Homeopaths vs. Ebola virus hemorrhagic fever [View all]

[SidDithers]

Homeopathy is quackery. There, I’ve fulfilled my normal requirement to start out all posts that I write having to do with homeopathy with a simple, declarative, and, most of all, true statement about what homeopathy is. I also like to mention briefly homeopathy’s two major “laws.” The first is the Law of Similars, a totally pseudoscientific “law” without basis in science that proclaims that the way to treat a symptom is to use a substance that causes that symptom in healthy people. The second “law,” of course, is the Law of Infinitesimals, which further states that the more you dilute a remedy the more potent it becomes. This leads homeopaths to dilute remedies to 30C (C = one hundred-fold dilution) and beyond. Given that a 30C dilution equals a 10^60-fold dilution and Avogadro’s number is only approximately 6 x 10^23, such homeopathic remedies are unlikely to contain a single molecule of the original substance, other than perhaps contamination carried over from one dilution to the next. Either way, homeopathy is basically water or ethanol or whatever diluent is used to dilute the substance, and any effects from homeopathy are placebo or nonspecific effects. Indeed, I like to think of homeopathy as the Rorschach test of quackery in that quacks see in it whatever their nature leads them to see.

I normally don’t blog about Facebook memes (although I have been guilty on occasion of spreading them around), but the other day I saw this a screenshot of this Tweet:



Upon seeing this, I thought: Good point! Why aren’t there homeopaths trying to treat Ebola victims in Africa? After all, there are, unfortunately, homeopaths out there treating AIDS victims in Africa, a truly terrifying incursion of quackery into Third World countries.

First off, does anyone remember Homeopaths Without Borders? It’s not a joke. (Well, it is a joke, actually, but Homeopaths Without Borders does nonetheless exist.) There really are homeopaths out there who, thinking themselves capable of doing anything more than getting in the way of real doctors and rescue workers, for example in Haiti after the earthquake of 2010. A year and a half later, the results were not exactly what I would call a smashing success, although homeopaths bent logic, language, and medicine to portray it as such. Homeopaths have also claimed to be able to treat malaria, although malaria isn’t nearly as “sexy” a disease (i.e., frequently in the media) as HIV/AIDS or Ebola.

The meme made me curious though? Is Rayne correct? Is it even completely fair? After all, even the Peace Corps is temporarily removing volunteers from West Africa in the face of the spreading Ebola outbreak. On the other hand, While it’s true that Homeopaths Without Borders appears not to be rushing to the areas in Africa where there are currently Ebola outbreaks and hundreds of fatalities, what about other homeopaths? It’s not as though homeopaths don’t claim to be able to treat or even cure Ebola, as you’ll see.

Much more at link: http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2014/08/01/homeopaths-and-ebola-virus-hemorrhagic-fever/


Sid