Homeopathy at centre of 'put up, shut up' plan

HOMEOPATHY HAS come under fire in Britain, with an offer of a cash prize to anyone who can scientifically prove its efficacy in clinical trials.

The prize of £10,000 (€12,640) has been put up by authors Simon Singh and Prof Edzard Ernst, whose book Trick or Treatment looks at scientific evidence for and against popular alternative therapies. Their investigations found scientific results to back some alternative treatments, but not homeopathy.

Singh and Ernst will pay the prize out of their own pockets, and the challenge is in response to what they see as a smear campaign against them since the book was published earlier this year. "We're saying to homeopaths, 'put up or shut up'," said Singh in a report by New Scientist magazine.

However, the serious research has been done, according to Sheelagh Behan, a registered homeopath and spokeswoman for the Irish Society of Homeopaths.

"In his keenness to promote his new book, Mr Singh elects to ignore a number of important facts concerning homeopathy," Ms Behan told The Irish Times. "The most up-to-date analysis shows that there are now 134 peer-reviewed controlled trials of homeopathy, 44 per cent of which are positive, with only eight trials negative, and the rest are inconclusive. Also a meta analysis of 186 clinical trials published in The Lancet in 1997 showed that homeopathy was 2.45 times more likely to benefit the patient than placebo."

She noted that research on conventional drugs was mostly financed by drug companies with resources that were generally unavailable to alternative medicine. "The challenge of £10,000 is laughable as anyone involved in serious research can attest. The registered members of the Irish Society of Homeopaths remain focused on delivering effective homeopathic healthcare of the highest standard to the many thousands of people who genuinely want it," said Ms Behan. "Each therapy has its place and by working hand in hand, not against each other, we can really help our patients within an integrated approach to health."

This is not the first time homeopathy has been put to the test for a cash prize: US sceptic James Randi offered $1 million for scientific evidence in support of alternative therapies, prompting a BBC documentary team to undertake an experiment on homeopathy, but the results were not conclusive.