London: Dismissing
homoeopathy, professor Matthias Egger of the University of Berne said
some patients reported feeling better after homoeopathic treatment
because of the holistic experience of the therapy and it had “nothing
to do with the little white pill”.
The Lancet article
said, “The evidence for a specific effect of homoeopathic remedies
is weak. The investigators conclude that the clinical effects of homeopathy
are compatibly with placebo effects.”
The newest assault
on homoeopathy, which was developed in Germany by Dr. Samuel Hahnemann whose French pupil imported it into India as early
as 1810, has dismayed advocates of the treatment. Until the Lancet
research, homoeopathy was steaming ahead in the West, with just under
half of all general practitioners in England now routinely referring
patients to a homoeopath.
The renewed
debate over homoeopathy’s real or imagined effects comes just a few
years after the World Heath Organisation (WHO) appeared to endorse it
as part of its Global Strategy for Health for All in the 21st
Century. WHO supported the integration of conventional
and alternative medicine to improve the quality of health care, attempting
to end nearly 30 years of internal debate on the promotion and development
of alternative medicine with a view to incorporating it into primary
health care systems worldwide.
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