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.

One of the threads on the Calgary Skeptics forum is about 911 conspiracy theories. Michael came across the calgary911truth.org website a few months ago, and there’s been an ongoing discussion of conspiracy theories since then. Recently, Wakeup, a new member of our forum, posted a response to everyone’s comments in which he (I’m just guessing here that Wakeup is a “he”…) said he didn’t want to “argue that either side of this debate is right” – and then proceeded to make several claims for the conspiracy theorists’ side. I just wanted to take a few minutes to respond to his post, since there are several errors, especially in his definition of skepticism.

Wakeup responded to another user’s post that “education, awareness, and the willingness to face our biggest fears or uncertainties are just some of the areas we need to campaign for as skeptics, realists, factitioners” with the following statement:

This argument can go either way. The “conspiracy theorists” march under the same mandate.”

He’s partially right about this – conspiracy theorists do claim they advocate for awareness. Unfortunately the “awareness” they fight for is a false awareness. Skeptics seek the truth, not the easiest way out. Skepticism is not about defending a minority position. Just because we “defend the version of truth that is more widely agreed upon” doesn’t mean that version is wrong. Skeptics examine evidence, they consult experts, and they determine what the consensus is by talking with professionals in the field. In many cases, certainly, “the version of truth that is more widely agreed upon” by the public (for example, over half of Americans are creationists, and I would bet that the majority of people believe in at least one form of alternative medicine) is the one which the evidence refutes – in these cases we are skeptical of the claims made by the majority, despite the fact that we are outnumbered. Skepticism has nothing to do with choosing the side fewer people are on.

He goes on to say

All I want you to do, is question what you see, and pursue complete disclosure of the facts. All most of us want is for the government to stop dodging questions and obscuring the details… I just want you to ask questions, as ’skeptics’ do.

He “just want us to ask questions” – we’ve already done that. We’ve asked what the most reasonable explanation is and where the evidence points. And we drew the conclusion that the World Trade Centre disaster was indeed a conspiracy – several members of Al Qaeda conspired to hijack planes and fly them into highly populated buildings that symbolize America’s capitalism and freedom. Dozens of people were involved in the planning and execution of this event, but none of them were members of the United States Government.

Most REAL conspiracy theorists do not completely believe their own theories. They merely wish to exhaust all possibilities before accepting a story about 3000 people dying because “they hate our freedom”, when there is so much that suggests there may be more too [sic] it.

Accepting a story doesn’t mean you’re not skeptical. If it’s a story based on a consensus of legitimate expert opinions and on the available evidence, then it’s most certainly the story that should be accepted. I disagree with the statement that conspiracy theorists don’t completely believe the theories they spout – I’ve read the Calgary911Truth.org website, and visited forums with conspiracy theorists, and I have a feeling they whole-heartedly believe everything they’re saying. I’m sure there are some who shout “conspiracy!” just for the sake of it, but I think “most REAL conspiracy theorists” definitely believe what they’re saying.

What exactly is there that “suggests there may be more to it”? None the statements I’ve seen about government involvement in the September 11 disaster hold any merit – they either commit a logical fallacy or are easily proven wrong. Rather than list a bunch of them here, see the Skepdic entry on 911 Conspiracies.

Not only does Wakeup not remain neutral, he seems to be confused about what exactly skepticism is. Conspiracy theories, not just about 911 but also including the moon landing or the “New World Order” (note: that website is super credulous), are interesting in that those that call themselves “skeptics” are simply people who believe something different than what the government, or the media, or the public tells them. Believing the opposite of what those in authority say just for the sake of it is not skepticism – it’s spite. Disagreeing with someone is not at all the same thing as skepticism. Certainly, skepticism is called for with any claim the government or the media makes, but landing at the same conclusion these institutions did is not a bad thing and doesn’t make you unskeptical.

Don’t you think it’s time the 911 conspiracy theories were laid to rest?

Last week I read an article from the CBC about “Raw Milk Crusader” Michael Schmidt, a farmer in Ontario. Schmidt is a proponent of the consumption of raw milk, arguing it is beneficial to your health.

Selling raw milk for consumption is illegal in Canada:

Subject to subsection (2), no person shall sell the normal lacteal secretion obtained from the mammary gland of the cow, genus Bos, or of any other animal, or sell a dairy product made with any such secretion, unless the secretion or dairy product has been pasteurized by being held at a temperature and for a period that ensure the reduction of the alkaline phosphatase activity so as to meet the tolerances specified in official method MFO-3, Determination of Phosphatase Activity in Dairy Products, dated November 30, 1981.

According to several websites I read, Canada is the only G7 nation to ban unpasteurized milk sales (though more than half of the States have also outlawed raw milk sales).

Of course, you may have noticed that the law only pertains to the sale of raw milk – it’s perfectly legal to consume raw milk. Thus, a loop-hole: Michael Schmidt managed to get around the law by selling not the milk of his cows, but the privilege to look after the cows themselves. You can “sponsor” a cow – the food and care it needs is covered by you, and you therefore have a right to its milk. You can consume it any way you want. You have to hand it to Schmidt; this is creative. And sneaky.

According to www.naturalmilk.org, there are two types of raw milk supporters. First, the Michael Schmidt type of “cow sharing” whereby you can sneak past the laws and provide raw milk to people. And second, “official recognition” – petitioning the courts to legalize the sale of raw milk based on its health benefits. The website considers itself to be pushing for official recognition which is, in my books, a much more commendable effort. They’re using evidence to build their case (though some of the evidence is admittedly sketchy – the website’s author states that his partner has noticed that her breasts are larger and firmer when she drinks raw milk, and a couple of her friends have said the same. These are anecdotes, not evidence!).

The process of pasteurization is meant to remove harmful bacterium from milk, such as listeria, E. coli, and salmonella. However, it also removes several types of bacteria and enzymes that are either helpful or harmless to humans. This is why some people prefer raw milk (though some just like the taste of it more than processed milk). According to the FDA, though, “Research has shown that there is no significant difference in the nutritional value of pasteurized and unpasteurized milk”. The vitamins and “good bacteria” that the raw milk advocates claim are done away with through pasteurization are only slightly reduced – more than 90% of the naturally-occurring vitamins in milk survive pasteurization. It is true that most enzymes are removed from raw milk during processing, but that has little effect on humans: the enzymes in milk are useless to people because they’re cow enzymes.

As for the claims that raw milk “boosts your immune system” and “has healing qualities”, these are the same vague, nonsense claims made of many alternative health products. There’s no proof that raw milk can cure illness, nor will it help build your immune system. Any such claims are just confirmation bias in action.

Not only are there no benefits to drinking raw milk, it has also been very harmful in many cases. According to the FDA website, over 200 people became sick in the US in 2002 (sorry, most recent data I could find) as a direct result of drinking unpasteurized milk products. People can contract tuberculosis, salmonella poisoning, and many more illnesses from drinking milk that has not been properly processed. So, raw milk should be avoided. That’s why Canada outlawed the sale of unpasteurized dairy products, to protect its citizens from negative health effects.

But back to Michael Schmidt. Schmidt was first convicted in October 2008 for contempt of court, after violating a court order to stop selling or distributing raw milk. He was fined $55,000 altogether – not an insignificant amount for him, but not nearly enough to break the bank. However, contempt of court is not his most devious crime – last week, the trial began for 20 other counts against Schmidt after his farm was raided by police a few years ago.

Schmidt has stated that this case has more to do with human rights than with the sale of milk – “When it comes to our own body and what we put in our body as food, the government should respect what people want to do.” Normally I would agree with that statement, but when the substance in question is harmful to one’s health, and with such misinformation floating around, there needs to be some sort of governmental regulation around it.

In the interest of full disclosure, I did find several reputable sources claiming that raw milk, when “done right”, is not much more harmful to humans than pasteurized milk. This means more stringent controls on the cattle’s food, higher standards of veterinary care, and more rigorous testing for harmful bacteria in milk. If all these criteria were fulfilled, I would agree with raw milk advocates – in this case the government doesn’t have any right to withhold natural milk from the public. If it’s not harmful, why not? If it’s subjected to the same tests for bacteria and contaminants as all other foods, and as long as people understand the risk associated with its consumption, the government has no business prohibiting the sale of raw milk.

Humans aren’t really meant to drink milk anyways – we are the only species to continue to drink milk after early childhood, and the only species to drink the milk of a different species. That’s why lactose intolerance is so prevalent in humans – about 25% of North Americans are lactose intolerant – our bodies didn’t evolve to digest milk after we’re weaned.