Open University (OU) CAM course

[RationalVetMed]

I've just completed the Open University "Perspectives on CAM" course. If anyone is interested in my final conclusions I have posted a rather lengthy essay here - http://aillas.blogspot.com/.

The course has been criticised by David Colquhoun as the Open University "teaching quackery" which it isn't really. Although the whole course is extremely pro-CAM/integration etc it is organised at a social studies level rather than a scientific one so the most frustrating thing about the whole project was that the science wasn't considered at all. In some ways it might have been better if there had been an attempt to actually teach, say homeopathy, at least then there would have been the potential to argue the evidence but instead, right from the outset it was pretty much taken for granted that CAM and orthodox medicine were of equal validity but that CAM was being oppressed by irrational "vested interests".

The idea was to get to "know thine enemy" and from that point of view I succeeded, all in all I found it a good discipline and a useful exercise. It is extremely depressing though to find that social scientists seem to be so unquestioning about whether it works or not in their haste to go romping in and consider the ins and outs of integration without having to trouble themselves with annoying facts.

I'm at risk of re-writing my blog here - go to http://aillas.blogspot.com/ for the full story.

Cheers,

Yuri

P.S. I passed

 

[TheDaver]

So in other words, it was an exercise more in conspiracy theory than in quackery?

 

[Gord_in_Toronto]

Thanks Yuri.

An interesting read.

But sad.

 

[Rolfe]

That's a brilliant essay, Yuri. Have the course tutors seen it?

Rolfe.

 

[RationalVetMed]

That's a brilliant essay, Yuri. Have the course tutors seen it?

Rolfe.

Thanks Rolfe. I waited until the final section was marked before publishing it online (didn't want to be accused of plagiarising myself!) and I have thought about sending it to the OU, not least to point out some of the woeful factual inaccuracies. I guess I probably should though I'm not sure how they would take such criticism, they really seem blind to the possibility that anything might be just plain WRONG!

Yuri

 

[RationalVetMed]

So in other words, it was an exercise more in conspiracy theory than in quackery?

Well, anything so long as it didn't involve science. A lot of conspiracy theory without doubt with no explanation as to how the "establishment" decided which bits to conspire against if they all worked just as well as each other . But also a phenomenal amount of denial, twisting of scientific methods to produce the desired results and downright ignorance about what science is and why we need it.

There were quite a few "do you realise what you are saying here?" moments for me, for instance as aromatherapy and reflexology are portrayed as variations on massage on the one hand yet good arguments in favour of CAM on the other. Statements like "CAM works with the placebo effect" had a similar effect on me - why does the placebo effect need anything to "work with" it. That sort of statement to sceptical me seems to be a thin disguise for "Look, I know it doesn't work and you know it doesn't work, but if we don't talk about that and just do it then everything will be OK".

Yuri

 

[wilks]

Thanks Rolfe. I waited until the final section was marked before publishing it online (didn't want to be accused of plagiarising myself!) and I have thought about sending it to the OU, not least to point out some of the woeful factual inaccuracies. I guess I probably should though I'm not sure how they would take such criticism, they really seem blind to the possibility that anything might be just plain WRONG!

Yuri

Hi Yuri
I'm really pleased to see that another sceptic has taken the course. I took it back in 2005 and for my final End-of-course-assignment I wrote what was described by the OU feedback as "a passionate essay...in defence of the biomedical viewpoint". It was certainly very critical of CAM in general but backed up with evidence and references. As to what the OU might think of such a point of view - well I passed with a distinction. However my feedback letter mentioned that I should be aware that "there may be parallel (apparently mutually exclusive) truths" (!!)

I didn't know much about CAM before I took the course and thought that homeopathy, for instance, was something vaguely herbal that could well have some positive applications. Taking the course and going 'hang on a minute' actually turned me into a raging sceptic. I think this was particularly the case as my tutor was a homeopath. She seemed nice but pushed her anti-vax views in tutorials as vaccinations (she said) give you auto-immune disease later in life. She also prescribed homeopathic anti-malarials and we had many 'interesting' online discussions

Taking the course actually pushed me to look for more balanced views, so I'm glad I took it - but I doubt that many other students did the same.

 

[RationalVetMed]

Hi Yuri
I'm really pleased to see that another sceptic has taken the course.

Excellent - a fellow graduate (although I'm still waiting for my final feedback letter - the mark I got for my final essay (where I let rip somewhat) was considerably lower that those given to my tutor marked assignments).

It's good to hear from someone who was moved from a fairly neutral position to a questioning one - for me that happened about 10 years or so when working with a homeopath when I felt I ought to find out a bit more about what he was doing - oops!

One or two of my fellow students also seemed to develop doubts, having started from a fairly accepting point of view. To me many of the arguments seemed prepostrous but I could never be sure if that was my pre-conceptions coming through - it is so difficult to get into the mind set of the believer.

I did wonder whether the course would actually only serve to confirm previously held views - for example as a sceptic I was annoyed by the fact that reflexology was passed off as simply a nice foot massage so students weren't asked to challenge its real alternative basis whereas a committed CAM practitioner might have been peturbed for exactly the same reason, feeling that the full potential of reflexology was left unexplored. It would be very interesting to survey students of the course to see how their views changed as a result of it.

What did you think of Mike Saks's contribution by the way? Difficult for me to comment in a public forum on my feelings about his chapters .

Cheers,

Yuri

 

[wilks]

What did you think of Mike Saks's contribution by the way? Difficult for me to comment in a public forum on my feelings about his chapters .

Not much.
Looking back at my course text I seem to have written a lot of comments in the margins of Sak’s chapters, which usually means vigorous disagreement with what the author is saying! The first chapter on political and historical perspectives spends a lot of time stressing the way alternative therapists in the 19th and early 20th century were put down by the ‘dominant’ medical profession, while ignoring the facts that evidence-based medicine was increasingly being practiced at that time. He uncritically accepts ideas about the development of orthodox medicine, such as hospital medicine becoming more concerned with classifying rather than curing disease. And as an ex-biomedical scientist I was offended by the statement that laboratory medicine objectifies patients as clusters of cells – although this is frequently repeated by CAMsters.
In the 2nd course book he writes a chapter about professionalization of CAM. He seems to think this is a good thing, no matter what and states that biomedicine has been constructed so that medical knowledge “takes control of the knowledge territory”. He sees the “medical-ministry” alliance as keeping down the professionalization of CAM. In a two-page section on “the pros and cons of professionalisation for the public”, he can only think of 2 cons – that doctors may have too little knowledge of CAM to be effective at referring patients and that training CAM therapists in biomedicine may have a detrimental effect on patient access to “more holistic forms of CAM”. I’m not certain, but I can’t spot the word ‘evidence’ used at all in the chapter.
As a positive example for the professional legitimation for CAM, Saks uncritically writes about the choice of spirit guides used by Harry Edwards, a famous spiritual healer. Yes, he used guides from orthodox medicine – Louis Pasteur and Joseph Lister!

I had better stop before I write an essay!
I think it was only the fact that I had some science background that stopped me accepting everything uncritically. Taking the course did lead me to read more about CAM and that's when I found some more sceptical websites (looking at my join date on here, it was just after I had taken the course).