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Originally Posted by starfishing
No, not at all. Vaccines and homeopathy aren't at all the same, though I can see why you might think so given how you've described them.
With homeopathy, the way they claim it works is that diluting something literally makes it stronger. So say you take a drop of some curative substance and put it in a glass of water, and then give someone a tablespoon of that water to help with what ails them. A homeopath would say that it's more powerful if instead you take that tablespoon from that glass, mix it into a swimming pool, and then give the sick person a tablespoon of the water from the swimming pool. Or even better yet, take the tablespoon from the swimming pool and add it to a different swimming pool, and give someone a tablespoon of that... and you can keep on that chain forever.
The end result is that many homeopathic remedies don't contain even a single molecule of the substance they're labeled as. So homeopathic arnica might have a picture of a lovely plant on the container, but in reality not one molecule of the stuff in that container has anything to do with that plant.
With vaccines, in contrast, the goal is to create the immune response but not harm the person. So the pathogen is weakened (killed or attenuated), not because it paradoxically makes it stronger, but because the weakened version strikes the balance we're looking for--it's capable of creating a strong enough immune reaction to protect the person later on from the actual pathogen, but weak enough for the vaccine itself to not hurt them.
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Ok, thanks. I thought the concept was that diluting the substance results in more powerful therapeutic effect rather than making the substance itself stronger, which seems in line with allergy shots or vaccines.
I'm an out of the box type of thinker so the concept itself doesn't seem outrageous. (Of course i am not saying anyone who doesn't believe in something is not an out of the box type of thinker.) In nanotechnology, substances are manipulated at the atomic and molecular level in a way that actually makes the substance stronger in some cases, which would have seemed crazy to anyone years ago.
Years ago, I felt ripped off after trying homeopathic medicine. I also purchased a remedy that I now know is completely bogus. I was surprised that the practitioner that practiced that way was also a licensed pharmacist. Saw him twice. Some will try to squeeze as much money out of sick people as they can whether it be allopathic or homeopathic or chiropractic, etc.
I'm in the camp that my Ts beliefs would impact my decision whether or not to see him, so I can relate to the OPs concerns. My Ts beliefs in certain things would lead me to question if my T was crazy at worst; at best, it would diminish his credibility.