An ordinary meeting of the Society took place at the Royal Southampton Yacht Cub on 7th December 2016. The President, Dr Keightley, was in the chair. She introduced the speaker Professor Edzard Ernst, Emeritus Professor of Complimentary Medicine at Exeter University. He spoke to the title ‘A Scientist in Wonderland: searching for truth and finding trouble’. Professor Ernst said that he grew up in Germany with homeopathy. His family didn’t consult doctors. He qualified in Munich. He came to St Georges Hospital in London to do research into blood flow and later was appointed to the Chair of Rehabilitation Medicine in Hannover University where a new 2000 bed hospital was about to be opened. Asked to to do the inaugural speech he recounted that when researching it he found that all the records pre-1938 had all been destroyed, other crucial documents were lost and he met with obstructions to his enquiries. He also found that three quarters of the medical school staff had disappeared during the war. In 1992 he was appointed to the first Chair of Complimentary Medicine in the UK in Exeter. His mission statement was to apply science to alternative medicine. At the opening of the Medical School, which the Queen opened, she requested to meet him. His team reviewed 38 different alternative treatments and initially looked at acupuncture, chiropractic, homeopathy and herbal medicine. He explained the principles of dilution of substances in homeopathy and that at C30 it was a molecule floating in the space between the sun and earth. There were also ridiculous potions like Berlin Wall C30 for feelings of oppression, dilutions of Bath Spa water for rheumatism, Oxpecker eggs, slug, alligator etc.
He said that the first proper trial of homeopathy was in 1835 - a double blind RCT, which concluded the results were indistinguishable from placebo. In 1937 at the World Congress of Homeopathic Medicine in Berlin the Nazi’s inaugurated a large research programme into it but the results were never published. Professor Ernst said he has reviewed some 500 controlled trials and had come to the conclusion that cherry picking is endemic. Trials need to be peer reviewed. Up to 2011 there were 164 peer reviewed trials but they were inconclusive. He performed a systematic review of systematic reviews of homeopathic trials in 2002, which was repeated by the NRC Australia some years later, with the conclusion that the evidence does not show homeopathy to be effective. He also conducted a survey of 9000 children and found that the uptake of childhood immunisations was lower in those who use homeopathy and as part of the research surveyed 104 homeopathists which revealed that 31 advised against childhood immunisations. This provoked a lot of protest and the ethics committee came under pressure to remove their approval and forbad him publishing the results - but he published anyway. There was a University enquiry into the incident which supported him. However the matter was leaked to the press. The Times called him Quackbuster for reviewing the evidence and informing the public. He also has ongoing battles with big homeopathic Pharma. Professor Ernst was asked what Exeter University expected from him. He said it was to do the research he did - which was fine until the Smallwood report came out with unrealistic claims after which he was made persona non grata and funding for the department dried up . He was also asked about medical student teaching. He replied that students only started appearing after 2000 so he was well into his term by then. He finished by saying that homeopathy is popular because mainstream medicine is not providing the time or sympathy that patients want. It is a reflection on our system.
The President thanked Professor Ernst for his talk. There being no other business the meeting closed at 10.10pm.