This was the largest-scale ever homeopathic study, involving 2.3 million patients in parts of Cuba, who were given two doses of a homeopathic remedy as a preventative to the hurricane-triggered disease. The infection rate for leptospirosis dropped to near zero, for a cost that was a small fraction of what they had been paying for vaccination. Cuba now uses the homeopathic protocol with its entire population (Bracho, Gustavo, personal communication).
Currently, they’re working on another study on upper respiratory infections, with nine million (9,000,000) people.
http://www.sphq.org/pdf/leptospirosis_epidemic.pdfRemedies are made by a sequence of dilutions of the starting material in purified water or aqueous ethanol with considerable agitation (called succussion)
A controversial paper in Nature
http://www.lsbu.ac.uk/water/ref2.html#r containing data from several laboratories, claiming to prove the efficacy of extreme dilution (the 'memory of water'
http://www.lsbu.ac.uk/water/ref12.html#r has not been generally accepted after the results were reported as not reproducible under closely controlled and observed (by Nature's self-acknowledged biased observers), but strained, overly-demanding and unsympathetic, conditions with negative results from only one laboratory being cherry-picked from amongst otherwise positive results .
Preliminary data obtained using Raman and Ultra-Violet–Visible (UV–VIS) spectroscopy illustrate the ability to distinguish two different homeopathic medicines (Nux vomica and Natrum muriaticum) from one another and to differentiate, within a given medicine, the 6c, 12c, and 30c potencies.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1475491607000628 From 75 publications, 67 experiments (1/3 of them replications) were evaluated. Nearly 3/4 of them found a high potency effect, and 2/3 of those 18 that scored 6 points or more and controlled contamination. Nearly 3/4 of all replications were positive. Design and experimental models of the reviewed experiments were inhomogenous, most were performed on basophiles.” (Same thing Benveniste was studying.) What frustrates the scientists is that this isn’t 100% reproducible. They are working on figuring out why.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17544864There are a hell of a lot of studies being done to isolate exactly what is having the effect.Those who claim homeopathy is invalid because it is unexplained should also note that the placebo effect is always controlled for in high-quality studies–even though it, too, is unexplained.