Homoeopathic Society

Yet again homœopathy has come under attack. The latest round began in Britain and then manifested in New Zealand in an article in the Listener, cobbled together, badly, from internet trawling and involving little real journalism.

I, and others, wrote to the magazine pointing out errors and telling of experiences that the writers felt had left them in no doubt of homœopathy’s validity. I know it may seem narrow and ungenerous of me, but I confess I am more likely to be upset by letters from people writing in support of homœopathy than those of its critics. Why? Because the letters seemingly backing homœopathy frequently present poor arguments in its favour, such as personal anecdotes, and can provide good targets for skeptics’ barbs. For example these words from a letter to the Listener: “. . . A homœopath who is also a nutritionist may practise quackery half the time, but the other half of his practice is comparatively futuristic.” And this, from another writer: “Complementary health treatments, including homœopathy, on the other hand, fit the quantum paradigm and take account of, and work with, the client’s consciousness. For that reason medical double-blind testing is inappropriate . . .” People who have a better knowledge of homœopathy than these two writers are almost as embarrassing with their insistence that homœopathy will only “work” when it treats the uniqueness of the whole person (whatever that means) and it can never participate in a double-blind trial for this reason, or indeed participate in any trial involving many subjects treated with one or two medicines. In the pages of this journal I have often reprinted, or given summaries of, accounts of experiments involving ultra-molecular potencies and plants and animals (some of these may be seen on the Society’s website - www.homeopathy.ac.nz - under the heading Homœopathy Works). These, obviously, do not involve consideration of the individuality of the participants. Also consider the Organon’s Article 100, as commented on by Kurt Hochstetter on page 4 of Homœopathica November 2007 - some diseases always need the same treatment.

In this issue appears a lengthy account of a trial with 500 participants showing the value of homœopathy in the treatment of acute infantile diarrhoea in a setting in which the use of placebo would be unethical (page 12). Homœopathy can demonstrate its worth like this, too.

As for the fuss in Britain over the possible audit for cost effectiveness of the homœopathic hospitals in the National Health Scheme - they should have nothing to fear under a fair and transparent assessment if it was true, as claimed by Sally Penrose, Chief Executive of the Faculty of Homœopathy - “Patient outcome studies at the NHS homeopathic hospitals show that on average 70% of patients report positive health changes after homeopathic treatments - these are patients who have usually exhausted all the conventional options first and are coping with intolerable suffering.”

Bruce Barwell