MARCH-APRIL 2019 NEWS

Best of the blogs, March – on Science-Based Medicine, Jann Bellamy:

Scott Gavura:

  • wrote “Médecins Sans Medicine? ‘Homeopaths without borders’ giving sugar pills for infectious diseases in Honduras.” Steven Novella also posted on Mar. 6: “The Canadian government is sending homeopaths to Honduras as part of an aid program. They dropped the ball on this one, and should just admit error and correct it, but they are doubling-down instead.” “It’s also worth pointing out that homeopathy is not ‘traditional’ medicine, in Honduras or anywhere else (except perhaps Austria where it was invented).”

David Gorski:

  • wrote two posts concerning naturopathy. Mar. 11 was entitled “Naturopaths try (and fail yet again) to argue that they are science-based.” The Mar. 18 post was “The Oncology Association of Naturopathic Physicians publishes Principles of Care Guidelines. Not surprisingly, they aren’t science-based.” “Any organization that elects a president who uses homeopathy every day in her practice cannot [be] said to be science-based, and any guidelines it produces can safely be ignored.”

Harriet Hall:

  • published “The ‘Evidence’ for Prodovite is Junk Science.” “Prodovite is a liquid nutritional supplement marketed as ‘nutrition you can feel.’ The claims are pseudoscientific nonsense and the single unblinded clinical study is junk science that relies on a bogus test: live cell microscopy.”

Braden MacBeth:

  • wrote “Flipping the Script In Action: The Nick Gundersen Case. The tragic consequences of a boy with leukemia and a mother who believed an alternative medicine documentary-maker over her son’s oncologist.”

Steven Novella:

On Respectful Insolence, “Orac”:

  • focused on the antivaccine movement in six posts. On Mar. 4 he discussed claims of Dr. Edward Fogarty. The Mar. 6 post reported on yet another study showing MMR vaccination is not associated with autism. “The bottom line is that this is a well-designed, very large, and very well executed epidemiological study. Its results were about as negative as negative can possibly be for a correlation between MMR vaccination and autism…” The Mar. 11 post was “Amazon, Facebook, and other streaming and social media platforms are finally cracking down on antivaccine misinformation.” On Mar. 15 he discussed the concept of “vaccine mandates as ‘medical rape’.” The Mar. 20 post was “Harassment of doctors and grieving mothers: A feature, not a bug, of the antivaccine movement.” On Mar. 22 he provided additional discussion of the harassment of pro-vaccine doctors, such as flooding their Facebook pages with negative comments.

  • discussed “A horrifyingly unethical study of chiropractic treatment of infants with torticollis.”

Edzard Ernst:

  • devoted four posts to chiropractic and osteopathy. The Mar. 5 post dealt with an invalid study of osteopathy for Crohn’s disease. On Mar. 12 he discussed a review showing only weak support for using osteopathy for spinal complaints, and concluded “Considering that the evidence for osteopathy is even far worse for non-spinal conditions…it is fair to conclude that osteopathy is NOT an evidence-based therapy.” (He also noted that “in the US, osteopaths are very similar to medically trained doctors, and many hardly ever employ osteopathic manual techniques; outside the US, osteopaths are alternative practitioners who use mainly osteopathic techniques…”) The Mar. 16 post concerned a new review of spinal manipulation for chronic low back pain (Rubinstein et al. BMJ. 2019 Mar 13;364:l689 Paper). “After carefully considering the new review, my conclusion is the same as stated often before: SMT is not supported by convincing evidence for back (or other) problems and does not qualify as the treatment of choice.” A review of manual therapy for pediatric conditions (Prevost et al. BMC Complement Altern Med. 2019 Mar 13;19(1):60 Paper) was discussed on Mar. 18. Disagreeing with some of the authors’ conclusions, Ernst wrote: “I would say that there is no good evidence for chiropractic, osteopathic or other manual treatments for children suffering from any condition.”

  • had two posts about yoga. On Mar. 6 Richard Rawlins discussed support of yoga by the British National Health Service. “Shorn of esoteric metaphysical mishmash, yoga may well assist many patients come to terms with their ailments, but the association of NHS institutions with the CoMIH [College of Medicine and Integrated Health] suggest an agenda to have a wider variety of un-evidenced alternative modalities smuggled into the NHS.” The Mar. 11 post critiqued a study of yoga for primary care. Ernst concluded that the study failed to show any value.

  • posted on integrative cancer therapy: “It is a confidence trick that allows the trickster to smuggle no end of SCAM [so-called alternative medicine] into routine cancer care!”

  • provided a critique of Lyma, claimed to be “the world’s first super supplement” (however, all of its ingredients “are well known and available in many other supplements” for only a fraction of the cost).

  • discussed a review of “whole-system, multi-modality naturopathic medicine.” “My conclusion of naturopathy, as defined by the WNF [World Naturopathic Federation], is that it is an obsolete form of quackery steeped in concepts of vitalism that should be abandoned sooner rather than later.”

  • found many flaws in “The 1st ever trial of ‘power point therapy’ (based on the theories of classic acupuncture, neuromuscular reflexology, and biocybernetics).”

  • stated that a study of homeopathy for Dengue Fever, which had no control for placebo effects, “is irrelevant nonsense that should have never seen the light of day.”

  • was unconvinced by studies of “Self-Controlled Energo Neuro Adaptive Regulation” (SCENAR).

March – the March/April issue of Skeptical Inquirer (Vol. 43, Issue 2) contained several items of interest. Two dealt with facilitated communication. Vyse profiled a former therapist who went from being a believer to being a skeptic and anti-FC activist (pp. 36-39). It was also reported (p. 8) that the University of Northern Iowa cancelled its support of a FC conference. Harriet Hall’s column (pp. 32-33) was entitled “Fake News about Health Products,” referring to the newspaper advertisements that are disguised as news stories. Spector wrote “Antioxidant Megavitamins for Brain Health: Puffery vs. Fact” (pp. 46-50). “Billions of dollars are spent on worthless and even harmful megavitamin therapy, especially with vitamins C and E. How did the craze for megavitamins and multivitamins come about, and why does it continue?” Nisbet wrote “The Science of Why Yoga Quiets the Mind: Fitness Industry Hype Obscures Yoga’s True Benefits” (pp. 40-42).

March – Crawford and others examined the simplified ear acupuncture protocol known as “battlefield acupuncture.” They found that it “does not change pain opioid use or quality of life in those with lower extremity surgery” (Mil Med. 2019 Mar 1;184(Suppl 1):545-549 Paper).

March – Jin and Chin reviewed “Complementary and Alternative Medicine in Chronic Rhinosinusitis” (Am J Rhinol Allergy. 2019 Mar;33(2):194-202 Abstract). They found that “Overall, there is very limited evidence to support the use of CAM in the treatment of CRS. No significant adverse effects have been found. Given its widespread use, more rigorous data from high-quality research are needed before it can be routinely recommended.”

March – Farrington and others reviewed “Evidence for the efficacy and safety of herbal weight loss preparations” (J Integr Med. 2019 Mar;17(2):87-92 Abstract), focusing on Garcinia cambogia, Camellia sinensis, Hoodia gordonii, Citrus aurantium and Coleus forskohlii. “There was no clear evidence that the above herbal preparations would cause sustained long-term weight loss in humans in the long term. Serious illness and even death have occasionally resulted from the use of herbal weight loss preparations. Few clinical trials have been undertaken to evaluate the efficacy and/or safety of herbal weight loss preparations. In addition, potential issues of herb–herb and herb–drug interactions are often not considered.”

March – Another review by the same authors highlighted hazards of herbs used in childhood (Farrington et al. Acta Paediatr. 2019 Mar;108(3):419-422 Paper). “Infants and children may be more susceptible to harmful effects due to their immature physiology and metabolic pathways and different dosage requirements. Adverse reactions may also be caused by interactions with conventional medicines, contamination with heavy metals, and adulteration of filler products including other plant species or pharmaceutical agents.”

March – Athalye-Jape and Patole wrote “Probiotics for preterm infants - time to end all controversies” (Microb Biotechnol. 2019 Mar;12(2):249-253 Paper). They concluded that “Most of the gaps in knowledge (optimal strain/s/combinations/dose etc.) could be addressed by continued research while providing probiotics as a standard prophylaxis for preterm infants.”

March 4 – “American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) President Kyle E. Yasuda, MD, FAAP, sent letters to the CEOs of three major technology companies—Google (which owns YouTube), Facebook (which owns Instagram and WhatsApp) and Pinterest—highlighting the growing threat that online vaccine misinformation poses to children’s health” Press release.

March 8 – Wadman wrote of antivaccine activists angrily attending meetings of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (Science. 2019 Mar 8;363(6431):1024 Abstract).

March 5 – A Story reported on the death of a woman from ovarian cancer after crowdfunding and treatment at the German Hallwang clinic, which charges large amounts of money for unscientific therapies. (see also Mar. 20 item below)

March 13 – Hsu reported that “Amazon Pulls 2 Books That Promote Unscientific Autism ‘Cures’.”

March 18 – Ireland wrote “Stronger action urged against homeopathic products touted as alternatives to vaccines.” “Health Canada's recent warning that homeopathic remedies are not an alternative to vaccines doesn't go far enough to prevent the damage the products could do as the country fights off a resurgence of measles, doctors and health policy experts say.”

March 19 – “The U.S. Food and Drug Administration today posted a warning letter to Nutra Pharma Corp. for illegally marketing unapproved products labeled as homeopathic with claims about their ability to treat addiction and chronic pain, including pain associated with cancer, diabetes, shingles, fibromyalgia and other serious conditions” Press release.

March 20 – Merlan published “Jenny McCarthy's Autism Charity Has Helped Its Board Members Make Money Off Dangerous, Discredited Ideas” on Jezebel.

March 20 – GoFundMe will ban fundraising campaigns for the German Hallwang clinic (see Mar. 5 story above), according to a Story by Budryk.

March 22 – The British Advertising Standards Authority has ordered 150 “homeopaths to stop claiming they can cure autism” Story. “Cease, or Complete Elimination of Autistic Spectrum Expression, is supposedly a method of ridding children of toxins – including from vaccines and medication – that some homeopaths claim cause autism. Therapists claim they can cure autistic children using homeopathic remedies and dietary supplements.”

March 31 – A review examined “Effects of Creatine Supplementation on Athletic Performance in Soccer Players” (Nutrients. 2019 Mar 31;11(4). pii: E757 Paper). Positive effects were found.

Best of the blogs, April – on Science-Based Medicine, Jann Bellamy:

  • posted “New FDA rule cracks down on compounded drug ingredients. A new FDA rule will require evidence of safety and effectiveness for substances used in compounded drugs, alarming naturopaths and integrative physicians. Experts have recommended that a number of naturopathic compounding favorites be banned.”

James Coyne:

  • wrote “Does a recent study demonstrate that being kind to yourself has benefits for your mental and physical health? The authors think so. I see another thinly disguised null trial evaluating meditation with the usual confirmation bias.”

Scott Gavura:

  • wrote “Avoid prolonged antibiotics for 'Chronic Lyme'." “Multiple organizations in Canada, the United States and worldwide caution against the indiscriminate use of intravenous antibiotics for the treatment of symptoms attributed to Lyme disease.” Gavura noted a Position statement (pdf file) from the Association of Medical Microbiology and Infectious Disease Canada.

David Gorski:

  • discussed “Measles outbreaks and the antivaccine movement” (see also Steven Novella post below).

  • wrote “Bleaching away what ails you: The Genesis II Church is still selling Miracle Mineral Supplement as a cure-all.”

  • posted “The Paddison Program for rheumatoid arthritis: An unproven treatment that provides only the illusion of control.”

Harriet Hall:

  • discussed a chiropractor treating concussions, claiming that “with dynamic compression therapy and the BrainTap device, these athletes can return to their sport weeks early.”

  • reviewed the book Pseudoscience in Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy.

Braden MacBeth:

  • reviewed “Under Our Skin,” a “cult classic” that “exists to sell viewers on unnecessary and dangerous long-term antibiotic therapies, and the existence of chronic Lyme disease.”

Steven Novella:

  • wrote “Another measles outbreak – Blame antivaxxers.”

  • discussed an article in Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) on medical misinformation. “The authors, Armstrong and Naylor, make some good recommendations, but unfortunately are about 20 years behind the times when it comes to confronting scientific misinformation…We could also focus on tolerance of complementary and alternative medicine in academia, education, in the medical profession more broadly, and increasingly in regulations. CAM is a huge problem because at its core it is based on breaking the rules of science, promoting conspiratorial and anti-science thinking, and loosening regulations.”

Edzard Ernst:

  • discussed homeopathy in five posts. On Apr. 1 he reported that the French Academies of Medicine and Pharmacy “concluded that no French university should offer degrees in homeopathy, and that homeopathy should no longer be funded by the public purse.” The Apr. 5 post criticized a study of homeopathy for sleep bruxism. On Apr. 15 he discussed a study showing that “Homeopathic vaccines do not evoke antibody responses” (see our Nov. 19, 2018 news item). The Apr. 20 post was “Some people claim that we can save money with homeopathy – well, they are wrong!” Ernst noted that without effectiveness, there can be no cost-effectiveness. On Apr. 25 he posted “A new, positive systematic review of homeopathy – confusion or fraud?”

  • posted twice concerning chiropractic. The April 3 post was “Cervical spine manipulation: a rapid literature review.” On Apr. 29 he posted “Chiropractic spinal manipulation for migraine – torture the data until they confess!”

  • after examining three trials of naprapathy, concluded that “it’s still not evidence-based.”

  • answered the question, “Who cares how alternative medicine works, as long as it does?”

  • asked “Are anthroposophy-enthusiasts for or against vaccinations?”

  • provided a critique of a review of acupuncture for asthma.

  • noted a reported death from the herb Psoralea corylifolia, the source of Fructus Psoraleae. Despite its popularity “in the treatment of a very wide range of conditions, and despite the pharmacological studies into its potential therapeutic uses, there is an almost complete void as to clinical trials testing its clinical effectiveness.”

  • wrote “Beware of the 'Bleach Boys' –hydrogen peroxide and chlorine dioxide” (the latter is marketed as “Miracle Mineral Solution”).

April – Panchin and others published an exposé of a series of publications by Russian researchers, promoting so-called “release-active drugs,” which turn out to be homeopathic remedies with no active molecules remaining (BMJ Evid Based Med. 2019 Apr;24(2):48-5 Preview). Steven Novella also discussed the subject on Science-Based Medicine, while Salzberg reported on it for Forbes.

April – Mehrabani et al. reviewed coenzyme Q10 supplementation for fatigue (Complement Ther Med. 2019 Apr;43:181-187 Abstract). They concluded that “It seems CoQ10 has better therapeutic effects in statin-related fatigue and fibromyalgia patients compared with the other disease related fatigue.”

April – Ullah and others reviewed acupuncture-related cardiac complications (J Invasive Cardiol. 2019 Apr;31(4):E69-E72 Paper). “Although the universally reported complications of acupuncture are low, and the procedure itself has been deemed low risk in acupuncture-related literature, these cardiac complications are alarming.”

April – A review suggested potential usefulness of ginseng in the treatment of diabetes and its complications (Karmazyn and Gan. Can J Physiol Pharmacol. 2019 Apr;97(4):265-276 Abstract).

April – Another review concerning diabetes found some benefits of royal jelly (produced by bees), but some aspects remain controversial (Maleki et al. Complement Ther Med. 2019 Apr;43:20-27 Abstract).

April – A review by Mohammadi and others (Phytother Res. 2019 Apr;33(4):871-880 Abstract) concluded that “silymarin supplementation in combination with other treatments had a favorable effect on blood lipids.” Another herb possibly producing beneficial effects on lipids is barberry (Hadi et al. Complement Ther Med. 2019 Apr;43:117-124 Abstract).

April 1 – An Editorial in Scientific American was entitled “The World Health Organization Gives the Nod to Traditional Chinese Medicine. Bad Idea.”

April 1, 3, 10, and 16 – The FDA took actions against several dangerous and unapproved products and methods. The first dealt with homeopathic remedies Press release News story. Although homeopathic remedies usually are so dilute that they contain no active ingredients, some were found to contain snake venom, while others had microbial contamination. Stem cell clinics were warned concerning “unapproved products that patients at risk.” While stem cells have a few established uses, “most forms of regenerative medicine are still in early stages of development and adult stem cells and stem cells from birthing tissues have not yet been shown to be safe and effective for use in the treatment of any other diseases or conditions… stem cell products can create unique and serious risks depending on how they’re manipulated once they’re taken from the body and how they are used once they’re reinserted in the body.” In another announcement, the public was warned “not to use unapproved or uncleared medical devices to help assess or diagnose a concussion.” Finally, companies were warned concerning dietary supplements containing DMHA and phenibut.

April 3 – Navarro and others published “The Contents of Herbal and Dietary Supplements Implicated in Liver Injury in the United States Are Frequently Mislabeled” (Hepatol Commun. 2019 Apr 3;3(6):792-794 Paper). 51% of tested products were found to be mislabeled.

April 4 – The New York Attorney General announced a lawsuit against a New York City stem cell clinic “For Scamming Vulnerable Patients Out Of Thousands.”

April 10 – The FTC took action against sellers of dietary supplements under the names Geniux, Xcel, EVO, and Ion-Z for deceptive marketing of “’cognitive improvement’ supplements using sham news websites containing false and unsubstantiated efficacy claims, references to non-existent clinical studies, and fraudulent consumer and celebrity endorsements….The defendants made allegedly false or unsupported claims online about the Geniux products’ ability to: improve short- and long-term memory; increase focus—including by as much as 300 percent; increase concentration; prevent memory loss; boost brain power —including by as much as 89.2 percent; increase IQ — including by as much as 100 percent; and improve users’ speed of information processing.”

April 13 – A CNN story by Kaur was entitled “More deaths have been associated with kratom than previously known, CDC study finds.”

April 19 – Stephen Barrett published a revised article, “Naturopathic Opposition to Immunization” on Quackwatch. While some naturopathic official positions are in line with medical recommendations, “a close look indicates that opposition is still widespread and that anti-vaccination views are deeply rooted within the educational system.”

April 22 – The FDA issued a Statement on its “continued confidence in the safety and effectiveness of the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine.”

April 23 – Murdoch and others analyzed newspaper articles in the U.S. and Canada for their coverage of illness-related crowdfunding (PLoS One. 2019 Apr 23;14(4):e0215805 Paper). They concluded that “Crowdfunding campaigns are portrayed positively much more often than negatively, many articles promote campaigns for unproven therapies, and links directly to crowdfunding campaign webpages are present in most articles. Overall, crowdfunding is often either implicitly or explicitly endorsed.”

April 30 – A Press release was entitled “FTC Returns Almost $515,000 to Consumers Who Bought Deceptively Marketed ‘Amniotic Stem Cell Therapy’ Between 2014 and 2017.” Companies advertised that their therapies “could treat serious diseases, including Parkinson’s disease, autism, macular degeneration, cerebral palsy, multiple sclerosis, and heart disease,” but “lacked the scientific evidence needed to support these claims.”

Additions to Earlier Pages

January, 2018 – A review entitled “Probiotics: Myths or facts about their role in allergy prevention” (Adv Clin Exp Med. 2018 Jan;27(1):119-124 Abstract with link to free full text (pdf file)) concluded that “The consumption of products containing live bacterial cultures showed no preventive effects in any of the evaluated disorders in early childhood. Conversely, over the age of 14 years, probiotic formulations exhibit health-promoting effects and may lower the risk of allergic diseases.”

January 8, 2018 – Centeno wrote “Turning Chiropractors into Stem Cell Experts: Stem Cell Institute of America.” “Recently, the company figured out that these chiro practices could make big bucks by marketing that they were stem cell experts and having a physician assistant inject dead amniotic tissue into joints and tendons while claiming this was a live stem cell therapy.”

April 1, 2018 – A review “did not find evidence to suggest that vitamin D supplementation alone reduces the incidence of cancer or cancer mortality, even after including long-term follow-up results” (Am J Clin Nutr. 2018 Apr 1;107(4):652-663 Paper).

June, 2018 – Woodford, Barrett, and Pattman wrote a review entitled “Vitamin D: too much testing and treating?” (Clin Med (Lond). 2018 Jun;18(3):196-200 Paper). Examining a British health system, the authors “found that between 70.4% and 77.5% of tests could be inappropriate, depending on whether the ‘uncertain’ categories of falls and osteoporosis are considered to be justified.”

January, 2019 – Shi and others published “False News of a Cannabis Cancer Cure” (Cureus. 2019 Jan 19;11(1):e3918 Paper). “The use of cannabis as a cancer cure represented the largest category (23.5%) of social media content on alternative cancer treatments. The top false news story claiming cannabis as a cancer cure generated 4.26 million engagements on social media, while the top accurate news story debunking this false news generated 0.036 million engagements.”

January 31, 2019 – An article by Buggio and others was entitled “Probiotics and vaginal microecology: fact or fancy?” (BMC Womens Health. 2019 Jan 31;19(1):25 Paper). “Despite increasing marketing of probiotics for the treatment of vulvovaginal candidiasis and prevention of preterm birth robust evidence demonstrating a beneficial effect is scarce.”