Is it Possible to Overdose on Homeopathy?

Since homeopathy is still under heat because of the present issue presided by the Food and Drugs Administration (FDA) on the review of their regulations followed by the criticisms and alleged fraud practice claims of Wikipedia founder, Jimmy Wales and the revision of homeopathic rules by England, a single outbreak of news against the 200-year old medical treatment can easily be sensationalized and put into headlines. 

The probability of homeopathic overdose is once again brought to light in the most recent discussion of homeopathy and its practice. Is it possible to overdose on homeopathy?

In 2004, the Belgian skeptical organization SKEPP made headlines when thirty skeptics at Ghent University performed a "mass suicide stunt" with an overdose of homeopathically diluted snake poison, belladonna and arsenic, in an attempt to publicly show that homeopathy does not work. This was followed by similar campaigns across the globe in the preceding years: one amidst the protest in UK on January 30, 2010 and at the Berkeley SkeptiCal conference in 2012. Now that we are in the midst of heated issues, cynics would want to witness once again the real score in possibility of homeopathic overdose or if it really is a fraud.

Homeopath members of The Peterson Group, one of the leading sources of information on alternative, complementary and integrative medicines, argues that if the critics have proven that nothing happens to those that committed the “mass suicide stunt”, doesn’t it mean that homeopathic treatments are as safe as it claim to be? If so, the warning which FDA and WHO has given to the public remains biased and without basis. If those who tested it among themselves are still alive and kicking, what then of the people who were declared dead because of homeopathic medicine intake?

A general physician called Dr. Soy residing in Jakarta, Indonesia concluded that perhaps those with real ailments who took homeopathy as treatment were not able to avail of the real medicine with active ingredients. This act has prevented them to seek appropriate medical aid and thus had them pass away without being properly treated.

It is worse since many supporters now believe that homeopathy can cure even cancer. With their hopes high, they reject chemotherapy and other cancer treatments developed under scientifically based experimentations. 

According to critics, homeopathy does not work beyond placebo; it is a menace to public health and a drain on the limited resource of the government. It is an 18th century quack medicine consisting of magical rituals practiced by deluded, cargo-cult "doctors" that has no place in government thinking, and it should not be endorsed by the registered pharmacists who are at the frontline of public health.