Paris (AFP)

The fate of homeopathy has already been decided: it will no longer be reimbursed from 2021. However, the disciplinary proceedings before the Order continue for some of the doctors behind the debate, and ten of them have appeared Tuesday in Paris.

"We have arrived at the end of a year and a half of a somewhat gag procedure, we hope that the ordinal justice will be able to function as an impartial justice", declared one of them, Dr. Pierre de Brémond d ' Ars, to AFP after the hearing.

The decisions have been taken under advisement and are expected to be released within a month, he added.

These doctors are among the 124 authors of a vehement platform against homeopathy and other "alternative medicines", published in March 2018. It was his publication in Le Figaro which had relaunched the debate on delisting.

A debate closed on July 9 by a decision of the Ministry of Health: from January 1, small pellets today reimbursed at 30% will only be 15%, then more at all from 2021.

This decision was based on an overwhelming opinion from the High Authority for Health (HAS), according to which homeopathic products had "not scientifically demonstrated sufficient effectiveness to justify reimbursement".

Even before the final decision, the National Union of Homeopathic Physicians (SNMHF) had sued some of the signatories from the rostrum before the Council of the College of Physicians. He accuses them of "non-fraternity" and accuses them of the lively terms used in the text.

The complaints were made against around sixty doctors across France.

- Pass of arms -

For the time being, around twenty first instance decisions have been issued, which vary according to the regions where the complaints have been heard: there have been eight warnings, three complaints dismissed and one release, according to the Fakemed collective, which brings together anti homeopathic doctors.

Tuesday was the Île-de-France tour. Ten doctors were cited before the Disciplinary Chamber of First Instance (CDPI) of the National Council of the Order.

"We are dealing with a deliberate attack on brotherhood," pleaded before the chamber one of the representatives of homeopaths, Dr. Daniel Scimeca, deploring the use of the word "charlatanism" in the gallery.

"We can not beat around the bush: homeopathy is a charlatanism, it is crazy that doctors are so afraid to say it (because) the professional orders are there", replied the lawyer of some of those put in cause, Me Jérémy Afane-Jacquart.

"This does not mean that the doctors who practice it are charlatans," he said.

The arm pass had started even before the hearing, in the waiting room.

"Homeopathy is sugar (and) sugar slipped from your hands", launched to homeopaths one of the doctors prosecuted, the emergency physician Mathias Wargon (also the husband of Secretary of State Emmanuelle Wargon) .

"Stop your music hall number," countered the homeopaths.

In addition to these disciplinary proceedings, two of the laboratories that manufacture homeopathic products, the French Boiron and Lehning, have filed appeals with the Council of State to contest their defund.

© 2019 AFP