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Homeopathy works...

Mojo

Mostly harmless
Mojo
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...as well as placebo!

Brien et al. Homeopathy has clinical benefits in rheumatoid arthritis patients that are attributable to the consultation process but not the homeopathic remedy: a randomized controlled clinical trial. Rheumatology, published online November 13, 2010.

Conclusion. Homeopathic consultations but not homeopathic remedies are associated with clinically relevant benefits for patients with active but relatively stable RA.
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There's an accompanying editorial by Edzard Ernst.

Yet Brien et al. argue that the placebo effect of the consultation with a homeopath is specific to homeopathy and ‘dependent on the ritual of the collaborative and highly individualized consultation necessary to identify a homeopathic remedy and the associated symbolic meaning response for that patient’. Proponents of homeopathy tend to defend homeopathy in that way. More critical minds might, however, see things differently. They would doubt whether ineffective therapies can be vindicated through the non-specific effects they generate. They would also warn against the double standard this would establish. A useless surgical operation, for instance, does not become useful and recommendable because it generates a host of non-specific effects which are typical of that setting.
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Their argument would also seem to be contradicted by a recent systematic review (Nuhn T, Lüdtke R, Geraedts M. Placebo effect sizes in homeopathic compared to conventional drugs - a systematic review of randomised controlled trials. Homeopathy. 2010 Jan;99(1):76-82) which concluded that "placebo effects in RCTs on classical homeopathy did not appear to be larger than placebo effects in conventional medicine."
 
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Covered by the Torygraph here, by the way. They give the last word to the super-special placebo effect:
Dr Sarah Brien, the study’s lead author, said that while previous research had suggested homeopathy could help patients with rheumatoid arthritis, the study provided the first scientific evidence to show such benefits were “specifically due to its unique consultation process”.
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But by no means the first scientific evidence to show that it ain't the remedies.
 
It'll be interesting to see if the homoeopaths try to spin this, or just ignore it.
 
AFAICT the takeaway is just: regular doctors should get better at their bedside manner, interview skills, etc - because it's not just about getting info, the interaction itself has beneficial clinical effect if you're nice.
 
Anyone have any links to a double blind with placebo against placebo? It would be interesting, and has probably been done. If it was anything like a fair coin toss, one could expect placebo A, or placebo B to have a slight edge.
The kind of edge that gets people elected. 51/49
 
saizai said:
AFAICT the takeaway is just: regular doctors should get better at their bedside manner, interview skills, etc - because it's not just about getting info, the interaction itself has beneficial clinical effect if you're nice.
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It's not that simple. Homoeopaths regularly and systematically lie to their "patients". They tell them that they can cure them, that they'll work together to find the right remedy, and that the remedy will provide "a deep and lasting cure".

Being lied to often makes people feel better in the short and even the medium term. Unfortunately, doctors are not allowed to lie to their patients in this way.

Rolfe.
 
saizai said:
AFAICT the takeaway is just: regular doctors should get better at their bedside manner, interview skills, etc - because it's not just about getting info, the interaction itself has beneficial clinical effect if you're nice.
Click to expand...


My "regular doctor" has a splendid bedside manner. I usually feel better while he's still talking to me.
 
Mojo said:
It'll be interesting to see if the homoeopaths try to spin this, or just ignore it.
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"Homeopathy has clinical benefits in rheumatoid arthritis patients...." according to new scientific study published in peer-reviewed journal!!
 
Rolfe said:
Being lied to often makes people feel better in the short and even the medium term. Unfortunately, doctors are not allowed to lie to their patients in this way.
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I think we should let doctors lie. And pharmaceutical companies, too.

Just sayin'.

~~ Paul
 
I'm going for spin too, they'll ignore it was the consultation process and attribute the improvement to homeopathy.

Doctors generally have good enough bedside manner and practice patient centred care, but they just can't beat someone that has the time to fluff around for an hour or more.
 
I realize we're just joking around, but can I put in a request that we stop perpetuating the idea that homeopaths have better beside manner or that their patients are more satisfied with the therapeutic encounter than they would be from a doctor? We've talked about this before, and as far as I can tell, the evidence suggests otherwise. This is their last remaining justification for their presence, so why concede to it?

Linda
 
Linda, perhaps you could help.

I noticed that this study gave incidence rates for adverse events, those for homeopathy arms totting up to be more than those in the placebo arms.
- Table 7.
http://rheumatology.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2010/11/08/rheumatology.keq234.full

The authors say the differences are not statistically significant, but that may be because they only compare individual subgroups.

If one just counts those on placebo as compared to those on homeopathic remedy, you can see that 32 patients on placebo experienced 95 events (2.96 per patient) but 45 patients on a homeopathy remedy experienced 187 events (4.15 events per patient).

Now I think that may be a statistically significant difference, but am unsure what stats test to do to look at it. (the one I tried said p=0.03)

Even if a proper test is not quite statistically significant, it does rather point against the homeopaths claims that their remedies are completely harmless.

If you have a study which not only demonstrates the remedy is no better than placebo, but is also more harmful than placebo what possible justification can there be in making people take it?

Perhaps a whole new era of homeopathic management is imminent, where patients go through the consultation procedure, and get given a plastic yellow bath duck at the end of it, rather than some magic pills. This would be so much cheaper, and the NHS might even reconsider the "cost-benefit" of the whole idiocy. It would also chop Boiron's and Nelson's and Helios's profits in one fell swoop.
 
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