The article "Zaps to the brain curb the need to smoke" (Mail & Guardian, November 15) is a clear example of what’s amiss with reporting on science.
The blurb is misleadingly: "A study shows that 44% of heavy smokers kicked the habit after receiving magnetic stimulation."
This was a tiny study of 115 people, split into three groups: one received deep high-frequency magnetic stimulation, one group low-frequency stimulation and the third (the control) none at all. The claim is that 44% of the high-frequency stimulation group (17 out of 39) "kicked the habit". The article mentions that "the results showed a placebo effect".
We are told that both the other groups cut down, on average, from 26 to 20 cigarettes a day.
This is a classic pseudo-scientific trick, misleading the reader by offering one statistic ("kicked the habit") in the group the researchers want to highlight, yet using another, different measure in the groups they want to cast in a less favourable light.
In other words, some number of the other two groups also "kicked the habit" – but the article does not mention how many.
In such a small study, with three groups, the statistical significance is small. A placebo effect of 50% compared with the claimed effect is high.
The real hole in the article is that the results of this study have not even been published – which makes it scientifically irrelevant.
The version of the article on the Guardian website carries two extra sentences from Peter Eichhammer, who has published studies on the process, and one of them further detracts from the usefulness of this piece: "We need replication from a variety of clinical studies which really treat people with this addiction."
I pay a premium each week for "Africa’s best read", but I won’t be doing so if you continue to publish articles I would expect to find in an alternative-health magazine. – Kevin Charleston, Cape Town