Homeopathy International has taken a concern about official childhood fever advice directly to the highest level of Ireland’s public health service.
Building on sustained action by HINT Steering Committee member Dr Jayne LM Donegan, we have formally asked Anne O’Connor, Chief Executive of Ireland’s Health Service Executive (HSE), to secure the removal or correction of wording that tells parents to use paracetamol or ibuprofen to reduce a child’s temperature.
The communication was addressed to the HSE Chief Executive’s Office and copied to Ireland’s Minister for Health, the HSE’s complaints and public feedback service, its health content team, the Irish College of General Practitioners and Dr Donegan. We have asked for the issue to be treated as a formal complaint, not simply as general feedback.
From one doctor’s concern to international action
Dr Donegan first raised the matter with the Minister for Health, the HSE and the Irish College of General Practitioners in March 2025. The Minister’s office acknowledged her correspondence and passed it to the HSE for a direct response.
In July 2025, the HSE told Dr Donegan that her concern would be reviewed and had been raised with the relevant clinicians. She asked to be informed of the outcome. Despite further efforts to obtain a substantive update, no clear conclusion appears to have been provided.
Meanwhile, the disputed information remained online. The HSE page was subsequently marked as reviewed in October 2025, yet it continued to state:
“Use either paracetamol or ibuprofen to reduce your child’s temperature and to relieve any pain.”
It also continued to advise parents to contact a GP urgently if a child:
“has a high temperature that does not come down with the correct dose of paracetamol or ibuprofen.”
Why these words matter
This is not an argument about whether paracetamol or ibuprofen can lower a temperature. They can. The concern is the purpose for which parents are being encouraged to use them and the message that official advice creates.
There is an important difference between using medicine to relieve a child’s pain or distress and treating the number on a thermometer as a target in itself.
NICE guidance on fever in children under five says that either paracetamol or ibuprofen may be considered when a child with fever appears distressed. Crucially, it also says antipyretic medicines should not be used solely to reduce body temperature. NICE further cautions clinicians not to rely on whether a temperature falls after medicine when distinguishing between serious and non-serious illness.
The American Academy of Pediatrics takes a similar approach. Its clinical report says the primary goal should be the child’s comfort and overall wellbeing rather than simply normalising temperature.
The present HSE wording risks directing parents’ attention toward suppressing temperature. It may also imply that the response of a fever to paracetamol or ibuprofen is, by itself, a reliable indicator of when urgent help is needed. That deserves a clear clinical justification or a correction.
Taking the issue to those who can change it
HINT has asked the HSE for more than an acknowledgement. We want accountability and action.
Our formal request asks the HSE to identify the team responsible for the childhood fever page, explain who reviewed the concern previously and disclose the outcome of that review. We have asked for the evidence used to support both disputed statements and for confirmation that the HSE recognises the distinction between relieving pain or distress and lowering temperature.
Most importantly, we have asked whether the wording will now be amended. If the HSE decides to retain it, we expect a clear, evidence-based explanation of why the concern raised by Dr Donegan and supported by HINT has been rejected.
Addressing the communication to the Chief Executive was deliberate. The HSE describes its CEO as responsible for leading the organisation and ensuring that it is managed effectively. After a concern has travelled through ordinary channels without a substantive resolution, escalation to that level is both reasonable and necessary.
This is what effective professional representation looks like. It is not enough to notice questionable public information or discuss it within our own circles. Where evidence and patient choice are involved, the concern must be placed before the people who hold responsibility for national policy, public content and clinical governance.
An Irish page with an international reach
Although the page is published by Ireland’s health service, its influence does not stop at Ireland’s borders. Public health websites are read, shared and returned by search engines to families and practitioners around the world. National guidance can quickly become international guidance in practice.
That is why HINT’s international role matters. We connect practitioners across countries, identify issues that affect the responsible practice of homeopathy and defend the right of patients and families to receive clear, proportionate health information. When a national body publishes advice with wider implications, an international professional organisation has both a voice and a responsibility to use it.
HINT is not asking the HSE to endorse homeopathy or rewrite its guidance around homeopathic practice. We are asking it to reflect a careful distinction already found in respected clinical guidance: medicine may be used when a child is distressed or in pain, but reducing temperature should not be presented as the goal in itself.
That distinction also reflects an important homeopathic principle. Fever is understood as part of the body’s response to illness, not merely as a number that must always be driven down. Homeopathic assessment considers the whole person and the individual pattern of symptoms—including behaviour, comfort, energy, thirst and general condition—rather than temperature alone. This is not a reason to ignore danger signs, withhold appropriate care or delay medical help. It is a reason to avoid routine suppression without considering the wider clinical picture. That principle matters to families seeking informed, responsible choices about their children’s care.
HINT in action
This intervention shows how the experience and persistence of one Steering Committee member can be amplified through an international organisation.
Dr Donegan did the detailed work: she identified the wording, compared it with recognised guidance, raised it with the appropriate Irish bodies and continued to seek an answer. HINT has now carried that work forward at organisational level and placed the request before the leadership of the HSE, with the Minister for Health and other relevant bodies made aware.
We hope the HSE will respond constructively and remove or amend the offending information. A prompt correction would give parents clearer guidance and demonstrate that concerns supported by evidence are taken seriously, wherever they originate.
HINT will continue to follow the matter. International reach means more than having members in many countries. It means being prepared to act across borders, engage institutions at the highest level and stand behind those who raise important questions in the interests of patients, practitioners and the public.