1,800 Studies Later, Scientists Conclude Homeopathy Doesn’t Work

[Kumar]

My answer to that question has not changed since the last time you asked it.

I meant, if odd or ineffective, healing agents are withdrawn by regulating agencies. If homeopathic remedies are ineffective, as you calculate, why and how those are not withdrawn?

 

[Lukraak_Sisser]

I meant, if odd or ineffective, healing agents are withdrawn by regulating agencies. If homeopathic remedies are ineffective, as you calculate, why and how those are not withdrawn?

Because the homeopathic mumbo jumbo in effect blames the patient for not getting better, rather than the medicine.

 

[Pixel42]

I meant, if odd or ineffective, healing agents are withdrawn by regulating agencies. If homeopathic remedies are ineffective, as you calculate, why and how those are not withdrawn?

Medical treatments which are shown to be less effective in the field than their clinical trials suggested are withdrawn by their manufacturers, who replace them with better treatments. The regulating agencies only get involved if the treatment actually proves harmful, and the manufacturers do not react quickly enough to the new evidence.

Why do the manufacturers of homeopathic remedies not withdraw them when they have been shown to be ineffective? I can make a good guess. Can you?

 

[Little 10 Toes]

Already pointed out.

How very Kumar of you. Let's finish the second paragraph, list the disadvantages (hidden under the spoiler tags to save room) and address those disadvantages.

The overview was based on finding systematic reviews of homeopathy, rather than searching for all individual published studies of homeopathy. The advantage of this strategy was to make use of the large amount of work that had already been done by researchers around the world in finding and assessing studies and to provide an overarching picture of the whole body of evidence. However, there were also some disadvantages:

• As the overview only included systematic reviews, some individual studies of homeopathy may not have been considered (particularly recent studies published since the latest systematic reviews). This risk was offset by inviting homeopathy interest groups and the public to provide extra evidence at two stages of the review: before the overview and at public consultation on the draft of this Information Paper. From this process an additional 42 studies were considered as part of the
assessment of the evidence. These studies did not alter the overall findings of the assessment of the evidence.
• To assess the quality of individual studies, the research group had to rely on the way that these were reported by systematic reviews. Details of study design (e.g. the outcomes measured and the length of follow up), the statistical significance of the results and the clinical importance of any reported health benefits were not always available. Also, the description of an individual study was sometimes inconsistent between systematic reviews. In these instances, the findings of the systematic review which was assessed to be of a higher quality was considered.

• It was not possible to separate the evidence for clinical homeopathy (in which the homeopath chooses one or more homeopathic medicines to treat a particular health condition) and individualised homeopathy (in which the homeopath matches all the person’s symptoms to a single homeopathic medicine), because most of the systematic reviews did not analyse these separately. Most of the studies used clinical homeopathy.

• It was not possible to make conclusions about the effects of homeopathy on each of the specific health outcomes (e.g. pain, mobility) relevant to a particular health condition (e.g. arthritis), because of the large number of outcomes and the different reporting of outcomes between the different systematic reviews. Instead, outcomes were aggregated for each health condition and a*single conclusion made.

• It was often difficult in studies to find the details of other treatments with which homeopathy was compared. To interpret the studies that compared homeopathy with another treatment, it is necessary to understand whether the other treatment is an effective standard treatment. This information was often not available from the systematic reviews.

• It is also likely that some studies assessing homeopathic treatments have never been published. Searching of clinical trials registries can identify unpublished studies and enable researchers to obtain and analyse the results, but cannot identify studies that have not been registered. The overview identified only 10 systematic reviews that reported having considered publication bias, and only two of these made a comprehensive, systematic search for missing studies.
One of these systematic reviews reported significant publication bias, which the authors suggested was primarily due to under-reporting of studies with statistically non-significant effects and with negative effects.[2] Clinical trial registries (included the World Health Organisation Clinical Trials Registry, the US government’s ClinicalTrials.gov and the Australian New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry) were searched but did not identify any extra studies.

Despite the above limitations, it is unlikely that a review of primary studies (rather than of systematic reviews) would have altered the findings. This is because the studies on homeopathy identified through this process were generally small and of poor quality (either poorly designed or poorly done). Due to the poor quality of the evidence base, the Homeopathy Working Committee had to apply caution when considering the results reported by studies. For some health conditions, this meant that no conclusion could be made on whether or not homeopathy was effective. For other conditions, this meant that NHMRC could not be confident that the results reported by studies were reliable.

The study noted the limitations, addressed them, and still said homeopathy is still bunk.

 

[Kumar]

How very Kumar of you. Let's finish the second paragraph, list the disadvantages (hidden under the spoiler tags to save room) and address those disadvantages.



The study noted the limitations, addressed them, and still said homeopathy is still bunk.

Limitations suggest study and negative outcome is not A&F.

Inspite of limitations which they accept that poor quality of studies were there, how they can make base of these studies to reject homeopathic efficacy. Proper, valid & satisfactory studies at par to science protocols will be needed to come to a right conclusion. Be equanimious and grill this study in skeptical manner on it by finding its defects.

 

[steenkh]

Refer Post #23 by ddt.

So you think that it should be forbidden not[\b] to use an effective medicine?

 

[Kumar]

Medical treatments which are shown to be less effective in the field than their clinical trials suggested are withdrawn by their manufacturers, who replace them with better treatments. The regulating agencies only get involved if the treatment actually proves harmful, and the manufacturers do not react quickly enough to the new evidence.

Why do the manufacturers of homeopathic remedies not withdraw them when they have been shown to be ineffective? I can make a good guess. Can you?

How ineffective healing agents can't be taken as harmful agents by the regulating agencies? In actual sense they are also harmful agents since they can misguide the patients to get the effective treatment. As I said, this harm can be bigger side effect than other normal direct side effects. Hence I doubt that Regulating Agencies are not involved in it.

 

[Kumar]

So you think that it should be forbidden not[\b] to use an effective medicine?

I think, only effective medicines should be allowed to exist for treatments and cure.

 

[steenkh]

I think, only effective medicines should be allowed to exist for treatments and cure.

OK, that may be your opinion, but the regulating agencies do not view it this way, they only forbid remedies that are dangerous in themselves. Effectiveness is not necessary. On the other hand, health insurances sometimes demand effectiveness of the stuff they pay for.

In Denmark, for instance, the state health insurance does not pay for homoeopathy, or for acupuncture (another ineffective treatment), but the biggest private health insurance company does in fact pay for acupuncture, even though they do not pay for homoeopathy. The reason is that the private insurance company exists to earn money, and there is a big demand among their customers for acupuncture (it is generally not known that is dangerous), but homoeopathy is not as popular in Denmark.

 

[Mojo]

I meant, if odd or ineffective, healing agents are withdrawn by regulating agencies. If homeopathic remedies are ineffective, as you calculate, why and how those are not withdrawn?

Because homoeopathic remedies are not regulated in the same way as real medicines. In the US, for example, they were grandfathered into the regulatory system by the sponsor of the legislation, who just happened to be a homoeopath, in such a way that they effectively escaped regulation.

It's a little ironic that Kumar often blames "vested interests" for opposition to homoeopathy, isn't it?

 

[jimbob]

Explain why it should be banned. Because it is worthless? We do not normally ban things that are worthless.

Ohh... it's so tempting to mention several unbanned posters whose contributing posts on their field of interest are worthless as supporting evidence for that statement.

 

[Norman Alexander]

Kumar, do you think homeopathy remedy makers make little or no profit from their business?

 

[Kumar]

OK, that may be your opinion, but the regulating agencies do not view it this way, they only forbid remedies that are dangerous in themselves. Effectiveness is not necessary. .

Misguided treatment, if really there, is also dangerous. Regulating agencies should consider it. It is quite surprising that inspite of many meta-studies since last 20 years, even by respectable agencies, homeopathy is not getting effected. Either people feel it to be really effective or there is some odd in doing the studies. Quite logical.

 

[Kumar]

Because homoeopathic remedies are not regulated in the same way as real medicines. In the US, for example, they were grandfathered into the regulatory system by the sponsor of the legislation, who just happened to be a homoeopath, in such a way that they effectively escaped regulation.

It's a little ironic that Kumar often blames "vested interests" for opposition to homoeopathy, isn't it?

It is quite surprising, miss or weakness. If ineffectiveness from homeopathic remedies is really there, why they don't take such ineffectiveness as misguided treatments so the bigger harmful effect. It is also surprising that, inspite of fact that many meta-studies, even from respectable agencies are made public but still people are accepting homeopathy. Either people taste the positive effects or there is some mistake in such studies. Quite logical.

 

[Kumar]

Kumar, do you think homeopathy remedy makers make little or no profit from their business?

In my country they make just so so and are not very rich.

 

[Pixel42]

Either people taste the positive effects or there is some mistake in such studies.

Or the people who take homeopathic remedies are unaware of the meta studies because they haven't bothered to educate themselves.

Or the people who take homeopathic remedies are so ignorant of the scientific method and the reason for its invention (their fallible perceptions and cognitive biases) that they think their anecdotal evidence that suggests it works is a more reliable source of information than thousands of scientific studies which prove it doesn't.

 

[Kumar]

Or the people who take homeopathic remedies are unaware of the meta studies because they haven't bothered to educate themselves.

Or the people who take homeopathic remedies are so ignorant of the scientific method and the reason for its invention (their fallible perceptions and cognitive biases) that they think their anecdotal evidence that suggests it works is a more reliable source of information than thousands of scientific studies which prove it doesn't.

I doubt it because modern people are well educated and well informed. I think, they listen all these odds but either don't believe or don't observe alike as told.

 

[MRC_Hans]

It is quite surprising that inspite of these types of meta-studies, how million of people in many part of world are still taking homeopathic treatments and how it is not yet banned?

People like to believe all kinds of stuff- I have already told you several times that authorities don't ban useless medicines, only dangerous ones. You are also allowed to believe that prayer, drinking your own urine, and other nonsense can heal you.

What most coutries can and do forbid is making actual claims about efficacy.

Information presence in higher potencies is also a big issue which may raise a need for homeopathy to divide into two parts to sustain. 1. Molecular Based Homeopathy 2. Sub-molecular based Homeopathy. Studies conducted by considering these two parts can give better idea about effects from homeopathic remedies.

Kumar, acomplished homeopaths don't make this distinction. Historically, homeopaths have not made it. Its just a new rule you recently invented.

Hans

 

[MRC_Hans]

Are you doubting integrity of regulating and government agencies as well as of million of well educated and well informed modern people in most part of world and abusing them?

New trolling style again, Kumar, putting words in people's mouths. You know, you used to get some respect because you were generally polite in your style. Doing the above will get you into far hotter fray than you are used to. Just friendly advice...

Hans

 

[Pixel42]

I doubt it because modern people are well educated and well informed.

I've discussed homeopathy with many supposedly well educated and informed people, both irl and online, the level of ignorance about it never ceases to astonish me. Most don't even know what it is, they're usually under the impression that it's some kind of ancient herbal remedy. Those who have tried it at some point, or know someone who has, often do know so little about the scientific method that they think anecdotal evidence is sufficient to establish that it's at least potentially effective. So, as usual, you couldn't be more wrong.