[grumpycrumpy]

Now, back to the Mail crossword - 5 letter word beginning with B ..."intolerant of or takes offence to the opinions, lifestyles or identities differing from his or her own"...hmmmm..."normal" doesn't fit....

Would the cryptic clue be something along the lines of "Before jockeys filled in tax returns"?

Or could it be " racist caprine gets a minus for swinging both ways " ?

[vivahate]

Probably worth noting that 12m a year service-wide is a tiny sum. I have spoken to people with incurable chronic fatiguing conditions that swear 'alternative' medicines are the only thing to have made any small difference to how they feel. You don't have to have many people who are happy with this kind of alternative treatment for 12m a year to be good value. Injuries sustained because of high-heels costs the service something like £30m a year, to give a little perspective on costs.

Whilst I agree with the opportunity cost argument to some extent; it's not valid here. These drugs are obviously not being using arbitrarily instead of clinically-trailled approved 'real' drugs, there is clearly a demand for them in the trusts in which they are issued, and therefore they come out of some local budget at that trust. It's wrong to believe that any money saved from not buying them would be put towards research or similar; it's just not how things work.

[slackline]

Then why not simply subject "alternative" therapies (don't like the term myself, something either works, to an extent in some people or it doesn't*)/homeopathy to a bit of SCIENCE and test them under blinded Randomised Control Trials?

If they really do work as some purport they do then they'll stand up to the rigorous objective testing and more people will actually benefit as a consequence.

Anecdotal evidence is highly unreliable as it fails to account for a plethora of other factors that the individual commenting may have forgotten or not even have considered may be acting at the same time.

* There are actually a lot of people who don't respond to drug treatment, why is this?  One school of thought is that it could be down to variation in the genetic make up of individuals, and on the back of this there is the field of pharmacogenomics which seeks to identify who will respond to a given drug and who won't.  Could be that this is also underlying why some people respond to "alternative" medicines whilst others don't, but they should still be subjected to objective testing.

[drdeath]

Indeed :


The plural of anecdote is anecdotes not data

[vivahate]

Then why not simply subject "alternative" therapies (don't like the term myself, something either works, to an extent in some people or it doesn't*)/homeopathy to a bit of SCIENCE and test them under blinded Randomised Control Trials?

I'm not sure that RCTs are the way forward to test the efficacy of these therapies, as they probably do rely a lot of human factors like personality, expectation and placebo effects. In a placebo-control study you might be essentially giving both groups a biological placebo. Large trials like this would be disproportionately expensive and certainly would be a good example of a wasted opportunity cost. Especially when people are complaining that 12m a year is spent on them already. I think they are best left as they are, readily available privately for people who seek them, and in small quantaties provided by trusts that feel there is sufficient demand for them and have the budget resources to provide them.

[slackline]

The placebo effect is quite powerful and well documented.  Yes people do benefit from seeing a doctor and are simply after a pill to take and then they "feel better".  Look at how many people think antibiotics are useful why you have a cold/flu (which are caused by viruses).

But then why not market it like that!  Or at least investigate each objectively and see if there is a genuine quantifiable biological effect, and it could then be developed further and benefit more people!  Those that don't you could just have listed as coded placebo tablets that are given to patients, but they're told that they will have an effect and help (could even draft up a book on it so all doctors say the same placebo tablet AR53 has a given effect for a given condition).  Oh wait, thats unethical isn't, image the uproar the press, and in turn the public who then get on board with it, would have if it was discovered that the NHS was prescribing drugs that have no quantifiable effect and act through the placebo effect!!!

[vivahate]

But then why not market it like that!  Or at least investigate each objectively and see if there is a genuine quantifiable biological effect, and it could then be developed further and benefit more people!  Those that don't you could just have listed as coded placebo tablets that are given to patients, but they're told that they will have an effect and help (could even draft up a book on it so all doctors say the same placebo tablet AR53 has a given effect for a given condition).  Oh wait, thats unethical isn't, image the uproar the press, and in turn the public who then get on board with it, would have if it was discovered that the NHS was prescribing drugs that have no quantifiable effect and act through the placebo effect!!!

Operation "Holistic Medicine" has been uncovered!