UNPOPULAR OPINION ALERT

[tim]

Something that I hear a lot in my peer group is "homeopathic medicines are dangerous because people use them instead of effective medicines."

I have no doubt that there's a small sector of the population that thinks clouds are chemtrails and ignores effective medicine out of spite. There's probably not much we can do about that sector of the population.

For the most part, though, I suspect people turn to things like homeopathy for problems that they've already sought advice from a real doctor for, and not gotten effective treatment. So who is being harmed, exactly? I mean... we're living in a world where it's legal for "real" pharmaceutical manufacturers to sell generics that don't actually do anything, and the FDA doesn't do anything about it (source: my former psychiatrist, who said, "I complained to the FDA [about a medication I was taking that a pharmacy tried to hand me a placebo generic "equivalent" for], but I might as well go home and play video games, since it does as much good and is more fun.")

So if you want to improve access to health care, why not... you know, work for a single-payer system and stop making access contingent on having money? (If you live in the US, anyway; if you're in another country, maybe your priorities are fine :-) Somehow I suspect that that's stopping a hell of a lot more people from getting health care that would improve their lives than homeopathy is. Or would that be no fun because you wouldn't get to laugh at "stupid people" and feel smarter than them?

I mean, yeah, businesses (both non-drug makers and regular pharmacies like CVS and Walgreens) make plenty of money off selling homeopathic crap, and that's irritating and all, but you know who makes a lot more money doing everything except making sure people get health care? Health insurance companies.

(I feel like I've said all this before, but meh, there's nothing new under the sun anyway :-)

Comments

[puzzlement]

It seems to me that, if one really wanted to focus on beneficial skeptical inquiry for some reason (and I don't believe that's necessarily a bad thing, for the same reason that I don't believe geek feminism needs to stop and wait for poverty to be solved, but in practice actual skepticism is indeed a lot of sneering at folks) it would be on a few things. One is non-evidence based providers attempting to displace somewhat-more-evidence-based primary care (as apparently some chiropractic practitioners are attempting in the US?), another is where non-evidence based care is actually very invasive and painful (as some late stage allegedly-curative cancer treatments are, involving, eg, ozone infusions and whatnot), another is where evidence-based care is being systemically subverted at a high level (as Ben Goldacre documented in South African approaches to HIV treatment) and another is where there is evidence of harm (as, apparently, there is with routine vitamin E supplementation?) Unsurprisingly, these often coincide with very powerful actors, including pharma companies, on the side of alternative medicine.

I do see some of this among some skeptical activists I follow, but selection bias is involved, because I don't enjoy sneeryness.

It would probably behoove many skeptics to regard themselves as activists and to make a statement of principles. Are they attempting to improve individual health? Public health? Save people money? What political beliefs and evidence do they have that make them thing that other people need their activism? What unique insights do they bring to the table? (I tend to be more sympathetic to working scientists or doctors than random computer geeks opining on medical skepticism, for example.) What other causes (eg health care funding reform) do they regard themselves as aligned with or supportive of?