Regular readers might have wondered why there was no post yesterday. The answer’s simple: A combination of work and having to fly out to Buffalo for the CFI Reason for Change conference, where I’ll be on a panel on (of course!) alternative medicine later today. That same combination means that this post will be uncharacteristically brief. I know, I know. When I say “uncharacteristically brief,” usually what happens is that I manage to keep things under 2,000 words for a chance, but that’s just how I roll.
However, as busy as I am at the moment, I just have to take note of a most happy development in the form of journalists doing their job. I’m referring to the story reported by the BBC yesterday about MMS. You remember MMS, of course. Basically, it’s a form of bleach. In fact, it’s a form of bleach that is sold as as a “miracle cure” to be ingested or taken as an enema for everything from AIDS to cancer to autism. Indeed, MMS stands for “miracle mineral solution,” and, yes, autism quack Kerri Rivera recommends feeding children bleach and forcing them to take bleach enemas.) So, hot on the heals of a major seller of MMS being convicted of conspiracy, smuggling, selling misbranded drugs and defrauding the United States, leading to various MMS autism quacks going silent for a while, the BBC published an expose of the organization most responsible for the “popularization” of this bizarre and harmful alternative therapy ‘Miracle autism cure’ seller exposed by BBC investigation:
A self-styled “reverend” who claims autism can be “purged” by swallowing bleach has been exposed by a BBC London undercover investigation.
Leon Edwards sold sodium chlorite and hydrochloric acid to a reporter posing as the relation of an autistic child. Combined, the chemicals form bleach.
The BBC has also learned the secret location of a conference to begin in Surrey on Friday to promote the ‘cure’.When confronted with the evidence, Mr Edwards made no comment.
Mr. Edwards is affiliated with the Genesis II Church. That’s the church founded by Jim Humble, the originator of the concept that it’s somehow a good idea to shoot bleach up your posterior to cure AIDS. Well, actually Humble claims that MMS can be used to successfully treat AIDS, hepatitis A,B and C, malaria, herpes, TB, most cancer and many more of mankind’s worse diseases. He even goes so far as to claim that 5,000,000 people have used MMS and that “hundreds of thousands” of lives have been saved. Unfortunately, it appears that for this function Jim Humble uses more concentrated MMS—a lot more concentrated. More horrifically, Humble bestows his “blessings” on poor people in Third World countries like Haiti. In fact, MMS is actually really nasty stuff, with some of its users suffering serious complications. Humble also teaches his disciples his quackery:
When people leave here they really know how to use MMS for all things, skin diseases of all kinds, colon problems, how to regenerate the liver, how to treat brain cancers, how to treat babies and pregnant women, and how to treat animals from mice to elephants. You will be personally taking MMS while here, spraying your skin with powerful solutions of MMS (but won’t hurt you), spraying others’ skin and hair. You will learn to use sprays, baths, IV solutions, MMS gas, soak the feet, and most importantly, the new protocols that in the country of Malawi have cured more than 800 people of HIV plus 40 cancer cases, 50 of feet and leg numbness, 3 heart disease cases, 13 diabetes cases, and many other diseases and problems.
Yes, you read it right. Jim Humble likes to go down to Haiti and the Dominican Republic and subject the poor there to industrial bleach, just as Kerri Rivera likes to show up at the quackfest known as Autism One to give paeans to the joys of bleach enemas as a treatment for autism. In the UK, the quacks seem to be a bit cagier. The BBC report tells us:
Some of the leading figures in the ‘church’ have travelled from the US to attend the conference, due to take place in a manor house in Farnham.
Emails obtained by the BBC show delegates have been told to meet at a certain location before being driven to the venue, where they will be instructed in preparing doses of MMS to be consumed orally and taken via enemas.
Through his website, Mr Edwards, who says he is not attending the conference, sold the researcher the one bottle of liquid labelled as 22.4% sodium chlorite and a second labelled as 4% hydrochloric acid.
When the BBC sent the chemicals to Kent Scientific Services, an independent laboratory, they were found to be 57% and 45% stronger than the advertised concentration respectively.
Come on. It’s “miracle mineral solution”! If you believe—I mean really believe—it’s a gift from God designed to heal everything that ails humankind, you don’t really have to be that picky about actual…oh, you know…chemical concentrations, do you? What’s wrong? Isn’t your faith strong enough? You think I’m joking? Then look at this argument made by spokesperson for the Genesis II Church:
An organiser of the Genesis II Church conference described MMS as a “sacrament” that was “no different than the bread and wine given during a church service”.
The spokeswoman continued: “The so-called side effects are far less than [in] drugs sold by pharmaceutical companies.“We are not selling any products during the church services. We simply conduct our services and share our news and protocols.
“Table salt is dangerous if taken too much [sic].”
Yes, and Botox is a deadly poison that, when administered in very tiny doses, has all sorts of potential beneficial uses that go beyond cosmetic. The difference, of course, is that we know the mechanism by which Botox works and we know that it is beneficial for conditions involving smooth muscle that is too “contracted” or active. We have no such evidence base to support the use of MMS for any human disease, particularly not the way the Genesis II Church recommends it, certainly not for autism, and certainly not with this sort of advice:
Mr Marshall said the ‘medicine’ had been known to make people vomit blood and lose the lining of their intestines, branding its effects “heartbreaking and grotesque”.
He also warned that if people at next week’s meeting, which is being organised by Mr Grenon and Mark Kishon, claimed MMS could cure cancer, they would be in breach of the Cancer Act 1939.
Undercover reporters infiltrated a meeting hosted by Mr Kishon in Sussex last month where he was filmed advising a cancer patient that his post-treatment check-ups were “unnecessary”.
I haven’t seen any reports about the meeting, which is probably taking place now as I write this and is supposed to last the entire weekend. (The juxtaposition of this secret quack meeting with the three day meeting I’m at is a bit annoying.) I will keep an eye out for further news reports. In the meantime, I wonder if they’re also telling patients who haven’t already had science-based treatment for their cancer not to bother with that pesky toxic chemotherapy or that painful disfiguring surgery. It wouldn’t surprise me in the least. How many people have died as a result of relying on Humble’s religious quackery instead of real medicine? How many children have been subjected to bleach enemas, causing the lining of their intestines to slough, something that is interpreted as “parasites” dying?
If you don’t believe that treating autism with MMS is child abuse, go back and reread a story I wrote two years ago about a woman using MMS on her child with autism, complete with pictures of the lining of the child’s colon that had sloughed as a result of the treatment and that the mother proudly photographed as evidence that the “parasites” were dying. Then tell me again that MMS for autism isn’t child abuse.
140 replies on “The Genesis II Church holds a secret MMS quackery conference in England”
Well, of course, it was the special offer. Buy one, get 50% more free.
Hydrochloric acid. Good grief. And all-natural and nothing like “chemo”, right?
Is it normal I feel the urge to arse-kick these charlatans?
It’s one thing to have weird beliefs, but when the snake oil seller is very obviously pissing on your shoes and pretending it’s raining, strong acts may be required.
OT, but if you get wings while in Buffalo, go to Duff’s on Sheridan. Just say “Duff’s on Sheridan” to whoever you’re standing next to, and they’ll know where to point you.
Wow. Just wow. They are going to start treating chlorine dioxide as a sacrament? That is an approach i haven’t heard about before.
Very dangerous, very sad that there are so many gullible folks supporting this.
Unfortunately, I watched an Autism One video of Rivera, who when introduced was greeted with APPLAUSE!
Those present at the presentation were asked to put away their phones so nothing could be recorded? I wonder why
Those ATTENDING the presentatoion
PRESENTATION…
these people make me so angry I forget how to write.
“When the BBC sent the chemicals to Kent Scientific Services, an independent laboratory, they were found to be 57% and 45% stronger than the advertised concentration respectively. ”
So customers are getting even more of the healthful MMS than they paid for. Geez, you skeptics complain about _everything_.
If the BBC isn’t careful, it’ll get a reputation for debunking woo.
http://www.geneticliteracyproject.org/2015/06/11/bbc-panorama-program-blasting-anti-gmo-activists-for-ignoring-science-underscores-turning-point-on-gmo-reporting/
@MikeMa
The logic, such as it is, goes like this. Create a miracle cure. Since you can’t legally sell it, though, create a fake religion and make it part of your sacrament. Then you can provide the “sacrament” to coreligionists. It’s a religious practice, not a drug, and so gains some measure of protection. Prohibiting its use would be argued as infringing on the free practice of religion.
Probably would not hold up in a court, but creating a religion out of whole cloth to protect your quackery and abuse is not exactly a novel concept. *coughscientologycough*
@ Todd W
We nerds prefer to talk about Hubology or Happyology.
Although Mike Resnick & David Gerrold’s take on it in the short novel “Jellyfish” was not bad either:
Why do I fell that the latest description would well describe Humble’s religion?
Helianthus@1:
Ideally into a deep ditch filled with lye. Although, anything that helps rid us of Surrey cannot be all bad.
Speaking of religious nuts, has anyone deconstructed Theresa Deisher’s new heaping spoonful fetal parts in the MMR vaccine causing autism? http://soundchoice.s3.amazonaws.com/soundchoice/wp-content/uploads/Deisher-article-2-FINAL.pdf
So, how well does MMS work on laundry? Could it be a miracle for these tough stains?
In Charlie Pierce’s roundup of (mostly political) news from various states, he had an item about a woman dying from an “unorthodox” cancer treatment that involved DMSO, which included this excellent sentence:
http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a35642/paul-lepage-maine-veto-partisanship/
Sooooo I was feeling pretty masochistic or something and I looked up what I think might be the video you’re referring to. I made it about 12 minutes through… it is honestly horrifying. Apparently, the MMS is meant to be administered “orally, rectally, and in baths.” So not only are they feeding their kids bleach and shoving it up their bums, they are also bathing them in it.
Oh, and she talked about some “baby bottle” technique where one “activated drop” of MMS goes into a baby bottle with eight ounces of water, and then you give the kid one ounce every hour. She then went on to specify that you could dilute it even further, but that she doesn’t think that’s often necessary, and herself only finds that she needs to do it every six months or so.
Wait, what? This is a freaking lifestyle or something? I mean, if MMS was such a great parasite killer, wouldn’t it kill the freaking parasites, which would mean you could stop using it? How long are people doing this to their children for? Is this a freaking life sentence?
Probably would not hold up in a court, but creating a religion out of whole cloth to protect your quackery and abuse is not exactly a novel concept. *coughscientologycough*
In the 1980s there was a so-called church in Miami which claimed marijuana as a sacrament. The DEA, of course, took a skeptical view, and was eventually able to prove in court that the alleged church was a front for drug smuggling activities. English law is different, but probably not in a way that helps Rev. Edwards, since England (unlike the US) has an official church.
For those readers who are unfamiliar with UK geography: Surrey and Sussex are counties bordering metropolitan London to the south, and extending from within the M25 (London’s beltway) down to the south coast of England. (Kent borders Sussex to the east, and Hampshire borders Surrey to the west.) This area includes the Surrey Hills, an area where many rich people own estates, so we are talking about affluent people falling for this woo, as mentioned in some of Orac’s recent posts.
@Chadwick Jones
The laundry might be a bad idea. As the Sodium Chlorite dries, it becomes combustible. Most clothing provides a nice flammable base.
@ Eric Lund:
I expect if we charted woo-fraught presentations/ seminars if most or all of them were within easy driving distance of large cities which are overflowing with excess capital and/ or areas where the rich maintain country houses in plentitude.
See London, NY, SF, LA .
Another totally biased article published by the prestitutes and written by a journalist too lazy to research the facts.
I am not affiliated to the Genesis 2 Church or MMS in anyway – I am a researcher.
How many parents in Surrey have had their children diagnosed with autism and then to be told that the child cannot recover so will be autistic for life? With autism rates now well below 1 in 88 for the UK, at an average cost in care at over one million pound per child, we simply cannot afford to ignore, ridicule or vilify any chance that could help our sick children recover to any degree.
For years I have observed that even the most substantially effected children have moments where they are profoundly better – perhaps only for mere fleeting periods of time. This alone implies there is some interference with neuro-processing which is not always present at the same level. It is therefore conceivable that there are some interfering substances that are contributing to the condition we know as autism. Once you accept this possibility you have options.
In recent studies in the USA over 80% of autistic children had elevated levels of an enzyme called Nagalase – this enzyme is secreted by pathogens with the sole purpose of suppressing or collapsing the immune system. Treated with homeopathic doses of a naturally occurring protein resulted in a reduction of Nagalase and with it improved cognitive behaviour & health for 85% of those children.
http://www.la-press.com/initial-observations-of-elevated-alpha-n-acetylgalactosaminidase-activ-article-a3450
There are many other interventions that work like changing the diet, treating parasites, bacteria, yeast & viruses. Each protocol, in most cases, will help the child recover one step at a time.
There is no magic bullet and neither is MMS, but the results are impressive with over 170 children no longer considered or diagnosable as autistic. These children have been charted using the ATEC score – (Autism Treatment Evaluation Checklist) which measures the success of any intervention into autism. All of the 170 children mentioned above would have been on one or more of the protocols
Will you accept the lame-stream view that a child is autistic for life? Or can you accept that within 85% of cases, the symptoms we know to be autism, are in fact treatable and that there is hope for many?
For the secrets thereof you must join The Order of the Immaculate Habit.
Chlorine dioxide is used extensively for bleaching in textile production. It bleaches by oxidation, so, unlike hypochlorite bleaches, it does not produce chlorinated organic compounds as byproducts (same reason it is preferred for water treatment and wood pulp bleaching in paper making). It is less damaging to fibres than hypochlorite bleaches.
It is a very effective disinfectant, so it finds use for things like hospital laundry.
It is also used, as a gas, for full-room disinfection. The concentration required is well below the threshold where there is a hazard of explosion, the latter being a non-preferred means of disinfection.
It really is very useful stuff, but not as “medicine.”
Trevor:
will *you* accept that you are severely misrepresenting the mainstream view? It is well known by people who are not attempting to exploit or institutionalize the autistic that it is not a condition of stasis, and that many are able to join a mainstream environment. For instance, you would never know my brother had any problems as a child at all.
But are you willing to believe that autistic people can learn and adapt? I’m not sure you are. Becaues then you’d have to accept two difficult proposiitons:
1) that maybe those who got better didn’t get better because of MMS, but because of their own ability
and
2) that maybe they don’t need to be wasting money on what you’re pushing.
I don’t know what you’re a researcher of, but you do not strike me as a very competent one. Either you don’t understand that correlation isn’t cuasation, or you have an extraordinarily low opinion of autistic people, such that you cannot believe that it was coincidence that any of those kids got better. (BTW, I’ve yet to see anyone offer actual evidence of kids getting better on MMS. Just claims, like yours, that the evidence totally exists. But I am giving you the benefit of the doubt.)
Helianthus has already said what I feel. JFC as if 4% hydrochloric acid wasn’t bad enough, turns out it’s almost twice that concentration along with the sodium chlorite. Congratulations JB Handley, Kent Heckenlively, Kim Stagliano et al. You’re a bunch of sick freak child abusers and should be doing jail time for what you are doing to your children and encouraging others to do. As for Kerri Rivera, that skank is so vile I wouldn’t shed a tear if she met with some sudden unpleasant demise.
Based on testimonials aggregated by the very skank who promotes this rubbish you child-abusing apologist dick. Researcher my arse, you’re just another self-aggrandising, science-ignorant jerk.
@MikeMa #16
(jumping up and down excitedly) Exploding pants!
Sorry – I just couldn’t help myself ^^*
Your argument above reduces to nothing other than “We have to do something. Bleach enemas are something. Therefore we have to do bleach enemas.”—and you’re quite simply wrong: we absolutely must vilify child abuse, which dosing a child with an industrial grade bleaching agent orally or via enema in the absence of any evidence whatsoever that doing so is a safe and effective treatment for autism spectrum disorders, represents.
Did you even read the paper you cited, Trevor? If you had you would have found “The doses ranged from 4 to 100 ng per wk and were adjusted based on clinical response, age, body weight, and the initial level of Nagalase activity.”
Those aren’t homeopathic dosages.
@ Trevor #18
Anyone telling a parent that their child can’t “recover” from autism is not keeping current with the literature – a recent review finds that 3 – 25% of children diagnosed with an ASD will no longer meet the diagnostic criteria as adults. That’s as many as 1 in 4 who lose their diagnosis completely – it seems reasonable to infer that the percentage who show significant improvement is higher. That’s why bogus and even dangerous treatments seem to work – parents just try one after the other until the kid improves and then ascribes the improvement to whatever treatment they’re currently using.
For years I have observed that even the most substantially effected children have moments where they are profoundly better – perhaps only for mere fleeting periods of time. This alone implies there is some interference with neuro-processing which is not always present at the same level.
Here’s a crazy idea – maybe autistics are human f-ing beings who have good and bad days like anyone else. The fact that a person is autistic doesn’t make every single thing they do some kind of pathology.
Oh, and one more thing about the Nagalase paper you cited: the study did not find “a reduction of Nagalase and with it improved cognitive behaviour & health for 85% of those children”: the authors conclude instead
Citation, please, that autism is caused by diet, parasites, bacteria, yeast or a virus.
Citation, please, that MMS treats any parasitic, bacterial, or viral infection in vivo.
Citation, please, that autistic children have any greater chances of being infected by parasites than any other group of children.
Tell us what kind of ‘researcher’ you are, that thinks anything homeopathic does anything, or do you not know what homeopathy is?
Oh, and Trevor’s one link points to the archive of the ‘no longer published here’ Autism Insights journal. The one that had Wakefield on the editorial board.
Anyone want to comment on the Nagalase study? To save you time searching, since his link just points to the index, it’s here:
Initial Observations of Elevated Alpha-N-Acetylgalactosaminidase Activity Associated with Autism and Observed Reductions from GC Protein—Macrophage Activating Factor Injections (Published on 10 Dec 2012)
http://goo.gl/sWhGbo
I did notice that it didn’t describe a homeopathic treatment, unless that was part of the ‘standard methods’ I didn’t reference hop to see. If it did, it would be wonderful to learn that distilled water could have such profound effects.
Last: “parasites, bacteria, yeast & viruses”. There have been no parasites found. ‘Yeast’ is another meaningless bogeyman used with invented ‘gut troubles’. If they existed, it would be very clearly documented, and very easy to demonstrate. Science has gotten very good at identifying such things, even if they can’t treat them.
The entire premise of tying all these things back to ‘gut health’ is without basis. so even you’re assertion that ‘we have to try something’ is off track.
Well, there’s precedent for anal sacraments, I guess… if Jimmy Osterberg is your kind of preacher.
https://youtu.be/MHuZ8DfUAfU?t=20s
But then, this was a demo for the album that included “Gimme Danger’ “Penetration” and “Death Trip”…
If Jim Humble can have a church, Iggy definitely deserves one:
I mean, it makes more sense than this BS, and hey, Iggy’s the picture of health at 68!
I commented on the paper above, Narad: the dosage given wasn’t homeopathic (4 to 100 ng/week) and the authors found no improvement in cognitive behaviour & health for any of the children treated asociated with reduction in Nagalase activity–much less than in 85% of those children as Trevor claimed.
I suspect he never even read the paper..
I guess Trevor isn’t aware of the BS number of children that Kerri Riviera claims to have “reversed” autism. Someone once sent her a bogus e-mail claiming that a child had had his autism “reversed” by MMS (there was never any child and the “parent” was a science blogger testing her). Riviera of course embraced the phony e-mail and claimed that child as another of her “success stories” on her website.
There are not 170 children who have had their autism “reversed” by the bleach. It’s advertising, Trevor. It’s not true.
And homeopathy is BS too.
Looks like the self-described “researcher” we attracted @18 gets his claimed expertise at the University of Google. Tell whoever sent you to send us better trolls, please. And don’t believe everything you read on the internet.
Beyond not being able to find evidence that “over 80%” of autistic children have an elevated level of “nagalase”*, this enzyme is not some horrible foreign invader secreted solely by pathogens – it’s produced naturally in the human body.
“The NAGA gene provides instructions for making the enzyme alpha-N-acetylgalactosaminidase. This enzyme works in the lysosomes, which are compartments within cells that digest and recycle materials. Within lysosomes, the enzyme helps break down complexes called glycoproteins and glycolipids, which consist of sugar molecules attached to certain proteins and fats. Specifically, alpha-N-acetylgalactosaminidase helps remove a molecule called alpha-N-acetylgalactosamine from sugars in these complexes.”
http://ghr.nlm.nih.gov/gene/NAGA
Moreover, the only connection I can find between this enzyme and autism (at least, any rationally-based connection) is that in some people who don’t produce the working enzyme, substrates build up in cells and may cause autism-like symptoms (apparently most people with this enzyme deficiency a.k.a Schindler disease have
physical abnormalities which can include severe or life-threatening neurological impairments. I don’t see where any condition associated with too much of this enzyme has been established.
The paper linked to earlier has a lead author identified online as affiliated with a “wellness center” that recruits autistic patients and promotes stem cell therapy for autism. I would take this (now defunct journal) citation with a mountain of GMO-free Himalayan rock salt.
*In an AOA article about this, Kent Heckenlively refers to the enzyme as “nagalese”, which sounds like the mother tongue of the Naga tribe.
Tell whoever sent you to send us better trolls, please
Based on the last two weeks, I almost miss that woman who kept bragging about her gym memberships.
CalliAricle @20
Yep autism often improves on its own.No treatment is ever needed.
No diet or medication ever needed..
Nothing.
These articles and studies are not talking about “recovery”.It’s more about autism as a treatable condition to be controlled.Ask me,I know.
Don’t be ridiculous, Roger. That autism can and often does improve does not mean not treatment is ever needed. Responding to a nuanced point with absolutes misrepresents the original point. Especially since your references are largely to treatments of comorbitidies (oh, news flash, autistic people who have other conditions should have those other conditiosn treated!).
And that treatment is important for many people with autism doesn’t mean that MMS is anything other than medical abuse. The most important treatment for an autistic person is *therapy*, where you help them to learn things that other people figure out so easily on their own. Shoving remedies down their throats or up the other end won’t magically teach them the social skills other kids have spent the last ten years developing. I realize it’s appealing to think you can just give your kid a drug and then it will all be better, but that isn’t how it works.
Roger, I don’t think anyone here denies that there are co-occurrences with autism. So please don’t take it personally when someone makes a statement about spontaneous developments in autistics without intervention.
I’m with Helianthus @1: hydrochloric? If bleaching your insides to death isn’t enough, you’ll burn them through as well?
I calculate that 5.8% HCl (by volume from concentrated HCl) is pH 0.75. No wonder people are vomiting blood.
And, the last time I was in a lab where ClO2 gas was generated (by mistake), we all jumped up and ran the hell out of the room, until the hoods had cleared it out.
So, Trevor, knowing that, you personally would be willing to drink this MMS solution or breathe MMS gas? Or do you just recommend it to desperate people who don’t know how dangerous those chemicals are?
Caution: For those thinking of giving themselves an enema with household bleach to save money, don’t do it. That’s sodium hypochlorite, while combining MMS components makes chlorine dioxide. http://bit.ly/1MPG0Y4
Better yet, how about not putting either one up your colon.
Trevor@18:
You are a fucking cunt*, but I guess you’ve known that from the day you dribbled down your revolting momma’s leg.
When little kids shit out their intestinal lining just so you and yours can claim Great Success, I tend to want to take the entire human race and flush it down the nearest black hole just for the salvation of the rest of the Universe. I mean, I am not a nice person, but next to you I am a fucking saint.
—
* With massive, massive apologies to the ladies in our midst: I learned that one on a sheep farm, and have been stuck for anything more utterly vile ever since. If you have any more disgusting expletives to offer, suggestions on a postcard please.
Treated with homeopathic doses of a naturally occurring protein resulted in a reduction of Nagalase and with it improved cognitive behaviour & health for 85% of those children.
This is the GcMAF grift. The scammers are promoting the stuff to cure cancer, autism, CFS — all the usual targets. To indicate the level of mendacity involved, Jeffrey Bradstreet (notorious fraud and a regular recipient of Respectful Insolence) is the first author of Trevor’s paper, while the third author Thyler is an employee of David Noakes’ now-busted GcMAF company.
Which is Trevor employed by?
In an AOA article about this, Kent Heckenlively refers to the enzyme as “nagalese”, which sounds like the mother tongue of the Naga tribe.
I suspect that the grifters are thinking of the Naga snake-deities, and that the whole thing is a nod at “snake oil”.
Nick J. @29:
Perhaps I misunderstood your comment about yeast in the gut being a meaningless bogeyman. Overgrowth of yeast in the gastrointestinal tract is very real and can be dangerous.
Here’s one reference:
:http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3163673/
Hurumm… as longine lurker turned intermittent sharpshooter, I’m a little distressed that our esteemed host hasn’t (yet?) cleared my especially salty riposte to “Trevor”… but I imagine he’s off busy [i]saving people’s lives[/i], or something unspeakably boring like that.
BTW, have I mentioned how I doff my hat at the unimaginable niceness and unswerving humanity of all the regulars here? In the meantime I suppose I’ll just have to dream of dear Trevor a*se up, head down, in a bucket of foaming soda. Eh, at least there’s still times it’s good to be a b*stard…
Apologies in advance for going off-topic with the Nagalase GcMAF scam…
The main players in the grift are
1. David Noakes, conspiracy theorist, thrown out of the UK Independence Party for excessive craziness; focusses on cancer patients as victims. He was trading out of Guernsey for tax-evasion purposes, dealing in GcMAF that had been extracted from human blood products by a chromatography operation in a garage, run by a mate whose relevant experience had been in home-brewing. Before boarding the GcMAF spamwagon, Noakes had been selling DCA, the previous wonder cancer cure that doctors won’t tell you about. He’s the Immuno Biotech cited in Trevor’s paper.
2. Dr Marco Ruggiero. Italian AIDS-denialist,, recently resigned his certificate to practice to forestall having it stripped from him. Now distancing himself from Noakes, and focussing on “Bravo Probiotics”… a form of magic yogurt in which he claims to have found GcMAF — very obligingly, those fermenting bacteria are producing a mammalian peptide (no-one else has been able to replicate that claim). Ruggiero prefers the desperate-dying-cancer-patient market as most lucrative, but he also promotes his yogurt suppositories for CFS, cadmium poisoning, and of course autism (he spoke at 2015 AutismOne).
3. Bradstreet. Grifter through and through without any pretence at scientific legitimacy. Works with Ruggiero on a couple of other scams (e.g. using ultrasonography to diagnose autism). Also cures autism with stemcell injections, electromagnetic pulse therapy, hyperbaric oxygen, secretin, and industrial chelators. Used to be an exorcist. I am not making this up.
4. The source of the whole Nagalase / GcMAF saga was a Dr Yamamoto who published a series of papers about miraculous cures… mostly since retracted because no-one could find any trace of his patients, or of the IRBs which supposedly approved his research, or evidence that his research foundation was spending money on research. When a paper cites Yamamoto’s retracted reports you know it’s bogus.
Various other parties are trying to cash in. There’s a Jeffrey Ayres (Doctor of Osteopathy and Naturopractic) who set up a GcMAF clinic on Barbados, out of reach of regulatory bodies, hoping to attract cancer tourism.
The handy thing about GcMAF is that it is nowhere precisely characterised… it’s a glycosolated polypeptide with a specified molecular weight on a chromatography blot. This has been a boon for the grifters who can announce “Second-Generation GcMAF” or “GcMAF — our version works!”
I am SHOCKED SHOCKED to find Trevor spamming the same words as “youcanfindtrevor”:
http://www.surreycomet.co.uk/NEWS/13327413.Church__claims_it_can_miraculously_cure_your_cancer__with____bleach/
Words which were in fact taken straight from Bradstreet’s mouth:*
ht_tp://web.archive.org/web/20120321084735/http://drbradstreet.org/author/drbradstreet/
The source of “Trevor”‘s opinionating turns out to be a dedicated Bradstreet Sycophancy blog:
http://healingautismblog.org/15-vitamin-d-binding-protein-mafactive/21-a-link-between-autism-and-viruses
* Wayback copy of Bradstreet’s claims because he seems to have subsequently taken them down.
has: As a member of that gender, I wince at the term.
HOWEVER: I also came within a nano-particle of applying it to our HR director yesterday, so I can’t throw stones.
Poor Trevor. He must feel like a Japanese giant hornet about now: http://theoatmeal.com/comics/bees_vs_hornets.
My autistic nephew is now 22. I have noticed over the years that he will go along in his routine way for a while and then his behavior will change. Slowly at first but ramping up, he will say and do a few new things, and move himself up to a new level, which then becomes the new routine. We all think it reflects a learning process, when new ideas and concepts take hold. As he’s grown he has done some age-appropriate things, albeit in his own inimitable style, things like the subtle acts of testing the limits when he was a grade-schooler, teenage rebellion (though you’d have to know him well to see it), and periodically shedding a few of the baby-level obsessions he still has and replacing them with somewhat more appropriate interests, or ways of satisfying them. He graduated from a public high school one year behind his age. He works in a print shop, doing screen printing and operating a complex embroidery machine. He competes with neurotypicals in figure skating and is an equestrian show-jumper. His riding skills have taken him so far beyond other “special riders” in our bi-county region that this year he will compete against neurotypicals in that, too.
All that with accomplished with love, care,patience, science, and fairly small but regular doses of fluoxetine. No magic bullets. No bleach.
And anyone who comes near him with a bleach enema will quickly find out what it feels like to receive one. And that also goes for his uncle with an autism spectrum condition – yours truly.
Herr Doktor @46 —
That would appear to be quite an achievement.
That would appear to be quite an achievement.
In the words of an erstwhile party colleague, Noakes is “a swivel-eyed loon whose insane conspiracy theories make the rest of us look as mad as a box of frogs… so good riddance. He should really be locked up in a secure unit.”
For all I know, these are terms of endearment in the UK idiom.
To be fair, Noakes was not actively ejected from UKIP; he preemptively resigned (after unsuccessfully seeking its leadership).
“Trevor” turns out to be Trevor Banks (owner of healingautismblog.org), who’s been pimping GcMAF through autism / CFS / cancer bulletin boards for years. Works for the company; director of “Cytoinnovations”, yet another GcMAF shell company.
Wow. And they call us shills.
@JGC:
OK, but I haven’t commented on this thread.
Trev’s website, as hard as it is to read, reprints the long-debunked supposed Johns Hopkins “cancer bulletin” that claims sugar, an “acidic body”, stress, negative thoughts, etc. all “feed” cancer.
This was a nice touch in Trevor’s offering:
Another fun moment from the Kelli Rivera video: the 72/2 protocol, which I had heard of, I think, but hadn’t really thought through. According to Rivera, it means “you don’t sleep for 72 hours” so that you can dose your child with bleach every 2 hours. Obviously, the salient bit of information is that the child is not allowed to sleep, and on top of that, is being fed bleach every two hours, and on top of that, the “72/2 protocol” is only supposed to be done when you’ve already “worked up to” giving the kid oral bleach, bleach enemas, and bleach baths.
I fail to see how this is in any way different from what one might encounter in, say, the basement of the Lubyanka, or Gitmo.
On Trevor Banks’ YouTuber account he reveals a degree of MMS-curiosity. So it was not a total digression after all.
Wow. And they call us shills.
Trevor Banks’ company (Cytoinnovations) holds a trademark for “MAFActive”… another version of the product, sourced from Ruggiero (according to chatter in the CFS community). Other directors of the company are Lesley Banks Hutchings, and Lynda Anne Thyer.
At one point Lesley Banks was working for Noakes, when his company was called “First Immune”, and was industriously shilling its products in any discussion thread anywhere in the bloggosphere that mentioned “autism” (“I work part time as customer follow up for First Immune GcMAF and also monitor the web for mentions of GcMAF”). Trevor Banks is also listed as Marketing Manager for Noakes’ company, at a different time when it had a different name, Immuno Biotech.
While Lynda Thyer started out on the staff of Immuno Biotech, then moved to “Macro Innovations” (which was the garage-run extraction facility).
It seems that as Cytoinnovations they are now competing with Noakes’ skeezy little operation, but evidently they are still in Bradstreet’s pocket.
Through Cytoinnovation, Trevor Banks and Lesley Hutchings run “MAFActive.com”, where they emphasise that their product is (nudge nudge) a Food Supplement, We Make No Health Claims, Here are Testimonials of Miraculous Cures. They seem to be targetting the US market and have registered the “food supplement” with the FDA. Grifters gotta shill.
The pair also own VDBP Ltd (i.e. “Vitamin D Binding Protein” — the same stuff under a different name).
Trevor Banks, researcher indeed. Why do I have the feeling he just won’t be back?
I will admit to having a double standard in that I do not mind the word nearly as much when it is slung at males; possibly this is due to the influence of a certain hard-drinking foul-mouthed ex-journalist on my young self.
In any case, a c*nt is not a particularly vile thing, and I am surprised that that was the pinnacle of your education in vulgarity on a sheeeeep farm. (I grew up near enough to Montana that I know whereof I speak.)
I mean, [random animal]-f*cker is always a fun template. I am also fond of hdb’s coinage “sh!tweasel.” Really, any good Anglo-Saxon type swear word combined with something unexpected is pretty fun.
(A girl I was nanny to, who happened to have an ASD, was highly adept at a “clean” version of this, which resulted in some great surrealist insults. “You’re a FAMOUS EAGLE!” I was once told.)
They should just go whole hog and establish a church.
Maybe Trev is pissed that Humble did it first. (Well, second actually, after LRH.)
Come to think of it, why would Trevie support and/or promote MMS? Wouldn’t it be competition? If a few drops of Humble’s magic beach stuff cures everything, why would anyone need to buy Trevie’s magic blood stuff?
By jove, Trevie and his blood-shilling gang should be SUPPRESSING any news of MMS much like the “presstitutes” (which is very cute and clever, to be fair) who wrote this blog, as Trevie has stated.
Look, you have to watch this video, because none of you will believe how crazy Jim Humble is without witnessing it yourself. Pro tip: Adjust the playback speed to 4X using settings icon. He takes so damn long to say anything you won’t miss anything.
Jim Humble is more than an old coot or calculating fraudster: He’s actually nuts. Like, “I was the Burning Bush in the Bible, aliens have implants in all of us” nuts. Anyone know Kerri Rivera’s personal email so I can send her this, too (kidding)?
I hope someone can tell me what IV stands for because it surely can’t mean intravenous. No one would be vile enough advocate intravenous bleach therapy, right? And the “MMS gas” has got to be for steralization purposes like doug said in #19, right? Right?
JP@61
I think the fact that our society seems to consider that word the pinnacle of insulting is pretty misogynistic. Not a knock on has, it’s really all our faults for giving it that connotation. I can certainly agree with the sentiment that anyone advocating bleach enemas as a cure for autism (or anything for that matter) deserves our strongest words. I’m a fan of the classics, like @sshat. Not particularly creative, but tried and true.
You should also try listening to this interview by Michael Marshall and Hayley Stevens:
http://www.merseysideskeptics.org.uk/2014/10/be-reasonable-episode-022-jim-humble/
It is terrifying. As an antidote you need to listen to the interview with Leo Rebello (and read the comments to its entry), and then listen to how they incorporated it into their comedy podcast:
http://www.merseysideskeptics.org.uk/2015/02/inkredulous-episode-033/
capn:
As much as I dreaded opening a Pandora’s Box, I Googled “MMS IV” and din’t need to look past the first hit:
http://genesis2costarica.org/list-of-uses/intravenous/
I personally have had MMS 1 intravenously quite a number of times including before 1990. In the past and in most clinics even now, MMS 1 (sodium chlorite) is used intravenously without citric acid activation (or vinegar). It is my belief that is a mistake. With activation MMS 1 increases the chlorine dioxide by at least 100 times if not 200, or 300 times. The result has got to be that chlorine dioxide goes deeper into the body when the MMS 1 is activated with the acid (mentioned above).
So I had proven I could take up to 30 drops without reaction by mouth. I decided to find out how many drops of activated MMS 1 I could take (intravenous) without reaction. Being careful, I decided to start out with one drop of MMS 1 and 5 drops of citric acid 10% solution. The first thing I noticed is that there was no pain created in my veins, not this time and not anytime.
Holy hell…there’s a YouTube video showing how to self-administer MMS IV at home.
These people have serious, er, problems.
Thanks for your short and sweet post on this Orac. I read through the Mom’s blog and your 2013 post on MMS as well. It makes my heart ache for these children.
The desperation of these parents combined with the evilness of those willing to prey on such parents makes for a very sad outcome for these children. The church of naturopathy is incredibly dangerous.
@ Garnetstar #39
I was thinking more of the hazard of manipulating a bottle of a concentrated strong acid.
Citric acid is bad enough with a pH around 1-2, but your skin could withstand a few drops of it, as any lemon-hacking barman could tell you .
Concentrated hydrochloric acid, now… Laboratory-grade solutions are usually 6 to 12 mol/L, it’s outside the pH scale. Plus, it’s not called a strong acid for nothing.
Well, small blessings, apparently the drunk version of the MMS protocol is one drop of it, I guess in a standard glass of water.
If we take one drop as roughly 25 uL, into a glass of 250 mL of water, that’s a 10,000 dilution. That’s why people can drink this mix of bleach/strong acid and still have an esophagus afterward.
Mephistopheles O’Brien already pointed this out in the 2013 thread about MMS. Properly diluted, a mix of bleach/acid is safe to drink.
The operative word is “properly diluted”. If these jokers and their ill-informed followers mess up the proportions, e.g. adding like a dash of their stuff into a small tumbler…
Not to mention the protocols where they are using the MMS and acid mix pure or barely diluted. As an example:
Side note on the 50% higher than advertised. As a chemistry student, I may have mixed chemical solutions with that high an error bar, but, color me surprised, they generally weren’t reliable solutions.
From a security POV, that’s very concerning.
Disclaimer, not much of an anatomist myself, but:
I don’t think we have chemical-sensitive nerves to tell us there is bleach around.
Well, aside from nerves terminations triggered by chemical burn. But IIRC, these nerves are under the skin, not inside the veins.
In order to fell pain from IV-injected chemicals, you will need the chemicals to have burned through your veins. A bit too late, as warning signals go.
I don’t think we have chemical-sensitive nerves to tell us there is bleach around.
it is as if there was never any evolutionary advantage to having bleach-sensitive nerves through the lining of our circulatory systems.
For clarity:
Let’s add “purposely” somewhere around “using”.
And also, for emphasis:
If you drink/clysterise* yourself something and blood/your innards are coming out, you are doing it wrong.
* from clystère. From the time of Molière’s medicine, when all the doctors were rumored to do** was cut (bloodletting) / poison (err, I mean enema) / burn (cauterize with hot irons). Plus ça change…
** well, the acts were generally done by the barber-surgeon on call, or some other lower assistant. No sense in fooling these nice robes with bodily fluids.
Trevor Banks, researcher indeed. Why do I have the feeling he just won’t be back?
Looking at the timing, he seems to have written first of all to his local Surrey newspaper, simultaneously outraged by the reporter’s dismissive attitude towards MMS and promoting his own scam as better than MMS. Hence references to “parents in Surrey”, while the addressee is “a journalist too lazy to research the facts”. Then Trevor realised that his words comprised a timeless encapsulation of wisdom which deserved a wider readership, so he wrapped them up in a burning paper bag and left them on Orac’s doorstep as well.
No, I don’t think he’ll be back either.
I am also fond of hdb’s coinage “sh!tweasel.
I cannot claim credit.
@ hdb
But but but… Bleach is natural! Our macrophages are producing tons of hypochlorite*, with some hydrogen peroxide to boot. The latter is water with an extra oxygen, that’s how you know it’s safe!***
* only when destroying some germs, and even so, well-contained in specific organelles. I wonder why**.
** in some auto-immune diseases, chronic inflammation is maintained by white cells releasing the content of these organelles in the targeted tissue.
*** the “extra oxygen” excuse was from a “it’s-not-bleach” proponent who showed up briefly in the comments in the previous MMS thread.
Efranat, an Israeli company, believes in GcMAF, and wants to test it properly once and for all, in the hope that it will discover than despite his dubious reputation, the substance does have some positive qualities. ”One doctor set up a company in Guernsey Island that markets containers allegedly containing the material. We bought one of his containers, and couldn’t find the molecule in it. We’re keeping our distance from these people. We just want to produce and test the material according to the rules.” http://www.globes.co.il/en/article-cancer-treatment-developer-efranat-raises-45-million-1000987334 https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT02052492?term=efranat&rank=1 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1502120/
Hence references to “parents in Surrey”
I had wondered about that bit of phrasing. Stripped of that context, the phrase suggested someone who was knowledgeable enough about the UK to be quoting autism rates and treatment costs in pounds, while simultaneously being ignorant enough of UK geography to assume that this conference was specifically targeted at residents of Surrey as opposed to people in southeast England (which is geographically compact compared to other English-speaking parts of the world) generally. But if it were a LTTE of some local fishwrap copied and pasted here, his rant makes a lot more sense.
Vinegar! Acetic acid will cause lysis of red blood cells, as anyone who has prepped blood for conventional microscopic white cell count knows. The diluent used contains acetic acid equivalent to about 40-50% vinegar. I don’t know what the minimum concentration required for lysis is, but I’d have some serious reservations about IV acetic acid, never mind the bleach. Citrate, on the other hand, merely binds calcium ions and hence is an anticoagulant.
There are certainly things that can cause pain on IV injection. Propofol, a short-acting hypnotic, is notorious for this.
These quacks need to be brought up on a charge in criminal court. There must be something that applies ? administering a noxious substance ? attempted poisoning ? criminal negligence? something. Throw a few of them in jail for a while and see if that helps quiet the others down.
As someone who went through a Mag Sulfate protocol for pre-eclampsia, I can CERTAINLY say there are somethings that will feel like your veins are burning. The 4 gram bolus was pure hell (and I felt like I was on fire). But the 2 gm/hr maintenence drip was only purgatory. It hurts!
I can’t imagine anything (and I’m hoping the bleach solution is too dilute) more traumatizing to a child – autistic or not – to be given IVs when they are not sick and then have a burning feeling in your arm that HURTS and your parents are happy you are “responding to therapy”!
(and at least at the time, I was a verbal adult, who understood the need for the treatment….STILL didn’t stop my bitching about it! 🙂 )
The only way I can figure any of these kids are “responding” to “therapy” in a way which is interpreted as “improvement” is that they have been abused into a kind of broken, resigned docility. It really is sickening.
c0nc0rdance,I knew all this about Humble and his belief in billion year old aliens.Humble is crazy as a loon but Rivera is downright evil.DLC,how about force feeding both of them massive quantities of MMS,full strength,and see what happens.The punishment fitting the crime and all that.
In other anti-vax news…
Dan ( AoA) – although he admits he isn’t comparing the movements- says that both Gay Rights and ‘Vaccine Safety’ advocates ” had to battle the overweening arrogance of medical orthodoxy”
.” Pan and his pals in the medical industry…may be provoking the Stonewall moment of vaccine injury denialism”
Right as if he can sneakily suggest that atrocities incurred on LGBT people over centuries are similar to his comrades’ ‘persecution’. by the State.
But he’s not comparing the two movements.
I’ve always speculated that the reason much autism woo is focused upon lower GI ‘treatments’ – and even why Andy went there as an investigator in the first place- is because parents may have kids who are not toilet trained although they are beyond toddlerhood- this is a huge chore and difficult situation that is often discussed in ( too much) detail by many of their faithful followers. Lets be honest- it happens and it’s awful to manage.
OBVIOUSLY kids with ASDs can have real GI issues like anyone else and food preferences/ self-restrictions may exacerbate problems as well- this is not to say that they have a *specific* autism-GI illness ( AJW) or that GI issues cause autism as many believe.
Thus, I imagine that advocates seek out remedies to fix the GI tract so that they will have less work. The TMs have posted articles about ‘bugs’ ( germs and worms) that persist despite treatment and may become more active when the moon is full ( a post about lunacy by Ms Poppy). Other common treatments include highly restricted diets- GFCFSF etc- and restrictions to vegan, GMO-free and or organic products. Food allergies and microbiome imbalances are frequently mentioned as are those ubiquitous toxins.
In short, it’s all about poop.
In more ways than one.
But but but… Bleach is natural! Our macrophages are producing tons of hypochlorite*, with some hydrogen peroxide to boot. The latter is water with an extra oxygen, that’s how you know it’s safe!***
I apologize in advance for this, but someone has to do it:
Two men walk into a bar. The first man says “I’d like some H2O.” The second man says, “I’d like some H2O, too.” The second man died.
Sarah A, I love it!
I would happily counter with all my chemistry jokes, but it’d be OT. This was a new one to me, and I am gleefully adding it to my collection.
FTFY.
Of course, after the disavowal comes “Pan and his pals in the medical industry around the country, and indeed the world, may be provoking the Stonewall moment of vaccine injury denialism.”
Sure thing, Danny. I don’t even have the energy for his deranged comments about syphilis.
^ Gerg, however, chimes in with uproarious bafflement over U-shaped curves:
@ Narad, no way. I read the original comment but still no way.
It’s a thing of beauty.
“Reading through the study I did not find a precise passage that addressed this. I would very much appreciate it if someone who is versed on statistical terminologies would read through this study and inform of whether this basic concept was taken into account.”
OO-EE-OO:
“Parental ages, sex and birth year were obtained from birth or civil registers.”
Even more entertaining would be if Marcella Piper-Terry and/or John Stone would help Greggums out with this request.
BTW, despite earlier weird protestations to the contrary here, AoA Gerg is mamesh Canuckistani.
Re comment #87.
Narad — seriously?
Narad@87
Greg’s comment wouldn’t be out of place in an Onion article. “In a groundbreaking new study ‘brilliant researcher’ Greg discovered that a parent’s age equals how old they were at the time their child was born plus the child’s age.” Actually, I suspect Greg is really one of the minions (maybe Narad) doing a parody.
I always find the AoA comment threads good for a quick laugh followed by a deep, deep depression. Here’s another gem:
So homosexuality is caused by vaccine-induced hypothalamus damage and AIDS was spread by the Hep B vaccine, a vaccine that was apparently preferentially administered to gays.
My apologies – I ticked the notify me of follow ups but did not receive anything and just assumed my post was not published.
Now I see it is….I will respond later once I have spent this day with my lovely children.
Take care truth seekers!
Trevor
Calli Arcale – It is not coincidence that autistic children improve when interventions are explored. I work with parents who believe in hope and as a result turn away from conventional treatments. Most if not all of these parent are intelligent (that is why they question in the first place) and certainly are not ‘vulnerable and easy prey’
Science Mom – ‘Researcher my arse, you’re just another self-aggrandising, science-ignorant jerk’. – Brilliant & thank you for that, no reply necessary ‘science’ mom
JGC – I said in my post I am not affiliated to the church neither am I promoting MSM. Just trying to add some balance to the discussion. Children can recover from autism using many protocols. I have seen reports of children speaking for the 1st time just by changing diet. It happens
JGC – when I spoke to my homeopathic pharmacy they told me 100ng equates to 3x in homeopathic terms. They now produce a homeopathic cream made to those dilutions. I hear it is working very well.
Sarah A – agreed but not with the swearing.
JGC – Yes it did – in this paper Dr Bradstreet used the gci scale and not atec. Improvements in cognitive behaviour and health were noted with a reduction of nagalase.
Johnny – just google it. I beleive homeopathy does work and with less side effects than mainstream medicine from which over 200,000 americans die every year.
Nick J – No parasites found….yeast is just another bogeyman….you cant find what you are not looking for. Homeopathic doses of a naturally occouring protein (100ng) is sufficient to stimulate macrophages. Over 150 research papers have been published demonstrating this fact.
Woo Fighter – ‘And homeopathy is BS too.’ – I respect your opinion
Eric Lund – I certainly dont beleive everything I read on the internet. I am a researcher and have gathered data from 100’s parents using different protocols for their autistic children. All I am saying is that some protocols work a lot of the time.
Dangerous Bacon – Nagalase is an enzyme that occours naturally in the body to break down glycoproteins in our food. Unfortunately this enzyme has been ‘hijacked’ by cancers and pathogens that then produce this is large quantities to break down the glycoprotein Vitamin D Binding Protein that then leads to immuno suppression. In this way cancers and pathogens are able to grow unchecked.
Garnetstar – I am not affiliated to the church neither am I promoting MMS. What half of that don’t you understand?
has – ‘You are a fucking c*nt’ – Shame on you and your bucket mouth
herr doktor bimler – I am not employed by anyone of those. Your 2nd comment – briliant.
has – ‘unspeakably boring??’ – just having a fun weekend with my family thank you (bucket mouth)
herr doktor bimler – GcMAF aka Vitmain D Binding Protein is very well documented on pubmed and any other website that deals with research. Why bother riddiculing Bradstreet and Ruggerio and not focusing on the science?
Old Rocking Dave- ‘Poor Trevor. He must feel like a Japanese giant hornet about now’ love it….happy for you and your nephew.
herr doktor bimler – you do appear to have time on your hands. Blimey, we all have to eat. I am not here to promote any products at all – just facts
Laters!
Dear moderator – why do you allow profanities on this site?
Sadly I don’t think so. I think our efforts here a couple of years ago to educate Gerg (so-called because he insisted on referring to me as ‘Kerbiozen’) in some of the more fundamental aspects of statistics may have back-fired. I remember when I constructed an example table to demonstrate the problem of confounding data – increasing likelihood of an autism diagnosis with increasing age – he carefully went through it, removed all the confounders and then criticized me for not including… the confounders. Unbelievable. That and stridently attacking Madsen et al’s use of the notion of the “life-year” that didn’t appear anywhere in the paper (he meant ‘person-year’ which is a perfectly respectable concept).
His current performance seems to be a vague memory of his schooling on RI. Shame it didn’t take.
James Peters @ comment 74:
Your comment contained three links which was enough to put it into moderation. You quote the report from Efranat:
— I suspect that they’re referring to Marco Ruggiero and his magic yogurt suppositories. He’s not actually based on Guernsey but he *was* peddling his product through Noakes’ Guernsey operation (until Noakes went toxic).
Maybe Trevor should have just spent the day researching with the lovely children instead of those bunk ramblings.
Trevor did come back and clutching his pearls fiercely.
And yet they allow you, a self-proclaimed “researcher” (read: “I read sh!t on the interwebz”) to sell them all manners of snake-oil.
But you responded you child-abusing apologist.
Balance? How is promoting the use of bleach in and on (in many cases) non-verbal, special needs children balance? What kind of vile filth of the Earth could blithely call bleach enemas, drinks and baths balance?
As a “researcher”, you’ve no doubt conducted a properly controlled trial and published the results in a peer-reviewed journal right?
And these research papers would be?
There is little more profane than peddling snake-oil and promoting child abuse for your own monetary gain yet your comments are going through.
This is interesting:
the Red Cross Cured 154 Malaria Cases with MMS since the report has been ‘buried’ millions have died from this disease…..such a sad, sick world we live perpetuated by morons who know not what they do – or do they?
Goodbye 😉
No they didn’t you scum-sucking charlatan.
In your case, it’s pretty hard to believe that you don’t.
^^You’ve had two solid years to research your way to that. And it’s not buried at all.
You’re promoting the torture and maltreatment of children for personal gain.
FOADIAF.
Unlike most people here, I enthusiastically support homeopathic treatment of autism, “homeopathic” meaning 12C or greater. Children need the most powerful dilutions available. Some magic sugar pills washed down with magic water will surely benefit a child — and if they don’t, there are lots of other sugar pills and vials of tap water, with different labels, that the parents can try.
I support keeping curebies occupied with sugar pills and magic water, so they don’t get involved with bleach, chelation, and other harmful “treatments”.
Trevor, you are the very definition of a famous eagle. Perhaps, one of the most famous of famously, famed, famous eagles ever to visit this site. Your delusion hurts others and you can’t see it. Sorry about the fowl language, with all of our rustic epithets, I fear those fake pearls of yours are sure to be worn down to their plastic substrate in short order.
ann,
Don’t you know MMS really does cure malaria but the Red Cross had to suppress the report and “pretend” to disassociate after being threatened by Big Pharma, Bill Gates, the mainstream (“lamestream”) media, the Joos, chemtrails, 9/11 and the illuminati.
One of the authors of an anti-MMS website I was reading yesterday (in which Jim Humble himself appears in the comments) pointed out to a supporter that it’s rather telling that even the alternative quackpots out there, Mikey Adams, Mecola, Null and their ilk distance themselves from MMS. None of them have ever mentioned or supported MMS. It’s too crackpot even for them.
If ever there was something that these charlatans would embrace, champion and promote (and sell), it would be MMS. And yet none of them have ever made a peep about MMS, even when that guy Daniel Smith was arrested recently. That kind of incident, if it had happened to a laetrile vendor, for example, would have provoked outrage in editorials about “health freedom and rights.”
The website of the British criminal selling the MMS (“over proof” according to the BBC expose) also sells all the enema equipment needed and other MMS accesories. He proudly proclaims that a baby bottle (to feed a baby MMS?) is BPA-free.
Bloody hypocrites. So homemade bleach cocktails, ordered over the internet, taken orally, via enema or IV are OK but trace elements of BPA worrisome.
These people seriously need to be locked up.
Trevor,
I think you are unused to an audience that fact checks instead of accepting your pronouncements uncritically.
I have seen reports of statues moving and of people being abducted by aliens too. It happens, the reports, I mean.
Some lies just refuse to stay dead and buried, don’t they? The IFRC says it “has at no time been involved in ‘clinical trials’ related to malaria treatment” (see ann’s link at #104).
the Red Cross Cured 154 Malaria Cases with MMS since the report has been ‘buried’
Speaking as a member of the Red Cross — do not attempt to smear us by claiming it cured anything with your monstrous “protocol,” you scum-sucking weasel.
I am not here to promote any products at all – just facts
From another of Trevor’s websites:
Woofighter:
Trevor’s “healingautismblog.org” is largely a collection of lovingly hand-curated columns from Jeff Bradstreet’s operation… including Bradstreet’s claims about curing autism with GcMAF, which Bradstreet himself has disappeared from his own site (after Noakes started giving mendacious scammers a bad name).* But it’s not *just* Bradstreet; there are some other street sweepings thrown in for variety.
Much of the same material is recycled yet again at “vdbp.info”, yet another of Trevor’s websites. “Vdbp” being GcMAF under another name. See, for instance, the don’t-feed-cancer advice —
http://www.vdbp.info/11/16
* That’s why the link to Bradstreet’s Nagalase advertisement in “la-press” is defunct in his original comment #18. Trevor copied-and-pasted straight from his earlier material without noticing that “Autism Insights” — essentially Andy Wakefield’s in-house newsletter — halted and caught fire after its second issue, and now exists only as archives.
Sorry about the fowl language, with all of our rustic epithets
He shrugs off your paltry response.
herr doctor bimler@112
Ahem, “…poultry response.”
Oops, my phone autocorrected the good doktor’s name.
Trevor:
And how do you *know* it is not coincidence? Come now: you’re a researcher! Surely you know that you need to actually test your assumptions?
Interesting that you contrast seekers of alternative remedies with other parents of autistic children by suggesting that only the former have hope. Combined with your protestation that the parents you work with are too intelligent to fall for a scam. This is very telling, because that’s exactly how a scam artist works — it’s a very old strategy, so old that it’s enshrined in a classic fable: The Emperor’s New Clothes. To prevent the Emperor and his advisors from pointing out that the Emperor was completely naked, the scammer told them that the material was simply so fine that only the cleverest people could see it.
Fact is, cleverness has nothing to do with it. Everybody is smart enough to recognize a fraud; the art of the con lies in distracting them away from it. And the appeal to vanity is one of the easiest ways. Seriously, I have read enough tales of con artists now that I *automatically* become skeptical the moment they praise my intellect. The parents you work with are no doubt very happy to hear your reassurance that they are on the right path, that they are very smart, that their hope is not misplaced. But that doesn’t mean they’re right to trust you. And you have offered nothing substantial to suggest otherwise.
Incidentally, why the quote marks around “vulnerable and easy prey”? You imply that I claimed they were. But I said nothing of the kind. I searched this thread, and you are the only person to have used that phrase, or even the word “vulnerable.” I think you may inadvertently have revealed what you really think about them.
If you want to know who is vulnerable here, it’s not the parents that you’re exploiting. It’s their children. The children have no say in what is being done to them, and the reports of any improvement are coming from parents deeply invested in making them better, people who love them passionately and would find deeply repellant even the whisper of a suggestion that what they were doing was harming them. And you think that that’s in any way objective?
No. You don’t. I think you actually know perfectly well what you are doing, because you are following the playbook too well. You may not know how much harm this is really doing to the children, but I don’t think that troubles you, because I don’t think you actually care.
I hope you actually meant that “goodbye”.
Treated with homeopathic doses of a naturally occurring protein resulted in a reduction of Nagalase and with it improved cognitive behaviour & health for 85% of those children.
Homeopathic doses of a naturally occouring protein (100ng) is sufficient to stimulate macrophages. Over 150 research papers have been published demonstrating this fact.
There is some confusion of language here. When people first started promoting the “naturally occurring protein” (or glycosolated polypeptide) as an ‘immune booster’, they were talking about nanogram quantities, because that was all they could obtain (with chromatography of blood products). So they turned the negative side — only minute doses available for sale — into a positive — “See HOW POTENT the stuff must be, for us to sell you such small amounts!” “Homeopathic” as a metaphor for “very potent”.
Then Marco Ruggiero appeared on the scene, announcing that a “Bravo probiotic yogurt” happens to contain trace elements of the same human protein (the supplier of Bravo Probiotic turns out to be one M. Ruggiero, through various shell companies). He also had various explanations for how a protein could be taken orally and boost the immune system without being digested. Apparently there are special cells in the tonsils which absorb it as the yogurt goes down your throat. There are more of the same cells in the large intestine which absorb the protein if you take the yogurt as a suppository. I am not making this up.
Unfortunately, as James Peters noted at #74, other people have tested Ruggiero’s product and failed to find the magic protein. In consequence, the websites for Bravo Probiotic — at least the websites most directly traceable to Ruggiero — now downplay its supposed content of GcMAF.
Trevor and Lesley have decided to get around this problem the homeopathic route — by announcing that the *total absence* of any active molecules in what they sell makes it EVEN STRONGER.
Woo Fighter@63
Just watched that video. I suppose that the one positive take away is that bleach is a disinfectant since mixing medication in a glass is almost certaintly nonsterile.
Garnetstar@85
We’re far enough down that Orac won’t mind if you’re a bit off topic (I think 20 posts is about the cut off). This thread could use some chemistry humors. Chemicals should be used ti make people laugh, not to abuse children.
Krebiozen@97
Wow. He somehow learned exactly how not to correct for age.
Trevor@95
It’s not neccessarily a coincidence. As JP pointed out in #80:
Given that this is the most probable mechanism I choose to believe it’s a coinvidence for my own sanity.
And I have friends who work with parents who believe in hope and as a result turn towards. conventional treatment. The major difference as far as I can tell is that your patients want their children to be someone else and my friend’s patients just want their children to be the best them they can (ew, both the grammar and the cliches in that sentence were gross).
No one ever said the parents weren’t intelligent. In fact, Orac has written more than once on how and why intelligent people are particularly suspectible to woo.
As Calli Arcale already pointed out it’s not the parents but the children who are most vulnerable. That you overlooked that demonstrate that autism biomed is really all about the parents.
Interesting you should say that. I learned about Hitchen’s razor in Krebiozen’s link in #97. It says “what can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.” Using this, one could say that no reply neccessary to your nonsense. I do it anyways because your particular nonsense is dangerous enough to warrant it (IMO), I’m having trouble sleeping, and I’m a sucker for self punishment.
Surely if you are a researcher you have at the very least some case studies. Anecdotes != case studies.
You misunderstand. There was indeed both a reduction in Nagalase and an improvement as measured by the iCGI. That being said neither the post Nagalese level nor the difference of pre and post Nagalase levels appears to predict the iCGI response (see Table 3 as JGC kindly directed you to before). In other words, both the reduction in Nagalase and the iCGI improvement happened, but they do not appear to be associated. This is really getting down to semantics but I would take issue with “resulted in a reduction of Nagalase and with it improved cognitive behaviour & health” as this implies the two are connected when the paper clearly says they do not appear to be.
All that said, the study, being uncontrolled and non-blinded, was really completely meaningless. Such a study that looks at subjective outcomes such as the iCGI is particularly useless as these are exactly the outcomes that are most susceptible to the biases that controlling and blinding are meant to remove. I’m not saying that the authors were being intentionally dishonest but at the very least ut doesn’t speak highly of them as researchs to make such a huge oversight in their study design.
I’ll say it for Johnny: no. YOU made the claim, YOU provide the evidence.
A good researcher would know that belief works better for religion than science. Pony up some evidence. I’m looking for basic A&P kind of stuff that demonstrates prior biological plausibility before you start waving any RCTs around.
Not surprising. Sugar pills tend not to have many side effects.
[citation needed]
In the mean time here’s a citation of my own. The CDC’s “Deaths: Final
Data for 2013”(pdf) p23 says 2,768 deaths for all ages from complications of medical or surgical care.
But you and yours are looking for them and as Nick J pointed out “if they existed, it would be very clearly documented, and very easy to demonstrate.” However, when pressed it’s always “imbalance” this or “overgrowth” that. It’s much like with the generic “toxins” you need to be more specific.
Clearly you only believe what agree with the ideas you already had.
Dangerous Bacon was saying that the link between autism and Nagalase activity is weak to non-existent. In the study you gave, this link is forced through a series of weak assumptions (p32 as labelled, or p2 of the pdf):
It doesn’t matter right now the effect of Nagalase on pathogens because there is no compelling evidence that pathogens cause autism.
I believe you meant “…just make assertions.”
Chemicals should be used ti make people laugh
I keep saying that, but they took away my Nitrous oxide all the same.
Trevor at #18 obviously doesn’t have Wikipedia- Nagalase is an enzyme produced by bacteria and animals (including humans) Lack of this enzyme causes Schindler Disease, which sometimes has autism-like symptoms, and is fatal when it occurs in infants.
Re. Has @ 41, may I suggest the word ‘monster’ instead? 1) It won’t make a page inaccessible in places where internet access is subject to institutional filtration, 2) it’s not an insult to women, 3) it’s an accurate descriptor for these child-abusing profiteering frauds, who are no doubt diagnosable psychopaths.
That or call them ‘cannibals’ for eating their victims, though indirectly.
So, has anyone any news about what happened in Surrey over the weekend? Did the local police show up and ruin the quackfest?
As for what should happen to those people, I’ll just say it involves large industrial machinery and leaves a bit of a mess to clean up.
As for Trevor, he’s welcome to go directly to hell, no need to stop for the security screening first.
Re. ‘chemicals that make people laugh,’ may I suggest the mix of chemicals that occurs in one of the few herbal remedies that actually seems to work for a few things, namely good ol’ cannabis?
And in none of my posts have I suggested you were either, trevor. I instead questioned if you’d even read the article you provided a citation to.
Citations needed: what protocols, and how has it been factually established that they are responsible for the children’s recovery from autism?
How was it established that their ‘speaking for the first time’ was in fact caused by the change the diet, trevor? It is, I trust, on some basis other than a post hoc ergo propter hoc logical fallacy.
Homeopathy expresses dilutions in terms of “C”, not “x”. However expressed that doesn’t represent a homeopathic dose, as there is detectable amounts of the initial ingredient present in the final product. Note also that the paper you cited does not identify the dosage as homeopathic.
Nowhere in the paper cited does the author indicate improvements in cognitive behavior were noted in any of the subjects (Direct quote: “In this small population, it does not appear that an obvious association exists between the iCGI response and the change in the Nagalase activity (Table 3″). The author also does not note that any improvements occurred in the subjects health.
If you believe otherwise, please cut and paste the section of the cited article where the author offers this conclusion.
Calli Arcale is the heroine of the thread for identifying the freudian slip in Trevor’s weaseling:
They do use “X” dilutions in their quackery – it is a dilution by a factor of 10. A 3X dilution would therefore be a factor of 1000, which certainly would leave actual solute, depending on the initial concentration.
In order for the final dose to contain 100 ng, the original solution would have to contain 100 micrograms in the same volume as used for the final dose. Homeoprats never seem too concerned with the starting concentration, which of course doesn’t really matter once something is diluted to the point the probability of a single molecule of solute is pretty much zero. To state that 3X dilution yields 100 ng, without specification of the size of the dose and the original concentration, is utter nonsense. (I know, once homeopathy has been mentioned, “utter nonsense” to describe a specific case is redundant.)
The Bradstreet paper also fails to indicate that the drug substance, at whatever dilution, had been succussed–and if it hasn’t been succussed it isn’t homeopathic.
Got to bang the bejesus out of that thing, preferably (according to Hahnemann) against a leather bound bible.
when I spoke to my homeopathic pharmacy they told me 100ng equates to 3x in homeopathic terms.
Bradstreet et al. were using 100 nanogram doses because that’s all they had (their method of obtaining the magic protein is better-suited for detection than for extracting usable quantities). Trevor seems to want to conflate this with the overt homeopathic scam. Go for it, dude!
in this paper Dr Bradstreet used the gci scale and not atec. Improvements in cognitive behaviour and health were noted with a reduction of nagalase.
The paper alternates between describing it as the “Clinical Global Impression of Improvement scale” and the “improved Clinical Global Impression” scale, but ultimately it consist of Jeff Bradstreet telling his clients how miraculously their children had improved — no objective measurements were involved.
Children can recover from autism using many protocols.
In operational terms, this means that if Jeff Bradstreet has sold you five different protocols and none of them have made any difference for your child — don’t worry, he also offers a sixth treatment!
But I have to wonder, if this paper is really so dispositive, why has Bradstreet scrubbed all posts mentioning GcMAF from his advertising blog? Why has he abandoned GcMAF, and pretends he never promoted it, and is currently back on the stem-cell grift?
herr doktor bimler@125
This is getting a bit quibble-y but what they actually used was the “improved response format for the Clinical Global Impression improvement scale.” Which is actually only half of the iCGI, they only used the improvement component of the scale and not the severity component which is important as a baseline. The iCGI was created in an attempt to improve on the CGI as used in assessing depressive patients. Why they chose that particular scale to evaluate autism we’ll never kmow because they provide no explanation.
The regular CGI-I scale uses a scale of 1-7 instead of -6-5. The cynic in me wonders if they choose the iCGI because there’s an inherent bias against choosing negative numbers in such an evaluation. That said I don’t even know if such a bias exists plus the authors were also the clinicians evaluating so it matters little.
Bradstreet et al choose instead to make up their own assessment for autistic severity (data which wasn’t actually included at least in the pdf). They did take a baseline but it wasn’t the one meant to be used in conjunction with their the scale they used for outcome. On top of that they evaluated improvement as it’s own subjective outcome (as hdb said). They even had a quantifiable assessment they used for baseline but never repeated it for comparison! Not that that assessment was any good. Table 4 from the Bradstreet paper (p7 of the pdf):
From p3 of the pdf “… the clinician in this study used an in-house
severity scoring system.” The clinician being Jeff Bradstreet of course. Who would have guessed a quack would use a quacky assessment tool (I’m fairly sure neither the DSM-IV or V mentions bowel movements).
Of course, all this is trivial in the face of this study being uncontrolled and unblinded. The researchers were pretty much free to write the outcome themselves. I’ll say it again, it seems like either gross incompetence or straight up dishonesty. Trevor doesn’t do himself great credit to align himself with this paper, though he hurt his image far worse by apologizing for child abusers so he must not care much.
I’m fairly sure neither the DSM-IV or V mentions bowel movements
I am equally skeptical about “Anxiety or panic around doctors or about bloodwork?” — that is, “child resists attentions of quack” — as a marker of autism.
Of course, all this is trivial in the face of this study being uncontrolled and unblinded.
It was published in a short-lived Wakefield vanity vehicle, ’nuff said.
Of course, all this is trivial in the face of this study being uncontrolled and unblinded. The researchers were pretty much free to write the outcome themselves.
Recall too that the entire intellectual scaffolding rests upon the probity of the Nagalase activity tests conducted by the second author, Emar Vogelaar, through his company European Laboratory of Nutrients.
Vogelaar was arrested last year “on charges of defrauding insurance companies of millions of euros”. He was accused of billing insurance companies for unrecognised tests which had not been officially ordered, also forgery and money laundering; and has so far been ordered to repay 1.3 million euros (criminal charges are proceeding). So far the Dutch courts have not been convinced by his argument that homeopathy, acupuncture and Anthroposophic medicine are cheaper than standard modalities, so the insurance companies he billed should be grateful for his attempts to save them money.
He appears to come from the Orthomolecular grifting tradition.
Capnkrunch #126
You illustrate precisely why I get so pernickety about how people “assess” autistic traits or symptoms: it’s not like there aren’t a number of very well researched tools out there, such as ADI-R or ADOS (disclaimer: I worked in the same directorate as one of those who developed ADI).
See also many papers about depression, which use incredibly basic to the point of being useless “tools” to “assess” depressive features.
@ capnkrunch
“ (I’m fairly sure neither the DSM-IV or V mentions bowel movements).”
Maybe they should have put it in.As well as seizures,hearing or visual impairment,and intellectual or learning disability.Putting aside Bradstreet’s views on vaccines,this is actually a pretty good list.The problem with the DSM definition of autism is that it is not inclusive enough.There are too few criteria to get a diagnosis.This may be one reason there are so many kids with an autism diagnosis these days.It is so easy to get one.I also seem to recall ASAN saying something once about how a person should get an autism diagnosis if they only meet two of the DSM criteria.
Clearly the woo-meisters really really believe that blondes have more fun and that bleach is the best way to be blonde both inside and out.
Trevor Banks — or someone using his Hotmail address — also runs the websites
http://www.healingcancertoday.org
nagalasebloodtest.com
Good news from the UK (possibly), via an anti-MMS Facebook page. Evidently representatives from The Surrey & Buckinghamshire Trading Standards Board attended the MMS meeting. It’s possible that the Surrey Police were also present. Certainly an alert was published on the FB page for TS.
MMS is NOT bleach, anyone insisting on that needs to go back to school. I have used MMS for over 6 yrs. now with excellent results for arthritis, the flue, dengue fever, MSAR, nail fungus….the list goes on, I have cured one of my dogs of chronic gastritis and another one of kennel cough. The only reason MMS and Jim Humble are being prosecuted is because the pharma industry is about to lose a mega ton of money over this wonderful solution. Are you not aware that your water supply contains MMS? You’ve been drinking it for years!!! All of you nay sayers keep taking your medications that are slowly poisoning you, that are not curing the illness but covering up the symptoms. Good luck to you all, I for one will stick with MMS!!!
Angela,
As has been discussed repeatedly, MMS (which is neither a mineral nor a miracle) is a 28% solution of sodium chlorite. When mixed with acid, it generates chlorine dioxide. Chlorine dioxide has many industrial uses, including bleaching wood pulp, chlorinating water, and various disinfectant uses. According to the FDA “High oral doses of this bleach, such as those recommended in the labeling, can cause nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, and symptoms of severe dehydration.”
So yes, when used as directed, it’s bleach. Not that there’s anything wrong with drinking bleach in low enough concentrations.
I’m not aware of any studies showing that it has any useful medicinal purpose. I’d be careful using it on your flue, as that sort of work should be done by a competent chimney sweep.
Angela, MMS is a sodium chlorite–a strong chlorine-based oxidizing agent.
That makes it a bleach by any rational (or scientific) definition of the word ‘bleach’.
Angela, if our water supply contains MMS, why would anyone have to spend money to buy it? Why couldn’t we just drink tap water with the same results?
“The only reason ___ (are being persecuted/prosecuted/ignored/made fun of) is because the pharma industry is about to lose a mega ton of money over this”
Yep, fill in the blank with whatever miracle remedy you want – MMS, concentrated hydrogen peroxide, apple cider vinegar, Rife rays or any of the myriad other cheap, safe, wondrously effective cures being suppressed by the Man. Any day now, the truth will come to light, Pharma will be vanquished, and fabulous good health will be ours.
It’s about to happen, just you wait.
“Why couldn’t we just drink tap water with the same results?”
The results should be even better, given the extreme homeopathic dilutions involved. If MMS was truly a miracle we should already be cured of practically everything.
How many of you have tried MMS. It is not sodium chlorite (which is bleach), it is chlorine dioxide. It is a master mineral, that when activated, clears pathogens in the blood and body. I have been using it for two years for my dear son and we are slowly recovering his health from years of being sick with Lyme and confections. Conventional medicine can do nothing for late chronic Lyme and co-infections. Do your research and it will help from making uninformed statements that are patently untrue.
Look there, at the 1st conference GcMAF, the Noakes’s team
http://www.gcmafconference.org/april/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=33&Itemid=181 (april 2013, Frankfurt) Click on “speakers”, you will get the CV of each on them, and one of them is Emar Vogelaar. They recommand some laboratories https://gcmaf.se/patient-resources/nagalase-blood-test/, one of them is Vogelaar’s one http://www.europeanlaboratory.nl/, anotherone is this one http://www.redlabs.be/red-labs/our-science/autism.php
You told about tax-frauds?