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As you may have noticed, everybody’s “favorite” homeopath, Dana Ullman, has made a return visit to our humble little blog, where he is laying down his usual list of logical fallacies and irrelevencies (such as attacking Oliver Wendell Holmes) in defense of homeopathy. Consequently, now’s as good a time as any to unveil what is perhaps the best ready-for-a-poster criticism of homeopathy I’ve ever seen:

HN09poster1A

Clicking on the picture will lead you to a blog post where you can download a high resolution version suitable for printing up and either distributing or posting on a bulletin board or wall. I particularly like that it was made by The American Institute for the Destruction of Tooth Fairy Science. Truly, a nod to SBM blogger extraordinaire Harriet Hall!

My only objection to the poster is the use of the word “shit.” Don’t get me wrong here. Yes, it’s accurate. No, I’m not some sort of prude who never uses the word and wilts at the very sight or sound of it. My problem with it is that its inclusion on the image means that I can’t actually print up and post this beautiful (and brief) mockery of homeopathy on my lab door or on the bulletin board in my office. I can’t put something like that up in public at work. It also made me a little leery of posting it here, which led me to check with our fearless leader before doing it. So I started thinking of alternatives that get the message across but without any curse words.

Clearly, a version of the poster suitable for a G (or at least PG) audience is required.

How about something like:

If water has a memory, then homeopathy is full of crap
Homeopathy: Potentizing poo by flushing.

After all, flushing should “succuss” the remedy as well as hitting it against a Bible.

Yes, I do watch Dirty Jobs a lot, with its host, Mike Rowe, who likes to use the word “poo” a lot. Come to think of it, perhaps Mike Rowe should do a segment of Dirty Jobs segment at a manufacturer of homeopathic remedies. Why? Think of the potentized poo!

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Posted by David Gorski

Dr. Gorski's full information can be found here, along with information for patients. David H. Gorski, MD, PhD, FACS is a surgical oncologist at the Barbara Ann Karmanos Cancer Institute specializing in breast cancer surgery, where he also serves as the American College of Surgeons Committee on Cancer Liaison Physician as well as an Associate Professor of Surgery and member of the faculty of the Graduate Program in Cancer Biology at Wayne State University. If you are a potential patient and found this page through a Google search, please check out Dr. Gorski's biographical information, disclaimers regarding his writings, and notice to patients here.