Anthropax's Old Blog

Oh the humanity! · "Magnetic bandages can help wounds heal faster," says the Daily Mail, which is certainly a headline that invites close reading. "A magnetic leg wrap has been successfully used to treat wounds that have failed to heal for years ... Doctors found that seven out of 10 patients who used the magnetic wrap in the trial had no new outbreaks of leg ulcers." Call me picky: first, they say "doctors", but there was only one doctor in this operation: step up Dr Nyjon Eccles, proprietor of the hugely entertaining www.chironclinic.com, where you can get your "Photon Detox Therapy" done, buy some nutrient pills, and read all about the excellent Airnergy+ system. "All chronic pain, suffering, and diseases are caused from a lack of oxygen at the cell level," says our Dr Eccles. Second, when journalist Roger Dobson says "seven out of 10" we assume this is a palatable way of expressing statistics. He's even used natural frequencies, like a good boy (www.badscience.net/?p=8 ). But seven out of 10 is closer to the raw data than you might think, since there were only 26 patients in this pilot study from the Journal of Wound Care that he's reporting on. That's only nine more subjects than Dobson's previous record, when he told us that "Night Eating Syndrome affects an estimated 1 million people in the UK," and that for 30% "their symptoms were wiped out" with Sertraline. Pfizer Pharmaceuticals (who make Sertraline) funded the study: not a big drain on their resources since it only had 17 subjects, wasn't blinded, and had neither a placebo control group nor, in fact, any control group at all. Headline news! http://www.guardian.co.uk/life/badscience/story/0,12980,1555323,00.html