Case against homeopathy: Scientist declares homeopathy a ‘therapeutic dead-end,’ no better than placebo

Homeopathy has another critic and this time, he is a leading scientist and academic in evidence-based medicine at Bond University. Prof. Paul Glasziou declared homeopathy a “therapeutic dead-end” and has a systematic review to back up his claims. According to Glasziou, homeopathy is no more effective than placebo drugs.

Glasziou was the chair of a working party by the National Health and Medical Research Council. It reviewed evidence of 176 trials of homeopathy to establish if the treatment is valid. Glasziou’s study focused on 68 different health conditions, a total of 57 systematic reviews containing 176 individual studies. He found no evidence that homeopathy was more effective than placebo on any of the conditions.

In homeopathy, a substance is diluted in water, many times until there is none or almost none of the original substance left. It is a very popular branch of alternative medicine. According to NHS, homeopathy practitioners believe that more the substance if diluted in water, greater is it power to treat symptoms and diseases.

Unfortunately, the review concluded that “there was no reliable evidence from research in humans that homeopathy was effective for treating the range of health conditions considered,” The Morning Bulletin reported.

“I can well understand why Samuel Hahnemann -- the founder of homeopathy -- was dissatisfied with the state of 18th century medicine’s practices, such as blood-letting and purging and tried to find a better alternative,” said Glasziou in his blog.

He added that Hahnemann would be disappointed by the failure of homeopathy to carry on his innovative investigations but instead carry on a therapeutic dead-end.

In the UK, two NHS hospitals provide homeopathy, as well as a number of GP practices, writes Independent.