Friday, August 8, 2014

GMO, Homeopathy - The Real Scams

"All natural," "organic," and "artificial" are both misnomers, for much the same reason. Better descriptives would be "unprocessed," "processed," and "manufactured." Let's use the medicine as the example here as I have been facing a few homeopaths and anti-GMO folks recently who could benefit from this lesson.

Yes, all of the chemicals we use in medicine are found in various other organisms, primarily plants. These chemicals rarely manufactured for pharmaceuticals, a claim I often hear from homeopaths, yet even if they were manufactured there would be no difference from those found in plants.

There is a huge difference in the compounds though, and this difference is why homeopathic medicines have, at least, twice the number of side effects. The processed chemicals are mixed only with inert agents, to preserve the chemical structures when stored in pill forms. These inert agents have no side effects, and are most often sugar.

For a plant with the same chemical you have at least three or four additional active ingredients, in pill form you still have the inert agents processed chemicals have as well. These additional active ingredients offer more side effects and a larger risk of drug interaction.

Now here's the real problem, the manufactured dosage is scientifically determined based on body mass and physiology, very little guess work done. The homeopathic remedies are miniscule dosages of the desired chemical, and not scientifically tested nor managed, mostly guess work.

Most homeopathic remedies have less then 100th of a percent of the desired active ingredient, the majority is a collection of undesired (often unknown) active ingredients that can alter you physiology in unpredictable ways. This is only the beginning of the problems, mind you.

Many homeopaths will tell you to take something that has no actual benefits to your ailment as well. They will cite studies that were either inconclusive or incorrectly reported as supportive evidence to convince you it's a good idea. This is your cue to ask for a real doctor.

Now, back to the processed pharmaceuticals. Most often they process the plants and remove all the undesired chemicals, leaving only the active ingredient you need. Lately we have been improving our chemical technologies and are manufacturing many of the chemicals from scratch.

Now, the manufactured ones are no different from the processed or unprocessed chemicals, they all have the same atoms. The manufactured ones have a huge benefit, less risk of an unwanted active ingredient getting into the mix.

The reason I mentioned anti-GMO in the beginning is because this is the same thing they do for pesticides and herbicides that are demonized, the pesticides and herbicides labeled as "organic" are actually worse, they are indiscriminate poisons with a lot of undesired active ingredients. The manufactured pesticides and herbicides are targeted poisons, they only kill what is needed and leave the rest unharmed.

The next time some quack or nut tells you that "big pharma" is out for a profit, ask them how much they paid for their Russian roulette style medicine, chances are they paid three to ten times what a processed medicine costs. Then ask them to list off the possible side effects for laughs.

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