Following my post about the decline in homeopathy-use in Europe, several people dismissed it by saying something like this: Who cares about Europe? Across the globe, homeopathy is state-funded in a majority of countries!!!
This is NOT correct. A correct description of the situation would be that homeopathy is currently state-funded or reimbursed in a minority of countries. In most other countries, it is paid out of pocket or covered only by private insurance. Yes, homeopathy is integrated into national health systems in some countries, explicitly listing Brazil, Chile, India, Mexico, Pakistan, and Switzerland, but this is NOT the global norm.
The counter-argument by homeopathy-fans is this: The states that support homeopathy tend to be very large (e.g. India and Brazil). Therefore, the majority of the world population has access to state-sponsored homeopathy.
This statement seems to be false as well. It is true, of course, that India alone accounts for about 18% of the world’s population, and India does publicly support homeopathy through its health system and the Ministry of AYUSH. But the claim that, for the majority of the world population, homeopathy is state-funded is not based on good evidence. Most of the world’s population lives outside the small number of countries where homeopathy is publicly reimbursed or embedded in state systems.
Even with India included, the evidence available here does not justify a world-population majority claim. The publicly supported/reimbursed countries are still a rather small group, and, as far as I can see, they constitute neither most countries nor most of humanity. In several large countries homeopathy-use exists without state funding or with only private coverage, which weakens any global majority argument. Should someone nevertheless claim that “the majority of the world population has access to state-sponsored homeopathy”, I would ask him or her to show me the evidence for the claim. As far as I can see, it does not exist.
A more accurate statement would therefore be the following:
A substantial share of the world’s population lives in countries where homeopathy has some level of state support, mainly because of India, but there is no good evidence to prove that this amounts to a majority of the world population.
2 Responses to “Homeopathy is state-funded in most parts of the world” – TRUE OR FALSE?
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Homeopathy is covered by neither Australia’s Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme nor by the (Australian) Medicare public health insurance scheme. Nor is it covered by my private health insurer (though some other things I consider worthless are covered).
interesting – thank you