Homeopathy in New Zealand

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Homeopathy practice is unregulated in New Zealand and homeopathic remedies are available at pharmacies, although there are calls to have them removed from sale. [1]

Contents

A small-scale survey of homeopathic practitioners of New Zealand in 2008 showed that they all claimed to be able to treat asthma and ear infections, and statements such as "hundreds of remedies for ear infections and asthma" and "homeopaths have a success rate nearing 80%" were made. [2]

Though large scale studies conducted across the world show that homeopathy is a pseudoscience and its remedies have been found to be no more effective than placebo. [3] [4] [5] The New Zealand Medical Association does not oppose the use of alternative medical practices such as homeopathy if it can be shown that the patient can make an informed choice; however, this stance has been called unethical and may be in contravention of medical regulations. [6]

Belief and scepticism

The New Zealand Skeptics organisation took part in the international 1023 campaign in 2011. Protests were held in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch.

A 2012 survey showed that 51% of the New Zealand population had some degree of belief that homeopathic remedies were scientifically proven. [7]

Absolutely certain it's true4%Absolutely certain that it is not true16%
Fairly certain it's true14%Fairly certain it is not true12%
Believe it but not too certain16%Believe it's not true but not too certain8%
Believe it but not at all certain17%Believe it's not true but not for certain13%
51%49%

Organisations

The Auckland Homeopathic Hospital, with Carl Fisher as superintendent, operated from 1858 to 1862. For a half-yearly report of 1859 a total of 34 patients out of 55 were claimed to have been cured. [8]

There are a number of training providers that teach homeopathy, and the New Zealand Qualifications Authority issues credits for homeopathy courses. [9]

The New Zealand Council of Homeopaths, formed in 1999, acts as a representative for the industry. It was formed by the amalgamation of New Zealand Homoeopathic Society, the New Zealand Institute of Classical Homeopathy and the New Zealand Accreditation Board of Natural Therapies. Homoeopathica a journal published by the New Zealand Homoeopathic Society. [10]

Autism Cure Claims

In 2019 18 New Zealand based Homeopathic practitioners advertised CEASE therapy as a cure for autism with Helen Petousis-Harris stating "CEASE therapy as a whole new level of homeopathic woo". [11] Autism NZ chief executive Dane Dougan "knows of CEASE therapy but had not heard of it being used much in New Zealand, which he thinks is probably a good thing" and also said "some of the unproven therapies prey on some of the most vulnerable people in society".

Measles Immunity claims

In a measles outbreak in 2016, members of the public presented certificates of homeopathic prophylaxis as evidence of immunity from measles [11] however, randomised studies have proven there is no immunity gained from homeopathic prophylaxis. [12]

Prosecutions

The Commerce Commission, which administers the Fair Trading Act, has prosecuted companies for misleading claims about homeopathic products.

In 1997 SCI Natural (NZ) Ltd was to be prosecuted for claims that the Soft Seaweed Soap product would help people to lose weight. The Commerce Commission decided not to go ahead with the prosecution since a key individual had left New Zealand and the company went into liquidation. [13] A Tauranga-based couple who specialised in homeopathic remedies pleaded guilty to 19 charges under the Fair Trading Act in 2008 for making misleading claims. [14] as they claimed their anti-terror kit could protect or cure anthrax, botulism, smallpox, bird flu, the Sars virus and other conditions. [15]

Criticism

To prove the lack of evidence and efficacy in Homeopathic remedies, in 2010 the NZ Skeptics planned a homeopathic overdose, with President Vicki Hyde stating the remedies "are based on “wishful thinking”" and nothing but “sham and sugar”. [16] As part of a wider global protest across UK, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the US, the protesters consumed large doses of homeopathic remedies with no reported overdosing or cure to existing conditions. [17]

See also

Related Research Articles

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Homeopathy or homoeopathy is a pseudoscientific system of alternative medicine. It was conceived in 1796 by the German physician Samuel Hahnemann. Its practitioners, called homeopaths or homeopathic physicians, believe that a substance that causes symptoms of a disease in healthy people can cure similar symptoms in sick people; this doctrine is called similia similibus curentur, or "like cures like". Homeopathic preparations are termed remedies and are made using homeopathic dilution. In this process, the selected substance is repeatedly diluted until the final product is chemically indistinguishable from the diluent. Often not even a single molecule of the original substance can be expected to remain in the product. Between each dilution homeopaths may hit and/or shake the product, claiming this makes the diluent "remember" the original substance after its removal. Practitioners claim that such preparations, upon oral intake, can treat or cure disease.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Naturopathy</span> Form of alternative medicine

Naturopathy, or naturopathic medicine, is a form of alternative medicine. A wide array of practices branded as "natural", "non-invasive", or promoting "self-healing" are employed by its practitioners, who are known as naturopaths. Difficult to generalize, these treatments range from the pseudoscientific and thoroughly discredited, like homeopathy, to the widely accepted, like certain forms of psychotherapy. The ideology and methods of naturopathy are based on vitalism and folk medicine rather than evidence-based medicine, although practitioners may use techniques supported by evidence. The ethics of naturopathy have been called into question by medical professionals and its practice has been characterized as quackery.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Quackery</span> Promotion of fraudulent or ignorant medical practices

Quackery, often synonymous with health fraud, is the promotion of fraudulent or ignorant medical practices. A quack is a "fraudulent or ignorant pretender to medical skill" or "a person who pretends, professionally or publicly, to have skill, knowledge, qualification or credentials they do not possess; a charlatan or snake oil salesman". The term quack is a clipped form of the archaic term quacksalver, derived from Dutch: kwakzalver a "hawker of salve" or rather somebody who boasted about their salves, more commonly known as ointments. In the Middle Ages the term quack meant "shouting". The quacksalvers sold their wares at markets by shouting to gain attention.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Allopathic medicine</span> Term for science-based, modern medicine

Allopathic medicine, or allopathy, is an archaic and derogatory label originally used by 19th-century homeopaths to describe heroic medicine, the precursor of modern evidence-based medicine. There are regional variations in usage of the term. In the United States, the term is sometimes used to contrast with osteopathic medicine, especially in the field of medical education. In India, the term is used to distinguish conventional modern medicine from Siddha medicine, Ayurveda, homeopathy, Unani and other alternative and traditional medicine traditions, especially when comparing treatments and drugs.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">10:23 Campaign</span> International awareness campaign against homoeopathy

The 10:23 Campaign (stylized as 1023) is an awareness and protest campaign against homoeopathy organised by the Merseyside Skeptics Society, a non-profit organisation, to oppose the sale of homoeopathic products in the United Kingdom. The campaign has staged public "overdoses" of homoeopathic preparations.

Homeopathy is a peer-reviewed medical journal covering research, reviews, and debates on all aspects of homeopathy, a pseudoscientific form of alternative medicine. It is the official journal of the London-based Faculty of Homeopathy. The journal was established in 1911 as the British Homoeopathic Journal, resulting from a merger between the British Homoeopathic Review and the Journal of the British Homoeopathic Society. It uses its current name since 2001 and the editor-in-chief is Robert Mathie.

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The Good Thinking Society is a nonprofit organisation promoting scientific scepticism established by Simon Singh in September 2012.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Homeopathy Plus!</span> Australian company

Homeopathy Plus! is an Australian company run by homeopath Fran Sheffield in Tuggerah, New South Wales. It is known for the claim that homeopathy is an effective, and safer, alternative to vaccination for conditions including whooping cough, along with claims that homeopathy is superior to chemotherapy for cancer. The claims for "homeoprophylaxis" were assessed as misleading by the Complaints Resolution Panel of the Therapeutic Goods Administration and a retraction demanded; this was ignored. The prophylaxis claims were referred to the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission (ACCC), and although this was stated to have resulted in their removal, legal proceedings continued, culminating in a ruling by Justice Perry of the Federal Court of Australia in December 2014 that:

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CEASE therapy is a pseudoscientific practice used by naturopaths who claim that it can treat or even cure people with autism, claims which have been adjudicated by the UK's Advertising Standards Authority as "bogus". It involves a mixture of supplements, high-dose vitamin C, 'orthomolecular support', dietary restrictions, and homeopathy. The therapy was developed by Dutch doctor Tinus Smits, who claimed to have used it to treat over 300 children with autism. It became more notable in 2017/2018 because of regulatory action taken by professional bodies in The Netherlands, UK, and Canada following a series of complaints about unfounded claims.

The Society of Homeopaths (SoH) is a British private limited company formed in 1978 by "a small group of homeopaths who were keen to work together for the development of the profession and to ensure high standards in the practice of homeopathy" and at September 2018 had 997 members on the Society's register who can refer to themselves as RSHoms. The SoH's register was first accredited by the Professional Standards Authority (PSA) in September 2014 allowing members to display the Accredited Register's logo at the time. In January 2021 the PSA suspended the society's accreditation for failure to meet standards the PSA had set.

The infinitesimally low concentration of homeopathic preparations, which often lack even a single molecule of the diluted substance, has been the basis of questions about the effects of the preparations since the 19th century. Modern advocates of homeopathy have proposed a concept of "water memory", according to which water "remembers" the substances mixed in it, and transmits the effect of those substances when consumed. This concept is inconsistent with the current understanding of matter, and water memory has never been demonstrated to exist, in terms of any detectable effect, biological or otherwise.

References

  1. ↑ "Call to remove homeopathics from shops". TVNZ. Retrieved 2012-01-21.
  2. ↑ Holt, Shaun (3 October 2008). "The responses of alternative practitioners when approached about common childhood illnesses". The New Zealand Medical Journal . 121 (1283). ISSN   1175-8716. Archived from the original on 14 July 2012.
  3. ↑ Tuomela, R (1987). "Chapter 4: Science, Protoscience, and Pseudoscience". In Pitt, JC; Marcello, P (eds.). Rational Changes in Science: Essays on Scientific Reasoning. Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science. Vol. 98. Springer. pp. 83–101. doi:10.1007/978-94-009-3779-6_4. ISBN   978-94-010-8181-8.
  4. ↑ Smith, K (2012). "Homeopathy is unscientific and unethical". Bioethics . 26 (9): 508–12. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8519.2011.01956.x. S2CID   143067523.
  5. ↑ Baran, GR; Kiana, MF; Samuel, SP (2014). "Chapter 2: Science, Pseudoscience, and Not Science: How Do They Differ?". Healthcare and Biomedical Technology in the 21st Century. Springer. pp. 19–57. doi:10.1007/978-1-4614-8541-4_2. ISBN   978-1-4614-8540-7. within the traditional medical community it is considered to be quackery
  6. ↑ Holt, Shaun; Gilbey, Andrew; Colquhoun; David; Baum, Michael; Ernst, Edzard (15 April 2011). "Call for doctors not to practice homeopathy or refer to homeopaths". New Zealand Medical Journal. 124 (1332): 87–88. ISSN   1175-8716. PMID   21747430.
  7. ↑ Anderson, Charles (22 January 2012). "Kiwis big believers in homeopathy". Sunday Star Times.
  8. ↑ "Page 2 Advertisements Column 6". Daily Southern Cross. 1 February 1859. p. 2. Retrieved 2012-01-21.
  9. ↑ "Qualifications - Search Results" . Retrieved 2012-01-21.
  10. ↑ "Homoeopathic Society » About our Journal". www.homeopathy.ac.nz. Archived from the original on 29 July 2009. Retrieved 12 January 2022.
  11. 1 2 Hancock, Farah (15 August 2019). "Homeopathic treatment claims to 'cure' autism in NZ". NewsRoom. Retrieved 12 December 2020.
  12. ↑ Loeb, Mark; Russell, Margaret L.; Neupane, Binod; Thanabalan, Vitheya; Singh, Pardeep; Newton, Jennifer; Pullenayegum, Eleanor (19 November 2018). "A randomized, blinded, placebo-controlled trial comparing antibody responses to homeopathic and conventional vaccines in university students". Vaccine. 36 (48): 7423–7429. doi: 10.1016/j.vaccine.2018.08.082 . PMID   30352746.
  13. ↑ "False claims that seaweed soap causes weight loss" (Press release). Commerce Commission. 17 August 1997. Archived from the original on 12 February 2013. Retrieved 22 January 2012.
  14. ↑ "Bird flu remedy is quackery" (Press release). Commerce Commission. 15 January 2008. Archived from the original on 30 January 2013. Retrieved 23 January 2012.
  15. ↑ "Couple fined for bogus anti-terror kit claims". NZ Herald. Bay of Plenty Times. 14 January 2009. Retrieved 29 December 2020.
  16. ↑ Whitworth, Chris. "Mass overdose of alternative medicines planned". Newshub. Retrieved 28 January 2010.
  17. ↑ Coghlan, Andy. "Andy Coghlan". New Scientist. Retrieved 22 December 2020.
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