There has been no doubt in my mind for a long time that homeopathy is total bunk. For it to work as it’s supposed to several laws of physics must be violated and our understanding of the human immune system thrown out the window. I have no issue with people self-prescribing these things however the fact that many practitioners advocate their remedies in favour of actual medicine is what draws my ire. Thankfully the Australian government has begun to show an intolerance for such charlantry and recently commissioned a review of the research done on homeopathy. The results are, unsurprisingly, not in homeopathy’s favour finding that in their review of the literature that it is no more effective than a placebo for a total of 68 illnesses.
The study was conducted by the National Health and Medical Research Council, Australia’s peak funding body for medical research that oversees some $700 million in funding per year. Their study included materials from 57 systemic reviews which covered some 176 individual studies. Additionally information that was submitted directly to the NHMRC through its public consultation phase was also included. Studies were only concluded if they were well designed (done by comparing them to international standards for conducting such trials) and placebo controlled. The results showed that, for all well designed and properly controlled studies, there was no evidence to suggest that homeopathy was any more effective than a placebo was. Indeed the only positive results were found in studies of poor quality and design which would likely have led to spurious results that were not supported by data. For the remaining studies there was simply not evidence to make a conclusion one way or the other.
Whilst these results are unsurprising it does beg the question about the regulation of things such as this. Australians spend some $10 million a year on these remedies a figure that continues to climb every year. However the body of evidence is so strong against them that it begs the question about whether they should be sold at all. I think they get a pass since they really have no potential to cause harm in and of themselves however it’s the abstinence from proper medicine that has the real potential to cause harm. So potentially we need to regulate against the practitioners rather than the remedies themselves.
It feels like beating a dead horse at this point but the fact that homeopathy is still around, and becoming more popular, shows that research like this is needed. I know it won’t convince everyone but hopefully those who are on the fence about it will be convinced that homeopathy is total bunk.
