On this blog, some people insist that homeopathy goes from strength to strength. Here I counter this notion by pointing out that several contries have stopped reimbursing homeopathy and that loss of trust in homeopathy has grown significantly.
Several converging factors explain the erosion of confidence:
- Lack of evidence of effectiveness: Large reviews by national and international bodies (for example the Australian NHMRC and the European Academies’ Science Advisory Council) concluded there is no reliable evidence that homeopathic remedies are effective for any health condition beyond placebo.
- Scientific implausibility: Homeopathy’s principles (high dilutions, “water memory”) conflict with established chemistry and physics, which weakens its credibility among scientists and the informed publics.
- Placebo and expectation effects: Empirical work suggests any benefits are best explained by non-sepecific effects such as placebo responses, contextual care, and patient expectations rather than pharmacological action of the remedies.
- Health literacy: Studies indicate that higher health literacy is associated with greater perceived credibility of conventional medicine and relatively lower credibility of homeopathy, which means better-informed patients tend to trust it less.
- Safety and opportunity costs: Critics emphasize that relying on ineffective remedies can delay effective treatment, prolong illness, and in some cases contribute to preventable harm or death.
A range of actors has shaped this loss of trust:
- Scientific bodies and advisory councils: Organizations such as the NHMRC in Australia and EASAC in Europe have issued high‑profile reports stating that homeopathy lacks robust evidence of efficacy and should not be claimed to treat health conditions.
- National health systems and regulators: NHS England, for instance, has advised against prescribing homeopathy, describing it as unsafe or ineffective where better, cost‑effective options exist, and warning that giving it institutional endorsement risks misleading patients.
- Skeptical and consumer‑protection movements: Skeptics’ groups and consumer advocates have campaigned against public funding of homeopathy and organized public “overdose” demonstrations to highlight the extreme dilutions and question the idea that the products contain active ingredients.
- Critical scientists and physicians: Numerous clinicians and researchers have published analyses arguing that homeopathy violates basic scientific and ethical principles, has no explanatory power, and undermines science‑based medicine.
The loss of trust has produced several consequences across healthcare systems and societies:
- Several public health systems have reduced or eliminated reimbursement and institutional support for homeopathy, reallocating funds towards treatments backed by compelleing evidence.
- Market contraction and repositioning: Declining official endorsement and critical media coverage have contributed to shrinking markets in some countries.
- Manufacturers and practitioners increasingly market homeopathy as “wellness” or “complementary” rather than curative medicine, a notion that would make Hahnemann turn in his grave.
- Homeopathy has become a touchstone in broader debates about scientific literacy, misinformation, and the role of the state in regulating ineffective therapies.
Taken together, these dynamics show how rigorous research, scientific critique, regulatory action, and changing public expectations will gradually strip a once‑popular therapy of its medical legitimacy. Or, to put it bluntly: in medicine, evidence will aways win against belief, even if it takes several decades.
29 Responses to The gradual loss of trust in homeopathy
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The Russian Academy of Science is just beginning to change its point of view on homeopathy, as I report here:
https://danaullman.substack.com/p/russia-reconsiders-homeopathic-medicine
Make certain to also note the links that I provide to high-quality clinical and basic sciences research published in high impact medical and scientific journals.
Still further, readers here will benefit from one of my recent blogs: “Are there plausible scientific explanations for how homeopathic medicines can work? Dana Ullman’s dialogue with ChatGPT!” https://danaullman.substack.com/p/are-there-plausible-scientific-explanations
And a follow-up dialogue with ChatGPT will take further how and why the claim that homeopathy is “implausible” is intellectually and scientifically weak and fraudulent.
Heck, one of your own reviews of a clinical trial on homeopathy found it to be a high quality trial with extremely significant results: https://edzardernst.com/2026/02/individualized-homeopathy-for-pain-of-calcaneal-spur/
Ah Mr Ullman! You may recall that several years ago in this Blog you branded as “liars or fools” persons (including me) who doubted something you said about distinguishing homeopathic water from other water. I’ve been asking you since, to name a laboratory that can do this. But you have seemed curiously reluctant to answer. Could you take a moment now to do so?
And now folks: TA-DAAAAAHHHH. Since this is my hundredth time of asking (others too have asked), I am now at my First Centesimal Potency of Request!
Ernst:
1. The 2015 NHRMC review remains a bad example with many anomalies that the agency never clarified. They never explained why they used a threshold of 150 patients, nor why they excluded some positive English-language reviews from the OPTUM report, despite having said they would include English-language reviews. They never explained why, before the report’s release, they had declared in the media that “homeopathy is magic.” Not even Norbert Aust, on his blog, was able to clarify any of this; he just went around in circles. Furthermore, you always forget that Anne Kelso had to say that “it doesn’t say it doesn’t work,” but rather left it with a vague conclusion. Kelso never clarified why they suppressed the first report (only saying “due to flaws,” supposedly). If the first report was so bad, what was the need to keep it hidden?
2. The EASAC study is not a “long” review, nor can it even be considered a literature review because they themselves admit this in the text by mentioning that “they did not conduct a new review.” They never explained why they omitted the meta-analysis by Mathe et al., nor why they only included Txeira’s article in the Homeopathy Journal. The report has many flaws from beginning to end; even GWUP couldn’t defend it on their personal IHN “wiki.”
3. Bacteriology conflicted with the classical theory of humors, which centuries ago was the “established science,” as did atoms versus phlogiston. And nothing happened for accepting that something was wrong, not everything. Water memory only “conflicts” with classical theories of water (which don’t even have a uniform consensus) but not with others.
4. The “placebo-only” hypothesis is untenable when you consider the results of in vitro studies in plants and non-human animals with placebo controls. There, contextual effects are either minimal or possibly nonexistent.
5. This is contextual. What does “literacy” refer to? Is it having an uncritical attitude toward Big Pharma? Because if that’s the case, it makes no sense to say that “they are better informed.”
6. “In some cases,” you said it yourself, which also happens with “orthodox” medicine. In your own study of “adverse effects,” you barely reported 4 deaths and ironic effects (since you say that a homeopathic remedy is only a placebo, but in the cases you cite involving high potencies, you say that they cause specific harm). The rest of the data comes from websites like “What’s the Harm” or “APETP” (the Spanish organization that fabricated more than “1,500 deaths from pseudotherapies”). These “reports” have no peer review, and the data often doesn’t even correspond to homeopathic treatments. Cases of deaths caused directly or indirectly by homeopathy are very few in the literature.
7. The NHS was pressured by “skeptical” groups regarding the British report based on Shang et al., which has already been discredited as a poor-quality study. The NHS costs for homeopathy were extremely low; even those of Allan Henness’s “Nightgale Collaboration,” which argued that “costs had increased,” remained very small relative to total NHS healthcare spending.
8. No, “skeptical” groups, as you yourself have said, are not seeking to protect the consumer; they want to ban homeopathy. The 10:23 “overdose” was a fraudulent act that makes no sense whatsoever for homeopathy, although we never saw “skeptics” attempting that with mother tinctures or low potencies of toxic substances (ironically, those you say in your report cause harm). These are not “proofs” of anything. Now that we know they can contain nanoparticles, are they no longer so “safe” for a long-term “overdose” either?
9. The analyses you mention are usually trials or books that engage in cherry-picking. So no, the loss of trust has only been seen in some countries where “skeptics” spread propaganda with lies and myths. There’s no contradiction in homeopathy having a complementary function. If you’re referring to Hahnemann and using him because of his sometimes somewhat dogmatic stance (believing that homeopathy was the only medicine), then you should consider that he himself negates the “overdose” that you praise so much in his book.
Re 3: but bacteria have been very well demonstrated to exist, hence the acceptance of bacteriology. And unlike “water memory”.
Re 4: I believe the form here is “Citation needed”.
Re 7: ever heard of NICE? You should before you spout anout the NHS. Not to mention that NHS clinical staff (self included) complained about clinical money being wassted on something unevidenced while we were bound by evidence-based pratice guidelines
3 and 4. In the infamous paper by Ernst and Mukerji (https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11229-022-03882-w), they explicitly state, “One way to establish this would be to dissolve a substance in water, dilute it beyond Avogadro’s limit, and bring it into contact with a biological system to see how that system reacts. If the solution still has an effect characteristic of the diluted substance, this suggests the existence of water memory.”
Water memory has already been demonstrated and tested experimentally even before Ernst and Mukerji published their article (none of these articles are cited in their article):
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0965229907000131
“A surprisingly high number of different experimental approaches have been adopted. Two thirds of the experiments with higher scores and contaminant-checking controls demonstrated specific high potency effects. Some of them have also been successfully replicated, but no positive result could be reproduced in all attempts.”
https://www.thieme-connect.com/products/ejournals/abstract/10.1016/j.homp.2015.10.003
‘We found 28 experimental models in basic research on high homeopathic potencies which underwent replication research. In total, 24 models were replicated with comparable results, 12 models with zero effect, and 6 models with opposite results. Five models were externally reproduced with comparable results.’
7. NICE is part of the NHS, https://www.nhs.uk/tests-and-treatments/homeopathy/ and they refer to an old report by the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee that was never accepted by the government. The report’s conclusions are based solely on a review by Edzard Ernst included in the report (which bases its conclusions on the meta-analysis by Shang et al and his own 2002 review, both of which have been refuted by Hahn and the HRI Research Institute).
https://karger.com/fok/article/20/5/376/353085/Homeopathy-Meta-Analyses-of-Pooled-Clinical-Data
https://www.hri-research.org/resources/homeopathy-the-debate/uk-select-committee-report/
@Sundew
Most of the dumb nonsense you’re spouting has been refuted many times before, but #8 deserves some special attention.
Has it ever occurred to you that maybe those smart people are fighting quackery, which includes homeopathy, in order to protect consumers?
What other reason could skeptics possible have to be opposed to homeopathy? If there was any evidence for beneficial clinical effects, then it would certainly be accepted and even embraced – just like any other form of medical treatment that has been proven to work. But given that there exists not a single homeopathic preparation that shows any significant and consistent effects that can be arbitrarily replicated, the only justified conclusion is that it doesn’t do anything, and that selling it as a medicine constitutes fraud.
?? Maybe you could explain what is fraudulent about consuming a package of homeopathic sugar pills? To the best of my knowledge, the people participating in this demonstration of homeopathy’s
harmlessnessuselessness no doubt legally bought those sugar pills, and even used them as intended. So where’s the fraud?On the contrary my dear dumb charlatan! This 10:32 Campaign is exactly like a homeopathic proving, where healthy people take a homeopathic preparation, and then wait to see what ‘symptoms’ emerge. Which can be invariably summed up as ‘none’.
Also notable is the response of The British
Water-Shaking Clowns’ GuildHomeopathic Association, who called the 10:23 Campaign irresponsible and dangerous, because, in their literal words, “Participants have no understanding about how to select and use homeopathic remedies in an appropriate manner.”Which I think is highly amusing, as homeopaths are in fact the ones who are almost by definition completely incompetent when it comes to medicine. After all, they sell shaken water as a medicine … (Which brings us back to the reason why quackery in general should be banned, as it involves deceiving people.)
By now, not only have thousands of people partaken in this 10:23 Campaign, but far more people have actually bought and used those homeopathic sugar pills — without any effect whatsoever, except some financial damage. It is also funny to note that homeopaths in fact warn that non-homeopaths should not buy and use OTC homeopathic sugar pills, because those laypeople don’t know when and how to use homeopathy … I’m sure Boiron will not be amused when their gullible
markscustomers would in fact heed this warning and stop buying their OTC sugar pills, haha.1. Everyone has some degree of intelligence, whether or not they are in favor of homeopathy. But having a PhD does not guarantee that you are smarter when hatred or irrationality get the better of you. You are not here to protect consumers; you have never been interested in that. You are fighting to abolish religion and everything you consider “superstition.” And you consider homeopathy to be a “form of superstition” that you don’t like.
2. If there are clinical effects that prove it works:
a) Edzard himself has to acknowledge this, even though he denies it at the same time:
https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-319-43592-3
“Several well-conducted clinical studies of homeopathy with positive results have been published. It is therefore not true to claim that there is no good trial evidence at all.”
b) Meta-analyses, as you already know, show on average an effect superior to placebos:
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s13643-023-02313-2
“In contrast to frequent claims, the available MAs of homoeopathy in placebo-controlled randomized trials for any indication show significant positive effects beyond placebo.”
c) I have shown you that Oscillococcinum is at least one example of a homeopathic remedy that has consistently demonstrated efficacy. You yourself have reluctantly admitted that there are at least 2 to 3 replications.
2. It is fraudulent to call it a “demonstration,” since other ‘skeptical’ groups called it a “performance.” Why don’t you say anything about that? Here is an example from a “skeptical” group:
https://circuloesceptico.com.ar/2011/02/privado-la-sobredosis-homeoptica-no-es-un-experimento-cientfico
3. What you’re saying doesn’t make sense, Richard. The “suicides” at 10:23 said that suicide was to “prove that it doesn’t work” and that “you don’t die.”
a) If you say it was a proving, then you should know that a proving is not used to prove efficacy, so it cannot be used to “prove that it doesn’t work.” Nor does it refute provings because it does not meet the conditions of healthy and sensitive individuals, nor was there a placebo control group (as is done with modern provings) or anyone to monitor the symptoms.
b) The “suicides” foolishly interpreted that they should expect “the higher the potency, the greater the effect” and therefore “the higher the potency, the greater the intoxication.” That is stupid because no one in homeopathy expects that if you take potentized Arsenicum Album you will be intoxicated by it. If that were the case, Hahnemann’s phrase about achieving a gentle therapy would make no sense.
c) The warning from the British Society of Homeopaths makes sense because some homeopathic remedies come in mother tincture or low potencies, and in these cases, poisoning or adverse reactions can occur. In fact, we know of a Swedish astronaut who was a “skeptic” and made a fool of himself live on TV when he started showing symptoms.
d) You always say that anecdotes are not valid, but you want to validate a false “experiment” where the participants themselves believed they were “refuting” homeopathy.
e) You are mixing things up. The warning refers to clinical homeopathy (which is not classical) or when lay consumers are overconfident, since some homeopathic remedies can cause deleterious or mild effects (which Ernst and Posadski themselves admit can happen, although rarely).
4. I told you that they want to ban homeopathy, and in another comment you responded by beating around the bush, saying no, but now you say yes. So it’s true that you are the conspirators, a small group that has influenced the media and academia to ridicule anyone who says they are seeking to ban it and attack them as “conspiracy theorists.” Richard, you “skeptics” were just waiting to normalize it.
I’d have to agree, Richard is a mixed up little anti-Homoeopathy crusader who doesn’t know much about anything especially Homoeopathy. He has needed to be corrected time and time again.
whenever such things are claimed by an annonymous homeopathy defender, they must amount to great praise indeed!
@Sundew
And you are not here to contribute evidence that homeopathy works; you are only here for trolling.
You appear to have a very weird definition of ‘fraud’, just like you have a very weird definition of ‘evidence’.
Again: a group of people consumes what is sold to them as a ‘medicine’ – which implies that it must have some effect of sorts. Specifically, this particular ‘medicine’ (usually a 10^60 dilution of coffee beans), should have the effect of helping people fall asleep. So they take this ‘medicine’, after which, one of two things should happen, according to basic homeopathic principles:
1. The insomniacs among these people should experience sleepiness, and
2. Those with no symptoms of insomnia should experience the opposite effect, i.e. agitation.
The point is that, quite consistently, neither of these things happen(*). Which demonstrates that this ‘medicine’ is not a medicine at all.
So the only fraud being perpetrated here is by homeopaths selling people useless sugar pills and shaken water as a ‘medicine’, which they most definitely are not.
And you of course are trying to turn the whole thing upside down, by claiming that the people who show us that homeopathy doesn’t do anything are the fraudulent ones – much like Donald Trump and his regime are calling innocent people ‘criminals’ and ‘terrorists’, while at the same time pardoning and exonerating real criminals, and themselves perpetrating the most egregious corruption, fraud and crimes in the history of the US government.
*: The fact that water-shaking clowns claim that homeopathy can have opposite effects, depending on the state of health of their victims, is a big red flag already:
– Ah, your symptoms are resolving? Great! This means that the remedy works! Keep going until you’re cured!
– Ah, your symptoms are getting worse? Good news, because this means that the remedy is doing something – this happens sometimes, and is called ‘homeopathic aggravation’. So keep going!
And even if nothing happens, the con artists still try to twist it to their advantage:
– OK, the remedy doesn’t seem to help? Well, that’s because homeopathy is very mild, so you should give it some more time – and of course things haven’t gotten worse either, so that’s a clear sign that it at least prevents deterioration. So keep going!
– Oh, the remedy doesn’t seem to help, even after several months? Well, then we must have gotten the symptoms wrong, which means that we chose the wrong remedy. Not to worry, there are hundreds of other remedies and potencies that we can still try! So let’s schedule another 2-hour appointment to get to the bottom of things. That’ll be another $200, thank you very much.
So what you fraudulent water-shaking clowns are basically saying is that no matter what happens (or doesn’t happen), homeopathy always works. It just may take some time. Yeah, sure.
Richard:
1. Event 10:23 explicitly sought to “commit suicide,” but, as I explained, homeopathy does not suggest that you can become intoxicated with a 30C potency; drowsiness and insomnia are not necessarily caused by intoxication. There is nothing in Hahemann that says that. If anything, “suicides” would only get a slight effect with 30C potencies if they are sensitive. In fact, in this trial, no one reported any effects of poisoning:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1389945710001735
You cannot “prove” anything with an act like 10:23 because the premise is flawed; there is no control group. But there is one exception where you can have adverse effects, and that is with mother tinctures or low potencies of toxic substances. You still haven’t explained to me why the “suicides” in 10:23 didn’t want to do the act with those.
2. Typical homeopathic medicines are not “sugar pills”; they are globules or in liquid form. They are medicines according to the European Directive.
3. I’m not trying to, I turned it around because 10:23 does not meet the conditions of a real experiment and the underlying premise makes no sense and cannot “prove” anything. It’s a symbolic circus act they did to protest, but nothing more.
4. I understand that Big Pharma was partly behind 10:23, and I know this because Sense About Science gave T-shirts to participants in some cases. Oh yes, Mike Marsh from Merseyside Skeptic was with SAS.
5. If the homeopath is a doctor, they don’t just rely on symptoms, but also on signs. That’s why they shouldn’t have any problem detecting when there’s a risk.
6. The fact that a medicine does not work and can be changed ironically refutes the idea that it is only a “placebo effect,” because then they should all work the same.
So what you’re saying is that for you, no matter how many trials there are, you will always say that “it doesn’t work” and you will have some excuse.
@Sundew
Really? I always thought that it was a way to show that homeopathic sugar pills don’t do anything. And sure enough, they don’t 🙂
Sure, and that is exactly what is expected from homeopathic sugar pills. They have no effect whatsoever.
The 10:23 demonstration is not meant as a clinical trial. It is just a publicity stunt, demonstrating that homeopathic ‘medicines’ are not medicines, in that they have no effects.
But let’s put it another way: I could break into a homeopath’s office at night, randomly mix up all the sugar pills in their apothecary, and no-one would notice a thing. Because none of those sugar pills actually does anything.
If you feel like it, we could even do this legally (without breaking an entering, and with full consent from all parties), as a trial.
You prescribe your victims sugar pills or shaken water as usual, but I am the one picking, labelling and dispensing the bottles – which can contain either the homeopathic preparation you meant to prescribe, or another homeopathic preparation that should have the opposite effect. Then we’ll wait and see which group fares better. I am 100% certain that there will be no difference.
Richard:
1. A circus act like 10:23 cannot “prove” that “they do nothing.” Even if we gave them the benefit of the doubt: there was no measurement, no monitoring, and they did not keep a diary (as provings do). Furthermore, since they were all “skeptics,” their predisposition to deny skewed any validity (since they weren’t going to say if there were any symptoms). There was no follow-up on what medications they took, how many, or how often. I literally saw videos of several of the ‘suicides’ on YouTube making their own “preparations” with simple dilutions and plastic cups.
2. Richard, you are contradicting yourself. https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-031-29444-0 In your own book, you say this:
Hahnemann’s Law of Infinitesimals posits that diluting (and shaking) a substance will reduce harmful effects, but increase its beneficial effects. This claim once again goes against all human experience, both in the everyday sense and in a scientific context: diluting something will always reduce whatever effect it has. Add more water to lemonade, and all you get is increasingly watery lemonade, nothing else (and you can shake it all you want, but that doesn’t change a thing). Dilute a medicine, and it will have less effect—and from a certain point onwards, it will have no effect at all any more, period. There is not a single example in science where diluting a substance consistently leads to a stronger effect, regardless whether that effect is beneficial or not. Yet homeopaths claim that they see this happen all the time with their remedies. Clearly, someone is wrong here”
Your argument doesn’t make sense. You yourself acknowledge that Hahnemann wanted to reduce the harmful effects of a harmful substance, but at the same time you criticize him for this because if that were the case, when diluting lemonade, “it would have to taste stronger.” That’s ridiculous. If Hahnemann himself is telling you that the aim is to reduce the harmful effect, he is not referring to it “tasting stronger.” It’s just that you, like probably 99% of “skeptics,” are avoiding the reality that Hahnemann refers to “stronger” with a more subtle effect in reference to vitalism.
3. If you admit that 10:23 was not intended to be a clinical trial, then it cannot “prove” that “there is no effect.” Apart from the fact that the premise is totally wrong, there were no measurements or statistics, so it cannot be a “demonstration” on this side either. In any case, it is like the “skeptical” groups in other countries: a performance and act of protest against what they believe was wrong with homeopathy.
4. If you yourself admit that it is a “publicity stunt,” then you are saying that part of Big Pharma was involved, and with this you confirm to some degree that SAS’s intervention makes sense. Because it is no longer merely propaganda, but you have said publicity. And marketing experts know that one of the many dirty publicity tricks to oust the competition is to attack it by discrediting it. There is no need to appeal to a big conspiracy as is sometimes believed, but rather to a smear campaign strategy driven by your ideology and part of the competition that Big Pharma sees as a threat to their market share in a certain niche (because you yourself know that homeopathy is not widely used everywhere). Why does Big Pharma see homeopathy as such a threat if it is not widely used, Richard? The explanation lies probably in biases pseudoskeptics.
5. If you go into a “conventional” doctor’s office at night and swap a box of antivirals for placebos, I can assure you that practically no one will notice.
6. You call me a “quack,” then accuse me of “prescribing” to alleged “victims” without presenting any evidence, and you have the cynicism to propose a “test.” If you are already “100% sure that there will be no effect” and you yourself, with your biased position, want to act as the jury, you are saying that you are going to manipulate any data by eliminating what does not suit you.
Very well, Richard, with that you have admitted that you are not seeking to know, but that you are so cynical as to seek to manipulate the data before you have it. No one can take you seriously.
@Sundew
[diluting consistently causes less effects; example: diluted lemonade becomes less tasty = less effect]
Where is the contradiction in that?
This is correct.
Sure, I do criticize Hahnemann, but not for what you claim here. He was absolutely correct to see that the regular medicine of his day and age was horrible, and very often did more harm than good. He also couldn’t know that serial dilutions had a very hard limit (defined by Avogadro’s number), after which no more molecules of the original substance were present at all, making it impossible for the dilution to have any effects. So he couldn’t know that ‘treating’ a patient with a homeopathic preparation in fact meant not treating the patient at all – and that this lack of regular (harmful, often lethal) treatment was what produced the amazing outcomes he often observed. Instead, his observations led him to believe that he stumbled upon a mechanism whereby higher dilutions produced more potent medicines: his “Law of Infinitesimals” – and this is what I refer to when I talk about diluted lemonade, not Hahnemann’s desire to make things less harmful through dilution.
Hahnemann may have been a stubborn, arrogant person who refused to admit being wrong, but the mitigating circumstance is that he couldn’t have known a lot of things that we do know now.
The real dumbasses of course are our current-day homeopaths, who still keep proclaiming all sorts of nonsense that has been debunked by actual science long ago – all while failing to produce convincing evidence themselves.
?? What a very stupid assumption. No, Big Pharma is not involved in any anti-homeopathy demonstrations at all. Big Pharma can even be said to support homeopathy in several ways. E.g. pharmacies here in the Netherlands sell fake homeopathic ‘medicines’ alongside real drugs, and the same probably goes for many other countries as well. Big Pharma doesn’t do anything against this. Also note that most of the major journals publishing legitimate pharmaceutical research have one or more subsidiary journals dedicated to quackery such as homeopathy. In other words: Big Pharma will never pass up an opportunity to make a buck.
OK, now do the same for laxatives. Or (real) sleeping pills. Or diuretics. Or beta blockers. Or painkillers. Or antibiotics. Or … And do you really suggest that antiviral medicines don’t work? Countless HIV patients beg to differ.
You are wrong(*). I value integrity, and I will never manipulate data or falsify results – also of course because fraud generally comes to light sooner rather than later.
But I fully understand that you would not trust me to carry out any part of such a proposed trial – so we should of course get a trusted third party to carry out the switching and blinding process. And there are other details that should be addressed. But I doubt if any homeopath will ever be willing to carry out this otherwise perfectly feasible trial.
*: Here in the Netherlands, we have this saying “Zoals de waard is, vertrouwt hij zijn gasten”. I’ll leave it up to you to look up and interpret the translation.
Richard:
1. “and this is what I refer to when I talk about diluted lemonade, not Hahnemann’s desire to make things less harmful through dilution.” If you acknowledge that Hahnemann sought to reduce the toxicity of a toxic substance, then it is incorrect to deduce that “more potent” (in homeopathy) is equivalent to expecting that “lemonade tastes better the more it is diluted” (which is your example). Using your example makes no sense because you are distorting what Hahnemann said. There is not a single example in the Organon that he believed that diluting “lemonade” would result in “something more concentrated.”
2. So, you wrote a book and are unaware that Hahnemann never offered the law of infinitesimals as a “mechanism.”
3. Hahnemann was a person, the label of arrogant is not so different from what we see in figures from the “skeptical” world such as James Randi (arrogant and pedantic) or John Maddox (also described as pedantic). What are you trying to achieve with this?
4. Your basic ignorance of the subject, coupled with your constant insults and hatred without providing any data, and your admission that you make your own interpretations (copied from other “skeptics”), and the cynicism in admitting that 10:23 was merely a publicity stunt, leave little doubt that you are not interested in changing your mind based on the data.
5. It’s not a “stupid assumption,” Richard. The old “skeptic” forums had comments from people saying that Sense About Science had donated T-shirts at some events. Those were the years when SAS, together with SMC (which Ernst boasts about on the side), were posing as “independent charities.” Oh, yes, they are the same ones who helped create the UK Report and are even mentioned in the pages of the report.
6. I suspect you have serious problems understanding basic texts. I have clearly told you that I do not support a macro “conspiracy theory.” I mentioned that there is only partial support from Big Pharma and that “skeptical” propaganda (which you yourself boast about when talking about advertising tricks) consists of discrediting competitors. The fact that there are shelves with homeopathic products in your country does not mean that homeopathy dominates the pharmaceutical market or that its profits are the same. Why is it that Big Pharma in several countries does not want to have a line of homeopathic products? Perhaps because of the great influence of CEOs or researchers within the industry who oppose it? Because when a Big Pharma company has entered the market, I have seen “skeptical” groups causing the products to be withdrawn (as was the case with Merck and its now defunct line of Schüler’s Salts). So you can keep kicking and screaming all you want, but the involvement of SAS, SMC with Monsanto and with campaigns against homeopathy is evident, although not yet as thoroughly researched as it should be.
7. From the moment you say, without any data, that “it doesn’t work” and believe that the 10:23 event is a “demonstration,” and assume that your ridiculous proposal to “swap” some globules for others by entering at night are “experiments,” you already have a preconception, and you have a severe conflict of interest with “skeptical” groups that openly admit to wanting to ban homeopathy. There is no reason for them to take you seriously. Why is it that the 10:23 event never appeared in a peer-reviewed journal, even though “skeptics” like you say it is a “demonstration”? It’s a question I hope you can answer.
How funny!
Homeopathy apologists Sundew and DUllman wave their hands vigorously, stamp their feet and talk nonsense. Now all that is missing are Mutus Bellator and Double H. Let the party begin! 😀
I was looking forward to their responses – and they didn’t disappoint, though I was hoping to see more quantum nonsense.
@zebra
I was betting more on ‘nano’. But alas …
Where is the joker JK? Haven’t seen him around here in a bit.
Let’s Party!! Dana and Sundew are right on all accounts, what’s your problem?
true! they perfectly express the opinion of homeopaths – pity that, apart from them, nobody shares it [certainly not those with expertise in science.
Talker- Since the call went out on this blog ( for the 99th time) for a lab that could differentiate between the homeopathic remedies in my kit, I have been searching for evidence of such a lab.
The burnt down (2002)Sanskrit university in Nepal could have done this for all I know by 2001.
Someone said that aliens on Atlas 3i could do this but Atlas might have just been a comet.
However, no lab is really needed as the general public seem to be taking to CAM more and more and homeopathy is riding the wave.
https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/16/1/e104334
JK pontificates thusly: “However, no lab is really needed as the general public seem to be taking to CAM more and more and homeopathy is riding the wave.” proving once again that homeopathy is nothing but a belief system.
The BMJ poll shows that two-thirds (65.9%) of UK adults used some form of traditional, complementary, or integrative medicine (TCIM) in the previous 12 months.
The UK public obviously like their belief systems.
poll dated when?
what % of the usage is for homeopathy?
JK opines thusly: “The UK public obviously like their belief systems.”
So do Bigfooters:
https://arstechnica.com/science/2026/02/it-aint-no-unicorn-these-researchers-have-interviewed-130-bigfoot-hunters/
However, one big difference is that Bigfooters are more science oriented than homeopaths.
https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/16/1/e104334 January 2026
65.9% use TCIM in UK. 19.1% see a TCIM practitioner. This implies that over two thirds of those using TCIM treat themselves.
4.1% see a homeopath and taking the same ratio would indicate homeopathic users at around 13%. This roughly corresponds with Chat GPT estimates of homeopathy users at 10 to 15% .
A few 100 Homeopaths still busy are playing a small part but the drive of CAM clearly comes from the general public.
…. so, the vast majority of the UK public evidently does not like homeopathy!
‘The majority of the UK public does not use homeopathy ‘ might be a more accurate statement.
13% using homeopathy does not imply that the other 87% not liking homeopathy.
Some would be open to it. Some neutral.