Tomfoolery Blog

Archive for the ‘alternative medicine’ Category

Gillian McKeith has managed to embark on a spectacular failure with Twitter. Firstly, she has a go at a random twitterer who had a go at her, then she pretends that her Twitter account doesn’t actually belong to her. Following that, she tries to remove all record of her social networks on her website. However, a brilliantly lazy web designer just commented out the code, so it was there for anyone who has the ability to right-click then select “view source”. Now, it’s exploded all over Twitter and Gillian McKeith is once again looking like a total arse.

That, and the diploma mill she went to corresponded with has announced it will shut down. Happy days.

Plenty of people have written excellent blogs about this:

• Ben Goldacre (obviously)
• BoingBoing
• David Naylor
• Tom Chivers in the Telegraph
• zenbuffy.com

Followers of quack medicine and general wingnuttery will be well aware of naturalnews.com, home of “Health Ranger” Mike Adams. It’s always worth perusing if you want to keep up with the latest “all natural” nonsense, but there was one recent article in particular that caught my eye.

The article in question is on natural male contraception. One recommendation is to eat papaya seeds, which apparently affects the infertility of rats and rabbits. I’ve no idea if a study has been done on humans, but it seems like a breeze compared to the other option: dangle your testicles in 116 °F (46°C) water (just below the pain threshold, supposedly) for 45 minutes a day every day for 21 days. This should keep you sperm-free for 6 months.

Now, I’ve got so many questions. Firstly, where is the evidence that this works? Did someone carry out experiments to determine the optimal time and temperature, or did Kim Evans (the author) just make it up for a laugh?

Second, what exactly is the technique involved? Can you boil the kettle, fill a teacup with hot water, wait until it cools to the right temperature, then squat over it naked whilst holding your old chap out of the way? How do you maintain the temperature of the water? With an industrial waterbath? Also, what are you supposed to do for 45 minutes? Listen to music? Read a book? Hope the dog doesn’t wander in?

Third, how would this be introduced into a relationship? I can picture the scene: a girlfriend is cuddling with her boyfriend on the sofa, she’s surfing the net. “Look what I’ve found on naturalnews.com darling!”.

Insane. What’s wrong with condoms or the pill?

Thanks to the British Medical Association’s slaughtering of homeopathy, that very subject was discussed on BBC Radio Leeds today. Presenter Liz Green did well to introduce homeopathy as being unscientific and costing the NHS approximately £10 million per year, but she was quickly inundated by the “it worked for my dog” brigade.

Thankfully, Merseyside Skeptic’s Society co-founder Michael Marshall was bought in towards the end of the discussion to give the skeptic’s point of view. In the limited time available, I thought Marsh did very well, especially to introduce the “secondary placebo” effect to explain the effect of homeopathy on dogs.

From a personal perspective, I thought it was good to hear my own email broadcast. (I’m such a media whore wannabe). I gave three reasons why people may feel better after taking homeopathy:

1. They were going to get better anyway.
2. They were experiencing the placebo effect (or a secondary placebo effect in the case of dogs).
3. If they were taking homeopathy as a ‘complementary’ medicine, the conventional medicine may have been working.

There is also one aspect of the homeopathy argument that really bugs me: homeopathy supporters claim that the estimated £10 million per year the NHS spends on homeopathy “isn’t that much”. Well, if that’s the case, could I have £10 million from the NHS budget every year? If it’s not that much…

The whole BBC Radio Leeds Liz Green program is available here (homeopathy discussed towards the end of the show, Michael Marshall’s appearance and my email from about 1 hour 30 minutes onwards).

In the last parliament, you may remember that the House of Commons Science and Technology committee produced an evidence check on homeopathy, concluding that it should no longer be funded on the NHS. Following this, quack-supporting MP David Tredinnick wrote Early Day Motion (EMD) 908, criticising the report and supporting homeopathy. This EDM became a nice little reference, because MPs could demonstrate their scientific inabilities by signing it.

Now that the dust has settled on this new parliament, David Tredinnick is back to his old tricks in a big way. Not content with EDM 908, he has tabled an additional four (yes, four) EDMs. Each one offers a smidgen of support to homeopathy:

EDM 284 expresses concern about the British Medical Association’s recent motions concerning homeopathy. EDM 285 welcomes the publication of a paper in the Journal of Oncology, which appears to show that some cancer cells can be killed by homeopathic preparations (which of course, isn’t the case). EDM 286 similarly welcomes a Brazilian study on homeopathic antidepressants, while EDM 287 welcomes yet another study, this time from South Africa on homeopathic insomnia treatments.

Of course, each EDM from David Tredinnick contains factual inaccuracies and references to poorly controlled studies. To point these errors out, step forward Dr Julian Huppert MP of the Liberal Democrats  (who else?). Julian has tabled an amendment for each of Tredinnick’s EDMs, correcting each of David Tredinnick’s mistakes.

So now we have another tool for quickly judging the scientific competency of our MPs. With EDM 908 it was simple: if they signed it, they were an idiot. Now, if your MP signs EDMs 284-287 in their original forms then they are an idiot, but if they sign the amended forms then they are showing some respect for science and evidence based policy.

I would advise you to write to your MP to ask them to sign EDM 284A1-287A1. They can be found and contacted via the site www.theyworkforyou.com, and the Merseyside Skeptic Society have written a template to make things a little easier. Hopefully together we can put a stop to David Tredinnick’s quackery nonsense.

Acupuncture: the ancient Chinese art of sticking pins in the body in an attempt to cure all ailments. Unsurprisingly, acupuncture is a target for skeptics, as there is little evidence for it’s efficacy, and any benefits appear to be due to the placebo effect.

So, imagine my surprise when I heard of a peer-reviewed paper supporting acupuncture appearing in the journal Nature Neuroscience. The paper, entitled “Adenosine A1 receptors mediate local anti-nociceptive effects of acupuncture”, is the work of Nanna Goldman, Maiken Nedergaard et al, and it comes out of the Center for Translational Neuromedicine at the University of Rochester. At first glance, it would appear to be a cohesive piece of literature that supports the practice of acupuncture. But does it stand up to closer inspection?

Well, no. As others have already pointed out, the methodology does not support the conclusion. In this study, the authors follow the levels of adenosine nucleotides (ATP, ADP and AMP) after acupuncture is applied to mice. They find the levels peak after 30 minutes, returning to pre-acupuncture levels after about 90 minutes (see Figure 1 of the paper). What can be drawn from this? We can certainly say that this is evidence that acupuncture leads to an increase in adenosine nucleotides, but is this a mechanism for acupuncture, or is this just what happens when a mouse has a needle stuck in it’s leg?

This is my main problem with this study: a lack of controls. The authors appear to induce pain with acupuncture, rather than use acupuncture as a method for treating pain. This first experiment should have been repeated with a non-acupuncture method of causing pain, or they should have put the needle somewhere other than the ‘Zusanli point’, supposedly the most effective acupuncture point on the body.

So, in my mind the authors have not established a mechanism for acupunture, they have merely shown what happens in terms of adenosine levels when acupuncture is applied to a mouse. Their summary of the evidence for the efficacy for acupuncture is also rather worrying. They don’t cite any actual studies, but use the positions of various organisations to justify acupuncture. According to the authors, the tax status of the treatment (recognised by the IRS) is “most telling”.

Let’s look at the bigger picture. What do we know about the authors? To be honest, I expected hundreds of adverts for acupuncture clinics to pop up from a quick Google search of the authors. That didn’t happen, but I did notice something fairly unusual: the two most important contributors, Maiken Nedergaard and Nanna Goldman (the first and last contributers are always the most important) are mother and daughter. Although it’s not uncommon for parents and their children to be involved in academia together, my suspicions were raised. I then learned that Maiken Nedergaard and her husband Steven Goldman’s eldest child was 19 in 2009. This means that Nanna Goldman is at most 20 years old, which is very young to be publishing in a Nature journal. Added to this, Steven Goldman is currently Chairman of the Department of Neurology at the University of Rochester, and he works together with his wife as co-director of the Center for Translational Neuromedicine, also at the University of Rochester.

So, this paper is the work of a 20-year old researcher, with her mother as a supervisor, and her father as joint head of department. Now, I really don’t want to jump to conclusions, but I would love to know who the anonymous reviewers for this paper were. Time will tell on this, but I really don’t think this supports acupuncture at all.

OK, a very simple premise here: if you are a quack and you don’t want people to know about your nonsense, don’t make legal threats against anyone.  If you do, you risk the wrath of the Internet (this has become known as the Streisand effect).

One such quack who failed to adhere to this simple rule is Charlene Werner. So, as many others have already done, I present to you this extraordinary video:

The stupidity here is bum-blowing. First she calls e=mc² a theory, which puts any scientific claims she may have under extreme scrutiny. It’s not a theory, it’s a law. Then she goes on to say that the mass within the universe is so small, it can be discounted. And it goes downhill from there…

As we already know, the UK House of Commons Science and Technology committee slammed homeopathy in their recent evidence check. In response to this, MP David Tredinnick (Conservative) has sponsored an Early Day Motion (EDM), ‘expressing concern’ at the report.

So far, 12 other MPs have signed the motion:

• James Gray, Conservative
• Gregory Campbell, DUP
• David Simpson, DUP
• Harry Cohen, Labour
• Jeremy Corbyn, Labour
• Andrew Dismore, Labour
• David Drew, Labour
• John McDonnell, Labour
• Stephen Pound, Labour
• Alan Simpson, Labour
• Mike Hancock, Lib Dem
• Bob Russell, Lib Dem

As you can see, all the major political parties are represented, with Labour being the largest group. If any of these MPs represent you, you can ask them why they have signed the EDM here.

Here is the motion in full:

That this House expresses concern at the conclusions of the Science and Technology Committee’s Report, Evidence Check on Homeopathy; notes that the Committee took only oral evidence from a limited number of witnesses, including known critics of homeopathy Tracy Brown, the Managing Director of Sense About Science, and journalist Dr Ben Goldacre, who have no expertise in the subject; believes that evidence should have been heard from primary care trusts that commission homeopathy, doctors who use it in a primary care setting, and other relevant organisations, such as the Society of Homeopaths, to provide balance; observes that the Committee did not consider evidence from abroad from countries such as France and Germany, where provision of homeopathy is far more widespread than in the UK, or from India, where it is part of the health service; regrets that the Committee ignored the 74 randomised controlled trials comparing homeopathy with placebo, of which 63 showed homeopathic treatments were effective, and that the Committee recommends no further research; further notes that 206 hon. Members signed Early Day Motion No. 1240 in support of NHS homeopathic hospitals in Session 2006-07; and calls on the Government to maintain its policy of allowing decision-making on individual clinical interventions, including homeopathy, to remain in the hands of local NHS service providers and practitioners who are best placed to know their community’s needs.

Of course, you’ll notice that the arguments the motion brings up are completely erroneous. They complain about a ‘limited number of witnesses’, even though one of the said witnesses was none other than Robert Wilson, chairman of the British Association of Homeopathic Manufacturers! They also talk about ’74 randomized controlled trials’, even though it doesn’t say what the trials are.

Asking for evidence from other countries perplexes me somewhat. No matter where homeopathy is applied in the world, the ingredients are the same: sugar!

Of course, with only 13 signatures this EDM is very unlikely to be heard, but I still find it very worrying that there are MPs who are prepared to completely ignore the scientific method and support quack medicine. I just hope people let their MPs let them know how they feel about this…

I really don’t know what is going on with ITV. Their premier morning show, GMTV, is usually obsessed with throwaway celebrity gossip and handbags, but for some reason their website is clearly in favour of homeopathy:

Homeopathy is a huge industry, providing alternative and gentler treatments for ailments that work to heal both mind and body.

What follows is essentially an advert for ‘big homeo’, the homeopathic industry. They also include a poll on whether homeopathy is effective. Obviously polls mean nothing, but it would hurt to nobble it, would it?

Hopefully following the findings of the House of Commons Science and Technology committee, the four remaining NHS-funded homeopathic hospitals will be under threat. In the meantime, the Liverpool Primary Care Trust web page on Complementary Therapies makes disturbing reading. It details the many ailments homeopathy ‘treats’, but more worryingly it states that they offer cancer treatment with Iscador, a mistletoe treatment that appears to be yet another placebo.

I currently live in Liverpool, and have written to my MP, complaining about the provision of homeopathy on the NHS. If you also live in Liverpool, I would encourage you to do the same. You can also contact the Liverpool PCT.

Millions of people all over the world believe in the power of Jesus. Woo-practitioners will recommend the healing power of copper bracelets (Boots sells them, so they must work, right?).

Imagine if you could combine the power of Jesus and copper bracelets? Well, for a mere $9.97, you can make that dream a reality!

I shit thee not.