by Dana Ullman, MPH.

        The medical fundamentalists (the "denialists") have again shown their strong propensity to spread misinformation about homeopathy and homeopaths.  On September 7, 2010, Andy Lewis (who arrogantly enough calls himself the "Quackometer") declared in a headline for his blog:  An Obituary: Royal London Homeopathic Hospital, 1849-2010.

        Another denier of homeopathy, appropriately called "Gimpy," provided a little more accuracy in his headline, Farewell to the RLHH, hello to the RLHIM.  However, both "reporters" provided a highly selective interpretation and significantly biased analysis of the re-naming of the Royal London Homeopathic Hospital to become the Royal London Hospital for Integrative Medicine.

        This misinformation is akin to creating an obituary for a caterpillar, even though it did not die but simply evolved into a butterfly.  

 

    Rather than mourn the death of a caterpillar, we should all be CELEBRATING the birth of a caterpillar, and likewise, we can (and are) celebrating the birth of the Royal London Hospital for Integrative Medicine, which is the new name for this important hospital.

        Sadly (and strangely), the medical fundamentalists love to mis-characterise homeopathy and homeopaths.  They often purposefully over-simplify what homeopathy is and isn't, and they love to spin any potentially positive report on homeopathy in negative ways.  This form of yellow journalism is typical of the reporting on homeopathy by this group of denialists.  The fact of the matter is that a large number of homeopaths integrate various natural therapies into their practices, and it is therefore not surprising and disconcerting at all that the Royal London Homeopathic Hospital would evolve into an integrative medical hospital.  In fact, one could even assume that this evolution, like most evolutionary trends, was predictable. 

        Also typical of the medical fundamentalists are their mis-use of science and statistics.  For instance, these medical fundamentalists were behind the recent report on homeopathy issued by the House of Commons' Science and Technology Committee.  This report had the sheer audacity and the paucity of medical and scientific integrity to suggest that there is no research to show that homeopathic medicines have a beneficial effect beyond that of a placebo.  This ilk of deniers find that by repeating a lie often enough, they and others will actually believe them (as is commonly observed on certain American television news channels). 

        It is not surprising that the leading organisation that worked to support and popularize the Science and Technology Committee's report on homeopathy was the infamous organisation Sense About Science, a non-profit organisation whose funding primarily comes from Big Pharma.  The fact that the leader of this organisation previously worked for a leading public relations company that represented Big Pharma interests seems to be lost on the skeptics of homeopathy (and on most of the media).

The medical fundamentalists commonly brag about the fact that this Science and Technology Committee`s report "proved" that there was no evidence that supports any specific benefits of homeopathic treatment beyond the placebo effect.  And yet, none of these fundamentalists acknowledge that this Committee consisted of 14 members, 10 of whom did not consider this issue worthy of voting.  Ultimately, a "majority" of only THREE members voted for this anti-homeopathy report.  Of these three votes, two members were so new to the Committee that they did not attend a single hearing on the subject of homeopathy.  The third vote for the "report" came from Evan Harris, a vitriolic antagonist to homeopathy who was not re-elected this year, losing to a 20-something year old political neophyte.  Obviously, the British people wanted anyone but Evan Harris and his partisan science. 

It seems that these medical fundamentalists not only have questionable ethics, but they seem conveniently ignorant of medical history.  Therefore, it is appropriate to be reminded of an important story from medical history that might help shed light on the recent attacks against homeopathy...


        In 1854, Sir Benjamin Hall, a member of England’s Parliament, administered the government's General Board of Health, and his first act was to set up a General Medical Council of clinicians to conduct a major epidemiological survey of the cholera epidemic, a serious public health problem in that year. The Council’s report showed that 51.9 percent of patients treated for cholera as in-patients or out-patients in London hospitals had died and that all types of treatment were deemed useless.

        The London Homeopathic Hospital in Golden Square had just established a charitable foundation in 1849 and opened its doors in 1850. During the 1854 cholera epidemic, the thirty-bed hospital was devoted to the treatment of the indigent poor of the area. The homeopathic hospital, like all other hospitals in London, submitted its records to the Council for its report on cholera treatment, but the homeopathic mortality statistics were not listed in the report. The homeopathic hospital experienced a mortality rate of only 16.4 percent of patients.

        When Sir Benjamin Hall asked the Council to explain this omission, the reply was:

"That by introducing the returns of homeopathic practitioners, they would not only compromise the value and utility of their averages of cure, as deduced from the operation of known remedies, but they would give an unjustifiable sanction to an empirical practice alike opposed to the maintenance of truth and to the progress of science." (Nichols, 1988, 145146)

        In other words, the statistics from the homeopathic hospital were not listed because their listing would suggest that homeopathic medicines provide a superior treatment for cholera.

        Skeptics may wonder how valid the homeopathic hospitals statistics were. It is therefore important to note that the inspector appointed to the district of London refused to visit the homeopathic hospital, so another inspector reluctantly agreed to do so. In a letter to the Homeopathic Hospital on February 22, 1855, he wrote:

"You are aware that I went to your hospital prepossessed against the homeopathic system; that you had in me, in your camp, an enemy rather than a friend, and that I must therefore have seen some cogent reason there, the first day I went, to come away so favourably disposed as to advise a friend to send a subscription to your charitable fund. (Dean, 2004, 127)

        In 1858, the conventional physicians sought to have homeopathic practice outlawed. Despite some vitriolic lobbying, this law was not passed, in part because of the evidence of homeopathy’s successes in treating the recent cholera epidemic. Still, the British Medical Association passed internal rules that forbade their members from practising homeopathy or even consulting with a homeopath in the care of any patient. The British doctors even required medical students to sign a pledge that they would never become a homeopath, and they actually failed any student who refused to sign this pledge (Baumann, 1857).

        Homeopaths in England continued to seek comparative trials but were always turned down. Even an offer of 5,000 pounds (the equivalent to 1 million pounds todayor $2 million!) was offered by Major Vaughan Morgan in the 1860s to establish a homeopathic ward in a conventional London hospital, and this offer was turned down by every hospital in London due to the real fear that involvement with homeopathy or homeopaths in any way would cause orthodox physicians to leave the hospital and never refer patients there.

        If these actions against homeopathy and homeopaths were not enough, the conventional physicians also sought manslaughter charges against homeopaths if and when any patients died under their care. All doctors have some patients who pass away, but the conventional physicians did all they could to make practising homeopathy difficult or impossible. [i] Despite the much more frequent deaths that occurred under the care of conventional physicians, there is no similar pattern of manslaughter charges against them by homeopaths.

        Appropriately, the British government decided to ignore the advice from the report on homeopathy issued by the Science and Technology Committee.  And likewise, the evolution of the Royal London Homeopathic Hospital to become the Royal London Hospital for Integrative Medicine is not an obituary but a "birth announcement."


REFERENCES:

Baumann, J. The Old and New Therapy with/of Medicine According to the Writings of Others and According to Personal Experience for the Thinking Public. Remmingen: Oscar Belsenfelder. 1857.

Dean, M. E., The Trials of Homeopathy. Essen, Germany: KVC, 2004. (This book is a truly excellent book on the history of scientific studies testing homeopathic medicines. Readers will be impressed to learn that some of the earliest double-blind and placebo-controlled trials were in the testing of homeopathic medicines.)

Nichols, P. A. Homoeopathy and the Medical Profession. London: Croom Helm, 1988.

Treuherz, F. The Origins of Kent’s Homeopathy, Journal of the American Institute of Homeopathy, December 1984, 77(4):130–149.


[i] In 1850 John Epps, a British homeopathic pharmacist, produced a comprehensive justification of homeopathy for the lay and medical public. Fully one-fourth of the 320 pages are devoted to an examination of coroners inquests, including details of a manslaughter trial of 1840, and analysis of medical and other witnesses evidence, and press comment (Treuherz, 1984).