Adler, Rolf

Herschkowitz, Norbert

Minder, Christoph

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CORRESPONDENCELetter to the editorHomeopathic treatment of children with attention deficit disorder: a randomized, doubleblind, placebo-controlled crossover trial. H. Frei R. Everts, K.v. Ammon et al. Eur JPediatr. 2005; 164: 758–767Rolf H. Adler & Norbert Herschkowitz &Christoph E. MinderReceived: 20 April 2006 /Accepted: 6 July 2006 / Published online: 19 September 2006# Springer-Verlag 2006The authors deserve recognition for their effort to do a well-designed trial in the contested field of homoeopathy.However, for the following reasons we doubt that theeffectivity of homeopathic treatment is supported by thisstudy:1. The exclusion of a quarter of all eligible studyprobands after they failed to show any improvement in theinitial open trial phase does not correspond to usual practiceand limits the generalisability of the results of the trial.2. The worsening of symptoms in the double-blind trialphase under verum in arm A contradicts the hypothesis ofthe effectivity of homeopathic treatment. This lack of effectcannot be ascribed to the expectations of parents, as theauthors argue.3. The slight improvement of symptoms under verum inarm B in the second phase is with 1.67 negligible comparedto the improvement of nearly 10 points seen in the openpre-trial phase (CGI scale). In our opinion, this points to theineffectiveness of the treatment. This is all the more true asthe p-value is only around .05, from the testing of a ratherlarge number of scales. The sizeable improvement in theopen after-trial phase points to a large effect of the doctors'encouragement.In our view, the overall picture emerging from this studyis most simply interpreted assuming no intrinsic homeop-athy effect, but rather a pronounced effect of the medicaltreatment procedure on the family system.Eur J Pediatr (2007) 166:509DOI 10.1007/s00431-006-0262-5R. H. Adler (*) :N. Herschkowitz : C. E. MinderMedical School, University of Bern,Bern, Switzerlande-mail: rolf.adler@tele2.ch

Letter to the editor: Homeopathic treatment of children with attention deficit disorder: a randomized, double blind, placebo-controlled crossover trial. H. Frei R. Everts, K.v. Ammon et al. Eur J Pediatr. 2005; 164: 758-767

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Letter to the editor: Homeopathic treatment of children with attention deficit disorder: a randomized, double blind, placebo-controlled crossover trial. H. Frei R. Everts, K.v. Ammon et al. Eur J Pediatr. 2005; 164: 758-767

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