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posted by LaminatorX on Thursday March 13 2014, @12:53AM   Printer-friendly
from the better-living-through-solopsism dept.

Papas Fritas writes:

Michael Schulson writes that if you want to write about spiritually-motivated pseudoscience in America, you can drive hundreds of miles to the Creation Museum in Kentucky but that America's greatest shrine to pseudoscience, the Whole Foods Market, is only a 15-minute trip away from most American urbanites. For example the homeopathy section at Whole Foods has plenty of Latin words and mathematical terms, but many of its remedies are so diluted that, statistically speaking, they may not contain a single molecule of the substance they purport to deliver.

"You can buy chocolate with "a meld of rich goji berries and ashwagandha root to strengthen your immune system," and bottles of ChlorOxygen chlorophyll concentrate, which "builds better blood." There's cereal with the kind of ingredients that are "made in a kitchen-not in a lab," and tea designed to heal the human heart," writes Schulson. "Nearby are eight full shelves of probiotics-live bacteria intended to improve general health. I invited a biologist friend who studies human gut bacteria to come take a look with me. She read the healing claims printed on a handful of bottles and frowned. "This is bullshit," she said, and went off to buy some vegetables."

According to Schulson the total lack of outrage over Whole Foods' existence, and by the total saturation of outrage over the Creation Museum, makes it clear that strict scientific accuracy in the public sphere isn't quite as important to many of us as we might believe. "The moral is not that we should all boycott Whole Foods. It's that whenever we talk about science and society, it helps to keep two rather humbling premises in mind: very few of us are anywhere near rational. And pretty much all of us are hypocrites."

 
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  • (Score: 1) by naff89 on Thursday March 13 2014, @04:31AM

    by naff89 (198) on Thursday March 13 2014, @04:31AM (#15688)

    Shouldn't you need to have real science or at least a double-blind study or two before you can make *any* claims?

    You do, and all claims are evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. If they're not, they require a big label that says "Not Evaluated by the FDA" and "Not intended to treat or diagnose [anything]".

    If you still think it works despite those warnings, well, there's only so much we can do to help you.

  • (Score: 1) by Aighearach on Thursday March 13 2014, @04:48AM

    by Aighearach (2621) on Thursday March 13 2014, @04:48AM (#15702)

    You might even just like eating it. I've heard lots of people say they take homeopathic remedies because they might work, are almost certainly safe.

    And I agree. The placebo effect is much stronger than the medicinal effect of most "proven" medicines.

    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by girlwhowaspluggedout on Thursday March 13 2014, @06:39AM

      by girlwhowaspluggedout (1223) on Thursday March 13 2014, @06:39AM (#15741)
      To quote that bastion of medical fact and accuracy [wikipedia.org]:

      Government regulatory agencies approve new drugs only after tests establish not only that patients respond to them, but also that their effect is greater than that of a placebo (by way of affecting more patients, by affecting responders more strongly, or both).

      IANAD, but AFAIK, that is indeed how drug testing works.

      --
      Soylent is the best disinfectant.
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 13 2014, @11:22AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 13 2014, @11:22AM (#15800)

    Shouldn't you need to have real science or at least a double-blind study or two before you can make *any* claims?

    You do, and all claims are evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration.

    That's not entirely true. From the FDA:

    The Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (the Act) recognizes as official the drugs and standards in the Homeopathic Pharmacopeia of the United States and its supplements (Sections 201 (g)(1) and 501 (b), respectively).

    Furthermore

    Section 211.165 (Testing and release for distribution): In the Federal Register of April 1, 1983 (48 FR 14003), the Agency proposed to amend 21 CFR 211.165 to exempt homeopathic drug products from the requirement for laboratory determination of identity and strength of each active ingredient prior to release for distribution.

    So, "real" drugs have to tested for safety and efficacy; neutraceuticals have to be labeled in such a way as to make clear that they are not drugs, but only "nutritional supplements" or other such language; but "homeopathic" remedies, as long as they're recognized in the pharmacopea and contain no active allopathic agent, are allowed to be called drugs.