Jackie Fox: Executive Director of the Council for Homeopathic Certification (CHC)

It is with great sadness that we have to say goodbye to Jackie Fox who died recently at home, surrounded by her family. Jackie had been the backbone of the CHC for over ten years and had quietly, but assiduously given direction to the organization as it continued to grow and evolve. She brought a calm and sympathetic energy to her work and in the sometimes fraught times dealing with the complex issues of certification, she was able to reassure candidates as they went through all the steps towards certification. 

by Richard Pitt

Scientific research is a significant cornerstone of our understanding of the human body and of life itself. In the last 200 years it has become ever more important in our developing knowledge of how things work. What used to be known simply through empiricism, experience, belief/faith and through an intuitive, yet profound connection to the world around us, we now rely on more academic, abstract analyses of the nature of things and our interaction to the world. This very much includes medical research and how the body works and how medicines can be found to be effective and ideally safe.

Homeopathy, as one system of medicine, has also embarked on research to validate the experience of its theoretical principles and to explain the experience of the millions who benefit from homeopathy. It is also important as a means to communicate to other medical researchers and practitioners how homeopathy works and what conditions it is more likely to work on. For practitioners of homeopathy, it is another way to validate what we know to be true through our own experience. Homeopathy works.

An Overview of Positive Homeopathy Research and Surveys

The European Network of Homeopathy Researchers

March 2007

This document has been produced by the European Network for Homeopathy Researchers (ENHR).

The ENHR was established in 2004 with support from the European Council for Classical

Homeopathy (ECCH). ECCH currently assists the ENHR in its secretarial work. The ENHR consists

of 66 individuals from 15 different countries involved in or with a special interest in homeopathy

research. The ENHR is open to membership for any individual involved or interested in homeopathy research.

by Kate Chatfield

This paper was first published in 2007, at a time when homeopathy in the UK was receiving a considerable amount of adverse publicity. Unfortunately, the situation is not greatly improved and currently homeopaths in many other countries around the world are facing a similar challenge. Repeatedly, critics ask the same question: “Where is your evidence?” Consideration of this question led me to become involved with homeopathy research many years ago, but increasingly I found that my background in philosophy compelled me to challenge the very concepts of evidence, proof and science that were driving the research agenda. What follows is an account of evidence-based medicine, some of the implications for homeopathy, and philosophical challenges for the foundations of our assumptions. It has been modified slightly from the original 2007 paper in the light of subsequent developments.

By Lionel Milgrom

Abstract

Introduction: It is assumed that, as measured during randomised placebo-controlled trials, specific and non-specific effects of an intervention do

not interact with each other, and are simultaneously observable. It is argued this assumption means the results of RCTs (particularly for complex

interventions, such as homoeopathy) are treated too simplistically.

Purpose of study: To examine if a complex intervention’s specific effects and non-specific effects are complementary (in a sense derived and

generalised from quantum theory), i.e., correlated sets of observables from an RCT, in which both are necessary to achieve a more complete

understanding of the efficacy of an intervention.

Methods: Building on earlier work, and based on the properties of Abelian and non-Abelian algebras, a mathematical argument is developed,

which is used to examine the nature of the relationship between a complex intervention’s specific effects and non-specific effects as observables

from RCTs.

Results: The mathematical argument suggests that it is essentially incorrect to assume specific effects and non-specific effects of a complex

intervention (as measured during an RCT of a complex intervention) can be separated into simultaneously measurable, non-interacting sets of

observables.

Conclusion: This calls into question not only the legitimacy of conclusions drawn from RCTs, but also the blinded observational stance of the

RCT protocol (which currently justifies – and is justified by – a reductionist approach to the efficacy of complex therapeutic interventions). Indeed,

such RCTs might well be demonstrating a Heisenberg-type uncertainty between the specific effects of the intervention and the non-specific effects

of the consultation, as complementary observable parts making up a whole irreducible phenomenon: the therapeutic process.

© 2014 Elsevier GmbH. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Evidence-based medicine; RCTs; Specific and non-specific effects; Complex interventions; Abelian and non-Abelian algebras; Quantum theory 

Bell IR1-3*, Muralidharan S4, and Schwartz GE5

1Department of Family and Community Medicine, The University of Arizona College of Medicine, AZ, USA

2College of Nursing, The University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA

3The American Medical College of Homeopathy, Phoenix, AZ, USA

4Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology, University of California Davis, CA, USA

5Department of Psychology, The University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA

Abstract

Multiple studies have observed nanostructures in traditionally-manufactured homeopathic medicines.

Homeopathy is a 200-year-old system of complementary and alternative medicine used worldwide. The nature of homeopathic medicines has historically stimulated much debate. The present placebo-controlled study extended previous work to characterize nanoparticles (NPs) in homeopathically-prepared Gelsemium sempervirens (GELS), a natural botanical source with previously-documented anxiolytic, analgesic, and anticancer properties. An ethanolic GELS herbal extract was serially diluted and succussed (agitated) in a 95% ethanol-water diluent solvent in glass vials, following Homeopathic Pharmacopoeia of the U.S. guidelines. GELS (VERUM, at homeopathic potencies of 6C, 30C, 200C, each n=3 vials), succussed controls (SUCC-CONT, at homeopathic potencies of 6C, 30C, 200C, each n=3), and one set of unsuccussed solvent control vials also used natural cork (Quercus suber) stoppers (UNSUCC-cork, n=3). A final set of unsuccussed solvent controls used silicone stoppers (UNSUCC- silicone, n=3). Analytical methods included nanoparticle tracking analysis (NTA), zeta potentials, and UV-Visible spectroscopy. NTA revealed >4 x 108 nanoparticles per milliliter in all VERUM, SUCC-CONT, and UNSUCC-cork vials, significantly more than the UNSUCC-silicone controls. Particle sizes were polydisperse, significantly larger in the VERUM 30C at 129.8 nanometers versus SUCC-CONT at 6C, 30C, 200C and the UNSUCC-cork controls.

Zeta potentials consistent with greater particle stability were significantly most negative in the VERUM GELS 200C (-47.75 mV). Within the UV-vis wavelength range 300-400 nm, the SUCC-CONT 30C exhibited significantly higher, whereas UNSUCC-silicone stopper controls had significantly lower, mean absorbance than all other samples.

Taken together, the data suggest that traditional homeopathic methods involving succussions release not only the previously-shown silica from glassware walls, but also Quercus suber materials from natural cork stoppers to stabilize NPs in solution. With verum source material Gelsemium, additional NP size growth and surface stabilization can occur. Further study of homeopathic manufacturing materials and methods and their biological correlates is indicated.

Keywords: Nanoparticles; Gelsemium sempervirens; Silica; Quercus suber; Homeopathy; Nanoparticle tracking analysis; Zeta potential

by Dana Ullman, Evidence Based Homeopath

The Swiss government has a long and widely-respected history of neutrality, and therefore, reports from this government on controversial subjects need to be taken more seriously than other reports from countries that are more strongly influenced by present economic and political constituencies. When one considers that two of the top five largest drug companies in the world have their headquarters in Switzerland, one might assume that this country would have a heavy interest in and bias toward conventional medicine, but such assumptions would be wrong.

In late 2011, the Swiss government’s report on homeopathic medicine represents the most comprehensive evaluation of homeopathic medicine ever written by a government and was just published in book form in English (Bornhoft and Matthiessen, 2011). This breakthrough report affirmed that homeopathic treatment is both effective and cost-effective and that homeopathic treatment should be reimbursed by Switzerland’s national health insurance program.