# Homeopathy--quackery or legit medicine? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 21, 2011, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homeopathy-quackery-or-legit-medicine/589899 "2011-07-21T19:49:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Indygrrl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/58f4c7/32.png) [@Indygrrl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indygrrl)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2011, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homeopathy-quackery-or-legit-medicine/589899/1 "2011-07-21T19:49:38Z")
Recently I’ve been reading a lot about the practice of homeopathy and have come to the conclusion is that it’s absolute and total quackery. I made an offhanded comment on Facebook and was surprised to find out that someone I have a lot of respect for believes that homeopathy is effective and she’d rather use it than regular medicine. The lack of evidence-based support for it doesn’t seem to bother her because she feels she has seen the benefits firsthand. Here are a few cites that support my opinion, and I’m very interested to see what Dopers think about this. > **[Homeopathy](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeopathy)** > > Homeopathy or homoeopathy is a pseudoscientific system of alternative medicine. It was conceived in 1796 by the German physician Samuel Hahnemann. Its practitioners, called homeopaths, believe that a substance that causes symptoms of a disease in healthy people can cure similar symptoms in sick people; this doctrine is called similia similibus curentur, or "like cures like". Homeopathic preparations are termed remedies and are made using homeopathic dilution. In this process, the selected s [http://skeptico.blogs.com/skeptico/2005/06/if\_it\_has\_any\_i.html](http://skeptico.blogs.com/skeptico/2005/06/if_it_has_any_i.html) > **[Homeopathy: The Ultimate Fake | Quackwatch](https://quackwatch.org/related/homeo/)** > > Homeopathic "remedies" enjoy a unique status in the health marketplace: They are the only category of quack products legally marketable as drugs. This situation is the result of two circumstances. First, the 1938 Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act,... ---
**Author:** ![Sister\_Vigilante](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9de0a6/32.png) [@Sister\_Vigilante](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sister_Vigilante)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2011, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homeopathy-quackery-or-legit-medicine/589899/2 "2011-07-21T19:51:26Z")
Yep, pure quackery. (Finally a Great Debate thread where there is a right answer and I know it!) ---
**Author:** ![Lobohan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobohan/32/79_2.png) [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2011, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homeopathy-quackery-or-legit-medicine/589899/3 "2011-07-21T19:51:52Z")
If I were king I would actually imprison people who sold homeopathic “medicine”. Selling snake oil to frightened sick people is simply evil. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2011, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homeopathy-quackery-or-legit-medicine/589899/4 "2011-07-21T19:52:53Z")
> [@Indygrrl](#): > > Recently I’ve been reading a lot about the practice of homeopathy and have come to the conclusion is that it’s absolute and total quackery. Correct, it’s pure nonsense. There’s no evidence for a way that it even _could_ work, given that all it amounts to is giving people plain old water (thus the occasional “magic water” jokes). ---
**Author:** ![ladyfoxfyre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ad7895/32.png) [@ladyfoxfyre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ladyfoxfyre)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2011, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homeopathy-quackery-or-legit-medicine/589899/5 "2011-07-21T19:58:50Z")
Quackery. ---
**Author:** ![Paranoid\_Randroid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/paranoid_randroid/32/18_2.png) [@Paranoid\_Randroid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paranoid_Randroid)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2011, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homeopathy-quackery-or-legit-medicine/589899/6 "2011-07-21T19:59:36Z")
> [@Lobohan](#): > > Selling snake oil to frightened sick people is simply evil. And even if it weren’t, [who would want to oil a snake?](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emmet_Otter%27s_Jug_Band_Christmas) ---
**Author:** ![Cheesesteak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cheesesteak/32/3694_2.png) [@Cheesesteak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheesesteak)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2011, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homeopathy-quackery-or-legit-medicine/589899/7 "2011-07-21T20:01:15Z")
Quackery. However… I think many people conflate homeopathy with non-traditional herbal or “natural” medicine. Herbs and other “natural” medicines can be effective because there is actually an ingredient in the plant that changes the functioning of the human body, and is present in an effective dosage. Just like a real drug, only it comes from a plant, is less processed, less regulated, so you don’t really know how much of the drug you’re getting. It also doesn’t help that some products which have a real active ingredient use a homeopathic label, presumably to avoid some legal or licensing issues. ---
**Author:** ![DigitalC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ebca7d/32.png) [@DigitalC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DigitalC)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2011, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homeopathy-quackery-or-legit-medicine/589899/8 "2011-07-21T20:04:26Z")
Don’t placebos work to a certain degree? From what i understand there is always a small benefit in doing something you think is going to work. That is of course a benefit over doing absolutely nothing, not over actual medicine. ---
**Author:** ![ladyfoxfyre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ad7895/32.png) [@ladyfoxfyre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ladyfoxfyre)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2011, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homeopathy-quackery-or-legit-medicine/589899/9 "2011-07-21T20:05:25Z")
> [@Cheesesteak](#): > > It also doesn’t help that some products which have a real active ingredient use a homeopathic label, presumably to avoid some legal or licensing issues. FDA issues are what they’re trying to avoid, also studies demonstrating the efficacy of said product. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2011, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homeopathy-quackery-or-legit-medicine/589899/10 "2011-07-21T20:06:32Z")
Quackery, but it _is_ a procedure for psychosomatic cures so in that limited sense, it may have some value in tricking people into thinking they’re getting better, which does indeed seem to help them get better in some cases. I’d be okay with selling them (or just giving them, really) sugar pills with official-looking labels and glowing testimonials, for the same effect. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2011, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homeopathy-quackery-or-legit-medicine/589899/11 "2011-07-21T20:06:35Z")
One thing you might want to point out to your friend: Homeopathy “works” on the principal that you can dilute something into water to the extent that it’s only one part per million, or even less, and the water retains some property of the diluted substance. In fact, the dilution makes that substance even more potent. There is, likely, no water on Earth that, at some point, has not had some person or animal crap in it. And the more you try to purify that water, the crappier it gets. Under the concept of homeopathy, bottled water should be grosser than drinking directly out of an unflushed toilet. ---
**Author:** ![Contrapuntal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e274bd/32.png) [@Contrapuntal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Contrapuntal)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2011, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homeopathy-quackery-or-legit-medicine/589899/12 "2011-07-21T20:08:00Z")
> [@DigitalC](#): > > Don’t placebos work to a certain degree? From what i understand there is always a small benefit in doing something you think is going to work. I don’t think that’s true at all. Change _always_ to\* sometimes\* and you’re closer to the mark. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2011, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homeopathy-quackery-or-legit-medicine/589899/13 "2011-07-21T20:10:04Z")
> [@Cheesesteak](#): > > However… I think many people conflate homeopathy with non-traditional herbal or “natural” medicine. I’ve certainly run into people like that, including my own brother. We got into an argument over homeopathy a few years ago, during which it became obvious that he had the wrong idea about what it actually was. Fortunately the Internet makes it easy for them to just look up the description on Wikipedia or whatever. ---
**Author:** ![Raza](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/raza/32/213_2.png) [@Raza](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raza)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2011, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homeopathy-quackery-or-legit-medicine/589899/14 "2011-07-21T20:11:24Z")
> [@Cheesesteak](#): > > I think many people conflate homeopathy with non-traditional herbal or “natural” medicine. Thirded, emphatically. I would even wager that the majority of people think “homeopathy” is the same as, or similar to, “home remedies”. I did some quick searches but couldn’t find such a survey. Oh, and quackery. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2011, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homeopathy-quackery-or-legit-medicine/589899/15 "2011-07-21T20:15:32Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > One thing you might want to point out to your friend: Homeopathy “works” on the principal that you can dilute something into water to the extent that it’s only one part per million, or even less, and the water retains some property of the diluted substance. In fact, the dilution makes that substance even more potent. It’s not the dilution that has that effect, it’s the delusion. 🆒 Homeopathy is right up there with Reiki (as I learned from that train wreck of a thread). ---
**Author:** ![Asympotically\_fat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e47c2d/32.png) [@Asympotically\_fat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asympotically_fat)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2011, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homeopathy-quackery-or-legit-medicine/589899/16 "2011-07-21T20:20:58Z")
Quackery. Read _Bad Science_ by Ben Goldacre. Obviously he goes into quite a bit of detail about homeopathy as he is well-known for poitning otu the questionable ‘science’ used by homeopaths, but he points out that the best metastudy (that is a study of various other studies, collating their results and assessing their methods, etc) leads to the concludes that homeopathy seems to be no more effective than a placebo. Note that basically this means that in studies where a people have been given ‘placebo homeopathy’, ‘actual’ homepathy perfroms no better. So that’s not actually evidence against or for the effectiveness of the placebo effect in homeopathy. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2011, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homeopathy-quackery-or-legit-medicine/589899/17 "2011-07-21T20:25:08Z")
What is placebo homeopathy? Actual medicine? ---
**Author:** ![jz78817](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jz78817/32/1028_2.png) [@jz78817](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jz78817)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2011, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homeopathy-quackery-or-legit-medicine/589899/18 "2011-07-21T20:26:04Z")
> [@Cheesesteak](#): > > Quackery. > > However… I think many people conflate homeopathy with non-traditional herbal or “natural” medicine. Herbs and other “natural” medicines can be effective because there is actually an ingredient in the plant that changes the functioning of the human body, and is present in an effective dosage. Just like a real drug, only it comes from a plant, is less processed, less regulated, so you don’t really know how much of the drug you’re getting. the problem I have (not that I disagree in principle) is that if “herbal” or “alternative” medicine is found to be effective and safe, _it becomes medicine._ Willow bark extract was “herbal” medicine at one time, now you just go get 200 tablets of aspirin for $1. ---
**Author:** ![BrotherCadfael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@BrotherCadfael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrotherCadfael)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2011, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homeopathy-quackery-or-legit-medicine/589899/19 "2011-07-21T20:29:53Z")
If you have to ask… ---
**Author:** ![Gedd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gedd/32/4938_2.png) [@Gedd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gedd)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2011, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homeopathy-quackery-or-legit-medicine/589899/20 "2011-07-21T20:33:26Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > What is placebo homeopathy? Actual medicine? No, it would be giving them plain water that doesn’t have anything in it. Oh wait . . . [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homeopathy-quackery-or-legit-medicine/589899.md?page=2)