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positive results. In their words, ‘..it seems, therefore likely thatour meta-analysis at least over estimated the effects of home-opathic treatment.’

When Shang et al from the University of Berne undertook afresh meta-analysis of all the trials published up to 2003, onlyeight homeopathic trials were deemed of a satisfactory methodology.His meta-analysis reached the momentous conclusion that‘. . . on average, homeopathy was only very marginally moreeffective than placebo.’

Linde’s 1997 paper is much referenced by homeopaths.Strangely, no-one seems to ever mention his later reanalysis ofthe same data, and Dr Shang’s analysis never gets a mention.

4. Are there high quality trials of homeopathy? The answer is aresounding no!

Dr Smith mentions Benveniste in her letter and referencesDavenas’ paper in

Nature

1998. This paper caused a storm whenpublished because it apparently showed that very dilute, almosthomeopathy solutions of Antiserum IgE caused a reaction inhuman basophils. This lab experiment was subsequently foundto be unblinded, and Davenas prejudiced in favour of homeopathy.The whole premise of the experiment relied on an observer,Davenas, judging if blood cells exhibited an allergic reaction(which even under a microscope is not clear cut) but would beeasily prone to personal interpretation and bias. When the trialwas repeated with Davenas blinded, homeopathic solutions hadno impact on basophil cells. On top of this, after Benvenistereceived his second Ig NoBle prize, three papers were publishedin

Nature

the following year that failed to reproduce the supposedeffect of ultradilute solutions.

In 1999, Vickers, based at the Royal London HomeopathyHospital, looked at 120 papers related to Beveniste’s work andother types of basic homeopathic research, and as struck by thefailure of independent scientists to replicate any homeopathiceffect.

I could go on for days. The repeated conclusion would be thatwhen subjected to well structured, unbiased scientific trials,homeopathy is a sham and has no sensible reason why it shouldever work! Tragically, the very clients Dr Smith mentions aremisled by the media and colleagues, who unfortunately, despitetheir veterinary scientist/medical training are not scientists!

5. Who decides where to spend money on research? Plenty ofmoney has been spent over the past few decades to test the efficacyof homeopathy. The Linde meta-analysis, the Shang trial, evenDARPA (US Defence Advance Research Projects Agency)collaborated with homeopathics to test Benveniste’s effect andfailed. No one has yet claimed the $1 million challenge fromJames Randi to independently reproduce Benveniste’s claim.

There is no huge conspiracy to wrongly bury this great modality– the simple truth is that homeopathy does not work! If any ofthese multitudinous trials had shown their worth, some pharma-ceutical company would have bottled the stuff, they would be

rich, and we all would be happily using it. What has conventionalmedicine got to gain? As medicos, we want the best for ourpatients – it is as simple as that.

Matthew R RetchfordPresident ASAVA

Re: Letter from Charissa Smith,

Aust Vet J

2008;86:293.

It has to be said – what a load of nonsense. 100,000 animalnaturopaths in Queensland? This would mean that 1 in 40 ofQueensland’s population, children included, is an animalnaturopath. Give us a break. The Australian Natural TherapistsAssociation (ANTA) lists 391 naturopaths in Queensland.

Then there was the dog, allegedly with two types of cancer, (orwas it three – what exactly is mesenteric cancer?) bilateral perinealhernias and hip dysplasia, that allegedly survived for another tenyears. Amazing claims need amazing evidence to be credible.Charissa Smith provided none.

Her claim that the dog suffered chromium poisoning caused bylicking a (presumably) chrome-plated or stainless steel object issimilarly doubtful. Chromium has three valency states which are,in increasing order of toxicity, 0 (elemental chromium), 3+ and6+ (chromium salts). Idexx Laboratories could provide me withno clinical information about causes of chromium poisoning indogs, and a search of pubmed.org for chromium poisoning indogs yielded no hits. Based on this, unless Charissa Smith canfurnish evidence to the contrary, we suggest that the ‘constantchromium poisoning’ to which she alluded was not present.

Charissa Smith claims that the paper by Linde et al (reference 2in her letter) validates the efficacy of homeopathy, when it doesnothing of the sort. The paper clearly states: ‘we found insufficientevidence from these studies that homeopathy is clearly efficacious inany single clinical condition.’ How can this possibly be interpretedas validating homeopathy?

Next came the predictable statement that ‘homeopathic medicinesmay be linked to the individual giver and the receiver in theireffects’. In simple terms what this phrase means is that if you likeyour homeopath, and if you believe that the remedies that arebeing prescribed for you will work, you are more likely to reporta positive effect. This is an excellent description of how and whyplacebo medicines work. Real medicines aren’t saddled by thesetwo conditions. Bacteriocidal antibiotics, for example, kill bacteriaregardless of whether or not you expect them to, even if you don’tlike your doctor.

The idea that vaccination is a form of homeopathy defies reason,history, and the rules of homeopathy itself. Pasteur and Jennerwere not homeopaths. Vaccines are not diluted past the pointwhere not one molecule of the original substance remains, norare they shaken between dilutions, as is mandatory in homeopathicremedy preparation. Vaccination is mass preventative medicine,in which the identical product is administered to tens of millionsof patients, whereas homeopathy, as its proponents boast, is

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individualised. Imagine – a different vaccine for every pet. Vaccinesrequire booster doses; we have yet to encounter the phrase‘homeopathic booster’ in homeopathy literature. Vaccines areadministered to prevent disease, whereas homeopathy is admin-istered to treat disease, the remedies being prescribed based on‘individual symptom picture’. The active ingredient in a home-opathy remedy, before the diluting and shaking removes it, isidentical to the substance that produces symptoms, according tohomeopathic theory. This is not the case with vaccines, wherethe disease-causing agent is always altered in some way. e.g. liveviruses are attenuated, or killed, and toxins are denatured toproduce toxoids. Vaccination is definitely not an example ofhomeopathy.

We are of the opinion that it’s time for members of our pro-fession to stop being polite about homeopathy, and call it for

what it is – unproven medicine, based on a series of nonsensicaland evidence-free statements made approx 200 years ago bySamuel Hahnemann, the theoretical and completely unprovenbasis for which challenges, without any supporting evidence,the very foundations of 21

st

century chemistry, physics andthermodynamics. We also think that the animals in our caredeserve better than this.

Chris AndrewsHurstbridge Vic

Jamie AndrewsMansfield Vic

doi: 10.1111/j.1751-0813.2008.000354.x

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