RESPONSES LancetClaims on Homeopathy

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http://www.homeopathic.org/pressrelease082505.html

NCH Press Release

August 25, 2005

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Prominent U.S. Research Scientists Counter Lancet Claims On Homeopathy

andria, VA.:

Prominent U.S. scientists today strongly rejected findings on homeopathic

medicine to be published in the August 27, 2005 edition of the Lancet. The

study in question was the work of Aijing Shang and colleagues from the

University of Berne in Switzerland. The U.S. scientists rejecting the

conclusions of the study are Dr. Rustum Roy Ph.D. (Penn State University),

Dr. Iris Bell, M.D., Ph.D. (University of Arizona) and Dr. Joyce Frye D.O.,

M.B.A. (University of Pennsylvania).

" Shang et al. have successfully applied a methodological approach to the

articles they reviewed that is highly suitable for drawing conclusions

about conventional medicine but is incomplete in evaluating homeopathic

medicine. They did not include criteria that would apply to high quality

homeopathic research reflecting the nature of homeopathic practice. Such

criteria include consideration of the quality of the homeopathy provided " ,

said Iris Bell, M.D., Ph.D.

" Furthermore, a single remedy selection for a given

conventionally-diagnosed condition is not homeopathy, yet there are

numerous conventionally-judged high quality studies that were so designed.

The analogy would be to test the effects of penicillin for all patients

with symptoms of an apparent infection. The quality of the studies would

otherwise be excellent in design. However, penicillin will not work for

patients with viral infections or bacterial infections resistant to its

effects or for persons with fevers from other non-infectious causes - and

it thus might show benefit only for a subset of patients with symptoms of

infections, i.e., the ones with true penicillin-sensitive infections. How

would penicillin fare in a meta-analysis of studies designed to ignore the

intrinsic nature of penicillin in benefiting patients? " said Bell.

Joyce Frye DO, MBA commented that the study's authors seemed to begin their

work with a bias. " While their analysis clearly showed effects of

homeopathic treatment - they found ways to disregard those. Out of the

millions of trials in conventional medicine, their primary outcome relied

on the comparison of ridiculously small numbers--8 trials of homeopathy and

6 trials of conventional medicine. They began their work with the

assumption 'that the effects observed in placebo-controlled trials of

homoeopathy could be explained by a combination of methodological

deficiencies and biased reporting'. Sound research is not conducted from

this starting position. "

Among other topics, the Lancet challenges the plausibility of homeopathic

effects given that homeopathic remedies are often administered in dilutions

in excess of Avogadro's number. Dr. Rustum Roy, Ph.D. distinguished

material scientist from Penn State University commented that the chemistry

argument made in this study and by conventional medicine in general is

false science. " The underpinning of the editorial content of the Lancet as

it relates to homeopathy relies on a quaint old idea from the nineteenth

century that the ONLY way that the property of water can be affected or

changed is by incorporating foreign molecules. This is the Avogadro-limit

high-school level chemistry argument. To a materials scientist this notion

is absurd, since the fundamental paradigm of materials-science is that the

structure-property relationship is the basic determinant of everything. It

is a fact that the structure of water and therefore the informational

content of water can be altered in infinite ways "

National Center for Homeopathy

801 N. Fairfax Street, Suite 306 andria, Virginia 22314

(877) 624-0613 (703) 548-7790 fax: (703) 548-7792

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The British Homeopathic Association (BHA), which says it has 1,000 doctors

on its books, strongly disagreed (with the Lancet report).

“The report should be treated with extreme caution. It is being heavily

spun,” Fisher, clinical director at the Royal London Homeopathic

Hospital, said on behalf of the BHA.

“For a prestigious medical journal it is a strange bit of reporting. It is

a small sample and they don’t even tell you what they are basing this on.

Yet they come to these very sweeping conclusions and write this very

strongly worded editorial,” he told Reuters.

“Homeopathy has been suffering these types of attacks for 200 years but it

goes from strength to strength because people want it and many studies

prove it works.”

http://abc.net.au/science/news/stories/s1446132.htm

Friday August 26, 12:06 AM

New study says homeopathic medicines don't work

File photo of drugs

Click to enlarge photo

LONDON (Reuters) - The world may be beating a path to the doors of

homeopathic practitioners as an alternative to conventional medicines, but

according to a new study they may just as well be taking nothing.

The study, published in Friday's edition of the respected Lancet medical

journal, is likely to anger the growing numbers of devoted practitioners of

and adherents to alternative therapies that include homeopathy.

" There was weak evidence for a specific effect of homeopathic remedies, but

strong evidence for specific effects of conventional interventions, " the

study concluded.

" This finding is compatible with the notion that the clinical effects of

homeopathy are placebo effects, " it added after examining findings from 110

homeopathy trials and an equal number of conventional medical trials.

In an editorial, the Lancet urged doctors to tell their patients they were

wasting their time taking homeopathic medicines -- but also to make more

time to connect with the patients rather than just prescribing and forgetting.

" Now doctors need to be bold and honest with their patients about

homeopathy's lack of benefits, and with themselves about the failings of

modern medicine to address patients' needs for personalised care, " the

journal said.

Entitled " The end of homeopathy " , the editorial queried how homeopathy was

growing in popularity by leaps and bounds when for the past 150 years

trials had found it ineffective.

" It is the attitudes of patients and providers that engender

alternative-therapy seeking behaviours which create a greater threat to

conventional care -- and patients' welfare -- than do spurious arguments of

putative benefits from absurd dilutions, " it said.

BOOMING SALES

Practitioners of homeopathic medicine, invented in the late 1700s by German

physician Hahnemann, believe that the weaker the solution, the more

effective the medicine.

In Britain alone, sales of homeopathic medicines have grown by a third in

the past five years to 32 million pounds in 2004.

The study's lead author and statistical analyst Matthias Egger of

Switzerland's University of Berne, said once data from small, less rigorous

trials was extracted and evident bias in both taken into account, the

conclusions were inescapable.

" We acknowledge that to prove a negative is impossible, but we have shown

that the effects seen in placebo-controlled trials of homeopathy are

compatible with the placebo-hypothesis, " he wrote.

But the British Homeopathic Association (BHA), which says it has 1,000

doctors on its books, strongly disagreed.

" The report should be treated with extreme caution. It is being heavily

spun, " Fisher, clinical director at the Royal London Homeopathic

Hospital, said on behalf of the BHA.

" For a prestigious medical journal it is a strange bit of reporting. It is

a small sample and they don't even tell you what they are basing this on.

Yet they come to these very sweeping conclusions and write this very

strongly worded editorial, " he told Reuters.

" Homeopathy has been suffering these types of attacks for 200 years but it

goes from strength to strength because people want it and many studies

prove it works. "

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Sheri Nakken, R.N., MA, Hahnemannian Homeopath

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