A researcher discovers that patients treated with homeopathy do as well or better than those treated with conventional drugs but these real-world results are often ignored or not taken seriously.

Video Synopsis

• Dr Stephan Baumgartner from the University of Bern, Switzerland, looks at research concerning the real-world effectiveness of homeopathy.
• When homeopathy is compared with conventional medicine in daily clinical practice, all patient-centred outcomes show that patients treated with homeopathy score as well or better than those treated by conventional medicines.
• These results raise serious questions.
• If homeopathy is only a placebo, the homeopathic consultation must be miraculous as it is at least as good as the conventional drug treatments. This should be explored.
• If the results are better than placebo, this indicates there is something within the homeopathic remedy that is producing the success.
• Dr Baumgartner’s experience is that these real-world effectiveness studies are not taken seriously by other researchers, public health evaluations, government agencies, or insurance companies because they don’t understand how homeopathy works.
• He believes it is of the utmost importance to research homeopathy’s mode of action so that others can understand it and so it can be successfully integrated into the health care system.

The French study mentioned in the video is: Impact of physician preferences for homeopathic or conventional medicines on patients with musculoskeletal disorders: results from the EPI3-MSD cohort.