Quackery
oracknows | February 4, 2008I did not watch Eli Stone last Thursday.
I didn't really need to, given that prerelease descriptions made it clear that the show's pilot episode was nothing more than a load of antivaccination propaganda. Indeed, it was so bad that the American Academy of Pediatrics actually took the step of drafting a public letter to ABC asking it either to can the show or run a disclaimer stating that science does not support the contention in Eli Stone that mercury in vaccines is a major cause of autism. In response, David Kirby, the Energizer Bunny of the mercury militia, posted a predictable screed…
oracknows | February 1, 2008...courtesy of fellow ScienceBlogger Jake Young.
Two money quotes:
"First, what is CAM bringing to the table that science and medicine didn't have? Good feelings. Acquaintance with the ways ignorance. Newer, better superstitions. Frankly, you can keep them."
"Science complemented by non-science ceases to be science, and there are no alternatives to the truth."
I may have to steal that last one, perhaps with the addition of a flourish or two of my own. For example, I'd add that science "integrated" with nonscience runs a very high risk of ceasing to be science.
We need more medical students…
oracknows | February 1, 2008Water.
It's the essence of life. Our bodies are mostly made up of it, and we can't live without it for very long. Our cells both contain it and are bathed in it. The enzymatic reactions necessary for life require an aqueous solution to work. Don't think these facts have escaped the woo-meisters, either. Water woo is a a long time favorite of woo-meisters everywhere. Indeed, it began with the "water cure" favored by the ancient Greeks and Romans, who could be forgiven for coming up with it, given that they had very little idea of how human physiology actually worked and at the very least it…
oracknows | January 31, 2008Ack!
The new Skeptic's Circle is here! Yes, the 79th Meeting of the Skeptics' Circle has convened over at Podblack Blog, and it's another great collection of skeptical blogging. So why am I disturbed? I just realized that I've utterly failed in my organizer duties in that I totally forgot to submit one of my own posts to the Circle. The shame! Even worse, the Circle's just fine without me; if I hadn't pointed it out I doubt that anyone would have noticed that I hadn't submitted anything.
So why point it out?
Actually, in a way it's a very good thing. It just goes to show that the Skeptics'…
oracknows | January 31, 2008I used to be somewhat of a supporter of the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM). I really did. This was back when I was more naïve and idealistic. Indeed, when I first read Wally Sampson's article Why NCCAM should be defunded, I thought it a bit too strident and even rather close-minded. At the time, I thought that the best way to separate the wheat from the chaff was to apply the scientific method to the various "CAM" modalities and let the chips fall where they may.
Unfortunately, two developments have made me sour on NCCAM and develop an opinion more like Dr…
oracknows | January 30, 2008A few days ago, I was amused by a term coined by Dr. R.W. The term, "quackademic medicine," was meant to describe the unholy fusion of non-science- and non-evidence-based woo that has infiltrated academic medicine to a disturbing extent over the last decade or two. There was a lot of reaction, mainly positive, to the new term, and I even got an e-mail from a certain skeptical podcaster vowing to use the term every opportunity that he got. One reader, Jim Benton, made a comment that got me to thinking. Here's the comment:
My 'crusade of the year' this year (other than getting a Democratic…
oracknows | January 29, 2008Last week, I did one of my inimitable rants about an ABC television show set to air on Thursday called Eli Stone, in which a lawyer sues a pharmaceutical company for "mercuritol" (an obvious allusion to thimerosal) in vaccines and how it supposedly caused a child's autism. Basically, I called it an irresponsible bit of antivaccination propaganda, given that in the story the jury awards the child $5.2 million, while the lawyer (Eli Stone) is portrayed as a "prophet" crusading for the "little guy."
Now Steve Novella weighs in. In the process, he can't resist doing in his much less--shall we say…
oracknows | January 28, 2008Pity poor David Kirby.
Nearly three years ago now, he published his now-infamous Evidence of Harm: Mercury in Vaccines and the Autism Epidemic, A Medical Mystery. Hooking up with the most vocal of the mercury militia, his book blamed mercury in vaccines as the major cause of autism. Unfortunately for Kirby, time has not been kind to him. Although he still manages to retain his rock star status among the antivaccination glitterati, each successive study failing to find a link between thimerosal-containing vaccines (TCVs) and autism put another nail in the coffin of Kirby's relevance, to the…
oracknows | January 27, 2008With all the woo infiltrating hospitals these days, as I've lamented about in constructing my Academic Woo Aggregator, it was only a matter of time until these ways of thinking started to infiltrate other lines of work.
Why not "alternative janitorial services" as well? After reading about it, I wonder how long before it spreads any further. How about "alternative" auto repair? Or even "alternative" plumbing? The possibilities are endless.
oracknows | January 26, 2008I'll give Don Imus credit for one thing. He's predictable and consistent. He never fails to deliver the stupid when it comes to vaccines and autism. True, his wife may take the stupid to hysterically malignant levels when she decides to rant about her belief in the undead myth that mercury in vaccines was a major cause of autism, but he's the calm and reliable voice of vaccine stupidity, spitting out the same antivaccination lies over and over again in that sleep-inducing mumbling drone that he calls a voice. He's only been back on the air for a month and a half now, and it's become…
oracknows | January 25, 2008
One of the favorite failings in logic and science among the woo-friendly crowd is the ever-famous one of confusing correlation with causation, also known as non causa pro causa, which means "non-cause for the cause." Examples of this are rampant, and include the antivaccinationists who confuse correlation with vaccination and the age at which autism is usually first recognized with vaccines causing autism, taking a homeopathic remedy shortly before having their symptoms resolve spontaneously and mistaking this for the efficacy of the homeopathic remedy, chelating children with autism and…
oracknows | January 22, 2008Three months ago, I wrote about vacuous legal threats issued by the Society of Homeopaths against one of the better skeptical bloggers, Le Canard Noir, who runs the excellent Quackometer Blog and created the infamous Quackometer, in order to intimidate him into silence. The attempt backfired spectacularly, as scores of bloggers reposted the article by Le Canard Noir that prompted the legal threats, in the face of which his ISP had caved.
Now it looks like it might be time to do it all again, this time with a different twit who has issued abusive threats against Le Canard Noir. This time…
oracknows | January 22, 2008...and ERV has the scoop, along with pictures.
A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about April Renée, the former President of The Autism Autoimmunity Project and a frequent speaker for Vaccine Injured Children, who was scheduled to speak in Oklahoma City on Saturday; so I'm not surprised at ERV's observation:
As for April Renée's presentation, I was shaking I was so angry. It was a hate speech against scientists that would make any Creationist proud. After ranting about how scientists and physicians get pleasure from killing children she said 'I dont mean to degrade any of the pediatricians in…
oracknows | January 21, 2008Along with Dr. R.W. and few others, I've made a bit of a name for myself in the medical blogosphere by bemoaning the infiltration of non-science- and non-evidence-based medicine into academia. It's not a particularly popular viewpoint. The prevailing attitude seems to be: Why be so negative? It's all good. Moreover, with a credulous media eager to publish stories of "healing" and "humanistic" medicine, those of us who remain skeptical of applying unproven and/or untested remedies in an academic setting, thus giving them the imprimatur of academic medicine and the respect associated with it,…
oracknows | January 19, 2008Things are crazy now for me, both at home and at work. I mean really, really crazy. So crazy that even I, one of the most verbose bloggers out there, am forced to take two or three days off from my little addiction--I mean habit. Consequently, having foreseen that this time would come around these dates, I, Orac, your benevolent (and, above all verbose) blogger have thought of you, my readers. I realize the cries and lamentations that the lack of fresh material inevitably causes. That, I cannot completely obviate. However, I can ease the pain somewhat, and I can do this by continuing my…
oracknows | January 18, 2008Things are crazy now for me, both at home and at work. I mean really, really crazy. So crazy that even I, one of the most verbose bloggers out there, am forced to take two or three days off from my little addiction--I mean habit. Consequently, having foreseen that this time would come around these dates, I, Orac, your benevolent (and, above all verbose) blogger have thought of you, my readers. I realize the cries and lamentations that the lack of fresh material inevitably causes. That, I cannot completely obviate. However, I can ease the pain somewhat, and I can do this by continuing my…
oracknows | January 15, 2008
Today is a very sad day around my lab.
I've just been informed that one of my scientific heroes, the man whose work inspired me to enter the research area that I entered, namely tumor angiogenesis, died last night. Yes, sadly, Dr. Judah Folkman reportedly died of a heart attack last night.
I had the honor of meeting Dr. Folkman on two or three separate occasions, one of which was for a laboratory meeting that involved discussion of our lab's work. A self-effacing and humble man, he was a true scientist, always questioning, always thinking of new hypotheses to test based on answers that…
oracknows | January 15, 2008Perusing the skeptical medical blogosphere, I came across some rather amusing, but nonetheless informative, videos from the 1950s about medical quackery. There are a number of aspects of these videos that are a bit unsettling to modern viewers, such as the "doctor knows best" paternalism, naïve faith in the AMA and other medical organizations, the utter seriousness, the cheesy reading of lines, and a rah-rah cheerleading for science and technology über alles. On the other hand, as Steve Novella points out, there was a refreshing directness about how the government viewed dubious medical…
oracknows | January 14, 2008I haven't written before about the tragic case of Katie McCarron, the three year old autistic girl whose mother killed her in May 2006. It's an incredibly sad tale, and others have covered it better. However, the trial started last week, and on Friday there was some testimony that suggests an effect of all the antivaccination fear-mongering that blames autism on either mercury in thimerosal-containing vaccines (a contention against which strong evidence was published just last week, to add to all the other studies that show no link between thimerosal and autism) or vaccines in general. Indeed…