Safety profile

Studies confirm the high safety profile of homeopathic and anthroposophic medicines.

Safety is a major issue for the pharmaceutical sector, with the EU giving priority to laws and processes on pharmacovigilance. In 2017, 543,548 reports related to suspected adverse drug reactions were collected and managed in EudraVigilance within the European Economic Area (EEA).

Homeopathic and anthroposophic medicinal products have an important role to play, as they can generally be regarded as safe. This is further demonstrated by the following scientific literature:

• a systematic review of the safety of homeopathy concluded adverse effects provoked by homeopathic medicines are generally mild and transient; in two studies included in the systematic review, only 2.7% of the patients reported adverse reactions; in the third study, 7.8% of homeopathy patients (mainly paediatric cases with specific acute pathology) had adverse reactions, compared to 22.3% in the corresponding group receiving conventional treatment;
• other studies confirm the safety, showing that when applied properly, classical homeopathy has few side-effects and the use of high-potencies is free from toxic effects;
• a thorough systematic evaluation of collected and spontaneous reported side effects for injectables of anthroposophic and homeopathic medications indicates that injectables as applied in anthroposophic medicine and homeopathy have an excellent safety profile.

• Hamre et al found 70.1 adverse drug reactions (ADRs) for each 100,000 prescriptions of anthroposophic medicinal products (these mostly comply with the legal definition of homeopathic medicinal products).  For injectable homeopathic and anthroposophic medicinal products, Baars et al found one adverse drug reaction per 250,000 ampoules sold, classified as very rare.

Data from ECHAMP member companies confirm these overall safety findings. The frequency of adverse reactions to homeopathic and anthroposophic medicinal products is very low and serious adverse reactions are very rarely reported. In 2016, the number of adverse drug reactions reported to ECHAMP member companies was less than 1 in each 200,000 units sold.