FEBRUARY 2022 NEWS
Featured topic: coronavirus
On Science-Based Medicine,
Jann Bellamy posted:
“State legislators dispense with standard of care for COVID treatment and encourage medical misinformation.”
“FTC targets physicians’ COVID claims with cease-and-desist letters.” “The FTC recently announced it had issued 20 more cease-and-desist demands to physicians and others claiming their products and services prevent or treat COVID-19 without sufficient scientific backing. Unfortunately, this has not stopped many of the targets from making other bogus health claims…Had the government and other institutions not so-enamored the public with ‘CAM’ and ‘integrative medicine’, COVID scofflaws wouldn’t have had such a fertile field on which to sow their dangerous mischief.”
David Gorski posted:
“Antivaxxers misuse the Defense Medical Epidemiology Database to demonize COVID-19 vaccines.” “…a claim that the Defense Medical Epidemiology Database (DMED) shows that COVID-19 vaccines have caused a massive increase in cancer, neurological, and cardiovascular diseases in military personnel has gone viral. A closer look shows that the increases are almost certainly spurious and due to underreporting in previous years.”
“John Ioannidis uses the Kardashian Index to attack critics of the Great Barrington Declaration.”
“Which is best, vaccine-induced immunity, 'natural immunity,' or ‘super immunity’ to COVID-19?” “Those opposed to public health interventions to slow the spread of COVID-19, including masks, “lockdowns,” and vaccine mandates, are hyping “natural” immunity again as somehow “superior” to vaccine-acquired immunity. It’s a deceptive simplification of a complex issue.”
“The return of the revenge of ‘COVID-19 mRNA vaccines permanently alter your DNA’ and ‘lab leak’.” “Claims that COVID-19 vaccines ‘permanently alter your DNA’ or that SARS-CoV-2 was engineered in a lab were resurrected last week based on two dubious studies. No matter how many times you think these myths have been debunked, they always come back for another installment of the same misinformation franchise.”
Frank Han posted:
“That latest article on the post vaccine myocarditis autopsy analysis.”
Jonathan Howard posted:
“1200 is more than 6.” “It should be humiliating to argue that SARS-CoV-2 in kids is roughly, roughly the same as influenza, maybe even less severe than influenza, seasonal influenza in kids. Yet, many doctors still do. When it comes to dead children, 1,200 is much larger than 6.”
“Should an infectious disease epidemiologist comment on child vaccination?”
“A medical myth: the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has quietly changed their standards for early childhood development.” The guidelines were not changed because of the impact of COVID restrictions; they were changed based on data collected before the pandemic.
“Will you share these numbers?” “I’ve previously proposed that COVID-19 is more dangerous than the flu for children. Yet many smart doctors disagree. They believe that ‘For the unvaccinated child, COVID presents a health risk to children that is on par with the flu,’ and that ‘While children do get infected, their risk for COVID death is minuscule, lower than their already low risk of dying from the flu.’ Though we don’t see eye-to-eye on this topic, I am certain we all agree that doctors who communicate with the general public about COVID-19 have an obligation to to [sic] share essential, accurate facts with their readers. Here are two such facts. According to the CDC, since the pandemic started, 6 children have died of the flu. According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, 21 children died of COVID-19 last week.”
Lynn Shaffer posted:
“Vinay Prasad: ‘Public Health’s (Mis)Truth Problem’.” “Dr. Vinay Prasad continues to spread fear, uncertainty, and doubt about the government response to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.”
On Respectful Insolence, “Orac” posted:
“Are public health responses to COVID-19 like the Cultural Revolution?”
“The Guardian: “Explaining’ vaccine hesitancy by amplifying antivax disinformation.” “Writing in The Guardian, Musa al-Gharbi tries to explain vaccine hesitancy to ‘the left.’ Unfortunately, he parrots antivax conspiracy theories to do it.”
“Religion, magic, and slavery: Rhetoric about masks and vaccines.”
“Marc Girardot: A ‘COVID myth buster’ who doesn’t know chemistry.” “Marc Girardot is a tech guy turned COVID-19 contrarian. His analogy to falsely ‘explain’ why mRNA vaccines are deadly shows an astounding lack of understanding of basic chemistry.”
Edzard Ernst posted:
“Disturbing news on the recent trial of homeopathy for COVID prevention.” “If my suspicion is true, the study is a joke – and not a good one at that. It would mean that considerable funds and efforts have been wasted. It would also mean that the conclusion drawn by the authors ‘the trial was inconclusive’ is inaccurate. It was not inconclusive but it was fatally flawed from its outset.”
“The most famous sufferer from Nobel Disease has died.” “Luc Montagnier has died. He was the Nobel laureate whose descent into pseudoscience and conspiracies led me to coin the term ‘Nobel disease.’ His final conspiracy theory before his death was to claim that COVID-19 vaccines cause AIDS.”
“COVID-19 misinformation and disinformation flood the public discourse.” The post discusses an article in JAMA (Rubin R. Published online February 16, 2022). Quoting American Medical Association president Gerald Harmon, Rubin wrote: “COVID-19 misinformation and disinformation flood the public discourse; physicians are not the only source. But their words and actions ‘may well be the most egregious of all because they undermine the trust at the center of the patient-physician relationship, and because they are directly responsible for people’s health’.”
“Long-term cardiovascular outcomes of COVID-19 infections.” “How often have we seen advocates of SCAM [so-called alternative medicine] argue against vaccination by pointing to the risk of myocarditis and other cardiovascular conditions, no matter how minuscule that risk truly is? This study quantifies the relative risk of several different cardiovascular outcomes after COVID-19 infection and the risk of myocarditis clearly stands out. I hope that the findings of this important study will make the COVID deniers reconsider their attitude.”
Wrote “Prince Charles' advocacy of quackery is by no means harmless.” “Indian officials had persuaded themselves and key decision-makers that Charles’s case was proof for homeopathy’s effectiveness against COVID. Consequently, homeopathy was widely used for that purpose. As a result, millions of Indians deemed themselves sufficiently protected (possibly not taking other measures seriously). And the rest is history: in the summer of 2020, about 1000 Indians per day were reported to have died of COVID (the number of unreported deaths was estimated to be even higher). The point I am trying to make is this: the promotion of quackery by a ‘VIP’ can have dramatic unforeseen consequences.”
February 9 – An interview on NPR was entitled “What a bottle of ivermectin reveals about the shadowy world of COVID telemedicine.”
Other topics
Best of the blogs, February – on Science-Based Medicine,
Scott Gavura:
Posted “Vitamins are not for vaping.” “In addition to unproven health claims, these vaping products may present other risks. Inhaled products can be dangerous and even may trigger severe coughing, cause airway tightening, and make speaking and breathing difficult…There is zero biochemical logic to inhaling vaporized vitamins.”
Discussed binaural beats, “auditory illusions that are claimed to offer medical benefits.” “Whether binaural beats do anything beyond a monuaral [sic] beat, or even white noise or music, remains an open question.”
Harriet Hall:
Wrote “Menopause is not a taboo subject, and the Care Package is a mixture of quack remedies, questionable products, and placebos. This is silliness, not science.”
Posted “The word 'organic' has been hijacked.” “I see no convincing evidence to support choosing organic food. And I see no evidence to support avoidance of genetically engineered foods… The misuse of the word ‘organic’ has only served to confuse people.”
Reviewed the book by Edzard Ernst on Prince Charles. “Perhaps the worst thing is that he is proud of being called ‘the enemy of the Enlightenment.’ He is clearly anti-science.’”
Discussed “Innovo for bladder leakage.” “An expensive pair of shorts promises to cure bladder leaks by using electrical stimulation to produce pelvic floor contractions, essentially doing the Kegel exercises for you…The ads are misleading. Innovo may be effective, but the scientific evidence is not very convincing. I would hesitate to invest all that money and time, when there are so many other treatments available with better scientific support, including bladder training, biofeedback, medications, pessaries, lifestyle adjustments, and surgery.”
Clay Jones:
Wrote two posts on “The American Academy of Pediatrics Weighs in on “Alternative Perinatal Practices.” Part 1 concerned water birth, “seeding” with vaginal bacteria, and umbilical nonseverance (lotus birth). Part 2 concerned placentophagy (eating the placenta), nonmedical deferral of the hepatitis B vaccine birth dose, deferral of ocular prophylaxis, delayed bathing, and refusing the newborn dose of intramuscular vitamin K. “Conclusion: Alternatives to standard newborn care practices are unproven and may expose a baby to significant risk of harm.”
On Respectful Insolence, “Orac”:
Posted “RFK Jr.: Busted making a political donation to RAGA [Republican Attorneys General Association].”
Edzard Ernst:
Discussed a review of fish oil for cancer patients (Wang et al. Crit Rev Food Sci Nutr. 2022 Jan 24:1-17 Abstract). “Thus I feel that the conclusion drawn by the authors is reasonable: our analysis demonstrated a protective effect of dietary fish and marine omega-3 PUFAs [polyunsaturated fatty acids] consumption on cancer survival.”
Posted “The 'Atlantic Energy Grid': optimal to combine with homeopathy, plant extracts, Bach flowers, aura soma, bodywork, oxygen and gemstone therapy.” “Gadgets like this never fail to remind me of a post I published 10 years ago entitled How to become a charlatan. I cannot help thinking that the entrepreneurs who market them have studied my advice thoroughly and followed every word I said.”
Discussed a study of Bach Flower Remedies for symptoms of stress. “The authors (who seem to have been advocates of Bach Flower Remedies) concluded that the intervention with flower essence therapy was not more effective than placebo in reducing stress signs and symptoms. Is anyone surprised? I am not!”
Posted “The impact of chiropractic on opioid utilization: another fine example of pseudo-research.” “The new investigation thus turns out to be a lamentable piece of pseudo research. Retrospective case-control studies can obviously not establish cause and effect, particularly if they do not even account for the severity of the symptoms or the outcomes of the treatment.”
Wrote “Mindfulness: not nearly as effective as it is currently made out to be.” Reviewing nine meta-analyses, he concluded that “the evidence is far from strong. The effect size is usually small and of doubtful clinical relevance. This is, I think, important because clinical trials of mindfulness cannot easily control for placebo effects (there is no adequate placebo that would allow patients to be blinded). Therefore, the small effects that do emerge in systematic reviews/meta-analyses are most likely the result of a placebo response and not due to mindfulness per se.”
Posted “Miracle Mineral Solution (MMS) = potentially lethal.” The product is chlorine dioxide, a bleach, and has been falsely claimed to be an effective treatment for many conditions.
Posted “Acupressure is effective for depression? I’m afraid not!” “…it would have been surprising if the meta-analyses had NOT generated an overall positive result. This is because in several studies there was no attempt to control for the extra attention or the placebo effect of administering acupressure. In most of the trials where this had been taken care of (i.e. patient-blinded, sham-controlled studies), there were no checks for the success of blinding. Thus it is possible, even likely that many patients correctly guessed what treatment they received. In turn, this means that the outcomes of these trials were also largely due to placebo effects. Overall, this paper is therefore a prime example of a biased review of biased primary studies. The phenomenon can be aptly described by the slogan: RUBBISH IN, RUBBISH OUT!”
Wrote “Auriculotherapy for Premenstrual Syndrome (PMS) – a case of scientific misconduct?” Auriculotherapy is ear acupuncture. “If I understand it correctly (the paper is unclear), verum and placebo were both better than no intervention but showed no significant differences when compared to each other. This is strong evidence that auriculotherapy is, in fact, a placebo. To make matters worse, in the follow-up analysis placebo seems to be superior to auriculotherapy. Another issue might be adverse effects. Microneedle implants can cause severe complications. Thus it is mandatory to monitor adverse effects in clinical trials. This does not seem to have happened in this case. The mind boggles! How on earth could the authors conclude that auriculotherapy can be used as adjunctive therapy to reduce the physical and mood PMS symptoms. The answer: a case of scientific misconduct?”
Discussed reviews of Chinese herbal medicine. On January 27, Ernst located 30 reviews of Chinese herbal medicine that had already been published in 2022. “The amount of reviews alone is remarkable, I think: more than one review per day! Apart from their multitude, the reviews are noteworthy for other reasons as well. Their vast majority arrived at positive or at least encouraging conclusions. Most of the primary studies are from China (and we have often discussed how unreliable these trials are). Many of the primary studies are not accessible. Those that are accessible tend to be of lamentable quality. I fear that all this is truly dangerous. The medical literature is being swamped with reviews of Chinese herbal medicine and other TCM modalities. Collectively they give the impression that these treatments are supported by sound evidence. Yet, the exact opposite is the case. The process that is happening in front of our very eyes is akin to that of money laundering. Unreliable and often fraudulent data is being white-washed and presented to us as evidence.”
Wrote “Chiropractic spinal manipulation is not safe.” “Why do we have to refer to case reports when discussing the risks of chiropractic? The answer is simple: Because there is no proper system of monitoring its risks.” Cases of injury were reported in two other posts: “Double-sided vertebral artery dissection in a 33-year-old man. The chiropractor is not guilty?” and “Acute subdural hemorrhage following cervical chiropractic manipulation.”
Posted “The 'Healy': deep cellular healing with quantum bollocks.” The device allegedly “delivers energy frequencies to positively influence the body to function at it’s [sic] natural, harmonic frequency.” “In truth, the ‘Healy’ is based on the purest BS that I have encountered for a long time. But the proof of the pudding is in the eating, you might say. Perhaps the ‘Healy’ is based on odd assumptions, but what counts is that it works. So, does it? Is there any sound evidence that the ‘Healy’ is effective? No! There is, as far as I can see, no scientific evidence to suggest that the ‘Healy’ is effective to prevent, cure or alleviate any condition or symptom.”
February 10 – An FDA Consumer Update was entitled “Tianeptine Products Linked to Serious Harm, Overdoses, Death.” Tianeptine is “an unapproved drug associated with serious health risks and even death. Tianeptine is not approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for any medical use. Despite that, some companies are illegally marketing and selling products containing tianeptine to consumers. They are also making dangerous and unproven claims that tianeptine can improve brain function and treat anxiety, depression, pain, opioid use disorder, and other conditions.”