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WELCOME! to the web-site of ECCH, the representative platform for the homeopathy profession in Europe made up of 26 member professional associations in 22 EU, EEA and CEE countries.
More introductory information about ECCH is available under the Public Services section of this site.
To find a list of national professional associations throughout Europe click on ECCH Members.
Latest News:
6 May
Homeopathy found to be 'as effective' as standard care for ezcema
Homeopathy is as effective as conventional therapy in children with eczema, concludes the first prospective cohort study to compare the treatments. The German study in 118 children with eczema found conventional treatment by GPs was equally as effective as homeopathic treatment in relieving symptoms and improving quality of life.
To view a copy of the paper on this study and to download a copy of it go to:
Eczema Trial
26 April
UK Campaign Against Homeoopathy Continues Unabated
Led by the erstwhile Professor Ernst of the Peninsula Medical School in Exeter 'the UK's first professor of complementary medicine' (less we need reminding!) the attacks on homeopathy in the UK go on unabated. For 200 years homeopathy has suffered the slings and arrows of the conventional medical establishment and Professor Ernst and his sceptic colleagues are keeping up the tradition.His most recent attack comes within the context of a book he has co-authored with another sceptic Dr (PhD) Simon Singh called 'Trick or Treatment'. A clever title but even cleverer has been their well orchestrated publicity campaign to sell the book which has seen a plethora of articles in most UK papers, an interview in the New Scientist, appearances on radio and television etc. And their best trick is that they have dedicated the book to the Prince of Wales and headlined their publicity campaign with a call for two publications on CAM from the Prince's Foundation for Integrated Health' to be withdrawn. No better way to get attention than to go for the Prince of Wales! One thing that is clear about Prof. Ernst - he loves publicity and has perfected the art of getting it.While directly accusing homeopaths and other CAM practitioners of being liars in his New Scientist interview he actually tells a few lies himself. One example is his assertion over the evidence base for homeopathy. The author of some fairly low quality trials himself (he stopped doing trials some years ago, far easier to sit back and criticise other people's) he maintains that the overall trial quality in the evidence base of homeopathy is low, but then nonetheless goes on to use it to mount his assertion that there is no evidence for homeopathy's effectiveness. This assertion is simply untrue. There are many trials showing evidence for its effectiveness together with others which do not. It is common in research that some trials yield postive results and others negative. This is why meta-analyses and literature reviews are carried out. Eight out of nine meta-analyses and literature reviews have shown homeopathy to have an effect. (A paper listing the positive trials can be found at the end of this article.)Of course more higher methodological quality research is needed. One reason the 'UK's first professor of CAM' has been such a disappointment to CAM researchers is that he has offered nothing in the way of constructive advice to researchers on improving methodology, surely something such a professorial chair should have done, but has just taken the lazy way out of criticising others' work.Ernst and his sceptic friends are stuck in the bio-chemical model of understanding how living beings function. Homeopathy is clearly NOT functioning according to that model but at an overall organisational level acting through the bio-energetic field which surrounds and permeates each living being. When the organising life-force leaves the human body at death the structural chemical body of the dead person immediately begins to decline into chaos and decay. Conventional medicine attempts to manage the chemical body with drugs and correct the faults in the structural body with surgery. Homeopathy attempts to regulate and restore balance to the living system at the energetic organisational level. For two hundred years homeopathy has been successfully treating people at this level. Fortunately other branches of science are now catching up with homeopathy and the mechansism of action of potentised medicines will soon be explained, hopefully within Professor Ernst's lifetime.
positive homeopathy research and surveys march 2007.pdf
6 April
European Homeopathy Day kicks off World Homeopathy Awareness Week (WHAW)
On the 10th April, the birthdate of homeopathy's founder Samuel Hahnemann, the first European Homeopathy Day will be celebrated with a special event in Brussels, Belgium. The celebration will be held at Saxony House, in Brussels in recognition of the birthplace of Samuel Hahnemann. The event will be attended by a number of MEPs and other EU officials together with European representatives of the homeopathic and anthroposophic medicines industry and the associated professional groupings. ECCH will be represented by General Secretary Stephen Gordon. Following some short presentations on the history of homeopathy and homeopathy research there will be a reception.
It is planned to make European Homeopathy Day a regular annual event, and one that will be celebrated right across Europe 2009. Each year it will mark the beginning of World Homeopathy Awareness Week (WHAW) which is now in its 4th year of activity.
S. Hahnemann For information on WHAW: http://www.worldhomeopathy.org
2 April
Last Call For Papers for Australian 'Evidence and Efficacy' Conference
The Australian Homeopathic Association (AHA) invites submissions for original presentations on the theme ‘homoeopathy: evidence and efficacy’ for their forthcoming conference on 12-14 September in Sydney Australia. They invite submissions based on clinical experiences and scientifically conducted trials from Australia and beyond. The last date for submissions is 18 April 2008.
Submission guidelines Bondi Beach, Sydney If you are interested in presenting a paper or a workshop at the conference, please forward your abstract no later than 18th April 2008. All abstract submissions must adhere to the guidelines which can be found on http://www.homeopathynsw.org or contact the Conference Office.
· Conference Office: Think Business Events
· Level 1, 299 Elizabeth St, Sydney NSW 2000
· Phone: + 61 2 8251 0045
· Fax: + 61 2 8251 0097
· Email: ahmc08@thinkbusinessevents.com.au
For more information on the conference as a whole please go to the web-site: http://www.homeopathynsw.org
28 February
Cracks in the Glass House
Over the past year homeopathy has come under a sustained attack from a small coterie of conventional medical sceptics in the UK. Implicit in their writings is that all is well with conventional medicine and that all treatments currently being used are evidence based and effective. Now the publishing of a meta-analysis on anti-depressants in the respected Public Library of Science- Medicine journal (1) reveals a large crack in their supposition. The paper reveals some telling facts about the ineffective role of antidepressants in treating depression and about the behaviour of the industry that produces and promotes these products.
The anti-depressants covered were fluoxetine, venlafaxine, nefazodone, paroxetine, sertraline, and citalopram, the six most widely prescribed antidepressants and represent all but one of the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs). The meta-analysis included not just published trials but also unpublished trials submitted to the Federal Drug Agency of the USA, which, under the Freedom of Information Act, was obliged to make the information available. While meta-analysis of the published trials showed a benefits that are statistically significant, but of marginal clinical significance, when data-sets including unpublished trials were included the analysis revealed smaller effects that fall well below recommended criteria for clinical effectiveness.
In the paper the authors write: 'Conventional meta-analyses are often limited to published data. In the case of antidepressant medication, this limitation has been found to result in considerable reporting bias characterized by multiple publication, selective publication, and selective reporting in studies sponsored by pharmaceutical companies.'
The Editor of the PLOS Journal concludes "Given these results, the researchers conclude that there is little reason to prescribe new-generation antidepressant medications to any but the most severely depressed patients unless alternative treatments have been ineffective. In addition, the finding that extremely depressed patients are less responsive to placebo than less severely depressed patients but have similar responses to antidepressants is a potentially important insight into how patients with depression respond to antidepressants and placebos that should be investigated further.'
What this study does not go in to is the side effects of SSRIs which are many among them being gastro-intestinal effects, cardiovascular effects and depressive tendencies including an increased risk of suicidal thoughts and suicidal acts.
Homeopathic treatment provides an holistic alternative to conventional anti-depressants for the treatment of depression combining as it is does a long exploratory case-taking with each patient which will have some measure of placebo effect, lifestyle advice from the practitioner to help the patient manage and improve their depression and the prescription of homeopathic medicines which assist in restoring the patient to health, not just aiming, ineffectively, at chemically controlling their depression.
It will be interesting to see what homeopathy's UK sceptics Messrs Baum, Ernst, Goldacre and Colquhoun will make of this new research. Given SSRIs' lack of clinical effectiveness over placebo will they be calling for the NHS to stop spending hundreds of millions of pounds in providing them for patients? We doubt it, but the glass house from within which they throw their stones has one more large crack running through it.
(1) http://medicine.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10.1371/journal.pmed.0050045
16 January 2008
Homeopathic Treatment Seems to Offer a Viable Alternative to the Potential Risks of Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) for the Treatment of Menopausal ProblemsA new study published this week adds to the growing body of evidence showing homeopathic treatment to be potentially effective in the treatment of the menopausal problems of women. Meanwhile there is growing controversy surrounding the use of Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) with recent research linking it with increased risk of certain types of cancer, cardiovascular disease and strokes (1,2). The latest volume of the journal 'Homeopathy' contains a study showing the potential benefit of homeopathy in the treatment of hot flushes (3). This study builds on earlier studies (4, 5, 6, 7) which also show potential positive benefit of homeopathic treatment for menopausal women. While the debate on how homeopathy may work continues, the increasing research evidence that it is helpful in an area such as the menopause where conventonal treatment would appear to hold some rsks should make homeopathic treatment a first option for consideration by women and their health professionals seeking help in this area. 1) BMJ 2007;335:239 (4 August), doi:10.1136/bmj.39266.425069.AD (published 11 July 2007) Research
Main morbidities recorded in the women's international study of long
duration oestrogen after menopause (WISDOM): a randomised controlled
trial of hormone replacement therapy in postmenopausal women.
2) Christopher Li et al. Relationship between menopausal hormone therapy and risk of ductal, lobular, and ductal-lobular breast carcinomas Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers and Prevention, January 20083) MF
Bordet1, et al. Treating hot flushes in menopausal women with
homeopathic treatment–Results of an observational study Homeopathy
Volume 97, Issue 1, January 2008, Pages 10-15
Homeopathic treatment of hot flushes
4) Relton C, Weatherley-Jones E. Homeopathy Service in a National Health Service community menopause clinic: audit of clinical outcomes. Journal of the British Menopause Society, Vol. 11, No. 2, June 2005.5) Thomas KJ, Luff D, Strong P. Complementary Medicine Service in a Community Clinic for Patients with Symptoms Associated with the Menopause: Outcome and Service Evaluation. ScHARR, University of Sheffield, 2001.6) Clover A, Ratsey D. Homeopathic treatment of hot flushes: a pilot study. Homeopathy 2002;91:75-9.7) Thompson EA, Reilly D. The homeopathic approach to the treatment of symptoms of oestrogen withdrawal in breast cancer patients. A prospective observational study. Homeopathy. 2003 Jul;92(3):131-4.
December
ECCH's December Newsletter
ecch news december 2007.pdf
For news items from previous months go to the main menu News section.
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