Rust on the Tin Ear
October 7th, 2009 10:36 pm by Shane
The health care debate "raging" in Washington is one reason I stopped doing a political podcast. I don't want to rehash the arguments, because it just rots my soul. I try as hard as I can, often failing, to not talk about it with anyone. However, no matter what side of the debate you're on, any time you hear ads for homeopathic treatments, you should get a little angry. Here we are, as a nation, deciding how much real money we went to dedicate to public health insurance, and we have to contend with nonsense like homeopathy. Americans spend around $34B a year on homeopathic remedies which have no therapeutic effect. Considering that the health care bills are estimated to cost anywhere from $75B to $110B a year for the next ten years, the homeopathic spending isn't insignificant.
So what got me annoyed today? Not more than ten minutes after listening to a caller to the Dave Ramsey Show announce that he had $118K in student loan debt for going to college to learn chiropractics, I hear a commercial for "Quietus", a "natural" cure for tinnitus. When it comes to medicine commercials with the word "natural" in them, my BS detector immediately goes off. The commercial was as lame as you would expect. A bunch of "testimonials" were interspersed with claims of how "natural" the medication was. I was driving in my car at the time, so I had to wait a little bit to check out their website, and oh was it worth the wait.
First off, let's define tinnitus. Most people would instantly associate it with "ringing in the ears." That is exactly correct, but the causes are varied. Infections, side effects from medication, wax build up and loud music can all cause tinnitus. Most importantly, almost all cases of tinnitus are measured subjectively. In fact, most cases are called "subjective tinnitus". "Objective tinnitus" is pretty rare. One very important point to make, is that people who have tinnitus do hear a ringing or buzz, and are unable to focus on anything else.
I won't say that tinnitus isn't uncomfortable and a real quality of life issue. It definitely is. It's just that we can't leave out how people with tinnitus focus their attention on the noise. Imagine sitting in a room watching a TV show, focusing intently on the action on the screen (I suggest The Mentalist btw). You may not notice a beeping sound from a smoke detector with a weak battery, or in my case, my wife asking me a question. Once our attention focuses on the new sound, though, we may not be able to stop hearing it (in my case, I should). There is a distinct subjective almost psychosomatic quality to tinnitus that can't be ignored.
Now back to "Quietus". Googling "quietus" brings up a bunch of pages that have nothing to do with the homeopathic medicine. They obviously didn't do their homework on that one. "Quietus" apparently is the name of the suicide kit in the movie "Children of Men". The website is extremely hard to find from the name of the product. I did eventually find it, but I won't link to it from here.
The website is lacking any real information. No ingredients, no testimonials with names attached, nothing. You can't order from the website; the only way to order is to call as far as I can tell. Not sure if it could come off more like a scam, short of saying that a Nigerian Prince has decided to bequeath his family secret for curing tinnitus if only you would send them your bank account number. It's just ridiculous.
Conclusion? We have a subjective symptom (literally named "subjective tinnitus") that is difficult to measure. We have a "medication" made up of homeopathic ingredients (water). My strongly educated guess is that Quietus is a scam and depends on the placebo effect and subjective self reporting to have any effect. Save your dollars.
March 2nd, 2010
Beautifully done Shane. I too heard the commercial and the mention of the term ‘homeopathic’. I was instantly filled with an intense urge to see a “first”: a product label reading “Active Ingredients: None”. I wasn’t surprised when the website was cagier and more tight-lipped than a mob boss testifying before Congress.
I, like you, haven’t the slightest doubt the product is fraudulent. However, I do have to say that although I come from the same Skeptical-Inquirer-reading school as you (figuratively, if not literally), a few months ago I clicked on a few links and was soon reading some studies on homeopathy in the British Medical Journal, the Brits’ equivalent of JAMA, (not reading ABOUT some studies, reading the actual studies), and to my genuine astonishment, these placebo-controlled, double-blind, randomized studies found highly statistically-significant results in favor of homeopathy for certain medical conditions. So I’m left in a mild quandary: all rational theoretical analysis says it’s not possible based on current science, but empirical evidence, in repeated studies, suggests it might be. (Don’t hold me to this, but my recollection is that there was a mention made of a Cochrane Study on homeopathy, a meta-analysis, which also was positive for homeopathy.)
So, what do people like us do when a series of well-conducted studies, published in a highly reputable medical journal, produce results that CURRENT science indicates is impossible? Obviously call for more studies, but until then, do we continue to sardonically deride homeopathy (or whatever the subject may be) or temporarily hold our fire?