WARNING! Traumeel contains .00000000000000001% pure death!

Alexa Ray Joel, somehow still with us after trying to kill herself with an unbelievably teensy dosage of arnica and other herbs.

I could not make this up. Truth really is stranger than fiction — and funnier, too!

Back in December, Billy Joel’s daughter Alexa Ray tried to kill herself, probably because she heard “Piano Man” one too many times. She did a poor job of it. She tried to kill herself homeopathically. And not just any homeopathy — she took Traumeel.

That’s my turf. Traumeel is relevant to muscle pain.

Traumeel is (mostly) an extremely diluted preparation of the herb arnica and allegedly good for “aches and pains.” It contains ingredients that would be modestly toxic (probably not lethal) … if they weren’t diluted to the point of absurdity. Alexa Ray’s plea for help led to about .00000000000000001% of her death. The crazy math of it is quite familiar to skeptics around the world, who all blew milk out their noses and slapped their thighs crimson when they heard this precious news item.

You could get more arnica montana by licking the plant — once. Hell, a hundredth of a lick would probably be a higher dose. Alexa Ray’s suicide method was less dangerous than inhaling new car smell. It would be (much) easier (and more fun) to kill yourself with light beer. Death by Nerf bat would have been considerably more efficient.

Last year I wrote a comprehensive analysis of Traumeel that rose to the top of the Google charts, and there it remains — usually second in the listings only to traumeel.com itself. It is a polite article. It is a careful article. One does not want to step directly on the toes of those who profit from Traumeel. My aspersions are … diluted. The article does not ever say that Traumeel does not do anything, it just implies it.

And so does Alexa Ray’s failure to kill herself.

You can’t kill yourself with Traumeel, no matter how hard you try. I promise. Alexa tried, and she is with us still. So is debunking magician James Randi, despite numerous homeopathic overdoses (of another homeopathy remedy, Calms Fortes).

This isn’t a safety feature of homeopathy. What’s more likely: that homeopathy doesn’t work at all? Or that homeopathy is potent medicine but not potent enough to hurt you in overdose? Just how wishful can thinking get?

The only thing this pathetic Joelian incident demonstrates is that the ingredients of Traumeel are so diluted that … that it … that it doesn’t … no, I’m not going to say it. You know how the sentence ends. I will just close with this:

“A leading toxicologist said it would be nearly impossible to overdose on the homeopathic medicine Traumeel,” reported the Daily News.

Um … “nearly”?