FIH plug Thames Valley University survey
Posted by gimpy on July 4, 2009
The Prince’s Foundation for Integrated Health (FIH) are plugging a survey by Thames Valley University (TVU) examining patients and medical practitioners attitudes to complementary medicine (CAM). Quite apart from containing the following amusing graphic, the FIH article could be seen as an attempt to influence the survey by directing participants naturally predisposed to CAM, hence their browsing of the FIH site, to it.
This could create a fundamental bias in survey participants and result in a survey reflecting the views of a narrow subset of society without any indication that this is the case. I’m sure that this is not the intended case, and the apparent omission of uninterested non-users, “meh”, in the graphic above does not reflect the researchers own bias.
To correct this apparent oversight in not broadcasting their survey to a wider audience I would urge all readers of this blog to complete the survey, if they fit the required criteria, and to pass it on to their friends and family.
I also note that TVU, and the FIH, have suggested that people involved in public health care display this poster in their public spaces.
I feel that this poster is missing some important detail. After all it does not state why you should tell your doctor about these therapies nor indeed provide any important information on them. To rectify this I have made some small additions and would urge any health professionals reading this blog and wanting to use the poster to use the following version instead.
[BPSDB]
*update*
Minor amendements to poster – clarified role of Mao & changed advice on vitamins
Ray Girvan said
Very nice. But I’d change the first sentence of the acupuncture one to an evidence-based criticism (e.g. no known anatomical basis for acupuncture points). As it stands, it’s a guilt-by-association fallacy.
gimpy said
I know Ray, but there is an important historical point to be made when people claim ‘tradition’. The FIH themselves claim that TCM and acupuncture
which is nonsense. Last century at the instigation of Mao would be more accurate.
ez said
Gimpy, I’m sorry but this is not true.
Moxa incense treatment on acupuncture points on the body was used in Japan already at least 400 years ago and it was brought from China, I’ve read this in a lot of local sources over the yours I live here, but they’re all printed sources and are in local language so I cannot obviously give you any internet references for that.
I have visited Korea, and TCM is widely used there and has a tradition of at least several centuries, from the times they were still a buddhist country and did not eat meat, mostly it was practiced in Buddhist monasteries, and still is very widespread…
ANf if you read your reference attentively you’ll mark the sentence that “chairman Mao has REVIVED these as “barefoot medicine”" – which means they’ve been there all along despite several attempts to suppress them.
Generations of Chinese emigrants all over SOuth-East Asia use it (TCM, the herbal/element treatments, which are based on the same ideas as acupuncture, that is “unbalance of energies along the meridians”), and these are the people who left China as early as colonial wars, which far precede Mao rule, and they already had their doctors leave with them – these are the wealthy Chinese merchants who flourish in countries like Malaysia and Indonesia, and Singapore, of course, – I’ve been to Malaysia, I’ve seen them there and we even had a Chinese Malaysian guide who told us a lot about their community there…
In Eastern regions of RUssia, or rather Siberia, there exist old mongolian medical texts that have been found by archaeologists, and at home in RUssia I even have a reprint of one such text with comments published in 1960ties, where all the theory of the “meridians” etc. is already described in great detail. And the local buddhist followers (not Russian but mongolian by origin) use it in their everyday life.
You may consider this all as anecdotes, of course, but in any case what you seem to imply is simply not true.
gimpy said
EZ TCM, as a body of work, was instigated by Mao, that is what I meant. Not that the individual techniques hadn’t been used historically. That still doesn’t make them work though.
Claire said
The typology TVA gives above doesn’t have a category for non-user (now sceptical) who has tried TCA in the past & found it not to be effective or had adverse effects, of which there would be a quite a few parents, I would thought, e.g. me (eczema). I’ve looked at the survey and, even without getting lots of respondents from FIH, it already seems to me to be pitched at parents who are pro-TCA. There isn’t really any question along the lines of “Have you used TCA and been dissatisfied with the results?” though I have written a bit where there were comment boxes. In the typologies cited above, the non believer/sceptic non-user comes across as a bit of a reactionary curmudgeon: the fact that the disbelief and scepticism might be based on an empirical process doesn’t seem to be allowed for.
p.s.
the link from the typologies box is to the wrong organisation: Princes Foundation is fih.org.uk(fixed – gimpy)
Rob A said
I agree completely, Claire.
I felt I was allowed to say “yes, I’ve used it…”, but not “… and it was rubbish.”
Eleanor said
Coming very late to this, but just want to agree strongly with Claire. I completed the ‘Have you used TCA?’ question and was ready for follow-up questions about how I rated it, would I use it again (no, it was pointless) … which never appeared.
Ray Girvan said
Yes, “instigation” would be good: it makes it clearer that the point is recency, not just endorsement by a dictator.
gimpy said
I’ll get it corrected tomorrow, if i get time
Sean Ellis said
It’s good to see that you can contribute even if you do not use SCAM therapies for your children. I’ve just filled in the survey myself, which I wouldn’t have done without FIH’s publicity.
Budicius said
Why is it that evidence based medicine has little appeal to the general populace?
gimpy said
Doesn’t it?
Budicius said
Well do I take a cocktail of unpronounceable chemicals that were proven to work in a clinical trial last week for a particular ailment, or do I take a herb that has been traditionally used for 2000 years for the same ailment? The herb is natural and seems safe, may resonate better with the psyche of the general populace. Recent celebrity deaths attributed to prescription medication doesn’t seem to help the cause for evidence based medicine.
gimpy said
Whether or not you can pronounce them has no bearing on their efficacy, the clinical trial will answer that. They work. The herb has not been shown to work despite traditional use. So what do you use? Are you scared of the big words or the lack of evidence?
And what have ‘recent celebrity deaths’ got to do with anything? Do no herbs kill? Foxglove? Nightshade? Ephedra? Natural does not equal safe.
Budicius said
“The herb has not been shown to work despite traditional use.” Although some herbs have been shown throughout history to have the chemical capacity to kill. And what of the Opium poppy, have not the naturally occuring chemicals derived from it been shown to work? So yes the herb has been shown to work similarly in a traditional sense.
gimpy said
Oh stop nitpicking. You know what my point is. Controlled dose vs uncontrolled dose. Evidence vs tradition. You may wish to brew poppy tea to cope with severe chronic pain, I’d prefer if health services prescribed morphine, less chance of inadvertent death that way.
Budicius said
Precisely Gimpy, Thanks to the traditional uses of the Opium Poppy we have Morphine.
davidp said
And in a piece of mis-direction, if you give a child a warm Lemon and Honey drink when they have a cold, you are using a “Traditional and Complementary Approach”, and they cite this as an example on the front of the survey. This will nicely inflate the “parents use of CM” percentage, boosting the apparent legitimacy.
ez said
Well, if you consider the fact that there have been no blinded controlled trials on the use of Lemon and Honey drink, this certainly falls into the category of something complementary – don’t you see that the idea of using such trial as the only measure to see if something works or not is really ridiculous if applied rigidly?
Claire said
A good point, Davidp. It sometimes seems to me that a definition is being promoted which limits conventional/modern medicine to pharmacological treatment and surgical intervention and designates everything else, including such things as advice about diet, lifestyle exercise etc as Complementary. I find this just a little irritating.
Northern Doctor said
Yes, I’ve just completed it as well. Apparently chicken soup is also a part of the Trad and Comp Approach. Presumably only the ‘For the Soul’ variety.