Surprise! New study by Australians shows that homeopathy is bunk

April 9, 2014 • 11:08 am
Attention Whole Foods and the Davis Food Co-op! According to the Guardian, a new review  of the efficacy of homeopathy by the Australian Government’s National Health and Medical Research Council shows that the whole enterprise is quackery. But we already knew that. Now if only left-wing and “natural” grocery stores knew the same.
The 200-page overview report (free pdf) is here; my copy is corrupted so I haven’t been able to read it. The authors were 7 distinguished academics and scholars, several of whom specialize in alternative and complementary medicine. Since I can’t read the official document, I’ll just report what the Guardian says about it:

Homeopathy is no more effective than a placebo, according to an extensive study by a peak science body.

The draft paper by Australia’s National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) assessed research into the effectiveness of the alternative medicine on 68 health conditions and concluded “there is no reliable evidence that homeopathy is effective”.

But of course it can’t be more effective than a placebo, because it’s just water, with perhaps a touch of starch or alcohol. And the idea that water molecules can retain a “memory” of something that was diluted out of them is, on its face, ludicrous. You can dismiss homeopathy on the laws of physics alone, but these tests put the nail in its coffin. More:

The Australian Homeopathic Association states the practice treats patients as a “whole person, taking into account personality, lifestyle and hereditary factors as well as the history of the disease.”

But the NHMRC review, conducted by a working committee of medical experts, said it had no impact on a range of conditions and illnesses including asthma, arthritis, sleep disturbances, cold and flu, chronic fatigue syndrome, eczema, cholera, burns, malaria and heroin addiction.

For the 68 conditions – including those listed – the review either concluded definitively that homeopathy was not more effective than a placebo, or at the very least there was no reliable evidence to suggest it was.

“No good-quality, well-designed studies with enough participants for a meaningful result reported either that homeopathy caused greater health improvements than a substance with no effect on the health condition (placebo), or that homeopathy caused health improvements equal to those of another treatment,” read the report’s summary.

And, I had no idea that there were homeopathic vaccination! What do they do—inject saline into people?

Professor John Dwyer, an immunologist and Emeritus Professor of Medicine at the University of New South Wales, told Guardian Australia that the report was long overdue.

. . . He said the greatest danger in homeopathy was in its use as a vaccination.

“In my point of view as an immunologist, the most serious issue was the spreading of the concept that homeopathic vaccinations were harmless and just as good as orthodox vaccinations. People who believe that are not protecting themselves and their children,” he said.

 Homeopathic “vaccinations” are offered for standard diseases, as well as some that there are no medical vaccines for, said Dwyer.

“Homeopathic vaccines were being offered for HIV, TB, Malaria… none of them were effective,” he said.

So how about it, Davis Food Co-op? As long as I’m in town, won’t you consider stopping the practice of bilking your credulous customers by selling them water at high prices—water that is totally misrepresented as medical cures? Your selling this stuff means that you’re promoting quackery, and perhaps injuring the health of your customers. Why don’t you sell cigarettes as well?

h/t: Amy

46 thoughts on “Surprise! New study by Australians shows that homeopathy is bunk”

  1. I’m sure they DO sell cigarettes, just “special”, home-made “cigarettes”, and you have to know the guy behind the back counter, or at least have someone to vouch for you. 🙂

  2. It doesn’t seem to make a difference with people when they see these studies. They just dismiss them and say it works for them anyway and the “believe” it. I guess the placebo affect is powerful but how else are we going to be able to influence them — pressure the places that sell such things I suppose and have legislation written that limits them…when I learn how to influence those who refuse to acknowledge data, I think I will become all powerful!

      1. Which is funny: a powerful industry of pharmaceutical woo survives because people don’t like powerful industries (some of them sell drugs that do work).

        And don’t forget: people prefer these drugs because there is no side effects (no main effects either…).

        1. It’s crazy, isn’t it? I have had long discussions with people about vaccines, pointed them to study after study showing that vaccines are safe, that Wakefield was a fraud, etc. etc. & they come back with that they don’t trust pharma. I asked them what the likelihood would be that all the scientists who work at pharma would be in a conspiracy together with no one ever slipping. I also asked why are there people who advocate on the behalf of more transparency, the publishing of negative results in experiments, etc. This person wouldn’t budge. Sometimes they are just going to believe what they want.

          1. Also, vaccines are far from being the big profit generators to which anti vacs-ers argue. A one and done treatment to eradication is far less profitable than repeated treatment of a chronic or incurable condition.

  3. As Diana says, sadly, evidence isn’t going to convince those who already truly believe.

    What I want to know is why any credible organization bothers to waste both time and money trying to prove what is already a well-established fact.

    Are we also going to have a study to show whether the moon is made of green cheese? Or how about one to investigate whether unicorns can fly?

    1. I agree with you, but there is a cavaet: were we to stop studying it, science would become liable to the accusation of ignoring what is “patently true”.

      Science is able to test and analyse anything. Some things just happen to be not there.

      1. You are right, of course.

        I am just really disgruntled of late. Here in Ireland a group of fanatical shriek-y semi-literate woo-meisters have managed to kick up enough fuss and spread around enough lies and misinformation to force our local government to fund an investigation into whether fluoride in the water is indeed the cause of autism, poverty, “docility” (whatever that is), cancer and World War Three.

        And once the expensive study has been done, the actual number of previous nay-sayers convinced by the evidence may be be more than zero, but I am going to go out on a limb and predict that the major proponents of the lobby will be swayed not at all.

        When something is well-established, the fact that there are illiterates out there who don’t understand the science – and never will – is not a good enough reason to pretend that this is something to be tested once again. This isn’t about science anymore, it’s about politics.

        Links if anyone would like to read.
        Irish Examiner
        The Guardian

      2. Except, if someone was selling a mixture of battery acid, vaseline, and orange peel, and calling it a cure for something, would you bother doing laborious and time consuming trials, or reject it out of hand? In a way, this mixture is *less* crazy than homeopathy, since it actually contains active ingredients (albeit silly and dangerous ones).

    2. Plus, I believe is just yet another of a jillion previous demonstrations. But for some reason people always want fresh data, no matter that they differ little from previous data.

  5. This is a draft report, so unfortunately not the last word. They’ll be seeking public comment (and have already gotten submissions from homeopaths) and the final report with recommendations will come out some time later.

    Tangentially related, the news article I read cited an earlier national Swiss report as being both very comprehensive and supporting homeopathy as effective. Anyone know the backstory on that? How did they arrive at their conclusions?

        1. Only if they water it down so much that only a faint memory of the original report remains.

  8. If you get some sort of treatment and then you get better, it appears to be a natural reaction to ascribe your cure to whatever treatment you happened to be undergoing at the time, particularly if it has some sort of mystical element that appeals to your own sense of self importance (rather than medical science which treats you more like a slab of diseased meat :)). I think that is the main attraction of alternative medicine.

  9. What a waste. This is like kindergarten skepticism.

    Anyway, so a letter/email campaign by the Australian homeopathic community to protest this would consist of what exactly? Just one letter? Half a letter? 1/100,000th of a letter?

    Or maybe, just maybe, dilute the letter or email so thoroughly in water that there is nothing left! Based on their own principles, that would really send a strong message!

  10. And they keep coming up with these permanently moving goalposts of “But it’s a complete treatment plan, the medicine can’t be judged without it!” If the associations of homeopaths were so sure about that, they would fight over-the-counter sales of homeopathic medicine tooth and nail- because it would damage their franchise.

    But, correct me if I’m wrong, I’ve never heard of any Official Homeopaths™ protesting free availibility of their medicine.

  11. Calling homeopathy a “placebo” won’t budge those people who believe that the placebo effect is a mind-over-matter connection which verifies and works through the spiritual recognition that the power of Consciousness is magic. They proudly wear the label “placebo” like a compliment.

    And yes, as Diana MacPherson said in #2, they consider personal experience the gold standard of medicine. They know what worked and anyone telling them otherwise is just a bully trying to undermine their self-esteem and self-trust.

    People who are into alternative medicine have a world view in which nature is wildly selective. Chemical laws will work one way for some people and under some conditions … and another way for other people under other conditions. That second one can’t be captured by science, it’s too subjective and spiritual and special.

    1. Good characterization. They have to walk a fine line; come up with excuses why the best controlled studies show nothing, yet simultaneously convince the government that the cure works consistently enough that it’s worth government support. I can’t claim the dragon in my garage is too visible, or skeptics will point out that cameras can’t see it. But it has to be visible enough to government that they are convinced to cover my garage with fire insurance.

    1. Here’s my favorite short takedown of homeopathy. I find this to be both funny and absolutely conclusive. <5 minutes total! It's the sort of thing you could show to someone with a short attention span.

      youtube.com/watch?v=Li1ErHfK1Zs

      If my clipped URL doesn't work, just look for Myles Power Homeopathic First Aid Kit on Youtube.

  17. I think the way to go at this is to challenge the makers on quality control, as if there were actually manufacturing a drug. How do they determine that the product is as labeled? Not too weak or strong? Not mislabeled? If they themselves cannot identify their product without a label on it, then there is clearly nothing there.

    1. Ha ha good one from xkcd.

      The homeopathic vaccines were curtailed somewhat here when medical doctors led the charge in getting governments to forbid the word “vaccine” on these concoctions. I wrote several letters to politicians myself.

  19. I did wonder why the necessity for a high-powered committee to establish something so obvious, it’s a bit like setting up a committee of Nobel laureate physicists to determine whether gravity works.

    But I suppose it makes it a little harder for the homeowooists to claim “it’s never been properly studied” and, maybe more to the point, it may give civil servants and ministers a good solid reason not to fund it in the health system in future.

  20. If I have a cold and take no medication, it gets better by itself in a week. But if I take a homeopathic remedy it cures me in seven days! See – it works. 🙂

  21. Holac HOSPITAL is the only indoor hospital of Homeopathy, LASER & Acupuncture in the region of Chandigarh,

    Punjab, Haryana & Himachal Pardesh. Hospital has a team of experienced & well-qualified doctors and trained Para

    medical staff and beautiful premises. It has the best technology available in the field of Homeopathy,

    Acupuncture & LLLT.

Comments are closed.