Homeopathic remedies (which used highly diluted drugs made from natural ingredients) are considered by many doctors as remedies ineffective and mostly harmless, because they contain tiny amounts of drugs.
But a study by the AP of the reports of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA, according to its acronym in English) on the reactions that cause revealed that more than 800 ingredients used in homeopathic remedies may have been involved in various health problems last year, from vomiting to suicide attempts.
It was found that:
- Generally homeopathic active ingredients are diluted to the point representing a millionth or less of the compound, but there are cases where concentrations are higher.
- The FDA has strict limits on alcohol use in medicines, especially medicines for children, but those limits do not cover homeopathic remedies. There syrups that are more than 10% alcohol, when the National Academy of Pediatrics recommends no more than 5%.
- The center of alternative medicine from the National Institute of Health suspended his studies of homeopathic remedies, “because there is no evidence to suggest that serve” as the center director, Josephine Briggs.
- The homeopathic remedies include at least 20 prescription ingredients in conventional medicine. Some homeopathic medicines are derived from diseased tissues. Many are used in powerful poisons such as arsenic.
Homeopathic medicine
Homeopathy was the creation of an ingenious (and for some, too imaginative) mind of the German physician and chemist Samuel Hahnemann in the late 1700s. He experienced the same remedies and became convinced that if an ingredient produces symptoms in a healthy person, combat diseases that produce similar symptoms. It also developed the theory that if the ingredients are diluted to extreme tiny, even impossible to trace, such a low concentration, paradoxically, makes them more effective.
To this day the homeopaths offer explanations somewhat mystical tone and speak of “vital forces” and “energy healing”. Employing arcane ingredients as nux vomica and Arsenicum album, “giving the impression that the remedies were prepared in turkeys a druid priest.
Point of view against
The pharmacist Albert Lavender, a former deputy director of the department oversees the FDA that the labels of the remedies, homeopathy holds that it is a “big fraud”.
“Most of the time does not cause harm to the consumer, but if your pocket is suffering,” he said. He added that “no sense” to require that their labels explain what they seek, as in United States, do not try anything because, he said.
“Often, the only active ingredient is alcohol. People do not know and are excited. But the therapeutic effect is more or less the same as a martini,” said Jerry Avorn, an expert in pharmaceuticals in the Harvard Medical School .
Challenging Homeopathy
You can raise questions about the dangers of various homeopathic remedies.
Health authorities revealed this week that Zicam, a homeopathic remedy against the common cold, can override the olfactory sense of a person.
Reports of reactions to drugs developed by the FDA identified at least 843 homeopathic ingredients that could have generated negative reactions between October 2007 and September 2008. It is impossible to determine how many were taken in low homeopathic concentrations, but apparently some people were and there were numerous reactions, including pain in the joints and muscles, according to reports from doctors, consumers and others.
Self
While many homeopathic remedies are mostly sugar or alcohol, believers swear that these medicines work.
Amanda Rafferty, of Haverhill, took bloody canadensis, a medicine made from a toxic herb to treat migraine attacks that were present once a month. Said that, after taking the remedy, did not return to feel a migraine for a year.
He admits that he did not know that these remedies were not inspected by the government but not considered serious because it relies too much on the regulatory system.
Your homeopath, Begabati Lennihan, Cambridge, tries headaches, colds, digestive problems, depression and behavioral problems. Like other homeopaths, Lennihan examines not only the symptoms but the patient’s personality, their favorite foods and even dreaming. Admits, however, that if the problem occurs in x-ray, “is going to be harder to resolve it with homeopathy.”
It is not uncommon for patients to make their own diagnoses and prescribe homeopathic remedies themselves. The homoeopath Ahmed Currim, Connecticut, said that suspending the practice because such people “do not know what you’re doing.”
Non-prescription remedies are big business and many homeopathic medicines provide combat symptoms so vague that it is almost impossible to say specifically what evils.
For example, a homeopathic ingredient, lithium carbonate, is used in conventional medicine as a psychiatric drug. In homeopathy, it is presented as an antidote “rheumatic pains in the region of the heart muscle paralytic seizure, cerebral congestion, insomnia and epilepsy.”