50 Popular Beliefs That People Think Are True

by Harrison, Guy P.

  Several years ago my son had to be hospitalized because he became dehydrated while fighting a stomach virus. The doctor assured me that everything would turn out fine, and it did. Nonetheless, I was deeply moved by the stressful event and dedicated one of my newspaper columns to it. I described my gratitude for being fortunate enough to live in a time and place that enabled me to take my sick son to a hospital that practiced medical science rather than to some hut filled with nothing more than chants, smoke, and superstition, or to a gilded temple that could offer my son nothing more than prayers and promises. I saw like never before how nice it is to have a clean, well-stocked modern hospital to turn to in a moment of crisis. Had I been less aware of the advantages of science over pseudoscience and relied on alternative medicine, or was so poor that I could not afford access to evidence-based medicine, my son might have died from that illness.

  We all should give credit where it's due. Medical science is the reason many of us alive today have a fair chance of making it to see an eightieth or ninetieth birthday. Vaccines, antibiotics, X-rays, scanning technology, the double-blind method of testing drugs and treatments have extended life and reduced suffering. There was a time when forty was a very old age to be, and in some places most babies never made it to year one. Medical science changed that. What have herbal drinks, homeopathy, and touch therapy done by comparison?

  While some of the reasons people are drawn to alternative medicine are understandable, to a degree, none of the reasons should be allowed to overshadow the most important point of all: an alternative medicine is called “alternative” because it has not been shown to work by the tried-and-true methods of modern science. If it had been, nobody would call it an alternative medicine. It would simply be called medicine.

  POINTS TO REMEMBER

  Alternative medicine means unproven medicine.

  “Natural” does not mean safe or effective.

  Anecdotal evidence (mere stories) is not good evidence. One can find a story to support just about anything.

  When struck by illness or injury, the human body is usually capable of healing itself given enough time. But people often give the credit to alternative medicines unjustly.

  Many people mix science-based treatments with unscientific alternative treatments. But when their condition improves, they may give credit only to the alternative treatment.

  GO DEEPER…

  Books

  Barrett, Stephen, and William T. Jarvis, eds. The Health Robbers: A Close Look at Quackery in America. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 1993.

  Bausell, R. Barker. Snake Oil Science: The Truth about Complementary and Alternative Medicine. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009.

  Singh, Simon, and Edzard Ernst. Trick or Treatment: The Undeniable Facts about Alternative Medicine. New York: W. W. Norton, 2008.

  Sharpiro, Rose. Suckers: How Alternative Medicine Makes Fools of Us All. London: Harvill Secker, 2008.

  Wanjek, Christopher. Bad Medicine: Misconceptions and Misuses Revealed, from Distance Healing to Vitamin O. New York: Wiley, 2002.

  Other Sources

  Quackwatch, www.quackwatch.com.

  Homeopathy is utterly impossible. Homeopathic preparations are so thoroughly diluted that they contain no significant amounts of active ingredients and thus can have no effects on the patient's body.…Those who believe it works either do not understand the science, or are simply deluded.

  —Dr. Kevin Smith, bioethicist1

  After talking to people who sincerely believe in homeopathy, laboring through a towering stack of books on the subject, talking to pharmacists, and loitering in the isles of alternative medicine shops, I have come to the surprising conclusion that homeopathy is not all bad. There is virtually no possibility of harmful side effects, for example, much different from most science-based medicines. No one can ever overdose or become physically addicted to homeopathic medicines either. There are some real advantages to the stuff.

  Unfortunately, the reason that homeopathic medicines are so safe and agreeable to the human body is the same reason they are rejected by medical science: they are mostly water and not medicine. A traditionally prepared homeopathic solution is diluted to extreme levels. So diluted, in fact, that there is usually nothing left of the original active ingredient. It's water! But this minor technical detail doesn't stop the homeopathic medicine industry from selling cures for just about everything to millions of people. According to information posted on the website of one prominent homeopath and author, homeopathy can treat trauma, sprains, cuts, bruises, burns, acute pain, headaches, colds, influenza, ear pain, inflammation, chronic pain, joint disorders, chronic fatigue, migraines, stomach disorders, insomnia, frequent urination, eczema, psoriasis, PMS, menopause, post-partum depression, hormonal mood swings, hot flashes, memory loss, hormonal headaches, hypo-and hyperthyroid complaints, adrenal fatigue, depression, anxiety, phobia, grief, Attention Deficit Disorder, eating disorders, immune system problems, “and much more.”

  Wow, an impressive list, to say the least. Doesn't this sound like the perfect medicine, far better than the expensive and often-dangerous stuff doctors and pharmaceutical companies keep pushing on us? Homeopathic medicine can treat virtually everything and has no downside—unless we run out of water, of course. Many celebrities, from movie stars to Prince Charles, swear by the stuff, and it's sold over the counter in major pharmacy chains. So where do these wonder drugs come from and how are they supposed to work?

  LESS IS MORE

  Homeopathy traces its origin to the late eighteenth century, when a German doctor named Samuel Hahnemann came up with the strange idea that using a substance that caused symptoms similar to the symptoms of a particular disease would cure the disease. This is the “like cures like” claim of homeopathy. This may hint at the way vaccines work, but it shouldn't because it's not the way vaccines work. Of course, Hahnemann knew better than to load up patients who are nauseous and feverish with something that causes vomiting and fever. His solution was to dilute the “medicine” so that it would only be enough to stimulate the body's natural defense mechanisms into action to deal with the disease. But “dilute” is an understatement. This is where it gets really weird.

  Homeopathic medicine is diluted to mind-boggling extremes. In fact, solutions are usually diluted to a point where there is none of the original ingredient left in the remedies—not even a single molecule! But this doesn't make the medicine weaker or less effective, say believers. In some sort of upside-down, mirror-universe logic, homeopaths claim that their medicines get more potent the more they are diluted. So a homeopathic solution that is pure water would be immensely more powerful than one that contains 50 percent, 10 percent, or 1 percent of an active ingredient. Of course this doesn't seem to make sense. How can a medicine work if there is no medicine in it?

  According to homeopaths, it works because water can “remember” the molecules it comes into contact with. I'm sure this sounds incredible to readers who are unfamiliar with homeopathic medicine and always assumed that it was simply some kind of “natural” medicine, not fundamentally different from herbal concoctions. But it's true; homeopathy defenders actually say this and seem to believe it. Practitioners and proponents claim that the water somehow retains an imprint of the active ingredient when the homeopath preparing the solution bangs the container a certain number of times. So even though no molecules of the supposed “medicinal” substance (which was itself unscientific in the first place) are likely to remain, the solution is supposed to work anyway. One skeptic estimates that a person would have to drink twenty-five metric tons of a typical homeopathic solution in order to have even a remote chance of swallowing just one molecule of the original substance.2 Dr. Ben Goldacre, another critic of homeopathy, calculates that many of these popular potions are almost incomprehensibly weak: “At a homeopathic dilution of 200C (you can buy much higher dilutions from any homeopathic supplier) the treating substance is diluted more than the total number of atoms in the universe,
and by an enormously large margin. To look at it another way, the universe contains about 3X1080 cubic meters of storage space (ideal for starting a family); if it were filled with water and one molecule of active ingredient, this would make for a rather paltry 55C dilution.”3

  This claim of water memory is extraordinary. So how do homeopaths know that water can do this? Hahnemann may have imagined or guessed it somehow, but he certainly didn't “know” it in any scientific sense back in the eighteenth century. Obvious questions are, How does water know to remember what the homeopath wants it to remember but not remember all the other stuff that has been in contact with it? (A horrifying thought, considering the places water has been! What if it remembers the bus station toilet bowl it was in last month?) And have scientists confirmed this claim since Hahnemann came up with it? Of course not. Homeopaths say that water remembers the desired active ingredient because it is shaken vigorously during the dilution process and this creates the imprint. To date there is no credible science that has proved this claim. I'm willing to concede that it's possible, only because things get so weird at the atomic level that nothing would surprise me. Read up on entanglement and you will understand what I mean. But wild possibilities are never reason to believe wild claims that are not supported by evidence.

  In fairness, many mainstream medical treatments in the 1700s and 1800s were brutal, dangerous, and often ineffective. Just as many mainstream treatments today will be viewed in the future, no doubt. Many patients died not from their illnesses and injuries but from treatments administered by doctors. In many cases patients probably would have been better off doing nothing or taking a water/homeopathic treatment than facing the wrath of their time period's medical care. Fortunately for us, however, medical science has come a long way since Dr. Hahnemann's time. The scientific method, double-blind tests, and a willingness to change by accepting things that work while rejecting things that don't have given us treatments that are effective and save millions of lives every year. Evidence-based medicine is far from perfect at this time, but it performs measurably better than anything else by far.

  Two things should give one reason to pause before spending any money on homeopathy or trusting one's health to it: (1) No one has been able to prove that it works even though it's been around since the late eighteenth century, and (2) it can't work, at least not according to the official laws of physics and the unofficial rules of common sense. But people do believe, nonetheless. Homeopathy is a massive industry in India, for example, where there are more than three hundred thousand “qualified homeopaths” and three hundred homeopathic hospitals! More than half of the people in Belgium buy the stuff and 36 percent of the French population are users. In the United States, homeopathic medicine almost died out early in the last century but has roared back bigger than ever in recent decades to earn big profits. Today it rakes in more than one billion dollars per year.4 This impressive popularity is maintained despite wide condemnation from scientists and doctors in many countries. In 2010 the British Medical Association, for example, called homeopathy “witchcraft” and voted overwhelmingly to ban the practice, as well as to stop placing trainee doctors into any programs that promote homeopathy.5

  As understanding as I am about how well-meaning people come to sincerely believe in paranormal and pseudoscientific claims, I confess to having very negative feelings about homeopathic medicine. The claim is fraudulent in the way its proponents usually portray it as scientific even though it stands in opposition to science and they have failed to demonstrate that it can do the things it is supposed to be able to do. I have more respect for witch doctors because they are far more honest about what they are selling. Some argue that homeopathy is a safe alternative to science-based treatments and if it gives some people satisfaction, what's the harm? The harm is that it puts people at risk by misleading them into trusting a vial of expensive water or a sugar pill over real doctors and real treatments. Anyone who cares about the health and safety of others has a moral obligation to oppose homeopathic medicine.

  I asked a senior pharmacist at a CVS drugstore in southern California how she felt about homeopathic medicines being sold over the counter not more than twenty feet from the pharmacy counter she worked at. I suggested that the juxtaposition of science and pseudoscience was improper and that selling homeopathic treatments in this context suggested that it was legitimate medicine. It's presence next to a pharmacy counter likely gives it unjustified credibility in the minds of many customers. I pointed out the odd contrast of her having worked to earn professional qualifications as a pharmacist in order to distribute the best help medical science can offer to people in need, while a few steps away magic water was being touted for the treatment of everything from anxiety and asthma to vertigo and warts. It would be no less incongruent and improper if somewhere in the National Academy of Sciences Building there were an office dedicated to tarot card reading. She replied that she only works in the pharmacy and has no control over what is sold in the store. “But does it bother you?” I asked.

  “Yes, I understand what you are saying,” she said. “But what can I do?” She seemed to acknowledge that it was a waste of money and her facial expressions suggested that she agreed the stuff had no business being in a respectable drugstore. However, “it's not my department” was the best she could come up with.

  HOMEOPATHY FAILS IN THE UK, TOO

  Homeopathic medicine is even more popular in the United Kingdom than in the United States. A House of Commons Science and Technology Committee conducted an in-depth inquiry in 2009 and 2010 and came to the conclusion that homeopathy is unproven, unscientific, unlikely to work better than placebos, and unworthy of government funding or endorsement. Some highlights from the official report of the proceedings:

  We [House of Commons Science and Technology Committee] consider the notion that ultra-dilutions can maintain an imprint of substances previously dissolved in them to be scientifically implausible.

  In our view, the systematic reviews and meta-analyses conclusively demonstrate that homeopathic products perform no better than placebos.

  To maintain patient trust, choice, and safety, the Government should not endorse the use of placebo treatments, including homeopathy.

  We conclude that the principle of like-cures-like is theoretically weak. It fails to provide a credible physiological mode of action for homeopathic products. We note that this is the settled view of medical science.

  We do not doubt that homeopathy makes some patients feel better. However, patient satisfaction can occur through a placebo effect alone and therefore does not prove the efficacy of homeopathic interventions.

  There has been enough testing of homeopathy and plenty of evidence showing that it is not efficacious. Competition for research funding is fierce and we cannot see how further research on the efficacy of homeopathy is justified in the face of competing priorities.

  Professor David Colquhoun, professor of pharmacology at University College London: “If homeopathy worked the whole of chemistry and physics would have to be overturned.”

  (Source: House of Commons Science and Technology Committee, Evidence Check 2, www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200910/cmselect/cmsctech/45/45.pdf)

  If I were a pharmacist in this situation, I would attempt to unite with my colleagues and send a strongly worded message to company headquarters requesting/demanding that they stop selling bogus medicines to people, many of whom are seeking treatment for serious health problems. Yes, the aisles near the pharmacy counter are technically a different domain, but I don't think that is how it is perceived by many people. To many customers, that general area of the store is “the pharmacy” and pharmacists often blur the line further by coming out from behind their counter to assist and answer questions about products found on the shelves. Maybe if indifferent medical professionals paused and actually thought about the real harm trusting in homeopathic claims over evidence-based medicine can cause, they might take it more seriously.

  DEA
TH BY HOMEOPATHY?

  Consider the case of Gloria Mary Sam, a baby who died in 2002 in Australia of septicemia (blood infection) after eczema ravaged her tiny body for months. Gloria's parents—both college educated—were convicted of manslaughter because they refused to seek medical treatment for the suffering child. They received repeated advice to seek proper care for her from science-based medical professionals but did not. Why not? The reason was that the father, Thomas Sam, a “practicing homeopath,” was confident that his child did not need any treatment other than homeopathic concoctions. The Sydney Morning Herald reported on the trial:

  They [parents] watched her skin bleed, her hair go white and her small frame shrink as their baby girl fought to battle her eczema. They watched her constantly scream out in pain, her sores weeping through tears in her skin, and the corneas in her eyes melt. And in the end, by not seeking proper medical treatment until it was too late, a homeopath and his wife watched nine-month-old Gloria Mary die.6

  Don't think for a second that this was some bizarre once-in-a-million-years case. There are too many examples of homeopathy distracting from, hindering, or blocking medical science to the detriment of someone's health. In Ireland, Mineke Kamper, another homeopath, was allegedly linked to the deaths of two of his patients. He reportedly told one to stop taking her asthma medication and she promptly died of an asthma attack in 2001. Kamper also used homeopathic medicines to treat another patient who had a treatable (with medical science) cancerous tumor. That patient died in 2003.7