Commission on Pseudoscience and Research Fraud

Memorandum #2
HOMEOPATHY AS PSEUDOSCIENCE
(Abstract)

February 7, 2017

This memorandum by the Commission on Pseudoscience and Research Fraud at the Russian Academy of Sciences General Committee announces that treatment with very small amounts of different substances, used in homeopathy, has no scientific grounds. This conclusion has been made based upon detailed study of articles in scientific journals, reports on clinical trials and their systematic reviews. The facts from different scientific areas altogether – ranging from the results of clinical trials to the modern concepts on the structure of matter, from chemical principles of intermolecular interactions to the human physiology – allow the Commission to declare in this Memorandum that the theoretical principles of homeopathy have no scientific significance, and homeopathic diagnostics techniques and treatment are pseudoscientific and do not work.

Also homeopathy is not safe: patients spend significant amounts of money, buying medicines that do not work and disregard already known effective treatment. Due to aforementioned the Commission makes the number of recommendations to the Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation, the Federal Service for Surveillance in Healthcare and other organizations, and also doctors and media. The aim is to bring the regulation of homeopathy in accordance with the up-to-date scientific understanding of its inefficiency, to limit the inaccurate advertising of homeopathy, to inform patients reliably about the formula and properties of homeopathic drugs. In particular the Commission recommends the Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation to reconsider, in terms of the recent scientific data, the decision made more than 20 years ago without reasonable grounds to incorporate homeopathic drugs into the Russian Healthcare system; to take homeopathic drugs away from state and municipal institutions; to oblige the manufacturers of homeopathic drugs to specify their actual formula (water, lactose etc) and their quantity; to specify used substances in Russian only. Federal Antimonopoly Service is recommended to focus on inaccurate advertising of homeopathy.

This memorandum is published in collaboration with the Evolution Foundation.

The full text of the Memorandum (in Russian) can be found here:
http://klnran.ru/2017/02/memorandum02-homeopathy/

More details can be found in the appendixes to the Memorandum (in Russsian):
Appendix 1. Frequently asked questions and arguments for homeopathy.
Appendix 2. Placebo.
Appendix 3. The history of homeopathy in the Russian Healthcare system.
Appendix 4. Water memory.
Appendix 5. How the followers of homeopathy use sources with methodological mistakes.