Homeopathy

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Homeopathy (also spelled homœopathy or homoeopathy), from the Greek words όμοιος, hómoios (similar) and πάθος, páthos (suffering, disease),[1] is a controversial type of alternative medicine that aims to treat "like with like." The term "homeopathy" was coined by the German physician Christian Friedrich Samuel Hahnemann (1755–1843) and first appeared in print in 1807.[2]

Homeopathic treatment involves giving a patient with symptoms of an illness extremely small doses of the agents that produce the same symptoms in healthy people when exposed to larger quantities. A homeopathic remedy is prepared by diluting the substance in a series of steps. Many homeopathic remedies are so highly diluted that no molecules of the original substance are likely to remain after dilution.[3][4] Homeopathy asserts that the remedy will retain a memory of the diluted substance and the therapeutic potency of a remedy can be increased by serial dilution combined with succussion, or vigorous shaking.

Since its inception homeopathy has received significant criticism on scientific and medical grounds. The belief that extreme dilution makes drugs more powerful by enhancing their "spirit-like medicinal powers"[5] is inconsistent with the laws of chemistry and physics and the observed dose-response relationships of conventional drugs. Several pro-homeopathic articles published in highly regarded journals were later withdrawn.[6] Additionally, the use of homeopathic drugs to prevent malaria infection has had life-threatening consequences.[7][8] Consequently, critics of homeopathy have described it as pseudoscience[9] and quackery.[10]


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History of homeopathy

Main article: History of homeopathy

Although the reasoning behind homeopathy extends back at least as far as the Ancient Greeks, the modern "father of homeopathy" was the German physician Samuel Hahnemann, who began outlining his theories of "medical similars" in a series of articles and monographs in 1796.[11] The term "homeopathy" was coined by Hahnemann and appeared in print in 1807.[12] Hahnemann's main opus in homeopathy was the book, The Organon of Medicine. Hahnemann published five editions of this work between 1810 and 1842.[13] This marked the birth of modern homeopathy.

General philosophy

Homeopathy regards diseases as morbid derangements of the organism,[14] and states that instances of disease in different people differ fundamentally.[15] Homeopathy views a sick person as having a dynamic disturbance in a hypothetical "vital force", a disturbance which, homeopaths claim, underlies standard medical diagnoses of named diseases.[16]


The standard practice of homeopathy

See also: Homeopathic techniques

Law of similars

Homeopathy is based on the 'principle of similars', first expressed by Hahnemann as similia similibus curentur or 'let likes cure likes'. This is opposite to the 'principle of contraries' which was central to the Galenic medicine in which Hahnemann had been trained.

The 'law of similars' is an ancient medical maxim,[17][18] but its modern form is based on Hahnemann's hypothesis that a constellation of symptoms induced by a given homeopathic remedy in a group of healthy individuals will cure a similar set of symptoms in the sick. Symptom patterns associated with various remedies are determined by 'provings', in which healthy volunteers are given remedies, of varying concentrations, and the resulting physical and mental symptoms are compiled by observers into a "drug picture".[19]

The 'law of similars' is the guiding principle behind homeopathic treatments. Homeopathic practitioners rely on two types of reference in prescribing, both of which are created using the 'law of similars'. The Homeopathic Materia Medicae are alphabetical indexes of drug pictures organized by remedy, which describe the symptom patterns associated with individual remedies. Also, a 'homeopathic repertory' consists of an index of sickness symptoms, listing all the remedies associated with specific symptoms.

The law of similars is more of a guiding principle than a scientific law. It is not built on a hypothesis that can be falsified. A failure to cure homeopathically can always be attributed to incorrect selection of a remedy:

"I have often heard physicians tell me that it was due to suggestion that my medicines acted so well; but my answer to this is, that I suggest just as strongly with my wrong remedy as with the right one, and my patients improve only when they have received the similar or correct remedy". --James Tyler Kent.[20]

Types of remedies

Hahnemann tested many substances commonly used as medicines in his time, such as antimony and rhubarb, and also poisons like arsenic, mercury and belladonna, to discover what symptoms they produced in healthy individuals. Hahnemann recorded his first 'provings' of 27 preparations in his book Fragmenta de viribus in 1805. Later, Hahnemann published Materia Medica Pura, which contained provings of a further 65 preparations. He was most heavily engaged in proving in the 1790s and early 1800s, but he never abandoned these experiments. Hahnemann was involved in another phase of proving in preparation for the publication of his book, "The Chronic Diseases, their Peculiar Nature and their Homœopathic Cure"[21]. The Chronic Diseases were published in 1828 and contained provings of 48 further preparations.[22]

James Kent's Lectures on Homoeopathic Materia Medica (1905) lists 217 remedies, and new substances are added to contemporary versions. Homeopathy uses many animal, plant, mineral, and synthetic substances. Examples include natrum muriaticum (common salt), lachesis muta (bushmaster snake venom), opium, and thyroidinum.

Other homeopathic remedies involve dilution of the agent or product of the disease. These are the so-called "isopathic remedies". Rabies nosode, for example, is made by diluting the saliva of a rabid dog.

Some modern homeopaths are exploring the use of more esoteric substances. These are known as "imponderables", because they do not originate from a material but from electromagnetic energy or other energy presumed to have been "captured" by a substance like alcohol or lactose. The captured "energy" can be in many forms, such as X-rays, Sol (sunlight), Positronium,[23] Electricitas[24] or even light collected using a telescope (for example, from the star Polaris). Recent ventures by homeopaths into even more esoteric substances include Tempesta[25] (thunderstorm), and Berlin wall.[26]

Today, about 3000 remedies are used in homeopathy; about 300 are based on comprehensive Homeopathic Materia Medica information, and about 1500 on relatively fragmentary knowledge. The rest are used experimentally in difficult cases based on the law of similars, either without knowledge of their homeopathic properties or through speculative knowledge independent of the law of similars. This modern approach also harks back to the ancient 'doctrine of signatures,' which Hahnemann rejected as uncertain guesswork.[27]

Choosing remedies

The typically 1-2 hour-long homeopathic consultation,[28] involves questions regarding one's physical, mental and emotional state, one's life circumstances and presenting physical/emotional illness."[29] and then translates a person's entire health status into a complex of mental and physical symptoms, likes and dislikes and innate predispositions. It aims "to build up a well rounded picture of the individual,"[30] which can then be compared with similar established data in the drug provings found in the homeopathic materia medica. Assisted by further dialogue with the patient, the homeopath then aims to find the one drug most closely matching the 'symptom totality' of the patient.

There are many methods for determining the most-similar remedy (the simillimum), and homeopaths sometimes disagree. This is partly due to the complexity of the "totality of symptoms" concept. That is, homeopaths do not use all symptoms, but decide which are the most characteristic. This subjective evaluation of case analysis relies on knowledge and experience. Finally, the drug picture in the Homeopathic Materia Medica is always more comprehensive than the symptoms exhibited by any individual. These factors mean that a homeopathic prescription can remain presumptive until it is verified by testing the effect of the remedy on the patient.[citation needed]

Alternative modes of selecting remedies include medical dowsing[31][32] or the use of psychic powers.[33] However, these methods are controversial and not accepted by most homeopathic practitioners.[citation needed]

Modern efforts to further develop homeopathy

The constant efforts by homeopaths to develop new treatments are driven by many different forces. For example, some are tempted to use an isopathic, or disease-associated agent as a first prescription in a 'stuck' case when the beginning of disease coincides with a specific event such as vaccination.[34] Also, it is common to try a chemically-related substance when a remedy that was well-indicated fails. A good example of this is the use of bowel nosodes,[35] which were introduced by the British homeopaths, Edward Bach (1886-1936), John Paterson and Charles Edwin Wheeler in the 1920s. Their use is based on the variable bowel bacterial flora thought to be associated with persons of different homeopathic constitutional types. Though receiving more attention today, the bowel nosodes are rarely used outside British homeopathy.

More recently, homeopathy has embraced substances based on their elemental classification (the periodic table or biological taxonomy).[36][37] This approach may create convenient systems for grouping remedies and classifying the ever-burgeoning Homeopathic Materia Medica, but its usefulness is questioned by some purists on the basis that it involves speculation about remedy action without provings.[38]

Miasms as a cause of disease

Another important component of homeopathy is the concept of "miasms". Hahnemann hypothesized that certain illnesses leave behind some residual damage, or miasm (Greek for "stain" or "imbalance"), which is postulated to be responsible for chronic diseases, and is said to be passed on genetically. There are three types of miasms in homeopathy:

  1. syphilis, resulting in damange to the brain, nerves, and bones, resulting in deafness, insanity, alcholism, etc.
  2. "sycosis", a term used in homeopathy to refer to suppressed gonorrhoea, damaging the mucous membranes and genital tract, producing sensitivity to damp weather and storms
  3. "psora", damaging the skin, resulting in many types of internal disease states

Hahneman developed his miasm hypothesis because he was concerned about the failures of his homeopathic remedies to produce lasting cures for chronic diseases. By 1816, Hahnemann had noticed that "...the non-venereal chronic diseases, after being time and again removed homoeopathically … always returned in a more or less varied form and with new symptoms."[39]

To explain this, Hahnemann introduced his miasmatic hypothesis. Hahnemann's miasm theory was first published in 1828 in his book, The Chronic Diseases, their Nature and Homoeopathic Treatment.[40]

Hahnemann hypothesized that the miasm of psora underpinned most chronic diseases. The word "miasm" is related to an old medical concept known as the "miasma theory of disease", where the term "miasma" represents "pestiferous exhalations". Hahnemann described this in Note 2 to §11 of the Organon: "...a child with small-pox or measles communicates to a near, untouched healthy child in an invisible manner (dynamically) the small-pox or measles, … in the same way as the magnet communicated to the near needle the magnetic property..."[41]

According to Hahnemann, miasmatic infection causes local symptoms, usually in the skin. If these are suppressed by external medication, the hidden cause goes deeper, and manifests itself later as organ pathologies. In §80 of the Organon he asserted psora to be the cause of such diseases as epilepsy, kyphosis, cancer, jaundice, deafness, and cataract.[42]

However, the miasm theory was not widely accepted. Even in his own time, many followers of Hahnemann, including the American homeopathy pioneer Constantine Hering, made almost no reference to Hahnemann’s concept of chronic diseases and the miasm hypothesis. Today, some homeopathic practitioners find Hahnemann’s theory difficult to reconcile with current knowledge of immunology, genetics, microbiology and pathology, as it seems to ignore the importance of genetic, congenital, metabolic, nutritional, and degenerative factors in sickness.[43] The miasm theory also fails to differentiate between the multitude of infectious diseases. However, most insist that the key elements of Hahnemann's miasm theory are valid. For instance, most of them believe that the fundamental cause of disease is internal and constitutional (i.e. the susceptibility to becoming ill), and that it is contrary to good health to suppress symptoms, especially skin eruptions and discharges. They also accept Hahnemann's concept of latent psora, the early signs of an organism’s imbalance, which indicate that treatment is needed to prevent the development of more advanced disease.

Classical versus non-classical homeopathy

Hahnemann's formulation of homeopathy is often referred to as classical homeopathy. Classical homeopaths take a detailed patient history, often lasting more than one hour, base their prescription also on incidental or constitutional symptoms, and administer one remedy at a time at infrequent intervals (every month or less typically).[44]

By contrast, clinical or non-classical homeopathy treatments can involve more than one remedy at a time.[44] For example, some multi-remedy homeopathic formulations are marketed for specific medical conditions. Some formulations use a 'shotgun' approach of the most commonly indicated single remedies in mixture form. Other formulations, such as those created by manufacturers of homeopathic substances Heel (based in Baden-Baden, Germany) and Reckeweg (based in Bensheim, Germany), are proprietary mixtures marketed for specific diagnostic criteria.

Many members of the public are unfamiliar with classical homeopathy, and equate both clinical and classical practices with homeopathy. Others are familiar with the classical approach but regard the nonclassical approach as a legitimate variant, while others do not. Use of non-classical approaches is confined mainly to places where over-the-counter preparations are popular and where many doctors use natural medicines in a conventional clinical setting.[citation needed]

Homepathy around the world

Main article: Homeopathy around the world

The attitudes towards homeopathy vary around the world. Homeopathy is particularly popular in Europe and India,[45][46] although less so in the United States.[47] Stricter European regulations have also been implemented recently by the European Directorate for the Quality of Medicines & Healthcare.[48]

Misconceptions about homeopathy

Composition of homeopathic remedies

Arsenicum album 200

It is a common misconception that homeopathy is akin to herbalism, and that homeopathic remedies consist of only natural herbal components. Herbs and plants are used, but homeopathy also uses non-biological substances such as salts[49] and components of animal origin, such as the duck liver used to prepare the flu remedy oscillococcinum.

Another difference and source of confusion is that in herbalism, measurable amounts are used. By contrast, in homeopathy the active ingredient is diluted until it is no longer detectable, or even until the remedy is highly unlikely to contain any of the original active ingredient at all (i.e., when the dilution exceeds Avogadro's number).

Homeopathy also uses substances of human origin, called nosodes (made from diseased tissue) or sarcodes (made from healthy tissue). Some people have the opposite misconception, that homeopathic remedies are based only on toxic substances like snake venom or mercury.

As the term homeopathy is well known and believed to have good marketing value in some market segments, the public can be confused by those who have adopted the term for other therapies. For example, some companies combine homeopathic with non-homeopathic substances such as herbs or vitamins. Some products marketed as homeopathic might contain no homeopathic preparations at all. Classical homeopaths argue that only remedies created and prescribed in accordance with the Hahnemann's principles can be called homeopathic. In addition, many producers of homeopathic remedies also make other types of alternative products under the same brand name, a practice that causes some confusion.

Homeopathy and vaccination

See also: Isopathy

To some, homeopathic treatments resemble vaccination, particularly when nosodes are used as remedies. They argue that vaccines contain a small dose of the "disease" against which they protect, similar to isopathic remedies made from nosodes.[citation needed] However, since vaccines contain measurable amounts of dead or inactivated organisms that cause the disease, this analogy is considered inaccurate according to medical and scientific understanding.

Hahnemann did not approve of vaccination and stated, "But to use a human morbific matter (a Psorin taken from the itch in man) as a remedy for the same itch or for evils arisen therefrom, stay away from it! Nothing can result from this but trouble and aggravation of the disease."[50] American homeopath Herbert Alfred Roberts pointed out that: "giving the identical instead of the similar means the difference between isopathy and homoeopathy."[51] However, Hahnemann believed that the success of the smallpox vaccine was confirmation of the 'law of similars.'[52]

According to homeopathy, the body can become susceptible to "morbific noxious agents" that cause disease. Homeopaths try to prevent disease, starting with the first symptoms, which can be displayed long before an acute disease appears.[53] However, Hahnemann recognized that sometimes a large group of people are beset by the same acute disease simultaneously, perhaps because of wars, floods, and famines and other causes, and an epidemic ensues.[54] Hahneman advocated administering one or even a few remedies to a population to prevent a threatened epidemic.[55] According to Hahnemann, when an epidemic begins the homeopath can produce an appropriate remedy for each individual patient from a small collection of remedies.[56][57]

Scientific critiques of homeopathic treatment

Early critiques of high dilutions

Sir John Forbes (1787-1861), physician to Queen Victoria (1841-61), said the extremely small doses of homeopathy were regularly derided as useless, laughably ridiculous and "an outrage to human reason."[58] Although such homeopathic cures were accepted as valid by regular physicians at the time, they were ascribed entirely to the body's innate healing powers. And Professor Sir James Young Simpson said of the highly diluted drugs: "no poison, however strong or powerful, the billionth or decillionth of which would in the least degree affect a man or harm a fly."[59]. Nineteenth century American physician and author Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. was a vocal critic of homeopathy and published an essay in 1842 entitled Homeopathy and Its Kindred Delusions.

British Medical Journal 1991 study

In 1991, three professors of medicine, Jos Kleijnen, Paul Knipschild and Gerben ter Riet from the Department of Epidemiology and Health Care Research at the University of Limburg, Maastricht in The Netherlands, performed a meta-analysis of 25 years of clinical studies using homeopathic medicines. They published their results in the British Medical Journal. This meta-analysis covered 107 controlled trials, of which 81 showed that homeopathic medicines were effective, 24 showed they were ineffective, and 2 were inconclusive.

The professors concluded, "The amount of positive results came as a surprise to us." They found evidence for successful treatment of respiratory and other infections, diseases of the digestive system, hay fever, rheumatological disease, mental or psychological problems and other ailments. In addition, they found evidence that homeopathic treatment helped patients recover after abdominal surgery and to address pain or trauma.

Despite the high percentage of studies that provided evidence of success with homeopathic medicine, most of these studies were flawed.[citation needed] Still, researchers found 22 high-caliber studies, 15 of which showed that homeopathic medicines were effective. Of further interest, they found that 11 of the best 15 studies showed efficacy.

The meta-analysis on homeopathy concluded, "At the moment the evidence of clinical trials is positive but not sufficient to draw definitive conclusions because most trials are of low methodological quality and because of the unknown role of publication bias. This indicates that there is a legitimate case for further evaluation of homoeopathy, but only by means of well performed trials."[60]

Lancet 2005 study

In August 2005, The Lancet medical journal published a meta-analysis of 110 placebo-controlled homoeopathy trials and 110 matched conventional-medicine trials[61] based upon the Swiss government's Program for Evaluating Complementary Medicine, or PEK. The outcome of this meta-analysis stated that the clinical effects of homeopathy are likely to be placebo effects.

This study is notable for its design, as a "global" meta analysis of homeopathy and not as an analysis of particular effects. It scientifically tested the global hypothesis that the reported effects of homeopathy are placebo effects. The hypothesis was that any reported positive effects of homeopathic treatments are probably due to placebo effects, publication bias, and observer effects, among others. Therefore, the magnitude of these reported positive effects of homeopathic treatments should diminish with sample size and study quality, with the best studies consistently showing no effect. The study tested this hypothesis. For comparison, a comparable set of conventional medical trials was subjected to an identical analysis. The homeopathic studies and the conventional medical trials were matched by disease type and sample size. It was found that the conventional tests showed a real effect independent of sample size, while the homeopathy studies did not, as would be expected if they were just due to assorted types of bias or statistical fluctuation. The Lancet accompanied the meta-analysis with invited editorials.

European Journal of Cancer 2006 study

In January 2006 the European Journal of Cancer published a meta-analysis of six trials of homeopathic treatments for recovery from cancer therapy, including radio- and chemotherapy.[62] Three of the trials included were randomised double-blind placebo-controlled clinical trials. The authors were from the Departments of Complementary Medicine at the Universities of Exeter and Plymouth. Their analysis found no evidence to support the use of homeopathic remedies in cancer treatment recovery.

Mechanism of action of homeopathic preparations

Since homeopathic remedies at potencies higher than about D23 (10-23) contain no detectable ingredients apart from the diluent (water, alcohol or sugar), there is no known chemical/scientific basis to date for them to have any medicinal action. Some tests suggest that potentized solutions up to D120 can have statistically significant effects on organic processes, including the growth of grain,[63] histamine release by leukocytes,[64][65] and enzyme reactions.[66] These publications are very controversial since attempts to replicate some of these studies on leukocytes and enzymes have failed, even when using the potentization method.[67][68][69][70] A recent review of tests of high potencies summarized the situation as follows: "...there are some hints from experimental research that homeopathic substances diluted and succussed beyond Avogadro's number are biologically active but there are no consistent effects from independently reproducible models.",[71] although the referenced journal is not generally regarded as being of high scientific quality.

These positive studies are unusual since no effects of high dilutions are seen in the huge number of similar studies on other biological systems. Here, low doses of chemicals give small effects and high doses large effects. This simple dose-response relationship has been confirmed in many hundreds of thousands of experiments on organisms as diverse as nematodes,[72] rats[73] and humans.[74]

Although some patients report benefits from homeopathic preparations,[75] the large majority of scientists attribute this to the placebo effect, the regression fallacy and/or the Forer effect. Ideally, drugs are tested in large, multi-centre, randomised, placebo-controlled double-blind clinical trials, to test whether the drug has an effect that is significantly better than a placebo or an alternative treatment. Many clinical trials that partially meet these criteria have investigated homeopathy, and some have indicated efficacy above placebo.[76] However, many of the trials are open to technical criticism or involve samples that are too small to allow firm conclusions to be drawn.[77]

Some advocates of homeopathy claim that orthodox double-blind trials are inherently insufficient for deriving evidence for the technique. For example, a spokeswoman from the UK Society of Homeopaths has said: "It has been established beyond doubt and accepted by many researchers, that the placebo-controlled randomised controlled trial is not a fitting research tool with which to test homeopathy"[78] since homeopathy is positioned as a holistic treatment, incorporating psychological/spiritual concerns as well as an active ingredient. Some critics[79] have noted that homeopathy includes falsifiable claims, even if that is only part of the homeopathic process, or simply that such claimed immunity from orthodox scientific scrutiny is reminiscent of pseudoscience.

Basophil stimulation

Madeleine Ennis, a pharmacologist at Queen's University Belfast, and her team looked at the effects of ultra-dilute solutions of histamine on human white blood cells involved in inflammation. These cells, called basophils, release histamine when they are stimulated. However, exposure to histamine stops these cells releasing any more, an example of negative feedback regulation. Three of the four participating groups observed this inhibitory effect with homeopathic solutions of histamine, solutions so dilute that they probably didn't contain a single histamine molecule. These low-dilution effects were seen in six of the 24 independent sets of experiments (Table 1 of paper).[80] A later investigation, attempting to replicate these results, failed to find any significant effect from these ultra-dilute solutions.[81]

Evidence-based medicine

There is widespread consensus in the medical community that evidence-based medicine is the best standard for assessing efficacy and safety of health-care practices, for it is "the expression of the scientific method in clinical medicine."[82] Therefore, systematic reviews with strict protocols are essential to establish the substantion of various therapies. While committed to this principle, much of modern medicine is subject to ongoing efforts to comply with evidence-based standards.

Systematic reviews conducted by the Cochrane Collaboration found no evidence that homeopathy is beneficial for asthma,[83] dementia,[84] and induction of labor.[85] They also found no evidence that homeopathic treatment can prevent influenza,[86] but reported that it appears to shorten the duration of the disease. Systematic reviews conducted by other researchers found no evidence that homeopathy is beneficial for osteoarthritis,[87] migraine prophylaxis,[88] delayed-onset muscle soreness,[89] or symptoms of menopause.[90]

Medical organizations' attitudes towards homeopathy

The National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, part of the U.S. National Institutes of Health, states that:

  • Results of individual, controlled clinical trials have been contradictory, with some saying it was no better than a placebo, with other trials having results "the researchers believed were greater than one would expect from a placebo."[91] However, this implies a placebo was not actually used.
  • "Systematic reviews have not found homeopathy to be a definitively proven treatment for any medical condition."[91]
  • A number of its key concepts defy chemistry, physics, and other sciences.[92]
  • It is uncertain how a remedy with so little, "perhaps not even one molecule" of its active ingredient, could have any biological effect.[92]
  • Effects might be due to the placebo effect or similar non-specific effects.[92]
  • It is still largely untested whether it actually works for some of the diseases it's claimed to work for, and if it did work, how it would.
  • NCAAM says that "there is a point of view" that it works, but is unexplained how, and that a lack of explanation is "not unique to homeopathy." It also says that some feel, as long as it seems "helpful and safe", no scientific explanation is necessary.[92]
  • It continues to fund research into homeopathy.[93]

The UK National Health Service's "Health Encyclopedia" entry on homeopathy includes the following:

  • Around 200 randomised controlled trials evaluating homeopathy have been conducted, and there are also several reviews of these trials. Despite the available research, no clinical evidence has shown that homeopathy works. Many studies suggest that any effectiveness that homeopathy may have is due to the placebo effect, where the act of receiving treatment is more effective than the treatment itself.[94]
  • Medical doctors and scientists do not generally accept homeopathy because its claims have not been verified to the standards of modern medicine and the scientific method. Scientists argue that homeopathy cannot work because the remedies used are so highly diluted that in many there can be none of the active substance remaining.[95]

In 1997, the following statement was adopted as policy of the American Medical Association (AMA) after a report on a number of alternative therapies including homeopathy:[96]

  • There is little evidence to confirm the safety or efficacy of most alternative therapies. Much of the information currently known about these therapies makes it clear that many have not been shown to be efficacious. Well-designed, stringently controlled research should be done to evaluate the efficacy of alternative therapies.

Homeopathy and The James Randi Million Dollar Challenge

Due to the lack of any concrete scientific evidence that homeopathy is any more effective than a placebo, the skeptic James Randi has included homeopathy in the list of candidates for his million dollar challenge. He will give a million dollars to anyone who can prove in a controlled, double-blind test, that homeopathy actually works. To date not a single person has done so.[97] However, in 1999 a multi-lab effort directed from France reported marginal-but-positive results.[98]. Following-up on this experiment, an international team led by Professor Madeleine Ennis of Queen's University Belfast claimed to have succeeded,[99]. Randi then forwarded the $1 million challenge to the BBC Horizon program to prove the "water memory" theory following Ennis' experimental procedure. In response, experiments were conducted with the Vice-President of the Royal Society, John Enderby, overseeing the proceedings. The challenge ended with the Horizon team failing to prove the memory of water.[100] However, Ennis claimed that Horizon did not faithfully reproduce her experiment.[101]

Safety of homeopathic treatment

The United States Food & Drug Administration considers that there is no real concern over the safety of most homeopathic products "because they have little or no pharmacologically active ingredients". There have been few reports of illness associated with the use of homeopathic products, but the medical literature contains a few case reports of poisoning by heavy metals such as arsenic[102] and mercury[103][104][105] found in homeopathic remedies. However, in cases that they reviewed, the FDA concluded the homeopathic product was not the cause of the adverse reactions. In one case, arsenic was implicated, although FDA analysis revealed that the concentration of arsenic was too low to cause concern. Perhaps the main concern about the safety of homeopathy arises not from the products themselves, but from the possible withholding of more efficacious treatment, or from misdiagnosis of dangerous conditions by a non-medically qualified homeopath.[106]

Delayed treatment

Because homeopathic preparations are available either over-the-counter in some countries or from unlicensed practitioners in others, patients may be attempting to treat a seriously illness that requires immediate medical attention. Because these preparations and remedies are named after the symptoms that are being treated, patients are misled into treating the symptoms rather than the underlying disease. Moreover, the symptom could be relieved by the placebo response, but the underlying medical issue remains untreated. With many disease, trauma or other medical states, delay in treatment will lead to severe health-care issues, including death.[107][108]

For example, a 2006 survey by the UK charitable trust Sense About Science revealed homeopathic practices that were advising travelers against taking conventional anti-malarial drugs, instead providing them with a homeopathic dilution of quinine.[109] Scientists and the Health Protection Agency have said the homeopaths' advice was reprehensible and likely to endanger lives.[110]

Wasted resources

Because of the expense of homeopathic treatments, and because most scientists and medical practitioners consider them placebos, the cost of the treatments plus consulting fees for the homeopathic practitioner is considered wasted money. In locations where healthcare costs are high or where reimbursements for healthcare costs are tightly regulated, money spent on these treatments could be better utilized for conventional medicine. However, in cases where the patient has a psychosomatic condition, the placebo effect of the homeopathic treatment may be beneficial to the psychological health of the patient.[108]

Nocebo effect

In clinical drug investigations, placebos should produce no apparent benefit to the patient, so that a valid comparison can be made between the drug and the placebo. Occasionally, a nocebo effect is observed with the placebo, in that it produces an apparent toxicity to the patient. In the case of homeopathic remedies, there has not been any systematic study of adverse reactions to these drugs. All homeopathic remedies should produce the same range of side effects as any other placebo.[108]

Vaccinations

Modern medicine strongly differs from the Homeopathic beliefs regarding vaccines. A vaccine is usually a preparation made from an attenuated bacterium or virus that cannot cause disease, while still providing enough information to the immune system to induce a response to a future encounter with the same virus or bacteria.[111] By preparing the immune system of a healthy organism to meet a future attack by the pathogen, vaccination hopes to prevent disease, in contrast to homeopathy's hope, which is to prevent or cure it with dilutions. Another important difference is that vaccine contains measurable amounts of antigen, usually proteins or carbohydrates[112] from the disease-causing organism, whereas homeopathic remedies have been diluted to such an extent they are unlikely to contain any detectable active ingredients, because homeopathy rejects germ theory. Without antigen present in the vaccine, an immune response is not activated by the body, and it will not be protected from future encounters with the bacterial or viral pathogens.

Notes

  1. ^ Samuel Hahnemann (1755 - 1843), Skylark Books, Hastings, East Sussex, United Kingdom
  2. ^ Hahnemann, S. Fingerzeige auf den homöopathischen Gebrauch der Arzneien in der bisherigen Praxis. [Hufeland's] N. J. d. pract. Arzkd. (1807) 26:5-43
  3. ^ Ernst, E. and Kaptchuk, T.J., Homeopathy Revisited, Archives of Internal Medicine, 156(19):2162-4, 1996, PMID 8885813
  4. ^ Kleijnen, J., Knipschild, P., and ter Riet, G, Clinical Trials of Homeopathy, British Medical Journal, 302(6782):316-23, 1991, PMID 1825800
  5. ^ Organon Of Medicine § 269, Samuel Hahnemann, (fifth edition, translated by Robert Ellis Dudgeon, 1893), Kothen, March 28th, 1833
  6. ^ News in Brief: Prizewinning Homeopathy Article is Withdrawn, Nature, Vol. 438, Dec. 2005, p.902.
  7. ^ Malaria advice `risks lives`: Some high street homeopaths claim they can prevent malaria, a Newsnight investigation has found, Meirion Jones, Newsnight, BBC, Thursday, 13 July 2006.
  8. ^ Homoeopathy may not be effective in preventing malaria, Pascal Delaunay, BMJ, 2000 November 18, 321(7271), 1288, PMID 11082104
  9. ^ National Science Board Subcommittee on Science & Engineering Indicators (2000). "Science and Technology: Public Attitudes and Public Understanding Science Fiction and Pseudoscience". National Science Foundation. Retrieved 2007-07-13.
  10. ^ NCAHF Position Paper on Homeopathy, National Council Against Health Fraud, February 1994.
  11. ^ Hahnemann, S. Versuch über ein neues Prinzip zur Auffindung der Heilkräfte der Arzneisubstanzen, nebst einigen Blicken auf die bisherigen. [Hufeland's] J. d. pract. Arzkd. (1796) 2(3):391-439 and 2(4):465-561. This article can be read in English translation on the Minutus website, where it appears as Essay On A New Principle For Ascertaining The Curative Powers Of Drugs - Birth of Homeopat, Christian Friedrich Samuel Hahnemann, 1796.
  12. ^ Hahnemann, S. Fingerzeige auf den homöopathischen Gebrauch der Arzneien in der bisherigen Praxis. [Hufeland's] N. J. d. pract. Arzkd. (1807) 26:5-43
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Further reading

See also

External links

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