The American Institute of Homeopathy defines homeopathy, or Homeopathic Medicine, as the practice of medicine that embraces a holistic, natural approach to the treatment of the sick. Homeopathy is holistic because it treats the person as a whole, rather than focusing on a diseased part or a labeled sickness. Homeopathy is natural because its remedies are produced according to the U.S. FDA-recognized Homeopathic Pharmacopoeia of the United States from natural sources, whether vegetable, mineral, or animal in nature.
The word Homeopathy, which comes from the Greek, through Latin into English, literally means “like disease”. This means that the medicine given is like the disease that the person is expressing, in his totality, not like a specific disease category or medical diagnosis.
Jill Stein is a retired Harvard-trained physician and the presumptive nominee for President for the Green Party.
A couple of months ago on a Reddit AMA, Dr Stein was asked about her campaign’s officials stance on homeopathy, and she replied:
For homeopathy, just because something is untested doesn’t mean it’s safe. By the same token, being “tested” and “reviewed” by agencies tied to big pharma and the chemical industry is also problematic. There’s a lot of snake-oil in this system. We need research and licensing boards that are protected from conflicts of interest. They should not be limited by arbitrary definitions of what is “natural” or not.
Her not-so-lucid answer compares to the definitive statement in the Green Party platform which states:
Greens support a wide range of health care services, not just traditional medicine, which too often emphasizes “a medical arms race” that relies upon high-tech intervention, surgical techniques and costly pharmaceuticals. Chronic conditions are often best cured by alternative medicine. We support the teaching, funding and practice of holistic health approaches and, as appropriate, the use of complementary and alternative therapies such as herbal medicines, homeopathy, naturopathy, traditional Chinese medicine and other healing approaches.
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- Complementary health: Americans spend billions on herbal supplements, acupuncture and other approaches
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Thank you for highlighting the enlightened position of the Green Party regarding holistic medicine. This is what the general public wants, freedom to choose the therapies that work best for them. They oppose fascist attempts in the name of science to dictate what physicians can offer to the public. This has nothing to do with science and everything to do with monopolistic designs by Pharma and Big Medicine. Homeopathy is particularly egalitarian. It is remarkably safe, inexpensive, and very effective in treating a wide array of physical, emotional, and mental health problems. This stance by the Green Party is the way of the future.
No, it’s not. Homeopathy is a fraud. Many ills get better on their own, and when they are simultaneously treated with homeopathy the homeopaths claim those as evidence of the effectiveness of their phony treatment. Of all the forms of alternative medicine, homeopathy is quite possibly the stupidest. It requires believing that substances diluted to the point where little or no original material is present somehow pass along some sort of trace of their existence to the diluant. There isn’t a shred of evidence to support this absurd belief.
true that mark!
It’s placebo… plenty of evidence that shit works. Even when you know it’s a placebo it still works.
I could not agree more wholeheartedly with everything you say. As far as homeopathy goes, I’ve been a homeopathic patient for about 20 years and have been so satisfied with its success, safety and cost effectiveness that it’s now my primary form of medicine. It has resolved acute conditions from warts to bronchitis, serious, chronic conditions including high blood pressure and high intraocular pressure caused by glaucoma and injuries resulting in trauma to nerves, skin and muscles.
The Green Party stance is, indeed, the way of the future.
@Christy Redd.
You did not read or understand a word that Mark Thorson said. Homeopathy is a fraud and only attracts the gullible. Why would you believe a ‘medicine’ that has been diluted to the point of infinity?
OK we can agree that this claim of dilution is scientifically absurd. However this is but a very small part of what homeopathy offers on terms of holistic medicine treatments. We can use the same argument to discredit western medicine on the account that vaccines are linked to cases of autism. But this is not the only treatment that modern medicine offers.
My conviction is that alternative medicine has proven to be more effective in treating chronic ailments while modern medicine is more effective in treating emergencies.
No, it’s not. This scientifically absurd principle of “potentizing” through extreme dilution is the entire basis of homeopathy. Take away that, and there’s nothing left.
The miracle of homeopathy is how
it has been put to the test in controlled studies for
almost 200 years now, and has consistently failed those tests.
The placebo is an astonishing remedy.
Jill Stein disappoints rational progressives by pandering to the left’s anti-science lunatic fringe.
As far as Jill Stein goes, although I agree she was definitely partially pandering, I think people are being a bit rough on her with this. I think she is used to arguing with some people in her own party about this, where this type of line would make a lot more sense. Homeopathy believers often use the argument (ignoring the burden of proof fallacy) that because there hasn’t been any large clinical trials on Homeopathy, you can’t say it doesn’t work. Her reply to them saying that it can still be harmful to you is something doctors often tell these people. People would have loved a “Homeopathy is crap” answer, but I think she gave the doctor to a homeopathy believer answer.
The Green Party actually changed their position several months before this was put out. The new platform position states:
“The Green Party supports a wide range of health care services, including conventional medicine, as well as the teaching, funding and practice of complementary, integrative and licensed alternative health care approaches.”
While this may still not thrill everyone, it is a step in the right direction for me. It clearly purposely no longer mentions homeopathy or most of the other controversial (crap) by name. It seems to nearly be excluding them by now including “licensed”, although I may be mistaken. Either way, it seems the new order of Greens is clearly pulling away from old on this area. The group has been evolving quite a bit since they started.
“holistic” “integrative” “alternative” and “complimentary” are terms that, when used with respect to “medicine” mean one and ONLY one thing: quackery. Period. This is true, and proven as solidly as it is proved that the earth is round, not flat. Thus the Green Party platform of being anti-science generally and for quack medicine specifically has not changed one iota. What has changed is how explicit they are in stating their position. Like their presidential candidate, Jill Stein, they have gotten more slick … careful not to state explicitly particular quack therapies as they did in the past (homeopathy, naturopathy, traditional Chinese medicine) to make it somewhat harder to pin them down and expose their support for fraud.
But there is no significant change what so ever in what these anti-science nut cases and malignant quacks are advocating.
If the Greens were serious about moving toward or adopting a rational and honest and intelligent policy toward medicine, they would drop entirely the various buzz words that mean quack medicine, and simply state they are for the use of medical therapies proven to work by good scientific method, good clinical study, and in particular as assessed by Cochrane reviews of the literature. They would say they reject therapies determined to be worthless by Cochrane review. This includes homeopathy, acupuncture (for the most part) and the bulk of naturopathy. But these anti-science quack-supporters do not and will not say that.
Jill Stein is NOT >partially< pandering. She is first and foremost a sleazy slick politician, who attempts to say she supports vaccination while avoiding responding on the central critical question of whether MMR vaccine should be mandatory for children (it should be, and among MD pediatricians only a dangerous quack … like Jill Stein… would not state this explicitly).