If there’s one thing that I write that I don’t feel I repeat too much (although some might disagree), it’s that, unlike other centers and institutes at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), there is not, and never was, a compelling scientific justification for the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) to exist as a separate entity. There is nothing that NCCAM does that couldn’t be done just as well in other parts of the NIH, with the exception of research into modalities with such low prior plausibility and such fantastical proposed mechanisms of working that it’s a waste of money to study them. For example, “complementary and alternative medicine” (CAM) long ago co-opted nutrition and exercise, as well as natural products pharmacology (in the form of herbalism and supplements) as somehow being “alternative.” These could easily be studied in one of any number of other institutes or centers at the NIH, depending on the specific disease process being studied. In contrast, modalities like “energy medicine” (e.g., reiki, therapeutic touch, “bioenergy” and “biofield” medicine) rely on the claimed existence of “life energy” fields that no science has ever been able to detect, much less reliably measure.
The fact is that NCCAM was the creation of some prominent woo-friendly legislators, most prominently Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA), who introduced the original legislation to create the Office of Alternative Medicine, which later became NCCAM in 1998, thanks to legislation that he introduced, largely in response to efforts of then NIH Director Harold Varmus to bring NCCAM under more rigorous scientific control. (Elevating the Office of Alternative Medicine to the level of a Center removed it from the direct control of the NIH Director). Since then, NCCAM has grown into a $125 million a year boondoggle studying a range of treatment modalities that range from sheer quackery to science-based modalities that have been co-opted by CAM, often becoming “woo-ified” in the process. Unfortunately, given the structure of NCCAM, no matter how much the Director tries to impose scientific rigor, there is considerable pushback. I keep asking how NCCAM can continue to exist, but it’s a government agency with powerful political patrons, particularly Tom Harkin. No matter how much critics say say we should take off and nuke the entire center from orbit (it’s the only way to be sure), NCCAM endures. Maybe now that Harkin’s retiring there might be a chance in 2015, but I wouldn’t count on it. Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT) or Senator Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) could easily pick up the slack.
Unfortunately, the current Director of NCCAM, Josephine Briggs, seems to “get it” less and less. As evidence of how Dr. Briggs doesn’t understand how she is serving the cause of infiltrating quackademic medicine into the most hallowed halls of medical academia, the NIH, I present to you a video web chat in which she participated yesterday, Live Chat: Can Alternative and Conventional Medicine Get Along? It featured Dr. Briggs, as well as an associate editor from Science Translational Medicine, Yevgeniya Nusinovich, M.D., Ph.D., who served as moderator, and a practitioner of “integrative medicine” at Kansas University, Dr. Jeanne Drisko, whose titles include Director, KU Integrative Medicine and the Riordan Endowed Professor of Orthomolecular Medicine. Of course, as I’ve discussed many times before, orthomolecular medicine, which basically posits that if some vitamins are good, more will be better, is pure quackery. In fact, I’ve discussed the infiltration of quackademic medicine at the University of Kansas before in general and Dr. Drisko in particular, less than a year ago, where I mentioned that KUMC offers its patients high dose vitamin C quackery for cancer.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t watch it live yesterday because I was in clinic when it was going on, but the video has been saved so that it was possible for me to take a look at it last night:
My first thought was: WTF? This was as one-sided a presentation as I’ve ever seen. Never was heard a skeptical word, as I had expected when I learned who the participants were going to be. We had the director of the single largest government agency promoting quackademic medicine (with the possible exception of the unfortunately named OCCAM) and the director of an integrative medicine program in which quackery like orthomolecular medicine is “integrated” with science-based medicine in an academic medical center. Add to that an associate editor of a journal that has recently shown a distressing tendency to publish a dubious placebo study by Ted Kaptchuk (blogged about a mere three weeks ago by yours truly). Given that, you know that the answer to the question being asked—Can Alternative and Conventional Medicine Get Along?—is going to be a resounding “yes,” and so it was. This was a discussion whose outcome was every bit as predetermined as that of a professional wrestling match but nowhere near as entertaining.
One thing I found particularly galling depends upon some inside knowledge that few people watching the video chat. Nearly four years ago (and it’s really hard to believe that it’s already been that long), I actually met Dr. Briggs and some of her staff. She had invited Kimball Atwood, Steve Novella, and me to meet with her as critics of NCCAM. Of course, not long after that, she wrote a truly misguided editorial entitled Listening to Differing Voices in which she stated that she had met with “both sides,” namely homeopaths and us, and dumped a classic bit of false equivalence between “skeptics” and CAM advocates in which “advocates would like to see more research dollars supporting various CAM approaches while the skeptics see our research investment as giving undue credibility to unfeasible CAM modalities and want less research funding,” as though the two held equal positions. Apparently she had met with an “international homeopathy team” sometime soon before or after she met with us. In any case, one thing we observed at that meeting was that Dr. Briggs tried as hard as possible to distance herself from the Trial to Assess Chelation Therapy, a massively unethical and pointless clinical trial to test a treatment for heart disease with close to zero prior plausibility and clinical evidence demonstrating that it is unlikely to work. She very pointedly reminded us that TACT started before her tenure as NCCAM director began and that it had been turned over from NCCAM to the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI). Her eagerness to dissociate herself from TACT was palpable, and she declined to comment on it because it was, according to her, not part of NCCAM.
How her tune has changed in less than four years!
In this video chat, Dr. Briggs and Dr. Drisko gushed over TACT. Dr. Briggs even showed a figure from the study. Why? It’s because she seemed to think that she could spin TACT as a positive trial by focusing on the subgroup analysis that suggested a benefit for chelation therapy in diabetics. I’ve discussed this issue before when I analyzed the results of TACT reported about a year ago. The first problem I noted was that the outcome measure was an composite endpoint consisting of death, myocardial infarction, stroke, coronary revascularization, and hospitalization for angina. There was no significant difference in any of these individual outcome measures between control groups and test groups. Nada. Zero. Zip. In fact, there wasn’t a difference between the composite adverse cardiovascular event outcome in the overall population, either. The only way the investigators salvaged a seemingly positive result was through subgroup analysis of diabetics, which purported to show a difference, although even in diabetics there was no statistically significant difference in any of the individual cardiovascular endpoints.
This subgroup analysis was tarted up a bit a few months ago in a separate paper (thus reinforcing the concept of the MPU, or “minimal publishable unit”). Nothing new was presented, and the TACT investigators even published a graph virtually identical to the “diabetics vs. non-diabetics” graph in the original JAMA article about TACT. If you don’t believe me, just compare Figure 4 in the original JAMA article to Figure 2 in the new article. The only significant difference is that the new figure is in color and much more appealing to the eye.
Both Dr. Briggs and Drisko keep saying that there is “enough there to say that there’s something helpful.” No, really, there isn’t. It’s just a composite endpoint, and there are no statistically significant differences between any individual endpoints. Moreover, as I described before, there could be other reasons for the apparent difference in composite cardiovascular events. Or it could be a fluke due to how poorly the study was run, the problems with the study having been amply documented by Kimball C. Atwood, Elizabeth Woeckner, Robert Baratz, and Wally Sampson four years before the results of TACT were reported.
Once having done everything she could in private to dissociate herself from TACT, Dr. Briggs now exults over these results, while Dr. Drisko proclaims that it’s time to look for the “mechanism” by which chelation therapy “works” and/or do a larger trial to nail this result down. Really? TACT cost taxpayers $30 million. Does she really think that this probably spurious result is worth spending more than $30 million to chase down in these days of highly constrained NIH funding? I can think of a lot more important things that the NIH should be spending money on than confirming or disconfirming the results of a clinical trial that the government never should have spent $30 million on in the first place. Moreover, I can’t help but point out that Dr. Briggs and Dr. Drisko don’t say the obvious thing that needs to be said about TACT, even if we assume for the sake of discussion that the result seen in the subgroup analysis of diabetics, namely that the result of TACT strongly supports the conclusion that chelation therapy should not be used in non-diabetics with cardiovascular disease because TACT showed that in these patients it clearly doesn’t work. I’ve yet to hear a single CAM proponent say this about TACT, but they do say the same sorts of things that Dr. Drisko and Dr. Briggs say about “intriguing” results in diabetics. It’s pure poppycock.
Next up, our fearless moderator asks which alternative therapies are being “integrated” into the mainstream. I can’t help but notice that she didn’t ask, “Which alternative therapies work?” That’s a very different question, because, thanks to the march of quackademic medicine there are quite a few alternative therapies that are being “integrated” into the mainstream through the pseudospecialty of “integrative medicine” without any compelling evidence that they work. As I like to say, citing Mark Crislip, integrating cow pie with apple pie doesn’t make the apple pie taste better, or, as I like to say, “integrating” pseudoscience and quackery into mainstream medicine doesn’t make mainstream medicine stronger. It dilutes it with quackery. In any case, close to no evidence is discussed indicating that these modalities being “integrated” (such as acupuncture, “mind-body,” massage, and the like) work for the conditions indicated.
A lot of the rest of the video chat had to do with supplements and nutrition. Of course, this is nothing more than the classic “bait and switch” of CAM, or, as I like to call it, the “rebranding.” Basically, CAM advocates rebrand perfectly fine science-based modalities, such as nutrition and exercise, as somehow being “alternative” and thus part of CAM. Since these interventions have a scientific basis and can work for certain conditions, this little trick allows CAM advocates to claim that CAM works, while lumping all the magic, such as reiki, “energy healing,” acupuncture, and the like, in with the rebranded science-based modalities, implying that the magic must work too.
If you want perhaps the most blatant example of this “rebranding” at work, near the end of the video chat, Dr. Briggs cited hospice care as a model of medicine that came from outside the mainstream and is now an accepted part of medicine. At first I thought she was trying to imply that hospice is CAM; so I listened to it again. It turns out that she was just citing hospice as an example of a practice that came from “outside the mainstream” and is now accepted that she could use to imply that CAM practices would soon be mainstream. It was probably the latter, but either way it was totally off base. However, if you go to the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization website and peruse its history of the hospice movement or a similar page on the National Hospice Foundation website, you’ll see that it’s quite the exaggeration to claim that hospice arose from outside of the mainstream in the same way that CAM arose outside of the mainstream.
After watching the entire video, one thing that I noticed was that both Dr. Drisko and Dr. Briggs admitted that the evidence base behind CAM is very thin indeed. Dr. Briggs couldn’t really come up with a CAM modality that NCCAM had shown to be definitely effective. To explain, Dr. Drisko likened CAM to the situation in medicine in the 1950s, where what we had, according to her, was little more than anecdotal observations and observational studies but were starting to challenge existing practices with more rigorous studies and randomized clinical trials. She thinks we’re at the stage where clinical research will change CAM practices. I disagree. It’s already been shown time and time again by the reaction of CAM practitioners to research showing that their modality doesn’t work that CAM practitioners do not appreciably change practice. Specifically, unlike the case in science-based medicine, it’s always hard to come up with a list of CAM practices that have been abandoned because research showed that they didn’t work. Seriously, homeopathy is still with us. The day I see CAM practitioners completely reject homeopathy as pseudoscience is the day that I might believe someone like Dr. Drisko chirpily predicting that we’re at the dawn of a great new scientific age in CAM. After all, she practices orthomolecular medicine, works with a naturopath, and administers IV vitamin C, even mentioning a study recently published in, yes, Science Translational Medicine, claiming that high dose vitamin C is active against ovarian cancer. (Yes, I do plan on looking into that one.)
Perhaps the most annoying thing is how at the end Dr. Briggs co-opts a favorite saying of skeptics that there is no such thing as “alternative” medicine and that when something “alternative” is shown to work it ceases to be “alternative” and becomes just “medicine.” I’ve said that time and time again myself. I’ve also used that belief to argue that NCCAM shouldn’t exist. After all, there should be no such thing as “alternative” or “complementary” medicine. There should be just medicine. Unfortunately, neither Dr. Drisko, Dr. Briggs, nor the organizers of this web chat seem to understand this.
160 replies on “Can Alternative and Conventional Medicine Get Along? No.”
” the unfortunately named OCCAM”
Oh, I know.That’s always bothered me.
Receiving a NCCAM grant for the study of CAM is about as much of an honor as being Valedictorian of summer school.
And not the summer school you go to to get early college credit for your core courses. If you want your trials and studies of acupuncture and reiki and whatever other nonsense to be taken seriously, play with the big kids and their rules.
Homoeopathy is currently used in over 80 countries. It has legal recognition as an individual system of medicine in 42 countries and is recognized as a part of complementary and alternative medicine in 28 countries. The World Health Organization has stated that homeopathy is the second most commonly used form of alternative medicine internationally.
The health care industry is a profit driven entity. Because conventional medicine has failed them, health care consumers are educating themselves and choosing to spend their money on what works. Homeopathy offers success, and cures, over hype and failure. The homeopathy skeptics do not yet seem to realize that health care consumers read and digest the evidence on both sides, then make an informed decision. Nothing sells better than sex and success.
@Sandra – just because it is popular (and so is drinking water, btw) doesn’t mean that it actually works….
Australia’s Dr Ken Harvey takes this stuff seriously!!! If only there were more like him.
Sandra… with around 1.6 billion followers, Islam has legal recognition as an individual religion practiced around the world. It is the second largest religion and is one of the top three very popular religions. Islam may be the “right” religion, or Christianity might be, or perhaps the Hindus have got it right. Perhaps none are right. But they can’t all be right, no matter how popular they are. No matter which religion is right, if any are, the vast majority of religious people will still be wrong despite their conviction otherwise.
Reality is not a popularity contest.
Homeopathy is pure bunk, rubbish, junk, garbage and stupid all rolled into one steaming turd that is painted and perfumed and (thanks to legal loopholes excluding homeopathic quack “medicine” from any real regulation/testing) put on way too many shelves in store in the US. Period.
Whereas homeopathic remedies are entirely free, with 9/10 homeopaths operating entirely pro bono.
…whereas homeopaths are driven entirely by the goodness of their hearts. Gotcha.
None of which constitutes evidence that homeopathy is effective at treating illness or injury.
Unfortunately they’re also spending there money on things that have been proven not to work, like homeopathy.
there is no evidence that homeopathy is effective at curing anything (with the possible exception of dehydration, where it might perform as well as equal amounts of plain water). If you believe otherwise, please provide actual evidence demonstrating that homepathy is more effective at treating non-self-limiting injuries or diseases than placebos.
In fact, let’s make it as easy as possible for you to respond: in your opinion, what is the single most compelling clinical study demonstrating homeopathy is effective (i.e., more than sham or placebo homeopathy) at addressing non-self limiting illnesses or injuries?
Again–what evidence is there than weigh in in favor of homeopathy? Be specific.
Homepathy demonstrates that false hope sells just as well.
Sandra Courtney makes me sick. She has allied herself with Patrick Tim Bolen, who refers to all skeptics as “pedophile homosexuals” and he has coined a nickname for Orac that is totally and utterly disgusting.
She has been challenged about her support for Bolen everywhere she posts her pro-homeoquackery comments aound the world, and even after being shown what kind of filthy, lying pig Bolen is, her support for him is unwavering.
Yet SHE rails on about “cyberbullying” and encourages any homeopath who feels butthurt when we ask for evidence to “complain about abuse to Twitter.”
Nice friends you choose to associate with, Sandra. You miserable hypocrite.
I never thought chelation would turn out to be any use – it seems necessary to assert that upfront. However, I recently read comments on TACT by MDs on a conventional-medicine website that said while chelation for CAD in diabetics seemed implausible to cardiologists, who often still effectively believe in a plumbing model of CAD, endocrinologists were more likely to think it might be plausible because they were more familiar with the role of metal ions in abnormal metabolic processes in diabetes. That tidbit, plus the fact that there apparently is some published preliminary evidence for chelation that was used to justify this trial, suggests that perhaps the Bayesian Prior Probability cannot be so easily decreed to be “close to zero” as is always asserted around here. Continuing to declare studies of methods you don’t like Unethical after they have reported significant positive results, while demanding the defunding of further research, gives the appearance that what you want to do is suppress the conduct and publication of any research that might prove your personal beliefs to be incorrect.
Unfortunately, science-as-process doesn’t work that way. Some questions can’t be answered by the methods of science, but for those that can be, there’s no priesthood that gets to dictate that some of those questions should never be asked or answered. People are going to do studies on things you don’t like, and sometimes, it will turn out that those things do work. Demanding that we ignore the actual results of clinical trials because the Prior Probability you pulled out of your … hat … has spoken and told you those results must be wrong only makes you look like Ken Ham in a white coat.
Ms. Courtney: ” Because conventional medicine has failed them, health care consumers are educating themselves and choosing to spend their money on what works. Homeopathy offers success, and cures, over hype and failure.”
Uh, huh. Do tell us all about the successes homeopathy has with measles. Try to answer this time, do not ignore the question. Again.
Do tell us which non-self-limiting disease/condition that homeopathy has proven to work with where real medicine failed. Is it syphilis? Nope. Is it type 1 diabetes? Nope.
Come on, give us an answer. Don’t just post and run away.
Can alternative and conventional medicine get along? A panel of NCCAM advocates are as likely to discover that the answer is “no” as a Templeton-funded panel of accomodationists is likely to conclude that science and religion are indeed in conflict.
And for pretty much the same reasons, and using pretty much the same arguments, and hiding behind pretty much the same strategies, and with pretty much the same smug sense of ‘tolerance’ and ‘respect’ for multiple ‘faiths’ and their different ways of knowing.
If I understand the history of homeopathy it was an improvement over much of what passed as medicine. The magic water of homeopathy is better than blood letting and poisonous remedies.
Homeopathy works every bit as well as doing nothing.
Soothing talk and a gram or two of ascorbic acid can reduce the discomfort from the common cold. Ditto soothing talk and a few green M&Ms.
Some years ago I heard a simple home remedy for diverse feverish aches and pains. Take one shot of whiskey. Repeat as needed until the aches and pains go away. And like Listerine, whiskey kills germs on contact. No need for NCCAM.
The World Health Organization has stated that homeopathy is the second most commonly used form of alternative medicine internationally.
Notice that there’s no statement by the WHO on whether or not homeopathy actually works.
Alternative medicine can accommodate conventional medicine, but the reverse is not true, since conventional medicine is burdened by the need for evidence. If anything, I’d like to see *more* science in conventional medicine, not less. We do not have enough treatments for various ailments, and the ones we have are too expensive; this will not be solved by allowing charlatans to operate. It will only be solved by increasing the amount of active research while simultaneously working to reduce the barriers too many people have to obtaining treatment.
@ Lawrence
Drinking water works. Without it, we could not live. And quacks need it too for their high dilutions.
Andy @ 6
Additionally
Jane, if your argument is we shouldn’t bash an expensive failed trial because some endocrinologists on a message board said they could hypothetically, possibly, maybe see how chelation would work for diabetics, I think you’re in the wrong place.
The data are here, and they landed with the wet squish of the turds that they are. There was nothing gained by doing this trial, except that once again science did its job and showed something to be useless. That’s great! But now it’s time to acknowledge the reality and move on.
Jane, how were these “significant positive results”? What is so compelling about this subgroup analysis that warrants billions more dollars spent when there are so many other research proposals that go unfunded but have far more potential for viable hypothesis testing?
That’s quite the steaming load of bollocks. This is exactly how the scientific process should work. The question was asked, tested and failed to produce results that warrant further investigation; it happens all the time. Alt med shouldn’t get a pass because of some wooey-mystical nonsense that “the scientific method can’t answer that question”. What are you going on about a “priesthood” preventing anything? Research funding needs to be prioritised and unfortunately not everything gets funded; that’s just reality. If woo-meisters want to whinge about it then they can get funding for their research themselves; no one owes them jack.
@Jane,
Orac’s objections to the TACT trial were expressed by many prior to the trials outcome and publication. You cannot accuse them of rejecting the trial because they did not like the outcome.
An editorial in JAMA accompanies the TACT trial publication and sums up the major objections:
(http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=1672219)
Concluding with:
“Given the numerous concerns with this expensive, federally funded clinical trial, including missing data, potential investigator or patient unmasking, use of subjective end points, and intentional unblinding of the sponsor, the results cannot be accepted as reliable and do not demonstrate a benefit of chelation therapy. The findings of TACT should not be used as a justification for increased use of this controversial therapy.”
Yet we have the director of NCCAM spinning the trial as positive by cherry picking subgroup analysis? That is not a critically thinking mind at work. It is a biased mind.
I read about the intravenous vitamin C study involving Jeanne Drisko in the paper yesterday.
There’s a press release (on NIH and HHS websites, no less). Much of the work involved tissue culture and mice, but there was also a pilot study in 27 patients with stage III or IV ovarian cancer::
“The patients who received intravenous vitamin C along with their chemotherapy reported less toxicity of the brain, bone marrow and major organs, the investigators found.”
“These patients also appeared to add nearly 8.75 months to the time before their disease relapsed and progressed, compared with people who only received chemotherapy. The researchers did note that the study was not designed to test the statistical significance of that finding.”
I’m curious about that significance. Was there objective measurement of toxicity, or just patient reports? What does “appeared to add 8.75 months” mean? Was this a double-blinded study? Hopefully I’ll be able to dig out the journal article for clarification.
Meantime, while other cancer docs are expressing caution about the findings, Dr. Drisko wants us to dive right in, the vitamin C’s fine:
“While she agreed that larger trials need to be conducted, Drisko was not as hesitant.”
“It’s safe. It’s inexpensive. There’s a plausible mechanism we’re investigating for why it works,” she said. “We should be using this in patients, rather than dragging our feet and worrying about using it at all.”:
It’s “plausible” and she thinks it’s great. We don’t need no steenking large-scale trials.
How irresponsible.
WHO certainly do say homeopathy doesn’t work for diseases in the developing world.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8211925.stm
Dangerous bacon, I conducted a small study using bottled horse farts in leukaemia, and although not statistically significant, one of the secondary outcomes showed a slight benefit in subjects sleep patterns.
Bottled hours e farts are cheap, so I hope NICCAM will now endorse it’s use without the need for larger trials powered to demonstrate anything of relevance, clinically or significantly.
No point dragging feet, is there?
#25 i hope those were ethically produced organic bottled horse farts?
What questions are those, exactly? Perhaps questions of the realm of religion, or philosophy, or creative expression (“Who’s the better artist, Wyeth or Klee?”) but it can certainly answer questions within it’s open scope, such as whether or not medical interventions such as homeopathy, reiki, acupuncture, etc. are effective.
And it has done so, finding that they are not effective (or more accurately, no more effective than sham treatments or placebos.)
And you’re correct that there is no preisthood, butno one is arguing questions can’t be asked or answered. Instead they’re noting that the question “Is Homeopathy of any utility in treating disease and injury?” has already been answered (the answer is “not at all”) and we’d be foolish to expend any more resources asking the question over and over again when there so much else they could be usde to investigate to possible benefit.
It featured Dr. Briggs, as well as an associate editor from Science Translational Medicine, Yevgeniya Nusinovich, M.D., Ph.D., who served as moderator, and a practitioner of “integrative medicine” at Kansas University, Dr. Jeanne Drisko, whose titles include Director, KU Integrative Medicine and the Riordan Endowed Professor of Orthomolecular Medicine.
So, like convening a panel of forgers to discuss the question “Can good money and bad money get along?”
Oh, dear. Referring to a *prespecified* subgroup analysis is not “cherry picking.” The reason the diabetic vs. non-diabetic subgroups were prespecified is that there apparently was a priori reason to believe that excessive levels of particular metal ions were more relevant to CAD development in diabetics than in non-diabetics. This is a very different situation from a case in which no subgroups are prespecified but the authors attempt after the study is done to find some portion of patients in which the treatment appeared effective.
Likewise, Orac complains that the primary efficacy outcome was a composite outcome, but in fact, this is virtually universal in cardiology studies. He “whinges” (nice word use) that reductions in the individual types of event that went into the composite outcome were not statistically significant, but a little thought and sixth-grade math will tell you that there had to be numerical differences in more than one of those outcomes. The primary reason for using composite outcomes is to make it easier to accumulate enough cardiovascular events in a finite patient population to achieve statistical significance; this is necessary because even in a putatively high-risk population, the annual risk of having a heart attack, stroke, etc. is much lower than patients are led to believe. (The secondary reason is so that patients can be lectured that the treatment “reduces the risk of death, heart attack and revascularization” when in fact it does not reduce anything but elective stenting.) You cannot pretend that a composite outcome invalidates the results of this study when studies with ten thousand participants regularly use them. This reflects the current culture of a whole field of conventional medical research.
Like I said, I have never had much belief in this treatment, and know nobody who has used or benefited from it. But straw men and scatological namecalls against the researchers, published data, or people who simply read the study without assuming it to be fraudulent are not convincing to me. These are the data, and there is no evidence that they are fraudulent. They show clearly that chelation is worthless in non-diabetics. Hopefully that will put an end to that use, but recent studies have found stenting to be worthless in stable angina, CRT to be far worse than worthless in people without extremely long QRS complexes, etc. etc., and cardiologists keep pushing those things; I imagine that the people who have been pushing chelation will keep doing so, so if this study’s negative results are to make a difference it will be because informed, self-directed patients do their own research.
OTOH, this study does provide adequate reason to think another trial in diabetic patients only would be worthwhile. In my opinion – which I recognized immediately after writing it to involve a value judgement – you can’t claim that Science says the Bayesian probability of something is near-zero when there’s a p<.05 on the table. You have to be willing to go where the data say, or you're not doing science.
By the way, JGC – I completely agree with you about homeopathy; no public money should be wasted on that research. There is very little evidence that it might work and plenty of evidence that it won’t. Now as to acupuncture, the idea that sham acupuncture cannot be bioactive is a matter of dogma, not fact, while the idea that those studies in which acupuncture beats sham acupuncture (or a pharma drug treatment) must be rejected is a straightforward value judgement. Those who do not share your beliefs or values regarding these issues might well like to have more data regarding what benefits they might derive from using acupuncture in various circumstances.
I actually addressed a lot of these issues a year agnclusion of the link to my previous discussion of TACT when it originally came out:
https://www.respectfulinsolence.com/2012/11/05/the-results-of-the-unethical-and-misbegotten-trial-to-asess-chelation-therapy/
I’ve complained more than once about the use of composite endpoints in cardiovascular studies as being bad science. I’m not alone in that criticism:
http://www.bmj.com/content/334/7597/786
“Use of composite end points appeals to clinical trialists because it increases event rates and statistical power. The fundamental problem with composite end points is, however, the difficulty in interpreting results when the gradient of importance to patients is substantial and a substantial gradient in the magnitude of the treatment effect also exists. Conversely, confident interpretation of composite end point results requires relatively small gradients of importance to patients and similar relative risk reductions across components.3 Our findings suggest that most composite end points used in cardiovascular randomised controlled trials have substantial gradients in both importance to patients and treatment effects across component end points. Furthermore, less important outcomes provide larger contributions to the composite end point event rate and show larger treatment effects. In particular, mortality outcomes, present in almost all cardiovascular composite end points, provide the lowest event rate and show the smallest treatment effects. Thus, an important and plausible risk of misleading conclusions associated with the use of composite end points is to attribute reductions in mortality to interventions that do not, in fact, reduce death rates.
“The common use of inadequately reported composite end points with large gradients in importance to patients, in which end points of least importance contribute most events, and in which treatment fundamentally affects these same components, is problematic. Trialists should report complete data on individual component end points to facilitate appropriate interpretation; clinicians should view with caution the results of cardiovascular trials that use composite end points to report their results. Clinicians and patients are best served when trialists restrict their use of composite end points to end points of similar importance to patients and contexts in which they anticipate that more important end points will contribute a large proportion of study events. If they do not, they risk misleading their audience.”
And this one recommending against the use of the MACE endpoint:
http://content.onlinejacc.org/article.aspx?articleid=1138720
“In light of the approximate prior 15 years use of the term MACE and its wide heterogeneity in definition and research applications, it is unlikely that a consensus definition will either be universally desired or practical for future research. Therefore, we recommend against the routine use of MACE as a composite end point at large. However, if a broad heterogeneous composite end point such as MACE is ultimately desired, minimally, it must be clearly defined, and the individual as well as composite end points need to be analyzed, presented, and discussed. If different definitions are used for even 1 component of the composite end point, rates of the composite end point may vary widely. To illustrate, in TAXUS-I (12), only Q-wave MI was included in the definition of MACE, and there were no MIs at 30 days or 1-year in either the TAXUS or control groups. In contrast, in TAXUS-V among patients with complex disease (25), the 30-day MACE rates of 5.1% and 3.6% in the TAXUS and control groups, respectively, were dominated by the inclusion of non–Q-wave MI rates of 4.4% and 3.3%, respectively.
“Our general recommendation against the use of MACE is consistent with that of the Academic Research Consortium (ARC) (59), which has aimed to establish consensus definitions for both individual and composite DES study end points. The ARC has suggested 2 composite end points for DES trials: a device-oriented and overall patient-oriented end point, whereas for cardiology studies at large (i.e., not restricted to DES trials), we recommend focusing separately on safety and effectiveness outcomes, and constructing separate composite (and sample size calculations, among others) end points that contain well-defined internally coherent components to match these different clinical entities.”
My criticism applies not just to TACT but any cardiovascular trial using composite endpoints, which are in general a bad idea. Any cardiovascular study that uses a composite endpoint but can’t show a statistically significant result in at least one of the components of the composite endpoint is a negative trial, as far as I’m concerned.
Wanna bet? I can show you homeopathy trials that have a “p<.05 on the table." We know homeopathy has a prior plausibility of as close to zero as you can get.
Speaking of which, were you planning on getting back to this?
Yet we have the director of NCCAM spinning the trial as positive by cherry picking subgroup analysis? That is not a critically thinking mind at work. It is a biased mind.
It is the mind of someone who knows whence comes her next paycheck.
Dangerous Bacon — Figure 4 summarizes the trial design: http://stm.sciencemag.org/content/6/222/222ra18/F4.expansion.html
if I was a subscriber to Science Translational Medicine, all might be revealed. But alas…
Ugh. I’m sorry. I didn’t realize there’s a paywall.
If it’s not against the rules to quote a giant block of text, then here is the caption for Figure 4:
http://www.health24.com/Medical/Cancer/News/Intravenous-vitamin-C-boosts-chemotherapy-action-20140206
How is it driven there? In a mack truck?
And where did the benzene ring go?
If she is talking about it’s role as an antioxidant, and free radicals generation, she should say so, and explain why it would only target some cells, and not others.
Question: Surely high dose ascorbic acid is not the thing alties want to give cancer patients (who have a mythical need for alkalinisation)?
First of all..who wrote this article??? if they are so SCIENTIFICALLY inclined, what is their CV??? There are more ways to treat symptoms than to put pen to paper and write prescriptions for expensive pharmaceuticals that..buy the way cost $$$$$$ in their their therapeutic value and even more in treating the adverse effects!! What works is what THE PATIENT says works!!! Just like pain, it is their experience that matters!! Yes we need RTC for high risk meds and treatments, but if anyone is so arrogant to think their treatment or cure is the only thing that matters, then they are concerned more about them than the person they are facing!!! Food is medicine…home remedies work…they have proved the test of time…acupuncture has existed longer than conventional medicine…open your minds!!! Great things might happen when therapeutic modalities work together!!!!
@candy
[citation needed], since most CAM modalities have very little evidence of their actual efficacy.
Also, your comment on acupuncture falls under the “argument from antiquity” fallacy, since acupuncture didn’t really come into being until the 1970s.
Also, have you heard about the placebo effect? Just because a patient says that something works doesn’t mean it actually has any beneficial effect.
in what studies has acupuncture been shown to perform better than standard of care science based medical treatment, Jane?
Demonstrably false, candy. As has been pointed out above,
lots of people say homeopathy works despite hard evidence demonstrating it does not.
First of all..who wrote this article??? if they are so SCIENTIFICALLY inclined, what is their CV???
Beginning a comment this way does not instill great faith in Candy’s interest or ability in basic looking-stuff-up skills.
@novalox…Acupuncture actually existed for YEARS prior to that…and was used successfully…If the studies stared later, so he it!!! I am more than aware of the PLACEBO effect as being very powerful!!! Once again…this should be about THE PATIENT…..NOT you!!!!! I am a conventional medical practitioner with a deep interest in Functional medicine… What is with the “What Study”! Questions when your arguments are pointless…people will do what they choose…if you judge them, you will never know the difference!!!! When the have a positive outcome, you might assume you had influence, but really, your attitude may prevent your knowing!!!!
@herdoktor….why hide it so well?????
Scroll to the top of the page and click on his blog name…if it was a snake, it would bite you, you gormless nit.
Candy, what is your profession?
Alain
@JGC..what evidence exists to say acupuncture does not work???….Apparently the people without dental pain during usually painful procedures would dispute this..But Oh, oh, forgot about that PLACEBO effect…which I apparently don’t know about, cause according to Herrrdoktor???? I cannot find the author of the original article that caused us all more stress than we need!!!!!
Enjoy you life in a box forum!!!
Suppliers of capital letters, exclamation points and question marks thank Candy for her repeat business.
Readers of Candy’s word stew, not as much.
@Denise Walter
#1
” the unfortunately named OCCAM”
Oh, I know.That’s always bothered me
Just think of OCCAM as a target for Occam’s razor.
Candy’s correct. What is known as acupuncture has existed since the 1930s, when Cheng Dan’an got wind of Western medical science on nerve function and simply moved the magic points from blood vessels to nerves. This, along with getting rid of the obvious lancets, manage to rescue a long discredited and dying practice from the scrap heap.
Here, Candy. It may not have as many exclamation points as you’re used to.
Perhaps you would like to start here.
I am all in favour of needles during dental procedures. Especially the hollow kind through which anesthetics can be administered.
@candy
Again, where is your evidence? Why should we care about your assertions about treatments, when you don’t have any credible evidence for their efficacy?
Also, why would you treat someone with something that doesn’t have any actual proof. Would that make you selfish and only about you, since you (if you are really a medical professional) would treat someone with what could possibly be a worthless or harmful treatment?
@ herr doktor
I use toothpicks.
Candy, in which part of Canada do you practice “conventional medicine”? I need to know which bits to avoid on my next visit, in case of emergencies.
Prior to it’s reinvention during the Cultural Revolution acupuncture was a form of bloodletting, candy. it used lancets, not the thin needles we’re familiar with today, applied to very different locations and it was “successful” to the same extent European bloodletting was successful.
As for evidence that acupuncture doesn’t work, the burden of proof is on the other side–that of those claiming it’s anything other than a placebo.
@Shay…resorting to name calling tells me a grat deal about you!! And…a Blog name does not lend anything to credibility. ? Orac…still does not tell anyone who wrote this and what expertise they have to be able to decipher any of this….And I work in one of the best medical systems ever! Even Shamans and traditional aboriginal healers collaborate with medical practitioners…PATIENT centred care!!
Orac…still does not tell anyone who wrote this and what expertise they have to be able to decipher any of this…
Shamans, traditional aboriginal healers and quacks all rely on their Authority to sell their woo. Orac isn’t selling stuff here, so he needn’t flaunt his authority: his articles stand on their own merit.
Even so, you’ve been given more hints than most on how to “discover” Orac’s worst-kept-secret-on-the-internet identity and expertise. So stop complaining about Orac’s identity vs your self-proclaimed authority, hidden behind your ‘nym (with no magic decoder ring), and do some work, if you actually care. Concentrate on the material, not on the authority.
Borkquoted, again. Obviously, the first paragraph of my #59 is quoted from Candy’s #58. Sorry ’bout that, Chief.
Bill..get alife
Bill..get a life…you would not survive a minute in an aboriginal community calling them Quacks…and if you were fee for service with that attitude, you would be declaring bankruptcy!!
Candy: “Orac…still does not tell anyone who wrote this and what expertise they have to be able to decipher any of this”
It is one of the worst kept “secrets” on the internets. The ability to it has turned into a bit of a test here. You are not doing very well.
Here is another hint: the words in a different color, like blue, are links to other webpages. Hover your mouse over one and then click. Read Shay’s comment, and find that word. Click on it and all will be revealed.
Aargh, I blame family members who insist on talking to me, some words are missing:
The ability to figure it out has turned into a bit of a test here.
I didn’t think there could be two people as dumb as Greg.
Click Here —> http://bit.ly/1aIDfcn
The headline is ” Can Alternative and Conventional Medicine get along? “No”…….Not sure why I even commented in the flat earth society forum…the answer was already there!!! If you think you can or can’t you’re right…said a great leader!!
Nobody Said Orac was selling stuff…but when you look at the research done by pharmaceutical companies, do you think that they are not publishing results that are not aimed at profit? They are selling stuff. There are a few miracles out there…As one of my colleagues (a very qualified MD ) recently said, Modern Medicine has only really done 4 things that have really made a difference…Sanitation, Vaccines, insulin, Antibiotics. I add in ASA, and also consider contraception for those with an open enough mind to accept that women should have control over their reproduction. That perhaps will start another stream of name calling and belittling….so be it….
@candy
Oh do please show where this so-called name calling is from.
Also, considering you said to Bill “get a life” while at the same time complaining about name calling, I find your holier-than-thou attitude so hypocritical.
Again, where is your evidence? We’ve been waiting, certainly, someone who supposedly is in health care could have come up with some actual evidence by now.
Even if this were true, it’s more than NCCAM and SCAM has brought to the table.
Dumb as Chris??? Etc, etc…should be proud you are so professional! I did manage to click on highlighted blue…no further ahead…very suspicious of anything needed to be that hidden….yet great to know that when you have NO intelligent answers…you resort to bashing!!!
novalox: “We’ve been waiting, certainly, someone who supposedly is in health care could have come up with some actual evidence by now.”
But she has given us lots of ellipses and random capitalization! Does that count?
Candy, you are not doing well here. Step back, relax and review your actions.
Don’t worry, not all is lost. All you have to do is prove to us that you have an actual argument. You can start by actually reading some of Orac’s other articles. Then look at the comments, see what kind of exchanges occur between the regulars. Do they engage in “text speech”, or do they actually compose grammatically correct sentences? Do they blindly accept assertions, or expect some evidence?
Blogs often have their own culture, and it helps to learn what is expected on each particular blog.
Candy: “Dumb as Chris??”
Citation needed. Please provide evidence that someone is as dumb as myself. Or is ending a sentence with three periods the new standard?
Have you figured out who writes this blog yet?
@candy
So, where is your evidence? We’re still waiting.
Orac: ‘Mind-body massage’? Is that a joke or a punch-line?
Homeoquackery: Ars.Technica.com did a splendid takedown last year, including a review of the history. Yes, homeoquackery works, better than giving patients arsenic and what-all-else was common back then. It worked as well as giving them purified water to drink in an era when clean water was so rare that people who dared drink the water earned the name Drinkwater, which has since become a last-name along with similar such as Drinkwasser etc.
Chris @13: Homeoquackery for measles: B—– hell!, you’re serious about that. Everyone: go follow the link, it’s not a joke. A few more reviews would be helpful.
Peter B @ 15: Thanks for the word about green M&Ms, I’ll put some in an old medicine bottle and keep them next to the chicken broth. One good placebo deserves another, as long as one is aware of their actual value;-)
Orac @ 31: By ‘composite endpoints’ do you mean conflation of objective measures with subjective measures, or do you mean compounding a quantity of objective measures together? About the former, I’d be highly sceptical; about the latter, I haven’t the background to say.
Where on our godless good green Earth is there a homeoquackery study with a p < .05 in the results?
Re. Bayesian statistics: I'm an unabashed frequentist, and sceptical about 'prior plausibility' as an element in statistical calculations. One shouldn't need 'prior plausibility' to produce null results for quackery.
Candy @ 39: Can I trade you a few of my spare question marks for some of your extra exclamation points???? Oh, wait!!!, I see you have plenty of question marks!!! Would, you, like, a, few, more, commas, instead?
58: Patient-centred care: If the patient comes to your health centre demanding a dollop of dragon dung dropped whilst the Moon is in Pisces, 'tis best to offer them a powerful placebo in its place.
Sometime in democracy, (comma) people get a choice. (Period). My apologies for auto correct. (Period) .
@Candy: OMG!!! You still….can’t…..figure out who writes this blog….well I Guess!!! Doesn’t that tell us a lot…about you???
I mean, like…if you just could you know, mouse over the Word Orac??? I mean, the one that’s, like, hyper-linked???? You know when they put a line under something and it means there’s this really cool information at the other end of the link and maybe you wouldn’t look like such an idiot if you….you know, like, clicked on it!!! And then it would take you like totally ….I mean fer sure…to the page where it gives his name…and what he does for a living???? I mean, like, really!!!
Oh, and another correction, Chris said as “dumb as Greg”..that makes it all better. more acceptable now… Sorry Greg!
@shay..read above??did that already
And yet, you still haven’t figured out who Orac is.
Yes..did that…only acceptance here is when you are a sheep…if you have another viewpoint let the name calling and demeaning remarks begin..enjoy your blog..
Johnny: dumber than Greg.
Candy,
I mostly lurk here, but it only took about three days before I identified the human behind the plexiglass box of lights.
Since I never even made an internet search (as described above) to find out, your inability to discover the “secret” doesn’t reflect well on your critical abilities.
pharmawhore/femi-journo-shmourno alert
ugly bugly lezbo alert.
@candy
Ahh, resorting to name calling then, the last resort for a troll when he/she/it knows that they have nothing.
Guess that means that you don’t have any actual proof that your assertions are correct, and that you implicitly admit that you are not a medical professional at all.
First of all, do not assume we all live in a place where we have internet access all of the time..or that it is of the best and most up to date. next..I do know who orac is. my point is this, Blog openly! he is a scientist and surgeon. I have close family members with the same credentials. Also, I have a great deal of respect for medicine and research. But I also believe in choice and alternatives. I Have a huge amount of respect for Dr Sanjay Gupta..Neurosurgeon and CNN medical correspondent. He has delved into many of these topics and with some very different reported outcomes..just saying that not everyone outside of here are “quacks” and if anyone buys into that frame of thinking I have nothing but sympathy for them!
Candy, #62, February 8, 2014
Thanks, whoever you really are, but I’ve got one. I’ve had it for over seventy years now, thanks to real medicine and the folks who aren’t distracted by the ancient failures, like homeopathy, reiki, and the like, or even modern failures like acupuncture.
In my years, I’ve learned that, in others’ environments, I may need to avoid adverse reference to their mythology. Here at RI, there’s no mythology to deal with, so I can be honest and outspoken.
Is this à propos of anything in particular?
Candy, #68, February 8, 2014
What does your commenting on some flat earth forum have to do with modern medicine?
Unless, of course, you actually can’t, even though you may wish to imagine that you can.
I guess it’s too much to ask a woomeister like you to actually read what’s written and respond to that, instead of making stuff up to reply to. You have demonstrated a certain (miniscule) amount of thought in your written style and content. If this certain amount is indicative of the amount of thought you put into your practice, I fear for anyone you might treat.
And, as we all know, the “integrative” and “alternative” companies and practitioners eschew all profit, and give their potions and services away. Uh huh.
That’s the clumsiest attempt I seen recently of the Pharma Shill Gambit. Don’t you want to try again?
To the list from your anonymous authority and you, I would add diagnostic and operational imaging and survivable surgery. The latter is connected to antibiotics and practitioner sanitation, but has more to it, like modern techniques and equipment. Survivable surgery has made a difference in the lives of my family and me. Others may have further contributions. Of course, we cannot omit the SBM research practices that have shown the absurdities abounding in alternative “medicine”.
When I passed out with septic shock, for example, CT imaging showed my ruptured appendix; antibiotics kept me alive until laparoscopic surgery in the CT scanner was used to drain the abscess; more antibiotics cleaned up my abdomen so that the laparoscopic appendectomy was a snap. During the whole adventure, all the medical people showed their self-respect and concern for me by not suggesting any alternative or integrative “medical” products or procedures.
If you actually read and understand RI, you’ll see that the ambience here is open of mind, but not so open that our brains fall out. We consider reality to be the only useful authority.
Would you care to point out any name-calling? Would you care to point out any belittling of you (belittling your chosen mythologies doesn’t fall in the same category as name calling and personal belittling, unless you are one of those True Believers who turns an indefensible belief into part of your identity.)
@novalox. I am indeed a medical professional..with an open mind.
@candy
Well, from your behavior here, as well as your consistent refusal to offer any evidence for your assertions, I think I am justified in considering your assertion that you are a medical professional quite suspect.
I wouldn’t think a medical professional would resort to calling other people names so quickly, unless they had something to hide or have nothing constructive to contribute. Nor would I believe anyone with actual medical training consistently refuse to offer evidence for his/her/its arguments.
Also, as an old saying goes, “Don’t have such an open mind that your brain falls through”
Read the blog Bill and #46 ..if that is not name calling..not sure what to call it here.
Who is calling names..read the blog again.
Of course, the italics should have terminated after à propos and restarted at ambience. Grumble.
By the way, “Candy”, when someone belittles him/herself by adopting alternative “medicine” mythology, we tend to honor the belittlement by joining in.
@candy
So then, point them out, because the only name calling I see is from you.
Also, your continuing refusal to show evidence for your assertions is telling.
As a stickler for respect and good manners, Candy will – now that she’s figured out who Orac is – apologize for her very first post in which she challenged his credentials and called him arrogant.
Be fair , novalox. After Candy showed up and began throwing her ire (and her ellipses) around, at least one of us called her a gormless nit.
Candy, #87, February 9, 2014:
Oh, I see. When I read “gormless nit”, it was such an apt description of your behaviour (and, by extension, you yourself) that it didn’t seem to count as name calling. I can see how a person like you seem to be would find it contrary to your self-image.
Peter B #15 … I really like your alternative remedy for “diverse feverish aches and pains”. I suggest we set up a scientific study of it’s efficacy and get NCCAM to fund it. We could try different brands of whisky, Laphroaig, etc., for subtle differences in their effect. We also could try brandy, vodka and ouzo, same. I’m sure we’d have no trouble getting participants, especially among my students, and as for the drop-out rate, I reckon it would be pretty close to nil. How about it?
This business of CAM and Medicine “getting along” brought to my fidgety brain a snapshot of one car towing another. They are certainly “getting along” together, but they are by no means equal. One does all the work, the other is coming along for the ride. Guess which is which (no prizes)?
Candy,
NCCAM and OCCAM between them spend a quarter of a billion dollars each and every year researching complementary and alternative medicine. In the case of OCCAM this money is spent on research into alternative cancer treatments.
What are the results of this enormous expenditure of public money? What effective treatments have been identified? I can find none of any significance. The most useful treatments are things like the use of ginger tea to help with nausea and vomiting in pregnancy, or a back rub to help people with cancer feel better.
If CAM is so wonderful, as you seem to be claiming, why are the results of these clinical trials so disappointing? Even those that show some statistically significant effects are of little if any clinical use, except as placebos which do nothing objective and are ethically dubious.
To quote Wikipedia:
If those who believe in this nonsense want to spend their money doing further research, let them go ahead, but in my opinion NCCAM and OCCAM are a gargantuan waste of public money, with little if anything of value to show for it. I can only be grateful that I’m in the UK and it isn’t my tax dollars being spent on this.
By the way, Bendectin/Debendox* relieves nausea and vomiting in pregnancy by 70%, but ginger by only 39% (in the first clinical trial for which I could find an effect size).
* I still see Debendox used as an example of the evils of Big Pharma. Large clinical trials have found no effects on fetal development, and it is still widely used. This is another example of an unfounded safety scare that caused a great deal of unnecessary suffering.
My first attempt at this comment had three links and went into moderation. Since Orac’s Sundays are spent being dismantled, lubricated, degaussed and having his blinky lights polished, it may be hours before he’ll be able to release it, so I’ll try again with just the two.
By the way, Bendectin/Debendox* relieves nausea and vomiting in pregnancy by 70%, but ginger by only 39% (in the first clinical trial for which I could find an effect size).
* I still see Debendox used as an example of the evils of Big Pharma. Large clinical trials have found no effects on fetal development, and it is still widely used. This is another example of an unfounded safety scare that caused a great deal of unnecessary suffering.
Given that you’ve completely ignored substantive responses to your initial foray, neither am I.
Krebs: I had a Sunday morning brainfart- I read your comment as Benedictine and was wondering how on earth that would cure nausea!
Candy:
Are you saying that if a patient says they feel better, they are better by some objective standard? Is there evidence for this position? I could understand this perhaps for pain relief or other conditions that are substantially subjective. What about conditions where there is something actually wrong that could, if untreated, kill the patient?
Which particular home remedies do you have in mind, and what studies to you have to show this?
By what measure is the placebo effect powerful?
re: pharmaceutical companies: Yes, of course they’re partially in it for the money. And in all fairness it’s known that sometimes they selectively publish data that can make a new drug look more attractive than the full data does, and they deserve (and get) criticism and rebuke for that, as well as prosecution and regulatory action when appropriate. Now – how does that show that some form of “alternative” medicine has a significant clinical benefit? Feel free to pick the alternative of your choice.
Candy wrote… “very suspicious of anything needed to be that hidden” in regards to Orac’s not-so-secret identity.
Apparently we should place no trust in anyone who does not fully and appropriately identify themselves, including their CV.
I’ve read through the comments here and have seen Candy’s claim to be a “medical professional” (which could mean just about anything these days) but I have not seen her full name, CV or any identifying information. A search for “Candy medical professional” really wasn’t any help. Hmmm…
…very suspicious of anything needed to be that hidden.
I became a convert to the use of high-dose vitamin c therapy fifteen months ago and have taken 8-10 grams of C daily ever since. I have not had a cold in 14 months despite the fact that my hobby of being Santa Claus during December has brought me into contact with many sick children.
In fact, after being exposed to a child with a cold, I woke up the next morning with a slight stuffiness in my nose that progressively became worse. I immediately began taking 2 grams of C every 20 minutes. By noon, all symptoms were gone.
Vitamin C is cheap, harmless and readily available to combat a number of illnesses. It has been proven to help the effectiveness of chemo and radiation as well as helping the body to heal more quickly following surgery. Why would MD’s fight its use so vociferously?
Alternative medicines can have their place. Nutrition and supplements can have positive effects, but drug companies don’t want us taking anything that might interfere with their profits.
By the way, there have never been any double-blind studies on open heart surgery or polio vaccines.
Wow. Just after my last post I was called to watch a DVD, so I missed all the fun.
But it does point out the value advice I read when I first wandered into online discussions in the Compuserve discussion groups in the mid-1990s: don’t jump in without lurking and getting familiar with the denizens of any online group.
If Candy had just spent a little time, including actually attempting to find the answer of her first inflammatory question, she might have presented her positions a bit differently. But she did not, and failed to follow basic advice. That says it all.
Candy , can you be more specific about you’re training and occupation than “I am indeed a medical professional”?
About secrecy and hidden identities:
What difference does it make if Orac calls himself as such, or if he writes as ‘Tom Brown’, ‘Howard Hughes’ or ‘Mick Jagger’- when what he writes *about* and refers *to* outside his own blogs, i.e. literature, research and FACTS is what is of value?
His real identity and his qualifications are not as important here as the research and data he examines and discusses.
I would write similarly if I were using semi-anonymity ( as I do here), my full name, my initials, ‘Sceptic D’ or some other ridiculously self-referent nym that only I and a select few cohorts understand.
Because it’s NOT about US- personality, style and anecdotes are merely window-dressing for reality as represented by data.
Similarly for the letters decorating our names and job titles.
If you got the goods, it doesn’t matter who you be.
Candy never clarified what type of “medical professional” she is.
My best guess about her professional medical credentials is that she’s a clerk in a vitamin/supplement shop.
JGC, what is interesting that the Sandra Courtney who posted above has also claimed to be a “medical professional.” She was a medical transcriptionist. The link I provided to the question I asked her is to her review of a book that claims homeopathy can cure measles.
I would love to now see Candy defend acupuncture and/or homeopathy in the prevention and treatment of measles.
Sheepmilker #101.
As I recall, nausea is sometimes associated with hangover and more alcohol will temporarily relieve the symptoms. No clinical studies, sorry 🙁
Besides, I used to like a little Benedictine with brandy, but that was long ago…
Maybe we should add it to the study for Kathy 95 ?
@ lilady:
But seriously, clerks in vitamin/ supplements shops know VOLUMES more than physicians.
Candy,
Most of the people who comment regularly here are skeptics, but not naysayers.
That is, they don’t automatically disbelieve any thing they’re told, but they have to be convinced.
A good analogy is the state of Missouri, whose motto is “Show Me”. We’re willing to be convinced, but you have to present good evidence and a logical argument to prove your case. A simple assertion or a claim that someone else thought otherwise won’t convince us.
BTW, what alternative medical treatment did Dr Sanjay Gupta think worked best for what condition and what was a published study that supported that claim?
And, to show us, it doesn’t matter what name you put on your comment. It’s the logic and the evidence that matter.
And that evidence shouldn’t come from sources like Gary Null and Whale.TO which have an established record of publishing any BS they feel like.
So, pause a moment, clear your thoughts, reflect, consider what you would really like to convince us of. (Would that process count as alternative medicine???)
Then, try to show us a good, well-reasoned argument in its support.
And, please, stick around, follow the blog, and read, read, read.
@Denice Walter,
From the modern medicine and aboriginals reference, it’s even possible she might work as a receptionist or something similar in a clinic providing modern medicine to aboriginal people somewhere.
There might even be a role for native healers or shamans in such a setting. Not because their techniques work, but because there’s a severe shortage of trained personnel and limited locations to provide services. One way to extend services out into the village is to try to bring the native healers who at least are out there and have contact into the system. Train them to provide a primitive form of triage where they identify people who need modern medicine and help get them referred and transported into the modern medical system. Leave the traditional methods for the self-limiting conditions where it doesn’t really matter. And try to educate against really dangerous practices like trying to “cure” an STD like HIV by having sex with a virgin or touching someone who died of ebola.
AT least this is an ongoing discussion in several African countries, including Zambia where my aunt, an RN, taught for many years at a hospital that trains many of the best nurses in the country.
Well, to be fair, she could have written that in reference to the link I posted at 65, as her quote is from 69.
The direct link, for this who care, is
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=who+is+orac
@Dalexander – I’m glad for your continued good health, and your use of vitamin C probably is not hurting you. On the other hand, according to a Cochrane Review titled “Vitamin C for preventing and treating the common cold.” (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23440782),
Dalexander: “Vitamin C is cheap, harmless and readily available to combat a number of illnesses. It has been proven to help the effectiveness of chemo and radiation as well as helping the body to heal more quickly following surgery.”
Citation needed.
Not exactly on topic, but alternative medicine is full of the “natural is safe” fallacy.
Details will probably never be determined, but the young man
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-norfolk-26089688
Too long; didn’t read.
What a terrible, meandering article. Like a low-energy, listless rant.
You should try some green tea, it will help focus you without making you jittery. Also, maybe add some rosemary or lavendar essential oils to your environment, or other anti-inflammatory with inhalable volatile organic compounts to help cut through that brain fog you seem to have developed.
But seriously, just because you need to get your health out of a bottle prescribed by someone else, doesn’t mean everyone else in the U.S. has to conform to your low level of self-engagement in your own personal health regimen.
That’s nice. I’m so impressed.
You know, anyone who says “too long; didn’t read,” I consider to be an idiot not worth anything other than a quick slapdown, if even that. Why? Because of the smug, sanctimonious lazy BS that phrase represents. It’s like you’re too lazy to bother to read 2,400 words and want to advertise that fact. If you didn’t bother to read the post, you can’t expect me to take you the least bit seriously.
Annette: Kindly post links to the research that proves green tea helps focus and lavendar/rosemary essential oils do ANYTHING except make the room smell better.
If you can’t provide this documentation, what good is your advice?
annette: “Too long; didn’t read.”
The secret to reading these articles is to read a little bit at a time. I may read it during breaks throughout the day.
“What a terrible, meandering article. Like a low-energy, listless rant.”
If you didn’t read it, how do you know? Could you please point to your own writings that are superior?
And we have positive confirmation that annette has never once read a book. You know, I don’t think I’d brag about that, but then, I’m a professional writer, so maybe I’m prejudiced on the subject.
Maybe you should try some green tea. It tastes good, and if you have clogged sinuses the hot liquid down your throat can feel very nice.
“Quackery” nearly at the end of Phase III’s for treating IBD and Crohn’s disease. WOW! Sort of throws your P.O.S argumentation here to waste huh?
http://qimobilehealth.dreamhosters.com/chuan-xin-lian-phase-iii-clinical-trials-on-hpml-004-nearly-complete/
Gaelan Clark, the author of that article declares herself to be:
Here are some interesting verbiage used in that article:
“being placed next to side-effect laden Western medicines”
“Western medications fail.”
“becoming clear to the Western mind”
Along with the unprofessional bias by the author, I detect a bit of racism.
Come back when this stuff passes a real clinical trial, and is published in a highly rated peer reviewed journal.
Orac’s got evidence on his side, Clark. You’ve got advertising.
P.O.S., indeed.
The “taken from the NIH” lie was a nice touch. Anyway, it’s thoroughly unclear to me how this “sort of throws your P.O.S argumentation here to waste huh.” Plants can produce pharmacologically useful compounds.* Film at 11. So? It’s not as though ayurveda suddenly makes sense or something, nor does it mean that the rest of the grab-bag of claims for A. paniculata pan out.
(I will note that the press release is more than a bit over the top with the “global Phase III trial” business. It’s Hungary, Lithuania, and Massachusetts, already.)
@gaelan
Since when does an advertising website is equal to actual scientific research?
@Gaelan Clark
What the hell does a small Canadian oilfield service company have to with Orac’s “argumentation”?
Well, and an amusing rap sheet. Careful, you’ll harsh his buzz.
Re. hangovers: A hangover is a sign of acute alcohol poisoning, and repeated hangovers are a sign of a drinking problem. Attempting to treat them with more alcohol is also a sign of a drinking problem heading toward alcoholism. While we’re on the topic, taking Paracetamol (Tylenol) within a couple of days (either way) of high alcohol consumption is a major risk for serious liver damage; fatalaties have been reported. The cure for hangovers is to drink less.
Re. ‘TL/DR’: Agree, I’ve always seen that as a trademark for ‘proudly ignorant.’
Re. names & credentials: ‘In cyberspace no-one knows you’re a dog.’ Is the name someone’s partner and kids and close friends call them, any less ‘real’ than their ‘legal’ name?, and why should one need to use one’s ‘legal’ name for anything other than ‘legal’ matters such as when signing a contract? Ideas either have merit or they don’t, based on sound facts and reasoning, regardless of whether the person posting is a duke or a dustman. The preoccupation with how real or unreal someone is, strikes me as reaching toward ad-hominem.
Gaelan Clark,
The article referred to the antibiotic use of the lotus herb being tested, so I did a quick Pubmed search and found one paper published last year on preliminary study of andrographolide as an antibiotic. Evidently it retards growth of several bacteria. I didn’t see a reference to how well it kills them.
There was also a survey article.
There is a well established field in conventional medicine called pharmacognosy which concerns isolating medically useful chemicals from natural sources such as herbs. That is, after all, how we got such useful drugs as aspirin, morphine, and penicillin among many others.
So, it is quite possible that a useful antibiotic could be isolated from this herb. We could certainly use that.
But that is not alternative medicine.
Claiming that the same chemical is more effective when it is included in an herbal mixture in unknown quantities with a huge number of other chemicals that might interfere with its effect is alternative.
What you referenced is little more than a news article about a pending study.
When the results are published, please come back and let us know.
The whole claim for natural herbs being better than pure chemicals is like saying sugar tastes sweeter if you mix it with a huge amount of starch and fiber.
@Lurker,
hangovers — I agree
TL/DR — I sometimes just skim long articles looking for useful or interesting information because I don’t have to grind through the nuts and bolts stuff. But, I only reference or argue about what I actually read.
She didn’t even do that.
names & credentials — I agree totally and tried to make the same point in one of my recent comments. The argument should stand or fall on its own merits, not on the name attached.
I favorite version is ‘In cyberspace no-one knows if you’re a dog. Everyone knows if you’re an ass.’
I thought in cyberspace everyone was a French lingerie model. I must be hanging around the wrong websites.
gaelan, “nearly at the end of phase III” doesn’t tell me anything except the trial is concluding –do you have any idea how many drugs fail in phase III?
nearly at the end of Phase III’s
And I am nearly Marie of Roumania
I read your comment as Benedictine and was wondering how on earth that would cure nausea!
My own experience was the opposite. Admittedly, that was N =1 1, and will stay that way.
[…] These stories, to varying degrees, miss the point, from utterly missing it to missing most of it. Unfortunately, I confess that I wasn’t able to help at least one of them. A reporter happened to leave me a message Tuesday morning, which is my operating room day, and I didn’t have time to read the paper and to get back to her before her deadline. Unfortunately, my real job sometimes gets in the way of my being able to help out a journalist. That paper, by the way, appeared in Science Translational Medicine from Jeanne Drisko and Qi Chen from, yes, Kansas University Medical Center, home to one of the more—shall we say?—dedicated centers of quackademic medicine. This indicates to me that STM’s standards are slipping. But then, STM did publish a rather credulous paper by our old friend Ted Kaptchuk on placebos less than a month ago; so maybe I expect too much. Clearly STM appears to be looking for more papers on “complementary and alternative medicine” (CAM) or “integrative medicine.” Worse, just last week, one of the associate editors of STM, Yevgeniya Nusinovich, hosted a lovefest of a web chat in which Dr. Josephine Briggs, director of the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM), and Dr. Jeanne Drisko, chock full of pro-CAM tropes, distortions, and cherry picking. Among the cherry picked stories, besides the Trial to Assess Chelation Therapy (which Dr. Drisko was a co-author on), was this study on vitamin C and cancer, mentioned near the end of the web chat and the study that I promised to say more about. […]
I doubt that Candy will come back, but I wanted to add my two cents : that much faith in the power of the placebo effect and what the patient says work might be dangerous sometimes.
The asthmatic patients in this study reported no difference between albuterol inhaler and placebo inhaler.
Their lungs, however, disagreed.
http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1103319
http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/answering-our-critics-part-2-of-2-whats-the-harm/
Re: TL;DR –
I think there are some circumstances where this is an appropriate response, but NONE of them involve going to someone else’s blog and addressing that rejoinder to the blog’s author. Seriously.
TL;DR can be a shorthand for communicating social expectations to people. It can be used to say “Look, here in this venue, we have an expectation that people will have a point and get to it with a certain speed – and you’ve violated that expectation.” However, it hopefully goes without saying that a first-time visitor to a blog trying to tell the blog’s owner what the expectations are there is making a colossal ass of herself!
Re: the “conventional medical professional”, I wonder if she thinks piercing ears at the mall is a medical procedure, for purposes of establishing credentials…
As a 1977 KUMC graduate I was particularly disconcerted to see how the inmates have taken over the asylum there. I remember in med school hearing about an ancient KUMC professor who used to take down the local quacks. Here in Springfield alternative practitioners have barged into the hospital systems to knock down a pile of money.
Maybe Obamacare and HHS will knock them out of business. Or something.
I think many of you, while very clever and amusing, were unnecessarily mean and often snide to Candy. She is certainly misinformed and probably not a medical “professional” although she may well be a nurse of some kind. I have known wackier nurses than Candy.
Obviously, Candy had never visited here before, and should have been guided through a quick summary of the blog and its purpose. Nor do I see anything wrong in her wondering just who ORAC is–I certainly did. Why not just tell her instead of repeatedly challenging her in a very mean-spirited way?
No one gets more peeved than I about the overuse of the exclamation point, but Candy did modify her style as her comments continued, yet no one seemed to notice and take the opportunity to bring her into the fold.
Cases such as these really do bother me. Candy is not a crank, just misinformed. She will go away feeling abused and more firmly wedded to her beliefs when she could have been gently brought along.
The snideness of people I often enjoy reading is truly awful in this case.
Dorothy: “Why not just tell her instead of repeatedly challenging her in a very mean-spirited way?”
Because it is kind of a rule to not use Orac’s actual name. Plus any comment with it is put into moderation, and may not ever be released.
Shay explained quite clearly where to find the information in Comment #46. Plus others pointed out how to find it, multiple times.
I think the response to Candy has been pretty much appropriate to the content of her posts. Keep in mind she opened her post with “First of all..who wrote this article??? if they are so SCIENTIFICALLY inclined, what is their CV???” when attacking an article that included the sentence “She had invited Kimball Atwood, Steve Novella, and me to meet with her as critics of NCCAM” with that sentence hyperlinking to Orac’s other non-pseudonomenous blog. She’d have had her answer if she’d simply clicked on the link.
It’s clear that she wasn’t actually interested in the author’s actual identity and training nor in addressing the content of the post itself–she just hoped to score some easy points by attacking Orac’s directly and questioning his decision to post using a psuedonym.
I’m not convinced.
Recall that rather than support her claim that acupuncture is effective at treating non-self-limiting injury or illness she responded with the classic crank gambit of demanding others prove it is not (# 48 “@JGC..what evidence exists to say acupuncture does not work???….”)
Candy came here with her ignorant posts about CAM and her demands to know who Orac is and Orac’s CV. She was provided with links to discover Orac’s not-so-secret-identity…and still could not figure it out. Did she actually read this post and is she able to judge the content of this post? I doubt it.
Thanks so much (not) for this comment, Dorothy:
“She is certainly misinformed and probably not a medical “professional” although she may well be a nurse of some kind. I have known wackier nurses than Candy.”
-lilady, BSc-Nursing, R.N.
oy
okay, so lets stipulate that “alternative medicine” does not use scientific data for endpoints. If it did, then it would be regular medicine. I give you herbal whatever, if I can show a statistical correlation with achieving a goal, then that is medicine. done.
Next lets stipulate that medicine is profit driven, and that not-profitable things do not get studied much at all, because you can’t make a living studying drugs that are produced in India for pennies with no patent. If you can’t make a living at it, it’s going to get slow tracked. So some of the “alternative” stuff probably works, and just needs studied.
Lots of the “alternative” stuff works on the placebo effect–WHICH IS VERY POWERFUL and under-utilized by doctors. I encourage my patients to do their alternative medicine/prayer/yoga/meditation/herbal/accupuncture or whatever, because I want them to benefit from the placebo effect. So the posit “conventional and alternative cannot get along” is simply untrue.
What is true is that public funding should not go to alternative medicine, except to scientifically study each new herb and therapy that people are using. If it works, label it. Witch-hazel is a great example. Or Valsalva maneuver for ear infections. If it is placebo, call it homeopathic. Homeopathic is by definition placebo, since they actually do not contain anything other than the carrier base.
If we know it is placebo, it still can help people–the most common thing I treat is depression, and prayer works as well as antidepressants–though by completely different mechanisms.
By its very definition, Placebo does not work…..there, fixed that for you.
I don’t know that switching from four to two counts as a significant modification.
Which is entirely science=based, not woo. There’s an entire branch of science based medicine (pharmacognosy) concerned with the discovery and isolation of active molecules from natural sources. Just more woo co-opting SBM, as they do with diet, exercise, etc.
Scott, a placebo by definition is something that is known to have no actual physiologic efficacy, but may only produce a wholly subjective but false impression of benefit in those receiving it.
Something that works as well as a placebo then–again, by definition–is something that has been found to be just as ‘powerful’ as something that is known not to work at all.
Homepaths disagree–they claim their preparations are actually physiologically active.
But you seem to be arguing that it would be ethical to charge individuals for treatments which have been proven to have no actual physiologic effect, under teh guise that you’re selling a placebo–i.e., soemthing that might produce a false perception of benefit. How do you justify this ethically?
Scott — I just cringed at your suggestion of the Valsalva maneuver for ear infections. It sounds excruciating. I know even when my ears are just plugged from congestion, trying to do that often makes it so much worse.
Cases such as these really do bother me. Candy is not a crank, just misinformed. She will go away feeling abused and more firmly wedded to her beliefs when she could have been gently brought along.
When a drive-by commenter’s immediate explanation for her ignorance about the blogger’s qualifications is that the blogger is (a) unqualified and (b) deliberately concealing that information, this does not augur well for a good-faith conversation.
That’s not it works.
Regular readers will know I have Crohn’s Disease. IBD-related woo gets me really, really angry.
So, @Gaelan #123: the article you linked to was a pathetic piece of fluff that didn’t contain any information about how this wonderful herb actually does anything for Crohn’s. Not even any anecdotes from people who used to live on their toilets and are now Olympic athletes, or whose colon magically healed. Furthermore, I love the way the worst side effects of the typical IBD drugs were cherry-picked and lumped together as though they are common – and they aren’t. Anyone on any of these drugs, especially the corticosteroids, are carefully monitored to ensure the bad reactions aren’t happening, and corticosteroids are only prescribed as a last resort when the IBD is completely out of control.
As others said, come back when you’ve got some real proof. Until then, I’ll keep taking my aminosalicylates which keep the Crohn’s under control very nicely, thankyou.
Hi, Great post. I think alternative-and-conventional-medicine-can get-along but both are very necessary for the people should have an option. Alternative Medicine now a-days is very popular, such as chinese medicines.
Thanks for this post.
Hi, Mark Hammer. I’m afraid that-your-script-failed-to correctly-inject the URL for you were trying to an robospam to-days.
Thanks for this attempt.
Mark, by what rational argument are treatments that haven’t been shown to be effective necessary?
#3 Sandra C. sez: “The health care industry is a profit driven entity.”
Even in “non-profit” health care organizations? And here’s no profit in Alt/CAM/Integrative?
Apologies for previous post… When I finally read through ALL the comments, I see my point has been more than adequately addressed!
[…] study, KUMC offers its patients high dose vitamin C for cancer. The video itself was standard fair, discussed by a certain “friend,” where the Trial to Assess Chelation Therapy was incorrectly touted as a success warranting further […]