Media
The real deal on alternative medicine
MY head was full of
ideas for this month’s column. Two colleagues from Leeds had recently
invited media attention for markedly different types of work (Mitch
Waterman, ‘The thinking man’s approach to sex’, Yorkshire Post, 13
January; and Peter Stratton,
‘A family affair’, The Guardian, 31 December). Also, I had been
involved in a memory documentary (Jonathan Edwards Investigates, Radio
4, 19 January). And, finally, my attention was drawn to the fantastic
figures from the BPS Media Centre’s report for 2005, such as the
impressive figures that the 208 press releases in the year yielded an
average 3.57 cuttings per release, and that 1258 paper cuttings were
generated from the 3023 calls to the BPS from newspapers interested in
all things psychological. Crucially, all these figures show growth over
the last three years.
So, full of these ideas, and reflecting on what a broad church
psychology is and the variety of its topics, I recently sat down to
enjoy the first part of BBC2’s new science series, Alternative Medicine
(www.open2.net/alternativemedicine). This show, which surely should
have been called ‘Placebo Selecta’ if it had been any more accessible,
spent an hour examining whether acupuncture works, from a strict
science perspective. The other episodes consider faith healing and
herbalism. And enjoy it I did, at least at first, with the usual
frissons of jealousy and anger I reserve for non-psychologists talking
about psychological topics. As usual, we were treated to a colourful
barrage of shots of dense crowds of people as our presenter, Professor
Kathy Sykes (Chair in the Public Understanding of Science) travelled
the world in search of her answer, peering quizzically into shop
windows and generally looking lost in thought. From
a series of different hotel bedrooms, perched on the bed, she
summarised her observations starting with, ‘As a scientist…’ – a phrase
she earnestly intoned like a mantra several times in the show. I
imagine the BBC might like this construction because it helpfully
explains to the viewer that this slightly over-sincere and wooden
presenter is the real deal, and not a journalist. Presenters like this
repetitive preface because it is a reminder of their credentials in the
face of so much dumbing down.
But this was actually an excellent piece of television, at least for
the middle half hour. Kathy neatly and passionately described the need
for placebo-controlled studies, and without patronising the viewer,
hinted at the whole world of psychological effects, and how healing
could be all in the mind. Then she explored different control
conditions and their relative merits, and the difficult issue of
tricking someone into thinking that they had been treated by needles
being poked into their flesh, when actually they hadn’t. The second in
the series went even further, reviewing excellent work on decaffeinated
coffee as a placebo (conducted by Irving Kirsch at the University of
Plymouth), and also telling the viewer that in terms of placebo, four
fake pills are more powerful than two fake pills.
But the most amazing part of the first show was that it appeared that
the BBC, through Kathy, had commissioned a novel piece of research to
examine the effects of acupuncture at a neural level, as measured by
fMRI. This is where, I felt, in a very specific task – which one could
barely describe as acupuncture – the programme lost some of its weight.
Kathy, as a scientist, was clearly happier with the robustness of the
effects of acupuncture if she could see them ‘light up’ in the brain,
engage in all kinds of speculation about their neural basis, and thus,
with neuroimaging, ‘prove’ the power of acupuncture. To my mind, this
totally detracted from the otherwise psychological angle running
through the rest of the show. It was an example of why psychologists
should be cautious in referring to heavily constrained experiments run
in neuroimaging laboratories, when as a scientist, one should examine
the basic phenomena, and the ground rules of some established effect.
One can’t help thinking that colourful pictures of the brain, and an
eclectic scraggle of academics sat debating in a well-furnished lounge,
just makes good television – as far as science is concerned.
And after that (on the whole) excellent programme, I never did get to
weave a story out of my colleagues’ various efforts, and wonder what
the general public must think of it all.
Chris Moulin
(Please note that some pictures may have been removed for copyright reasons)
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