Page 8 - Autumn 12

CONTROVERSY
by Robert Medhurst, Australia. (Article courtesy of Hpathy Ezine)
Homeopathy – Why does it attract so much controversy?
It’s probably pretty obvious to most that complementary medicine (CM) in general attracts a great deal of criticism by advo- cates of orthodox western medicine.
Vitamins are frequently described as agents that do little more than produce expensive urine; herbs are labelled as useless if not out- right dangerous. Bach flowers, reflexology and aromatherapy are dismissed as fanciful non- sense. Vast clinical studies with questionable methodology that find no benefit from these therapies are held up as proof that they have no effect, while smaller properly designed studies that show them to be successful are ignored. Yet CM continues to provide relief for millions of people and every year sees more and more people turning to these therapies. This situation appears to cause enormous irritation for ortho- dox western medicine and as much as they’d like it to, CM refuses to go away.
Fortunately, in recent times the critics of herbs and supplements have become margin- alised and their credibility has become increas- ingly dubious as they struggle under the weight of higher quality evidence of clinical effect. Regrettably, criticism aimed at homeopathy remains undiminished. It comes under regular attack in pharmacy and other orthodox jour- nals1, 2. And it is vilified by national broadcast- ers3. Organisations have been established with the apparent aim of eradicating it4 and clinical trials that fail to show an effect receive inordi- nate levels of attention while successful trials are ignored.
What are the criticisms of homeopathy?
There is no scientifically plausible mecha- nism for homeopathy.
This is certainly true, but it’s also true that the mechanism for the action of many commonly prescribed drugs, such as dexamphetamine in the treatment of ADHD, is yet to be determined. The failure to understand the mechanism of a therapeutic substance, particularly where that substance is a drug, does not normally diminish the enthusiasm for it by prescribers. Why then should homeopathy be criticised for this?
The concept of a memory for water is unscientific.
This relates to the fact that many researchers have speculated that the potentisation process used to manufacture homeopathic medicines causes the water, in which the medicines are made, to retain a “memory” of the starting material, from which the potencies are derived. In response to this criticism, we should be clear on what “science” actually is. Science is not a body of facts. It’s a process used to study, by deduction and inference, specific issues that one seeks to understand. The fact that the memory of water has yet to be adopted by orthodox science does not make it unscientific. In fact, various studies have shown that water may be imprinted by the electromagnetic ener- gy signature derived from physical substances to which it is exposed5-7. These studies would tend to support the concept the memory of water.
There’s nothing in a homeopathic medicine so it couldn’t possibly work.
Those making these kinds of assertions seem to miss the point that past certain potencies (12C or 24X), a homoeopathic medicine will contain the base substance (alcohol and water in the case of a liquid, or sugar in the case of a solid dose form such as a pilule) and it will also contain the elec- tromagnetic energy that’s derived from the start- ing material via the process of potentisation. This latter component is not detectable by normal assay techniques, but its effects are certainly demonstrable. Studies have confirmed that bio- logical systems can be influenced by these elec- tromagnetic frequencies8-12. The criticism that there’s nothing in a homeopathic medicine is also frequently levelled at products, often homeopath- ic combination products, where the medicines are used at potencies below 12C or 24X. Anyone making the statement that there’s nothing in these products may have a little difficulty with the information in the following table, which demon- strates the levels at which the human body responds to normal human hormones and metabolites.
Homeopathy is not evi-
dence based – there are
no successful trials.
This is an interesting point. It’s true that the number of successful homeopathic trials is rel- atively small, the numbers of people participat- ing in the trials is often relatively small and few trials have been replicated. The reason for this is that unlike drugs, homeopathic medicines in most cases cannot be patented, so there is little incentive to invest the vast quantities of money that the drug companies often spend to mount large clinical trials if the sponsors cannot monopolize the results. However, homeopathy has produced successful clinical trials, and they’re relatively easy to find13-17. As a final point, surveys have found that only 10-20% of all standard medical procedures have been val- idated by controlled clinical trials18 and yet orthodox medicine is held up as the gold stan- dard to which homeopathy should aspire.
Homeopathy stops people from using drugs that may provide better results in disease control. This again is an interesting issue, and the criti- cism can be answered with a few simple facts. Trials comparing homeopathy with standard medical treatment have found that it can pro- vide outcomes as good as or better than ortho- dox medicine for particular conditions 19, 20. It’s also useful here to put the relative safety of various forms of medicine into perspective. The total number of adverse reactions to drugs in Australia from the year 1999-2000 was 400,00021. The total number of adverse reac- tions from CM for the same year was 2322, and none of these were caused by a homeopathic medicine23. Even more interesting is the fact that only 1-10% of all adverse drug reactions are reported24. In the US up to one fifth of all new prescription drugs may ultimately be recalled or produce potentially harmful side effects25. No homeopathic medicine has ever been subject to a product recall on the basis of toxicity, or has been recorded as producing serious side effects.
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Robert Medhurst BNat DHom DBM DRM DNutr is a qualified Naturopath & Homoeopath with 28 years of clin- ical experience and currently prac- tices in the Adelaide Hills in South Australia. He has written many arti- cles and lectured on homeopathy throughout Australia and the U.S.
Lower Limit of Biological Activity of Human Hormones and Metabolites
Substance
Parathyroid Hormone
Free Oestrogen
Brain Natriuretic Hormone
ACTH 20
Oestrogen 10
Vitamin B12 150 picograms/mL
Testosterone 200 Progesterone 100 Free Thyroxine (Pregnancy) 5 Triiodothyronine (Children) 1 Acetylcholine (miniature end potential) 0.0001
picograms/mL picograms/mL picograms/mL picograms/mL picograms/mL
Limit
Equiv. homeopathic potency
11X
12X
12X
11X
11X
9X
9X
10X
12X
12X
16X
10 picograms/mL 0.6 picograms/mL 4 picograms/mL picograms/mL picograms/mL