Homeopathy, the biggest scam in natural medicine

Homeopathy aka, the biggest scam in “natural” remedies
Homeopathy the notion that symptoms of disease can be cured by extremely small amounts of substances that produce similar symptoms in healthy people when administered in large amounts. Homeopathy was started in the late 1700’s by the German doctor Samuel Hahnemann, he was very disturbed by the common practice in those days of bloodletting, or leaching, which appeared to do more harm than good. He thought that the bloodletting was to “balance” the body of disturbances. It was after these experiences that he developed his “law of similars” which as stated above is if a healthy person takes a large quantity of a substance and it produces an effect similar to that of a symptom of some illness then if you gave a incredibly small amount of that same substance to a ill person then it would cure them of their illness. His thought was that a disease was just a disturbance in the body’s ability to heal itself and it would only need a little stimulation to jump start the healing process. The funniest part of homeopathy is part of its basis which is Hahnemann’s “law of infinitesimals” in which he theorized that the smaller and more dilute the dose the more powerful the effect, which is of course just the opposite of what the dose-response relationship that pharmacologists demonstrate on a daily basis. Hahnemann thought that when you dilute a solution of let’s say morning glory extract into 100 parts of water and then shake it up and add 1/10th of that to another 100 parts of water that you somehow in the shaking of the solution (known as sucussed) that you “energized” the essence of the ingredients and retain all of the benefits of the original strength solution.
Let’s look at some numbers. On homeopathic products that you buy at new frontiers you will often see something on the list of ingredients that says something like HPUS 5x dilution of clemantis vitalba, but what does a 5x dilution really mean. Homeopathic products are made from minerals, botanical substances, and several other sources. If the original substance is soluble, one part is diluted with either nine or ninety-nine parts of distilled water and/or alcohol and shaken vigorously (succussed); if insoluble, it is finely ground and pulverized in similar proportions with powdered lactose (milk sugar). One part of the diluted medicine is then further diluted, and the process is repeated until the desired concentration is reached. Dilutions of 1 to 10 are designated by the Roman numeral X (1X = 1/10, 3X = 1/1,000, 6X = 1/1,000,000). Similarly, dilutions of 1 to 100 are designated by the Roman numeral C (1C = 1/100, 3C = 1/1,000,000, and so on). Most remedies today range from 6X to 30X, but products of 30C or more are marketed.
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's "law of infinitesimals" is the equivalent of saying that any drop of water subsequently removed from that container will possess an essence of redness. Robert L. Park, Ph.D., a prominent physicist who is executive director of The American Physical Society, has noted that since the least amount of a substance in a solution is one molecule, a 30C solution would have to have at least one molecule of the original substance dissolved in a minimum of 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 molecules of water. This would require a container more than 30,000,000,000 times the size of the Earth. Furthermore the laws of chemistry do actually show that there is a point in dilution where the original substance is no longer present, this limit is known as Avogadro’s number and in homeopathic terms it is equivalent to 24x or 12c, at this level of dilution the odds of there being one molecule of the original substance is a 50/50 shot and more dilute than 24x it is virtually impossible for there to be anything other than water and alcohol and contaminants introduced during the shaking and transferring of the solution.
Here is an example of pure greed and ignorance. Oscillococcinum, a 200C (or 400x) product "for the relief of colds and flu-like symptoms," involves "dilutions" that are even more ridiculous than what you normally see at new frontiers. 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 (about one googol, which is a 1 followed by 100 zeroes). 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."
Finally the last problem with homeopathic is their status as a drug. This situation is the result of two circumstances. First, the 1938 Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, which was shepherded through Congress by a homeopathic physician who was a senator, recognizes as drugs all substances included in the Homeopathic Pharmacopeia of the United States (hence the HPUS symbol on all homeopathic packages). Second, the FDA has not held homeopathic products to the same standards as other drugs. Today they are marketed in health-food stores, in pharmacies, in practitioner offices, by multilevel distributors, through the mail, and on the Internet.