I have a coworker who sees an acupuncturist quite frequently for his knee problems (possibly back also). He mentioned today that Consumer Reports endorses acupunture so I asked if I could see the article. I read the article and here is a link to part of it from CR's site:
http://www.consumerreports.org/main...sR2xnJo1Kiw3rR8rivLNNkPBWGK970RQpCMRV1RmaQImW|5467274427734530976/169937913/6/7005/7005/7002/7002/7005/-1|1853084926799458864/169937902/6/7005/7005/7002/7002/7005/-1&CONTENT%3C%3Ecnt_id=662795&FOLDER%3C%3Efolder_id=162687&bmUID=1122040677539
(gee that's long, can someone tell me how to edit that so it's shorter)
I'm not a member either but he gave me the magazine.
Anyway, you have to be a subscriber to get the full article but it's basically just a survey of their readers and not any clinical study:
"Respondents based their opinions of a treatment's effectiveness on personal experience, not laboratory measurement's, so the results can't be compared to scientific clinical results."
It basically asked if various treatments
1. Helped me feel much better
2. Helped me somewhat
Then it had a graph and compared them to Prescription and over-the-counter drugs.
It found that most respondents were as favorable towards the alt. treatments as conventional medicine.
The thing that disturbs me is that they are treating this as if it were cars or vacuum cleaners. I think there is value in taking a satisfaction survey for those products but I don't think it should be extended to health care. Do you think that I'm wrong in seperating the two?
I know that a lot of Americans look at Consumer Reports as a very reputable and impartial organization from which they base many of their buying decisions on. The article comes off as very positive towards alt. treatments and I can see where my coworker sees this as an endorsement. (Although for back pain only 20% said it made them feel much better and 25% said it helped somewhat. I think his percetion of how good the treatment works translated those numbers into a glowing endorsement.)
http://www.consumerreports.org/main...sR2xnJo1Kiw3rR8rivLNNkPBWGK970RQpCMRV1RmaQImW|5467274427734530976/169937913/6/7005/7005/7002/7002/7005/-1|1853084926799458864/169937902/6/7005/7005/7002/7002/7005/-1&CONTENT%3C%3Ecnt_id=662795&FOLDER%3C%3Efolder_id=162687&bmUID=1122040677539
(gee that's long, can someone tell me how to edit that so it's shorter)
I'm not a member either but he gave me the magazine.
Anyway, you have to be a subscriber to get the full article but it's basically just a survey of their readers and not any clinical study:
"Respondents based their opinions of a treatment's effectiveness on personal experience, not laboratory measurement's, so the results can't be compared to scientific clinical results."
It basically asked if various treatments
1. Helped me feel much better
2. Helped me somewhat
Then it had a graph and compared them to Prescription and over-the-counter drugs.
It found that most respondents were as favorable towards the alt. treatments as conventional medicine.
The thing that disturbs me is that they are treating this as if it were cars or vacuum cleaners. I think there is value in taking a satisfaction survey for those products but I don't think it should be extended to health care. Do you think that I'm wrong in seperating the two?
I know that a lot of Americans look at Consumer Reports as a very reputable and impartial organization from which they base many of their buying decisions on. The article comes off as very positive towards alt. treatments and I can see where my coworker sees this as an endorsement. (Although for back pain only 20% said it made them feel much better and 25% said it helped somewhat. I think his percetion of how good the treatment works translated those numbers into a glowing endorsement.)
