New Zealand Green MP, Steffan Browning, stepped in it recently when he signed a petition asking the World Health Organization (WHO) to develop and distribute homeopathic remedies to end the Ebola epidemic. Unfortunately this is not an Onion article.

Browning later tried to do damage control by stating that his support of the petition was “unwise” and he blamed it partly on it being late at night when he signed it.

Asked whether he thought homeopathy could cure Ebola, Mr Browning said: “It’s not for me to go down that track at all. The World Health Organisation, world health authorities are doing that.”

This is a common political response. Ask a Republican eyeing national office what they think about global warming or evolution and you might get a similar answer. It is a disingenuous dodge to essentially say, “I’ll let the scientists decide.” when they have already decided. It’s simply a way to stake out a neutral position and not piss anyone off.

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Dana Ullman is a notorious apologist for homeopathy. He has a reputation, at least among skeptics, for cherry picking data and making dubious arguments – whatever it takes in order to defend his beloved homeopathy. He then tops it off by accusing skeptics of being closed-minded for not accepting his drivel.

An article of his recently popped up on the Skeptic subreddit (posted by rzeczpospolita) with the challenge, “Countless scientific studies showing that homeopathy works. Or are you “skeptics” too closed minded to accept this fact?”

The article is too long to deconstruct in one blog post, so I will focus on the key claim – that clinical evidence demonstrates that homeopathy works. His primary piece of evidence is this:

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Edzard Ernst is one of my intellectual heroes. If you are a skeptic, you need to know who he is. He began his career amenable to the claims of alternative medicine. He became the world’s first professor of complementary and alternative medicine, and set about to do the one thing that no other CAM proponent (to my knowledge) has truly ever done – he wanted to use rigorous scientific research to find out if any specific CAM modality worked. Most proponents use research to prove that CAM does work, or simply to describe how it is used or how it can best be implemented.

Throughout the publication of his more than a thousand scientific articles, Edzard became increasingly convinced that most CAM methods simply do not work. Further, he learned what happens to people who point to the scientific truth about CAM, they are vilified by true believers.

I have to admire anyone who changes their world-view significantly in the face of scientific evidence. His intellectual honesty is refreshing.

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Homeopathy is bunk. It is 100% pure unadulterated pseudoscience. That is – unless it is adulterated with actual working medicine.

The FDA recently put out a safety alert warning the public that certain homeopathic products may contain measurable amount of penicillin, enough to cause an allergic reaction in those who are sensitive:

Terra-Medica, Inc. is voluntarily recalling 56 lots of Pleo-FORT, Pleo-QUENT, Pleo-NOT, Pleo-STOLO, Pleo-NOTA-QUENT, and Pleo-EX homeopathic drug products in liquid, tablet, capsule, ointment, and suppository forms to the consumer level. FDA has determined that these products have the potential to contain penicillin or derivatives of penicillin, which may be produced during the fermentation process. In patients who are allergic to beta-lactam antibiotics, even at low levels, exposure to penicillin can result in a range of allergic reactions from mild rashes to severe and life-threatening anaphylactic reactions. See the press release for a complete listing of products affected by this recall.

One has to wonder if the company was aware that their product contained penicillin.  That’s a pretty good scam. In the US homeopathic products do not require testing or any FDA approval process. They are essentially pre-approved by law. While this is a shameful scam, at least homeopathic remedies are completely inactive – nothing but water placed on sugar pills. However, some specific products have been found to have functional levels of active ingredients, so they are not truly homeopathic. For example, some Zicam products were found to contain active levels of zinc, and was linked to anosmia (a loss of smell) in some cases.

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This is an unintended follow up to my post yesterday about holding the line against pseudoscience – this time with regard to regulations. It is one thing to lend an organization’s reputation to pseudoscience, and another when outright unscientific practices are given official sanction by a government or regulatory body. It continues to amaze me how naive (or perhaps it’s just politically expedient) such regulators can be.

On September 6th Nathan Kunzler and Arthur Caplan published an excellent editorial in The Star in which they called out Canada’s public health agency for hypocrisy. They pointed out that, according to Health Canada’s own website:

“To be licensed in Canada, natural health products must be safe, effective, of high quality and carry detailed label information to let people make safe and informed choices.”

Therefore, if they license a product they are proclaiming it safe and effective. Health Canada licenses homeopathic products, which are not effective. They are nothing but placebos, magic potions based on prescientific notions and with “active ingredients” that are often diluted beyond the point where any original substance is likely to remain. Homeopathic products are therefore literally nothing. Further, clinical trials have consistently shown that they do not, in fact, work.

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On two occasions I was invited to UCONN to debate the scientific legitimacy of homeopathy – in 2007, and again in March of this year. I often directly confront or debate those who hold an unscientific belief. Sometimes this is criticized as being pointless, but that claim is premised on the assumption that the only point to such a debate is convincing the person on the other side, but that is not the case.

I have several goals in direct confrontation: to better understand the claims and logic of those holding that view, to explore my own position and improve my ability to explain it, and to demonstrate scientific and critical thinking with respect to this issue to the audience.

The more recent homeopathy debate was between me an Andre Saine, a Canadian naturopath and homeopath. During the debate we barely scratched the surface of this complex topic, so we both agreed to continue our discussion in writing, moderated by Peter Gold who organized the debate.

Here is Andre’s first question to me, and my answer.

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Yesterday I discussed a recent debate in which I participated at UCONN, focusing on the plausibility of homeopathy. Today I will discuss the clinical evidence, and address some of the strategies employed by my opponent in the debate, Andre Saine.

Does Homeopathy Work?

Yesterday I made the case that homeopathy is highly implausible in many ways, and after two hundred years of scientific advance this extreme implausibility has only become greater. Two centuries has apparently not been enough time for homeopaths to make their case and convince the mainstream scientific community. The only reasonable explanation for this is that homeopathy is simply not valid.

I also took the position that overall scientific plausibility must be considered when looking at any new claim – how well does it comport with existing scientific evidence? In medicine this means, when considering clinical evidence for a treatment, that evidence needs to be put into the context of the scientific plausibility of the treatment.

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Six years ago I was asked to participate in a group debate over the legitimacy of homeopathy at the University of CT (there were six speakers, three on each side). This year I was asked to participate in another homeopathy debate at UCONN, but this time one-on-one with Andre Saine ND from the Canadian Academy of Homeopathy taking the pro-homeopathy side. (I will provide a link when the video is posted online.)

While the basic facts of homeopathy have not changed in the past six years, the details and some of the specific arguments of the homeopaths have evolved, so it was good to get updated on what they are saying today. In this post I will discuss some overall patterns in the logic used to defend homeopathy and then discuss the debate over plausibility. In tomorrow’s post I will then discuss the clinical evidence, with some final overall analysis.

Believers and Skeptics

As with the last debate, the audience this time was packed with homeopaths and homeopathy proponents. When I was introduced as the president of the New England Skeptical Society, in fact, laughter erupted from the audience. But that’s alright – I like a challenge. It did not surprise me that the audience, and my opponent, were unfamiliar with basic skeptical principles. Andre, in fact, used the word “skeptic” as a pejorative throughout his presentation.

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I have had to take a two day break from blogging to prepare for a number of presentations I have scheduled. Today I will be engaging in a debate about homeopathy at the University of Connecticut. I did this once before, in 2007. I will give you a full report after the event.

Seating is limited and requires preregistration. But if you are in the area and want to see if there are any spaces left you can e-mail peter_gold (at) goldorluk.com.

March 22, 2013, 1:00 – 3:30 pm
Lowe Learning Center – University of Connecticut Health Center, Farmington, Connecticut

David Colquhoun is a tireless supporter of science-based medicine in the UK. He has used freedom of information requests to great effect in exposing all sorts on nonsense and CAM-based mayhem. Most recently he has exposed a disturbing episode of politics trumping science in the National Health Service (NHS), specifically the website NHS-Choices which is a forum for educating the public about health decisions and empowering their informed consent.

Unfortunately NHS-Choices has recently fallen victim to politically pressuring with respect to their entry on homeopathy. In my experience most academic and government outlets for explaining medical information to the public do a generally good job – except when it comes to CAM, then they fail miserably.  There seems to be three main reasons for this. The first is that most academics and scientists do not understand pseudoscience in general or CAM in particular. They are simply naive about what it actual is and how it operates. Second (and deriving from the first), in such situations they are happy to turn over responsibility for CAM entries to the “experts,” which means proponents. Proponents will even convince the naive academics that “skeptics” are biased and their input should be avoided.

The third factor is the one apparently at work here – political pressure from proponents combined with the desire to avoid controversy. Giving the public accurate information about health care choices seems to get lost in the calculation.

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