Wednesday, August 17, 2011

Pathologic and Disingenuous Intimidation from Big Homeopathy

The science-free cult of homeopathy has struck again. Steve Novella at Science Based Medicine has the scoop. Apparently a blogger in Italy wrote about the homeopathic treatment Oscillococcinum which is used to treat flu and the homeopathic manufacturer threatened him with legal action, simply for stating the truth about Oscillococcinum, that it is a bogus treatment based on nonsensical ideas compounded together.

A good place to start is always QuackWatch. Which has a nice discussion of the “theory” behind homeopathy and how it is only a placebo. Another good site is What's the harm, a site that documents the real harms that can come from using placebos like homeopathy instead of real treatments.

The Main Stream Media has picked up on this, the BMJ has an article on how Boiron is threatening the blogger. There are some blogs about quack veterinarians being upset that real veterinarians only want science based treatments.

It is a pretty sad state of affairs when a big corporation uses hired lawyers as shills to try and keep people from speaking the truth, and when governmental laws and regulations allow them to do so. I am not the only one who thinks so, those of us in the reality based community are opposed to magical thinking fake treatments such as homeopathy.

Things are looking up for victims of homeopathy in the US, there are a couple of lawsuits for fraud via homeopathy that are proceeding.