World Health Organization Warns Against Use of Homeopathy

In response to an open letter from scientists and researchers, the World Health Organization (WHO) has issued a unequivocal statement that it does not support the use of homeopathy for HIV, tuberculosis, malaria, influenza and infant diarrhea.

Today, the Voice of Young Science Network, part of the group Sense About Science, issued an open letter to health ministries around the world, to highlight the WHO statement and fight the growing use of homeopathy, which is nothing more an elaborate placebo system.

The Cognitive Dissonance of Homeopathy

A pharmacist’s education is rooted in the study of the natural sciences. It’s training that lends itself to sorting out novel, science-based therapies from implausible pseudoscience.  To the the chagrin of the science-based pharmacist, homeopathic products are widely available at pharmacies in Canada and around the world. Many pharmacists endorse homeopathy and see it as complementary to conventional (real) medicines.  Others argue that they’re simply responding to consumer demand.  Is homeopathy based on sound science, and should homeopathic products be sold in pharmacies?

Background

Homeopathy was invented in the early 1800s by a German physician, Samuel Hahnemann. At that time, illness was believed to be the result of imbalances in the four bodily “humors”, namely blood, phlegm, black bile and yellow bile. Typical medical treatments were crude and dangerous, and included bloodletting, blistering, laxatives and emetics, intended to bring balance to the humors. Hahnemann invented an alternative treatment system that he believed was less toxic and more effective at balancing the humors.

There are three key principles for homeopathy, and they’re fundamentally different from our current, science-based understanding of drugs and diseases.