I read somewhere that homeopathy gets ONE thing right: giving individual patients their undivided attention and easing their mental distress. Doctors could learn from that.
Personally I go to a therapist for that without having to spend extra money on buying overprized aqueous solutions afterwards, but sure, I wouldn't mind it if my GP gave me that degree of attention too.
I don't know if doctors could actually adopt that. They probably have way to much patients and other kinds of tasks. That wouldn't be something the doctors need to learn, you would need to change how the medical system works.
I think this is what Caelan was getting at when they said "destroy capitalism" as a means to fix the problem here. One major reasons doctors don't give their patients the amount of attention and holistic consideration other practitioners are able to is that they are overworked.
@@caelanconrad Imagine how many more doctors there could be if more people could afford the education. And maybe if there were more doctors, doctors wouldn't be so burnt out, too.
@@caelanconrad "if I had a nickel for every time I was misgendered by a carnival person, I'd have two nickels. Which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice"
I’m so glad a leftist youtuber is talking about alternative medicine with nuance and without false balance. I feel like a lot of us threw the baby out with the bathwater when it comes to skepticism. That’s understandable with how awful the movement turned out to be in the 2010s, but as anti-capitalists we need to be critical of quacks who take advantage of vulnerable people.
I don't know, it that the case? My personal experience is that most left-wing people are actually very anti-pseudoscience in most cases, some more liberal hippies aside. I'm pretty sure the probability to meet some crazy anti-modern medicine guy who thinks Corona is a bioweapon is way higher in right-libertarian and conservative spaces and less high in leftist places. A lot of the science denying thinks tanks are right-libertarian and highly anti-communist in their worldview after all, you know, Heartland Institute, Cato Institute, Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow ect. .
The alternative to medicine is called death, and you don't have to pay someone to get it. Seriously though, there is only medicine that works (medicine) and everything that doesn't work. It would be super cool if you could eat grass and cure cancer but it turns out that actually you can't do that.
My ex used homeopathy the entire 20 years we were together, but most of what she tried was even worse, so I mostly ignored it. In the years leading up to 2016 she started reading alternative health conspiracy theorists, then after 2016 she embraced white nationalism. There are a lot of surprising links between alt-right nastiness and new age/alt health & spirituality, as I learned the hard way. If you think the medical field is corrupt but can't even conceive that capitalism might be a problem, you'll need to identify a different culprit, and there are plenty of options available in far right/conspiracy worlds.
We're seeing that more and more today. Thee have been Nazis marching with woo-woo mothers and transphobes in various protest rallies, especially about anti-lockdown, anti-mask and anti 5-G for some reason.
Big yep. My mom (who is a medical professional, though luckily one who does not work with medication) is both far-right and into this kind of thing. I couldn't use anti-bacterial ointment because it "trapped in bacteria" and she had some kind of salve she liked. I held onto that belief in particular until I got a nasty infection after falling off a bike. Kept using isopropyl alcohol bc of my fear of anti-bacterial oitment until it hurt to walk on that knee. Finally put Neosporin on it and it was considerably better by that night. The far right and pseudoscience are well acquainted :)
Not to mention homeopathy's almost direct ties to anti-vaxx sentiments and "curing autism"...speaking as an autistic teen who's been taken to numerous doctors and homeopaths throughout my life as an effort to "cure" me. All of the regular doctors were appalled. On the other hand, not once did any of the homeopaths say that autism isn't curable or that my mother was setting unrealistic expectations. They just sold her medicine over and over again that clearly didn't work over and over again. My mom is now going through the process of becoming a "licensed homeopath" to teach other parents how to "cure" their autistic kids (and encourages them to do it as early in the child's life as possible so that they can't develop autonomy and refuse to take it) despite her lack of success in "curing" her own child's autism. And yes, my mother believes Michelle Obama is male, Big Pharma only wants our money and kills people to get it, COVID-19 was a genetically modified hoax to kill the elderly with ventilators (?), new strands of COVID are specifically targeting the unvaccinated (and not that vaccines, y'know, help), and Joe Biden is a Satanist trying to indoctrinate us all into the LGBTQ agenda to destroy Christian values (and of course that Trump won in 2020). She's as far right/conspiracy as they come and I've never met a homeopath who disagreed with her on pretty much any of this (and I've met a LOT of homeopaths through her trying to cure my autism).
PLEASE rip into essential oils! People use what's basically perfume for everything from baking to treating life threatening medical shit and it's awful. Also look into Kellogg, yes the cereal guy, he had some wild ideas about yogurt...
@@William-Morey-Baker and some of them CAN relieve stress or help with headaches but they'll NEVER cure anything just make the room smell nice and feel calmer.
It's interesting that the Indian government medical website mentions Ghandi, I seem to remember reading that he literally let his wife die by refusing western medicine, but a while later when he was ill, suddenly western medicine was ok
Thank you for the HIV education. I work in HIV and almost no one seems to know that someone living with HIV who is undetectable cannot transmit the virus
So for a few months I was taking this homeopathic nasal spray called Zicam for my chronic stuffy nose. It worked fine enough, presumably because shooting saline water up your nose will clear your sinuses for a short while anyway. It was forty dollars for a tiny bottle and I had no idea it was homeopathic. I was buying it from a drug store and just assumed the drug they had listed on the back of the box was actually in my medicine. I was very annoyed when I noticed the tiny print listing it as homeopathic and that I could get actual medicine for fourth of the price. As for suggestions for psuedoscience practices, I think fad diets could be an interesting one, like the cabbage diet or that one juice diet that was like apple cider vinegar and tumeric.
@Masen S They used to have these commercials about their first product that claimed to "cut colds in half!" They were forced to stop making those claims because obviously an over the counter medication can't do anything to a virus. Especially if it's just water. But since this was so long ago and the nasal spray was a different product, I thought it was a different company, lol.
Zicam used to have Zinc in their nasal spray, but they had to change the formulation because they got sued for causing anosmia. The oral products still have Zinc, so not *technically* homeopathic. Not effective either, tho.
So, I've had clinical depression for about as long as I've been able to make memories, and it''s... rough. I've been on near enough every medication and done every therapy and it barely helps. While I'm intellectually a big supporter of evidence based medicine, I don't think a lot of generally healthy people really get what it's like to go to the proper, well-qualified doctor and just keep on being sick, or even just what it's like to exist in a permanent state of incapacity. I really value how empathetic your work always is and that these videos are squarely on the side of the sick people being exploited here.
I've just done a round of TMS and I'm kind of boggled that it seems to be working. I'm on four meds right now and couldn't reliably run the dishwasher. I was actually startled when my scores on those silly measures went from 3 and 4 down the line to 0 and 1 (with the exception of known medication side effects). I've tried so many things and so many drugs and it's been over 20 years, I don't even know what it's like to not have a depressed mood or perspective, but I have some executive functioning again and coping techniques are suddenly working. I figure, if a treatment had no possible side effects, it has no possible primary effects either.
Depression can sometimes take years or even decades to get to a place where you can manage it, because it's not your average sickness, it doesn't just go away once you treat it, it can be caused by your environment, relationships, it can be hereditary, if you don't process trauma correctly that can turn into depression, capitalism is probably one of the top causes of depression, so it takes a lot of resilience to get through it, you have to learn to adjust to a world that basically constantly flings opportunities to develop depression at you and that's not easy, but we can do it, there's so much research and studies on managing depression, there has to be something that works for each person who suffers from it.
They're having some promising studies with Psilocybin for those that don't find relief with antidepressants, while I wouldn't recommend it yet, as it honestly seems too good to be true, I'd keep an eye on those studies and see if they can repeat the results reliably or if you're into medical experimentation, find a clinical trial to join. I'm personally waiting for the studies to get to pain syndromes since that's my issue.
100% on this for chronic mental or physical health issues. At a certain point when the medical system consistently fails you as you struggle to cope with debilitating symptoms, you are kinda forced to basically DIY your healthcare. And from that place of desperation and mistrust it's very very easy to get caught in quackery.
a note on the CVS thing: my local cvs actually has their homeopathic "isle" along the bottom of the counter in front of the actual over the counter pharmacy section of the store, which is even more predatory to say "we know you cant afford actual prescriptions if you have a shitty copay or no insurance, so here look at this instead". It also has a very high counter making the pharmacy feel more detached and harder to communicate with, making it more appealing to just buy something off the shelf rather than discuss things with a pharmacist (but I will say I haven't noticed any pharmacist actually recommending those products, but the architecture and store planning is suspicious to say the least)
@@caelanconrad Yeah, it's pretty typical for American pharmacies in general. They really push these unregulated substances in ways that are not always obvious. And they often cost more than actual prescription medications they supposedly replace. "Alternative medicine" (homeopathy, naturopathy, etc.) is a multi-billion-dollar-a-year industry.
I will state as a pharmacist when someone asks me about homeopathic medicine, i always explain that there is no evidence that it works, and i wouldn't recommend it.
But the effect gets stronger as the concentration of active ingredient goes down! It’s kind of remarkable how many people just accept homeopathy as being an equally valid treatment for disease. My partner didn’t know what it even was, and couldn’t believe it’s legal when I explained the “theory” to him.
I was just talking to my partner about homeopathy vs. naturopathy last night! I called a former friend a 'woo-woo' person, meaning homeopath, and he thought I was talking negatively about typically fem, anime folks, 'uwu,' people! (NO! NEVER!) I'm sending him this right right now. Thank you!
As an Indian I can confirm the popularity of homeopathic medicine, my uncle, who is a medical professional, genuinely believes that my family's longevity can be owed to homeopathy, the level of propoganda in India is fucked
@@nohorasims656 I said unbiased, I need something reputable that doesn't have a clear bias. That's like if someone came up to me saying that disinfectant cured cancer and I asked for the source and they linked me the national society of bleach drinkers.
Bella Donna can also be hallucinogenic (if you don’t die) My father is a homeopath and anti-vax since like forever. It’s truly sickening that he let me suffer and actively blocked me from getting any other treatments when I got older. I think this should be considered child abuse. Another thing that is quite twisted: if it doesn’t work for you it’s somehow spun back on you. You didn’t do it right, didn’t eat right, you don’t have the right mindset etc. I think this is super toxic since it makes feel sick people like their disease is somehow their fault.
oh yeah tripping on belladonna can really fuck you up apparently. afaik its one of those drugs where the psychoactive effects are basically just a side effect of being poisoned. on the other hand tomatoes are also in the belladonna/nightshade family, which i find really funny.
I used to work at a group home for adults with developmental disorders and other assorted brain damage and one of my clients was totally in her sister's care. Her sister was an avid anti-vaxxer who believed whole-heartedly in homeopathy, and would not allow my client to get vaccinated against anything, and had her take a slew of very expensive homeopathic remedies (as well as fad diets, when my client was already as thin as a rail)
As a child/guinea pig of a chiropractor, I did have to pause a couple times. I love what you did here, very efficient and pointed way of handling these conmen. Now, I’d like to see you swing at cross-fit. I’m pretty sure it’s a cult. It has that familiar stank of a cult, which I grew up immersed in (Homeopathic-chiropractic-AmericanBishopsCatholic-FirstGenerationWhiteness).
I'm very unfamiliar with chiropractic, I assumed it was legit just like ostheopathy is :/ I'm sorry for what you had to experience as a child. I've never heard of cross-fit before either! (isn't that a sports?)
@@morphogenetic_ its legit the same way massage therapy is legit and has benefits, but chiropractors arent doctors (which some claim to be) and while not all of them are like this there are a lot of chiropractors with very strange (and kinda spiritual/religious) pseudoscience beliefs about what theyre doing where they try to sell chiropractic adjustment as a treatment for anything and everything, like cancer for example. its also just kinda dangerous and risky having someone yank around your bones esp when it comes to neck adjustments, which has unfortunately resulted in injury and even death before. if theres something safer that can offer you the same benefits its better to do that instead
@@morphogenetic_ THere's two types of chiropracty and most people don't make a distinction but one is pretty woo and the other is just 'let me make sure your body is in alignment so you don't get neck pain from your back pain, back pain from your hip pain and hip pain from your foot pain because you're not wearing good shoes or holding good posture. My chiropractor fucking saved my life. How? By rejecting my money and demanding my NHS drs take my EDS seriously, which he was the first to diagnosed and forced them to do it (which they did 3 times to fully believe I had it). Not only was he scientifically led, he listened to me, spotted my main physical condition, rejected financial gain and sent me back to the NHS, which pushed forward my medical care and began undoing years of gaslighting and medical neglect. Ther'es no way I can see the whole field as woo and money grubbing with that experience. But I've spoken to some people with some very obviously non-scientific chiro's who seem to follow a different brand of 'science'.
Is there any treatment for EDS? My physical therapist told me that he thinks I have it and I’m having a hard time staying hopeful that anything will get better because I thought physical therapy would be the answer
@@qwandary _"...just 'let me make sure your body is in alignment'..."_ That's woo and complete nonsense and damaging and potentially deadly too. The only difference is that the one you're excusing is even more deadly than the one you consider woo. But hey, I don't have to live with your body so if paralysis and death are your thing, go for it.
@@caelanconrad oh yes. My regular vet was out and this guy was filling in. Since I trust my regular vet I thought he would have "vetted" this guy (snort). So I followed his treatment plan, getting homeopathic pills from the human pharmacy, grinding them up, and feeding them to my cat. When Tiny took a turn for the worse, I took her to the 24 hour emergency vet and they were baffled and got her on antibiotics right away. I complained to my regular vet and never saw that guy again, so... I bet he didn't last long after that.
I'm actually very worried for the dog of my mother. She had a heat stroke last summer and needed medical treatment and my mother actually went to vet and everything was fine. But she told me some time ago that she bought homeopathic medicine for the next time, so she doesn't need to go to the vet. I debated her for like two hours, but she is quite good in just ignoring everything and then changing the topic to something completly different. Sometimes I think there is actually something wrong with her, like the way she sometimes just closes and suddenly starts talking about the neighbours nice flowers seems nearly pathological.
My former veterinary clinic had all doctors prescribing homeopathic "oils" (no oil inside only alcohol) to many patients alongside real medicine. It was sick and disgisting and made me loose a bit of faith in them... I worked there for three years watching them have me make homepathic concoctions for $70 for a dog with severe anxiety or post cancer treatment nausea... Sick
There was a thread of strangest homeopathic remedies going around french twitter a few days ago, my favorite was the "Murus Berlinensis", meant to treat speration issues... it was made out of a (extremely diluted) piece of the Berlin Wall. Other honorable mentions included pills of diluted X Rays and diluted Black Hole Light (how do you even get these things into your water in the first place ???) Anyway, leaving those strange things aside as what are probably the only fun parts of homeopathy, thank you. As many others said, you got nuance in it as for the reasons people are taking these things. In my case, homeopathy is the go-to remedy in my household, and it's thanks to the work of people like you that I was able to understand what was really going on. I have a personnal beef with this thing and I see its negative effect on some people that are very dear to my heart all the time.
Whenever the I read the words "Homeopathy" and "French" I get Homeo et Juliette stuck in my head. So thanks mate, gonna be singing that stupid song all day long now X)
Another person dealing with chronic pain and illness here, It's so freaking frustrating! The thing that breaks my heart is that cannabidiol actually can be medically useful, but the vast majority of stuff being peddled as cbd supplements has only trace amounts of the compound. It's so hard to find anything actually medically effective and the lack or regulation around supplements leading to crazy fluctuations dose-to-dose makes me want to scream. I wish we could just decriminalize marijuana so we could just properly study all the cannabinoids without jumping through stupid research hoops.
@@BeastGuardian ikr? I did go go a pain clinic and try both cbd and thc (wasn’t right for me tho), but the retail place I work also sold CBD products and seeing all these un-FDA-regulated pros it’s making claims is super concerning- to my understanding, CBD products don’t even have to list an accurate dose, same as vitamins.
Making fun of new-age nutjobbery is fun however, what I really appreciated is your trademark nuance in talking about the reasons why folks may turn to useless pseudoscience with kindness and understanding. It’s easy to laugh at folks and harder to understand their motivation which I really appreciate you articulating. Having said that I also have to say that THIRSTY PISS QUEENS is now my new band name and you definitely deserve fries on the way home for making this brilliant video!!!
Growing up, my emotionally abusive mother threw me and my many health issues into the homeopathy ring with no care for whether I actually wanted to be taking the sugar pills. (I did not, even when I was very small, I would think that I would much rather be seeing an actual doctor. Which we never went to.) When none of it helped, year after year, I began to feel like nothing would. It's only been in recent years of me finally having the agency to seek out my own medical care (i.e., actual medicine, for once) that I've finally been able to start addressing a few of my lifelong health problems.
Glad this finally got out of machine censor hell. Also "Daddy I'm being misgendered by a carnival person again" had me in a paroxysm for a minute there. Fortunately I have lots of Quietude handy, I'm all better now 😉
Homeopathy is well-established in France it frickin sucks. It is a huge lobby and our biggest pharmaceutical companies all sell it. Lots of adverts on TV too, (two that come to mind is one for teething and another for flu-like symptoms). Regular doctors even prescribe it. The only good thing is that it stopped being reimbursed by our social security system a year ago so I hope it becomes less prevalent...
My mother is friends with many people in the homeopathy corner and some of them spend all their money on shady homeopathic practitioners and worry all day long about their health. Such a waste of your lifetime. Edit: All of them also refused to get vaccinated against COVID and some of them are now suffering from long COVID 🤦
my mom is a weird mix because she is an actual doctor and for YEARS believed fully on homeopathy, so as i kid i took what were realistically just sugar balls for my anxiety .
I hope you don't mind me saying that, but your "witchy" outfit? Super cute! Anyway. There is an old joke in Germany. How long does a cold last without meds? 7 days. How long does it last with meds? A week.
My mom actually buys into homeopathy. Luckily, she only used it on minor things like a headache or a cold but damn, it's so frustrating trying to explain to her why it's bullshit. I've explained about the placebo effect before but she still goes "but it worked when you were a child!". Yes it did. For the same reason my friend had "special anti-homesickness chocolate" for the kids at summer camp.
Fuck yeah! Let's see the traditional "skeptic community" troll farm take down pseudoscience while chugging a Jesus piss lemonade. Caelan, your uploads make my entire week.
So glad regulations came in where I live that requires homeopathic medicines to be labelled as such. It's really hard because things like Melatonin are not available here over the counter, but homeopathic melatonin is, because it doesn't have anything in it. You have to know that homeopathic medicine is just water though, it's still in the same section!
29:04 woah hold the heck up - where are homeopaths getting smallpox samples from in the first place?! (This is one of those cases where "they're just lying" is the less alarming option.)
"... so it's really just water. Honestly, Doc, I don't know why anyone would take this over real medical treatment. So, are you going to be able to sew my arm back on?" "Well, I'm gonna just recommend you lose some weight. Now get out of my office; I've got another patient waiting. Also, you do have insurance, right?" "...hmm." Yeah, it's not hard to see how people get taken in. That whole thing about India makes me really sad.
Unfortunately there was a gross side to James Randi that became more visible in his later years. He became a pretty staunch eugenicist, of the "people below a certain IQ--which is definitely real--don't deserve to live or breed" variety. He was also notoriously mum when his organization was being taken over by misogynists, transphobes and general right-wingers. I was one of those shithead online skeptics in the '10s ready to point the finger and "um actually" any homeopath I came across, and even attended the Randi's The Amazing Meeting one year, so it was, let's say, disappointing to learn more about his less publicized beliefs and to see what would happen to the skeptic community as a whole very soon thereafter. I appreciate and respect his life's work, but I guess the whole experience helped me realize an important point: Don't ever elevate anyone into any status beyond what's accountable.
I've JUST started the video, and I love that you used the James Randi trick with the homeopathy sleeping pills. May he rest in peace. I like to think he'd of approved of this video.
So in Germany, we have insurance paid by tax money. And insurers pay for homeopathy. Groups try to fight it, but since Big Homeopathy makes more money now than Big Pharma, it's hard. Getting the general public to equate homeopathy and natural remedies was an express goal by the homeopathy lobby (at least here). It's on purpose, so it's harder to criticize homeopathy. Enjoyed the video a lot, the production quality is amazing! And also that you honestly said that there are no benefits to homeopathy, loved it!
There is taxpayer funded homeopathy in Canada, too. British Columbia's publicly funded insurance program covers naturopaths, with no restriction on those naturopaths also practicing homeopathy (and there is a lot of overlap in people who use/practice both). A lot of private insurance covers naturopaths (who may practice homeopathy) as well. Meanwhile, if you have a mental illness, that is NOT covered by the government and most private plans offer abysmal coverage. Yikes.
So I’ve been living in Germany for a few years and I have had some horrible experiences with doctors trying to push pseudo medicine on me, most notably the doctor, who worked in a hospital but also had a “degree” in homeopathy who told me to go off of my psychiatric meds that I’ve taken for decades after knowing me for 10 minutes. I was also only there for a uti
@@corinaferrara1164 That's really gross, sadly not uncommon. Had a doctor pushing acupuncture because he was the one administering it. Didn't get any meds from him, either. ("Take ibuprofen")
I empathise. I remember my mother had a book relating to Autism and homeopathy, and with it having a title related to a "drug free" approach to "treating" Autism. Not going to lie, it wasn't a good book my young curious Autistic (now transmasc, enby, and Queer) ass read, looking back now.
I love the podcast "Oh No! Ross and Carrie" where they try out all kinds of snake oils and check out culty groups etc. They got a "homeopathic ayohuasca tincture" that was "basically the same as doing ayohuasca" from a place in Costa Rica that tried to sue them for reporting on it, and they'd give it out for people to try at their live shows-- very different reaction to the people trying the real thing, lol. That might be a fun place to get ideas, especially if you can talk to an indigenous person who can comment on the use and often misuse of indigenous practices in western capitalism!
Mind you, a few people at work if I talk directly to them they barely hear me but if I swear at them under my breath they hear every word, so perhaps there is something in this dilution thing...
I like that you made the distinction (didn't even know there was one) between natural medicine and homeopathy. There are herbal extract drops we get in my home town pharmacy that are basically a cocktail of different herbs and my family has been using them as a cure all for most things lighter than a fever for years. They work great for throat aches, best for stomach aches, even as light calming agent and sleep aid. I even gave them to my boyfriend that was sceptical at first and he was surprised how quickly his stomach ache went away. Then his mom tried it and same thing. Natural medicine can be really good and should be researched more, but it is only great when it is treated with medical rigor.
People wanting to use St John's wort: it can afect the effect of certain remedies (anti depressants or others!) so look it up; consult a doctor and probably won't work if you have "severe" depression.
Yeah, I looked into it and that’s why I added the “talk to your physician first and INSTEAD” line, lol. It’s super important that people don’t just try random herbs for medicinal purposes.
Antidepressants are particularly important because if you mix hypericum with them you may well be risking Serotonin Syndrome, which is something you very much Do Not Want.
comprehensive videos like this are really needed to show the nuances and complexities that go into a person choosing homeopathy. plenty of people would have just reduced it to "their Dumb" and ignored every other reason that you listed. something I never thought about was literally mistaking the medicines at the drugstore. this is such a great video May the algorithm shine a light onto it!
@@caelanconrad you're welcome Caelan, you can see how much time and love went into the video. Also you always have the most engaging and hilarious characters. Mama Marinara is still the top for me.
I was a vet tech and they used real meds and homepathy and it disgusted me. They sold alcohol tinctures and water pills and its disgusting to sell $100 bottles of nothing to patients... SICK and common as heck
My mom started giving me homeopathic treatments when I was 7 years old, plus mildly dangerous amounts of vitamin supplements, because a homeopath told her to. It's hard for me not to be mad at her for that, but on the other hand, she took me to every legit doctor under the sun before the homeopath, and none of them knew what to do with me, so this was the option she was left with. Turns out all of my symptoms (both physical and psychological) came from autism and not the pseudo-illness (pyrroluria) the homeopath was trying to treat. I got diagnosed a year ago, at age 26, and yes I'm afab. No doctor ever suggested autism and it took me literal years and several therapists before I convinced one of them to send me to an assessor. After they assessed me they were like 'yeah you're pretty obvious actually'. And like jeez yeah of course I am I was literally mute for years of my life christ. I'm honestly baffled that every single one of those doctors missed something so blatantly obvious, including those therapists that I flat out told 'I think I have autism because I looked in the DSM 5 and I have all the symptoms, here look'. In short, I still blame 'allopathy' for the existence of alternative medicine. They sück at doing their job and that's why people go looking elsewhere.
I'm half-Indian and homeopathy was responsible for my grandfather and grandmother's death. My grandfather had lung cancer, but he was fit and in his early 60's when it was detected early. His chance of survival was high. Unfortunately, he got a second opinion from an ayurvedic doctor who was really just a homeopath, wh convinced him to stop going to his real doctor in favour of sugar pills. My grandfather might still be here if it wasn't for that quack. His passing killed my wonderfully smart and supportive grandmother too. She died exactly a year after he did because she couldn't face life without him. I'll never forgive that "doctor". He robbed them of their savings, their lives, and robbed my extended family of two beloved elders. Thank you so much for informing people about this awful, murderous scam.
I fell into exactly this trap. Looking for a medicine I didn't know was prescription-only in my country, a pharmacist sold me a bottle of pills by saying "we don't have that, but we have this," and it wouldn't interact negatively with my other prescriptions. Only after a few days of nothing did I notice that it said 'homeopathic' in tiny letters on the bottle. I assumed that if they were selling it, it had to be fine, especially since it wasn't cheap. I had no idea pharmacies were allowed to sell homeopathic products!
I would like a video about free birthing (giving birth without a doctor or midwife and not seeking follow up care if complications arise). It is very dangerous for both the person giving birth and the fetus/baby.
I considered starting making my own Homeopathic Medicine, but ran into a major issue while attempting to produce a highly potent remedy - the problem was not so much that I ran out of molecules in the known universe, of course, it was a bit annoying, but the real problem was that by then the intentional stirring and shaking of the potion after dilution had become quite a nuisance!
@@literaterose6731 Oh, there is, but for me to explain it, well, as it involves a very big strainer, a hefty sized spoon, a lot of nakedness, and the need to describe some very explicit NSFW scenes using a lot of very naughty words - I would not only get banned from this channel, but from ALL of Social Media, (well, maybe not FL), for even attempting to explain it….. It’s either that, or "something else that can cause the same sensation just in a very diluted manner" - but for the life of me, I can’t think of any other cures than the "instant ban" version….
Flashbacks to my college roommate trying to sell me on a homeopathic treatment for rattlesnake bites. (I did not take her up on the offer. I carried a stick while hiking instead.) Also, the eldritch algorithm didn't show me this video until it was two days old, which has to be a crime or something because this video is EXCELLENT.
As an impressionable youth in Sedona, az I fell prey to many of these things. Luckily the worst thing I got into was just like Bach rescue remedy and some other herbal stuff, arnica and the like. I actually believed the water remembering stuff lmao it’s so embarrassing and cringe 😬 ❤️ thanks Caelan for the deconstruction
not Bach Rescue Remedy....that was recommended to me by a family friend when I was struggling with undiagnosed autism and mental health issues. Being 13 I assumed the thing in the dropper bottle had some sort of medicinal value. I was very disappointed to learn that it was in fact just mouldy grape juice. Sertraline has been much more effective I must say.
Oh my god, the dependence on homeopathy in India is WILD. I literally had homeopathic meds delivered to me from India for fibromyalgia and they haven't done shit to help... But it was "worth a try" because barely anything else has worked to help. It also is fueled by the weird elitism of doctors + doctors being overworked and being unable to provide individualised and empathetic care to patients who are likely overwhelmed and scared by their condition and the mainstream public healthcare experience.
My mom's super into this stuff. As a kid I used to love taking the sugar pills over actual medicine because. Well. The sugat pills tasted good, the medicine didn't. But as soon as I developed the ability to think critically for myself I realized there was something wrong with homeopathy. I tried telling my mom about it several times, to no avail. I'm a vetmed student now and she still thinks she knows more than me about this stuff.
I've been binge watching your videos for a day or two now and they're all absolutely fantastic, HOWEVER... Those opening credits?? Looked SO cool??? 👀✨
as someone who studies actual herbalism it stresses me out so much how prevalent people who buy into homeopathy are. often when i tell people im training to be a herbalist they're like "oh like the sugar pills in the blue tubes?" no!!! i work with actual plant material that is safe to ingest, not barely there poisons!
Great video! I like to hope that if more people understood what homeopathy actually is, they would be less likely to believe that it works. I agree that it's important to point out that homeopathy and naturopathy are different, but the way you presented that difference makes naturopathy sound a lot more legitimate than it really is. Where I live, people who practice naturopathic medicine are legally allowed to call themselves "doctors," which they absolutely are not. They do not know how to diagnose a heart attack, or deal with any other kind of medical emergency that any primary care physician would, and they are allowed to market themselves in a way that implies they're just any other family physician. Mostly they just sell people expensive supplements with very little evidence of efficacy, and give people a false sense of control over their own health. The problem with a lot of alternative/"complimentary" medicines and herbal remedies isn't that they do nothing like homeopathy, but that they are so underregulated that you can never be sure of the actual potency of the thing you're buying, and it's very easy for people to get things that have negative interactions with their other medications. You mentioned Saint John's Wort, which interacts with antidepressants, anti-anxiety meds, and birth control, among others. The reason we take aspirin tablets instead of chewing on willow bark is because scientists are able to isolate the effective compound, and control the dosage. When you're dealing directly with a plant, you can never really be sure exactly how much of that compound you're ingesting, because plants are individual organisms with unique chemical makeups.
When I was in my final year at Uni, I did my Final Major Project on the rise of anti-science within the media (Journalism student), this was at the tail end of the whole Creationism thing being really big. Homeopathy was one of my big focuses. I had to "pitch" my FMP to 2 lecturers and a bunch of my peers, and both of the lecturers got up in arms and incredibly defensive when I started talking about Homeopathy being bunk. They kept arguing that "Big Pharma" had more money to test their products, so if course Homeopathy didn't have as much evidence behind it. This is my roundabout way of saying thank you for this video and a huge thank you for mentioning both how profitable Homeopathy is and how costly it is for those that are tricked in to using it. I graduated 11 years ago, and in that time we've only seen anti-science sentiments rise within the media, society, etc, going hand in hand with things like the rise in anti-trans sentiments.
We had a class called historical perspectives of medicine back in med school and this vid reminded me of some of the things we used to delve into, super interesting stuff!
I lucked out with my chiropractor, who keeps me mobile and reduces my pain with manual therapy (slipped tendons, jammed joints, pinched nerves due to genetics and several injuries), but there are so many out there that sell horrible fake nutrition supplements - or herbs that definitely should be discussed with a pharmacist! - or even suggest that adjustments can cure cancer, prevent colds, or catching the panini. I am also one of very few patients - or even staff! - who wear a mask when I go there. SMH.
Lol my medically neglectful mother was a homeopath. I'm writing this while only 5 minutes into the video, so sorry if it was mentioned - but ya'll should see Homeopathic A+E from That Mitchell and Webb Look.
What a great video! I enjoyed all the details in the wagon and I'm glad you talked about this! Thanks for letting me voice a character with marinacity!
I’m so happy to see people in the queer community talking about this! Queer and disabled people I think (based entirely on my own anecdotal observations) can be drawn into the allure of a lot of this quackery, and I feel like most of the people I see challenging this stuff are smug cishet white dudes - and queer disabled folks generally have a long history of being condescended to and outright dismissed by smug cishet white dudes (a lot of them being their own doctors), and are understandably not too receptive to it. Thanks so much Caelan!
Of course! Yeah I think as people treated as “other” we tend to be more open to fringe stuff like this, and in this case, there’s just so much harm done. That’s the important part, right? Protecting people who are desperate for help.
Since you asked for pseudoscience, I would like to see a video about personality types (Myers Briggs, Enneagram, and even I think astrology can fit in here) and how that works. I've heard that stuff called modern phrenology
Yes! I've had multiple employers put us through Myers Briggs and waste time and goodwill by forcing colleagues to compare their results and/or spend a team building day to try to figure out how to work with different types 🤢, instead of learning to listen to and understand other people and ASK them what they want and need.
It's kinda interesing how the concept of personality types was around since at least the ancient times and the medieval age. Humorism was basically the established teaching of the medieval age. People thought there were 4 different fluids in the human body - blood, yellow bile, black bile and phlegm. Variations of this were popular everywhere on the world. And it was thought that different people would have different imbalances of those fluids and therefore had different characters and needed different nutrion plans for example. It was thought that very enthusiastic, social and active people had a lot of blood (and as an extreme it would be negative, maybe some people with ADHD were also diagnosed with this) while very reserved and inactive people were thought to have too much phlegm. Short-tempered, choleric and ambitious people were seen as having too much yellow bile while melancholic/depressed people and also people with cancer sometimes were diagnosed with too much black bile. One of the tasks of a medieval lords when organizing a feast was to make sure that people would get right kind of food. Ingredients were also classified into phlegmatic, melancholic, choleric and sanguine and people had to avoid food or their own personality type. So according to late-medieval/early modern humorism the best food for phlegmatic persons was choleric food like rice, pepper, salt, goat or garlic while the best food for choleric people was phlegmatic food like pork, fish or spinach. Melancholic people had to eat sanguine food with for example lamb, sugar and peacocks and sanguine persons had to eat melancholic food with lemons and vinegar.
not the post-roll ad being a 4-minute Tear-jerker/Feel-good/Look-at-all-these-people-being-in-pain-and/or-crying ad for Chiropracty curing "CRPS"(?) while A SOFT ACOUSTIC COVER OF RIHANNA'S "DIAMOND" PLAYS IN THE BACKGROUND
It's videos like these that give me hope that good sense and compassion have at least a snowball's chance of carrying the day. And if they don't, then at least laughing with the humor in the video is better for my mental health than either homeopathic treatments or straight up giving in to the despair (basically the same thing) are. Keep up the great research and engaging story telling. I nearly lost it at the Carol Marinara reference 🤣
i would love to hear your take on family/systemic constellations (hate 'em, wanna se 'em burn). also, i'm VERY skeptical about midfulness-based practices in general, so if you're planning on exploring anything like that i'm IN.
@@martinajohnson @Martina Johnson i have a lot of co-workers that have studied and practiced family constellations and i feel that they treat some very serious issues in a sort of victim-blamey way (like in situations of ab*se for example), and ironically never take into consideration systemic conditions like class, gender, etc. But i've never practiced them myself, so i don't have that first hand experience. Btw my mom's also very into alternative medicines/new-agey stuff lately and sometimes i worry a little :/
Why are you skeptical of mindfullness based practices? I did CBT/DBT and finally found relief after 25 years of horrible mental issues and having been put on over a dozen medications, all kinds of SSRIs, sedatives, and even anti-psychotics. Not everyone needs medication, and acting like recovery without medication doesn’t exist or is some kind of conspiracy only does a disservice to the countless people who have or who could benefit from it.
@@Enjemnsnens i didn't mean to imply that, i'm sorry. In my country (Argentina) mindfulness is not necessarily connected to cognitive therapy (which i think is great). Mindfulness here, at least in its educational psychology aspect, is used in a very corporate way and promoted by all sorts of sketchy people in places of power. I think that's the best way i can explain that, English not being my first lenguage.
Great video. We need as much skepticism from a left perspective as we can get! I would love to hear your thoughts about astrology. I have never understood it's allure and it mostly seems harmless but also there are people who take it REALLY seriously and that seems not awesome because it's not true? It's at least not true insofar as it cannot make accurate predictions or answer objective questions reliably. But I've also heard people say I'm being close-minded about what truth is because I'm talking about scientific truth and it helps people. Which I don't doubt, but also that answer doesn't impress me much because putting a lot of faith in a thing which cannot be proven can also lead to bad outcomes the same as it can lead to good outcomes. Anyway I'm a straight cis middle class white dude and astrology is really far outside of my lane. Which is where you would come in! Love your vids!
I mean if you don’t have malaria you can still take diluted quinine, but it’s actually a lot less diluted than what the homeopathy guy thought that you needed to dilute it to And you also needed to add Gin
Something that's worth noting, as someone who did pharmacy work for a few years: there is no regulating body for homeopathy like there is for traditional medicine. Any medicine can call itself "homeopathic" and as a result a lot of over the counter medicines market themselves as homeopathic when they actually aren't. They're real medicine calling themselves "homeopathic" because most people don't know what that means and just think it means, like, "natural." So you might see vitamin supplements or similar medicines that say "homeopathic" on the bottle but are actually just standard vitamins/supplements (which there are their own valid criticisms for for sure, but do have some legitimate use cases). Always be sure to check your labels thoroughly before popping 90 homeopathic pills for a bit!
This was great! I'm also really excited for the new series and the stuff you've flagged is coming down the pipeline. For some reason I never got a notification for this one though, despite being subscribed and having the bell set to "all". Bloody RUclips...
Oh my gods, I remember coming across these people when I was trying to do research for provable effects of herbal remedies....thank you so much for diving into their ridiculousness!
I've been subscribed to you for a little while and have LOVED your content ever since I found you. I'm a chronically ill lesbian so seeing you make a video that touches upon my disabled sub-community (if mostly indirectly) like this, being delivered beautifully and queerly filled my heart with joy even if the subject itself is enraging. I would say that among chronically ill people it's mostly the older the generations who get easily caught up in bullshit treatments like these. Not that it doesn't happen to younger ones, but I see it happen most often with older people, I think because the image of what physical disability can look like (Me? Having been a cripple all along without knowing? It's more likely than you think) was even more narrow in the past than now as well as there having been an even more intense association of shame and disgust in relation to being physically disabled in the past... Which is saying a lot because there's still so much shame and disgust associated with that today. That coupled with how a lot of chronic illnesses are barely being understood NOW a little bit that were dismissed for decades or longer BY THE MEDICAL ESTABLISHMENT ITSELF (which continues). Like how Multiple Sclerosis used to be diagnosed as Hysterical Paralysis. How ME/CFS is still being debated as just in "people's heads" despite the several studies reporting autoimmunity, neuroimmunity in particular, same with Fibromyalgia. How many doctors refuse to diagnose people who fit an Ehlers Danlos diagnosis (my main illness!) because it's supposed to be "rare" so even if you fit it to the detail they'll just say nah and tell you to exercise more and don't mind the subluxations you lazy depressed bitch. My mom only found out at almost 60 that she's had Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome with associated POTS and MCAS her whole life because *I* got diagnosed with it and through me she and my siblings got the diagnosis too because it's the result of a hereditary genetic mutation and they fit the criteria too. This whole video is making me think so much of my mom because for a little bit she did turn to homeopathy precisely because no one took her very real symptoms seriously. Doctors would call her a liar to her face about the symptoms she reportedor say it was "just anxiety" or "just depression". And you won't believe how many middle-aged fucking strangers see me on my rollator now, get invasive about my health when I'm trying to sell them fucking makeup, and start suggesting me bullshit alternatives, no matter how much I repeat to them that it's not curable, that it's written in my fucking DNA because I'm a literal mutant, and how shit they make me feel because I used to be fucking bed-ridden and it took me three years of intensive independent research and reaching out to my community in a whole other language online to get myself to the point I'm at. I'm sorry if I got really rambly and dumped too much on your comments. It's just that I could talk about the intersections of ableism against physically disabled people, bullshit unscientific "treatments" for chronic illnesses and the disregard and downright cruelty of the medical establishment for hours and I felt very indirectly seen by this video.
Im glad to see people making videos like this. I was raised with a lot of homeopathic medicines and uh, they didnt work. That said, growing up with that kind of influence made it hard for me to really understand and acknowledge just how ineffective and even dangerous homepathy is. Seeing everything laid out so clearly makes it easy to see the logical inconsistencies.
I'm still early in the video but when I heard the phrase "the law of minimum dose" I thought that sounded reasonable because I assumed it would mean something like 'always start with as small a dose as possible and then increase it if necessary (to minimize potential ill effects,)' not 'the less you use the more it does' *what*
Related to homeopathy: id be interested in seeing a video from you on biodynamics. Imo the conflation of organic with biodynamic agriculture is slowing down wider adoption of evidence based ecologically healthy farming practices and also making organic food needlessly that much more expensive
I support Homeopathic Egging Prince Charles (ie throwing a pan of water which I boiled eggs in over him, it even has the impact to shake up the eggy memories). ... Yeah, Prince Charles was a major force behind getting homeopathy added to the NHS.
I've been studying herbalism and i can not tell you how many times I've landed on a homeopathic blog instead of an actual herbalist blog. It really fucking sucks that homeopathy gives such a bad rap to actual, science based, natural medicine. It's frustrating. It's frustrating that most physicians are reluctant to advise or look into herbalistic treatments because of the damage homeopathy has done to the image of natural medicine.
Not to mention homeopathy's almost direct ties to anti-vaxx sentiments and "curing autism"...speaking as an autistic teen who's been taken to numerous doctors and homeopaths throughout my life as an effort to "cure" me. All of the regular doctors were appalled. On the other hand, not once did any of the homeopaths say that autism isn't curable or that my mother was setting unrealistic expectations. They just sold her medicine over and over again that clearly didn't work, over and over again. My mom is now going through the process of becoming a "licensed homeopath" to teach other parents how to "cure" their autistic kids (and encourages them to do it as early in the child's life as possible so that they can't develop autonomy and refuse to take it) despite her lack of success in "curing" her own child's autism.
![Lil Uzi Vert - Chill Bae [Official Music Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/D7F42F_JM3U/mqdefault.jpg)
Just officially quit my job, so if you were considering supporting me on Patreon before, now might be a good time! 😶💞 -- www.patreon.com/caelanconrad
congrats bestie 💓
@@outercat Thanks bff
In the deep end now, huh? We'll try to keep you afloat 🙃 🥰
@@VinceWhitacre Thank you! And yes, treading water in the deep end and hoping for the best lol
I wanna be a Basic Bud! There's ZINES!
A couple of months and I will know if it fits my new budget.
I read somewhere that homeopathy gets ONE thing right: giving individual patients their undivided attention and easing their mental distress. Doctors could learn from that.
Personally I go to a therapist for that without having to spend extra money on buying overprized aqueous solutions afterwards, but sure, I wouldn't mind it if my GP gave me that degree of attention too.
I don't know if doctors could actually adopt that. They probably have way to much patients and other kinds of tasks. That wouldn't be something the doctors need to learn, you would need to change how the medical system works.
I think this is what Caelan was getting at when they said "destroy capitalism" as a means to fix the problem here. One major reasons doctors don't give their patients the amount of attention and holistic consideration other practitioners are able to is that they are overworked.
Yeah, as well as education so there can be more people trained for this as well.
@@caelanconrad Imagine how many more doctors there could be if more people could afford the education. And maybe if there were more doctors, doctors wouldn't be so burnt out, too.
'I'm being misgendered by a carnival person again'
I nearly died.
It's the "again" that really sells it.
Weird when it happens once, but TWICE?!?
@@caelanconrad "if I had a nickel for every time I was misgendered by a carnival person, I'd have two nickels. Which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice"
I wish my dad cared if I got misgendered
@@anthonykerr6160 i sincerely hope that one day your dad can save you from rude carnival people
I’m so glad a leftist youtuber is talking about alternative medicine with nuance and without false balance. I feel like a lot of us threw the baby out with the bathwater when it comes to skepticism. That’s understandable with how awful the movement turned out to be in the 2010s, but as anti-capitalists we need to be critical of quacks who take advantage of vulnerable people.
Agreed. What’s important is making sure people aren’t hurt by these “practitioners”, not getting some good dunks in on them.
Thing is a lot of the so called "skeptics" in the 2010s were anything but. They were just right wing reactionaries appropriating the label.
I don't know, it that the case? My personal experience is that most left-wing people are actually very anti-pseudoscience in most cases, some more liberal hippies aside. I'm pretty sure the probability to meet some crazy anti-modern medicine guy who thinks Corona is a bioweapon is way higher in right-libertarian and conservative spaces and less high in leftist places. A lot of the science denying thinks tanks are right-libertarian and highly anti-communist in their worldview after all, you know, Heartland Institute, Cato Institute, Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow ect. .
The alternative to medicine is called death, and you don't have to pay someone to get it. Seriously though, there is only medicine that works (medicine) and everything that doesn't work. It would be super cool if you could eat grass and cure cancer but it turns out that actually you can't do that.
@@caelanconrad this is why I love you so much Caelan: you clearly GET it!
My ex used homeopathy the entire 20 years we were together, but most of what she tried was even worse, so I mostly ignored it. In the years leading up to 2016 she started reading alternative health conspiracy theorists, then after 2016 she embraced white nationalism.
There are a lot of surprising links between alt-right nastiness and new age/alt health & spirituality, as I learned the hard way. If you think the medical field is corrupt but can't even conceive that capitalism might be a problem, you'll need to identify a different culprit, and there are plenty of options available in far right/conspiracy worlds.
We're seeing that more and more today. Thee have been Nazis marching with woo-woo mothers and transphobes in various protest rallies, especially about anti-lockdown, anti-mask and anti 5-G for some reason.
Big yep. My mom (who is a medical professional, though luckily one who does not work with medication) is both far-right and into this kind of thing. I couldn't use anti-bacterial ointment because it "trapped in bacteria" and she had some kind of salve she liked.
I held onto that belief in particular until I got a nasty infection after falling off a bike. Kept using isopropyl alcohol bc of my fear of anti-bacterial oitment until it hurt to walk on that knee. Finally put Neosporin on it and it was considerably better by that night.
The far right and pseudoscience are well acquainted :)
Not to mention homeopathy's almost direct ties to anti-vaxx sentiments and "curing autism"...speaking as an autistic teen who's been taken to numerous doctors and homeopaths throughout my life as an effort to "cure" me. All of the regular doctors were appalled. On the other hand, not once did any of the homeopaths say that autism isn't curable or that my mother was setting unrealistic expectations. They just sold her medicine over and over again that clearly didn't work over and over again.
My mom is now going through the process of becoming a "licensed homeopath" to teach other parents how to "cure" their autistic kids (and encourages them to do it as early in the child's life as possible so that they can't develop autonomy and refuse to take it) despite her lack of success in "curing" her own child's autism.
And yes, my mother believes Michelle Obama is male, Big Pharma only wants our money and kills people to get it, COVID-19 was a genetically modified hoax to kill the elderly with ventilators (?), new strands of COVID are specifically targeting the unvaccinated (and not that vaccines, y'know, help), and Joe Biden is a Satanist trying to indoctrinate us all into the LGBTQ agenda to destroy Christian values (and of course that Trump won in 2020).
She's as far right/conspiracy as they come and I've never met a homeopath who disagreed with her on pretty much any of this (and I've met a LOT of homeopaths through her trying to cure my autism).
The Water Will Remember This
😭😭😭 big “I know what you did last summer” vibes
the water *always* remembers. Always. Maybe we can get it to tell us about what Georgie Washington was *really* drinking?
PLEASE rip into essential oils! People use what's basically perfume for everything from baking to treating life threatening medical shit and it's awful. Also look into Kellogg, yes the cereal guy, he had some wild ideas about yogurt...
Added to the list!
Or his significantly weirder older brother while you're at it....
i like essential oils because they smell good... thats it...
Did he hate yoghurt because it looked like cum-
(Or am I thinking of a different Kellogg with the premise for this joke)
@@William-Morey-Baker and some of them CAN relieve stress or help with headaches but they'll NEVER cure anything just make the room smell nice and feel calmer.
It's interesting that the Indian government medical website mentions Ghandi, I seem to remember reading that he literally let his wife die by refusing western medicine, but a while later when he was ill, suddenly western medicine was ok
Thank you for the HIV education. I work in HIV and almost no one seems to know that someone living with HIV who is undetectable cannot transmit the virus
Oh 10000% It’s so important to discuss u=u EVERY time HIV is mentioned.
How do you shrink down small enough to fit inside a virus?
@@justinwatson1510 With a magic schoolbus stupid.
@@caelanconrad absolutely
So for a few months I was taking this homeopathic nasal spray called Zicam for my chronic stuffy nose. It worked fine enough, presumably because shooting saline water up your nose will clear your sinuses for a short while anyway. It was forty dollars for a tiny bottle and I had no idea it was homeopathic. I was buying it from a drug store and just assumed the drug they had listed on the back of the box was actually in my medicine. I was very annoyed when I noticed the tiny print listing it as homeopathic and that I could get actual medicine for fourth of the price.
As for suggestions for psuedoscience practices, I think fad diets could be an interesting one, like the cabbage diet or that one juice diet that was like apple cider vinegar and tumeric.
@Masen S They used to have these commercials about their first product that claimed to "cut colds in half!" They were forced to stop making those claims because obviously an over the counter medication can't do anything to a virus. Especially if it's just water. But since this was so long ago and the nasal spray was a different product, I thought it was a different company, lol.
Fucking ZICAM???
Zicam used to have Zinc in their nasal spray, but they had to change the formulation because they got sued for causing anosmia. The oral products still have Zinc, so not *technically* homeopathic. Not effective either, tho.
So, I've had clinical depression for about as long as I've been able to make memories, and it''s... rough. I've been on near enough every medication and done every therapy and it barely helps. While I'm intellectually a big supporter of evidence based medicine, I don't think a lot of generally healthy people really get what it's like to go to the proper, well-qualified doctor and just keep on being sick, or even just what it's like to exist in a permanent state of incapacity. I really value how empathetic your work always is and that these videos are squarely on the side of the sick people being exploited here.
I've just done a round of TMS and I'm kind of boggled that it seems to be working. I'm on four meds right now and couldn't reliably run the dishwasher. I was actually startled when my scores on those silly measures went from 3 and 4 down the line to 0 and 1 (with the exception of known medication side effects). I've tried so many things and so many drugs and it's been over 20 years, I don't even know what it's like to not have a depressed mood or perspective, but I have some executive functioning again and coping techniques are suddenly working. I figure, if a treatment had no possible side effects, it has no possible primary effects either.
Depression can sometimes take years or even decades to get to a place where you can manage it, because it's not your average sickness, it doesn't just go away once you treat it, it can be caused by your environment, relationships, it can be hereditary, if you don't process trauma correctly that can turn into depression, capitalism is probably one of the top causes of depression, so it takes a lot of resilience to get through it, you have to learn to adjust to a world that basically constantly flings opportunities to develop depression at you and that's not easy, but we can do it, there's so much research and studies on managing depression, there has to be something that works for each person who suffers from it.
@@prayingmantis8148 yeah that MDD shit is a bit..... extremely horrible. good summation.
They're having some promising studies with Psilocybin for those that don't find relief with antidepressants, while I wouldn't recommend it yet, as it honestly seems too good to be true, I'd keep an eye on those studies and see if they can repeat the results reliably or if you're into medical experimentation, find a clinical trial to join. I'm personally waiting for the studies to get to pain syndromes since that's my issue.
100% on this for chronic mental or physical health issues. At a certain point when the medical system consistently fails you as you struggle to cope with debilitating symptoms, you are kinda forced to basically DIY your healthcare. And from that place of desperation and mistrust it's very very easy to get caught in quackery.
a note on the CVS thing: my local cvs actually has their homeopathic "isle" along the bottom of the counter in front of the actual over the counter pharmacy section of the store, which is even more predatory to say "we know you cant afford actual prescriptions if you have a shitty copay or no insurance, so here look at this instead". It also has a very high counter making the pharmacy feel more detached and harder to communicate with, making it more appealing to just buy something off the shelf rather than discuss things with a pharmacist (but I will say I haven't noticed any pharmacist actually recommending those products, but the architecture and store planning is suspicious to say the least)
That’s so predatory. I hate it.
@@caelanconrad Yeah, it's pretty typical for American pharmacies in general. They really push these unregulated substances in ways that are not always obvious. And they often cost more than actual prescription medications they supposedly replace. "Alternative medicine" (homeopathy, naturopathy, etc.) is a multi-billion-dollar-a-year industry.
I will state as a pharmacist when someone asks me about homeopathic medicine, i always explain that there is no evidence that it works, and i wouldn't recommend it.
Is it possible they have them there so they can see when people puck them up and perhaps try to warn them about the content (or lack thereof)?
YES!!! Skeptic content that's also anti-capitalist! Inject it directly into my veins! (Without diluting it first, of course.)
But the effect gets stronger as the concentration of active ingredient goes down!
It’s kind of remarkable how many people just accept homeopathy as being an equally valid treatment for disease. My partner didn’t know what it even was, and couldn’t believe it’s legal when I explained the “theory” to him.
I was just talking to my partner about homeopathy vs. naturopathy last night! I called a former friend a 'woo-woo' person, meaning homeopath, and he thought I was talking negatively about typically fem, anime folks, 'uwu,' people! (NO! NEVER!) I'm sending him this right right now. Thank you!
It’s like the ambiguity of “MLM”. Pyramid schemes, maoists, or queer men?
As an Indian I can confirm the popularity of homeopathic medicine, my uncle, who is a medical professional, genuinely believes that my family's longevity can be owed to homeopathy, the level of propoganda in India is fucked
Please do some research, it could save your life.
@@nohorasims656 damn I'd love literally just a shred of evidence for that. Like a single unbiased study
@@nohorasims656 I said unbiased, I need something reputable that doesn't have a clear bias. That's like if someone came up to me saying that disinfectant cured cancer and I asked for the source and they linked me the national society of bleach drinkers.
The FDA doesn’t regulate it
Bella Donna can also be hallucinogenic (if you don’t die)
My father is a homeopath and anti-vax since like forever. It’s truly sickening that he let me suffer and actively blocked me from getting any other treatments when I got older. I think this should be considered child abuse.
Another thing that is quite twisted: if it doesn’t work for you it’s somehow spun back on you. You didn’t do it right, didn’t eat right, you don’t have the right mindset etc.
I think this is super toxic since it makes feel sick people like their disease is somehow their fault.
oh yeah tripping on belladonna can really fuck you up apparently. afaik its one of those drugs where the psychoactive effects are basically just a side effect of being poisoned.
on the other hand tomatoes are also in the belladonna/nightshade family, which i find really funny.
sacrificing a drop of alcohol-diluted onion molecule for the almighty algorithm, your videos are always a banger
I used to work at a group home for adults with developmental disorders and other assorted brain damage and one of my clients was totally in her sister's care. Her sister was an avid anti-vaxxer who believed whole-heartedly in homeopathy, and would not allow my client to get vaccinated against anything, and had her take a slew of very expensive homeopathic remedies (as well as fad diets, when my client was already as thin as a rail)
As a child/guinea pig of a chiropractor, I did have to pause a couple times. I love what you did here, very efficient and pointed way of handling these conmen. Now, I’d like to see you swing at cross-fit. I’m pretty sure it’s a cult. It has that familiar stank of a cult, which I grew up immersed in (Homeopathic-chiropractic-AmericanBishopsCatholic-FirstGenerationWhiteness).
I'm very unfamiliar with chiropractic, I assumed it was legit just like ostheopathy is :/ I'm sorry for what you had to experience as a child. I've never heard of cross-fit before either! (isn't that a sports?)
@@morphogenetic_ its legit the same way massage therapy is legit and has benefits, but chiropractors arent doctors (which some claim to be) and while not all of them are like this there are a lot of chiropractors with very strange (and kinda spiritual/religious) pseudoscience beliefs about what theyre doing where they try to sell chiropractic adjustment as a treatment for anything and everything, like cancer for example. its also just kinda dangerous and risky having someone yank around your bones esp when it comes to neck adjustments, which has unfortunately resulted in injury and even death before. if theres something safer that can offer you the same benefits its better to do that instead
@@morphogenetic_ THere's two types of chiropracty and most people don't make a distinction but one is pretty woo and the other is just 'let me make sure your body is in alignment so you don't get neck pain from your back pain, back pain from your hip pain and hip pain from your foot pain because you're not wearing good shoes or holding good posture.
My chiropractor fucking saved my life. How? By rejecting my money and demanding my NHS drs take my EDS seriously, which he was the first to diagnosed and forced them to do it (which they did 3 times to fully believe I had it).
Not only was he scientifically led, he listened to me, spotted my main physical condition, rejected financial gain and sent me back to the NHS, which pushed forward my medical care and began undoing years of gaslighting and medical neglect.
Ther'es no way I can see the whole field as woo and money grubbing with that experience.
But I've spoken to some people with some very obviously non-scientific chiro's who seem to follow a different brand of 'science'.
Is there any treatment for EDS? My physical therapist told me that he thinks I have it and I’m having a hard time staying hopeful that anything will get better because I thought physical therapy would be the answer
@@qwandary _"...just 'let me make sure your body is in alignment'..."_
That's woo and complete nonsense and damaging and potentially deadly too. The only difference is that the one you're excusing is even more deadly than the one you consider woo. But hey, I don't have to live with your body so if paralysis and death are your thing, go for it.
I met a homeopathic vet once. Nearly killed my cat, who needed antibiotics. Never again.
Omfg NO
@@caelanconrad oh yes. My regular vet was out and this guy was filling in. Since I trust my regular vet I thought he would have "vetted" this guy (snort). So I followed his treatment plan, getting homeopathic pills from the human pharmacy, grinding them up, and feeding them to my cat. When Tiny took a turn for the worse, I took her to the 24 hour emergency vet and they were baffled and got her on antibiotics right away. I complained to my regular vet and never saw that guy again, so... I bet he didn't last long after that.
Wow. I hope he was extra tired for that bullshit. I’m sorry he took advantage of you when you needed help. Awful.
I'm actually very worried for the dog of my mother. She had a heat stroke last summer and needed medical treatment and my mother actually went to vet and everything was fine. But she told me some time ago that she bought homeopathic medicine for the next time, so she doesn't need to go to the vet. I debated her for like two hours, but she is quite good in just ignoring everything and then changing the topic to something completly different. Sometimes I think there is actually something wrong with her, like the way she sometimes just closes and suddenly starts talking about the neighbours nice flowers seems nearly pathological.
My former veterinary clinic had all doctors prescribing homeopathic "oils" (no oil inside only alcohol) to many patients alongside real medicine. It was sick and disgisting and made me loose a bit of faith in them... I worked there for three years watching them have me make homepathic concoctions for $70 for a dog with severe anxiety or post cancer treatment nausea... Sick
There was a thread of strangest homeopathic remedies going around french twitter a few days ago, my favorite was the "Murus Berlinensis", meant to treat speration issues... it was made out of a (extremely diluted) piece of the Berlin Wall.
Other honorable mentions included pills of diluted X Rays and diluted Black Hole Light (how do you even get these things into your water in the first place ???)
Anyway, leaving those strange things aside as what are probably the only fun parts of homeopathy, thank you. As many others said, you got nuance in it as for the reasons people are taking these things. In my case, homeopathy is the go-to remedy in my household, and it's thanks to the work of people like you that I was able to understand what was really going on. I have a personnal beef with this thing and I see its negative effect on some people that are very dear to my heart all the time.
Whenever the I read the words "Homeopathy" and "French" I get Homeo et Juliette stuck in my head.
So thanks mate, gonna be singing that stupid song all day long now X)
I’d eat the Berlin Wall to cure my mental illness tbh
"Ah yes this pill contains water dripped off a crucifix, it'll, *checks notes* ah, put your emotions in balance, sure
God yes, excited for this vid; as someone with chronic pain/illness I’m so sick of people telling me to try essential oils, cbd, yoga, etc
Another person dealing with chronic pain and illness here, It's so freaking frustrating! The thing that breaks my heart is that cannabidiol actually can be medically useful, but the vast majority of stuff being peddled as cbd supplements has only trace amounts of the compound. It's so hard to find anything actually medically effective and the lack or regulation around supplements leading to crazy fluctuations dose-to-dose makes me want to scream. I wish we could just decriminalize marijuana so we could just properly study all the cannabinoids without jumping through stupid research hoops.
@@BeastGuardian ikr? I did go go a pain clinic and try both cbd and thc (wasn’t right for me tho), but the retail place I work also sold CBD products and seeing all these un-FDA-regulated pros it’s making claims is super concerning- to my understanding, CBD products don’t even have to list an accurate dose, same as vitamins.
Making fun of new-age nutjobbery is fun however, what I really appreciated
is your trademark nuance in talking about the reasons why folks may turn to useless pseudoscience with kindness and understanding.
It’s easy to laugh at folks and harder to understand their motivation which I really appreciate you articulating.
Having said that I also have to say that THIRSTY PISS QUEENS is now my new band name and you definitely deserve fries on the way home for making this brilliant video!!!
Thank you! I never want to make fun of people looking for help when they’re sick. 🥺
@@caelanconrad 💖👍
I swear, ive known people who suffer with asthma but wont go to the doctor because they're doing "Homeopathy" 😭 but its actually sad
Omg. I have asthma and when it's uncontrolled it's so painful and scary. I hate the homeopathic industry.
this is my dad but it's not asthma, it's like depression and chronic pain, and not homeopathy but a ton of other "solutions"
Growing up, my emotionally abusive mother threw me and my many health issues into the homeopathy ring with no care for whether I actually wanted to be taking the sugar pills. (I did not, even when I was very small, I would think that I would much rather be seeing an actual doctor. Which we never went to.)
When none of it helped, year after year, I began to feel like nothing would. It's only been in recent years of me finally having the agency to seek out my own medical care (i.e., actual medicine, for once) that I've finally been able to start addressing a few of my lifelong health problems.
Glad this finally got out of machine censor hell.
Also "Daddy I'm being misgendered by a carnival person again" had me in a paroxysm for a minute there. Fortunately I have lots of Quietude handy, I'm all better now 😉
Homeopathy is well-established in France it frickin sucks. It is a huge lobby and our biggest pharmaceutical companies all sell it.
Lots of adverts on TV too, (two that come to mind is one for teething and another for flu-like symptoms). Regular doctors even prescribe it.
The only good thing is that it stopped being reimbursed by our social security system a year ago so I hope it becomes less prevalent...
what the shit...
My mother is friends with many people in the homeopathy corner and some of them spend all their money on shady homeopathic practitioners and worry all day long about their health. Such a waste of your lifetime.
Edit: All of them also refused to get vaccinated against COVID and some of them are now suffering from long COVID 🤦
my mom is a weird mix because she is an actual doctor and for YEARS believed fully on homeopathy, so as i kid i took what were realistically just sugar balls for my anxiety .
many doctors and veterinarians care little for evidence and background of the treatments they give
I hope you don't mind me saying that, but your "witchy" outfit? Super cute!
Anyway. There is an old joke in Germany. How long does a cold last without meds? 7 days. How long does it last with meds? A week.
Awww thank you! And that’s hilarious!!!! I love that saying
My mom actually buys into homeopathy. Luckily, she only used it on minor things like a headache or a cold but damn, it's so frustrating trying to explain to her why it's bullshit. I've explained about the placebo effect before but she still goes "but it worked when you were a child!". Yes it did. For the same reason my friend had "special anti-homesickness chocolate" for the kids at summer camp.
Fuck yeah! Let's see the traditional "skeptic community" troll farm take down pseudoscience while chugging a Jesus piss lemonade. Caelan, your uploads make my entire week.
So glad regulations came in where I live that requires homeopathic medicines to be labelled as such. It's really hard because things like Melatonin are not available here over the counter, but homeopathic melatonin is, because it doesn't have anything in it. You have to know that homeopathic medicine is just water though, it's still in the same section!
29:04 woah hold the heck up - where are homeopaths getting smallpox samples from in the first place?! (This is one of those cases where "they're just lying" is the less alarming option.)
"... so it's really just water. Honestly, Doc, I don't know why anyone would take this over real medical treatment. So, are you going to be able to sew my arm back on?"
"Well, I'm gonna just recommend you lose some weight. Now get out of my office; I've got another patient waiting. Also, you do have insurance, right?"
"...hmm."
Yeah, it's not hard to see how people get taken in. That whole thing about India makes me really sad.
When it comes to the industry of medicine, this is one of the most accurate and comprehensive comments I've seen in my life! Thanks for sharing!
RIP James Randi. He was the first person I saw overdose on homeopathic sleeping pills.
Unfortunately there was a gross side to James Randi that became more visible in his later years. He became a pretty staunch eugenicist, of the "people below a certain IQ--which is definitely real--don't deserve to live or breed" variety. He was also notoriously mum when his organization was being taken over by misogynists, transphobes and general right-wingers.
I was one of those shithead online skeptics in the '10s ready to point the finger and "um actually" any homeopath I came across, and even attended the Randi's The Amazing Meeting one year, so it was, let's say, disappointing to learn more about his less publicized beliefs and to see what would happen to the skeptic community as a whole very soon thereafter. I appreciate and respect his life's work, but I guess the whole experience helped me realize an important point: Don't ever elevate anyone into any status beyond what's accountable.
I've JUST started the video, and I love that you used the James Randi trick with the homeopathy sleeping pills. May he rest in peace. I like to think he'd of approved of this video.
Thank you! That means a lot to me!
James Randi wasn't a good person.
So in Germany, we have insurance paid by tax money. And insurers pay for homeopathy. Groups try to fight it, but since Big Homeopathy makes more money now than Big Pharma, it's hard.
Getting the general public to equate homeopathy and natural remedies was an express goal by the homeopathy lobby (at least here). It's on purpose, so it's harder to criticize homeopathy.
Enjoyed the video a lot, the production quality is amazing! And also that you honestly said that there are no benefits to homeopathy, loved it!
There is taxpayer funded homeopathy in Canada, too. British Columbia's publicly funded insurance program covers naturopaths, with no restriction on those naturopaths also practicing homeopathy (and there is a lot of overlap in people who use/practice both). A lot of private insurance covers naturopaths (who may practice homeopathy) as well. Meanwhile, if you have a mental illness, that is NOT covered by the government and most private plans offer abysmal coverage. Yikes.
So I’ve been living in Germany for a few years and I have had some horrible experiences with doctors trying to push pseudo medicine on me, most notably the doctor, who worked in a hospital but also had a “degree” in homeopathy who told me to go off of my psychiatric meds that I’ve taken for decades after knowing me for 10 minutes. I was also only there for a uti
@@corinaferrara1164 That's really gross, sadly not uncommon. Had a doctor pushing acupuncture because he was the one administering it. Didn't get any meds from him, either. ("Take ibuprofen")
I remember my parents tried to cure my adhd and queerness with homeopathy 🫠 I'm now 30, extra queer and see real professionals.
🥳🌈💖
Oh lawd we need to administer the heteroils!
-your parents, probably
I empathise.
I remember my mother had a book relating to Autism and homeopathy, and with it having a title related to a "drug free" approach to "treating" Autism.
Not going to lie, it wasn't a good book my young curious Autistic (now transmasc, enby, and Queer) ass read, looking back now.
I love the podcast "Oh No! Ross and Carrie" where they try out all kinds of snake oils and check out culty groups etc. They got a "homeopathic ayohuasca tincture" that was "basically the same as doing ayohuasca" from a place in Costa Rica that tried to sue them for reporting on it, and they'd give it out for people to try at their live shows-- very different reaction to the people trying the real thing, lol. That might be a fun place to get ideas, especially if you can talk to an indigenous person who can comment on the use and often misuse of indigenous practices in western capitalism!
Yes I love ONRAC! Carrie and I are mutuals on Twitter and they’re both amazing!
Mind you, a few people at work if I talk directly to them they barely hear me but if I swear at them under my breath they hear every word, so perhaps there is something in this dilution thing...
I like that you made the distinction (didn't even know there was one) between natural medicine and homeopathy. There are herbal extract drops we get in my home town pharmacy that are basically a cocktail of different herbs and my family has been using them as a cure all for most things lighter than a fever for years. They work great for throat aches, best for stomach aches, even as light calming agent and sleep aid. I even gave them to my boyfriend that was sceptical at first and he was surprised how quickly his stomach ache went away. Then his mom tried it and same thing. Natural medicine can be really good and should be researched more, but it is only great when it is treated with medical rigor.
People wanting to use St John's wort: it can afect the effect of certain remedies (anti depressants or others!) so look it up; consult a doctor and probably won't work if you have "severe" depression.
Yeah it's got hella bad interactions with a ton of medicines!
Including most types of hormonal birth control!
Yeah, I looked into it and that’s why I added the “talk to your physician first and INSTEAD” line, lol. It’s super important that people don’t just try random herbs for medicinal purposes.
Antidepressants are particularly important because if you mix hypericum with them you may well be risking Serotonin Syndrome, which is something you very much Do Not Want.
My favorite part was the deep and extremely thorough deep dive into the benefits of homeopathy
Thank you, that was the most intense part of my research 😌💕
comprehensive videos like this are really needed to show the nuances and complexities that go into a person choosing homeopathy. plenty of people would have just reduced it to "their Dumb" and ignored every other reason that you listed. something I never thought about was literally mistaking the medicines at the drugstore. this is such a great video May the algorithm shine a light onto it!
That’s so sweet, thank you! I’m glad people were happy I spent so much time talking about WHY instead of dunking on them.
@@caelanconrad you're welcome Caelan, you can see how much time and love went into the video. Also you always have the most engaging and hilarious characters. Mama Marinara is still the top for me.
"Yas quinine!" made me howl with laughter. I love this channel.
Thank you!!! I was happy with that one tooo
My previous vet was a homeopath. It took me a couple of visits to realise, because it never occurred to me that it was a possibility.
I was a vet tech and they used real meds and homepathy and it disgusted me. They sold alcohol tinctures and water pills and its disgusting to sell $100 bottles of nothing to patients... SICK and common as heck
My mom started giving me homeopathic treatments when I was 7 years old, plus mildly dangerous amounts of vitamin supplements, because a homeopath told her to. It's hard for me not to be mad at her for that, but on the other hand, she took me to every legit doctor under the sun before the homeopath, and none of them knew what to do with me, so this was the option she was left with.
Turns out all of my symptoms (both physical and psychological) came from autism and not the pseudo-illness (pyrroluria) the homeopath was trying to treat. I got diagnosed a year ago, at age 26, and yes I'm afab. No doctor ever suggested autism and it took me literal years and several therapists before I convinced one of them to send me to an assessor.
After they assessed me they were like 'yeah you're pretty obvious actually'. And like jeez yeah of course I am I was literally mute for years of my life christ. I'm honestly baffled that every single one of those doctors missed something so blatantly obvious, including those therapists that I flat out told 'I think I have autism because I looked in the DSM 5 and I have all the symptoms, here look'.
In short, I still blame 'allopathy' for the existence of alternative medicine. They sück at doing their job and that's why people go looking elsewhere.
I'm half-Indian and homeopathy was responsible for my grandfather and grandmother's death. My grandfather had lung cancer, but he was fit and in his early 60's when it was detected early. His chance of survival was high. Unfortunately, he got a second opinion from an ayurvedic doctor who was really just a homeopath, wh convinced him to stop going to his real doctor in favour of sugar pills. My grandfather might still be here if it wasn't for that quack. His passing killed my wonderfully smart and supportive grandmother too. She died exactly a year after he did because she couldn't face life without him.
I'll never forgive that "doctor". He robbed them of their savings, their lives, and robbed my extended family of two beloved elders. Thank you so much for informing people about this awful, murderous scam.
I fell into exactly this trap. Looking for a medicine I didn't know was prescription-only in my country, a pharmacist sold me a bottle of pills by saying "we don't have that, but we have this," and it wouldn't interact negatively with my other prescriptions. Only after a few days of nothing did I notice that it said 'homeopathic' in tiny letters on the bottle. I assumed that if they were selling it, it had to be fine, especially since it wasn't cheap. I had no idea pharmacies were allowed to sell homeopathic products!
It’s so unethical, you should be able to trust that the pharmacist isn’t selling you trash.
I would like a video about free birthing (giving birth without a doctor or midwife and not seeking follow up care if complications arise). It is very dangerous for both the person giving birth and the fetus/baby.
I considered starting making my own Homeopathic Medicine, but ran into a major issue while attempting to produce a highly potent remedy - the problem was not so much that I ran out of molecules in the known universe, of course, it was a bit annoying, but the real problem was that by then the intentional stirring and shaking of the potion after dilution had become quite a nuisance!
Which makes me wonder… is there a homeopathic remedy for RSI induced by making homeopathic remedies? Talk about an ouroboros of woo! 😆
@@literaterose6731
Oh, there is, but for me to explain it, well, as it involves a very big strainer, a hefty sized spoon, a lot of nakedness, and the need to describe some very explicit NSFW scenes using a lot of very naughty words - I would not only get banned from this channel, but from ALL of Social Media, (well, maybe not FL), for even attempting to explain it…..
It’s either that, or "something else that can cause the same sensation just in a very diluted manner" - but for the life of me, I can’t think of any other cures than the "instant ban" version….
@@gorillaguerillaDK 🤣🤣 *chef’s kiss*
Flashbacks to my college roommate trying to sell me on a homeopathic treatment for rattlesnake bites.
(I did not take her up on the offer. I carried a stick while hiking instead.)
Also, the eldritch algorithm didn't show me this video until it was two days old, which has to be a crime or something because this video is EXCELLENT.
As an impressionable youth in Sedona, az I fell prey to many of these things. Luckily the worst thing I got into was just like Bach rescue remedy and some other herbal stuff, arnica and the like. I actually believed the water remembering stuff lmao it’s so embarrassing and cringe 😬 ❤️ thanks Caelan for the deconstruction
I don't think it's embarrassing, some of these people are so convincing!
@@caelanconrad so true, especially when they seem healthy overalll
Yeah, If I had heard of homeopathy from a homeopath prior to hearing about it from a doctor, I might have believed that shit too
not Bach Rescue Remedy....that was recommended to me by a family friend when I was struggling with undiagnosed autism and mental health issues. Being 13 I assumed the thing in the dropper bottle had some sort of medicinal value. I was very disappointed to learn that it was in fact just mouldy grape juice. Sertraline has been much more effective I must say.
I apparently had no idea what homeopathy is other than ineffective and probably a bad idea, glad I can run people off of it now if it comes up
I want the totality of my mortal life summarized exactly like that after I'm dead, "he's dead as a doornail and worms ate him centuries ago." Poetry 💖
Oh my god, the dependence on homeopathy in India is WILD. I literally had homeopathic meds delivered to me from India for fibromyalgia and they haven't done shit to help... But it was "worth a try" because barely anything else has worked to help. It also is fueled by the weird elitism of doctors + doctors being overworked and being unable to provide individualised and empathetic care to patients who are likely overwhelmed and scared by their condition and the mainstream public healthcare experience.
For further reasons for confusion: a lot of naturpathic "doctors" use homeopathy as a treatment.
Beautiful timing, I just ran out of episodes Maintenance Phase to binge.
It was nice watching one of your videos without getting angry and/or sad about bigotry.
Ugh I’m so glad!!!!!
My mom's super into this stuff. As a kid I used to love taking the sugar pills over actual medicine because. Well. The sugat pills tasted good, the medicine didn't. But as soon as I developed the ability to think critically for myself I realized there was something wrong with homeopathy. I tried telling my mom about it several times, to no avail. I'm a vetmed student now and she still thinks she knows more than me about this stuff.
I've been binge watching your videos for a day or two now and they're all absolutely fantastic, HOWEVER... Those opening credits?? Looked SO cool??? 👀✨
Thank you!!! The credits are my fav part lmao
as someone who studies actual herbalism it stresses me out so much how prevalent people who buy into homeopathy are. often when i tell people im training to be a herbalist they're like "oh like the sugar pills in the blue tubes?" no!!! i work with actual plant material that is safe to ingest, not barely there poisons!
Great video! I like to hope that if more people understood what homeopathy actually is, they would be less likely to believe that it works. I agree that it's important to point out that homeopathy and naturopathy are different, but the way you presented that difference makes naturopathy sound a lot more legitimate than it really is. Where I live, people who practice naturopathic medicine are legally allowed to call themselves "doctors," which they absolutely are not. They do not know how to diagnose a heart attack, or deal with any other kind of medical emergency that any primary care physician would, and they are allowed to market themselves in a way that implies they're just any other family physician. Mostly they just sell people expensive supplements with very little evidence of efficacy, and give people a false sense of control over their own health.
The problem with a lot of alternative/"complimentary" medicines and herbal remedies isn't that they do nothing like homeopathy, but that they are so underregulated that you can never be sure of the actual potency of the thing you're buying, and it's very easy for people to get things that have negative interactions with their other medications. You mentioned Saint John's Wort, which interacts with antidepressants, anti-anxiety meds, and birth control, among others. The reason we take aspirin tablets instead of chewing on willow bark is because scientists are able to isolate the effective compound, and control the dosage. When you're dealing directly with a plant, you can never really be sure exactly how much of that compound you're ingesting, because plants are individual organisms with unique chemical makeups.
When I was in my final year at Uni, I did my Final Major Project on the rise of anti-science within the media (Journalism student), this was at the tail end of the whole Creationism thing being really big.
Homeopathy was one of my big focuses.
I had to "pitch" my FMP to 2 lecturers and a bunch of my peers, and both of the lecturers got up in arms and incredibly defensive when I started talking about Homeopathy being bunk.
They kept arguing that "Big Pharma" had more money to test their products, so if course Homeopathy didn't have as much evidence behind it.
This is my roundabout way of saying thank you for this video and a huge thank you for mentioning both how profitable Homeopathy is and how costly it is for those that are tricked in to using it.
I graduated 11 years ago, and in that time we've only seen anti-science sentiments rise within the media, society, etc, going hand in hand with things like the rise in anti-trans sentiments.
We had a class called historical perspectives of medicine back in med school and this vid reminded me of some of the things we used to delve into, super interesting stuff!
Slay that pseudoscience king. 💅 👑
hell yag one of my fav topics. please do chiropractors next lmfao
Adding it to the list!
I lucked out with my chiropractor, who keeps me mobile and reduces my pain with manual therapy (slipped tendons, jammed joints, pinched nerves due to genetics and several injuries), but there are so many out there that sell horrible fake nutrition supplements - or herbs that definitely should be discussed with a pharmacist! - or even suggest that adjustments can cure cancer, prevent colds, or catching the panini. I am also one of very few patients - or even staff! - who wear a mask when I go there. SMH.
Lol my medically neglectful mother was a homeopath. I'm writing this while only 5 minutes into the video, so sorry if it was mentioned - but ya'll should see Homeopathic A+E from That Mitchell and Webb Look.
Can you do a video on chiropractors? It is probably the most widely accepted psuedoscientific therapy around.
I wish we had judges with scientific backgrounds similar to how people with science degrees can become patent lawyers.
Your opening and closing credits are great!
Thank you!!!
What a great video! I enjoyed all the details in the wagon and I'm glad you talked about this! Thanks for letting me voice a character with marinacity!
Thank you bestie!
OMG it’s Mandy from the podcast 😳🤩
I’m so happy to see people in the queer community talking about this! Queer and disabled people I think (based entirely on my own anecdotal observations) can be drawn into the allure of a lot of this quackery, and I feel like most of the people I see challenging this stuff are smug cishet white dudes - and queer disabled folks generally have a long history of being condescended to and outright dismissed by smug cishet white dudes (a lot of them being their own doctors), and are understandably not too receptive to it. Thanks so much Caelan!
Of course! Yeah I think as people treated as “other” we tend to be more open to fringe stuff like this, and in this case, there’s just so much harm done. That’s the important part, right? Protecting people who are desperate for help.
Since you asked for pseudoscience, I would like to see a video about personality types (Myers Briggs, Enneagram, and even I think astrology can fit in here) and how that works. I've heard that stuff called modern phrenology
Ooooooh good ones!!!!
Yes! I've had multiple employers put us through Myers Briggs and waste time and goodwill by forcing colleagues to compare their results and/or spend a team building day to try to figure out how to work with different types 🤢, instead of learning to listen to and understand other people and ASK them what they want and need.
It's kinda interesing how the concept of personality types was around since at least the ancient times and the medieval age. Humorism was basically the established teaching of the medieval age. People thought there were 4 different fluids in the human body - blood, yellow bile, black bile and phlegm. Variations of this were popular everywhere on the world. And it was thought that different people would have different imbalances of those fluids and therefore had different characters and needed different nutrion plans for example. It was thought that very enthusiastic, social and active people had a lot of blood (and as an extreme it would be negative, maybe some people with ADHD were also diagnosed with this) while very reserved and inactive people were thought to have too much phlegm. Short-tempered, choleric and ambitious people were seen as having too much yellow bile while melancholic/depressed people and also people with cancer sometimes were diagnosed with too much black bile. One of the tasks of a medieval lords when organizing a feast was to make sure that people would get right kind of food. Ingredients were also classified into phlegmatic, melancholic, choleric and sanguine and people had to avoid food or their own personality type. So according to late-medieval/early modern humorism the best food for phlegmatic persons was choleric food like rice, pepper, salt, goat or garlic while the best food for choleric people was phlegmatic food like pork, fish or spinach. Melancholic people had to eat sanguine food with for example lamb, sugar and peacocks and sanguine persons had to eat melancholic food with lemons and vinegar.
I heard That Dang Dad! It makes my heart ecstatically happy when my fav creators perform readings in each others' videos. 🥰
Yes! His voice is so soothing!
I love the use of James Randi’s overdose of homeopathic sleeping pills but taken overboard by continually taking boxes of pills.
not the post-roll ad being a 4-minute Tear-jerker/Feel-good/Look-at-all-these-people-being-in-pain-and/or-crying ad for Chiropracty curing "CRPS"(?) while A SOFT ACOUSTIC COVER OF RIHANNA'S "DIAMOND" PLAYS IN THE BACKGROUND
Noooooooo
So excited that there's someone else who remembers "bottoms up & the devil laughs!" I can't stop saying it & everyone looks at me like I'm crazy! 🤣🤣
It’s probably the most important thing the internet has ever produced.
It's videos like these that give me hope that good sense and compassion have at least a snowball's chance of carrying the day. And if they don't, then at least laughing with the humor in the video is better for my mental health than either homeopathic treatments or straight up giving in to the despair (basically the same thing) are. Keep up the great research and engaging story telling. I nearly lost it at the Carol Marinara reference 🤣
I broke my friend group once by referring to seawater as "homeopathic corpse juice." We don't go to the ocean anymore
i would love to hear your take on family/systemic constellations (hate 'em, wanna se 'em burn). also, i'm VERY skeptical about midfulness-based practices in general, so if you're planning on exploring anything like that i'm IN.
@@martinajohnson @Martina Johnson i have a lot of co-workers that have studied and practiced family constellations and i feel that they treat some very serious issues in a sort of victim-blamey way (like in situations of ab*se for example), and ironically never take into consideration systemic conditions like class, gender, etc. But i've never practiced them myself, so i don't have that first hand experience.
Btw my mom's also very into alternative medicines/new-agey stuff lately and sometimes i worry a little :/
Why are you skeptical of mindfullness based practices? I did CBT/DBT and finally found relief after 25 years of horrible mental issues and having been put on over a dozen medications, all kinds of SSRIs, sedatives, and even anti-psychotics.
Not everyone needs medication, and acting like recovery without medication doesn’t exist or is some kind of conspiracy only does a disservice to the countless people who have or who could benefit from it.
@@Enjemnsnens i didn't mean to imply that, i'm sorry. In my country (Argentina) mindfulness is not necessarily connected to cognitive therapy (which i think is great).
Mindfulness here, at least in its educational psychology aspect, is used in a very corporate way and promoted by all sorts of sketchy people in places of power. I think that's the best way i can explain that, English not being my first lenguage.
Great video. We need as much skepticism from a left perspective as we can get! I would love to hear your thoughts about astrology. I have never understood it's allure and it mostly seems harmless but also there are people who take it REALLY seriously and that seems not awesome because it's not true? It's at least not true insofar as it cannot make accurate predictions or answer objective questions reliably. But I've also heard people say I'm being close-minded about what truth is because I'm talking about scientific truth and it helps people. Which I don't doubt, but also that answer doesn't impress me much because putting a lot of faith in a thing which cannot be proven can also lead to bad outcomes the same as it can lead to good outcomes. Anyway I'm a straight cis middle class white dude and astrology is really far outside of my lane. Which is where you would come in! Love your vids!
It’s definitely on the list!
I mean if you don’t have malaria you can still take diluted quinine, but it’s actually a lot less diluted than what the homeopathy guy thought that you needed to dilute it to
And you also needed to add Gin
Something that's worth noting, as someone who did pharmacy work for a few years: there is no regulating body for homeopathy like there is for traditional medicine. Any medicine can call itself "homeopathic" and as a result a lot of over the counter medicines market themselves as homeopathic when they actually aren't. They're real medicine calling themselves "homeopathic" because most people don't know what that means and just think it means, like, "natural." So you might see vitamin supplements or similar medicines that say "homeopathic" on the bottle but are actually just standard vitamins/supplements (which there are their own valid criticisms for for sure, but do have some legitimate use cases). Always be sure to check your labels thoroughly before popping 90 homeopathic pills for a bit!
LOL, I did my research, but that’s a very good point.
This was great! I'm also really excited for the new series and the stuff you've flagged is coming down the pipeline. For some reason I never got a notification for this one though, despite being subscribed and having the bell set to "all". Bloody RUclips...
Oh my gods, I remember coming across these people when I was trying to do research for provable effects of herbal remedies....thank you so much for diving into their ridiculousness!
Headache? Try this! It’s water that got half-way to first base w/ an onion but ended up crying and running back home
I’ve been telling all my mates to watch your channel! You’re absolutely amazing and deserve recognition!
Thank you!
"Daddy I'm being misgendered by a carnival person again" I know the feeling
I've been subscribed to you for a little while and have LOVED your content ever since I found you. I'm a chronically ill lesbian so seeing you make a video that touches upon my disabled sub-community (if mostly indirectly) like this, being delivered beautifully and queerly filled my heart with joy even if the subject itself is enraging.
I would say that among chronically ill people it's mostly the older the generations who get easily caught up in bullshit treatments like these. Not that it doesn't happen to younger ones, but I see it happen most often with older people, I think because the image of what physical disability can look like (Me? Having been a cripple all along without knowing? It's more likely than you think) was even more narrow in the past than now as well as there having been an even more intense association of shame and disgust in relation to being physically disabled in the past... Which is saying a lot because there's still so much shame and disgust associated with that today.
That coupled with how a lot of chronic illnesses are barely being understood NOW a little bit that were dismissed for decades or longer BY THE MEDICAL ESTABLISHMENT ITSELF (which continues). Like how Multiple Sclerosis used to be diagnosed as Hysterical Paralysis. How ME/CFS is still being debated as just in "people's heads" despite the several studies reporting autoimmunity, neuroimmunity in particular, same with Fibromyalgia. How many doctors refuse to diagnose people who fit an Ehlers Danlos diagnosis (my main illness!) because it's supposed to be "rare" so even if you fit it to the detail they'll just say nah and tell you to exercise more and don't mind the subluxations you lazy depressed bitch. My mom only found out at almost 60 that she's had Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome with associated POTS and MCAS her whole life because *I* got diagnosed with it and through me she and my siblings got the diagnosis too because it's the result of a hereditary genetic mutation and they fit the criteria too.
This whole video is making me think so much of my mom because for a little bit she did turn to homeopathy precisely because no one took her very real symptoms seriously. Doctors would call her a liar to her face about the symptoms she reportedor say it was "just anxiety" or "just depression".
And you won't believe how many middle-aged fucking strangers see me on my rollator now, get invasive about my health when I'm trying to sell them fucking makeup, and start suggesting me bullshit alternatives, no matter how much I repeat to them that it's not curable, that it's written in my fucking DNA because I'm a literal mutant, and how shit they make me feel because I used to be fucking bed-ridden and it took me three years of intensive independent research and reaching out to my community in a whole other language online to get myself to the point I'm at.
I'm sorry if I got really rambly and dumped too much on your comments. It's just that I could talk about the intersections of ableism against physically disabled people, bullshit unscientific "treatments" for chronic illnesses and the disregard and downright cruelty of the medical establishment for hours and I felt very indirectly seen by this video.
Im glad to see people making videos like this. I was raised with a lot of homeopathic medicines and uh, they didnt work.
That said, growing up with that kind of influence made it hard for me to really understand and acknowledge just how ineffective and even dangerous homepathy is. Seeing everything laid out so clearly makes it easy to see the logical inconsistencies.
I liked learning about the history of homeopathy! And I didn't know the difference with naturopathy, so even only that was very informing!
I'm still early in the video but when I heard the phrase "the law of minimum dose" I thought that sounded reasonable because I assumed it would mean something like 'always start with as small a dose as possible and then increase it if necessary (to minimize potential ill effects,)' not 'the less you use the more it does' *what*
What a fun surprise, I thought it would be ages before another upload! Looking forward to the new schedule and some relatively lighter stuff!
Related to homeopathy: id be interested in seeing a video from you on biodynamics.
Imo the conflation of organic with biodynamic agriculture is slowing down wider adoption of evidence based ecologically healthy farming practices and also making organic food needlessly that much more expensive
Wow, the opening credits are absolutly amazing.
Thank you!
@@caelanconrad And now I have seen the rest of the video 😅 that was great to!
I support Homeopathic Egging Prince Charles (ie throwing a pan of water which I boiled eggs in over him, it even has the impact to shake up the eggy memories).
... Yeah, Prince Charles was a major force behind getting homeopathy added to the NHS.
I've been studying herbalism and i can not tell you how many times I've landed on a homeopathic blog instead of an actual herbalist blog. It really fucking sucks that homeopathy gives such a bad rap to actual, science based, natural medicine. It's frustrating. It's frustrating that most physicians are reluctant to advise or look into herbalistic treatments because of the damage homeopathy has done to the image of natural medicine.
Not to mention homeopathy's almost direct ties to anti-vaxx sentiments and "curing autism"...speaking as an autistic teen who's been taken to numerous doctors and homeopaths throughout my life as an effort to "cure" me. All of the regular doctors were appalled. On the other hand, not once did any of the homeopaths say that autism isn't curable or that my mother was setting unrealistic expectations. They just sold her medicine over and over again that clearly didn't work, over and over again.
My mom is now going through the process of becoming a "licensed homeopath" to teach other parents how to "cure" their autistic kids (and encourages them to do it as early in the child's life as possible so that they can't develop autonomy and refuse to take it) despite her lack of success in "curing" her own child's autism.