An influential, cross-party group of UK politicians has called for the National Health Service to stop funding homeopathy.
The House of Commons’ science and technology committee also recommended that the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency should stop homeopathic products making medical claims on their labels without evidence of efficacy.
“By providing homeopathy on the NHS and allowing MHRA licensing of products which subsequently appear on pharmacy shelves, the government runs the risk of endorsing homeopathy as an efficacious system of medicine,” says the committee’s report (pdf). “To maintain patient trust, choice and safety, the Government should not endorse the use of placebo treatments, including homeopathy.”
The committee also came close to an outright attack on homeopathy advocates, accusing them of relying on “selective approaches to the treatment of the evidence base” in their submissions to its inquiry. It adds, “this risks confusing or misleading the public, the media and policy-makers”.
Currently, there is limited provision of homeopathic treatment free on the NHS in the UK. Some treatments are also allowed to claim efficacy in treating certain conditions without evidence.
The Prince’s Foundation for Integrated Health, established by heir-to-the-throne Prince Charles, has attempted to return fire on the committee. It put out two press releases.
Firstly, it said, the report had ignored people “suffering from long term disease, where no scientific, evidence based medicine can offer effective treatment”. These people, it claimed, might get some benefit from homeopathy.
Secondly, it said a new study from the University of Texas found “homeopathic dilutions were biologically active”.
Edzard Ernst, a leading expert on alternative medicine based at the Peninsula Medical School, responded, “The medical director of the Foundation for Integrated Health should know that the study he cites is a test-tube experiment and not a ‘research trial’. It has no direct implications for healthcare.”
The government will now ponder their response to the report. A major shake up in homeopathy in the UK seems unlikely to happen in the near future though, with a general election looming.
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