*for some definitions of "evidence."
Swift reader Jeff (Yes, there is more than one of us) sent this article from the American Journal of Infectious Disease along in response to my Big Homeopathy piece from a few days ago. Take a look at the report, which is downloadable as a PDF.
I am not an epidemioligist, histologist, or a scientist of any type. I'm just a lay person with an interest in science, and at a glance, that article looks like science to me. It's in a professional science journal, on a site that warehouses scientific content, and it's in a format that matches my vague understanding of how scientific papers are presented.
And, in that brief glance, I can see their conclusion: "Ultradiluted belladonna could inhibit JE virus infection." In other words, this study backs up the claim that homeopathy works.
Now hold up, hula dancers. As a lay person, it's very easy for me to accept the fact that I don't have the training or knowledge necessary to interpret such a document. However, I am allowed to have questions, and reading over the article has raised many.
Here are several of them:
Apparently, the virus that causes Japanese Encephalitis will also infect chicken eggs. This doesn't surprise me as vaccines are made in a similar way. But it is important to note that this study was not done on human subjects, but rather on a vascular membrane of chicken embryos. I'm pretty sure that if I injected pure alcohol into a chicken embryo, it would kill MANY viruses, as well as the chicken embryo. I'm also pretty sure that injecting enough alcohol into a human bloodstream would be enough to kill the human. So even if they claim to have discovered something that kills the JE virus in chicken eggs, that doesn't translate into a useful medicine for us.
However, we're talking about homeopathy here, specifically belladonna. Belladonna, also known as "Deadly Nightshade" looks very much like a tiny tomato, but contains poisonous alkyloids such as atropine. As its name suggests, the plant is extremely toxic. Apparently the symptoms of belladonna poisoining resemble the effects of Japanese Encephalitis, and that's why it was chosen in homeopathy to treat that illness.
Take a look at the concentrations used. According to the study, they used dillutions of 3C, 6C, 30C, and 200C, or 106, 1012, 1060 and 10400. That's not a typo... in the strongest, that is the most concentrated dosage, there was one part of belladonna extract per every 1,000,000 parts of water. I won't fill the page typing the other concentrations, and it doesn't matter, because there was no belladonna in any of them. But that's fine for the homeopath, because the water retains the "memory" of the substance. In fact, the more dillute the substance the more powerful it is.
Ok, fine. So without looking at the results, we can imagine what a positive result would look like: The 3C dosage would have some effect greater than the control, the 6C dosage would have more of an effect, the 30C would have an even stronger effect, and the 200C would have the strongest effect of all. And yet, that's not what we see.
The "t" value is what we want. For the first two, there is an effect, and the "P" value suggests it's a strong one. But then in the 30C trial we see less of an effect than the 6C trial, and the 200C trial has an even lower effect. So, if there was an effect, how can it be attributed to homeopathic priniciples when the results don't match what homeopathic principles would predict?
There are a few other anomalies. Why does the "N" or number of trial subjects change? And why do the pock counts on the controls vary so much? And where is the data on the "Eggs that were dead or yielded deformed or absent CAM" which is mentioned at the bottom?
Now, look at this study this way: injecting the same substance into eggs should produce the same results time and time again if every other variable is controlled for. As none of these preparations had any belladonna in them, what could explain the different results? I can only hypothesize, but my guess is that the experiment was poorly controlled and that there were many unaccounted for variables affecting the results.
Another interesting note: I can't find any reference to this being a double-blinded study. If it wasn't, that opens the door to many forms of bias, and the resutls are automatically suspect.
But, as I said, I'm a layman – I may have gotten all this wrong. This institution, the School of Tropical Medicine in Calcutta, part of a school that has programs in homeopathy and ayurveda, may be on to something, and perhaps this will shake up what we know about science and the world around us. But something has to happen first: the study has to be replicated. And somehow, I suspect that's not going to happen.
If a homeopath points to this study and says "See? Homeopathy works!" they're going to be challenged on several points:
1) Why didn't the more dilute substances produce a better result?
2) What mechanism explains what happened?
3) Where are the replicated studies?
and 4) What happens when this treatment, which should be harmless according to both homeopathic and scientific principles (note the distinction), is applied to human subjects?
I'll say it a third time: I'm a layman. I'll happily accept correction if I missed something or misinterpreted something. My point is that just because it quacks like a duck (It was found in a legitimate scientific journal) and it looks like a duck (it resembles scientific papers) doesn't mean that it is a duck (real science). Duck or not, my lay opinion is that this study is quack medicine.