Excerpt from an email from Brandon Horn responding to the Interview I did with Elizabet Stener Victorin and the latest negative acupuncture and IVF Danish study:
First, I just had an article accepted for publication in eCAM that will discuss some of the reasons for this (not specific to the Danish study), but the Danish study has three separate flaws that render the study invalid for the stated purpose of the study and a large waste of money.
Second, it isn't such a leap to think that acupuncture can improve pregnancy rates on the day of ET. We can discuss during the interview if you would like.
Third, we monitor our practitioners success rates for ETs to look for outliers and to make sure we are getting at least what our expectations are in terms of pregnancy rates. When you asked about our success rates, I gave you our figures, but they are not valid to use in public because it was not set up for that purpose. There was no randomization, no inclusion or exclusion criteria and patients weren't followed through to live birth consistently due to the fact that a good number of these are other practitioners patients that are referred to us for ETs. A 60-90% increase in live births is a reality that has been demonstrated in reasonably conducted studies, and while our internal data is very encouraging, we do not want to make claims beyond the published data.
Finally, I wanted to mention that we will be demonstrating a number of protocols and modifications, some that we have published and others that we have found to be effective in our internal data. We will also be covering how to manage patients during their IVF cycle, but we will not be covering any preconception care that happens prior to the start of the cycle ... that's another story.
