Homeopathic remedies are highly diluted formulations without proven clinical benefits, traditionally believed not to cause adverse events. Nonetheless, published literature reveals severe local and non–liver-related systemic side effects. Here is the first series on homeopathy-related severe drug-induced liver injury (DILI) from a single center.
A retrospective review of records from January 2019 to February 2022 identified 9 patients with liver injury attributed to homeopathic formulations. Competing causes were comprehensively excluded. Chemical analysis was performed on retrieved formulations using triple quadrupole gas chromatography-mass spectrometry and inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectroscopy.
Males predominated with a median age of 54 years. The most typical clinical presentation was acute hepatitis, followed by acute or chronic liver failure. All patients developed jaundice, and ascites were notable in one-third of the patients. Five patients had underlying chronic liver disease. COVID-19 prevention was the most common indication for homeopathic use. Probable DILI was seen in 77.8%, and hepatocellular injury predominated (66.7%). Four (44.4%) patients died (3 with chronic liver disease) at a median follow-up of 194 days. Liver histopathology showed necrosis, portal and lobular neutrophilic inflammation, and eosinophilic infiltration with cholestasis. A total of 29 remedies were consumed between 9 patients, and 15 formulations were analyzed. Toxicology revealed industrial solvents, corticosteroids, antibiotics, sedatives, synthetic opioids, heavy metals, and toxic phyto-compounds, even in ‘supposed’ ultra-dilute formulations.
The authors concluded that homeopathic remedies potentially result in severe liver injury, leading to death in those with underlying liver disease. The use of mother tinctures, insufficient dilution, poor manufacturing practices, adulteration and contamination, and the presence of direct hepatotoxic herbals were the reasons for toxicity. Physicians, the public, and patients must realize that Homeopathic drugs are not ‘gentle placebos.’
The authors also cite our own work on this subject:
A detailed systematic review of homeopathic remedies-induced adverse events from published case reports and case series by Posadzski and colleagues showed that severe side effects, some leading to fatality, are possible with classic and unspecified homeopathic formulations. The total number of patients included was 1159, of which 1142 suffered adverse events directly related to homeopathy. The direct adverse events had acute pancreatitis, severe allergic reactions, arsenical keratosis, bullous pemphigoid, neurocognitive disorders, sudden cardiac arrest and coma, severe dyselectrolytemia, interstitial nephritis, kidney injury, thallium poisoning, syncopal attacks, and focal neurological deficits as well as movement disorders. Fatal events involved advanced renal failure requiring dialysis, toxic polyneuropathy, and quadriparesis. The duration of adverse events ranged from a few hours to 7 months, and 4 patients died. The authors state that in most cases, the mechanism of action for side effects of homeopathy involved allergic reactions or the presence of toxic substances—the use of strong mother tinctures, drug contaminants, adulterants, or poor manufacturing (incorrect dilutions).
When we published our paper back in 2012, it led to a seies of angry responses from defenders of homeopathy who claimed that one cannot ‘have the cake and eat it’; either homeopathic remedies are placebos and thus harmless, or they have effects and thus also side-effects, they claimed. As the new publication by Indian researchers yet again shows, they were mistaken. In fact, homeopathy is dangerous in more than one way:
- the homeopathic remedies can do harm if not diluted or wrongly manufactured;
- the homeopaths can do harm through their often wrong advice in health matters;
- homeopathy erodes rational thinking (as, for instance, the resopnses to our 2012 paper demonstrated).
52 Responses to Death by homeopathy
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Contaminants and incorrect dilutions: I’d guess that the homeopaths making these “medicines” take the same anti-science approach that underlies their woowoo modality into the domain of manufacture, doubtless entailing a disregard for the “reductionist” concerns of nasty pharmaceutical companies, such as quality control management, error-checking protocols, and employment of appropriately educated staff. This is just a hunch. But I would be surprised if many of those who believe in and practice homeopathy are capable of the sort of rational approach needed to safely produce even the simplest of medicines.
The issue here seems principally to have been the first bullet point: “wrongly manufactured”. We might say “fraudulent”. One surmises that the remedies did not come from Nelsons or Ainsworth.
It seems significant that the study comes from South India. Homeopathy is so prevalent/prominent in India, but this study shows that there seems to be little control of the manufacture of remedies. That is surely an execrable situation.
It reminds me of the SkinCap debacle in the 1990s. A pharmaceutical company in Spain produced a psoriasis remedy called SkinCap, which seemed to work powerfully and quickly on lesions. This was claimed to be due to the action of Zinc Pyrithione in the cream. But the cream was very soon found to contain potent topical corticosteroids – different ones in different batches.
Chinese “herbal” creams for eczema around the same time were also quickly found to contain potent steroids.
We can argue about ‘western’ pharmaceutical companies, about over-prescribing, about iatrogenic disease etc etc. But at least in most ‘western’ countries there are tight controls that catch up quickly with any malfeasance, and the reputable pharmaceutical companies produce to tightly-controlled standards.
There appears to be little such control of “homeopathic” remedies in India.
It is absolutely clear: even a minimal risk of medically irrelevant means always leads to a negative benefit-risk ratio. Ultimately, there is a potential residual risk in any action that is not necessarily justified, such as taking supposedly harmless (ineffective) homeopathic remedies. From a very fundamental point of view, the administration of homeopathic remedies is therefore not justifiable from a medical ethics point of view.
“January 2019 to February 2022 identified 9 patients with liver injury attributed to homeopathic formulations.” In India with a population of 1.4 billion.
In USA
Cholecystectomy is the “gold standard” for treating diseases of the gallbladder. In addition, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), liver fibrosis or cirrhosis, are major causes of morbidity and mortality across the world. However, the association between cholecystectomy and these diseases is still unclear. We assessed the association among US adults and examined the possible risk factors.
Results: Of the 4,497 included participants, cholecystectomy was associated with 60.0% higher risk of liver fibrosis (OR:1.600;95% CI:1.278–2.002), and 73.3% higher risk of liver cirrhosis (OR:1.733, 95% CI:1.076–2.792). After PSM based on age, gender, BMI group and history of diabetes, cholecystectomy was associated with 139.3% higher risk of liver fibrosis (OR: 2.393;95% CI: 1.738–3.297), and 228.7% higher risk of liver cirrhosis (OR: 3.287, 95% CI: 1.496–7.218).
How many people dead ???????
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmed.2021.787777/full
Even if cholecystectomy were 100% lethal, this would not justify the risks of homeopathy.
Edzard on Friday 15 September 2023 at 12:41
“Even if cholecystectomy were 100% lethal..”
If this was to be true, it would be great. After a time, no patient would be coming up for this procedure. But this is NOT the case. Here a small problem is replaced with a much bigger problem. Most people have stones in their gall bladder. In some cases they get stuck in bile duct and create temporary problem. Dietary habits go a long way to control repetitive attacks.
Replacing it with cirrhosis of liver is a great money spinner for the industry. The only cure known to the “Scientific medicine industry” is liver transplant that costs a large packet of money and puts the patient on a never ending requirement for drugs.
The best part: most patients are not aware of the reason for their misery.
And here you are bothered about 8-9 deaths due to poor production practices? Would you like me to provide you information on drug recalls in the USA alone over the past 5 years? Any idea how will they compare?
are you immune to learning?
how often has someone pointed that your arguments are fallacious?
do you really think your cholecystectomy evidence stands up to scrutiny?
as you are evidently beyond improving your understanding of science and medicine it is surely best to ignore your nonsensical ramblings.
Edzard on Saturday 16 September 2023 at 09:06
“…..your cholecystectomy evidence stands up to scrutiny?”
There is some error in your understanding.
This is NOT MY evidence. This report is made by a set of researchers who have provided their names, back ground and the list of references used by them.
This is an open-access article that can be challenged and if found at fault, I am sure they will publish an apology and retract the paper.
Go ahead. Be my guest.
OMG!
I do know it’s not your research – but this does not make it any better.
Edzard wrote “as you are evidently beyond improving your understanding of science and medicine it is surely best to ignore your nonsensical ramblings.”
Edzard wrote “are you immune to learning?”
Indubitably !
Have you actually read this paper? If so, you appear not to have understood it.
This is a cross-sectional retrospective study. It did not examine either liver fibrosis, or cirrhosis, both of which are pathological diagnoses requiring a biopsy, but the elasticity of the liver as assessed by ultrasound, which is a surrogate measure. The authors did not explain how good a surrogate it is, but from the large numbers found to have an abnormal score I would think that it picks up a lot of people who do not have clinically relevant liver disease. They also use the term “ultrasound TE” without explaining it.
The most that can be concluded is that people in the study who had had cholecystectomy were subsequently found to have changes in the elasticity of their liver. Since cholecystectomy is only used for people who have symptomatic gallstones (asymptomatic gallstones are a very common incidental finding when imaging the abdomen), it is not entirely surprising that biliary stasis and chronic cholecystitis might be associated with changes in liver texture.
I note that the authors of the paper were all working in China, and yet they were examining a dataset collected in the US. Bearing in mind the established unreliability of research papers from China I am tempted to wonder about an ulterior motive, such as being able to justify a paucity of hepatobiliary surgeons in China on the grounds that surgery was largely unnecessary.
Dr Julian Money-Kyrle on Tuesday 19 September 2023 at 12:52
The ulterior motive! “Paucity of hepatobiliary surgeons in China”?
The available hepatobiliary surgeons in China show this study to the patients and ask them to go home, because of lack of surgery capacity? Is that a valid reason?
The Chinese seem to have additionally evaluated studies and added liver cancer to Cholecystectomy outcome along with cirrhosis of liver.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36999804/
Cholecystectomy and risk of liver disease: a systematic review and meta-analysis of 27 million individuals
“We identified 20 studies with a total of 27 320 709 individuals and 282 670 liver disease cases. Cholecystectomy was associated with an increased risk of liver disease (OR: 1.63, 95% CI: 1.34-1.98). In particular, cholecystectomy was found to be significantly associated with a 54% increased risk of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (OR: 1.54, 95% CI: 1.18-2.01), a 173% increased risk of cirrhosis (OR: 2.73, 95% CI: 1.81-4.12), and a 46% increased risk of primary liver cancer (OR: 1.46, 95% CI: 1.18-1.82).”
Being a Meta Analysis, I would expect many studies originating from numerous other regions/sources (other than China?)
What would you say?
Good comment! exposes the highly biased attitude towards homeopathy by the author..
Good comment?
No!
It’s a fallacy.
Even if cholecystectomy were 100% lethal, this would not justify the risks of homeopathy.
Krishna, are you arguing from this, that it is OK to have what is noted in the Conclusion of the study:
“Homeopathic remedies potentially result in severe liver injury, leading to death in those with underlying liver disease. The use of mother tinctures, insufficient dilution, poor manufacturing practices, adulteration and contamination, and the presence of direct hepatotoxic herbals were the reasons for toxicity”.
I think you have succumbed to the “Tu quoque” fallacy…..
correct!
@Krishna’s reference reminds of the so called studies purporting to show that root canal fillings were correlated with risk of death. These auhors in China seem to have slept through several lectures in epidemiology.
What homeopaths usually claim, of course, is that the remedies have the desired effects but are too dilute to have undesired effects.
correct
I guess this means that any so called research into homeopathy coming from India should be considered as unreliable as the potions?
The paper ‘A series of homeopathy related DILI from a single center’ has serious flaws!
1. Updated RUCAM doesn’t recommend retrospective study.
2.Since the study is retrospective, the data to calculate RUCAM scores are lacking!
4.RUCAM scores are not reliable in patients with underlying Chronic liver diseases (5/9 cases had CLD)
3.It is surprising to note that the attempt to accuse Homeopathic remedies as the cause of DILI, without a valid RUCAM escaped the scientific scrutiny of the author!!
4. Looking minutely at the ‘9 cases’ clearly invalidates the conclusions.
This article and the papers are clear evidence that how science is distorted to satisfy their biased mind. God bless!
you clearly have no idea about adverse effect reporting!
Coming from you that is one great whoop.
You forget research provided by Dr Blaser and the adverse effect reporting of Antibiotics? The destruction it has already caused and will continue to do so for years in future. And this is ONLY ONE group of drugs. There are 100s out there.
Remember: Dr Blaser is NOT a homeopath.
you definitely need to read up about logical fallacies!
Are you saying that in view of this, then, Krishna, it is OK for Indian-made homeopathic remedies to be other than labelled – i.e. to include material doses of undeclared toxic substances? Is that what you are arguing?
I wrote on Tuesday 09 May 2023 at 19:13
“12 occurrences of commentator Iqbal Krishna going on about Dr Martin Blaser…”
https://edzardernst.com/2023/05/the-shelf-life-of-homeopathic-remedies/#comment-146012
Pete Attkins
Homeopaths have for years continued to observe the destruction caused by antibiotics in humans. But you will refuse to accept their conclusions: logical fallacies, Tu quoque” fallacy…..
Rebutting Dr. Blaser is tricky: if you don’t accept his research, your understanding of science will be questioned. If you do, you have another problem.
That is the reason for quoting Dr Blaser and similar scientists.
Antibiotics have been the “golden era” of scientific medicine. If the golden era is really, such a disaster, there is serious flaw in the understanding of “adverse effects” and understanding of medicine.
@Krishna
Professor Ernst’s blog is about so‑called alternative medicine (SCAM); and this particular blog post on which you are commenting is entitled Death by homeopathy, discussing cases of people who were injured/killed by homeopathy; not by antibiotics.
After my comment, to which I linked, is:
QUOTE
Richard Rasker on Wednesday 10 May 2023 at 10:22
@Pete Attkins
Krishna is a very good example of the Quackery Believer’s mindset: he intensely focuses on one legitimate bit of science – Martin Blaser’s work – and extrapolates this way beyond the sanity horizon, declaring that modern medicine is the One True Cause of every modern-day health problem under the sun. In the process, he completely loses track of reality, declaring that humans today are far worse off health-wise than 150 years ago.
And of course he also loses track of the topic at hand, i.e. a piece of horrible pseudoscientific junk from some fellow Quackery Believers.
I’m also pretty certain that Dr. Blaser would not be amused, should he read the nonsense blurted out in his name by our Krishna.
https://edzardernst.com/2023/05/the-shelf-life-of-homeopathic-remedies/#comment-146020
END OF QUOTE
Pete Attkins on Saturday 16 September 2023 at 10:06
“….and this particular blog post on which you are commenting is entitled Death by homeopathy, discussing cases of people who were injured/killed by homeopathy; not by antibiotics.”
Is this not completely illogical? You live in a vacuum? Or realize the relative link to everything?
Your comments against homeopathy are based upon your COMPARING it with the so called “scientific medicine”. If it was ONLY homeopathy, as medicine, what is your basis of evaluation and comment? The double blind tests used for homeopathic medicine come from their usage for chemical drugs. If the chemical drugs were to be failing every time, would a similar failure be of consequence for homeopathic medicine?
I compare the attributes listed in this blog, right back with the actual outcome with your idea of medicine. If these turn out to be outrageously disastrous, to the message here, you have to learn to live with it because I ALWAYS provide reference from a scholar from the “scientific medical system”. A personality, who has the scientific training better than all those commenting here and who has made a name for himself in the field of scientific medicine and not a biased source.
And I quote Dr. Blaser “word for word”. Not one addition from my end. If that seems to you “and extrapolates this way beyond the sanity horizon, declaring that modern medicine is the One True Cause of every modern-day health problem under the sun.” remember it is a researcher’s warning.
Dr. Blaser calls these “The modern Plagues”. From my point of view : perfectly apt.
@Krishna
You wrote to me “Your comments against homeopathy are based upon your COMPARING it with the so called ‘scientific medicine’.”
You seem to enjoy making stuff up (commonly known as: telling lies). I have not said anything against homeopathy in my comments on this blog post entitled Death by homeopathy.
Pete Attkins on Sunday 17 September 2023 at 09:31
“I have not said anything against homeopathy in my comments on this blog post entitled Death by homeopathy.”
Is that for real? Is that how you stack up your arguments for/against a subject?
What does your batting on behalf of Dr. Edzard Ernst symbolize? Simply put, you agree to everything he comments against homeopathy.
I am positive that if I spent some time like you, to dig out your old messages, your answer would get LIMITED to “against homeopathy, in THIS blog post”, ONLY.
Why not explain an old pending question:
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/22/medical-errors-third-leading-cause-of-death-in-america.html
“According to a recent study (actually old now.The new study would show even worse figures, if the past trend is something to go by) by Johns Hopkins, more than 250,000 people in the United States die every year because of medical mistakes, making it the third leading cause of death after heart disease and cancer.
Other studies report much higher figures, claiming the number of deaths from medical error to be as high as 440,000. The reason for the discrepancy is that physicians, funeral directors, coroners and medical examiners rarely note on death certificates the human errors and system failures involved. Yet death certificates are what the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention rely on to post statistics for deaths nationwide.
The authors of the Johns Hopkins study, led by Dr. Martin Makary of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, have appealed to the CDC to change the way in which it collects data from death certificates. To date, no changes have been made, Makary said.
America is the Mecca of medical science. What do you believe is happening in the other part of the globe?
How do these figures compare with deaths by homeopaths?
How do apples compare to oranges?
you remind me of this old adage:
we were all born ignorant, but one needs to work hard to remain stupid.
@Krishna
Then why are you referring to this Blaser guy? The topic here is the things that can go wrong with homeopathy, NOT what can go wrong with antibiotics or cholecystectomy or fixing your own electrical wiring, to name just a few things that you must get right in order to be safe.
Apparently, homeopaths regularly mess up when diluting their stuff, causing harm and even death. And when they don’t mess up, their dilutions simply don’t do anything; in that case, they are just fooling their patients and themselves with placebo treatments.
So if homeopaths were honest people, they would stop being homeopaths, and find a job where they could really help people instead of fooling and defrauding them – and of course exposing them to unnecessary risk through being incompetent with their dilutions, which happens to be this thread’s topic.
Correct conclusion
thank you for confirming your ignorance.
The authenticity of the said article is clearly mentioned in this article. Have a read of this too. Just one page
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37314736/
https://journals.lww.com/hepcomm/Fulltext/2023/07010/Letter_to_the_Editor__Homeopathic_drug_induced.6.aspx
Imho anyone who attaches any credence to homeopathy automatically indicates their scientific opinion has no value.
“The saddest part of my life,” Vaughan admitted, “was when I witnessed the hundreds of deaths of the soldiers in the Army camps and did not know what to do. At that moment I decided never again to prate about the great achievements of medical science and to humbly admit our dense ignorance in this case.”
This is Dr. Vaughan Year 1920: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/influenza-victor-vaughan/
You believe he is being humble or haughty? Now tell everyone what changes you experienced after 100 years of medical research when a similar flu virus struck the world? The doctors were equally clueless. The earlier pandemic lasted for 2 years. Same this time. The only difference: earlier only the doctors were haughty about their medicine-today every tom dick and harry is a medical expert with a view about other medical practices. Like you.
The fun may start after some time when the effects of the vaccine start showing up. This time we will also get to know about the adverse effects of vaccine -especially that has NOT been tested as extensively as it is supposed to be.
The credentials of the people behind the article should be investigated.They are always trying to tarnish the reputation of
Homeopathy in India.Despite having good clinical evidence,a selective projection of certain articles which are already proved to have cooked up data has been deliberately highlighted to defame homoeopathy.Who is killing patients?
Read the WHO data- not Homeopathy, but the so called Scientifically treated patients are the victim of several drug reactions and surrendered to death.So please stop highlighting such meaningless articles to misfeed the common man.India is having a pluralistic approach in medical care,that is the reason even death in COVID also very less compared to the other developed countries.
oh dear!
Is this you, a co-author of the letter linked to above by:
Dr. Arun Krishnan P on Friday 15 September 2023 at 16:53
Letter to the Editor: Homeopathic drug-induced liver injury-an example of biases pertaining to Roussel Uclaf causality assessment method
Arun Krishnan P, Muraleedharan K Charan
Hepatology Communications 7(7):e00177, July 2023.
PMID: 37314736
PMCID: PMC10270482
DOI: 10.1097/HC9.0000000000000177
Author Information
Department of Central Council for Research in Homoeopathy,
National Homoeopathy Research Institute in Mental Health,
Kottayam, Kerala, India
“The National Homoeopathy Research Institute in Mental Health (NHRIMH), formerly known as Central Research Institute for Homoeopathy, Kottayam; an Institute under Central Council for Research in Homoeopathy(CCRH), Ministry of AYUSH, Government of India has been providing quality services to patients for the past 46 years and conducting clinical research especially in the field of psychiatry. This is the only Institute in India treating Psychiatric disorders with the inpatient department providing Homoeopathic treatment under CCRH.”
https://nhrimh.ac.in/2020/12/07/about-nhrimh/
I do understand that quacks dislike it when experts criticise their quackery.
What I don’t understand is this, however:
if you feel that the Indian paper is “meaningless”, why do you ignore all the other papers that I cited in my post? Perhaps you think they are all meaningless? In this case, it might well be your comment that deserves this attribute.
@Muraleedharan KC
Really? Then why does this ‘pluralistic approach’ only work for COVID? Why does this ‘pluralistic approach’ not work for infant and child mortality, or for general life expectancy?
The reason why overall COVID mortality in India was lower than in most western countries is most definitely not the use of homeopathy or your ‘pluralistic approach’, but most likely because India’s population is still relatively young(*), and old age is a huge risk factor for dying from COVID. When you look at the age-adjusted mortality, you will find that India did rather worse than most western countries – especially when looking at the age group under 50.
*: In India, 6.9% of people are 65+. In e.g. the US, this is 16.8%, so more than twice as much.
… and why is the average age in India so low?
It must be because the ‘pluralistic approach’ is so good at preventing early deaths!!!
Edzard on Sunday 17 September 2023 at 11:12
“… and why is the average age in India so low?”
The British ruled India for 200 years and systematically looted Indian economy leading to shortage of food, among many other things. India became independent in 1947.
In 1950, the average lifespan of Indians was 35.21 years. As India became self sufficient in food, the life expectancy of Indians improved. For 2023, it is estimated to be 70.42. Exactly 100% improvement over 73 years.
https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/IND/india/life-expectancy
For the same period the average American lifespan increased from 68.14 years to 79.11 years representing 16.1% improvement.
https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/USA/united-states/life-expectancy
May be you can explain the reason for this poor performance of change in American lifespan over past 73 years with such large investment in healthcare and environment. Also maybe you can hazard a guess as to the reason for the life expectancy to reverse between 2014-2018.
Also, how is that the average life span of Hong Kong is almost 16% higher, with hardly any known pharma company coming from Hong Kong and numerous citizens with roots in China trying Chinese(?) medicine?
I am not referring to the change over time, historical aspects; I referred to the status quo.
Krishna wrote:
An utter disgrace! To match the India life expectancy improvement of 100%, the average lifespan of US citizens should now be 136.28 years. Thank you for bringing this to our attention.
Pete Attkins on Sunday 17 September 2023 at 23:00
“An utter disgrace! To match the India life expectancy improvement of 100%, the average lifespan of US citizens should now be 136.28 years. Thank you for bringing this to our attention.”
That is true. But why only 16.1%? Why not run a comparison with Hong Kong that started behind USA at 61.51 years in 1950 and is 85.29 years. Way ahead of USA? How many pharmaceutical companies in Hong Kong?
Or China?
Or Japan?
Try fitting this data into “medical research and development” and explain it.
There was another point you refused to acknowledge:
“Also maybe you can hazard a guess as to the reason for the life expectancy to reverse between 2014-2018 for USA. ”
You can try and explain? The doctors went on mass leave?
@Krishna
Here in the western world, we completely abandoned our traditional medicine long ago, and for very good reasons: we found out that it didn’t work. In fact, it was often more harmful than doing nothing (this is why homeopathy, which boils down to doing nothing, appeared to work quite well 200 years ago).
We replaced our traditional medicine with science-based medicine that did work. And we got better and better at it. And oh, it was this science-based medicine that in fact dramatically improved life expectancy in China(*), NOT ‘traditional medicine’.
Now if countries such as China and India were sensible, they’d start phasing out their traditional medicine as well – as it is just as bad as our European traditional medicine. Unfortunately, both India and China have lots of rather stupid people who still believe that traditional medicine and homeopathy are actually any good, and even promote it as a source of national pride. They really should know better than that.
Homeopathy does nothing for anyone except give homeopaths money and undeserved respect as healers.
*: Life expectancy is a bit of a tricky metric, as it is heavily influenced by demographic developments from decades ago. For this reason, I prefer looking at infant and child mortality, as that is a much more direct indicator of a country’s state of healthcare. And no, India is still NOT doing all that well in that respect, with one in every 30 children dying before the age of 5, placing it in the worst quartile of countries worldwide.
@Krishna,
I’m not the slightest bit interested in your incessant off‑topic wittering.
wittering:
• to ramble, usually about total shite;
• something you do when you talk rubbish with no particular reason, meaning, or audience.
— Urban Dictionary
Professor Ernst’s blog is about so‑called alternative medicine (SCAM); and this particular blog post on which you are commenting is entitled Death by homeopathy, discussing cases of people who were injured/killed by homeopathy.
Good day to you, Sir!
Pete Attkins on Monday 18 September 2023 at 20:45
“Professor Ernst’s blog is about so‑called alternative medicine (SCAM); and this particular blog post on which you are commenting is entitled Death by homeopathy, discussing cases of people who were injured/killed by homeopathy.”
I am sure everyone here can read as good as you. Try understanding also.
Whatever Dr. Edzard writes in this blog is a running comparison with “scientific medicine”. (Even the name says so: SCA medicine). In this particular blog, Dr. explained that in “scientific medicine” such deaths DO NOT TAKE PLACE and this should be brought to the notice of unsuspecting public. I pointed out that death because of cirrhosis of liver is common occurrence in “scientific medicine” and thousands die in USA alone or get liver transplant at high costs, only because of the Cholecystectomy induced liver cirrhosis. I also enclosed a study as evidence.
If you refuse to understand or consider it as off-topic, you are at liberty to do so. Remember, I have never addressed any message to you. Only responded back.
You could have tried to understand that between 1950 and 2023, the average life span of Indians (3rd world country) increased by over 35 years because of improved availability of food. During this period, the life span of the people living in the USA, the “Mecca of scientific medicine” increased by under 11 years. Rather poor performance, by “scientific medicine” in case the reason being ascribed was effect of medicine.
There is no need for your answer.
I get the impression from this comment that you have no training in medical statistics or epidemiology, and that you may have a problem with maths. It should be fairly clear from these figures that the childhood mortality rate in India in the 1950’s was much higher than in the US. Without searching for detailed figures I am guessing that this was mainly from diarrhoea and other infectious diseases.
Since the 1950’s, there has been better sanitation, better availability of safe drinking water, the use of oral rehydration solution as an effective treatment for diarrhoea and the introduction of vaccination against fatal childhood diseases. This is true for India and for the US, but India clearly had a lot further to go and therefore there was a lot more potential for improvement.