Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Australian Homeopathy [Essential to Oz Naturopathy] is Unethical via NHMRC - Sydney Morning Herald 2012

here, I cite from recent reporting regarding homeopathy and Australia's National Health and Medical Research Council:

001. the Sydney Morning Herald's Julia Medew reports in "Draft Finding Labels Homeopathy Unethical" (2012-03-14) [saved 2012-03-13]:

"Australia's National Health and Medical Research Council [...] draft public statement concluded it was 'unethical for health practitioners to treat patients using homeopathy, for the reason that homeopathy (as a medicine or procedure) has been shown not to be efficacious' [...] although homeopathy was not harmful in its own [...it] pose[s] a risk to patients if safe and efficacious conventional treatments were delayed in favor of homeopathic treatments [...the findings are] based on a 2010 evaluation of homeopathy by the British House of Commons Science and Technology Committee, which declared it was no more efficacious than a placebo [...declaring] its principles were 'theoretically weak' and 'scientifically implausible' [...] the president of the Australian Medical Association, Steve Hambleton, backed the council's draft statement [...] he hoped it would force health insurers to reconsider their funding of homeopathy, as well as other 'questionable' therapies such as iridology and reflexology [...yet] the president of the Australian Homeopathic Association, Greg Cope, said there was strong evidence to support the practice."

Note: the three therapies mentioned, homeopathy, iridology, and reflexology are FUNDAMENTAL to Australian naturopathy.  E.g., a quick web search leads to this link hosted by the "Guild of Naturopathic Iridologists International".  I would argue that the idea that 'anything is scientifically supported' is quite a naturopathillogical trait: what other supposed profession throws science, supernaturalism, the science-ejected, the science-exterior all together overall yet labels it all "scientifically grounded"? 

No comments: