fraud
The autum seems to be the season for awards. I recently mentioned the ‘Gloden Plank‘ and now The Skeptic announced the Ockham Awards – the annual awards celebrating the very best work from within the skeptical community. The awards draw attention to people who work hard to promote skepticism. The Ockhams honour outstanding campaigns, activism, blogs, podcasts, and other contributors to the skeptical cause.
Nominations for the 2023 Ockham Awards are now open! Simply complete the nomination form to submit your nominations.
The Rusty Razor is an entirely different award. It recognises individuals or organisations who have been prominent promoters of unscientific ideas within the last year. Last year’s Rusty Razor went to the Global Warming Policy Foundation, set up in 2009 by climate change denier Nigel Lawson. The Foundation has published several reports downplaying the threat of climate change.
Previous Rusty Razor winners included
- Dr Mike Yeadon for his anti-vaccination BS,
- Dr Didier Raoult for his promotion of hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for COVID-19,
- Andrew Wakefield for his ongoing promotion of anti-vaxx misinformation,
- Gwyneth Paltrow for her pseudoscience-peddling wellness empire, Goop.
The awards are, as always, based on the nominations received from the skeptical community. This is your chance to see your skeptic hero and your most prolific charlatan regognised.
So, what are you waiting for? Submit your nominations now!
Nominations will close on September 9th. Winners will be chosen by the editorial board of THE SKEPTIC, and the winners will be announced at QED in Manchester on September 23rd.
The “Golden Plank in Front of the Head” is a satirical negative prize awarded since many years by the Vienna Sceptics. It is given to people and organisations who seek money, fame or influence with scientifically refuted theories, although they should have known better long ago. From miracle healers to divining rods – the world of esoteric nonsense is large and wide. At the “Golden Plank” award ceremony, the year’s highlights are presented and the most outstanding of them is chosen.
It is goof fun – I remember that once even Charles Windsor had been nominated – and have reported about this award before; e.g.:
- German association of doctor-homeopaths receive prestigious award
- The most preposterous piece of pseudoscientific piffle of the year
- Professor Harald Walach, pseudo-scientist of the year
An Austrian paper just reported the good news that, after the interruption due to the pandemic, the previously yearly event is happening again:
The years of the pandemic and Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine have led to even the most nonsensical counterfactual and anti-scientific theories finding an audience. Often enough, these claims themselves came along in the white cloak of science – but in doing so, they twisted the findings of scientific studies or referred to those that were highly questionable.
The list of possible candidates is correspondingly long … some of the masterminds of the anti-vaccination and anti-pandemic movement such as the doctor Maria Hubmer-Mogg, her colleague Andreas Sönnichsen, who called the Covid vaccinations “the biggest medical scandal of all time”, and the psychiatrist Raphael Bonelli.
Political scientist Ulrike Guérot qualified as a candidate on several occasions – both with her claims during the pandemic and on the Russian war against Ukraine (“thus it becomes clear that Ukraine was given the role of starting a war with Russia on behalf of the West”).
But also former science journalists like Peter F. Mayer, who continues to twist scientific studies at will on a daily basis with his tkp blog, and Bert Ehgartner have made their sweary contributions to vaccination scepticism in Austria, which now also affects many other life-saving vaccinations. The role of some media and their representatives in the recent dissemination of anti-scientific nonsense and conspiracy ideologies, which are sometimes themselves more or less cleverly disguised as satire, should not be underestimated.
Finally, in recent months, one or the other politician – keyword: “Science is one thing, facts are another” – has manoeuvred himself into a promising position. Among the parties, the MFG, which has made anti-science part of its programme, comes to the fore. But the climate change small talkers of the ÖVP and FPÖ would also deserve a censuring mention – as well as that Austrian ruling party that has its own anti-nuclear spokesperson.
We don’t want to prejudge your favourites here, however, and look forward to receiving as many suggestions and reasons as possible. There is a separate page to officially nominate them. From all online submissions, a jury will select three finalists and finally this year’s winner. In addition, as is tradition, a “Golden Board for Lifetime Achievement” will also be awarded.
The awards ceremony will take place on 5 October 2023 in the Vienna Stadtsaal. This year, for the first time, there will also be an audience award, which will be decided live by the guests. Martin Puntigam from the Science Busters and Andre Wolf from Mimikama will host the evening. The laudations will be given by medical historian Daniela Angetter-Pfeiffer, psychiatrist and neurologist Heidi Kastner and health scientist and epidemiologist Gerald Gartlehner. According to the organisers, it will be an evening to learn, to laugh and to shake one’s head.
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If you want to nominate someone of your choice (I believe they consider international charlatans as well), you can do it here: Das Goldene Brett 2023 – Der Negativpreis 🏆 (goldenesbrett.guru)
This study aimed to clarify the psychological mechanism by which individuals accept health misinformation from social media and how health misperceptions affect subsequent unhealthy behavior in the context of dewormer use.
An online survey was conducted with 307 South Korean adults exposed to dewormer use information on social media. The positive association between the respondents’ uncertainty about their health and factual misbeliefs about dewormer use was moderated by their pre-existing attitude toward so-called alternative medicine (SCAM) vs. standard treatments, suggesting that individuals who are uncertain but more favorable toward SCAM tend to accept factual misbeliefs more easily. Individuals’ uncertainty about their health and treatment for the health management was positively associated with conspiracy beliefs. Factual misbeliefs were the key mediator in the association between the interaction of uncertainty and pre-existing attitude toward SCAM vs. standard treatments and dewormer-taking intention.
This is a subject that we have discussed many times before. See, for instance, here:
- How can we reduce the belief in conspiracy theories?
- Conspiracy Beliefs Predict Health Behavior and Well-being during the Pandemic
- Coronavirus conspiracy beliefs, mistrust, and compliance with government guidelines
- Mistrust + Misinformation —> CONSPIRACY THEORY
- Conspiracy theories and dangerous recommendations via YouTube videos
- “The cancer industry is a medical conspiracy against humanity” (The Turmeric story)
- Conspiracy theories, assumptions, opinions, evidence and scientific facts
- A conspiracy theory seems to be driving the popularity of alternative medicine
In my view, it is hugely important. Consumers who are uncertain, easily misled, convinced that ‘the establishment’ is against them, or prone to other conspiracy theories tend to be the ones that also fall easily for the lies of SCAM promoters. Indeed, I have previously suggested that SCAM itself is a conspiracy theory in disguise. Anyone who has been following the comment sections on this blog will find more evidence for this theory than he had ever needed, I fear.
It is clear to me that misinformation undermines not just evidence-based medicine but – much more dangerous -rationality in general. It would be thus urgent to do something about it.
But what?
In my view, the answer is to promote critical thinking. This, of course, is what I am aiming at with my blog. But my effort is merely a drop in the ocean. What we need is a systematic promotion of critial thinking on a much larger scale. It has to start at school and should be followed through to post-graduate education and beyond.
Such a strategy would require a very broad backing, not least on the political levels. And this is where the concept runs into insurmountable difficulties: politcians might not want us to be critical thinkers! This could enable the public to realize what often dismally poor jobs they might be up to.
Manual therapy is considered a safe and less painful method and has been increasingly used to alleviate chronic neck pain. However, there is controversy about the effectiveness of manipulation therapy on chronic neck pain. Therefore, this systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) aimed to determine the effectiveness of manipulative therapy for chronic neck pain.
A search of the literature was conducted on seven databases (PubMed, Cochrane Center Register of Controlled Trials, Embase, Medline, CNKI, WanFang, and SinoMed) from the establishment of the databases to May 2022. The review included RCTs on chronic neck pain managed with manipulative therapy compared with sham, exercise, and other physical therapies. The retrieved records were independently reviewed by two researchers. Further, the methodological quality was evaluated using the PEDro scale. All statistical analyses were performed using RevMan V.5.3 software. The Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development and Evaluations (GRADE) assessment was used to evaluate the quality of the study results.
Seventeen RCTs, including 1190 participants, were included in this meta-analysis. Manipulative therapy showed better results regarding pain intensity and neck disability than the control group. Manipulative therapy was shown to relieve pain intensity (SMD = -0.83; 95% confidence interval [CI] = [-1.04 to -0.62]; p < 0.0001) and neck disability (MD = -3.65; 95% CI = [-5.67 to – 1.62]; p = 0.004). However, the studies had high heterogeneity, which could be explained by the type and control interventions. In addition, there were no significant differences in adverse events between the intervention and the control groups.
The authors concluded that manipulative therapy reduces the degree of chronic neck pain and neck disabilities.
Only a few days ago, we discussed another systematic review that drew quite a different conclusion: there was very low certainty evidence supporting cervical SMT as an intervention to reduce pain and improve disability in people with neck pain.
How can this be?
Systematic reviews are supposed to generate reliable evidence!
How can we explain the contradiction?
There are several differences between the two papers:
- One was published in a SCAM journal and the other one in a mainstream medical journal.
- One was authored by Chinese researchers, the other one by an international team.
- One included 17, the other one 23 RCTs.
- One assessed ‘manual/manipulative therapies’, the other one spinal manipulation/mobilization.
The most profound difference is that the review by the Chinese authors is mostly on Chimese massage [tuina], while the other paper is on chiropractic or osteopathic spinal manipulation/mobilization. A look at the Chinese authors’ affiliation is revealing:
- Department of Tuina and Spinal Diseases Research, The Third School of Clinical Medicine (School of Rehabilitation Medicine), Zhejiang Chinese Medical University, Hangzhou, China.
- Department of Tuina and Spinal Diseases Research, The Third School of Clinical Medicine (School of Rehabilitation Medicine), Zhejiang Chinese Medical University, Hangzhou, China; Department of Tuina, The Third Affiliated Hospital of Zhejiang Chinese Medical University, Hangzhou, China. Electronic address: [email protected].
- Department of Tuina and Spinal Diseases Research, The Third School of Clinical Medicine (School of Rehabilitation Medicine), Zhejiang Chinese Medical University, Hangzhou, China; Department of Tuina, The Third Affiliated Hospital of Zhejiang Chinese Medical University, Hangzhou, China. Electronic address: [email protected].
What lesson can we learn from this confusion?
Perhaps that Tuina is effective for neck pain?
No!
What the abstract does not tell us is that the Tuina studies are of such poor quality that the conclusions drawn by the Chinese authors are not justified.
What we do learn – yet again – is that
- Chinese papers need to be taken with a large pintch of salt. In the present case, the searches underpinning the review and the evaluations of the included primary studies were clearly poorly conducted.
- Rubbish journals publish rubbish papers. How could the reviewers and the editors have missed the many flaws of this paper? The answer seems to be that they did not care. SCAM journals tend to publish any nonsense as long as the conclusion is positive.
This article entitled: Keeping Medical Science Trustworthy: The Threat by Predatory Journals caught my attention.
Many scientific journals have started to ask article processes costs from authors. This development has created a new category of journals of which the business model is totally or predominantly based on financial contributions by its authors. Such journals have become known as predatory journals. The financial contributions that they ask are not necessarily lower than those asked by high-quality journals although they offer less:
- there is commonly no real review,
- texts are not edited,
- there are commonly no printed editions.
The lack of serious reviews might make predatory journals attractive particularly to authors of low-quality (or even fraudulent) manuscripts.
The authors of this paper suggest that numerous journals, some of which may predatory, attract manuscripts by approaching authors of articles in high-quality journals. They conclude that publication of articles in such journals contaminates the medical literature and undermines the trustworthiness of science and medicine. Any involvement in such journals (as an author, reviewer or editor) should therefore be discouraged.
The ironic thing here is that the paper was published by a journal that itelf is, in my view, borderline, to say the least. But let me nonetheless contribute a recent, personal experience on this issue.
About 2 weeks ago, I received an invitation to join the editorial board of a general medicine journal that I had never heard of. I looked it up and found that it had a decent impact factor and a long list of international members of the board. But then I found that the journal charged around $ 1 500 for each submission. I was told that this is to cover the cost of the review process.
I then decided to write to the editor thanking her for the kind invitation. I also asked her how much the journal would pay its reviewers for reviewing submissions. I received a polite answer explaining that the amount was $ 00.00. My response was to politely decline the invitation to join the editorial board and to urge the journal editor to make it clear from the outset that the fees charged to authors did NOT go to the reviewers.For many years now, I have taken a very dim view on predatory journals. Sadly, in the realm of so-called alternative medicine (SCAM), there currently are dozens of such publications. I believe their danger in polluting the medical literature is hard to over-estimate. I think they ought to be stopped. One way of doing this is refusing to co-operate with them in any way.
Spiritual healing has been defined as the direct interaction between one individual (the healer) and a patient, with the intention of improving the patient’s condition or curing the illness. Treatment can occur through personal, direct contact between healer and patient or at a (sometimes large) distance. Spiritual healers, who are usually not medically qualified, believe that the therapeutic effect results from the channelling of ‘energy’ from an undefined source via the healer to the patient. The main problem with this concept is that there is no evidence that this energy actually exists. Therefore, the assumptions on which spiritual healing is based lack plausibility.
The central claim of healers is that they promote or facilitate self-healing and wellbeing, both of which could be relevant to patients with any type of condition. An article by enthusiasts of spiritual healing explains: “All conditions can be treated by spiritual healing—but not all people. Some people are more receptive than others to this treatment, due to a number of factors such as karma and mental outlook. As such the results of healing can vary a great deal. If the patient has faith in the technique and the healer, this will of course aid the healing process, but is not necessary; this is not faith healing as practiced in some religions—it is based instead on spiritual energy. This being the case, it is possible for a skeptic to receive healing and benefit from it.”
The evidence from clinical trials of spiritual healing is contradictory. Many studies have serious flaws, and the most reliable trials fail to show effects beyond placebo. Research papers often fail to differentiate between different types of paranormal healing. One Cochrane, for instance, review “found inconclusive evidence that interventions with spiritual or religious components for adults in the terminal phase of a disease may or may not enhance well-being. Such interventions are under-evaluated. All five studies identified were undertaken in the same country, and in the multi-disciplinary palliative care interventions it is unclear if all participants received support from a chaplain or a spiritual counsellor. Moreover, it is unclear in all the studies whether the participants in the comparative groups received spiritual or religious support, or both, as part of routine care or from elsewhere. The paucity of quality research indicates a need for more rigorous studies.”
Many people believe that spiritual healing is harmless. Sadly, this is not the case. The BBC’s ‘Women’s Hour’ reported on 9 August this year about serious abuses of spiritual healers. Here you can find the published test of the broadcast:
Spiritual healing is extremely popular in many countries in the Middle East and North Africa. But the practice is unregulated and that means women are vulnerable to sexual exploitation. An investigation by BBC News Arabic has uncovered allegations of widespread sexual abuse by healers in Sudan and Morocco. Clare McDonnell is joined by the BBC’s Hanan Razek and Senior Women’s Rights Researcher at Human Rights Watch, Rothna Begum, to discuss.
And here you can listen to the actual broadcast. Briefly, what it reveales is deeply shocking:
- Spiritual healing is extremely popular in Sudan and Morocco.
- Healers charge hefty sums and healing is big business.
- Anyone regardless of background or training can call themselves a healer.
- There is no regulation whatsoever.
- Healers claim to cure illnesses, expell evil spirits, help with emotional problems, etc.
- For the programme, the BBC asked 80 women who had received healing.
- They accused 60 different healers of sexual transgression, including rape.
- Undercover recording revealed a healer placing his hand on a woman’s abdomen and then putting a finger “all the way down”.
- The police refuses to investigate if a women complains.
- The authorities refuse to take notice of the problem.
- A minister was quoted stating that there is no need for regulation.
- Another one said that the political athmosphere is not allowing to investigate the issue.
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The references for the evidence cited above can be found here.
We have discussed the Miracle Mineral Solution (MMS) before. Now it has been making headlines again. It has been reported that a Miami federal jury convicted a father and his three sons of selling a toxic bleach solution as a “miracle” medical cure out of a fake Florida church’s website to thousands of consumers across the US. Mark Grenon, 65, and sons Jonathan, 37, Joseph, 35, and Jordan, 29, chose to represent themselves in their two-day trial in Miami federal court. But they said nothing during the trial as if they were silently protesting the proceeding. Only after the 12-person jury hit them with a quick verdict did one of the Grenons speak up. “We will be appealing,” Joseph Grenon said.
During the trial and closing arguments, prosecutors portrayed the four defendants as con men who used a phony religious front on a website, the Genesis II Church of Health and Healing, to sell $1 million worth of their “Miracle Mineral Solution” a cure for 95% of the world’s known diseases, from AIDS to the coronavirus. “This whole Miracle Mineral Solution scheme was built on deception and dishonesty,” the prosecutor said during his closing argument, telling jurors that the Grenons “created a fake church to make it harder for the Food and Drug Administration and government to stop them from selling snake oil.” But, “this was no church,” he argued. “This was a scam for money — an old-fashioned scam.” The jury found the four defendants — all wearing beige inmate uniforms, ponytails, and flowing beards — guilty of conspiring to defraud the U.S. government and FDA, which regulates the food and drug industry, by distributing an unapproved and misbranded drug, Miracle Mineral Solution (MMS). That conviction carries up to five years in prison.
During the trial, the prosecutor said the Grenons called themselves “bishops” and peddled MMS as “sacraments” to consumers in South Florida and other parts of the US in exchange for a “donation” to the Genesis church, before the FDA cracked down on the family in 2020.
The Grenons were charged that April with conspiring to defraud the U.S. government after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic when they defied FDA and court orders to stop distributing the toxic MMS substance. Their criminal case was the first pandemic-related enforcement action in Florida. In public warnings, FDA said it received several reports of hospitalizations and life-threatening conditions as people drank the dangerous substance.
MMS is a chemical solution containing sodium chlorite that, when mixed with water and a citric acid “activator,” turns into chlorine dioxide, a powerful bleach typically used for industrial water treatment or bleaching textiles, pulp, and paper. During the trial, a FDA agent testified about three Grenon-produced videos that pitched the solution as a cure for cancer, lung cancer, and COVID-19, among other deadly diseases. “We are trying to create a world without disease,” Mark Grenon said in one video, pitching the MMS substance. “It’s been proven to be tremendously effective in curing cancer.” Another video, dated March 8, 2020, was titled: “The coronavirus is curable. Do you believe it? You better!”
Prosecutors said the Grenon family’s religious front, the Genesis II Church of Health and Healing, sold tens of thousands of MMS orders in violation of federal law since 2010. It was in that year that Mark Grenon claims to have founded the organization with a man named Jim Humble in a plan to avoid governmental regulation and arrest as they promoted MMS as a miracle cure. Humble, a man who has dabbled in Scientology and professed to be a billion-year-old god, began promoting the substance as early as 2006 in self-published works after he claimed to have discovered its medical properties while on a gold-mining expedition in South America. After Humble supposedly stepped away from the organization in 2017, Grenon continued to manufacture, promote and sell MMS with his three sons.
The Grenons’ open defiance of a court order ultimately led to criminal charges and a federal raid on the family’s Bradenton home, where federal investigators say they found loaded guns, nearly 10,000 pounds of sodium chlorite powder, and thousands of bottles of MMS.
Sobrenix (Kudzu, Milk Thistle, B Vitamins & More) is “designed to reduce alcohol cravings and help you detoxify your body so you can successfully manage alcohol consumption. Even better, taken before drinking, Sobrenix’s ingredients help you stop before you’ve had too much. DETOXIFY YOUR BODY with a powerful formula that combines herbs and nutrients that support liver health, curb cravings, and help you wake up without a nasty hangover. Sobrenix kick-starts the detoxification process with essential herbs like Milk Thistle and Chanca Piedra. Additionally, the formula contains the critical B-Vitamins that alcohol washes away so you can wake up happy and healthy again!”
Yes, you suspected correctly: this is pure BS!
Not only that but the Federal Trade Commission is taking action under the FTC Act and the Opioid Addiction Recovery Fraud Prevention Act of 2018 (OARFPA) against the makers of Sobrenix. According to the FTC’s complaint, the makers, a company, Rejuvica, and its owners, Kyle Armstrong and Kyle Dilger, made numerous unsubstantiated and false claims about Sobrenix and used paid endorsers in deceptively formatted advertising. The defendants also used bogus review sites to deceive consumers about their products.
As a result of the FTC’s suit, the defendants have agreed to a proposed court order that would permanently ban them from making any unsubstantiated claims about healthcare products or services, as well as require them to pay $650,000 to the FTC to be used for providing refunds to consumers.
“We will not tire in our pursuit of those who prey on individuals struggling with alcohol or other substance use disorders,” said Samuel Levine, Director of the Bureau of Consumer Protection. “This case evidences the breadth of the FTC’s authority to pursue such wrongdoing under both the FTC Act and OARFPA.”
The FTC charges that the defendants marketed Sobrenix with messages like:
- “STRUGGLING TO CONTROL YOUR ALCOHOL CONSUMPTION? Sobrenix is designed to reduce alcohol cravings and help you detoxify your body so you can successfully manage alcohol consumption. Even better, taken before drinking, Sobrenix’s ingredients help you stop before you’ve had too much.”
The FTC charges that Rejuvica and its owners lacked adequate evidence to support these claims. The complaint charges that Rejuvica, Armstrong, and Dilger violated both the FTC Act and OARFPA. The proposed order contains a total monetary judgment of $3,247,737, which is partially suspended based on the defendants’ inability to pay the full amount. The defendants will be required to pay $650,000 to the FTC to be used to refund consumers. If the defendants are found to have lied to the FTC about their financial status, the full judgment will be immediately due.
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A few short comments might be in order:
- Regulators have the duty to protect consumers from false health claims.
- It is commendable that some authorities sometimes do their duty and go after some of the people responsible for making false claims related to dietary supplements.
- Such actions should, however, occur MUCH more often.
- They ought to happen also in countries other than the US.
- Similar actions should be initiated against ALL false claims made for healthcare products and services.
- This means that all practitioners of so-called alternative medicine (SCAM) would need to review their advertising, websites, etc., and erase therapeutic claims that are not supported by evidence.
- This would unquestionably amount to an enormously valuable service to public health.
- Most countries already have legislation that would make such steps possible; my question, therefore, is this:
WHY ARE CONSUMERS NOT ADEQUATELY PROTECTED BY THEIR NATIONAL REGULATORS FROM CHARLATANS WHO SELL INEFFECTIVE AND OFTEN DANGEROUS SCAMs AT HIGH COSTS?
As the organizer of several demos in the area of Linz, Austria, a ‘corona activist’ and ‘Holocaust denier’ had repeatedly made headlines over the past two years. Now the 39-year-old Austrian man is in the headlines yet again.
It has been reported that, on the evening of July 23, he was stopped by the police for a routine traffic control. His three children, aged 15, 11, and 5, were also in the car. “I know I’m wanted. I don’t have a driver’s license and I have a dead body in the trunk,” he said as he got out of the car. As the officers soon realized, he was only partly joking. A legal case for Holocaust denial was pending against the man who had not appeared at his main hearing last August, so a search was underway for him.
When police officers checked the car, they made the horrifying discovery. In the trunk was a woman’s body, wrapped in sheets. The dead woman turned out to be the wife, aged 38, of the driver. According to preliminary findings, she had died 4 hours earlier. Apparently, she had suffered from incurable cancer, and the police suspect that the illness had not been treated – her husband did not just not believe in vaccinations but disliked all drugs.
The husband, who already had several previous convictions, claimed that he was on his way to bury his wife somewhere “in nature”. The 39-year-old man was arrested and is now in pre-trial detention – though not for the incident with his wife’s body, but for Holocaust denial. He is said to have compared the Corona measures to the Holocaust, and the arrest order was issued because he failed to appear for his trial.
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One does not need to be a clairvoyant to predict that this remarkable man will come up with more surprises. I wonder what he might think of next.
Diabetic peripheral neuropathy (DPN) is a common complication of diabetes mellitus (DM) that can cause annoying symptoms. To address this condition, several treatment approaches have been proposed, including static magnetic field (SMF) therapy, which has shown promise in treating neurological conditions. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the effects of SMF therapy on symptomatic DPN and the quality of life (QoL) in patients with type 2 diabetes.
A double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled trial was conducted from April to October 2021. Sixty-four DPN patients (20 males, 44 females) were recruited for the study via invitation. The participants were divided into two groups: the magnet group, which used magnetic ankle bracelets (155 mT) for 12 weeks, and the sham group, which used non-magnetic ankle bracelets for the same duration. Neuropathy Symptom Score (NSS), Neuropathic Disability Score (NDS), and Visual Analogue Scale (VAS) were used to assess neuropathy symptoms and pain. In addition, the Neuropathy Specific Quality of Life Questionnaire (Neuro-QoL) tool was used to measure the patients’ quality of life.
Before treatment, there were no significant differences between the magnet and sham groups in terms of the NSS scores (P = 0.50), NDS scores (P = 0.74), VAS scores (P = 0.17), and Neuro-QoL scores (P = 0.82). However, after 12 weeks of treatment, the SMF exposure group showed a significant reduction in NSS scores (P < 0.001), NDS scores (P < 0.001), VAS scores (P < 0.001), and Neuro-QoL scores (P < 0.001) compared to the baseline. The changes in the sham group, on the other hand, were not significant.
The authors concluded that according to obtained data, SMF therapy is recommended as an easy-to-use and drug-free method for reducing DPN symptoms and improving QoL in diabetic type-2 patients.
Our own study and systematic review of the effects of magnetic bracelets and similar devices suggested that the effects of such treatments are due to placebo responses. Therefore, I find the findings of this new study most surprising. Not only that, to be honest, I also find them suspect. Apart from the fact that the treatment has no biological plausibility, I have three main reasons for my skepticism.
- The authors stated that there was no distinguishable difference between the sham and SMF devices in terms of their appearance, weight, or texture, which helped to ensure that the study was double-blinded. This is nonsense, I am afraid! The verum device is magnetic and the sham device is not. It is hardly conceivable that patients who handle such devices for any length of time do not discover this simple fact and thus de-blind themselves. In turn, this means that a placebo effect can easily explain the outcomes.
- Authors who feel that their tiny study of a highly implausible therapy lends itself to concluding that their therapy ‘is recommended as an easy-to-use and drug-free method for reducing DPN symptoms and improving QoL’ can, in my view, not be taken seriously.
- Something that always makes me suspicious of clinical trials is a lack of a placebo response where one would normally expect one. In this study, the control group exhibits hardly any placebo response. Wearing a strap around your ankle that allegedly emits therapeutic radiation would result in quite a strong placebo effect, according to our own findings.
So, forgive me if I do not trust this study any further than I can throw it! And pardon me if I still think that our previous conclusion is correct: The evidence does not support the use of static magnets for pain relief, and therefore magnets cannot be recommended as an effective treatment.
