Newsfront

Quake wakes up spooks

A Christchurch para-normal investigator says Canterbury’s September 4 earthquake has more than doubled the number of reported supernatural events in the province (The Press, 8 November).

Anton Heyrick says his team, Christchurch Paranormal Investigators, had received an “interesting influx” of phone calls and emails. “People are calling us, saying that they had always felt like there was something in the house, but since the earthquake it had become more intense,” he said. He attributed this to the “sheer strength and power” of the earthquake.

Heyrick said it was well known among investigators that renovations tended to wake up dormant spirits in old buildings.

“With the earthquake, it literally smashed walls apart, and knocked down floors and ceilings, so you can imagine the effect that would have had.”

The team, which did not charge for its services, had conducted two full investigations, and was planning to do more.

NZ Skeptics chairman Gold (whose own residence was damaged in the quake) said the reports may have been due to “people’s minds playing tricks on them in the post-quake environment”.

“You may not feel an aftershock, but it will still make things rattle. People’s minds fill in the blanks, and they tend to fill in the blanks with fairytales, unfortunately.”

UFO files released

The NZ Defence Force did a huge favour for newspaper editors all over the country by releasing 2000 pages of formerly secret reports on UFOs just in time for the silly season.

Though some have tried to talk the reports up, it’s clear there’s very little in them. Says the Southland Times in an editorial (29 December), “the case most likely to attract attention – and we say this with all due respect to the Christchurch man who submitted 300 pages outlining two decades of contact with aliens – are the Kaikoura lights of 1978”.

The Kaikoura Star (29 December) noted that the air force report at the time concluded almost all the sightings could be accounted for by natural phenomena, but also recounted other UFO incidents in the area. On 13 July 1959, for example, Blenheim farmer Eileen Moreland was getting the cows in when she noticed a green light above her in the clouds. Soon an oval- shaped UFO with two green beams of light and “fiery orange jets” settled above her, enveloping her in a “peculiar green glow”. She claims to have seen two men inside the craft, dressed in “silvery, shiny suits from the waist upwards” and with headgear “like divers’ helmets which glittered very brightly”. In a separate Kaikoura Star item the same day, local butcher Alan Hickey relates how he often travelled the coast road in 1978, and noted the bright squid boat lights on the horizon. “It made me laugh (when it was reported). I thought, ah, it’s those squid boats.”

Psychic ‘predicts’ Lotto win

A psychic’s prediction that “something great” was going to happen in November has supposedly been “proved accurate” after a Napier family’s big Lotto win (Otago Daily Times, 17 November).

“We had no idea that it would be a $2 million Lotto win,” said a family member. No, and neither did the psychic.

Hunt on for yeti remains

An Air New Zealand pilot and mountaineer is leading a different kind of yeti hunt (Sunday News, 5 December).

Mike Allsop hopes to track down a “skull” and skeletal hand, said to be from a yeti, stolen from the Pangboche monastery in the 1990s. Weta Workshop has produced replicas of the missing items which he plans to hand-deliver to the monastery in April to help searchers find the originals.

“I am hoping that the person who has them wants to give them back … I will go anywhere in the world in person, free of charge, no questions asked and I will also buy them a beer.”

The article says the material came to international prominence when Texan oil magnate Tom Slick (a case of nominative determinism?) photographed them in 1957. Two years later one of his team returned to the monastery and reportedly stole bone fragments from the hand. These were allegedly smuggled back to the US by “a Hollywood star” – named as James Stewart by Wikipedia. The remaining items were stolen in 1999.

Left unsaid is that the “skull” – more commonly referred to as a scalp – was allowed out of Nepal in 1957 and examined at the British Museum, where it was determined to be moulded from the shoulder skin of a serow, a species of Himalayan goat-antelope. Photos of the hand look equally dubious – it seems to have kneecap-like bones at the knuckles, and to lack any wristbones.

Acupuncture good for lazy eyes?

A trial of acupuncture to treat lazy eye has offered cautious support to the traditional Chinese medical practice (Reuters, 18 December).

Dr Robert Ritch of the New York Eye and Ear Infirmary and Chinese colleagues studied 18 Chinese children with lazy eye, also known as amblyopia, aged between seven and 12. They randomly assigned about half of them to wear a patch over their good eye for two hours every day, and the rest to attend five acupuncture sessions weekly; both treatments continued for up to 25 weeks. All children were also given new glasses and asked to perform an hour of daily near-vision activities.

At the end of the 25 weeks at least seven out of 10 children in each group had their lazy eye’s sight improve by at least two lines on an eye chart. Forty-two percent of children receiving acupuncture overcame the condition compared to 17 percent of those who wore eye patches.

The University of Rochester’s Dr Matthew Gearinger, however, cautions that the number of children studied was small. And “it is a lot to ask parents to drive to a local acupuncturist five days a week, rather than just using drops or a patch at home.”

Michigan internist Dr Peter Lipson noted that everyone knew who got what treatment, and that without an untreated group the study couldn’t rule out the possibility that not doing anything, or simply using corrective glasses and performing daily exercises, would work just as well.

“This is not, in my opinion, evidence toward acupuncture being as good as standard care, only that in this particular study children did about the same if they received standard care or non-standard care. It says nothing at all about acupuncture.”

Exorcists wanted

Roman Catholic bishops have held a special training workshop in Baltimore to help alleviate a serious shortage of exorcists (Reuters, 14 November).

The church currently has only five or six American exorcists on its books, but signed up 56 bishops and 66 priests for the two-day event. “There’s this small group of priests who say they get requests from all over the continental US,” said Bishop Thomas Paprocki of Springfield, Illinois. “Actually, each diocese should have its own [exorcist].”

He did not say why there was increased demand for exorcisms, which he noted were rarely performed.

Possible signs of demonic possession referred to in the article include scratching, cutting, or biting of the skin; profound displays of strength; and a strong or violent reaction to holy water. Nothing about projectile vomiting or heads turning 360 degrees.

Another Kentucky creationist theme park

Just when you thought Kentucky couldn’t make itself more of a laughing stock comes word that plans are afoot to build (or rebuild, according to Ken Ham of the nearby Creation Museum) a full-sized replica of Noah’s Ark in the state (Dominion Post, 11 December).

The ark is to be the centrepiece of a $150 million park, to be known as Ark Encounter. Due to open in 2014, it will also feature live stage shows, a petting zoo and a Tower of Babel.

Despite claims the park will further tarnish the state’s reputation, Governor Steve Beshear has promised $40 million in tax breaks for the project. “Bringing new jobs to Kentucky is my top priority,” he said.

Clones in space: Responses to the Dominion Post science column

At last year’s NZ Skeptics conference Bob Brockie reflected on his career as a newspaper columnist and explained why he has no future with the Mormon Church.

After spending most of my life as a scientist, at the age of 69 I became a weekly science columnist for the Dominion Post and Evening Post. I’ve written about 500 articles now and people ask where I get my stuff from. Mostly I get it from trawling through weekly scientific magazines, from the other side of the world. I like to bring the curious or obscure, gee-whiz stories to public attention.

The media is overrun by stories on climate change, pollution and conservation. I write about anything but those subjects. That’s not news to me; I report other things.

Alien DNA

In 2003 I wrote about an amazing group of people called the Raelians and their claim to have cloned a little girl called Eve. Rael is a French former sports-car journalist who claims he was abducted by little aliens, who told him that 40,000 years ago they came to Earth and produced these little Eve-like creatures. At any moment, the Raelians say, they will present their DNA to the scientific community.

I didn’t get any response from this article from local people, but I did get an invitation from the Australian chapter of the Rael-ians to attend their next gathering three hours north of Sydney, where a white robe would await me.

A pox on alternative practitioners

I often report on experiments to test alternative medicines of one kind or another. One I did was on a fellow who had chicken pox. The doctor told him there was nothing he could do for it, other than staying home and keeping away from people for 10 days. He was a bit of a skeptic and went along to some alternative practitioners. The first one told him his stomach was too acid and gave him some homeopathic water to drink. The second hooked him up to a contraption and told him he had been raped as a child. The third one said he had Ross River fever. They all charged from $50 to $100.

I’ve also written about experiments with acupuncture, which works just as well if you stick the needles in at random.

These pieces invariably attract writers defending the treatment and accusing me of having a closed mind. The disgruntled people usually argue that acupuncture, iridology or homeopathy worked for them or their husband or their wife, and that’s the end of it.

Cosmic energies down on the farm

Then there’s biodynamics. The stars and planets rain down astral energies, which are absorbed through cow’s horns buried in the ground. This radiates out and makes everything grow. The colour of roses is controlled by Venus, and the colour of cornflowers by Saturn. In the Wellington public library there are four copies of Rudolf Steiner’s book, published in the 1920s, and they’re out all the time. Steiner really was the father of organic farming, but the organic people get very angry at me when I point this out. I get an enormous response if I write about Steiner, not only from his followers, but also from organic farmers who think they are above this sort of thing.

Genetic Engineering: yesterday’s issue?

I’ve done three or four articles on genetic engineering over the years, reporting on various experiments. Living in New Zealand you’d think the entire GE field was being closed down, but in fact in all continents of the world it is spreading at a huge rate. The peasants in China and Africa who are producing genetically engineered crops find they don’t have to use so many pesticides. But when I wrote about this in 2001 I got a tremendous response from angry people who wanted to keep New Zealand GE-free. And two years later, the same thing happened. The next time I wrote about it there were not so many letters, and when I wrote a pro-GE article early in 2009 I didn’t receive a single letter. So things have gradually quietened down; GE is no longer the terrible thing that people perceived it to be.

The Mormon blacklist

Generally I try to keep off religion but occasionally I stray in that direction. I got into big trouble when I wrote about the Mormon Church. The Mormons claim that Jesus went to North America and converted the inhabitants to Christianity 2000 years ago. They also believe that the Red Indians are one of the tribes of Israel, although DNA studies show there’s no possible connection.

I wrote about that, but I also found that Joseph Smith, the founder, was a complete rascal and charlatan. He was expelled from the Methodist Church for dealing with necromancy, enchantments and believing in ghosts, and fined for being a disorderly person and impostor. At age 38 a mob of vigilantes enraged by Smith’s arrogance, monetary deals and promiscuity – he ran off with all the best looking girls in the congregation – shot him dead in an Illinois jail. The Mormons of course think he was a martyr to his cause. At any one time the Mormon church is building at least 200 churches around the world.

I thought this was worth reporting, because at the time there were some men on Norfolk Island in trouble with the law for playing up with the girls. I made the mistake of saying it was no wonder they were acting so strangely, because they were all Mormons up there. They were very quick to point out that they were in fact Seventh Day Adventists. I had to write a grovelling apology, but found that I’d been put on the Mormon blacklist. When I consulted the list to see who else was there I saw I was in very good company with all sorts of famous people, including Richard Dawkins. I’m afraid I’ve got no future with the Mormons.

The power of prayer

One of the biggest responses I got was when I wrote about unanswered prayers. America’s Templeton Foundation are very interested in the relationship between science and spirituality; they raised $2.5 million to finance an experiment in which several doctors chose 1800 patients who were due for bypass surgery. They then arranged for a team of people, a mix of Protestants, Catholics and Jews, to pray for half these patients anonymously.

They were alarmed to find that the ones they prayed for did worse than the ones who were not prayed for.

I also mentioned the famous study by Charles Darwin’s cousin, Francis Galton, who wrote a book about the efficacy of prayer. He asked who gets prayed for most – Queen Victoria of course. She was prayed for every Sunday as were all the sovereign heads of Europe. His figures showed that, despite all the praying, sovereigns lived shorter lives than army officers, traders, merchants, doctors, and the gentry. And he famously concluded that the prayers therefore have no efficacy. Well. The letters still keep coming. I got letters saying that faith can’t be scientifically analysed, that God’s way of working is a mystery, and that science can’t determine the effects of prayer at all. Someone else said people of faith don’t need prayers to know that prayers work. One argued that some of the people having operations would have had extra prayers – they prayed for themselves. Other critics said they had used the wrong prayers, in the wrong language, that they didn’t pray hard enough, or that they didn’t adopt the best posture for saying prayers.

A local priest wrote to me twice, explaining in great detail that there are two sorts of prayers. There are petitionary prayers, where you beg God’s intercession, which hardly ever work, and adorational prayers, where you simply praise God. If you want to get results, he said, do this. Don’t ask for favours. It sounds as if the Muslims are on the right track; all you have to say is God is great. On the scientific evidence, if you’re in line for heart surgery, stop people praying for you.

Tourism on Ararat

In Auckland a couple of years ago two young men developed a system for making maps from satellite imagery. They’d been looking closely at Mt Ararat and some Americans were financing them to go there to see if they could find Noah’s Ark. The story in all the newspapers was all about these pioneers going to a really difficult place, breaking new ground, and how nobody had done this sort of work before. I pointed out that for 2000 years people had been going up Mt Ararat and there are hotels and a monastery up there. There’s a well-worn track; thousands of people go up and down all the time. A whole tourist industry has been developed there.

The difficulty with this, of course, is that no boat can accommodate 5000 species of mammals, 8700 birds, 30,000 worms, and two million insects. The column of beetles would be 240km long, and Noah and his family must have each carried 100 diseases from anthrax to syphilis. How Noah coped with food for the animals, the ventilation, the waste disposal, disembarkation on to a dead Earth, and how the platypus got from Mt Ararat to Australia are all very difficult to explain. A retired clergyman wrote me several, quite substantial letters as a result.

A letter from the Hamster

I’ve written one or two columns on the Creation Museum in Kentucky. In it are depictions of life in the Garden of Eden, and of a happy Adam and Eve, wandering around among the dinosaurs. I gather that 40 percent of Americans believe that humans and dinosaurs were on the Earth at the same time. I produced a column on the museum last year, which generated no response here, but someone at the museum itself must have read it. Ken Ham, the Australian who runs it, was upset. He replied, point by point, to all the mistakes I’d made. I had made one or two mistakes but they were trivial. I said he’d raised US$27 million to build it; he said he didn’t raise the money, a trust raised the money. I said he had a radio station and broadcast stuff around the world; he said he didn’t have a radio station, he just produced programmes. These are run by 287 other radio stations around the world. He wrote a letter to the editor of the paper and suggested I get the sack for my mistakes.

Filthy sex aids and the end of the world

I once wrote about the beginning of the world, and got an 11-page letter telling me when the world is going to end. The letter was from none other than God and his wife. They told me that the Earth would end shortly before January 31 in the year 5000. Owing to the mental and physical condition of humanity and filthy sex aids, mankind become unable to reproduce about then. There was lots of other advice as well, about divorce and the number 7777 and how the true church is the Salvation Army. Sadly, I couldn’t reply to God, because there was no forwarding address. I did notice it was sent from a post office down in Manners St, Wellington, however.

Scientific gossip

Why do I write this stuff? Well, $170 a week is very welcome, but I think that a vast amount of science goes unreported, and it gives me quite a buzz to bring news of this. I feel a bit like a postman, bringing news of developments and scientific gossip to the public. Also, there’s a sense of obligation to the public who paid for me to work as a scientist for most of my life. I feel a duty to let them know what they’re getting for their money. We’re floating around in a miasma of superstition, with people believing preposterous things with great intensity. I can’t help but challenge them in some way: ask them, how can you justify this, where do you get these ideas from?

I derive a lot of joy from writing these articles. It’s very different from writing for scientific journals. There you sweat blood and tears and produce a piece, which is then published years after you submitted it. Eighteen months later somebody in Mozambique or the Canary Islands asks for a reprint. With these newspaper articles I write it today and it’s published tomorrow. And people are on the phone or writing complaining letters the next day.

Acupuncturist Charms the Worms

A London-based New Zealander has been named “World Champion Worm Charmer” after a competition in Devon. Garry Trainer, from Auckland, won the award by convincing 51 worms to come to the surface of a metre-square section of a field in 15 minutes.

The Harley Street osteopath and acupuncturist entered the competition at Awton at the last minute.

He said: “People were trying all sorts of things, like using watering cans to replicate the sound of rain or connecting their mobile phones to a computer to send vibrations into the ground.” He said he used his acupuncture needles and a secret elixir.
Christchurch Press

Three Rules for Sticking Needles in People

Bob Brockie gets himself a qualification in acupuncture

Last year a healthy anaesthesiologist, Dr Kinsinger, visited nine chiropractors in Oklahoma, claiming that his chest or back were playing up. All nine chiropractors misdiagnosed some kind of illness including appendicitis, misplaced bones or shifting ribs. Clearly, these guys had no idea of what they were doing, falling well short of conventional medical standards.

Back here, I once attended a Skeptics Society demonstration at Massey University. There, a medical doctor showed us how to make homeopathic concoctions by running a few drops of fluorescent dye along a row of 20 glass flasks filled with distilled water. He diluted, diluted and further diluted the mix until, by the 20th flask, there was theoretically not a molecule of the dye left — only distilled water.

In making their concoctions homeopaths do the same thing but with the juice of lawn daisies, onions, snake venom, sepia ink, sulphur and the like. They dilute the stuff until not a molecule remains in their 20th, 30th or 200th flasks, only distilled water. This is what they sell you, claiming that their remedies cure or relieve anything from asthma and infertility to fear of flying.

Most scientists and doctors are very dubious about these claims because they fly in the face of a basic chemical “Law of Mass Action”. The law says if you want to intensify a chemical reaction, add more chemicals. If you want to weaken a reaction, dilute the chemical.

At a later demonstration, another medical doctor and one-time acupuncturist showed us how to become an acupuncturist. “You need know only three rules.” He said. “One: Keep your needles clean. Two: Never stick needles into very fat people and Three: If a patient is really sick, send them to a proper doctor.” After 20 minutes’ instruction we were all given certificates, mine countersigned by a distinguished physician, certifying that we were all now acupuncturists. Again, endless medical trials show that acupuncture doesn’t work. One survey of almost 200 American acupuncturists revealed 132 cases of fainting, 26 cases of increased pain, eight cases of punctured lungs and 45 other adverse results in their patients.

Naturopaths claim they can rid your body of toxins and increase your “vital force”. The entire discipline of organic chemistry refutes this nonsense.

Scientific and medical trials of these four disciplines reveal that their short-term successes depend not on the treatments but on placebo effects.

If you want to know more about these fraudulent shenanigans go to Quackwatch or to the US or Australian National Councils Against Health Fraud on the web.

Originally published in the Dominion Post, 19 January, 2004

Newsfront

“Dr Jaz” Dies

Dr Neil McKenzie, better known to music lovers as Dr Jaz, died in May following a long battle against a brain tumour (Bay of Plenty Times, May 15 2003).

Neil McKenzie was also a long-time member of the NZ Skeptics, and wrote the “Skepsis” column on medical issues for this magazine from 1997 to 1999.

Born in Edinburgh, Scotland, he was raised in Surrey and attended medical school in Charing Cross hospital. He first came to New Zealand in 1974 and subsequently took up a post as a GP in Tokoroa. He settled in Tauranga in 1985.

Neil McKenzie first formed a skiffle band at age 16 in England and took up the banjo – an instrument which became his trademark. In 1980 his band, ‘Dr Jaz’ was born, and has been a regular feature of the local music scene here and overseas ever since.

Equally comfortable in the worlds of music and medicine, he will be greatly missed in both.

ACC Investigates Acupuncturists

ACC is investigating 20 acupuncture providers after discovering they were getting half its annual funding for the treatment (Nelson Mail, Dominion Post, May 21).

More than $2 million was going to only 20 of almost 200 registered acupuncturists, ACC Healthwise division general manager David Rankin said. Some were claiming for 12 hours a day for every day of the week.

Acupuncturists will now have to consult ACC clinical advisers after 10 treatments, rather than the previous 24, before further treatments will be authorised. ACC spends about $4.6 million a year on acupuncture treatments.

Register of Acupuncturists president Kevin Plaisted said the new limit was unlikely to stop further sessions going ahead.

“There is no reason why ACC will not approve further treatment … it’s certainly not designed to stop treatment at 10 but simply that we’re accountable for the treatment we’re providing,” he said.

Dr Rankin said injuries like sprains were treated with acupuncture but it required more sessions than other treatments.

Who Would Have Predicted This?

T Bromley, of Greymouth, takes the Press to task in a letter to the Editor (May 22) over the accuracy of the paper’s Christmas “clairvoyants” Maureen Rose and Rosina Bond.

Neither were able to predict the main stories early in the New Year, which included the Australian bushfires, Sydney’s train disaster, and even the space shuttle crash.

Rosina Bond’s prediction for the war in Iraq read, “While Iraq has become the US’s New Russia it’s predicted the two countries will not go to war in 2003 … When conflict comes to a head it will be late September-early October, Bush will be stopped in his tracks.”

No mention either of the power crisis, nor (and this, says T Bromley, is the grand-daddy of them all) the Sars virus. Like shooting fish in a barrel, really.

Watch Out for Those Ladders

Joanne Black’s Blackchat column (Dominion Post, April 28) had a novel perspective on the Sars epidemic. Pointing out that 110 people dying of the disease in China in one month was equivalent to four New Zealanders dying in a year, she took a look at the statistics to see what types of things kill four, and only four, New Zealanders in a year.

In 1998, the “latest” year for which mortality figures are available, three people died from cystitis, from varicose veins in the legs and from male breast cancer. Eight died from falling in holes, two from acute tonsillitis, four from curvature of the spine, three from genital prolapse, five from falling off ladders or scaffolding, and 14 from being hit by rolling stock (which Black thinks is to do with trains rather than sheep tumbling down hillsides).

Investigating Sars has taught her plenty, she says. She wouldn’t hesitate to travel to China, but from now on, she’ll certainly be more vigilant when crossing railway lines, take more care on ladders, and particularly watch out for those lethal holes in the ground.

Psychics “See” Missing Woman

Psychics have told police they know what happened to missing Hauraki Plains woman Sara Niethe (Dominion Post, June 16).

Several psychics have called police since investigators announced a $20,000 reward for information which would help them find the woman they now believe may have been a victim of foul play.

“They have had visions of where Sara is and where her car is. If they are specific enough we will check them out,” a spokesman said. Most, however, have not been specific.

Ms Niethe vanished on March 30 after drinking in Kaihere with a friend. Wide police searches of the plains, rivers and an irrigation ditch found no sign of her or her light blue-green late 1980s Honda Civic. Her family say it is out of character for her to leave her children, and her bank accounts have not been touched.

We Suspected As Much

The incidence of cancerous tumours in the brain, neck and head has not risen since the arrival of mobile phones, according to the Wellington School of Medicine (Dominion Post, June 16).

Researchers collected data on men and women aged 20 to 69 from the cancer registry between 1987 and 1998, as well as data on cellphone use. Professor Alistair Woodward said the findings, published in the New Zealand Medical Journal, should provide users with some reassurance. He said the study’s weakness was that it looked at the overall population rather than particularly at those who used mobile phones, meaning it was not known whether those developing tumours were using cellphones or not. But the research still showed there was not a strong link between cellphone use and cancer. The findings backed up a similar study in Denmark.

A study of tumour rates among cellphone users compared to non-users would be completed next year.

And on a Similar Note… British researchers have cast further doubt on fears of a link between overhead power lines and childhood leukaemia (Dominion Post, June 16). A study published in the British Journal of Cancer found no evidence to support such concerns from laboratory experiments. Researchers used blood cells from a donor to test the effect of mag-netic fields on the normal repair process and found cells exposed to strong magnetic fields repaired themselves naturally.

Funds Raised for Alternative Treatment

A former Hawkes Bay goal-kicker and member of the Blues Super 12 rugby team will use more than $100,000 raised at charity functions to fight his motor neurone disease with alternative medicine (Dominion Post, June 2).

Jarrod Cunningham, who was diagnosed with the disease last year, said $45,000 was raised at a Hawkes Bay auction on May 31, and up to $70,000 at a rugby game the following day, featuring All Blacks Norm Hewitt and Bull Allen. This would go toward research and education on the natural supplements which had “cured” him.

Cunningham, 34, said he was on the road to a full recovery from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a form of motor neurone disease, after taking a course of 20 capsules of astragalus, from the root of the astragalus plant, over five days, and says it has put him into full remission.

After his Christchurch-based Chinese “healer” told him that chicken parasites caused the symptoms of his disease, he has vowed to use money raised to prove this and help others with the disease seek herbal remedies to treat it.

The money raised at the weekend would be fed into a trust to be administered by the healer Cunningham has been working with.

Before taking the herb he was unable to get out of the bath without help. Three weeks after the dose he was able to do so on his own. “If that’s not remission of symptoms I don’t know what is,” he said.

Cunningham was also prescribed a dose of cayenne pepper to help unblock his lymph nodes, which he says worked. He based this on his armpits smelling like curry.

He no longer visits his doctor in Britain where he has been based, saying the doctor was closed-minded and negative. However when his muscles grow back in three to six months, as he predicts, he will tell his neurologist how he did it.

Hokum Locum

Providence based medicine

If the caring practitioner has no idea of what to do next, the decision may be best left in the hands of the Almighty. Too many clinicians, unfortunately, are unable to resist giving God a hand with the decision-making.
New Zealand Medical Journal Vol 113 No 1122 p479

Acupuncture and ACC

I am pleased to report that I received a reply from Dr David Rankin acknowledging the dearth of evidence for the widespread use of acupuncture. ACC are taking a responsible attitude and are commissioning a wide range of studies looking at current treatments in order to assess which of them are truly effective in speeding recovery and the return to work.

Saint Goncalo of the Immaculate Perineum?

Haemorrhoid sufferers are flocking to a church in Portugal in the belief that exposing their afflicted behinds to the statue of a local saint will cure them. I have named this pious act “anoflection”. However, the local Priest drew the line at allowing a young woman to pray naked in the hope that this would cure her severe acne. Given the revelations of widespread sexual abuse by priests, it would appear most unwise to expose oneself in this manner in a church.

Saint Goncalo, a 13th Century priest, also has a history of helping women find husbands. Every June, during a festival in his honour, unmarried men and women exchange penis-shaped cakes as tokens of their affection.

There is clearly no need for our organisation to attack or ridicule religious belief when the Catholic Church is doing it for us. I believe that we should sincerely welcome these quaint rituals into our culture. I look forward to a new range of phallic pastries at my local bakery.
Dominion Post 14/1/03

Placebos and homeopathy

The business of science is generating testable hypotheses. This is the classical approach espoused by Popper who put it in a negative sense in that he proposed that for something to fall within the realms of science, it had to be capable of being falsified (proved wrong). This approach has been criticised by Skrabanek in particular because he felt that nonsensical propositions should not be tested. In this respect Skrabanek raised the idea of having some kind of demarcation of the absurd which would avoid dignifying pseudoscience by testing it. For example, the Popperian approach requires us to test homeopathy in double-blind placebo controlled trials. Skrabanek’s approach would be to argue that homeopathy breaches so many scientific laws that it is already outside the tenure of science.

With respect to homeopathy, it is clear that placebo controlled trials of homeopathy are trials of one placebo against another. This explains the tendency for published trials to fluctuate around a midpoint with some showing a small positive effect and some no effect. The philosophy of David Hume teaches us to suspect either self-delusion or fraud if any published trial of homeopathy shows a dramatic effect of homeopathic solutions in any biological sense. The best example of this is the famous Benveniste study published in Nature. (Davenas et al., Nature, 1988, 333:816). This study could not be replicated by any other laboratory unless the experimental work was done under the supervision of Elizabeth Davenas.

After a team of skeptics (Randi et al) supervised a repeat of the work under their close scrutiny the original results were shown to be a delusion with implications of fraud and Benveniste was summarily sacked. People who believe in homeopathy are in the grip of an enduring delusion. Benveniste is a classic example of this and he has recently published a paper titled “Transatlantic transfer of digitised antigen signal by telephone link” (J. Allergy Clin. Immunol. 99:S175, 1997).

The claim is made that “ligands so dilute that no original molecule remained still retained biological activity”. The abstract is classically incomprehensible pseudoscience and Benveniste has the Gallic arrogance to quote his original discredited trial in the references!

Ginkgo flunks

Ginkgo is an herbal type product claimed to enhance and improve memory. Given what I have just written about placebo controlled trials it will come as no surprise that ginkgo provides no measurable benefit in memory or other related cognitive function. This will have absolutely no effect on the sales of this product because if people believe that it works then they will continue to buy it. Those people who sell the product will find endless reasons to defend their promotion of this useless remedy. I referred earlier to science involving the generation of a testable hypothesis. The practitioners and promoters of pseudoscience have become very skilled at generating endless secondary hypotheses to the point where further testing is impossible. Here are some examples:

  • The trial was too short/long
  • They should have used “x” and not “y” strength ginkgo
  • They should have used added vitamin C, selenium etc. etc

Ginkgo for memory enhancement: a randomised controlled trial. Solomon et al. JAMA. 21 Aug 2002. Vol. 288. No.7. p835-40

Chelation Fraud

A reader of the New Zealand Family Physician (Vol 29 Number 6, December 2002 p366) recently took issue with a review of a paper (Knudston et al., JAMA 23 Jan 2002, Vol 287 No. 4 pp481-6) which concluded “there is no evidence to support a beneficial effect of chelation therapy in patients with ischaemic heart disease, stable angina, and a positive treadmill test for ischaemia”. This was a placebo-controlled trial and the conclusions are the same as for similar published trials. The reader, however, objected to the use of an active placebo and claimed that this rendered the conclusions invalid. The debate raises several important issues.

  1. Chelation quackery is a worldwide growth industry worth millions of dollars. The hypothesis is that symptoms of coronary artery disease (CAD) will improve following the removal (by chelation) of calcium from atherosclerotic plaques in the coronary arteries. Despite an overly simplistic view of CAD it seems like this is a testable hypothesis but wait a minute. Chelation clinics exist all over New Zealand and as yet there are no, and I repeat no double blind placebo controlled trials proving that chelation is more than a placebo. In fact, the Knudston trial is further evidence that chelation is ineffective. There is a worrying trend here, seen also with acupuncture, where unproven therapies are introduced into practice and opponents of such quackery are then challenged to prove that the given therapy is ineffective. I object to this argument. It is up to the proponents of new therapies to prove that their treatments are superior to placebo. In other words, put up or shut up.
  2. The reader wrote in and objected that the Knudston trial used an active placebo. A placebo is by definition an inert substance. However, some drugs or treatments produce marked effects. For example, if the drug under test caused the patient’s skin to turn green it would be easy for both patient and doctor to determine who was receiving the drug or the placebo. The experiment has become “unblinded” and this is fatal to any conclusions that might be drawn. This problem is well recognized and some trials even invite participants to try and predict whether they received the test drug or the placebo. This is a sensible test of the blinding. Chelation mixtures are based around EDTA, which allegedly leaches calcium out of atherosclerotic plaques. Along with EDTA the preparations contain other drugs such as lignocaine, magnesium, vitamin C. Many of these are vasoactive and cause people to feel flushed or a little euphoric. If a true placebo was used it would not cause these effects and therefore the experiment would have become unblinded. It is therefore sometimes important to use active placebos whose side effects mimic those of the drug under evaluation. For example and I quote: “forty (59%) of 68 of the antidepressant studies published between 1968 and 1972 using an inert placebo control reported the antidepressant as effective, compared to only one (14%) of seven studies using an active placebo (atropine)”. (The Powerful Placebo, Shapiro, page 206). The antidepressants under test all caused a dry mouth and slightly blurred vision as does atropine. The use of an active placebo was clearly very important and shows once again how the expectations and optimism of researchers can lead to a serious overestimate of the efficacy of new drugs.
  3. Chelation mixtures are non-standard and contain a wide range of drugs in addition to the chelating agent EDTA. This allows quacks to get maximum effect from the generation of endless secondary hypotheses. Suppose we test just EDTA versus placebo and produce the expected result of no effect. The quacks will start bleating that we didn’t have Vitamin C, magnesium, rhubarb, senna pods (pick anything you like) so back to the laboratory. No sooner do you test one combination and they will come up with another. This is the generation of the endless secondary hypotheses and this is a sure sign of a pseudoscience. The hallmark of science is the generation of what Staudenmayer (Environmental Illness: Myth and Reality, Lewis 1999) calls a “hard core postulate” and he goes on to say: “When hard-core postulates cannot explain a phenomenon, auxiliary postulates (ie. Secondary hypotheses) are often invoked to protect them from refutation (ie. being proved wrong).

Hokum Locum

Yet Another Alternative to Evidence Based Medicine

Eloquence based medicine

The year round suntan, carnation in the button hole, silk tie, Armani suit and tongue should all be equally smooth. Sartorial elegance and verbal eloquence are powerful substitutes for evidence.
New Zealand Medical Journal Vol 113 No 1122 p479

Acupuncture Flunks

A comprehensive literature search has concluded that there is no strong evidence for the effectiveness of acupuncture in treating and rehabilitating musculoskeletal injuries when compared to other forms of treatment. This is similar to the conclusion of Ernst & White, who reviewed 600 references and concluded, “the only compelling evidence is that acupuncture is efficacious for the treatment of backache, nausea and dental pain.” (Acupuncture: a scientific appraisal, Ed. Ernst & White, Butterworth-Heinemann, 1999)

The National Council Against health Fraud (NCAHF) concluded in 1997 that “acupuncture is mostly a powerful placebo and/or a psychological aid for use in managing behavioural disorders.”

I intend writing to David Rankin at ACC Healthwise, to ask him how they will justify continuing to pay for unproven treatments such as acupuncture.
ACC News August 2002 Issue 48
NCAHF Newsletter Vol 20, No. 6

Water births have no proven benefit

Considering man’s status as a terrestrial mammal, the pre-occupation with water births has appeared on the scene like some kind of antediluvian regression. It seems like the more advances are made by medical science, the more people want to revert to medieval superstition or New Age silliness.

There have been few trials of water births but plenty of reports of near-drownings of newborn infants. Many years ago I was invited to attend one such birth, but my attendance was cut short when I asked if I could bring my dive gear and speargun. Those slippery newborns can be elusive! Seriously though, what’s next? Water births attended by orcas and dolphins at Napier’s Marineland? Hmmm, could be a great new tourist attraction. A clever dolphin could soon be trained to flick the newborn infant up out of the water and into the arms of the waiting midwife. There has to be an idea there for some tasteless new TV program.
Marlborough Express 12/8/02

Oxygen Therapy

As we all know, oxygen is essential for life. If something’s good for us it stands to reason that a lot more must be even better. This is the rationale for extra vitamins, food supplements and so on. Oxygen clinics are an excellent scam because if properly run there is an unlimited crowd of gullible customers. All you need is some convenient threat, for example air pollution, and you have a perfectly reasonable excuse to remedy that problem by offering people oxygen in pleasant and soothing surroundings. A clinic based in Calcutta offers twenty minutes of oxygen via nasal prongs “where customers can sink back into soft leather chairs, inhale oxygen flavoured with various scents and be lulled by soothing music.” There’s only one small problem. Our haemoglobin, the oxygen carrying pigment in the blood, is about 98% saturated with oxygen at the earth’s surface. Inhaling extra oxygen does not improve this saturation at all. In fact, I would bet anything you like that if the oxygen was substituted for clean air the subjects would feel just as refreshed and still cheerfully pay their 175 rupees. This is a classic placebo scam. Someone should start a similar clinic in Auckland aimed at the same sort of people who buy energy drinks. As WC Fields was fond of saying – never give a sucker an even break!

Fibromyalgia

Imagine a doctor’s surgery. A patient complains of tender areas everywhere. This is what I call “und here” after the German syndrome of the same name. The patient has pain here, und here und here. The doctor examines the patient and finds that they are indeed tender in the areas where they say they are tender! This ridiculous folie-a-deux has been sturdily defended by a few remaining rheumatologists. It has taken a judge to rule “evidence of physical symptoms is not evidence of physical injury” and “is not compensable by ACC”.

Fibromyalgia (aka “fibro-sitis”) is a typical psychosomatic complaint where vague malaise and non-specific aches and pains get endorsed by a group of specialists. Skeptics noted that four fifths of patients were women and it is now recognized that the syndrome is indistinguishable from chronic fatigue syndrome. (Shorter Pg313)
ACC News September 2002 Issue 49
From Paralysis to Fatigue, Edward Shorter, 1992 The Free Press

Get an Educayshun??

Until I looked at the site www.massagecollege.co.nz I had no idea that ridiculous pseudo-science such as holistic pulsing and polarity therapy could be studied and rewarded by NZQA recognition. It gets worse. Student subsidies are available from Winz. I have written to both Winz and the NZQA asking how taxpayer funds can be wasted in this manner. Watch this space.

The Wisest Fool in New Zealand?

A GP colleague forwarded me a portion of letterhead from a doctor who practises chelation therapy as well as using Electro acupuncture of Voll. I have discussed this latter quackery before. It is an evolution of the “black box” and its use by registered medical practitioners should occasion a referral to the Medical Practitioners Disciplinary Committee. When I read the list of qualifications held by this doctor I was reminded of the famous description of James 1 of England as “the wisest fool in Christendom.”

Here is the list – the meaning of most is obvious: B.Med Sc. MBChB. Dip Bus Admin. MRNZCGP, ANZIM, BSc, Dip Obst., MRACGP, MSc, FAMS, BA, Dip AvMed, MRSNZ.

The Diary of Inspector Melas

I cannot reveal how this diary excerpt came into my possession but it gives an insight into police methods in relation to the Christchurch Civic Crèche case. I reproduce it verbatim. The original has been placed with my lawyer.

Monday That damned book has won a Montana award! Called a meeting to discuss how to counter these attacks on our integrity. Det. Dixon suggested contacting the Counsellor who has been seeing B. and making good progress with regression therapy. ACC have agreed to pay for a further 1500 counselling sessions. (1703 for the mother – she’s making good progress).

Tuesday Wonderful news. B. has recovered more memories. The tunnels. I knew they existed! Material very detailed – dates, times etc. Regular underground trips involving other Cr&egraveche children in the company of known Christchurch Satanists and pornographers. Contacted Karen who confirmed that these are absolutely classical descriptions of systematic child abuse. Ordered Det. Green to obtain ground-penetrating radar.

Wednesday Phoned by some loony in Fendalton who claimed his dog was psychic and could help our investigations. Told him we don’t use that sort of unscientific rubbish. 1430: Green phoned. Promising radar returns from under the Civic crèche. The tunnel complex!!! Decide to hold press conference after we have the evidence. Told them we were on the verge of a breakthrough. Great excitement.

Thursday Meet on site with excavation team. B. present with whanau. (All our supporters.) B. has apparently remembered “dancing, poos, clowns and somebody called Lara Croft”. (NB. not one of the original accused) Probably need Karen to interpret that when we interview the suspects again and lay charges. Det. Green offered to let me break into the tunnel. Most unfortunate – hit the main sewer. Bugger. Green apologetic. Told him to sort out the mess. B. very upset and will probably need more therapy. Went home and changed uniform. Cancelled press conference.

Friday Depressing day. On the phone mostly sorting out the repair of the sewer. Called up to see the Boss – he was not happy at all. No more tunnel searches. Found two copies of the book in a second-hand shop on my way home and burnt them. Cheered up a bit. Rem – must follow up the Lara Croft lead on Monday (and clowns).

Newsfront

If I Could Talk to the Dead Animals

Pet psychic Carol Schultz of Chicago has been gaining a lot of international attention, with identical reports featured in June editions of the Cairns Post and Evening Post. Journalist Marilynn Marchione seems to have written the piece with eyebrows permanently raised, as Schultz talks of her ability to speak with dogs, cats and horses, even if they’re dead. She even reads cats’ paws! Yes, it’s true! The article goes on to tell of a dog trapped in a cat’s body – it didn’t help that he was named Duke. Schultz also helps people get in touch with their departed loved ones – one woman who had had two dogs die recently wanted to know why they needed to leave her.

Consultations cost $35 for an email consultation, $50 by phone, or $75 plus travel for a personal visit. That’s US dollars.

Evening Post, 16 June, Cairns Post, 5 June

Seagull healed

Not to be outdone by the Americans, New Zealand also has its resident pet psychics. Paul and Victoria Woodward of Upper Moutere charge only $15 a session to lay hands on an animal and unblock its energy channels, which is a lot more reasonable. Victoria Woodward says animals seem to know the healing could help them.

“I’ve even treated a seagull, I didn’t touch him, but he got close enough for the treatment to work and simply flew off when he’d had enough.” How she knew the bird was ill (or male), or had been healed, she didn’t say.

Nelson Mail, 8 May

Open wide, please

The British Dental Journal reports that an acupuncture needle, inserted into an anti-gagging point on the ear is just the thing to overcome fear-induced nausea during a visit to the dentist. Some patients are so apprehensive, according to Dr Janice Fiske of the Guy’s, King’s and St Thomas’ Dental Institute, they develop a gagging reflex, which causes their jaws to clench. The needles were tried on 10 subjects, and it worked every time. Without the needles, six could only bear to open their mouths after sedation. Now if they could just come up with something to deal with a fear of needles…

Evening Post, 14 June

Aromatherapy all in the mind

The placebo effect (see Editorial) was in the news again with a report on a team of German and Austrian scientists, who found that oils used in aromatherapy improve mental ability – but only if you believe they do. The team, led by Josef Ilmberger of the Ludwig-Maximilians University, Munich, sprinkled water onto surgical masks worn by volunteers, then tested their reaction times. Essential oils used to promote alertness, such as peppermint, jasmine and ylang-ylang, were then sprayed on the masks of some of the volunteers, while others had water, and reaction times were again tested. No difference was found in reactions in subjects treated with oil or water, suggesting the oils do not have a direct influence on the brain when inhaled. However, when asked to rate how stimulating, strong or pleasant they found each liquid, those subjects who gave high ratings showed small improvements in their reaction times. Ilmberger concluded the effects of essential oils on basic forms of attentional behaviour were mainly psychological.

Dominion, Evening Post, 20 April

Exorcism goes awry

One of the grislier news items of recent times concerned the death of 37-year-old Joanna Lee in December. Pastor Luke Lee was committed to trial for Ms Lee’s manslaughter in June after allegedly strangling her during an exorcism. Neighbours heard screams and chanting prayers from the Auckland house, but didn’t think anything of it, as such noises were common. Six days after the exorcism, police found Ms Lee’s fly-blown body, still lying in bed while members of Pastor Lee’s Lord of All church prayed over her, occasionally wiping her body with alcohol to keep the smell at bay. Lee told police she had been sick and was sleeping.

“We are innocent. God knows. If we pray, Joanna will come back. God knows,” Lee said.

Church members said in written statements that Lee regularly performed exorcisms on them, one noting that for a small man he used a lot of force. Most of his 30-strong congregation was gathered from Queen St on Friday nights, though many who did join quickly became disturbed by Lee’s aggressive behaviour and left again. Joanna Lee, who had arrived from Korea six weeks previously, was described by church members as “a very smiley person”.

Dominion, 12 June

“Yeti” hair passes genetic test

British scientists on the trail of the yeti have found some of the best evidence yet of the existence of the mythical Himalayan creature – a sample of hair that has proved impossible to identify.

The hair was gathered from a tree in eastern Bhutan, and matches no known animal, raising the strong possibility that it was from an unknown species. An “official yeti hunter” led the expedition, working on the documentary series To the Ends of the Earth, to an area where he was convinced an animal was at large, and collected the hair from a hollow in a cedar tree.

Bryan Sykes, professor of human genetics at the Oxford Institute of Molecular Medicine said the hair wasn’t human or bear, or anything else they’d been able to identify.

“It’s a mystery and I never thought this would end in a mystery. We have never encountered DNA that we couldn’t recognise before.”

Of course, it may not have come from a large hairy primate. Wonder if they compared it with Fiordland moose hair?

Dominion, 3 April

Hokum Locum

Quackery

In the last issue I discussed how quackery can be practised by New Zealand doctors with impunity, “if they do so honestly and in good faith.” Alaska has a similar clause which only disciplines maverick doctors if they harm their patients. In fact, the latest NCAF newsletter outlines how a Dr Rowen has been appointed to the state medical board after “curing” the governor’s wife of lumbago by extracting one of her teeth. The link between the tooth and the back was made by an electro-acupuncture circuit using a Vega machine.

Dr Rowan also practises chelation, homeopathy and is described as “anti-fluoridation, anti-aluminium cookware, and anti-dental amalgam.” The Alaskan State Medical Association has strongly protested and one medical board member has resigned.

More on Bands of Hope

Sea Bands are available from NZ Pharmacies as well as Elekiban which is another form used for musculoskeletal complaints. As outlined in Skeptic 26, these are acupressure devices which have no scientific effect other than placebo. I was interested to read that the Institute of Naval Medicine (INM) had tested Sea Bands because on my recent overseas trip I spent a day a day at INM having a look at their research programs on Hypothermia and Diving Medicine.

Acupressure is an equally false derivative of acupuncture which works through a combination of the placebo effect and suggestion. Having written a truth kit on acupuncture I was alarmed to read that the Medical Acupuncture Society of NZ (MASNZ) is setting up a register of medical acupuncturists (150 hours training minimum)(NZ Doctor 21/1/93). Since acupuncture has no proven basis this is totally unnecessary, rather like setting up an appreciation society for the emperor’s new clothes.

As a former acupuncturist, I can teach anyone to be a safe and confident acupuncturist in about one hour. Perhaps I should give a demonstration at our next conference in the style of Dr Bill Morris and his vivid demonstration of homeopathy.

Pharmaceuticals Around the World

I have long held the belief that NZ doctors tend to overprescribe drugs. While working in general practice myself, I was often aware of pressure from patients to prescribe drugs. However, until now I haven’t come across any comparative data from other western countries. A survey of 495 randomly chosen Australian GPs (Patient Management Nov 1992) found that a prescription item was issued for every consultation (a reduction from 1974 when 136 prescription items were issued per 100 consultations!)

In NZ our annual drug bill is about $600 million, or $185 per head, per annum. My family of four definitely does not consume $740 worth of drugs in a year! Some people must be consuming a lot of drugs. British doctors are described as “low prescribers of medicines” yet their costs were roughly the same at $165 per head per annum.(The Lancet Vol 340 August 8, 1992 page 364). Patients expect drugs, and doctors want to help their patients, so it is not surprising that prescription rates are high. The writing of a prescription is often a convenient way to end a consultation.

One of the major problems for third world countries is getting cheap, effective drugs which are truly necessary. Multinational drug companies continue to cynically exploit these countries by marketing both dangerous and useless drugs. In a letter to The Lancet (Vol 339: Feb 22, 1992 page 498), a Pakistani doctor explained how a child died after being given drops containing an anticholinergic drug and phenobarbitone. Such a preparation has no scientific medical indication and its use in NZ would not be allowed.

A survey from Peshawar (reported in The Lancet Vol 338:August 17, 1991 p438) found that 90% of general practitioners were using antibiotics and anti-diarrhoeals to treat diarrhoea instead of using the correct treatment of oral rehydration therapy.

In Bangladesh, (GP Weekly International 2/12/92), hundreds of children have been injured or killed by cheap brands of paracetamol containing toxic ethylene glycol.

Datura is a drug which is commonly abused by drug addicts. It contains atropine, which in high doses causes hyperactivity and hallucinations. Incredibly, cigarettes containing datura are licenced for the treatment of asthma in France because “many old people rely on the treatment because they don’t believe modern methods help them.” This is a classic example of the need to have a rational, scientifically-based pharmaceutical industry. Datura-containing cigarettes would not be allowed here (we used to have cannabis cigarettes on prescription up until the 1920s!) and their persistence in France is based on delusion, placebo effect and anecdotal reports of efficacy. (New Scientist 22 August 1992).

Drug treatment can also be irrational when it is used for a condition which has no clinical basis. On the European continent there is a widely held belief that low blood pressure is associated with specific symptoms and is a pathological state requiring treatment. There is no basis for this belief, because complaints of faintness and fatigue are made as often by patients with a normal blood pressure.

Blunderbuss Treatment

A doctor whose daughter fainted on a hot day (BMJ Vol 299, 18 Nov 1989, p1284) reported that a French doctor prescribed a proprietary preparation called Tensophoril which contains the following ingredients: dopamine hydrochloride 15 mg, boric acid 15 mg, amylobarbitone 15 mg, and ascorbic acid 250 mg.

This sort of combination has been rightly criticised as “blunderbuss” drug treatment. Dopamine is inactive when given by mouth; boric acid is toxic and should not be taken by mouth; amylobarbitone is a long acting barbiturate sedative and the ascorbic acid dose is that which would be found in about 5 oranges. Fortunately the doctor’s daughter elected not to take the treatment and recovered fully.

Drug Licensing

I was much more impressed with a letter (The Lancet Vol 340: August 15 1992, p432) which detailed how Israel dealt with homeopathy. Drug registration required proof of efficacy and this was still not forthcoming after three years. Unfortunately the new legislation did not apply to raw materials and homeopathic preparations were able to be imported as such. The author regretted that “the compromise is not entirely satisfactory in that scientific assessment of efficacy cannot be applied.”

The situation in Germany is hardly credible. Drug licencing does not depend on clinical trials, but on anecdotal evidence supplied by medical practitioners, many of whom are paid by the same companies whose products they are endorsing. This is hardly surprising when 7 out of 10 general practitioners practise alternative medicine.

For example, the Federal Health Office (BGA) was forced to licence a totally useless product containing “1 g loess soil” for the treatment of diarrhoea, because “German law does not define the term efficacy.”

Another useless drug is Arteparon, an extract of bovine lung used for the treatment of osteoarthritis when given by injection. The drug is licenced because the courts have determined that “the efficacy of old drugs must not be judged by modern scientific standards.” Arteparon causes severe allergic reactions, a fact not recognized by the courts because “proof of causality beyond any doubt was needed for each case of adverse reaction.” The judges obviously overlooked the irony of demanding a higher standard of proof of side effects than of efficacy. The cost of these crazy decisions is a huge drain on the German health system. One quarter of the DM20.7 billion spent annually on pharmaceuticals is for useless drugs.

I have no idea whether our own drug lists contain either questionable or useless drugs and these reports have prompted me to have a browse through the GP’s pharmacopoeia New Ethicals. Watch this space!

Thalassotherapie

While overseas I collected a number of articles worthy of skeptical attention. Although a confirmed Francophile, I wonder whether they have any effective organised groups of skeptics. Homeopathy is part of mainstream medicine and astrology is big business.

Thallasotherapie is described as a treatment modality using seawater and its products. Patients (or, in newspeak, clients) can either float in seawater or apply heated mud made from seaweed. Obese subjects will be delighted to know that their tissues can be “deflated by various jets and massages.”

It is claimed that elements such as magnesium and calcium are able to “get into human tissues” and “engender the same consequences as a hoemeopathic treatment: stronger immune system and stimulation of cells.” In fact, human skin is relatively impermeable and certainly does not behave like a semipermeable membrane. Essentially this therapy can be carried out for nothing in the privacy of your own home by having a long soak in a hot bath. If you feel so inclined, toss in a handful of seaweed.

More on RSI

There has been a lot written on this subject, but so far little written to explore alternative explanations for these spurious symptoms which are essentially a conversion disorder (well described in basic psychology texts).

Whole forests have ended up as publications on ergonomics and an army of occupational physicians continue to pontificate over the delusion of RSI. It is therefore refreshing to read letters (Medical Journal of Australia Vol 157, Sep 21 1992, page 427) from skeptical occupational physicians who have both correctly diagnosed this condition as a conversion disorder and correctly treated it by “helping patients sort out their personal, social, family and financial problems.”

Even More on Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

In Skeptic 21 I summarised the key research in this area, which does not support any infectious cause and shows clearly that the condition is a somatisation disorder.

If any readers are interested in further reading on this subject, there is a very good article in Patient Management Nov 1992, p13 by Robert Loblay. He reviews the historical development of immunology and demonstrates conclusively how history tends to repeat itself. For example, neurasthenia has been resurrected as chronic fatigue syndrome.

Many symptoms which people present to their doctors are often functional (somatisation disorders) and have no basis in serious disease. Some doctors have difficulty in accepting their own limitations in this respect, or the existence of psychological disorders, and it is easy for these practitioners to seek “magic” solutions such as acupuncture, homeopathy and dietary manipulations.

Psychological disorders cannot be explored within the context of the traditional five-minute NZ consultation and it is hardly surprising that alternative medical practitioners have more success when they give the patient one or two hours of their undivided attention (itself a form of psychotherapy).

Chelation Therapy

This is an intravenous treatment with a cocktail of vitamins and the drug EDTA, which is believed to chelate calcium which has been deposited in atheromatous plaques. Atheroma (Greek for porridge!) is an ageing process leading to fatty deposits in arteries (accelerated by smoking, high blood pressure, excessive dietary fat and diabetes) leading to coronary artery disease (CAD) and peripheral vascular disease (PVD). Poor blood supply through the narrowed vessels leads to chest pain in the case of CAD and painful legs in the case of PVD.

There is a proper double blind placebo controlled trial of chelation therapy for PVD currently under way in Dunedin Hospital. A similar study in America (Journal of Internal Medicine 1992, pp 231-267) showed no difference between chelation and placebo treatment. I hope to do a similar study of chelation treatment for CAD. We await the outcome.

Acupuncture Exchange

In the medical magazine Patient Management, Denis Dutton last year presented a tongue-in-cheek account of how GPs might incorporate alternative techniques into their practices. The article generated an interesting exchange.

Dr Denis Dutton’s original article in the March edition (“Increasing Your Income While Appeasing Your Patients”, pp. 9-11), and his more recent reply to Dr Campbell’s letter in the June edition (“One rule for Orthodoxy, Another for the Rest of Us”, p. 7) raise several interesting issues.

Our society comprises Western-trained doctors who study and practise acupuncture. For many of us, enthusiasm was first sparked by noticing the beneficial effects of acupuncture in the clinical setting. Most of our members are experienced clinicians and in their opinion, the effects of acupuncture amount to more than the sum of willing, motivated doctors enhancing a placebo response.

Many have been motivated to study the philosophies and pathophysiology of Eastern medicine, in particular traditional Chinese medicine. The collection of clinical material has been meticulously recorded by the Chinese for centuries, but it is only in the last 15 years that textbooks have been available to us, showing the logic and complexity of this study of medicine.

The marriage of Eastern and Western medicines is an exciting and vital factor in many parts of the world. The double-blind crossover trial, which all doctors would agree has been a cornerstone for the development of safe, effective Western medicine, is, however, an inappropriate measure of acupuncture. The reasond for this become obvious when Western doctors study the basics of acupuncture. The observations of the Chinese seem to fit in with modern advances in biophysics and it is ultimately the advancement of these basic sciences which will make the who subject more understandable to non- clinicians like Denis Dutton.

By reacting to acupuncture and claiming Chinese medicine is based on primitive and fanciful concepts, the American NCAHF exposes itself as being either unaware of the complexities of the subject, or worse still, threatened by them.

The medical profession, if it is to continue to earn the respect of the public, should study both Western and Eastern medicine with open minds.

Only then can valued judgements be made.

Dr Robin Kelly, President, Medical Acupunture Society (NZ)

Dr Dutton’s Reply

According to Dr Kelly, modern advances in biophysics will make acupuncture finally understandable to stubbornly sceptical non- clinicians like me. Wrong: the mechanism of the treatment is not the issue. I don’t know how Panadeine works, but I accept that it does. It is not the failure of acupuncture’s supporters to demonstrate an intelligible mechanism that is in question, but the straightforward clinical claims made on its behalf. The history of medicine is littered with episodes of “willing, motivated doctors enhancing a placebo response”. There need be nothing the least bit stupid or venal about this; in their eagerness to help their patients, an intelligent doctor can develop a sincere faith in an ineffective treatment modality. Blind testing routines are our best defence agaist this possibility.

On the subject of mechanism, it is worth remarking that I am aware of two local medical practitioners who were trained in acupuncture (one in Beijing, the other in Auckland) and who have used it extensively. Becoming increasingly suspicious, both of these practitioners had the idea of intentionally placing their needles at the wrong points, according to the Chinese charts (which don’t all agree with one another, incidentally). They found no difference in the perceived effect. One of these doctors has stopped using acupuncture, and the other continues to use it in the opinion that it is the time and attention he is giving the patient that produces the benefit, rather than a psychological effect of turning the patient into a pin-cushion.

Claim and counter-claim about the clinical effectiveness of acupuncture is all fair enough, and I hope doctors interested in these issues will consult both sides of the debate [start with P. Skrabanek, Lancet 1: 1169-1171, 1984; Irish Med J 79(12): 334-335, 1986]. What I find deeply disturbing is that Dr Kelly would claim that blind trials, though they are a cornerstone of safe, effective Western medicine, are “an inappropriate measure of acupuncture”.

This is a claim frequently made on behalf of alternative treatments and I believe it should be regarded with the utmost contempt. When a patient asks about the symptoms that might be alleviated by acupuncture, a definite answer is forthcoming; no one ever says “Oh, we have no idea what symptoms acupuncture is good for”. When the patient asks how much it costs, again a definite answer is immediately ascertainable. But in the present case, when we further ask if the modality has been shown through blind testing to be clinically effective, we’re told by the President of the Medical Acupuncture Society of New Zealand that this would be inappropriate. Not that it hasn’t been done, or that the results have been in his view indecisive, but that it would be inappropriate. Why? His society’s members deem acupuncture appropriate for the patient’s symptoms, which are demonstrably real. Real money is deemed appropriate for the demonstrably real account the doctor sends out. Why shouldn’t the paying patient demand that her treatment be just as real, as demonstrated by scientific tests? How can anything else be “appropriate” except the magic question: is acupuncture clinically effective beyond the usual placebo responses?

The “exciting and vital” marriage Dr Kelly describes looks to me like one in which Western medicine has taken Eastern superstition as a mail-order bride.

Dr Denis Dutton, School of Fine Arts, University of Canterbury