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ALERT: Mainstream Media Attempts to Bury Homeopathy

Consumer Reports journalist, Doug Podolsky, took a stab at homeopathy in the recent issue of Consumer Reports. Despite over two-hundred years of successful use for a variety of ailments, homeopathic medications don't work, according to Podolsky who writes, "Check whether over-the-counter products are labeled homeopathic. If they are, we think you should put them back on the shelf." Podolsky's Consumer Reports piece references a 2005 study indicating homeopathy is ineffective, but he fails to mention the study has since been debunked.Unfortunately, due to the prestige of Consumer Reports, the article has already gone viral, as marketing firms and pharmaceutical companies spread it far and wide in an attempt to snuff competition from the natural health world.

Visit the National Center for Homeopathy for more research on this topic.
In addition to signing on to the letter below, please read the full Consumer Reports article here and posting comments at the bottom of that blog page.

November 20, 2009

Subject:

Dear Consumer Reports,

We are writing to ask you to reconsider the negative stance you took regarding the effectiveness of Homeopathy in the April 2008 issue of Consumer Reports. Recently there have been numerous attacks in the press on Homeopathy.  We are disheartened to see the Consumer Reports article being used as a source of misinformation on this topic. Countless media outlets, including a recent sensational Fox news story, are using your article as fuel to discredit an effective, inexpensive natural medicine that has demonstrated successful results for hundreds of years. In fact, over 100,000 mainstream physicians now use homeopathy worldwide, making it one of the most popular and widely used complementary therapies.

Your negative conclusion seemed to be based on a  controversial, now discredited, 2005 review published in Lancet. We are disturbed that you chose to rely on research that many in the medical community now believe to be deeply flawed methodologically.

You fail to acknowledge you were presented (by the National Center for Homeopathy) with over 100 high quality, scientifically based, pre-clinical and clinical studies showing that homeopathy is safe and effective. Your author also failed to acknowledge that he  received an extensive briefing about the evidence in favor of homeopathy from world renowned scientists at Penn State University and the University of Arizona.

While it is true that little, if any, funding currently exists to support homeopathic research on patients with specific disorders, a fair and balanced analysis would at least conclude that there is a growing body of evidence that homeopathic medicines have health-beneficial biological effects.  This information alone represents a remarkable research discovery for practitioners and consumers of complimentary medicine.

There are over 250,000 practicing Homeopaths in India alone. Homeopathy is one of the most widely used healing modalities in Europe and other countries across the globe. To dismiss these practitioners and the millions of health consumers who use homeopathy is arrogant and scientifically unjustified.

Consumers count on Consumer Reports for objective, unbiased information they can rely on.  Please honor our great respect for you by looking at this topic fairly or face the loss of subscribers.

Regards,

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