Source: Thailand Medical News Feb 18, 2020 4 years, 10 months, 5 days, 5 hours, 5 minutes ago
Healthcare professionals both in
India and overseas have criticized the Indian Government for allowing its Ministry of AYUSH, which promotes alternative medicine systems in the country, to release a health advisory on January 29 that advocates the use of
homeopathy to ward off infections of the newly circulating SARS-Cov-2
coronavirus which causes the Covid-19 disease. This includes the use of a homeopathic preparation called Arsenicum album 30C and two drops of sesame oil in each nostril each morning for prevention, and Unani medicines (treatments based on the teachings of Hippocrates and Galen) to mitigate symptoms of
coronavirus infection.
Although the ministry cites centuries of practitioners’ experiences with these products as evidence behind its advice, the media and the scientific community criticized the guidance as being counterproductive in dealing with a serious health emergency.
Dr David Robert Grimes, an Irish science writer who has published research showing homeopathy to be ineffective told
Thailand Medical News, “It is profoundly irresponsible of the Ministry of AYUSH in
India to endorse
homeopathy as this entirely undermines public understanding of science and medicine, and elevates pseudoscience with potentially dangerous consequences.”
Dr Grimes has argued that the proposed mechanisms of
homeopathy are implausible when analyzed from a physical and chemical perspective, and says that it is not surprising, therefore, that the biological effects of
homeopathy cannot be measured in large-scale clinical trials.
“The claim of some homeopaths that homeopathic remedies are effective in treating or preventing
coronavirus infections is not based on any evidence at all,” said Dr Edzard Ernst, an emeritus professor at the University of Exeter in the UK and a critic of
homeopathy. Dr Ernst points to a study that found no difference between Arsenicum album and a placebo in preventing fever after vaccination. Other studies in which
homeopathy was found to be ineffective include one on acute respiratory tract infections, another on middle ear infections, and yet another on influenza-like illness.
Dr Ernst further commented, “Using homeopathy as an alternative therapy risks forfeiting effective causative or symptomatic treatments or if such treatments are not available creating a false sense of security. In any case, it would be a waste of resources.”
Surprisingly even among proponents of
homeopathy, there is disagreement about the best way to prevent the
coronavirus. Mitchell Fleisher, the second vice president of the American Institute of
Homeopathy, says that the th
at individuals at the Ministry Of AYUSH in
India used premature data to come up with their advice to make a homeopathic prescription that is not accurate.
Flesiher says that perhaps the best way to validate the therapeutic value of
homeopathy would be to perform a comparative clinical outcome study of acute
coronavirus infection by giving individualized homeopathic medicines to one experimental group and allopathic medicines to another, with a minimum of 250 patients in each group. “A careful and honest, statistical analysis of the study results will speak the scientific truth,” he says.
Immediately countering Fleisher’s proposal, Grimes says that this is completely unethical. “
Homeopathy has no plausible mechanism of action, and it is downright irresponsible to suggest it in a trial for a serious potential pandemic. Large scale studies of
homeopathy have clearly shown over decades the same result, that it simply does not work,” he says.
Thailand Medical News’s director, Jakkapong Watcharachaijunta said, “Its total ridiculous and outright irresponsible for the Indian government to have allowed such a health advisory to be released as it also affects the image of the whole healthcare and medical industry in
India which have always been held in high esteem internationally. Everyone knows that
homeopathy is even worse than placebo as it just some charlatans trying to make money out of sugar pills and compounds with no scientific basis or even solid evidence so far even after hundred of years. It’s a shame that the Indian government did not turn to its own traditional Indian Aurvedic Medicine where are many concoctions and hebs with antiviral properties and proper research into some of those could perhaps yield results. One interesting candidate is the licorice root which has been used in both Chinese Traditional Medicine (TCM) as well as in Indian Ayurvedic Medcine. “ (refer:
https://www.thailandmedical.news/news/further-research-into-the-phytochemicals-contained-in-licorice-root-might-yield-a-treatment-for-the-new-coronavirus-strain-in-china )
Meanwhile all concerned have been asked to disregard the fake news and misinformation generated by the authorities in
India over the usage of homeopathy to prevent or treat the
coronavirus infection.
For more updates about
India Coronavirus situation, keep checking:
https://www.thailandmedical.news/articles/coronavirus
