Bad Science Watch to Health Canada: De-register Homeopathic

[really?]

Today the new Canadian science advocacy group Bad Science Watch announced plans to convince Health Canada to de-register homeopathic health products that are offered as unproven replacements for childhood vaccinations. This project will combat the anti-vaccine camps within homeopathy that offer these so-called “nosodes”; the sale of which directly contradicts Health Canada’s own efforts to promote childhood vaccinations.

Nosodes are ultra-dilute homeopathic remedies prepared using diseased tissue, such as blood, pus, and saliva, ( my emphasis) that are based on the unsupportable “like-cures-like” hypothesis where someone is given a very low dose of the offending substance to then supposedly cure or prevent the disease in question.

Homeopaths in Canada are offering these nosodes for a variety of childhood diseases, like pertussis, or whooping cough, a deadly disease that is currently afflicting more Canadian children, mostly infants, than it has in the past 50 years. The anti-vaccine messages spread by homeopaths have caused parents to needlessly question the usefulness and safety of vaccines and as a result the level of vaccination in Canadian communities has dropped to as low as 62%. A level of 80% or higher is needed to have proper protection from pertussis in the community.

“The un-scientific approach of homeopaths is a real threat to parents who just want their child to be healthy and safe,” said Jamie Williams, the Executive Director of Bad Science Watch, “and Health Canada, through their approval of these products, is complicit in this message. We will show that the policy of approving nosodes is working against the best interest of public health and we demand that Health Canada review these products and have them pulled from the shelves.”

Even a cursory search of the Natural Health Products Directorate, the agency that oversees the approval of non-orthodox alternative medicine products, brings up remedies purporting to prevent or treat such diseases as measles, polio, and mumps, three diseases that can be life-threatening in children and that vaccines have been effectively suppressing for decades.

“These nosodes may not directly injure a child, as they are so dilute as to contain none of the original substance,“ said Michael Kruse, chair of the board of Bad Science Watch, “but they can give a very false sense of security. The basic tenets of homeopathy contradict basic chemistry and physics and there is no good evidence for its use in the prevention or treatment of disease.”

To get involved in the promotion of good science and help stop the spread of the anti-vaccine message, please contact info@badsciencewatch.ca.

[NinjaPuppy]

Interesting article. Not to open up yet another topic of "Homeopathic Meds = good or evil, I'd like to add food for thought.

IMO, regardless of personal opinion for or against, what I object to with homeopathic replacements for infant vaccines is the fact that as an adult, we have the right to accept or reject responsibility for whatever course of treatment we decided. What I find unfortunate here is that IF either of these things have negative outcomes, it's the infants who become the unfortunate victims.

[Arouet]

Homeopathic treatments aren't likely do do direct harm having no active ingredients. As to the other - as parents, we have a duty to make decisions for our infants.

[NinjaPuppy]