Chiropractors reveal "plethora of medical evidence" - June 22, 2009
The British Chiropractic Association, which sued science writer Simon Singh over a column in which he wrote about the organisation's stance on certain childhood medical conditions, has now released a list of studies which it says "support the claims which Dr. Singh stated were bogus."
Singh and others had challenged the BCA to support their claims with scientific evidence instead of taking the case to the libel court.
Skeptics, such as Martin Robbins on Lay Scientist, have already begun to deconstruct the list, pointing out that few of the 29 listed studies dealt directly with the medical efficacy of chiropractic and that those which did failed to conform to the statistically powerful, randomised, placebo-controlled, double-blind standard to which many medical studies are subject. Robbins also identifies a case of what he calls "dishonest quote-mining." [The comment is here.]
Robbins provides a list of other examinations of the BCA evidence, included below.
Further Reading from Others:
Jack of Kent - General commentary and legal background.
Prof. Colquhuon - Detailed look at the nine colic papers.
Ministry of Truth - General review focusing on three of the colic papers.
Andy - Comment on the BCA statement.
Evidence Matters - Review of the paediatric asthma papers.
Gimpy - Review of the ear infection papers.
Phil Plait - An overview of the BCA statement and aftermath.
HolfordWatch - What would constitute good evidence?
Apgaylard - A more detailed look at the bed-wetting papers.
JDC - General comment on the BCA statement.
Think Logic - General comment on the BCA statement.
Cubik's Rube - A review of blog posts on the BCA statement.
Zeno (Think Humanism) - A look at the BCA's quote-mining of the GCC code.
Dr. Peter Lipson - Provides an overview and looks at the asthma studies.
Dr. Petra Boynton - Provides an overview of resources readers can use to evaluate the evidence for themselves.
Comments
You got my blog address wrong! It should be www.zenosblog.com!
I've also got two lists of blog posts on this if anyone want some more reading:
Zeno's Blog: Who's been blogging on chiroquacktic?
Zeno's Blog: Who's been blogging on chiroquacktic? After the 'plethora'.
Keep up the good work.
Posted by: Zeno | June 23, 2009 01:15 AM
Thanks Zeno. I've fixed it.
Posted by: Lucas | June 23, 2009 09:28 AM
"the statistically powerful, randomised, placebo-controlled, double-blind standard"
Oh, really? And what do those rock-solid studies say? Sometimes they say that a cancer patient survives 20 days more when treated with drug A-prime instead of competitor's drug A... But we can argue it's a statistically significant increase in the lifespan. God forbid they would perform the test against a placebo: I've seen such studies where placebo allowed for a few more days compared to the verum.
Secondly: how would someone perform a "double-blind" test on a chiropractic technique? You put the patient under anesthesia, so that (s)he does not know whether something is being done to him or not? You get a layman to randomly hammer at the spine?
I am confronting with this kind of approach for another type of treatment: elimination diets for irritable bowel syndrome. How would you there perform a blinded test: you have a patient who has to eat (or avoid) various nutrients for weeks. How could you trick someone into thinking they eat eggs, when actually it's meat? NOTE: This is different from the DBPCFC (double-blind, placebo-controlled food CHALLENGE) where the patient receives three capsules, two with verum and one with placebo. You can't eat capsules for weeks!
I don't deny that the "standard" is good. Nor do I deny it's useful. All what I say is that:
1. there are some areas where it can't be properly applied. At least in these areas we should lead ourselves by the rule of "wer heilt hat recht" (that who heals is right). Even if it's only placebo: if it's performing to the expectations, if patients leave healthyer and happyer, what's the problem?
2. Big Pharma has the pockets to support such a study. Doctors have learned that they should expect $2,000-$5,000 for each patient in the study; patients have learned that they are entitled to similar amounts of money. Everyone else who tries now to perform a study large enough to be statistically-significant has to have the same amount of money at hand. And this means only "Big Pharma", so it's a closed circuit. (and, guess what: this huge sum of money has to be balanced; so this also helps explaining why modern drugs are so much more expensive).
3. Behind the term of evidence based (or, how someone recently said "evidence-biased") medicine hides actually (and unfortunately) only one thing: how to move the stats around, so that our heavily advertised drug makes it to the doctor's prescription and we fill our pockets from the health insurances. Get your hands on pretty much any information for doctors for a new drug and read it carefuly. Don't stop at the indications; read the results of the tests, to see how shockingly low-efficiency many drugs are and how many (and frequent --think in terms of population, not in terms of 1 in 100!) adverse effects they can lead to.
Posted by: Alex | June 23, 2009 04:28 PM
..,the best way to learn about chiropractor is to experience it... chiropractic is a safe procedure anyway.. :)
Posted by: St. Louis Chiropractor | December 9, 2009 03:37 AM