Several veterinary reports about in Europe and the US. The porblem
is
disentangling the good stuff from the bad.
That's why random
rumours and incomplete written matter of unknown provenance ("Several veterinary
reports about") do not qualify as evidence.
I personally know an
individual whose blood pressure was so bad the medical profession had given up
and the prognosis was dire (basically invalided for the remaining expected short
lifespan). After a course of acupuncture, taken on the basis of nothing to lose,
blood pressure was normal and the person could return to
employment.
This is how the placebo acquires a patina of
respectability: one anecdote which, if correct and complete, hints at a
cure. The "if" part is harder than it might seem, at first.
Here's my
anecdote, a bit closer than yours. My wife and I were called into the doctor's
private space, where he told us about the tumour he had found in her gut. She
had been, before retirement, a RN, so she was accustomed to listening closely
and accurately to doctors — her patients relied on it. However, she heard
the word 'tumour' and zoned out, completely forgetting her training and
experience. The news was personal, rather than concerning someone else: her
mind went, immediately, away from reality and into fear. The tumour was safely
excised, BTW.
Dr House is wont to utter "Patients lie!" at appropriate
occasions in his dramas. The truth seems to be that patients don't (or maybe
cannot) understand what the doctor is telling them, when it seems like really
bad news.
Your friend's anecdote might be valid, but you and we don't have
the information to evaluate his reports.
To quote 'the truth is
out there' but it needs unbiased research and like the now discredited 'Clovis
First' that seems to be difficult for some (certainly for vested
interests).
That's why my [citation needed] challenge was for
unbiased, credible research reports supporting your assertion. So far as I
know, 'the truth [that] is out there' shows that neither acupuncture nor
homœopathy has any effect distinguishable from null treatment. (One must
keep in mind that (a) initial published studies tend to have a high rate of
false positives that gets corrected by the follow-up trials, and (b) in any
medical trials, the accepted error rate is 5% — one out of twenty trials
is probably a false positive. That's why multiple, independent trials are an
absolute necessary.)
One must always be wary of isolated, unpublished reports
that are "about", especially when they are really reports of reports of reports,
rather than the actual, peer-reviewed data and methodology (which are hard to
read and to understand, for the layman), published in journals whose vested
interest is a reputation for accuracy rather than page
charges. ---
--Bill. NAL: question the answers, especially mine. [ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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