A Political Response to Attacks on Homeopathy in Australia

Ever since the infamous Lancet article in 2005, homeopathy has experienced sustained attacks by people and organisations aligned with the multinational pharmaceutical industry. These attacks have occurred in many countries.

In Australia, these attacks culminated in the 2015 report by the National Health & Medical Research Council (NH&MRC), Australia’s peak medical science body, which concluded that homeopathy is ineffective. The report was a mishmash of bias and questionable methodology, yet it has been used internationally to further denigrate homeopathy.

A number of groups in Australia are in the process of preparing formal procedural responses to the NH&MRC report. Hopefully positive results will appear in the coming 6 months. These groups include non-homeopaths because it is clear that the NH&MRC intends to extend its biased analysis to other natural medicine modalities.

But a new political response has recently emerged which aims to protect the future of natural medicine (including homeopathy) in Australia. A small group who believe that natural medicine needs and deserves to have direct political representation on the floor of the Australian Senate have extended a political initiative which began in 2013 to rebrand a registered political Party, rewrite the constitution and policies, and build a new website with a backend database able to accommodate hundreds of thousands of interested members and friends.

Based on the fact that there are over 40,000 natural therapists in Australia, from homeopaths to chiropractors and from herbalists to remedial therapists, and the fact that around 60% of all Australians use some form of natural medicine from health food store vitamins to professional consultations, the new Party has a genuine chance of success in the 2016 elections.

Success will depend on whether individual therapists will be apathetic, and leave it to others to stand up for their future; or whether individual therapists, including all homeopaths reading this article, will become proactive and join the new party as members or friends, and actively encourage their patients to do the same. And it will further depend on whether people who use natural medicine will be proactive and defend their freedom to choose healthcare options in the future.

The new party – the Health Australia Party – can be found at www.healthaustraliaparty.com.au

So if you wish to protect the future of homeopathy and other forms of natural medicine in Australia, and defend people’s rights to choose the forms of healthcare they wish to use, please visit the website and if you are an Australian citizen join as a member or a friend. Become an active participant, not an indifferent observer. The future of your profession and your rights to make healthcare choices is in your hands, now.