Homeopathic remedies and liver injury: Authors’ reply to central council for research in homeopathy
The CCRH authors intentionally failed to mention that the NHS has warned of adverse Homeopathy events due to toxic ingredients, which supports the study conclusions, and the rebuttal lacks scientific inquiry or rational arguments.
Abstract
We welcome the Central Council for Research in Homeopathy (CCRH) opinions on our study.[1] At the outset, their arguments are fallacious and mostly: (1) strawman in nature, “where the real subject of the argument was not addressed or refuted, but instead replaced with a false one,” and (2) cherry-picked or “suppressing evidence by pointing to individual data that seem to confirm a particular position while ignoring significant portions of related and similar data that may contradict that position.”[2] The World Health Organization (WHO) has, in fact, discussed safety issues in Homeopathy, which include toxic plant materials, chemical and heavy metal contamination, and alcohol content, all of which were directly or indirectly the cause of Hom-DILI shown with precision in our study. The WHO states that the Indian Homeopathic Pharmacopoeia and standards for manufacturing have significant deficiencies that underestimate safety, leading to clinically relevant adverse events, which our study confirmed.[3] The meta-analysis that the CCRH cites to demonstrate the safety of Homeopathic medicines is not a meta-analysis but an opinionated narration without insightful comparisons. Nonetheless, realistic metaanalyses have shown that Homeopathic-formulations were associated with severe adverse events, including organ failure and death.[4] This is due to contamination, adulteration, and use of alcohol tinctures, intentionally or unintentionally done to enhance Homeopathy, with disastrous consequences to patients, shown in our study. The CCRH authors intentionally failed to mention that the NHS has warned of adverse Homeopathy events due to toxic ingredients, which supports our study conclusions. All patients with Hom-DILI consumed formulations prescribed and dispensed by registered Homeopathic practitioners and manufactured at authorized pharmacies or by legit companies, which we have mentioned in our study. Our study was not done in haste, but with prudence, following the scientific method to diagnose Hom-DILI after excluding all competing causes. The AYUSH pharmacovigilance program is not designed to capture serious adverse events, such as Hom-DILI. It is mostly contrived for alternative medicine practitioners, is not scientifically astute, and encompasses pseudo-scientific principles that are not globally accepted or validated for identifying DILI. To conclude, the rebuttal lacks scientific inquiry or rational arguments. It aims to gaslight the readers into believing that Homeopathy is a safe practice by blaming a centuries-old alternative medical system’s failure on “malpractice of the manufacturer and practitioner” and “noncompliance of the patient.” Regardless, we demonstrate that realistic Homeopathy practice and proper compliance resulted in severe liver injury and death of some patients in our study.