Quackery Articles

Quackery Articles

16 May 2010

On the Road in N.J.

These activists, like poor Wiley, don’t seem to realize they’ve walked off a cliff. They’re still scheming even as they hurtle toward the ground.

Lyme advocates look for action from AG after controversial treatment guidelines upheld

Lisa Chamoff, Staff Writer

Friday, May 14, 2010

A local Lyme disease advocacy group is calling for Connecticut's attorney general to continue the fight to alter controversial treatment guidelines.

Greenwich-based Time for Lyme is circulating a petition urging Attorney General Richard Blumenthal to look into the recent decision by a special panel, formed as part of an antitrust investigation, to allow the guidelines to remain unchanged.

[Blum was once listed as an advisor to this group.]

The eight-member review panel issued its report three weeks ago, unanimously agreeing to uphold the disease treatment guidelines developed in 2006 by the Arlington, Va.-based Infectious Diseases Society of America.

The guidelines, among other things, don't recommend treating Lyme disease with antibiotics for more than a few weeks and say there is no evidence that chronic Lyme disease exists.

Time for Lyme says it wants Blumenthal to hold the IDSA legally accountable for violating the agreement with his office and to vigorously investigate what the group says are voting and other process irregularities.

"We feel there is unfinished business with the IDSA guidelines process that was started by the AG," said Diane Blanchard, co-president of Time for Lyme, a nonprofit group that advocates for better research into and treatment of the disease. "This precedent-setting process may have long-term implications for Lyme patients and in fact for all patients who could be subject to standard-setting guidelines for any disease."

[For activists, this will always be “unfinished business.” They will not be happy until medicine and science surrender to quackery and faith. As for the “precedent-setting process and the implications for Lyme patients,” well, you all should thought about that before trying to sue evidence-based medicine and its practitioners.]

[snip]

Posted by Relative Risk at 08:28 0 comments Links to this post

Labels: Politics, Quackery

14 May 2010

S&S Need some R&R

From the White Coat Underground, PalMD kicks some Stricker and Savely ass over Morgellons and just plain bad, bad science.

Raphael Stricker is a disgraced hematologist who after losing his career to data manipulation took up the chronic Lyme disease banner. He is part of ILADS, which has been demanding that actual experts shut up and get out of the way so they can continue their evidence-free treatment of supposed chronic Lyme disease. Savely has written earlier crappy articles about morgellons. She is a nurse practitioner who "treats" people with "chronic Lyme disease" and morgellons.

[Snip, but check out the photos.]

I can't go on much longer, because my brain hurts, but one of the most remarkable "findings" is this:

Sixty-four (52.5%) of the subjects had positive Lyme tests by Western blot. Another 44.3% (n = 54) were highly suspect for Lyme disease based on the presence of 5/7 of the defined criteria for a Lyme diagnosis, as outlined in the Materials and methods section. These results imply that 96.8% of the sample may have been infected with B burgdorferi [the organism that causes Lyme disease]

Fascinating. In 2008 there were 74 cases of Lyme disease reported in the entire state of California, and yet somehow, one nurse practitioner in San Francisco managed to find 64 cases in a brief period of time. Remarkable.

This article is so remarkably bad it's almost like they were trying to parody science. Please...don't try any harder.

-

Posted by Relative Risk at 17:46 0 comments Links to this post

Labels: Morgellons, Quackery, Stricker

03 May 2010

The bitching continues….probably forever

Some post-review ranting by ILADS psychiatrist Robert Bransfield, who, in my opinion, needs a sedative and some training in infectious diseases. Here he goes:

After reviewing 3,000 pages of peer-reviewed evidence challenging advice in its 2006 Lyme disease medical guidelines, eight Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) panelists voted to keep the 45-page document “as is.”

[Actually, it was 3,000 pages of cobbled together anecdotal observations, argumentative letters-to-the-editor, and some peer-reviewed reports of animal models. It was not 3,000 pages of peer-reviewed clinical (i.e., human) studies of treatment. More likely, it was 2,000 pages of letters written by Johnson and Stricker. As for the IDSA’s 45-page document, it also cited 1,025 other publications from which its conclusions and recommendations were drawn.]

“It’s a sad day for the health care system and for everyone who suffers from the Lyme disease epidemic. The IDSA’s flawed positions means patients will continue to suffer with incorrect diagnosis and improper treatment.” […at the hands of people like Bransfield and his ILADS colleagues.]

“By and large, the people on the IDSA panel who made this decision are ivory tower researchers,” says Bransfield. “They’re not the doctors on the front lines looking into the eyes and faces of these very sick patients, performing exams and then assuming long term responsibility for dealing with patients suffering from chronic Lyme.”

[This is a thoroughly beaten dead horse. As far back as 1998, Bransfield was whining about what makes an expert: “Are the real experts community physicians with the long-term responsibility to treat chronic LD or basic science researchers, administrators, bureaucrats, and insurance company consultants removed from the full human impact of this disease? Barbour's experts are not viewed as true experts in clinical issues by many physicians who have experience treating patients with chronic LD. Physicians need to retain their roots in traditional medicine, obtain a thorough history and perform a careful examination on these patients, and never defer total clinical judgment to dogmatic, ethically suspect guidelines.”

So unless you’re a LLMD making a living by treating and billing people for “chronic” Lyme disease, you’re not an expert on Lyme disease, chronic or otherwise. But in fact, the IDSA review panel members are clinicians seeing patients and working the wards. Part of the reason for the delay of the final IDSA report was due to having some of the panel members on service and seeing patients earlier in the year.]

Bransfield and ILADS point to a number of discrepancies and other concerns about the vote, including:

—68 out of 69 of the original 2006 recommendations under review were OK’d with unanimous votes. “How can there be such a total consensus with any scientific issue?” asked Bransfield. “It’s highly suspect and beyond comprehension.”

[As I mentioned on April 22, “Maybe it’s beyond Bransfield’s comprehension, but there’s plenty of “total consensus” on many scientific issues: everything from the charge of the electron, to the phenomenon of plate tectonics, to the molecular mechanisms of cholera toxin. Bransfield’s problem—among many—is that 1) he’s not a scientist, and 2) he’s not an infectious disease expert. He’s a psychiatrist. Which begs the question: what’s a psychiatrist doing practicing infectious diseases? How would he like it if members of the IDSA started practicing psychiatry? Probably some of them would do a better job.”]

—If Lyme cannot be chronic, then why did the guideline’s authors acquire 200 Lyme disease patents and receive $76 million in Federal funds to study it?

[One might ask the same thing about bubonic plague or influenza. There’s a continuing scientific interest and there’s a continuing market for new diagnostics and vaccines. Not all infections have to be “chronic” to generate interest and funding, and not all “chronic” conditions generate wide-spread interest or funds.]

—The original guidelines are not only controversial, but written back in 2006, are considered old and out of date.

[By whom? Treatment is not high fashion; it doesn’t change from season to season.]

—The CDC has also advised for many years that the disease should be diagnosed on clinical grounds and not by unreliable laboratory tests. The Lyme disease tests are inaccurate 50% of the time.

[More tautologic nonsense. See comment here.]

—The IDSA’s decision reinforces that doctors have little control when it comes to treating diseases such as Lyme. Researchers and insurance companies remain in the driver’s seat of diagnosis and treatment.

[Again, more nonsense from a psychiatrist wanting to practice infectious diseases. The IDSA guidelines are voluntary and they are “guidelines.” Not laws. Not dicta. No papal bulls. Doctors (and quacks) are in control….right up to the point where they kill, injure or rob someone.

Posted by Relative Risk at 17:26 0 comments Links to this post

Labels: ILADS, Quackery

26 April 2010

Critics

Business Week

Executive Health April 22, 2010

Review Panel Leaves Controversial Lyme

Experts dismiss need for long-term antibiotic therapy, but opponents call decision a 'rubber stamp'

By Steven Reinberg

HealthDay Reporter

(HealthDay News) -- After more than a year of study, a specially appointed panel at the Infectious Diseases Society of America has decided that controversial guidelines for the treatment of Lyme disease are correct and need not be changed. The guidelines, first adopted in 2006, have long advocated for the short-term (less than a month) antibiotic treatment of new infections of Lyme disease, which is caused by Borrelia burgdorferi, a bacteria transmitted to humans via tick bites. However, the guidelines have also been the focus of fierce opposition from certain patient advocate groups that believe there is a debilitating, "chronic" form of Lyme disease requiring much longer therapy. The IDSA guidelines are important because doctors and insurance companies often follow them when making treatment (and treatment reimbursement) decisions.

The new review was sparked by an investigation launched by Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, whose office had concerns about the process used to draft the guidelines. "This was the first challenge to any of the infectious disease guidelines" the Society has issued over the years, IDSA president Dr. Richard Whitley said during a press conference held Thursday.

Whitley noted that the special panel was put together with an independent medical ethicist, Dr. Howard Brody, from the University of Texas Medical Branch, who was approved by Blumenthal so that the committee would be sure to have no conflicts of interest.

The guidelines contain 69 recommendations, Dr. Carol J. Baker, chair of the Review Panel, and pediatric infectious diseases specialist at Baylor College of Medicine, said during the press conference.

"For each of these recommendations our review panel found that each was medically and scientifically justified in light of all the evidence and information and required no revision," she said. For all but one of the votes the committee agreed unanimously, Baker added.

Particularly on the continued use of antibiotics, the panel had concerns that prolonged use of these drugs puts patients in danger of serious infection while not improving their condition, Baker said. "In the case of Lyme disease, there has yet to be a single high-quality clinical study that demonstrates comparable benefit to prolonging antibiotic therapy beyond one month," the panel members found.

As to the existence of a chronic, persistent form of Lyme disease, the panel concluded that "symptoms that are commonly attributed to chronic or persistent Lyme, such as arthralgias, fatigue and cognitive dysfunction, are seen in many other clinical conditions and are, in fact, common in the general population. It would thus be clinically imprudent to make the diagnosis of Lyme disease using these nonspecific findings alone."

Baker noted that so far there has been no comment from Attorney General Blumenthal on the panel's decision.

"I think the attorney general was misguided by the (Lyme disease) activists," Whitley said. "I do not think his contention against the Infectious Diseases Society was either justified or warranted," he added.

Whitley noted that the Society will be reviewing these guidelines again in another two years and at the same time the U.S. Institute of Medicine is working on its own report on the disease.

However, the committee's affirmation of the guidelines is seen by some to be a whitewash because, they claim, the review process was biased.

Dr. Robert Bransfield, president of the International Lyme and Associated Diseases Society, said: "How can there be such total consensus with any scientific issue? It's beyond comprehension."

[Maybe it’s beyond Bransfield’s comprehension, but there’s plenty of “total consensus” on many scientific issues: everything from the charge of the electron, to the phenomenon of plate tectonics, to the molecular mechanisms of cholera toxin. Bransfield’s problem—among many—is that 1) he’s not a scientist, and 2) he’s not an infectious disease expert. He’s a psychiatrist. Which begs the question: what’s a psychiatrist doing practicing infectious diseases? How would he like it if members of the IDSA started practicing psychiatry? Probably some of them would do a better job.]

Bransfield added, "It makes me wonder about the accuracy of the process. This is what everybody was expecting that they would do: a process that would rubber-stamp it and basically validate what was there before. It's a concern because it does compromise the best interest of patients."

[This is a standard complaint in any situation: if you don’t like the outcome, question the process and the people involved in the process.]

Another critic, Dr. Raphael B. Stricker, a San Francisco physician who treats chronic Lyme disease, said that "when the panel votes eight-nothing on almost every single recommendation that suggests that there is something wrong with the process.

[No Ralph, it suggests there is something right about the initial conclusions and recommendations.]

"Until we get a really objective review by an objective panel that's not all in Infectious Diseases Society of America's pocket, you are going to get the kind of thing you see with this, and that's a problem," Stricker said.

[Well, why don’t you present the Lyme community with your recommendations for who would constitute the members of an “objective panel” and describe for everyone a review process that would likely result in an “objective review.” I’d be fascinated to see your recommendations. Put up or shut up.]

On the other side of the issue, Phillip J. Baker, executive director of the American Lyme Disease Foundation, said he was pleased by the outcome.

"I have always felt, and so did many of my colleagues, that the guidelines are based on firm and established evidence," Baker said.

Baker has sympathy for people suffering from the pain and fatigue associated with chronic Lyme disease. "These people are suffering from something and no doubt they need proper medical care," he said. "But they are not suffering from a persistent infection that can be treated by long-term antibiotic therapy. They have something serious that needs to be treated, but it's not due to Lyme disease."

Posted by Relative Risk at 12:08 0 comments Links to this post

Labels: IDSA, Quackery

21 April 2010

A Meeting of the Minds

The latest research on the diagnosis and treatment of the disease will be presented at the Lyme Disease Symposium on May 8, 2010, hosted by the University of New Haven

I doubt it. What are some activists, private practice quacks and a couple of students going to say about the latest research on Lyme disease? Well….nothing. I’m not sure why the UNH regularly embarrasses itself by holding these gaggles. Would Yale sponsor such a meeting with the below cast of characters? Would UConn Medical? Would any credible academic institution? No. So why does UNH?

The subject of this meeting seems to be more about children with alleged Lyme than about diagnosis and treatment. Yet, the outcome of children with prior Lyme infections has been extensively studied and reviewed. The prognosis is excellent.

So what is activist Pat Smith going to add that’s accurate and relevant to what is already well established? Worse, what could the elderly Dr. Jones—Connecticut’s seemingly permanent resident of the medical licensing board—have to say? Maybe he’s collecting more donations for his legal fees.

There’s a smattering of psychologist/social worker types too. (I’m not even going to try to figure out what a massage therapist is doing here.) But again, how are they relevant to the Dx and Tx of a common bacterial infection? Substitute the word “Lyme” in their talks for any other bacterial infection (e.g., pneumonia, strep throat, Chlamydia, acne) and they sound absolutely silly. “Acne and home schooling”? So why take seriously a talk about Lyme and home schooling?

Then there’s the mysterious Hungarian, Judith Miklossy—who may or may not be from the University of Lausanne…she seems to have left in 2007—blaming Alzheimer’s on Lyme disease. Obviously, she’s dropped some of Hill’s Criteria from her own analysis, never mind Koch’s Postulates.

The host of this intellectual catastrophe is Eva Sapi, (another Hungarian? Does anyone else miss the Berlin Wall?) former “Lyme victim” and former tumor biologist, who once got excited about finding mycoplasma in ticks (I’d get excited if you didn’t find mycoplasma someplace), and is now off on borrelial cysts and biofilms. Of course, theformer don’t exist, and the latter—if they exist in vivo—are not relevant to treatment. (The highly motile, toxigenic V. cholerae, for example, produces a biofilm in some environments, but that fact is irrelevant to treating cholera patients.) But I doubt she’s discouraged by the absence of cyst or films; quite a few people insist Borrelia producestoxins too. (I’m waiting for someone to start insisting B. burgdorferi is actually a spore-former and that’s why Lyme is a chronic infection.)

Rounding out this mockery of science is Burrascano, patron saint of chronic Lyme disease patients, to talk about "Chronic Lyme Disease: The Possible Role of Newly Discovered Pathogens."

Lacking an etiology or even a case definition, the phrase “chronic Lyme disease” continues to be a protean entity into which patients and their quacks can pour their equally protean theories and reality-proof beliefs. While its “victims” always have viewed Lyme as a chronic infection, the reasons for that chronicity have evolved in response to new information, Internet rumors, and good old-fashioned quackery. They include: delayed diagnosis, inadequate therapy, conspiracy, patient genotype, intracellular infection, highly pathogenic borrelia strains, “co-infections,” toxins, cysts, weaponized isolates, mycoplasma, and now biofilms. There’s always an excuse for the infection that cannot be stopped.

So that’s the Tx and Dx from UHN. A pretty grim gathering when you consider real information from real doctors and scientists can be had at the 12th international conference in Solvenia, the last Banbury Conference in New York, and the steady work of federal grantees presented at ASM, ICAAC, and ICEID. But that kind of reality would conflict with belief, and we all know what wins in a contest between the two.

Pat Smith, President, Lyme Disease Association

"A National Overview of Lyme Disease and its Impact on Children, Families and Schools"

Key Note Presentation: Charles Ray Jones, M.D.

Private Practice/New Haven CT

"Pediatric Lyme Disease: Making a Difference in a Child's Life"

Jeff Wulfman, M.D.

Integrative Family Physician/Vermont

"Integrative Approach to Lyme Borreliosis and Chronic Illness in Children"

David Luecke

Graduate Research Scientist: UNH

"Borrelia Burgdorferi Biofilm: Evidence and Implications"

Judy Leventhal, Ph.D.

Private practice, New York

"Sensory Sensitivities and Cognitive Difficulties in Children and Adolescents with Lyme Disease: Impact on School Performance"

Saion Sinha, Ph.D.

Associate Professor, Research Scholar/UNH

" Nanotechnology Meets Biology : Probing Deep into the World of Lyme Bacteria "

Sandy Berenbaum, L.C.S.W., B.C.D.

Private Practice Brewster, NY

"Complex Illness - Complex Challenges: Living with Lyme Disease in Childhood and Adolescence"

Eva Sapi, Ph.D.

Associate Professor, Research Scholar/UNH

"Antibiotics and Natural Agents Against Borrelia's Cyst and Biofilm Formations"

Sheila Statlender, Ph.D.

Private Practice, Massachusetts

"The Homeschooling Option: Creative Education for Students with Lyme Disease"

Judith Miklossy, M.D., Ph.D.

University Medical School of Lausanne, Switzerland

"Alzheimer Disease - A Neurospirochetosis. Analysis of the Evidence Following Koch's and Hill's Criteria"

Andrew Wright, M.D.

Private Practice, United Kingdom

"Infection, Inflammation, Immune Disturbance and Mitochondrial Dysfunction in People with CFS/ME and Lyme and Their Similarities"

Joseph Burrascano, M.D.

East Hampton, Long Island, NY

"Chronic Lyme Disease: The Possible Role of Newly Discovered Pathogens"

Leslie Amatrudo, L.M.T.

"Manual Medical Massage Techniques for Lyme Disease Patient"

Ahmed Kilani, Ph.D.

President, Clongen Laboratories

"Summary of a Nationwide Tick Study and an Update on the Latest Advances in Detection of Infectious Agents"

Posted by Relative Risk at 09:04 0 comments Links to this post

Labels: Quackery

07 April 2010

The Doctor is in(sane)

I found this fascinating piece of medical crap in a publication called Public Health Alert. It’s a newsletter put out by some women who think they have chronic Lyme disease. PHA is full of nonsense written (badly) by various Lyme disease quacks and charlatans. Judging from the advertisements for useless alternative medicine treatments and Lyme diagnostics, I’m guessing this online rag is sustained by such companies because it allows them to reach more gullible customers.

So here’s the brilliant LLMD, James Schaller on:

The 18 Reasons Lyme Treatments Fail: Tick-Borne Infection Medicine for the New Millennium.

My average patient has been to 10-50 physicians before me.

[No doubt they’re working there way down from best to worst.]

Reason One The current treatment dosing for Babesia is flawed. If Babesia is present, Lyme cure is impossible.

[I can’t believe this clown has a license to practice medicine. How hard is it to do two things at once: given clindamycin and quinine. The rest of the medical community doesn’t seem to have any trouble treating babesiosis and/or Lyme.]

Reason Two The current testing for Babesia is markedly flawed.

[Assuming that’s true (and it’s not), what does it have to do with treatment failure in Lyme disease?]

Reason Three Bartonella is simply the most common tick and flea-borne infection in the world.

[Again, the Lyme connection? And no, it’s not. Flea-borne, maybe. But there’s little evidence of Ixodes’ competence for transmitting Bartonella species to humans.]

Reason Four All routine published Bartonella treatments appear to fail.

[Huh?]

Reason Five Since Lyme spirochetes can become cysts virtually instantaneously in the presence of threatening antibiotics, it does not make sense to use antibiotics without cyst-busting antibiotics (such as Flagyl), herbs or essential oils.

[This is bacteriological nonsense. Moreover, there’s no such thing as a “cyst-busting antibiotic.”]

Reason Six Infections and inflammation decrease insight. This is largely due to an impaired frontal lobe behind your forehead that is involved in self-awareness.

[What the fuck!?]

Reason Seven Some patients get ill after a flood, large leak or some other water intrusion problem. They feel they are ill only because of mold mycotoxins that form after 36-48 hours of wetness on drywall, insulation, carpeting and other dust or cellulose-filled materials.

[Hey, remember you’re supposed to be preaching about Lyme not mold?]

Reason Eight Lyme appears to make many biotoxins.

[No. Not even one. Check GenBank.]

Reason Nine A general physician in Maryland, working among massive deer ticks in his rural location, was smart enough to search for clinical applications of basic and accepted codes for transplant and disease medicine. These patterns can be found with a basic Wikipedia search.

[Again, huh? Wikipedia? “Massive deer ticks”? What…maybe the size of Buicks?]

Reason Ten Starting doses of all medications should be very low and then raised to high levels with liver-protecting substances.

[Sounds like a recipe for encouraging antibiotic resistance and bacterial mutagenesis, not to mention prolonging the infection and adding to patient morbidity.]

Reason Eleven “Band-Aids” are often required to save a job, a marriage and to care for children.

[???? Maybe in a practice too. Back to Lyme yet?]

Reason Twelve If you have healthcare workers who do not feel comfortable being aggressive with treatment and diagnosis of all the top tick and flea infections, you are at the wrong place.

[I continue to wonder if English is Schaller’s native language.]

Reason Thirteen You have been treated for many years. You have done IV, you have taken 40 pills per day, you have tried a wide range of specialized treatments, and now you are fed up with it all. You can generally function now at about 75% of your baseline. You are at the end of your treatment rope. This is what happens when someone does not treat you fully and effectively at the beginning of your treatment. You can get treatment fatigue.

[Hey, maybe they never had Lyme in the first place.]

Reason Fourteen The treatment approach that leads to cure is not the same dose that leads to stunning organisms. Cure does not does not merely equal fewer bacteria or "a reduction in body load.” For example, using Bicillin once a week with no cyst buster will not kill all your Lyme, nor will it remove cysts. So years after receiving this treatment, your cancer-fighting cells, marked by some as the CD57 level, may be under 90. This is one good test that is quite specific for Lyme disease. (The C3a and C4a test is not specific for Lyme).

[Did this guy really graduate from an accredited medical school? Did he ever take any courses in microbiology, immunology or cell biology?]

Reason Fifteen Cynical know-it-alls can castrate the work of Lyme experts and convince patients to drop healthcare workers who are helping. They usually use "the money” argument or "the speed of your recovery" argument to cut you off from someone sincerely trying to help you. Tick and flea-borne infections in the bodies and brains of relatives and friends can cause some of them to be outrageously critical, entitled, disrespectful, nasty, insulting, and defamatory, proposing God-like standards to convince you that a person who is helping you should be dropped.

[It’s pretty obvious where this line of “reasoning” is coming from. He must hear it hourly from his patients and their not so easily duped friends and relatives.]

Reason Sixteen Two respected scientists, Drs. Sapi and MacDonald, did the first clear work on a Lyme biofilm in early 2008. Organizations with millions in grants and research money have never addressed this issue.

[“Respected by whom?” This is not an issue. Certainly not a clinical issue. B. burgdorferi itself is not even a very good in vitro example of biofilm genetics and metabolism.]

Reason Seventeen Self-treatment is easy to pursue. Many experts are

expensive, and you are uncertain of their level of knowledge after reading on the Internet.

[Well, if the choice is Schaller or self-medication, I’d have to go with self-medication, followed by a witchdoctor, followed by any other LLMD, followed by whoever is on Oprah this week.]

Reason Eighteen Tick and flea-borne infections cause isolation. They ruin relationships due to fogginess, poor insight, various addictions, rage, extreme hostility, and refusing to get treatment, and they can sometimes provoke violence.

[And this is one of the reasons that treatment of Lyme infections fails!? Maybe I’ll believe this if some of Schaller’s patients take a baseball bat to him.]

About the Author: Dr. Schaller…is one of the most prolific LLMD's in the world.

[Well, he’s certain one of the most prolific purveyors of grammatical incorrect and incoherent nonsense.]

http://relative-risk.blogspot.com/2009/11/rethinking-my-stance-on-book-burning.html

Posted by Relative Risk at 21:42 0 comments Links to this post

Labels: Quackery

25 March 2010

Alms for the Poor

Surprise, surprise. Another letter from Dr. Jones asking for money. Here's some of the letter:

March 23, 2010

Dear Friends,

I want to thank you for your many expressions of caring and support which have encouraged me greatly. It is time to update you regarding the status of my defense before the Connecticut Medical Examining Board (CMEB).

As a result of the CMEB vote:

* I have been ordered to pay a second fine of $10,000 no later than April 15, 2010;

* I must find a practice monitor who is board-certified in pediatrics and licensed in the state of Connecticut by April 15;

* The monitor must come to my office monthly for a period of 4 years (in the previous case, monitoring was ordered to take

place every three months for two years);

* The approximate cost associated with each monitoring session is $1,000. That amounts to an additional financial burden of

$12,000 per year, for four years.

Note also that the CMEB also has ordered that the monitor must have no connection with any Lyme organization. [That's because two quacks are not better than one.]

If I fail to pay the fine and to locate a practice monitor by April 15, I will be out of compliance. I am unable to do this without your assistance. Furthermore, the outstanding balance for my legal fees has grown once again, due to the recent flurry of activity related to my defense. (see below for details).

As a result, I must ask you once again to make a donation as soon as possible to my legal defense fund, in whatever amount that your circumstances will permit. I am painfully aware of the many hardships already endured by so many in the Lyme community, and it troubles me deeply to have to ask you to do this once again. However, it will be impossible for me to meet these demands without your support.

Note: I think someone on LymeNet Europe suggested Jones had already spent about $700,000 (of other people’s money?) on his defense. That’s a lot of money for an 80-year-old guy to recover via a monitored medical practice.

Posted by Relative Risk at 17:28 0 comments Links to this post

Labels: Jones, Lyme disease, Quackery

18 March 2010

Jones the Whack-A-Mole

State Disciplines Doctor At Center Of Lyme Disease Controversy

By ARIELLE LEVIN BECKER

The Hartford Courant

March 18, 2010

HARTFORD —The state medical board formally has disciplined Dr. Charles Ray Jones, issuing the New Haven pediatrician — known for his support of a controversial Lyme disease treatment— a $10,000 fine and placing his license on probation for four years.

The action Tuesday stems from a hearing panel's finding that Jones violated medical standards in is care for three children. In one case, Jones was accused of ordering tests, diagnosing Lyme disease and babesiosis, and prescribing medication for a 4-year-old girl, all before meeting or examining her. In another case involving two children, Jones allegedly ordered lab tests to confirm Lyme disease without physically examining them.

Jones has said he did nothing wrong. His attorney, Elliott Pollack, said Tuesday that he would appeal the board's decision. Pollack said the evidence did not support the charges; even if it had, he said, the punishment was extremely harsh.

"We'll just have to let the judicial process work its way," Pollack said.

Jones has a loyal following among those who believe that Lyme disease can be a chronic condition that requires extended antibiotic therapy — a view that has been largely rejected by the mainstream medical community, which considers chronic cases rare. Jones' supporters have said he is being targeted because of how he treats Lyme disease.

Members of the medical board have said that they did not consider arguments about Lyme disease itself, but found that Jones violated medical standards that apply to all doctors when he ordered tests without physically examining patients or considering other diagnoses.

A previous case against Jones is also under appeal.

In that case, Jones was accused of diagnosing Lyme disease and prescribing antibiotics to two out-of-state patients he had not met or examined. In 2007, the medical board fined Jones $10,000 and placed his license on probation for two years.

Jones appealed. Ruling on it last fall, Superior Court Judge Carl J. Schuman rejected several arguments against the board's decision but found that the state Department of Public Health had not sufficiently proved one of the violations that the board found. Schuman returned the case to the medical board to determine what discipline Jones should face.

On Tuesday, the board voted to not to change the discipline.

Jones has appealed Schuman's ruling.

Posted by Relative Risk at 12:34 0 comments Links to this post

Labels: Jones, Quackery

07 March 2010

Right. It did wonders for Michael Jackson

Posted by Relative Risk at 12:14 0 comments Links to this post

Labels: Quackery

24 February 2010

Common Sense Comes to Britain

"End Homeopathy on NHS," Say British MPs

by Tim Wogan on February 22, 2010

In a report released today, the United Kingdom's House of Commons Science and Technology Committee has decided that homeopathy is nothing more than a placebo and should not be provided by the National Health Service, as it has been since its inception in 1948. The panel also recommended that the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency—the U.K. drug safety watchdog—should stop licensing over-the-counter homeopathic medications that have not demonstrated their effectiveness in randomized controlled trials (i.e., all of them).

These verdicts aren't a complete shock since the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee comprises Members of Parliament who have chosen to sit on a committee established to monitor the scientific evidence base for government policy. The panel even went as far as to dismiss calls for further research, concluding that "there has been enough testing of homeopathy and plenty of evidence showing that it is not efficacious."

Furthermore, the report accuses the British Homeopathic Association (BHA), which had submitted evidence to the panel, of cherry-picking, and even, in one case actively misrepresenting, research into the treatment (a famous study that concluded its findings were "compatible with the notion that the clinical effects of homeopathy are placebo effects" was cited by the BHA as evidence of the treatment's efficacy.) The MPs conclude that "advocates of homeopathy … choose to rely on, and promulgate, selective approaches to the treatment of the evidence base."

Maybe the US will follow suit and dump alternative medicine at the NIH. Or maybe they could think about it over a hot bowl of homeopathic chicken soup, which, according to Abe Lincoln, is made from the shadow of a chicken.

Bonus Feature: What a homeopathic ER would look like.

Posted by Relative Risk at 10:13 0 comments Links to this post

Labels: Quackery

23 February 2010

The Next Pandemic?

Filmmaker revives discussion of Lyme diseaseSan Francisco Chronicle Sunday, September 13, 2009The first question filmmaker Andy Abrahams Wilson hears about his latest documentary: Lyme disease? Really?

Well, that’s probably because the things portrayed in his propaganda film bear no resemblance to the common bacterial infection called Lyme disease.

[snip]

"If this were HIV or West Nile virus," Wilson said, "we'd be doing everything we could."

So 30 years of federally funded research, clinical trials, education campaigns, and tens of millions of dollars spent is not enough? What, I wonder, would be enough? Especially, when you consider Lyme is non-fatal, non-communicable, geographically- and seasonally-limited and readily responses to common antibiotic treatments. As for HIV, it’s a communicable, ultimately fatal, viral infection currently ravaging large swaths of the developing world, and adding great expense to the healthcare costs of the developed world. West Nile is a usually mild viral infection (only 20% of infected people will show symptoms) that can sometimes cause serious post-infectious sequelae in older patients (West Nile Poliomyelitis, for example). As of September 8 this year, there have been 196 cases of WNV reported to CDC, and 6 deaths. Strange examples to compare with Lyme disease.

[snip]

As Wilson learned, patients are often misdiagnosed with maladies ranging from chronic fatigue syndrome to multiple sclerosis to Lou Gehrig's. Making the disease more difficult to identify, as many as 50 percent of all Lyme tests are inaccurate, and patients are often told their case is psychosomatic. Because there's no cure (antibiotics are an early treatment), many sufferers are left to treat their symptoms with no hope of solving the disease. "I uncovered a whole world of untold suffering," Wilson said. "And what seemed to me like a medical fraud."

No, patients are often misdiagnosed as having Lyme disease, thus delaying proper treatment of more serious conditions. Yes, there is a cure: antibiotics. But no, there is no cure for post-infection cartilage, nerve, or tissue damage. But then that’s true of all infections; no one grows back a toe lost to gangrene, no matter how many antibiotics they continue to swallow. As for “medical fraud,” well, there’s plenty of that among the private practice quacks who prey on people who think they have “chronic” Lyme disease. Wilson’s propaganda has probably greatly enriched them by bring more confused and worried patients to their offices.

[snip]

Wilson came to a multipronged conclusion. First, because Lyme is not easily defined and diagnosed, it's difficult to find a singular cure. Second, the best treatment can be antibiotics, which generate little profit for the big pharmaceuticals.

"But there is a lot of money in keeping people chronically ill," Wilson said, noting that steroids, painkillers and a slew of drugs can treat the symptoms of Lyme.

Wilson sounds like a idiot. Big Pharma isn’t treating patients, doctors are. They can order up all the generic antibiotics they want. And charge whatever they want. But most don’t knowing that persistent symptoms following an infection are usually the result of permanent damage from that infection. Treatment then may involve common anti-inflammatory agents and pain meds such as gabapentin.

The only people getting rich from Lyme disease are the so-called “Lyme Literate MDs” heroically portrayed in Wilson’s cinematic commercial for their services. And maybe Wilson myself. His film seems to be advertised on the web sites of most Lyme activists and predatory quacks.

[snip]

-

Posted by Relative Risk at 11:49 0 comments Links to this post

Labels: Film, Lyme disease, Quackery

14 September 2009

Survey Says....

Exactly what you’d expect a bunch of self-selected, like-minded people to say when asked leading questions.

Below is part of a comment by Lorraine Johnson, a Lyme disease activist and apparent lawyer, about an online survey put together to collect meaningless responses from Internet-connected Lyme activists and patients.

Ask the Lyme community a question, or two or 30 and they answer! When we asked for input before the IDSA Lyme hearing, we had 3,600 completed surveys within 2 months—that’s astounding! I want to thank everyone who participated. The survey results provide very important information for the Lyme community and will be useful to describe the extent of the problem that patients have being timely diagnosed, treated, reimbursed, seriously ill and the devastating effect the guidelines have on patients health.

Those of you who listened to my speech before the IDSA review panel know that I used the survey data to reinforce key points. This survey should be a powerful tool with public policy makers trying to understand the devastating impact these guidelines have on patient care and the need for curb the effects of these guidelines through legislative and other means. The full results of the survey can be downloaded by clicking on the attachment at the end of this blog post.

Once again, she is confusing the opinions of like-minded people with evidence. I’ve discussed this before and the central problem is people like Johnson and her activist cohort simply do not believe in evidence. Her survey is not a tool, it’s not evidence, it’s not data. It’s opinion. It’s belief. It’s useless except perhaps as a feel-good exercise in delusion.

The problem may be compounded by the fact that Johnson is a lawyer. This is a profession in which people are trained to ignore evidence, to question evidence, to distort evidence, but to never accept what the scientific and medical community regards as evidence. Otherwise, what would be the point of having lawyers?

(Interestingly, her usual pamphleteering partner, Ralph--Want a bigger penis--Stricker, also has some difficulties with evidence as indicated by an earlier NIH finding on scientific misconduct. Maybe he helped draft the survey.)

-

Posted by Relative Risk at 11:39 0 comments Links to this post

Labels: Anti-science, Internet, Lyme disease, Quackery

13 September 2009

A Picture is Worth a $1,000 in Treatment

Lyme Literate Physician Recommends Taking a Photograph of Any Unusual or Bulls-Eye Rash to Assist in Proper Lyme Disease Diagnosis and Testing

Havertown, PA (PRWEB) September 9, 2009

Lyme disease is often called the great pretender because early symptoms may seem like the flu. That's why it's important to stay on the alert for the classic Lyme bulls-eye rash, or any other unusual rash", advises Lyme expert Domenic Braccia D.O, "if you see an unusual rash, take a photograph and make an appointment to see your physician. Taking a wait-and-see attitude before reporting the tell tale "bulls-eye" rash of the deer tick bite can be dangerous".

This is part of an online PR piece from the Haverford Wellness Center. Sounds like good advice, though you might want to keep the cameras and mics rolling during your visit. The Center seems to have the kind of press attention that no amount of self-promotion can paper over.

For starters, there’s former inmate Dr. Lionetti. Then there’s not-quiet-Dr. Kane. I like the CBS Philadelphia affiliate report about her: “I-Team Follow-Up: False Hope. There are major developments in the wake of CBS 3 I-Team Investigation of a local woman who calls herself a doctor.”

Posted by Relative Risk at 09:00 0 comments Links to this post

Labels: Lyme disease, Quackery

27 August 2009

From the World of Alternative Science, Medicine, Reality, Etc.

August 25th, 2009

LIA Foundation

Position Paper Urging the Prescribing of Non-GMO Diets

The LIA Foundation recognizes the unique health dangers posed by genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in food, especially for populations suffering from compromised immune and digestive systems and other chronic disorders. We therefore urge doctors to prescribe non-GMO diets and for patients to avoid GMO foods. We will circulate educational material to doctors and patients about the documented health risks of genetically modified (GM) foods, and we encourage other patient advocacy groups to do the same.

The World Health Organization (2009) defines GMOs as: Organisms in which the genetic material (DNA) has been altered in a way that does not occur naturally.

Just when you think this pathetic little “foundation” can’t get any dumber, it does. Having repeatedly displayed a total lack of knowledge about Lyme borreliosis and an unrelated neuropsychiatric condition called autism, they now jump into the Euro-driven campaign against genetic engineering.

So they’re against all foods except those modified by Mother Nature. I guess that means they’re against the kind guesswork selection and breeding of plants and animals that primitive peoples have been doing for millennia, and they’re also against having some postdoc in a lab coat doing the same thing quicker, and with deliberate knowledge of what she is doing.

This isn’t going to leave us much to eat. Moreover, it should wipe out all the gains of the Green Revolution in the Third World and reintroduce famine to much of Southeast Asia and parts of Africa.

I wonder if they’re also against genetically-modified drugs like insulin and human growth hormone, and various other medically useful hormones and enzymes. They should at least be consistent. To me, it seems much more injurious to inject a GM produce than to nibble on one.

Actually, there is some consistency here. Push aside all the know-nothing nonsense about autism and chronic Lyme disease and vaccines and GM foods, and what you have is just another group devoted to a platform of pure anti-science. You could just as easily call them anti-evidence or anti-reality as anti-GM.

These are people who are not interested in testable hypotheses or reproducible evidence; they’re interested in belief. Their beliefs. Not our evidence. Indeed, they cannot be convinced by evidence since they don’t believe in it.

As others have pointed out, however, these know-nothings always try to employ the language of science to discredit science. This press release, for example, is filled with pseudoscientific statements (not to mention false statements), irrelevant but impressive-looking references, and the names of pseudoscientific quacks. It’s scientific camouflage. Unfortunately, some of the public is always fooled by this kind of camo job.

But even the anti-science folks have to eat so here’s their sales pitch:

The “Non-GMO Shopping Guide”, co-published by the Institute for Responsible Technology and Center for Food Safety…makes it easier for people to make wise shopping choices to avoid GMOs, and is among our recommended educational materials.

Posted by Relative Risk at 01:39 0 comments Links to this post

Labels: Anti-science, Quackery