A demon-haunted world/Homeopathy – medicine of the future or idol medicine?/Galileo

Homeopathy is one of the most popular alternative treatment methods, and it dominates a global market that turns over billions of dollars a year. The question arises as to whether this is indeed an effective treatment method, or a method whose principles do not agree with the insights of modern science, and whose effectiveness has never been proven

Marius Cohen, Galileo

What is homeopathy?

At the end of the 18th century, at a time when bloodletting and the use of vomiting or diarrhea drugs were the most common means of healing (which often did more harm than good), a German doctor named Samuel Hahnemann was looking for less aggressive and more effective treatment methods. In an experiment that Hahnemann conducted on himself, he noticed that after taking quinine, a drug that was known to be effective against malaria, symptoms similar to those of patients with the disease appeared. The German doctor concluded from this that it is a universal principle, according to which substances that cause certain symptoms in a healthy person are effective against diseases characterized by these symptoms.

Based on this principle, Hahnemann began to test on himself and other healthy people the effect of various substances, which he chose from the animal world, the plant world and even the inanimate world (minerals of various kinds), when based on the physical or mental symptoms developed by those who took them, he determined against which diseases They must be used. In his method, he chose to dilute these substances with water or alcohol (he crushed the insoluble substances and mixed them with lactose powder, and served them to the patients in pills or tablets), and over time he even determined that the lower the concentration of the active substance, the greater its effect on the patient. He called this method, which he developed and established at the beginning of the 19th century, "homeopathy" (from the Greek: "homoios" means similar and "pathos" means disease or suffering). Homeopathy, which was indeed more refined than some of the medical procedures that were common at the time, gained great popularity, a popularity that waned at the beginning of the 20th century, when the treatment methods of modern medicine became more effective and less aggressive. In the XNUMXs, following the wave of spiritual awakening of the "New Age" and the general trend of returning to nature, which led to the birth and flourishing of dozens if not hundreds of alternative treatment methods, homeopathy rose again, and today it is one of the most popular alternative treatment methods, and even the English royal family usually uses it.

The scientific position

Conventional medicine, which relies on scientific principles and medical research, considers homeopathy a modern idol medicine, and at every opportunity warns both the public and the health organizations of the world against using the method as an alternative to established medical procedures. This fact raises two questions:

1. What are the reasons that motivate modern medicine to claim the ineffectiveness of this alternative treatment method?

2. If there is indeed justice in the scientific position, how is it possible that such an ineffective treatment gains such great popularity?

Well, modern science claims the ineffectiveness of homeopathy for two reasons: one is principled, according to which there is no logic in the method, and the other is empirical, meaning that the effectiveness of the method has never been demonstrated in well-controlled experiments. Let's start with the principle objection:

First, the idea that substances that cause certain symptoms in a healthy person are overwhelmingly effective against diseases manifested by these symptoms is not compatible with the concept of modern medicine, which identifies the causes of diseases with bacteria, viruses, toxins, defective genes, etc., and which does not see any causal relationship between the ability of a substance cause the symptoms of a certain disease and its ability to cure this disease (a principle that homeopaths call "like cures like"). The followers of homeopathy claim that the role of those substances is only to stimulate the body so that it heals itself, but science does not know of any physiological mechanism that is able to explain such a universal principle.

Second, the degree of dilution of the active homeopathic substance is so great (in the belief that low concentrations of the substance make the treatment more effective), that in many homeopathic "remedies" not even one molecule (!) of the original substance remains. Thus, for example, the homeopathic medicine Oscillococcinum, which is supposed to relieve symptoms of colds and flu, is prepared from the liver and heart of a duck at a concentration of one part to 10 to the power of 400 (by repeating the dilution process many times), with this last number infinitely greater than the number of molecules in the universe The whole thing! According to many homeopaths, even if in the end the "medicine" that the patient takes is nothing but water, then in this water there remains at the molecular level some kind of stamp of the original substance, a kind of "memory" of it, and it is this stamp that stimulates the body to heal itself. However, the claim that "homeopathic water" differs in some way from water that has not been in contact with the original substance is not compatible with modern scientific knowledge, and it has never been proven (see box). Not only that, but the amount of substances that come into contact with water in nature is so great, if this principle were true then tap water also had miraculous healing properties.
Two additional principles at the foundation of homeopathy, and the logic behind which does not align with modern medical knowledge, are the use of only one type of active substance in each treatment (homeopaths who adhere to this principle are called classical homeopaths, but many of those who treat the method today do not follow it), and the adjustment of the " a homeopathic "remedy" for the character and body structure of the patient, believing that different "types" react differently to different substances (so, for example, according to homeopathy, the "Polestila" type characterizes girls with light hair and blue eyes, who are typically gentle, apprehensive, romantic, emotional , friendliness and shyness). This principle is also not applied by all homeopaths (and it is certainly not applied when these "medicines" are sold in pharmacies), but as mentioned, these principles are not compatible with modern medical science, and there is no scientific proof that they have anything to contribute to the treatment of the patient.

However, the followers of homeopathy claim, and rightly so, that medical science (no matter how modern it may be) still does not know everything, and the mere fact that it is unable to explain a certain phenomenon does not prove that it does not exist. The scientific establishment also agrees with this claim, and the proof of this is the existence of drugs that are currently in use, and whose mechanism of action is not entirely clear. But what determines the introduction of this or that drug for medical use is not the understanding of the mechanism behind it (although many times it is this understanding that led to the production of the drug in the first place), but the proof of its effectiveness. And in order for a drug to be proven to be effective, it must pass a series of tests, which is intended, among other things, to ensure that its effect is not due to a placebo effect, and that its side effects are not likely to cause the patient more harm than good. Since the concentration of the active substance in most homeopathic "medicines" is very low (as mentioned, sometimes there is not even a trace of it left in the dose given to the patient), the chance of toxicity is extremely low (although it exists, and more on that later), but the key claim of the researchers, for which this method of treatment is considered idol medicine in their eyes, is that the effectiveness of the homeopathic "medicines" has never been proven in well-controlled clinical trials. In fact, most of them were never tested at all, and those that were tested (and in the studies conducted on them no methodological flaws were found) were found to be ineffective.

In 1990, the journal Review of Epidemiology published an article that analyzed 40 studies that tested the effectiveness of homeopathic treatment compared to that of standard medical treatment, placebo treatment and no treatment at all. The article's conclusions were that with the exception of three of the studies, all others suffered from serious design flaws (with only one of the three showing positive results), and that there is no proof that homeopathic treatment is more effective than a placebo effect. This latter conclusion was also reached in 1995 by the French scientific journal Prescrire International, which specializes in the evaluation of pharmacological products, and which, in addition to this, reported on serious side effects of some homeopathic "medicines" that were prepared in relatively high concentrations. Following his conclusions, the journal recommended not to favor homeopathic treatment over standard treatment, especially in cases of serious illnesses. In 1966, the HMRG (Homoeopathic Medicine Research Group), an expert panel belonging to the Commission of the European Communities, published its conclusions from a review of 184 reports in the field, and that only 17 of them were designed and reported in a manner worthy of serious consideration, and that it is possible that in some of the studies described in them treatment Homeopathy produced better results than placebo treatment, after all, the number of participants was too low to be able to draw conclusions about the effectiveness of the treatment. In 1997, the British medical journal Lancet published a multi-study analysis, and its conclusions were similar: there is no proof of the effectiveness of any homeopathic medicine in the treatment of any disease. In 2005, the same journal published the findings of a comparative study between 110 experiments conducted in homeopathy and an identical number of experiments in conventional medicine, and their conclusion was, once again, that the degree of effectiveness of homeopathic treatments does not exceed the placebo effect. Those who practice homeopathy often get hung up on those individual studies that yielded positive results, and most of which were published in journals that are not acceptable to the scientific community, while ignoring the methodological flaws that were discovered in them, the scientific criticism that was directed at them and the fact that they suffered from the lack of housing, that is, none of them were successfully reproduced in studies coming back

What is the secret of the method's popularity?

The fact that many of the therapists and patients of the method are convinced of its effectiveness is attributed to several factors, most of which are common to alternative treatment methods in general:

1. Placebo effect - as with any other treatment method (including those of modern medicine), it is possible to attribute at least part of the benefit in the patient's condition, which is sometimes expressed in the relief of symptoms only, to a psychological effect arising from their expectations of the effects of the treatment. In homeopathic treatment, the great attention that the patients receive also adds to this effect, since most of the homeopathic therapists, who undoubtedly chose their occupation out of full faith in the method and out of a sincere desire to help others, devote a lot of time and attention to their patients (which, unfortunately, we are denied by the moving film method of the state health services) .

2. Spontaneous recovery or temporary withdrawal of the disease - some diseases, including severe diseases, pass by themselves (or temporarily withdraw) due to the body's natural healing ability. In such a case, patients tend to attribute the improvement in their condition to the last treatment they received, or, if they were treated with several methods, to the one they believe in more.

3. Sometimes a benefit occurs in the patient's condition as a result of standard medical treatment given to him at the same time or before the homeopathic treatment, but the results are attributed by both the patient and the homeopathic therapist to this alternative treatment.

4. Many patients who are not satisfied with the results of the treatment do not return to the therapist, and because of this, many homeopathic therapists are under the impression that their "medicines" do help their patients, an impression that might have been false if the monitoring of the patients had been done in an objective and controlled manner.

5. Many times the therapist combines the homeopathic treatment with additional treatments (such as the use of medicinal plants) and with recommendations for changing eating habits, stopping smoking, changing lifestyle, physical exercise, etc., and a benefit in the patient's condition, which may result from some combination of the therapeutic supplements, is often attributed Precisely for the homeopathic "medicine".

6. The general trend of going back to nature (which undoubtedly also has many positive sides) produces a lot of distorted information, which most of us are exposed to through popular magazines dealing with the subject, various "new age" books and television programs designed to improve the rating (rating) more than to reveal the truth This false information creates among people who lack scientific education the impression that modern medicine denies the successes of homeopathy and other alternative treatments due to opacity and eye narrowing, and that there is no better evidence of the effectiveness of the method than the large number of patients who visit the clinics of practitioners in the field.

If it can't help, at least it can't hurt?

The claim that is made many times in this context is that even if the homeopathic "medicines" do not help patients, since they are based on "natural" substances, they certainly cannot harm them (and this is in contrast to the harm that modern medicine can cause to patients, whether due to incorrect treatment or if due to the side effects of the treatment). And it is true that, in most cases, these "natural" substances are indeed diluted to such an extent that they cannot harm for the same reason that they cannot benefit, but in the professional literature there are quite a few cases of people who were harmed by homeopathic "medicines" that were produced in a relatively high concentration, and the reason for this is that some of them "Natural" ingredients that homeopathic medicine uses are taken from bedbugs, cockroaches, Spanish flies, spider and snake venom, mucus from rabid dogs, cancer tissues, syphilis and diphtheria bacteria, bloody pus from tuberculosis patients and many other substances, which are in high concentrations relatively can be toxic and cause severe side effects. At the same time, the damage caused to patients with the homeopathic method is mostly indirect, and this is when they choose this method of treatment as a substitute for accepted medical procedures, or when they postpone the visit to the (conventional) doctor until their physical condition is much worse. Unfortunately, the results of such a choice are often disastrous.

Does water have a "memory"?

In June 1988, the important scientific journal "Nature" published an article by a French scientist named Jacques Benveniste, in which he reported that he was able to demonstrate that a diluted homeopathic solution of antibodies resulted in the activation of white blood cells, although the dilution level of the solution ensured that no in which there is a trace of the antibodies themselves. According to him, the water preserved the properties of the antibodies in a kind of "memory", which may provide a scientific explanation for how homeopathic "medicines" are supposed to work.

This claim is unusual in the framework of existing scientific knowledge, which does not know of any chemical mechanism that may allow substances to leave their mark on water with which they come in contact, and therefore the scientific community received it with great suspicion. The journal itself also took extreme caution, agreeing to publish the article only on the condition that an independent scientific team would be allowed to visit the scientist's laboratory in France to oversee a repeat performance of the experiment, a condition Benviniste agreed to. After the publication of the article, "Nature" sent an inspection team to Benvenist's laboratory, which included the editor of the journal himself, John Maddox, the chemist and exposer of scientific scams, Walter Stewart, and the professional magician, who has a lot of experience in exposing scams concerning For claims about the supernatural, James Randi (Randi). Under their supervision, and under conditions that reduced as much as possible the possibility of fraud, the team of the French scientist repeated the experiment several times - but was unable to reproduce his findings (in fact, the first three attempts yielded few positive findings, but in a series of additional experiments, in which stricter conditions were applied, also disappeared these findings).

In the July issue of the same year, "Nature" published the team's conclusions, which included a methodological critique of Benvenist's original experiment, and the claim regarding the irregularity of the experiment. Benveniste himself (as well as his reputation) was badly damaged by this incident, and claimed to have fallen victim to a scientific witch hunt. He continued his attempts to investigate the "memory" phenomenon of water, but his additional studies were not recognized by the scientific community either. Following the Benvenist affair, the JREF (The James Randi Educational Foundation), which undertakes to pay a million dollars to anyone who succeeds in proving the existence of any supernatural phenomenon, also added the water "memory" phenomenon to the list of phenomena for which it is willing to pay the reward. To date, no one has won it.

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