The ‘Bavarian Homeopathy Study’ has been Aborted

The Bavarian homeopathy study has been aborted!

As I posted in 2019, the Bavarian government has given the go-ahead to a major study of homeopathy.

The study was aimed at clarifying whether the use of homeopathic remedies can reduce the use of antibiotics in humans and animals. The vote was carried because of the CDU delegates being in favour. The debate of the project was, however, controversial. Critics stressed that, at best, the study is superfluous and pointed out that the project is negligent because it implies that homeopathics might be effective, whereas the evidence shows the opposite. A SPD delegate stated that he is ‘open moth’, homeopathy works because of the doctor-patient contact and not because of its remedies which are pure placebos. The project was tabled because some people had worried about antibiotic resistance and felt that homeopathy might be an answer. Some CSU delegates stated that in ENT medicine, there is evidence that homeopathics can reduce the use of antibiotics. Even in cases of severe sepsis, there was good evidence, they claimed.

The FRANKFURTER ALLGEMEINE just reported more details about this remarkable project and its failure to produce meaningful results:

The double-blind, placebo-controlled RCT carried out at the Technical University of Munich examined women with regular urinary tract infections – all were to be given antibiotics or ibuprofen if necessary. Around 120 of the women were to receive either placebo or individually selected globules as a preventative measure. Differences were to be measured by whether infections occurred less frequently in the globule group and whether antibiotics were necessary.

The results should have been available a long time ago. However, as the lead-investigator of the study, nephrologist Lutz Renders, has now revealed that the study has apparently come to nothing. ‘The study has cancelled recruitment because the required number of test subjects could not have been reached within a reasonable period of time,’ he explains. Only the women who have already been included will now be followed up until the beginning of 2025.

‘Of the 200 or so women who registered, around 40 were found to have urinary tract infections’, says Renders, ‘so that they could be included in the study. It is a pity that the actual aim of the study was not achieved, as it is possible that something could be learnt about urinary tract infections in general from the extensive examinations of the women. I don’t have much to do with homeopathy,’ says Renders.

Georg Schmidt, head of the ethics committee at the Technical University of Munich, says that the committee found it ‘extremely difficult’ to authorise the study at all. ‘We had a heated discussion along the lines that you can’t compare nothing with nothing. We all agreed that homeopathy is ineffective.’ The commission decided to ensure that the risk of a false-positive result is as low as possible – the statistics have been tightened up for this purpose’.

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The notion that a definitive test of homeopathy is needed seems to beset German govenments from time to time – the last such initiative occurred during the Third Reich. Perhaps, one day, even politicians will understand that, on the scientific level, the discussion about homeopathy is now well and truly over, and that no more money needs to be wasted on it?