Deepak Gupta (under no circumstances could you, or should you, confuse him with the notorious Deepak Chopra!) is based in India and is the founder of the website Savvy Skeptic. He is in the process of raising funds to distribute and market a documentary that debunks homeopathy, a practice that has quite a following in India.
His efforts have been praised by Dr. Steven Novella writing at the James Randi Educational Foundation who says:
Here is one skeptical effort that needs our support now: Deepak Gupta (not Chopra) is the founder of SavvySkeptic.com. He is producing a documentary film on homeopathy that will actually reflect reality. An indiegogo campaign is underway to provide some funding for distribution and marketing – please visit his page and take a look, and consider becoming a supporter, and also help spread the word.
In a email to me, here is what Gupta says he needs:
- Material Support – He is trying to raise $5000 to invest in distribution, PR activities, press releases, public outreach etc and will be investing his own money as well to make this documentary. You can make contributions on Indiegogo and earn some perks.
- Getting the word out – Please share the Indiegogo page with friends via Email/Facebook/Twitter.
- Moral support – Few words of encouragement will help a lot to encourage him that he is doing something good.
He has shot a video and posted it on YouTube.
My exchange with a delusional homoeopath on Twitter has inspired me to donate… India could do with less quacks.
https://twitter.com/22venkateshN/status/309587623129776128
He actually thinks he can “help” scientists build a quantum computer… Using homoeopathy!
I was working for a month or so in Vadodara, Gujerat, India last year. I was driven from the hotel to the jobsite (driving in India is not for the faint of heart) and passed by many traffic circles. One of them was contained a statue honoring Hanneman for his homeopathic bullshit. I tried to get a photo but the cars rarely stop there and each time I attempted it, the pic came out blurry.
Believe it or not, homeopathy does work; it effected a miraculous cure on my brother. He was suffering from back pain, and was taking a homeopathic treatment for over six months before finally going to his GP and getting it sorted through conventional medicine.
I know what you’re thinking: homeopathy did nothing to heal his back. I agree, but he was cured of gullibility after realising how the snake-oil pedlars had conned him.
It still counts as a cure 😉
There are patients who vouch for the effectiveness of homeopathy in very strong terms. No debunking is possible. A parent who’s only child is cured of epilepsy from a homeo remedy after everything else failed, will think you crazy if told homeopathy is hogwash.And there are cattle owners who’s cattle are saved from dying at the last moment with homeopathy. These ppl and their endorsement of homeopathy is more powerful with the folk than any half witted debunker.
All woo works. The placebo effect is quite real.
If Dr. Gupta was interested in validating homeopathy he could have just looked around him at the millions of people being helped with serious diseases in his own country….diseases which couldn’t be cured by placebo. He could also have read these studies.
http://hpathy.com/scientific-research/research-in-homoeopathy/
So either he is stupid….which doesn’t seem likely, or he’s a shill for the pharmaceutical companies. You decide.
Currently there is a worldwide movement by Pharma to discredit homeopathy, because if people ever figured out that it really worked, that would be the end of expensive pharmaceutical drugs with their deadly side effects. You will be seeing lots of Dr. Gupta’s creeping out of the woodwork.
I donated a small amount.
The placebo cause it the issue, not the effect. 😉
You might want to try a reputable source next time, from a site that doesn’t look like it was built in 1990:
http://www.yalemedlaw.com/2011/08/the-memory-of-water/
But why are there only two choices for Dr. Gupta? Why is he necessarily a shill for pharma? Or, stating the obvious, where are the peer-reviewed studies in reputable medical journals that confirm that homeopathy works? I agree Big Pharma has a compelling interest in suppressing information contrary to its financial interests, but is it possible that ALL that information has been suppressed? No, it is not.
Why am I even bothering to respond to this?!?!?
No, Alan, you can’t look at the reputable studies that show millions of people being helped by homeopathy. Because there aren’t any reputable studies showing that. Homeopathy has been shown to be utter twaddle hundreds of times, but true believers dismiss any study that’s properly done, in favour of some idiot anecdote that supports their delusions. If homeopathy worked, then “Big Pharma” would be making trillions of dollars on it instead of the paltry billions they are making now with expensive drugs that don’t always work. Since homeopathy doesn’t work, and pharmaceutical want to at least try to cure their patient, they leave the placebos to “Big Homy”, which currently makes billions of dollars selling sugar pills that don’t work.
Perchloric Acid makes a good point. The homeopathic industry makes huge profits since, apart from anything else, unlike the much-maligned pharmaceutical industry it does not have all those pesky costs involved with genuine, and usually long-term, research into new products and the certification process.
Thanks for support Mano. Really appreciate your help. I received lot of contributions for the documentary on Indiegogo after this post.
Best,
Deepak