BBC Programme to show acupuncture deactivates brain

[Interesting Ian]

What really annoyed me is that the presenter unaquivicably accepted accupuncture.

Wha . .?? She was a skeptic! She said a couple of times that her prior expectation was that acupuncture wouldn't work -- indeed couldn't work. She was more skeptical than me. I have no surprise at all it worked. On the other hand, if the beneficial results had proved to have been all due to the placebo effect, again that would not have surprised me at all. I really know absolutely nothing about this subject.

 

[Mid]

...snip...
She was more skeptical than me.
...snip...

That's not really a ringing endorsement.

I didn't get to watch this program so I can't really comment beyond general sarcasm but I’m curious about others views on the general tone/outcome of the program.

 

[Zendal Darkman]

Anyone remember the name of any of the scientists?

details here
XXX.annals.org/cgi/reprint/141/12/901.pdf

Note: I am not allowed to post links. Replace XXX with "www".

I can't say I am happy with the procedures used for minimising the risk of the inadvertent indications of which group the patient was in. Would have not been better to shield the patient from seeing the acupuncturist altogether?

The "real" group were subject to electrical stimulation, but the "sham" group were not. As the patients knew that they could be in a "sham" group, could they use the fact that no sensation was being felt to correctly deduce what group they were in? I would! (well I think I would ).

oops missed abit of the report.
At 4 (8?) weeks 67% of the "true" group belived thay were in the "true" group.
at 4 (8?) weeks 58% of the "sham" group thought they were in the "true" group

At 26 weeks 75% of the "true" group belived thay were in the "true" group.
at 26 weeks 58% of the "sham" group thought they were in the "true" group.

A 17% difference by the end could easily cloud the result. I wish they asked the question "which group do you think you are in, and why"

 

[Interesting Ian]

II
...snip...
She was more skeptical than me.
...snip...


Mid
That's not really a ringing endorsement.

Hang on a sec, Rolf described her as a creduloid (and airhead). How can she be a creduloid if she is more skeptical than me?? If I am not a creduloid, then a fortiori she can't be either.

 

[dogbite666]

Wha . .?? She was a skeptic! She said a couple of times that her prior expectation was that acupuncture wouldn't work -- indeed couldn't work. She was more skeptical than me. I have no surprise at all it worked. On the other hand, if the beneficial results had proved to have been all due to the placebo effect, again that would not have surprised me at all. I really know absolutely nothing about this subject.

Yeah, she was really sceptical of the open heart surgery was'nt she!!! As Rolfe so rightly pointed out at the start of this thread, it is impossible to open the chest cavity whilst the patient is concious. IMPOSSIBLE!!!

Kathy Sykes just lapped this up, if she was half the scientist she claims she would imediatly see why this operation was a fake. And this woman is supposed to be a professor of public engagment in science!! pah!

 

[andycal]

aah diddums

Thanks Ian, you're a credit to whatever you are.

Anyhoo,

I was massivily dissapointed with the program. I taped it and there are a few things I need to check over, but on the face of it, it was just a standard "let's try to keep things balanced" type of blandness that the BBC generally throws out.

However it did look like open heart surgery, but based on what some people have been saying here, that's just not possible. I'm no doctor so I'm hoping someone who is will be able to throw light on it.

Surely the most amazing part of the program was the heart op, yet it was over quickly. Suddenly their interest is in whether needles made an MRI scanner put shapes on a screen. If I was there, I think I'd be asking "Hey, sod the MRI, what about that chick with the open heart? Let's go back to China..."

Ah well.

 

[DeVega]

Well I thought the program to be more balanced than I had expected. Kathy Sykes DID say (in voiceover) that the acupuncturist in China who was saying she should relax, and think less (lol) could have made the same observation to almost anyone...

I did not think she came across as overly credulous - I agree that perhaps she was not challenging or confrontational enough with the other scientists but you could see that she became caught up in the excitment of the study.
HOWEVER my vaguely good opinion of her will go completely down the pan next week as they are doing "Healing" - aaaaarrrrgh!

I have to say that it appeared to me that they were opening that girls torso just below the liver in a horizontal incision - isn't heart surgery usually performed with a vertical section - hence the 'zipper club'?

I had to laugh when the volunteer was being put in the MRI and they were explaining how they would get them out if the machine broke down! I've had MRIs and all they said to me was, "Lie there and keep very still"!!!

I will watch it next week - thereafter I strongly suspect I might give up in disgust. Far more interesting - and moving - was the documentery on More 4 about the Spa school for Autism. Those children were amazing and it was really heart-rending to understand their frustration with their condition. What struck me the most was their knowledge of their own problems... (Sorry, wandering off-topic)

 

[andycal]

I have to say that it appeared to me that they were opening that girls torso just below the liver in a horizontal incision - isn't heart surgery usually performed with a vertical section - hence the 'zipper club'?

This is the confusing thing. When we saw the open heart stuff, I'm sure I could see the heart pumping away like a good 'un. Now if it was heart was being worked on, don't they have to stop it and put her on a machine?

And then when she skipped out the hospital a few days later, she had a whopping great scar down her chest - the zipper club you mention?

 

[NeilC]

I like the presenter. Indeed I quite fancy her.

This was a TV show, they are making it for entertainment more than anything so they are hardly likely to start getting into fine scientific detail. They never do.

It wasn't a ringing endorsement of accupuncture nor a celebration of skeptical thought but it did appear to show some interesting results re: accupuncture.

I personally wouldn't be surprised if there is something physiological in accupuncture. When I have bad hangovers I can "trace" the in my head right down to the bottom of my sternum with hard finger pressure so that it helps stop the pain. I also discovered a link betwen pain in my abdomen with pain in my shoulder and bizarrely a pain on the left hand side of my right middle finger nail. If bite that point it tops the stomach and shoulder pain (which I get when I go running for some reason). I have no explanation for this, it's just something I've stumbled upon. I've not found other connections.

I don't buy into nebulous "energy" concepts and Qi etc. But I do recognise that over long periods of time trial and error can come up with some amazing results. The people who discover such things fit them into the beliefs and knowledge of the time and create a model which has some value. Hippocrates had his 4 humours which is total bunkum but some of his cures worked all the same.

It is not beyond the realms of reason that targetted nerve stimulation could have certain effects on the brain and nervous system.

 

[pdw709]

I thought the program was'nt too bad. I'm a hardened Skeptic, and have no time for accupuncture, infact my wife recently had a session after a Doctors recommendation (against my better judgement!)

HOWEVER, whilst there were notable problems with the presented trials, in particular the lack of a true double blind test, I felt sufficiently interested to see that further studies take place. Obviuosly the Chi\Life-force stuff is a load of rubbish, but there maybe something else to it. The final study showing the brain/MRI test although was'nt conclusive and although fundamentally flawed due to the lack of a decent placebo (as discussed already) did warrant further investigation.

Of all the alternative medicenes, accupuncture is the one (and only?) that i feel scientifically has any chance of working (even if it not for the reasons that accupuncturists believe).

I'm still skeptical, but would like to see more research...........

Roll on next week, now that accupuncture is out of the way the rest should be a very straight forward debunking!

BTW, I thought Kathy Sykes did an okay job, sure she was'nt the most skeptical but she was better than most presenters that are usually rolled out. And my recollection of her final statement was'nt a 100% endorsement, it was more of a surprise and a wish to see more studies to confirm what she had seen. She's also not a bad looking for a Professor............

Phil

 

[John A]

Possibly the 'acupuncturist' muttering under his breath how it wasn't going to work when doing the control might have had an influence?

Point taken. In fairness if the data is from the 3T MRI the acupuncturist would have to shout very loudly his disbelief as the patient must wear ear defenders. I have never used MEG. But I agree that there could be non verbal cues. However it's hard to think of a way of double blinding it effectively unless the points are in a mass of non-descript flesh [insert your own joke here].

I noted that they didn't say "local anaesthetic" they said that her "chest was numbed". I found that a little strange. If people know what a general anaesthetic is I would assume they would be au fait with "local anaesthetic". Choices of word like this make me suspicious as to what the program is trying to do.

All together an excellent programme which strongly suggests there is something to acupuncture.

I thought the start (operation aside) was fairly good although a bit more reference to suggestion and placebo wouldn't have gone amis. What I am particularly annoyed at is the build-up culminated in the complete failure to present the results in a transparent manner. I agree that the program makes the suggestion (to the viewers) that there is "something to acupuncture" if that's what you meant. But how one can reach that conclusion from the barely presented experiment is beyond me - if you disagree please explain exactly what you think this experiment demonstrated.

However I do agree that there is something (an analgesic effect) to acupuncture (using the laymans' definition: sticking needles in people at random). The danger is that unless you state precisely what the experiment shows, people take away the conclusion that the entire body of acupuncture theory is correct.

So for "public engagement in science" I'd say this was a success. For "public understanding of science" I think it left a lot to be desired.

 

[richardm]

And then when she skipped out the hospital a few days later, she had a whopping great scar down her chest - the zipper club you mention?

And that was one cack-handed bit of stitching by the look of things. Quite ironic considering the hospital's predilection for needles.

Don't want to repeat the criticisms already made, although I must agree that her gasping "isn't this amazing! And so unexpected! Wow!" tone got a bit wearing.

I'll still be interested to see the next programme. It does seem that there may be something to acupuncture, after all (even though it's nothing like what proponents claim - which won't stop them using this programme to shout "Acupuncture works!" and miss out the qualifiers). I'm still hoping that they've picked acupuncture for the first episode for the reason that they could get something positive out of it and lure in people who'd normally steer clear of such a programme because it has "Scientists" in it. We'll see.

 

[John A]

details here
XXX.annals.org/cgi/reprint/141/12/901.pdf

Actually I was after the names of the scientists in the MEG/MRI study at the end of the program.

 

[John A]

I had to laugh when the volunteer was being put in the MRI and they were explaining how they would get them out if the machine broke down! I've had MRIs and all they said to me was, "Lie there and keep very still"!!!

Actually I think that was the MEG scanner - they said it was to isolate the room from the earths magnetic field.

 

[brettDbass]

How about the OA "test"?

I was extremely annoyed by the way she gleefully said that "acupuncture clearly works, at least for OA of the knee".
The only result we were presented with was that 33% of those receiving real acupuncture reported "some imporvement". No mention of how many reported the same from the (rather shoddily controlled) placebo group. And besides, it's obvious that at only 33% this could easily still be a placebo effect anyway. I could go on about how shot full of holes this single test was, but you're the converted and I'm no preacher.

The entire programme was riddled with errors and omissions and I was thoroughly disappointed by the team of scientists, both for their approach to the testing and their subsequent interpretation of the outcome. My only hope is that some serious "constructive editing" was employed.
Of course, when I refer to the scientists I am not including the presenter lady. She's all right for programmes like Rough Science, but she's clearly WAY out of her depth in attempting to do real science.


I'm currently considering sending some comments about this shoddy affair to both the BBC and the Open University who are jointly behind it.

http://www.open2.net/feedback.html
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/feedback/

 

[Mid]

Hang on a sec, Rolf described her as a creduloid (and airhead). How can she be a creduloid if she is more skeptical than me?? If I am not a creduloid, then a fortiori she can't be either.

That may or may not be the case, but I was responding to your response about her unaquivicably accepting accupuncture not whether she was a creduloid or not.

 

[andycal]

I'm currently considering sending some comments about this shoddy affair to both the BBC and the Open University who are jointly behind it.

http://www.open2.net/feedback.html
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/feedback/

You can also contact Kathy directly through the Bristol Uni site. I have emailed her specifically asking about the heart surgery. With a bit of luck, when she's got through the three thousand emails asking for a signed picture, she'll get to mine and send a reply. I'll post any correspondence here.

 

[brettDbass]

You can also contact Kathy directly through the Bristol Uni site. I have emailed her specifically asking about the heart surgery. With a bit of luck, when she's got through the three thousand emails asking for a signed picture, she'll get to mine and send a reply. I'll post any correspondence here.

Good stuff.

I don't expect to get anything back from the Beeb and the OU will probably tell me they can't comment, but it may well be worth a shot just on the off chance.

 

[Elaedith]

I only caught a bit of this program. The part I saw was the use of acupuncture to stop smoking. They apparently 'tested' this by telling the participant exactly what to expect (nausea after smoking) then standing around with cameras rolling and several doctors as well as the presenter looking on to see if she produced the expected response. This was presented as if it was evidence that acupuncture works; if valid, then nausea, nausea, therefore valid.



In order to NOT produce the expected response, the participant would not only have to be non-suggestible, but willing to brave the disapproval of everyone watching.

 

[sionep]

She is apparently a respected physicist, although she obviously has a career ahead as a TV presenter - no compliment intended.

That may be so (a respected physicist), but I think that she has been out of the game for a while. Some academics gained their qualifications and then basically teach and not do any research.