How “they” view “us”

The more successful you are, the more they will hate you.

It strikes me that many Burzynski “fans” are not so much fans of doctor but of the narrative – the brave doctor with his alt med treatment fighting alone against the FDA and big pharma.

At no point does it appear to occur to them that if his treatment worked then he should have no trouble providing clinical evidence, no trouble sailing through his clinical trials, no trouble convincing anybody in the medical establishment to adopt his treatment. He’d be a billionaire from the success of his treatments and he’d have to build a wing on his house just to house all the trophies, awards and gifts that a grateful world would shower upon him.

He’s had 30 years to prove his treatment and he can’t even do that.

It makes me sick how quackery supporters try to twist things. For example, when I debate antivaxxers from my country on the interent, they try to slip the notion that “people vaccinate because of big pharma propaganda that has programmed them to fear those “terrible” childhood diseases.” But no one has ever advertised or used the media to advocate the MMR, DPT, etc. vaccines. There are adverisments only for the HPV and flu jabs, but the companies have the full right to advertise them. Instead we are being flooded from literally everywhere by pseudoscience (homeopathy, structured water etc) which appears on every TV programme sooner or later. We lack skeptical bloggers but are full of forums and sites that promote conspiracies and alternative medicine. Doctors fail to defend vaccines on TV because they know absolutely nothing about the bad science and cherry picked data the quacks cite, so the only thing they can say is “This is not true” which of course makes them look pathetic. So it’s the other way around. What people really fear is vaccines, that’s why they don’t vaccinate and there are outbreaks.

The other pathetic attempt at twisting things is the accusation of us being closed minded and sheeple. Again, no. They don’t see (or maybe they do to some extent) that they have simply memorized a couple of lines which they repeat over and over again, never address the counter arguments and when they run out of lines, they start from the beginning all over again, like ****ing robots. For one has irreversibly become a sheeple, if they falsley think they are enlightened.

MikeMa- it’s statements like that which turn patients’ families against us. Speculating on the patient’s chances, calling them dim, these do no favours to people who are trying their best to do whatever it takes for their loved one.

These people invest a lot of time in research and try to come into these situations as well-informed as possible. They’re not stupid or scientifically dim. There is a lot of credible-sounding misinformation out there. But seeing things like this automatically turns them off, and they get turned off from any message that’s being delivered by people they see as “skeptics”.

Reading patients/parents lash out at anyone who disagrees with their chosen source of hope and their determination to think positive is actually heartbreaking. Hope can be cruel sometimes. And my best friend is still dealing with the aftermath of a guy who was so convinced that he would recover from his metastatic cancer that, although urged, he didn’t make a will or do anything whatsoever about putting his affairs in order, leaving his family in a horrible mess when he died.

FionaG – look up “Gnomes (South Park)” in Wikipedia and read about their business plan.

There is a lot of credible-sounding misinformation out there.

QFT. There are some alt-med modalities that an educated layman should be able to figure out are bogus, such as homeopathy (anybody who has taken high school chemistry should be aware of Avogadro’s number) or touch therapy (then fourth grader Emily Rosa debunked this for a science fair project). But there are many others which are harder to spot. Burzynski’s antineoplastons are in this category. My background is physics, not biology, so I can’t explain the science of why this treatment is bogus as well as an expert like Orac can. And I can see how somebody who’s desperate to save a loved one would ignore the alarm bells that should be going off when a Burzynski tells them he can do it for a substantial price. Then the people who patronize Burzynski’s clinic double down when Orac et al. try to tell them antineoplastons are bogus–they want to believe that they are not victims of a con.

Same old complaint prn? Now, what have you learned while you hang out here about CAM treatments? If a treatment has been proven to work after trials…then it becomes a standard of treatment.

Why hasn’t Burzynski enlisted any patients into his sole Stage III trial, prn?

The donor site for St. Jude Children’s Hospital is still open. Why not put your money where your mouth is, and make a small donation? Alternatively, you might make a small donation to any other cancer treatment center.

http://thehoustoncancerquack.com/

So, prn, you think the problem is that science is not working fast enough for some people? If that is the problem, how would you suggest that be resolved?

“As for desparate patients and parents, the underlying problem is mainstream medicine’s failure to deliver timely, better solutions for many medical circumstances.”

In other words, science can’t make sh*t up as fast as CAM purveyers do.

How do hey view us?
Today Alison MacNeil responds with a post @ TMR entitled:
“Dirty. Rotten. Scoundrels.”
Of course, she’s talking about how anti-vaxxers view those who support SBM, which echoes the sentiments currently a-buzz @ AoA.

“Mama Mac” creates a most wanted list of perpetrators of vaccine lies, i.e. SBM about vaccines. Oddly, our esteemed and gracious host doesn’ make the list, although a visitor to RI does. Ms MacNeil invents a new term, ” vaccine epidemic denier” which is applied to Roy Grinker, of GWU.. isn’t that where Jake Crosby is?

So… we’re trying to take away their freedom– to get conned?

Edith- correct.
I’d like to avoid all reference to patients if we could, however sometimes it’s unavoidable. I was really uncomfortable with Orac’s assessment of little Amelia’s MRI results, perhaps that was necessary but it did make me twitch a bit. We do see it time and time again where Burzynski reports a positive result only to later find that not to be the case. A Burzynski private patient was recently mocked on twitter by a Burzynski supporter for actually stating this aloud.

That’s useful information, part of his M.O. How can you point this out without referring to patients’ self reports? In the absence of any useful publication, you can’t. But man, it’s difficult.

@DW – Mama Mac’s post reminds me of the infamous Burn Book from the movie Mean Girls, only less mature.

Although both sides stigmatize the other, I think the reason they have to demonize us comes down to the implications behind “you don’t accept X because you don’t want it to be true” when X is something obviously and plainly good. This is where wishful thinking has an advantage over scientific skepticism. The things you wishfully wish for are always good things. Scientific skepticism is forced to follow the evidence where it leads.

So when skeptics see the other side in terms of “they’re stubborn because they don’t want a negative thing to be true” we don’t have to go after their character on that. They’re making mistakes because they’re guilty of poor reasoning. They’re wrong. They don’t have to be wicked.

But we have to be both wrong and wicked if we don’t believe in Burzynski/homeopathy/ESP/God not just because the evidence isn’t there — but because we don’t WANT it to be true. We’d rather people die of cancer than be wrong. That’s where they have to place us.

The anti-humanist approach is an anti-science one, and I think it can be summed up by the old quotation “For those who believe — no evidence is necessary; for those who don’t believe — no evidence is possible.” Knowledge is not seen as the result of a process; it’s the result of who you are. Instead of testing hypotheses and arriving together at tentative conclusions, the issue is thrust romantically into the view that we know things by being the right kind of person. You have to want things to be true before you can reason correctly. Faith over reason.

people seem to think hornswoggling is no longer an issue, we’re all sophistos and above a good swoggling

ABC: If you have a cure for high blood pressure go win yourself a Nobel prize

I read ABC’s comment #9 as anti-quack sarcasm.

I think the conclusions found in Seth Kalichman’s book, “Denying AIDS,” while focused on that particular topic, are applicable to the wider number of people in the “alt-med” crowd. To me it’s not out of character that AIDS denialists tend to be believers of “alternative medicine.” I recommend his book for some insights on the thinking of these people.

Ism, you’re correct. Unless a person studies they probably have unrealistic ideas about what is involved.

The quacks- and other alt med prevaricators- also work hard to convince their audience that they- the quacks et al – ARE experts and able to criticise the entire field of medicine ( they usually are faux-experts in psychology )- they also “teach” their audiences ‘science’.

A quack may go into great detail about his ( or her, but usually his) own studies and research as well as the opposition the ‘Orthodox ‘ world has displayed towards them. Alt med is interdependent with conspiracy mongering-they lead a symbiotic existence because woo needs to explain why its brilliance is not accepted by the mainstream by consensus- there has to be something opposing its assimilation into present day, state-of-the-art SBM.

Obviously the entrenched powers-that-be would be put out of business by these ground-shattering innovations: large enterprises would be replaced by new businesses that supplied the non-pharmaceutical technology. So these companies fight the scientific rebels tooth and claw in order to save their own economic skins.

We see woo-meisters thus expand their own area of (IN) expertise far beyond medicine into economics and politics to explain HOW the conspiracy that cut them out of their rightful place and success has come about. Usually the governments of the western world are implicated to explain how the dastardly deed was brought about and how the media spread the word. People like Jake and Gary and Mike spend a lot on time explaining the conspiracies that explain why woo is not accepted by everyone.

MY question to any alt med sympathiser is:
how can your informants- who often may be barely literate- be able to critique the entire structure of complex, multi-faceted fields like medicine- AND then be presumptuous enough to go far beyond that into social sciences?

No real expert would go that far a field.
They do because they don’t know what they’re talking about.

prn – People react negatively to you because you’ve been regurgitating the same swill for years.

As was mentioned above, AZT was rushed through, and people died as a result.

In response to ‘blah blah insurance wah wah testing takes too long‘ I have two questions.

1. Are you aware that the world extends far beyond America’s borders?

2. Would you travel in a plane that had not been through performance trials and safety tests?

seeing Merola accuse us of ‘not being open to rational discourse’ fried another one of my irony meters

I’ll bet that, for each year’s worth of blogging, you must spend a small country’s GDP in irony meters.

Melissa G So… we’re trying to take away their freedom– to get conned?
Taking away peoples rights to decide for themselves, to try to do better than incomplete and often corrupted information processes that apply poorly to individual cases.

Also the ability bargain for a better price than debt slavery. Medicine still has areas where both cost and performance can be changed by an order of magnitude by intelligent investigation and synthesis. Literally life and death stuff.

Todd@27 Fast approval and safe approval is a very, very fine line. And there are some processes in science that simply cannot be rushed, because nature just doesn’t play by our timelines.
Todd, often there are good, useful answers laying all around us, unused for non technical reasons. I would rather have more voluntary approval systems, like UL or Good Housekeeping.

JBustdNuts@33: prn sez: “I don’t think medicine makes thorough use of the science and technology that are available”
JN:Do you mean the science and technology of homeopathy, applied kinesiology, live blood analysis, and Hulda Clarke zappers?
No thanks, you can keep those. I mean better technology, techniques and results orientation.

elburro@40 prn – People react negatively to you because you’ve been regurgitating the same swill for years.
Ok, so there are some resentful, insolent slow learners here.

1. Are you aware that the world extends far beyond America’s borders?
perhaps better than you do

Would you travel in a plane that had not been through performance trials and safety tests
Wrong analogy. Medicine is NOT nearly that objective, well defined, tested or performing.

Watching clinical medicine prattle about science can evoke images between the Cargo Cult, and the WWI generals that pushed another million people through the meat grinder with outdated tactics.

Melissa G So… we’re trying to take away their freedom– to get conned?
prn replied: “Taking away peoples rights to decide for themselves, to try to do better than incomplete and often corrupted information processes that apply poorly to individual cases.”

And how exactly is consumer protection supposed to work in your paradise? Because if you’re relying on the consumer having perfect information, frankly, I don’t see that happening. You seem worried about medicine’s slowness, imperfections, and “corrupted information”, but what about the outright frauds actively trying to part people from their money with no return value?

If I understand rightly, prn wants a wide-open medical system where, every time someone comes up with an idea, it is not first tested and then cleared for sale by some agency, but is rather thrown out to be used or not by the public; and where regulators don’t ensure genuineness and quality control of products, but rather anyone can produce their own versions and offer the lowest prices.

This is a classic “consumer is king” scenario; but it supposes consumers having more power than they do in reality. Could everyone really rely on their own research to make good decisions, aided only by organizations with no regulatory power like UL or Good Housekeeping? And is the power of the free market, aided (perhaps) by lawsuits in cases of blatant malfeasance, sufficient to ensure that manufacturers do their job well? The history of the 19th century, before regulation, suggests that the answer to both those questions is emphatically no.

Furthermore, current research is tending toward an understanding that in most cases, premarket controls are more effective than postmarket penalties in raising quality. The main caveat is that regulators have to be independent of those they regulate, which government sometimes fails at.

@ MelissaG – Snake oil never seems to be part of the equation, at least not the one one has faith in. That one over there? That’s scientifically impossible. Caveat emptor rings callous.

Herr doktor bimler.
An aggregate record (with PCP?), with much better patient records for treatments, blood, biomarkers and images could form a better elemental series of data for meta analysis. This is where insurance sponsored research could have made a difference, even for self experimentation.

Second is to stop the crowd-sourcing contributors’ own biases from influencing their feedback.
As long as we can track death, things should not get too out of whack on catastrophic illness with overall survival curves to bound claims.

More complete individual datasets can be powerful if applied broadly. What is sad is that only new molecules get much attention.

Gamers?
Sunlight, good competition and fraud suits/prosecutions are the principal tools, kind of Gresham’s law in reverse (good version displaces inferior), *in a free society*. When Gresham type law prevails (bad providers drive out the good), something is wrong with the society or laws. However, it has never been easy with strong promotional talent or messianic gone astray.

The kind of arguments coming from prn, which seem to essentially be “get rid of regulation and let the market manage itself” are old. Really, really old. I mean, we tried that for quite a while. Know what we got? Regulation. The market cannot govern itself. Take a look back at history, circa 1890s-1906+. Every regulation that we have came about because the marketplace failed to protect consumers.

“Every regulation that we have came about because the marketplace failed to protect consumers.”

Shhh!!! You’ll upset Ron Paul, and he’ll sic a U.N. agency on this website to take it over (like he’s attempting with ronpaul.com).

I wonder how a freer market would handle Thalidomide? Even after tests it appeared to have horrible side-effects. At least after this, medicines were tested even more thorougly. Prn would turn this back? Let the consumer decide?

The free market could only self-regulate if everyone involved was a perfect Mary Sue nexialist with expert critical thinking skills, time to spare, and other resources needed to do all their own research. This is not a realistic view of humanity, and not how I’d want to live. I want division of labor so that I can safely rely on experts to do their work if I want to, so that I can spend my free time doing things I like.

I’d think such a system would produce more bean-counting: It’s not about the danger, it’s about how widespread the knowledge of that danger is, and how that knowledge will affect sales figures.

It’s also not about how effective a treatment is, it’s about how many marks you can trick into thinking it’s effective. This situation would be a dream come true for quacks who know that they’re quacks. That’s often a big problem I see whenever someone talks about deregulating the medical industry: It never seems to occur to them that medical fraud is both easy and profitable, and would become widespread for those reasons.

@flip

And what’s with the continued barking about being in attics and parent’s basements

Damn straight. I have my *own* basement, thank you very much.

PRN,
Your proposed ideas about de-regulation sound a lot like the breast cancer patient support forum I visit. There are two sub-forums specifically for woo (“alternative” and “complementary”) where, in effect, no questions are allowed and anything goes. Basically, any sort of “regulation” by posting of evidence-based information is disallowed.

What you end up with is a forum full of breast cancer patients (or poseurs) advising each other to avoid the evil cut-burn-poison that “orthodox Western” doctors offer, and instead to self-treat their breast cancer with laetrile, oleander, compounded hormones, vitamins, coffee enemas, iodine, and all sorts of other nonsense you can imagine (and some you couldn’t!). They swear by their “naturopathic oncologists” and their mail-order scammy pathology labs. They advise each other (prescribe?) on specific treatments, dosages, supplements, and products, with accompanying sciency-sounding claims of efficacy and cherry-picked data. They promote misinformation, conspiracy theories, scare tactics, and miracle cures directly to a huge forum of breast cancer patients.

Can you really not see the harm in this one specific example of “free-market” health information?

Your proposed ideas about de-regulation sound a lot like the breast cancer patient support forum I visit.

Seems to me that people are self-experimenting anyway (here “experimenting” is a term of art meaning “engaging in a certain amount of magical thinking”). If some internet infrastructure could be constructed for recording and collating their results (as I was thinking aloud in #47), that might address some of prn’s concerns, while obtaining some information… in the cases where the unrecognised treatment has *some* foundation and is not Black Salve or Magical Iodine or whatever.

I am deeply skeptical that this would work (given the signal / noise ratio), but a few years ago I was equally skeptical that a community-based data-pooling system like Wikipedia could ever become a useful resource, so my skeptical intuitions don’t mean much.

I do not know whether prn wants to *abolish* the FDA (which seems to be the general response), or is interested in a kind of parallel system. Anyway, tthis is thinking aloud, from someone who does not have a poor-prognosis condition (apart from age) and can afford to regard it as an intellectual game.

May I re-introduce the Wakefield-v-BMJ et al libel action in Texas. This seems to have ground to a halt. It’s at Appeal stage, here’s the link to the court record: http://www.3rdcoa.courts.state.tx.us/opinions/case.asp?FilingID=17395 which should by now have seen the appellees’ response filed by February 4th, but nothing reported actually since oral argument request lodged by appellants on January 4th. Has that caused an hiatus? Are there any familiar with Texas appeal court procedures out there, or maybe actually know what’s going on? Total silence.

Hello, I wish the two sides of the argument were not viewing this as a ‘war’. I believe you and your commenters are sincere and informed individuals but I don’t agree with all you say. In my humble opinion there IS evidence for SOME people being harmed by a vaccine – for example: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/01/22/us-narcolepsy-vaccine-pandemrix-idUSBRE90L07H20130122 and therefore there exists the possibility that vaccines are neither 100% safe nor effective even given the fact that vaccination is capable of preventing certain diseases.
However, if you consider the annual ‘flu jab there has been scientific evidence that it is nowhere near as efficacious as we are led to believe: http://www.kare11.com/news/article/994888/391/U-of-M-study-challenges-effectiveness-of-flu-vaccine so why try to persuade everyone to be vaccinated every year? The manufacturers can only guess at which strains will ‘attack’ us anyway. Where I live many people have had flu-like symptoms whether or not they were vaccinated. In my family no-one has the ‘;flu jab but we haven’t had ‘flu for many a year either.
It also concerns me that young babies are being injected more and more and often against several illnesses at a time. Has anyone (apart from so-called quacks) researched the longterm effects of this on a child’s development?
The incidence of some childhood diseases may have declined since the introduction of vaccines but the incidence of autism and other developmental problems seems to have increased. Is this just a coincidence? Why not seriously try to find out?
Many doctors accept – dare I say ‘blindly’ -that vaccination is the best thing since sliced bread but in the recent case of the whooping cough vaccine for pregnant women even the makers own website stated that it was NOT RECOMMENDED during pregnancy because they had not researched the effect on foetal development. Yet doctors were promoting it as a wonderful way of preventing whooping cough. Don’t they have time to read the smallprint??.
Quite honestly, until or unless someone can PROVE that it doesn’t do any harm I’d rather not pump a baby full of chemicals/dead viruses etc.
But I do believe that everyone has the right to make their own informed decisions about healthcare . I respect your views on vaccination and I hope we can agree to disagree in a civilised fashion.

Well, as I said, you have every right to make a choice but unless something is guaranteed safe (OK 100% is asking a lot) then I think there’s no harm in considering carefully before accepting the risk. And what’s wrong with expecting some research into the longterm effects of vaccinating babies with more and more chemicals? Do you honestly believe that there’s absolutely NO harm in giving more and more shots? Don’t you think we should find out just how much of a risk there is?
Anyway, as flic has dismissed my comments as worthless I suppose I’ve poked my nose into the wrong website. Sorry!!

Don’t you think we should find out just how much of a risk there is?

How do you propose we could more accurately determine this, beyond what is already done for every new vaccine developed? Be specific.

Hello JGC: I just can’t help wondering if research results may be ‘tweaked’ to minimise the possible connection between adverse effects and vaccination. Perhaps that’s being cynical?
In the recent blog concerning Shaken Baby Syndrome it seemed as though everyone was dismissing the possibility that, in a particular case, the baby’s symptoms could be attributed to vaccination (and looking at your arguments I’m inclined to agree with you) but that doesn’t mean that in ALL cases the child has been physically abused. If the pertussis vaccine has been used experimentally to induce similar symptoms in animals then is it impossible that the vaccine might also cause such symptoms in a baby? Wouldn’t you agree that serious research into all such cases should be undertaken before continuing with the vaccine programme rather than stating categorically that the vaccine cannot be held responsible?

Mephistopheles: I’m afraid I jumped in at the deep end because this blog seems to consider everyone who is ‘anti-vaccination’ as ‘the enemy’ and/or completely stupid. I admit I haven’t read many postings but since all the comments I have read seemed to suggest this opinion I simply had to write a comment putting another point of view. Didn’t mean to stir things – simply have a civilised discussion -but I’m out of my depth aren’t I?

@sablonneuse

People may sometimes be a bit short on here because we’ve dealt with many of the same arguments over and over and over, often from die-hard anti-vaccine activists who just repeat the same things ad nauseam.

As for Shaken Baby Syndrome and vaccines, there are typically symptoms that exclude vaccines as a culprit. For example, broken ribs and/or bruising consistent with physical abuse. That’s the kind of detail that those who like to blame vaccines for just about everything tend to leave out of their narratives.

Todd,

I hate to invoke Mikey Adams’s name, but just yesterday he repeated the nauseating bleating that “often” (his words) SBS is really vaccine damage. And we shouldn’t be so quick to condemn parents accused of SBS. Just keeping the myth alive, huh Mikey?

Any child abuser or his/her lawyer who uses this defence in court (a la Yurkiw) deserves a very special place in hell.

@sablonneuse: you’ll find homeopathy is held in rather poor regard here.

@Sab – you do know that homeopathy is just “water” right?

If done properly, there shouldn’t be even the tiniest bit of active substance in the solution, which means that you’re just taking water…….seriously, that’s basic science right there.

Hello Chris and Lawrence: I do understand that many people oppose homeopathy because it’s ‘just water’ but I can only speak from personal experience and it’s a fact (for me) that homeopathy does work. However, I’m not sure it’s worth recounting my anecdotal evidence because you are already convinced scientifically that it’s rubbish. Here is a site that explains clinical trials http://www.healthy.net/Health/Article/Scientific_Evidence_for_Homeopathic_Medicine/942. It is written by a homeopath but i think it gives an unbiased account.
The thing is, science has not yet discovered everything has it? One of these days the ‘blind faith’ of people who embrace treatments that can’t be proved by scientific means – but still work – could be rewarded by a ‘eureka’ moment.

Chris: I absolutely agree with you that people who abuse children should not be able to get away with their crimes by claiming vaccine damage but if there is a sudden swelling in the brain of a child in a home with no record of child abuse following a series of vaccinations then I think it would be tragic if if the parents were punished when they were innocent. Surely it’s worth researching the possibility?

Dana Ullman?!!! HAHAHAHAHAHA….

#84 @LW

Chiefly because it’s a substance diluted so much by water that it is, in fact, water.

I know you know, but the new guy might not.

It’s easy to get taken in by homeopathy. I bought a homeopathic “cure” once by accident myself. It was right there with the real medicine.

That link sablonneuse provided is one huge stinking pile of woo. It’s new to me. Every known form of quackery is represented, and every well-known quack is there. They reprint stories from “What Doctors Don’t Tell You” (see Andy Lewis’s Quackometer blog for more on that rag). Plus they’ll train you to be a “wellness coach” for only $1395.

How do real doctors like this go bad?

William Pawluk, MD, MSc, is an Asssistant Professor at Johns Hopkins Medical School. He is a board certified family physician with training in acupuncture, nutritional/herbal medicine, homeopathy, hypnosis and body work. Dr. Pawluk has used magnetic therapies as part of his practice for over 10 years and is considered a leading national authority on the clinical application of both static and pulsed electromagnetic fields in the United States. He has published a book, Magnetic Therapy in Eastern Europe: a Review of 30 years of Research. He uses a holistic approach to treating the individual and applies the modality or modalities most likely to help, whether individually or combined

In general the European skeptic blogs like Quackometer attract the most fervent supporters of homeopathy, in many cases homeoquacks from India. They claim, unconditionally, that homeopathy is effective in *curing* cancer, AIDS, malaria and diabetes, among many other dieseases. I always ask them about Penelope Dingle. I’ve never gotten any answers.

If someone wants to take some magic sugar balls for self-limiting, short term problems like the sniffles or sore throat, I don’t see much harm. Those ailments all go away in a few days with or without Boiron’s expensive version of Tic Tacs. It’s when people go to those “classical” homeopaths for serious diseases that I worry.

Good thing homeopathy is on its way out in the UK. The last homeopathic hospital in England is being shut down, the NHS has spoken out against it (calling it “rubbish”) and even the head of Wikipedia has launched a war against homeopathy (and quackery in general).

William Pawluk, MD, MSc, is an Asssistant Professor at Johns Hopkins Medical School.

Unsurprisingly, this is false. I’m not sure that one really wants to brag about being a “former assistant professor,” either. It’s somewhat telling.

Narad,

Yup, Pawluk has gone into business for himself. One of his websites is called “Illness Is Optional.”

And guess what else?

Dr. Pawluk was asked to appear on the Dr. Oz Show as a medical expert on magnetic field therapy. The show, entitled “The Revolutionary Cure for Pain,” demonstrated on a national platform the healing potential that magnetic field therapies can produce. Dr. Oz also asked Dr. Pawluk to write two pieces for his website. These articles are available here.

Of course he sells a bunch of these magnetic gizmos ranging from $550 to $3250.

http://drpawluk.com/

William Pawluk, MD, MSc, is an Asssistant Professor at Johns Hopkins Medical School.

The extra S in ‘asssistant’ is for “Science”!
Googling for ‘asssistant’ + ‘Pawluk” is a demonstration of the prevalence of cut-&-paste in alt-med circles, and the absence of spellchecking.

Thank you all for your replies. I will read other postings on this blog and the other links provided with interest but I may well refrain from adding any more comments.

@Khani

@LW

Chiefly because it’s a substance diluted so much by water that it is, in fact, water.

I know you know, but the new guy might not.

Yes, I drafted that several times explaining why homeopathy is nonsense, but it always came out sounding kind of … offensive … and I didn’t want to be offensive to the new guy. So I just left it as a warning in hopes that he wouldn’t leap in to defend homeopathy and get jumped on.

sablonneuse – the lady from the Petite Sablon?

Here’s a quick summary of the case against homeopathy, at least from my perspective. Homeopathy is based on two principles that are, to put it mildly, unproven as general principles. These are:

– a substance that will cause a symptom in a healthy person will cure the same symptom in a sick person.
– the ability to cure is made stronger by successive serial dilution, shaking the solution at each dilution.

Because of the way such remedies (and I use the term loosely) are made, after 12 dilutions of 1:100 (one part previous solution to 100 parts solvent) it is unlikely that there is a single molecule of the original substance in a liter of remedy. At higher dilutions like 20C or 30C (as homeopathic remedies are labelled) it is an almost certainty that no original substance exists in any one dose; it would be pure luck that in a batch of, say, a billion doses there were one that had a single molecule of original substance.

Now, there are several competing theories homeopaths have proposed to explain this away. Generally they are contradicted by observations in chemistry, physics, biochemistry, and biology.

Of course, if homeopathy were to actually work – if, say, duck liver diluted to 200C actually did reduce the duration of flu-like symptoms in a meaningful and measurable way – then it might be worthwhile to continue looking a the supposed mechanisms for how it works. Alas, the larger, better controlled, better conducted studies have shown no effect that was distinguishable from placebo.

Note that in the world of medicine, as I understand it, and of science in general a product that works no better than a placebo would be considered ineffective.

Now, homeopaths have proposed a number of reasons why such better run studies can’t really measure the benefits of homeopathy. None of those arguments are particularly convincing.

Thus, homeopathy is:
– based on principles that are unproven and unlikely to be true.
– not convincingly shown to work.

Now, there are products labeled as homeopathic that are much less dilute. For instance, a product called Yeastaway contains:

Borax 14X HPUS (Borax)
Calendula officinalis 1X HPUS (pot marigold)
Candida albicans 30X HPUS (yeast)
Hydrastis canadensis 1X HPUS (goldenseal)

At 1 part in 10, I have no doubt that some of the ingredients have an effect. Even the Borax at one part in 100,000,000,000,000 might reasonably have some effect. The Candida 30X is likely to be completely worthless. Now, whether these ingredients in these concentrations actually follow the principles of homeopathy I leave as an exercise for the reader.

@LW – I agree completely. I have seen no evidence that the product I mentioned is effective for its intended use.

Mephistopheles and LW thank you for your very welcoming words. (I was beginning to feel this site had a lot of commenters with very strong feelings who didn’t like anyone having a different opinion).
Of course I can see how totally unscientific homeopathy is and the case for it is very much hindered by unscrupulous ‘practitioners’ who make outlandish claims and also profit from patients’ desperation.
As you must have realised by now, I’m not a scientist (that’s why I’m interested in reading blogs which explain things in relatively straightforward language) but I do know several very sincere and well qualified homeopaths who do not exploit their patients and who, in fact tell them that they should speak to their doctor about what they are doing homeopathically. Of course, there are also times when the medical profession literally ‘gives up’ on a patient and then they turn to homeopathy (etc.) in sheer desperation. (I have personal experience of such a case. The patient was given ‘a matter of months’ to live and more or less told to go home to die. That was over ten years ago.)
Also homeopaths who claim to cure practically any illness don’t do themselves (or their more honest colleagues) any favours but I happen to believe they can relieve the symptoms in many cases.
The problem with scientific trials is that (the way i understand it) homeopathy doesn’t work in a ‘one size fits all’ kind of way. Apart from remedies like Arnica, which is widely accepted, even by sceptical doctors, as being helpful for bruising, it is usual for a homeopath to choose remedies based on each individual case -so what might work for one person may not work for another with similar symptoms. If a homeopath doesn’t make the right choice then it isn’t going to work! Therefore, homeopathy is very ‘unscientific’ and difficult to test so I can see why you’re all so totally against it.
Even homeopaths themselves admit they don’t know WHY or HOW it works but would they keep doing it if it didn’t bring results? (And yes, I can hear you all saying AND MONEY!!! but the people I know derive far more satisfaction from their success than they do from the financial rewards – which are NOT that great )
Oh dear, I said I’d refrain from commenting. But a lady can change her mind can’t she?

And no, Mephistopheles, I’m not from Petit Sablon in Brussels but I don’t live far from Belgium.

@sable – one of the huge problems with homeopathy, is that if it “works” it actually violates several well-known laws of physics…..the fact that even homeopaths don’t understand how it is supposed to work (besides very strange theories that have never, ever even shown an once of actual substance) doesn’t bode well for the entire arena.

Speaking of homeopathy and individualized remedies, or Burzynski and his individualized cancer treatment, even the claim of individualized treatment doesn’t get you off the scientific hook. 

Suppose two patients come to see the practitioner of … whatever.  First Patient has traits A, B, C, and D, and is prescribed treatment X. Second Patient has traits B, C, D, and E, and is prescribed treatment Y. How did Practitioner know which to prescribe to whom?

It seems to me that Practitioner is just choosing remedies at random; is claiming magical insight (my intuition tells me so); is using magical thinking (First Patient has a lung complaint; this plant is shaped kind of like a lung; I’ll prescribe this plant); or is relying on experience, personal or someone else’s (patients with trait A seem to do better with X than with Y).

If the practitioner is choosing remedies at random, there’s no reason to go there. Anyone can choose at random.

If the Practitioner is relying on intuition, what basis does one practitioner have for following another?  Maybe this one’s intuition says to use X and that one’s says to use Y, and who’s to say which has better intuition?

But if the Practitioner is relying on experience, or even magical thinking based on something tangible, that can be tested via scientific trials.

It seems to me that such practitioners are on the horns of a dilemma: if their treatment is based on experience or something tangible, then it can be scientifically tested; if it isn’t, then they themselves have no basis whatever for trusting it.

@ sablonneuse:

Bonjour!
There is a wealth of information about alternative medicine and why people believe at Quackwatch.

One of the simplest explanations for why people believe in things that don’t – and can’t- possibly work, like homeopathy, is because they selectively attend to confirming evidence and dis-regard information that does not confirm their belief.

Often, alt med remedies seem to work because they are taken when the person is experiencing a particularly bad episode of a cyclic condition- which would subside on its own- however because its amelioration co-incides with usage of the remedy, the patient assumes that the intervention caused the relief he or she felt.

A psychologist fed piegons on an entirely random schedule: he observed that the pigeons repeated whatever they were doing immediately prior to the feeding- bobbing their heads, turning in circles, etc- behaving this way increased as if the pigeons ‘believed’ that their actions would cause another feeding. Because it was intermittenly re-inforced, it continued even when it did not precipiate a feeding.

Superstitious pigeons acted in a way that had no connection to the desired outcome, just like the superstitious patients attributed their own relief of symptoms to homeopathy or whatever alt med remedy they used. And their belief was strengthened- just like the pigeons’ were ( not that pigeons think and believe- but you know what I mean- I don’t want to translate it into stimulus-response language).

Research seeks to eliminate these biases and many others. Although our minds create these obstacles to understanding how the world- and we, ourselves- work, it also has the capacity to peer into its own operational system and control for its flaws. Plus, we have statistics. Woo hoo.

LW: yes, I can see this site is full of very well qualified scientists who could shoot down any of my ‘arguments’ in flames as I have absolutely no scientific background to rely on but, provided the explanations aren’t too complicated it’s a good reason to come back to this blog.
As for your reference to ‘Jean’ it’s ridiculous to make such claims. No wonder homeopathy has such a bad name.

This is going to upset the scientific community but I think a good homeopath needs to use a certain amount of ‘instinct’ – a kind of 6th sense even – when diagnosing complicated cases so that wouldn’t fit in with the Laws of Physics would it?! OK, now you all think I’m a bit of a nutter so I really will leave the comments box alone and content myself with reading . . . . . . . . . . .
Thanks for your help and patience!

sablonneuse, one of the authors of the book I recommended was trained in homeopathy.

@Narad

Thank you for the link — not. Now I’m going to have to scrub the image of that goshawful outfit from my mind’s eye.

(Honestly…the 70’s called. They want their jacket back).

@Sable – at the very best, homeopathy is placebo – at worst, it is used in situations where the patient should really being seeing an actual medical doctor (and the results can be very, very bad – including death, because the person refused proper medical care).

There is no plausible mechanism by which homeopathy can work – because at the end of the day, if the solution was prepared to “homeopathic” standards, there isn’t even a single atom or molecule of the original “active” ingredient left.

Suffice to also say, if water had a “memory” I would think all of the “other stuff” that has gone through the water would overwhelm any miniscule amount of “active” ingredient that is utilized….you have a better chance of getting more active ingredients just by drinking water out of the tap (and that’s free).

Take a step back and look at this from a scientific standpoint – there is no possible way that what homeopaths say they do, can actually be possible.

Lawrence: looking at your ‘water’ argument there’s no way I could disagree with that!

Of course, if homeopathy were to actually work – if, say, duck liver diluted to 200C actually did reduce the duration of flu-like symptoms in a meaningful and measurable way – then it might be worthwhile to continue looking [at] the supposed mechanisms for how it works.

But we know the mechanism. It’s dilution of a bacterium that doesn’t exist in the first place.

Hello Flip: I’m not deliberately ignoring your question but I’m not sure exactly what you mean. If you’re saying homeopathy isn’t safe when people rely on it instead of ‘going to see a proper doctor for a serious illness’ then, of course, I agree it’s not safe and any reputable homeopath should tell a patient to go to their doctor in that case. If you mean the incidence of side effects I would say that there are far more side effects from prescription drugs than from homeopathic remedies. A wrong remedy won’t work but it’s not likely to do any harm. In fact, if it’s only water then it’s got to be 100% safe! (unless the water is contaminated)
I don’t see any problem with giving children a homeopathic remedy to relieve symptoms of minor illnesses but I don’t agree with parents who reject conventional medicine out of hand.
I take your point about bias and freely admit than I do trust homeopathy for many health issues but that doesn’t mean that I reject ‘normal medicine.
As far as vaccines go I’m really asking 1) if it’s wise or really necessary to give so many injections to children so early in life and 2) if the deathrate from ‘flu hasn’t decreased noticeably since the advent of the flu vaccine then why the annual hype to persuade everyone to have it.. I’m thinking of the bullying campaign against NHS workers who opted out and were more or less told that they were being selfish and unfair to their patients and colleagues.

There’s a lot of observation and reasoning that goes on below our conscious awareness, such that we can reach a conclusion — even a correct conclusion — without being able to say what led to it.

Sadly, in mainstream medicine this led to the concept of “clinical judgement” where doctors and surgeons keep applying an inferior treatment, blithely insisting that their years of experience and finely honed clinical judgement inform them that the treatment helps more patients than it harms… just like everyone else, they remember the successes and downplay their failures.

Hence the rise of Evidence-Based Medicine. Doctors are no more objective about their success rates than anyone else, and need statistical support.
———————————————-
Sablonneuse : Homeopaths then have to choose from a large number of possible remedies with only subtle differences as well as deciding on the potency and frequency of the dose.

This is one of the warning signs, for me. New products are continually added to the Materia Medica. You would think that products would sometimes be removed because a new addition is superior, but no.

in homeopathy […] there are literally hundreds of different criteria to take into account when prescribing a remedy. They also have to rely on the patients own perception and ability to explain their symptoms, combining this with what they themselves observe. […] One of the big problems facing us all is that there must be loads of homeopaths out there with the minimum of training and qualifications who are giving homeopathy a bad name.

Well, yes. And if the homeopath establishment has no way of distinguishing competent homeopaths from incompetent ones, and no way of disqualifying a homeopath who is supplying an inadequate standard of care, then what hope is there for the rest of us?

It seems safer to assume that all homeopaths are self-deluding or fraudulent, rather than rely on the chance of encountering one of the hypothetical competent ones.

^ Blown blockquote, sorry.

Well, yes. And if the homeopath establishment has no way of distinguishing competent homeopaths from incompetent ones, and no way of disqualifying a homeopath who is supplying an inadequate standard of care, then what hope is there for the rest of us?

You forgot “no way of distinguishing one homeopathic remedy from another.”

@134 sablonneuse – A wrong remedy won’t work but it’s not likely to do any harm. In fact, if it’s only water then it’s got to be 100% safe! (unless the water is contaminated) I don’t see any problem with giving children a homeopathic remedy to relieve symptoms of minor illnesses

@sablonneuse – LW made an excellent observation @115. Zicam and Hyland’s Teething Tablets are considered by some to be homeopathic remedies, yet they have serious risks. You don’t see a problem with giving babies belledonna, or worse yet, giving them inconsistent and sometimes toxic doses?

@119 MOB: Any positive results – regardless of how infrequent – are the result of the power of the remedy. Any negative results – regardless of how frequent – are the fault of the skill of the prescribing homeopath.

It seems that “sablonneuse” may be trying to invoke the ‘blame the patient’ excuse for the cases where homeopathic remedies don’t work.

@134 sablonneuse They also have to rely on the patients own perception and ability to explain their symptoms, combining this with what they themselves observe.

@Sablonneuse

Hello Flip: I’m not deliberately ignoring your question but I’m not sure exactly what you mean.

What I mean is, you seem to be ok with the safety levels of homeopathy, but not of vaccines. Why are you worried about the risks of one, but not the other?

What research have you done to ensure homeopathy is safe before using it? And if you haven’t done any research before using it, then your comments about vaccine safety are fairly… pointless. You want 100% safety guaranteed for one thing, but don’t seem to care about safety for something else.

Case in point:
You give a child 5 homeopathic remedies over several months. It’s supposed to combat measles. This is different to giving a vaccine how?

Or, as I tried to say before… nothing is 100% safe. You can get run over by a bus, but I seriously doubt that you never leave your house. You can get sick from milk, but you probably drink it. Why do you expect 100% safety guaranteed for vaccines?

My guess is what you’re looking for here is the naturalistic fallacy – homeopathy seems more natural to you, and vaccines are less natural, therefore vaccines are worse than homeopathy. Am I guessing right?

And the “won’t do any harm” thing is also silly: not just because of what the others have mentioned, but also because you seem to think that there are no side effects *ever* to homeopathic products. If you believe it works, then what do you think prevents you from an overdose, for example?

@herr doktor bimler:

There’s a lot of observation and reasoning that goes on below our conscious awareness, such that we can reach a conclusion — even a correct conclusion — without being able to say what led to it.

Sadly, in mainstream medicine this led to the concept of “clinical judgement” where doctors and surgeons keep applying an inferior treatment, blithely insisting that their years of experience and finely honed clinical judgement inform them that the treatment helps more patients than it harms… just like everyone else, they remember the successes and downplay their failures.

That’s true, of course, and that’s why I’ve been stressing that we’re not picking on alt med in general or homeopathy in particular by insisting on proper evidence.  However, a good doctor in the course of coming to a diagnosis may ask questions or check signs that aren’t in the “standard checklist”, due to some “intuition” that forms based on hints that may not even be consciously perceived. That’s not the same thing as deciding whether a treatment is effective or not based on personal experience.

Narad:

This is set out quite clearly at the beginning of the Organon.

Some of the “miasms” outlined in the Organon are syphilis and gonorrhea. What sablonneuse needs to do is see if those bacterial diseases are adequately treated by homeopathy, or by modern medicine today. What is the actual standard of medicine for both of those diseases?

Giving a child 5 doses of homeopathic remedies might be saver than 5 vaccinations, but the vaccinations actually work and are effective, which can’t be said of homeopathic remedies, which are just water.

@sablonneuse: “Therefore, as far as I can see it’s much safer to give a chiild 5 doses of (properly prescribed ) homeopathy than 5 vaccinations in a short period of time.”

That’s true. Actually it doesn’t matter whether the homeopathic remedy is properly prescribed or not, as long as it is sufficiently diluted. You could, and perhaps do, swig down eight cups of homeopathic remedies a day without harm.

However, the difference between homeopathic remedies and vaccines is that vaccines have genuine effects (beyond keeping you hydrated, of course).

Small children who get a bump or bruise or scrape will often ask their mommy to “kiss and make it better”, and she does and it will feel better. Taking a homeopathic remedy is like getting mommy’s kiss: it doesn’t do anything physically, but it has a psychological effect. But mommy’s kiss — or a homeopathic remedy — won’t keep the child from getting tetanus if there are tetanus spores in that scratch. A prior tetanus immunization very likely will.

Mommy’s loving care, or a homeopathic nostrum, mayl make a child feel better while suffering through measles, but it won’t stop the encephalitis that can kill or cause severe brain injury. A measles immunization very likely will prevent the measles altogether.

A good friend of my family is a retired pediatrician. She used to practice in Colorado where anti-vax sentiments are strong, and it was always a struggle for her to persuade parents that vaccination is beneficial. She didn’t always succeed. One year there was a measles outbreak and one of her patients whose parents refused to vaccinate, got the measles and suffered severe brain damage. He didn’t *die*, but everything that he might have become was utterly destroyed.

Anti-vaxxers will often point to the low death rate from measles (thanks to modern medicine) as proof that the measles vaccine is unnecessary, but they overlook the patients who don’t die but are severely and permanently harmed.

So yes, vaccines have a risk associated with them because they are actually doing something to protect you. Properly prepared homeopathic remedies have no risk because they’re not doing anything.

You should not restrict your evaluation to risk only; you should also consider benefits.

@sablonneuse – What I’m about to relate is anecdote, not science, but it demonstrates a point.

Some time back there was someone who posted on this blog that he believed that his frequent bouts of gout were cured by one of several homeopathic remedies. When he would get a flare-up of his symptoms, he would try one of the remedies. If this didn’t work (and if I recall correctly, the first choice never did) he’d move through a series of these until his symptoms subsided. This he credited to finding the correct treatment; for some reason (possibly one of the hundreds of considerations) the same remedy never worked twice in a row two bouts of gout in the same person were sufficiently different, in his mind, to justify the failure of one remedy to cure both.

It was pointed out that what he described is a pretty typical cycle for untreated gout – that based on the data presented, you could tell no difference between his experience with homeopathic medicines and simply not treating at all. It was further pointed out that untreated gout has a very good possibility of doing serious damage to one’s joints, but there were medicines shown to be effective in clinical studies.

There are several ways to interpret this person’s experience. Since what he observed is what one would reasonably expect to happen if gout were left untreated, the simplest explanation was that this was exactly what happened. None of the remedies he tried had any particular effect; the interpretation that it did came from the normal way gout symptoms progress.

This is the simplest explanation; while I believe it highly likely to be true, it could be overturned by better data. The level of data this person was able to point to did not

Why did this person believe that homeopathy worked when it seems so much more likely that it did nothing? Because he saw the symptoms reduce if he kept trying long enough.

@sablonneuse: “It’s exactly this problem that worries me. Why does something that is meant to protect you carry a risk of doing you harm?”

I am of course a layman but I can explain my understanding in laymen’s terms.  The point of a vaccine is to tell your immune system, “Here is something that you should watch for and attack if you ever see it again.” Unfortunately, stirring up the immune system can be hazardous — it’s thought that deaths from the 1917 flu were often caused by the immune system itself.

Vaccines are, of course, designed to stir up the immune system just enough to teach it, but not enough for it to do any harm. Since everyone is different, sadly, sometimes the vaccine does harm.   Again in laymen’s terms, you might think of staging a drill with a platoon of soldiers — raw recruits, in fact. We hope that they all figure out where to go and which end of the rifle to point where, but every so often — fortunately very rarely — one will manage to shoot himself or a neighbor.

We could of course avoid such accidents by never drilling the soldiers. If we did, however, when an attack did come, there would be a frantic scramble — with potentially even more accidents — by the inexperienced troops. And they might fail to fend off the attack anyway.

No one can say for sure if a given patient will get the measles or other disease or suffer harm from it without being vaccinated. We can only play the odds — and the odds of suffering harm from the vaccine are far less than the odds of suffering harm from the disease. 

With regard to Arnica – at what concentration does it work? When I look up arnica cream, the commercial products I find range from about 1% – 7% arnica in a base containing various presumed inactive ingredients. Assuming this is what’s being discussed, this is merely an herbal medicine without anything distinctly homeopathic about it.

The comment from Chuck about treating gout with homeopathy. We learn that it took him sometimes months to find a homeopathic treatment that “worked”, and that he had suffered sufficient damage from untreated gout that he expected to need “a big toe replacement”. I didn’t know those were possible.

@161 Failed to close italics after blockquote.

Scalar wave ‘technology’ is discussed on Quwave.

http://quwave.com/Scalar-Waves.html

Mephistopheles: I like the gout story and yes, I can see why you are telling me this with regard to Arnica. The gel I buy here is 7% arnica with various other oils etc. It warns that it’s not to be used on babies under a year old, on open cuts, eyes or mucous membranes. I bruise very easily so also take the granules if it’s a ‘big bump’. Of course I have absolutely no way of proving that it works without trying to get two identical bumps and using Arnica for one of them!

Liz Ditz: thank you for Pablo’s Law. Very appropriate! You’re right that homeopathy is widely available in France and some GPs even write prescriptions for it. The majority of chemists stock a wide variety of remedies and can get anything at all within 24 hours.
I take your point about measles. I can remember having it round about my 4th birthday. My mother said it was responsible for my extreme shortsightedness.

Scalar wave ‘technology’ is discussed on Quwave.

Thank you, S, for that link to total wibble. I need more coffee now. Much more coffee.

What is it about new-age quackery and bad website design? Do they think that shouty colour choices seem more authentic? That Quwave / ‘scalar wave’ site had bright blue backgrounds; red bold lettering on gray backgrounds; the works.

@166 HDB – Thank you, S, for that link to total wibble. I need more coffee now. Much more coffee.

@HDB – The links reference NutraMedix’s Cowden protocol by Dr. William Lee Cowden. The protocol uses “extract” formulas that have been bio-infused using scalar waves. ILADS physicians use the Cowden protocol to treat what they diagnose as an infection of Lyme disease. Of course they use special labs and special tests, whose results can not be reproduced anywhere else. If I understand correctly, they claim that Cowden’s Banderol is 98.6% as effective as Feldene and is safe in lab rats even at 88,000 times the equivalent human dose. http://www.nutramedix.ec/ns/banderol

They claim that the ingredient in their Enula tincture will kill parasites within 16 hours, even if it is diluted to a 1:1000 ratio. The extract ingredient is also 100% effective at killing MRSA. You would think that Big Pharma would snatch up these great products? They are very expensive to purchase, maybe that’s why Big Pharma is passing on them. A full 30-day kit might cost you about $500.

http://www.nutramedix.ec/ns/lyme-protocol

*These products have been energetically imprinted* with a proprietary process using a scalar generator for the purpose of enhancing the effectiveness of the natural chemicals in each product. All of the Microbial Defense products have been imprinted with specific energies to aid the body in dealing with specific microbes.

@Narad – I found this on Rational Wiki. It seems to be the same thing that you mention. http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Scalar_wave

(Is there anything you don’t know?)

(Is there anything you don’t know?)

Yah, a whole honkin’ lot, much of it, sadly, of an importantly practical nature. In this this case, I recalled this entry from Mark Chu-Carroll, who’s over at Scientopia these days. The short version of what he’s trying to do with the quaternions is in the comments:

My physics degree is rather dusty, but it’s enough to immediately recognize precisely what is going on with this sort of blabbering. (Cheniere.org is his site; he seems to have additional interests.)

Thank you for the link to Mark Chu-Carroll.

This is an absolute masterwork of crackpottery.

He summed it up well, no pun intended. So there is an international medical organization that is selling the “absolute masterwork of crackpottery” to treat patients who have an infectious disease. There’s jus’ someth’g not quite right about that.

@ sablonneuse

“BUT, as we both agree, in a homeopathic dilution there isn’t enough (or any) of the original substance so it has got to be safe. ”

BUT, as I pointed out earlier, delaying effective treatment can cause harm – you’d be allowing the illness to progress.

This, in turn, brings it back to diagnosis, as well as the (lack of) effectiveness of homeopathic remedies. A point here is that you really have to consider these two elements too, they can’t really be put aside.

(Sorry for repeating, but seeing you say this again leaves me wondering if you “got” the point I was making earlier.)

BUT, as we both agree, in a homeopathic dilution there isn’t enough (or any) of the original substance so it has got to be safeuseless. (We’ll leave out the word ‘effective’ for the time being).

You can’t avoid efficacy, it is the whole point of having to swallow a capsule.

Your GP knows you can’t swallow caps and still prescribes them?

Did Bearden write for StarGate? Zero-point energy. 8{P

I work with a guy convinced he’s gonna make a perpetual motion machine with magnets. I mention there are two other successful designs, but they are no more than Rube Goldbergian curiosities as they produce zero energy.

Which is why he’s using magnets.

Then there’s the other colleague who went to a Tesla machine healer whose wallet was cured of cash.

@182 – How are they trapping the bio-energy from beyond the stars and bringing it back to earth? Shouldn’t they let NASA know about this ‘technology’? I wonder if they have to file a flight plan or pay customs fees for trans galaxy shipping and inspections.

@LW: My wife swears by a certain “homeopathic” arnica preparation. Now I’m quite prepared to believe that the stuff is efficaceous, but as I keep pointing out, it isn’t homeopathy as we understand the term. In other words, it actually contains some arnica. I’ve no objection to her recommending the stuff, but I’m trying to get her to stop referring to it as homeopathic because it muddies the waters (no pun intended).

Of course, this confusion only helps the homeopaths and quacks (yes, I know that’s redundant). They can say “this so-called homeopathic remedy is efficaceous. Therefore all homeopathic remedies are efficaceous. Science cannot explain how real homeopathy works. Therefore science knows nothing about homeopathy. Therefore my favourite rectally-sourced explanation for it must be treated as gospel.” It’s troll logic, of course, but it can be quite effective if dressed up in enough quantum.

There are two questions that anyone who believes in homeopathy should really strongly consider.

1. Are the fundamental principles of homeopathy well demonstrated as true or at least reasonable? The answer is no. As others have pointed out, there are substantial areas of chemistry, physics, and biology that are not consistent with these principles.

2. Regardless of the answer to question 1, are the specific remedies prepared in the manner they are currently prepared shown to be effective? Once again, the answer would have to be no for the vast majority of homeopathic remedies.

Sablonneuse:

It’s a question weighing benefits and risks which can often be couched in numerical terms:
very generally**, X vaccine carries of risk of complications of 1 per million but the illness itself carries a risk of serious complications of 1 in a thousand.

Thus 1 per thousand or 1 per million: easily vaccines win.

People who fear vaccines usually believe pseudo-scientific research that vaccines cause autism at a rate of approximately 1 per hundred – so they are comparing the 1 per thousand to 1 per hundred plus 1 per million. Vaccines lose. Their figures are not based on reality but they use them nevertheless.

**Of course there are other risks and benefits ( losing school or work days, suffering etc) that we can put into the equation, and not every vaccine “takes”, protection of people who can’t be vaccinated etc.

@Lawrence: “no one would use that small chance as a justification for not wearing a seatbelt, would they?”

I actually knew someone who did.

I have a hypothesis. I believe that for some people risks caused by inaction are far more acceptable than risks caused by action – even if the numbers say that’s wrong.

sablonneuse said:
“Grant: I do get your point and have already said that a good homeopath should recognise when it’s necessary to see a medical doctor. Unfortunately, as you say, there are many cases when ‘proper’ treatment is delayed. I don’t dispute that at all.”

Sablonneuse, you seem like a really nice person, and I hope you will interpret our tone here with friendly intent. I see you engaging in a logical fallacy called the “No True Scotsman” here in your statement, only it’s more like “No True Homeopath” would fail to recognize when a client needs medical care. However, there are documented (caught on video) cases of British homeopaths recommending homeopathic treatment for infectious diseases like malaria. Wouldn’t you agree that these practitioners should at the very least be sanctioned, and with that in mind, how does one judge whether a homeopath is good or ethical enough to recommend medical intervention?

You seem really nice, and I like to see nice people examine their own pre-conceptions so they don’t get taken advantage of. It’s a road I’ve been down myself.

I did an exercise for the Quackometer blog a while back. Google cancer + homeopathy, or AIDS + homeopathy, and you will get DOZENS of hits from homeopaths’ own websites in the USA (and India, especially) offering homeopathic treatment for those life-threatening diseases. In the UK it has to be a little more “nudge nudge wink wink” as the Cancer Act prohibits such advertising, but off the record, as Melissa G. states, many homeopaths are convinced their sugar balls can cure such diseases.

Homeopaths in fact discourage patients from seeing real doctors, they are anti-vaccination by and large, anti-flouride and anti-real medicine. A true homeopath believes his sugar balls can prevent or cure anything.

Once again, look up Penelope Dingle.

And speak of the devil, just posted, here’s homeopath Dana Ullman condemning vaccines:

http://www.thetwentyfirstfloor.com/?p=7655

Darwy – I’m not entirely sure that’s fair. I’m sure many homeopaths believe that they’re doing great good because of what they’ve been taught.

Hi Sablonneuse! I’m really glad to hear you’re learning more about vaccine efficacy and safety here. No one minds explaining things to someone who’s genuinely asking. In fact, we kind of love it! 🙂

@Sablonneuse

I haven’t personally researched all the homeopathic remedies to find out which ones are poisonous but i do trust my homeopath to know which are which

Now follow to the next thought:
How do the homeopaths know what’s poisonous and what’s not?

BUT, as we both agree, in a homeopathic dilution there isn’t enough (or any) of the original substance so it has got to be safe

If there is no original substance left, then how does it work?
As an easy to understand not-quite-accurate analogy:
I have a car. I dilute gas with water, so much that there’s no trace of the gas left, only water. I put the water in the car. Does the car still work? And more to the point – does exchanging one substance for another mean that the car is safe to drive?

Please also go back and answer the other questions. They are relevant, and if you don’t know the answer, that’s fine, but please at least try.

It would be difficult to shake my acceptance of homeopathy but I have to say I have learned a lot more regarding the risks and safety of vaccination and I’d like to thank all those who have taken the time and trouble to explain in simple terms. I have been reading too many arguments from ‘the other side’ so it makes a refreshing change to come to this blog.

Well, if anything I’m happy that you’ve considered our positions – it’s great to see for once someone genuinely interested in understanding and learning, rather than just trolling for laughs or getting too frustrated to stick around and read our replies.

@Sable – actually, Science can explain that right now, you don’t have to wait:

1) It is the placebo effect – you feel better because you’ve made yourself believe that the “treatment” is helpful.

2) You are treating a condition that is of short duration or variability in symptoms, meaning that you take the “remedy” and the symptoms disappear, but that they would have gone away on their own, if you hadn’t done anything at all (which is really what you are doing, taking “water” for whatever ails you).

See, this whole “belief and faith” thing was great a few hundred years ago, when we didn’t have anything else to go on – but now we actually have the tools and methods for determining what ails people and developing (and testing) effective treatments. Of course, we are still learning, but we’ve gotten past the point of hocus pocus & beliefs in the “invisible.”

Of course, no harm, no foul – you can continue to do what you think is right, but I hope that by coming here, you’ve shown at least a shadow of doubt that this “treatment(s)” aren’t what they are claimed to be & potentially harmful in some situations as well (and finally, no better than placebo).

Just to annoy Grant and any other NZers.

Lawrence: you mention the placebo effect. So, scientifically speaking, does this mean the illness was not rea/serious or it IS possible to cure oneself purely by believing – mind over matter, in fact – or is the ‘cure’ not real. Of course, I realise it depends on the illness in question and maybe the person concerned as well. You can’t cure a broken leg by willpower – or even a common cold!
I can see the logic of your second explanation. For example I tested positive for an allergy to cats (we have six and would never part with them). I wasn’t happy about using an inhaler and taking antihistamines longterm so my homeopath gave me potentized cat fur (from freshly licked fur) and later granules diluted from the ‘official’ homeopathic tincture. OK, so this all smacks of hocus pocus but I’m not allergic any more. All the same, I’ve no doubt you’ll tell me it’s scientifically possible to ‘lose’ an allergy without treatment. : )

Grant;: thanks for replying. Yes, I’m afraid I can only speak from my own experience and i wouldn’t want to push it onto other people just because I use it so, in a way, we’re looking at the argument from different angles. Looking at it from a scientific point of view, you all reject it because scientifically it doesn’t work. I can see that, but I also have a circle of friends and acquaintances who use homeopathy and, OK, it may be a self perpetuating myth we’re creating here, but we do consider it helps alleviate many small health problems. For bigger ones -we all agree – go and see the doctor. So, yes, I do want to have it both ways, don’t I?

By the way, what exactly is ‘woo’. I’d guess from the context it means ‘merde’!

but I have an open mind when it comes to certain things that can’t be explained by the laws of science as we know them.

No, you have a closed mind. Why?
You “do have room for a little ‘belief’ that doesn’t have to be based on hard fact.”

And that means you have faith in homeoquackery, despite the knowledge of all the evidence otherwise. This is no different than religion.

Don’t like the answers reality provides? Clutch your faith even tighter…

@Sablonneuse

i can’t answer all your questions but I would like to hope that by now they have figured out which substances are toxic and which are not.

So I take it that means you don’t know how they test for safety, or whether they do or not?

I do have room for a little ‘belief’ that doesn’t have to be based on hard fact.

As I suspect, you take it on faith alone. You don’t ask for evidence of efficacy or safety. And yet, you come here and tell us that vaccines should be safe.

Once again, I’d like to point out to you that you seem to be using one set of standards for homeopathy, and another for vaccines. Even though both would require safety and efficacy.

What makes it worse is that you accept homeopathy blindly, but require scientists to use evidence before you’d accept vaccines. So for homeopathy it exists in this magical realm of faith, and vaccines it exists in a world where evidence and facts matter. Please now go look up the definition of “cognitive dissonance”.

@Sablonneuse

…
If you accept homeopathy based on faith alone, it might mean you have accepted misinformation about vaccines without realising it. It might also mean that you need to stop putting so much faith in what you experience, and learn more about how the human mind tricks itself and why science and medical trials were invented.

As an example, I’ve been suffering from asthma. At first I thought I just needed to dust, and sometimes I thought I was reacting to some herbal tea, and sometimes I thought it was my cat…. and so on. The problem is that my asthma would get better and worse and then better, etc. So it was hard to know what exactly might have been the cause. The trouble is that I can’t work it out like that: I may not be aware of other factors that somebody trained in medicine might know; I might ignore one thing in favour of another (maybe unwilling to give up laziness makes me unfit, which causes my asthma). Or I might simply be experiencing a long-term problem due to an environmental or underlying health issue which can only be found through serious testing. Sure, I can cut out tea and I can “think” I’m feeling better – but am I actually better?

The only way to know for sure is to properly test things, and properly control for the mind playing tricks on you. One person is not enough to tell whether something works or not, or whether something is safe or not. Different people react different ways, which is why medical trials try to include as many people as possible so they can take an average of the benefits, side effects and so on.

Yes, I’m afraid I can only speak from my own experience and i wouldn’t want to push it onto other people just because I use it so, in a way, we’re looking at the argument from different angles. Looking at it from a scientific point of view, you all reject it because scientifically it doesn’t work.

This is known as the “other ways of knowing” fallacy. I can’t seem to find a decent definition of what it means, so I hope I can do justice to it:

“Other ways of knowing” is basically saying that you can pick and choose facts. The sun will rise tomorrow in the east, no matter if you choose to believe in it or not. Your “different way of looking at the world” doesn’t mean that the sun will rise in the west for you, and in the east for everyone else. Facts are facts, no matter what prism you see them through.

As for “woo”, try googling “what is woo”.. I’d put in the link, but I think the site is eating it.

(Severe apologies for the multiple, and probably by now, very repeated, comments)

flip; yes, i agree I’ve accepted misinformation about vaccines. That’s why I’ve been looking for different views and found this site.
Yes, I’ve googled ‘woo’ and it came up with the modern definition. Thanks. Google translation only gave “courtiser”.

Sableonneuse:

Looking at it from a scientific point of view, you all reject it because scientifically it doesn’t work. I can see that, but I also have a circle of friends and acquaintances who use homeopathy and, OK, it may be a self perpetuating myth we’re creating here, but we do consider it helps alleviate many small health problems.

You need to look at the history of homeopathy and some of Hahnemann’s original notions. That was two centuries ago, has much changed in homeopathy versus actual medical practices? Hahnemann had decided there were miasms that he could cure with homeopathy.

I asked you this earlier, but you seem to have missed it: a couple of those “miasms” were gonorrhea and syphilis. Now ask your homeopath how she/he would treat those if someone presented the symptoms of one of those bacterial infections.

I was for a while considering buying homeopathic tablets to use as placebos when my kids were fussy. But as not all homeopathic tablets are really harmless (a surprising number are actually untested drugs labeled “homeopathic” as a regulatory shortcut), I decided not to do that after all.

Allergies do fluctuate naturally. I used to be allergic to peanuts and tree nuts. I scarf them by the handful now. 😉 Alas, I never did lose the cat allergy, so I have to continue with the cat-free household.

@ sablonneuse:

What you say is true: if each vaccine carried a risk of 1 per million then giving two would increase the risk- you even hint at interaction- but let’s even assume that there’s no overlap of risk : 1 per million plus 1 per million plus 1 for the interaction- that still would be only 3 per million. That would still be a very small risk of 1 per 333 333. I think it’s actually smaller.

Although I believe that there are things that science hasn’t explained, I would hold that most of the arguments used by alt med to justify their activities ARE already explained by general science- physics, chemistry, biology and psychology.

A physicist said that we must make sure we’re not fooling ourselves – we’re the easiest ones to fool. When you are experiencing the illness or the cure, you can’t stand outside of yourself and observe dispassionately; also if you are testing your pet theory or an idea for a new product to market, you aren’t exactly neutral.

Science gives us methods of becoming more neutral: using large numbers of subjects, blinding, using statistical analyses, outside observers, publication and replication by others.Then it is not just ourselves and a small number of selected subjects but a representative sample of the population at large done using procedures agreed upon by others and published for everyone to see and criticise.

A study that ‘implicated’ vaccines in the causation of autism was done using only 12 subjects- there were more experimenters ( 13) than there were subjects! It frightened parents away from vaccines enough that diseases that had declined sharply because of vaccines began to re-appear in the western world. It concerned giving three vaccines together.

There was more wrong with this study: the subjects were not randomly recruited ( but came through an advocacy group and their lawyer), the main experimenter was not a neutral party- he had a patent for a single vaccine; fixing data and other ethical issues were also involved.

When I first read this study, I felt something was wrong: it didn’t fit what I had studied previously about development. No one else had found this connection.

A few years later, my cousin feared for his newborn child: would vaccines harm him, he asked? I said that I have no problems with vaccination and that I DID have problems with the study that had frightened everyone.

Little by little, the author’s tampering and malfeasance was un-covered and he was cast out of the medical profession.

Similarly, a psychologist was found to have created data: it was revealed after his death; however his material affected how children were educated, especially the poor.

Through publication, both studies were available to scientists and the general public: researchers, who were not in either of the authors’ camps, found different results. They were not compromised by either monetary aims or possible prejudice like the originators I discussed. Recently, a major journal ( BMJ) requested its authors to make their data available on publication.

Science allows us to look beyond our own perspective, prejudices and error, to observe and describe what may actually exist.

By the way, what exactly is ‘woo’.

I like the word. It puts me in mind of spooky Theremin sound effects playing in the background while some New Age magical claim is ‘explained’ with a melange of sciency buzzwords.

Similarly, a psychologist was found to have created data: it was revealed after his death; however his material affected how children were educated, especially the poor.

In another case similar to the Burt episode, did you see the recent expose of Wertham? A doctor who campaigned in the 1950s against garish comic books (“The Seduction of the Innocent” — allegedly their graphic depictions of sex & violence were turning susceptible youths into delinquents) left enough of his raw case notes lying around for someone to go through them systematically. The anecdotes he reported in his books and in congressional hearings turned out to bear little relationship to what he had recorded in his research.

regarding that idea that the risk associated with receiving 2 different vaccines might increase multiply rather than additively (“perhaps it more than doubles because they are given together”), recall the human immune system is demostrably capable of dealing with thousands of individual antigens we’re exposed to from our enviroment, diet, etc., on a daily basis without adverse event. A newborn is exposed to more antigens in the first 5 minutes after delivery than it would ever see during as a reult of the most aggressive vaccination schedule imaginable. One or two vaccinations, particularly with the current acellular vaccines? Far less than the proverbial drop in the bucket in terms in terms of total antigen exposure.

@sablonneuse – see wikipedia, etc., for miasmic theory – it’s an historical idea that “foul atmospheres” caused illness. (Foul as in smelling bad.)

Think of it as an association of environment and illness before bacteria, etc., were known. Naturally it’s long been discredited. It’s fun as a piece of history and you can see where it comes from. If you trace back the origins of some of these things like homeopathy you’ll find they’re founded on things like this, which is why some of us find it embarrassing they still exist.

“I regard her as a sincere and intelligent person so you can understand why I sometimes have problems taking in the scientific evaluation.”

People can be sincere and wrong, even otherwise intelligent people. Better to rely on evidence and a community of people who are willing (too willing!) to criticise each other’s work to suss out what’s right and what’s not.

Now I have a question: How can you all be sure that every scientist’s research is absolutely reliable?

To echo Grant’s message, it is well known that not every paper published is equally valuable and not every announced discovery can be repeated. Highly reputable scientists make errors. Examples that come to mind that you may have heard of include the apparent discovery of a particle that moved faster than light at CERN (it didn’t), the use of vitamin C to cure influenza, and cold fusion. While those were pretty spectacular claims that didn’t pan out, science is full of things that one team believes they have found, only to discover later that they more sort of didn’t.

I’m thinking of the case of the UEA scientists whose emails showed a certain amount of ‘playing with the data’ in their research on climate change as an example.

You may be interested to learn that 8 different investigations found no evidence of fraud or misconduct. They also found that the UEA data was in line with that used by other independent groups.

How does fraud get found out?
these two got caught because there was something suspicious about their data- or in Wakefield’s case, how he himself behaved as well.
Their results did not fit other previous research well. Data was not replicated by others who were not directly connected to the principals – and in Burt’s case, correlations, in diverse instances, were remarkably similar- actually the same, to three decimal places ( highly unlikely in the real world) as well as other issues.
Wakefield refused to replicate his own work and made a fuss about being interviewed.
I wonder if Wakefield may have learned something about how to cheat from the earlier case and its un-covering- his own fixed data were not as ‘perfect’ as Burt’s- but he messed up in other interesting ways.

sablonneuse:

Chris: I thought the miasms were kind of ‘categories’ of patients but I may well be wrong. When it comes to contagious diseases I think homoepaths use nosodes – taken from actual infected material – but I can’t really get into this discussion because I don’t know enough about it.

It is common that many of the defenders of homeopathy actually know very little about it. Miasms are what Hahnemann thought caused the disease. For a more complete explanation read this:
http://www.skepdic.com/homeo.html

And for Sablonneuse, the nine red flags for woo:

Woo most always contains most of the following characteristics:

A simple idea that purports to be the one answer to many problems (often including diseases)

A “scientific-sounding” reason for how it works, but little to no actual science behind it; for example, quote mines of studies that if bent enough could be described in such a way to support it, outright misapplication of studies, or words that sound scientific but make no sense in the context they are used in

It involves the supernatural and paranormal (not necessarily)

A claim of persecution, usually perpetrated by the government or the pharmaceutical, medical, or scientific community

An invocation of a scientific authority

Prefers to use abundant testimonials over actual scientific research

A claim that scientists are blind to the discovery, despite attempts to alert them

A disdain for objective, randomized experimental controls, especially double-blind testing (which are kind of what makes epidemiology actually, y’know, work)

And, usually, an offer to share the knowledge for a price.

You can see how homeopathy has many of these markers.

Miasms are what Hahnemann thought caused the disease.

Note that miasm “theory” is an active field of study. Unfortunately, Dimitrialis seems to throw Hahnemann under the bus by asserting the existence of “infectious agents.”

@Sablonneuse

i agree I’ve accepted misinformation about vaccines. That’s why I’ve been looking for different views and found this site.

It’s great that you’ve been willing to go and read more; I really do hope that you consider my points about how you trust homeopathy vs how you distrust vaccines.

Though, of course, in France they are readily available at most chemists and sometimes even with doctors’ prescriptions)

If there’s no substance left in the homeopathic treatment, why do they need to provide a prescription for it? And whether there is or isn’t any substance in it, this practice implies that homeopathy comes with risks – otherwise it would be an over the counter medication.

I regard her as a sincere and intelligent person so you can understand why I sometimes have problems taking in the scientific evaluation. It’s a bit of a shock to the system!

This is the problem – you are trusting of the person, rather than the data. I return to my original question: how do the homeopaths know what is safe and what is not?

Now I have a question: How can you all be sure that every scientist’s research is absolutely reliable? Scientists are human too and may be tempted to ‘tweak’ data to help prove a point – or worse, deliberately misrepresent results. I’m thinking of the case of the UEA scientists whose emails showed a certain amount of ‘playing with the data’ in their research on climate change as an example.

This is another example of you believing misinformation (there are plenty of science-based websites that discuss the issues of climate change that have more info). You need to stop believing everything you hear/read and check people’s sources or read the original data.

As for your question: scientists publish data. Other scientists then go and double check that data. If errors or fraud is found, then the second lot of scientists publish that information. On the other hand: how do you know if the homeopaths are reliable? Do they publish data so you can check it for yourself? Do they allow other people to test their treatments and report the truth of safety/efficacy?

Yes, scientists are human: so are the homeopaths. The difference is the homeopaths go out of their way to ignore or not bother with providing evidence. Scientists on the other hand allow for their work to be shredded by other scientists, because it’s the only way to ensure every possible answer is looked at and tested.

In fact, the whole point about repeatedly asking you about how homeopaths know is so that you consider that they might not actually know anything: that they might actually be guessing, and might be completely unreliable because they don’t KNOW but rather GUESS.

@DW

Thanks for saying what I was trying to in a clearer manner.

@Narad

So not only does the water have a memory, but so does the miasma?

However, for all intensive purposes

It is always a delight to see an egg-corn in the wild.

@sablonneuse

Pointing at someone and saying “they use it” doesn’t make using it a good idea. (As an example, any number of famous people have taken “class A” recreational drugs – does that make it a good idea to take them too?)

You really ought to be looking at the *evidence*. It’s what it comes down to the end.

For example, there is an extensive examination of the evidence for homeopathy by the House of Commons Science and Technology Select Committee:

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200910/cmselect/cmsctech/45/4502.htm

(There’s an earlier evidence check that might be more relevant and more documents but I don’t want to link them all as more than a couple of links will cause this comment to be treated as spam.)

The links my post point to are explaining how vaccines work and giving the overview. You’ll do better if you read this first before diving off into details (or sidetracking as you seem to have). It’s easy to spot a number of the anti-vaccine myths if you know the basics.

“Does it mean health officials don’t bother to read the manufacturers’ own research results before making a product available?”

Of course they read them. They also read the medical research literature and take advice.

If you do more reading you will find that the *medical* advice is that (some of) the whooping cough vaccines are recommended to be given to pregnant women. (Before the last couple of weeks of pregnancy.) Others can fill you in on the details. (Like Orac, I’m a bit busy with a grant application!)

I strongly suspect that the document you link to gives the contents of the little leaflet that the company includes with the vaccine. Disclaimers will be in these for *legal* reasons. (Companies have to protect themselves.) You need to look for the *medical* advice.

Anti-vaccine groups lately are holding up various disclaimers as if they were medical advice – these people are scaremongering or poorly informed. I’ve seen similar nonsense on the same issue from the local anti-vaccine group.

It is always a delight to see an egg-corn in the wild.

A true Mondegreen.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondegreen

I get the feeling I may be annoying some of you now. I concede that many of my preconceptions on vaccines were mistaken and thank all those who have explained patiently and fully.
As for homeopathy – call it stupidity, pig headedness, delusion -what you will – but I am having trouble accepting the science. You have all been very helpful and there are still plenty of links for me to explore. I shall carry on reading but – and I mean it this time – I’m bowing out of this discussion for the time being.
Who knows, I may not be able to resist popping up again on a different post but feel free to ignore me!
Here’s wishing all the best to all of you.

@sablonneuse

I don’t think you’re annoying anyone. You are asking good questions and seem to be making an effort to learn more.

Here is a question for you to ask regarding homeopathy: if you take several potent (e.g., 12C or greater) homeopathic remedies to a homeopath, how can they tell which remedy is which? When you get it, how can you determine if it is actually the remedy you requested, rather than simply water, alcohol or sugar and whatever other non-active ingredients they might use?

You don’t need to answer…just some questions to ponder.

Not annoyed at all. Also, by answering her, we are providing the lurkers with additional material.

@Sablonneuse

I think it’s unfair to suggest that homeopaths don’t ‘know’ anything. They (should!) undergo a rigorous training but the problem is that instead of concentrating on the disease in question they also have to consider the patient as a whole in far more detail than a medical doctor would find necessary/useful – or even have the time for. They do know which remedies are indicated but there are lots of them to choose from for each symptom. It’s making this choice that requires a bit of ‘educated guessing’. They don’t always get it right first time.

Sigh… you miss it again. Basically your whole paragraph can be summed up as “I don’t know how they know it works, they just do!” which is about as useful for proving a treatment’s efficacy and safety as using a magic eight ball.

Basically you are confirming for me that you simply trust what they tell you, haven’t looked into the safety/efficacy of homeopathy yourself, don’t know how they test for efficacy/safety, don’t care if they do or not, and therefore have no reason to then demand better evidence from scientists about vaccines. You ask for no evidence from homeopaths, why ask doctors for evidence? You have double standards.

You also use the “holistic” fallacy, which is torn apart on this blog in many places: doctors also treat the whole person. They always have and always will. Anyone who says they don’t are feeding you misinformation. Doctors also use a bit of guesswork as the others have suggested, since not everyone is the same and there can be many symptoms that fit many illnesses with many different causes. The only difference is that doctors rely on consensus, data, rigourous testing as a basis for their decisions; homeopaths don’t.

I really just want to focus on the issue you have with vaccines, and don’t want to get too distracted with the homeopathy; however, the way you look at homeopathy is important to how you also look at vaccines.

So I’m going to keep harping on this point: you ask for evidence that vaccines do what they say they do. You do NOT ask for evidence that homeopathic products do what they say they do. You are biased, you accept homeopathy on blind faith. And yet you ask questions of vaccines.

I’m merely suggesting that you should question BOTH, but follow the evidence and not your gut feeling.

I get the feeling I may be annoying some of you now. I concede that many of my preconceptions on vaccines were mistaken and thank all those who have explained patiently and fully.

On the contrary, I find it refreshing to discuss these things with someone willing to consider the evidence, rather than throwing a tantrum or calling names once we start disagreeing with them. I think you deserve a big thumbs up for it actually. And especially for taking the time to read and think about what you’ve read. (I understand that my tone may appear exasperated, that’s only because I’ve had a long few days)

“Rigorous training” in homeopathy is a contradiction in terms insofar as there is no scientific basis for homeopathy. Homeopathy has no “rigor”. There are other instances, however, of “rigorous training” in systems that have their basis on fantasy and/or the supernatural.

Here’s wishing all the best to all of you.
And to you…
NO NO we must be cannot accept the power of WISHING — not without evidence!

Rigorous practice of homeopathy, maybe–for it to be rigorous training you’d have to practice hitting that glass of water a few times with a bible before drinking.

I was thinking along those lines when I read sable’s comment that in France if you have a doctor’s prescription for a homeopathic remedy it’s free: why not just drink directly from the tap at home getting the same remedy at effectively the same cost? You’d avoid the annoyance of having to run out to the doctor and pharmacy.

Those are good points, JGC.

What I’m now wondering is that if the dilutions are harmless, then why not put the homeopathic remedies into the drinking water supply for a few small towns? They could do that as a medical trial of homeopathy. If after the end of six months, the members of the treated towns who had chronic illnesses are suddenly healed, yet similar members in the untreated towns are not, then it would help evidence their claims. Would it not, or is that too easy?

@al kimeea,

“a man in NZ(?) trusted his sincere and knowledgeable homeoquack for a cut on his foot”

Do you have a link for that? (I’m being lazy here! …well, actually, I’m swamped in reading for grant applications and whatnot.)

#270: Grant, I think it is this story – a guy in the UK who was a ‘natural healer’ trusted his own intuition about what would work for a cut foot. He trusted it until he was dead.

http://metro.co.uk/2008/11/17/healer-dies-after-letting-cut-foot-rot-150526/

Hi Alison, (My break matched yours huh?)

Good grief. Maybe I ought to revisit Manuka honey as well as homeopathy? Thanks for the link.

there are simple, low cost approaches that can be used right now to reduce the risk of vaccines by 10-fold or more.

What exactly are these approaches? I suspect that these approaches are neither as simple nor as cheap as you think.

@PJ – please enlighten us – I would love to know exactly how you accomplished the “genetic screening / sequencing” of your son, in what sounds like the late 1980’s or early 1990’s….in a cost-effective manner.

I would need an entire blog or two to explain. Otherwise my words would be misconstrued and misapplied by many.

Ah, so I guess we’re just supposed to believe you without any evidence. My particular expertise happens to be in developing genetic tests for clinical use. If that’s the type of thing you’re referring to, it’s certainly neither simple nor cost-effective at this moment (this may change in the next decade). I was hoping to engage in an actual, rational discussion on this issue, but apparently you’re not interested. Why did you bother to post here at all then?

I have to leave for a meeting, but if I am allowed to post a lengthy post by the moderators, I am sure that I can satisfy all of your concerns. The moderators should let me know.
I do mean serious adverse reactions, not just minor harm. As for the approach, it relies upon giving selective vitamins/minerals, depending upon the type of vaccine, for a week prior and after the vaccine. Also, not all children are at risk, but I do believe that with a few simple studies, a subset of children can be identified as having the potential for risk. One such group would likely include those babies who experience severe jaundice or elevated bilirubin problems at birth.

because physicians lack the extensive biochemical training and experience that I have

“Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!”

I started pursuing Professor Jurnak’s ideas on nutritional supplements and orthomolecular psychiatry, but then got sidetracked on pyroluria and The Mauve Factor.

@PJ – how about just the highlights then?

@ PJ:

PMIDs for the clinical trials demonstrating the efficacy of the claimed method will suffice as a starting point. Similarly for the documentation of under-reporting.

@ herr doktor bimler:

Please don’t tell me he’s orthomolecular…save us.
-btw- better mauve than fauve?
I look terrific in mauve.

Please don’t tell me he’s orthomolecular…save us

Orthomolecular psychiatry seems to be only a small aspect of Professor Jurnak’s research interests, and is no reflection on the quality of her other work (“2004 President of the American Crystallographic Association” speaks for itself). Mephistopheles O’Brien #287 is probably right — she is entitled to describe physicians as “lacking the extensive biochemical training and experience that I have”.

Regards Professor Jurnak‘s comment #275,

I’m all for “identifying which children are at risk” (from your letter to WSJ), but there are several phrases in your comment that raise concerns for me, at least.

You wrote, “I believe that the harm vaccines cause is considerably under-reported in the US”. This I think would be better phrased, “If vaccines cause serious harm, it is likely to be under-reported”. (I know I’m not being very clear, but what I’m touching on here is association v. causation. An example I know something of is Dravet Syndrome, a genetic condition, cases of which were previously offered as “vaccine injury” by association.)

Two problems here, “but not really noticed because the medical community has such a strong bias against giving nutritional supplements and so my suggestions would fall on deaf ears”. Firstly, this looks dangerously close to a strawman. Secondly, my own impression is that the medical community has long recommended supplements – where there is a deficiency, the latter being the catch.

“in part, because physicians lack the extensive biochemical training and experience that I have.”

Sorry to be blunt on this one, but I’m leery of this, as while you might, at pinch, argue this of GPs you certainly couldn’t say the same for immunologists – and the latter are the people you’d need to convince, surely.

One the subject of genome screening, what is done after you have the sequence matters considerably as I’d like to think you understand and as AdamG was indicating. (I’m generalising here, there have been some remarkable successes with identifying the cause of rare genetic disorders this way.) I’ve previously suggested genome sequencing for serious vaccine reactions, as a step towards better understanding of what causes these medical events and heading off some of the fuss from the onset.

Just for clarity: is this you expressing a personal interest in multi-vitamins, etc.?

Professor Jurnak:

By using science as the guide as well as information about my son’s own genetic make-up, I was able to mitigate his risks and have him safely vaccinated with the second hepatitis booster as well as with a number of subsequent vaccinations needed before he went to medical school.

What particular gene sequence did you discover was the root of your child’s issues?

My son has obstructive hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. The genetic testing failed to find the eighteen sequences known to cause HCM. I have in front of me the report from GeneDx, a company in Maryland that performs these kinds of genetic medical screens. It includes a list of genes they checked for like: MYH7, MYBPC3, TNNT2, LAMP2, PRKAG2, MTTG, etc.

I personally don’t understand it, but I am sure that there are those here (like AdamG) who would be able to figure out any genes you feel make a child vulnerable to vaccines.

Obviously, you had better luck with genetic testing than we did.

I’ve located 4 Pages of published articles for “Jurnak” in PubMed…including the Mauve I and Mauve II articles that her doktor bimler referenced.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed

I rather *doubt* that “Professor Jurnak” has ever had an article published in a reliable first tier science or medical journal…for the simple reason that “Jurnak” refers to the second hepatitis B vaccine that her son received as a “booster vaccine”.

When Professor Jurnak returns from the meeting, I’ll be here awaiting some of the answers to the questions we posed.

I have taken Mephistopheles O’Brien’s suggestion to contact Orac directly and will continue the discussion with him. The events leading to my knowledge on this subject were very traumatizing ones for my family and myself. As you can already see from the posts, many are quick to jump on the prospect of quackery. I don’t need this. I have valuable knowledge to share, but I will only do so, if I can present the material completely and the audience is willing to hear the story/evidence without pre-judgement.

I am one and the same Jurnak. I am an excellent scientist with a solid international reputation in the field of macromolecular structure and biochemistry. However, my best scientific work is unpublished, involving how I treated and cured my son, when the traditional medical establishment gave up on him. Using my knowledge, I have helped many others, so I know that my son’s story is not just a rare, lucky anecdotal cure.

Well, Professor Jurnak, I am particularly interested in the genetic testing. It seems to be hit and miss, which was noted in a recent NY Times article (Feb. 18, 2013 by Gina Kolata).

Now the paper from the company that did the genetic testing for the eighteen known genes that are associated with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy included a PubMed indexed citation. It was a review paper on all of the genes associated with that particular physical anomaly that can be seen with an echocardiogram.

Do you have citations on which genes are associated with vaccine injuries?

Professor Jurnak,

I’m curious about your claims, as well. Anything that we can do reliably and cheaply on a broad scale to determine who will and who will not have an adverse reaction, as well as how to mitigate those risks, should be pursued. I also find it interesting that you state your best work is unpublished. Why? Would it not make sense to publish it so that other scientists could evaluate and replicate your studies?

As some others mentioned, it would be nice to see just a few PMIDs of studies that you feel best represent the evidence for your claims.

@ Grant: Here’s the original Mauve Part I paper…starting on page 40, “Alternative Therapies”. Enjoy!

http://www.hriptc.org/pdfs/at20080304-dl.pdf

However, my best scientific work is unpublished, involving how I treated and cured my son, when the traditional medical establishment gave up on him.

I’m curious why your ‘best scientific work’ would remain unpublished, since clearly you’ve had no problem publishing what you appear to consider your lesser scientific work. Could you explain?

I have helped many others, so I know that my son’s story is not just a rare, lucky anecdotal cure.

We routinely see reiki practicioners, homeopaths, etc. making exactly the same claim: the sheer number of people they’re convinced their interventions have helped somehow renders their observations into something other than anecdotal evidence. That isn’t the case.

I have been traveling and did not have a chance to respond. It has given me time to reflect upon the many posts, the questioning of my credentials, and the demands for citations. Because I don’t post regularly, I am not familiar with the background of the posters and so please ignore my comments, if I misinterpret things. I have done original scientific research for years. This involves observations, hypotheses, experimental testing, adjustment of hypotheses, more testing, etc. Really nothing is ever proven, but always subject to revision. If you re-read any of my posts, you will notice that I chose my words very carefully. I did not make claims, only suggestions as to what I believe (hypothesize) based on my personal observations and extensive reading of the scientific/medical literature. Thus, I was initially surprised by the demands of proof, only three or so references out of the thousands of peer-reviewed publications that I have read over 15 years or so. Original thinking implies that there are no citations yet, otherwise the ideas would not be original. So it is simply not possible to respond to such requests for references.

After discussions with Orec, I have decided that there are more germane venues for my son’s story. However, because I was the one to initiate some suggestions about vaccines by responding to a letter on this blog, I will share with you, space permitting, a fraction of the information available to me, in hopes that some of my ideas may give you a fresh perspective on very ingrained dogmas. Read it if you want, ignore it if you want, or use it if you are in a situation where the information may be useful. This will be my last posting on this blog site.

There is a war between two opposing views about vaccinations– vaccinate all children for the good of the common, no matter what the cost or the harm to any single individual. Although the harm may affect a very small percentage of children, if it is your child, it is a large percentage and so educated parents may be reluctant to assume the risks. I suggested an alternative – seek better ways to identify those at risk and to determine ways to safely vaccinate those at risk. On this blog, I mentioned some possible approaches. At no time, did I dogmatically state that these approaches would definitively work as demonstrated by existing experimental data, only that money might be better spent in collecting the necessary experimental data to test my hypotheses as opposed to spending the money to attempt to convince skeptical parents to vaccinate their children, no matter the individual cost. If nothing is done and if “powers to be” insist that all children be vaccinated, some will die and this is equivalent to a genetic cleansing of the population not able to withstand the harmful effects that vaccinations can cause. In the long run, the latter approach will certainly eradicate diseases.

During his adolescent years, my son experienced waxing and waning episodes consistent with a disorder called porphyria. The episodes manifested in a number of ways that could be quite dangerous to himself and to others. I realized early on that the attacks were highly correlated with his states of deficiencies in B6 and zinc, as demonstrated by clinical testing. The acute form of porphyria is caused by dehabilitating mutations in one or both enzymes that initiate the synthesis of the porphyrin ring of hemoglobin. Both enzymes require B6 and zinc as cofactors, so a deficiency in these nutrients can effectively block the action of the enzymes and mimic the acute genetic form of the disorder. I supplemented my son with extra B6 and zinc to minimize the occurrence of the attacks. This helped, but every once in awhile, the attacks would still occur and I kept a notebook of the circumstances surrounding the attacks to see if I could figure out “what” was triggering the attacks. It became quite clear very early on that influenza and cold viral infections triggered the attacks, driving him into states of severe B6 and zinc deficiencies. Moreover, I could always pull him out of the attack by giving him very high doses of B6 and zinc. I had learned how to do this safely by thoroughly familiarizing myself with the relevant medical literature and consulting with an appropriate professional, but I don’t recommend anyone else doing this without professional monitoring.

When California declared that all school children needed the hepatitis B vaccine, I got him vaccinated. As circumstances would have it, I was due to speak at a scientific meeting in Europe, so I left shortly after his vaccination. I left my son in the care of my husband as well as two special caregivers who were quite knowledgeable about his many neurological problems. Within a day, I received a phone message from one of the caregivers, telling me that my son was having a severe attack and that I should come home. I left immediately and when I arrived home, I recognized that he was in a state of severe B6 and zinc deficiency, so I knew what to do and pulled him out of it over the course of a week. We had all assumed that the attack was triggered by the stress of my leaving my son for a trip. It did not occur to me at the time that there may have been any correlation with the hepatitis vaccination. So when a month had passed, and he was due for his second hepatitis shot, I had him vaccinated. Within hours, he had another attack, earmarked by his characteristic symptoms of B6 and zinc deficiency. Of course I knew what to do and cleared it up within a matter of days. During this time, I happened to post my observations on a web site frequented by parents whose children had similar neurological problems as my son. There was an immediate response from one woman who said that her daughter had just been vaccinated with the hepatitis vaccine and would be watchful. Well, within hours, the girl had such violent seizures that she had to be hospitalized. My son’s B6 and zinc deficiency symptoms do not present as seizures; however, it is well known that B6 deficiency can cause seizures in some people – those that have certain mutations in glutamic acid dehydrogenase (GAD). The girl in question was not tested for a B6 deficiency or the critical GAD mutations; nevertheless I found the two different occurrences, linked by possible B6 deficiency symptoms, to be more than happenstance. So I started searching the viral and vaccine literature. Some of you request references. I suggest you start with the 24,000+ citations that come out of a Pubmed search for “Adverse effects of vaccines”. I have read thousands of peer-reviewed literature articles over the years, but I will spare you all the details and only summarize my salient findings herein. Essentially, it is known that the hepatitis virus is a risk factor for porphyria attacks. The vaccine does not contain the live virus, but only the capsid protein, so the virus cannot replicate. I deduced, theorized, hypothesized, but did not prove, that the hepatitis capsid protein, not the entire viral particle, was sufficient to induce a B6/zinc deficiency in my son. (1) Could this happen, ie is my theory plausible, and (2) are their any scientific data to determine the validity or fallacy of my hypothesis? After reading the viral literature and talking with many virologists, including a Noble Laureate, the answer to the first question is yes – viral capsids can swell up in the presence of zinc, requiring many more zinc molecules than the actual number of capsid particles, Moreover, in some preliminary experiments, there are suggestions that certain viruses (not hepatitis) can hijack the host’s nutrient transporter systems and thus block transport of specific nutrients into the cell. The answer to the second question is no – there are no experiments yet done with hepatitis to test whether the intact virus or the capsid protein alone can trigger a B6 and/or zinc deficiency state in genetically-predisposed individuals.

Now let me also address the nature of B6 and zinc deficiency symptoms. In most enzymes, B6 and zinc are used together as cofactors and therefore must be supplemented together in certain ratios. There are over 300 known enzymes for which B6 and/or zinc serve as cofactors. When there is a massive global deficiency state, all kinds of symptoms will occur. However, as a person enters into the state of becoming B6/Zn deficient, possibly affecting one organ (usually skin) over another, the first deficiency symptoms that will express will be dependent on the genetic make-up of the individual. Of the 300 or so B6/Zn-dependent enzymes, some are likely to have small genetic mutations (single nucleotide polymorphisms, SNPs), which affect the strength of the binding site of B6/Zn. If the SNPs weaken the binding interaction between the enzyme and cofactor, this could result in a slowdown or even a halt in the particular metabolic pathway involving the enzyme. Ultimately, this would show up in some way as a clinical symptom. There are over 300 B6/Zn-dependent enzymes. The first symptoms of a B6/Zn deficiency would show up in the pathways in which the enzymes had SNPs that weakened the cofactor binding sites. In any one individual, the likelihood of displaying a particular B6/Zn deficiency symptom is 1/300 or .33%. This low percentage does not meet the standard threshold values of 1% to be considered an adverse effect or 5% to be named as a specific adverse effect. Thus, my son’s porphyria-like attack in response to the hepatitis vaccine and the other girl’s seizure response, would not meet the lower threshold values to be considered as an adverse effect of the hepatitis vaccine and would never get listed any where as a possible side effect of the vaccine. Moreover, because both my son and the girl had prior histories of their respective symptoms, the vaccine would not be considered as a culprit unless the physician actually witnessed the attacks within a short period of time after giving the vaccination. Because this did not happen, my son’s porphyria-like attack and the girl’s seizures were not reported to the CDC. You can debate the parental observations in this story, but it does raise the specter that adverse effects of vaccines are under-reported.

In reading the vaccine literature, there is a major theme that pops up time and again. Vaccines cause more harm to malnourished populations, particularly in under-developed sections of Africa. This provides a tentative link between vaccine harm and nutritional deficiencies, raising the possibility that some vaccines cause harm by inducing nutrient deficiencies in an already malnourished population. The strongest evidence for such a link is between the rubella virus and a deficiency in vitamin A. It is astounding but the claims in peer-reviewed medical articles are that one dose of vitamin A at birth can decrease the 5-year morbidity rate by 50% in these populations by mostly decreasing deaths caused by rubella infections. I won’t even attempt to summarize all the reports, but there is a clear link between rubella and vitamin A. It scares me to think that a rubella vaccination might be, in some way be hijacking some aspect of the retinol or retinoic acid transport system, inducing a vitamin A deficiency, which in turn would impair many processes in the immune system.

After learning that vaccines might induce nutritional deficiencies in individuals susceptible to harm by specific nutritional deficiencies, I gave my son high doses of vitamins, minerals, and retinol (from cod liver oil, not beta carotene) for a week prior and after a scheduled vaccination. In this way, my son was able to get his third hepatitis shot and other vaccinations without experiencing any adverse effects. Although many will think that malnourished children do not exist in the US, reading of the nutritional literature suggests otherwise. There are subsets of US children who are deficient in one or more nutrients due to poor diets, genetic mutations, stress, infections of all types (parasitic, viral, bacterial, etc.) and/or the administration of certain kinds of medications. Children who have jaundice at birth have errant metabolic pathways, some of which might be caused by genetic factors and/or medications given to the mother at birth. Children, whose families have a predisposition to early onset alcoholism, may have inherited a promoter mutation that causes a deficiency in retinol. These are just a few examples. Obviously much more would have to be done to identify children at risk of being deficient in one or more specific nutrients.

I have a great respect for geneticists. However, the search for a few single genes responsible for complex disorders has not been very illuminating to date. For example, approximately 1% of the individuals with hyperactive ADHD have a mutation in a dopamine receptor, which renders the receptor less responsive to dopamine. When one considers the biosynthesis of dopamine, there are hundreds, possibly thousands of proteins involved. If there is an adverse mutation in any one of the hundreds/thousands of proteins causing a lowering of dopamine production, the symptoms would be similar – hyperactive ADHD, yet the genetic defects (< 1% for a single protein) would not likely stand out above the background noise in a genetic screen of ADHD individuals. The situation is similar with genetic screening of individuals harmed by vaccines. One is not likely to find a strong enough signal above background for any single gene. It is like applying sophisticated techniques to thoroughly study the problems in the kitchen, but if the problems are in the backyard, the sophisticated techniques applied to the kitchen won’t result in anything meaningful. It will be many, many years before enough DNA sequences, perhaps tens of millions, are available to begin to identify sets of genes indirectly responsible for many complex disorders. In the interim, observations such as mine with my son, can possibly provide some clues as to how to narrow the search for the problem.

So what to do? I have designed many experiments to collect relevant data and have even offered my own personal funds to support pilot studies. So far, I have been thwarted by the attitudes and lack of knowledge in medical academia. I have not met any physicians (with access to relevant human biosamples) who have sufficient biochemical knowledge to understand what I am saying. To make matters worse, as soon as I use the dirty word “vitamin”, the research project becomes alternative medicine and the academic physicians think their involvement in such a project would jeopardize their big NIH-funded grants. To be truthful, I have met a few sympathetic physicians who believe what I say, but they simply don’t understand the biochemistry sufficiently to lend even minimal time to help such a project, which would by necessity involve collecting biological samples, such as urine, from patients. I have interacted with the alternative medical world, but they usually don’t work at academic institutions and aren’t able to implement the proper protocols needed for a first-rate, definitive research effort.

Thank you for your courtesy, Professor Jurnak, and for taking the time to explain your perspective.

@ Chris: I have some concerns about Professor Jurnak’s research skills and her understanding of providing Vitamin A to children who are Vitamin A deficient, in developing countries.

This is her latest statement…

“In reading the vaccine literature, there is a major theme that pops up time and again. Vaccines cause more harm to malnourished populations, particularly in under-developed sections of Africa. This provides a tentative link between vaccine harm and nutritional deficiencies, raising the possibility that some vaccines cause harm by inducing nutrient deficiencies in an already malnourished population. The strongest evidence for such a link is between the rubella virus and a deficiency in vitamin A. It is astounding but the claims in peer-reviewed medical articles are that one dose of vitamin A at birth can decrease the 5-year morbidity rate by 50% in these populations by mostly decreasing deaths caused by rubella infections. I won’t even attempt to summarize all the reports, but there is a clear link between rubella and vitamin A. It scares me to think that a rubella vaccination might be, in some way be hijacking some aspect of the retinol or retinoic acid transport system, inducing a vitamin A deficiency, which in turn would impair many processes in the immune system.”

Wouldn’t you think that a biochemist who has read thousands of articles about immunology and vaccine-preventable diseases during the past 15 years, would know the difference between rubella virus and rubeola virus?

http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs286/en/

I am disturbed that Prof. Jurnak who actually does real research decided to share with us this tidbit:

Although many will think that malnourished children do not exist in the US, reading of the nutritional literature suggests otherwise. There are subsets of US children who are deficient in one or more nutrients due to poor diets, genetic mutations, stress, infections of all types (parasitic, viral, bacterial, etc.) and/or the administration of certain kinds of medications.

But failed to provide any supporting scientific evidence for this claim.

Narad, the illogical part of what you quote is that the children who cannot deal with vaccines for some reason would be okay dokay with the actual diseases. So a kid is affect adversely by the MMR vaccine, does that mean they will not suffer from actually from mumps or measles. The same goes for Haemophilus influenzae Type b: why would a child deal better by actually it instead of the Hib vaccine?

It boggles the mind. What special genetic proclivity makes a child more vulnerable to the vaccine, but not affected by the full disease?

I don’t think she has had the discussions with a genetics specialist that I have had, despite her respect for them. And, yes, the geneticist would have loved for us to pay for a full panel on our son because of both his neurological and cardiology issues. Did Prof. Jurnak pay the full $10,000 for a full screen? We did not. (insurance only covered the search for the eighteen known gene sequences, none of which our son had… but he still has HCM) Though we would gladly let more of his blood be used when they got a grant to study the subset of patients with my son’s multiple issues.

And I screwed up the HTML… nighty night.

@ Chris: Professor Jurnak claims her son has porphyria that she claims is treatable with supplementation with zinc and Vitamin B 6. She also claims that she cannot generate any interest within the research academia community to test her hypotheses about treating porphyria.

Up thread, I linked to the NIH Rare Disease Network-Porphyria Consortium and the regional clinical centers that are involved in research into the various forms of porphyria.

Wouldn’t you think that Professor Janrek who works at University of California-Irvine would be aware of the Porphyria Consortium Regional Clinical Center located at the University of California-San Francisco? They have five open research projects that her son could be enrolled in and Dr. Janrek could work with the staff there to design a research study to test her hypothesis about zinc and Vitamin B 6 during acute attacks of porphyria.

http://rarediseasesnetwork.epi.usf.edu/porphyrias/centers/ucsf.htm

@ Grant: Up thread you were looking for Prof. Jurnak’s Discerning the Mauve Factor Part 2 paper. I located it for you.

http://www.biobalance.org.au/_downloads/discerning-the-mauve-factor-part-ii-galley.pdf

You’re welcome Grant. Come back and post if and when you want to give us your impression of Prof. Jurnak’s Mauve Factor paper Part 1 and 2. Don’t expert her to reply, however. I believe after posting her fact free/citation free comment she announce her flounce…

“After discussions with Orec, I have decided that there are more germane venues for my son’s story. However, because I was the one to initiate some suggestions about vaccines by responding to a letter on this blog, I will share with you, space permitting, a fraction of the information available to me, in hopes that some of my ideas may give you a fresh perspective on very ingrained dogmas. Read it if you want, ignore it if you want, or use it if you are in a situation where the information may be useful. This will be my last posting on this blog site.”

Porphyria is something I know a bit about. Acute intermittent porphyria is one of those conditions with a variable course that might have been designed to lead patients (and their parents), through regression toward the mean, to believe an intervention, whether diet, drugs or supplements is effective. When Prof. Jurnak writes, ” I recognized that he was in a state of severe B6 and zinc deficiency, so I knew what to do and pulled him out of it over the course of a week”, that strongly suggests to me that she has fallen prey to this kind of self-deception, since acute attacks of AIP last a week or two without treatment.

Hi lillady –

Started a reply, but my browser crashed and lost it. Bottom line for me, I guess, is that she’d really want to write it up as a hypothesis paper in a decent peer-reviewed journal with supporting references, etc., explaining her case. A presentation like the one above would have us (well, me anyway) second-guessing things, tracking things down and trying hopefully to put them into the picture, wondering if that’s what she meant, rather than having what she meant presented to us.

There are some things she’s written that don’t “fit” to me (e.g. her remarks about complex genetics) – might point some of them out later, but I have to admit I’m not sure of the value doing that. By the way, there are a few papers pointing at a link between vitamin A and rubella. (I’m not seeing the large number of reports she infers.) I had similar concerns to Krebiozen over intermittent porphyria (specifics on the genetics and diagnosis, etc. might have helped). There’s more but enough from me and besides I’d rather get on with my day 🙂

There are a lot of inconsistencies in Prof. Jurnak’s posts and I have become (somewhat) well versed in the porphyria conditions, through research at the NIH Rare Diseases Network-Porphyria Collaboration, which I referenced up thread.

Since Prof. Jurnak’s first post on February 14th, I educated myself about vitamin B-6 and Zinc supplements for “treating” Acute Intermittent Porphyria at this site (nary a mention of do-it-yourself-at-home Vitamin B 6 and Zinc megadoses).

http://www.porphyriafoundation.com/for-healthcare-professionals/emergency-guidelines-for-acute-porphyria

So yes, I’m call bullsh!t on each and every one of Dr. Jurnak’s posts.

@ flip: Show Prof. Jurnak’s inconsistencies…not too successfully, sigh.

@ Chris: Let’s not *complain*. Dr. Jurnak’s citationless and fact-free posts, gave us the opportunity to question her silly and dangerous theories about vaccines.

Up thread, she stated she didn’t know how her comments would be received here. Apparently, she was unaware that she was posting on a site where we want some proof for her statements about the dangers of vaccines, the under-reporting of serious adverse events/deaths caused by vaccines and her “cost-effective (vitamin/mineral supplements) to prevent/treat those numerous serious adverse events, associated with vaccines”.

Is she actually giving out medical advice? That doesn’t bode well for her.

BTW, when my son was young, I had “two special caregivers who were quite knowledgeable about his many neurological problems”, but he never “went to medical school”.//sarcasm.

flip…I’ve made (huge) strides during the two plus years I’ve been posting here…ask “Chris” who used to “link” for me.

You really do have a great talent for organizing the comments/walls of words posted by some of the individuals who spam threads on RI.

Don’t ever sell yourself short…you are a valued member of our community.

Thanks Lilady. I do feel part of the community, but very much a baby in terms of dealing with anti-science claims.

I’m still not sure what you mean by organising comments, but my technique is always copying the comment into a notepad file and then replying to bits here and there if I have a remark to add; then copying that into the comment box. Maybe you mean the formatting using blockquote?

Oh and for some fun, I just found this. A home birther of an unusual kind… Those on facebook should really go over and comment.

Okay, drw, I looked at both of your cites.

The first on from the orthomolecular physician is interesting, except the citations were the effect on poultry, pigs, fish, etc. Not terribly enlightening.

The second citation is specifically to vitamin supplementation for children in Ghana, which a vastly different demographic than North America and Europe. There really is not much in the way of starvation and malnutrition in North America and Europe.

Prof. Jurnak also failed to support her claim that there was malnutrition in the USA with a valid citation.

@drw: How amusing. I just love your link to a crank organization that has bogus orthomolecular medicine advice about megadoses of vitamins as cure-all for diseases and disorders.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orthomolecular_medicine

How about looking at the many links I provided with reliable information?

Why didn’t Prof. Jurnak pony up any citations about her child’s genetic disorder? Was he ever seen by a geneticist, who ordered a karyotype and other genetic testing to confirm any type of porphyria?

Where are your citations from reliable medical/science journals? The studies on that website are studies of mercury toxicities in livestock, not lab animals. Do you actually know the difference between an organomercury compound (Thimerosal), Inorganic mercury, and elemental Hg?

Here, from the National Academies of Science, Institute of Medicine, a synopsis of the January 2013 Report On Vaccine Safety:

http://www8.nationalacademies.org/onpinews/newsitem.aspx?RecordID=13563

Horrors – the article is written by an orthomolecular physician so according to most posters it must be immediately discounted.

This is a press release, not a “citation.”

Dr. Thomas E. Levy is a board certified cardiologist and he has written six books on health-related issues. Most of his work has centered on how to restore and/or maintain good health in the face of the many different forms of toxicity that all of us face, typically on a daily basis. He no longer has a clinical practice of medicine and cardiology. Rather, he limits himself to research and writing at this time, and he is currently working on his seventh book, Death by Calcium: The Supplement that Kills.

So yes, I’m call bullsh!t on each and every one of Dr. Jurnak’s posts.
Typical LL. Prof J, a published researcher with a UC Berkley PhD, represented an opportunity to engage to see how she arrived at her views. J sounds relieved that her son went to medical school, without arriving in a can of phenolics or HCHO, apparently a 1-2 decade story.

Instead of engagement, Prof J gets the bums rush and pile-on before she even has an inkling about the “rules” here. LL is probably qualified to disinfect the floor at J’s lab but just keeps cranking out the attacks. Too bad.

Here’s what puzzles me about Professor Jurnak’s story:

I had him vaccinated. Within hours, he had another attack, earmarked by his characteristic symptoms of B6 and zinc deficiency.

This appears to imply that the mere exposure to “the hepatitis capsid protein” can drain B6 and zinc out of the body in a matter of hours.  How does that work, exactly?  To me it sounds like the “instant scurvy” others have claimed is caused by vaccination, when trying to explain broken and half-healed bones in Shaken Baby Syndrome, and is just as implausible.

prn, Prof. Jurkak made several claims that she failed to provide any evidence of. I mentioned many. Why is it a bad thing to demand actual evidence for assurances made in a comment?

Do you have the literature to show that children in the North America and Europe are malnourished? Hint: do not provide a paper about children in Ghana.

My guess is that prn’s just annoyed because Jurnak suggests vitamins might be the answer. Prn seems to be sensitive whenever vitamins are mentioned.

I am still waiting for that 1938 Japanese vitamin reference that you claimed you showed us before, but had never, ever showed infact.

Are we talking about the Otani pertussis stuff again? I had to lie down. It was 1936, as I recall.

Personally I’d ignore prn’s blatant trolling.

His “argument from authority” approach doesn’t work anyway. As I wrote earlier (#307),

“… very fine scientists can propose weak or even dubious ideas, too. It’s one of the reasons, I think, that proposals ideally are best to stand on their own merits rather than previous record or “authority”, just in case it’s a case of a good scientist’s lesser ideas.”

(The term “lesser ideas” is science’s very polite way of saying “simply wrong” – !)

Some very fine scientists have put out some bad ideas, even some that were immediately seen as wrong by others.

Looking at it in the best light I can (i.e. giving her the benefit of doubt, etc.), one obvious problem with Jurnak’s post is simply that being offered in piecemeal fashion (there are “bits”, but they haven’t really been linked to one-another) and without citations she has not actually argued her case but rather presented a sketch “gloss”, leaving others to somehow fill in the blanks, to second-guess what she would have there. As I suggested earlier for anyone to want to take it seriously she really would need to argue her idea properly — as a hypothesis article in a decent peer-reviewed journal. That won’t make her idea “right”, but at least it might then have enough detail (& supporting citations, etc.) for people to try engage with it.

Oops… the second blockquote is quoting Prof. Jurnak.

@ Chemommo: I documented precisely what Prof. Jurnak stated in her many posts about her son’s *reaction* to hepatitis B vaccine. California mandated hepatitis B vaccine for school aged children in 1997…and Jurnak stated her child had a reaction to the second hepatitis B vaccine (according to her, a “booster” vaccine), when he was a “school-aged” child…or was it in preparation for his entry into medical school?

OSHA Guidelines Do Not require that HCWs/medical school students MUST have proof of completing the hepatitis B primary series/proof of immunity/”boosting” of immunity against the hepatitis B virus. OSHA Guidelines state that HCWs should receive reliable information about transmission of the virus and have the hepatitis B vaccine provided to them free-of-charge:

http://www.osha.gov/OshDoc/data_BloodborneFacts/bbfact05.pdf

Here are the “Recommendations” for HCWs who will be exposed to accidental finger sticks…but HCWs and trainees are NOT required to prove immunity against the hepatitis B virus:

http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/rr6007a1.htm

lilady (and Lawrence), I agree that the timeline is difficult to follow, especially as it’s spread out over several posts, and it’s not particularly clear what happened when. I’ve looked back through what she posted, and I’ve come to the conclusion that the confusion is ours, not hers. We are so used to folks getting upset over the birth dose of hepB that we overlooked the part of Prof Jurnak’s posts which describes him as an adolescent (#312 -don’t know if the link will work):

During his adolescent years, my son experienced waxing and waning episodes consistent with a disorder called porphyria. . . . I realized early on that the attacks were highly correlated with his states of deficiencies in B6 and zinc, as demonstrated by clinical testing.

After describing her rationale for the vitamins, she follows up with the statement:

When California declared that all school children needed the hepatitis B vaccine, I got him vaccinated.

If the child is already an adolescent, we can conclude this was the 1999 mandate for middle schoolers.

And he certainly could have enrolled in medical school by now, and if he had, he probably had to get caught up on any missing vaccinations – those subsequent ones from Prof Jurnak # 275 which I quoted previously (I’ll save that link for a separate post to avoid moderation). Again, her writing is quite clear that the hepB vaccination and boosters occurred earlier, and he had other vaccinations later.
It is lilady, not Prof Jurnak, who added the description “school age,” suggesting a relatively young child. If we assume the boy was young when he received the hepB, the story makes a lot less sense than it does in light of the fact he was already an adolescent. Jurnak’s actual wording is “school children” – and what else are you going to call them? She’s referring to the change in immunization law, which extended HepB coverage to all of them.

As for the multiple care givers – I’m guessing they weren’t all attending the child at once, and she only mentioned them for the sake of accuracy since the phone call did not come from her husband.

lilady, I respect you a lot and enjoy reading your posts both here and elsewhere and I hope you don’t take this the wrong way. We need to make sure that we are accurate in our criticism – it does not do any good to criticize someone for something that they never did claim, or accuse someone of being inconsistent when we have misinterpreted their words.

Thanks Chemmomo: According to PKIDs, mandatory hepatitis B series requirement for California elementary school was 1997 and mandatory for middle school 1999.

http://www.immunize.org/laws/hepb.asp

Prof Jurnak refers to the 2nd hepatitis B vaccine in the primary series as “a booster”…not so.

I don’t know when her child received the Hepatitis B primary series, because of her utterly confusing posts…do you?

She purportedly is an *expert* in porphyria disorders, because of her extensive research and because she “knows her son’s genetic make-up”. She jabbers on about the genetics associated with the various types of porphyria, her *expertise* in Vitamin B 6 and Zinc deficiencies present in children and adolescents in the developed world and her *expertise* in the need to provide mega doses of Vitamin B 6 and Zinc to children who do not have deficiencies and who have been diagnosed with types of porphryia…again, not so.

She *confuses* rubella and rubeola…knows diddly squat about physiological jaundice in the newborn… yet Jurnak who is not a medical doctor, brags that she provides medical/nutrition advice over the internet.

So….where oh where, are any citations about those deficiencies in the general population and the need to provide Vitamin B6 and Zinc mega doses to kids, adolescents and adults who have any type of porphyria…in the absence of a diagnosed deficient state?

One more point regarding the boosters/not boosters
lilady wrote:

the 2nd hepatitis B vaccine in the primary series as “a booster”…not so.

Prof Jurnak wrote #275

have him safely vaccinated with the second hepatitis booster

This is after she has already mentioned he had a bad reaction to the first and second shot in the series – the immunization in question is here is actually the third of the series. And I probably would call that the “second booster,” too, using “booster” to distinguish it from the very first one.

I managed to mess up the link to the CDC 2013 Childhood Vaccine Schedule…

http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/schedules/downloads/child/0-18yrs-schedule.pdf

Think we’re missing the forrest for the trees here. I’m really not that interested in clearing up the details of Jurnak’s accounts of her son’s immunization, supposed vacine injury, recovery and enrollment in med school, etc. All doing so could accomplish, after all, is to make a personal anecdote account self-consistent. It can’t raise its status from anecdote to evidence arguing against routine immunization.

@prn

“Grant@358: Re:LL I wasn’t trolling and I didn’t make a technical claim that rested on authority. LL was far beyond civility in ad hominem attack mode”

Your comments to lillady have examples of both trolling and ad hominem. If you can’t recognise that then perhaps you need to back off.

By way of example:

This is straight-out ad hominem: “LL is probably qualified to disinfect the floor at J’s lab […]” In addition to being besides the point it plays the “authority” card — you’re comparing Jurnak’s credentials to an imaginary cleaner.

This is trolling: “[…] You simply have a strong need to dominate by shouting people down, LL.” Putting in a “last word” at the end of a comment, evoking their name in a slur is trying to provoke, whatever else you might mean by it, and isn’t a good sign 😉

You rested F. Jurnak’s involvement (and how she should be treated) on her credentials, rather than the substance (or not) of her argument – see my earlier comments.

As I wrote earlier, the kindest (giving the benefit of doubt) would be to point out there are too many “jumps” between FJ’s points for anyone to know what her full argument is to engage with it properly. By way of example, I’m bothered by several things she wrote—these points don’t look right to me and raise suspicions—but I also think pointing them out might be a bit meaningless as she’s not going to clarify and in any event it would have us trying to fill in her argument rather than her arguing it to a standard that can be engaged with soundly.

Dachel has organized her groupies who are posting about an vaccine/autism seminar in Vancouver. The “usual suspects” are posting there and I have posted…some comments still “in moderation”.

Go and post…or at least register your vote at the online poll.

http://metronews.ca/news/vancouver/591086/vaccine-summit-in-vancouver-tries-to-rekindle-settled-debate/

Heather,

Hepatitis B is not solely sexually transmitted. Among other ways, babies can be exposed during birth if their mothers are infected and exposure to blood or open sores from people who are infected.

The HPV vaccines need to be taken before being exposed to the virus, preferably before sexual activity. You may have heard that some young teens are participating in sexual activity, including oral sex, which can spread HPV. The vaccines are recommended at age 12.

Fluoridation adds the mineral fluoride (not the gas fluorine) to the water. This is a mineral which is found naturally present in some water supplies. There have been multiple studies of the safety of drinking fluoridated water. See http://www.cdc.gov/fluoridation/safety/systematic.htm for links to reviews of those studies.

One story in today’s news about how hepatitis can be transmitted other than sexually: http://vitals.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/03/28/17505087-dentists-office-a-menace-thousands-possibly-exposed-to-hiv?lite

Heather,
I think you need to think a little more critically about some of the information you have come across.

And one day old babies do not have a fully functioning immune system to stimulate with a hep B shot in any event.

If that’s the case, how is it that hepatitis B vaccine is so effective at preventing babies from contracting the disease from their mothers? Babies born to mothers with hepatitis B are 72% less likely to contract the disease if they are vaccinated immediately after birth.

I’d like the European option of freshly made vaccines (no preservatives/ formaldehyde/ mercury required) more readily available.

I live in Europe and this is news to me. The vaccines we get are mostly the same as those people get in Australia, and the US.

And I am still waiting on a properly run trial for human ingestion of fluorine

Nature has helpfully provided is with several natural experiments, since there are several places where drinking water contains as much or even very much more fluoride than is added in fluoridation. Fluoridation aims at 1 milligram of fluoride per liter of water, which we know from these natural experiments reduces dental caries without the side effects of higher amounts.

or Genetically Modified crops.

Do you really prefer your foods laced with the toxic pesticides and herbicides that GM crops are designed to reduce or even eliminate? In Europe neonicotinoid pesticides that are toxic to bees and other wildlife have been approved because of our reluctance to adopt GM crops that are pest resistant.

What on Earth gave you this idea? Freshly made?

Perhaps she meant “artisanal.”

Khani,

You do realize you can get a sexually-transmitted infection from a husband even if *you* never ever have sex with anyone else, ever, don’t you?

The reverse, naturally, is also true.

Perhaps she meant “artisanal.”

snort
Somehow I don’t see “vaccine-maker” listed as a recognised artisan.

#386 Exactly.

However, my point was more along the lines of, even if you are willing to make the assumption that your own child is a paragon of purity, it’s probably not good to assume anyone else’s child is.

lilady,

@ Todd W. Your link led me to the Medscape sign-in page, not the article you referred to.

That was me, not Todd. Apologies for that, I do try not to link to information that requires registration. If you are already signed in, as I was, it takes you straight to the page, so I didn’t notice. Thanks for posting the data about adding HBIG to the hepatitis B vaccine. A failure rate of 0.003 % is very much more impressive than 28%. My point was that the majority of neonates’ immune systems are quite capable of being stimulated by the hepatitis B vaccine, contrary to Heather’s claim that, “one day old babies do not have a fully functioning immune system to stimulate with a hep B shot”.

Melissa G #391 – so very true, I wonder if that approach might actually work. If people can be convinced that squirting bleach up their child’s rear end stimulates their immune system, they should be perfectly happy with vaccines.

@ Melissa G: That’s a keeper !

@ Krebiozen (and Todd W): Sorry for the mix-up.

The “universal hepatitis B birth dose recommendation” was implemented in the United States, to provide some degree of protection to newborns whose mothers were not chronic carriers, but where close household contacts/caregivers might be infected. Unfortunately, there were instances, where OBs ordered the wrong test (hepatitis B surface antibody…rather than hepatitis B surface antigen), then wrote a chart note for the chart that is sent to to the delivery hospital 6 weeks before her due date, that the woman was negative for the hepatitis B surface antigen. Now hospitals require a copy of the actual lab reports…to avoid those instances where the neonates exposed at birth, didn’t receive the vaccine and HBIG within 12 hours of birth.

http://www.cdc.gov/hepatitis/hbv/pdfs/serologicchartv8.pdf