Have you tried the waterfront district?
Probably not, but it would work on the mother if/when the baby stops crying because the discomfort passes, because mother is touching and soothing it as she administers the “medication” or baby is so exhausted it falls asleep anyway. Mother then goes “Oh, medicine must have worked, baby is asleep now” when in reality it’s just a coincidence.
So let me get this straight…
The FDA doesn’t have any jurisdiction. The FTC(?) doesn’t either? So I could set up a shop, start selling Rhythmdvl’s Woonderful Woo and do nothing more than set up a Web site and buy packaging–not even bothering with the dilution steps, just use plain tap water.
I wouldn’t be doing anything legally wrong, and given the nature of homeopathy, I wouldn’t be doing anything ethically wrong either (assuming I didn’t make any particular medical claims), since my ‘product’ would be indistinguishable from any other they could find.
I think the thing is, they can make medical claims, which is why people buy the stuff. And the medical claims are the only problem with this stuff. They’re just selling expensive water, not something unique to homeopathy. It’s the medical claims that distinquish homeopathic products from other bottled water products.
Hatch is from Utah, home to Nu Skin, manufacturer of Pharmanex, and many other such enterprises.
I doubt that this will help, but you could have her read an article on homeopathyby the NIH.
Well, there’s your problem. Knowing how homeopathy works, it stands to reason two whole bottles would be far *less *effective than the recommended dose. :smack:
He says in the video: “The box says to take two pills every eight hours. In case of overdose, call poison control. (Audience laughs really hard)”
I hope they at least are seeing a good dock.
mmm
Tell your wife homeopathy is bullshit. Maybe you could link her this skeptico page. Then go out and buy some baby Anbesol and a cold teething ring (or just freeze some wet washcloths), and apply them to the child yourself. Whether your wife has been taken in by new age bullshit or not, you still have an unhappy kid that you can help.
I agree with you. Those teething drops are total bullshit. How is chamomile supposed to help? If you must use tylenol yet even Tylenol sometimes doesn’t help the pain generated by the teething monster.
Baby anbesol only gives relief for a few minutes and tastes like crap.
Place a drop of the water in your eye. If there is any belladonna present, your pupil will dilate.
While its bullshit, I think you should back away slowly from a woman dealing with a teething infant and let her have her way. Logic isn’t going to work on someone who sleeps in dribs and drabs and gets less of it than she wants. Unless you are taking more than 70% of the baby care, she is certain she is changing 70% of the diapers, 70% of the doctors appointments and 70% of the middle of the night cuddles (even if you are 50/50). Pick your battles. And “not everything you get from the drugstore works” might be a good battle to pick, but you might want to wait until you are better positioned.
OK, I agree that this is bullshit, but I’m not sure you’re going to convince your wife.
Here’s the thing: it’s not that homeopathic remedies don’t work at all. It’s that they only work as well as placebos. Which is better than nothing. (And of course the placebo effect can work on a baby, as long as the person giving the remedy believes in it. Try giving a baby two tastes of something, one with lots of smiles and yummy noises, one with a disgusted face and icky noises. See which one goes down better. Of course the baby picks up on where you think something is going.) So probably the stuff is having some effect.
Plus you add in confirmation bias: teething pain is sporadic, but if it stops within half an hour of the placebo, the person giving it is going to be sure that was cause and effect.
Plus TEETHING KID NO SLEEP ARRRGHHHH MAKE IT STOP.
I’d be inclined to treat the practical problem rather than the theoretical one. She wants to believe in this homeopathic stuff, sure, she can feed it to the kid all she wants and you won’t argue - as long as your remedies of choice get the same respect. In other words, the kid gets 1ml of blahblahblah, but he also gets a cold teether, or a spoonful of Calpol, or a gum rub with a cold finger, or whatever you think you should be using.
I would be severely tempted to quietly top up the bottle with tap water, rather than giving more money to those eejits, but I wouldn’t actually do it.
Senators Hatch and Harkin are a big part of the problem (protection of woo in Congress).* Attempts to fix DSHEA (which permits “dietary supplements” to be marketed for various medical conditions without real oversight by the FDA) run up against not only opposition from “leaders” like these, but a well-organized effort by the supplement industry and various groups that lobby like crazy whenever better regulation is proposed (including stirring up the grass roots with claims that “health freedom” (i.e. profits) are being threatened).
Homeopathy has been under the radar in part because no one gets too excited about selling what essentially is water with very little chance of serious side effects, and maybe because it’s figured that if you’re dumb enough to shell out a lot of money for water you’re beyond hope anyway.
We could point to plenty of good information on the Internet about the foolishness of homeopathy, the overwhelmingly evidence from good studies that it’s placebo effect and nothing more, and adherents would still point to their anecdotal experiences as evidence homeopathy works, correlation vs. causation be damned.
*At least we’re getting rid of Dan Burton, finally. Unfortunately, more idjits are probably on the horizon.
It’s been my experience that you can’t derail people who really believe in this horseshit. I have a neighbor who makes me dizzy after about five minutes of her woo-woo nonsense. I don’t argue with her, just nod and look for an exit. Whenever I see somebody with a package of that stupid air travel placebo, I want to ask them to just give me the money next time and save a trip to the store. “Invented by a grade school teacher!” Yeah, that’s who I want dabbling with my health. :rolleyes:
That part wouldn’t bother me, if the product had been then appropriately tested and shown to have some effect. I don’t care who the inventor is. I just care that it is safe and has a testable effect.
Exactly. I think that stuff is different from homeopathy, since that stuff is full of herbs and vitamins, which are actually agents that can have an effect on the body when ingested, whereas homeopathy is full of basically nothing.
Best thing I’ve found for teething infants is frozen waffles. Give them to Baby straight out of the freezer. Baby gums on them, the cold soothes their inflamed gums, and the waffle eventually gets broken up and mushy enough to swallow.
Caveat: my daughter didn’t start getting teeth until she was 9 months old. Might not be entirely appropriate for a baby just starting to get teeth at the more typical age of 6 months old and not eating certain foods yet, but its the molars, which come in when they are older and really, really hurt, that this trick works very well for.
This right here is the only workable course.
You won’t convince her until after the sanity returns, or the source of the insanity (the crying baby) is far far removed. Like when he’s ten.
However you will get mega brownie points for not invalidating her while simultaneously offering your children the genuine care they need.
If she can’t respect your attempts to help the kids the same as you are willing to respect hers then I think hiding in the closet for the next few years may be your best bet.