London: A major study
in a top medical journal has dismissed homoeopathy, calling for an end
to the 18th century natural pharmaceutical science which is the third
most popular method of treatment in India and is now freely available
on Britain’s National Health Service.
The study
in Lancet says homoeopathy is no better
than dummy drugs. It has cited a Swiss-led review of 110 trials, which
alleged that homoeopathic drugs worked no better than a placebo. In
what many admit is an authoritative call to review the cult-like status
of the medical treatment, the study said Western doctors must
be honest about homoeopathy’s “lack of benefit”.
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Used & Abused
Late 1700s: Samuel Hahnemann develops homoeopathy in Germany
1829: Belgium’s 1st homoeopath, Dr Pierre deMoor, begins practice. Another
in Lyons
1830: Beginning of cholera epidemic in Germany. Hahnemann ascribes its cause
to “infinitely small, invisible living organisms”. He publishes four
pamphlets detailing the use of camphor, cuprum, and veratrum for treatment
of the epidemic. The remarkable results boost homoeopathy’s status in Europe
1830s: Homoeopathy becomes illegal in Austria, but many people still use it
during the cholera epidemic of 1831
1835: ‘Domestic Physician’ , the first popular homoeopathic self-care
manual, is published
1836: Richard Phelan, MD, introduces homoeopathy to the English county of
Kent
1843: Hahnemann dies in Paris
PRESENT DAY: There are more than 47,000 practitioners of alternative
medicine in UK-more than the no. of general practitioners
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But advocates
of homoeopathy said the Swiss scientists’ research merely overturned
a previous assertion by Lancet, which published a favourable review
in September 1997 of 89 double-blind or randomised placebo controlled
clinical trials. The 1997 study, by a German professor, had
concluded that the clinical effects of homoeopathic medicines were not
that of a placebo and had 2.45 times more effect.
They said a
research conducted in 1991 and published in the British Medical Journal
indicated that of the 107 controlled clinical trials of homoeopathic medicines,
81 had demonstrable beneficial results. But the Lancet research by Prof Matthias
Egger of the University of Berne, his Swiss colleagues from Zurich
University and a UK team at the University of Bristol reportedly found
disappointing results from homoeopathic treatment of asthma, allergies and
muscular problems.
Admitting on
Friday that it was “impossible to prove a negative”, Egger, however, said large
studies had not “shown a difference between the placebo and the homoeopathic
remedy, whereas in the case of conventional medicines you see an effect”.
Holistic
experience, P 16
City
homoeopaths defend, P 8
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