Talk:Tests of the efficacy of homeopathy

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"In conventional medicine (see New Drug Application), the basic phases of evaluating a drug determine: if it causes dangerous effects in healthy volunteers; if it is adequately present in the body to achieve an effect; and if it is more effective than established treatments. Randomized controlled trials use statistical analysis of large groups of patients to determine whether a treatment given in a standardised form to one subgroup is safer and more effective than a different standardised treatment given to another. This conflicts with an approach that believes that treatments must be individually tailored to each patient. Clinical trial specialists have proposed protocols to test "low responding" or individualized therapies in statistically valid clinical trials. For homeopathy, by having a group of people who identify as ill and asking a qualified homeopath to diagnose them - then having a remedy given to a subset, and medicines that share the same physical properties but are homeopathically inert (for instance, by using ordinary water rather than homeopathically diluted water in preparing the substance). This method thus tests the standard diagnostic method as the experimental treatment, rather than the specific medications. There have not been, however, many homeopathic trials using this method." Text cut from Homeopathy, to be incorporatedGareth Leng 11:40, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

There needs to be enough reference to this, in the main article, to counter the homeopathic claim that RCTs are inherently hostile to homeopathy. That's arguably true in the past, but it is no longer a valid criticism. Since you are doing so much moving, I'm hesitant to edit the main article. Howard C. Berkowitz 15:04, 28 November 2010 (UTC)