Exemplary Case Histories Under the Aspect of the Placebo-Thesis of Homeopathic Effects

Case I: Immediate Remission of an Inguinal Lymph Node Afflicted with Large-Cell B-Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma Under Sole Homeopathic Treatment with Conium

Summary

Since the preparation of clinically controlled homeopathic studies is hampered by a variety of problems, homeopathy must increasingly rely on the publication of convincing case reports. The vast majority of these individual case studies cannot invalidate the placebo thesis of homeopathy, the argument of coincidence instead of causality and the classification as an anecdotal individual case.

On the basis of cases, which indicate the mono-causality of homeopathic therapy due to close-meshed clinical diagnostics and/or immediate therapeutic successes, the proof of effectiveness for homeopathic evidence can be improved.

In countless discussions with leading figures in homeopathic criticism [1], the author of this article has tried again and again to refute the thesis that homeopathy has a placebo effect, but this turned out to be problematic in view of the poor data situation of placebo-controlled studies.

In particular, the demand for the replication of studies that found a significantly positive effect for homeopathy [2] remained unanswered. The accusation against homeopaths is also formulated polemically in the film announcement for a film critical of homeopathy [3] that was recently released in arthouse cinemas, in which the author and other protagonists were allowed to comment on all homeopathic topics:

“They studied medicine, but they treat their patients contrary to the current state of science. There is an allegation of deception.” These points of criticism were also expressed inappropriately in a film interview between the author and the director after a screening.

Why the discussions, why the homeopaths’ desire for recognition by so-called scientific medicine?

On the one hand, doubts about one’s own therapeutic actions, which, in view of the sheer “incredible” healing successes but also unmistakable failures – that afflict every self-critical homeopath from time to time, push for the confirmation that one is still on the right “healing path”.

On the other hand, homeopathy in Germany, as well as in the whole of Europe, is encountering increasing resistance, which is only partially based on supposedly rational arguments. Increasingly polemical and dishonest, skeptics are pushing for homeopathy to be eliminated from the range of medical therapies and from reimbursement by health insurance companies.

Even if the world’s most scientifically experienced expert on homeopathic data, Dr. Aust from Germany, attested to the evidence of homeopathic therapy in a moment of undogmatic honesty [4]

“In addition, you should read my statements and those of the INH again more carefully: Our statement is that there is no robust/reliable/convincing evidence of efficacy beyond placebo. So not “none” but “not meaningful”, which makes a difference in the absolute number. Just like “no beer” is different from “no good beer”. “

and even though the medical protagonist of the skeptics, Prof. Edzard Ernst, had to admit in the face of the publication of a double-blind placebo-controlled study on insomnia [5] that

See also

Nothing Else Will Do

“A new study of homeopathy suggests that highly diluted remedies are better than placebos (and I cannot fault it)” [6]

the accusation of placebo with the assumption of a sham therapy, which does not work independently and is therefore basically superfluous, remains.

Since homeopaths – as is very impressively revealed in the above mentioned film “Homeopathy unrefuted?” – fundamentally contradict each other on the one hand with regard to the laws, and on the other hand a compulsive adherence to the axioms formulated by Hahnemann in the Organon can be observed, it is not surprising that the credibility of homeopathy is increasingly suffering, especially in the technocratically oriented modern age.

Only a few attempts are made to subject the dogma-like postulated laws and recommendations for action to an internal review and to bring them into line with today’s scientific knowledge, i.e. to be open to corrections or innovations.

If one disregards the problem of internal dissent on individual procedural points of homeopathic therapy and concentrates on the consensus of all homeopaths on the essential homeopathic principle of action, the simile principle, the question arises as to how we homeopaths working at the grassroots level – who do not have university structures for placebo-controlled studies available – can contribute to the qualitative improvement of the evidence of homeopathic therapy by means of case-studies.

Under what conditions can case-studies also be used as an argument against the placebo thesis of homeopathic healing without being dismissed as an “anecdotal individual case”, a case of accidental coincidence or a case of a placebo effect mainly caused by affection?

Exemplary case 1:

The case report published by the author and co-authors in 2018 of “Immediate Remission of an Inguinal Lymph Node Afflicted with Large-Cell B-Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma Under Sole Homeopathic Treatment with Conium” [7] may make this clear.

The case offered itself for presentation by publication in a specialist journal for CAM medicine, since both the exact, conclusive diagnosis and the close monitoring of the course left no doubt about the immediately beginning and lasting healing process and little doubt about the monocausal effect of the given homeopathic remedy.

In the reported case of a 63-year-old patient with biopsy-proven involvement of a left inguinal lymph node with large-cell B non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, a clear, sonographically objectifiable reduction in size was seen immediately after the start of exclusively homeopathic therapy with Conium 30C.

In the further course of the disease, the lymph node was hardly palpable, and 2 weeks after the start of therapy, the histopathological preparation of the excised lymph node showed no remnants of the previously diagnosed large-cell diffuse B-cell lymphoma, apart from “regressive changes (result of therapy?)”.

The patient has been in complete remission since beginning the daily intake of Conium C 30 on July 18, 2018 for 2 weeks and then Conium C 200 until September 26, 2018 with regular oncological follow-up examinations without any interim indications of any recurrence . (April 2022)