The debate over vaccine litigation has thus shifted from a presumption of innocence to a presumption of guilt. While the number of major studies that have failed to find any substantive link between vaccines and developmental disorders or autism is now in the double-digits (including a September 27th CDC study in the New England Journal), critics are effectively demanding that scientists prove that thimerosal does not cause illness -- an impossible standard.

The very success of vaccines has become their downfall. As Dr. Offit writes in Vaccinated, "When [vaccines] work, absolutely nothing happens¿Parents go on with their lives, not once thinking that their child was saved."

It is time to rescue vaccines from the witch hunts that go on when science fails to provide easy answers for complex diseases like autism.

Fortunately for me, Dr. RW is as dismayed as I am:

Out here in the hinterlands I can only wonder what's going on in academic medicine these days. Is there anyone there for whom the standards of science mean anything at all? Well, there must be. There are plenty of people who teach and write about evidence based medicine. And how about the rising chorus of voices calling for the purging from academic medicine of the biased influence of drug companies? They claim to stand for scientific purity, so why do they (with the notable exception of Arnold Relman) remain silent about woo?

I mention Dr. RW's support for two reasons. First, it's always good to be told that I'm not alone. Second, it will serve as a nice little introduction to a post that I plan to do in a day or two.

More tomorrow or Wednesday.

One of the longest-running and best autism blogs, Left Brain, Right Brain, is closing.

It would be one thing if the trials and tribulations of everyday life had led Kev to make this decision, as they do for so many other bloggers. It would be another thing if he had just gotten tired of it, or if blogging had lost its interest for him. Such was not the case. For Kev, the reason was...well, let Kev tell you:

Erectile dysfunction is reported in about one out of five of all men and increases with age. It is therefore a serious problem for millions of American men (and their spouses a fair amount of the time), and hundreds of millions worldwide.

Our story starts with one of the earliest "medical" treatments for male impotence. Starting in the late 1800s, sheep testis extract was injected as a source of testosterone (although they didn't know it at the time). This was the standard of care until testosterone was purified in the 1940s. However, testosterone as a treatment for impotence was pretty poor. The inability to obtain an erection has little to do with levels of androgens, and in studies at the time testosterone fared no better than placebo.

Thus, this was the treatment that failed for Geddings Osbon in 1960, leading to the next great leap forward in treatment of male erectile dysfunction. Osbon, a successful owner of a tire-retreading business, did what doctors dread their patient will do. He went home and looked around his shop and home and tried to come up with a solution to his medical problem. Usually, this results in disaster, and many doctors have hilarious stories of the attempts of such patients to cure less mechanical disorders with household materials. However, in this case, Osbon invented a device which he called the "YED" or "youth equivalence device" that is still today one of the most effective solutions to erectile disfunction. It's also known as the penis-pump.

I'm afraid the rest must continue below the fold. I think it's safe for work, but you never know...the description of probably the most infamous urology lecture of all time might be a bit much.

I am talking about PUR Flavor Options. No joke, after they filter your water they add artificial flavors. All over the website are testimonials about how much "water" their kids are drinking now. One even has this to say: "My son asked for flavored water more than juice.". Great. First, I'm not sure it's a good thing that kids are loading up on a non-nutritive drink over juice. Now a lot of parents over do the juice, but if it's something like OJ in moderation, that's not a bad thing. Anyways, milk is best for kids. Second, and most importantly, if you add artifical stuff, it's not water. Sorry to burst your bubbles. Third, faking kids out to get them to eat stuff that's good for them is pretty well accepted to be a bad parenting method (see also Deceptively Delicious for more bad ideas see here for some better ones). Forth, I don't know what's in them but don't you think parents should be a little wary of completely artifical additives with no nutritional value what so ever? It seems from the testimonials that people have trouble with their kids drinking too much pop at home. Hey knuckleheads, I've got your solution: don't buy it. Simple enough. When you or your kids get thirsty and there are only healthy choices around, they'll choose something healthy. (Side note to knuckleheads: you're in charge, not your kids).

Sheesh.

So now you know.

Here's a sample citation.

Recently a team of scientists in the UK decided to take them on:

Now, Steve Novella weighs in. His key point, with which I agree, is that "alternative" medicine advocates (or "complementary and alternative medicine," or CAM) have been wildly successful in framing their favored woo as being on an equal footing with "conventional" medicine, all the while carving out a double standard that allows non-evidence-based modalities to be excepted from the normal standards of medical evidence. Moreover, he points out how CAM advocates either appropriate certain conventional therapies (physical therapy, vitamins) and label them as "alternative," while packaging the somewhat plausible alternative medicine modalities (herbal medicines, for example) with the "grossly absurd" (like homeopathy, Reiki, or "detoxification," for example) and then try to sell the whole package as though it works.

Say what you will, Steve's point that we "conventional" physicians have not done as good a job at "framing" as CAM advocates is hard to argue with.

Well worth a read.

"Obese People Much More Likely To Develop Esophageal Cancer"

I've seen enough esophageal cancer in my career to have developed a profound loathing of this ugly malignancy. Its bite is as deadly as a coral snake's, and the treatments developed to eradicate the disease are, to put it mildly, challenging to take. The five year survival rate for esophageal cancer has risen from 4% in the 1960s to 17% in the modern era.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is what my guru calls progress, but then again he also told me to bet the farm on the Red Sox in the 1986 World Series. The farm still misses me.

An obese person runs six times the risk of developing esophageal cancer (cancer of the gullet) compared to people of healthy weight, according to an article that appears in the journal Gut.

Do doctors actually use the term "gullet" in their professional discourse? I prefer "foodpipe", but that's just to avoid panicking folks who might be worried about their windpipe. Anyway, back to our story.

The researchers made a comparison between 800 patients with esophageal cancer and 1600 randomly chosen people without it, and found that in addition to GERD (gastrointestinal reflux disease), obesity was an independent risk factor for developing the malignancy.

I first caught wind of the autism film "Beautiful Son" through the surfing community. Surf filmmaker Don King has an autistic son. Being a filmmaker, Don always has a video camera at hand and has documented his "journey" of discovering that his child has autism. This, along with other footage and interviews, have become a film about autism called "Beautiful Son."

[...]

The film has not yet premiered, but there is enough supporting evidence via a web site and film preview to draw a few conclusions. Let's start with the preview, which was available - but seems to be no longer available - at www.beautifulson.com.

The preview goes something like this: the family record the birth of their son with their video camera. As he reaches two years old and his cognitive abilities begin to develop, the parents notice that something is wrong. They take the child to various doctors until a neurologist finally determines that the child is somewhere on the autistic spectrum.

The parents, who are devastated and completely unprepared for this, begin looking for answers. Unfortunately, mainstream medicine says "there's no cure" so they begin looking elsewhere when they find the DAN! conference. They attend the DAN! conference and are convinced that mercury and vaccinations caused their child's autism, and begin "the journey" to finding a cure.

The scenario will sound completely familiar to the millions of families with autistic children who have done the exact same thing.

I took a moment to peruse the Beautiful Son website, which states that the film is coming to public television on April 8, and there's copious evidence to suggest that it will be a film that will present a positive take on various autism quackery. For example, here's a description of the film:

The 12.8-y gap in life expectancy between females in Americas 1 and 7 is approximately the same as the gap between Japan, with the highest national life expectancy for females in 2001 (84.7 y), and Fiji, Nicaragua, and Lebanon...Asian females in the US have a life expectancy that is 3 y higher than that of females in Japan...For males, the 15.4-y gap in life expectancy between Asians (America 1) and high-risk urban blacks (America 8) is the same as between Iceland, with the highest national male life expectancy in 2001 (78.2 y), and Sao Tome, Belarus, and Uzbekistan...In other words, millions of Americans, distinctly identified by their sociodemographic characteristics and place of residence, have life expectancies that are similar to some low-income developing countries....

The Scientist reports today on a report released by the UK-based group of scientists called Sense About Science. The group has been challenging dietary supplement manufacturers about their scientific-sounding advertising claims by calling the companies up and questioning their "science." Their statement of intent stays away from the fact that companies are making money on these products but, instead, focuses on the two standards for science that seem to operate in our societies:

We are fed up with the way pseudoscientific claims play on the public's fears and spread science myths that deceive and misinform. We think it is wrong that members of the public are misled about products and practices based on unproven, and pseudoscientific claims. Why, when our scientific research is held accountable through peer review, are these claims not tested with similar rigour? By demanding answers for questions that typically go unasked, we aim to encourage more scrutiny of pseudoscience, expose misinformation and bring those responsible to account.

Regular readers of this blog are probably aware of my general opinion about Reiki and other "energy healing" modalities. In short, they're woo, pure and simple. Consequently, one might reasonably ask why I've never featured the woo that is Reiki in Your Friday Dose of Woo. There's a simple reason for that.

Basic Reiki is boring.

Really, I mean it. In and of itself, it just doesn't reach the level of sheer ecstatic nuttiness that I like to feature every week. Oh, sure, there's lots of handwaving about "channeling the universal energy" through the healer to augment the life force of the person being healed. Certainly there's lots of serious woo about being able to heal people at a distance or through laying on of hands. (And you thought Jesus was main guy known for this.) But, in its basic form, Reiki lacks something to put it truly over the top. I wasn't sure what it was, but I found out.

It's missing laser beams. No, really. We're talking about Laser Reiki, which provides this promise:

As reparation, she submits this sweet memory of cluelessness from the archives, then hastily returns to picking sand out from between her toes. She promises to resume writing--and in the first person, no less!--next week.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

So what happens when alternative medical practitioners are in a position either to tolerate criticism or attempt to stifle criticism? Unfortunately, by way of David Colquhoun, I've discovered that the host of the next Skeptics' Circle, Le Canard Noir, found out when he published a scathing discussion of how homeopaths falsely claim that they can use homeopathy to prevent and cure malaria. Le Canard Noir's article on the topic, The Gentle Art of Homeopathic Killing, which showed that such claims actually violate homeopaths' own code of ethics, resulted in a legal threat from the Society of Homeopaths. Unfortunately, his ISP caved and demanded that he take down the offending post. He had little choice but to comply, given how plaintiff-friendly British libel law is.

Gee, aren't legal threats the way that the evil big pharma and conventional medicine "suppress" the "truth" of alternative medicine and homeopathy? Why is it that the Society of Homeopaths is behaving like a thug and taking advantage of vagaries of British libel law, which is notoriously weighted towards the plaintiffs, just as David Irving did to Holocaust Historian Deborah Lipstadt and Saudis are doing to authors who accuse them of funding terrorism, all in order to try to suppress evidence-based articles that are not flattering to homeopathy? Notice that, instead of debating, instead of presenting arguments and evidence for why they thought Le Canard Noir was incorrect, the Society of Homeopaths tried to suppress his right to free speech by making legal threats to his ISP, which caved. Let's see, first it was nutritionists trying to get David Colquhoun kicked off his university's servers, and now it's homeopaths issuing legal threats to try to silence Le Canard Noir. I guess we know who are the cowardly thugs out to suppress dissenting opinions here. The irony would be delicious if the homeopaths' actions weren't so despicable.

Fortunately, the Internet does not allow articles to disappear so easily, and I suspect that the Society of Homeopaths will come to rue the day that it decided to descend into bullying, as the article it tried to suppress spreads far and wide, even as the Society tries to dodge taking a position on the use of homeopathy against malaria. Even now, The Gentle Art of Homeopathic Killing can still be found in Google Cache--at least for now. Meanwhile, Other bloggers have also reposted the article, and it's shown up in Usenet as well.

Good.

In order to add to the blog storm, below the fold, I have reproduced Le Canard Noir's article, as well as a list of links discussing this story thus far (and while you're at it, read Le Canard Noir's post Homeopathic Thought in the 21st Century):

By its hidden nature, it is obviously a challenge to determine the exact prevalence of "ghost management," defined by Sismondo as the phenomenon in which "pharmaceutical companies and their agents control or shape multiple steps in the research, analysis, writing, and publication of articles."

Of course they fight against Open Access Publishing - too much sunshine scares them and would make them scurry away in panic...

Leave it to uber-crank (a. k. a. One Crank To Rule Them All) Mike Adams, the "intellect" behind what is perhaps the crankiest website known to humankind (at least when it comes to medicine), NewsTarget.com, to try to slime Breast Cancer Awareness Month. As fellow ScienceBlogger Mark points out, in his "report" Breast Cancer Deception, Adams accomplishes this by characterizing Breast Cancer Awareness month as nothing more than part of a conspiracy by the "male-dominated" cancer industry to keep women down.

I have to admit, in the realm of sheer wingnuttery, I've seldom seen its equal:

Throughout human history, spanning virtually every culture and continent, women have been systematically denied the right to access information that could educate and empower them. Keeping women ignorant was a way for men to control them and treat them as personal property. From ancient Rome to 19th century America, women were considered sub-class citizens and intentionally denied the right to learn information that might give them more control over their own lives.

In this report, you'll learn how the cancer industry -- which is dominated by powerful men -- uses the same tactics today to control women while pretending to serve them. You'll learn truly shocking information about how the cancer industry exploits women's bodies to generate profits for pharmaceutical companies while systematically denying those same women access to information that could teach them how to avoid breast cancer (and other cancers) in the first place. A single nutrient, for example, has been shown to prevent 77 percent of all cancers, and yet the cancer industry -- including top cancer non-profits -- refuse to recommend this nutrient.

The major reason for the increase in Type II diabetes rates is obesity and lack of exercise. Disturbingly, younger and younger people are presenting with diseases often only seen with age, like type II diabetes and gout. This is unquestionably due to increasing rates of obesity in the US population. Thus, it is with dismay, that I read Sandy Szwarc's blog Junkfood science, that seems to exist for the sole purpose of denying the health risks of obesity and of being overweight. Sandy, who is on CEI's staff, routinely writes about obesity as a health-scare, that is not harmful as doctors and health scientists suggest.

To illustrate the problems with her analysis, let's go through one of her more recent posts on the Obesity Paradox - the apparent decrease in mortality in studies of the obese.