Suck it, Alt Med

The Canadian Medical Association wrote to the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario, slamming their draft policy on alternative medicine. The CBC did a good job of covering it.

Latest SkepticNorth post: John of God

I posted on SkepticNorth about John of God. Crazy stuff.

Medical outsourcing - Liberation Treatment in Costa Rica

An article in The Record on Saturday November 20, 2010, was entitled "Woman to have controversial MS surgery". It was about a Canadian with Multiple Sclerosis (MS) that decided they wanted to receive Liberation Treatment. But you can't get that procedure in Canada.

The problem is there is very little evidence that the surgery does anything useful. On the other hand, the procedure has some very serious risks. In a rational health system, unproven mediocre gains do not outweigh serious risks. That's why Canada doesn't offer it.

So, people are spending big bucks to fly down to Costa Rica and get the surgery done there. Well, that's their prerogative. What I don't like is that the Canadian health system will likely end up paying for the medical complications. That can cost a lot of dough.

A couple things I would also point out. The clinic is called Clinica Biblica. I, personally, wouldn't feel comfortable getting a medical procedure done at a clinic named after a book of magic.

Also, the article says that the patient will continue treatment in Canada, including homeopathy. Figures.

There is a follow-up article in The Record, Nov. 21.

Dude, don't rain on my placebo effect

This article by Edzard Ernst puts homeopathy in its place. It's simply placebo.

I agree. But when I condemn this sort of quackery, people sometimes ask me why I have to be such a downer... what's wrong with placebo? If it's helping someone, then why not just let it be?

In the words of Prof. Ernst,

The answer is that it prevents clinicians telling the truth to patients. Being honest would defeat any placebo effect: if I tell my patient, "Take this remedy; it contains nothing and the trial data shows nothing," she is unlikely to experience a placebo response. Hence, homoeopaths, knowingly or unknowingly, deprive patients of informed consent. This paternalistic approach is recognised as unethical.

Furthermore, he points out that the placebo effect is often slight, unpredictable, and short-lived.

Prof. Ernst says that If you want someone to experience the placebo effect, give them a REAL treatement. Then they can benefit from both the treatment and the placebo effect (and the doctors don't have to lie).

Wait, is this chiropractor joking?

Is this chiropractor for real?

Doncha just love the careful measurement technique ("Pull baby's legs, but not too hard.") The sad thing is that the chiropractor probably doesn't even know he's deluding himself.

Nonscience conference

As I said in a previous post, I get lots of e-mail advertising conferences. I delete pretty much all of them, but not before I peek at the conference title. This one intrigued me.

The Jerusalem International Conference on Integrative Medicine

The description in the e-mail reads,

The Conference will deal with ways to unite the scientific principles of modern medicine with the holistic principles
of alternative medicine

Well, here's my idea of how that should go. Any medical treatment or therapy without useful evidence is called "alternative". If an alternative treatment is shown to actually work (in an objective scientific setting), then it becomes medicine and is no longer considered to be alternative. Pretty simple: no evidence=alternative, evidence=medicine.

Of the 28 members of the "Scientific Committee" listed on the conference website, only 3 have a Ph.D. Two others have an M.Sc., but most of them are M.D.s (medical doctors). I have a feeling that the papers presented in this conference will be utterly useless.