Publication: The Times Of India Mumbai; Date: Sep 23, 2005; Section: Editorial;Page: 30
New Vistas Of Healing
Lancet article gets it wrong on homoeopathy
By SURINDER PURI
Is it possible that the venerable science magazine The Lancet has got it horribly wrong? In a recent issue the magazine ran an editorial titled, ‘The end of homoeopathy’ which said, ‘‘Now doctors need to be bold and honest with their patients about homoeopathy’s lack of benefits, and with themselves about the failings of modern medicine to address patients’ needs for personalised care’’. As a practising path for the last 30 years, it is difficult to understand how one study can claim to conclusively prove the end of an entire branch of alternative medicine. It is true that homoeopathy evokes extreme reactions and its efficacy has been debated since the time of Samuel Hahnemann, the German doctor who founded this line of medicine as an alternative to the more brutal medical practices that were prevalent in his time almost 200 years ago.
The major bone of contention in this debate as well as The Lancet study is the efficacy of homoeopathic
medicines. Homoeopathic medicines have routinely been dismissed as placebos and any improvement in a patient’s condition by taking homoeopathic medication has been dismissed as the placebo effect. Homoeopathic theory says that the more diluted a substance is, the more effective it becomes; where the quantity is reduced but its inert energies are increased. First the mother tincture is prepared which is an alcohol based extract of the substance from which subsequent potencies are made. One drop of the mother tincture is diluted with 99 drops of plain alcohol. This is called the first potency. The next potency will be prepared by diluting one drop of the first potency with another 99 drops of alcohol. This is called the second potency and so on. This can even go beyond one million potencies. The more recent and more physical the symptoms in a patient, usually lower the potency of the medicine prescribed. Physical and recent symptoms in a patient are indicative of the fact that the illness is in a superficial or more recent form and, thus, to combat that, lower the potency. In homoeopathy, the symptoms are seen to differ from
individual to individual. For instance, two patients may suffer with migraine, but the cause of migraine in both could be different. So how can the treatment be the same in both cases? Homoeopathy assumes that every patient is different even if they suffer from similar illnesses. Also, homoeopathy treats the cause and not the symptoms. If one were not to treat the cause, it is likely that the patient will become dependent on medicines to suppress the symptoms from time to time. In allopathy, a patient is likely to be pumped with steroids to alleviate the symptoms of an ailment quickly. But it is well known that the sideeffects of the steroids are often worse than the original ailment. Allopathic medicines too aren’t quite free from the placebo tag. Prozac which captured the imagination of the world as the wonder mood drug is, according to Irving Kirsch, a psychologist at the University of Connecticut, no more than a placebo. He along with Guy Sapirstein conducted 19 clinical trials of Prozac and other such anti-depressants and concluded that it was the expectation of improvement rather than any change in the brain’s chemicals that was the reason for 75% of the drug’s effectiveness. No good doctor, homoeopath or allopath, will deliberately harm his patients. A good practitioner of homoeopathy will carefully evaluate each case and suggest the best possible treatment. For instance, if I get a patient who has renal stones, I will not take up the case unless I see all the relevant investigations. One has to see the site and size of the stones to be able to evaluate whether homoeopathy is likely to benefit the patient. If the stone is lodged in the cortex and other parts of the kidney are functioning properly, then there is no urgency for any surgical intervention. But if the stone is very large and lying in the pelvic area of the kidney, completely blocking the passage, there is danger of kidney damage and such a case needs to be operated upon immediately. 19-12-2010 New Vistas Of Healing
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It is unfortunate that an entire stream of science is being discredited on the limited evidence published by The Lancet. Allopathy as a whole is rarely dismissed, even though many allopathic doctors make wrong diagnoses or botch up surgeries. The fault, the world is willing to concede in such cases, lies with individual practitioners and not with the field of medicine. Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) was once said to be the panacea for all menopausal women. Today, there is no bigger evil for menopausal women than HRT. There is growing enthusiasm for homoeopathy in the western world. In the US alone, the value of homoeopathic remedies has grown from $170 million in 1995 to $400 million in 1999. Could this skyrocketing popularity be behind the unease in certain quarters — people who have a vested interest in keeping us in a perpetual druginduced haze? The writer, a practising homoeopath, said this to Archana Jahagirdar .
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