Bad Astronomy » Alt-Med

A case study of the tactics of climate change denial, in which I am the target

Phil Plait — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 14:00:35 +0000

Over the years I have pointed out the fallacious arguments of climate change deniers when they attack legitimate climatologists like James Hansen and Michael Mann. This is, of course, like kicking at a bee hive, and whenever I do the comments section of my posts fill with lots of angry buzzing.

But now, for what I think is the first time, I find myself the target of an attack. And I have to admit, I welcome it: it’s a textbook case of denialist sleight of hand, of distraction, distortion, error, and misdirection.

Stick around for all of this. It’ll be… interesting.

Our story so far

OK, first, here’s the scoop: a few days ago, I wrote a blog post taking apart two intellectually bankrupt climate change denial articles, one in the Wall Street Journal, and the other in the UK’s Daily Mail. Both were claiming that global warming appears to have stopped in the past few years, a claim which is trivially easy to show wrong. In fact, I linked to two articles doing just that: one at Skeptical Science, and another I myself wrote. Finding actual scientists destroying that claim is not hard at all; those ...

Stop antivaxxers. Now.

Phil Plait — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 14:00:26 +0000

There are times when reality is so obvious, so clear, so rock-solid 100% amazingly in-your-face incontrovertible, that it is beyond belief that anyone could deny it.

And yet, antivaccination groups exist.

Let me be very, very clear: they are wrong. Vaccines save lives. Vaccines save millions of lives. And not just directly, like they did by wiping out smallpox, a scourge that killed hundreds of millions of people. But also, through herd immunity, vaccines save infants too young to be vaccinated, the elderly with weak immune systems, and people whose immune systems are compromised due to chemotherapy, genetic issues, or because they are taking immunosuppressants for other illnesses (like arthritis).

Vaccines don’t cause autism. Vaccines don’t contain dangerous levels of mercury. Vaccines don’t contain fetal tissue. Each of these – and many, many more — is misinformation spread by antivaxxers, statements that are easily proven wrong (like, in order, here, here, and here). But many antivaxxers continue to use them.

What does that say about their willingness to tell the truth?

Yesterday, in Australia, one of the most vocal antivaxxers alive, Meryl ...

The $37.6 Million Dollar Fine HE Doesn’t Want You To Know About

Phil Plait — Sun, 18 Dec 2011 14:00:56 +0000

If schadenfreude made a noise, then you’d be hearing it pretty loudly from me right now: Kevin Trudeau — a convicted credit card fraud, and a man who made tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars by telling people he could cure their cancer using, get this, coral calcium — has lost his appeal to the federal court, and must pay $37.6 million dollars in fines.

Trudeau, who shilled this false cancer cure as a diet supplement, was ordered by a federal judge in 2008 to stop making and airing infomercials about it. I wrote about this at the time, but I kept seeing those evil infomercials on TV. I wondered about this, but now I understand: Trudeau was trying to sidestep the order by selling books about this false cure, not the supplements directly. And, he kept buying up those ad spots while appealing the order. But on November 29th of this year, the appeals court said "nope".

As the court papers say:

The protections, unfortunately, were too weak: Trudeau aired infomercials in violation of the order at least 32,000 times. He should not now be surprised that he ...

“Alternative” cancer clinic threatens to sue high school blogger

Phil Plait — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 20:57:59 +0000

Everyone has been touched by cancer in one way or another. If you haven’t had it yourself, the odds are extremely high you know someone who has, and who has died from it. I’ve lost loved ones to cancer, and it’s awful; it can take years filled with tests, hope, lack of hope, expensive therapy… and in the end the odds are what they are. It all makes for desperate times for those involved, with an emotional distress level that is beyond my ability to describe.

There are people out there who claim they can cure cancer, or have therapies that can mediate it. Some of these people are simply con artists, ready to swoop in as soon as they smell blood in the water, vermin that they are. Others are honest but wrong, thinking they have stumbled on some therapy that no one else has found. However, time and again, when these alternative methods are tested rigorously using controlled, properly done studies, they are shown not to work. In general this does not stop people from making the claims, however.

In Houston, Texas, is a man named Stanislaw Burzynski. He claims he has a method for treating cancer. He calls it ...

A pox on antivaxxers

Phil Plait — Sat, 05 Nov 2011 13:00:02 +0000

A couple of antivax stories hit the web in the past day or so, and both have me pretty angry, shaking my head about how people can manage to get things so wrong.

First, the antivax organization that is (Orwellianly) called the National Vaccine Information Center has paid for ads to run on in-flight Delta airline TVs. These ads give what can charitably be called misleading information about vaccines. Skepchick has the details, as does Harpocrates Speaks.

NVIC is an organization that is resolutely antivaccination, despite the overwhelming evidence that vaccines are one of the greatest medical science triumphs of all time, having saved hundreds of millions of lives. NVIC, on the other hand, is a group that likes to try to sue critics into silence while at the same time spouting statements so ridiculous they make my irony gland fear for its life.

I decided to make a short and simple tweet about the ads being run on Delta airlines:

I mean it, too. The link in ...

Had your flu shot yet?

Phil Plait — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 19:38:10 +0000

Hey, it’s flu season! Got your vaccine yet?

If not, this might convince you:

I’m getting mine, as will Mrs. BA and The Little Astronomer. Talk to your doctor, then get one too if they recommend it. The flu is more than an inconvenience; it can be deadly to those unequipped to deal with it.

Tip o’ the needle to Mike’s Weekly Skeptic Rant (sometimes NSFW language there).

Related posts:

- Undue influenza
- I got shot
- An unvaccinated child has died from a preventable disease
- Congress hears about antivaxxers

SCOTUS denies mobile phone lawsuit

Phil Plait — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 17:00:30 +0000

I’m not a huge fan of the current US Supreme Court, but they recently did something right: Bloomberg is reporting the Court denied the revival of a lawsuit against mobile phone companies from a group claiming cell phones cause brain damage, including cancer.

The Court denied the claim for legal reasons — basically, the suit was filed under state law claims, but a court had already ruled that those laws were superseded by federal (FCC) regulations. So the Court ruled the claimant doesn’t get to sue mobile phone companies.

And while you might consider this ruling decided on a technicality, it turned out the right way. Mobile phones don’t cause cancer. Or, if you want to be technically accurate, studies of this topic have shown that any link between cell phones and brain damage is so weak it’s statistically indistinguishable from no link at all.

The exception would be if you’re using your phone while you’re driving. Then the likelihood of brain damage — and spleen damage, and kidney damage, and bone damage, and life damage — jump by a factor of four.

So you can use your phone and not worry about brain damage… ...

Michele Bachmann needles Perry on vaccinations

Phil Plait — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 20:10:45 +0000

The antiscience stance of the Republican candidates for President is getting so chaotic I swear I need a scorecard to keep it all straight. The latest: Michele Bachmann goes antivax.

No, seriously. Generally associated with the far left, antivaccination rhetoric reared its head at the latest Republican candidate debate. In 2007, Governor Rick Perry of Texas — and current front runner of the cohort of White House contenders — issued an Executive Order mandating the Gardasil vaccination for girls. This vaccination prevents girls from getting the human papillomavirus, or HPV, a virus that is a major factor in contracting cervical cancer later in life. This cancer has a greater than 30% fatality rate once contracted, and is a horrible, horrible condition. 20 million people in the US alone carry the virus.

Mandating vaccinations is actually something of a difficult topic, and my stand on it is somewhat nuanced (though I do lean towards saying "yes, they should be under most circumstances").

Representative Bachmann is not quite so subtle. During the recent debate, she tried to hammer Rick Perry on this issue, saying it’s ...

News quickies, part n

Phil Plait — Fri, 02 Sep 2011 18:02:31 +0000

Just some quick notes, to fill my quota give you some interesting reading:

1) Scientific American has a great article online about why it’s important to vaccinate, and how to talk to parents about it. [via George Valenzuela]

2) Speaking of which, the Autism Science Foundation — a non-profit that supports real research into autism, instead of trying to link it to vaccines despite all the evidence — was chosen as the number 1 startup charity in the "Disabilities" category by Philanthropedia/Guidestar. Congrats to them! [via Dawn Crawford]

3) The Discovery Institute isn’t completely honest? Unpossible!

4) Bill Nye helps create a sundial at Cornell University that glows when the Sun reaches its daily peak in the sky. [via Beth Quittman (my agent!)]

5) Frying pans that look like planets. Seriously. Very cool.

We are (temporarily) vaccinated against Jenny McCarthy

Phil Plait — Sun, 31 Jul 2011 14:41:05 +0000

A couple of years back, Oprah Winfrey offered notorious antivaxxer Jenny McCarthy her own show on Oprah’s health network. Needless to say, a lot of people were unhappy about this, including me. Ms. McCarthy’s ideas about health and medicine are not only demonstrably wrong, they are what I consider to be a public health threat. She actively promotes people not taking medicine known to work, and to try things we know don’t work. That link above has copious examples.

So I was semi-delighted to hear that she will not be getting a show on Oprah’s network; apparently, she was unhappy with the negotiations and walked away.

Why only semi-delighted? According to that article McCarthy is being wooed by NBC, so she’ll still be able to sell her wares on TV, and she’ll still be getting the imprimatur of a network backing her. That’s too bad. Her beliefs about medicine are clearly contrary to what we know to be true scientifically, and people’s lives are actually impacted, hugely, by the kinds of misinformation that’s already far too prevalent out there.

Tip o’ the syringe to Fark

Related posts:

-

Dear Playboy: Deepak Chopra is wrong

Phil Plait — Mon, 18 Jul 2011 18:15:19 +0000

Last month, Playboy magazine ran an interview with Deepak Chopra, well-known among skeptics as a man whose grasp of science is only enough to use sciencey-sounding words to bolster whatever bizarre claim he’s making this week.

I received an email from an editor of Playboy asking me if I’d like to write an OpEd about the interview to be printed in that issue. Given the long reach of the magazine (it sells more than 2 million copies per month) I agreed and quickly penned a response. The interview and my editorial, along with one by Michael Shermer, ran in that June 2011 issue [NOTE: Playboy had the interview online but now it's gone; I found transcripts but I'm not sure they're legal. If someone knows where the original link is, please let me know!]. Here is what they printed from me:

This captures the gist of what I was saying, but due to space limitations was not my entire rebuttal to Chopra’s word salad in the interview (or should that be Mad Lib?). I think it could be read as if I’m insulting people who aren’t scientists, but that’s not what ...

More good and bad news about measles and vaccinations

Phil Plait — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 18:30:13 +0000

Reporting on the latest news about vaccinations is frustrating. For every step forward we take a step back.

1) First, the good: vaccination rate for measles in the UK has risen to its highest level in 13 years according to the UK Health Protection Agency. The rate — 90% among two-year-olds — is pretty good. I’ll note that this is for the first of two vaccinations needed; for the second dose the uptake is lower, 85%.

One bit of bad news about this is the reason behind the rate increase is thought to be due to a series of measles outbreaks in Europe. It’s an irony of life that vaccines are a victim of their own success: inoculations have been so successful in eliminating some diseases that people take for granted the diseases are gone. But they’re not gone, they’re waiting. When vaccination rates drop low enough, we see more measles. And pertussis. And the flu, and polio.

And when this happens, people get sick, and some die. A teenager in the UK recently died of measles. He had a compromised immune system, which means he relied on us, the rest of the population, to keep up herd ...

Give a buck for autism research

Phil Plait — Thu, 23 Jun 2011 16:50:14 +0000

A few months ago I posted about the Autism Science Foundation: an organization that funds real research into autism. We don’t know what causes autism, but ongoing research is making progress, and ASF is helping support that.

For today only, they are featured on the Philanthroper home page. Philanthroper is a group that helps raise money one dollar at a time. I like this idea. Giving a dollar isn’t all that hard for a lot of people, and the process is pretty painless: if you have a buck and a Paypal account, it takes less than a minute.

A lot of time, money, and effort is being wasted looking into a connection between vaccines and autism when we know no such connection exists. I’m glad there are groups out there trying to find the real causes, and that’s why I already donated to ASF.

So. Got a minute and a buck?

Confirmed measles cases in US tops 150

Phil Plait — Tue, 21 Jun 2011 16:47:35 +0000

The number of confirmed cases of measles in the United States stands, as of this moment, at 152.

That’s twice as many cases as usually seen in a year, and it’s only June.

Why so many? In the article linked above, it’s made clear: parents aren’t vaccinating their kids. The reasons for that are numerous: religious exemptions, anti-vaccination propaganda, ignorance, or perhaps even just laziness. But the bottom line is that kids are getting sick.

And if you don’t think measles is that big a deal, watch this:

That is one of many stories from people who have dealt with their children getting sick… and some who have had their children die. The website Shot by Shot gives the very human and all-too-often tragic side of what happens when people don’t vaccinate. The site is put together by the wonderful people at California Immunization Coalition.

The leaders of the antivaccination movement say they speak out because they care about the children. When I see stories like these, from parents who are destroyed by the loss or serious illness of the children, I question those antivaccination advocates. And we know ...

Pertussis can kill, and you can help stop it

Phil Plait — Thu, 16 Jun 2011 13:00:17 +0000

Pertussis, known commonly as whooping cough, is a highly contagious disease. It’s bad for anyone to get, but in infants it can result in death.

We have a vaccine that inoculates people against the bacterium. Yet, because not enough people get this vaccine, we’re seeing pertussis (and measles) outbreaks in many, many places. And who suffers? Babies too young to be vaccinated.

I want you to watch the following video. It’s a segment on the Australian 60 Minutes program, which deals with this issue plainly and truthfully. It’s an extremely difficult video to watch, as you’ll see (I had to turn my head several times, to be honest) but it’s also extremely important that everyone sees it.

Pay close attention to antivaxxer Viera Schiebner. Watch her demeanor, her manner, her attitude. This is a leader in their movement? To say her view of medicine, of reality, is skewed is to seriously understate the case. Barbara Holland Bronwyn Hancock, who works with Schiebner, justifies not getting vaccinated by making the outrageous statement that diseases can be beneficial.

I fail to see how exposing infants to potentially fatal infections is beneficial in any way.

Mia Freedman has written an ...

How to be inoculated against antivax conventions

Phil Plait — Fri, 10 Jun 2011 13:00:16 +0000

There’s a grand irony about skepticism and alt-med groups that I suspect most people don’t know. Skeptics are commonly seen as curmudgeonly cynics, poopooing new ideas and excluding anyone not in their club. Alt-med people are seen as warm, open, willing to try new things, and welcoming anyone to their group.

But that’s not the way it really works. In fact, skeptical groups welcome people who believe in various things we don’t (we’ve had them come to various TAMs; the effort we make in outreach could be improved, of course, but we certainly don’t turn them away — an important point, as you’ll see in a moment), and alt-med groups… well, they talk a good game, but when it comes down to a skeptic actually showing up at their meetings, their actions speak much louder than words.

But don’t take my word for it. You can read all about what happened to my pal and active supporter of real medicine Jamie Bernstein when she attended the antivax Autism One convention. She wrote up her experience in two parts: the first on Skepchick, and the second

Pertussis and measles are coming back

Phil Plait — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 18:00:41 +0000

It’s been a while since I’ve mentioned antivax topics here, and a lot has happened in the past few weeks.. and it’s not good.

Our old nemesis measles is roaring back in the US, with the CDC actually issuing a warning for travelers. Americans visiting other countries are bringing the disease back with them, and places where vaccination rates are low are seeing outbreaks. We’ve had twice as many cases of measles so far in 2011 than we did all year in 2010.

As Seth Mnookin, author of The Panic Virus, points out, it’s interesting how there is a cluster of cases in Minnesota, where antivaxxer Andrew Wakefield and others have been targeting the Somali community. Seth also notes that of the cases we’re seeing here, 89% are from unvaccinated people, and fully 98% of the people hospitalized were unvaccinated. He goes on to show the real financial cost of the disease, on top of the devastating health problems it causes.

And we have some unwelcome company: In Australia, pertussis (whooping cough) is on the rise, with more than 4500 cases so far this year.

4500. Holy crap. ...

Why I’m (still) not worried about my cell phone hurting my brain

Phil Plait — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 12:00:45 +0000

I’m getting lots of notes from people about the latest press release from the World Health Organization, saying there is a "possible" link between cell phones and brain cancer. My first reaction was, "Seriously?" This keeps popping up every now and again, but this was the first time I had heard it from a group as big as WHO.

The reason for that initial reaction was that I’ve read about lots of studies showing no link at all between cell phones and health issues (besides quadrupling your odds of a car accident if you drive while using your phone), so my reaction was one of fair skepticism. I’d be surprised if a strong connection had been found.

Turns out, it seems, that’s the right call. My Discover Magazine co-blogger Ed Yong explains why on the Cancer Research UK website. Basically, the WHO put cell phones into the Group 2B category, meaning they are "possibly carcinogenic to humans". Aiiiieee! Sounds scary… except that word "possibly", it turns out, needs to be understood a little more quantitatively.

As Ed shows, the graph showing the results from several tests investigating the links between cell phones and cancer shows that ...

Antivaxxer Mark Geier has license revoked in Maryland

Phil Plait — Thu, 05 May 2011 20:00:31 +0000

I do so love to report these wins for reality, as rare as they are: the very vocal antivax advocate Mark Geier has had his medical license revoked in Maryland. Why?

The Maryland State Board of Physicians reviewed nine cases of autistic children seen by Geier, of which he treated seven. Of those nine, the Board found he misdiagnosed six of them. He (mis)diagnosed them with "precocious puberty", a medical condition where kids have extremely early onset of puberty. Why would he do such a thing? Well, this condition can be treated with Lupron, a drug which lowers testosterone (it’s used to chemically castrate adult men). Geier happens to think Lupron can also help autism — despite there being no evidence at all that’s the case — which makes his diagnosis very suspect. It implies strongly that he used the precocious puberty diagnosis as an excuse to prescribe the drug.

By the way, Lupron costs $5000 – $6000 a month to administer. The side effects can be severe as well, including seizures, and it’s known that autistic children are prone to seizures. That’s why the Board wrote that Geier’s treatment "exposed the children to needless risk ...

Calling Dr. Oz: defend alt-med on Skeptics’ Guide

Phil Plait — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 19:53:28 +0000

The other day, noted skeptic Dr. Steve Novella appeared on the Dr. Oz TV show. Steve is a promoter of medicine based on solid science, proven techniques, and reproducible results. Dr. Oz, um, not so much. In fact, on his show Oz has promoted questionable (at best, if not outright dangerous and provably false) things like homeopathy, faith healers, and even talking-to-the-dead guru John Edward. Oz has had such anti-science leanings of late that the James Randi Educational Foundation gave him their 2011 Pigasus Media Award.

Steve did a great job on the show, the best he could, but was hamstrung by the format of the show which gave Oz the last word and allowing him to frame the entire situation. You can read Steve’s synopsis of the episode on his site, and Orac has an excellent summary as well.

As a followup to this, Steve has invited Dr. Oz to appear either on his blog or on Steve’s podcast, the excellent Skeptics’ Guide to the Universe. I think this is a fantastic idea, since that would remove Oz’s ability to frame things the way he wants, and would force him to defend his ...

Steve Novella goes to Oz

Phil Plait — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 20:00:23 +0000

If you’ve read this blog for more than a few nanoseconds, you may know I am not a huge fan of people promoting "alternative" medicine. Overwhelmingly, these things turn out to fall far, far short of the claims made for them. Homeopathy, acupuncture, supplements, on and on — these tend to rely on anecdotes and not tests. When tested properly, they are almost universally shown to be ineffective*.

That’s why I am also not a big fan of Mehmet Oz, a doctor who has his own TV show where he has been known to promote provably ineffective treatments. My friend Dr. Steve Novella is also not a fan of Oz’s, and has commonly criticized him on his blog Science Based Medicine as well as on his podcast Skeptics’ Guide to the Universe.

So I was quite surprised to hear from Steve the other day, letting me know that he will appear as a guest on The Dr. Oz Show this Tuesday! If you click that link you can see a promo for the show… which has my hackles rising. I know that Steve wouldn’t appear on the show unless he ...

Homeopathy slammed by Australian TV news show

Phil Plait — Mon, 18 Apr 2011 17:17:06 +0000

Most of the time, so-called "alternative medicine" is treated very gently by television news. I don’t know if that’s because they don’t want to tick off their viewers, or the reporters don’t look into it properly, or if they believe in it themselves. But no matter the reason, it’s always refreshing to see a show really tear into something like homeopathy. That’s precisely what the Australian program "Today Tonight" did recently:

The report featured such noted skeptics as Simon Singh, Richard Saunders, and James Randi, and made it very clear that homeopathy is just very expensive nonsense. I’m glad they didn’t make the report "balanced" by giving a lot of time to promoters of homeopathy; that’s not balance any more than giving time to someone who believes in storks delivering babies in a segment about infant health care.

But they did give a homeopath a minute or so of time, and in that short period Australian Homeopathy Association’s President Michelle Hookham managed to say a lot of wrong stuff. At 4:10 into the video she invokes quantum physics — a well-known trump card by alt-medders, which is basically code for "magic" in their eyes — but it’s at ...

Help stop antivax ads in NYC

Phil Plait — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 13:00:04 +0000

I’ve just learned that antivax ads are now running on the Times Square Jumbotron in NYC (ironically, I was just there, right at that intersection, but I was in a cab and missed seeing the ad). These ads are sponsored by Joe Mercola and the National Vaccine Information Center.

It’s been a while since I’ve mentioned these two fonts of rabid antivaccination nonsense. Mercola is an alt-medder who claims to only want to promote "natural health", which must mean getting pertussis, polio, and measles, because he fights vaccines tooth and nail. He won’t let reality stop him, nor decorum and good taste. He’s another in a long line of alt-med bullies, hoping to shout so loudly they can drown out reality.

The NVIC is just as bad if not worse; they spread dangerous information about vaccines, then sue anyone who tries to call them on their antics.

So it’s a pretty safe bet that any ads sponsored by Mercola and the NVIC are in and of themselves a threat to national health. Matt at Skeptical Teacher has details on the ads and what ...

More news on preventable diseases

Phil Plait — Thu, 07 Apr 2011 19:15:11 +0000

I know I just wrote about vaccine-preventable diseases on the rise once again, but even in the past couple of days there’s more news:

1) Houston is seeing the first case of measles in six years. The victim? An 11-month-old baby. Let’s hope she has a full and swift recovery, and no one else falls ill.

2) In that post linked above I talked about a school in Virginia that had to close down due to a big pertussis outbreak. Well, in Canada, they’re telling kids who are unvaccinated they can’t come to school; at least, not until they can show their inoculations are up-to-date. I have mixed feelings about forcing kids to get vaccinated, but in the end we simply cannot have schools be breeding grounds for diseases which are trivially easy to prevent. I read about this story on Fark, and the comments there are interesting, to say the least.

3) Seth Mnookin, who wrote "The Panic Virus" an exposé of the antivax movement, has posted his thoughts on these recent news stories. As usual, I find his comments to be well-reasoned and thoughtful.

While people sicken, CBS reporter spreads antivax propaganda

Phil Plait — Tue, 05 Apr 2011 22:04:33 +0000

Short and sweet:

Why is it that when…

a) 30 people in Virginia have been diagnosed with pertussis (whooping cough) — enough to cause classes to be canceled at a local school — and

b) 14 cases have popped up in Minnesota — cases which can apparently be traced almost directly to the dangerous antivax movement —

… does CBS allow a ridiculous antivax screed by reporter Sharyl Attkisson ever to see the light of day?

Get vaccination FACTS at Immunize for Good.

Tip o’ the syringe to balister. Pertussis image from Microbiology2009.

Related posts:

- Indexed takes on antivaxxers
- BREAKING: BMJ calls Andrew Wakefield a fraud
- More on Wakefield’s descent: money, money, money
- The Autism Science Foundation