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IonCleanse foot baths: The confluence of antivaccine nonsense and cancer quackery

Antivax and cancer quackery go together, unfortunately. Here, Orac describes yet another example of this, as the (Not-So)-Thinking Moms promote a fundraiser to pay for quackery, including IonCleanse footpaths, for a young woman with cancer.

Regular readers might have noticed that my blogging has been a bit on the slow side since I made my return after surgery. Basically, a combination of trying to catch up on a lot of stuff that I had to let slide while I was in pain and then later recovering after my “repair.” Also, too much typing still tires out my affected hand more than it used to, and I rather expect that it will take months to get back to where I was before my malfunction. That means—for the short term, at least—I have to prioritize typing for work (e.g., grant applications, manuscripts) over my hobby even more than I used to. Finally. I’ve learned something. There was a time when I thought I had to have a post out every single day, 6-7 days a week. It didn’t matter if there was actually anything interesting to blog about. Later, I pared it down to weekdays. After a couple of prolonged absences, though, the one in 2017 while I was transferring my old blog over to this new platform and then earlier this month, I realized that things are just as good and I’m even more rewarded by my hobby if I only write when there’s something I find interesting to write about. That could mean five posts in a week. It might mean only one. I think, though, that I’ll be a lot happier and produce better material this way. This brings me to today’s topic, the confluence of antivaccine views and quackery as epitomized by a coffee klatch of wine-loving mothers who think they think but don’t, at least not really, and one of the silliest forms of quackery I’ve ever encountered, the “detox footbath,” specifically the IonCleanse ionic footbaths. What I’m about to relate would be hilarious if it weren’t so tragic.

The aforementioned coffee klatch of wine-swilling moms is, of course, the crew known as The Thinking Moms’ Revolution (TMR), or, as I like to call it, The (Not-So-Thinking) Moms’ Revolution, a revolution against, of course, “medical tyranny” (i.e., standard pediatric preventative care like vaccines) while painting themselves as victims of a grand medical conspiracy orchestrated by this “medical tyranny.” Unfortunately, TMR, like many hard core antivax groups, is into serious quackery, including homeopathy for autism. The TMR website is festooned with all manner of ads for all manner of quackery, including Biocidin, an herbal concoction that its makers claim is the “the most powerful natural inhibitor of pathogenic organisms” tested that is “equal or more effective than traditional therapies,” whatever that means. There are also rotating ads for camel’s milk, Algonot (neutraceuticals), GutPro Probiotic Powder, and Vayarin, which is touted as a “medical food for the dietary management of ADHD.” Then there’s the IonCleanse, which, unfortunately, was recently touted in a post entitled Help Us Save Kelli’s Life If You Can! It’s by a TMR blogger whom I don’t recall seeing much of before, Shawty, who now is apparently some sort of alternative medicine practitioner and is now appealing for funds to help a young woman with cancer, Kelli Wilhelm, who is the daughter of the sales manager for the distributor of the IonCleanse footbath, Glenn Wilhelm.

Here’s the appeal:

This has given me the chance to get to know AMD’s sales manager, Glenn Wilhelm, very well. When traveling, Glenn and I frequently talk of our families and especially our children. While Glenn is not an autism dad personally, he is one of those people—the helpers—who have wholeheartedly fallen in love with our community. He is usually one of the first people to offer assistance, find a way to support families like mine, or donate to families needing a little extra help. He truly has a giving heart and has helped many, many of us in this community, without asking for anything in return.

Now we have the ability to give back! Glenn’s family just received the news that his 20-year-old daughter, Kelli, has been diagnosed with Ewing’s Sarcoma. Glenn has made many friends within our biomedical community; he has listened to our stories and knows the power of a biomedical treatment approach. He has assembled a terrific team to support his daughter through this journey. It is not unlike our own journeys of healing our children. Detox, diet, HBOT, IonCleanse footbaths, supplements, and the like will be part of Kelli’s protocol. They will see specialists not covered by insurance and do anything to help their child. Sound familiar?

Ewing’s sarcoma, being a sarcoma, is a form of soft tissue cancer. It’s also a rare tumor, with only around 200 cases a year in the US. The most common locations for this particular cancer are the legs, pelvis, and chest wall; the tumor can originate in bone or soft tissue like cartilage or muscle and is most commonly diagnosed between the ages of 10 and 20. Diagnosis is based on tissue biopsy, with the tumor showing characteristic findings on immunohistochemistry and molecular pathology. The treatment is usually multimodality therapy including chemotherapy, surgery to resect the tumor (which sometimes can require amputation of the affected limb, although usually the limb can be salvaged) and radiation. Five year survival for localized disease is in the 70-80% range, but much lower for more advanced disease.

Unfortunately Shawty’s description of Kelli Wilhelm’s story does sound very familiar. Basically, Mr. Wilhelm is lining up a bunch of quacks and quackery to treat his daughter’s cancer, just as the antivaxers at TMR line up a bunch of quacks and quackery to try to “cure” their children of autism. I realize he’s doing it out of love, but let’s just say that he’s not really helping, as you’ll see. As for IonCleanse “detox foot baths,” they are one of the most utterly ridiculous alternative medicine treatments out there. The idea is that the footbath “draws out the toxins” through the soles of your feet. Of course, the skin on the soles of the feet is thing and relatively impermeable, covered as it is with a layer of dead cells and keratin. But what about the color change in the bath, which quacks tout as “evidence” of all the toxins being extracted? That’s easy. As I’ve described on more than one occasion, thanks to the minerals in the water and some basic physics and chemistry of electrolysis that lead to the corrosion of the electrodes, the water will change color whether feet are in the bath or not. “Foot detox,” whatever the brand of bath, IonCleanse or others, is a brilliant scam to bilk the gullible.

All the quackery, whether silly or dangerous, aside, the first thing I wanted to know, however, was whether the quackery is being used instead of conventional therapy or along with it. Obviously, I very much hope that it’s the latter, but I can’ tell for sure. The part about “supporting his daughter through this journey” might or might not imply that she’s undergoing standard therapy. On the other hand, the way her story is told on the Facebook fundraising page implies that she probably is undergoing standard treatment as well:

On April 18th, after believing she was battling a simple kidney infection, 20 year old Kelli Wilhelm’s life was turned upside down by an unimaginable diagnosis of Ewing’s Sarcoma. This is a very rare, very aggressive form of cancer. Kelli will begin immediate treatment in an effort to stop this cancer in its tracks. Unfortunately, even with health insurance, her costs are already skyrocketing and she needs our help! Her family is invested in her recovery but they won’t be able to do it alone.

Notice the part about even with health insurance the costs are skyrocketing. On the other hand, all I see on the fundraising page, besides acknowledgments of contributions, are posts showing photos of Kelli next to a hyperbaric oxygen chamber and updates like this:

Day 3 of hyperbaric oxygen therapy! The form of cancer that Kelli has is what’s called anaerobic. That means that oxygen has the potential to destroy the cancer cells. She will be doing 5 days a week, 2 hours at a time, of deep pressure hyperbarics at Thriveology. This is one of the many tools that will be needed to help Kelli regain her full health, and we’re so grateful for all the donations which make this possible! Please keep the shares and prayers coming so we can get Kelli everything she needs on this journey. Thank you!! ???

In the comments, someone named Carey Johnson Wennerstrom chimes in, “I hope she’s on the keto diet,” to which the response is, “She will be. She’s working with Dr. Anderson’s team.” Wennerstrom then notes:

Good. I have 1 of his pts now for continuation of care.
Have you read the published breast CA article on the stage 4 pt who did HBOT and keto? Amazing.

I did read the published breast cancer paper regarding the ketogenic diet and chemotherapy, and, no, it is anything but amazing. Certainly it doesn’t show that the ketogenic diet is effective against cancer. As for hyperbaric oxygen, there really isn’t good evidence to support its use against cancer.

In any case, I was curious about Paul Anderson, as he sounded familiar. So I searched the blog, and found that I’ve mentioned him multiple times before. If this is the same Paul Anderson (and I’m pretty sure it is), first off, he’s not a doctor. He’s a naturopath. Second, he champions IV curcumin as a treatment, a treatment that in other hands resulted in the death of a young woman named Jade Erick two years ago. It turns out that Not-a-Doctor Paul Anderson runs Advanced Medical Technologies, which offers infusion therapy (IV), hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT), and infrared sauna – mild hyperthermia (IRMHT), as well as chelation therapy and “detox services.” Basically, he’s a major league quack.

I also couldn’t help but notice that the treatments for which this fundraiser is paying are being administered at another “holistic” practice, Thriveology. Perusing a list of the services offered there is like perusing a cornucopia of quackery, including homeopathy, acupuncture, chiropractic, naturopathy, and more. It’s not hard to find articles touting nonsense like the Blood Boost Tincture, claims that 60 million Americans are chronically infected with parasites and need treatment, and treating visual disturbances with acupuncture.

You get the idea. It’s a bunch of quacks.

It is indeed horrible to be so young and diagnosed with such a horrible disease. The lives of Kelli and her family will be upended, and there’s a not insignificant possibility that she might die of her disease even with maximal science-based treatment. I can only hope that she’s getting maximal conventional cancer therapy and that the quackery doesn’t interfere, at least not too much, with her real treatments. Of course, if she does survive her cancer (and I really, really hope that she does), no doubt her parents and she will credit all the quackery more than the actual effective science-based treatment.

As for TMR, this is just another example of how much overlap there is between believers in cancer quackery, even quackery as ridiculous as the IonCleanse, and antivaxers. Remember, Kelli Wilhelm’s father makes his living selling IonCleanse to credulous antivaxers like those at TMR. Unfortunately, he also believes in IonCleanse and all manner of other quackery and is raising money to subject his daughter to these unproven modalities.

By Orac

Orac is the nom de blog of a humble surgeon/scientist who has an ego just big enough to delude himself that someone, somewhere might actually give a rodent's posterior about his copious verbal meanderings, but just barely small enough to admit to himself that few probably will. That surgeon is otherwise known as David Gorski.

That this particular surgeon has chosen his nom de blog based on a rather cranky and arrogant computer shaped like a clear box of blinking lights that he originally encountered when he became a fan of a 35 year old British SF television show whose special effects were renowned for their BBC/Doctor Who-style low budget look, but whose stories nonetheless resulted in some of the best, most innovative science fiction ever televised, should tell you nearly all that you need to know about Orac. (That, and the length of the preceding sentence.)

DISCLAIMER:: The various written meanderings here are the opinions of Orac and Orac alone, written on his own time. They should never be construed as representing the opinions of any other person or entity, especially Orac's cancer center, department of surgery, medical school, or university. Also note that Orac is nonpartisan; he is more than willing to criticize the statements of anyone, regardless of of political leanings, if that anyone advocates pseudoscience or quackery. Finally, medical commentary is not to be construed in any way as medical advice.

To contact Orac: [email protected]

75 replies on “IonCleanse foot baths: The confluence of antivaccine nonsense and cancer quackery”

“Regular readers might have noticed that my blogging has been a bit on the slow side since I made my return after surgery. ”

Yeah, well take it easy. You have all the time in the world to come back later on at full blogging speed.

… has made many friends within our biomedical community; he has listened to our stories and knows the power of a biomedical treatment approach.

“biomedical”: They keep using that word and I’m certain they don’t know/care what it means.

I was going to say this is where we get to see if these alt.medders are true to their mistakenly bad beliefs…but not so as it will be a child of a snake-oil peddler that pays the price if conventional cancer therapy is not pursued.

I think they mean “biomagical” Unfortunately, it seems that the children do pay the price for having woo-loving parents. my neighbor’s son came down with rickets because of the extreme diet they were following based on their naturopath and their own “research”.

my neighbor’s son came down with rickets because of the extreme diet they were following based on their naturopath and their own “research”

At least it wasn’t kwashiokor.

While Glenn is not an autism dad personally, he is one of those people—the helpers—who have wholeheartedly fallen in love with our community.

You mean he has no trouble identifying the marks. His poor daughter, to have such a diagnosis and then subjected to all that quackery and false hope. I do wish her the very best and a full recovery.

TMR has a history with IonCleanse: they even did a “study” the “results” of which are available as a pdf on TMR.
IIRC, the company gave the members access to the machines which they could later buy.
Shawty ( Shorty?) has been around for a while.

Today, the Prof, Zoey O’Toole, produces a long harangue mentioning her visit to an autism summit which was held at Newark Airport. Several lawyers and two High Wire actors ( not Del) appeared there: other locales are planned.

an autism summit which was held at Newark Airport

Ewww. Only LaGuardia has proved worse in my travels.

Clearly you’ve never experienced the pleasure dome that is LAX.

You can’t spell “sewer” without EWR.

However, I will confess that if forced to choose, I would take Newark over Chicago O’Hell–excuse me, O’Hare. Which says more about ORD than it does about EWR.

I’m not crazy about ORD (all of my flights seem to arrive and depart from the farthest gate possible, and I once had to spend the night there), but what gets you in particular?

Admittedly, I almost always test positive for explosives, always get frisked at security, and they once did a secondary screening on my cat, but still.

Narad, you say, “I’m not crazy about ORD”.And all this time I thought you really loved me.
It’s a good thing no one encountered the evil opposite of Elvis, the Anti-Elvis, (say it with me), “Michael J. Fox got no Elvis in him.”,
My wife and I flew through O’Hare about two weeks ago. She was on crutches due to foot surgery.United drove us down to gate B-18, where the crawl across the bottom of the monitor said that the next flight was our flight to LaGuardia. When it came close to boarding time, we saw that no one was there. Luckily there was a gate agent not too far away. She checked and tole us it was at C-23, so from the far end of Terminal B we had minutes to get to the far end of Terminal C. The gate agent called for a wheelchair, and at a dead run, we barely made it. Not anyone at United thought to put the change of the monitor, make an announcement, or, perish forbid, send someone down to the gate to check if there were any poor schmucks waiting there.
We had no chance to ask to sit together, but they did call ahead for a wheelchair to meet us at the jetbridge.
I did get one unexpected treat. Sitting next to a Lufthansa boarding, I heard a phrase I never thought I would hear for real: “B-17 to Munich.” It made this amateur historian laugh a little.
A good source of commentary about all things related to air travel is Patrick Smith’s “Ask the Pilot” blog at https://www.askthepilot.com/

”He has assembled a terrific team to support his daughter through this journey. It is not unlike our own journeys of healing our children.”

Journeys through the Land of Woo are long, arduous and never-ending.

I read part of Shawty’s post. I was deeply disturbed by how she referred to herself as an “autism mom”. To me that is both dehumanizes her child (It makes it sound as if she’s the parent of autism, not of a living breathing child who has autism) and shifts the attention to her. Every time she says she’s an “autism mom”, she’s not mentioning her son. My mother was not an “asthma mom” (well, I guess she was as she had asthma) or a “modified club foot mom”. She was the mother of children. Those children had issues, some permanent, some not.

How much research is available on the topic of the propensity of mothers of sick children to shift the attention to themselves? Would be very curious to know what science officially has to say on the topic.

Remember, Kelli Wilhelm’s father makes his living selling IonCleanse to credulous antivaxers like those at TMR. Unfortunately, he also believes in IonCleanse and all manner of other quackery and is raising money to subject his daughter to these unproven modalities.

Or he has no intention of spending money on those unproven modalities and is just taking another opportunity to fleece the suckers. There is no overwhelming reason to trust the word of a professional parasite.

At the very least, there’s no way it was a quack who diagnosed his daughter with a serious and rare cancer. They say a lot about what quackery they’re turning to, but nothing about whether they’re eschewing standard treatment. Fingers crossed for the poor girl.

When a professional fraudster tells his suckers “Please give me lots of money to pay for expensive placebos for my daughter, since I have not defrauded you enough to pay for them myself”… well, perhaps that is indeed his intention. Perhaps he is a moron as well as a scammer.

Well, either/or is easy; he might actually be one of these people who genuinely believes everything works and performs his job without malice. Every salesman is a hairsbreadth from being a scammer depending exclusively on how well his/her product works. The level of cognitive dissonance possible in this world is alarming.

IKR? When Canadian supplement pimps kill their own children…

IKR? When Canadian supplement pimps kill their own children…

David and Collet Stephan? Commenter Doug is the expert.

Oh, wait.

I’m alarmed at all these woomeisters casually throwing hyperbaric oxygen around as a cure-all. Do these “practitioners” know all the contraindications to this, or do they take them seriously? Do they know how deadly oxygen toxicity can be, and how to avoid it? Hyperbaric oxygen is something to do only for serious conditions like decompression sickness or carbon monoxide poisoning: it’s not like recommending that someone take homeopathic remedies (aka, water) or put their feet in a foot bath full of overpriced salts.

Besides, 100% oxygen at high pressure is one of the most dangerous chemicals there is, and one that I, a chemical researcher, am afraid to handle in the lab except with the utmost precautions in place. The number of people who’ve been killed by it in accidents are legion. And these woo-peddlers are just administering it to anyone who may have cancer, or even just some vague problem? In their own living rooms, I suppose, having read the instruction manual one time. I suppose there are parents out there subjecting their poor autistic children to it, too.

Don’t do this with any “practitioner” who isn’t fully trained and very experienced, and only do it for conditions where it has known benefits, because it can be very dangerous too. It isn’t something to do lightly.

But wouldn’t all the anti-oxidants they were taking years ago, and may still be taking, counteract it?

I’m alarmed at all these woomeisters casually throwing hyperbaric oxygen around as a cure-all. Do these “practitioners” know all the contraindications to this, or do they take them seriously?

Hell, AoA used to have a sidebar ad for the home tent units.

Ten years ago to the day, a child boy and his grandmother died from burns when the hyperbaric chamber they were in for treatment of his cerebral palsy exploded.
From an article several years old.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2135410/Two-charged-deadly-hyperbaric-chamber-killed-boy-4-grandmother.html

Both Bark, 51 and Daviglus, 81, continued to work at the hyperbaric facility after the fatal explosion that killed Vincenza Pesce and her grandson Francesco Martinisi on May 1, 2009.

I for one would sign a petition to rename “Oxygen” as “Aussygen”, the National Element of Australia, because IT WANTS TO KILL YOU.

Smut Clyde, sweetie, not EVERYTHING in Aus wants to kill you, it’s been years since anyone died from a funnel web or red back spider bite and decades since a blue ring octopus actually killed someone and I don’t think that a magpie has killed anyone for years either (brain damage yes, death no). The cassowary killed that man was in the USA so that doesn’t count and great whites eat people all over the world so that doesn’t count either. On the up side I’m also pretty sure that neither platypuses or wombats have killed a human in living memory. And bulldog ants last killed somebody in 1988, that’s like forever ago dude. Of course there are the drop bears but you’re safe from them as long as you don’t go outside.

Shelly, just because they haven’t been successful doesn’t mean they don’t still WANT to succeed.

“A dingo ate my baby!”
Then there’s platypus poison spurs, kangaroo kicks, poisonous toads, 20-foot crocodiles, nocturnal Tasmanian devil pack attacks (Thought no one knew about those, didn’t you?), and koalas that use their sharp claws to cut your throat when you’re sleeping…

Garnetstar:

I have always thought that home HBOT units performed at far lower pressure than ‘real’ units. The only specs that turned up in a quick search was “They are capable of delivering 96% pure oxygen, with pressure varying between 4.2 and 7.5 psi. ”

Does this pose the same danger?

NOTE: Clearly, the risk of ADS (Asset Depletion Syndrome) is higher with a home unit.

Frankly, I’m wary of anything that delivers a high concentration of oxygen at any pressure. Sometimes it’s absolutely necessary, but pure oxygen is dangerous stuff; it should be avoided if there isn’t a really good reason to use it.

Never forget Apollo 1. That wasn’t even a high pressure environment; that was pure O2 at normal atmospheric pressure. Due to delays in the test, they ended up soaking the capsule and the crew in O2 for several hours, which greatly contributed to the terrifying destructiveness of the fire — every permeable surface was saturated with oxygen, making even things not normally thought of as combustible erupt into flames.

How long do these kids stay in the tents, I wonder?

How long do these kids stay in the tents, I wonder?

One study mentions an hour (this should point at a review, but I’m dead freaking tired; actual times would require Net archaeology).

Sometimes when I read one of Orac’s articles on CAM, I think, nope, can’t be real, he must have confused a sitcom with the real world; but then, it sinks in that it is real. I guess CAM does reflect on antivaccinationists mindset since they actually believe an episode on the sitcom Brady Bunch which depicted the six kids with a few spots on their faces staying home from school because of measles, running around, playing, and the mother serving them their favorite foods. Of course, in the real world, measles includes entire body covered with extremely itchy rashes, fevers of up to 104 degrees, and anorexia, loss of appetite. I’ve alway wondered if antivaccinationist think another sitcom, Hogan’s Heroes, gave an accurate portrayal of life for American soldiers in World War II Nazi prisoner of war camps? Or perhaps antivaccinationists believe the Flintstones was a documentary intended to teach young children about early human history? So, if CAM and antivaccinationists believe sitcoms give an accurate portrayal of reality, why not come up with sitcom appropriate treatments??? Except, of course, people don’t suffer and die in sitcoms!

“Of course, in the real world, measles includes entire body covered with extremely itchy rashes, fevers of up to 104 degrees, and anorexia, loss of appetite.”

That doesn’t bother me too much. What would bother me much more are chronic/permanent disabilities induced by measles.

“I think, nope, can’t be real, he must have confused a sitcom with the real world; but then, it sinks in that it is real.”

Yes. Having lived through that kind of dissonance myself, I must admit it can very very very disturbing.

Yep, I could have mentioned that without the vaccine and with our population more than double the 1950s, with measles just as contagious, we could expect 1 – 2 million cases suffering the above for 7 – 10 days, 100,000 hospitalized, at least 1,000 deaths (with advent of antibiotic resistant infections, probably higher), 1,000 with permanent disabilities (deafness, blindness, seizure disorders, mental retardation), and a couple dozen dying years later from subacute sclerotic panencephalitis (untreatable brain inflammation) and measles suppresses the immune system for several months making kids vulnerable to other diseases, perhaps resulting in disability and death, though not attributed to measles; but my point was simply that antivaccinationists live in a world of fantasy, including basing their understanding of infectious diseases on, among other things, sitcoms.

“100,000 hospitalized”

Yeah. I’d add costs to the list of my concerns.

By the way, Joel, do you have any insight (benefits and risks) of the Mosquirix vaccine? (For a weird reason, I’m indeed more concerned by malaria in Africa than I am about measles coverage in the US)

I’d like to know how mature it is and what should be expected from it in terms of protection from malaria.

Maureen McCormick, who played Marcia Brady, has publically called them out for using her image without her input. One article covering it pointed out that at the time the episode was filmed, people were still getting diseases like polio or smallpox, which were scarier than measles. A little like a broken leg doesn’t seem a big deal compared to a broken neck.

“Maureen McCormick, who played Marcia Brady, has publically called them out for using her image without her input.”

I find calling them out for using an excerpt from an episode is a bit excessive. I too may make puns or points using excerpts from episodes. It wouldn’t feel right if I’d been called out on it.

Maybe it’s because I’m not sensitive to US cultural norms that I find that excessive. Perhaps.

I find calling them out for using an excerpt from an episode is a bit excessive.

I don’t blame Maureen McCormick one bit. I would be furious if my image was used to promote something harmful as antivax propaganda. Not excessive at all, IMHO.

Good for Ms. McCormick.

I don’t blame her. She has every right to voice her disapproval. I just do not see why people seem to think that this is somehow relevant to the “debate”. I believe most people in my country would just shrug this off.

I believe most people in my country would just shrug this off.

Cool story, bro.

What do you mean by that?

That I wish I had a killfile again. You’ve been getting on my nerves for some time with the mystery illness and general, vague, bitching about medical care, not to mention the seeming need to reply to nearly everything. As I’ve often told Doucheniak, if you have nothing to say, say nothing. This is an order of magnitude worse.

“You’ve been getting on my nerves for some time”

I’ll take it as a factual claim like any other. Then please tell me: is one comment per post in the future OK with you? If it’s not, and you request 0, then fine, I’ll bugger off: I do not care anymore if, as a person with huge criticism of healthcare, I get conflated by people like you as a delusional scientologist. I’m kind of used to the scapegoating and the, how do you people call it again? Oh yeah: the “mental health stigma”.

But if you cannot reflect two seconds about why that gets you on your nerves, then I do not believe you have any business claiming the upper moral hand.

Sayonara, Narad, if it suits you. Tell me.

But the following is still a good read:

https://qualitysafety.bmj.com/content/early/2019/04/17/bmjqs-2018-008593.info

Narad writes,

As I’ve often told Doucheniak, if you have nothing to say, say nothing.

MJD says,

I’d like to say something that is beyond Narad’s comprehension ->->-> Thank you!

@ Orac’s minions,

Am I the only minion who uses an authentic facial-image in the profile? Anyways, it’s great to have Orac back.

Then please tell me: is one comment per post in the future OK with you?

Christ, enough with the passive-aggressive-Agatha-Christie horseshit. I’m not Orac.

I do not care about passive agressive horseshit. You voiced a complaint. I proposed a solution. You did not reply on the proposed solution. As I wish to improve the situation and you’re not cooperative, I’ll make the decision myself: I’ll stick to 2 comments per posts and stop posting now on this post. If you want 1 or 0, tell me.

But I’ll keep bitching. As long as Orac allows me to. His blog, his rules.

If you have any other complaint, voice them, and I’ll try to help it out.

See you on the next post, Narad.

I do not care about passive agressive horseshit. You voiced a complaint. I proposed a solution. You did not reply on the proposed solution.

QED.

In other anti-vax news….

( I know that our esteemed leader is aware of this author/ loon because of Twitter)

Forrest Maready ( who appears to be some sort of engineer/ artsy type/ religionist ?) has a new theory of autism that sounds rather familiar:
— there wasn’t any autism until there was ( 1938)
— it only happened in Austria and the US where Kanner and Asperger were as were Diphtheria vaccines laced with Al
— no one else has made this connection but him
— he has a book The Autism Vaccine out today
Maready appeared on today’s Gary Null Show ( prn.fm- about 20 minutes from the end: the download I used had no clock)

He seems unaware of what anti-vaxxers invent. He figured this out all by himself

Nah, he knows he’s stealing Olmstead’s shtik. Maready is a wannabee grifter, who can see the longer-established antivaxxers selling books and fleecing the flock and wants his turn on the money-teat.

Oh goody, another Forrest Maready book.

Maready previously authored “Crooked”, in which he decided that crooked facial expressions are much more common nowadays due to them Toxins (i.e. toxic vaccines).

https://falseprophets635728819.wordpress.com/2018/02/22/anti-vaxxer-forrest-maready-debunks-his-own-book/

He also wrote “The Moth In The Iron Lung”, a fascinating treatise in which he reveals that polio wasn’t a concern until the use of toxic pesticides including DDT, and since we curtailed use of DDT in the 1950s, polio incidence dropped (no thanks to the vaccine).

More recently he announced that car seats may cause autism, so think twice about putting your child in one on the way home from getting vaccinated at the pediatrician’s office.

The unifying theme is that Maready decides something must be so, digs up correlations to equate to causation, thereby acquiring antivax fans whose critical thinking skills and lunacy levels rival his own.

Although I’ve never done it myself, I’m sure that someone here has looked up how much various anti-vax books earn.
Probably Andy or Blaxill/ Olmsted have made a reasonable amount- as have so-called documentaries. ( VAXXED – more than 1 million USD ?) and sequels are common.
OBVIOUSLY many of the AoA fan fiction efforts are small change ( as Rossi complains).

Does anyone here know? I can attest than many of the free films like this can get many views ( see any of Null’s)

Does Maready write books to earn money or is it just symptomatic?

He also wrote “The Moth In The Iron Lung”, a fascinating treatise in which he reveals that polio wasn’t a concern until the use of toxic pesticides including DDT, and since we curtailed use of DDT in the 1950s, polio incidence dropped (no thanks to the vaccine).

That’s all well and good except for the fact that DDT wasn’t banned in the US until 1972. Polio was essentially eliminated in the US by 1962.

Is this guy an idiot or a liar? Or both?

The insecticidal properties of DDT weren’t recognized until 1939, and it came into widespread use in 1943. It was used until the 1970s when it was banned by international convention. The Salk poliomyelitis vaccine first began to see wide use in 1954, when polio incidence began to drop. So, as we know, Maready is talking out of his ass. I do have a mild facial droop; it was caused by polio.
But car seats? That’s beyond lunacy; that reaches the orbit of Jupiter (joviacy?) at the least.

The unifying theme is that Maready decides something must be so, digs up correlations to equate to causation, thereby acquiring antivax fans whose critical thinking skills and lunacy levels rival his own.

You are giving him too much credit. Maready has never come up with an original conspiracy theory. He just recycles the conspiracy theories of others.

including Biocidin, an herbal concoction that its makers claim is the “the most powerful natural inhibitor of pathogenic organisms” tested that is “equal or more effective than traditional therapies,” whatever that means.

I suspect they would not include antibiotics as a traditional therapy, so what that means is nothing.

Or they tested their herbal concoction on bacteria, yeast and/or fungi on Petri dishes.

The unspecified claim of “pathogenic organisms” is making my inner microbiologist tingling, and not in a good way. Most biocides products intended for human consumption are usually specific of one type of organism – bacteria, or yeast/fungi, or viruses, or worms. Or arthropods, if we want to include external parasites.
Biocides which can target many types of pathogens are usually best kept for topical applications. If they attack indiscriminately bacteria and fungi cells, there is some chance they attack human cells as well.
Well, since it’s an herbal concoction, it may be simply a mix of antibacterial and antifungal molecules. Still concerned about what else this witch brew may do.
Even if this Biocidin is mostly targeting bacteria, I would still like to know what’s its effect on our gut flora. Biocides don’t magically distinguish between pathogenic and non-pathogenic organisms (for a start, a number of bacteria and fungi species are both). If it’s so effective at wiping out microorganisms, it may be too effective…

Here is a video on YouTube where someone tested the device (sans foot) and you can see quite clearly that all the gunk is generated by the ionizer itself.

Does it break ionic bonds? (HEEElllllp, my skin is melting!!!!111111)

Al

Does Bayer Corporation practice quackery with Alka-Seltzer? In the solid form of Alka-Seltzer when placed in water the citric acid mixes with the base, bicarbonate, to form carbon dioxide bubbles. Carbon dioxide is colorless, tasteless, and considered an irritant to the palate. Thus, the bubbles are purely theatrical and have no medicinal effect.

Q. Does the use of quackery in conventional medicine stimulate quackery in alternative medicine.

@ Orac,

I can give you a “hand” writing a guest post upon request. 🙂

Carbon dioxide is colorless, tasteless, and considered an irritant to the palate.

Considered by whom? Last I checked, fizzy water was rather popular. L-rd knows I go through enough of the stuff (although the zany cat lady insists that it causes osteoporosis, hence her surviving on random “energy drinks”).

MJD, you write “Carbon dioxide is colorless, tasteless, and considered an irritant”
Sounds an awful lot like you.

Off topic and science-based, I’m forming an LLC and have finished writing the “patent application” directed at innovative cancer research & therapy. I do not anticipate Orac’s respectful insolence once it has launched.

https://met-allergy.com/

I’d like to thank Orac and his minions for unwittingly inspiring this effort.

Of course, I’ll keep ya’ll updated!

Sincerely,

MJD

“I’d like to thank Orac and his minions for unwittingly inspiring this effort.”…which would make us accessories to murder.

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