SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2019 NEWS

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

  • Wrote “New Florida law forces physicians to endorse pseudoscience.” The law “requires physicians and other healthcare practitioners to endorse pseudoscience and give patients misleading information about non-opioid alternatives for the treatment of pain. It is yet another attempt at co-opting the opioid epidemic to boost so-called complementary/alternative/integrative medicine at the expense of science-based medicine.” Acupuncture, chiropractic, and massage are listed as options to be considered.

  • Posted “FDA proposes ban on curcumin and other naturopathic favorites in compounded drugs.” Curcumin is a component of turmeric.

Scott Gavura:

  • Asked: “Do dietary supplements improve heart health?” Discussing a new umbrella review, he noted that “If dietary supplements or specific dietary approaches had substantial effects on cardiovascular disease, we should have seen them consistently in the medical evidence. We do not. Consequently, it’s reasonable to assume that the overall benefit of individual dietary supplements or dietary interventions for cardiovascular disease has not been demonstrated, and that there is no solid evidence to support their use.”

David Gorski:

  • Posted “Veterinary quackery at the San Diego Zoo.” A television program showed the use of acupuncture and thermography with an elephant.

  • Posted “Federal 'right-to-try' over a year later: Still a failure and still about the money (and weakening the FDA).” “…right-to-try was never about helping terminally ill patients, not really. It was always about ideology more than anything else. It was always about weakening the FDA’s ability to regulate drug approval, to cut it out of the process whenever possible, and letting companies profit.”

  • Wrote “A world-renowned placebo researcher asks, ‘Does placebo research boost pseudoscience?’”

Harriet Hall:

  • Posted “Professor Gives Grades to Alternative Medicine,” reviewing Edzard Ernst’s book Alternative Medicine: A Critical Assessment of 150 Modalities.

  • Discussed “Naturopathy in the VA.” Our veterans “deserve quality 21st century medical care rather than untested treatments and 19th century quackery…Naturopathy is a step backwards that is likely to lead to substandard medical care and poorer health outcomes.”

Clay Jones:

  • Wrote “The Verdict is In: There is No Justice for Ezekiel Stephan,” who “died from bacterial meningitis and his parents’ failure to seek appropriate medical care in 2012, and now they have been acquitted after the Supreme Court of Canada ordered a new trial.” “…his parents treated him with useless herbs and sought care from a naturopathic doctor.”

Braden MacBeth

  • Posted “Chris Beat Cancer: A Comprehensive Guide to Making a Killing,” reviewing a book by Chris Wark. “Wark’s comprehensive guide is little more basic common sense dietary and lifestyle advice coupled with copious amounts of pseudoscience, fear mongering, and a dash of victim blaming.”

Steven Novella:

  • Reviewed “Crystal Healing.” “The popularity of this pure ‘wellness’ pseudoscience has been surging in the last few years, and is now a multi-billion dollar industry.”

On Respectful Insolence, “Orac”:

  • Posted twice on anti-vaccination efforts. One was entitled “Andrew Wakefield predicts a “mass extinction due to vaccines in the pages of—where else?—JPANDS” [Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons]. “Wakefield’s gone even further off the deep end than he usually does. Unfortunately, antivaxers will eat it up, and I’m sure even some who aren’t antivax will find his wild speculations plausible, even though they are neither plausible nor supported by evidence.” The other was “Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. lays down even more antivax misinformation now that SB 276 has become law.”

  • Wrote “’Dr.’ Tad Sztykowski: One reason why acupuncture should not be licensed.” “He treats basically everything with acupuncture, including, it would appear, cancer…This brings us to the question at the heart of licensing quacks: Who protects the public if quacks are licensed, given that it is the quacks themselves who determine what is the ‘standard of care’ for their quackery?”

Edzard Ernst:

  • Posted twice on homeopathy. He discussed a trial of homeopathy for pre-menstrual syndrome; it had positive results but needs to be independently replicated. Another post included further analysis of the same study by Norbert Aust.

  • Wrote “Bach flower remedies for disruptive children? How can ‘peer-review, critical study and clinical scholarship’ produce such BS?”

  • Discussed a study of visceral osteopathy for side effects of chemotherapy. “The key message here should be that visceral osteopathy lacks plausibility. So why test its effectiveness for any condition, especially chemo-induced nausea where there is no conceivable mechanism of action and no hint that it might work?”

  • Wrote positively about a study of yoga and cardiovascular risk. “Yes, this study was small, too small to draw far-reaching conclusions. And no, we don’t know what precisely ‘yoga’ entailed…Yet, this is surely promising: yoga has few adverse effects, is liked by many consumers, and could potentially help millions to reduce their cardiovascular risk.”

  • Posted “Does this new test of Reiki's ‘efficacy’ overturn my previous assessment?” “This is basically an observational study without a control group. Therefore it cannot possibly test the efficacy of Reiki. The conclusion that Reiki is a valid instrument for diminishing suffering from cancer in childhood is therefore simply incorrect…The sooner we stop misleading the public about it, the better for us all.”

  • Wrote “Journals of chiropractic are not a reliable source of information.” “One way of quantifying the reliability of medical journals is to calculate what percentage of its published articles arrive at negative conclusion. In the extreme instance of a journal publishing nothing but positive results, we cannot assume that it is a credible publication.” Ernst surveyed articles published in the two leading chiropractic journals in 2018 and found no negative papers.

  • Asked “Does placebo research boost pseudoscience?” He finds the points made in a recent paper “will be most helpful in refuting the myth that homeopathy, para-normal healing, reflexology, acupuncture, chiropractic, etc., etc. are legitimate and useful therapies, even if they are not better than a placebo. Using placebo therapies in routine care is not in the best interest of either the patient or progress.”

  • Posted “Viracid: boosting the immune system or the manufacturer’s profit?” “Either I did not search well enough, or the claims that are being made for Viracid by the manufacturer are unsubstantiated and therefore bogus."

  • Discussed “Autologous whole blood therapy, another very surprising SCAM [so-called alternative medicine]. Does it merit further study?” “Autologous whole blood (AWB) therapy is a treatment where a patients blood is first drawn from a vein and then (unmodified or treated in various bizarre ways) reinjected intra-muscularly. This sounds barmy, not least because there is no remotely plausible mode of action…The trials are mostly flawed, and even our positive study (which received the highest possible quality marks by the authors of the first review) can in no way be definitive, because it was far too small for allowing firm conclusions. Yet, despite all this, I do think that AWB therapy merits further study.”

  • Wrote “The de-randomised clinical trial (dRCT): how we might be fooled by seemingly rigorous research.”

September – Skeptical Inquirer had a special issue entitled “The health wars: in the trenches against alternative medicine.” Articles free to non-subscribers include:

  • “The Remedies of National Geographic” (review of six books). “The National Geographic Society has published a series of books about ‘natural healing remedies.’ They are full of claims that lack scientific evidence, are inconsistent and internally contradictory, and don’t reach even minimal scientific standards.”

  • “National Geographic Book is a ‘Natural Disaster’ (review, by Harriet Hall, of Nature’s Best Remedies).

  • “Quackery at WHO: a Chinese Affair.” “China has aggressively and successfully introduced its prescientific traditional medicine into the World Health Organization (WHO).”

  • "Suing for Science." “Why the Center for Inquiry chose homeopathy for its first court cases challenging any of the forms of pseudoscience that plague society.”

Articles requiring a subscription:

  • “CFI Sues Walmart for Fraud for Selling Homeopathic Fake Medicine”

  • “Magic Waters,” by Joe Nickell. Includes discussion of “waters supposedly ‘imbued’ with ‘energy’ or ‘powers’…”

  • “Laser Acupuncture: High-Tech Placebo.” “Its proponents may have hijacked a high-tech tool, but laser acupuncture has no more scientific validity than acupuncture with needles.”

  • “Unskeptical: Indian Scientists’ Opinions of Ayurvedic Medicine.” “Ayurvedic medicine is so deeply imbued into Indian culture that even most scientists in India strongly support it.”

September – Skeptic Magazine (Vol. 24 no. 3) included two items of interest. Harriet Hall’s “The SkepDoc” column concerned coconut oil. “In short, the evidence that coconut oil is a health hazard is stronger than the evidence that it is a health food.” Panchin discussed Russian homeopathic drugs in disguise and referred to as “release active drugs” (see our April news item).

September - Zittermann and Pilz published “Vitamin D and cardiovascular disease: an update” (Anticancer Res. 2019 Sep;39(9):4627-4635 Abstract). “Based on a conservative benefit-risk management approach, vitamin D doses beyond the nutritionally recommended amounts of 600 to 800 IE daily currently cannot be advised for the prevention of CVD events.”

September – Joshi and others wrote “The Ketogenic Diet for Obesity and Diabetes - Enthusiasm Outpaces Evidence” (JAMA Intern Med. 2019 Sep;179(9):1163-1164 First paragraph). “…the evidence supporting its use is currently limited and the diet’s potential risks are real.” Letters in response, and a reply from the authors, were published in December (179(12):1734-6).

September – An overview of systematic review of acupuncture for post-stroke cognitive impairment and depression management (Integr Med Res. 2019 Sep;8(3):145-59 Paper) concluded that “Acupuncture is safe and improves cognitive function and depressive disorder without obvious serious adverse events for post stroke patients.” [Note: the review originates from Hong Kong. Edzard Ernst is very skeptical of such reviews by Chinese authors.]

September 3 – An FDA News release was entitled “FDA sends warning to company for selling unapproved umbilical cord blood and umbilical cord products that may put patients at risk; continues to warn patients of the risk of unapproved stem cell therapy.” The warnings dealt with products from Stemell.

September 27 – A News release from the Department of Justice was entitled “Federal Law Enforcement Action Involving Fraudulent Genetic Testing Results in Charges Against 35 Individuals Responsible for Over $2.1 Billion in Losses in One of the Largest Health Care Fraud Schemes Ever Charged.” “Often, the test results were not provided to the beneficiaries or were worthless to their actual doctor. Some of the defendants allegedly controlled a telemarketing network that lured hundreds of thousands of elderly and/or disabled patients into a criminal scheme that affected victims nationwide. The defendants allegedly paid doctors to prescribe CGx testing, either without any patient interaction or with only a brief telephonic conversation with patients they had never met or seen.”

September 27 – Also related to genetic testing, the Department of Health and Human Services issued a Fraud alert. “Scammers are offering Medicare beneficiaries ‘free’ screenings or cheek swabs for genetic testing to obtain their Medicare information for identity theft or fraudulent billing purposes. Fraudsters are targeting beneficiaries through telemarketing calls, booths at public events, health fairs, and door-to-door visits. Beneficiaries who agree to genetic testing or verify personal or Medicare information may receive a cheek swab, an in-person screening or a testing kit in the mail, even if it is not ordered by a physician or medically necessary. If Medicare denies the claim, the beneficiary could be responsible for the entire cost of the test, which could be thousands of dollars.”

September 27 – A review by Rozanski and others found that “optimism is associated with a lower risk of cardiovascular events and all-cause mortality” (JAMA Netw Open. 2019 Sep 4;2(9):e1912200 Paper News story).

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

Greg Bishop:

Scott Gavura:

David Gorski:

Harriet Hall:

  • Posted “Hydrogen Water Is Not the New Nutrient;’ Health Claims Are Hype, Not Science.”

  • Was not convinced by the claims that SuperMannan cures bladder infections. “The only evidence for SuperMannan is one very small, very flawed uncontrolled study. The evidence for D-mannose itself isn’t much better: it is preliminary and lacking in human clinical studies. Prudent patients with recurrent UTIs will get their medical advice from science-based health care providers, not from acupuncturists and supplement salesmen.”

  • Critiqued the claims of Lipo-Flavonoid for tinnitus. “A review of over-the-counter tinnitus remedies was published in Laryngoscope in 2019. It found that all the remedies made unfounded claims…” (see our August item).

Clay Jones:

  • Wrote “Tattoos Won’t Boost Your Immune System.”

Steven Novella:

  • Discussed “Holotropic Breathwork,” which “has become the latest fad, and is being promoted as a spiritual and psychological intervention. However, it is nothing new or unique, and is just another way of tweaking brain function in order to produce unusual experiences that can then be interpreted in line with preexisting narratives.”

  • Discussed “Antivaxxers on Facebook.”

On Respectful Insolence, “Orac”:

  • Had five posts dealing with antivaccination efforts. “Harlem Vaccine Forum: Is Al Sharpton antivaccine?” (Oct. 4) was followed by “Rev. Al Sharpton’s Harlem antivaccine confab has been canceled!” (Oct. 17). Two posts dealt with papers on autism and brain inflammation that are “used and abused by antivaxxers” (Oct. 29 Oct. 30). The Oct. 11 post was entitled “False analogies and pseudoscience as ‘moral arguments’ against the use of fetal cell lines to manufacture vaccines.”

  • Wrote “NIH HEAL Initiative: $1 billion to study ‘integrative’ nonpharmacologic treatments for pain.” “Sadly, through NIH HEAL, the NIH is wasting close to $1 billion on this sort of stuff. Sure, some of it will be worthwhile, because it’s not all ‘integrative’ quackery. But a lot of it is, meaning that a lot of this money will be squandered instead of being invested in research that might actually produce new science-based nonpharmacological treatments for pain.”

  • Posted “Primo vascular system: An ‘explanation’ for acupuncture meridians?” “The bottom line is that no one has ever convincingly correlated any anatomic structure with acupuncture meridians, and the primo vascular system is no different.”

  • Wrote “A tourist finds breast cancer after a thermal scan at Camera Obscura. That doesn’t mean thermography works.”

Edzard Ernst:

  • Posted twice concerning acupuncture. Writing on Oct. 1, he was not convinced by a review supportive of acupuncture for fibromyalgia. On Oct. 30 he posted “The scandal of Chinese acupuncture research and its publication in seemingly reputable journals.” “I conclude that such reviews are little more than pseudo-scientific propaganda. They seem aim at promoting acupuncture in the West and thus serve the interest of the People’s Republic of China. They pollute our medical literature and undermine the trust in science…BMC [BioMed Central] (and EBCAM [Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine]) must put an end to this nonsense. Alternatively, PubMed should de-list these publications.”

  • Had two posts on chiropractic. The Oct. 2 post was entitled “The effectiveness of chiropractic spinal manipulations/mobilisation for children is unproven. TIME TO STOP TREATING KIDS!” He discussed a review by Deihuis and others (PLoS One. 2019 Jun 25;14(6):e0218940 Paper). The Oct. 7 post was “Is spinal manipulation a placebo therapy?” He discussed a study showing that a general approach is as effective as specific one (McCarthy CJ, Potter L, Oldham JA. BMJ Open Sport Exerc Med. 2019 Oct 5;5(1):e000514 Paper). “…another interpretation of these results is that the effects of spinal manipulation are largely or even entirely due to a placebo response. If this were confirmed in further studies, it would be yet one more point to argue that spinal manipulation is not a treatment of choice for back pain or any other condition.”

  • Discussed a survey of members of the Oncology Association of Naturopathic Physicians concerning their practice recommendations for children with cancer. “Altogether, this survey confirmed my view that naturopaths should not be allowed near children, especially those suffering from cancer.”

  • Reported on a Cochrane review of homeopathy for irritable bowel syndrome (Peckham et al. Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2019 Sep 4;9:CD009710 Abstract). Ernst would prefer a stronger conclusion: “This question is not well addressed by stating THE RESULTS ARE UNCERTAIN. The truth is that a firm conclusion can very well be drawn: THERE IS NO GOOD EVIDENCE THAT ANY FORM OF HOMEOPATHY IS EFFECTIVE FOR IBS!...Why do the authors not dare to put this clearly? Probably because some of them are well-known, long-term proponents of homeopathy. Why does the Cochrane Collaboration allow them to get away with their petty attempt of obfuscation?”

October – Or and others published “Taking Stock of Dietary Supplements' Harmful Effects on Children, Adolescents, and Young Adults” (J Adolesc Health. 2019 Oct;65(4):455-461 Abstract). “Consumption of dietary supplements sold for weight loss, muscle building, and energy involved increased risks for severe medical events compared with vitamins. Proactive enforcement of regulations is needed to reduce access and consumption among children, adolescents, and young adults.” A related Editorial by Bravender (pp. 433-434) discussed the findings.

October – An editorial by Patwardhan and Patwardhan addressed the problem of predatory journals and “trash in science” (J Altern Complement Med. 2019 Oct;25(10):979-82 First page preview). They noted that there are thousands of substandard journals publishing hundreds of thousands of articles, many of them from India. This poses particular problems for the credibility of published research in the field of ayurvedic medicine.

October – A review of effects of berberine on C-reactive protein (a marker of inflammation) by Beba and others (Complement Ther Med. 2019 Oct;46:81-86 Abstract) concluded “BER supplementation may ameliorate the state of chronic inflammation. Patients with cardiovascular disease and diabetes are two important groups which may benefit from BER supplementation.”

October – Cheng and others reviewed “Effectiveness of tai chi on fibromyalgia patients” (Complement Ther Med. 2019 Oct;46:1-8 Abstract). “Tai Chi exerts significantly greater effects on patients with FM than standard care; therefore, we suggest that Tai Chi can be used as an alternative treatment. However, more large-scale, high-quality, and multicenter trials are required to provide stronger evidence…”

October 15 – CBS News reported that “Hormone therapy clinics could be putting patients in danger.” “Hormone therapy is promoted as a way to help patients lose weight and feel younger. But a CBS News investigation found there are clinics across the country prescribing hormones like thyroid and testosterone to people with normal levels…”

October 16 – According to an FTC Press release, “The Boca Raton, Florida-based marketers and sellers of two Aloe vera-based supplements have agreed to settle Federal Trade Commission charges that they deceived consumers with false and unsupported claims that two products, TrueAloe and AloeCran, were effective treatments for a range of conditions affecting seniors, including chronic pain, ulcerative colitis, diabetes, and acid reflux. In other action (Oct. 29), the FTC “sued a publisher called Agora Financial, LLC, alleging that it tricks seniors into buying books, newsletters, and other publications that falsely promise a cure for type 2 diabetes or promote a phony plan to help them cash in on a government-affiliated check program.”

October 25 – “Health Canada is warning Canadians against purchasing or using ‘soft-shelled’ hyperbaric chambers -- devices marketed online that promise to use oxygen therapy to treat a number of medical conditions, including autism -- due to concerns that such chambers could pose serious health risks and even lead to death. According to the warning released Friday by the agency, these chambers are ‘unauthorized medical devices,’ and could be dangerous. Hyperbaric chambers are a legitimate medical treatment -- but so far only in their original, hard-shelled form” News story.

October 29 – Senior leaders of UK’s National Health Service “have called for UK’s largest group of registered homeopaths to have its accreditation revoked amid concerns that some practitioners are spreading misinformation about vaccines” (Iacobucci. BMJ. 2019 Oct 29;367:l6248. Preview).

October 30 – Notopoulos wrote “Black Salve Is A Dangerous Fake Cancer Cure, But It Continues To Flourish In Facebook Groups.” Skin cancer expert Frederic Mohs stated “though it’s possible black salve could kill a skin cancer spot by destroying the tissue, there’s a danger that some cancer could be left behind. Even worse, it could actually cause the cancer to metastasize and spread, becoming deadly. ‘As a rule, basal cell never metastasizes, unless you put a mutantagenic on it like black salve, and then it will go rogue’.” Steven Novella, writing on Science-Based Medicine, also discussed the online promotion of black salve.

Additions to Previous Pages

February – Balasubramanian and others wrote “Testosterone Imposters: An Analysis of Popular Online Testosterone Boosting Supplements” (J Sex Med. 2019 Feb;16(2):203-212 Abstract). “Our investigation revealed that limited human studies have evaluated T-Boosters, resulting in no definitive findings of efficacy. In the absence of additional human studies, patients should be cautioned before considering T-Boosters, given the availability of highly effective therapies approved by the Food and Drug Administration.”

August 28 – Braslow wrote “Crystals might be good for your aura. But buying them could be bad karma.” “’As with most minerals,’ admits Sampat, ‘it is impossible to know for sure if your crystal was obtained via an environmental and human rights horror show.’…While some purveyors of healing crystals claim to traffic only in ethically sourced goods, without a system of accountability backed by influential governments or industry players, their claims are impossible to verify…sales of crystals sometimes finance illegal or malign enterprises…The environmental impact of the industrial mines supplying crystals is equally dire.”