Is Homeopathy a fraud? | Bullaki Science Podcast Clips with Michael Shermer

Is Homeopathy a fraud? "It is not medicine, this is why it’s not regulated. In the United States anyway it’s considered a food product." This is part of a longer Bullaki Science Podcast with Michael Shermer: https://youtu.be/p8ls1oSQvc0

SL. The other thing I wanted to discuss was water memory and homeopathy. What do you think when this sort of… well that’s considered a pseudoscience now because many countries have recognized that homeopathy is basically a fraud, kind of, it’s a multi-billion industry and there have been some papers in the past even in Nature and but then the problem is that in this case this pseudoscience involves medicine. MS. But it’s not medicine, this is why it’s not regulated. In the United States anyway it’s considered a food product. So in terms of like what the FDA regulates, as long as you’re not poisoning people and homeopathy doesn’t do anything. It’s by definition an inert substance that’s come in contact with the allegedly curative substance and it has the memory of it in its molecule, whatever that means. So as far as the government regulatory agencies are concerned it’s harmless, it’s like taking mega vitamins or whatever, as long as you don’t hurt anybody, who cares. It’s not right so it’s not a medicine that has to meet the higher standards and this is how they get around that. There’s thousands, I don’t know, millions of products in that category that are not medicines and they even say usually on the box “this is not a medicine, doesn’t treat you, see your doctor and so on”. They have those warnings on there because they’ve probably been sued or warned that they’re making claims beyond what they can make as a food product or supplement. SL. Yeah, I remember James Randy doing the show, where he ingested I don’t know many, he overdosed with (homeopathic) sleeping pills. MS. Yeah, well, it’s because it doesn’t do anything. And again with anecdotal thinking if you’re sick and all of a sudden you get better, whatever you did just before you got better that’s what gets the credit. So it doesn’t have to be homeopathy, it could be acupuncture, acupressure, or some Chinese medicine, or meditation. Anything really. SL. I think the problem comes when you go for this remedy is instead of taking real medicines. MS. Yeah so when it’s alternative to a medicine you actually need that’s when it’s dangerous.

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