According to a German court ruling, the homeopathic remedy Meditonsin for colds may no longer be advertised with certain statements. The Higher Regional Court in Hamm, Germany made it clear that it shares the opinion of the Regional Court in Dortmund, which had sentenced the marketing company to desist from making statements such as “rapid and reliable reduction of the intensity of the typical cold symptoms”. Such statements falsely generate the impression that therapeutic success can be expected with certainty. The court made it clear that the company’s appeal against the previous ruling was unlikely to be successful. The company subsequently withdrew its appeal today – and the judgment is now legally binding.
The lawsuit filed by a consumer organization was thus successful. It had criticized several statements as unfair and inadmissible advertising. The Dortmund court shared this view in September 2022 – and according to the spokesman, the Higher Regional Court in Hamm now followed the argumentation of the lower court.
The statements that
- “good efficacy and tolerability were once again impressively confirmed by a pharmacy-based observational study”,
- and “all cold complaints showed a clear improvement in the course of the disease”,
were deemed to be misleading advertising. They must therefore be omitted, the ruling stated.
Meditonsin is currently being advertised as follows:
For support of the immune system at the first signs of a cold to help the body build up the defense against pathogens effectively.
In addition, conditions are made more difficult for the intruders – through an effective medicine: the well-known Meditonsin® supports your defenses and naturally fights the onset of inflammation of the ears, nose and throat with pure homeopathic ingredients.
If applied early and correctly, Meditonsin® helps to ensure that the typical unpleasant symptoms have no chance to develop. Because Meditonsin® is particularly well tolerated and protects the organism, it is for both adults and children alike – a family medicine in the best sense.
Meditonsin contains two homeopathic ingredients in the D5 and one in the D8 dilution. To the best of my knowledge, there is no sound evidence that the remedy is effective for anything.
15 Responses to German court rules against homeopathic remedy
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Good news… although I doubt that this court decision will dramatically change the great popularity of Meditonsin in Germany (I even personally know a professor of biology who used to treat his children with it, despite apparently being aware that homeopathy in principle should not work).
This decision however certainly is at least one step in the right direction.
Leave alone the great popularity of Meditonsin, the popularity of other Homeopathic remedies all around the world will never diminish. Homeopathy is the second largest system of medicine in the world.
Yes, Pamela, unfortunately many idiotic things are quite popular today.
Call me an optimist, but I hope that humanity will become increasingly rational and science-based in the longer-term perspective, thus leaving outdated ideas and ideologies like homeopathy, religions etc. behind.
Pamela,
You got it all wrong. Homeopathy is the largest placebo-based scam in the world.
There is some science which nobody knows. But homeopathic water is different from tap water. Children get better faster because their metabolism is better than aged people. It is not placebo.
thank you for this insight; ANY EVIDENCE?
@Pamela
Um, if nobody knows about that science, then how do YOU know about it? On what basis do you make this assertion that you are in fact making?
This is correct. Homeopathic water is approximately 100,000 times more expensive than tap water(*). Unfortunately, this is in fact the only real difference.
This is generally correct, but also depends on the ailment in question. But what does this have to do with the (in)efficacy of homeopathic products?
Sorry to disagree, but there are many good reasons to assume that homeopathy is a placebo treatment. You have in fact already mentioned the most compelling reason, which boils down to Occam’s razor: the observed effects of homeopathy are easily explained by traits of the human brain, i.e. the placebo effect and several other fallacies and biases.
The other explanation (i.e. that homeopathy has real clinical effects) would mean that a substantial part of our current body of scientific knowledge is somehow inadequate, and needs some serious modification and extension in ways that are totally unclear so far (this ‘science which nobody knows’ of yours). This is a far more complex and far-reaching explanation, and thus should according to Occam only be assumed when the simpler explanation cannot reasonably explain all observations. In other words: a homeopathic dilution 12C+ must be shown to have significant, consistent and repeatable effects. So far, this has never been done. There is not even one homeopathic dilution 12C+ that has obvious effects – and in fact no-one has ever succeeded in consistently telling such a dilution apart from water.
Add to this that there is not a shred of evidence for the viability of even the basic principles of homeopathy (‘like cures like’ and ‘higher dilutions make remedies more potent’), and that any observed effects become smaller with increasing study quality, and it is quite obvious that the most rational approach is to assume that homeopathy is just a placebo treatment.
*: Here in the Netherlands, tap water costs 0.1 cents per litre, whereas most homeopathic products in liquid form cost € 100 per litre or more.
Anatomical and physiological research conducted using the techniques of ‘thought experiments’ (as Albert Einstein used), has shown conclusively that if drops of Meditonsin are administered to the ears of proponents of Meditonsin whilst they are lying on their side, they pass straight through and out of the lower ear.
As I remember, they populated the studies with followers of Paltrow’s Goop website. It was also found that the thought of essential oil caused drops of Meditonsin to pass from one ear straight out the other.
According to the experts from “Heilpraxis”, auricles can also serve as candlesticks. 👂 🕯
😂 https://www.heilpraxisnet.de/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Ohrenschmalz-Ohrkerzen-1140×570.jpg
If you consider this a “victory,” so do I!
I have no problem that the court allows the company to use the new wording.
Speaking of wording, it is interesting that you did not say that there is “no evidence” that this medicine works because it seems that there is evidence from an observational study conducted by a pharmacy that it is helpful.
To the best of my knowledge, there is no sound evidence that the remedy is effective for anything.
READ IT AGAIN SWEETY
Speaking of wording Mr Ullman, why did you tell an outrageous lie in this Blog, claiming that you had ‘many times’ answered my question about your claim regarding “fools or liars”, when you have not done so once, as any reader of this Blog can see?
And what’s going on with Umckaloabo*, which is said to have an antiviral effect from the naturopathic company Schwabe, with so-called social responsibility, and the anti-wrinkle cream from the anthroposophists from “Weleda”, whose effect on reducing wrinkles and increasing elasticity have allegedly been proven by 32 women in a self-experiment?
https://www.schwabe.de/produkte/umckaloabo/
What must the actress Herfurt have looked like before?
Why does she need wrinkle cream when she digs into her own skin the older she gets?
https://youtu.be/Oiw7fOP2v6k
*The only study conducted with pelargonium extract in vitro …
… This work was financially supported by Dr. Willmar Schwabe GmbH & Co. KG. No influence was taken on s tudy design and interpretation. 🤷♀️
😂 Really ❗
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0166354212000642
Three ingredients, in Decimal potency, and not individually prescribed – hardly ‘Classical’ homeopathy!