> they just fertilize the vegetables they sell there
> with plain old poop, not butterfly poo and the
> tears of the Dalai Lama.)

Bah-dum-PUM.

Dan Neil on the powerplant of the Ducatti supercar:

Its 150-hp V-twin motor runs on damned souls and is lubricated with the fat of unbaptized children.

I do love Dan Neil.

While I generally prefer to eat things that have mostly natural ingredients (unlike most "diet" food), when it comes to my medicine, I want the label to have a whole list of things I can't pronounce. Sometimes All Natural =/= Better. It's not like he's signing his two-year-old up for medical trials; at least the Benadryl will help her sleep. "Suffering needlessly," indeed.

Was the guy actually going to do the diluation thing? The homeopathic label is applied to a lot of things and a few of them have been shown to work. Alot of times they are Old Wives' cures and they are not truely homeopahtic. At worst, he is wasting a little of his money. So what. It sounds like she was too young for over the counter.

Makes one think that man wants to show he cares without actually making any meaningful change in the situation.

That used to be called tilting at windmills.

Of course we now call it federal funding of windmills.

" It's impossible to add up all the indirect environmental costs of a windmill, but a good proxy for this arithmetic is simply to compare the resources consumed (in dollars) with the output produced (in dollar value of the electricity). No question, consumption exceeds output, as you can tell from the fact that the windmill industry survives only by dint of a huge federal subsidy..."

http://www.forbes.com/opinions/free_forbes/2005/0815/012.html

I think there are many such idiots out there. Unfortunately, some of them are getting acccess to my tax dollars to make themselves feel good about "trying" to do something.

Or, they could develop a good working relationship with their pedi, convince him/her they aren't idiots, and the pedi will tell them the correct dose of either the older kids meds or an adult med, that will help.

On that note though, plain old dark honey is proven better on coughs than most cough meds. A teaspoon'll knock that cough right out.

Whatever happened to the good old remedies...a bit of Whiskey on the soother. That's what they did back in our day!

I don't know about other states, but here in NY, over the counter doesn't even mean over the counter anymore. To combat kids getting high from cough syrup, you now must ask the pharmacist for it and show proof of id. I'm not one who overly medicates, but when my kids were younger I did give them cold syrup if they were hacking or their noses ran like crazy as long as it wasn't something in need of anti-biotics. I know what its like to sometimes feel so crappy that the cough stuff helps. Why wouldn't I give it to my kids. Its another example of the general population being treated like idiots because some people don't know how to use medicine correctly!

If he is a fanatic you will not be able to convince him of anything.

How about a spoonful of honey and some Vic vaporub.

I adore you. There is someone in the world who thinks like I do!

And there is a very good chance the kid hasn't been vaccinated on schedule. Two groups are likely to not get their shots-the very poor and the idiot well to-do.

Aspirin is derived from willow bark ( willow=Salix, acetyl salicylic acid is aspirin). I've seen people give willow bark tea to kids with viral illness, feeling Reye's syndrome can't happen from natural stuff. Your body doesn't care if it came from Bayer or nature. Kids with viral illness shouldn't get aspirin or Pepto bismol (salicylic acid salt of bismuth ) or willow bark. Real herbs work, so you have to use them carefully and know your dose and side effects.

Check out Terra Sigillata on Science Blogs-a real natural product chemist/pharmacologist blogs about herbal medicine.

Heh. I just got back from the high school, after the nurse called about Daughter #2, who has a sore throat and a nasty cough. I gave her 2 Advil and a glass of orange juice. Next, she'll get a teaspoonful of honey (which is what we've always used for coughs), and she can go lie down and watch a little tv. She's running a low-grade fever (99.2) which is why I gave her the Advil.

Kids as young as a few months old can have baby cough/cold medicine and a LOT of it isn't even behind the pharmacists counter!
I don't think cough meds work very well personally. Delsyn is the cough med that actually helps it seems. It's totally worth the $10 a bottle. Only good for kids 6+ and adults. Works wonders!

Actually, I don't know exactly what you mean by homeopathic. Are you aware that an awful lot of modern medicines, the ones that kill tens of thousands of people each year, are nothing but analogs of the traditional herbs doctors used in the 19th Century? They study the herbs, the ones they say can't work, but actually know they did work, extract the main ingredients, and synthesize it in the lab. Then, they sell it for big bucks and kill people.

A perfect example is saw palmetto. So far everyone I know who has tried it, the standardized extract from Wal-mart is my favorite, not the crude saw palmetto. within a week or two, they can pee again.

A big drug company, while insisting publicly that saw palmetto did not work, studied it, found some of the main ingredients, synthesized it, and sell it for five or ten dollars a day. The good stuff from Wal-mart (Spring Valley) costs around 7 or 8 cents a day.

there is another important difference besides costing fifty or 100 times as much. The expensive stuff warns users not to have unprotected sex with women of fertile age, and women of fertile age should not handle the pills without rubber gloves. They are not joking.

Right on to those who said use honey. But, there is more. In 1976, my 7 year old step daughter had a bad cough one night. Koff! Koff! All night. She was the only one who could sleep.

My wife got up about 2 am, mumbling something in Spanish, went to the kitchen, banged around a few minutes, went into the girl's room, and came out and went to sleep. Total silence the rest of the night.

You know how things seem strange in the night? I could not resist the fear that she had strangled the kid, so I went into her room to look at her. Sleeping peacefully.

The next morning, I asked what she had done. She used the old Mexican cure of mixing lemon juice with honey, heating it in a spoon over the gas flame, and having her take it. Total silence in one spoonful with no nasty stuff included.

A DO wrote a book that a large amount of honey can keep people with cholera alive until they beat it, since most folks who die of cholera actually die from dehydration.

And, honey works great as a antibiotic for major wounds, the Russians used it until we finally let them have antibiotics.

Manuka honey is best for antibiotics, though expensive. Activated 16 is best. Bacteria can't develop resistance to Manuka honey. And, they are using it on burns, for scar free healing.

Okay, you don't think homeopathic stuff works, but the big pharmaceuticals, while trying to convince you they don't, actually have teams studying the homeopathic cures for those which do work, so they can make big money by synthesizing them.

To combat kids getting high from cough syrup, you now must ask the pharmacist for it and show proof of id.

I caught a bad cold a few months back that I just couldn't shake. So, I went to buy some real Sudafed. Not the watered down in-the-front-of-the-store stuff, but the one-pot-of-kerosene-away-from-crystal-meth stuff (the one with actual pseudo-ephedrine hydrochloride in it). I had to go to the pharmacist counter, register with the government, and have my license checked against a government database. So, I got another entry in my government file and, to make matters worse, the Sudafed didn't even help my cold.

I'm having dental surgery in two weeks and got two prescriptions for Vicodin, one from the dentist and one from the oral surgeon. The pharmacist filled both of them in the same week and sent me on my way without a background check or a consultation. The actual narcotics they're giving out like candy, but they're guarding the cold medicine like nuclear weapons.

Actually you should have told him to buy buckwheat honey. Studies showed in the last year or two that dark honey was far superior to children's cough medicines, which, in fact, proved mostly worthless and in the case of one ingredient I can't remember, dangerous. My girl gets chest-rattling, bone-breaking coughs and the honey -- recommended by our quite mainstream pediatrician -- truly helps.

My mom used to keep a medicine bottle of whiskey, honey and lemon mixed up in the cupboard for the occasional nighttime cough. She'd give us a couple teaspoonfuls in a dixie cup. Worked like a charm, and there wasn't really enough alcohol in there to do anything except relax you enough to let you fall asleep. That stuff is the best tasting cough medicine EVER and I swiped the recipe from her a few years ago when my boyfriend had a nasty cough - still works like a charm!

Actually, I don't know exactly what you mean by homeopathic.

See Orac definition above:

"...the art of diluting remedies into nonexistence, producing a placebo effect, and calling it medicine."

A friend of mine asked me one day to stop at the pharmacy on my way and pick up some toothing medication for their +/- 9-month-old. Pharmacy was closed, but the baby shop next door open, so I asked there. They didn't have any actual toothing medication, but offered me "an alternative" that they assured me would be "just as good". I looked at the label, saw it was homeopathic, thought to myself "hmm, placebo effect isn't going to work on a baby" and said "ummmm no thanks, I'll try elsewhere".

I couldn't believe my eyes, homeopathic remedies for babies? It was news to me that such things even existed. Just when I thought my view of humanity couldn't sink further.

"Pharmacy was closed"

Or is that "drugstore" in American? Anyway.

Conan, I have arthritis in my back and have always been very clear to the doctor that I suffer more from stiffness than actual pain and that I rarely take medicine including Tylenol or Advil. Consistently he offers me all sorts of narcotics despite my fear of many of them being addicting. Meanwhile I asked him to suggest a flu medication for my teenage son and he listed the dangers of cold meds for an hour. It really makes me scratch my head and wonder if the pharaceutical companies are behind the new restrictions on over the counter stuff. Could it be that they are losing too much money?

I had never heard about oil of cloves for toothache until I read Marathon Man. I tried it and that stuff works! A friend of mine had wisdom teeth that would not quite emerge and the pain was making her cry. I recommended clove oil, and the relief was incredible. "Is it safe?" Oh, yes.

In James Lileks' relatively recent book, "Mommy Knows Worst" (see more at his website), there's an excerpt from a 1904 book, "Physical Culture For Babies" by Marguerite Macfadden. The chapter from the latter book is called "The Crime of Soothing Syrups." (You can read that whole chapter in Google Books - just search on the chapter title and then scroll down to page 143.) Apparently, it wasn't just foolish mothers who were pushing opium-based syrups - and alcohol - on their squalling brats so they could go to the theatre; DOCTORS were even saying it was OK to give babies gin and water to keep them quiet! Well, some doctors, anyway. So, historically, you can blame doctors and big businesses for children's ills too, not just stupid parents. As Lileks said: "It's unfair sometimes to tut-tut at the past for not knowing what we know now, but this is different. How stupid were they? THIS stupid."

And you can even find references to the hideous problem in a children's book or two. In the 1944 Robbie Trent book, "Susan," which takes place
circa 1900, in Kentucky, preteen Susan likes looking at magazines in her aunt's attic. In the first chapter, as she leaves the house with
her mother, the latter asks:

"Susan, were you reading all afternoon up in the attic?"

"Yes'm," Susan admitted, "and Mother, you mustn't ever give your baby soothing syrup for a cough. There was a whole page of pictures. The baby goes to sleep and sometimes it doesn't wake up again, and-"

"You're the only child in our family, Susan," Mother reminded her daughter, "and neither your father nor I ever gave you a spoonful of cough syrup in your whole life."

The book has 152 pages and is mainly about Susan's country experiences, dealing with a nasty teacher, learning to love a kind one, and raising funds for a town library, which many consider to be nothing but a temptation towards idleness. I'd say it's somewhere between the "Little House" books and "Anne of Green Gables," aimed at 7- or 8-year-olds. Very sweet and innocent. It's a pity Trent only wrote that one(?) novel - her other writings tended to be retellings of Bible stories.

And, from 2007:

The Associated Press
Cold medicine risky for babies, toddlers

By Daniel Yee, Associated Press Writer | January 11, 2007

ATLANTA --More than 1,500 toddlers and babies wound up in emergency rooms over a two-year period and three died because of bad reactions to cold or cough medicine, federal health officials reported Thursday.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned parents not to give common over-the-counter cold remedies to children under 2
years old without consulting a doctor.

The deaths of three infants 6 months or younger in 2005 led to an investigation that showed the children all had high levels of the nasal decongestant pseudoephedrine, up to 14 times the amount recommended for children ages 2 to 12. The study found 1,519 ER cases from 2004 and 2005 involving young children and cold medicine.

The CDC said it's not known how much cold or cough medicine can cause illness or death in children under 2 years old, but there are no
approved dosing recommendations by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for that age group.

The American Academy of Pediatrics first advised parents in 1997 about the risks of complications and overdose potential with certain cough
suppressants. Last year the American College of Chest Physicians advised doctors not to recommend cough suppressants and over-the-counter cough medications to young children because of the
risks.

Dr. Michael Shannon, chief of emergency medicine at Children's Hospital Boston, said it's common, especially in the winter, to see emergency room cases of toddlers given cough or cold medicine.

"Pediatricians have for years, particularly for the last five years, been for the most part trying to dissuade parents from giving young
children common cold preparations," Shannon said.

Dr. Michael Marcus, director of pediatric pulmonology, allergy and immunology at Maimonides Infants and Children's Hospital in New York,
said, "The best thing (parents) can do is support with fluids and lots of kisses and time, because lots of infections are viral and will pass
in a few days. The medications have a greater potential for harm than the infections you are trying to treat."

Lobster writes, on the word pharmacy: "Or is that "drugstore" in American? Anyway".

... Or is that "pharmacy" in standard international English? Anyway.

Ann, I'd love to know the recipe for the whiskey/lemon/honey cough medicine if you don't mind sharing!

LOL Amy!

Angie, I'll try to remember to look it up when I get home. It's somewhere on my computer (I hope!).

"My mom used to keep a medicine bottle of whiskey, honey and lemon mixed up in the cupboard for the occasional nighttime cough"

Yup, over here too.

"How about a spoonful of honey and some Vic vaporub."

Ah but that's exactly the problem. For some reason honey is a big no-no now for babies and Vics is only for 2+ years of age. I feel this guy's frustration, sometimes you feel like you have to something, anything. And good luck getting any actual advice these days. Last month my baby had some severe constipation, so which over the counter medicine to give him in the middle of the night? Manufacturers sure as hell won't print on their label a dose for children under 2, and the web is laden with *consult your pediatrician non-information. So I called the advice nurse. Her reply was basically, "I'd like to tell you what we would have done back when I was a nurse, but now I can only read to you what it says here on this website (which of course feeds back into the consult your pediatrician loop)."

Also, keep in mind that he didn't necessarily get ripped off. If that homepathetic medicine got his wife off his back, well worth $20.

Here in the South we also do the Southern Comfort/honey/lemon. Much smoother.

Last month my baby had some severe constipation, so which over the counter medicine to give him in the middle of the night?

Mylicon drops were what I gave my girls. When they got a little older, a teaspoon of Fletcher's Castoria (which was just fancy castor oil). My mom told me her mom gave her mineral oil. Just a teaspoon, but she says it worked wonders.

The danger with honey under 2 is botulism or at least that's what I always read. I used mylicon too, Flynne. My son was a colic baby and, oh boy, that's a rough one. That's when I needed the whiskey!

The danger with honey under 2 is botulism or at least that's what I always read. I used mylicon too, Flynne. My son was a colic baby and, oh boy, that's a rough one. That's when I needed the whiskey!

Bacteria can't develop resistance to Manuka honey.

Yeah, bullshit. Source, please?

If it doesn't kill them all, they will develop resistance. Remember that the claim for "Manuka honey" (as opposed to normal honey, which just kills bacteria by being hygroscopic) is that it contains a "natural antibiotic" from the plant in question.

Being "natural", however, doesn't prevent resistance forming.

(Re. "definitions of homeopathic", I think the point the commenters were trying to make is that the legal category of "homeopathic" is not the same as the "dilution and percussion, it's just water" craziness - it includes it but is not limited to it.

My understanding is that the labeling under US law mostly just means "we're not going to claim it cures anything and you're not going to sue us".

Orac talks about that now and then, such as here; it's useful to remember that "homeopathic" doesn't even really mean "homeopathic" anymore!)

Fleet liquid glycerin enemas. Solves the constipation post-haste. For a baby under 2, just snip off the neck so it can't overinsert-about a half inch long is best.

How the hell can you get botulism from honey? Bacteria aren't going to survive in it, unless they go into spore form or something.

Besides, you can buy pasteurized honey (which surprised me given that honey doesn't support bacterial growth - but I've seen it).

you got it. spot on.

"Infant botulism is caused by the food poisoning bacterium Clostridium botulinum. This is the same bacterium that causes the food poisoning known as "botulism". Spores of these bacteria are ingested by the infant, grow and produce a neurotoxin (i.e. poison) in the infant's intestine.

Spores of C. botulinum may be easily ingested as they are common in soil and dust. This may lead to botulism in children younger than one year. Many infants who develop infant botulism have been fed honey, the only identified food source of C. botulinum spores causing infant botulism. Three of the sixteen infant botulism cases (as of June 1999) reported in Canada since 1979 have been associated with honey."

That would explain it. It never occurred to me. Then again, I'm not an infant and I don't have any.

"For a baby under 2, just snip off the neck"

Good lord what a horrible thing to say.

Amy, you have a snide attitude about so many things.

This comment about homeopathy is ignorant and prejudiced. . .and your superiority complex is most revealing. You obviously are mainstream in your preference for allopathic medicine, and while medicines can be effective, they generally only do one thing: treat the symptom, by suppressing the symptom.

Homeopathy is under extreme attack recently, and mostly from , guess who?. . the guys who want more of your money: BIG PHARM.

That argument aside, I have two testimonies that homeopathy works: MY DAUGHTER, at age 3, powerful head cold. . .went to an MD who happened to also be a homeopathic expert. . . and he determined her "constitutional remedy" was a particular dilution of a substance, which, when administered orally, relieved her symptoms before our very eyes, in a matter of minutes. We were able to continue on our weekend vacation and by the next day she was completely better, no runny nose, no fever, no sneezing, no cold. I rest my case. No placebo effect possible.. . in a 3 yr-old?!!!

next: My wife , asthma for decades, cleared up in one week, never to return, due to the specific, personalized remedy from this same doctor. Even my wife was surprised, almost unbelieving that something could work so rapidly, and so thoroughly, and she was able to give up her bondage to DRUGS forever.

You may scoff and berate the efficacy of homeopathy, and laugh at the dilution theory, but there's something to it that we might not understand.

It was a trustworthy form of health therapy in Europe for generations, until pharmaceuticals took over. Now look at the track record of drugs, poisoning people right and left and claiming healing! Ha! Only the body can heal itself, if assisted by the proper elements. Drugs DO work, I grant you, but other things do as well. Best not to be too arrogant in your opinions.

"the guys who want more of your money: BIG PHARM"

Yep. Cause the people charging you $25 or more for that "particular dilution" (lets read water there, shall we?) are doing it for free.

You obviously are mainstream in your preference for allopathic medicine, and while medicines can be effective, they generally only do one thing: treat the symptom, by suppressing the symptom.

Oh, no! Not (gasp!) MAINSTREAM! It's not really an insult to tell someone their preference for proven medication is normal. As for the rest of that statement, I don't want to use the word I'm thinking, so I'll say... balderdash! I know, I know, you hedged there with the "generally," but it's still bullsh... balderdash. Technically, I guess the drugs used in chemotherapy are only treating and suppressing the symptoms by killing the cancer cells, so what do your homeopathic remedies do differently? Those pesky migraine medications are only treating the symptoms by actually widening the blood vessels in the head. And digitalis, ACE inhibitors, beta blockers, and nitrates aren't really doing anything for the heart, I suppose. Please, brad, give us some insight as to what homeopathy has to offer in place of those drugs. I'm sorry, I mean DRUGS.

My wife , asthma for decades, cleared up in one week, never to return, due to the specific, personalized remedy from this same doctor. Even my wife was surprised, almost unbelieving that something could work so rapidly, and so thoroughly, and she was able to give up her bondage to DRUGS forever.

From Google Health's Asthma page:
There is no cure for asthma, although symptoms sometimes improve over time. With proper self management and medical treatment, most people with asthma can lead normal lives.

Make of that what you will.

but there's something to it that we might not understand.

Why are you taking something you don't understand? I mean, I'm no MD, but I know what my allergy medication does. And I can actually draw you a diagram of what some of the antidepressants do in the brain. What, specifically, did those homeopathic remedies do to your wife and daughter?

Drugs DO work, I grant you, but other things do as well. Best not to be too arrogant in your opinions.

Oh, wait, now you're caving? I haven't even posted yet. I think I will be arrogant in my opinions on remedies that have not been proven to work past the placebo effect. Read some studies on the subject, brad. Yes, there are natural remedies that work (aspirin is derived from willow bark, as someone smart pointed out above), but the whole of homeopathy has not been proven to work.

This comment about homeopathy is ignorant and prejudiced.

Yes, prejudiced as hell -- in favor of medicines that have been proven to work!

You obviously are mainstream in your preference for allopathic medicine,

"Mainstream"? There's no stream here other than caring that there's evidence behind taking a particular substance.

As far as your story goes, this is a common way of arguing that medications work by people who don't understand coincidence, causality, confirmation bias, etc. Perhaps you haven't heard, but there's a saying, "the plural of anecdote is not data." People like to believe the doctor cured them, and believe this means a particular substance worked. This is not evidence. It's a common human cognitive error.

The most hilarious thing for me is people who talk about "big pharm" as if the homeopathic companies like Boiron can't buy Belgium several times over with extraordinary wealth they've made selling people "medicine" that has not been proven to work. It's a business -- a business where people get rich on the gullibility of other people.

Orac, a cancer surgeon in Detroit, the blogger behind Respectful Insolence, who knows very well how to read studies, is a much better authority about the crapthink behind homeopathy than I. ScienceBasedMedicine should have a bunch of stuff as well.

You're talking from emotion here. I can sympathize that you and many people want to believe you aren't just burning money buying homeopathic stuff, etc., but that doesn't change the fact that homeopathy has not been proven to do anything beyond separate people who would like to believe (to put it politely) and their money.

Conan, maybe take guaifenesin - the active ingredient in plain Robitussin and Mucinex - with the sudafed, and plenty of water. Guaifenesin thins the mucus. It helps the sudafed do its job.

My doctor recommended it to me, and the combo works magic. I only pay for the name-brand guaifenesin if I need the time-release feature (for one 12-hour dose, instead of 4-hour doses).

@Ann - I would appreciate having that recipe, too.

I owe the person who told me to take guaifenesin with my sudafed a huge thanks. It's fabulous. And lots of water.

Say it with me Brad: "Homeopathy is bullshit".

For the imbeciles, homeopathy != herbal medicine.

Herbs actually DO SOMETHING, chemically, in the body. Homeopathic dilutions are chemically inert, they don't do dick.

Water doesn't "remember" things. You don't leave an "impression" of an "essence" in the molecules of water.

Water is simply two hydrogen atoms bonded to a single oxygen atom, with the hydrogen atoms separated by a little over 104 degrees.

Water can dissolve things, but if you dilute something to a point where it is immeasureable, THE WATER DOESN'T DO WHAT THE THING USED TO DO BECAUSE THE THING ISN'T THERE ANY MORE.

That's kinda how water treatment plants work. Filter out and dilute the crap, and put the water back in the system to be used again.

OH NOES! YOU'RE DRINKING WATER THAT REMEMBERS HAVING POOP IN IT!

I saw a T-shirt a while ago that said "If water has memory, homeopathy is full of crap".

The real study of natural medically active compounds is pharmacognosy. If you are interested, look for a class in a real pharmacy department. Many natural products have been modified to make them better absorbed by the body or to reduce toxicity while maintaining activity.

My mom used a heart medicine derived from foxglove. The flower in your backyard will have more or less of this drug, depending on soil, weather and variety. It is safer to get the pills with standard doses than to test each batch of herbal tea on your old mom.

When the FDA was formed, homeopathic meds were exempted. Some companies label their products as homeopathic to avoid filing with the FDA. Any homeopathic drug labeled 12C or greater (lesser?) has been diluted so no more of the original drug is there. A 3X prep may have activity, but it has not been tested or approved (Zicam).

When I had a lumbar problem - a disk tear I tried physiotherapy and **gasp** it didn't work !!! And then I tried the fake bogus bullshit from a homeopathic doctor who asked me a lot of questions, took a look at my X-ray and prescribed a dilution of potent homeopathic small white pills (they all look the same) and **gasp** it healed !! Make of that what you will....I agree with those out there who say Big Pharm really farm their toxic chemical cures from homeopathy and natural herbal remedies.

My dad had a serious lumbar problem more than 20 yrs back....and docs suggested surgery coz it was pretty serious. But he went on homeopathy and it worked.

Not denigrating mainstream meds here....they work in some cases and homeopathy works in others (otherwise some fuckwad doc would have suggested surgery for me).

This is not some white heaven fairy tale...it ACTUALLY WORKS. It wasn't some quack who tried hypnotherapy on me and asked me to believe in miracles. He was a certified homeopathic doctor who diagnosed and gave the appropriate remedy that actually .

All of you who denigrate homeopathy are actually ignoring instances with people saying it works.

And if you think water isn't alive and can't remember, how about checking this out:

http://www.explorejournal.com/article/S1550-8307(06)00327-2/fulltext

Bring it on !

Bring it on !

Gotta love when the only reason people post is to invite a fight.

Aquamarinelady, I have a question for you. Actually, it's the same question I had for brad that he never answered. What did the pills do for you? I mean, specifically, what did they do for your lumbar region? I am willing to listen to anybody here who says that something worked for them (whether it actually did), but no one has yet been specific as to the effects of their homeopathic treatments. As for your post over on the other thread (with the video clip), it's not "science," it's just science. FDA-approved double blind studies are preferable because they isolate the placebo effect and are specific (there's that word again) about what the drugs do, don't do, and their side effects. "It actually works" is not a sufficient explanation.

To all of you looking for that homemade cough syrup recipe, apparently I lost it in the Great Hard Drive Purge of 2009. I'll be talking to my mom this week and I'll get a copy. I need it too!

Aquamarinelady -

You are a sucker.

Water is not alive. It cannot "remember". Fifteen minutes of basic chemistry or physics would disabuse you of this notion of your instantly.

But if you insist upon continuing your little game, I'll remind you that the water you drink today was dinosaur piss a billion years ago.

Aquamarinelady - the article you linked does not address the notion that water has "memory". It addresses the possibility of psychic phenomena. The reason this does not address the possibility of water "memory" is because, IF there was any modification caused by the psychic linking of those persons to the water, then the link would be carried on in the subconscious and would be present to modify the behavior when it was frozen.

This is not to say that a study using such non-quantifiable factors as "how beautiful" the ice crystals looked is particularly valid, but the property that was supposedly being tested for really wasn't.

Let me postulate a test that would be valid for water memory: Find a substance used in Homeopathy which alters the formation of ice crystals. Take a container of water from which to prepare two sets of homeopathic dilutions and perform two preparations leading to approximately four containers each. In one preparation, add the substance for the dilution, and in the other, do not add anything, but perform the steps otherwise as normal. Have the random selection and freezing done in similar fashion to the experiment in the article, but record all of it in high-resolution video, then have a computer identify differences in the patterns of crystal formation, especially looking for whatever changes the substance is supposed to cause. If the computer identifies the correct preparations as being from the homeopathic substance, then you can make a claim of validity.

But Wayne, those computers are programmed by people who don't believe, so they won't find anything.

Really, the examination could be done with people, too, if it is a proper double-blind experiment, as long as they have an objectively quantifiable property to look for, as opposed to the extremely fungible "attractiveness" of the ice crystals.

Having been a pharmacist for 10 years now I've come to realize that if anything in herbal or homeopathic medicine would actually prove useful in a clinical trial, a major drug manufacturer would have swept in, and sold it for 1000 times what it is worth.

Recently the recommendations by the FDA have actually suggested that cough and cold medicine for children under 4 ( their original recommendation was 6, but drug company lobbyists squashed that ) should not be used. The main reason is that parents were not smart enough to dose their children correctly. I could tell you all the horror stories over the years where I have seen a seemingly intelligent adult overdose their child by failing to read the box. Be safe, and just ask your pharmacist. We don't bite.

I know it was you, frito. You broke my heart.

Sorry. Anyway, you are very wise, frito. They print directions right on the box that say "For children under [age], give..." How hard is that? And you are right about the drug manufacturers. They have taken herbal remedies and learned how to stabilize and mass-produce them, thus making billions off of aspirin. If there were money to be made selling homeopathy as legitimate medicine, we'd be seeing it on the Walgreen's shelf.

We don't bite.

Ain't what I heard.

Doctors for whatever reason are on a kick not to prescribe cough medicine to children.
I have heard babies with horrible coughs and wonder what the medical trend is behind that.

Is it really a conspiracy theory or the truth?