MRC_Hans said:This is a tired old strawman that homeopaths love to ride: Some drugs were banned, so DBPC tests are no good. This is nonsense. DBPC tests are used for finding eficacy of drugs, the extent of those protocols cannot and are not supposed to discover rare side-effects. It is a hard fact of pharmacology, that rare side-effects can only be found in the field.
What Kumar is ignoring is that while some drugs have been found in the field to have undesirable rare side effects, before they go in the field they have verified efficacy.
Homeopathy does not have this claim. And again, Kumar is ignoring the very clear point that has been made: while a certain number of people getting homeopathy feel better, an equal number of people not getting homeopathy feel better. "Efficacy" means it makes a difference whether you get homeopathic treatment or not.
THERE IS NO DIFFERENCE BETWEEN GETTING HOMEOPATHIC TREATMENT AND GETTING A PLACEBO, PRECISELY BECAUSE HOMEPATHIC TREATMENT *IS* PLACEBO TREATMENT