"I am going beyond my usually stringent research criteria" NYT Jane Brody

[Celebration]

LOL, I thought this was a bit amusing....

I don’t often write about alternative remedies for serious medical conditions. Most have little more than anecdotal support, and few have been found effective in well-designed clinical trials. Such trials randomly assign patients to one of two or more treatments and, wherever possible, assess the results without telling either the patients or evaluators who received which treatment.

AsthmaNow, however, in describing an alternative treatment for asthma that does not yet have top clinical ratings in this country (although it is taught in Russian medical schools and covered by insurance in Australia), I am going beyond my usually stringent research criteria for three reasons:

¶The treatment, a breathing technique discovered half a century ago, is harmless if practiced as directed with a well-trained therapist.

¶It has the potential to improve the health and quality of life of many people with asthma, while saving health care dollars.

¶I’ve seen it work miraculously well for a friend who had little choice but to stop using the steroid medications that were keeping him alive

So, anecdotal evidence is okay, but only if it is HER ANECDOTE.

:rofl:

[trotsky]

1. I find it quite a bit more amusing...

that you posted this and don't see the irony.

[Celebration]

2. gotta be kidding

the whole thing drips irony........

Her anecdote is fine to report, but nobody else's is. And, she justifies this by telling the anecdote.

Either anecdotes are fine to report, or they aren't. But I don't think you can justify breaking your "rule" by telling an anecdote. It is laughable. I'll never put any stock in what this person writes, because there is zero logic there.

Having said that, I actually do think it is worth reporting that a breathing technique seems to help asthma. But this should have been interesting to report whether or not it helped a friend of hers.

[trotsky]

3. Yeah, surprising I know, how you could even still miss the irony.

Seeing that you still don't, I'm going to guess you'll never get it.

[Orrex]

4. If I may be so bold as to offer a suggestion

You're mocking Brody for accepting anecdotal testimony as evidence, in part because she ordinarily derides anecdotal evidence as insufficient. You identify this as irony.

Either anecdotes are fine to report, or they aren't.

Obviously, the answer is that anecdotes are certainly fine to report, but they just as certainly can't be taken as the sole evidence in support of a claim. To this end, Brody has erred significantly by offering up a personally significant anecdote in place of evidence.


What strikes me (and, I would guess, trotsky) as curious is the fact that you yourself have been a fan of anecdotal testimony in this forum for years, yet now you're deriding someone who has also apparently embraced the "value" of anecdote.

The more consistent approach IMO would be for you to say something like "I have realized that anecdotal testimony is no substitute for actual evidence, and Brody is therefore wrong for mistaking anecdote for evidence."

Failing that, you could instead say something like "as an advocate for anecdotal testimony, I applaud Brody's decision to accept anecdote as evidence."

Having said that, I actually do think it is worth reporting that a breathing technique seems to help asthma. But this should have been interesting to report whether or not it helped a friend of hers.

This is basically correct, as long as it is made clear that the breathing technique seems to help asthma, rather than making a definitive statement along those lines. Brody's anecdote--though insufficient to prove the technique on its own--may spur others to undertake a more formal study of the technique.

[Celebration]

5. it's really silly

Even medical journals have case studies (anecdotal), so, sure, anecdotal stuff should be fine in newspapers.

Yet she holds herself to a "higher" standard, higher than the medical journals that accept case studies.

Oh, that is true, except when SHE decides it is okay, because the anecdote is her own friend.

Sorry, the logic stinks, and the journalism stinks. If case studies are fine for medical journals, they are fine for the newspaper. But given her personal standards, her logic suffers severely in this piece. She won't use anecdotes, but then uses an anecdote to make the exception. Then she reports the anecdote. That's just really, really bad logic and bad journalism.

[Orrex]

6. I'm not defending her by any means.

I think she's made a terrible error of judgment, and it's all the worse because of the role she's cast for herself up until this point. She should print a retraction or at the very least an explanation of how she justifies her lapse in credibility.