Homeopathy: Medicine for the 21st Century

H:MC21 has undertaken a critique of the Commons Science and Technology Committee’s Evidence Check 2: Homeopathy. An exhaustive study was not possible in the time, but detailed analysis of several sections of the report reaches the following conclusions:

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1. The committee has failed to properly assess the scientific validity of its only source of evidence, the randomised controlled trial.

2. The committee has failed to properly assess the scientific validity of the mechanism by which it has accessed this evidence, the meta-analysis.

3. The committee has failed to properly justify its rejection of the principles of evidence based medicine when it is demanding that the Government abide by these principles.

4. The committee has failed to accurately identify even the basic principles of homeopathy, with the result that it cannot claim to have an understanding of the evidence available.

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In reaching these conclusions H:MC21 has shown that the committee’s arguments are fatally flawed.

 

H:MC21 therefore considers that this report offers a highly unsatisfactory basis for any change in legislation. Instead it opens the door to criticisms that the whole Evidence Check was simply a propaganda exercise, and to allegations that the Commons Science and Technology Committee is not impartial.

 

H:MC21 considers that the degree of misrepresentation of the truth about homeopathic practice brings discredit on Parliamentary committees generally and on the ability of Members of Parliament to assess the facts of important matters.

 

H:MC21 urges Members of Parliament to raise questions about why it was necessary to attack the presence of homeopathy in the NHS, and why it was necessary to do so using such unacceptable standards of investigation.

 

On Wednesday 24 February H:MC21 will also be handing in a letter to the Prime Mininster accompanied by the declaration “Homeopathy Worked for Me” signed by over 27,000 people as part of a mass lobby of Parliament.

 

For a Word document version, click here.

 

For a pdf file, click here.

 

Further criticism of the Commons Science and Technology Committee's Evidence Check 2: Homeopathy can be found at:

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• British Homeopathic Association (www.britishhomeopathic.org/media_centre/)

• Voice of (not so) Young Homeopathy (vonsyhomeopathy.wordpress.com)

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The Government Response

 

July 2010:  The government has responded to the Commons Science and Technology Committee Evidence Check: Homeopathy by rejecting most of the demands, especially the extreme one for the removal of homeopathy from the NHS. Click below for:

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The full Government Response.

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Analysis of the Government's Response.