Replies to post #8364 on Calmare Therapeutics Inc (fka CTTC)

[powderbum]

Thanks for finally admitting how incredible the results of this study were.

To quote you:

But the real kicker is simply the numbers:

"...a 95% reduction, with continued relief at 2 and 3 months. Patients achieved maximum pain relief with less than 5 treatments."

I doubt whether there exists a treatment of any kind, anywhere, for anything that is able to effect a 95% relief of a symptom regardless of its etiology in nearly every patient regardless of background, much less with less than five treatments, even less so that would last two to three months. Most physicians probably find such numbers fall outside their range of "believability."

[Vaffan-Coulo]

I just noticed something that made the numbers in the Johns Hopkins abstract even more doubtful. The part I criticized as poorly written -- "without satisfactory relief despite conventional drugs" -- as well as the description of "refractory PHN" indicates that the patients treated in the study were chosen from patients who had failed other therapy.

In other words, they reduced the population of patients qualifying for the study from the whole group of those diagnosed with PHN to the who knows how much smaller group of "refractory" patients. It should be obvious that this reduces the probability that the therapy will demonstrate effectiveness. After all, if these patients aren't responding to anything else, how likely is it that they will up and respond to the calmare? Most researchers aren't likely to pick a population that doesn't respond to anything else in order to demonstrate the effectiveness of their own therapy.

In fact, I suspect that most researchers -- unless mandated by circumstances beyond their control -- would strive to do just the opposite. They would choose to broaden the study population so as to include as many "easy" patients as possible so as to inrease the likelihood of picking up a significant response.

So on top of claiming 95% success, most within five treatments, and lasting for months; doing so in patients who have failed everything else compounds the doubt and makes the results look even more spurious.

Maybe Dr. Campbell will be able to straighten things out a bit.