Is bad homeopathic advice putting travellers at risk?

In a word: Yes. In this fantastic bit on Newsnight, BBC Science correspondent Pallab Ghosh interviews a man who ignored his doctor's advice and took a homeopathic anti-malaria treatment before travelling to Africa. He very nearly died.

Pallab Ghosh does a very neat visual illustration of the method behind the production of homeopathic "remedies". I've attempted to write up my own explanation, but Ben Goldacre (of Bad Science and The Guardian) does such a good job I thought it better to quote him:

“The typical dilution is called ‘30C’: this means that the original substance has been diluted by 1 drop in 100, 30 times. On the Society of Homeopaths site, in their ‘What is homeopathy?’ section, they say that ‘30C contains less than 1 part per million of the original substance.’

“This is an understatement: a 30C homeopathic preparation is a dilution of 1 in 100^30, or rather 1 in 10^60, which means a 1 followed by 60 zeroes, or – let’s be absolutely clear – a dilution of 1 in 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, 000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.

“To phrase that in the Society of Homeopaths’ terms, we should say: “30C contains less than one part per million million million million million million million million million million of the original substance.”

“At a homeopathic dilution of 100C, which they sell routinely, and which homeopaths claim is even more powerful than 30C, the treating substance is diluted by more than the total number of atoms in the universe. Homeopathy was invented before we knew what atoms were, or how many there are, or how big they are. It has not changed its belief system in light of this information.”

Basically, aside from placebo effect, there is no physical way such pills can create a physiological change in your body.

The poor chap who contracted malaria admits he was "a bit of an idiot". Perhaps he's not entirely to blame, because in the UK a culture of acceptance exists for this ridiculous quackery. Licensed pharamacies are peddling homeopathic products (including Boots). They're also available on the NHS (paid for by your taxes!). Looked at objectively, it seems completely insane that a treatment that's so obviously unscientific is still being accepted and practiced. Perhaps GPs should be prescribing leeches, or prayers instead?

If you want to personally believe in homeopathy, and fill yourself up with sugar pills, be my guest. But in purveying this culture of acceptance of something that cannot prevent or cure an illness, we are risking the health of real people. Of course there are companies making these tablets because there's a market for them. And there's so much fear, uncertainty and doubt put about in the papers about science, medicine, and especially vaccines, that some parents feel they have to consider alternatives. Cynically peddling homeopathic treatments actively endangers lives.

There was a glimmer of hope towards ending this madness last February when the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee published a report urging the withdrawal of funding from the NHS and licensing from the MHRA (Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency) of homeopathy. Following an extensive inquiry the committee concluded that there was absolutely no evidence of the efficacy of homeopathy and so it should no longer be funded by the NHS, and also that as it was "not a medicine" it should not be licensed by the MHRA. The report was endorsed by doctors attending the British Medical Association (BMA) annual conference, who said homeopathic remedies should be banned on the NHS and taken off pharmacy shelves where they are sold as medicines.

What was the result of this report? Health minister (at that time) Anne Milton said complementary and alternative medicine "has a long tradition" and very vocal people both in favour of it and against it. In other words, politicians don't go around making decisions based on evidence, just in case we offend some part of the voting public. The report was filed and nothing changed. Homeopathy is still available on the NHS, or on the shelves of your local Boots store.

It's worrying that a supposedly modern democratic government can be so on the fence about evidence based science, especially concerning medicine. As a group of experts that can analyse facts and produce unbiased reports, it's a wonder the Science and Technology Committee hasn't been disbanded yet by the new coalition.

Sources: Daily Telegraph 26/7/2010 and Bad Science. Do yourself a favour and buy Ben's book if you haven't already.