I'm back! It's been a busy couple of months and spending writing anything that wasn't going to get graded or help me get good grades hasn't seemed very justifiable, but hey, that couldn't last forever, right?
So, in the interest of spreading the love (well, love comes in all kinds of forms), I figured I'd comment just a little on a couple of noteworthy articles I came across today.
First - and most infuriating - of all, The Guardian reported today that the Department of Health reportedly watered down warnings on the NHS Choices information on homeopathy - which was initially supposed to mention that there is zero, nada, zilch, credible evidence to support the hypothesis that it does anything beyond offer a placebo effect. This was apparently the result of lobbying by the Foundation for Integrated Health. Sound familiar? It was the 'charity' founded by Prince Chuck to promote alternative medicine. Professor David Colquhoun submitted a Freedom of Information request to the DoH, under which correspondence revealing the above came to light.
I'm not even sure where to begin voicing my despair at the news! First of all - and this question has been uttered a million times before - what the hell is an unelected, born-into-privilege man with a PhD in talking to plants doing, once again trying to influence government policy? Liz, Your Maj, if you would be so kind as to abdicate pronto, to give son-dearest something else to occupy his mind and make him a little less bothersome, that'd be grand. Have a look across the mini-Pond and follow their example!
Anyway, secondly, I object to my tax money being spent on rubbish. I mean, obviously there are a lot of questionable ways in which the government spends my money and everyone else's, but this is not just questionable, it's demonstrably nonsense. When one registers for a National Insurance number, you should be offered a chance to 'opt out' of any spending on unproven treatments. I'd be quite happy to forego the right to access any of these cancer 'wonder drugs' and all complementary therapies, should I ever get cancer or any other serious illness. I'll take my chances with treatments that have been shown, in properly run trials, to be effective. Or alternatively I'd be happy to be chucked into a trial - which would be published with full access for all participants, of course... But I digress. Just like I don't approve of limited funds being spent on prohibitively expensive, largely unproven new drugs, I also disagree with the public funding of alternative medicine. It might be cheaper than those new drugs, but THEY'VE BEEN SHOWN TO BE INEFFECTIVE! I'd rather the NHS spends the money on some extra nurses, so hospitals would have the manpower to placebo-effect the hell out of their patients.
The other interesting story I came across appeared in the Daily Express. It reported on a new study, which supposedly suggests that a dietary supplement available in supermarkets could prevent diabetes and heart disease. The supplement, Bimuno, was given to a group of obese patients for a period of 12 weeks (with a four-week break somewhere? It's a bit hard to figure out the set-up from the article, which doesn't make a great deal of sense. You should check your writing, Jo Willey), while a control group was given a placebo.
The article explains early on that there are a number of 'risk factors' for health, which include low 'good' cholesterol, high blood pressure, high blood sugar and large waist. So far, so scare-mongering. Anyway, Miss Willey then reports: "The research shows that the prebiotic, called Bimuno can lower these symptoms, decreasing the risk of heart disease or diabetes." But then we get a bit further into the article, and she explains:
"Results showed that those who took Bimuno had significantly increased levels of “good” gut bacteria and lower levels of “bad” bacteria." That's not the same thing! I believe the study hasn't been published yet - at least, I can't find it online - so I suppose it's possible there were amazing results that the Express has simply chosen not to comment on, but considering the paper's love of hysteria, that seems a bit unlikely. And even if the supplement was indeed found to, say, lower blood pressure and blood sugar, a 12-week study is hardly going to give any indication whether these results will in fact reduce the incidence of heart disease and diabetes in the long run. But then, the Express being the reasonable paper it is, the article does actually mention that. It's there for all to see, in paragraph 15, where Dr Matthew Hobbs of Diabetes UK is allowed exactly one sentence on the subject.
Oh, I can't find much on the lead researcher, Jelena Vulevic, online. I don't see anything direct linking her to the makers of Bimuno, although she's given talks sponsored by the company. And this is not her first study involving the product - a study in 2008 tested it in elderly people. It found a positive effect. Shocking.
Happy Vday everyone!
Showing posts with label homeopathy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label homeopathy. Show all posts
Thursday, 14 February 2013
Friday, 7 December 2012
'Natural' cancer treatment?
There has been much publicity surrounding the disappearance of a woman with her seven-year-old son, who was recently operated on a brain tumour, this week. She had supposedly taken off because doctors had recommended the surgery be followed by radiotherapy (the standard recommended treatment for his particular form of cancer, and one supported by the boy's father) while she wanted him to only take 'natural' treatments in the wake of the surgery.
Happily, both mother and son were located yesterday; the woman reportedly claimed she didn't run, but had simply taken her son to London for treatment in a hyperbaric oxygen chamber. The logic behind treating possible remnants of cancer with oxygen escapes me, but there you go...
Anyway, the Daily Express today thought it necessary to publish a two-page spread questioning whether alternative treatment for cancer could work - and I use the word 'questioning' in a very loose sense here... After a brief introduction of the case, the first treatment-related comment in the article is 'There are dangers associated with radiotherapy in such a young child' - I would argue that this obviously starts the article of with bias, but I suppose there was probably going to be little hope of a fair and balanced article after the headline 'Do cancer alternatives really work?' anyway.
Then, it turns out, follows an entire article, explaining various alternative treatments, based on the opinions of one Dr Alyssa Burns-Hill PhD. After the first introduction, she is simply referenced as either 'Dr Burns-Hill' or 'our expert'. Her suggestions include an improved diet ('if we eat a lot of sugary treats we are in essence feeding any cancer cells'), complementary therapies, the Gerson treatment and homeopathy ('this is often disregarded because it works in a different way to conventional medicine'). To her credit, she does say patients should always speak to their doctors first if they have concerns about their prescribed treatments, but she goes on to recommend supplements of vitamin D3 and resveratrol, neither of which have to the best of my knowledge been convincingly linked to a reduced cancer risk (Incidentally, a resveratrol study was reported on earlier in the week, but - although I haven't had a chance yet to see the original report - it sounded like another media overreaction). While some of the suggestions are obviously harmless - of course advising people to eat lots of fruit and vegetables is a sensible suggestion - others simply cause people to become distrustful of the only cancer treatments that have actually been found to work: surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy!
Anyway, back to Dr Burns-Hill. Although they add the 'PhD' to her name on first introduction, it is not made very clear anywhere in the article she is NOT a medical doctor. For that matter, while she's apparently a member of a whole shopping list of professional organisations, has worked for major corporations and claims to be an accomplished public speaker, nowhere on her website does she reveal which institutions awarded her the MSc and PhD she puts behind her name. I've emailed her asking, hopefully she'll reply. They may have come from perfectly legitimate institutions of course, but generally, if that's the case, people seem to mention them on their websites... So I keenly await her response.
It's constant stories like this one in the tabloids, especially the Daily Express and the Mail, that feed people's suspicions about perfectly legitimate treatments and keep quacks selling sugar pills in business. A look at the comment section under the above story on the Daily Mail website makes it clear how many of that paper's readers seem to believe chemotherapy is just a big conspiracy by the pharmaceutical industry to make us even sicker... Now I'm fully behind the idea that the pharmaceutical industry is evil, but people, that doesn't mean they don't make loads of treatments that work!
Happily, both mother and son were located yesterday; the woman reportedly claimed she didn't run, but had simply taken her son to London for treatment in a hyperbaric oxygen chamber. The logic behind treating possible remnants of cancer with oxygen escapes me, but there you go...
Anyway, the Daily Express today thought it necessary to publish a two-page spread questioning whether alternative treatment for cancer could work - and I use the word 'questioning' in a very loose sense here... After a brief introduction of the case, the first treatment-related comment in the article is 'There are dangers associated with radiotherapy in such a young child' - I would argue that this obviously starts the article of with bias, but I suppose there was probably going to be little hope of a fair and balanced article after the headline 'Do cancer alternatives really work?' anyway.
Then, it turns out, follows an entire article, explaining various alternative treatments, based on the opinions of one Dr Alyssa Burns-Hill PhD. After the first introduction, she is simply referenced as either 'Dr Burns-Hill' or 'our expert'. Her suggestions include an improved diet ('if we eat a lot of sugary treats we are in essence feeding any cancer cells'), complementary therapies, the Gerson treatment and homeopathy ('this is often disregarded because it works in a different way to conventional medicine'). To her credit, she does say patients should always speak to their doctors first if they have concerns about their prescribed treatments, but she goes on to recommend supplements of vitamin D3 and resveratrol, neither of which have to the best of my knowledge been convincingly linked to a reduced cancer risk (Incidentally, a resveratrol study was reported on earlier in the week, but - although I haven't had a chance yet to see the original report - it sounded like another media overreaction). While some of the suggestions are obviously harmless - of course advising people to eat lots of fruit and vegetables is a sensible suggestion - others simply cause people to become distrustful of the only cancer treatments that have actually been found to work: surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy!
Anyway, back to Dr Burns-Hill. Although they add the 'PhD' to her name on first introduction, it is not made very clear anywhere in the article she is NOT a medical doctor. For that matter, while she's apparently a member of a whole shopping list of professional organisations, has worked for major corporations and claims to be an accomplished public speaker, nowhere on her website does she reveal which institutions awarded her the MSc and PhD she puts behind her name. I've emailed her asking, hopefully she'll reply. They may have come from perfectly legitimate institutions of course, but generally, if that's the case, people seem to mention them on their websites... So I keenly await her response.
It's constant stories like this one in the tabloids, especially the Daily Express and the Mail, that feed people's suspicions about perfectly legitimate treatments and keep quacks selling sugar pills in business. A look at the comment section under the above story on the Daily Mail website makes it clear how many of that paper's readers seem to believe chemotherapy is just a big conspiracy by the pharmaceutical industry to make us even sicker... Now I'm fully behind the idea that the pharmaceutical industry is evil, but people, that doesn't mean they don't make loads of treatments that work!
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