HOMEOPATHY: COST EFFECTIVE MEDICINE

SWISS GOVERNMENT'S REPORT ON HOMEOPATHIC MEDICINE:

COST-EFFECTIVE MEDICINE

The recent Swiss government's report on homeopathic medicine represents the most comprehensive evaluation of homeopathic medicine ever written by a government

The report was published last year in book form in English (Bornhoft and Matthiessen, 2011). This breakthrough report states that homeopathic treatment is both effective and cost-effective and recommends that homeopathic treatment be reimbursed by Switzerland's national health insurance program.

Some of the highlights of this report are:

1/ The Swiss Government´s report on Homeopathy is much more comprehensive than any previous governmental report written on homeopathy to date. Not only does this report carefully review the body of evidence from randomized double-blind and placebo controlled clinical trials testing homeopathic medicines, but it also evaluates the "real world effectiveness" as well as safety and cost-effectiveness.

2/ In terms of including empirical values, the report also notes that David Sackett, M.D., the Canadian physician who is widely considered to be one of the leading pioneers in "evidence based medicine," has expressed serious concern about those researchers and physicians who consider randomized and double-blind trials as the only means to determine whether a treatment is effective or not. To make this assertion, one would have to acknowledge that virtually all surgical procedures were "unscientific" or "unproven" because so few have undergone randomized double-blind trials.

2/ Also very interesting is how the report found a particularly strong body of evidence to support the homeopathic treatment of Upper Respiratory Tract Infections and Respiratory Allergies, an area of pathology that conventional medicine has relative success with, outside temporary suppression with antibiotics and corticoids.

3/ And finally, the mention of ‘cost effectiveness’ of homeopathy is essentially important given the incessant rising expense of national health bills and insurance costs.

For those who are interested in reading further, here is a summary of the report:

The Health Technology Assessment report on effectiveness, cost-effectiveness and appropriateness of homeopathy was compiled on behalf of the Swiss Federal Office for Public Health (BAG) within the framework of the 'Program of Evaluation of Complementary Medicine (PEK)'.

MATERIALS AND METHODS:

Databases accessible by Internet were systematically searched, complemented by manual search and contacts with experts, and evaluated according to internal and external validity criteria.

RESULTS:

Many high-quality investigations of pre-clinical basic research proved homeopathic high-potencies inducing regulative and specific changes in cells or living organisms. 20 of 22 systematic reviews detected at least a trend in favor of homeopathy. In our estimation 5 studies yielded results indicating clear evidence for homeopathic therapy. The evaluation of 29 studies in the domain 'Upper Respiratory Tract Infections/Allergic Reactions' showed a positive overall result in favor of homeopathy. 6 out of 7 controlled studies were at least equivalent to conventional medical interventions. 8 out of 16 placebo-controlled studies were significant in favor of homeopathy. Swiss regulations grant a high degree of safety due to product and training requirements for homeopathic physicians. Applied properly, classical homeopathy has few side-effects and the use of high-potencies is free of toxic effects. A general health-economic statement about homeopathy cannot be made from the available data.

CONCLUSION:

Taking internal and external validity criteria into account, effectiveness of homeopathy can be supported by clinical evidence and professional and adequate application be regarded as safe. Reliable statements of cost-effectiveness are not available at the moment. External and model validity will have to be taken more strongly into consideration in future studies.

This is the website where to find the full Swiss government report,

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16883077

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