Homeopathy – What’s going on?

As expert advisors to the Constantin Hering Foundation, we strongly support the foundation’s objectives and work: to raise the profile of homeopathy as a holistic healing system within medicine and to consistently advance its development in both practice and research.

We welcome this position paper because it presents homeopathy in all its breadth and depth, thereby making a significant contribution to an objective, well-founded and unbiased discussion in the public sphere and in politics.

At the heart of the life sciences and medicine lies the study of biological systems, their diverse interactions and regulatory mechanisms – with the clear aim of promoting health and curing diseases at their root cause.

Our current understanding of these processes must always be viewed critically, bearing in mind the methodological limitations of the current state of knowledge. Scientific progress not only expands our knowledge but also frequently provides conclusive explanations for previously unexplained yet clinically observed phenomena.

Thus, in many fields, genetics and epigenetics have provided a scientific basis for long-standing empirical knowledge and have enriched medicine in a lasting way. The highly complex biotic and abiotic interactions of living organisms demand a consistently systems-oriented approach to thinking and acting in medicine, one that does justice to the individual living being. A holistic bioscientific approach is indispensable for this.

Modern medical technology and pharmaceuticals alone fall short because they are based on a narrow mechanistic and technocratic understanding. More urgently than ever, we need context-based biological, biochemical, ecological, psychoneuroimmunological, systemic and information-related perspectives that view the human being as a whole – and recognise their complex embeddedness within nature and the environment.

Since Samuel Hahnemann, homeopathy has pursued precisely this holistic approach. Its aim is a curative, sustainable and side-effect-low healing – and it has achieved this for over two hundred years with convincing clinical successes. It is both surprising and gratifying that many of its fundamental principles and clinical phenomena can now be explained by scientific findings.

This makes the persistent, often sweeping criticism of this healing system all the more baffling, with its central criticism invariably being the alleged lack of scientific evidence. Clinical successes and existing basic research are regularly ignored in this context.

Of course, homeopathy requires further clinical, pharmacological and basic scientific research, as well as the development of appropriate methods – but this applies equally to all medical disciplines. The essence of science is the acquisition of knowledge and progress. This must not be restricted structurally or materially simply because it contradicts the prevailing spirit of age.

Research into homeopathy must therefore be actively facilitated and permitted. However, the necessary structural and financial conditions are lacking, as is a genuine commitment to academic freedom.

Universities and research institutions often lack the courage and resources for unbiased, independent research in this field. Support from sponsors and patrons alone is not enough and often comes up against institutional barriers and a lack of acceptance. However, broad recognition of homeopathy in science, society and politics is inextricably linked to its integration into university medicine.

Universities, in particular, offer the ideal interdisciplinary platform for meaningfully linking science and practice. We therefore appeal:

To universities and research institutions: Create the necessary scope for homeopathic research and teaching! Enable the integration of homeopathy into university medicine!

To the medical profession: Engage openly and without prejudice with the holistic healing system of homeopathy! Accept and respect your colleagues who practise homeopathy! Work together in the spirit of genuine integrative medicine! Recognise freedom of therapy and methodology, as well as the freedom of choice of patients and the general public!

To politicians: Accept and fund independent research, teaching, and further education and training in the field of homeopathy! Advocate for an objective, unbiased and evidence-based recognition of this healing system in your political actions!

To the media: Enable objective, evidence-based reporting and the formation of informed opinions!

Let us stand together for the acceptance, continued existence and further development of a traditional and clinically successful healing system. Let us recognize this and build on the successes already achieved.

The Advisory Boards

Prof. Dr Anna Reichlmayr-Lais

Dr Thomas Quak