I’ve been lurking for 4 pages now (whew!), and while I don’t feel a need to go find a Kevlar vest before I speak up, still I would like to say something.
Golly, Cecil sure hit everybody’s hot button this time! What is it about homeopathy that’s got everybody going home to clean their guns (message board-ically speaking?) None of the other columns have gotten this much action.
On the one hand, I think that before we all go rushing forward to embrace homeopathy, we need to have a little more empirical, scientific evidence that it actually works. Take three groups of lab rats, give them all colds in the head, and give one group Sudafed, one group chicken soup, and the third group homeopathic remedies, and see how long it takes before they stop lying around in bed complaining that they can’t find the remote control. Do this experiment many times. Have other people review your results and perform the experiment themselves. Then we’d have some data to work with. (My money is on the chicken soup. Buy stock in Beatrice Foods, not Pfizer.)
On the other hand, I can’t helping thinking of people like Charles Lyell, the geologist who in the 19th century had the effrontery to suggest, first of all, that the world was a lot older than 6,000 years, and second, that glaciers 2 miles thick once covered all of Europe. He didn’t have much empirical, scientific evidence for this, so people at the time hooted loudly in derision, the same way that people on the message board are hooting loudly at the suggestion that homeopathy might actually work.
Then there was Wegener, the plate tectonics guy (if I may continue with geology), and Alvarez, with his theory that a giant asteroid hit the earth 65 million years ago, leaving a layer of iridium world-wide and, incidentally, extinctifying all the dinosaurs. People hooted loudly at both Wegener and Alvarez, for years, decades, even, until somehow, one day we all suddenly realized that children were being taught in schools that the continents definitely drift around like croutons on French onion soup, and that a giant asteroid really did hit the earth 65 million years ago, leaving a layer of iridium worldwide and, incidentally, extinctifying all the dinosaurs. (As an added bonus, they also receive the information that some dinosaurs didn’t die out after all, but survived and changed into birds.)
And to branch out into paleontology, James Horner, the man who, if he didn’t actually come up with the idea of hot-blooded dinosaurs, at least was the one with the best-selling book and the highest media profile, had people laughing in his face for years, and if they had had flaming back then, I’m sure he would have been thoroughly flamed, until now, suddenly, children are being taught that some dinosaurs were hot-blooded, and could run fast, like in “Jurassic Park”, not just lumber along like a bus.
See my point? Let’s try to keep an open mind, and certainly not descend to personalities on the issue. That way, also, you have deniability. If it suddenly turns out that St. John’s wort cures everything from bad breath to cancer to an ugly blind date, you can say smugly, “Well, I personally have always been a supporter of alternative medicine,” and as long as no one can produce a hard copy of a certain Internet message board from February 2000, you’re safe.
Look at all the other issues on which modern medical science has flip-flopped, and not so long ago, either. Caffeine–good for you, bad for you, who knows anymore? Aspirin–causes stomach ulcers, or miracle drug? I call it the “…But Now We Know…” syndrome. Every week there’s some pundit up on his soapbox, getting in his 30-second sound bite. “We used to think that caffeine during pregnancy was an absolute no-no, But Now We Know…” And as long as we’re talking about immunizations, there are now “experts” who will tell you “…But Now We Know…” that some immunizations can have such harmful side effects that you are better off not getting your kid immunized. How are you supposed to make a decision?
Look at the whole Sudden Infant Death Syndrome thing (I know it’s not microbiology, but still…) Lay the baby on its back. No, lay the baby on its side. “We used to think that a baby should be put down on its side, But Now We Know that an infant should always be placed on its stomach.” Then, six months later, the great American public is told, “No, lay the baby on its back,” and we’re right back where we started from. Then, to top it all off, now we’re told that “many cases of SIDS may actually have been caused by parental abuse,” i.e. parents killing their infants, and that “there may not actually BE any such thing as Sudden Infant Death Syndrome.”
Well, in a so-called “scientific” climate like that, I refuse to choose up sides. Flat earth or round earth, what difference does it make? When I have a cold in the head, I’m going to take whatever makes me FEEL better, whether it’s Sudafed or chicken soup or something called, distressingly, nux vomica (what IS that, anyway?)
And then there’s the story of my sister’s dog. My sister had this incredibly old, crippled dog, who developed an ulcerous sore on her hindquarters which rapidly turned gangrenous. Basically all the skin on the dog’s hindquarters was rotting and oozing off. The vet said he was sorry but there wasn’t much he could do, other than suggest she try to keep the wound clean. Antibiotics wouldn’t have much effect against such a massive case of gangrene, and there wasn’t enough healthy skin left to pull over the huge open wound. He, along with virtually everyone else, urged her to have the dog put to sleep. She had had many fine adventures with the dog, and she refused. She went looking for alternative medicine. She used homeopathic remedies. She called in an aromatherapist. She had someone come in who lit candles and did chanting. She hired a massage therapist who came in and massaged the dog. She put the dog on the prayer chain (we all obliged her, and probably most of us added a short prayer for her, too). She may have had crystals and magnets, too, I don’t know. And guess what–the dog got better. We all said, “Huh.” The vet said it loudest of all.
I think we can discount a placebo effect. So, what did it? The crystals? Prayer? The homeopathic remedies? Would the dog have gotten better without any of it, just keeping the wound clean and lots of TLC? We will never know, but for me, it’s incidents like this that cause me to keep an open mind whenever people tell me they are having shark cartilage injections, or going to Mexico to get apricot pit extract to cure their cancer.
Note to whoever it was who reported on arnica for a bruise: people have been using arnica on bruises in folk medicine literally for centuries, so I don’t think the anti-homeopaths should lump it in with those other homeopathic recipes where you’re talking about 1 molecule of whatever per quart of water. Willow bark containing aspirin was also used for centuries, so, hey, people, don’t knock something just because it’s “herbal”.
