Homeopathy is good or bad, science or pseudoscience

Lyudmila Stebenkova, Chairperson of the Moscow City Duma Commission on Healthcare and Public Health:

– Research on homeopathy has been carried out many times, just nobody knows about it. Back in the Soviet Union, the communists were going to shut down homeopathy in 1937. Conducted 4 clinical studies on the basis of medical institutions and proved that homeopathy works. In 75 – the same thing. In our time, a bunch of clinical studies have been carried out on animals. With regard to the placebo effect, parallel experiments have proven effective. VAK (Higher Attestation Commission) has approved thousands of dissertations that are defended on this topic. I can give you a practical example. There is snake venom. And so that you understand, it constricts blood vessels in large doses, and expands in small doses. This is what homeopathy uses. Today it is a kind of reserve. Allopathic drugs are what we use as an ambulance, while homeopathic drugs are softer. And we see in practice that it helps.

Sergey Agapkin, rector of the Institute of Traditional Health Systems, host of the program “On the Most Important” (Russia 1):

– How can you recognize a pseudoscience that has never positioned itself as a science? Homeopathy has always been positioned as a part of medicine. And the Ministry of Health reacted very soberly to the initiative of the Russian Academy of Sciences, planning to assemble a commission, which will include homeopaths, and discuss, and only after that make a decision. The proposal to write on homeopathic remedies is not new. This is the official labeling requirement of the European Union: it must be written that the drug is homeopathic, diluted, without indicating that it helps from something. The same requirements are duplicated in the UK, and are practically unchanged in the USA, the only exception is that the registration procedure is simplified there, because this drug cannot cause any harm – due to the lack of an active substance. In India, homeopathy is generally recognized by the official medical system.

Vladimir Mishchenko, President of the Russian Homeopathic Society:

– A few days ago, a congress of homeopaths was held in the Central House of Scientists of the Russian Academy of Sciences. There we decided and are now preparing an appeal to the Academy of Sciences to help us confirm or, conversely, debunk homeopathy. But we must not forget that 200 dissertations are defended in Russia, that homeopathic industries and pharmacies operate on the basis of the rules put forward by the Ministry of Health. All of them are licensed, all drugs are also licensed and have evidence that they are effective. Whoever says that they slipped into a loophole, let him find it and close it. Any doctor (and Russia is lucky that while homeopathy is in the hands of doctors) fills out an agreement with the patient on the provision of medical services, informed consent that the person is ready to accept homeopathic treatment. What else is needed? The person chooses himself.

Rostislav Polishchuk, member of the RAS Commission on Combating Pseudoscience and Falsification of Scientific Research:

– I consider homeopathy a pseudoscience. No one, no organization in the world has a monopoly on truth. Only facts have this monopoly. And they showed everyone long ago that the effect of homeopathy does not exceed the effect of the placebo effect – an attitude that works on suggestion and psychotherapy. There are no facts, but there is advertising based on people’s ignorance. Well, whoever does not believe in science, let him buy. But you still need labeling, the person needs to be warned that these are funds without an evidence base.

Pavel Brand, medical director of family medical centers “Family Clinic”:

– People forget about the main problem when they take any medicine: research on effectiveness is child’s play. Safety is always researched with her. And if the effectiveness is unknown, then the safety of the drug is also unknown. Anyone has the right to choose. He can be treated even with holy water, but he must be warned that there is medicine that works according to certain rules, but there is homeopathy, urine therapy, shamanism, extrasensory perception, and whatever. And this is not medicine. Works, but not medicine. 7 thousand studies of homeopathic medicines have been carried out in the world using evidence-based medicine, and there is not a single proven effect.

Oleg Salagai, Director of the Department of Public Health and Communications of the Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation:

– Opinions were divided. And this is the reason why the minister instructed to create a working group with representatives of both academic science and homeopaths to study all the evidence, weigh and propose the optimal regulatory model. We are not talking about the prohibition that everything should disappear at once, but about the correct regulation – so as not to mislead people when they are … Yes, we have drugs with unproven efficacy. But let’s not forget the fact that our legislation, which provides for a clear mechanism for assessing safety and effectiveness, was adopted only seven years ago. Of course, before that there were different drugs, but now they would not have passed with unproven efficacy.