Is Bill Maher really that ignorant? (part IV): Bill loves him some cancer quackery

Maher proclaimed erroneously that Louis Pasteur had “recanted” on his deathbed, while spewing nonsense hither and yon about how disease isn’t primarily caused by microbes but by “aggregate toxicity,” whatever that means in woo-speak

Roughly it means this: Modern Science, in its arrogance and hubris, has only managed to poison and despoil the earth, dumping its toxic wastes into our rivers, streams, and atmosphere. The food we eat, the water we drink, and the air we breathe are therefore loaded with toxic chemicals. Our bodies, having infinite and ancient wisdom in and of themselves separate from our minds, know these things are bad for us but the quantities of toxins our noxious civilization has produced are too much for them to get rid of, so they sequester them away in our bones, joints, and fatty tissues. Nevertheless, their continued presence there weakens our immune system, and subjects us to disease against which we would otherwise be perfectly invulnerable (since, again, Great Nature has imbued our immune systems with unerring divine wisdom).

Something like that. There are many variations of the narrative, most of which are nonsense. It appears to be a sort of generalization of heavy-metal poisoning into a general theory of disease, with a heavy dash of other woo flavors. Which explains a lot about the putative vaccine-autism link.

I was wondering if you’d comment on this one.

That was not David Cross, BTW, it was another guest, the journalist. David Cross is Tobias FÃ¼nke.

You’re right. It’s actually Jeffrey Toobin of CNN. I corrected it.

There are no sacred cows, Orac. Put Dawkins on the spot.

Maher is just another example of a very disturbing aspect of the woo trend: Intelligent, well-educated people get little or no science training, even in college. What they do get, makes no impression on them. The hard-wiring (apparently) for “belief” easily overrides whatever they had to regurgitate in the two or so science courses they had to take.

There’s a Dr. Hyman on HuffPo who does “functional medicine”–whatever that is? He had a column last week about cholesterol not being the cause of heart disease which is to be followed next week by his “advice” for the real “cure”. It’s not as far out as most of what you write about, but it’s not standard practice either. The point is, the comments that followed were nothing short of lunacy! People were crediting “recoveries” from all sorts of ailments to all sorts of woo and spouting these “theories” as if they really were doctors or in possession of superior intellect. I was the only one posting rebuttals that I’m pretty sure fell on deaf ears.

I would love for someone to come to the dance armed with verified numbers, diagrams and graphs of the amount of money spent on “nautural cures”. That’s all out-of-pocket, non-insurance covered, sweat-of-the-brow hard-earned money that is pissed away into the pockets of “Big Alt-Med”. I’m thinking the alties would be flabbergasted at just how big “Big Alt-Med” is.

There’s a Dr. Hyman on HuffPo who does “functional medicine”–whatever that is?

The treatments are guaranteed not to have side effects. 🙂

(That is a computer science joke…)

You should go on the Maher show.

Plenty of apprehension and dead air from the guests during his rant. I wonder if it was worse actually being there.

Ok, so âthey’ve made no progress as far as cancer in this countryâ and âtoxinsâ are so vague as to be entirely compatible with woo. And Bill Maher does in fact match these statements with woo. Fine.

But strictly speaking, they arenât entirely wrong. In medicine, âcancer preventionâ very often means secondary prevention: Pap smears, colonoscopy and BSE. All good things. (Well, maybe not BSE.) But ordinary people very sensibly want to know what they can do to make sure these tests come up negative. From a laypersonâs perspective, anyone calling early detection âpreventionâ is not even wrong. (Note that in both popular literature and the medical articles I used to read, the modifier âsecondaryâ is typically dropped: presumably too difficult to explain/ beside the point in the first case and implicit in the second.) Of course laypeople are disgusted. They are missing the full picture, but they are not nuts or stupid or even completely wrong.

Still within medicine, primary prevention does in fact emphasize âtoxins,â specifically cigarette smoking. Laypeople may be forgiven for thinking that there may be more to it than that: that cigarettes are very, very low-hanging fruit, a target so easy as to be cheating. Oh, ok, we have another one: lead. Itâs not good for kids to live in old houses with lead paint or for them to live near highways and breathe fumes from leaded gasoline. (Maybe lead isnât carcinogenic, but medicine does recognize it as a toxin with a health impact.)

So… arenât there more? You donât have to be paranoid to think there might be, and patronizing people who think there are is missing the point.

(And no, I donât think that just because toxins cause lung cancer that coffee enemas will cure it. Just… laypeople really do share some of the basic concepts of medicine and should get credit for that even if they donât have the knowledge to understand which details are relevant.)

Orac sez:

It wouldn’t have mattered on iota to me if the AAI had chosen to give Maher a “best atheist movie” award or some sort of activism award. But it didn’t. It chose to give Maher and award, one of the criteria of which involves advocating “increased scientific knowledge,” and that irritated the crap out of me.

And rightly so.

I think that “book of the year” and “best atheist movie” awards would be a great idea, just on general principles, never mind Maher’s insane quackery. They’d be fun, they’d provoke interesting discussions, and they might provide a marketing boost to the works being honoured. Everybody would win.

Yeah, I’m trying to make trouble, and I don’t apologize for it.

You don’t need to.

@7

Well… In that case, I guess I’m waiting for monadic medicine to show up. The only problem is all its practitioners will be lazy and nobody will use (or even hear of) the eager ones.

Question to Maher: Where are all of these people who were cured by alternatives to EBM/SBM? Why aren’t they all clamoring up to congressional hearings with proof of their *cures*? (re Maher to Letterman: truth be told,my father was treated for heart disease for many years and lived well for most of them. I remember a few woo-sympathizers telling me to “get him off those meds”,”try a natural approach”,.Why,so he could be naturally dead?)

The reason I visit R/I and Pharyngula daily is because this old dog needs constant reinforcement of his newfound powers of critical thinking (okay, I like the attitude too). I was once like Maher, all outraged at Teh eeeevil Big Farmer and Toxins. I’m a smart professional with a good education, but my critical thinking skills were weak and those I did possess were often overridden by fear.

Well, as Mary Queen of Scotts once said, “I got better”, but the old neural pathways that lead to my mind’s logical fallacies have deep ruts in them and I still find my wheels sliding into them from time to time. Thanks for challenging my brain with a daily dose of insolence and thanks to your readers (I’m talkin’ to you Allison) for offering up many thoughtful posts. Walking in the light of reason is so much better than crawling in the darkness of ignorance.

Alison:
I can’t speak for primary-care physicians any more, but I have some thoughts based on my past experience and present knowledge. The most effective ways of preventing cancer are the same as those for good general health: don’t smoke, take it very easy with alcohol, get exercise, “eat food, not too much, mostly plants”. Not sexy, but effective.

Ooops, another thing. You specifically asked about cervical cancer. Prevention = safe sex. Abstinence or condoms. Definitely not sexy!

And Orac, I congratulate you on continuing the Respectful Insolence directed at Maher, Dawkins and the AAI. I hope I can come up with a few contributions for the question pile. Again, thank you for not letting up.

Question(s) for Maher: How much money do the promoters/makers of “alternative” treatments put into research and development? How much money is spent on the preclinical and clinical research to show safety and efficacy? What percentage of each dollar made from the “alternative” treatments represents scientific research?

T. Bruce McNeely:

Yes.

But when you put it that way, it sounds patronizing. âNo honey, donât worry your little head about toxins. Just eat your vegetables and youâll be fine.â

It also sounds as if all those years and years of scientific research have turned up exactly nothing if all doctors can come up with is âeat your vegetables,â which is not exactly new. It sounds suspiciously as though there must be something we arenât being told because we arenât considered smart enough to understand.

A little more explanation is great: a diet high in fruits and vegetables, after years and years of intense scientific research, has turned out to be the best for preventing cancer; itâs just that now we can explain why in more detail, and after all the research thereâs nothing that weâve been able to prove is better in pill form â and itâs not for lack of trying.

Itâs also a good way to reduce toxin exposure (eating low fat, low on the food chain) through food.

Cigarette smoke is the biggest toxin most of us will ever be exposed to, so once thatâs dealt with youâre way ahead of the game.

A little bit of background can go a long way â partly because it makes clear that medicine and the layperson are both concerned about primary prevention and both acknowledge the role of toxins.

When the end result (same old same old high-level recommendations) is presented without the background â and then charges of irrationality are levelled at laypeople who have the same qustions scientists have â um, itâs not fair.

Perhaps we should consider a different prospective, an inquiry that we are not having that Bill Maher unwittingly presents. Although significant progress has been made in cancer treatment, as the author points out, it is suggestive of his own hubris. Cancer treatment is inherently alternative; ongoing clinical trails indicate its experimental nature. Why, then, would he discredit alternative treatments elsewhere. For some, they are the only alternative treatments available, where progress isn’t being made, for instance, in this country. Furthermore, to invoke the stature of celebrity as the metric for success or failure, trivializes the sacrifice that cancer patients throughout the world have made; understanding that their efforts would be to improve only the possibility of success for others in the future, not now. Finally, shouldn’t consideration of alternative medicine relate to the question of preventative care,i.e.; that by simply promoting alternative diet and excercise, we would reduce the need for “conventional” treatment. Perhaps not inevitably, but certainly, an alternative.

@7:

here’s a Dr. Hyman on HuffPo who does “functional medicine”–whatever that is?

The treatments are guaranteed not to have side effects. 🙂

(That is a computer science joke…)

But what’s the return value? 😉

This is bad, really bad. You could feel the audience gasp as Maher began advocating quackery. The problem with the healthcare system in the U.S. is not the medicine, it is access to the system for underprivileged people. I do share with Maher a vehement distrust of megacorporations and their unethical business practices that focus too heavily on the bottom line and lobbying, but that doesn’t mean woo-medicine is valid.

We see Maher’s kind of wrongheaded thinking all the time when a Christian asserts that since evolutionary science has had its share of hoaxes and abuses (like Social Darwinism), Goddidit. The worst part about Maher’s rant is how they all nod in agreement with his loonery because he is the host and they are too nice to cut him down and put up with his passive-aggressive pouting. (I’ve seen him put on the long-face many times, he even did it in Religulous, and it is annoying.)

@Tom Jackson:

Cancer treatment is inherently alternative; ongoing clinical trails indicate its experimental nature.

Very hand-wavy kind of comment there! The experimental nature of cancer treatment hardly makes it ‘alternative’ (in the established sense), because cancer treatments – as well as most clinical trials for the said treatments – are evidence-based, with solid science behind them.

Note that I say ‘most’, because I – to our collective shame – cannot any more say ‘all’ after this travesty of clinical trial perpetrated by Nick Gonzalez and his ‘treatment’.

Alternative diet and exercise are all very fine as possible preventative measures against cancer. Do remember that ‘cancer’ is a very broad term encompassing malignancies of various kinds and descriptions. However, once one gets cancer, such ‘alternatives’ are going to do precisely nothing to it. One needs proper medication, i.e. drugs that actively target cancer cells and kill them, as well as procedures, such as surgery, as and when needed. Nutritional supplements and ‘coffee enemas’ (yuck!) are going to do diddly-squat, and, as Orac has already pointed out, are indeed far worse than chemotherapy.

It wouldn’t have mattered on iota to me if the AAI had chosen to give Maher a “best atheist movie” award or some sort of activism award.

Even that would be less than satisfactory. Religulous wasn’t an “atheist movie”, but an anti-religion movie, as Maher himself has said that he does not call himself an atheist; if I remember correctly, he’s more the “I’m not religious, I’m spiritual” type. I’m not saying we should shun anyone who doesn’t use our preferred label, but I am saying that we shouldn’t reward someone whose worldview leads him to have a beef with “organized religion” but not religious/spiritual/supernaturalist thinking in general, which doesn’t seem to make much more sense than objecting to organized crime but not crime in general.

I’ll admit that I actually enjoyed Religulous, but on reflection, it’s basically mental masturbation for people who already agree with his conclusions. There’s no substantive reasoning in it; I doubt that anybody is going to become an atheist after watching it. That’s why I wouldn’t even give it a “‘best atheist movie’ award” or an “activism award”. We’ll lead more people to atheism by advancing a naturalistic, scientific worldview; when people understand that science is the only reliable Way Of Knowing about the universe, atheism (or something acceptably close to it) will follow naturally. Mockery is fun, but it’s not activism.

Question for Bill:

We know that cig smoke causes lung cancer. What are the “toxins” you are talking about, specifically, that are causing the cancers you think can be cured by CAM. Also, where do the toxins go when you “detox” yourself? If we capture the coffee plus crap that comes out, will we find these toxins?

I’m trying to figure out, who ever came up with the idea that squirting coffee up your wazzoo was in any way a good idea? Moreover, was able to convince apparently millions of people that it is a good idea?

I don’t care whether you think “Big Pharma” is evil or not, the concept of hooking a Mr Coffee up to your keester has to be something to that would cause a few questions, wouldn’t it?

Coffee, of all things? Why not tea? Why not milk? Why not lemonade? Grape juice? Carrot juice? Beer? Wine? The possibilities are endless, and somehow we come up with a coffee enema?

And to continue on my last theme, if coffee enemas are so great, why haven’t the Evil Reductionist Scientists working for Big Pharma analyzed it and isolated the active ingrediant and made it into an enema solution? It would absolutely be patentable.

Question for Maher:
You continually deride religious people for their faith in an unproven supreme being, a stance on which I agree with you wholeheartedly. Why then do you have faith in alternative medicine without any proof? The studies that have made it through an IRB (Insitutional Review Board) and been completed on any alternative medicine have come up as being as good or worse than no therapy at all, or as only having a placebo effect. Where is the scientific evidence? Big pharma can not control the scientific method – if there was proof of efficacy, that therapy would be adopted as quickly as possible. And the people responsible for discovering it would be well compensated as well as famous (to paraphrase Patrick Swayze).

Alternative diet and exercise are all very fine as possible preventative measures against cancer.

Except for the fact that they’re even less alternative than experimental trials. Healthy diet and abundant exercise have been strong recommendations from mainstream medicine for many decades…

I’m trying to figure out, who ever came up with the idea that squirting coffee up your wazzoo was in any way a good idea? Moreover, was able to convince apparently millions of people that it is a good idea?

There’s also, of course, the fact that coffee has plenty of toxins in it itself. Caffeine is a biggie, of course. They’re afraid of toxins, but have only a dim notion of what the word even means, since they cheerfully (wtf??!!!) squirt considerable quantities of various toxins into their own nether regions, where they can be efficiently absorbed into the bloodstream.

People have died of alcohol enemas; I wonder if anyone has yet died of a caffeinated enema? It may only be a matter of time, given that most folks aren’t aware of how rapidly stuff gets absorbed that way.

By toxin, does he mean like CO2? Or THC?

Simple as it is why not ask Mr. Bill this… What is a toxin? If we can nail him down on this then we could have a real conversation, maybe… probably not tho.

Question for Bill: Why do you support the use of Gardasil, but disapprove of the use of other vaccines?

Oh, come on, that’s easy. The fundamentalists hate Gardasil; so Bill’s for it.

Orac, I’ve been frustrated with the identification of pseudoscience and the left for a long time. I’m not old enough to have been around when it started but I’ve always blamed the hippies and aquarians. Regardless of why it happened though, I was hoping you could comment. Why do “natural healing books,” “crystal energy books,” and etc. always have a place in Marxist and anarchist bookstores? Leftists don’t seem to be upset with the literary establishment or the physics establishment so why are they so antagonistic to the medical establishment? And could you please tell them to stop it?

Alas, I was hoping that Maher had resigned these beliefs much like he had his old religious beliefs. I am sad to see them alive and well. There’s certainly someting to say about the business aspect of “western medicine,” but that shouldn’t give the slightest bit of credit to unscientific bullshit. Damn straight they should arrest people who prescribe distractions from proper treatment…dammit Maher!

@Orac

Yeah. I know. I’d just be curious to hear what Bill would say if presented with that question.

“Maher himself has said that he does not call himself an atheist; if I remember correctly, he’s more the “I’m not religious, I’m spiritual” type.”

I think you’re wrong on this. He puts himself in the I-don’t-know-club and if I remember correctly he has said that he doesn’t even know what spiritualism means.

/ Personally I don’t think Maher should receive the award, there simply is too much woo-woo.

Tom Jackson, I’ve made the same mistake of calling experimental and most non-pharmacologic treatments including diet and lifestyle, “alternative”. And sometimes I continue to do it (but then I explicitely re-define my use of the word alternative in the post) just because it’s such a nice umbrella term. But I think we should stop, because the term is too strongly associated with woo.

Similarly quacks have spoiled “anti-aging”. Even if a treatment or substance did work or looked promising in postponing intrinsic aging (e.g. topical tretinoin+sun avoidance), it’s futile to call it “anti-aging”, because the term is inherently associated with *useless* creams and potions.

I couldn’t even watch that video for more than 10 seconds. It seems like the dumber you are the further you go as a pundit.

I’m debating how much I want to make my mom flip out today. She’s about 9 months away from that wonderful 5 year mark since she finished her cancer treatment. 30 years ago she’d probably be dead this far out but her caner has an 85% cure rate today. No progress my ass.

Just call it what it is: Maher is a proponent of faith healing.

It’s not faith in a religious power, it’s faith in the quack and the power of his magic beans or whatever.

But it’s the same thing, really, except getting a magic bean enema is probably a lot more expensive.

Question #1:

Since you doubt the methods of conventional method for proving efficacy, how do you distinguish between alternative therapies which work and those which are snake oil?

Question #2:

(requires a bit of set up)
A friend had some back pain and went to his alt med practitioner and had cupping performed. As proof that cupping was drawing out toxins and not simply causing a bruise, he pointed out that the discolored areas were brown, not purple. But if I went to the same therapist, falsely complain of back pains, and they cupped me and raised the same discolorations on my skin, what would this mean to your theory of toxins?

@19 – Cancer treatment is inherently alternative; ongoing clinical trails indicate its experimental nature.

1 – An anti-cancer drug will have been shown to be effective against a certain form of cancer in test tubes, and then in animal models. It will have, nowadays, a clearly defined mode of action against a certain characteristic of the cancer, down to the metabolic pathway or surface protein it affects.

How much research do the BigAltMeds do trying to perfect their stuff? Can they explain how their stuff works, other than vague “makes your qi channels happier”?

2 – Trying to improve on a treatment, to make it more effective, better tolerated, or just cheaper, and then discarding therapies that don’t work as well is not a characteristic of “alternative medicine”.

Look at homeopathy, proudly stuck in the late 1700s, ignoring over 200 years of chemistry and biology and physics. Chiropracty, ignoring everything including well-known human anatomy since the 1930s … there are no obsolete therapies according to them. Even “cupping” has made a comeback.

I just watched about a minute more of this shit. I can’t finish this video. It’s that awful.

Richard Dawkins should be ashamed of himself for not publicly disassociating himself from this retard. I think I’m going to go burn my copy of The God Delusion.

I’ve been thinking of compiling a small woo to English phrasebook, and so far I believe that “toxins” is best translated as “demons”.

The striking thing was not what he said, but how. The demeanor changes and he looks like any number of crazy people with an idee fixe. Everyone around him tightens up as we all do around a crazy person.

The first thought when confronted with someone like this is not confrontation but changing the topic, cause, well, the person is belligerently crazy.

We all have a family member or someone we know like that and when they cut loose, you move on.

Topic changes and he is Mr Smiley again.

@7:

here’s a Dr. Hyman on HuffPo who does “functional medicine”–whatever that is?

The treatments are guaranteed not to have side effects. 🙂

(That is a computer science joke…)

But what’s the return value? 😉

Null. (^_^)

I’m glad someone else is pointing out Maher’s medical conspiracy delusions, and sometime anti-science rhetoric. Its a shame that some of his fans strike back, as though pointing out Maher’s imperfections is a knock at them.

I’m a fan of Maher-If I weren’t a fan, I wouldn’t have shelled out $100 to watch his stand up show live, but just because I enjoy his comedy doesn’t mean I have to eat up every word he says, or ignore the incorrect statements he makes.

It reminds me of when the prominent atheist Jullian Baggini wrote an article saying the ‘new atheist’ movement was being a little harsh, angry and unaccommodating toward believers, and hence not getting anywhere (which I agreed with). The article was posted on Richard Dawkins site, and the members there attacked Baggini’s article. It was as if the majority of the Dawkins members didn’t even know who the author was, and completely refused to really look at what the article was saying-They collectively refused to evaluate their own behaviors and approach.

Just like with the Maher, I’m a fan of Dawkins while also disagreeing with some of his approaches.

I think its a parallel to the Maher crap…Some people just don’t want to hear anything compromising about their personal convictions, or against someone they admire.

Its important for opinions to be well rounded, or, like Maher, you can get caught up in some sort of delusional, conspiratorial or unaccommodating group/movement whose methods may not be so different than the methods of your perceived enemies (like religious organizations, CAM charlatans, etc…)