Homeopathy. A frontier in medical science

In FACT, we aim to review brand new books, this one is already two years old. However, it was highly recommended to me by several sources as being (one of) the best books on the subject. Thus, I feel, one might make an exception. The book has 7 main parts: basic principles and history; effectiveness; laboratory studies; disease complexity; homeostasis; biophysical paradigm; prospects. In my view, the issue of whether or not homoeopathy works (the effectiveness chapter) is by far the most important question. Understandably, I read it with high expectations, but regrettably I was badly disappointed. In this chapter, the authors first summarise what they consider to be the circumstantial evidence in favour of homoeopathy: it has been around for a long time; it works in children and animals; there are favourable mortality statistics comparing homoeopathic hospitals with allopathic hospitals; and there is the phenomenon of homoeopathic aggravation (which implies effects beyond placebo). Subsequently, they discuss why clinical research into homoeopathy is difficult even (as some homoeopaths would claim) impossible. Finally, they discuss some clinical trials. All this is done in a disappointingly one-sided manner: arguments are not balanced with counter arguments and negative results are simply excluded from the discussion. Much of the rest of the book is equally unbalanced. The short chapter on aggravation is even blatantly uncritical.

The book does have strong points. It is more informative than most other books on the subject, and it contains a laudably long list of references. The bottom line is that homoeopaths will love this book, while sceptics will find little to convince them.