Randomized controlled trial of homeopathic nosodes finds, not surprisingly, that they are useless

[SidDithers]

https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/randomized-controlled-trial-of-homeopathic-nosodes-finds-not-surprisingly-that-they-are-useless/

Magic sugar pills go head-to-head against actual vaccines in a randomized controlled trial. The results will not surprise you.

Sometimes you don’t need to read past the headline. If you’re a regular reader of the blog, the headline may seem self-evident and congruent with everything that we know about homeopathy. But should you not understand how homeopaths purport to offer vaccination through magical sugar pills called “nosodes”, and how regulators like Health Canada enable this pseudoscience, read on. We’re going to examine a randomized controlled trial that that compares homeopathy to real vaccines. The findings will not surprise you.

Sugar marketed as medicine
Homeopathy is an antiquated alternative-to-medicine belief system that is possibly popular because it isn’t well understood. Commonly packaged and sold alongside herbal products and “natural” remedies, homeopathy is unique in that remedies contains nothing at all – by design. Of the alternative medicines, homeopathy is the most implausible of them all. Based on the absurd notion of “like cures like” (which is sympathetic magic, not science), proponents of homeopathy believe that any substance can be an effective remedy if it’s diluted enough: raccoon fur, the sunlight reflecting off Saturn, even pieces of the Berlin Wall are possible remedies. And when I say dilute, I mean dilute. The 30C “potency” is common – it’s a ratio of 10-60. You would have to give two billion doses per second, to six billion people, for 4 billion years, to deliver a single molecule of the original material. So remedies are effectively and mathematically inert – they are pure placebo. Not surprisingly, there is no persuasive medical evidence that these products have therapeutic effects.

Canada’s version of the FDA, Health Canada, has approved hundreds of varieties of sugar pills and declared them to be “safe and effective”. Given the regulatory and legislative “veneer of legitimacy” that homeopathy is being granted, you can see how consumers might be led to believe that homeopathic remedies are effective, or that homeopaths are capable of providing a form of health care. Concerningly, Health Canada approved dozens of homeopathic “nosodes” for sale over the years. A “nosode” is a remedy that starts with infectious material, like polio, measles, or smallpox, and then it’s diluted sequentially until mathematically, there’s nothing left but water. Homeopaths promote these products as vaccine substitutes. A few years ago the advocacy group Bad Science Watch launched a public campaign against nosodes, and succeeded in getting Health Canada’s agreement to force commercial manufacturers to place a label on their products stating “This product is not intended to be an alternative to vaccination.” Yet these products are still allowed to be sold, and the extent to which they continue to be promoted as an alternative to vaccination is unknown.

Homeopathy could be written off as a harmless nostrum if it caused no harm, but that’s not the case. Homeopathy can delay patients from seeking science-based treatments. And while nosodes only contain sugar, consumers could be led to believe that they actually provide immunity.

Sid

[hlthe2b]

1. I do advocate...

that Trump's docs load up on them for all his myriad of ailments, however... He is, after all an "anti-vax" advocate.