Page 3 - Spring 17

Committee – BAHVS
President – Jane Keogh j.keogh5@btinternet.com
Senior Vice-President – Mark Elliott homeopathicvet@btinternet.com
Junior Vice-President – Chris Day cday-avmc@hotmail.co.uk
Hon. Secretary – Stuart Marston sec@bahvs.com
Treasurer – Wendy McGrandles wendy@glenbrae-vet.co.uk
Magazine Editor – Malene Jørgensen malene@laforcevitale.eu
Communications Officer – Nick Thompson nickthompson@holisticvet.co.uk
IAVH Representitive – Nick Thompson nickthompson@holisticvet.co.uk
Faculty Veterinary Representitive – Peter Gregory pg.ahimsa@virgin.net
Mag distribution – Cheryl Sears cheryl.sears31@btinternet.com
Committee – IAVH
President – Edward de Beukelaer 12edb3@gmail.com
Treasurer – Sara Fox Chapman sfc.holistic@gmail.com
General Secretary – Petra Weiermayer petra.weiermayer@gmx.at
Coordinator subcommittee for education – Stefan Kohlrausch stefan.kohlrausch@arcor.de
Newsletter subcommittee – Malene Jørgensen malene@laforcevitale.eu
IAVH Communications Officer – Nick Thompson nickthompson@holisticvet.co.uk
LIGA contact – Marc Bär info@homeopatte.ch
Double-Blinded randomised placebo controlled trial of individualised homeopathic treatment of hyperthyroid cats – a comment by Marc Bär, Switzerland
Dear Chris [Almond],
Dear fellow homoeopaths,
With great interest I read your comment [in Winter edition of the Mag] on the Double- Blinded study in Hyperthyroid Cats. Your approach to a double-blinded study is very good indeed. Recruiting patients is of course a tiresome work, but a correct study is surely worth the time and effort spent.
I agree on your analysis for further trials to avoid pitfalls. And here are my thoughts.
1 I do not believe the negative outcome did only depend on the questionnaires. I agree with you, that questionnaires are usually not helpful. One has to see the patient, best in the surgery to see how he reacts to the surgery stress. The personal appearance is often very important for deciding a remedy, sometimes much more then all the talking. You all have cases where you intuitively give a remedy before any case taking, just observing a patient – and then it proves to be right in contrast to the analysis of the case. And to be fair – more often we choose the remedy after the case taking. Unfortunately we don’t know beforehand, which patient belongs to which group. Already here we see the limitations of pure questionnaires. But even using questionnaire when seeing patients is in my opinion wrong, as the spontaneity of a case taking isn’t given anymore.
The British Association of Homeopathic Veterinary Surgeons (BAHVS) was formed in 1981, to advance the understanding, knowledge and practice of homeopathy. It aims to stimulate professional awareness of homeopathy and to encourage and to provide
for the training of veterinary surgeons in the practice of homeopathy.
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2 Hyperthyroidism is not a disease that responds particularly well to homoeopathy. Hence the short duration of the trials makes it even more difficult. Before deciding on a study we should carefully choose a chronic entity that responds well, such as autoimmune disorders, feline asthma ...
3 And maybe such a study should be multi-centrical, all colleagues that practice homoeopathy for many years and have a success rate > 50%.
And I want to add a question:
Double-blinded did that mean that you had treated 20 cats with verum and 20 with placebos, not knowing which cat received the verum? If this was the case I think it would be a very difficult approach, even if this would be a true double-blinded study.
Under the above circumstances a double- blinded study does make sense, but I doubt that even a very good outcome would satisfy our opponents.
Best regards
Cat’s enlarged thyroid gland
Marc Bär
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