Homeopathic Remedies

Can homeopathic remedies be used to treat organic livestock?

By Andria Schulze

Homeopathy (from the Greek bases homo meaning “same” and path meaning “to feel” or “to suffer”) is based on the “law of similars,” first stated by German physician Samuel Hahnemann. The basic principle is that a suite of symptoms similar to those brought on by a particular substance can be treated by administering minute doses of that substance. So, for example, if the symptoms from which an individual is suffering are the same as those one would suffer from arsenic poisoning, then the patient would be treated with a remedy prepared from arsenic. In traditional medicine, this is analogous to the way that some allergies are treated, and to the administration of some vaccines.

Homeopathic remedies are prepared by extracting the active substance in water or alcohol and diluting the tincture, followed by the process of succussion (shaking with hard strikes against an elastic surface). These dilution and succussion processes are repeated many times until the desired potency is reached. Common dilutions leave the original material at one part per million to one part per nonillion (that’s a 1 followed by 30 zeroes!). Due to the dilution of these materials, the intended substance is very often immeasurable by most tests that can be performed in a laboratory.

OMRI reviews homeopathic remedies for livestock to the same standards as any other livestock health care product: all active ingredients must be listed as allowed at §205.603 if synthetic, and nonsynthetic ingredients are allowed unless they appear at §205.604. Prohibited synthetics used as active ingredients in homeopathic remedies are not allowed, regardless of how diluted the material may be. Remedies such as strychninum (produced from strychnine) or glonoinum (produced from nitroglycerin) would not be permitted in an OMRI review, whereas remedies such as belladonna or aconite (produced from Acontum napellus) may be allowed.

Revised and updated in February 2016 by OMRI Technical Director Johanna Mirenda. This article was originally published in the Winter 2012 edition of the OMRI Materials Review newsletter.