Bad Journalism, Bad Science, Bad Medicine

I like local stories, and when I see one, I jump on it.
When browsing the interwebs today, I saw a blog post from Todd W at Harpocrates Speaks about a recent interview with a local pediatrician from Tampa, which was posted on the WTSP's Web site.
Todd does a great job dissecting the article for what it is: an uncritical, gullible piece of sensational journalism:

What could have been a good opportunity to ask critical questions. Instead, we get what basically amounts to advertising for a doctor making claims that are not supported by data. It's all well and good to make sure that families, and in particular women who are about to become or are pregnant, practice a healthy lifestyle. However, to claim that autism can be prevented by Dr. Berger's protocol, when we have no research actually validating it, is premature and irresponsible.

VanNest and Dr. Berger should both be ashamed: VanNest for irresponsible journalism and Dr. Berger for failing to do due diligence before making extraordinary claims. If his protocol actually works, that would be great, but the truth is that we do not know and will not know until the research is done. At best, Dr. Berger is Florida's version of Dr. Jay Gordon. At worst, he's a crank (which I'm leaning toward after viewing the Wholistic Pediatrics web site). Both do an incredible disservice to families who may expend added resources for no actual gain.

Not much needs to be added... perfect summary.
As I was browsing Dr. Berger's site, I also found a typical "holistic" approach to vaccines (we "recommend" them, but set your own schedule if you wish, or just skip the ones you don't like), and a few interesting recommendations that would make me run away from that practice as fast as I could. For example, Wholistic Pediatrics recommends OSCILLOCOCCINUM as a flu treatment. As I mentioned in my previous posts, OSCILLOCOCCINUM is a sugar pill (it says so on the vial!!!), so using it in anything but your coffee is a serious waste of your time, and dollars, as it is way more expensive than the same white powder found in your local supermarket. I also learned something new about this homeopathic remedy:

As with any homeopathic remedy, it is most effective when given away from food, herbs, or strong flavors like mint or cinnamon in toothpaste.

Huh? Cinnamon in toothpaste interacts with ? There must be some magic chemistry behind it, but I fail to understand it...
I'm sure glad my pediatrician uses reason and science in his daily practice.

Protect Your Children - Get Vaccinated

Everyone with any fundamental knowledge of science and statistics knew this was coming: old childhood diseases are returning, because of failing vaccination rates and diminishing herd immunity. The recent news just seemed to confirm that scary trend:

1. Whooping cough (pertussis) is coming back, partially because the adults are not getting immunized and that in turn affects very young children, who can't get their first shot yet:
Whooping Cough Outbreak In Tampa
Whooping cough on the rise in Hillsborough County
Whooping cough outbreak in Tampa area
In this case, it's up to the adults who are around young children to get proper protection, otherwise the results might be deadly: Whooping cough kills baby in Melbourne

2. Measles is coming back too, mostly due to anti-vaccine propaganda: In 2011, U.S. logged the most measles cases it's had in 15 years. The fears of vaccines are worse overseas and the bad stuff seems to be coming from there for now, but it'll get worse.

Let's hope the US does not have to see all the childhood diseases coming back in order to learn its lesson. Unfortunately, some people did think so, and now it's happening...

 

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

Great Words from Michael Mann

Michael Mann, one of the leading climate scientists, and a real expert on the topic, has published a great article on the CNN's portal, in which he discusses a terrible political climate (pun intended) he and his peers in the field face in the United States and around the world:

Imagine you are sitting in your office simply doing your job and a nasty e-mail pops into your inbox accusing you of being a fraud. You go online and find that some bloggers have written virulent posts about you. That night, you're at home with your family watching the news and a talking head is lambasting you by name. Later, a powerful politician demands all your e-mails from your former employer.

I'm glad he presses on, despite the dishonest, personal attacks on him and the science of climate research, because, as he points out:

[...] as the father of a 6-year-old girl, I want to make sure the planet we leave her is at least as beautiful and healthy as the one we grew up on. At the very least, our nation's political and business leaders deserve to have a debate about her future that is grounded in reality.

My daughter, and all of our children, deserve no less.

Yes, our children deserve a planet at least as good as we've had, if not better.

Read the whole article: Climate scientists and smear campaigns

Can You See Our Precious Education Funds Going to the Lawyers?

Yes... all the lawyers across the Florida must have been jumping with joy, when they found out that our not-so-smart governor Rick Scott signed the Florida school prayer bill into law (also here), which authorizes school boards to enable students to deliver "inspirational message" (a.k.a. prayer) in public schools. This seems to be so unconstitutional, that the legal challenges will come quickly, and our school board districts will have to pay the legal bills.
You know this law has nothing to do with what its authors pretend it to be, when even prominent religious leaders are against it. It was politics at its worst, from the bill's sponsors, Sen. Gary Siplin and Rep. Charles Van Zant, to our governor (not that I expected any better from him), catering to the religious right to gain some dubious votes, and at the end our children will pay the price when the lawyers come knocking.
Maybe it's time for the sane ones to make sure the people above (let's repeat: Sen. Gary Siplin, Rep. Charles Van Zant, and Governor Rick Scott) are not allowed to represent us in the future. Let them know when the next election day is here.

Great To See Some Reason...

With all the recent economic trouble across the country (and the world), our local governments are looking to save money in all kinds of strange places. For example, our local school board is evaluating cutting the school week to four days, making them a bit longer instead.

When I first heard about this idea, I did some research and found out that there is relatively few school districts in the U.S., that decided to implement such a solution. As a result, there is rather slim amount of good data available to support its perceived value. It appears to me that there could be some benefits, but they are only apparent in very small and geographically spread out districts. For a district the size of Pasco County, the four day school week idea seems to have rather weak foundations, and might lead to more problems than it's trying to solve.

Unfortunately, when I attended a parents' forum with the chief proponent of this idea and the person who first proposed it, the School Board member Steve Luikart, my impression was that he was already convinced and all he wanted to do was to convince the rest of the board.

I'm glad to see that the issue is getting attention from some of the candidates to the school board during the upcoming elections. As The Tampa Bay Times reported today, Don Stephenson is firmly against the idea of the four day school week. Even though I do not agree with a lot of Mr. Stephenson's agenda, I am happy to be on the same side of the fence when it comes to the shorter school week. Hopefully, this will attract some much needed attention to this issue, and maybe, convince the current board to find better ways of saving money. Cutting our children's time in school is not the best way to ensure they get the best education possible.

Praying Away Our Tax Dollars

When most of our school districts in Florida struggle for every dollar out there during this hard economic times, our "brilliant" politicians keep themselves busy with more "important" things, like students delivering inspirational messages (a.k.a. prayers) at public schools' events. This new bill, just passed by the Florida House, is probably one of the worst and most useless laws recently created. Ordinarily, I would not have much of a problem with this, even though the idea of a "prayer" in a public school invites a large number of potential issues: how is this "inspirational message" given? when is it allowed? what happens if it offends anyone? who decides on the details? etc, etc...
The real problem with this piece of legislation is very simple: America was founded on a simple, yet effective principle of separation of religion and state, and any attempts to circumvent this principle will be challenged in court by someone, sooner or later, and rightly so. Such a challenge will be costly to the taxpayers (all of us). I does not take a genius to know that the first school district to enact such a policy, will be hit with a lawsuit (and, I'm afraid, the first district that refuses to bring this policy to life will be hit by a lawsuit too, just from a different side). At the end, the only winners are the lawyers, who will collect their legal fees. We, the parents, will end up paying for it, and our children will get just a little bit less of the education they deserve.
The final question is... what would the FSM do?

Chiropractic Is Bogus

I have no love for the alternative medicine. I think it is based on bogus evidence, or a complete lack of thereof, its various "branches" are mutually exclusive, it feeds on people fears and weaknesses, and it sucks up valuable resources (as in $$$) not only from our individual pockets, but also from larger public funds and governments.

Recent blog activities on the interwebs (some of this can be found here and here), reminded me of a case from a few years ago, in which chiropractic, a widely-accepted, "medical" practice, based on pretty much magic, was put to a test, not only by scientists (this has been settled long time ago), but in a court of law in Great Britain.
In this case, a British science writer, Simon Singh, was accused of libel by the British Chiropractic Association, after he had published an article in The Guardian, claiming that the practice of chiropractic is based on unscientific, unproven principles, and that promoting such practices equals false advertising. Even under the libel-friendly British law, the BSA was forced to withdraw the law suit, after it became evident that Singh was correct in his criticism. A side effect of the case was a magnified focus received by chiropractic and its principles, which boils down to a very simple thing: it is crap.

The problem is that a lot of insurance companies in the US will pay for chiropractic visits and that's the money that eventually comes out of our collective pockets. While I do realize that not all medical treatments are perfect (as all sciences are not perfect and definitive), when I'm paying for something, I would like to make sure that it has at least some validity. In the meantime, chiropractic is based on wishful, magical thinking and 100+ years of coming up with bs to justify charging people for a "fancy" massage. You'd be better off going to a real, licensed physical therapists. At least they get education and training in real medicine, and you get a real treatment.

If you want to find out more about chiropractic, The Skeptic Dictionary is a great place to start.

Less Is NOT More in Case of Education

I can't see ANY good reason to give our children less education... less as in the "four-day school week" idea, which is being studied in Pasco County this year as one of the possible ways to address the local school district's budget shortfall.
On the other hand, I can see a lot of very good reasons why we should try any other solution first to make sure our local schools operate well. Among them the pressing need for better Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM), as it is nicely described in an article on the CNN portal:

Two indicators are particularly worrisome, especially as this country experiences greater global competition and high unemployment. American students score 23rd in math and 31st in science when compared with 65 other top industrial countries. In math, we are beaten by countries from Lichtenstein and Slovakia to the Netherlands and Singapore. In science, we are beaten by countries from New Zealand and Estonia to Finland and Hungary.
For the United States, which led the way in space after Sputnik and showed the way in technological development and economic growth for the last 40 years, this is more than an embarrassment. And, for the future of our own GDP, economic well-being, and employer and employment needs, this is a disaster in the making. If the United States wishes to remain the most competitive and innovative country in the world -- never mind just another competitive and innovative country in the constellation of industrial nations -- this cannot stand.

Read: U.S lag in science, math a disaster in the making

This is just one reason, but probably one of the most important and compelling ones. It's good to see that the majority of parents are not happy about this idea and they are voicing their opinions in both meetings and online surveys.

Let's hope the cooler and smarter heads prevail, we'll stop smoking tea leaves and get some money for our children's education, even if it means looking for new sources of that cash.
 

Florida Science Standards - Fordham Institute Report

Well, while Florida fared pretty well when it comes to our teachers' quality, the science standards in our schools pretty much smell like a big pile of..., well, 'nuff said.

The Fordham Institute released its evaluation of science educational standards and Florida scored a big, bad D, mostly due to the lack of clarity, but also because both Physics and Chemistry ranked zero.
Surprisingly, even in the "southern" and unscientifically-leaning state like Florida, "controversial" topic such as evolution, gets some praise:

I guess, we have some work to do at home to ensure that out children are well prepared for the challenges of the 21st century

Evolution, on the other hand, is very well covered. Take, for example, the following:
Explain how the scientific theory of evolution is supported by the fossil record, comparative anatomy, comparative embryology, biogeography, molecular biology, and observed evolutionary change. (high school life science) Describe the conditions required for natural selection, including: overproduction of offspring, inherited variation, and the struggle to survive, which result in differential reproductive success. (high school life science) Discuss mechanisms of evolutionary hange other than natural selection such as genetic drift and gene flow. (high school life science)
Even human evolution is treated—a rarity in state science standards:
Identify basic trends in hominid evolution from early ancestors six million years ago to modern humans, including brain size, jaw size, language, and anufacture of tools. Discuss specific fossil hominids and what they show about human evolution. (high school life science)
Barely a handful of states tackle human evolution in their standards, bolstering the life science score of the Sunshine State’s standards.