Ernst-Singh £10,000 homeopathic challenge

[Blue Wode]

The challenge:

We challenge homeopaths to demonstrate that homeopathy is effective by showing that the Cochrane Collaboration has published a review that is strongly and conclusively positive about high dilution homeopathic remedies for any human condition.

Or, we challenge homeopaths to have such a review published within 12 months of the first publication of extracts from Trick or Treatment? (8 April, 2009).

The Prize will be £10,000 – it will be paid by Ernst and Singh out of their own pockets to the first person or persons to present such evidence.
To apply for the prize, please send by recorded delivery a hard copy of the Cochrane Review in question and any supporting information to:

Ernst & Singh
Homeopathic Challenge,
PO Box 23064,
London, W11 3GX


We will respond to your application within 28 days. More Information about the some of the terms used in the Challenge:

• Cochrane Collaboration - the world’s most independent, authoritative and respected body on judgements concerning the effectiveness of treatments.
• Strongly - an effect size similar to conventional treatment for same condition.
• Conclusively - based on a sufficiently large number (more than 5) of high quality (Jadad score of 4 or 5 with sample size over 100) randomised double blind clinical trials.

http://www.trickortreatment.com/challenge.html

The Quackometer has produced a good write-up on the challenge, including the bleatings of Lynne (‘What Doctors Don’t Tell You’ and ‘Water Intention Experiment’) McTaggart who claims that the scientific community is attempting to “use a tool of conventional medicine to study alternative medicine” and that “alternative medicine rests on a radically different theory of biology”…
http://www.quackometer.net/blog/2008/06/10000-if-you-can-show-homeopathy-works.html

For more of Ms McTaggart’s recent thoughts on homeopathy see here
http://www.zeusinfoservice.com/TruthAboutHomeopathy.html

and here:
http://www.zeusinfoservice.com/Homeopathy/HOMEOPATHYFACTSLIST.html

[Mongrel]

claims that the scientific community is attempting to “use a tool of conventional medicine to study alternative medicine” and that “alternative medicine rests on a radically different theory of biology”

a) WTF!

b) Ernst has also written a nice piece for The Royal Society of Medicine entitled "What's the point of rigorous research on complementary/alternative medicine?"

[median]

Homeopathic medicines are NOT made using only dilution.

Well that clears that up.

Dilution alone would do nothing whatsoever.

We're in agreement there.

Many homeopaths are getting tired of reading this highly inaccurate reporting in the media.

Many skeptics are getting tired of reading unsubstantiated claims

All homeopathic medicines are made by a process of dilution and SUCCUSSION (potentisation through vigorous shaking

......

Succussion brings out the formative intelligence of the substance and imprints it upon

Well that clears that up.

[Blue Wode]

After she was so scathing about him last week in the Times Higher Education Supplement…

I was dismayed to discover that Ernst is not only falling short of his job remit but the shortcomings of the measures he advocates for evaluating homoeopathy have been well documented, not only for investigating complementary and alternative medicine but for conventional medicine as well. It is rather akin to looking for electricity through a microscope and when not finding it saying it does not exist.

-snip-

There is a significant body of high-quality scientific research supporting homoeopathy, which can now be added to more than 200 years of case histories - all of which verifies homoeopathy as a valid system of medicine.

http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=26&storycode=402632&c=1

…it’s great to see Edzard Ernst in this week's supplement issuing an invitation to homeopath Michelle Shine to take up his challenge:

If Shine is so certain that homoeopathic remedies are more effective than placebos, she should prove it. In return we will give her £10,000 of our private savings…

Alternatively, homoeopaths could admit that they are not into scientific evidence and instead they might establish the "Reformed Church of Homoeopathy".

http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=26&storycode=402707&c=2

[vbloke]

As a qualified homeopath myself, I have to side with the homeopaths on this issue.

There is almost no amount of scientific evidence that is 100% watertight - every trial, every meta analysis has room for criticism; whether it's the controls in place, the size of the trial, the duration of the trial, the statistics behind the analysis of the trial. It is inside these flaws that homeopathy lives.

Homeopathy is, to borrow a phrase, a medicine of the gaps.

[filippo lippi]

I do hope you preface any statement you make with, "as a qualified homeopath." I know I would.

"Phil, what do you think of Notts' new centre forward?"

"Speaking as a qualified homeopath, I'd say thathe lacks height. He's quick and skillful etc... etc..."


I did become ordained on the web, so maybe, "as an ordained minister...." would work just as well?

[Blue Wode]

Homeopathy works so show us the money professor

As our news story elsewhere on the site shows, an NHS trial has backed homeopathy.....

-snip-

Do you think this is the proof the professor needs to show us the money?

http://www.pulsetoday.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=20&storycode=4121911

No.

[Mojo]

No.

I see that DC has commented there.

[Trinoc]

This is one of the worst pieces of journalism I have ever read. the Daily mail does better. The "study" that he alludes to in Northern Ireland was NOT a trial, but merely a a customer satisfaction survey. It asked a lot of people if they felt better after seeing the alt med people. Some said yes. There was no comparison group at all. Studies like this not only fail to tell you whether homeopathy is better than placebo, they can't even tell you whether homeopathy has a placebo effect. They aren't worth the paper they are written on. It was done to promote the interests of a commercial company which is hoping to cream of some NHS money. In any case some good trials have already been done. It doesn't work and it's about time people stopped going on and on about it.

(Edited for typos)