Off to Skepticon…

As a pathologist, I THINK I’ve just been insulted!

Most pathologists I know do know batter.

I suspect that no scientific discipline is entirely immune from anti-vax tropes.[1] Earlier this week one of my LinkedIn contacts, a Ph.D. physicist (and bona fide rocket scientist), liked a post which was obviously anti-vax.

[1]Thank you. I’ll be here all week. Remember to tip your server.

Of all the scientists who fall for woo, I think I was- and remain- most disappointed in Luc Montagnier. He made a truly significant discovery and then, years later I hear that he gives talks to the woo-entranced. It’s abysmal and awful.

It seems that anti-vaxxers have certainly enlisted fallen scientists for their woo. It must be a long list by now.

-btw- Unfortunately, I won’t need a plane but tomorrow I have to take a train somewhere ( roundtrip) however I’ll get to see something involving anthropology and maybe some fine art.

@ Eric Lund:

We have ways to immunize for that!

Denice: Montagnier “made a truly significant discovery”.

I’ve always been inclined to think that Françoise Barré-Sinoussi did that, but I’m prepared to be put right on the point.

Got my dose of thimerosal today. Mr Woo is even considering one.

@ Brian Deer:

I’ve heard similarly about that-
I should have said, ” He has been recognized for a significant discovery” –
HOWEVER I doubt that that situation is so very rare- you know, women in labs, in offices, in studios etc. which is possibly changing.

Kim Stagliano? She’s a self-promoting coarse woman, who uses her autistic children to advance her career as a “journalist”. She’s managed to outdo the vulgarian J.B. Handley:

http://lizditz.typepad.com/i_speak_of_dreams/2008/12/kim-stagliano-is-a-disgrace-to-journalism.html

@ lilady:

Sure. How about her ‘sponge-worthy’ essay?
Like seriously- what does a person’s ( Jerry’s) sexual desirability have to do with his comments? And furthermore, how does this relate to *her*?
Does she not realise that altho’ she may enjoy comedians, she ain’t one.

-btw- this computer is a b!tch for corrections and edits.

Since nothing is off-topic today (enjoy your trip, Orac!) I commend to you this article on sexual expression in one institution.

LA Weekly: In the Gay Wing of L.A. Men’s Central Jail, It’s Not Shanks and Muggings But Hand-Sewn Gowns and Tears

MCJ’s gay wing was set up in response to a 1985 ACLU lawsuit, which aimed to protect homosexual inmates from a higher threat of physical violence than heterosexuals faced. But something unexpected has happened. The inmates are safer now, yes. But they’ve surprised everyone, perhaps even themselves, by setting up a small and flourishing society behind bars. Once released, some re-offend in order to be with an inmate they love. There are hatreds and occasionally even severe violence, but there is also friendship, community, love — and, especially, harmless rule-bending to dress up like models or decorate their bunks, often via devious means.

Denice, could you check the spelling of “Jay Neugeberger”? Went looking for his books and could only find this post and a previous one from you.

For a glimpse into Neugeborn’s writings on his brother

And just as I had been wondering how it could be that the spirited young man I had grown up with had turned into a debilitated, lifeless old man, so I now wondered about the mystery–and miracle–of his resilience. It never ceased to amaze: that people who had had the most wretched and unenviable lives were able, as Robert was, to survive and to do more than survive: to retain an ability to be themselves in all the complexities and contradictions of their identity, history, and feelings, and to be capable still of taking ordinary pleasure in this often cruel and incomprehensible world.

Only because the this site just that awesome (ha ha):

http://www.gomerblog.com/2014/11/icd-10-2/

“ICD-10 to Include Code for “Dr.Oz says”, Automatic Trigger for Level 5 Visit”

Unless she has been telling them their entire lives that they’re damaged goods and can’t expect to lead lives like other girls; that might be an inhibitor.

Which means they’ll be easy targets for any (emotional) predator, alas. So, yeah, Papa’s in for a big surprise in a few years. Sigh.

@ Kiiri:

Agreed.

Some AoA/ TMR parents parade their children’s disabilities either in writing or in videos ( I’m sure you know to whom I’m referring- more than one person, -btw-). How does the child/ young adult feel if perchance he or she stumbles upon that? Probably not happy. I’d have been pretty angry or embarrassed if I found something like that displayed PUBLICLY when I was that age- disabled or not. All to showcase Mama”s martyrdom or forays into quasi-journalism.

Fortunately, my own late mother didn’t brag or complain about my activities where everyone could read it.
And I gave her lots to complain about- including style that irked her mid-century fashion sensibilities. She was pleased that I had excellent grades, didn’t get pregnant or addicted – and managed to travel about and not get arrested.

Do autistic people not have feelings for others, fall in love, have sex?

Just the so-called high-functioning autistics, and we all know they don’t really count as being autistic.

[toggle sarcasm off]

I mean, errant rockets are no joke!

There’s got to be an E. Myles Standish angle in here somewhere, but it’s not coming to me.

Why, oh why, did I write “What is there left to say?” at the end of a post on this mess. This story is a mutant onion. You think you have the surface mapped, then the outer layer peels away and it’s a whole different ballgame. You try to map that and it peels away again…

It’s one thing for Orac to take a story in The Toronto Star as the straight dope. I find no fault with Orac for missing anything I detail below. But I’m supposed to know better, having trained in critical news analysis for my frickin’ PhuD, written scholarly works in the field and whatnot. It’s my job to unpack this sh!t. I’m the ‘media studies professional’ here, forcissakes. So… back to work…

Anyway, here’s what I’ve got for today. In days ahead, who the hell knows what will turn up…

Checking on the details of Makayla Sault’s withdrawal from chemo, I discovered yet another massive fail on the part of McMaster hospital. I’d seen some vague tangential references to this in other coverage, but not being Canadian, didn’t understand them.

For both Makayla and J.J., the hospital chose to file reports with Brant FACS. FACS can only decide whether or not to place a child in protective custody. If the hospital knew anything about Brant FACS (and they have no excuse not to) they would have known the chances that agency would intervene in the case were basically bupkis. But they had another option.

They could have referred the cases to the Ontario Consent and Capacity Board (CCB), which has the authority to mandate a treatment plan. The CCB must issue a decision within 8 days of a filing, thus the Saults would have been obliged to return Makayla to chemo without a significant break in treatment, and she would have remained in her parents custody.

When the National Post inquired why McMaster did not refer Makayla’s case to the CCB, a hospital spokesperson replied, in essence, that they believed the Saults would not comply with the CCB, and only a child protection order would force Makayla into treatment.

Which, if true, is evidence of gross incompetence. For them to rely on Brant FACS taking custody of Makayla to insure the resumption of her chemo would mean they are completely ignorant of the de facto nature and limited power of the Brant FACS, ignorant of the history of government custody of First Nations children, ignorant of the firestorm a custody order would set off not only in the New Credit and Six Nations bands, but among First Nations leaders and activists across Canada. And if McMaster believed a protection order was necessary to save Makayla’s life, why didn’t they file a court petition on her behalf as they later did for J.J.? It makes no sense.

Even more face-palm-worthy is the fact that with the results of the Sault ‘investigation’ known to them, they took the same route again with J.J. WTF? Did they think the FACS agency had magically transformed in the interim? When they filed notice with FACS for Makayla, the parents may have told the hospital and the FACS that they were resorting to ‘traditional medicine,’ which the authorities probably had no reason to doubt. They may well not have known that Clement would enter the picture. But by the time McMaster filed the court petition in an attempt to force FACS into action, if they didn’t know Makayla had been off to Florida for a whole regime of woo totally unknown to pre-contact aboriginals, and couldn’t guess J.J. was headed in the same direction (if she wasn’t already gone), that’s simply inexcusable.

I don’t know what mechanisms Canadian law provides to enforce a CCB mandated treatment plan. I assume the Saults could not simply refuse to comply and that would be the end of it.

It’s also far less likely the First Nations community would have backed the parents on refusing treatment plan under a dubious ‘traditional medicine’ claim alone. Perhaps a CCB mandate wouldn’t even provide a basis for an Aboriginal Rights claim. Even if some attorney opined it might, it would have been politically stupid for the activists to put their eggs in that basket. It’s the custody issue that got the First Nations leaders and rank-and-file to support the parents, raised the stakes to a serious rights issue. The whole ‘traditional medicine’ nonsense was never anything but a MacGuffin, a cover for the real issue that served to give cover to all the parties in the case in one way or another

The CCB is the body under Canadian law that adjudicates treatment choices. Period. It is composed of professionals who are well qualified to make such decisions (not M.D.s for obvious COI reasons, but the board members have enough literacy in medicine, ethics and law to do their jobs). It is not the province of the FACS to make judgements on the basis of medical science, as they have no competence to do so.

I can only imagine that the short wait for a CCB mandate would have bolstered an effort to seek protective custody for Makayla or J.J. had the parents refused the treatment plans.

And here’s the kicker: what if the CCB had mandated a treatment plan along the lines proposed by Wayne Spear? What if the CCB had mandated McMaster to allow the kids to undergo any ‘traditional medicine’ treatment the parents desired along with mandated chemo? That would have taken the Aboriginal Rights issue right off the table, As I noted at #22, by Canadian law, a cultural practice can only be considered an Aboriginal Right if it was in place as a defining feature of the specific culture in question prior to its peoples’ first contact with Europeans. How do you argue rejection of SBM was a defining feature of a culture before SBM existed?

It was McMaster that forced the court to chose between SBM and ‘traditional medicine’ as mutually exclusive treatment options. Hardly in the best interests of the kids in these cases. The more I contemplate these events, the more I think McMaster screwed the pooch with the language in the petition that J.J.’s mother “decided on August 27th to discontinue the [chemotherapy] with the plan to treat [J. J.] with traditional medicines.” The problem isn’t just that they thus allowed Brian Clement’s death-lab quack shop to pass as ‘traditional’, but that they used the term ‘medicine’ at all without putting it in quotation marks. It’s not medicine! It’s a cultural ritual. Religion, if you will. There is no reason to ask people to give it up. The question is whether J.J. gets chemo. Period. The petition should have stated that J.J.’s mother “decided on August 27th to discontinue the [chemotherapy].” Period! But, nooo. Dr. Vicky Breakey MD, Med, FRCPC, Assistant Professor McMaster University, Pediatric Hematologist/Oncologist McMaster Children’s Hospital just had to take a shot at the stupid red people’s woo — without taking the effort to get the details right at all. Dear Vicky, you can let J.J. have any plant concoction her folks want to feed her. You can let them call it ‘medicine’, because they are not doctors, nor are they pretending to be, so whatever the f**k they call the plant-sh!t carries no weight at all. You dear Dr. Breakey are the MD-Med-FRCPC-Professor-Hematologist/Oncologist. You cannot call it ‘medicine’ traditional or otherwise because it is just plant-shit. You do the real medicine which means calling for the chemo and only calling for the chemo. Oh, my Achey Breakey heart.

In the real world as I know it, folks with half-a-brain at least attempt to make personal off-the-record inquiries before going through official channels. So TPTB at McMaster didn’t think to call someone like Wayne Spear for advice on dealing with a case involving a First Nations kid? So the McMaster PTB couldn’t have sounded out Brant FACS before filing a report?
“Mr. Koster, this is McMaster hospital. Is there a snowball’s chance in hell you’ll issue a protection order for a First Nations girl dying from leukemia whose parents have pulled her from chemo?”
“Are you out of your f**king mind? F**k no! Take it to the CCB!”

But no. McMaster went right for the custody hammer, and the custody hammer alone. And they did it TWICE, knowing that FACS would do nothing the second time. Now, put yourself in the shoes of a First Nations leader at the point the court petition is filed, the third attempt by McMaster to remove a First Nations child from parental custody. You have the whole history of the residential schools burned into your mind. Is this about woo, or kidnapping? Would you use a thin woo excuse you might not actually believe as a MacGuffin to prevent a kidnapping? if you know J.J.’s family has the ability to book for Florida at the drop of the hat (assuming they hadn’t done so already, which they probably had) do you sacrifice an Aboriginal Rights issue on child custody for a court order that isn’t going to save J.J.’s life anyway, because she’ll be safely ensconced in freakin’ West Palm before the decision is read?

(It’s important to note that neither the parents nor the bands were parties to the original petition, in which McMaster named only Brant FACS. The parents and bands were added to the case at the behest of Judge Edward, who also appears to have left out a significant passage in the case law in his decision… “Any right, aboriginal or other, by its very nature carries with it the obligation to use it responsibly. It cannot be used, for example, in a way which harms people, aboriginal or non‑aboriginal.” **sigh**)

If McMaster was acting out of mere stupid with Makayla, there was plenty of time for that to wear off before they petitioned the court on behalf of J.J. Given the facts revealed so far, one has to be credulous to see this petition as NOT an attempt to set a precedent for state custody of First Nations children on medical grounds determined by a hospital staff alone without qualified mediating authority. I do not doubt McMaster’s sincerity in their desire to save the lives of gravely ill First Nations children. But by all appearances (at this point at least) they channeled that concern through an ongoing war by elements within Euro-Canadian society to exert oppressive control over the First Nations on a wide variety of concerns.

Here I shall digress a bit to examine an example of the kind of hostility the Six Nations band faces from some of its neighbors, which gets reflected to some degree in Canadian society in general, and news coverage in the mainstream press.

In the OP above, Orac cites a post by blogger Deyoyonwatheh (aka DeYo), “who works for McMaster but wasn’t involved in either girl’s care.” I’m guessing Orac was alerted to DeYo’s post by this comment in the previous thread. As I am not busy saving lives via surgical oncology, I took the time to look at other posts on DeYo’s blog and use the Google…

Unlike the not-that-anonymous Orac, DeYo is utterly anonymous. DeYo does not claim to work at McMaster Hospital, but to have received some unspecified sort of medical training at McMaster University. News stories referencing DeYo’s blog identify DeYo as being of First Nations descent. Not having scrutinized every page of the blog admittedly, I found only A.) a claim of “kinship connections [including], among others, the people of Haldimand County, the Delaware of Smoothtown, and the Lower Mohawk of the old Mohawk Village and Tyendinaga,” and B.) a claim of Mohawk ancestry in some unspecified past post-1650 — noted for the purpose of identifying those distant ancestors as Christians — this in a post titled “Government Funded Domestic Violence Shelter Requires Six Nations Christians to Participate in ‘Traditional’ Practices or They are Forced Out.” (Can I get an Amen!)

Note the careful wording by DeYo. “Kinship connections’ don’t mean squat. I have blood kin (first cousins) who are African-American, and I’m as white as Ivory soap. And so would I be even if I had a non-white ancestor in the 17th century. DeYo’s blog is known on forums devoted to Aboriginal Rights politicking (pro and con), and there is significant suspicion that DeYo is ‘passing’. There is no evidence whatsoever that DeYo has ever participated in or identified with a First Nations culture.

While DeYo’s post on the leukemia patients seems eminently rational for the most part, a check of the other pages on the blog reveals it is devoted to attacking the Six Nations band on any and every front imaginable. And those attacks display just a wee bit [irony] of wingnut crankery. DeYo breathlessly informs us that the Six Nations are under the spell of “Communists, Anarchists, Palestinian groups, Black Panthers” and various other “rabble rousing extortionists” (e.g. Occupy, the Auto Workers and Public Employees unions, and a few of those dreaded humanities professors — Marxist/Anarchist Fronts All!).

Under the sway of this diabolical conspiracy, the Six Nations are somehow able to wreak “tyranny” on Christians and white Canadians, and have totally “intimidated” the press into silence and the police into inaction.

(We feel for ya DeYo. Here in the US, so-called Land of the Free, two goons named Gorski and Novella have cowed the press into silence about the CDC Whistleblower and the vast Big Pharma/Big Goverment conspiracy to spread autism for profit. And the damn do-nothing cops won’t arrest said goons for their fraudulent shill “science” bought-and-paid for by said conspiracy — and our popo even have tanks and bazookas and shit that could get control of Wayne State and Yale hospitals quicker than you can say “Ferguson”! ••Can I get an Amen?•• No?)

The blog informs us that the trigger event for its creation was a traffic jam resulting from a Six Nations anti-fraking protest that impeded DeYo’s return home from dinner at a local restaurant. The nerve of those people, I tell ya’!

I’d propose that it would be odd for a bunch of Lefty radicals to support the Sault family’s withdrawal of Makayla from chemo on the basis of Evangelical faith-healing Christianity, but, you know, that’s just how those insidious Commies roll.

The point is not that some anonymous Bircher is railing against the Six Nations. The point is the supposedly cowed mainstream Canadian press is citing this blog as a legit source on issues without doing any background digging or ID’ing the POV of the source. Confirmation bias, much? Of course, DeYo’s partisan wiggitude doesn’t mean all the critiques on the blog are invalid, but a proper journalist would find a credible non-anonymous source to confirm and use in any story for publication.
…………..

‘Blame’ as used below is a subjective and contingent philosophical evaluation. It’s not a call for any sort of action. It’s not an assessment of malice. It’s not a judgement of character. People have complicated reasons for doing what they do, or for not acting as we might think they should in the abstract. No one should pass definitive judgement on anyone without knowing a lot more than any of us know about about the details. So, as an abstraction, FWIW:

Revised Makayla and J. J. impending death blame list as of 2PM PCT, 11/21/14, in descending order:

• Brian Clement: Money-grubbing monster killing cancer patients for 34 years
• The State of Florida: There ought to be a law, but it’s Florida…
• McMaster Hospital: Ideology-fueled bungling
• Brandt CAWS: Still butt covering cowards
• J.J.’s Parents: Irresponsible woo-dupes, fled jurisdiction
• Makayla’s Parents: Irresponsible woo-dupe batsh!t fundies
• Canadian First Nations policies: Uh, oppressed people will oppose the kidnapping of their kids, even if you say “it’s in a good cause.”
• Racism: Why the bad policies exist
• Lawyers: Lawyers
• SBM advocates: Asleep at the wheel, didn’t take the field until the ref had blown the last whistle

Not really culpable:
• Chiefs Hill and LaForme: With J.J. and parents having fled to FL, no option that would save her; pulled into the case by Judge Edward; had to act in best in best interest of the bands, playing the hands they’d been dealt, which in this case meant using the BS ‘traditional medicine’ MacGuffin to ward off a child-custody precedent clusterf**k created by McMaster’s bungling in not going to the CCD.
• Judge Edward: Even had he invoked the “no harm” language in the case law, a ruing in favor of McMaster would not have saved J.J., as she was already in FL.

More importantly, the new blame list as of 2PM PCT, 11/21/14, in descending order, for future First Nations kids who may fall victim to potentially fatal quackery:

• The Quack: Monster still money-grubbing after Makayla is in the ground
• Parents: They shouldn’t need to Google the quacks once Makayla dies
• The State of Florida: Hello! Rick! Dying kid in news stories all over the globe! Anybody home? … [crickets]
• Canadian First Nations policies: The pols needed to help the bands set up their own Child Welfare and Protection Services a long time ago. No excuse not to move after this other than callous disregard for these kids lives
• McMaster Hospital: Ideology-fueled bungling opened the door for quacks to claim future victims. Failure to appeal Edward’s ruing inexcusable under the circumstances
• Judge Edward: Used selective reading of case law to established a very bad precedent
• Chiefs Hill and LaForme: Their influence in parents’ decisions is limited, but with the custody issue out of the way, they need to do everything they can to push the parents away from woo and into effective treatment for the kids
• Lawyers: Only if an appeal is filed, or another case brought to court

No longer really culpable:
• Brandt CAWS: Everybody should know the de facto limits of their power now
• Racism: The custody issue is (hopefully) settled, and no matter how racist the smack against ‘traditional First Nations medicine’ may be, that has nothing to do with the survival of First Nations kids because it ain’t f**king medicine! The pols are responsible for rising above the bigotry of their constituencies

You’ll notice I didn’t put ‘SBM advocates’ in the second list. They could wind up on at or near the end of the blame list if they don’t make some small positive contribution to the discussion that has a practical possibility of mattering. Outside parties have little actual say in what happens to these kids, but SBMers should fight like hell for them anyway. But to do that effectively they have to have a smarter ground game than the con-men. Just shouting “Science” does,not.work In the real world sh!t like history, culture, law, economics, ideology, structured inequality and social justice movements are the keys to how things actually happen. and that is never going to change.

In the greatest mythic American con-man narrative, Harold Hill has gotten away with his scam exactly because he does “know the territory” — the vulnerabilities born of hope and desire, the limits of the law, the limits of lay-peoples knowledge, the different kinds of appeals that work with different sorts of folks, the social vacuums ripe for filling with BS, the spots where money resides to be tapped, the traps to avoid…

When an innocent kid’s life is at stake, I don’t give a hoot in hell what’s ‘right’. I want to know what’s going to work.

Just my two cents, as always… And subject to change at any time…

Krebiozen @30:

Some folks have harsh words for this man of renown
But some say our attitude should be one of gratitude
Like the widows and cripples in old London town
Who owe their large pensions to Wernher von Braun.

I was once on hand for the launch of a rocket that suffered a first-stage motor anomaly. (That’s NASA-speak for, “It blew up.”) You don’t laugh much about errant rockets after that happens to you.

Eric Lund,

Like the widows and cripples in old London town […] You don’t laugh much about errant rockets after that happens to you.

Indeed. My local area in east London was badly hit by various bombs and rockets during WW2. This map gives an idea of just how badly, while this one just shows the V2 rocket hits, which alone killed 9,000 people. There are large swathes of more modern buildings among the Victorian houses hereabouts that betray the bomb damage. A V2 rocket took out a row of houses not a hundred yards from where I write this, and there are a couple of houses nearby with a ‘V’ for victory built into the repaired brickwork.

I know my USian wife thinks that Brits are obsessed with WW2, and she doubtless has a point, but when its legacy is all around you, it’s hard to forget, and I think it’s important to remember just how nasty wars can be.

Liz Ditz @ 32: Thanks for the link to the combined Anti-Vax Wall of Shame/Spudd website. I needed some laughs.

Kim Stagliano garnered some publicity for herself and for AoA by ranting about Jerry Seinfeld…but the bottom line is that she exposed herself and AoA to some well-earned criticism:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2014/11/12/for-some-parents-of-autistic-children-jerry-seinfelds-self-diagnosis-was-a-slap-in-the-face/

Since it’s open topic, I thought I’d mention something hilarious over at Timmy Bolen’s site.

He’s predicting (once again) that Dr. Stephen Barrett will lose the Doctor’s Data lawsuit so badly that the bogus lab will recoup tens of millions of dollars in damages from the “cabal of skeptics” and, as part of the settlements, he’s claiming that all skeptic blogs including Orac’s will be seized by the government and turned over to Doctor’s Data. (Never mind the logistics of how ScienceBlogs would accomplish that, but he’s deluded…)

I won’t do him any favours by linking, but you know where to find it. It’s absolutely hysterical (and quite pathetic) how bitter and obsessed this sad little man is with Dr. Barrett, Orac, Peter Bowditch and the “skeptics.”

mho: the BoM in Minnesota is in a quandry. In 2010, the Legislature was threatening to pass legislation that would protect “Chronic Lyme” quacks from discipline by the Board.

The Board came up with this as a compromise to avoid legislative action. Looks like they’ve extended it because the legislative environment still is not favorable to cracking down on these quacks.

Ignorant state legislators can do a LOT of damage to health care because of special interest lobbying. In my home state of North Carolina, the Board of Nursing was pressured into adopting rules to allow unlicensed assistive personnel (CNAs basically) to administer certain medications (basically anything that isn’t parenteral). The motive is financial: nurses cost more than CNAs. This will help nursing home operators cut back on nursing staff to administer medications, which are mostly PO except for insulin.

I was shocked. I hadn’t heard anything about this. I’m definitely going to get more active in the NCNA as a result.

^ forestall

A bit of disinterested promotion for a French book I just read over this week-end (for Francophones only, sadly – I don’t think there is an English version yet):

Ambroise Paré : Un Urgentiste Au XVIe Siècle

It’s a biography of a famous French barber-surgeon, a real “brave maverick scientist”, who truly revolutionized the field. The book is full of anecdotes of surgical operations and treatments done at this time, including tumor resection, without much in term of anesthesia. There were some tough people.