Flu season is coming up. Do everyone a little good and keep your hands clean, cough into your sleeve, and just stay home if you’re sick. Don’t come to school and think you can just stay away from people and not infect anyone. And, importantly, get vaccinated if you can. Use real medicine if you’re sick, not some substitutive alternative medicine.

Homeopathy—this alternative medicine—is not a substitute to real medicine or vaccinations. Homeopathy is basically diluting actual medicine in water, then diluting that until it’s pretty much non-existent. The result is homeopathic medicine, in which it relies on the water’s “memory” to take effect. That’s a load. It’d be like eating a crumb off your sandwich when you’re hungry and expecting it to turn into a sandwich in your stomach.

Scientific studies proved that homeopathy is, indeed, complete quackery—a real word—which is fraudulent medical practice. It isn’t right. Imagine your sixteenth birthday in which your parents promised you a brand new car of your choosing. You tell them what you want, and you get a Hot Wheels toy version of what you asked for. There’s no way I could consciously do something like that to people, especially when it’s meant to help someone who needs medical help. But it happens because of lack of awareness and/or fear of treatment.

Vaccinations and medicine aren’t scary. They’re not useless, nor are they a fake solution. They’re meant to cure you or make your body immune to disease. They do NOT, by popular rumor, cause autism through a vaccine ingredient called thimerosal. It’s been studied for decades. There is no relation between autism rates and thimerosal in vaccines.

Stay at home and recover if you’re sick. Stick with real medicine.