AUGUST 2024 NEWS
Featured topic: COVID-19
On Science-Based Medicine,
David Gorski:
Wrote “How conspiracy theories like COVID-19 'lab leak' harm science and public health.” “It is the tip of the proverbial iceberg. I like to argue that all science denial is a form of conspiracy theory. In this, barring compelling new evidence that has not been produced in four years and will likely never be produced, lab leak is no different from climate science denial, creationism, antivax, and the medical beliefs that result in quackery. All weaken the scientific enterprise and fuel distrust of science far beyond healthy skepticism based on a reality-based assessment of how science and medicine have performed historically. All have been strengthened immeasurably by the conspiracy theories that have arisen during the pandemic. It is long past time that we pushed back, as futile as the task might appear right now.”
Posted “Stanford University will host a conference on pandemic planning featuring the usual (COVID-19) suspects.” “This week, Stanford University announced a conference on pandemic policy that features several of the usual suspects who spread misinformation during the COVID-19 pandemic. Truly, Stanford has become the ‘respectable’ academic face of efforts to undermine public health.” Jonathan Howard also discussed the conference, providing videos of earlier misinformation presented by the speakers.
Allison Neitzel:
Posted “Great Barrington Declaration author joins COVID-19 lab leak-pushing group.” “Dr. Jay Bhattacharya has linked up with another fringe group of scientists. The Stanford University health economist disastrously advised Trump on pandemic policy and was a co-author of the scientifically rebuked, pro-economy/anti-lockdown Great Barrington Declaration (GBD). Now, he is on the board of directors for a group that continues pushing the lab leak COVID-19 origin hypothesis.”
On Respectful Insolence, “Orac” posted:
“Better late than never, the ABIM finally revokes two board certifications.” “The American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM) has finally revoked the Board certifications of two prominent COVID quacks, Drs. Paul Marik and Pierre Kory. What took so long?” The two physicians are “known for continuing to promote ivermectin, an anti-parasitic medication, as a treatment for covid long after the medical community found it to be ineffective. The two men co-founded the Front Line Covid-19 Critical Care Alliance, which experts say spread misinformation about the coronavirus pandemic.” Edzard Ernst also discussed story. “Wikipedia also mentions that, in March 2024, Kory and Marik published an op-ed in The Hill claiming that long COVID was caused by COVID-19 vaccination instead of COVID-19 infection.”
“Michael Yeadon turns on ivermectin, and hilarity ensues.” “Antivaxxer Michael Yeadon helped initiate and popularize the myth that COVID-19 vaccines cause infertility. Now he’s turned on ivermectin, the favorite quack cure for COVID-19…”
Edzard Ernst posted:
“Cardiovascular safety of COVID-19 vaccinations.” “This England-wide study offers reassurance regarding the cardiovascular safety of COVID-19 vaccines, with lower incidence of common cardiovascular events outweighing the higher incidence of their known rare cardiovascular complications. No novel cardiovascular complications or new associations with subsequent doses were found. The findings thus support the wide uptake of future COVID-19 vaccination programs.”
Featured topic: cancer
On Science-Based Medicine, David Gorski:
Posted “How Google listings are used by alternative cancer clinics to lure in desperate patients.” A Paper by Zenone and others (BJC Rep 2, 55 (2024)) was discussed. “Google listings, which provide a summary of a business, location, or person, also provide descriptive information on the purpose of a business. This information is often the first point of contact by a Google search user Googling the name of a business…Additionally, search results contain Google reviews, where previous clients of a business can post a 1-to-5-star rating of their services and a text explanation outlining their rating rationale…most of these clinics didn’t declare themselves to be alternative cancer clinics…You’d think that, if (as they claim) these clinics were curing so many advanced stage 4 cancers, most of the reviews would be touting ‘miracle cures,’ but they are not, which suggests to me that these clinics do not actually cure stage 4 disease…I’ve long known that alternative cancer clinics are an indictment of our system of regulating medicine, given that they continue to exist and bilk patients despite the ineffectiveness and expense of their treatments. Google acted over the last several years to try to limit the reach of these sites and to keep them from easily monetizing their content as they attracted patients. After that, it seems that it has done little.” Edzard Ernst also addressed the paper. “These findings suggest that the Google listings and reviews of SCAM [so-called alternative medicine] cancer clinic create a favorable online impression to prospective patients. Google listings and reviews are thus part of a most effective multi-level propaganda network promoting SCAM even for the most desperately ill of all patients.”
Wrote “Revisiting 'integrative oncology': the battle to integrate quackery with oncology continues.” “Nature Reviews Cancer published a propaganda piece disguised as commentary promoting ‘integrative oncology,’ or what I like to call ‘integrating’ quackery with oncology…I would question whether integrative oncology has advanced at all as a field in the decade since SIO [Society for Integrative Oncology] first published its ‘guidelines.’ How can it when the vast majorities of the modalities that it seeks to ‘integrate’ are not science-based and the ones that can plausibly claim a basis in science and clinical evidence (e.g., nutrition) have been taken from medicine and ‘rebranded’ as somehow ‘alternative’ or ‘integrative’?”
Edzard Ernst:
Posted “An evaluation of the long-term effects of integrative oncology interventions.” “I am sorry, but I see no effects here at all. All I do see are correlations. For all we know, the outcomes might have even been better if no SCAMs [so-called alternative medicines] had been offered. For all we know, the main reason for the observed changes is simply the passage of time.”
Wrote “Integrative therapies in cancer care: an update on the guidelines.” “I am sorry, but I find these guidelines of poor quality and totally inadequate for the purpose of providing responsible guidance to cancer patients and carers…Overall, these guidelines provide more an exercise in promotion of dubious therapies than a reliable guide for cancer patients and their carers. The ASCO [American Society of Clinical Oncology] and the Society for Integrative Oncology should be ashamed to have given their names to such a poor-quality document.”
August 14 – Snyder and others published “Crowdfunding for complementary and alternative cancer treatments in Tijuana, Mexico: content analysis” (JMIR Cancer. 2024 Aug 14;10:e52018 Paper). “These campaigns spread problematic misinformation about the likely efficacy of CAM treatments, funnel money and endorsements to CAM clinics in Tijuana, and leave many campaigners short of the money needed to pay for CAM treatments while costing beneficiaries and their loved one’s time, privacy, and dignity.”
Featured topic: homeopathy
On Science-Based Medicine, Scott Gavura:
Posted “Homeopathy in pharmacist education.” “Homeopathy has no place in science-based pharmacy practice, but the reality is that it’s being sold in pharmacies and drug stores. Pharmacists will inevitably be asked about their appropriateness and place in therapy. While homeopathy appears to be in the curriculum in a majority of American pharmacy schools, it is not clear if it’s being examined from a science-base perspective, or if pharmacists are being taught how to critically appraise the accumulated evidence that demonstrates it offers no meaningful health benefits. Understanding what pharmacy students are learning about homeopathy is a worthy topic. Unfortunately, this paper provides limited useful information on the subject, focusing more on the question ‘is homeopathy being taught’ and not what is actually being taught.” Edzard Ernst also discussed the study. “What makes me shudder is this statement: ‘pharmacists should be knowledgeable and able to counsel patients effectively to ensure they benefit from taking homeopathic products.’ How can you teach students to counsel patients in such a way that they benefit from an ineffective therapy?, I wonder.”
Edzard Ernst:
Wrote “Against the sale of homeopathy (and other ineffective medicines),” discussing an article in Journal of Business Ethics. “Personally, I have never argued that the sales of homeopathics should be banned; I felt that good and responsible information is essential and would eventually reduce sales to an insignificant level. Yet, after reading this paper, I have to admit that its arguments make sense.”
Wrote “The role of homeopathy in 'post-COVID functional gastrointestinal disorders': THE WORST SCAM PAPER OF 2024?” “There is a lot wrong here. In fact, it is hard to find anything that is right!...My conclusion is this: The editor of the journal HOMEOPATHY, the peer-reviewers of this paper, the authors of the article and their institutions should all bow their heads in shame – this is certainly one of the worst and most dangerously misleading paper I have come across in a long time!”
Posted “Treatment of menstrual irregularities with individualized homeopathy.” “The authors concluded that the analysis failed to demonstrate clearly that IHMPs [individualized homeopathic medicinal products] were effective beyond placebos in all but one of the outcomes. More appropriate outcome measures may be sought for future trials…I’d like to congratulate the authors for their courage in reporting a squarely negative result…And because of the ineffectiveness of homeopathy, the entire concept of the study was a mistake and arguably not even ethical. To put it bluntly, this trial should have never been conducted in the first place.”
Reported the retraction of a homeopathy paper.
Wrote “Homeopathy for treating uterine fibroids? A ‘comprehensive review’ turns out to be a comprehensive example of how to comprehensively mislead with comprehensively dishonest research.” “This is a very odd paper: The authors call it a ‘comprehensive review,’ a term that is next to meaningless. It certainly is not a systematic review. The reason for merely including ‘recent studies’ is unclear; it also makes a mockery of the attribute ‘comprehensive.’ The reason for including observational studies, however, seems to be very clear: it is an age-old trick to generate a false-positive result. There was no assessment of the quality of the primary studies. In total, there were just 6 primary studies none of which was anywhere near to being rigorous…My conclusion is that this ‘comprehensive review’ is comprehensive example of how to comprehensively mislead with comprehensively dishonest research.”
Other topics
Edzard Ernst:
Posted “The SCAMs [so-called alternative medicines] olympians might use: is there any evidence to show that they work?” “Looking at the articles that I found, one could get the impression that there is plenty of good evidence to support SCAM for improving fitness. This, however, would be wrong. The evidence for almost every of the above listed therapies is flimsy to say the least.”
Wrote “A new trial concludes that ‘acupuncture can be used as an optional preventive therapy for chronic migraine’ – but I beg to differ.” “…patients could very easily tell to which group they had been randomised. This, in turn, means that a placebo effect – possibly enhanced by verbal or non-verbal communication from the (non-blinded) acupuncturists – has most likely caused the observed outcomes.”
Posted “The effects of aromatherapy on quality of life and pain in patients with cancer.” “The question, I feel, is how to interpret such findings. Here are a few points that might be relevant: There is no question that cancer patients deserve measures that improve their QoL [quality of life]. There is also no question that essential oils contain active ingredients. Yet, it is doubtful that they reach the blood stream in sufficient concentrations to have meaningful health effects. Much more likely is the notion that not the oils but the massage during a typical aromatherapy is the effective element of the treatment. In addition, we have to think of the placebo effect [which is difficult to control for in clinical trials of aromatherapy]. So, should we use aromatherapy for cancer patients? If it makes a patient feel better, I would use it. But there are many patients who dislike to be touched/massaged; in such cases, I would not advocate it.”
Discussed a study and a review on krill oil for knee osteoarthritis and pain. The study (Laslett et al. JAMA. 2024 Jun 18;331(23):1997-2006 Abstract) concluded that “Among people with knee osteoarthritis who have significant knee pain and effusion-synovitis on magnetic resonance imaging, 2 g/d of daily krill oil supplementation did not improve knee pain over 24 weeks compared with placebo. These findings do not support krill oil for treating knee pain in this population.” The review (Pimentel et al. Inflammopharmacology. 2024 Aug 10. Epub ahead of print Abstract) concluded that “krill oil supplementation did not significantly improve knee pain, stiffness, or lipid profile, although it may help knee physical function. Based on these findings, krill oil supplementation is not yet justified for knee pain.” Ernst wrote, “The two papers should settle the issue: KRILL IS NOT EFFECTIVE FOR KNEE OSTEOARTHRITIS. Will this stop the many manufacturers of krill supplements selling their products to gullible consumers? I would not hold my breath.”
Discussed the “Efficacy of gut microbiota-based therapies [probiotics] in autoimmune diseases.” “The authors concluded that gut microbiota-based therapies may improve several autoimmune diseases (celiac sprue, SLE and LN, JIA, psoriasis, fibromyalgia syndrome, PSS, MS, T1DM, Crohn’s disease, and ulcerative colitis).” However, Ernst noted several shortcomings of the included studies. “While these findings are no doubt interesting, I recommend taking them with a pinch of salt.”
Posted “An active surveillance adverse event reporting system for chiropractors and physiotherapists.” “Whatever the true rate of AEs turns out to be, one thing is very clear: it is unacceptably high, particularly if we consider that the benefits of spinal manipulations are doubtful and at best small.”
On McGill Office for Science and Society:
Jonathan Jarry:
Wrote “Doc of Detox tries to rewrite all of medicine.” “Take-home message: Darrell Wolfe, AKA Doc of Detox, is not a licensed medical practitioner. His inconsistent claims around health and disease are often not supported by evidence or medical consensus. Many of his interventions are actually harmful, such as slapping yourself for an hour to allegedly bring diseased tissue to the surface and making yourself vomit repeatedly to allegedly restore your health.”
Posted “No tolerance for IgG food tolerance tests.” “Take-home message: A food allergy is caused by a reaction of the immune system, whereas a food intolerance represents a difficulty digesting or metabolizing a food item. IgG food intolerance tests are claimed to diagnose which foods you are intolerant to, but they are wildly inaccurate and have been denounced by major professional organizations. Studies indicate that the presence in the blood of IgG antibodies against a certain food item may actually be a marker of tolerance to the food, not intolerance.”
Joe Schwarcz:
Posted “Claims about ozone therapy don’t pass the smell test” Article Video. “All ozone treatments have one thing in common: They lack significant evidence of benefit…Still, the belief in the magical properties of ozone continues with ozonated olive oil, ozonated face creams, ozonated toothpaste and ozone saunas available for purchase.”
Wrote “If it sounds too good to be true, it is.” “The Internet is awash in videos that offer wondrous cures for all sorts of ailments. Best to keep your skeptical eye open and your wallet closed.”
August 5 – Likhitsup and others published “Estimated exposure to 6 potentially hepatotoxic botanicals in US adults” (JAMA Netw Open. 2024 Aug 1;7(8):e2425822 Paper). “…an estimated 15.6 million US adults consumed at least 1 botanical product with liver liability within the past 30 days.” The products examined were turmeric, green tea, ashwagandha, Garcinia cambogia, red yeast rice, and black cohosh.
August 6 – Kathie Suleta wrote “’Cures’ for autism, and conflicts of interest.” A case report claimed complete reversal of autism using a combination of dietary approaches and supplements. “The potential conflicts of interest are substantial, and the methodology is questionable. No conclusions should be drawn from this case report except an explanation about why this study was allowed to be published as is.”
August 8 – Benjamin Radford wrote “TikTok videos pull oil – and B.S.” “So what does oil pulling actually do? Probably nothing. Only a handful of medical studies have been done on the benefits of oil pulling, all of them from India and none of them seeming to show a consistent benefit for any particular condition… there seems to be no consensus on how exactly it works, what exactly its benefits are, or even how it’s supposed to be done.”
August 14 – The Trial to Assess Chelation Therapy (TACT) (2013) reported a risk reduction in cardiovascular disease events, with a larger effect in participants with diabetes. Critics said that the study had many flaws, and the therapy was implausible (see CHELATION THERAPY article). A replication of the original trial, focusing on participants with diabetes, has now been reported (Lamas et al. JAMA. 2024 Aug 14:e2411463 Abstract). The results were negative: “EDTA chelation was not effective in reducing cardiovascular events in stable patients with coronary artery disease who have diabetes and a history of MI [myocardial infarction].” In an Editor’s Note, Curfman discussed the two studies (JAMA. 2024 Aug 14. Epub ahead of print First paragraph). “In hindsight, one might call into question whether it was advisable to pursue this line of investigation in the first place…Common sense dictates that not all hypotheses need be subjected to a clinical trial.” Christopher Labos discussed the trial on McGill Office for Science and Society.
August 29-30 – Tiffany Camhi published two articles (August 29 and August 30) on alternative medical colleges in Portland. Students from Oregon College of Oriental Medicine and National University of Natural Medicine (“the oldest accredited university of naturopathic medicine in North America”) confront difficulty in obtaining well-paying jobs while facing large student loan debts. “The students fell into a system that OPB [Oregon Public Broadcasting] has found plagues several alternative medicine schools: students felt administrators encouraged them to take out hundreds of thousands of dollars in student loans while obscuring the reality that they’d end up earning less than a high school graduate.”
Additions to previous months
June 28 – Andrea Love wrote “Raw milk is not safe to drink and doesn’t offer unique health benefits.” “In fact, raw milk is considered one of the riskiest foods to consume by all credible scientific and food safety agencies.”
July 26 – The FDA issued a warning against using OPMS Black Liquid Kratom, which “has been linked to serious adverse health effects, including death.”