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Thursday 5 April 2018

Patients love Homeopathy! Big Pharma, the Conventional Medical Monopoly, and the NHS hate it!

Patients love homeopathy, when they are able to access it. This has been demonstrated over and over again in clinical outcome trials, and observational studies, conducted around the world. In these patients were asked whether they enjoyed and/or benefitted from the experience of being treated with homeopathy for their illness. Here are just a few of the studies.

2000. Carlisle, Cumbria
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.518.4702&rep=rep1&type=pdf
An  audit  was  conducted  of  829  consecutive  patients  presenting  for  homeopathic treatment  of  a  chronic  illness,  conventional  treatment  had  either  failed,  plateaued  in effect, or was contraindicated by adverse effects, age or condition of the patient. Of  the  829  patients,  503  (61%)  had  a  sustained  improvement  from  homeopathic treatment, of these:
  • 357 patients (43%) had an excellent response;
  • 146 patients (18%) had a good response;
  • 6 patients (0.8%) became worse.
2001. Liverpool, England
An Outcome Survey carried out at Liverpool Regional Department of Homoeopathic Medicine between 1 June 1999 and 31 May 2000. If found that overall 76.6% of patients reported an improvement in their conditions since starting homeopathic treatment, while 60.3% scored +2,+3 or +4 on the scoring system used. 52% of patients were able to reduce their conventional medication.

2005. Bristol Homeopathic Hospital, England
https://www.britishhomeopathic.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/JACM_11_5_p793-798.pdf
The aim of this study was to assess health changes seen in routine homeopathic care for patients
with a wide range of chronic conditions . It was was a 6-year outpatient study. Over 70% of patients with chronic diseases, often of many years duration, said they had improved with the homeopathic treatment. 6,544 patients were involved in the study and 70.7% reported positive health changes with 50.7% recording their improvement as better or much better.

2005. Sheffield, England
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15970019
Sheffield's National Health Service community menopause clinic ran a homeopathy service from 1998. The service provided alternative treatment option for those women who cannot take hormone replacement therapy (HRT), did not want it, found it ineffective, or were advised to stop it. Patients received homeopathic treatment for up to six sessions, and patients referred between 2001 and 2003 were involved in this study. Patients reported 'significant benefit' from the service, with the greatest benefit seen in patients reporting headaches, vasomotor symptoms, emotional/psychological symptoms and tiredness/fatigue as their primary symptoms.

2005. Norway
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15751329
The purpose of this study was to evaluate the patient reported effects of homeopathic care 6 months after first consultations. It found that 7 out of 10 patients visiting a Norwegian homeopath reported "a meaningful improvement" in their main complaint 6 months after the initial consultation.

2006. UK NHS Research
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17015190
Over a 6 month period, 14 homeopathic physicians collected clinical and outcomes data in their practice setting. Almost 80% of the 958 patients who had two or more appointments reported  a 'positive outcome'.

2008. Germany and Switzerland
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2630323/
In a multi-centre study, information was collected from 3,079 first-time patients from 103 different centres across Germany and Switzerland. The patients were observed over an 8 year period, and it was found that
  • On average, disease severity decreased dramatically and improvements were sustained
  • Those who were sickest at the beginning of the study often noticed the greatest improvement
  • Three in ten patients stopped treatment because of major improvement
  • Mental and physical quality of life scores increased substantially
  • Children improved more rapidly than adults
The conclusion of the study was that the findings demonstrated that patients who seek homeopathic treatment were likely to improve considerably, although this effect must not be attributed to homeopathic treatment alone, and that the effects persisted for 8 years.

2008. Switzerland
http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-6882/8/52/abstract
This study was conducted by the Swiss government. It main objective was to investigate patient satisfaction and perception of side effects in homeopathy compared with conventional care in a primary care setting. The conclusion reached was that overall patient satisfaction was significantly higher in homeopathic than in conventional care. Homeopathic treatments were perceived as a low-risk therapy with two to three times fewer side effects than conventional care

2008. Northern Ireland
http://www.australiannaturaltherapistsassociation.com.au/downloads/news/2009/SMR-Report_CAM-Pilot-Scheme.pdf
This was a study undertaken by the Northern Ireland Government following a pilot study in which patients were allowed access to a variety of CAM therapies. The study involved 713 patients and found that alternative and complementary therapies offered significant health benefits for patients, and savings in government healthcare costs. Many therapies, such as acupuncture, chiropractic, osteopathy, reflexology, massage and aromatherapy were used, but homeopathy did the best of all.

2008. British Homeopathic Hospitals
Five_hospital_study_2008.pdf
In a pilot study published in 2008, data from 1,602 follow-up patient appointments at all five NHS homeopathic hospitals were collected together over a one month period. At just their second homeopathic appointment, 34% of follow-up patients reported an improvement that affected their daily living. For patients at their sixth appointment, the corresponding improvement rate was 59%.

2011. Germany
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2958565/?tool=pubmed
This postal survey was sent to parents in 2004 in collaboration with ... the German Childhood Cancer Registry). The study included all parents in Germany with a child under the age of 15 years diagnosed in 2001 with one of the diseases registered and systematically recorded by the GCCR. The conclusion of the study was that homeopathy is the most frequently used complementary therapy in pediatric oncology in Germany, that most parents had used homeopathy before the cancer, and would further recommend homeopathy to others in a similar situation.

2012. Dorset NHS, England
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22226315
A study at the Dorset NHS Community Homeopathy Clinic led to 84% of patients experiencing an improvement in their health with 81% saying it was due to the homeopathy. A wide variety of conditions were seen, the greatest in incidence being depression, anxiety and grief. iii

2014. Lanarkshire NHS, Scotland
http://www.nhslanarkshire.org.uk/Involved/consultation/homoeopathy/Documents/NHS%20Lanarkshire%20Review%20of%20Homoeopathy%20Services%20Final%20Consultation%20Report.pdf
This was a public consultation exercise following a proposal to stop referring patients to the Glasgow Homeopathic Hospital. In response to the question “Should NHS Lanarkshire refer patients to the Centre for Integrative Care (Glasgow Homeopathic Hospital), 80.6% of the responses of nearly 6,000 people was 'Yes'. It was an overwhelming vote in support of homeopathy.

The decision, typical of the conventional medical establishment, was to stop referring patients to the Homeopathic hospital!

2018. India
https://www.homeobook.com/90-people-trust-homeopathy-imrb-international-study/
This study was conducted in Mumbai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, New Delhi and Kolkata. It found that 90% of people perceived homeopathy as a trusted form of treatment, and its usage is higher than any other form of treatment. Among homeopathy users, 91% were satisfied with the treatment and 93% were willing to recommend homeopathy to others.

And it is catching too! In March 2018, one regional Indian government, where homeopathy is offered to patients, reported that there was a rise of 50% in the number of people seeking homeopathy treatment in the past five years.

There are many, many more of these studies. Whenever it is offered, wherever it is available, patients like homeopathy, and benefit from it. Yet everywhere homeopathy is under attack, not only from the conventional medical establishment, but from the mainstream media too. Wherever public money is being spent on homeopathy within national health service provision there are moves to stop it, regardless of whether patients want it or not.

What this demonstrates is that it is only the conventional medical establishment, and the powerful pharmaceutical lobby that dislikes homeopathy, and want desperately to restrict our access to it. You don't really need to ask why, do you? They are protecting their vested interests, their dominance in national health services in Britain, the USA, Australia, and most other countries around the world.


POST SCRIPTS
2017. More evidence from this German survey. It showed that 70% of German patients were satisfied, or very satisfied, with the efficacy of homeopathy. The German population believed that health insurance companies should cover and reimburse homeopathic treatments.
 
2021. Two more studies from Germany that show the patients love homeopathy, when they give it a chance.