But he's not offering advice. He's offering a data point. There's nothing wrong with that.

I could swear I have already seen this link somewhere /s

Plus this article is a fraud. The people it lists were killed by ignorance, neglect or their own informed choice, not by homeopathy. I don't think anybody has yet died of drinking a small amount of water and the guy you are harassing said nothing about giving up other treatments, just using homeopathy as placebo.

As controls are not as tight as you know real medicine several have in fact died of homeopathic meds that contained far too much of the active ingredients

But then those homeopathic meds were defective. Being harmed by a defective product is hardly unique to homeopathy.

Why are you defending a sham industry designed to separate fools from their money that discourages people from seeking real medical attention.

Dude, it's HN, barely anyone here seriously supports homeopathy.

The problem is that you are trying too hard to convince everyone. For me, if I knew nothing about the topic, this in itself would be a huge red flag to distrust you. Slow down and make sure to attack the right people for the right reasons.

It's not true that all of this shit is low quality, I presume mainstream stuff advertised on TV like Oscillococcinum might be safe. It's not obvious that all of that is cynically designed to separate fools from their money, some of the vendors may be cranky enough to believe it or at the very least they may see it helping in some cases due to the placebo effect and conclude it must be good then. And every time you say something others know for sure to be false, you are undermining you own credibility.

The thing I am attacking is an entire industry of con artists. Presuming medical advice is good because you heard it on tv is amazingly poorly thought out. Its as badly thought out for example as believing that the power of positive thinking provided by a fake cure is enough to balance out literally not knowing how to get good functional medial advice. In modern life where everyone who doesn't crash their car into a wall will need competent advice to reach their potential age this is a necessary survival skill long term.

Homeopathy is without exception useless nonsense. for example Oscillococcinum is duck offal diluted. The logic behind its operation doesn't even make sense in homeopathy land. Its the approximate equivalent of bad sci fi wherein having made up some imaginary laws of physics the author can't even stick to them properly.

I honestly don't know what algorithm you use to assess credibility. You suggest that you are put off by strong opinions but reassured by hearing about things on TV. You try to ascribe positive motives to modern day patent medicine scammers but distrust the motives of people angered such deceit.

Consider refining your judgment.

P.S. What did I say that you "know not to be true"?

> Presuming medical advice is good because you heard it on tv is amazingly poorly thought out.

Never said that, only that mass-manufactured stuff widely used for decades probably is safe or it should have been banned long ago.

> Its the approximate equivalent of bad sci fi wherein having made up some imaginary laws of physics the author can't even stick to them properly.

No argument here.

> You suggest that you are put off by strong opinions but reassured by hearing about things on TV.

Not really strong opinions but nagging and repeating things you've already posted without a word of explanation. Also, you stated as a fact that homeopathic drugs are of low quality without any sources or examples, it's the first time I'm hearing about this, why should I believe it if this kind of incidents aren't commonly reported afaik? At least dragonwriter was able to provide some example.

> P.S. What did I say that you "know not to be true"?

Nothing, but others may. You say it's a sham industry designed to part fools from their money, I know that there are people who religiously believe in this stuff, therefore there may be vendors who believe it too, somebody may know such vendors and then how does it make you look to them? And it's these people you need to convince, I have never used, produced, distributed or recommended homeopathic drugs and very likely never will.

Cigarettes are mass manufactured and widely used for quite some time. Its recently been found that some fake sugars may give you a massive boost to your chance to have your brain rot via Alzheimer's. Asbestos was widely used previously as was leaded gas was everywhere decades after it was widely known how bad it was. Not being banned his historically been a really bad predictor of safety.

I linked to a whole list of people that died or suffered via trusting alternative medicine. Anyone wanting further info can check out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeopathy

Honestly though one shouldn't need to fully explain that homeopathy isn't real in the same fashion as its usually not required to explain why witchcraft, literal magic, young earth creationism, or voodoo isn't real.

I'm not trying to convince anyone silly enough to believe, I'm trying to discourage people from promoting it as benign.

> It's not true that all of this shit is low quality

Not all of it is low quality, but you don't find out which one is low quality until someone dies, because of the lack of serious controls.

> I presume mainstream stuff advertised on TV like Oscillococcinum might be safe.

It might be. OTOH, there have been fairly mainstream homeopathic products that weren't, such as one of the more popular homeopathic teething remedies.

I'm not defending the industry. I think the industry is shameful. But the industry is distinct from the practice, and I think the practice can be beneficial to some people because placebos can be beneficial.

Not even being aware of how to determine what constitutes valid medical advice is detrmimental to people's long term health.

I am skeptical of the headlines touting medical mistakes as the No. 3 cause of death in the US. But to be fair, someone could put up a similar site listing thousands of people who have been harmed under conventional medical care.

Your site doesn't provide enough info to compare the rate of harm. For mild ailments, which is what I assumed OP was speaking of, homeopathic treatments might have a lower rate of harm.

Iatrogenesis is a possibility with any health care. And, to give your link credit, homeopathy certainly sounds like a dangerous route for serious conditions.