An in-depth investigation into the National Health and Medical Research Council’s (NHMRC) conduct in executing the Homeopathy Review revealed that the NHMRC withheld important administrative and scientific details regarding how it produced its finding of ‘no reliable evidence’ across all medical conditions examined – despite publishing around 1,000 pages of report documentation. This included:

• No homeopathy experts or homeopathy research experts were appointed to the NHMRC Homeopathy Working Committee (HWC), in open breach of mandatory NHMRC standards and accepted standards of ethical scientific inquiry.

• The NHMRC Chief Executive Officer (CEO), who had publicly voiced his opposition to homeopathy before the Review commenced, appointed a member of the anti-homeopathy sceptics group Friends of Science in Medicine (FSM) to the HWC (Prof Peter Brooks), also appointing him as Chair.
• The CEO had been previously warned of FSM’s attempt to influence NHMRC reviewers to join FSM and use their position of influence to further the group’s anti-complementary medicine agenda.
• The NHMRC did not disclose that Prof Brooks chaired the inaugural meeting of the HWC in April 2012 as an active FSM supporter, nor that he failed to declare his conflict at the meeting as required under NHMRC legislation (NHMRC Act 1992 s.42A).
• Despite stepping down as Chair in May 2012, Prof Brooks remained as a member of the HWC without any formal management plan of his conflict for the duration of the Review.
• The NHMRC did not declare that the research group contracted in 2014 to assess public submission evidence, the Australian Research Centre for Women and Babies (ARCH), University of Adelaide, contained supporters of the anti-homeopathy lobby group FSM.
• The ARCH, which had no expertise relevant to understanding and interpreting homeopathic evidence, sits within the Robinson Research Institute (RRI), whose former and current Directors are FSM Supporters. The RRI officially awarded FSM’s Vice-President and co-founder (Prof MacLennan) a ‘Skeptics of the Year Award for FSM’ twice during the term of the Review (2012 and 2014). The RRI’s Directors have long histories of service with NHMRC, including having served on NHMRC Council and its Principal Committees.
• At the start of NHMRC’s focus on homeopathy, the former NHMRC CEO described homeopathy as an “an alleged” therapy and at its conclusion declared the sector to be “charlatans” and “snake oil merchants”, directly reiterating language used by FSM’s Vice President, Prof MacLennan (also a RRI research Head), in lobbying the CEO against homeopathy in April 2014, prior to NHMRC contracting his ARCH colleagues to review additional evidence from May 2014.
• NHMRC Council and the NHMRC Health Care Committee that were involved in overseeing the Homeopathy Review also contained a number of FSM Supporters, representing multiple conflicts of interest and further exposing the Review to bias. No conflicts were declared or managed by NHMRC for the duration of the Review.
• In July 2011, during the early administrative phase of the Review and before any evidence assessment had commenced, the former NHMRC Chairman publicly disclosed NHMRC’s pre-formed position on homeopathy to the Australian Skeptics:

‘Let me assure you that I am no supporter of homeopathy. As Chairman of NHMRC I can also assure you that NHMRC does not support homeopathy.’

• The second HWC Chair, Prof Paul Glasziou, also made explicit anti-homeopathy remarks during the Review that exceeded his committee’s Terms of Reference, also pre-empting the Review’s outcome before public consultation had been completed and additional evidence had been assessed.
• Comments published by the HWC Chair, Prof Paul Glasziou, in February 2016, confirm the entrenched culture of bias within NHMRC/ HWC, tarnishing the reputation of Australia’s leading medical research institution and bringing the ethics of its processes into question.