Flaws in Lancet anti-homeopathy study identified

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Background: A “meta-analysis” of selected studies of homeopathy’s effectiveness published in the British medical journal The Lancet in August 2005 concluded that any effect from homeopathy was comparable to the placebo effect. The article dealt an enormous blow to homeopathy in Britain and around the world, as it has been cited as justification for discrediting homeopathy entirely.

Now, two new scientific studies of the same evidence conclude that The Lancet review was seriously flawed.

George Lewith, Professor of Health Research at Southampton University, comments: “The review gave no indication of which trials were analyzed nor of the various vital assumptions made about the data. This is not usual scientific practice. If we presume that homeopathy works for some conditions but not others, or change the definition of a ‘larger trial,’ the conclusions change. This indicates a fundamental weakness in the conclusions: they are NOT reliable.”

The Lancet study has been charged with bias previously, but the new studies are based on a full reconstruction of its methods and data. The authors note that the limited number of homeopathic studies makes selective interpretation less valid and cite the desperate need for further clinical studies of homeopathy.

The new studies appeared in October 2008 in The Journal of Clinical Epidemiology 2008; 61(10) and Homeopathy 2008; 97(4).

—reported in Eurekalert, November 3, 2008