Randomized double-blind controlled trial studies: Bain or boon?

For all the folks that say that a medical treatment is bunk until it has a massive body of evidence behind it: Remember that any research that is ever done, is done with the prior assumption or knowledge that what they're testing IS potentially, likely or empirically, effective. 

Things just don't magically 'start working' after a good study is published. This is where logic flaws occur, Chicken/Egg style. 

So, for those that are able to extrapolate from what is known effective (research or clinical), to what should be effective, I applaud you. 

This is where you see the distinction between the slowly dying concept that only the double-blind randomized controlled study is valid, and the new concepts of "Evidence Based Medicine" and, even more extrapolatory'y, "Evidence Informed Medicine", come about. If you want to move the paradigm, get new treatments accepted into the mainstream, you need to take those cautious, brave, steps ahead.

These thoughts stem from an article that I read a year or so ago... It says that there is finally some research that might indicate why acupuncture works. After clear clinical results for 2000+ years in China and 40+ years in the US. Why have studies been done? Because the medicine has been practiced, and shown effective, time and again.

So - do you have a modality that works? Get the case-studies together, find research partners, drive it home. We practitioners of natural medicine might feel encroached upon, as MDs, NPs & DOs pick up some of our methods.... but really, that's just our egos (and pocket-book-based fears). The truth is, keeping it to ourselves only hurts the patient. Which is the opposite of Primum Non Nocere.


http://www.examiner.com/holistic-science-spirit-in-national/new-scientific-breakthrough-proves-why-acupuncture-works 


Dr Adam Sandford, NMD