Wednesday 31 March 2010

Can piglets tell lies?

Millions of homeopathic patients know how effective homeopathy is because it worked for them. I am one of them. But denialists deny this evidence before their eyes. It is just placebo. It is anecdotal. It is unscientific. They can't explain how homeopathy works (their problem), so it does not work.

So what happens when 500 piglets benefit from homeopathy? Are they telling porkies? Have they been subject to the power of the placebo effect? The issue under research was e-coli diarrhoea, apparently a major problem for pig farmers. This randomised, double-blind trial (beloved of denialists) showed quite clear results. The farmer, on whose farm the research was conducted, was skeptical at first, but after the trial, he (like a growing band of farmers) is now embracing homeopathy for all his animals. So homeopathy marches on! There is a rather a long URL for this research - but you can find it by clicking here.

The study showed a significant reduction in E Coli diarrhoea, with the control group having over 6 times more diarrhoea that the homeopathy group. So not only homeopathy provide effective treatment of a major problem, the treatment is safe, and less expensive than conventional treatment.