Bottom line is that it works, says homeopathic chief

Bullish mood prevails in hospital at centre of
controversial approach

By Sarah Boseley, health editor
The Guardian
Saturday, May 27, 2006

Peter Fisher, clinical director of the Royal London
Homeopathic Hospital and the man at the centre of this
week's storm over alternative medicine in the NHS, blames
Descartes.

Although he spends a lot of time arguing the scientific
evidence for alternative treatments, it really does no
good to separate out what is going on in the patient's
mind from what is happening in their body, he says.

"Are they depressed because they are ill or are they ill
because they are depressed? You get bogged down in
sterile argument. Descartes is to blame."

This week the rationalists have turned some heavy
firepower on what they say are scientifically unproven
treatments provided on the NHS. Thirteen eminent doctors,
led by Michael Baum, emeritus professor of surgery at the
same Trust as Fisher - University College London
Hospitals - urged that the NHS should not pay for
alternative therapies.

The Royal London Homeopathic Hospital, recently reopened
after a £20m refurbishment, is entirely NHS funded. Great
Ormond Street children's hospital shares its building -
you can tell the homeopathic corridors by their
stimulating lime green paint and natural wood floors.

GPs and consultants refer patients there. It costs the
NHS about £3.4m a year. And, says Dr Fisher, the 27,000
patients who come for homeopathy, acupuncture,
nutritional therapy and other treatments it offers do
well. But if he won't admit - as someone who studied
medicine at Cambridge University and a conventional
rheumatologist - that homeopathy is implausible, he does
agree it is controversial.

In the pharmacy thousands of little bottles, exactly the
same size and shape, are lined up ready for use. The
theory behind homeopathy is treating a condition with a
very tiny amount of what caused it - something like the
vaccination principle.

The dilution varies. Dr Fisher picks up one labelled 6c -
that is, 600 parts water to one part active substance.
Another is 9c - 900 parts water. "As near as dammit there
is no molecule in that one," he said. "But it works -
absolutely."

Clear tubes full of tiny sugar pills are stored nearby. A
couple of drops of the liquid go on each pill. The
homeopath will prescribe how many such pills are to be
taken each day.

"I know it's controversial," says Dr Fisher. "Part of
what got me into this is sheer scientific curiosity. I
thought, I'm going to be the one to crack this."

He hasn't cracked it, although, he says, "we have made a
lot of progress." He cites studies that show people have
got better in certain conditions with homeopathy.

His critics counter with studies that show they haven't.
Could it be a placebo effect? He doesn't like the term.
"I much prefer non-specific effect." But no - he is, he
says, "an unapologetic homeopath" and believes something
really happens.

It began for Dr Fisher when he went to China as a medical
student at the tail end of the Cultural Revolution, when
Mao was still alive and the Gang of Four were in control.
"I saw a woman on an operating table with her entire
abdomen open, talking to the surgeons, with three needles
in her ear. I became convinced something very interesting
was going on."

Upstairs a mass acupuncture session is being held, an
experiment in cost-effectiveness. Patients recline on
four of the eight day-beds with trouser legs and skirts
rolled up, their knees stuck with metal pins attached to
electrodes. All have arthritis. It is a condition for
which there is good evidence that acupuncture works.

Three out of the four say they have less pain. "I used to
get a burning sensation in my knee every day. That's
finished. I don't like needles, but this reduces the
swelling and everything," said Pamela Picking from
Finchley, north London.

Mumtas Rizui from Golders Green, north London, trained as
a chemist and says a surgeon friend made fun of him for
coming. "But I say seeing is believing. It is helping
me."

But Aqila Azhar and her husband Ilyas are unconvinced.
Acupuncture did not help her knees - she preferred
homeopathy. Mr Azhar said the recent questioning of
homeopathy might be harmful. "If you go for any
treatment, you must have faith like my wife," he said

Some patients travel long distances. Adam Frankel lives
in Devon. He has a long history of illnesses that made
him spend months in bed. The NHS had done nothing for
him, he says. He arrived at the hospital about nine years
ago with abscesses in his gums and has been taking a
variety of homeopathic medicines since.

The remedies have helped him and his family - and, he
says, even the cat.

More at:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/medicine/story/0,,1784359,00.html

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