Alternative and complementary medicines threads...what do you want in the charter?

tallaght01

As a lot of you will have realised, we're seeing an increase in threads lately about complementary and alt medicines therapies.
They've been problematic, to say the least. To my mind, that's because those pushing them aren't particularly well scientifically trained, so they tend to argue in a parallel plane to the rest of us.
I also find it disruptive when the onus to disprove their claims are put onto those who might be sceptical. Websites tend to be presented as evidence, and there's an assumption that because something is published, that it's of high quality.

These are my thoughts, and I was going to add something into the charter to deal with this issue.
But it's not my forum. It's yours. And I just wanted to get views on what should be in the charter.
Should we even allow comp and alt medicine chat in here? It doesn't technically fall under the remit of biology+medicine.
I'd rather allow it, but have strict rules about it.

So, let us know what you guys think. As always, feel free to PM me or DrIndy if you don't want to post publicly.

Speaking of DrIndy, I should have told him i was starting this thread. Hey. DrIndy, I'm starting a thread about rules and stuff. Cheers

I'm also happy enough if anyone wants to make any other charter suggestions on here. But be aware there's also a general feedback thread stickied

Thanks for taking the time to read this, and thanks in advance for your thoughts.

T01

DrIndy

I'll roll with it - once again - like minds think alike.

I was considering starting a thread too!

sam34

tallaght01 wrote: »

Should we even allow comp and alt medicine chat in here? It doesn't technically fall under the remit of biology+medicine.
I'd rather allow it, but have strict rules about it

personally, i see no room for those type of threads in this forum. as you say tallaght, they do not fall within the remit of it anyway.

it would be something if they were discussed with a modicum of reputable evidence, but that is universally lacking in these threads.

off to conspiracy theories with 'em!

AtomicHorror

I'd allow them but insist on hard evidence or a lock. Links to eyesore conspiracy websites are no good. Maybe what's needed is an alternative and complementary medicine subforum, assuming one does not already exist.

Dr Galen

not wanting to sound like I'm criticising dudes, because I think you boys do a stand up job, but I'd like to see a tougher line taken on the nonsense, like AH suggests, either proper debate or thread locked. For those repeat offenders, then infractions and bans being handed out. I'm probably more open than most to the idea of comp/alt medicine being used in practice, but some of the advocates of such therapies do their causes no good with the drivel that gets spouting here by times.

I think an Alt Medicine forum was suggested a while back Sam34 and it got voted down over in the forum request thread. Tbh I think if such discussions have to happen, then I'd say here is the best place for it. By creating a subforum then I think we'd be inviting even more rubbish than we already get, dramatically increasing the workload of the Mods. Who I believe are already pretty stretched, you can correct me of I'm wrong there lads.

JuliusCaesar

AtomicHorror wrote: »

I'd allow them but insist on hard evidence or a lock. Links to eyesore conspiracy websites are no good.

Totally agree with this.

AtomicHorror wrote: »

Maybe what's needed is an alternative and complementary medicine subforum, assuming one does not already exist.

Disagree with this....mainly because a lot of people are impressed with them on anecdotal evidence, or what they read in newspapers, which they regard as good sources.

There are some good inroads being made - Ben Goldarce for example - but the Health Supplements still need to fill their pages and most people don't have the time or knowledge to follow Prof Regan's excellent advice. How would the layperson know what is a reputable peer-reviewed journal? What do the majority of people know about methodology, sampling methods or sizes? (Even 3rd level students have difficulty.....) There are even members of our own medical, paramedical, psychological professions spouting advice garnered from alternative and unproven sources.

Prime Mover

I'm not really for locking posts apart from ones that open with a direct request for medical advice or ones that are cut and pastes from some crazy website.

I would prefer if certain types of posts were just deleted as it is very easy to push buttons in this forum and good threads can get dragged off topic and locked.
e.g.
refusing to provide references
pharma conspiracy theories/ AIDS denialism
sweeping generalisations (these usually contain the words "doctor, greed, arrogance")

AtomicHorror

JuliusCaesar wrote: »

Disagree with this....mainly because a lot of people are impressed with them on anecdotal evidence, or what they read in newspapers, which they regard as good sources.

Well see I agree that such a forum would possibly lend credence to woo (or imply that boards.ie considers some of it to be credible), but as I see it there are plenty of other forums on equally shaky ground. I mean, we have five Religion and Spirituality forums and by definition only one of those can actually be right. Any such forum would mostly be alt medicine folks being attacked by sceptics, so arguably it's simply a redundant forum so long as we allow that here.

Vorsprung

I'd want an evidence base for any treatments discussed.

Then again, if it's got an evidence base, it tends to be brought under the umbrella of medicine!

nesf

I don't see a problem when evidence is actually presented. But I think that anyone spouting unjustified opinions should be banned until they are willing to engage scientifically.

An alternative medicine forum is a bad idea, such things should either be discussed from evidence based scientific basis or not at all.

ZorbaTehZ

Personally I think there should be a complete ban on any alternative/complementary medicine discussion. This forum is under the the science category after-all.

nesf

ZorbaTehZ wrote: »

Personally I think there should be a complete ban on any alternative/complementary medicine discussion. This forum is under the the science category after-all.

Some alternative therapies have some scientific basis. St. John's Wort being the clearest example of something from folk medicine turning out to have a scientific basis.

Carsinian Thau

I don't think it should be allowed at all.

This is under the heading of a science forum and this stuff cannot be classified as science.

MrCreosote

nesf wrote: »

Some alternative therapies have some scientific basis. St. John's Wort being the clearest example of something from folk medicine turning out to have a scientific basis.

If it works it's no longer alternative.
Personally I'd keep anything without supporting evidence out. And leave it up to the alternative medicine advocate to provide that.

charlieroot

Personally, I'd be very much against a ban on the discussion of any topics from this board that relate to medicine, biology and science. Lets face it - CAM is definitely a part of medicine. Its here to stay. For better or worse. I think banning it is a very head in the sand approach - never a good idea. By doing so we (scientists and medical professionals, students, etc..) lose an opportunity to balance the torrent of false information and misrepresentation on the web and in the media in general in relation to CAM. Personally, I think we have a duty to the public and to patients in general to whenever possible balance CAM spin/profiteering with real scientific debate. The public in general do not have the necessary training and experience to do so. Hence I think this board should in fact be encouraging scientific debate on CAM topics.


However, I accept that of late there has been quite a bit nonsense on the forum about this and if for no other reason than maintaining the sanity of the mods some rules and structure should be in place.

On a related note - I've noticed that a number of posts have mentioned individuals and services which are available ie posts which are not far short of advertisting. I don't think this is a good idea and I think a general ban on posting contacts or recommendations for doctors, physio's, shamen, tarot card readers ...whatever should be banned.

2Scoops

Banning of posters for adverts or following persistent refusal to provide adequate sources is justified (Tallaght01 and DrIndy have made a few nice calls lately). The only ones who lose with this arrangement are the mods! :pac:

nesf

MrCreosote wrote: »

If it works it's no longer alternative.

Not really, it takes a long time for things to become accepted, treatments don't suddenly become mainstream medicine because they've done well in a few trials.

AtomicHorror

nesf wrote: »

Not really, it takes a long time for things to become accepted, treatments don't suddenly become mainstream medicine because they've done well in a few trials.

We already have a gold standard of what is and is not medicine. Clinical trials. So MrCreosote is quite correct. A thing works or it does not. The CAM concept is not about experimentalism. It trades off the notion that mainstream medicine is philosophically off-base, that science is a framework that exists to support "allopathy". Alternative medicine is not and should not be a byword for "natural medicine", experimental medicine or medical research. There's crossover for sure, but that's mostly in spite of the CAM proponents.

nesf

AtomicHorror wrote: »

We already have a gold standard of what is and is not medicine. Clinical trials. So MrCreosote is quite correct. A thing works or it does not. The CAM concept is not about experimentalism. It trades off the notion that mainstream medicine is philosophically off-base, that science is a framework that exists to support "allopathy". Alternative medicine is not and should not be a byword for "natural medicine", experimental medicine or medical research. There's crossover for sure, but that's mostly in spite of the CAM proponents.

I accept completely your criticism of CAM, and mostly agree with it but my reply to MrCreosote was about how long it takes to change attitudes towards "new" ideas, not about the academic gold standard.

MrCreosote

I do agree with you nesf. Certainly there are many more variables that will affect whether something becomes accepted or not- other treatments available, side-effects, costs etc. But whether or not it works is a different and more important question.
What is CAM actually "complementary" to anyway? There are only two groups- things that work, things that don't work. The job is to identify which is which, and the scientific method is the best way of doing this it seems. Whether something becomes mainstream can then be decided on.

tallaght01

2Scoops wrote: »

Banning of posters for adverts or following persistent refusal to provide adequate sources is justified

Prime Mover wrote: »

I'm not really for locking posts apart from ones that open with a direct request for medical advice or ones that are cut and pastes from some crazy website.

I would prefer if certain types of posts were just deleted as it is very easy to push buttons in this forum and good threads can get dragged off topic and locked.
e.g.
refusing to provide references
pharma conspiracy theories/ AIDS denialism
sweeping generalisations (these usually contain the words "doctor, greed, arrogance")

charlieroot wrote: »

Personally, I'd be very much against a ban on the discussion of any topics from this board that relate to medicine, biology and science. Lets face it - CAM is definitely a part of medicine. Its here to stay. For better or worse. I think banning it is a very head in the sand approach - never a good idea..

I agree with the above, I have to say.

But, being one of the mods doesn't make my opinion more valid than anyone else's.

Having said that, me and DrIndy have to make a call, and a lot of people are asking us to ban discussion of alt and comp medicine. I'm not hugely comfortable with making that call. For example, if someone wanted to come along and sensibly discuss the role of, say, acupuncture in the control of eczema, then I'd have no problem with that.

So, what I've taken from this discussion is that people are getting sick of the constant nonsense. The stuff being copied and pasted from quack websites, and the shift of the onus of proof onto us.

My thoughts on the matter, and these are just my thoughts (I'll discuss with DrIndy, and any change in the charter will be subject to change in the early stages if the users are really uncomfortable with it) are that we need to take a much tougher approach. I think I've been guilty of leaving these threads open too long. That's partly been in the hope of some kind of sensible conversation occuring, and partly to dispel the impression that we're completely closed-minded about these things.

I've been disappointed on both counts again and again.

Provisionally, I propose to treat these threads very strictly initially. If the person is new to the forum, they'll be asked to provide some kind of sensible scientific base or the thread will be locked/deleted. If it's a repeat offender, the thread will just be locked/deleted straight away, with instructions to PM me or Indy if they have something constructive to add.

I wold also like to add that we need to be open and tolerant in our attitudes to these posts, especially if they're a first time poster. More often than not, people are disparaging towards posters who want to discuss alt medicine. NOw, I accept that a lot of these posters have been antagonistic, to say the least. But I think we've fanned the flames a little, at times.

So, I'd ask that we try a two way street approach from now on. We'll be tougher, and you guys maybe be less tough :P

How does that sound to everyone?

I'll leave this conversation going for the next few days, and we'll try to do something to the charter this weekend.

Thanks for your input

T01

AtomicHorror

nesf wrote: »

I accept completely your criticism of CAM, and mostly agree with it but my reply to MrCreosote was about how long it takes to change attitudes towards "new" ideas, not about the academic gold standard.

But again, I think that the sceptical attitudes towards alternative therapies are everything to do with the CAM ethos of avoiding definitive evidence and little to do with science. When the trials finally come in and efficacy is known, the mainstream accepts or rejects the therapy, regardless of its source. Of course it'll take a long time for sceptics to accept your new idea if you spend years fecking about with weak studies.

Dr Galen

thanks Tallaght01, thats what I like about you two, your very open and willing to listen to the actualy users of the forum, and take guidance from them. I for one appreciate that stance.

on a side note, will this stricter line follow through to posters asking for medical advice. I notice you've changed the title of the sticky thread. I know no-one reads the damn things but at least it's as obvious as it could be. If word of the stircter line on tis issue got out, then maybe that would stem the flow of such threads as well?

Just a thought

tallaght01

Cheers man.

I'm personally inclined to take a zero tolerance approach to the med advice thing. I thing anything at all about your medical condition should get locked, for the sake of establishing the principle.
From what I remember, DrIndy argues that we have doctors here moderating in order to be able to work out what's dangerous and what isn't. And I take that point. But, I wonder if a new approach is needed from a nuisance point of view, rather than a danger point of view.

So, maybe after we work out what to do about alt+comp medicine, we can lok at the med advice issue.

If anyone has any thoughts about that, would you post them in the main feedback thread, and I'll probably start a thread about that issue sometime soon.

DrIndy

I sense the tone from many of you and agree very broadly with Tallaght01 in his post.

The justifiable difficulty with allowing complementary medicine is that it is simply not possible to do a double-blind placebo controlled trial with many complimentary techniques such as acupuncture - thus the level of evidence is reduced to case series and possibly open, prospective trials with small numbers in the trials (they don't attract large funding to allow large scale international trials and also the practitioners do not work in the networks mainstream medicine researchers work in).

On saying that - you need to acknowledge the lower evidence base, but accept openmindedness of the possibility of providing benefit.

However - attempting to counter mainstream medical research with complementary research is simply not possible and that is where the debates start attracting aggro as proponents of alternative medicine who attempt to do so are simply wrong.

From a personal view, I do believe in the benefits of holistic medicine - but this is only after seeing a medical practioner and working through the evidence base of medicine before then bringing in complementary medicine to see if there is any benefit. Most complementary trials in medical journals do not show large scale clear benefits - but patients are often happier as an end result. Many chronic pain, rheumatology, psychiatry, oncology and palliative patients find some further benefit from complementary medicine after medical treatment is initiated - so its not all snake oil.

So as mods we shall be stricter.

I believe there should be an absolute rule accompanied with a 1 month ban for anyone who advocates that a medical doctor should not be seen first (as 406c tried to do - twice!). This should be followed with a complete forum ban on the second offence. This allows complementary discussion to continue without "medical denialists" trolling the forum.

To be clear - complimentary medicine practitioners are in general medically qualified who have prescribed non-conventional with conventional medicine for greater patient benefit for example acupuncture to reduce painkillers or diet to reduce statins(my sister has a strong interest in this and nutrition - but she is medically qualified and in the process of GP training). Alternative medicine practitioners are not in any way such qualified (if they have any genuine qualifications at all!) and actively deny the benefits of conventional medicine.

We will tolerate the first and rout the second.

Upsetting the natives will also become more serious policing issue here too - anyone who is not a regular poster here to persistently argues or flames with an established poster will be dealt with more severely and will be banned for a week. This will probably be applied on a case by case basis and depend on the veracity of what they are posting on.

This is my view.

Please keep your thoughts going and myself and Tallaght01 will sort this out.

nesf

AtomicHorror wrote: »

But again, I think that the sceptical attitudes towards alternative therapies are everything to do with the CAM ethos of avoiding definitive evidence and little to do with science. When the trials finally come in and efficacy is known, the mainstream accepts or rejects the therapy, regardless of its source. Of course it'll take a long time for sceptics to accept your new idea if you spend years fecking about with weak studies.

Indeed, especially when what happens is the that the alternative treatment works but not because the theory behind that particular alternative group of treatments is true. I remember a few years back reading the Sceptic column in Scientific American, it was dealing with acupuncture. It was referencing a study where they found multiple beneficial effects with acupuncture but they also found the same thing when the needles were deliberately put in the "wrong places" by the acupuncturists. End result, something about sticking needles into people relieves some pain etc, but not because of chi etc.

You might find resistance to something like acupuncture because of worries that people might start "affirming the consequent" and thinking all the theory behind acupuncture is correct.

ZorbaTehZ

DrIndy wrote: »

I believe there should be an absolute rule accompanied with a 1 month ban for anyone who advocates that a medical doctor should not be seen first.

I'm sorry, but I disagree; doing something as ludicrous and ignorant as that even once should be a perma-ban from the forum as far as I'm concerned.

dvpower

tallaght01 wrote: »

Should we even allow comp and alt medicine chat in here? It doesn't technically fall under the remit of biology+medicine.
I'd rather allow it, but have strict rules about it.

Many posters here may draw a firm line between science based and alternative medicine but, judging by the popularity of CAM, most people do not (and who can blame them with, for example, the NHS funding homeopathic treatments).

What would be banned from this forum? All 'alternative' medicines or just those that aren't proven? What standard would we use to decide? Would we contine to allow discussion of chiropratic for back pain (some positive trials), or acupuncture for nausea (some positive trials)? How about St Johns Wort or Kava?

I say, leave them here where you can keep an eye on them.

Sun-tzu wrote:

Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer.

nesf

dvpower wrote: »

and who can blame them with, for example, the NHS funding homeopathic treatments.

Oh, my. What were they thinking? If it's chemically identical to distilled water..

Gazza22

My issue is with the high level of confirmation bias from those who tout CAM on this forum. It is impossible for the majority of these people to accept conventional medicine which is the very essence of this forum which can lead to flaming etc and for that reason alone i'd be inclined to ban it altogther.

But....as people have said above, perhaps it is a bit harsh to do so. If CAM topics are to be discussed on boards, this is indeed the best place to do so as we can give our 2c.

Allow it - but have very strict rules in place. Anybody who rejects conventional medicine in favour of miracle nonsense without hard core evidence, should be perm banned.

Vorsprung

I'm gonna play devil's advocate here for the craic. My views are as stated above, and remain so. This is more just to clarify and issues that may arise in the future if people start debating the detail.

What do we consider an acceptable level of evidence? Are we talking double blind placebo reverse randomised blah blah blah? What if a CAM therapy came along with a survery of say 20,000 people, and 90% found a benefit?

dvpower

bigjimthefirst wrote: »

I'm gonna play devil's advocate here for the craic. My views are as stated above, and remain so. This is more just to clarify and issues that may arise in the future if people start debating the detail.

What do we consider an acceptable level of evidence? Are we talking double blind placebo reverse randomised blah blah blah? What if a CAM therapy came along with a survery of say 20,000 people, and 90% found a benefit?

We would have to hire teams of full time moderators to sift through the evidence and perhaps an independent appeals board to rule on disputes;)

We could defer to a trusted third party - maybe Cochrane reviews. On a quick browse, we would have to allow acupuncture for various treatments and various herbal remedies. Those advocating OTC ear drops for removal of ear wax would be banned (no better than water and saline drops; more research needed).

samson09

There needs to be a separate forum for natural medicine, you cant mix oil and water!

DrIndy

samson09 wrote: »

There needs to be a separate forum for natural medicine, you cant mix oil and water!

I disagree - snake oil and water don't mix.

Complementary medicine can be discussed as long as wild and unfounded claims are not made and deliberate trolling does not happen.

A bad tone has been set for the interaction of unconventional medicine on this forum - and has not come from the scientific community of this forum.

If the scientific claims of unconventional medicine are not overstated and conventional medicine is not denied along the way - complimentary medicine has a place here.

However - the move for an alternative medicine forum is in my opinion in a large part to escape the scientific scrutiny and debunking of excessive claims which occurs here.

Please note my choice of words regarding unconventional/complimentary and alternative in the previous paragraphs.

samson09

Here's an interesting aside. The term snake oil originally came from America and was first used as a name for a "tonic" that was doing the rounds with apparently great health benefits. It turns out that this was in fact tinctured snake root a.k.a. echinacea which is commonly used to boost the immune system.

Anyway. Its impossible to discuss natural medicine here for several reasons. First of all, most natural "treatments" haven't been studied rigorously via clinical trials as nobody wants to fund a study for millions of dollars/pounds/euros when the herb/vitamin cant be patented. Therefore, the base of scientific evidence is rather small relative to mainstream medicine. Additionally, some forms of healing cant be quantified or explained within the realms of modern scientific testing (reiki, chi gong, acupuncture, homeopathy).

There really should be another forum, it'll stop the threads getting clogged up with the whole "I'm right, You're wrong" nonsense that ends in the original purpose of the thread being forgotten. Also, the opinion of certain folk towards natural medicine leaves a lot to be desired. Everyone is entitled to believe in what they want, people dont need to be ridiculed for their beliefs.

tallaght01

Samson09, I would say to you that the attitude of some of our users toward people posting their alt medicine claims has been a bit off sometimes. But, in fairness, that's been very much a two way street. Not only has their been direct nastiness. There's also the implication that those of us who work extremely hard and extremely long hours to look after patients, are somehow willing conspirators in keeping effective treatment from our patients. It's repeatedly implied that we're under the thumb of big pharma. It's highly offensive to suggest that we value money more highly than our patients' health.

PLus, it's very annoying when we see people recommending treatments to people without any proof that they use, apart from a cut and pasted web article.

So, it's definitely a 2 way street.

As for our burden of proof being affected by the fact that the CAM community not wanting to pay for research..well, I'm sorry. That doesn't cut it. CAM here in oz is a 2 billion dollar per year industry. The financial implications of the patenting process are no concern of ours. It's unethical to recommend treatments with no evidence, because the companies involved don't want to spend money.

I think a separate forum for CAM would not encompass any debate. It would be a mutual mickey-stroking exercise. But CAM topics are VERY welcome here for the time being, as long as they're sensible.

dvpower

samson09 wrote: »

First of all, most natural "treatments" haven't been studied rigorously via clinical trials as nobody wants to fund a study for millions of dollars/pounds/euros when the herb/vitamin cant be patented.

Alternative medicine is big business. If they want to make claims about their treatments, they should have to provide the evidence to support their claims on the same basis as everyone else.

samson09 wrote: »

Additionally, some forms of healing cant be quantified or explained within the realms of modern scientific testing (reiki, chi gong, acupuncture, homeopathy).

... and so have no place on a science forum.

samson09 wrote: »

Everyone is entitled to believe in what they want, people dont need to be ridiculed for their beliefs.

Why not? If people have ridiculous beliefs surely they ought to be ridiculed, particularly if they post them on a science forum? (Rudeness is another thing altogether)

AtomicHorror

samson09 wrote: »

Anyway. Its impossible to discuss natural medicine here for several reasons. First of all, most natural "treatments" haven't been studied rigorously via clinical trials as nobody wants to fund a study for millions of dollars/pounds/euros when the herb/vitamin cant be patented.

That's a bit of an old canard right there. There's profit to be had and indeed the industry is worth hundreds of millions of euros a year. So even if big pharma weren't up for it (and in fact they are, as evidenced by the fact that they own a good chunk of the natural remedies market), there's nothing stopping the guys selling the products from doing the leg work. As it is, there are lots of studies into things like vitamins and fish oils and plant extracts. None of that stuff can be patented but it's all being studied anyway. You can see that for yourself, just drop onto Pubmed and do searches for antioxidants and the like. Thousands of studies there.

Even if you rule out corporate interest, what's to stop government and NGO funded research? They don't have the same profit or IP driven agenda as corporations but they still command a huge pot of funding.

samson09 wrote: »

Therefore, the base of scientific evidence is rather small relative to mainstream medicine. Additionally, some forms of healing cant be quantified or explained within the realms of modern scientific testing (reiki, chi gong, acupuncture, homeopathy).

If a thing works, it can be tested. It either works or it doesn't, and the fact that this is recorded should make little difference if the effect is significant. Don't know about the first two but acupuncture and homeopathy are innately testable as the claims they make are rather specific. They have been tested, but their proponents would rather imply that this is not the case as the results were not what they'd have liked.

samson09 wrote: »

There really should be another forum, it'll stop the threads getting clogged up with the whole "I'm right, You're wrong" nonsense that ends in the original purpose of the thread being forgotten. Also, the opinion of certain folk towards natural medicine leaves a lot to be desired. Everyone is entitled to believe in what they want, people dont need to be ridiculed for their beliefs.

Penicillin is a natural medicine but nobody is ridiculed for asserting that it works because that fact has been demonstrated with evidence. Even hypothesising that a thing may work in the absence of evidence is not a cause for ridicule, so long as testing is an option. What does deserve ridicule is the concept that any therapy effective enough to make a person better cannot be tested by simple observation. If the subject matter were less serious than health, life and death, perhaps we could be less adversarial about this.

My on-topic point is that even if you do set up a "natural medicines" subforum, we're certainly not going to leave you guys unchallenged there and there's absolutely no way that you'd be allowed to prohibit such challenges in the forum charter. That's going to include attack and ridicule of your beliefs because that is what science is all about. The line can be drawn at ad hominems, but the rest can't and won't be held sacred.

AtomicHorror

bigjimthefirst wrote: »

I'm gonna play devil's advocate here for the craic. My views are as stated above, and remain so. This is more just to clarify and issues that may arise in the future if people start debating the detail.

What do we consider an acceptable level of evidence? Are we talking double blind placebo reverse randomised blah blah blah? What if a CAM therapy came along with a survery of say 20,000 people, and 90% found a benefit?

That's no more evidence than the opinion polls shampoo commercials cite. 90% could easily be placebo effect if there's no control group, let alone the rest of what we'd demand. 8 out of 10 cats prefer the stuff we poured catnip on. :pac:

tallaght01

bigjimthefirst wrote: »

I'm gonna play devil's advocate here for the craic. My views are as stated above, and remain so. This is more just to clarify and issues that may arise in the future if people start debating the detail.

What do we consider an acceptable level of evidence? Are we talking double blind placebo reverse randomised blah blah blah? What if a CAM therapy came along with a survery of say 20,000 people, and 90% found a benefit?

Arguing about the stats would be cool. But that's not what's been happening.

DrIndy

AtomicHorror wrote: »

That's no more evidence than the opinion polls shampoo commercials cite. 90% could easily be placebo effect if there's no control group, let alone the rest of what we'd demand. 8 out of 10 cats prefer the stuff we poured catnip on. :pac:

But even though it is a placebo effect - you need something to believe in for that effect to work? Why not complimentary medicine - even if it is only placebo (and areas of it are much more than that) - there is still benefit?

This topic does deserve good debate so myself and Tallaght01 know how to mod this issue in future. Its your forum after all!

AtomicHorror

DrIndy wrote: »

But even though it is a placebo effect - you need something to believe in for that effect to work? Why not complimentary medicine - even if it is only placebo (and areas of it are much more than that) - there is still benefit?

If you're asking me if it's okay to cloud the facts with pseudoscience or spiritualism to achieve a placebo effect then I have to say I really don't know. I guess there's a cost to benefit trade-off in there somewhere but it rather goes against my own views on how science should be conveyed to the public and I'd imagine it would present major issues for you medical types as it implies that deception may be beneficial in some circumstances.

One thing that often breaks certain studies is accidental unblinding and the resulting loss of placebo effect in the placebo group which gives the illusion of efficacy for the test group. One thing I've always been curious about is whether it's possible to tell people about the placebo effect, assure them that it works in X% of cases and actually get the placebo effect to work on unblinded subjects with their full knowledge of what's happening. Basically substituting the word salad explanations for part-placebo based things like acupuncture with genuine science and actually making it work anyway. We get to simultaneously possess, and eat, cake.

I'm sure someone must have studied that at some point. If not, they should.

samson09

Jesus H Christ guys! Can someone take a step back and see what is happening?! This isnt helping anyone. If it isnt glaringly obvious that a new forum is needed at this stage...oh dear. Look, everyone here seems to be pretty decent. It's just a clash of belief systems. As long as Natural medicine/Conventional medicine continue to be discussed under the same roof there's going to be conflict. This is the last time I'm gonna say it, there need to be a new forum IMO.

Now chill out and find something more constructive to do.;)

Dr Galen

samson09 wrote: »

Jesus H Christ guys! Can someone take a step back and see what is happening?! This isnt helping anyone. If it isnt glaringly obvious that a new forum is needed at this stage...oh dear. Look, everyone here seems to be pretty decent. It's just a clash of belief systems. As long as Natural medicine/Conventional medicine continue to be discussed under the same roof there's going to be conflict. This is the last time I'm gonna say it, there need to be a new forum IMO.

Now chill out and find something more constructive to do.;)

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055248833

this would be the place to have this debate then samson09. the idea has been mooted before too and hasn't received he support from the wider user base

tallaght01

We've just updated the charter.

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=60427148#post60427148

It now includes some guidance on complementary and alternative medicines.

I've locked the charter thread above, because charters are waffly enough to read, without there being a debate about them included.

But basically, the charter ammendment is a draft right now. It's subject to change if that's what you guys want. I've tried to frame it to take the majority views into acount, regarding these kinds of threads.

So, if you have any thoughts on the new addition, make your comments here. Or, as always, you're more than welcome to PM myself or DrIndy to give us your thoughts.

Thanks for your input

YFlyer

Well the benefits of Transcendental Meditation should be discussed since there is a large body of research carried out on its use.

http://www.tm.org/research