Consumers in Vancouver stage homeopathic ‘overdose’
February 4, 2011
FOR RELEASE 6:00AM (PST) FEBURARY 2 2011
Consumers in Vancouver stage homeopathic ‘overdose’
Vancouver, BC. (February 2, 2011)
Consumer protection advocates from The Centre For Inquiry have today announced their intention to take a mass homeopathic ‘overdose’ this weekend, as part of a major global protest against the alternative remedies.
Protestors in Vancouver will swallow entire bottles of homeopathic pills at 11:00 AM on February 5th 2011, in a bid to raise public awareness of the fact that homeopathic ‘remedies’ are ineffective - putting pressure on pharmacists and healthcare providers to ensure that products sold as medical treatments actually work. The ‘overdose’ will be held on the steps of the Art Gallery, Robson street side.
Ethan Clow, spokesman for the group, said: “Following on the success of the CBC’s Marketplace program on Homeopathy (it was one of the most watched episodes in the program’s history, we want to continue to educate the public about the ludicrousness of these products. It is not that they just don’t work, it is that people give these so-called remedies to their unsuspecting children. Over 100 children in the US alone died last year because their parents gave them homeopathy instead of real medicine.”
The demonstration is being organized by The Centre For Inquiry Vancouver as part of the 10:23 Campaign - a global protest against the homeopathic remedies. The protest originated in the United Kingdom. Similar events will be taking place in dozens of countries around the world, with protests announced in Germany, Hungary, Australia and Canada. The Vancouver protest will include a demonstration of just how diluted the products and will be entertaining as well as educational.
In the two hundred years these treatments have existed, there has never been anything to suggest they work – and because they’re nothing but sugar and water, they couldn’t possibly do the things homeopaths claim they can do.
Tens of billions of dollars are spent every year around the world on these ineffective remedies, and when told what they really are, and how they’re made, most people are shocked these useless treatments are still able to be sold to an unsuspecting public.
The 10:23 Campaign launched a year ago in the UK, with almost 400 protestors taking part in ‘overdose’ events across the country following an admission by Britain’s leading pharmacy that the pills are only sold because consumers will buy them, not because they are effective. The campaign is named after ‘Avogadro’s Number’ – a scientific constant which can be used to show homeopathic potions contain no active ingredients.
Though some would argue dispensing sugar pills is harmless, the endorsement of homeopathic potions by pharmacists and healthcare providers has grave consequences. As well as undermining public trust in medicine and medical advice, patients with serious conditions can avoid seeking medical attention in the belief that homeopathy can treat their condition. An investigation by the BBC in January 2011 revealed that homeopaths were willing to give travellers ineffective homeopathic ‘preparations’ to use in place of real anti-malarial drugs, as well as ineffective homeopathic alternatives to vaccinations. CBC’s Marketplace found similar inappropriate dispensing of homeopathic remedied here in Vancouver.
The Centre for Inquiry is Canada’s premiere venue advancing reason, science, secularism and free inquiry, and serving as home for humanists, skeptics and freethinkers.
Contact:
Ethan Clow (Spokesperson)
Pat O’Brien (Spokesperson)
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