Homeopathy/PreviousVersion

Homeopathy (also spelled homœopathy or homoeopathy) from the Greek όμοιος, hómoios (similar) and πάθος, páthos (suffering), is a therapy that strives to treat "like with like". The word "homeopathy", coined by the Saxon physician Christian Friedrich Samuel Hahnemann (1755–1843), first appeared in print in 1807, although he had previously outlined his axiom of medical similars in a series of articles and monographs from 1796 onwards. Homeopathy is particularly popular in Europe and India, but less so in the USA, where such therapies have been more tightly regulated. Stricter European regulations have also been implemented recently by the EDQM.

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Samuel Hahnemann, the father of homeopathy

Homeopathy rests on the premise of treating sick persons with very diluted agents that, in undiluted doses, produce similar symptoms in a healthy individual. Its proponents assert that the therapeutic potency of a remedy can be increased by serial dilution of the drug, combined with succussion or vigorous shaking. In common with conventional medicine, homeopathy regards diseases as morbid derangements of the organism, but it differs in preferring to view each case of sickness as a strictly individual phenomenon. It is the man that is sick and to be restored to health, not his body, not the tissues. Homeopathy views a sick person as having a dynamic disturbance in a hypothetical "vital force," and so reject the standard medical diagnoses of named diseases.

The theory of homeopathy is inconsistent with accepted laws of chemistry and physics, as it states that extreme dilution makes drugs more powerful by enhancing their "spirit-like medicinal powers." Some trials show a difference between homeopathic treatments and placebos, but most have methodological problems, and better-quality trials tend to give negative results.

The principle of medical similars

Homeopathy is based on the 'Principle of Similars', expressed by Hahnemann as similia similibus curentur or 'let likes cure likes'. This is the opposite of 'contraries' upon which the Galenic medicine of his day was based, and in which Hahnemann had been trained. The 'law of similars' is an ancient medical maxim , but its modern form is based on Hahnemann's conclusion that a constellation of symptoms induced by a given homeopathic remedy in a group of healthy individuals will cure similar symptoms in the sick. Symptom patterns associated with various remedies are determined by 'provings', in which volunteers are given remedies, and the resulting symptoms are compiled by observers into a 'Drug Picture'. Of his first proving, Hahnemann said: "with this first trial broke upon me the dawn that has since brightened into the most brilliant day of the medical art; that it is only in virtue of their power to make the healthy human being ill that medicines can cure morbid states, and indeed, only such morbid states are composed of symptoms which the drug to be selected for them can itself produce in similarity on the healthy."

For prescribing, homeopathic practitioners rely on The Homeopathic Materia Medicae, which are indexes of Drug Pictures organized by remedy and describe the symptom patterns associated with individual remedies, and on The Homeopathic repertory which is an index of symptoms, listing all remedies associated with specific symptoms. The first Homeopathic repertory was George Jahr's, published in 1835.

At first, Hahnemann tested substances commonly used as medicines in his time, such as antimony and rhubarb, and poisons, like arsenic, mercury and Belladonna. Perhaps in this he was mindful of Paracelsus: "poison is in everything, and no thing is without poison. The dosage makes it either a poison or a remedy." This subtle connection between poison and medicine, or 'what can kill can cure' was also observed by Shakespeare: "In the infant rind of this small flower, poison hath residence and medicine power:..." Hahnemann recorded his first provings of 27 drugs in the Fragmenta de viribus in 1805 and later in his Materia Medica Pura, which contained 65 drugs. He was most heavily engaged in proving in the 1790s and early 1800s, but he never abandoned these experiments. Another phase of proving commenced with his Miasm theory and The Chronic Diseases , published in 1828, and containing 48 freshly 'proven' drugs.

Kent's Lectures on Homoeopathic Materia Medica (1905) lists 217 remedies, and new substances are continually added to contemporary versions. Homeopathy uses many animal, plant, mineral, and synthetic substances, including Natrum muriaticum (sodium chloride or table salt), Lachesis muta (the venom of the bushmaster snake), Opium, and Thyroidinum (thyroid hormone). Other 'isopathic' remedies' involve dilution of the agent or product of the disease. Rabies nosode, for example, is made by diluting the saliva of a rabid dog. Some modern homeopaths use more esoteric substances, known as "imponderables" because they do not originate from a material but from electromagnetic energy presumed to have been "captured" by alcohol or lactose (X-ray, Sol (sunlight), Positronium, and Electricitas (electricity) or through the use of a telescope (Polaris). Recent ventures by homeopaths into even more esoteric substances include Tempesta (thunderstorm), and Berlin wall.

Today, homeopathy uses about 3000 remedies; about 300 are based on Materia Medica information, 1500 on fragmentary knowledge, and the rest either without knowledge of their homeopathic properties or speculatively. This approach harks back to the ancient 'doctrine of signatures,' which Hahnemann rejected as uncertain guesswork: "The ancients imagined that the yellow colour of the juice of...(Chelidonium, Yellow Poppy) was an indication (signature) of its utility in bilious diseases. The moderns from this extended its employment to hepatic diseases...the importance of human health does not admit of any such uncertain directions for the employment of medicines. It would be criminal frivolity to rest contented with such guesswork at the bedside of the sick. Only that which the drugs themselves unequivocally reveal of their peculiar powers in their effects on the healthy human body – that is to say, only their pure symptoms – can teach us loudly and clearly when they can be advantageously used with certainty; and this is when they are administered in morbid states very similar to those they are able to produce on the healthy body."

Examples of this impulse to expand the materia medica include: the use of an isopathic (disease associated) agent as a first prescription in a 'stuck' case when the beginning of disease coincides with a specific event such as vaccination; the use of a chemically-related substance when a remedy that was well-indicated fails. An example is the Bowel Nosodes, introduced by the British homeopaths Edward Bach (1886-1936), John Paterson (1890-1954) and Charles Edwin Wheeler (1868-1946) in the 1920s, based on the bowel bacterial flora thought to be associated with persons of different homeopathic constitutional types. Bowel Nosodes are rarely used outside British homeopathy. More recently, homeopathy has used substances based on the periodic table or biological taxonomy. This approach is questioned by some purists on the basis that it involves speculation about remedy action without provings.

There are many methods for determining the most-similar remedy (the simillimum), and homeopaths sometimes disagree. This is partly due to the complexity of the 'totality of symptoms' concept; homeopaths do not use all symptoms, but decide which are the most characteristic; this subjective evaluation rests on knowledge and experience. Finally, the Drug Picture in the Materia Medica is always more comprehensive than the symptoms exhibited by any individual. Other ways of selecting remedies are through medical dowsing or other psychic powers. However, these are not accepted by most homeopathic practitioners.

The law of similars is not a scientific law; it is not built on a hypothesis that can be falsified; a failure to cure homeopathically can always be attributed to incorrect selection of a remedy: I have often heard physicians tell me that it was due to suggestion that my medicines acted so well; but my answer to this is, that I suggest just as strongly with my wrong remedy as with the right one, and my patients improve only when they have received the similar or correct remedy.

See also: List of common homeopathic remedies

Preparation of similars

Succussion and dilution

Vijzel

The most characteristic—and controversial—principle of homeopathy is that the potency of a remedy can be enhanced (and the side-effects diminished) by dilution, in a procedure known as dynamization or potentization. Liquids are progressively diluted (with water or alcohol) and shaken by ten hard strikes against an elastic body (succussion). For this, Hahnemann had a saddlemaker construct a special wooden striking board covered in leather on one side and stuffed with horsehair. Insoluble solids, such as Quartz and Oyster shell, are diluted by grinding them with lactose (trituration). The original serial dilutions by Hahnemann were performed using a 1 part in 100 or centesimal scale, or 1 part in 50,000 or Quintamillesimal (LM or Q potencies). Higher 'potencies' are considered to be stronger 'deep-acting' remedies.

The dilution factor at each stage is traditionally 1:10 ('D' or 'X' potencies) or 1:100 ('C' potencies). Hahnemann advocated 30C dilutions for most purposes, i.e. dilution by a factor of 100³⁰ = 10⁶⁰. As Avogadro's number is only 6.02 × 10²³ particles/mole, the chance of any molecule of the original substance being present in a 15C solution is small, and it is extremely unlikely that one molecule of the original solution would be present in a 30C dilution. For a perspective on these numbers, there are about 10³² molecules of water in an Olympic size swimming pool; to expect to get one molecule of a 15C solution, one would need roughly 25 metric tons of water. Thus, homeopathic remedies of a high "potency" contain, with overwhelming probability, only water. Practitioners of homeopathy believe that this water retains some 'essential property' of one of the substances that it has contacted in the past.

Alternative methods

High potency remedies were first produced in the 1830s. Though Hahnemann wished to see 30c as standard potency in homeopathy, most of his contemporaries preferred tinctures and 3x, while others, like the powerfully-built horse-trainer, Caspar Julius Jenichen (1787-1849), General Korsakoff (1788-1853) and Dr N Schreter (1803-1864), were busy raising potency to heights beyond his wildest dreams.

Jenichen sat or stood stripped naked to the waist, holding the bottle in his fist in an oblique direction from left to right, and shook it in a vertical direction. The fluid, at every stroke, emitted a sound like the ringing of silver coins. He paused after every 25th potency, and the muscles of his naked arm vibrated...he was latterly able to give 8400 strokes in an hour.

Such high potencies could not be made by traditional methods, but required succussion without dilution (Jenichen), higher dilution factors (LM potencies are diluted by a factor of 50,000), or machines which integrate dilution and succussion into a continuous process (Korsakoff). . Such machines are still sold today and some manufacturers claim it is undefined "vibrations" that produce the healing effect and, when the correct vibration is selected, only water need be added to produce a remedy. Today, radionics potentising devices are used by many homeopaths to prepare remedies, based on the work of the British engineer, Malcom Rae (1913-1979) and devices he developed in the 1960s.

Another technique used by some homeopaths involves "a paper remedy. Write the remedy and potency on a piece of paper and place the paper on the left hand side of the body with the writing towards the body." One homeopath, "finds out what they need, writes the remedy down on a piece of paper, they put it in their pocket and it works." In essence, this comprises an emerging alternative homeopathic tradition, "`paper remedies' i.e., a name of a remedy just written on a piece of paper."

Miasms

By 1816, Hahnemann was concerned at the failure of homeopathic remedies to produce lasting cures for chronic diseases. He found that "...the non-venereal chronic diseases, after being time and again removed homoeopathically … always returned in a more or less varied form and with new symptoms." To explain this, Hahnemann introduced the miasmatic theory, that three fundamental "miasms" are the underlying root causes of all the chronic diseases of mankind: Syphilis, Sycosis (suppressed gonorrhoea), and Psora. This miasm theory was published in 1828. Though Hahnemann first suspected miasms in 1816, he took 12 years before he published his views. It is possible that the study of Freemasonry under the guidance of his Patron, the Grand Duke Ferdinand of Anhalt-Coethen influenced him. He became reclusive while in Koethen, and his new inclination towards metaphysical pursuits may explain his sudden adoption of Olfaction (inhaling the remedy), which he continued to use until his death in Paris in 1843. Olfaction might derive from Arabian medicine and the art of Perfumery.

The miasm of Psora, he concluded, underpinned most of the chronic diseases known to medicine. Miasma, from the Greek for 'stain', was an old medical concept, used for "pestiferous exhalations". The sense of this is indicated by Hahnemann's Note 2 to §11 of the Organon: "...a child with small-pox or measles communicates to a near, untouched healthy child in an invisible manner (dynamically) the small-pox or measles, … in the same way as the magnet communicated to the near needle the magnetic property..."

According to Hahnemann, miasmatic infection causes local symptoms, usually in the skin. If these are suppressed by external medication, the hidden sickness cause goes deeper, and manifests later as organ pathologies. In §80 of the Organon he asserted Psora to be the cause of such diseases as epilepsy, cyphosis, cancer, jaundice, deafness, and cataract. However, even in his own time, many followers of Hahnemann, including Hering, made almost no reference to Hahnemann’s concept of chronic diseases. Today, some homeopathic practitioners find Hahnemann’s theory difficult to reconcile with current scientific knowledge, as it seems to ignore the importance of genetic, metabolic, nutritional, and degenerative factors in sickness; the theory also fails to differentiate the multitude of different infectious diseases. However, most homeopaths insist that the key elements of his theory are valid; most believe that the fundamental cause of disease is internal and constitutional, and that it is contrary to good health to suppress symptoms, and accept Hahnemann's concept of latent Psora, the early signs of an organism’s imbalance, which indicate that treatment is needed to prevent more advanced disease.

However, the miasm theory is not the 'be all and end all' of homeopathy. Hahnemann strongly advocated good hygiene, fresh air, regular exercise, good nutrition as precursors of good health (see his 1792 essay: The Friend of Health); he was also a pioneer in 1792-3 of humane treatment of the insane (1796, Description of Klockenbring During his Insanity) a year before William Tuke and Philippe Pinel, and he published tracts in which he described the cause of cholera as "excessively minute, invisible, living creatures" Asiatic Cholera, 1831. Hahnemann's acceptance of this emerging idea of infectious disease before its final proof by Robert Koch and Louis Pasteur indicates some of his medical views incorporated ideas that were at the cutting-edge of contemporary science. These 17th-century epidemiological theories built on the ideas of Girolamo Fracastoro in the 16th century and the discovery of microbes by Anton van Leeuwenhoek 100 years earlier.

History

In Hahnemann's day, the conventional theory of disease was based on the four humours. Mainstream medicine focused on restoring the balance in the humours, either by attempting to remove an excess of a humour (by such methods as bloodletting and purging, laxatives, enemas and nauseous substances that made patients vomit) or by suppressing symptoms associated with the humours, such as by lowering the body temperature of patients who were feverish. By contrast, Hahnemann promoted an immaterial, vitalistic view of disease: "...that the diseases of man are not caused by any substance, any acridity...any disease matter, but that they are solely spirit-like (dynamic) derangements of the spirit-like power (the vital principle) that animates the human body."

Vitalism was a part of mainstream science in the 18th century. In the twentieth century, vitalism was discarded in favour of the germ theory of disease, following the work of Pasteur, Fleming, Lister and others. Modern medicine sees bacteria and viruses as the causes of many diseases, but Kent, and some modern homeopaths regard them as effects, not causes, of disease. Others have adapted to the views of modern medicine by referring to disturbances in the immune system, rather than the vital force.

The idea that 'like cures like' came to Hahnemann while he wwas translating into German the Materia Medica (1789) of William Cullen, the so-called "Scottish Hippocrates". On reading that Cinchona bark (which contains quinine) was effective because it was bitter, Hahnemann felt this implausible because other substances were as bitter but had no therapeutic value. To understand the effects of Cinchona bark, he took it himself, and saw that his reactions were similar to the symptoms of the disease it was used to treat. At least one writer has suggested that Hahnemann was hypersensitive to quinine, and may have had an allergic reaction This experiment by Hahnemann was by not unique; others before, including Anton von Störck (1731-1803), had advocated "treatment by cautious use of poisons." Hahnemann had studied briefly in Vienna (1777) where Störck eventually became head of the University. The proving idea had also been recommended by the Swiss medical botanist, Albrecht von Haller, (1708-77), who Hahnemann admired, and whose Materia Medica he translated in 1806.

Nearly as important as Hahnemann to the development of homeopathy was James Tyler Kent (1849-1921). Kent's influence in the USA was limited, but in the UK, his ideas became homeopathic orthodoxy by the end of the First World War. His most important contribution may be his repertory, which is still used today. Kent's attempt to rescue an idealized pure homeopathy from what he saw as its degenerate mongrel forms was authoritarian, as he sought to re-emphasize the metaphysical and clinical aspects of Hahnemann's teachings, in particular: insistence on the core doctrines of miasm and vital force; emphasis on case totality rather than rote prescribing for 'named diseases' emphasis on psychological symptoms (to supplement physical pathology) in prescribing; and regular use of very high potencies. Influenced by Swedenborgianism, Kent reputedly emphasized spiritual factors' as the root cause of disease.

"...for it goes to the very primitive wrong of the human race, the very first sickness of the human race that is the spiritual sickness... which in turn laid the foundation for other diseases."

Homeopathy around the world

There are estimated to be more than 100,000 practitioners of homeopathy worldwide, with an estimated 500 million people receiving treatment. More than 12,000 medical doctors and licensed health care practitioners administer homeopathic treatment in the UK, France, and Germany. Homeopathy was regulated by the European Union in 2001, by Directive 2001/83/EC. The numbers using homeopathy is increasing in Europe, with the British market increasing by about 20% per year, with even faster growth in Germany and Portugal. In the USA, sales of homeopathic medicines in 1995 were estimated at US$201 million, and the number of homeopathic practitioners increased from fewer than 200 in the 1970s to approximately 3,000 in 1996. but a recent study indicates that the percentage of people seeking homeopathic treatment in the USA declined from 3.4% in 1997 to 1.7% in 2002.

In Germany, about 6,000 physicians specialize in homeopathy. In 1978 homeopathy, anthroposophically extended medicine and herbalism, were recognized as "special forms of therapy", meaning that their medications are freed from the usual requirement of proving efficacy. Since January 1, 2004 homeopathic medications, with some exceptions, are no longer covered by the country's public health insurance. Most private health insurers continue to cover homeopathy. In Switzerland, homeopathic medications were formerly covered by the basic health insurance system, if prescribed by a physician. This ended in June 2005. The Swiss Government, after a 5-year trial, withdrew insurance coverage for homoeopathy and four other complementary treatments, claiming that they did not meet efficacy and cost-effectiveness criteria. This change applies only to compulsory insurance; homeopathy and other complementary medicine is covered by additional insurance, if the treatment is provided by a medical doctor.

In the UK, homeopathy was established by Dr Frederick Quin (1799-1878) around 1827. Two Italian homeopathic doctors (Drs Romani and Roberta) had been employed two years previously by the Earl of Shrewsbury, but soon returned to Naples as they could not tolerate the damp English climate. Homeopathy soon became the preferred treatment of the upper classes: the Dukes of Edinburgh and Beaufort were among Dr Quin's patients, and he became physician to the Duchess of Cambridge. Homeopathy in Britain continued to have an elite clientele, including members of the royal family until the mid-nineteenth century. At its peak in the 1870s, Britain had many homeopathic dispensaries and small hospitals and large hospitals in Liverpool, Birmingham Glasgow, London and Bristol; the Bristol hospital Image was funded and run by the W.D. & H.O. Wills tobacco family, while the Hahnemann Hospital in Liverpool Image was built by members of the Tate family of sugar importers, who also funded the Tate Gallery in London.

Today in Britain, homeopathic remedies are sold over the counter. Britain has five homeopathic hospitals funded by the National Health Service and many regional clinics. Homeopathy is not practised by most of the medical profession, but it is supported by the Prince of Wales and other members of the royal family. The largest organisation of homeopaths, the Society of Homeopaths, was founded in 1978 and has 1300 members. Medically qualified homeopaths in Britain are represented by the Faculty of Homeopathy: the Faculty, incorporated by an Act of Parliament in 1950, has over 1,400 members throughout the world.

Homeopathy came to India with Dr Martin Honigberger (1795-1869) in Lahore, in 1829-30 India has the largest homeopathic infrastructure in the world, with 300,000 qualified homeopaths, 180 colleges, 7500 government clinics, and 307 hospitals The Association of Qualified Homoeopaths in India is the largest of its kind, and 10% of the population are estimated to use homeopathy exclusively for their medical needs

Homeopathy was established in the USA by Dr Hans Burch Gram (1787-1840)in 1825 and gained popularity, partly because the excesses of conventional medicine were extreme there, and partly due to the efforts of Dr Constantine Hering (1800-1880), who immigrated to America in 1833 and became known as the "father of American homeopathy". Homeopathy in the US rose to prominence. By 1900 hardly any city with a population of more than 50,000 was without a homeopathic hospital and many smaller communities could claim them." In the 1930s the popularity of homeopathy waned, partly due to advances in conventional medicine and partly due to skepticism toward homeopathy, which led to the closure of virtually all medical schools teaching alternative medicine in the USA. The Carnegie Foundation issued the Flexner Report in 1910 that supported allopathic (conventional) medical schools while condemning homeopathic schools. With newer medicines and $350 million being poured into allopathic medicine and hospitals by John D. Rockefeller, homeopathic schools began to close due to lack of support and money," so that, by the 1950s, homeopathy had been virtually extinguished in the US.

Today, in the USA, homeopathic remedies are, like all health-care products, regulated by the Food and Drug Administration. However, unlike conventional medicines, homeopathic products do not have to be approved by the FDA before sale, do not have to be proved to be either safe or effective, need not be labeled with an expiration date, and need not undergo finished product testing to verify contents and strength. Unlike conventional drugs, homeopathic remedies do not have to identify their active ingredients on the grounds that they have few or no active ingredients. In the USA, only homeopathic medicines that claim to treat self-limiting conditions may be sold over the counter; homeopathic medicines that claim to treat a serious disease can be sold only by prescription.

Scientific testing of homeopathic treatment

Early critiques of high dilutions

Sir John Forbes (1787-1861), physician to Queen Victoria (1841-61) said the extremely small doses were regularly derided as useless, ridiculous and "an outrage to human reason." Although such homeopathic cures were accepted as valid by regular physicians at the time, they were ascribed entirely to the body's innate healing powers. Professor Sir James Young Simpson said of the highly diluted drugs: "no poison, however strong or powerful, the billionth or decillionth of which would in the least degree affect a man or harm a fly."

Mechanism of action of homeopathic preparations

As homeopathic remedies at potencies higher than about D23 (10^-23) contain no detectable ingredients apart from the diluent (water, alcohol or sugar), there is no known basis for these preparations having medicinal action. Some tests have suggested that potentized solutions up to D120 can have statistically significant effects on organic processes, including the growth of grain, histamine release by leukocytes and enzyme reactions. However, attempts to replicate these studies on leukocytes and enzymes have failed. A recent review summarized the situation as follows: "...there are some hints from experimental research that homeopathic substances diluted and succussed beyond Avogadro’s number are biologically active but there are no consistent effects from independently reproducible models."

Although some patients report benefits from homeopathic preparations, scientists usually attribute these effects to the Placebo Effect, the regression fallacy and/or the Forer effect. Ideally, drugs are tested in large, multi-centre, randomised, placebo-controlled double-blind clinical trials, to test whether the drug has an effect that is better than either a placebo or a different treatment. Many clinical trials that partially meet these criteria have investigated homeopathy, and some have indicated efficacy above placebo. However, many of the trials are open to technical criticism or involve samples that are too small to allow firm conclusions to be drawn.

British Medical Journal, 1991

In 1991, three professors of medicine from the Netherlands performed a meta-analysis of 107 controlled trials, of which 81 indicated that homeopathic medicines were effective, 24 that they were ineffective, and 2 trials were inconclusive. The authors were surprised by the large number of positive results, including evidence for successful treatment of a wide range of conditions. "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. The meta-analysis concluded, This indicates that there is a legitimate case for further evaluation of homoeopathy, but only by means of well performed trials."

European Journal of Cancer, 2006

In 2006, the European Journal of Cancer published a meta-analysis of six trials of homeopathic treatments for recovery from cancer therapy, including radio- and chemo-therapy. Three of the trials were randomised double-blind placebo-controlled clinical trials. The authors, from the Department of Complementary Medicine at the Universities of Exeter and Plymouth, found insufficient evidence to support the use of homeopathic remedies in cancer treatment.

Lancet 2005 study

In 2005, The Lancet published a meta-analysis of 110 placebo-controlled homoeopathy trials and 110 matched conventional-medicine trials based upon the Swiss government's "Program for Evaluating Complementary Medicine" (PEK). The outcome of this meta-analysis suggested that the clinical effects of homeopathy are likely to be placebo effects. The Lancet paper is notable not least for its design, as a "global" meta analysis of homeopathy, not an analysis of particular effects, i.e. it tested the global hypothesis that the reported effects of homeopathy are placebo effects. If so, then reported positive effects are due to placebo effects, publication bias, observer effects etc., and hence the magnitude of reported effects should diminish with sample size and study quality. For comparison, they subjected an equal set of conventional medicine trials for identical analysis. The prediction was supported by the study; conventional tests showed a real effect independent of sample size, the homeopathy studies did not. The study does not prove that homeopathy is never effective or that all its findings are placebo effects, but the totality of tests analysed show outcomes consistent with the interpretation that all reported effects are placebo effects. The Lancet accompanied the meta-analysis with invited editorials, and published several critical responses.

Basophil stimulation

Madeleine Ennis and her team looked at the effects of ultra-dilute solutions of histamine on human white blood cells involved in inflammation. These cells, called basophils, release histamine when they are stimulated, but exposure to histamine stops these cells releasing any more, an example of negative feedback regulation. Three of the four participating groups observed this inhibitory effect with solutions of histamine so dilute that they probably didn't contain a single histamine molecule. These effects were seen in six of the 24 independent sets of experiments. However, other investigators failed to find any effect from these ultra-dilute solutions and suggested that methodological problems accounted for the positive results.

Evidence-based medicine

There is consensus in the medical community that evidence based medicine is the best standard for assessing efficacy and safety of health-care practices Therefore, systematic reviews with strict protocols are important for validating therapies, and much of modern medicine is subject to efforts to comply with evidence-based standards. Systematic reviews by the Cochrane Collaboration found insufficient evidence that homeopathy is beneficial for asthma, dementia, or induction of labor . They also found no evidence that homeopathic treatment can prevent influenza, but reported that it appears to shorten the duration of the disease. Systematic reviews conducted by other researchers found insufficient evidence that homeopathy is beneficial for osteoarthritis, migraine prophylaxis, delayed-onset muscle soreness, or symptoms of menopause

Medical organizations' attitudes towards homeopathy

The National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, part of the U.S. National Institutes of Health, funds research into homeopathy. Avvording to its statement om homeopathy, The results of individual, controlled clinical trials of homeopathy have been contradictory. In some trials, homeopathy appeared to be no more helpful than a placebo; in other studies, some benefits were seen that the researchers believed were greater than one would expect from a placebo. Nevertheless, Some people feel that if homeopathy appears to be helpful and safe, then scientifically valid explanations or proofs of this alternative system of medicine are not necessary.

According to The UK National Health Service statement on homeopathy, about 200 randomised controlled trials evaluating homeopathy have been conducted, but "it has proven difficult to produce clear clinical evidence that homeopathy works. Many studies suggest that any effectiveness that homeopathy may have is due to the placebo effect, where the act of receiving treatment is more effective than the treatment itself."

In 1997, the following statement was adopted as policy of the American Medical Association (AMA) after a report on several alternative therapies including homeopathy:

There is little evidence to confirm the safety or efficacy of most alternative therapies. Much of the information currently known about these therapies makes it clear that many have not been shown to be efficacious. Well-designed, stringently controlled research should be done to evaluate the efficacy of alternative therapies.

• The Indian Ministry of Health and Family Welfare states that:

Homoeopathy today is a rapidly growing system and is being practiced almost all over the world. In India it has become a household name due the safety of its pills and gentleness of its cure. Homeopathy has been recognised as one of the National Systems of Medicine and plays an important role in providing health care to a large number of people. Its strength lies in its evident effectiveness as it takes a holistic approach towards the sick individual through promotion of inner balance at mental, emotional, spiritual and physical levels.

Homeopathy and vaccination

See also: Isopathy

To some, homeopathy, particularly the use of nosodes, resembles vaccination, in that vaccines contain a small dose of the "disease" against which they are to protect. Hahnemann interpreted the introduction of vaccination as such: But to use a human morbific matter (a Psorin taken from the itch in man) as a remedy for the same itch or for evils arisen therefrom, stay away from it! Nothing can result from this but trouble and aggravation of the disease. Roberts: giving the identical instead of the similar means the difference between isopathy and homoeopathy.

In contrast, modern scientists and doctors see the two practices as fundamentally different. A vaccine is usually a preparation made from a bacterium or virus that cannot produce symptoms, while still providing enough information to the immune system to afford protection. By preparing the immune system of a healthy organism to meet a future attack by the pathogen, vaccination hopes to prevent disease, in contrast to homeopathy's hope, which is to prevent or cure it with dilutions. Another important difference between homeopathic preparations and vaccine, is that vaccine contains measurable amounts of antigen from the disease-causing organism, whereas homeopathic remedies have been diluted to such an extent they are unlikely to contain any detectable active ingredients. The predominant view of homeopaths is that vaccination is not consistent with the principles of homeopathy, even if it is a crude application of the law of similars, they also believe that vaccination has serious short and long-term (health) consequences, and that it might arouse latent inherited and constitutional weaknesses. However, their main objection is that vaccination is a mass-applied technique based on the germ theory of disease, a view homeopaths reject.

Safety of homeopathic treatment

The United States Food & Drug Administration considers that there is no real concern over the safety of most homeopathic products "because they have little or no pharmacologically active ingredients". There have been few reports of illness associated with the use of homeopathic products, but in cases that they reviewed, the FDA concluded the homeopathic product was not the cause of the adverse reactions. The main concern about the safety of homeopathy arises not from the products themselves, but from the possible withholding of more efficacious treatment, or from misdiagnosis of dangerous conditions by a non-medically qualified homeopath. For example, a 2006 survey by the UK charitable trust "Sense About Science," revealed homeopathic practices which were advising travelers against taking conventional anti-malarial drugs, instead providing them with a homeopathic dilution of quinine. Even the director of the The Royal London Homeopathic Hospital condemned this:

"I'm very angry about it because people are going to get malaria - there is absolutely no reason to think that homeopathy works to prevent malaria and you won't find that in any textbook or journal of homeopathy so people will get malaria, people may even die of malaria if they follow this advice." .

Several scientists said the homeopaths' advice was reprehensible and likely to endanger lives. Professor Geoffrey Pasvol, a tropical medicine expert at Imperial College in London was reported as saying "Medical practitioners would be sued, taken to court and found guilty for far less. What this investigation has unearthed is appalling." .

Notes

• Online etext of Hahnemann's Organon der Heilkunst: German original (other format) and English translation

External links

Neutral

• A recent article on homeopathy testing from the Annals of Internal Medicine
• BBC's Horizon on homeopathy (transcripts, discussion, etc.)
• Complementary Medicine - Therapies: Homeopathy BBC's "Complementary Medicine" article on Homeopathy
• Homeopathy In Perspective — critical online book, covering the history and present state of homeopathy
• FDA's view of homeopathy
• Water Structure and Behaviour— balanced and up-to-date references to current scientific understanding of water, with specific entries on "memory effects" and homeopathy
• Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital's presentation of homeopathic medicine

Advocacy

• A condensed history of homeopathy
• American Institute of Homeopathy
• North American Society of Homeopaths
• The Society of Homeopaths - UK Organisation Representing Professional Homeopaths
• Homeopathy Links from The Holistic Medicine Resource Center
• Homoeopathy India Foundation web site http://www.e-homoeopathy.com
• Homéopathe International — The English language version of Homéopathe International
• Homeopathy Timeline with historical and biographical information
• Webhomeopath - an on-line homeopathic repertory
• Christian Friedrich Samuel Hahnemann A historical overview

Critical

• An Overview By Steven Novella
• A skeptic's view of homeopathy
• Magical Thinking in Complementary and Alternative Medicine
• HomeoWatch (Homeopathy Watch) — A Skeptical Guide to Homeopathic History, Theories, and Current Practices, operated by Stephen Barrett, M.D. (founder of Quackwatch)
• H2G2 entry on homeopathy.
• The Skeptics Dictionary
• "The Scientific Evidence on Homeopathy" - American Council on Science and Health

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