Hi everyone! Sorry for the long delay in my writing.
So in recent weeks a new analysis of homeopathy has been published. You can find it here.
This is a remarkable paper. It examined every metanalysis of homeopathy that was available to them. I myself have done a similar exercise in 2019, which you can find here. However, I applied a qualitiative and comparative approach, and the authors of this new analysis have applied a quantitative approach, using statistical methods to combine the effect sizes, risk of bias (which is called meta-bias), and also specify type of homeopathy applied.
They found 6 suitable metanalyses, Linde 1997, Linde 1998, Cucherat 2000, Shang 2005, Mathie 2014 and Mathie 2017.
Using the ROBIS tool for assessing bias in systematic reviews they found both Mathies and Linde 1997 to be low risk of bias, and all others high bias. Using the AMSTAR tool for assessing funding transparency, it was found that Mathie’s trials were the most transparent.
Combining all extractable data, all trials were found to contain effect suggestive that Homeopathy has an effect beyond placebo. Restricting data to all high quality trials, statistical significance was found for every metanalysis except Mathie 2017.
In total analysis in the words of the authors “The available data yield no support for the alternative hypothesis of no outcome difference between homoeopathy and placebo.” This effect was robust when controlled for high trial quality.
This meta-metanalysis does indeed confirm what I have stated earlier in multiple publications, the evidence base for Homeopathy is positive, and disputing this becomes increasingly untenable. This evidence is rigorous, and stand up to rigorous scrutiny.