Calgary Skeptic’s Society Blog

I understand - and laud - the news media’s desire for ‘fair and balanced’ reporting, presenting both sides of an issue. However, sometimes there really is only one valid side to present, and when the media has to reach into the fringe to present a ‘second side’ a great disservice to the public can be the result.

Case in point: I’m already displeased with the media for blowing the H1N1 influenza pandemic out of proportion. While almost all cases of influenza are currently due to the H1N1 strain, worldwide the number of deaths for which this strain is responsible for is around 5,000. This is of course, not a good number and steps need to be taken to protect the public. But why is the focus almost completely on H1N1 when historically endemic flu results in the deaths of 250,000-500,000 every year? Every year the seasonal flu is nearly ignored, but the current state of the H1N1 pandemic is front-and-center every evening on the news, it seems. It is difficult for the public to at all get a sense of scale when the reporting itself is out of proportion to reality.

But that’s being relatively pedantic compared to what occurred on CTV Calgary News the other evening (October 26) in which a half-hour special in which ‘the facts’ about H1N1 influenza vaccination were purported to be presented H1N1 – The Facts. Imagine my surprise (about midway through H1N1 – The Facts Part II video) when appearing next to Glen Armstrong (head of the Department of Microbiology and Infectious Diseases at the University of Calgary) was Linda Miller, a – wait for it! – a homeopath!

Let me be perfectly clear about where the medical and scientific community stands: homeopathy is pseudoscience. There is no other way in which to put it. Any sugar coating would diminish this fact. Homeopathy is not based on any valid science, and whenever science has been applied to the claims of homeopathy, none have demonstrated any validity whatsoever. I was simply stunned that in the interests of ‘fair and balanced’ reporting CTV Calgary News invited a homeopath to sit beside an infectious disease researcher as if her opinion could possibly be of the same. What possible ‘facts’ could a homeopath, already demonstrating a lack of critical thinking skills and credulity by accepting a belief based on pseudoscience, bring to the table? What could the producers at CTV Calgary News have possibly been thinking?

On the one hand, I was gratified that in their zeal to ‘present the other side’ it was necessary for CTV Calgary News to reach across the rationality spectrum way into the woo fringe to find Miller. Why not a crystal healer while we’re at it? Yeesh. But I also realize that the lay public will simply not see it that way. What they see is a homeopath being given equal standing with someone who is intimately knowledgeable with pathogens and active in the scientific research community. To a public for which woo is not necessarily seen as being woo, this situation can only be construed as ‘double-plus ungood’.

We know from literally dozens of studies that vaccines are safe (and certainly far safer than the diseases they are designed to protect the individual from) and are effective, the H1N1 vaccine currently being distributed no exception¹. In countries where immunization for a particular disease decreases, rates of incidence increase and decrease when immunization goes up. As if we needed reminders of this, fear of immunization in Britain (mainly due to the phantom MMR vaccine-autism scare) has directly resulted in a recent resurgence of measles, a disease which was under control only a few years ago. A resurgence of polio has also recently occurred in some African countries when people there stopped immunizing their children because of a fictitious rumor that the US was attempting to infect them with AIDS via vaccines.

Contrast this with Miller’s suggestion that we should be using ‘nosodes’ instead of vaccines. A ‘nosode’ is a homeopathic remedy prepared from pathological tissue or directly from the pathogen with the philosophy (totally unsupported) that a little bit of a bad thing is actually good for you.

No study on the efficacy of ‘nosodes’ that Miller suggested using in place of vaccines has ever been performed. Not one study. My first question to Miller would be, “How do you know ‘nosodes’ even work?” I suspect the answer would involve anecdotes, but we all know that the plural of ‘anecdote’ is most certainly not ‘data’. Or we should. So we might want to answer this question before anyone advocates their use, particularly if it is being presented as a viable substitute for immunization.

There was one thing this homeopath was correct about. There are no preservatives, etc. in ‘nosodes’. In fact, there is nothing contained within any homeopathic remedy which can be demonstrated to be anything other than water! They are prepared using successive dilutions and ‘potentized’ at each step (read: ‘abracadabra’) to the point where it would require a container larger than the Earth to find one biologically-active molecule. There is absolutely no measureable biochemical activity in homeopathic preparations, which means it can have no effect (aside from possibly producing a thirst-quenching effect) on the person receiving it. Advocating the use of ‘nosodes’ is in effect advocating the public to be completely unprotected from the H1N1 virus, which is utterly irresponsible from a public health perspective. Shame on Miller!

To place a homeopath beside an infectious disease expert is neither fair nor balanced reporting. The consensus of the medical community with regard to the efficacy and safety of vaccines is based on years of carefully controlled and monitored testing at various levels, from the Petri dish to clinical trials. It is a robust and rigorous system that has evolved over time to become exceedingly good at weeding out unsafe medications. What CTV Calgary News has done is to further erode the public’s trust in a system designed with its safety and health - and only its safety and health! - in mind by suggesting that there is some controversy, some valid dissenting opinion which claims that vaccines aren’t safe. But there is no controversy other than the one which CTV Calgary News manufactured, and new seeds of doubt have been planted in people’s minds already biased towards anti-intellectualism and uncertain about safety and efficacy issues of the H1N1 vaccine.

Don’t get me wrong - doubt is good. But not for the wrong reasons!

What CTV News has done by giving a homeopath equal time with Glen Armstrong, someone who spends his entire career studying pathogens in the laboratory, is elevate a fringe opinion to the same level as that of evidence-based medicine. This is not balanced reporting. In fact, this is completely <em>lopsided</em> reporting. All CTV Calgary News has done is muddy waters which were already turbid rather than accomplish the stated goal of clearing up questions which the public has about the H1N1 vaccine. I fail utterly to see the point of having anyone other than a medical expert appear and be interviewed to answer questions the public has about the H1N1 vaccine. The medical community is of a consensus that immunization is the most important weapon in our in fighting influenza.

I am deeply disappointed.

1. Foxhall K. New NIH Studies Support Effectiveness for Single-Dose H1N1 Vaccine. MedScape online. http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/708794?src=rss. Retrieved Oct. 18, 2009

Recently a fellow Calgary Skeptic got me thinking on the topic of women in skepticism. He asked me, as a female skeptic, the reasons why ladies are lacking from the movement, and how we can rectify this. I thought about it, and decided that before we can make a plan, we need to talk to skeptics about their perspective on this issue. So I posted an informal, short little survey on the forum, in hopes that both men and women would answer and I could roll it all together into a blog post. But then I thought, what do I think about this? So here are my answers to the questions on the forum.

I got into skepticism (to the chagrin of hard-core feminists everywhere) because my boyfriend was into skepticism – but I stuck with it (almost a year and a half now!) because I identify with fellow skeptics, because I believe that what we are trying to do is the right thing, and because SCIENCE RULES.

Unfortunately, I think the fact that there are so few women in our beloved movement is that there are so few women in the movement – an illogical statement (circular reasoning), to be sure, but I think if the female skeptic population was larger, more and more ladies would get involved – lady see, lady do. I’m not necessarily suggesting that women want solidarity in their beliefs, but the recruitment of new skeptics is done entirely by existing skeptics – friends introduce skepticism to friends, and more specifically, males introduce it to their guy friends, and females introduce their beliefs to their girlfriends. Also, as a fellow skeptic so delicately put it, “women feel uncomfortable at a sausage party.” I think this is true for many women – the large numbers of men can be intimidating.

My own personal feeling, for which I have no verifiable fact as support, is that women are overrepresented as victims of charlatans and snake-oil salesmen. I think (again, I have no proof) that psychics’ clients are mainly women, and women tend to buy into bogus health claims more than men. However, I’m not sure this is any excuse for there to be so few women in skepticism – as demonstrated at TAM this year by the impressive attendance of Albertans (the Bible belt of Canada), often those who are outnumbered make more effort to get themselves heard. Although most Albertans are religious, and woo is everywhere, skeptics from our province were way overrepresented at The Amazing Meeting. Using this logic (and I’m not at all sure if it’s transferable from geographic location to gender), women should be overrepresented, or at the very least fairly represented.

And is it important? Should we bother trying to recruit women?  Is the lack of women an issue in the skeptical movement? Yes. It is vital that women get involved in skepticism, if only to up the numbers of the skeptical population as a whole. More importantly, women have different views on different issues – the female perspective applies to every issue of skepticism, and yet the male perspective speaks louder. The skepticism movement is an international one, but everywhere women are underrepresented. As I mentioned above, women listen to women – get some skeptical women out there telling the females in their families that homeopathy is bull and psychics are making stuff up, and hopefully they’ll stop the spread of harmful beliefs. And let’s face it, women are prettier, smarter, and more likeable – put us in charge of the skeptical ad campaign and we’ll convert half the world in no time flat.

And, for purely selfish reasons, I would love to have some skeptics to talk to who don’t compare videogame experience, who love shopping, who have never played WoW, who share lip gloss and hand lotion, and who can recommend hair stylists. As much as I love our monthly Calgary Skeptics’ Society pub meet-ups, girl talk is sorely missing.

As a new contributor to the Calgary Skeptics blog, it feels like a bit of a cop-out to just be copy/pasting this article, which is being reposted on a number of skeptical blogs across the internets today. I’ll be putting together a few pieces here and there, so don’t worry, there’s plenty more of my writing to come!

If you were not aware of the libel case against Simon Singh, I’ll direct you over here. If you haven’t read about it before, go get caught up.

Now that we’re all on the same level, it’s important to realize the point that is being made here amongst all these blogs. It’s solidarity in the face of these libel laws being unfairly utilized against Simon Singh. It is clear that the term “bogus” was used not to imply that the British Chiropractic Association were doing anything illegal, but only that the treatments they were providing simply do not work.

Even locally chiropractors are under fire. Last year a local woman filed a class action lawsuit after becoming paralyzed following a chiropractic manipulation, and more recently, as of July 1, 2009, Alberta Health and Wellness will no longer be covering chiropractic claims.

While these are a few minor wins here, the war rages on, and it is with that in mind that I felt this should be reposted here:

(Note: this is the infamous article on chiropractic that got Simon Singh sued. It is being reposted all over the web today by multiple blogs and online magazines.)

You might be surprised to know that the founder of chiropractic therapy, Daniel David Palmer, wrote that “99% of all diseases are caused by displaced vertebrae”. In the 1860s, Palmer began to develop his theory that the spine was involved in almost every illness because the spinal cord connects the brain to the rest of the body. Therefore any misalignment could cause a problem in distant parts of the body.

In fact, Palmer’s first chiropractic intervention supposedly cured a man who had been profoundly deaf for 17 years. His second treatment was equally strange, because he claimed that he treated a patient with heart trouble by correcting a displaced vertebra.

You might think that modern chiropractors restrict themselves to treating back problems, but in fact some still possess quite wacky ideas. The fundamentalists argue that they can cure anything, including helping treat children with colic, sleeping and feeding problems, frequent ear infections, asthma and prolonged crying - even though there is not a jot of evidence.

I can confidently label these assertions as utter nonsense because I have co-authored a book about alternative medicine with the world’s first professor of complementary medicine, Edzard Ernst. He learned chiropractic techniques himself and used them as a doctor. This is when he began to see the need for some critical evaluation. Among other projects, he examined the evidence from 70 trials exploring the benefits of chiropractic therapy in conditions unrelated to the back. He found no evidence to suggest that chiropractors could treat any such conditions.

But what about chiropractic in the context of treating back problems? Manipulating the spine can cure some problems, but results are mixed. To be fair, conventional approaches, such as physiotherapy, also struggle to treat back problems with any consistency. Nevertheless, conventional therapy is still preferable because of the serious dangers associated with chiropractic.

In 2001, a systematic review of five studies revealed that roughly half of all chiropractic patients experience temporary adverse effects, such as pain, numbness, stiffness, dizziness and headaches. These are relatively minor effects, but the frequency is very high, and this has to be weighed against the limited benefit offered by chiropractors.

More worryingly, the hallmark technique of the chiropractor, known as high-velocity, low-amplitude thrust, carries much more significant risks. This involves pushing joints beyond their natural range of motion by applying a short, sharp force. Although this is a safe procedure for most patients, others can suffer dislocations and fractures.

Worse still, manipulation of the neck can damage the vertebral arteries, which supply blood to the brain. So-called vertebral dissection can ultimately cut off the blood supply, which in turn can lead to a stroke and even death. Because there is usually a delay between the vertebral dissection and the blockage of blood to the brain, the link between chiropractic and strokes went unnoticed for many years. Recently, however, it has been possible to identify cases where spinal manipulation has certainly been the cause of vertebral dissection.

Laurie Mathiason was a 20-year-old Canadian waitress who visited a chiropractor 21 times between 1997 and 1998 to relieve her low-back pain. On her penultimate visit she complained of stiffness in her neck. That evening she began dropping plates at the restaurant, so she returned to the chiropractor. As the chiropractor manipulated her neck, Mathiason began to cry, her eyes started to roll, she foamed at the mouth and her body began to convulse. She was rushed to hospital, slipped into a coma and died three days later. At the inquest, the coroner declared: “Laurie died of a ruptured vertebral artery, which occurred in association with a chiropractic manipulation of the neck.”

This case is not unique. In Canada alone there have been several other women who have died after receiving chiropractic therapy, and Edzard Ernst has identified about 700 cases of serious complications among the medical literature. This should be a major concern for health officials, particularly as under-reporting will mean that the actual number of cases is much higher.

If spinal manipulation were a drug with such serious adverse effects and so little demonstrable benefit, then it would almost certainly have been taken off the market.

A member of our forum who goes by Ubermoogle recently came up with a great idea to spread a love of science: donate Galileoscopes to Calgary schools! Ubermoogle (aka Dan) recently ordered a Galileoscope for himself, and says it is ridiculously easy to put together as well as ridiculously inexpensive! He’s putting in an order for a few more next week to give to some family members, as well as one to donate to a school in his neighbourhood. And he was wondering if anyone else would like to add their order to his to reduce shipping costs.

The Galileoscope™ is a high-quality, low-cost telescope kit developed for the International Year of Astronomy 2009 by a team of leading astronomers, optical engineers, and science educators. No matter where you live, with this easy-to-assemble, 50-mm (2-inch) diameter, 25- to 50-power achromatic refractor, you can see the celestial wonders that Galileo Galilei first glimpsed 400 years ago and that still delight stargazers today. These include lunar craters and mountains, four moons circling Jupiter, the phases of Venus, Saturn’s rings, and countless stars invisible to the unaided eye.

The ‘Scope is only $15USD plus shipping, making it hard not to buy one for a local school! Shipping on a single scope is more than the item itself, but when your order multiples, the per-unit shipping cost drops dramatically - the more scopes in our order, the cheaper it is per-person.

Dan will be placing this order after the next Skeptics in the Pub event, so please let him know before then by commenting on this post, telling him in person at the upcoming event, or emailing him - ubermoogle [at] gmail [dot] com.

Help Dan and the Calgary Skeptics Society spread the love astronomy to school-aged children across the city!

Calling all skeptics!

See the Facebook event page here for all the details about the upcoming Skeptics in the Pub event.

What: Calgary’s monthly skeptical pub meet-up

Who: Hosted by the Calgary Skeptics Society

When: Tuesday, August 4, 2009 at 7:00pm

Where: the Rose and Crown Pub in downtown Calgary - map

Please remember that for a large group, the Rose and Crown will put us all on one bill and gratuity is automatically included - don’t forget to add the tax and 18% tip to your tab! Thanks 

The reservation will be under Shayla. Please RSVP so I have a rough estimate when I call to make the reservation. You can do so either in the comments or on the Facebook event. See you all there!