NHMRC rule homeopathic remedies useless for human health
http://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/health/nhmrc-rule-homeopathic-remedies-useless-for-human-health/story-fneuzlbd-1226878166107
Sue Dunlevy National Health Reporter
News Corp Australia
April 09, 2014 12:00AM
AFTER a lengthy investigation the nation’s peak medical research body
has delivered its verdict on homeopathic remedies — they are useless for
human health.
The judgement is likely to influence a crucial government review which
is deciding whether the 30 per cent tax rebate for private health
insurance coverage of complementary therapies should continue.
Australians spend almost $4 billion a year on complementary therapies
like vitamins and herbs and almost $10 million on homeopathic remedies.
Have homeopathic remedies worked for you? Leave your comment below
The National Health and Medical Research Council will today release a
guide for doctors on how to talk to their patients about the lack of
evidence for many such therapies. Doctors will also be told to warn
patients of possible interactions between alternative and conventional
medicines.
The council has also produced a 300-page draft report that reviews the
evidence for homoeopathy in treating 68 clinical conditions. It
concludes “there is no reliable evidence that homoeopathy is effective
for treating health conditions”.
Homoeopathy is a 200-year-old form of alternative medicine based on the
principle that substances that produce symptoms in a healthy person can
be used to treat similar symptoms in a sick person.
The theory is that homeopathic remedies stimulate the body’s ability to
fight infection by using molecules in highly diluted substances that
retain a ‘memory’ of the original substance.
Its worth has long been debated.
In 2009, the UK House of Commons Science and Technology Committee
released a report which argued “there has been enough testing of
homoeopathy and plenty of evidence showing that it is not efficacious”
and that homeopathic products “perform no better than placebo”.
NHMRC chief Warwick Anderson said health care choices should be based on
good evidence.
However, Australian Homeopathic Association spokesman Greg Cope said he
was disappointed at the narrow evidence relied on by the NHMRC in its
report.
“What they have looked at is systematic trials for named conditions when
that is not how homoeopathy works,” he said.
Homoeopathy worked on the principle of improving a person’s overall
health and wellness, and research such as a seven-year study conducted
in Switzerland was a better measure of its usefulness, he said.
There are about 10,000 complementary medicine products sold in Australia
but most consumers are unaware they are not evaluated by our medicines
safety watchdog before they are allowed on the market.
Complementary medicine sceptic Professor Ken Harvey said the NHMRC’s
ruling on homoeopathy was “not unexpected” and its implications could be
wide ranging.
“One would conclude on the basis of this report a government committee
revising whether natural therapies should continue to get private health
insurance tax rebates would conclude it doesn’t warrant a private health
insurance rebate,” he said.
The NHMRC report also raised questions about how colleges that provide
homoeopathy training could continue to meet government training rules
and regulations, he said.
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Albert Peres
afpe...@3129.ca
416.660.0847 cell
