From John Saxton and Christopher Day, Faculty of Homeopathy
It is true that some vets are strongly opposed to homeopathy (1 July, p 6). There are, however, just as many, if not more, who are happy with the discipline. Many vets who incorporate homeopathy into their practices receive regular referrals from their purely orthodox colleagues.
We are not privy to the internal deliberations of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons and hence cannot speak for them. However, from discussions with them it is clear that they did not decide to “quietly remove a list of vets that offer homeopathy” because of any clinical considerations.
The change reflects a redirection of the college’s information strategy towards an electronic form, and at the end of the day the information available may well be greater than at present. The college’s position is based on two considerations: firstly that only a qualified veterinary surgeon can legally treat an animal in the UK, and secondly that the choice of treatment is the preserve (and responsibility) of the individual practitioner.
Opponents of homeopathy also imply that because a treatment is used in orthodox medicine it has been proven to be effective, which is untrue. A website run by the medical journal BMJ and dedicated to evaluating treatments for humans (clinicalevidence.com) reveals that only 15 per cent of those investigated were rated as “beneficial” and 48 per cent were classed as of “unknown effectiveness”. The situation in the veterinary world will not be materially different.
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Luton, Bedfordshire, UK
