So, When are we tagging Homeopathy as useless and suspend funds allocated to it?

It’s a strange question in Indian context, considering more than 77% of Indians approve the effectiveness of this medicine! It may seem like an outrageous accusation for those who haven’t kept themselves updated with recent developments in medical circles. But it is still a valid question, for lawmakers, media and medical associations of India.

Let me give you some background on this. UK MPs have urged to withdraw funding on Homeopathy and bring down all the medicine it offers, off the shelves. They have taken this stand after continuous recommendations from doctors, medical research centers, pharmacies and all other stakeholders who have authority to talk about it. As I read, it is only the Royal Family who has backed Homeopaths. Anyways, if government manages to demote it, millions of NHS funds will be redirected to something very useful.

Homeopathy is not “herbal medicine”, nor Ayurvedic, as a lot of people in India seem to think. Herbal/Ayurvedic medicines contain original ingredients which has healing power, which may or may not work. But Homeopathy starts from here and dilutes them to an extent that it hardly contains any of its original ingredients. In other words, even for a single molecule of original ingredient you need to consume tonnes your prescription. I am no doctor, but I don’t need to be one to understand something is terribly wrong here. For e.g., if I have temperature, I need some stuff which can go in and calm it, say 500 mg of paracetamol. In homeopathy they would prescribe 0.0000000ng of similar content (along with water) ; how would it do the same good?

This is just one of the complaints. There are several others. There is also an allegation that Homeopathy is never tested properly, and homeopaths never had proper answers for this. If the companies don’t test the medicine they sell, then who else is going to do that? We the victims? All available test results point that Homeopathy is no better than Placebos. That means, it may not work better than sugar pills, and the cure is purely physiological effect, for having taken some medicine. That’s cheating isn’t it? Also it’s not morally and ethically right for doctors to prescribe it.

On Indian funds read this link which says “the National Capital Territory of Delhi alone spent Rs 77 crore—or 7 per cent of its Rs 1,100 crore health budget—on homeopathy without a question being asked.”. A whopping 7 Cr is not justified, which otherwise could be spent on something very useful.

I don’t have any authority to promote it or ban it. All I have is questions and concerns. We need to reconsider this; otherwise tomorrow we may need to fund a portion of our budget for witchcraft as well.