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Homeopathic Educational Services, Berkeley, California, USA
1Correspondence: E-mail: mail{at}homeopathic.com
GERALD WEISSMANN’S EDITORIAL on homeopathic medicine represents an unscientific critique of the subject and has no place in a serious discussion of medical science. There are so many errors of fact in this editorial that it is impossible to list them all in a short response, and what he doesn’t say is as problematic as what he does say.
Weissmann sought to make fun of the homeopathic medicine, Oscillococcinum, a medicine for the flu, because it is made from the liver and heart of a duck. The fact that it is widely known that ducks are carriers of various influenza viruses is not mentioned, nor was there reference to three large controlled trials that have shown its efficacy (1
2
3)
. Even the Cochrane Collaboration found these results in the treatment of influenza to be "promising (4)
."
Weissmann criticized NIH’s National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine for funding a study on a "dubious" disease such as fibromyalgia. He correctly referenced the study published in Rheumatology, but he didn’t report that this double-blind, placebo-controlled randomized trial found statistically significant results in those patients given a homeopathic medicine (5)
. Further, the study found objective changes (EEG readings) from the homeopathic patients that were not found in the placebo group.
Weissmann chose not to mention or reference some recent studies on very real diseases such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease where the amount of tracheal secretions was reduced significantly in the homeopathic group (P<0.0001) and where the hospitalization was cut by almost 50% (6)
. Weissman also ignored a study that showed a 50% reduction in death rates in homeopathic patients who experienced severe sepsis in hospitals (7)
.
Weissmann shows bias on the subject by calling O. H. Holmes’ book the "definitive critique" of homeopathy (8)
. Holmes estimated that the 9th homeopathic dilution would require ten billion gallons of water and the 17th dilution required a quantity equal to 10,000 Adriatic seas. If Holmes (or Weissmann) would have simply read one book on homeopathy or had a serious conversation with one homeopath, he would have learned that the homeopathic dilutions above simply require 9 or 17 test tubes of water. Despite this and many other errors of fact in Holmes’ work and despite numerous reprintings of this book throughout his life, he never changed one error.
Weissmann revels in attacking the "nothingness" in the homeopathic solutions, but this is akin to analyzing chemically two CDs, one with 10 encyclopedias on it and one completely blank. A chemical analysis will assert that both disks are exactly the same. Experts in material sciences have shown that the structure of water can be changed through the homeopathic manufacturing process even if the chemical composition of the water has seemingly been diluted out of it (9)
.
Let’s have a serious discussion of nanopharmacology and homeopathy.
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