Acupuncture and the Hazard of Nonsense (Science Journalism Drops The Ball Again)

[HuckleB]

http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=9030

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This (poor studies like the one described in the link) is the merry-go-round of such highly implausible but culturally supported therapies. Studies that carefully control for the specific elements of acupuncture (sticking needles through the skin at specific points) show no effect from those specific elements. As I have written many times before – it doesn’t matter where you stick the needles or even if you stick the needles. What we get from acupuncture, at best, are very non-specific effects from the therapeutic ritual that surrounds acupuncture. There also appears to be non-specific effects from the local trauma of piercing the skin with needles, essentially mechanisms that dampen down pain and inflammation following local trauma.

Proponents of acupuncture typically will justify the claim that “acupuncture works” with these non-specific effects, missing the point (either naively or disingenuously) that non-specific effects do not justify specific claims or mechanisms. Often the claim is made that it does not matter how acupuncture works (again, missing the point) if it shows some clinical utility – non-specific effects (the argument goes) are worthwhile.

But such arguments are ultimately a bait-and-switch, a desperate attempt at misinterpreting the literature to justify the specific interventions of acupuncture. And then – with the next acupuncture study that does not control for needle location or insertion (those elements that define acupuncture) the authors happily credit a positive result to the specific elements of acupuncture and start speculating wildly about possible specific physiological mechanisms.

And around we go again on the merry-go-round of acupuncture – a poorly-controlled and unblinded study with (not surprisingly) positive results. The authors are superficially circumspect, but ultimately promote the findings as sufficient to justify clinical practice and continued speculation about the magical mechanisms of acupuncture. Follow up studies (when they occur) tend to be negative, meaning that any positive effects have nothing to do with the acupuncture itself, in which case proponents trumpet the non-specific and placebo effects as also supporting acupuncture (head I win, tails I win).

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Yet again, we are privy to yet another unblinded, extremely preliminary pilot study, with questionable results, and yet the MSM and scamupuncture supporters raise the flag, as if it is some great finding. It's interesting to note that this type of spin would be ridiculed, if it were a politician of any stripe doing the spin in regard to policy. However, because it is acupuncture, it appears to get a free ride from far too many.

What makes the responses to such similar spin so different?

When will this circular nonsense be called out by the MSM, and by people who are, well, anti-scam?

Just curious.

:hi:

[HuckleB]

1. Pro-science based medicine kick.

[trotsky]

2. Good article.

K&R

[HuckleB]

3. Thanks for the kick!

[EvolveOrConvolve]

4. I gave it a rec, but it's still at zero

Looks like the unrec posse is at it again.

[HuckleB]

5. They do jump fast, don't they?

[HuckleB]

6. Stick a needle in your eye? (More on this "spectacularly bad idea.")

http://scientopia.org/blogs/whitecoatunderground/2010/12/15/stick-a-needle-in-your-eye/