About 3 years ago, I reported that the Bavarian government had decided to fund research into the question of whether the use of homeopathy would reduce the use of antibiotics (an idea that also King Charles fancies). With the help of some friends, I found further details of the project. Here are some of them:
The study on individualized homeopathic treatment to reduce the need for antibiotics in patients with recurrent urinary tract infections is a randomized, placebo-controlled, multicenter, double-blind trial. Frequent urinary tract infections (more than two infections within six months or more than three infections within twelve months) occur in up to three percent of all women during their lifetime and represent a high risk for increased antibiotic use in this population.
The current guidelines therefore also provide for therapeutic approaches without antibiotic administration under close monitoring. The approach to be investigated in the study is the administration of a homeopathic medicine individually selected for the patient for prophylaxis. The number of urinary tract infections and the need for antibiotics will be recorded and evaluated at the end of the trial period, around mid to late 2023.
The aim of the study is to find out whether patients taking homeopathics need antibiotics for the treatment of urinary tract infections less often compared to the placebo group. This could lead to a reduction in the use of antibiotics for recurrent urinary tract infections.
Project participants: Technical University of Munich, Klinikum Rechts der Isar
Project funding: 709,480.75 Euros
Project duration: January 1, 2021 to December 31, 2023
____________________
This sketch is of course not enough for providing a full evaluation of the study concept (if someone has more details, I’d be interested to learn more). From the little information given above, I feel that:
- the design of the trial might be quite rigorous,
- a fairly large sample will be required to have enough power,
- the closing date of 31/12/2023 seems optimistic (but this obviously depends on the number of centers cooperating),
- I, therefore, predict that we will have to wait a long time for the results (the pandemic and other obstacles will have delayed recruitment),
- the costs of the trial are already substantial and might increase due to delays etc.
My main criticism of the study is that:
- I see no rationale for doing such a trial,
- there is no evidence to suggest that homeopathy might prevent recurrent urinary tract infections,
- there is compelling evidence that homeopathic remedies are placebos,
- the study thus compares one placebo with another placebo (in fact, it is a classic example of what my late friend Harriet Hall would have called TOOTH FAIRY SCIENCE),
- therefore, its results will show no difference between the 2 groups (provided the trial was conducted without bias),
- if that is true, enthusiastic homeopaths will claim that the homeopathic verum was inadequate (e.g. because the homeopaths prescribing the verum did not or could not do their job properly),
- when that happens, they will therefore not stop claiming that homeopathy can reduce the over-prescribing of antibiotics;
- that means we will be exactly where we were before the trial.
In other words, the study will turn out to be a waste of 709,480.75 Euros. To express it as I did in my previous post: the Bavarian government has gone barmy!
54 Responses to The Bavarian government is funding a study of homeopathy – here are some details
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Well, the design of the trial might be quite rigorous. However, I have strong doubts about the execution of the investigation. Scientific consensus has long been established that homeopathy equals placebo. I cannot imagine a group of rigorous, evidence-based scientists who would waste their time by writing a grant application focussing on homeopathy in the first place, and then conducting a rigorous study about this nonsense after funding was granted.
Therefore, I suspect that the persons cashing in on the public money will have a strong bias in favour of homeopathy, and the study might not be conducted as rigorous in practise as announced in the statement. Furthermore, it might not reflect very well on Klaus Holetschek when the results of this idiotic waste of public money will show exactly what was predicted from the beginning by critics. This inherent political pressure does certainly not promote rigorous scientific practice.
In this context, I find it very suspicious the “scientists” who have received the funding are not clearly mentioned anywhere (at least I couldn´t find the names). For scientific funding in Germany, this is quite odd. For example, the DFG has a publicly available database for every project that they fund. Makes you wonder why this important information is not stated clearly.
I think it is Melchart et al, but it’s a multi-center trial which means they will oversee things and others will contribute.
Seems to be a quite the secret who won the 709,480.75 Euro lottery. Receiving this large amount of money (for such an idiotic proposal) must be a huge success for the “scientists” involved in the project.
Just a couple of questions that run through my mind:
*Why are there no press releases from the centers who received the money?
*Where can we find the detailed project outline?
*Where are the progress reports?
For regular research projects, these things would be standard.
Could this secrecy be an indication that nobody wants to be held responsible for the idiotic waste of public funding?
Another inherent problem here is that the study addresses just one condition. Even if (some?) homeopaths accept the (almost certain) negative outcome, then they will at the very best concede that homeopathy doesn’t work for UTIs.
They will happily keep on promoting and using it for thousands of other conditions, including other infections that are normally treated with antibiotics.
And this still apart from what Edzard already mentioned, i.e. excuses from homeopaths why this study is not adequate after all.
In other words: it is a stupid waste of taxpayer money that only serves to draw renewed but undeserved attention to this long-discredited form of quackery.
If you want to study homeopathy, start with the fundamentals: find a homeopathic substance 12C+ that actually shows a clear, repeatable effect in an experiment.
Or better: start out with the homeopathic ‘laws’ such as ‘like cures like’.
I missed to answer your post on 29 Dec which I see just now:
YOU DID NOT UNDERSTAND CORRECTLY:
The patient had NOT YET started chemotherapy, and with the oncologist’s consent, the start had been postponed for one week. However, since a steady regression of the lymph node was observed (from the day of the start of homeopathic therapy!), the complete excision of the lymph node was initially agreed upon. Since the histology including the close-meshed diagnostics in the last (approximately) 5 years suggested a complete remission, the need for chemotherapy proved to be obsolete.
oh dear, Heinrich ist at it again!
his ONLY paper will soon merit a Nobel prize, I suspect.
Ah, our one trick pony gallops in again and neighs loudly. Unfortunately, there is still no candy. 😀
@Heinrich Hümmer
I understand perfectly well: it seems that the NHL became less active on its own, and the lymph node swelling decreased accordingly. Which happened to coincide with the homeopathic treatment, leading to the fallacy of false causation, a.k.a. the Post hoc fallacy. Later chemotherapy took care of the rest.
It is astronomically more unlikely that your homeopathic treatment had any effect, because there is no solid evidence to support the notion that homeopathy is efficacious for any condition, least of all cancer.
@Heinrich Hümmer
OK, I took another look at your case report, and it seems that I was wrong in one aspect: this NHL patient did not receive chemotherapy at a later date, after the lymph node showed remission and was removed shortly thereafter. So my apologies for misreading that chemo was administered later.
This, however, is still no more than a case study: a description of a particular N=1 case, without any power to suggest causality. It would therefore be advisable to stop presenting it as evidence for the efficacy of homeopathy.
There are several other possible explanations for this course of affairs, all of which are far more plausible than your suggestion that homeopathy had anything to do with the outcome. Examples are original misdiagnosis of NHL and spontaneous remission.
I found a poor prospective study 25 Patients 10 controls, but it was listed in clinicaltrials.gov.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10790268.2018.1440692?journalCode=yscm20
the study was funded by this homeopathic foundation
https://www.shi.ch/bose-stiftung/informationen/ueber-uns-stiftung
one way to reduce the use of antibiotics would be not to prescribe them, but look and see.
the study was registered here
https://www.kofam.ch/de/studienportal/nach-klinischen-versuchen-suchen/175124/studie/230
yes, a very useless study. in fact, it is an example of the notion that poor research is worse than no research.
It is so much fun watching people who claim to be advocates of “science” and who claim that homeopathy is a “placebo,” but they do not want it studied in a rigorous fashion. The “rationale” that is used to try to diss a randomized placebo controlled trial is more humorous and twisted than scientifically-based.
I’m so glad that you all make it clear that you are really anti-science. There is so much irony here that you provide great entertainment…and your comments are so predictable in their pseudoscientific attitudes. The amount and degree of the projection of your spewing that homeopathy is “pseudoscience,” when, in fact, your own attitudes about the scientific method are the real pseudoscience.
Thanx for the daily laugh.
“do not want it studied in a rigorous fashion”
> 500 clinical trials of which the most reliable fail to show efficacy – not enough for you Dana?
Mr. Ullman, the only irony that I can detect is the fact that you -despite believing in the magical power of shaken water- apparently feel to be competent to lecture us about science… 🤭
@Dana Ullman
This Bavarian study into homeopathy for UTIs would be perfectly good science if homeopathy had already proven itself to be efficacious for lots of other conditions.
The problem is that there are no conditions for which homeopathy has proven itself to work consistently better than placebo(*). All you and your water-shaking brethren have, is a heap of one-off studies that fall apart under proper scientific scrutiny and/or consistently fail when replicated.
This means that studying the effect of homeopathy for any single condition is NOT good science, it is a waste of money, effort and time – simply because there is no good evidence supporting the viability of homeopathy period.
Science simply adopts the sensible position, i.e. that homeopathy is no good for anything – unless someone can come up with at least one independently repeatable experiment that consistently shows at least one significant effect of a homeopathic dilution 12C or higher. Only then should scientists consider taking an interest in homeopathy again.
*: Apart of course from the condition known as hyperpecuniosis in the leathery structure called ‘the wallet’.
How embarrassing! Your assertion about there be no single condition for which homeopathy has been shown to be successful is only true if you ignore the 500+ clinical trials published in peer review journals, including the Lancet, BMJ, Pediatrics, Cancer, Pediatrics Infectious Disease Journal, The Oncologist, Rheumatology, amongst many others!
The Australia Report was deemed to be INACCURATE…and the government was apologied for their inaccurate reporting. They have now claimed that there are at least FIVE conditions for which there is evidence that homeopathic medicines are used. For details, read this article: https://www.cureus.com/articles/62105-an-analysis-of-four-government-funded-reviews-of-research-on-homeopathic-medicine#!/
How embarrassing, Dana, to claim there is such a condition without naming it and providing the definitive evidence!
I did name ALL 5 conditions in my article. Thanx for verifying again that you don’t seem to read anything that doesn’t support your pseudoscience analysis. Well, I guess asking you to have an objective mind on this subject is asking for the impossible. Your mixture of ignorance and arrogance embody an unscientific attitude. I guess I’m asking for too much.
The good news for you is that you are not alone. It seems that you have taught others to embody an unscientific attitude too. The fact that you refuse to read evidence seems to be par and parcel of who you are.
I was referring to your comment and not to your article because the latter does not provide sound evidence.
A fine description of yourself, Dana. Your refusal to read or understand has been repeatedly demonstrated here, similarly your utter ignorance of the scientific method. This is why you are an insignificant and inconsequential fool to whom no need is paid.
@Dana Ullman
Given that the overwhelming majority of scientists rejects homeopathy in the same way that Edzard does, I take it that you consider all scientists to be ignorant, arrogant and unscientific?
Mr Ullman wrote: “How embarrassing! Your assertion about there be no single condition for which homeopathy has been shown to be successful is only true if you ignore the 500+ clinical trials published in peer review journals, including the Lancet, BMJ, Pediatrics, Cancer, Pediatrics Infectious Disease Journal, The Oncologist, Rheumatology, amongst many others!
The Australia Report was deemed to be INACCURATE…and the government was apologied for their inaccurate reporting. They have now claimed that there are at least FIVE conditions for which there is evidence that homeopathic medicines are used. For details, read this article: [link]”
Yet his article, to which he linked, states:
@Dana Ullman
… virtually all of which were one-off studies that no-one could replicate(*). Not to mention the fact that many more homeopathy trials came up negative – especially the higher-quality ones. And then there is of course the fact that exactly zero of those ‘proven effective’ homeopathic treatments has made its way into real medicine. This tells me that real medicine is not particularly impressed with your ‘evidence’.
If there is even one (just ONE) condition for which homeopathy consistently works better than placebo, please name it, and provide, at least half a dozen or so clinical trials supporting this claim. You probably can’t.
Also note that this is basically the same problem that you also can’t mention one (just ONE) homeopathic preparation 12C+ showing consistent and independently repeatable effects in any experiment you may choose.
*: Every time a homeopath comes up with a positive trial result for a particular condition, I try finding more trials with the same result for the same condition(**). IIRC, the current record-holder is homeopathy for otitis media, with three or four positive but weak studies – even homeopaths themselves admit that the evidence is no good. Feel free to name any repeatedly successful trials you can find, but I for one will not be holding my breath.
**: It is in fact completely feasible to get this half-dozen trials with a positive outcome: just do lots and lots of trials for one particular condition. After a couple of hundred trials, you will have a handful of ‘positive’ trials to wave around. Just ignore the fact that the overwhelming majority came up negative, and that those positive results were just statistical noise.
Dana
Linking to one of your own inconsequential, ill-informed pieces of special pleading will only get you laughed at further.
And you’re lying again. The NHMRC report was not deemed inaccurate – the homeopaths whinged about it. There were no errors found. No apology was made. No complaints were made or upheld. The report stands.
The original draft report was released, with annotations, showing why the conclusions for the five conditions were incorrect.
You are, as ever, an insignificant fool, Dana. Everyone can see it. It’s why your hapless spoutings are paid no heed. You are utterly inconsequential.
Dear Mr. Ullman,
talking about embarrassment: I just found your YouTube channel and the video of your speech after winning the lifetime achievement award from the National Center for Homeopathy in 2019.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gAo2W8tWGw
Thanks for posting it, I think it is actually quite funny and really revealing. This mixture of self-portrayal as some kind of “hero-warrior”, combined with book pitches, anecdotes, logical fallacies (e.g. appeal to false authority/popularity), and rubbish talk about nano pharmacology is really priceless and explains a lot about your weird appearances on this forum 😄
Dana Ullmann:
Has the Australan National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) withdrawn its March 2015 “Statement on Homeopathy”, then? The one where it says:
https://www.nhmrc.gov.au/file/14825/download?token=40ze36WK
Other NHMRC resources on homeopathy are at:
https://www.nhmrc.gov.au/about-us/resources/homeopathy
Is the apology there somewhere? Anywhere?
Yep…if you chose to read my article, I provide a more up-to-date statement from the Australian government. That said, it seems that people here prefer to not do research except on a superficial level. Hopefully, you will be different…
people here prefer to not read the nonsense you publish, perhaps
… and I cannot say that I blame them.
So, has the NHMRC statement I quoted been withdrawn?
Could you post a link to the “apology” from the Australian Government regarding any part of the process that led them to make the “Statement on Homeopathy”,?
Dana
You wrote in your piece of ill-informed special pleading:
It seems that the homeopaths HAVE had a whinge. And this has been acknowledged.
https://www.nhmrc.gov.au/about-us/resources/homeopathy
Will it change anything?
Nope.
Will the homeopaths accept this?
Nope.
Will this mean that homeopathy is accepted into mainstream medicine?
Nope.
Will homeopaths remain a bunch of scientifically-ignorant quasi-religious goons?
Yep.
Will Dana Ullman remain an object of irrelevant ridicule?
Yep
@Lenny
So these water-shaking nitwits are filing a procedural complaint instead of coming up with solid evidence to prove the NHMRC wrong?
This sounds almost like these antivaxx and cancer quackery imbeciles filing a lawsuit against major media organisations for not helping disseminate their lies and disinformation …
If you need to resort to official complaints and lawsuits in order to get your ‘information’ spread, then that is a sure sign that your ‘information’ is no good to begin with …
The last time I tried to hunt down what happened to that complaint it appeared to have stalled for a couple of years, and I can’t remember why. I can’t be bothered trying to track it down again.
In any case complaint != apology.
@Dana Ullman
Oh, that one again .. [sigh]. OK, I wasted another half-hour taking another look at it, and I am not impressed. It appears to hinge almost exclusively on the second Swiss report – which was authored by seven quacks and only one person with actual medical and scientific qualifications.
There are lots of things wrong with it, and it was demolished already within days of its publication, so bringing it up here only tells us that you appear incapable of learning from your mistakes. Which, in fact, seems to be one of the major defining traits of homeopathy from the very day that Hahnemann dreamed it into existence.
Oh dear.
So every ER or ICU doctor that doesn’t use homeopathy because they recognise it for the nonsense it is – i.e. all of them – is indulging in pseudoscience? News to them I’m sure.
Dana. Your imbecilic jabberings are nothing more than a source of amusement. You remain a fool. An utterly insignificant fool. At what point will it dawn on you that all your stamping and shouting achieves exactly nothing?
Well a better test would be Randi’s “Find the water” test which would allow the testee to use any means of their choice to identify water placebo from shaken water placebo. Feeding the water to someone with a UTI is acceptable.
https://publikum.net/edzard-ernst-und-seine-hass-liebe-zur-homoopathie/
So:
Edzard 1977:
Zitierweise dieses Beitrags:
Dt Ärztebl 1997; 94: A-2340-2342
[Heft 37]
https://www.aerzteblatt.de/archiv/inhalt?heftid=183
thank you!!!
Yes, in 1997 the evidence was far less clear and I did indeed feel that trials are needed. 26 years later, the evidence is very different and much clearer. But it’s kind of you to cite my paper.
Heinrich is the master of selective, inadequate and outdated quotation. The fact that gaining knowledge in science and also individually progresses is alien to him. For him, this justifies reaching into every mothballed box. But he is a homeopath, so he is forgiven.
Heinrich studied civil engineering, as you can read on the homepage of his practice, before he turned first to medicine and then to pseudo-medicine. He should have remained an engineer, then he would not have exposed himself to ridicule again and again for more than 40 years.
This to me now seems to be a
Are you seriously [in German: ERNST-lich] suggesting that the quality of homeopathic studies has drastically deteriorated in the last 26 years compared to the time before?
An involuntary joke!
no, but I am saying that the reliable evidence became more and more negativ.
@Heinrich Hümmer
If anything, I’d say that the quality of the studies has improved. Which in fact explains why they find less effect for homeopathy in more recent years.
RICHARD AND EDZARD
Please
proving that the homeopathic studies after 1977 have a worse outcome for homeopathy than before 1977, even though or because they have a better design!
https://edzardernst.com/2017/04/official-verdicts-on-homeopathy/
https://edzardernst.com/2019/02/another-meta-analysis-of-homeopathy-shows-how-devastatingly-negative-the-evidence-truly-is/
https://edzardernst.com/2022/03/the-body-of-evidence-on-homeopathy-is-rotten-to-the-core/
@Heinrich Hümmer and @Mr. Ullman,
We critics of homeopathy predict that the Bavarian homeopathy study will find no difference between placebo and homeopathy, if it is done according to scientific standards, including adequate statistical power.
If this prediction comes true:
will you then suspect that we are clairvoyants? And what conclusions will you then draw, will your positive attitude towards homeopathy change even the slightest bit? Or will you ignore this result (like so many other negative results of studies about homeopathy) and keep cherry picking the studies that fit in your preconceived notion?
@Heinrich Hümmer
Um, not to put too fine a point on it, but this is absolutely NOT the same as what you said earlier:
1: Yes, the outcomes in homeopathy studies became increasingly worse for homeopathy (i.e. no effect found), but
2: No, the quality of homeopathy studies has improved, not deteriorated.
And I like to think that 1) follows from 2): better quality homeopathy studies increasingly show that indeed, homeopathy has no effect.
Sure, in 1977, Edzard found that more research in homeopathy was warranted, based on his scientific insight and knowledge at that time, combined with the argument from popularity.
But you know one funny thing about scientists? As more research is done and more data becomes available, scientists change their mind if this new information suggests that they should do so.
Homeopaths will never change their mind, no matter how hard the evidence bites them in the bottom – up to the point that they now have serious trouble sitting down. But hey, a few globules of Dentium Canem 200C three times a day no doubt should fix this. Good Boy!
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11801202/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?term=homeopathy&filter=pubt.systematicreview
No doubt I can find more sources to show that both the quantity as well as the quality in homeopathy research has increased in the past three decades, but you know what? I think I wasted enough time on this quackery for today already.
As long as you and your water-shaking brethren can’t even come up with one (just ONE) homeopathic preparation 12C+ that shows consistent and independently replicable effects, I consider you no better than children who keep insisting that Santa Claus (or Krampus, if you will) really exists.
@Jashak
Please allow me to point out that true clairvoyants will never ask questions – simply because they already know the answers.
@ Richard:
I admit that I am still working on my skills as a clairvoyant. Since I indeed feel quite visionary today, I just took out my crystal ball and had a look forward into the future. It worked quite well I think, so now I can answer all of my previous questions. 🙂
So here is what I got:
No, Hümmler & Ullman will not change their minds even the slightest bit and the new evidence will not have any influence on their strong believe in shaken water & sugar pills. However, they will not think of us as clairvoyants, but that we critics were just lucky that the Bavarian investigation did some aspect very wrong. What this was, I couldn’t see quite clearly. It seemed to vary over time (unskilled homeopaths, wrong remedies selected for treatment, overall inappropriate study design, etc.pp…). Publicly, they will of course never address this study again.
Jashak, That’s an overinterpretation of your clairvoyance.
There are two possible outcome–conclusion pairs:
1. antibiotics needed less often: homeopathy was effective.
2. antibiotics needed as often or more often: inconclusive.
@Pete,
if your point #1 is correct and the study shows that overall less antibiotics suffice for treating infections in both, homeopathy group & placebo control group (why is my damn crystal ball again so cloudy?!), then I am pretty sure that Hümmler, Ullman and peers would have a tendency to “forget” mentioning that placebo once again was equal to their beloved nonsense sugar pill treatment and credit homeopathy for this effect.😉
I can see another potential “danger” in this futile “study”.
We have learned that the results of the “famous” study published in a peer reviewed journal from the Medical University of Vienna proving the positive effects of homeopathy in lung cancer were based on data falsification and manipulation according to an independent agency investigating scientific misconduct in Austria. Despite this verdict and the university’s request to retract the study, until today the journal would not go beyond an “expression of concern”. In the meantime the study is being touted on many websites as scientific proof of the effectiveness of homeopathy in cancer.
That means that the homeopaths learn that they can manipulate and falsify data even in peer reviewed “serious” journals without having to expect negative consequences or a retraction, even if demanded by credible sources. So in case there is a positive result for homeopathy, however it may be brought about, once the study is out and published it is more than difficult to get it removed from the literature while it is eagerly cited by homeopaths.
Another point is the question whether such a study is compatible with the “Handbook of Medical Ethics”…..
https://www.wma.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Ethics_manual_3rd_Nov2015_en.pdf p.107 “Scientific Merit”
You are providing misinformation here. It seems that you’ve chosen (incorrectly) to give a judgment BEFORE any judgment was finalized.
Further, we all know that journal articles are retracted every month of every year. Therefore, based on YOUR (silly and ill-informed) logic, we should expect falsification from all research by all conventional medical researchers.
OR…perhaps we should instead judge every study individually or ignore your embarrassing recommendations.
Thanks for verifying your anti-scientific attitude and your embarrassing logic.
On the topic of @Richard and @Edzard:
Arnica montana and Bellis perennis for seroma reduction following mastectomy and immediate breast reconstruction: randomized, double-blind, placebo- controlled trial
Level of evidence: Level I, therapeutic study.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00238-019-01618-7
THIS REAL support of EVIDENCE somehow looks just like the opposite of the above statement 1.
@coward chicken Anonymus :LOL
I am not sure what point you are trying to make; whatever it is, it cannot be made by citing one single study.