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Does homeopathy work?
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Homeopathic dilution is falsely advertised

In the US, it is now a law that homeopathic companies cannot mislead their consumers by claiming that a specific medicine or element is contained within the solution when it is not.
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The Argument

For many years, homeopaths selling their alternative medicine to consumers have labeled their products with the elements or chemical agents supposedly contained within the solutions, but in 2016, the United States outlawed homeopathic manufacturers from doing so.[1] This simply shows the level of deceit and manipulation to which these homeopaths are willing to descend. The actual amount of "sulfur" in a small vial of homeopathic water is so laughable that the government stepped in and said that such treatment of the customer is illegal and immoral. When the law comes into play, some seriously shady underpinnings within homeopathy are beneath the surface. Not only did the scientific community completely reject the pseudo-science, but so did the United States government.

Counter arguments

The United States government has banned the consumption of alcohol before - does that make it morally righteous or self-explanatory? Not only is the government taking away medicine that could be saving the lives of those who take it, but the interjection of government into the private sector is dangerous for other products that the government arbitrarily deems "un-scientific." The individual seller should be able to put anything they want on the labels of their own products, and the government has no right to intervene within that area of free-market exchange. Homeopathy has not been definitively debunked by unbiased scientific research organizations, so the government should not create laws around aspects of science that it has no knowledge of.

Proponents

Premises

[P1] Consumers should never waste money on a product that is falsely advertised to cure them of their medical ailments. [P2] Homeopathy has been so heavily refuted by the legitimate scientific community that the government has banned the mislabeling of homeopathic products. [P3] Homeopathy does not work and should not be falsely advertised.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P2] There is no definitive refutation of homeopathy by the scientific community and, within the free market, a seller should be able to sell to the consumer what he/she wants. [Rejecting P3] Homeopathy should not necessarily be discouraged.

References

  1. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/homeopathic-medicine-labels-now-must-state-products-do-not-work/
This page was last edited on Tuesday, 18 Aug 2020 at 22:45 UTC

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