Trick or Treatment—The Undeniable Facts about Alternative Medicine (Electronic book text)

For example, one NMR experiment claimed to detect a difference between the molecules in ordinary water and those in a homeopathic remedy, but in the end this was attributed to a problem with the equipment. The NMR apparatus is supplied with test tubes made of soda glass, which is not a very stable form of glass. Hence, when the homeopathic solution was shaken during its preparation, glass molecules were leached into the solution. Not surprisingly, this homeopathic solution responded differently to the pure water in terms of its NMR profile, which initially gave the misleading impression that the homeopathic solution was demonstrating a water-memory effect. Sure enough, when another research team repeated the experiment with borosilicate glass test tubes, which are much more stable than soda glass, the NMR instrument could no longer detect any difference between water and homeopathic remedies. Yet again, experiments have so far failed to find anything surprising about the behaviour of molecules in homeopathic solutions.

In summary, homeopaths have been disappointed that physicists probing water molecules have found nothing special about homeopathic remedies. Similarly, biologists looking at single cells have not made any great breakthroughs in finding convincing evidence that might support homeopathy.

All of this, however, matters very little in terms of the main homeopathy debate, because what happens at the molecular or cellular level is of much less interest than what happens to patients. Forget biology or physics, because homeopathy is all about medicine. The fundamental question is straightforward: does homeopathy heal patients?

Homeopaths, of course, have always been confident that their remedies cured a range of symptoms, but in order to persuade doctors and everyone else that homeopathy was truly effective, they needed concrete evidence from scientific trials. We have explained in previous chapters that the most conclusive type of clinical trial is the randomized, placebo-controlled, double-blind trial; if such trials could generate results that supported Hahnemann’s ideas, then this would force the medical establishment to embrace homeopathy. Alternatively, if these studies failed to show that ultra-dilute solutions offered any benefit, then this would mean that homeopathy was nothing more than quackery. As the twenty-first century approached, rigorous trials were about to be conducted on a massive scale. The results would eventually settle the debate over homeopathy once and for all.

Homeopathy on trial

For many homeopaths, the lack of definitive scientific evidence to support their remedies was not a matter of concern, because they could cite numerous examples that seemed to demonstrate the effectiveness of their interventions. For instance, The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Homeopathy by David W. Sollars includes a story told by a mother who treated her son, Kailin. The boy had burned his arm at a barbecue, but luckily the people hosting the occasion had just purchased a homeopathic home kit:

I told them to get it quickly as I held my ice-filled glass on his arm, which helped the pain a little. Within a couple of minutes the kit arrived and I chose the remedy Cantharis and gave Kailin a dose. Within two or three minutes the pain stopped and we all watched over the next fifteen minutes as the skin started to lighten in color. I repeated the remedy several times, whenever he said the pain was starting to return. By the next day the burn was all but gone and totally cleared in two days. We were all amazed that no blisters were ever formed.

This case seems impressive, but it was dissected and undermined by Jay W. Shelton, author of Homeopathy. He identifies four questions that challenge the significance of this and similar cases. First, this seems like a classic first-degree burn, the least serious type, which causes damage only to the surface of the skin; so should we really be so surprised about the lack of blisters? Second, why should homeopathy get any credit, when the recovery process might have been entirely due to the body’s natural healing ability? Third, is it possible that the ice-filled glass played the most important role in helping the child? Finally, if homeopathy did indeed help the patient, then could its influence have been entirely due to the placebo effect? In the previous chapter we saw the power of placebo, which is so great that it can make a useless therapy appear like a truly valuable one, as long as the patient has confidence in the therapy.