The Sixth Estate

This uncritical promotional article in the Calgary Herald is worth a read:

Mozi-Q is a natural mosquito repellent created by Calgary-based Xerion Dispensary. The product, made from a plant-derived substance called staphysagria, is taken orally and is advertised not only as a bug repellent, but as a product that will also lessen the stinging and itching associated with insect bites.

Xerion claims that Mozi-Q is a homeopathic mosquito repellent. You take the pill at least 30 minutes before going outside, and for the next 3-5 hours, it will magically reduce the number of mosquito bites you get outside. Not once in this article does the journalist, Amanda Stephenson, muster the basic professional competence to ask the most basic question: whether there’s any scientific evidence that homeopathic medicines actually work. Let alone a homeopathic medicine that works against mosquitoes.

Homeopathic medicine works on the following principles. First, the most important thing about a disease are its symptoms, not its causes (the first point that flies in the face of all current science). Second, to treat these symptoms, you find a poison that causes the exact same side effects as the symptoms of the disease (the second anti-scientific point). Third, to make this poison do its job better, you dilute it down past the point where there’s even a single atom of the original poison left in your solution or pill.

In Canada, Health Canada approves homeopathic drugs for sale without clinical evidence of their effectiveness, on the principle that because they’re basically just extraordinarily diluted tap water infused into sugar pills, they can’t do you any real harm. As a matter of fact, Health Canada requires homeopathic preparations based on listed toxins (of which there are many, like arsenic, belladonna, etc.) to be diluted past the point where there are no original atoms left in the solution. According to Health Canada’s chemists, at that point it’s harmless. Of course, according to homeopaths, that’s the point at which a drug starts getting very strong. Paradoxically, chemistry won this battle, so you can only get “dangerously” low concentrations of some homeopathic drugs.

But what really made me chuckle is that the “active” ingredient in the new Mozi-Q homeopathic mosquito repellent is staphysagria. Now, according to Wikipedia, Delphinium staphisagria seed preparations in their pure form were used by the ancient Greeks to kill lice. Since homeopathic preparations work on the principle that diluted forms of a poison cure diseases which pure forms of the poison mimic, you’d think that homeopathic Staphisagria would actually attract lice, not kill them. Apparently not!

Because homeopathy doesn’t subject itself to scientific trials, the list of ailments which a popular “drug” cures tends to grow exponentially as anecdotal evidence of improvement filters in via proving tests. Consequently, among other things, HomeopathyForWomen.org advertises that the Staphisagria found in Mozi-Q is also active against:

Ailments from INDIGNATION, MORTIFICATION, ROMANTIC DISAPPOINTMENTS. Suppression of emotions, anger, grief. History of abuse, incest.

I highly recommend HomeopathyForWomen.org for all your homeopathic questions. The websitie’s slogan is “Let Miracles Find You!”, and I’m sure that after visiting HomeopathyForWomen.org, they do.

Why do we even have the public healthcare system when such wonder drugs are waiting in the wings?