Last week, a story out of Great Britain demonstrated unequivocally that homeopathy is nothing more than a belief in magic.
A well-known U.K. homeopath Grace DaSilva-Hill has been putting out the call to homeopathic colleagues to participate in an exercise to "heal the oceans." First question: What are we trying to heal the oceans of? It is not specified.
There is no question there are things that ail the oceans. The prescription is something called Leuticum or (Syph.), which is supposedly a cure for syphilis. Question 2: On what basis was this "remedy" selected. She doesn't say.
"Just mix one or two drops in some water and offer the remedy to the ocean wherever you happen to be, on 21st November, with pure love and healing intention," she wrote.
"Pure love and healing intention" must be the active ingredient in the prescription because Leuticum already has no active ingredient. Like all homeopathic nosodes, this starts with a sample of the syphilitic virus, which is then diluted to the point of being undetectable, but, according to homeopathic theory maintains a memory of the essence of the ingredient.
Basically, they are putting a couple of drops of water, which purportedly contains the essence of syphilis into more water and dumping that into the ocean to cure it of some unspecified ailment, which is presumably not syphilis.
So, it is no surprise DaSilva-Hill advises her colleagues that they need not even have the "remedy" available to participate.
"Even if you do not have the remedy in a physical form, you can still speak the name of the remedy to a glass of water, and the water will memorise [sic] the energy of the remedy," she wrote.
That these practitioners have the audacity to call themselves doctors is appalling. More appalling still is that Health Canada allows them to practice and approves their "remedies" despite overwhelming evidence they are not effective for anything except liberating dollars from the pockets of unsuspecting patients.
Speaking of snake oil salesmen, there is a new commercial on TV for a product called LivRelief that has my skeptical senses tingling.
It starts out with a photo of an ordinary looking guy and his wife and a voiceover that says, "This doctor's wife was suffering from pain; he created a solution."
That "doctor" is Joe Gabriele, a research scientist at McMaster University. I am not disparaging his credentials-he has a Ph.D. and is an assistant professor at the McMaster Department of Psychiatry and Behavioural Neuroscience-but the implication in the opening line of the ad is clearly that he is a medical doctor.
Later, he again takes on the persona of medical doctor when he says, "I would recommend using LivRelief pain relief cream."
Well, of course you would, Dr. Gabriele, you have a vested interest in the company.
The voiceover goes on to describe LivRelief as a "natural health product." That is amusing, since earlier in the ad they show Gabriele diligently working away in the laboratory with test tubes looking very "sciencey." Apparently, the marketers feel there is some benefit to establishing there is science behind the product, but not in proving the efficacy of the product. That is because as a "natural health product" there is no burden under Health Canada rules to provide any evidence of efficacy or safety beyond that it is not going to kill people.
The active ingredient in this product is listed as 0.4% Rutin in Canada and Health Canada classifies it as a Natural Health Product (NHP). The Americans list the active ingredient as Ruta graveolens flowering top (from which the extract Rutin is distilled) and classify it as "unapproved homeopathic" with the disclaimer: "This homeopathic product has not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration for safety or efficacy. FDA is not aware of scientific evidence to support homeopathy as effective."
Of course, the makers of LivRelief have something much better than scientific evidence. They've got Bobby Orr as a spokesperson.
I fully understand when it comes to chronic pain, sufferers are bound to try anything, but this stuff is not a matter of shelling out a few bucks and chucking it when it doesn't work; it is very expensive. It is $32.99 for a 50-gram tube.
I would recommend saving your money and writing to Health Canada to complain the organization is not doing enough to protect Canadians from dubious "remedies."
