A peer-reviewed journal has published a paper that urges the adoption of homeopathy in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic.
[Please see an update on this post.]
The Journal of Public Health: From Theory to Practice — published by Springer Nature and also known by its German name, Zeitschrift für Gesundheitswissenschaften — published “Homeopathy combat against coronavirus disease (Covid-19)” on June 5. It is indexed in PubMed Central, although not on Medline.
Here’s the abstract:
Aim
Today, humanity is living through the third serious coronavirus outbreak in less than 20 years, following SARS in 2002–2003 and MERS in 2012. While the final cost on human lives and world economy remains unpredictable, the timely identification of a suitable treatment and the development of an effective vaccine remain a significant challenge and will still require time. The aim of this study is to show that the global collective effort to control the coronavirus pandemic (Covid 19) should also consider alternative therapeutic methods, and national health systems should quickly endorse the validity of proven homeopathic treatments in this war against coronavirus disease.
Subject and methods
With the help of mathematics, we will show that the fundamental therapeutic law on which homeopathy is founded can be proved.
Results
The mathematical proof of the law of similarity justifies perfectly the use of ultra – high diluted succussed solution products as major tools in the daily practices of homeopathy.
Conclusion
It is now time to end prejudice and adopt in this fight against Covid-19 alternative therapeutic techniques and practices that historically have proven effective in corresponding situations.
As one Twitter user put it:
A couple of engineers and a dentist try to use MATHS to prove homeopathy will cure COVID-19.
An excellent batty paper.
The editor of the journal, Joachim Kugler, has not responded to a request for comment from Retraction Watch about how an article about an unproven treatment — and that’s being kind — could have made it through peer review, particularly in the midst of a pandemic that has killed hundreds of thousands around the world.
Dimitris Kalliantas, the corresponding author of the paper, told us:
Of course, this paper was published in a peer-reviewed journal and this is a small part of many a year’s investigation work related to homeopathy and its medicines (ultra high diluted succussed medicinal products) at National Technical University of Athens. The results of our research showed that homeopathy is something much more than it seems. Classical homeopathy broke the timeless mistake made by established medicine in therapeutic. This mistake is related with the linearly approach of disease, which as a phenomenon is non-linear. The results’ phenomenology from the applications of classical homeopathy is fully supported by mathematics. Because they are unpublished works I cannot tell more. Today, when humanity is being severely tested by Covid- 19 and no effect has emerged, except from the thousand’s dead peoples every day, the correct application of classical homeopathy by professionals would be an oasis.
Kalliantas appears to publish often on the subject.
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“Because they are unpublished works I cannot tell more.”
Fanciful claims backed by myths is closer to religion than it is to science.
What the hell is that article? It’s so silly, it’s just an equation that says stuff [does/could] work. To quote Billy Madison:
‘Mr Madison, what you’ve just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I’ve ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response was there anything that could even be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.’
Uaaaaa ………. where exactly is that quotation from?
The movie “Billy Madison” starring Adam Sandler.
They mean ultra high diluted hydroxychloroquine solutions ?
Oh come on. You can’t reject that paper without critically examining this one:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32668870/
There are some real nuts out there. And that they can get these papers published is a little scary.
Ultra high diluted = statistically, no molecule of the original substance remains or simply put, water water everywhere and not a molecule to find.
And not to forget the beating (succussion) to maintain the memory of the molecule. It’s vital for the medicine to work.
Now that’s woo science at its best!
“Today, when humanity is being severely tested by Covid- 19 and no effect has emerged, except from the thousand’s dead peoples every day, the correct application of classical homeopathy by professionals would be an oasis.”
Well, go ahead. Do a preregistered RCT in which the treatment group gets proper homeopathic diagnostics plus treatment and in which the control group gets homeopathic diagnostics plus placebo. And make sure the results are published and open data regardless of the outcome. Can’t wait to see the results.
But isn’t the placebo group on homeopathy already ? 🤔
Just a comment about the so-called “mathematical proof of the law of similarity”, which is, to quote the saying, “not even wrong”.
In case anyone’s interested, the so-called mathematical operations here are merely representations in a novel form of what I presume to be some form of the “Similia similibus curentur” argument. A represents the disease, B the relationship of a healthy person to the patient, C the medicine. Then C = B A B^{-1} is just a formula saying in symbols what can be more simply put into words: that the medicine is to a healthy person what the disease is to the patient. It doesn’t “prove” anything just to recast it into a different expression, of course, nor does it even pretend to say anything about the effect or otherwise of dilution of C.
I’m reminded of the reaction to the theories of Velikosvy, which were based on arguments from archaeology and astronomy. The archaeologists tended to say that the archaeology was bunk, while the astronomy looked convincing; whereas the astronomers said that the astronomy was bunk but the archaeology looked convincing.
Are you kidding me? So many good papers are rejected (not specifically in that journal) just because of some evil referee and stupid editor (or vice versa), but these dumb and dangerous papers are published.
This paper has nothing to do neither with mathematics not with medicine. I would love to see what referees said about it and how they praised it so it gets published.
It should not only be withdrawn immediately, but the authors also should be banned from publishing anything for the rest of their lives.
1) https://www.ntua.gr/en/search
Kalliantas Dimitrios, External Collaborator
School of Chemical Engineering (NTUA), but also
https://www.xo.gr/profile/profile-910191486/en/
KALLIANTAS DIMITRIOS Dentist, Elefsina
2) M. Kallianta School of Dentistry, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens, Greece
(But I couldn’t find in their website).
https://www.familysearch.org/wiki/en/Greece_Names,_Personal Kallianta is female version on Kalliantas.
3) https://www.ntua.gr/en/search
Karagianni Chaido-Stefania, Professor
School of Chemical Engineering
Materials Science and Engineering (NTUA)
There’s another (not really lucid) author response at PubPeer: https://pubpeer.com/publications/003FFE17AF3EFB7D5486389615AD3E
“D. Kalliantas commented:
What-Who is Curtobacterium Fangii? I will try to answer to everyone. NECESSARY CONDITIONS: Names and Degree studies. I do not answer to anonymous people. In this case I will make an exception. From this observation I see that you do not know what is defined as scientific and what it is not. You just did not understand what you read. Now we have another case of epistemological disability. Dear friend, you MUST PROVE, line to line , that this paper is not scientific. Otherwise you are a slanderer. Did you understand?”
#libelslander!!
“This mistake is related with the linearly approach of disease, which as a phenomenon is non-linear.”
This is interesting, given that their model is a linear one based on affine transformations.
Disease is both linear and non linear.
Additionally, “every linear transformation is affine, but not every affine transformation is linear.”
You are not actualy refuting whjat they are saying. You are using the same reification fallacy you are claiming they are using. Drinking green tea is a healthy and benficial and is a form of homeopathy.
Drinking green tea is NOT a form of homeopathy. Homeopathy, as defined and also mentioned in this paper, is “the use of ultra – high diluted succussed solution products as major tools in the daily practices of homeopathy”.
If you drink green tea that has been brewed, and then diluted 1eX (X being a positive integer) times to the extent that not one single “green tea” molecule is left in the solution, THAT would be homeopathy. And their claim is that this “diluted green tea” (which is, really, just water) is MORE potent than the originally brewed green tea at full strength (because of “water memory”), which is, obviously, against all basic science.
Besides the obvious absurdity of using an equation/model to describe a scenario that is not observable is against basic mathematical modeling fundamentals, the conclusion is faulty.
“Patients should be assigned randomly in two different groups of at least 200–400 individuals, and receive respectively established and homeopathic treatment. The evaluation of the results from both groups could reveal which group has a superior outcome in survival, general health conditions, etc., and to what extent.”
This has already been done multiple times, including meta-analysis. The results were the same, homeopathy is nonsense, ineffective, and no better than placebo. How could this kind of anti-science nonsense continues to get published?
1. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5366148/
2. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1874503/
homeopathy works based on principle subjective objective symptom matching,like cures like,helps body defenses to neutralise disease basically sub acute symptoms.there is no one common remedy yet certified to act on all subjects in this epidemic.unless we listen from top experts like jeremy sherr,there is no single remedy.this does not prevent us to go to a classical homeopath for constitutional remedy selection to keep fit immune system.
The critics of the article are the persons who will not feed the hungry or will allow them to beg for food.In our country India on which base was Hydroxy Chloroquine given to the covid patients. Was their any clinical basis?Still it was being considered as a panacea for the disease which led to a verbal war between India and USA.Ultimately what was the result when the Americans found that it was doing bad rather good then its use was stopped.
If what the Allopaths say is correct and scientific then why a small tiny virus is ravaging humanity.If their assumptions are scientific then it should be eternal and should not change with time.They have to accept that there is something wrong in their definition of Science.Everything visible to us today were not visible to us 50 years or 100 years back and what are not visible today may be visible say after 50 or 100 years.
In their false claims of being scientific they are allowing so many people to die but are not allowing the alternative systems of medicines to treat the suffering mankind.
The alternative system medicine personnel are asking the main stream pathy to allow them to prove their mettle in at least the patients who are not critical. How can they simply discard without testing the efficacy of the medicines.
To reach to a conclusion that Homeopathy is placebo effect a lot of study has to be done.
Even they are not giving the nosodes a chance to see if it is effective or not.
“Now that’s woo science at its best!”
No, you are plain wrong, science of water tells otherwise: http://www1.lsbu.ac.uk/water/memory_of_water.html
Other proof of effectiveness of homeopathic dilutions:
“The in vitro evidence for an effect of high homeopathic potencies–a systematic review of the literature.” https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17544864
Effects of homeopathic arsenicum album, nosode, and gibberellic acid preparations on the growth rate of arsenic-impaired duckweed (Lemna gibba L.). https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21057725
The use of plant-based bioassays in homeopathic basic research: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26678729
Cytotoxic effects of ultra-diluted remedies on breast cancer cells
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20043074
Hormetic effects of extremely diluted solutions on gene expression
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25869976/
Evaluation of antipyretic activity of Belladonna and Pyrogenium ultrahigh dilutions in induced fever model
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30335611/
Metal nanoparticle induced hormetic activation: a novel mechanism of homeopathic medicines
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28844286/
Article is still online today October 18, 2020, though with a comment
…Editorial action will be taken as appropriate once the investigation into the concerns is complete and all parties have been given an opportunity to respond in full…..
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10389-020-01305-z#change-history
The authors probably have problems to respond in full??
Article still online today December 1, 2020, 4 months since concerns had been raised………zzz….zzzzz….zzzzzzz
03 August 2020 Editor’s Note: Concerns have been raised over the validity of this article: Kalliantas, D., Kallianta, M. and Karagianni, C.S. Homeopathy combat against coronavirus disease (Covid-19). J Public Health (2020). Editorial action will be taken as appropriate once the investigation into the concerns is complete and all parties have been given an opportunity to respond in full.