Dan's Journal of Skepticism

How can the anti-vaccine movement possible justify their desire to leave Children vulnerable to disease?

The anti-vaxers have been spreading misinformation about vaccines for years now in order to fulfill their own agenda of abolishing vaccinations; now some real harm has been done.

MONDAY, March 22 (HealthDay News) — What began as a family trip to Switzerland in 2008 ended up as a public health nightmare in California.

The family’s 7-year-old boy, who was intentionally unvaccinated against measles, was exposed to the virus while traveling in Europe. When he returned home to San Diego, he unknowingly exposed a total of 839 people, and an additional 11 unvaccinated children contracted the disease.

Three of those infected were babies, too young to have yet received the measles vaccines, and one of the babies was hospitalized for three days with a 106-degree fever, according to a report to be published in the April issue of Pediatrics. –HealthDay News

The development of vaccines is one of the greatest achievements in modern medicine, yet Anti-Vaxers continue to spread misinformation based on unsupported claims. Many claim that people should stick to Natural Remedies; which I wont dignify by calling medicine. They make the false claim that Natural = Good, well I can think of lots of natural things that are bad for you, Heroin, Poison Ivy, a pack of hungry Wolves ect…

The Anti-vaxers are so dishonest that they even claim that Vaccines are ineffective, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

So what possible justification do these people have for spreading harmful misinformation, are they just sick in the head, do they enjoy the suffering; or is there another motive? 

Note: My original conclusion for this blog post was incorrect. In this post I erroneously mistook Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation with regular Magnothrapy. Please see my full retraction at the bottom of this post.

I was flying back to Perth from Melbourne last night and I was listening to an episode of The Naked Scientists when they suddenly got onto the topic of Magnotherapy.

Also in the news this week, researchers have shown that you can knock migraines on the head with a magnet.  Dr. Richard Lipton is a neurologist at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine.  He’s based in New York and he is with us now.  Hello, Richard. –The Naked Scientists

I immediately recognised the Pseudo-Science that was about to follow and they did not disappoint. Like all other forms of magnotherapy this one is also bogus. The only sources I can find  for curing migraine with magnets are the alternative medicines sites, which are of course selling the product.

Chris –   So in your study, you were asking, can a pulse of magnetism alter the outcome of someone seeing initially these auras.  Does it prevent them going on to get a headache?

Richard –   Well, the method we used is called transcranial magnetic stimulation.  It’s a method that’s been around for 30 years.  The idea is that if you apply a powerful magnet to the surface of the skull, the magnetic field penetrates through the skull into the brain and induces a small amount of current flow and depending on where you do it and when you do it, that can have either diagnostic or therapeutic applications.

Magnotherapy has been around for about 30 years but in all this time it has never been proven and like all other Alternative Medicines it has no scientific evidence supporting it’s claim. So why did a credible podcast such as The Naked Scientists report it as legitimate?

Quite simply the producers of the podcast did not conduct their own research into the claims before reporting them as fact. For a “Science” podcast I find this to be fairly irresponsible, it might be acceptable for a regular media outlet to be conned into reporting a fallacy but any show based on science should be treating claims with skepticism prior to reporting them.

When the pseudoscientists and con men are able to trick a credible source, such as a podcast produced by Cambridge University. It highlights the importance of constant vigilance and skeptical awareness. We can never count on others to spot the fallacies for us and should treat all claims with skepticism regardless of the source.

Update on Friday, March 19, 2010 at 10:06PM

It has been brought to my attention that I may have drawn an incorrect connection between Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation and Magno Therapy. I am currently looking further into this and will post a retraction if warranted. Stay tuned, I am working on it and will update as soon as possible. In the meantime if you have any material you would like to share with me on this I can be emailed at:Dan@danscomp.net

Update on Thursday, March 25, 2010 at 9:40PM

Actual Retraction

It would seem that I erroneously associated Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation with regular Magnothrapy. Dr Steven Novella has written an interesting piece on “Treating Migraine with Magnetic Stimulation”

The new treatment represents yet another approach to using electromagnetism to affect brain function – the use of transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS). TMS today is used for research – at different frequencies TMS can either induce or inhibit the activity in a focused part of the brain, and the results can be studied to figure out what that part of the brain does.

There is already published research looking at the effects of different frequencies of TMS on the excitability of brain regions during a migraine. A migraine is, in some ways, like a seizure – it is a neurological event involving abnormal activity in certain brain circuits (the trigeminovascular reflex, for example) and also involving hyperexcitability (leading to central sensitization) of certain populations of neurons. This leads clinically to hypersensitivity to sound, light, smell, and touch – which can both trigger and exacerbate a migraine. –NeuroLogicaBlog

Looks like I got this one wrong.

We have probably all seen the Lemon Detox commercials for one of the latest snake oils to hit the market. It has all the red flags of a fraudulent product, celebrity endorsements, miracle claims and personal testimonies. What I can’t find is any scientific support for the claims that are made on the official Australian website. How ever I did find an interesting quote on the Spiritual Cleansing section of their site.

“Fasting is a valid experience. It can benefit any otherwise healthy person whose calories now have the upper hand in his or her life.”—The New England Journal of Medicine

However that is as far as they go in terms of attributing the quote, no author, no year and no other reference. Let’s assume the quote is correct after all it is scientifically sound. According to the First Law of Thermodynamics if you consume less calories than you burn you are guaranteed to lose weight.

Ok so they made at least one scientifically solid statement, but are there any others? Well, no but what I did find was a religious quote.

Prayer takes us half way towards God, fasting takes us to the gates of Heaven” – Mohammed.

Who would have thought the starving yourself might bring you closer to god. Is that really a good quote to market your product?

Let’s move on, hopefully to something more sensible. How about the “Why we need to Cleanse” page.

Every once in a while, every machine needs an overhaul, every system needs a cleaning, every worker needs a break.

We service our vehicles every once in a while to free them from any blockages or complications and to get them back to their peak performance. If we leave our vehicles for too long without a service, they begin to slow down, losing their vitality and performance. Usually problem after problem will occur. With regular servicing, our vehicles become revitalised and more reliable, and able to function efficiently.

Here’s the problem. A blockage is a serious medical condition if anything is blocking your circulatory or digestive system you need medical attention fast so unless you are in the ER right now you do not have any blockages to get rid of, or at least not one that your body can’t clear by it’s self. Another problem is the idea that “toxins” build up in the body. Yes, you can put poisons and toxins such as alcohol and tobacco into your body but your body disposes of nearly all toxins through natural processes you do not need to do anything to clear toxins out of your body except in extreme cases. Such as an overdose where the body cannot handle the excessive amount of toxin introduced to the system. Again this is a serious medical condition where treatment often involves replacing large amounts of blood. It is not a condition that can nor should be treated with the Lemon Detox Diet. This is simply Woo-Woo designed to part the ignorant masses from their hard earned cash.

Conclusion

If you want to clean out your digestive system drink nothing but water for a day, generally there is nothing in your system that is over 24 hours old. So if you drink water an don’t eat for about 24 hours your digestive system will be as clean as it has ever been. As for the weight loss, consume less calories than you burn and the First Law of Thermodynamics guarantees your success. The Lemon Detox is nothing more than snake oil a common fraud designed to part people from their cash. Celebrity endorsement is something to be weary of as snake oil sales men love to use them in order to lend credibility to their fraudulent product. The method I suggested is endorsed by a Law of Physics and backed by countless irrefutable scientific evidence. Lemon Detox is endorsed by celebrities rather than scientific evidence and there is a good reason for that.

In the familiar ongoing battle of Science vs Pseudoscience it would seem that the Pseudoscientists and Wooists have an unfair advantage because unlike Science they are not restricted by the laws of Physics and do not carry the inherent burden of proof that real scientists and skeptics require in order to support their claims.

The pseudoscientists have a bottomless bag of bullshit from which they can pull all sorts of absurd claim from. Homeopaths for example make the absurd claim that water has “memory” and that it can remember a substance after that substance has long since disappeared. Psychics like to use the term “Energy” as I discussed briefly in an earlier post to try and describe a magical force that they can somehow tap into. There are countless examples of “perpetual motion” machines such as the LUTEC Engine which in theory violates the laws of thermal dynamics, which is an impossibility and such laws of nature have been well established by the collective of scientific knowledge. 

On the other hand scientists are restricted by facts. Whenever they make a claim they must provide evidence to support it and that evidence must then stand up to the scrutiny of peer-review. A pseudoscientist can just keep on making things up but a real scientist or skeptic simply cannot.

However despite the notable advantage of limitless bullshit the pseudoscience quacks and frauds are still having a hard time. Just this week the UK’s National Health Service has been met with calls to drop the funding of Homeopathic remedies.

Today the Science and Technology Select Committee delivered its verdict on homeopathy and it was devastating. The committee has called for the complete withdrawal of NHS funding and official licensing of homeopathy. –Guardian.co.uk

In addition to this triumph over the fraud of Homeopathy another battle has also been won against pseudoscience, but at the cost of countless lives. Some pseudoscientist frauds are so morally bankrupt  that nothing will get in the way of their ill-gotten cash flow.

A BBC Newsnight investigation has exposed a “useless” bomb detector device currently being used at security check points in Iraq and Afghanistan. The UK Government has now banned the export of the British made device and the device’s maker, Jim McCormack, has been arrested on suspicion of fraud.

The Iraqi government has spent 85 million dollars, at a cost of 40 thousand dollars each, on the dowsing-like ADE-651 devices, but there are now fears that they failed to prevent bomb attacks which killed hundreds of military personal and civilians. Sidney Alford a leading explosives expert, said the sale of the devices was “absolutely immoral”.

He told Newsnight; “It could result in people being killed in the dozens, if not hundreds.”

This comes after three recent suicide car bomb attacks in Baghdad, with one attack in December killing over 120 Iraqis. –The Skeptics’ Book of Pooh-Pooh

Just another example of the harm these fraudsters can cause when they use fake science to try and sell a product. If you spend enough time debunking unscientific claims you will find that more often than not the pseudoscientist has something to sell, while the Skeptic who exposes them often has nothing to sell yet still carries the burden of evidence founded on real scientific principles.

While pseudoscience may at first appear to have a significant advantage over science it is only possible to invent so much bullshit before you are exposed for whatever con you are trying to pull. In the end real science always triumphs over pseudoscience no matter how much bullshit they can invent.

People keep telling me that quackery is harmless. It’s all a bit of fun, they aren’t harming anyone. However this could not be further from the truth, purveyors of Woo are not only defrauding vulnerable people but they can also contributing to serious health issues and even death. The worst offenders are the Alternative Medicine scams.

Alternative Medicine is any healing process that has not been scientifically proven to work. This includes, but is not limited to: Homeopathy, Crystal Healing, Naturopathy, Meditation, Traditional Chinese Medicine, Hypnosis and Acupuncture. An Alternative Medicine is one that has not passed clinical trials or has failed it’s clinical trials. Alternative Medicine that has passed clinical trials and been proven to work is no longer alternative and is simply called “Medicine” or “Science Based Medicine” as many Skeptics like to call it in order to further distinguish it from the quackery. There is allot of money to be made in Alternative Medicines due to the ignorance of the general public and I consider this business to be nothing short of fraud, but it is far worse than selling a fraudulent device such as the Moletech Fuel-​​Saver because selling fake medicines can cost lives.

Recently in Australia a child suffering from cancer was denied chemotherapy by her parents who instead chose to heal her with Mud Therapy.

In this case, a 10 year old girl Tamar, was recently diagnosed with liver cancer which required immediate and aggressive chemotherapy. But her parents have shunned conventional treatment in favour of “mud” therapy. A team of oncologists at Princes Margaret Childrens’ Hospital advised that a seven week course of chemotherapy would give Tamar a 50-60% chance of survival. Despite the treating hospital pleading with the parents to consent to chemotherapy, eventually seeking the involvement of the WA legal system, the parents fled Australia to El Salvador. -The Skeptics’ Book of Pooh-Pooh

This is just one example of Alternative Medicine causing harm to an innocent person by offering false hope in place of a real treatment that could save their life. Not only do purveyors of false medicine defraud vulnerable and often desperate people out of money, but they do so at the expense of their victims health. I find it baffling that our government can ban a fraudulent device such as the Mtech Fuel-Saver while at the same time allowing frauds who actually do real harm to continue.

The next time you hear someone claim that Alternative Medicine is “harmless” I hope that you will correct them. I found a fantastic online resource called “What’s the Harm?” that lists many other examples of Alternative Medicines causing harm to patients.

Of all the events that took place in the 20^th century perhaps none is greater than setting foot on the moon however like many great achievements the moon landings are haunted by conspiracy nut jobs who insist that the landings cannot have taken place despite indisputable scientific evidence to the contrary. The lunar hoaxers like to use poor and even ludicrous arguments to refute history.

One of the most commonly used photographs is the one displaying the American flag and one of the two astronauts, either Neil Armstrong or Buzz Aldrin it’s hard to tell in this photo.

The hoaxers argument goes like this

When the astronauts are putting up the American flag it waves. There is no wind on the Moon.

The movement of the flag is caused by vibrations during it’s planting. This movement of the flag does not indicate the presence of wind but instead proves that the flag is in a vacuum. Here on Earth the flag would cease movement considerably faster due to resistance from the atmosphere the lack of air resistance in the vacuum of space allows this vibration movement to continue considerably longer than if the flag was surrounded by an atmosphere. You should also note the flag in this photograph is supported by a horizontal bar across the top which allows the flag to remain upright instead of falling flat against the pole, surprisingly many people fail to notice this in the photo.

No stars are visible in the pictures taken by the Apollo astronauts from the surface of the Moon.

Stars are not visible on the moon during daylight hours for the same reason that they are not visible on Earth during daylight hours. It is not the Earth’s atmosphere that prevents stars from being visible during the day and this is evident by the fact that we can see them at night. The reason we don’t see stars during the day on Earth is because the light from the Sun is simply too bright, this is called Light Pollution and it is the same reason we can see the night sky much more clearly in rural locations than we can around big cities. The daytime sky on the Moon is no different from Earth in this respect.

The footprints in the fine lunar dust, with no moisture or atmosphere or strong gravity, are unexpectedly well preserved, as if made in wet sand.

This one is a no brainer. Without wind or rain the footprints may last for centuries without erosion. This argument is often used by the same crackpots who claim that the flag shouldn’t be moving because there’s no wind on the Moon. So first they argue that there is no wind and then try to argue that the footprints could not possible remain preserved as if they suddenly changed their mind about not having wind on the moon.

The rocks brought back from the Moon are identical to rocks collected by scientific expeditions to Antarctica.

Some Moon rocks have been found on Earth, but they are rare and are often scorched from their entry into Earths atmosphere. The rocks brought back from the Apollo missions do not contain this scorching. Given that the Earth, Moon and many other planets formed from the same mass of particles many billions of years ago it should not be any surprise to find substances on Earth that are also found elsewhere in our galaxy.

No blast crater is visible in the pictures taken of the lunar landing module.

The landing module touches down on a surface of solid rock that is covered by a thin layer of dust, when the Lander takes off it’s thrust is much smaller than would be needed on Earth due to the Moons lower gravitational pull. This results in a significantly smaller blast radius. Which is why you don’t see any blast crater. Although the thin layer of dust is blasted away the solid rock beneath it remains.

Shadows in the photographs indicate that there are multiple light sources similar to studio lighting.

If you have ever looked at a Full Moon you will know that the lunar surface is highly reflective. So there is certainly more than one light source to cast shadows, both the Sun and the Moon that reflects it. This also happens on Earth, you can cast a shadow on the ground without being in darkness yourself.

Apollo astronauts could not have travelled to the moon as a giant belt of lethal space radiation would have frazzled them.

The Van Allen Radiation Belt is a favorite for the conspiracy nuts. The radiation is lethal to Humans but so are X-Rays and yet people have X-Rays all the time. The solution is to not hang-out in the radiation field. The astronauts passed through the belt in just a few hours and were exposed to the same radiation as a normal X-Ray patient.

Conclusion

On one hand we have mountains of evidence from reputable Scientific organisations and on the other we have a bunch of conspiracy nuts presenting absurd unscientific evidence despite the Scientific Consensus that man has landed on the Moon. I know who I’d rather place money on.

Why is is ok to sell one type of scam but not the other?

If I were to sell bottles of Hair Tonic, concocted from urine and ink on the street corner I am sure I would very soon run a foul of the Department of Consumer Protection for selling a product that does not and has not been proven to work. The most common term for such a product is “fraud” and it is against the law to sell such products to the consumer for financial gain.

However Psychics and Clairvoyants frequently engage in such activities whereby they sell a service that does not work. Even with a prize of $100,000 AUD on offer from Australian Skeptics and One Million USD from The James Randi Educational Foundation not one Psychic has ever come forward to verify their extraordinary claims. This reluctance comes as no surprise to anyone of a Skeptical mindset but anyone who is not a Skeptic should be asking why these people cannot verify their own claims to have such psychic powers particularly when there is a significant financial incentive to do so. The all to obvious truth is that Psychics, Clairvoyants, Mediums and all the other New Age powers are nothing more than a fallacy.

Unlike my earlier hypothetical scenario with the “hair tonic” when it comes to Psychics and Clairvoyants the Department of Consumer Protection is content with standing on the sidelines and allowing ignorant people to be parted with their cash. There is a monthly “Psychic Awareness Magical Fair” here in Perth and I felt it was only fitting that Consumer Protection should know about the fraudulent practices taking place here. So I visited their Scamnet website where I stumbled upon an interesting page about Psychics and Clairvoyants.

Psychic scams prey on people’s vulnerabilities by promising to change their lives through lucky charms and winning lottery numbers.

Often these so-called psychics do not exist. They are fictional characters created by mailing companies to fleece you of your money. The pictures accompanying the psychics’ biographies are purchased from commercial photography libraries. The models in these photographs probably have no idea that their image is being used to scam people.

So it seems that you are not allowed to pretend to be a Psychic but it’s ok to be an actual Psychic. What is the difference, Psychics are frauds so how can it be ok to be a Psychic so long as you aren’t just pretending to be a Psychic? That simply doesn’t make sense. So I emailed them to ask about it and this is the response I got.

 

Dear Mr Buzzard

Thank you for your enquiry regarding Psychic and clairvoyant scams.

WAScamNet reports on a range of matters that are currently being marketed to the public of Western Australia.  In many instances the wording and style of information presented to members of the public falls into the category of material that Consumer Protection considers likely to mislead the recipient of the material.

One of these instances is what we define as psychic scams. Often these scams will involve a claim that simply by sending money to a particular person some defined result, e.g. personal wealth or happiness, will follow. In many cases, no readily identifiable service is actually provided.

The Department’s particular concern in relation to clairvoyants and psychics is where generic information or material is published which gives an impression to the reader that the publisher of the material has particular knowledge of the circumstances of the individual, potentially causing the reader to be misled into acting in a way that they would not normally do. However, we take the view that material published by way of general invitation or information allows the reader to make an informed choice about whether to participate.

WAScamNet does not purport to support, deny or define the existence of the ability to foretell the future or issues that may affect individuals. There are a wide range of individuals and groups, including psychics, clairvoyants, and even religious organisations, that may claim knowledge of aspects of the future or that may provide guidance to individuals on how to act based on their values and beliefs. Consumer Protection considers that where the material published by these individuals or groups is sufficient for the reader to make an informed decision about whether or not to engage a particular service or to participate in a particular activity or belief system, there is unlikely to have been misleading conduct in breach of the Fair Trading Act 1987.

Consumer Protection will receive and consider all complaints about information published by any person or company.

I trust this information is of assistance.

Kind Regards

<Name Omitted>
A/WA ScamNet Research Officer
Retail and Service Industries Branch

Will they attempt to support deny or define the effectiveness of my fraudulent  “Hair Tonic” if I start to sell it on the street corner, or is this special acceptance reserved only for the Psychics. The stance taken by the Department of Consumer Protection is deeply disappointing, as far as I’m concerned Fraud is Fraud and the authorities should not pick and choose between them. Psychic’s cheat the consumer just like any other scam and the authorities should deal with them accordingly.