• Quick note - the problem with Youtube videos not embedding on the forum appears to have been fixed, thanks to ZiprHead. If you do still see problems let me know.

NHS takes up magic magnets cure

Humphreys

Supercalifragilisticskepticalidocious
Humphreys
Joined
Nov 8, 2002
Messages
1,613
NHS takes up Cherie's magic magnets cure
Sarah-Kate Templeton, Medical Correspondent

IT COULD be called the Cleopatra Effect. Magnetic therapy, which has held the rich and powerful in thrall from ancient Egypt to modern Downing Street, is about to be made available on the National Health Service.

Continues...

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-2058902,00.html
 
"Dr Nyjon Eccles, an NHS GP in north London who carried out the trials, said: “I am not surprised that 4UlcerCare has been accepted since the clinical evidence is very convincing.”

Asolepius is gonna LOVE that :nope:
 
NHS accountants are so impressed by the cost-effectiveness of a “magnetic leg wrap” called 4UlcerCare that from Wednesday doctors will be allowed to prescribe it to patients.
Click to expand...

Does anyone know what studies they used to support that assertion?
 
Oops.

Just noticed that the article makes mention of a study in the Journal of Wound Care.

It would still be interesting to know if it was scientifically sound.
 
You can actually find the description of the trial at http://www.magnopulse.com/study%20reports/UlcerCare_Study.htm.

Possible criticisms (that I can see):

a) very small trial (28 participants, although only 25 finished)

b) ineffective placebo (working out whether you have a magnet attached to your leg or not isn't exactly rocket science)

c) allocation to placebo/magnet treatment may not have been properly randomised, or by chance placed significantly more patients who would naturally heal faster (due to the nature of their ulcer) in the experimental condition.

d) Two patients in the Live group did not complete the study and one patient in the Placebo group died between 8 and 12 weeks after the start of the study. If this was because their condition worsened and they needed more surgery, this could introduce significant bias in such a small sample i.e. if you had 4 people and two got better and two worse, then you discarded the two that got worse, you'd have a 100% success rate ;)

e) median measurement isn't very meaningful with this sample size

f) All the data describing ulcer size and hue were very skewed with a number of outliers. There were also some missing values. Subjective identification of `outliers' by experimenters could lead to bias.

This certainly doesn't constitute anywhere near enough evidence to start using NHS funds on this stuff.
 
Last edited:
Magnets to be provided on the NHS? Well, isn't that NICE. ;)
are there any physicists on the board that can rebut this claim from the article
"It is not known exactly how magnets work. "
The rest of the paragraph I can do myself. "Adherents believe they improve circulation because they attract the iron in blood towards them and, in doing so, increase the supply of oxygen to the wound. They may also reduce painful acidity in tissue."
When will woo's learn that
1) Blood is not magnetic (well' ok it's not ferromagnetic for all the pedants out there) and
2) Acid does not always mean bad. (Unless its the brown acid, but that's a different story. ;) )
 
What the hell is wrong with the NHS? I work in a permatemporary, shared office with one computer and two telephones between three people (including myself, an SHO and a psychologist) with little or no secretarial support and literally no rooms to see patients in, and our collective tax money is to be spent on... magnets.

How can the NHS have such double standards? To withdraw dementia drugs for many people with Alzheimer's disease, to challenge the prescription of herceptin in the courts, and then to suddenly forget how to think, and plough money into fashionable idiocy.

Their "special offer" deal may not sound like a huge amount of money, but consider how many of these magic charms will be prescribed. A 1995 audit of one hospital in mid-Essex identified 331 patients treated for leg ulcers in one week. If each of those was given one of these devices, that would have cost £1257.80 just for one week. Per year, that's two or three nurses' salaries. So that hospital could presumably choose between three extra nurses, or this ridiculous placebo.

Meanwhile, here we sit having our ability to do our jobs hampered by third-world conditions, hearing about yet another discredited therapy being repackaged and resold to gormless NHS contracting twerps - the same ones presumably who keep the five homeopathic hospitals running under a healthy NHS budget, whilst real ones close.

The NHS - on the occasions it can be thought to stand for free, state-provided, good quality healthcare for all - is the best invention ever, full stop. But I think we're watching it slowly wither beneath the poisonous fumes of new age fantasy masquerading as 'consumer choice'.
 
brodski said:
Magnets to be provided on the NHS? Well, isn't that NICE. ;)
are there any physicists on the board that can rebut this claim from the article
"It is not known exactly how magnets work. "
The rest of the paragraph I can do myself. "Adherents believe they improve circulation because they attract the iron in blood towards them and, in doing so, increase the supply of oxygen to the wound. They may also reduce painful acidity in tissue."
When will woo's learn that
1) Blood is not magnetic (well' ok it's not ferromagnetic for all the pedants out there) and
2) Acid does not always mean bad. (Unless its the brown acid, but that's a different story. ;) )
Click to expand...

I already debunked the garbage of Dr Nyjon Eccles in the old Bioelectromagnetic thread ages ago. See this post: http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=652459#post652459 and the following one. It looks like he's still spouting the same old nonsense.
 
People, you are being overly critical of magnet therapy. Do you not realise that magnets are Class 1 Medical devices under directive 93/42/EEC. This has been pointed out to me on more than one occasion.

This prestigious honour means that means that they have been rigorously tested and are proven to have
· a general requirement for safe design
· the minimisation of risks from contamination
· compatibility with materials with which they are likely to come into contact
· the minimisation of hazards of infection and microbial contamination
· provision of sufficient accuracy (for devices with a measuring function)
· protection against radiation
· adequate product marking
· adequate user instructions
Ok not a single scrap of evidence that they work but Class 1 Medical Device wow.
 
From the magnopulse study quoted by drfrank above (my emphasis):

Twenty-eight patients with chronic leg ulcers entered the study (20 male). All trial patients had received evidence based ulcer care throughout the study period. Patients were allocated to Placebo (sham, 12 subjects) or Live (real, 16 subjects) magnet treatment.
Click to expand...

In other words, the patients were given proper medical treatment while they were being "treated" with magnets. And the reason they got better had to be solely due to the magnets... I also note that they admit that "magnet therapy" isn't evidence based.

This is identical in form to Eccles earlier "study" (see Bioelectromagnetics thread) in which he concluded that 29.4% of patients experienced pain relief from magnets - of course this had nothing to do with the fact that 29.4% of the patients just happened to be taking pain killers at the same time!

How in heck can anybody call this "science"?
 
Lothian said:
People, you are being overly critical of magnet therapy. Do you not realise that magnets are Class 1 Medical devices under directive 93/42/EEC. This has been pointed out to me on more than one occasion.

This prestigious honour means that means that they have been rigorously tested and are proven to have
· a general requirement for safe design
· the minimisation of risks from contamination
· compatibility with materials with which they are likely to come into contact
· the minimisation of hazards of infection and microbial contamination
· provision of sufficient accuracy (for devices with a measuring function)
· protection against radiation
· adequate product marking
· adequate user instructions
Ok not a single scrap of evidence that they work but Class 1 Medical Device wow.
Click to expand...

Exactly. I also covered that one in the Bioelectromagnetics thread: http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=623001#post623001
 
Lothian said:
People, you are being overly critical of magnet therapy. Do you not realise that magnets are Class 1 Medical devices under directive 93/42/EEC. This has been pointed out to me on more than one occasion.

This prestigious honour means that means that they have been rigorously tested and are proven to have
· a general requirement for safe design
· the minimisation of risks from contamination
· compatibility with materials with which they are likely to come into contact
· the minimisation of hazards of infection and microbial contamination
· provision of sufficient accuracy (for devices with a measuring function)
· protection against radiation
· adequate product marking
· adequate user instructions
Ok not a single scrap of evidence that they work but Class 1 Medical Device wow.
Click to expand...
Um, one minor point, as I understand it, conformity assessment for 93/42/eec is reactive, not proactive.
What this means is that the manufacturing, or importing, company issues a notice of conformity to the local conformity enforcement body, which states that the product meets the requirements of 93/42/eec, conformity is generally only assessed if there is a complaint.
Unless the product is actually dangerous when used as directed by a competent person, the no action can be taken.
All in all the status of a class 1 medical device is about as prestigious as Gillian McKeiths PHD.
 
But shouldn't industrially manufactured magnets be bad for you? Product idea for anybody with questionable ethics reading this: Iron ore is usually magnetic, right? And since you can find it nature, it's "natural". Obviously much better for you... ;)
 
Ririon said:
But shouldn't industrially manufactured magnets be bad for you? Product idea for anybody with questionable ethics reading this: Iron ore is usually magnetic, right? And since you can find it nature, it's "natural". Obviously much better for you... ;)
Click to expand...
No, no, no!
What you want are "rare earth" magnets.
Anything that is "rare" must be worth a bit, "rare" things are special, and so must be better than normal magnets, and they are "earth" magnets, so that means that they're "natural", and therefore good. Lets face it, anything with "earth" in it's name is practically an incarnation of Gaia herself. ;)
 
brodski said:
No, no, no!
What you want are "rare earth" magnets.
Anything that is "rare" must be worth a bit, "rare" things are special, and so must be better than normal magnets, and they are "earth" magnets, so that means that they're "natural", and therefore good. Lets face it, anything with "earth" in it's name is practically an incarnation of Gaia herself. ;)
Click to expand...
But are they organic ?
 
Now, I would probably pay to see an organic magnet.

Crap, a google search came up with one:
US DOE Blasted science!
 
Derek Price, the MD of Magnopulse was interviewed on BBC Radio 5 Live's news program "Drive" last night. The interview started something like this:
DEREK PRICE: "They've been shown to work in a double blind placebo controlled trial".
PRESENTER: "Well the NHS are convinced, so they must work".

To be fair the presenter did go on to (gently) query their effectiveness a little more but the general impression from the interview was that they were clearly and fully proven to work - and I don't remember him asking how they worked at all. (The female presenter ended by jokingly asking if they could make them to relieve pain during childbirth - to which Derek Price said they were actually working on that!!)

The fact is that any treatment endorsed or provided by the NHS is naturally assumed to have been proven to work by most of the general public - a view that I think is regularly reinforced by the media.
 
Pragmatist said:
From the magnopulse study quoted by drfrank above (my emphasis):

In other words, the patients were given proper medical treatment while they were being "treated" with magnets. And the reason they got better had to be solely due to the magnets... I also note that they admit that "magnet therapy" isn't evidence based.

This is identical in form to Eccles earlier "study" (see Bioelectromagnetics thread) in which he concluded that 29.4% of patients experienced pain relief from magnets - of course this had nothing to do with the fact that 29.4% of the patients just happened to be taking pain killers at the same time!

How in heck can anybody call this "science"?
Click to expand...
Although I don't believe in this baloney, the results of this experimental methodology could theoretically still be meaningful.

Of course, looking at absolute changes is meaningless, as this may just be directly attributed to the proper medical treatment given or natural healing. However, all other things being equal (which they almost certainly weren't), if the experimental group showed significant improvement over the control then that would indicate some efficacy to the magnetic treatment.

It really does disgust me that the NHS have snapped up this stuff with public money based on a single tiny trial with a number of very significant flaws, though :mad:
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom