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Saturday, July 04, 2009

Quacks in the ER

 
Here's what the emergency room would look like if homeopathy and naturopathy became real medicine instead of alternative medicine.




[Hat Tip: Pharyngula]

8 comments :

Anonymous said...

Everyone makes fun of homeopathic medicine based on some idiots that use flower therapy and things like that that obviously have no effect. However, you have to admit that there are some things that can be cured with homeopathic medicine just as well as with drugs. Aboriginals used to use herbs and teas to aid with the curing of certain illnesses. If they've done it for thousands of years, there must be some truth, or at least no harm, behind it. It's always worth a try, and I'd rather drink tea than poison myself with some indistinguishable pill concocted by money-hungry pharmaceutical companies.

Larry Moran said...

anonymous says,

However, you have to admit that there are some things that can be cured with homeopathic medicine just as well as with drugs.

I don't have to admit any such thing. Nothing has ever been cured by homeopathy.

You don't understand what homeopathy is. Read the description of homeopathy on Wikipedia.

Anonymous said...

Another Anon says "However, you have to admit that there are some things that can be cured with homeopathic medicine just as well as with drugs."

Well nothing can be cured with homeopathic medicine and some of those things can't be cured by drugs either so there is some overlap. How someone who knows the definition of homeopathic could make the above statement is beyond belief. They must be speaking from ignorance.

Ron Hager said...

Nothing has ever been cured by homeopathy.

I beg to differ. Bulging wallets have been severely reduced in size by homeopathy.

Divalent said...

Anon: you have to admit that there are some things that can be cured with homeopathic medicine

As a theory for how to treat the ills of the body, homeophathy is an abject failure.

Just because some herb they use to treat some ailment happens to contains an effective compound doesn't valid that theory. Just as the use of willow bark by North American natives for pain relief doesn't validates their "demon" theory of illness.

The reason those compounds are used by our modern evidence-based medical practice is the they passed the test and proved themselves in scientific trials.

Robert Morane said...

Aboriginals used to use herbs and teas to aid with the curing of certain illnesses. If they've done it for thousands of years, there must be some truth, or at least no harm, behind it. It's always worth a try, and I'd rather drink tea than poison myself with some indistinguishable pill concocted by money-hungry pharmaceutical companies

It's easy to talk about herbs and teas, but if you hurt yourself so badly that the pain is so unbearable that it makes it difficult for you to breathe, like it happened to me a few months ago when I hurt my back, you would want to hear nothing of herbs or teas or whatever. You'd want the strong stuff, you know, like anti-inflammatory, and codeine for the pain (not sure if it was codeine, but the medicine I was given was called Triatec).

I wish that won't ever happen to you. But if one day it did, trust me, your opinion of the "evil" pharmaceutical companies would change: well within 24 hours I was able to breathe properly and the pain was gone by more than half; after 3 days, it was gone almost completely.

Please tell me what kind of tea or herb could have replaced the medication I was given.

I mean, can you imagine going to the dentist to have a tooth removed and not be given some kind of anesthetic?

Anonymous said...

I am afraid of direct criticism so I am anonymous.

Anonymous said...

But did the Aboriginals dilute their herbs and teas to one part in ten billion before ingesting them?