Conversation 9 comments by 5 users
  • kxh
    +7

    At least homeopathic remedies have no side-effects.

    • drunkenninja
      +7

      True, but the one effect you do get is the fact that you missed your chance for real medicine to do it's job. So I think that's a pretty big "side" effect if there was one.

      • leweb
        +7

        Exactly. You can ask Steve Jobs about that.

      • kxh (edited 6 years ago)
        +5

        True, if you think that homeopathics can replace medicine, which I never have. On the other hand these people get to pay large amounts for drugs they don't need, aren't doing them any good and do have side-effects so the chance for "real" medicine has been missed here too, which was rather my point.

        If you're going to be taking what is effectively a placebo, better a cheap harmless one.

        • Gozzin
          +4

          This is true. I never have used that bs and I never will.

          • kxh (edited 6 years ago)
            +4

            Except, placebos work and work well, even in some cases, if you are aware they are placebos. Placebos work as well or better than some modern pharmaceuticals.

            Attacking homoeopathy is taking the easy path. Bad pharmaceuticals are much more dangerous and costly than homoeopathy and attacking bad pharmaceuticals involves attacking a much more difficult systemic problem in modern medicine.

      • AdelleChattre
        +5

        It must be lovely to live in a place where the price of an ambulance ride alone might not reach into the thousands of dollars. On the margins of a society without guaranteed health care, one catches as catch can. If an old home remedy'll work, and one doesn't happen to have the five or six or seven digits' worth of cash you would need to be seen in a hospital, so be it. Alternative and traditional medicine gets a lot of criticism, and certainly homeopathy is bunk, but not everybody gets blank checks for medical care from the state. "Real medicine" may as well be unicorn tears for a lot of people in this world.

        • drunkenninja
          +8

          You make a good point, however medicine as medicine cannot be blamed. Don't hate the player, hate the game.

          • AdelleChattre
            +5

            I hear you. At the same time, the placebo effect and the Hawthorne effect don’t qualify as ‘real medicine’ while Nuedexta does; so I guess ‘real medicine’ is a mixed bag.