Kotatsu
Phthirapterist
I've started getting that "it appears that you have not posted..." message again, and in order to get rid of it, I thought I'd post about something that made me a bit upset this morning when I was listening to Swedish radio at work. The programme (in Swedish only, sorry) was Kropp och Själ ("Body and Soul"), which is usually a quite interesting show on medicine and so on (it is the 12/6/07 airing, which can still be heard at their homepage, www.sr.se). Today, however, the show was about some boy who had a rare and lethal disease (INCL), of which I know nothing. His parents had tried to cure him by taking him to China and have a doctor there inject stem cells into his brain, and because of this, they had invited two medical experts --- Niels Lynöe, Professor of Medical Ethics, and Gunilla Malm, Children Neurologist --- to have a discussion on ethics.
I only listened with half an ear to the first part of their discussion, and have no comment on it. I did react more after the short intermission where some other neurologist is interviewed. Gunilla Malm is asked what she thinks about this kind of experimental treatment, and more specifically what she'd tell parents who wanted to try this method on their child. Here follows a short and rough translation (1) of her answer:
Malm: "Yeah, concerning these stem cell injections, I would, just as we've said here before, want there to be a scientific background and evidence that it has an effect, ad that you'd have to have applied for, somewhere in Europe or so, that there are studies [involving] experiments on animals behind [it], that they have applied for ethical permissions for performing this kind of injections, and from what I gather, there's nothing like that in the Chinese treatment."
So far, so good. However, here the interviewer starts making some sort of noise indicating that she'd like to say something, but she's interrupted by Malm, and here something strange happens:
"Yes, I'd only like to say that, I'll go back to your question there, sometimes parents want to use various homeopathic methods, and as long as they're not dangerous and won't hurt the child in any way, I think anyone should have a problem with that."
The interviewer does not react to this quite remarkable change in level of critical approach, even though Gunilla Malm certainly went out of her way to push homeopathy in there.
Shortly afterwards, the other expert also talks about the necessity of thorough and reliable research to ensure that a treatment, at the very least, does not hurt the child, even if it does not make it better. But then he, too, mentions homeopathy:
Lynöe: "If you take the homeopathic [treatment], then you know that at least it does not hurt the child."
Again, this provokes no reaction from the interviewer, though in this case, Lynöe's tone can be interpreted as him knowing that it's a useless treatment, but at least it does not make the child worse. They then return to talking about strict scientific studies and so on, leaving the homeopathy parts like islands in sea, until Lynöe, towards the end of the interview, emphasizes that, when facing the problem of having parents who want to have a special treatment for their child, one has to make sure they're not going to throw their money in a lake.
I don't really know what to make of it, though. Malm's talk about scientific standards are all thrown away when she starts talking about how no one should have any problem with using homeopathy, as long as it doesn't hurt the child, and Lynöe makes similar turn-arounds. I've mailed the station to ask for an explanation, and I have a few friends who will do the same. Hopefully, at least one of us will get one, or they'll have some explanation for it next Tuesday, but I thin k not.
At least I got a good way to get rid of the "You haven't posted"-message!
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(1) In several places, I've used turns of phrase and wordings which I believe is true to the spirit of what is said, but which is not even close to the literal translation. If anyone else here who speaks Swedish finds my translation a bad one, I'd appreciate if an alternative phrasing was given.
I only listened with half an ear to the first part of their discussion, and have no comment on it. I did react more after the short intermission where some other neurologist is interviewed. Gunilla Malm is asked what she thinks about this kind of experimental treatment, and more specifically what she'd tell parents who wanted to try this method on their child. Here follows a short and rough translation (1) of her answer:
Malm: "Yeah, concerning these stem cell injections, I would, just as we've said here before, want there to be a scientific background and evidence that it has an effect, ad that you'd have to have applied for, somewhere in Europe or so, that there are studies [involving] experiments on animals behind [it], that they have applied for ethical permissions for performing this kind of injections, and from what I gather, there's nothing like that in the Chinese treatment."
So far, so good. However, here the interviewer starts making some sort of noise indicating that she'd like to say something, but she's interrupted by Malm, and here something strange happens:
"Yes, I'd only like to say that, I'll go back to your question there, sometimes parents want to use various homeopathic methods, and as long as they're not dangerous and won't hurt the child in any way, I think anyone should have a problem with that."
The interviewer does not react to this quite remarkable change in level of critical approach, even though Gunilla Malm certainly went out of her way to push homeopathy in there.
Shortly afterwards, the other expert also talks about the necessity of thorough and reliable research to ensure that a treatment, at the very least, does not hurt the child, even if it does not make it better. But then he, too, mentions homeopathy:
Lynöe: "If you take the homeopathic [treatment], then you know that at least it does not hurt the child."
Again, this provokes no reaction from the interviewer, though in this case, Lynöe's tone can be interpreted as him knowing that it's a useless treatment, but at least it does not make the child worse. They then return to talking about strict scientific studies and so on, leaving the homeopathy parts like islands in sea, until Lynöe, towards the end of the interview, emphasizes that, when facing the problem of having parents who want to have a special treatment for their child, one has to make sure they're not going to throw their money in a lake.
I don't really know what to make of it, though. Malm's talk about scientific standards are all thrown away when she starts talking about how no one should have any problem with using homeopathy, as long as it doesn't hurt the child, and Lynöe makes similar turn-arounds. I've mailed the station to ask for an explanation, and I have a few friends who will do the same. Hopefully, at least one of us will get one, or they'll have some explanation for it next Tuesday, but I thin k not.
At least I got a good way to get rid of the "You haven't posted"-message!
---
(1) In several places, I've used turns of phrase and wordings which I believe is true to the spirit of what is said, but which is not even close to the literal translation. If anyone else here who speaks Swedish finds my translation a bad one, I'd appreciate if an alternative phrasing was given.