April 15, 2009

expert comments on the review of homeopathic treatments to relieve side-effects of cancer therapies, as published in The Cochrane Library

The review found mixed evidence for the effectiveness of such treatments, which are not supported by peer-reviewed scientific research.

Edzard Ernst, Professor of Complementary Medicine at the Peninsula Medical School, University of Exeter, said:

“There are several problems with the body of evidence examined by this review. First, independent replications are lacking completely but would be necessary before we can accept any of these treatments in routine healthcare. Second, nobody doubts that undiluted remedies can have effects; and interestingly, the positive studies here seem to be on such medicines rather than on the highly diluted treatments which are a hallmark of homeopathy. In fact, the calendula cream found to be effective in one study is not diluted at all and thus it cannot, to all intents and purposes, be considered to be a typical homeopathic remedy. Finally, this review found hardly any high quality studies in the first place. So overall, this new piece of evidence simply confirms plenty of previous research demonstrating the unproven nature of homeopathy.”