Remember the 10:23 Campaign? It was an awareness and protest campaign against homoeopathy organised by the Merseyside Skeptics Society, a non-profit organisation, to oppose the sale of homoeopathic products in the UK. It consisted of volunteers publicly taking overdoses of homeopathic remedies. With their actions, they wanted to demonstrate that homeopathic remedies are devoid of active ingredients and physiological effects. Suicide by homeopathy, they showed us, was impossible.
But they were mistaken – it is possible after all!
A few days ago, it was reported that an Italian doctor has died of a COVID-19 infection. This is tragic, no doubt, but in itself, it is not all that newsworthy in the context of this blog. What makes it remarkable is the fact that the doctor was a convinced homeopath who had refused to get vaccinated and was adamant that homeopathy would protect him.
Domenico Giannola, a doctor homeopath from Cinisi, died of complications due to Covid-19 at Palermo’s Cervello hospital. Dr. Giannola had not been vaccinated and after he got infected with COVID-19, he had tried to treat himself with homeopathic remedies.
Domenico Giannola was a well-known advocate of anthroposophical and homeopathic medicine. In a Youtube video from last year, he described his ‘methods of treatment. As he had a preexisting heart condition, he was a high-risk patient.
After he fell ill, he had been in home isolation for several days and was followed by the special continuity care unit (Usca) of the Palermo hospital. He had always insisted that he had no intention of becoming infected and would treat himself at home with lactoferrin and homeopathic remedies. Lactoferrin is one of the components of the immune system of the body; it has antimicrobial activity against bacteria and fungi.
As his condition worsened, Domenico Giannola was eventually transported to the emergency room of the Cervello hospital in Palermo by a 118 ambulance. He died an hour after his arrival at the hospital.
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I find such reports tragic beyond words. At the same time, they are deeply worrying. A question that one needs to ask is this: if some homeopaths do this to themselves, what are they capable of inflicting on their patients?
11 Responses to A case of suicide by homeopathy
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So everyone who got Covid “vaccinated” and dies from Covid, committed suicide by vaccine? Glad to know. You will be sure to tell everyone that? VAERS lists thousands of such cases so far, last I heard.
glad to know that you cannot understand a simple text!
you do not insist on demonstrations of your limitations – we already know about them, as you have given us so much evidence already.
Roger is the Mary Sue of his own personal reality.
I’ll repeat the fine words of Has:
“You are a fraud, Roger. A pompous self-deluding narcissist, who thinks he is competent to pronounce on complex, difficult subjects just because he believes in a simple infantile fantasy really really hard.”
Your ignorant and insignificant ramblings remain only as a source of amusement.
@Roger
There is a German saying: “If stupidity hurt, you would scream all day long.”
It must be very loud in your apartment.
Here in Turkey, several healthcare workers including pharmacists and doctors who were known for practicing homeopathy also passed away due to covid. None of them were vaccinated. As a pharmacognosy doctor, it is very heartbreaking for me to witness this ongoing craziness around the globe. Very saddening
How very sad, indeed. It certainly demonstrates that some highly qualified scientific people can veer from the path of following where the evidence leads.
Exactly. Sometimes I am also being bullied about underestimating the benefits of homeopathy, considering the homeopath is usually evaluated under the umbrella of pharmacognosy. However, just like Prof. Ernst, if you are working in a field related to complementary therapies, it’s actually you who should be warning people about the misuse of these methods and fight all the charlatans on the frontline. Thank you very much.
Homeopathy doesn’t fall under pharmacognosy, although an unwary public may confuse it with herbalism which does. As a pharmacognosist, if anyone asks you seriously to evaluate homeopathy you can do so by immediately laughing them out of the room. For good reason.
One of the three foundational principles of homeopathy is Hahnemann’s Law of Infinitesimals, which states that the more you dilute a medically active substance, the more potent it becomes. A typical homeopathic product contains not a single molecule of the actual substance, only diluent and whatever impurities it picks up from atmosphere, glassware, etc along the way. (And on occasions it does still contain active ingredient, it can end very badly indeed.)
The only reason homeopathy ever gained any credence is because Hahnemann showed it to have better outcomes than the conventional (Galenic) medicine of the time. But, as we’ve known for the last 150 years, that was not because homeopathy was medically effective but because mainstream treatments—purging and bloodletting—were actually medically harmful.
Ironically, Hahnemann could have made himself the Father of Modern Medicine, the critical evaluator and inventor of placebo-controlled trial who destroyed 1500 years of unquestioning Galenic devotion virtually overnight, and established strong evidence—not strong belief—as the critical determinant of what is and isn’t medically valid. But he was an arrogant self-congratulatory putz who had his head up his arse… plus ça change.
That homeopathy endures more than a century after Galen’s tripe was thrown out as completely, lethally wrong, speaks not to its effectiveness in treating physical ailments but only its efficacy at stroking the egos and wallets of millions of needy neurotics who want to be Special.
See also: every other indulgent self-deception and grift ever.
Thank you for the piece of information, but I already have PhD degree in pharmacognosy, and I am working as an assistant professor at the university, teaching it to pharmacy students. Here in Turkey, homeopathy is evaluated under the umbrella of pharmacognosy, let’s agree or not, it is known as a legal, complementary therapy. This is not about how I think, no need to mention that I think it’s 100% pseudoscience, but about it’s legal status in my country and the perception of the public. I have an Instagram page trying to raise awareness about exactly what you explained above. Thanks again.
Apologies, I do not intend to teach my grandmother how to suck eggs. As a lay skeptic, I comment for my own edification, in hope that passers-by might find it helpful, and whatever entertainment results when one of the resident woo-woos rises to the bait.
As a professional scientist, and educator of other professional skeptics, you do the far more important and significant job—and let’s hope one day that you and others like you can get that wretched legal status and all the dangerous delusions it enables permanently revoked. We’re just happy to cheer you on, for whatever that’s worth.