Homeopathy and Personal Medical Liberty

Why oh why would I stick my healthy neck out here? I guess it's because I'm too old to worry about it. And to call for LIBERTY! (Also the vain hope that maybe in this days-old comment list, few will notice and backflack will be minimal?)

I want to express my appreciation for those who, while believing homeopathy to be worthless, would still permit me and my family to continue purchasing homeopathic remedies and using them.

Our family has been using homeopathy for over twenty years, and we have a wealth of anecdotal support for it. There are two hundred years of anecdotal support.

Yes, spare me the obvious rebuttals. We're well aware that anecdote is not proof, and that the scientific validation is next to non-existent, and that there is not even a good valid scientific theoretical explanation. Please remember that lack of sound theory and lack of proof do not disprove the possibility. The long road of science is paved with discredited theories, but also littered with the bodies of those who staked their reputations on disputing what was later accepted. Remember those silly plate tectonics people! As for serious study, look at the CERN experiments on cloud formation, long opposed by the Anthropogenic Climate Change zealots. When the money lies in other areas, the research goes elsewhere.

Most "disproofs," such as that described in the article, are misapplication of theory (a specialty of that infamous slight-of-hand artist). If the idea is that homeopathy somehow instigates the body's natural healing responses, then finding that it does not kill bacteria in a petri dish eliminates the element of the body from the equation. (I simplify for brevity's sake.) If you don't need a homeopathic remedy, the theory goes, it is ineffective, so downing a whole bottle of sleeping aid (which idea and formulation are not classical homeopathy anyway) when you don't need it is, surprise, ineffective. Again, I simplify, to make the point that if you test something outside of its own theoretical boundaries and "disprove" it, you've only proven your own unwillingness to approach the matter with a modicum of true scientific open-mindedness, essentially looking for the coin over there where the light's better instead of where it was dropped, even doing so on purpose.

I'm thankful for many liberties beyond the basics like speech and worship. I've married without the State, home-schooled our children, and voted libertarian (when we had the chance), all ideas discouraged, frowned upon, or looked at aghast by "normal" people. We have always read of, and well understood the questions regarding homeopathy, and have seen the abundant errors of those both for and against it. We know we are taking a calculated gamble with our health. We really have found many apparent effects we think far exceed placebic possibility, on ourselves, others to whom we have recommended remedies, and even with animals. We know all these instances of apparent success are questionable, and we've had plenty of ineffective instances. One of the severe problems with testing "natural" remedies is that it seems, as one person related to us, "the remedy didn't do anything; the problem just went away naturally." Marshalling the defense of an individual body by custom-tailoring a remedy based on numerous indicators means that typical double-blind scientific studies are practically impossible.

Some vitamins and herbs are quite effective in specific instances, but those fields of health are filled with fraud, hokum, and dangerous ignorance. Far more so, homeopathy is a complicated, difficult discipline, where finding the right remedy and the right dosage is no easy thing, and there is lots of misinformation, misunderstanding, and pure balderdash even by homeopathic standards. I've seen herbal remedies marketed as "homeopathic." There are clear "classical" definitions of homeopathy, and then there's the public and pedestrian ideas. That not every reputed cure works as "advertised," or always works in all cases on all people, does not discount all instances with all remedies. So, the sledgehammer and standard-pharm manner of testing homeopathy has even less credibility than does homeopathy itself, to my understanding. I do not seek hereby to persuade, merely to suggest zealots who dispute homeopathy may want to examine whether they truly reason, or need to question the tenets of their blind faith. Just sayin'.

In any case, if I wish to keep trying it to find out for myself, I'm grateful if even those who are so sure of themselves about its ineffectiveness will keep their ignorant noses out of my business. I for one am not a blind dupe, new-agey zealot, am not ill-informed. I'll grant the possibility that I may be self-deluding, but I'm certainly not being defrauded. It's just a part of our health "experimentation." It's not like I'm going to avoid antibiotics if they're called for! As with, say, chiropracty (way to open a whole 'nother can of worms, eh?), there can be some beneficial methods and a whole lotta dangerous bone-twisters. (I really liked it that Penn & Teller BS [s01ep2] had a chiropractor putting down most chiropracty.) Same goes for much of the fraud and deception in your allegedly reliable scientifically-proven Big Pharma-copia, if you look closely. Let me be free to choose to play with my own body with my cheap little sugar pills, if I want to. You go ahead and down your expensive venom with fatal side-effects.

To reiterate my primary point, give me liberty and I'll worry about my own death. Thanks.

A follow-up I'm still considering whether or not to post. The title of the article was "How Far Should the Government Go to Protect Us from Snake Oil? The Case of Homeopathy" by Ronald Bailey

Amusing story to supplement my previous prolixity, considering the title of the article.

When we first started testing homeopathy for ourselves, we lived in Major City and found an actual MD who was a homeopathic advisor, best we've ever encountered. I asked him once why he turned from standard practice to homeopathy and he said when he interned at Major City Hospital, he got tired of seeing patients come back with the same ailments; implication being, just what we have found in our decades of experience, when homeopathy works, it does not just transiently like many symptom-suppressing medications, but seemingly eliminates the cause of those symptoms.

The first major test of homeopathy, for us, was when our twin boys were so young I could still pick them both up at the same time. One day I developed asthmatic-like symptoms and could hardly lift them. I felt bent over and out of breath all the time. I'd had itchy eyes, runny nose, sneezing allergic symptoms as a kid, but never asthmatic symptoms. After this went on too long, I went to see the Doc. He started me out on Remedy A at potency X. I got some relief, but not cured. He switched me to Remedy B, and I seemed to be not even as wll off even as on Remedy A. So he went back to Remedy A at potency Y. My symptoms vanished completely in a day or so and have never returned in almost twenty-five years. Weird, but regardless of how or why, I was happy to be well again. Asthma sucks.

So, I asked the Doc what the remedy was. He told me it was Exotic Latin Name. My Latin being stale, I said, okay, what's that in English? He replied, Latinish Name without the Latinish suffix. No light bulb over my head yet.

I should digress to say this man appeared to me very peaceful, zen-like y'might say, a nice smile behind his goatee, and a pleasant and confident manner, and usually that was his only expression. (His patients in Major City would probably recognize him from this.)

So I asked, him, okay, what's it made from? And he replied, it's the venom of the South American Black Snake. I grinned and said, Oh! Snake Oil! I didn't know him too well at that point, so I was glad for his reaction at my sarcasm; I actually got him to break his zen pose and laugh out loud, one of the few times I ever managed to do so. Yes, he said, out of the umpty-thousand (he was specific) remedies in the homeopathic repertoire, this one is made from snake venom.

How was this remedy determined, I asked? He said, well, Dr. Famous Homeopath was down in South America and he was bitten by the S. Am. Black Snake, and he developed the symptoms you've been having. That's how they do it.

I have to admit, that experience piqued my interest. Took three "placebo" tries to "coincidentally" make my weeks-old symptoms suddenly dry up and go away forever. I also got a personal demonstration in how complex it can be to prescribe homeopathically. We've often had similar experiences, where a remedy seems not to work at one potency, or not to bring complete relief, and then at another, not necessarily "stronger" potency, has dramatic and permanent effect. Mighty interesting system of voodoo, at worst. As I said before, our experiences have suggested to me that it's worthy of more attention than it's been given by the self-assured doubters who have not given it serious trial according to strict homeopathic methodology.