Saturday 16 January 2010

Homeopathy effective in treating neo-natal pigs with diarrhoea, new paper shows

A paper published yesterday (15/1/10) in the peer-reviewed journal Homeopathy by Camerlink et al (2010) found that the homeopathic remedy Coli 30K was highly significantly (p< 0.0001) more effective than placebo in a placebo-controlled, observer blind RCT on the treatment of diarrhoea in neo-natal pigs.

52 sows of pigs form a commercial farm who were in their last month of gestation and had never been vaccinated against E.coli were randomly assigned to either a placebo group or treatment group. This included 300 pigs.

Both groups would receive either the homeopathic remedy Coli 30k or placebo twice a week in their last four weeks pre-partum.

It was found that the treatment group had significantly less E.coli diarrhoea than the placebo group (P <0.0001). Furthermore in the homeopathic treatment group the diarrhoea was less severe, there was less transmission and duration appeared shorter.

Camerlink I, Ellinger L, Bakker EJ and Lantinga EA (2010) Homeopathy as replacement to antibiotics in the case of Escherichia Coli diarrhoea in neonatal pigs, Homeopathy, Vol.99 (57-62)


That's another nail in the "homeopathy is just placebo" coffin - That coffin is looking pretty nailed in to me!

3 comments:

  1. Yes, more evidence for the denialist to deny. We have always had evidence for the safety and effectiveness of homeopathy, in the thousands and millions of sick people who were made better by homeopathy. Now there is an increasing amount of 'scientific' evidence. Thanks for blogging it!

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  2. It took me a while to look through the paper in detail, what with family and work, but here's my critique, for what it's worth.

    http://www.moteprime.org/article.php?id=39

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  3. Thank you Sean for you comment and I have just read through your critique of the paper now. It's nice to know that there are some real sceptics left and not all are just denialists. I was also puzzled by the way they administered the remedy, but I know nothing about keeping animals and treating them so can't comment as to that.

    You asked what is the difference between a 30K and a 30C? Essentially nothing - a few slight differences in the way a remedy is succussed i.e. a 30c is succussed by hand and a 30K is succussed by a machine imitating the action of succussion by hand.

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