New evidence for Homeopathy
Two
new studies conclude that a review which claimed that homeopathy is just a placebo,
published in The Lancet, was seriously flawed. Download .pdf reports on these studies using the two links below:
RuttenStolperHomeopathyarticle.pdf
LuedtkeRuttenJCE08.pdf
George
Lewith, Professor of Health Research at Southampton University
comments: ‘The review gave no indication of
which trials were analysed nor of the various vital assumptions made about the
data. This is not usual scientific practice. If we presume that homeopathy
works for some conditions but not others, or change the definition of a ‘larger
trial’, the conclusions change. This indicates a fundamental weakness in the
conclusions: they are NOT reliable.’
The
background to the ongoing debate is as follows:
In
August 2005, The Lancet published an editorial entitled ‘The End of
Homeopathy’, prompted by a review comparing clinical trials of homeopathy with
trials of conventional medicine. The claim that homeopathic medicines are just
placebo was based on 6 clinical trials of conventional medicine and 8 studies
of homeopathy but did not reveal the identity of these trials. The review was
criticized for its opacity as it gave no indication of which trials were
analyzed and the various assumptions made about the data.
Sufficient
detail to enable a reconstruction was eventually published and two recently
published scientific papers based on such a reconstruction challenge the Lancet
review, showing that:
-Analysis
of all high-quality trials of homeopathy yields a positive conclusion.
-The
8 larger higher-quality trials of homeopathy were all for different conditions; if
homeopathy works for some of these but not others the result changes, implying that
it is not placebo.
-The
comparison with conventional medicine was meaningless.
-Doubts
remain about the opaque, unpublished criteria used in the review, including
the definition of ‘higher quality’.
The
Lancet review, led by Prof Matthias Egger of the Department of Social and Preventive
Medicine at the University
of Berne, started with
110 matched clinical trials
of homeopathy and conventional medicine, reduced these to ‘higher-quality trials’
and then to 8 and 6 respectively ‘larger higher-quality trials’. Based on these
14 studies the review concluded that there is ‘weak evidence for a specific
effect of homoeopathic remedies, but strong evidence for specific effects of
conventional interventions’.
There
are a limited number of homeopathic studies so it is quite possible to
interpret these data selectively and unfavorably, which is what appears to
have been done in the Lancet paper. If we assume that homeopathy does not work
for just one condition (Arnica for post-exercise muscle stiffness), or alter
the definition of ‘larger trial’, the results are positive. The comparison with
conventional medicine was meaningless: the original 110 trials were matched,
but matching was lost after they were reduced to 8 and 6. But the quality of
homeopathic trials was better than conventional trials.
This
reconstruction casts serious doubts on the review, showing that it was based on
a series of hidden judgments unfavorable to homeopathy. An open assessment of
the current evidence suggests that homeopathy is probably effective for a
number of conditions including allergies, upper respiratory tract infections
and ‘flu, but more research is desperately needed.
Prof
Egger has declined to comment on these findings.
References
Lüdtke
R, Rutten ALB. The conclusion on the effectiveness of homeopathy highly depend
on the set of analyzed trials. Journal of Clinical Epidemiology, 2008. doi: 10.1016/j.jclinepi.2008.06.015
Rutten
ALB, Stolper CF. The 2005 meta-analysis of homeopathy: analysis of
post-publication data. Homeopathy, 2008. doi:10.1016/j.homp.2008.09.008.
PRESS
RELEASE
For
further information, please contact:
Prof
George Lewith Tel: +44 7970 067884 email: gl3@soton.ac.uk
Rainer
Lüdtke Tel: +49 201 5630516 email: r.luedtke@carstens-stiftung.de
Dr Lex Rutten Tel: +31 765 227340 email: lexrtn@concepts.nl
******************
For
immediate release 3 November 2008
International Homeopathic Medical League LMHI,
secretariat, Am Hofgarten 5, 53113 Bonn,
Germany, tel.
+49-228-2425330, email: generalsecretary@lmhint.net
European Committee for Homeopathy ECH,
secretariat, Chaussée de Bruxelles 132, box 1, 1190 Brussels, Belgium, tel.
+32-2-3453597, email: info@homeopathyeurope.org