Encyclopedia of Homeopathy

24 •THEORY & PRACTICEPLACEBO RESPONSEDEVELOPMENT OFHOMEOPATHYHahnemann’s first experiments on himself arguably constituted someWhile funding existed for major drug research due to investment by drug companies, suchfunding has been harder to find for homeopathic trials. Nor do homeopathic trials have thesame kind of access to the research facilities of universities, hospitals, and researchers. Trialsinto homeopathy are further disadvantaged by the fact that so much depends on the skilland judgment of the practitioner in assessing the appropriate remedy for the patient. One ofthe most important issues to be addressed in trials is the influence of the placebo effect (seebox). Clinical trials conducted by Dr. D. Taylor-Reilly in 1986 in Glasgow, Scotland,demonstrated a clear, statistically significant improvement in patients treated homeopathicallythat could not be attributed purely to a placebo response. He concluded that eitherhomeopathy does work or clinical trials do not. There have also been meta-analyses, inwhich a large group of similar trials are analyzed as if they were one huge study, oftenyielding more significant results than small-scale trials might do individually. Three of theIn clinical drug trials, some of the testsubjects are given a genuine, activemedication, while others are given aplacebo—an inactive medication, oftena sugar pill, which is given in place ofgenuine treatment. Test subjects do notknow whether they are receiving the activedrug or the placebo. Research into theimmune system has revealed that theexpectations of patients can actuallyinfluence their healing processes. Thus,since they expect their medication to work,the placebo may have a therapeutic effect.Clinical trials test active drugs againsta control group receiving a placebo toensure that any positive effects take intoaccount this placebo response. Theexperimental group must performsignificantly better than those takingthe placebo for the test drug to bedeemed effective.of the earliest medical trials. Medical research has become far moresophisticated since then, yet strict clinical trials into the efficacy ofhomeopathy were rare until as late as the 1980s.most important meta-analyses to date are that led by Prof. J. Kleijnen,published in the British Medical Journal in 1991; that led by Dr. J. P.Boissel, which was carried out for the European Commission andpublished in Brussels in 1996; and that by Dr. K. Linde and others,published in The Lancet in 1997. All three meta-analyses were doneby skeptical, independent researchers, none of whom were practicinghomeopaths, and all three concluded that, despite their best effortsto show otherwise, homeopathy has an action above and beyondthat of merely a placebo. Valuable trials of homeopathy in veterinarymedicine, undertaken by the British homeopathic veterinarian Mr.C. Day in 1984, suggest that homeopathy’s action cannot beattributed purely to a placebo effect if it works on animals, sinceanimals are not susceptible to such influences. Various individualtrials have demonstrated a degree of success for homeopathictreatment of specific ailments, such as a 1980 study by Dr. R. G.Gibson in Glasgow of homeopathic treatment for rheumatoid