Attack on Homeopathy by BBC WHO – Is it Justified?

Posted in August 209
Dr. Vijay Vaishnav
Dr. Daxa Vaishnav

This is with reference to a news report in the Sunday Times of India dated 23-8-2009: “Homeopathy no cure for Malaria, TB, HIV”.

The very foundation of homeopathy is based on the treatment of Malaria.
All homeopathic doctors in India can vouch for the fact that homeopathy can treat malaria. All of us, I am sure have documented cases of patients whose blood tested positive for malaria before homeopathic treatment and then was clear for malaria after all the signs and symptoms had disappeared.

As far as HIV is concerned, is there really a cure for it in allopathy?  We have a unit of the Central Council for Research in Homeopathy (CCRH) in Mumbai that has been doing a lot of work in HIV/AIDS. The results have been promising but it would be premature to say that homeopathy can cure HIV/AIDS.

TB: Many students in my OPD have seen a tuberculoma of the brain regress with only homeopathy.

We wish to emphasise that every system of medicines has its scope and limitations. As long as the physician is honest and rational in his approach to each case, he would not cause any damage to his patient or lose his credibility.

The news report also quotes trials conducted by researchers and allopathic doctors with homeopathy. Most of these trials are flawed because these persons have a very rudimentary knowledge of homeopathy and its underlying principles.

Unfortunately this is forgotten or unknown to the researchers and they then find that the clinical trial conducted by them shows that all the patients do not respond to a particular drug for a particular condition.

One such trial was reported in the British Medical Juornal a few years ago, where we had pointed out this flaw in the trial conduced by them (http://www.bmj.com/cgi/eletters/326/7384/303/c#34532)

We would like to draw your attention to the following reports in leading allopathic journals which show homeopathy in good light.

The Lancet (Sept. 1997) reported 186 studies, 119 of which were double blind and/or randomized placebo-control trials, and 89 of which met pre-defined criteria for inclusion into a pooled meta-analysis. Meta-analysis of 89 blinded, randomized, placebo-controlled clinical trials showed Homeopathic medicines had a 2.45 times greater effect than  placebo.

The Journal of the American Board of Pediatrics, 1995,8,361-6 reported the trial with Homeopathy in childhood diarrhoea in Nicaragua. A randomized double blind, placebo controlled study of 81 children was undertaken. An individually chosen remedy provided statistically significant improvement of the children’s diarrhoea as compared to those given a placebo.British researchers have conducted trials showing that homeopathic medicines, specifically Caulophyllum 30c, could lower the rate of stillbirths in pigs. (No placebo effect possible on animals!)

Dr. Vijay Vaishnav
Professor, Dept. of Materia Medica, Smt. CMP Homoeopathic Medical College, Mumbai.
Dr. Daxa Vaishnav
Professor and Head, Dept. of OB-GYN,  Smt. CMP Homoeopathic Medical College, Mumbai
Email : vijay@drvaishnav.com  

Related link : http://www.homeobook.com/online-resources-research

1 Comment

  1. I assume the 1997 meta-study in Lancet is the Linde et al study ( Volume 350, Issue 9081, Pages 834 – 843). You must be unaware that Linde later modified his conclusions and lessened any evidence for homeopathy and that the Shang et all meta study (Volume 366, Issue 9487, Pages 726 – 732) was a better study because the inclusion criteria were strictly defined. Shang et al found no evidence that homeopathy is more than placebo.

    Perhaps you have similar quality evidence for the malria and TB cases you quote.

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