British Homoeopathic Journal最新文献

The objective of the study was to evaluate the effectiveness of a homeopathic complex in terms of intensity of attacks and duration of remission between attacks of genital herpes. Fifty three patients aged 18 or over with a minimum of four attacks annually were followed in this open multicentre study in a primary care setting. The principal parameters analysed were: frequency of attacks; intensity of symptoms, during treatment and/or after stopping treatment; treatment tolerance.

Eighty-two percent of patients treated for recurrent genital herpes benefited. In 41% of cases, there was no recurrence after the first treatment with follow-up of between 8 and 50 months. In 32% of patients, one or two relapses, in 9% of patients recurrences continued but with reduced frequency and intensity.

An audit was conducted of 829 consecutive patients presenting for homeopathic treatment of a chronic illness, conventional treatment had either failed, plateaued in effect, or was contraindicated by adverse effects, age or condition of the patient.

 Of the 829 patients, 503 (61%) had a sustained improvement from homeopathic treatment, of these:

• •

  357 patients (43%) had an excellent response;

• •

  146 patients (18%) had a good response;

• •

  6 patients (0.8%) became worse.

• •

  233 patients (28%) were lost to follow-up

Objectives: The financial crisis of health insurance systems sometimes drives public policy-makers to take precipitate action dominated by economic imperatives. The question addressed here consists in defining homeopathy’s scope of intervention, its place in health care strategies, recourse to treatment, and especially economic data appraising homeopathy’s impact on expenditures and outlay covered by health insurance in France.

Method: We used the General Evaluation Model to define the study (to whom is the evaluation made, situations, criteria, measurement of these criteria, quality and precision).

Results: The main results are in terms of costs, as follows:

• •

  For reimbursable medicines the public sales price of homeopathic products is a quarter of the average.

• •

  The total reimbursement for a prescription of allopathic products is three times more than for a prescription of homeopathic products.

• •

  Homeopathic physicians incur annual reimbursement outlays which are half those of general practitioners.

The differences observed cannot be explained by the patient profile or the diseases treated. Furthermore, a study carried out in France showed that 87% of patients whose physicians had prescribed homeopathic treatment did not see another physician for the same problem.

Conclusions: Once basic analysis has been done, so that the economic and epidemiological impact of a certain health strategy can be determined, it is necessary to proceed further, helping healthcare providers and public authorities to make decisions. Various possibilities exist and should be investigated.

Objective: To evaluate the safety of homeopathic medicines by critically appraising reports of adverse effects published in English from 1970 to 1995.

Method: Systematic review on information regarding adverse effects of homeopathic medicines identified using electronic databases, hand searching, searching reference lists, reviewing the bibliography of trials, and other relevant articles, contacting homeopathic pharmaceutical companies and drug regulatory agencies in UK and USA, and by communicating with experts in homeopathy.

Results: The mean incidence of adverse effects of homeopathic medicines was greater than placebo in controlled clinical trials (9.4/6.1) but effects were minor, transient and comparable. There was a large incidence of pathogenetic effects in healthy volunteers taking homeopathic medicines but the methodological quality of these studies was generally low. Anecdotal reports of adverse effects in homeopathic publications were not well documented and mainly reported aggravation of current symptoms. Case reports in conventional medical journals pointed more to adverse effects of mislabelled ‘homeopathic products’ than to true homeopathic medicines.

Conclusions: Homeopathic medicines in high dilutions, prescribed by trained professionals, are probably safe and unlikely to provoke severe adverse reactions. It is difficult to draw definite conclusions due to the low methodological quality of reports claiming possible adverse effects of homeopathic medicines.