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Homeopathy 2018; 107(01): 045
DOI: 10.1055/s-0037-1613677
Letter to the Editor
The Faculty of Homeopathy

Proofs that Homeopathic Medicine Works: Dossier “Scientific Evidence for Homeopathy” (Revista de Homeopatia, São Paulo Homeopathic Medical Association)

Marcus Zulian Teixeira
1   School of Medicine, University of São Paulo, Technical Chamber for Homeopathy, Regional Medical Council of the State of São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil
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Publication History

31 October 2017

13 November 2017

Publication Date:
22 December 2017 (online)

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As is known, every now and then homeopathy is subjected to various attacks embodied in biased scientific publications or disdainful articles widely publicized in the media and social networks. Dismissing the studies that provide grounds for homeopathy's assumptions and therapeutics, they repeat ad nauseam variations in motifs: “There isn’t any proof that homeopathic medicine works” or “There isn't scientific evidence for homeopathy.”

In Brazil, homeopathy has been acknowledged as a medical specialty for several decades; it is available within the public health service, it is reimbursed by private insurance, and it is taught as elective in some medical schools including the most prestigious ones. However, the fact it has not yet been included as mandatory in the curriculum—and thus undergraduate students are not exposed to the peculiar principles of homeopathy and corresponding evidence—results in ignorance, doubts, and prejudice among doctors and the scientific community, which are conveyed to society at large. As English writer William Hazlitt wrote, “Prejudice is the child of ignorance.”

To clarify for doctors, researchers, health professionals, and the general population, and demystify culturally rooted dogmatic postures, the Technical Chamber for Homeopathy (TC-Homeopathy), Regional Medical Council of the State of São Paulo (CREMESP, Brazil) prepared the Special Dossier, “Scientific Evidence for Homeopathy,”[1] which is available online in Portuguese[2] and English[3] at Revista de Homeopatia, scientific journal of the São Paulo Homeopathic Medical Association (APH).

Composed of nine reviews of research on several fields of medical science (historical, social, medical education, pharmacological, basic, clinical, patient safety, and pathogenetic) and two randomized clinical trials developed by TC-Homeopathy members (http://aph.org.br/revista/index.php/aph/issue/view/42/showToc), the dossier seeks to highlight the state of the art in homeopathic research.

Against widespread bias and common opinion, the set of experimental and clinical results described in our dossier—which clearly provide sound grounds for the efficacy and safety of homeopathic therapeutics—provides indisputable evidence demonstrating that “there is proof that homeopathic medicine works.” In the words of the famous French physiologist Claude Bernard, “It is what we think we know already that often prevents us from learning.”