Sunday, February 6, 2011

Ten23, or how I learnt to stop worrying and love Fred's Tripod

“Homeopathy. There’s nothing in it.”
This is the tag line of the Ten23 campaign (http://www.1023.org.uk/) , a campaign to increase awareness about the uselessness of homeopathic medications and the way that practitioners of homeopathic products are scammers, flim-flammers and hood-winkers (or complete morons who actually believe it works).
Homeopathy is a form of alternative medicine (known in the sane world as “quackery”) that is based around the ideas of Hahnemanns’s “like cures like” theory and that dilution makes medical preparations stronger.
 The “like cures like” concept was put forward by Samuel Hahnemann, who invented homeopathy,  and means that if a person is suffering from an illness, let’s say a rash, a solution containing an ingredient that can cause a rash, let’s say poison ivy, can cure the rash. Funnily enough, some homeopaths point to vaccines as an example of like curing like, which is an analogy so stupid I won’t even bother refuting it. The dilution making medications stronger concept is just a silly idea to do with water retaining memory of the original active ingredient. But as a 30c dilution, or diluted to 10 billion times the volume of the earth (one of the more common dilutions in homeopathy), most likely doesn’t have any contact with any molecules of the water that were in the first dilution, the chances of contact with the actual ingredient are so low that I’ve got a much higher chance of winning the 2012 Superbowl then a patient actually coming into contact with the ingredient. And even if the water could remember the active ingredient, what about everything else that has been in that water? Poo, wee....fish even fornicate in it...what is that goin to cure?
So Ten23 is all about making a point about how ineffective homeopathic “medications” are. How do we prove it? We take what should be a lethal amount of drugs as part of a mass overdose. In this case, a particular brand of sleeping tablets is the killer of choice. Here is an accurate recording of the Sydney campaign.
Sunday, February 6th, 2011.
 Botanical Gardens, Sydney.
A group of people from various sceptics groups (myself and others representing the Western Sydney Freethinkers *shameless plug*) gather near the Sydney Opera House entrance to the Botanical Gardens. The group is littered with some of the more infamous bloggers and tweeters, such as @DrRachie, @HappySinger, @BastardSheep, @RatBagsDotCom etc. There are interviews with those who are willing to risk their lives in a heroic manner to make a point. In the distance a ferry bell tolls – is it tolling for we?
The suicidal folk are sheparded into a group where their last words can be recorded for posterity. They all put on their bravest faces, as if staring into the eyes of the Grim Reaper himself and saying “come and get me”. Their last words, almost as if it had been pre-planned, are spoken in unison – “Homeopathy. There’s nothing in it”. Then they each ingest 10-20 times the recommended amount of sleeping tablets.
Some of the brightest stars in the heavens are on the verge of fading....
An hour later and all the would-be suicides are sitting around the pub drinking their own particular brand of alcoholic beverage (a real poison). The overdose has not worked. They all breath a collective sigh of relief.
HOMEOPATHY. THERE’S NOTHING IN IT!!!!!!
This article was started 12 hours after I participated in the Ten23 overdose campaign, where I consumed 30 homeopathic sleeping tablets. I am starting to feel tired. Could it be that the tablets are starting to take effect? Is it that I’ve had a few whiskeys and I’m starting to get a little drunk? Is it that I’ve not had much sleep the last few days because my bedroom has been over 30 degrees Celsius at night time? I can’t be sure, so I have left instructions with my family to check on me if they can’t hear me snoring.
Now it’s the morning after. I have either not being killed by the sleeping tablets, or my afterlife is very, very similar to my before life.
At the risk of sounding repetitive, I am just going to say this again – HOMEOPATHY!!! THERE’S NOTHING IN IT!!!
See you all later,
The Reverend Dok....wait a minute, I should explain the second part of the post title.
On the train home from the city I was browsing through some of the pictures of the Vancouver Ten23 event, taken by a certain Canadian giant we all know. Well it turns out a certain member of our ragtag group knows this giant apparently a little too well. For the sake of dignity I’m going to refer to this person by a letter, picked randomly by closing my eyes and stabbing my finger at the key board.
*stabs*
B
So “B” says, with a face of pure innocence, “(Canadian giant) is a tripod”
Pause.
We all look at each other, trying to hold back the smirks.
“Because he is so tall”
Laughter escapes from us all. “B” spent the rest of the trip hiding her face behind her hands.
Good times, good times.
And that is all now.
See you at the next overdose. May dye my hair black and read crappy poetry beforehand.
The Reverend Doktor Bob

3 comments:

  1. Hi, B.

    For the record, yes, the look on B's face definitely was one of pure innocence. No comment on the accuracy of the remark itself. :-)

    ReplyDelete
  2. And I thought the tall Canadian gent was only showing "B" his iPad. Shocked, I am.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Unfortunately the truth will eventually out. It is only up to the few, the brave, the not within hitting distance who are willing to speak the truth.

    ReplyDelete