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Mass Media Bunk features news stories or articles in the mass media that provide false, misleading or deceptive information regarding scientific matters or alleged paranormal or supernatural events. Readers are encouraged to send Mass Media Bunk material to: btcarrol@skepdic.com

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August 21, 2000. "The icecap at the North Pole has melted for the first time in 50 million years, reinforcing fears about global warming," writes Severin Carrell of the Independent News (UK). No doubt Mr. Carrell did an investigation after reading The New York Times (see next entry).

August 19, 2000. The New York Times reported today that "An ice-free patch of ocean about a mile wide has opened at the very top of the world, something that has presumably never before been seen by humans and is more evidence that global warming may be real and already affecting climate." The front page story had the headline: North Pole is Melting. Actually, about 10 percent of the Artic Ocean is ice-free in any given summer, many people have seen an ice-free pole, and this is not necessarily related to global warming. This doesn't mean that Artic ice is not declining, however.

August 14, 2000. CNN.com and the NandoTimes published an Associated Press report which glowingly and uncritically says that some researchers have established that acupuncture is "an effective treatment for cocaine addiction." The study by some Yale scientists was published in the Archives of Internal Medicine. The actual study only claims that "acupuncture shows promise for the treatment of cocaine dependence" and that further research "appears to be warranted." This was based upon the following results:

Examination of urine data for patients who completed the 8-week trial showed that acupuncture completers provided significantly more consecutive cocaine-negative urine samples than did either the relaxation control group (P = .002) or the needle-insertion control group (P = .02) (acupuncture, 7.23 6.77; needle-insertion control, 3.35 3.55; relaxation control, 2.14 3.37; F2,49 = 5.37; P = .008). Acupuncture completers were also significantly more likely to provide 3 consecutive cocaine-free urine samples in the final week of the study (acupuncture, 54% [7/13]; needle-insertion control, 24% [4/17]; relaxation control, 9% [2/22]; 22 = 8.76; P = .01).

The Associated Press article fails to note that of the 82 participants in the study, 30 dropped out before the study was completed. The AP  also failed to note that the study only followed the addicts for eight weeks and that the greatest dropout rate was in the group getting acupuncture (64%). Those getting fake acupuncture had a dropout rate of 37% and those in the relaxation group had a dropout rate of only 19%.

Based on these results, if I had a vote on funding further research, I'd vote no. The Associated Press  article quotes Arthur Margolin, Ph.D., one of the Yale researchers, as saying "the results suggest the need for increased study of acupuncture and other forms of alternative medicine [emphasis added]." If he said this, he was hyping the study beyond tolerable puffery. Neither science nor journalism, much less the public, is served well by exaggerating the significance of research results.

Arthur Margolin responds:

16 Aug 2000 

The "quote" of mine you cite from CNN (which, incidentally, I have been unable to find on their web-site -- your direction to it would be appreciated) is in fact a misquote. 

reply: That doesn't surprise me. Actually, the quote is from an Associated Press story which is posted by CNN and by Nando Times.

What I have said is that our study suggests that complementary and alternative (CAM) therapies can be fairly investigated in rigorously controlled randomized clinical trials.

reply: Unfortunately, this point is not made either in the Associated Press story or in your article in the Journal of Internal Medicine.

I understand that the degree to which our study satisfies that description is open to interpretation; however, my statement was directed to individuals, particularly advocates of CAM, who may feel that the investigation of CAM therapies within a biomedical framework, without extreme prejudice to those therapies, is simply not possible. Whether or not CAM therapies should be further studied is another matter. The findings of our study could not of course supply the foundations for inferring that proposition; I think many have run afoul of the logical incoherence of attempting to derive "an ought from an is". It is interesting to me that you may have fallen into this trap by seeming to suggest that CAM therapies should not be further investigated, and furthermore, the tone, and curtness, of your message seems to be such as could only emerge from one who holds what seems to be the result of an unstated, and I fear unstateable, set of "inferences" leading to the belief in question with all of the certainty of a logically demonstrable truth!

Is this a new form of skeptical logic?

reply: Many, indeed, have run afoul trying to derive an ought from an is, but I fail to see the relevance of that point here. A logical point that does seem pertinent here, though, is the non sequitur. I don't see how it follows that I seem "to suggest that CAM therapies should not be further investigated" from my statement: "Based on these results, if I had a vote on funding further research, I'd vote no." I don't think your results were significant enough to warrant spending my money on further investigation. I have no problem with you finding some private party who is willing to fund further research of auricular acupuncture to treat cocaine addiction. And I certainly do not have a general objection to scientifically investigating CAM therapies. Even if I did, such is certainly not implied by my statement.

If you read our paper in the Archives of Internal Medicine, you will find that in the Discussion section we point out a number of limitations of our study which decrease the generalizability of our findings.
Sincerely,
Art Margolin

reply: I did read your paper and I did note that the Associated Press article makes a stronger claim than you do for acupuncture as an effective therapy for cocaine addicts. I wrote to you to find out if you were quoted accurately (actually, you were paraphrased) because I know that the media often hypes up scientific stories and exaggerates their significance. Scientists do this also and I checked with you to find out if the AP had got it right. Apparently, they didn't. The AP story gives no hint that you think your study is a model for other CAM studies and shows that rigorous science can be done in that area.

August 4, 2000. Shirley MacLaine has her own website where she promises to spiritualize the Web. In case you don't know who she is, she is the author of Out on a Limb, a book serialized for television by ABC, in which she describes, among other things, her channeling guru. Her credentials? She once was a Moor who had an affair with Charlemagne and bore him three children, but that was long ago.
[thanks to Joe Littrell]

July 10, 2000. The Sci Fi Channel has begun a nightly show called "Crossing Over With John Edward." Edward will do a James Van Praagh routine, claiming to speak to dead people of interest to those in the audience. Salon.com says the show starts at 8 pm; the SciFi program guide says it starts at 11 p.m. and that the first episode was July 9th. Check your local television guide for this exciting new program. By being on the Sci Fi channel, is Edward admitting that this stuff is fiction?
[thanks to Joe Littrell]

July 7, 2000. The Washington Times, owned by the Rev. Sun Myong Moon's Unification Church, features an article by Valerie Richardson on a vote taken by the Colorado Board of Education to urge schools to display the motto "In God We Trust." In a deliberate example of the religionization of journalism, Richardson writes that the vote was "a deliberate challenge to the growing secularization of public education." Isn't public education secular by nature in this country?
[thanks to Jon Henrik Gilhuus]

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