What alternative health

practitioners might not tell you

 

ebm-first.com

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"A leading medical journal [The Lancet] has made a damning attack on homeopathy saying it is no better than dummy drugs. …A Swiss-UK review of 110 trials found no convincing evidence the treatment worked any better than a placebo." BBC News (26th August 2005) [NOTE: The Lancet Editorial, entitled 'The End of Homoeopathy', said: "That homoeopathy fares poorly when compared with allopathy in Aijing Shang and colleagues' systematic evaluation is unsurprising. Of greater interest is the fact that this debate continues, despite 150 years of unfavourable findings. The more dilute the evidence for homoeopathy becomes, the greater seems its popularity. For too long, a politically correct laissez-faire attitude has existed towards homoeopathy… Going one step further, the Swiss Government, after a 5-year trial, has now withdrawn insurance coverage for homoeopathy and four other complementary treatments because they did not meet efficacy and cost-effectiveness criteria… Surely the time has passed for selective analyses, biased reports, or further investment in research to perpetuate the homoeopathy versus allopathy debate. Now doctors need to be bold and honest with their patients about homoeopathy's lack of benefit, and with themselves about the failing of modern medicine to address patients' needs for personalised care". The paper draws the following conclusion: "Interpretation: Biases are present in placebo-controlled trials of both homoeopathy and conventional medicine. When account was taken for these biases in the analysis, there was weak evidence for a specific effect of homoeopathic remedies, but strong evidence for specific effects of conventional interventions. This finding is compatible with the notion that the clinical effects of homoeopathy are placebo effects".]