While on holiday in Austria I noticed a headline about homoeopathy. It said "The End of Homoeopathy is Near" ("Es droht die Ende der Homöopathie") and even though it was not in a serious magazine, but one of those ubiquitous TV magazines with news about the rich and famous, and a horoscope, I just had to buy it! (Die Ganze Woche 19 February 2014, nr. 8)
The subtitle was "New control craze of EU has consequences" ("Neuer Kontrollwahn der EU hat Folgen"), and I thought it was a pretty good start! Well, the EU has unfortunately not demanded proof that homoeopathy works, but it turned out that it wants that homoeopathy should no longer be exempt from tests for side effects. Apparently, all "complex" alternative medicines have to submit to these tests that are paid for by the producer. In the article it was claimed that for a "small" business with "merely" 4.8 million Euro turnover the tests would be about 2.2 million Euro, and would kill the business. Considering that other CAMs already pay this and are still in business, and that homoeopathy has no active ingredients, so they effectively only pay for the packaging, I cannot see the problem.
Anyway, in the article they tell us how many people will be out of work if this craziness is put into effect, and we are also told that "side effects are very rare" in homoeopathy, but apparently not nonexistent, so it is still unclear to me why they think the side effects should not be investigated. I could imagine that people with lactose intolerance cannot tolerate the pills, and some homoeopaths might have been tempted to spice their pills with substances of proven efficiency, which in turn creates a real risk of side effects.
The article details a number of initiatives to stop the bureaucrats from failing all the patients "who are dependent on homoeopathy". It will be interesting to see if the EU can go through with the motion.
The subtitle was "New control craze of EU has consequences" ("Neuer Kontrollwahn der EU hat Folgen"), and I thought it was a pretty good start! Well, the EU has unfortunately not demanded proof that homoeopathy works, but it turned out that it wants that homoeopathy should no longer be exempt from tests for side effects. Apparently, all "complex" alternative medicines have to submit to these tests that are paid for by the producer. In the article it was claimed that for a "small" business with "merely" 4.8 million Euro turnover the tests would be about 2.2 million Euro, and would kill the business. Considering that other CAMs already pay this and are still in business, and that homoeopathy has no active ingredients, so they effectively only pay for the packaging, I cannot see the problem.
Anyway, in the article they tell us how many people will be out of work if this craziness is put into effect, and we are also told that "side effects are very rare" in homoeopathy, but apparently not nonexistent, so it is still unclear to me why they think the side effects should not be investigated. I could imagine that people with lactose intolerance cannot tolerate the pills, and some homoeopaths might have been tempted to spice their pills with substances of proven efficiency, which in turn creates a real risk of side effects.
The article details a number of initiatives to stop the bureaucrats from failing all the patients "who are dependent on homoeopathy". It will be interesting to see if the EU can go through with the motion.
via JREF Forum http://ift.tt/1fm4EAH
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