homeopathy
On the website of the Bristol University Hospital, it was just revealed that UK homeopathy seems to have suffered another blow:
“Homeopathic medicine has been available in Bristol since 1852, when Dr Black first started dispensing from premises in the Triangle. During the next 69 years the service developed and expanded culminating in the commissioning in 1921 of a new hospital in the grounds of Cotham House. The Bristol Homeopathic Hospital continued to provide a full range of services until 1986 when the in-patient facilities were transferred to the Bristol Eye Hospital, where they continue to be provided, and outpatient services were moved to the ground floor of the Cotham Hill site. In 1994, following the sale of the main building to the University by the Bristol and District Health Authority, a new purpose built Department was provided in the Annexe buildings of the main building, adjoining the original Cotham House. The NHS Homeopathic Service is now being delivered on behalf of University Hospital Bristol by the Portland Centre for Integrative Medicine (PCIM), a Community Interest Company.”
The Portland Centre for Integrative Medicine has joined Litfield House offering medical homeopathy with Dr Elizabeth Thompson. And this is how the new service is described [I have added references in the following unabridged quote in bold which refer to my comments below]:
Medical Homeopathy is a holistic [1] approach delivered by registered health care professionals that uses a low dose of an activated [2] natural [3] substance [4] to stimulate a self-healing response in the body [5]. At the first appointment the doctor will take time to understand problem symptoms that might be physical, emotional or psychological and then a treatment plan will be discussed between the patient and the doctor [6], with homeopathic medicines chosen for you or your child on an individual basis.
WHAT CONDITIONS ARE SUITABLE FOR MEDICAL HOMEOPATHY?
Homeopathy can be safely [7] used to improve symptoms and well-being across a wide range of long term conditions: from childhood eczema [8] and ADHD [9]; to adults with medically unexplained conditions [10]; inflammatory bowel disease [11], cancer [12] or chronic fatigue syndrome [13]; and other medical conditions, including obesity [14] and depression [15]. Some people use homeopathy to stay well [16] and others use it to help difficult symptoms and/ or the side effects of conventional treatments [17].
This looks like a fairly bland and innocent little advertisement at first glance. If we analyse it closer, however, we find plenty of misleading claims. Here are the ones that caught my eye:
- Homeopaths claim that their approach is holistic and thus aim at differentiating it from conventional health care. This is misleading because ALL good medicine is by definition holistic.
- Nothing is ‘activated’; homeopaths believe that succession releases the ‘vital force’ in a remedy – but this is little more than hocus-pocus from the dark ages of medicine.
- Nothing is natural about endlessly diluting and shaking a medicine, while pretending that this ritual renders it more active and effective. And nothing is natural about remedies such as ‘Berlin Wall’.
- It is misleading to speak about ‘substance’ in relation to homeopathic remedies, because they can be manufactured also from non-material stuff too; examples are remedies such as X-ray, sol [sun light] or lunar [moonlight].
- The claim that homeopathic remedies stimulate the self-healing properties of the body is pure phantasy.
- “The doctor will take time to understand problem symptoms that might be physical, emotional or psychological and then a treatment plan will be discussed between the patient and the doctor” – this also applies to any consultation with any health care practitioner.
- Homeopathy is not as safe as homeopaths try to make us believe; several posts on this blog have dealt with this issue.
- There is no good evidence to support this claim.
- There is no good evidence to support this claim.
- There is no good evidence to support this claim.
- There is no good evidence to support this claim.
- There is no good evidence to support this claim.
- There is no good evidence to support this claim.
- There is no good evidence to support this claim.
- There is no good evidence to support this claim.
- True, some people use anything for anything; but there is no sound evidence to show that homeopathy is an effective prophylactic intervention for any disease.
- Nor is there good evidence that it is effective to “help difficult symptoms and/ or the side effects of conventional treatments”.
So, what we have here is a short paragraph which, on closer inspection, turns out to be full of misleading statements, bogus claims and dangerous lies. Not a good start for a new episode in the life of the now dramatically down-sized homeopathic clinic in Bristol, I’d say. And neither is it a publication of which the Bristol University Hospital can be proud. I suggest they correct it as a matter of urgency; otherwise they risk a barrage of complaints to the appropriate regulators by people who treasure the truth a little more than they seem to do themselves.
Recently an interesting article caught my eye. It was published in the official journal of the ‘Deutscher Zentralverein Homoeopathischer Aerzte’ (the professional body of German doctor homeopath which mostly acts as a lobby group). Unfortunately it is in German – but I will try to take you through what I believe to be the most important issue.
The article seems to have the aim to defame Natalie Grams, the homeopath who had the courage to change her mind about homeopathy and to even write a book about her transformation. This book impressed me so much that I wrote a post about it when it was first published. The book did, however, not impress her ex-colleagues. Consequently the book review by the German lobbyists is full of personal attacks and almost devoid of credible facts.
A central claim of the defamatory piece is that, contrary to what she claims in her book, homeopathy is supported by sound evidence. Here is the crucial quote: Meta-Analysen von Kleijnen (1991), Linde (1997), Cucherat (2000) und Mathie (2014) [liefern] allesamt positive Ergebnisse zur Wirksamkeit der Homöopathie… This translates as follows: meta-analyses of Kleijnen, Linde, Cucherat and Matie all provide positive results regarding the effectiveness of homeopathy. As this is a claim, we hear ad nauseam whenever we discuss the issue with homeopathy (in the UK, most homeopathic bodies and even the Queen’s homeopath, P Fisher, have issued very similar statements), it may be worth addressing it once and for all.
- CUCHERAT
This paper was the result of an EU-funded project in which I was involved as well; I therefore know about it first hand. The meta-analysis itself is quite odd in that it simply averages the p-values of all the included studies and thus provides a new overall p-value across all trials. As far as I know, this is not an accepted meta-analytic method and seems rather a lazy way of doing the job. The man on our EU committee was its senior author, professor Boissel, who did certainly not present it to us as a positive result for homeopathy (even Peter Fisher who also was a panel member should be able to confirm this). What is more, the published conclusions are not nearly as positive as out lobbyists seem to think: ‘There is some evidence that homeopathic treatments are more effective than placebo; however, the strength of this evidence is low because of the low methodological quality of the trials. Studies of high methodological quality were more likely to be negative than the lower quality studies. Further high quality studies are needed to confirm these results.’
- LINDE
The meta-analysis by Linde et al seems to be the flag-ship in the homeopathic fleet. For those who don’t know it, here is its abstract in full:
BACKGROUND: Homeopathy seems scientifically implausible, but has widespread use. We aimed to assess whether the clinical effect reported in randomised controlled trials of homeopathic remedies is equivalent to that reported for placebo.
METHODS: We sought studies from computerised bibliographies and contracts with researchers, institutions, manufacturers, individual collectors, homeopathic conference proceedings, and books. We included all languages. Double-blind and/or randomised placebo-controlled trials of clinical conditions were considered. Our review of 185 trials identified 119 that met the inclusion criteria. 89 had adequate data for meta-analysis, and two sets of trial were used to assess reproducibility. Two reviewers assessed study quality with two scales and extracted data for information on clinical condition, homeopathy type, dilution, “remedy”, population, and outcomes.
FINDINGS: The combined odds ratio for the 89 studies entered into the main meta-analysis was 2.45 (95% CI 2.05, 2.93) in favour of homeopathy. The odds ratio for the 26 good-quality studies was 1.66 (1.33, 2.08), and that corrected for publication bias was 1.78 (1.03, 3.10). Four studies on the effects of a single remedy on seasonal allergies had a pooled odds ratio for ocular symptoms at 4 weeks of 2.03 (1.51, 2.74). Five studies on postoperative ileus had a pooled mean effect-size-difference of -0.22 standard deviations (95% CI -0.36, -0.09) for flatus, and -0.18 SDs (-0.33, -0.03) for stool (both p < 0.05).
INTERPRETATION: The results of our meta-analysis are not compatible with the hypothesis that the clinical effects of homeopathy are completely due to placebo. However, we found insufficient evidence from these studies that homeopathy is clearly efficacious for any single clinical condition. Further research on homeopathy is warranted provided it is rigorous and systematic.
Again, the conclusions are not nearly as strongly in favour of homeopaths as the German lobby group assumes. Moreover, this paper has been extensively criticised for a wide range of reasons which I shall not have to repeat here. However, one point is often over-looked: this is not an assessment of RCTs, it is an analysis of studies which were double-blind and/or randomised and placebo-controlled. This means that it includes trials that were not randomised and studies that were not double-blind.
But this is just by the way. What seems much more important is the fact that, in response to the plethora of criticism to their article, the same authors published a re-analysis of exactly the same data-set two years later. Having considered the caveats and limitations more carefully, they now concluded that ‘in the study set investigated, there was clear evidence that studies with better methodological quality tended to yield less positive results.’
It is most intriguing to see how homeopaths cite their ‘flagship’ on virtually every possible occasion, while forgetting that a quasi correction has been published which puts the prior conclusions in a very different light !
- KLEIJNEN
The much-cited article by Kleijnen is now far too old to be truly relevant. It includes not even half of the trials available today. But, for what it’s worth, here are Kleijnen’s conclusions: At the moment the evidence of clinical trials is positive but not sufficient to draw definitive conclusions because most trials are of low methodological quality and because of the unknown role of publication bias. This indicates that there is a legitimate case for further evaluation of homoeopathy, but only by means of well performed trials.
If the homeopathy lobby today proclaims that this paper constitutes proof of efficacy, they are in my view deliberately misleading the public.
- MATHIE
The Mathie meta-analysis has been extensively discussed on this blog (see here and here). It is not an overall meta-analysis but merely evaluates the subset of those trials that employed individualised homeopathy. Crucially, it omits the two most rigorous studies which happen to be negative. Its conclusions are as follows: ‘Medicines prescribed in individualised homeopathy may have small, specific treatment effects. Findings are consistent with sub-group data available in a previous ‘global’ systematic review. The low or unclear overall quality of the evidence prompts caution in interpreting the findings. New high-quality RCT research is necessary to enable more decisive interpretation.’
Again, I would suggest that anyone who interprets this as stating that this provides ‘positive results regarding the effectiveness of homeopathy’ is not telling the truth.
MY CONCLUSIONS FROM ALL THIS:
- Some systematic reviews and meta-analyses do indeed suggest that the trial data are positive. However, they all caution that such a result might be false-positive.
- None of these papers provide anything near a proof for the effectiveness of homeopathy.
- Homeopathy has not been shown to be more than a placebo therapy.
- To issue statements to the contrary is dishonest.
An Indian chain of homeopathic clinics, Dr Batra’s, has just opened its first branch in London. The new website is impressive. It claims homeopathy is effective for the following conditions:
Hair loss? Are they serious? Have they not seen pictures of Samuel Hahnemann?
I decided to look into the psoriasis claim a little closer. This is what they state regarding the homeopathic treatment of psoriasis:
Research-based evidences speak clear and loud of the success of homeopathy in treating psoriasis.
A study published in the Journal of the European Academy of Dermatology and Venereology, a conventional medical Journal, showed that psoriasis patients experienced significant improvement in their quality of life and reduction in their psoriasis symptoms with homeopathy. And this was without any kind of side-effects whatsoever. Of the 82 patients involved in the study that went on for 2 years, many had suffered psoriasis for as long as 15 years and had previously unsuccessfully tried conventional treatments.
At Dr. Batra’s we have successfully treated more than 25,000 cases of psoriasis with homeopathy over the last 35 years. Our safe and scientific solutions have brought smiles to many suffering patients of psoriasis. In fact, a study conducted by A.C. Nielson showed that as compared to general practitioners, specialists and local homeopaths, a higher than average improvement is seen at Dr. Batra’s in treatment of skin ailments.
To the reader who does not look deeper, this may sound fairly convincing. Sadly, it is not. The first study cited above was an uncontrolled trial. Here is its abstract:
Design Prospective multicentre observational study. Objective To evaluate details and effects of homeopathic treatment in patients with psoriasis in usual medical care. Methods Primary care patients were evaluated over 2 years using standardized questionnaires, recording diagnoses and complaints severity, health-related quality of life (QoL), medical history, consultations, all treatments, and use of other health services. Results Forty-five physicians treated 82 adults, 51.2% women, aged 41.6 +/- 12.2 (mean +/- SD) years. Patients had psoriasis for 14.7 +/- 11.9 years; 96.3% had been treated before. Initial case taking took 127 +/- 47 min. The 7.4 +/- 7.4 subsequent consultations (duration: 19.4 +/- 10.5 min) cumulated to 169.0 +/- 138.8 min. Patients received 6.0 +/- 4.9 homeopathic prescriptions. Diagnoses and complaints severity improved markedly with large effect sizes (Cohen’s d= 1.02-2.09). In addition, QoL improved (SF-36 physical component score d = 0.26, mental component score d = 0.49), while conventional treatment and health service use were considerably reduced. Conclusions Under classical homeopathic treatment, patients with psoriasis improved in symptoms and QoL.
It is clear that, due to the lack of a control group, no causal inference can be made between the treatment and the outcome. To claim that otherwise is in my view bogus.
I should mention that there is not a single controlled clinical trial of homeopathy for psoriasis that would support the claim that it is effective.
The second study is not listed in Medline. In fact, the only publication of an author by the name of ‘A C Nielson’ is entitled ‘Are men more intuitive when it comes to eating and physical activity?’. Until I see the evidence, I very much doubt that the study cited above produced strong evidence that homeopathy is an effective cure for psoriasis.
Dr Batra’s chain of clinics boasts to provide the best quality and the highest standards of services that percolate down to all levels in an organisation. Everyone in the institute and those associated with it strive for excellence in whatever they do. Measuring the degree of customer satisfaction was the fundamental concept on which this homeopathic institute’s commitment to become a patient-driven institution was built.
Nice words! SHAME THAT THEY HAVE DECIDED TO DILUTE THEIR TRUTH HOMEOPATHICALLY!
The question why patients turn to homeopathy – or indeed any other disproven treatment – has puzzled many people. There has been a flurry of research into these issues. Here is the abstract of a paper that I find very remarkable and truly fascinating:
Interviews with 100 homeopathic patients in the San Francisco Bay Area show that for the most part the patients are young, white and well-educated, and have white-collar jobs; most had previously tried mainstream medical care and found it unsatisfactory. Among the reasons for their dissatisfaction were instances of negative side effects from medication, lack of nutritional or preventive medical counseling, and lack of health education. Experiences with conventional physicians were almost evenly divided: nearly half of the subjects reported poor experiences, slightly fewer reported good experiences. Three quarters of the patients suffered from chronic illness and about half considered their progress to be good under homeopathic care. The majority were simultaneously involved in other nontraditional health care activities.
If you read the full article, you will see that the authors make further important points:
- Patients who use alternative treatments are by no means ignorant or unsophisticated.
- Most of these patients use other treatments in parallel – but they seem to attribute any improvements in their condition to homeopathy.
- Dissatisfaction with conventional medicine seems the prime motivation to turn to homeopathy. In particular, patients need more time with their clinician and want to share the responsibility for their own health – and these needs are met by homeopaths better than by conventional doctors.
- Most homeopaths (63%) adhere to Hahnemann’s dictum that homeopathic remedies must never be combined with other treatments. This renders then potentially dangerous in many situations.
At this point you might say BUT WE KNEW ALL THIS BEFORE! True! Why then do I find this paper so remarkable?
It is remarkable mostly because of its publication date: 1978! In fact, it may well be the very first of hundreds of similar surveys that followed in the years since.
The questions I ask myself are these:
- IF WE KNEW ALL THIS SINCE ALMOST 40 YEARS, WHY HAVE WE NOT DONE MORE ABOUT IT?
- WHY ARE WE SO UNSUCCESSFUL IN GETTING THE FACTS THROUGH TO OUR PATIENTS?
- WHY HAVE WE NOT MANAGED TO IMPROVE CONVENTIONAL MEDICINE SUCH THAT PATIENTS STOP CONSULTING QUACKS?
- WHY ARE WE STILL CONDUCTING SURVEY AFTER SURVEY WHEN THE EMBARRASSING FACTS ARE PLAIN TO SEE?
No, this post is not about the human cost of homeopathy. I have written about this subject already rather a lot, I think. This post is about the money we dish out for homeopathy. This should be a very straight forward issue – but unfortunately it isn’t, and I find it rather intriguing that there can be so much uncertainty about such simple questions.
Homeopathy is cheap, people say. Mr Smallwood even claimed that we can all save millions, if we only used more of it. I am not sure that this is true.
The typical homeopathic remedy is not very expensive – and it shouldn’t be, after all, there is nothing in it! Paradoxically, the less likely you are to have even a remote chance of finding a single ‘active’ molecule in a homeopathic remedy, the more you might have to pay for it. The reason is simple: the homeopathic dilution process can be time-consuming, and time is of course money. Thus high potencies would normally be quite expensive.
So how much do we spend on homeopathic remedies? As a society or nation, we seem to be spending quite a lot. In Britain, the NHS apparently pays around £ 5 million per year for homeopathic remedies. Consumers in the US are said to spend about $ 3 billion each year. The Germans are known to be keener than most on homeopathy, and they spend around 500 million Euros per year.
But are these the real costs of homeopathy? Certainly not!
The real costs should include the time for the clinicians. As homeopathic consultations can be longer than one hour, this might amount to a tidy sum. Yet realistic figures are difficult to find.
To these costs we should add the costs for educating and training the homeopaths, the costs for the support staff, the costs for the premises where homeopathy is practised, and many other costs that I don’t even know about.
There is little doubt therefore that homeopathy is expensive. I would love to know the exact figures per year by different countries. Unfortunately I cannot even begin to estimate them. Let’s hope that my readers know more and are able to enlighten us.
When it comes to alternative medicine, the public relies heavily on the writings of health journalists. We therefore have to count ourselves lucky to have some that are outstanding in their ability to inform the public honestly, objectively and responsibly. Here is an excerpt of what one particularly gifted and ethical heath journalist (and consultant!!!) just published regarding the treatment of babies and kids on a highly visible, popular website:
Homeopathy, or homeopathic medicine, is based on the principle that “like cures like.” Instead of treating an individual’s illness, homeopathy treats individual symptoms with substances from plants and minerals that are highly diluted and “succussed,” or shaken to release energy, said Sara Chana Silverstein, a homeopath, master herbalist and an international board-certified lactation consultant…Although homeopathy isn’t meant to replace Western medicine, it can be a complementary or alternative approach for ailments like colds, the stomach flu and teething. For example, if your pediatrician has diagnosed your baby with an upper respiratory infection, there’s not much you can do other than offer lots of fluids, rest and possibly acetaminophen or ibuprofen. In this case, a homeopathic remedy might help. Plus, since antibiotic overuse and antimicrobial resistance remain a major concern in the U.S., and antibiotics often have side effects, homeopathy could help heal without the need for a prescription. In fact, a study in the journal Homeopathy found that homeopathy for ear infections was just as effective as conventional treatment but patients in the homeopathic group had a faster improvement in symptoms. Although some studies show promising results, more research is needed to determine who homeopathic remedies work best for and in what situations, said Dr. Hilary McClafferty, chair of the American Academy of Pediatrics’ Section on Complementary and Integrative Medicine…
“In the United, States, the homeopathic products that carry the label, HPUS—
Homeopathic Pharmacopeia of the United States— are prepared with a very standardized, procedural monograph. So there is a map and regulations that ensure what’s on the label is what’s in the bottle,” McClafferty said…The only adverse effect of homeopathy, according to Silverstein, is that if a baby consumed a remedy too frequently, such as every hour for 10 hours, they would “prove” the remedy, or create the symptoms the remedy was trying to heal. “But if you gave it to a child 3 times a day at a low dose, personally I do not believe it could injure a child in anyway whatsoever,” she said…Your best bet is to see a trained homeopath who will target individual symptoms and give you pellets in the size that’s appropriate for your child’s age, Silverstein said. The bottom line when it comes to deciding between homeopathy, a medication or another remedy? “You want to be well educated, conservative and in touch with your pediatrician,” McClafferty said.
Julie Revelant is a health journalist and a consultant who provides content marketing and copywriting services for the healthcare industry. She’s also a mom of two. Learn more about Julie at revelantwriting.com.
As I said: outstanding!
With so much sound information about homeopathy and its merits in the treatment of childhood conditions, we are inclined to forgive the few tiny errors and marginally misleading statements that might require corrections such as:
- homeopathy is very much meant as a replacement of conventional medicine by its inventor Hahnemann who was adamant that it must not be combined with other treatments because it is the only true healing art;
- there is no good evidence that homeopathy is anything else than a placebo for children or, indeed, for anyone else;
- the study in the journal ‘Homeopathy’ was lousy and does not allow any conclusions whatsoever about the effectiveness of homeopathy;
- to state “some studies show promising results” is very misleading; the totality of the reliable evidence is negative;
- more research is not needed to determine who benefits from homeopathy; there is no longer a debate about homeopathy within science;
- the label of a typical homeopathic preparation does not tell you what’s in the bottle, at best it tells you what used to be there;
- the main risk of homeopathy is that diseases are not treated effectively; in this way, homeopathy can kill.
Yes, these are but very minor flaws, I know. They should not distract from this journalist’s great achievement of getting her brilliantly informative article read by the widest possible audience. If Prince Charles offered an award for the best science writer of the year (why has he not yet thought of this publicity stunt?), she would certainly be a candidate.
An article in the Australian Journal of Pharmacy seems well worth mentioning on this blog. It throws some light on what is happening in Australia regarding an issue that I have repeatedly written about: the sale of homeopathic remedies by pharmacists.
Pharmaceutical Society of Australia have apparently published a ‘Complementary Medicines Position Paper’ which states that complementary medicines may be used as an adjunctive therapy with conventional medicines, provided there is evidence to support their use. The president of the PSA, Joe Demarte, says that the PSA is committed to supporting pharmacists help consumers make informed decisions regarding complementary medicines and continued to advocate strongly for a partnership approach with consumers to promote the Quality Use of Medicines and responsible self-medication. “This is a partnership between the pharmacist and the consumer where the pharmacist as the medicines expert can advise on the appropriate use of complementary medicines the consumer may be considering,” Demarte is quoted saying. He continues: “There is a wealth of information available about complementary medicines which can be confusing and the pharmacist can assist in ensuring that consumers are provided with the best available information about the current evidence for efficacy, as well as information on any potential side effects, drug interactions and risks of harm. In the event that a consumer chooses to use a product with limited evidence, the pharmacist must advise the consumer on the risks of rejecting or delaying treatments for which there is good evidence for safety and effectiveness. PSA strongly encourages all consumers considering taking complementary medicines to first consult their pharmacist for sound, evidence-based advice.”
So far so good – but what about disproven treatments such as homeopathy, I wonder.
Demarte says the PSA endorses the NHMRC report, released in March 2015, which found there were no health conditions for which there was reliable evidence that homeopathy was effective. And he states that the PSA does not support the sale of homeopathy products in pharmacies: “Our position is that pharmacists must use their professional judgement to prevent the supply of products with evidence of no effect.”
This surely is good news for all who stand up for evidence-based medicine and foremost for patients. It comes only a few months after the RPS Chief Scientist of the UK Royal Pharmaceutical Society, Professor Jayne Lawrence stated very similar things: “The public have a right to expect pharmacists and other health professionals to be open and honest about the effectiveness and limitations of treatments. Surely it is now the time for pharmacists to cast homeopathy from the shelves and focus on scientifically based treatments backed by clear clinical evidence.”
Now that we are (almost) all in perfect agreement, we only need one thing: adequate action by pharmacists!
This seems to be the question that occupies the minds of several homeopaths.
Amazed?
So was I!
Let me explain.
In 1997, Linde et al published their now famous meta-analysis of clinical trials of homeopathy which concluded that “The results of our meta-analysis are not compatible with the hypothesis that the clinical effects of homeopathy are completely due to placebo. However, we found insufficient evidence from these studies that homeopathy is clearly efficacious for any single clinical condition. Further research on homeopathy is warranted provided it is rigorous and systematic.”
This paper had several limitations which Linde was only too happy to admit. The authors therefore conducted a re-analysis which, even though published in an excellent journal, is rarely cited by homeopaths. Linde et al stated in their re-analysis of 2000: “there was clear evidence that studies with better methodological quality tended to yield less positive results.” It was this phenomenon that prompted me and my colleague Max Pittler to publish a ‘letter to the editor’ which now – 15 years later – seems the stone of homeopathic contention.
A blog-post by a believer in homeopathy even asks the interesting question: Did Professor Ernst Sell His Soul to Big Pharma? It continues as follows:
Edzard Ernst is an anti-homeopath who spent his career attacking traditional medicine. In 1993 he became Professor of Complementary Medicine at the University of Exeter. He is often described as the first professor of complementary medicine, but the title he assumed should have fooled no-one. His aim was to discredit medical therapies, notably homeopathy, and he then published some 700 papers in ‘scientific’ journals to do so.
Now, Professor Robert Hahn, in his blog, has made an assessment of the quality of his work… In the interests of the honesty and integrity in science, it is an important assessment. It shows, in his view, how science has been taken over by ideology (or as I would suggest, more accurately, the financial interests of Big Corporations, in this case, Big Pharma). The blog indicates that in order to demonstrate that homeopathy is ineffective, over 95% of scientific research into homeopathy has to be discarded or removed!
So for those people who, like myself, cannot read the original German, here is an English translation of the blog…
“I have never seen a science writer so blatantly biased as Edzard Ernst: his work should not be considered of any worth at all, and discarded” finds Sweden’s Professor Robert Hahn, a leading medical scientist, physician, and Professor of Anaesthesia and Intensive Care at the University of Linköping, Sweden.
Hahn determined therefore to analyze for himself the ‘research’ which supposedly demonstrated homeopathy to be ineffective, and reached the shocking conclusion that:
“only by discarding 98% of homeopathy trials and carrying out a statistical meta-analysis on the remaining 2% negative studies, can one ‘prove’ that homeopathy is ineffective”.
In other words, all supposedly negative homeopathic meta-analyses which opponents of homeopathy have relied on, are scientifically bogus…
Who can you trust? We can begin by disregarding Edzard Ernst. I have read several other studies that he has published, and they are all untrustworthy. His work should be discarded…
In the case of homeopathy, one should stick with what the evidence reveals. And the evidence is that only by removing 95-98% of all studies is the effectiveness of homeopathy not demonstrable…
So, now you are wondering, I am sure: HOW MUCH DID HE GET FOR SELLING HIS SOUL TO BIG PHARMA?
No? You are wondering 1) who this brilliant Swedish scientist, Prof Hahn, is and 2) what article of mine he is criticising? Alright, I will try to enlighten you.
PROFESSOR HAHN
Here I can rely on a comment posted on my blog some time ago by someone who can read Swedish (thank you Bjorn). He commented about Hahn as follows:
A renowned director of medical research with well over 300 publications on anesthesia and intensive care and 16 graduated PhD students under his mentorship, who has been leading a life on the side, blogging and writing about spiritualism, and alternative medicine and now ventures on a public crusade for resurrecting the failing realm of homeopathy!?! Unbelievable!
I was unaware of this person before, even if I have lived and worked in Sweden for decades.
I have spent the evening looking up his net-track and at his blog at roberthahn.nu (in Swedish).
I will try to summarise some first impressions:
Hahn is evidently deeply religious and there is the usual, unmistakably narcissistic aura over his writings and sayings. He is religiously confident that there is more to this world than what can be measured and sensed. In effect, he seems to believe that homeopathy (as well as alternative medical methods in general) must work because there are people who say they have experienced it and denying the possibility is akin to heresy (not his wording but the essence of his writing).
He has, along with his wife, authored at least three books on spiritual matters with titles such as (my translations) “Clear replies from the spiritual world” and “Connections of souls”.
He has a serious issue with skeptics and goes on at length about how they are dishonest bluffers[sic] who willfully cherry-pick and misinterpret evidence to fit their preconceived beliefs.
He feels that desperate patients should generally be allowed the chance that alternative methods may offer.
He believes firmly in former-life memories, including his own, which he claims he has found verification for in an ancient Italian parchment.
His main arguments for homeopathy are Claus Linde’s meta analyses and the sheer number of homeopathic research that he firmly believes shows it being superior to placebo, a fact that (in his opinion) shows it has a biological effect. Shang’s work from 2005 he dismisses as seriously flawed.
He also points to individual research like this as credible proof of the biologic effect of remedies.
He somewhat surprisingly denies recommending homeopathy despite being convinced of its effect and maintains that he wants better, more problem oriented and disease specific studies to clarify its applicability. (my interpretation)
If it weren’t for his track record of genuine, acknowledged medical research and him being a renowned authority in a genuine, scientific medical field, this man would be an ordinary, religiously devout quack.
What strikes me as perhaps telling of a consequence of his “exoscientific” activity, is that Hahn, who holds the position of research director at a large city trauma and emergency hospital is an “adjungerad professor”, which is (usually) a part time, time limited, externally financed professorial position, while any Swedish medical doctor with his very extensive formal merits would very likely hold a full professorship at an academic institution.
END OF QUOTE
MY 2000 PAPER THAT SEEMS TO IRRITATE HAHN
This was a short ‘letter to the editor’ by Ernst and Pittler published in the J Clin Epidemiol commenting on the above-mentioned re-analysis by Linde et al which was published in the same journal. As its text is not available on-line, I re-type parts of it here:
In an interesting re-analysis of their meta-analysis of clinical trials of homeopathy, Linde et al conclude that there is no linear relationship between quality scores and study outcome. We have simply re-plotted their data and arrive at a different conclusion. There is an almost perfect correlation between the odds ratio and the Jadad score between the range of 1-4… [some technical explanations follow which I omit]…Linde et al can be seen as the ultimate epidemiological proof that homeopathy is, in fact, a placebo.
And that is, as far as I can see, the whole mysterious story. I cannot even draw a conclusion – all I can do is to ask a question:
DOES ANYONE UNDERSTAND WHAT THEY ARE GOING ON ABOUT?
The story is all over: at a symposium last weekend, 29 German homeopaths ended up in hospital after ingesting the powerful hallucinogenic drug, 2C-E, also known as Aqua Rust. You can read it here or here or here or here, for instance.
The events are a bit nebulous, and most newspapers got it at least partly wrong. The group seems to have been composed of not just homeopaths but also ‘Heilpraktiker’, the German lay healers who usually mix all sorts of alternative therapies. They did take the drug – which one exactly has not yet been verified – and became acutely ill. A huge amount of ambulances and staff came to their rescue and took them all to hospital where they seem to be still recovering. Police is understandably keen to talk to them.
On Twitter and elsewhere, people have been making fun at these poor health care professionals. I think this is hardly called for and certainly less than kind. Other, more empathetic experts have suggested that these men and women have engaged in a self-experiment. I always like to see the good in people, particularly in homeopaths and therefore like this idea.
What if, as has been suggested, these people actually did a homeopathic proving on Aqua Rust? In this case, they are my heroes! Not just because they sacrificed their own health in the interest of medicine, but they seem to have found an important, I would even say ground-breaking new cure.
Homeopathic provings are the corner-stone of homeopathy; they are the tool used by homeopaths to identify which remedy is suited for which condition/patient. Provings work as follows: several healthy volunteers take a remedy in a high concentration; subsequently they record their symptoms in much detail; these symptoms then constitute the ‘drug picture’ of the remedy tested; and when a patient complains of similar symptoms, she will be cured with a high dilution of this very remedy. This is what the prime law of homeopathy is all about: LIKE CURES LIKE.
So what have our German pioneers discovered last weekend? They took the Aqua Rust (or whatever else the police will find in their system) and were reported to all start talking utter nonsense. But this is nothing short of sensational! According to the rules of homeopathy, the drug they took can now be highly diluted and shaken vigorously many times – and we have a cure…for what?
AGAINST HOMEOPATHY, OF COURSE!
The number one characteristic of homeopathy is that its proponents talk utter nonsense. Give them their newly discovered remedy and they will be cured. Simple!
In my mind, there is little doubt, these German homeopathic heroes need to be nominated for the next Nobel prize: homeopathy has plagued the world since 200 years, and nobody has yet found a cure for it. These courageous and dedicated healers sacrificed not just their weekend, but also their well-being and health to find one – and they have done it!
Homeopathy will finally be an oddity of the past – well worth a Nobel prize, I’d say.
A short report about a Scottish legal case is worth a mention, I think.
Honor Watt, 73 had sued Lothian Health Board after the authority stopped in June 2013 to provide homeopathic treatments to patients. Ms Watt, an arthritis sufferer, had previously received homeopathic medicine for this condition. There is, of course, no good evidence that homeopathic remedies are better than placebos for this (or any other) disease.
Ms Watt’s lawyers decided to challenge the board’s decision in the Court of Session claiming the health board acted illegally. There is reason to believe that Ms Watt was assisted by a professional organisation of homeopathy ( the judgement mentions that the Board’s submission stated that ‘the real force behind the petition was a charity, not the petitioner’).
In any case, Watt’s legal team claimed the Equality Act 2010 placed an obligation on the health board to ask their patients for their views on whether homeopathy should be continued to be funded. The legislation states that public sector organisations have an obligation to consider their decisions on the terms of what is called a public sector equality duty.
The case went to court and the judge, Lord Uist, recently ruled that the health board had acted legally. He therefore refused to overturn the board’s original decision. In a written judgement issued on Friday, Lord Uist confirmed that the health board acted correctly: “It is clear to me from an examination of the relevant documents that the board was from the outset consciously focusing on its PSED.”
The judgement explains that Ms Watt was first referred to the homeopathic service in 2003 when she was suffering from anxiety. Later, she was given a homeopathic medicine for her arthritis after telling her doctor that conventional medicine wasn’t controlling her problems with this condition. In January 2014, she had a final appointment with the homeopathic service and told that she was no longer entitled to homeopathic treatment. However, the judgement states that Ms Watt still receives a prescription of homeopathic medicine.
Lothian Health Board decided to end homeopathic provision after concluding the money would be better spent on conventional treatments. The board made the decision after holding a consultation exercise and concluding that only few NHS users would be affected by their decision. In a report, the reasons for why the board should stop spending money on homeopthy were set out.
Judge Uist confirmed that this report “stated that the withdrawal of funding for homeopathic services would have a limited negative impact on patients and staff, the majority of patients were from more affluent areas and it was felt that they could perhaps afford to self fund alternative provision.”
Ms Watt’s lawyers claimed that the board didn’t do enough to seek the views of those who used the service. They argued that the board broke the terms of the 2010 Equality Act. After examining the evidence, Judge Uist concluded, however, that the health board had done everything in its power and had made the correct decision: “I am satisfied that reduction of the board’s decision of June 26 2013 would result only in a waste of time and public funds as it would inevitably result in exactly the same decision being taken by the board.”
From my perspective, this is an important decision. As a physician, I naturally dislike not giving patients what they want. However, I dislike it even more when there is not enough money for other patients to have essential treatments. Thus it is obvious that harsh decisions have to be made in order to spend the available funds as rationally as possible – and that, of course, means that treatments for which there is no good evidence must not be funded from public money. Homeopathy clearly falls in that category.
As I am not a lawyer, I see this case with the eyes of a medic and researcher. For me, it is about the age-old question: should patients get the treatment they want or the treatment they need? For me, health care is not a supermarket where people can their trolleys with everything they happen to fancy. For me, health care is not about satisfying the ‘wants’; it is about coping with the needs of people. For me, this is a question of medical ethics. For me, the Scottish judgement is spot on.
