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JCfromNC's avatar

Amazing how water "remembers" the specific ingredient they want it to remember, and not, say, all the times it was full of fish and their excreta.

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Robert Eckert's avatar

"you cannot overdose on homeopathy" but you can underdose!

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JCfromNC's avatar

If it's sugar pills, technically you *can* overdose, if you're diabetic and eat enough of them to cause your blood glucose levels to go out of control. But that's probably a pretty edge case.

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Rachael's avatar

Judging by the underlying philosophy of homeopathy, that less is more, and the more dilute the better, everybody should be overdosing all the time, especially those of us who don't use it.

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zb23's avatar

"i dunno. sometimes i think a trace solution of deadly nightshade or a statistically negligible quantity of arsenic just... isn't enough."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMGIbOGu8q0

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Spleen Victoria's avatar

https://www.amazon.ca/Nestle-Mini-Smarties-Chocolate-25pcs/dp/B09YS4VYTV

Actual Smarties, for ‘Muricans!

My favourite thing when I was a more radical atheist was mass homeopathic suicide.

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Darth Trad's avatar

If it is the water that holds the 'memory' of the active ingredient then making it into a sugar pill defeats the purpose. When the pill is dry it contains no water whatsoever. The sugar or whatever the pill now contains doesn't do the magical memory thing. Or they would have to rewrite the whole 'science' involved.

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Violet Likes Pretty Flowers's avatar

yeah, or just make up more nonsense, preferably with the word "synergistic" in it.

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Charles  Schlotter's avatar

The WGA strike is now over. Colbert, Seth, Kimmel, and (probably) Fallon (I can only tape so many shows at the same time) are back with a vengeance.

But, against the possibility of a future strike, I am assembling a stockpile of homeopathic jokes. I take a joke and water it down until no actual joke is detectable. I'll make a fortune!

Here is my first homeopathic joke:

... ... ....

Why aren't you laughing? Goddam humorless bastards!

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HarryEagar's avatar

The intro monologues show up eventually on Youtube and sooner on my Apple news feed, You don't have to record them

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Robert Eckert's avatar

You can write for Gutfeld

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Charles  Schlotter's avatar

You don't so much write for Gutfeld as serially vomit for Gutfeld.

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HarryEagar's avatar

Why would a homeopathic fluid, whose only ingredient is water, need a preservative?

Genuine homeopathic remedies are harmless in themselves -- unless contaminated -- although the side effect of, say, not getting real treatment for glaucoma, could be bad.

Pro tip to would-be snake oil salesmen: Go for the homeopathic pet nostrums. Your victims will never complain to whoever, Animal and Plant Health, I suppose.

I have never met a pharmacist yet who did not sell patent medicine. Easily the most corrupt of all trades.

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LuluBean12 StarGeezer's avatar

There is a form of glaucoma that very rapidly produces permanent blindness. It is nothing to mess around with.

https://glaucoma.org/what-are-the-symptoms-of-glaucoma/

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Anzu's avatar

I had to point out to my husband that the arnica cream he was told to purchase to help alleviate the bruises occasionally caused by plasma donation was homeopathic. It's a 10x distillation of the arnica plant, meaning it's been diluted to have 1/1,000,000,000 actual arnica extract in it, if I remember my homeopathic bullshit math correctly. They charged $20 for petroleum jelly in a tube.

I also got into a small tiff with the oldest sister regarding the health care of our disabled sibling. She wanted me to arrange for the sibling to see a chiropractor. I've already got her working with a physical therapist instead. I told the oldest point blank that I don't believe in chiropractors, and anyone still getting that degree instead of going into physical therapy or osteopathic medicine has a broken bullshit detector and I won't trust them.

Oldest sister still isn't talking with me after that fight.

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Gherkins du Resistance's avatar

I only had half a brain, and then I used some homeopathic drips and I git all bettered!

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Caepan's avatar

𝘖𝘳 𝘥𝘰𝘯’𝘵, 𝘣𝘦𝘤𝘢𝘶𝘴𝘦 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘤𝘢𝘯𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘥𝘰𝘴𝘦 𝘰𝘯 𝘩𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘰𝘱𝘢𝘵𝘩𝘺 𝘢𝘯𝘺𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘯 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘤𝘢𝘯 𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘥𝘰𝘴𝘦 𝘰𝘯 𝘳𝘰𝘭𝘭𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘚𝘮𝘢𝘳𝘵𝘪𝘦𝘴.

And believe me, I've tried for decades to OD on Smarties(tm). And I'll keep on trying too, also!

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John Thorstensen's avatar

I suppose folks holding these views might be lurking, but I don't see any One True Wonketeer stepping forward to defend homeopathy.

One thing I likes about you, Wonkette-land, is that you're grounded in reality.

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Liminal's avatar

I'm curious what is causing actual damage here. My limited knowledge is that homeopathy is JUST water. Do they put in other ingredients too? Doesn't that spoil the purity of the water (and its memory?) I was expecting to read that they were bottling the water in a non-sterile way. Which would be bad.

I'm just curious. What are they putting in these things?

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Charles  Schlotter's avatar

Leave water sitting around long enough and it will go brackish, so there's that.

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HarryEagar's avatar

Indirect damage -- say, not treating preglaucoma witht he $850 drops I use, would be actual damage.

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Liminal's avatar

Health problems incurred while using fake remedies instead of actual medicine is the minimum risk of using homeopathy etc.

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Anzu's avatar

Sugar, to make solid pills, is common. Sometimes "natural flavorings" or other natural ingredients.

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Liminal's avatar

That makes sense.

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Satanic Pancake's avatar

Homeopathic eye drops better have some essence of eye in them.

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Violet Likes Pretty Flowers's avatar

"This 'pumpkin' spice contains no pumpkin!! I am out-raged!!!"

"Well then, ma'am, I advise you to not read the ingredients of the Italian Seasoning."

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Anti-Social Socialist's avatar

Wait, do you mean to tell me I HAVEN'T been eating Italians all this time? I am shocked, SHOCKED.

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Caepan's avatar

As soon as essence of eye of newt is added, then it will work!

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Charles  Schlotter's avatar

The Scottish Tragedy suggests otherwise.

Of course, if you leave out the exact correct quantity of tongue of adder, the whole thing just triggers the Birnam Wood Effect.

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Lefty Wright's avatar

I'm a big label reader, especially in over the counter medical products. But most people are not. Which causes a lot of problems with Tylenol/acetaminophen products since it's in combination with so many other OTC meds and can cause liver damage in high doses. So they need extra strength Tylenol for their sore knee because the regular stuff just won't handle it. Then they takes combo allergy or cold med with acetaminophen in it. Then a headache pill that is mostly acetaminophen. And they take the maximum dose or even more because they have the worst aches and pains and need the strongest thing out there. Then they do it day after day, regularly exceeding the maximum dosage for Tylenol and will deny they are doing it because there are different product names for different problems on each bottle. Even though reading the label would show each pill in each of those meds has 500 mg. of acetaminophen in it and the take two of each at least four times a day. So they are taking a total of 9,000 mg of Tylenol a day. Over twice the maximum recommended daily dosage. But deny they are taking too much because that pill for a cold or sinus congestion doesn't mention Tylenol on the front of the box.

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haycorn's avatar

This is why I much prefer NSAIDs-- there is a much higher threshold for when exceeding the recommended dosage becomes dangerous.

Though I do love that my husband's Costco-brand Tylenol has a huge "WARNING: this product contains acetaminophen" on the cap. I sure hope so! That's why I'm taking it!

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LuluBean12 StarGeezer's avatar

This is especially a problem for folks with arthritis.

Overuse of Tylenol (acetaminophen) is a leading cause of needing a liver transplant.

https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/acute-liver-failure/symptoms-causes/syc-20352863#:~:text=Acute%20liver%20failure%20is%20loss,failure%2C%20which%20develops%20more%20slowly.

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JustDontSayDittos's avatar

Except sometimes they DO have a trace of the magic ingredient, and then suddenly they're poisoning babies with a homeopathic teething gel. Nope, ban these fuckers, and start sending some charlatans to jail.

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Dorothea is a Democrat's avatar

And in a country where people often don't have health insurance, it shouldn't surprise any of us that in a crisis many people would seek home remedies or believe utter nonsense about ivermectin and Trumpchloraquine. It's hard to believe that we're back to the days of snake oil salesmen, but instead of being sold a pack of lies outside the back of a covered wagon, we're being sold a pack of lies packaged and advertised to look exactly like the FDA approved stuff.

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Anzu's avatar

The irony is that the over the counter medicine that would actually solve the problem is $5 for the generic brand, and the homeopathic woo woo bullshit version is $20 for bespoke sugar pills.

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PaulDietzel's avatar

So, the "Similasan" product is already snake oil and CVS has a knock-off of it with a disclaimery thing saying "Compare to the active ingredients (of which they ain't any) of Similiasan (sic) Pink Eye Relief", hilariously misspelling the brand name of the "Name Brand" hoax stuff.

And, does the brand name "Simila-san" mean that it's supposed to be "simila" to some

other stuff that really does work?

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