AAS's Response to the Recent Article on MS in "Neurology"
American Apitherapy Society
A few months ago the Journal “Neurology” published an article with the title “A[…] Study of Bee Sting Therapy for Multiple Sclerosis,” written by a team of neurologists. Their idea was to examine how well bee sting therapy works for MS. . .
This work led the neurologists to the following conclusion:
“…we found that the sting therapy had no significant effect on disease activity as measured using….”
We apitherapists and health care providers have serious reservations about this team's design, the execution, and their conclusion.
Now, let me present some commentary about the response we sent to the Journal “Neurology,” the text of which follows this introduction.
Our first reservation regards their technique. They followed an approach of stinging exclusively on the thighs; this approach corresponds to nothing that experienced apitherapists do.
Our second reservation concerns the team's assessment of disease activity and the markers of disease they used: brain lesions as seen on an MRI. The patients in the second group (who had no treatment in the initial twenty-four weeks) developed four times as many lesions as they had developed in the preceding eight to nine years of their illness. We question, therefore, the relevance of the markers chosen.
Our last major concern addresses their statistics. Statistics are ways to evaluate the meaning of measurements. The results the team obtained had such a wide range of values that their statistics did not show significant differences between the beginning and ending measurements. This, however, may have been due to the type of statistical analysis that was done. . .
Dears Dr. Cherbuliez,
ReplyDeleteDr. Kochan and
our good friend Mr. Glen Perry,
As a member of the American Apitherapy Society, we would like to congratulate you for the letter you sent the to the American Academy of Neurology, regarding their publication “A Randomized Crossover Study of Bee Sting Therapy for Multiple Sclerosis” by T. Wesselius and colleagues published in NEUROLOGY, of the American Academy of Neurology, 2005; 65;1764-1768. http://www.apitherapy.org/news.html.
Despite the fact that the internet makes the world so small and bring people and knowledge so close, the authors could have had contact the AAS before establishing their standards and protocols to this clinical study. However they didn't just because they did not want.
This is another strong evidence that there is a reactionary movement against the development of apitherapy worldwide. We cannot just turn back and let them publishing such harmful publications. We must be vigilant and react as soon and balanced possible, what you have done very well.
Last December we also were surprised by a publication at the American Journal of Kidney Diseases, which in our opinion is just a commercial article disguised as a scientific publication. They made an international publication in a scientific journal, based on a falsified product. We are enclosing the mentioned article and the letter we sent to the editor of the Journal, with our complaints and questions. Until now we did not get their reply.
Best regards,
Jose Alexandre S. Abreu
Nectar Farmaceutica Ltda
Quality Assured, ISO 9001 / GMP
Tel: 55-31-3261-4028 Mob: 55-31-8814-5978