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'Parachute use to prevent death and major trauma related
to gravitational challenge: systematic review of
randomized controlled trials '

Abstract
Objectives To determine whether parachutes are
effective in preventing major trauma related to
gravitational challenge.
Design Systematic review of randomized controlled
trials.
Data sources: Medline,Web of Science, Embase, and
the Cochrane Library databases; appropriate internet
sites and citation lists.
Study selection: Studies showing the effects of using
a parachute during free fall.
Main outcome measure Death or major trauma,
defined as an injury severity score > 15.
Results We were unable to identify any randomised
controlled trials of parachute intervention.
Conclusions As with many interventions intended to
prevent ill health, the effectiveness of parachutes has
not been subjected to rigorous evaluation by using
randomised controlled trials. Advocates of evidence
based medicine have criticised the adoption of
interventions evaluated by using only observational
data.We think that everyone might benefit if the most
radical protagonists of evidence based medicine
organised and participated in a double blind,
randomised, placebo controlled, crossover trial of the
parachute.

bravo!

JAT stewardess Vesna Vulović survived a fall of 33,000 feet (10,000 m) on January 26, 1972 when she was aboard JAT Flight 367. The plane was brought down by explosives over Srbská Kamenice in the former Czechoslovakia (now Czech Republic). The Serbian stewardess suffered a broken skull, three broken vertebrae (one crushed completely), and was in a coma for 27 days. In an interview she commented that, according to the man who found her, "...I was in the middle part of the plane. I was found with my head down and my colleague on top of me. One part of my body with my leg was in the plane and my head was out of the plane. A catering trolley was pinned against my spine and kept me in the plane. The man who found me, says I was very lucky. He was in the German Army as a medic during World War two. He knew how to treat me at the site of the accident."

So ... maybe after surviving a fall from that point, parachutes aren't necessary? I'm just trying to be a skeptic here ...

I sure am skeptical of something...

anecdotal, for sure

There are more if you don't believe me ...

In World War II there were several reports of military aircrew surviving long falls: Nick Alkemade, Alan Magee, and Ivan Chisov all fell at least 5,500 metres (18,000 ft) and survived.

Juliane Köpcke survived a long free fall resulting from the December 24, 1971, crash of LANSA Flight 508 (a LANSA Lockheed Electra OB-R-941 commercial airliner) in the Peruvian rainforest. The airplane was struck by lightning during a severe thunderstorm and exploded in mid air, disintegrating two miles up. Köpcke, who was 17 years old at the time, fell to earth still strapped into her seat. She survived the fall with only a broken collarbone, a gash to her right arm, and her right eye swollen shut.

Maybe we shouldn't use parachutes until these studies suggested by Direct-MS have run their gamut though ... agreed?

Actually I think this is a very poor analogy which only serves to make the CCSVI camp look fooloish.

By the way, have any of you heard of crash test dummies. They are used whenever testing saftey devices whose basic purpose is to save human life & limb. The testers would never put a real human life in that much danger.

_________________
Carpe Diem

http://www.buzzle.com/articles/parachut ... hutes.html


Parachutes are based on sound scientific premises and are easily shown to be effective... A kid playing with a grocery bag can tell you as much.

Could a kid play with a person with MS and tell you that reflux is causing it, and that venoplasty will fix it?

Have people been performing Liberation since 1595?

I really don't get the analogy.

I'd hate to be one that got the placebo!

Shows who has a sense of humor and who doesn't ... that's for sure.

Lighten up you anti-ccsviers.

"In a double-blind trial, one researcher allocates a series of numbers to 'new treatment' or 'old treatment'. The second researcher is told the numbers, but not what they have been allocated to. Since the second researcher does not know, they cannot possibly tell the patient, directly or otherwise, and cannot give in to patient pressure to give them the new treatment. In this system, there is also often a more realistic distribution of sexes and ages of patients. Therefore double-blind (or randomized) trials are preferred, as they tend to give the most accurate results."

Most legit researchers would agree with the above statement.
From what I have seen the people who tend to avoid double-blinded trials are the ones who do not feel confident in their hypothesis. Zamboni is calling for double-blinded trials. Sure lets just get rid of double-blinded trials all togethor and give the quacks free reign to claim whatener they want to make a quick buck. Getting rid of double-blinded trials would levae people as vulnerable to quackery as well...jumping out of an airplane without a parachute would..ummmmm nevermind.

It does not show anything. It first needs to be proven via double-blinded trial.

I think I may have been in the sham joke treatment arm of this trial.

Maybe, but I have something that is known as “common sense” (registered trademark) that can be used in the absense of a double blind study. It teaches me that jumping out of plane without something to slow me down is bad and improving circulation by fixing an abnormality is good!

Everyone who ate carrots in the 1800's are dead... Fact