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Faculty of Homeopathy finds Science and Technology report lacking

22 February 2010

The House of Commons Science and Technology Committee report on homeopathy published today lacks substance said the Faculty of Homeopathy.

President of the Faculty of Homeopathy, Dr Sara Eames states, 'We are surprised and disappointed by the conclusions of the committee. There have been over 100 controlled trials in homeopathy and far more are positive than negative. The committee has completely disregarded many other sorts of evidence including the homeopathic hospital outcome studies and many thousands of successfully treated patients over more than 200 years'.

She continues, 'Far from saving the NHS money by stopping the funding of the hospitals, it is very likely that expenditure will be increased. The hospitals specialise in treating patients who have often been ill for a long time and have not been helped by conventional medicine. I regularly see patients who are able to reduce their conventional medicine and even avoid operations after they have received treatment. I find homeopathy an invaluable tool in practice.'

The Faculty endorses the statements made by the British Homeopathic Association in response to the recent publication of the Science and Technology's report. In particular that, 'the review by the committee was very narrow and cursory. The committee did not entertain evidence of effectiveness, which is actually what patients care most about. Even more troubling, the committee’s report makes recommendations to government in isolation of context and apparently without concern about its impact on patients and the NHS. If homeopathic patients are pushed to other more expensive services how will it help the NHS funding crisis? What about patients who have found nothing but homeopathy has helped them?'

Chief Executive of the BHA, Cristal Sumner states: ‘It does seem an irresponsible way of decision-making for a Committee of four voting members to draw conclusions that impact the health and welfare of thousands of patients from just four and half hours of verbal testimony on three distinct topics and from a number of written submissions that were each limited to just 3000 words.’

As the Health Minister, Mike O’Brien, said, it would be illiberal to cut funding. We at the BHA know patients benefit from homeopathy, we hear their stories daily, and emphatically believe patients should retain their right to access homeopathy on the NHS.'