What's the Harm? - Part 2

So, after a brief hiatus on my part, with too many projects to complete to count, I have time to brows the news from time to time again.

And, after my last post, I have another depressing news item to share from the "what's the harm?" department.

There are news links in Polish here and here (sorry, I could not find an English version).

To summarize:

A six moth old girl was found dead a few weeks ago in the town of Brzezna in the south of Poland, while in care of her parents. It was determined that she had died as a result of malnutrition. After some initial investigation, it was also determined that the parents started using a "natural" approach for the baby's care, including refusal of any vaccines, lack of medical care and a whole bunch of holistic feeding techniques. They attempted to follow advice from a faith healer, who allegedly told the parents to use skim milk and herbs as the baby's diet staple. The healer, called "God's Man" in the area, is well known for advocating abandoning regular medical care and using herbs, fasting and prayer as remedies for any ailments (including cancer!!!).

This case is not the first one for the supposedly "godly" man. A few years ago it was alleged that he had caused a death of a five year old boy, who had kidney problems. After initial, positive reactions to the standard, hospital medical care, the mother took the boy to the healer and believed in his "miraculous" approach, which ultimately resulted in boy's death.

Those two cases are clear answers to the argument for the alternative medicine that I hear very often: "what's the harm?". The answer is very simple, the harm is in believing that unproven, often completely nonsensical treatments can and do work. When someone abandons reason and critical thinking in small cases, it is easy to do the same in cases that can cause harm, death and destruction. Belief in miracles, prayer, alternative medicine (like homeopathy, chiropractic, acupuncture, etc) when your life, or life of your loved ones, is at stake, can really be deadly.

What's the Harm?

What's the harm?
That's a question I hear a lot when discussing alternative medicine and all the included disciplines, like chiropractic, homeopathy, naturopathy, traditional "medicine" (including Chinese medicine), acupuncture, and many others.

I always point out that the harm comes from two sides. One side is the actual lack of medicinal and therapeutic value in all those alt-med offshoots. The other side is the fact that when we suspend our critical thinking in one area, we tend to stop using our brains across the board, and that can lead to more problems with rational decision making.

From time to time I catch a news on the interwebs, that illustrates the first issue so clearly, it is hard to read.

The original link is here (in Polish):
6-latka operowana po "leczeniu" u bioenergoterapeuty
which means: "A six year old undergoes a surgery after being treated by a naturopath" (I'm not sure if there is a better word in English than naturopath).

Let me explain...

In the town of Toruń, in central Poland, a local court ordered a naturopath to close down his "bioenergy" therapy business and pay a fine, after he treated a six-year old for a cold. After the initial session, in which he diagnosed the child with pneumonia, he continued to treat her for a month and a half, prescribing strong steroids (which he's not allowed to do) and treating her fever over the phone. When the parents noticed a large lump between the girl's ribs, they finally took her to a hospital, where she had to have a major surgery to treat her deteriorated lungs and where she spent more than five weeks, some of it in the intensive care unit.

The judge also said that she is planning to bring the case against the parents for failing to provide adequate care to their daughter, which seems to be reasonable, as they refused to take the child to a real doctor for weeks and almost killed their daughter in the process.

Unfortunately, one thing that bothers me is the fact that the naturopath is only required to close down his business for three years! Since the article mentions that he's been doing it for 20 years and that his mother was also a "famous" healer, I bet he'll be back treating people with magic and woo in no time.

Another point that stands out from this article is the fact that the guy has a "bioenergy healer" license. There is a lot of discussion in various states in the US about licensing alt-med "doctors". The opposition usually brings up one great point: any kind of license, legitimizes the profession, which, in case of alt-med is based on magic, wishful thinking and general woo-woo. For a lay person, a license makes the potential therapy look real and puts it on the same level as evidence-based medicine. Licensing alt-med scams might be a way to earn some extra tax dollars, but it creates a false sense of security for the general public.

Stupid Quote of the Day

Here is a stupid quote of the day, from a pastor of a church in Texas, who encouraged her flock not to vaccinate, so they got themselves a little outbreak of measles:

"So I'm going to tell you what the facts are, and the facts are the facts, but then we know the truth. That always overcomes facts..."

Here is the whole story from NPR: Texas Megachurch At Center Of Measles Outbreak

Ayurvedic Medicine - Same Crap, Different Name

If you are looking for an "ancient" wisdom (as in, from the times when people had no idea how the world worked, and made up thinks as they went along), an alternative way of thinking about health, and a new (old) way of treating your ills... look no further... try ayurvedic medicine!

Ayurvedic medicine, in my view, is just a step up from homeopathy, since it actually utilizes "active" ingredients (unlike most of the homeopathic drugs, which are either pure water or sugar), like herbs and various chemicals contained in them. It also focuses on proper diet, which, of course is probably a good idea in any healthy lifestyle.
The first problem with ayurverdic medicine is the fact that it uses magic made up body types for diagnostics, and those types are governed by three "doshas": air/space, fire/water and earth/water. Sounds like nonsense? It, probably is!

The second issue with ayurvedic treatments is that a lot of them contain dangerous substances, and sometimes, just plain poisons. Since, they are mostly classified as supplements in the U.S., they are not in any way controlled, nor regulated. So, buyer beware!

More on the topic can be found in the Skeptic Dictionary (Ayurvedic medicine) and on the Rational Wiki.

So, the next time, someone attempts to sell you this newest fad, just say no. It'll save you a lot of money, and maybe your health too.

Now... That's Funny!!!

Here, laugh away!!!

Do You Believe In Magic?

You do, if you use homeopathy, acupuncture, chiropractic, Reiki, some kind of faith healing, and countless other alternative medicine modalities that have absolutely no roots in modern science, reality and critical thinking. Most of them are just ways of "wishing away" the problem, and while some might "work" as a placebo, the might have some dangers associated with their use, and, when used instead of real medical interventions, all of them can be deadly (see here, here, and here).

So, why do we do it? Because we want miracles? Because we don't know any better? Because science is complex and, sometimes, difficult to understand? Probably, all of the above.

It is good to know that we can count on a few brave authors, who do the research, dig out the details and present it in a nice fashion, digestible by the regular folks like us. Among them is Paul Offit, a medical doctor, a researcher, and a strong proponent of reality-based medicine, including vaccines. His previous books, "Autism False Prophets: Bad Science, Risky Medicine and the Search For a Cure", and "Deadly Choices" were both excellent descriptions of the vaccine "controversy", how it started, evolved from bad science to social movement, and how it threatens our health and the well-being (and lives) of our children. Knowing his great writing style and deep commitment to science and research, I was very excited to find out that his new book "Do You Believe in Magic?: The Sense and Nonsense of Alternative Medicine" is out. I should have more of my own thoughts about it in a few days (or weeks, it's summer after all), but in the meantime, here are two reviews available on line:

Book raises alarms about alternative medicine - from USA Today, by Liz Szabo
and
Vaccine advocate takes on the alternative medicine industry - NBC News

There is also more on the topic from Liz Szabo: Alternative therapies, supplements can cause side effects and How to guard against a quack

Go, read it all, and stop believing in magic. It's the 21st Century!

More on Dr. Oz

Wow... Dr. Oz is really hitting the waves this week.

After a great article in The New Yorker, exposing Dr. Oz's bland disregard for facts and reality, as well as the real motivation behind his media persona (ratings, money and fame), he dives ever deeper into the abyss of irrationality and pure stupidity. Dr. Oz embraces and endorses homeopathy!

Homeopathy irks me more than other alternative medicine woo, simply because a few years ago I myself watched helplessly, while a homeopathic "doctor" milked hundreds of dollars from someone with no good outlook for improvement and with very limited resources. The money went into useless "interviews" that had nothing to do with the condition of the patient, and into even more useless, "custom-designed drugs" that did nothing (it was pure water after all).

I'm glad that there is finally some bad publicity Dr. Oz gets from the media. Maybe exposing his program for what it really is, an elaborate fraud, not to help people, but to stuff his pockets, will turn away some of his viewers. I'm not against stuffing your own pockets at expense of others, especially when they are willing participants (yes, I go to the movies, and sometimes I even pay to see a really bad movie). What's dangerous about Dr. Oz is the fact that he has positioned himself in a health care "edutainment" sector of the media, and by promoting dubious therapies and just pure intellectual junk, he endangers people who believe him.

In the meantime, there are usual places on the Web that do a great job analyzing Dr. Oz's homeopathic claims:

Orac: Dr. Oz’s journey to the Dark Side is now more than complete: It’s Oz and homeopathy versus science-based medicine

and

Science-Based Medicine Blog: Are You Ready For the Oz Manifesto

Dr. Oz - The Smooth Operator

I am no fan of Dr. Oz. I've been watching (metaphorically speaking, as I can hardly take watching him on TV) his raise to stardom from Oprah's "America's Doctor" wonder boy, to his own TV show, and the beginning of his own Day TV media empire, and I see a scary, scary future ahead of us.

At first, I thought that Dr. Oz basically sells a very typical and widely known advice of good diet, exercise and less daily stress, heavily coated in nonsense of alternative and herbal medicine and, increasingly, in funky spiritualism and pure crap (examples abound). I do realize that just saying "eat well and exercise daily" is not going to sell well on TV, since most of us just want quick fixes for our problems. However, Dr. Oz's endorsement of unproven herbs, vitamins and modalities that belong in Middle Ages, not in the 21st Century, is more dangerous than useful. Dr. Oz is also a proponent of Reiki, which is basically a type of therapeutic touch, which was completely discredited by a 9 year old Emily Rosa years ago. So, there you have it... would you trust that doctor with your health?

I'm glad the mainstream media has finally started noticing. I stumbled on this great article from the New Yorker: "The Operator", written by Michael Specter (the author of “Denialism: How Irrational Thinking Hinders Scientific Progress, Harms the Planet, and Threatens Our Lives”, which I also highly recommend).
There is a number of really good points in the article, but this one really shows what Dr. Oz is about:

Oz sighed. “Medicine is a very religious experience,” he said. “I have my religion and you have yours. It becomes difficult for us to agree on what we think works, since so much of it is in the eye of the beholder. Data is rarely clean.” All facts come with a point of view. But his spin on it—that one can simply choose those which make sense, rather than data that happen to be true—was chilling. “You find the arguments that support your data,” he said, “and it’s my fact versus your fact.”

His facts are driven by his popularity and how well his show is doing, not by objectiveness. That's why I would never trust neither them, nor him.

Boiron, the Maker of Oscillococcinum Gets Sued

It's good to see that a crappy sugar pill flu medicine Oscillococcinum, which I blogged about more than a year ago, finally gets a fair treatment from the public in a form of a lawsuit filled in Canada.

As I pointed out before, the pill:

Each 0.04 oz. dose (1 g) of Oscillo contains 1 g of sugar

or, if you want to be picky:

1g pill contains 0.85g sucrose and 0.15g lactose

Hmmm... you do the math...

Those pills are all over the pharmacies in the USA and Canada, and, since they do nothing (just as the Airborne used to do) to improve your health, except emptying your pockets, I hope the makers (Brion, a big pharma!!!) get their pockets emptied too.

More: Class Action Lawsuit Filed against Homeopathy Manufacturer Boiron and Shoppers Drug Mart

The Burzynski Clinic: Truth or Fiction

There is an interesting piece of news making its way around the blogosphere: The Burzynski Clinic – Another Crank Tries to Intimidate a Blogger.

First and foremost, I'm appealed that anyone, especially a scientist (and I assume Burzynski wants to call himself that), would resort to intimidating anyone who voices his or her opinion on the Internet, especially when such an opinion is backed by rather solid facts. In case of a scientist, and a medical doctor, who wants to promote modern and possibly radically game changing therapies that could cure cancer, such an intimidation is not only out of place, but it is unthinkable.

I am somehow familiar with Burzynski's claims, even though I have not been following his progress for many years. As a person born and raised in the same country as him, I was "bombarded" with news of his amazing and revolutionary therapies, by the New York City's Polish community grapevine in the early 1990s. At that time it appeared that our war with cancer had just been won, and Burzynski had been the general who'd taken the final stronghold of the enemy. And then, slowly, it faded away. People kept dying of cancer and new, amazing discoveries were made, promising new cures for cancer (vilcacora comes to my mind, which hasn't cured anyone I know so far either).

So, going back to the news, I find it shocking that Burzynski and his people would go after those who question their ideas, data and methods. If you are a real scientist, who has solid data and believes in his or her outcomes, you should publish it, let the peer review scrutinize it, and reap the benefits, if there are any. From my previous experience with this topic, and from some of the more recent articles (The Burzynski Clinic – Another Crank Tries to Intimidate a Blogger, The False Hope of the Burzynski Clinic, Harnessing the generosity of kind-hearted strangers to pay for woo, Stanislaw Burzynski and "Antineoplastons") I remain very skeptical of his claims. I hope Burzynski can change my mind, but I would not bet my life on it.

In the meantime, trying to scare bloggers with some vague legal actions is not the way to win you supporters. It is also very educational to read comments under any of the negative articles on Burzynski's clinic. The "big pharma" conspiracy hounds come out not realizing that the clinic/research institute makes tons of money too.

What's The Harm?

Believing in supernatural seems harmless, and most of the time it probably is. However, it can turn ugly, even deadly at times, and our daily tolerance of it makes it possible.
We pass by roadside psychics every day and most of us pay no attention to their shady business, but the harm, usually financial, but sometimes physical, they extend to gullible and needy people is real and can have devastating effects on individuals and families.
As an example, check this story from St. Petersburg Times:

The Florida family claimed to confer with gods, spirits and even Michael the Archangel to cure diseases and break curses, asking for and accepting jewelry, gold coins and luxury cars in return.

Whole story: Fortune-telling Florida family scammed victims out of $40 million, prosecutors charge

What Is Chiropractic?

Check out this great comic from Darryl Cunningham about history and principles of chiropractic:

Here is the beta version of my strip on chiropractic therapy. It's a little rough and will need proofreading from those of you with eyes sharper than mine. All comments welcome.

See the comic strip here: Chiropractic

It's interesting and worth looking at, because most of the people I know think chiropractic is just a form of massage and spine manipulation, very similar to physical therapy. However, physical therapy is based on real science, studies and knowledge of human anatomy, and chiropractic is, well... mostly unscientific wishful thinking and semi-magical approach to healing. Such is the case with most (if not all) of "alternative medicine".

Homeopathy - Bullying Again

I do not like homeopathy. I made it clear a number of times on this blog. I don't like it because homeopathy is pure magic, wishful thinking at its best. There is nothing but sugar (or water) in those homeopathic mixtures, since by simple math there can't be anything there at all.
Worst of all, people pay real money for this nonsense and put their trust in individuals and companies that sell them nothing but fake hope.
It is sad to see when companies that make homeopathic products (read: sugar pills), threaten those who are willing to expose them with aptly named "corporate legal thuggery". Such is the case with Boiron, a company which was nicely exposed in a CBC documentary earlier this year. They complained about the TV documentary, hoping to shut up the media; now they seem to be going after a lonely blogger:

Homoeopathy multinational Boiron threatens amateur Italian blogger

A letter sent by the Italian arm of multinational company Boiron, threatening to sue an amateur blogger over remarks he made about homoeopathy, has sparked a strong internet reaction in defence of freedom of speech.

Samuele Riva posted two articles on his blog, blogzero.it , on 13 and 27 July,which included pictures of Boiron’s blockbuster homoeopathic product Oscillococcinum, marketed as a remedy against flu symptoms. The pictures were accompanied by captions, which joked about the total absence of any active molecules in homoeopathic preparations.

More can be found here: Homeopathic Thuggery

In order to sell this stuff, you have to be either one:
- pretty clueless on how homeopathy works (or doesn't), or
- scamming people into believing that it works

I wonder which one it is in case of Boiron?

Why I Do Not Watch Dr. Oz

Why? Reason #1: It's on when I'm still at work. However, I would not watch this quack even if his show were in prime time. That leads to...
Reason #2: He's a quack, promotes nonsense, unrelated (or even worse, contradictory) to the current medical knowledge, and in my opinion is a disgrace to the medical profession. If you ask me, he should be stripped of the M.D. title. At least he would not be going around, pretending to be a doctor and disposing dubious advice (faith healing/reiki, anyone?).
I'm no medical expert, but I want to be able to trust one. That's why I expect those titles to mean something. When I need to see a doctor and get his or her advice, I do not have time to do extensive research on their medical opinions. I have to trust that they follow established facts and current research, not some out-of-this-world fad that just happens to sell well at the moment.
Dr. Oz is the negation of science and reason. He promotes what sells and makes his TV show look good. He can do it as much as he wants, but should not be allowed to do it as a doctor.
Interestingly enough, I might make an exception and DVR his show on Tuesday, April 26. Why? Because he will have Steven Novella (from The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe podcast). As Orac suggests, the editing might change the actual message, but it's good to know that a hard-core skeptic is invited into the "devil's lair".
It should be interesting to watch.

Traditional Medicine - Read and Weep

If you are a proponent of some "natural", traditional medicine, if you prefer "natural" cures from what can be produced in a lab, read the article below:

Asian Bear Bile Remedies: Traditional Medicine or Barbarism?

I hope you are as outraged as I am. This is exactly why there should never be a "what's the harm" mentality when dealing with those traditional modalities.

Let Oprah Know What YOU Think

Following the article I linked to yesterday, and my own post, here is an appeal from Orac:

This strategy requires a lot of people bombarding the Oprah website with requests. It's unlikely to work just from my readership alone. It needs other bloggers willing to urge their readers to do the same thing to have even a wisp of a chance of working. So, if you have a blog, consider urging your readers to remind Oprah's producers about Kim Tinkham. Let's put it this way. Even if nothing at all comes of this, at the very least Oprah should be made aware of the price of quackery such as that which is about to claim Kim Tinkham. Yes, I know that Tinkham is an adult. I know that she bears major responsibility for her own choices. Yes, I know it's true that no one forced Tinkham to go to Robert O. Young for help. On the other hand, I also know that it is true that the sort of wishful thinking that Oprah promoted "primed the pump," so to speak. Even so, Robert O. Young and, yes, Oprah also bear a major share of the responsibility as well. Robert O. Young is beyond shame, but maybe Oprah is not.

Let Oprah know that Kim Tinkham is dying of cancer


Great idea!!!
Maybe it'll take away a few drops from the flood of nonsense coming from Oprah, maybe it'll make her think about consequences next time she promotes some total BS. Like Orac says, it's worth giving a try.

The Appeal of Woo: Be Careful

The story below (from Science-Based Medicine) is a sad and unfortunate example of what uncritical thinking can lead to. It shows the real dangers of alternative medicine, the dangers most people don't perceive, usually responding: "what's the harm?"
It also presents yet another example why Oprah is a villain in my book, despite all the good she's done in other fields.
Read it, think about it, and make sure to follow your brains, not someone's "feel good" woo, when faced with important decisions.

Basically, The Secret is what inspired Kim Tinkham to eschew all conventional therapy for her breast cancer and pursue “alternative” therapies, which is what she has done since 2007. Before I discuss her case in more detail, I’m going to cut to the chase, though.

Death by “alternative” medicine: Who’s to blame? (Revisited)

Science and Pseudo-Science

This past weekend, I had a chance to have some really interesting discussions and debates about a number of scientific topics. As it happened in a social setting, I was not really able to make all my points very clear, due to "etiquette" restrictions, but despite this limitation, it was very interesting to see how others perceive science in general, and medical science in particular. It was also an amazing journey into the world of logical fallacies, with some of them piling up on top of the others.

It all started from an innocent mention of some "ghost stories", which led to a full discussion about ghost seances and communication with the world-out-there.

However, the really interesting part came from the discussion of frequency healing and thermography. Both modalities are in the realm of cams, and are firmly set in the pseudo-science: "Radionics" and "A Critical Look at Thermography". Both discussions led directly to a standard "FDA and all the doctors are paid by the big pharma" argument, which, of course, is not something you can debate or win, so I did not even try.

There were two very interesting points made during our debate that are worth mentioning.

First, it was said that the frequency therapy (along with the machine used in the practice) can be attributed with a success rate of around 50%, when treating stage one cancers. However, when I asked about real statistical data, it turned out there there is none, and it's all based on a "gut feeling" from the past years. In addition, it was very telling to find out that the diagnosis of the cancers in question (as I said, in phase one), is "better than the standard medical procedures", which means it must be taken on faith, since we have no independent way to verify that the cancer is really there. Oh, I failed to mention, that the diagnosis is made by "laying hands"!

What I found even more interesting is a general attitude towards science. When I asked for some proofs, or scientific studies done on any of the discussed topics, I got a standard runaround with a lot of  buzzwords (like a long explanation about how frequency therapy rebuilds little cell tails, so they can continue living - I assumed we were talking about telomeres) and some quantum physics, but nothing solid. When I kept pressing, I was told that modern physics, and science in general, is not ready for the new ideas. They can't be tested and reproduced because scientists execute their experiments in a constrained space-time and do not really understand what's outside of the modern science.

That's all I really needed. Pseudo-science, and alternative medicine is not something you can debate and discuss with true believers (especially, when they have they income invested in it, but that's no surprise). Their world view is constructed to ensure that real data has no place in it and can't enter it under no circumstances. And if you don't understand something, just place it outside of our current methods of gaining knowledge and you can be virtually sure that you can peddle any nonsense and be safe with it.

Local Dose of Woo: Gaia Spiritual Doorways

Living in the area where The South mixes with The North in a very unique way, I get my dose of nonsense almost daily: crazy churches, tea parties, homeopathic healers, small chiropractic shops, a psychic reader here and there (nothing beats Downtown Brooklyn when it comes to those). In all, it's a nice cauldron of traditional religion taken to the extreme, and some of the best New Age craziness. Yet, from time to time, a rare flower of nonsense just blossoms in your area, and it's hard to pass it by without a short mention.
Last week, when reading a local paper (and I mean LOCAL, because it's available only north of Tampa), I stumbled upon an article raving about a new metaphysical supplies store that had opened up its doors recently. It is called Gaia Spiritual Doorways, and it's truly a place for woo-woo of all kinds and shapes.
From candles (hello, Bed, Bath and Beyond) to oracle and tarot cards, runes (any hobbits selling them?), botanical and spiritual items, to statues of saints, angels and Buddahs, it's all there in it's glory.

If you don't know how to use all those goodies, take a workshop. Before you know it, you can do some Reiki, heal with stones, or use a pendulum (that one is hard and must require a lot of practice).
There are, of course, psychic readings available in the store, so if you are not sure what's in your future, make sure to stop by and ask for the next set of lotto numbers. I'm planning on going, and you can be sure you will not see me at work after I get my millions! I will get them, right???

What's really sad is not so much the fact that places like that exist and thrive on suckers (you know what P.T. Barnum allegedly said...), but that newspapers keep reporting on them uncritically. The article is a shameless plug for this business, with no single shred of critical thinking, down to the claim that the psychic readings available in the store are accurate, because they contain timeframes and apply to present and not some vague future. If so, why don't they apply for the "One Million Dollar Challenge" from JREF and be rich without trying. I might suggest that when I go to the grand opening... it's coming up soon.

Suzanne Somers - The Doctor is in Again - Part 2

Read the next installment of Orac's excellent analysis of the latest book by Suzanne Sommers: "Knockout":

That last story revealed just how deep Somers' pool of medical ignorance is, given that she denied being on steroids, even though right after that she pontificated about how the doctors were obviously "so out of touch with new medicine," have "no clue," and don't "understand cortisol replacement as part of the menopausal experience." I hadn't been aware that cortisol (hydrocortisone when given as an evil "allopathic' drug that is also, by the way, "bioidentical") was in Somers' witches' brew of "bioidentical hormones" designed to give her body levels of estrogenic hormones equivalent to that of a 25-year-old. Never mind that estrogens are steroid hormones, and cortisol is a corticosteroid that can suppress the immune system, the latter simple fact meaning that it it is quite possible that it was Somers' own fault that she got disseminated coccidioidomycosis (commonly known as Valley Fever) rather than a mild or asymptomatic version. I say that because, if Somers was taking large amounts of hydrocortisone--excuse me, cortisol--then she very well may have had steroid-induced immunosuppression that left her open to a disseminated infection when she happened to breathe in the fungus that causes the disease.