Members of Skepsis and of the Association against Quackery (VtdK) are campaigning against homeopathy on Easter Monday at the statue of Multatuli on the Torensluis (Singel/Torensteeg) in Amsterdam. The motto of the action: ‘Goodbye homeopathy’. In a manifesto, the action groups state that there is no place in the doctors’ register for doctors and other registered healthcare providers who recommend homeopathic remedies. Moreover, self-respecting pharmacists should not offer homeopathic remedies.
Monday, April 10 is the date of birth of Samuel Hahnemann (1755), the inventor of homeopathy. It is the start of the week of homeopathy, an annually recurring phenomenon that classical homeopaths organize worldwide: World Homeopathy Awareness Organization.
Action starts at 10:23 am
The Homeopathy Association also pays attention to this week. The action against homeopathy starts in the morning at 10.23 am, referring to Avogadro’s number (six times ten to the power of 23) as a symbol for homeopathic dilution. The homeopathic idea is that if you dilute a certain substance strongly enough, a powerful medicine is created, explains Jan Willem Nienhuys, secretary of the Skepsis Foundation, the organizer of the action.
Homeopathic remedies are so diluted that no molecule can be contained, they will therefore not work and can therefore be drunk or swallowed without any health risk. Members of Skepsis and of the VtdK will collectively make a ‘homeopathic suicide attempt’ in Amsterdam. Nienhuys explains in a press release: ‘Hahnemann wrote at the time that the normal dose consists of 1 small pill. On Easter Monday we will swallow a whole tube of eighty such pills, pills of, among other things, super diluted extracts of the blue aconite, of pulverized honey bees, of rat powder (arsenic oxide), of ground cockroach, of a root extract of the belladonna (belladonna) and of swallow foxglove, most diluted ten to sixtieth times.’
Multatuli was one of the first VtdK members
The statue of Multatuli (1820-1887) was chosen for the action because the well-known author of, among other things, the book Max Havelaar, was one of the first members of the anti-quackery association. Multatuli was friends with one of the founders of the association, the Bruinsma brothers. She founded in 1881 the VtdK association.
Both associations held a similar swallowing action at the Multatuli statue in 2004 and 2011. The action is a protest against the government’s laconic attitude. Organizer Nienhuys believes that ‘European and Dutch legislation in this area falls seriously short, so that these products may still be referred to as medicines, while the packaging should state that the products do not contain active substances. Even the health insurance companies contribute to perpetuating this fraud when they reimburse the costs in their supplementary insurance policies.’
Science: Homeopathy can’t work
Homeopathy is quackery, science is clear about that. In recent years, several international review studies have been published with the basic conclusion: ‘homeopathy does not work, cannot work.’ So stated the umbrella organization of national academies of sciences of all EU member states and of Norway and Switzerland EASAC (European Academies Science Advisory Council) in 2017 in a statement that there is no scientific evidence of the efficacy of homeopathy.
The Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) also contributed to this European study.
