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Does Homeopathy Work? - Podcast with Myself & Mary Greensmith - accompanying Notes

  • Anjum Rahmatulla
  • Aug 12
  • 4 min read

I have written this blog to accompany my podcast with Mary Greensmith of Homeopathy247.

Here is the podcast if you have not seen it already:


There are so many different ways of approaching this topic. I decided I would look at the evidence for homeopathy working, in particular, with animals and babies/children as they are acknowledged as not being partial to the placebo effect.


What is the placebo effect? It is when a person is given a treatment and there is an expectation it will work. You believe, therefore it will work. Animals and young children do not have such beliefs.


The Homeopathy Research Institute in the UK was established to bring all available evidence together so that those who wished to access this information were able to do so without going around in circles. The HRI also funds specific research of it’s own.


For those who are interested, here is where you go to find the different types of evidence that is available:

You can also find an evidence summary for a quick overview.

 

Suffice to say that there are many millions of people worldwide who use homeopathy on a regular basis, including 20% of the EU population. And there are several randomised, double-blind placebo controlled trials done using homeopathy.

Of these, 179 were double-blind, randomised, placebo-controlled trials, covering 105 different medical conditions:

·       41% were positive (74 trials) – finding that homeopathy was effective

·       3% were negative (5 trials) – finding that homeopathy was ineffective

·       56% were inconclusive (100 trials)


CUBAN PROPHYLAXIS

I want to mention an extraordinary event where an infectious epidemic of Leptospirosis was stopped in it’s tracks using homeopathic prophylaxis – an action to prevent a health problem from happening.


In 2007, during a very bad hurricane season, Cuba ran out of vaccines to protect it’s citizens from Leptospirosis, a bacterial infection spread through animal urine and contaminated water. They were forced to think of alternatives and used a combination remedy made of 4 strains of bacteria given to over 2 million people in 2 doses.


“Within 2 weeks of administering the homeopathic product, they observed a 90% decrease in incidence of leptospirosis in the intervention region (comprising 2.1 million persons), while in the low-risk areas which did not receive any intervention (either homeopathic or conventional) incidence of the disease continued to rise” (BMJ, 14 September 2012, Good Medicine: Homeopathy)


“The homeopathic prophylaxis was then, in the ensuing years, administered to the entire Cuban population (11 million persons), to the effect of near eradication of the disease on the island – a result not achieved with use of the conventional vaccine product.” (BMJ, 14 September 2012, Good Medicine: Homeopathy)

To read more, see here

 

 

VETERINARY RESEARCH

Please do have a look at the HRI page here

Here is one example of a successful trial that caught my eye:


A 2010 trial of diarrhoea in piglets (triple blind RCT) treated the 52 sows with a specific remedy. The incidence of diarrhoea in the piglets of these sows showed 6 times less diarrhoea than the piglets in the placebo group.

(Reference: Doehring C, Sundrum A. Efficacy of homeopathy in livestock according to peer-reviewed publications from 1981 to 2014. Veterinary Record, 2016; 179(24):628 | Full text)


MY PERSONAL EXPERIENCE

These are 2 case studies of children, one of whom is a baby:


1.       A case of chickenpox in a 9 month baby. Very itchy skin, constant whimpering which only stopped when he slept, wanting to be held all the time. He was given 2 doses of a remedy on a Thursday. By the next day, Friday, he was back to his smiley self, and by Sunday his spots had all dried out. Baby and Mum were very happy.

See here for details of what happened:

 

2.       A 3 year old boy who suddenly, for no apparent reason, started wetting himself at night and refused to go to his nursery – where he had been very well settled. The doctors could not figure out why this was happening, so Mum came to me for help. Could I identify the cause? Well after many questions, the culprit appeared to be the Nursery’s activities around Halloween. This little fella was waking up scared, but no one knew why. It is only after I asked specifically about any fears he might have that Mum mentioned Halloween, and we put two and two together. He was given a remedy and 2 days later: his mother rang me to say that “the remedy has worked like magic! He is sleeping well, not waking up. And there have been no leaks at night or at nursery".

 

Neither the baby or the toddler saw me or were part of a consultation process where a treatment was visibly given to them. Was there a placebo effect? You can decide that for yourselves.


Thanks for reading my blog. I have several case studies on different issues/conditions, so please do read them on my blog pages.


Every one of us is unique, and homeopathy enables that uniqueness to shine and provide a key to better health and wellbeing.


I hope you found this blog worthwhile and interesting.


Contact me if you would like to discuss a health issue or have any questions.

 

 


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