Miscellanea Agnostica

One of the mantras repeatedly intoned by proponents of “alternative medicine” — to deride science-based (or “conventional”) medicine — is that pharmaceuticals are “toxic” to the body; they’re vile, alien substances that fight the body and attack tissues, rather than working with the body “holistically” (whatever that means). The sad truth is that lots of “alternative medicines” or “dietary supplements” (they’re called the latter, in order to evade FDA review) are no safer. I blogged a couple years ago about “ayurvedic medicines” that are — sometimes — dangerously toxic. But now, the New York Times reports on a GAO study that reveals the danger (WebCite cached article):

Nearly all of the herbal dietary supplements tested in a Congressional investigation contained trace amounts of lead and other contaminants, and some supplement sellers made illegal claims that their products can cure cancer and other diseases, investigators found.

The levels of heavy metals ó including mercury, cadmium and arsenic ó did not exceed thresholds considered dangerous, the investigators found. However, 16 of the 40 supplements tested contained pesticide residues that appeared to exceed legal limits, the investigators found.

On top of these revelations, the GAO found that manufacturers had made illegal claims about their products:

Investigators found at least nine products that made apparently illegal health claims, including a product containing ginkgo biloba that was labeled as a treatment for Alzheimerís disease and a product containing ginseng labeled as a treatment to prevent diabetes and cancer.

This study had to be done by the GAO, because the FDA is forbidden to evaluate “dietary supplements”:

In 1994, Congress passed legislation that allowed supplement makers to sell products without first getting approval from the F.D.A. for their ingredients or for basic health claims. But scientific organizations have warned repeatedly since then that the F.D.A. should do more to ensure that the supplements are safe and that their health claims are substantiated.

The law referred to here is the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994 (aka DSHEA). It may be changing, and the GAO’s study is related to that:

[The report's] release comes two weeks before the Senate is scheduled to begin debate on a landmark food safety bill that is expected to substantially increase the federal governmentís authority over food manufacturers.

Even so, prospects for rationality in the manufacture and sale of these alternative medicines are bleak:

But it is uncertain how tough the bill will be on supplement manufacturers, and it has been the subject of fierce lobbying. Capitol Hill staff members familiar with the process said the bill was unlikely to include provisions opposed by supplement manufacturers.

If you live in the U.S., you should contact your House representative and both Senators and ask that they bring some sanity back to this industry.

Hat tip: Consumerist.

Photo credit: Neeta Lind.

Tags: alternative medicine, congress, contamination, conventional medicine, dietary supplement, dietary supplements, gao, government accounting office, health, herbal supplements, herbs, holistic, holistic medicine, medicine, metals, pesticide, pharmaceutical, pills, science-based medicine, toxic, toxicity

Oprah Winfrey — that fountain of uncritical thinking, meaningless psychobabble and assorted mindless New Agery — is such an influential mass-media tycoon that merely being “a friend of Oprah” is a career unto itself. Her repeat guests all have little media empires of their own, built on the foundation of having gotten the Oprah Seal Of Approval. Some even have their own TV shows … e.g. Phil McGraw and, more recently, “Dr Oz” (aka Mehmet Oz, MD). As I’ve blogged before, Oprah and her frequent guests can — and sometimes do — offer advice that can actually be dangerous, if followed to the letter … and her audience is more than large enough to assume there are some out there who do exactly that. That said, of all the assorted fruit-loops, fuzzy thinkers, and wingnuts to whom Oprah grants airtime and endorsements, Dr Oz has not attracted the kind of criticism that other “Friends Of Oprah” have received (such as Suzanne Somers).

But now the Chicago Tribune raises serious questions about Dr Oz and his advice (WebCite cached article):

Dr. Mehmet Oz is known as “America’s Doctor,” and it’s not much of a stretch.

Though he is a medical specialist — an acclaimed cardiac surgeon — Oz offers health information on just about any topic, from diet to child care to sex, through a television show that averages 3.7 million viewers a day, six best-selling health guides, columns in Esquire and Time, and a Web site.

Millions turn to him for advice, looking for an authority figure to make sense of the flood of medical information available online and in the media.

Much of the material Oz provides is solid, but some medical experts express reservations about his approach, saying Oz’s ventures also offer advice unsupported by science.

Oz has called the rotavirus vaccine “optional” — a risky view, according to experts. He tells people to examine the shape and sound of their bowel movements closely — a silly idea, specialists say. He invited a doctor to his TV show who has helped spread the idea that cancer can be cured with baking soda. On his Web site, another doctor endorses a group that promotes unproven autism treatments.

Dr Oz’s production staff defends his non-discriminating approach toward medicine:

Oz declined to be interviewed, but his spokespeople say the doctor’s mission is to give his audience information from multiple perspectives. His “Ask Dr. Oz” feature offers answers not only from prestigious medical centers such as the Cleveland Clinic but also from alternative medicine practitioner Deepak Chopra and from Dove, maker of skin care and beauty products.

“The purpose of the site is to provide users with as much information as possible and allow the users to differentiate between what they find helpful and what they do not,” Oz’s spokespeople wrote in response to questions.

But more information is not necessarily better, as not all perspectives are equal in medicine.

Like many people, especially in the mass media, Dr Oz appears to think that if you throw enough information at people — good, bad, and in-between — they will all magically gravitate toward the good information, and the bad will fall into the gutter. Unfortunately, however, that’s not what happens in real life. People who are barraged with information will, in the majority of cases, gravitate toward the information that they find emotionally compelling … which often is not the valid, scientifically-sound information. Members of Dr Oz’s audience are not all well-schooled in medicine and capable of discerning the bad information and rejecting it. They depend on Dr Oz … who has learned medicine and ought to be capable of separating good medical information from the bad … to do that for them. (If they didn’t have this expectation, they’d have little reason to watch his show in the first place!)

Dr Oz and his staff do his viewers a disservice by blasting them with a mixture of good advice and pure bullshit, then expect them to tell the difference. They can’t — and they shouldn’t have to. Clearly what Dr Oz is doing, is subordinating the pursuit of science and good medicine, to the desire for ratings, which for him hinge on Oprah’s demographic: They much prefer “touchy-feely” notions that are emotionally satisfying, rather than valid and rational. In other words, they’re much more interested in “truthiness” than in truth.

I wonder what makes Dr Oz think that dispensing a mixture of valid advice with a whole lot of bullshit is a way for him to live up to the Hippocratic Oath?

Hat tip: Consumerist

Photo credit: George Burns, Harpo Productions, Inc (see Tribune article)

Tags: alt med, alternative medicine, america's doctor, anti-vaccine, anti-vax, antivaccine, antivax, complementary medicine, conventional medicine, critical thinking, deepak chopra, dr mehmet oz, dr oz, friend of oprah, friends of oprah, harpo productions, medical, medical advice, medicine, mehmet oz, mehmet oz md, new age, new agey, oprah, oprah winfrey, pseudo-medicine, pseudomedicine, talk show, talk shows, television, truth, truthiness, truthy

Kevin Trudeau has made himself famous in infomercials … and also made himself infamous by running afoul of the law: He’s been convicted of fraud and other felonies; has been sued by partners and investors; has been fined by the FTC and had his activities proscribed by that agency; has been held in contempt of court; has been targeted by multiple states including New York and Michigan (and he can no longer do business in the latter) … and that’s just part of his story. Along the way he managed — successfully for a while — to sell a book of phony alternative-medical “cures” despite having absolutely no medical training whatever and having conducted no research at all. Yet time and again, he persists in returning to sell yet another swindle.

Well, this longtime promoter of woo and kerfluffle has once again run afoul of the legal system; this time, he may not squirm out of it as easily as he has in the past. The Chicago Sun-Times reports on his latest example of legal defiance (WebCite cached article):

Kevin Trudeau held in criminal contempt, facing jail time

Kevin Trudeau, the slick, silver-tongued infomercial king and best-selling author amassed a fortune over years of persistent, late-night hawking.

This week, he made the wrong sales pitch.

Trudeau was found in criminal contempt of court Thursday and nearly had handcuffs slapped on him after he asked his supporters to email the federal judge overseeing a pending civil case brought against him by the Federal Trade Commission.

U.S. District Judge Robert Gettleman said he was flooded with hundreds of “harassing, threatening and interfering” emails, locking up the judge’s email system and shutting down his Blackberry for part of the day.

“This is direct contempt — that’s how I view it,” Gettleman said. “He interfered with the direct process of the court.”

Gettleman hauled Trudeau into court a day after he posted a message on his Web site with his appeal. Gettleman ordered Trudeau to turn over his passport, pay $50,000 bond and warned he could face future prison time.

I’m not sure what’s worse … that Trudeau would consider himself so impervious to the legal system that he would take it on directly, by siccing people on the court … or that there were enough people who actually obeyed him, to cause a problem with the court’s email system.

People, get this: Trudeau is a convicted felon. He doesn’t deserve your support. You need to stop doing what he tells you to do, even if you think his “cures” work.

Americans are, sadly, vulnerable to Trudeau’s claim, which is the title of his book, that there are natural cures that “they” (whoever that might be) don’t want you to know about. Unfortunately this is absurd on its face. Any “cure” for any significant ailment, is worth tons of money to whoever knows about it and can show it works. No one has any financial incentive so sit on one and never allow it to be disclosed.

Hat tip: Skeptic’s Dictionary.

Tags: alt med, alternative medicine, contempt of court, criminal contempt of court, cures, fraud, frc, kevin trudeau, medicine, quack, quackery, quacks, robert gettleman, theft

Of all the crazy things to be included in the healthcare reform proposals, this one may be the craziest. It’s so crazy, I had to check it out to be sure it was true … and it seems to be genuine (unlike Sarah Palin’s famously false “death panels” scaremongering). The Los Angeles Times reports that prayer treatments may be included in universal healthcare:

Backed by some of the most powerful members of the Senate, a little-noticed provision in the healthcare overhaul bill would require insurers to consider covering Christian Science prayer treatments as medical expenses.

The provision was inserted by Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) with the support of Democratic Sens. John F. Kerry and the late Edward M. Kennedy, both of Massachusetts, home to the headquarters of the Church of Christ, Scientist.

The measure would put Christian Science prayer treatments — which substitute for or supplement medical treatments — on the same footing as clinical medicine. While not mentioning the church by name, it would prohibit discrimination against “religious and spiritual healthcare.”

That’s right folks. Prayer could be funded as a treatment (or rather, more accurately, as a substitute for treatment). Of course, Christian Scientists* are thrilled and have no idea why anyone would object:

Phil Davis, a senior Christian Science Church official, said prayer treatment was an effective alternative to conventional healthcare.

Of course, clinical studies of prayer as a medical treatment show it to be anything but “an effective alternative” … but hey, when you’re a religionist, little things like “facts” hardly ought to get in your way. The story goes on to point out other problems with this:

Annie Laurie Gaylor, co-president of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, a group of atheists and agnostics that promotes separation of church and state, said the opportunity to receive payment for spiritual care could encourage other groups to seek similar status.

The problem is not solely limited to religion. It could be used to force the government to reimburse for any unproven treatment; all someone has to do is set themselves up as a religion (even if it isn’t really one), make the treatment — whatever it is — a basic tenet of the (phony) “faith,” and force the government to pay for it.

Nice going, Senator Hatch. Every kook and oddball with some goofy idea for a medical “treatment” is going to declare him- or herself the “prophet” of a new religion and force government to pay for it … based on your precedent.

Note: Despite the name of their church, there is nothing “scientific” about Christian Science. It is not a “science,” it’s a religion. Period.

Hat tip: Religion Dispatches blog.

Tags: alternative medicine, christian science, christian scientist, healthcare, healthcare reform, orrin hatch, prayer, prayer treatment, universal healthcare

Actor Peter Bergman was famous for his commercials in which he said, “I’m not a doctor, but I play one on TV.” Say what you want about the commercial, but at least he was honest and up-front. Not so with Suzanne Somers, who recently published a book full of medical advice. Even though she’s no doctor, and hasn’t a minute of medical training, she nevertheless feels free to tell you how to treat cancer. It’s all about “alternative medicine,” you see, because to Ms Somers, “conventional medicine” is “destructive.” The Human Condition blog at Newsweek reports on this book:

The gist of Somers’s argument is that conventional cancer treatments—surgery, radiation, chemotherapy—take a destructive approach and that chemo, in particular, is overused. Long an advocate of alternative therapies, Somers argues that it makes more sense to build up the body to fight cancer than it does to tear it down through radiation and chemicals. She is particularly enamored of nutritional “cures.”

Even though Ms Somers has no medical credentials to speak of, she nevertheless claims to have them:

Of course, Somers has had no formal medical or scientific training, but considers herself an authority—in part because she’s survived breast cancer after choosing not to have chemotherapy, and because she’s a regular on the alternative-medicine circuit. This book, like her others, consists mainly of transcripts of her conversations with various alternative-medicine doctors, as well as lots of details about her own experiences and prevention regimen, which she has spelled out many times before, most notably on Oprah earlier this year. It’s noteworthy that her promotion of the book began by publicly blaming Patrick Swayze’s recent death on chemotherapy, rather than his pancreatic cancer. (She has since apologized to his family.)

How very nice of Ms Somers to take advantage of another person’s death, to promote her book. (Yes, she did apologize … but she knew what she was doing when she did it, and it was every bit as mercenary a decision as I just described it.)

Sprinkled into her anti-medicinal whiney tome is a bit of good advice and sound medical caveats, as Newsweek concedes:

Not all the recommendations Somers makes in the book raise eyebrows. She says eating healthy and exercising, reducing stress, and getting a good night’s sleep may reduce the risk of cancer. That’s true, but it’s not news. She’s right that not every woman with stage I breast cancer needs chemo. Few doctors would argue. In fact, they have the technology to calculate the size of the likely benefit, and agree that sometimes it’s quite small. Most doctors offer it as a choice to women who want to do everything possible to prevent cancer’s return.

But dropping a load of bullshit on people, doesn’t become any less bullshit, because she sprinkled a (metaphorical) cup of sugar over it. It remains predominantly bullshit.

The unconscionable part of this is that Newsweek had, earlier this year, exposed Somers’ questionable medicine in the course of its exposé of Oprah Winfrey’s pseudoscience promotion (as I blogged in June). Given this revelation, Somers has no viable excuse for having chosen to proceed with publishing a book full of assorted pseudomedicine and potentially-harmful medical instruction.

This whole episode just goes to show that Americans are a strange — and overly credulous — bunch. All someone has to do is become an actor or actress on a famous show, and people attribute all sorts of expertise to that person, which they do not actually possess. Ms Somers is irresponsible to assume the mantle of “physician” merely because she’s a celebrity and had cancer. Lots of celebrities have, unfortunately, had cancer … but few, if any, are credentialed to actually practice medicine or offer medical advice; and most are responsible enough not to “play doctor” by writing books on “medicine.” It’s time we realized that the cult of celebrity-worship — coupled with a vast lack of critical-thinking skills — that has consumed the US, is becoming dangerous.

Update: CNN has commentary by Dr Otis Brawley, chief medical officer of the American Cancer Society. Unlike Ms Somers, as a practicing oncologist, Dr Brawley actually does possess credentials in the treatment of cancer. However, I’m sure Ms Somers, her friend Oprah, and their sheep followers will dismiss what he says, since he’s part of the Vast Conventional-Medical Conspiracy that works to destroy people and keep them sick, rather than cure them. (OK, folks, that was just a touch of sarcasm!)

Tags: alt med, alternative medicine, cam, cancer, cancer treatment, chemotherapy, complimentary medicine, critical thinking, medicine, oncology, pseudo-medicine, pseudo-science, pseudomedicine, pseudoscience, science-based medicine, skeptic, skeptical, skepticism, suzanne somers

On the heels of my post yesterday about the anti-vaccine movement raging in New York state, I thought I should remark on Phil Plait (of the excellent Bad Astronomy blog) deciding to take a stand against the anti-vaccine movement in his own way:

I used to write for the Huffington Post, an online news and blog collective. It was started by Arianna Huffington during the Bush Era as a response to all the far-right online media. I didn’t agree with a lot of what was on there — I am more centrist — but at the time I thought it was necessary.

Then they started to promote far-left New Age nonsense, and when it came to vaccinations, HuffPo started posting all kinds of opinions that amounted to nothing more than out-and-out health threats. While they do sometimes post a counter-argument, it’s still almost all alt-med, all the time.

Here’s the latest: a doctor named Frank Lipman is telling people not to get vaccinated against Swine Flu. Instead he says you should wash your hands a lot, eat well, and take homeopathic medicine.

I’m sure the folks at Huff feel they’re doing the right thing, but when you’re talking medicine, feelings do not matter … science and, more specifically, evidence do. At any rate, Plait is done with Huff:

It’s the peddling of antivax rhetoric like this that drove me from HuffPo, and I’ve let them know why. I was a minor cog there, so I know it made no difference… and the proof is that they still post articles promoting procedures known to be useless. In fact, it’s worse than that, since someone might try the homeopathic water rather than get actual treatment.

So, as always, don’t listen to people like Lipman, or even to me when it comes to this stuff. Instead, go to your doctor, a board-certified and science-based doctor, and ask them about the H1N1 swine flu, and see if they recommend getting the shot.

That’s good advice … go to a bona fide evidence-based doctor, and follow his/her instructions. Plait’s exit from the circus of children that is Huff may not alleviate that blog’s fuzzy thinking, but even symbolic stands can carry some weight. Good for you, Dr Plait!

Tags: alt med, alternative medicine, anti-vaccine, antivaccine, bad astronomy, cam, complementary medicine, evidence-based medicine, flu vaccine, H1N1, huff, huffington post, huffpo, liars for antivax, lying liars for antivax, medicine, new age, phil plait, science-based medicine, swine flu, vaccination, vaccine

The mass media once again dutifully follow and relay, as if it were true, the “alternative medicine” narrative, trumpeting how often people resort to alternative or “complementary” remedies (I guess this was a slow news day, huh?):

Many Americans turning to unconventional medicine

About four in 10 U.S. adults and one in nine children are turning to unconventional medical approaches for chronic pain and other health problems, health officials said on Wednesday. …

About 38 percent of adults used some form of complementary and alternative medicine in 2007, compared to 36 percent in 2002, the last time the government tracked at the matter.

For the first time, the survey looked at use of such medicine by children under age 18, finding that about 12 percent used it, officials said. The reasons included back pain, colds, anxiety, stress and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, according to the survey.

Folks, this is not proof that alternative or complementary medicine works. Just because people do something, or believe something is true, does not grant it veracity. To believe this is known in Latin as argumentum ad populum, and in English by various names, such as appeal to popularity, bandwagon fallacy, argument by consensus, or authority of the many. Whatever name you give it, it’s wrong. Once upon a time most of humanity believed the earth was the center of a cosmos only a few thousand miles in diameter, with the sun, moon, etc. revolving around it. All of those people turned out to have been wrong.

In a similar way, that lots of Americans resort to questionable remedies, does not mean they actually work. It just means that lots of people think they work. Big difference.

The Reuters story continues:

Overall, the most common category of complementary and alternative medicine used was natural products such as herbal medicines and certain other types of dietary supplements other than vitamins and minerals.

The problem with this is that, it turns out a lot of these herbal remedies don’t work! The more studies are done on them, the more we find out out how useless they are. Here are some stories showing how this is the case:

Echinacea unproven to have value as cold treatment

Ginkgo Biloba Does Not Reduce Dementia Risk, Study Shows

Saw Palmetto No Better Than Placebo For Enlarged Prostate

… and many more, all available by Googling “<herb name> effectiveness”

In fact, I will have more to say about the effectiveness of dietary supplements in my next blog entry …

Tags: alternative medicine, cam, complementary medicine, herbal supplements, remedies

It’s fashionable these days to knock conventional medicine (also known by the adjectives “western,” “occidental,” or “allopathic” — I think a better description is “evidence-based”). People love to spout tired canards like “it doesn’t treat the whole person,” as if that makes any sense … ever seen a conventional doctor cure a broken leg by amputating it, knitting the bone together, then reattaching it? “Alternative” medicine is supposed to be “better” because it’s “ancient,” as if age were a credential. It’s not … infections were deadly, even if treated with poultices, blood-letting, or other “ancient” remedies, for millennia until conventional medicine discovered antibiotics. And people love to whine about how toxic pharmaceuticals are, how the side-effects are so horrible, etc.

Well, I’ve got news for some of you. A lot of those “natural” medicines are just as dangerous, if not moreso! In particular, ayurvedic remedies have been found to be toxic:

Ayurvedic medicines — herbal mixtures dating back thousands of years in India and increasingly popular in the West — are frequently contaminated with lead, mercury or arsenic, according to a study published today.

A fifth of the nearly 200 concoctions tested contained levels of the toxic metals that, if taken at the maximum recommended doses, would surpass California’s safety guidelines.

Dr. Robert Saper, a Boston University professor of family medicine who led the study, said the findings should spur the Food and Drug Administration to start clamping down on the largely unregulated world of pills, herbs and powders classified as dietary supplements.

“It shouldn’t be me trying to figure this out,” Saper said.

Ayurveda is a traditional Indian practice that takes a holistic approach to wellness, employing herbal medicine, meditation and exercise to promote good health. It exists alongside modern medicine in India, with its own network of clinics, hospitals and colleges serving hundreds of millions of patients.

It has spread to the U.S. and Europe with the migration of South Asians around the world and been popularized by figures such as bestselling author Deepak Chopra.

Pardon me if I pass on these wonderfully natural, “holistic” medicines. And remember … poison ivy is “all natural” too, but I doubt you’d want to rub it on a wound.

Tags: alternative medicine, ayurveda, ayurvedic medicine, poison, pseudo-medicine, pseudomedicine, toxic