The US will try treating opioid addiction with fake medicine

If you can't afford to offer real medical care, why not offer fake medicine? The U.S. Medicare system is about to give this strategy a try, for treating back pain.

Last week, Medicare announced that it wants to start paying for studies of acupuncture as a treatment for low back pain, as reported by the Washington Post and Stat. The government's reason, according to Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar, was that we need this option to help solve opioid addiction:

“Defeating our country’s epidemic of opioid addiction requires identifying all possible ways to treat the very real problem of chronic pain, and this proposal would provide patients with new options while expanding our scientific understanding of alternative approaches to pain.”

If you break down HHS Secretary Azar's statement, it's mostly correct. Yes, treating opioid addition should explore all methods for treating chronic pain. And yes, this program will provide "new" options, even though the option in question is nonsense.

But (3) no, studying acupuncture will not expand our scientific understanding of "alternative approaches" to pain. Why not? Because thousands of studies have already been done, and the verdict was in, long ago, that acupuncture is nothing more than an elaborate placebo.

The problem is, acupuncture proponents never give up. Every time a study shows that acupuncture fails (and this has happened, repeatedly), they claim it wasn't done properly or make another excuse. I've even seen proponents argue that studies in which acupuncture failed were in fact successes, because acupuncture and placebo treatments both outperformed the "no treatment" option.

(Aside: we use placebo treatments because we've known for decades that any treatment, even a sugar pill, may show a benefit as compared to no treatment at all. Acupuncture research has created placebos by using fake needles that don't actually pierce the skin, or by placing needles in random places rather than the so-called acupuncture points. Scientifically speaking, if a treatment doesn't outperform a placebo, then the treatment is a failure.)

To make matters worse, the new HHS program will fund "pragmatic" clinical trials rather than the usual, gold-standard randomized trials (RCTs). Without going into details, let's just say that pragmatic trials are much less well-controlled than RCTs, allowing more room for mistakes and misinterpretation. This is a bad idea even when the intervention being studied is legitimate. It's an even worse idea here, where trials have shown, over and over, that acupuncture doesn't work.

Secretary Azar might be confused because the acupuncture industry has managed to get hundreds of studies published, many of them positive–but most of them are poorly designed, and who has time to read all that bad science? (The rare well-designed studies always show that acupuncture doesn't work.) Acupuncturists have even created pseudoscientific journals devoted entirely to acupuncture, as I wrote about in 2017. Some of these journals are published by respected scientific publishers, but they are still little more than fake journals.

Not surprisingly, with entire journals trying to fill each issue with acupuncture articles, last week's Medicare announcement noted that

"the agency [CMS] recognizes that the evidence base for acupuncture has grown in recent years". 

No, it hasn't. What has grown is the number of articles. Adding more garbage to a pile doesn't make it smell better.

For those who aren't familiar with the claims of acupuncture, let's do a very quick summary: acupuncturists stick needles in a person's body at specific points in order to manipulate a mystical life force that they call "qi" (proounced "chee"). This idea is "a pre-scientific superstition" that has no basis in medicine, physiology or biology, and has never had any good scientific evidence to support it.  Acupuncturists don't even agree on where the acupuncture points are, which should make it impossible to do a scientific study. It's not at all surprising that acupuncture doesn't work; indeed, if it did work, modern medicine would have to seriously examine what mechanism could possibly explain it.

But wait, argue proponents, what about all the wise traditional doctors in China who developed acupuncture over thousands of years? Well, it turns out that acupuncture wasn't popular in China until the mid-20th century, when Chairman Mao pulled a fast one on his population because he couldn't supply enough real medical care. Mao didn't use acupuncture himself and apparently didn't believe in it. I highly recommend this expose of Mao's scam, by Alan Levinovitz in Slate.

So rather than spend millions of dollars on yet another study of acupuncture for pain, I have a better suggestion for HHS: invest the funds in basic biomedical research, which has had a flat budget for more than a decade now. As long as it goes through proper peer review, almost any research will be far better than wasting the money on acupuncture.

Now, I'm not naive enough to think that Medicare will take my advice, but I can tell them right now what their new "pragmatic" trials will reveal. Acupuncturists will happily take the money, treat people suffering from back pain, and report that some of them experienced reductions in pain. Some of the patients will invariably agree, because back pain comes and goes, and it's hard to know why it went away.

Then the acupuncturists will say, "look, it works! Now please cover acupuncture for all Medicare patients." Then we'll spend more tax dollars on pseudoscience, and patients will be in just as much pain as ever. If Medicare falls for this (and I fear they will), then Chairman Mao will have fooled the U.S. government, just as he fooled many of his own people half a century ago.

What Works for Knee Pain? Good Medicine, Bad Medicine, and Wasted Money

Knee pain is a very common problem, affecting young and old alike.  Among athletes, knees take a beating, particularly in sports that involve running and twisting.  Among older people, the cartilage that provides a cushion in our knees often just wears out, producing chronic stiffness and pain.

I've had knee problems myself, so I was interested to see an article posted on CNN, with content from Harvard Medical School called "Alternative Treatments for Knee Pain."  Would it describe "alternative" medicine, as in "complementary and alternative medicine," or would it present real medicine for knee pain?

A little of both, as it turns out.  But it does more: it inadvertently illustrates one of the major flaws with the U.S. health system.  We don't discriminate between effective and ineffective treatments, and some doctors seem content to let patients try anything, regardless of efficacy or cost.

The article describes several treatments for knee pain, and for each one it turns to Eric Berkson, M.D., for an opinion on how well the treatment works.  Berkson is an orthopaedic surgeon at Massachusetts General Hospital and an Instructor in Orthopaedic Surgery at Harvard Medical School.

Despite these excellent credentials, Dr. Berkson doesn't seem to have a firm command of science-based medicine. The article starts out strong, recommending the most effective therapies, but then wanders into unproven therapies, and concludes with Berkson making an unscientific recommendation for the most wildly ineffective treatment of all: acupuncture.  Let's look quickly at each "alternative."

The most effective treatments, according to Dr. Berkson, are physical therapy and weight loss.  Berkson is on solid scientific ground here: physical therapy strengthens the muscles around the knee, relieving some stress on the joint, and weight loss does the same thing by reducing the load directly.  If you stopped reading at this point, you'd be in great shape.

Next is a discussion of chondroitin and glucosamine, two very popular supplements that are often used to treat joint pain.  After many years of competing claims about these supplements, NIH conducted a large, $12.5 million study called GAIT to test whether these supplements worked for knee pain. The researchers looked at glucosamine and chondroitin separately and together, and compared them to a standard pain reliever (celecoxib, brand name Celebrex®, an NSAID) and to a placebo.

The conclusion: celecoxib worked, but the supplements did not.  In a small subset of patients with moderate to severe pain, there was a hint of a benefit for glucosamine-condroitin, but it wasn't significant.  For patients with mild pain, though, only celecoxib was better than a placebo.

Despite this large and compelling study, Berkson says

"there's a lot of evidence that they [glucosamine and chondroitin] work, but only in a certain percentage of patients." 

Perhaps he's referring to patients with moderate to severe pain from the GAIT study, but the article doesn't explain if that's what he means.  And then Berkson recommends them anyway, saying "there's little downside to trying the supplements."  Especially if it makes the patient think the doctor is helping.

The article then describes three different treatments that involve injections of various substances into the knee.  To keep this brief, I'll just consider the first: viscosupplementation, a fancy name which means that hyaluronic acid is injected into the knee. It's supposed to help lubricate the joint, which sounds plausible: after all, we lubricate machines to keep them running smoothly.  Shouldn't some "grease" help our knees?

For hyalonuric acid, the answer is simply no.  A large review just last year, involving over 12,000 patients (Rutjes et al. 2012) shows that hyaluronic acid has little or no benefit, and possibly causes harm.  Their conclusion:

"In patients with knee osteoarthritis, viscosupplementation is associated with a small and clinically irrelevant benefit and an increased risk for serious adverse events."

Berkson's own colleagues, the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons, just issued a 1200-page report on treatments for knee osteoarthritis, and they found strong evidence against the use of hyalonuric acid.  To be specific, the AAOS says "We cannot recommend using hyaluronic acid for patients with osteoarthritis of the knee."  They label this a "strong" recommendation.

Despite the the advice of his own professional organization, Dr. Berkson says

"I have some patients who think [hyalonuric acid is] a miracle drug that keeps their symptoms at bay.  Given that the risks of injection are very low, it makes sense to try it if insurance will pay."

Oh my.  Here we have a medical expert recommending an expensive treatment - he estimates the cost is about $1500 - despite the evidence, apparently because he has patients who think it works.  Paying for expensive, ineffective procedures is a poor way to treat patients and a great way to run up costs.

(Aside: I might seem to be picking on Dr. Berkson here, but I think his responses are probably typical of many practicing doctors.  Not to excuse him, but it's easy to follow your instincts and to rely on anecdotes from patients.)

After briefly discussing two other injection therapies, the CNN/Harvard article addresses one last alternative: acupuncture.  It quotes Berkson again, this time saying:

"Acupuncture works in some patients, although I don't think science knows exactly why it works. It's worth trying if other things aren't working for you."

Despite Dr. Berkson's comment, the science doesn't support him.  Acupuncture for knee pain, and for other pain, simply doesn't work.  (See this article for a lengthy discussion, with citations.)  Just to pretend for a second: in order for acupuncture to work, there would have to be lines of force (called "meridians") through which a mystical, apparently unmeasurable life force ("qi") flows, and furthermore you'd have to be able to manipulate this life force by plunging needles into the skin.  There is no support whatsoever for these ideas in human biology and physiology.

The American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeon's report addresses acupuncture too, stating that "We cannot recommend using acupuncture in patients with symptomatic osteoarthritis of the knee."

Dr. Berkson's recommendation is akin to a shrug: while admitting that he doesn't know why it might work, he just says to give it a try.  His own professional organization, after an extensive review of the scientific evidence, disagrees.

The CNN Health article, with "content provided by the faculty of the Harvard Medical School," demonstrates in a microcosm how health care dollars are wasted in the U.S.  First it recommends the most effective and least expensive treatments: weight loss and exercise.  Both of these involve lifestyle changes that are difficult for many people.  The article then suggests alternative treatments for knee pain that include:

1. Glucosamine and chondroitin supplements - ineffective but cheap. 
2. Knee injections of hyalonuric acid - ineffective and very expensive.
3. Acupuncture - ineffective, wildly implausible, and sort of cheap.

Despite the evidence against them, the doctor quoted throughout the article recommends trying all three, especially if (as is common) the patient doesn't have to pay the bills.

Science only supports three treatments for knee pain, as physician Harriet Hall summarized in her recent blog post: exercise, weight loss, and NSAIDs.  The "alternatives" described by CNN, no matter how appealing they sound, are a waste of time and money.