Kathy Sykes Alternative medicine update

[mattias73]

Hi there!

Newbie on this forum. The BBC series on alt.med was aired here in sweden a little more than a month ago. I now read most posts from last years original airing in the UK and US.

Is there any new information about the critique directed towards K. Sykes in person, or BBCs plans of a series number two?

I find it hard to let go of this since I think somebody got away a bit easily regarding this whole buisness...

best regards
mattias

[mattias73]

I found the following in the old reply by BBC to the Simon Singh article

"Most worrying was the allegation that the BBC had paid for a scientific experiment to investigate acupuncture as a "TV stunt" and had "sensationalised" the results. This is wholly untrue. The experimental protocol was overseen by Professor Gary Green of the York Neuroimaging Centre at York University, who rejects the suggestion that he or his team were manipulated by the BBC. The experiment "was planned before the BBC asked to film it. It is part of a larger study and the full description of the work will be submitted for publication quite soon," he says. The scientists involved arrived at a broad agreement on the best interpretation of the results and those conclusions were reported accurately."

Anybody seen the article or heard if it was submitted for publication?

mattias

[Admin]

Hi, Mattias.

There's a few entries here: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/Pharmacology/dc...uack.html#bbc2

We were told that a second series would be made but it never seemed to have materialised.

It was one of the stupidest series of programmes I have ever watched. It made all sorts of weird and wacky claims at the start of each programme as if something new had been discovered (I mean did Kathy Sykes really discover the placebo effect? ) but it toned down its claims toward the end of each programme only to conclude that which we already knew.

Utterly pointless, and Kathy Sykes made a right fool of herself in presenting it.

[Mojo]

I found the following in the old reply by BBC to the Simon Singh article

"Most worrying was the allegation that the BBC had paid for a scientific experiment to investigate acupuncture as a "TV stunt" and had "sensationalised" the results. This is wholly untrue. The experimental protocol was overseen by Professor Gary Green of the York Neuroimaging Centre at York University, who rejects the suggestion that he or his team were manipulated by the BBC. The experiment "was planned before the BBC asked to film it. It is part of a larger study and the full description of the work will be submitted for publication quite soon," he says. The scientists involved arrived at a broad agreement on the best interpretation of the results and those conclusions were reported accurately."

Anybody seen the article or heard if it was submitted for publication?

Not heard of anything being published. As far as I remember from the programme, the acupuncture experiment shown was not blinded in any way, so it was never going to establish anything beyond people's awareness of having needles stuck into them having some sort of effect on their brains. It certainly didn't prove anything with respect to the claims of acupuncture.

[mattias73]

Today I mailed Dr Gary Green and asked about the status of the study shown in program one.

I will mail you any response.

mattias

[mattias73]

Today I mailed Dr Gary Green and asked about the status of the study shown in program one.

I will mail you any response.

mattias

still no reply...

[mattias73]

...still no reply.

[mattias73]

Today I got 4 replies from Dr Green. Either he has problems with his mail, or he gave me the finger.

Anyway, in messages the only letters entered were.

A (first mail)

S@ (Third mail...)

Which I guess could be read as "ashat". Or am I paranoid?

Mattias

[mattias73]

Today I got this:

Dear Mattias Davidsson

Thank you for your email about our paper on brain activations to needling. I have no record of any previous requests for information from you, sorry if this has caused you any inconvenience.

This work was published some time ago in
Brain imaging of acupuncture: Comparing superficial with deep needling.
MacPherson, H., Green, G.G.R., Nevado, A., Lythgoe, M.F., Lewith, G., Devlin, R., Haselfoot, R., Asghar, A.U.R. Neuroscience Letters 434(1) p. 144-149

It can be downloaded from http://dx.doi.org/doi:10.1016/j.neulet.2008.01.058
or from my webpage
https://www.ynic.york.ac.uk/about-us/people/ggrg

A follow up paper was published by Hugh MacPherson and Aziz Asghar, I have asked them to send you a copy when it is available.