Page 4 - Spring 12

BAHVS President’s letter (March 2012) by Mark Elliott
BAHVS is a small organisation, so small in fact it seems everyone falls into the category of personal friends and over the last decade or so our numbers have been declin- ing somewhat.
Yet we are a very important organisation in my view when there is such a need for advocacy for animals. Denial of alternative treatments seems the current vogue in governments, but why? Well, we are a threat to Big Pharma, as we stand for something different – cure. It does not help us that we don’t know at this time how homeopathy manages to impart its healing effect, even though we do know that it works and have shown this.
As an organisation we have been active in research in recent years, producing a number of peer reviewed articles that will stand the test of time and counter our detractors (if they would only read/accept them). Jacques Benveniste used to say that he hated vets, as we had the abil- ity to prove homeopathy, but do not get on and do it.
But how do we get our message across about what we have done and can do? We ran the successful PR campaign coordinated by Nick Thompson but now the funds have run out. I am working to collate the vast amount of research that has been done in the past and will be evolv- ing this on a website on our, and IAVH’s behalf – see www.homeo- pathicvet.org – but really we need new members, more funds, and for everyone to do just a little more to keep up the momentum as we are in danger of stagnation from decline.
In any organisation the work is done by the few. That is the nature of
rule by committee and so it is not a criticism of anyone, but it can lead to apathy, and the concept that someone else will do it. I had a discussion recently with a well-regarded professor of medicine who said that we should not ignore the power of the simple case history. If those not on com- mittee (or all of us in fact would be better) could just write one case history each and send it to a journal, or better still collate a few cases from practice into a series, those of us who write in magazines make reference to BAHVS website whenever possible, and progress any ideas we individually or collectively have, then we will grow again. If we grow,
we will bring in new blood and more animals will benefit from our collec- tive experience and desire to heal.
After all, we are a community of innovation, and it is an interesting irony that we find ourselves, in 2012, seeing our conventional colleagues embracing nutraceuticals marketed by Big Pharma when we have been using them for decades. It smacks of desperation as conventional medi- cine fails cases, as it often seems some of the marketed products are band-wagon jumpers without much thought process, but others are well studied now even if the research is at times a little thin.
I am sure with some more effort we will get there, and less of this nonsense about there being no evidence for homeopathy will be put against us. So please get out there, do some more good stuff, let your committee know about it so we in turn can spread the word about what you are doing in the community.
Have a great 2012.
A LESSON IN SCIENTIFIC OBJECTIVITY
Many of you will have missed the recent publication in the International Journal of Assured Results into the working of Murphy’s Law (1), and so it seems appropriate to draw attention to the work and the process of its publication. The experiment was devised to confirm the aspect of Murphy’s Law that states that when buttered toast is dropped it always lands buttered side down.
Three parallel procedures were carried out each using one hundred pieces, excluding crusts, of white, wholemeal or brown sliced bread respectively. All the bread was from the same manufacturer to ensure the consistent weight and size of each slice. Hand cut bread was excluded from the trial as being too variable. The products of other manufacturers were excluded as well due to the fact that this would introduce further physical variations in the bread which would make the interpretation of the results difficult (plus the fact that the chosen manufacturer was the only one willing to make any finance contribution to the research). Similar criteria were employed in the selection of the butter used. The degree of toasting, the amount of butter applied to each slice and the height from which it was dropped were all standardised. The desirability of a control group, possibly involving the use of margarine, was rejected on the grounds that as the objective was to verify an established law, the law itself provided its own control. Similarly, parallel experiments involving different amounts of butter and/or different heights were deemed not to be necessary to obtain the desired result. The three procedures were car- ried out consecutively by the same team on the same afternoon and hence atmospheric conditions were not considered to be relevant. Blinding was obtained by the interpreting personnel being unaware of which type of bread was used in each of the stages.
The results confirmed that there was no significant difference in the find- ings of the three portions of the experiment. However, there was conster-
2
nation when it was realised that of the three hundred slices used thirty- six (12%) had landed on the unbuttered side, thereby apparently disprov- ing Murphy’s Law. After much thought it was decided that this could be represented as the normal variation to be expected in any system and accordingly the paper was written as a vindication of the law and submit- ted for publication. The Journal, as was its policy, submitted it to three peer reviewers and in due course they reported back.
Unfortunately all three reviewers considered that the explanation of nor- mal variation was unsatisfactory and recommended rejection of the paper, which was sent back to the authors. Unwilling to accept that the experiment had been a failure, the team reviewed and reassessed every aspect of their methodology and interpretation and decided finally that, in the absence of any other explanation, each of the maverick thirty-six slices must have been buttered on the wrong side in the first place. It was found also that twelve slices in each batch had been affected and so the team were able with a clear conscience to exclude the offending ele- ments thereby reducing the sample size in each stage to eighty-eight slices; which by a happy coincidence was exactly four loafs of each of the breads.
The necessary parts of the paper were rewritten and the whole resubmit- ted. This time the reviewers recommended publication, with the proviso from one of them suggesting that a statement about the re-evaluation be included. The editor decided such a statement was unnecessary, publi- cation went ahead, and the dissenting reviewer was quietly dropped from the Journal’s list as being too independently minded to be reliable.
Ain’t science wonderful?
References
John Saxton, UK
1. Fiddle I T, Bias I A M et al Murphy’s Law rules OK?: an exploration of the obvious International Journal of Assured Results (April 2012) 1: 4: pp 8-12