Ernst £10000 homeopathy challenge

[Deetee]

I see Prof Ernst has offered £10k (http://www.mailonsunday.co.uk/news/article-1026966/Leading-professor-offers-10-000-person-prove-homeopathy-works.html) to anyone who can prove homeopathy works.
Perhaps this will prompt a bit more of a reaction than the JREF challenge did, seeing as it comes from a specialist in complementary medicine.

[wilsontown]

Perhaps this will prompt a bit more of a reaction than the JREF challenge did

Perhaps, though I doubt it. I imagine the line will be that there is already plenty of evidence, followed by an avalanche of the same useless studies we see time and again.

[Blue Wode]

I imagine the line will be that there is already plenty of evidence, followed by an avalanche of the same useless studies we see time and again.


A bit like this
http://www.zeusinfoservice.com/TruthAboutHomeopathy.html

and this (Homeopathy - 45 ‘facts’)
http://www.zeusinfoservice.com/Homeopathy/HOMEOPATHYFACTSLIST.html

- published, apparently, in anticipation of Homeopathy Awareness Week in the UK (14th – 21st June 2008).

[wilsontown]

I can see that this Homeopathy Awareness Week is going to be a real drag.

[richardm]

I dunno, we're apparently three days in and it's the first I've heard of it.

[Rolfe]

I wish he'd have offered the prize for anyone who could distinguish an ultra-dilute remedy from placebo under strictly controlled conditions. That could encompass a therapeutic effect of course, but that one is always hard to quantify as we all know from the plethora of papers already out there. Simply asking the claimants to tell remedy from stock solvent does really concentrate the mind, and it would allow us all to ask why Rustum Roy et al. aren't walking away with the money.

I wonder how Ernst will cope with the almost-inevitable flurry of claims from people citing flaky, poorly-controlled published work, or even a genuine trial that manages to get p<0.05 by a statistical fluke? I would imagine that he has written some carefully-formulated ground rules, but I don't see a mention of that in the article apart from something about the Cochrane collaboration.

Rolfe.

[Blue Wode]

I see Prof Ernst has offered £10k (http://www.mailonsunday.co.uk/news/article-1026966/Leading-professor-offers-10-000-person-prove-homeopathy-works.html) to anyone who can prove homeopathy works.
Perhaps this will prompt a bit more of a reaction than the JREF challenge did, seeing as it comes from a specialist in complementary medicine.


Well, at least one prominent alt-medder isn't impressed and views it as a stunt. This from an article posted by Lynne “What Doctors Don’t Tell You” McTaggart today:
I was on BBC Wales yesterday, representing the ‘other side’ in a debate with Simon Singh, who was plugging the book he has recently co-authored with Edzard Ernst called Trick or Treatment? Alternative Medicine on Trial.

In a stunt redolent of James Randi, the magician-cum-quackbuster, the twosome have offered anyone £10,000 if they can prove that homeopathy works.

Many of you may be familiar with Edvard Ernst. Once receiving the UK’s first chair of Complementary Medicine at Peninsula University, Ernst, as Robert Verkerk, director of Alliance for Natural health puts it, set about firmly establishing himself ‘as one of CAM’s biggest detractors.” At the European Skeptics Congress in 2003, for instance, Ernst gave the keynote address.

Ernst and Singh’s usual M.O. is to combine a mismash of disparate studies into one ‘meta-analysis’ – a questionable methodology shown to have severe limitations with conventional medicine — and then to hack and slice away any studies that do not fit their own rigid criteria……attempt to use a tool of conventional medicine to study alternative medicine….…alternative medicine rests on a radically different theory of biology….…Homeopathy doesn’t seek to fix the broken wheel; it seeks to fix the car, the garage and the street where it is parked….[etc.]

http://www.theintentionworkshops.com/?p=109



The comments section looks like it’s still open.

[Third Eye Open]

Homeopathy doesn’t seek to fix the broken wheel; it seeks to fix the car, the garage and the street where it is parked….

Well, theres your problem. If the wheel is broken, fixing a street isn't going to help you get anywhere.

[Mojo]

Many of you may be familiar with Edvard Ernst.


Never heard of the guy.

[Mojo]

I wish he'd have offered the prize for anyone who could distinguish an ultra-dilute remedy from placebo under strictly controlled conditions. That could encompass a therapeutic effect of course, but that one is always hard to quantify as we all know from the plethora of papers already out there. Simply asking the claimants to tell remedy from stock solvent does really concentrate the mind, and it would allow us all to ask why Rustum Roy et al. aren't walking away with the money.


Perhaps he wants to avoid the objection (raised by Dana Ullman, for example) that many homoeopathic remedies are used at below 12C, so have detectable amounts of the allegedly active ingredient present. Also Roy's strawman that the only argument against homoeopathy is that the remedies contain no molecules of the active ingredient.

[Darat]

I dunno, we're apparently three days in and it's the first I've heard of it.


I became aware of it last night - went to get my repeat prescription and stuck on the door of the chemists was an A4 poster mentioning it. I'm going back to get a picture of it later on today so I can write a letter of compliant to "Lloyds Pharmacy".

[wilsontown]

Well, at least one prominent alt-medder isn't impressed and views it as a stunt. This from an article posted by Lynne “What Doctors Don’t Tell You” McTaggart today

Oh good Lord, not Lynne McTaggart. That's the Lynne McTaggart who is involved with our favourite materials scientist Rustum Roy (http://theintentionexperiment.ning.com/profiles/blog/show?id=848178%3ABlogPost%3A101204) in trying to change water structure with the power of the mind.

I see Andy Lewis from the Quackometer got his comment in first: probably not much more to add to that, I would think.

[Rolfe]

Perhaps he wants to avoid the objection (raised by Dana Ullman, for example) that many homoeopathic remedies are used at below 12C, so have detectable amounts of the allegedly active ingredient present. Also Roy's strawman that the only argument against homoeopathy is that the remedies contain no molecules of the active ingredient.


Well, possibly. But since such a high proportion of the remedies used are ultradilute, I don't see much problem in starting with those. And it hardn'y matters whether or not there are molecules there, the point is, can they tell the difference between the potentised remedy and the stock solvent? Having a measurable therapeutic effect would be one way to do that, so it's really just an extension of the trial. Alowing the homoeos to use proving symptomes or thermoluminescence or Raman spectroscopy if they thought they could do it.

It's really quite hard to prove a small therapeutic effect by a clinical trial, to the degree of certainty that such a sum of money should really be demanding. It's quite easy to produce a spurious effect either by a badly-designed trial or by a statistical fluke though, which would be my main concern.

Rolfe.

[lecanardnoir]

Ernst and Singh now have their challenge online

trickortreatment.com/challenge.html

As you can see, the success criteria are pretty straightforward - publication as a cochrane review. Tough - but fair.

[Blue Wode]

Ernst and Singh now have their challenge online

trickortreatment.com/challenge.html

As you can see, the success criteria are pretty straightforward - publication as a cochrane review. Tough - but fair.


Here’s the link
http://www.trickortreatment.com/challenge.html

And here’s what it says:
Ernst-Singh £10,000
Homeopathic Challenge

Trick or Treatment?
Alternative Medicine on Trial

By Professor Edzard Ernst and Simon Singh

We challenge homeopaths to demonstrate that homeopathy is effective by showing that the Cochrane Collaboration has published a review that is strongly and conclusively positive about high dilution homeopathic remedies for any human condition.

Or, we challenge homeopaths to have such a review published within 12 months of the first publication of extracts from Trick or Treatment? (8 April, 2009).

The Prize will be £10,000 – it will be paid by Ernst and Singh out of their own pockets to the first person or persons to present such evidence.
To apply for the prize, please send by recorded delivery a hard copy of the Cochrane Review in question and any supporting information to:

Ernst & Singh
Homeopathic Challenge,
PO Box 23064,
London, W11 3GX.

We will respond to your application within 28 days. More Information about the some of the terms used in the Challenge:

Cochrane Collaboration - the world’s most independent, authoritative and respected body on judgements concerning the effectiveness of treatments.
Strongly - an effect size similar to conventional treatment for same condition.
Conclusively - based on a sufficiently large number (more than 5) of high quality (Jadad score of 4 or 5 with sample size over 100) randomised double blind clinical trials.





More from Lecanardnoir here:
http://www.quackometer.net/blog/2008/06/10000-if-you-can-show-homeopathy-works.html

[SezMe]

From the challenge text:

We challenge homeopaths to demonstrate that homeopathy is effective by showing that the Cochrane Collaboration has published a review that is strongly and conclusively positive about high dilution homeopathic remedies for any human condition.
My bold. I think that bolded part supports Rolfe.

[Mojo]

Strongly - an effect size similar to conventional treatment for same condition.


They could always try the old trick of using a condition for which there is a "conventional" treatment that is ineffective.

[Deetee]

They could always try the old trick of using a condition for which there is a "conventional" treatment that is ineffective.

Indeed - that is imprecise phraseology by Singh/Ernst.
Do not forget the "ineffective comparator" effect, that secret weapon of the quack armoury

[Big Les]

Never heard of the guy.

She said "many", not "all". Even a search of the forums shows he's a prominent figure in this field of study. He's given various CAM treatments a fair crack of the whip, and so far they've performed abysmally. This looks like his next step - getting the practioners to put their money where their mouths are. More power to him, especially with the JREF challenge coming to an end in 2010.

[Rolfe]

I think Mojo meant he had never heard of EdVard Ernst.

Which none of the rest of us have either, I imagine.

Rolfe.

[Mojo]

Yup, that's the guy I'd never heard of.

[Blue Wode]

Clearly rattled:
A nice little Ernst-er

You are Edzard Ernst, esteemed professor of complementary medicine at the University of Exeter, and I claim my £10,000. Please wire my payment to: Bryan Hubbard@Dunworkin.

As you may have heard, Edzard has done a Randi, and has announced a £10,000 prize to anyone who can produce evidence that homeopathy works.

Magician James Randi is another gallant quack-buster, who has offered a $1 million for proof that the paranormal exists. Randi has never coughed up, of course, and he never will, despite the many cases he has seen that should see him parted from his loot.

I fear the same with Edzard. For him, it’s a publicity stunt to stimulate the flagging sales of his latest book, which is a full frontal assault on alternative medicine, which seems strange from Britain’s only professor of, er, alternative medicine.

But let’s give the man the benefit of the doubt, and take him at his word. So, Edzard, here’s a study that has been double-blinded and placebo controlled, and that demonstrates homeopathy is just as good as, if not better then, drugs for the treatment of eczema. The study’s reference is: Complementary Therapies in Medicine, 2008; 16: 15-21.

Take a look, and pass the money along soonest. No disrespect, but I’d prefer notes (£20s and £50s are fine) to a cheque.

http://community.wddty.com/blogs/adverse_reactions/archive/2008/06/20/A-nice-little-Ernst_2D00_er.aspx




(For those wondering who Bryan Hubbard is, he’s a publisher and co-director of What Doctors Don't Tell You – and he’s also Lynne McTaggart’s husband.)

[Pipirr]

And the bombshell, 10,000 pounds findings from that study: (http://www.science-direct.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6WCS-4MNRMYH-1&_user=10&_coverDate=02%2F29%2F2008&_rdoc=4&_fmt=high&_orig=browse&_srch=doc-info(%23toc%236746%232008%23999839998%23683255%23F LA%23display%23Volume)&_cdi=6746&_sort=d&_docanchor=&_ct=12&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=fc8a94b1382041f7ebc454ed854f0a68)

A total of 118 children were included: 54 from homoeopathic (mean age ± S.D. was 5.1 ± 3.3 years; 56% boys) and 64 from conventional practices (6.2 ± 3.8 years; 61% boys).

Eczema symptoms (assessed by patients or their parents) improved from 0 to 12 months for both treatment options, but did not differ between the two groups: 3.5–2.5 versus 3.4–2.1; p = 0.447 (adjusted).

Disease-related quality of life improved in both groups similarly. In the subgroup of children aged 8–16 years the general quality of life showed a better trend for conventional treatment compared with homoeopathic treatment (p = 0.030).

I'm underwhelmed.

[Professor Yaffle]

Yeah, this double blind* placebo controlled* study here.









* Comparative cohort study -not even single blind

** No placebos used***











*** Except for the placebos we call homoeopathy.

[Mojo]

And the bombshell, 10,000 pounds findings from that study: (http://www.science-direct.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6WCS-4MNRMYH-1&_user=10&_coverDate=02%2F29%2F2008&_rdoc=4&_fmt=high&_orig=browse&_srch=doc-info(%23toc%236746%232008%23999839998%23683255%23F LA%23display%23Volume)&_cdi=6746&_sort=d&_docanchor=&_ct=12&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=fc8a94b1382041f7ebc454ed854f0a68)



I'm underwhelmed.


Would this be in any way related to post #17?

[Pipirr]

Would this be in any way related to post #17?

Quite possibly. Although collecting data from parents and kids assessments strikes me as a bit weak, too.

Is it true, there is really no good conventional tx for eczema?

[rjh01]

There is a treatment for eczema, however it is not a cure. It is something that can come and go. I have had it.

[Mojo]

Is it true, there is really no good conventional tx for eczema?


Well, we've just had a trial cited in this very thread in which conventional treatment didn't perform significantly better than a placebo, so it looks as if this may indeed be the case: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ctim.2006.10.001