If your baby is crying, what do you do? Stick pins in it

Jump to follow-up This piece is almost identical with today’s Spectator Health article. This week there has been enormously wide coverage in the press for one of the worst papers on acupuncture that I’ve come across. As so often, the paper showed the opposite of what its title and press release, claimed. For another stunning example of this sleight of hand, try Acupuncturists show that acupuncture doesn’t work, but conclude the opposite: journal fails, published in the British Journal of General Practice). Presumably the wide coverage was a result of the hyped-up press release issued by the journal, BMJ Acupuncture in Medicine. That is not the British Medical Journal of course, but it is, bafflingly, published by the BMJ Press group, and if you subscribe to press releases from the real BMJ. you also get them from Acupuncture in Medicine. The BMJ group should not be mixing up press releases about real medicine with press releases about quackery. There seems to be something about quackery that’s clickbait for the mainstream media. As so often, the press release was shockingly misleading: It said Acupuncture may alleviate babies’ excessive crying Needling twice weekly for 2 weeks reduced crying time significantly This is totally untrue. Here’s why. Luckily the Science Media Centre was on the case quickly: read their assessment. The paper made the most elementary of all statistical mistakes. It failed to make allowance for the jelly bean ...
Source: DC's goodscience - Category: Science Authors: Tags: acupuncture Bad journalism badscience Bait and switch BMJ BMJ Group CAM Dangerous advice evidence false discovery rate honesty Michael Cummings Quackery statistics TCM alternative medicine false positives George Lewith Source Type: blogs