Oot and Aboot with Some Canadian Skeptic

Today, I could have died.  I nearly joined the Choir Invisible and I might have been pushing up the daisies by now.

I speak of course, of my attempt to overdose on the homeopathic sleeping pill, "Calms Forte". These guys:


I'm not the only one who tried to do this.  Today, and yesterday, skeptics from around Canada and the world ingested huge amounts of homeopathic preparations (I am hesitant to call them 'remedies' since they don't remedy anything but boredom and a thick wallet) in an effort to 'overdose'.  Not all skeptics took the same thing that I took, but many did.  Most skeptics ingested whole bottles of some form of supposed sleep aid.

The always organized and effective Vancouver Skeptics (and CFI) had a great demonstration:


The logic is simple enough for even a homeopath to understand (and yet they never seem to): Homeopaths claim that their pills have an effect.  If so, taking them should show that effect.  Taking all of them should definitely show something.

Well, you're reading this, so I can assume that you've figured out I survived.  We all did.  Good for us.  No one fainted, got drowsy, and if we were technically qualified to, any one of us could have operated heavy machinery.

Pictured:  Our small, but spirited group.  Not pictured: dead people, tired people, stupid people.

Homeopaths hate it when people actually put their claims to the test.  They resort to ad hominem attacks, and exclaim that an overdose can't possibly work because homeopathy just doesn't work that way (in that sense, we agree), because taking that huge number of pills still accounts for taking one single dose.  Well, if that's the case, then shouldn't patients of homeopathy take half a pill, or a millionth of a pill?  Aren't homeopaths grossly overcharging?  I'm all for consumer freedom, but this sounds like a 200 year old con-job!

Homeopaths are on the ropes in the UK, and taking some serious, well-deserved beatings.  In Canada, a skeptical eye is being turned on them too, and not just by skeptics, but by the mainstream media.  Homeopaths don't like this, and will encourage their supporters to deliberately obfuscate the issue and blind people with personal anecdotes and harassment. 

There is a high probability that homeopaths or their supporters will leave a comment below exclaiming, often (but not always) as a last resort, that I:

1. a) Simply don't understand it.
2. b) I need to read 21 papers that support their position.
3. c) Until I've read these 21 (or more) "scientific studies", I'm not qualified to be talking like this.
4. d) I am speaking out of my simple minded, music teacher ass (Bryce Wylde once derisively called me "Music Man" and in the next breath said that I was stewing in bitterness.)

They will also call us communists in the pocket of their favourite enemy (after skeptics), "Big Pharma:"

The skeptical movement is an offshoot of the Communist Party. (Really: see the top two links below.) Its top organizers were hired by pharmaceutical company and medical industry representatives to recruit malcontents in bars to spread hate propaganda against non-conventional medical systems. One of the first such skeptic groups referred to itself as “Skeptics in the Pub”. Not surprisingly, their rants against Homeopathy sound like the drunken cacophony of soccer hooligans."

The above quote was pulled from a new pro-homeopathy website owned by Kitchener-area homeopath Tracy Poizner. (To me, it sounds like "poisoner").  Communists Party offshoot. Drunks. Hired by pharmaceutical company and medical industry reps to recruit malcontents in bars.

To Tracy Poizner:  You provide no evidence of these claims, and make no mistake: this is slander, libel, and deliberate character defamation on your part.  If you cannot provide evidence, I suggest you remove this, before some skeptics with a skin as thin as yours decide to take legal action against you.  Your tactic is despicably cowardly, as we already know what McCarthyism did to a culture.

It's now been 9 hours since I took 50 homeopathic sleeping pills.  It's just past 10:00 pm as I write this, and I've been up all day.  I just yawned.  Homeopaths: don't claim this as a yawn in your favour.  I'm just bored writing about you.

Because it's not homeopathic.  It's homeopathetic.

And no, I don't think that's very clever of me.

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