A leading professional has warned that people who rely on homoeopathic medicines may be putting their lives in danger due to the alternative system of medicine’s baseless claims of curing diseases.  

Edzard Ernst, Professor of complementary medicine, stated, “Homoeopathic claims are not benign, they are dangerous. (Homoeopaths) have to demonstrate with scientific rigour that their claims work or they have to shut up.”

However, India-based homoeopath S K Dasgupta has refused to buy Ernst's argument.  

Dr. Dasgupta said, “Homoeopathy is a system of medicine in which a drug and a disease that produce similar symptoms cancel each other out in some way thereby restoring the patients to health. This principle of 'Like can cure Like' actually forms its basis.”  

Even the British Homoeopathic Association refused that the treatments were unsafe.

But, Ernst of Exeter University has declared a 10,000-pound prize for any evidence of a successful homoeopathic treatment.  

He said, “Homoeopathic claims are not benign, they are dangerous. [Homoeopaths] have to demonstrate with scientific rigour that their claims work or they have to shut up.”

He also said that homoeopathic treatments are a "public health problem" and there is a need to regulate them properly.
 
His remarks came just a day after a British Government report demanded "urgent" controls on herbalists, acupuncturists and traditional Chinese medicine practitioners, amid fears over patient safety.  

Its suggestions, to be considered by ministers, include a proposal that new practitioners would have to study for a degree before they could practise.