Biblical fever = influenza. You're kidding me, right?

Wow. Who publishes virology and what else do they publish?

This is an example of lame fake "research" that scientific journals are, unfortunately, becoming more and more fond of because it gets their name out. Unfortunately for them, it lowers their standing among their target audience. I'm with you, if I were a virologist, I wouldn't send my papers there either.

Well, if you remember correctly Jesus IS the Son of God wh created the entire universe, so I am sure he could heal the flu in millseconds if He so chose to do so.

Remember Lazarus? He was dead for four days. People didn't want jesus to open the tomb becuase of the smell, yet all He did was call for lazarus to come forth and He was ressurected immediately after being dead for four days. He was completely healed and back to his old self immediately.

How's that for science?

Wow - and who was the editor and reviewers? Didn't Hippocrates describe flu-like symptoms? And wasn't the bible written ~1700 years ago, not 2000?

Also - you can apparently leave comments if you scroll down to the bottom of the article...

It's 'Virology Journal', not Virology (Elsevier) or the Journal of Virology (Americal Society for Microbiology), which are both quite respectable journals.

Virology Journal is part of the BioMed Central empire, who must be even sleazier than I thought.

Thanks for your excellent fisking! And BTW - Chalk up another Virology Miracle For Christ - I was not violantly ill, only nauseated, when I read about this.

I think the most that can be said is that fevers were known at the time it was written (a bit over 1900 years ago).

The original is Mark 1:30 and Matthew 8:14 (Matthew borrowed a fair bit from Mark)

ÏÏÏÎÏÏοÏÏα - puressousa - feverish - related to 'fire' (modern English words, pyre, pyromaniac...)

Wow, this online journal's been around for seven years! Who knew?

I am very impressed at the way the authors shamelessly used this publication to pump up their own citation rate - 7 of the 9 works cited are by the first author.

This is an allegedly peer-reviewed journal edited by a well-published and well-credentialled professor at a major US school of biomedicine. WTF.

I am very impressed at the way the authors shamelessly used this publication to pump up their own citation rate - 7 of the 9 works cited are by the first author.

Ha! I'd missed that. I glanced and wondered why they were all SARS.

OK, there are two things going on here First, in antiquity, Jesus made a disease so strong he could not cure it (the bacterial one). So now we know the answer to the taco question.

Second, more recently, God made a peer reviewed journal paper so bad (through the writings of his earthly servants) that it could not be published, but he still got it published.

Am I the only person who understands this????11??

ginger @8 wrote,

This is an allegedly peer-reviewed journal edited by a well-published and well-credentialled professor at a major US school of biomedicine. WTF

WTF indeed. From the link, it states:

Received: 16 June 2010
Accepted: 21 July 2010
Published: 21 July 2010

35 days from received to published. That is pretty fast. I doubt this paper received a sound review and if it did, the editor did not do his/her job.

Will they accept my paper on Jesus curing computer viruses?

People need to stop looking at accounts of miracles in the Bible and trying to find rational, naturalistic explanations for them. That in itself reveals a lack of faith. That goes not only for the writers of that totally rediculous paper, but for all those "scientific" Creationists out there. I too would blacklist that journal for accepting that nonsense.

Good point JD. Apparently, according to the comments section of the journal, it was reviewed by 2 people (and accepted with modifications... in only 35 days). Either the reviewers were in on publishing this crap (or were "bible experts") or the editor is being less than truthful. Either way, I can't trust anything that comes out of this journal anymore.

Currently this paper is the 5th most accessed for the journal in the last 30 days: link. I feel bad for the authors of actual science articles in the journal.

If I were an author of a respectable paper in this journal, Iâd get busy writing to the editors, prontoâ¦

I did wonder how serious the authors and editors were - it's possible that none of them were taking it that seriously (or perhaps the editors weren't, even if the authors were). It is quite fun.

The authors reference another important historical medical report "the first pediatric case of mouth-to-mouth cardiopulmonary resuscitation is vividly described in the Old Testament when the prophet Elisha pressed upon an apparently dead child and breathed into him seven times, and the child was revived (Kings 4:34-35) [1]" - and completely mangle the original authors findings. Elisha did not breathe into the child several times - the KJV doesn't even mention him breathing once - it says the child sneezed seven times and came back to life after Elisha had lain on top of him a couple of times. It's amazing the reviewers didn't notice this glaring error. Aren't scientists meant to be up to date on the relevant scientific literature of their field of expertise?
Anyway the good news is that I've found the perfect place to send my manuscript on the first reported case of infectious viral meningitis (not to give all the juicy details away but it involves a young couple that inexplicably go UPHILL to fetch a pail of water and then pass out and fall down due, no doubt, to the debilitating effects of this virus.)

Now I know where to send my case report about Prometheus and his hepatitis...

If you read the comments on the paper, one of them is from one of the editors, who confirms that the paper was peer-reviewed and recommended for publication by both of the reviewers. Where's that third reviewer when you need him/her?

Well, you have to give them credit for something: they pretty much admit that miraculous healing is not distinguishable from natural remission.

I think they forgot to print it in the April issue on April Fool's Day and are just making up for that. No way, a serious editor lets this stuff through. And frankly, I think the authors are in on it.

@#3 Yes, he was called out and came forth, and no one noticed the smell, for this was biblical days, and in biblical days the smell of the dead was not that far off from the smell of the living. Amen.

Does anyone have the address for the parent company of this scientific journal? I have some air-quotes that need a good home.

*facepalm*.

Next up in the Virology Journal : A study of the epidemiology of flu-like illness in the Harry Potter series.

Like I said on Pharyngula :
We all know god is a heartless bastard who doesn't mind humans suffering, since as PZ pointed out in his talk in Melbourne earlier this year, he could have easily dropped a hint in the bible that washing your hands might be a good idea !

If Jebus cured it with magic, then the disease itself had to be magic, probably the result of a spell cast by a witch. It's the never-ending battle between good magic and bad magic.

Next: The malady suffered by Sleeping Beauty, followed by the spell cast on Princess Fiona.

I'm putting much too much effort into my own peer reviewed publications.

From this, the authors conclude that the fever must have been influenza. Their rationale? Well, they exclude bacterial septicemia because "the fever retreated instantaneously. This implies that the disease was probably not a severe acute bacterial infection (such as septicemia) or subacute endocarditis that would not resolved [sic] instantaneously."

Are you kidding me? I'm Christian, but this is just dumb...by both theological or scientific standards. How the hell did this end up in an actual science journal?

We are wondering how it made it past reviewers when apparently it was never seen by an editor worth his blue pencil. There's a full sentence repeated in the abstract, and a spelling mistake in the first sentence of the Case description, which should have been idiot-proof since it's a repetition of the first sentence of the Abstract.

It's an anti-miracle.

he could have easily dropped a hint in the bible that washing your hands might be a good idea !

And then you have Mark 7, when Jesus says that washing your hands before eating is for hypocrites. (Ok, someone might argue that hygiene is not the point of that passage and they might be right, but the fact remains that Jesus seems to think that not washing your hands before eating is swell.)

I wonder if this is simply a case of a 'journal' getting Sokal-ed by a few Hong Kong researchers with a sense of humor. There are major problems in this two page letter both in terms of biblical accuracy (the "Luke" who wrote the gospel of Luke is not believed to be the disciple Luke mentioned as a physician here, and they get the story of Elisha wrong), and in terms of theology (Jesus couldn't instantly cure bacterial septicemia but could cure viral influenza? - I suspect someone who can cure a four day long case of rigor mortis would find bacterial infections childsplay !) The references look like a fairly obvious joke too - 7 out of nine being from the authors themselves and the remaining two being the King James Version Bible and a website for the Fahrenheit temperature scale!
Perhaps we should await word from the authors before we criticize them - they could be doing us a favor in exposing the terrible peer review and editorial standards of this journal.

Interestingly, the chapter headings for the NIV refer to Jesus "healing a boy with epilepsy" :
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew 17:14-18; Mark 9:17-27; Luke 9:37-42

Obsciguy- "And wasn't the bible written ~1700 years ago, not 2000?"

Most of the texts in the new testament were probably written between 40 and 150 CE or so. However, the canonical list of texts more-or-less agreed to by most branches of Christianity was not complied until well into the 4th century -- by Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria in 367.

Teaching world civ fills up your brain with all kinds of trivia.

I've submitted a comment to the paper, but it has to get the editor's approval. The criteria are that it must contribute to the topic under discussion and does not breach patients' confidentiality or libel anyone. We'll see if it's acceptable.

Comment by: Dr Rosemary Redfield, University of British Columbia

Title: This is not science.

Comment:
This paper in no way qualifies as science. It doesn't even qualify even as a case report, because the authors have no personal experience of this case. They basically say that, if their assumption that the woman had influenza is correct, then their conclusion that she was cured is justified.

The citations are also disgraceful. The authors cite only the bible, a web page about temperature measurements, and themselves (seven times!).

If BioMed Central hopes to build a reputation as a home for serious science then they need to first withdraw this paper and then have some serious discussions with this journal's editor.

Competing interests:
None.

@15, 16: Point taken.

I have published in and reviewed manuscripts for BioMed Central journals before.

I now regret having done so, and I will not repeat those mistakes.

As Editor-in-Chief of Virology Journal I wish to apologize for the publication of the article entitled ''Influenza or not influenza: Analysis of a case of high fever that happened 2000 years ago in Biblical timeâ, which clearly does not provide the type of robust supporting data required for a case report and does not meet the high standards expected of a peer-reviewed scientific journal. Virology Journal has always operated an exceptionally high standard of thorough peer review; this article has clearly not met these thresholds for balance and supporting data and as such, the article will be retracted. I should like to apologize for any confusion or concern that this article may have caused among our readership, or more widely.

Whilst only ever intended as an opinion piece and also a bit of relief from the ânormalâ business of the journal, the speculations contained within this article clearly would be better expressed outside the confines of a peer-reviewed journal. Biomed Central does not support any views outlined in this article.

Ich rieche Lunte.

the first author email is to a hotmail account, the other authors have the expected .edu.hk emails, and the first author webpage gives an .edu.hk email:
http://www.pae.cuhk.edu.hk/images/hon_kam_lun_ellis.htm

But who submitted the Virology Journal report used a hotmail account. Spoof.

Another paper by the lead author (reference 3) gives the expected .edu.hk email.

dots connect ...

Dr Garry,

When you âretractâ a paper, do you delete it completely, or do you add a note to it saying that the paper is no longer valid? Either outcome would satisfy me, along with terminating whoever approved that paper in the first place. Remember, you are not running a popular newspaper or TV newscast in which you always try to outdo your competition with stories that may appeal to the prejudices of your readers. You need reports that are ACCURATE and can lead to more research, even if they take longer to complete the peer review process.

Dr. Garry

I would hope that a "retracted" paper would at least be noted as such at the top of all viewing options (abstract, full text or pdf). Maybe I just haven't given you enough time to make those additions, but as yet the retraction is only noted on the comments page.

The paper will be removed from the website.

All that will appear is Retracted: followed by the title.

This will require a day or so - it's after CoB in London.

Dr. Garry, thank you for your kindness in answering our concerns.

Wow, class and professionalism. Nice work, Dr. Garry.

Thank you for the comments and your attention to this, Dr. Garry. I will put this up as a new post as well.

It's nice to see you posting again semi-regularly, Tara, it's only been stuff from students for so long now! Please keep it up.

Yes. Keep prank papers to the Christmas special or April Fools. And make the joke a bit more obvious, or the idiots will cite it for real.

Since when are centuries old story books accurate descriptions of the natural history of our world? Why would we take first a faith in the authors of the bible, as if they were themselves divine, as to write a book that held the entire truth of the world and as evidence of a creator who is not supposed to have evidence for belief in the first place?

We can't even find evidence that Jews ever enslaved in Egypt. And if faith wasn't more noble to those who desperately cling to what they know deep down might be false, they leave a wake of destruction in their path, forcing others to believe so they feel confirmed in their own belief, and end up rejecting conventional science at the risk of their own children's health as well as that of people around them.

There is nothing honorable or admirable by a dying child at the hands of unbridled power by religious conviction. That is a clear lack of humanity.

I enjoy reading articles speculating about the causes of historical illness/deaths. Clearly, there will not be the amount of information available that would be expected in an actual case report, but that does not appear to have stopped JAMA or NEJM from publishing reviews of historical cases.

This does raise questions about the thoroughness of the search for other potential illnesses. It appears that the lead author has never published anything on viral syndrome, or the common cold. Not enough consideration was given to other causes of fever.

When Jesus took her by the hand and lifted her up, the fever immediately left. The lady began to serve the household and probably prepared a meal.

Since I am a single parent, I have also claimed that I was all better, when my daughter needed something I considered more important than my rest, even when I was sick. This is just something people do, both for our children and for our guests.

Did they describe the method used to determine the absence of the fever?

Did the patient take care of everyone, then go lie down?

Was the man of the house able to cook? It was probably safer for all involved for the person with cooking experience to prepare the meal.

These cases are great for speculation, but the speculation does need to be more thorough. Limiting the possible illnesses to what the lead author has previously written about is not thorough.

Dr. Garry,

Thank you for recognizing and addressing the limitations of this paper.

"Who cured you?"

"Jesus did, sir. I was hopping along, minding my own business, all of a sudden, up he comes, cures me. One minute I'm a leper with a trade, next minute my livelihood's gone. Not so much as a by-your-leave. 'You're cured, mate.' Bloody do-gooder."

(Bonus: this was the first post I've ever gotten to tag with "demonology".)

I think I speak for many commenters here when I say that I hope you soon fix this grievous lack of demonology-related posts.

the only thing it was missing was a personal communication reference!

I wrote a piece too.

http://dskernel.blogspot.com/2010/08/bible-virology-pay-to-play.html

Where's that third reviewer when you need him/her?

Hey lerender, Lazarus was only MOSTLY dead for four days. It is quite simple to "cure" someone who is MOSTLY dead. Another thing entirely if they are COMPLETELY dead.

I was scared there for a moment. I have two articles published in the "Journal of Virology". At first I thought, "there goes the value of my own work down the toilet" by being published in a joke of a journal, but then quickly saw (with great relief) that it was merely "Virology" that did this. So my modest additions to the field of virology is still safe...right? RIGHT?!

The Scholarly Kitchen just posted their view on this with the gripping title "Good God! Canât a Journal Author Have Any Fun Anymore?". Puts it all back into perspective a bit more...
(http://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/)

I believe the atheists MUST be **investigated** because of their METHODS to **target and attack** medical journals.

"One of the blogs that brought the paper to notice was This Scientific Life, by Bob O'Hara."
"Blag Hag: A large list of awesome female atheists
-5:24am 3 Jan 2010 ... Bob O'Hara said... Grrlscientist is also an atheist and blogger. I think she's awesome. But then I did marry her, so I might be biased."

" Kam L.E. Hon from the Department of Paediatrics at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, was astonished" the article had produced such a negative response since it was only intended for thought provocation."
"He said he would never to write this kind of article again."

THAT smacks of cyberbullying.
In Scientific circles that is unlawful.
Imho.

correct you are not a virologist,
all for AIDS nothing for free
but if the standards for this journal are this lax,
well....journals are in need of funds
and funds for science are scarce

I wouldn't be wasting my time sending any of my papers there
why not?
Seriously, how did this article get published?
funds management are a divine art
if you pay , you get published....that's all

Next time you activists 'feel' you MUST comment on an article in a medical journal , declare your **conflict of interest**.
If you FEEL you can comment on an MEDICAL article and NOT declare a conflict of interest one might wonder whether your professional conduct is lower than exemplary.
Imho.
You are an avid activist atheist commenting on a religious article.
I believe your conduct should be investigated by your University.
-----------

Comment by: Dr Rosemary Redfield, University of British Columbia
Title: This is not science.

Comment:
This paper in no way qualifies as science. It doesn't even qualify even as a case report, because the authors have no personal experience of this case. They basically say that, if their assumption that the woman had influenza is correct, then their conclusion that she was cured is justified.

The citations are also disgraceful. The authors cite only the bible, a web page about temperature measurements, and themselves (seven times!).

If BioMed Central hopes to build a reputation as a home for serious science then they need to first withdraw this paper and then have some serious discussions with this journal's editor.

Competing interests:
None.

If interested in analyses of historical epidemics, you might like plaguescapes.com (an epidemiological analysis of the ten plagues of Egypt), a recreation of print article originally published in 1997 and then as a website that won critical acclaim in 1998. Please feel free to comment on the blog site.

I enjoyed plaguesapes.com
thanks so much

In the UK this is what we call a 'Tatty Journalism' article. Thanks for pointing it out Tara :)