DECEMBER 2023 NEWS
Featured topic: coronavirus
On Science-Based Medicine,
David Gorski posted:
“Steve Kirsch's ‘mother of all revelations’ about the ‘deadliness’ of COVID-19 vaccines goes poof.” “On Thursday, Steve Kirsch gave his long-hyped talk about ‘record-level data’ from New Zealand that supposedly demonstrates that COVID-19 vaccines have killed more than 10 million people worldwide. His ‘analysis’ of illegally obtained data from a ‘whistleblower’ was so ridden with false assumptions and rookie errors that even some antivaxxers couldn’t accept it.” A followup post on Respectful Insolence was entitled “Antivaxxer Steve Kirsch threatens to release private health information.”
“Do mRNA vaccines produce harmful 'junk proteins' that ‘gunk up’ the cell and cause unintended ‘off-target’ immune responses?” “A new study is making the rounds in the antivax crankosphere. The study found that the modified mRNA used in the Pfizer vaccine can cause a frame shift (to be explained) that results in the production of proteins besides the intended spike protein. The findings are, as you probably guessed, a big nothingburger compared to how they are being spun.”
Jonathan Howard posted:
“Medical conservatives: mixing politics and medicine is a bad idea, if I disagree with your politics.”
“The people can decide the best policy, only if they have the best information.” “Doctors who prioritized politics over being a ‘neutral judge’ failed to provide the best information.” An article by Dr. John Mandrola was discussed.
“Dr. Scott Atlas: ‘To me, it’s unconscionable when a society uses its children as shields for adults’.”
On Respectful Insolence, “Orac” posted:
“Come on, Jeffrey Tucker and Great Barrington Declaration, just admit you were wrong.” “Jeffrey Tucker demands that Peggy Noonan ‘admit she was wrong’ about COVID-19.”
“Is this 'turbo cancer' claim the single dumbest misuse of VAERS that I’ve ever seen?” “A Substack writer who goes by the ‘nym ‘2nd Smartest Guy in the World’ misuses VAERS to demonstrate a ‘143,233[%] surge in fatal cancers’ due to COVID-19 vaccines.” “The antivaxxers who do analyses like this are either too stupid to ‘reality check’ their numbers or sufficiently dishonest that they know that their readers won’t bother to reality check their numbers.”
Edzard Ernst posted:
“So-called alternative medicine for long COVID: a systematic review of randomized controlled trials.” While the review suggested that alternative medicine might be useful, Ernst found serious flaws, and wrote: “I therefore suggest to re-formulate the conclusion of this review as follows: At present there is no sound evidence to assume that any SCAM [so-called alternative medicine] intervention is effective in the management of long COVID.”
Other topics
On Science-Based Medicine,
Mark Crislip posted:
“Making acupuncture great again.” Crislip criticized the Annals of Internal Medicine for promoting an article on acupuncture for chronic spontaneous urticaria, even though it was essentially a negative study. “What little difference between acupuncture and sham acupuncture could be accounted for by blinding failure and the study being done in a society that usually has positive effects for acupuncture.”
Scott Gavura posted:
“Misinformation is pervasive, and AI will turbocharge it.”
David Gorski posted:
“RFK Jr. and his ‘I’m not anti-vaccine’ rejoinder to being confronted with his past antivax statements: A primer.” “CNN host Kasie Hunt interviewed antivax presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Although she did better than most journalists confronting him for his past antivax statements in that she played a clip of one of his antivax statements, she clearly hadn’t anticipated his response, which should have been very predictable given that he’s been using it for at least 15 years.”
Steven Novella posted:
“Cytotron: magical device pseudoscience.” “The claims being made for the Neurocytotron are highly implausible. Neural regeneration in the central nervous system is perhaps one of the most challenging research problems in neurology. In many ways it is the holy grail for neurological research. It is highly unlikely that a repurposed cancer-treating machine from India has suddenly solved this vexing problem, through something as simple as magnetic and radio frequency waves. This is beyond an extraordinary claim. What we have so far is just hype – no scientific evidence, let alone extraordinary evidence.”
“Another EMF [electromagnetic fields] scam.” “The BEMER technology, the idea that pulsed EMF somehow increases circulation, and the clinical claims for its products have all the red flags of pseudoscientific snake oil. What little clinical research there is also displays a pattern of results very familiar to SBM – consistent with the null hypothesis, that the claims are not true.”
On Respectful Insolence, “Orac” posted:
“A quack is launching his own AI chatbot in 2024.” “Crank, quack, and antivaxxer Mike Adams is unhappy with current AI systems. So he’s developing his own ‘natural health’ large language model-based AI chatbot for 2024.”
Edzard Ernst:
Discussed medicinal mushrooms for cancer. “Considering the potential and the complexity of mycomedicine, I find it surprising to not see much more research into this subject.”
Posted “Anthroposophic medicine and vaccine hesitancy: are there links?” Anthroposophic medicine, promoted in Waldorf schools, is based on the ideas of Rudolf Steiner.
Wrote “Slapping therapy: therapist arrested and charged with manslaughter by gross negligence.” Hongchi Xiao “promotes paida lajin therapy, also called slapping therapy, in which patients are slapped or slap themselves repeatedly, ostensibly to release toxins from the body. Patients often end up with bruises or bleeding.. It goes almost without saying that the evidence for slapping therapy’s effectiveness is non-existent.”
Discussed “A case report of spinopelvic dissociation after chiropractic adjustment.”
Posted “Homeopathic delusions: Rhus Tox for herpes simplex.” “Homeopathy, it seems to me, is a cult characterised not just by a total lack of active ingredients but also by an equally total void of proper evidence supporting the delusions of its proponents.”
Discussed G Spot drinks. “The drinks are advertised to invigorate and boost performance and cognitive functions. Any evidence for these medicinal claims? Sadly not – at least I could not find any.”
Posted “Ameliorative effects of homeopathic medicines in the management of different cancers.” “Those who advocate homeopathy don’t know what it is, while those who know what it is, don’t advocate it.”
Discussed “Thomas Rau, the SCAM [so-called alternative medicine]-doctor and ‘honorary professor’ who swears by ‘live blood analysis’.” “LBA is an ineffective, potentially dangerous diagnostic method for exploiting gullible consumers.” A followup post was entitled “Live blood analysis: an ideal tool for quacks to rip off their gullible clients.”
Criticized the World Health Organization’s endorsement of spinal manipulation for low back pain. “In particular, the assessment of harm is woefully deficient…Altogether, the WHO guideline is, in my view, a shameful example of pro-chiropractic bias and an unethical disservice to evidence-based medicine.”
On McGill Office for Science and Society, Jonathan Jarry:
Posted “Beneath the CBD hype lies a lot of uncertainty.” “Take-home message: CBD or cannabidiol is one of the many molecules present in the cannabis plant and many claims have been made about its potential health benefits. Most of these claims come from promising studies done in laboratory animals and studies done in humans that show unclear overall results. The safety of CBD consumption is being questioned as more studies are conducted, and non-licensed CBD products are often contaminated with heavy metals and inaccurately labelled.”
Wrote “Your local nutrition shake shop may not be what you think it is.” “It’s called a nutrition club and it’s one way for Herbalife distributors to recruit you into an MLM [multi-level marketing].”
December 5 – Nick Tiller discussed testosterone supplements. “When it comes to boosting testosterone, the safe ways are ineffective, and the effective ways aren’t safe... Men with clinically low levels of testosterone should seek advice from their doctors. For everyone else, the broader challenge is to uncouple the concept of ‘masculinity’ from the circulating concentrations of a single hormone.”
December 12 – An article from the Food and Drug Administration entitled “What you should know about eye drops” included the following: “Do not use ophthalmic products that:…Are labeled as homeopathic, as these products should not be marketed.” Scott Gavura and Edzard Ernst commented.
Addition to previous months
October 10 – Li and Wertheimer published “Narrative Review: The FDA's perfunctory approach of dietary supplement regulations giving rise to copious reports of adverse events” (Innov Pharm. 2023 Oct 10;14(1):10.24926 paper). “Overall, between 2004 to 2021, a total of 79,071 adverse events related to the use of dietary supplements were reported to the Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition…the FDA is in dire need of reform to control dietary supplements and prevent adverse effects through advancements in studies of efficacy and safety in addition to labeling updates emphasizing the potential harm stemming from use of these products.”