NEW DELHI: It is no sweet pill. In fact, the Lancet report on homoeopathy, The End of Homeopathy has stirred a hornet's nest.

Homeopathic practitioners in India say the credibility of a 250-year-old system can't be questioned just because a bunch of allopaths have different views on it.

The article was published by scientists from the University of Berne, Switzerland, and had concluded that homoeopathy had the same medical value as placebos and was no better than dummy drugs.

Homoeopaths say the conclusions are completely off the mark. "The study was based on random controlled trials (RCTs), while homoeopathy is a people-oriented system.

Medicines are prescribed, based on individual traits and requirements. Unlike allopathy where one drug works on everybody with a particular ailment, here, 10 different combinations may be required for 10 patients with the same ailment," says Dr R K Manchanda, deputy director, Nehru Homeopathic Medical College and Hospital, Delhi.

Tonsillitis alone has 100 different kinds of homoeopathic medicines.

Therefore, the random controlled trials concept does not work here.

"Is it right to check the effectiveness of one medical system using the meas ures of another, when the two systems are so different?" asks Dr Sunita Joshi, a practitioner.

The absence of homoeopathy experts in the study team and the editorial board of the journal is another point of contention.

Homoeopaths argue that the Lancet report was just a statistical paper based on random controlled trials lifted from the Internet and not based on actual tests.

"What's more, in 1997, the same journal had published a report by German scientists that said homoeopathic drugs are 245% more effective than placebos. And now, this study. Which is correct?" asks Dr Mukesh Batra, Dr Batra's Positive Health Clinic.

Homoeopaths also say the article included a list of clinical topics on which the survey was based, except paediatrics. This is the only field of medicine free of the placebo effect, and where data could show the unbiased clinical effect of each system.

"Traditionally, homoeopathy works best among children. Also, if it wasn't effective, 100 billion people all over the world would not trust it," says Batra. Doctors say patients turning to homoeopathy have increased.

In the last five years alone, Batra says, it has grown 25% all over the world. He claims he treats around 7,500 patients every month.

In fact, the gap between allopathy and homoeopathy is not much.

A recent paper titled Cost effectiveness and efficacy of homoeopathy in primary health care units of government of Delhi by Dr Manchanda and Dr Kulashreshtha says: "The average annual patient turnover in an allopathic clinic as against a homoeopathic one was 27,508 patients and 24,943 respectively."

Experts however say the Lancet study might have dealt a body blow to the age-old system discovered in Germany.

Practitioners however say homoeopathy still is the safest system as it has no side-effects.

No wonder it remains the second-most popular system of medicine after allopathy. No wonder Manchanda is all for promoting it at the primary health care level too in order to minimise costs.

Source link: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/msid-1241713,curpg-1,fright-0,right-0.cms

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Dr.A.Kannan MD(Hom)
www.homoeodoctor.com

On this issue, Dr. MAS passed very good remarks. He said, Lancet is actually want to do buisness by publishing this rubbish report and put the report on sale. This is exactly the same that WHCC did research and found homeopahtic effective and put the report on sale. Anybody can read but cannot paste anywhere without having rights and for getting rights pay 10 thousand dollars. Lancet played game with homeopaths.

Dear Doctor Amir Shahzad,

You are right what you said.You and every body is well aware who is behind this.
People are blaming homeopathy since its beginning.The pharmaceutical companies are behind this and they will keep on doing this because they are directly hit by homeopathy.
The single remedy at a time and minimum dose,they just cannot tolerate that.We do have some deficiencies especially in field of education.If these defeciencies are removed we can stand by their side-no doubt.But you know what we are doing,the most famous practitioner are doing combination remedies and our pharmacies local and foreign are spending a lot of money for the promotion of their products.It is not bad with this homeopathy is also getting promotion but by doing so we are discouriging deep study of homeopathy.The person who never open a book,never consult the repertory is the most famous doctor and earning a lot of money of course.
sajjad.

World population is around 6 billion. Where did this number come from? If it's an accurate quote from Batra then I'd be *extremely* distrustful of *any* figures mentioned.

I mentioned some issues related to 'so thought failure of homeopathy in DBPC studies' in another thread.

Considerations about Homeopathy?

Survey report shows quite positive results (somewhat exactly, as homeopaths & its patients observe), whereas DBPC studies not. Look at the following observational/survey report:-

http://www.liebertonline.com/doi/pdf...cm.2005.11.793

I think this report indicate/justify homeopathic effects with & without conventional medicines. As some people object that it is not DBPC report but Why doctors sent patients to homeopathic hospital? Why doctors, homeopaths, patients & their relatives not discontinuued, if they noted no positivities during a long period of six years? Can you expect such a big fraud in UK's such a reputed hospital? It is clear in report that patients on conventional medicines & with some other outside influces, were seprated & grouped in "x" group, whose results were neligible.

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Homeopathic & Biochemic system existed because Drs.Hahnemann & Schuessler thought differently.
Successful people don't do different things, they do things differently..S.Kh.

For the sake of symmetry:

Scientific research is scientific research. Sometimes it's flawed, and sometimes those flaws take a long time to be corrected, but there's also a flaw in the argument above. Saying, "there must be something to it because so many people believe in it" is circular. One could equally say, "Why (have other) doctors, scientists, laypersons and their relatives not accepted homeopathic medicine, if they have noticed any positives during the last century?"

And

Why not? If you believe that the larger part of modern medicine is falsifying reports to discredit homeopathy, or at least taking the side of staunch conservatism, is that not the same thing?

Not trying to derail the topic, just trying to make it stick to the research part

I recall those difficult years when I had to improvise very simple ways to manage emergency cases while practising in remote areas in the state of Johore, Malaysia, when the nearest hospital was miles away. Droplet feeding a succussed preparation from the patient's vomitus in accidental poisoning was a desperate homeopathic procedure in jungle medicine but not in orthodox medicine.. There was no time for detailed history -taking. Slipping some crashed homeopathic granules of Antimony Tartarate 6x into a gasping cyanotic child's mouth, with respiratory problems before the frantic rush to the nearest hospital, was another emergency measure. Breathing into a perforated paper bag for better carbon dioxide and exhaled Nitric Oxide retention was a life-saving measure to maintain vasodilation to provide oxygen for life maintenance to the anoxic child during the journey to the nearest medical institution ....
.Under such straitened circumstances, I witnessed the foreign-body extruding effect of potentised Silica in healed injuries still harbouring the retained debris. The extruded objects [ tiny glass pieces and wooden splinters] were palpable over the skin. My patients from the jungle fringes in Kahang, Johore shared with me their folklore steeped in traditional medicine.It could be that the memories of the sounds and voices [ Nature's silence ] of the rainforests where I spent most of my childhood, that had lured me to trudge the lonely Way searching for holistic truths...

Very few would trudge the lonely path the way I did. I had suffered and ran the gamut which many of my pioneering teachers of holistic medicine and allied sciences had experienced. The reawakening was rejuvenating and the realization of my cherished dream that eventually the medical establishment in Malaysia would resonate with Mother Nature is well worth all the illusory deprivations that had beset me and the shattering experience of holistic reawakening. Herbal Therapy has been accepted in Malaysia recently for the treatment of Cancer.

On research, much has been done on the quiet and some has been blantantly ignored. The entrained electromagnetic intelligence, in chemicals or heavy metals or in the water molecules, is the specific signature of the entity, be it a a human cell, bacterium,fungus,yeast,parasite or virus
Although more than 200 years have elapsed since the beginning of homeopathy, the so-called (long-term) memory of water is still a highly disputable and controversial theme in scientific circles . On the basis of the known and accepted physical laws and properties of water, a vast majority of scientific community does not allow even a remote possibility that water might "remember" a substance once diluted in it. The reason for this is that the Brownian motion of water molecules and clusters would annihilate any memory structures in terms of picoseconds . However, in spite of this presumably physical impossibility many healing practitioners as well as many scientists claim on empirical grounds that water can prove its memorising capacities . In physical researches the most striking results indicating water memory were obtained from NMR, UV and X-ray spectroscopy of ultra-highly diluted water (ultra high dilution means a dilution of a substance in which there is high probability that not even one molecule is left; it is practically pure water).In conclusion, the results demonstrate repeatable and statistically significant effects of highly diluted standard and homeopathic dilutions of KI on corona discharge Kirlian electrophotography. This, together with countless results obtained by other research groups, related to biological effects of homeopathic dilutions, indicates that there is some physical basis enabling organisms to utilize information imprinted into water.

http://lkm.fri.uni-lj.si/xaigor/slo/...strumental.htm

Another website which really impressed me is the research work on Homeopathy and Digital Biology ( Benveniste 's Molecular memories of structured water ). It is really worth waiting for the downloading. It is beautifully presented.

http://www.bion.si/gradiva-objave/tr...f_orkney03.pdf

With regards
Lew

Can't we then say, all the studies, researches, discoveries, surveys etc. done by science people for science can be pro/biased and false as not yet endorssed by homeopathy or by other CAMs? Why you think, science stamp on their system and other systems should only be valid? If you can think that, that can be cheating or fraud, how all such studies, researches and discoveries done by science people for science can be tursted? Can't these be for some vested self interests?

So pls take stamp an endorssment of homeopathy on all such modernizations than accept, accordingly.

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Homeopathic & Biochemic system existed because Drs.Hahnemann & Schuessler thought differently.
Successful people don't do different things, they do things differently..S.Kh.

If I said that eating broken glass cured warts (random example for the sake of argument) and my friend said that he agreed, that would not be good enough. If my friend's friend said he'd eaten glass and had no warts, that wouldn't be good enough. If *his* friend claimed it was scientifically correct because the glass contained the memory of the reflection of his warts, that wouldn't be good enough.

If more than one independent, properly blinded study showed that eating broken glass correlated with a lack of warts, that would be enough to show interest.
If one person or group emerged with a hypothesis grounded in acknowledged science showing that glass granules in *any way* reacted with wart cells, that would be enough to show interest.

Science isn't a dirty word, and it's not a belief system. It's mostly just common sense...

It looks this example have some dynamic thoughts. Glass contain silica. Other thought is reflection effect--refer "can photo effect" there.
Anyway it depend upon the type of friends you make.


But I think we are discussing "uncommon sense".

__________________
Homeopathic & Biochemic system existed because Drs.Hahnemann & Schuessler thought differently.
Successful people don't do different things, they do things differently..S.Kh.