integrative medicine
So-called alternative medicine (SCAM) likes to present itself as a champion of disease prevention. Its advocates routinely claim to promote health before disease develops, to strengthen the body’s defences, and to address root causes rather than symptoms. This rhetoric is highly attractive, because prevention sounds proactive, humane, and economical. Crucially, it is also good for the SCAM practitioner’s bank account. Yet there is a snag: almost none of the preventive claims made for SCAM are supported by reliable evidence, whereas the prevention that works comes overwhelmingly from conventional medicine and science.
To show preventive benefit, an intervention must demonstrably reduce the incidence of symptom, disease, complication, or mortality in properly designed studies. That may require randomised trials, epidemiological studies, large cohorts, reproducible findings, and enough follow-up to show that fewer people actually experienced the given endpoint. Mainstream medicine has repeatedly met this standard. Immunization, blood pressure control, smoking cessation, lipid lowering, cancer screening, and risk-factor modification are all products of biomedical research, not of alternative healing traditions.
SCAM, by contrast, tends to use prevention in a loose, impressionistic, and unfalsifiable way. A practitioner may claim that a treatment “balances energy,” “supports immunity,” or “keeps the body in harmony,” but such phrases do not establish a preventive effect. They are placeholders for evidence, not evidence itself. In practice, the absence of disease after treatment is treated as proof that the treatment worked, even though the same outcome occurs every day without any intervention at all.
Acupuncture is a good example. Its defenders portray it as a preventive system capable of preserving general health or warding off illness, but the evidence base does not support that claim. Some reviews do suggest that acupuncture may help with some pain-related and symptom-focused conditions, yet its preventive value is largely unproven. I am not aware of solid evidence to show that acupuncture prevents anything – but, if I am wrong, please do correct me.
Chiropractic care is even more revealing because preventive claims are often tied to the doctrine of spinal “subluxation” and nervous system dysfunction. Yet the literature on prevention is thin and methodologically weak. I am not aware of solid evidence to show that chiropractic prevents anything – but, if I am wrong, please do correct me.
Herbalism benefits from the romantic appeal of “natural” remedies, but that appeal should not be confused with demonstrated preventive efficacy. Individual plant compounds have certainly inspired real drugs, yet that is a triumph of pharmacology, not of herbalism as a system. When herbal medicines are tested for prevention, results are usually weak, inconsistent, or insufficient to support recommendation. I am not aware of solid evidence to show that herbal medicine prevents anything – but, if I am wrong, please do correct me.
Homeopathy is one of the most extreme cases within SCAM. It is often sold as gentle, individualized, and even preventive, but its basic principles are scientifically implausible, and its clinical evidence is either flawed or negative. Preventive homeopathy, including ideas such as “homeoprophylaxis,” is particularly problematic because it can give people a false sense of security while displacing interventions that genuinely prevent disease, such as vaccination. I am not aware of solid evidence to show that homeopathy prevents anything – but, if I am wrong, please do correct me.
SCAM speaks almost constantly about prevention, but the evidence for actual preventive benefit is close to non-existent. What we know about prevention, what truly reduces disease incidence and improves population health, comes from conventional medicine, epidemiology, public health, and biological science. SCAM will no doubt continue to borrow the language of medicine and prevention, but – as far as I can see – it has failed to supply the proof.
Quackademia, a term created [as far as I remember] by David Colquhoun for the infiltration of quackery into academia, has often been discussed on this blog, e.g.:
- Quackademia in Canada: the first bachelor’s degree in Traditional Chinese Medicine
- Quackademia galore: An Oxford ‘university’ starts a course in ‘veterinary chiropractic’
- Quackademia at its most rampant: the ‘Certificate in Holistic Health and Healing Arts’ (HHHA) at the University of New Mexico
- Another blow to quackademia: TCM course at a Sydney university is to be stopped
- Vienna 2019: the end of quackademia
- Quackademia down under
- Quackademia revisited
- Quackademia
Now growing backlash against quackademia seems to finally emerge also in France – opposition against university programs that give academic legitimacy to unproven so-called alternative medicine (SCAM). The Higher Council for the Evaluation of Research and Higher Education is preparing to review these courses, after criticism that universities are lending credibility to practices that have not been scientifically validated.
Across France, more than 200 university diplomas are said to exist in areas such as reflexology, aromatherapy, auriculotherapy, hypnosis, acupuncture, homeopathy, meditation, and related practices. Critics argue that this amounts to a form of institutional “entryism,” because the university label can make such practices look medically endorsed even when they are not.
The main concern is not just whether these therapies work, but whether universities should be teaching them at all. A January report on health misinformation reportedly recommended banning the academic labeling of healthcare practices that have not been validated, and that recommendation is at the center of the debate. Experts warn that, if a SCAM is scientifically validated, it belongs in medicine; if it is not, it may still be studied, but should not be taught as an academic medical qualification. They also warn that these programs can mislead the public and create a false impression of legitimacy. Yet, some deans and faculty leaders say that certain courses, especially acupuncture, hypnosis, or mindfulness, can be acceptable when used for specific indications and when properly framed. They distinguish those from programs in naturopathy, aromatherapy, or homeopathy, which they see as much harder to justify inside medical faculties.
As the Conference of Medical Deans is preparing to examine the issue rigorously, they should – I feel – also consider the ethical implications. Teaching dangerous nonsense to naive students is not just not academic, it is deeply unethical. If done well, this excercise should lead to a major cleanup of universities regarding SCAM, or at the very least to much tighter rules about what can carry an academic label.
Having observed French quackademia for decades, I am tempted to exclaim:
BETTER LATE THAN NEVER!
I came across an interesting paper entitled “The Ethics of Tawas and Other Rituals in Medical Practices“. Here is its abstract:
Rituals in medical practice have either been seen as an anthropological aspect of current biomedical processes or as a pre-scientific aspect of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM). In either tendency, the literature has since failed to account for these rituals as rituals—conveyors of meaning, expressions of identity, and even as a rite of passage from illness to wellness. As an alternative to current discussions, this paper presents the case study of tawas, a diagnostic ritual from Philippine traditional medicine that determines personalistic and mystical causes of illnesses. As a non-intrusive procedure, tawas involves incantations and some ritual objects, e.g., rice, candle, axe, etc., that do not pose any direct harm nor benefit to the patient. While complete reliance on tawas at the expense of proper medical procedures could harm patients, the very ritual of tawas itself occupies a limbo within non-beneficence and non-maleficence. Following a Wittgensteinian perspective of treating rituals as meaning-laden human activities, this paper argues that rituals like tawas, much like other rituals embedded in biomedical practices, should be understood as rituals and not as empirical cures, thereby allowing their tolerance in medical practice in general.
The author seems to advocate for the cultural integration of traditional practices like tawas into a broader medical framework. They categorize tawas not as a physiological intervention, but define it as a conveyor of meaning. By addressing the “meaning-laden” aspect of illness, the ritual may address the psychological and social dimensions of a patient’s health, even if it has no effect on their physical pathology.
It is claimed that, since tawas involves non-intrusive objects (candles, rice), it is physically benign. At the same time it is acknowledged that “complete reliance” on tawas could harm patients. From a clinical safety standpoint, the “limbo” is only maintained if the ritual is strictly adjunctive rather than alternative.
The text uses a Wittgensteinian perspective, focusing on rituals as expressions rather than theories. Modern neuroscience suggests that the “ritual” of care—the white coat, the focused attention, the diagnostic process—triggers real neurobiological changes (e.g., dopamine and endorphin release). Aacknowledging the symbolic healing power that rituals have on patient anxiety and the “meaning response,” which can objectively improve health outcomes by reducing cortisol and stress.
The author identifies tawas as a diagnostic ritual which might well be the most contentious point. In science, a “diagnosis” must be reliable and valid. Tawas clearly fails the scientific criteria for validity. The author’s defence is that tawas shouldn’t be judged by those criteria at all. While this might be philosophically sound, in a clinical setting, a “mystical diagnosis” must conflict with a biological one, potentially leading to patient non-compliance with life-saving treatments.
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.
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.
The defence of anthroposophical medicine – or of any other unproven modality – as articulated, for example, by figures like Weleda CEO Tina Müller, presents a vision of patient-centred care and economic pragmatism. However, when held against the light of current clinical standards and the principles of evidence-based medicine (EBM), it reveals significant cracks.
The most profound problem lies in the definition of scientific evidence. Proponents often point to decades of “positive experience” and high patient satisfaction as proof of effectiveness. Yet, in the hierarchy of science, anecdotal success sits at the very bottom. Anthroposophical treatments lack biological plausibility. Their perceived benefits are largely indistinguishable from context effects (such as placebo). Anthroposophical medicine might provide more time, empathy, and personal attention – factors that undoubtedly improve a patient’s well-being but do not validate the effectiveness of the specific remedies used. When independent bodies subject these treatments to rigorous, high-quality trials, the purported effects usually vanishe.
Anthroposophical medicine represents merely a tiny percentage of our healthcare expenditures. Therefore, proponents argue, little money would be saved by getting rid of it. This argument is a calculated distraction from the ethical core of the issue. While the fiscal burden may be marginal, the scientific cost is immense. A statutory health insurance system is built on a social contract of solidarity; it functions under the premise that public funds are reserved for treatments of proven value and effectiveness. To fund therapies that lack plausibility as well as reproducible results is to erode the credibility of medicine and rational thought. It is not a question of the amount of money, but the principle of integrity: every Euro, £ and $ spent on unproven treatments is a euro, £, and $ diverted from underfunded and often life-saving healthcare.
The regularly made appeal to the Swiss Model as a beacon of success also requires a more critical reading. The integration of so-called alternative medicine (SCAM) in Switzerland was, at its heart, a result of direct democracy rather than evidence. While the Swiss public voted for inclusion, the majority of the medical community remains deeply sceptical. To cite Switzerland as “proof” that anthroposophical medicine has fulfilled the criteria of EBM is to conflate political popularity with scientific validation. Democracy can decide how a nation spends its money, but it cannot vote a reliable evidence-base into existence.
Finally, we must consider the human risk of legitimizing non-evidenced-based practices. When a state-sanctioned insurance system places such therapies on the same pedestal as EBM, it risks misleading vulnerable individuals. For patients facing chronic or life-threatening illnesses, the “integrative” path can lead to a dangerous delay in seeking conventional, life-saving interventions. By treating subjective belief and peer-reviewed science as equal peers, we risk entering a “post-truth” medical era where the desire for a “natural” or “holistic” experience outweighs the necessity for proof.
In conclusion, while the call for a more “human” and “holistic” medical system might be noble, it must not come at the expense of scientific rigor. It is deeply misleading to imply that this is an ‘either or’; good medicine will always be based on both. A healthcare system that prioritizes popularity over proof risks becoming a system of expensive comfort rather than one of effective healing. True patient appreciation lies not in offering unproven choices, but in ensuring that every treatment covered by the public purse is supported by sound evidence. Not following this strategy is a disservice to patients and to progress.
So, the next time you hear people defending anthroposophical medicine or any other unproven modality, please look behind the smoke screen and find out why they do it. More often than not, you will then identify a massive conflict of interest. My advice is to listen to independent experts and to dismiss the people with an axe to grind.
Tonsillitis is a common condition predominantly affecting children and adolescents, presenting as acute, recurrent, or chronic infection. This review evaluated the effectiveness of homeopathy for clinical improvement and recurrence prevention across all tonsillitis presentations.
A team of scientists searched nine databases and four trial registries for randomised controlled trials (RCTs) and non-randomised controlled trials (nRCTs) involving patients of all ages with diagnosed tonsillitis. Studies examining individualised homeopathy (IH) and non-individualised homeopathy (non-IH) were included, compared with an inactive or active control group. Primary outcomes were clinical improvement (symptoms and signs) and recurrence. Secondary outcomes were antibiotic consumption, healthcare utilisation, quality of life, costs, and adverse events. Data extraction, Risk of Bias assessment, and certainty of evidence evaluation (GRADE) followed established methodology.
Five RCTs compared homeopathy with placebo (n=4) or standard care (n=1): one used IH, one used both IH and non-IH, and three used non-IH. Two RCTs examined acute tonsillitis, two examined recurrent tonsillitis, and one examined chronic tonsillitis. Three trials enrolled children, one enrolled adults, and one enrolled a mixed population. Sample sizes ranged from 30 to 256. Substantial heterogeneity across populations, interventions, and outcomes precluded meta-analysis. Individual RCTs showed that, in acute tonsillitis, non-IH achieved short-term symptom improvement. In recurrent tonsillitis, both IH and non-IH were associated with reduced infection recurrence, lower antibiotic consumption, and improved quality of life, with the strongest evidence for a standardised non-IH complex (SilAtro-5-90). In chronic tonsillitis, IH showed delayed but consistent improvements in symptoms, recurrence, healthcare utilisation, and quality of life by 2–3 months, with early outcomes favouring placebo. The certainty of evidence for all outcomes was low. No serious adverse events were reported.
The authors concluded that the evidence from individual trials suggests that both individualised and non-individualised homeopathy may benefit clinical improvement, reduce infection recurrence, reduce antibiotic use, and enhance quality of life in tonsillitis, with no safety concerns reported. However, substantial heterogeneity across studies and methodological limitations restrict the ability to draw definitive conclusions about homeopathy’s effectiveness in patients with tonsillitis. Further well-designed, adequately-powered trials with standardised outcomes and consistent methodological approaches are needed to strengthen the evidence base and enable more robust conclusions.
My critical evaluation of this paper is impeded by the fact that two of its authors were once members of my own team. On the one hand, this might assure me that their review is of a high standard, on the other hand it hinders me to voice harsh criticism. Fortunately, they include their own valid criticism of their project:
One study was a pilot study and therefore not appropriately powered [36] and one was published by a single researcher not following a formal publication protocol or underwent a formal peer-review process [34]. One study used an add-on design [31] which is a recognised methodology in clinical research, not unique to homeopathy, and their limitations regarding attribution of effect are well understood and acknowledged. We do acknowledge the possibility of publication bias and the limitations of a small evidence base. We also note there are issues arising from numerous outcomes, subscales, and repeated time-point analyses, which substantially increases the likelihood of false-positive findings.
Further variability was introduced by unclear definitions of some secondary outcomes and by differences in definitions across studies. Two of the five studies reported on their funding body. One did not receive funding [37] and Palm et al., 2017 [31] was sponsored by Deutsche Homoopathie-Union, DHU-Arzneimittel GmbH & Co. Germany.
They also are open about the funding of their work:
Existing funds held by Homeopathy Research Institute (HRI) – donated by Manchester Homeopathic Clinic Charitable Trust – were donated to University of Bristol to conduct the systematic review. The funders had no involvement in the study design; in the collection, analysis and interpretation of the data; in the writing of the report; and in the decision to submit the paper for publication.
So, what should we make of their effort? Let me just state this:
If I had to advise them on how to improve their review substantially, I would have suggested they re-phrase their conclusion. I am sure that something like this would have been much more adequate:
Most of the included trials were positive yet, because of substantial heterogeneity and methodological limitations of the primary studies, the evidence collectively fails to show that individualised or non-individualised homeopathy are effective treatments for tonsillitis.
- IHMPs (verum; n = 67),
- or identical-looking placebos (control; n = 67)
Both treatments were administered alongside standard concomitant care including sitz baths, pelvic floor exercises, and dietary advice.
- Department of Repertory, D. N. De Homoeopathic Medical College and Hospital, Government of West Bengal, Kolkata, India.
- East Bishnupur State Homoeopathic Dispensary, Chandi Daulatabad Block Primary Health Centre, under Department of Health & Family Welfare, Government of West Bengal, Parganas, India.
- Department of Pathology & Microbiology, D. N. De Homoeopathic Medical College and Hospital, Government of West Bengal, Kolkata, India.
- Department of Organon of Medicine and Homoeopathic Philosophy, D. N. De Homoeopathic Medical College and Hospital, Government of West Bengal, Kolkata, India.
- Department of Materia Medica, D. N. De Homoeopathic Medical College and Hospital, Government of West Bengal, Kolkata, India.
- Department of Organon of Medicine and Homoeopathic Philosophy, National Institute of Homoeopathy, Ministry of AYUSH, Government of India, Salt Lake, Kolkata, India.
- Department of Community Medicine, D. N. De Homoeopathic Medical College and Hospital, Government of West Bengal, Tangra, India.
This list does not inspire me with confidence that this study is reliable.
Next I looked around for further trials of homeopathy for hemorrhoids – and I found another study by the same authors published 2 years earlier in the same dodgy journal:
Objectives: To investigate the efficacy and safety of individualized homeopathic medicines (IHMs) in treating hemorrhoids compared with placebo. Design: This is a double-blind, randomized (1:1), two parallel arms, placebo-controlled trial. Setting: The trial was conducted at the surgery outpatient department of the State National Homoeopathic Medical College and Hospital, Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, India. Subjects: Patients were 140 women and men, aged between 18 and 65 years, with a diagnosis of primary hemorrhoids grades I-III for at least 3 months. Excluded were the patients with grade IV hemorrhoids, anal fissure, and fistula, hypertrophic anal papillae, inflammatory bowel disease, coagulation disorders, rectal malignancies, obstructed portal circulation, patients requiring immediate surgical intervention, and vulnerable samples. Interventions: Patients were randomized to Group 1 (n = 70; IHMs plus concomitant care; verum) and Group 2 (n = 70; placebos plus concomitant care; control). Outcome measures: Primary-the anorectal symptom severity and quality-of-life (ARSSQoL) questionnaire, and secondary-the EuroQol 5-dimensions 5-levels (EQ-5D-5L) questionnaire and EQ visual analogue scale (VAS); all of them were measured at baseline, and every month, up to 3 months. Results: Out of the 140 randomized patients, 122 were protocol compliant. Intention-to-treat sample (n = 140) was analyzed. The level of significance was set at p < 0.05 two tailed. Statistically significant between-group differences were elicited in the ARSSQoL total (Mann-Whitney U [MWU]: 1227.0, p < 0.001) and EQ-5D-5L VAS (MWU: 1228.0, p = 0.001) favoring homeopathy against placebos. Sulfur was the most frequently prescribed medicine. No harm or serious adverse events were reported from either of the groups. Conclusions: IHMs demonstrated superior results over placebo in the short-term treatment of hemorrhoids of grades I-III. The findings are promising, but need to be substantiated by further phase 3 trials.
Are we to believe that the authors were able to pull off 2 large almost identical studies within just 2 years?
Pull the other one!
This review was aimed at analyzing the scientific evidence on Reiki intervention as a nursing care strategy for people with cancer. For this purpose, the researchers searched six databases, including primary studies, in Portuguese, Spanish and/or English, about the evidence on the use of Reiki intervention as a care strategy for cancer patients, totaling five publications.
The included studies suggest potential benefits of Reiki intervention, such as pain relief, reduction of physical symptoms (fatigue and insomnia) and improvement in emotional aspects, such as anxiety and stress. However, the results are still limited in terms of methodological robustness and generalizability.
The Brazilian authors concluded that, although the findings indicate beneficial effects of Reiki in people with oncological diseases, there is a limited production of clinical trials aimed at the application of this therapy in clinical nursing practice. Reiki can be considered a complementary strategy in nursing care, as long as it is integrated into an individualized therapeutic plan. It is recommended that studies with greater methodological rigor be carried out to evaluate the effectiveness of Reiki applied by oncology nurses.
The authors explain that “Reiki is a practice that uses the laying on of hands and symbols to channel universal life energy to recharge, realign and rebalance the human energy field. Its objective is to undo energetic blockages that compromise the flow of vital energy, and maintain harmony between the body, mind and spirit.” With just 2 sentences, the authors inply that Reiki has a sound scientific basis which they do not question in their paper at all. Yet phenomena such as live energy, regarging, realigning and rebalancing human energy fields, energetic blockages in the human body, flow of vital energy could not be less scientific. In fact, they are pure fantasy and have no basis in reality.
The authors also explain that 20 % (n=1) of the included studies were qualitative, 20 % (n=1) were quasi-experimental, 20 % (n=1) were reports of professional experience, and 40 % (n=2) consisted of randomized clinical trials (RCTs). On closer scrutiny, none of the RCTs was sufficiently rigorous to allow firm, positive conclusions. In other words, there is no good evidence and the conclusion that Reiki is beneficial for cancer patients is nonsense.
The authors note that, in 2017, with the publication of Ordinance No. 849, of March 27, Reiki was officially included in the Brazilian public health network. In view of the above mentioned lack of plausibility combined with a lack of effectiveness, this inclusion seems wholly irresponsible.
The case of the 14-year-old girl who died of cancer is now occupying the Klagenfurt Regional Court for the second time. The girl’s parent elected to trust miracle healers and esoteric practitioners. Ultimately, the 14-year-old arrived at the hospital far too late—the cancer was already so advanced that the girl died less than two days later.
The parents have already been convicted of torture and neglect. During their criminal trial, the doctor came into the prosecution’s focus. He had administered four infusions of “cat’s claw” to the 14-year-old. The doctor admitted to this last year during his testimony as a witness, where he raved about the “miracle plant” cat’s claw, claiming it could heal almost anything.
He was also accused of using a pendulum to “test” the girl’s tumor and certifying it as benign. His response at the time was that he does not use a pendulum; rather, he had “dowsed” the tumor using a biotensor—a small metal spring. He claimed that when he failed to get a clear result, he urgently recommended the parents seek a biopsy, which they strictly refused. He alleged they eventually broke off treatment with him.
According to the indictment, the doctor is allegedly responsible for a further patient’s death by administering the herbal infusion. The man had collapsed after receiving it, suffered a heart attack and a stroke, and died weeks later from the consequences.
Furthermore, the doctor is accused of “grossly negligently causing a danger to the life and health of at least 6,550 people from May 2007 to May 2025.” Contrary to the standards of medical practice, he is said to have intravenously administered essences that were only approved as food products. The prosecutor referred to an analysis of the infusion solutions: “These were not pure; they contained soil and ash particles.” They were reportedly “brewed together in a backyard” – the contamination, she noted, could lead to the formation of blood clots. During his questioning, the trained intensive care physician rejected all guilt: “I feel in no way responsible.” He stated he had treated numerous cancer patients—for example, with cat’s claw or high-dose vitamin C.
In the case of the 14-year-old, the doctor insisted he was able to “see that something was not right” using the device. He claimed he only learned much later that the parents had canceled a biopsy appointment after their session with him. Furthermore: “Father and daughter always rejected any conventional medical therapy or diagnostics.” He maintained that he always noted his infusions could only boost the immune system and improve well-being, but never promised anything.
Regarding the case of the other deceased man, the doctor argued that the patient had already received 17 infusions from him prior to the incident in question and had always felt better afterward. After the final infusion, the patient felt unwell for a while, but his condition supposedly improved. The doctor claimed it was absolutely not anaphylactic shock: “Otherwise, I wouldn’t have let him go home.”
The defendant questioned each and every expert opinion obtained for the case. Regarding the statement that it is impossible for a tumor to shrink due to his infusions, he said, “I wouldn’t sign off on that.” As for the infusions, he claimed they were filtered multiple times and specially prepared for intravenous use.
A date for this has not yet been set. So, watch this space!
