The Lancet will publish a new meta-analysis on homeopathy on Saturday that it claims will "be the end of homeopathy". The sited study has been analyzed by some of the best scientifc minds in the United States and been found to be deeply flawed and inaccurate. All in the homeopathic community need to be aware of this study and the critiques from these U.S. scientists. Their comments follow:
“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 centurythat 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”

Please be on the lookout for this study and help spread the word on its many design flaws.

Right. There is quite a lot of discussion going on, on the other list/group. this is what I psoted there. DO read the link I have provided below.


The intention seems to be a global onslaught against homeopathy!
My first reaction was - you can fool some of the people some of the time, but you can't fool all the people all of the time. Most of the people in India who use homeopathy will have a good laugh that the effect is placebo - but there are many without the homeopathic exposure on the fence, and of course it could push them back on the other side.

BEsides hey - do you know that the 'placebo effect' is also a well documented positive therapy? So this is not a "Bad" review. What is the next step is to prove that homeopAthy can work BEYOND the palcebo effect - and that will be documented only is clearly pathological or "incurable" cases. Its time for homeopaths to Bite the Bullet....
MIASMS anybody??

There have been many discussions about the authenticity of these trials conducted - but I think the most relavent one is that COntrolled trials are not conducive to homeoapthic principles of prescribing remedies.
Here is a very useful article a team member at hapthy.com wrote for the ezine that would be worth reading on trial protocols:
http://www.hpathy.com/research/sher...ghomeopathy.asp

The other aspect is to keep in mind the relative economical insecurity developing in certain large industries when people begin to accept that expensive drugs are not required, that vaccines are not required, and people will go to a doctor for a diagnosis but refuse to take or be prescribed any medication.... Gone ar ethe days when a medication was prescribed and the patient had to take it. Today, it has become the patients prerogative to accept antibiotics and steriods or not!

that's my 2.5 cents...
Dr. leela

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http://www.homeopathy2health.com