Meta-analysis shows homeopathy to be more effective than placebo

HMRG report with overview of clinical research in homeopathy, identified 184 controlled clinical trials. They selected the highest quality randomised control trials, which included a total of 2617 patients for meta-analysis. This meta-analysis resulted in p< 0.000036 indicating that homeopathy is more effective than placebo. The researchers concluded that the "hypothesis that homeopathy has no effect can be rejected with certainty."

(Homeopathic Medicine Research Group. Report to the European Commission directorate XII: science, research and development. Vol. 1 (short version). Brussels: European Commission, 1996: 16-7)

Goldacre et al, Projection and a Meta-analysis in the Lancet showing the effectiveness of homeopathy beyond placebo.

I would like to draw your attention to a meta-analysis that was published in the Lancet (yes the very journal that proclaimed the "END" of homeopathy) in 1997. It clearly shows that homeopathy does work beyond the placebo effect. But first I would like to consider why the critics of homeopathy so fiercely claim that there is no evidence for homeopathy.

So where exactly do Ben Goldacre et al get their nonsensical data from? There is a mountain of evidence supporting homeopathy working beyond the placebo effect yet they still preach the same message - "there is no evidence to show homeopathy to work beyond placebo." I have faith however that the British public can make their own rational decision on whether they believe homeopathy to work if they are given the correct information.

Those with an agenda will bend and twist homeopathy into what they want, but ultimately the truth prevails. We have to wonder why some people would want to do this? I honestly can't answer that question for the likes of Ernst, Goldacre et al. Why would someone feel so threatened that they would feel the need to lie and manipulate the public into believing their own belief structures, hence why I used the word "preach" earlier. They are preaching a belief structure that does not hold up to scientific questioning.

Ironically this is what homeopaths are accused of time and again by their critics. However there is a principle in psychology called Projection which is simply defined as something you project unconsciously of yourself onto another individual, believing that they have the same attributes as yourself. Often however this is as a result of denial of yourself, and the fact that it is actually yourself that holds those attributes.

For example, critics of homeopathy claim it to be unscientific, mumbo-jumbo that is based upon belief and not actual substance. Now this could be true if it weren't for the fact that there is a lot of scientific evidence supporting homeopathy, so now we have to ask the question of why they so strongly believe themselves to be right? This is where the role of psychological projection comes in, because they deny that they themselves are unscientific and biased in their approach.

So homeopathy must take the brunt of their own denial of themselves. Which is obvious for all to see as their writings are so clearly based upon bias and nonsense. There is evidence that homeopathy works, yes scientific evidence not just anecdotal, and yes published in "prestigious" journals like the Lancet as I will show below. So what are they going on about? Hence the conclusion of projection, maybe they should acquaint themselves with the writings of Freud and Jung.

Here is the abstract of the meta-analysis promised

"Meta-analysis of 89 trials on homeopathic medicine versus placebo. Result: significantly in favour of homeopathy (OR 2.45 (95% CI 2.05-2.93)). This meta-analysis included 186 placebo-controlled studies of homeopathy published until mid-1996, of which data for analysis could be extracted from 89. The overall ratio was 2.45 (95% confidence intervals 2.05-2.93) in favour of homeopathy, which means that the chances that homeopathy would benefit the patient were 2.45 times greater than placebo. When considering just those trials of high quality published in MEDLINE listed journals, and with predefined primary outcome measures, the pooled odds ratio was 1.97 and significant. Even after correction for publication bias the results remained significant. The main conclusion was that the results "were not compatible with the hypothesis that the effects of homeopathy are completely due to placebo." If the results of new trials were to show no difference between homeopathy and placebo, we would have to add 923 trials with no effect with 18 patients in each order to balance the two."

Linde K, Clausius N, Ramirez G, et al. Are the clinical effect of homeopathy placebo effect? A meta-analysis of placebo-controlled trials. Lancet 1997; 350:834-43.