This is where homeopathy stops being a laughing matter - the death of Penelope Dingle

[backscatter712]

This has been going around on the /r/skeptic subreddit on Reddit.com for the past couple of days.

TL/DR: Placebos do not work on cancer. A homeopath told this poor woman that she could do a better job than the oncologists at treating her cancer by giving her homeopathic remedies and olive-oil enemas.

The results of this treatment were horrific. This poor woman suffered tremendously in ways that could have been prevented, or at least mitigated if she stuck with the advice of real doctors and disregarded this quack's advice to ditch the chemo.

http://www.abc.net.au/austory/content/2011/s3260776.htm

March 27 2004

Dear Francine

This is a letter about accountability and responsibility. Things that are missing altogether in your attitude towards to me. The tone of your card makes this quite clear. You make no reference to the matter that you are accountable as a professional for the fact that your treatment protocol failed after you told me you could cure me.

I am sincerely disappointed that three quarters of your card is spent justifying why I have heard nothing from you. And I am astounded that you think I may be interested in hearing that you were upset with me. I quote: “It was really upsetting to me to hear you have been upset with me as much as you are, because…”

What happened during the 7 months you treated me for cancer is very serious.

[MineralMan]

1. Quackery of all kinds can never be a laughing matter.

Whether a "practitioner" tells someone to abandon normal medical care or not, the results are so often tragic that there's nothing to laugh at.

[backscatter712]

2. My mom told a similar story about one of her friends.

I didn't get all the details, but she was in the middle of a divorce, when she was diagnosed with cancer. She was scared of chemotherapy, and wasn't thinking straight (would you be thinking straight if you suddenly got hit with a cancer diagnosis?) so she went to the homeopath.

By the time she figured out the homeopathy wasn't working, it was too late - the cancer had spread, and she only lived another year.

That's how these quacks work - they prey on the vulnerable, in the moments we all have when we can't make good judgments. It can happen to any of us.

[MineralMan]

3. Yup. The quacks prey on fearful people, and few things

create more fear than a cancer diagnosis. Quacks don't care. They know that you'll pay for their advice and buy their water. They know you'll die, too, but they count on an endless stream of fearful cancer patients to keep them busy and making money.

Homeopathetic quacks are completely mercenary, and have no compassion for the victims of their fraud. They know their water doesn't do anything, but they don't give a damn about that. As long as you're willing to pay for it, they'll do whatever it takes to keep you buying. They are selling nothing at all and duping people into thinking they are getting something of value. Con-men and sociopaths, every last one of them.

[frankie]

4. XKCD on homeopathy

http://www.google.com/search?q=xkcd+homeopathy+lying

I love the mouseover text: "I just noticed CVS has started stocking homeopathic pills on the same shelves with--and labeled similarly to--their actual medicine. Telling someone who trusts you that you’re giving them medicine, when you know you’re not, because you want their money, isn’t just lying--it’s like an example you’d make up if you had to illustrate for a child why lying is wrong."