Dr Sreevals G Menon MD (Hom)
The renewed & more vigorous attack on the efficacy of homoeopathy as a curative therapy picked up internationally by the media is nothing but a sinister pogrom by the powerful pharmaceutical corporations the world over. The news and the discussion related to it as quoted from those at UK is only based on a series of events, a part of a decade long series of organized assault against homoeopathy triggered, sponsored and funded by the consortium of such corporations which is the most effected by the global rise in public demand of Homeopathy.
If one is keen on finding the genesis of the present tirade, one would find reported in Guardian-online, over a decade ago, that The Prince of Wales had ordered a leading independent economist to examine whether the use of complementary therapies could save the NHS money. Homeopathy was one among the priorities. A part of the report claimed up to £480m could be cut from the prescription drugs bill if 10% of GP’s offered homoeopathy as an alternative to standard drugs. The report was instantly reacted to by the pharmaceutical industry wherein they turned critical about the Prince. The report was inwww.scotsman.com
The royal family, in a series of public statements had often quoted the importance, advantages and benefits of Homoeopathy, the most sought system of medicine by them since more than a century, as the most economic, reliable and effective treatment and had urged the NHS to take up Homoeopathy more seriously, with more homoeopathic units under it in place of the few which ran at present. The possible impact on UK’s economy was huge by the growth of Homoeopathy which could save millions of pounds each year spent on allopathic medicines, and could be displaced by the use of homoeopathy in a fraction of the illnesses. A serious worry for pharma corporates !
The news pressed the ‘panic button’ and as a sequel Lancet, a leading allopathic journal suddenly come up with an article urging to give up homoeopathy and stating it as medicines which has no drug content and that the outcome as a mere ‘placebo effect’. The interesting observation is that Lancet is known to have always upheld the homoeopathic possibilities, treatment and clinical observations with frequent articles in its previous editions, from its very inception. However, Lancet did succeed in confusing its readers.
For its article, Lancet is known to have conducted drug trials in Homoeopathy. But this time the modes of study and the protocols used were purely those used for the study of allopathic medicines, well connected to the quantitative aspect of the drug with respect to the clinical diagnosis. It was far from the fundamentals of Homeopathy and they tried to prove that Homeopathic medicines are insignificant and carry only a placebo effect. Prominent U.S. scientists strongly rejected findings on homeopathic medicine to be published in the August 27, 2005 edition of the Lancet. They found that they have successfully applied a methodological approach to the articles they reviewed that is highly suitable for drawing conclusions about conventional medicine but is incomplete in evaluating homeopathic medicine. They did not include criteria that would apply to high quality homeopathic research reflecting the nature of homeopathic practice and ita fundamentals.
Furthermore, a single remedy selection for a given conventionally diagnosed condition is not homoeopathy, yet there are numerous conventionally-judged high quality studies that were so designed. Well aware about the different philosophical structure of Homoeopathy, this study was more than deliberate as anyone who know homoeopathy and its philosophic background close knows that the composite symptom structure, the totality, the miasm and the individualizing elements with respect to the patient and the drug-picture are those based on the selection of medicines and not merely the clinical diagnosis or the pathology though they give clues helping prescription. One could compare this to attempting to read a French book in English, considering the fact that the alphabets used are the same !!
With time, the lancet impact did fade away. But those that have come up off late are more vigorous, renewed and more organized assaults and well focused on the Homoeopathy ‘wash away’. Today the detractors have managed to take the antagonistic views to the House of Commons of UK and has further stimulated a situation where BBC is seen reporting that the ministers consider blacklisting of Homeopathy !.
Another totally biased study by NHMRC of Australia inspecting Homeopathy surprisingly had only Allopaths in the team and they ‘easily concluded’ their views on Homeopathy as inefficient from the research papers submitted to them ! Unlike the situation in India which has a highly developed medical education system for Homeopathy, the fact that a sizeable fraction among homeopaths in Australia are not medically trained doctors, including those who represent the system to the NHMRC, had possibly influenced the quality of submission and in turn made the conclusion a lot easier making the cause of Homeopathy weaker in Australia. The news was well picked up by international media tarnishing Homeopathy.
Interestingly, the World Homeopathy Summit – WHS by Global Homeopathy Foundation – GHF held in April at Mumbai in 2015 has exposed dozens of research papers from scientists across 9 countries in molecular biology, nanotechnology, cell-line studies, in-vitro studies, homeo-prophylaxis, phylogenetic trials etc which were taken well by the Indian and global media. The confirmation of presence of nanoparticles or quantum dots in potentized ultra dilutions of Homeopathy openly challenged the avagadro limits opening up new doors into nanopharmacology related to Homeopathy. The papers furthered into early evidence of the possibility of alternations of gene expressions and the epigenetic changes at the genomic levels by the quantum dots which can pervade across the subcellular levels where the conventional drugs act at the molecular levels. This opens up Homeopathy and it’s scope into the future of Internal medicine !
Homoeopathy has had an impact on the per-capita health expenditure in pro-homoeopathic countries where it is well evolved, like in India, Belgium etc. In India we have a well evolved Ministry of AYUSH with Homoeopathy as an integral part under a union minister with extensive reach out of national rural health mission as peripheral homoeopathic clinics apart from state facilities.
The scope of Homeopathy has been largely proven by thousands of clinical studies in almost all the specialties including Allergies, Auto-immune diseases, Psychatric illnesses, Gastro diseases, Renal, Neurologic, Lifestyle diseases, Psycho-somatic diseases, Skin diseases etc. in various countries at NGO and Government levels. In India the Central Council of Research in Homeopathy CCRH has emerged with an array of research works over the past few decades.
Today India is the seat of Homeopathy with the largest mass of Homeopaths across the country and the government patronage at its highest across the world.
_________________________
Dr Sreevals G Menon MD (Hom)
Managing Trustee,
Global Homeopathy Foundation – GHF
Former National Secretary,
Indian Homeopathic Medical Association – IHMA
Ph: + 91 9349117833 Email: sreevalsm@gmail.com
Reference
http://www.scotsman.com/news/uk/prince-attacked-for-secret-health-study-1-730906
My thoughts to perhaps silence the critics’ claim that homeopathy is not cost effective would be to challenge their allegations. In a recent interview with a member of Sense About Science (Michael Marshal?), Dr. Peter Fisher noted that when he uses homeopathy as integrative medicine, the patients are often able to eliminate Rx medications, or at least not require as much. This evidence must be documented in the patients’ charts. This fact alone would indicate that this saves the NHS a great deal of money, does it not?
Why not have unbiased accountants perform a comparison audit of redacted patient charts for a few chronic conditions (hypertension, depression, etc) for the proof?
Can a non-profit organization be set up to help in an effort to inform the health care consuming public? I can donate my time and effort getting the word out.
Hi Sandra.. Global Homeopathy Foundation which I lead as managing trustee in India is already a leading NGO working in the area. We already have an Australia chapter led by Michael Kuzeff MD as chairman. You may connect to me on +91 9349117833 and we could try do more
My thoughts to perhaps silence the critics’ claim that homeopathy is not cost effective would be to challenge their allegations. In a recent interview with a member of Sense About Science (Michael Marshal?), Dr. Peter Fisher noted that when he uses homeopathy as integrative medicine, the patients are often able to eliminate Rx medications, or at least not require as much. This evidence must be documented in the patients’ charts. This fact alone would indicate that this saves the NHS a great deal of money, does it not?
Why not have unbiased accountants perform a comparison audit of redacted patient charts for a few chronic conditions (hypertension, depression, etc) for the proof?
Can a non-profit organization be set up to help in an effort to inform the health care consuming public? I can donate my time and effort getting the word out.
A major factor bolstering the Homeopathy defamation league is media pandering to corporate interests. Investigative journalism in the mainstream is practically dead. Media owners and editors fear losing pharmaceutical advertising. The only real beneficiary to Homeopathy’s losses is the drug cartel. In the meantime the reality is that if one were to pit patient satisfaction with Homeopathy versus outcomes/satisfaction with conventional treatment, Homeopathy would emerge victorious. There is a real-world effectiveness to Homeopathy that has been (and continues to be) well documented.
When I see the endless attacks on homeopathy, I ask myself who stands to benefit if this 200 year old treatment option vanishes, and of course the obvious answer is the pharmaceutical industry. I suspect big pharma with their deep pockets and enormous influence is behind much of the homeopathy attack campaign. A recent report revealed that homeopathic products represent a $6.4 billion dollar business, and perhaps big pharma wants to crush the competition. I am a registered nurse and I have seen homeopathic medicines provide dramatic improvements in a wide variety of illnesses including arthritis, ear infections, migraines, and many more acute and chronic conditions, and the beauty of these medicines is that they provide these benefits without the damaging side effects of so many conventional pharmaceuticals. We need to understand the real agenda behind this attack campaign and protect our freedom of medical choice.
In the battle to preserve an essential world-wide system of medicine of enormous curative power and protection such as homeopathy, it is essential that defenders enter the realms of both philosophy and politics.
The skeptics are getting away with hidden assumptions and passing off their faux science “scientism” as the real thing when it is instead just an intellectual shortcut granting themselves instant accolades as defenders of “science” while allowing them to insult, ridicule or dismiss those they attack or demean without any serious argument.
The fundamental tenets of the “scientism” belief system are that actual human evidence, the exact and voluminous clinical case studies, clinical reports, journals and books of the homeopaths such as the works of Dr. Margaret L. Tyler, or Dr. Dorothy Shepherd, or Dr. Hering and others which document entire careers spanning decades and the treatment of thousands of patients, …that somehow this enormous evidence does not “qualify” and is to be dismissed as mere “anecdotes”.
This viewpoint creates an arbitrary and illusory mirage that modern medicine is some vast mathematically proven system in which every therapy, drug and treatment is proven by elaborate and exact double blinded placebo controlled studies. Those looking at the hospital statistics, iatrogenic damage and patient results in such areas as chemotherapy, vaccinations and most other areas of modern medicine can see right away that this is not the case.
What the defenders of homeopathy either do not realize of are not calling out, is that their are grave political consequences to this view of medicine. The disavowal of homeopathy results allows the skeptic to automatically place themselves as arbiters and in control of judgement about what constitutes real medicine and, therefore the power to discredit and dismiss that which they ordain is not real, or is “witchcraft” or “quackery”… a position that they have coopted but did not earn and for which there is no justification but their strident assertions.
This political aspect can be seen even more clearly in the mass hysteria that arose early this year during a tiny measles outbreak in California. The mass hysteria, encouraged by media articles and vaccination supporters have now given rise to legislation coercing vaccinations in several states.
This action completely overrules and obliterates our essential freedom of individual or parental medical choice. It is a dangerous artifact of one size fits all machine medicine and is medically as well as politically dangerous to all.
The infestation of our governments by corporatist interests and lobbyists and influence peddlers is made worse in the case of medicine by the interlocking associations between government agencies, corporations, universities, research centers and health “insurance” organizations.
While the quality of hospital care declines and the dangers rise, people on their own are seeking and finding alternative and even more cost effective systems of treatment and are therefore discovering things such as homeopathy despite the endless anti-alternative medicine propaganda being propagated mainly through corporatist controlled news media, and the reputation of demeaning falsehoods by unknown MD’s.
Rather than continually quoting various double blinded “studies” and “meta-analyses” that seem to support homeopathy, the homeopaths should instead avoid discussing results which the skeptics will inevitably say are equivocal, and instead focus on the actual specific homeopathic cases in which the patient was cured or improved after other medical systems were tried and failed.
These are the most powerful indicators of the homeopathic curative effect and of the scope and viability of this powerful system of medicine.
By emphasizing the ultimate cost to the public of allowing self appointed medicinalist-skeptics to determine what is and is not “valid” medicine and to gain control over everyone’s freedom of medical choice, the political consequences of medical treatment in the corporatist-fascist state will be made more clear and their full disregard of the worth of the individual and relegation to mere serf or worker fabricant status will be revealed for the dangers that it entails,politically as well as medically.
thanks for your views, Mr.Pannozzi.