The homeopathy has received a hard blow today from the Spanish health authorities, and more specifically the AEMPS itself, by pointing out in a devastating report that homeopathy has no effectiveness proven when it comes to treating different ailments, despite the fact that they promise something completely different. Something that can mean a great fall for a business that has invoiced millions of euros and all thanks to the scientific evidence that is increasingly clear regarding the null effects that these ‘treatments’ have.
A lot of weight behind. The history of homeopathy in Spain has been written for years based on regulatory purges, but the latest Health analysis leaves no room for doubt. Based on 64 systematic reviews From scientific studies published since 2009, the national body has ruled that these products They provide no real benefitdifferent diseases such as, for example, depression, autoimmune diseases or even dermatological diseases.
And as we see, it is not something new, since the scientific community has been warning for years that the supposed improvements reported by some patients with homeopathy are explained by three factors: the placebo effect, the evolution of the disease itself and the unreliability of the studies on which its operation was based.
A tug of war. In fact, science tells us that, when clinical trials are carried out with great rigor and with the appropriate research methods, the difference between administering a homeopathic product and a simple sugar cube is statistically null. But the mental effect of taking a pill that promises an almost miraculous effect when it comes to curing an illness plays an important role in making us think that it really improves us.
The real danger. A priori, taking a homeopathic product does not have too many dangers for the patient, since they do almost nothing in the body. But the problem is that the use of homeopathy encourages the abandonment or delay of medical treatments with proven evidence, such as, for example, an antidepressant in major depression.
Failure to follow the most appropriate treatment has fatal consequences, especially if we are talking about serious diseases where time is a super important factor. Furthermore, the AEMPS and various medical reviews have documented very serious adverse effects due to this lack of real medical care, such as abortions or deaths. Although the most serious may be in the field of oncology, where the use of these alternative therapies such as seawater has been shown to directly increase the risk of mortality as patients reject conventional chemotherapy or radiotherapy.
A free fall. Today, this market moves around 30 million euros annually in our country, representing 0.5% of total pharmaceutical sales. Here the great giant of the sector is Boiron, which controls 90% of the market and is seeing its empire falter, since, although its products are still present in thousands of pharmacies, sales they haven’t stopped fallinggoing from billing 20.6 million euros in 2016 to only 14.6 million in 2024.
Recalls from the market. The purge in pharmacies has been relentless, since following EU directives that require efficiency tests to authorize medications, the AEMPS has already withdrawn 66 injectable products in 2019 and another 314 in 2024. But as of today the Ministry of Health has recalled more than 1,000 homeopathic products.
The 976 that have managed to survive and remain registered have done so under a “simplified registry.” This is an ‘escape system’ in the law, since here they are considered harmless products, but they are strictly prohibited from including any therapeutic indication or promise of cure on their packaging. In this way, no homeopathic product can have the promise of curing a disease in Spain.
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