The Sunday Times
November 29, 2009
However they sugar it, you’re swallowing a delusion
Daisy Goodwin
In 1796 a German physician called Samuel Hahnemann noticed that if he ate the bark of the cinchona tree, he started to get malaria-like symptoms. Through some convoluted leap of logic he came up with a notion of cure through similarity and started treating malaria-afflicted patients with heavily diluted preparations which he thought caused effects similar to the symptoms presented.
Confused? Welcome to the baffling world of homeopathy. If, for example, you were suffering from stomach gripes similar to the effects of arsenic poisoning, Hahnemann would have treated you with a heavily diluted solution of arsenic. Luckily Hahnemann had signed up to the Hippocratic oath, so he diluted his preparations until almost no trace of the original element remained.
Nobody died from taking homeopathic medicine, which is why homeopathy continues to flourish while other more dangerous medical practices from the late 18th century such as blood-letting and the use of Venice treacle — a concoction of opium, myrrh and viper flesh used as a painkiller — have fallen by the wayside.
The royal family take homeopathic remedies; there are even homeopathic hospitals available on the National Health Service. I have intelligent friends (make that ex-friends) who have spent much money and time training to be homeopaths. All this, but there’s not a shred of serious scientific evidence that homeopathy has any therapeutic value.
Last week Paul Bennett, the director of professional standards at Boots, the chemist, confirmed to a House of Commons committee that homeopathic pills and potions don’t work. “There is certainly a consumer demand for these products,” he said. “I have no evidence to suggest they are efficacious.”
He defended the chain’s decision to stock homeopathic remedies by saying: “It is about consumer choice for us and a large number of our customers believe they are efficacious.” In other words, Boots sees no reason to stop selling a line of products of no proven value when there are still consumers (gullible mugs) prepared to buy it.
It seems unlikely that Bennett will bring about a Ratner-type collapse in the homeopathic trade — Gerald Ratner, if you recall, described a sherry decanter he sold in his chain of jewellery shops as “total crap” and £500m was wiped from the company’s value. People who consult homeopaths or who buy from Boots a phial of, say, Pulsatilla pillules for £5.10 have already made up their minds that homeopathy is worth a try and no lack of “efficacy” is going to stop them.
It might be worth noting here that according to the homeopathic “repertory”: “Pulsatilla is typically suited for mild, gentle and timid women and children with blonde hair and blue eyes. Pulsatilla patients are generally sympathetic, weepy, sensitive, easily offended, depressed, shy, introspective, and anxious. The patient desires affection and the company of others and is often fearful of being alone, of the dark, or in a crowd.”
It feels almost churlish to point out to those poor weepy blue-eyed blondes, with their trembling lower lips, that they could save £5.10 and make their own pillules with sugar and water, as the phial of 30c Pulsatilla contains no pharmacologically active molecules.
That’s not to say that taking homeopathic remedies doesn’t make people feel better. Clearly the world is full of nervous blondes who feel great once they are given a medicine precisely tailored to their hair colouring. But there is no evidence as yet to prove that homeopathic remedies are any more effective than placebo.
One reason people like going to homeopaths is that they spend an hour filling in a detailed questionnaire about every aspect of their physical health and personality, trying to determine which remedy will suit them best. Chances are that the people consulting homeopaths have nothing urgently wrong with them (otherwise they would go and see a real doctor) but have magnified versions of what GPs call “finger aches”: Tatt (“tired all the time”), sleeplessness, mild stomach aches and limb pain. The conventional doctor can do nothing for them and might even be a wee bit impatient, but the nice, sympathetic homeopath who has plenty of intriguing questions — “Do you crave butter but feel repulsed by bread?” — and who gives them pillules to put under their tongue “without touching with their fingers” (what are the pillules made of, fairy dust?) makes them feel a whole lot better.
For while there is no evidence in the scientific efficacy of homeopathy, there is plenty for the power of placebo, whether it’s taking a sugar pill or talking to a sympathetic person with lots of questions about what ails you.
Harvard medical school did a study last year to test how much we respond to the way we are treated. The study focused on irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), a painful disorder that costs more than £25 billion a year worldwide to treat. The volunteers were divided into three groups. One group was put on a waiting list; researchers know that some patients get better just because they sign up for a trial. Another group received placebo treatment from a sham clinician who declined to engage in small talk. Volunteers in the third group got the same sham treatment from a clinician who asked them questions about symptoms, outlined the causes of IBS and displayed optimism about their condition.
Not surprisingly, the health of those in the third group improved the most. In fact, just by participating in the trial, volunteers in this high-interaction group got as much relief as did people taking the two leading prescription drugs for IBS. So spending time with a sympathetic person in a white coat and taking a sugar pill make you feel just as good as taking a drug. And that’s why homeopathy appears to work.
Perhaps it doesn’t matter that Boots is making money selling sugar pills at a vast profit, or that homeopaths charge £30-£60 a consultation. If people feel better, that’s all that counts, isn’t it?
Call me a killjoy but I think that widespread delusion is never a good thing, even if it comes with a royal warrant.
+ Keen readers of this newspaper will know that I complained last week to the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) about L'Oréal using Cheryl Cole, who has a full head of acrylic hair extensions, to advertise the restorative properties of Elvive shampoo.
Hair extensions, for the non-Wags among you, cannot be washed with normal shampoo. The ASA knocked me back, pointing to a two-second disclaimer admitting that Cole’s hair was styled with some “natural” hair extensions.
Since then there has been much media coverage of the ethics of using a woman who has enough fishing line woven into her hair to net the last remaining cod shoals in the North Sea to promote shampoo, but the advertisements are still running and L'Oréal has not commented.
If, like me, you would like to protest against being treated like a halfwit by the dark forces of big hair, then why not join the campaign for hair justice at
www.justgiving.com/daisy-goodwin and donate £2.65, the price of a bottle of Elvive, to the Little Princess Trust, which gives real-hair wigs to children who have lost their hair because of cancer treatment or alopecia.
For the price of 100 bottles of Elvive, a child who has been through hell can have the chance, in the words of the L’Oréal slogan, to get their hair mojo back.
