Trick or Treatment 713
brothke writes "The recent collapse of financial companies occurred in part because their operations were
run like a black box. For
many years, alternative medicine has similarly operated in the shadows with
its own set of black boxes. In Trick or Treatment: The
Undeniable Facts about Alternative Medicine, Simon Singh and
Edzard Ernst, MD, break open that box, and show with devastating clarity and
accuracy, that the box is for the most part empty." Keep reading for the rest of Ben's review.
I first encountered co-author Simon Singh at the
2005 RSA
Conference. In his
presentation, he included a demonstration of the human brains unique
capability for pattern matching when specific patterns are expected, and used
Led Zeppelins Stairway to Heaven as an
example. Stairway has long been rumored to have
subliminal satanic messages. When played backwards,
it is impossible to decipher any message. But when
the message is known in advance, one can then hear
the message imploring the listener to go to Satans tool shed.
Once Singh put the subliminal lyrics on the overhead, the
subliminal message was now clear, not due to a subliminal message, rather via
pattern matching.
| Trick or Treatment: The Undeniable Facts about Alternative Medicine | |
| author | Simon Singh and Edzard Ernst |
| pages | 352 |
| publisher | W. W. Norton |
| rating | 9 |
| reviewer | Ben Rothke |
| ISBN | 978-0393066616 |
| summary | Peels away the fallacies of acupuncture, homeopathy, chiropractic and herbal medicine |
While no reasonable person can believe in Stairways subliminal lyrics, far too many people do believe in equally implausible things in the realm of alternative medicine. In the book, the authors tackle four main areas: acupuncture, homeopathy, chiropractic and herbal medicine. The books conclusion is that acupuncture, homeopathy, chiropractic are essentially worthless, while herbal medicine has limited value.
Chapter 1 starts with an overview of evidence-based medicine (EBM), of which the authors are staunch believers. EBM applies evidence gained via the scientific method and assesses the quality of the evidence relevant to the risks and benefits of the treatments. The foundation of EBM is the systematic review of evidence for particular treatments via mainly randomized controlled trials. In the chapter, the authors reiterate the concept that the plural of anecdote is not data. Acupuncture, homeopathy, chiropractic have plenty of first-person anecdotes, but a lack of controlled studies with real data to back up their spurious claims.
EBM shows that homeopathy and other bogus cures are of no value, yet the public is oblivious to those facts. In a piece I wrote on this topic, New York News Radio" The voice of bad science, its shows that cheap radio advertising (with its mishmash of pseudo-scientific claims) combined with a public that is ignorant of basic scientific facts, creates a perfect storm for the continuation of homeopathy and other bogus cures.
A recurring theme the book stresses is that acupuncture, homeopathy, chiropractic and other alternative therapies are scientifically impossible, and often will violate fundamental scientific principles. A perfect example of this implausibility is with homeopathy. Contrary to what common sense and basic science, in homeopathy, a solution that is more diluted is considered stronger and as having a higher potency. The issue is that the end result is a product that is so diluted, that its contents when in solid form is pure sugar, and when in liquid form; 100% H20. When a homeopathic liquid is in its most diluted state, there is not a single molecule of the active ingredient. Therein lays the scientific implausibility of homeopathy.
Chapter 1 also asks one of the books fundamental questions: how do you determine the truth? The authors answer that it is via the scientific method. This is determined only after strict and careful analysis of a clinical study, of which the most effective is double-blind and randomized.
In chapter 3, the book jokingly notes that since homeopathic liquid remedies are so diluted that they contain only water; their only use would be for dehydration. And since homeopathy is based on the fact that the strength of a remedy is based on its dilution, one could conceivably overdose on a homeopathic remedy by forgetting to take a dose.
The chapter concludes with perhaps the strongest indictment against homeopathy; namely its content. If one looks at the content of oscillococcinum, a homeopathic alternative marketed to relieve influenza-like symptoms, the packaging states that each gram of medication contains 0.85 grams of sucrose and 0.15 grams of lactose. Sucrose and lactose are simply forms of sugar, of which oscillococcinum is nothing more than am expensive sugar pill.
In chapter 4, the authors write that while homeopathy is nothing more than a placebo, the added danger with it is that patients will often forgo real medications to take a homeopathic one. It reports of a study in Britain, which demonstrated that the most benign alternative medicine can become dangerous if the therapist who administers it advises a patient not to follow an effective conventional medical treatment. The study demonstrated that alternative medical practitioners often recommend homeopathic remedies for malaria, and ignore proven conventional medicines. Such an approach can often mean a death sentence for the person taking the homeopathic remedy.
Chapter 5 deals with herbal medicine. The chapter is somewhat different in that the previous chapters about acupuncture, homeopathy and chiropractic showed them to be useless, herbal medicine does have value. The book notes that herbal medicine has been embraced by science to a far greater extent than acupuncture, homeopathy and chiropractics. The chapter lists over 30 herbal medicines and their levels of efficacy. An irony of herbal medicine is that some exotic ones, such as those with tiger bone or rhino horn are pushing the species to the brink of extinction, due to their level of popularity in certain parts of the world.
Chapter 5 concludes with on why smart people believe such odd things? Alternative medicine has failed to deliver the health benefits that it claims, so why are millions of patients wasting their money and risking their lives by turning towards a snake-oil industry? The authors provide numerous reasons for this, from the concepts such as natural, traditional and holistic, to attacks on the scientific method by the alternative medical community and more.
The appendix is a rapid guide to alternative therapies and lists over 30 new treatments with their benefits and potential dangers. The appendix gives single page summaries of the plethora other alternative therapies, from ear candles, colonic irrigation, reiki, to leech therapy and more. The authors write that most of these are bogus, many violate fundamental laws of sciences, and but a few have real, but limited value.
Alternative medicine operates in the shadows, blithely touting that their products have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration, and that they are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease. While these products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease; consumers nonetheless spends billions of dollars per year on unproven supplements. Consumers can be quite fickle. On one side they are furious at the SEC for their lack of oversight around Madoff Investments Securities. Yet when the FDA requires products use their disclaimer of how ineffective the item is, consumers will throw billions of dollars on ineffective products.
Trick or Treatment: The Undeniable Facts about Alternative Medicine is an incredibly important and eye-opening book. While Singh is a physicist and Ernst a medical doctor, the book is written in a clear and compelling style, avoids technical jargon, and sticks to the facts. In the spirit of the scientific method, the authors scrutinize alternative and complementary cures and the results show that the snake oil is still selling.
Ben Rothke is the author of Computer Security: 20 Things Every Employee Should Know.
You can purchase Trick or Treatment: The Undeniable Facts about Alternative Medicine from amazon.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews — to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
Herbal medicine has limited value (Score:1, Insightful)
You mean all those alkaloids that are the basis of most of the precription drug industry.
Re:Herbal medicine has limited value (Score:5, Insightful)
We already knew this (Score:4, Insightful)
So what? Anybody with half a brain already knew that alternative medicine is a scam. I'd be much more interested in some of the evidence-based medicine exposes of mainstream medicine. Menopause replacement hormones? Oops, turns out they give women breast cancer. Low-fat diets? Gary Taubes says they may be making us fat. 3rd-generation anti-depressants? They may work for a week but also seem to cause dependence, long-term depression, and make people more suicidal than before.
Doctors aren't scientists (not very good ones anyway), even if they do plan them on TV.
Success relies on our tendency to get well or die (Score:5, Insightful)
Remember, your chiropractor is little more than a highly paid masseur/se.
Dear Ben (Rothke) (Score:3, Insightful)
For the love of God, please: learn to use punctuation and better sentence structure. I tried making it through your review -- I really did. But this review, as well as your "New York News Radio: The voice of bad science" are so rife with incorrect usage that the message becomes blurred and incoherent. Just one example of many:
"Contrary to what common sense and basic science, in homeopathy, a solution that is more diluted is considered stronger and as having a higher potency."
What? Oh! I just realized: if I remove "what", the sentence suddenly makes sense. (No, I'm not being sarcastic or ironic.) Perhaps a careful proofreading is what you require, though your utter lack of possessive apostrophes implies that is probably not the case.
Bottom line: you've got good stuff to say. Please learn how to better say it.
Thanks.
Re:Chiropractic treatment worked for me (Score:5, Insightful)
Not all "alternatives" are created equal. I think it is reasonable to surmise that manipulation of joints and stretch and massage of muscles can help alleviate muscular and joint pain. It is less reasonable to assume that massaging a particular spot on my foot will help kidney function.
Scientific Method (Score:5, Insightful)
The authors provide numerous reasons for this, from the concepts such as natural, traditional and holistic, to attacks on the scientific method by the alternative medical community and more.
This _really_ makes me angry. When I talk to someone about homeopathy, they always tell me about how "alopathy" doesn't work on prevention and how all those "chemicals" do bad things for your health.
I think they don't relate the studies saying "don't eat too much fat, it's bad for your heart" and "don't smoke, you bastard, or your lungs will collapse" with prevention. I don't know why.
I don't have a problem with people getting cured by placebos. But I do want them to notice that, if they have TB, it's the "oh-my-god-they're-so-bad" antibiotics that will probably save them.
Re:Herbal medicine has limited value (Score:5, Insightful)
I mean, drug companies don't tend to release actively harmful substances with no medicinal value. They also tend to document how to use them safely and control of side effects, and avoiding harmful interactions.
Stuff that comes from plants has no such restrictions.
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:We already knew this (Score:2, Insightful)
They push the pill du jour, they get kickbacks such as golf trips and other free stuff from the drug companies. Some womens' magazines are so chock full of drug ads that the color scheme of the magazine will often match some of the ads inside.
Drug companies are like OPEC except that they occasionally create things that are good for us. That's a shame beacuse, for some odd reason(perhaps the influence of large corporations who manufacture competing products?), tryptophan and cannibis are still officially illegal in the US.
Re:Herbal medicine has limited value (Score:3, Insightful)
"You mean all those alkaloids that are the basis of most of the precription drug industry."
Of course yes: they are of limited value in an herbal treatment and acquire full value once doses are understood and stablished in detail and those alkaloids are purified and dosified on their best absorbable way.
But then, once you take an herbal treatment and study, purify and dosify properly it is an herbal treatment no more but what the authors call an Evidence Based Treatment.
Re:Exploitations? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Chiropractic treatment worked for me (Score:3, Insightful)
Chiro works for pinched nerves in my neck usually in one treatment. A 'mainstream' MD would probably prescribe a weeks' worth of muscle relaxants.
Painting with a very broad brush (Score:5, Insightful)
While some Chiropractors are trying to sell people on "Blue Light Therapy" and other stuff, others do help patients who are in great pain. Ask anyone who has been helped with Sciatica that occurred after a lumbar disc problem whether they would prefer to go back and have surgery, rather than the solution they got from the chiropractor. Or maybe the person who had a pinched nerve in their neck causing total numbness to shoot down their arm and pain in their shoulder. When the Chiropractor fixes this issue, do we disregard the results because we believe Chiropractic to be quackery?
Meanwhile, we'll have all the kooks out here proclaiming that Vitamin C or Zinc don't help with colds, and whatever you do, don't drink cranberry juice to help you with a UTI.
I've seen plenty of quackery. Many people in the Alternative medicine field are insane. But that doesn't mean that every treatment that is not released by a pharmaceutical or approved by a certified M.D. is useless.
Re:Chiropractic treatment worked for me (Score:1, Insightful)
That's the thing: that's just anecdotal data. Without further tests, it has no place in modern medicine or science. Without controlled experimentation, "we" (i.e. anyone who is not you, ^Case^) do not know what happened. Maybe your doctor was wrong. Maybe your muscle would have healed anyway, without any external help. Maybe it was something your chiropractic did, just not what he thinks he did. And yes, maybe chiropractic treatments work -- but your unverified anecdote is not evidence enough!
One of the problems with common sense is mistaken association of cause and effect (I'm sure there's a name for this fallacy): just because someone did A before B happened, it doesn't mean A caused B or that they are related at all!
Re:The author is wrong about accupuncture (Score:2, Insightful)
Conduct a study and discover the answer then. Just making your claim does not prove your point. And a lot of reputable scientists and physicians have now published in peer reviewed journals positive findings beyond placebo in the use of acupuncture (and other so-called 'alternative' treatments).
Pay attention to data, methods, and results. The rest is all bullshit.
Re:The author is wrong about accupuncture (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Chiropractic treatment worked for me (Score:4, Insightful)
'You've been seeing chiropractors ever since' would seem to imply that you've had ongoing back problems. Isn't it at least possible that with surgery you wouldn't have the back issues that you do?
Re:although I agree (Score:3, Insightful)
It's very easy to find blind spots in any science.
Simply ask a doctor to explain why inflammation happens or ask a physicist where G comes from.
Any scientific person who is unwilling to say "I don't know" once in a while is not as scientific as they should be.
As for determining whether moles will turn into cancer... there are particular chemicals given off by cancerous cells, and melanoma's "scent" has been mapped (after years of looking at moles and the chemicals which are present in the ones that do and do not turn into cancer). There is no fast or easy test for these chemicals, but I'm working on that.
Re:Chiropractic treatment worked for me (Score:3, Insightful)
A layperson _knows_ there's something wrong. It hurts! What they do not know, and what the doctor is telling them in a terse and somewhat cryptic way is: there is no permanent damage. A great deal of back pain is caused by strain or damage to skeletal muscle, and it is painful. But it will heal.
A person who visits a chiropractor gets instant satisfaction. Your chiropractor may examine you, proclaim, "Ah, a subluxation!" (which sounds at least, quasi-scientific), and immediately proceed to push and prod-- essential massage-- you, until you feel better. People walk out with the good feeling you get after a massage, plus the fact that their "Doctor" did _something_, and think: my M.D. was full of shit!
Scientific American had a lengthy article examining why chiropractic was so popular, that you may find interesting. (I can't seem to find it-- it was not the SciAm Frontiers show on PBS about the same subject)
Generally speaking, chiropractic is benign and often helpful, if otherwise completely hogwash. But you have to be careful-- the practitioners of alternative medicine have a worldview that is not at all based in any kind of rigorous method-- and as a result, they can cause real harm.
The lack of communication between M.D.s and patients is a real problem, and needs to be rectified. My girlfriend, who is near the end of her medical schooling, speaks about this often with me. Unfortunately, doctors are under such time pressure that this leads to a serious lack of bedside manner. What results is a crisis in faith in their expertise among laypeople.
Re:oscillococcinum (Score:4, Insightful)
The point is that 1 gram contains .85g sucrose and .15g lactose. In base 10, .85 + .15 = 1.0, therefore the entire 1g contains nothing but sugar. Where is the "Anas barbaria hepatis" to fit?
Dead doctor's don't lie... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Chiropractic treatment worked for me (Score:5, Insightful)
Not all "alternatives" are created equal. I think it is reasonable to surmise that manipulation of joints and stretch and massage of muscles can help alleviate muscular and joint pain. It is less reasonable to assume that massaging a particular spot on my foot will help kidney function.
I was hoping that the reviewer would go into more detail on what parts of Chiropractic treatments are "snake oil". I know "common sense" and "baseless anecdote" are close buddies, but if your vertebra is pinching a nerve, something somewhere is going to hurt! If rubbing it and popping it works, it's a heck of a lot better than addictive painkillers or dangerous surgery.
But yeah, claiming that a chiropractic adjustment will prevent asthma or allergies is just silly. My chiropractor has a standard chart on the wall that includes some of those claims -- but when I mentioned it in passing, he seemed very uncomfortable with the idea.
If doctors and chiropractors would mutually respect each other's actual accomplishments and abilities, patients would be much better off. But as long as you have chiros saying they can cure *everything*, and MDs saying *they* are the only valid practitioners of the healing arts, we're stuck in the middle.
Re:Exploitations? (Score:3, Insightful)
Which is equally stupid as foregoing proven alternative treatment and getting out the antibiotics for simple stuff.
Frankly, with all the quacks I have met that had an actual doctor title...
The only thing I'll have doctors treat nowadays is the heavy stuff. Broken bones, cancers... you know, the stuff that makes you either move funnily or die rather quickly and painfully. I'm not the type to treat blood poisoning with a herb or two.
But I will state this: I am going to treat simple infections by means of personal hygiene and natural products and see how that works out. If the problem gets worse, I can still go and see a doctor.
Remember, guys, for doctors, your symptoms are a matter of trial and error. The usual way to treat people is to go through every medication until you find one that helps. If you have one of the better doctors, they'll be starting with the medicine that is most likely to help. I've you've got one of the many bad ones, they're going to start with the most expensive concoction.
Like lawyers, mechanics and us IT folk, doctors operate in a field that is very hard to understand unless you're a professional. The possibility of ill intentions and plain old incompetence is very high. So in my opinion, trusting medicine (or science) like it could do no wrong (and especially the people representing it) is just as gullible as believing some preacher about Armageddon.
Re:We already knew this (Score:5, Insightful)
Evidence does not mean understanding.
We can have evidence that an effect exists without having to know what causes it.
Double blind testing is just that... seeing if just a single difference has any effect at all.
Auras are bullshit because in a blinded trials those who claim to see/feel them are incapable of detecting the difference between a human and a christmas tree.
Same with brainwaves... you can propose any other kind of new 'radiation' but unless you find a way to actually measure it (like in a double blinded test) it might as well not exist.
I agree. But that's a different problem (Score:3, Insightful)
Now you're arguing that an ancient Chinese model for how acupuncture works is flawed because it doesn't conform to modern medical terminology, nor does it conform to the scientific method of making predictions based on prior results.
I fully agree.
But that doesn't discount findings, it only calls into question an understanding of the underlying mechanisms behind the technique. Which ultimately means, let's do more research and find out that answer. But having a broken model is not confirmation that one's findings are wrong. That's ridiculous. In fact, such a position is as much the exact opposite of the scientific method as are those ancient claims about chi.
IOW: Skepticism as a business has far outstripped anti-science nuttiness from new-age and other so-called 'alternative' medical and science quacks.
Re:Herbal medicine has limited value (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't forget the new "social anxiety disorder"
That's right: if you are an introvert and/or feel shy in new situations, you have a treatable (profitable) "disorder." Hell, I can treat that for $5.00. Go drink a beer or a glass of wine. I'll only charge $15.00 for the consultation. Don't worry, the bill will be coming in the mail.
Re:We already knew this (Score:5, Insightful)
Somehow I would consider any treatment that requires water to retain the memory of the vital essences of what amounts to less than a single molecule of whatever substance is supposed to treat the condition a scam. That's what homeopathy is.
The substance "used" in homeopathy might actually have a valid effect if actually taken. The less-than-trace amounts of it in the homeopathic "treatment" won't have an effect beyond being a placebo. By the theories of homeopathy generic ground water should be able to treat anything since it should have the memory of the vital essences of everything it has ever come in contact with which is basically everything.
Re:Acupuncure? (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, but does it have to do with instigating endorphine release, or does it have to do with "energy" or "chi" mumbo jumbo? If it's the former, which would be more scientific, just go to a body piercer. Not only will you get a natural high, you'll have some nice jewelry when you're done. :)
Re:Herbal medicine has limited value (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:We already knew this (Score:3, Insightful)
We simply don't understand the human body well enough to know why some things work and why others don't.
Correct, but after this the correctness of your comment ends.
The human psyche plays a significant role that pure science doesn't admit to because it can't be proven in a test scenario.
It's called the "placebo effect" and pure science has shown it many, many times, in many, many test scenarios.
We know the human body gives off energy but people refuse to accept the "auras" are possible or significant for some reason.
Define "energy". Heat? Or something else? Show some kind of evidence backed by data rather than groundless assertions of the significance of auras.
We know every brain has a distinct pattern with a general consistency to that pattern, but we refuse to believe it's anything more than electrical.
What do you propose it is then?
Re:Exploitations? (Score:4, Insightful)
Not to mention that half the medical procedures we think of as "legit" for a given condition today won't be tomorrow.
Frontal Lobotomy comes to mind...
As does the medical establishments continual flip flopping on what's healthy and what's not.
I'm not sayin that herbal medicine is better, just that "scientific" medicine has it's own issues with quackery, bad research, and disinformation, intentional or not.
This book is the proverbial pot calling the kettle black.
If scientific medicine was so great we'd be seeing a lot less doctoring and more curing.
If "legit" pharmaceuticals were so great, They'd learn what "standard deviation" means and stop using stats that fall within standard deviation as "proof" of efficacy.
Sure most "herbal" doctors are quacks that are FOS. But are medical doctors really that much different?
All of them, (medical and herbal) without exception, operate on incomplete and often unproven information.
-Viz
Re:although I agree (Score:3, Insightful)
A lot of standard medicine doesn't really pass the test of evidence-based medicine either
I suspect that this is part of why people are turning to homeopathy, chiropractic, etc. If the medical community ignores their own scientific evidence, then people don't see alternative medicine as being much different.
I think that in some cases, the scientific evidence seems counter intuitive, so it is ignored. And in some cases doctors have been doing something one way for years and convincing them to change is difficult. (Can you imagine being told that some procedure you have been doing for 20 years actually makes the patient worse? That could be a real blow to one's ego and conscience.)
For example, my wife just recently gave birth, and the statistics for how often unnecessary treatments are administered to laboring women (at least in the US, this is not true globally) is staggering. For example, episiotomy is commonly done to avoid tearing, yet statistics show that it it actually increases the time required to heal. But no doctor ever got paid for NOT performing a surgery. :-(
Re:I agree. But that's a different problem (Score:5, Insightful)
Ah, right, that's why skeptics are literally raking in billions of dollars selling their books and skeptic products, and their faces are familiar to all of us from their constant appearances on prime-time TV.
Oh, no, wait a minute, that's the alternative practitioners, while skepticism remains largely unprofitable.
Re:Dear Ben (Rothke) (Score:3, Insightful)
Strongly agree. I had to re-read and consciously parse way too many sentences. The two missing possessive apostrophes right in the second sentence really kick things off with a bang, and it doesn't get better. There are several sentences where it is clear that you wrote one thing, changed your mind, and then didn't re-read the result, but left a word dangling from the first version. Poor grammar and sentence structure in a run-of-the-mill /. post is one thing, but this is supposed to be a finished (professional?) piece, and it reads like a high-school essay.
Poor grammar is distracting for someone who knows what you've done wrong but can tease out what you meant to say; that person has to do too much conscious syntactical work while reading, and has difficulty concentrating on the content. For someone who doesn't know what's wrong, the writing is just unclear. That person will not take in what you are trying to communicate. In both cases, you have failed in your objective: to transmit your ideas to another person.
samzenpus gets a big thumbs-down on this one too. This piece (like others before it) was not "edited" in any meaningful sense. Maybe the /. position "editor" should be renamed "story poster".
Re:Herbal medicine has limited value (Score:3, Insightful)
1) You will lose weight when you excrete shit.
2) If the stuff you take that makes you shit also changes your intestinal flora, it could affect your "efficiency" of converting food into body fat.
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-wellbeing/health-news/could-friendly-bacteria-hold-the-key-to-weight-control-457625.html [independent.co.uk]
Last summer a team headed by Professor Jeffrey Gordon at Washington University's Centre for Genome Sciences managed to narrow the strains responsible for the fat storage down to two key players: Bacteroides thetaiotaomicron (B. theta) and Methanobrevibacter smithii ( M. smithii). Rats with both strains had 13 per cent more body fat than those with only one. The possibility, some years away yet, is that researchers may discover how to manipulate your gut bacteria population so less fat gets stored.
Re:Chiropractic treatment worked for me (Score:3, Insightful)
They both feel really good actually. The difference is one has a much higher chance of fucking you up to the point of death.
Re:Herbal medicine has limited value (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Chiropractic treatment worked for me (Score:3, Insightful)
This is the most insightful post about chiropractic in this topic.
But it can fix your back, "kinks" and spasms in your neck, a "thrown out" lower back, etc.
But I would like to add that basically they fix lots of things involving the spine. They can help with carpal tunnel syndrome a bit and if your shoulders are really bad they can teach you some ways to not mess up your shoulders typing on Slashdot I mean the computer all day.
Re:The author is wrong about accupuncture (Score:3, Insightful)
Most studies of acupuncture have been either statistically insignificant or haven't sufficiently distinguished between acupuncture's efficacy and that of a placebo. The deal with acupuncture is that 1) it's nonsense and 2) it works really well a lot of the time, because it's a placebo that almost forces you to really believe in it. Those studies which have used similarly convincing placebos instead of just, say, a sugar pill, show similar (and very positive) effects between acupuncture and the fake treatment. This leads us to understand that acupuncture itself is a fake treatment. Luckily, a ton of needles are more persuasive than a paragraph of text, so I imagine that even if you read the below article you won't lose the placebo effect acupuncture offers you.
Haake M, Müller HH, Schade-Brittinger C, et al. (2007). "German Acupuncture Trials (GERAC) for Chronic Low Back Pain: Randomized, Multicenter, Blinded, Parallel-Group Trial With 3 Groups". Arch. Intern. Med. 167 (17): 1892â"8
Re:Exploitations? (Score:3, Insightful)
Remember, guys, for doctors, your symptoms are a matter of trial and error. The usual way to treat people is to go through every medication until you find one that helps.
Which is why when traditional medicine fails, people say "it was the wrong cure", but when an alternative method fail people say "it's the method which is ineffective". And there is such a strong bias against alternative medicine it's dismissed as either placebo effect or wrong diagnosis. (Which is kind of grotesque when you consider that with traditional medicine wrong diagnosis is usually the cause of problems, not the solution.)
Re:Chiropractic treatment worked for me (Score:5, Insightful)
A big part of the problem is that there ARE quacks in the "alternative medicine" industry. So, when people want to deride them, they find a few quacks, point them out, and say, "See! It's all hogwash!" It is no better than pointing to a pill prescribing doctor who is no better than a drug dealer, and declaring all traditional medicine a grand drug dealing scheme.
Clearly the writer of this book is at best nieve, likely just dumb, and at worst dishonest. Making the statement that Herbal remedies don't work is simply stupid. Herbal remedies are simply taking drugs. That's right. The only difference between what a doctor would give you and an equivalent herbal remedy is the source and purity of the drug. Obviously, pharmaceutical companies have created drugs that don't occur naturally, and some claimed herbal remedies don't actually have any useful drugs in them. But, the claim that herbal reminds don't work is by definition saying that "if the drug occurs naturally, it doesn't work. I can only work if it is manufacture in a lab."
The authors claim that chiropractics doesn't work is equally stupid. Chiropractics is the manipulation of bones and joints. That means that if your arm gets yanked out of it's socket, and you go to the doctor and they pop it back in, THAT IS CHIROPRACTICS; An extreme example, sure, but chiropractics none the less. The authors claim the chiropractics doesn't work is by definition saying that "if your arm gets pulled out of it's socket, popping it back in place doesn't do any good".
While the number of quacks in homeopathy is immense, vaccines are basically homeopathy. The premise being that you get the body to fight a desires by introducing the same symptoms as the disease so that the body can heal itself. At best I would say that our medicine is too primitive to really get the benefits of homeopathy. With our advances in genetics, I have no doubt that we will eventually start making artificial vaccines. Once we make a vaccine that is not a watered down version of the real disease, we will be performing homeopathy by definitions. By claiming that a vaccine that is created in a lab won't work because it is created in a lab is just as dumb as saying that a drug that occurs naturally won't work because it is naturally occurring.
While I don't know much about the specific details of acupuncture, it is not a huge stretch to believe that manipulation of the nervous system can have profound effects on a persons health. "Traditional" medicine uses hormones regularly. We know that your nervous system can instruct your body to produce particular hormones. So, while, I have not looked heavily acupuncture, it is intellectually dishonest to claim that it is scientifically impossible.
Re:Herbal medicine has limited value (Score:3, Insightful)
Being stupid about interactions between medicine that you take is largely self-correcting behavior, much like riding a motorcycle without a helmet. I would feel no need to intervene.
Re:Exploitations? (Score:1, Insightful)
The fact that people describe logical responses to new, apparently valid information as flip-flopping is depressing.
Re:To modern *Western* medicine (Score:4, Insightful)
Horseshit. Either Chi flows are susceptible to the scientific method - or they are not. Period.
Again, horseshit. The language of science is independent of spoken language. Either Chi theory is susceptible to analysis using 'Western' methods (controlled studies, statistics, etc...) or it isn't.
Re:Exploitations? (Score:4, Insightful)
Wow, a quack defending quackery, what a surprise. Creation scientists cite studies too.
You make a good point that much of modern medicine is also messed up however, largely IMO due to fear of liability for skipping a test or treatment that is quite probably unecessary.
The placebo study for surgery (as presented frequently on /.) is total crap however. With a burst appendix, a placebo means you're dead. Similar results for gunshot wounds, or pretty much any internal bleeeding, organ failure, etc, etc.
The placebo effect is important and useful to medicine, but it won't set a broken bone, or prevent an internal infection from killing you.
Re:Exploitations? (Score:4, Insightful)
Well yes, if it fails again and again, of course people are going to say it's ineffective.
Re:The author is wrong about accupuncture (Score:3, Insightful)
Your last paragraph is a pretty good description of the Placebo Effect.
Re:Herbal medicine has limited value (Score:3, Insightful)
But then, once you take an herbal treatment and study, purify and dosify properly it is an herbal treatment no more but what the authors call an Evidence Based Treatment.
In my opinion one of the best outcomes of all the attention 'alternative medicine' has gotten in recent years/decades is that medical science has actually started to look closer at it and evaluate which of it is actually based on something real. For a long time (I'd wager the date was in the 50s when modern manufactured pharmaceuticals looked like they'd solve all the world's problems) doctor's dismissed all of this stuff out of hand. A lot of it deserves to be, but some of it doesn't. After all, in the first ever modern clinical trial where it was established that limes cured scurvy, the original source of the idea was folk wisdom. Of course a lot of other folk wisdom was proven false, but that's the whole point of doing a clinical trial.
I'm so tired of this crap (Score:3, Insightful)
I agree that there are a lot of quacks that are in it for the money, but when I was in China my friend with a slipped disk was having some serious back pains and went to a doctor of Chinese medicine. After a fire-cupping and drinking herbal teas for a week he helt much better.
Not again...
"I know about the placebo effect, but it worked for me!"
"Censorship is a dangerous tool for the powerful to have, but we need to filter the Internet so we can catch those spammers and traders of music and child porn!"
"Those Mormons and Scientologists are crazy, but MY religion deserves respect!"
Hypocrites. You're just as bad as those you decry.
"Yeah, all those OTHER forms of woo [wiktionary.org] are bunk, but MY pet woo is for real!"
Re:Herbal medicine has limited value (Score:2, Insightful)
Of course they would. They'd be "the company that cured everything". That recognition alone would net them trillions for decades to come. And do you honestly think they'd spend the millions of dollars on research, development, and testing if they had no intention of selling it? The mere suggestion is ludicrous.
Re:To modern *Western* medicine (Score:3, Insightful)
Hello Derek --
As Yuuki Dasu notes, it seems you might have missed my point -- I don't mean at all to imply that chi is somehow not scientifically testable, and I apologize if my lack of clarity led you to think that this was my intent. I mean rather that *current* Western medical theory doesn't have a theoretical understanding for how chi works -- much as traditional Chinese medical theory (so far as I'm familiar with it) doesn't have a theoretical understanding for how microbial infections work.
Sure, please, by all means use Western scientific methods to investigate and possibly describe chi flows -- I'm all for it. All I'm trying to say is that traditional Western medicine doesn't *currently* have a theory or set of theories in place that describes what seems to happen in Chinese medical theory. It's a translation problem, essentially, only more one of theories and modes of understanding rather than just language. :)
Cheers,