Alternative Kathy Sykes

Alternative Therapies.

BBC programme.

BBC2.

I don't like speaking ill of the dead. So it's really great relief that "Professor" Sykes is still alive. Alive and, indeed, somewhat nubile.

I remember the last series. Four episodes, was it? Three? One about acupuncture. One about faith healing. One about herbal remedies, possible including a bit about ayurveda, or that might have been the fourth episode. Conlusions: faith healing doesn't work, herbal remedies work sometimes and acupuncture works as a pain killer, if nothing else. But it might just be suggestion, hard to tell. Not done enough studies.

That's a bit of a mantra for the programme, in fact, not been enough research. No money in it, I suppose. At least some had been done on the herbal remedies. Those pharma corps have to get their drugs soemwhere, after all. The German government had put together the Commission E Manuscripts, just a list of plants and what they supposedly cure, along with references to the very limited amount of research done.

Herbal remedies are at least plausible. It's a well known fact that aspirin started off as willow bark tea and artemesinin, the malaria drug, is made from a weed. Originally it was a Chinese treatment, they found it in some old records back when they were communists. Tried a few dozen, in fact, but this was the only one that worked. Eventually the Americans found out about it, wanted some themselves, sent out botanical Bonds to climb every mountain and ford every stream hunting for the elusive weed. Found it. Eventually. In Washington DC, should've looked there first.

Where was I? Ah yes, this programme. Started a new series last night. Hypnotherapy this time. Same sort of thing, "not enough science" and so forth. I don't know what makes her an expert. Her caption on Breakfast was "scientist". Of course in this programme she interviews a "scientist" who's a prestidigitator. He convinces her hypnosis is just a heightened state of concentration by juggling for her, then the old which-ball's-in-which-hand trick. "They're in that one". Oh no, there's only one there! Well of course there is, he just threw one over there. So much for prestidigitation. No wonder he gave up and got a day job sciencing. Well, I say "scientist", he was a psychiatrist. A fraud, in other words. Your science is a lie, man, in it's entirety. "psyentist", I should call him. But I've nothing else to say about him, so never mind.

Another fault in the programme: they try to explain away hypno-phenomena by calling them mere "suggestion". Well, I think most hypnomen would admit that's exactly what hypnosis is, putting someone into a trance so they're in a very suggestible state. Hypnos, sleep. The suppression of the ego, the consciousness. I don't want to go back to the psyentist, but it's the opposite of his "extreme concentration" theory.

Mind you, it isn't "mere" suggestion. They recruited a man, a scientist from the University of Hull no less, to say that trances and hypnosis don't exist, some people are just suggestible and others aren't. Did a demo with some weak minded simpleton who either could be made to hallucinate very easily or lied enthusiastically to gain approval. The brain scan they did on him showed hypnosis and suggestion being clearly and massively different. Whoops, disproved everything he's been trying to prove. Off to the hari-kari man, it's the honourable way. Can't be worse than living in Hull.

The obligatory blood-and-guts scene. Dentist, marathon man style, no painkillers. No screaming either, just him droning on in an allegedly hypnotic way. Acupuncture episode: open-heart surgery with pins instead of needles, if you see what I mean.

They also peddled the myth that you can't be made to act against your normal will when in a hypnotic trance.

They went onto the placebo, which is a sort of mini-hypnos as the flash-bang stuff is macrohypnos.

Went on to the placebo. Wonderful is placebo. SSRIs might not work but placebos do. Ought to prescribe them. Used to, the doctors, but the pharmagov put a stop to that. Work better than herceptin anyway. That only got on the NHS through political pressure. Got this woman in, they did, gave her some money and sent her off to the TV studios to pretend she needed the drug to live and was paying for it herself because of the cheapskate government. Not true, of course. The NHS didn't pay for it because it wasn't licenced by NICE yet. Because it doesn't work. Three studies done, two show a wonder drug and are payed for by guess-who, the independent study shows the drug killing people off in numbers, not doing what it's meant to and giving heart disease too.

But the breast cancer women were on the march and the minister woman was only too happy to oblige. Assuming the drug doesn't kill them, a big assumption with this drug, every patient is about £100,000 a year for life to the company. For a poison, don't forget. It's a preventative drug, in theory, so it's a life long thing.

Placebo isn't worse than that, certainly.

Kathy Sykes tried to be hypnotised herself. Didn't work, she though because the camera crew ere distracting her. So the episode ended with her and hypno-psyentist going off into the sunset together (well, literally walking towards the camera on a grey afternoon across a suspension bridge, but forget that).

Her attempt at hypnosis was interesting, in a lascivious sort fo way.

She has a disturbing habit of sitting back with her legs spread wide apart and her hands in her groin. Looks like some pictures I once saw on the internet, but with clothes. Not many of those either, to be honest.

wiki says:

She is also a member of the Wellcome Trust's Public Engagement Strategy Committee.

Which rings very negative bell, although I'm not sure why.

Best picture I can find: