Scientific Standards in Homeopathy Research: Context is Everything

In certain countries, homeopathy continues to be a controversial topic, with ongoing debate regarding the quality and status of scientific research in the field. In March 2022, this debate was fuelled by an article in BMJ Evidence Based Medicine entitled, ‘Assessing the magnitude of reporting bias in trials of homeopathy’. This study by Gartlehner et al. claims that benefits of homeopathy may have been over-estimated due to high levels of reporting bias.

Gartlehner et al focused on two key aspects of reporting bias: “publication bias’ (failure to publish a study with unfavorable findings) and “selective outcome reporting’ (changing the primary outcome from that stated in the protocol to give a more favourable result).

According to Gartlehner et al, 38% of registered trials in homeopathy remained unpublished and 25% of registered and published trials contained inconsistencies in primary outcomes, showing a “concerning lack of scientific and ethical standards in the field.”

Yet, a thorough critique reveals significant concerns regarding the accuracy and reliability of these findings, and a fundamental failure to present them in sufficient context to be interpreted appropriately.

Since reporting bias is well-known to affect all areas of medical research, context is everything. In conventional medicine, studies have shown that almost half (range: 23.6% to 83%) of registered trials do not publish their results on-time, and inconsistencies in primary outcomes occurs in about a third of trials (range: 13 to 43%). Therefore, according to Gartlehner et al’s data, homeopathy compares well to conventional medical research in terms of reporting bias.

In this presentation we will show how Gartlehner et al. were able to ‘spin’ their results into a strongly negative narrative, demonstrating that, contrary to these authors’ claims, the clinical evidence base in homeopathy does not need any more “cautious interpretation” than other fields of medicine.

Keywords: Reporting, trials, registration, standards, bias

Publication History

Article published online:
30 January 2024