Hayfever page complaint

MrJuggles

:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:
It worked for me. Analogise, critcise and staticise as much as you like, it won't impact on the devices effectivness to me.

mathsstudent

If you want to believe that sticking lights up your nose in some way cures your hayfever, then that's up to you, but personal anecdotes are of no use whatsoever when assessing the effectiveness of medical treatments no matter how effective they appear to be. When the producers of these products subject them to the rigorous testing you would expect for any other treatment and show that they have an effect greater than a placebo, then I will withdraw all my comments. Until that day, there is no evidence that these products are anything other than expensive junk. Your debt counter could be £50 lower if you realised this.

http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4151
The Skeptoid website is a good place to start reading about the placebo effect and about rational thinking in general.

mathsstudent

Martin: Thank you for editing the page, it is certainly a great improvement over the original but do you think that it is necessary to have this section at all?

Your banking & saving section has many strong warnings about putting your money into certain banks, e.g. ICICI, so why not have warnings about putting your money into untested and unverified treatments?

There is at least one case of a woman who has cancer and was convinced to have light therapy instead of taking the drugs her doctors wanted to give her. A few years down the line and her cancer had spread to other parts of the body with the light therapy having no effect - she decided to go to the proven medical treatment and her health is slowly imrpoving. I'm sure you would agree that it was completely irresponsible to recommend this lady have light therapy instead of the tried and tested treatment so why should your thoughts be any different in this case? The costs of the treatments and the risks may be smaller, but it encourages the idea that these treatments have medical value which can lead to people like this being conned out of their money and their lives.

Surely the most responsible way to save people money on this "alternative" is to have a short piece describing the flaws in the product, or at least links to articles that do, so that people can make an truly informed decision and not be conned by anecdotes and pseudoscience?

MSE_Martin

While I understand your point. I am never qualified or knowledgeable enough to write about the medical benefits or disbenefits of such a product.

Many people spend a lot of money on alternative therapies. My aim is to ensure they spend less by getting better deals - this does just that.

Regards

Martin

mathsstudent wrote: »

Martin: Thank you for editing the page, it is certainly a great improvement over the original but do you think that it is necessary to have this section at all?

Your banking & saving section has many strong warnings about putting your money into certain banks, e.g. ICICI, so why not have warnings about putting your money into untested and unverified treatments?

There is at least one case of a woman who has cancer and was convinced to have light therapy instead of taking the drugs her doctors wanted to give her. A few years down the line and her cancer had spread to other parts of the body with the light therapy having no effect - she decided to go to the proven medical treatment and her health is slowly imrpoving. I'm sure you would agree that it was completely irresponsible to recommend this lady have light therapy instead of the tried and tested treatment so why should your thoughts be any different in this case? The costs of the treatments and the risks may be smaller, but it encourages the idea that these treatments have medical value which can lead to people like this being conned out of their money and their lives.

Surely the most responsible way to save people money on this "alternative" is to have a short piece describing the flaws in the product, or at least links to articles that do, so that people can make an truly informed decision and not be conned by anecdotes and pseudoscience?

mathsstudent

MSE_Martin wrote: »

I am never qualified or knowledgeable enough to write about the medical benefits or disbenefits of such a product.

We are all qualified to assess whether a particular product has value. It does not take any great expertise or a PhD in medicine to decide if there is valid evidence for a particular product.
If one treatment has hundreds of trials indicating success, with all or most of them standing up to peer-review, then we can decide that this product is likely to be useful and a viable treatment worthy of spending some of our money on.
If another treatment has one trial indicating success, and if that trial has been shown to have serious flaws, and if there is no other known scientific or medical reason why this treatment should theoretically work, then we can decide that this product is not likely to be useful and thus we should not spend our own, nor encourage others to spend their money on it - no matter how small the cost.

Q: What do you call alternative medicine that has been proven to work?
A: Medicine.

You, quite rightly, do not have links to other "alternative" therapies on your page, whether they are homeopathic, 'new-age energy' or 'reflexology', so why include light therapy? There is just as much evidence for this as for all the others (none) and they are all multi-million pound industries.
Think of the money we could save if we stopped buying into this nonsense completely.

Spending £15 on junk may be cheaper than spending £50 on branded junk but, at the end of the day, you're still buying junk.

MSE_Martin

Thank you for this. I am happy with the balance we are currently treading though.

Martin

mathsstudent wrote: »

We are all qualified to assess whether a particular product has value. It does not take any great expertise or a PhD in medicine to decide if there is valid evidence for a particular prodcut.
If one treatment has hundreds of trials indicating success, with all or most of them standing up to peer-review, then we can decide that this product is likely to be useful and a viable treatment worthy of spending some of our money on.
If another treatment has one trial indicating success, and if that trial has been shown to have serious flaws, and if there is no other known scientific or medical reason why this treatment should theoretically work, then we can decide that this product is not likely to be useful and thus we should not spend our own, nor encourage others to spend their money on it - no matter how small the cost.

Q: What do you call alternative medicine that has been proven to work?
A: Medicine.

You, quite rightly, do not have links to other "alternative" therapies on your page, whether they are homeopathic, 'new-age energy' or 'reflexology', so why include light therapy? There is just as much evidence for this as for all the others (none) and they are all multi-million pound industries.
Think of the money we could save if we stopped buying into this nonsense completely.

Spending £15 on junk may be cheaper than spending £50 on branded junk but, at the end of the day, you're still buying junk.

Volcano

Interesting link. Particularly about the placebo not actually being a placebo..... the photo of the kid with the light up their nose couldn't illuminate that point any clearer! But mathsstudent, they'll always be people who think "I did A, B happened, therefore B happened because I did A". This is the basis for religion, astrology and people having 'lucky pants'. It's infuriating, illogical and annoying and unfortunately it's not going to go away anytime soon (or perhaps ever).

I think Martin's treading a rocky path with this device on his site, as there's always an assumption of personal endorsement with anything featured here.

"If people are going to get ripped off, then it's better they don't get ripped off too badly" is unfortunately the best option we can hope for if "not being ripped off at all" is being too idealistic.

Volcano

Interesting link. Particularly about the placebo not actually being a placebo..... the photo of the kid with the light up their nose couldn't illuminate that point any clearer! But mathsstudent, they'll always be people who think "I did A, B happened, therefore B happened because I did A". This is the basis for religion, astrology and people having 'lucky pants'. It's infuriating, illogical and annoying and unfortunately it's not going to go away anytime soon (or perhaps ever).

I think Martin's treading a rocky path with this device on his site, as there's always an assumption of personal endorsement with anything featured here.

"If people are going to get ripped off, then it's better they don't get ripped off too badly" is unfortunately the best option we can hope for if "not being ripped off at all" is being too idealistic.

mathsstudent

MSE_Martin wrote: »

Thank you for this. I am happy with the balance we are currently treading though.

Martin

OK, thank you for taking the time to answer my questions and for changing the original page. I can appreciate why you don't want to get into medical matters.

Volcano: Why shouldn't we be idealistic? Why shouldn't we hope that nonsense like this never makes it to the shelves? Why shouldn't we try and educate people about what is and what is not science?
Anyone would want to warn people about sending money to "Nigerian princes" or as an "administration fee" for a "free holiday" - there will be a few people who will send the money and get ripped off, but should we carry on telling people not to, or should we say "If you send it to this prince you'll only need to send £15, not £50! Bargain!"

If anything, finding the product at a lower price makes people more likely to buy it. You can hear the thought process: "£50 for some nose lights? You must be joking!" "£15 to cure my hayfever? I'll take a chance." The point is that you're throwing away money in both cases - one is a lower amount, but you're still throwing it away.

Volcano

I agree with you entirely. It's just that there'll always be a ready supply of people to be scammed; Nigerian scams still work and probably will always work (and let's not mention those who fall for the same scam more than once).

Why shouldn't we try and educate people about what is and what is not science?

Absolutely. But for those who cannot or will not learn, a lesson learnt at £15 is better than one at £50 (if the £0 option is not comprehendible to them).