Homeopathy and your Pharmacy

[Mongrel]

An article I found a few weeks back in Chemist and Druggist coincides nicely with the Challenging Homeopathy article in this weeks commentary so I thought I'd post the relevant excerpts here for your perusal.
(And, yes, I was intending to post it sooner but things got hectic at work )

In an article on (s)CAM in the Chemist and Druggist magazine (16th July 2005) entitled "A Testing Problem" the researcher is stating that pharmacies who don't stock homeopathic remedies often state lack of evidence as a reason. When asked Robert Wilson, chairman of Nelsonbach is quoted as saying

In CAM , treatment recommendations are ofter individualised, and this individualisation can create difficulties in designing studies when compared to the allopathic approach... in this context, the double-blind, placebo-controlled trial, held up as the 'holy grail' of evidence-based medicines may lose its hallowed status. Designed to test how pharmaceuticals treat physical symptoms, not individuals, it should not be the sole 'test' of CAM.

Luckily the it also quotes an editorial from "last weeks BMJ" calling for more trials

"Without evidence of efficacy, it is hard to judge the safety of herbal medicines." Warning that "natural is not synonymous with innocuous"

Extract of editorial here the rest is subscriber only