Homeopathy should be considered criminal. Have a look here. Around the middle, there's this piece:


Reader Shawn Hughes, RN, tells us this heartbreaker:

First, I would like to thank you for your work in confronting those in this world that prey on the weaknesses and vulnerabilities of others. The purpose of this letter is to share with you a recent experience I have had.

I am a registered nurse and do legal consulting work. I recently had a client approach me regarding the death of her 6-year-old daughter. This girl had been diagnosed with leukemia about a year before her death. Her physicians naturally recommended the standard therapies which included chemotherapy and bone marrow transplantation. Her parents initially consented to the procedures.

The girl's mother explained to me that her daughter seemed to go from being vibrant and healthy to sick and constantly lethargic during the chemotherapy. I responded to this statement by saying that chemotherapy is generally hard on most people, even healthy ones, and even more so when they are young. It was this lady's next few statements that left me speechless.

She claimed that during her daughter's treatment she came across a book written by a "Homeopathic" practitioner. This book claimed that chemotherapy was, in fact, the cause of most cancer patient's problems, and not the cure. The author went on to claim that proper rest and nutrition were shown (in his own case studies) to be the best way to battle "unhealthy" cancer cells. After doing some research of her own on the Internet, the mother took her daughter off all of her medications and refused any further chemotherapy treatment.

Randi comments: As one who has seen the workings of chemotherapy, I'll just say that not only is it a severe and uncomfortable treatment, but it invokes all sorts of depression and feelings of despair. It's understandable that a mother would have a bad reaction to seeing the discomfort her child was going through, and the relief experienced - albeit temporary - when the chemotherapy is discontinued. We have to see this matter charitably. Shawn continues:

The mother claimed that her daughter got better overnight. However, two months later she "suddenly" became ill. The mother told me that the sudden turn for the worse was a result of the medications she had received months earlier that still lingered in her system - another tid-bit she got from this book. The parents returned to the doctor demanding that their daughter receive a blood transfusion - again from the book, perceiving that it would help cleanse her system. The doctors informed her that the leukemia was now terminal. The mother argued with the doctors about every recommendation they made, even going so far as to say that her daughter never had leukemia in the first place.

The little girl died shortly thereafter, from what the mother described as a lack of nutrition and over-medication. The mother wanted to sue the doctors for making her daughter sick with chemotherapy and failing to treat her per her own recommendations.

This little girl was started down the right path and under good care until the seed of misinformation was planted in her mothers head. People who deal with a loved one's sickness often describe an overwhelming feeling of hopelessness. I often hear family members of patients say, "There has to be something I can do!" And naturally, as any good mother would do, this lady simply wanted to help her daughter and ease her suffering.

In her moment of despair it appeared that she could become empowered to help her daughter, through this book. It was something she could comprehend and have control over. She did not hide from me the fact that she now "knew something" that the doctors did not know. To her, modern medicine was a conspiracy, and homeopathic medicine was the truth that it sought to undermine.

Unfortunately, the lady would not give me the name of the book. As much as I try to be a skeptic and not a cynic, I find myself shaking my head at people who believe the difference between truth and fiction is nothing more than what they can and cannot understand. To take advantage of the hopeless is truly despicable, but to prey on the helpless, whether directly or indirectly, is criminal.

Please note: we do not know whether the author of this book was a knowing or unknowing quack. Most homeopaths, in my experience, are genuinely taken in by the nonsense, and convince themselves that it works, despite the contrary evidence.


How many people do are killed by these fraudsters every year? It's nuts. You can't expect the average person to know that this sort of thing is unverified crap. But governments don't do anything about this sort of thing. Bloody alternative 'medicine'.