Homeopathy Strikes Back

[Atheist-Lite]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-12153074

Officials have dropped charges against pharmacies alleged to have advised people to take homeopathic remedies to protect them against malaria instead of anti-malarial drugs.

The General Pharmaceutical Council's decision has been described as "shabby and irresponsible" by some who helped bring the case against the pharmacies.

Charges were bought after an undercover investigation by campaigning group Sense about Science and BBC Newsnight.

Experts advocate anti-malaria drugs.

Speaking about the latest decision, Tracey Brown, director of Sense about Science said "we may as well have no regulation of pharmacists at all".

(continue at your own risk)

[Pappa]

What a load a bollocks.

[Clinton Huxley]

Iirc, you now can't give magic water to animals but you can sell to people as an anti-malarial. Just amazing

[maiforpeace]

The only place you can buy a lot of homeopathic remedies in the US are usually health and natural food stores and on occasion a store dedicated to the stuff. When I got the flu in France I went with my uncle went to the drugstore, and upon the recommendation of the pharmacist we literally ended up with a bunch of sugar pills. The stuff did nothing - it didn't relieve my congestion, cough or headache the way American cold and flu over the counter remedies do. Maybe my French wasn't good enough to read the differences on the labels, but I was surprised how it all looked so official yet generic, I honestly couldn't see much difference between the real pharmacy items (which my uncle took a lot of, he's on all kinds of medications) and the homeopathic ones. What a scam.

[Ironclad]

Magic. It;s just soo powerful.

[Rum]

[Svartalf]

The only place you can buy a lot of homeopathic remedies in the US are usually health and natural food stores and on occasion a store dedicated to the stuff. When I got the flu in France I went with my uncle went to the drugstore, and upon the recommendation of the pharmacist we literally ended up with a bunch of sugar pills. The stuff did nothing - it didn't relieve my congestion, cough or headache the way American cold and flu over the counter remedies do. Maybe my French wasn't good enough to read the differences on the labels, but I was surprised how it all looked so official yet generic, I honestly couldn't see much difference between the real pharmacy items (which my uncle took a lot of, he's on all kinds of medications) and the homeopathic ones. What a scam.

We do have normal remedies too... the pharmacists just don't have as good a margin on those, though. and yeah, the makers make a lot of those look like run of the mill meds, used to be a time when you'd get tiny sugar pills in blue tubes that you had to read the label to know what you had, but they discovered that "basic" homeopathy was a fad that passed away when the NHS decided they would no longer pay for it, and the makers discovered they still could make money by selling them as over the counter (unrefundable) drugs. Normally, the fact that the NHS won't pay for them should be a clue as to medical value, but they have been delisting so many useful things that the difference is no longer self evident.

I wouldn't want to be seen dead with oscillococcinum or those other stupid placebos they market.