by April Wilson

Created on: December 06, 2009

There are a lot of misconceptions in the world about medicine. One of them is that all conventional medicine is 'good' or all conventional medicine is 'evil' and run by scary and evil "Big Pharma." There are also a lot of misconceptions about natural healthcare. One of them is that it's all safe, and the other is that it's all pseudoscience.

Homeopathic medicine though, is not real medicine. Unfortunately most people who use the phrase "homeopathic medicine" have no idea what they're talking about and in most cases are not talking about true Homeopathy. For example, Zicam is considered a "homeopathic medicine." However, it doesn't follow any of the rules of homeopathy, according to homeopathy. It's also been recalled by the FDA (at least certain versions of it.)

When people say homeopathic medicine, what they really usually mean is "natural medicine" or "holistic medicine." When choosing natural medicine be aware that a lot of it is snake oil but some of it actually works. Most of the chemical compounds used today by pharmacists originally were derived from plant medicine. Herbs can be incredibly powerful things. Which means they can also be dangerous.

Never take something with only the promise that it's natural. Heroin is natural. Natural doesn't equal safe. However, by the same token, conventional western medicine often treats a symptom rather than a whole person. Usually if you correct one problem in your body the others start to follow behind. Mainly because we aren't cars with interchangeable parts (organ transfusions notwithstanding.) Many conventional drugs used to treat a problem if used long term contribute to other problems.

On the other hand, some forms of conventional medicine are lifesaving, such as antibiotics. But many drugs are overprescribed and overly marketed while downplaying the consequences of those drugs. For example flu vaccines can be very dangerous and yet almost no one discusses the dangers of a flu vaccine and parents are being encouraged to give them to healthy children, despite the fact that "truly" healthy people don't get sick.

If a "germ" was the only cause of an illness we would all be sick all the time. We are all exposed to infectious agents every day. One must be exposed to a germ AND have a depleted enough immune system to get sick. It's not good medicine to completely ignore someone's health level as well as the potential dangers of vaccines.

Back to "homeopathic medicine." If we're talking about just natural medicine,

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