not surprised that these alternative types of medicines are viewed badly in our society which is run by pharmaceutical companies pumping money to keep their products being sold. What I think is lacking with natural products is more research to prove their effectiveness and regulations on administering it.

 

It's so tiresome seeing this argument regurgitated again and again. Listen, if homeopathy worked, these same greedy scumbags who no doubt run the pharmaceutical companies which "run society", as you claim, would have patented it and thrown it out on the market under the auspices of actual medicine a long time ago. The only reason Big Pharmaceutical hasn't swallowed up the alternative medicine industry is because the stuff in alternative medicine doesn't work, and they couldn't legally market it as actual medicine.

[rmorelan]

It's so tiresome seeing this argument regurgitated again and again. Listen, if homeopathy worked, these same greedy scumbags who no doubt run the pharmaceutical companies which "run society", as you claim, would have patented it and thrown it out on the market under the auspices of actual medicine a long time ago. The only reason Big Pharmaceutical hasn't swallowed up the alternative medicine industry is because the stuff in alternative medicine doesn't work, and they couldn't legally market it as actual medicine.

 

 

bit of a side notes but one interesting statistic that came out of our intro to medicine class is that of all medication since the 30s except for two drugs have been created by or with primary funding by a pharaceutical company. So we have to ask ourselves before we trash the entire big pharm industry what are we willing to put in its place?

[orange123]

I'm not aware of anyone that has died due to homeopathy, and as a previous poster pointed out, this argument could go both ways.

 

A thread similar to this was around a while ago, and one poster made a compelling argument about the need to be open-minded with regards to alternative medicine because many immigrants and people of different cultures, believe strongly in alternative medicine.

 

So yes, there may be no evidence that homeopathy works, or that it only works because of the placebo effect, the fact of the matter is, that as future doctors, we must handle these issues with care, we musn't judge our patients based on their beliefs, nor mock their beliefs. We can try to persuade them to adopt allopathic treatments, but there will always be people who wish to try alternative treatments because of their belief systems.

 

Let us try not to be so opinionated, to the point where we deride alternative practices. It is important to be objective, yes, but not by mocking the beliefs of others. Everyone is entitled to their opinions. You don't see so much scorn when it comes to religious practices(eg no birth control), because we've learnt to respect other religions and their beliefs. The same respect should, in my humble opinion, be extended to beliefs about alternative medicine. We can respectfully and objectively try to dissuade our patients, rather than using scorn.

[Tango Charlie]

For the sake of professionalism it's important to respect the beliefs of patients, but as we're not dealing with patients here, and in my experience that sort of professionalism is essentially a hat one may doff at a whim. So, let's be frank. Medicine is science. It's founded upon knowledge and understanding of both the human body, and how it may be interacted with. On top of that, we're all university people, so we're no strangers to the value of science. When we discuss magnetic bracelets, homeopathy, salt stones with those lightbulbs in them, "detoxifying" treatments (which always seem to involve inducing a bowel movement), and other such stuff, we're not talking viable, equally scienctific perspectives on human health. No, we're talking about the ignorance and credulity of patients being exploited in exactly the same way as the much-reviled Big Pharma is wont to do, only that much more hypocritically.

 

So, as this is an informal place to talk amongst ourselves, I say you keep an open mind (just as one should keep an open mind when reading the British historian David Irving's take on why the Holocaust was a hoax) but not at the cost of your own integrity as an intelligent human being. This is the 21st century, for Odin's sake. Witchcraft and alchemy and all such practices which want to forgo the process of exposing their beliefs to the rigours of the scientific process and peer review are worthy of the derision they receive. Giving homeopathy and other such things of what I'd say is far less than dubious efficacy a leg to stand on is just as nonsensical a thing to do as giving creationism/intelligent design/"let's teach the controversy" the sort of attention our comrades down south are often forced to do.

 

However, to reiterate, interacting with patients obviously calls for a more measured approach. But here, at Nerd Central.com, I think we can do each other the favour of being intellectually honest, not only with ourselves, but with each other.

 

bit of a side notes but one interesting statistic that came out of our intro to medicine class is that of all medication since the 30s except for two drugs have been created by or with primary funding by a pharaceutical company. So we have to ask ourselves before we trash the entire big pharm industry what are we willing to put in its place?

 

Death and superstition.

 

e: nm, tangent

[Madz25]

Problem with what you're saying Blond_med is that there are few (if any) randomized prospective trials proving (or disproving) the effect of homopathic medicines. Without those, how can you say for certain that what you're doing is helping the patients? I think thats the reason they're looked upon as being bad in this society, not the evil conspiracy by the pharamceutical companies (okay maybe a little =D)

I personally don't care what the medicine is made of as long as it has been proven to work through the proper trials and studies. For the most part, the only proof of effectiveness is word of mouth and anecdotes and I wouldn't be surprised if alot of the success of these medications were nothing more than placebo effect.

 

Problem with RCTs in homeopathy is that no two plants are made equal and hence will have varying amounts of the "effective compound." Also, the magic water contains many different compounds so often times it's difficult to tell which one is "working."

[Mei_Mei_girl]

argument can go both ways. if we are talking here about death and harming people, let us not forget that many pharmacueticals ARE extremely powerful and when handled improperly in the healthcare system lead to many deaths and tragedies.

 

last week in last our pharmacology professor showed us a graph of the number of people who have died from pharmacuetical errors (ie. errors in prescribing, etc.) it was drastically, drastically scary. Im talking thousands of people yearly. at least many alternative medicines aren't as "dangerous" so to say

 

if we are talking about this argument in terms of death and saving people, lets point the finger right back to ourselves and do what we can as conventional healthcare practitioners to prevent the tradegies on our side before pointing the finger to other sides

 

(and, not to mention, if we do this, perhaps people will have more trust in "our" medicine and not be turing to alternatives so profoundly)

[Madz25]

argument can go both ways. if we are talking here about death and harming people, let us not forget that many pharmacueticals ARE extremely powerful and when handled improperly in the healthcare system lead to many deaths and tragedies.

 

last week in last our pharmacology professor showed us a graph of the number of people who have died from pharmacuetical errors (ie. errors in prescribing, etc.) it was drastically, drastically scary. Im talking thousands of people yearly. at least many alternative medicines aren't as "dangerous" so to say

 

if we are talking about this argument in terms of death and saving people, lets point the finger right back to ourselves and do what we can as conventional healthcare practitioners to prevent the tradegies on our side before pointing the finger to other sides

 

(and, not to mention, if we do this, perhaps people will have more trust in "our" medicine and not be turing to alternatives so profoundly)

 

people forget that a lot of drugs are designed from what is found in nature. digoxin is one example. im sure any homeopathic..dispenser..could give a patient too much foxglove and cause his/her death. a patient can kill themselves by drinking too much water. point is, anything can kill you. yes pharmaceuticals are powerful but they undergo rigorous testing (or should, anyway). there is evidence to support their efficacy and there are guidelines as to how to dose properly.

[da_birdie]

http://www.homeowatch.org/

 

interesting article written by a chem teacher in Ontario:

http://www.naturowatch.org/general/debate.shtml

 

"Magician Prescriptions: Ontario Poised to Let Naturopaths Prescribe"

http://www.skepticnorth.com/2009/11/magician-prescriptions-ontario-poised.html

 

Good blogs:

http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/

 

http://sciencebasedpharmacy.wordpress.com/

[Tango Charlie]

Just as the hucksters running the various churches and mosques and so forth are afforded special privileges for their ability to dupe the masses, so too shall naturopaths be granted increasingly obscene amounts of responsibility. It's a hell of a thing, being able to not only make a living off of the ignorance and credulity of the common person, but indeed to construct an entire industry around it.

[ploughboy]

Double post

[ploughboy]

im sure any homeopathic..dispenser..could give a patient too much foxglove and cause his/her death. a patient can kill themselves by drinking too much water.

 

Strictly speaking, there would not be any foxglove in a homeopathic preparation. A patient could die of hyponatremia if (s)he drank enough of it, though.

[Madz25]

Strictly speaking, there would not be any foxglove in a homeopathic preparation. A patient could die of hyponatremia if (s)he drank enough of it, though.

 

good to know. i was just using it as an example...its the only one of two i know LOL

 

the other one being st johns wort and effect on the p450 system...

[A-Stark]

Nice to know that Pharm hasn't changed in two years. St John's Wort isn't technically homeopathic, though, since homeopathy really has nothing whatsoever to do with "natural" or "herbal" medicine. It's just quackery invented in the 19th century.