commercial interests
The US “Health Freedom Movement” (HFM) is a coalition of activists, alternative practitioners, supplement and device manufacturers, and libertarian or populist politicians who oppose strong government regulation of healthcare. They claim to defend the individual’s right to choose any treatment or product they consider beneficial, especially so-called alternative medicine (SCAM).
Its roots lie in resistance to medical licensing and in movements around homeopathy, naturopathy, and chiropractic, which often portrayed organized medicine as a cartel limiting patient choice. The John Birch Society and other conservative groups use the term to oppose fluoridation, vaccination mandates, and federal health programs. During 1990s–2000s, the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act (DSHEA) of 1994, backed by a coalition of supplement companies and “health freedom” advocates, limited the FDA’s pre‑market control over supplements; libertarian politicians like Ron Paul and figures such as Prince/King Charles support aspects of this agenda. More recently, anti‑vaccination activism, opposition to the Affordable Care Act, and then COVID‑19 mandates and vaccines gave the HFM a major boost and re-grouped as “medical freedom” or “health freedom” across partisan lines, but with a strong right‑wing infrastructure.
The HFM’s main players include politicians (e.g. Ron Paul, Tom Harkin, Orrin Hatch, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.) and media personalities (e.g. Gary Null, Kevin Trudeau, and many supplement‑selling influencers as well as SCAM doctors). Many of them have strong financial ties to supplement, wellness, or SCAM industry.
The HFM’s stated aims sound liberal: individual autonomy, informed and access to SCAM. In practice, however, its core goals are sharper and consistently deregulatory:
- Limit or abolish pre‑market safety and efficacy requirements for supplements and many SCAMs.
- Oppose or roll back mandatory childhood vaccination, COVID‑19 vaccination and mask rules, school-entry requirements, and sometimes even basic disease‑reporting obligations.
- Resist overarching government health programs, including water fluoridation, electronic health records, and population‑level data sharing, which they portray as surveillance or tyranny.
- Create broad legal shields for all types of SCAM practitioners and restrict the enforcement powers of medical boards and public‑health authorities.
While the rhetoric centres on “freedom” and “choice”, the policy is liberating commercial interests from evidence‑based standards and oversight. For this, the HFM uses a mixture of advocacy and classic populist agitation:
- Legislative lobbying: Drafting model bills that redefine or exempt SCAM practitioners, weaken vaccination requirements, and restrict state health departments’ emergency powers.
- Litigation: Groups such as the “Health Freedom Defense Fund” use lawsuits against mask mandates, vaccine requirements, and school or airline rules both as legal tools and as high‑visibility fundraising and mobilization devices.
- Electoral politics: Endorsing and funding candidates who promise to “reign in” public‑health agencies, defund WHO, or defy CDC guidance; in some places, anti‑vaccine activists have captured local hospital or school boards.
- Media ecosystems: Conferences, podcasts, Substack newsletters, and “documentaries” circulate narratives of regulatory capture, big‑pharma malfeasance, and heroic mavericks, often entwined with sales of supplements or courses.
These activities reinforce distrust of science and conventional medicine and thus create a host of issues and problems:
- Selective use of autonomy: Autonomy is invoked vigorously when opposing vaccines, fluoridation, or regulation of supplements, but tend to disregard it when patients are misled by misinformation, coercive marketing, or opaque conflicts of interest in the alternative sector itself. Yet protection against deception and unsafe products is essential for meaningful autonomy; “choice” among misrepresented options is not genuine choice.
- Systematic downplaying of risk and evidence: The HFM treats lack of evidence of benefit as if it were evidence of safety and legitimacy and often dismisses adverse‑event data. Regulators and critics must meet impossibly high standards, while proponents of SCAM face essentially none.
- Commercial conflicts of interest: Many leading voices within the HFM derive substantial income from selling SCAM. The HFM criticizes “Big Pharma” conflicts of interest while largely ignoring or concealing its own.
- Wilful ignorance of collective harms: Opposition to vaccination, masking, and quarantine treats infections as purely individual matters, neglecting that infectious disease risk is shared and that one person’s “choice” can impose morbidity and mortality on others. Yet any rights framework that leaves no space for legitimate public‑health constraints on individual choice is incompatible with controlling epidemics.
- Alliance with broader conspiracist and extremist currents: Sections of the HFM have fused with anti‑globalist, anti‑UN/WHO, and sometimes far‑right political currents, amplifying conspiracy narratives and distrust that spill over into many domains beyond health. Thus they corrode trust in institutions that are necessary for coordinating large‑scale health responses.
In a nutshell, the HFM is a deregulatory, commercially entangled project that uses the language of liberty to erode evidence‑based medicine and to normalise quackery as well as anti‑vaccination politics. To put it bluntly: the HFM does not seem to operate in the best interest of either the individual patient or the collective public health.
Insomnia is a prevalent disorder that is associated with substantial impairment. Homeopathy has been proposed as a complementary treatment for insomnia, but its clinical effects remain uncertain.
This systematic review assessed the efficacy, effectiveness, and safety of homeopathic treatments for insomnia. Prospective comparative studies evaluating any homeopathic preparation for insomnia were included. Searches in MEDLINE, EMBASE, seven additional databases, and three trial registries were conducted through August 2025. Risk of bias, intervention complexity, model validity, and pragmatism were assessed using respectively RoB 2, ROBINS-I, iCAT, MVHT, and RITES. Data were synthesized using random-effects meta-analyses, and certainty of evidence was evaluated using GRADE.
Eight randomized controlled trials (RCTs; n = 364 participants) and four non-randomized studies (NRSIs; n = 517) met the inclusion criteria. In adults, sleep quality (MD = −2.6 points; 95% CI −5.5 to 2.6; low certainty) and insomnia severity (MD = −3.2; 95% CI −5.68 to −0.72, moderate certainty) were reported in one RCT each. For total sleep time, the pooled MD of three RCTs was 0.65 hours (95% CI −0.9 to 2.2; low certainty). In children, one open-label RCT suggested a difference in insomnia severity, but certainty of evidence was very low. Adverse events were rarely reported, resulting in low certainty evidence.
The authors concluded that the current evidence is mainly limited by imprecision and risk of bias. The available evidence does not allow firm conclusions regarding the effects of homeopathy for insomnia. High-quality, replicated trials with systematic adverse event monitoring are needed.
15 years ago, I published a similar review entitled “Homeopathy for insomnia and sleep-related disorders: a systematic review of randomised controlled trials” (Focus on Alternative and Complementary Therapies Volume 16(3) September 2011 195–199)). Here is its abstract:
The aim of this review was the critical evaluation of evidence for the effectiveness of homeopathy for insomnia and sleep-related disorders. A search of MEDLINE, AMED, CINAHL, EMBASE and Cochrane Central Register was conducted to find RCTs using any form of homeopathy for the treatment of insomnia or sleep-related disorders. Data were extracted according to predefined criteria; risk of bias was assessed using Cochrane criteria. Six randomised, placebo-controlled trials met the inclusion criteria. Two studies used individualised homeopathy, and four used standardised homeopathic treatment. All studies had significant flaws; small sample size was the most prevalent limitation. The results of one study suggested that homeopathic remedies were superior to placebo; however, five trials found no significant differences between homeopathy and placebo for any of the main outcomes. Evidence from RCTs does not show homeopathy to be an effective treatment for insomnia and sleep-related disorders.
The findings of the two reviews are remarkably similar. For the following reasons, I find this notable:
- One would have hoped that 15 years are a long enough time for clarifying the issue, particularly as insomnia is not an unimportant condition for homeopathy.
- The new review is authored by well-known proponents. It seems unexpected that they (almost) go as far as admitting that the evidence for homeopathy as a treatment for insomnia is not positive.
- We have here, I think, a textbook example of how proponents of homeopathy prettify results that do not confirm their belief.
SO FAR, SO GOOD.
But now consider this: There are two further reviews of the same subject!
The first is entitled “Homoeopathy for insomnia: A meta-analysis of clinical evidence – Journal of Integrated Standardized Homoeopathy“. Here is its abstract:
Objectives: Insomnia is a prevalent sleep disorder characterised by challenges in initiating, maintaining or achieving restorative sleep, resulting in compromised daytime functionality. Traditional therapeutic modalities frequently encompass pharmacological treatments, which may have adverse effects and potential for dependency. Numerous patients pursue alternative methodologies, such as homoeopathy, which is attributed to its personalised, holistic and non-invasive treatment framework. This thorough examination assesses the effectiveness of homoeopathy in promoting better sleep quality and overall wellness in people with insomnia by analysing randomised controlled trials (RCTs).
Material and Methods: This meta-analysis sought to ascertain whether homoeopathy induces a statistically significant enhancement in the management of insomnia, concentrating on aspects of sleep quality, duration and general well-being. All RCTs addressing insomnia treated with homoeopathic interventions were included in this review. All studies were meticulously documented in accordance with the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines. Three evaluators independently reviewed and compiled the literature, extracting comprehensive details regarding participants, study designs, therapeutic interventions and follow-up pertaining to homoeopathic treatment. The primary outcome of the investigation was disease assessment based on sleep diary scores, with an additional outcome being the enhancement of quality of life.
Results: The analysis revealed that homoeopathic remedies exhibited statistically significant improvement over placebo in the management of insomnia. The overall pooled effect size, standardised mean difference (random), was −0.60, standard error (random) was 0.42 and confidence interval (random) at 95% ranged from −0.93 to −0.26. The risk of bias was assessed for all studies.
Conclusion: This meta-analysis shows that homoeopathic remedies are effective in treating insomnia, but more studies are required for accuracy.
The last review is entitled “Effectiveness of Homeopathic Interventions for Insomnia and Sleep Disorders: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis“. Here is its abstract:
Insomnia is a common sleep disorder, and many individuals seek alternative treatments like homeopathy. However, evidence for its effectiveness remains controversial. This systematic review and meta-analysis evaluated the effectiveness of homeopathic interventions for insomnia and sleep-wake disorders. A comprehensive search of PubMed, MEDLINE, CINAHL, and the Cochrane Library was conducted for studies published between 2010 and 2025. We included randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and non-randomized studies involving adults (≥18 years) with primary insomnia receiving any homeopathic intervention compared to placebo, no treatment, or active care. Primary outcomes included validated sleep quality measures (e.g., Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI), Insomnia Severity Index (ISI). Four reviewers independently performed study selection, data extraction, and risk of bias assessment using RoB 2.0 and ROBINS-I. A random-effects meta-analysis was conducted for controlled trials, and a narrative synthesis for non-randomized studies. Certainty of evidence was assessed using Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development and Evaluation (GRADE). The search yielded 1304 records; 12 studies (nine RCTs and three non-randomized) met inclusion criteria. Meta-analysis showed a large, statistically significant positive effect of homeopathy on sleep outcomes (SMD = 0.81, 95% CI [0.24, 1.38], p = 0.0055), with substantial heterogeneity (I² = 86.04%) and publication bias (Egger’s test, p = 0.0079). Most studies had high or critical risk of bias, and overall certainty was low. Homeopathic interventions showed a large positive effect on sleep outcomes, but due to high bias, heterogeneity, and publication bias, evidence remains low-certainty and insufficient to support effectiveness. High-quality RCTs are needed.
What should we make of this?
We now have two reviews concluding that there is no good evidence and two implying that homeopathy is effective for insomnia! This clearly demonstrates how easy it is to mislead the public with seemingly rigorous reviews.
I must say, I pity all the interested lay people who are trying to make sense of this mess.
How can they arrive at the best available, most reliable evidence?
We have here, I think, another textbook example; one of how important it is to run reality checks. But surely, we cannot possible ask of a lay person to understand why the last two reviews are badly misleading. What we need is an accessible tool for differentiating the science from the pseudoscience, the reliable from the unreliable.
Unfortunately, such a tool does not exist. But there are a few indicators:
- Is the journal that published the review reputable?
- Are the authors affiliated to reputable institutions?
- Do the authors have a history of critical analysis or one of uncritical promotion?
- Do they explain clearly and provide the essential details of their work?
These are issues that lay people might be able to check relatively easily. The above 4 reviews demonstrate that using them does not always provided an entirely clear cut-off. However, it might give some valuable pointers into the right direction.
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.
For decades, European health systems have maintained an uneasy coexistence between evidence-based medicine and a range of so-called alternative medicines (SCAMs). Among the most prominent has been homeopathy. That evidence free ride seems now coming to an end. Driven to some degree by budget pressure and by a much larger extend by a stronger emphasis on clinical evidence, many governments have reduced or ended public reimbursement for homeopathy, prompting an important question: which European countries will follow next?
The early movers: the UK and France
As we have discussed ad nauseam on this blog, the UK was among the first major European systems to move away from public funding of homeopathy. In 2017, NHS England recommended that general practitioners stop prescribing homeopathic remedies because of the lack of evidence for clinical effectiveness, and NHS guidance now states that the NHS no longer funds homeopathy. France followed a similar path. After a review by the French National Authority for Health (HAS), the government gradually reduced reimbursement from 30 percent to 15 percent in 2020 and then to zero in 2021.
Germany’s contested turn
As I frequently reported, Germany, the country of Samuel Hahnemann’s birth, became the next major and somewhat convoluted battleground. In 2022, Health Minister Karl Lauterbach publicly argued that homeopathy had no place in a science-based statutory health insurance system, and in 2024 there was a serious political push to end coverage. But the story did not end there: by 2025, that effort had been reversed, and homeopathy and anthroposophic medicine remained covered under statutory health insurance. The most recent turn in this saga is that the days of reimbursement of homeopathy in Germany are counted.
Spain
Spain has taken a particularly forceful stance against SCAM. Its Ministry of Health has pursued a plan aimed at restricting misleading promotion, excluding SCAM from health centres and universities, and improving consumer warnings; however, Spain has not simply “banned” homeopathy, and the products remain available under regulatory controls.
Belgium
Belgium is also restrictive: homeopathy may be practised only by doctors, dentists, and midwives, and the Belgian health-technology authorities advised against compulsory insurance reimbursement.
Switzerland
Switzerland is the clearest exception to the broader European trend. Following the 2009 referendum, several forms of were incorporated into basic insurance, and homeopathy has been covered under mandatory health insurance for services provided by qualified physicians. Recently, it was decided to halt the renewed evaluation of homeopathy.
Italy
Italy is different again: homeopathic products are regulated as medicines, but they are not normally funded through the national health service, so public reimbursement has never been central to their use.
Other countries
In much of Scandinavia and in many central and eastern European states, public reimbursement of homeopathy is generally absent or minimal, even when homeopathy is legally permitted. The Baltic states and several Balkan countries are typically more restrictive in practice, with homeopathy either outside the public system or allowed only under limited professional regulation. Slovenia and Croatia are notable for tighter professional restrictions, with homeopathy not generally open to medical doctors in the way it is in some western European systems.
The future
Across much of Europe, the trend clearly is towards tighter regulation of homeopathy, reduced reimbursement, and greater insistence on sound evidence of benefit. Thus homeopathy is increasingly being pushed out of the public sphere and into private purchase or supplementary insurance. In other words, European public healthcare systems are increasingly treating homeopathy in one of the following ways:
- obsolete because of lack of evidence,
- low-priority,
- non-essential expense.
PS
An interesting ‘aside’ is the fact that the “European Committee for Homeopathy” ignores much of the evidence by falsely stating the following:
“In some areas of the United Kingdom homeopathic treatment by doctors is covered by the National Health System. In Belgium and Latvia the fees for homeopathic treatment are partially covered by the statutory health insurance. In Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Netherlands, Switzerland and the United Kingdom by private insurance companies. The costs for homeopathic medicines are covered by the statutory health insurance in Belgium (partially), France (partially), Portugal (only magistral formula) and Switzerland, by additional private insurance companies in Belgium, Germany, Hungary, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom.”
PPS
In case you happen to be in Vienna during the next week, please come to my lecture:
Gesellschaft der Ärzte, Wien, 13.5.2026, 19:00 – 19:45 Uhr, „Sogenannte Alternativmedizin – Nutzen und Risiken am Beispiel Homöopathie“
Dame Shirley Porter died on May 2. She passed away in Herzliya, Israel, where she had spent much of her time since the early 2000s. Dame Shirley had been the former leader of Westminster City Council and a dominant figure in 1980s UK municipal politics. Once hailed as the “Iron Lady of the town halls,” her career was ultimately defined by the “homes for votes” scandal, which led to her being labeled by the district auditor as the “most corrupt” politician of her era.
The daughter of Tesco founder Sir Jack Cohen, Porter used her wealth to influence both politics and public policy. Beyond the well-documented legal battles over her misuse of council powers – which eventually saw her pay a £12.3m settlement in 2004 – Porter was a prolific, if often controversial, philanthropist. Notably, she was the primary financial backer of the Smallwood Report (2005). Entitled The Role of Complementary and Alternative Medicine in the NHS, the report was commissioned by the then Prince of Wales and written by economist Christopher Smallwood. The study was heavily criticized by myself and several others for advocating that so-called alternative medicine (SCAM) to be funded by the UK taxpayer. The editor of The Lancet, dismissed the findings as “dangerous nonsense” and I suggested the report’s pro-SCAM conclusions were written befor anyone had even looked at the evidence.
Dame Shirely was also a trustee of the London Institute for Mathematical Sciences and as a co-founder of the Porter Foundation. Through these organizations, she funded major capital projects including the Porter School of Environmental Studies at Tel Aviv University and various galleries at the V&A and the National Portrait Gallery.
She is survived by her daughter, Linda.
Despite overwhelming evidence proving that homeopathics are pure placebos, a faction of German healthcare professionals – predominantly people who profit from homeopathy – continues to argue against their removal from statutory insurance. They claim that defunding homeopathy would eliminate vital treatment options, ultimately driving patients toward more expensive conventional interventions. However, from a health economics perspective, this argument is fundamentally flawed; subsidizing treatments that lack proven efficacy is not a cost-saving measure, but rather a misallocation of limited healthcare resources.
Recognizing this inconsistency, German policymakers have finally shifted towards a more evidence-based approach. The federal cabinet recently approved a draft law to reform the statutory health insurance system, which includes a pivotal provision: homeopathic and anthroposophic medicines, along with their associated services, will no longer be eligible for reimbursement as optional benefits (Satzungsleistungen) by public insurers.
This legislative move serves as a long-overdue correction to a historically irrational policy that was initiated by the Nazis during the Third Reich. Excluding these treatments, the government is now finally acknowledging that public healthcare contributions should not fund therapies devoid of scientific backing. This decision brings Germany in line with other European countries like France and the UK, and marks a significant alignment of national policy with the dual principles of evidence-based medicine and responsible fiscal management.
At its core, this reform addresses a long-standing critique of how so-called alternative medicine (SCAM) has been integrated into the German healthcare system. For many decades, institutional tolerance allowed ineffective treatments to gain a veneer of legitimacy and public financing. Consequently, this shift is more than a mere technical adjustment; it represents a symbolic turning point in the relationship between science, medicine, and public policy.
The removal of homeopathy from insurance coverage is undoubtedly both scientifically justified and economically imperative. It signals a decisive transition of German medicine towards a more rational, evidence-based healthcare system that prioritizes proven outcomes over tradition.
Recent excesses of antisemitism in the UK and elsewhere prompt me to occasionally deviate from the core subject of this blog. I hope you share my concerns and understand my decision.
Nigel Farage had a checkered political career. Currently, he is the Leader of Reform UK. His ascent is marked not least by a tension between multiple accusations of antisemitism and his contemporary efforts to cultivate support within the Jewish community. Navigating this divide requires distinguishing between corroborated documentation, historical allegations, and the evolving rhetorical strategies of his adult career.
The most severe and graphic allegations of racism regarding Farage’s early life stem from his time at Dulwich College during the early 1980s. Numerous former classmates have provided testimonies claiming that Farage exhibited overt neo-fascist and antisemitic behaviour, including allegations that he sang racist songs and directed antisemitic slurs at Jewish students.
Specific Alleged Statements:
- Growled “Hitler was right” or “Gas them” at Jewish classmate Peter Ettedgui, sometimes adding a hissing sound to mimic gas showers.
- Used racial slurs like the “W-word” (for Black people) and “P-word” (for South Asians).
- Had a “big issue with anyone called Patel,” targeting those with South Asian names.
Specific Alleged Actions:
- Led or taught younger cadets the “Gas ’em all” song (“Gas them all, gas them out, gas them all, into the chambers they crawl”) on CCF coaches and trips.
- Marched through a Sussex village at night shouting Hitler Youth songs, as reported in a 1981 teacher’s letter opposing his prefect appointment.
- Made the Nazi salute in public and school settings, while praising Adolf Hitler.
- Mocked Black, Jewish, and Asian students; picked on Asian juniors by asking their origin and gesturing “that’s the way back.”
- Put a pupil in detention for not joining in with racist behavior, as prefect.
While Farage has consistently denied these accounts, characterizing them as exaggerated “schoolboy banter” rather than genuine malice, the credibility of these reports is heightened by contemporary evidence. Specifically, a 1981 letter from a teacher, Chloe Deakin, formally warned the school’s headmaster against appointing Farage as a prefect, citing his “publicly professed racist” and “neo-fascist” views. While this document confirms that faculty were deeply concerned about his extremist sentiments at seventeen, the specific content of his alleged taunts remains grounded in testimonial accounts rather than verified transcripts.
As Farage transitioned into public life, criticisms shifted from interpersonal school behaviour to his use of specific political rhetoric. In various broadcasts between 2009 and 2018, Farage discussed topics that critics argue invoked traditional antisemitic tropes. For instance, his comments regarding the influence of a “Jewish lobby” on American foreign policy and his frequent, pointed attacks on billionaire philanthropist George Soros—framed through the lens of “globalist” interference—have been described by advocacy groups as “dog-whistling,” a practice of signaling coded messages to extremist elements. Farage has consistently defended these remarks as legitimate critiques of ideological and political influence, asserting that his focus is on the power dynamics of global institutions rather than on ethnic groups.
In recent years, particularly as leader of Reform UK, Farage has made a concerted effort to align himself with the British Jewish community. This strategy is evidenced by the 2026 launch of the “Reform Jewish Alliance,” an organization aimed at courting Jewish voters by emphasizing shared concerns regarding security and the protection of Judeo-Christian values. Farage has positioned himself as a defender of Israel and a critic of the UK government’s response to rising antisemitism, often arguing that the primary threats to Jewish life in Britain stem from mass migration.
The question, I feel, is whether these policy stances opportunistically replace one form of racism with another, or whether they reflect a real effort to build a political alliance. In any case, to me his current posture seems more of a strategic pivot than a true departure from the antisemitic rhetoric of his past.
So, is Nigel Farage a racist and an antisemite?
I let you decide.
Recent statements concerning US pharmaceutical pricing have drawn renewed attention to an entirely new horizon in mathematics. The method, associated with remarks by Donald Trump and repeated by several of his sycophants, departs from standard arithmetic in a manner that is rhetorically vigorous but mathematically ridiculous.
Percentage change is defined relative to a single, clearly specified baseline. A decrease from $600 to $100 is therefore calculated as (600-100)/600×100 = 83.3%. In other words, the price falls by 83.3% relative to the original $600 price. This is the method used in economics, finance, accounting, retail pricing, and presumably even by the secondary-school mathematics teachers who attempted to educate Trump.
However, the new alternative math proceeds differently. It implicitly combines two distinct operations: first, the increase from $100 to $600, correctly described as a 500% rise when measured against the initial $100; and second, the subsequent decrease from $600 back to $100. Rather than evaluating this decrease against the higher price, however, the method appears to retain the earlier, lower baseline, thereby generating a claim of a “600% saving.” The arithmetic equivalent of moving the goalposts and then declaring victory by an even larger margin.
Within standard mathematics, this shift in baseline is not permissible. Percentage changes are inherently asymmetric because they depend entirely on the reference point selected. The same absolute difference – in this case, $500 – produces different percentage values depending on whether it is measured relative to $100 or $600. This is not a technical loophole but the entire point of percentages.
The problem with this approach becomes clearer if one follows it to its logical conclusion. Under standard arithmetic, a 100% price reduction means the price has fallen all the way to zero: a $100 product reduced by 100% costs nothing. A reduction greater than 100% would therefore produce a negative price, meaning the seller would have to pay the customer to accept the product. If one claims that a fall from $600 to $100 represents a 600% decrease, the numbers cease to correspond to any coherent pricing system. The calculation implies that prices can fall not merely to zero, but to values several times smaller than zero.
The attraction of the Trump method is easy to understand. By selecting whichever baseline produces the largest possible percentage, the resulting figure acquires an air of spectacular achievement. It transforms an already substantial price reduction into something approaching numerical performance art.
Trump’s alternative arithmetic therefore succeeds in generating impressively large numbers by abandoning the one feature percentages require most: consistency. The result is as unsound as most things about Trump. Yet it seems rhetorically effective – particularly with “low IQ people”, as Trump likes to call his followers.
In other words, by cherry-picking the baseline for maximum impact, the Trump method turns an already solid 83% cut into a sensational “600% savings”. It sacrifices precision for hype – effective populism perhaps, poor math for sure!
None of this would be worth mentioning, of course, if it were the only incident where Trump misleads his public. Sadly, he is telling multiple and often much more consequential untruths on a daily basis.
Guest post by Udo Endruscheit
Two years ago, in a guest post on this blog, I described the long and winding history of homeopathy in Switzerland — a story marked by political expectations, institutional entanglements, and repeated attempts to reconcile a lack of evidence with a desire for legitimacy. I ended that article with the hope that the country would not embark on yet another “honour lap” around the same unresolved questions.
In 2024, however, Switzerland initiated a new evaluation of homeopathy — a renewed attempt to clarify its role within the national health insurance system. It was, in many ways, the beginning of yet another loop in the same story.
Now, in 2026, that loop has come to an unexpected end. The evaluation was halted.
Not postponed, not softened, not watered down — simply stopped.
And this stop is not merely a political gesture. It marks the structural endpoint of a system that has exhausted its internal possibilities.
A system designed to avoid the evidence question
To understand why Switzerland has arrived at this point, one must look beyond the political headlines and examine the institutional landscape that has shaped the country’s approach to homeopathy for more than a decade.
Three elements are central:
- The political mandate created by the 2009 referendum, which placed homeopathy and other CAM modalities into the basic health insurance package.
- The professional environment, in which thousands of Swiss physicians hold CAM qualifications and the national medical association (FMH) views integrative medicine positively.
- The academic anchor, the Institute for Complementary and Integrative Medicine (IKIM) at the University of Bern, which provides an appearance of scientific legitimacy without producing evidence capable of resolving the core question of efficacy.
This combination created a system in which homeopathy became institutionally normalised — not because of evidence, but because of political and professional expectations.
The HTA as a detour — and the beginning of the dead end
When the Federal Office of Public Health (BAG) was tasked with evaluating homeopathy after the referendum, it faced an impossible dilemma:
- The clinical evidence was weak to non‑existent.
- The political expectation was strong.
- A direct assessment of the evidence would have produced a negative result.
The solution was a detour: a Health Technology Assessment (HTA). But HTAs are not designed to determine efficacy. They assume efficacy has already been established through robust clinical research. Their purpose is to assess cost‑effectiveness, safety, and system impact.
The Swiss HTA did the opposite. In its conclusion, it stated:
“The effectiveness of homeopathy can be considered as proven when internal and external validity criteria are taken into account.”
This is a remarkable inversion of the HTA principle. The report asserted efficacy — without the evidence required to do so — while simultaneously admitting that the actual HTA questions (such as cost‑effectiveness) could not be answered reliably.
In retrospect, this HTA was not the beginning of a solution. It was the beginning of a dead end. A system that asserts efficacy without evidence cannot move forward. It can only circle around itself.
The IKIM: an academic structure without academic function
The IKIM at the University of Bern has played a central role in stabilising this circular logic. Its research output is broad in appearance but narrow in substance. It avoids the central question of efficacy and instead focuses on:
- sociological aspects,
- patient satisfaction,
- model validity,
- and experimental approaches that are not independently reproducible.
The IKIM does not produce evidence. It produces normality — the impression that homeopathy is a legitimate academic field simply because it is housed within a university.
This normality has been crucial for maintaining the political and professional acceptance of homeopathy in Switzerland. But it has also contributed to the structural dead end: an academic institution that cannot resolve the evidence question because it is not designed to ask it.
The 2026 decision: not a surprise, but a consequence
Against this background, the 2026 decision to halt the renewed evaluation of homeopathy is not really surprising. It is the logical endpoint of a system that has exhausted its internal possibilities.
- The evidence has not improved.
- The HTA detour has failed to provide a foundation.
- The institutional structures have stabilised expectations but not knowledge.
- The political mandate cannot be fulfilled without contradicting scientific standards.
The result is a dead end. Not because anyone wanted it, but because the system was built in such a way that no other outcome was possible.
A lesson beyond Switzerland
The Swiss case is often cited by proponents of homeopathy as a model of political and professional acceptance. But the 2026 decision reveals a different lesson:
A system that tries to reconcile political expectations with a lack of evidence will eventually reach a point where it can neither move forward nor turn back.
Switzerland has reached that point. The “endless story” of homeopathy in the Swiss health system has not been resolved — but it has reached its structural conclusion.
And unfortunately that conclusion is not a triumph of evidence. It is the recognition that evidence cannot be replaced by institutional normality. But one thing it certainly isn’t: an endorsement of homeopathy, even if its advocates will once again try to interpret it that way.
I am quite fond of garlic, but not as a cancer therapy. Dr. Mohsen Ali, a former doctor whose UK medical license was revoked by the General Medical Council (GMC) in January 2015, has been permanently struck off the medical register following a Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service (MPTS) investigation into his running of an illegal clinic. The tribunal, which began proceedings on December 1, 2025, reconvened on January 14 and concluded from April 22 to 24, 2026, found Ali guilty of serious professional misconduct for preying on vulnerable cancer patients with unproven and dangerous treatments.
In 2018, Ali treated two patients from a semi-detached Leicester property described as a “squalid council house.” Patient A had stage three prostate cancer, while Patient B suffered from terminal ovarian cancer. Referred to Ali by word-of-mouth, both were told he could cure their cancers with a claimed 90% success rate. He charged Patient A up to £15,000 and Patient B between £10,000 and £12,000 for sessions involving intravenous vitamin C, garlic oil, ozone therapy, oxygenated water, and sodium bicarbonate injections.
Ali disparaged conventional medicine, asserting that the NHS was “killing them” through ineffective chemotherapy and radiotherapy, while “big pharma companies were making money.” During a phone call, he laughed off Patient A’s diagnosis, calling prostate cancer “easy to cure.” For Patient B, he overrode the NHS’s prognosis that nothing more could be done, promising her husband a full recovery. Patient B died shortly after stopping treatment, before police and Public Health England (PHE) probes began.
The case surfaced when Patient A emailed Leicestershire Police, prompting a GMC referral. A police raid uncovered a flyer at Ali’s address, advertising him as a “qualified doctor” who left the NHS because standard treatments “did not work.” It invoked “Allah the best healer” and boasted over 90% cure rates for cancers and other severe illnesses.
MPTS evidence revealed grave hygiene failures. PHE inspections described the property as a “dirty and unhygienic” shared residential-clinical space with visibly contaminated surfaces, reused equipment without decontamination, and no basic infection prevention measures. Ali reused intravenous bags, exposing patients to serious infection risks. The tribunal deemed his actions dishonest, as he knew these were not evidence-based cancer cures.
An expert witness confirmed no clinical studies support these so-called alternative medicines (SCAMs) for curing any cancer. Ali also failed to obtain informed consent, particularly from Patient B. Absent from the hearing, he emailed the GMC denying claims of cure, but the flyer and patient testimonies contradicted him.
Ali, who graduated from Cairo University in 1994 and practiced in the UK from 2001 was erased him from the register, underscoring the dangers of unqualified SCAM practitioners – even (or perhaps especially) when they have a doctor title.
