Guest guest Posted August 27, 2009 Report Share Posted August 27, 2009 Dear readers, I'm a homeopath working in Kenya in a charity organization called Abha Light <www.abhalight.org>. We have been succesfully treating thousands of patients for HIV, Malaria & TB for more than 10 years. The work homeopaths are doing throughout Africa & developing countries is important. Recently the BBC published a very biased report with misleading information regarding the WHO and homeopathy. Homeopaths around the world are protesting to the BBC and WHO. see http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8211925.stm The attack on homeopathy by BigPharma is another step towards taking away our freedom to choose our medical services. Do not let this happen. I'm asking you to join us and let the people's voices be heard. Please read the below informatin and then COPY the letter to WHO (don't merely forward this letter) to the WHO addresses listed below. You can also go to BBC website and protest there. Thanks. Didi Ruchira, Kenya ======== HOMOEOPATHY ACTION ALERT -SERIOUS ATTACK ON HOMOEOPATHY Homeopathy has suffered a very serious attack. The Young Voices of Science, a UK based group dedicated to eliminating homeopathy, sent a letter to the World Health Organization asking WHO to condemn homoeopathy in developing countries, especially in the areas of influenza, childhood diarrhoea, malaria and AIDS. WHO replied last week with statements from various Departmental Heads saying there is no indication of effectiveness of homoeopathy in any of these areas. YVoS has now circulated the response of WHO to the media and have amplified the letter as if it is a public announcement from WHO, WHICH IT IS NOT. Additionally, YVoS has stated on its website that it will be contacting the Health Ministries of all countries in the world to let them know about the WHO response and press them to condemn homoeopathy in their country. The BBC then spread this false item and has since admitted that is was hasty and mistaken in posting the article as an official statement, without checking the facts. But if we let this go it will be too late, people will believe this dirty trick campaign. Please send emails or letters to the BBC complaint department or to any other newspapers publishing the statement. Homeopathy not a cure, says WHO 20 August 2009 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8211925.stm newsonline.complaints http://www.bbc.co.uk/complaints/handle.shtml Here is one of the BBC apologies. Sad they could not check the facts first! >Many thanks for your e-mail. We have since updated this report and it now includes two comments putting the case for homeopathy - one referring to treatment for diarrhoea - although we accept that it would have been desirable to have had these in the article earlier. >It became clear from correspondence that some readers found the original headline - WHO warns against homeopathy use - ambiguous, and this has been altered to reflect the fact that people are being urged not to rely on homeopathy. >Best wishes, >BBC News website >http://www.bbc.co.uk/complaints/handle.shtml We are asking you to help launch a mass protest. We have prepared a rebuttal letter to send to WHO which is attached to this email. There are other homoeopathic organizations who are preparing protest statements as well. We think it is important that WHO hear from as MANY INDIVIDUALS AS POSSIBLE, and are appealing to you-- Please read the attached letter. Please adapt it to your own wording, while keeping the main points. It is best to have a variety of letters · Please send it to one or more of the email address below. · Please do this immediately, as a response to WHO is needed quickly. · Please forward this email with the attached letter to as many of your colleagues and patients as possible and urge them to take action. USE BCC AND DELETE THE NAME OF THE PERSON WHO SENT IT TO YOU. · If you can send a written letter as well that would help. If you are living in the US or have no contact with developing countries, you may wonder why this is an important issue for you to act upon. In fact some suggest that no response be made and that we continue to focus our energies on our good work. However, this attack is different--- 1. This is a group (YVoS) that is aggressively dedicated to destroying homoeopathy. They have stated this on their website and in their letter to their members announcing the WHO letter. While located in the UK, they are reaching out to all countries. They have tried to influence India and right now they have specifically targeted several homoeopathy projects in Africa. They contact governmental, national health ministries, academic medical departments and other organizations in these countries and warn them against homoeopathy using distortion and half truths. They use every means at their disposal to disrupt or end the projects. They have only one goal and they are effective and dangerous to homoeopathy. 2. Existing homoeopathy projects will suffer because of these attacks, hindering rising of funds and initiating research. We are a holistic healing community. When one of our practitioners or one location of our profession is attacked, it is an attack against all of us. Just as we would not turn our backs on treating patients with acute attacks of cholera or malaria, who without homeopathic treatment might die, we should not be complacent about this group. This is a serious acute attack and needs a like response. 3. These attacks are coming because homoeopathy is gaining approval and popularity. We must be ready to stand firmly beside the good work that we are doing and be ready to assure that all people, especially those in developing countries, have access to this healing modality. If we do not respond this could affect each and every one of us. PLEASE TAKE ACTION NOW STAND UP FOR HOMOEOPATHY ===================Letter to WHO ======== chaibf, regafro, masone, uplekar, spinacis, thomasg, abramovv, mouradn, schmidj., martinesj, chandramouliv To: General Dr. Margaret Chan Media Officer Fadela Chaib CC: Mr A. Etukudo, Division of AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria at the World Health Organisation's regional office in Congo, Africa Dr Elisabeth Mason, Director Department of Child & Adolescent Health Development Dr Mukund Uplekar, TB Strategy and Health Systems, Dr Sergio Spinaci, Associate Director, Global Malaria Programme Dr Mario Raviglione, Director, Stop TB Department Press Contact Glenn Thomas Dr Teguest Guerma, Director Ad Interim, HIV/AIDS Department, Press contact Valeri Abramov Dear Dr. Chan We the undersigned are outraged at the way the World Health Organization has allowed itself to be coerced by the Sense About Science Voices of Young Science into condemning the use of homoeopathy in developing countries. This condemnation comes after what appears to be blind acceptance by WHO of the contents of a single letter from 'young scientists' living in the UK in June. VoYS is an offshoot of Sense About Science an aggressive anti-homoeopathy lobby that have well documented funding connections to pharmaceutical companies. WHO appears to have made no efforts at all to establish the veracity of the claims of VoYS or to check with the homoeopaths in the named countries on what they are doing, their treatment policies or the results they are having in treating patients with a wide range of conditions. There is an increasing body of evidence in favour of homoeopathy's effectiveness. The respondents from WHO's various departments, in their rush to fulfill the 'Young Scientists' request to condemn homoeopathy, apparently are not aware of, or have chosen to overlook, the positive results of many research studies. e.g A recent high quality trial by the prestigious, WHO qualified facility, the Finlay Institute in Cuba, involving two and a half million people, found homoeopathy to be extremely effective in the prevention of Leptospirosis (Dr. Concepción Campa Huergo report to Finlay Institute 'Nosodes 2008 conference' December 2008, to be published). A trial conducted by Quebec homoeopathy organization in partnership with McGill University in Honduras found homoeopathy effective in preventing and treating parasitic Chagas disease (Martine Jourde report to Finlay Institute 'Nosode 2008 conference' December 2008). Three studies that show homoeopathy is effective in the treatment of child hood diarrhea. Furthermore, counter to the uninformed claim of Joe Martines, on behalf of Dr Elizabeth Mason, Director, WHO Department of Child and Adolescent Health and Development, rehydration was included in the protocol of the trials (See below). A pilot study in Ghana showing homoeopathic treatment equal to and slightly more effective than chloroquine in the treatment of acute malaria (Br Homoeopath J 1996 Apr;85(2):66-70). The Stanford study treating tuberculosis in HIV patients resulted in significant improvement in patients receiving homeopathic immunotherapy (Stanford, Comm Br Hom Res Grp Dec 1992 22 30-9). Furthermore, the WHO department directors have ignored the rich and well documented history of homoeopathy's success in treating major worldwide epidemics of cholera, influenza (including the 1918 epidemic), yellow fever and many other serious epidemics. Homoeopathy has a well developed approach to epidemics which mean homoeopaths can respond rapidly to an epidemic infectious disease. In light of these and more studies of homoeopathy and the extreme challenge of emerging drug resistant epidemics in developing countries, it is cause for wonder why WHO itself has not sponsored research into homoeopathy treatment. Homoeopaths operate in a complementary way to conventional medicine, they do not recommend stopping any prescribed conventional medicines. Treatment results of patients in the developing countries where homoeopathy is used are impressive. Patients are happier and healthier and despite the constraints of lack of funding from established research foundations, studies are being undertaken and proving homoeopathy's effectiveness. In 2005 the World Health Organization proposed an extremely positive report on homoeopathy and its potential in the developing world noting that it is cost effective, has no side effects, and above all is positively health enhancing. It was only after pressure from critics of Complementary and Alternative medicine to revise it, that the report was held back and despite considerable revision it has still not been published. The VoYS has issued a press release to the media that widely publicises the statements from the WHO Departmental Heads. VoYS has stated that they will be contacting the Health Ministries of every country to tell them of the opinion of WHO and discourage the use of homoeopathy in order to accomplish their mission to stopping the use of homoeopathy altogether. VoYS has presented the communication from WHO as a public announcement from WHO and as a way to pressure countries to alter their internal health policies. Is this the intention of WHO ? Does WHO condone other organizations speaking and acting on its behalf in such a way?? We have several questions for WHO. How can you allow your organisation to appear to condemn homoeopathy on the basis of one letter by an antagonistic lobby that receives funding from the pharmaceutical industry and without first checking the facts? How can you reverse your own previous recommendations without verification and dialogue? Why when all over the world doctors, scientists and patients are choosing homoeopathy because of their positive experience in regaining health, does WHO decide to condemn homoeopathy? How is the WHO statement and the subsequent contact by VoYS to be received by countries such as India, where homoeopathy doctors have a long and respected record of treating all diseases, including epidemics? Why when Ministries of Health in many developing countries have responded to the requests of their own citizens to make homoeopathy a registered medicine, does WHO choose to lend their authority to the dedicated campaign of an anti-homoeopathy group located in the UK? The citizens of Switzerland recently voted in a national referendum to include homoeopathy as one of their medical choices. Should the poor sick of Kenya, Ghana, Botswana, Swaziland, South Africa, Congo, Tanzania, Brazil, Cuba, Thailand and other developing countries, living in rural areas with little or no access to other medicines, be deprived of this safe and affordable choice? How can WHO allow, through the contents of one arbitrary letter, removal of freedom of choice from the people who need it most? Is this not an issue of basic human rights? The VoYS press release, which was further distorted by the BBC, has gone to the media throughout the world under the headline of " WHO Warns Developing Countries against Homoeopathy. " This is a deliberately inflammatory, malicious and false declaration that appears to have the backing of WHO. As a role model of good health and disease treatment to the world, we appeal to WHO not to let commercial powers and vested interests of a small vocal group influence your stated goal of bringing the " highest possible level of health " to all the people of the world. We urge you to reverse your premature and apparently unconsidered condemnation of homoeopathy --a safe, effective and cost-effective therapeutic option for developing countries. Please give health a chance! Yours Truly, Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You are posting as a guest. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.