MD, PhD, MAE, FMedSci, FRSB, FRCP, FRCPEd.

experience

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Donald Trump has recently made a range of appointments in the health sector of the US. They will strongly influence conventional and so-called alternative medicine (SCAM) in the US as well as worldwide. It therefore seems worth to look at the backgrounds and qualifications of these men and women and critically evaluate their fit for leadership roles in healthcare.

In this series of posts, I intend to scrutinize them two by two:

 

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. – Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS)

  1. RFKJr. is an environmental lawyer, former presidential candidate, vocal vaccine skeptic, critic of the pharmaceutical industry, and advocate of the long-debunked assumption that autism is caused by MMR vaccinations. He has no scientific, medical or public health education or training and is a prominent figure in the “Make America Healthy Again” (MAHA) movement, emphasizing chronic disease reduction and agency reform.

He lacks experience managing large bureaucracies or healthcare systems. He has no experience or expertise in running agencies like HHS, which oversees a $1.7 trillion budget and 80,000 employees.

Kennedy’s leadership undermines public trust in immunization programs, potentially increasing preventable disease outbreaks. He aims to purge staff at FDA and NIH and redirect half of NIH’s $48 billion budget to preventive, alternative, and holistic approaches. This will inevitably disrupt scientific research and weaken evidence-based policy-making.  His lack of public health experience and unscientific views pose risks to healthcare access, reproductive rights, and innovation.

In summary, Kennedy’s lack of relevant experience and history of promoting misinformation make him a high-risk choice for HHS. His actions so far indicate that he will significantly disrupt US healthcare and cause long-term damage to the US and beyond. His appointment was not in the best interest of progress and the US public.

Dave Weldon – Director of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)

Weldon is an internist, former Republican congressman, and Army veteran. He has 40 years of medical practice but limited public health leadership experience. Weldon’s congressional tenure focused on fiscal and social issues. He has no record of managing public health crises or large agencies.  He has in the past endorsed debunked claims linking thimerosal, a mercury-based preservative for vaccines, to autism thus raising alarms about his alignment with anti-vaccine sentiments and hindering the CDC’s task of promoting immunization. Paul Offit has therefore criticized Weldon’s nomination, noting his lack of traditional public health training.

Trump’s statement that Weldon will “restore the CDC to its true purpose” suggests a focus on transparency and combating corruption. However, as there’s no compelling evidence of systemic corruption in the CDC, this seems akin to the promotion of a conspiracy theory.

In summary, Weldon’s lack of relevant experience and history of promoting misinformation make him an odd choice for the directorship of the CDC. It is to be feared that his appointment will weaken medical progress and the US healthcare system.

A Winnipeg woman is suing her chiropractor, claiming he injured her by tearing an artery during treatment and that she suffered a stroke as a result. The woman had been a patient at Maples Chiropractic in Winnipeg for some time, and she had previously indicated that she did not want the chiropractor treating or adjusting her neck. In May 2023, the patient suffered a right vertebral artery dissection as a result of treatment. “Due to this injury from the treatment, [the plaintiff] suffered a stroke,” says the statement of claim, filed late last month in Court of King’s Bench at Winnipeg.

Maples Chiropractic is claimed to have failed to give the patient immediate care to minimize the effects of her injury. The patient was admitted to hospital at the Health Sciences Centre. The allegations have not been tested in court and statements of defence have not yet been filed. The lawsuit names as defendants the chiropractor, Gilbert Miranda, and his company, Everybody Health Inc., which operates Maples Chiropractic. The lawyer for the plaintiff declined to comment on the case.

The claim states that the patient will need ongoing therapy, psychological treatment and medical attention. It seeks an unspecified amount in damages for the patient’s alleged pain and suffering, loss of income and loss of enjoyment of life. The chiropractor allegedly failed to warn the patient about the risks associated with the chiropractic treatment, “specifically failing to warn her that a stroke could occur from the treatment or from any injury caused by the treatment”. The claim states that the chiropractor was negligent for not obtaining informed consent from the plaintiff about the treatment in general, and specifically for the treatment that allegedly resulted in injury.

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Let me be clear: this case report – like so many similar ones – lacks important details and thus cannot be interpreted properly. Chiropractors will therefore claim – as they did so many times before – that the case does not amount to evidence. They will also pretend that chiropractic manipulations are safe and that there is no sound evidence to prove otherwise. They can make this claim because the chiropractic profession has – since ~120 years! – resisted adopting an adequate monitoring system for registering events like the one above.

And let me be clear again: such claims by chiropractors are based on self-interest and willful ignorance, polite expressions for ‘dishonesty’.

Yes, it’s CAW again!

How best should we celebrate?

  • I could show you how often we had to discuss the harm chiropractic does to patients.
  • I could tell you about the contraproductive advice chiropractors tend to issue to anyone who wants to hear it.
  • I could list the fatalities chiropractic manipulations have caused.
  • I could write about the unethical transgressions many chiropractors commit.
  • I could elaborate on the financial fraud some chiropractors are involved in.
  • I could write about the dishonest cherry-picking that chiropractors like to engage in.

But that would not be nice, and they would say that I have an axe to grind, a chip on my shoulder, that I am incompetent, don’t know what I am writing about, in the pocket of BIG PHARMA, etc.

So, I decided to celebrate the CAW by reporting on a chiropractic success story, a type of article that chiropractors like: a case report of a patient cured by chiropractic treatments.

Chronic low back pain (CLBP) has been the leading cause of disability globally for the past few decades, resulting in decreased quality of life physically and emotionally. This case report is, according to its authors, important in the medical literature to add to studies reporting successful conservative treatment of CLBP and chronic neck pain (CNP). Triage, diagnosis, and understanding of economical and conservative therapeutics can, the authors stress, benefit patients; providers as well as institutions and third party payors benefit from improved outcomes.

A 39-year old male presented with severe CLBP who had experienced no long-term success with prior chiropractic spinal manipulative therapy (SMT). After symptoms began to worsen in spite of receiving SMT, the patient sought treatment for his pain, abnormal spine alignment, and poor sagittal alignment at a local spine facility. History and physical examination demonstrated altered spine and postural alignment including significant forward head posture and reduced cervical and lumbar lordosis and coronal plane abnormalities. Treatment consisted of a multi-modal regimen focused on strengthening postural muscles, specific spine manipulation directed toward abnormal full-spine alignment, and specific Mirror Image traction aiming to improve spine integrity by realigning the spine toward a more normal position. The treatment consisted of 36 treatments over three months. All original tests and outcome measures were repeated following care.

Objective and subjective outcome measures, patient-reported outcomes, and radiographic mensuration demonstrated improvement at the conclusion of treatment and maintained at 1-year follow-up re-examination.

The authors concluded that this is case demonstrates that the CBP orthopedic chiropractic treatment approach may represent an effective method to treat abnormal spinal alignment and posture. This study adds to the literature regarding conservative methods of treating spine pain and spinal disorders.

What, you are NOT impressed?

  • You even claim that the patient’s symptoms worsend despite long-term SMT?
  • You insist that such a case poves nothing and certainly does not justify the conclusion?
  • You point out that one of the authors is a compensated researcher for CBP Non-Profit, Inc., while another one is a compensated consultant and researcher for Chiropractic BioPhysics, NonProfit, Inc. and one is the CEO of Chiropractic BioPhysics® (CBP®)?
  • And you note that this paper was funded by Chiropractic BioPhysics?

Let me tell you this: you are a spoilt sport! We are, after all, in the realm of chiropractic research where things are different. What is normally called promotion florishes here as research, and the rules of science, ethics or even common sense are suspended.

A popular ‘TikTok creator’ claims that he became bedridden for months after a chiropractic adjustment to his neck left him with a herniated disc, causing him “the worst pain I’ve ever experienced” and the loss of his life savings in medical bills. Tyler Stanton, a Nashville-based ‘content creator’ stated that he’s been recovering from an injury sustained when a chiropractor adjusted his neck.

In a TikTok video Stanton said he’d been working out a lot before his birthday because “I wanted to be in the best shape of my life.” He’d been feeling some tightness in his back, so he went to see a chiropractor. At first, the chiropractor struggled to “get my back to crack,” but finally he was able to do it. Stanton said when they had the same trouble with his neck, “on the second time where he tried to crack my neck, he put a lot of force behind it, and I heard one huge and painful pop,” Stanton explained. “I knew immediately that something was wrong … the whole room was spinning. My equilibrium was just completely f—ked. I was like instantly, like, profusely sweating.”

It took him a half hour of lying down to “be good enough to walk out the door,” but as soon as he got home, he began “violently throwing up, uncontrollably. I can’t see straight.” Stanton says he went promptly to bed even though it was the middle of the day, and when he woke up the next morning moving to turn his phone alarm off caused him “the worst pain I’ve ever experienced in my entire life.” Stanton described it as “static” all over the “entire right side of my body. It was really scary, I had no idea what was happening, but I knew something was really wrong.”

He went to the hospital, where it was determined that the chiropractor had “herniated my C6,” the disc at the base of the neck. Over the next month, he spent a few weeks “on and off” in the hospital, because the “pain was so bad.” He received epidural injections, and “they didn’t even make a dent into the pain. Like, it literally did nothing.”

At this point, his options were surgery — which he said, “I’ve heard so many horror stories about that” — or physical therapy and learning to live with a herniated disc. He chose the second option, explaining he has a “a pharmacy” at home of pain medication. “I ended up just having to go home and lay down for about two more months. It took, like, three months to get my feeling back in my arm.”

He thought of legal action, as the injury “really hurt me financially …  my savings just evaporated … I still deal with pain. I’m still limited on what I can do physically. It just destroyed me mentally, financially, physically — all of it.”

In a later update Stanton said that it’s been hard for him to create content since he herniated his disc. “People asking me why I keep disappearing and why I stopped posting … I didn’t really want to say much about it because one thing I’ve learned over the years being on the internet is that if you have a following, no one cares if you’re sad,” he said. “To be honest with you, I love to come on here and make you guys laugh, but it’s hard to when s—t just ain’t funny.”

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Having treated many patients with herniated discs, I can confirm: it’s not funny!

Having read about many cases of serious complications after chiropractic manipulations, I assume that this one – like so many others – will not enter into the medical literature where sufficient details might be provided to allow a fuller evaluation – doctors are simply too busy to write up the events and findings for publication. The case will also not appear in any system that monitors adverse events, because chiropractors have in their ~120 Years history not been able to establish such a thing. The result will be that this event – as so many like it – will pass virtually undocumented and unnoticed.

And this suits whom exactly?

Yes, it suits the chiros who can continue to falsely claim that, as there are just few records to the contrary,

“our maipulations are entireely safe!”

Homeopathy is harmless – except when it kills you!

Death by homeopathy has been a theme that occurred with depressing regularity on my blog, e.g.:

Now, there is yet another sad fatality that must be added to the list. This case report presents a 61-year-old woman with metastatic breast cancer who opted for homeopathic treatments instead of standard oncological care. She presented to the Emergency Department with bilateral necrotic breasts, lymphedema, and widespread metastatic disease. Imaging revealed extensive lytic and sclerotic lesions, as well as pulmonary emboli. Laboratory results showed leukocytosis, lactic acidosis, and hypercalcemia of malignancy.

During hospitalization, patient was managed with anticoagulation and broad-spectrum antibiotics. Despite disease progression, patient declined systemic oncological treatments, leading to a complicated disease trajectory marked by frailty, sarcopenia, and functional quadriplegia, ultimately, a palliative care approach was initiated, and she was discharged to hospice and died.

This case highlights the complex challenges in managing advanced cancer when patients choose alternative therapies over evidence-based treatments. The role of homeopathy in cancer care is controversial, as it lacks robust clinical evidence for managing malignancies, especially metastatic disease.

Although respecting patient autonomy is essential, this case underscores the need for healthcare providers to ensure patients are fully informed about the limitations of alternative therapies. While homeopathy may offer emotional comfort, it is not a substitute for effective cancer treatments. Earlier intervention with conventional oncology might have altered the disease course and improved outcomes. The eventual transition to hospice care focused on maintaining the quality of life and dignity at the end-of-life, emphasizing the importance of integrating palliative care early in the management of advanced cancer to enhance patient and family satisfaction.

Even though such awful stories are far from rare, reports of this nature rarely get published. Clinicians are simply too busy to write up case histories that show merely what sadly must be expected, if a patient refuses effective therapy for a serious condition and prefers to use homeopathy as an “alternative”. Yet, the rather obvious truth is that homeopathy is no alternative. I have pointed it out many times before: if a treatment does not work, it is dangerously misleading to call it alternative medicine – one of the reasons why I nowadays prefer the term so-called alternative medicine (SCAM).

But what about homeopathy as an adjunctive cancer therapy?

In 2011, Walach et al published a prospective observational study with cancer patients in two differently treated cohorts: one cohort with patients under complementary homeopathic treatment (HG; n = 259), and one cohort with conventionally treated cancer patients (CG; n = 380). The authors observed an improvement of quality of life as well as a tendency of fatigue symptoms to decrease in cancer patients under complementary homeopathic treatment.

Walach and other equally deluded defenders of homeopathy (such as Wurster or Frass) tend to interpret these findings as being caused by homeopathy. Yet, this does not seem to be the case, as they regularly forget about the possibility of other, more plausible explanations for their results (e.g. placebo or selection bias). I am not aware of a rigorous trial showing that adjunctive homeopathy has specific effects when used by cancer patients (if a reader knows more, please let me know; I am always keen to learn).

So, is there a role for homeopathy in the fight against cancer?

My short answer:

No!

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is coming out with so much stupidity, ignorance and quackery that it is getting difficult to keep up. A recent article reported that he touted two particular medications that have not been shown to work as first-line treatments for measles:

  • the steroid budesonide,
  • the antibiotic clarithromycin.

Kennedy claimed on X that the medications had been instrumental in treating around 300 children in Texas, and told Fox News that doctors prescribing them had seen “very, very good results.”

Consequently, families in Texas have turned to questionable remedies — in some cases, also prompted by the recommendation of two Texas doctors, Dr. Ben Edwards and Dr. Richard Bartlett. Kennedy called Edwards and Bartlett “extraordinary healers” who have “treated and healed” hundreds of children with budesonide and clarithromycin, sharing a photo of himself and the doctors with three Mennonite families whose children had become ill. Two of the families had each recently lost a daughter to measles: 6-year-old Kayley Fehr died in February and 8-year-old Daisy Hildebrand died last week. Neither child was vaccinated.

Edwards, a conventionally trained doctor who has shifted to promoting natural remedies and prayer, has been operating a makeshift clinic in Seminole, offering children these unproven treatments — including, according to a video posted by an anti-vaccine group, while he said he was sick with measles. Edwards has allied himself with the anti-vaccine movement in recent months, hosting influencers and activists on his podcast, including Andrew Wakefield.

“There is no evidence to support the use of either aerosolized budesonide or clarithromycin for treatment of children with measles,” said Dr. Adam Ratner, a spokesman for the American Academy of Pediatrics. Prescribing treatments that have not been vetted in clinical trials amounts to experimenting on patients, added Dr. Susan McLellan, a professor in the infectious diseases division at the University of Texas Medical Branch.

During the measles outbreak, both Edwards and Bartlett have each warned of risks associated with the MMR vaccine: Edwards claimed, falsely, that it causes “potentially” hundreds of deaths a year and Bartlett has said that the complications caused by measles, including brain swelling and pneumonia, can also be caused by the vaccine. In reality, the MMR vaccine, which is only given to children with healthy immune systems, has been overwhelmingly safe since its approval more than five decades ago, and has saved an estimated 94 million lives worldwide.

Public health experts said touting these medications as first-line treatments sends the wrong message. “By mentioning such treatments without that context, RFK Jr. continues to distract away from the prevention measure that incontrovertibly works — the vaccine,” said Dr. Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security

A national public health organization is calling for RFK Jr. to resign citing “implicit and explicit bias and complete disregard for science.” Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association, said in a statement that concerns raised during Kennedy’s confirmation hearing last month have been realized, followed by massive reductions in staff at key health agencies.

What’s next? I aslk myself.

Perhaps homeopathy as a savior of the US healthcare system?

Watch this space.

A long article on chiropractic casts doubt that chiropractic is useful. Here is an abbreviated version of it:

The chemistry and biology graduate from the University of Georgia, 28-year-old Caitlin Jensen, visited a chiropractor to sort out her lower back pain. During the session, the therapist performed an adjustment.  It severed four arteries in her neck. She collapsed shortly after, unable to speak or move. The injury had caused her to suffer a series of strokes. Today, she has regained some movement in her head, legs and arms but she is still unable to speak, is partially blind and relies on a wheelchair.

While shocking and extreme, experts say Caitlin’s story is evidence of the risks of chiropractic. And although such cases are rare, they are not unheard of. Yet despite these risks, the treatment has only become more popular recently. Currently it is being driven by a social media craze for videos of chiropractors manipulating spines to make terrifying cracking sounds. The more brutal the crack, the higher the views.
And now chiropractors in the UK are pushing for their services, which are largely private, to be rolled out on the NHS. According to a report commissioned by the British Chiropractic Association, employing chiropractors in the health service could save £1.5 billion and cut physiotherapist waiting lists. Last week The Mail on Sunday’s GP columnist Dr Ellie Cannon expressed concerns over the safety of the scheme, writing that she was worried that the forceful manipulation of the body involved can be dangerous, causing serious injuries. Dr Cannon asked readers for their own experiences – and was flooded with responses. Scores claimed they’d found relief from joint pain and other issues thanks to a chiropractor, when nothing else worked. Yet, disturbingly, among these were accounts from those who’d suffered horrific injuries.
  • One 66-year-old grandmother said a visit to a chiropractor to treat her sore shoulder left her covered in bruises, hearing ringing in her ears and with a splitting pain in her jaw. She was later diagnosed by doctors with trigeminal neuralgia – a chronic pain disorder caused by a trapped or irritated nerve in the neck that causes sudden, electric shock-like pain in the face. She believes the condition – which, three years later, still sometimes leaves her unable to open her mouth wide enough to speak to her grandchildren – was triggered by a chiropractic adjustment of her neck.
  • A 55-year-old woman was left with chronic neck and shoulder pain after visiting a chiropractor for a sore back. The pain was so bad she once spent 72 hours immobile and unable to sleep despite taking a concoction of painkillers.
  • And a 66-year-old man says his back went into spasm as he was leaving his first chiropractor appointment – which left him hospitalised and bedbound for weeks. The intense treatment, he later learned, had pushed one of the discs of his spine out of place, causing him to lose feeling in his right leg for ever.
In the UK, several film and TV shows – including Love Island – have bragged of having a resident chiropractor on set. And the number of British chiropractors has risen by more than 60 per cent in the past four years, according to regulatory board the General Chiropractic Council.
Orthopaedic surgeon Dr Simon Fleming worries that vulnerable patients are turning to chiropractors without knowing its risks. He says: ‘It’s not that there aren’t safe chiropractors, it’s that there’s such a high risk of potentially doing harm. Adults can make their own choices – but if they want to go down that route, we need to ensure they do it with their eyes open.’
The NHS currently lists neck, back, shoulder and elbow pain as issues that can be treated with chiropractic – adding that there’s little evidence it can help with more serious conditions, or problems that don’t affect the muscles or joints. It warns: ‘There is a risk of more serious problems, such as stroke, from spinal manipulation.’
Chiropractic is not widely available on the health service, other than in exceptional circumstances where no other options, such as physiotherapy, are available. But a report released by the University of York last week called for the practice to be brought under the NHS in order to cut the number of patients with musculoskeletal issues waiting for physiotherapy. And according to Mark Gurden, president of the Royal College of Chiropractors, it will help the NHS more generally by offering up a skilled and competent workforce during a national staffing crisis. ‘It’s a profession just like physiotherapy is a profession, and can offer a range of interventions that include both soft tissue techniques and spinal manipulation,’ he says. ‘Chiropractors are regulated healthcare professionals who undergo four-years training and must be registered with the General Chiropractic Council. It’s an entirely safe procedure when done by competent professionals.’
Edzard Ernst, emeritus professor of complementary medicine at the University of Exeter and author of ‘Chiropractic: Not All That It’s Cracked Up To Be‘, says hundreds of patients have suffered a stroke after getting their necks manipulated – with some dying from the damage. Recent instances include the tragic case of 29-year-old Joanna Kowalczyk, who suffered a fatal tear of her blood vessels after having her neck adjusted by a chiropractor, as well as Playboy model Katie May, 34, who died after getting the treatment for a pinched nerve in her neck sustained during a photoshoot. And Professor Ernst believes even more patients may have sustained injuries than we know of.
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You might be interested in what I actually wrote in response to the questions posed by the journalist from the ‘Mail-online’. Here are his questions (Q) and my replies (R), both unabbreviated:
Q: Should chiropractic treatment be available on the NHS?
R: The NHS cannot even pay for all effective therapies; as chiropractic is of at best doubtful effectiveness, it should, in my view, not be reimbursed by the public purse.
Q: Are chiropractic therapies dangerous? If so, why?
R: Chiropractors manipulate the spine of virtually every patient. These manipulations often move the spine beyond its physiological range of motion and can thus cause severe structural damage.
Q: Are all chiropratic adjustments risky? Or just those that involve certain areas of the body (ie, neck)?
R: The neck is, of course, particularly vulnerable; but damage can occur along the entire spine.
Q: Equally, is it a case of some chiropractors just not being very good at their jobs?
R: Some chiropractors are surely more dangerous than others. Yet none are risk-free.
Q: I’ve seen stories of awful injuries / deaths at the hands of a chiropractor. But if the practice is so risky why don’t we see more injuries than we do?
R: There is no reporting system of side effects of chiropractic – so, if we don’t look, we don’t see.
Q: Lots of our readers have written in to say it’s helped massively with their pain or other ailment. Can it have any positive effect on our health and wellbeing?
R: True some people swear by chiropractic. But let’s not forget that having your bones cracked is bound to have a considerable placebo response.
Q: Should babies be getting chiropractic adjustments?
R: Most definitely no!
Q: Are some people more prone to injury from these treatments than others?
R: Yes, some people may, for instance, have fragile arteries that then might burst when the neck is being forcefully manipulated.
Q: What do you think needs to happen to reform the chiropractic industry?
R: If it wants to be called a valuable form of healthcare, chiropractic needs to abide by the principles of evidence-based medicine. In other words, it needs to demonstrate through rigorous research that it does more good than harm and for which condition. At present, chiropractic is very far from having achieved this. And that means, I fear, that it should not be part of rational healthcare.
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I am glad that, these days, I usually insist on doing interviews with journalists via email

The US Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy (JFKJr) famously claimed that vitamin A could work “as a prophylaxis” of measles infection. That claim is not just wrong, it also is dangerous. Overuse of vitamin A can have serious health consequences. As a result of JFKJr yet again promoting dangerous nonsense, doctors treating patients during the measles outbreak in Texas and New Mexico are now facing the problem of vitamin A toxicity.

At Covenant Children’s Hospital in Lubbock, near the outbreak’s epicenter, several patients have been found to have abnormal liver function on routine lab tests, a probable sign that they’ve taken too much of the vitamin, according to Dr. Lara Johnson, pediatric hospitalist and chief medical officer for Covenant Health-Lubbock Service Area.

Vitamin A is fat-soluble. It therefore accumulate in organs like the liver when over-doesed. Excess vitamin A can cause dry skin and eyes, blurry vision, bone thinning, skin irritation, liver damage and other serious issues. In pregnant women, it can even lead to birth defects. Recovery for patients with acute toxicity is normally rapid, if the vitamin is discontinued. But the more serious problems with vitamin A toxicity are not always reversible.

The Council for Responsible Nutrition, a trade association for dietary supplement and functional food manufacturers, issued a statement warning parents against using high doses of vitamin A to try to keep their children from getting measles. “While vitamin A plays an important role in supporting overall immune function, research hasn’t established its effectiveness in preventing measles infection. CRN is concerned about reports of high-dose vitamin A being used inappropriately, especially in children,” the statement says.

JFKJr made his remarks in an interview with Fox News medical correspondent Dr. Marc Siegel. Snippets of the interview were featured in four Fox News or Fox Business segments airing on March 4. “They have treated most of the patients, actually, over 108 patients in the last 48 hours. And they’re getting very, very good results, they report from budesonide, which is a steroid, it’s a 30-year-old steroid,” Kennedy said in the longest of the segments. “And clarithromycin [an antibiotic] and also cod liver oil, which has high concentrations of vitamin A and vitamin D. We need to look at those therapies and other therapies,” he said in another segment. “We need to really do a good job of talking to the front-line doctors and see what is working on the ground, because those therapeutics have really been ignored by the agency for a long, long time.”

Local doctors are increasingly concerned about the growing popularity of unproven remedies for preventing and treating measles. They fear that they are causing people to delay critical medical treatment and to reject vaccination, the only proven way to prevent a measles infection.

The measles outbreak has now affected at least 379 people across Texas, New Mexico and Oklahoma. Kansas has reported 23 measles cases, and officials said that they may also be linked to the outbreak. The best measure to get to grips with the outbreak, I think, would be to make JFKJr shut up and let those who understans the issues get on with it.

Qi-gong is a branch of Traditional Chinese Medicine that employs meditation, exercise, deep breathing and other techniques with a view of strengthening the assumed life force ‘qi’ and thus improving health and prolong life. Qi-gong has ancient roots in China and has recently also become popular in other countries. There are several distinct forms of qi-gong which can be categorized into two main groups, internal qi-gong and external qi-gong. Internal qi-gong refers to a physical and mental training method for the cultivation of oneself to achieve optimal health in both mind and body. Internal qi-gong is not dissimilar to tai chi but it also employs the coordination of different breathing patterns and meditation. External qi-gong refers to a treatment where qi-gong practitioners direct their qi-energy to the patient with the intention to clear qi-blockages or balance the flow of qi within that patient. According to Taoist and Buddhist beliefs, qi-gong allows access to higher realms of awareness.

The assumptions of qi-gong are not scientifically plausible. But this does not stop enthusiasts to submit it to clinical trials.

A quasi-experimental pretest-posttest study was conducted with 231 adolescent girls aged 13-17 years suffering from premenstrual syndrome (PMS). Participants underwent a 4-week Qi Gong therapy program, with five 45-minute sessions weekly. Data were collected using a demographic questionnaire and Modified PMS Scale, analysing pre- and post-intervention symptoms through descriptive statistics, paired t-tests and chi-square tests.

The intervention significantly reduced PMS severity, with mild PMS cases increasing from 48 (20.78%) to 166 (71.86%) post-intervention. Paired t-tests revealed a highly significant mean difference in PMS scores (T = 12.251, p < 0.001).

The authors concluded that Qi Gong therapy offers a holistic, non-invasive approach for managing PMS by addressing both physiological and emotional dimensions to the condition. Its ability to balance hormones, alleviate stress and improve overall quality of life makes it a valuable addition to PMS care. 

This study originated from the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecological Nursing, Nootan college of Nursing, Sankalchand Patel university, Visnagar, Gujarat, India; the Department of Pediatric Nursing of the same institution and the Department of Psychiatric Nursing of the same institution. One would have hoped that its authors know better than to draw such conclusions from such a study. Here are some points of concern:

  • There is no reason why the treatment should be holistic.
  • The study did not have a control group; causal inferences are thus not waarranted.
  • The study did not produce any evidence to show that the treatment addressed either physiological or emotional dimensions.
  • The study did not produce any evidence to show that the treatment did anything to hormones.
  • The study did not produce any evidence to show that the treatment alleviated stress.
  • The study did not produce any evidence to show that the treatment improved quality of life.
  • I see no resason why the treatment should be promoted as a valuable addition to PMS care.
  • The PMS severity changed after the treatment and not necessarily because of it.
  • The true reasons it changed might be multifold, e.g.: placebo, regression towards the mean, social desirability.
  • Misleading the public by drawing far-reaching conclusions has the potential to do untold harm.

I have said it often, and it saddens me to have to say it again:

If the quality of research into so-called alternative medicine (SCAM) does not improve dramatically, nobody can blame the public to not take SCAM seriously any more.

The primary aim of this ‘mixed-methods, feasibility pilot study’ was to evaluate the feasibility of providing Reiki at a behavioral health clinic serving a low-income population. The secondary aim was to evaluate outcomes in terms of patients’ symptoms, emotions, and feelings before and after Reiki.
The study followed a pre-post experimental design. Reiki was offered to adult outpatients at a community behavioral health center in Rochester, Minnesota. Patients with a stable mental health diagnosis completed surveys before and after the Reiki intervention and provided qualitative feedback. Patients were asked to report their ratings of:
  • pain,
  • anxiety,
  • fatigue,
  • feelings (eg, happy, calm)

on 0- to 10-point numeric rating scales. Data were analyzed with Wilcoxon signed rank tests.

Among 91 patients who completed a Reiki session during the study period, 74 (81%) were women. Major depressive disorder (71%), posttraumatic stress disorder (47%), and generalized anxiety disorder (43%) were the most common diagnoses. The study was feasible in terms of recruitment, retention, data quality, acceptability, and fidelity of the intervention. Patient ratings of pain, fatigue, anxiety, stress, sadness, and agitation were significantly lower, and ratings of happiness, energy levels, relaxation, and calmness were significantly higher after a single Reiki session.
The authors concluded that the results of this study suggest that Reiki is feasible and could be fit into the flow of clinical care in an outpatient behavioral health clinic. It improved positive emotions and feelings and decreased negative measures. Implementing Reiki in clinical practice should be further explored to improve mental health and well-being.
One might have expected better science from the Mayo Clinic, Rochester; in fact, this is not science at all; it’s pure pseudo-science! Here are some critical remarks:
  • What on earth is a ‘mixed-method, feasibility, pilot study’? A hallmark of pseudo-researchers seems to be that they think they can invent their own terminology.
  • There is no objective, validated outcome measure.
  • The conclusion that ‘Reiki is feasible‘ has been known and does not need to be tested any longer.
  • The conclusion that ‘Reiki improved positive emotions and feelings and decreased negative measures’ is false. As there was no control group, these improvements might have been caused by a whole lot of other things than Reiki – for instance, the extra attention, placebo effects, regression towards the mean or social desirability.
  • The conclusion that ‘implementing Reiki in clinical practice should be further explored to improve mental health and well-being’ is therefore not based on the data provided. In fact, as Reiki is an implausible esoteric nonsense, it is a promotion of wasting resources on utter BS.

Does it matter?

Why not let pseudo-scientists do what they do best: PSEUDO-SCIENCE?

I think it matters because:

  • Respectable institutions like the Mayo Clinic should not allow its reputation being destroyed by quackery.
  • The public should not be misled by charlatans.
  • Patients suffering from mental health problems deserve better.
  • Resources should not be wasted on pseudo-research.
  • ‘Academic journals like ‘Glob Adv Integr Med Health’ have a responsibility for what they publish.
  • ‘The ‘Academic Consortium for Integrative Medicine & Health‘ that seems to be behind this particular journal claim to be “the world’s most comprehensive community for advancing the practice of whole health, with leading expertise in research, clinical care, and education. By consolidating the top institutions in the integrative medicine space, all working in unison with a common goal, the Academic Consortium is the premier organizational home for champions of whole health. Together with over 86 highly esteemed member institutions from the U.S., Australia, Brazil, Canada and Mexico, our collective vision is to transform the healthcare system by promoting integrative medicine and health for all.” In view of the above, such statements are a mockery of the truth.

 

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