Medicinal Purposes

Link to BBC Radio4 short programme

When life presents impossible

Beyond your knowledge scope

A desperate seek however weak

Is found on frantic paths of hope

There must be something else about

A surreptitious hidden code

A long forgotten alchemy

Mislaid on history's vanished road

Nowadays among the nano things

That populates the minute masses

Is complexity specifically

Which won’t respond to ether gasses

Mistakes are lessons for the learning

They move us on to better things

Away from germs in filthy water

Far from cabbages and kings

 A quote from the blog of Professor Edward Ernst MD, PhD, FMedSci, FSB, FRCP, FRCPEd

"A clearly annoyed homeopath responded by tweeting: “homeopathy has been a favorite complement to diabetes treatment for over 200 yrs. Your evidence of the contrary is?”

So I better explain to her what I mean, and as this cannot be done in 140 characters, I do it with this post instead.

The claim expressed on the website is not that homeopathy can complement diabetes treatment; the claim is clearly that it can be a sole treatment and a replacement of conventional anti-diabetic treatment. There is, of course, no evidence at all for that. If patients put this claim to the test, many will die. Because there are many millions of diabetics worldwide, this claim has the potential to kill millions. In other words, my initial tweet was perhaps blunt but certainly correct.

Now to the notion of homeopathy as a ‘complement to diabetes treatment’: do I have evidence to the contrary? I think that is entirely the wrong question. The true question here is whether homeopaths who claim that homeopathic remedies can be an effective adjunct to conventional anti-diabetic treatments have any evidence for their claim (after all, in health care, as in most other walks of life, it is the one who makes a claim who has to prove it, not the one who doubts it!). So, is there good evidence?

To the best of my knowledge, the answer is NO!

If you disagree, please show me the evidence."