computers

IBM Watson: Not living up to hype as a tool to fight cancer?

oracknows — Mon, 18 Sep 2017 01:24:17 +0000

IBM Watson: Not living up to hype as a tool to fight cancer?

For nearly as long as I can remember, I've been a fan of Jeopardy! Indeed, if I'm at home at 7:30 PM on a weeknight, Jeopardy! will usually be on the television. Given that, I remember what was basically a bit of stunt programming in 2011, when Jeopardy! producers had IBM's artificial intelligence supercomputer Watson face off against two of the most winning champions in the history of the show, Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter. Watson won, leading Jenning's to add to his Final Jeopardy answer, "I, for one, welcome our new computer overlords."

Watson's next challenge was similarly highly hyped: cancer. Since 2012, IBM has been collaborating with several cancer institutes to apply Watson's talents to cancer treatment. For instance, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center describes its Watson Oncology initiative thusly:

Watson Oncology is a cognitive computing system designed to support the broader oncology community of physicians as they consider treatment options with their patients. Memorial Sloan Kettering clinicians and analysts are partnering with IBM to train Watson Oncology to interpret cancer patients’ clinical information and identify individualized, evidence-based treatment options that leverage our specialists’ decades of experience and research.

As Watson Oncology’s teacher, we are advancing our mission by creating a powerful resource that will help inform treatment decisions for those who may not have access to a specialty center like MSK. With Watson Oncology, we believe we can decrease the amount of time it takes for the latest research and evidence to influence clinical practice across the broader oncology community, help physicians synthesize available information, and improve patient care.

Not surprisingly, Watson's entry into cancer care and interpretation of cancer genomics was, just like its appearance on Jeopardy!, highly hyped, with overwhelmingly positive press coverage and little in the way of skeptical examination of what, exactly, Watson could potentially do and whether it could actually improve patient outcomes. Overall, as Watson moved into the clinical realm, you'd be hard-pressed not to think that this was a momentous development that would change cancer care forever for the better. There were plenty of headlines like "IBM to team up with UNC, Duke hospitals to fight cancer with big data" and "The future of health care could be elementary with Watson." The future looked bright.

An article in STAT News published a couple of weeks ago week by Casey Ross and Ike Swetlitz suggests otherwise, at least so far: "IBM pitched its Watson supercomputer as a revolution in cancer care. It’s nowhere close."

Watson: Hype versus reality

In the story, STAT looked at Watson for Oncology's use, marketing, and actual performance in hospitals around the world, interviewing dozens of doctors, IBM executives, and artificial intelligence experts and concluded that IBM released a product without having fully assessed or understood the challenges in deploying it and without having published any papers demonstrating that the technology works as advertised, noting that, as a result, "its flaws are getting exposed on the front lines of care by doctors and researchers who say that the system, while promising in some respects, remains undeveloped." From my perspective, that's an understatement. Indeed, STAT observes:

Perhaps the most stunning overreach is in the company’s claim that Watson for Oncology, through artificial intelligence, can sift through reams of data to generate new insights and identify, as an IBM sales rep put it, “even new approaches” to cancer care. STAT found that the system doesn’t create new knowledge and is artificially intelligent only in the most rudimentary sense of the term.

While Watson became a household name by winning the TV game show “Jeopardy!”, its programming is akin to a different game-playing machine: the Mechanical Turk, a chess-playing robot of the 1700s, which dazzled audiences but hid a secret — a human operator shielded inside.

In the case of Watson for Oncology, those human operators are a couple dozen physicians at a single, though highly respected, U.S. hospital: Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York. Doctors there are empowered to input their own recommendations into Watson, even when the evidence supporting those recommendations is thin.

Another way of saying this is that Watson isn't really an artificial intelligence when it comes to cancer, but rather a very powerful computer that is very good at coming up with treatment plans based on human-inputted algorithms that it's taught. An example from a hospital in Florida is presented as an example:

On a recent morning, the results for a 73-year-old lung cancer patient were underwhelming: Watson recommended a chemotherapy regimen the oncologists had already flagged.

“It’s fine,” Dr. Sujal Shah, a medical oncologist, said of Watson’s treatment suggestion while discussing the case with colleagues.

He said later that the background information Watson provided, including medical journal articles, was helpful, giving him more confidence that using a specific chemotherapy was a sound idea. But the system did not directly help him make that decision, nor did it tell him anything he didn’t already know.

But it's more than that. You might have noted in the MSKCC blurb I quoted above that MSKCC is described as "Watson's teacher." That is very literally true. Indeed, the STAT story refers to Watson as "essentially Memorial Sloan Kettering in a portable box," noting that its treatment recommendations are "based entirely on the training provided by doctors, who determine what information Watson needs to devise its guidance as well as what those recommendations should be." This reliance on a single institution introduces an incredible bias. MSKCC is, of course, one of the premiere cancer centers in the world, but it's a tertiary care center. The patients seen there are not like the patients seen at most places—or, to some extent, even at my cancer center. They're different, both in the mix of race and socioeconomic status. (MSKCC tends to attract more affluent patients.) Also, the usual differences between the patient mix in a tertiary care center and a typical hospital are more pronounced, because not only is MSKCC a tertiary care center, but it's one of the premier cancer tertiary care centers in the world. There are more advanced and unusual cases, patients who have failed multiple lines of treatment and are looking for one last chance. The mix of patients, cancers, and other factors that doctors at MSKCC see might not be relevant to hospitals elsewhere in the world—or even in different parts of the US. As Pilar Ossorio, a professor of law and bioethics at University of Wisconsin Law School, points out in the article, from the cases used to train Watson, what Watson will learn is "race, gender, and class bias," basically "baking those social stratifications in" and "making the biases even less apparent and even less easy for people to recognize."

Bias is inevitable, particularly when it is only one institution's physicians who are doing the teaching.

It's also widely known in the oncology community that there is a "MSKCC way" of doing things that might not always agree with other centers. Yet IBM denies that reliance on a single institution to "teach" Watson injects bias, to the point where I literally laughed out loud (and was half tempted to insert an emoji indicating that) when I read a quote by Watson Health general manager Deborah DiSanzo, saying, "The bias is taken out by the sheer amount of data we have." (She is referring to patient cases and millions of articles and studies fed into Watson.) I can't help but also note that it isn't just treatment guidelines that MSKCC is providing. It's basically choosing all the medical literature whose results are inputted into Watson to help craft its recommendations. As I read the STAT article, as a clinician and scientist myself, I couldn't help but marvel that IBM is either blissfully unaware that this is a self-reinforcing system, in which one institution's doctors would tend to recommend the very literature that would support the treatment recommendations that they prefer.

And, MSKCC being MSKCC (i.e., a bit arrogant), the doctors "training" Watson don't see the bias as a problem:

Doctors at Memorial Sloan Kettering acknowledged their influence on Watson. “We are not at all hesitant about inserting our bias, because I think our bias is based on the next best thing to prospective randomized trials, which is having a vast amount of experience,” said Dr. Andrew Seidman, one of the hospital’s lead trainers of Watson. “So it’s a very unapologetic bias.”

I laughed out loud at that quote, too. Having a "vast amount of experience" without having clinical trials upon which to base treatments can just as easily lead to continuing treatments that don't work or hanging on to beliefs that are never challenged by evidence. I'm not saying that having experience is a bad thing. Far from it! However, if that experience is not tempered by humility, bad things can happen. It's the lack of humility that I perceive here that troubles me. There are awesome cancer doctors elsewhere in the world, too, you know:

In Denmark, oncologists at one hospital said they have dropped the project altogether after finding that local doctors agreed with Watson in only about 33 percent of cases.

“We had a discussion with [IBM] that they had a very limited view on the international literature, basically, putting too much stress on American studies, and too little stress on big, international, European, and other-part-of-the-world studies,” said Dr. Leif Jensen, who directs the center at Rigshospitalet in Copenhagen that contains the oncology department.

And:

Sometimes, the recommendations Watson gives diverge sharply from what doctors would say for reasons that have nothing to do with science, such as medical insurance. In a poster presented at the Global Breast Cancer Conference 2017 in South Korea, researchers reported that the treatment Watson most often recommended for breast cancer patients simply wasn’t covered by the national insurance system.

None of this is surprising, given that Watson is trained by American doctors at one very prestigious American cancer center.

Then there's a rather basic but fundamental problem with Watson, and that's getting patient data entered into it. Hospitals wishing to use Watson must find a way either to interface their electronic health records with Watson or hire people to manually enter patient data into the system. Indeed, IBM representatives admitted that teaching a machine to read medical records is "a lot harder than anyone thought." (Actually, this rather reminds me of Donald Trump saying, "Who knew health care could be so complicated?" in response to the difficulty Republicans had coming up with a replacement for the Affordable Care Act.) The answer: Basically anyone who knows anything about it. Anyone who's ever tried to wrestle health care information out of a medical record, electronic or paper, into a form in a database that can be used to do retrospective or prospective studies knows how hard it is. Heck, just from my five year experience working on a statewide collaborative quality initiative in breast cancer, I know how hard it is, and what we were doing in our CQI was nowhere near as complex as what IBM is trying to do with Watson. For instance, we were looking at only one cancer (breast) and a subset of one state (25 institutions in Michigan), and we were not trying to derive new knowledge, but rather to look at aspects of care where the science and recommendations are clear and we could compare what our member institutions were doing to the best existing evidence-based guidelines.

What can Watson actually do?

IBM represents Watson as being able to look for patterns and derive treatment recommendations that human doctors might otherwise not be able to come up with because of our human shortcomings in reading and assessing the voluminous medical literature, but what Watson can actually do is really rather modest. That's not to say it's not valuable and won't get better with time, but the problem is that it doesn't come anywhere near the hype. I mentioned that there haven't been any peer-reviewed studies on Watson in the medical literature yet, but that doesn't mean there are no data yet. At the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) meeting this year, there were three abstracts presented reporting the results of studies using Watson in cancer care:

The first study carried out at the Manipal Comprehensive Cancer Centre in Bangalore, India, looked at Watson’s concordance with a multi-disciplinary tumour board used for lung, colon and rectal cancer cases. The AI achieved a concordance rate of 96% for lung, 81% for colon and 93% for rectal cancer.

The second study compared Watson’s recommendations to those made by oncologists at Bumrungrad International Hospital in Bangkok, Thailand – this time across multiple cancer types. Its concordance rate was 83%.

The third concordance study compared Watson’s decisions for high-risk colon cancer to a tumour board from Gachon University Gil Medical Centre in Incheon, South Korea. Its concordance rate in terms of colon cancer decisions was 73%, however, it was only 43% in gastric cancer.

The company explained this was due to differences in treatment guidelines for the disease in South Korea, compared to where it was trained at Memorial Sloan Kettering.

This is mighty thin gruel after such grandiose claims for the technology. Sure, it's a very good thing that Watson agrees with evidence-based guidelines a high percentage of the time. It's not so great that its concordance with recommendations was so low for gastric cancer, but it is that lack of concordance that shows the weakness of a system so dominated by American oncologists and cancer surgeons. The reason that treatment recommendations in Asia differ so markedly from those in the US is because of differences in prevalence (which is much higher in Asia) and even biology.

Of course, it's important that Watson be able to replicate evidence-based treatment recommendations for common cancers, but you don't need a computer to do that, much less an AI. Where Watson was hyped by IBM was for its supposed ability to "think outside the box" (if you'll excuse the term) and come up with recommendations that humans would not have thought of that would result in better outcomes for cancer patients. Even these modest results are being hyped in the form of embarrassing headlines. For instance, ASCO, touting the results of the three studies presented at its annual meeting and other results, wrote "How Watson for Oncology Is Advancing Personalized Patient Care." It read like a press release from IBM. Another article proclaimed that "IBM’s Watson is really good at creating cancer treatment plans." That's nice. So are nearly all oncologists, and it's even arguable that Watson is as good as a typical oncologist.

The M.D. Anderson experience

The M.D. Anderson Cancer Center was, along with MSKCC, one of the early adopters of Watson. Its experience with the project is another cautionary note that shows what can happen when not enough skepticism is applied to a project and how a project like Watson can turn into a massive boondoggle. This was revealed when the partnership between M.D. Anderson and IBM basically fell apart earlier this year:

According to a blistering audit by the University of Texas System, the cancer center grossly mismanaged its splashy program with IBM, which started back in 2012. The program aimed to teach Watson how to treat cancer patients and match them to clinical trials. Watson initially met goals and impressed center doctors, but the project hit the rocks as MD Anderson officials snubbed their own IT experts, mishandled about $62 million in funding, and failed to follow basic procedures for overseeing contracts and invoices, the audit concludes.

IBM pulled support for the project back in September of last year. Watson is currently prohibited from being used on patients there, and the fate of MD Anderson’s partnership with IBM is in question. MD Anderson is now seeking bids from other contractors who might take IBM’s place.

As Matt Herper noted over at Forbes:

Usually, companies pay research centers to do research on their products; in this case, MD Anderson paid for the privilege, although it would have apparently also owned the product. This was a “very unusual business arrangement,” says Vinay Prasad, an oncologist at Oregon Health & Science University.

According to the audit report, Chin went around normal procedures to pay for the expensive undertaking. The report notes "a consistent pattern of PwC fees set just below MD Anderson’s Board approval threshold," and its appendix seems to indicate this may have occurred with payments to IBM, too.* She also didn’t get approval from the information technology department.

Yes, it was that bad.

Hype and hubris in AI: Beyond IBM

It's very clear that AI will play an increasingly large role in medicine. The massive amount of genomic data being applied to "personalized medicine," or, as it's now more commonly called, "precision medicine," basically demands it because no human can sift through the terabytes and petabytes of genomic data without assistance to find patterns that can be exploited in treatment. What I do have a problem with is hype, and IBM is clearly incredibly guilty of massively hyping its Watson product before it was ready for prime time, apparently not recognizing just how difficult it would be to train Watson to align company hype with scientific reality.

One way to think about it is to consider how machine learning works, how AI is trained to recognize patterns, come to conclusions, and make recommendations. In other words, how can a machine go beyond human-curated data and recommendations? It's incredibly difficult:

To understand what’s slowing the progress, you have to understand how machine-learning systems like Watson are trained. Watson “learns” by continually rejiggering its internal processing routines in order to produce the highest possible percentage of correct answers on some set of problems, such as which radiological images reveal cancer. The correct answers have to be already known, so that the system can be told when it gets something right and when it gets something wrong. The more training problems the system can chew through, the better its hit rate gets.

That’s relatively simple when it comes to training the system to identify malignancies in x-rays. But for potentially groundbreaking puzzles that go well beyond what humans already do, like detecting the relationships between gene variations and disease, Watson has a chicken-and-egg problem: how does it train on data that no experts have already sifted through and properly organized? “If you’re teaching a self-driving car, anyone can label a tree or a sign so the system can learn to recognize it,” says Thomas Fuchs, a computational pathologist at Memorial Sloan-Kettering, a cancer center in New York. “But in a specialized domain in medicine, you might need experts trained for decades to properly label the information you feed to the computer.”

That's the bias introduced by relying on MSKCC physicians. It's a bias that's much worse than it needs to be because of how IBM relies on one institution and one relatively small group of physicians to train Watson, but, in fairness, it is an unavoidable bias at this stage in the development of an AI. The problem, as it all too often is, is arrogance. IBM appears to have vastly underestimated the challenge in moving beyond the training dataset (as it's often called in studies like this), for which the answers are known in advance to the computer's analysis, to the validation dataset (for which the answer is not known in advance).

None of this is to say that AI won't eventually make a major contribution to the treatment of cancer and other diseases. Rather, it's just to say that we're nowhere near there yet. Moreover, IBM is no longer the only player in this game, as has been noted:

Since Watson’s “Jeopardy!” demonstration in 2011, hundreds of companies have begun developing health care products using artificial intelligence. These include countless startups, but IBM also faces stiff competition from industry titans such as Amazon, Microsoft, Google, and the Optum division of UnitedHealth Group.

Google’s DeepMind, for example, recently displayed its own game-playing prowess, using its AlphaGo program to defeat a world champion in Go, a 3,000-year-old Chinese board game.

DeepMind is working with hospitals in London, where it is learning to detect eye disease and speed up the process of targeting treatments for head and neck cancers, although it has run into privacy concerns.

Meanwhile, Amazon has launched a health care lab, where it is exploring opportunities to mine data from electronic health records and potentially build a virtual doctor’s assistant.

A recent report by the financial firm Jefferies said IBM is quickly losing ground to competitors. “IBM appears outgunned in the war for AI talent and will likely see increasing competition,” the firm concluded.

And:

But the “cognitive computing” technologies under the Watson umbrella aren’t as unique as they once were. “In the data-science community the sense is that whatever Watson can do, you can probably get as freeware somewhere, or possibly build yourself with your own knowledge,” Claudia Perlich told Gizmodo, a professor and data scientist who worked at IBM Watson Research Center from 2004 to 2010 (at the same time Watson was being built), before becoming the chief scientist at Dstillery, a data-driven marketing firm (a field that IBM is also involved with). She believes a good data-science expert can create Watson-like platforms “with notably less financial commitment.”

None of this is also to say that IBM is alone in its hubris. It's not. This hubris is shared by many tech companies, particularly those working on computing and AI. For instance, last year Microsoft was roundly (and properly) mocked for its claim that it was going to "solve cancer" in a decade based on this idea:

The company is working at treating the disease like a computer virus, that invades and corrupts the body’s cells. Once it is able to do so, it will be able to monitor for them and even potentially reprogramme them to be healthy again, experts working for Microsoft have said.

The company has built a “biological computation” unit that says its ultimate aim is to make cells into living computers. As such, they could be programmed and reprogrammed to treat any diseases, such as cancer.

And:

“The field of biology and the field of computation might seem like chalk and cheese,” Chris Bishop, head of Microsoft Research’s Cambridge-based lab, told Fast Company. “But the complex processes that happen in cells have some similarity to those that happen in a standard desktop computer.”

As such, those complex processes can potentially be understood by a desktop computer, too. And those same computers could be used to understand how cells behave and to treat them.

Yes, there is a resemblance between cancer and computing in much the same way that counting on your fingers resembles a supercomputer. The hubris on display was unbelievable. My reaction was virtually identical to Derek Lowe’s, only more so. Indeed, he perfectly characterized the attitude of many in tech companies working on cancer as a “Gosh darn it fellows, do I have to do everything myself?” attitude. Yes, those of us in cancer research and who take care of cancer patients do tend to get a bit…testy…when someone waltzes onto the scene and proclaims to breathless headlines that he’s going to solve cancer in a decade because he has an insight that you stupid cancer biologists never thought of before: The cell is just a computer, and cancer is like a computer virus.

But I digress. I only mention Microsoft to demonstrate that IBM is not alone when it comes to tech companies and hubris about cancer. In any event, I made an analogy to Donald Trump earlier in this post. I was not surprised to find this article making a similar analogy:

“IBM Watson is the Donald Trump of the AI industry—outlandish claims that aren’t backed by credible data,” said Oren Etzioni, CEO of the Allen Institute for AI and former computer science professor. “Everyone—journalists included—know[s] that the emperor has no clothes, but most are reluctant to say so.”

Etzioni, who helps research and develop new AI that is similar to some Watson APIs, said he respects the technology and people who work at Watson, “But their marketing and PR has run amok—to everyone’s detriment.”

Former employees who worked on Watson Health agree and think the way that IBM overhypes Watson for Oncology is especially detrimental. One former IBM Watson Health researcher and UX designer told Gizmodo of a time they shadowed an oncologist at a cancer center that has partnered with IBM to train Watson for Oncology. The designer claims they spoke with patients who had heard of Watson and asked when it could be used to help them with their disease. “That was actually pretty heartbreaking for me as a designer because I had seen what Watson for Oncology really is and I was very painfully aware of its limitations,” the designer said. “It felt very bad and it felt like there was real hope that had been served by IBM marketing that could not be supported by the product I know.”

That's part of the problem. Patients see the hype and believe it. They then want what IBM is offering, even if it is not ready for prime time. Watson Health general manager Deborah DiSanzo even said, "We’re seeing stories come in where patients are saying, 'It gave me peace of mind,'" and concluded, "That makes us feel extraordinarily good that what we’re doing is going to make a difference for patients and their physicians." Patient peace of mind is important, but not as important as actually producing a product that demonstrably improves patient outcomes.

Again, don't get me wrong. AI is very likely to be quite important in years (more likely decades) to come in health care. Maybe one day it will lead to a real Tricorder, just like in the original Star Trek series. It's just not there yet. I suspect that Watson will not be the last medical AI effort to fail to live up to its early grandiose claims.

oracknows Sun, 09/17/2017 - 21:24

Tags

biology

cancer

computers

medicine

Manga Guide to Microprocessors: Excellent tech graphic novel

gregladen — Fri, 08 Sep 2017 12:36:11 +0000

Manga Guide to Microprocessors: Excellent tech graphic novel

It has been a long time since I've written any machine or assembler code, and it is a rare day that I hand construct a logic circuit using transistors. But it is comforting to know that these skills and the knowledge associated with them still reside in some form or another in the world of microprocessors.

The Manga Guides published by No Starch Press and written by a wide range of authors manga-based graphic novels on diverse topics in science, math, statistics, and technology. I've reviewed several here (see this post for a partial list of some of the other guides). And the newest entry to this growing and rather large and excellent library is The Manga Guide to Microprocessors by Michio Shibuya, Takashi Tonagi, and Office Sawa.

This book is really thorough, packing in piles of details about computers, focusing on the microprocessor level technology but covering a lot of related things as well such as memory and data storage and programming, with a whole section on controllers.

But this information is embedded in a story, as is the case with all the Manga guides.

This is the story of Ayumi, a master chess player who is beaten by a computer. She engages with the computer's programmer, Kano, in a quest to learn all she can about her nemesis.

The book has three modes. One is a standard manga graphics novel sequence of frames with the main story. That is most of the book. The other is a more detailed conversation between iconic versions of the protagonists, in which detail that would be difficult to easily convey in pure cartoon form is gone over. The third is a retrospective or detailed section at the end of each chapter which is lightly illustrated, text heavy, and serves to contextualize the previous material.

I strongly recommend this book.

Here is what the various modes look like:

Most of the book looks like this.

Some of the book looks like this.

gregladen Fri, 09/08/2017 - 08:36

Tags

Mystery solved: Chiropractic manipulation of the neck did cause Katie May’s death from stroke

oracknows — Thu, 20 Oct 2016 01:00:48 +0000

Mystery solved: Chiropractic manipulation of the neck did cause Katie May’s death from stroke

Eight months ago, I asked the question: Did chiropractic manipulation of her neck cause Katie May’s stroke? Now, it appears, I know the answer, and the answer is yes:

Katie May, a model who posed for Playboy and gained a massive following on Snapchat, suffered a “catastrophic” stroke in early February and later died after being taken off life-support. Now, TMZ reports reports that a visit to the chiropractor left her with an injury that precipitated the stroke.

TMZ obtained May’s death certificate, which says that she suffered a blunt force injury during a “neck manipulation by [a] chiropractor.” That injury tore an artery in her neck and cut off blood flow to her brain, which led to the stroke that killed her.

Several of you e-mailed me news reports of the coroner’s finding (as well as other stories referencing the TMZ story). To be honest, I had forgotten about this story, not having heard anything about it since I blogged about it in February, and I was surprised at how this update came seemingly out of the blue. I would have loved to see the actual autopsy report, rather than a snippet of it quoted by TMZ and other magazines, but I take what I can get.

Before this story, I have to admit that I didn’t know who Katie May was, but I did learn that she was known as the “Queen of Snapchat,” for her posting of photos of herself in which she was scantily clad. Indeed, between Instagram and Snapchat, she had quite the social media empire going. At the time of her death, she was only 34 years old and left behind a seven year old daughter. It was a horrible, tragic tale. May was young and building a business, and her death was completely unnecessary, making it even more depressing to contemplate.

Here’s what happened. Late last January, May was doing a photo shoot. It’s unclear exactly how it happened, but somehow it did happen. May fell—hard—and hit her neck or head on something. Afterward, she complained of neck pain that was intense enough that she apparently went to the emergency room to be checked out. Actually, stories differ here, with what her family said, namely that she never sought medical care. Be that as it may, we do know that May went to a chiropractor for a neck adjustment, as she Tweeted soon afterward:

Pinched a nerve in my neck on a Photoshoot and got adjusted this morning. It really hurts! Any home remedy suggestions loves? XOXO

— Katie May (@Ms_katiemay) January 29, 2016

Two days later, May responded to a fan who asked how her neck was feeling:

Thanks love! It still hurts, going back to chiropractor tomorrow xoxoxo https://t.co/xTw080sjrK

— Katie May (@Ms_katiemay) February 1, 2016

So May went to her chiropractor on February 1. That evening, she collapsed and was rushed to the hospital. It was a Monday. By Thursday evening, she was removed from life support, and died a few hours later.

If you read my previous post on the Katie May, you might remember that I spent a lot of verbiage in my own inimitable fashion going over a couple of questions. First, was it a stroke from chiropractic manipulation that killed Katie May? Second, what is the evidence base covering chiropractic manipulation and stroke? As part of the second discussion, I pointed out that, while the evidence base supporting chiropractic manipulation as a cause of strokes due to occlusion of the vertebral or basilar arteries is pretty convincing, the evidence that chiropractic manipulation can cause carotid artery injury is much less convincing.

It’s also less plausible, too, given that there is a clear physical mechanism for injury to the vertebral arteries. To help you see why, I thought it would be worthwhile to post this picture again, laying out the anatomy of the vertebrobasilar system. Basically, two very important arteries that supply blood to the brain pass through the two highest vertebrae, the atlas (C1, so named because it was thought to support the head the way the mythical Atlas held up the earth) and the axis (C2). Importantly for understanding how chiropractic could cause vertebrobasilar strokes, the vertebral arteries are tethered to the spine and make a big loop around the atlas before entering the skull and merging to form the basilar artery (click to embiggen):

Vertebral artery anatomy. The arrows point to the vertebral artery. Note how it bends around bony protrusions.

It’s not difficult to see how a rapid rotation of the head could potentially stretch the basilar arteries. Generally, chiropractors describe this as “high velocity, low amplitude” (HVLA), which it is, but, given the constraints of vertebral artery anatomy, high amplitude is not required to cause injury. With HVLA, it is quite possible to tear the intima (the lining of the artery consisting of vascular endothelial cells). Intimal tears become “sticky” for platelets, leading them to lodge there and start to form a clot. This is the same reason atherosclerotic plaques can lead to strokes when they are in the carotid artery and can cause myocardial infarctions (death of heart muscle; a.k.a., a heart attack) when in the coronary arteries. The “rough” area of the plaque is thrombogenic; i.e., has a tendency to attract platelets and cause clots. When a clot forms in such an injured area of intima, regardless of where the artery is, one of three things can happen. It can resolve completely, which is what usually happens; it can resolve but leave a narrowed segment of the artery as it resolves; or it can break off and flow further downstream, there to lodge where the artery narrows and block blood flow. When that happens in the brain, it’s called a stroke.

Now, take a look at chiropractic neck manipulation:

And here’s another example:

And still more:

You get the idea. If you cringe when you hear the pop during the violent twist given to the neck, you’re not alone. So do I. It is that “high velocity, low amplitude” (HVLA) twist that can injure the intima of the artery, setting up the condition for a stroke. What surprises me is that the risk isn’t much higher than what studies show. The human body is more resilient than one would imagine, and, absent pre-existing atherosclerotic disease, the risk remains low. On the other hand, given that there is no benefit from HVLA chiropractic neck manipulation, the risk-benefit ratio is basically infinity, because the potential benefit is zero. Also, the risk might be small, but, as Katie May shows us, the the consequences of that risk can be catastrophic.

Another aspect I discussed was whether Katie May’s stroke could have been due to the trauma she suffered at her photo shoot a day or two before her first chiropractic manipulation. Now that we know, assuming that TMZ is accurately relaying the results of the coroner’s report, that May had a tear in her left vertebral artery, it’s almost certain that the chiropractor accidentally killed her through neck manipulation. That is what the coroner concluded, that this injury to her vertebral artery occurred during chiropractic neck manipulation.

In the end, there is no longer any reasonable doubt. Katie May’s death was unnecessary and due to her subjecting herself to the quackery that is chiropractic.

oracknows Wed, 10/19/2016 - 21:00

Tags

complementary and alternative medicine

Skepticism/Critical Thinking

chiropractic

Death

high velocity low amplitude

complementary and alternative medicine

computers

medicine

Sigh.
The same old story, another unnecessary death.

Medical examiners' autopsy reports are generally considered to be a matter of public record. You should be able to get a copy of the report upon request, but, of course, I do not know the details of the law in every state.

Sad to hear about it, but unfortunately it's not exactly surprising. Neck injuries are already dangerous, intentionally pulling and twisting without real understanding of the underlying tissues or potential damage already present is just... ugh. But then again these aren't real doctors so expecting them to keep the same level of professionalism is just as insane.
Also, I think you accidentally left out the picture at the start of your explanation, Orac.

"What surprises me is that the risk isn’t much higher than what studies show."

While I don't doubt that stroke due to chiropractic manipulation damaging neck arteries is highly uncommon, one suspects it is underreported especially in the elderly, who have more risk factors which are suspected instead of the manipulations they may have had over a period of time.

As Orac notes, this devastating complication of neck cracking is indefensible given the lack of evidence for clinical benefit.*

*chiros like to cite a study claiming that neck cracking lowers blood pressure, without mentioning that it was a small, short-term pilot study employing a specialized technique not in general use by chiros.

science judge, jury and executioner. who are you, really? An AMA board member Pharma-science pimp?

I can't watch that stupidly dangerous neck-wrenching that chiroquackters do. There is so much in the neck (besides those arteries) that can be damaged by the arrogant stupidity of chiros.

Chris@5: I'm with you on that. A few years ago Orac had a short post which included a video of chiropractic being practiced on a duck. I commented at the time that the duck wasn't faring much better than Daffy did at the hands of Hugo the Abominable Snowman. The important difference being that when it happens to a cartoon duck it can be considered Amusing Injuries. When it happens to a living creature, let alone a human ... I'll just say that the concept is so sick, if I had that practitioner's address I'd send him a get well card.

Out of curiosity, I attended equine chiropractic lectures at our state veterinary conference 3 wks ago...
In complete seriousness the presenter explained that Palmer practiced thousands of adjustments on CHICKENS, since if he messed it up, at least someone could have the "patient" for dinner! (nervous laughter all around)
Now I have known clients who swear by chiro for their horses (hence my interest), but obviously it would be much more difficult for human to inflict trauma on equine spine using only bare hands (which is all that this lecturer endorsed).
Unfortunately there are idiots out there striking horses w/levers & mallets!

Sincere question: are there situations in which chiropractic adjustment does have demonstrated benefits? E.g., could they in any circumstances help, say, back issues? I keep hearing conflicting things on this.

@Quackattack : if Orac really was all this, don't you think he would have been much more directly accusing in his earlier article about this case ?

When I posted my comment, D.B.'S comment wasn't yet visible. Thank you.

A number of years ago our local paper did a story on one of the local chiropractors who travelled to Haiti to do a charity clinic. He proudly stated that he did over 50 neck manipulations the first night, even though there was not enough time to evaluate the recipients of his "care" first. Utter incompetence exemplified.

@Dorit: there have been some studies showing that chiros can have a positive effect on occurances of short-term, acute back pain. On the other hand, the effects aren't any different than those obtained by a good, certified PT or licensed massage therapist. Probably the only benefit I see is my insurance will pay for the chiro or PT visits, not the LMT.

Giving props to the PTs, I know they always institute a home exercise program for the patient. I haven't ever gone to a chiro so I don't know if they do the same.

My friends who go to chiros swear by their regular adjustments but look at me blankly when I ask if they have a home program. So my guess is the chiros like to keep the suckers patients coming in rather than teaching them to prevent future problems.

@MI Dawn:

So my guess is the chiros like to keep the suckers patients coming in rather than teaching them to prevent future problems.

Of course they do. A few years ago, Clay Jones wrote an article at SBM about "chiropractic practice building" describing how they do that. A friend of mine found it sufficiently illuminating to stop seeing a chiro and go to a PT.

@Quackattack

Orac wrote a perfectly reasonable post on a risky chiropractic maneuver that appears to have cost this young woman her life. Now comes Quackattack, reaching deep into his or her bag of oratorical skills, to cry "Pharma Puppet!" Let's review Quackattacks brilliant riposte:

"science judge, jury and executioner. who are you, really? An AMA board member Pharma-science pimp?"

Note how Quackattack deftly dissected Orac's argument and constructed a brilliant defense of cervical HVLA maneuvers in particular and chiropractic in general.

I stand in awe. Oh wait. That isn't awe, it's pig manure.

My doctor recommended a chiro after I had terrible neck pain after being rear ended. My insurance paid for it, so I went and I did fell better enough to continue when I went to California, and later when I moved to North Carolina.

But getting an adjustment always made me nervous, and the NC chiros (I saw several) scared me to death. My California chiro, it may surprise you to read, never pushed other woo on me. He merely suggested diet and exercise to lose weight and improve muscle tone.

My NC chiro was full on woo. Charts showing how manipulation affected this nerve, affecting this organ system and I knew it was all bogus. Then the display stands selling very expensive vitamins and other stuff I never bought. He was rough, and he terrified me.

I dropped chiro like a hot brick. Never again.

“science judge, jury and executioner. who are you, really? An AMA board member Pharma-science pimp?”

Note how Quackattack deftly dissected Orac’s argument and constructed a brilliant defense of cervical HVLA maneuvers in particular and chiropractic in general failed the conventional intelligence test.

FTFY.

"science judge, jury and executioner. who are you, really?"

I'm thinking of changing my username to Cunning Old Fury.

A Chiropractor next door to my favorite coffee shop also "adjusts" dogs. I've watched him come out front to treat dogs that people bring, primarily tapping on their back with s rubber mallet. The owners swear their old or arthritic animals feel better, or have more mobility.

I’m thinking of changing my username to Cunning Old Fury.

They prefer to be called "kindly ones".

Eric @7 -- I'm sure I'm not the first to point out that practicing chiropractic on a duck adds a whole new dimension to the term "quackery".

The author stated: "it’s almost certain that the chiropractor accidentally killed her through neck manipulation."

This is a pretty serious allegation. Is there any way a blood clot could have been initiated by the fall only to dislodge a few days later? In a way completely unrelated to the chiropractor?

I don't know much about the clotting process, except that fibrin and Vitamins A, K, and C are involved.

I pop my neck all the time for relief of neck pain. Swear by it. But the way I do it is pretty benign. I simply put the back of my head under a table and my arms above it similar to the way a cop might tell you to put your hands behind your head. I relax my neck and push with my arms above the table and my head below. My neck pops. That is when the disk's are compressed. After a while of doing this it doesn't pop anymore because my neck never get's a chance to become compressed and I don't have any of the pain associated with the compression. So while I don't agree with chiropracs claims of curing disease, I suspect the relief they give patient's is real at least when it comes to back and neck pain. Because what they do probably decompresses joints in a round about way similar to what I do. So for someone who doesn't know how to do this, and the extraordinary claims of curing disease as an added benefit. It probably seems like a great deal.

Haha this article is so bias it's hilarious. Youre a 1,000 times more likely to die going to a hospital than a chiropractor. The 3rd leading cause of death in the US is medical errors by MDs. http://www.bmj.com/content/353/bmj.i2139
Your chances of a stroke from a chiropractor is less than .00000008%. There's plenty of studies on this. Use any scientific journal. Studies show that patients who have died from a stroke after an adjustment had pre existing conditions. There are plenty of benefits for neck adjustments and published journal articles show it that as well. Instead of reading this guys poor article, here is a published journal article on the risks.http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0161475408003473

Here's another profession article since the author was too lazy to do anyou research on his/her own.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1050641112000557

1 out of 25 chiropractors in a 50 year span of practicing will have a patient with a preexisting fall or condition that sets then up to have a stroke. The average chiropractor gives 80 adjustments a day. 240 days of work a year gives 19,200 adjustments a year leave you at 960,000 adjustments in ONE chiropractors lifetime. Katie May was roughly 1 out of 24 million people who got adjusted. Read the published articles I posted.

There still might be more to the mystery. Katie May might have had an underlying disorder of her arteries which predisposed her to dissection. One I am familiar with is Fibromuscular Dysplasia (FMD), which affects mainly women of all ages. It can be found in any arterial bed and commonly in the carotids and vertebrals. Those diagnosed with it are to avoid chiropractic manipulations, roller coasters, yoga, etc., anything that causes stress and torquing of those affected arteries. Unfortunately, the diagnosis comes after a medical crisis - stroke, coronary dissection, etc. and in some cases during autopsy if the coroner is familiar with the manifestations of the disease. It would be interesting to note whether the autopsy report described tortuosity, beading (dilation and stenosis), S-curve of those arteries. Very sad story, but hopefully more information with surface.

Katie S @ #22 -- Yes, the medical examiner's report was specific about the cause being directly related to the chiropractic manipulation, albeit an accidental cause of death, for what that's worth.

Vertebral artery tears/strokes is a very uncommon type of stroke. When it does occur it is usually related to a minor injury or awkward movement. Examples include; putting your head back at a beauty salon to have your hair washed, turning your head while driving to see what’s behind you, or even possibly a chiropractic adjustment. When this occurs it usually leads to unilateral neck pain. This pain will often bring a patient to a doctor’s office (Primary care or Chiropractic). Over the next few days, after the initial trauma to the artery, a clot develops then breaks (embolism) away causing an acute tear in the artery and the stroke (in the brain). In this case, it is far more likely that she suffered the vertebral artery injury during her fall. She then went to the Chiropractor for treatment and the stroke is unrelated to the treatment itself. Likely, she would’ve had the same result if she went to a primary care physician and did not see a Chiropractor at all. Very few doctors would order vertebral artery ultrasound to have diagnosed it. Even fewer doctors would be able to get the test actually performed before the stroke occurred. The medical examiner will not be able to support his/her position in court. The case will probably never go to trial (nor should it.)

Chiropractic care is very safe, many studies prove this.Medicine is the 3rd leading cause of death in the US, studies prove this. its interesting to see the medical bigotry and outdated dogma being presented as fact. Ive been in practice for 17 years. Ive given thousands of neck adjustments. http://www.cureus.com/articles/4155-systematic-review-and-meta-analysis…

nearly 700 deaths a day — about 9.5 percent of all deaths annually in the United States.

Makary said he and co-author Michael Daniel, also from Johns Hopkins, conducted the analysis to shed more light on a problem that many hospitals and health-care facilities try to avoid talking about.

Although all providers extol patient safety and highlight the various safety committees and protocols they have in place, few provide the public with specifics on actual cases of harm due to mistakes. Moreover, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention doesn’t require reporting of errors in the data it collects about deaths through billing codes, making it hard to see what’s going on at the national level.

[Does your surgeon have enough practice to operate on you?]

The CDC should update its vital statistics reporting requirements so that physicians must report whether there was any error that led to a preventable death, Makary said.

“We all know how common it is,” he said. “We also know how infrequently it’s openly discussed.”

Kenneth Sands, who directs health-care quality at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, an affiliate of Harvard Medical School, said that the surprising thing about medical errors is the limited change that has taken place since the IOM report came out. Only hospital-acquired infections have shown improvement. “The overall numbers haven’t changed, and that’s discouraging and alarming,” he said.

[A doctor removed the wrong ovary, and other nightmare tales from California licensing records]

Sands, who was not involved in the study published in the BMJ, formerly known as the British Medical Journal, said that one of the main barriers is the tremendous diversity and complexity in the way health care is delivered.

May 2016cover Consumer Reports recently investigated California licensing records and found that many doctors who were still practicing were on probation for serious violations of patient safety.
“There has just been a higher degree of tolerance for variability in practice than you would see in other industries,” he explained. When passengers get on a plane, there’s a standard way attendants move around, talk to them and prepare them for flight, Sands said, yet such standardization isn’t seen at hospitals. That makes it tricky to figure out where errors are occurring and how to fix them. The government should work with institutions to try to find ways improve on this situation, he said.

Firstly, an injury happens when a doctor doesn't do a proper history, exam and x-rays. Unfortunately, not everyone does that and I personally would not see one of those doctors. Even so, injury is extremely rare.
That being said, not one of those videos is showing a chiropractor that is adjusting properly and it is an embarrassment to the profession that those guys are posting these videos.
And what did you say earlier about us being inferior PT's? Ha! I find it interesting that PT's in every state are trying to get it passed that they are allowed to do manipulations to the spine. Why, if adjustments don't do anything, would they want to do that? Interesting. Well you want a bad adjustment go to one of those guys who do a weekend class and get a certificate then try to go and adjust. PT's are glorified personal trainers and you can get any stupid exercise they give you by going to YouTube. Give me a break.
To say chiropractic is quackery and pseudoscience is ignorance. You have obviously not seen the research of every disease imaginable being eliminated or reduced drastically because of SPECIFIC chiropractic adjustments. I won't go into the endless list. Literally endless. Traditional acupuncturist manipulate the spine and spinal manipulation can be dated back to the ancient Egyptians.
Not because chiropractic heals a certain ailment but because balance is restored to the body and the body itself does the healing. It's real simple.
So asthma and other things you mentioned in the previous post IS related to the spine because everything is related to the spine. That is where the central nervous system is which is the lifeline of the body, the communication line of body. If the central nervous system can't relay nerve impulses from the brain to the organs and then back to the brain at 100% then it can't be optimal and any number of things can develop. Again, real simple concept.
If all the miraculous healing that have been reported were not true why would this profession be as large as it is and around since 1895? Why does Nike hire a chiropractor and send him to the olympics to take care of all the athletes it sponsors?
Why does every professional sports team have a chiropractor?
Why are you so mad? Because you chose the wrong profession?
Find a Gonstead practitioner and find out what chiropractic really is.
Lastly, you want to talk about what is harmful? Why don't we talk about how many people die every year from medicine. 20,000 from prescription drugs every year. 20,000!!! However, is that the TOTAL number of deaths caused by conventional medicine is an astounding 783,936 per year. Wake up people!!! Don't be distracted by all the medical bull they are shoving down your throat!
I'll take my great diet and a chiropractic adjustment any day.

Philip @ 27

You are hypothesizing that she tore her vertebral artery in the fall. If this was the case, do you think it was a good idea for the chiro to be adjusting her neck?

Are neck adjustments conta-indicated in the case of neck pain or headache after a traumatic injury?

Without details of the autopsy findings, we are not in a position to question the findings of the medical examiner.

The number of cases of stroke from vertebral artery tear temporally linked to chiropractic manipulation continues to grow. While you will not find anyone here who will overstate the strength of anecdotal evidence, I think you have to concede that it is at least PLAUSIBLE that chiropractic high velocity neck manipulation could cause a vertebral artery tear. Your post indicates that you, like the bulk of the chiropractic community, prefers to dismiss these cases as coincidence, rather that face up to the POSSIBILITY that neck manipulation, every once in a while, is killing otherwise healthy young individuals. Unfortunately, every single DC I've spoken to about this issue is in complete denial mode.

Until chiropractic acknowledges this possibility and seriously attempts to answer the question as to the safety and effectiveness of its practices, then expect the medical community to continue to view your chose profession with a degree of disdain.

A couple of decades ago, the allergist community faced up the the fact that allergy shots had the disturbing tendency to, every once in a rare while, cause a fatal allergic reaction. The profession set about addressing the problem head on by collecting data on these events, understanding the risk factors, developing guidelines, and setting contraindications for administering allergy shots. Every year, members of the professional societies are surveyed regarding shot reactions , both within their own clinics, but also regarding any within their community. These efforts have resulted in a dramatic decline in the number of fatalities.

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26948485

I should point out that, unlike neck manipulation, the benefits of allergy shots are well established and have been proven in numerous well controlled trials.

If you chose to defend your professional practices, then don't do it by pretending that nothing could possibly be wrong. Establish a registry of cases, actively solicit reports, and above all, you desperately need to establish through rigorous clinical trials that: a) what you are doing has benefit and b) establishes and quantifies the risk .

Capt.

Marc Rogers @28: You echo a point made earlier, that people die in hospitals, but people almost never die at the chiropractor.

May I suggest that this is at least in part because when you're in a car accident, the ambulance takes you to a hospital, not a chriopractor? Yes, there is risk to medical procedures, but that is because there is also known benefits. For example: all surgery has risks that include death. But many surgeries are also life-saving.
Chiro has risks, as described above, but how many lives has it saved?

Medicine must do better, but be honest, in an emergency, you're still going to call 911.

Wow, how is it that we are completely ignoring the fact that prior to the adjustment, she fell * hard * and hit her head/neck?? Gee, wonder if that kind of blunt trauma might have ultimately caused her death...??

You should read my first post about Katie May, which goes into this question much more deeply.

Cameron:

The 3rd leading cause of death in the US is medical errors by MDs.

Marc Rogers:

Medicine is the 3rd leading cause of death in the US, studies prove this.

You guys know each other?

To say chiropractic is quackery and pseudoscience is ignorance.

Is this your "applied kinesiology" joint, Sean?

Why does every professional sports team have a chiropractor?

Please list the chiropractors who are part of the regular-season medical team for every Major League Baseball franchise.

There is a reason that no university will associate with a chiropractic school. They have gotten where they are by having good political lobbyists and not by science.
People who work in neuro know that there are many many cases of this which are not correctly attributed to the chiropractor because the stroke doesn't happen immediately, it's usually delayed.

Earlier comment... " She then went to the Chiropractor for treatment and the stroke is unrelated to the treatment itself. Likely, she would’ve had the same result if she went to a primary care physician and did not see a Chiropractor at all. "
Thanks for answering my question. Now do you think that ORAC would have written two articles on that event?

This is an exceedingly rare event, and when something like this happens tho a vaccinated child, it is called an "anecdote" and brushed aside.

I sense double standards. For a website posing a representative of science, I would expect to see some statistics to impress upon us the idea that chiropractic-induced stroke might be something worth our consideration.

What is the chance of a fatal complication as a result of being prescribed opiates for this; and what is the relative risk ratio when compared to chiropractic manipulation?

"This is an exceedingly rare event, and when something like this happens tho a vaccinated child, it is called an “anecdote” and brushed aside."

A key difference is that in chiropractic-induced strokes, there is an established mechanism for stroke occurring in the setting of cervical artery damage, as well evidence of a forceful maneuver having occurred in the absence of any other explanation for such trauma. In many cases of "vaccine injury" there is no logical mechanism and no good association (temporal or otherwise) with vaccination.

Exceedingly rare serious complications due to vaccination occur secondary to a medically valuable and evidence-based intervention. Exceedingly rare* and devastating complications due to chiropractic neck-cracking are secondary to a procedure without demonstrated value. I hope you can see the difference.

*the evidence we have suggests that stroke due to chiropractic manipulation is "rare"; how "exceedingly rare" it is depends on recognition and reporting.

What seems to missing in this discussion seems to be the fact that there is now very high level of evidence that chiropractic manipulation doesn’t cause strokes. The most thorough study on the subject (a systemic review & meta-analysis) published earlier this year found that there is no evidence that chiropractic causes strokes https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4794386/.

More really strong evidence that there is no link between chiropractic & stroke was published last year when researchers analysed the data from over a million patient records & found that people were no more likely to suffer a stroke after seeing a chiropractor than after seeing a medical practitioner. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25596875

What we do know is that when the vertebral artery starts to rupture from other causes, this often causes neck pain & headaches etc. This prompts the patient to seek care from a health practitioner, often a chiropractor. The rupture will then progressively evolve over a period of several days before resulting in a stroke – not as a result of the practitioner’s interventions. An example of this was recently published in BMJ. In this case report a patient presented to hospital emergency department & was dismissed with a diagnosis of migraine. A few days later she presented to a chiropractor who made the correct diagnosis of vertebral artery rupture in evolution, quite probably saving the patient’s life. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25596875

In the tragic case of Katy May the blame on the chiropractor seems all stem from one trashy gossip magazine reporting of the coroner’s findings that the stroke was caused by the manipulation. The coroner’s report needs to be publically released before anyone jumps to conclusions. I would suggest that a more probable explanation is that Katie’s stroke was initially caused by the significant trauma that she suffered when she fell hard & hit her head hard during the photo shoot. She hurt herself badly enough to go the emergency room before consulting the chiropractor. The chiropractor was probably in the wrong place at the wrong time with a patient who was undergoing an evolving vertebral artery rupture.

Actually, I'd hardly call that second study high level evidence, given its retrospective nature and design. As for the meta-analysis, in actuality, the meta-analysis did find a weak association between chiropractic neck manipulation and stroke and then spent the entire discussion trying to explain it away—unconvincingly, in my assessment.

As Orac pointed out, even if the risk of injury or death from that sort of manipulation is low, it's not worth the risk because there is no benefit.

For those of you who like those odds, how about a bet? We each put up $100, and then get a computer to generate a random number between 1 and 50,000. If the random number is 8749, you give me $100. If it's any other number, we each keep our money.

You only have one change in 50,000 of losing, so how about it?

Sean @29:
every disease imaginable being eliminated or reduced drastically because of SPECIFIC chiropractic adjustments

One seldom sees such commitment to a grift.

Why does every professional sports team have a chiropractor?

NZ chiropractors spend a lot of time whinging about the All Blacks' focus on winning games, and their refusal to have anything to with the scam.

#35-36 why yes Narad, that is my practice. Why? You need help with something?
You want me to list the 27 teams that have a chiropractor on staff? You want me to tell you the players I've personally seen?
Do some research

Who gives a damn what some athletes believe?

As we saw at the Olympics, there are athletes who believe in cupping.

Many professional athletes pray to a god to win and thank that god if they do well.

Several years ago, an NHL hockey team used to sit under a pyramid before games to "channel the energy of the universe" or some such twaddle.

There are athletes who have "lucky socks" or some other ritual they must perform before games or they believe they won't perform well.

You want me to list the 27 teams that have a chiropractor on staff?

Indeed we do. Around here, people who make claims of fact are told to put up evidence supporting those claims. So name those teams.

every disease imaginable being eliminated or reduced drastically because of SPECIFIC chiropractic adjustments

This is true in the preventative sense that for any given disease there is a "SPECIFIC chiropractic adjustment" that will prevent you from contracting or developing it.

Katie May, for instance, as a result of the specific chiropractic adjustment she received, will never develop cancer, or beri-beri, or epizootic sniggers. Or anything else.

You want me to list the 27 teams that have a chiropractor on staff?
Indeed we do

We would like a lot more than that, in that our informant told us initially (with his bare face hanging out) that "every professional sports team [has] a chiropractor". 27 teams? He can identify the staff chiropractor for every professional sports team in the world, or he can shut the feck up.

In response to Orac’s comments at #41.... I’m pleased to see that you concede that the highest level of evidence available the subject of chiropractic neck manipulation causing stroke shows only weak association. (ie. The Church et al meta-analysis https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4794386/). However, with respect, I’d suggest that you should question whether you are allowing your personal beliefs cloud your judgement when you dismiss the Church et all conclusion that there is ‘no convincing evidence’ that chiropractic manipulation causes cervical artery rupture as the authors trying to explain away any association at all. Church & all of his five co-authors are neurosurgeons. For what exact reason would you suggest that the authors purposefully try to skew their conclusions?

As for the Whedon study https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25596875, you dismiss this because it was a retrospective study. Well it’s kinda hard to do a prospective study with 1,157,475 subjects! The study more than makes up for its retrospective nature by its vast volume of data analysis. You also criticise its design. This study is straight forward statistics. They analysed huge numbers of patient records & found that slightly fewer people had vertebrobasillar strokes following a visit to a chiropractor than following a visit to a general medical practitioner. The beauty of this sort of study is that it is just numbers. It is not open to bias in interpretation of results or being skewed by experimental methodology. What exactly is it that you object to in its design?

Now back to the Katie May tragedy. I’m interested to see that you make no response to my suggestion that it is more probable that Katie’s vertebrobasillar stroke was caused by hitting her head hard when she fell than the chiropractic treatment. Now we’ve established that, at best, there is only a weak association between chiropractic manipulation & vertebrobasillar strokes, while there is a clear & indisputable association between blunt head trauma & these strokes. So how can it possibly be logical to dismiss the fall to be the cause of the tragedy & be certain that the chiro did it?

I had a cervical chiropractic adjustment in 2012 that has left me with chronic pain and limited range of motion. Immediately after, felt really ill, bp 190/100. Called chiropractor and he said no available appointments to deal with issue but he would pray for me!!!! No more chiro for me. Despite what news saying. I think this stuff happens more often than reported. Cervical adjustments are just bad!!!

"...there is now very high level of evidence that chiropractic manipulation doesn’t cause strokes."

Not quite.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevensalzberg/2015/03/02/nih-distorts-repo…
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1905885/

"I’m interested to see that you make no response to my suggestion that it is more probable that Katie’s vertebrobasillar stroke was caused by hitting her head hard when she fell than the chiropractic treatment."

I'm interested to see your conclusion that when a patient comes in with a history of minor cervical trauma, it's appropriate and harmless to perform forcible chiropractic neck wrenching.

You want me to list the 27 teams that have a chiropractor on staff?

Given that you've just conceded that your assertion that "every professional sports team [has] a chiropractor" is false,* I think my work is done here.

* There are 30 MLB franchises.

Narad, I'm glad your done because you have had nothing to offer to this conversation. I know there are 30 teams. 27 of them have chiropractors on staff. Ok, you got me. Is that the stuff you really want to split hairs on? I think my point is made.

Bottom line for all the closed minded negative trolls on here is that chiropractic isn't going anywhere. So continue to waste your time trying to discredit it. I'll continue to grow my practice and serve my community, this nation and the world.

I don't know why I bothered reading this hacks blog anyway. What a waste of time.

You have obviously not seen the research of every disease imaginable being eliminated or reduced drastically because of SPECIFIC chiropractic adjustments. I won’t go into the endless list.

I'd be interested if you could provide links to the research on the specific chiropractic adjustments that would cure the following diseases:
- Large B-Cell lymphoma
- Type 1 diabetes
- Type 2 diabetes
- Rabies

Thanks!

I don’t know why I bothered reading this hacks blog anyway. What a waste of time.

And the portions are so small!
(said no-one about an Orac post, ever).

I know there are 30 teams.

There are 30 franchises. These comprise over 100 professional teams.

Is that the stuff you really want to split hairs on? I think my point is made.

That you're full of demonstrably preposterous shіt? Don't think before writing? Have transcended "straight" chiropractic in terms of fraudulence in action?

Yes, this point has been made very well.

^ Hey, who's the chiropractor for the Albuquerque Isotopes? The Lansing Lugnuts? I can't wait.

^^ Finally,

Bottom line for all the closed minded negative trolls on here is that chiropractic isn’t going anywhere.

Yup, just like "applied kinesiology" and Roger McGuinn.

The Isotopes' front office staff and roster don't list any medical personnel, so it's hard to say.

http://www.milb.com/content/page.jsp?ymd=20081103&content_id=41151222&f…
But the Colorado Rockies do have directors for medical operations, physical performance, and a "psychical performance coach".

http://mlb.mlb.com/team/front_office.jsp?c_id=col

Nimrod, again nothing

O'Brien, there is no specific adjustment for those diseases. There is no diabeties bone or rabies bone and obviously you have named some things here that require medical attention. Type 2 diabeties though, can be prevented and often times reversed by eating properly. Don't ask stupid questions. However, can the body better deal with disease if the nervous system is functioning properly? By all means.
Chiropractic doesn't cure anything. It restores balance to the body and gives that person the ability to heal naturally.

Why would I list every single chiropractor associated with a pro sports team..? Look it up for crying out loud! It's not like it's hard to find. Start with your home town dum dums

And as for the douche talking about the All Blacks, I went to chiropractic college with 2!!! All Blacks and took the pitch with them!! So STFU!! Haha!

One final and a thing, cupping and all that other bullshit you saw during the olympics is not chiropractic.

"To say chiropractic is quackery and pseudoscience is ignorance. You have obviously not seen the research of every disease imaginable being eliminated or reduced drastically because of SPECIFIC chiropractic adjustments. I won’t go into the endless list. Literally endless."

Sean is right. Chiros are "growing their practices" right and left, while leaving behind the simpleminded idea that spinal manipulation is only good to a limited extent for musculoskeletal complaints.

I'm starting to see the marriage of chiropractic and functional medicine (think "Bride of Frankenstein"), exemplified by chiros who are members of the International Association of Neurometabolic Professionals, which legitimizes the care of such disorders as type II diabetes and "Female Hormones" (never knew that one was a disease, but live and learn):

http://drtoddwilson.com/conditions/

Here's another one, who has eschewed false modesty with a becoming section on his website "What Makes Me Unique And Effective" (among his successes is treating ADHD):

https://www.helpmychronicpain.com

The possibilities for making money through a combination of chiropractic and functional medicine are endless; I mean, literally endless.

Just make sure that in your ads, you call yourself "Doctor" a lot, and only mention the part about being a chiropractor in a line on the bottom in small print.

Namard, again you offer nothing

Why would I start the exhaustive list of chiropractictors associated with professional teams. It's not like it is a secret! My goodness look it up, start with your home town

There is no diabeties bone or rabies bone chiropractic simply restores balance to the body so it has he opportunity to heal itself. Specific adjustments to a spine that is out of alignment allow that to happen if in case, that is what is causing interference to optimal health.

Some things obviously need medical attention but type 2 can be prevented and often times reversed through diet.

Many of you are confusing what chiropractic is. Definitely not cupping or some of that other garbage you saw during the olympics.

Lastly to the Kiwi. I went to chiropractic college with 2 All Blacks and played rugby with both as well.

I'm sorry, are you claiming that chiropractic can treat rabies?

My point was that athletes are not the brightest bulbs in the marquee and believe in all kinds of nonsense, from superstitions to cupping to, well, chiropractic.

Just because they're athletes doesn't mean they know or understand anything about science. That was my point in mentioning the cupping.

One famous hockey goalie does commercials for that homeopathic duck liver cold stuff. He swears it works.

Some teams MIGHT have a chiropractor available to humour their players who subscribe to the religion, but ALL teams have doctors, physiotherapists and medically-educated trainers behind the bench and in the dressing rooms.

I am very familiar with three professional teams here in my home town (I work in the media), know several players and former players, and have never heard either the teams nor the players mention chiro. They certainly don't pay one on staff: if players want to go on their own, that's their choice.

No Dorit. Come on man.

In my experience Woo, many athletes are extremely bright and very in tune with their bodies.

Why would I start the exhaustive list of chiropractictors associated with professional teams. It’s not like it is a secret! My goodness look it up, start with your home town

That's not how it works here. You made a claim, so you stump up the proof for your claim.

Start here Julian....

http://probaseballchiros.com/pbcs-chiropractors/major-league-chiropract…

Then do your own research if you so concerned

Sean: "In my experience...many athletes are extremely bright and very in tune with their bodies."

In my experience, athletes tend to be credulous about their health, as demonstrated by their affinity for dubious supplements,, titanium necklaces and various other woo. They turn to chiropractors and other fringe practitioners, as in the case of ex-Cleveland Browns quarterback Bernie Kosar, who was "cured" of chronic traumatic encephalopathy by a Dr. Rick Sponaugle, using a mystery IV drip and supplements (the "cure" apparently didn't last long):

https://newrepublic.com/article/115527/nfl-concussion-crisis-doctors-us…

Note that chiros have also found it lucrative to treat symptoms of brain injury:

"Where some doctors use potions, others rely on far-out machines. Ted Carrick, who calls himself a chiropractic neurologist, gained attention a couple years ago when NHL star Sidney Crosby credited him for helping him recover from a series of devastating concussions. Among the treatments Carrick used: strapping Crosby into a space-camp looking gyroscopic chair and spinning him, upside-down, around and around and around. Carrick says the wait to enter his clinics in Dallas, Texas, and Marietta, Georgia, can stretch to a year. When patients do finally get in, he charges them $1,000 per day. Most stay one to two weeks. Insurance companies do not pick up the tab."

You should look into that, Sean. After a few years of that kind of practice, you could afford a villa that would put Mercola's to shame.

But the Colorado Rockies do have directors for medical operations, physical performance, and a “psychical performance coach”.

I have a strong sense that that's a typo.

Start here Julian….

htt[]://probaseballchiros.com/pbcs-chiropractors/major-league-chiropractors/

Then do your own research if you so concerned

*does own research*

I find it curious that the only person who refers to Joshua Akin as the Cubs' "team chiropractor" is Joshua Akin. There is a news item describing him this way for the Bears, doing soft tissue work on... Jay Cutler.

The only things you've demonstrated with this routine are that (1) you're not overly concerned with accuracy when it comes to making wild assertions and (2) some professional sports teams have a chiro in the Rolodex if somebody wants one.

What you have most certainly not demonstrated is that they are "straight" chiros, which moots your entire performance.

I’m sorry, are you claiming that chiropractic can treat rabies?

No Dorit. Come on man.

Repeat after me:

You have obviously not seen the research of every disease imaginable being eliminated or reduced drastically because of SPECIFIC chiropractic adjustments.

There is a news item describing him this way for the Bears, doing soft tissue work on… Jay Cutler.

Jay Cutler? Jay "we don't vaccinate" Cutler? Married to Kristin "I feed my babies dangerous home-made formula" Cavalleri?

That Jay Cutler?

Funny no records about ER visit. Meds can cause strokes? Falls to head can cause strokes? Did the fucking ER work up the head injury? Did they miss something? Thats my guess. Bleed on brain? Im guessing easier to blame chiro then medical malpractice. Common things occur commonly. Dont be influenced by a bunch of wolves people. Ill testify in court about real medical records, autopsy reports, chiro records, actual scientific double blind studies, etc. Not a tweet supposedly from TMZ, Forbes article, post on Facebook, etc. Lawyers from big time hospitals can crush a small business owner. I call bullshit you all unless all evidence is present!

Shay,

If Cutler has been a regular customer of a chiropractor, that's very likely where he got his anti-vaccine ideas. Most chiros are notorious for dissuading their customers from vaccination.

No doubt Sean, as a chiro, sees nothing wrong with Cutler's (and his industry's) anti-vax stance.

Jay Cutler? Jay “we don’t vaccinate” Cutler?

Heh, I forgot about all that. I don't actually have any interest in football, but I have friends who do, so the first thing that occurred to me was complaints about his long-standing suckitude.

Ill testify in court about real medical records, autopsy reports, chiro records, actual scientific double blind studies, etc.

Can you provide any examples of your work as an expert witness? Remember where the money is; talent is always welcome.

If Cutler has been a regular customer of a chiropractor, that’s very likely where he got his anti-vaccine ideas.

That strikes me as a leap.

^ Make of this what you will, but it doesn't seem to be in the same, ah, ballpark as Sean's "applied kinesiology" joint (which apparently also offers nonspecific cosmetic improvements).

^^ He does seem to have gotten a haircut.

Good boy Narad, good boy. Haha.

Sean, a question, please.

IRT D. D. Palmer, chiropractor number one, about patient alpha, who was treated for deafness. Do you think Palmer's story is plausible? Can chiropractic treat deafness?

If he removed pressure from a nerve going to the ear that was causing it not to function properly, then yes.
Things like that happen because again, Palmer had no intention of fixing the guys deafness in one ear. He was trying to relieve him of pain. But removal of interference to an otherwise normal nervous system allowed it to function properly again.
Palmer thought he had found the "cure" for deafness. It wasn't a cure at all. It was just a pinched nerve where he happened to manipulate the spine.
When I was in school I was seeing a patient for lower back pain. About 2 weeks into it says to me, "you know, I've had athletes foot for over a year. I have never been able to get rid of it. It's now gone." I had no idea the guy had athletes foot and did I then find a cure for athletes foot? No! But something was working right again and his body finally was able correct the problem.
People come to us for certain things, head aches, allergies, digestion issues, but chiropractic doesn't treat those things. We just work with the body, do our best to restore balance and a lot of the times, the symptoms, wherever they may be, go away.
That's true chiropractic. It's not cupping, it's not ART, not supplements not even applied kinesiology which our friend Narad likes to keep poking fun at. It's simply adjusting the spine but in a very specific way and giving the body the ability to heal itself by taking pressure of the nervous system. It works really well and that's why the ancients looked to the spine, that's why Edison said look to the spine, that's why the profession itself has been around as long as it has.

So would it be fair to say that you believe that there is a nerve, any nerve, that goes from the ear to the brain that impacts hearing, that travels via the spine, or any path that can be manipulated with gentle pressure as Palmer stated?

Johhny, nobody really knows what he adjusted. Would it be nice to know? Yes. Does it really matter? Not really. What matters is he facilitated a study to appreciate the bodies ability to heal on its own.
I wish I knew. Something to do with the cervical plexus? Anything can cause anything and is why it is important not to get so focused on symptoms but balance of the entire body.

Good night boys and girls. Lots of patients tomorrow. I wish you all the best. Even you Narad...

Sean you stated "Why does every professional sports team have a chiropractor?"

The Warriors do not have any chiropractors on their medical team. They do have a PT though or glorified personal trainers (what you call them). Will you also be exaggerating anything else to make it sound like EVERY body is jumping on the chiropractick bandwagon?

So the set of "every disease imaginable" is a subset of "every disease" and, presumably, only includes those which might reasonably be treated or prevented by spinal manipulation and improvements in posture. Things like back ache could lead to reduced activity and slumping, which leads to poor wind and weight gain, which leads to any of a number of chronic diseases?

Sean: "Anything can cause anything".

Well, obviously if you believe that, chiropractic is an appropriate treatment for anything.

Although a few chiros still talk about fixing deafness with spinal manipulation, the concept remains nonsensical and the case reports unconvincing.

https://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/chiropractic-and-deafness-back-to-…

Does it really matter? Not really.

Yes, it really does matter. The anatomy and physiology related to hearing doesn't leave the inside of the skull. But, hey, I could use a laugh - tell us how you think hearing works, and how the spine is involved.

Anything can cause anything and is why it is important not to get so focused on symptoms but balance of the entire body.

So do you seriously believe that if two people stub their toe, then walk with a limp, and 'throw their spine out of alignment', that one could develop deafness, and the other bleeding gums?

Only a chiropractor would say that symptoms aren't important.

Check out NUCCA -- chiro adjustments without twisting or jerking. Got rid of my lifelong migraines and trigeminal neuralgia -- also known as tic doulereau.

“Anything can cause anything” implies that "anything can fix anything", which reminds me of Dirk Gently.

Your bill for my time on your case is in the mail.

It's far beyond the scope of this blog

I'm just wondering why katie decided to go to a chiropractor instead of a normal GP? Her pain was not chronic but acute in nature. She injured her head when she fell in that photo shoot. She suffered from a WHIPLASH (known as a cervical extension injury by doctors) injury that extended all the way down to her neck.
Many years ago, at 21 years of age, I fell off a high balance beam. I hit my head so hard when it made contact with the ground. I was afraid for myself because it was one hell of a knock - much worse than katie's, I can assure you. I decided to go home after that. There were no symptoms in those few hours, went to bed and fall asleep.
But by the following the day I woke up with one massive headache, felt nauseas, had a fever, had a swollen neck and a sore throat so bad I could barely talk. I knew that serious head injuries can cause a detachment of a retina so I knew I had to see a doctor once symptoms began. felt like I was dieing.
My sister called the ambulance. When I arrived at the hospital the doctor ordered an xray. All structures within my head and neck was showed to still be intact. I was diagnosed as having whiplash. He gave me strong painkillers and I was sent home.
The chiropractor was highly negligent. He is responsible for he death. Period. The force he applied to her neck must have been severe enough for an artery to rupture. The coroner knew he was to blame, hence the results of her autopsy.

It is not far beyond the scope of this blog, at all. It is simple, really. The coroner's autopsy report confirms the chiropractor killed Kate May. End-of-story.
P.S Orac, you are BRILLIANT. You never experienced a whiplash injury but you get it. You are a genius.

Starting in 2009 Dr. Bill Moreau has been the director of the U.S. Olympic Committee’s (USOC) Sports Medicine Clinics. He's a chiropractor. I wouldn't say he's average, but to think the Olympic Committee would hire a chiropractor to oversee their entire program just because they're easily duped is quite dumb. The reason that professional and Olympic teams are brought up is because it's a high stakes game that only cares about results.

Shane:

The reason that professional and Olympic teams are brought up is because it’s a high stakes game that only cares about results.

I'm not sure that's accurate -- that's definitely how it's *perceived*, but to say they only care about results implies they need to know the results before they'll accept something. And that is definitely not true. When the stakes are that high, you will certainly accept anything with proven results, but you'll also throw the dice on anything that *might* get results, provided it's not too risky. Most alternative medicine treatments offer very few risks (other than missed diagnoses), and with the payout being possible victory or even world records, that looks like an extremely good bet.

This is also why professional athletes are famous for superstition, and holding to rituals. It's not because they're stupid. It's because the payoff is so great that they'll take what would otherwise seem pointless, because what if one of the things they try actually does work? Worse, what if one of the things their *competitor* tries actually does work?

I used to think that all chiropractors were quack scam artist. But my time reading RI has convinced me that this is not true. I now believe that there are two types of chiropractors.

There are those that, as near as I can tell, include Moreau, that are physical therapist with delusions of grandeur. This type seems to not do much damage, and may even helpful to some.

Then there are the other types, who believe that chiropractic can cure deafness, and indeed any and all other ailments. I think these are some evil, ignorant sumbitches, who should be run out of town.

You can probably guess which category I would assign to someone who makes a statement like "Anything can cause anything...".

Calli,
I see your point but what I'm saying is that to reach that level of athlete you presumably have proven some sort of value. They didn't just take a chance on Dr. Moreau based on fear that the Russians might have a voodoo doctor to give them a placebo provided boost. They made him the head of their entire physical medicine program. He presumably knows his stuff, not just in chiropractic, but in patient care specifically regarding athletes. Make no mistake, he is one of the best within the chiropractic profession in the specialty of sports medicine and I don't think every chiropractor has ascended to his level of knowledge of the human body and it's nuanced treatment protocols.

Hey John boy. Here ya loud and clear dum dum. There's studies that show adjustments have improved hearing. I tried to post the links a couple times but it got kicked off. Hmm. Those studies are upper cervical but misalignment in the lower spine can in turn cause problems in the upper spine because it's all connected you douche. And if the upper cervical spine is off than it can then affect the inner ear because of the occipital bone being misaligned which can change every other cranial bone then cranial nerves.
The bleeding gums comment you posted is asinine which is why trying to have a conversation with a troll moron like yourself typically goes no where. Your to dumb to get out of your own way. I personally have improved patients hearing with upper cervical adjustments as well as sight and any other sensory function you would like Fill the blank with.
Talk about DD, big f'ing deal. Let's talk about all the people killed since 1895 medical vs chiropractic, and see really, who's causing harm.
So I don't give 2 craps what you believe about chiropractic or what 2 sides there are and which you subscribe to. Just like the author of this blog who has said in a previous post, to paraphrase, well I guess if it was this kind of chiropractor I would say it's okay. Well gosh thanks so much that you believe it helps with low back pain. Gee, I just don't know what we put profession would do if you didn't. Thank you thank you! Are kiddin me?
Go do something with your life and try to honestly help some people. Seriously. Get a clue and get a life.

Btw, someone mentioned the Warriors earlier. The Golden State Warriors? They've had a chiropractor for years. So did Jordan, so did Gretzky, so did Joe Montana, Usan Bolt, so did Elliot Smith, so does Labron James, so does........

Let's see: the foot bone is connected to the shin bone which is connected to thigh bone which is connected to the hip bone which is connected to the back bone. It all makes sense now, oh my.

It's called a kinetic chain Bly. Glad your catching on

I love this. Not a single person on this feed understands what neuronal summation is. Nor what the chiropractic adjustment actually does but believe it to be quackery. A chiropractic adjustment activates mechanoreceptors in the joint space that sends a signal to the cortex,(neuronal summation of other neurons- which is how the hearing impairment was effected) causing an increase in the pontomedullary reticular formation which causes a decrease in the Intermediolateral nucleus which will increase action of the vagus nerve causing an increase in parasympathetic function. In short, an adjustment can affect your autonomic function on every level. A vertebral artery dissection from an accident then seen by a chiropractor doesn't mean that a chiropractor killed her. The chiropractic adjustment is 90 percent lateral bending with only slight rotation of the joint within the natural joint physiological space. To declare a chiropractic adjustment caused her death after she took a fall at work (which no one can bring light to the severity) and not making her coroners report public knowledge is asinine and lacks any scientific methodology.

Sean since you are a little dense. That is a line from a song and I was being sarcastic.

Bly! Ohhhhhhhhh, that's a song? Golly! Your so funny!

Stupid troll

Sean @98, If adjusting the spin can correct hearing problems, then by logical inference, shouldn't damage to the spin cause hearing loss? That should be easy to test, just look at a wide swath of people who have had major damage to their spines and see if they have hearing problems that started with their injury.

However, if we find that there is not an increased incidence of hearing loss with spinal injury, then we would have to say that the two things are unrelated, would we not?

And so witty!!

Sean are you another of fendleworths lost socks?

Justa, adjustments only help hearing loss if a misaligned vertebrae is what's causing it it!! Otherwise it won't do squat for their hearing! What's with you people?

Bly, Are you another skid mark in my underwear?

Sean @106: That's what I'm asking. Clearly it would be unethical to go around damaging people's vertebrae in order to see if that causes hearing loss. But if you have a population of people who have damaged vertebrae, then it should be much easier to see how many of them developed hearing loss at the time of the injury to their vertebrae.

But if none of the people who suffered damage to their vertebrae have any hearing loss (from the time of the injury) then clearly there is no association between hearing loss and vertebrae damage, and therefore adjusting the vertebrae can not fix it.

Justa, Why don't you do that study then fill us in

Sean; no, no, no. That's not how this works. It is *your* assertion that vertebrae damage causes hearing loss. Therefore it is *your* job to provide evidence.

Particularly since the basic science says that there is no prior plausibility.

Or you could change your story and the amazing hearing recovery could be because the manipulation was so violent that the object in the man's ear was dislodged, restoring his hearing.

Justa, no one has ever said that THE reason, for ALL hearing loss is a misaligned vertebrae. Ever. I have given you a crude example, which I understand for your pocket protector wearing army is not good enough, above. I have also tried to post a link to two different studies that have shown improvement to hearing from upper cervical adjustments. For some reason it didn't take. Google it, what can say.
Everything else your saying doesn't make a whole lot of sense.
And being it that I have no interest in trying to prove what I know to be true to a bunch of dum dums,
If your hung up on it go do the study. I'm not researcher, I'm a practitioner that gets results

chiro #101
IF your theories are true....why can't chiropractors do a study showing that adjustments increase parasympathetic tone...you should be able to reduce heart rate, BP etc with a simple adjustment
This would be a very easy study. If i give some atropine we see this work immediately... lets see adjustments do it.
Then again, I would love to see evidence of that subluxations and misaligned vertebrae exist and that adjustments correct it. Before and after imaging?
These studies should be so easy to do, but chiros do not want to do it because they know it is all crap

Sean:
You have done a truly admirable job of putting forth your hypothesis:

All diseases can be cured by chiropractic, except those which cannot.

Now can you tell us how to distinguish between the two?*

Please post a link to the best, single peer-reviewed study which supports your conclusion. Thanks in advance!!

*My working hypothesis is that this decision is based on a quick calculation by the "practitioner" involving the patient's GQ (gullibility quotient) and DI (disposable income.)

@ Sean

Justa, no one has ever said that THE reason, for ALL hearing loss is a misaligned vertebrae.

No, but you did say that it was sometimes the case, and that your art can be used to help in these cases.

Hence JustaTech reasonable demand that before you pretend that you fixed a problem, you should show that there is a problem in the first place.

Chiro: "A chiropractic adjustment activates mechanoreceptors in the joint space that sends a signal to the cortex,(neuronal summation of other neurons- which is how the hearing impairment was effected) causing an increase in the pontomedullary reticular formation which causes a decrease in the Intermediolateral nucleus which will increase action of the vagus nerve causing an increase in parasympathetic function."

I love this.

Throw around some anatomic terms, make invisible connections using misunderstood dots, and hey presto! Parasympathetic function is activated! (gotta be for their benefit, just get the neurons revved up and whatever ails the patient will be fixed).

I think someone was hastily going back to his original class notes from Palmer.

If this was just a chiro delusion it wouldn't be so bad, but patients are being harmed, either from direct trauma, or far more commonly from neglect of conditions that could be alleviated or cured by evidence-based treatment by qualified health professionals.

@ Dangerous Bacon

Throw around some anatomic terms

A subsection of technobabble. Mr Spock did it better.

As I am no neurologist, upon reading Chiro I was split between "you really need to learn to speak to laypeople" and "this has to be a Poe".

Y'know, for someone who might as well have pictures of a unicorn and a rainbow on his Web site, Sean seems to be running awfully short on psychological, ah, function, balance, and flow.

Go adjust yourself.

Throw around some anatomic terms

A subsection of technobabble. Mr Spock did it better.

Yeah, but this guy does it better.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQjgsQ5G8ug

^ Heh. "Proud Member of the College of Applied Kinesiology."

“A chiropractic adjustment activates mechanoreceptors in the joint space that sends a signal to the cortex,(neuronal summation of other neurons- which is how the hearing impairment was effected) causing an increase in the pontomedullary reticular formation which causes a decrease in the Intermediolateral nucleus which will increase action of the vagus nerve causing an increase in parasympathetic function.”

You can make a magical incantation by stringing together random CNS-anatomy terms... but it's still a magical incantation.

a decrease in the Intermediolateral nucleus which will increase action of the vagus nerve
I was not previously aware that the Underpants Gnomes had branched out into neurology.

Your crap David.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.webmd.com/a-to-z-guides/news/20070316/…

http://www.rxlist.com/script/main/mobileart-rx.asp?drug=atropine&monoty…

Not that this has anything to do with chiropractic, but in your comments, I have counted at least 4 places where "you're" is misspelled "your".
Come to think of it, if you are as careless with neck adjustments as with spelling, you might want to check that your insurance is up to date.

It figures that Sean would eventually dredge up that study about chiro neck cracking and blood pressure (I predicted it in post #4). Chiros love that one, as it helps allow them to pretend to be internal medicine doctors.

Again, it was a short-term (8 week) study in a small group of patients, using a specialized technique not performed by chiros in general, and to my knowledge has never been replicated or gone into regular use as a treatment for hypertension.

I think you'd have to be nuts to allow a chiro to regularly crack on your C-1 vertebra in an attempt to control high blood pressure. But some people are drawn to adventure.

TBruce, thanks nerd. There's probably more misspellings than than that I typically do this from my phone. Who gives a rats.

Hey Bacon, that treatment is performed only by chiropractors and in that particular adjustment there is no cracking or noise or cavitation what so ever. Your so dumb you don't even know what your arguing about.

I'm out you chumps do nothing but grasp for straws. YOU'RE bitter because patients are leaving your killing ways in droves.

Ha, awesome.

"I typically do this from my phone."

While driving and eating a chili dog, apparently.

"you chumps do nothing but grasp for straws"

Grasp _at_ straws, you mean. :)

This is a serious issue for patients that have neck pain and choosing to watch and wait is not an answer. This is an interesting systematic review and meta-analysis article written by a group of neurosurgeons about this specific topic of chiropractic adjusting of the cervical spine and stroke incidence: “There is no convincing evidence to support a causal link, and unfounded belief in causation may have dire consequences.”

Church EW, Sieg EP, Zalatimo O, et al. (February 16, 2016) Systematic Review and Meta-analysis of Chiropractic Care and Cervical Artery Dissection: No Evidence for Causation. Cureus 8(2): e498.
[http://www.cureus.com/articles/4155-systematic-review-and-meta-analysis…]

The main issue is that a patient with a stroke in progress will have head and neck pain and this may send them to their family physician, chiropractor, or physical therapist.

Cassidy JD, Boyle E, Cote P, He Y, Hogg-Johnson S, Silver FL. Risk of vertebrobasilar stroke and chiropractic care: results of a population-based case-control and case-crossover study. Spine (Phila Pa 1976) 2008;33(4 Suppl):S176–83.
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18204390]

Recognizing this stroke in progress is the issue, chiropractic treatment does not seem to be a causative factor, but more coincidental. The responsibility of all health practitioners is to try to assess the patient for a possibility of stroke, though at times there may not be any other signs other than head and neck pain.

Murphy DR. Current understanding of the relationship between cervical manipulation and stroke: what does it mean for the chiropractic profession? Chiropractic & Osteopathy. 2010;18:22.
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18204390]

Amazing the ignorance in these comments and this blog post. I'll just forward the scientific links and you "Quack" maniacs can read (and hopefully comprehend) the science...this is "ScienceBlog" right? You have no idea what you're talking about when it comes to manipulation and risk. Pulling a few YouTube videos hardly makes you an expert on manipulation. But those who think they are so smart, sensationalize the very infrequent cases of this event. You hater "geniuses" may want to look at #5 below. A systematic review...and I'm sure you know what those are, right? Do you understand the word "causation"? What about the word "strain"? Maybe reading the studies on manipulation and arterial strain will help you understand that it's not the manipulation. It's the physician (both MD and DC according to the science - again, see #4 below) that may miss the early warning signs of arterial dissection, and provide an intervention, AND according to the science, it doesn't matter which type the patient goes to because the risk of having a stroke afterwards STATISTICALLY IS THE SAME!!!

The comparative risks of death from surgery, opioids, and NSAIDS are all higher than the risk of death from manipulation. AND, anytime a patient dies from any healthcare intervention, it's tragic. AND, I'm sure you are all smart enough to understand that more people die each year, by a LONG shot, from medical errors than they do a chiropractic adjustment. The number of deaths from a chiropractic intervention are so low, THEY DON'T EVEN KEEP TRACK OF IT...But medical errors? The third leading cause of death in the US. So take your "quack" "not real doctor" comments and ...well, you know...

1. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23140796
2. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12381972
3. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22483611
4. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18204390
5. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4794386/

The comparative risks of death from surgery, opioids, and NSAIDS are all higher than the risk of death from manipulation.

1) Supporting evidence needed. The cites you gave didn't support your claims. The first two cites were studies each done on six cadavers. In fact, they may be referencing the same study. The sample size is way too small. Link 4 appears to suggest arterial dissection IS a risk of chiropractic.
2) People who undergo surgery, and take opioids and NSAIDS are already not in the best of health. You have to compare the risks of medical interventions against the harm of doing nothing.

But medical errors? The third leading cause of death in the US.

This bulldust claim again? Seriously?

"This is a serious issue for patients that have neck pain and choosing to watch and wait is not an answer."

Yep...wade on in and start neck cracking, because that's your hammer and by god, everyone is a nail.

"I’m sure you are all smart enough to understand that more people die each year, by a LONG shot, from medical errors than they do a chiropractic adjustment."

We're also smart enough to recognize that deaths from medical errors associated with providing evidence-based care are tragic - but deaths due to quackery are not only tragic, but inexcusable.

"The number of deaths from a chiropractic intervention are so low, THEY DON’T EVEN KEEP TRACK OF IT"

Since chiros aren't keeping track of these deaths (and in fact, many do their best to obscure them), how do we know that the number is "so low"?

"It was the patient's fault, their arteries were already dissecting from turning their heads too rapidly" is not a useful response from chiros and their apologists.

I'm also dubious in the extreme that "dire consequences" will flow from getting chiros to stop doing neck cracking.

Got to love this article and so many of these comments. What a bunch of whackjobs. Obviously, the model was seriously injured in her fall, which is why she went to the ER. The ER cleared her, because if her neck wasn't broken, they didn't care. She went to her chiropractor for the relief that the ER didn't give her, and the chiro, like the ER, missed she was ALREADY HAVING A STROKE!

There are hundreds of articles on the efficacy of chiropractic, so much so that all the freakin PT's all want to do EXACTLY what chiropractors do, adjust the spine.

This website is nothing but a quackjob who cares nothing about science OR helping people.

Rock Climber, so you dispute the coroner's finding that the stroke was the result of vertebral artery dissection at the chiropractor's office? After all, you seem to be claiming a different cause of death.

Jay, when you compare the death rate due to NSAIDs to the death rate due to HVLA neck manipulations, you are ignoring two crucial pieces of data that lend context to the statistics. 1) Far more people are taking NSAIDs than are getting HVLA manipuluations; a better question is not the absolute numbers of people dying after either intervention, but the percentage. 2) Risk is not the only thing to consider with a medical intervention; benefit is also a factor. NSAIDs have a lot more evidence supporting their benefits. The risk/benefit ratio is important, and with no solid evidence showing neck manipulations to provide relief superior to placebo, the risk/benefit ratio is effectively infinite even for small risks.

"The ER cleared her, because if her neck wasn’t broken, they didn’t care. She went to her chiropractor for the relief that the ER didn’t give her, and the chiro, like the ER, missed she was ALREADY HAVING A STROKE!"

Apart from the delusional belief that the ER "didn't care", emergency physicians seeing a patient in the setting of acute trauma and neck pain would at a minimum perform an appropriate neurologic exam (something chiros are not trained to properly do). "ALREADY HAVING A STROKE", no matter how loud you shout, is not documented.

Her ER doc(s) knew enough not to crack the neck of a person who was having acute neck pain (or any patient for that matter). Too many chiros are not similarly equipped with common sense.

Chiropractic supporters I have a question:

How does missing the warning signs that your patient is having a stroke an endorsement of chiropractic care?

It seems to me that someone who is considered a health care provider should be able to recognize a health emergency.

Dangerous Beacon, you are on point.
I'm suspecting CHIRO has injured a few patients.
I experienced a head/neck injury, but it didn't cause my neck artery to tear.

Do you read with COMPREHENSION, Chiro?????
She didn't die while she had the injury, she didn't die at the ER, she died when she went back to Chiropractor. Simple enough.
Good God.

I am a chiropractor without the HVLA fetish. I never drank the koolaid, and I don't find a compelling reason to do such adjustments. As rare as such catastrophies are, the risk/reward consideration doesn't warrant it, in my opinion. I think most people don't appreciate that the standard of chiropractic care does entail this rare catastrophic outcome.

Craig - IRT post 101, where we were given an "explanation" of how chiropractic could cure deafness, do you find that explanation plausible? Can deafness be caused by a 'misaligned' spine, and is it plausible that chiropractic treatment can cure deafness? (Not all cases, obviously, but is there any reason to think chiropractic would ever be effective?)

This is another media scare tactic spurred on by the medical doctors. Whats funny is that people never hear that the 4th leading cause of death is properly prescribed medications by doctors in hospitals. JAMA. 2000 Jul 26;284(4):483-5

According to the Institute of Medicine,
there are 225,000 deaths each year due to iatrogenic causes:
• 12,000 deaths/year from unnecessary surgery
• 7,000 deaths/year from medication errors in hospitals
• 20,000 deaths/year from other errors in hospitals
• 80,000 deaths/year from nosocomial infections in hospitals
• 106,000 deaths/year from Non-Error, adverse effects of medications
http://www.jhsph.edu/research/centers-and-institutes/johns-hopkins-prim…

One person coincidentally dies of a stroke in association with being adjusted. Did you know that you are just as likely to have a stroke visiting your M.D.as you are a Chiropractor?
-Cassidy JD et al. Risk of vertebrobasilar stroke and chiropractic care: results of a population based case-control and case-crossover study. Spine 2008 Feb 15;33(4 Suppl):S176-83

“No significant association between VBA stroke and chiropractic visits. We conclude that manipulation is an unlikely cause of VBA stroke.” Kosloff TM, Elto D, Tao J, Bannister WM. Chiropractic care and the risk of vertebrobasilar stroke: results of a case–control study in U.S. commercial and Medicare Advantage populations. Chiropractic & Manual Therapies (2015) 23:19

Activities cited in literature preceding VAD:
-Judo
▪ Yoga
▪ Ceiling painting
▪ Nose blowing
▪ Hypertension
▪ Oral contraceptive use
▪ Sexual activity
▪ Receiving anesthesia
▪ Use of resuscitation activities
▪ Receiving a shampoo
▪ Vomiting
▪ Sneezing
▪ Childbirth
▪ Dental work
▪ Star gazing/watching aircrafts
Many walk into office in process of dissection resulting in the symptoms they have come to seek treatment for (headaches, neck pain).

VBA stroke is an extremely rare event. One in a million manipulations of the neck. To put it into perspective: Stroke chiropractic may happen once in the whole career of one in ten chiropractors. (many of the strokes following an adjustments were not even from Chiropractor's, they were from those untrained in how to give a proper adjustment: A blind masseuse
An Indian barber, wife, kung fu practitioner, Self manipulation, Medical Doctor, Osteopathic Doctor, Physical therapist,
In comparison medicine's own research shows that a patient dies after medical treatment every year at the hands of one in five medical doctors. Every year!

I personally think that it's telling that the chiropractic fraternity are very quick to point the finger of blame on other causes rather than be professionally and ethically responsible and actually start an adverse event register and actually review the cases. The number of medical errors causing death is irrelevant in these cases - it's chiropractic management that is being scrutinised.
I work in the patient safety field, investigating and analysing adverse events. One of the things I would have to ask if I was conducting a root cause analysis on Ms May's case would be "if the fall could quite possibly have resulted in the vertebral artery injury, why did you go ahead with the neck manipulation? Not once, but twice? What are the professional standards regarding acute pain onset post injury mechanism and chiropractic management? At what point do you refer to other, more appropriate health care professionals?"
Of course, having had some interaction with some members of the chiro industry here in Australia, the claim is always 'we don't need to do anything like this because chiro is 100% safe and can cure what ails you".
They just don't get it.

No doubt that it is the chiropractor or any doctors responsibility to look for signs of stroke..but they don't always manifest in the FAST acronym especially at onset..She had a bad fall in a photo shoot and actually went to an MD first and they never said she was having a stroke..then she went to the chiropractor as many do for neck pain and she died later..not on his table. Besides if this accusation were true that CMT caused strokes then thousands would be reporting this and the profession would be in trouble. I reported those figures because no one makes any deal of the harm that conventional medicine brings but as soon as a chiropractor or anyone for that matter in alternative medicine is involved it's...automatically quackery and harmful but that is simply not the case. And if you actually talked to any chiropractor in depth..we are never taught hat Chiropractic heals everything..in fact it is not for the specific treatment of anything other than to remove interference in the nervous system and with that comes healing of numerous problems.
We will refer to an ER as soon as someone presents with a stoke to answer one of your questions

We have to look at this case an evaluate it like any other situation in medicine. I question the skill knowledge of the chiropractor more than chiropractic medicine. Many people go to a chiropractor and get relieve and benefits they have not been able to get from other forms of medicine. I also wonder if this woman was given aftercare instructions and did not follow through. Finally was is the ratio of deaths by chiropractic care in comparison to deaths due to prescription drugs per year?

Jackasses who correlate Chiropractic adjustments with strokes have not read the research. Don't be fooled by these morons and their "science" blog.....this is a shill-blog for the pharma companies, nothing more but idiot propaganda for idiots. Katie May dies from damage to her Carotid artery: Read my blog for the truth:
https://saynotovaccines.org/2016/11/21/playboy-model-katie-may-did-not-…

I expect more clowns when the Volkswagen is this late, not just a feeble display.

Oh, I just bet the clown wants us to say "yes!" to meningitis and SSPE!

Well, I am certainly disappointed in the non-resonant tone and unfriendly vibrations emanating from Dr. Trebing, not at all what I expected from visiting his website:

http://www.spinalresonance.com/what-is-resonant-tone/

I am intrigued by his blog post about how "many" hockey players suffer carotid artery damage and go on the injured list, carefully watched until their arteries heal.* Strangely, the sports media are silent about such injuries (all you get is some mumbo-jumbo about "upper body injury"). No doubt Big Pharma and its stooges like Dr. Oz are keeping these problems secret. :(

*hopefully diagnosis is prompt, as some NHL franchises have team chiropractors and you wouldn't want a routine neck cracking going astray. :(

Oh, I just bet the clown wants us to say “yes!” to meningitis and SSPE!

Shingles. Don't forget shingles.

Shay: "Shingles. Don’t forget shingles."

We could fill a page or two with bad disease outcomes that have been prevented by vaccines.

Ugh.....I have a raging case of Shingles right now.

I wouldn't wish this on my worst enemies.

Read my blog for the truth:...

I don't know much about The Truth (TM), but I sure did find some good entertainment at Dr. Trebing's blog.

With a domain name of saynotovaccines, you'd expect a lot of anti-vax pseudoscience, and you wouldn't be disappointed. However, the chiropractor Dr. William Trebing also seems to be an ordained holy man in The Church of Christ Consciousness, and you can read about them at https://saynotovaccines.org/category/the-church-of-christ-consciousness…

What does The Church of Christ Consciousness do? They will, for a nominal donation "provide a personlized raised seal document which verifies your membership with our religious order, and the tenets of our church which prohibit toxic ( thats all ! ) vaccinations."

How nominal?

Recommended donation for documentation:
Single person: $61
Husband and wife: $82
Family with children: $105

But The Church of Christ Consciousness is more than just a document store. They have, count 'em, 53 Tenets, which are to religion as Chopra is to physics.

Number 7 is the tenant that serves to prohibit vaccines. It says, in part -

...We believe and firmly espouse as a RELIGIOUS BELIEF, that the human immune system and internal workings of human biochemistry are God manifesting within the human biological framework, and we trust fully in this power and do not support the idea of conventional medicine, created by man, and therefore by limited intelligence, can improve upon that which God almighty has created.

... Therefore, The Religion of The Church of Christ Consciousness strictly prohibits the interference of God’s creation by man, in his interpretations of or supposed dialogues with natural laws, in the form of diagnosing, treatment or prevention of what is mistakenly known as “disease.” It is our firm belief that only God can heal, and as an example, the use of drugs, vaccines and other injections, and all forms of radiation and/or drug therapy, which interfere with God’s natural and very powerful immunity and protection from all disease, are strictly against the doctrines and moral beliefs of the Religion of the Church of Christ Consciousness.

However, the Rev. Dr. William P. Trebing, DC, is here to lend The Lord a hand. On his chiropractic web site, I see that he can help almost anyone, including children and infants. Right away, I feel about him the same as Penn Jillette does toward DCs who treat kids. But that don't mean I can't learn something from his site.

For example, on this page http://www.spinalresonance.com/info/ear-infections/ , I read -

It surprises many to learn that some of the nerves that control, regulate and monitor the ear begin in the brain stem, continue down the spinal cord and exit out from between the bones of the spinal column.

My Google-Fu is weak. I can't find the names or descriptions of these nerves anywhere. Can someone help a brother out and post a link? And how is the ear regulated? I thought they just sat there and did what they do.

Clearly there are some gaps in my education.

Ugh…..I have a raging case of Shingles right now.

Mom and dad both came down with Shingles. DO NOT WANT!

I'm scheduled to see my doctor (a real doctor, a medical doctor) tomorrow, and will get my shingles shot, and, I think, a new TDaP (or whatever name it goes by now) (every 5 years, right?).

and, I think, a new TDaP (or whatever name it goes by now) (every 5 years, right?)

Still 10 for me,* and I'm going to be first in line for a VZV vaccination in a few months. IIRC, only one Tdap is recommended in adulthood – unless you're having children, in which case you can have one every time you're pregnant. The rest are Td.

* Colonoscopies, on the other hand....

keep searching for health in pill bottle or a vile and youlll always get more than you bargained for. The people I know that get meningitis/shingles/flu all had the vaccine...medical doctors are not any more real than a chiropractor...last I checked the harm from the medical doctors is one of the leading casues of death in the US. Also we have one of the highest rates of infant mortality in the world!! We spend $$$$$$more on health care and still are one of the sickest countries...vaccines are another pseudoscience brainwashing technique implemented on the ironic "well baby" visit..what a joke

Oh, wow, Hunter! You thoroughly blew us away with that grammatically incorrect punctuation filled flurry of nonsense. That was hilarious.

Your so welcome Chris, and I'm so grateful for your informative reply. Next time it will be in APA format

It surprises many to learn that some of the nerves that control, regulate and monitor the ear begin in the brain stem, continue down the spinal cord and exit out from between the bones of the spinal column.

A chiropractic fraudster has invented his own pre-Galenic occult anatomy? Tell me it isn't so!
I am kind of puzzled that the illustrious inventor of the Trebig Method should come here and present himself in a posture of lordosis, as if hoping to advertise his sale-of-indulgences scam.

But The Church of Christ Consciousness is more than just a document store.
Now I am wondering... is it really a scam when what you sell is purportedly a tool for someone else who wants to ignore the law -- that is, when your victims are would-be scammers themselves?

Johnny, the vestibulocochlear nerve is the eighth cranial (it's all in your head) nerve.

Next time it will be in APA format

These words do not mean what you apparently think they do.

^ Should've been just boldface.

Today in Calgary, the trial of a woman whose 7 year old son died of meningitis because she ""did not believe in conventional medicine".
The the use of "drugs, vaccines and other injections", specifically the contents of "pill bottle or a vile [sic]" containing oral or parenteral penicillin almost certainly would have saved him. But no, he got oil of oregano, dandelion tea and a short trip down the hill from the Children's Hospital to the medical examiner's building.

CBC report of trial so far

I didn't make it to the trial today. The testimony I'd really like to hear is that from the medical examiner and, assuming it happens, from the mother being grilled about how she came to reject real medicine.

It is always sad to hear about a death in anyone's family..but it is astounding to hear the accusations. First off the meningitis vaccine is far from perfect...one of my good friends got the vaccine and sure enough got spinal meningitis and nearly died. It is so frustrating to see the hypocritical targeting of families who do not vaccinate, but as long as you follow mainstream recommendations you'll be okay, unless of course you then get accused for shaken baby syndrome but that's another story. What about the mandatory vaccinations in the military and their measles outbreaks within? What about the measles outbreak at disney land..most of them were vaccinated! Same thing with Pertussis..many of the children getting it have acellular pertussis hence (TDaP, Tetanus Diptheria, acellular Pertussis)

the mandatory vaccinations in the military and their measles outbreaks within

And of course because they're the military they HUSH UP the outbreaks so no-one knows about them! Wake up sheeple!

There really should be some minimum bar for a Trollery license.

Hunter: "First off the meningitis vaccine is far from perfect"

The child died from a Strep A infection, something that would have cured with antibiotics. Expecting anything in this life to be perfect is the Nirvana Fallacy.

"What about the measles outbreak at disney land..most of them were vaccinated!"

Really? From http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6406a5.htm?s_cid=mm6406a5_w

Which says:

Twelve of the unvaccinated patients were infants too young to be vaccinated. Among the 37 remaining vaccine-eligible patients, 28 (67%) were intentionally unvaccinated because of personal beliefs, and one was on an alternative plan for vaccination. Among the 28 intentionally unvaccinated patients, 18 were children (aged <18 years), and 10 were adults. Patients range in age from 6 weeks to 70 years; the median age is 22 years. Among the 84 patients with known hospitalization status, 17 (20%) were hospitalized.

Just a little math hint: 67% is more than half... so that means the vaccinated were a smaller percentage than those not vaccinated. Also, you have to look at the relative rates. Over 80% of the population is vaccinated on schedule, so out of the tens of thousands of people who go to Disneyland, very few of those got sick. But of the remaining 20%, many were protected because there was a wall of immune by vaccine people, so did not get sick. But the unlucky greater number of non-vaccinated got measles, and there were several news reports of entire "vaccine choice" families getting measles:
http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/arizona/2015/02/26/kearny-mom…

Also twelve babies were sickened because of the decisions by another family that chose to not vaccinate. Anyone responsible for letting those kids get sick, with a much higher chance of getting SSPE later, should be ashamed.

Here is an idea, before you make arguments by blatant assertion, actually back them up with real data. You can start by providing the PubMed indexed studies by reputable qualified researchers that any vaccine on the present American pediatric schedule causes more harm than the diseases.

Narad: "There really should be some minimum bar for a Trollery license."

This one actually thinks he is clever! It's hilarious.

unless of course you then get accused for shaken baby syndrome but that’s another story

Tell us more of this Origin Story. Tell us more of the friend, or close family member, who was falsely accused of hospitalising an infant when it was really the fault of those meddling vaccines. See if you can bring feminazis and Mens Rights into it for extra points

By the way, Hunter, several diseases cause meningitis, including the bacterial infection that causes strep throat. So there is no "one meningitis" vaccine.

Next time it will be in APA format
These words do not mean what you apparently think they do.

Perhaps this is Hunter's way of promising citations in the future.

Chris, first off anti-biotics do not cure anything. In any situation it is only the body that can cure. I agree that the mother should have been more proactive, but it was my impression that the case being made earlier was that the boy died from meningitis because he didn't get the vaccine, which is BS.
You want me to cite from the drug peddlers at the CDC..why would they say anything negative about their precious drugs? But anyway here you go,,
The CDC says that 12% of the measles cases associated with Disneyland were vaccinated, some of them with at least two doses of MMR vaccine, which according to the CDC if you have two doses you have 97% percent "immunity" against it. (CDC. US Multi-state Measles Outbreak, December 2014 – January 2015. CDC Health Advisory Jan. 23, 2015.)
In some of the outbreaks of 2014 nearly 20 percent of the people in California had been vaccinated.
(CDC. Notes from the Field: Measles, California, January 1 – April 18, 2014. MMWR April 25, 2014; 63(16): 362-363.)
There are numerous other examples of outbreaks happening among the vaccinated. Here is an example of a person despite receiving two MMR doses was demonstrated to be capable of transmitting the disease to other individuals.. "Rosen JB, Rota JS, et al. Outbreak of measles among persons with pride evidence of immunity, New York City, 2011. Clin Infect Dis 2014 May; 58(9): 1205-10"
-Scientists know that people who are vaccinated agains measles can still get the disease. However, They originally believed that only unvaccinated people can spread measles to others. This paper provides evidence that a fully vaccinated person can spread measles to another fully vaccinated person. I would argue that the widespread measles vaccination reduced public exposure to the measles virus reducing opportunities to boost immunity among vaccinated people, which may contribute to waning antibody levels, loss of population immunity to measles, and an increased ability of vaccinated persons to transmit the disease.
Here is an outbreak that raises important questions concerning the relative contributions of vaccine failure verses failure to vaccinate. Measles vaccination rates were high when the outbreak occurred: 97% of children had received 1 dose by 28 months and 90% had received 2 doses. Rates were even higher by the time children had entered school. The index patient was vaccinated in childhood. During outbreak 21 infants contracted the measles and 4 were hospitalized with no further complications. In a school outbreak where the vaccination status was known, 49% of the measles cases were in children who had received 2 doses of the measles vaccine. Also passive surveillance significantly under-reported the number of measles case that occurred in fully vaccinated people. "De Serres G, Markowski F, et al. Largest measles epidemic in North America in a decade-Quebec, Canada, 2011: contribution of susceptibility, serendipity, and super spreading events. Journal of Infections Disease 2013 Mar. 15: 207(6): 990-98"
Theses next three sources suggest a loss of immunity after MMR and viral shedding, could spread disease and prevent herd immunity. The first paperer describes a loss of immunity to measles, mumps and rubella that occurs with the elapse of time after MMR vaccination, permitting subclinical (asymptomatic) infections that could spread the three diseases to other people. "Trier H, Ronne T. Duration of immunity and occurrence of secondary vaccine failure following vaccination against measles, mumps and rubella. Ugeskr Laeger 1992 Jul 13; 154(29): 2008-13. [Danish]
In this next case presented, the vaccine virus was isolated in the throat, showing that subcutaneous injection of an attenuated measles strain can result in respiratory excretion of the virus. Fevers induced by measles vaccination are related to the replication and shedding of the live vaccine virus. "Morfin F, Beguin A, et al. Detection of measles vaccine in the throat of a vaccinated child. Vaccine 2002 Feb 22; 20(11-12): 1541-43"
The measles vaccine virus is excreted in the urine and throat and only molecular genotyping can distinguish between wild-type and vaccine-related disease. "Kai B, Genera-Margan I, et al. Spotlight on measles 2010: excretion of vaccine strain measles virus in urine and pharyngeal secretions of a child with vaccine associated febrile rash illness, Croatia, March 2010. Euro Surveill 2010 Sep 2: 15 (35)"

Chris you have to be joking..a wall of immunity?? If that wall is so great why was there an outbreak? If vaccines work so incredibly well why do the vaccinated get sick? Your argument makes no sense..measles is NOT this incredibly deadly disease you speak of..If herd immunity as you speak of worked and the CDC was correct about measles being eradicated from the US in 2000 none of this would have happened...but it did. What is ridiculous is that the CDC says all the credit to this eradication is due to the vaccine..
I wont minimize the risk of the measles because it has the potential to be very deadly-just not normally in well-nourished populations in the 21st century. In the1800s, measles epidemics occurred about every two years in the United States and England. During these epidemics, when suboptimal sanitation and nutrition were the norm, some hospitals overflowed with children with measles and up to 20 percent died from pneumonia and other complications.
However, by the 1960s, deaths from measles had dropped to extremely low numbers in both England and the United States. In England, the percent decline from its peak level reached an astonishing 99.96 percent by the time the live attenuated measles virus vaccine was introduced in 1968. When the first inactivated (killed) measles vaccine was licensed in 1963, the measles death rate in some states like Massachusetts had reached zero. During this year, the whole of New England had only five deaths attributed to measles. So how much effect did the vaccine really have in the first place? We can ask the same questions for the plague or scarlet fever...there were no vaccines.
Keeping things in perspective. These were deaths BEFORE the launch of measles vaccines in the 1960s, when deaths from asthma were 56 times greater, motor vehicle accidents 323 times greater, other accidents 612 times greater, and heart disease 9,560 times greater. Why such a disproportionate emphasis on measles deaths?
Even a casual review of the relevant literature will reveal that preventing measles mortality is not primarily related to vaccination but to nutritional status. Child mortality due to measles is 200 to 400 times greater in malnourished children in less developed countries than those in developed ones. It is crystal clear that as nutrition improves and vitamin A and D levels are optimized, the complications and deaths from measles radically diminish. This is even on the CDC website as a prescribed treatment.
Furthermore, experiencing measles infection in childhood itself may confer health benefits and even survival advantage in protecting against autoimmune conditions and chronic inflammation, including cancer, which means it may be a means through which our immune system is primed and gains self-tolerance.12 Experiencing and recovering from naturally –acquired measles may actually be, as our not so distant ancestors once commonly acknowledged, a good thing, because it confers much longer lasting superior immunity and is protective against infection that leads to complications later in life, when measles can be much more serious.
"Kubota Y, Iso H, et al. Association of measles and mumps with cardiovascular disease: the Japan Collaborative Cohort (JACC) study. Atherosclerosis 2015 Jun 18; 241(2): 682-86"

Hunter: "If vaccines work so incredibly well why do the vaccinated get sick?"

Because with two MMR vaccines it is effective for 97% of the population, that still leaves 3% that are vulnerable. In a large number of people, like the capacity of a sports stadium of over 40,000, that 3% can be a substantial number of vulnerable people.

You really should stop believing in the Nirvana Fallacy.

"Why such a disproportionate emphasis on measles deaths?"

Well, because they are easily preventable. Also, only the anti-vax folks care disproportionately about measles deaths. They seem to downplay the number of those who required very expensive hospital care (over one in ten measles cases), and the permanent disabilities from measles.

"Experiencing and recovering from naturally –acquired measles may actually be, as our not so distant ancestors once commonly acknowledged, a good thing, because it confers much longer lasting superior immunity and is protective against infection that leads to complications later in life, when measles can be much more serious."

Except for the one in a thousand who get encephalitis, and the reduction of immunity after measles that lasts for years and causes injury by other diseases:
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2015/05/15/the-benefits-of-the-measle…

And SSPE happens more often than previously thought:
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2016/11/01/measles-is-more-dangerous-…

Again, if you are claiming allowing children to get sick with measles is healthy, you need to actually come put with the PubMed Indexed studies by qualified reputable researchers that shows the present American MMR vaccine causes more harm than measles, mumps and rubella.

By the way, the Japanese study was a questionnaire survey that required the memory of the grown adults to remember their childhood diseases. It is pretty much on par with the survey study that Orac wrote about today. Good timing in posting that silly study as "proof" that surviving measles is "good."

By the way, Hunter, before there were measles vaccine almost every child in the USA got measles by the time they were fifteen years old. Lots of that was unrecorded, and the official mortality and morbidity charts in the first half of the 20th century are severely under counted:
The Clinical Significance of Measles: A Review

Now provide those PubMed indexed studies by qualified reputable researchers that the MMR vaccine that has been used in the USA since 1978 causes more harm than measles mumps and rubella.

Also, come up with the economic studies that show allowing each child in the USA to get measles "naturally", and then with a good portion requiring hospital care (usually for pneumonia) is cheaper than giving them two MMR doses. Make sure that economic study is on part with An economic analysis of the current universal 2-dose measles-mumps-rubella vaccination program in the United States.

Yes that is well-known information. The reference you cited further proves the point that measles complications are found usually in immune suppressed individuals, developing countries, malnutrition, Vitamin A deficiency etc.. regardless of the over or under reporting the trend is the same the mortality rates decreased drastically before the vaccine came out and was used. Everything I cited was reputable, it seems that you just cannot accept the facts.
Sure the data shows that the morbidity declined with vaccine introduction, but is that good? Is codling the immune system the way to go? Evidence that I cited early suggest the contrary..."Kubota Y, Iso H, et al. Association of measles and mumps with cardiovascular disease: the Japan Collaborative Cohort (JACC) study. Atherosclerosis 2015 Jun 18; 241(2): 682-86"
Even on the CDC website it says to treat the measles with large dose of vitamin A..with proper nutrition many of these diseases can be prevented or easliy dealt with. "Barclay Aj, Foster A, Sommer A. Vitamin A supplements and mortality related to measles: a randomized clinical trial. BMJ 1987 Jan 31; 294: 294-96"
"WHO/UNICEF/IV AGG Task Force. Vitamin A Supplements-A Guide to Their Use in the Treatment and Prevention of Vitamin A Deficiency and Xerophthalmia (second edition). Geneva: WHO, 1997:8"
"D'Souza RM, D'Souza R. Vitamin A for the treatment of children with measles-A systematic review. J Trop Pediatr 2002 Dec; 48(6): 323-27"
"Coutsoudis A Broughton M, et al. Vitamin A supplementation reduces measles morbitiy in you African children: a randomized, placebo-controlled, double-blind trial. AM J of Clin Nutr 1991 Nov; 54(5): 890-95"
The list keeps going..
Avg. cost of Vitamin A is around $10/bottle of 100 capsules
That good old MMR vaccine is $100 per dose at Walgreens..
Vaccines are 10x more expensive..

If you search the MedAlerts database, you can see that there were 98 deaths following MMR or MMRV vaccinations reported to VAERS that occurred between 2003 and 2015. Plus, there have been 694 reports of MMR or MMRV vaccinations causing disability in that time frame. It has been estimated that less than 10 percent of vaccine adverse events are ever reported to VAERS. http://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/abs/10.2105/AJPH.85.12.1706?view=l…;
http://www.vaccinesafety.edu/VAERS.htm
Speaking of under-reporting...
Considering the fact that there were 98 measles vaccine-related deaths and 694 measles vaccine-related disabilities reported to VAERS in the past 12 years, if only 10 percent of vaccine-related deaths and disabilities are being reported to the government, then the actual number of measles vaccine-related deaths and disabilities that have occurred since 2003 could have been as many as 980 deaths and 6,940 disabilities.

Chris, first off anti-biotics do not cure anything. In any situation it is only the body that can cure.

I think that pretty much takes care of Hunter's utility as a chew toy.

is the little puppy Narad just cutting his teeth?

"... the boy died ..." because his mother was influenced by stupid, ignorant, dangerous people who say stupid, ignorant, dangerous things like "anti-biotics [sic] do not cure anything".

I agree oregano was not the best choice. Knowing the basic mode of action in anti-biotics will help you understand my statement. The body ultimately holds the healing factor..the anti-biotic removes or kills the interference (the bacteria) so the body can repair itself

"Avg. cost of Vitamin A is around $10/bottle of 100 capsules
That good old MMR vaccine is $100 per dose at Walgreens..
Vaccines are 10x more expensive.."

And water is free. Neither water nor vitamin A prevent measles, so what's your point?

I just posted evidence that suggests vitamin A does..

No, you actually didn't - you posted information that suggested that Vitamin A might play a role in preventing the most serious side-effects of measles, but does "fuck-all" for actually preventing an infection in the first place.

And of course modern medical science could begin to prevent kids of dying from the complications of these diseases - like secondary infections and pneumonia, which was exceedingly common in cases of measles, mumps, the Flu, etc - so we would expect that mortality rates would drop - of course, I'm also sure that you aren't suggesting that just because the widespread use of Iron Lungs prevented kids from dying of Polio, that it would be preferable than preventing the disease in the first place?

Hunter, I asked for PubMed indexed studies by reputable qualified researchers that the present MMR vaccine causes more harm than measles, mumps and rubella. I also asked for an economic study that shows treating measles is more cost effective than preventing it with two MMR vaccines.

You produced stuff from VAERS, which is not a PubMed study by a reputable qualified researchers. It is a bunch of unsupported reports, many times they include things like car crashes and drowning.

Vitamin A treatment is useless for measles pneumonia and encephalitis. Both articles were about children who do not have enough Vitamin A in their diet, and one was especially specific to undernourished children in Africa. So how does that relate to modern American children? And where is the economic analysis by someone who knows that they are doing?

And you repeated the Japanese study that used a questionnaire survey! Here is an idea, read the article posted on this blog this morning.

Do you have some kind of profound reading comprehension disorder? By the way, the words written in blue text are links to other webpages. Click on them and do some actual reading.

Hunter: "I just posted evidence that suggests vitamin A does.."

No, you did not. None of those papers suggest Vitamin A prevents measles, they only suggest that survival is better but not guaranteed... in children who have a Vitamin A deficiency. Perhaps you should have someone help you read.

It has been estimated that less than 10 percent of vaccine adverse events are ever reported to VAERS.

Hunter might want to actually read the Rosenthal & Chen paper he Mercola cites, rather than regurgitate Mercola's barefaced lies about it.

Considering the fact that there were 98 measles vaccine-related deaths and 694 measles vaccine-related disabilities reported to VAERS in the past 12 years, if only 10 percent of vaccine-related deaths and disabilities are being reported to the government, then the actual number of measles vaccine-related deaths and disabilities that have occurred since 2003 could have been as many as 980 deaths and 6,940 disabilities.

Copy-paste verbatim plagiarism from Mercola? Really dude?

But, herr doktor bimler, that actually requires Hunter to read with comprehension and actually think. It may be too much to ask of him.

The body ultimately holds the healing factor

You don't say. Where's The Healing Factor* stored "held"? What are its topology and geometry? How big is The Factor?

* If only <blink> tags still worked.

Narad: "What are its topology and geometry?"

How about its eigenvalues and corresponding eigenvectors?

The word "antibiotic" does not contain a hyphen.

Putting in superfluous hyphens is a dis-ease.

Where’s The Healing Factor* “held”?

It's in the blood, or so I hear from Renfield.

Hunter: first off anti-biotics do not cure anything.

Yeah? Tell that to my long-gone strep throat. If you mean that they don't cure EVERYTHING, neither do vaccines, but they work against the things they've been developed to work against. As far as nutrition goes, I dare you to find ten middle-class kids who have any real vitamin deficiencies at all. Also, you need to find some real information- I'm a total layman, but even I know that measles isn't transmitted through urine.

* Colonoscopies, on the other hand….

You had to go and bring up colonoscopies. Doctor said today I have to ride the python again.

So far I haven't developed Autism from the shingles shot, or any other side effect. It seemed to sting a bit more than other shots, but, hey, I'm tough enough to take it.

Johnny, the vestibulocochlear nerve is the eighth cranial (it’s all in your head) nerve.

Oh, yeah, sure, I can read all about that. I just can't find anything on the "nerves that control, regulate and monitor the ear [and] begin in the brain stem, continue down the spinal cord and exit out from between the bones of the spinal column" that the Rev. Dr. William P. Trebing mentioned on his web page.

{sarcasm}
I'm starting to think that he might be wrong.
{/sarcasm}

I just posted evidence speculation that suggests vitamin A does.

FTFY.

I can tell some people are getting there feelings hurt in the comments section of a blog:( Chris I'm sorry but you can't be pleased..your asking for specific PubMed indexed studies, which if they existed then you would have found them, as it seems you can only comprehend and believe things from PubMed. Personal attacks only prove you have no where else to go in your argument...Eigenvectors/Eigenvalues? I get that your trying to sound smart but please explain further what you are asking.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26122188
Look Chris a pubmed study, you will be so happy!!!

herr doktor bimler, my apologies I was in a hurry, i should have re-worded the article. And I did read it, I think you need to re-read it
Shay- sorry i misread what you said earlier..yes they show they didn't not prevent, rather treat
Dangerous bacon-it seems you have dis-ease with my hyphens
Politicalguineapig-"hey long gone strep throat the antibiotics didn't cure you"..is that good? Okay ill find 'em. Ya its not unless you drink it haha ..btw thats not what the study was saying. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20822734

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8133555
Vitamin therapy is not just for those that are deficient

I was a skeptic re seeing a chiropractor. Mine is excellent and is has much education in natural medicine, nutrition and has been practicing for 30 years. When I feel sore from moving improperly or lifting something the wrong way there have been times I literally could not walk from the pain and my MD suggests narcotics. Instead I went to him and I was pain freee 100% after an adjustment. I don't think chiros are quacks like any other medical person you have to find a competent one.
I suggest you go see one when your in severe pain get an adjustment THEN provide your opinion. Basically dude sick wrote the article your lack of education and common sense is showing. RIP Katie May, horrible misfortune maybe not a good chiro, maybe pre existing condition and the adjustment was poorly done.

@ doug #161
Did you see the background I dug up on the Lovett case? it's in the 'Rare win for science' thread.

Hunter: Do you even know what strep IS? Streptococal bacteria, so, yeah, anti-biotics DID cure me. Sometimes Mother Nature needs a helping hand, ya know.
*Sigh* One, measles is almost always airborne. Two, who would even drink urine, never mind that of a diseased person? I almost think the dingleberry who would do that deserves measles. (Also, urine's not good for you.)
And finally, no. Body's a self-regulating system; if a person doesn't have a deficiency, the excess simply gets excreted, and there's very little benefit. Seriously, dude, this is middle-school stuff. It's really very funny that you're a grown-up dude (or pretending to be one), who's pretending to be smart, and you apparently never managed to attend a single class in school. Maybe you should call one of your parents and have them read those articles you've been posting to you.Better yet, go back to Mercola or whatever gathering-of-the-dim you came from.

herr doktor bimler, my apologies I was in a hurry, i should have re-worded the article.

Or perhaps you should have found a better way of amusing yourself than serving as a human centipede for Mercola's mendacity.

"I was a skeptic re seeing a chiropractor"/homeopath/naturopath/iridologist/reiki/therapeutic touch practitioner.

No, you weren't. You went looking for woo and found it.

Hunter: "Look Chris a pubmed study, you will be so happy!"

Posting the same stupid questionnaire survey study from Japan a third time after I told you the first time it was silly is just plain stupid.

Again that Vitamin A study does not show it prevents measles, and it is another study from Africa done.

Especially since it does not show how the present American MMR vaccine causes more harm than measles, mumps and rubella. Some advice: go to your local community college and take a "Basic Adult Reading" class.

I love all this Chiro hate going on. It's funny that people are so quick to dislike treatments such as chiropractic but are more than happy to trust GP's prescribing medication that also hasn't had correct testing procedures or even fixed results. Plus the ignorant trust you put into medicine and surgery that claim many more lives a year than chiropractic could ever. Also I have to say this is by far one of the most scientific, researched and brilliant pieces of factual writings I have ever had the pleasures of reading.

Totally agree with Cameron #24!

YES THE CHIROPRACTOR DID KILL KATIE MAY!!! My friend in NC was conned and defrauded by a chiropractor after going in for a checkup for very minor whiplash. Chiro created a whole story to do a neck manipulation and severely injured my friend! NC Chiro board stand by the scumbag Chiro to protect board. Friend suffers from nerve damage now and is struggling to survive!! Justice is needed for all the victims! Stay away from these chiropractor before they kill you!

The same thing happened to my husband several years ago. He had a headache and got a treatment from a chiropractic and he tore his artery too. He suffered a stroke 3 days after treatment. Fortunately he survived and recovered from his stroke. He also said after his treatment his knock really hurt. Something should be done. They should tell patients the risks of having treatment.

The truth is no matter who the doctor ( MD, DO, DC) is or what school they came from, a proper exam after a trauma was needed to asses her diagnosis. The chiro failed to exam and diagnose properly and so his treatment failed tragically his patient. There are risks with any treatment, just as their are benifits. Chiropratic has was way less risk versus any other profession by far and excellent benefits. The doctor delivering the treatment needs to be smart enough to make an extremely educated decision on when or when not to use certain chiropractic techniques. This is based on a full medical history, vitals, and the rest of the components of an exam. It's uneducated to blame a profession, just blame the doctor that makes the mistake. He just made a very bad judgement call.

In reply to #147 where the idiot says there is no mention of Hockey players with carotid artery injuries in the media......took me about 3 seconds to find these; perhaps you are using the Chinese internet?

http://www.espn.com/nhl/news/story?id=3240651

https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/1wwp10/til_when_clint_m…

Really anyone who takes this "psuedo-science" blog seriously needs to cut their dose of Xanex in half. Nothing they report here has any truth whatsoever.

No good science here, obviously the vertebral damage occurred during the fall to the neck not by the chiropractor. Clearly the author has a personal issue that should most likely be aired on a more appropriate forum.

@#206 Dr Trebing.

Why are people here talking about carotid artery trauma anyway?
The injury which killed Katie May was chiropractic manipulation causing damage to the vertebral artery.
Big difference.

Looks like Orac just got linked to on the Chiros Against The World blog.

Microsoft vows to "solve cancer" in a decade. Hubris ensues.

oracknows — Fri, 23 Sep 2016 01:00:15 +0000

Microsoft vows to "solve cancer" in a decade. Hubris ensues.

If there’s one thing that irritates me more than government agencies making bold proclamations about making progress in cancer but not providing sufficient funding to have even a shot of realizing such ambitions (I’m talking to you, Cancer Moonshot), it’s people in other disciplines that are not cancer biology making bold proclamations about how they’re going to “solve” cancer or coming up with new “theories” to explain cancer. That’s not to say that cancer research can’t benefit from new perspectives from different sciences and disciplines can bring or new ways of thinking about the problem of cancer. I might seem arrogant, but, whether I am arrogant or not, I’m not that arrogant. What irritates me so much is that these scientists who are not cancer biologists inevitably come across as arrogantly overconfident, not to mention as condescending. The attitude seems to be: How come you cancer biologists never thought of this before? How come you never saw this before? Of course, in some cases, cancer biologists did think of this before and did see this before, but ended up rejecting it because it didn’t fit with the evidence.

Perhaps the best example of this occurred a few years ago when two astrophysicists, Paul Davies and Charley Lineweaver, decided to jump into the cancer research business with a concept they called atavism as a cause for cancer. Basically, the idea was that cancer is an evolutionary “throwback” to the dawn of intracellular life. Of course, having admittedly “no prior knowledge of cancer,” Lineweaver and Davies had stumbled upon a very old idea without realizing how old it was. Indeed, they seemed to think they were the first to have thought of it. As I pointed out at the time, there can be advantages to brining in scientists from different disciplines, but one consequence of doing so is that they often don’t know which hypotheses that have been considered before and rejected based on the evidence and therefore frequently act as though they were the first to have thought of a new hypothesis. As blogger Darren Saunders put it at the time, Lineweaver and Davies remind one of a doctor who reinvented calculus.

Or this:

Earlier this week, I sensed a similar, but related phenomenon when I started seeing headlines like this one in The Independent, Microsoft will ‘solve’ cancer within the next 10 years by treating it like a computer virus, says company. My first reaction when I read that headline was stunned disbelief that anyone could be so arrogantly ignorant as to make a statement that definitive without apparently knowing much about cancer—or biology for that matter. To be fair, I decided to read the article, because I know that headlines don’t always match what was actually said; let’s just say they tend to strip nuance from the statement.

Silly me:

Microsoft says it is going to “solve” cancer in the next 10 years.

The company is working at treating the disease like a computer virus, that invades and corrupts the body’s cells. Once it is able to do so, it will be able to monitor for them and even potentially reprogramme them to be healthy again, experts working for Microsoft have said.

The company has built a “biological computation” unit that says its ultimate aim is to make cells into living computers. As such, they could be programmed and reprogrammed to treat any diseases, such as cancer.

And:

“The field of biology and the field of computation might seem like chalk and cheese,” Chris Bishop, head of Microsoft Research’s Cambridge-based lab, told Fast Company. “But the complex processes that happen in cells have some similarity to those that happen in a standard desktop computer.”

As such, those complex processes can potentially be understood by a desktop computer, too. And those same computers could be used to understand how cells behave and to treat them.

Yes, there is a resemblance between cancer and computing in much the same way that counting on your fingers resembles a supercomputer. The hubris of this project is unbelievably. Seriously> I thought antivaccinationists demonstrated the arrogance of ignorance, but they’ve got nothing on Microsoft. (Of course, it is Microsoft.) My reaction was virtually identical to Derek Lowe’s, only with more...Insolence. Indeed, he perfectly characterized the attitude of people like Linweaver, Davies, and now Bishop as a “Gosh darn it fellows, do I have to do everything myself?” attitude. Yes, those of us in cancer research and who take care of cancer patients do tend to get a bit...testy...when someone like Bishop waltzes onto the scene and proclaims to breathless headlines that he’s going to solve cancer in a decade because he has an insight that you stupid cancer biologists never thought of before: The cell is just a computer, and cancer is like a computer virus. (Hey, you know, viruses cause some cancers; so why not make the analogy to computer viruses?)

Basically, what Microsoft is doing is yet another machine learning approach to cancer. Don’t get me wrong. I don’t have any objection to computational approaches to biology, cancer, and the treatment of disease. Quite the contrary. What chaps my posterior here isn’t necessarily the concept. If you hose off the many layers of hubris and bullshit behind Microsoft’s initiative, there might be a germ of a good idea there. In fact, if you strip the bullshit away, you’ll see that even Microsoft seems to realize that it’s overpromising:

Microsoft says that solution could be with us within the next five or ten years.

Andrew Philips, who leads Microsoft’s biological computation group, told The Telegraph that in as little as five years it hopes to be able to develop a system for detecting problems. “It’s long term, but … I think it will be technically possible in five to ten years’ time to put in a smart molecular system that can detect disease.”

Um, I have news for you. There are lots of research groups who’ve been working on this sort of problem for a long time in clinical medicine and oncology. Indeed, check out this review article, which shows that, while there aren’t a huge number of scientific papers being published each year on machine learning tools to predict cancer and cancer recurrence, there are a respectable number, and that number is growing. Such tools are being applied to genomic and proteomic data—and have been for years. This is not a new thing. And notice what Andrew Phillips says: In five-to-ten years maybe he can come up with a smart molecular system to detect disease. Those of you who’ve read my many posts about overdiagnosis and overtreatment know that detecting cancer at ever earlier stages will not necessarily result in better outcomes or improved survival. It will, however, make overdiagnosis (i.e., the detection of subclinical disease that would never progress to cause a problem within the lifetime of the patient) much more likely, and overdiagnosis always leads to some degree of overtreatment. (See breast cancer and prostate cancer.) We’ve been down this road before.

Again, don’t get me wrong. Maybe Microsoft has a new way of applying machine learning to cancer. Maybe it has new ways of modeling the cellular processes that lead to cancer. If so, its software engineers would do well to talk less and code more, instead of saying something like this:

“The field of biology and the field of computation might seem like chalk and cheese,” Chris Bishop, head of Microsoft Research’s Cambridge-based lab, told Fast Company. “But the complex processes that happen in cells have some similarity to those that happen in a standard desktop computer.”

As such, those complex processes can potentially be understood by a desktop computer, too. And those same computers could be used to understand how cells behave and to treat them.

If that were possible, then those computers wouldn’t only be able to understand why cells behave as they do and when they might be about to become cancerous. They’d also be able to trigger a response within a cell, reversing its decision and reprogramming it so that it is healthy again.

Model intracellular processes leading to cancer and look for ways to reverse the process? Well, golly gee! Why didn’t cancer researchers think of that? It’s only what they’ve been trying to do for the last 100 years! What is systems biology but doing exactly that, using genomic, proteomic, and metabolomic data? What is “precision medicine” but almost exactly this? After over 15 years of having the tools to analyze the expression of every gene in a cell simultaneously and the computational power to model it, we’re only just scratching the surface of systems biology and computational biology, and Microsoft is going to “solve” this problem in five to ten years. Would that it were so easy! As another blogger put it, it “would be great if genetics were just one big Intel Core I7 that one could program in binary assembly language after decoding its instruction set, but I have doubts it's that simple.”

Here’s the thing. Cancer biology like all biology, is probabilistic, not deterministic. Computers are deterministic. Their instructions consist of binary strings of 0s and 1s. True, computers can model probabilistic situations, the number of possible outcomes rapidly becomes incredibly large, and in cancer biology the number of potential interactions is astronomical. Worse, we don’t understand many of the alterations in cancer cells. As I’ve pointed out many times before, cancer cells are really messed up, and, worse, cancers themselves, thanks to the power of evolution, are made of a very heterogeneous bunch of cells with a very messed up genome. That’s why cancer researches like Derek Lowe (and I) get a bit testy reading this sort of thing:

I have beaten on this theme many times on the blog, so for those who haven’t heard me rant on the subject, let me refer you to this post and the links in it. Put shortly – and these sorts of stories tend to put actual oncology researchers in a pretty short mood – the cell/computer analogy is too facile to be useful. And that goes, with chocolate sprinkles on it, for all the subsidiary analogies, such as DNA/source code, disease/bug, etc. One one level, these things do sort of fit, but it’s not a level that you can get much use out of. DNA is much, much messier than any usable code ever written, and it’s messier on several different levels and in a lot of different ways. These (which include the complications of transcriptional regulation, post-transcriptional modification, epigenetic factors, repair mechanisms and mutation rates, and much, much, more), have no good analogies (especially when taken together) in coding. And these DNA-level concerns are only the beginning! That’s where you start working on an actual therapy; that’s what we call “Target ID”, and it’s way, way back in the process of finding a drug. So many complications await you after that – you can easily spend your entire working life on them, and many of us have.

And I haven’t even mentioned the role of processes like epigenetics, the immune system, and all the other myriad biological processes that contribute to cancer. Nor have I mentioned that using machine learning on the medical literature, as also proposed by Microsoft, will be limited by the fact that there are a lot of crappy studies in the literature. Then there’s the consideration that the analogy itself is suspect. Computers are designed, programmed, and debugged by human beings. Organisms and cancers are the result of millions of years of biological evolution.

I’ll leave Microsoft with this analogy, quoting Douglas Adams in The Hitchhikers’ Guide to the Galaxy, “Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind- bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space.” Well, cancer is complicated. Microsoft will find out how vastly, hugely, mindbogglingly complicated it is. I mean, you might think it’s complicated to trick people into upgrading to Windows 10, but that’s peanuts compared to cancer.

An analogy, and a relevant xkcd cartoon:

Yep that about sums it up.

oracknows Thu, 09/22/2016 - 21:00

Tags

Skepticism/Critical Thinking

Categories

Unfortunately, if this continues, you're going to get a lot of exposure to the other wonderful tendency which is common to computer programmers, engineers, and senior managers: the tendency to believe if they can't do something, it must be simple to do. (The IT sector is a breeding ground for examples of Dunning-Kruger syndrome like practically nowhere else on earth. Even politics doesn't come close).

This is why specialist computer programmers are the strongest believers in the idea of artificial intelligence Real Soon Now (while neuro-psychologists and psychologists who deal in questions about the definition of intelligence and the way the human brain works are much more sceptical). It's why computer engineers believe we're going to be capable of building self-sustaining space-faring colonies within their lifetimes (while biologists and sociologists laugh hollowly into their caffienated-beverage-of-choice at the notion). It's why the whole notion of terraforming is popular among the geeky set in the IT industry (and not among the geeky sets in agriculture, construction or biology).

Essentially, these guys have no idea how much they don't know about just about every other field going, and they're entirely too damn impressed with how much they know about coding.

These Microsoft people may want to look into the phenomenon of 'emergenge', whereby a system based on even a few simple rules can exhibit stunningly complex behavior - behavior that cannot be predicted, and can only be steered by trial-and-error. A very good example is Langton's Ant, where only two rules in a very simple checkerboard universe produce consistent yet complex and unpredictable results.
As far as we know, quite a lot of what goes on in living organisms is based on emergence as a product of iterative evolution. This means that even a million years of looking at the 'code' (e.g. DNA) won't tell you how it works, let alone how to fix it if it doesn't work properly. This doesn't mean we might as well give up research in cellular and molecular biology, but it does mean that there are probably a lot of processes going on that we can't fully understand for very fundamental reasons, and that we must be very careful about simplistic claims such as 'breaking the code'.

Then again, this is Microsoft talking, whose words have always been light years ahead of what their Word (and other products) actually delivered...

I read Derek Lowe's take on this yesterday on the Pipeline's blog. The biologists and chemists in the comment section were not impressed by Microsoft, either.

A few comments are worth reading for the lolz. Expect to hear a lot about the blue screen of death.
I liked the one about calling the tech support center.

They’d also be able to trigger a response within a cell, reversing its decision and reprogramming it so that it is healthy again.

It sounds so much like the usual alt-med tripe about "the cure for cancer they don't want you to know". One cure for all cancers.
Also, when I first read it, I thought we were talking about reversing entropy, here. I mean, it's like extinguishing a forest fire; it's well and good, but the burned trees stay burned.

So the MS guys want to design a nanobot which will
- fit inside a cell and not disrupt its physiological processes
- detect physiological and/or genetic changes indicative of a cell "deciding" to go the cancer route
- optionally but optimally, repair the cell and make it non-cancerous again

For the first one, I'm no specialist in micro- and nano-robotics, so I cannot judge the feasibility with current or next-to-current technology. Although I have this bad feeling that the MS guys are no more robotic experts than they are cancer experts, either. Actual robotics specialists may want to chime about waste heat and other trivial issues.
Maybe these issues are not insurmountable, but 5 years to get a working prototype is very likely an awfully optimistic objective.

The second one - very tricky. As the oncologists could point out, we have some success on the macro scale when looking for specific cancers. But to create a miniaturized, all-purpose sensor and fit it into something small enough to go into the cell... Neither the knowledge nor the technology is here yet.
And let's not talk about the impossibility of fitting an oncologist inside the cell along the nanobot to interpret the data and make a diagnosis. Well, maybe we can use remote access - so the nanobots should have some sort of I/O interface to the outside, as well. All 10 billions of them (one per cell). It's just getting better and better.

Finally, repairing the cell. It if was just killing the cell, that would be a mere trifle, compared to all the other requirements. To repair genetic damage or influence cell metabolism, the nanobot will need to pack a lot of information (most of the host's DNA code, for genetic repair), plus processing/decision power, plus the mechanical/chemical tools to do the job.
All of this in a non-toxic, long-lasting, non-bugged package, much smaller than the cell it's inside, cell which is already bulging with very similar information and tools. .
A tall order. I'm afraid we will need Tardis technology.

Helianthus -

You could - just* - consider a nanobot capable of detecting chromosomes different to the 'normal set' for a patient, and killing any cell in the body with abnormal chromosomes. That's a *bit* simpler than trying a specific detect-and-repair. (Let's ignore red blood cells, reproductive cells et al).

Even then, you can bet that some cancers would evolve in a way that stopped the nanobot from gaining entry, and the potential side effects could be catastrophic.

*just as in '50 years assuming lots of progress'

@ Andrew Dodds

You could – just* – consider a nanobot capable of detecting chromosomes different to the ‘normal set’ for a patient

Yes, but as I pointed out, the nanobot will need some sort of reference of what a "normal set" is, either external or internal. That would take some room.

Worse, I think that differentiated somatic cells don't have the same exact DNA package from one tissue to the next; the nanobot will need different references for different somatic cells - or at the minimum know which DNA parts are important and which ones are fine to overlook.
And as you said, potential side-effects would be catastrophic. It's going to be a lot more complex than "five to ten years time".

To be fair/open-minded, one can dream and imagine we will find a molecule, or a short collection of molecules, which are indicative of the cell going nuts. This could include some specific chromosome chemical damage. That would simplify the programming of the nanobot a lot (up to not using a nanobot at all, but just some fancy new chemo or immunotherapy). That's something biologists have been chasing for some time, actually.

@Andrew Dodds

"consider a nanobot capable of detecting chromosomes different to the ‘normal set’ for a patient, and killing any cell in the body with abnormal chromosomes"

-> To me, any 'nanobots' therapy doesn't really sound realistic. Because of the brownian effect, you can hardly 'guide' a robot to the right spot, you only work with probabilities (as orac said). Anyway, if you create a compound nanosized, it is a molecule, so you are back to square 1 : a drug. Likely a drug with high specificity to only target the diseased cells (expressing some specific cell-surface marker), which what cancer research is trying to do for years.

I'll add that you couldn't do any 'bot' with any kind of 'memory' nanosized bot anyway, because we have already kind of hit the min size for most of the electronic composant in our smarphone (lower scale would complexify the things a lot, because irregularities in the matter composing the different part of the device would induce a lot of problems).

Read the full article from Microsoft (http://news.microsoft.com/stories/computingcancer/), instead of the summary from the Independent. I think the Independent story has latched onto the most sensational bits, which exaggerates the hubris. Most of the MSFT article has nothing to do with MSFT solving cancer, but rather about how computer scientists can help biologists by providing better computational tools, enabling biologists to take greater advantage of machine learning to be more efficient. And the cell programming is fully acknowledged as a moonshot, but that doesn't mean it isn't worth pursuing.

I did read the full article. It's only slightly less full of hubris than the coverage in The Independent and elsewhere.

From the horse's mouth, without journalists summarising and giving it the click-bait treatment:
http://news.microsoft.com/stories/computingcancer/

Essentially, it lists different applications of machine learning and the Azure cloud that can be used by scientists to research cancer.
Note how the original title
"How Microsoft computer scientists and researchers are working to ‘solve‘ cancer"
is more modest than the interpretation used by the Independent and everyone else. Also, in my view, these are testimonials by people with biology and medical background, who then work with technology, rather than random techy guy encroaching in the domain of medical research.

Partial disclosure: I work with Microsoft and their technology for a living :)

Which I read. See my comment above. For example, from the press release:

At Microsoft’s research labs around the world, computer scientists, programmers, engineers and other experts are trying to crack some of the computer industry’s toughest problems, from system design and security to quantum computing and data visualization.
A subset of those scientists, engineers and programmers have a different goal: They’re trying to use computer science to solve one of the most complex and deadly challenges humans face: Cancer.

And:

One approach is rooted in the idea that cancer and other biological processes are information processing systems. Using that approach the tools that are used to model and reason about computational processes – such as programming languages, compilers and model checkers – are used to model and reason about biological processes.

Ah, yes. The “biology is information” hypothesis. Maybe so, but almost certainly not in the way Microsoft thinks. It’s many orders of magnitude more complex than anything they’ve tackled before.
Color me less than impressed. None of this is particularly new or innovative, at least not in concept. Maybe Microsoft has innovative methodology to achieve these concepts. I hope so.

That's not to say it's not worth doing, but, holy hell, tone down the claims and show some awareness of the state of the field,

It's a pity that Davis and Lineweaver succumbed to this physics-hubris temptation. They did contribute a lovely pedagogical article some time ago on the behavior of observer horizons in an expanding cosmology, that many here would find to be quite interesting and relatively accessible:

http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0310808

Not to be outdone....

The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative just announced one of its biggest investments to date: It is ponying up more than $3 billion to kickstart "Chan Zuckerberg Science," an initiative that plans to bring together multidisciplinary teams of scientists in an effort to prevent, cure or manage "all diseases in our children's lifetime." ( http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/09/21/494908196/chan-zucker… )

I like the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation's much more specificGlobal Polio Eradicatioin Initiative. Now, would someone with a lot of money please go after measles?

An adage from the computer age of dinosaurs 40 years ago (mainframes and punch cards): Computer programmers are always willing to tell you that they can solve all of your problems -- without knowing what those problems are.
Things haven't changed much.

its ultimate aim is to make cells into living computers

I have read "Blood Music". This never ends well.

Heheh. So have I. Greg Bear is one of my favorite SF writers.

Gives a whole new meaning to the Blue Screen of Death.

Isn't this outside of the Microsoft model anyway? Typically someone else develops the proper solution so that it can be .......

This happens in Ag sciences a lot as well. Groups with no Agricultural scientists will make all kinds of proclamations about what farmers should or could be doing without having an understanding behind the science of why farmers are doing something now.

This seems to come from people with a background in government policy. There was the federal government announcing the cancer moonshot, so the computer people used the same time frame as the policy people developed.

It's not as though they've just invented bioinformatics. I'm related to a bioinformatician (who got his Ph.D. in the field in the late 1990s), and he says that he is pleased to be helping build tools to build tools that people may use to help find cures. Not "it's just code, therefore it's easy."

Or, my more cynical thought: have Microsoft get back to us when they have solved the problem of computer viruses and other forms of malware.

RE: the cynical thought about computer viruses and Microsoft - and let's be clear I don't speak on their behalf - I will paraphrase what I heard at Microsoft UK headquarters last year:

If there was a way to eliminate 90% of the accumulated IT security threats and exploits that are in the wild, and to do so automatically at zero cost... would you be interested? Then switch on Automated updates on Windows, and looking at historic data that is exactly what happens: There's new exploits coming up all the time, but of all those that are already known, there's new patches coming up all the time that can be applied free of charge for products that are under the normal support period.
(end of paraphrasing :) )

IMHO, in this day and age, it takes more than passive negligence to get a virus on your PC.
The problems that were common in the 1990s and 00s with viruses are very easy to avoid. Be it viruses in executable files, trojans, email-carried malware, executables not being recognised as being from unknown sources... all easy to avoid now, and completely different from 15 years ago. How good would it be if the same sort of outcome was achieved by research of cancer/any other disease?

Megpie71, I work in IT Support. Software engineers are amazingly arrogant. They can create programs to do all sorts of complex things, yet can't figure out to add a printer. It's oddly impressive.

have Microsoft get back to us when they have solved the problem of computer viruses and other forms of malware.

They solved the problem of malware by rebranding it as a feature and calling it Windows 10.

I gotta say one thing, that Microsoft does have a lot of experience in trying to remove computer viruses.

Of course, if they could actually do something to PREVENT them, it might be more helpful.

It would be nice if Microsoft did devellop a version of Windows where one don't need new drivers for all outside equipment, drivers that aren't made, because the product is no longer available, but still very much functioning and usable, if it wasn't for a missing driver for Windows.

Perhaps Microsoft can stick to it's trade, like the saying: 'coblber stick to your trade'.

Renate, that might not be Microsoft's fault. I come from an era before windows had drivers for anything, they came on a floppy disk(s). Windows providing drivers always seemed like a luxury to me.

Microsoft arrogant? Perish the thought!
Seriously though, I agree that like the cobbler sticking to his last, Microsoft should concentrate on what it does. The latest Windows 10 update was recently installed on my laptop. I am more than a little unhappy. Some of the "improvements" aren't.

Megpie is correct - years ago I worked for a couple websites back when content provision was done in-house (i.e. the first dot-com boom) and there is absolutely nothing like the rank stupidity of IT "engineers." Something about the over-determined character of programming, or, more likely the determinedly male-adolescent culture if IT, makes them think that their elaborate Sudoku game translates into complex systems.

disclaimer: I do work for Microsoft

I read the linked article from MS. I have no connection at all to that group, but I thought much of it was fairly reasonable. On the other hand, I thought the independent article poor, I had visions of Nixon's promise in the seventies when the article talks about a potential solution in 5 to 10 years. Really dislike that.

The MS article on the other hand seemed ok to me. It called out several times that it was early days yet, it was clear that MS collaborates with pharma and other professionals. And remember, this is all Microsoft Research. Yes, they have programmers there, but the unique thing about it is that they also have experts in loads of other fields, after all, they are in the blue sky research. I would have thought that any investment in this is good, but agreed, lets have less of the over selling

In my humble opinion, simply, bold claims move people and solutions and the reference to the moonshot should help the Microsoft case.

Having lost my own mother to cancer added to having worked for MSFT in the past, I am encouraged. I have seen the resources and people they have to bare on an issue like this. Also the amount of information and potential breakthroughs gained even by failure would be tremendous..

Renate: t would be nice if Microsoft did devellop a version of Windows where one don’t need new drivers for all outside equipment, drivers that aren’t made, because the product is no longer available, but still very much functioning and usable, if it wasn’t for a missing driver for Windows.

Or worse, sometimes an update *deletes* a driver entirely, especially if it's not specifically a windows driver. I had that happen with the driver that links my ipod to my computer.

Phillips said researchers benefit from Microsoft’s history as a software innovator.

So they're going to solve cancer by buying code from startups and making cludgey knock-offs of tech from Apple?

If I didn't know the hubris was real, I'd think this is a cynical PR move to get people to think MS can actually deal with computer virii, rather than rely on third-party add-ons that slow your computer to a crawl, interrupt your work constantly, and have to be changed to a different company annually, as one year's top anti-virus software inevitably goes into the toilet the next year.

If you want to eliminate 99% of the accumulated IT security threats and exploits that are in the wild... you buy a Mac.

@Vodka Diet Guru #20:

and to do so automatically at zero cost

Out here in the real world, automatic updates come with a cost. I'll leave it to you to work out why.

Hmm. Windows CE, ME, and NT --CEMENT {designed to weigh computers down like a stone}

The day M$FT makes a product that doesn't suck will be when they start selling vacuum cleaners.

Perhaps they will be able to make some advances in protein folding which, interestingly enough, is currently being crowdsourced:

Foldit is an online puzzle video game about protein folding.... The highest scoring solutions are analysed by researchers, who determine whether or not there is a native structural configuration (native state) that can be applied to relevant proteins in the real world. Scientists can then use these solutions to target and eradicate diseases and create biological innovations.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foldit

>>>>>
"If there was a way to eliminate 90% of the accumulated IT security threats and exploits that are in the wild, and to do so automatically at zero cost… would you be interested? Then switch on Automated updates on Windows, and looking at historic data that is exactly what happens:"

OK, numerous problems with that statement.

Zero day exploits are increasingly on the rise. Even if that 90% figure is historically accurate, don't expect it to stay at that way going forward. (Of course, if everybody did turn on automatic updates, that 90% figure would surely change because the only exploits left in the wild would be the ones not covered by current patches)

Also, not all threats are created equal. It's possible for that remaining 10% to be at least as dangerous as the combined other 90%. Pop ups on your PC are generally less dangerous than cryptolockers, for example. Go ahead and click on that .exe in your email with your fully patched PC, and let me know how it works out for you.

Current Antivirus & anti-malware with current definition updates are arguably far more important that a fully patched PC.

An increasing proportion of threats are email phishing related. Good luck patching the humans against social engineering.

And about that zero cost, that must be coming from an individual user and not someone involved in running a large IT enterprise. Managing pc patching in a decent sized organization is anything but zero cost, and you really can't deploy patches as soon as they are released without some software testing and quality assurance in a big, complex environment. Letting PCs automatically update direct from Microsoft is a bad idea in any largeish computer base.

but otherwise, spot on observation there. :)

If you want to eliminate 99% of the accumulated IT security threats and exploits that are in the wild… you buy a Mac.

Or go Linux, but that presents its own problems.

@sadmar:

If you want to eliminate 99% of the accumulated IT security threats and exploits that are in the wild… you buy a Mac.

Or install Linux.

I understand where you're coming from but please take a couple things into consideration. Microsoft didn't make these claims, an individual who works there did. I also work for Microsoft and had a similar reaction to the headline. This would be analogous to believing climatologists or meteorologists have the slightest clue as to the causes/predictions/modeling of global warming yet many "scientists" go along with the program despite the modeling being woefully simplistic, poor data integrity, heavy financial biases,etc.etc. Anyway while I on the other hand doubt this effort as a whole is unaware of the issues that you raise, I hope you volunteer your expertise and welcome whatever contributions they can make in 5-10 years. They may build a tool or find an insight that sparks a thought in someone such as yourself that eventually leads to something. I lost my father to cancer over 40 years ago so I am in the camp that feels the status quo is not progressing fast enough. Alternate perspectives help break group think which is a genuine concern in narrow fields where much of both the background and the specialized education is shared. Also consider that this is not an either or zero sum scenario. Yes computational power really is growing exponentially but that doesn't rule out hybrid involvement of human insight. I can't vouch for the truthfulness of this article but I can be inspired by it nonetheless, and if it is true it's a real shame those specialists who like you "know how complex and hard" this really is didn't reach out to the "gamers" a decade earlier. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/09/110918144955.htm

I have never lost data due to malware but have lost data many times due to automatic updates. Most malware comes from predictable channels (such as Java exploits in ads). Leaving aside the fact that these channels should never have been opened in the first place, it's insane to say that the whole problem is that a lot of users don't have automatic updates.

I get it seems a little cocky to make such an assertion, but at the same time, the author of this post is about as arrogant as they come too. Pot calling the kettle black much?

In all fairness, MSFT is the largest software company in the world with more resources than any software company in the world. Comparing them to anyone else trying to do similar stuff is misunderstanding the environment and the level of resources you're talking about.

Say what you want about MSFT, but they have some of the most advanced technology and software in existence and more resources to put into it than anyone else. The author comes across bitter almost. Isn't it a good thing that they're putting resources into fighting cancer?

Good grief, calm yourself!

#1 Megpie 71

Essentially, these guys have no idea how much they don’t know about just about every other field going, and they’re entirely too damn impressed with how much they know...

Are you shure you're not speaking of economists?

sadmar
If you want to eliminate 99% of the accumulated IT security threats and exploits that are in the wild… you buy a Mac.

Julian
Or install Linux

Linux seems good.
My computer was seized by a hijacking programs the other day. Red screen saying call this number, etc.

My approach--sod that! My backups are up to date and I don't use proprietary software.

If I have to I'll reinstall Ubuntu or buy a new hard drive.

Hard reboot to computer, prepared to do a clean install from a USB. Ubuntu just nicely loaded with no trace of hijacking that I can see after about 4 days.

This would be analogous to believing climatologists or meteorologists have the slightest clue as to the causes/predictions/modeling of global warming yet many “scientists” go along with the program despite the modeling being woefully simplistic, poor data integrity, heavy financial biases,etc.etc.

Uh-oh.

jkrideau -- was your computer running Windows when it was hijacked?

jkrideau -- Sorry, stupid question on my part:

I don’t use proprietary software.

Next I'll be asking, is this ham-and-cheese sandwich kosher?

I can’t vouch for the truthfulness of this article but I can be inspired by it nonetheless, and if it is true it’s a real shame those specialists who like you “know how complex and hard” this really is didn’t reach out to the “gamers” a decade earlier.

Interesting, John Lemire.

A hugely talented but socially isolated computer operator is tasked by Management to prove the Zero Theorem: that the universe ends as nothing, rendering life meaningless. But meaning is what he already craves.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2333804/

Linux seems good.

When the day comes, I'm going OpenBSD.

Ah yes, the "spherical cow on a frictionless plane" approach to biology. *sigh*

I know a lot of people (though currently none at Microsoft) who work in computational biology. It really does have promise, particularly when there is a tight and strong relationship with researchers who are doing cell-based work.

Basically the issue here is 1) super-hype article, 2) kinda-hype press release, 3) very excited computer scientists. I think the computer scientists and mathematicians will do some good research and make some useful tools that biologists ad clinicians will use. What we get out of the tools, well, that's what we can't know.

# 43–44 Palindrome

—was your computer running Windows when it was hijacked?

Heavens no. Ubuntu 16.04.

is this ham-and-cheese sandwich kosher?

Do you want it to be?

Well, I really do like ham-and-cheese sandwiches, so I suppose I'd prefer it to be kosher, but on the other hand I'm not constrained by kosher dietary laws so it doesn't matter.

What I of course meant was that I should have inferred from your post that of course you were not using Windows.

I'm on Fedora, by the way, I think F24.

Basically the issue here is 1) super-hype article, 2) kinda-hype press release, 3) very excited computer scientists. I think the computer scientists and mathematicians will do some good research and make some useful tools that biologists ad clinicians will use. What we get out of the tools, well, that’s what we can’t know.

Yep. Like I said, I'm all for computational biology and systems biology. I just don't like overheated statements that (1) betray a lack of understanding of just how complex cancer is and (2) make it sound as though cancer researchers now don't know what they're doing.

is this ham-and-cheese sandwich kosher?

Do you want it to be?

It could be if you used "happy ham," which is not-so-fondly remembered from a Dharma Rain Zen Center Christmas dinner. The fake turkey was much more edible.

# 51 JP
happy ham,”
Obviously a gourmet treat, . And fake turkey sounds, yes well, like something. I have had turkey bacon and I don't recommend it either.

I have never understood why, if you wanted a vegetarian diet you need to produce fake meats when you can do fantastic things with real vegan dishes.

I have never understood why, if you wanted a vegetarian diet you need to produce fake meats when you can do fantastic things with real vegan dishes.

Agreed, but my late great teacher had an attachment to having "meat" at holidays. He was also grill-master in the summers, with veggie sausages and grilled fruits and veggies.

I have had turkey bacon and I don’t recommend it either.

Turkey bacon was big when I lived in a big communal-kitchen house in Portland with multiple Jewish residents. (Laid back kosher kitchen; no separate dishes for everybody, but no pork or shellfish in the kitchen.) I can't speak for it, since I was vegetarian at the time. I've been veg/vegan off and on for most of my adult life, but have given up on all that living out here, since it's pretty much impossible given the culture and the dietary habits of my relatives. Well, also chicken wings. (I make a mean batch of buffalo wings myself these days.)

Soooo, we can now expect Microsoft to cure our cancers and issue a patch to keep it away on Patch Tuesday.

Seriously, the software needs a patch each and every month, it uses two characters to code it, 0 and 1. DNA has for characters.
Systems interacting with systems, feedback systems, immune systems, yeah, that'll be a lot of patches and service packs.

The attitude of the author is a little disturbing?

It seems like he's in a race to be the first to discover a cure for cancer rather than someone desperately trying to find ways to stop it and avert all the pain and suffering that those affected have to go through and he'll be damned if some upstart who he feels is not as highly qualified as himself could possibly come along and, who knows, solve it before he does.

I would have thought that his attitude should have been something like, 'Well they're a bit cocky but, with a bit of luck, they might just come up with something that will help because any research into this problem is welcome'?

What has probably inspired this statement from Microsoft could have something to do with what they're doing with data storage on DNA? Have a look here...

http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/04/microsoft-experim…

Note these lines from that article....'The company's main customers are research labs that insert custom genetic material into microbes to produce organisms that can perform useful chemical processes, such as producing desirable nutrients. '

That is terribly exciting

All you Mac and Linux geeks that are spreading your ABMer stuff on this blog ask yourself this question, What are Linux or Mac doing for cancer research? Oh, that's right....Nothing.

Let's hope that Microsoft succeed or at least go partway to finding something that can help rid us of this terrible infliction.

Erm, Gary...
First, it isn't Linux or Mac, it's Linux or Apple Computers, the former being open sourced, non-corporate and non-profit, the latter being a peer of Microsoft.
Second, it's a software corporation, not a biology corporation.
Finally, you're bitching at an oncologist, who has been repeatedly been disappointed in the past.

With no due respect, I'll stick with the oncologist's view on oncology.

Yet another xkcd cartoon!
http://xkcd.com/1736/

It seems quite easy: just shutdown the patient and restart.

"Uninstalling Cancer.....
87552 hours remaining."

Certainly sounds like Microsoft.

I have never understood why, if you wanted a vegetarian diet you need to produce fake meats when you can do fantastic things with real vegan dishes.

Well, define "fake meats." Homemade veggie burgers can be delicious, which is what counts. Moosewood's "BBQ" tempeh and tempeh Reubens are pretty tasty, etc. I'm not crazy about seitan, but you get my point.

Given the strong possibility that I may soon have to take refuge with vegetarians (now ovo-lacto, formerly vegan), I've been thinking about cooking – the least I could do for someone with two boys who's also running a lab.*

So, OK, burritos are easy and pretty frugal, allow people to pick their fillings, have garnish variety and side-dish options, can be made in excess for the next day's lunch, and . . . get dull fast. I'm seriously thinking about getting a can of jackfruit and testing out some of the recipes for jackfruit "carnitas" just for the hell of it.** What's the real difference from using marinated and seared portobello mushrooms for a "meaty" note?

* I also suspect that there have been a lot of single-dish meals going on.
** Making real ones is kind of a pain in the ass, anyway.

^ Damn, I forgot to include an essential video review of Tofurkey by Gregory Ng.

^^ I will give one thumbs-up for a mass-market seitan item: Companion brand curried gluten. It's not exactly the most versatile stuff in the world, but I got hipped to it from an anecdote in the late Barbara Tropp's China Moon Cookbook in which she served it to Paula Wolfert as a topping for toasted cheese bread.

Seventh-Day Adventist cookery is something that I've never investigated.

The most delicious restaurant meal I ever had was a vegetarian curry at an Indian restaurant in Cresta Shopping Center in Randburg.
As an aside, I can't have tofu. I can't digest it.

I'm a hardware engineer - MCP, MCSE+I ...

This doesn't give me the warm and fuzzies at all. As a matter of fact, when Patch Tuesday rolls around, our team waits at least a week before applying the patches to the boxes on our network. Why? Because we don't want to be beta testers. I've seen patches hose computers -by OEMs- so it's equivalent to an involuntary phase 1 clinical trial.

gaist,
Are you sure you want to remove cancer and all of it's components?
{uninstaller online 3rd party cancer provider -- please tell us why you want to remove the product.}

Just a few stray interjections...
1) I trust Microsoft to do difficult things right about as much as I trust the Mitch McConnell to do simple things right. Since the Windows 10 Anniversary Update, I have had to reset my Microsoft account password, can only sign in as "Other User", can only use said MS password to sign in instead of my own unguessable PIN, and can't add a family member account. And a few other annoyances that I'm sure are around the corner. I think I can do without them trying to update my pancreas.
2) Apple is no Rolls Royce of home computing, either. Remember when Siri couldn't tell you where to go for an abortion (Cortana tells me where to find prostitutes near me!)? They also came up with such works of genius as the hockey puck mouse and phones and tablets that can't take a storage card or use USB OTG, or USB anything . Naturally, their phones only charge with hardware incompatible with every other wireless device on Earth and now, no headphone jack.
3) We have four different diets in my little nuclear (Sorry, that should be renewable energy.) family. My daughter is a vegan and earnestly preaches the gospel of no animal products for any reason whatever, although she did grant me absolution for my two bovine heart valves (If she ever goes evangelical will she handle fake snakes (Or FakeSnakes - tastes like tofu chicken!))?). My wife is an ovo-lacto-pescatarian (That really sounds like a religion.). I'm a flexitarian - relatively small amounts of meat in defined circumstances, which for me is weekends and holidays. My son eats like he's still in college, if he had gone to college in 1959. The fifth diet in the house is the dog's, and the less said about that the better. The good thing about Young Rockin' Daughter's veganism is that she finally had to learn to cook - the drawback to that is that everything she makes tastes like kale in kale sauce. She also seems to believe in superfoods.
(As you may notice, I sure do love my parentheses.)

"(As you may notice, I sure do love my parentheses.)"

You'll just love https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lisp_(programming_language)

Hi Orac,

meet a similar tale in psychiatry:

Minnesota's Suicide Prevention Plan.

Not a single psychiatrist was involved in the writeup of the document. Only one MD among the staff.

Alain (whose Birthday was yesterday on the 23rd and I hit the 40's crisis).

Thanks for the excellent information, Alain!
That sounds like a plan developed by those feeling the need to "have a plan", but unwilling to actually develop a real plan.

Frankly, I find our mental health care system as one of a great embarrassment, a true disgrace.
Have I used enough negatives to describe it?
It actually makes me embarrassed to call myself a citizen of this land.

@Gary O'Connor

What is LINUX doing for cancer research? For one thing, it's not wasting valuable time and energy on pointless OS trivia - which apparently is a much bigger issue than you understand. For another, it doesn't encourage really sloppy programming habits that lead inevitably to corrupted data and untrustworthy results.

So there's that.

Oh, as for vegan diets, I'm a happy omnivore. That said, I have a tofu lasagna that's to die for.
Invented by necessity when dad was on dialysis.

I have difficulties with math, but I think I see a flaw in Microsoft's plan and I would like someone who can do it better to check me on this.
Whenever we see the testimony regarding forensic DNA testing, we are told that the odds are approximately 1 in 50 bazillion or some other impossibly large number that anyone else is a match for the profile in question, in whole or in part. Now I doubt that the figures quoted are quite as decisive and unquestionable as all that, but the odds must still be pretty high, top prize in Power Ball high at the least. With so many possible variations of the human genome I would think that in many cases it would be impossible to tell whether a given profile is "normal" or not, as if anyone really knew what normal is. All this, and I am also pretty sure that there are a hell of a lot of surprises waiting as we delve into the "batteries not included" fine print of the genetic code that can't even be guessed at yet - Donald Rumsfeld's "unknown unknowns".

I use Linux, FreeBSD, and Darwin (i.e. MacOS). All are capable of running genomics software, as is Windows, and I'm sure good science is done on each. But the most sophisticated computation in genomics and other biomedical research is done on multiple computers at once, by the dozens or even hundreds.

Microsoft is selling their "cloud computing" product, Azure, as a replacement for some of the university and corporate computing clusters used in research. For those unfamiliar with the concept, cloud computing is essentially a way of renting some fraction of a provider's datacenter, whether a tiny fraction of a CPU and storage for editing your documents to large server farms, such as used by Netflix, who doesn't own those servers but pays Amazon Web Services to serve every bit of content Netflix provides.

And maybe "renting" isn't even the right word here, since using some of the excess capacity to support medical research is wonderful PR, worth the expense for a while at least.

Home computer use has been on the decline for several years, which is why MS has been driving toward touchscreen support for Windows along with a cloud-based software rental model. Given that consumer use of computation is increasingly done on phones and the Windows phone has bombed badly, they need new markets. Cloud computing, especially at the corporate level, is a rapidly growing market. And the fastest growing segment of that market is in research and engineering.

It's all about money.

Weirdnoise,

I tend to think about the evolution of computing as written by Rob Landley when thinking about your statement ("Home computer use has been on the decline for several years, which is why MS has been driving toward touchscreen support for Windows along with a cloud-based software rental model.")

Mainframe -> minicomputer -> microcomputer (PC) -> smartphone

At the moment, we need a host computer or an azure service to develop for the phones (iDevices, Android; I'm not overly concerned by M$) but later on, they'll develop the capability to be self-hosting (tablet with 64GB of ram and a 1TiB PCIe SSD? Android do takes up a lot of disk space and compute to compile) and if not done by corporations (Samsung, LG, etc...I'm looking at you), it will be done by enterprising hardware hacker like the gang responsible for the Raspberry PI, the Parallella (Andreas Olofsson, spelling?) or even your's truly (I got myself this book as a bday gift),

I got some more url to post how that can be done but that will be done in a second post in which, I'll also adress the probabilistic vs deterministic nature of cancer and computers.

Alain

Alain @68

That plan is pretty piss poor and Dawson's critique of it seems very necessary.

A while back over here someone was touting a model of alleged suicide prevention based on one used in Orac's state: it was pretty poor too and excluded most of the highest risk groups...

Disclaimer: assessment of self-harm was my main area of professional expertise, and I helped write multi-agency care pathways and training around the area which were well received.

As for the hardware equation, it is already known that we can use graphic cards to compute mathematical equation and one of the possibility is to use chemoinformatics to do the work needed to solve biological issues like cancer and to that end, the infrastructure needed to solve them start at markov-chain monte-carlo (don't know if it has been implemented in hardware but graphic accelerators has the mathematical facility to implement it in software but have the calculation done in hardware); physics (see http://www.geforce.com/hardware/technology/physx) and probabilistics facilities (the kind of which is calculated in Schaum's Outline of Probability, Random Variables, and Random Processes, 3rd Edition.

Of course, these are starting points and not at all what is envisionned by Microsoft to help solve the problems eithers but yes, in my not so humble opinion, it is possible that computers develop the probabilistic compute capacity to help solve biological issues with the possibility that my null hypothesis is that I know just enough to be dangerous with my opinion and I don't know enough about cancers to fully grasp the picture :D

Am I a fool? probably

Big Al

In bold: Start at. nothing else was intended to use bold fonts.

Murmur,

I do agree with your assessment. That said, I should be commenting in 2 weeks as I don't have internet access at the rehab center (it is possible to have it but I need to use mobile internet key which depend on a fully functioning computer and about 145$ + taxes per month for the internet access itself...)

Alain

That said, I downloaded about 1.5GB of source code to finish building the 'puter (see linux from scratch http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/lfs/ and http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/blfs/) but coughing up the dough for the internet access will come later.

Maybe the'll thread the cancer with slime molds:

The extension to a much larger network of slime mold tubes could process nanoparticles and carry out sophisticated Boolean logic operations of the kind used by computer circuitry...

"The slime mold based gates are non-electronic, simple and inexpensive

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/03/140327100335.htm
The University of Leeds is trying to use bacteria to build hard drives, and there’s even potential to use salmon testes in storage devices. But Gale says that this type of research helps us do more than just create new types of computers. It also helps us understand life itself.

“Computation might turn out to be the ‘killer app’ for understanding biological systems, the way that mathematics has turned out to be the killer app for understanding physical systems,”

https://www.wired.com/2013/06/slime-mold-computers/

That plan is pretty piss poor and Dawson’s critique of it seems very necessary.

If you want worse, check this out.

@Narad, re Northern Michigan U's policy.
Jesus Fucking H. Christ! What a bass ackwards policy, fully opposed to all current knowledge, literature, theory, practice and general sanity!
Some idiot needs someone from HR to pull out a very tiny match, then while speaking "You are fired".

Excuse the profanity, but seriously, this is a *really* big, bad and damnably ugly big deal.
Even the US Army knows better!

I'm torn between wanting to find the idiot that penned this policy and tripping him or her with my cane and just vomiting.
The latter is winning, so nauseous has that level of incompetent stupidity has made me!

Narad beat me to it. I'm guessing that the trauma of having a friend actually commit suicide would be far worse than having a conversation about it.

(Something I could stand to be reminded of from time to time.)

@JP, having had friends commit suicide, yeah, it's extremely traumatic to those who knew the silently suffering victim.
Frankly, whoever created this policy needs to find a new job, perhaps in sanitation. They've ignored all of the past few decades of research, current practices, federal advice and general common sense.
Honestly, I'm feeling nauseous over reading that entry from Narad.

@Narad, thanks! While reading that was distressing, I really needed to know about that bass ackwards policy!
I've had buddies that committed suicide, it wasn't a fun experience for any of us.
But, this week, my wife started to experience suicidal ideation, we're working on which novel medications for her neurological pain that she's recently been prescribed to find the cause.
As she recalls those suicides and their impact on all of our teams, as well as me, she's taken our honesty always policy to talk to me about her problem.

re vegans, vegan 'meat', vegetarians et al

I usually enjoy making fun of vegans immensely because I know of a loon who prescribes it as the solution to all health problems as well as AGW and personal debt...

But really, I must speak truly and say that I have had many excellent adventures in that realm:
- my friend from an Italian family tried to be a vegan and created many terrific dishes based on her aunt's cooking
- some ninja warriors... I mean ESTEEMED PRACTITIONERS of tai chi.. once took me to a Chinese New Year celebration in NY's Chinatown- it was 11 degrees F outside.. we feasted ( for hours) upon vegan duck and assorted dim sum and entrees that were B!TCHING fabulous.
- I jborrowed a cookbook based on Roman cuisine with many excellent choices that even I can emulate
- Indian food ( with dairy products). Need I say more?
- Israeli 'pizza' places with salad choices ( hummus, etc).
- Middle Eastern mezze

I don't eat any pork, beef, lamb I'm not Kosher) but seriously vegan/ vegetarian choices make life easier for me.
Also, I spend a lot of time in restaurants.

@ 81 & 82

That has to be one of the outstandingly stupid moves a university admin has taken in years and IIRC some uni admins can be really , really stupid.

Have suicidal thoughts, get punished if you talk --- commit or try to commit suicide because no help.

You know JP you just might have a point. Clearly they are not smart enough to figure out such a complicated thing!

This from a hyperbolic marketing company that couldn't get DOS right or finished in 10 years. The company that brought us Win 98 ME and Vista .0 or excused its failures with "not a bug but a feature".

I don't think so.

@prn, #86, please! A bug with seniority is a feature for Microsoft.

JP, I know we don't "know" each other, but I read what you said and I want to tell you that it's horrible for the friend left behind. I had a friend almost 50 years ago who suffered from depression. She used to call me at all hours of the night just to talk. She called one night about 3 and I had worked two jobs that day and just couldn't stay awake to talk. She died two days later of an "accidental" overdose. It wasn't my fault, and I know that, but it took decades to get over the guilt, and the grief was entirely different from that I had felt about others close to me who had died. I have a loved one who is often close to taking her life, and I worry about her every single day. But worrying is better than grieving.

This is none of my business, I know, but your post just touched me in a way that I had to respond. I watch for your posts, and I wish you well, and to have the best life that it is possible for you to have.

# 60 Narad

/ Well, define “fake meats.
Well, commercial "hamburg" patties and what looks like some weird approach to a hot dog---though I have never eaten one. They look way too dangerous.That Tofurkey is the epitome of this.

I cannot really comment on taste etc, since I've never tried any of this except the commercial "hamburg" patty which was probably no worse than a MacDonald's burger. It just seems weird to me to try to make something look like a meat serving when it is clearly supposed to be vegetarian.

If I wanted something to replace a hamburger I'd probably suggest a falafel or perhaps a samosa and not try to say it's a burger. Shrug, I just don't see the point.(Note to self---time to make more samosas)

And, in general for a lot of vegetarian choices (vegan or ovo-lacto) I'd start checking out other cuisines. Arab cuisines have some lovely ideas as do Chinese and, as far as I can see most of Indian cuisine is vegetarian. I have a fair number of recipes from all three cuisines, some of which I've even got to work.

Things do get a bit more complicated as a vegan since a lot of Indian recipes assume milk products but Chinese recipes don't and a good number of the Arab recipes I have or have seen don't.

However I am not a vegetarian. I'm having stir-fried chicken with onions and green peppers in a chili garlic sauce and sautéed spinach with fermented tofu (totally addictive flavouring) served with rice. If you need a vegetarian version substitute firm tofu.

# 63 Julian Frost
I can’t have tofu. I can’t digest it.

Pity, I know of a few lovely tofu recipes but there are lots of alternatives thank heavens.

Just be glad you're not celiac in a Western country. That can really limit your diet. I've worked as a cook and keeping a celiac customer safe can be a nightmare---commercial Worcester Sauce and pepperoni can/does contain gluten!

This programmer was obviously around too many "yes men". The moment that the programmer arrogated a potential cure for cancer, is the precise moment that he should have received a dozen "eye rolls", "face palms, and "head bangs".

Even biochemists are a bit more careful with their claims.

I watch for your posts, and I wish you well, and to have the best life that it is possible for you to have.

Thanks. My advisor claims to be optimistic that "with a lot of time and effort," I'll have a "happy and productive life," but I'm considerably less hopeful. I can't help but feel sorry for the man, though, who has had several of his (according to him, best) students absolutely lose their sh!t over the past couple of years. He mentioned feeling guilty as well, as I was pretty clearly nuts at his Thanksgiving last year, making clang associations and all the rest of it. My friends also felt bad, since they hadn't really said anything during the more fun parts of the experience, when I just seemed to be having too much of a good time. Clearly none of this has been easy on anybody.

My own father committed suicide, which should be an object lesson for me in what not to do with my life, but I find his decision pretty forgivable, given that he had a pretty bad TBI and was forgetting how to do things basic to his livelihood, like weld. I'm sure some of it was due to the mood disturbances and personality changes that can come about with a TBI, too, though.

Well, commercial “hamburg” patties and what looks like some weird approach to a hot dog—though I have never eaten one. They look way too dangerous.That Tofurkey is the epitome of this.

I cannot really comment on taste etc, since I’ve never tried any of this except the commercial “hamburg” patty which was probably no worse than a MacDonald’s burger. It just seems weird to me to try to make something look like a meat serving when it is clearly supposed to be vegetarian.

I dunno, burgers are a nice type of sandwich, and sometimes you just want one. The black bean burgers I have had have been pretty uniformly great, if sometimes a bit crumbly.

As far as sandwiches go, I can't recommend the Tofurky deli meats, although they were tolerable. I in fact live pretty close to the Tofurky homeland; a friend of mine had a job working for them (Turtle Island, Hood River, OR) for a while shortly after high school.

Tempeh is a good choice for sandwiches, though. There was a place in Ann Arbor that made a mean tempeh Reuben, which a friend insists is a contradiction in terms, but whatever, it tasted pretty darn good.

If I wanted something to replace a hamburger I’d probably suggest a falafel or perhaps a samosa and not try to say it’s a burger.

Just this past Friday, I had a portobello mushroom cap and Swiss, and while it was *not* a grilled burger, flavored with lots of smoke, it too made a fair substitute. I recommend it to your attention.

"If there’s one thing that irritates me more than government agencies making bold proclamations about making progress in cancer "

I agree, but for different reasons of course.
Cancer research is a monumental waste of money.
Because quite simply, you cannot "cure" cancer.
"Rogue" mitosis, will occur naturally, if given the right environment.
To use an analogy, it's like leaving exposed steel to the environment, where the conditions will make it rust.
Similarly, what people need to do is rustproof their bodies, with good clean nutrition, good hydration, stress reduction, adequate sleep and positive thinking.
You cannot cure cancer, you can only prevent it.

Since the beginning of modern Cancer research, which I date around the 1950s, globally there has been approximately $2.7 trillion spent on cancer research, and from what?

Oh yes, to keep those "doctors," with too many uppercase letters preceding their name, in an endless exercise of chasing one's tail, and propagandising to a "hopeful" public, that someday, there will be a cure for Cancer

As a result of that research, 20% more people are still living for 5 and even 10 more years after getting diagnosed with cancer.

Anyone remember Microsoft BOB?

I have a feeling this is going the same way.

Kruuth -- and lest we forget: Microsoft Bob did produce one thing that lasted.

Comic Sans.

Narad @81

I had to check the date when I read that, just in case it was an April Fool gag...

If I gave my genuine opinion of that I suspect the moderation here would blow up under the sheer weight of obscenities (I can be very sweary)...

Suffice to say I await the inevitable law suit for culpable negligence when a student there does eventually follow through on their thoughts, which seems like an inevitable consequence of that kind of asininity.

The return of Mr. Harris, alleged holder of multiple degrees earned at the University of [redacted].
"[W]hat people need to do is rustproof their bodies, with good clean nutrition, good hydration, stress reduction, adequate sleep and positive thinking."
All very nice and warm and fuzzy. I will give you a pass on most of those; certainly if adequate hydration plays a part, then that would give homeopathy an actual effect. I will limit my question on this to asking for your explanation of the exact role of positive thinking is in cancer prevention.
"You cannot cure cancer, you can only prevent it."
Well, there's some positive thinking for you. I have a vision of thousands or millions of people hearing your ex cathedra proclamation and suddenly dropping dead from a sudden return of cancers they thought they had been cured of decades before. It will certainly come as news to so many who have been, yes, cured of cervical, breast, testicular, thyroid, renal, and other cancers after treatment with one or more scientific modalities.
Now should we look to cure naturopathy, or to prevent it?

94 Johnnie

Just this past Friday, I had a portobello mushroom cap and Swiss,

Sounds good. Stuffed portabellos are on the menu for the weekend or early next week. Had not really considered one as in bun.

@ Old Rocking Dave
And apropos of nothing in particular.

“Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science.” Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man

Stuffed portabellos are on the menu for the weekend or early next week. Had not really considered one as in bun.

Yah, I've never considered that either. Fajitas, fer sure. But there's one thing about the "fake meat" designation that has been lingering in the back of my head: it implies a nosology. Where, pray tell, do aspics fit in here?

Old Rockin' Dave: I suppose it is some concession to the truth that at least Mr Harris doesn't claim to be able to do anything at all helpful for people who come to him with cancer. After all, it seems he considers them to be lost causes. I suppose that is one way to improve one's success rates: only treat the well.

jrkideau: I am put in mind of this quote from Sir Arthur C. Clarke - "When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong."
Calli Arcale: Good point. I missed that one.

Man, 20-odd years ago, "research.microsoft.com" was my husband's work desktop machine. The group he worked in was doing stuff with compilers and creating tools to help programmers do their jobs more easily. People working in product groups tended to turn their noses up at anything that didn't have a ship date/price tag/patent. Things have sure changed.

Showing up late here with a relatively trivial comment, but:

A really good way to show that you've spent very little time thinking about Subject X is to say something like "[Concept from subject X] is not unlike [concept from subject Y that was named in direct reference to the first concept]". The "genetic changes (sometimes caused by literal viruses) producing cells that reproduce in a dangerous way... are a lot like *computer* viruses, if you think about it" thing here is a pretty good example. But my favorite distillation of the principle is this Onion headline: I'm Like a Chocoholic, but gor Booze.

Er, "for" not "gor"

Eli @17: Exactly! It's a spherical cow on a fricitonless plane.

At some point you have to admit that you've made too many assumptions in order to make the math easy.