Homeopathy On the Run

The Guardian reports today that a fifth of NHS hospital trusts have cancelled or reduced funding in the past two years.  That's apparently the effect of a campaign by debunking scientists. I'm a bit bewildered by the whole homeopathy thing.  I can quite see why scientists should object to a mechanism which makes no sense at all - how could a substance diluted out of existence have any effect on anything?  Nor is the evidence there in the form of positive large-scale controlled studies. Still, I'm sceptical that something so apparently spurious could have such a persistent hold on the public imagination unless it was doing some good.

Here's a little gem: in a Swiss meta-analysis 100 homeopathic trials were compared with conventional medicines for a range of conditions and found - wait for it - homeopathy had 'no more than a placebo effect'. What does this mean? Apparently there was an effect. But how did the study establish it was a placebo and not the homeopathic preparation?

The Lancet has urged doctors to be 'bold and honest with their patients about homeopathy's lack of benefit.' Yet a lot of doctors actually seem to be quite enthusiastic about it, which surely says something. You can read here about a GP dishing out homeopathic remedies and insisting that his patients benefited (and no, it couldn't have been a response to the extra TLC, because there wasn't any - they got the same ten minute consultation as everyone else).

What I do know is that parapsychology throws up some similar issues. Telepathy couldn't possibly happen, scientists say, because there is no conceivable mechanism for it. Yet people experience it in their lives, in circumstances which, when closely investigated, suggest that something is happening for which science has no explanation.

So hospitals are turning their backs on homeopathy, not because there is no demand for it, or GPs give it no support, but because scientists can't account for it, and want it banished from sight and mind.