Federal Health Minister Jens Spahn declared yesterday, 17.09.2019, that he would adhere further to the reimbursability of homeopathy by the statutory health insurance funds. He cited the comparatively marginal costs compared to the total expenditure of the SHI funds, i.e. the sufficiently strained “peanuts” argument, as the reason for this.
There are undoubtedly only bad reasons for Mr. Spahn’s decision, but this is undoubtedly the worst of all. We will see how politicians and other groups react. We, for our part, feel obliged to respond to his decision in the form of an open letter to Mr Spahn:
Information Network Homeopathy
We clarify – you have the choice!
18.09.2019
Mr
Federal Minister for Health
Jens Spahn
by e-mail
Dear Federal Minister Spahn,
From your statement of 17.09.19 we have learned that you have decided not to exclude homeopathy from the benefits of statutory health insurance. In our opinion, you are basing your decision on an aspect which is ultimately irrelevant and which has never been or is the subject of scientific criticism of homeopathy.
Of course, we regard every single euro for homeopathy as an unjustified use of contributions from the solidarity community and not as “peanuts”. However, the reasons underlying the demand for an end to reimbursement and ultimately the questioning of the property as medicine of homeopathic products are quite different and far more important. With your decision and its justification, you give room not least to an increasing hostility to science and facts, the effects of which you then try to recapture elsewhere with a compulsory vaccination.
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- It is not understandable for us that homeopathy continues to be supported politically, contrary to the clear scientific situation, which is not affected in any way by the constant interventions of the homeopathic lobby. Homeopathy has no specific medicinal effect and therefore no medical relevance. It is full of internal and external contradictions and thus incompatible with the valid and proven scientific view of the world.
- As a method that is at best capable of producing a placebo effect and that ascribes its successes to her method itself altough natural disease processes and the body’s self-healing abilities do the work, it must no longer enjoy a public reputation in the interest of patients. This public reputation was wrongly granted to it for decades, resulting in a completely distorted image in the public. By declaring that you will not touch the reimbursability, you are perpetuating this instead of necessarily finally counteracting it. Unfortunately, the effects will not be limited to homeopathy, but will more or less benefit the entire field of “alternative medicine” means and methods.
- Conveying the impression that homeopathy is effective medicine is not only dishonest towards patients, it is also dangerous. We have no doubt that every day people suffer unnecessary pain, disease progression is prolonged, effective therapies are delayed or in the worst case even prevented – not in every case with a “spectacular” outcome, undoubtedly, but not to be accepted, since avoidable. As a rule, these cases remain in the dark, and their effects are not reflected in homeopathic statistics, but in the case and death statistics of the “orthodox medicine”, which is so poorly estimated. The responsibility of politics for the public good should be remembered here. We are talking about patient protection, Minister!
- The fact that this also applies to so-called medical homeopathy, which is represented by the German Central Association of Homeopathic Physicians, can be seen from the lectures which it allows under its direction at its annual medical congresses. Treatment of cancer, AIDS, HPV infections, ADHD and more are the spectacular rule, not the exception.
- We also don’t want to hide the fact that you counteract the many years of educational work of the scientifically founded homeopathy criticism with your statement per homeopathy reimbursement. Homeopathy propaganda, which we oppose daily with our educational work, regains credibility.
- Allow us to make a few remarks on the pecuniary aspect without trying to relativize its subordinate importance.
Perhaps it has not become quite clear to you how contradictory the cost aspect is dealt with. On the one hand, it is said to be a matter of peanuts, but on the other hand, a change in the reimbursement system is exaggerated into an affair of enormous – also economic – significance.
Moreover, there are fundamental doubts as to whether the amount you mentioned fully covers the costs of homeopathy.
The amount you mentioned does not include the regular benefits for homeopathic treatment of children and adolescents and, above all, not the expenses for medical remuneration for homeopathic services, both of which, to our knowledge, are not statistically recorded.
According to Witt/Ostermann’s investigations, patients with an affinity for homeopathy consistently incur higher health insurance costs. The collective of more than 22,000 patients of a large health insurance company alone caused direct additional costs of almost 35 million euros in the first 18 months. This can surely be transferred to other health insurance companies. We leave it up to your imagination how this will look like when the majority of patients with an affinity for homeopathy will reach a higher age with higher risks for chronic illnesses.
Beyond these concrete points, however, it should also be taken into account that follow-up costs – in the medical as well as in the economic field – are to be expected as a result of therapy delays due to disease patterns developing factually untreated.
Even if one is inclined to view the argumentation with the allegedly low costs in isolation, it is nevertheless based on at least an incomplete consideration and cannot therefore be valid on its own.
We would like to draw your attention to neighbouring European countries such as England, France and Spain, which are clearly scientifically oriented and unimpressed by the protest and demagogy of the homeopathy lobby. In these countries the responsible authorities proceed according to the clear scientific findings and in the sense of patient protection. From there, some initiatives for an amendment of the EU Medicines Directive are launched in order to end the false attribution of medicinal properties to homeopathy at this level. How should Germany position itself in this discussion?
As an organisation that has played a leading role in the discourse of science-based criticism on homeopathy in Germany since 2016, we feel obliged to make these comments. We regret your decision and cannot follow it. We will continue our criticism and continue to pursue the goal of giving homeopathy the role that is appropriate for it: that of one of the many methods that are well-known, partly popular and will certainly remain available, but which are specifically ineffective and therefore cannot be the subject of legal privileges and health care in a public solidarity system.
Yours sincerely
Information Network Homeopathy – INH
The above Open Letter is an opinion of the Homeopathy Information Network, but it is open for co-signature by all those who share the positions expressed therein.
Who would like to co-sign with name / title and place of residence, can explain this gladly by Mail to info@netzwerk-homoeopathie.info We will only use the data provided for this purpose and will not pass on any further data, such as e-mail addresses, to third parties.
This is the list of the named co-signatories, which is constantly supplemented:
Picture credits: S. Hermann & F. Richter on Pixabay
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