Homeopathy: a billion-dollar placebo industry

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According to a number of studies conducted by scientists from Australia for 68 different diseases, a special commission made the following conclusion: homeopathy is a placebo industry (with billions in revenues). A total of 176 individual studies were conducted , with an additional assessment of 57 scientific reviews. Project manager, Professor Glasi (Glasziou) published the results of his work in the blog British Medical Journal. In particular, he pointed out that with the help of homeopathic remedies aimed at treating 68 different diseases, 0 people were cured, and an effective effect on 0 diseases was provided.

According to Wikipedia , homeopathy is a type of alternative medicine that involves the use of highly diluted drugs, which, presumably, cause healthy people to have symptoms similar to the symptoms of a patient’s illness. The concept of treatment according to the pseudo-scientific principle “similar to similar” (Latin similia similibus curantur) is opposed by homeopaths to the principles of rational pharmacotherapy. The founder and author of the term is German physician Christian Friedrich Samuel Hahnemann (1755–1843).

Proponents of homeopathy argue that if you have a substance that causes the symptoms of a disease that are characteristic of a particular patient, then if you dilute this substance, you get a cure for the disease. The content of the original substance in a solution of a homeopathic remedy is calculated not even by percentages, but by molecules, and not by the fact that such a molecule enters the vial with the “medicine”. But supporters of homeopathy appeal to the "memory of water", which somehow acquires the properties of a solute.
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All these ideas are over a hundred years old, scientists have repeatedly denied the medicinal properties of homeopathic medicines. But this does not stop the supporters of homeopathy. People are actively buying "medicines" of this kind, and in every pharmacy there is a counter with "homeopathic remedies." In 2007 alone, about $ 2.9 billion dollars were spent on such drugs in the United States.

Doctors are trying to deal with homeopaths, although, at first glance, there is nothing wrong with that - because what harm can a person do to water? But there is harm - after all, supporters of homeopathy, who are ill with something, first try homeopathic remedies, losing the time required for the treatment of the disease at the initial stage. And only then, when nothing helps any more, the person begins to use conventional medicine, but in some cases it is already too late. The same positive moments that occur in the course of treatment with homeopathy are a manifestation of the natural healing processes of the body.

Professor Glasi says: “I can understand well why Christian Friedrich Samuel Hahnemann - the founder of homeopathy was dissatisfied with the state of the 18th century medicine, for example, bloodletting, and tried to find an alternative to such methods.”

But now is not the 18th century, and you should already stop believing in such miracles. However, in the UK, there are two officially operating hospitals that use homeopathy and other questionable alternative medicine practices.