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The Guardian: 'A misuse of scarce funds': NHS to end prescription of homeopathic remedies

Homeopathic remedies will no longer be available on prescription on the NHS according to newly-announced plans.

The move comes as part of the NHS England’s drive to save more than £190m a year through a new set of national guidelines, which are now open for public consultation.

According to the draft consultation, prescriptions for homeopathic treatments cost NHS England £92,412 in 2016, and at least £578,000 over the past five years.

Besides homeopathy, the plans highlight 17 other items that will no longer be available on prescription for reasons ranging from low clinical effectiveness to low cost-effectiveness. These include herbal medicines, Omega-3 fatty acid compounds, rubs and ointments used to relieve muscle pain known as rubefacients, and travel vaccines including hepatitis B, yellow fever and rabies that are not available on the NHS for travel, but are sometimes erroneously given.
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeand...s-to-end-prescription-of-homeopathic-remedies

I've not read any further than the linked article, but it makes me wonder if a case could be made against the NHS funding CBT & GET, due to both effectiveness and cost-effectiveness?
 
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2,391
Location
UK
If only NICE could see how well this comment maps onto ME treatments...
“Homeopathy is based on implausible assumptions and the most reliable evidence fails to show that it works beyond a placebo effect. It can cause severe harm when used as an alternative to effective treatments,” said Edzard Ernst, emeritus professor of complementary medicine at the University of Exeter. “Therefore, it is high time that the NHS stops funding it and instead employs our scarce resources on treatments that are backed by sound science.”
 
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Patient surveys suggest that patients find homeopathy more helpful than GET, and a lot less harmful:

ME Association 2010 (UK):
30% of 1100 patients reported improved symptoms after homeopathy
and 10% that homeopathy made them worse,
compared to 22% of 906 reporting improved symptoms after GET
and 57% that GET made them worse.
http://www.meassociation.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/2010-survey-report-lo-res10.pdf

Action for ME 2014 (UK):
47% reported homeopathy helpful
and 10% that homeopathy made them worse,
compared to 35% reporting GET helpful
and 47% that GET made them worse.
https://www.actionforme.org.uk/uploads/pdfs/me-time-to-deliver-survey-report.pdf
https://www.actionforme.org.uk/uploads/pdfs/me-time-to-deliver-survey-report.pdf
Homeopathy also outperformed CBT in MEA 2010 but was just pipped by CBT in Action for ME 2014.

Norway's survey by Bringsli et al is in line with the MEA 2010 results above, with homeopathy helping more and harming less than GET and CBT. http://www.me-foreningen.info/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/ME-Nat-Norwegian-Survey-Abr-Eng-Ver.pdf
 
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2,087
30% of 1100 patients reported improved symptoms after homeopathy
and 10% that homeopathy made them worse,
47% reported homeopathy helpful
and 10% that homeopathy made them worse,

What does that say?

I am surprised by this, is it placebo in action?

If GET is worse than homeopathy / placebo is that evidence that it really does cause Ill effects?
 
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48
What does that say?

I am surprised by this, is it placebo in action?

I think context is important: homeopathy still ranks very low on the list of therapies that patients report as helping them/improving their symptoms in surveys, 19th of 25 in MEA 2010 and 18th of 20 in Action for ME 2014. Much, much higher proportions of patients report things like pacing as helpful: 70-85%. And I think we have to be realistic: pacing ranks 1st or 2nd for helping/improving but we would expect a future treatment that targets the disease mechanism to result in much greater change than pacing does. So in a long list of things that don't help us very much, there may be little point in splitting hairs between those at the very end, but if surveys consistently find homeopathy more helpful than GET, then that's somewhat interesting, because of its consistency.

If GET is worse than homeopathy / placebo is that evidence that it really does cause Ill effects?

There's a question!
 

Research 1st

Severe ME, POTS & MCAS.
Messages
768
Lets think about how unexpected responses to us seasoned veterans come from who we presume are ME patients like us, yet (to us) bizarrely respond to placebo or what makes us worse helpful.

No test = havoc:

1) No one is 100% confirmed to have ME or CFS - no test.
2) Mental illness is not excluded, no test.
3) Misdiagnosis is not excluded - no test.

2 + 3 are now 'us'...... faux us, now join a support charity and start filling in questionnaires.

4)To join, you don't need to prove your have an official diagnosis. Anyone can join as a 'patient'. This wrecks the accuracy of any feedback from patient charities for therapy A,B,C,

Consequently polls are filled in, and wacky results come back. Some hate CBT, some love it, some are indifferent. We don't know who these people are, their medical history, they just claim to have ME and could be lobbyists for all we know.

No way in stopping this until Science advances, which it is thankfully, just not at NIH/CDC,