So why aren't they lining up to treat the Ebola outbreak

Recently @rayne_2 of Insufferable Intolerance tweeted something that should make a person think "so why aren't you people doing something if you believe your so called medicine works?"

I've noticed Homeopaths without Borders aren't lining up to treat the Ebola outbreak..
— Rayne (@rayne_2) July 31, 2014

Now I did check their website, and yes they aren't there.

I even did a check on the site's search bar for both "ebola" and "Africa" just to make sure, and I came up with nothing. Infact they've never been to Africa as far as I can tell.

So why aren't these people over in West Africa along with Doctors Without Borders?

I'm aware that these people are just pushing water and sugar pills, and that it's best that they not be there and get in the way of real doctors who are there to combat this disease, but the fact that they shouldn't be there has never stopped pushers of alternative medicine before from going where they are not wanted.

I could go to their contact page and ask them why they aren't there, but I probably wouldn't get an answer.

This should make one ask themselves that if homeopathic medicine works, as practitioners claim that it does, then why aren't these people over in West Africa right now helping "treat" the people that have been infected with Ebola and suffering?

It's not like it would be hard to push homeopathic medicine on the people over there since most of them are already using alternative medicine in an attempt to treat ebola infections.

Perhaps they just don't want to risk getting infected with Ebola and dying, which is exactly what the real doctors over there are doing right now. Risking their lives to help others.

10 reasons why AIDS Denialists and the Anti-Vaccination Movement are a lot alike

AIDS Denialism and the Anti-vaccination movement. Two groups that promote what many scientists and and doctors and skeptics alike consider to be the two most dangerous and deadly types of pseudoscience there is. In fact many skeptics have debated which one is more deadly!

Regardless of which one is more deadly, both of groups have an awful lot in common, and I've come up with about ten different things that both groups have in common:

They become very upset when someone questions their claims.

Anti-vaccers and (as I have learned in the past few weeks) AIDS denialists really do not like it when someone questions what they are claiming. It doesn't matter how nice you are to them, or how many facts you present to them, if you question their claims they will become very anger and start throwing around accusations and insults and start spamming people with a bunch of propaganda. This is of course annoying at best, and usually just something that gets them blocked on an internet site, but sometimes they take it to the next level and start doing the next thing on this list...

They use intimidation tactics.

AIDS Denialists and Anti-vaccers just seem to love to use intimidation tactics. Many times these intimidation tactics can be a benign type, like fear mongering and emotional appeal, which is used to sway people who might be on the edge of whether to believe them or not over to their side, or it can be an aggressive type, like death threats, or threats of lawsuits, or harassment, which is used in an attempt to frighten people away from questioning their claims, or to stop skeptics from debunking them.

They claim to do research.

Both AIDS Denialists and Anti-vaccers will often say that they have done their own research into the claims that they are making, and then through this so called research they will claim that they have come to a conclusion, and then proclaim that their conclusion is correct and that all others are incorrect. This is ofcourse if they're not simply claiming that the contradictory information isn't apart of some "big pharma" disinformation propaganda campaign to "slander" Anti-vaccers and AIDS Denialists. And that's another thing...

They think there is some kind of big pharma conspiracy.

Many Anti-vaccers and AIDS Denialists sincerely believe that not only what they believe is true, but they also believe that pharmaceutical companies also know "the truth" and that they're keeping this so called truth hidden from the public so that people will keep buying their products, products that Anti-vaccers and AIDS Denialists believe that no one actually needs and sincerely believes is dangerous.

The reasons why these two groups claim that the pharmaceutical companies are keeping this so called "information" hidden is because if people knew "the truth" (i.e. their truth) that they would no longer buy anything from these pharmaceutical companies and they would go out of business. That, or according to some Anti-vaccers and AIDS Denialists, vaccines and HIV medication is part some kind of NWO/Illuminati plot.

They have no problem censoring people.

Ever make a comment on an Anti-vaccer's or AIDS Denialist's page or comment section for a Youtube video, and said comment either criticizes what they are saying, or debunks what they're saying? Well then you probably know that not many people are going to see it because most administrators of such sites will usually remove such comments pretty quickly... and probably ban you. While this type of censorship is bad they do have every right to do it because they have every right to control the content that is on their webpages.

Some of these people will take the censorship of people who disagree with them to the next level and actually try to get entire webpages and videos from various social media websites removed, either by flagging a webpage or a group or a video as inappropriate or harassing, or even by sending out bogus DMCA takedown notices (which is illegal).

There's no science behind their claims.

While I have no doubt Anti-vaccers and AIDS Denialists sincerely believe in their claims, the fact is that there is no science based evidence behind either of these groups claims. In fact all of the claims made by both of these groups have been disproven by scientific research, which is why no legitimate scientist or doctor takes these two groups claims seriously and try to get other people not to listen to these groups.

They endorse alternative medicine.

Considering the fact that both Anti-vaccers and AIDS Denialist believe in big pharma conspiracy theories it should not be surprising that people in both groups prefer to use and endorse alternative medicine.

Many of the biggest endorsers of the anti-vaccination movement and AIDS denialism are either homeopaths, or naturopaths, or are in some other type of pretend medical field.

Many of the sites that promote these two groups and their beliefs also sell alternative medical products.

They encourage stuff that has legal consequences.

Both groups tend to encourage their followers to do stuff that could lead to a person getting into legal trouble, such as getting sued, being imprisoned, or even having their children taken away.

For Anti-vaccers the legal consequences could result from falsifying vaccination records inorder to get their child in school, to getting sued by the parent of a child that got sick from their child due to a disease that was preventable through vaccination.

For AIDS Denialists, especially for ones that have HIV, the legal consequences could result in them being imprisoned if they have sex with someone and they don't disclose their HIV positive status with simply because they don't believe that HIV exist, or that it causes AIDS.

Their beliefs have lead to deaths.

It is an undeniable fact that the claims from both of these groups have lead to numerous deaths, all of which could have been prevented.

With the AIDS Denialists the deaths are of people with HIV infections who decided not to take any medication that would suppress HIV because they believe that HIV either doesn't exist, or it doesn't cause AIDS. Sometimes it's not just them that die, it's also their children if their children had contracted HIV from their mother while their mother was pregnant with them, and they refuse to let their children have any medication that would suppress HIV.

With Anti-vaccers the deaths come from either their children after they get infect by a vaccine preventable disease and just could not fight it off, or the deaths come from other children that their child infects that were not vaccinated because they were either to young, or couldn't get vaccinated for various medical reasons.

They both act like cults.

Both the Anti-vaccination movement and AIDS Denialists engage in behavior that some would describe as being very cultish like. For example:

They don't like people questioning them. They have enemies lists. They completely disregard what facts are brought before them. They can't stand being question. They put out articles that are blatantly false. They have no regard for rules or laws. And they try to destroy people that take them on.

Sounds like a lot like a cult, and I bet many people would agree with me too.

5 Things I've noticed about... Homeopathic Medicine

Homeopathic medicine is probably one of the oldest forms of alternative medicine there is. Infact it was invented in the late 1700's by German physician Samuel Hahnemann, and has been with ever since.

Now there are lots of claims about homeopathy and what it does, and after looking into them I've noticed several different things about homeopathic medicine.

So here are five things I've noticed about homeopathic medicine:

5. You can make it at home.

Homeopathic medicine is very easy to make. You don't even need a complex chemistry lab inorder to make it. You can make it right in your kitchen!

Got a headache and you want to make some homeopathic aspirin inorder to get rid of it? Well here's what you do:

Step 1: Get one tablet of aspirin and about ten bottles of water.

Step 2: Crush aspirin and put it into one of the bottles of water.

Step 3: Shake up bottle.

Step 4: Take one drop from said bottle and put it into the next bottle.

Step 5: Repeat steps 3 and 4 until done doing so with all bottles.

Now if you do all of this you will have homeopathic aspirin and your headache should go away in a few hours... same as any other normal headache would if you were to take nothing at all.

Actually this might not work, and this is because...

4. You're suppose to use something that can cause the problems that you currently have inorder to cure them.

Inorder for homeopathic medicine to actually work (atleast according to people who make and deal with homeopathic medicine) you don't use heavily diluted medicine that would cure whatever it is that you have. What you actually are suppose to use is something that could cause the symptoms that you're having rather than actually cure them. Think of it as a kind of like a vaccine, minus any backing from the scientific and medical communities.

So if you want to cure that headache of yours using heavily diluted aspirin isn't going to work. What you actually want to use is something that can cause a headache if you take it in it's pure form, like beer, only it has to be heavily diluted.

So using homeopathy logic the best thing to take when you have a headache is a ball park beer, because those things are watered down all to hell.

3. A lot of it is REALLY watered down.

If you think that the homeopathic aspirin that I gave instructions above on how to make sounds really diluted (probably to the point where three to four bottles in you're not going to find any aspirin molecules) that's nothing (pun intended) compared to what some homeopathic medicine makers sell.

Some homeopathic medicine that is currently on the market is so diluted that you would have to consume the equivalent of all the water on the Earth inorder to have a chance of getting one molecule of whatever the original ingredient was...

Then there is Oscillococcinum, which is so diluted that one would have to consume it equivalent of 10³²¹ times the number atoms in the known universe inorder to have a chance of consuming even one molecule of whatever ingredient it is that the that the manufacturers used.

Now I bet many of you at this point are probably wondering how exactly is homeopathic medicine suppose to work? There is actually a explanation for that...

2. It's suppose to work off of water memory.

According to homeopathic practitioners water has memory, and that water can somehow contain the memory of whatever it is that it has come in contact with, and somehow this memory transfers over to us, and thus the more you dilute something the more memory the water retains of it...

If water memory is real then how would putting something in our water that is suppose to make us sicker make us better? Infact if water memory actually is real then drinking any water should kill any one of us instantly due to water memory retaining memory of all of the pollutants and toxins that's ever gone into it.

Fortunately we are all still here, so it leads me to think that there is nothing to this water memory stuff, and that much like the rest of homeopathic medicine...

1. It all sounds like BS.

Multiple dilutions. Using something that's suppose to make you sick inorder to cure you. Water memory. It all sounds like BS, right?

Well there's a reason why it all sounds like BS. It is.

Homeopathic medicine has never been proven to work. At best you may get a placebo effect where you think it's curing you but really you're healing no faster than you would if you took nothing at all.

Homeopathic medicine is a fraud. It always has been and it always will be.

The only reason why anyone would believe that homeopathic medicine works is either they have been tricked into believing that it works, or they are so into alternative medicine that they refuse to believe that it doesn't work.

5 Things I've noticed about... Alternative Medicine

Alternative Medicine.

It's a multi-billion dollar scam industry that millions of people around the world use the products and services of year after year.

Many people who use alternative medicine will say it works, while many, many others will say otherwise.

Now there are a lot of things that I have notice about alternative medicine, but I have narrowed it down to five different things.

So here are five things I've noticed about alternative medicine:

5. It has a lot to do about nothing.

Alternative medicine products and services basically comes in two different forms: does nothing and uses nothing.

Most alternative medicine just doesn't work at all (such as homeopathy), and the few that actually does do something, the effects are minor and no where near as effective as real medicine, and could even be harmful if done improperly.

Then there are some that not only does nothing, but uses nothing as well. Reiki healing is a prime example of this as practitioners of Reiki healing practitioners claim that they use "energy" from some unknown source to "heal" people. Sometimes they will use crystals to harness this power. Sometimes they'll just use their hands. Regardless of how they "harness" this energy, they all do the same thing: nothing.

4. It works off of anecdotal evidence

Some of the best "evidence" that practitioners of alternative medicine have about how effect the products and services they offer works is anecdotal evidence. In fact it's not just best evidence they can give, it's also often the only evidence they can ever give (besides the stuff they make up) mainly because scientific experimentation and testing have proven that their products and services are useless.

Most practitioners of alternative medicine will tell you that their products and services does make people feel better, what they often don't tell you is how long it took to fix or cure whatever was ailing those who used their products or services, or whether they were using real medicine and medical services along with the alternative medicine, or how many people it didn't work for and ended up having to go and get real medicine and medical services when the alternative medicine failed to cure any thing but perhaps a heavy wallet. And that's another thing about alternative medicine...

3. It gets expensive.

Some alternative medicine is cheap (or at least it seems that way) but a lot of it is either over priced and even cost to much for some to use (which can be a good thing in a way, because the expense forces that person to go get real medicine). Even for people with health insurance it can still get expensive because most health insurance companies will not pay for alternative medicine, so a person who wants to use alternative medicine will have to pay for it out of pocket.

Even for the alternative medicine that isn't expensive, and can still get expensive because you have to keep buying and using it over and over again until either whatever is ailing you heals up on it's own, or you wise up and get real medicine, or you just keep buying the same useless stuff and forgo real medicine because you've been tricked into believing it works, even when it is obvious it doesn't.

Now being expensive for either a product or service that either doesn't work, or hardly does anything at all is a very negative part about alternative medicine, but it is not as bad as the fact that...

2. It is dangerous.

If you're taking an alternative medical treatment for either a cold or a cough then really the only damage your causing is to your wallet, but if you're taking alternative medical treatment for either cancer, or HIV, or anything that can kill you, then it becomes dangerous because you are forgoing proven medical treatments for something that doesn't work, and could possibly make it worse.

Besides just being dangerous because the belief that alternative medicine works can cause a person to forgo getting real medicine and medical treatments and instead get alternative medicine and medical treatments, some of this stuff can be dangerous if improperly done (like chiropractic) or overused (like colloidal silver) or if to much is taken at once (like Laetrile) and even outright used at all (like Cansema).

1. It's legally questionable.

Besides just coming in the forms of doing nothing and using nothing, alternative medicine also comes in another two other basic forms: doesn't work, and harmful. Because of this many forms of alternative medicine are in legal gray areas (besides the ones that are illegal) due to the fact that for the most part they don't work, many people believe that all forms of alternative medicine should be viewed as fraud and made illegal, and that all products that has shown to be dangerous should be made illegal because they are a dangerous fraud.

Besides the fact that alternative medicine is legally questionable, there have already been some ramifications when concerning alternative medicine. Some products have been made illegal because they are either dangerous, or just don't work. Insurance companies have no legal obligation to pay for alternative medicine, and often do not. Some people have even had their children taken away because they refused to get their children real medical treatment (often times for stuff that's life threatening) and use alternative medicine as a "substitute".

Many practitioners of alternative medicine have also been sued by their clients, either for fraud because they were sold a product or service that did not work, or because their product or service injured their client and actually increased their medical bills, or even left them disabled.

Many practitioners of alternative medicine have also been fined by the government, forced to shut down their operations, and in some extreme cases, sent to prison for fraud and practicing medicine without a license.

Chemtrail Detox Spray: Another BS product

A few weeks I was shown a website about some type of spray called "Chemtrail Detox Spray".

When I first saw the name alone it made me think "what the heck?" Then I saw just what type of spray it was, and I went from thinking "what the heck" to "what a freaking sham!" and it made me think "can people really be this stupid?" Then I remember just how stupid of a statement that is because if people really are dumb enough (or crazy enough) to believe in chemtrails, they might just buy a spray that "detoxs" chemtrail "stuff"...

The claims made on the website are as follows:

• Chemtrail Detox Spray offers relief from the effects of Chemtrails.

Actually it can't offer "relief" from the effects of chemtrails because chemtrails do not exist.

There is no scientific evidence what so ever that shows that chemtrails exist, and that what conspiracy theorists believe to be chemtrails are actually just contrails and clouds. Even if they did exist they wouldn't be effective anyways because they would be sprayed way to high up in the atmosphere to have any affect on us, not to mention the fact that there just aren't enough planes to make such things effective on a global scale.

Also, all the claims of what chemtrails are suppose do are completely bogus as well.

The next claim made says that it is a:

• Non Chemical Homeopathic Remedy.

"Non Chemical Homeopathic" to me is sort of redundant. The reason I say this is because homeopathic medicine is a fraud medicine that is basically just water, and doesn't contain any chemicals in it...

It would be cheaper to fill up a spray bottle with water and spray it into your mouth than it would to buy this product. Heck it would be better to that anyways because the water in that spray bottle would be fresher than it would be in the Chemtrail Detox Spray!

The next thing the makers of this product says:

• Indications for relieving a broad spectrum of chemtrail induced states including:

And those would happen to be:

• sinus irritation,

Which is also a symptom of a cold or allergies.

• lowered immune system,

What exactly do they mean by thiss? Could it mean "feeling icky"? There are a number of things that can make a person feel icky. Heck, being outside in the heat and sun to long can make a person feel icky. The flu can make a person feel icky.

They really need to be more specific here, because generally when I think of "lowered immune system" I think of HIV and AIDS.

• body aches,

That could be a sign of the flu, or an injury, or aging.

• radioactive heavy metals,

If we really were being sprayed with radioactive heavy metals there would be no way to hide that! And if you do have radioactive heavy metals in your system, then you need to check yourself into your local ER ASAP (and you should consider not living next to a nuclear power plant).

• memory loss,

That could be due to stress, or aging, or an early sign of Alzheimer's.

• fatigue,

That could be caused by not getting enough sleep, or working to much, or it being cold outside, or not drinking enough coffee in the morning, or not drinking enough water when it's hot out, or eating a bunch of junk food.

• infections,

Infections are caused by bacteria and viruses, not chemicals.

• mental/emotional health

If you're having mental and emotional problems an expensive little spray bottle filled with water isn't going to help. What you need to do is go see a psychiatrist. Not only can they help you with your mental and emotional problems, they could also help you get over your belief in chemtrails.

Now the directions on how use this stuff is surprisingly very simple:

• Spray 1 dose directly in mouth as needed until symptoms improve.

Hey, that's great! I don't have to worry about dosages (not like I would anyways with this). I can just spray this into my mouth until I feel better, or it's gone (probably the latter).

Lets face the facts about this Chemtrail Detox Spray. It's nothing more than an over priced little spray bottle filled with water that's been deceptively labeled to make it look like it is real medicine in order to trick paranoid people who think that chemtrails are real into buying it!

Fortunately the site itself has been taken down from it's web hosting site Wordpress (although you can still see the site's claims here and here) and while I don't know why the site was taken down, my best guesses is that it was either taken down by the owner of the site due to the negative attention of trying to sell a sham product, or by Wordpress itself due to the fact it was selling a sham product.

The Three Categories of Alternative Medicine

Alternative medicine is a really big business, and is practiced around the world (in some places more than others).

In some place in the world it might be practiced because the people there either can't afford modern medicine, or more likely they either just can't get access to modern medicine, or they feel they have no need for modern medicine because they have been taught that their local folk medicine works. In other places in the world it could be just simply that they don't trust pharmaceutical companies.

So back at the subject at hand, alternative medicine can be basically categorized into three different types:

Ineffective

While many people might say that no forms of alternative medicine work, there are in fact a few that do work to some extent, they just don't do to the extent that many of the practitioners of that alternative medicine claims, and that there are more effective (and sometimes cheaper) conventional medical practices that can be done.

Examples of this would be acupuncture, chiropractic therapy, and even vitamin supplements can be categorized into this group, and that is if these things done correctly, otherwise some of these things could be not effective at all, or even dangerous.

It should also be noted that this is the smallest category for alternative medicines as most alternative medical practices are like the next two categories.

Non-effective

This is the largest of the three alternative medicine categories as simply put, almost all alternative medical practices just do not work at all, and is mainly based off of anecdotal evidence, rather than real, scientific evidence.

Some of the (many) examples of this type of alternative medicine are Reiki therapy, crystal healing, naturopathy, certain alternative cancer and HIV treatments, and biggest of all, homeopathy.

While non-effective alternative medicine is not outright harmful, in some cases (such as with alternative cancer and HIV treatments) it is indirectly harmful because whomever is taking the "alternative treatments" and foregoing the proven, real medical treatments, is basically killing themselves.

Dangerous

While all forms of alternative medicine could be considered dangerous in their own ways, there are some forms of alternative medicine that really is harmful and dangerous if you use it, and can lead to permanent injuries, and even death.

Some examples of this are salt water flushes, colloidal silver (if used in excessive amounts), herd immunity, and reparative therapy have all been proven to be harmful, and in some cases, illegal (although usually if it is used on a minor, but sometimes some of these things are illegal for anyone to use).