From Kevin McConway
k.j.mcconway@open.ac.uk
It’s a pity your editorial on the survey of clinical trials in homeopathy
does not follow its own advice
(Editorial, 27 September, p 3). Yes, controlled
trials should be performed to the highest standards. But the comparison with the
controls has to be fair.
You criticise homeopathy trials because fewer than 30 of those published in
the past 30 years “meet the highest standards”. You do not remark on the fact
that 15 of these “good” trials were published since 1990. And you do not compare
the work with research in areas of conventional healthcare, some of which was
also not conducted thoroughly with high-quality controlled trials until fairly
recently.
You complain that trials of homeopathy are predominantly done by advocates of
homeopathy, implying that this is not the case in other areas of medicine. How
much clinical research in any area is done by “disinterested” scientists?
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You also fell headlong into the same trap that I did when I read the original
paper, in thinking that the lack of evidence for efficacy in any single clinical
condition is due to failure of the results “to rise above statistical noise”.
Yes, the summary does seem to say that, but if you read the paper itself, you
will see that the authors are worried about a lack of replication of studies by
independent researchers, and not statistical significance. There is
statistically significant evidence for efficacy in several single illnesses,
even if one includes only the well-conducted trials.
If some disinterested scientists set about trying to falsify this evidence,
we might all have a better idea of what is going on. But who is going to do that
and risk a severe mauling in the editorials of the scientific press?
