On Homeopathy and the UK Government's Science and Technology Committee Debate on Homeopathy

Jayney Goddard's "quick view":

"It is now fairly accepted that the large outcome trials of (individualised) homeopathy demonstrate that patients do very well – often after failing on conventional medical interventions. Surely, if these large patient groups were responding to a homeopathic placebo -  would they not also have responded to a conventional medical one? 

Much has been made too of the large cost of homeopathy to the NHS – the figures reported recently have been exaggerated and the large outcome trials point to the possibility of cost savings for the NHS. 

Furthermore, there are some compelling studies now in animal and in-vitro trials which demonstrate that homeopathically prepared medicines (even diluted above Avogadro’s number) have an effect – thus nullifying the ‘placebo’ argument.

It is therefore very disappointing that the science supporting homeopathy seems to have actually been overlooked by the committee. Much has been made of the Shang meta analysis – but the validity of this study has been widely questioned.

If every intervention in medicine that is not yet absolutely proven to work was cancelled by the NHS – then 85% of approaches in common use today would no longer be available.(According to the BMA’s Clinical Evidence website).  One has to wonder why Prozac is still being prescribed – surely if one were to apply the ‘don’t prescribe it if it’s a placbo’ argument then Prozac and other SSRIs also need to disappear pretty quickly."

Read the profession's position statement here