Irmgard Oepen Explained

Irmgard Oepen (February 25, 1929 – July 9, 2018) was a German physician and medical journalist. She was known for her steadfast criticism of alternative medicine, especially of homeopathy.^[1]

Education and career

Irmgard Oepen studied medicine at the University of Freiburg and the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (LMU), earning her doctorate at LMU in 1958. In 1973 she got her habilitation at the Philipps University of Marburg with a study of blood group serology.

Oepen worked from 1965 to 1994 at the Institute for Legal Medicine of Philipps-University Marburg. She was known for her commitment to scientific medicine.^{[1] [2]} She published numerous articles critical of homeopathy and other alternative medical practices such as astrological health counseling.^{[3] [4]}

Her work has been mentioned in Die Zeit.^[5] She published several works with Forensic serologist Otto Prokop.^{[1] [6]}

Oepen was one of the founding members of the Gesellschaft zur wissenschaftlichen Untersuchung von Parawissenschaften (GWUP),^[7] a German group that investigates dubious scientific claims, especially in the fields of health and medicine. From 1987 to 1994 she was President of GWUP. In the years 1987 to 1996 she led the editorial board of the GWUP published magazine Skeptiker. She was also a member of the transnational American organization The Committee for Skeptical Inquiry.^[3]

Works

• Leitfaden der gerichtlich-medizinischen Blutspuren-Untersuchung, mit Franz Schleyer, Schmidt-Römhild Verlag, 1977
• An den Grenzen der Schulmedizin, Deutscher Ärzteverlag, 1985
• Außenseitermethoden in der Medizin, mit O. Prokop (Herausgeber), Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt 1987,
• Unkonventionelle medizinische Verfahren, S. Fischer Verlag, 1993,
• Lexikon der Parawissenschaften, GWUP, Lit, Münster 1999
• Irmgard Oepen, Horst Löb: Der Orgon-Strahler – eine funktionslose, aber offenbar gewinnbringende Attrappe. Skeptiker 11 (4/1998) 148–152
• Irmgard Oepen: Unkonventionelle medizinische Verfahren. Stuttgart 1993
• Irmgard Oepen, Amardeo Sarma (Hrsg.): Paramedizin - Analysen und Kommentare. Münster 1998
• Irmgard Oepen, Rolf Scheidt: Wunderheiler heute. Eine kritische Literaturstudie. München, Zuckschwerdt 1989

Sources

• Harder, Bernd (2018). In Memoriam: Prof. Irmgard Oepen, Gründungspräsidentin der GWUP, July 11, 2018
• Skeptiker magazine (2007). GWUP interview with Irmgard Oepen 3-4/2007
• Hövelmann, Gerd H. & Michels, Hans (2017). Legitimacy of Unbelief: The Collected Papers of Piet Hein Hoebens edited by Gerd H. Hövelmann, Hans Michels, Publisher: LIT Verlag, April 2017,
• Zeit Online (1993). Der Glaubenskrieg um die Homöopathie eskaliert: Der Bannstrahl des Äskulap (English: The religious war over homeopathy escalates), March 5, 1993

Notes and References

1. Harder (2018)
2. Zeit Online (1993): Although homeopathic theories may once have been contemporary, Irmgard Oepen says that they have now proved misleading and ineffective. Consequently, university teachers should distance themselves from homeopathy just as much as from astrological health counseling or palm reading.
3. Skeptiker Magazine (2007)
4. Hövelmann & Michels (2017): Frau Prof. Oepen was (and still is) one of the most influential German critics of all conceivable varieties of alternative or complementary medicine, with a huge number of publications to her credit.
5. Zeit Online (1993)
6. Harder (2018): In 1986 she published with the East Berlin forensic scientist Otto Prokop the standard work "Outsider methods in medicine: origins, dangers, consequences."
7. In English: Society for the scientific study of para-sciences