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“I cannot help but feel strong bewilderment” over the recent rise in homeopathy’s use as a treatment in Japan, said Ichiro Kanazawa, who chairs the prestigious Science Council of Japan.
“The reason is that it ignores science,” Kanazawa, who is also the medical supervisor for Japan’s Imperial Household Agency, said in a statement.
The controversy has been fuelled by reports that a two-month-old baby girl died last year of a cerebral haemorrhage in Japan after she was given a homeopathic remedy instead of the normal treatment of vitamin K.
Homeopathic medicines use materials derived from flora, fauna and minerals, and their preparation includes the heavy dilution of the raw materials, according to the World Health Organisation.
“In some cases, the dilution is so high that it is almost impossible to find one molecule of the original raw material,” the WHO said in a February report.
Kanazawa argued that “because it is only water, of course it has no therapeutic effects, not to mention ‘side effects’”.