Homeopathic "remedies" are the only category of quack
products legally marketable as drugs. The FDA has not held
homeopathic products to the same standards as other drugs.

Samuel Hahnemann, a German physician, began formulating
homeopathy's basic principles in the late 1700s. Hahnemann
was distressed about bloodletting, leeching, and other medical
procedures of his day that did more harm than good. He
developed his notion that disease can be cured by extremely
small amounts of substances that produce similar symptoms in
healthy people when administered in large amounts.

He used enormous dilutions and theorized that the smaller the
dose, the more powerful the effect. That, of course, is just the
opposite of the dose-response relationship that
pharmacologists have demonstrated.

Because homeopathic remedies were less dangerous than
those of nineteenth-century medical orthodoxy, medical
practitioners began using them. But as medical science
advanced, homeopathy declined.

Homeopaths maintain that certain people have a special affinity
to a particular remedy and will respond to it. Such remedies can
be prescribed according to the person's "constitutional type" .

The "Ignatia Type," for example, is said to be nervous and often
tearful, and to dislike tobacco smoke. The typical "Pulsatilla" is a
young woman, with blond or light-brown hair, blue eyes, and a
delicate complexion, who is gentle, fearful, romantic, emotional,
and friendly but shy. The "Nux Vomica Type" is said to be
aggressive, bellicose, ambitious, and hyperactive. The "Sulfur
Type" likes to be independent. And so on.

Does this sound to you like a rational basis for diagnosis and
treatment?

The "Remedies" Are Placebos. Homeopathic products are made
from minerals, botanical substances, and other sources diluted
with water and/or alcohol. A 30X dilution means that the original
substance has been diluted
1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 times. Assuming
that a cubic centimeter of
water contains 15 drops, this number is greater than the number
of drops of water that would fill a container more than 50 times
the size of the Earth.

Imagine placing a drop of red dye into such a container so that it
disperses evenly. Homeopathy is the equivalent of saying that
any drop of water subsequently removed from that container will
possess an essence of redness. Nonsense!

Oscillococcinum, a 200C product "for the relief of colds and
flu-like symptoms," involves "dilutions" that are even more
far-fetched. Its "active ingredient" is prepared by incubating small
amounts of a freshly killed duck's liver and heart for 40 days. The
resultant solution is then filtered, freeze-dried, rehydrated,
repeatedly diluted, and impregnated into sugar granules.

If a single molecule of the duck's heart or liver were to survive the
dilution, its concentration would be 1 in 100200. This huge
number, which has 400 zeroes, is vastly greater than the
estimated number of molecules in the universe.

In its February 17, 1997, issue, U.S. News & World Report noted
that only one duck per year is needed to manufacture the
product, which had total sales of $20 million in 1996. The
magazine dubbed that unlucky bird "the $20-million duck."

Actually, the laws of chemistry state that there is a limit to the
dilution that can be made without losing the original substance
altogether.

Hahnemann believed that the dilution left behind a "spirit-like"
essence -- "no longer perceptible to the senses" -- which cured
by reviving the body's "vital force." Modern proponents assert that
even when the last molecule is gone, a "memory" of the
substance is retained. This notion is unsubstantiated. Actually, it
is beyond implausable!

Moreover, if it were true, every substance encountered by water
might imprint an "essence" that could exert powerful (and
unpredictable) medicinal effects when ingested!

Imagine how many compounds are present, in quantities of a
molecule or more, in every dose of a homeopathic drug.

Even under the most scrupulously clean conditions, airborne
dust in the manufacturing facility carries thousands of different
molecules of biological origin derived from local sources
(bacteria, viruses, fungi, respiratory droplets, sloughed skin
cells, insect feces) as well as distant ones (pollens, soil
particles, products of combustion).

Similarly, the "inert" diluents used in the process have their own
library of microcontaminants. Don't all of these substances then
imprint an "essence" that exert powerful medicinal effects when
ingested?!!

Proponents claim that homeopathic products resemble vaccines
because both provide a small stimulus that triggers an immune
response. This comparison is not valid. The amounts of active
ingredients in vaccines are much greater and can be measured.

Moreover, immunizations produce antibodies whose
concentration in the blood can be measured, but high-dilution
homeopathic products produce no measurable response.

Placebo effects can be powerful, of course, but the potential
benefit of relieving symptoms with placebos should be weighed
against the harm that can result
from relying upon -- and wasting money on -- ineffective
products.

Greater regulation is needed. If the FDA required homeopathic
remedies to be proven effective in order to remain marketable --
the standard it applies to other categories of drugs --
homeopathy would face extinction in the United States.