Outrage after Ontario government funds college program in homeopathy

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Outrage after Ontario government funds college program in homeopathy

Outrage is mounting over a publicly funded Ontario college’s plan to launch a diploma program in homeopathy, a practice based on the philosophy that illness can be treated with massively diluted substances — so super-diluted scientists say the “remedies” are virtually water.

Critics say Georgian College in Barrie has created a three-year course that has no grounding in science, is based on “magical thinking” and could ultimately harm the public by giving the field an air of official credibility. Numerous studies, they argue, have found no reliable evidence from research in humans that homeopathic remedies are any more effective than placebos, or sugar pills.


Mr. Magoo Mr. Magoo's picture

Some "alternative" remedies like chiropractic, TCM, acupuncture, and probably some indigenous healing methods have some legitimately established success in treating certain problems (though never all).  I'm open to the idea that modern medicine doesn't understand everything.

Homeopathy is one of those strange outliers, in that it doesn't actually seem like it works, on anything.  And maybe more to the point, its theory just seems fantastically implausible.  If you put a miniscule amount of something in water, shake it, dilute it, then repeat several times so that the water has a "memory" of what you put in it, how would all water not have a billion memories of everything that was ever in it?  Unless they were to use "new" water (i.e. made by burning hydrogen and oxygen), they're using water that probably passed through a dinosaur.

For fun, though. (YouTube sketch comedy vid about homeopathic ER doctors).

laine lowe laine lowe's picture

Hahahaha. The healthiest thing in that sketch video was the homeophathic lager.

LB Cultured Thought

Georgian college has removed the program following the public ridicule.


The real problem is that the Ontario government (and other provincial governments) continues to "regulate" nonsense like chiropratic, TCM, naturopaths, etc., which provides all of these with an air of legitimacy. 

laine lowe laine lowe's picture

They just booted him off the schedule - after Sobeys cancelled their support  for the Expo. The people who run the expo are now claiming they didn't know about the conviction.

Though I know a few people who use homeopathy. This guy's racket is a bit different than the average person who uses it now and then - not least because he refused to recognize when it was time to go to an MD, and because he still thinks he's not to blame for his son's death.



Timebandit Timebandit's picture

Bah. The wellness expo guy had first said that they like to book controversial people to bump ticket sales, so horse puckey he didn't know about the conviction. Butthead.

And no, homeopathy and TCM have not been "unproven". They are no more effective than placebo in a wide variety of studies. If it makes you happier, use it, but there's no clinical benefit.