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In ALL due respect, it seems that you did not read the Lancet’s comparison of homeopathic and conventional medical studies, for if you did, you would have a completely different understanding of what was really going on.

The below material is excerpted from my new book, The Homeopathic Revolution (North Atlantic Books, 2007), and a chapter called “Why Homeopathy is Hated and Vilified.” For more info about this book, see www.HomeopathicRevolution.com (or just go to amazon.com).

In 2005, representatives of World Health Organization (WHO) were working on a report on homeopathic medicine, and one of the skeptics of homeopathy asked to review this report complained bitterly that it was too positive toward homeopathy. He then leaked it to other skeptics and to The Lancet, a usually highly respected British medical journal. In response to the potentially positive report on homeopathy from WHO, The Lancet published an article attacking the report, which had not even been completed or published (McCarty, 2005), and further, The Lancet rushed to publication a comparative study of homeopathic and conventional medical treatment (Shang, et al., 2005).

The idea for comparing clinical studies of homeopathic and conventional medicine is certainly a good one, but actually doing so in a fair and accurate way is more challenging than it may seem. The lead author of this comparative study, however, was not the ideal physician or scientist to evaluate homeopathy objectively—Dr. M. Egger, a Swiss physician who is notoriously and actively anti-homeopathy. Before he completed his study, he informed the editors at The Lancet that he had planned to submit his study to them and that he fully expected the results to show that homeopathic medicines didn’t work.
Egger and his team first found 110 placebo-controlled trials evaluating the efficacy of homeopathic medicine. Next, they selected 110 “matched” placebo-controlled trials. Finding “matched” trials usually means finding experiments that sought to treat people with a similar disease, in a similar population, and who were treated for a similar period of time, but the researchers never explained how or why they included or excluded any of the conventional medical trials. And needless to say, finding matched experiments is much more difficult than it sounds. Although it is easy to question if these researchers found matched experiments or not, let’s give them the benefit of the doubt and say that they were successful in doing so.

Next, the researchers evaluated the quality of research design and how each trial was conducted. The researchers determined that only twenty-one of the homeopathic studies were high-quality, and only nine of the conventional medical studies were of a similar high quality. Then, without adequate explanation, the researchers only evaluated those studies that were both high-quality and had large numbers of patients in each trial. They found eight homeopathic studies that fit these characteristics and only six conventional medical studies. Only two of the eight homeopathic studies used homeopathic medicines that were individualized to each patient, with the remaining studies giving the same medicine to everyone. (This method may make research easier, but it is not necessarily a good test of the homeopathic methodology.)

The eight homeopathic studies and six conventional medical studies were not matched in any way. How or why the researchers would or could claim that these studies were comparable requires some creative thinking. Further, the researchers never provided the analysis of the results of the twenty-one high-quality homeopathic studies as compared with the nine conventional studies.

What is also interesting is the fact that the researchers acknowledged that eight of the homeopathic studies in the treatment of people with acute respiratory tract infections found “substantial beneficial effect” and that this effect was “robust.” However, without adequate evidence or explanation, the researchers asserted that these studies could not be trusted and that eight trials is simply not enough for adequate analysis. And yet, these same researchers evaluated eight other homeopathic trials and concluded that they showed no obvious better treatment than the six conventional studies.

If the above concerns were not enough to lead readers to the conclusion that this is “garbage in, garbage out” type of comparative research, there are still even more concerns about this study. For instance, the researchers did not even reveal which studies were selected until many months later. And when the studies were finally announced, it was shocking to note that they had selected a study testing a single homeopathic medicine in the treatment of weight loss (bordering on preposterous because homeopaths assert that there is no one single remedy to augment weight loss), and another study evaluating the use of a homeopathic formula in the prevention of influenza. (There have been at least three large studies verifying the efficacy of homeopathic medicines in the treatment of influenza, but only one of these was selected, while the study that evaluated its prevention was selected even though it was simply an exploratory investigation, not one that homeopaths expected to have a positive outcome.)

Mark Twain once asserted, “There are lies, damn lies, and statistics.” One must be careful in reading and understanding “scientific” studies because it is easy to get fooled. And when one considers the philosophical, scientific, and economic challenges that homeopathy creates for conventional medicine, it is not surprising that defenders of the medical industrial complex will do all they can to trivialize homeopathy or try to play tricks with statistics to “disprove” it.

An interesting point recently raised is that even if homeopathy is purely “placebo,” then it still might be a good idea to use it (I don’t actually do this in my practice, by the way) because at least it is far less toxic than conventional medications (Lancet 2007;370:1672-3), which are by all accounts one of the leading causes of death in the developed world (JAMA 1998;279(15):1200-5).

On another point, studies that have included “no treatment” groups as well as placebo and active treatment show that basically there is very little if any such thing as placebo effect (”no treatment” is just as effective as placebo), which many have interpreted as being the result of “regression to the mean” (New Engl J Med 2001;344:1594-602).

[…] The Profit Motive and the Placebo Effect (World Health Care Blog) […]

Placebo effect ? Then can you explain how and why Homoeopathy works well on infants who can not be influenced or animals who do not know the language of ‘pathy’s. May be one more theory may be found to run the rumour mill to discredit Homoeopathy. I really wonder why all are scared of the Homoeopahic system which they claim is nothing except water or mere sugar pills. Will you be panicky if you see a photo of a tiger or a real tiger ??? Why the so called Scientists are burning their mid night oil to churn out theories to prove that Homoeopathy is ineffective ? Is it their concern for the patient or for Pharma companies ? Have thay ever tired to interact with the groups of patients who are cured because of Homoeopathy ? Why do they feel shy to face them but resort to indirect methods??? What makes them keep mum about the dangerous side effects of their so called scientificalaly proven medicines? Are they unhappy that they can not Patent Homoeopahic system or the Homoeopathic remedies ?
Whatever may be their priorities we as patients of Homoeopathy stand firmly with the system though we read all criticism with amusement !!!!

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