The Great DBH Rant

Having got quite interested in the subject of homeopathy and its crack-pot view of medicine, I did a simple search to look at the state of matters in and around my hometown, Macau and Hong Kong (both ex-European colonies). Did not take me long to find pro-quackery (in particular homeopathy) posts littered everywhere, and the most shocking thing is, no-one is making a stand! Doctors and scientists are keeping quiet. All post replies on these blogs of practicing homeopaths were of astonishment and awe at the magical wonder that is homeopathy. Sensing a niche (and also the argumentative side of me was getting antsy), I set up shop and proceeded to gently lay on a few truths about homeopathy. The “pseudoscience can kill” blog is here. I borrowed one of Professor Colquhoun’s figures (the distance from earth to sun figure) to make a point, hope he doesn’t mind. Mind though, it was properly referenced. One of the things which immediately got my back up was the outrageous claims from blog authors (which are either trainee or practicing homeopaths), and also the Hong Kong Association of Homeopathy (HKAH) website as well as the Macau Association of Homeopathy (MAH) website that homeopathy is superior to western medicine. They have their usual mumbo-jumbo of how it works, like cures like, succussion and potentisation, etc… but also the following phrase, which I find highly disturbing (the thing was in Chinese so I had to translate it; and in the interests of good scientific practice I have to hold my hand up and say now that this translation by yours truly may have some experimental bias in it and should be translated again in a controlled environment by several neutral people):

“…from the homeopathic point of view, the correct method of medical treatment should involve non-invasive procedures, and toxicity free remedies, to restore imbalances in the body, to strengthen the body, to strengthen the immune system, so as to minimise the negative effects that symptoms have on the body, but must not counteract the symptoms, and suppress the body’s self protection powers, for instance through the use of drugs to control coughing, emesis, inflammation and pain etc, doing so will inevitably lead to serious and dire consequences.”

I apologise for the excessive use of the comma, but that’s how Chinese is written. To minimise bias, I feel it is necessary to include all the commas. This seems to be a swipe at western medicine to promote their hocus-pocus beliefs and frankly I found that out of order. A closer read at blog posts by practicing homeopaths reveals even more shocking statements. How the future of medicine should be left with homeopaths, western medicine should be an obsolete method of treatment, that patients should stop using western medicine. The final straw was when I found a post hailing “success” that homeopathy is now “mainstream” medicine in Macau (they held a large conference apparently), and how Hong Kong should follow suit to avoid being seen as “backwards” and “closed off”. So I proceeded to poke the bear with a wee stick with this reply to his post:

“Hi. I am originally from Macau, but I am not sharing your delight in the “success” homeopathy is enjoying in Macau. It is scary that while homeopathy is not evidence based medicine, that practicing homeopaths like yourself will come out and say that homeopathy is better than conventional, evidence based medicine.

May I point out that homeopathy, at this moment in time, is at best only a fancy and expensive form of placebo treatment. At worst, it is life threatening, because of delays in seeking medical advice and diagnosis from trained medical professionals.

Finally, the only selling point of homeopathy – the lack of side effects, is simply because of the extreme dilutions in homeopathic remedies, where I am sure even you would agree with me, there is no active substance in the remedy really, isn’t there? This aspect of succussion and potentisation of homeopathy remains a laughing point among scientists and medical professionals who believe that medicine should be evidence based.

I apologise for the stinging attack on homeopathy (and please do not take this personally). I am sure that homeopaths are good people. Afterall, you are doing this for the noble reason of curing patients. But please exercise common sense when advertising your beliefs in homeopathy. While there is no concrete, well conducted experiments that show homeopathy actually provides significant effects, homeopathy can only be considered as a complementary form of treatment, not main stream. It would be irresponsible and dangerous to think otherwise.”

Note that I said “please do not take this personally”. I have read somewhere that trying to reason with a homeopath will always incur the wrath of the said homeopath (because someone who has the answers will try and debate with you). I got a reply to my (I must say fairly level headed) comment with what can only be described as “verbal diarrhoea” (you think homeopathy could cure that?). The guy went berserk and as if one reply was not enough, he came back on two other occasions to add to his emotional outburst. Obviously I hit a nerve there! His response was simply a whole list of questions to me and I was pretty sure he was crying while composing the said outburst. I could feel the emotion in the reply. There were font changes, colour changes, highlighting going on. This guy was properly pissed! I am still in the process of digesting all the Chinese thrown at me (I can read but not fast or fluent) and will formulate a level headed response to it soon. You’d think that a professional would at least try to reason and debate instead of throwing a hissy fit when queried and doubted? All I wanted to do was to induce some intelligent scientific debate, and this was what I got? Handbags?!