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When they're not potentially infectious, they have extraordinary health claims.
The maker of wide-ranging "water-based homeopathic medicines" has recalled 32 products marketed to children and infants due to microbial contamination, according to an announcement posted on the Food and Drug Administration's website this week.
The announcement does not provide any specifics about the contamination or potential risks. However, the North Carolina-based manufacturer behind the recall, King Bio, issued a similar announcement back in July. At that time, the company recalled three other products after an FDA inspection found batches contaminated with the bacteria Pseudomonas brenneri, Pseudomonas fluorescens, and Burkholderia multivorans.
Pseudomonas brenneri is a bacterium recently found in natural mineral waters, and its clinical significance is murky. However, Pseudomonas fluorescens is known to be an opportunistic pathogen, causing blood infections, and Burkholderia multivorans can cause infections in people with compromised immune systems and cystic fibrosis. It was also recently found to be a rare but emerging cause of meningitis.
[...] UPDATE 8/24/2018: King Bio updated its website to include a note about the recall. The company wrote that: "Within the past two weeks, microbial contamination was discovered in two children's products, but as an added measure of caution, we chose to recall all the children's products manufactured from August 2015 to August 2018." It added that no injuries or illnesses have been reported to date.
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 27 2018, @03:10PM (38 children)
The original purpose of the FDA was to ensure the product contained what it said on the label, and nothing else in amounts above whatever acceptable levels they set. So good job, now get out of the trying to assess efficacy, or preventing people from drinking raw milk, or whatever.
(Score: 5, Informative) by ikanreed on Monday August 27 2018, @03:18PM (16 children)
Actually, the FDA has been banned by congress from regulating the efficacy and medicinal truth of homeopathic products since it's origination. You can blame one senator who owned a homeopathic products line at the turn of the century and thousands of totally apathetic representatives and senators since.
The only way the FDA was able to bust these lying fuckheads is because they also have the regulator power to chase down food poisoning. If these shysters do a half-assed job of cleaning their equipment of bacteria, they can go right back to selling medicine that does nothing. Yay.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 27 2018, @04:06PM (6 children)
I already know you are wrong because regulating efficacy was not in the original FDA charter, there would be no reason to "ban" it..
Sorry, I have the pdf but this report seems to have been scrubbed from the internet:
1FDA Science Board, FDA Science and Mission at Risk, Report of the Subcommittee on Science and
Technology, November 2007. http://www.fda.gov/ohrms/dockets/ac/07/briefing/2007-4329b_02_01_FDA%20 [fda.gov]
Report%20on%20Science%20and%20Technology.pdf
Here are some more sources though:
https://www.fda.gov/AboutFDA/History/FOrgsHistory/EvolvingPowers/ucm2007256.htm [fda.gov]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Food,_Drug,_and_Cosmetic_Act [wikipedia.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kefauver_Harris_Amendment [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 27 2018, @04:24PM (5 children)
Is English your 2nd language?
https://www.dictionary.com/browse/banned [dictionary.com] (to prohibit, forbid, or bar; interdict: )
Something doesn't need to be allowed in order to then be banned.
Thanks for the subsequent info though, and the question remains how do homeopathic medicines skip the efficacy test?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 27 2018, @04:28PM (4 children)
Fine, use "banned" in your sense (anything the organization is not specifically told to do).
Then they were originally "banned" from regulating the efficacy of all drugs, whether "homeopathic" or not.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 27 2018, @04:59PM (3 children)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 27 2018, @06:06PM (2 children)
Yep, the FDA has suffered massive mission creep with simultaneously lack of appropriate funding increases along with people carving out their own political exceptions. It should be reverted back to 1938 or even earlier.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 28 2018, @02:43AM (1 child)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 28 2018, @10:50AM
Before 1938 is before NHST.
(Score: 2) by jelizondo on Monday August 27 2018, @05:36PM (8 children)
You have to realize that the law holds two different points of view: a) as a citizen you are allowed to do anything that is not forbidden by law; and b) as a government entity you are only allowed to do whatever the law says. Sometimes this distinction causes confusion because people are not really aware that government can only do that which is specifically allowed by the law.
If the FDA was not specifically allowed to regulate the effectiveness of medicines in general, it could not do it, because it would mean overstepping its authority.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by ikanreed on Monday August 27 2018, @05:43PM (7 children)
Yes, and that law exists with a specific exception for garbage do-nothing fake medicine.
This seems like an asinine point to make. I don't think this is a technicality that anyone fails to recognize. But also you're wrong, because execution of law is a slippery subjective thing, and everyone knows that too, which is why we have courts.
(Score: 1, Troll) by jelizondo on Tuesday August 28 2018, @12:56AM (4 children)
Well, I was perhaps not very clear. You used the verb “banned” incorrectly; government is not “banned” from doing something, citizens are. If the law that establishes an agency, in this case the FDA, does not explicitly allows it to do something, then it can’t. No “banning” necessary.
Now, go read the 1906 Food and Drugs Act [procon.org] and see that the FDA had authority to regulate Homeopathic products because they were part of the law (Sec. 6) “That the term "drug," as used in this Act, shall include all medicines and preparations recognized in the United States Pharmacopoeia or National Formulary for internal or external use, and any substance or mixture of substances intended to be used for the cure, mitigation, or prevention of disease of either man or other animals.” I highlighted the relevant portion for you.
The act was changed in 1938 (go read it [house.gov]) and in Sec. 501 paragraph (b), the law clearly states “Whenever a drug is recognized in both the United States Pharmacopeia and the Homeopathic Pharmacopeia of the United States it shall be subject to the requirements of the United States Pharmacopeia unless it is labeled and offered for sale as a homeopathic drug, in which case it shall be subject to the provisions of the Homeopathic Pharmacopeia of the United States and not to those of the United States Pharmacopeia.”
So you see, the FDA can and does regulate homeopathic products. And yes, I happen to be a lawyer.
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Tuesday August 28 2018, @01:02AM
Yeah, I can tell you're a lawyer, as you're chasing a trivial technicality and irrelevant distinctions about the word choice I made as if ikanreed's posts are a body legal. Well either a lawyer or any person having an argument on the internet.
"The provisions for Homeopathic Pharmacopeia" are, to say the least, dramatically laxer. than anything we associate with drug review.
(Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Tuesday August 28 2018, @02:13AM (2 children)
Geez. Don't be an ass.
Look, the FDA itself has traced the history [fda.gov] of this. Read the "background" section near the beginning of that document.
There you will find that: (1) the bill's senatorial sponsor in 1938 was a homeopathic doctor who sought to create a separate category of drugs under the FDA subject to different regulation, (2) due to technicalities about the wording, the FDA can't regulate many "homeopathic" drugs in the same way it does other drugs, and (3) the FDA has not reviewed or approved any homeopathic drugs under normal OTC drug review partly because -- in the FDA's own words -- "the Agency categorized these products as a separate category and deferred consideration of them."
So no, you're technically right that the FDA wasn't "banned" from regulating them. It was merely forced to recategorize them in such a way that they've historically been subject to basically no regulation.
Which is... Kinda sorta like "banning" them from their normal regulatory practices in all but the most legalistic sense.
You may be a lawyer but that doesn't abrogate your responsibility to present the facts and situation fairly.
(Score: 2, Troll) by jelizondo on Tuesday August 28 2018, @04:39AM (1 child)
Comes with the territory...
A technicality will get you out of jail...
I'm not a reporter, pal; I don't have a resposibility to present anything fairly. I present my side of the case, your lawyer presents your side, the jury decides.
(Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Tuesday August 28 2018, @10:42AM
No, you're not a reporter, but I assume you are still a HUMAN BEING.
This is NOT a law forum or a courtroom -- so I was talking about abrogating your responsibilities as a rational human being. (But then again, you admitted you are a lawyer, so I guess that should be expected. Though I do have some friends who are both lawyers and rational human beings. It can happen.)
My goal (and the goal of rational human beings) is to come to a fair and nuanced understanding of the situation. You're trying to win an argument at all costs, regardless of whether it involves misrepresentation or incomplete facts. No one's on trial here.
All you've told me in this exchange is that I will never trust your opinion (legal or otherwise) on this forum again, because you've just admitted you don't give a crap about presenting things in a fair and truthful manner.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 28 2018, @01:27AM (1 child)
You see it all the time, with people arguing that you don't have the right to do X because the Constitution doesn't explicitly mention such a right.
(Score: 2) by requerdanos on Tuesday August 28 2018, @11:54AM
To be fair, this is simply a factually inaccurate misstatement of the tenth amendment: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."
It means roughly that the Federal government doesn't have the authority over X because the constitution doesn't explicitly mention such authority.
I suppose you could argue that the FDA, as part of the Federal government, doesn't have any but extremely limited, specifically enumerated power, but that kind of argument (while not outright unreasonable) usually dies when challenged in court, these things being interpreted rather more and more broadly with time.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Thexalon on Monday August 27 2018, @04:07PM (20 children)
Why shouldn't the FDA try to ensure that the products being sold for medical purposes are actually effective at doing what they say they do? That would seem to be kinda important.
And if you don't understand why, consider this: Medicine A is FDA-approved. Medicine B is FDA-approved. Because the FDA is no longer assessing efficacy, you and your doctor now have no idea how effective Medicine A and Medicine B are going to be at fixing whatever your problem is. Now, you can ask the manufacturers for data, but their response will invariable amount to "Oh sure! Of course our medicine will totally fix your problem! Guaranteed!* * not actually guaranteed at all, but you can't sue us, so nya nya nya!" and thus is completely useless for figuring this out. You can go to the non-FDA literature on the subject, but the manufacturers of both Medicine A and B have both funded numerous scientific-looking studies published in prestigious-looking journals that your doctor doesn't have time to read and evaluate that show that their products cure everything imaginable, so that doesn't help either.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 27 2018, @04:24PM (19 children)
Because they suck at it.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 27 2018, @05:15PM (1 child)
Corporate/capitalist "science" sucks at it even more.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 27 2018, @06:03PM
Who said they didnt? The entire healthcare industry is overrun by scammers and their useful idiots.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Thexalon on Monday August 27 2018, @05:42PM (16 children)
1. What enabled you to determine that they suck at it?
2. What alternative do you propose that would not suck at it? I mentioned a couple of alternatives and why they wouldn't work.
3. Is there a reform to what the FDA is doing to test efficacy that would make it not suck?
Because without an answer to any of those questions, I'm going to assume that what you really mean is either "The FDA is an arm of the government, the government always sucks, ergo the FDA sucks, QED" or "I've read something somewhere that may well be written or funded by someone who is trying to get FDA approval for something highly questionable and is mad that they haven't gotten that approval". Neither of those should be taken seriously.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by ikanreed on Monday August 27 2018, @05:46PM (15 children)
Going back to the op, seems like what enabled them to determine they suck at it is a NaturalNews-esque belief that raw milk won't fucking kill one out of twenty of the people who drink it.
mm mm enterotoxigenic ecoli goodness.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Thexalon on Monday August 27 2018, @05:59PM
I've had raw milk and didn't die, but I had it in an environment where I had been involved in feeding and milking the cow and was thus reasonably certain that the cow was quite healthy and we were taking appropriate precautions against infection throughout the process (e.g. making sure her teats were clean and sanitized before milking). Also, legalizing sale of raw milk from your buddy the dairy farmer down the road is also an entirely different animal (so to speak) than legalizing raw milk in supermarkets where you have absolutely zero idea what the supply chain looks like, and guess which of those these kinds of fools are really keen to legalize?
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 27 2018, @06:00PM (13 children)
Nope, its just that they use NHST, which is straight up pseudoscience. They disprove a null hypothesis and then conclude that their (other) hypothesis is correct.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by ikanreed on Monday August 27 2018, @06:10PM (12 children)
Bayesian true believers up in the house, who have no way to decide if something is actually true, but they still think you're wrong about everything somehow.
Either that or you think drug companies aren't required to submit massive dossiers establishing the underlying mechanisms by which they think experimental drugs work.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 27 2018, @06:20PM (11 children)
NHST vs (correct) science is orthogonal to frequentist vs fisher vs bayesian. You can calculate values for one hypothesis and (incorrectly) apply them to the one you actually care about using any method.
They do submit this. It amounts to stringing together a bunch of NHST results. It wouldn't matter so much (just be a waste of time/money) but when are they required to make some precise numerical prediction about future results to demonstrate they understand whats going on? Never.
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Monday August 27 2018, @06:50PM (10 children)
Ah, now I see what you're getting at. But the reality is that real world medical data is super messy, and interfered with by a billion things that no model could accurately handle. You're asking for an exact windspeed of a hurricane when it makes landfall based on the tropical depression forming off the coast of West Africa. Working on a clinical trial is more about the 90% probability arc for 6 days. And making sure people don't die. If with the multitudes of data we have on storm tracks and a very reliable understanding of the underlying mechanisms, the real world doesn't allow for that kind of precision.
And finding reliable dose-response curves are often a goal of secondary trials.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 28 2018, @10:52AM (9 children)
Science is just too hard so we use pseudoscience instead! Yep
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Tuesday August 28 2018, @02:01PM (8 children)
There's nothing unscientific about the hypothesis "we expect to see improved results in this specific area and if we don't compared to a placebo (or standard treatment)". Sorry you're enough of a pseudoscientist to reject controlled experimentation that doesn't fit your engineering-broken brain.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 28 2018, @05:30PM (7 children)
This isnt even close to being an hypothesis. Im guessing there are typos in there though. A hypothesis would be something like "this drug causes nitric oxide release from endothelial cells which leads to arterial dilation which leads to lower arterial pressure if there is no concomitant increase in blood pressure".
Then you'd have to build a quantitative model of
This model can be entirely empirical if you want (eg use machine learning), but once the function is chosen and all the "best" parameters/coefficients are picked someone needs to collect new data from new people/rats/whatever and show that it still works, because you did (without a doubt) overfit to the data used to develop the model.
Go find me a clinical trial that includes something like this or cites it as supporting evidence. You wont find any... It doesnt exist.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 28 2018, @05:31PM
Typo:
"this drug causes nitric oxide release from endothelial cells which leads to arterial dilation which leads to lower arterial pressure if there is no concomitant increase in blood volume"
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Tuesday August 28 2018, @07:37PM (5 children)
Your quantitative model is so damn reductionist. No way things like "how much water I drank today" factored into your gross simplifications.
No factoring in "what food did they take with the medicine affecting release rate"
No "did they exercise raising blood circulation"
No "does their case of this illness come in a more virulent strain sometimes"
No "how do their hormone levels fluctuate"
It doesn't exist because what you want is stupid, and your stupid with them.
You're a goddamn pseudoscientist.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 28 2018, @09:13PM
The stuff you dont account for is included in the uncertainties. That is why a model is always going to be consistent with a range of values. This is the entire point of statistics...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 28 2018, @09:21PM (3 children)
Anyway, this why all the talent is fleeing academia. Its filled with people who find science too hard... almost all your time is wasted explaining the most basic stuff to them. Its irritating as hell.
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Tuesday August 28 2018, @09:27PM (2 children)
You know, for all my interactions with PhDs, I don't think I've ever met one who "fled academia" because "science is too hard"
Pointless budget cuts? Oh yeah. Tenure track becoming impossible? For sure. Noxious department politics? Definetly
Having some entirely fantastical notion of rigor that wasn't being lived up to? Never.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 28 2018, @10:13PM (1 child)
You misread. Those are the ones who stay in academia... The people who dont want to put up with them (and all the BS they try to substitute for doing a good job) are the ones fleeing.
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Wednesday August 29 2018, @01:25AM
Nah, I read you right the first time, but typed wrong. I mean you'll just have to take my word on that, and the context clues of the rest of my post.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Monday August 27 2018, @03:43PM (5 children)
[1] This product is not intended to diagnose, treat or cure any disease.
"Vitamin B17" is what they're calling apricot seeds now that "Laetrile" isn't moving product anymore.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 3, Informative) by Taibhsear on Monday August 27 2018, @05:07PM (4 children)
Which is interesting since it isn't a vitamin at all. It just dumps cyanide into your body when ingested.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amygdalin [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 3, Disagree) by requerdanos on Monday August 27 2018, @07:03PM (1 child)
Sort of like the cyanide and cobalt amalgamation [drugs.com] known as "cyanocobalmin" (or more commonly as Vitamin B12 [webmd.com]).
"B17" may or may not be a vitamin, but it's not looking good to your theory as to "why not".
(Score: 3, Informative) by Taibhsear on Tuesday August 28 2018, @02:33PM
I take it you didn't read the wiki link I posted. The "why not" is clearly stated in the first couple paragraphs which is backed up with research.
Cyanocobalamin doesn't do this. Just because a chemical has a cyano group doesn't mean it breaks into cyanide.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 29 2018, @03:09PM (1 child)
Spam moderations are for posts selling fake boner pills not downvoting scientific facts you don't want to believe.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday August 31 2018, @08:00PM
Taken care of. Excuse the delay.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Thexalon on Monday August 27 2018, @03:59PM (25 children)
One of James Randi's standard tricks during talks has been to start off by taking an large quantity of homeopathic sleeping pills. A bit later, he explains that the claims of the manufacturer make this out to be a lethal dose, with instructions to contact poison control immediately. And yet there he still stands, completely unaffected by what were fundamentally nothing more active than the water he used to swallow them. Since apparently dilution is how homeopathy makes medicine more powerful, I must be healthier than the homeopathy people are because I'm getting a really powerful dose of this stuff whenever I have a glass of water.
I travel in circles where I occasionally meet the kind of kooks who actually believe in alternative medicine. Not in the "This herb contains a chemical that can help with this particular ailment" sort of way, which was how scientific medicine worked until the late 1800's or so, but in the "Doctors are evil and the FDA is a giant conspiracy to make pharma companies rich and all vaccines will kill your babies" kind of way. And most of these folks are absolutely impervious to any evidence that they're wrong.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 27 2018, @04:15PM (24 children)
Its not homeopathy if hes taking "pills", its some sort of BS scam.
For it to be actual homeopathy you need to shake up a container of water, then either quickly skim the bubbly layer at the top or dump out the water and skim what sticks to the glass. Then you put that solution into another container of water and repeat. In the end you drink the final solution.
As you can see all the standard chem 101 debunkings do not apply, since you are not taking a random sample from a well mixed solution. Of course, the theory behind it as explained by homeopathic practitioners is also wrong.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 27 2018, @04:48PM
I found the sources I was thinking of:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20970092 [nih.gov]
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24439452 [nih.gov]
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17678816 [nih.gov]
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 27 2018, @04:53PM (17 children)
What you have described is not the way homeopathic remedies are supposed to be prepared. They take the original substance, dilute it maybe 1:100, shake it vigorously, and then repeat this dilution and shaking as many times as prescribed, usually 30 times. Homeopaths even have a word for this shaking process, "sucussion", which is supposed to "potentize" the homeopathic preparation. The shaking is supposed to be very vigorous. So the solution is pretty much well mixed from the outset, and by the time you get to a 30C dilution, that means diluting and shaking the thing 1:100 30 times. If you do the calculations, that comes out to be a 10-60 dilution. Ehm, Avogadro's number is only 6.02×1023, so the chance that you'll have even one molecule of the diluted thing left at the end of the process is rather vanishingly small. Even if it was done the way you described, the fact that the process is repeated so many times will probably result in the same thing. There are even 200C dilutions, making it a 10-400 dilution. Erm, there are only about 1080 sub-atomic particles in the entire visible universe. Beyond about 12C (10-24) there is only a vanishingly small chance that there is even a single molecule of the original substance left.
No, it really is just water, and has no effect beyond placebo in every well-controlled clinical trial ever conducted of homeopathy.
(Score: 3, Funny) by DannyB on Monday August 27 2018, @05:49PM (9 children)
It might be effective for ailments such as thirst.
But . . . they claim there is some kind of "molecular memory". At least that is what I read on Ars a couple years ago. Of course, no explanation of how this molecular memory might work is forthcoming. Does the active ingredient somehow leave tiny sticky notes on the water molecules it comes into contact with?
When trying to solve a problem don't ask who suffers from the problem, ask who profits from the problem.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 27 2018, @06:10PM (4 children)
No, its that if you actually check the final solution carefully enough there are very low amounts of the original ingredients remaining. At some point the concentration plateaus because its all aggregating in bubbles at the top or sticking to the walls, or something.
The assumptions used for the chem 101 debunking do not hold so it is just as retarded as saying "water memory". Its idiots on all sides of this debate.
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Monday August 27 2018, @06:21PM (2 children)
Maybe not "just as retarded" [hermiene.net]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 28 2018, @11:12AM (1 child)
No it really is the exact same thing of comign up with a bunch of assumptions that do not at all apply to the real life situation and then drawing conclusiosn about whats going on based on what can be deduced from those assumptions. I see zero difference between the two "sides" regarding homeopathy.
The only people making progress on that issue are those who actually collected data on whether this procedure really results in the theoretically calculated dilution rate. Those are the good, scientific people we should praise.
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Tuesday August 28 2018, @02:08PM
You're wronger than both.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 27 2018, @11:47PM
Godwinned!
(Score: 4, Interesting) by ikanreed on Monday August 27 2018, @06:18PM
Water memory is a classic "glue the word quantum to this thing that's been shown to be bullshit, and now's it's true again" stuff.
Their argument is that the water retains the inverse entangled state of the thing put in the water by virtue of being exposed to it and interacting on the particle level. The state then spreads out among the water somehow also quantum entanglementy. This then makes the water have the opposite properties of the original molecule.
This has the following really really obvious problems.
1. That's not how entanglement works. You can just put two things in the same flask and declare them entangled.
2. That's not how entanglement works. Their next interaction with anything would erase any entanglement.
3. That's not how entanglement works. Entangled electron pairs have opposite spin, but not a lot else has any relationship.
4. That's not how entanglement works, it doesn't spread like a virus, it's a state that goes away.
5. That's not how medicine works. You don't give people the opposite of what's afflicting them to fix problems. "Shove the burn victim in the freezer"
6. That's not how medicine works. Almost all homeopathic remedies are oral, how do you even get them to the affected zone, even if they have the right properties to fix the problem.
(Score: 2) by requerdanos on Monday August 27 2018, @07:07PM (2 children)
If so, wouldn't the water remember all those times it was down in the raw sewage tank at the water treatment plant? That has happened to the water molecules, on average, a lot more times than being magically potentized through abracadabra sucussion.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday August 27 2018, @07:15PM (1 child)
I suppose they could argue that it would make the water even more beneficial.
When trying to solve a problem don't ask who suffers from the problem, ask who profits from the problem.
(Score: 2) by requerdanos on Monday August 27 2018, @08:00PM
Problem is, if like cures like, then with this water they would be cured of being full of a certain mushy brown smelly substance and could no longer tout the benefits of their wares. It's a paradox.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 27 2018, @05:56PM (4 children)
So you just totally ignored the part about skimming from the top or the sides of the container after dumping it?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by requerdanos on Monday August 27 2018, @08:02PM (1 child)
I understand what you are saying about physically putting water into a pill. I also want to mention...
Pro tip: You can "just totally ignore" any part of the manual and the homeopathic "remedy" will have the same effectiveness as it would otherwise.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 28 2018, @11:04AM
"Physically putting water into a pill" has nothing to do with the sampling from specific regions of the solution issue. You have missed the point.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 28 2018, @05:45AM (1 child)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 28 2018, @10:55AM
Sampling from bubbles or stuff that sticks to the container is different than sampling from a random part of the solution volume. Good luck! I cant hope to help you further.
(Score: 2) by NewNic on Monday August 27 2018, @06:37PM (1 child)
I think that you are wrong, as defined by the "Homeopathic Pharmacopeia of the United States".
lib·er·tar·i·an·ism ˌlibərˈterēənizəm/ noun: Magical thinking that useful idiots mistake for serious political theory
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 28 2018, @06:23PM
Can you link to this document and quote the part you are referring to?
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Monday August 27 2018, @05:47PM (2 children)
The final step in making the pill form is to place the final skim off the top of the water in question into a liquid gel capsule. That makes it look all scientific and medicine-y, even though it's just water by that point.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday August 27 2018, @05:50PM (1 child)
Adding a tiny bit of food coloring means you can dispense it in an ordinary cheap bottle and still have it look "sciencey".
When trying to solve a problem don't ask who suffers from the problem, ask who profits from the problem.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Monday August 27 2018, @06:06PM
Sure, but the markup probably isn't as high for that. Ultimately, though, that's a problem for the marketing department: My point is that "pill-like form" does not equal "not homeopathic", since somebody up the thread was trying to No True Scotsman their way out of the demonstration.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 1) by pTamok on Monday August 27 2018, @07:08PM (1 child)
That depends on which homeopaths you talk to:
https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/75/how-do-sugar-pills-work-according-to-homeopaths [stackexchange.com]
http://www.wholehealthnow.com/homeopathy_info/hahnemann_labs_preparation.html [wholehealthnow.com]
There are also 'paper remedies'
http://www.homeopathyhome.com/forums/forum/homeopathy/homeopathy-discussion/2050-paper-remedies [homeopathyhome.com]
https://jdc325.wordpress.com/2011/02/10/you-couldnt-make-it-up-paper-remedies/ [wordpress.com]
People truly believe weird and wonderful things. One of the late Richard Feynmann's quotations is apposite:
From: Some remarks on science, pseudoscience, and learning how to not fool yourself. Caltech’s 1974 commencement address. [caltech.edu] - it is worth reading the whole address.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 28 2018, @11:08AM
Anything depends on who you talk to. People listen to "Doctor" Oz, or "Doctor" Phil, or "Doctor House" because they call themselves doctors.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by rst on Monday August 27 2018, @04:32PM
I acknowledge the recall, and I think "dubious claims" is being kind to homeopathy, but what do they have to do with each other?
The recall "may" indicate a hygiene problem at the factory, but to me, that comments more on management cutting corners than the value of the product.
(Score: 2) by looorg on Monday August 27 2018, @07:35PM
Didn't they dilute the water enough or was it swirled the wrong way?
(Score: 2) by Rivenaleem on Tuesday August 28 2018, @09:31AM
Homeopathic medicines have so little effect that even a contaminated batch has had no effect.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 28 2018, @10:36AM
... Elon Musk called that guy in Thailand a homeopath.
That's the Internet for you.