What “Homeopathy” Really Is (and Why It’s Complete Nonsense)

This post is part of our Home Remedies Guide , a roundup of home remedies ranging from controversial to doctor-approved. Read more here .

Thanks to a loophole in the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act of 1938, some of the “drugs” you can buy in pharmacies are actually nothing more than magic water. I promise I’m not exaggerating. I’m not talking about supplements, which are legal because they are not considered drugs. And I don’t mean products that make dubious or exaggerated health claims (nothing boring). I mean, you can go to the pharmacy and pay seven dollars in legal tender for a “natural” children’s cold and cough remedy and walk away with a bottle filled with mostly water – or at least what we hope is mostly water.

This bottle may have a “Drug Facts” label and a seemingly factual claim that it “temporarily relieves cold symptoms in children.” And there are no drugs in it. This is because it does not contain any modern medicines or medicinal quantities of herbs that are believed to have healing properties. Homeopathic medicines are simply water (with or without alcohol or sugar) infused with magical vibrations of substances that, when used directly, can aggravate your symptoms.

My friends: Homeopathy is not just nonsense, it is some of the wildest nonsense you will read about today.

What the hell is homeopathy?

Let’s take our time machine back to 1796. The German physician Samuel Hahnemann was disappointed with the state of medicine at that time. This was the era of bloodletting, when doctors responded to illnesses by trying to balance the body’s “humour”. The treatments of his time often did more harm than good, so Hahnemann was not necessarily wrong in wanting to find other treatments. But his option didn’t work either.

Remember, this was long before anyone knew that germs could cause disease, or that operating rooms had to be clean, or that vitamins existed, or what made herbal remedies work (when they did). Clinical trials as we know them were not a standard tool of science or medicine.

So one day Hahnemann ate the bark of the cinchona tree . It is a tree bark from South America that is today recognized as one of the first modern pharmaceuticals. This is where we get quinine, the “tonic” of tonic water. We now know that a chemical found in the bark can kill the parasite that causes malaria. However, in the understanding of that time, everyone knew only that taking this bark would cure recurrent fever.

Hahnemann did not suffer from malaria. He reportedly recorded the symptoms he experienced as a result of a mild overdose of cinchona, including weakness, trembling, and fever, among others. To him, these sounded like symptoms of malaria itself, and this observation led him to the “law of similars,” which forms the basis of homeopathic medicine.

According to this so-called law, the way to treat a disease is to find a substance that causes the same symptoms of that disease in healthy people. So how can this not aggravate the illness of a sick person? Well, the (incorrect) theory goes: you separate a substance from the healing properties of that substance . You are putting healing properties into the water. Then you have magic water.

How homeopathy is supposed to work

First, you find a substance that can cause the same symptoms as the disease you are trying to treat. For example, coffee can make you jittery and insomnia, so a homeopathic medicine made with coffee should be a suitable treatment for a hyperactive child or person suffering from insomnia. Onion causes watery eyes and runny nose, so onion extract is used in homeopathic remedies to prevent watery eyes and nosebleeds.

Onion is actually one of the ingredients that can be found in homeopathic children’s cold medicines: “Allium cepa 6X HPUS” means that the preparation made from onion has been diluted with water in a ratio of 1:10. Then a small amount of this drug was diluted in a ratio of 1:10 and so on a total of six times. As a result, if I calculated correctly, the ratio of onions to water will be one to one million.

To be clear, we’re not just diluting the onion water. We “suck” the water or shake it in a certain way to transfer the memory of the onion into the water.

Homeopaths – who, yes, exist today – are convinced that water does have memory , and for them the only question that remains is how to convince real scientists that this is true.

Because water remembers onions, homeopaths do not need to worry about whether a finished cold medicine contains onions, although it is statistically likely that the preparation will include a fair amount of it. The dilution is only 6X. Homeopaths believe that this number of dilutions makes it possible to obtain a weak or mild medicine; to get extra strong stuff you have to dilute it more .

It’s no secret. The American Association of Homeopathic Pharmacists is pleased to inform you that homeopathic medicines often do not contain any of the intended active ingredients. In their FAQ they answer the question “Can I overdose or overdose on a homeopathic medicine?” saying :

“Due to the extremely small amount of highly diluted active ingredients, you do not need to worry about overdosing by taking more homeopathic medicine than the recommended dosage. At dilutions above 8X or 4C, any toxic properties of the original substance disappear; the medication is safe and available over-the-counter (OTC).”

And yes, that means “over-the-counter,” meaning something you can buy at your local pharmacy or favorite supermarket. Look next to your regular cold medicines and pain relievers and you’ll find homeopathic products from brands like Hyland’s and Boiron.

Homeopathic “medicines” can be dangerous

Homeopaths like to emphasize that dilution ensures the safety of their products. But many homeopathic medicines are not diluted to the extreme. We have already seen that there are products that are less diluted, such as the 6X ingredients in our example. If it were anything more toxic than onions, we’d be concerned.

And then there are products that are marketed as “homeopathic” even though they contain significant amounts of the active ingredient. For example, I have seen arnica gel offered in a “1X” dilution. Sambucol sells elderberry products for the treatment of colds, with some being supplements (containing significant amounts of elderberry) and others being homeopathic (containing little or no elderberry).

You may notice a difference if you know how to read a nutritional supplement label and a homeopathic medicine label, but the front of the packages seem to claim the same benefits. The law of similars would seem to dictate that these two products cannot treat the same disease; In the world of homeopathy, if homeopathic elderberry treats a cold, non-homeopathic elderberry will cause cold symptoms. But there is no FDA regulation that requires your marketing strategy to adhere to a single theory of medicine.

It is truly unfair for critics of homeopathy to say that these medicines are “just” water, because often they are not. Likewise, it does not follow that homeopathic medicines are “safe” because they are diluted.

In fact, products labeled as homeopathic have allegedly killed people. In 2016, the FDA investigated a brand of homeopathic teething tablets that was linked to the deaths of 10 babies and another 400 reports of side effects such as seizures. One of the ingredients was belladonna, or deadly nightshade. FDA laboratory tests found that the tablets contained significant amounts of belladonna , often more than what was listed on the label, and warned people not to buy them . The company announced a recall in 2017, just like in 2010 when the same damn thing happened.

Or, to take another example, homeopathic nasal gels and nasal swabs contain enough zinc to cause people to permanently lose their sense of smell. The FDA has issued warning letters stating that although the product is labeled as homeopathic, it contains zinc, and the FDA is not aware of any studies showing that zinc nasal supplements are safe and effective. The dilution in this case was 2X, which means that the products contained 0.1% zinc.

How legal is this?

Well, somehow not. But the FDA isn’t doing much to stop it either .

Homeopathic “medicines” were excluded from the 1938 law that defined what the FDA should regulate. For many years, the FDA has struggled with the fact that drugs are defined as drugs that work , or as drugs that have been recognized as homeopathic.

Homeopathic medicines are not clinically tested. They rely on “provings,” in which raw ingredients are given to healthy volunteers and their symptoms are documented. According to homeopathic theory, clinical trials are not required. And it’s not just a loophole for over-the-counter medications: there are homeopathy schools and private practice homeopaths who will tailor medications to suit your specific temperament. (Remember that homeopathy is about matching symptoms with symptoms; the cause of the disease, as homeopaths will tell you, does not matter .)

Over the years, the FDA has gradually come to terms with the fact that drugs must be safe and effective, but homeopathic drugs are not. I think my favorite moment—maybe my favorite government document of all time—was when the Federal Trade Commission sent the FDA a juicy letter pointing out that, in fact, companies are prohibited from lying about their products.

In 2022, the FDA finally decided it could actually remove products found to be unsafe or ineffective from the market. But rather than making a general statement that homeopathic products are now illegal, the agency said it would “focus its enforcement efforts” on products that appear to be particularly dangerous. This means that a lot of this nonsense is still on store shelves and will probably remain there forever.

How not to accidentally buy homeopathic medicines

Above all, beware of things that seem too good to be true. For example, many genuine medications that are suitable for adults and older children are not suitable for infants and toddlers. (For example, cough medicines are not intended for children under four years of age .) So, homeopathic companies have jumped on this market because they know you want to buy some cough medicine for your child. And since most people don’t know what homeopathy is, you’ll probably look at the box and think it’s real.

So, here’s how to read a label: First, look to see if it has a drug label on it or not. (Some products you find at the pharmacy are supplements, which may or may not be beneficial in some way. But supplements are not drugs.) Next, if it is a drug label, look for the following signs:

• Dilutions are indicated by numbers and letters, such as 6X or 20C.

• The acronym HPUS next to an ingredient that belongs to the Homeopathic Pharmacopeia of the United States (a government-recognized giant database of bullshit).

• Ingredients with (usually) two-word Latin names, such as “natrum muriaticum” (which is sea salt)

Some homeopathic products will contain a disclaimer such as: “Statements are based on traditional homeopathic practice and not on established medical evidence.”

By the way, a lot is hidden behind this Latin. Sometimes the ingredients are plant extracts or chemicals, and sometimes they are common foods such as onions or salt. Other times they are eye of newt caliber preparations, such as the “Hepar Sulph Calc” in one cold medicine, which is the inner layer of oyster shells, finely ground and cooked with sulfur. This is Hahnemann’s own special recipe .

And to leave you with another “what the heck” moment for today, I’ll tell you about Oscillococcinum, a homeopathic product that can usually be purchased at any pharmacy near you. This ingredient is often labeled as Anas barbariae, which means Muscovy duck. (The Muscovy duck is now known by the scientific name Cairina moschata , so that’s not even its scientific name, just a romanized version of the common name.)

In any case, the reason it is marketed to treat “flu-like symptoms” is because of a stunningly fantastic hypothesis about the cause of the flu, long since debunked. Today we know that influenza is caused by an influenza virus. But in 1920, viruses had not yet been discovered. However, the bacteria were known, so scientists constantly looked through microscopes at blood and tissue samples from sick people, hoping to find a microbe that could explain everything. According to McGill University’s Office of Science and Society:

[Doctor. Joseph] Roy naturally took a keen interest in the flu and sought to unravel its mysterious cause by examining the blood of victims under a microscope. He described seeing tiny microbes rapidly darting or “oscillating” back and forth. He called them “oscillococci” and argued that they could also be found in the blood of patients suffering from diseases as diverse as cancer, tuberculosis and gonorrhea. This “universal microbe,” as he called it, was responsible for many diseases! If these oscillococci cause disease symptoms, Roy concluded, then their homeopathic solution should be curative.

Yes, the vibrating microbe that causes all diseases. Make a homeopathic remedy out of it and Bob will be your uncle! How can you prepare a homeopathic medicine from this? Well, Roy thought he found the same vibrating microbes in duck liver. (To this day, no one knows what he actually saw. There are no vibrating microbes in duck livers—you can go look.) So you make a drug out of duck organs, dilute it to hell, fill the resulting water with sugar tablets, and sell those tablets for $29.99 at Target . (The real price I just confirmed. God, I wish I could make that up.)

Do you know what actually works for cases of flu that are mild enough to treat at home? Liquids. Rest. Maybe a little saline to clear out the mucus from your nose. You know: home remedies .

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