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Australia

"'Fake' acupuncture helps relieve back pain"

Source: The Australian

Published: 13 May 2009

Category: Complementary and Alternative Medicines

Rating: (4 stars)

what they said (Hover the mouse cursor over underlined words for more info)

USING acupuncture to treat chronic back pain is more effective than standard treatments alone, a leading scientific study has found.

The original article can be found at: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25471726-23289,00.html

how did it rate? (more information)

Criteria	Rating
Total Score	7 of 9
Novelty of remedy	Satisfactory (?)
CAM classification	Satisfactory (?)
Availability of Treatment	Satisfactory (?)
Treatment Options	Satisfactory (?)
Disease Mongering	Satisfactory (?)
Evidence	Not Satisfactory (?)
Quantification of Benefits of Treatment	Not Satisfactory (?)
Harms of Remedy	Satisfactory (?)
Costs of Remedy	Satisfactory (?)
Sources of Information	Not Applicable
Relies on Press Release	Not Applicable

what we said (Hover the mouse cursor over underlined words for more info)

The story accurately reports the research, although a quantitative measure of benefit would make it more informative.

A local expert was consulted, but muddied the water with information tangential to the main story. There is no argument that sticking a needle into a piece of skin is different to just touching it, the point is whether this is equally effective at treating pain.

public forum

(04 Jun 2009) Michael Zimmer writes,

"This was not "well conducted research".

All treatment arms of this study still received standard care. That the fake acupuncture, non-specific acupuncture and personalised acupuncture regimed had no statistical difference in their effects demonstrated that the observed effect was nothing more than placebo in action.

Please consider revising your rating and commentary on this study (particularly on "evidence")

Some commentary:
http://thebackpainblog.org/acupuncture-needles-no-better- than-toothpicks/
http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=492
http://www.theness.com/neurologicablog/?p=535
http://skeptico.blogs.com/skeptico/2009/05/acupuncture-still-doesnt-work.html
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2009/05/another_acupuncture_study_misi nterpreted.php"

Media Doctor response,

"Thanks Michael for your comment. However, I believe you are confusing our
ratings. We don't rate the actual research, but how well the article
reported the research. In our view the article did not report the level of
evidence satisfactorily, therefore it was rated 'Not Satisfactory'. We did not comment that it was "well conducted research". Media Doctor aims to show how clearly the news article is relaying health information to the public, not how well the research is conducted.
One of the reviewers comments were that he "has taken pains to limit criticism to the story rather than to the trial on which it is based, or to the interpretation of results made by those who conducted the trial." It seems we are on the same page with this one.
Regards
Media Doctor"

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