What’s worse? Doctors who believe homeopathy or just use it for placebo effect

Enlarge / Doctor giving homeopathy to a child. (credit: Getty | BSIP)

It's hard to predict which would be more disconcerting: finding out that your doctor believes in notions that defy basic science-like, the pseudoscientific doctrine of homeopathy-or that they'll prescribe you something they know doesn't work in hopes you'll be tricked into believing you're better-achieving nothing more than a placebo effect.

It might be a toss-up of which is worse. And if you get a homeopathic prescription in Switzerland, it's also a toss-up of which kind of doctor you're dealing with.

In a large survey of physicians around Zurich, only 50 percent of the doctors who prescribed homeopathic treatments did so firmly believing that they were treating their patients' ailments. About 21 percent of doctors who prescribed homeopathic treatments did so explicitly to achieve placebo effect. And the rest provided incomplete responses or reported ambiguous intentions behind their dubious prescriptions.

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