‘Homeopathic treatment … synergise the effect of antibiotics’ – Really? Or is this a case of scientific misconduct or even fraud?

A 2020 review entitled ‘Prevention, Treatment and Management of Tuberculosis through Combinational Approaches of Different Indian Systems of Medicine’ stated that recent research suggests that Homeopathic treatment along with the antibiotics synergise the effect of antibiotics while reaching to its site of action. This is a surprising finding, if there ever was one. Therefore, I looked a bit closer with a view of determining what the original data were that led to this conclusion.

Here is the unaltered section on homeopathy from the review:

Homeopathy is a special, organic, holistic medicine process which activates the healing responses of the body without any known contraindications or common side effects. In his book Organon of Medicine, aka Organon of Healing Art, the founder of Homeopathy, Samuel Hahnemann, developed these principles. Homoeopathy does not have holistic treatment and hence is incapable of curing TB because of homeopathic portions of water, which is not enough to treat TB, but recent research suggests the use of homeopathic treatment along with the antibiotics, which results in synergising the effect of antibiotics while reaching to its site of action. As standard MDR-TB medicines are second-generation antibiotics taken for 24–27 months, thus, apart from conventional treatment, homeopathy in MDR-TB tends to improve outcome. Hence, it increases the bioavailability of the isoniazid and rifampicin, which resulted in the reduction of tuberculosis therapy. This study has been proving by analysing following parameters as below:

There was no significant difference in smear conversion from positive to negative at 95 % CI between homeopathy (H) and individualised standard treatment regimen (SR) + placebo (P). However, the conversion culture conversion from positive to negative in SR + H was seen in 29 (48.3 %) patients and 23 (38.3 %) patients in SR + P group (p = 0.269) (ITT) and 27 (55.1 %); 21 (42.8 %), p = 0.225 (PP) implying that as compared to SR + P group, culture conversion in SR + H group was more by 10 %. So the difference, although favourable to the SR + H group is not statistically significant as shown in table 4.

All patients had far advanced lung disease as evident from the extensive infiltration, cavitation ns and fibrosis/collapse. Chest X-ray (CXR) were further assessed using RAT (Radiological Assessment Tool), examples of one case rated as + 5 and one case as _4. Significant improvements were seen statistically in CXR in the SR + H 37 (61.7 %); as compared to SR + P 20 (33.3 %), p = 0.002 at 95 % CI (ITT). Homeopathy system having all possibility to enhance the treatment and management of the TB [13].

To be clear: there is no further mention or discussion of homeopathy in this paper. The above-quoted section (its multiple falsehoods are so obvious that I probably don’t need to mention them here) is thus the only evidence provided for backing up the claim that Homeopathic treatment along with the antibiotics synergise the effect of antibiotics while reaching to its site of action. I fail to see how the information provided supports the claim. Moreover, I am not aware of any sound evidence that would support the claim that homeopathy acts synergistically to antibiotics.

In the reference list, I found one of my own articles cited as reference 13 (see above). It refers to this article: Ernst E. A systematic review of systematic reviews of homeopathy. Dr J Clin Pharmacol 2002; 54: 577–582. Here is its abstract:

Homeopathy remains one of the most controversial subjects in therapeutics. This article is an attempt to clarify its effectiveness based on recent systematic reviews. Electronic databases were searched for systematic reviews/meta-analysis on the subject. Seventeen articles fulfilled the inclusion/exclusion criteria. Six of them related to re-analyses of one landmark meta-analysis. Collectively they implied that the overall positive result of this meta-analysis is not supported by a critical analysis of the data. Eleven independent systematic reviews were located. Collectively they failed to provide strong evidence in favour of homeopathy. In particular, there was no condition which responds convincingly better to homeopathic treatment than to placebo or other control interventions. Similarly, there was no homeopathic remedy that was demonstrated to yield clinical effects that are convincingly different from placebo. It is concluded that the best clinical evidence for homeopathy available to date does not warrant positive recommendations for its use in clinical practice.

I fail to see how my paper backs up the very odd sentence: Homeopathy system having all possibility to enhance the treatment and management of the TB.

This is much more than sloppiness. In fact, it is one of the clearest cases of scientific misconduct I have ever come across. What is more, if its message would get adopted, it has the potential to do considerable harm. The authors of the paper in question, Priyanka Sharma , Ramesh K. Goyal,  and Mukesh Nandave, declared no conflicts of interest; their affiliation is provided as ‘Departments of Pharmacology and Toxicology, Delhi Pharmaceutical Sciences and Research University, New Delhi, India’. The journal that published their review is ‘Drug Research‘, a publication which I always had thought was reputable.

I am not sure what I should do next.

Any advice?