Vaccines are good.
Infectious diseases are no longer the leading cause of death like they were a century ago. Sure, they are also big business now, as marketing for HPV and Shingles can attest, but that doesn't mean just anything can or should be a vaccine.
Except in Canada.
Health Canada has licensed 10 products with a homeopathic preparation called “influenzinum” for "preventing the flu and its related symptoms" and even homeopathic preparations to prevent polio, measles and pertussis - despite the fact that they are so diluted they have no active ingredient at all, they are just placebos.
That's dangerous 'natural medicine' fanaticism at work, folks. And natural medicine people are doing themselves and the public a real disservice by not calling out these crackpots.
Homeopaths bilk the public by comparing themselves to vaccines. A vaccine uses a tiny amount of an infectious agent to create an immune system reaction and build up resistance whereas homeopathy is literally translated as "similar suffering" - they think they can prevent malaria by giving people malaria-like symptoms.
We have a growing contingent of people who regard medicine as some sort of postmodernist scam; all you have to do is believe something else and you'll be fine. That is why, writes Dr. Lloyd Oppel in British Columbia Medical Journal, Canada’s Public Health Agency estimates that only 62% of 2-year-olds are up to date with their vaccines.
Health Canada simply maintains it is saying the products are safe. Well, of course they are safe. It's magic water. No one should be spending money on that.
And no evidence-based governing body should be conflating 'it won't harm you' with 'it is medicine'.
Citation: Lloyd Oppel, MD, 'Health Canada licenses homeopathic vaccines', BCMJ, Vol. 55, No. 4, May 2013, page(s) 201-202
H/T Glendon Mellow
