In Europe, homeopathy is not enjoying the best of times. Firtst, the English NHS stopped reimbursing it, then France followed suit, and later the Germans too started thinking about it. Now it might be Spain’s turn.
For several years, Spain has taken a critical stance towards so-called alternative medicine (SCAM) in General and homeopathy in particular:
- Spain wants EU law changed that classifies homeopathy as medicine. HERE IS HOW YOU CAN HELP
- Spain no longer tolerates quackery
- HOMEOPATHY: A letter to all MEPs
- Chiropractors worry about the Spanish ‘Health Protection Plan against Pseudotherapies’
- Homeopathy masters degree to close because of lack of scientific basis
Now, it has been reported that Spain’s Health Minister Mónica García Gómez – on X, she describes herself as follows: “Minister of Health. Spokesperson for Más Madrid. Doctor and mother of three children. With her sights set on public health and the common good (my translation) – was highly critical of homeopathy on her X account on Wednesday 2 October.
Wikipedia tells us that Mónica García Gómez, born 16 January 1974, is a Spanish anesthesiologist and politician, current coordinator and spokesperson of the political party Más Madrid in the Madrilenian Assembly. She was an elected deputy during the X legislature of the Madrilenian Assembly under the Spanish political party Podemos, and is currently a deputy in the XI legislature as part of Más Madrid. Since 2015, García has combined her political work with her job in health care, with a 50% reduction in working hours. She was appointed Minister of Health in the third government of Pedro Sánchez following the 2023 Spanish general elections.
Her post stated this (my translation):
Homeopathy is a scam at the expense of patients’ money and health. We do not evaluate insults to scientific evidence. On the contrary: we are working to combat pseudo-therapies on various fronts, for example with the reform of the RD of health establishments.
To cure disease, you need more than water and sugar! In 2019, the Spanish government launched a campaign against homeopathy entitled ‘To treat yourself, you need more than water and sugar.’ At the time, the authorities demanded that homeopathic laboratories carry out efficacy tests similar to conventional medicine.
There are about two million users of homeopathic products in Spain. Thus, there will be poweful lobby groups, and the battle is by no means over yet. I do wish Mónica García Gómez all the luck she needs to win it.
10 Responses to Spain’s Health Minister denounces homeopathy
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I wish the Homoeopathy lobby groups all the luck they need to win the battle.
The war between Allopathy and Homoeopathy has been going on for over two hundred years now but Homoeopathy has always managed to survive, and it will continue to survive well into the future.
yes, I will probably survive – but not on the public purse!
If you know of any credible evidence that any homeopathic treatment has proven reliably effective in improving the course of any health condition better than placebo, please share it.
There is no “war”. Homeopaths want you to simply believe they have effective treatments on the strength of their assertions, and get angry when you don’t just accept the assertions.
Do you think that instead of doing clinical trials with ultra-dilute Homoeopathic preparations Homoeopathy would fare better by having trials done with lower attenuations where active ingredient is still present in solution, for example by using potencies in the low decimal range such as 2X, 3X, 4X ? Do you think Homoeopathy would work better than placebo at these low dilution levels?
And yes there is a war, there always has been a war since the inception of Homoeopathy. The American Institute of Homeopathy was founded in 1844 and in direct response in 1847 the American Medical Association (AMA) was established and it has done everything it can to supress the growth of Homoeopathy.
Mutus Bellator,
If you know of any credible evidence that any homeopathic ‘medicine’ has reliably improved the course of any health condition to an extent greater than placebo, please share it here.
I don’t think you understand what I’m asking. I realise that Homoeopathy fares poorly when only ultra-high dilutions are put to the test. Please try to address what I wrote properly instead of deflecting.
“I don’t think you understand what I’m asking. I realise that Homoeopathy fares poorly when only ultra-high dilutions are put to the test. Please try to address what I wrote properly instead of deflecting.”
I understood your question perfectly well. It was an attempt to deflect.
If you are aware of any credible evidence that any homeopathic ‘medicine’ AT ANY POTENCY can reliably improve the course of any disease condition, please share the information.
I am glad you agree that there is no such evidence for centesimal potencies.
@Mutus Bellator
No. Because this whole concept of ‘like cures like’ (and thus the very foundation of homeopathy) is nonsense. It is just a manifestation of sympathetic magic.
Of course lots of substances can have measurable effects when ingested in significant amounts, but those effects will generally not be therapeutic for any condition. Most substances used in homeopathic dilutions are not particularly beneficial in any dosage. Many will simply be toxic (e.g. strychnine, atropine, arsenic compounds), and most others won’t do anything much (e.g. sodium chloride, calcium phosphate and other inorganic salts) unless in very high doses.
Summarized:
– ‘Like cures like’: nonsense,
– ‘Higher dilution = more potent medicine’: even bigger nonsense,
– ‘Potentization’ (shaking dilutions): nonsensical ritual with no effects whatsoever,
– ‘Proving’: very dumb nonsense, as it involves no diseases or sick people,
and of course
– there is no plausible mechanism; all aspects and claims with regard to homeopathy boil down to magic when examined from a scientific point of view. If homeopathy actually works, then huge parts of our scientific knowledge would have to be wrong. There is not even the tiniest whiff of a hint that this is the case.
All this is of course supported by the notion that not a single homeopathic preparation with clear, consistent and repeatable effects beyond placebo was ever identified.
So any ‘war’ that homeopaths are still fighting is in fact a religious war, as in: belief over substance. In terms of objective science, they lost this war long ago already.
And oh, I forgot one important aspect of homeopathy: the role and definition of ‘symptoms’, which is not just nonsensical, but plain dangerous.
Homeopaths don’t use symptoms as a means to diagnose what is actually wrong with a patient, but just as a criterium to select their nostrums. What this means is that homeopaths are in fact profoundly incompetent in any medical and scientific sense.
This problem is compounded by the homeopathic notion that a health problem is resolved when symptoms have vanished. This is dangerous nonsense. Many conditions are associated with symptoms that flare up from time to time and disappear again, sometimes for months on end. Several very nasty infectious diseases (syphilis, anyone?) progress through several stages, each with specific symptoms, interspersed by long, symptom-free periods.
Naturally, homeopaths would not be homeopaths if they hadn’t devised a cop-out clause that (once again) turns everything upside down: they claim that regular medicines ‘just suppress disease’, which as a result will then return later in a worse manifestation. In contrast, their homeopathic treatments supposedly ‘address the root cause’. All without a shred of actual evidence of course, or even the vaguest explanation what that ‘root cause’ might be. (It is of course real doctors who actually search for and treat ‘root causes’ of disease – often with great success.)
So in reality, this is yet another vacuous assertion from dumb but extremely arrogant quacks, who couldn’t be trusted to tell an arse from an elbow even with a map.
There was a time when German doctors were able to organise a professorship in Spain:
“Die Akte Walter Koester”
https://www.allaxys.com/~kanzlerzwo/index.php?board=67.0
The ‘lectures’ were in Spain. Nobody here knew what was happening there. The title in turn enabled exorbitant homeopathic ‘doctor’ fees to be collected: 500 Mark per hour.
A few years ago, the University of Seville somehow removed Köster’s ‘honorary professor’, who had – however he had done it – bought his way in there. He continued with his ‘quantum logic’ in Germany. But not only he, but also those he homeopathically bleached… A search for ‘quantum logic’ or similar terms reveals frightening results.