Welcome to the Internet, Dr. Burzynski

All the cool kids in the skeptical blogosphere are talking about Stanislaw Burzynski, and I didn't want to be left out. Never heard of him? I hadn't either, until yesterday, when the Internet, as we know it, exploded on Dr. Burzynski's head.

Here are the salient facts, as I understand them:

Dr. Burzynski owns and runs The Burzynski Clinic, in Texas. The Burzynski clinic specializes in "Alternative Cancer Treatments." According to its website, the clinic also offers conventional, FDA approved cancer treatment, but that's not what they are currently in the spotlight for. One of the modalities they offer is something called "Antineoplaston" therapy. It is this treatment that everyone seems to be talking about right now.

Antineoplastons were "discovered" by Dr. Burzynski, himself. Dr. Burzynski has published the results of several clinical trials of this therapy which appear to show effecacy. These studies were published in fringe journals with questionable peer review policies and, often, questionable professional detachment from the subject (they are journals whose purpose is the publication of studies supporting alternative medicine). Other researchers have been unable to reliably replicate Dr. Burzynski's findings. In fact, 100% of properly blinded, randomized, placebo controlled, peer reviewed trials published in reputable journals have been negative - that is, they all fail to show any benefit at all of Antineoplaston therapy in the treatment of cancer. The FDA has not approved Antineoplastons for use in cancer treatment in the USA. That means that doing so is against the law.

It is not, however, against the law to administer Antineoplaston therapy if it is done as part of a registered clinical trial. Dr. Burzynski has been running "clinical trials" of Antineoplaston use in the treatment of cancer for over thirty years. People travel from all over the world to the Burzynski Clinic to receive treatment participate in a clinical trial, and pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to do so.

Recently, several prominent medical and skeptical bloggers have published articles critical of Dr. Burzynski and his Antineoplaston therapy, and calling into question Dr. Burzynski's research, and the ethics of his practice of charging patients exorbitant amounts of money to receive treatment participate in a clinical trial of a drug that has not been demonstrated to be effective at all. In most instances, when faced with criticism or questioning of their research, scientists respond by presenting the evidence which supports their work, but that doesn't seem to be what's happened here.

Instead, these bloggers were contacted by a gentleman by the name of Marc Stephens, claiming to "represent the Burzynski Clinic, Burzynski Research Institute, and Dr. Stanislaw Burzynski," and threatening legal action if the "libelous and defamatory information" was not removed from their websites. It turns out Mr. Stephens is not a lawyer, but an employee of The Burzynski Clinic who may or may not have overreached in his zeal to defend his employer. In what has become known as "The Streisand Effect," an attempt to suppress criticism on the Internet has resulted in that criticism becoming far more widespread than it ever would have. Virtually every skeptical blog I read has posted an article about Burzynski over the past two days. Well done, Marc.

Word is Mr. Stephens is no longer employed by Burzynski. He appears to have been thrown under the bus by his former employer in a desperate attempt at damage control as this story spirals out of control across the World Wide Web. And Dr. Burzynski is learning a valuable lesson. If your particular form of pseudoscience has been the subject of criticism on the Internet, either bring the evidence, or, if you don't actually have any evidence, lay low and hope it all blows over. Making lame and empty threats is only going to turn you into a deer in the headlights of the monster truck that is the web.

Splat.


To read more about this topic, I recommend you start here, here, and here, and then go on from that.

Wifi protest in Aurora

Yesterday, a group of concerned parents held a protest at the local school board offices, demanding to have wifi internet routers removed from public schools in York Region. Click here to watch video news coverage from the local media. Happily, it appears there was a very small turn-out, perhaps 5 or 6 mothers with their children in tow. That's a positive sign that the majority of local residents have their heads screwed on straight, and aren't fooled by the silly mumbo-jumbo being spewed by these anti-EM radiation groups.

The video shows three people addressing the camera. The first is what appears to be a concerned parent who has simply been mis-informed by her peers about the issue. The second woman has all the smug, self-satisfaction of the true activist. She has all her talking points down, and her rant so smoothly practiced that she can effectively prevent anyone from getting a word in edgewise to rebut her claims. This is a standard tactic of those who do not have the facts on their side. If you do not ever let your opponents speak, they can never correct you.

The third person to speak is one of the children. This is the part that brings tears to my eyes, and rage to my heart. "It's our human rights," he says. "They're experimenting on us," he says. "In ten years, we're all going to have cancer," he says. Can you believe that? This poor child has been told, by his mother no less, that he's going to get cancer if he goes to school. That's abuse, as far as I'm concerned. The kid's going to have nightmares for the rest of his life. Who does that to a child? Number one: it's a lie. Number two: it doesn't matter if it's a frickin' lie, or not; it's an horrific thing to say to a child. That's a parent whose own personal crusade is more important to her than her child's emotional health, and it makes me insane.

End of rant. We now return control of your internet to you.

The hazards of WiFi in our schools

Earlier this week, as I was taking Shadow for his evening walk, I came upon this flyer tacked to a hydro pole in front of the local elementrary school (click here for a larger, easier to read version).

I'm not quite sure exactly how to describe my emotional reaction to this poster. Exasperation is probably as close as I can come. I wish I could call what these people are doing, 'beating a dead horse,' but, unfortunately, this horse ain't quite dead yet. Allow me to attempt to provide another bullet for the gun of reason.

First, perhaps, a little bit of background would be helpful. About a year ago, there was a minor kerfuffle in the local news over parents concerned about WiFi internet in classrooms. The school boards involved provided the correct response to the alleged concerns, that being there is no health danger from WiFi signals. This position is backed up by all the available scientific evidence, and fully supported by Health Canada.

The claims of the local parents groups were carefully examined, and disassembled by the blogging community at the time, as were the identities and possible ulterior motives of the groups' leaders, spokespeople, and alleged experts. The story slowly faded from the public view over the next several months. But, as we are so seldom reminded, just because the media isn't reporting a story anymore, doesn't mean it's gone away. As can be clearly shown by the above flyer, the proponents of this tempest in a teapot are still on the offensive, trying to spread their delusions to more and more people.

So, is there anything to it? In a word, no. The cartoon included on the flyer pretty much explains the entire case these folks are trying to make: The radiation produced by a microwave oven and a WiFi router are exactly the same. Putting your head in an operating microwave oven would be bad for you. Therefore, putting your head in a room containing an operating WiFi router would also be bad.

My response to that claim can best be summed up by this excellent cartoon, provided by Russ from Inner and Outer Demons.

You wouldn't allow what's going on in the top panel for even ONE SECOND.

But it's okay to allow the radiation in the bottom panel for 6 or 7 HOURS, and DAY AFTER DAY?!

After all, those are two examples of exactly the same type of radiation. No, really, hear me out. An electric oven contains an element made of metal. When an electric current is passed through the metal, the electrical resistance causes the element to heat up, emiting radiation in the form of heat and light. An incandescent light bulb contains a filament (a very small metal element). When electric current is passed through the filament of the light bulb, it emits radiation in the form of heat and light. So, in real world terms, a common light bulb is exactly as dangerous to you as an oven element.

What's that, you say? There is a difference between those two scenarios: the oven element is way hotter than the light bulb, and it's also way closer to the little girl. Give yourself a gold star. You've hit upon the lie in these two cartoons. There is a difference between the radiation emitted by an electric oven and a light bulb, and between a microwave, and a WiFi router. That difference is one of scale. The element inside an average electric oven operates at about 2500 watts. The average bulb in a reading lamp, at about 40 watts. So, the light bulb is about 60 times less powerful than the oven element. As well, in the top panel of my cartoon, the little girl's head is barely six inches from the oven element. When you're reading, your head is more like two feet, or more from the light bulb.

We know how Electromagnetic Radiation behaves over distance. It has been studied in great depth for centuries, and described by what we call the Inverse SquareLaw. The Inverse Square Law explains that the intensity of EMF decreases by the square of the distance. So, if we are twice as far from an EMF source as someone else, we experience four times less radiation. If we are ten times farther away, we experience 100 times less radiation. So, in the case of the light bulb, which is about four times farther away than the oven element, it's radiation would be decreased by a factor of 16. Multiply that by the difference in starting intensity, and we find that the radiation hitting the little girl reading her book is almost 1000 times less powerful than the radiation hitting the little girl with her head in the oven. So, as long as she doesn't actually reach up and touch the bulb, we are confident that she is safe sitting under its light.

Let's compare that to our microwaves. The power of an average microwave oven is about 1000 watts. The power of an average WiFi router is about 0.1 watts. So the router is already 10,000 times less powerful than the microwave oven. As well, in the classroom setting, the little girl is going to be much farther away from the router than she would be from the emmiters were she inside a microwave. She's probably somewhere between five and fifteen feet away from the router, compared to about six inches away from the radiation emissions in a microwave oven. So, let's say she's five feet away from the router, which would be 10 times farther away in the classroom than in the oven. So the strength of the radiation is reduced by a factor of 10², or 100. Which means, when you do the math, that the radiation hitting the little girl in the classroom is on the order of one millionth as strong as the radiation inside the microwave oven. One millionth.

Here's an experiment for you to try. Take a cold cup of Tims, or water, or a piece of steak, if you like. Check its temperature with a thermometer. Put it in the microwave for 60 seconds, then check its temperature again. There's a pretty significant difference, isn't there. Now, put that same cup of Tims (OK, not the exact same one, 'cause it's hot now, right?) - put another cold cup of coffee, or whatever right beside your wireless router. Turn the router on. Leave it like that for a week. Then check the temperature of the coffee again. What will the temperature be? Room temperature. Now, don't get me wrong, the microwaves from the router are definitely heating the coffee, it's just that the coffee is re-radiating that heat faster than the router can produce it. That's what is happening to our brains from exposure to WiFi. They are being heated by a miniscule amount - so small we need sophisticated scientific machinery to even measure it - and our bodies are redistributing and re-radiating that heat far faster than it can even accumulate. In fact, the effect of the WiFi on our bodies is thousands of times less than the effect of that light bulb on our bodies. You can actually feel the warmth of that.

Is that it, then? Are the heating properties of microwaves the only cause for concern? Well, not to hear the anti-WiFi crowd tell it. They spin a great yarn about as-yet undiscovered dangers of which they are somehow aware, while the rest of the entire scientific establishment remains unenlightened. The group that are hosting the event advertised in the poster have a website at which they link to a couple of articles in the British Columbia Teachers' Federation Newsletter. These articles tell us that:

The wireless signal, oscillating at 2.4 to 5 GHz, moves much too fast for the body to recognize. So this wave isn’t doing the damage. However, anytime any data or information is transmitted, say through our voice, through text messages, or through the sending of information, the data is packaged and “piggy-backed” onto the first wave. This creates a second carrier wave and this wave is called the information-carrying radio wave, or ICRW. It is the information-carrying radio wave that is producing the harm.

This is, to put it bluntly, poppycock. Whoever wrote that paragraph has been watching far too much Star Trek, because that is what we call Techno-Babble of the highest order. It sounds science-ish, but it means nothing. The idea that information can be "piggy-backed" onto a radio wave or microwave by somehow attaching a second radio wave is so far from the way the world works it's what we call 'not even wrong.' There is no second carrier wave; the microwaves themselves are the information. In much the same way as you can communicate using morse code via either radio or light, by simply turning the signal on and off again using a specific pattern, the microwaves used by WiFi routers, and cell phones, and cordless phones, among many other devices, communicate their information via the modulation of the frequency, amplitude and phase of the waves themselves. In this case, the old cliché from Marshall McLuhan is literally true: the medium is the message.

So should I be concerned, or not? I'll end this the way I began it: In a word, "no." There is no evidence to show that there is any harm, whatsoever, from WiFi signals. And any alleged evidence the anti-WiFi community claim to be able to produce can be very easily shown to be nonsense by a simple examination of the laws of reality. And that, as they say, is that.

Do I think this will be the last bullet that puts the horse out of its misery? Hardly. As long as there are people, there will be credulous people, who will believe almost anything, regardless of how unlikely or unrealistic it is. As a skeptic, critical thinker, and proud member of the reality based community, I consider it my responsibilty to vocally point out where people like the anti-WiFi community are mistaken, or sometimes flat-out wrong. Sure, we're not going to convince the hard-core fringe element out there, but if we can speak out loud enough, with reason and evidence on our side, perhaps we can keep the fringe to the fringe, and keep the average Jane and Joe from being led astray.



(Note: this article has been edited since it first appeared to reflect more accurate numbers regarding the intensity of the radiation from various sources. As well some minor changes were made to the wording of the final three paragraphs in order to reflect a more general point of view. -- Paul)

Are you aware?

Apparently, it is World Homeopathy Awareness Week. As is my wont during these occasions, I would like to direct you to my post explaining exactly what homeopathy is. That post, dated June, 2009, is a repost of an article originally written in May of 2006 on the original AWV.

The (not so) great wi-fi debate

You probably haven't been able to turn on your computer and surf the Internet the last few days without running into a story about Barrie, Ontario area parents claiming their children are being made sick by Wi-Fi radiation in the schools. The media is giving all kinds of attention to one or two scientists who are saying there might be a health concern. Unfortunately, it is giving little more than lip service to the vast bulk of the scientific community who say the opposite.

Sure, many publications have expressed some more or less skeptical opinions - in a wishy-washy kind of way, but no one, anywhere, is telling it straight. No one is saying what should be said. No one is saying that there isn't a shred of credible evidence that there is any harm whatsoever from Wi-Fi signals. No one is saying that the cell phones all these kids have glued to their heads twenty-four hours a day emit considerably more radiation - in the same frequency range - than Wi-Fi transmitters. Heck your DVD player emits more RF radiation than your wireless router, but I don't see any of these parents cutting up their Blockbuster cards.

What needs to be said - loud and clear - is that, in order for the claims of this group to be in any way valid; in order for there to be a health risk from Wi-Fi signals, everything we currently understand about physics would have to be wrong. I'm not talking about a minor correction to our scientific understanding of the world. I mean we'd have to throw the laws of nature out the window and start all over again. Microwave radiation is non-ionizing. That means it doesn't have enough power to damage cells beyond heating them. A typical microwave oven is about 1000 watts. A typical cellphone is less than one watt. What that means is, in order to reheat your cold cup of Tim's to a piping hot, drinkable state (what your microwave would do in about one minute), you'd have to hold your cell phone up to the cup for around seventeen hours...in a shielded box that didn't allow any of the radiation to escape into the environment at large...in an insulated cup that didn't allow any of the heat to escape into the air. OK, let's be honest, it's impossible. And your average Wi-Fi transmitter is about half the power of a cell phone - and typically not held up against your head.

This idea - that Wi-Fi radiation can somehow be harmful to people's health - is what we, in the skeptical community refer to as, "not even wrong." What we mean by that is it is an idea that is so far out of the realm of reason that it's like asking how many pot-roasts the Yankees scored last night. It's a statement that doesn't even make sense in the context of a reasonable discussion. No, these parents are barking up the wrong area rug. They're "not even wrong."

So you want to play mind games...

A couple of years ago I happened across the blog of one Denyse O'Leary. One of many, actually - she maintains about fourteen, it seems, and spends most of her time contriving to link from each to all the others in an attempt to create some kind of meta black hole. Mixed in between the links to her other blogs, and the further links to her Amazon page where she hawks her books, she manages to cram in some confused, rambling anti-"Darwinist" screeds, and Intelligent Design apologetics.

I don't remember the exact matter in question, but I left a comment on one of Ms. O'Leary's posts asking what I thought was a perfectly reasonable question. The comment was deleted in extremely short order. I emailed Ms. O'Leary, asking her why she had deleted the comment, to which she replied that she only allowed comments that were truthful, or factual, or some similar descriptor. Funny, that. I had thought the point I raised was factual. What Denyse really meant was that she only allowed comments that agreed with her world view and personal opinion.

I guess those weren't all that common, as her blogs no longer accept any comments at all.

That kind of reaction, censorship in order to protect oneself against uncomfortable and inconvenient realities, is all too common in the world of "Woo." Whether it is religion, or alternative medicine, or conspiracy theory, woo-meisters will always choose to end a dialogue when presented with actual facts that are difficult for them to rebut. On another occasion, I wrote a blog post about a local Homeopath in which I discussed some of the claims she made on her public website. Rather than address my criticism of her claims, she chose to complain to my ISP, and they chose to delete my blog entry with no warning, no explanation, and no recourse.

These events are brought to mind by a couple of similar experiences I have recently had, although not with people who traditionally fall into the category of "woo." At least people who do not, at first look, appear to fall into that category...


The first instance occurred last week, when I was directed to a web forum for audiophiles. Now, audiophilia is generally not grouped in with other "woo" because it really does no harm to individuals - unless you count to the wallets of those who fall under its sway. However, the claims made by audiophiles, and by the companies that make and sell the products they buy, are equally as specious as those of any homeopath, astrologer, or Catholic Priest. On this occasion, I read a forum thread talking about accessory power cables available for high end audio equipment. Never mind the miles of questionable wire the power flows through to get to one's house, apparently changing a three foot power cable from the wall to one's amp can result in remarkable improvemments in sound.

The person who directed me to the discussion - a Grammy winning sound engineer - had spoken up to say that he had done careful listening tests and was unable to hear a difference between different power cables - or any reasonable quality speaker or interconnect cables for that matter. He was looking for some support from some reasonable and skeptical people, so I registered for the forum, and posted a reply.

I did not criticise any of the posters. I did not accuse them of lying, or of being deluded, or of being stupid. I wrote one simple, factual sentence. I said, "if you can successfully tell the difference between different cables in a controlled listening test, you can win one million dollars." That was all.

Being a brand new member, my post was not published immediately, rather directed to the moderation queue, so I determined to come back later to see if there were any replies. Later, I was unable to login to the forum. It appears that the forum moderators/administrators deleted my first and only post, and immediately IP banned me from the forum. For making a simple statement of fact.


The second thing happened just this past weekend. Have you seen the NHL commercials currently airing in which famous plays are "rewound"? The first one I saw was the one that asks, "what if Orr didn't fly," and shows Bobby's iconic goal being "unscored", and Orr flying backwards through the air to land on his feet and retreat from the net. The ads end with the line, "history will be made." I believe the suggestion is that, even if the NHL's most famous plays had never happened, new history will be made, starting in this year's playoffs.

The ads have become popular fodder for YouTube spoofs, with video creators picking out all their favourite imfamous plays, and asking, "what if..." They are being reposted all over the internet. One of my Facebook "friends" posted one to her profile showing the contentious triple overtime goal by Brett Hull that won the Stanley Cup for Dallas over Buffalo in 1999. This spoof asks the question, "what if Brett didn't cheat?" Of course, this "friend" is a Buffalo fan.

I commented on her link, pointing out that Brett did not, in fact, "cheat;" that the goal, though hotly contested by the Buffalo team, was completely legal. She promptly responded that I didn't know what I was talking about, that she was a huge hockey fan, and had been all her life, therefore she knew the goal was illegal, and that "they" had changed the rule right after that game (the inisinuation was that the NHL had somehow tried to post-legitimize Hull's goal).

Well! Anyone who knows me knows that attempting to present me with "facts" based on ideology rather than information is just begging to be schooled. I did the research. I scoured YouTube for every replay of that goal I could find so I could refresh my memory of exactly how it had unfolded. I looked up the rule in question - the crease crashing rule that was in force for only that one year - and read it carefully. I compared the details clearly visible in the replays to the rule. I then returned to comment again. I quoted the exact language of the rule that pertained to Hull's goal, and pointed out where and why in the replay it was evident that the goal was legal. I also explained that the rule wasn't changed in order to validate Hull's goal, but because it was a poorly thought out rule to start with. The rule did, in fact, do what was intended, that is, reduce the instances of players crashing the net in order to distract and impede the goaltender. Unfortunately, it also resulted in dozens of goals being called back that should not have been; goals on which there had been no goaltender interference or distraction, either intentional or inadvertent.

The response to my reply? She "unfriended" me. It was more important to her to preserve her illusions about the perceived massive NHL conspiracy against the Buffalo Sabres, than to engage in honest dialogue about the actual facts of the matter. She was just like the audiophiles, or the Homeopath, or Denyse O'Leary, all of whom chose to avoid dialogue rather than confront reality; to surround themselves with sycophants and toadies and yes-men who were willing to join them in drinking the woo kool-aid.

Me, I choose to live in the world of fact, and deal with uncomfortable realities as they present themselves.

Visit a Chiropractor...

...it could be the last medical appointment you ever make.

Talk about truth in advertising! There's a tagline the various Chiropractic Associations could use in all honesty. Although, in all honesty, the truth of it is somewhat more sinister than the headline might suggest on the surface.

A recent article by J.D. Haines in eSkeptic, the electronic newsletter of the Skeptics' Society, takes on Chiropracty, and Haines doesn't pull any punches. He begins by relating the story of Kristi Bedenbaugh, who visited her Chiropractor in the hopes of getting relief from a serious sinus headache. She died of a stroke caused directly by the Chiropractic manipulation of her spine.

Haines goes on to systematically dismantle the claims of efficacy made by Chiropractic for the treatment of any medical contition. Any condition whatsoever.

Some choice quotations from the article:

...however rare the incidence of adverse outcome, the risk always outweighs any perceived benefit. There is no medically proven benefit whatsoever to chiropractic manipulation of the cervical spine.

and

The Medical Letter on Drugs and Therapeutics stated on May 27, 2002, “For neck and low back pain, trials have not demonstrated an unequivocal benefit of chiropractic spinal manipulation over physical therapy and education.” The report continues: “Repeated reports of arterial dissection and stroke associated with cervical spine manipulation and cauda equina syndrome associated with manipulation of the lower back suggest a cause and effect relationship.”

and

As practiced today, chiropractic is a threat to public health.

I strongly suggest you click through to read the rest of the article. And, I also strongly suggest that your take your Chiropractor's phone number off your speed dial. No matter how strongly you believe that he or she has helped you in the past, do you really want to risk the possibility that your next Chiropractic appointment will be your last...ever?

Beware the spinal trap

I'm joining a large group of skeptical activist bloggers around the world today in reposting an article written by Simon Singh in the UK about Chiropractic "medicine." Simon wrote a fully factual article about the complete lack of evidence supporting the efficacy of chiropractic in treating non-spine related conditions, like colic. (No, I'm not joking. Some chiropractors actually claim to be able to treat colic via chiropractic spinal adjustment. Frightening, isn't it?)

Mr. Singh, for his efforts, prompted the British Chiropractic Association to provide evidence for their claims-

-no, wait, that's not what they did-

-oh, yes, they sued him for libel. Once again, I am not joking.

British libel laws being what they are (guilty until proven innocent - I swear this is not a comedy piece, the burden lies upon Mr. Singh to prove his case, even though he is the defendant), no one would have blamed Mr. Singh for retreating in the face of a large group with deep pockets able to fund hot-shot lawyers. That is not what happened. Mr. Singh has appealed the initial judgement against him, and is taking his fight - at great personal cost and risk - to a higher court. In support, I, and hundreds of other bloggers have agreed to repost the article that started the entire kerfuffle. Note that minor changes have been made to the article on the advice of legal counsel in order to prevent the BCA from adding more defendants to their suit. Should you wish to read the unedited version of the article, you can do so, I am told, at Respectful Insolence.

(via Skepchick)

(10:02PM - edited to add: Go here to read an excellent article on this situation by Ben Goldacre, science writer for UK newspaper The Guardian.)

Beware the Spinal Trap

Some practitioners claim it is a cure-all, but the research suggests chiropractic therapy has mixed results – and can even be lethal, says Simon Singh.

You might be surprised to know that the founder of chiropractic therapy, Daniel David Palmer, wrote that “99% of all diseases are caused by displaced vertebrae”. In the 1860s, Palmer began to develop his theory that the spine was involved in almost every illness because the spinal cord connects the brain to the rest of the body. Therefore any misalignment could cause a problem in distant parts of the body.

In fact, Palmer’s first chiropractic intervention supposedly cured a man who had been profoundly deaf for 17 years. His second treatment was equally strange, because he claimed that he treated a patient with heart trouble by correcting a displaced vertebra.

You might think that modern chiropractors restrict themselves to treating back problems, but in fact some still possess quite wacky ideas. The fundamentalists argue that they can cure anything, including helping treat children with colic, sleeping and feeding problems, frequent ear infections, asthma and prolonged crying – even though there is not a jot of evidence.

I can confidently label these assertions as utter nonsense because I have co-authored a book about alternative medicine with the world’s first professor of complementary medicine, Edzard Ernst. He learned chiropractic techniques himself and used them as a doctor. This is when he began to see the need for some critical evaluation. Among other projects, he examined the evidence from 70 trials exploring the benefits of chiropractic therapy in conditions unrelated to the back. He found no evidence to suggest that chiropractors could treat any such conditions.

But what about chiropractic in the context of treating back problems? Manipulating the spine can cure some problems, but results are mixed. To be fair, conventional approaches, such as physiotherapy, also struggle to treat back problems with any consistency. Nevertheless, conventional therapy is still preferable because of the serious dangers associated with chiropractic.

In 2001, a systematic review of five studies revealed that roughly half of all chiropractic patients experience temporary adverse effects, such as pain, numbness, stiffness, dizziness and headaches. These are relatively minor effects, but the frequency is very high, and this has to be weighed against the limited benefit offered by chiropractors.

More worryingly, the hallmark technique of the chiropractor, known as high-velocity, low-amplitude thrust, carries much more significant risks. This involves pushing joints beyond their natural range of motion by applying a short, sharp force. Although this is a safe procedure for most patients, others can suffer dislocations and fractures.

Worse still, manipulation of the neck can damage the vertebral arteries, which supply blood to the brain. So-called vertebral dissection can ultimately cut off the blood supply, which in turn can lead to a stroke and even death. Because there is usually a delay between the vertebral dissection and the blockage of blood to the brain, the link between chiropractic and strokes went unnoticed for many years. Recently, however, it has been possible to identify cases where spinal manipulation has certainly been the cause of vertebral dissection.

Laurie Mathiason was a 20-year-old Canadian waitress who visited a chiropractor 21 times between 1997 and 1998 to relieve her low-back pain. On her penultimate visit she complained of stiffness in her neck. That evening she began dropping plates at the restaurant, so she returned to the chiropractor. As the chiropractor manipulated her neck, Mathiason began to cry, her eyes started to roll, she foamed at the mouth and her body began to convulse. She was rushed to hospital, slipped into a coma and died three days later. At the inquest, the coroner declared: “Laurie died of a ruptured vertebral artery, which occurred in association with a chiropractic manipulation of the neck.”

This case is not unique. In Canada alone there have been several other women who have died after receiving chiropractic therapy, and Edzard Ernst has identified about 700 cases of serious complications among the medical literature. This should be a major concern for health officials, particularly as under-reporting will mean that the actual number of cases is much higher.

If spinal manipulation were a drug with such serious adverse effects and so little demonstrable benefit, then it would almost certainly have been taken off the market.

Simon Singh is a science writer in London and the co-author, with Edzard Ernst, of Trick or Treatment? Alternative Medicine on Trial. This is an edited version of an article published in The Guardian for which Singh is being personally sued for libel by the British Chiropractic Association.

Homeopathy Awareness Week

The British Homeopathic Association has declared the week of June 14-21 Homeopathy Awareness Week. In the spirit of doing my part in raising awareness of exactly what homeopathy is, I would like to present to you an article I wrote in the original AWV blog on AOL back in May of 2006. Enjoy.



   The results of my poll (Ed. poll results no longer available - Thanks, AOL) about homeopathic medicine were very close to an even split between those who think there might be something to it, and those who think it's nonsense. It was pretty much as I expected, with the only difference being that I thought more people would weigh in on the side of homeopathy than against it.
   The purpose of the poll was to test a theory of mine. Well, it's not really a theory, as theories are defined. More like a hypothesis. Well, really, it's just a supposition.

   I suspect that many people who are willing to allow that there might be something to the claims of efficacy of homeopathic remedies have never really heard a good, clear explanation of exactly what homeopathic remedies are.

I would like to attempt to make this that clear explanation.

   The page explaining Homeopathic medicine to which I linked from my previous entry was that of the Toronto School of Homeopathy. They provide a basic explanation of the practice they teach:

...there [are] two ways of treating ill health, the way of opposites and the way of similars.

Take, for example, a case of insomnia. The way of opposites is to treat this by giving a drug to bring on an artificial sleep. This frequently involves the use of large or regular doses of drugs which can sometimes cause side-effects or addiction.

The way of similars - the homeopathic way - is to give the patient a minute dose of a substance which in large doses caused sleeplessness in a healthy person. Surprisingly this will enable the patient to sleep naturally. Because of the minute dosage no side-effects or addiction will result...

   This explanation is a little light on detail, but it does mention the two most important foundations of homeopathic medicine. The theory of similars, and the concept of minute doses. Remember those two things as our story moves along.

OK, here we go.

   Once upon a time, in a far off land, there lived a man named Samuel Hahnemann. Well, actually, the time was the end of the eighteenth century, and the land was Germany. Mr Hahnemann was a doctor, and he had a problem. His patients kept dying.
   Now don't think I'm trying in any way to impugn Dr. Hahnemann's reputation as a physician. He was an unfortunate victim of his era. People who got sick in the eighteenth century died. A lot. We are talking about a time when one of a doctor's most sophisticated treatments consisted of making a big cut in his patient, and letting the blood run out for a while.
   In fact, I believe that Dr. Hahnemann deserves a lot of credit. Unhappy with his lot...well, the lot of his patients, anyway, he was searching for more effective ways of treating them. One day, while he was working on a little side job he had picked up translating English medical papers to German, he came across a description of a native Peruvian remedy that was being used, with some success, in the treatment of malaria. The treatment consisted of an infusion brewed from the bark of a tree common to South America, called Cinchona.
   Now, you might think of malaria as being a disease of the tropics, but at that time in Europe, it was a considerable problem. Hahnemann was eager to learn more about a potential new way to help his community. He undertook to experiment with this new remedy he had read about.
   Uncomfortable with the idea of experimenting on his patients, Sam tried taking doses of the concoction himself, and found he suffered drowsiness, heart palpitations, trembling, weakness, thirst, and redness of his cheeks. The symptoms would last for several hours, and then subside. 
   Hahnemann, believing that he was experiencing malarial symptoms, made a sudden, intuitive leap. He came to the conclusion that substances that cure a disease in someone who is ill, would cause symptoms of that disease in someone who is healthy. Conversely, he thought, if he could discover substances that caused the symptoms of other diseases in healthy people, those substances would cure people who were afflicted with those diseases. The idea was that "like cures like." This is his law of similars.

   How the concept of minute doses came about is less clear. One article I read suggested that Hahnemann was dismayed to find that his homeopathic remedies did, indeed, cause unwanted, harmful reactions in his patients, and so diluted those remedies until the harmful effects stopped presenting, but I was unable to verify that account elsewhere, and it may be apocryphal.
   Whatever the reason, the fact is that Hahnemann began diluting his remedies in extreme ways. The following account of his dilution practices is from an article written by Oliver Wendell Holmes, in 1842.

A grain of the substance, if it is solid, a drop if it is liquid, is to be added to about a third part of one hundred grains of sugar of milk in an unglazed porcelain capsule which has had the polish removed from the lower part of its cavity by rubbing it with wet sand; they are to be mingled for an instant with a bone or horn spatula, and then rubbed together for six minutes; then the mass is to be scraped together from the mortar and pestle, which is to take four minutes; then to be again rubbed for six minutes. Four minutes are then to be devoted to scraping the powder into a heap, and the second third of the hundred grains of sugar of milk to be added. Then they are to be stirred an instant and rubbed six minutes, again to be scraped together four minutes and forcibly rubbed six; once more scraped together for four minutes, when the last third of the hundred grains of sugar of milk is to be added and mingled by stirring with the spatula; six minutes of forcible rubbing, four of scraping together, and six more (positively the last six) of rubbing, finish this part of the process.

Every grain of this powder contains the hundredth of a grain of the medicinal substance mingled with the sugar of milk. If, therefore, a grain of the powder just prepared is mingled with another hundred grains of sugar of milk, and the process just described repeated, we shall have a powder of which every grain contains the hundredth of the hundredth, or the ten thousandth part of a' grain of the medicinal substance. Repeat the same process with the same quantity of fresh sugar of milk, and every grain of your powder will contain the millionth of a grain of the medicinal substance. When the powder is of this strength, it is ready to employ in the further solutions and dilutions to be made use of in practice.

A grain of the powder is to be taken, a hundred drops of alcohol are to be poured on it, the vial is to be slowly turned for a few minutes, until the powder is dissolved, and two shakes are to be given to it. On this point I will quote Hahnemann's own words. "A long experience and multiplied observations upon the sick lead me within the last few years to prefer giving only two shakes to medicinal liquids, whereas I formerly used to give ten." The process of dilution is carried on in the same way as the attenuation of the powder was done; each successive dilution with alcohol reducing the medicine to a hundredth part of the quantity of that which preceded it. In this way the dilution of the original millionth of a grain of medicine contained in the grain of powder operated on is carried successively to the billionth, trillionth, quadrillionth, quintillionth, and very often much higher fractional divisions...

   I see, at this point, that you are skeptical. You are asking, "do you really want me to believe that homeopathic remedies have been diluted out to concentrations as low as one part per million, or more?"
   Well, yes, I do. Those are the facts of the matter. This afternoon, I took a little jaunt over to our local monster-mega-ultra-super-store, and had a look at their homeopathic medicine section. It took me a while to find it, as it was nowhere near the pharmacy. They had an impressive selection of remedies, all of them available in 6C and 30C dilutions.
   Let me explain those terms. Levels of dilution in homeopathy are represented by a number, and a letter. The number represent the number of serial dilutions a substance has undergone, and the letter represents the amount of each dilution. The letter 'X' represent a dilution in which one part of a solution is combined with nine parts of solvent, for a one-in-ten dilution. The letter 'C' a one-in-one hundred dilution.
   So, in the case of the above mentioned remedies, the term 6C means that one part of an original substance, or 'mother tincture' was diluted into 99 parts of solvent (either water or an alcohol solution). One part of the resulting mixture is then diluted into another 99 parts of solvent, creating a solution in which the original substance is present at a concentration of one part per ten thousand. This is a 2C solution. The same process is then repeated four more times, to produce a 6C dilution, in which the original substance now represents a mere one part per trillion.

   Let's pause for a minute, and think about what that means. How big is one milliliter of a liquid? Say about the size of a cube of sugar. How big is one trillion milliliters? Take a football field. Extend its width until it is as wide as it is long. Build walls around it that are as high as it is wide and long. You now have a huge cube measuring approximately one hundred meters a side. Fill it with water.  Add your sugar cube of the original substance. Stir. That is the equivalent of a 6C dilution.
   Now, take a bottle of simple sugar pills. Touch each pill with the merest fraction of a drop of that solution, and you have homeopathic medicine.
   Remember I said the remedies were also available in a 30C dilution? That represents a concentration of the original mother tincture of 1 part per 1x10 raised to the 59th power. That's a one followed by sixty zeros. To use a similar analogy as we did for the 6C dilution, picture...um, picture... No, I can't picture it.


...


...


...


   Sorry, I had to take a break there. I was having difficulty wrapping my head around the numbers involved in these serial dilutions. Unable to come up with an analogy to describe the 30C dilution, I went to my friend, fv, for help. Vinny, who has a university science degree sent me back this:

Ok...

Take a grain of rice. Cut it in half. Cut it in half again. That is the amount of your original solution. (Ed. The football field sized swimming pool.)

Now, take the distance from where you live to the south pole. Now think about the distance around the earth. Now think about the distance from the earth to the sun. Ok, now think about the distance from the sun to Pluto. Pretty big, huh? Ok, now think about the distance from here to the nearest star. It takes light 4.3 years (light that came from our sun when Bush was re-elected will reach that star 4 months after he leaves office) to reach that star, Proxima Centauri.

Got that? Ok now imagine a cube with each side the length of that distance. I am going to hide that crumb of rice in that cube. Try to find it...

   Wow. Big concepts. Hard to really imagine numbers that big. Here's another interesting fact. At about the 12C point in the dilution process, it becomes extremely unlikely that even one single molecule of the original medicinal ingredient still remains in the solution. At 30C it is a virtual certainty that the remedy is now comprised of 100% solvent. And yet, homeopathic practitioners maintain that it retains it's efficacy due to something they call potentisation.
   Scroll back up to that quote from Oliver Wendell Holmes. Yes, I know. It's a long way back. This is the part I want you to remember:

the powder is dissolved, and two shakes are to be given to it.

   Those shakes are important. They are what is referred to as succussion. In between each step of the dilution process, Hahnemann would succuss the solution by shaking the vial, or tapping it upon a hard but elastic surface, like the leather cover of a book. He believed that this process of succussion 'potentised' or energised the solution, counteracting the effects of the dilution. Nowhere can I find an explanation of why the succussion would retain the beneficial properties of a remedy, but not the harmful ones the dilutions were undertaken to remove.
   This web page has a series of quotations referring to the practice of succussion as Hahnemann conceived of it. An example:

In the Organon, however, he stated that trituration and succussion release the ‘spirit-like power’ of the medicine - which is compatible with his assumption that medicines act through their spiritual (geistlich) or dynamic impact upon the organism.

   Here we have the basic underlying concept behind the origin of homeopathy. Samuel Hahnemann believed there was some kind of magic force acting upon the remedies he was preparing keeping them potent even after he had diluted any trace of the original ingredient out of them.
   At this point, I have to pause once more and ask you a question. Does any of this make any sense whatsoever? If you are a die hard adherent to the practice of homeopathic medicine, your answer is that is doesn't matter if it makes sense, as long as it works. Right? What do you have to say about that? Huh?
   <Best John Wayne Drawl>Well, I'll tell ya.</John Wayne> I don't have to say much at all. I'll simply let the headlines speak for me. Here is a news report detailing the results of the latest and largest clinical study of homeopathy: Homeopathy no better then placebo, says study. So, beyond the fact that it sounds silly, it just plain doesn't work.
   This is the end of my story. If you would be so good as to vote again in a poll, I would like to know how many of you, whether you believe(d) in homeopathic medicine or not, knew exactly what it was before you read this entry, and whether your opinion has changed at all.




Ed. The polls, of course, are no longer available, but if you would like to express your opinions in comments, I'm all for that.

The Jenny McCarthy Body Count

One of the biggest stories in the skeptical world in 2008 was the ascension of Jenny McCarthy to the role of chief talking head for the anti-vaccine group Generation Rescue, an anti-science organization dedicated to the chimera of "Biomedical" treatment of autism spectrum disorders. I wrote a blog article mentioning Ms. McCarthy after her visit to Toronto about a year ago that received some positive feedback from the autism community, including a complimentary email from a Dr. Samuel Wang, Ph.D., a professor of molecular biology at Princeton University.

In the comments of that entry, Beth made an important point about the consequences of failing to vaccinate one's child:

...people seem to be conveniently forgetting that these vaccines prevent infections that can kill. These are not just little infections that kids will fight off, these can be killers, and they can run rampant in an unvaccinated population.

Beth's comment turned out to be prescient, as the news over the last year has been full of reports of outbreaks of diseases we used to think were nothing but distant memories from our grandparents' time. The number of reported cases of measles in the USA in 2008 was almost triple the average annual number of cases for the preceding four years. Measles. Seriously.

You may think that's no big deal. Many people think of measles the way they think of chicken pox, or rubella, but that's an error. Measles is in no way as innocuous as those diseases. Complications from measles can result in blindness, brain damage, and even death. And because of people like Jenny McCarthy, and the anti-vaccine militia at Generation Rescue, vaccination rates in North America are plummeting. It's going to get worse before it gets better.

The reported rates of vaccine preventable illnesses and vaccine preventable deaths in the United States has risen over the last two years, and a reduction in vaccination rates has definitely played a part in that. And Jenny McCarthy openly and vocally encourages people to not vaccinate their children. Dr, Steven Novella and the crew from The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe put it very bluntly late last year when they said, "Jenny McCarthy has a body count."

Now, another member of the online skeptical community has taken that quote and run with it, creating the Jenny McCarthy Body Count website, at which he keeps a weekly running tally of all vaccine preventable diseases and vaccine preventable deaths in the USA since Ms. McCarthy began spreading anti-vaccine bullshit in June of 2007. To the right, in my blog sidebar, you can see the Jenny McCarthy Body Count Widget, which will automatically update the tally each time the website does. Of course, Jenny McCarthy is not directly responsible for all of those illnesses and deaths. Perhaps not even any of them. But as each and every one of those illnesses and deaths were preventable by the simple act of proper vaccination, she does bear the burden of some indirect responsibility due to her anti-vaccine campaign.

I have reproduced the relevant portion of the blog article I wrote on the topic last April below for your further reading pleasure.


originally published April 15, 2008

But She Was On Oprah, So She Has To Be Right
Also back in March, former model Jenny McCarthy was in Toronto for the Holistic World Expo, and spouting her load of nonsense about Autism and Vaccines to anyone who would listen. Toronto Sun columnist Michele Mandel wrote what started out to be quite a rational and skeptical article on the subject, saying:

According to McCarthy, the recent alarming rise in autism -- as high as one in 150 children -- is directly tied to the increasingly heavy childhood vaccination schedule that began in the 1990s...

The scary thing is that no one in this town's goo-goo-eyed media bothered to challenge her controversial stand...

The scientific evidence, though, is pretty conclusive. The oft-touted link between autism and vaccination has been examined to death and endless studies have concluded there is no connection.

Somewhere along the way, however, Mandel lost the script.

So I was all prepared to completely discount the 35-year-old crusader and her Internet science. But it turns out that part of her message may actually have something to it. McCarthy credits a complete change in diet for helping to "cure" her son of his autism. After removing wheat and casein (found in milk) and adding vitamins and supplements, she noticed a dramatic change in just six months. "I do know I undid the damage that was done by vaccines," she told one local morning show, "and healed the body. You heal the body and you heal the mind and then he was able to function in society."

Mandel appears to accept McCarthy's statement at face value, leaving all semblance of skepticism behind. There are several things Mandel had overlooked in credulously reporting McCarthy's claims on this matter.

First - and you've heard me say this before - correlation does not necessarily imply causation. Just because two things happen at the same time (or one follows the other) does not necessarily mean they are related. They might be, be it can be hard to know for sure.
Autism is a condition marked by developmental delay. Note that is delayed development, not arrested development. It can seem like an autistic child is stuck at one level of development forever, then they can suddenly progress dramatically, seemingly overnight. It isentirely possible, indeed likely, that had McCarthy not changed her son's diet, he would still have experienced the same rapid improvement at the same time. Of course, Jenny would have just found something else to credit for the change.
There are all kinds of alternative autism therapies out there - modified diet, heavy metal chelation, what have you - that people claim are effective. Scientific investigation has, to date, shown that they are not.

Second, by allowing McCarthy's statement to go unchallenged, Mandel undermines a fact she presented earlier in the piece - that there is no scientific support for the 'vaccine causes autism' claim. She has allowed McCarthy to throw in her contention that she has undone "the damage done by vaccines." Even if there is something to the claim that a modified diet can have an effect on autism, that in no way points to vaccines as a cause. But Mandel allows that idea to slip back into her readers' minds by not applying critical thinking to the whole story.

The third thing that Mandel completely overlooks is that McCarthy claims to have healed her son. She conveniently leaves out the fact that Evan McCarthy still has autism. It hasn't gone away. He just showed some developmental progress. The fact is, everything McCarthy says is complete, and utter hogwash. Mandel needed to stick to her skeptical guns all the way to the end of her article. By failing to do so, she has failed her readers. She doesn't think so. She ends by saying, "at least this prescription of hers won't cause harm." Michele, I beg to differ. If just one of your readers abandons traditional treatements and therapies in favour of the woo presented by Jenny McCarthy, then there is harm. I've said this before, too. Alternative therapies that are ineffective, are not harmless.

Safina has been infected

   In a comment to my last post, Vinny pointed to the New York Times article, Darwinism Must Die So That Evolution May Live, by Ecologist Carl Safina, which says, in part:

Science has marched on. But evolution can seem uniquely stuck on its founder. We don’t call astronomy Copernicism, nor gravity Newtonism. “Darwinism” implies an ideology adhering to one man’s dictates, like Marxism. And “isms” (capitalism, Catholicism, racism) are not science. “Darwinism” implies that biological scientists “believe in” Darwin’s “theory.” It’s as if, since 1860, scientists have just ditto-headed Darwin rather than challenging and testing his ideas, or adding vast new knowledge.

   I was familiar with the article, as it had been referenced by Professor Myers, at Pharyngula, but I really hadn't paid much attention, until Vinny forced my hand, so to speak. So, I gave it a more in-depth read. It really only took me about thirty seconds, or so, to form an opinion. And that opinion is, of course, that Safina is talking out of his ass. Let me tell you why.
   Now P.Z., and Jerry Coyne, both Evolutionary Developmental Biologists, disagreed with Safina, but my reasoning is slightly different from theirs - although springing from the same basic ideal. Remember a few weeks ago, when I wrote a couple of articles about Fred - an occasional blogger whose writing I admire - and his reaction to the atheist bus ads in England? I pointed out that Fred, who was an intelligent, college educated, self-proclaimed agnostic, verging on atheist, repeated virtually every canard in the Creationist, anti-science propaganda bible. I lamented the fact that Answers in Genesis and their ilk had so inundated the public with their dishonest talking points that even Fred was unconsciously repeating them without even realising it. We see exactly the same thing in the Safina article.
   Safina harps on the overuse of the terms Darwinism, and Darwinist, in the description of the science of evolution, and suggests that we need to lose those terms in order to focus attention on the "real" science of evolution, and look less like we are following some sort of atheistic dogma. Myers and Coyne both speak very strongly about how important Darwin's work really was, and how, while the science has moved far beyond his original ideas, we need to note his contributions, and celebrate them for the revolution in the scientific community they created. But they both ignore the question of just who it is that is currently using the term 'Darwinism' today.
   Quite frankly, I have not encountered the term 'Darwinist' being used anywhere except by Creationists, and their more mendacious cousins, Intelligent Designists. They use the term 'Darwinist' and sometimes 'Evolutionist' almost exclusively when talking about evolutionary scientists in order to suggest that just such a dogmatic view is being held by them.
   But, when you talk to actual students of evolutionary theory, the term almost never comes up. Certainly, Myers and Coyne, in their blogs, never refer to their field of expertise as 'Darwinism.' In looking at the courses available at my local universities, I can find no mention of one called Darwinism, or Darwinian Evolution. But Safina, just like Fred, has been brainwashed by the constant whispering in his ear by the religious right, into accepting that 'Darwinism' is an actual scientific course of study. He's been fooled so completely that he isn't even aware that his opinions might be the least bit misguided.

   The next time you hear someone say, "Darwinism must die," just tell them: "don't be silly. You can't kill something that doesn't really exist."