882: Homeopathy | Skeptical Sunday

882: Homeopathy | Skeptical Sunday

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[00:00:21] Welcome to the show. I'm Jordan Harbinger, and this is Skeptical Sunday, a special edition of The Jordan Harbinger Show where a rotating guest co-host and I break down a topic you may have never thought about. Open things up and debunk common misconceptions. Topics such as why the Olympics are kind of a sham, why expiration dates are nonsense, why tipping makes no sense, fast fashion, weddings, recycling, banned foods, toothpaste, chemtrails, and a whole lot more.

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[00:01:31] Today on Skeptical Sunday, conventional Western medicine is overwhelming, it's frustrating, it's expensive, as we all know, especially here in the United States. Alternative medicines, they sound appealing. Homeopathic medicine has the perception of being all-natural. So it's no surprise that millions of people subscribe to homeopathy every year. But is this multi-billion-dollar industry all a scam? Is there something to it? Is there a balance? Comedian Michael Regilio spent some time in the house of homeopathy and is here to make sense of it all, wherever possible.

[00:02:03] Michael Regilio: Hey, Jordan, how are you feeling?

[00:02:05] Soundbite: Pretty good. Pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty good.

[00:02:08] Michael Regilio: Wow, then homeopathy has some pills you should take.

[00:02:16] Jordan Harbinger: Is that right? Before I start popping pills, what is homeopathy? A lot of us maybe haven't even heard of this.

[00:02:23] Michael Regilio: Homeopathy is a broad term and it refers to a wide range of stuff like therapeutics, supplements, tinctures, pills, and ointments. Dr. Samuel Hahnemann created homeopathy in Germany over 200 years ago.

[00:02:35] Jordan Harbinger: It's interesting that you say created and I might just being a pedant here, but isn't most medicine actually discovered?

[00:02:42] Michael Regilio: Excellent point. In fact, homeopathy has never offered scientific proof backing up its claims. Although Hahnemann was a doctor. His fascination was with magic and the occult, which explains the creation of homeopathy better than his academic studies. This is homeopathy in a nutshell. Bad medicine and magical thinking.

[00:03:01] Jordan Harbinger: Bad medicine and magical thinking. One, sounds like an album title from the 90s, but also sounds like playing Dungeons and Dragons as opposed to legitimate medical practice.

[00:03:11] Michael Regilio: Exactly. During the 19th century, they considered quinine a miracle drug, and Hahnemann noticed that when people took quinine when they were not sick, they developed similar symptoms to the sickness quinine was said to cure. So, he started taking large amounts of quinine and documenting how it made him feel. He concluded the cure for an illness is a substance that brings on the same symptoms.

[00:03:36] So, for example, onions make your eyes water, and your nose run. Then, to cure your allergies, eat onions. It's one of the theories that defines homeopathy — like cures like.

[00:03:48] Jordan Harbinger: Okay, so, first of all, it seems like there's more psychology at play with the quinine thing. So you're taking quinine, you know you're taking quinine, suddenly you have the symptom that quinine needs to cure, or it's a weird coincidence because it's that one substance that actually has some effect. It seems like a pretty big jump to go, oh, well in that case, like cures like. Maybe again, curing allergies by gradually exposing yourself to the thing that you're allergic to, maybe there's something there too, but this just sounds like a bit of an overreach that sounds catchy, but I remain unconvinced.

[00:04:18] Michael Regilio: Right, as do I to this day after the deep dive, but look, he believed that a substance that causes symptoms in a healthy person can, in a tiny amount, treat an illness with similar symptoms. This is intended to trigger the body's natural defense. Do you have signs of a rash? Homeopathy will have you take Rhus Tox, which is diluted poison ivy.

[00:04:38] Jordan Harbinger: Mmm.

[00:04:39] Michael Regilio: Treatments for other ailments were made from white arsenic, snake venom, chalk glands of a cow, and so on. So, Hahnemann was on a mission to find out how ingesting everything around made you feel. He started giving himself, his friends, and his family doses of everything they could test, including stuff like strychnine and deadly nightshade.

[00:05:00] Jordan Harbinger: This guy must add some sweet parties, but what is deadly nightshade?

[00:05:03] Michael Regilio: Deadly lightshade, also called belladonna, is one of the most toxic plants known to man. For centuries, it was used either to poison enemies or trip your balls off from its hallucinatory effects. Just taking 600 milligrams is considered an overdose. It can be deadly because it disrupts our parasympathetic nervous system, which regulates things like sweating, heart rate, and breathing, which I think we need.

[00:05:27] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, that does sound important. And it sounds like he's got some either really good friends or he's a terrible host and he's feeding this and they don't know what's going on. They just wake up in their garage after the night at Dr. Hahnemann's house. Like, "Hey man, take some deadly nightshade and just let me know how the night goes."

[00:05:47] Michael Regilio: Yeah. Or it could have been, "Hey, you just took some deadly nightshade. Let me know how," which I've also heard of people doing stuff like that. Okay. So however, he did it, he would document the effects of those dosed individuals and try and match those symptoms with a correlating sickness.

[00:06:03] Jordan Harbinger: It sounds similar to the old hair of the dog mentality, right? You're drunk, you got a hangover, have a beer in the morning, let it ride.

[00:06:10] Michael Regilio: Yeah, exactly. But the thing is, conventional medicine wasn't much better at this time. Doctors were trying all sorts of stuff. So, in a way, it wasn't that big of a reach to try curing a headache with a punch in the face.

[00:06:22] Jordan Harbinger: Well, I'd rather have a punch in the face than a shot of strychnine at one of Dr. H's parties.

[00:06:28] Michael Regilio: Yeah, well, I'm sure some of his former patients would have wished they'd been treated with a punch in the face as well because, well, they died.

[00:06:36] Jordan Harbinger: I shouldn't laugh, but I mean, that conclusion was kind of obvious. That was coming.

[00:06:39] Michael Regilio: Yeah, we saw that one coming. And if you've been dead a couple of hundred years, I think the rule is you can laugh. But look, in the early days of homeopathy, Dr. Hahnemann killed some people with his experiments because his treatments included such cures as using mercury for stomach problems.

[00:06:56] Jordan Harbinger: Gives new meaning to the name Lead Belly. Actually, that joke doesn't work, but we'll move on. It also sounds like malpractice to kill your patients by giving them poison just to see what might happen and if that might actually have been medicine. Oops, it wasn't. You're dead. Sorry about that.

[00:07:09] Michael Regilio: Well, you know what? It was that experimentation back in those days that did get us to medicine. I just don't think that Hahnemann was on to anything.

[00:07:16] Jordan Harbinger: Mm-hmm.

[00:07:17] Michael Regilio: But mercury doesn't sound that bad when you consider the good doctor documented that he treated at least one man with a glass of sulfuric acid.

[00:07:27] Jordan Harbinger: Ooh, guessing the guy had heartburn either before or definitely after.

[00:07:31] Michael Regilio: Definitely after. He had no heart afterwards, actually, to be burned or a stomach, I'm guessing.

[00:07:36] Jordan Harbinger: Wow.

[00:07:37] Michael Regilio: I mean, Hahnemann, unsurprisingly, had to keep tinkering with this theory since, you know, death by sulfuric acid and stuff.

[00:07:43] Jordan Harbinger: Oof.

[00:07:44] Michael Regilio: So he began diluting his remedies in water and another principle of homeopathy was born — water has memory. I mean, that's the principle, anyway. This means Hahnemann believed that water could preserve the memory of a substance dissolved in it even after he had diluted it to the point that none of the original substance was left.

[00:08:05] Jordan Harbinger: Okay. I'm guessing this is what you meant when you said homeopathy is part magic. And again, I'm no scientist. Water definitely does not have memory. And if it did, we're drinking memories of some really disgusting stuff over the years.

[00:08:18] Michael Regilio: Okay, well, you know what, Hahnemann, if you were here, he would tell you you're wrong about that, because you are not taking into account the scientific method by which he infuses the water with the memory.

[00:08:29] Jordan Harbinger: Mmm.

[00:08:30] Michael Regilio: He performs the act of potentization.

[00:08:34] Jordan Harbinger: What is potentization? I can dissect the word, but what does he mean by this?

[00:08:38] Michael Regilio: Well, he means, and homeopathy or homeopaths today will tell you that potentization is the act of diluting and agitating the solution.

[00:08:47] Jordan Harbinger: Agitating the solution. So basically, he shakes up the water.

[00:08:51] Michael Regilio: Yep. That's it. He shook it. In fact, Hahnemann believed that once the water went through potentization and the more he diluted it, the more powerful it became.

[00:09:03] Jordan Harbinger: Mmm.

[00:09:04] Michael Regilio: So the less of the original substance in the water, the more powerful it is. This is known in homeopathy as the Law of Minimum Dose. And homeopathy still operates under this principle today. Hahnemann would take one drop of active ingredient and dilute it in 99 drops of water. This is known as a 1C solution.

[00:09:25] Jordan Harbinger: Okay, so after 1 to 99, there's basically nothing left. I don't know if I'd want to drink a 1 to 99 sulfuric acid dose, but it's still pretty, it's pretty mild.

[00:09:34] Michael Regilio: Yeah, I might take a chance, I mean, on the sulfuric acid dose. But look, we are not even close to done yet. In 2007, there was a documentary called Enemies of Reason with Richard Dawkins. It was fascinating. And he shows how we take a drop that is a 1C — this is what they really do, by the way. 1C solution is not the ultimate goal. That is just the starting point. And then, you take the drop from the 1C solution and put that in 99 drops of water, shake, and now you've got a 2C solution. And, remember, both Hahnemann and the field of homeopathy today believes that this solution is getting stronger because of water memory. In the end, they repeat the process until they have a 30C solution.

[00:10:19] Jordan Harbinger: That sounds pretty darn diluted. And this is one of those math exponential things where at what point do we run out of water on planet Earth?

[00:10:27] Michael Regilio: You actually would run out of water on Earth because it's tough to comprehend.

[00:10:30] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah.

[00:10:30] Michael Regilio: But a 30C solution is like one drop of the original ingredient mixed into every ocean on earth combined.

[00:10:39] Jordan Harbinger: First of all, who shakes that much water? But also, can't you just then take a drop of theoretically any water anywhere and you have a 30C solution of anything that's ever existed? Or am I doing that math wrong as well? Because first of all, I have a lot of questions. Okay, what is the water source? What about everything else that was in the water? I mean, there's a lot of fish poop in that water and far worse. And how did the homeopaths have the ability to sort of politely ask the water what substance to remember and what to forget? Because you're going to drink it.

[00:11:11] Michael Regilio: Right, that is an amazing question, it's been asked many times, and homeopaths don't explain it in a satisfactory way. As I like to say, homeos don't play that.

[00:11:23] Jordan Harbinger: All right. You know, I love a good in living color reference that only people over 40 understand. Okay, so by remedies, I can only assume at this point you just mean ordinary water, because unless I did that whole equation thing backwards and your information is wrong, any drop of any water anywhere is a 30C solution of anything, period.

[00:11:44] Michael Regilio: Absolutely. Yeah. And Hahnemann began treating patients during a scarlet fever outbreak and a cholera outbreak, and guess what?

[00:11:52] Jordan Harbinger: His patients were never thirsty.

[00:11:54] Michael Regilio: Sort of. Dehydration was avoided by his patients, which had more effect on the fever than any other cure. Because conventional doctors at the time were using leeches and bleeding people out after cutting them with a dirty razor or whatever. So Hahnemann's special water seemed to be a cure when in reality his patients were just riding out the fever. The genie was out of the magic water bottle and homeopathy really began to take off.

[00:12:20] Jordan Harbinger: Ugh, homeopathy, better than being bled with a dirty razor since, what are we, 1649 or whatever, I don't know, 1849? How far are we back with this crap?

[00:12:29] Michael Regilio: I think the scarlet fever outbreak was early 1800s.

[00:12:32] Jordan Harbinger: Okay, since 18-something.

[00:12:34] Michael Regilio: Yeah.

[00:12:34] Jordan Harbinger: Okay, I find it hard to believe that people just bought into these notions. It really does defy logic, but then again, they were also bloodletting and they didn't even pay doctors to do that. Weren't barbers doing that at that time as well and just letting the blood—?

[00:12:46] Michael Regilio: Yeah.

[00:12:46] Jordan Harbinger: —sort of drip onto the floor. I was like, okay, so that was medicine.

[00:12:50] Michael Regilio: Yeah.

[00:12:50] Jordan Harbinger: So maybe it doesn't defy logic. The logic at the time made this seem like better than the actual medicine at the time.

[00:12:56] Michael Regilio: Yeah. Just a little memory water, good for what ails you. But I mean, people of the time did push back against it. In fact, it was to test the claims of homeopathy that doctors performed the first-ever double-blind trial in Nuremberg. It was called the Nuremberg Salt Test of 1835. The city's leading public health official published a devastating critique of homeopathy. In it, he claimed homeopathic cures were due to diet and the healing power of nature or showed the power of belief.

[00:13:26] Jordan Harbinger: So that guy actually was onto something, right? Placebo and, you know, water and letting your immune system do its thing because you're staying hydrated. That's interesting.

[00:13:36] Michael Regilio: Yeah. I mean, it's the explanation that we would go with today, but a test was designed and they filled some files with ordinary water and others with homeopathic AI water. A code was devised so no one knew which files contained which. Results were recorded and when the data was decoded the trial proved that homeopathy was no different from plain water.

[00:13:58] Jordan Harbinger: I love that they invented a test just to be like, "Let's make sure this is real." "Oh, it's not." And yet here we are, 200 years later, being like, "No, no, no, no, you can buy this at Rite Aid." Anyway, all right, so that should have been the end, man. But the homeopathic product market today, I looked this up, it's worth like 10 billion worldwide as of 2021. Millions of users. Some of the users are the most rich and famous people in the world, which is yet another reason not to take medical advice from celebrities or Internet influencers, including myself. This is not medical advice. This is, in fact, dismantling fake medical advice. Do with it what you will. But there's a homeopathic section, in every grocery store, and it always makes me roll my eyes and sort of question everything else that they sell there, clearly, what we see today, though. Is this a new form of homeopathy that's like remixed to 3.0? We ditched some of the total garbage and now we have new stuff. Or is it the same garbage?

[00:14:52] Michael Regilio: No, I mean, it hasn't changed much, and that's a fact. Homeopathy is a vague notion of a half-baked idea to begin with. So, It shouldn't be surprising that there are varying definitions to the word. Thanks to the scientific method, mainstream medicine developed practices based on controlled studies that proved effective and moved away from bleeding people out. Homeopathy kept going with its feelings and watered-down solutions.

[00:15:15] Jordan Harbinger: Sounds like Congress. Are you suggesting the homeopathic industry is the same as any other bottled water company? Because it seems like a lot of what we get from bottled water company is just a 30C solution of every substance on planet Earth.

[00:15:29] Michael Regilio: No, I'm not suggesting that they're the same as a bottled water company. The bottled water companies tell you that they're just selling you water, okay?

[00:15:37] Jordan Harbinger: Right.

[00:15:37] Michael Regilio: Look, the fact of the matter is American homeopathic doctors aren't nearly as into the water as they are into the pills and tinctures and such, which contain ingredients that are not watered down. The magical remembering water is bigger in Europe.

[00:15:50] Jordan Harbinger: What are the requirements for homeopathy in America?

[00:15:54] Michael Regilio: Since 1938, the Food and Drug and Cosmetic Act has overseen the use of homeopathy, all thanks to a surgeon-cum-politician, the controversial New York Senator Royal Copeland, who I'd never heard of.

[00:16:05] Jordan Harbinger: Sounds like a place, but whatever. Okay.

[00:16:08] Michael Regilio: He used his political power and his medical quackery beliefs to make certain homeopathy was recognized by law. Because of this, in many states today, you don't need to do anything to practice homeopathy. No school at all. In California, you just have to state that it's for unlicensed healing arts services when you advertise. To call yourself a doctor is different. Homeopathic doctors must finish an accredited four-year school. Only Arizona, Connecticut, and Nevada even have homeopathic medical licenses.

[00:16:38] Jordan Harbinger: That's still shocking, though. Well, okay, that aside, what do these people with no training say when they meet a new patient? Like, "Hey, I'm not a real doctor, but I'm going to play one in your life for the next few hours or months."

[00:16:50] Michael Regilio: I mean, here's the thing. Before I spend the entire episode trashing homeopathy, I've found that stereotypically homeopaths are nice. They are sympathetic people. They are empathetic people. Most individuals are in this for the right reason. They spend a lot of time with their patients, way more than conventional doctors, and that has a positive effect on people. In Jo Marchant's book, Cure, she explores the power of the mind's effect on our health. She says skeptics may fear that allowing any role for the mind will encourage people to believe in the pseudoscientific ideas of alternative therapists. But she says that this makes no sense from a neuroscience perspective because the power of thought and the mind is at play here. And homeopathy kind of borrows from this whole idea.

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[00:19:02] Now, back to Skeptical Sunday.

[00:19:05] Yeah, Jo Marchant was on this very show. Great episode about the placebo effect. That was episode 716. And I love the idea that people get into this for the right reasons. I wish I'd said more about that when it comes to other nonsense that we've debunked on this show, like crystal healing, acupuncture, et cetera. We got some angry DMs. And rightly so, because most people who do this are not con artists, but they're nice people trying to help others. And there is something to be said for that. Although, the problem is homeopaths and other people who mean well but are not actually selling you science, they'll say, "Well, yeah, but she said the power of the mind, the power of belief." Yes, but there are major limits to that. And that's the thing that they won't recognize. They're like, "The power of belief, we can cure it." No, you can alleviate pain in some ways, but no, you're not going to cure your actual disease or underlying issues, cancer, et cetera with this. Are these homeopathic doctors of today practicing the same things used 200 years ago? You kind of said it's essentially all the same thing. Is that still the case?

[00:20:02] Michael Regilio: Well, I mean, again, the clinics that operate under the strict adherence of Dr. Hahnemann's theories, they're mostly in Europe, but there are a wide range of herbal medicines and alternative medicines that also call themselves homeopathic. I mean, it's confusing.

[00:20:16] Jordan Harbinger: Mm-hmm.

[00:20:16] Michael Regilio: People within the homeopathic movement. We'll draw distinctions between themselves and other groups, but in the end, it's just one unproven nonsense versus another unproven nonsense, and I'm not particularly concerned with drawing that distinction. I'm not homeophobic. They are all equally ineffective in my eyes.

[00:20:34] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, we don't want any homeophobes here on this show. Have any tests proven that any homeopathy treatments are effective other than hydration?

[00:20:44] Michael Regilio: Yeah, or the placebo effect.

[00:20:46] Jordan Harbinger: Right.

[00:20:46] Michael Regilio: And that's because not only is there no evidence that homeopathy can work It cannot work unless water has memory. The theories behind homeopathy don't line up with the principles of chemistry and physics. The way drugs work is when a molecule of drug interacts with the body. No molecule, no interaction. Several people have claimed to have proven water has memory, but all have failed in the end. This French scientist named Jacques Benveniste got as far as getting his work on water memory published in the journal Nature, which I'm sure anyone listening would know that's incredibly prestigious journal. But when the outside interest did independent tests of his theory using proper scientific methods, his findings fell apart.

[00:21:29] Jordan Harbinger: C'est la vie. But what are all these unproven remedies even claiming they treat? You know, look, if it's for, you got a sore ankle, okay, fine. But if you're trying to get treatment for pancreatitis, you might want to see a real doctor.

[00:21:42] Michael Regilio: Of course, but that's the thing. Since homeopathy doesn't work on anything, the claims are for everything.

[00:21:48] Jordan Harbinger: Mmm.

[00:21:49] Michael Regilio: Homeopathy maintains that it treats a wide variety of health issues from minor stuff like bruises, scrapes, toothaches, headaches, nausea, coughs, and colds. And even chronic illnesses like allergies, migraines, depression, chronic fatigue syndrome, rheumatoid arthritis, irritable bowel syndrome, premenstrual syndrome, and premature my kid's turning into a lizard person syndrome.

[00:22:10] Jordan Harbinger: Mmm, I hate that one.

[00:22:11] Michael Regilio: But again, there is no scientific proof any homeopathic treatment does anything for any of this.

[00:22:19] Jordan Harbinger: So how are they allowed to market this as medicine to people? Because when my kid had a fever. I went to Rite Aid, they have Feverol for kids, they got all these kids' medications, and then there's the, what's that company that makes the little tiny vials, like Boiron something?

[00:22:35] Michael Regilio: Yeah.

[00:22:35] Jordan Harbinger: And I'm like, oh, this is the sugar in a little vial trick that doesn't do anything. How is this next to the Feverol? It kind of made me angry that somebody would buy this thinking they're going to make their kid better and they're just giving their kid a crappy treat that's expensive.

[00:22:49] Michael Regilio: The kicker is, the makers of homeopathic products must give their products a stamp of disapproval.

[00:22:55] Jordan Harbinger: Okay.

[00:22:56] Michael Regilio: A 2016 Scientific American article states that homeopathic products are required by the Federal Trade Commission to be labeled with a warning that they are, quote, "Based on outdated theories not accepted by most modern medical experts," and that, quote, "There is no scientific evidence the products work." So as long as there's a warning label that says this sh*t doesn't work, I guess you can sell anything.

[00:23:24] Jordan Harbinger: This is incredible. So that's on the label. People buy it even though it says right on the actual package that it does not work. I assume that has to be some small print.

[00:23:34] Michael Regilio: No, it's very readable and it's the ultimate grift.

[00:23:37] Jordan Harbinger: What are the homeopathic products made from then? Is it usually just sugar pills or is it even less than that?

[00:23:43] Michael Regilio: No, like I said, these American homeopathic products on the shelves today can literally be made from anything, anything. I came across a homeopathic doctor who is treating patients with pieces of the Berlin Wall.

[00:23:57] Jordan Harbinger: Oh, god, that's ridiculous.

[00:23:59] Michael Regilio: Yeah.

[00:23:59] Jordan Harbinger: I thought you were going to say, like, okay, some are sugar and some are made out of wood and some are, I don't know, white arsenic, but literal concrete and rebar, I guess he's trying to cure communism because that wall did contribute a little bit to holding that pesky iron curtain together, so I guess, like, cures like? I don't know, that's ridiculous. That's so dumb. I almost don't believe you, and yet I believe you.

[00:24:21] Michael Regilio: Yeah, well, look, I'd like to write a punchline here, but the honest-to-goodness truth is, it's a treatment for, wait for it, to break down emotional walls.

[00:24:33] Jordan Harbinger: That's so dumb. God, if you believe that, I'd like to sell you a glass of the Brooklyn Bridge. Just a 30C glass of the Brooklyn, so you can reach out and make connections with others better or something. That's so dumb. That's one of the dumbest things I've ever heard, Michael, really.

[00:24:49] Michael Regilio: I mean, no, it's like it's healing by poetic license. I don't really understand it. I've also read about ingredients that include wild duck hearts, livers, and crushed-up bees.

[00:25:00] Jordan Harbinger: Ew, crushed-up bees. Sounds like a buzzkill, Michael.

[00:25:05] Michael Regilio: Look, I'm going to get serious for a second. The craziest ingredients are the ones that are toxic and dangerous.

[00:25:10] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah.

[00:25:11] Michael Regilio: Some are poisonous.

[00:25:12] Jordan Harbinger: That makes sense. I was going to say white arsenic and all that stuff you mentioned earlier. Now, so are we still talking about diluted solutions anymore? Because if they're diluted, who cares if it's 30C diluted plutonium? It's not going to hurt you because you've already drank—

[00:25:25] Michael Regilio: Right.

[00:25:25] Jordan Harbinger: —hundreds of millions of whatever gallons of that bathed in it your whole life.

[00:25:28] Michael Regilio: Yeah.

[00:25:29] Jordan Harbinger: But if it's not diluted now, you're drinking poison, which sounds like a bad idea.

[00:25:34] Michael Regilio: Right, and with little oversight.

[00:25:36] Jordan Harbinger: So are there any regulations here? You mentioned the Food, Drug, Cosmetic Act, but do they, I don't know, test this stuff and say, "Hey, there's arsenic in here, you shouldn't feed it to your baby."

[00:25:46] Michael Regilio: It's confusing. In the United States, the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, which we mentioned, regulates homeopathic products with the same requirements as real drugs.

[00:25:55] Jordan Harbinger: So that sounds like decent regulation if they're actually regulating it like real drugs. Someone's looking at it, someone's testing it, or something, right? No? You're shaking your head.

[00:26:06] Michael Regilio: No, I'm shaking my head because here's the thing. There are no FDA-approved products labeled as homeopathic, and I don't understand this. So the agency just says they cannot guarantee these remedies meet standards for safety, effectiveness, and quality.

[00:26:20] Jordan Harbinger: How is this possible? The FDA doesn't approve any of them but you can still sell them? I thought the point was they don't approve it so you can't sell it. I guess I totally don't understand what the FDA does then. What the hell?

[00:26:32] Michael Regilio: You know what? I'm going to be honest with you. I did a deep dive and I don't fully understand how this works anywhere. I guess that once you put a label on the box that says this is all bullsh*t, you can just sell anything.

[00:26:42] Jordan Harbinger: Wow.

[00:26:42] Michael Regilio: In 2022, the FDA began categorizing homeopathic products from highest to lowest risk. So these things can't be proven to work but can be proven to be dangerous.

[00:26:54] Jordan Harbinger: All risk, no reward. Okay, how risky are we talking though?

[00:26:59] Michael Regilio: Most of it does not pose any risk at all. And not because the stated ingredients aren't dangerous, it's because often these products don't even contain the listed ingredients. Sometimes you're kind of buying nothing. There was a great article in the New York Times in which DNA testing was done on all the major herbal supplement brands. Many supplements tested had no trace of the plant advertised on the bottle. They just weren't what they said they were. Products labeled as popular herbs were shown to be diluted or just filled with rice flour, but some of them were downright dangerous stuff that wasn't listed.

[00:27:34] We've all seen ginkgo biloba supplements on the shelves to enhance our memory, but if you have a nut allergy, you might become a memory because they cut the supplements with walnuts without listing them.

[00:27:45] Jordan Harbinger: Oh my god.

[00:27:46] Michael Regilio: Side effects might include death. And there are other hazardous ingredients, again, like deadly nightshade.

[00:27:53] Jordan Harbinger: What is it with the homeopaths and deadly nightshade? So people thought they were taking supplements for all these years and they're just eating rice flour, which is kind of just here's some carbs. That's it.

[00:28:03] Michael Regilio: Yeah, I mean, skeptic and great hater of homeopathy James Randi tells this joke when he starts his TED Talk. A poor guy was sick and he overdosed on homeopathic medicine when he forgot to take his pills.

[00:28:16] Jordan Harbinger: So wait, am I on homeopathic meds right now? I just took a sip of grapefruit-flavored water?

[00:28:21] Michael Regilio: Depends on who you ask. James Randi was outspoken about the fraud of homeopathy. He famously would start lectures by taking an entire bottle of homeopathic sleeping pills and then he would continue on with his lecture, never getting the least bit sleepy, showing that they have no effect.

[00:28:37] Jordan Harbinger: That is a good stunt. That's a brilliant gimmick. Although James Randi was a showman, right? He was also into magic and stuff like that, so he understood the assignment. All right, so people are just taking bogus pills. Got it.

[00:28:48] Michael Regilio: Right. Countless people spent years thinking they were taking all sorts of supplements when they weren't. We're talking main staples of the herbal medicine movement here, like echinacea. But the funny thing is, no one was complaining. Scientists went in on their own volition to test these products. The DNA testing was part of scientific research, and it wasn't based on customer complaints.

[00:29:11] Jordan Harbinger: That doesn't speak well of the validity of the medicinal claims if people don't notice that they're not taking any active ingredient.

[00:29:18] Michael Regilio: Uh-huh. And yet, the ones taking nothing are the lucky ones because some of the untested, unproven homeopathic ingredients are problematic, to say the very least.

[00:29:29] Jordan Harbinger: I'm guessing this is when the magic spells disaster.

[00:29:32] Michael Regilio: Yes, and in the most egregious way possible. Let me tell you about the Hyland company. They are one of the leading brands distributing homeopathic products to your grocery store, Walmart, or CVS. I went to their website. It's so interesting that homeopathic remedies are always so versatile. They sell one on the site that cures colds and hemorrhoids. I mean, I might as well say Simpsons & Sons Revitalizing Tonic at that point. Hyland promotes, quote, "Safe, effective, and natural health solutions."

[00:30:05] Jordan Harbinger: I feel like I know ironic foreshadowing when I hear it. Safe, effective, and natural health solutions does not bode well for what you're about to say next.

[00:30:14] Michael Regilio: Yeah, yeah, and you'd be right. Sadly, you won't be surprised to learn that they included, unbelievable, deadly nightshade in their Hyland's teething tablets.

[00:30:25] Jordan Harbinger: Ooh, no, that got so much darker than I thought.

[00:30:28] Michael Regilio: Yes, these teething tablets are linked to hundreds of babies having seizures, and unbelievably, sadly, heartbreakingly, ten babies died.

[00:30:38] Jordan Harbinger: Oof.

[00:30:38] Michael Regilio: It will blow your f*cking mind that today that product is still for sale.

[00:30:44] Jordan Harbinger: What?

[00:30:45] Michael Regilio: Yes, in 2016, the FDA issued a warning against using homeopathic teething tablets, but it didn't ban their sale. The company voluntarily recalled the product, then re-released it with a reduced amount of poison for your children.

[00:31:01] Jordan Harbinger: Oh, god, reduced poison for baby teething tablets.

[00:31:08] You know what I enjoy even more than a nice tall 30C glass of Alexander the Great? The products and services that support this show. We'll be right back.

[00:31:17] This episode is sponsored in part by Airbnb. Whenever we travel, we enjoy staying at Airbnbs for its home away from home type of feel, especially for extended stays. We've stayed in some pretty chichi lofts from New York to Melbourne, Australia, rustic countryside cottages in New Zealand where they had pet alpacas and sheep and stuff like that. We've also stayed in beachside villas in Ko Samui and Maui, as well as an artsy fartsy apartment in Portland. It's fun to have that authentic experience, living as the locals do in real neighborhoods, experiencing the local culture, food, people. It also inspired us to set up a room and become hosts ourselves. Just so you, super sleuths, know, it's not available right now. My parents are living with us temporarily. A lot of people have asked. But hosting is fun and we meet incredible people this way. Maybe you have a vacation planned for the summer. When you're away, your home could be an Airbnb. Maybe a music festival or big tournament is coming to town, and you want to get out of town, you could Airbnb your home and make some extra money. Whether you could use a little extra money to cover some bills or for something a little more fun, your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much at airbnb.com/host.

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[00:32:31] Now for the rest of Skeptical Sunday.

[00:32:35] This really seems like the kind of thing that gets you sued into oblivion. And for good reason, I don't understand. Not only how the product is back, but how the company is even still existing. I mean, that's 10 wrongful death suits that should have hit all at once, along with just the hammer of the US government that obviously did not drop. That's beyond disappointing.

[00:32:54] Michael Regilio: They have voluntarily recalled the product several times, but the FDA's website says there is an ongoing investigation as we speak. And right now, you can just go buy a bunch of stuff for babies from Hyland in every pharmacy.

[00:33:08] Jordan Harbinger: That's disgusting. Jesus, Regilio. I'm guessing when you said most homeopaths are good people, you don't mean the homeopathic corporations.

[00:33:15] Michael Regilio: Hell, no. Just the words homeopathic corporation sounds evil to me.

[00:33:20] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, that's true.

[00:33:21] Michael Regilio: No, I meant the caregivers and patients, I think that was clear, but the people making these fake cures and bogus pills are obviously somewhere between snake oilers and oily snakes.

[00:33:32] Jordan Harbinger: That is getting depressing. Imagine thinking you're being a good parent, you're giving your baby something to make them feel better, it's all-natural, it's going to be fine, and they die as a result. That is heartbreaking and that kind of thing makes me angry. That makes me—

[00:33:45] Michael Regilio: Right.

[00:33:45] Jordan Harbinger: That pisses me off.

[00:33:47] Michael Regilio: And this gets into the other danger of homeopathy, but ignoring effective medicine can make taking homeopathic remedies a life-and-death situation. An Australian woman was diagnosed with a treatable form of cancer. But she put her trust in her homeopathic doctor who convinced her to forego conventional treatment. Once the cancer spread, the woman realized she had been had by a charlatan.

[00:34:10] Jordan Harbinger: Ugh.

[00:34:11] Michael Regilio: There was no turning back. The cancer was on its way to taking her life. You can read the angry letters she wrote to her homeopathic doctor from her deathbed. It's really heartbreaking.

[00:34:21] Jordan Harbinger: That's truly awful. I wonder how the doctor felt at that point. It's hard to say if they're a true believer or just a sociopath that doesn't care. It's hard to tell the difference at that point.

[00:34:31] Michael Regilio: I mean, I've read the letter that the woman wrote to her homeopathic doctor, and that is the accusation she's making. Basically, her eyes have been opened and she can see that she was a charlatan the entire time. That she wasn't interested in her actual well being, but just promoting this—

[00:34:48] Jordan Harbinger: Mm-hmm.

[00:34:48] Michael Regilio: —bogus, I wanted to say science, but it's not science, it's just this bogus medical theory. So I mean, people have good intentions, thinking they are doing something good for their body, and it's not just homeopathic medicine. There are certain products called Nosodes that are promoted as homeopathic vaccines. But there's no credible scientific evidence to support these claims at all. Homeopathic vaccines, as they're called, produce responses similar to placebos and create no antibodies.

[00:35:17] Jordan Harbinger: So there's no proof, nothing works, and people actually die. Why do people continue to believe in homeopathy? I mean, I guess I know the answer to this, but why do people continue to believe in homeopathy?

[00:35:28] Michael Regilio: Well, you know, there is some stress release from both the placebo effect and the overall feeling of well being people get from long visits with doctors.

[00:35:36] Jordan Harbinger: Mm-hmm.

[00:35:37] Michael Regilio: The placebo effect is not nothing, as we've talked about. It's well documented. As you covered in your episode with Jo Marchant, we are wired to be fooled into self-healing. It's interesting. Studies show that stress hormones can cause people to feel like sh*t, and just the act of taking a pill has a calming effect. And amazingly, large pills work better than small pills. Colored pills work better than white ones. So it's understandable that people believe in homeopathy because of a personal experience.

[00:36:08] Jordan Harbinger: That is interesting and makes sense. Whenever we do these episodes about crystals or acupuncture or psychics, anything really, we DMs from somebody who disagrees with us because they have anecdotal evidence that somebody they know, or they themselves, or their dog, or whatever, was helped by whatever we're debunking. And I then have to explain the logical fallacy of anecdotal evidence, or explain the placebo effect, or both. And a lot of times, unfortunately, it seems to go right over their head. Not that they're too dumb to understand it. They don't want to understand it. They want to believe in the thing because now they go every week or whatever. And some people, they just really want to believe. And other people are habitually bad thinkers or don't seem to have the ability to think critically very well at all. They don't seem to understand. That anecdotal evidence is not scientific, they just refuse to believe it. They're like, "No, it happened to me. It's not anecdotal, it happened to me." And I'm like, that's the definition of anecdotal, but okay. And this is unfortunately very common. What about the doctors, the teachers, career, homeopaths? Why do they continue to believe? Is it just a grift?

[00:37:14] Michael Regilio: They're a different breed. I'm not going to speak to their motivations, but it seems to me they want to believe in something that they know is impossible to prove. So they hang on to these long-lost arguments and logical fallacies.

[00:37:25] Jordan Harbinger: Mm-hmm.

[00:37:26] Michael Regilio: There was a German homeopath who set out to write a book proving homeopathy. In researching the evidence, obviously, she did it honestly and with integrity, and she flipped and wrote a book about dismantling homeopathy. Instead of opening a discussion to her findings, her colleagues immediately shunned and excommunicated her from the field.

[00:37:44] Jordan Harbinger: Oof.

[00:37:45] Michael Regilio: Yeah, and now she lives in semi-secrecy because of death threats.

[00:37:48] Jordan Harbinger: Oh, come on. That's ridiculous.

[00:37:50] Michael Regilio: Look, she gets me to my next point. I'm just being honest here when I say this reminds me of religious think or cult think. Look, people peddling homeopathy, their rationale is just upside down. They hang on to debunked theories while ignoring the facts that repeated scientific testing showing homeopathy's failure every single time. There is no there anywhere in homeopathy. Certainly not in, like cures like, or water has memory, or the less of an ingredient, the more powerful. Those arguments should be dead forever.

[00:38:25] Jordan Harbinger: Like Dr. Hahnemann's patients. But anyway, but instead of dying, this really seems to be spreading. I see tons of people on social media hawking this stuff. I see lots of nonsense. Even unfortunately from people who kind of knew better in the beginning, but then they're like, "Oh, but there's a college class. It must be something to it because I'm in medical school and there's a homeopathy course." And it's just lending credence to garbage.

[00:38:48] Michael Regilio: Absolutely. And now we have homeopathic lifestyle brands like Goop and Poosh. And they're not just for vagina candles anymore. I mean, celebrities like Gwyneth Paltrow and Kourtney Kardashian endorse homeopathy by putting buzzwords and products out there that people associate with health and well being. This is the concept of not just homeopathic medicine, but homeopathic lifestyle. The idea of 24-hour homeopathy. It's always on, always there. Like the unending scent of essential oils in a homeopath's office. They're essential, Jordan. You got to have them.

[00:39:23] Jordan Harbinger: I love when I see that online, somebody says, "They're essential oils. That means they're mandatory." It's like, no, it means they're the essence of something. But now I trust you even less when you're hawking your pretend medical cures. Okay, so what is essential about them?

[00:39:36] Michael Regilio: Uh, it's essential that you believe their unproven claims. Otherwise, why would you spend your money on smelly oil?

[00:39:43] Jordan Harbinger: For a bunch of essentially nothing. It is everywhere.

[00:39:45] Michael Regilio: Right. Homeopathy is an exponentially growing multi-billion-dollar market. According to the 2012 National Health Interview Survey, homeopathy is practiced by five million adults and one million children.

[00:39:59] Jordan Harbinger: Mmm.

[00:39:59] Michael Regilio: It's become a staple of American life. Homeopathic doctors are everywhere. Homeopathic medicine is in every store. They have lobbyists in Washington and senators and congresspeople introducing bills to protect them. To push back against this junk science may seem futile, but people and governments are doing it.

[00:40:17] Jordan Harbinger: I am glad the critics have a voice here too. That's a little unnerving that there are lobbyists for this because you get fringy kooky stuff like psychics that portend to tell you your future, but I don't think they have a lobby in Washington being like, "We should have this as part of our government. This needs to be in schools." They kind of like admit it's a grift when pressed and they just are confident and content with the suckers that walk through their doors and they don't try and spread the thing. It's good though that the critics have a voice because otherwise, this is going to get worse.

[00:40:44] A scam is one thing, but like you said, at the extreme ends of this, it's killing people like that poor woman from Australia or the babies that whose parents bought teething tablets thinking that they were harmless or beneficial. So how are people pushing back against this? Obviously, they're not suing Hyland out of existence like I would have hoped.

[00:41:02] Michael Regilio: Well, I mean, there are cases against Hyland. I think they're still pending, but they will survive it because the market is too big and they are too wealthy. But, I mean, there are fierce critics. I read about a protest in Britain, Australia, and Canada where crowds took entire bottles of herbal sleeping pills, again, proving they do nothing. Many European universities have suspended their homeopathy programs in recent years. In 2015, Australia's National Health and Medical Research Council concluded that, quote, "There is no reliable evidence that homeopathy is effective for any health condition," end quote.

[00:41:38] In 2016, the University of Barcelona cancelled its master's degree program in homeopathic medicine because the Spanish Health Ministry no longer approved its use. In America, the controversy surrounding Hyland and the FDA prompted Connecticut representative Rosa DeLauro to propose the Recall Unsafe Drugs Act, which gives the FDA mandatory recall authority over homeopathic products. It didn't pass, unfortunately, but they reintroduced the bill just this year. We'll see what happens.

[00:42:06] Until then, the tricky part is still that these products are not FDA-approved. The FDA relies on companies to do the responsible thing and recall unsafe products. But they remove little from the shelves. But hey, on the industry leader Boiron's website, in small print, way down at the bottom on their site, past the all-rights-reserved marking, they have the legally required statement that says, quote, "Claims based on traditional homeopathic practices, not accepted medical evidence, not FDA evaluated," unquote. And there's even an asterisk before it.

[00:42:43] Jordan Harbinger: Well, that ought to clear up any confusion, of course, because people read so carefully and definitely are looking for objective evidence to counter their pre-existing beliefs.

[00:42:51] Michael Regilio: Absolutely. I mean, it's honestly, it's confusing how we even got here. For sure, Samuel Hahnemann lived during a time when definitive answers about what did and did not effectively cure people were impossible to conclude. His curiosity made him experiment, and he developed his theory of like cures like. When his tests failed, he changed his theory. He remained curious. Yes, he added a little magic into his theories, but it was the 1700s. Everyone was doing it. I'm not convinced he was trying to harm or swindle anyone. His advocates today seem to lack this, his curiosity, and his willingness to admit failure and correct course. They don't believe in homeopathy because there is no better working theory. They believe in homeopathy because, well, they just want to believe in homeopathy. And if that means water is magical, then so be it.

[00:43:39] Jordan Harbinger: Don't water down my drugs, homeopaths. I paid good money for that stuff.

[00:43:43] Michael Regilio: After doing this deep dive in the house that homeopathy built, I can't wait until the next time I see my real doctor. I'm going to tell them how grateful I am for them, as I ask to be treated for whatever ailment I may have, and then I'm going to gently remind them, no homeo doc, no homeo.

[00:44:00] Jordan Harbinger: I got you. Well, you won't have time to do that because your doctor won't spend time with you like a homeopathic doctor would. They're going to be in a hurry but I get what you're saying.

[00:44:07] All right, well, if people weren't homeophobic before, they will be now, and that joke is officially dead.

[00:44:14] Thank you, Michael. Really appreciate your time and your expertise, your newfound expertise on this one. I'm going to go drink a nice tall glass of 30C Empire State Building. Thanks, Michael.

[00:44:26] Michael Regilio: That'll have you standing tall.

[00:44:27] Jordan Harbinger: Mmm.

[00:44:27] Michael Regilio: Thanks, Jordan.

[00:44:30] Jordan Harbinger: We've got a preview trailer of our interview with Dr. James Fallon on how psychopath brains function differently from the rest of us and why psychopaths thrive in modern society.

[00:44:41] James Fallon: I'm a neuroscientist since about 1989. I've studied the brain imaging scans of killers, serial killers, really bad murderers, and I guess, I did one or two a year for many years.

[00:44:53] And then in 2005, 2006, I got sent a ton of them and I analyzed them. I said, oh my god, there's a pattern. So I saw this pattern that nobody had ever described, but at the same time we were doing a clinical study on the genetics of Alzheimer's disease and we had all the Alzheimer's patients we needed. So we needed normals, just normal controls.

[00:45:13] And so I asked my family, that was kind of my first mistake. I said, "Look, guys, you want to all get in?" I have my brothers, my wife. I said, "We'll test you," and the idea being that on my side of the family, there was no Alzheimer's at all. So we did it and the two technicians walked into my office. And on my right side, I have all these murderers' brain scans and they handed me a pile of my family scans and they were covered up so I couldn't see the names.

[00:45:37] And so I went through, I went through one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, I was really relieved that they looked, at the first pass, normal. And then I got to the last scan, and it looked at it, and I said, "Okay, guys," I said, "This is very funny. You kid around with each other, right?" And I said, "Okay, you switched them. You took one of the worst psychopaths from this pile of murders, and you switched it into my family, ha ha." And they go, "No, it's part of your family." I said, "You got to be kidding." I said, "This guy shouldn't be walking around in open society. He's probably a very dangerous person." So I had to tear back the covering on the name of it. And there was my name.

[00:46:16] Jordan Harbinger: For more with Dr. James Fallon, including how to spot a psychopath in the wild, check out episode 28 here on The Jordan Harbinger Show.

[00:46:26] Thank you all so much. This was a fan-suggested topic. So please give us a suggestion. You can email me directly, jordan@jordanharbinger.com. Give us your thoughts. A link to the show notes for the episode can be found at jordanharbinger.com as well. Transcripts are in the show notes. I'm at @JordanHarbinger on both Twitter and Instagram. You can also connect with me on LinkedIn. Michael Regilio can be found on Instagram at @michaelregilio. Good luck spelling that. We'll link to it in the show notes, also michaelregiliocomedy.com. We'll link that in the show notes. Tour dates up now as well.

[00:46:57] This show is created in association with PodcastOne. My team is Jen Harbinger, Jase Sanderson, Robert Fogarty, Ian Baird, Millie Ocampo, and Gabriel Mizrahi. Our advice and opinions are our own, and I'm a lawyer, but I'm not your lawyer. Do your own research before implementing anything you hear on the show, and certainly before you drink any sort of dilution of a toxic poison or give it to your kids, and that's not a joke, really pay attention to what you're putting in your own body or the bodies of others. And remember, we rise by lifting others So share the show with those you love and if you found the episode useful please share it with somebody else who needs to hear it like somebody who believes in homeopathy and gives it to their babies or their kids or their friends. In the meantime, do your best to apply what you hear on the show so you can live what you listen, and we'll see you next time.