There have been several articles written showing that homeopathy has no measurable effects. There have also been articles written showing the absurdity of homeopathy. This article is going to be different. We’re going to look at homeopathy and grant the proponents the benefit of a doubt. We will assume that everything reportedly claimed about homeopathy and its effects is true. Using that as our basis, where do we end up?

Let’s start with a refresher on what exactly homeopathy is. Homeopathy operates on the principle that as a solution gets more dilute, its effects on biological systems increases. So the strength of a homeopathic remedy is a measure of its relative dilution. All of the measures are made using orders of 10. So a dilution of 1X is a 1 in 10 dilution. A dilution of 2X would be a 1 in 10 dilution of a 1 in 10 dilution, or a 1 in 100 dilution. A dilution of 3X would therefore be a 1 in 1000 dilution, and so on and so on.

One of the mechanisms cited quite often for how homeopathy works is that water molecules have some form of memory, and that the water solvent somehow remembers the chemical compounds that it has come in contact with. We won’t, for the moment, concerns ourselves with the how. For now, we will simply accept that this is true. What does this mean?

The very first concern should be, how do we get uncontaminated water to make our remedies with? If water remembers all of the chemicals that it has been in contact with, then any liquid water is, by this definition, contaminated by untold numbers of chemicals. No matter its source. Water from the tap will be contaminated by having come in contact with all sorts of metals and plastics from all of the pipes and machinery through which it needs to travel to get to your kitchen. It is also exposed to toxic chemicals used to kill off any potential pathogens. Water from the sea has been exposed to almost every man-made and naturally occurring chemical in existence. Spring water is exposed to salts, metals and micro-organisms in the soil. Basically, liquid water is completely unusable. This means that we need a source of non-liquid water, for example, water that has been distilled.

Some homeopathists will say that this is unnecessary. They may say that the initial solution is concentrated enough to essentially swamp out any residual memory in the water from earlier chemicals. If this is true, then this would only apply to the first few dilutions. Once the remedy has been diluted enough times, then it will have the same approximate strength as the residuals in the water being used. So it will be competing with all of the chemicals from the water’s history to make itself felt. This is not a solution to the problem. The only logical solution is to use pure distilled water for every step of the preparation to ensure that the patient only receives the necessary remedy and not exposure to untold numbers of other chemicals. So the first question to ask your homeopathist is “Do you use distilled water?”

Still on the topic of making the dilutions, what happens to the waste from the intermediate steps? It is impossible to manage all of the water required without disposal of some of it. As an example, if you wanted to make a 100X dilution, starting with 1oz and not disposing of any intermediate steps, you would require 10 to the power of 100 ounces of water, or….
Since these homeopathic remedies have real, physical effects (remember we are assuming all of the claims are true) then it would be irresponsible and unethical to simply dump the intermediate steps down the drain. Doing so would effectively contaminate every drop of water that comes into contact with this waste. Again, if the memory effect is a quality of the liquid state of water, then the only ethical thing to do is to distil the water before disposing of it. This would effectively destroy any memory stored in the water. So the next question to ask your homeopathist is “Do you safely and ethically dispose of your wastes?”

A competing theory of how homeopathy works states that the memory of water is something that needs to be activated through intention. That is, when dilutions are are being mixed, a person needs to do it and apply their intention to the process in order to imprint the memory onto the water. If we assume that this is true, then it does remove our first concern about the source of the water, since we would effectively be “reformatting” the water during the imprinting process. But we are still left with the issue of ethical disposal of waste products, since even a single drop of homeopathic remedies is reputed to be effective. So the practitioner still has a responsibility to safely and ethically dispose of any waste products.

But if this process of intentionally imprinting the memory of the chemical into the water is correct, then homeopaths, as healthcare providers, have a moral obligation to shut down over the counter homeopathic remedies. By their definition, these over the counter remedies are bogus, since they are done in a factory by machines. There is no person involved providing the intentionality needed to imprint the memory onto the water. So, ethically, homeopaths need to start petitioning government to ban these quack remedies. To do less would be immoral. So another question to ask your homeopath is “Do you believe intention is important, and if so, what have you done to remove quack remedies off of store shelves?” I expect my healthcare providers to be highly ethical.