Homeopathic Suicide: Proving that Homeopathic Remedies are Quackery
Thursday October 12, 2006
When major health insurance companies in Belgium announced that they would start providing coverage for homeopathic care, skeptics were incensed. They argued that homeopathy is worthless, but the insurance companies insisted that since people liked homeopathy, that made it OK. So the skeptics announced that they would kill themselves via homeopathy.
Luc Bonneux writes in the May-June, 2004 issue of the Skeptical Inquirer:
Seeing the errors of the skeptic’s ways, they resigned themselves to committing mass suicide by drinking a lethal dose of terribly toxic and dangerous drugs: snake poison, Belladonna or deadly nightshade, arsenic, dog’s milk, petrol, and cockroach. Dog’s milk does not sound that dangerous, but try milking a pit bull. To assure immediate death, these powerful drugs were immensely dynamized: the daring skeptics selected the over-the-counter 30C homeopathic solutions (reimbursed by the health insurance, if prescribed by a certified quack).
A dynamization of 30C means the poison is diluted [10.sup.60] times. That is a one followed by sixty zeros. The whole earth (estimated at [10.sup.50] molecules) is way too small to hold a single molecule in that dilution. That is, in homeopathic terms, an awfully powerful dilution. The immensely “dynamized” spirits of arsenic and snake poison (not to mention the pit bull milk) will rise from the liquid, and kill the skeptic on the spot. All important newspapers and TV stations were recruited to witness the terrible extermination of these dangerous minds.
So, did it work? Hardly:
The skeptics on death row solemnly queued to personally select their own toxin: “In Flander’s fields the skeppies glow, to take their poison, row on row.” In front of the assembled national press they filled their chalices and drained their drinks, fully expecting to meet their Maker (if He existed). The skeptics didn’t succeed in their suicide attempt, however. All of them survived.
It’s certainly great that all these skeptics managed to live; I wonder what the Belgian homeopaths were hoping for, though? If they were hoping that the skeptics would die, then they can’t be very moral individuals. If they were hoping that the skeptics would live, then they would be moral people but they were hoping that their own belief system was wrong. How many homeopaths dropped out and found other professions in the wake of this experiment? None, I suspect.
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Comments
This is an interesting experiment on the fraud of homeopathy. Hopefully the new documentary The Enemies of Reason will put another nail in the coffin for this type of deception.
No offense, but this is dumb. Anyone who knows anything about homeopathy can tell you that this “test” doesn’t prove anything. Homeopathy remedies are diluted to the point where there are almost no molecules of the original solution (your “poisons”) remain.
Here’s the thing: Personally, I don’t believe that homeopathy works either, but doing a project like this really doesn’t prove anything. Homeopathy is based on the theory that “like cures like”. A person who has symptoms of, say being poisoned by Belladonna (flushes of heat, red face) are actually given Belladonna! The theory is that small, teeny, tiny doses of Belladonna will cause your body to recognize “hey, something’s out of place!” and the body will somehow figure out how to fix it itself. It’s kinda like the straw that breaks the camel’s back, only it’s the last “straw” before the body figures out it needs to do something about it. Since the remedies are diluted so much, the only way you’re going to notice it is if your body really needs it.
I’m still a skeptic, but there is some science to back this up. Namely, this lies on the plane of quantum mechanics and the so-called “energetic” medicine. See Dr. Leanna Standish (University of Washington and Bastyr University) and her research on mind-body connections.