Homoeo Info

Major U.S. medical schools don’t usually offer a stage for the long-running debate over homeopathy and its place in modern medicine.
But at the UConn Health Center on Oct. 25, six internationally renowned experts took part in a forum on homeopathic medicine. Dozens listened in person in the Low Learning Center, and several hundred people around the world listened via webcast.
Homeopathy is an alternative form of health care based on the concept “like cures like.”
Treatments involve stimulating the body’s defense mechanisms by giving small doses of substances that theoretically would produce the same or similar symptoms of illness in healthy people if given in larger doses.
The homeopathic practitioner customizes treatments, not necessarily giving the same remedy to treat the same illness in different patients.
History has called into question the science behind homeopathy, said Dr. Nadav Davidovitch of Columbia University and Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in southern Israel.
Joining the forum from Tel Aviv, Davidovitch suggested that a person’s belief in homeopathy is derived from his or her willingness or refusal to be bound by the generally accepted rules of science based on molecular research.
Dr. Donald Marcus of Baylor University said, “There is no rigorous evidence to support the efficacy of homeopathy, and there are some potential adverse effects. I think there have been enough clinical trials that I don’t think federal funds should be used to support further clinical trials of homeopathy.”
Dr. Iris Bell of the University of Arizona agreed that it will take more research to satisfy classic scientific standards, but said other research can’t be ignored.
Chris DeFrancesco/UConn Advance, CT, US 2 Nov 2007

Labels: USA