Acupuncture advocates have published guidelines for “rigorous” acupuncture randomized controlled trials. While that sounds good on the surface, the devil is in the details, which reveal that acupuncturists’ dedication to scientific rigor is perhaps not so strong.
Another large randomized controlled trial for ivermectin showed no efficacy for the early treatment of COVID-19. This is not a surprise to science-based medicine advocates. Here’s why the story of ivermectin shows that SBM isn’t just for “complementary and alternative medicine” (CAM) —and never was.
Yesterday the The New England Journal of Medicine published a high quality clinical trial that found no benefit in treating COVID-19 with ivermectin. Cue attacks on the study.
Every so few years, someone writes in a reputable journal that evidence-based medicine is corrupt or an “illusion.” Here we go again, this time in The BMJ, and antivaxxers are going wild.
As high-quality evidence increasingly and resoundingly shows that ivermectin does not work against COVID-19, advocates are doing what acupuncture advocates do: Turning to lower quality “positive” studies to claim incorrectly that their favorite ineffective treatment actually does “work.”
