cosmosmagazine.com: Evidence-Based CAM Journal Homeo Paper Withdrawn, Lead Authors Coincidentally Arrested

here, interesting news from an area, CAM publishing, that usually tolerates all kinds of transgressions and implausibilities:

001. Andrew Masterson reports @cosmosmagazine.com, in "Homeopathy Cancer Paper Withdrawn After Arrest of Lead Authors" (2018-03-14):

"a journal paper claiming to show the success of a homeopathic treatment for cancer [...] published in the journal Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine, was retracted in late February after readers voiced concerns and a formal investigation flagged multiple ethical problems [...which resulted in] a series of awkward discoveries, including the arrest of its two lead authors [...] father and son team Aradeep and Ashim Chatterjee [...]";

hmmmmm.  Homeo working for cancer would be like flapping your arms and you're flying...quite unlikely.  And if such it did work, Nobel Prize, methinks.  And tired arms.

"the subject of the paper was 'psorinum therapy' and its use in treating stomach, gall bladder, pancreatic and liver cancers [...]";

hopefully, such inert unicorn tears were in-addition to the best modern therapies for these patients and not replacement for such.

"psorinum is a peculiar favorite of homeopaths, described as a substance 'prepared from the fluid of blisters from scabies infested skin' [...]';

this is often called a nosode in homeopathyland.  The founder of homeopathy proposed that there are miasms that are inherited that are chronic issues for people, including 'psora' or 'the itch', therein here scabies as itchy and the tissue juice / exudation I guess getting diluted for their 'like cures like' misconception.

"the lead authors of the retracted paper [...] in 2001 [...] set up a trial of cancer patients, administering the scabies-fluid, along with other homeopathic substances, and a complete absence of conventional cancer meds. This situation alone prompted readers to raise ethical questions, as did the fact that the trial did not include control or placebo inclusions. According to the science monitoring site RetractionWatch, however, matters became considerably more complicated when journal publishers Hindawi launched a formal investigation [...] Aradeep Chatterjee had been arrested for practicing medicine without the proper qualifications in June 2017. His father was reported to have also been arrested, two months later. Three of four additional authors said they did not agree with the paper’s conclusions, and the fourth did not respond [...]";

so, this is a nightmare situation: it was not a therapy in-addition to.  Reality, at times, even creeps in to effect the homeopathic.

"sadly, despite an investigation finding that the Chatterjees’ 'research' contained no credible evidence, several homeopathy outlets continue to encourage cancer patients to use psorinum to treat the disease [...]":

slightly creeps in, that is.  And we're all still waiting, for these past four decades and counting, for that "evidence" that would support CAM this and CAM that, which by definition is not part of standard healthcare because it does not have such.  A long wait for a train that refuses to arrive...