Homeopathic Allergy Tx Kills Pt on TV Show

[materia3]

I caught a show called Strong Medicine the other night. The basic plot is that one of the regular MDs dabbles in homeopathic remedies and offers a homeopathic dilution of peanuts to a woman with peanut allergy. At first she relents saying peanuts can kill her and the doctor explains like cures like and this small
dose of peanut extract will prevent her from getting sick. She latches onto the like cures like concept.

Anyway next thing you know she doesn't feel too hot so she's in a drug store where she collapses, goes into anaphylactic shock, is transported to the hospital where she dies. Next to her in the drug store is a bag of peanuts. Like cures like. She got the idea into her head that the doctor was right and she thought she would try it herself with more peanuts then could be in those teeny little pills.

[Sarah-I]

That IS NOT HOMEOPATHY though and an MD should have known better than that.

A remedy in itself is not homeopathic unless it is prescribed according to homeopathic principles.

What the MD did was ISOPATHY, not homeopathy. It was not a similar substance, but exactly the same. It is exactly the same principle as treating someone with hayfever with a dose of the same substance that they are allergic to, rather than the most similar homeopathic remedy.

[geni]

Originally posted by Sarah-I
That IS NOT HOMEOPATHY though and an MD should have known better than that.

The story is fiction


A remedy in itself is not homeopathic unless it is prescribed according to homeopathic principles.

Have fun trying to define those principles.


What the MD did was ISOPATHY, not homeopathy. It was not a similar substance, but exactly the same. It is exactly the same principle as treating someone with hayfever with a dose of the same substance that they are allergic to, rather than the most similar homeopathic remedy.

There is not information in the opening post to show that peanuts was not the indicated remedy. I know there have been homeopathic provings of peanuts so the prescription could have been done acording to clasical homeopathic principles.

[Psiload]

Originally posted by Sarah-I
That IS NOT HOMEOPATHY though and an MD should have known better than that.

A remedy in itself is not homeopathic unless it is prescribed according to homeopathic principles.

What the MD did was ISOPATHY, not homeopathy. It was not a similar substance, but exactly the same. It is exactly the same principle as treating someone with hayfever with a dose of the same substance that they are allergic to, rather than the most similar homeopathic remedy. First off... the show is a drama, fiction, Hollywood, not real. The doctor on the show is not a doctor... he plays one on TV.

The point they were trying to make, was that the average Joe Schmoe, and Sally Housecoat can be forgiven for failing to grasp the ludicrous concepts of ultra dilution, and "like cures like", and mistakenly do themselves harm if they try to apply the homeopathic bizarro-world concepts to real life.

[materia3]

Yes this was fictional drama but has a cautionary tale attached. The physician did, indeed, give the lady a homeopathic tx of peanuts based on their proving. He had a full shelf full of obvious homeopathic vials from which he was working. She had multiple sensitivities with peanuts being one of the worst.

The patient, based on the doctor's explanation, made the fatal mistake of taking the homeopathic information and transposing it to the real world of peanuts which killed her. Certainly the homeopathic dose of peanuts did not do this.

At the end of the show the doctor held himself responsible for this woman's death saying he explained it to her and she took him too literally. A colleague absolves him saying it wasn't his fault, he couldn't have known. The cautionary tale is that if you are going to explain any treatment to a patient make sure you do so to prevent an outcome like this. Take nothing for granted.
Apparently based on this episode homeopathy can be included in this. We all tend to think that homeopathic remedies are safe and essentially harmless. They are. But the information attached to their use can be fatal as demonstrated in this drama.

I am familiar with a case of a real patient who was given an oxygen cannula to take home from the hospital. It was explained to him that he can use it at home. It was not explained to him that it needed to be hooked up to an oxygen tank or an oxygen concentrator for him to get oxygen. Anyway for months this patient wore this oxygen cannula and finally complained it wasn't working: he was still short of breath. When his doctor said to him maybe the liter flow on his oxygen tank needs to be adjusted, he said "What oxygen tank?"