Category Archives: General

David Mabus

Posted in General, Health by

Many of you will have heard of David Mabus. Especially if you use Twitter. You’ve may even been “Mabused” as we came to call it.

A tweet sent to many depending on hastags used, an insult or threat and a link to incomprehensible forum rants and/or videos was his modua operandi. Dawkins, Shermer and Randi we’re cited often – and in his forum rants. Apparently he reckoned he’d earned Randi’s $1 million prize – cause for a little lie down in itself. So ridiculous were these tweets and posts many thought they were mere Poe’s. But the lad isn’t well, and the fact that Mabus is the name for Nostradamus’ anti-Christ which has now been shown to be central to his ranting confirms this.

David Mabus is the name used by Dennis Markuze who has been trolling, spamming and threatening scientists, skeptics and atheists for around fifteen years. PZ Myers is (or rather was) a regular target and in 2009 squeezed all the emailed threats in small font onto 61 pages.

Certain issues recently led to the patently unwell Markuze to become the subject of an organised campaign to have him dealt with. Rants went from barely coherent to incoherent. He personally fronted up at an atheist convention in October last year at which PZ was speaking (pictured left).

Finally he discovered Twitter in January this year using it to exhaustive effect. Easy to track, he was often reported. Montreal police originally did nothing.

Promises of torture, doom and death for those who didn’t agree with Markuze’s creationist world view were common. The more one tweeted the more likely he was to serve up a personal threat. Tim Farley of Skeptical Software Tools does an awesome job of breaking down the entire saga and the crucial role Twitter played. Also he calculates the devotion to obsession Markuze had doing this by hand;

Near as I can tell, all this posting was done by hand. The posts would be marked as having come from the Twitter web site, and there is no evidence that he was using a script or a robot to do the work for him. He would just sit there and cut and paste.

He would spend hours at it. For example, on February 25th I found 25 separate accounts he used. Based on the timestamps of the posts, he started around 7:30am, and posted more or less continuously until about 10am. He continued somewhat more slowly until noon, when I presume he took a break for lunch. He resumed at 3pm, and posted until 9pm that night. I counted almost 700 tweets. And because of the way Twitter was deleting each account (and all its output) when they noticed the spamming, all of that output from that day was gone within minutes. Disappeared.

He also notes the obsession with the initials “DM”, which also signify a date in a Nostradamus quatrain. Quatrain 8-66 begins: “When the inscription 500 A.D. is revealed”. In old French it was written: Quand l’enscriture D.M. trouvee.

In the “oh but of course” reasoning of Nostradamus fans, many have claimed old Nostra’ predicted 9/11 as the beginning of the age of the anti-Christ. Others go as far as now arguing he predicted three. Napoleon, Hitler and Mabus – whom we still don’t know. David Markuze had his own delusions. He himself may well be the anti-Christ and possibly thinks he predicted 9/11. His obsession with the [D.M.] Depeche Mode video atop a World Trade Tower fits in nicely. Discussed here on the JREF forum.

Despite complaints being filed, it wasn’t until journalist William Raillant-Clark became involved that things escalated. He tweeted about to get a handle on things and decided “this is unacceptable to me”. Phil Plait confirmed his complaints had gone nowhere. Unhappy with police apathy Raillant wrote a piece on Tumblr about police doing nothing as Montrealer threatens to murder science journalists. Skeptic, Kyle VanderBeek works at change.org, and spotted an opportunity on his work desk. He got a petition going which was retweeted over 500 times. The petition was set up so each signature meant Montreal police received an email. Eventually they could bear no more.

Interestingly enough they did have their suspect under investigation. No better proof that they’d had a little chat than these different toned tweets, on August 11. The registering and deleting of accounts is reflected in the random numbers on his Twitter handles;

A week later came an arrest.

Still later, he was charged. Dennis Markuze now faces two charges of making death threats. I recommend reading Tim Farley’s breakdown for more information on the role Twitter played. Or Robert Mackey’s piece on The New York Times blog, The Lede. Reading Twitter recently it’s clear some want him punished, whilst many want him helped.

Either way the era of Mabus appears to be over.

Montreal police investigate the infamous Mabus

Mabus arrested

The Wakettes

Posted in Anti-Vaccination Lobby, Denialism, General, Scam by

As many readers will know there’s been a hysterical spike in attempts to exhume the corpse of the vaccine/autism myth this year. Certainly this has reached fever pitch since Wakefield was expunged from the registrar of humane beings.

Like watching a religion evolve his adherents have been gripped in ecstasy, rejecting evidence for fantasy. I mean, just check out the font size at Dr. Wakefield’s work must continue. You can imagine them living on a small island that time forgot – much like out of a King Kong movie. Dressed only in loin cloths, bodies glistening in the fire light given off by burning effigies of Paul Offit, carrying Wakefield on a sedan chair made of discarded MMR syringes and the bones of dead Pharma executives held together with saliva soaked vaccine package inserts.

You may laugh but it appears this is indeed what has happened. The audio below was captured by intrepid journalists on an off the map Pacific island covered in deep jungle, behind the walls of an ancient stone fortress just as Wakefield was carried past his adoring crowd.

We had the Groundbreaking vaccine-autism investigation, promising to shatter the earth only to fizzle to muffled laughter back in May this year. Despite promises of putting Big Pharma to the rack it emerged that a bunch of Pace Law school students produced “Unanswered Questions from the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program: A review of compensated cases of vaccine induced brain injury”.

Media spokesperson Danielle Orsino must have felt a goose when all she could muster was that this “strongly suggests” a link. In fact it suggested naught but the reality these unfortunate cultists will continue to manipulate, abuse and obfuscate data whilst lying to the public and exploiting those with autism and their families. Meryl Dorey took the results – debunked 10 days earlier – by the horns turning the meaningless review of 21 VICP cases into “the vaccine court… has paid compensation to hundreds, possibly thousands of families [for autism]” as she lied on air to David and Tanya on 102.9 KOFM last May.

Tanya on KOFM was carelessly querying Dorey about parents who have a child vaccinated, then “… suddenly have an autistic child on their hands….. Fact or fiction?”. “Oh Tanya, I wish I could say it’s fiction but it’s fact”, Dorey lied. Later Tanya argued with David (who to his credit says parents who don’t vaccinate children are selfish), saying to listeners “aren’t you scared with statistics mentioned by Meryl… thousands of cases of autism, ADD, ADHD…”.

The VICP associated court has paid no-one compensation for autism due to vaccination. Hannah Poling herself has an underlying mitochondrial enzyme deficit. Hannah does not have autism. Hannah has encephalitis. Hannah’s parents believe vaccination triggered the encephalitis. Her mitochondrial disorder is documented as causing encephalitis between first and second years of life. Vaccination is not documented as causing autism. The Polings are very lucky the court erred in allowing compensation. One case, and a shocking anomaly it is.

The tragic thing about how easily Tanya was scammed by Dorey is that the “latest figures from the USA” Dorey alluded to came from the above paper. Crucially there’s not one statement to the effect “this child was compensated due to developing autism as a result of vaccination”. Children with autistic like symptoms are compensated quite rightly for demonstrable vaccine injuries. Children with autism who develop encephalitis as a result of vaccination are compensated. These poor children are exploited ruthlessly via the false insinuation there’s causality between the vaccination and autism. Yet I stress again there’s nothing suggesting compensation “because of their autism”.

Like something out of a Wakefield cultists version of Mission Impossible this paper would self-debunk in 10 seconds. Filled with self-serving nonsense such as “acknowledged autism or autism-like symptoms through vaccine induced encephalopathy and seizure disorder”, “settled cases suggesting autism”, “language that strongly suggests autistic features”, “published decisions that used terms related to autism”, “payment of vaccine injured children with autism”, even providing a case table headed, “Language suggesting autism or autistic-like symptoms”. But no, nothing definitive. It was a sham from day one.

Consider this oft’ repeated quote on that dumping ground of all things grossly offensive Child Health Safety. You may have recently read Dorey’s links to this blog claiming that the real fraud was by Brian Deer and the BMJ. Under conspiracy speak headings like “Secret British vaccine files on MMR forced open by legal action” then “read here what will be discovered and more”, we get… nothing. Granted it goes back to January 19, 2011 before the epic failure of May 10th. But we’re told breathlessly this quote is from an email to CBS written by the Health Resources Services Administration of the US.

We have compensated cases in which children exhibited an encephalopathy, or general brain disease. Encephalopathy may be accompanied by a medical progression of an array of symptoms including autistic behavior, autism, or seizures.

I mean, you can’t make this stuff up. As I’ve commented over yon scribe, encephalopathy may be accompanied by blue eyes, blonde hair and bad breath but nor are these linked to vaccination. The statement is clarifying the very lie the author has attempted. Compensation for vaccine induced encephalitis for a child who also has autism, is not compensation for vaccine induced autism. Encephalitis can effect measles sufferers at a rate of at least one in 5,000. MMR vaccination presents a rate of less than one in 1 million. Given the size of the USA, UK and European populations we are going to see large numbers of children with encephalitis following vaccination.

Subacute Sclerosing Panencephalitis hits one in 8,000 children under two with measles. MMR vaccination yields zero cases. Measles causes death in one in 2,500 – 5,000 depending on age. MMR vaccination results in death in zero cases. 15% of SSPE children will die. SSPE can strike at a later age after measles resolves, and is often fatal. Still however, we have people feverishly working to allow these horrific realities to increase. Misinformation and lies are created and fed to people by deluded and insistent miscreants who cannot admit their error. Wakefield’s continued defence is testimony to the misled. But the perpetrators are something altogether more malignant.

So prevalent are people who keep doing this in the face of overwhelming evidence, and so unconscionable are their tactics we really need a new term to describe them. They represent the nadir of intellectual and humane evolution of our species at present, and thus deserve to be recognised. I propose Wakette. 

As in “… well known Wakette, Meryl Dorey wrote a piece on Wakefield’s Kangaroo Court“. Or “… and in other news, over at Child Health Safety we read yet another typical Wakette piece that invents associations of hilarious proportions”. Or Erwin Alber…. er, no. Come to think of it I don’t want to Alber anything unless absolutely necessary. [group involuntary shudder]

For the record, Skeptard is lurking in the urban dictionary. Definition;

Any one who is blindly skeptical to the evidence around them, regardless of research done on any given topic, in addition to any one who refuses to do the research necessary, before jumping to conclusions.

So for Wakette we can propose;

Any person who continues to maintain that vaccines cause autism, despite being aware of the Wakefield fraud and the abundance of dissenting evidence, in addition to any person who sets out to misrepresent research to claim this link can be revived anew.

So let’s take Wakette for a test flight. Say in 15 years or so:

“Hey remember that Nimrod Weiner guy?”.

“Sort of, who was he again?”

“The wakette who didn’t even know where Wakefield’s fraudulent paper was published”.

“Oh, yeah… I remember him. What about him?”

“Saw him chirobusking* in the subway at Central Train Station”.

“Huh, figures. He had a carny gig at the travelling circus next to the fortune teller for a while”.

“Yeah, heard that too. Most of those wakette’s are history now”.

(High fives and laughter)

[* – “chirobusking” is the term given in future to chirpractors who busk alongside magicians, mimes, acrobats and musicians for small change. They have little fold up tables and have swapped white coats for coloured robes]

See! It works quite well. Plus serves as a handy mnemonic device. As the science of Wakettism improves we’ll be able to distinguish between Alpha Wakette’s like… er, Wakefield, or Dan Olmsted and Mark Blaxill (from Age of Autism), or dominant and submissive wakette’s. Dorey’s a rather dominant wakette on her Facebook page and the submissive wakette’s members just go along, knowing they’ll be banned if they happen to speak the truth or produce any evidence.

Then there’s loner wakettes who wish to be Alpha Wakettes. Here’s where our friend at Child Health Safety comes in. Master of deceit, obfuscation and pure invention with a talent for plumb conspiracy language you probably know the site.

Having a look at this will be the subject of my next post.

Oh, Oh, Oh, O’Brien of SensaSlim gives us more hanky panky

Posted in Big Placebo, General, Health, Scam by

Peter O’Brien, SensaSlim director and rumoured buddy of Peter Foster seems unable to break the back of his attention seeking behaviour.

Peter O'Brien

Firstly however, the good news is that the initial defamation case brought by SensaSlim for $800,000 against Ken Harvey was dismissed on Monday. Harvey was awarded costs but with a mere $280,000 in the SensaSlim kitty, he is unlikely to see any returns. There is quite a queue for payments from SensaSlim who misled investors on return potential. It turned out to be zero.

Five days ago we had a SensaSlim saga update which included reference to the press release-masquerading-as-news-until-you-read-the-disclaimer, of O’Brien’s intent to sue Ken Harvey for $1 million dollars. Like all the other articles O’Brien authored on international.to it is now a mere 404 page – and I’ll get onto that. There’s a section in the above post along with most of the disclaimer. It was a kind of desperate sales pitch, personal attack on Harvey and attempt to defend SensaSlim as a genuine product because TGA regulations are geared to prevent harm, not provide efficacy.

He’s right on the last point and the very fact this nonsense continues is a black mark against the “self certification” process of the TGA. This was raised during the recent transparency review of the TGA which you can read and catch up on here. With luck O’Brien has done Aussies a favour by exploiting this appalling hole in our supposed regulatory body for therapeutic goods. Frozen assets, links to crime figures, non existent research from non existent institutes, false claims about a dud product, duped investors, defamed obesity experts, fraud, [all earning ACCC charges of misleading and deceptive conduct under Trade Practices Act 1974], defamation cases dismissed, contempt of court (I’ll get to that also) and the product still remains listed with the TGA.

O’Brien need only insist that the ingredients have been proven and used in weight loss products (and he is), point to the TGA listing (and he is) and feign unfair criticism thus defamation on Dr. Harvey’s part (and he is) to keep making money from a useless product that was a scam from day one. The Australian reported on Tuesday that he is seeking $1.75 million in damages and costs. Check The Australian Skeptics for information on donations to help Ken Harvey or head on over directly to the designated PayPal account.

A TGA representative confirmed the SensaSlim listing as it has “no unsafe products”, and in a typical bureaucratic promise of a glacially paced plan, proffered;

However, the TGA is considering a number of matters regarding the listing of Sensaslim Solution on the Australian Register of Therapeutic goods.

Nonsense. Until the suit against Dr. Harvey (which is another S.L.A.P.P.) is finalised the Complaints Resolution Panel can do nothing. O’Brien continues to profit with the TGA’s blessing. On this point there is a brand new Get Up campaign launched by the founder of The Celestial Teapot skeptic group. Calling on state and federal governments to provide consumer protection from quacks and health scams. It’s a compelling argument and thankfully includes calling to account that Victorian government bastion of all things scam-worthy and useless The Better Health Channel – which tax payers fund. Other states have similar insults.

Back to O’Brien. Yesterday it emerged that the ACCC was launching contempt of court proceedings against Peter O’Brien. It was postulated he has sent more of those ridiculous and at times thuggish “newsletters” he and Adam Troy Adams favoured to franchisees, this time warning that cooperating with the ACCC might be financially costly. Yes you read that correctly. Cooperating with the ACCC to get back money SensaSlim scammed from them might be costly. However we now know the ACCC has been granted an injunction stopping this latest rather ambitious attempt to still scam his already hurting victims. O’Briens cavalry seem to have gotten lost.

Some welcome clarification emerged also. I’ve written a couple of times about some correspondence with an editor from international.to, which is owned by RogersDIGITAL marketing. I’d complained about the content of articles written by Peter O’Brien and glowing comments published beneath. They were eventually deleted, and correspondence ceased which as I said was fine by me. It was their call to resume any exchange. I’d argued elsewhere on the deletions, “…I doubt due to my objections, but rather their own integrity given the balance of developments”.

So a refreshing development came to pass. The “Greg” singing off emails is Greg Rogers from RogersDIGITAL, who was responsible for the impossible to miss disclaimer under O’Brien’s last piece. Not only was O’Brien none to happy with this piece of honesty, but had long been advising Rogers to delete email correspondence. Fairfax write;

Simon White, SC, for the commission, said Greg Rogers, of the online news and classified websites business Rogers Digital, had contacted the commission, concerned at emails from Mr O’Brien telling him he should delete every email after reading it, and warning of the confidential nature of business relations.

”If at any time in the future [he was questioned] you can honestly say every email was erased,” one email said.

Another said he should ”never admit you are paid for a story”.

If Mr Rogers agreed that he would delete all correspondence with himself, SensaSlim and another director, Adam Adams, we can ”move forward and do a lot of business”, Mr O’Brien wrote.

He said if Mr Rogers was interviewed by the ACCC voluntarily then ”you are doing so in violation of confidentiality, both real and implied”. ”I ask you immediately erase all communication.” [….]

“Greg, I have been reading very hostile comments on sites supporting Ken Harvey,” Mr O’Brien wrote. He queried a disclaimer on the story headlined ”Sensaslim director files million dollar law suit against Dr Ken Harvey” [sic] on a Rogers Digital website.

Oh my. All in all things aren’t presently looking up for Peter O’Brien. Although according to one report he has been listed as a creditor by SensaSlim administrators.

One awaits further developments.