Homeopathy awareness week!

This week is Homeopathy Awareness Week, and the council governing the practice has decided to use this week to promote the idea that diluted substances can assist with infertility. Yeah, seriously.

Anyways we the folks at One Bad Apple would like to make you aware of a case that's made our blood boil. Whenever I'm engaged in a discussion about why I dislike the practice I'm often asked what's the harm in homeopathy. Well look at the picture. Her name was Penelope Dingle, and she was diagnosed with bowel cancer. Her husband, a toxicologist, had gone on record stating chemotherapy was useless. Penelope disregarded conventional treatments and decided to seek the counsel of homeopathic practitioner Francine Scrayen, who claimed she could cure Ms Dingle of cancer. On the advice of a couple of other doctors, she went ahead full steam with vitamin extracts and heavy dilutions of venus fly trap to curb her cancer and try and keep her from having the hysterectomy she so feared. Of course, these treatments didn't work, Ms Dingle ended up weighing 35kg and had to be rushed to surgery as the cancer spread wildly through her body, had the hysterectomy, and eventually died a slow, miserable death.

The coroners report came to the conclusion that the advice from homeopath Francine Scrayen led to Penelope's death. Yes this is the harm in homeopathy. Should Penelope chose the more conventional route, she may just be with us today, but sadly a life was taken as she was sold a bill of goods. Desperate people with a terminal illness are often vulnerable to quack medicine, and we sadly can add her name to the already long list of people who decided to pursue alternative treatments with fatal results, including Steve Jobs.

In Penelope Dingle's own words, she wrote a letter to her homeopath Francine Scrayen after her surgery, which is almost tear jerking. Granted Ms Dingle chose Scrayen's treatment against better judgement, but if you were dying of cancer and someone told you they could miraculously heal you, even going so far as telling you you'd have a long healthy life and have the chance at having children, you may just do the same.

To be expected, a lot of criticism has been thrown at Francine Scrayen, and rather than confronting it with facts, she decided to sue bloggers who've spoken out against her, which is disgusting. Typical though, as she can't prove her treatments work, as homeopathy doesn't do a damn thing except maybe cure dehydration. These people profit off the suffering with their bullshit, and we as a society shouldn't stand for it.

I've nearly lost a loved one due to their choice in homeopathy, and thankfully he dodged that bullet. This is wh people need to be aware of what homeopathy really is, modern day snake oil. It's not blending concoctions of herbs and supplements, that's naturopahty. Homeopathy is the idea that like cures like, and to do so, take the original substance and dilute it so much that the active ingredient is no longer present, but homeopaths believe water has memory and will carry the cure with it. If that were true, water would be nothing but human feces. It would be like me throwing a pill of Bayer Asprin into the Gulf of Mexico and claiming the entire gulf could be the world's greatest headache medicine.

For a more detailed view on what homeopaths believe and why it's horseshit, this comic sums it up nicely.

"I followed your advice that I should not have any form of medical monitoring until January/February 2004, after which time you said your treatments would have cured me. So that my positive frame of mind was not undermined I followed your advice that I should not consult with medical personnel unless they approved of your protocol and what you were doing." - Penelope Dingle's letter to Fancine Scrayen