A Tauranga-based medical researcher is calling on doctors not to practise homeopathy or refer their patients to homeopaths.

In a letter to the New Zealand Medical Journal, Professor Shaun Holt and other senior researchers from New Zealand and the United Kingdom say “practising homeopathy or endorsing it by referring patients is not consistent with the ethical or regulatory requirements of practising medicine”.

Homeopathy is a form of alternative medicine in which practitioners treat patients using highly diluted preparations believed to cause healthy people to exhibit symptoms similar to those exhibited by the patient.

One in eight New Zealand GPs practises homeopathy or refers patients to homeopaths.

The letter was triggered by the recently released Medical Council of New Zealand statement on complementary and alternative medicine, which informed doctors of the standards of practice that were expected of them.