Richard Dawkins (the original meme creator) was with Robyn Blumner, CEO of the Center for Inquiry (CFI) and board member and fellow VC, David Cowen. And I learned something shocking when she told us why CFI is suing CVS and Walmart for medical fraud. Walmart carries over 1000 homeopathic remedies (including their own Equate private label). This is water. It is being sold as children’s medicine for serious conditions, from asthma to ear infections. In most cases, the box face just has a little single-word “homeopathic” disclaimer to distinguish it. It is sold alongside real medicine on the same store shelf and among search results online. You can browse the huge array of sham therapies yourself: Walmart Search
I wonder if many of the 5 million buyers in America understand that it cannot possibly have any health benefits beyond the placebo effect. Who falls for this? Buying for their sick children? The FDA and FTC have done little to stem the profiting from human frailties, afraid perhaps to directly challenge an “alternative medicine” from the 1700s.
From a recent Vox article: “Homeopathy is a $1.2 billion industry in the US alone. Many misidentify homeopathy as ‘natural’ and describe it as plant-based or herbal medicine. It’s not.
Guiding principles of homeopathy today:
• Like cures like: Homeopathy posits that a substance that produces a disease’s symptoms in a healthy person is a cure for that disease. (In the case of the remedy known simply as “Berlin Wall,” conditions caused by communication problems are said to be cured by tablets made from finely ground, diluted shards of the actual Berlin Wall, because it was once a concrete barrier to communication.)
• Law of minimum dose: The lower the dose, say homeopathic practitioners, the more potent the remedy. To that end, homeopathic remedies are extremely diluted. Many are so diluted, in fact, that they contain no detectable molecules of the ‘mother tincture.’ Hahnemann (the inventor of homeopathy) intended to avoid poisoning, as many of the substances that he introduced as remedies were toxic. But soon his rationale became less, well, rational: ‘Vital energy’ was transmitted during dilution, Hahnemann believed, so none of the original substance needed to remain.”
“A Walmart spokesman responded: ‘Our Equate private label homeopathic products are designed to include information directly stating that the claims are not based on accepted medical evidence’” — Forbes
And CFI responds:
“By displaying a product under children’s cough release or, even worse, a product under asthma medication, which can kill children and does kill children— you are making an affirmative claim that it treats asthma. And homeopathic products just don’t treat them. And most people simply don’t know what they’re buying. They’re being defrauded by the companies that manufacture them and by the retailers who market them.
The FDA will certify that a homeopathic medication is safe, and it has the ingredients it says it does but not whether or not it works. As long as something is listed in this big book, ‘The Homeopathic Pharmacopoeia,’ then you don’t have to demonstrate that the product works.
Somehow they come around to the idea that flu symptoms are caused by the heart and liver of a particular kind of duck, so that they treat it with the heart and the liver of a particular kind of duck. But even more unscientifically, the second principle is the law of infinitesimal doses. And they base this on the idea that water has a memory. It can remember what is dissolved in it even when there is none of the alleged active ingredient left. This is one of the most ludicrous things suggested. And yet billions of dollars every year in the United States are spent on these products.” — NPR
“Eye drops have been found to include crushed honeybees as a lead ingredient.
It’s not only a matter of consumer financial loss, but also consumer health. Some products are poorly manufactured and contain potentially harmful ingredients, while others act as poor substitutes for established, science-based medications, the CFI says. For example, a parent might forego antibiotics for a child with an ear infection in lieu of homeopathic ear drops. Such alternative care could result in long-term ear damage and deafness.” —FastCompany
You can learn more about the Center for Inquiry, and their various programs (Secular Rescue, Evolution education resources, a $100K award for demonstrating anything paranormal) here and here for the prize (they even offer a $5K referral bonus… they really would love to find someone, anyone, who can do anything paranormal)
P.S. At the end, Dawkins gave my daughter a copy of his new book, Outgrowing God, A Beginner’s Guide. It is a witty and yet fiercely rational primer for those considering moving on.
Leave a Reply