Sawbones: A Marital Tour of Misguided Medicine - Sawbones: Elderberry and Other Things That Don't Prevent the Flu

Episode Date: December 13, 2019

You may have seen a Facebook meme claiming that a combination of elderberry and Oscillococcinum can prevent the flu. The truth of the matter may surprise you! (unless you've ever in your life ever listened to even a single episode of our show) Music: "Medicines" by The Taxpayers

Sawbones is a show about medical history, and nothing the hosts say should be taken as medical advice or opinion. It's for fun. Can't you just have fun for an hour and not try to diagnose your mystery boil? We think you've earned it. Just sit back, relax, and enjoy a moment of distraction from that weird growth. You're worth it. that weird growth. You're worth it. Alright, time is about to books! One, two, one, two, three, four! We came across a pharmacy with a toy and that's busted out. We were sawed through the broken glass and had ourselves a look around.

Some medicines, some medicines that escalate my cop for the mouth. Wow! Hello everybody and welcome to Saubone's Emerald Tour of Biscuited Medicine. I'm your co-host Justin McRoy. And I'm Sydney McRoy. And I'm Justin McRoy. I don't see why we're bragging. Justin, it is cold and flu season as you know. That is so true, Sid. And that can only mean one thing. It's time for... Jane Chairman.

No, no, no. I already made the button. No, I know I'm never gonna be able to use the button again. No, never again. It was it was only applicable to that one episode and even its usage then I find just stressing yeah, it was questionable. Justin everybody's coughing and sneezing. It's so annoying. They're aching and chilling. And it is, it is the season when I begin to see a very, for me, upsetting Facebook meme circulate. There are so many upsetting Facebook memes, I could really mean anything with that. But this one is particularly

offensive to my sensibilities. And I see it throughout the year, but it is now that I'm seeing it more than ever. What is that? It's, so this meme has a picture of two things typically. And it is a bottle of a dark liquid of a syrup and a box that looks like a medicine. It looks like a box that you would buy at the pharmacy of some sort of over the counter medicine. And the meme says this flu season, and sometimes it'll say like that what doctors don't want you to know, they won't tell you, here's what doctors won't tell you, take these two medicines every day and you don't need a flu shot because they're just

as effective or more effective or whatever the whatever whoever made it decides to say this week. Well, Sid, why are you guys... Why are you all been sitting on this? This sounds huge. I'm so stoked. Well, it's fake, Justin. This is saw bones. You knew that.

But I wanted to talk about mainly the first ingredient that people love to use as a cure-all, elderberry. And then a little bit about it's what I think this time of year, it's companion medication. Although I don't think this is all year long, but this time of year, the two seem to fly in tandem. Ocelococcinium. Ocelococcinium.

Yes, I guess that must be how it's pronounced. It's fake, so I don't feel bad if I'm saying it wrong. You know, I think that's fair, because it's a fake thing. You know, if she really understood it, she would pronounce it correctly. How can I trust her evaluation of this great, great medicine? I want to focus on elderberry first, though, because elderberry, especially in various Facebook groups, seems to be used as kind of a cure all for everything, especially like if your kid is sick.

Here's a great thing you can use for whatever it's made of elderberries, so it's fine. So I thought, let's listen a little bit of time on that and then we'll cover the other briefly. I'm ready. So thank you to everybody who suggested this throughout the years. This one has been a long time coming Thank you Sarah and Sabrina and Ian and Carolyn and Anna and Megan and Carrie and Eleanor and Ellie and Rachel and Emma and Jared and Darby and Lauren and Abby and Martha and Alexis and Katie and Grace and Allison and Nick and Aaron and Catherine It reminds me of Joseph an amazing technical dream coat. It was air and Sabrina.

I was thinking the, um, you know, the animaniacs one where they name all the countries. Oh, yeah. Uh, so thanks to all of you for, uh, rooting elderberry for all of us. And for those of you who asked me in your email, if you should be using this instead of the flu shot. Shame. Shame on you. No, I just want you to know now, no. Shame on you.

Just in case you don't listen to the end. I want to get that out front. You have lessons. The answer is no. You have listened to this show before. Shame. So what is elderberry? Well, you could probably guess.

It's the berry from the elder tree. Old berries. No. No. And you can trace the use of elderberry back to antiquity. It's interesting because as I was trying to read about which ancient medical traditions tended to use elder, I definitely know that you can look back into like European traditions, like go back to like Greek and Roman uses throughout the medieval period. You find it throughout the Native American, various populations and through colonial America. I see references to its use in

Ayurvedic medicine or in traditional Chinese medicine, but I don't actually find them from like it almost seems like something that was applied later, and a lot of the articles I found did not seem to originate from anyone who actually practiced Ayurveda or traditional Chinese medicine. So I think it was probably because the tree is just more prevalent throughout North America and Europe, that's really where the medical traditions of it lie, as far as I can tell. And they're two specifically,

the European elder, which is San Bucas nigra, and the dwarf elder, which is San Bucas ebulous. So San Bucas, you've probably heard. I've seen that, yeah. Yeah, that's elder. Oh, it's the same thing. So San Bucal, this elderberry syrup. I've taken San Bucal before.

It did not, I used to have the little pills. They don't do anything. Do anything. Yeah, that's true. They don't do anything. So, well, okay. I'll get into the evidence. I always hate to dismiss when there's any study that I can talk about,

but they didn't cure anything. I'll tell you that. So, the name San Bukka actually comes from a Greek word for an instrument, a Sanbukha, which is because the, I guess the elder, the elder tree, the wood, has a very soft pith that is easily removed so you can get these hollow rods from it pretty easily and use it for a musical instrument. Oh, beautiful. Yeah.

That is actually a use. Yeah. No, for sure. And the elder tree, if you look back to ancient traditions, was a very important in terms of like spiritual meaning. There is a lot of like folklore and mythology associated with the elder tree. I think Harry Potter comes to mind when I started, I was like, why do I have that associated with elder? Oh, the elder tree. I think Harry Potter comes to mind when I started. I was like, why do I have that associated with elder? Oh, the elder wand. Right. The

elder, the word elder is actually from the Anglo-Saxon word for fire because you could hollow out the two. Does nothing to do with being old? No. Use it to blow on fire while you're making a fire. Just don't go fire. So, and like I said, you find all these kind of spiritual traditions and it's not weird to think that something that had some sort of religious meaning to a group of people would begin to develop like a medicinal association. You find this with a lot of various herbal things and so originally you would want to plant an elder tree like near your house or whatever

because it was thought to be inhabited by spirits that prevented it from being like struck by lightning or catching on fire so it could be protective. And the flip side of that is that you would never want to like make furniture out of elder because then the spirit is in your home. Oh gosh, no, get out of here. Right, and it's mad at you because like you turn it into a chair or whatever. Sure and you're farting on it. It's very disrespectful.

There was there were a lot of illnesses that could be blamed on like harming an elder tree. So if you cut one down or burned one they'd be like well you're going to get sick girl. Well do you have a toothache? Did you chop down an elder? That's a new one on sabas I think is like an ingredient that is also a agent of illness. Well it's potent, it's powerful right? You get this and I mean you don't find this today with modern medicines because they're made like in labs, you know. Boring. But if you're drawing from, especially if you go into like herbal traditions with like the doctrine of signatures Like these things are made to mimic different parts of our body and they have very potent

Life forces and spirits and so they can affect our human bodies in different ways Do you go? Doctors signatures means for who we'll learn The idea that light cares like that you can find things out in the natural world that look like resemble parts of the human body. Call of fire, here's your brain. Right, idea. Or a walnut, it was the best thing.

That was always the walnut will cure your brain because it looks like a little brain. So it'll cure a headache. That kind of thing. Which is very elegant and beautiful, but not scientifically sound. It'd be nice though. It would be a good call.

It's cool. I like to think about it. I can understand why it would have been attractive. You could also, just like you could, if you harm the elitry, it could hurt you medically. You could use it to, because it had this kind of potent, almost magical, really, is what we're talking about at this point. This is before we start using it, actually thinking it's doing something inside our body. Physically, this is more of a magical spiritual connection. You could carry a stick of elder in your pocket for arthritis or specifically

to prevent like saddle soreness after when you were riding a horse. So I read one article that said that in a traditional fox hunt, which I cannot speak to you about having never been on a fox hunt, that it would up until even the 1950s, riders would carry like a piece of wood in their pocket just because that was like the tradition, a piece of carry, a piece of elder. But we're talking more like talismanic, like at this point, like putting a knife in the bed

to cut the pain of childbirth. Exactly, same thing. You could put a piece of elder in your bath water and it would absorb your fever, transfer it to the tree. You could carve a notch in it for every wart you have and bury it and by the time the stick disintegrates, your warts will be gone, which again, work here's the best because warts tend to just go away on their own most of the time. So like it probably would have been gone by the time the stick disintegrated into the

earth. Yeah. by the time the stick disintegrated into the earth. Yeah, that's the yeah. Of course, if we go, if we go back to ancient Greek medical traditions, plenty of the elder had lots to say, you got to get a hand on this ball. You know, plenty was going to be up in elderberry. It has all these spiritual, important, like, it's so significant to so many different people. Of course, he's going to have something to say about it. So in the natural history, he lists in chapter 35 of book 24, 15 remedies in a chapter that is titled The Elder 15 Remedies. Wow.

I like, it's always very easily searchable. Yeah. In that sense. And so he talks about all the different things. Like they can move your humours about in different ways. They can treat dog bites if you mix them with polenta and make them into a poultice. You can use elderberry juice to heal a brain abscess. Wow. That's a big that's a called shot plenty. Also there were recipes for various. I don't know if you know you have a brain abscess. That's a great

question, Dustin. He didn't. He didn't. He didn't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know.

I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know.

I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't here. I just want to heard to say it. He said there were various parts of the tree that could be used as a diuretic. You could add some wine and use it for a snake bite. You could add some he goat, sue it and use it for gout. Not she goat, he goat.

He goat. Also, he includes in the chapter that it's good for dying your hair. And as I counted, this is included among the 15 remedies. And I think that's plenty. And that one is probably true, right? I mean, the idea that that would be incorrect as well. It's that because that's an easily checkable one. Well, and there's a whole companion history

to elderberry as a medicine that you could go into. That's not my area of expertise. But obviously, elderberries were used for things dyeing, clothing and hair and fabrics, painting, that kind of stuff, because it's a pretty color. Especially there are various colors of elderberry, depending on which tree we're talking about. They range from reds to blues and really dark purples and black, really beautiful, deep pigments. So it was obviously also being used for those kind of applications. In addition, there's a whole culinary and-

Oh, sure, right. What's the drink word cocktail history? Maybe- Le- Le- Le- Le- Le-

Le- Le- Le- Le- Le- Le- I'm going to go with that. Is that a word? Libationary? Libationary feels like a good one. Maybe neat can cover this. Yeah, this would be more of a neat thing. I'll tell my sister Taylor to cover this on neat. Because elderberry obviously has been used for elderflower drinks, spirits, and sambuca. You know, I mean, like that.

So there's a whole other inculinary history It's using sauces and stuff like that too But in North America along with all these and this is is fun to talk about we don't often talk about like the traditional like In among Native Americans what they were using with some of these substances because it was very popular throughout my patient area does seem to be a word by the way just saying okay But it's very popular throughout. My best scenario does seem to be a word by the way, just saying. Okay, but it's very popular throughout Europe, but then also you found in different parts of North America, the Cherokee people used elderberry and flour, elderflower teas as well, for things like arthritis, headaches, fevers, wounds, dropsy, you know, all the, basically everything, kind of a... Dropsy, I was is a heart failure is probably what they're

talking about when they use the word drop C. Drop C could be applied though to like strokes too and brain hemorrhages and all kinds of stuff, but I think that it most equates with heart failure. Also, the Algonquin people use the bark. It depends on if you scraped up or down. It can be used as like an ametic to make you throw up or purgative to, you know, make you poo. Get that one right. So get that confused. Hey, how did you get this bark off the tree again? I honestly don't remember. Best of luck. Good luck with that one. Either way, I guess it's going to do something. Something's going to happen. The Lenape people use it for a variety of different cures among them,

collic for infants. And you can find it's used throughout the Caribbean for various like compresses, like different Caribbean people use it for like a chest compress for a chest cold or a head, you know, like poultice thing for headache or around your eyes to reduce puffiness around your eyes, through loose puffiness, around your eyes, different things like that. And it seems to have been, like I said, predominantly European, North American,

and it rose to a point where it was, at least by the 1600s considered kind of a cure all. I found this quote from William Cole, who was a botanist and an herbalist, and he was a proponent of the doctrine of signature, and all that, and he wrote, there's hardly a disease from the head to the foot, but it cures, speaking of Elderberry. It is profitable for the headache for ravings and wakings, hypokondriac, and melancholy, the falling sickness, catars, deafness, faintness,

and fecures. So everything, everything. And this was throughout colonial America, in the Civil War period, you still continue to find Elderberry sighted as useful for everything from put it around your head, put it around the head of a wounded soldier to keep flies away from them. You could use it to treat a cough, you could use it to stop bleeding. There was one traditional use I forgot to mention that I really enjoyed. You could put Elderberries in your window sill to repel vampires because vampires have to compulsively count things I didn't know that this is new to me and vampire lore some vampire lore they have to compulsively count things if you put a bunch of elderberries in your

Window sill they'll they'll never make it inside because they have to count them all yeah But then you are also risking waking up in the morning like in the late late evening hours and come outside I see a vampire count the berries on your windows. So that would be a three-movie setting. I wouldn't do your bedroom window, so that seems scary. Over time, though, it started to become more closely associated specifically

with fevers and upper respiratory infections. Okay, and again, all along it's still being used in drinks and foods and dyes and sauces and whatever, but the medicinal point is really associated with flu-like illness, cough congestion fever running those, that kind of stuff. So you really start to see studies on it in just the last few decades, is when people said, well, we've used, and there's always that question, If we've used something for thousands of years, are we using it because it does something

or are we just using it because we've used it for thousands of years? Right. Right? Yeah, to assume that it works because of that would be a fallacy, the appeal of the angel wisdom. But it makes sense to test it out and see how it does.

So we've done some studies. One that specifically has been mentioned a lot is that we did one in a lab where we infected cells with influenza, human cells with influenza in a lab, and then expose them to elderberry juice. Okay. And what they found is that it seemed like and then expose them to elderberry juice. And what they found is that it seemed like there were certain

like phytochemicals within the elderberry juice that could prevent the virus, not completely, but make it more difficult for the virus to enter the cells. And even once it got in there, make it more difficult for the virus to replicate. And in addition, they seem to send some signals off to the rest of the body that would stimulate your immune system to respond. So they did this in a lab with elderberry juice and they found these very positive results.

So that doesn't look great for you, Sid. I will just say that as an outside observer. It is important to remember though. I'm already buying it. I know, I know you're ordering it off Amazon right now. It is important to remember that just because something works a certain way in a petri dish in a lab, does not necessarily indicate that it will work the same way

in a human body out in the world, which is why any medications are first created in a lab and tested in a lab. And then if they do show promising results, they are put into clinical trials so that we can actually see what they do in people because part of that is for safety, right, to make sure that they're not going to hurt people. The other part is to make sure they work, right. Because they might not work just because they work in a lab. Those two don't always correlate. So did we, I mean, there's got to be other trials we can do, right? Yes.

There are some clinical trials that have been done and I want to talk about that data after we go to the billing department. Let's go. The medicines, the medicines that ask you let my God for the mouth. So Sid, you ended the first half of the show in, dare I say it, disgrace. Your precious science abandoned you. When it was proven that in the lab, Elderberry Juice can stop the flu, deter the flu from getting any human cells.

So in a lab, we found these results. The next question is, well, what does it do in human body? And any researcher would tell you that. Even I'm certain the researchers who did that study said, these are exciting results. Now let's see what happens in humans. And if we look into clinical trials using elderberry, as you may guess, they're sparse. Because it's cheap. And there's not a huge profit.

You can, you can technically, although I'm going to get into why I don't advise this, you can technically make your own elderberry syrup. Again, I do not advise it. We'll get into it. But it's very cheap. It's easily accessible. No giant drug company is going to do a big, you know, controlled trial

double-blinded It's just not going to happen But there was a recent meta-analysis of 137 articles that have been published about elderberries effect specifically on cold and flu symptoms and From that what they do with the meta-analysis is they decide ahead of time, we want to see if we can take all the studies have ever been done

about this one question and pull them together and come up with an answer by pulling all of these studies together. But before you do that, you decide on what criteria you're going to use. If I'm going to include a study in my meta-analysis, it has to meet, and you sit down and you come up with a list of rules. It has to meet these rules. So from these

137 articles that potentially could be included in the meta analysis, only four actually met the rules, meaning we consider these somewhat meaningful. You know. And from those four studies that only means that 180 people were included. So total. So out of 137 elderberry studies, only four were considered somewhat meaningful and that totaled 180 humans. And the results of those were that it seemed taking elderberry when you had, again, cold or flu symptoms

is what we're, so we're not saying influenza necessarily. We're talking about symptoms that could be considered cold and flu symptoms, which the cold and the common cold and influenza are extremely different, but this time of year they get lumped in together because both can make you like Kavakov and congestion and a few more. And then we're going together by drug companies that are selling you treatment for the symptoms. When in reality for the vast majority of us, a common cold is absolutely no big deal, not everybody, but for the majority of us, it's no big deal.

You're going to feel bad and then get better. And that's fine. We'll all get them. The flu influenza is a much bigger deal. And it's always unfortunate, I think, that they're lumped in together as if it's like all the same. No, they're all viruses. I should've called it appreciated.

I was just trying to have some fun. That goes mean. I was just, the cold is like, I got to stay home from school a day and eat some soup and play video games and my mom was really sweet to me. The flu is like, oh my gosh, I can't get out of bed, my whole body hurts. I hate this. Right. Cold is the fun kind of sack where you is like, oh my gosh, I can't get out of bed. My whole body hurts.

I hate this. Right. Cold is the fun kind of sick where you're like, I could use a break. The flu is like, I kind of want to die. I kind of want to live in a toilet. So they use elderberry in these four studies among these 180 people. And they found that it seemed taking elderberry could reduce the duration and severity of these symptoms compared to placebo.

Okay. But this is in 180 people. Right. That's not a lot. That's not a sample size. It's big enough to reflect the entire population. So from this meta-analysis, they said, it's really interesting. And that's all you can say, until you do bigger studies to say like, okay, but what could, what is the

real potential of elderberry here if applied to the population at large? And again, they in no way showed that it could prevent a colder flu. So it doesn't make sense to take them before, but it sounds like from hearing you correctly, it maybe doesn't hurt. What they found is that it may reduce the duration and severity of some of these symptoms in some people. That's it. But it doesn't have a place to flu shot.

Well, there was no data whatsoever that it could prevent it. So no, it doesn't do this. It's comparing apples and oranges. The flu shot can prevent the flu. Elderberry cannot. Okay. So it in no way should be used to prevent anything. What they said was if you get a cold and you want to take some elderberry syrup, maybe

you'll be sick a little less long. Like, you know, that's it. That was what they said. So, of course, what has come from data like this is an entire industry around selling people elderberry, right? Because we have... Let's profit off. Let's profit off of it.

We can't prove that it works, so let's sell it to people instead. So you can find Alderberry syrups and lozenges and supplements, pills. They're widely available. If you go, I was just at the pharmacy the other day and I went out of curiosity, the Cold and Flu aisle. Again, it's all lumped together, Cold and Flu aisle. And right across the top shelf, top billing, top shelf was an entire line of elderberry products.

Right there. Next to, now to be fair, next to other cold medicines that don't work too, but still. But still, they're just lined up right there along the top of the pharmacy, as if it's just like, well, you know, this is a medicine that we all accept works. And we have not all accepted that it works. No, we don't have the data to say that this works.

We have some studies that are interesting, but medicine shouldn't work this way. It shouldn't be that, I don't know, maybe, throw it up on the shelf and let's see what sticks. So anyway, you'll see referenced a study that proved it was better than a medicine called tamiflu. Have you heard of tamiflu? Yes. It can be prescribed to people who have been diagnosed with influenza.

And tamiflu has been shown to, again, reduce the duration and severity of the flu, of influenza. We're talking about not cold and flu symptoms, the flu. I am the first to say tamiflu is not a perfect medication. You have to take it within the first 48 hours for it to really have much of an effect. That's difficult to get a medicine to somebody within 48 hours of them having symptoms, like prove they have the flu and get them on tamiflu. There are some limitations to it, but it's been studied.

We know it works. They've done real trials. And, you know, like any other medicine on earth, if it is prescribed to the right patient after using your criteria and discussing risks and benefits, it can be helpful. There is no study that compared the two. Basically somebody said, well, in this one study about elderberry, it reduced the duration of the flu by like four days. And in this study of tamiflu, it was only like two days. So see, it's better than tamiflu. But you can't do that.

You can't just grab two random studies from the air and then say, look, I compared them. I mean, I guess you could, but it doesn't mean anything. Like, it's not a scientifically robust statement. So if you see that out there, that doesn't, that's not true. There was no study that directly compared the two under the same conditions and showed it was superior. If you look at the San McCall website, and this is one of the big producers, they say, they sell their very stuff. It says on their cold and flu flu relief, fast temporary relief

from nasal and signs congestion around your sore throat coughing, sneezing, chills, and fever. And then on the website, right here, it says claims based on traditional homeopathic practice, not accepted medical evidence, not FDA evaluated. Like they're basically saying like, we're making this up, but we are still going to claim that's what it does right there on the back. They've gotten in trouble for it. There have been some lawsuits in the past specifically aimed

I think at Sanbacol for claims that they make because because especially it's not it's not just like we talked about cough drops People are out there using cough drops when they get sick and some of them are just candy and that's the thing about it is that and some of them are just candy. And the thing about it is that cough drops aren't out there saying, hey, take this instead of a flu shot. Right. But there are people out there.

You're saying your second sucks, how's some candy? Yes. And there are people out there who will tell you elderberry works instead, like use it instead. And that's a dangerous, dangerous statement to make. That's a life threatening claim. If you, if you trail people, the elderberry will replace their flu shot. The thing with making your own elderberry syrup, I wanted

to mention this too, because people will say that, like, well, don't go buy it. Just make it yourself. If you have access to an elder tree, pick the berries and boil them down and make elderberry syrup. Sounds like the wilds. The problem is that if you consume uncooked elderberries, specifically blue or black elderberries, there's a toxic substance in them and the seeds that can make you super sick. You can cause nausea and vomiting. You can get very sick.

There's actually parts of the plant that contain cyanide. So if you cook other parts of the plant in with it, you can really cyanide. Oh, not great. But the point is if you don't know how to prepare it, you can get really, really sick from elderberry. So, don't eat the berries ever. And certainly, I would not recommend making your own, because what if you don't boil it thoroughly enough, you don't get rid of all the toxic substances? So, you're basically tacitly saying people should be buying a sample call at the grocery

store. No, I am saying that if you don't make it your own, buy these great products right now. I'm saying if you insist on taking elderberry, don't make it yourself. Fair. Now, like I said, I see these Facebook means that combine elderberry with this Oslo coxenium. And so I looked into this, I was like, what is this stuff? Because it says homeopathic right on the box. So for me, if it says homeopathic, just look, look the other direction. Just forget it. What does that mean in this, in this sense? Well, for, for the elderberry, I mean, homeopathic

usually indicates that it's been diluted to the point that there's nothing there. That is not my understanding from elderberry seniors. It's kind of a funny, like kind of like a winky way of saying that it's fake. Well, basically like, are they put homeopathic on there? Then also, linear coxium, also, also, low coxinium, they go, is homeopathic in the sense of the word homeopathic, as in there's nothing there. It's fake. It stems from a French physician named Joseph Roy who was Helping take care of patients during the Spanish flu of 1917 So he was looking in the blood of victims of the flu for like what what what happened here basically and he he saw something

That he called an Oslo coxxae because he saw what he thought was a little bacteria that could change size, could change shape and size very quickly. So it's oscillating. Okay, got it. So he saw these oslo coxae and are really excited. And so he started looking in the blood of a patient of a bunch of different things. Tuberculosis patients, mumps patients, measles patients, chickenpox patients, cancer patients. And he claimed to have seen this in the blood of all of these sick people, whatever this Oslo cox I was.

That's incredible. No one knows to this day what the heck he saw. Nobody knows what he was calling this. Maybe he had some floaters in his eye. Maybe. Or maybe. But he saw something and he thought he has some floaters in his eye. Maybe. But he saw something and he thought it would. Said he saw something.

Well, yes. He said he saw something. He called it the universal germ. And he thought if there's a universal germ, we could make a cure for all of this and sell it and great. We've saved humanity, right? If there's one germ, I mean, that would be great. We've saved humanity, right? If there's one germ, I mean, that would be great. So anyway, he, because he was also a believer in homeopathy, which is the belief that a very tiny amount of

a substance, one might say no amount at all, the essence, the essence of the substance could cure an illness, right? So like if a bunch of substance, of this substance makes you sick, a tiny amount of the substance will make you well. Okay. Not real. No, there's no, I mean, it's been disproved. Like there's no truth to this. There's no, it's nothing.

I'm going to have a new take. Yes, it's nothing. So, but he believed in those principles. And so that's, those were the principles he used to develop his cure for the universal I'm not sure if he's right. I'm not sure. I'm not sure if he's right. I'm not sure if he's right. I'm not sure if he's right. I'm not sure if he's right. I'm not sure if he's right. I'm not sure if he's right. I'm not sure if he's right.

I'm not sure if he's right. I'm not sure if he's right. I'm not sure if he's right. I'm not sure if he's right. I'm not sure if he's right. I'm not sure if he's right. I'm not sure if he's right. I'm not sure if he's right.

I'm not sure if he's right. I'm not sure if he's right. I'm not sure if he's right. I'm not sure if he's right. I'm not sure if he's right. I'm not sure if he's right. I'm not sure if he's right. I'm not sure if he's right. I'm not sure if he's right. I'm not sure if he's right. I'm not sure if he's right. I'm not sure if he's right. the commercial germ will make you sick, then a teeny, teeny infinitesimally small amount of it

will make you well. So we needed a good source of it. He decided that duck liver was a great source of it. Sure. So you have to take a duck and get 35 grams of its liver and 15 grams of its heart, put that into a bottle, mix it with some like pancreatic juice and some sugar and let that turn into like a goo. And then once you have that goo, by the way if

you're wondering why he chose liver, he said that the ancients considered the liver as the seed of suffering, so that there was like some sort of energy. There are some mornings I feel that way. There's some energy To the liver that was special. This is random. Anyway, so you take this goo that you've now formed after 40 days and You're going to dilute it using a very specific homeopathic method. There are different ways They're different homeopathic traditions of diluting things the most obvious would be like take a drop of goo and put it in a hundred and a hundred miles of water Take a drop of goo and put it in 100 ml of water. Take a drop of that and put it in 100 ml of water. Take a drop of that, you know, blah, blah, blah.

Carry on to infinity. This is nothing. There was another method that was like a shortcut called the Cossackov method, which was named for a guy, Simeon Corsackov, sorry, Corsackov method. And he decided that a faster way to do homeopathy in the 1800s was to, so you've got your bottle of goo, dump it out, then fill it with water.

Oh, excellent. That's your first dilution. That saved a lot of time. Thank you so much. Right. And so he used that way of diluting it. And this specific formulation, Oslo-Coxinium, is diluted 200 times. That is a lot. And if you look on the box, you will

see that it has 200 CK on it, the Oslo coxenium, and that stands for centesimal, which means a 1-100 dilution, and then the K is for Corsacovian. So 200 centesimal Corsacovian dilutions were done to prepare this medicine. Which is a lot. So these pills have nothing in them. Yes, they're fake. They're fake. They have nothing.

They have nothing. They do not in any way treat or cure or affect anything, any illness or wellness. They don't do anything. There's nothing in them. I mean, you could drink water and say you just drank oxal, I actually know because at least water would hydrate you. They're nothing.

You will find them. Again, when I was looking at the top shelf at all the elderberry, you look a couple shelves down. They're not as prominent as elderberry, but they're right there. These boxes of Oslo coxenium, they all come from this same, I apparently this is hugely popular in France, it was listed as one of the

like the top 10 highest grossing medications in France. It is also by this one French company and people use it for cold and flu. And it does not, it's completely fake. One, you can buy it at all the real junk stores. I'm looking at the website of a company. Yes, I have seen it at CVS, Rydade, Walmart, Walgreens. I am certain, and I'm not putting them on blast.

I'm certain you will find it at any pharmacy. What I love, okay, so here's the benefits of Oslo, according to this one manufacturer, Nondrowse. True, it's nothing. Sure. No, no drug interactions. Absolutely 100%. It's nothing.

Quick dissolving pellets. Excellent. No preservatives. No kidding. It's nothing. There's nothing in it. You're buying nothing. Here's a review from Sheila who says, I've been using your product for years.

Last Friday, there's two reviews. Here's one from Sheila. I'm using your product for years. Last Friday, there's two reviews. Here's one from Sheila. I'm using your product for years. Last Friday, my manager at Lowe started having symptoms of the flu, so I told him about your product. I always have three tubes in my pocketbook, wow, Sheila. So I gave him the package and told him how to take it. He took Saturday off and came in to work yesterday

and was feeling better. He thanked me and said, his wife picked up a package to have at home, and he returned a new package of three to me. I love your product. Sheila? Sheila, what have you done? You've done nothing.

Sheila, except found a friend, and that's excellent. It can bring people together and non-Jalsey. The idea of testimonials when it comes to medications are really, I mean, there's a reason you will, it always calls to mind patent medicines Is because a testimonial is a great way of trying to sell something that doesn't work. Yes, because you are not held You're not bound by anything right. It's just I don't know. It's what Sheila said she was said it not us Sheila. Yes

and Advil doesn't have quotes on the bottle from people that are like, here's, this is great for me. It works great for me. Because they don't need to because it works. And you can, and you can at this point, if you're thinking, well, they have commercials for all these things. Yes, and they shouldn't.

Yeah. Yeah. That's, I mean, that's the whole thing, right? We shouldn't have commercials for any medications. We should prescribe the stuff that works. And stuff like this, which is not a medicine, which is a nothing that does nothing, should not be sold. And certainly not put in an aisle with cold medications, with flu medications.

So this is nothing. If you hear about somebody taking it, if you see somebody taking it, I can't say it's going to hurt you other than you wasted your money. You could have spent that money maybe on something else that would have helped you. I don't know. Some kale or something. But this will do nothing for you. It's completely fake. It's homeopathic. Please advise people. Don't take it. Elderberry

at this point, we have no data to say that it really treats anything. It definitely does not cure or prevent the flu. Definitely does not. Will we someday have a preparation of elderberry that you might be able to take as the same way we take symptomatic things that like maybe you feel a little better while you're sick, they're not really fixing the problem, but like, I didn't cough quite as much. I don't feel quite so bad. Is there a route for elderberry there? It's possible. Maybe I wouldn't say we're there with science at all.

The evidence isn't there for it at all. And if you make it at home, you could hurt yourself. So my advice is stay away from elderberry, stay away from oslo coxenium. If something says homeopathic, please don't buy it and tell your friends the same. And get your flu shot. If you don't want to get the flu,

or if you're trying to shorten the duration and severity of flu symptoms, the best way to do that is not get the flu at all. And the best way to do that is not get the flu at all, and the best way to do that is get your flu shot. Please, yes, wash your hands, yes, cough and sneeze into your elbow. All those things are good. Just gonna get the flu shot.

Stay home when you're sick. Don't expose other people. Be considerate, but get your flu shot. There is no, I don't know why people, we have something that works, we have studies that say it works, we have so much testing in vitro meaning in the lab and in vivo meaning in humans, clinical trials that say vaccines are safe and effective, they prevent disease, they save lives, and the flu vaccine is no different. It's right there among them.

I don't know why it gets separated out there. It's like, well, but the flu, no, it's right there with the rest of the vaccines doing great work, saving humanity, keeping us alive. Before the flu vaccine, people didn't use elderberry because it worked. People use elderberry because they didn't have a flu vaccine and you know what happened to them? They died of the flu. They died of the flu. Sheila, they died of the flu.

Thank you so much for listening to our totally non-confrontational program, saw bones. We hope you have enjoyed yourself. Please, you know, help us spread the word about this episode. But even if you don't know this episode, just spread the word about Eldeberry and Oslo Coxinium. Like it's just, it's fake, it's nothing. It's nothing and it does not prevent the flu. It does not. Please get your flu shot.

Please get your flu shot. It's never too late to get your flu shot. Please go get it. Hey, if you have a few spare bucks this holiday season, I have a request, a group of fans of another podcast we do, my brother, my brother, me, called the Mubim Bam Angels. They have a drive that they do to buy gifts for people in our area that aren't going to have much for Christmas. And if you want to volunteer to help one of these families in the region, it would sure me a lot. And if you're in a position to do that, it would really mean the

world. You can go to mbmbangels.com and volunteer or just kick in a few bucks if you want to. And it would really help out. It won't take very long. And you could really change somebody's life. So please go do that if you're so able. Thank you to taxpayers for the use of their some medicines as the intro natural program. and thank you to you for listening. We will be back with you again next week but until then my name is Justin McRoy. No, I'm Sydney McRoy. And as always don't, Joe Holt in your head! Alright!

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