The French government is finally refusing to reimbursement homeopathic products, correctly sending a message to the public that if they want to waste their money on fake medicine, they’re not going to receive any subsidies for it.

Health Minister Agnès Buzyn made the announcement Tuesday night. As it stands, the country offers reimbursements of up to 30% of the costs of the fancy placebos. In 2020, the reimbursement will drop to 15%. In 2021, the reimbursement will disappear entirely.

In other words, the reimbursement will finally be tied to the usefulness of homeopathic products.

Scientists have long said homeopathic products don’t do anything. They are, by definition, diluted well beyond the point of having any actual effect. No research has ever shown such pills being any more useful than a typical placebo.

And yet some fools are acting like this move is bad policy.

“Our association hopes that common sense carries the day, and that the reimbursement is kept,” said Joël Siccardi, president of AHP France, which represents patients using homeopathy, ahead of the decision. … Siccardi warned that the cost of homeopathic products would increase, as people would not only have to pay the full price, but the VAT [Value-Added Tax] rate would also jump from 2 percent to 10 percent.

Good. Just rename that the Gullibility Surcharge.

Even more hilarious, though, is how a former health minister, Xavier Bertrand urged the French government not to go through with the policy change because defenders of homeopathy just needed “more time to carry out studies that prove the benefits of homeopathy.”

The Sun won’t be around that long.

The only actual downside to this is that if fewer people buy homeopathic “remedies,” it could jeopardize hundreds of jobs at Boiron, a French company that produces the fake products. But if your job involves deceiving sick people, no one’s shedding tears over your eventual unemployment. Now’s a good time to search for work you can be proud of.

This is the right move to correct a longstanding mistake.

(Image via Shutterstock)

