London: A major study
in a leading 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 (NHS).
The study in The
Lancet says homeopathy is no better than dummy drugs, citing a Swiss led
review of 110 trials, which alleged homoeopathic drugs worked no better than a
placebo. The journal said, in what many admit is an authoritative call to review
the cult-like status of the medical treatment, that Western doctors need to be
honest about homeopathy’s “lack of benefit”.
But advocates of homeopathy said the Swiss scientists’ research merely overturned a previous assertion by The Lancet, which published a favourable review in September 1997, of 89 double-blind or randomi- sed placebo-controlled clinical trials. The 1997 study, by a German professor, had concluded the clinical effects of homoeopathic medicines were not simply that of a placebo and had 2.45times more effect.
They said that earlier, 1991 research published in the British Medical Journal indicated that of 107 controlled clinical trials of homoeopathic medicines, 81 had demon-strable beneficial results.
But The Lancet research by Professor Matthias Egger of the University of Berne, Swiss colleagues from Zurich University and a UK team at the University of Bristol, found disappointing results from homoeopathic treatment of asthma, allergies and muscular problems.
Egger admitted on Friday that it was “impossible to prove a negative but good large studies of homeopathy do not show a difference between the placebo and the homoeopathic remedy, whereas in the case of conventional medicines you still see an effect.”
He admitted that some patients reported feeling better after homoeopathic treatment but that was largely because of the holistic experience of the therapy.
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