Homeopathy & David v. Goliath

REPOST from 2023 (an oldie but a goodie (with updated rebuttals)

The vociferous information network homeopathy think tank are as laugh out loud as ever in their latest opinion piece Homeopathy-A lively relic of the prescientific era1 with accusations of ‘Therapy procrastination, Conspiracy theories, and a David and Goliath effect...’ Borkens et al., (2023) worried the estimated 500,000 global homeopathic physicians put their patients at risk of therapy procrastination and abandoned proven medical treatments, which Frass et al., (2024)2 rebutted as moot by pointing out physician homeopaths are trained in both conventional and homeopathic medicine.

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Also, a new low from the once robust Stanford researcher Ioannidis concluding ‘A null field like homeopathy can exhibit large effect sizes, high rates of favorable results, and high citation impact in the published scientific literature.’3

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The Gartlehner et al., (2022)4 conclusion that outcome reporting bias(ORB) in homeopathy ‘affects the validity of the body of evidence of homeopathic literature and may overestimate the true treatment effect’ literally breezed past the fact that ORB affects all disciplines of medical research5 - The Homeopathy Research Institute noted this study actually showed that in regard to scientific and ethical standards ‘homeopathy is out-performing conventional medicine, with lower levels of reporting bias.’6

The Mosley & Roberts (2026) paper7 assessed and re-analyzed Gartlehner et al., (2022) finding significant inaccuracies and inconsistencies in the data, with error rates ranging from 8% to 39%. After correcting the data and applying stringent eligibility criteria to 181 RCTs, re-analysis revealed lower rates of reporting bias in homeopathy across key parameters, with the authors concluding that the levels of reporting bias in homeopathy are comparable to those in the wider medical literature, suggesting that scientific and ethical standards in homeopathy research are sound.

Thankfully, the serious research group Gaertner et al., (2023) continue, scientifically, to enhance the homeopathy evidence base – their paper Bibliography of Homeopathic Intervention Studies (HOMIS) in Human Diseases8 outlining framework and introducing future projects is well worth a read.

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And, robust systematic reviews published by reputable medical journals advance the scientific, transparent, unbiased, study of homeopathic medicine such as Hamre et al., (2023) who found significant positive effect well beyond placebo in their Efficacy of homoeopathic treatment: Systematic review of meta-analyses of randomised placebo-controlled homoeopathy trials for any indication9 and, evidentiary quality for efficacy of homoeopathy similar or higher than for 90% of other medical interventions.10

‘In contrast to frequent claims, the available Meta Analyses of homoeopathy in placebo-controlled randomised trials for any indication show significant positive effects beyond placebo. Compared to other medical interventions, the quality of evidence for efficacy of homoeopathy was similar or higher than for 90% of interventions across medicine. Accordingly, the efficacy evidence from placebo-controlled randomised trials provides no justification for regulatory or political actions against homoeopathy in health-care systems.’ (Hamre et al., 2023).

*Relton C, Cooper K, Viksveen P, Fibert P, Thomas K. (2017). Prevalence of homeopathy use by the general population worldwide: a systematic review. Homeopathy. May;106(2):69-78. Available from: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28552176/

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Homeopathy & Evidence Based Medicine

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February 17, 2023

When inconvenient research emerges, manipulative tactics which manufacture doubt and create uncertainty are implemented to influence, stifle and silence independent science to better serve corporate interests (1), corrupting the premise and practice of evidence based medicine (EBM) (2).