Boots Sepia 30C: Adults Only

During the run up to the first event for the 1023 Campaign against Homeopathy which I witnessed for my local group, I noticed that Boots markets Sepia 30C Pillules with the warning that ‘You must be at least 016 years old to purchase this product ‘. To see this go to http://www.boots.com/en/Boots-Sepia-30c-Pillules_923420/ and look at the bottom of the ‘Details’ tab. At time of writing this is still the case.

However, back in January I sent them a comment about this and got no response. What I wanted to find out was “Why is Sepia 30C singled out in comparison to all the other Homeopathic remedies (of those I’ve checked on your website) to only be allowed to be purchased by adults?” It seems very strange to me that you must be ‘016 years old’ to purchase something that claims it was once in touch with a bit of Sepia (which I’m assuming here is referring to the genus of Cuttlefish and/or its ink) and it doesn’t provide such similar warning for homeopathic Arsenic or Belladonna 30C. See for example http://www.boots.com/en/Boots-Bellandonna-30c-84-Pillules_870270/ and http://www.boots.com/en/Boots-Arsen.-alb.-30c-84-Pillules_870266/. Neither of these suggest you need to be over ‘016’ years old to purchase them, and if there was any arsenic or belladonna left in these sugar pills, it might be more concerning. Moreover, if Sepia is from cuttlefish in this instance, I find it particularly strange because they can walk around the corner to their closest Chinese or sometimes Italian restaurant and purchase cuttlefish dishes, which are quite delicious. Here is a search for some Cuttlefish Recipes if you are interested.

Of course the other warnings they provide on the page are also, mostly, ridiculous:

• Avoid touching the pillules with your fingers.
  

  Presumably because your grubby hands somehow will make the water remember what is on your hands rather than the Arsenic? Or Boots doesn’t want to be held responsible for them not working because you touched the magic pills.

• Avoid eating, drinking, smoking or using toothpaste for twenty minutes before and after taking homeopathic medicine.
  

  Presumably because this gives the sugar time to rot your teeth? Or maybe dentists advise you to wait before brushing your teeth. Or maybe because Boots doesn’t want to be held responsible for them not working because you had the nerve to eat, drink, smoke, or brush your teeth.

• If symptoms worsen or persist consult a doctor.
  

  Presumably because you are actually ill rather than having some annoying but generally not serious self-limiting condition? And maybe Boots don’t want to be held liable if some moron dies because they believe the magic pills will deal with any actual disease.

• This product contains lactose and sucrose.
  

  AND NOTHING ELSE! Obviously Boots doesn’t want to be responsible if someone who is lactose intolerant takes the pills and suffers severe discomfort, but they should be more clear here and just say they ONLY contain lactose and sucrose… since really to imply they contain anything else is really a form of lying in my opinion.

• If you have been advised by your doctor that you have an intolerance to some sugars, contact your doctor before taking this product.
  

  Because they are just sugar pills! We don’t want you going into a diabetic coma because of this ‘product’.

• If you are allergic to any of the ingredients in this medicine consult your doctor before taking this medicine.
  

  Surely this is Boots just being extra careful… I mean you’ve said above that if they have an intolerance to certain sugars they should talk to their doctor, surely an allergy to one of the two ingredients, erm lactose or sucrose are both sugars, is just redundant. You’ve warned about ‘sugars’ and now about ‘any of the ingredients’ but these are the same things since there is only sugar in these pills. But I guess better have extra warnings just in case people don’t read the one above!

• If you are taking any other medicines, including those bought without a doctor’s prescription, consult your doctor or pharmacist before taking this medicine.
  

  MEDICINE?! Before this was a “product” and you refer to it in its description as a “homeopathic medicinal product without approved therapeutic indications” yet here it is seemingly elevated to the level of just ‘medicine’ without the ‘homeopathic’ or ‘product’ or the disclaimer about the fact that they don’t do anything.

• If pregnant or breastfeeding consult your doctor before use.
  

  WHY? The only reason I can think (aside from the obvious Boots wanting to be extra careful to cover their backsides with regard to anything involving children) is that if you are buying homeopathy for some reason whilst pregnant/breastfeeding you might have something serious wrong with you and you should go see your doctor.

• Keep all medicines out of reach of children.
  

  Cuz we know how children like sweeties, and if you are stupid enough to believe they have any medicinal value, then you won’t be able to take them for your placebo rush.

• Do not use if seal is broken.
  

  OK, fair enough, if the seal is broken, someone might have gone in and put some *real* arsenic or belladonna in there… then where would Boots be. General sensible advice I guess.

• Do not store above 25°C
  

  Strange advice.. does homeopathy not work in hot countries? (What about those ridiculous HIV trials in Africa… doesn’t that invalidate them?) I’ve seen homeopathic pillules outside when it has been 32°C and they hadn’t melted or anything. Why this very specific number I wonder? Perhaps it is Boots, again, looking to cover themselves for why it didn’t work?

• Handle carefully, homeopathic medicine in an inner glass vial.
  

  Ok, good advice again, they are in a glass vial. It could be dangerous (but you’d have to work really hard to get to the glass vial)! The question is why they bother with this pointless and potentially dangerous addition to the product. It is because the people making up the rules about how homeopathy is meant to ‘work’ for some reaosn believe that contamination is possible… so the same reason you aren’t going to touch it with your fingers. But they don’t explain why glass doesn’t contaminate it but plastic would.

• Always read the label.
  

  Sensible advice for anything you buy from Boots, surely. However, the label itself is misleading and annoying so it will probably raise your blood pressure to read it. (Oh so you can then take some sugar pills to lower it…)

This whole thing just annoys the heck out of me. Boots don’t respond to my feedback asking for a straightforward answer of why Sepia is Adult Homeopathy but Arsenic/Belladonna is not, and their warnings about the ‘medicine’ are so annoyingly stupid given the product’s contents. Grump! Rant Over!

Overdosing on Woo for #ten23

I only write in this blog about woo woo things that I personally encounter, rather than the state of general woowooness that pervades our society.  This morning some friends of mine took part in the www.1023.org.uk campaign against Boots selling homeopathic ‘remedies’ even though they know there is nothing in them.  This happened all over the UK (and some other countries), but I witnessed the Oxford event.  See:

• http://www.1023.org.uk/
• http://www.1023.org.uk/an-open-letter-to-alliance-boots.php
• http://www.1023.org.uk/the-1023-overdose-event.php
• http://www.1023.org.uk/get-involved.php
• http://www.1023.org.uk/what-is-homeopathy.php
• http://www.1023.org.uk/why-you-cant-trust-homeopathy.php
• http://www.1023.org.uk/whats-the-harm-in-homeopathy.php
• http://www.1023.org.uk/videos.php
• http://www.1023.org.uk/faq.php
• http://www.1023.org.uk/media-coverage.php

for more information about the campaign.

They assembled in the square around the Radcliffe Camera in Oxford from about 9:45 where Rosie’s stunningly efficient organisational skills meant that they had around 30 volunteer ‘swallowers’ and a number of others to help out.  My friend had got around 1000 A5 leaflets and 750 A6 leaflets printed up previously at quite a cheap price.  My friend had distributed some previously, and have some of the A6-sized ones left over, but they must have given away at least 1000 of them in a very short time over the morning.  From the Radcliffe Camera they went to Carfax tower, just down the road from Boots, where we participated in the ten23 overdose event.  This involved each of them taking all of the little sugar pills inside a whole container of Boots 30C homeopathic ‘remedy’.  My friend had previously purchased  ‘Arsenicum Album 30C’, which means that the water put on the pill originally had some deadly arsenic in it…however, this is then diluted, and rediluted, and rediluted so much that in order to assure myself of a single molecule of arsenic in 30C homeopathic arsenic I’d have to drink an Atlantic ocean’s worth of the stuff. It was more embarrassing for him to buy this woo-woo stuff than, I don’t know, porn or something.  These little sugar pills are just that, sucrose and lactose… nothing more.  Any benefit you get to them is either placebo (works cuz you expect it to) or regression to the mean (you were going to get better anyway).  Homeopaths believe that although there is no active ingredient it works because water ‘remembers’ the thing it was in touch with.  This goes aganist all we know about the physical universe. Additionally, they believe it remembers the one special thing it was in touch with, and not all the urine, feces, and well, everything else that water touches, because in making it they ‘successus’ it (i.e. bang it 10 times or something) on a special leather board.  This is bonkers! Do we really want our tax revenue to go towards funding these quacks?!

Here is a video of the event:

Afterwards they distributed leaflets to people up and down cornmarket, and everyone did a really good job of offering leaflets, not forcing them on people, and when people wanted to discuss the inevitable FAQs (“Isn’t it just herbal medicine?”, “But where’s the harm in placebos?”, “What do you mean millions of my tax revenue is spent on this crap?”) they did so in a polite and well-informed manner. I won’t rehearse the answers to these and the many other mind-numbingly banal arguments that homeopaths come up with in this post, there are much better sources linked to on the 1023 website.

Some of them also did something that probably wasn’t as useful, in sneaking into Boots (outside of which they were distributing leaflets) and hiding lots of leaflets in and amongst their products.  One of their number was told in no uncertain terms to leave the store or else the police would be summoned.  Fair enough, it is Boot’s property and they don’t want to cause any sort of disruption that might inconvenience people getting real medicine.

After a majority of the leaflets were handed out, the Oxford ten23 crowd retired to the pub for some well-earned warmth.  As it turned out to be the organiser Rosie’s 18th Birthday, so we had an additional reason to celebrate.

While this one international protest will probably not change Boots’, the Government’s, the NHS’s, or homeopath’s minds about the validity of the completely bonkers claims that homeopathy makes, hopefully the campaign as a whole will raise awareness amongst the general public of what nonsense homeopaths believe in, and so they can spend their hard earned cash somewhere else.  If eventually in a generation or two we move to having homeopathy be seen for what it is, and ridiculed accordingly.

Homeopaths often criticise so-called ‘Big Pharma’… but the alternative medicine market is worth billions. Homeopaths support Boots’ selling of homeopathic remedies (sugar pills at extraordinary markup), so doesn’t that mean they are benefitting from the same ‘Big Pharma’ machine? As one person put it recently, are homeopaths really just corporate shills for ‘Big Alternative Pharma’ or ‘Big AltMed’ or ‘Big Homeo’?  It isn’t that I believe that real medicine doesn’t sometimes have nasty side-effects, but at least it is real medicine not made up magical woo woo wackiness!

All in all the first 1023 event in Oxford was a big success!  Let’s hope the others are just as good!

Unfortunately this blog http://lesmondine.wordpress.com/2010/01/30/woo-icide-is-painless/ beat me to using the  much better article title of ‘Woo-icide is painless’. I wish I had got there first with that title for this post.