[bpsdb] Guest post by British doctor DeeTee. See more by DeeTee here.

Recently, Voice of Young Science wrote an open letter to the WHO appealing for an end to the promotion and use of homeopathy for life threatening infections such as HIV, malaria and tuberculosis in developing countries. This is an appeal that is close to my heart. When I worked in Africa I saw how detrimental ineffective traditional and “alternative” forms of medicine could be, and how easily people could come to rely on totally inappropriate services for their health care. I remember one distressing case where a parent insisted on taking his small child out of the local hospital where I worked in order for the traditional healer to administer “muti” (a form of traditional medicine often made from herbs or occasionally human body parts). The child was suffering from meningitis, which was eminently treatable with antibiotics. He was brought back to us moribund the next day, when he died.

It is not hard to understand the desire of people to use local traditional healers to treat medical complaints, and we always had to be sensitive to this issue. It has been the cultural norm in most parts of the world, and one of the challenges developing countries face is in integrating a system of more modern, evidence-based “westernised” medicine without alienating local practitioners who often provide a very valuable service where resources are limited. In some parts of Africa, colonially-imposed medical services are in now rapid decline (Zimbabwe, anyone?) and many people who had come to rely on decent health care have now been left with nothing, not even the fallback of a traditional healer who might administer simple treatments and herbal remedies.

However, there was an even more disturbing example of how pernicious the influence of supposed “do-gooders” can be. One rainy season, I saw a woman who was brought to us by her husband, having travelled for 24 hours by donkey cart through the bush. Her family could not afford to get the bus, as they had spent what little money they had buying remedies from a man in the village who had set up a “health store” peddling vitamins and supplements. He had recently moved to the rural areas from the capital, had brought a lot of fancy adverts to put on the wall of his store, which was viewed by the villagers as some sort of pharmacy. For 2 days the family had patiently watched the woman deteriorate as she became increasingly confused and delirious with cerebral malaria, but they did nothing as they had received assurances from the snake oil salesman that the “treatments” would work. She didn’t survive either. I dread to think how many other families had suffered a similar fate at his hands. Perhaps his intentions were honourable, and he thought he was helping the local community, but as long as his store with all its glossy adverts for the latest vitamins remained open, the risk that sick people could be confused and deluded by the hope of a miracle cure must have remained immense. There could hardly be a clearer example of the harm that can be done by undermining the reliance and faith in proper medical care. Well at least until the homeopaths came along there couldn’t.

The homeopaths have arrived in Africa, like Johnny-come-lately neo-colonialists landing in a virgin continent ripe for homeopathic exploitation. I am sure they mean well. Visible to everyone is the desperate need for health care, particularly for the infections such as AIDS, TB and malaria. Over 5000 die from AIDS and another 5000 die from malaria every day. What health service provision there is seems unable to cope. But the homeopaths think they can provide it with their useless nostrums, for which there is not a jot of decent evidence. One can admire their enthusiasm and altruism, but they are not bringing enlightenment, health, wisdom nor self-reliance with their schools of homeopathy and their satellite health clinics staffed with cheery homeopaths dispensing exotic-sounding remedies. All they are doing is undermining the efforts to provide proper evidence-based health care to the communities afflicted with these devastating diseases. They are acting just like the vitamin salesman in his village health store in my tale above, but just on a grander and far more damaging scale. I find it very depressing to see homeopaths talk of setting up research studies for these diseases, something that flies in the face of ethics and that contravenes the principles enshrined in the Declaration of Helsinki. It is also saddening to see appeals from the homeopaths for aid donors to sponsor their efforts, and I wonder how much money has already been wasted which could otherwise have made a real difference.

Communities in Africa do not need money for creating schools of homeopathy. They need funding for things like HIV educational initiatives, training for health care workers and laboratory technicians, building and running health clinics, antenatal and sexual health services, provision of condoms and insecticide impregnated bed nets, reliable and safe water supplies and sewerage. In Africa there are numerous charitable aid agencies and other NGOs working alongside Governmental agencies trying to provide crucial health care to areas that desperately need it. Communities don’t need homeopathy, in any of its guises, and this is why I support Voice of Young Science in bringing the issue to the attention of those who may be in a position to do something about it.

In a day or two, homeopaths will be gathering in the Netherlands for a conference about “Homeopathy in Developing Countries”. Their conference programme is filled with sessions devoted to matters such as the treatment of malaria with homeopathic remedy kits, and they talk of “an expansive vision” for the role of their clinics in places like Ghana. They will talk of the “Amma4Africa” concept, and how to use “PC resonance” which apparently is “a special non-physical thought form device used to synthesise the information about the disease based on the core essence and psychological and physical information (the totality or essence) that crystallises this into one pattern totality.” This can then be used to “free the symptoms of AIDS” or “fully heal” malaria. (You can apparently also download these “resonances” onto an mp3 music player and listen to it to get the healing effect, but that is another story).

This is all dangerous, deranged, pseudoscientific gobbledygook, and has no place in the care of patients with malaria or HIV, never mind any other disease. We must do all we can to ensure the homeopaths get the message that there is no place for their deluded nonsense, particularly in the developing world.

Further Reading At:
Sense About Science

The Guardian

The Times

Quackometer

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