Hungarian Academy of Sciences statement proposing the same scientific standards for homeopathic drug registration as for normal drugs

Members of the Section of Medical Sciences of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (HAS) voted unanimously for supporting the earlier proposal of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. The Swedish statement requested that the homeopathic remedies should go through the same efficacy trials as normal drugs should.

The Hungarian statement refers to various recent scientific statements for example to the study of the Australian Government’s National Health and Medical Research Council that analysed 175 publications and concluded that there was no reasonable scientific proof for the efficacy of homeopathy for any health conditions. The HAS also refers to the European Academies Science Advisory Council that is allegedly considering an investigation among the academies of the UN countries about this topic. The statement points out that another Hungarian scientific body (Health Science Committee – Egészségügyi Tudományos Tanács) had made a similar statement already in 1991 and opposed using and registering those drugs for that efficacy had not been proved and that had not gone through adequate research procedures.

A 2010 statement of the Complementary Medicine Committee of the HAS has correctly described that while there is a legal and public demand towards conventional medicine to prove the efficacy and safety of its proceducts and procedures, “non conventional” medicine is exempted from these obligations. Based on the recent legislation complementary medicine is the same as evidenceless medicine and this might mean a serious risk for the patients.

József Mandl – biochemist, member of HAS, president of Health Science Committee said: “The Australian and Swedish statements had raised the interest of the Hungarian scientific community and now members of the Medical Sciences Section of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences voted unanimously to join the Swedish initiation… Science has well defined, rigorous methods and systems. Homeopathy can’t be fitted to these. Homeopathic remedies don’t meet the criteria of evidence based medicine. There might be various hypotheses, theories, but everything should be proved. This is what science means and this is what we would like to highlight now.”

Original source:

Azonos elbírálást javasol a homeopátiás szerek és a gyógyszerek esetében az MTA Orvosi Tudományok Osztálya – MTA, 09.11.2015