We have covered urine therapy several times already (see for instance here, and here). Essentially it is ineffective but harmless …
except…
CTV reported that a mother in Canada has temporarily lost her right to unsupervised parenting over allegations she made her young son drink his own urine as part of a controversial so-called alternative medicine (SCAM). Specifically, she had fed the eight-year-old boy smoothies made with his own urine.
Apparently, the mother began pursuing a fringe “natural and holistic” lifestyle about three years ago. “It has created significant distrust by the (father) as to the respondent’s judgment in ensuring that the child is safe in her care, which came to a head when the allegation that she was imposing urine therapy on the child arose,” the judge wrote.
The mom’s interest in alternative medicine previously resulted in her seeking unsupported remedies such as homeopathy to treat her breast cancer – all of which failed, ultimately leaving her with no choice but to undergo surgery. Eventually, that inclination also brought her to urine therapy, described in the decision as “a centuries-old practice of drinking one’s own urine and massaging it into one’s skin.”
The mother admitted in court that she started drinking her own urine last January, and even that she appeared on an obscure podcast called “Healing Powers of Urine Therapy,” but denied forcing her son to take part in the practice. The father recounted an after-school incident in which the child approached him looking confused and guilty and said, “I have a secret, you have to promise me not to tell mom. Mom made me pee in a jar, then she put the pee into my fruit smoothie.” The boy later repeated the allegations during an appointment alone with their family doctor. The child said he “didn’t want to do it, told his mom he didn’t want to but she encouraged him to.”
There were also concerns raised about the mother’s fasting, which the father said went on for days on end and left her physically incapable of caring for their son. The judge wasn’t convinced that foregoing food left the mom unable to parent, but ultimately said she agreed with the father’s assessment that, while his former partner loves their son, her “judgment and health are questionable at this time.” The judge ruled that the mother can have parenting time from Sunday mornings to Wednesday evenings, but only with supervision from a professional or a third party agreed upon by both parents.
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The case shows that, once a gullible consumer falls under the influence of the SCAM cult and goes ‘off the rails’, there are no limits. This woman started by treating her cancer with homeopathy and, even though this was not successful, she continued to slide down the slippery SCAM slope until, finally, she experimented with urine therapy on her own son. This indicates to me that we might have to add another risk to the many dangers of homeopathy: it can serve as a gateway drug for all sorts of other SCAMs.
3 Responses to Urine therapy has no effects … other than perhaps losing you the custody of your child
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Let’s ask the over 30 million people in 50 countries getting results and benefits from practicing Urine therapy if they need “evidence?”
Ps where did you get your idea that Urine is not beneficial?
Let’s answer this question:
https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/logicalfallacies/Appeal-to-Popularity
@Water Brother
In your opening sentence, you are making several statements of fact for which you provide no evidence:
Where does this number of 30 million people come from?
Where does this number of 50 countries come from?
How can you tell that they benefited from drinking their own pee? You come up with some pretty solid numbers, so you should also come up with some pretty solid scientific evidence – especially because of the extremely low plausibility of your claims.
Are you taking the p*ss here? The idea that urine is not beneficial stems from the scientifically established fact that urine is a waste product, something to get rid of stuff that is useless or even harmful to the body. If there was anything beneficial in urine, evolution would long ago have come up with mechanisms(*) to extract those useful compounds. Or at the very least produced instinctive an instinctive urge to (indeed) ‘recycle’ our own pee, much like rabbits instinctively eat part of their own droppings because their limited digestive tract can’t extract all nutrients in one go.
*: And yes, evolution has come up with such mechanisms: the kidneys are very good at reclaiming water, electrolytes, amino acids and other useful substances from urine, thus making this waste disposal mechanism quite efficient. Without this reabsorption mechanism, people would produce some 150 litres of urine every day. Whatever is discarded has no value for the organism.