BBC Programme to show acupuncture deactivates brain

[Badly Shaved Monkey]

I believe this was a collection of films put together, rather than a fake operation. As Rolfe said, if her chest was opened they would have had to break her breast plate. There is no way she would be up and walking about in 2 days, as Kathy Sykes, said if this was the case.

Just trying to catch up with this thread, so here's another morsel.

Notwithstanding what Rolfe said initially, we have established that thoracotomies can be done under local anaesthesia, but we have not established that the girl we saw was the owner of the heart we saw. We have no evidence, as has been pointed out already, such as a continuous panning shot from patient's face to incision that the heart belonged to an unintubated patient.

My opinion is that after a median sternotomy no human patient would look as bright and breezy and "anyone for tennis" 2 days later. Her skin sutures/staples had also been removed at the point when we saw her sitting in her alleged hospital bed.

 

[Badly Shaved Monkey]

Well, that's exactly what I've been wondering. I don't know enough about it to be certain it's completely impossible. However, I still have trouble figuring how you could get a machine like that all set up and ready to go, in a position to switch over the minute the chest is open. I simply can't see how. And it still leaves the question of how is it possible to do a thoracotomy on a patient who isn't muscle-relaxed and has her breathing reflexes all intact and trying to operate.

Edited to add: The text on that site confirms what I had believed to be the case.My bolding. The plumbing for this machine actually goes into the heart, or the large vessels near the heart. That is, it's all connected up inside the chest cavity.

The way to achieve this is obvious. Anaesthetise the patient, intubate her, get her stable on ventilation, then do the thoracotomy while the positive-pressure ventilation is doing the breathing. This allows access to the heart, and one can start to place the catheters and so on for the bypass machine.

How the hell you can do this in a non-intubated patient I can't imagine. I was mentally speculating that it might be possible to set it up using peripheral veins and arteries rather than doing the plumbing actually in the chest, but no, the more I think about it the more impossible it seems.

We need an anaesthetist here. Calling an anaesthetist, NOW!

Rolfe.

The only time we saw the heart it was very obviously not on by-pass. But we did have separate shots of a working bypass machine.

We really didn't see 'the' surgery at all.

 

[Zendal Darkman]

for those who want it I have edited the heart surgery "bits" into an avi file.

It is on the e-mule network under
AM_surgery.avi

Its 40MB long and there may be copyright issues associated with it, however the BBC is free to air channel and it only a clip of the show. (okay I know I am dodgy ground here).

 

[Badly Shaved Monkey]

Right. OK. Caught up.

I think,

1. We were not told the whole truth about the surgery. I think the timescale for recovery did not match the physical evidence we were shown.

2. The girl we were shown probably did have the surgery, though my previous points remain valid as to the difficulty of using the programme's own evidence as proof of this.

3. A combination of sedation, systemic analgesia and spinal/regional anaesthesia allow open heart surgery. The acupuncture was completely irrelevant I would see that surgery as a marvel of Western scientifc medicine with the acupuncturist providing no more than an additional potential source of MRSA in the operating room.

4. If you stick needles in people you get effects in the brain. Big deal. If acupuncture perfomed clinically as it is claimed to then the techniques shown might be useful in exploring the mechanism, but the jury is still out as to whether this is worth pursuing. As we say to the homeopaths: show that it works then worry about how it works.

5. Controls using non-acupuncture needlepoints are required. BUT, realise that an acupuncture effect that is independent of traditional insertion points does not invalidate acupuncture itself, it only invalidates the specific meridian model under test. In other words, acupuncture could have genuine clincal effects but the traditional meridian diagrams are only tangentially related to it and do nothing more than provide the acupuncturist a framework to work on which need not be any better than randomly chosen points.

6. What matters is one thing and one thing only. Does acupuncture have real clinical effects? Does it do what it says on the tin? I think the discussion should really be focussed on the adequacy and replicability of the OA study and if acupuncture is good against pain, is it also good against other medical problems?

7. A big issue is the one of controls. What it boils down to is that we need an answer to the question, what is acupuncture? I'd happily accept the reality of an acupuncture that is independent of the meridian/qi story. The central feature is really the insertion of needles, so the question that requires answering is whether sticking needles in people produces genuine medical benefits compared with sham-needling where the patients really think they have had a true acupuncture experience but lack the proper needle insertion. I agree with an earlier comment about the declining number in the OA trial who had the sham but thought they'd had the real needling. If the patients can tell real from sham then the control is invalidated.

My opinion, for what it's worth is that there might be a real effect of acupuncture on pain. Physiology give us reason to think this might be true. But I suspect that a real effect is heavily overlaid by placebo effect and that this placebo effect has allowed the benefit of acupuncture to be extrapolated to areas where it simply does not have any real effect.

The job of science is to separate the medical wheat from the cultural chaff in the way that gave us aspirin and stopped us just sucking on a bit of willow bark when we have a headache. But, whereas willow bark did not have a massive cultural and political vested interest supporting it, acupuncture has powerful allies who do not want to hear bad news about it.

 

[Camillus]

My opinion is that after a median sternotomy no human patient would look as bright and breezy and "anyone for tennis" 2 days later. Her skin sutures/staples had also been removed at the point when we saw her sitting in her alleged hospital bed.

In my experience there are no external sutures in a sternotomy wound post cardiac surgery*. The skin is closed using a subcutaneous stitch that leaves nothing to be removed.

*Except for any purse-string sutures around chest drains.

 

[EHocking]

The only time we saw the heart it was very obviously not on by-pass. But we did have separate shots of a working bypass machine.

We really didn't see 'the' surgery at all.

Just to help a bit. Here is a sequence of 5 shots from the only pan that goes directly from the girl's face to her chest.

This is the only sequence that is not cut away (as you point out with the separate shots of heart beating and bypass machine working).

Realising that the point may be moot, notice that the "anesthetist" taps her forehead to "wake" her. She is quite dopey throughout this sequence.

 

[Badly Shaved Monkey]

OK, that looks like a bypass set up in situ. The op is probably real. It's the claims that are false.

 

[Asolepius]

And an excellent response too. Just one point regarding: "While respecting Professor Sykes' eminence within her field, it was a mistake to put a physicist in the anchor position for this series." Understandable politeness but she has no eminence in the field---she has a PhD in the field and zero publications. It's hard to be less eminent and still count as a physicist.

Good grief, you are right, she has no publications listed via Google Scholar. What is going on? I shall have to follow this up.

 

[Thing]

Good grief, you are right, she has no publications listed via Google Scholar. What is going on? I shall have to follow this up.

But I'm not aware that she's claimed any great level of accomplishment in physics, nor have the OU or BBC done so on her behalf, unless I've missed something. There's a potted biog of her (presumably a little out of date) at http://www.open2.net/roughscience2/html/scientists/kathy/kathy.htm

Kathy Sykes holds the Collier Chair as Professor of Public Understanding of Science at Bristol University. She is also a Director of the new Cheltenham Festival of Science. Previously, she was Head of Science for Explore@Bristol, a new 'hands-on' science center, coming up with ideas for the content of the center. Kathy is a physicist, with a PhD (looking into a biodegradable plastic) from Bristol University and is still doing some post-doc research there. She did her first degree there too — then went to teach Mathematics and A-level Physics in Zimbabwe for 3 years with VSO.

That page also links to an interview with her in which she talks about her career.

 

[Pragmatist]

I am sure that stainless steel is not ferromagnetic. I think they would have got away with this.

Actually, there is no clear cut answer. "Stainless steel" is a catch-all term for steels containing chromium and sometimes nickel and other metals, so there are many different formulations of steels that fall under the banner "stainless". Certain steels with a high nickel content and austenitic structure are essentially non ferromagnetic, but the process of wire drawing (such as that used to make acupuncture needles) affects the moleular structure in a way that can make even high nickel austenitic steels strongly ferromagnetic.

Regardless of whether a steel is ferromagnetic, I think it's probable (but I may be wrong because it's really a question for a materials specialist and I'm not) that almost any steel will be predominantly paramagnetic and would cause considerable local enhancement of an external oscillating magnetic field.

 

[Asolepius]

I have had a bit of a rummage on dear Kathy's background, and not been much impressed by what I have found. As has emerged, her research record is minimal, apart from her PhD. It seems abundantly clear that her chair is a PR exercise by Bristol University. She got it not because of being a scientist, but essentially because of being a TV presenter. Science is clearly secondary. I did find just one peer-reviewed paper via Google Scholar. When I sent in my rapid response, I was foolishly relying on her profile on the uni's site, which it seems has inflated the scientific component rather a lot - in common with the evidence for acupuncture. As this saga progresses, she goes down in my estimation I'm afraid.

Really, what on earth are we coming to when people can get to be professors in this manner? I expect such people to be at the top of their profession, with the most exceptional intellects and track records. Or am I expecting too much?

 

[NeilC]

This thread is a testimony to why believers think skeptics are idiots. People have made assumptions that various lies are being told, that the whole thing was a fake right down to camera tricks etc, that surgery of that type simply cannot be done in the way it was supposed to have been done, that the professer is stupid etc etc. And then when those assumptions are shown to quite probably be false they just go "ah well, X might be true then....but Y is definately wrong" - ie whatever the situation they are doing to dismiss it because they went into it not believing and nothing is going to change that. That is not skepticism, it is cynicism IMO.

Re: Kathy Sykes - she is employed to bring science to the masses. She's an attractive girl who is known on TV. She is probably a good choice for this job since men don't mind watching her, girls see another female rather than some nerdy guy and she knows how to present to the media. She's not employed to do research in physics or whatever.

 

[Zendal Darkman]

There is a danger of appearing woo like and basing our opinions instantly on the fact the program/presenter/trials were all pro-acupuncture. There is an obvious concern that some posts are going to be seen to be seen as sour grapes and "stick in the mud" scientists trying to wriggle out of accepting the facts. Obviously we should prod what was said to see if it is "flawed" or "fraud", but we should do it in a scientific way and not by throwing everything at the wall and see what sticks. Some of the posts about the presenter can easily be interpreted as attempts to discredit the program by discrediting her. Although in my opinion she was stupid to put her self forward as an authority figure (e.g. the famous "as a scientist" lines) I don't think there is any need to even appear to be doing a character assassination on her.

That said, if we need to establish the legitimacy of the claims we do need to put forward theories.

 

[Asolepius]

This thread is a testimony to why believers think skeptics are idiots. People have made assumptions that various lies are being told, that the whole thing was a fake right down to camera tricks etc, that surgery of that type simply cannot be done in the way it was supposed to have been done, that the professer is stupid etc etc. And then when those assumptions are shown to quite probably be false they just go "ah well, X might be true then....but Y is definately wrong" - ie whatever the situation they are doing to dismiss it because they went into it not believing and nothing is going to change that. That is not skepticism, it is cynicism IMO.

Re: Kathy Sykes - she is employed to bring science to the masses. She's an attractive girl who is known on TV. She is probably a good choice for this job since men don't mind watching her, girls see another female rather than some nerdy guy and she knows how to present to the media. She's not employed to do research in physics or whatever.

Oh really! This thread is what science is all about. Robust debate, criticism, and rigorous analysis get us nearer to the truth. If you are referring to Rolfe, she accepted new evidence and changed her opinion. If the surgery did use regional anaesthesia, then it was a fake to claim that acupuncture was responsible. Unlike Kathy Sykes, posters here are just using Occam's Razor, if you have ever heard of it. People who seek the public eye must expect brickbats as well as bouguets. She failed even to ask whether there might be another explanation. She failed to mention the 11 MRI studies previously published, and instead presented her `research' as new and groundbreaking. She only presented a positive migraine study and ignored the negative ones. She didn't mention the need for replication of results. If she wants a career as a TV presenter then fine, but she's not a great scientist. This is not character assassination, it's just fair comment, based on the facts.

I have just written to the Dean of Medicine at Bristol to express my concerns at the way this research was published in the lay media without peer review. His address is Gareth.Williams@bristol.ac.uk. The study is described on the university's website.

 

[steenkh]

I think that this debate shows quite well how skeptics reason. After all, it were skeptics who brought up the right arguments about heart surgery, not woos. And skeptics changed their opnions in the light of new arguments. How often does this happen for woos?

 

[richardm]

If you are referring to Rolfe, she accepted new evidence and changed her opinion.

And what is more she was actually pleased to be shown that she was wrong, because it was something new and interesting that she wasn't aware of.

Now that's not something that True Believers often do, they're much more likely to keep repeating that they're right and then stomp off in a huff.

 

[Deetee]

I vote for Rolfe as champion sceptic of 2005 (or any other year for that matter). Articulate and incisive with her posts, forthright and accurate when covering her own fields of expertise, appropriately critical and questioning when faced with those that aren't, a devoted adherent to the scientific method and the principles of evidence, and willing to modify hypotheses to fit with any newly-presented evidence.
And she's a she - automatic skepchick bonus points apply.

 

[Interesting Ian]

And what is more she was actually pleased to be shown that she was wrong, because it was something new and interesting that she wasn't aware of.

Now that's not something that True Believers often do, they're much more likely to keep repeating that they're right and then stomp off in a huff.

Absolute crap. If anyone ever provides any remotest reason or evidence for me to question my beliefs, then I would be more than happy to consider it. Despite making about 15,000 posts on here -- or thereabouts, no one ever has.

 

[richardm]

Absolute crap. If anyone ever provides any remotest reason or evidence for me to question my beliefs, then I would be more than happy to consider it. Despite making about 15,000 posts on here -- or thereabouts, no one ever has.

Well, perhaps I don't specifically mean you! Surely you've seen enough people come through here over the years who've behaved exactly as I suggest?

 

[Interesting Ian]

I vote for Rolfe as champion sceptic of 2005 (or any other year for that matter). Articulate and incisive with her posts, forthright and accurate when covering her own fields of expertise, appropriately critical and questioning when faced with those that aren't, a devoted adherent to the scientific method and the principles of evidence, and willing to modify hypotheses to fit with any newly-presented evidence.
And she's a she - automatic skepchick bonus points apply.

I wouldn't like to say what I think about her, I'd just be banned.

It's the same old story again and again and again. Skeptics claim something is absolutely impossible, then they're are shown to be wrong. It's happened throughout human history and they never ever ever learn their lessons.