Sir, – Sheelagh Behan (February 26th) states that 43 per cent of randomised clinical trials (RCTs) show positive evidence for efficacy of homeopathy. In investigating her claim, I found that those RCTs which purport to show homeopathy is effective suffer from one or more flaws which render the evidence unreliable, such as small sample size, poor blinding, and poor control of external factors. In fact, the overall quality of a given trial is inversely proportional to the strength of its endorsement of homeopathy.
I fully agree with Ms Behan that the public should be informed fairly an impartially of all choices when discussing healthcare. This means we must rely on scientific evidence, and should be frankly informed of which treatments are not effective – homeopathy has repeatedly been shown to fall into this category. – Yours, etc,