How Should We Respond to Non-Dominant Healing Practices, the Example of Homeopathy.

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How Should We Respond to Non-Dominant Healing Practices, the Example of Homeopathy.

J Bioeth Inq. 2017 Mar;14(1):87-96

Authors: Gray B

Abstract
The debate around the ethics of homeopathy in recent issues of the journal has been approached as a binary question; is homeopathy ethical or not? This paper suggests that this is an unhelpful question and instead discusses a framework to establish the extent to which the dominant (medical) culture should tolerate non-dominant health practices such as homeopathy. This requires a sophisticated understanding of the placebo effect, a critical evaluation of what evidence is available, a consideration of the harm that the non-dominant practice might cause, and a consideration of how this might be affected by the culture of the patient. This is presented as a matter of cultural competence. At a clinical level clinicians need to respect the values and beliefs of their patients and communicate with all the practitioners involved in a patient's care. At a societal level there are a number of factors to be considered when a community decides which practices to tolerate and to what extent.

PMID: 27975156 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

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