Tag Archives: pseudoscience

Denialism: ‘Researching’ the case against vaccines

Posted in Denialism, Health, Science by

Some of the most error-laden claims coming from those who deny the safety and efficacy of vaccination are accompanied by the confidence of having done their ‘research’.

However there is no way one could properly research, evaluate or study the risks and benefits of vaccination, and ultimately conclude to deny their children the protection it offers. There is no way one could properly educate themselves on the topic and actively entertain the inaccurate mantras used by anti-vaccine lobbyists. Certainly this so-called research shows no sign of being properly guided or assessed for basics such as structure, source material or conclusion.

In fact that last sentence above could apply to many areas other than vaccination. David Dunning and Justin Kruger hypothesised and successfully demonstrated a cognitive bias linked to intellectual skill. Their conclusions are examined in a 2010 episode of The Science Show. The synopsis opens with: The dumb get confident while the intelligent get doubtful. Whilst the “Dunning-Kruger effect” quite rightly takes its place in examining and explaining the phenomena, it has been noted by great thinkers for centuries.

Take this mother interviewed in a masterpiece of false balance cobbled together by Today show reporter Lauren Ellis. It’s true that the ability to gauge risk is not a natural skill in the absence of education and contemplation. We’re hard-wired to choose being safe over sorry. But one cannot objectively or conclusively “look into” the ‘flu (or any) vaccine and decide against it on that basis. The certainty this woman “studied” misinformation and evidence denial is confirmed by the rest of her comment:

When I looked into the ‘flu vaccine it wasn’t proven to be 100% safe. I made a choice that I was going to do the best that I could do to build up their immune systems through whole foods, active exercise and having a loving and caring environment at home. We actually want to invite those kinds of sicknesses into the body because that’s the body’s natural way of boosting its defences.

Along with overestimating their own level of skill the Dunning-Kruger effect lists the failure of the cognitively-challenged to identify genuine skill in others. Our subject is right on cue, later adding; “I think what we do is we cheat a little bit and we listen too much to the doctors”.

Attempting to take more responsibility for one’s health is by itself a positive trend. However the reality is that through a combination of poor regulation, apathetic accreditation, unchecked claims and lucrative scams, an industry has grown from marketing “wellness” alongside denialism. A vital skill today is that required to recognise reputable sources and source material. There is so much specialty, knowledge and experience attached to individual areas of health and medicine that ascertaining expert advice is essential.

Such a skill – let’s call it a research skill – by no means only applies to the choices we make around health, medicine and alternatives to medicine. But the amount of information is so vast and varied that intellectual tools independent of the information presented are more than likely to serve us well. More so, we are all subject to cognitive biases such as pattern recognition or emotional resonance such that we may easily hijack our attempt at objectivity.

Thus a research skill that values evidence and source, based upon merit, helps keep both ‘researcher’ and material in check. Those fortunate enough to be familiar with the scientific method apply a more complex type of such thinking. Individual topics and subject matter can be quite complex but appreciating the scientific method itself and its impact on scientific consensus is well within the grasp of interested individuals. Enter Scientific Denial, which I’ve already quite purposely mentioned alongside marketing (or promoting/defending aspects) of the “wellness” industry.

Diethelm and McKee presented a Viewpoint piece in the European Journal of Public Health in 2009 entitled; Denialsm: what is it and how should scientists respond? They cite the definition of Mark and Chris Hoofnagle:

The employment of rhetorical arguments to give the appearance of legitimate debate where there is none, an approach that has the ultimate goal of rejecting a proposition on which a scientific consensus exists

The Hoofnagle brothers identify five elements of denialism that are employed alone or together. All five can be found with numerous representations emanating from the anti-vaccination sector.

Conspiracy Theories are employed to dismiss scientific consensus arrived at via the peer review process. Granted, the conspiracies advanced by the bulk of anti-vaccination identities go well beyond this goal into rambling nonsense. The Big Pharma Monopoly conspiracy has become a monster of ludicrous proportion. There are examples of unacceptable conduct and flawed research by pharmaceutical companies, that if presented rationally and sparingly might help support criticism of vaccines or their method of use.

Continually serving to delight critics of the anti-vaccination movement in Australia is perpetual “PhD candidate”, Judy Wilyman of Wollongong University. Her thinking, and consequent tone of argument or demand levelled at government, appears crippled by belief in a vast web of conspiracies. Doctors will lie, research conducted by drug companies is by default corrupt, science advocacy groups are motivated to support this corruption – and by extension the member’s arguments are to be dismissed. The government assisted “crime against humanity” of vaccination is helped along by corrupt media and grieving parents relaying “anecdotes” of infant fatality. This is all designed to entrap the community (for whom Judy speaks) using fear and guilt.

Not surprisingly her supervisor is well known for his authorship of scientific denialism. A strident defender of the anti-vaccine and several conspiracy movements, Brian Martin (of Wollongong University) has written frequently on the topic of supposed scientific dissent. He validates the Hoofnagle brothers observation that the peer review process is to the conspiracy theorist a means to suppress scientific dissent. As I’ve noted before, Martin writes in Grassroots Science:

Dissent is central to science: the formulation of new ideas and the discovery of new evidence is the driving force behind scientific advance. At the same time, certain theories, methods, and ways of approaching the world – often called paradigms – are treated as sacrosanct within the professional scientific community. Those who persist in challenging paradigms may be treated not as legitimate scientists but as renegades or outcasts. […]

For example, there are many individuals who have developed challenges and alternatives to relativity, quantum mechanics, and the theory of evolution, three theories central to modern science. […]

Western medical authorities at first rejected acupuncture as unscientific but, following demonstrations of its effectiveness, eventually accepted or tolerated it as a practice under the canons of western biomedicine, rejecting its associations with non-Western concepts of the body. […]

At the same time, some mainstream medical practitioners and researchers are hostile to alternative health. This is apparent in pronouncements that taking vitamin supplements is a waste of money or in police raids on alternative cancer therapists, the raids being encouraged by mainstream opponents.

Many proponents of alternative health say that mainstream medical science is distorted by corporate, government, and professional pressures. In this context, grassroots medical science presents itself as being truer to the ethos of science as a search for truth unsullied by vested interests.

Brian Martin also happens to excel at that exceptional variant of conspiracy theory known as inversionism. Here one’s own tactics and motivation are attributed to critics or those who can justify the antithesis of one’s argument. In Suppressing Research Data: Methods, Context, Accountability, and Responses Martin writes:

Censorship, fraud, and publication biases are ways in which the availability of research data can be distorted. A different process is distortion of the perception of research data rather than distortion of the data itself. In other words, data is openly available, but efforts are made to shape people’s perception of it.

Although this perfectly describes tactics of the anti-vaccination lobby, Martin is writing about what he argues is a regular process in legitimate science and the peer review process.

Diethelm and McKee note that whilst the proper avenue to validate supposed suppression of dissent is ignored by conspiracy theorists, denialism can and does exploit genuine concerns. For our purposes we may note that unethical and dishonest conduct by pharmaceutical companies has indeed occurred. Also the 2006 CSL trial of Fluvax resulted in just one adverse reaction. “Not usually regarded as an adequate signal of a major safety problem”, according to a TGA spokesperson. That single febrile seizure was equal to 0.37% of the study sample. In hindsight a valid predictor of the 0.33% rate of febrile seizures W.A. experienced in April 2010.

Health authorities and practitioners take evident problems with the pharmaceutical industry very seriously. In the case of vaccination it’s perhaps testament to the addition of truly absurd conspiracies and the overlap with New World Order themes that has seen the anti-vaccination lobby squander a potentially effective means to sew their false doubt.

A second feature of denialism is the use of Fake Experts. An excellent example of this is the appalling HIV/AIDS Rethinkers list. If subject to the criteria of listing individuals actually working in the field of HIV from which the theory being “rethought” is sourced, the list would disappear. So it is with the academic integrity of vaccine denialists.

Some such as Meryl Dorey of the Australian (anti) Vaccination Network simply append the title of expert to themselves. All that’s needed is the familiar claim of having “researched” the subject for “twenty years”, whereas doctors (Meryl assures us) study vaccines for only six hours. Few can validate the Dunning-Kruger effect better by insisting smallpox and polio were merely renamed (part of a conspiracy), vaccines certainly cause autism (thousands of documented cases), SIDS, death, shaken baby syndrome and more.

The use of so-called experts who argue in opposition to established knowledge is spread across a diverse field in the case of vaccine denial. Micropalaentologist Viera Scheibner makes much of her title of “doctor”, deceitfully selling herself as a natural scientist who worked for a state authority. A host of chiropractors already in denial of science based medicine see fit to both parrot the standard anti-vaccine rhetoric whilst arguing the immune system can be specifically modulated by chiropractic.

Anti-vaccine groups pay great attention to scam artists such as Dr. Joe Mercola, Mike Adams and Barbara Loe Fisher of the official sounding National Vaccine Information Center. Father and son team Mark and David Geier promote both the belief vaccines cause autism and an abusive hormonal ‘treatment’. They have authored and co-authored a number of papers attempting to link vaccines to autism. Mark Geier has lost his licence to practice in at least 10 USA states.

Sites such as SaneVax or Age of Autism with Dan Olmsted and Mark Blaxill seek to continue the attack on reputable scientists and research. In Australia the new AVN president Greg Beattie describes himself as an author having produced bogus claims, misleading data and irrelevant mortality graphs whilst the universally condemned Melanie’s Marvellous Measles was written by anti-health zealot, Stephanie Messenger. Any of these, or similar identities along with the nonsense they write may be produced by anti-vaccine lobbyists to ‘refute’ genuine evidence-based knowledge on vaccination.

Cherry Picking or Selectivity is a practice the anti-vaccination lobby relies heavily on. Sadly, their harvest is so woeful that we are continually treated to Andrew Wakefield’s discredited and withdrawn Lancet paper, from which the fallacious association with autism is fuelled. Additionally an unproven handful of purported dishonesty levelled at his most effective critics or their careers hovers about regularly “vindicating” Wakefield. This by extension proves vaccines do cause autism, a conspiracy rages against Wakefield and the fake experts have been right all along.

Of course selective use of material and events can have enormous impact. Imagine the magazine Mothers For Moonbeams publishes a piece on the W.A. Fluvax episode and the impact on Saba Button presented selectively with concerns about the increase in the number of childhood vaccinations. Add the type of nonsense written by Natasha Bita in August 2012 falsely “linking” ten deaths to Australia’s influenza vaccine, to “PhD candidate” Judy Wilyman’s claim that vaccines are full of lethal “toxins”, and readers’ confidence in influenza vaccination can fall.

We constantly hear of vaccine-injury compensation cases involving autism-like symptoms, misrepresentation of the Bailey Banks case or a finding from an obscure Italian court as evidence vaccines really do cause autism. Similar selections can be made for a range of conditions unrelated to vaccination.

Similarly, alternatives to medicine used to “boost immunity” rely on sparse and often irrelevant research into (for example) St. John’s Wort or vitamin deficiency. It will come as no surprise to those familiar with vaccine denialists that Diethelm and McKee note that the towering isolation of the denialists position does not perturb them. Rather they see this as reason to liken themselves to Galileo.

Impossible Expectations from research are used often to create the illusion of doubt or bias. The infamous cry for a study of unvaccinated vs vaccinated children both suggests the efficacy of vaccines has never been properly established, whilst hinting that the unvaccinated are healthier due to the absence of artificial immunity and vaccine toxins. Not only is this absurd from an ethical viewpoint, methodologically it is nonsensical.

In order to correct for the variable of herd immunity, the unvaccinated sample would need to be isolated. In doing so the sample is rendered entirely unrepresentative of the qualities that supposedly need to be tested. More so this research need not be done. The impact of mass vaccination is clear – particularly with the return of diseases following a drop in vaccine uptake.

Gradually the ‘demand’ that vaccines show a 100% rate of safety and efficacy has emerged in more unreasonable quarters. Combined with the inability to acknowledge that as herd immunity drops, both vaccinated and unvaccinated are at increased risk, this impossible expectation ensures the anti-vaccine lobby can ignore basic community responsibility.

Again with alternatives to medicine or seemingly magical ways to fight disease and boost immunity, it is expected that science – or better yet, quantum science – will explain the mechanism behind promises and testimonials.

Finally Misrepresentation and Logical Fallacies are essential tools of the denialist. A very simple, yet highly effective means of misrepresenting the irresponsibility of vaccine denial has been use of the term “pro-vaccinators”. This conveys the impression that not only does a legitimate debate exist but that those unburdened by the delusion vaccination is harmful, may be motivated by ideology or some other non-evidence based reason.

Meryl Dorey of Australia’s AVN frequently insists to have a database listing death and disability from vaccine injury. This same theme of having a vaccine-injured child is presented by individuals both as a reason to attack vaccination and unleash abuse on those who accept vaccine safety. Indeed the correlation as causation fallacy is a primary of the anti-vaccination movement.

Slippery slope, appeal to authority, straw man arguments, inconsistency and more. Logical fallacies abound. Reductio ad absurdum is favoured commonly in explaining that conventional scientists or medical practitioners will defend vaccination because of their position and not the efficacy and safety of vaccines. On the other hand as Judy Wilyman argues, because areas of some affluence may have low vaccination rates this is proof that doctors do not vaccinate their children. Therefore, they are withholding information.

An example of misrepresentation through inconsistency and non-sequiter is the claim that vaccine preventable diseases were under control before mass vaccination. Heavily doctored graphs using the variable of mortality – not incidence or morbidity – peddle the falsehood that vaccines had no effect on disease whilst improved living standards led to their demise.

Bereft of evidence, vaccine denialists place significant energy in convincing their unfortunate devotees that the very fabric of democracy and the right to “health freedom” is under threat. Donate enough money to the AVN and you can save free speech and ensure looming mandatory vaccination is kept at bay. Evoking anger, disgust and suspicion toward those who challenge vaccine denial is a staple of anti-vaccine groups.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

It takes little work to find anti-vaccine articles or identities that present all five aspects of denial in the one argument. Conspiracy theories and fake experts have carved out their own canyon sized themes over the years. Meryl Dorey’s obsession with “real scepticism” and her website aiming to mock scientific skepticism reinforces how effective evidence based deconstruction of her denialism has been.

Ultimately, understanding these tactics and how denialists use them reinforces the argument that accepting to debate a certain topic can be counterproductive. The debater who holds to evidence and argues within the constraints of the scientific method or present consensus, must face an opponent with no regard for truth, logic or bipartisan discourse.

Rather than focus on the topic at hand an effective technique would be to expose the tactics used in vaccine denial. Those engaged in denialism do not deal in evidence or seek to bring about a greater good through the application of truth.

Therefore it’s important that scientific skeptics and health professionals continue to expose vaccine denial for what it is.

As for budding ‘researchers’. They can be rightly satisfied with skills that lead one to reputable source material.

The anti-vaccination lobby’s long history

Posted in Denialism, Health by

Hat tip to @BadScienceWatch.

From Jenner to Wakefield: The long shadow of the anti-vaccination movement

From YouTube Description:

In 1998 a medical furore broke out when The Lancet published an article by Andrew Wakefield questioning the benefits of the MMR vaccination which was being given unquestioningly to children throughout the UK.

Coming 202 years after the first vaccination by Edward Jenner, which led to the eradication of smallpox throughout the world, this recent incident is only the latest in a long history of questioning the benefits of vaccination.

From early irrational fears born of outdated medical understanding through to the latest medical research and findings, Professor Gareth Williams traces the history of the anti-vaccination movement and its long tail, reviewing the social settings in which the fears were found and offering a balanced assessment of vaccination as we find it today.

The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the on the Gresham College website:
http://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and…

Gresham College has been giving free public lectures since 1597. This tradition continues today with all of our five or so public lectures a week being made available for free download from our website.
http://www.gresham.ac.uk

Naltrexone implants backed by zealotry but not evidence

Posted in Anti-Drug Lobby, Health, Human Rights, Illicit Drug Policy, Science by

Less than a month after Sydney coroner Mary Jerrum referred a provider of naltrexone implants to the NSW Health Care Complaints Commission, the Christian Democrats’ Reverend Fred Nile revealed he wants them used as compulsory treatment for opioid addicts.

Naltrexone implants are not backed by any convincing evidence but the rapid opioid detoxification [ROD], opioid blocking properties they offer appeal greatly to anti-drug crusading Christian evangelists. Long opposed to harm reduction measures and evidence based treatment of addiction, such as methadone maintenance, far right Christians and conservatives see naltrexone implants as a moral masterstroke. Muscling into the action in recent years are the profit-focused, such as Sydney’s Ross Colquhoun, director of Psych ‘n’ Soul.

I’ve previously written about Dr. Stuart Reece, who features in the video below with the same title as this post. His abuse of patients with naltrexone and Jesus saw 25 of them die in 20 months. His career is the epitome of callous faith based pseudoscience which uniquely targets evidence based harm reduction measures. When I posted on a faux “research” paper he had co-authored with other members of Drug Free Australia, I referred to an exchange on an email list hosted by the Alcohol and Drug Council of Australia. It was on this list years ago that I first read Ross Colquhoun defend naltrexone implants as “common sense”. Indeed his evidence free defence of implants led me to conclude that his “common sense” was the equivalent of the religious zealots’ “belief”.

Both individuals are signatories to Drug Free Australia’s so-called position statement which includes funding of naltrexone implants as an “urgent pro-active change to our illicit drug policies”.

DFAposition_statement_sigs1

Handing down scathing findings into three deaths, the coroner recommended that the HCCC consider proceedings against a doctor working at Colquhoun’s Pysch ‘n’ Soul, Dr. Jassim Daood. According to the ABC she noted, “a number of disciplinary cases have already been completed about some of the clinic’s other staff”. The scale of potential problems becomes clear when one considers the implants have never been approved for use, eager staff have little or no training and post-implant support regimes are entirely absent. For over a decade these implants have been available via the TGA’s Special Access Scheme, which is designed to allow patients access to otherwise unavailable drugs to treat conditions deemed potentially fatal in the absence of that drug.

In this case the Scheme is being exploited as a loophole whilst the implant option itself has left in it’s wake a litany of failure and fatalities. Colquhoun is unlicenced to perform ROD but ignored requests from the NSW Health Department in mid 2010. SMH wrote on October 20:

Despite this direction, Colquhoun resumed the treatments while still unlicensed between July and September of that year, only desisting when Grace Yates, a 23-year-old with a five-month-old baby, was given ROD and naltrexone at the clinic on September 29, 2010. She suffered a heart attack and died two months later, having never regained consciousness.

It’s worth considering this failed treatment option is likely to be expanded under a coalition government. As health minister in the Howard Government, Tony Abbott provided the funding for the launch of the evangelical Drug Free Australia from the Tough on Drugs/Assets of Crime kitty. Describing themselves as “Australia’s Peak Drugs Body” they failed to meet the conditions of the funding, choosing instead to sabotage related health policy basics. Without doubt they have proven to be to addiction treatment what the Australian (anti) Vaccination Network is to the management of vaccine preventable disease.

Abbott also sent $50,000 they way of Psych ‘n’ Soul in the same year, showing exceptionally poor judgement. There is little doubt with enemies of Harm Minimisation such as Bronwyn Bishop, Sophie Mirabella and Christopher Pyne on his proposed front bench, Australia’s strong evidence based approach to addiction management would suffer. As the coroner noted:

It appears that a patient only had to present at the clinic to be enthusiastically recommended for rapid opioid detoxification, no matter what their history or situation, without alternatives being discussed or considered or any information given out of the risks involved.

Another death related to the attempts at ROD Psych ‘n’ Soul is now infamous for, involved Michael Poole, 48. He was described as “delirious and delusional” after ROD and died at the Prince of Wales Hospital in Sydney two days later. The third death involved James Unicomb, 23 who died from drug toxicity following a poly-drug overdose, which followed the ROD and occurred whilst an implant remained active. This lack of appropriate follow up of patients is perhaps the most appalling failure related to the practice of ROD and implants.

Rapid detox’ doesn’t treat addiction. It removes cravings and leaves patients open to the possibility of overdose. Often they are dependent upon high doses of benzodiazapines which raises the risk of opioid induced respiratory depression. As addiction is not treated, behaviour cannot be expected to change. It is for this reason follow up should form the most important aspect of rapid detoxification. It is for the same reason that implants have such a high failure rate in “curing” addiction.

One can only imagine the profit made and moral crusading accomplished from treating now dead addicts who were essentially exploited, not treated. Of course, testimonials abound. Whether it’s those who adore Reece for showing them the way to Jesus or Colquhoun’s (third time lucky) performer in the below video, let’s not kid ourselves. The dead cannot speak.

Alex Wodak, director of Sydney’s St. Vincents Hospital Alcohol and Drug Service observed:

How they are allowed to be used for routine purposes in several states in this country beats me. It goes against all the normal regulations and I think the only explanation I can understand is that this is allowed in this case because they’re only drug addicts. […] We really need a national independent inquiry into the regulatory failure, the serious regulatory failure that’s gone on with Naltrexone implants for over a decade.

Indeed we do.

Naltrexone implants backed by zealotry but not evidence

Psych ‘n’ Soul Naltrexone Deaths Inquest Findings

Complementary medicines’ problem with evidence

Posted in Alternative "medicine" scams, Anti-Vaccination Lobby, Big Placebo, Science by

Evidence aplenty for complementary medicines-by ex-head of the AMA-Take THAT Friends of Science-enemies of truth!

Anti-vaccine lobbyist Meryl Dorey seizing legitimacy from Dr. Kerryn Phelps

Last week Dr. Kerryn Phelps wrote an article for The Australian defending the view that alternatives to medicine are in fact, a type of medicine.

The article’s heading, Evidence aplenty for complementary medicines itself touched on a unique feature of the massive Wellness Industry. Semantics. We have witnessed natural medicine become alternative medicine become complementary medicine become integrative medicine or more frequently complementary and integrative medicine. These are semantic costume changes designed to market integrity. To divert attention away from the fact that evidence for the efficacy of alternatives to medicine is lacking. Simply put, this is not medicine.

Dr. Phelps criticised Friends Of Science In Medicine [FSM], suggesting their “agenda was a declaration of war”. Yet I would conclude FSM are providing a long overdue and organised response to the rise of demonstrably non efficacious and potentially dangerous practices gaining undeserved academic credence. These have always shared a hostility toward evidence based medicine and science itself.

FSM president Professor John Dwyer writes:

We strongly support sound research to determine the effectiveness or otherwise of any biologically plausible areas of ‘alternative’ interventions. We do not seek to prevent consumers from making informed choices about alternative interventions, but wish to see the public better informed and therefore protected from false claims.

I do not doubt for a moment that Dr. Phelps and many other GPs who support alternatives to medicine are above reproach. Nor am I suggesting that all naturopaths and chiropractors (for example) are incapable of establishing a meaningful patient-focused reciprocal relationship with conventional medicine. What I am suggesting is that they are a minority and it is thus in error to suggest alternatives to medicine are generally based on evidence. Dr. Phelps’ insistence that these practices “compliment” or effectively “integrate” with conventional medicine is simply wishful thinking.

I strongly agree with Kerryn Phelps in that individuals taking more responsibility for their health is positive. I support and defend the right of patients to have more choice in managing their health. What I find deeply troubling is that once these two conditions are met, patients and wellness consumers are faced with bogus claims, unnecessary expense and a cornucopia of charlatans. That this is in no small part due to paper tiger regulation reflects that the system itself is broken and failing Australians.

That 19 of Australia’s 39 universities offer courses in scientifically implausible practices is alarming. The role of FSM in highlighting the perils of affording academic credibility to these practices is vital. It can be argued, as Dr. Phelps has previously, that universities will ensure rigid standards are met. Or as now, that FSM should support “an increase in university-based education for practitioners”. Sound reasoning to be sure. Until one considers that these very practices depend upon denial of the scientific method and graduates often emerge highly defensive of an ideology.

There is also an inescapable convolution of practice, integrity and accountability. A belief system associated with one modality may open the way for increasingly absurd practices. The anti-science, anti-medicine, post modernist culture so crucial to new age chiropractic is conducive to opposition, not integration.

This convolution raises the question of where the line is drawn. Few understand what constitute homeopathic principles beyond assuming they provide a “natural” therapy. Yet I would be surprised and disappointed if Dr. Phelps agued it had a role in medicine beyond placebo. Basic chemistry confirms there is no ingredient at all in homeopathic products, beyond expensive sugar. For those who seek to understand more about this “informed choice” there await increasingly bizarre claims most often concluding quantum physics will one day reveal all. This is the same mechanism behind theta healing – even remote theta healing.

For the purposes of this post it’s important to focus primarily on Dr. Phelps’ defence of chiropractic. But what type of chiropractor? John Reggars is past president of the Chiropractors Registration Board of Victoria and present vice president of the Chiropractic and Osteopathic College of Australasia. Focused on science, he is concerned by the rise of “ideological dogma” and the anti-scientific fundamentalist training that FSM have identified as problematic. In a paper by Reggars published in May 2011 he notes that in Australia the 1990s saw a resurgence of “chiropractic philosophy” and with it the belief in VSC, or Vertebral Subluxation Complex.

Reggars is highly critical of such chiropractic pseudoscience, pointing out misuse of diagnostic treatment, schemes to “double your income”, selling the notion of lifelong chiropractic care “to an ignorant public” and locking patients into contract plans. He also writes:

For the true believer, the naive practitioner or undergraduate chiropractic student who accepts in good faith the propaganda and pseudoscience peddled by the VSC teachers, mentors and professional organisations, the result is the same, a sense of belonging and an unshakable and unwavering faith in their ideology.

Belief in the unseen VSC is accompanied by the insistence all disease – including infectious disease – has its origin or cure in the spine. Chiropractic is the invention of 19th century magnetic healer Daniel David Palmer. Perhaps nothing reinforces the value of Friends Of Science In Medicine better than this modern scam of chiropractic. Represented in Australia by the Chiropractor’s Association of Australia [CAA] its aim is:

To achieve a fundamental paradigm shift in healthcare direction where chiropractic is recognised as the most cost efficient and effective health regime of first choice that is readily accessible to all people.

In other words they seek to displace the GP as the primary care physician. It is impossible to broach the many areas of medicine or do the same with the many pseudosciences chiropractic endorses to elaborate on this. Yet from vitamin therapy to homeopathy new age chiropractors have a positive word. Efficacy matters not. The CAA seem to instill fear and confusion about conventional medicine as a key mechanism in their “fundamental paradigm shift in healthcare direction”.

When we understand what seeking to usurp the family doctor entails, we can see that FSM can scarcely be accused of declaring war. The article Recent Controversies in Chiropractic and RMIT courses/clinic provides exceptional insight into the very concerns FSM seek to address with quackery in universities. Palmer argued humans have “a god-given energy flow” which when disrupted leads to illness. Exhuming such nonsense and contending that the doctrine is “evidence-based education and practice”, as suggested by Dr. Ray Myers, head of RMIT University’s School of Health Sciences is shameful.

One area the CAA has chosen to immerse itself in is the anti-vaccine movement. Many graduates emerge convinced that vaccination is a toxic medical trick. As one put it, raging on Meryl Dorey’s anti-vaccine Facebook page; “Of course we don’t support vaccination, it’s the biggest medical sham since bloodletting!”. The reason for his outburst was the article Doctors accuse chiropractors of selling anti-vaccination message.

To better understand why we must travel back over 100 years. In 1909 D.D. Palmer’s son, Bartlett Joshua (or B.J.) Palmer wrote (Ref; 2003), (Ref; 2014):

If we had one hundred cases of small-pox, I can prove to you where, in one, you will find a subluxation and you will find the same conditions in the other ninety-nine. I adjust one and return his functions to normal… . There is no contagious disease… . There is no infection… . ♠

Herein lies a major problem for Dr. Phelps who is under no such illusions about vaccination. As seen above Meryl Dorey has hitched a ride on Dr. Phelps’ reputation. On another email list Dorey simply copied the entire article and sent it off with the opening line, “If only we could get her to look at the vaccination issue as well… <sigh>”.

As well?! Dr. Phelps opined in The Australian about the “us and them” attitude. Yet these two words reflect just how rusted on and integral to many who entertain alternatives to medicine the “us and them” mindset is.

Some months back Dorey was also using Phelps’ prior role as AMA president, in the AVN attack on all conventional medicine. I wondered if Dr. Phelps knew of her unofficial patronage.

Past president of the CAA, Simon Floreani, has promoted homeoprophylaxis, showcasing Isaac Golden. Anti-vaccine activist and “paediatric chiropractor” Warren Sipser went as far as testifying in the family court against the immunisation of a five year old girl. Sipser informed reporters at the time “there is credible evidence they [vaccines] may do more harm than good”. Nimrod Weiner of Newtown Chiropractic ran anti-vaccine workshops using information garnered from the same AVN to whom Dr. Phelps is “diametrically opposed”.

Weiner informed pregnant mothers at a public talk that homeopathic immunisation (water) was superior to regular immunisation. That Andrew Wakefield’s fraudulent paper attempting to causally link MMR to autism was “scientifically good”. Last July Dr. Phelps tweeted:

WIN News Wollongong recently aired a comment from Meryl Dorey claiming that “all vaccines” are linked to autism in the medical literature. This is complete opportunistic nonsense and is now quite properly the subject of a complaint to ACMA. As Jonathon Holmes observed on Media Watch “there’s evidence and there’s bulldust” and that “Dorey’s claim about the medical literature linking vaccination and autism is pure, unadulterated baloney.”

Quite right. Which raises my point on convolution again. Where do we draw the line? Of the 222 listed professional members of Dorey’s anti-vaccine group over 60%, or 135 are chiropractors. The next largest is homeopaths with 16 members, or a comparatively small 7%. Naturopaths number 15 members. Then kinesiologists, then acupuncturists with 5 and 4 members respectively. Aside from one physiotherapist and one occupational therapist, all “professional members” sell alternatives to medicine of some description.

A US study published in Vaccine showed that parents who deny their children vaccination are four times more likely to see a chiropractor as the primary care physician. When Floreani was CAA president his chiropractor wife wrote of their newborn son’s pertussis. Including [bold hers]:

We performed chiropractic checks on our baby daily and utilised a whooping cough homeopathic. I dosed myself with an array of vitamins to boost his immunity via breast milk and kept him hydrated with constant breastfeeding. Whooping cough is often slow to develop and may respond well to conservative management, including chiropractic, osteopathy, homeopathy, herbs, acupuncture or acupressure.

Magically, it resolved within two weeks. Which means it wasn’t pertussis but a self limiting infection and all that woo did nothing but correlate to the illness. But I am sure Dr. Phelps would be the first to agree herbs, acupressure, homeopathy and so on would do nothing to manage pertussis. It is very dangerous misinformation with potentially fatal consequences.

So not only are unvaccinated children more likely to see a chiropractor and be subject to such abuse, but by not seeing a GP they are unlikely to become a recorded notification. Officially whilst only 5% of 0-4 year olds in Australia are not fully vaccinated for pertussis they make up 27% of cases. Thus, this figure may well be conservative. Dr. Phelps must ask herself; If vaccine deniers will choose chiropractors, might chiropractors influence parents to reject vaccination? The above rubbish is by Dr Jennifer Barham-Floreani – B.App.Clin.Sci, B.Chiropractic after all.

Australian Doctor wrote in part about the study in Vaccine:

Are naturopathic and complementary healthcare providers reinforcing parental concerns and ‘anti-vaccine’ opinions or promoting exemptions, or are they providing healthcare without emphasizing vaccinations?

I hope Dr. Phelps is asking herself that question also. As I stress above I’m sure Dr. Phelps and her colleagues are above reproach. But that’s not the point. The larger message being advanced here is that alternatives to medicine not only complement but “integrate” with conventional medicine. Not only does available evidence show this is not true but to generalise is to lend credence to dangerous charlatans.

This post has focused primarily on chiropractors, because they not only serve as a hub for health focused pseudosciences, but also seek to replace the family GP. I will contend that my point on convoluted overlap is valid. Once a patient is referred to one pseudoscience how does the referring GP control for pollution as it were? More material on the dubious ethics of new age chiropractic, including catastrophic neck injury and paediatric “improvement” by parental proxy can be found here.

St. John’s Wort seems to be trotted out in almost every article claiming alternatives to medicine have an evidence base. What is forgotten is that hyperforin, the antidepressant extract of St. John’s Wort, and other extracts are both inducers and inhibitors of P450 cytochrome enzymes. These liver cytochromes are involved in the metabolism of over 50% of marketed medication.

In the case of opioid pain relief studies have demonstrated a decrease of blood plasma levels of oxycodone of up to 50% and reduced half life of 27%. In the case of alprazolzm (a benzodiazapine), prescribed for anxiety and panic attacks a doubling of clearance rate has been documented.

Chronic pain is associated with depression and depression with anxiety. Opioids and benzodiazapines are causally linked to respiratory depression overdose death. Hence the clinical significance of any “integration” of serious pain management with a herbal choice for the depression it may cause is likely to be anything but “complementary” for the patient. Many patients choose not to inform their GP of herbal supplements.

Proper diagnosis following treatment with medication will be hampered by St. John’s Wort. Excessive doses of actual medication may be prescribed. Should a patient cease St. John’s Wort whilst on opioid, benzodiazapine or both medication regimes a spike in blood plasma of the active metabolites will ensue. More likely, as St. John’s Wort is improperly regulated and dose concentration varies widely a patient may unwittingly expose themselves to respiratory depression and possibly death with no change in their daily medication/St. John’s Wort routine.

In short whilst the concentration (dose) of actual medication is stable, the drug interaction outcome due to St. John’s Wort mimics an unstable medication dose. Patients may easily find themselves unsuitable to drive, work, operate machinery, bathe or sleep without potential for disaster. Consequently many medication regimes may be deleteriously effected by St. John’s Wort.

Thus the wider picture of evidence pertaining to St. John’s Wort is not quite the basis for “integration” proponents of alternatives to medicine would have us believe.

My response to the ongoing insistence that placebo effects derived from acupuncture constitute evidence is likely to be here in Acupuncture: essential facts about a major scam. Over and again it emerges that subjects who think they are receiving acupuncture, whether they are or not, demonstrate a response.

Findings aside, how would Dr. Phelps explain meridians, invisible forces, chakra or vital energies? It is too easy to point to apparently positive findings when the mechanism by which they arise is implausible, unknown or assumed to be related to endorphin release. The technology to manufacture acupuncture needles did not exist until the 1600s and the only nation to seriously try to ban acupuncture was China under the Chinese Nationalist Government. Western marketing has done much for this “traditional” Chinese medicine.

What of naturopaths who insist on Black Salve [2]? Or who use herbal balls from China with high levels of elemental mercury, arsenic and lead? What of poor hygiene and bacterial infection from acupuncturists or masseurs? The astonishing story of Monika Milka and non-sterile syringes used in biomesotherapy, leaving her patients seriously infected with mycobacterium chelonae?

Tragic cases like Penelope Dingle and Isabella Denley indicate that the notion of integration or proper supervision is seriously flawed. One point raised repeatedly by FSM is that whilst ill patients waste time being exploited by pseudoscience acting as a health choice, the chance of genuine care, full recovery or even survival is lost.

These are the real issues Dr. Phelps could constructively help Aussies understand before raging at FSM. How is it that so many various practices have come to exist that are beholden to ideology, not evidence? How is it they can convince parents to withhold treatment from their children and in doing so undermine the health of our entire community?

FSM exists to address an unacceptable situation in our educational institutions. They have taken a stand because those in a position to defend academia seemingly chose to act unethically. When it comes to “informed choice” there is an excess of non evidence based, expensive pseudoscience. It is pervaded by a combative, arrogant anti-science and anti-medicine mindset. It is amply equipped with scams.

This madness must stop and Dr. Kerryn Phelps is most welcome to clearly state just what aspects of non conventional medicine are high risk ideology and what is safe, effective and backed by evidence. Real evidence that can be trusted alone.

Presently, there appears to be a scarcity.

♠ This quote has been attributed to D.D. Palmer. However in 2013 the Journal of the Canadian Chiropractic Association, cited the author as B.J. Palmer.

A fact sheet should have facts

Posted in Anti-Vaccination Lobby, Health, Judy Wilyman, Science by

There are only two organs in the human body where we know the cause of cancers that effect them.

One is the liver, which has shown a definite link between the hepatitis B [HBV] virus and liver cancer. The other is the cervix with an irrefutable link between human papillomavirus [HPV] and cervical cancer. As we have vaccines to prevent infection with these viruses, HBV derived liver cancer and cervical cancer may thus be considered “preventable cancers”.

In the case of the HPV vaccine, anti-vaccine lobbyist and University of Wollongong student Judy Wilyman continues to deny its success. A cervical cancer “fact sheet” on her web site contains irrelevant or misleading snippets of misinformation. Designed to create a fiction, the item is anything but a “fact sheet”.

It begins with the confusing claim that the HPV vaccine Gardasil was not trialled against cervical cancer. Rather it was trialled in 16-26 year old women against pre-cancerous lesions. Wilyman criticises the age group because women therein rarely present with cervical cancer. She criticises the focus on pre-cancerous lesions because most do not lead to cervical cancer.

Later Wilyman observes that cervical cancer takes 8-25 years to develop answering her own concern about lower rates of cervical cancer in the sample group. With respect to pre-cancerous lesions her thinking is disturbing. Cervical cancer develops from these lesions and the trial demonstrated a reduction in development by almost half.  Unsurprisingly Wilyman then notes the death rate is 1.9/100,000 – “a very low risk to Australian women”.

We’re informed, “there are more than 15 high risk strains associated with cancer not covered by the vaccine”. Strange. Now Judy has a sudden concern for cancers caused by HPV? No. She’s omitted that 70% of cancers are caused by HPV strains 16 and 18 and that Gardasil also targets HPV 6 and 11, responsible for 90% of genital warts. The vaccine is almost 100% effective against these strains.

We read that, “the duration of this vaccine is unknown as it has only been tested in adults for 3-4 years”. I’m sure Judy means the duration of immunity. Perhaps she overlooked the role of antibody response and concentration in predicting immunity. The reality is that whilst research is ongoing, close to 100% protection remained after five years. Protection shows no signs of weakening. Whilst the need for a booster has not yet been established it appears to be unlikely that it will.

  • “We don’t know how long vaccine protection will last”, is regarded as a Myth by the Australian Cancer Council.

Further criticism of trials include the observation that, “in young women pre-cancerous lesions have a high clearance rate and do not always lead to cancer”. This completely ignores the necessity to vaccinate before the onset of sexual activity and exposure to wild HPV. Vaccines are preventative, not curative. It is a most strange complaint from a “PhD candidate”, failing to understand the very aim of the trial.

Five separate references to trials being conducted and funded by drug companies are listed. This assumed conspiracy is frequently cited by Wilyman in regard to all vaccines without making any links to, or cogent arguments about, inefficacy or unsound trials. Conflict of interest and the influence of drug companies should be, and is, taken very seriously by relevant sections of the scientific community. But accusatory assumption without evidence is unacceptable.

Wilyman seems to deliberately mislead by documenting as a “concern” that 94 deaths and 21,635 adverse reactions are associated with Gardasil. Citing anti-vaccine lobby group S.A.N.E. she then notes that only 10% of reactions are picked up by the passive surveillance systems that produced those figures. What does this mean?

When authorities talk of under-reporting in passive surveillance they refer to minor events – soreness, redness, swelling, a bit queasy post influenza jab etc. These are so minor as to be inconsequential to the recipient, thus never reach the vaccine provider for reporting to the system. Her intent is to insinuate close to 950 deaths and well over 200,000 adverse reactions are possibly/probably associated with or causally linked to Gardasil.

Of reactions that are reported there is no evidence of any link. Great efforts are made to convey causality has not been demonstrated. All that’s known is that the event occurred sometime after vaccination. Also, reports remain on the database no matter how unlikely or ridiculous. Despite easy access on how to avoid the trap Judy Wilyman has set, she has chosen to obfuscate the reality.

These reporting systems exist to highlight trends from which likely adverse reactions are chosen for follow up study. It’s the findings of these studies that provide any evidence backed conclusions on adverse reactions. When links are shown to not exist the reports still remain on the database.

We may confidently dismiss her figures of 94 deaths and 21,635 adverse reactions. Conclusions cannot be drawn from unverified reports.

The “fact sheet” also includes claims that the aluminium adjuvant is, “known to cause allergies/anaphylaxis and auto-immune reactions in humans”. This claim has been criticised with regard to many vaccines. With 65 million doses of HPV vaccine given safely in over 100 countries, rates of serious allergic reactions are being recorded at about three per one million doses.

Nonetheless a paper cited by Wilyman does speculate on a possible role of adjuvants in auto-immune disorders. It must be stressed that in this review vaccine adjuvants alone have not been identified, nor is there any robust research behind the proposition. Possibly, Wilyman has not read the material.

Certainly, Judy Wilyman selectively cites trial methodology. Ignoring use of saline placebo in safety trials [page 4], she zeros in on AAHS because it’s “not a true placebo used to test safety”:

The manufacturer funded clinical trials used the adjuvant, aluminium hydroxyphosphate sulphate as the placebo in the unvaccinated group: a chemical known to be linked to adverse events including autoimmune diseases

One cannot stress enough that aluminium hydroxyphosphate sulphate is not “known to be linked” to ADRs or autoimmune disease. Five months later the authors write in The Rheumatologist:

Taking it all together, it seems that enigmatic but nevertheless common and often disabling complaints can coincide in many individuals diagnosed with siliconosis, MMF, GWS, or postvaccination events […]

Moreover, genetic links observed in animal models, and in the human disease MMF, bring about the notion that the adjuvant effect promotes the appearance of an adjuvant disease in subjects who are genetically susceptible or in those who encounter an additional trigger…

At best this is speculation. At worst the authors are attempting to coin a new syndrome based on review and suggest it be used to label challenging diagnoses. Examining their contention nonetheless, it’s clear they refer to a rare and individualised pathology.

Wilyman also cites anti-vaccine lobby group Immunisation Awareness Society, N.Z. in claiming that juvenile, rheumatoid and osteoarthritis are caused by Gardasil. As recently as January this year another study found no evidence of this.

  • “The vaccine has serious side effects that aren’t being reported” is considered a Myth by the Australian Cancer Council.

No attempt is made to mention the Australian HPV Register and its role in ongoing assessment. A large portion of Wilyman’s so-called fact sheet seeks to demote the risk of HPV infection, relegating it to developing nations or to a small promiscuous section of our community.

The rest seeks to spook readers into feeling that 200 cervical cancer deaths annually and unnecessary genital warts is acceptable collateral damage.

It is a biased and misleading document.