A Fan of Homeopathy? Well, Maybe You Weren't Wasting Money After All

[Guest guest]

[Dr. Peter Fisher, quoted below, is giving a talk this friday at the

hospital where I work on the subject of homeopathy for arthritis]

 

Irish Independent

A Fan of Homeopathy? Well, Maybe You Weren't Wasting Money After All

Steve Connor, August 21, 2004

 

" To some it is the snake oil of the New Age. To others it is a

tried-and-trusted treatment that has been good enough for the likes of

Bill Clinton, the Prince of Wales, Geri Halliwell and David Beckham.

 

Homeopathy is big business and getting bigger. Yet there is little, if

any, evidence to show that it works and absolutely nothing to justify

its central claim: that highly diluted solutions containing nothing but

water can affect human health.

 

That is until now. Researchers have now published what could be the

first hard evidence in a peer-reviewed scientific journal that appears

to support the central idea behind homeopathy. The scientists, from

Britain, France, Belgium, Italy and the Netherlands, have chosen the

relatively obscure but respected Inflammation Research to publish what

some call the 'holy grail' of homeopathy.

 

In summary, the study found that extremely dilute solutions can have a

biological effect. Like homeopathic remedies, the solutions in the

experiments were so diluted that there was no realistic chance of a

single molecule of the substance remaining in the liquid.

 

Scientists have likened this to believing in magic. How could something

that was once dissolved in a solution, and can no longer be present in

that solution, still have an effect? The scientists are baffled. In

showing that high dilutions exert a biological effect, the findings seem

to break the laws of physics.

 

An editorial in Inflammation Research explains why the journal published

such controversial research: " The authors are unable to explain their

findings but wished to encourage others to investigate this area, " it says.

 

Understandably, the practitioners of homeopathy have seized on the

findings as vindication. Peter Fisher, of the Royal Homeopathic Hospital

in London and homeopath to the Queen, said the findings were nothing

short of ground-breaking. " Of course further repetition is required but

this may represent the holy grail of basic research in homeopathy, " Dr

Fisher said.

 

There are two central tenets of homeopathy. The first is that an illness

or malady can be treated by administering tiny amounts of a substance

that might under normal circumstances result in similar symptoms -

extract of onion, for instance, to treat hay fever.

 

The second belief is that the concentrations have to be so minute that

the dilutions involved, in effect, get rid of the substance in question

from the liquid solvent.

 

Homeopathic solutions are diluted repeatedly to produce solutions that

are millions of times weaker than they were originally. Often the

solutions are so weak that they are equivalent to dissolving a tiny

speck of something in a volume of water several times greater than all

the world's oceans. Scientifically, this would mean the chance of just a

single molecule of the homeopathic remedy being left in the solution is

next to nil. Sceptics say patients might just as well treat themselves

with distilled water - which is cheaper.

 

Science cannot explain how such highly dilute solutions could have an

effect - that is, until French biologist Jacques Benveniste came along.

Dr Benveniste formulated the idea that water retains a 'memory' of what

has been dissolved in it and it is this memory that results in the

homeopathic effect. In 1988 Dr Benveniste published a study in the

journal Nature in support of his water-memory theory. However, then

editor of Nature Sir John Maddox had only agreed to publication if he

was able to investigate Dr Benveniste's laboratory procedures. A few

weeks later Sir John invited an American science fraud investigator,

Walter Stewart, and a professional magician and arch sceptic, James

Randi, to watch over Dr Benveniste as he and his team tried to repeat

the experiments.

 

The Nature investigation concluded that Dr Benveniste had failed to

replicate his original study. In subsequent issues of Nature Dr

Benveniste suffered the professional ignominy of being ridiculed by

arguably the most influential scientific journal in the world.

 

As a result, the idea of memory water was consigned to the dustbin of

science history - or so it was thought. France is a keen advocate of

homeopathy and there were many French scientists who had not given up on

the notion of investigating the phenomenon. Among them was a one-time

collaborator of Dr Benveniste called Philippe Belon. Dr Belon, has

investigated high dilutions for 20 years. He organised a collaboration

between four different groups in Europe who all undertook to carry out

identical high-dilution experiments at separate places involving

separate teams of scientists.

 

The British end was run by Professor Madeleine Ennis, an established

asthma researcher at Queen's University of Belfast and an avowed sceptic

of homeopathy.

 

The dilution experiments they carried out involved a substance called

histamine, which is released by a type of white blood cell called a

basophil. Normally basophils release histamine and, as levels of

histamine rise, this exerts a 'negative feedback', which inhibits

further release of histamine. The four teams of scientists tested highly

dilute solutions of histamine to see whether they still exert an effect

on basophils in a test tube. At extreme dilutions, three out of four

laboratories found a statistically significant effect and the fourth

found an effect that just fell out of the typical range for statistical

significance.

 

Prof Ennis emphasised that the research does not prove homeopathy works,

nor does it show that Dr Benveniste was right because he had used a

different test for a high-dilution effect.

 

For Dr Belon, however, the research at least supports the basic premise

behind homeopathy.

 

In whatever ways the latest findings are interpreted, they cannot be

ignored. Now, with a full scientific paper detailing the precise

protocol, anyone can try to replicate the findings. Until others repeat

the work, it will take a lot to convince sceptics such as Mr Randi, who

has offered $ 1m to the first person to prove the scientific basis of

homeopathy.

 

Mr Randi warns about reading too much in a single scientific paper.

" Don't forget, two scientists wrote a paper, published in Nature, back

in 1974, that endorsed the powers of Uri Geller, " he said.

 

But the homeopathic gauntlet has been thrown down. The question now is

whether anyone will be brave enough to pick it up. "