NEW DELHI: It is no sweet pill. In fact, the Lancet report on homoeopathy, The End of Homeopathy has stirred a hornet's nest.
Homeopathic practitioners in India say the credibility of a 250-year-old system can't be questioned just because a bunch of allopaths have different views on it.
The article was published by scientists from the University of Berne, Switzerland, and had concluded that homoeopathy had the same medical value as placebos and was no better than dummy drugs.
Homoeopaths say the conclusions are completely off the mark. "The study was based on random controlled trials (RCTs), while homoeopathy is a people-oriented system.
Medicines are prescribed, based on individual traits and requirements. Unlike allopathy where one drug works on everybody with a particular ailment, here, 10 different combinations may be required for 10 patients with the same ailment," says Dr R K Manchanda, deputy director, Nehru Homeopathic Medical College and Hospital, Delhi.
Tonsillitis alone has 100 different kinds of homoeopathic medicines.
Therefore, the random controlled trials concept does not work here.
"Is it right to check the effectiveness of one medical system using the meas ures of another, when the two systems are so different?" asks Dr Sunita Joshi, a practitioner.
The absence of homoeopathy experts in the study team and the editorial board of the journal is another point of contention.
Homoeopaths argue that the Lancet report was just a statistical paper based on random controlled trials lifted from the Internet and not based on actual tests.
"What's more, in 1997, the same journal had published a report by German scientists that said homoeopathic drugs are 245% more effective than placebos. And now, this study. Which is correct?" asks Dr Mukesh Batra, Dr Batra's Positive Health Clinic.
Homoeopaths also say the article included a list of clinical topics on which the survey was based, except paediatrics. This is the only field of medicine free of the placebo effect, and where data could show the unbiased clinical effect of each system.
"Traditionally, homoeopathy works best among children. Also, if it wasn't effective, 100 billion people all over the world would not trust it," says Batra. Doctors say patients turning to homoeopathy have increased.
In the last five years alone, Batra says, it has grown 25% all over the world. He claims he treats around 7,500 patients every month.
In fact, the gap between allopathy and homoeopathy is not much.
A recent paper titled Cost effectiveness and efficacy of homoeopathy in primary health care units of government of Delhi by Dr Manchanda and Dr Kulashreshtha says: "The average annual patient turnover in an allopathic clinic as against a homoeopathic one was 27,508 patients and 24,943 respectively."
Experts however say the Lancet study might have dealt a body blow to the age-old system discovered in Germany.
Practitioners however say homoeopathy still is the safest system as it has no side-effects.
No wonder it remains the second-most popular system of medicine after allopathy. No wonder Manchanda is all for promoting it at the primary health care level too in order to minimise costs.
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