APRIL 2024 NEWS
Featured topic: COVID-19
On Science-Based Medicine,
David Gorski posted:
“Dr. Vinay Prasad vs. a VAERS study finding more reports of vaccine injury in red states.” “Dr. Vinay Prasad attacks an epidemiological study published in JAMA Open Network reporting that people in red states are more likely to report vaccine injuries, claiming that a more rigorous study would ‘not be difficult,’ when he knows that it would be very difficult.”
“There is no evidence that COVID-19 vaccines are causing cancers associated with 'accelerated aging'.” “A recent presentation at AACR [American Association for Cancer Research] found a link between markers of accelerated aging and an increased risk of cancer. Then antivaxxers got a hold of it to blame COVID-19 vaccines not just for cancer, but for ‘accelerated aging’ causing it.”
“COVID-19 vaccine-induced 'turbo cancer' nonsense just keeps getting more turbocharged.” “No matter how implausible it is or how weak the evidence for it is, the myth that COVID vaccines cause ‘turbo cancer’ just won’t die. Quite the contrary, alas. Antivaxxers are—dare I say?—turbocharging it with bad science.”
Jonathan Howard posted:
“The failed ‘We want them infected’ movement is trying to rebrand itself as the ‘All we really wanted was poor kids in school’ movement.” “Part 2: In 2020, pro-infection doctors said ‘It’s fantastic news that we have a lot of cases.’ Today, they performatively lament ‘learning loss for children, especially in poor families.’ What happened to their assurances that the mass infection of unvaccinated youth will rapidly lead to herd immunity?”
“Every time Dr. Jay Bhattacharya talks about COVID, he proves he was totally wrong about COVID.”
“Dr. Vinay Prasad: It’s ‘good’ that parents who want to vaccinate their kids against COVID get reported to child protective services.” “Trying to limit pediatric COVID was literally the pandemic’s worst sin for pro-infection doctors, warranting severe punishment. This is how desperately they wanted them infected.”
“Dr. John Ioannidis: ‘The biggest mistakes I am sure are mine’.” “Dr. John Ioannidis said his biggest mistake was the he ‘underestimated how much power politics and media and powers outside of science, could have on science.’ Really?”
“Once a doctor has minimized literal death for young people, should we value their opinion on any topic less consequential than literal death?” “However, it seems to me that once a doctor has minimized literal death for young people, they’ve forfeited their right to be taken seriously when they sanctimoniously demand we ‘respect’ a rare, usually mild vaccine-side effect.”
On Respectful Insolence, “Orac” posted:
Four items concerning attacks on Dr. Allison Neitzel by Paul Thacker and other antivax writers: April 4 April 6 April 13 April 18.
Other topics
On Science-Based Medicine,
Mark Crislip:
Discussed traditional Chinese medicine tongue diagnosis. “Garbage in, garbage out…So one of the many modalities of TCPM [traditional Chinese pseudo-medicine] is to examine the tongue based on a fictional understanding of disease to come to a fictional diagnosis. Then they apply a fictional therapy, like cupping or acupuncture.”
Scott Gavura:
Posted “SARMS harms.” Selective androgen receptor modulators (SARMs) “are sports supplements marketed to teens via social media influencers.” “While many products have been synthesized and are called SARMs, none have been brought forward to market or been approved by the FDA, so far. While marketed as dietary supplements, they are actually unapproved drugs…While marketed at being safer, allowing one to avoid the well known harms of anabolic steroids, the FDA reports a list of possible side effects…”
Wrote “Cold water immersion not always beneficial.” “For those that exercise, it’s important to remember that the benefits of your workout are realized during the recovery period. Hard workouts can be painful, through damage to tissues that prompt the body to remodel and strengthen itself for the next workout. Inflammation is an expected (and desirable) result, even if it is painful. Blocking the inflammation process, which cold plunges appear to do, may delay that recovery and adaptation process. When rapid recovery is the priority, cold baths may be worthwhile and subjectively beneficial. When growth in muscle size is sought, cold therapy’s benefits are less clear.”
David Gorski:
Posted “The Truth vs. Alex Jones: How the DSHEA of 1994 gave conspiracy mongers the means to fund their empires.” “As the HBO documentary The Truth vs. Alex Jones shows, Alex Jones promoted the conspiracy theory that the Sandy Hook massacre was a hoax to sell his supplement line. It’s a model that many Internet conspiracy theorists use, like Mike Adams.”
Wrote “We finally learn from TACT2 what we should have known two decades ago: chelation therapy doesn’t work for heart disease.” “At SBM, we’ve long argued that chelation therapy for heart disease is quackery. An abstract presented recently finally confirmed that. Why did it take so long?”
Steven Novella:
Wrote “Don’t blame the patient.” “Patients do not need you to tell them everything will be alright, that they can beat their cancer if they stay positive, and they don’t need you to tell them how to respond to their diagnosis. They just need your love and support. You don’t have to offer a solution, especially a false one.”
On Respectful Insolence, “Orac”:
Reported that “Antivax transphobe Toby Rogers got the bright idea that many of the central tenets of progressivism are actually autistic traits. So vaccines cause progressivism…and Trumpism, too?”
Edzard Ernst:
Posted “The threats to chiropractic: science, the impact of EBM [evidence-based medicine], accountability to authorities and third party-payers.” Ernst summarized two “papers from chiropractors that make sense.” These were: “A new role for spinal manual therapy and for chiropractic? Part I: weaknesses and threats” (O’Neill et al. Chiropr Man Therap 32, 11 (2024) Paper) and “Part II: strengths and opportunities” (O’Neill et al. Chiropr Man Therap 32, 12 (2024) Paper). “Progress is an inevitable threat to obsolete and useless practices of any kind. In that, chiropractic is no exception.”
Discussed a study of wet cupping in the management of cervical spondylosis. “There are several studies of wet cupping, most of which are as flawed as the one above. This new trial has several limitations, e.g.: It makes no attempt to control for placebo effects which could well be more prominent for wet cupping than for TENS. It did not inhibit the influence of verbal or non-verbal communications between therapists and patients which are likely to influence the results. The sample size is far too small, particularly as the study was designed as an equivalence study.” Moreover, “wet cupping is associated with infections of the skin lacerations which occasionally can be serious. “
Discussed a review of biofield energy therapies. “While scientists gather the totality of the available evidence (and assess it critically), they merely selected what was suitable for the purpose of generating a positive result. This must be the reason our two studies on the subject were discretely omitted…In addition, they, of course, also omitted many further studies by other investigators that failed to be positive. Considering this amount of cherry-picking, it is easy to understand how they arrived at their conclusion.”
Wrote “Recommending reiki and qi-gong for type-2 diabetic patients is unethical nonsense.” “This is an excellent example of how NOT to design a clinical trial!”
Posted “Individualized homeopathic medicines in preventing the progression from pre-diabetes to diabetes: A double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled, parallel-arm trial.” “I fear that this trial is merely one in the long list of poor quality, false-positive homeopathy studies that are currently emerging from India.”
Made note of World Homeopathy Day, and provided his own seven key points about homeopathy.
Discussed a review of spiritually-based interventions for high blood pressure. The methods evaluated included meditation, transcendental meditation, mindfulness meditation, and yoga. “In view of the fact that blood pressure is an endpoint that is extremely sensitive to expectation, I think, the conclusions of this paper might need to be re-formulated: This analysis confirms that expectation can have beneficial effects in reducing both SBP and DBP. Reducing BP can be expected to reduce the risk of cardiovascular diseases.”
Posted “Effects of naturopathy on systemic inflammatory markers and quality of life in rheumatoid arthritis.” “The study was designed as an A+B versus B trial. Therefore, it is hardly surprising that subjective endpoints improved. A little more baffling are the changes in objective parameters. These could easily be due to the fasting interventions – there is reasonably sound evidence for such effects…some modalities used in naturopathy might well be effective in treating certain conditions. In my view, this is, however, no reason for condoning or recommending naturopathy as a whole. Or – to put it bluntly – naturopathy is a weird mixture of pure nonsense and some possibly reasonable interventions.”
Posted “Clinical outcomes in chronic conditions: findings from a homeopathic teaching clinic.” “Here are just a few questions that I asked myself while reading this paper: Are the guys from the Academy of Homeopathy Education not aware of the fact that even chronic conditions often get better by themselves? Have they heard of the placebo effect? Are they trying to tell us that the patients did not also use conventional treatments for their chronic conditions? What about regression towards the mean? What about social desirability? Why do they think that further research is needed? Are these really results that look ‘promising for homeopathy’? To answer just the last question: No, these findings are in perfect agreement with the fact that highly diluted homeopathic remedies are pure placebos…”
Wrote “Health economic evaluations for homeopathy: a systematic review.” “I am always impressed by the fantastic and innovative phraseology that some authors are able to publish in order to avoid calling a spade a spade. The findings of the above analysis clearly fail to be positive. So why not say so? Why not honestly conclude something like this: Our analysis failed to show conclusive evidence that homeopathy is cost effective.”
Posted “Homeopathy’s most prominent researcher, Prof Michael Frass, has been found guilty of ‘data falsification, fabrication and manipulation’.”
Began a series on “The fake diagnoses of so-called alternative medicine.” Part 1 discussed adrenal fatigue, candidiasis hypersensitivity, and chronic intoxications (leading to detox regimens). Part 2 dealt with chronic Lyme disease, electromagnetic hypersensitivity, and homosexuality (in the sense that some alternative practitioners consider it a disease to be treated). Part 3 covered leaky gut syndrome, multiple chemical sensitivity, and neurasthenia.
Posted “Anthroposophic medicine is recommended for acute paediatric tonsillitis (…and yes, the earth is flat!).” “Expert consensus and clinical guidelines are not conducted by assembling a few people who all are in favour of a certain therapy while ignoring the scientific evidence. AM for acute tonsillitis in children is nonsense, whatever these pseudo-experts claim.”
Wrote “Effectiveness and safety of manual therapy compared with oral pain medications in patients with neck pain.” “The small differences in favor of MT that (some of) the trials report have little to do with the effectiveness of MT itself. They are almost certainly due to the fact that none of these studies were placebo-controlled and double blind…In contrast to popping a pill, MT involves extra attention, physical touch, empathy, etc. These factors easily suffice to bring about the small differences that some studies report. It follows that the main conclusion of the authors of the review should be modified: There is no compelling evidence to show that MT is more effective for people with neck pain in both short and long-term when compared to patients receiving oral pain medications.”
Attacked the promotion of Ayurvedic treatments by the BBC. “I find such advertisements disguised as journalism disturbing: No mention that the treatments in question lack conclusive evidence of effectiveness. Not a word about the fact that many can be outright dangerous. No mention of the often exorbitant fees visitors are asked to pay.”
Wrote “Neurodon, the anthroposophic remedy for neurasthenia, is unsurprisingly useless.”
Posted “Gerson diet almost killed a former model.” The Gerson diet is an “alternative” cancer treatment.
On McGill Office for Science and Society:
Jonathan Jarry:
Posted “MOSH bars are starved of good science.” “Take-home message: MOSH bars are protein bars created by Maria Shriver and her son, Patrick Schwarzenegger, and whose ingredients are claimed to support brain health. Their brain nutrients (lion’s mane, ashwagandha, omega-3s, collagen, and vitamins B12 and D) have actually not been shown to improve cognition or delay brain problems in reliable human studies. This product is endorsed by doctors who have embraced non-scientific practices, like functional medicine and integrative medicine, which rely heavily on unproven and disproven dietary supplements.”
Wrote “Crank magnetism at the Weston A. Price Foundation.” “Take-home message: The Weston A. Price Foundation promotes many pseudoscientific beliefs, including that homeopathy can cure cancer, that diseases are not caused by viruses, and that drinking raw milk is both safe and beneficial. Weston Price was a dentist who believed root canals caused infections that led to chronic diseases, and he made overly simplistic observations of traditional cultures, claiming that their eating habits were superior to people eating a more modern diet.”
Christopher Labos:
Posted “The best diet for you? Here it is.” “There are many outlandish claims about the health benefits of intermittent fasting. But in the end, it seems like it’s just another way to eat less, which we should all be doing anyway.”
Xiaoran Li:
Wrote “Grape seed extracts and vascular health.” “…caution is warranted considering GSE's supporting evidence comes from pilot studies rather than extensive, randomized trials.”
Joe Schwarcz:
Wrote “Niagara Falls and the nebulous positive effects of negative ions.” There are possibly some beneficial effects of negative ions, but they are not produced by Himalayan salt lamps. Tourmaline jewelry may be spiked with dangerous amounts of radioactive thorium.
April – Moore and others published “Cannabidiol (CBD) products for pain: ineffective, expensive, and with potential harms” (J Pain. 2024 Apr;25(4):833-842 Paper). “There is no good reason for thinking that CBD relieves pain, but there are good reasons for doubting the contents of CBD products in terms of CBD content and purity.”
April – Fakheri published “Vitamin D supplementation: to D or not to D” (Mayo Clin Proc. 2024 Apr;99(4):529-533 Paper). “The health benefits of adequate vitamin D intake should not be ignored. For patients who are getting sufficient vitamin D without a supplement, a supplement may not be necessary. For patients who are obviously not getting sufficient vitamin D through natural means, it would be reasonable in many cases to just take a supplement without laboratory testing. For those who are unsure about the adequacy of their vitamin D intake or are at high risk for complications of vitamin D deficiency, it may be worthwhile to check a level to guide treatment.”
April 7 – As reported in Consumer Health Digest, “Kobayashi Pharmaceutical’s beni kōji red yeast rice supplements have been linked to at least five deaths, 188 hospitalizations, and 1,058 doctor visits. The sicknesses have included kidney failure…The supplements were promoted for lowering blood cholesterol levels.”
April 9 – Alice Callahan wrote “Is apple cider vinegar really a cure-all?” Claimed benefits for blood sugar control, weight loss, gut health, and skin conditions were discussed.
April 11 – Andrea Love wrote “Why is Lyme disease, an acute bacterial infection, plagued with misinformation? A convergence of misunderstanding, bad actors, media attention, and fear-based messaging.” “Celebrities legitimize Lyme misinformation with their large public platforms and media attention. Lyme pseudoscience causes immense harm to individuals who seek harmful and unproven treatments based on false information.”
April 24 – Dana Smith discussed calorie restriction and intermittent fasting. “Despite nearly a century of research, there’s still a ways to go before experts can say for certain whether the longevity benefits seen in animals will translate to humans. Some studies provide reason to believe that calorie restriction and intermittent fasting will help you live longer, and there are likely shorter-term benefits, particularly when it comes to heart and metabolic health. But it’s also possible that eating less might not do much more than leave you hungry.”
April 26 – Nick Tiller wrote “The best time of day to exercise: another media fail?” A highly publicized study claimed different effects for morning vs. evening exercise. Tiller characterized the study as “garbage.” “Compare this with the results of a systematic review and meta-analysis of twenty-six studies on the same subject, which concluded that time of day had little to no influence on exercise outcomes.” “There is a best time of day to exercise: whenever you can.”
April 30 – Beth Yasgur wrote “Does 'brain training' really improve cognition and forestall cognitive decline?”