Why You Should Stop Using Homeopathic Medicine

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Why You Should Stop Using Homeopathic Medicine

Why You Should Stop Using Homeopathic Medicine

Hemant Mehta (http://www.friendlyatheist.com, http://www.patreon.com/Hemant , https://www.facebook.com/friendlyatheist)

Links: http://www.actcm.edu/news/americans-spend-34-billion-on-alternative-medicine/

http://www.vox.com/2015/3/11/8190427/homeopathy

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This is a true story. A few years ago, I fell down and really hurt my ankle. I needed a crutch for a while, I couldn’t walk without help. It was bad.

I remember calling my parents, asking them to pick me up from my apartment at the time, and when I got home, my mom took this ointment that she had used on me when I was a kid.

It was some Indian medicine that she would rub on my foot, kind of massage it… and it had this really pleasant scent. And I remember getting hurt as a kid, she would do this, and I would feel better.

So this time, as she was doing it, I looked at the bottle and it said the word homeopathic on it. And I had no idea, growing up, that it was homeopathic.

Basically there was nothing in this ointment that would actually help heal my bruise. Nothing.

It was all in my head. It was always in my head.

But my mom genuinely believed it helped. And for a long time, so did I.

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This sort of “medicine” exists for everything. Headaches, arthritis, ADHD.

And it’s all fake.

Here’s literally what they do with homeopathy.

They take a supposed active ingredient — a mineral or herb — and then they mix it with a lot of water. And then they take some of that mixture and mix it with even more water. And they keep doing this.

Eventually the ratio of the actual ingredient to water is like a single raindrop compared to all the oceans in the world.

It’s not enough to have an impact on you.

The more diluted it is, the more useless it is.

And some homeopaths will tell you that that active ingredient impacts all the water. The water has a memory of the ingredient. Which makes no sense.

If you’re at the beach and a little kid pees in the water a mile away, you’re probably okay. It’s not getting to you. Now imagine one drop of it. And these homeopaths are telling us that one drop impacts the entire ocean. Right…

The people who sell it make it look real. They have real bottles. The packaging looks nice. The pills look legitimate.

But it’s just a placebo.

A very expensive placebo, by the way. People in the U.S. spend more than billion a year on this sort of fake medicine.

Why do they buy it? Well, it’s usually cheaper than real medicine, and people who don’t understand science will tell you it totally works. Because they believe anecdotes over evidence.

You could literally swallow a whole bottle of homeopathic sleeping pills… and you’d be okay! People have done this as a demonstration. It’s very powerful. (If you do it, please just make sure they’re homeopathic.)

Now maybe you’re thinking, who cares? If people feel better, what’s the big deal?

The big deal is that people often use homeopathic medicine instead of going to a real doctor.

My ankle would eventually get better over time. But what happens when you have a real problem?

If you are taking homeopathic medicine for an infection, or cancer, or for swine flu — yes, that happened, too — you are putting yourself in danger by not getting real help.

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