there is no scientific case for homeopathy: the debate is over

guardian |  Homeopathy has been with me all my life. As a boy, I was treated by homeopaths; my first post as a junior doctor was in a homeopathic hospital, later I researched homeopathy and published more than 100 papers on the subject, and finally I summarised the entire experience in a memoir entitled A Scientist in Wonderland.

In 1993, when I became professor of complementary medicine at Exeter, I was more than happy to give homeopathy the benefit of the doubt. I would have loved to show that it is effective beyond placebo, not least because anyone doing that would almost automatically deserve a Nobel prize. He or she would have to show that a sizeable chunk of our understanding of the laws of nature is quite simply wrong. Homeopathy is based on the belief that “like cures like” and that the dilution of a medicine – homeopaths call the process “potentiation” – renders it not weaker but stronger. As both of these assumptions fly in the face of science, critical thinkers have always insisted that few things could be more implausible than homeopathy.

But plausibility is not everything. In Exeter, we conducted trials, surveys and reviews of homeopathy in the faint hope that we might discover something important. What we did find was sobering:

• Our trials failed to show that homeopathy is more than a placebo.

• Our reviews demonstrated that the most reliable of the 230 or so trials of homeopathy ever published are also not positive.

• Studies with animals confirmed the results obtained on humans.

• Surveys and case reports suggested that homeopathy can be dangerous.

• The claims made by homeopaths to cure conditions like cancer, asthma or even Ebola were bogus.

• The promotion of homeopathy is not ethical.