That was a very insightful article, I don't think many people understand how medicine works (myself included). It was very nice of you to focus on the "no side-effect" part, as most of us (again myself included) fall for that part easily. Thanks Eric.

We'll here is something that may surprise you, Dev. Even placebos can have side-effects. Meaning, literally, that a sugar pill can produce "side-effect" symptoms in a person given it if they have a strong belief that it is a potent medicine and a strong expectation that it will help them.

If a control group is given the same information about potential side-effects as the active group they may well experience those same side effects. This leads into the so-called "nocebo effect" as well. Expectation of harm or illness results in harm or illness. Expectation of a side effect, such as aspirin causing gastrointestinal problems, results in those problems. Whether it is a feature of the placebo effect or a separate affect seems to depend on what you are studying so I do not think either of these are any one effect but are a bunch of cognitive factors, including conditioning.

I bring this up because sometimes the presence of side-effects is used as evidence of some therapy having a real medicinal effect as opposed to a placebo effect. In this article I am focusing on the claims of homeopathy being completely safe. It should be mentioned, however, that side-effects are expected with any medicine. Partly this is due to the realization that they even occur after placebo administration! The presence of side effects do not in themselves indicate that a medicine is "unsafe" and the complete absence of side effects may well indicate, as you probably would surmise from this article, that a medicine ain't doing nothin.

But of course, the thing with all CAM therapies is that people have this misconception that they are completely safe by virtue of being all "natural". This is clearly not the case and side-effects from herbal therapies, especially dermatitis, are very common. Many plant chemicals can by highly hepatotoxic. There is a big risk of herb/drug interactions. And many herbs can be contaminated with heavy metals or microorganisms, insecticides.

Homeopathic medicines are not likely to produce any serious side effects because they are nothing but sugar, of course. You can feel safe about taking a homeopathic drug that uses mercury since it is so highly diluted you'll be getting tons more in your drinking water. But there is another potential problem that is brewing.

"Homeopathic" has become a brand and many herbal preparations on the internet are 'mislabelled' as homeopathic when in fact they are non-diluted herbal products. Hey, if you are into homeopathy make sure you get the real sugar pill!

Hey, if you are into homeopathy make sure you get the real sugar pill!

LOL!!! : D

Working on part II of this post.

In this post I brought up the fact that one of the key characteristics of homeopathy is that it tends to involve toxic substances. I named a few of them..there are many more. I used this to illustrate how the ridiuclous notion of "safety" of homeopathy versus modern pharmaceuticals is so misguided.

But what is the origin of all of this? In the second post I will give a brief history of homeopathy's inception and the way in which its principals were derived which should serve to illustrate even further that homeopathy's "safety" at the prices of having no actual effect, was simply a compromise due to the high toxicity of the products themselves.

Even without the history we can sum up the thought process:

1. I think that toxic substances are curative for some reason (to be explained)

2. But many of these substances are too toxic to be used for curative purposes in that they will poison the patient

3. Solution: I will dilute them.

4. Problem: Now that they are diluted, they don't do anything

5. I will invent a mechanism by which these highly diluted toxins will produce the curative effect I originally surmised for them

6. I'm a genius.

See Homeopathy: What's the Harm?. Notice also the comments.

I never wrote the second part of this because I got too disgusted to carry own with it. I did, however, expand on some of the concepts in later posts.

Anyway, I added some amusing sections to this post. At least I hope they are amusing. Check out:

Some Other Homeopathic Cures

Homeopathic Medicines are "Sensitive"

Vomiting: This one should be obvious. Ever heard of Ipecac? It's what your mom may have given you, back in the day, if you ate something you weren't supposed to. A syrup made from a plant called the ipecacuanha plant, it used be used in cough medicines then it was used for a long time to, you guessed it, make you vomit. Now, I don't know about you, but when I have a terrible stomach virus and I'm puking my guts up, the first thing I think is, "I should take something to induce vomiting." Yep. Well, to a homeopath, the way to cure vomiting is of course, to use something that induces vomiting. Don't worry though, you can take all of the homeopathic vomiting cure you want to. As you already know by now, it certainly won't make you vomit! Although that Ipecac syrup your mom gave you for sure did.

That IS hilarious, E!

All those additions are hilarious!!!

There was a typo in the passage you quoted so I edited that and then edited the quoted passage.

This seems as appropriate a place as any but I just came across this story: http://ca.shine.yahoo.com/blogs/team-mom/nova-scotia-parents-who-lost-son-speak-out-about-poppy-seed-tea-dangers.html

As the URL suggests, someone is reported to have died from a morphine overdose from drinking poppy seed tea.

"His grieving sister says he texted her a photo of the pod days before he died, reassuring her it was safe and all natural."

Sad story but here we have, again, the dangers of the word "natural".