“The notion of homeoprophylaxis has not received support from systematic trials and has no place in conventional medicine. Suggestions that homeopathic treatments are an effective alternative to vaccination are regarded as irresponsible by many public health professionals, and also by some professional homeopathic organizations; in the U.K., The Faculty for Homeopathy recognizes the importance of childhood vaccination and does not support the common use of homeopathic remedies in place of conventional travel vaccinations and for malaria prevention, warning travellers “that there is no evidence that these provide any degree of protection”"

Well the article does, for example, say “Homeopaths also assert that corticosteroids are immunosuppressant drugs that only provide temporary relief of asthma symptoms and may lead to more serious chronic disease and to increased chances of death.”
This is true; homeopaths do assert this. So what does Citizendium immediately say next.
“Medical opinion is that this assertion is uninformed scare-mongering. They advise that corticosteroids prevent inflammation that can have serious consequences and symptom relief is a result of this anti-inflammatory action.”

In what sense exactly is this excluding criticism?

Adam tells us at length that homeopathic remedies have no active ingredient, explaining that Citizendium has ignored this well-sourced and valid criticism: so I wonder what is the following section doing in the Citizendium article:

“We now know that, for example, a teaspoon of seawater (5 ml) contains about 160 mg of NaCl. The molecular weight of NaCl is 58.4, so by Avogadro’s number, (or, in German-speaking countries, Loschmidt’s number), 58.4 g of NaCl (one mole) contains 6.02×1023 molecules. We can thus calculate that our teaspoon contains about 2×1021 molecules of NaCl. A 12C dilution of seawater will have about one molecule of NaCl per litre. Thus homeopathic remedies diluted to more than about 12C are virtually certain to contain not even a single molecule of the initial substance.”

Is there really no criticism? Not even in the quotes from NCCAM “There is, to my knowledge, no condition for which homeopathy has been proven to be an effective treatment.” or the NHS “Despite the available research, it has proven difficult to produce clear clinical evidence that homeopathy works”. Citizendium reports these; that’s what neutral articles do, they report criticisms. Many people would like Citizendium articles to carry an editorial message, to say “this is what Citizendium thinks”. Citizendium is trying to do something rather different, and to say this is what homeopaths believe and why, this is what scientists believe and why – it’s up to the reader to use his or her intelligence from here on.

Adam curiously quotes the overview at length as though it were pro homeopathy; in fact it is the opposite; it is an explanation of why false positive (pro homeopathy) studies are so common in the literature. Any reasoned opposition to homeopathy must address this – as did the Lancet study, explained at length, that heralded the “end of homeopathy” – this was not a study showing that homeopathy was ineffective – it was an analysis of studies that show mainly positive results – and a demonstration of how publication bias can lead to selective publication of false positive results. It’s a subtle argument, but real understanding does require some sophistication in intelligence.

Most of those who contributed to the Citizendium article, including me, believe that homeopathy is scientific nonsense. But most of us believe that an honest debate about homeopathy has to address the strongest case that can be made for it, not some strawman case that is easy to knock down. The article clearly stated that homeopathy lacks scientific support, and stated why in the following terms:

“In brief, for homeopathy to receive serious scientific consideration, there needs to be plausible explanations for the following: a) how the process of manufacturing a homeopathic remedy could yield a biologically active substance or solution, b) why the principle of similars might apply in the case of homeopathic remedies c)how a biological mechanism could have evolved to recognize the specific nature of homeopathic remedies.There also needs to be clear and irrefutable evidence for the efficacy of homeopathic remedies, evidence that cannot be explained by placebo effects. These stringent demands are often summarised by the maxim “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof”.”

Crank it up.

May all beings experience, peace, freedom and happiness!

But, I do have to say, it’s very easy to criticise wikis. When this article was being written, I tried hard to get skeptics involved. I approached people who wrote about homeopathy at JREF, at the Science-Based Medicine blog, some of the writers of skeptical articles about homeopathy, in skeptical chatrooms and so on. I was e-mailing away for hours trying to get someone to come people to balance out some of the baloney being pushed on the article and in the talk page. What response did I get? None. Zip, zilch, nada. Too busy or couldn’t give a shit. What would be really nice is if the skeptical community could get involved when offered the chance, rather than bitch about it afterwards. So, an open invitiation: come on skeptics, come and write some articles for Citizendium and make sure that the next alternative medicine article that goes for approval doesn’t end up sucking quite as much as the homeopathy article has.