The British Chiropractic Association: experts in cherry-picking
The British Chiropractic Association have an article on their website that contains a rather interesting comment regarding this BMJ article. While the BCA are happy to refer to “one report of 24 cases” and “one UK study” to support two of the various claims they make during the piece, they finish the article by complaining about the BMJ article: Read the rest of this entry »
Risks of CAM Part One: Nocebo
Risk of adverse effects from (mis)information
As well as relying on the placebo effect when making claims of the efficacy of their therapies, those providing alternative treatments may also be aided by something akin to the nocebo effect. If you tell healthy people they are sick (or sick people that they are sicker than they thought), it may be possible to induce the perception of symptoms that you can later claim to have resolved. Read the rest of this entry »
Chiropractic For Autism
This PDF from Discover Chiropractic is headed “Chiropractic and Autism: Studies Give Hope”. Read the rest of this entry »
Simon Singh and the British Chiropractic Association
Having co-authored a book about alternative medicine with Edzard Ernst, popular science writer Simon Singh penned an article for the Guardian about one of the alternative therapies covered in the book. The article was published at a time when chiropractic was being promoted. This newspaper article then became the subject of a complaint from the chiropractic association, the BCA. Read the rest of this entry »
In Defence Of Bloodletting
Bloodletting is sometimes used as an example of a medical treatment that we once thought plausible, but now view as ridiculous. It is compared with chiropractic, homeopathy, and other “Alternative Medicine” disciplines in order to ridicule them. However, we might have been unfair. It appears that bloodletting may actually be more valuable than the Alt Med treatments it is compared to. Read the rest of this entry »
Chiropractic “For Sceptics Only” Pages
Here (and here), we have chiropractors providing “For Sceptics Only” pages on their websites. Let’s take a look… Read the rest of this entry »
Chiropractic for Colic: A Planned RCT
According to this, a randomised double-blind placebo-controlled trial into the effects of chiropractic treatment on infantile colic is to take place. Some will say “too little too late”, given that chiropractors have been claiming to “treat” or “help with” colic for some time now. I have a different concern. The notes on the planned trial state that “subgroup analyses will be performed to identify possible subgroups of infants who will benefit the most from the treatment”. My concern is that, even in the event that the trial does not show a benefit for chiropractic treatment of colic, advocates may claim that subgroup analysis shows that there is a benefit for some children and therefore chiropractic works as a treatment for colic. [The remainder of this post will consist mainly of copying and pasting from here and one or two other sources.]
All The Way up To Eleven… Beware The Spinal Trap
Following the decision of the BCA to sue Simon Singh for his 2008 article Beware the Spinal Trap (published in the Guardian), much has happened. Two bloggers made omnibus complaints about hundreds of chiropractors, for one thing. I’ve written a number of posts about chiropractic myself, but today’s post is a reprint of Simon Singh’s original article, made “lawyer-friendly”. Read the rest of this entry »
Anti-Vaccination Claims
While reading a blog post written by a chiropractor bloke who is definitely not a chiropractor*, I noticed a claim that had been made regarding the vaccination status of children with whooping cough. Read the rest of this entry »
Chiropractic Dirty Tricks. What of the Repercussions?
I was saddened to note recently the response that the blogger Zeno had, following his complaints to the General Chirorpactic Council (GCC). Detailed in full in this post, it seems that a chiropractor (or, worse, possibly even someone who is an employee of the GCC) has signed Zeno up to various catalogues and websites. Read the rest of this entry »
Stuff And Nonsense 