British Homeopathic Association

British Homeopathic Association (BHA) is a British charity founded in 1902 to promote homeopathy, and advocate for its training and research. The BHA seeks to encourage the use of homeopathy within general and specialist healthcare, and provides a listing of homeopathic practitioners. From 1902, the BHA co-sponsored the Missionary School of Medicine, a school of medicine for medical missionaries. The charity also campaigns for more homeopathy in Britain's National Health Service (NHS).[1]

Homeopathy is a form of alternative medicine in which practitioners claim to treat patients using highly diluted[2][3] preparations that are believed to cause healthy people to exhibit symptoms that are similar to those exhibited by the patient.

The BHA have been accused of misrepresenting evidence submitted to the House Of Commons Evidence Check On Homeopathy.[4] Analysis of the evidence submitted by the British Homeopathic Association contains many examples of quote mining, where the conclusions of scientific papers were selectively quoted to make them appear to support the efficacy of homeopathic treatment. For example, one paper's conclusion was reported as "There is some evidence that homeopathic treatments are more effective than placebo" without the immediately following caveat "however, the strength of this evidence is low because of the low methodological quality of the trials. Studies of high methodological quality were more likely to be negative than the lower quality studies."[4][5]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Kayne, Steven B. (2006). Homeopathic pharmacy: theory and practice. Elsevier Health Sciences. pp. 62–63. ISBN 978-0-443-10160-1.
  2. ↑ Ernst, E. (2002), "A systematic review of systematic reviews of homeopathy", British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology 54 (6): 577–82, doi:10.1046/j.1365-2125.2002.01699.x, PMC 1874503, PMID 12492603
  3. ↑ UK Parliamentary Committee Science and Technology Committee - "Evidence Check 2: Homeopathy"
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Robbins, Martin (05-02-2010). "Homeopathic association misrepresented evidence to MPs | Martin Robbins | Science | guardian.co.uk". Guardian. Retrieved 2012-08-18. Check date values in: |date= (help)
  5. ↑ My Response to the British Homeopathic Association, Martin Robbins, The Lay Scientist, February 9, 2010

External links