Re: Sham Surgery VS Sham Acupuncture

"Citizen Jimserac" <Jimserac@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:466276ba-4f4a-4311-b036-391aacd68a75@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
On Apr 17, 12:28 am, "Peter Moran" <pmo...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Andrew. I spend some of my time arguing with other
skeptics that we perhaps should be more
tolerant of placebo medicines if

PLACEBO MEDICINES???

If this is your premise, it must be
a preconceived notion based
on carefully ignoring valid
research by several scientists
that the meridians DO exist
and that acupuncture points
DO exist - verifiable by physics
(their electricial conductivity
is different).

How was this tested? Can you vouch that it was performed in a standard way with no possibility of conscious or uncosncious investigator input, or the selection of confirmatory results and the rejection of negative ones, or that the researchers did not test dozens of acupuncture points until; they found ones that were in moister areas and therefore more conductive than the control? Such artefact and even result manipulation is extremely common in research and an *infinitely* more likely explanation for these results than that the invisible channels of chi..

Even if other investigators found the same, you could probably still find some simple explanation for it. For example fat is a poor conductor of electricity and thin skin may be poorer than thick skin..




they are relatively harmless, and they
are helping people get over some of
their complaints.

Acupuncture successfully treats conditions
which in some cases standard medicine
is unable to help -> most specifically
migraines.

Yet that can still be explained by a combination of natural reolution, placebo-related phenomena, reversion to the mean, and possibly a bit of counterriitation and distraction ot attention. It is terribly weak evidence for TCM theory.

Ending excruciating
pain is something more than "helping people
get over their complaints".
Your comment indicates that your entire
mode of thinking on this subject is
flawed. You apparently class
all alternative medicines under the "placebo"
banner, ignoring demonstrated physical
effects, changes in the nervous system
and release of endorphins triggered by
Acupuncture.

Acupuncture would
certainly be a "goer", on that basis
because of its (largely unwarranted) credibility
with medical practitioners and the public

UNWARRANTED CREDIBILITY???

I said "largely unwarranted" -- I have allowed that acupuncture may have additional distractant effects and also an enhanced placebo impact compared to more banal methods.r


The research is there. Why pretend it does
not exist. Oh, I could understand your
scepticism if we were discussing Homeopathy,
because they can't PROVE (not yet anyway)
that there is anything in their high dilute
remedies to actually effect the cure or remedial effect.

But with Acupuncture, we are dealing with a real
physical needle and, as I mentioned, there
are indeed measurable effects which are well
documented and researched.

Did you know that up until several years ago, the exact
mechanism by which Aspirin worked was unknown?
Do you mean to tell us that all those years
you claimed that Aspirin only appeared to work
and was actually PLACEBO effect?

Firstly, we can explain its effects. Secondly, not knowing how it works would be no reason for embracing the theory that traditional acupuncturists put forward. Many modern acupunturists have rejected that but still hope that one day some special physiological reason will be fopund for its activity.

It seems to me, until someone can persuade me
otherwise, that it will be sometimes safer for
patients to use "alternatives" than to
get into the hands of a too interventional doctor.

Wow! well your colleagues might have
some disagreement with that but bravo
for saying so!!

At a "softer" end of medicine it doesn't matter
much what people do -- they may feel better for any
kind of treatment
through placebo-related phenomona, and for
having "done something" about the ailment,

AGAIN, this is the fallacy at the root of your
non-thinking which is short circuiting
EVERY comment you make on Acupuncture!

and many complaints will eventually sort
themselves out. It is much easier to be a
success then a failure as
a practitioner at this end of medicine.

Again, you rest on your years of experience in one field
which you think qualifies you to make these assumptions in quite
a different field. I am in awe of your experience
in the prior and appalled by the ease of your fallacious
reasoning in the later.

a " quite different field". Remember the fololwing study? Acupuncturists overestimated the success rate of their treatment of knee arthritis and back pain by 400%. I knew that this would be so before such as study was ever published becasue in my work as a surgeon specialist patients told me quite different stories as to the sauccess of previous treatments to that which they had given to their doctors and as reported in their case notes. It's the same with everything. Everyone overestimates the effects of any treatment, whether conventional, chiropactic, TCM, herbalism.
Schmerz. 2005; [Epub ahead of print]

[Do physicians overestimate effects of acupuncture treatment?] [Article in German]

Lungenhausen M, Endres HG, Kukuk P, Schaub C, Maier C, Zenz M.

Abteilung fur Schmerztherapie, Klinik fur Anasthesiologie,

Intensiv- und Schmerztherapie der Berufsgenossenschaftlichen Kliniken Bergmannsheil Bochum, .

BACKGROUND: Physicians' ratings about their patients' pain prove to be invalid compared to patients' ratings. This is especially true if pain rating acts as an indicator for therapy outcome. The aim of this study was to compare physicians' and patients' ratings of pain relief following acupuncture and to identify correlations between patient characteristics and potential miscalibrations.PATIENTS AND METHODS: In a cross-sectional study 291 pain patients with gonarthrosis or chronic low back pain and their attending physicians were asked to give their rating of patients' pain relief following acupuncture. Patients were interviewed by telephone, and doctors responded to

questionnaires.RESULTS: The proportion of false-positive physicians' ratings was 81% referring to patients without self-reported benefit from acupuncture. Just every fifth patient without pain relief was correctly classified by his physician. There was no correlation between patients' characteristics and false-positive ratings of physicians.CONCLUSIONS: Evaluation of treatment in daily medical routine should be primarily based on information provided by patients.



PM



Thanks, just the same, for openly and well stated comments.

Citizen Jimserac





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Relevant Pages

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