An announcement (it’s in German, I’m afraid) proudly declaring that ‘homeopathy fulfils the criteria of evidence-based medicine‘ caught my attention.
Here is the story:
In 2016, Dr. Melanie Wölk, did a ‘Master of Science’* at the ‘Donau University’ in Krems, Austria investigating the question whether homeopathy follows the rules of evidence-based medicine (EBM). She arrived at the conclusion that YES, IT DOES! This pleased the leading Austrian manufacturer of homeopathics (Dr Peithner) so much and so durably that, on 23 March 2018, he gave her a ‘scientific’ award (the annual Peithner award) for her ‘research’.
So far so good.
Her paper is unpublished, or at least not available on Medline; therefore, I am unable to evaluate it directly. All I know about it from the announcement is that she did her ‘research at the ‘Zentrum für Traditionelle Chinesische Medizin und Komplementärmedizin‘ of the said university. A quick Medline search revealed that this unit has never published anything, not a single paper, it seems! Disappointed I search for Dr. Christine Schauhuber, the leader of the unit; and again I find no Medline-listed publications in her name. My interim conclusion is thus that this institution might not be at the cutting edge of science.
But what do we know about Dr. Melanie Wölk’s award-winning master thesis *?
The announcement tells us that she investigated all RCTs published between 2010 and 2016. In addition, she evaluated:
- the ‘Swiss report’,
- the NHMRC report,
- Shang 2005,
- Ernst 2002,
- the Frass sepsis trial of 2005,
- Linde 1997 (why not Linde 1999? I ask myself; perhaps because this re-analysis of the same material came to a largly negative conclusion?)
On that basis, she arrived at her positive verdict – not just tentatively, but without doubt (“Das Ergebnis steht fest”).
Dr Peithner, the owner of the company and awarder of the prize, was quoted stating that this is a very important piece of work for homeopathy; it shows yet again what we see in our daily routine, namely that homeopathics are effective. Wölk’s investigation demonstrates furthermore that high-quality trials of homeopathy do exist, and that it is time to end the witch-hunt aimed at discrediting an effective therapy. Conventional medicine and homeopathy ought to finally work hand in hand – for the benefit of our patients. (“Für die Homöopathie ist das eine sehr wichtige Arbeit, die wieder zeigt, was wir in der ärztlichen Praxis täglich erleben, nämlich dass homöopathische Arzneimittel wirken. Wölks Untersuchung zeigt weiters deutlich, dass es sehr wohl hochqualitative Homöopathie-Studien gibt und es an der Zeit ist, die Hexenjagd zu beenden, mit der eine wirksame medizinische Therapie diskreditiert werden soll. Konventionelle Medizin und Homöopathie sollten endlich Hand in Hand arbeiten – zum Wohle der Patientinnen und Patienten.”)
I do hope that Dr Wölk uses the prize money (by no means a fortune; see photo) to buy some time for publishing her work (one of my teachers, all those years ago, used to say ‘unpublished research is no research’) so that we can all benefit from it. Until it becomes available, I should perhaps mention that the description of her methodology (publications between 2010 and 2016 [plus a few other papers that nicely fitted the arguments?]; including one Linde review and not his more recent re-analysis [see above]) does not inspire me to think that Dr Wölk’s research was anywhere near rigorous, systematic or complete. In the same vein, I am tempted to point out that the Swiss report is probably the very last document I would select, if I wanted to generate an objective picture about the value of homeopathy.
Taking all this into account, I conclude that we seem to be dealing here with a
- pseudo-prize (given by a commercial firm to further its business) for a piece of
- pseudo-research (the project seems to have been aimed to white-wash homeopathy) into
- pseudo-medicine (a treatment that has been tested extensively but has not been shown to work beyond placebo).
*Wölk, Melanie: Eminenz oder Evidenz: Die Homöopathie auf dem Prüfstand der Evidence based Medicine. Masterarbeit zur Erlangung des akademischen Abschlusses Master of Science im Universitätslehrgang Natural Medicine. Donau-Universität Krems, Department für Gesundheitswissenschaften und Biomedizin. Krems, Mai 2016.
20 Responses to A pseudo-prize for pseudo-research into pseudo-medicine
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Strangely reminiscent of the current, baseless, claims about anti- Semitism in the Labour Party..
No evidence needed, just claims that it exists somewhere.
Questions like ‘Very well, but where?’ are simply brushed aside. The claim itself is considered evidence enough.
Barre Lee ‘Wellnes’ Thorpe
same in osteopathy
evidence is always announced in the first place 🙂
… Themes 1. evidence …
http://osteodevelopment.org.uk/theme/evidence/
…OUR evidence informed approach ..
https://www.uco.ac.uk
From a comment on the thesis, we must conclude that there was no assessment of the methodological quality of the included papers, arguably the most important feature of a systematic review.
http://www.tierhomoeopathie-weiermayer.at/Woelk_MA_2016_Rezension.pdf
Wölk can now claim her trip to India to meet Minister Naik and the Ministry of AYUSH. Almost certainly in Goa where Naik seems to spend a lot of his time. Just like Rachel Roberts of the Homeopathy Research Institute did. I’m sure various Indian homeopathy groups will honoured to shower her with honorary honours. And, for a small fee, she will be eligible for entry into the Directory of Very Important Persons as well as the Order of the Knights Militant of St. Bogus.
a helpful reader just send me a copy of the thesis; here is its English abstract:
This master thesis deals with the polarizing issues of the scientificness of homeopathy and whether there is scientific evidence for effects of homeopathy in randomized controlled trials (RCTs), the gold standard in evidence-based medicine. The aim is to investigate whether homeopathy as a complementary medicine can function according to the principles of evidence-based medicine, nowadays seen as best practice medicine, or whether homeopathy ought to favour its traditional know-how, eminence, over evidence. After presenting the two main principles of evidence based medicine, clinical expertise and patients’ preferences, the focus will be on external evidence, the third principle of evidence based medicine. Reviews and meta analyses of evidence level Ia, as well as all the randomized, double-blind and controlled trials on homeopathy published from January 2010 to February 2016, as well as two HTA reports on homeopathy are analysed. Special attention is paid to those studies to which the harshest critics and most ardent proponents of homeopathy take their reference.
The majority of the reviews, meta analyses and trials of evidence levels Ia or Ib examined in this master thesis account for the effectiveness of homeopathic remedies. Homeopathy can therefore be considered not only as a medicine based on traditional know-how, but also as evidence based medicine. The never-ending discussion about homeopathy’s right to exist seems to rest upon an irrational and highly emotional dispute about “views of the world”, rather than upon academic debate.
The full text is available here:
http://webthesis.donau-uni.ac.at/thesen/94844.pdf
It is hilarious.
yes, hilariously poor science.
I also noticed that one of the thesis’ supervisors [Zauner-Dungl] was a junior doctor of my team when I worked in Vienna. I even have one publication with her:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8196718
BTW, I particularly like your paper where you correlate the odds ratio to a quality measure, the Jadad score, for two reasons:
1) This approach uses almost all information (except for the sample size, which should be included) in that it includes studies of poor quality.
2) This approach is robust against publication bias, since it is very likely that publication bias is inversely correlated to the Jadad score (small quick n’ dirty negatives are more likely not to be published than big good studies).
This indirect correlation between publication bias and Jadad score leads to a rotation of the regression line rather than a shift upwards or downwards, which in turn does not change the extrapolated odds ratio much.
You should validate the approach and publish it on a larger scale.
No Kangaroos in Austria!!
Standardization of a modified surface-EMG method.
Ebenbichler GR1, Zauner-Dungl A, Resch KL, Uher EM, Bochdansky T, Ernst E.
Author information
1
Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, University of Vienna, Australia.
see my comment above
Isn’t it a big business for profiteers in Austria (but not only there if you look onto the University College of Osteopathy in the UK)
Who else is selling a M.Sc. for CAM?
I don’t know …
TCM
https://www.donau-uni.ac.at/de/studium/tcm/index.php
Osteopathy
https://www.donau-uni.ac.at/imperia/md/content/studium/umwelt_medizin/tcm/osteopathie/folder_wso_2012.pdf
Osteopathy
https://www.donau-uni.ac.at/de/studium/osteopathie/index.php
program director for osteopathy is
Prof. Dr. Andrea Dungl-Zauner
and you might find her together with other Dungels here:
http://www.willidungl.com/die-dungl-familie-willi.php
and here:
http://www.willidungl.com/die-dungl-familie-andrea.php
doesn’t it look like as if the private Donau Uni in Krems together with the Dungl Family
http://www.willidungl.com/die-dungl-familie-willi.php
and the WSO family are covering most of the very expensive CAM training in Austria selling M.Sc. for … ??? … 🙂
The students from all over Europe can be proud of such M.Sc. titles 🙂
How long until Dana starts trumpeting about this? It sounds like about his level of cognitive dissonance and confirmation bias.
Isn’t it wonderful how the Dungl and WSO families know how to make the right connections to promote their business and how to promote the ‘results’ of the students studying under such circumstances? It looks like things use to happen in Austria not only in politics… What could others learn from this?
father Dungl even makes a brief but not honourable appearance in my memoir
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Scientist-Wonderland-Searching-Finding-Trouble/dp/1845407776
For reasons of research about the persons and institutions involved and connected to the CAM programs of the Donau University Krems I would like to add the following links:
This are the interesting links to the M.Sc. Osteopathie which one might achieve from the Donau UNI Krems. Mainly involved next to the Dungl family is the van Assche family.
Here some interesting links to the scientific background of the M.Sc Osteopathie program of the Donau UNI Krems related to the WSO:
Here are details about the van Assche family (Raphael van Assche M.Sc. and Dr. Margot van Assche) and their very close connection to physioenergetic and osteopathy in Austria:
http://www.physioenergetik.com/index.php/ueber-uns/leitung
https://www.wso.at/startseite/team/129-raphael-van-assche-msc-do
https://www.wso.at
https://www.wso.at/lehrgaenge-kurse/unsere-vortragenden
http://www.physioenergetik.com/index.php/ueber-uns/kursleiter?view=teacher&id=2220
https://www.wso.at/startseite/team/129-raphael-van-assche-msc-do
https://www.wso.at/news/praxen-im-haus/142-raphael-van-assche-msc-do
In an interview Raphael van Assche explains very scientifically his “Fass Modell” ‘barrel model’ which is summarizing all of his medical understanding and knowledge with one sentence:
“Irgend wann ist das Fass voll”
‘the barrel is filled at some time’
in:
http://www.physiotalk.de/2014/09/was-ist-die-physioenergetik/
Physioenergetic is spread all over ‘the world’:
http://physioenergetik-hoeferlin.ch/methode.html
https://www.heil-verzeichnis.ch/therapien/physioenergetik/
sorry I forgot to mention the correct M.Sc. title quoting Raphael van Assche. So it is:
Raphael van Assche M.Sc. Osteopathie
This M.Sc. can be achieved with a minimum of Credit Points according to the Bologna regulations
.. but his D.O. has nothing to do with a D.O. in the US which is a professional degree of osteopathic physicians equivalent to the M.D. which is a professional degree too in the US (not Ph.D. / Dr. med. titles). Therefore it could be considerd as a fancy letter title.
Regarding the CAM M.Sc. titles which can be achieved from the Donau University in Krems Austria:
That’s the level of knowledge of the founder of the M.Sc. Osteopathy program of the Donau University in Krems Austria and I am afraid even of the whole M.Sc. program. Additional to his M.Sc. (Osteopathie) he has a fancy letter “D.O.” which has nothing to do with an US osteopahic physician’s professional degree ‘D.O.’
Could his approach via ‘test of the length of an arm’ replace evidence based diagnostic and even therapy of the thyroid and the adrenal gland in the future? His tests and manual therapeutic approach is announced to be able to diagnose disorders which with evidence based methods can hardly be found by now … may be in the future ?? … no one knows 🙂
http://www.physiotalk.de/2016/03/kinesiologie-und-nebenniereschilddruese/
In the posted links above you can see that there are a lot of physicians / Dr. med. involved in all of the WSO Osteopathie and other CAM programs (e.g. TCM) of the Donau University Krems and … all this physicians passed the Physikum / preliminary program and exam 🙂
Should they do their preliminary training and exam again to understand the basics of natural sciences at long last?
Krems it a centre for nonsense?
featuring Lady GAGA “The congress is dancing” like in times of the Congress of Vienna .. dance for marketing not for science
https://www.fh-krems.ac.at/de/aktuelles/artikel/campus-ball-krems-eine-rauschende-ballnacht-fuer-bildung-wissenschaft-und-region/#.WxagARabGEc