Stop the nonsense: homeopathy has no place in medicine
On Thursday, more than 500 doctors will meet in Bremen for the 165th Annual Congress of Homeopathic Doctors. It’s scandalous that medical professionals still adhere to such superstitions, says DW's Fabian Schmidt.
Homeopathy is nothing but an obscure mistaken belief. It explains alleged successes in healing patients with a mystic and magic "memory of water," with ominous "energy" and "vibrations." This hocus-pocus is no more scientific than Santeria incantations by Haitian voodoo priests. Homeopathy has been clearly proven to be pharmaceutically useless in proper medical trials. Therefore, its only place is in the cabinet of horrors of historical medical and anthropological research institutions. The best would be to store homeopathy in the last corner on some dusty shelf, somewhere hidden far away behind behind Berlin's famous 19th century doctor Rudolf Virchow's pathological collections of jars with diseased body parts and organs. After all, his terrifying exhibits were part of real scientific medical research. They represent the foundation of our modern medicine. Medicine must not be arbitrary Since Virchow researched cells and his contemporary Robert Koch discovered the importance of bacteria a lot has happened: Our medical research today is focusing on the level of molecules. With the decoding of the human genome, medicine has become better and more powerful than ever before. At no point in history have humans better understood how all the various processes in the body influence each other. Never before have we known more about the functions of all those enzymes, hormones and proteins. Today, even the use of custom made molecules for individual treatment is a common practice against some cancers. It's called personalized medicine. Scientific knowledge today is precise, thorough and verifiable. That's why the medical profession must not allow medicine to be devalued by unscientific and ideologically tainted belief-systems from the Napoleonic era. There must be no place for such arbitrariness in this noble scientific discipline. Doctors need to take a stand For the sake of their own reputations, but even more for the protection of patients and customers, the medical professional organizations, universities and the research-based pharmaceutical companies must take a clear stand: homeopathy must be outlawed. It has no place in medical practices, pharmacies or serious research laboratories. The curricula of medical faculties also need to be free of these esoteric teachings. Leave the globuli - the homeopathic tablets - to those who can really use them: to historians, who are researching the errors of ancient medicine, to anthropologists who are looking into creepy superstitious rites or to the incorrigible shamans and druids. At least those self-appointed healers do not have a medical license.
Thursday
Bremen
Bremen Bremen_(state) Archbishopric_of_Bremen Bremen_Hauptbahnhof Bremen,_Georgia Bremen_(aircraft) Bremen,_Indiana Bremen,_Maine SS_Bremen_(1928) Bremen_Airport Bremen,_Alabama SV_Werder_Bremen Bremen-Verden Bremen,_Ohio Bremen_High_School_(Bremen,_Indiana) Bremen_Township,_Cook_County,_Illinois
165th Annual Congress of Homeopathic Doctors
DW
Drum_Workshop Deutsche_Welle DW-TV Defender_(association_football) Dreamworld_(Australian_theme_park) Data_warehouse Delhi_Wizards D.W._Read DW Discworld
Fabian Schmidt
Santeria
Santería Santeria_(song) Santeria_(album)
Haitian
Berlin
Berlin Humboldt_University_of_Berlin Berlin_(band) German_Open_(WTA) Berlin,_New_Hampshire Berlin_Hauptbahnhof Olympiastadion_(Berlin) Berlin,_Connecticut Berlin_International_Film_Festival Berlin,_Maryland Berlin_(Lou_Reed_album) Berlin,_New_Jersey Berlin,_Massachusetts Berlin,_Wisconsin East_Berlin Battle_of_Berlin
doctor
Rudolf Virchow
Rudolf_Virchow
Virchow
Rudolf_Virchow Virchow_(crater)
Robert Koch
Robert_Koch Robert_Koch_(film) Robert_Koch_(footballer)
Napoleonic
Napoleon Napoleonic_Wars Napoleonic_era First_French_Empire Napoleonic_Code Kingdom_of_Italy_(Napoleonic) Napoleonic_(Fabergé_egg) Grande_Armée Kingdom_of_Spain_under_Joseph_Bonaparte French_invasion_of_Russia Nobility_of_the_First_French_Empire Napoleone Bonapartism Napoleon_III French_and_British_interregnum_in_the_Dutch_East_Indies Napoleonic_weaponry_and_warfare
Bremen
Bremen
slot::in slot::keyword topic::none type::entity type::gpe type::gpe2 type::location
165th Annual Congress of Homeopathic Doctors
meta::todo slot::keyword topic::none type::entity type::misc
Santeria
Santería
iptc::12000000 slot::keyword topic::religion type::entity type::misc type::religion
Rudolf Virchow
Rudolf_Virchow
gender::male iptc::07000000 slot::keyword topic::health type::entity type::health_per type::person
Robert Koch
Robert_Koch
gender::male iptc::07000000 slot::keyword topic::health type::entity type::health_per type::person
Thursday
topic::none type::time type::value
DW
Deutsche_Welle
topic::media type::entity type::media type::organization
Fabian Schmidt
gender::male topic::media type::entity type::journalist type::person
Haitian
topic::none type::gpe0-x type::other
Berlin
Berlin
topic::none type::entity type::gpe type::gpe2 type::location
doctor
topic::none type::role type::value
Napoleonic
Napoleonic_era
meta::todo topic::none type::entity type::misc
Haiti
Germany
slot::in