As of today, homeopaths are officially recognized. After reading some suspicious comments from friends on facebook, I looked up some information on the internet. For example, I came to read that oscillococcinum (a homeopathic medicine that should prevent the duration of a flu) does not contain active ingredients. This surprised me, because I had already seen many commercials on television about this ‘medicine’. But is this also true? I mean, are there really no cures in those drugs? I find it too absurd for words that in the 21st century it is still possible to sell only sugar pills as a flu-curing medicine? I knew these practices existed, but that they are now also legally recognized is beyond me.
Answer
The homeopathic theory states that the water would have a “memory” as to the configuration of the (supposed) medicinal molecule. Of course, that doesn’t explain why higher dilutions would be more potent, nor is there any physico-chemical support for this theory.
We do see the so-called dose-response curve in classical pharmacotherapeutic practice. That is, the higher the dose, the stronger the response. This is well substantiated with numerous practical examples and has proven its worth
To know for sure whether a preparation works (and whether it is better than a traditional remedy) you need to take a double-blind test. As a doctor, you treat a number of patients with the classically known remedy and a number of others with the medicine to be tested (in this case a homeopathic one). What the patient gets does carry a certain code. Neither the patient nor the treating physician know who gets what. AFTER an independent person has assessed and registered the effect of the administered drug, the code is broken so that the treating physician knows who has received what. Then it can be assessed whether the drug that has been studied has worked and whether it was better than the classic drug. You need a large enough patient population to get statistically meaningful results. In this way, the so-called placebo effect is neutralized and unconscious preferences of the attending physician are switched off.
It can also be expressed more simply and in a more confrontational way: who asks the dentist for homeopathic pain relief?
With regard to homeopathy, there are serious ethical aspects: who is willing to take a questionable remedy in the event of a serious illness?
There are homeopaths who claim that such research is not applicable in their field. So we quickly finished talking.
Answered by
Dr Mistiaen Wilhelm
Prinsstraat 13 2000 Antwerp
http://www.uantwerpen.be
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