MAY 2023 NEWS
Featured topic: coronavirus
On Science-Based Medicine,
David Gorski posted:
“Retracted papers about COVID-19 are more highly cited than they should be.” “Earlier this month a study showed that papers about COVID-19 that are retracted tend to be cited far more than average and continue to be heavily cited after retraction. Clearly, scientific publishing and the scientific community need to do better.”
“ProtocolKills.com: Misinformed refusal on steroids.” “In the age of the pandemic, ProtocolKills.com generalizes misinformed refusal to all COVID-19 treatments with the help of ‘hospital hostage negotiator’ Laura Bartlett, who views COVID-19 treatments in hospitals as ‘holding patients hostage’ and provides an ‘informed consent template’ that refuses remdesivir, intubation, and other COVID-19 interventions.”
Jonathan Howard posted:
“Letter to a medical student: there is no elite RCT [randomized controlled trial] strike force.”
“Might 'vitriolic attacks' against Emily Oster rival COVID’s carnage?” “To advocates of Feelings Based Medicine, there is no difference between criticizing someone’s ideas and attacking them personally.”
Jonathan Laxton posted:
“Unsafe and ineffective: Aseem Malhotra.” “British consulting cardiologist Dr. Aseem Malhotra has become the latest darling of the COVID-19 minimization and antivaccine movement in the UK. Previously known for anti-statin views and advocacy of the Pioppi diet who pivoted to more dangerous misinformation during the pandemic.”
Allison Neitzel posted:
“Repurposed to Radical: How drug repurposing created a global right-wing market for COVID early treatment fraud.” “A condensed timeline of the events, people, and far-right global politics that repurposed science and medicine to promote fake miracle cures for COVID-19 and spread deadly disinformation with a focus on the United States, France, and Brazil.”
Natalia Solenkova posted:
“Voices in the vacuum.” “The failure of the White House COVID-19 Response Coordinator to, well, coordinate a response to COVID-19 misinformation has left physicians to fight the uphill battle on their own.”
On Respectful Insolence, “Orac” posted:
“Did 'Died Suddenly' just die suddenly as a conspiracy theory?” “’Died Suddenly’ is a movie and a conspiracy theory that COVID-19 vaccines are causing young people to drop dead but ‘they’ are trying to suppress the evidence. I guess a new study showing no correlation between COVID-19 vaccination and sudden death is just part of ‘Their’ effort.”
“’New school’ anti-(COVID-19)-vaxxers are all-in on ‘old school’ vaccines-cause-autism antivax.” “Over the last month, Orac has noticed that ‘new school’ COVID-19 antivaxxers are rediscovering old school ‘vaccines cause autism’ pseudoscience in a huge way. Also, there’s transphobia. Lots of transphobia.”
“Antivax physician Dr. Rashid Buttar ‘died suddenly’ and antivaxxers are contorting reality to blame vaccines.”
“Variability ≠ ‘We don’t know’ how COVID vaccines work’.” “A study that shows cell type-dependent variability of spike protein production by COVID-19 vaccines leads an antivaxxer to say how little we know about the vaccines.”
“Toxins and monkey DNA and SV40 oh my! COVID-19 vaccines vs. a zombie meme.” “Quack tycoon Joe Mercola resurrects an antivax trope about SV40 to repurpose it to attack COVID-19 vaccines.”
Edzard Ernst posted:
A summary of the evidence for the effectiveness of COVID vaccinations.
May 4 – The Center for Inquiry “officially requested that the Florida Board of Medicine open an ethics investigation into recent reports alleging Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo improperly altered key findings in a study on COVID-19 vaccine safety” Press release.
May 4 – Lisa Hagen (NPR) wrote “As the pandemic winds down, anti-vaccine activists are building a legal network.”
May 16 – A review by Ambra, Melloni, and Venneria (Molecules. 2023 May 16;28(10):4130 Paper) noted that “…immediately after the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, several speculative reviews suggested that selenium supplementation in the general population could act as a silver bullet to limit or even prevent the disease. Instead, a deep reading of the scientific reports on selenium and COVID-19 that are available to date supports neither the specific role of selenium in COVID-19 severity, nor the role of its supplementation in the prevention disease onset, nor its etiology.”
May 22 – Lily Sánchez (Current Affairs) wrote “Doctors who spread medical misinformation should lose their licenses. Why don’t they?”
May 22 – Baker and others published “Simple solutions to wicked problems: Cultivating true believers of anti-vaccine conspiracies during the COVID-19 pandemic” in European Journal of Cultural Studies. As summarized in Consumer Health Digest, the researchers found that four main themes used by Joseph Mercola and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., were positioning against an evil, corrupt establishment; access to true, ‘stigmatized’ knowledge; calls to action; and offers of guidance.
Featured topic: homeopathy
Edzard Ernst:
Discussed “The ‘advantages and limitations’ of homeopathy,” as seen by its proponents.
Wrote “Another analysis demonstrates: the evidence for homeopathy is not positive.” “This new analysis confirms what many of us have feared. If proponents of homeopathy with an overt conflict of interest conduct a meta-analysis of studies of homeopathy, the results tend to be more positive than when independent researchers do it.”
Replied to a reader who claimed that the effects of homeopathy are not due to placebo.
Reported that the German Pharmacists Organization concluded that “Homeopathy is an 'illusory concept' and 'poses a danger to patients'.”
May – Aust and Weisshӓupl published “Homeopathy research hits a new low” in Skeptical Inquirer. “A recent study of homeopathic treatments for lung cancer showed fantastic results – but they seem to be based on data manipulation and falsification instead of solid research.” The article analyzes a study by Michael Frass and colleagues.
Other topics
Best of the blogs, May – on Science-Based Medicine,
Mark Crislip:
Posted “The good. The bad. The ugly.” “Anything new regarding stroke and chiropractic neck manipulation?”
Scott Gavura:
Wrote “No evidence IV vitamin drips can treat infertility.” “I was not able to find any published evidence to support claims that IV infusions of vitamins, minerals or other products have any meaningful effects on fertility – for men or women. Moreover, at over $100 per infusion and recommendations that you receive these infusions weekly until conception, they can create a significant cost burden to those that may believe these products are effective.”
David Gorski:
Wrote “’Subscription science’: physician-influencers, social media, and conflicts of interest.” “Antivaccine activists and quacks often weaponize legitimate concerns about industry conflicts of interest in medicine into the ‘shill gambit,’ in which they accuse critics and defenders of science-based medicine of being in the pay of big pharma. However, the rise of physician-influencers and, in particular, Substack show that not all conflicts of interest are from industry or even financial.” An article by Mazer and Rose (BMJ 2023;381:p1063) was discussed.
Discussed “Evidence-based medicine vs. basic science in medical school.” “Last week Dr. Vinay Prasad wrote a Substack arguing that medical students should learn the principles of evidence-based medicine before basic science. This is a recipe for amplifying the main flaw in EBM that science-based medicine was meant to correct, and Dr. Prasad’s arguments would have been right at home on an integrative medicine blog.”
Steven Novella:
Posted “Why scientific plausibility matters.” “…claims with extremely low plausibility all show that same patterns of methodology and results. There is always some potentially fatal flaw with the methodology, and the findings never convincingly replicate. What we never see is a quality of evidence above the threshold where rejecting the null hypothesis is reasonable. This is likely not a coincidence (that low probability claims also tend to have low quality or flawed evidence). What we never see is rigorous studies with significant positive effects, reasonable effects sizes, and consistent replication. What we do see is gaming of the system, with a range of sophistication, but generally unconvincing evidence, and cries of being unfair for even considering plausibility.”
On Respectful Insolence, “Orac”:
Wrote “Jennifer Margulis: The intersection between antivaccine beliefs and cancer quackery.” “Antivaccine activist Jennifer Margulis announced last week that she likely has ocular melanoma. She is also seeking ‘alternative healing,’ thus demonstrating how tightly antivax views are intertwined with anti-medicine views.”
Posted “’CDC whistleblower’ conspiracy theory, resurrected by ‘new school’ antivaxxers.” “In 2014, Andrew Wakefield unveiled Brian Hooker’s ‘CDC whistleblower’ conspiracy theory featuring William Thompson, a CDC scientist who claimed that a vaccine-autism link was being covered up. Now, Steve Kirsch and other COVID-19 antivaxxers are resurrecting it.”
Edzard Ernst:
Posted “Chiropractic or osteopathy for infant colic?...No, thanks!” Discussing a new review and meta-analysis, Ernst wrote: “The authors concluded that osteopathy and chiropractic treatment failed to reduce the crying time and increase sleeping time in babies with infantile colic, compared to no additional intervention…in recent years, several new studies have emerged. I find this surprising: there is no plausible mechanism of action and the previous reviews were negative. Why flog a dead horse? But – come to think of it – this is a question one might ask about most of the research into cranial, visceral, or structural osteopathy or chiropractic manipulation or mobilization.”
Wrote “Scientific misconduct by chiropractors or osteopaths should no longer get published.” A review concluded that the reporting of adverse effects in trials of spinal manipulation was unacceptably low.
Discussed an analysis of acupuncture studies that examined effect sizes and risk of bias in Chinese or non-Chinese language studies, and in Chinese or non-Chinese populations (Li et al. BMC Med Res Methodol. 2023 Apr 20;23(1):96 Paper). “I feel that this analysis obfuscates more than it clarifies. As we have discussed often here, acupuncture studies by Chinese researchers (regardless of what language they are published in) hardly ever report negative results, and their findings are often fabricated. It, therefore, is not surprising that their effect sizes are larger than those of other trials. The only sensible conclusion from this messy and regrettable situation, in my view, is to be very cautious and exclude them from systematic reviews.”
Reviewed a new book by Richard Rasker, Mind, Make-Believe and Medicine. “The range of topics that this book tackles is vast. It covers much of SCAM [so-called alternative medicine], of course. But it also includes topics that are way beyond SCAM, such as radiation and vaccination.”
Discussed “Spagyric medicine (and its infamous Nazi past).” “‘Spagyric’ is a so-called alternative medicine (SCAM) based on the alchemy of Paracelsus (1493-1541)…The production of spagyric remedies is based on a complex process of maceration and fermentation of a plant extract in alcohol…There does not seem to be a single controlled study on the subject.”
Wrote “A tragic death by cold water therapy.” “The tragic death of the woman should perhaps remind us that there is no SCAM [so-called alternative medicine] or wellness treatment that is entirely harmless, and there are only few ‘would-be gurus’ who know what they are doing.”
Posted “More evidence that chiropractic is useless.” “Might I point out that what is being described here looks to me very much like the natural history of lumbar radiculopathy? About 90% of patients with back pain caused by disc herniation see improvements within three months without therapy. Are the authors aware that their observational study is in accordance with the notion that the SCCP [standardized chiropractic care package] does nothing or very little to help patients suffering from lumbar radiculopathy?”
May – Ghosal wrote “Rise of Ayurveda: a dangerous trend to decolonize the scientific method” (Skeptical Inquirer 47(3):49-52). Efforts to free India from the colonial mindset and promote indigenous ideas have led to a “backdoor entry of untested traditional methods to the market.”
May 1 – “FDA warns consumers not to purchase or use Nose Slap and Soul Slap products marketed for alertness and energy boosting.” The products contain ammonia. “FDA has received reports of adverse events such as shortness of breath, seizures, migraines, vomiting, diarrhea, and fainting from consumers after using the Nose Slap or Soul Slap products.”
May 16 – Stuart Vyse wrote “The journal Nature falls for autism pseudoscience.” The Nature article contains quotes apparently obtained by a variant of the discredited method of facilitated communication.
May 17 – Nick Tiller posted “Inside the UFC's pseudoscience crisis.” Among the unscientific methods used by mixed martial arts fighters are cupping, whole-body cryotherapy, and ice bathing.
Additions to previous months
March 2 – Carpiano and others published “Confronting the evolution and expansion of anti-vaccine activism in the USA in the COVID-19 era” (Lancet. 2023 Mar 18;401(10380):967-970 Paper). “In this Viewpoint, we summarise the latest developments in US-based anti-vaccine activism and propose strategies for confronting them.”
April 28 – The FDA has issued a warning concerning Apetamin, “an illegally imported weight gain, figure augmentation product.” “Apetamin is not an FDA-approved product. It is manufactured overseas and illegally imported into the U.S…Apetamin is heavily promoted and sold through social media, targeting people seeking to gain weight and achieve a certain physique. Apetamin contains cyproheptadine, a potent antihistamine that requires a physician’s prescription in the U.S…Consumers may not be aware of the serious adverse effects associated with cyproheptadine or the amount that is contained in Apetamin. Because cyproheptadine is a strong antihistamine, which is often used to treat symptoms of allergies, it can cause sedation, cognitive impairment, dizziness, and low blood pressure. Antihistamine overdose is very dangerous…”