Homeopathic logic is real logic that has been diluted into non-existence. The solvent is bias and propaganda. I was recently pointed to an excellent example of this – an article written by a homeopath arguing that homeopathy is superior to modern medicine. It’s published in what appears to be an obscure rag, but it does represent common arguments put forth by homeopaths so it doesn’t really matter.

Here is the main point of the article:

There are many differences in both the disciplines of medicines. Let’s just focus on one main difference and that is the fact that none of the homeopathic medicines introduced during the last two hundred and fifty years was withdrawn from the market.

The author, Asghar Ali Shah, uses the term, “allopathy” throughout the article. This is a derogatory term used mainly by critics of science-based medicine, and immediately reveals the author’s bias. In the statement above he is also trying to present homeopathy and mainstream medicine as two “disciplines of medicines,” which is a false equivalency. This is a common tactic of fringe beliefs, to appear as a viable alternative to the mainstream, followed, of course, by arguments for its superiority.

Homeopathy, however, is a prescientific superstition that is at odds with basic science, and not just medicine but physics, chemistry, and biology.

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OK – I’m having one of those “someone is wrong on the internet” moments. But this someone is a fellow physician (Des Spence, a general practitioner from Glasgow)  and the swirling black hole of wrongness is not just on the internet, but published in a generally respected medical journal, the BMJ. Spense is writing in defense of homeopathy, but he is not a homeopath and acknowledges that homeopathy is “bad science,” and the pills are little more than placebos.  What he does do is marshal every “shruggie” bad argument, misinformation, and logical fallacy into a “Gish gallop” of apologist nonsense.

In his introduction he acknowledges that homeopathy doesn’t work, but then states:

Today, homeopathy is medicine’s whipping boy, repeatedly and systematically beaten to the ground. Yet despite explaining that the tablets are just placebos, homeopathy always gets up to take another beating. Some homeopathy is funded by the NHS, through general practice, and in the few homeopathic hospitals. This fact enrages the growling commissars of evidenced based medicine who want homeopathy purged from the NHS.

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I published this article on Science-Based Medicine about a year ago. Some of the commenters provided excellent additional information that I have incorporated into this updated version.

There are many medical pseudosciences that persist despite a utter lack of either plausibility or evidence for efficacy. Some practices emerged out of their culture of origin, or out of the prevailing ideas of a pre-scientific age, while others were manufactured out of the imagination of perhaps well-meaning but highly misguided individual practitioners. They were just made up – homeopathy, for example, or subluxation theory.

Iridology belongs to this latter category – a system of diagnosis that was invented entirely by Ignatz Peczely, a Hungarian physician who first published his ideas in 1893. The story goes that Peczely as a boy found an owl with a broken leg. At the time he noticed a prominent black stripe in the iris of one eye of the owl. He nursed the bird back to health and then noticed that the black line was gone, replaced by ragged white lines. From this single observation Peczely developed the notion of iridology.

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I get a lot of press releases in my inbox. I’m not sure why – I suspect it’s because of this blog. I actually find it helpful for the occasional blog topic, even though most of it is self-promotional fluff that’s little more than spam. Although, I find spam useful too. I keep a separate folder for all my spam and track the themes as sociological data. It’s also interesting to track the strategies that spam marketers and con artists are using the exploit the unwary.

Recently I found a press release in my e-mail that I thought I would have some fun with. This is one of those commercial press releases, just selling a new company or product. Here’s the opening paragraph:

SONOMA, CA – Forces of Nature® is singlehandedly changing the over-the-counter medicines industry by introducing the world’s first and only FDA Registered remedies that are 100% Certified Organicby the United States Department of Agriculture. Combining homeopathic materials with medicinal botanicals, the extensive line of all-natural, chemical-free treatments are guaranteed to heal warts, nail fungus, acne, eczema, psoriasis, varicose veins, athlete’s foot and many other ailments.

This is essentially the modern version of the snake oil salesman barking out of the back of their wagon selling their latest magic elixir. Let’s play find the logical fallacy. The first one is contained in the name, a clear example of the naturalistic fallacy. This theme is obviously central to the marketing of this company. The notion that something is magically safe and/or effective simply because it’s natural is a common logical fallacy in our culture, carefully cultivated by the supplement and other industries to remarkable success. There is, however, no operational definition of what constitutes “natural” and there is no scientific reason to think that a substance that occurs in nature should be safe for human consumption or have any medical qualities. Most natural substances are deadly poisons.

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At the end of April a federal court approved a settlement against Boiron – the world’s largest manufacturer of homeopathic products.

A federal court has preliminarily approved a class action lawsuit settlement with Boiron, Inc. that will provide up to $5 million in refunds to consumers who purchased certain Boiron homeopathic products, including Oscillo, Arnicare, Chestal and Coldcalm.

This is the result of a class action lawsuit against against Boiron alleging that they sold the above named products with false claims they knew they could not support. Jann Bellamy at Science-Based Medicine gives a good overview of the relevant law and the testimony given during the trial.

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If you have been paying attention it is quite clear that at the core of the CAM (Complementary and Alternative Medicine) movement is a deliberate and calculated attack against science as the basis for medicine and health care. The original brand of “alternative” medicine was the most accurate – it is an alternative to science and evidence-based medicine. The later terms, “complementary” and “integrative,” are deceptions meant to distract from the fact the CAM (as much as general statements can be made about such a loose category) is anti-science, and therefore cannot be integrated into science.

Fortunately for those of us who are trying to increase public awareness about the anti-science agenda of CAM, CAM proponents frequently show their hand. They advocate for changing the rules of evidence to suit their needs. They talk about integrating their therapies with science-based medicine, but then pull a bait and switch and push pure pseudoscience as first line treatment. They dismiss and denigrate legitimate science as if it were all a big corporate conspiracy. They advocate for (and are slowing getting) laws to weaken the science-based standard of care for medicine. And of course, they distort and misrepresent real science and promote abject pseudoscience.

Perhaps none are worse in their broad-based attack on science than the homeopaths. Really, if they are going to promote homeopathy, they have no choice. Homeopathy is pure magical pseudoscience, and it doesn’t work. A thorough review by the British government recently concluded that homeopathy is “witchcraft.” Science, therefore, is the homeopath’s worst enemy (as homeopath Werner aptly demonstrates in this hilarious YouTube video). To the homeopath there is no more frightening phrase than, “Science-Based Medicine.” To survive they must either destroy science or break it to their will (which would destroy science).

Orac brought my attention to the latest attack against science by a homeopath, Heidi Stevenson. He does a fine job of deconstructing the nonsense, but I feel the need to add my own comments. Stripped down the article has two points to make: anecdotal evidence is not only legitimate, it’s the best form of evidence; and science-based doctors use mostly anecdotal evidence too. Both points are wrong.

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Recently CBC in Canada aired a program on homeopathy for their series on consumer protection called Marketplace. The segment was titled Cure or Con and was generally a good program. It was not a hard-hitting skeptical treatment of homeopathy, but it was a fair treatment of the evidence and arguments concerning homeopathy. There was no “false balance”, although they did give homeopathy proponents an opportunity to tell their side of the story.

Generally the program was considered a “win” among skeptics – a rare bit of good journalism on a controversial and complex topic.

Of course, the homeopathic community was not pleased (a reliable sign that the show did a good job). Just read the comments beneath the program linked above and you will see a long list of displeased homeopathy advocates running through the list of logical fallacies and making many misstatements of fact. The homeopathy community, in fact, organized a negative feedback campaign in response to the segment.

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Those of us in the science-based medicine community have been watching Dr. Mehmet Oz’s descent into abject quackery. It’s like watching a train wreck in slow motion – horrific, but gripping.  The purpose of this post is not to tell you that Dr. Oz’s journey toward the dark side is now complete, because that has already happened. Dr. Oz is a product of Oprah Winfrey, and Oprah exists in a skepticism-free zone, as do all of the moons in her orbit.

At first Oz gave mostly reasonable medical advice, but liberally sprinkled in the woo. But now that he has his own show, Dr. Oz is a neverending stream of nonsensical pseudoscience. A recent example deserves mention – Oz attempts to explain to his audience what homeopathy is. Like all such attempts from proponents, the results are simultaneously humorous and exasperating. For this program Oz is helped by Dr. Russ Greenfield, an “integrative” medicine practitioner, and fellow of Dr. Andrew Weil’s program at the University of Arizona.

Oz and Greenfield explain that homeopathy uses “tiny” doses of “drugs” to treat symptoms, like chronic pain (the topic of the day). This is deceptive on two levels – in most cases the doses are not tiny but non-existent. And further, most of the substances used to prepare homeopathic water are not drugs, but a range of ordinary, toxic, or fanciful substances.

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Recently the 1023 campaign conducted another homeopathic overdose. In coordination with this, James Randi issued a $1 million  challenge to the homeopathic community to demonstrate that there is any difference between homeopathic water and regular water (there isn’t). Last week skeptics around the world downed fistsfull of homeopathic pills (i.e. sugar pills) to demonstrate that there is no effect or side effect to the products. You can take a couple of boxes of homeopathic sleeping pills without feeling the least bit drowsy.

To be clear – the homeopathic overdose is a stunt, and nothing more. It is not an experiment or meant to be scientific in any way. It is a stunt for the camera – to raise public awareness of the fact that there are generally no active ingredients in homeopathic products. They are sugar pills that have been kissed with magic water – nothing else. This is an important campaign because generally the public lacks awareness of what homeopathic products really are. Most people I encounter have no idea what the claims of homeopathy are, and assume that homeopathic means “natural” or “herbal.”

It is true that by doing this skeptics are demonstrating that homeopathic products lack toxicity and side effects – a feature prominently promoted by homeopaths. Of course, they have no side effects because they have no effects. It is easy for nothing to cause no direct harm. (Indirect harm is another matter.) So homeopaths should be happy – we are simply educating the public about their favorite snake-oil and demonstrating how wonderfully safe they are.

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Dana Ullman, a notorious homeopathy apologist, actually has a regular blog over at HuffPo. For those of use who follow such things, the start of his blog there marked the point of no return for the Huffington Post – clearly the editors had decided to go the path of Saruman and “abandon reason for madness.” They gave up any pretense of caring about scientific integrity and became a rag of pseudoscience.

Ullman’s recent blog post is typical of his style – it is the braggadocio of homeopathy. I am sure others will skeptically dissect his piece so I won’t go into every point here. I want to focus on Ullman’s claim that the clinical and basic science research supports homeopathy. Here is the paragraph on which I want to focus:

Most clinical research conducted on homeopathic medicines that has been published in peer-review journals have shown positive clinical results,(3, 4) especially in the treatment of respiratory allergies (5, 6), influenza, (7) fibromyalgia, (8, 9) rheumatoid arthritis, (10) childhood diarrhea, (11) post-surgical abdominal surgery recovery, (12) attention deficit disorder, (13) and reduction in the side effects of conventional cancer treatments. (14) In addition to clinical trials, several hundred basic science studies have confirmed the biological activity of homeopathic medicines. One type of basic science trials, called in vitro studies, found 67 experiments (1/3 of them replications) and nearly 3/4 of all replications were positive. (15, 16)

Those numbers are references that allegedly support his claims – 14 papers (they are not all studies, some are reviews) that allegedly make the case that homeopathy works. Most reader do not independently check references to see if they say what the author claims. Some may foolishly assume that the editors at the HuffPo have done that already.

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