Homeopathy Success in Piglets and E Coli

The following was sent to me by organic farmer, homeopathic activist and all round good guy - Oliver Dowding.  I was fascinated by this piece of research and I hope you enjoy it too:  Here's a quick outline of what happened:

The study in question was a double blind RCT of 52 sows who were randomly treated with Coli 30K or placebo and who subsequently gave birth to 525 piglets.The study showed that there was a reduction in the incidence of E.Coli diarrhoea.  (Results showed that the placebo group had over six times more diarrhoea than the homeopathically treated group (P < 0.0001).

The researchers pointed out that although mean duration of diarrhoea was not significantly different for both groups, 1.86 days on average in the placebo group compared to 1.3 days in the Coli 30K group, the difference of half a day can make large differences in the overall performance of piglets.

The owner of the farm where the experiment was carried out initially quite sceptical about homeopathy. However, after the experiment he decided to apply Coli 30K to all sows. Since then E.Coli diarrhoea has hardly occurred . . . . . .

The authors state that

"Advantages at farm level (of E.Coli 30K homeopathic remedy) are ease of application of the treatment by the farmer and cost reduction. These advantages and the positive results from this study make the homeopathic agent Coli 30K an attractive potential alternative in the prevention of E.Coli diarrhoea."

Food for thought . . . .

So, given the double blind RCT structure of the trial - the 'gold standard' of science, does this research indicate that homeopathy works, double blind RCTs don't work - or that ickle piggies tell great big porkies?

You decide!

Sourced from healthy pages