I have always wondered how pharmacists might justify using or recommending or selling homeopathic remedies. So far, I have not come across a pharmacist who would want to stick his/her neck out for homeopathy. Many pharmacists earn money by selling homeopathic preparations – but most seem to be embarrassed by this fact and don’t want to defend it.

Therefore, I was pleased when I found this interview with the pharmacist Christophe Merville. He got introduced to homeopathy as a 11 year old boy suffering from hay fewer; after using homeopathy, “the crises became less severe and less frequent”. Later, he studied to become a pharmacist in France and, in 1990, he joined Boiron, the world’s largest manufacturer of homeopathic remedies. The following is an extensive excerpt (I did not want to cite him ‘out of context’) from his interview about his views on homeopathy.

I remember attending the delivery of a woman and the contractions were very strong, and painful. She had some homeopathic medicine to take just at that time to make those contractions more regular and useful: less intense but longer and less brusque. I saw that happening within minutes, and I was thinking, “That’s very impressive.” That’s probably the time when I concluded that there is something to it. 

I witnessed the action of homeopathic medicines on pets also, on young children. I had enough personal anecdotes that I could say there is something more than just suggestion, or placebo, or just the simple act of being cared for. My attitude is to say, “There are enough signs to say that it’s really worth exploring more why it works, how it works, when does it work.” We are past the stage where we can say, “No, there is nothing.” It has been around for a long time and if was just mere placebo effect, it would have gone away, as so many different techniques did. 

If you look at the history of science, you find many instances where people first said, for example, “The theory of gravity explains everything.” And when some things are discovered that show it didn’t work in certain very narrow cases, there’s an understanding that we have to adjust. But every time you have to make that adjustment, there is a great body of people who say, “No, it cannot be.” 

The main argument against homeopathy is that a remedy is very, very diluted, so it cannot work. My reaction to that is to examine what happens when you dilute something. The act of dilution is not very simple. Those molecules are interacting together, they are interacting with the walls of the container, they are interacting with the solvent, and this interaction does not adhere to a precise mathematical law. The skeptics say, “You divide the number of molecules by 100 each time, so after awhile, there is less than one chance to find one single molecule.” They have their math right, but they have their physics wrong. 

Chemists try to use very pure substances. When you buy your reagent, you buy it at 99.999 percent pure. But you don’t have anything that’s 100 percent pure. It would take an infinite amount of energy to get rid of the last impurity. What I think we should explore is the fact that after a certain number of dilutions, the process is not very efficient at removing the last molecules. So there is always something that stays. That’s one thing. 

The second thing is in pharmacology for years, we were interested in the ability of large quantities of substances. But what about small ones? I always use the example of butterflies that can sense pheromones at great distances, salmon finding their way back to their native creek from far away, to sharks being able to detect blood in a huge amount of water. Biology uses very small quantities. In cells, you have communication between cells using a few molecules of a certain substance—and it works. 

I don’t pretend that I’ve put A and B and C together, and I’m able to provide you with a complete explanation. But I would say those are things to explore. Already the research that exists points to possible action of homeopathic dilution on activation or deactivation of genes. I won’t go into details, but I welcome the skepticism, I think it’s very constructive. But what I don’t really like is people whose mind is set on their misconception of what exactly a dilution is. Of course homeopathy doesn’t violate the laws of physics and chemistry, because that’s absurd. 

My first role is pharmacy development. I look at what are the tools that allow pharmacists to know what homeopathy is and for a certain number of them, how to use homeopathy. I consider how to train them, how to have them integrate homeopathy in their practice, because the goal isn’t about replacing other medicines with homeopathy. My first role is to say to pharmacists, “You have to know what it is because these are drugs. If you don’t believe in them, you don’t have to use them, but at least you need to be able to answer customers, your patients.”

And the second thing is that for those who are interested in knowing more, I translate books from France, I design trainings, activities, interactions, so they are placed in a situation of recommending and deciding if it is appropriate to recommend homeopathy, and what treatment is adapted to that particular person. 

“Before coming to the conference, I researched what homeopathy is, and you will have a hard time telling me that it can work.” I talk with them to explore a little bit more what it is. We speak the language of pharmacology together, and what strikes me is that very soon, they are into it. They say, “Okay, we see the logic of it.” They realize that they have a tool where they can relieve without doing any harm, without interactions, so their interest is piqued. And they recognize that the mode of action of conventional medicines is not as clear as we thought.

Pharmacists are very pragmatic people—you cannot tell them fairy tales. When they see it, explore it, and use it, then when I meet them later, they tell me, “That stuff works.” And I ask, “Yeah, but do you know how it works?” They don’t, but they see the patient coming back happy. 

Of course, they are interested in the research and knowing how it works, but I just give them what we know in clinical research and we discuss it. They see that there is ongoing research and one day we’ll find more. But meanwhile, they are using the product. 

 You have two approaches. What I call “the user approach” is when people may not really completely understand how a medicine works, but they’re interested in taking it for stress or for allergies, whatever it might be, to see if it works for them. They’re interested in how this medicine will affect them, how should they take it. If it works for them, then great. 

Then you have what I call the “intellectual approach”—which is concerned about more cultural, philosophical, and social questions: what is the place of homeopathic medicine in today’s medicine, what are its principles, its history, its perspective. Is it a philosophy, is it a cult, what is it? My role is to try to give context for what homeopathy is. It’s a simple tool in the toolbox—we don’t exactly know all the details of how it works. And this is what we know, and this is what we don’t know, and this is what we speculate might be the way it works. People educate themselves. 

 Every day, I say, homeopathy doesn’t vaccinate, homeopathy doesn’t cure cancer, homeopathy doesn’t cure diabetes. It can relieve some of the symptoms or side effects of the treatments, but it has limits like every therapy. I fight against those outrageous claims and sometimes people that are really fanatical advocates for homeopathy do much worse for the cause. And I have to tell them: You cannot say that. It is untrue and it is dangerous. This is why I think pharmacists listen to me, because I’m not telling them to change their practice and their ethics. I’m telling them, this is another tool and this is how to use it properly. But there are fundamentals that are still there and will be there for a long time. You cannot replace vaccination by any other techniques—it’s unethical, it’s dangerous, it’s deadly. So we don’t do that. I’m completely against these kinds of claims.

 Let’s explore that: a patient suffering with AIDS, advanced infection with HIV, with immunity that decreases. Or a patient treated with antiretroviral therapy, they still have sometimes diarrhea, because their immune system is not able to fight everything. They still have side effects or anxiety. We want their treatment to be as comfortable as possible, because we want them to keep using the treatment. The same thing with cancer. The patient says, “I don’t want to have chemotherapy because it’s hurting me, it’s very difficult and uncomfortable.” We have with homeopathy ways to reduce nausea, for instance, then we increase the comfort of the patient, and the outcome is always better. That’s the framework. Someone who would say, “Oh, you have AIDS, throw away your antiretrovirals, I’m going to treat you with homeopathy”—that person would be a murderer. 

We develop tools to help people self-medicate. We say, “Okay, you’re stressed out, you need to sleep a little bit, you’re lacking sleep. Take this for a certain period of time—if it works for you, fine. If it doesn’t, doesn’t, stop it.” For people with what we call “self-limiting conditions”— a cold or a cough—we have good tools with warnings and precautions and things like that for them to self-medicate. And in the warnings, we tell them, “If you experience that kind of fever, if you have that symptom, see a doctor.” We don’t say see a homeopath, we say see a doctor. And among these doctors, there are doctors who have added in different techniques and some of them are using homeopathy when appropriate. For me, what is most important, is that a patient sees someone who is medically qualified.  

For people who want to further explore the possibilities that homeopathy offers, I recommend that they see a physician who is skilled in homeopathy but will not use homeopathy for everything. And is able to diagnose. A physician will tell you, “In this case, I can do something with homeopathy, or, in that case, I cannot use homeopathy.”

As I have once worked as a junior doctor in a homeopathic hospital (the full story is here), I knew of course all these arguments and fallacies. Nevertheless, I still ask myself: HOW CAN PHARMACISTS GET CONVINCED IN THIS WAY? ARE THEY REALLY CONVINCED? OR DO THEY JUST DO IT FOR THE MONEY?

I do not feel like prejudging these questions just now. But I do hope to hear from my readers, particularly from the pharmacists amongst them, what they think.