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Be aware: April 10-16 is World Homeopathy Awareness Week! It’s been organised by the World Homeopathy Awareness Organisation, a Netherlands-based, non-profit foundation established over a decade ago to increase awareness of homeopathy around the globe. The week was chosen as 10th April is the birthday of Dr Samuel Hahnemann, the German physician who founded the therapeutic system of medicine that is homeopathy.
There couldn’t be a more important time to show awareness of this medical system given the vigour of the attacks against it. It’s a classic case of ‘attack what you don’t understand’. The biomedical model has moved so far along the track of pharmaceutical interventions using patented molecules, it becomes increasingly incomprehensible for its protagonists to understand how energy held in water or other substances can have an effect on the body. Homeopathy denialists are quite capable of looking at the same research we look at that shows consistent beneficial effects as well as economic and social benefits – and still want to shut it down.
Evidence – that some choose to ignore
Here’s a snapshot of some important evidence:
- Human efficacy as measured using the biomedical model’s gold standard approach: meta-analyses and systematic reviews, in which 5 out of 6 showed a beneficial effect as compared with placebo.
- Economic benefits, see the report by the European Coalition on Homeopathic and Anthroposophic Medicinal Products (ECHAMP) report from 2014, Reducing healthcare costs with homeopathy and anthroposophic medicine: a literature review.
And if you want to read about how homeopathy works on farm animals, check out dairy farmer Oliver Dowding’s piece from 2011 – or his video, How homeopathy works for me and farm animals! Or if you prefer to look at trials on cattle, pigs and poultry, you’ll find in this German review of 52 trials between 1981 and 2014, 26 trials showing beneficial effects. Remember, that when it comes to human trials of some 3000 medical interventions, only 11% have been proven to be of benefit.
That’s why, despite consistent attacks against this specific system of medicine, there are over 200 million people who use it regularly.
For more information on homeopathy research, check out the fantastic work of the Homeopathy Research Institute and its useful analysis of the homeopathy debate.
April 2018 update on UK homeopathy attacks
In the meantime here’s some important updates on the battle to keep homeopathy alive:
- The British Homeopathy Association is engaged in a legal challenge to be heard on 1 May against the UK’s National Health Service’s consultation on homeopathy.
- The Royal Veterinary College (RVC) issued a position statement on November 2017 regarding the use of homeopathy to treat animals, in which the RVC stresses the complementary rather than alternative nature as it does not recognise that homeopathy is based on a “recognised evidence base or sound scientific principles.”
- The British Association of Homeopathic Veterinary Surgeons (BAHVS) has provided a potent response to the RVC statement that it considers part of a witch-hunt against homeopathic vets. There will be a demonstration in London on Monday 16th April with a petition that calls on the RCV to retract its statement.
- The fight to stop the provision of homeopathy to the public at the Royal London Hospital for Integrated Medicine (formerly the Royal London Homoeopathic Hospital) has been lost with services being withdrawn this month courtesy of the “funding policy of Camden Clinical Commissioning Groups, the local NHS body that plans and pays for healthcare services in this area” (see page 2, 5th paragraph)
- Simon Singh’s Good Thinking Society that has been involved in pressuring CCGs in the NHS to pull funding from homeopathy includes a call for attention to be turned to Bristol and Glasgow regions as the last two NHS regions still prescribing homeopathy on the NHS.
- The NHS’ Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) is currently running a consultation (which closes 15 April) as part of its review of all NHS funded homeopathic or alternative therapies in the area.
- Some good news is that a study recently published in BMJ Open shows that British GPs trained in complementary and alternative medicine (CAM), including homeopathy, prescribe 22% fewer antibiotics.
More information about Homeopathy Awareness Week
For more information about Homeopathy Awareness Week, check out the Find a Homeopath website
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Comments
your voice counts
Linda Collier
12 April 2018 at 9:37 am
My family have used homeopathy for years. I always gave my children homeopathic remedies (I had completed a first aid course in homeopathy), consequently my children never had antibiotics as children as homeopathy sorted them out. My son's severe breathing problems causing hospitalisation, was sorted out with homeopathy. Even the cats benefited. Cost? price of remedies and homeopathic consultations (£30 in those days.
Susan Marsh
12 April 2018 at 11:02 am
Homeopathy has been my support for over 40 years.I completely agree with the above.
I try to keep away from drugs.
This book by Simon Singh is restricting my freedom Of choice.
And I do not like it at all
If I lived in London I would join the demonstration.
T.Perry
12 April 2018 at 12:26 pm
We have to stop the onslaught of banning homeopathy. Now the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons are trying to prevent vets from using natural medicine, especially homeopathy but also other forms of Complementary and Alternative Medicine for animals. The statement they made on 3rd November last year also effectively prevents vets AND animal guardians from having the ability to choose CAM and especially homeopathy as a first line medicine. There is a petition and a request to donate to the BAHVS to try to stop this happening. Please help save the Homeopathic vets and those practicing CAM - for the sake of the animals and us!
Melissa Smith
12 April 2018 at 4:49 pm
Thanks for your comment. There is a link to the BAHVS petition in the article for those who would like to sign it.
Warm Regards
Melissa
Robert Redfern http://www.NaturallyHealthyNews.com
12 April 2018 at 2:17 pm
I think the problem is always with people who have a financial interest in patented drugs. Until more research is done on the power of Quantum effects, only those who have the intention of healing will find benefit in homeopathy.
Using quantum effects via mathematics we are already neutralising the effects of WIFI and EMFs as well as improving fuel combustion for better economy and reducing emission.
Once the perfect equation for healing is developed that works 100% of the time, no matter whose hands it is in (even the skeptics), the game will be over the the Medical Mafia.
Robert Redfern
PS It will not convince closed minds of people such as, Singh and Ernst.
Anne Walker
12 April 2018 at 8:59 pm
I had never been to a homeopath before but she cured a problem that I had had for over 3 years. I had visited the GP, hospital and acupuncturist for this problem but no one could fix it except the homeopath. Why doesn't the Goverment see that millions could be saved on the NHS if all types of medicine were used routeinly
Miranda Black
13 April 2018 at 10:06 am
Hi Anne, Thank you for commenting, we completely agree this is why we do what we do here at ANH.
With Kind regards
Miranda
J Williams
13 April 2018 at 4:41 pm
The NHS will not survive if it continues to try to cure people with costly drugs with
side effects rather than choose simple natural solutions. On the advice of a local alternative health worker I gave my partner a homeopathic cream for the necrosis in his left calf suffered after a fall in the crowded London underground. He had been suffering for two months but it cleared up with the cream in three days. My health adviser's mother had cured her phlebitis with the same cream after just a few days.
Miranda Black
13 April 2018 at 5:32 pm
Hi Jackie, Thank you for sharing.
With kind regards
Miranda
Hilary Hoye
14 April 2018 at 7:35 pm
For about a year now I gave not had an 'official' G.P. My surgery collapsed under various pressures one of which was inability to secure G.P's. and was taken over by the Suffolk Federation. I'm so relieved that I don't need to rely on this 'service' having trained as a nutritional ltherapist and also completed some part time study in Homeopathy which I have come to trust and rely on. I am treated by a homeopath for an underfunctioning thyroid and have even used it to help my husband heal following peripheral bypass surgery. ,
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