Sunday 10 January 2010

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)

2 comments:

  1. Some simple questions:

    1) Have you read this review?

    2) Can you link to where it might be so that the rest of us can read it?

    3) Would you like to suggest reasons why this reviews differs so wildly in its supposed conclusion from more recent overviews?

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  2. Some simple answers:

    1) Yes

    2) I have it on paper, so sorry no, you can find the abstract online if you search.

    3) That is not true, Kleijnan et al (1991) was positive. Linde et al (1997) was positive. Cucherat et al (2000) was positive. And even the much discredited Shang et al (2005) paper has been re-analysed and been found to be positive (Rutten and Stolper 2005). - yes I have read each of them fully and yes they are available online.

    Indeed whilst they all come to positive views on homeopathy, they all call for more research - something the homeopathic community welcomes but unfortunately funding is very hard to come by! So maybe you cold help us? Help us raise the funds needed for more high-quality trials. Can I count you in on that? After-all a true scientific mind would relish more research on homeopathy, would they not?

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