QUACKERY OR CURE?

Arsenic. Snake venom. Ground-up bees. And now even bits of the Berlin Wall. Just some of the crazy homeopathy remedies that users swear by. So IS there any evidence it works?

STRESSED, anxious, paranoid, aggressive, asthmatic or depressed? Perhaps popping a pill containing atoms from the Berlin Wall might help . . .

That’s the claim made by Prince Charles’s favourite alternative pharmacist, Ainsworths of Marylebone, London, where homeopathic medicine, made from ground-up masonry particles from the Cold War relic, is being sold as a ‘cure’.

The potion, also known as Murus Berlinensis, is claimed by homeopathic practitioners to contain a ‘spiritual force’ that can help people who have problems with creating or breaking down barriers in their lives. It is made by grinding down pieces of the old concrete structure, which was demolished in 1989, and diluting them manifold times with lactose, water and alcohol.

This is then turned into pills, which can cost up to £114 for a large bottle.

One online case study tells of Ann, 35, an unemployed single mother of three young children, who felt stressed and anxious to the point of hysteria, until prescribed Berlin Wall tablets and now feels ‘centred and clear’.

Complete hokum? There are plenty who scoff: Indeed, the NHS has refused, since 2017, to fund homeopathic treatment, having declared it ‘at best a placebo and a misuse of scarce NHS funds’.

Nevertheless, homeopathy still looks in remarkable health. It generates some £1 billion a year in Europe, with six per cent annual growth.

An Ainsworth spokesman says: ‘Every remedy has a large spectrum of activity. They are non-toxic, non-addictive and gentle and curative.’

So with promises to treat everything from sore gums to cancer, we try to separate the facts from the fiction.

HOW IT ALL STARTED

HOMEOPATHy was first formulated in the 1790s by German doctor Samuel Hahnemann. His founding principle was ‘like cures like’ — that a substance that causes certain symptoms in a healthy patient can remove those symptoms in a sick person.

Hahnemann also created homeopathy’s idea of ‘less is more’ — that if a potion is diluted and shaken, it becomes not weaker but stronger, a process called ‘potentation’. Homeopaths believe the most potent remedies are those that have been potentised to the point where not one active molecule is actually left in the potion.

While many think of ‘heavy dilution’ as reducing a substance to, say, one part active ingredient to 1,000 parts water, this goes much, much further.

These remedies can range in dilutions from 1 molecule of substance in 1,000,000,000,000,000,000, 000,000,000,000 molecules of water to even more. Some describe it as a ‘molecular memory’, or the equivalent of a drop of tap water in the Pacific Ocean. Nevertheless, it made Hahnemann a healthy fortune. He died a millionaire in Paris in 1843.

DISMISSED BY MEDICINE

MORE recently, homeopathy has come under withering scientific attack from mainstream medicine. Authoritative studies have failed to find any evidence it works better than inactive sugar placebo pills.

In 2016, the NHS spent more than £90,000 a year on homeopathy. The following year the NHS declared there is ‘no good quality evidence’ to show its usefulness and stopped the funding.

That final nail in the NHS homeopathy coffin was sad news for hardpressed GPs who had been fond of writing TEETH on the notes of persistent ‘never-wells’. The acronym stands for: ‘Tried everything else, try homeopathy’.

AND SOME OF THE STRANGE POTIONS ARSENIC FOR TUMMY ACHES

THE CLAIM: Arsenious oxide or white arsenic is an odourless, almost tasteless white powder that has been a convenient homicide weapon for centuries. Homeopaths use it as a remedy for headaches, digestive disorders, food poisoning, insomnia, allergies, anxiety, depression, and obsessive-compulsive disorder.

THE THEORY: Because arsenic poisoning is associated with anxiety and restlessness, it should work as a massively diluted remedy to be able to cure those very symptoms.

THE TRUTH: There is no research to support this, and plenty to warn against it. For example, in April, a case report in the journal Swiss Medical Weekly told how a 16-yearold girl was admitted to hospital suffering from nausea, stomach

cramps, diarrhoea, headaches, dizziness, anxiety and insomnia. She had been taking an arsenic remedy for ‘exam stress’ for four years. Tests revealed dangerous levels in her bloodstream.

CRUSHED BEES FOR ITCHY EYES

THE CLAIM: Eye drops made from ground up European honeybees can stop the redness and itching caused by allergic reactions to irritants such as pollen.

THE THEORY: Because bee stings cause allergic reactions and serious irritation, a tiny bit of bee will prevent those reactions. The remedy has been in use since 1847 and is one of homeopathy’s most common potions.

THE TRUTH: In 2016, Steven Salzberg, a U.S. professor of biomedical engineering, concluded: ‘Homeopathic eye drops are nothing more than really, really expensive water.’

SNAKE VENOM TO CURE CANCER

THE CLAIM: A homeopathic product called Bioven, containing components of snake venom, has been marketed in America with the claim it can treat ‘Aids, hepatitis and some cancers’.

THE THEORY: Snake venom is viciously toxic to nerves and organs in humans. Homeopathy suggests minuscule amounts may ‘reverse the body’s chemical and immunological imbalances’ and thus cure serious illness.

THE TRUTH: In April, experts at the U.S. Food and Drugs Administration wrote to the product’s manufacturers, Florida-based Red Mountain Incorporated, warning them that their snake venom was putting customers at serious risk, perhaps because conventional medical treatments are not sought early enough, and they point out that there is not a product on Earth that can cure Aids, hepatitis and cancers.

THE ‘NATURAL’ IMMUNISATIONS

THE CLAIM: For centuries, practitioners have claimed infectious diseases such as measles can be cured with alternative treatments, negating the need for conventional vaccinations.

THE THEORY: Infectious bugs are taken from lab cultures, or even body fluids, then sterilised and massively diluted. Known as ‘nosodes’ these solutions are supposed to provide a ‘natural’ defence against infectious disease. Homeopaths maintain this makes them entirely safe as well as similarly effective to conventional vaccines.

THE TRUTH: Last November, Canada’s McMaster University tested homeopathic nosodes for mumps, measles, diphtheria, whooping cough and tetanus on 150 university students. None of them worked at all. In the UK, cases of measles have quadrupled in the last 12 months, fuelled by the antivax movement.

DEADLY NIGHTSHADE FOR TEETHING GRIZZLES

THE CLAIM: Homeopathic tablets containing extracts from the poisonous plant belladonna — deadly nightshade — soothe babies’ teething pains.

THE THEORY: Belladonna kills by blocking the nervous system. When used in low doses, it is said to block and ‘salve’ pain.

THE TRUTH: In 2017 the Food and Drug Administration warned that homeopathic teething tablets containing belladonna pose an unnecessary risk to infants as concentrations varied wildly.

FINALLY, FAMOUS FANS . . .

ROYALTY remain huge users, with Ainsworths having held a Royal Warrant since 1980 as the Queen’s homeopathic pharmacist. The Prince of Wales is patron of the Faculty of Homeopathy.

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and former Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt are among MPs to have signed motions in favour of it. Celeb supporters include Paul McCartney, David Beckham, Usain Bolt and — of course — Gwyneth Paltrow.