What do doctors believe about homeopathy and its purpose in medicine?
How is it possible that diseases can be treated by blending minute amounts of crushed whole bees, poison ivy, stinging nettle, white arsenic, deadly nightshade, snake venom, arsenic oxide, or red onion – from plants, minerals, animals, or synthesized material and diluting it with distilled water, alcohol, or lactose?
A physician with a conventional medical degree at Jerusalem’s Shaare Zedek Medical Center (SZMC) firmly believes that such a mixture can keep babies and toddlers healthier and treat illnesses.
Homeopathy is derived from the Greek words for “like” and “suffering,” and the principle behind it is that “like cures like,” which goes back to ancient Egypt and Greece.
Homeopaths claim that substances that can cause symptoms when given to generally healthy people can be used in tiny doses to stimulate healing responses in patients with similar symptoms. Homeopaths have been claiming that this can be done since German-born physician Samuel Hahnemann, the founder of homeopathy, launched this supposedly therapeutic technique in the 18th century.
Most conventional physicians who demand scientifically tested proof of efficacy before offering medical treatment to patients turn up their noses at homeopathy, but such preparations are sold by the hundreds of millions in pharmacies and health food stores around the world, including in Israel, without approved medical indications, as in the United States and the European Union (EU), and don’t have to undergo clinical trials to prove efficacy. PROF. YECHIEL SCHLESINGER. (credit: SZMC)
The lack of regulation in homeopathy is due to faith in the medical establishments and health authorities’ insistence that there is no proof that homeopathy cures anything but also no indication that it causes any harm – unless, of course, users avoid going to conventional physicians and seeking medical treatment for significant illnesses.
ACCORDING TO the UK’s Homeopathy Research Institute, homeopathy is practiced most widely in India, where 1.2 billion people (83% of the Indian population) have used it and 100 million people are claimed to depend on it completely for their medical care, eschewing conventional medicine.
Nevertheless, the UK’s independent advisory body, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), which advises the National Health Service (NHS) on what treatments are effective, doesn’t recommend using homeopathy in the treatment of any health condition.
Where are homeopathic doctors common?
There are over 200,000 registered homeopathic doctors in India, with about 12,000 more graduating from homeopathy schools every year. Worldwide, over 200 million people reportedly use homeopathy on a regular basis. Besides India, it’s included in the national health systems of Switzerland, Mexico, Chile, and Pakistan, and is used by 100 million European Union residents in their day-to-day healthcare. Large numbers of people in North America also choose such treatments.
Many homeopaths use extremely diluted products because they believe that the more-diluted they are, the more powerful they are. Homeopaths may suggest taking remedies for no more than a few days, although some people are asked to take a few doses even before they start feeling better or even take them on a daily basis.
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Homeopathic medicine (tinctures or pills) can have a shelf life of no more than five years and must be taken with a time gap before or after meals, although drinking water is allowed five minutes before or after taking the medicines. They are supposed to be tailored to each patient’s complaint and condition and these are to include not only their physical complaints but also psychological states.
AMONG THE claims made by homeopaths is that their treatments can help relieve ear infections and diarrhea in young children, asthma, fibromyalgia, hot flashes and other menopause symptoms, chronic fatigue syndrome, pain, upper respiratory tract infections, influenza, and sore muscles, but even if patients report relief, it is thought they could be improving due to the placebo effect – that they think they are helping them.
There are licensed physicians who have devoted their time to testing and prescribing homeopathic medicines. One of them is Dr. Menachem Oberbaum, head of SZMC’s Center for Integrative Complementary Medicine. Along with 16 homeopaths in India, he has just published an 11-page article in the European Journal of Pediatrics under the title “Homoeopathy vs conventional primary care in children during the first 24 months of life – a pragmatic randomized controlled trial.”
This is relatively unusual and an honorable achievement.
The aim of the study is to compare the difference between primary homeopathy and conventional pediatric care in treating acute illnesses in children in their first two years of life. A total of 108 Indian newborns delivered at 37 to 42 weeks gestation were randomized
at birth to receive either homeopathic or conventional primary care for any acute illness over the study period.
In the homeopathic group, conventional medical treatment was added when the need for it was indicated. Clinicians and parents were “unblinded,”(meaning that the doctors or the babies’ parents were aware of which drug or treatment was being given).
Oberbaum and his team reported “significantly fewer sick days than those in the conventional group with correspondingly fewer sickness episodes, as well as fewer respiratory illnesses over the 24-month period. They were taller but not heavier than their conventionally treated counterparts. They also required fewer antibiotics, and their treatment cost was lower.”
The authors concluded that “homeopathy, using conventional medicine as a safety backdrop, was more effective than conventional treatment in preventing sick days, sickness episodes, and respiratory illnesses in the first 24 months of life. It necessitated fewer antibiotics, and its overall cost was lower.”
Homeopathy was, they maintained, “a safe and cost-effective primary care modality during the first two years of life.” In low- and even middle-income countries, many children don’t enjoy optimal health and nutrition interventions.
Malnutrition and infection are especially harmful during the 1,000 days from conception until their second birthday, the team wrote: “Acute respiratory diseases and diarrhea are leading causes of morbidity and death in young children globally and in poorer countries. In India, respiratory infections are annually responsible for some 400,000 deaths among children under five, accounting for 13% to 16% of all child deaths among pediatric hospital admissions. Diarrheal diseases are the third-leading cause of young children’s deaths.
Together, these two conditions account for the greatest antibiotic use during early childhood.”
OBERBAUM SAID that homeopathy is one of the best-known but most controversial schools of complementary and alternative medicine, but despite its more than 200-year history and long tradition of use in both Europe and the US, it isn’t integrated into conventional medicine in most parts of the world and is treated with varying degrees of skepticism and suspicion by physicians, academic scientists, and policymakers. Its unexplained biological mechanism and the lack of conclusive randomized controlled trials are largely responsible for this.
He therefore decided to evaluate the comparative effectiveness of homeopathy using conventional medicine as a safety backdrop and therapeutic system rather than comparing the effectiveness for a single indication.
Prof. Jonathan Halevy, SZMC’s longtime director-general and now president, who in 2005 wrote the comprehensive, Hebrew-language book, Complementary and Alternative Medicine and stated that there was no proven evidence of their benefits of any complementary techniques except perhaps acupuncture, was asked by The Jerusalem Post what he thought of Oberbaum’s study. He suggested interviewing a leading pediatrician, “taking great care in formulating the conclusions while emphasizing the limitations of the article that are also emphasized by the authors in the body of the article.” Halevy had no objections to his reaction becoming public.
Prof. Yechiel Schlesinger, director of SZMC’s Wilf Children’s Hospital and an expert in infectious diseases was interviewed after he was sent Oberbaum’s study. While he does not use homeopathy on his patients, or even recommend it, he commended his colleague for getting his research published by a recognized, widely read, peer-reviewed journal and producing “dramatic results.”
There were limitations, he added, including the fact that it wasn’t “blinded,” wasn’t conducted in Israel, and involved only 108 patients.
“In general, integrative medicine is an orphan. It’s illogical, with no proven scientific basis,” Schlesinger stressed.
“Two decades ago, the US National Institutes of Health invested a lot of money in homeopathy studies, but they didn’t get very far. Things have to be proven clinically. Most MDs don’t believe in it, but it doesn’t hurt.”
He wasn’t surprised that not giving antibiotics to young children with ear infections resulted in their recovery, as it is known to pediatricians that, in most cases, it’s best not to treat them with that type of drug. Too many antibiotics are handed out to such patients, and conventional treatment is sometimes excessive.
“But the fact that children who were treated with homeopathic medicines got better doesn’t necessarily prove that it was due to these medicines,” Schlesinger concluded.
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