Quackery
oracknows | June 17, 2010Back in the 1990s when I first dipped my toe into the pool that was Usenet, that massive, wild, and untamed frontier where most online discussion occurred before the rise of the web and later the blogosphere, I was truly a naif. I had no idea--no inkling--of the depths of quackery to which people would sink. If Usenet was my bootcamp that opened my eyes to the seemingly endless varieties of quackery and, in particular, the flavor of quackery that represents anti-vaccine lunacy and "biomedical treatments" for autism, then my graduate education in the battle for science-based medicine began in…
oracknows | June 4, 2010Since its very inception five years ago, The Huffington Post has been, to steal a phrase from Star Wars, a wretched hive of scum and villainy, at least when it comes to anything resembling medicine. Of course, that's the problem. Very little, if anything, published in HuffPo resembles actual science-based medicine. The vast majority of medicine published there consists either of anti-vaccine screeds that are beyond stupid, quantum woo courtesy of Deepak Chopra, or pure, dangerous quackery, such as advocating homeopathy for H1N1 and acid-base woo for cancer. It's so bad that on more than one…
oracknows | May 29, 2010Damn! I knew I made my promise to myself not to write about vaccines again for at least a few days too soon! Whenever I do that, it seems, one of two things happens. Either something important happens that, having become, however it happened, the go-to blogger for commenting on the anti-vaccine movement, I can't ignore.
This is not what happened.
The second thing that happens whenever I make that promise to myself is that someone from the anti-vaccine movement writes something that's unintentional pure comic gold.
This is what happened.
Someone named Curt Linderman, Sr. characterized the…
oracknows | May 28, 2010The week is coming to a close, and the Memorial Day holiday beckons for those of us in the U.S. I've spent most of this week blogging about the anti-vaccine movement, and I do need a rest. Next week, I promise to try to stay away from this issue as much as possible, not just to keep you from getting bored with it but, more importantly, to give myself the periodic rest from the concentrated idiocy to preserve my sanity. True, I can never guarantee that something won't come up that will force me to break my self-imposed vacation from the craziness, but I think that a few days away from this…
oracknows | May 27, 2010I've written about the credulous mass of misinformation that is TV's The Doctors before. As you might imagine, I'm not impressed with the quality of the medical information that is dispensed on this show. It's everything I hate about glitzed up medicine as TV entertainment, particularly the vacuously beautiful hosts. I thought Dr. Stork and his merry band of bubble-brained doctors had hit their low point, but I was wrong. Earlier this week, they appeared to be extolling the claimed virtues of (or at least not treating particularly skeptically the claims for)--of all things--urine therapy. Don…
oracknows | May 26, 2010I love it when cranks write petitions.
They're hilarious. Usually, they're oh-so-serious and ominous, sprinkled with unintentionally, un-self-aware bits of pure comic gold. For example, check out this "petition" being circulated by the anti-vaccine activists, called The Chicago Principles on Vaccination Choice:
We, the people who affirm our belief in personal rights, in order to promote the general health and welfare for ourselves and our children and to establish justice, advocate the following principles:
1. Vaccination choice based on complete and accurate information is a fundamental…
oracknows | May 26, 2010As I've pointed out numerous times this week, anti-vaccine loons, led by Generation Rescue and a "health freedom" group, have organized an anti-vaccine rally in Grant Park in Chicago from 3 PM to 5 PM CDT. Anti-vaccine martyr Andrew Wakefield himself will be the keynote speaker, and there will even be very bad music promoting the anti-vaccine message. The rally, with its wonderfully Orwellian title, The American Rally for Personal Rights, will be pure crankery on display.
Those supporting science-based medicine plan, led by Skepchick Elyse Anders, to be there to promote science over the…
oracknows | May 25, 2010It figures.
I've written a couple of times about a rally to be held tomorrow in Grant Park that would be hilarious were it not an indication of the threat to public health that the anti-vaccine movement represents. Actually, it is to some extent hilarious, mainly due to the anti-vaccine Poe-worthy "music" that will be the featured entertainment.
It was bad enough that the fair city of Chicago would be blighted with this nonsense--and Andrew Wakefield, too--but now the "American Rally for Personal Rights" (a.k.a. the Autism One anti-vaccine rally featuring disgraced and unethical British…
oracknows | May 24, 2010Regular readers know that I have a tendency every so often to whine about when writing about the antics of the anti-vaccine movement seems to engulf this blog. Yes, it's true. Every so often I get really, really tired of the bad science, pseudoscience, magical thinking, misinformation, and even outright lies that emanate from various anti-vaccine websites and blogs. This week, I promised myself I would try not to do it. There are times when duty calls, and this is one of those times. For better or for worse, as hard as I still find it to believe, somehow I've become one of the top bloggers…
oracknows | May 24, 2010In the wake of Matt Lauer's interview with Andrew Wakefield, there's a new poll up at the TODAYMoms website:
Do you think vaccines are related to autism?
Andrew Wakefield, who touched off an international controversy by claiming a possible link between the MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) vaccine and autism, has lost his medical license, but says he will continue to fight to prove his case. Do you think vaccines are related to autism?
Yes. So many more cases, so many more vaccinations - it can't just be coincidence.
No. There is no scientific evidence the two things are related.
I'm not sure.…
oracknows | May 24, 2010It's been a long time comin'
It's goin' to be a Long Time Gone.
And it appears to be a long,
appears to be a long,
appears to be a long
time, yes, a long, long, long ,long time before the dawn.
- from "Long Time Gone" by Crosby, Stills & Nash
Oh, happy day!
It's finally happened, more than six years after investigative reporter Brian Deer first reported Wakefield's massive conflicts of interest and dubious activities related to his "research" suggesting a link between the measles strain in the MMR vaccine and inflammation of the gut in autistic children, nearly three years after the…
oracknows | May 23, 2010
An old Chinese combined proverb and curse is said to be, "May you live in interesting times." Certainly, with respect to vaccines, the last few years have been "interesting times." Unfortunately, this week times are about to get a lot more "interesting" as the Autism One quackfest descends upon Chicago beginning today. Featuring prominently in this quackfest will be an anti-vaccine rally in Grant Park on Wednesday featuring some really bad, anti-vaccine fundamentalist Poe-worthy "music" and a keynote speech by Andrew Wakefield himself. If you want evidence that Andrew Wakefield is being…
oracknows | May 23, 2010Andrew Wakefield's back, and he's sure trying to come back big.
I knew when I last wrote about his utter humiliation and disrepute that he wouldn't stay away for long. In fact, he stayed away longer than I thought--a whole three months. Unfortunately, though, he appears to be on a full media blitz to try to rehabilitate his image in the wake of his having been found to have committed research misconduct, leading to The Lancet retracting his article that started the anti=vaccine MMR scare back in 1998, which further led to NeuroToxicology withdrawing his execrably bad "monkey business" study…
oracknows | May 21, 2010Yesterday's post made me sad. It always makes me sad to contemplate a 14 year old boy facing the loss of his father to an aggressive form of leukemia, as Danny Hauser is. The kid just can't catch a break. First he himself develops Hodgkin's lymphoma. Because he happens to live in a family that has taken up a faux "Native American" religion that claims its "natural healing" is better than chemotherapy, he resists undergoing treatment, and his family supports him. After a judge orders him to undergo chemotherapy, Danny and his mom then take off on the lam from the law, heading for Mexico and…
oracknows | May 20, 2010Around this time last year, the major topic of this blog was the case of a young teen named Daniel Hauser. In fact, right around this time last year, this particular case was approaching its climax. Hauser, as you may recall, was the 13-year-old Minnesota boy diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymphoma who refused chemotherapy. His stated reason was his religion, namely Nemenhah, a fake American Indian religion that his parents joined 18 years ago. However, I had my doubts that religion was the main reason why Hauser was refusing chemotherapy and his mother was supporting his decision to pursue "…
oracknows | May 13, 2010I've frequently referred to Age of Autism as the "anti-vaccine" crank propaganda blog and Generation Rescue, the organization that primarily runs it, a an anti-vaccine propaganda organization. Although longtime readers know exactly why I say such things, newbies might not. That's why I consider it instructive to take note of this observation by reader Todd W.:
You know, I always wondered why Age of Autism, the "Daily Web Newspaper of the Autism Epidemic" has articles on Gardasil. They have absolutely no connection to autism. There have been no studies linking Gardasil to autism. There aren't…
oracknows | May 9, 2010Discuss!
A most appropriate analogy! But if Gary Null is the Kent Hovind of alternative medicine, then what does that make Mike Adams?
oracknows | May 7, 2010You know, if there's one question I've always had about homeopathy, it's the one asked by Viktor Poór below:
(Click for full comic.)
Certainly the cost of materials for homeopathic remedies is lower than just about any other product that I can imagine.
oracknows | May 7, 2010
Remember Life Technology� Back when I actually used to do Your Friday Dose of Woo each and every Friday before subjecting myself to such woo-tastically extravagant bits of unreason every week led me to decide to cut my weekly feature back to on an "as the mood strikes me" basis, Life Technology produceds some of the finest installments of this recurring series. Who could forget Vir-X⢠homeopathic boner pills? Or the the Ultra Advanced Psychotronic Money Magnet Professional Version 1.0� Or the Tesla Purple Energy Shield� Good times, for sure.
As I sat down last night to decide upon a…
oracknows | May 5, 2010With the recent passage of President Obama's health care reform bill, I can only hope that we as a nation have finally begun to address what has been a serious problem in our health care system, namely the unemployed. Although I remain somewhat skeptical of the plan as passed and remain largely agnostic about it, as a cancer physician I can't help but hope that it actually does some good. Although I can say that I have yet to see a patient with breast cancer who wasn't able to get treatment because of lack of insurance, I have seen a lot of difficulties thrown into their paths. For instance,…