WHO are You?
I thought that this article was interesting in light of the Daniel Hauser case that was attracting media attention a couple of weeks ago.
A consortium of British scientists are asking the World Health Organization (WHO) to condemn homeopathic treatment options for certain serious diseases like AIDS. Their argument is that purveyors of homeopathic medical solutions confuse the issue of treatment - particularly in Third World areas - by leading people to think that allopathic treatments may not be the only option for dealing with a disease.
I have concerns about a move like this. I haven't been able to find a full-text original of the actual letter. Apparently there are five conditions that the scientists wish the WHO to declare are not curable by homeopathic means. The five are, AIDS, TB, malaria, infant diarreah, and influenza. The rationale is that either a cure is shown to work, or it does not. If a homeopathic treatment cannot prove itself to work, it should not be considered a treatment, and should be condemned by the WHO.
Key concerns I have:
- There don't appear to be any stipulations about where this WHO rejection of homeopathy would apply and where it wouldn't. The examples cited in related articles all point to developing nations as the concern, but would the same standards also be applied in a developed nation? If so, what are the implications? If not, why?
- What is the standard of proof that is expected? Peer reviewed, double-blind tests? Is this a reasonable standard, just because it's the one that the allopathic community has developed and generally subscribes to for itself?
- Does the rejection of a non-allopathic treatment reduce the funding and incentive to seek alternative forms of treatment or cure? Does this leave the allopathic community as the One True Voice on matters of health and healing, and are we comfortable with that?
- How is homeopathy defined? Is it any non-drug, non-allopathic course of treatment? Is the WHO - or anyone else, for that matter - in a position to definitively state that across the board, no homeopathic treatments are effective against these five conditions?
- Why these specific conditions? Could more conditions be added to the list? Why or why not?
- I find it interesting that a copy of the actual letter does not seem to be available (at least via Googling or through any of the secondary reports on the letter).
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