Homeopathy is on the ropes in the UK. Earlier in the year The House of Commons Science and Technology Committee (STC) released a report, Evidence Check 2: Homeopathy, essentially saying that homeopathy is bunk and should no longer be supported. Recently representatives of the British Medical Association (BMA) condemned homeopathy as “witchcraft.”

Now the BMA is going one step further – calling for a ban on homeopathy in the UK. They do not want homeopathy to be illegal, but they want a ban on any National Health Service (NHS) support for homeopathy. The NHS currently spends about 20 million pounds a year on homeopathic remedies (about 0.01% of the NHS budget) and maintains four homeopathic hospitals. This is a small amount overall – but anything spent on homeopathy is a waste. More importantly, as the BMA notes, homeopathy has “‘no place in the modern health service.’

The BMA specifically recommends that the NHS stop paying for homeopathic treatments, and that doctors in training can no longer receive any of that training at any of the four homeopathic hospitals, as they are not compatible with modern “evidence-based” medicine. They also suggest that homeopathic remedies should not be sold in pharmacies unless they are clearly labeled as placebos, rather than medicine.

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No, I am not talking about homeopathic suicide, which is entirely benign (except to the reputation of homeopathy). Rather, every now and then a prominent case pops up in which someone dies of a treatable condition because they chose (or their caregivers chose) to rely exclusively on homeopathy or some other alternative treatment. Since most homeopathic preparations are literally nothing but water and wishful thinking, they typically do not cause direct toxicity (hence the “homeopathic suicide” stunts of skeptics). Most of the harm from homeopathy comes from something far more insidious – confusing people with appealing medical fairy tales.

These cases also occur on a backdrop of inadequate regulation. Essentially those who wish to make money by practicing medicine without proper training have managed to soften the laws so that they are able to practice medicine without proper training. The usual defenders of consumers against rapacious industry are so beguiled by the touchy-feely rhetoric of promoters, that they have been entirely asleep at the switch. The results are predictable.

The latest case to come to media attention comes from down under – Penelope Dingle from Perth Australia, according to local news reports, was diagnosed with colon cancer in 2003. Her doctors gave her a good chance of survival with standard therapy – surgery to remove the cancer, and chemotherapy to mop up any loose cells and reduce the risk of recurrence. It is not a pleasant prospect, but with modern care it’s not too bad, and it buys in many cases a greatly improved quality and duration of life. Penelope Dingle, however, chose to refuse all science-based treatment and opted instead for a regimen of diet and homeopathic treatment.

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This is homeopathy awareness week – and like some other science bloggers I want the public to be as aware of homeopathy as possible. I want the public to be aware of the fact that homeopathy is based upon the “law of similars” – which is nothing more than the ancient superstition of sympathetic magic. I want the public to be aware of the fact that most homeopathic solutions are diluted far past the point where there is likely to be a single molecule of active ingredient left – and therefore claims for the homeopathic “law of infinitesimals” violates the law of mass action and the laws of thermodynamics.

I also do not want to silence homeopaths, as some have suggested. I want them to speak for themselves – every time a homeopath opens their mouth they make my job easier. Right now Dana Ullman, the ultimate online homeopathy apologist, is spewing incoherent nonsense in the comments at Science-Based Medicine. You also have to see Dr. Warner’s brilliant explanation for how homeopathy works (every time someone watches this video Einstein’s corpse cries.)

And now John Benneth is becoming the energizer bunny of hilarious YouTube videos. Seriously, this is beyond parody. Nothing’s better than homeopathy explained by a raving…well, take a look for yourself. I am slightly embarrassed to have Benneth as my new nemesis. I preferred Egnor – at least he was coherent at times and didn’t come off as a drunk who just rolled out of bed. With Egnor you could play “Spot the Logical Fallacy” and it would be challenging at times. Benneth makes it too easy.

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My skeptical comrades down under have been kicking A and taking names. They demonstrate that skeptical activism can have concrete positive effects. Most recently they issued a complaint to the Therapeutic Goods Administration (the Australian equivalent of the FDA) about the claims being made on two homeopathy websites (“Homeopathy Plus!” and “www.d-n-h.org”). Specifically the cites claimed that homeopathic immunization (there is no such thing) was as effective as real immunization for the prevention of infectious diseases. They report:

Dr Ken Harvey, a lecturer at Latrobe University School of Public Health, who authored the complaint, objected to claims on the website that “homeopathic immunisation is effective against poliomyelitis, chicken pox, meningococcal disease, hepatitis (all types), Japanese encephalitis, HiB, influenza, measles, pnuemococcal disease, smallpox, typhoid, cholera, typhus whooping cough, rubella, mumps, diptheria, malaria, tetanus, yellow fever, dysentery and many other epidemic diseases”.

To support these claims the research of Isaac Golden was referenced, but the study referenced was in fact negative – without statistically significant results.

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It seems that one criterion to being a practicing homeopath is the requirement to publicly embarrass oneself .  Dana Ullman now regularly does this over at the Huffington Post. Dr. Werner, however, in a single YouTube video, may have won for the most embarrassing homeopathy nonsense of the year.  Her mutilation of Einstein and relativity is self-parody.

Here’s another one from John Benneth – the science of homeopathy. He discusses the latest nonsense about “nanocrystalloids” in homeopathic remedies which emit radio frequencies. This is just empty jargon to jazz up the same false claims of homeopaths that their remedies contain the energy signature or essence of what was diluted in them. But this is not supported by any reputable science.

And here is the recent review by The Parliamentary Science and Technology Select Committee on homeopathy in the UK where Robert Wilson of the British Association of Homeopathic Manufacturers admits that there is no evidence to support the effectiveness of homeopathic remedies, but they sell them anyway.

And now, Amy L. Lansky, PhD, a computer scientist and now homeopathy proponent, writing for Mercola.com (a site that promotes every sort of medicine – as long as it is unscientific), decides to enter the fray for the most embarrassing homeopathy apologetics.  After a bit of whining about persecution, she attacks homeopathy’s critics, referring to a recent editorial by Michael Baum and Edzard Ernst:
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The Huffington Post, an online news source, from its creation has embraced anti-scientific pseudomedicine. It has been a home for a number of anti-vaccine cranks, as well as promoters of all kinds of medical nonsense. Occasionally there appears a brief flower of reason (token efforts at best) – for example our own Michael Shermer recently publicly called out Bill Maher on his anti-vaccine nonsense in the HuffPo. Here’s the money quote:

As well, Bill, your comments about not wanting to “trust the government” to inject us with a potentially deadly virus, along with many comments you have made about “big pharma” being in cahoots with the AMA and the CDC to keep us sick in the name of corporate profits is, in every way that matters, indistinguishable from 9/11 conspiracy mongering.

But these brief incursions of reason aside, the HuffPo has been in continual free fall into medical woo since its inception. Although in retrospect it has been hopeless for a long time, for me it crossed the veil into complete and utter advocacy of woo when it hired Dana Ullman as a regular blogger.

Ullman is notorious as a homeopath and internet lurker, spreading undiluted nonsense as far and wide as his typing fingers can manage.  I will have to resist the urge to deconstruct every bit of medical misdirection he will spread with his new forum – that would be a full time job for one blogger. But as I have already received numerous requests to take a look at his latest post, I will give him some deserved skeptical attention.

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The World Health Organization, which does not have a good track record when it comes to pseudoscience in medicine (being too much of a political organization), has recently made a number of statements against the use of homeopathy for HIV, TB, malaria, influenza, and infant diarrhea. The WHO was apparently pressured to take a clear position on the use of homeopathy by a group of UK physicians. In their press release today they state:

As a group of early-career medics and researchers from the UK and Africa, we wrote to the WHO in June this year raising concerns about the aggressive promotion of homeopathy for these serious diseases, which puts lives at risk (www.senseaboutscience.org.uk/index.php/site/project/331/).

We have received the following responses:

Dr Mario Raviglione, Director, Stop TB Department, WHO: “Our evidence-based WHO TB treatment/management guidelines, as well as the International Standards of Tuberculosis Care (ISTC) do not recommend use of homeopathy.”

Dr Mukund Uplekar: TB Strategy and Health Systems, WHO: “WHO’s evidence-based guidelines on treatment of tuberculosis…have no place for homeopathic medicines.”

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According to the British Homeopathic Association (does that mean the fewer members they have the more powerful the group?) June 14-21 is Homeopathy Awareness Week. I would like to do my part to increase awareness of homeopathy.

I would like people to be aware of the fact that homeopathy is a pre-scientific philosophy, that it is based entirely on magical thinking and is out of step with the last 200 years of science. People should know that typical homeopathic remedies are diluted to the point that no active ingredient remains, and that homeopaths invoke mysterious vibrations or implausible and highly fanciful water chemistry.  I would further like people to know that clinical research with homeopathic remedies, when taken as a whole, show no effect for any such remedy.

In short, homeopathy is bunk. But here is a somewhat longer description of its history.

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Those who advocate for strict scientific standards in medicine are often asked, “what’s the harm” of someone pursuing unconventional medicine? If people want to engage in a little hope, even if it’s a false hope, it might make them feel better and it won’t cause any harm.

Often the questioner assumes that the unscientific remedies are themselves harmless. This is not always a reasonable assumption. Some unscientific treatments are directly harmful, or carry a non-trivial risk. But that is not the limit to the harm that can be caused by pursuing such remedies.

For me the biggest harm of unscientific medicine is that it fosters a distruct of science-based medicine and practitioners and faith in bizarre notions of health and illness and in treatments that do not work. Someone who feels that acupuncture helpe their back pain may then rely upon it when they get cancer.

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The Cochrane Collaboration, an organization dedicated to evidence-based medicine, has published a review of studies of homeopathic treatments for side effects of radiation therapy and chemotherapy for cancer.  The results are unimpressive – consistent with the null-hypothesis that homeopathic remedies have no effect. And yet the review is being distorted to promote a very misleading bottom-line to the press – that homeopathic remedies have a role to play in cancer therapy.

One point has been made clear – the treatments under study are not for cancer itself, but for the side effects of standard cancer therapies: radiation and chemotherapy. However, the results are being presented as if they support the efficacy of homeopathic remedies, when they do not.

Homeopathy

Some quick background on homeopathy: This is a pre-scientific philosophy of medicine invented by Samuel Hahnemann around 1792. The principles of homeopathy are akin to sympathetic magical rituals. They include the notion that like cures like, or that a small amount of a substance that causes a symptom can be used to cure it. However, he then combined this principle with his “law of infinitessimals” which states that substances will become more potent as they are diluted, even if they are diluted beyond there point where any active ingredient remains. And finally he came up with the notion of succussion – that homeopathic remedies are given their power by shaking them 10 times in each spacial plane.

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