Social Sciences

Doomscrolling COVID-19 News Takes an Emotional Toll - Here is How to Prevent That

sb admin — Fri, 22 Oct 2021 22:03:40 +0000

Doomscrolling COVID-19 News Takes an Emotional Toll - Here is How to Prevent That

Picture this: it’s April 2020, you’re between Zoom meetings, and scrolling through your social media newsfeed. Headlines like “Death toll continues to rise”, “COVID-19 may cause long-term health implications” and “Health-care systems overwhelmed” flash across your screen. Your mood takes a dive, but you can’t stop scrolling.

If this scenario rings true for you, you’re not alone. Research shows people have a tendency to seek out information during uncertain times – it’s a natural coping mechanism. But is persistent information-seeking on social media, sometimes called doomscrolling, helpful during a pandemic, or any time?

Research on the effects of bad news on mood more generally suggest exposure to negative COVID news is likely to be detrimental to our emotional wellbeing. And indeed, early evidence on the effects of COVID news consumption on mental distress reflected this. For instance, one study conducted in March 2020 involving more than 6,000 Americans found that the more time participants spent consuming COVID news in a day, the unhappier they felt.

These findings are striking but leave a few key questions unanswered. Does doomscrolling make people unhappy, or are unhappy people just more likely to doomscroll? How much time spent doomscrolling is a problem? And what would happen if, instead of doomscrolling, we were “kindness scrolling” – reading about humanity’s positive responses to a global crisis?

To find out, we conducted a study where we showed hundreds of people real-world content on either Twitter or YouTube for two to four minutes. The Twitter feeds and YouTube videos featured either general news about COVID, or news about kindness during COVID. We then measured these participants’ moods using a questionnaire, and compared their moods with participants who did not engage with any content at all.

People who were shown general COVID-related news experienced lower moods than people who were shown nothing at all. Meanwhile, people who were shown COVID news stories involving acts of kindness didn’t experience the same decline in mood, but also didn’t gain the boost in mood we’d predicted.

These findings suggest that spending as little as two to four minutes consuming negative news about COVID-19 can have a detrimental impact on our mood.

Although we didn’t see an improvement in mood among participants who were shown positive news stories involving acts of kindness, this may be because the stories were still related to COVID. In other research, positive news stories have been associated with improvements in mood.

Making your social media a more positive place

Our research was published earlier this month. Ironically, news coverage of our findings, with headlines such as “Just five minutes spent on social media is enough to make you miserable, study finds”, could be part of a person’s doomscrolling content.

But we didn’t find that all social media use makes people miserable. Rather, we found that consuming negative content about COVID via Twitter or YouTube in the midst of a pandemic does.

So what can we do to look after ourselves, and make our time on social media more pleasurable?

We found that just a few minutes consuming negative news about COVID-19 can have a detrimental impact on our mood. Nuchylee/Shutterstock

One option is to delete our social media accounts altogether. Figures show almost half of Facebook users in the UK and the US considered leaving the platform in 2020.

But how realistic is it to distance ourselves from platforms that connect nearly half of the world’s population, particularly when these platforms offer social interactions at a time when face-to-face interactions can be risky, or impossible?

Given that avoidance might not be practical, here are some other ways to make your experience on social media more positive.

Be mindful of what you consume on social media. If you log on to connect with other people, focus on the personal news and photos shared instead of the latest headlines.
Seek out content that makes you happy to balance out your newsfeed. This may be images of cute kittens, beautiful landscapes, drool-worthy food videos or something else. You could even follow a social media account dedicated to sharing only happy and positive news.
Use social media to promote positivity and kindness. Sharing good things that are happening in your life can improve your mood, and your positive mood can spread to others. You may also like to compliment others on social media. While this might sound awkward, people will appreciate it more than you think.

Importantly, we’re not suggesting that you avoid all news and negative content. We need to know what’s happening in the world. However, we should also be mindful of our mental health.

As the pandemic continues to alter our lives and newsfeeds, our findings highlight the importance of being aware of the emotional toll negative news takes on us. But there are steps we can take to mitigate this toll and make our social media a happier place.

By Kathryn Buchanan, Lecturer, Psychology Department, University of Essex; Gillian Sandstrom, Senior Lecturer, Department of Psychology, University of Essex; Lara Aknin, Distinguished Associate Professor of Psychology, Simon Fraser University, and Shaaba Lotun, PhD candidate, Department of Psychology, University of Essex. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

sb admin Fri, 10/22/2021 - 18:03

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Social Sciences

The Increase in Infant Milk Formulas and Why It Matters

sb admin — Mon, 07 Dec 2020 23:21:44 +0000

The Increase in Infant Milk Formulas and Why It Matters

Breastfeeding can play an especially important role in early-life nutrition. It can benefit children’s future school performance and economic prospects in later life, as well as the mother’s health.

Health authorities across the world endorse the World Health Organization’s (WHO) recommendation that newborns should where possible exclusively breastfeed from the first hour of life until six months of age, and thereafter receive safe and nutritious foods with continued breastfeeding up to two years of age or beyond.

Despite this, our recent study shows that global commercial milk formula sales are booming. Between 2005 and 2019, world milk formula sales more than doubled from 3.5kg to 7.4kg per child. Total sales grew from 1 million tonnes to 2.1 million tonnes.

This growth in sales was seen in all types of formula, including “standard” formula for infants (0-6 months), “follow-up” formula (7-12 months), toddler milks (13-36 months), and so-called “specialised” formulas. So more children from a wider range of age groups are consuming formula.

Rapid growth has occurred in many highly-populated countries, including the Middle East, north Africa, eastern Europe, central Asia, and parts of Latin America. The most remarkable growth has been in east and south-east Asia. China, in particular, accounted for only 14% of global formula sales in 2005 – but now accounts for 33% of all sales.

In south Asia and west and central Africa, the amount sold to each customer remains low and show no signs of growth. In Europe and North America, although per customer sales volumes remain high, they plateaued or slightly decreased between 2005-2019.

Infant formula sales have doubled between 2005 and 2019. 279photo Studio/ Shutterstock

Behind the sales ‘boom’

There are medical reasons for using safe and adequate breastmilk substitutes. And some women find continuing breastfeeding difficult depending on their circumstances, and may use formula as an alternative or complement to breastfeeding. Our study also shows decisions and practices around formula use can be strongly shaped by wider societal forces, such as commercial marketing, rather than individual choice.

It’s known that milk formula sales increase as countries become richer and more urbanised, and as more mothers enter into formal employment. Asia’s formula sales boom may be partly explained by millions of women entering the paid workforce, especially in the region’s vast manufacturing zones.

Millions of women worldwide also lack adequate paid maternity leave and social protection. This means the decision to formula feed may only be done out of necessity, to avoid losing employment and income. We also know that many hospitals and healthcare settings aren’t equipped to help women establish breastfeeding, with few maternal and newborn care facilities worldwide meeting standards of care for breastfeeding mothers and newborns.

Commercial factors are also important. Just five companies control 57% of the global formula milk industry, worth US$56.6 billion (£42.5 billion) The industry spends an estimated US$5 billion on marketing every year, which powerfully shapes social norms about feeding babies and children.

Marketing messages can portray formula as modern, scientific and comparable or superior to breastmilk. The growth of social media enables companies to target mothers with personalised product offerings and ads.

Hospitals are a key marketing channel, too. Companies often engage health professionals to promote formula feeding. In many countries, health professionals are directly compensated to promote formula. But more commonly, companies influence health professionals indirectly by sponsoring their associations, conferences and education.

Companies cross-promote products by using the same packaging. ValeStock/ Shutterstock

Companies also cross-promote their entire product range of follow-up and toddler milks by using packing and labelling that resembles standard infant formula. This allows companies to get around the stricter prohibitions on infant formula marketing.

Marketing regulations are also important. The fact that formula sales are booming in China but have flat-lined at low levels in India partly reflects contrasting regulatory environments – with regulations on marketing being stricter and more comprehensive in India.

Despite an international code to stop aggressive and inappropriate marketing of breast-milk substitutes, most governments haven’t fully incorporated it into law. And even when laws exist, marketing violations by formula companies often go unpunished. The formula industry has also been able to lobby against any strengthening of regulation, partly by promoting their own – much weaker – corporate policies on marketing.

Health concerns

Breastmilk and breastfeeding where it is possible has numerous advantages over formula and bottle feeding – which is why the growth of formula sales is concerning.

Breastfeeding has been shown to reduce the likelihood of children developing infections, and reduces a child’s risk of developing chronic disease like obesity and diabetes later in life. Breastfeeding is also associated with lower risk of developing breast and cervical cancer, or diabetes among mothers.

Rising consumption of formula milk by toddlers and young children is also a worry, as these products are often ultra-processed, expensive, loaded with sugar and can introduce poor dietary habits. Their increased use could further contribute to increases of overweight and obese children globally.

Formula isn’t a sterile product and can be dangerous when prepared in unhygienic conditions, or when over-diluted or over-concentrated. It lacks the immune-boosting and other important elements of breastmilk, further increasing the risk of malnutrition and infectious illness. As a result, universal breastfeeding in place of formula use could prevent an estimated 823,000 child deaths every year (mainly in low- and middle-income countries), including 595,000 deaths from diarrhoea and pneumonia, and an estimated 20,000 maternal deaths from breast cancer (mainly in high income countries).

The global surge in formula sales is clearly a problem for global health. Given the power of the corporate milk formula industry to influence behaviour and understanding, more needs to be done to ensure that all mothers and children are protected from inappropriate promotion, and that they are enabled to breastfeed as long as they want to. This means strengthening laws that ban harmful marketing practices, expanding access to paid maternity leave, and ensuring that all healthcare facilities meet global standards.

David McCoy, Professor of Global Public Health, Queen Mary University of London; Julie P. Smith, Honorary Associate Professor, Australian National University, and Phillip Baker, Research Fellow, Institute for Physical Activity and Nutrition, Deakin University, Deakin University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

sb admin Mon, 12/07/2020 - 18:21

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Social Sciences

How To Spot Coronavirus Fake News

sb admin — Fri, 20 Mar 2020 16:16:25 +0000

How To Spot Coronavirus Fake News

The proliferation of fake news about the COVID-19 pandemic has been labelled a dangerous “infodemic”. Fake news spreads faster and more easily today through the internet, social media and instant messaging. These messages may contain useless, incorrect or even harmful information and advice, which can hamper the public health response and add to social disorder and division.

Confusingly some fake news also contains a mixture of correct information, which makes it difficult to spot what is true and accurate. Fake news may also be shared by trusted friends and family, including those who are doctors and nurses. They might not have read the full story before sharing or just glanced over it. Before you decide to share, make sure to read stories properly and follow some checks to determine the accuracy.

If the story appears to claim a much higher level of certainty in its advice and arguments than other stories, this is questionable. People will be seeking certainty in a time of high uncertainty, anxiety and panic. So it is only natural to more readily accept information that resolves, reassures and provides easy solutions – unfortunately, often in a false way.

Similarly, if a story is more surprising or upsetting than other stories it is worth double-checking, as fake news will try to grab your attention by being more exaggerated than real stories.

What to look out for

Source. Question the source. References have been made to “Taiwanese experts” or “Japanese doctors” or “Stanford University” during the outbreak. Check on official websites if stories are repeated there. If a source is “a friend of a friend”, this is a rumour unless you also know the person directly.
Logo: Check whether any organisation’s logo used in the message looks the same as on the official website.
Bad English: Credible journalists and organisations are less likely to make repeated spelling and grammar mistakes. Also, anything written entirely in capital letters or containing a lot of exclamation marks should raise your suspicions.
Pretend social media accounts: Some fake accounts mimic the real thing. For example, the unofficial Twitter handle @BBCNewsTonight, which was made to look like the legitimate @BBCNews account, shared a fake story about the actor Daniel Radcliffe testing positive for coronavirus. Media platforms try to remove or flag fake accounts and stories as well as verify real ones. Look out for what their policies are to try to do this.
Over-encouragement to share: Be wary if the message presses you to share – this is how viral messaging works.
Use fact-checking websites: Websites such as APFactCheck and Full Fact highlight common fake news stories. You can also use a search engine to look up the title of the article to see if it has been identified as fake news by the mainstream media.

Who to trust

The best sources to go to for health information about COVID-19 are your government health websites and the World Health Organization website. Primary sources are generally better than news articles.

Even government messaging and the mainstream media can get things wrong, but they are more trustworthy than unverified sources on social media and viral messaging. For instance, The Conversation is a more trusted source because all content is written by academics who are experts in their fields.

A time of high uncertainty. How Hwee Young/EPA

Charlatans have been promoting false preventions and cures for people to spend their money on. For example, the New York attorney general has had to send cease and desist notices for claims that toothpaste, dietary supplements and creams will prevent and cure COVID-19.

The effects can also be more serious than losing some cash. Iran has reported at least 44 people died from alcohol poisoning after drinking bootleg alcohol in a misguided attempt to cure COVID-19.

Unfortunately, the most basic and correct advice given so far does not offer a miracle or special insight. Wash your hands often (use hand sanitisers if you cannot), avoid touching your face, and sneeze or cough into the crook of your elbow or a tissue (and throw it away in a bag-lined bin). Avoid crowds and public places, keep a sensible distance from people, and do not travel unless absolutely necessary. Now many governments are introducing measures including travel bans and quarantines that need to be followed to protect the health of everyone, especially the most vulnerable.

We can all get caught out. Think twice about the messages currently circulating and help guide your family and friends to decide what to trust.

By Samantha Vanderslott, Postdoctoral Researcher in Social Sciences, University of Oxford. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

sb admin Fri, 03/20/2020 - 12:16

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Social Sciences

9 Ways to Debunk Coronavirus Myths Without it Backfiring

The Conversation — Thu, 13 Feb 2020 22:39:33 +0000

9 Ways to Debunk Coronavirus Myths Without it Backfiring

The spread of misinformation about the novel coronavirus, now known as COVID-19, seems greater than the spread of the infection itself.

The World Health Organisation (WHO), government health departments and others are trying to alert people to these myths.

But what’s the best way to tackle these if they come up in everyday conversation, whether that’s face-to-face or online? Is it best to ignore them, jump in to correct them, or are there other strategies we could all use?

Public health officials expect misinformation about disease outbreaks where people are frightened. This is particularly so when a disease is novel and the science behind it is not yet clear. It’s also the case when we still don’t know how many people are likely to become sick, have a life-threatening illness or die.

Yet we can all contribute to the safe control of the disease and to minimizing its social and economic impacts by addressing misinformation when we encounter it.

To avoid our efforts backfiring, we need to know how to do this effectively and constructively.

Be patient when addressing myths. And keep it brief. shutterstock.com

What doesn’t work

Abundant research shows what doesn’t work. Telling people not to panic or their perceptions and beliefs are incorrect can actually strengthen their commitment to their incorrect views.

Over-reactions are common when new risks emerge and these over-reactions will pass. So, it’s often the best choice to not engage in the first place.

What can I do?

If you wish to effectively counter misinformation, you need to pay more attention to your audience than to the message you want to convey. See our tips below.

Next, you need to be trusted.

People only listen to sources they trust. This involves putting in the time and effort to make sure your knowledge is correct and reliable; discussing information fairly (what kind of information would make you change your own mind?); and being honest enough to admit when you don’t know, and even more importantly, when you are wrong.

Here’s how all this might work in practice.

1. Understand how people perceive and react to risks

We all tend to worry more about risks we perceive to be new, uncertain, dreaded, and impact a large group in a short time – all features of the new coronavirus.

Our worries increase significantly if we do not feel we, or the governments acting for us, have control over the virus.

2. Recognize people’s concerns

People can’t process information unless they see their worries being addressed.

So instead of offering facts (“you won’t catch coronavirus from your local swimming pool”), articulate their worry (“you’ve caught colds in swimming pools before, and now you’re worried someone might transmit the virus before they know they are infected”).

Being heard helps people re-establish a sense of control.

3. Be aware of your own feelings

Usually when we want to correct someone, it’s because we’re worried about the harms their false beliefs will cause.

But if we are emotional, what we communicate is not our knowledge, but our disrespect for the other person’s views. This usually produces a defensive reaction.

Manage your own outrage first before jumping in to correct others. This might mean saving a discussion for another day.

4. Ask why someone is worried

If you ask why someone is worried, you might discover your assumptions about that person are wrong.

Explaining their concerns to you helps people explore their own views. They might become aware of what they don’t know or of how unlikely their information sounds.

5. Remember, the facts are going to change

Because there is still considerable uncertainty about how severe the epidemic will be, information and the government’s response to it is going to change.

So you will need to frequently update your own views. Know where to find reliable information.

For instance, state and federal health departments, the WHO and the US Centers for Disease Control websites provide authoritative and up-to-date information.

6. Admit when you’re wrong

Being wrong is likely in an uncertain situation. If you are wrong, say so early.

If you asked your family or employees to take avoidance measures you now realise aren’t really necessary, then admit it and apologize. This helps restore the trust you need to communicate effectively the next time you need to raise an issue.

7. Politely provide your own perspective

Phrases like, “here’s why I am not concerned about that” or “I actually feel quite confident about doing X or Y” offer ways to communicate your knowledge without attacking someone else’s views.

You can and should be explicit about what harms you worry misinformation can cause. An example could be, “I’m worried that avoiding Chinese restaurants will really hurt their business. I’m really conscious of wanting to support Chinese Australians right now.”

8. On social media, model the behavior you want to see

It’s harder to be effective on social media, where outrage, not listening, is common. Often your goal might be to promote a reasoned, civil discussion, not to defend one particular belief over another. Use very reliable links.

9. Don’t make it worse online

Your online comment can unintentionally reinforce misinformation, for example by giving it more prominence. Check the Debunking Handbook for some strategies to avoid this.

Make sure your posts or comments are polite, specific, factual and very brief.

Acknowledging common values or points of connection by using phrases such as “I’m worried about my grandmother, too”, or by being supportive (“It’s so great that you’re proactive about looking after your staff”), can help.

Remember why this is important

The ability to respond to emergencies rests on having civil societies. The goal is to keep relationships constructive and dialogue open – not to be right.

By Claire Hooker, Senior Lecturer and Coordinator, Health and Medical Humanities, University of Sydney. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The Conversation Thu, 02/13/2020 - 17:39

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Social Sciences

A conversation with a Rigvir flack

oracknows — Mon, 09 Oct 2017 01:36:38 +0000

A conversation with a Rigvir flack

Over the last two Mondays, I've been writing about an unproven cancer therapy that I hadn't really heard much about before. The cancer treatment is called Rigvir; it is manufactured in Latvia and marketed primarily through a Latvian entity called the International Virotherapy Center (IVC).

To recap, Rigvir is an unmodified Echovirus, specifically ECHO-7, that, according to the IVC, seeks out cancer cells, replicates in them, and thus lyses the cancer cells (causes their membranes to break, spilling out the cancer cells contents, thus killing the cell), hence the term "oncolytic virus."

Somehow, mysteriously Rigvir was approved by the Latvian equivalent of the FDA in 2004 for the treatment of malignant melanoma despite what appears to have been grossly inadequate supporting evidence and then even more mysteriously placed on the Latvian Health Ministry's list of reimbursable medications in 2011. I suspect that the reason that I didn't look into Rigvir earlier was probably because its use had been primarily restricted to Latvia, Georgia, and Armenia. Also, there was the language barrier.

Nearly everything available on the web about Rigvir is in Latvian, a situation that has only recently begun to change.

It was Antonio Jimenez and Ty Bollinger who plucked Rigvir from obscurity. Dr. Jimenez runs the Hope4Cancer Institute clinics in Baja and Cancun, Mexico, and, for whatever reason (probably profit), these clinics started offering Rigvir relatively recently. Then, Jimenez, who's clearly worked with Bollinger in the past, must have turned Bollinger on to Rigvir, and Bollinger included it in a long segment of Episode 3 of his The Truth About Cancer (TTAC) propaganda series of videos. It was this connection and the deceptive use of patient testimonials by both Bollinger and the International Virotherapy Center to sell Rigvir that formed the basis of my second post on Rigvir last week.

As you might imagine, apparently the management of the IVC was not happy about my posts. In fact, so unhappy was the management of the IVC that within 15 hours of my first post about Rigvir going live I got an e-mail from someone named Lelde Lapa, whose title was listed as Assistant of Business Development Department at the IVC, protesting and attempting to refute my post. As I noted before, I was amazed at how fast I received such a long e-mail after publishing my post. Clearly the IVC has many Google Alerts set for Rigvir and its name and was fast to act.

What followed was an exchange that currently stands at five e-mails, three from Ms. Lapa, with two responses from me, with Ms. Lapa's tone (if it indeed was only one person writing these) becoming more strident as the exchange went on. Because these e-mails are a great insight into the thinking (such as it is) at the IVC, I decided that a most excellent way to conclude my series on Rigvir as a trilogy would be to annotate and publish these e-mails, and then to compose a final response to Ms. Lapa's third email, at the end of which Ms. Lapa told me that I didn't need to respond. Clearly she don't know me vewy well, do she?

So let's begin. Remember that English is not Ms. Lapa's native language; so be kind. I wasn't kind, but not because of any difficulties Ms. Lapa might have had with English.

Rigvir strikes back, round 1

So on the afternoon after my first post about Rigvir went live, I was greeted by this in my e-mail in box:

From: Lelde Lapa < [REDACTED]@virotherapy.eu> To: [redacted] Subject: Blog about RIGVIR Date: Tue, 19 Sep 2017 00:54:53 +0300 Organization: RIGVIR Development department Orac: Yesterday we encountered one of your blogs (https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/rigvir-another-unproven-and-highly-dub…) Due to the fact that this blog is now widely spread by non-professionals with the title – independent conclusion from international expert, we believe we have the rights to inform you that you are used now as a tool in competition wars. Which we believe was never your intention. The medicine RIGVIR has a clinical experience for more than 50 years and it is registered for melanoma for more than 13 years and before the era of modern trials and most of the evidences is not published. Doctors and clinics in Latvia use this medicine for majority of melanoma patients in Latvia for many years. In Latvia medicine is prescribed only in national clinics and by certified doctors and they have also other alternatives, so probably they know what they do. 2 years ago we started EMA (centralised EU) commercialisation process and even obtained EU commission support from Horizon2020 grant, we also obtained EMA regulatory advice. There is no doubts about the efficacy and safety of the medicine, however we acknowledge that we miss modern trials for centralised registration and we are working on them. This was never a secret to discover. But year ago a group of very active, mostly anonymous people appeared that started to attack us, our cooperation partners, even EU commission, spreading bias data or even lies. They are very aggressive. Part of the sources they use does not exists, part of materials are generated by them self and republished in different sources mostly social networks, then in blogs and then cross-referenced. Part of material is made as compilation of different phrases and translated in English with certain pseudo professionals on them (By the way two such persons appears also in your blog, these persons however has no proper educations, has never been involved in medicine or science). Moreover at the spring anonymous letter (your blog also indicated it ) appeared. It was signed by few professional organisations of which only 2 are related to oncology and in fact were represented by the same people, this letter contains ~80 lies and tendentious distortion of information. Unfortunately there is no author on the horizon to be responsible for aspersion, but there have been cases when TV and portals have withdrawn similar articles and information about us already. Mostly your blog analyses openly available data, but partially it contains false information. It contains also comments of pseudo professionals or anti-PR specialists but the producer of RIGVIR was never approached for clarification or comments. Which is sad especially, referring to the statement from the blog: “Somehow I doubt Rigvir will make it that far. At least, I sincerely hope that it doesn’t….” We believe that also blogs should be objective and respectable professors should use only proven data and also verified sources. So please consider to here also our position and obtain more information about virotherapy with RIGVIR, like clinical trial data and post-registration experience. We do provide special trainings for doctors and medical scientists. I hope you are interested, Looking forward for your replay. Best Regards, Lelde Lapa Assistant of Business Development Department www.virotherapy.eu

Of course, I had no idea who this Lelde Lapa was. I couldn't really find anything about her. A Google search of the IVC website for her name didn't reveal anything. For my purposes, it doesn't really matter, but I did find it odd. I can't help but note here that, although I do not claim to be completely objective, my bias is rather well known: I favor science as the basis of determining which medical treatments do and do not work. I make no bones about that. Moreover, I couldn't help but immediately note that it's pretty hard to use "only proven data" when there is so little in the way of proven data upon which to evaluate Rigvir. That was, in fact, my key problem with the drug, that it is unproven and being marketed without sufficient scientific and clinical evidence that it does what is claimed for it. Here was my response, sent later that evening:

Dear Ms. Lapa: The Virotherapy Institute must be very on top of its social media to have noticed my post and composed such a lengthy e-mail to me within 15 hours or so after my post went live. If you have any specific examples of errors in my post, feel free to point them out. What I see in your letter is not that; rather, it is spin, as nothing you wrote actually casts into doubt any facts included in my post or in any of my interpretations of those facts. Yes, I used publicly available information because that’s what many bloggers do when they compose posts. Besides, I was interested in what I view as the irresponsible marketing of Rigvir for more than just melanoma, and there is plenty of that to be found on the Internet and social media. The two videos on your website that I discussed fall into that category, without a doubt. In your e-mail, you state that there are "no doubts about the efficacy and safety of the medicine,” but there are doubts—a lot of doubts—so much so that my jaw dropped when I read that. The reason is simple. You yourself said it: “...we miss modern trials for centralised registration.” Basically, you don’t have anything resembling the level of scientific evidence required before we accept any drug as effective and safe. You have no randomized double-blind clinical trials. All you have are a handful of case reports, a couple of very poorly done retrospective studies, and ancient evidence from decades ago that cannot be inspected and assessed for scientific rigor. In my country, our Food and Drug Administration would laugh at such data. If you’re making health claims for your product, particularly the glowing claims made about Rigvir’s anticancer activity, then all that matters to me is whether there is solid evidence to back up those claims published in the peer-reviewed medical literature as indexed on PubMed. Of course, this evidence must be in the form of papers reporting improved recurrence-free and overall survival in well-designed, randomized double blind clinical trials of your product for every cancer for which a claim of efficacy has been made. I do not care about unpublished data that I cannot examine myself. I do not care about claims. I do not care about “registration,” as clearly the registration process in Latvia at the time Rigvir was registered left a lot to be desired. I do not care about pilot grants to start to work on approval by the EU. None of that matters when evaluating a therapy if there is no good clinical trial evidence supporting its efficacy and safety. Unless you can provide me with those data, I have no choice but to find your complaints about my article to be without merit. If Rigvir has been proven safe and effective and isn’t quackery, then why are you selling it to quack clinics in Mexico and Germany? I’m serious. Hope4Cancer, for instance, is a notorious quack cancer clinic that attracts Americans with cancer. This is not in dispute and can be verified by simply reading the Hope4Cancer website and examining the treatments it offers cancer patients. Also, if Rigvir has been proven safe and effective and isn’t quackery, then why was it featured on Ty Bollinger’s “The Truth About Cancer” video series and, more importantly, why is the administration of the International Virology Center proud of being featured in his videos? Bollinger is a notorious promoter of cancer quackery. (I can provide many examples of him promoting dubious, unproven, and quack treatments for cancer.) No reputable company selling a cancer treatment scientifically proven to be effective and safe would ever want to be associated in any way with the likes of Hope4Cancer or Ty Bollinger, because it would tarnish its brand and bring it into disrepute. In actuality, your response makes me more confident than I was originally that I was correct in my assessment. Your paranoia, for instance, is makes me very suspicious. You rail against “anonymous people” attacking Rigvir and the Virotherapy Center, but isn’t it true that the complaints to the Latvian Health Ministry came from the two main oncology professional associations in Latvia? That’s hardly “anonymous.” They are respected professional medical societies! I also have seen quite a few criticisms of Rigvir on blogs and have been able to identify everyone making the criticisms so far. Perhaps you meant The Mad Virologist, but he isn’t really anonymous either. His name is in his Facebook profile, which I found in two minutes. Complaints about “anonymous” people out to disparage a product always make me think a company has something to hide. Finally, I understand that you and Latvia are proud of Prof. Muceniece’s accomplishments, but ask yourself this: If she were alive today, would she want her name associated with selling her discovery before it’s actually scientifically demonstrated to prolong the lives of cancer patients or cure specific cancers? Orac

In actuality, I had no idea whether Prof. Muceniece would care what the IVC is doing. I just wanted to see if there was any sense of shame over what the IVC was doing with her invention.

Rigvir strikes back, round 2

A couple of days later, I received this. For reference, the blog by Eduards Ritums was discussed in my first post and used in part as a basis for some of my criticisms. In any case, note the somewhat paranoid tone. I also showed my e-mails to a skeptic from Latvia who has been active investigating Rigvir, who thought that the style changed enough that it might have been written by someone else. I don't know for sure if that is the case (you can judge for yourself), but I do know that the fallacies and dubious arguments flow freely and with paranoia:

From: Lelde Lapa < [REDACTED]@virotherapy.eu> To: '[REDACTED] Subject: RE: Blog about RIGVIR Date: Thu, 21 Sep 2017 10:03:42 +0300 Organization: RIGVIR Development department Dear Orac As we indicated in our last email your blog now is spread widely in Latvia as a proof that our medicine is not effective. Was it a goal of your blog? We got impression that the blog is a part of wider campaign that is currently in place in Latvia and therefore we just wanted to warn you ASAP and protect your reputation by providing more information if you are ready to hear it. Part of your blog is based on the article that is published by author E.Ritums initially in very specific marketing magazine for Pharmacies. This magazine is published by Medicine Information Centre (http://mic.lv/materia-medica/ ) that is not registered in the register of mass media and even provide marketing services (http://mic.lv/materia-medica/). In addition the content of this magazine (according to law in Latvia) is considered to be specialised publication and may not have public access. The author however (based on google search) is young graduate from faculty of Chemistry that in addition to this particular article has published few (~3) more small articles and hardly is respectable journalist. Particular publication consists of number of fact errors and doubtful allegations and there is no respectable or proven sources, books or reviewed publications indicated as reference. Moreover former manager (for 12 years) of the same publisher and magazine Inara Rubene ( https://www.linkedin.com/in/inara-rubene/) is presented as independent expert here. The biggest issue is, however, the fact that this article later, bypassing limited access info (according to law) to specialists, was translated (with inconsistencies) and spread widely with help of very small, non registered NGO – Skeptiskā Biedrība (https://www.lursoft.lv/lapsaext?act=URCP&ref=LurTop&regcode=&task=searc…), that operates web site – www.skepticisms.lv. Do you consider this as trustworthy source to build part of your story on? Please note that official page of the product RIGVIR is rigvir.com and there is no marketing at all. Page virotherapy.eu is mostly dedicated to therapy not medicine – there are news, testimonials and trainings. It is not a clinic or pharmacy to speak about marketing. Should we hide testimonials, if there are such? In Latvia there are very strict regulations for marketing of pharmaceuticals and there is no official judgment from Latvian Health Inspection about as you say “irresponsible marketing”. Moreover the only one claim from Latvian Health Inspection, that initially was stated so, is already changed clearly stating that we cannot be responsible for third party activities. As you know the clinical studies are done mostly for official approval of medicine and according to Bloomberg at least one third of studies are never published. So if you are clearly stating that you don’t care about unpublished data, then please adjust title of your blog to something like “Analysis of published data of RIGVIR”. Because ignoring unpublished clinical trials for more than 30 years, you simply don’t have all the facts to loudly state that our medicine is not effective or it should be avoided. Let us clarify that medicine RIGVIR is registered in Latvia in 2004 for Melanoma, before the era of modern requirements for trials, but based on clinical trials during 30 years period in which ~700 patients was treated with the medicine RIGVIR (there is also registration in Georgia and Armenia). The medicine is used as conventional therapy in Latvian, Georgian and Armenian clinics. In addition to that, patients from all over the world are coming to Latvia or sometimes are sending relatives or trust-persons to Latvia to buy this medicine in case traditional therapies have not succeeded or are not well tolerated. Yes we do train medical doctors from all over the world and probably their patients also have acquired medicine from Latvia. We know that the medicine is effective, we have seen it working on many thousand cases and we clearly know that it has no side effects. So knowing that, should we refuse to help patients of any Doctor? We are not company that is developing innovative solution and according to the heritage of the founder prof. A.Muceniece the medicine should be available to as many patients as possible. We are not refusing the knowledge and information to any official doctor, official clinic or patient groups. So we don’t see any problem also from appearing in The Truth About Cancer series. Most of our critics and also yours complains are catch-22 logic – “give us evidences before you use it -> new evidences requires investments -> to provide investments we need to use medicine –> to use medicine we need to be commercialised -> but with the existing evidences you doubt us to be commercialised …” As if only rich pharmaceutical or biotechnological companies may work in the field… You are stating that you don’t care about existing registration, but unfortunately your analysis is used to doubt the registration. Which is off course strange, because nowhere in the world rules and regulations (in our case standards for clinical trials) are used with backward date. Yes for new registrations - we know the rules – we will provide proper RCT data, but as for now, please respect that the medicine is prescription medicine that is prescribed only in national clinics and by certified doctors for last 13 years. They have alternatives and even reimbursed ones. So obviously these doctors have deeper knowledge about the therapy with RIGVIR, than just analysis of published data, since it is used for more than 70% of Melanoma patients in Latvia. We suggest you to learn about this therapy and try it yourself for your patients (that follows entrance criteria) as well. In such case and with your commitment to make case report and publish it, we would provide all the necessary assistance and medicine free of charge. Best Regards, Lelde

Gee, Ms. Lapa makes the observation that my blog post has been circulated far and wide in Latvia as evidence that Rigvir doesn't work as though that were a bad thing! In actuality I can't help but feel a bit of a warm and fuzzy feeling in the pit of my cold, black heart that my post has actually been circulated far and wide in Latvia. Those behind IVC will probably take this as evidence that I'm out to get them, but I'm not. I'm out to protect cancer patients. If the IVC had the goods, as far as evidence, the easiest thing for its management to do would have been to publish it or somehow show it to me and other skeptics who are concerned that Rigvir is cancer quackery. We can be persuaded, but it takes evidence. Finally, notice that last part, in which "Ms. Lapa" tries to co-opt me, thinking that if I were to try Rigvir I would conclude that it works. I've noticed this pattern before, and where I've noticed before it isn't flattering to Rigvir or the IVC. You see, I've discovered that when it comes to cancer quackery or unproven cancer treatments I seem to have special cachet because I am a cancer surgeon and researcher. Thus, from time to time, cancer quacks try to convince me to try the treatment they are selling on my own patients. In my response, I decided to stomp down hard on this offer after giving a bit of a lecture. See what you think:

Ms, Lapa, Although I appreciate your concern about my reputation, I think I’m probably the best judge of what will or will not damage it. In other words, I’ll take my chances. Regarding Eduards Ritums’ article, which I did cite extensively, I tend to judge an article and its main arguments far more by quality in terms of evidence, science, and reason than by who wrote it. Even though the article I read was an English language translation, Mr. Ritums’ central thesis and arguments nonetheless came across as very sound. It doesn’t matter if he’s young and early in his career and thus hasn’t published very many articles yet. In other words, who cares if Mr. Ritums published his article in a pharmacy magazine and is a new journalist? I certainly don’t. As for whether the magazine is “registered” or not, as far as I’m concerned that is a matter of your country’s specific laws and ways of doing things. It means very little to me as an American reading a translation of the article. In fact, it wouldn’t matter to me if Mr. Ritums wrote for an unregistered blog under a pseudonym if his arguments, science, and evidence were sound. Certainly, you have not demonstrated that they are not sound; you state that there are a “number of fact errors and doubtful allegations,” but, oddly enough, you have not actually specified the errors of fact or “doubtful allegations,” much less used evidence and science to show that they are factual errors or doubtful allegations. You have instead engaged in nothing but ad hominem, which is a logical fallacy. To convince me, you’re going to have to get a lot more specific and provide the evidence to back up your criticisms, something you have not yet done after two long e-mails. I find this very telling. As for your claim that official Rigvir website is not about marketing, I beg to differ. The whole website is clearly all about marketing, as all pharmaceutical company websites are. Indeed, it looks just like any other pharmaceutical company webpage promoting its products, complete with slick videos, like the one on this page. Basically, your website looks like any of a number of websites pharmaceutical companies maintain for individual products, like Herceptin, OncoTypeDX, or various new drugs. It’s not quite as slick, but it is very similar in appearance and content. True, it doesn’t contain patient testimonials, but that doesn’t make it any less a marketing website. Regarding the testimonials on the Virotherapy Center website, as a surgical oncologist, I find them quite misleading. Insufficient information is provided to allow me to judge whether Rigvir might have had an effect, and one in particular is definitely not evidence that Rigvir had a positive effect. Again, when I accused you of irresponsible marketing, I did it from my perspective as a cancer surgeon and researcher. Again, I really don’t care what Latvian law says with respect to marketing pharmaceuticals. Clearly, from my perspective, Latvian law is far too lax if it allows you to market Rigvir. You say that Rigvir was registered in 2004, “before the era of modern requirements for trials.” I hate to tell you this, but the basic standards for modern clinical trials were codified decades before that. In the US, it was 55 years ago in 1962 when the Kefauver-Harris Amendment to the law creating the FDA mandated that the FDA to require rigorous clinical trial evidence of efficacy and safety before it approves a drug for marketing. Are you honestly telling me that 42 years after that Latvia still didn’t require such evidence before approving a drug? If true, I find that shocking. Be that as it may, Latvia’s lax drug regulation 13 years ago is not an argument in support of the efficacy and safety of Rigvir even for melanoma, much less other cancers. Certainly, it doesn’t excuse you from selling the drug to a quack clinic in Mexico. And, make no mistake, Hope4Cancer is a quack cancer clinic, as I have documented elsewhere. (It even offers coffee enemas.) I’d suggest that, if you really want Rigvir to be accepted outside of Latvia, Georgia, and Armenia, selling it to a quack clinic to market to patients it is not a winning strategy. It will taint Rigvir with the stench of quackery. I’d highly suggest that you sever all ties with these clinics immediately, but I suspect that suggestion will fall on deaf ears. You say over and over that you “know” that Rigvir is effective. The fact is that you do not, at least not based on science and clinical trials, which is how doctors are supposed to know which drugs work and which do not. You claim that I ignored 30 years worth of clinical trials. Whose fault is that? You haven’t published them in a form that can be critically examined. If you had, I would have critically examined them. You wouldn’t even have to translate them into English. I’m sure I could find someone to translate the data for me if you were to publish all this data. Why don’t you? No, I will not change the title of my post. It is accurate, as far as I am concerned. I stand by my opinions and conclusions, and, yes, I still strongly believe that you should stop marketing Rigvir until such a time as clinical trials show it to be safe and effective. Certainly it should not be used for any cancer other than melanoma, and even for melanoma I don’t think you’ve shown sufficient evidence that it works to justify marketing it. Again, I say this because you can’t show me any decent scientific or clinical trial evidence to change my mind. Again, why is that? Does this evidence actually exist, or does it actually show Rigvir has such miraculous effects against melanoma? I suspect that it either does not exist or is not nearly as impressive as you claim. Indeed, there is a contradiction here. You say that 70% of melanoma patients in Latvia since 2004 have been treated with Rigvir. Why is it, then, that you could only find 52 melanoma patients treated with Rigvir for your 2015 Melanoma Research paper? Finally, although I am intrigued by your offer to provide Rigvir for free for me to try on my patients, unfortunately I don’t see how I can do it. Let me explain to you how we do things in the US. Doctors here can’t just go around administering unapproved drugs willy-nilly to patients if we feel like it. Were I to administer Rigvir to patients without proper approvals, I would quickly find myself in deep legal trouble—and rightly so! Were I to want to administer Rigvir to patients, it would have to be in the form of a clinical trial. I would first have to submit an Investigational New Drug (IND) application to the FDA, because Rigvir is not approved in the US. The FDA would then have to approve it. Next, I would have to write a protocol for a clinical trial. Let’s say I chose to do a phase I clinical trial, which would not require randomization. That application would have to be approved by the FDA and approved by my institution, specifically my cancer center's Protocol Review and Monitoring Committee and my university's Institutional Review Board (IRB). Both would almost certainly say no, based on lack of evidence to justify the trial. They would want preclinical evidence in cell culture and animal models, at the very least, or more compelling human evidence. You can provide me with neither. Of course, certainly I would be happy to review the educational materials you provide doctors who wish to administer Rigvir to patients. Maybe they would start to change my mind, although I’ll be honest with you and inform you that I doubt it. However, contrary to what you think, my mind is not closed. What it takes to open it more is high quality scientific and clinical evidence. Provide it, and perhaps it will convince me. If you continue to fail to provide it, and you’ll never change my mind. The ball is in your court. Sincerely Orac

Rigvir strikes back, round 3

The IVC didn't respond right away. It took a few days. Indeed, I was beginning to wonder if Ms. Lapa was going to respond again at all, particularly after nothing arrived immediately after my second post about Rigvir. Then, just as I was about to send a quick e-mail to tweak Ms. Lapa and see if I could get a response, this hit my e-mail in box:

From: Lelde Lapa < [REDACTED]@virotherapy.eu> To: [REDACTED] Subject: RE: Blog about RIGVIR Date: Tue, 26 Sep 2017 18:55:40 +0300 Organization: RIGVIR Development department Dear, Dr. Orac ...We are very grateful for every objectively critical remark that is addressed to RIGVIR and we always are trying to provide additional information to the source in order to improve objectivity. This time we however are relay surprised that someone who calls for scepticism and ask for proves, can easily believe to articles without any proven references or sources, that contains statement from people openly in conflict of interest and that is published in non-official portals in order to avoid responsibility for aspersion. And particularly we are sad that you was never interested in our position or in our facts that we openly offered and that are not published. During last month we have seen lots of false news and lies that was spread in Latvia in order to neglect RIGVIR, part of these news is spread under the name of respectable organisations. But unfortunately most of the stories does not have real authors. Most of this campaign is done via social networks so we need time to respond to attacks and we will inform you about the results. In the meantime we are open to organise professional seminars and conventions to share our information. For example, last Friday during the 8th Latvian Doctors Congress, satellite symposium about virotherapy and RIGVIR took place. Reports on clinical trials and post-marketing experience in clinical practice were presented to doctors. Around 5000 doctors were invited and everybody had chance to ask any question to our leading managers. We however received no question from the audience. Regarding rigorous clinical trials, most probably the definition has changed over time. For example the 1.st RCT ever was run just after the WWII. What we today call rigorous was defined only in the late 1990ies. While for example the FDA started requiring 5 year survival data for oncologic drugs, in the early 2000 those kind of data were still available only for a portion of NDAs. However A very direct outcome of WWII was that Latvia lost its independence. As a consequence, Latvia was literally thrown decades back, as well as held back, in all aspects of an advanced society. You may find that shocking to learn in 2017, but we can assure you that was a shocking "experience" already at that time on site. And it lasted for 50+ years. A slight and minor side effect, was that regulatory requirements did not adhere to the US framework. They were the so called Soviet style, which include lack of publication as well. Today, however, Latvia is part of EMA territory with the most up-to-date regulatory requirements. Therefore, the mode of showing efficacy has changed both over time and in space. Nevertheless, the requirements regarding efficacy were and are fulfilled. And this again is approved by the Ministry of Health of the Republic of Latvia that on 4th of September 2017 issued official statement supporting that RIGVIR is registered and included in the list of reimbursed medicines appropriately (see English translation enclosed) and here is in latvian source: http://www.vm.gov.lv/lv/aktualitates/preses_relizes/5507_par_zalu_regis… Regarding the use of Rigvir in Latvia. It may also come as a surprise to you that the medical records system in Latvia has not really changed since WWII. This, of course is not the companies responsibility. It may perhaps assist you in appreciating inclusion criteria used and the effort in managing the analysis published in Melanoma Research. When you discuss about our clinical trials or reproach us about lack of publications we are kindly ask you take into consideration also the economic differences between USA and Latvia fully into account, for example GDP per Capita in Latvia is around 15 thousand Dollars, while in USA it is 52 thousand Dollars or for example the whole budget for melanoma treatment of Latvia is around 0.7 MUSD. In other words you know how much those things costs and you should not judge from the stand point of the most advanced economy with the highest healthcare and science budgets. We are founders (Prof. A.Muceniece) family owned company that’s heritage is to provide this innovative treatment to any patient in the world who needs it and we will not discriminate any patient regardless from which clinic the patient comes. In your latest blog you have analysed part of testimonials about virotherapy with RIGVIR (Please note however that Ty Bolinger’s activates are not related to us). We have seen complains that stories of our patients was just coincidence or that there were other factors behind the survival. But what if we would provide you with many dozens of such testimonials and cases? Is there something at all to convince you? This brings us back to the offer to you - to try the medicine for your patient. For early stage patient they should use medical tourism to Latvia, but with late stages or in cases where there are no other treatment solutions, you might consider in application of extended use of non-registered medicine on-name basis to use the medicine in USA. Off course all the time with your supervision to monitor closely the efficacy. This means that it would be case analysis not a clinical trial. Due to work with EMA we would not initiate any activity with FDA yet, although we have preclinical and clinical evidences to start. We find this discussion, your blog and your activity in twitter really wired. If you suggest that there are better medicine for cancer patients, please use it. We have never limited anyone doing that. RIGVIR is a prescription medicine, patients cannot get the medicine by them self without doctor involvement. So to wrap up - if you would like to explore virotherapy and use it as a treatment, we are ready to cooperate with you and teach you about our evidences. But further correspondence and the exchange of opinions is not necessary any more. Sincerely, Lelde

Ms. Lapa (or whoever I've been corresponding with) might not think that an exchange of opinons "is not necessary any more" and that she can flounce off, digitally speaking, but I beg to differ. So, instead of responding right away, I decided that a public response would be more appropriate, to be unveiled this morning. So here's my response to Ms. Lapa. I'll be sure to send her a link to this after this post goes live. After all, why bother if the person to whom I respond doesn't see my response? So here we go. Here's my response written over the weekend:

Dear Ms. Lapa: You clearly don't know me very well if you thought I would not respond to this. Indeed, given what Rigvir Holding and the IVC are doing, I think it's a public service to show what you have been telling me to my readers. It's also not true that I am not interested in your position. If that were the case, I would never have bothered to engage in this lengthy e-mail exchange. That's the point. I've been trying to find out what evidence you have to support all the claims being made for Rigvir's efficacy in melanoma and other cancers. All that's indexed in PubMed is very thin gruel indeed when it comes to clinical evidence. It's not at all convincing. Yet you keep claiming you have this highly convincing evidence while making excuses for not publishing it and whining about people criticizing Rigvir on social media. Well, I have news for you: That's the world. Social media matters. You keep claiming that what's being said about Rigvir is false, but somehow you never actually bother to prove it to be false. And do you know how you could prove that it's false? Show us the data, just like drug companies in the US and EU have to do! So you had a satellite symposium on virotherapy at the 8th Latvian Doctors Congress. That's great, but not enough. A Google search shows that you had this conference but nothing about its results. Most satellite conferences publish abstracts of the work presented at the meeting, at least. Such abstracts are not viewed as being as convincing as a publication in a peer-reviewed journal indexed on PubMed, but they are at least something. After your conference, I am currently still left with nothing. It wouldn't even matter to me if the abstracts or conference proceedings were in Latvian. Show me the data! You claim to have clinical trial results and postmarketing results presented at this conference? Publish them! After my previous two posts on Rigvir, I'm sure that I can find someone to translate them if necessary. In the end, I can't help but wonder if your symposium was more of a marketing presentation than an actual scientific conference. Next, I do not need a discourse on the history of clinical trials and FDA requirements for approval of drugs, as I am well aware of that history and when the first randomized clinical trials (RCTs) similar to what we do now were carried out. I mentioned the 1962 Kefauver-Harris Amendment to the law creating the FDA mandated that the FDA to require rigorous clinical trial evidence of efficacy and safety simply to point out that evidence from high quality RCTs has long been a requirement for drug approval in the US and Europe. In oncology at first that meant measuring an endpoint known as overall (or objective) response rates (ORR), which measures what percentage of the patients treated demonstrate tumor shrinkage. Unfortunately, ORR is not a great surrogate for overall survival. So by the early 1980s, the FDA started to require evidence of improvement in OS. While it is true that these days, in order to speed up the process of drug approval, the FDA has been accepting surrogates for OS, such as pathologic complete response (pCR) and granting provisional approval for drugs that produce such surrogate endpoints, I note that Rigvir has no convincing published data supporting the conclusion that it can even meet those lower standards for provisional approval. I also do not buy your excuse that Latvia's medical record system hasn't changed since World War II. Believe it or not, until very recently, many US hospitals still used paper charts and relatively primitive record keeping. Many private practices still do. It took laws and incentives from the US government to prod our medical system into adopting electronic health records, and, even then, I note that we will probably never have the excellent centralized medical record systems that some countries in Europe do. As for your excuse that Latvia is a poor country. I counter that the very fact that Latvia is a poor country relative to the US and much of Europe is a very good reason that its government shouldn't be wasting money on cancer treatments whose manufacturer cannot produce strong evidence of efficacy! Yet, since I took an interest in Rigvir recently, I've seen claims that up to 70% of melanoma patients in Latvia are treated with Rigvir. In a country like Latvia, that is insanity if true! Think of what could be done with all that money if it were redirected to treatments that work! I also see Rigvir being advertised as effective against a wide variety of cancers when not even you have claimed to me that it is effective against any cancer other than melanoma. You claim that Ty Bollinger's activities are not related, but I don't see it that way. In making the long segment on Rigvir in Episode 3 of The Truth About Cancer (TTAC), Bollinger obviously had the full cooperation of the IVC's leadership. He brought Dr. Antonio Jimenez with him, who runs the quack cancer clinic Hope4Cancer and is now selling Rigvir in Mexico. He had access to your clinic and interviewed luminaries such as Dr. Ivars Kalvins, your medical director Dr. Kaspars Losans, and your director of research and development Dr. Peteris Alberts, as well as three of your patients. The resulting segment was highly laudatory and presented Rigvir as a miracle cure based on dubious testimonials. Like many cancer patients who found out about Rigvir from TTAC, I had heard very little about your virotherapy before TTAC was released and view the video series as the best marketing for Rigvir I've seen anywhere. Somehow, I doubt that you would have cooperated so much with Mr. Bollinger if you thought his segment would do anything other than praise Rigvir and the IVC the way it did. I conclude by again addressing your offer. I will be blunt. My opinion is that it is unethical, and I will not accept it. Basically, you appear to be paying for case reports that you can publish. My impression of this is backed up by this article on your website about grants for publications, in which the IVC announces that it is offering €5,000 "grants" for "publications on clinical studies of oncolytic virotherapy, observations or clinical cases in a publication that can be quoted in PubMed" and that the study "is intended on using oncolytic virotherapy rather than using oncolytic virotherapy in combination with other cancer therapies, medication etc." In other words, you want case reports or studies looking only at virotherapy, which, given the doubt about Rigvir's efficacy, would be highly unethical. I note that you also request that grant applicants "inform IVC on the publication topic and present to IVC the document draft before commencing the project and submitting it to the chosen journal." To me this sounds as though you expect the paper to be written, regardless of whether the study has already been done or not, but in fairness I will allow that the ambiguity could be due to a poor grasp of English on the part of whoever wrote this web page. Finally, before you express such disappointment with my blog posts and my activity on Twitter, I note that the Business Development Manager of Rigvir Holding, Kārlis Urbāns, has been attacking me on Twitter using fake news sources. He's been quite nasty. Here are examples:

Jā ļoti neatkarīgs Onkologs no ASV, kas nez kāpēc perfekti citē Latviešu valodu un jau iepriekš barojies no farmas - https://t.co/ENKPlndHFi

— Karlis Urbans (@kurbans) September 29, 2017

I note that he cites a post made by a notorious antivaccine blog, Age of Autism. I note that the bloggers at Age of Autism don't like me because I routinely skewer antivaccine pseudoscience. Here's another example:

Un cik nav fake itkā-onkologu vēstule?
Ir jau vēl daudz, piemēram, https://t.co/bBX9uS8IPg

— Karlis Urbans (@kurbans) September 29, 2017

TruthWiki is a fake wiki maintained by Mike Adams, who runs the quack and alt right (yes, both) website NaturalNews.com and got his start selling Y2K scams. The conversation after that is quite amusing, even though I can only read it through the stilted English from computer translation from Latvian on Twitter. I note that Mike Adams has been defaming me on his website for a year and a half now and is up to around 40 lie-filled posts about me. You'll excuse me if I don't take your lamentations about how mean and nasty I've been to the IVC seriously when the BDM and CFO of Rigvir Holding is quoting fake news sources that routinely lie about me and trying to portray me as a tool of big pharma out to destroy Rigvir. So to wrap up – if you would like to provide acceptable scientific and clinical evidence for the efficacy of Rigvir against any cancer, I am ready to cooperate with you and learn about it. Otherwise, further correspondence and the exchange of opinions are not necessary any more. Sincerely, Orac

After that, there's only one last thing to do:

oracknows Sun, 10/08/2017 - 21:36

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Ah, yes. The time-honored strategy of “unpublished data.” I love it. I’ve seen so many young and inexperienced MPH and MHS students try to use that as a catch-all for sketchy term papers. If the data are unpublished, it’s for a good reason. Otherwise, get it published. Surely, in that many years of this drug being around — and if it works — something, anything, must have been published that shows it works. Saying that it works, but that the data are not published, or that there is some conspiracy to keep it from the public (“What THEY don’t want you to know”) is lazy. Have “they” run out of ideas?
How about something novel to protect their quackery? “This cures all cancers, but only on Tuesdays, in Tijuana, drinking Tequila, with Tomás.”

"Slick, sneaky and insidious".... high praise indeed from the experts in the field!
I had a quick browse through some of the "evidence" marshalled to show the evils of Orac. It mostly seems to consist of some pretty hysterical ad hominem attacks and attempts at guilt by association, but I can see how it might worry someone from, say, Latvia who doesn't know the full story.
The thing that surprises me most though, is that despite the entertaining fireworks in your posts, the majority of your blog articles actually come down to one simple request - "If you are making claims, show us the data. No data = no acceptable evidence."
Surely answering that request should be the first step before complaining about Orac?

The medicine RIGVIR has a clinical experience for more than 50 years and it is registered for melanoma for more than 13 years and before the era of modern trials and most of the evidences is not published.

It's one thing if the reason the data are not (yet) published is because the paper is in the peer review process. But that's not the case here.

I am willing to stipulate that clinical trials may not have been routine in the Soviet Union (of which Latvia was then part) 50 years ago. But by 13 years ago, Latvia was an independent country, and clinical trials should have been routine. Where are the data?

Mr. Urbans clearly has nothing. Not only is he resorting to argumentum ad hominem, but his argumentum consists of rehashing the claims of cranks who have axes to grind.

You'd think that if there are "false news and lies" about Rigvir posted here and elsewhere, Ms. Lapa could have provided you with examples. But there are none, which leads me to believe the negative press about Rigvir is on target.

It's odd that Lapa seems to be justifying the lack of rigorous clinical evidence for the drug in part because it's grandfathered in under the old rules and so proper clinical trials aren't needed. Shouldn't Latvians be eager to throw off such vestiges of the former Soviet system and demonstrate that the nation's health care is founded on solid science?

Not that I'm biased at all, but I would want to take a hard look at any data from the old Soviet Union in fine detail, before accepting it at face value....

Summary of response from RIGVIR/virothterapy: "I don't have to show you any stinkin' evidence!"

I can't believe they didn't ask for the $10k to be deposited into joint account, then you receive $100M in frozen Lithuanian bullion trust deposited to yours....and free supplies of Rigvir for your trial. Act now, and you get George Foreman Lithiuanian Grill 2.0!!

Lawrence@5: I would rather have data of dubious quality than no data. In the former case, experts (which I am not) could evaluate the data and decide for themselves whether it was worth the pixels it was printed on. Even an expert cannot evaluate data that are not provided.

I can't remember which one of the Balkan Countries runs a great tourist attraction: Ride a cattle train jammed in just like the Jews were during WWII for a 8 hours ride (the good part is they let you loose at the end).

Very classy countries, so running a scam supported by the government doesn't surprise me.

Rich@9: You are probably thinking of Grutas Park, a.k.a. Stalin World, which is in Lithuania. That's a Baltic country, not a Balkan country (the same is true of Latvia).

As citizens of the country that elected Donald Trump President despite his blatant racism, sexism, bragging about sexual assault, and foreign ties that were so obvious every spy agency from McLean to Tallinn knew about them; we don't have grounds to criticize Lithuania or Latvia for issues that certain individuals in those countries have. I don't dispute that Viliumas Malinauskas is a first class jerk (it passes for normal among people of comparable wealth), but we need to cast the beam out of our own eye first.

Note that by the standards she wants to hold her critics to, Lelde Lapa isn't qualified to be talking about this: she's an assistant of business development, not a doctor or scientific researcher.

Also, Latvia regained its independence a quarter of a century ago. Rigvir claims that its product has been in use throughout that time ("going back 30 years"). Why haven't they published their data? Maybe Moscow blocked that in 1986, but what happened after independence. Thirteen years is enough time to collect, analyze, and publish clinical results, if the doctors who are treating those patients wanted to..

I am willing to stipulate that clinical trials may not have been routine in the Soviet Union (of which Latvia was then part) 50 years ago.

I don't know about precisely 50 years ago, but the USA and USSR collaborated on chemotherapy research in the 70s.

The USSR wasn't somehow backwards and barbarian when it came to medicine; it's just that in the practice of medicine, supplies were often short. Doctors did the best they could.

It wasn't Mao's China in the medical sense by a long shot; the medical system was very science based.

Eric,

I don't know why I said Balkan VS Baltic, I do know the difference.

I think the US is headed towards a Balkan type culture where every group is against ever other group. Our fearless leader is only helping this process. Where is Rocky and Bullwinkle when you need them (and yes I think Trump is no better than a cartoon character. Actually, on second thought he is lower than a cartoon character).

I think the US is headed towards a Balkan type culture where every group is against ever other group.

Bit of a simplification of Balkan culture and even the Yugoslav wars, to be honest.

My friend Vlad (Serbian dad, Croatian mom, grew up in a village in Bosnia before fleeing) could give a better rundown of both, though, and I don't have a crash course in me just at the moment.

JP,

Indeed the procedures that Lasik Surgery have derived from began in the USSR.

I am not sure why the rotating surgical process didn't catch on though.

JP,

I know that was a very simple minded statement about the Balkans. However, there has been issues for centuries in the area. Have you read: The Good Soldier Sevek (I think I spelled that right).

@Rich Bly:

I haven't; I'll take a look at it. I do have a fairly good grasp of even pre-20th century Balkan history, if only because I GSI'd for a course that had a large section on Balkan film (for which historical knowledge is important.)

Oh, I do know that book. It's about a Czech soldier, though. I actually picked it up in Budapest some years ago, I think.

I had to read it long ago for class called Russian 315 but was about the Balkans and the cultural conflicts.

I don't remember "The Good Soldier Švejk" venturing as far as the Balkans. There are a few side-swipes against the Slovaks (as one would expect from a good Bohemian like Hašek), but most of the satire is directed against Austrian-Hungarian bureaucratic incompetence and militaristic delusions.

Hmm. There are a couple "good soldier" books out there, but the closest I can find to that title is The Good Soldier Švejk, which is the one I'm familiar with.

It is entirely possible that there's another book out there that plays on the title.

JP, HDB,

You have the right title. It has only been about 45 years ago that I read the book. I won't make any comments about the fog of age when remembering.

No worries. I have not even been alive for 45 years.

Don't start me on those Slovaks. Rassen frassen [miscellaneous Muttley noises] Slovaks.
Not that I'm prejudiced.

Rich Bly:

You probably have Švejk mixed up with Shevek from Ursula K. LeGuin's The Dispossessed.

Anarcho-syndicalist science fiction? How have I not read this?

I read her Earthsea books as a kid (the original trilogy anyway), but didn't get back to her as an adult. Seems I must.

Oh, do. I found her Earthsea books to be annoying, but the Left Hand of Darkness enlightening. Seriously, do read some of these books.

Left Hand seems right up my alley.

I liked the Earthsea books a lot, actually; the only reason I didn't read the later books is because the librarian told me they were sad and not really meant for people of my (then) age.

As she ages, her prose faltered. Though there are a few classics among the clunkers.

I see.

Specifically, as I remember, the librarian (one of several, but the one I knew best, she recently retired) said that I would probably be better off remembering Sparrowhawk/Ged as a youngish man.

I think there was a rape theme in the later Earthsea books, too, which is probably why she steered me away from them.

Honestly almost all of the "classic science fiction" I read growing up was written by men, and some of it was borderline misogynistic, which might partially explain why I only had one (also boyish) female friend until my second year of college.

Left Hand of Darkness was all about gender identity. It was the late 1970s, so it took my second reading and the encouragement of a high school friend (who turned out to be the guy at Bose who was seriously involved in noise cancelling headphones) to make me read it again with a more open mind.

Ms. LeGuin did have her issues with editors at that time, but a few of her novels transcend that. Two of the most important are mentioned in this thread. Stick with those, there is one other but its title eludes me (sorry).

By the way there is a reason I stopped reading fiction, and mostly read non-fiction... like biological stuff.

I did enjoy Vonda McIntyre's Dreamsnake and The Moon and the Sun, even though I like Star Trek (which she contributes to).

It is just that after dealing my kid's health issues and such... the worlds presented by scifi authors are too mundane, and now have nothing to do with our reality.

@JP

I don’t know about precisely 50 years ago, but the USA and USSR collaborated on chemotherapy research in the 70s.

The USSR wasn’t somehow backwards and barbarian when it came to medicine; it’s just that in the practice of medicine, supplies were often short. Doctors did the best they could.

It wasn’t Mao’s China in the medical sense by a long shot; the medical system was very science based.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
This. After reading their excuses, I tried to look up other medicines that might have been developed in Latvia around the same time. I think the argument of the evil West where Soviet drugs cannot be appreciated or low standards of research falls out the window, when you look at, e.g., ftorafur, now called tegafur. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it looks like it's still used internationally: http://inventions.lza.lv/proto_e.php?id=36 There was even a collaboration with Bristol Myers and Japanese pharmaceutical companies.

Chris @ 33:

...there is one other but its title eludes me (sorry).

Might be The Lathe of Heaven.

The Dispossessed is really an interesting piece of writing. It starts in the middle, and then the second chapter starts following Shevek's life from the beginning. It goes on like that in alternating chapters, till at the end of the penultimate chapter, you've worked your way up to the opening. Then the last chapter finishes it up.

Like seriously, am I the only person who thinks that the last two letters seem to be written by an illiterate 5-year old?

"Might be The Lathe of Heaven."

Yep, that is it.

@Epsilon

As Orac pointed out, English is not the writer's first language.

Though I do think that tone would shine through regardless of linguistics.

@Panacea

True. But I'd expect if you are in a position to hawk or defend a product, you'd at least get someone who can write letters better than a high schooler.

If we were in Latvia, reading and speaking Latvian, I'm sure she could.

@z:

when you look at, e.g., ftorafur, now called tegafur. Correct me if I’m wrong, but it looks like it’s still used internationally: http://inventions.lza.lv/proto_e.php?id=36 There was even a collaboration with Bristol Myers and Japanese pharmaceutical companies.

Correct as far as I know; I was reading about it in the comments section over at SBM, as it turns out.

It is just that after dealing my kid’s health issues and such… the worlds presented by scifi authors are too mundane, and now have nothing to do with our reality.

I dunno, a lot of sci-fi deals with important contemporary issues in interesting, if often not entirely overt, ways. I didn't really read much sci-fi in grad school, but I still nerded out over Star Trek and stuff. (Easier to watch one TV episode once in a while than read a whole book for fun.)

Right about now I could use an escape to another world, though.

Yeah... guess I'm just frustrated she'd defend a product that obviously doesn't work.

Those kinds of things just bug me so much. Why defend the indefensible? There are much better ways to spend such fervent energy than trying to fool peopl.

Second part of my comment was meant for Chris.

I can understand. I guess it depends on how you want to escape. I kept finding plot holes in some books, and frankly I was disappointed with LeGuin's later work. I now mostly read biographies and history (esp. of math and science). But I recognize I am not quite on the norm.

I do enjoy watching science fiction and some scary stuff.

@Chris:

Oh, I switched to reading mainly history (Howard Zinn et al) and political stuff (Noam Chomsky, Emma Goldman, Marx) when I was 15 or so. And pop science. Never read a lot of biographies though. Like maybe Kurt Cobain and Jung or something. It took Dostoevsky to bring me back into fiction, and eventually I got hooked on poetry.

Lately I've been reading fairly heavy stuff on, like, institutional racism and American militarism and the like. I did pick up a couple of fun stupid books from the library - Randall Monroe's Thing Explainer and The Brick Bible.

Not only do I have my own life stuff going on, politics and current events have been getting me super down. I think I need a break.

My most recent biographies were two by John Elder Robison. He is an autism advocate who dropped out of school to create light/smoke effects for Kiss. He then went on to other adventures like dealing with a teenager who liked chemistry, and who was tried for "bomb making" by an idiot political hack.

It has a bit of humor and hand slapping on the forehead.

Epsilon: When the question is "why do they" or "why don't they" the answer is always the same: Money.

As the Fat Man said in House of God: there's money in shit.

And that's part of what is so frustrating about it. It's all about them. Nobody else matters as long as their pockets are lined and they aren't in trouble. It's disgusting, and it's even worse that a blind eye is turned to it. That it's "acceptable behavior" to some.

And you feel helpless to stop it, because behind these people are companies ready to bend and twist the truth and the law, and to ruin the lives of good people, all to keep their operation running.

It's very frustrating to me when I see patients who could be helped by modern medicine go for quackery. I see this mostly with vaccination, which is why it's a soapbox issue for me.

I've had some success in convincing vaccine hesitant people who are open to being taught. The anti vax are a waste of time. But if I can convince even one person who is simply unsure because of all the competing information and misinformation, that's worth it.

Rich Bly: "I think the US is headed towards a Balkan type culture where every group is against ever other group."

"Headed towards?" Isn't that the way the US has always been?

Chris: It is just that after dealing my kid’s health issues and such… the worlds presented by scifi authors are too mundane, and now have nothing to do with our reality.

Seconded. I swear health insurance is a dark art.

JP: If you're looking for something new to read, I highly recommend Becky Chambers' books, A Long Way to a Small Angry Planet and A Closed and Common Orbit. (Make sure you clear out a space in your schedule; you're not going to want to put them down.)

Also, Ann Leckie's Ancillary series. She's got a new one too, Provenance. And I don't know if you've heard of City of Stairs?

@PGP: "...health insurance is a dark art."

As someone who works for health insurance (fortunately, one of the very rare non-profits), I like to tell people it's like a menu. You have the prix fixe meal, the a la cart menu, and just to make things interesting, the State and Federal governments put stuff on your plate that you must eat, even if you don't want to. (Not that that is a BAD thing, but some people complain about State and Federal requirements).

And, of course, the more you eat, the more it costs. It's also a lot easier to get a lot of meals for a negotiated price than feed your family on your own.

Then there are the covered items, investigational and cosmetic procedures most (if not all) health insurances won't voluntarily cover, fraud,waste, abuse...

Even at my job, I advocate for universal healthcare, which seems further and further away with President Cheeto at the helm.

MIDawn: Uh, no, it's not like a menu at all. Menus usually tell you what things cost, upfront.

Restuarants don't have mysterious charges that are added onto the bill, nor do they have networks,where somethings are available and others are not,(and as a fun bonus, they won't tell you what those things are) and the waiter/waitress can't refuse to give you a dish on the menu because it violates their religion.

(Jewish delis and halal restaurants don't offer, say pork in the first place, but the case I'm referring to would be like a Catholic waiter/waitress refusing to let customers have their meat dishes because it was a Lenten Friday.)

Most everything is 'cosmetic' I notice, because then the insurance can refuse to cover it. And covered items..well, that's a nice fiction.

Universal healthcare would be nice, but it won't happen in my lifetime, and probably never in the US.

@PGP:

Thanks for the book recommendations! My schedule is generally pretty open, except for various chores and some translating. Today and tomorrow I do need to buckle down and finish a chapter before I go to the coast for a few days.

Re: single payer, you never know. It is starting to catch on with the Dems (whatever you want to say about Bernie Sanders, he did shift the Overton window at least a little to the left.

And it is very popular with the kids these days, as is the DSA, which I recently joined. (Was finally convinced after Fetonte quit; also they have a Communist Caucus and a Libertarian Socialist Caucus.) "Socialism" is not quite the dirty word it once was, at least amongst a certain, ahem, generation.

Oh, you're welcome. Before I forget, you might also like Our Lady of the Ice; it's basically a hybrid of a noir film and classic science fiction. I like any excuse to support authors.

Well, as far as that goes, the problem is there aren't enough young people who pay attention. And have any kind of political savvy or pull. Most young men seem to enjoy being on the far right, I suppose it's easier than trying to be a decent person.

The Dems..well, I don't have a lot of hope for my party, honestly. They muff it every time. I still support them, but it's like supporting the home town team that always loses. I really don't buy the 'Overton Window" shift, as it seems to have shifted way to the right.

@PGP:

Oh, I don't know, I know plenty of young people who pay attention, men, women, and non-binary folks. If anything I would say the "millennials" are more politically aware and active than their parents, and they are increasingly swelling the ranks of the Left. Anecdotally, all of the real @sshole right wingers I know are getting old.

Sure, the alt right has its appeal to young men. But at some point they're going to have to choose between the alt-right and ever getting laid.

Maybe I should have said "shifting the Overton window among Democrats." It wasn't long ago that they were all shouting that single payer will never happen. I might have more respect for the party if they weren't constantly punching left, but at this point I have left and joined the Socialist Party USA. (We will see who I actually vote for in coming elections.)

I have to chime in about Le Guin:

Believe it or not, I'm not much of a sci fi reader or movie goer
BUT I do absolutely love a few books and movies/ shows** - some by Vonnegut and Le Guin - especially The Lathe of Heaven and The Dispossessed. I think that JP would like the latter LOTS

It's about social systems, politics, roles and mores more than anything other worldly although it's that too I suppose.
I consider some novels like Brave New World, 1984, sci fi,

**. the first two Star Wars, 2001, Close Encounters, a 1990s dystopian epic - Strange Days IIRC. also TV - Hitchhiker's Guide. Dr Who

JP: I think most of the angry young men like being angry and obnoxious more than they like sex. Although, locally, we've had several cases of Nazis being identified and ousted from jobs. The local metal/punk community is pretty serious about the no-Nazi thing.

I think the opposition among democrats to singlepayer was a matter of practicalities- most churches don't like health insurance and very few people even thought of singlepayer until recently. Also, there's the matter of two entire regions being opposed to health care in any form.

Oddly, even most of the oldsters I know don't like Trump. One of my uncles fits pretty much every demographic of Trump's voters and he loathes the guy. (Weirdly, the uncle that was in the Peace Corps and actually sponsored a guy for citizenship just loves Trump. I can't decide if it's early dementia or what.)

Frankly, I'm tempted to join the wobblies myself. Locally, I voted Green, because we had a great guy on the city council, but I'm not in his district anymore.

@PGP:

I was going to join the IWW too, but the dues are a bit steep for me; also I’m not going to be organizing a workplace any time soon. But i have always admired them, I know people with them, and I consider myself a fellow traveler.

Solidarity, comrade.

I didn't know they charged. Hmm. I really like most of the various socialist ideas, but I'm afraid I can't get past the concept that humans do not work that way. We aren't a cooperative species.

Many scientists would disagree with the idea that we are not a cooperative species.

Anyway, yeah, the IWW is literally a Union, so there are union dues. I paid a small (low income) annual thing when i joined the DSA.

Utopians, mainly. Humans are wired to be nasty to each other.

Yeah, I'd somehow forgotten that the Wobblies were a union. Makes sense.

I am generally not nasty to other people (I have been, basically while paranoid), and I think I am human, although I feel subhuman most of the time. My friends and, well, most of my family are not nasty to other people.

I doubt you are nasty to other people, except perhaps trolls, when it is deserved.

Also, you should join the wobblies. The union dies for someone who makes less than two grand are eleven bucks a month, but they don't have a level below that. It's still a little much for me; I need to buy, like, socks and cat food and stuff, and I suppose a little beer. (OK, that is not technically a need.)

We aren’t a cooperative species.

I'm with Koestler on this: part of the species' problem is being too cooperative, for all the wrong causes. People form mobs and the blood starts flowing.

JP: Aw, thanks. I try to be polite and nice in real life, simply because it makes things smoother all around. I try to save my wrath for things that deserve it- like automated phone systems or trolls.

I think joining them will have to wait a little. I'm gonna need a steady cash flow.
Hdb: You might be right.

JP: As far as being human goes, you're a better human than a whole lot of people. Please keep that in mind.

most churches don’t like health insurance

Um...what?

OK, that is not technically a need.

I'd rank it ahead of socks.

I paid a small (low income) annual thing when i joined the DSA.

Well, at least it wasn't the Sparts.

The IWW? I've heard of them.
http://nationalpost.com/news/canada/windsors-panhandlers-and-street-per…

"Well, at least it wasn’t the Sparts."

Oh, heavens no. for one thing I am not a Marxist Leninist in the first place, even disregarding their other problems. Marx has a lot to offer, but also a lot of problems; his ideas about the "lumpenproletariat" for one thing. I prefer Kropotkin, just as one example.

@Johnny:

Is that supposed to make me like them less? Because it has had the opposite effect.

The IWW? I’ve heard of them.

Sadly, the union-made T-shirts that I've gotten from them have been of erratic quality. And sizing. Lay your hands on a copy of the Rebel Voices CD if you can, though. It's only boring in spots, as compared to the shirts.

^ "compared with," dammit.

Rebel Voices is on Apple Music, as it turns out. Listening now.

We always used to sing "The Preacher and the Slave" at Sara F's parties in Ann Arbor. (Along with Solidarity Forever (which we always sang at GEO meetings as well), along with Yiddish labor songs. She is a big fan of my singing voice and always asks on the phone if I have been singing. Now that my left hand is mostly better, I might try picking up the guitar again.

I'll rec some books:
John Scalzi writes great space opera (funny but also deep and good female characters)
Too Like the Lighting by Ada Palmer (disclosure, friend from high school) which takes a super enlightenment approach to the future. (Utopians are one group in a stateless society.)

Thanks for the book recs, all. I picked up a copy of The Dispossessed and I look forward to reading it once I am home with some peace and quiet. Probably in fits and starts.

My younger nephew is learning to talk but has not entirely gotten the hang of it yet, and he gets mad when he is not understood. My brother gets grumpy with the kids but it is entirely ineffectual and only adds to the general chaos.

Walking on the beach is very nice.

When I am watching the boys I am "strict" but not angry or grumpy, and I find that it works. But who am I to say anything.

Rigvir: A cancer "cure" imported from Latvia that cancer patients should avoid

oracknows — Mon, 25 Sep 2017 01:06:00 +0000

Rigvir: A cancer "cure" imported from Latvia that cancer patients should avoid

This blog is based in the United States, and I'm an American. Unfortunately, this produces a difficult-to-avoid baked-in bias towards medicine as it is practiced in the US and, to a lesser extent, as it is practiced in the English-speaking world, because English is my language and I can read accounts coming out of English-speaking countries. The same bias exists with respect to pseudo-medicine, with our concentration having been primarily on either quackery that is practiced in the US, UK, Canada, or Australia (and sometimes New Zealand). It's not because I'm not interested in medicine and pseudo-medicine as practiced in non-English-speaking countries. It's just that I tend to lack the tools in terms of language and bloggers with local knowledge to assist me. That's why, whenever I've tried to cover alternative medicine or "integrative medicine" in non-English-speaking countries, such as when I discussed alternative cancer clinics in Germany or the situation with stem cell clinics in Italy (as bad as or worse than in the US), I always feel that I'm missing something. After all, Google Translate often doesn't really provide more than the gist of what a foreign-language article is trying to say.

A dubious Latvian cancer treatment shows up on my radar

Perhaps the language barrier, coupled with its being primarily a treatment from a very small country, is part of the reason why I haven't discussed a new form of dubious cancer treatment known as Rigvir before. It's a form of treatment that has been popularized mainly in Latvia, but is also sold in Armenia and Georgia. This situation has made finding sufficient information about Rigvir, the claims made for it, what it is, and what it supposedly does, rather challenging. After all, I don't speak Latvian, and I don't know anyone who does. (And, no, having a Lithuanian background on my mother's side doesn't help.) I was prodded from my complacency by an article published earlier this month from LSM.lv, "Health ministry defends claimed cancer treatment." Basically, a Latvian news magazine, De Facto, reported earlier this year that multiple Latvian medical associations had written to the Latvian Health Ministry about Rigvir:

Crucially, it [Rigvir] is included on the health ministry's list of reimbursable medicines, meaning public as well as private money is spent on it.

Yet as De Facto revealed, in January three professional medical organizations, including the Latvian Oncology Association, wrote to the Health Ministry expressing concern that research and publications used to establish the credentials of Rigvir treatment were of poor quality and scientifically questionable: for example in one study supposedly comparing the outcomes for two groups of patients, one group used Rigvir and the other did not, with the Rigvir patients doing considerably better than the control group. However, the Rigvir patients also used chemotherapy, while the control group did not, which should have rendered the findings highly dubious.

Oncologists asked that Rigvir be removed from the list of reimbursable medicines and the National Drug Register pending proper clinical data, and also asked for a review of the official guidelines for the treatment of melanoma involving Rigvir.

In February, the health ministry publicly pledged to review the registration of Rigvir and its inclusion in the list of reimbursable medicines. However, De Facto uncovered that a decision to ignore the oncologists' concerns had already been made in the spring.

What most grabbed my attention about this article was the response of Health Minister Anda Čakša to inquiries about why the Health Ministry decided the way it did. It's a response that'll make a skeptic's jaw drop:

"One of the key issues to change anything in drug registration or compensation conditions is clear evidence that the medicine is or is not effective and safe; that there are or are not side effects," Minister of Health Anda Čaksa told De Facto.

"A letter by some social group saying they don't like something - it's just not helpful. Show us data that this medicine does not work for your patients. We don't have anything to react to at the moment," said Health Minister Anda Čakša.

My reaction was predictable: This is exactly backward! It is up to the company selling a product to provide evidence that it does work for the conditions for which it is marketed, not to critics to show that it doesn't work! The article also notes that Rigvir is the fifth top selling prescription medicine in Latvia, with growing sales, which is another reason to be concerned. So is the marketing of Rigvir outside of Latvia. For instance, quack cancer clinic in Mexico that I've discussed before, Hope4Cancer, offers Rigvir, which it describes in glowing terms:

Rigvir®, the world’s first and only non-genetically modified cancer virotherapy agent, is a non-replicative live virus; it is non-pathogenic, and does not reproduce inside the human body or transmit to others. Once introduced in the body, Rigvir® selectively seeks out cancer cells to replicate within, effectively killing the cell in the process.

While virotherapy is only now emerging as a new wave of oncological therapies, Rigvir® has been intensely studied by researchers for over 50 years, passing all phases of clinical trials, and is registered by the International Virotherapy Center in Latvia as a prescription anti-cancer drug. Though registered as a drug, Rigvir offers a completely safe clinical profile, high therapeutic index, absence of side effects, and ability to selectively target cancer cells – making it unlike most available therapeutic agents.

Not surprisingly, according to Hope4Cancer, Rigvir is fantastic for basically all the common cancers: breast cancer, melanoma, lung cancer, colorectal cancer, pancreatic cancer, prostate cancer, liver cancer, and more. Never mind that the only cancer for which there is anything resembling evidence—albeit weak evidence—is melanoma. Rigvir's proponents claim that it can treat any cancer! The clinic even goes so far as to claim:

However, given its universal mode of action, it is likely that Rigvir® is effective against a much larger range of cancers that have not been fully studied yet. In fact, at Hope4Cancer, we have used Rigvir® effectively against many cancers not listed here.

It is important to note that since Rigvir® is a defined pharmaceutical entity that has been established through a process of validated studies to qualify as a drug, it does not completely fall into the category of conventional, alternative, or integrative medicine. Instead, Rigvir® represents a completely new paradigm in cancer treatment, and we at Hope4Cancer are proud to offer it to our patients.

No, if Rigvir works, it would be conventional medicine. Viruses that target specific cancers are very much the hot topic now, although results have generally been mixed. The only thing "alternative" about Rigvir is that it is unproven and sold by a quack cancer clinic in Mexico.

Meanwhile, over at the International Virotherapy Center in Latvia, where Rigvir is primarily marketed, there are the sorts of glowing testimonials (complete with a link to the Virotherapy Foundation, which provides even more glowing testimonials) that automatically set my skeptical antennae a'twitching. For instance, here is a woman named Zane who was diagnosed with stage I (yes, stage I) melanoma that was completely surgically excised. Yet Latvian doctors prescribed her "virotherapy" (a.k.a. Rigvir) afterward:

The treatment for stage I melanoma is basically complete surgical excision with an adequate margin of normal tissue around the melanoma, plus examination of the regional lymph nodes through a procedure called a sentinel lymph node biopsy, if the melanoma is stage IB. (Presumably the woman's lymph nodes were negative, or else she would no longer have stage I melanoma. Rather, she'd have at least stage III melanoma.) There is usually no need for any further treatment. Basically, Zane was exposed to "virotherapy" unnecessarily and massively overtreated for her melanoma. Yet she's promoted as a success story, who gushes about how she had feared losing her hair and feeling sick but didn't and how she was able to have a normal baby.

This testimonial is a bit more disturbing:

Basically, it's a British woman named Nadine who had melanoma in 1999 that recurred in 2009. It sounds as though it's been metastatic, but there are no details that would allow a cancer surgeon like me to know where it metastasized to, how rapidly it grew, and other critical information. We learn that Nadine has apparently undergone radiotherapy, chemotherapy, and surgery, along with being a "guinea pig" for experimental vaccine therapies, suggesting that she must have been a subject in at least one clinical trial. She's convinced that Rigvir is helping her, but there's no way to know for sure. Metastatic melanoma is a strange beast among cancers. It can have an incredibly variable course, rapidly growing and killing some patients, and in others exhibiting a much more indolent behavior. Also, excising melanoma metastases can be curative, if they are single or only a few and can be completely excised surgically. Surgical excision of recurrences and metastases could well have prolonged Nadine's life greatly, but insufficient information is given for me even to speculate whether this is the case with her.

Basically, there is no way of knowing whether Rigvir helped Nadine or not, but she's convinced that it did. What's disturbing is the segment near the end, where Nadine urges patients to "seek alternative therapies." Near the end, she also states that the melanoma has metastasized "all over my body," but it's not clear where that means. Organ metastases are much more serious than skin metastases, for instance. Whatever the case, this one woman is not evidence that "virotherapy" works for melanoma.

There's a lot more where that came from.

What is Rigvir?

The Rigvir website describes the treatment thusly:

RIGVIR® - the worlds [sic] first oncolytic virotherapy medicine, which is approved for cancer treatment and introduced in medical practice. RIGVIR® contains a live nonpathogenic ECHO-7 virus that has not been genetically modified.

RIGVIR® is oncotropic and oncolytic virus. It finds and selectively infects tumour cells. Then replicates in tumour cells and destroys them. Both of these processes, oncotropism and oncolysis, are selective for tumour cells and normal healthy cells are minimally if at all affected.

Oncolytic virotherapy with RIGVIR® is safe and effective cancer treatment, which improves time to progression, survival and quality of life of cancer patients.

I perused what passes for a product information sheet. Rigvir is provided as a 2 ml frozen solution of an adapted and selected ECHO-7 virus strain, Picornaviridae family, Enterovirus genus, Enteric Cytopathic Human Orphan (ECHO) type 7, group IV, positive-sense single-stranded RNA virus produced under GMP. The titer is not less than 10⁶ – 10⁸ TCID₅₀/ml. (TCID₅₀ is a measure of active viral particles.) A brief word is in order here. "Orphan" indicates a virus not known to be associated with any disease. (Since the discovery of ECHO viruses, they have been linked with diseases to the point where most ECHO viruses are no longer considered orphan viruses. Even so, the name stuck.) Echoviruses were first isolated from the feces of asymptomatic children in the context of epidemiological studies of polioviruses and are now known to be one of the leading causes of acute febrile illnesses in children. 90% of ECHO virus infections are asymptomatic, but in the 10% that produce symptoms those symptoms can range from mild to severe, depending on the age, gender, and immune status of the host and the subgroup, serotype, and enteroviral strain. We're talking anything from a nonspecific febrile illness to aseptic meningitis to respiratory symptoms to myocarditis.

What I find most implausible about Rigvir is the claim that it attacks only cancer cells and leaves normal cells alone. It takes a look into the history of Rigvir to get an idea where this claim came from.

Aina Muceniece: Discoverer of Rigvir

The story of Rigvir began several decades ago with a Latvian immunologist Professor Aina Muceniece. Discovering unbiased information on Prof. Muceniece and her discovery of Rigvir is damned near impossible these days, because searches on her name will produce a host of links related to laudatory descriptions of Rigvir and/or associated with the International Virotherapy Center. However, one article does describe the origin of Rigvir thusly:

In the 1960s a young scientist named Aina Muceniece discovered a way to use a virus to assist in identifying and marking melanoma cells. Using this discovery, she was able to create a medicinal substance which could possibly increase the life expectancy of melanoma patients when used alongside other therapeutic methods. The substance underwent preliminary studies and was proven to be harmless. These results made it possible for the scientist to use it in the treatment of melanoma, while recording her observations.

Unfortunately, even the unfailing enthusiasm of Aina Muceniece was unable to successfully turn Rigvir (its name honours Riga, the capital of Latvia), into an approved and widely applied treatment. Efficacy studies would have required much larger resources than were available.

A PubMed search on Prof. Muceniece's name doesn't turn up very much, just two Russian language articles and a frequently touted clinical study from 2015, to which her name must have been added posthumously given that she died in 2010 at the age of 85. Of course, given the time period of the discovery of what is now called Rigvir (the height of the Cold War), it is perhaps not too surprising that there are few publications indexed in PubMed about it. Be that as it may, the peer-reviewed English literature is not a good place to find out very much about the origin of Rigvir, although there is a 2012 review article on oncolytic (cancer destroying) viruses that gives some hints. I find this passage rather telling:

Oncolytic activity of ECHO viruses was also studied from the beginning of the 1960s by the group of Dr. Muceniece in the Kirchenstein Institute of Microbiology [59]. The oncolytic activity of natural enterovirus strains was increased by multiple passaging in human tumor cell cultures. Clinical trials of five attenuated oncolytic ECHO enterovirus strains began in 1968. The trials were performed in stage IV cancer patient volunteers, when the conventional therapy had proved inefficient. Viral preparations were administered by intramuscular injections. In some patients, a portion of tumor cells were destroyed that show characteristic cytopathic signs, but the overall therapeutic efficiency was low, supposedly because of the large bulk of the tumor and the rapid development of antiviral immunity. Accordingly, the suggested treatment strategy included radical surgery with subsequent virotherapy for the eradication of residual tumor cells and metastases and the stimulation of antitumor immunity [75].

Based on the results of the trial, ECHO virus strain ECHO-7, which showed the most pronounced oncolytic properties, was selected for further research and named Rigvir [76, 77]. In 1988, phase III clinical trials began, which compared the efficiency of Rigvir with that of surgery and radio- and chemotherapy. In 2004, a patent was issued for Rigvir, and it was officially registered in Latvia, becoming the first enterovirus medication worldwide to complete the full cycle of clinical trials and to be applied in cancer therapy. Since 2008, Rigvir has been available in Latvia as a prescription medication. The information on its properties and usage is available at the site of the Latvian Virotherapy Center (www.viroterapija.lv).

From what I can tell synthesizing the evidence that I've been able to find, Dr. Muceniece made an interesting discovery in the early 1960s in which she observed that some ECHO viruses appeared to have cytolytic effects on tumor cells (i.e., caused them to lyse, or break apart), but the effect was weak, observed in only a few patients, and attenuated by the rapid development of immunity to the virus. In other words, lost in the mists of scientific history, this is an interesting dead end that appeared to go nowhere. Moreover, assuming this account is reasonably accurate, it certainly casts into doubt the stories of "miracle cures" of patients with stage IV cancer, given that those early trials apparently only looked at patients with stage IV cancer and Rigvir didn't work in them. There are anecdotes from surviving contemporaries of Dr. Muceniece that in melanoma Rigvir produced "such excellent results that all medical staff involved were astonished," but no published data, and, pointedly, many of her contemporaries are happy to express their admiration for her but decline to evaluate the medication that she is credited with developing.

Unfortunately, the only primary literature referenced are publications by Dr. Muceniece in Latvian. I searched and could not find any published results of these alleged phase III trials begun in 1988 showing that Rigvir prolongs survival in cancer. Neither could Eduards Ritums, who wrote an extensive article in Latvian translated into English about Rigvir. Ritums notes:

The chain of events should have stopped there. But just a few decades later Rigvir was suddenly included in the list of state-reimbursed medicines and reappeared under new circumstances and in a completely new light, despite the lack of any further trials and contemporaneous developments in similar fields of medical research.

Although Aina Muceniece has passed away, a group of enterprises was formed using her name as a cover. The profits of these enterprises come from the sales of Rigvir and illegitimate advertising, consequently attracting desperate patients from abroad. This medicine is used as treatment not only for melanoma patients, but for other cancer patients as well, and advertised in a way that discredits other currently approved cancer treatment methods. It is unlikely Aina Muceniece would have supported or wanted something like this to happen.

So what evidence is there for Rigvir's anticancer activity? As you will see, it's pretty weak and unconvincing. Even so, somehow Rigvir was approved by the Latvian version of the FDA in 2004 and even more mysteriously found its way onto the list of Latvian state-reimbursed medicines in 2011.

Evidence for Rigvir's anticancer activity: Thin gruel indeed

I did PubMed searches and Google Scholar searches, and, as anyone who tries the same will discover, rapidly found that the published data on Rigvir in the peer-reviewed scientific biomedical literature is incredibly sparse. Ritums notes this in his article:

However, Peteris Alberts, a spokesperson of the Virotherapy Center, referenced many articles in the medical literature (impressing patients who are looking for possible treatment) in an article written by Gunita Nagle titled “Sellers of Hope”, appearing in the Latvian magazine “Ir” [1]: “Are these not studies? We believe they are convincing.” We should mention that doctors obtain information from internationally recognized databases which are compiled by specific search engines, e. g., Medline. These searches return just a few old articles regarding Rigvir. The most recent information the Virotherapy Center can offer are three retrospective case studies. After reading one of the articles, Janis Eglitis asks a rhetorical question: “Did the long-term remission of three patients occur due to Rigvir? No, this story only tells us that three patients used this drug. Unexplained remission in oncology is possible. That can happen either with the use of Rigvir, or anything else – even vitamin C. That does not reflect or prove a trend.” A similar approach is used by authors of self-help books, namely: “I was doing all sorts of things, using anything available, but I believe only this particular something was helpful, so let us all use only this one particular approach!”

Inara Rubene, a pharmaceutical consultant in private practice who has international experience in conducting clinical trials, compares Rigvir’s inclusion in the register of medicinal products with the activities of Ostap Bender (translator’s note: a character from Russian literature, a liar and a boaster, often referred to as ‘the great manipulator’): “The list of clinical trials is absolutely insufficient. Generally recognized phase III trials involving “gold standard” endpoints and overall survival (time to disease progression) are completely absent. Only the great manipulator in his hometown Vasuki would be able to register a medication using such trials.”

Indeed, if you look at the Virotherapy Center's page of clinical studies, you won't be surprised to see how thin it is. The early studies are described thusly glowingly, but without enough detail or evidence to judge how convincing the data are. No mention is made of whether the studies were randomized (I get the impression that they were not), how the cases were matched, and survival rates are reported as ranges, which makes me wonder how on earth the investigators were determining their survival rates. For instance, it is claimed that in melanoma patients the three year survival rate for patients treated with surgery alone was between 46% and 58%, while it was 57% to 84% for those treated with surgery plus Rigvir. I assume that the Virotherapy Center is pooling multiple trials, but this sure isn't any meta-analysis. Without a lot more detail, it's impossible to tell what the investigators did several decades ago.

What about more recent evidence? As Ritums notes, there is nothing more to be found besides three retrospective studies carried out post-registration, as a perusal of the Virotherapy Center's page on its post-registration studies shows. For instance, there is this 2015 study published in Melanoma Research by Donina et al, Adapted ECHO-7 virus Rigvir immunotherapy (oncolytic virotherapy) prolongs survival in melanoma patients after surgical excision of the tumour in a retrospective study. Basically, it is as the title says, a retrospective, unrandomized study that looked at 79 patients who had undergone excision of their primary melanoma and classified as stage IA, IB, IIA, IIB, or IIC according to surgical findings. The rationale was as follows:

Current guidelines for melanoma advise no treatment postsurgery for patients who are classified into substages IB and IIA. Patients in substages IIB and IIC are provided three options: participation in a clinical trial, observation and interferon 7,8. In the absence of strict guidelines, treatment with Rigvir was offered. Thus, 52 study participants received Rigvir and 27 were observed according to the guidelines. The patients who had been treated with interferon were excluded from the present analysis as, in the registry, they were too few to allow for any comparison.

So let me get this straight. This is the rationale? No post-surgical therapy is generally recommended for melanomas Stage IIA and below; so let's just give them Rigvir, instead. This is not a randomized trial. Patients were all offered Rigvir, were treated, and then a retrospective analysis was done after treatment. There was no blinding. There was no evidence of rigorous inclusion criteria. We have no way of knowing whether the Virotherapy Center included all the patients it treated for melanoma of the selected stages during the given time period or if it excluded cases in a way that could bias the results. Also, quite tellingly, no treatment/observation group is, on average, ten years older than the Rigvir group, and has proportionally over twice as many in the stage IIB group, which would have a worse prognosis than earlier stage melanoma. Basically, this study is worthless. I'm disappointed that Melanoma Research, normally a very good journal, published this dreck.

The rest isn't any better. For instance, there is a 2016 paper with three case reports of patients with stage IV melanoma, stage IIIA small cell lung cancer, and a stage IV histiocytic sarcoma, all of whom were treated with Rigvir and all of whom have survived longer than expected. Of course, case reports can be useful for hypothesis generation, but do not generally show efficacy. Another study is listed (but not linked to). It's a retrospective study published in Latvijas Ārsts (Latvian Doctor) that looked at the progression-free period for stage II melanoma patients and observed that patients treated with surgery and observed were 6.7 times more likely to recur than those treated with oncolytic virotherapy after surgery. This study suffers from the same problems as the 2015 study. It's not randomized. It's retrospective. We have no way of knowing how the cases were selected.

All of this leads to the question: Does Rigvir have anticancer activity, particularly against melanoma? My answer is simple: Damned if I know given the lack of valid, rigorous clinical trial evidence, but I tend to doubt it strongly. Rigvir might have weak activity in melanoma (although I doubt even that), but there's no way Rigvir is curing patients with stage IV cancers and it's incredibly unlikely that it is active against the range of cancers for which it is used.

Rigvir is most likely cancer quackery

There are many aspects to the Rigvir story that strongly suggest that Rigvir is probably cancer quackery. First, there is its mysterious origin story. As I read more about Rigvir, I couldn't help but hear echoes of the story of Stanislaw Burzynski, with the exception that there is no evidence of which I'm aware that Dr. Muceniece ever supported the uses to which Rigvir has been put since its registration in Latvia in 2004. The echoes I heard, however, were distinct and came from the lack of information about the origin of this therapy, which goes back even further than the 1970s origin of Stanislaw Burzynski's antineoplastons. True, the parallel is not anywhere near airtight, but it's troubling.

Next, there is the way Rigvir is marketed, which is straight out of the cancer quack playbook. There are slickly produced videos on the International Virotherapy Center website full of appealing patients singing the praises of how Rigvir saved their lives in personal anecdotes and even a foundation that promotes Rigvir, again with glowing testimonials. This is definitely a red flag.

Then there's how the International Virotherapy Center has represented the registration of Rigvir. In brief, it tries very hard to make it sound as though the drug was registered in accordance with European Union standards when it wasn't. Again, Ritums tells the tale:

Rubene is embarrassed that “manipulative patient testimonials are disseminated, and that magazines and newspapers are flooded with promotional articles where Virotherapy Center representatives without any medical education declare Rigvir to be the the [sic] first drug in its group and state there are no similar agents available in the world [2-4]. Rigvir advertising materials also emphasize that this agent was registered in an EU country, thus misleading patients and making them believe that Rigvir was registered according to EU standards, although it is well-known this medication was registered before Latvia joined the European Union. Academic, chemist and Rigvir shareholder Ivars Kalvins (translator’s note: known also as the inventor of meldonium (Mildronate)) [5] keeps asserting without the smallest feeling of guilt that Rigvir is the first-choice agent for the treatment of a “sensitive” tumor [6], even after multiple objections.”

Then, like many dubious clinics, the Virotherapy Center disparages conventional medicine and portrays Rigvir as "natural":

Communications expert (translator’s note: online writer on science and evidence-based medicine) Ksenija Andrijanova emphasizes that the way the Virotherapy Center advertises itself is not typical for a medical facility, even though they are trying very hard to look like one. After exploring fraudulent treatment methods (there are many in oncology), Andrijanova has noticed two common features: “First, conventional treatment approaches are blatantly discredited, especially radiation and chemotherapy since they have side effects (which is true). However, the claim that these therapies do not help and recovery chances are very low is much more dangerous, and it is a false statement. Secondly, there are statements that oncology patients can be treated in a ‘natural way,’ and the real cancer treatment agent is safe, natural and harmless. Both features were present in the Virotherapy Center’s materials.”

Others have noted that Rigvir, when first sold, was inexpensive, but with its growing popularity the price has gone up. A telling quote comes from the Medical Director of the center, Dace Baltina, who was quoted in the magazine Ir as saying, “We do not promise to heal”, but “a patient is ready to pay believing the recovery will happen.” Sound familiar? And that doesn't even take into account the association the Virotherapy Center now has with what is without a doubt a quack clinic in Mexico, Hope4Cancer. As I documented before, in addition to Rigvir, H4C offers high dose intravenous vitamin C, alkalinization, coffee enemas, juice fasting, near infrared saunas, detox routines, and more quackery. None of this has stopped the EU from providing support under Horizon 2020 for a "feasibility" study as a prelude to a phase 2 trial to support registration with the European Medicine Agency. Somehow I doubt Rigvir will make it that far. At least, I sincerely hope that it doesn't, unless of course rigorous clinical trials show that it actually works, which is, based on my reading of the existing data, highly doubtful, albeit not impossible.

What we have in Rigvir is yet another example of alternative medicine co-opting an interesting treatment from history that had been largely abandoned, resurrecting it, and riding it to profits. Immunotherapy, including the use of oncolytic viruses to target cancer, is all the rage these days in oncology; so a treatment like Rigvir is easy to sell based on its supposed immunological mechanism. Never mind that there is such a paucity of evidence that it actually works. Cancer patients, beware.

oracknows Sun, 09/24/2017 - 21:06

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ECHO-7

Echovirus

International Virotherapy Center

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None of this has stopped the EU from providing support under Horizon 2020 for a “feasibility” study

The source of information for that is a press release from the Rigvir company that is full of lies... it claims (for instance) that the H4C scammers are in Calfornia. So take with a grain of salt.

activities of Ostap Bender (translator’s note: a character from Russian literature, a liar and a boaster, often referred to as ‘the great manipulator’)

Some of us will remember Ostap Bender from the Mel Brooks movie "The 12 Chairs" -- his adaptation of the Russian novel.

@herr doktor bimler

Actually H4C Institute is indeed in California: http://www.whitepages.com/business/hope4cancer-institute-jamul-ca Only the clinics are in Mexico, for obvious reasons.

Thx Zimba -- correction appreciated.

So wait, after all this time, nobody's bothered to try to identify a binding site that is overexpressed in the target cells?

@Narad #5:

What, you mean do science? Hmmph. We don't need no stinkin' science.

I want to know why you would want an cancer-killing virus that *wasn't* genetically modified. Like, put some freakin's lasers on those viruses, and a good remote kill switch.

@7JustaTech

And some tiny cameras, so we can watch viruses killing the cancer in real time!

And on another note, maybe it is bit of paranoia and conspiracy thinking, that usually the alties display, but the way it got registered and became reimbursed coupled with lame defense by Minister of Health sound like there might be some financial interest on the government side.

When You have cancer, You will try anything in the market. Small countries can also create something braking true in any field, it is You decide to eat that tablet or looking something from government list, which not always working as expected.
just see stats how % they have in successful cancer fighting, and how things is in Your country.

First - no way in hell you're from Virginia (I suspect an Eastern European bot).

Second, yes, we've seen those survival rates....they aren't great.

@Bullet

Jesus that sentence structure looks like someone threw paper scraps at glue.

Do Mexican cavefish hold the secret to treating diabetes?

dr. dolittle — Fri, 22 Sep 2017 23:29:39 +0000

Do Mexican cavefish hold the secret to treating diabetes?

Image of cave dwelling Mexican tetra By Citron via Wikimedia Commons

Mexican tetra (Astyanax mexicanus) are a fascinating example of divergent evolution. Over time, some of these freshwater river fish washed into caves where they continue to live. With perpetual darkness, these cavefish have lost their ability to see along with their skin pigmentation. Oxygen and food are also hard to come by in the caves. In fact, the cave dwelling fish may go for months without eating as they wait for seasonal floods to deliver foods. Dr. Cliff Tabin (Harvard Medical School) recently presented his research on these fish at the Pan-American Society for Evolutionary Developmental Biology meeting held at the University of Calgary, Alberta. His research compared surface dwelling and cavefish to identify metabolic differences in the animals that allow cavefish to thrive in their inhospitable environment. Through these studies he discovered remarkable similarities and differences between the cavefish and people with diabetes.

Insulin is a hormone that helps lower blood sugar after a meal by causing muscle and fat cells to absorb it from the blood. In type 2 diabetes, this insulin-induced glucose disposal is impaired causing blood sugar levels to remain high. Dr. Tabin's research shows that cavefish are also insulin resistant due to a mutation in the receptor that insulin binds to in muscles. Additionally, the livers of these fish store a lot of fat to help cope with times of starvation. Although the cavefish develop fatty liver and insulin resistance like a humans with diabetes, they do not display any pathologies. The researchers hope that by better understanding how these fish cope with sugar and fats, they may discover new ways to treat diabetes.

Source:

Scientific American

dr. dolittle Fri, 09/22/2017 - 19:29

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September Pieces Of My Mind #2

aardvarchaeology — Wed, 20 Sep 2017 12:20:27 +0000

September Pieces Of My Mind #2

Planting a gingko and listening to early Black Sabbath.
Sailboat owners around Älgö have a lot of trouble with their wind indicators. The local crows use them as merry-go-rounds, which messes them up.
Me: "I am daft today." Autocorrect: "I am Daddy Toast."
Friendly local fellow gladly gave us permission to stash our excavation gear overnight behind his garden shed.
Heavy downpour making loud whoosh noise on the roof.
Rented a van, collected excavation gear and two students, deposited gear at site, bought extra gear, had lunch, returned van, am now in no hurry to airport. Everything went as planned. (But then a storm hit and my flight was delayed for almost six hours.)
Went out of the house at 05:15 heading for Gothenburg, was greeted by a beautiful conjunction of Venus and the crescent moon in the south-east.
Opening three trenches today in Kungahälla's Viking Period predecessor. Weights & spindlewhorls tell of trade & textile crafts.
Mars Society's scifi writer debate panel on humankind's future in space consists of four white men aged 62 and over. Ouch.
Have a feeling that a lot of web sites keep re-asking me if I'll accept their goddamn cookies.
How can you figure out the average volume of a hole in Blackburn, Lancashire simply by counting them? I mean, you don't know their total volume to begin with. Makes no sense. Lennon was clearly tripping.
The damn fire alarm in my hotel room has a bright green blinking LED that keeps me from sleeping. Last night I put a sticky plaster on it, but tonight I decided to take it down. Wearing headphones with loud riff rock in them. So I couldn't hear the angry beeping from the alarm box in the hallway. So security had to come visit. *sigh*

aardvarchaeology Wed, 09/20/2017 - 08:20

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Pieces of Mind

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Social Sciences

Regarding holes in Blackburn, Lancashire: Recall that Lennon was reading a news story about it, oh boy. The story may have left out some details, or maybe Lennon didn't remember that part of the story.

I always look forward to reading the latest "pieces" of your mind, Martin. One of the more pleasant items on the internet :)

I am growing old. The last film with Linda Hamilton was 25 years ago. I just hope the script and directing do not suck.

Sarah Connor returns: Linda Hamilton to star in Terminator 6 after 25-year absence https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/sep/20/sarah-connor-returns-linda…

Regarding cookies, this is one of my favourite Chrome add-ons:
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/i-dont-care-about-cookies/fih…

In fairness to Mr Lemon, he did mention that the holes were rather small. That's probably good enough for civil engineering purposes, although scientists would no doubt require much greater precision.

I have had extensive experience with holes, so I could work pretty confidently from his description. Although I have to admit I have only ever known one hole from Blackburn; one of my former bosses was from Blackburn and he is undoubtedly a hole, although a good deal larger than those Mr Lemon describes.

Jim S, many thanks!

Guys, I just discovered that all comments currently go to spam. Please email me if you feel it's taking too long for a comment to show.

NB!
The Guardian notes that today is the 80th anniversary of the Hobbit; the book was published 21 September 1937.

This year is also 100 years since Tolkien got invalided ofta of the West Front with trench fewer.

Spell check is set for Swedish, messing up my english text.

"Nambia" is not a real country. The UN is not the place for campaign rallies, especially for a campaign that ended ten months ago.
And when Trump claimed the Emmys had the lowest ratings ever, Colbert pointed out last year had slightly lower ratings and proudly chanted "we suck less! "
This will be my motto hereafter.

A Swedish journalist infiltrated neo-nazi "alt-right" groups for a year, gaining access to famous kooks in 'Merca.
It turns out the nazis really are nazis.
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A news item today mentioned more about DNA from extinct hunter- gatherers, this time in Malawi.
A very dense ear bone is able to preserve DNA even in the hot, humid climate.

More on the news mentioned by Birger:

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/21/science/africa-dna-migration.html

Carl Zimmer is one of the best popular science writers around, and this unfolding story of ancient population movements in subSaharan Africa is both important and fascinating.

Who would have guessed that the closest living African relatives to everyone outside of Africa would turn out to be the Hadza?

About projection https://freethoughtblogs.com/singham/2017/09/21/trumps-speech-to-the-un…
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The Onion: "‘You Thought You Could Get Rid Of Me?’ Says Cassini Probe Emerging From Shadows To Confront Petrified NASA Administrator.
(Roger Zelazny actually wrote a story along these lines, ca. 1980)

Pontus Skoglund has tweeted that their (his, David Reich, whoever) paper on African DNA is on open access in Cell.

Don't have time now to look it up and give the reference right now (plus my desktop has definitely died), but Carl Zimmer's story is probably enough for most people, and Zimmer is one science journalist who is definitely trustworthy.

I have to say that as a scientist (I mean him, not me - I'm not one of those engineers who deludes himself that he's a scientist; I'm not) I find Skoglund to be admirable. Everything that he has done that I have seen has been brilliant, and open access.

Birger@9: Tell me about it. At the tail end of the last thread (you may have missed the comment because that was when the spam filter went into "search and destroy" mode), I mentioned that I took that speech personally, because Trump is trying to ruin a song with personal meaning to me. I refer to his calling Kim Jong Un "Rocket Man".

In response, Kim called Trump a "dotard". Nice work on the part of his translator. And sad that between those two, Kim is the voice of reason.

It turns out the nazis really are nazis.

No less an authority than the Godwin for whom the law is named has been pointing this out. Godwin's Law refers to gratuitous Nazi comparisons. It is not meant to apply in situations where you are dealing with actual Nazis.

And these days the Republicans who aren't Nazis are overwhelmingly likely to be nihilists. Say what you will about the tenets of National Socialism, at least it's an ethos.

If a lawyer can make an argument that the "rocketman" comment has commercial effects, Sir Elton should sue.....
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Neanderthal boy's skull reveals they grew like modern boys https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/sep/22/neanderthal-boys-skull-…
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I recommend the blog "Dispatches From the Culture wars" for a an ongoing, well-informed (and quite fun) commentary of the alt-right/religious right/flat-birthers in USA.

Also,on youTube, you can find video clips of John Oliver / Samantha Bee et al skewering the insanity with great wit (while simultaneously providing a fair bit of journalism of the kind corporate media consider "controversial" (aka pisses off the Trumpistas)

OK, back in business.

So, here is the link for the Skoglund et al. paper "Reconstructing Prehistoric African Population Structure":

http://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(17)31008-5

PNG. Pay walled, but interesting enough.
http://science.sciencemag.org/content/357/6356/1160

The Neolithic transition in PNG was horticulture, with domestication of taro.

Date is wrong for human occupation if humans entered Australia via PNG. The date for first evidence of human occupation of Australia has now been pushed back to, certainly, 60,000 ya, but likely 65,000 ya.

That in turn means OoA had to have happened at least 70,000 ya; not the 50,000 that some people keep endlessly quoting.

Stuff has happened all over the world, but it is four in the morning, so fuggit. One thing that stuck in my memory is that Colorado Springs is haunted by a serial pooler.

I was sitting with my family in a Thai restaurant once, in Perth, close to a sports ground where they play Australian football. There had been a match between the Hawthorn 'Hawks' (Hawthorn being one of the older inner-city suburbs of Melbourne) and someone else (like I care who the hell it was and who won), and when the match ended, some of the Hawks supporters came into the restaurant for dinner, evidently jubilant that the right team had won this pointless exercise where 36 grown men rush around a large flat area chasing an oval shaped ball and bashing the living sh*t out of each other.

And one guy came in, late middle age, who had a completely shaven head, and he'd had a big, very dark image of a hawk with its wings spread tattooed on his head, with the wings sort of draped down his neck behind his ears. It looked utterly bizarre, like he'd had some sort of dark blue wig tattooed on his head.

And I looked at this guy curiously, trying to work out WTF he had on his head, because it looked really weird. Problem was, apparently I looked at him for about a nanosecond too long, so he became aggressive towards me, as if I was being offensive to him.

Well, if he didn't want people looking at the huge and very weird looking tattoo of the hawk covering his head, why did he have it done? So people wouldn't look at it?

Anyway, the latest medical news on tattoos is that nano particles of the inorganic chemicals that are used in the tattoo inks circulate in the body through the lymphatic system and collect in the lymph nodes, and stay in the lymph nodes for life. No one knows what effects that has (yet). But no doubt they will figure it out, given time. The more tattoo ink someone has injected into their skin, the more of these particles collect in their lymph nodes over time.

Lymph nodes are important, for various reasons; probably more important than permanently signalling your support for some football team all over your head that no one is allowed to look at. A scarf or some sort of coloured hat would seem like a more prudent option, although less of a 'permanent personal commitment', I suppose.

Wikipedia tells me that "without lymphatic flow, an average resting person would die within 24 hours." So I guess the guy with the hawk tattoo on his head better hope that the particles of ink collecting in his lymph nodes don't get to the point where they block them completely.

Typo. "Pooler" should be "pooper".Colorado Springs must be becoming smelly.

Good news for Martin. The Girl With All the Gifts is now a film.

Colorado Springs is known for two things: the US Air Force Academy, and the politically active religious right. With some overlap between the two: too many of the propeller heads are unclear on the concept of separation of church and state. But if somebody were protesting one of those things in Colorado Springs, the religious wingnuts would be the more likely. Those folks are used to pretending that their you-know-what doesn't stink.

It is now officially Monday. I am beginning to worry what will turn up on the news once the US East Coast wakes up.

And the German parliament now has a far-right party for the first time in more than fifty years.
-- -- --
Apparently the humanoid civilisation David murdered in the last Alien film were not engineers, but another "client" species, like the humans.
But the film has the exact same paradox as the previous one; the protagonists just happen to land in the exact fucking right place, on a world the size of Earth.
-- -- --
And everyone sleepwalks to their deaths, even though they still must have som DNA left from ancestors who survived on the f*cking Serengeti.
Mutational meltdown?

"Mutational meltdown?"

Katy Perry has 100 million followers on Twitter. If that's not evidence of a massive accumulation of deleterious alleles, I don't know what is.

I experienced a huge coincidence last night. I mean, a really very long shot. Anyone listened to Steve Winwood's "Higher love" lately? No, me neither, until last night, when I heard it twice - once when I was looking up Tegan and Sara on Youtube to get another good look at the tree tattoo on Tegan Quin's right forearm (that being the only tattoo I have ever seen that I actually like - it's familiar but I can't quite place it; I fancy it's from an old Japanese woodblock print) and I got diverted by something in the sidebar and found myself listening to Steve Winwood for the first time in probably 30 years. And then I was watching an episode of a dumb series on Netflix (well, one of the slightly less dumb of the endless dumb series) and sure enough, in this episode they were playing Steve Winwood in the background. Chance against? Must be several million to one. Who plays/listens to Steve Winwood any more? Well, I did, twice in one night - first deliberately and then the second time inadvertently, after nothing for about 30 years. If I was superstitious, that might spook me, but I'm not. Coincidences happen.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9olaIio3l8

Oh yeah, what got me side-tracked in the first place - Tegan Quin's tree tattoo. I've seen that live and up close - but I had to nearly burst my ear drums to get right up next to the stage where she was playing. Very low security - the security guys were there, but very low key. Good concert. The Quin twins talk a lot to the fans at their concerts. They're 37 now. Jeez. Steve Winwood is 69. No no, can't be.

You can get a look at Tegan's tree on the upper part of her right forearm in this clip. You can tell which one is Tegan because they are wearing labels, but anyway, she's the one with slightly longer hair. See if you recognize the picture. No, I don't know how many nano particles of tattoo ink she has collected in her lymph nodes so far - a fair number, I would think.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHe1PvKALaY

News flash - in a piece of absolutely ground-shaking news that has flown silently under the radar of all of the Western news outlets, China has, quietly and without fanfare, lifted the ban on import of foreign labour. This has been triggered by ageing Chinese population and consequent labour shortages. Cue flood of Filipino, Indonesian and maybe Vietnamese contract workers into China. That could help to fix another problem - China has an excess of unmarried males. The Philippines have an excess of unmarried females. So, this could actually trigger a genetic shift in the Chinese population. It's not a huge shift - Southern Han are already a hybrid of Northern Han and Austronesians (which is what most Filipinos are).

The Western news media appear to have totally missed the significance of that. They don't even appear to be aware that it is happening.

So, China has done what Japan is not willing to do.

And in other ban-lifting news:

http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/economy/article/2112586/hong-kong-cl…

Interesting to see the Vietnamese consul general being quoted making what looks suspiciously like a racist remark: “Vietnamese are more disciplined than other people.” The 'other people' he is referring to are Filipinos, Indonesians, Cambodians, etc. He might be right, though, and I doubt many local readers would read that as racist.

Here is a tidbit that may have an impact on future popular culture:
Revolutionary guitar string rocks the guitar world https://phys.org/news/2017-09-revolutionary-guitar-world.html

Yes, Trump Will Fire Mueller http://www.patheos.com/blogs/dispatches/2017/09/24/yes-trump-will-fire-… -impeachment without removal?

Exactly a 100 years ago:
"The Anzac skull that tells a shocking and tragic story of battlefield violence" https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/postcolonial-blog/2017/sep/2…

"West courts Libyan general accused of human rights abuses" https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/sep/25/khalifa-haftar-libyan-gen…
-No, really? (sarcasm)

A Men's Rights movement that isnt creepy: "Let Italian men live" https://satwcomic.com/let-italian-men-live
"Experts Warn Repeated Attempts At Eradicating Obamacare May Have Created Ultra-Resistant Super Law" http://www.theonion.com/article/experts-warn-repeated-attempts-eradicat…
Are you a cat? Take our test to find out if you are a cat. http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/features/are-you-a-cat-20170925136302
New dating app launched for Remainers incapable of discussing anything else
Friend with wife, children and six-figure job thinks he's better than you

Why is Bannon Meeting with China’s #2 Official? http://www.patheos.com/blogs/dispatches/2017/09/24/bannon-meeting-china…

"And the German parliament now has a far-right party for the first time in more than fifty years"

True. Many see this as newsworthy. Actually, it is more like the norm in most countries with PR. The newsworthy item is that, as you say, there was no far-right party in the Bundestag in the last several decades. (Some members of the CDU/CSU fraction have or had far-right tendencies, such as voting against recognizing the border between Poland and Germany.)

Of course, the point of comparison is other countries with proportional representation, not with countries with a two-party or on-party system.

The bullshit that people keep pushing - a lot of people have apparently been 'taught' at university that the extra-pair paternity rate (i.e. the cuckoldry rate) is about 10%. The 'evolutionary theory' is that a woman marries a dull dependable Beta male who will support her children financially, but then secretly mate with some genetically superior Alpha male in order for her children to inherit the best possible genes.

Well, that's the theory. But in reality, it is all bullshit. In both European and Chinese societies the cuckoldry rate has been found to be consistently only around 1% or even less, not only now, but in the past as well. The truth is, females are far more faithful than a lot of people seem to want to believe. And Alpha and Beta males don't exist in humans. Wolves, maybe, but not humans.

It's a bit like the "10% of all males are gay" meme that kept being repeated like a mantra, even though it was only ever a made-up number. No, the reality is not even close. Try about 2.4% max.

One day someone should publish a book of 'bullshit statistics that we choose to keep repeating, even though they have been proven repeatedly to be utterly false'.

It would be interesting to know what percentage of the vote the far-right parties in other countries would have received had these countries also taken on as many refugees as Germany. I think only Sweden took on more (in comparison to the population) and Sverigedemocraterna are indeed stronger.

The turmoil of taking on a sudden flow of refugees means existing infrastructure (both physical and personnel) gets temporarily overwhelmed.

‘bullshit statistics -but how will you make people take notice of the correct statistics?
There are regular 'troll factories' (many funded by Putin) with both human operators and bots that are comitted to drowning out objective truth with bullshit.
You don't need a Ministry of Propaganda anymore, the proles cannot access what is really going on.

Someone (I forgot the name) suggested it should be compulsory to teach kids a "bullshit detection kit" -a set of rules to make people spot claims that likely are BS, and don't internalise ideas until they thus have been checked.

Martin et al are probably familiar with this. "How aerial thermal imagery is revolutionizing archaeology" https://phys.org/news/2017-09-aerial-thermal-imagery-revolutionizing-ar…

Spot the flaw in the logic. https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2017/09/24/this-week-in-oblivio…

Birger@36 - Erm...how about published peer reviewed scientific papers which are confirmed by independently authored other peer reviewed scientific papers?

The number of published studies on recent and historical extra-paternity rates just keeps mounting, and they all show the same finding, for all of Europe going back into history, and for China, going back into history, and the actual number is something slightly less than 1%.

The problem is that *tenured university professors* in American universities keep teaching their students that the actual number is 10%. They can't detect the difference, which is that 10% is the number when a father suspects that a child or children he is supporting financially are not actually his children, so he demands a paternity test - and in about 10% of cases the father's suspicion turns out to be true. In 90% of cases it turns out to be false.

But apparently *tenured university professors of Biology* in American universities are incapable of telling the difference between cases of suspected non-paternity, and the actual number for the whole population, and so they teach all of their students the wrong number.

Not Putin; American life science tenured academics. Well, I guess you could assert that they are paid by Putin to say that, and I don't know of a way to prove that you are making it up.

Latest example: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ajhb.23046/abstract

So, the 'evolutionary theory' as applied to humans has been demonstrated in practice not to happen, in multiple different studies on multiple different populations in multiple different countries; not now, and not in the past either. But that doesn't stop tenured American academics from teaching the theory, or so I am advised by people who have studied life sciences at American universities.

A bit OT:
30 centimeter accuracy -good enough to log archaeology finds?
"Broadcom announces development of more precise GPS chip" https://techxplore.com/news/2017-09-broadcom-precise-gps-chip.html

Birger, I want one!!!

UK responds thoughtfully to German election with Hitler jokes http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/international/uk-responds-thoughtful…
(considering the Brexit mess, this might not be satire)

Classy (not satire)
Trump finally responds to Puerto Rico crisis, saying island has 'massive debt' https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/sep/26/trump-puerto-rico-crisi…

Roald Dahl, brownshirt. https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2017/09/26/roald-dahl-actually-…
Shit. No point having any idols that were active before 1945.
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

(ahem)
Small hands, big mouth
Orange-color dog barking
Abe turns in grave

One more fun thing to do with your genomic raw data file":

https://medium.com/the-seeq-blog/a-tour-of-the-new-gencove-ancestry-map…

Pretty boring for someone whose ancestry is 100% northern European, I suppose.

I haven't tried it with my own data yet, so I'm assuming it works OK. I'll get to it, I'm just kind of busy this week.

https://medium.com/@drjasonfung/cancer-is-an-environmental-disease-334c…

Cancer is mostly environmental. So, tweaking genes is not going to achieve much at all. One of the carcinogens not mentioned is alcohol, which I suppose is included in the 'diet' segment of the pie chart. It is known for 100% certainty that alcohol increases risk of breast cancer in women.

There are some environmental carcinogens you could be exposed to that you are not aware of, e.g. radon. Prolonged exposure to high concentrations of radon (colourless, odourless radioactive gas derived from the decomposition of uranium naturally occurring in rocks, heavier than air, so tends to accumulate in closed spaces with no air flow) and the so-called 'daughters of radon' (the decomposition products - radon has a very short half life, but the decomposition products are also radioactive) is a known cause of lung cancer, including in non-smokers who have no exposure to second hand tobacco smoke. The solution is to keep your indoor living and working spaces well ventilated, so that it can't accumulate.

The reason why archeologists won't get interviewed in news:
https://xkcd.com/1895/

John Massey #35: "And Alpha and Beta males don’t exist in humans. Wolves, maybe, but not humans."

They probably don't exist in wolves either.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha_male#Controversy

Lassi, thanks for that. I was aware of the observation about dominance hierarchies in primates.

Ann Gibbons is another usually-fairly-reliable science writer, but who occasionally wanders off-track a bit:
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/03/ancient-skulls-may-belong-elusiv…

But this quote sounds ridiculous: “something with an Asian flavor but closely related to Neandertals.” That was not from Gibbons herself, but someone called María Martinón-Torres. She might turn out to be right (although there is currently no way to prove it - the always reliable Fu Qiaomei has already said that they have been unsuccessful in extracting DNA from these remains) that these are remains have the same DNA that has been labelled as Denisovan, but she is purely speculating at this point.

What does 'with an Asian flavour' mean? If the multi-regional hypothesis of evolution of modern humans had any real validity, I suppose it might mean something, but it hasn't.

If she had said "with a Melanesian flavour" it might just about mean something, but it would still be a pretty bizarre way to describe small amounts of archaic admixture in modern humans.

Ref. my #47, I have now tried to load my raw data file into that site, but unsuccessfully. No idea why. Maybe my data file is not in the right format or something. I guess I should have tried it and got it working for myself before suggesting it to others.

If anyone else manages to get it to work, I'd appreciate hearing about it.

Lassi@49 - It always confuses me when economists are labelled as 'scientists'. Are they?

“China is rewriting the story of human evolution” also strikes me as a dubious, or at least greatly premature, claim - if it is, I have yet to see any real evidence of that. Or maybe María Martinón-Torres knows something I don't.

Generally, China has been a pretty poor preservational environment extending back through the Pleistocene, compared to Europe, because it was always relatively humid. The occasional odd find in a cool dry cave environment is not much of a basis on which to 'rewrite the story of human evolution'. There is a reason why the only remains attributed to 'Denisovan' have been found in Siberia, scant as they are.

OT "New class of molecules may protect brain from stroke, neurodegenerative diseases" https://medicalxpress.com/news/2017-09-class-molecules-brain-neurodegen…
Maybe we can keep the emeritus professors healthy for many years longer.

Hugh Hefner has passed away at 91.

And two black holes have merged (commemorating his death?) , converting two solar masses to pure energy.

"Maybe we can keep the emeritus professors healthy for many years longer."

Nooo! We can't get rid of the old bastards fast enough as it is.

Lemme tell ya, cryotherapy on your scalp is a whooole new experience. Just be grateful you grew up in Sweden (or wherever), rather than the blast furnace I grew up in.

Hugh Hefner has passed away at 91.

And two black holes have merged (commemorating his death?) , converting two solar masses to pure energy.
"

No; Hef would have had at least a threesome!

"Lassi@49 – It always confuses me when economists are labelled as ‘scientists’. Are they?"
I'm still waiting for scientific evidence to support that hypothesis.

I am boycotting Twitter.

They won't ban He Who Must Not Be Named because he is 'newsworthy.' I think that is an excuse - they are too scared to ban him.

I was never a user, but I used to lurk and read the Tweets of a certain list of people who I thought might say something interesting (e.g. Martin). But no longer. As of yesterday, I am no longer a Twitter reader.

Should we worry that half of Americans trust their gut to tell them what's true? https://phys.org/news/2017-09-americans-gut-true.html

Nigel Farage: “Immigration has been a disaster for America from the very start” http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/international/nigel-farage-immigrati… (satire)

A clue about what Bannon was doing in China:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-09-28/bannon-s-back-and-ta…

https://www.ajaonline.org/article/3545

Archaeolinguistic hypothesis on how Indo-European language came to be adopted in southern Scandinavia, but with loan words from a now long extinct Neolithic language. The hypothesis ties in with the respective material cultures: Funnel Beaker and Corded Ware + adoption of single grave culture.

No. 2 on China's most wanted list. In 1989, he was front and centre on every HK person's TV screen day and night during the Tiananmen students' pro-democracy protest:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wu%27erkaixi

He keeps trying to turn himself in, but they keep refusing to arrest him and then turning him away and ignoring him, in a process that is bordering on pure farce.

But not all Uygurs in China are having difficulty being allowed in and out of the country. It seems on the face of it to be a function of how good looking they are:
http://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2017/09/27/553703866/for-some-chi…

Well, that seems fair.

Chinese border guards always view my daughter suspiciously, until she answers them in Mandarin; at that point, they cease to be interested and just let her in and out of the Mainland, as often as she wants. She doesn't even need a passport.

The Assyrians got everything they deserved, if you ask me. Skinning your enemies alive is unlikely to endear you to people.

On the ancestry of Greeks:
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/08/greeks-really-do-have-near-mythi…

Don't believe the stuff at the bottom about the source of Indo-European languages. Renfrew pushed his boat out on that a long time ago, and refuses to reconsider, despite all new evidence since.

The Assyrians also invented the whole "women should be wrapped up in cloth until you can't see them" business.
Repressive all over.

Speaking of repressive, Catalan Police try to shield voters from the Spanish Civil Guard in referendum declared illegal by the national government. So far, 840 civilians reported injured.

I think we have not seen the last of this.

It was not just declared illegal by the national government, it is unconstitutional and this was confirmed by the highest court. There is absolutely no question that it is illegal, and similar things are illegal in most countries, including those from which politicians criticize the national government in Spain.

Personally, I think that the people in Catalania, or anywhere else for that matter, should have the right to secede. So, I disagree with the constitution here. However, society will not work if people respect only those laws they agree with.

Could the national government have handled things differently? Probably. The same goes for the Catalan government. However, there is no question that the referendum was illegal and hence has no legal force.

I will be on holiday in Catalania next week.

Even if Catalania decided to secede and was successful, not only would it not be a member of the EU (which Catalans want), but there would be no chance of this, since Spain would have to agree.

What we need is pressure to change laws in all countries to allow secession and boycott countries who don't comply.

I wonder how the Spanish legal situation compares to that of Czechoslovakia.

Yes, other countries have split---Czecholslovakia, the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia. Note that the original country doesn't exist anymore. Yugoslavia is a good example: first once seceded, then another, then only two (of 6---now (with Kosovo---7) left calling themselves Yugoslavia, then even they stopped. The situation is not really comparable to Spain, though, because most of the people in other regions (and maybe not even most in Catalania---90 per cent means little when those against it usually didn't vote at all, since it wasn't an official referendum) don't want to secede. Because of this, and for other reasons, many if not most people in Yugoslavia were OK with the country disintegrating, or at least thought that it was a reasonable price to pay. Also note that Czechoslovaka, the Soviet Union, and Yugoslavia were not democracies.

"society will not work if people respect only those laws they agree with."

Exactly. I agree with you 100%, Phillip, which must be an all-time record.

But given that the referendum was illegal, and therefore the vote would have no legal standing (particularly as those Catalans who do not wish to secede evidently boycotted it), and that the voters do not appear to have in any way behaved violently, why then was there a need for the Civil Guard to beat up 840 people to prevent them from voting, to the extent that the Catalan Police felt motivated to try to protect people from them, which brought the Catalan Police into direct confrontation with the Civil Guard? Why not just let it go ahead, and then make clear that the vote has no legal standing and means nothing?

If a lot of Catalans did not have valid grounds for wanting independence before, they surely do now.

And now it seems at least possible that the independence movement, which was previously a non-violent movement, engaging in civil disobedience at most, might turn violent. Not that I wish to see that at all, but they surely now have some motivation.

http://scienceblogs.com/aardvarchaeology/2017/09/20/september-pieces-of…

For years, one of my Australian nephews concealed the fact that he was not eating his broccoli by shoving it down inside the sofa (probably a good reason for not letting kids eat their dinner sitting in the living room watching TV).

His parents only found out when they noticed a strange smell, and found that the inside of the sofa was stuffed full of badly rotting broccoli.

I have never liked green peas. Can't stand them; never could. When I was a kid, my trick to get rid of them was to stuff my mouth full of them, then pretend I needed to go the bathroom to wash my hands, and spit them down the plughole of the hand basin.

My father figured out my trick when the drainage pipe draining the hand basin became blocked and the water wouldn't drain out of the basin any more. So he undid the plug at the bottom of the U-bend in the drainage pipe and about 5 years worth of rotting peas fell out.

I was, shall we say, unpopular with the management as a consequence of this discovery, although they did have to give me marks for ingenuity.

I still won't eat f*ckin' green peas, hate them - at least, I hate them cooked. I absolutely love them raw, and always have. An obvious solution to this dilemma would seem to have been to let me eat the peas raw when I was a kid, given that they were always bought fresh, not tinned or frozen. But no, that solution was never permitted. I see that more as a reflection on the cognitive ability of the management, rather than anything else. Some vegetables, like carrots, need to be cooked in order to release all of the nutrients, but that doesn't apply to green peas.

Oops.

That reference should have been:
https://www.buzzfeed.com/stephaniemlee/brian-wansink-cornell-smarter-lu…

As I said, the central government could have handled this better. But so could have the regional government: the whole thing is a farce, and the referendum a deliberate provocation. It seems that in some sense they wanted people to get beat up, hoping that such images would increase sympathy for their cause, which seems to have worked, at least based on tweets from J. K. Rowling, Julian Assange, and even various high-level politicians.

I don't know the motivation of the central government. As you say, if it is illegal anyway, and the result thus having no consequence, why not let them go ahead? Maybe (I'm speculating) if they had done nothing, and if there had been a huge majority, then maybe Catalan would have declared independence, perhaps leading to an even bigger problem.

The solution has to be the recognition that basic human rights imply the right of a people to secede from a country.

The problem with that argument is that some (unknown) number of Catalans do not wish to secede - that is known because some of them have appeared on TV saying so very clearly.

Apparently a similar referendum was held in 2014, the central government ignored it, the same thing happened (those in favour of secession voted, those against did not, so a similar landslide win for those in favour) and nothing happened.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpdHMaccjw4

"The problem with that argument is that some (unknown) number of Catalans do not wish to secede – that is known because some of them have appeared on TV saying so very clearly."

Why should that be a problem? Few decisions will have unanimous support. That's like saying that homosexuality should be banned because a few people at a Baptist prayer meeting, or maybe even a significant fraction of the population, don't want it.

The whole point of a referendum is to let the majority decide. Anything else is not democracy. (I think that there are only a very few questions which should be decided by referendum---representative democracy should be the default---but questions like this should be.) Suppose that it is 60 per cent for secession and 40 per cent against. Are you arguing that the 40 per cent should have their way, because their opinion counts more? Or because the status quo counts more, even if there is a significant majority against it?

Russia argued that letting the Baltic states secede from the USSR should be forbidden because the Russian people there don't want it. And then there was the "heim ns Reich" philosophy. Not good precedents.

heim ns Reich ---> heim ins Reich

The Spanish government may have fucked up by using so much repression.
The undecided may be swayed by this, like the Irish got swayed by traditional British idiocy after the Easter Uprising.
And if there is EU mediation, it will no longer be just Madrid's sandbox.

Tom Petty is in critical condition.

Phillip@78 - Opinion polls taken before the referendum indicated that a majority of Catalans (49% against vs 41% in favour) were opposed to secession. Most of those people chose not to vote in the referendum because it had been declared to be illegal - this conclusion is supported by the % of potential voters who chose not to vote.

Birger@80 is right - the Spanish government has really screwed up on this.

The grand irony is that if the national government had permitted the referendum to go ahead and had encouraged everyone to vote, the likely outcome would have been against secession.

But the national government couldn't really do that, I guess, because the referendum was unconstitutional.

So their best option, under the circumstances, would have been to state that the referendum was unconstitutional and that consequently the outcome, whatever it was, could not be recognised under the constitution, and then just ignore it.

Tom Petty now deceased at 66.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6UD0c58nNCQ

The Heartbreakers were all class. Always were.

"Opinion polls taken before the referendum indicated that a majority of Catalans (49% against vs 41% in favour) were opposed to secession."

OK. But I said that a majority should be able to decide to secede, and you said that wouldn't work because "a number" don't want to. That is not a valid rebuttal. You are now claiming that a majority don't want to leave, which of course is a non-issue of the majority decides.

I'm not claiming anything, I am simply quoting to you what the opinion polls were reported to be showing. Opinion polls are not always reliable. On the other hand, your assumed 60% in favour was just a fabrication on your part.

Besides, as a result of amendments to the Spanish constitution in 1978, Spain is "indivisible", i.e. secession is unconstitutional, no matter what the majority of Catalans might want. If they want to change that, they need to go through the process required to amend the constitution, and they haven't done that. So it's a moot point. Human rights doesn't come into it - Catalonia and its citizens have the collective right to seek an amendment to the constitution, which they have not done, as far as I am aware.

It seems to me that all the national government needed to do was to ignore the whole thing. They didn't; they decided that the best course of action was to forcibly try to prevent people from voting. I think that was a major error on their part. Almost criminally stupid, actually, if you think about what such a process entails.

[Stuff redacted /MR]

Like, who the hell cares about what J.K Rowling thinks about it? Seriously?

Going off on different issues:
"The 'myth' of language history: Languages do not share a single history https://phys.org/news/2017-10-myth-language-history-languages.html

I have one for you, Birger, that I pinched off Razib Khan:

The allele for blue eyes (a mutation) first appeared (as far as known from finds of remains, but there are now rather a lot) among Hunter Gatherers in Europe less than 15,000 years before present (which means before 1950), during the late Pleistocene. But those people had dark skin and hair - a startling (to us) combination with blue eyes.

The alleles for pale skin did not appear in Europe until the Holocene.

So, although modern people might associate blue eyes with pale skin, there is no direct connection. Different unrelated mutations.

Variegated hair colours did not happen in Europe until the steppe herders turned up, in the late Neolithic/early Bronze Age.

So, people might identify blue eyed, blonde haired, pale skinned people as a 'type', maybe even as a 'race', but they're not - that combination is as a result of mixing.

I assume Herr Hitler and friends would be unamused.

Thanks, John. The reference to steppe peoples is amusing, since today we associate that environment with mongols and other asiatic-looking peoples. It will not be popular with local kooks.
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
The Daily Mash has the latest massacre covered:
“Arm everyone with machine guns, say unspeakable bastards” http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/international/arm-everyone-with-mach…
"Every American should be given an automatic weapon, according to the country’s bastard pieces of shit."

Birger@91 - the apparent east-west cline across Eurasia, with progressively less East Asian (incl. Mongol) admixture the further west you go, is a reflection of relatively recent history. On a global PCA plot of the first two principal components, my daughter plots with Uygurs, and smack dab on Hazara (she looks like she could be a Uygur or a Turk (pretty much the same thing, really), and has often been mistaken for such (even Turkish people have mistaken her for a Turk), but she looks nothing like Hazara). Both are (on an historical scale) recently admixed groups. However, obviously, my daughter is a *really* recent mixture. Tatars are slightly west-shifted from Uygurs, so look less 'Asian' than Uygurs. Tennis-playing brother and sister Marat Safin and Dinara Safina are Tatars, but don't look perceptibly Asian (but of course they could have been further admixed with modern European - I don't know their family history).

And for an analysis, the results of which we can already guess: more guns do not make people safer. Duh.
https://theconversation.com/six-things-to-know-about-mass-shootings-in-…

OT - One of the more popular ways to commit suicide in HK is by burning charcoal inside a sealed room. Burning the charcoal produces carbon monoxide, which is toxic in high enough concentration, and when breathed induces subconsiousness and then death. So it's a private and 'painless' way to go (I suppose - never tried it myself) - people just get drowsy, black out, then that's it. Less messy and public than jumping off a building, plus no risk of landing on innocent passers-by.

So a new idiom/euphemism has entered HK Cantonese - someone committing suicide is referred to as "having a barbecue". HK Cantonese speakers often have a somewhat macabre sense of humour.

Well, I didn't want to make too much of it, but you are the one who made reference to J.K. Rowling.

Do you really miss the point? I personally don't care what she thinks. My claim is merely that this sort of publicity is what some separatists wanted to happen, perhaps even at the cost of violence.

Catalan independence has been a frequently and much discussed issue in the mainstream media for quite a while; several decades at least, in my memory. It was hardly lacking publicity.

Do you have any evidence for your claim, or are you just constructing a conspiracy theory?

I do hope that you have some solid evidence, because if it is purely your own fabrication, it is a pretty nasty thing to assert.

"In coal mines incomplete combustion may occur during explosions resulting in the production of afterdamp. The gas is up to 3% CO and may be fatal after just a single breath."

That's pretty damned impressive - one breath and you are dead, just due to something preventing your blood from carrying oxygen.

There used to be a problem in HK with gas burning water heaters that did not have external venting of the gases resulting from combustion of the gas, particularly among Chinese women - being modest creatures, they would close the bathroom door and window before showering, and would be found dead in the shower, from CO poisoning.

The government had to make those kinds of water heaters illegal, to stop suppliers from selling them. Once they did that, Chinese women stopped dying in the shower.

Now, they only die from CO poisoning when they actually want to. That is, except in one current infamous case where a rather prominent university professor has been charged with killing his wife and one of his daughters by subjecting them to CO poisoning in the family car - he intended to kill only his wife, from whom he was getting a divorce, to prevent her from getting a financially favourable divorce settlement, but the daughter unexpectedly got into the car with her mother, so she died too.

Meanwhile, why does a Consultant in Surgery at a prominent local private hospital want to join my LinkedIn network? I sincerely trust he's not doing it as a way of touting for work among some of my more mature colleagues! Whatever, I'm not risking it - he's not getting in.

I am forgetting my manners. Happy Mid-Autumn Festival to Mrs Rundkvist. And Miss Rundkvist also, if she is culturally that way inclined.

Thank you, John, and likewise to your family! We have had hot pot at home with Cousin E and played a boardgame together.

Thank you.

My daughter has *finally* decided that she is now too old to have a candle-lit lantern to play with, but she and my wife still indulged themselves by eating Cantonese moon cakes. I can't stand the things, whereas I really like Shandong style moon cakes - but there is now only one bakery in HK that makes and sells them, and it is a long way from where we live, so my wife didn't manage to make the trip to get some this year. (Seemingly perversely, here the official public holiday for the Festival comes on the day after the actual Festival day - but it makes practical sense, because on the Festival day the kids get to stay up extra late to play with lanterns and gaze at the full moon, so being able to sleep in and take it easy the next day is a good idea. So it is deathly quiet and peaceful out there today - nothing to hear except the birds.)

http://www.scmp.com/news/asia/southeast-asia/article/2114050/bruneis-su…

I have a big soft spot for Brunei - I really like the place, just because it is so bloody weird, unworldly and irrational. Brunei is oil-and-gas-rich, but all of the wealth is owned by the Sultan, so it is a strange mixture of conspicuous, over-the-top, gilded, ostentatious luxury and dusty tumbledown third world under-development. My wife and daughter do not share my enthusiasm for it, they find it oppressive and tawdry. Plus I guess they feel kind of awkward being among the very few Asian females in the place with their hair on display in public.

It is and has long been a Muslim Sultanate. The Sultan is the Boss, and when you are there, you are left in no doubt about that - giant portraits of the Sultan stare down at you from everywhere in Bandar Seri Begawan, the snappily named capital city, if it can sensibly be called a city - it's more like a fairly large, sleepy 1950-ish Asian country town.

The law requires that all local women must wear the hijab. But Brunei is close to the equator, so it is always stinking hot and humid. So all of the local teenage girls walk around dressed in skin-tight shorts, skimpy tops, rubber flip-flops on their feet, and head scarves - it's a visually arresting sight until you get used to it - obedient compliance with the letter of the law, if not the intent, by every single one of them.

Alcohol is strictly illegal. Non-Muslim 'foreigners' of adult age visiting Brunei are permitted to carry in one bottle of alcoholic beverage each, which they must consume in the privacy of their own hotel rooms. If you want to drink beer when you go out, then you need to go to a local Chinese restaurant where, if you say exactly the right words quietly enough to the waiter, you can be served beer in a Chinese teapot, which you need to consume by pouring it into diminutive Chinese tea cups. But that is never a problem for me, because I don't drink.

Personal safety and loss of possessions are just not an issue there. There is no crime in Brunei. None. Think for a moment about the criminal penalties prescribed under Sharia Law, and you soon figure out why. And the eyes of the Sultan are everywhere.

The sultan likes everyone else to follow sharia law....
there is no shortage of material on internet about the sybaritic excesses of the Dear Leader.

Cats kill one million birds a day in Australia https://phys.org/news/2017-10-cats-million-birds-day-australia.html

"Catalan independence has been a frequently and much discussed issue in the mainstream media for quite a while; several decades at least, in my memory. It was hardly lacking publicity."

Sure, but the situation now is much different than even just a few weeks ago. Your statement that it has been in the news for decades is true, but irrelevant because the current situation is much different.

"Do you have any evidence for your claim, or are you just constructing a conspiracy theory?"

The evidence is there. What other explanation is there for the behaviour of the Catalan prime minister?

By the way, I don't believe in conspiracy theories...

"I do hope that you have some solid evidence, because if it is purely your own fabrication, it is a pretty nasty thing to assert."

...I also don't travel to countries with Sharia law, much less praise them, because I respect humanity.

Birger@103 - There's no shortage of material evidence on the ground either. Tourists are welcome to tour the royal palace, etc., in order to be impressed by how obscenely wealthy the Sultan is, which we have done, and were suitably nauseated by it all, with my wife muttering "This is just all too much; it's disgusting" and me muttering back "Quiet. Don't criticize the ruling elite when you are on their territory."

But there is no poverty in Brunei. No one goes hungry. Everyone has a decent-enough place to live. Students of sufficient ability are funded to attend overseas universities by the Sultan. Others all get paid employment, enough to have a decent enough standard of living, by the standards of South-East Asian countries. Unemployment is zero - if you don't have a job, the Sultan will get someone to create one for you. I'd say that the citizens of Brunei are materially better off than a lot of Americans and Australians.

So, as far as I can see, the citizens go along with the "we all love the Sultan because he takes care of us" meme, while turning an indifferent eye to his ostentatious material self-indulgences, even though they don't actually mean it.

The total lack of anything like real poverty in Brunei also helps to explain the apparent total absence of crime (aside from a few desperate foreigners begging for a teapot of beer from a few obliging local Chinese - which I have no doubt the local law enforcement know full well goes on, but as long as it is non-Muslims serving small amounts of beer to other non-Muslims, and done sufficiently surreptitiously so that they can safely turn a blind eye to it, they don't give a damn.)

The Sultan imposes Sharia Law on his subjects. But he is an Islamic moderate and appears relatively benevolent, and is desperate to encourage tourism to Brunei (he is realistic enough to know that the place can't hope to survive on oil and gas revenues forever, and then if it doesn't have tourism, it has nothing), so he does not hold tourists and other visitors to the same religious and legal standards as he does the local populace.

It's not a place I would enjoy living permanently, or a style of governance that I would condone or recommend. But for the time being at least, the citizens (including a substantial resident Chinese commercial minority) seem happy enough to go along with it, as long as they have a good standard of living.

And at least it's not Saudi Arabia, with it's expatriate population of desperate Brits frantically brewing alcohol from potato peelings in their basements. The Sultan subsidises Air Brunei to encourage tourism, and alcohol is not served on their flights (allegedly, although on one flight, without being asked, the stewardess very surreptitiously offered my wife a solitary can of Foster's Lager, which she was holding like it was contraband pure gold or something, and which my wife instantly declined - I was entertained by the fact that she offered it to my wife but not to me; couldn't figure that one out), so it's cheap to fly out for people who are desperate to get out and binge drink for a while.

It's not for me, though, except for the occasional short visit. I like to be free and to be left alone by the authorities unless I actually need their assistance with something, and the HK authorities are better at leaving me alone than anywhere else I have ever been. And also pretty good at not disgusting people with ostentatious displays of material consumption (ignoring for the moment that the previous Chief Executive once removed is currently on trial for corruption).

Birger@104 - Don't remind me about the bloody cats. It's an issue that I get considerably 'exercised' about.

Phillip@105 - When you have prevented as many people's premature deaths as I have, often risking my own life in very uncomfortable, unpleasant, physically exhausting and hazardous conditions in order to do so, you can tell me about how much respect for humanity you have. And no, I will not be drawn into elaborating on that, save to say it is not an idle boast, just a fact.

Meanwhile, suggesting that the Catalan political leader was hoping to incur violence against his own people in order to garner international sympathy, in the absence of any evidence that he actually wanted that, is so disgraceful that I am not willing to comment on it further. [Stuff redacted /MR]

British writer Kazuo Ishiguro wins Nobel Prize in Literature https://www.thelocal.se/20171005/blog-swedens-nobel-prize-in-literature…
Nigel Farage et al might get upset that this Anglo-Japanese bloke is described as "British" and ignore his contribution to Brit culture.
-- -- -- -- -- --
If Australians don't want to kill the cats, neutering them or spaying them will help a bit. Good luck interacting with wild cats.

The concept of a "gene driver" might be tested on rabbits and feral cats to stop reproduction. There is a risk of gene flow to domesticated animals, but the boffins should be able to find ways to turn off synthetic genes with medication.
-- -- -- -- --
Re. cynical political leaders... I think old Michael Collins deliberately wanted to create martyrs, as he must have realised the chances of success for the Easter Uprising were exactly zero. But Irland is not Catalonia.
-- -- -- -- --
Re. Catalonia, it would help if the EU leaders try to get involved before things really go south, but they seem to be complacent. And the leaders in Madrid have all the diplomatic finesse of Boris Johnson.

I watched both films, and read "The Remains of the Day" - it came across to me as surprisingly British (I didn't know at the time that Ishiguro had migrated when he was quite so young), but with a strange extra dimension I couldn't put my finger on. It fits with what he said about himself - a funny mixture. I have read other things he has written, and they all had that same indefinable quality. I tried to read "Never Let Me Go" before I watched the film, but I struggled with it, and it didn't help that I knew, or guessed, where it was going, so I never could bring myself to finish it. I don't doubt he is deserving of a Nobel, and he can't really sensibly be classified as anything other than a British writer. Screw Farage.

I have read a bit of Japanese fiction in translation. The stuff I have read is truly weird - full of evil white foxes and whatever. It was beyond me culturally to understand it at more than a very superficial level. Chinese classical literature seems to me to be much more 'normal' and easier to grasp. But that could be my own bias - I feel much more 'friendly' towards Chinese than Japanese. In personal contacts, I can deal comfortably with Chinese, whereas I find Japanese difficult and not hugely likeable. You could call that prejudice on my part if you wanted, but there are reasons for it. It's not that I haven't tried being friendly with some Japanese. The closest I came was with a guy, an engineering academic, who was half-Japanese, but who was born and had spent his whole life in Japan. He became more interested in me when I told him I had a half-Chinese daughter, and he talked pretty openly about difficulties faced by mixed people - well, openly for a Japanese, that is, which is still not hugely open. I asked him what it was like for him as a mixed person in Japan, and he said "I was a mixed child in Japan during WWII. As you might imagine, life was very...difficult for me then. But now it is OK."

Feral cats are really difficult to control, even harder to shoot than introduced foxes. I know, I have tried, unsuccessfully, with both. They grow huge, and are fearsome predators. It is now law in Western Australia (don't know about the other states) that all domestic cats have to be registered, microchipped and neutered, and no household is permitted to keep more than three, but of course people keep cheating the system. The local government rangers have a hard time enforcing the law.

A lot of the bird killing is actually done by people's domestic pets in the back yards of their houses. Feral cats in the wild are really badly impacting small marsupial mammals. The sort of ironic side is the finding that, in areas where dingoes are not so stringently controlled, the dingoes help to keep down the feral cat population by killing them. Dingoes are of course also introduced, just more like 3,500 years or so ago, but it seems pretty clear that they were responsible for the extinction of the thylacine on the mainland. Too late to cry about that now. A big problem with dingoes, though, is that they hybridise with sheep dogs, which are very smart animals.

I think the Catalan leader was, and still is, naive and unrealistic in what he seems to think he can achieve. But going by recent history, I don't think he could be expected to anticipate the violent suppression that the referendum triggered. I didn't see anyone predict that response before the event. That didn't happen on previous occasions. But now Spain has a 'centre right' government which is evidently capable of doing some really stupid stuff, when it doesn't need to. This could all rapidly go badly wrong. I don't think complacency is warranted at all at this point, given the stupid stuff the current Spanish government has now shown it is willing to do.

I'm redacting the bits where you guys squabble over each other's mental health. If this annoys you, consider that it may be a sign that I am going nuts, and that I deserve your pity.

No problem, Martin.

The cost of commemorating 9/11 exceeds the benefit. Bin Laden, dead, continues to win.

gregladen — Mon, 11 Sep 2017 08:31:23 +0000

The cost of commemorating 9/11 exceeds the benefit. Bin Laden, dead, continues to win.

This is a preface to the preface to a piece I wrote in 2011. I have only this to add:

First as an aside, I suspected Trump could win the presidency, most people simply said it was impossible. But nonetheless, I was just as shocked as anyone else.

Here's the thing. American culture reacted to 9/11 in ways that are mostly harmful. Various aspects of culture tend to reside in specific, though often vaguely defined, entities, such as classes taught in schools, crap kids say to each other on playgrounds, religious ceremony, TV shows, etc. Sometimes parts of culture tend to hold, brew, evolve, hybrid, and occasionally exude specific aspects of culture. For example, everybody walks around saying "boohya" (well, not everybody...). This is an example of a widely used expression that comes out of a part of military culture. Big metro areas like New York and LA put out cultural tropes all the time. That sort of thing.

Well, I'm pretty sure that many of the bad cultural traits that evolved in our post-9/11 reactionary world, discussed below, now reside in what we can probably safely and accurately label as the Deplorable Right. Also called "The Base" this is the group of people who voted for Trump in 2016, and will vote for him again as many times as they can, the ones that say, "Yeah, Russians taking over is good" and who don't care much about, or know much about, Democracy. The "get her drunk and get her done" crowd. The people who will vote for Trump again and again mainly because it annoys everyone else, and not for any other reason. The people some misguided analysts require us to somehow embrace and cater to. They don't exist because of 9/11, and they have very little to do with 9/11 or anything else historical, social, or political. I'm just suggesting that that may be were some of the awful post 9/11 cultural traits we now have are nicely ensconced. Just a hypothesis.

_________________________________________________________

This is a piece I wrote in 2011, on the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. (Originally posted here.)

I believe that the sauntering I refer to has diminished. But instead of sauntering, our local and county police departments seem to have taken up a different hobby: Shooting unarmed people of color. I think the problems underscored in this essay are mostly worse now than they were five years ago, and the argument I make here for what happened since 9/11/2001 is stronger, more clearly demonstrated by event. Also, the link between 9/11 and the Donald Trump candidacy is as clear as a brand new picture window right after the window washers left.

I've made minor edits, but left time references as they were five years ago. This will not affect you reading of this post.

Happy Anniversary 9/11

_________________________________________________________

A former engineering student, on seeing film of the World Trade Center towers collapse on September 11th, 2001, expressed surprise. He told a friend that he would have thought that on being hit with jumbo jets, the two or three immediately affected floors of the tower would have been destroyed but the structures would remain standing, or at most the floors above the impact sites could possibly collapse due to melting support beams but the lower floors would stand. The complete collapse, above and below the impact sites, of both of the structures was a surprise to him, given his engineering training.

Those remarks were made shortly after the 9/11 attacks. Almost ten years later the same man who made these remarks was shot to death by US special forces in a raid on a residential compound in the Pakistani town of Abbottabad. He was, of course, Osama bin Laden. (Did you know that a disproportionate number of terrorists have engineering degrees?)

Many have spoken of the Post Patriot Act world, affecting day to day life in America, the wars, our treatment of our fellow humans at Gitmo and untold secret prisons around the world, the rise of the most expensive bureaucracy ever, all that. Icons of post 9/11 loom over us largely, and also exist in a small way in every nook and cranny of day to day life. And it rarely makes sense.

I once told you about a rural Iowan, who felt trapped and scared in the Big City, calling an elderly African American homeless wheel chair bound gentleman a "Terrorist" because she had never seen a homeless black wheelchair bound man so, of course, he must be something scary and scary = terrorist. That was an example of regular people substituting mundane daily fears, in this case, the "inner city" the "Black man" and I suppose "Wheel chairs" ... oh, and we were in a "deli" run by "middle eastern people" so there was that too ... with the largely made-up bogeyman of "Terrorist."

One day last summer criminals drove down our street and carried out a criminal act before our very eyes, so we called 911. The police showed up way too late to matter and with way too many cops to make me think they were anything but frightened to go out alone, and the first thing they did was to demand to see my identification. I'm standing in my yard at the Weber, coals hot, brats cooking, a long bbq style fork in my hand and an apron that says "A Man and his Grill" on it and the cop is asking me for my identification.² I blew him off with a stern look, and he went away. (Our cops are fairly meek. That would not have worked everywhere.) But that has become the norm: When the cops show up, you better assume we live in a police state, or be you'll be assuming the position. Yes, folks, more and more people are being treated just like black folk in this country always have been. That should tell you something. One step backwards. Then a few more steps backwards. Now you know what that's like if you are white, except you don't because it is worse if you are black. #BLM.

I used to be a guy who called 911, when appropriate, and probably more than others on average. Now, I only call 911 if someone is in physical danger or needs medical attention. If I'm going to get shaken down for helping the coppers, the coppers can help themselves, thank you.

When an accident happens, the First Responders show up and close more lanes than they need to and they saunter. Instead of rushing in and managing the situation safely and effectively, they saunter around in full view of the drivers who are all forced over onto the shoulder to get by the scene. One day I sat in traffic for a half hour going north on State Route 169, and for the last six or seven minutes of that I could clearly see the two fire trucks that were blocking most of the lanes of traffic and the first responders sauntering around with absolutely nothing going on, no debris, no inured citizens, no other vehicles, nothing on the road to clean up, no "investigation" in progress, and they were passing around coffee. I'm sure there were donuts somewhere. I'm a fairly observant person and I'm not especially paranoid, and I'm pretty sure that I'm right: Post 911 first responders think they are the shit because hundreds of them died in the World Trade Center. This change in status and attitude is seen everywhere in our culture, I don't need to convince you of that. Here, I'm just adding in that extra bit of unnecessary and costly sauntering at scenes that should be cleared. Because the cultural details matter even when they are small.

Do you know that during the late 1960s, when the US was in the throes of an unpopular war and a on the edge of revolution at home, there were an average of well over one hijacking of a commercial airplane flying out of a US based airport every month? Do you know what the reaction to that was? Metal detectors, and eventually baggage screening. Society did not change. It just got slightly harder, but not much harder, to get onto an airplane. Post 9/11 changes have been enormous and far reaching and pervasive. Now, I'm not trying to equate, or even compare, the scores of hijackings in the late 1960s and early 1970s with 9/11 and related acts (such as the attack on the Cole and the earlier WTC bombing, etc). There is no way to make that comparison. What I am trying to compare is the reaction, then vs. now. And, I'm not even comparing the reaction, exactly. What I'm trying to point out here is that in the 60s, the governmental and societal reaction to a significant spate of hijackings was to address airport security. The more recent reaction to 9/11 was to shift all of society and almost every aspect of American culture, the activities of every government department and agency, the expectations and rule sets, the budgets, the procedural manuals, and everything else to a paranoid modality and to institute what is essentially a low-level police state. That's a difference worth noting. And worth complaining about.

Generation 9/11. History will be at least a little embarrassed by us.

Recently, we've been discussing the State Mandated Recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance in schools. The reason this is becoming increasingly enforced around the US is because of various state laws passed in time to be in place for today's anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, or more generally as part of a post 9/11 culture. In one of our local schools, students had interesting responses to this happening on their turf, expressed in a school paper's "debate" layout. The printed views were even ... same number for and same number against. Those against the pledge requirement made all the usual and generally quite convincing arguments and did a great job. Those in favor of the jingoistic approach were, well, jingoistic, but, with an interesting and very positive twist; Most of them gave sway to atheists and agnostics. They said that they fully supported people leaving off the "under god" part and totally understood why they might do that. And none of the pro-pledge opinions were dripping with religious commentary or reference. It is important to note that of all the high schools in the region, the one to which I refer to is in the top four or five with respect to conservatism of the area served, and in the top two with respect to per capita wealth of the residents, and is probably the least diverse district in the state.

And that is interesting because the average high school kid is about 16 years old, meaning that they were 6 when the 9/11 attacks happened, and therefore, the attacks themselves are not necessarily part of their own cultural composition to the same degree that it is with older folk. These are kids that grew up in the post 9/11 world without necessarily feeling the powerful shock and disbelief that many of us felt, followed by whatever fear or rage or helplessness or sense of dread or revenge that affected so many. The bad news is that this generation has become accustom to a much, much lower standard of freedom than many older people have, but this also means that when they confront this lack of freedom they may be more willing to rebel against it because they related less directly to the Defining Moment.

Sauntering firemen and cocky police officers are not the end of the world and they are not the Nazi's or the Bradbury's Salamander. They are, rather, puddles of dried blood from a minor wound. When you get into a bad accident, you may get a major wound that could kill or maim you, but you will also get a lot of minor wounds that on their own would not mean much. But you know that the accident was truly traumatic when the minor wounds add up to a plethora but are uncounted or ignored because they are just background. Sauntering firemen, cocky police officers, and Iowans who label homeless wheel chair bound African American old guys as "terrorists" are the tiny scrapes and bruises on a battered body.

And now might be a good point to ask the question, "What has risen from the ashes of the 9/11 attacks?" There was much talk at the time, and since then, and again today, about how great America is, how great Americans are, and how we will move forward and become better and stronger and so on and so forth. But it is just talk. What has happened instead is something entirely different.

The giddy fear and sense of dread that comes from a violent moment clouds the mind, of the individual or more broadly but also the collective social mind. The disorientation that caused that lady from Iowa to mistake the wheel chair bound homeless man for a "terrorist" represents an internal derailing of logic. The guard rail is down, the road is slippery, and rational thought has spun not just into the ditch but across the highway into oncoming traffic. The playbook has become garbled and the Quarterback is running the wrong way. The general, gone mad, is locked up on the army base with the launch codes. Twelve Angry Men, Lord of the Flies ... stop me before I metaphor again! I think you get the point. There are a lot of people who benefit from our present social pathology, and that surely has been a factor. But also, it is simply a social pathology that we are experiencing, a terrorist victory, a lack of character on our part as a nation.

But the scary part is what comes out of it, and by now you have probably guessed my point. The Tea Party and things like the Tea Party. Strongly held anti-social illogical destructive beliefs with no hope of critical self evaluation, in a large and organized part of the population. It is obvious why this happened in the Republican Party and not the Democratic Party, but people on both sides of the political aisle have contributed. Literalist, libertarian, paranoid, self-centered, easily frightened, reactionary, willfully unintelligent, deluded in self worth and unmovable in conviction and belief despite all evidence to the contrary. The lady from Iowa, the sauntering firemen, the sheeple who welcome being harassed by the TSA agents at the gate, the people who are happy to click "I agree" when confronted with a 43 page EULA that, somewhere in there, tells you the thing you just bought and paid for is not yours; A general social willingness to be told what to do, fear of not being told what to do, cynicism that we can think of what to do on our own, and utter disbelief that collective progressive action any longer has potential or meaning.

The little puddles of drying blood are everywhere, splatter evidence not from the 9/11 attacks but from our national and social flailing about and rending of cloth and flesh as aftermath. It isn't just that the terrorist won on that day; It is much much worse than that. First they beat us, then they recruited us to do ourselves in.

And yes, in this latest revision of my perennial post, I am drawing the line between 9/11 and Trump.

Happy Anniversary 9/11

_____________________________
¹Apparently there is some question as to whether or not Osama bin Laden was actually an engineering student, but we'll roll with it for the present purposes. Here's the video of him making the remarks I paraphrased:

²I'm exaggerating. There was no apron. But I was wearing my Darwin I Think Cap.

gregladen Mon, 09/11/2017 - 04:31

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"The cost of commemorating 9/11 exceeds the benefit."
no time for me to read it all I'll do that later but the headline made me think - whose benefit? The continued incitement to fear the other that is generating by these endless commemorations certainly benefits those who would keep your country in a perpetual state of undeclared war , inflicting terrorism on those same others, thereby fueling a circle of hate. Very profitable politically and financially for some..

http://minnesota.cbslocal.com/2017/09/13/officer-william-mathews-funera…

Doing: exactly. Like, see link I just posted!

Ben Lad3n been laidin the grave for a long time -- kidney problems. Or maybe he's still alive; Whatever.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yuC_4mGTs98

A naturopathic cancer quack tries to silence criticism with legal thuggery

oracknows — Thu, 07 Sep 2017 04:00:37 +0000

A naturopathic cancer quack tries to silence criticism with legal thuggery

Regular readers know that, as a cancer surgeon, I become particularly worked up about stories of naturopaths taking care of cancer patients, which all too often end in disaster for the patient. I've lost count of how many naturopaths I've seen, either on their websites, in talks, or in published literature, claiming that they can cure cancer "naturally," using any of a number of unproven methods, an example being the Gerson protocol, a form of quackery involving 13 larges glasses of raw vegetable and fruit juice, around 150 supplements, and five coffee enemas a day, each and every day. Others have claimed that "chemotherapy is for losers," and frequently use alternative treatments associated with a much higher chance of dying of cancer. It's no wonder how alarmed I am that naturopaths have created a pseudo-specialty patterned after medical oncology that they call "naturopathic oncology," complete with an abbreviation (FABNO, or, as I like to put it, "FAB? NO!"). They even pretend that it's a real medical specialty, despite all the pseudoscience and quackery involved, when in reality it's just quacks cosplaying real oncologists. It drives me even more crazy to see doctors who should really know better collaborating with naturopaths and then taking self-righteous umbrage when it is pointed out that they are betraying their duty to patients by collaborating with quacks, mainly because they don't realize that naturopathy is so rooted in pseudoscience that you can't have naturopathy without homeopathy, which is an integral part of it.

So it was with dismay and anger that I discovered that someone whom I consider a friend and most certainly admire for her ability to admit a huge mistake and change course is being targeted for legal thuggery by a "naturopathic oncologist." I'm referring, of course, to ex-naturopath Britt Hermes, who a few years ago came to the startling realization that she was a quack and actually had the courage to give up her profession as a naturopath and undertake studies to become a real scientist. (Seriously, you really should read her blog, Naturopathic Diaries. It's an insider account that should end all doubt that even "respectable" licensed naturopaths practice quackery.) As a result of her dishing on her ex-colleagues and exposing the pseudoscience in her previous profession, naturopaths really, really hate her. In this case, a prominent "naturopathic oncologist," Colleen Huber, has served her with a cease and desist letter. It's not the first time naturopaths have tried legal thuggery; just a month and a half ago, Bastyr University (a.k.a. the Harvard of naturopathy schools, which is not a good thing, by the way) served her with a similar legal nastygram. It all came about because Hermes came to what looks to me like a reasonable conclusion based on circumstances that Huber had cybersquatted her name by buying up domain names based on her name, setting them up to redirect to the homepage of the American Association of Naturopathic Physicians:

The Wix account of BrittMarieHermes.com is registered with an email address at the domain natonco.org, the official website for the Naturopathic Cancer Society and a non-profit organization in Tempe, Arizona run by naturopathic cancer “doctor” Colleen Huber, NMD and her surrogate Hazel Chandler. The organization raises money for cancer patients who desire to use, but cannot afford, expensive alternative cancer therapies such as intravenous vitamins, mistletoe injections, and special diets, which is then funneled to Huber’s clinic Nature Works Best and others.

Hermes had also pointed out how Huber's claims about her success rate were utterly risible, which apparently stung her, but there's no denying it: They are. (I'll get to why in a moment.) First, though, let's take a look at what Huber claims. I perused her website again (NatureWorksBest), having encountered it before. The first thing one encounters on the splash page of her website are these claims:

Nature Works Best is a natural cancer clinic located in Tempe, Arizona, that focuses on natural, holistic, and alternative cancer treatments. Our treatments have proved to be an effective alternative to traditional chemotherapy and radiation, which we do not use in our treatments. Rather, we have developed a natural method of treating cancers based on intravenous vitamin therapy which may include Vitmain-C, Baking Soda, and other tumor fighting agents as well as a simple food plan.

Our team of naturopathic medical doctors have administered over 26,000 intravenous treatments, used for all stages and types of tumors. As of July 2014, 80% of patients who completed our treatments alone went into remission, 85% of patients who completed our treatments and followed our food plan went into remission; 93% of patients in Stage I through early Stage 4 who did all of our protocols went into remission. No other clinic, of any kind, has such a high documented success rate.

Our cancer clinic treats all types of malignancies, at all different stages, often with different co-morbidities, and different patterns of metastases. We have seen patients of all stages do very well with our treatments, with the exception of late stage IV patients.

So many red flags, and I haven't even gotten past the first page! Intravenous vitamin C? It almost certainly doesn't work. Even the most charitable interpretation of existing evidence is that, at best and giving every benefit of the doubt, it has a very, very modest antitumor effect, too weak to be of much use. Basically, there's some in vitro and animal model work that suggests a modest effect against a few tumors, but none of it has been translated into humans. Even if the best possible scenario came out of human clinical trials, high dose intravenous vitamin C for cancer is, as I like to call it, a very long run for a very short slide.

Intravenous baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) is another favorite. The first time I ever heard of its being used was by a particularly ridiculous cancer quack named Tullio Simoncini, who claimed that all cancer is in reality a fungus and that the way to cure cancer is to kill the fungus. And how do you do that? By injecting baking soda into it. I kid you not. Simoncini is so divorced from reality that he claims that all cancer is white, like fungus, apparently never having heard of melanoma or other tumors that are a color other than white, or, for that matter, of the many variety of colors of fungi.

Guess what? Huber goes all-in for Simoncini, too, mentioning him in the very first paragraph of her page on intravenous sodium bicarbonate. After reading partway through her ridiculous pseudoscientific treatise on bicarbonate and cancer, I laughed out loud when I came to this part:

As for whether cancer is fundamentally a kind of fungus, the jury is still out. However, it is useful to know that not only does sodium bicarbonate disrupt the comfortable environment of tumors, but it also has anti-fungal effect.[4]

This, after only chuckling a little at this:

Earlier researchers have found a concurrence between cancer and candida. In Dr. Simoncini’s book, Cancer is a Fungus[3] he notes some similarities between the two. Primarily, both are intractable diseases, each very hard to get rid of. Dr. Simoncini notes that each forms a solid mass of low penetrability, unlike the dispersed forms of bacterial and viral infections in the body or body fluids. Dr. Simoncini notes the problem of surface area in addressing these infections. Whereas bacterial and viral infections are dispersed in the solutions of bodily compartments, and likewise, antibiotics and other anti-microbials dispersed in the same solutions have access to each microbe.

No, the "jury" is not "still out." Cancer is not a fungus. It is not a kind of fungus. It is the body's own cells freed from normal regulatory constraints that regulate them into doing what they're supposed to do, growing as much as they need to grow for development and tissue repair and then stopping, and functioning the way they're supposed to function. In any case, at least one patient is known to have died as a direct result of Simoncini's treatments.

Like many naturopaths, Huber takes a germ of a biologically plausible idea and runs her patients right off the cliff with it. That idea is based on the observation that many cancers exist in an acidic milieu. Much of the reason for this is that they often outgrow their blood supply and therefore exist in a hypoxic (low oxygen) environment. Also, because of the Warburg effect, many tumors exist largely on anaerobic (no oxygen) metabolism, which generates a lot of lactic acid. The idea is that perhaps by reversing the acidity the tumors might become less aggressive—or at least more sensitive to chemotherapy. There are even a few studies in mice (like this one, one of whose co-authors I know personally) that suggest treatment with IV bicarbonate can decrease metastases, although the primary tumors appear to grow at the same rate. At least one other alkalinizing agent appears to have similar effects on tumor growth.

The problem is that the studies are all pretty much in cell culture and rodent tumor models. There is no good clinical evidence that alkalinization works against cancer in humans yet. Steve Novella found a clinical trial at the University of Arizona that closed in 2015, but no results have been published yet. I note that this was a phase I trial, which means it wasn't even designed to demonstrate efficacy, just safety and patient tolerance of the regimen. It also involves only oral bicarbonate dosing, which is not what Huber is doing and would be expected to produce a much more limited alkalosis than her protocol. Even if it did, based on the modest effects observed in mice, it is incredibly unlikely that high dose bicarbonate would cure any cancers, which is what Huber claims for her treatments. At best, it might slow down tumor growth, and there are lots of problems with chronic alkalinization of the blood. Thus, I view Huber's claims very skeptically.

Of course, like all naturopaths, Huber claims her treatments are "individualized":

The intravenous nutrients are tailored specifically to each patient’s condition and chosen for their targeted, time tested, and research-documented anti-cancer, or tumor fighting effect. The nutrients we use are different for each patient, but some of nutrients used may include a combination of Vitamin-C, Sodium Bicarbonate, DMSO, in addition to many others. Before we have done a full workup we cannot know which of these nutrients may be used for your treatment, if they are used at all. These treatments are made specifically for each patient, their type and stage of malignancy and may be used exclusively or as a supplement to chemo and radiation.

Of course, who knows how Huber figures out which patient should get which treatment. This is, as I like to call it, the "make it up as you go along" method.

Huber is also very much a believer in the idea that sugar somehow "feeds" cancer. While it is true that, thanks to the Warburg effect, many tumors (but not all) actually do utilize a lot more glucose than normal tissue (if it weren't true, PET scans that use labeled glucose wouldn't be able to visualize tumors), there is no good evidence that sugar "feeds" cancer in the way that Huber and other naturopaths claim or that decreasing sugar intake decreases the growth rate of established cancers and the risk in healthy people of getting cancer, at least if you control for obesity, which does produce an increased risk of several cancers and can, of course, result from consuming too much sugar. It's also true that diabetes appears to be associated with a higher risk of certain cancers, such as pancreatic cancer. However, that increased risk appears to derive from abnormalities in the function of insulin and insulin-like growth factors.

Perhaps the most outrageous bit of nonsense on Huber's entire website is her attempt to do clinical research. On the one hand, I almost feel as though I should give her credit for trying (like a participation trophy to a child), but on the other hand she's just so bad at it. We can see for ourselves in her paper, Cancer Patients’ use of Sweeteners: A 7-Year, Controlled Study, published in 2016 in the International Journal of Cancer Research and Molecular Mechanisms.

First of all, it's one of the oddest papers I've ever seen. The description of the methodology is beyond cursory, and there is basically zero statistical analysis or anything resembling a trial design. It is "controlled" only in the sense that that the letters line up on the page in fully justified paragraphs. Seriously. This is the whole description of her methods:

Mortality vs survival was recorded of sweetened food eaters among outpatients with a cancer diagnosis at one clinic. Since 2006, this clinic has recorded data on consumption of sugar and other sweeteners in cancer patients, and has consistently recommended, but never mandated, avoidance of sweetened foods, except with extracts of the plant Stevia rebaudiana, which does not contain saccharides or sugar alcohol. is clinic has no inpatient facilities and no food service. All patients selected and purchased all of their own food, all of which originated from and was almost entirely consumed outside of the clinic. Data from all 317 consecutive patients with a diagnosis of cancer from outside of the clinic are reported in this interventional study, excluding only those cancer patients who chose to forgo further treatment a er less than two weeks in treatment.
Natural methods such as intravenous nutrients with cancer-disrupting e ect were the only ones o ered, choosing among both oral and intravenous, herbal and nutritional interventions, choosing those that patients found tolerable and that we observed to work synergistically, adjusting for individual tolerances and requirements, in accordance with the naturopathic principle of “Treat the whole person”.

After Huber's most cursory of cursory methods section, the text devolves into commentary before coming around to report Huber's "results":

Achievement of remission was quite different for the following two categories: all patients: 151/317=48% and those who ate sweetened foods: 9/29=31%. The difference between these two groups was much stronger for the cohort of patients who continued treatments until either remission or death. Comparing all patients who were steadfast in the recommended treatments with the sweetened food eaters who were steadfast in all but dietary recommendations, 151/183=83% of all completely steadfast patients achieved remission, but only 9/25=36% of the steadfast sweetened food eaters achieved remission. Remission was defined as no visibly active tumor on MRI imaging of the same area that had previously active tumor growth. Of all patients who were steadfast in the treatments (including the sweetened food eaters), 32/183=17% died while still under the care of the clinic, but considering only the sweetened food eaters who otherwise consistently pursued the recommended treatments, 16/25=64% died.

Several tables are presented, which you can peruse on your own. There's no statistical analysis, no power analysis, no hazard ratios presented, no meaningful analysis of any kind. There is no breakdown of how many patients had what kind of cancer or what stage they were. Wait, that's not quite true. Tables 4-6 break down the cases by stages (I, II, III, early stage IV and late stage IV). I note that we generally don't break down cases in such papers by "early" or "late" stage IV. Stage IV is stage IV. Also, lumping together cases of different cancer by stage is utterly meaningless. After all, a stage II pancreatic cancer is a much different beast than a stage II breast cancer, the former having a low survival rate and the latter a very high survival rate. Different mixes of different cancers per stage could produce very different results without any biological effect whatsoever due to her interventions.

Then there's this:

Many patients voluntarily left our practice, against our advice, primarily for financial reasons, while still having cancer. Of the remaining patients, 175 either went into confirmed, complete remission, which we define by no evidence of cancer remaining in the body on imaging, or have remained in good to excellent wellbeing, as determined retrospectively by prolonged stable health of at least 6 months after leaving our care and needing no other physician supervised cancer care, and as confirmed by annual telephone conversation with either the patient or a family member. Those patients in remission stayed in our care an average of 3.7 months; those who left, 2.7 months, (this data last measured in 2010). Eight additional patients went into remission after leaving our clinic, and while being treated at a different clinic, and it is unlikely that our treatments were the decisive factor in that remission. We were still treating 22 patients at July 1, 2014 plus giving ongoing maintenance treatments to some of those who are still in remission. 44 died while still our patients. Of those 44, 12 died after a significant dietary dispute with us. That is 32 patients died although they received our treatments and complied with our requested diet. 22 more were killed by hospital procedures and/or chemotherapy and/or radiation side effects while still our patients. 45 total patients chose to have chemotherapy while having our treatments. Yet, of the 175 who went into remission, only 12 had chosen to have chemotherapy while having our treatments. Stages 1, 2, 3 and early Stage 4 patients at start of treatment had much better outcomes than late Stage 4 patients in general.

In her paper, she lists 151/317 patients as in "remission or assumed remission." My reaction? You can't "assume" remission. Either the patient is in remission or he isn't. She also lists 20 "iatrogenic deaths in the hospital or by MDs." Really? How do you define "iatrogenic"? Or are these patients who gave up because Huber's treatments weren't working? Who knows? It is known that a high dropout rate is a red flag in any clinical study. Also, over 1/3 of the patients listed in Table 1 received surgery or chemotherapy, leading one to wonder how much of any good results reported was due to actual conventional treatment.

I also noticed while poking around Britt's website that Huber had published her "methods" (such as they are) on her website a couple of years earlier. Funny, but she also left out a lot of this in her paper. She also left out a fair number of patients who received radiation therapy (Table I). Why did she not include these numbers in her published paper? One wonders, one does. I also can't help but mention another analysis by Thomas Mohr, who looked at Huber's numbers and posted his reaction in a comment on Britt's blog about a version of Huber's study posted before the final published version:

The data are difficult to estimate but from the overall table one can conclude that there is complete information for 247 patients (excl iatrogenic deaths, unknown status, etc). Of these 78 died. Of these 13 died in the state of the art treatment arm and 65 died in the naturopathy arm (the numbers are estimated due to the lack of a both surgery and chemotherapy group, I assumed 50 to be in the state of the art treatment arm, accounting for 50% overlap between surgery and chemotherapy).

Putting aside the ethical issues of the extremely bad study design, the lack of ethics committee approval or patients agrrement, a quick n' dirty analysis of the data reveals following odds ratio: 2.1 (95% CI 1.01 - 4.40, p<0.05) in favour of state of the art treatment. I.o.W. patients under natural care only have a more than twofold higher risk to die.

And:

An addendum. If one removes data of questionable quality and takes into account only those with complete data and in treatement resp. died during treatment (i.e. in remission, not yet in remission, died) , the odds ratio gets almost 10:1 in favour of state of the art therapy. This is really nasty.

Indeed it is, also unethical as hell. This paper is so bad that it could be used as an example of how not to do clinical research. In addition, there is no listing of an institutional review board (IRB) approval, appropriate informed consent to patients who filled out her questionnaires, or any of the other usual practices designed to protect patients. Even more despicable is her claim in her "cease and desist" letter to Britt Hermes:

Huber claims her research has been registered with the Office of Human Research Protections and the FDA since 2013.
Huber claims her study is a retrospective case series that does not require IRB approval.
Huber claims her IRB has extensive and definitive policies regarding informed consent, HIPAA laws, and protection of human research subjects.

If the first were the case, Huber could show her IRB approval. Also, an investigator doesn't have to register a human trial with the FDA unless he's seeking FDA approval for the investigational agent being studied. As for the second, Huber is just plain wrong. Retrospective case series do require IRB approval. Period. This is not even a gray area. True, some of them depending on the details, might qualify for an expedited review by the IRB, but from what I can tell Huber's would probably not have qualified because it uses protected patient information. As for her claimed IRB, Britt did a long post for Science-Based Medicine showing naturopathic IRB shenanigans of the Arizona naturopathic IRB formed by Huber and others.

Basically, Huber is unhappy that Britt has been kicking up the rocks and shining light on the quackery practiced by naturopaths and the unethical and incompetent clinical trials being done by them to try to provide a veneer of scientific respectability to their quackery. As a result, she's acted like so many other dubious practitioners and, instead of defending herself with science, has tried to silence critics with legal thuggery.

oracknows Thu, 09/07/2017 - 00:00

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published in 2016 in the International Journal of Cancer Research and Molecular Mechanisms.

The publisher in this case, "sciforschenonline.org", is as "International" as the Taj Mahal, hence the Germanic-styled title. Specifically, it's three tech grifters in Hyderabad.
http://domainbigdata.com/nj/MRHvL-AoVuUOdjZBnzWvLQ

It is conceivable that someone might publish through them without being an out-and-out fraud, just not very likely.

In the paper the author only mention
[...]at one clinic. [...] etc. I might have missed it, but i can't find a mention of which clinic it was. Out of curiosity I quick searched on Bell's list for the journal SciForschen. Ofc it was there.

Can someone explain me the reason for choosing these two groups for comparison; [...]two categories: all patients: 151/317=48% and those who ate
sweetened foods: 9/29=31% [...] instead of comparing with a non-sweetened food eating group?

Two bit quack can't stand one bit of criticism.

The criticism may affect Huber's income stream. So sad.

Cancer is the second leading cause of death, and the vast majority of people use allopathic doctors to treat it. That in itself is persuasive evidence that allopathic doctors have very little understanding of cancer. And they have absolutely no interest in trying to figure out why the cancer developed in the first place. Maybe that's why cancer so often reoccurs, especially when coupled with the severe damage chemo does to the body.

It seems naturopathic doctors don't understand cancer too well either--they all have different theories, and nothing seems to work for everyone or for all cancers. Still, it's no surprise that more people are opting out of allopathic treatment. The cancer industry can manufacture all the psyence it wants to make it seem as if great strides are being made--but again, cancer is the second leading cause of death, and the allopathic "success rate" speaks for itself. You'd think a little humility would be in order--but when hundreds of billions of dollars are at stake, humility tends to fly out the window.

And they have absolutely no interest in trying to figure out why the cancer developed in the first place.

Really? Because there is evidence that a great deal of work has gone into this.
https://www.cancer.org/cancer/cancer-causes.html

Sure, Johnny. I wonder how many cancer doctors even bother to check vitamin D levels, or glyphosate levels in the body.

Thank you herr doktor bimler! I was wondering all through this (and while reading about it at ND blog), “who would publish this crap to begin with?”.

Wow, Ginny, you are obviously totally clueless about cancer.
You write "nothing seems to work for everyone or for all cancers."
Of course not-in part because cancer is *not* a single disease. Even cancers originating from the same primary site-e.g., breast cancer-are not a single disease, because, using the example of breast cancer, there are multiple different forms of breast cancer that respond differently to treatment. For example, some patients have hormone-receptor positive breast cancer and are likely to respond to hormonal therapy (e.g., tamoxifen or, in postmenopausal women, aromatase inhibitors), while other patients hormone-receptor-negative but HER2 positive and may respond to trastuzumab, whereas others have triple-negative breast cancer and will not respond to either hormonal therapy or trastuzumab.

My point is that cancer is not one disease, but many-you seem to be unaware of that.

All patients selected and purchased all of their own food, all of which originated from and was almost entirely consumed outside of the clinic.

So Dr. Huber knows what foods these patients consumed how exactly? Self reporting? We know how unreliable that is. Clairvoyance? Possibly better but for the small detail that it doesn't exist.

So I see enough in the "methodology" section to reject the paper, and I'm not even an expert in the subject. I'm sure other readers could find much more.

HDB already explained how this paper got published: the corresponding author found a bottom-feeding journal. Yet more evidence that publication in something titled "International Journal of X" should raise a red flag.

"the allopathic “success rate” speaks for itself."

Indeed. Prior to the development of chemotherapy, acute leukemia was a death sentence. Today the survival rate for acute lymphoblastic leukemia is at least 80% in children. The same is true for Hodgkin's lymphoma.

Many with chronic myeloid leukemia now live long, fairly normal lives which is now a manageable illness in many cases thanks to drugs (imatinib, nilotinib, etc) that target the specific genetic abnormality that is drving force behind CML.

Some patients with metastatic melanoma (Jimmy Carter is a great example) are now living for years without disease after treatment with drugs like nivolumab or pembrolizumab, whereas previously such patients almost always died within a year or two of diagnosis.

Of course, there are still great areas of unmet need, and sadly little progress has been made in the treatment of some cancers (e.g., pancreatic cancer, glioblastoma), but that's certainly no reason to pretend that science based medicine cannot treat cancer.

Florian@2: If you do the arithmetic you find that of patients that supposedly did not eat sweetened foods, the remission rate was 142/288 which is about 49%. Not so different from the total group.

There is something else that doesn't change: the difference in remission rates does not even meet the 95% confidence threshold. For the sweetened foods group, that range is 6 to 15 out of 29. The higher end of that is above the rate reported for the full group, or that I derived for the "unsweetened" foods group.

Ginny, do you know what else speaks for itself? The fact that cancer patients who refuse real treatment and use quackery instead have a far lower survival rate than those who receive real treatment. A recent study confirmed what should have already been obvious to everyone-choosing alternative medicine is often a fatal mistake for cancer patients.

The study found that breast cancer patients who choose quackery instead of are five times more likely to die than those who receive real medical treatment, that those with colon cancer are four times more likely to die if they choose quackery over real medicine, and that those with lung cancer who refuse real treatment and instead choose quackery are twice as likely to die.Of course, this should be common sense-untreated cancer progresses, that's what it does, but I still cited the study below:

Johnson, Skyler B., et al. "Use of Alternative Medicine for Cancer and Its Impact on Survival." JNCI: Journal of the National Cancer Institute 110.1 (2018).

Wow, anonymous commenter called Jonas Suck, you really are deceptive in how you characterized what I said. Huffing and puffing with hubris about how well you and the cancer industry understands cancer. Maybe you'd sound more credible if it weren't the second leading cause of death.

Ginny, you obviously know little if anything about cancer. You are embarrassing yourself, to be honest. And I take it that you are totally ignoring the findings of the study I cited above.

I wonder how many cancer doctors even bother to check vitamin D levels, or glyphosate levels in the body.

I'll take non sequiturs for $1000.

It's interesting that Ginny's (unspoken) point can be so very right, but for all the wrong reasons.

Jonas and Johnny: Please do not feed the troll.

Of course, the treatment of leukemias, especially childhood ones, show what a complete liar and idiot NWO reporter truly is.

"I wonder how many cancer doctors even bother to check vitamin D levels, or glyphosate levels in the body."

Uh, even if glyphosate was proven to be a carcinogen (which is not the case), what good would it do for oncologists to check glyphosate levels in the body? Is there a Natural Cure for glyphosatanomas that the medical establishment/New World Order doesn't want us to know about? Coffee enemas? Special Rife frequencies? Don't hold back, reveal the Secret!

@ #5 NWO

. . . the vast majority of people use allopathic doctors to treat it [cancer]. . . .

You say that as though it were a bad thing.

How do you jump from the first two sentences by NWO Reporter to the third, exactly?

Anyway, good for Ms. Hermes for calling out this person and her dangerous work. I hope she doesn't have too much hassle in dealing with the legal aspects.

Hmph. It looks as though the ICANN UDRP doesn't apply to this case of cybersquatting. From a USian perspective, this is a fine line, as "britthermessucks," for example, would be perfectly fine, but I have no idea what goes in the German legal system.

Cancer is the second leading cause of death, and the vast majority of people use allopathic doctors to treat it. That in itself is persuasive evidence that allopathic doctors have very little understanding of cancer.

Sorry, but that statement makes no sense. It does not follow from the fact that cancer is the second leading cause of death that doctors have poor understanding of it: it could simply mean that doctors have a fair understanding of it but that it's really hard to defeat.

Of course, the treatment of leukemias, especially childhood ones, show what a complete liar and idiot NWO reporter truly is.

Gindo styles herself as a satirist, but this seems to be simple confusion over the meaning of the word. I'd go with "self-parodist," but that might be another barbarous neologism.

Wow, anonymous commenter

Now, that's hilarious. Remember when you were bitchin and whining about "doxing" by vipers, Ginny? Put down the jimsonweed, already.

@viggen:
It could also mean that the main reason that cancer is now one of the leading causes of death is because we've reduced or eliminated a lot of the other causes, but everybody will still eventually die of something.

Cancer is the second leading cause of death, and the vast majority of people use allopathic doctors to treat it. That in itself is persuasive evidence that allopathic doctors have very little understanding of cancer.

Ginny, are you actually recommending homeopathy as a front-line cancer treatment, or do you just not understand the meaning of the word "allopath"?

Ginny, when or if you ever have cancer; we'll just make a voodoo doll and stick a pin in the spot with cancer and cure you.

That is at best what homeopathy and naturopathy can do to cure cancer.

The author of this article is the uneducated quack.

"Nature Works Best"

Nope, sorry, we all can see it doesn't. Huber lost me at the URL.

Even If feel we assume Mother Nature had the ability to know and was focused on effectiveness and had a set of values to determine what is best, I'm not sure what's behind the assumption that her idea of "best" is "what keeps humans alive and well."

Seems an awfully humancentric view. Why wouldn't she see less humans or weaker humans as "best" for nature, for example?

How can bicarbonate be used intravenously when blood has a very narrow pH range?

Oh, baby child, you're new here, aren't you?

I do not mean that as an insult, we were all new here at one time. But our host has written many time about how silly bicarbonate is as a cure for, well, anything other than an upset stomach, really.

Up top is a search box. Type 'bicarbonate' therein, and be prepared to read a while. I would post links, but 3 or more links go into moderation, and our host has to spend time approving the post, and there are many more than 3 posts he has written on the subject.

But the one time that discussion of blood pH really stood out for me was a comment made by the MIA poster Krebiozen. He provided a very detailed discussion of what happens when blood pH goes outside of it's normal range. It struck home because it was after my mom died. The call I received (because my sister wasn't available) letting me know that she had been admitted to the hospital, also let me know that her blood pH 'isn't compatible with life'.

I knew what that meant, but I didn't really understand it until Krebiozen's post.

....drs who should really know better collaborating with naturopaths and then taking self-righteous umbrage when it is pointed out that they are betraying their duty to patients by collaborating with quacks, mainly because they don’t realize that naturopathy is so rooted in pseudoscience that you can’t have naturopathy without homeopathy, which is an integral part of it.

That looks like the self serving attitudes of MSM, reminiscent of Wilk. Whatever their flaws, some of the NDs seem to answer serious deficits in conventional practices and MSM's iatrogenic injuries. Again, my direct experience with naturopathic oncologists is limited to two NDs (one a 1.5-2 hr discussion at a public health fair over a decade ago), several discussions with a busy ND consultant; and one "over-the-shoulder" series of an at-risk cancer friend getting cytokine labs sent out and (phyto)chemical extracts, in. AFAIK, homeopathic treatment (e.g. 20C etc) has never come up at all. MSM simply sucks at therapeutic nutrition and literally doesn't seem to know much about even the ABC...s, much less newer stuff.

Intravenous vitamin C? It almost certainly doesn’t work.

You guys don't seem to know much about the subject; I haven't even detected much pulse yet, Kerbiozen being the best. Mostly ust bad mouthing, misdirection and perhaps ignorance/incompetence from my point of view, particularly on the Mayo results. And there is successful clinical experience with surgery, even 60-70 years ago. Surgery wise, sepsis, shock, post-surgical recovery, pain relief, immune function, wound healing speed, strength and fusion quality were greatly improved.

For cancer kill, with the common fatal markers, vitamin C was an additive ("synergistic") adjunct, in my obviously limited experience. I hired a post doc from the leading public ivy with relevant outside lab experience, and had live tissue work done. 5FU alone didn't work, some vitamin-5FU binaries were starting to work, better than the std MSM treatment binaries. A vitamin combo with 5FU beat even the experimental (brutal) MSM combos hands down. The subsequent bloodwork showed several results highly consistent with this.
-----
If MSM providers were as good as they think/say they are, most NDs might not exist. Perhaps AMA killed off too many legitimate alternative MDs. As for ugly war stories, I think I've seen worse from MSM MDs... at least, no one called them "alternative".

From a patient perspective, separating the wheat from the chaff for both MD and ND can be a serious issue in a voluntary society and fair criticism is important. We the public could probably use more information upfront, with more "truth in advertising" from both. Historically, MDs have had monopolistic tendencies where now, MSM sometimes veers toward police state solutions. Summarily suppressing the NDs is the latter.

I wouldn't jump on Carolyn too quickly, Johnny.

The answer is, no, it can't work for that exact reason. If you somehow did overcome those mechanisms and push the blood pH high enough for an effect, lots of other bad things would happen throughout your body.

prn @34

Not a link in the whole thing.

"We the public could probably use more information upfront, with more “truth in advertising” from both."
It's required in medicine, but not in "alternative medicine." AFAICT, One has the FDA, self-regulation and policing, standards of care, correction with new evidence - the other has NONE of those things.

" Historically, MDs have had monopolistic tendencies where now, MSM sometimes veers toward police state solutions. Summarily suppressing the NDs is the latter."
CITATION NEEDED. One works, the other don't. Easy as that.

Historically, MDs have had monopolistic tendencies

With the crapload of crappy, quacky, fraudulent NDs like Huber here where I live in Arizona, it sure doesn't seem that way.

I wouldn’t jump on Carolyn too quickly, Johnny.

That was not my intent. I made an effort to make it clear that nothing I said was meant to suggest Carolyn was wrong to ask. If my comment came across as suggesting she was wrong to ask, I say directly to her -

I apologize. Please do not think that asking questions here is wrong, and don't let that interpretation of my behavior drive you from posting, as it was not my goal.

My intended message was that Carolyn was correct that blood pH in living persons is in a narrow range, and that if it is outside that range, you don't live long, and IV bicarbonate is a really stupid idea.

My intended message was that Carolyn was correct that blood pH in living persons is in a narrow range, and that if it is outside that range, you don’t live long, and IV bicarbonate is a really stupid idea.

The dearly missed Krebiozen explained this repeatedly.

Thanks, Johnny and Narad.

Do we know anything about the quantity and/or rate of administration of bicarb in Huber's "treatment?" If the rate is low enough, even a large quantity should present little challenge to pH maintenance.

If the tumor itself is susceptible to pH increase, then it would seem to me far more useful to administer a base directly into the tumor or intra-arterially upstream of the tumor, though I have no idea if the latter would be feasible.

An aside on this: I haven't checked to see if it has been resolved, but there was an extreme shortage of sodium bicarbonate for injection across North America a few months ago. The shortage was so bad that many hospitals were considering preparation of solutions in-house.

Hm what does IV vitamin C do to blood pH?

"If we put this ascorbic acid in you, it will kill the cancer! If we put this bicarbonate in you it will make you less acidic and thus kill the cancer! Honest, we know what we're doing!"

Emma Crew :If I recall correctly, most naturopaths think ascorbic acid IS a base. (I've heard it claimed elsewhere that lemons are alkaline. I can't tell if the people claiming that are lying or just that dumb.)

Highly buffered ascorbic acid, ph 5.5 - 7, or else sodium ascorbate are the injectable forms of vitamin C with regard to pH.

The buffered stuff, aka Ascorbic acid for injection or Ascorbic acid, injection USP are the pharma terms used since at least USP XIV (1950), no doubt causing endless confusion amongst the unwashed hoi polloi.

Pgp: I suspect the notion that lemons are alkaline comes from misunderstanding of the difference between citric acid and citrate (rather than the ascorbic acid content).

Lemons contain a considerable amount of citric acid. It is a triprotic acid, meaning each molecule can yield 3 H+. I +don't know what believers in lemon juice magic think happens to those pesky protons, but they don't just fall off and disappear. Regardless of what happens subsequently to citrate, the protons are going to find something basic to react with. I suspect that citric acid remains intact in the stomach, then "consumes" bicarbonate in the intestine (I'm not sure of this - doesn't seem to be a lot of info out there.) So, given the following, the process is rather moot.

If citric acid is reacted with a base (e.g. bicarbonate or hydroxide) the result is citrate (e.g. sodium hydroxide & citric acid react to yield sodium citrate and water). Potassium and sodium citrate solutions are basic as-is (pH around 8). Citrate is metabolized to bicarbonate, which means it really is useful for treating things like acidosis, though not as promptly as IV bicarbonate. Problem is, if you used up bicarbonate to neutralize citric acid in the first place, you don't come out ahead in terms of available bicarb.

The WHO oral rehydration salts formula currently in use includes sodium citrate for just this purpose. Earlier formulas used sodium bicarbonate, but it isn't very stable at higher temperatures and tends to react with the glucose in the formula during storage in tropical climates. Sodium citrate is better behaved. (Little packets of chemicals using the WHO formula save hundreds of thousands of little kids' lives every year.)

Ascorbate from vitamin C isn't metabolized like this. Excess is mostly excreted intact in urine.

Doug: That's really interesting. I highly doubt naturopaths know any of that though.

PRN: You know, you're really failing hard at trying to sell 'natural medicine.' Snarling at us 'unwashed hoi polloi' only reinforces the desire to stay the heck away from naturopaths- and their patients.

I'd just like to know in what bizarro-world sense is this a "controlled" study? Patients who violate protocol do not constitute controls.

In the immortal words of Bugs Bunny, "What a maroon!"

PRN: You know, you’re really failing hard at trying to sell ‘natural medicine.’
I'm not trying to "sell" natural medicine. There many things that you have no concept or are so totally misinformed.

Maybe, just maybe, I can change that. And that doesn't mean that I think I know everything "natural" or "naturopathic" either.

Snarling at us ‘unwashed hoi polloi’ only reinforces the desire to stay the heck away from naturopaths- and their patients.
That's fine. My biggest concern is when people interfere.

The idea that 'lemons are alkaline' comes from the quackery of Robert O. Young, who has been the topic of much insolence, respectful and otherwise.

See page 3 for a "sample shopping list helps one to know what kinds of foods typically stock the fridge and cupboard of an Alkalarian", that includes lemons.

http://www.phmiracleliving.com/pdf/alkadiet.pdf

Thanks to doug for that explanation about citric acid metabolism.

It's an article of faith among the woo crowd that citrus fruits are an alkaline food, supposedly resulting in net basic impact - but as you indicate, those H+ ions produced in metabolism to citrate don't just vanish without effect.

Johnny: Oh, wow. I expected hilarity and I was not disappointed.

Problem is, if you used up bicarbonate to neutralize citric acid in the first place, you don’t come out ahead in terms of available bicarb.

Not according to one "Marsaan."

Thanks for the link, Narad. I hadn't seen that discussion previously.

Trying to digest that whole discussion is rather more than I want to do at the moment. He and I agree on my sentence which you quoted, but it's far from obvious. His first comment is correct, but to come to that conclusion it is necessary to extract the important point he was trying to make from what the excess of obfuscatory words he actually wrote. (the point being that lemon juice contains both citric acid and citrate salts, and a net positive amount of bicarbonate is produced from the latter but not the former)

PRN: I'm better informed than you on a TON of things, and unlike you, my brain hasn't ossified.

I don't really understand why you're here, except to try and sell your treatments or just to snarl at people. Maybe you should get a hobby- or three.

I wish Google would stop allowing cons like "Dr"Robert Morse (naturopath,diploma mill funded, anti-vacciner,loyal Teump supporter) who pushes the ALLOPATHS DON'T UNDERSTAND THE LYMPH SYSTEM! line and that humans should only eat fruit and fruit and more fruit!!! (While he deals with smokers cough) in his videos. He's all Irisdology is true and tinctures of bull butt and all that.

Or "Dr" Robert Cassar who is "making over the earth terrain vessel", and founder of the Earther Academy, his allopathic home retreat in Hawaii whete people pay thousands to go stay with him and "fast" LOL while taking turns sitting in his sauna and getting they lymph nodes pinched LOL sorry...but yeah, I find it funny...how in the he'll canthey get away with this crap!?...oh, and Cassar periodicially blames people for all their parasites and tapeworms "You did it to yourselves! I just call them demons now. It's like that. It's like you have demons in you and YOU let them in there! Well, I can't get them out for you. You have to do it! Because they're feeding off of YOUR will power because YOU eat that food! That's why I let people come here and make these Earth products. Now, let's get some vodka poured on your skin, into the infared sauna, and get at those lym h nodes!" He also likes to lift his shirt sms point at his abs which may be the result of either synthol or liposuction. Prior to his career in chiropractonaturpathy, he rode his bike up and down the beach with maccaw parrots on his shoulders.

Pgp: I don’t really understand why you’re here, except...
Oh, I do learn things here. Although it's like picking through chicken entrails sometimes. 'Specially since K went MIA.

I’m better informed than you on a TON of things
Must be a ton of degenerate matter. Impress me.

Colleen Huber states in an online article "Why I Became A Naturopathic Physician" that her eyes were opened to the nefariousness of Allopathic Medicine in the 1970s, when Sloan-Kettering quashed investigation into laetrile and it was made illegal.

As counterpoint, there's a recently published case report about a man who took daily apricot kernel extract in an attempt to guard against prostate cancer recurrence, and managed to poison himself with cyanide:

http://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/man-takes-apricotbased-al…

I found an ND who preaches against taking apricot kernels, and claims that his fellow NDs avoid it too. This ND instead claims success with such things as mistletoe, IV vitamin C and artesunate.

http://yaletownnaturopathic.com/integrative-oncology/

Imagine my surprise to find that ND Huber presented her self-advertisement to OMICS scamferences.
https://www.omicsonline.org/abstract/glycemic-restriction-in-cancer-pat…
http://cancer.global-summit.com/europe/abstract/2015/defeating-cancer-r…

OMICS. It's as if she wants people pointing and laughing at her.

BASTYR UNIVERSITY’S RECENT SUCCESS AGAINST DEFAMATION
A career anti-naturopath living in Germany defamed Bastyr University on a blog and webpages, among other venues. Bastyr sent her a Cease and Desist letter, through a European attorney. The defamer then posted that entire letter on her website. Within a few days, the defamatory pages against Bastyr had broken links. The group generally found this to be a pleasing outcome.

IOW Britt Hermes accused Huber of cybersquatting, setting up websites in her name (BH's) that dishonestly presented her as supporting Huber's grifts.
Huber lost the websites, so the links in BH's accusatory blogpost were broken.
Huber is presenting this to her claque as a victory so that they can forget the whole episode.

This is not the behaviour of someone who believes that she has a strong case of defamation and intends to pay lawyers to pursue it.

Somebody else has posted about this before, but an article had more news. Belle Gibson has been heavily fined by the Courts in Australia.
http://www.news24.com/World/News/australian-who-faked-cancer-fined-for-…

Canberra - An Australian cookbook author who falsely said she beat cancer through healthy eating was fined by a court on Thursday for misleading consumers by lying about her charitable donations...
Federal Court Justice Debra Mortimer on Thursday ordered Gibson to pay a total of AU$410 000 ($320 000) for five contraventions of the law relating to false claims that the proceeds would go to various charities...
The judge said the 25-year-old had been "cavalier about the truth", unconcerned about representations she had made and "prepared to tell outright lies".

That's going to leave a mark.