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More on homeopathy
European Journal of Internal Medicine 26 (2015) e20
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
European Journal of Internal Medicine journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ejim
Letter to the Editor More on homeopathy
Finally a government body has had the courage to express a clear opinion on homeopathy. The Australian National Health and Medical Research Council has declared that homeopathy is not an effective treatment for any health condition [1]. This is the result of analysis of more than 1800 articles concerning clinical trials, systematic reviews, published guidelines and data made available by homeopathy organizations. The analysis covered 225 papers where homeopathic treatments were compared to controls. As expected, there was no evidence of therapeutic activity. Trials reporting positive data were of very poor quality, with methodological bias, and too few participants. Warwick Anderson, Chief Executive Officer of the Council, recommended that “Australians […] should not rely on homeopathy as a substitute for proven, effective treatments” [2]. It will be interesting to see whether or not European governments react to the Australian report considering that European legislation – with some limitations and ambiguity – considers homeopathic products part of the drug armamentarium [3]. It may be time to inform Europeans convincingly about the lack of evidence for homeopathy. One may hope
to see a position paper from the European Medicines Agency (EMA) or from the European Commission, thus avoiding approval of homeopathic products by a national agency, as happened recently in the U.K. despite the negative position held by the U.K. House of Commons Science and Technology Committee [4]. Ministers of Health should not support a yearly “homeopathic day” – celebrated in Italy – so as to avoid legitimating a useless practice.
References [1] National Health and Medical Research Council. NHMRC information paper and statement: administrative report; Mar 2015 (www.nhmrc.gov.au/health-topics/complementarymedicine/homeopathy-review). [2] BMJ 2015;350:h1478. [3] Eur J Intern Med 2014;25:e68. [4] Kmietowicz Z. NHS should stop funding homeopathy, MPs say. BMJ 2010;340:c1091.
Silvio Garattini IRCCS Istituto di Ricerche Farmacologiche “Mario Negri”, Milan, Italy
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ejim.2015.04.015 0953-6205/© 2015 European Federation of Internal Medicine. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
European Journal of Internal Medicine journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ejim
Letter to the Editor More on homeopathy
Finally a government body has had the courage to express a clear opinion on homeopathy. The Australian National Health and Medical Research Council has declared that homeopathy is not an effective treatment for any health condition [1]. This is the result of analysis of more than 1800 articles concerning clinical trials, systematic reviews, published guidelines and data made available by homeopathy organizations. The analysis covered 225 papers where homeopathic treatments were compared to controls. As expected, there was no evidence of therapeutic activity. Trials reporting positive data were of very poor quality, with methodological bias, and too few participants. Warwick Anderson, Chief Executive Officer of the Council, recommended that “Australians […] should not rely on homeopathy as a substitute for proven, effective treatments” [2]. It will be interesting to see whether or not European governments react to the Australian report considering that European legislation – with some limitations and ambiguity – considers homeopathic products part of the drug armamentarium [3]. It may be time to inform Europeans convincingly about the lack of evidence for homeopathy. One may hope
to see a position paper from the European Medicines Agency (EMA) or from the European Commission, thus avoiding approval of homeopathic products by a national agency, as happened recently in the U.K. despite the negative position held by the U.K. House of Commons Science and Technology Committee [4]. Ministers of Health should not support a yearly “homeopathic day” – celebrated in Italy – so as to avoid legitimating a useless practice.
References [1] National Health and Medical Research Council. NHMRC information paper and statement: administrative report; Mar 2015 (www.nhmrc.gov.au/health-topics/complementarymedicine/homeopathy-review). [2] BMJ 2015;350:h1478. [3] Eur J Intern Med 2014;25:e68. [4] Kmietowicz Z. NHS should stop funding homeopathy, MPs say. BMJ 2010;340:c1091.
Silvio Garattini IRCCS Istituto di Ricerche Farmacologiche “Mario Negri”, Milan, Italy
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ejim.2015.04.015 0953-6205/© 2015 European Federation of Internal Medicine. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.