Word: oscillococcinum
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...column titled "Something to Sneeze About" [SKEPTICAL EYE, Nov. 13], Leon Jaroff wrote that like other homeopathic products, Oscillococcinum, which is used to treat influenza, is "basically worthless." Where did Jaroff receive his doctorate of homeopathy? Perhaps until he is educated in this area of healing he should take a middle-of-the-road approach and present both sides equally. I have been helped by homeopathy and other alternative health-care approaches when practitioners of traditional medicine told me to live with my problem. Maybe Jaroff should take a close look at how many pharmaceutical drugs and traditional medical approaches...
...have used Oscillococcinum, and it has worked. So those of us who use homeopathy get the last laugh. It is certainly much cheaper and safer than relying on prescription drugs. BECKY WIREN Bryan, Ohio...
...first clue is the "200C" on the label. What this means is that whatever active ingredient Oscillococcinum began with--in this case, duck heart and liver (no quack jokes, please)--has been diluted beyond all imagining. First, one part of the active ingredient is combined with a hundred parts of solvent. Next, the mixture is shaken and diluted again at one part per hundred--a process that is repeated a total of 200 times. Finally, sugar granules soaked in the resulting solution are enclosed in six capsules a box, good for two days of treatment...
...laborious dilution process is not unique to Oscillococcinum. It is the bedrock of homeopathy, a mystical specialty invented in the early 19th century by Samuel Hahnemann, a German physician. Homeopaths today still rely on his "law of similars," which holds that tiny quantities of a substance that in larger amounts produces symptoms of a disease will cure that disease. Another homeopathic dictum, the "law of infinitesimals," states that the smaller the dose, the more powerful the effect...
...number of dilutions is represented by Xs (each X representing a 1-to-10 dilution) and Cs (hundredfold dilutions). Yet by the laws of chemistry, there is only a 50% chance that a single molecule of the original substance remains in a 24X dilution. In the case of Oscillococcinum (200C), the chance that even one avian molecule has survived is virtually...