I'm Heather Henderson and I'm about to take a homeopathic sleep aid
called Calms-Forte.
I'm doing a persuasive speech in my class and I told the teacher
that I wanted to start off my talk by swallowing a whole bottle of these.
He said, if I did it first in front of someone who I trusted,
and showed him that everything was okay, I'd be allowed to do it also in class.
So I have a box here,
and it's got a lot of bull ingredients, there's really nothing in them,
I looked it all up, I did my research
So I'm going to open it up here.
It's a little tiny bottle.
Let's take a look.
Oh my gosh, that's a lot of pills. >> [Cameraperson]: Mhm.
>> Okay, it's a -- 50 tablets. [laughs]
Alright, fine. [noise of tablets coming out of the bottle]
I'm going to take them.
>> Date? >> What is the date and time?
>> Okay - Hey Siri, what is today?
Alright, so it's Wednesday, May 31st, 2017.
>> Okay, I'm going to take it.
I don't even have all of the pills in my hand right now,
this is not even really half the bottle,
but I'm gonna take as many as I can - these I can.
Ready? > Okay.
Ah!
>> Show.
>> Ah!
Okay! [burps] Excuse me!
That was 50 tablets of Calms-Forte..
I'm about to head to class right now, and I'm going to show him the video,
show him the empty bottle,
show him the paper I wrote out,
explaining all the ingredients that aren't in this
and -my class is four hours long, so hopefully by the end of class,
he'll see that there's nothing in this - at all.
>> [C] And right now the time is... Apple watch, come on!
>>[Apple watch:] It's 5:24
good evening >> [C:] It's 5:24 in the evening,
Wednesday May 31st 2017
>> Okay, here I go.
Before I begin my speech, I need to take
a little bit of medication, just to give me some pep.
It's going to get me prepared, so that I can do a great job.
Thanks for that.
Imagine you have a friend, who is a parent
of an adorable 18 month old baby who gets a simple ear infection.
Let's call her Hope.
What would most parents do in this situation?
Many would take their baby to a pediatrician
who would prescribe antibiotics that would clear up her ear infection.
But what if you knew that rather than taking Hope to a doctor,
Your friend was treating her with something called homeopathy?
An ear infection can be dangerous, especially for someone as young as Hope.
Side effects can be very painful, and even lead to death.
In 2015, Hope's parents were charged
with one count each of involuntary manslaughter
and endangering the welfare of a child.
These parents were against antibiotics
and other chemicals related to Western medicine.
So they treated Hope's ear infection with homeopathic remedies.
Little Hope died of a condition that could have been prevented
with scientifically proven medicine (inaudible check)
Hope was sick for three weeks before her death
and she suffered horribly and unnecessarily
from a simple ear infection that lead to meningitis,
which caused an abscess followed by swelling of the brain.
What's even more horrific
is because Hope was being treated with only homeopathic remedies,
her illness and death went on without any treatment to ease her pain.
At one point, Hope was vomiting and had a fever that reached 103°.
And five days before her death, Hope started draining fluid from her ear
caused by an abscess that ruptured her (inaudible - check) ear drum.
This is only one (inaudible check) story but there are many more like it,
which is why I'm here to demonstrate that homeopathy is a lie.
I've done extensive research on homeopathic remedies
because when I was diagnosed with cancer in 2001,
I was desperate to find alternative ways to cure my illness.
Fortunately, I also chose to listen to my doctor's advice
and go through with chemo.
But I was so emotionally vulnerable.
I tried many expensive products
that in the end did nothing but (inaudible - check) my wallet of cash.
What exactly is homeopathy?
Most people, when they hear the term, think it is just natural herbal remedies.
Not even close.
To truly appreciate how awful this idea is,
we need to go all the way back to the 18th century.
A German physician named Samuel Hahnemann
began forming the basic principles of homeopathy in the late 1700's.
He developed what he called "the law of similars."
That's the idea that diseases can be cured
by extremely small amounts of the substance that produces
similar symptoms in healthy people when they take large amounts.
Hahnemann and his earlier followers conducted "provings"
in which they administered herbs, mineral and other substances
to healthy people, including themselves,
and kept detailed records of what they observed.
Later, these records were compiled into a lengthy reference book
called Materia Medica,
which are used to match a patient's symptoms with a corresponding drug
And for the record: just because that book is in Latin
does not make it true.
For example, if you had symptoms of swelling from a spider bite,
then a homeopath would give you a diluted amount of remedy
with the venom of a spider in it
to cure the swelling,
because according to Hahnemann, like cures like.
Sounds crazy?
That's because it is, big one (check)
Consider just how diluted each one of these are.
Here's how it works.
10 to the power of 1 is 10.
10 square is 100.
10 to the third power has 3 zeros behind it
and it goes on and on and on.
To make a homeopathic remedy,
you take 1 part of the active ingredient and put it in 10 parts of water.
Then you succuss it.
Succuss means shaking, and homeopaths do the succussing like this.
They tap on something as they are shaking the mixture.
Now this is called a 1 solution.
That's far too strong.
Then they take 1 part of that solution and put it into 10 parts of water,
shake it again and make a 2 solution:
1 part in 100.
The rule is, the more dilute the remedy is the stronger it is.
A popular dosage is 30 c.
In homeopathy, that's 1 part for million, million, million, million,
million,million, million, million, million, million.
Let me put that into perspective.
Homeopathic remedies contain far less medicine
than if you would have put one drop of active ingredient
in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
If you dilute a solution that much,
how does it even work?
Here's what homeopathic doctors believe.
They believe that water retains memory.
That is to say, they believe water remembers the effects
of the active ingredient.
What they don't realize is that if water retains memory,
then it also must remember all the times that feces and pees
has (check) into it.
Here is what science has to say:
When tested in a lab, scientists have found
that the homeopathic pills are primarily sucrose and galactose.
This is what real medical professionals refer to as sugar pills.
After assessing more than 1800 studies on homeopathy,
Australia's National Health and Medical Research Council
was only able to find 225 studies that were scientifically balanced enough
to analyze.
And a systematic review of these studies revealed
no reasonable evidence to support any claim that homeopathy is effective
in treating any (inaudible, check) condition.
There is no diploma or certificate from any school or program
recognized as a license to practice homeopathy in the US.
Individual State laws and licensing boards regulate the practice of homeopathy
and each State laws and requirements for practices are different.
Some States might not have any definitive laws
on the practice of homeopathy
but might have laws on the practice of alternative therapies
by not licensed practitioners.
Sadly, the market for homeopathic medicines in the United States
is a multi-million dollar industry.
Homeopathic remedies are recognized and regulated
by the Food and Drug Administration
and are manufacture by pharmaceutical companies.
Today, all the conventional prescription drugs
and new over-the-counter drugs
must undergo thorough testing and review by the FDA for safety and effectiveness
before they can be sold.
This requirement is not applied to homeopathy
at all.
If you are anything like me,
you must be shocked by how this medication can be regulated by the FDA,
sold in drugstores and that anyone would stand by this type of remedies.
Some of you might say: "Well, what about the placebo effect?
"What's the harm if people think and feel like they are getting better,
"even if there's nothing in it?"
The greatest danger occurs when homeopathy replaces a conventional treatment,
as it did in another case recorded in a British medical journal.
A woman had relied on homeopathy during a trip to Togo, West Africa,
which resulted in a nearly deadly case of malaria.
This meant she had to endure two months of intensive care
for multiple organ system failure.
In her case, the placebo effect offered no protection at all.
In other words, any delay in proving effective treatment of some diseases
can have dangerous and deadly results.
Some people even choose not to vaccinate their children
in favor of homeopathic vaccines.
As a result, measles and whooping cough are making a comeback.
Remember baby Hope, from the beginning of my talk,
who died from complications from an ear infection?
She wasn't old enough to have the option to deny those homeopathic remedies
that caused her death.
That's the harm.
While some people like eating sugar pills (check) as their immune system does all the work
to cure their 'flues and colds,
others are suffering and dying unnecessarily.
I'm giving you all this information to remind you
that incredibly, when it comes to some natural remedies,
if it says "homeopathy", remember there's nothing of value in it,
other than the placebo effects.
Here's what you can do.
First and foremost: don't waste your money on these scams.
Second: if you see a homeopathic remedy in a drugstore,
ask the manager why they are selling medicine with nothing in it.
By the way, CDS, Wall Green's and GMC sell this (inaudible - check) - everyday.
And third: don't just listen to me.
Research the products, their ingredients and how they are made for yourself.
You watched me eat an entire bottle of pills during this communication.
What I swallowed was 50 Calms-Forte homeopathic sleeping pills.
And by the way, on the bottle, it says: "There are no side effects."
Really.
See me after class and you will find that I am still standing.
>> Good, great! (Applause)