Please write to your MP and ask him or her to sign Early Day Motion (EDM) 908, which expresses concern at the conclusions of the Science & Technology Committee’s Report; notes that the Committee only took oral evidence from a limited number of witnesses; regrets that the Committee ignored the 74 randomised controlled trials comparing homeopathy with placebo, of which 63 showed homeopathic treatments were effective and calls on the government to maintain its policy of allowing decision-making on individual clinical interventions, including homeopathy, to remain in the hands of local NHS service providers and practitioners who are best placed to know their community's needs.
The EDM has been tabled following the recent publication of the House of Commons Science & Technology Committee’s Evidence Check: Homeopathy.
The Society of Homeopaths has roundly rejected the findings of this committee and has grave concerns about the processes that led to its report on homeopathy.
The Society is concerned that those giving oral evidence included a journalist who was investigated by the Press Complaints Commission for his previous and unsubstantiated comments about homeopaths; a charity that has long publicly opposed homeopathy along with one of its key funders and a PCT that had already decommissioned homeopathy as one of its services.
Notable by their absence were any patient representatives who had used homeopathy or a PCT currently commissioning homeopathy.
The Society of Homeopaths, as the largest body representing professional homeopaths, applied to give oral evidence alongside its written evidence but was refused.
The Society also had serious concerns about the lines of questioning during the evidence gathering, many of which it considered to be outside the remit of the committee and which included a number that were directly related to The Society itself which it was not permitted to answer. Its subsequent letter to the committee plus a chase up remain unanswered.
In summarising that there is no evidence for homeopathy, the committee inexplicably overlooked the fact that, by the end of 2009, there were 74 randomised controlled trials (RCTs) of homeopathy published in peer-reviewed journals which describe statistically significant results, from which firm conclusions can be drawn. Of these RCTs comparing homeopathy either with placebo or established conventional treatments, 63 were positive for homeopathy and 11 were negative.
In its press release, the Committee advised the government that “prescribing pure placebos is bad medicine’. Clearly, it was not aware that a 2008 meta-analysis involving 35 clinical trials and 5,000 patients suffering from depression found that commonly prescribed antidepressants have little more effect than 'dummy' placebo pills.
And yet, prescriptions for anti-depressants are at record levels, with 31 million written in 2006 at a cost to the NHS of almost £300million.
To put this in context, the NHS spends £11 billion on its annual drugs budget. Of that, the annual bill for homeopathic remedies is £152,000.
Please ask your MP to sign EDM 908 and, if possible, ask him or her to write to Chair of the Science & Technology Committee, Phil Willis MP, stating why they support the EDM.
Click here to see if your MP has already signed EDM 908
http://edmi.parliament.uk/EDMi/EDMDetails.aspx?EDMID=40517&SESSION=903
Click here to ask your MP to sign EDM 908
