Harald Walach

Kazimieras Simonavicius University

We present a case study of corrupted discourses in medicine. Medicine is a fallible science. Therefore, it is not surprising that mistakes in the assessment of data and early closure of discourse have led to a highly biased view of the Covid-19 crisis. We present two examples of papers which were retracted following criticisms and republished after...

Background Recently, Buergin et al. (Eur J Heart Fail 25(10):1871–1881, 2023 doi:10.1002/ejhf.2978) thoroughly measured a frequency of 2.8% elevated high-sensitivity cardiac troponin T levels, a sign of myocardial damage, after mRNA-1273 (Moderna) booster vaccinations. In their discussion, they claim that before vaccinations were available, the inc...

Zusammenfassung Dieser Artikel gibt den Vortrag wieder, den Herr Prof. Dr. Dr. Harald Walach bei der 171. Jahrestagung des DZVhÄ am 20.05.2023 zum Abschluss des Kongresses hielt.

Background Breast cancer is the most common cancer type in women and quality of life an essential part of patients’ well-being. Although the treatment with mistletoe extracts is covered by multiple cancer guidelines and reviews, it is uncertain whether mistletoe extracts can improve the quality of life in breast cancer patients. We therefore perfor...

Background The Freiburg Mindfulness Inventory (FMI) in its short form is one of the most frequently used instruments in research to measure self-attributed mindfulness. We sought to calibrate it in a representative German sample and to replicate its psychometric properties. Methods We administered the FMI-14 to a representative German sample. We r...

In a recent modeling study Watson et al. (Lancet Infect Dis 2022;3099:1–10) claim that Covid-19 vaccinations have helped to prevent roughly 14-20 million deaths in 2021. This conclusion is based on an epidemiological susceptible-exposed-infectious-recovered (SEIR) model trained on partially simulated data and yielding a reproduction number distribu...

Background: Bioenergy treatment devices have become popular and widely available for self-treatment to improve well-being. We meta-analyzed eight very similar studies of the Healy device to assess the joint effect size. Method: Eight studies with similar designs, some active controlled, some waitlist controlled, testing the Healy bioenergy devic...

Background Mistletoe extracts (ME) are used in integrative cancer care to improve quality of life and to prolong survival. ME are available from different producers and differ in pharmaceutical processing, such as fermentation. In contrast to fermented ME, the impact of unfermented extracts on the survival of cancer patients has not yet been assess...

Background The World Economic Forum (WEF) has spawned a global network of elites called Young Global Leaders (YGLs) with significant influence on large corporations, politics, academia, and media. This article scrutinizes the idea that through this network, the WEF had a significant influence on the scale and scope of the non-pharmaceutical interve...

Objectives: Homeopathy (HOM) is a therapeutic method, which is widely used by patients and medical professionals. The medical conditions as well as the homeopathic medical products investigated vary strongly. There is an extensive amount of research, and this necessitates a bibliography that comprehensively presents the entire body of clinical evid...

In a recent modeling study Watson et al. (Lancet Infect Dis 2022;3099:1-10) claim that Covid-19 vaccinations have helped to prevent roughly 14-20 million deaths in 2021. This conclusion is based on an epidemiological susceptible-exposed-infectious-recovered-susceptible (SEIRS) model trained on partially simulated data and extrapolated to a hypothet...

This article scrutinizes the idea that the World Economic Forum (WEF) had a significant influence on the scale and scope of the non-pharmaceutical pandemic interventions (NPIs) implemented in response to the COVID-19 crisis. We tested for associations between the country-level distribution of an alumni network of high-level decision makers who have...

I am pleased about the discussion which my review of Kennedy’s book “The Real Anthony Fauci” has stimulated. It is a signature of the COVID-19 crisis that scientific discourse has broken down. There seem to be only two camps, those that “believe” in the mainstream narrative that COVID-19 is a deadly killer virus with far above average Case Fatality...

Objective To answer the question: Why do people consent to being vaccinated with novel vaccines against SARS-CoV-2? Design Representative survey. Setting Online panel. Participants 1032 respondents of the general German population. Method A representative survey among German citizens in November/December 2021 that resulted in 1032 complete resp...

Aim To clarify the high variability in COVID-19-related deaths during the first wave of the pandemic, we conducted a modeling study using publicly available data. Materials and methods We used 13 population- and country-specific variables to predict the number of population-standardized COVID-19-related deaths in 43 European countries using genera...

This is a book review of Günter Kampf's book "Wissenschaft ist frei - auch in der Pandemie?". It describes the context, the content and suggests its importance.

Background Attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) prevalence is increasing, compliance to treatment is often poor, and additional treatment options are warranted. We aim to investigate whether individualized homeopathic treatment is effective in children with ADHD when compared to placebo or usual care alone. Methods Thirty-seven onli...

Let me start this review with my declaration of conflict of interest, intellectually of course: I have done some background research and reading on mercury toxicity (Mutter et al., 2010; Mutter et al., 2005), from thimerosal (ethylmercury, a preservative that used to be in vaccines until about 10 years ago) and amalgams. This is an area, where Robe...

I am grateful for Robert S. Bobrow’s “Counterpoint”. Discourse and controversy are essential elements, both of science and of finding political consensus. Both have suffered immensely over the last two years. And in my view, this has to do with the subtle mechanisms of censoring installed. Dissenting voices are silenced, in the media and in academi...

Nose and mouth covering (NMC) has been made compulsory for children in many countries during the Covid-19 pandemic. We wanted to determine the average CO2 levels in inhaled air with NMC in children between age 6 and 17. We used short term measurements under surgical masks and FFP2 masks according to European norm EN 149, compared to baseline in an...

The study investigates whether the World Economic Forum (WEF) might have played a role in mandating non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) during the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic. If this was the case, it would have done so by its generic and unique placement as a world-wide network of high-profile actors on the economic and political platf...

Objective To estimate the proportion of healthcare interventions tested within Cochrane Reviews that are effective according to high-quality evidence. Study design and setting We selected a random sample of 2428 (35%) of all Cochrane Reviews published between 1 January 2008 and 5 March 2021. We extracted data about interventions within these revie...

Harald Walach is handing over editorship to Frauke Musial and is reflecting on his time with CMR, while Frauke Musial is taking over and is looking ahead.

We have reported previously on positive effects found in the matrix experiment. This is a setup where a random event generator (REG) drives a display, which participants are instructed to “influence” at will, i.e., in a psychokinesis (PK) setup. The difference of this matrix experiment from standard micro-PK REG experiments was that the deviation f...

Objective: to answer the question: Why do people consent to being vaccinated with novel vaccines against SARS-CoV2? Design: Representative survey Setting: Online panel Participants: 1032 respondents of the general German population Method: a representative survey among German citizens in November/December 2021 which resulted in 1032 complete res...

Background: Homeopathic Arnica montana is used in surgery as prevention or treatment for the reduction of pain and other sequelae of surgery. Our aim was to perform a metaanalysis of clinical trials to assess efficacy of Arnica montana to reduce the inflammatory response after surgery. Method: We conducted a systematic review and metaanalysis, foll...

The aim of this study is to explore experiences and perceived effects of the Rosary on issues around health and well-being, as well as on spirituality and religiosity. A qualitative study was conducted interviewing ten Roman Catholic German adults who regularly practiced the Rosary prayer. As a result of using a tangible prayer cord and from the rh...

During the spread of SARS-Cov-2, Germany imposed various restrictions, including the closure of schools on March 16 2020, and an extensive lockdown on March 23 2020. In this paper, we show how the influential simulation of the purported beneficial effects of this lockdown in Germany was based on wrong data, but nevertheless played a decisive role i...

Background: Little is known about the opinion of professional academic immunologists regarding the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic. Methodology: In this study, we designed an online survey to determine the opinion of immunologically competent academics on SARS-CoV-2 compared with seasonal flu (the infection fa...

Background: COVID-19 vaccines have had expedited reviews without sufficient safety data. We wanted to compare risks and benefits. Methods: We calculated the Number Needed to Vaccinate (NNTV) to prevent one death from a large Israeli field study. We accessed the Adverse Drug Reactions database of the Dutch National Register (Lareb) to extract the nu...

Science and spirituality are at odds, due to the history of enlightenment. This led to freeing human inquiry from dogmatic and clerical bondage by religion. And because religion has been left behind by the new scientific narrative of a self-evolving world, driven by random accidents and mutations and natural laws, there seems to be no place for spi...

This randomized clinical trial measured inhaled and exhaled carbon dioxide in children with and without face masks.

Background: COVID-19 vaccines have had expedited reviews without sufficient safety data. We wanted to compare risks and benefits. Method: We calculated the number needed to vaccinate (NNTV) from a large Israeli field study to prevent one death. We accessed the Adverse Drug Reactions (ADR) database of the European Medicines Agency and of the Dutch N...

Background Chronic low back pain is the most frequent medical problem and the condition with the most years lived with disability in Western countries. The objective of this study was to assess a new treatment, Medi-Taping, which aims at reducing complaints by treating pelvic obliquity with a combination of manual treatment of trigger points and ki...

No gold standard is available to evaluate subjective psychophysical experiences in pediatric inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). We aimed to assess pain, anxiety, and limitations in social activities at diagnosis and the worst flare of the disease in relation to clinical expression, treatment and IBD severity. A total of 376 children completed the su...

There is a high variability in Covid-19 related deaths whose origin is unclear. We used three variables, percent test-standardized number of SARS-CoV-2-cases in a country, influenza-vaccination coverage in the elderly in a country and number of non-pharmaceutical interventions, to predict the number of population standardized Covid-19 related death...

Objective We describe a potentially new physiological reflex path that has so far been neglected but which could be used for a novel therapeutic approach: The vegetative receptor-vascular reflex. This is a physiological response that starts from the connective tissue and influences the whole organism. We cross-fertilized various research areas with...

Objectives: The objective of the study was to determine the change in quality of evidence in updates of Cochrane reviews that were initially published between January 1, 2013 and June 30, 2014. We used the Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development and Evaluation (GRADE) system to document evidence quality. Study Design and Setting: We se...

Background: Mistletoe extracts are used as an adjunct therapy for cancer patients, but there is dissent as to whether this therapy has a positive impact on quality of life (QoL). Methods: We conducted a systematic review searching in several databases (Medline, Embase, CENTRAL, CINAHL, PsycInfo, Science Citation Index, clinicaltrials.gov, opengr...

During the spread of SARS-Cov-2, Germany imposed various restrictions, including an extensive lockdown on 23 March 2020. In this paper, we point out that the evaluation of the success of such policies depends critically on data quality. Using reported confirmed cases is apt to produce misleading results because these data come with unknown variable...

Background: It is unclear which variables contribute to the variance in Covid-19 related deaths and Covid-19 cases. Method: We modelled the relationship of various predictors (health systems variables, population and population health indicators) together with variables indicating public health measures (school closures, border closures, country lo...

Dehning et al. (Science, 15 May 2020: eabb9789) report change points in the growth rate of SARS-CoV-2 infections that promptly respond to non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs). We challenge their findings on methodological and empirical grounds.<br

Dehning et al. (Science, 15 May 2020: eabb9789) report change points in the growth rate of SARS-CoV-2 infections that promptly respond to non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs). We challenge their findings on methodological and empirical grounds.<br

Dehning et al. (Science, 15 May 2020: eabb9789) report change points in the growth rate of SARS-CoV-2 infections that promptly respond to non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs). We challenge their findings on methodological and empirical grounds.<br

Background Randomized placebo-controlled trials are considered to be the gold standard in clinical research and have the highest importance in the hierarchical system of evidence-based medicine. However, from the viewpoint of decision makers, due to lower external validity, practical results of efficacy research are often not in line with the huge...

Ontology, the ideas we have about the nature of reality, and epistemology, our concepts about how to gain knowledge about the world, are interdependent. Currently, the dominant ontology in science is a materialist model, and associated with it an empiricist epistemology. Historically speaking, there was a more comprehensive notion at the cradle of...

Background: Chronic lower back pain is the most frequent medical problem and the condition with the most years lived with disability. A pragmatic RCT was performed to assess a new treatment, Medi-Taping, which aims at reducing complaints by treating pelvic obliquity with a combination of manual treatment of trigger points and kinesio taping. Method...