I quote paragraphs from the article:
"Cow urine, bleach and cocaine have all been recommended as COVID-19 cures — all guff. The pandemic has been cast as a leaked bioweapon, a byproduct of 5G wireless technology and a political hoax — all poppycock. And countless wellness gurus and alternative-medicine practitioners have pushed unproven potions, pills and practices as ways to ‘boost’ the immune system.
Thankfully, this explosion of misinformation — or, as the World Health Organization has called it, the “infodemic” — has triggered an army of fact-checkers and debunkers. Regulators have taken aggressive steps to hold marketers of unproven therapies to account. Funders are supporting researchers (myself included) to explore how best to counter the spread of COVID-19 claptrap.
First, we must stop tolerating and legitimizing health pseudoscience, especially at universities and health-care institutions. Many bogus COVID-19 therapies have been embraced by integrative health centres at leading universities and hospitals. If a respected institution, such as the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio, offers reiki — a science-free practice that involves using your hands, without even touching the patient, to balance the “vital life force energy that flows through all living things” — is it any surprise that some people will think that the technique could boost their immune systems and make them less susceptible to the virus? A similar argument can be made about public-health providers in Canada and the United Kingdom: by offering homeopathy, they de facto encourage the idea that this scientifically implausible remedy can work against COVID-19. These are just a few of myriad examples.
In my home country of Canada, regulators are currently cracking down on providers such as chiropractors, naturopaths, herbalists and holistic healers who are marketing products against COVID-19. But the idea that a spinal adjustment, intravenous vitamin therapy or homeopathy could fend off an infectious disease was nonsense before the pandemic.
It does actually need to be said that quantum physics doesn’t explain homeopathy and energy therapies such as reiki. That a colonic won’t bolster your immune system. That, no, a supplement spray won’t enhance the functioning of your stem cells."
I hope a day will come when people who use pseudoscience to peddle bogus therapies, especially during a pandemic, will be criminally prosecuted. Misusing terms like quantum chemistry to sell snake oil needs to be a crime.
If the government really wants to have an AYUSH ministry around, it needs to invest a lot of money in scientifically and clinically proving AYUSH remedies. If certain yogasanas work to cure certain chronic conditions, let the scientific evidence be presented. The world will be better off. Once a respected journal carries a peer reviewed article that conclusively proved the efficacy of a certain remedy, the world will embrace that cure, not just India. And then let us also scientifically investigate homeopathy and other cures, and if nothing beyond the placebo effect is found, such therapies must be immediately defunded and publicly denounced.
"Cow urine, bleach and cocaine have all been recommended as COVID-19 cures — all guff. The pandemic has been cast as a leaked bioweapon, a byproduct of 5G wireless technology and a political hoax — all poppycock. And countless wellness gurus and alternative-medicine practitioners have pushed unproven potions, pills and practices as ways to ‘boost’ the immune system.
Thankfully, this explosion of misinformation — or, as the World Health Organization has called it, the “infodemic” — has triggered an army of fact-checkers and debunkers. Regulators have taken aggressive steps to hold marketers of unproven therapies to account. Funders are supporting researchers (myself included) to explore how best to counter the spread of COVID-19 claptrap.
First, we must stop tolerating and legitimizing health pseudoscience, especially at universities and health-care institutions. Many bogus COVID-19 therapies have been embraced by integrative health centres at leading universities and hospitals. If a respected institution, such as the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio, offers reiki — a science-free practice that involves using your hands, without even touching the patient, to balance the “vital life force energy that flows through all living things” — is it any surprise that some people will think that the technique could boost their immune systems and make them less susceptible to the virus? A similar argument can be made about public-health providers in Canada and the United Kingdom: by offering homeopathy, they de facto encourage the idea that this scientifically implausible remedy can work against COVID-19. These are just a few of myriad examples.
In my home country of Canada, regulators are currently cracking down on providers such as chiropractors, naturopaths, herbalists and holistic healers who are marketing products against COVID-19. But the idea that a spinal adjustment, intravenous vitamin therapy or homeopathy could fend off an infectious disease was nonsense before the pandemic.
It does actually need to be said that quantum physics doesn’t explain homeopathy and energy therapies such as reiki. That a colonic won’t bolster your immune system. That, no, a supplement spray won’t enhance the functioning of your stem cells."
I hope a day will come when people who use pseudoscience to peddle bogus therapies, especially during a pandemic, will be criminally prosecuted. Misusing terms like quantum chemistry to sell snake oil needs to be a crime.
If the government really wants to have an AYUSH ministry around, it needs to invest a lot of money in scientifically and clinically proving AYUSH remedies. If certain yogasanas work to cure certain chronic conditions, let the scientific evidence be presented. The world will be better off. Once a respected journal carries a peer reviewed article that conclusively proved the efficacy of a certain remedy, the world will embrace that cure, not just India. And then let us also scientifically investigate homeopathy and other cures, and if nothing beyond the placebo effect is found, such therapies must be immediately defunded and publicly denounced.