{"id":979,"date":"2010-01-30T10:23:00","date_gmt":"2010-01-30T10:23:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.quackometer.net\/wpblog\/2010\/01\/1023-my-personal-homeopathic-overdose.html"},"modified":"2010-01-30T10:23:00","modified_gmt":"2010-01-30T10:23:00","slug":"1023-my-personal-homeopathic-overdose","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.quackometer.net\/blog\/2010\/01\/1023-my-personal-homeopathic-overdose.html","title":{"rendered":"10:23. My Personal Homeopathic Overdose"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"image\"<\/a> Right now, if the homeopaths are correct, I should have paralysed arms, be in severe pain, have convulsions, delirium, skin itching all over and be unable to stand. That is because I have taken a massive overdose of the homeopathic remedies, Belladonna 30C, Sulphur 30C and Lachesis 5MM. I wrote this post last night and set it to appear at 10:23 today, the moment I will also be taking a whole packet of Boots homeopathic sleeping pills.<\/p>\n

I expect to be quite alright because despite the labelling of these products, homeopathic pills are just sugar pills \u2013 there is nothing in them. They are inert and completely ineffective.<\/p>\n

I am taking this overdose because Boots the Chemists sell these products as if they were real medicines. They make money by misleading the public that these pills can relieve them of various symptoms, from hay fever to infant teething pain. They do not, of course, and Boots know there is no evidence, but they sell them nonetheless. Hundreds of like minded people will be doing the same in cities throughout the UK as part of the 10:23 homeopathy<\/a> campaign.<\/p>\n

The Society of Homeopaths is condemning this protest as \u201can ill advised publicity stunt\u201d. Why it should be \u2018ill advised\u2019 is not clear. They go on to say in their press release<\/a> that they \u201cwould not therefore expect any reaction to the proposed \u2018overdose\u2019 by this group.\u201d<\/p>\n

Well we are all in agreement that nothing will happen then. And that is precisely the message that we want the public to take away \u2013 homeopathic remedies cannot have any effects because they contain no active substance \u2013 they are diluted to the point that no material remains. Homeopathy is a pseudo-medicine based on magical and pre-scientific belief systems that should have no place in a modern High Street pharmacy.<\/p>\n

But, as usual, the Society of Homeopaths are not being straightforward<\/a> with the public. For on another of their pages they repeat the homeopathic belief that their sugar pills can produce symptoms in healthy people<\/a>. This is known as a homeopathic \u2018proving\u2019. <\/p>\n

\n

Volunteers or \u2018provers\u2019 take the new substance until they experience symptoms. All symptoms that result from taking the substance are recorded in detail.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Now of course this does not really happen. What homeopathic \u2018provers\u2019 experience are just random symptoms \u2013 there is no evidence that homeopathic pills can induce any consistent symptoms in people because they are just sugar pills. Such is the imagination.<\/p>\n

If the Society of Homeopath believes this though, it is a mystery why they decline to warn the protesters about this.<\/p>\n

The medical doctors who use homeopathy have come out strongly against this protest<\/a> too. They say \u201cThe BHA regards the 10:23 stunt as grossly irresponsible\u201d. Personally, I think that doctors misleading patients by telling them that a 19th Century pseudoscientific cultish quack medicine can help them is deeply irresponsible. I am amazed they are not struck off.<\/p>\n

But to satisfy the homeopaths, in addition to downing by whole box of homeopathic sleeping pills, I have started taking the sulphur, belladonna and lachesis, 2 tabs of each at 2 hourly intervals. I started at 9pm last night and will continue until the tubs run out.<\/p>\n

The lachesis is supposed to be particularly nasty. It is made from a snake venom (Bushmaster) and is supposed to induce horrific symptoms. Previous provers<\/a> have reported paralysis of the arms and lots of pain. But because my pills do not actually contain any snake venom, I feel pretty confident I will be OK.<\/p>\n

I am supposed to be giving a talk<\/a> with Simon Singh and John Garrow in an hour, \u201cTrick or Treatment: The Event.\u201d If I am not there, you know why.<\/p>\n

If you want to check I am alive, follow my twitter stream: http:\/\/www.twitter.com\/lecanardnoir<\/a><\/p>\n

******************************************************************************************************************<\/p>\n

If you want to find out more about why I am doing this, read here<\/a>.  And if you want to know why it is called the 10:23 campaign, you could do worse than read this<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Right now, if the homeopaths are correct, I should have paralysed arms, be in severe pain, have convulsions, delirium, skin itching all over and be […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[22,187],"class_list":["post-979","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-homeopathy","tag-1023-campaign","tag-homeopathy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.quackometer.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/979","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.quackometer.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.quackometer.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.quackometer.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.quackometer.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=979"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.quackometer.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/979\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.quackometer.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=979"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.quackometer.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=979"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.quackometer.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=979"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}