If you follow the process, no doubt you’ll know who trolls the internet leaving this statement anywhere someone criticises homeopathy;

“Real is scientific homeopathy like Conventional Allopathic Medicine (CAM). Evidence-based modern homeopathy is a nano-medicine bringing big results”

Firstly, wha??

Only one person can dish up quality woo like this. It’s Not-a-Doctor Nancy Malik of course. And what exactly is “scientific homeopathy”? Best you ask Dr Malik about that.

So given that it was WHAW, many science-based bloggers and tweeters took it upon themselves to make people “aware” that homeopathy is nothing more than an expensive placebo. In most cases, the liquid or sugar pills you buy from your pharmacist in fact contain nothing at all. Thus, the catch phrase of Ten23; “Homeopathy, there’s nothing in it”.

My best mate Richard Saunders did his bit, in the form of an epic slap-down story on Adelaide’s Today Tonight where Brauer “Natural Medicine” came in for a bollocking. As Phil Plait so eloquently put it, this story was unique for the token homeopath not the token sceptic, the latter being the usual way things work on commercial television. If you haven’t seen this video, take the 10 minutes to watch it – it’s great. Richard delivers some succinct and pointed sound bites which really bring the message home (and I’m not too coy to say I was sitting off camera coaching him for this part!).

But, like many sacred cows, homeopathy is an unsinkable rubber duck and despite 200 years and 200 clinical trials, there is still no evidence that homeopathy works (see how homeopathy works here). This leaves homeopaths mumbling excuses like “RCTs don’t work for homeopathy” or “one day quantum physics will solve it”.

Do not pass go, do not collect $200.

So it was with great delight that I opened my Australian Doctor email today to find an article by Paul Smith (whom I highly respect) with the headline; “National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) declares: homeopathy ‘not efficacious’”. It’s a subscription based article so I can’t copy paste it here, but I can provide a summary.

“The NHMRC’s position is…it is unethical for health practitioners to treat patients using homeopathy, for the reason that homeopathy – as a medicine or procedure – has been shown not to be efficacious.”

This is currently a draft statement, apparently drawing on several issues; claims that “homeopathic vaccinations” are an effective substitute for vaccines, recent deaths (see here and here) in Australia where homeopathy was implicated and the findings by the UK Science and Technology Committee in 2010 which concluded that the UK National Health Service should cease funding homeopathy.

This is the first time the NHMRC has spoken out against homeopathy and the implications are significant. As Paul says;

“If the public statement is formally adopted by the council, the major health insurers – Medibank Private, HCF, NIB and MBF – will have to justify why it is using taxpayers’ money to fund “unethical” homeopathic treatments.”

Three billion dollars of taxpayers money is provided every year to fund private health insurance rebates by the government and this includes homeopathy. Should the NHMRC declare it “unethical”, health funds will be under pressure to pull funding for quack remedies like homeopathy.

It’s too early to tell at this stage if this will happen, since the statement is still a draft, but it is tantalising to think that science and rationalism could win this one.

I encourage the NHMRC to formalise this statement and declare homeopathy unethical and devoid of efficacy. Of course people will still be able to buy it, but at their own expense instead of that of the tax payer.

And maybe, just maybe, this will see the end of doctors prescribing it and pharmacists selling it. And wouldn’t that be a huge win for science and scepticism.

The full article (subscription required) can be found here

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I didn’t know this until out of curiosity I went to a website which has been heavily advertised over the last week on Australian television – the NPS website. I knew of this Australian government organisation since I follow them on Twitter but only after visiting the website did I discover they provide information on medicines for consumers and health professionals alike. Plus they are behind MedicineWise Week from January 30th – February 6th, 2011.

In light of the worldwide Ten23 campaign conducted all over the world this weekend – in fact every continent including Antarctica was represented – I thought I would pose as a consumer and search for information about homeopathy.

Like homeopathy itself, what I turned up was minimal and not very useful. I’ll explain more about this a bit later but first, as I was surfing around the NPS site, I found a press release about a survey of Australians’ knowledge of medicines.

Fifteen hundred consumers were surveyed and the results reported that 65% had used a prescription medicine in the last three months, 60% had used an over-the-counter medicine and 45% had used an alternative or herbal medicine.

When it came to alternative medicines and supplements, of those surveyed, less than half considered certain vitamins and herbs to be medicines: multivitamins (23%), echinacea (24%), fish oil (32%). Awareness of Chinese herbal remedies as medicines was slightly higher at 41%.

NPS clinical adviser Dr Danielle Stowasser said, “The first step to being medicinewise is knowing what is a medicine. Medicines include tablets, vitamins, herbs, eye drops, creams and gels. Medicines don’t just come on prescriptions but include things bought in a pharmacy, supermarket and other stores, and from naturopaths and herbalists.”

But thinking back to homeopathy, here’s where I began to get concerned:

Encouragingly, when asked where they would go to find accurate information about medicines, most respondents said a pharmacist (64%) and/or a doctor (60%). However, when asked if they did ask questions of their doctor or pharmacist the last time they received or purchased a medicine, 60% said no and 48% said they did not tell their doctor or pharmacist about other medicines they were taking.

Sixty four percent said they could get accurate information about their medicines from a pharmacist? I’m sure this is true for most conventional medicines – but I have repeatedly asked pharmacists about homeopathy and only once was I given an accurate description of what it is and what it does. ONCE. And in a certain pharmacy in Newtown, I have been (not so politely) shuffled to the door when asking too many questions of the shop assistants about homeopathy.

So, sadly in my experience, consumers cannot rely on pharmacists to accurately advise them on homeopathy.
So, I expected that a quick trip to the heavily promoted NPS website would do the trick. A search for “homeopathy” turns up one link to a generic page on complementary medicines where homeopathy is cited but not explained. A search for “homeopathic” turns up a link to a video which likewise doesn’t address homeopathy directly and in fact could even be construed as misleading. An excerpt from the transcript appears below:

“Manufacturers of non-prescription medicines sold in Australia must ensure that their products meet certain quality and safety standards, however when it comes to providing evidence of their effectiveness, they’re not tested as thoroughly as prescription and pharmacy medicines. The less thorough testing does not mean that these medicines don’t work, rather it means that the manufacturers don’t have to provide as much scientific evidence as they do for prescription and pharmacy medicines.

When you are choosing a traditional or herbal medicine obtain as much information about it and it’s use as you can.”

I doubt there would be any confusion that homeopathic “remedies” are not prescription medicines, but they could certainly be considered pharmacy medicines. After all, they are sold in pharmacies alongside the science-based remedies. So this video implies that since homeopathy – for all intents and purposes – is a pharmacy medicine, then it is tested just like prescription medicines.

Of course this is simply not true. In fact, some homeopathic remedies are exempt from the Australian Register of Therapeutic Goods (ARTG) which is a list of approved medicines and devices, because – in many cases – they are so dilute that they no longer contain active ingredients. Thus, there is nothing to regulate if there is nothing in the “medicine”.

The TGA website states homoeopathic preparations are exempt from the ARTG if :

“(they are) more dilute than a one thousand fold dilution of a mother tincture and which are not required to be sterile; and which do not include an ingredient of: a) human origin; or b) animal origin, if the ingredient consists of, or is derived from, any of the following parts of cattle, sheep, goats or mule deer.”

So unless you started with a mother tincture derived from animal or human sources, the government is not particularly interested in your product. And if it’s more dilute than 1000 times then they’re also not bothered. Makes sense I guess, since sugar pills and water with a dash of alcohol won’t do you any direct harm. (But, this does not mean they don’t do you harm.)

Even more bizarre is that when homeopathy is not sold through pharmacies, it is exempt from the TGA’s own advertising standards.

“A homeopathic product can carry claims which do not comply with the Therapeutic Goods Advertising Code and may still be listed in the ARTG. However, the label on the container and on the primary pack must include a statement to indicate that the indications have not been “approved” by the TGA.”

The description of homeopathy on the TGA website is also not very helpful to uninformed consumers.

“Homoeopathic preparation” is defined by the Therapeutic Goods Regulations as a preparation:

1. formulated for use on the principle that it is capable of producing in a healthy person symptoms similar to those which it is administered to alleviate; and
2. prepared according to the practices of homoeopathic pharmacy using the methods of:
   1. serial dilution and succussion of a mother tincture in water, ethanol, aqueous ethanol or glycerol; or
   2. serial trituration in lactose.

Wouldn’t it be much simpler to say “there’s nothing in it” (which they allude to further down the page anyway) and “there is no evidence that it works?“. Do they really think consumers are going to know what “sucussion” and “serial trituration” means? Like pretty much all of homeopathy, it’s goobledigook.

But, the facts remain that homeopathy is indeed listed on the ARTG, meaning it is assigned an official looking government number, which lends it legitimacy. For example, Brauer Natural Medicine Children’s Cold Flu Relief is listed as AUST L-132568. The fact sheet for this product states that all the ingredients exist at a 1000 fold dilution (1 µL in 1 mL)*.

Finally, a use for homeopathy. Photo courtesy of David Barwick

I found 37 listings for Brauer homeopathic “medicines” including childrens’ cough relief, hangover relief oral spray, and natural medicine burn cream. Interestingly, sleep and insomnia relief – (see left) the sleeping tablets popular amongst Ten23 overdose participants – are not listed on the ARTG since the active ingredients are diluted much more than 1000 times.

So whilst homeopathy is sold in pharmacies, many pharmacists don’t know what it is. They, like many consumers, think it is herbal (whilst it may have started out herbal, it’s certainly not by the time it gets to the shelf of your local chemist).

So what have I learnt in MedicineWise week? Firstly, the Australian government seems confused about homeopathy. I was unable to find a clear and concise explanation of what it is on their official websites, they appear to be bundling it in with pharmacy medicines, thereby implying that it works and further, they are lending it legitimacy by designating it official looking numbers on the official register of government approved Australian medicines.

No wonder the public remains confused. And no wonder it is left to the #ten23 campaign to increase awareness that, Homeopathy There’s Nothing In It.

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*The onus is on the user to verify the current accuracy of the information on the document subsequent to the date shown”. The sheet is dated accurate as at November 2006.

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There were some big “wins” for critical thinking in 2010, but sadly alternative medicine and scams continued to abound, with the explosion in popularity of Power Balance bracelets a very good example of the continuing gullibility of the general public. On the plus side, the anti-vaccination movement continued to take hits, with Andrew Wakefield being struck off the UK medical register and the AVN losing their charity license and being called a threat to public health and safety by the HCCC.

And of course the year ended with a bang, with Australia’s largest sceptical convention ever to come to Australia, TAMOz, held in Sydney in November.

Below are just a few of the events I feel contributed to a very exciting and positive year in scepticism, plus some of the not so positive, as a reminder of why we need keep pushing the message of critical thinking. This is by no means an exhaustive list, and if you have one you think I have missed feel free to leave it in the comments.

January 30th: Ten23 – worldwide homeopathy overdose.

The brainchild of the Merseyside Skeptics Society, Ten23 was designed to inform the public that “homeopathy: there’s nothing in it”. It was a huge success, attracting extensive media coverage across the UK. The event was mirrored in Perth, Sydney and also very successfully in New Zealand where Christchurch’s Vicki Hyde received significant media attention for her role in organising events across the pond. Events for 2011 are already being organised and the campaign looks to be even bigger this time around.

The Ten23 protest in the UK was designed to demonstrate that there's nothing in homeopathy.

At the Ten23 protest in Sydney, some participants fell asleep almost 12 hrs after "overdosing" but woke up 8 hrs later.

In the UK the pharmacy Boots came under fire for admitting they sell homeopathic products, not because they work but because people want them.

February 22nd: UK Committee on Science and Technology Evidence Check says homeopathy doesn’t work.

Following the investigation, committee chairman Phil Willis MP said; “We were seeking to determine whether the Government’s policies on homeopathy are evidence based on current evidence. They are not.”

The report recommended that the National Health Service (the public purse in the UK) no longer fund homeopathy. The report also;

• Recommend no further clinical trials of homeopathy.
• Found evidence for homeopathy working was lacking.
• Explanations for why homeopathy works are “scientifically implausible.”
• Committee viewed homeopathy as placebo.

Despite these recommendations, on July 26th it was announced that homeopathy was to remain on the NHS.

March 10th: Libel case against Paul Offit and Amy Wallace dismissed.

Two days before Christmas in 2009, Barbara Loe Fisher from the US-based anti-vaccination group National Vaccine Information Council (NVIC), filed a $1 million claim that Dr. Paul Offit had libeled her in Wallace’s “Wired” article “An epidemic of Fear, One Man’s Battle Against the Anti-Vaccine Movement“.

The offending paragraph is reproduced below.

“Offit is quick-witted, funny, and — despite a generally mild-mannered mien — sometimes so assertive as to seem brash. “Scientists, bound only by reason, are society’s true anarchists,” he has written — and he clearly sees himself as one. “Kaflooey theories” make him crazy, especially if they catch on. Fisher, who has long been the media’s go-to interview for what some in the autism arena call “parents rights,” makes him particularly nuts, as in “You just want to scream.” The reason? “She lies,” he says flatly.”

Loe Fisher took exception to the statement “she lies”, and named her price of USD1million. Condé Nast, the publisher of Wired Magazine, was also named in the suit. Bloggers reflected on the propensity of the anti-medicine crowd to resort to legal action when they are unable to defend their positions with evidence. The suit was dismissed before it could be heard, and the court’s decision is detailed below:

“In this case, the article’s quotation of Defendant Offit’s comment that Plaintiff “lies” cannot reasonably be understood to suggest, as the Complaint alleges, that Plaintiff is “a person lacking honesty and integrity . . . [who should be] shunned or excluded by those who seek information and opinion upon which to rely.” Rather, the context of the remark – in a lengthy article describing an emotional and highly charged debate about an important public issue over which Defendant Offit and Plaintiff have diametrically opposed views – plainly signals to readers that plainly signals to readers that they should expect emphatic language on both sides and should accordingly understand that the magazine is merely reporting Defendant Offit’s personal opinion of Ms. Arthur’s [Barbara Loe Fisher’s] views.”

This is not the first time this has happened and likely won’t be the last. However, with the rise of the grass roots skeptical movement, it is becoming harder for anti-vaxers and others without evidence on their side, to hide behind “legal chill”.

March 12th: US Vaccine Court rules thiomerosal does not cause autism.

The claim that autism is linked to vaccinations, and in particular the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine, took a further blow in March with the US Court of Federal Claims rejecting claims in three separate cases that the mercury-containing preservative, thimerosal, causes autism. Three cases selected from a pending class action of thousands, ruled on by three judges called ‘special masters’, were chosen as test cases as they were considered to be among the strongest proposed.

Special Master George L Hastings wrote in his judgement on one case that “This case … is not a close case. The overall weight of the evidence is overwhelmingly contrary to the petitioners’ causation theories.”

Patricia Campbell-Smith, special master on another case, said that “The petitioners’ theory of vaccine-related causation is scientifically unsupportable.” Sadly this has not changed some parents perception that vaccines cause autism.

April 15th: The BCA drops its case against Simon Singh


The BCA brought a claim for libel against Simon Singh after an article he wrote describing the BCA as happily promoting bogus treatments. Justice Eady agreed with the BCA’s interpretation, that Singh had made a serious allegation of dishonesty. However, the Court of Appeal ruled Singh’s comments were expression of an “honest opinion”.
On April 15th, the BCA withdrew the case. In a statement they wrote: “The BCA takes seriously its duty and responsibilities to members and to chiropractic patients. The BCA have considered taking leave to take this matter to the Supreme Court and has been advised that there are strong grounds for appeal against the court of judgement appeal. However, while it was right to bring the claim at the outset, the BCA now feels that the time is right for the matter to draw to a close.” You can read a summary of events here.

Even though Singh effectively “won” the case, it still cost him thousands of pounds of his own money (and he will never recoup it all). Importantly, his case prompted changes to the UK libel laws which are currently ongoing.

April 23rd: FluVax® Junior suspended for under 5s after increased adverse reactions.


The seasonal flu vaccine was suspended for kids under five years of age after 55 children suffered convulsions following the vaccination, and almost 200 others suffered fevers and vomiting.

A task force convened by the CDC and headed by Nobel laureate Professor Peter Doherty did not find a conclusive cause for the convulsions but the “current working hypothesis” was that the strain of swine flu used in this year’s seasonal flu vaccine appeared to contain a higher than usual level of a protein called neuraminidase.

The problems were confined to CSL’s FluVax® Junior preparation and its use in under fives remains suspended. However two other brands of flu vaccine for children are safe and continue to be administered. An autopsy following the sudden death of a two-year-old Brisbane girl 12 hours after she received the flu jab, could not be linked to the vaccine.

May 24th: Andrew Wakefield struck off the UK medical register.


The Wakefield investigation was the longest in the history of the GMC, with the disciplinary panel sitting for a total of 148 days over a period of 2 and a half years at an estimated cost of one million pounds. The results of the investigation were revealed in a 143 page report on 28th January 2010, and found that Wakefield showed a “callous disregard” for childrens’ suffering and “abused his position of trust.”

Timeline: February 1998: The Lancet study published, suggesting MMR vaccine might be linked to a higher risk of bowel disorders. Wakefield suggests at a press conference that MMR may overload a child’s immune system, thus planting the seeds for MMR = autism.

January 2001: Dr Wakefield claims that the combined MMR vaccine has not undergone proper safety tests. Ostracised by the British medical community, Dr Wakefield and his family move to Texas.
February 2004: The Lancet announces a partial retraction of the 1998 paper, on grounds of “a fatal conflict of interest” — The Sunday Times has reported that Dr Wakefield received £55,000 from the Legal Aid Board for research to support legal action by parents who claimed that their children had been harmed by MMR. The UK GMC announces an investigation.
March 2005: Japanese scientists say they have evidence that the MMR vaccination is not linked to a rise in autism: cases increased after withdrawal of the MMR jab. Studies in Britain and elsewhere support this.
July 2007: The GMC hearing against Dr Wakefield and two of his colleagues begins. It is expected to last four months.
February 2010: The Lancet retracts the 1998 paper. Neurotoxicology retracts an article in press from Wakefield. He resigns from Thoughtful House.
May 2010: After the longest investigation in the history of the GMC, Wakefield is struck of after being found guilty of “multiple separate instances of serious professional misconduct”. He is found to have “abused his position of trust” and brought the medical profession into disrepute. “Callous Disregard” (with forward by Jenny McCarthy) published.

The last medline indexed peer reviewed paper you will find from Wakefield was published in 2006. A search for “Wakefield AJ” on PubMed brings up 112 hits. Wakefield was a prolific, extensively published and competent researcher. Sadly, he now tweets links to anti-vaccine groups and publishes in the woo/conspiracy fest journal, Medical Hypotheses. He will likely never publish in mainstream science journals again.

July 12th: HCCC report calling the AVN “misleading” released.



After a 12 month investigation the Health Care Complaints Commission (HCCC) finally handed down their findings into the Australian Vaccination Network (AVN).

The commission concluded; the AVN provide misleading information about vaccination and must post disclaimers on their website clearly stating they are anti-vaccination.

The report found evidence that the AVN misleads readers by using reliable and peer reviewed literature but selectively quotes from it, often in contradiction to the conclusions or findings of the studies. The AVN also gives non-peer reviewed and anecdotal material the same authority as peer-reviewed literature. The findings were covered in an exclusive story by Steve Cannane on Lateline, where he famously caught Meryl Dorey out denying she had written something; “Did I say that? I don’t believe I did..”.

July 26th: Public Warning about the AVN released.

Following the refusal
by the AVN to place a disclaimer on their website, the HCCC issued a public warning about their misleading information.

This resulted in a surge in interest by the media and the Streisand Effect taking hold.  The AVN were in the spotlight, but for all the wrong reasons. For the first time, we began to see them referred to as “anti-vaccine” by the mainstream media. Their arrogance in refusing to put the HCCC disclaimer on their website had well and truly backfired.

July 31st: Coroner finds cancer death due to “misinformation”.


Penelope Dingle died in 2005 from untreated bowel cancer aged 45, after being diagnosed in 2003. She first presented with bleeding from the bowel in 2001. Following a colonoscopy, she was advised by doctors to have surgery to remove the cancer. She declined conventional cancer treatment, instead deciding on following a regimen of alternative treatments including special diets, vitamins and homeopathy.

State Coroner Alastair Hope found that homeopath Francine Scrayen convinced the ailing woman she could cure her cancer. By the time Mrs Dingle agreed to emergency surgery for a complete bowel obstruction, she was in severe pain and her bowel was almost at the point of splitting open. She would have died within 24 hours if she had not had the emergency surgery.

According to evidence given at the inquest from friends of Mrs Dingle and from her diaries, she and her husband, Dr Dingle made a pact with homeopath Francine Scrayen to not take any conventional treatment including pain relief. Dr Dingle also planned to write a book about how to cure cancer with homeopathy and alternative treatments once his wife was cured. Another case for What’s the Harm in homeopathy?

August 2nd: The Australian Medical Association issues a warning about the AVN.



September 1st: The AVN in trouble for copyright breaches


An article from the Sydney Morning Herald describes:

“an anti-vaccination group is under fire for allegedly breaching copyright laws by selling newspaper and medical journal articles online without permission from the authors.

The packs, which were selling for up to $128, included home-made books filled with articles photocopied from journals around the world, information on drugs taken from MIMS, the medical guide used by doctors and nurses, and copies of brochures inserted in medication boxes by pharmaceutical companies.

Under the Copyright Act, articles can be copied for personal research or for use by students but cannot be disseminated widely or sold.”

In response, Meryl said she was “unaware she had breached copyright”. This is despite the fact that she is listed as the editor of her own publication Living Wisdom which has this permission to reproduce policy inside the magazine: “Whilst reproduction and dissemination of the information found in Living Wisdom is actively encouraged (unless otherwise stated), it is expressly forbidden for anyone to reproduce any of this information for the purpose of profit…”. Hypocrites much?

September 3-6th: “Hug me! I’m vaccinated” free vaccine clinic at Dragon*Con.


The brain child of Skepchick’s Elyse Anders, the clinic was set up in an empty shop front for the Labour Day weekend and offered free pertussis boosters and HIV testing to coincide with the world’s largest Sci-Fi convention in Atlanta, Georgia. In the midst of an epidemic of pertussis, in which 10 babies have already died in California, the clinic exhausted their supplies of vaccine by the end of the weekend.

Elyse wasn’t able to attend Dragon*Con since her baby had not yet received all of his shots for pertussis thus making the risk of him attending too great.

Elyse has recently been the subject of an Age of Autism smear campaign for her work in getting a SafeMinds ad pulled from cinemas during the US Thanksgiving Weekend. You can read about it here. The power of Twitter, the popularity of which has exploded in 2010, was effectively harnessed to mobilise the masses and get these ads stopped.

October 20th: The AVN loses their charity license.


Following a complaint submitted by Wendy Wilkinson, the OLGR audited the AVN and found breaches sufficient for the revocation of their charity license. These include a number of breaches of charity laws, including fundraising without an authority, unauthorised expenditure and failure to keep proper records of income and expenditure.
The revocation means the AVN is only able to solicit funds from current members not from members of the public, which has been a big blow for them financially. An appeal scheduled to be heard on December 10th was postponed.

The OLGR said it had also identified possible breaches of the Charitable Trust Act which will be referred to the NSW Department of Justice and the Attorney General. There are substantial penalties for these offences, including fines of up to $5,500 per offence or jail time. These investigations are ongoing. Ms Dorey continues to plead her innocence.

October 26th: Choice Magazine awards Power Balance a Shonky.


Power Balance, the $60 piece of rubber claimed to improve your strength and balance, was declared a bare faced con at the annual Choice Shonky Awards held in Sydney. The Choice website says; “with some reluctance, we highlight the inherent shonkiness of the Power Balance bracelet – reluctance, because when Australian Skeptics demonstrated on Today Tonight that it patently didn’t do anything, subsequent sales skyrocketed: apparently any publicity is good publicity after all. We CHOICE sceptics did our own testing under controlled laboratory conditions – after all, you can’t believe everything you see on TV – and verified the Skeptics’ findings. So, if a fool and his money are soon parted, there are apparently plenty of fools out there – and they’re all conveniently identified with a rubber band bracelet.”

November 28th: TAM Australia declared a stupendous success!



Photo credit: Gail Miller, Victorian Skeptics.

With over 620 delegates, 51 speakers, 2 and a half days of talks, panels and workshops the very first TAM Australia was declared a huge success by all involved. Speakers included Dr Rob Morrison, Dr Pamela Gay, Julian Morrow, Steve Cannane, SGU, Brian Dunning, Steve Novella, Simon Taylor, Eugenie Scott, George Hrab and many many more! This was the first TAM ever to be held in Australia but it certainly won’t be the last.

Did I miss something you think should be on this list? Leave a comment and let me know!

Hundreds of members at the British Medical Association’s (BMA) annual conference of junior doctors have passed a motion attacking the alternative medicine and other remedies they claim have no scientific basis to support them.

Dr Tom Dolphin, deputy chairman of the BMA’s junior doctors committee in England, told the conference:

“Homeopathy is witchcraft. It is a disgrace that nestling between the National Hospital for Neurology and Great Ormond Street [in London] there is a homeopathic hospital paid for by the National Health Service (NHS)”.

The NHS is the equivalent of Medicare in Australia.

The announcement supports recommendations from the The House of Commons Science and Technology Committee after a parliamentary enquiry called an “evidence check”. In a 273 page report, summarising the evidence for the efficacy of homeopathy, the committee concluded that

* The NHS should cease funding homeopathy
* Recommend no further clinical trials of homeopathy.
* Evidence shows homeopathy doesn’t work.
* Explanations for why homeopathy works are “scientifically implausible.”
* Committee views homeopathy as placebo.

The report was tabled with evidence from hundreds of submissions from scientists.

From the report, the Committee wrote;

“In our view, the systematic reviews and meta-analyses conclusively demonstrate that homeopathic products perform no better than placebos.”

The Committee concluded;

“Given that the existing scientific literature showed no good evidence of efficacy that further clinical trials of homeopathy could not be justified.”

“We do not doubt that homeopathy makes some patients feel better. However, patient satisfaction can occur through a placebo effect..When doctors prescribe placebos, they risk damaging the trust that exists between them and their patients.”

Gordon Lehany, chairman of the BMA’s junior doctors committee in Scotland, said it was wrong that some junior doctors were spending part of their training rotations in homeopathic hospitals, learning principles that had no place in science.

He told the conference in London:

“At a time, when the NHS is struggling for cash, we should be focusing on treatments that have proven benefit. If people wish to pay for homeopathy that’s their choice, but it shouldn’t be paid for on the NHS until there is evidence that it works.”

The UK currently had four NHS funded homeopathic hospitals, in Liverpool, Bristol, Glasgow and London. A fifth hospital in Kent closed in 2009 when NHS funding was withdrawn. Latest figures show 54,000 patients are treated each year at four NHS homeopathic hospitals at an estimated cost of £4 million.

Homeopathy was invented 200 years ago by the German physician, Dr. Samuel Hahnemann, and is based on a ‘like-treats-like’ concept: that the symptoms of an illness can be treated by minute quantities of the same substance that caused it. But remedies are diluted to such a degree, there is virtually no chance of the active ingredient existing in the final product.

The concept of “Homeopathy, there’s nothing in it” made headlines around the world last year when mass homeopathic overdoses were conducted outside of pharmacies across the globe. The campaign was organised in protest at the highly respected Boots chain of pharmacies in the UK selling their own range of homeopathic “remedies”.

During the parliamentary evidence check, the professional standards director for the Boots high street pharmacy chain, Paul Bennett admitted to selling homeopathic remedies because they are popular, not because they work. In a statement, which has since been referred to as a huge foot-in-mouth, he said;

“There is certainly a consumer demand for these products,” but “I have no evidence to suggest they are efficacious”.

Homeopathy also publicly funded in Australia

In Australia, homeopathic consultations are not directly covered by Medicare, but GPs can bill for any consultation deemed “by the majority of professional peers as clinically relevant”, a Medicare spokesperson said.

Dr Ken Harvey, of the school of public health at La Trobe University, objects to the use of public money on placebo;

“I don’t believe there’s an evidence base to homeopathy, and I don’t think it should be financed by public money,”

“If a doctor wants to offer homeopathic consultations then it should be done separately…at the patient’s own expense.”

Dr Harvey referred to a New South Wales GP who offers homeopathy consultations as being fully reimbursed by Medicare. The GP, Dr Michael Cleary was adamant;

“The people who are using [homeopathy] are [also] taxpayers,” he said.

“If I was a person who wasn’t allowed to get a Medicare rebate from seeing my [homeopathic] doctor, I’d be wondering why I’m paying the levy.

Professor Mike Daube, president of the Public Health Association of Australia, also called on the TGA and Department of Health to conduct a review of homeopathy.

“There’s a long history to homeopathic practice, but we need to know whether it’s appropriate in the light of 21st-century science,” he said.