Could coconut oil be an option for treating Alzheimer’s?

A new alternative treatment for Alzheimer’s doing the rounds seems to be based on a misunderstanding of the underlying science.
The title of this piece is a question posed by the ‘health correspondent’* in one of our local rags. It was inspired by a video doing the rounds on the internet of an American doctor who is using coconut oil to treat her husband’s Alzheimer’s. The doctor’s name is Mary Newport and she also has a book out: Alzheimer’s Disease: What If There Was a Cure? The Story of Ketones.
So what are ketones and could coconut oil be the new wonder cure for Alzheimer’s? Normally carbohydrates in the diet are converted into glucose which is then used by the body as fuel. However, when facing starvation, the body can burn fats in place of carbohydrates. The liver converts the fats into ketones which can be used in place of glucose. Where it gets interesting is that a particular high-fat diet is being used to successfully treat another brain disease – epilepsy. The ketogenic diet is a strictly controlled, high-fat, adequate protein, low-carbohydrate diet, which has been shown in numerous peer-reviewed scientific studies to be effective for controlling seizures in the group of children that don’t respond to medical treatment (so-called drug resistant epilepsy). Unfortunately studies have shown that it is less effective in adults.

So the ketogenic diet is more than just supplementing the diet with coconut oil. And it isn’t without side effects either, which can include weight loss, kidney stones, and constipation. While these are not insurmountable, the diet can be fatal for people with genetic disorders of fat metabolism. People like these will not be able to use the fats provided in the diet and if insufficient protein and carbohydrate are given, they will start breaking down their own protein stores for fuel, which can lead to coma and death.

So what about ketones and Alzheimer’s? Well it turns out that there are a number of studies looking at raising ketone levels in people with mild to moderate late onset Alzheimer’s. And it looks like they are doing it without the strict ketogenic diet. In a randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled, multicentre trial1, subjects were given a daily drink of a ketogenic compound called AC-1202 on top of their normal diets (and prescribed Alzheimer’s medication), and assessed for changes in cognitive performance.

But there was also a little twist to this story. One of the major risk factors for late onset Alzheimer’s is possession of one or more copies of the epsilon 4 variant of the apolipoprotein E gene (APOE4). The more copies of APOE4 you have, the higher your risk of developing the disease. So did AC-1202 improve cognitive performance? Yes, but only for people who didn’t carry any copies of APOE4. What this means is that your genes affect whether or not you respond to ketones. Interestingly, about 10 percent of subjects got a little better without any treatment too.

So what is AC-1202? It is NeoBee 895®, a common food ingredient made using glycerin from vegetable oil and fatty acids from, you guessed it… coconut oil! Although palm kernel oil is also often used. But before you race off to check your APOE4-type and stock up on coconut oil, let’s return to Mary Newport and her husband for a moment. Mary blogs2 about their life with Alzheimer’s, and despite being on coconut oil since 2008, all is not rosy. So if you started this article thinking that adding a little coconut oil to your diet would be the answer, I’m sorry to disappoint you. As Ben Goldacre would say, I think you’ll find it’s a little more complicated than that!

*A Vitamin and supplement peddler, so I am always a little sceptical of his claims !

  1. Henderson ST, Poirier J (2011). BMC Medical Genetics. 12:137.

  2. coconutketones.blogspot.co.nz

Bioresonance therapy for smoking – miracle cure or con?

A therapy marketed as a guaranteed way to stop smoking appears to lack a sound theoretical basis and to have little experimental support.

As health researchers in the field of tobacco smoking cessation our aim is to find effective ways to help people quit smoking, and to improve access to effective smoking cessation treatments. The New Zealand government is currently investing heavily in policies that support such actions.

Proven therapies for helping people to quit smoking

When people decide to quit smoking without any assistance (ie by going ‘cold turkey’), they have to cope with the loss of all the dependency-forming aspects of smoking at once. Consequently, approximately 90 percent of people who try and quit without any assistance fail1.

Most smoking cessation support strategies involve the use of nicotine replacement therapy (NRT). With NRT, people stop smoking and replace the ‘dirty’ nicotine they would normally get from smoking a cigarette with ‘clean’ nicotine delivered in a lower concentration (such as via patches, gum, inhaler, and lozenges) and in a safer way (that is, without the harmful constituents present in tobacco smoke). In this manner smokers can deal with cravings and other unpleasant nicotine withdrawal symptoms, thus making it easier for them to quit.

Research evidence for the use of NRT has shown it to approximately double the chances of long-term quitting(2-3). When combined with behavioural support, pharmacological support is even more effective. Good quality evidence from placebo-controlled randomised trials indicates that behavioural support can improve the chances of successfully quitting by two to seven percent(1,4-6). Behavioural support (eg counselling people about dealing with cravings and urges, encouraging them to persist, helping them to consider the benefits and possibilities of being an ex-smoker) can be delivered face-to-face, by telephone or through the internet.

In New Zealand, the cost of NRT patches, gum and lozenge is subsidised ($5 for four weeks’ supply). Subsidised NRT is available to smokers coming into contact with cessation support services (such as the national telephone- based Quitline services and the Maori cessation service Aukati Kai Paipa), which also offer behavioural support. The Government has plans to further improve access by promotion of low cost NRT through primary care (ie through a general practitioner).

Unproven therapies

Despite good access to inexpensive, effective treatment to assist in quitting smoking, unproven and costly therapies are still actively promoted in the media in New Zealand. A recent review of the scientific evidence for the effectiveness of alternative smoking cessation interventions reported that acupuncture, St. John’s Wort and NicoBloc are probably not effective(7). There was insufficient evidence to determine the effectiveness of Allen Carr’s Easyway Programme and Nicobrevin, and hypnosis did not appear to be any more effective than simple advice to quit.

Bioresonance therapy

Another therapy being marketed in New Zealand as a “guaranteed way to stop smoking” is bioresonance therapy. This therapy appears to have originated from Europe and according to its proponents has been in use since the 1970s. Claims made on a website (www.stopsmokingclinic.co.nz) state that “Bioresonance therapy works through the body’s energetic system” or more specifically, “the technique uses biophysics – the physics of the body”. According to the above website it works by eliminating nicotine from the body and thus takes away the cravings for cigarettes.

“All living cells give off energy as weak electromagnetic waves similar to brain waves used in orthodox medicine (EEG scans). Bioresonance therapy, using the Bicom machine, uses these and those of substances (cigarettes) for therapy. The Bicom separates these waves into harmonious (healthy) and disharmonious (unhealthy) components. The healthy signals can be boosted and sent back to the patient to strengthen normal functions, while the unhealthy signals are ‘inverted’ or turned upside down by an electronic mirror circuit before returning them to the patient through electromagnetic mats. What actually happens is more complicated but the ‘inverted’ wave cancels the harmful wave that was stressing the body’s energetic system. You can see this effect at the beach where a wave reflected from a rock flattens the next incoming wave.”

Furthermore, it is claimed that:

“…nicotine has an electromagnetic charge over your body giving you the craving to smoke. Bioresonance therapy inverts the energy patterns of nicotine which are then passed to the body via electrodes. This process produces phase cancellation which means that the electromagnetic charge of nicotine is reduced. Therefore, it becomes easier for the body to eliminate nicotine over the next 24 hours and your cravings dramatically reduce as your body detoxifies. Additionally, the phase cancellation removes the energetic pattern of nicotine from the body, erasing the ‘memory’ of nicotine which also reduces the cravings.”

To simplify this process even more, according to the Auckland proprietor of a bioresonance clinic, the patient smokes their last cigarette and places it into the bioresonance machine, which then measures the “frequency” of the cigarette. This frequency is then “reversed” and fed back to the patient via two brass electrodes which the patient holds.

The appointment takes about an hour and it appears some behavioural support is offered, as the website correctly mentions the need to avoid second-hand smoke exposure and smoky environments, known triggers for relapse. Patients are advised not to use NRT during treatment nor use any other pharmacological treatments for smoking cessation. “Detoxification” apparently takes a couple of days (patients are advised to drink water to help with this process) and can include the following symptoms: “headaches, fatigue, upset stomach, metallic taste in the mouth, sweaty palms or a sluggish feeling”. Most of these are classic symptoms of nicotine withdrawal.

Perhaps most bizarrely, patients are also:

“…provided with a Bicom chip that contains the memory of the stop smoking treatment provided. This information lasts for up to 4 weeks and is placed on the body, two finger widths below the navel. This chip will support the detoxification process and help if any cravings are experienced. Drops are also available to support you in times of stress in the following weeks.”

Does bioresonance therapy work?

The New Zealand Stop Smoking Clinic website states that Bicom Bioresonance therapy is “the most successful stop smoking therapy in New Zealand.” Even the authoritative BBC and New Zealand’s very own Close Up TV programme have extolled the virtues of this intervention – see www.stopsmokingclinic.co.nz for video links. However we were unable to locate any randomised controlled clinical trial evidence to support this treatment, despite an extensive search for the term “bioresonance” in a number of medical databases, specifically Medline (1948 to May 22 2009), Embase (1980 – week 21, 2009), AMED (Allied and Complementary Medicine) database (1985 – May 2009), Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (2nd Quarter 2009), ACP Journal Club (1991 to April 2009), Cochrane Database of Abstracts of Reviews of Effects (2nd Quarter 2009), the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews (1st Quarter 2009) and the Conference Papers Index (1985 – present).

In total, only 13 articles were located that even mentioned the term, of which eight were non-English publications. The articles with English abstracts were commentaries, non-randomised rat studies, case-series studies or physiology studies. The papers were predominantly published in journals that focused on alternative therapies and no reference to smoking was made in any of the publication titles or English abstracts provided by the database searches. One paper discussed treating 12 athletes with “strain syndrome” with Bicom therapy and 12 with more traditional methods (eg ultrasound, stimulating current, etc)(8). This study reported less therapy time and treatment time in the Bicom group, but we were unable to determine if the study was truly randomised nor the validity of the rest of the study design. However, given the small sample size (24 people only), any positive findings could well be due to chance alone. Interestingly, one paper discussed the use of pseudo-scientific language to cloud important issues (how to present nonsense as science), using bioresonance therapy as an example.

The evidence is not there

Overall, no studies that stand up to the standard level of scrutiny used for orthodox treatments could be identified. The weight of evidence to support the use of this therapy (for any condition and not just smoking cessation) seems to consist of material in non-peer-reviewed publications, such as case studies provided on websites and in books(10-12) and promotional literature provided by those marketing the therapy. A number of Bicom websites (e.g. www.bioresonance.net.au/bicom_therapy.htm) mention the existence of three studies on allergic conditions supposedly published in Chinese medical journals(13-15). These studies were not identified by our search above, but translations for the papers are provided on the above website (although there are no details provided about the source journals so it is not possible to verify their authenticity), along with two additional studies (one on chronic inflammatory bowel disease16 and one on central nervous disorders in children)(17) – once again with no details provided about their source. Four of the five studies are case studies or case-series(14-17). One of the Chinese studies claims to have randomised 300 children, but no details were provided on how the randomisation was undertaken(13). Furthermore, if the randomisation had been done it seems not to have worked given 213 children were in one group and 87 were in the other. Our suspicions are that the study was not randomised and therefore the findings are likely to be biased and meaningless.

It is possible that our search may have missed identifying some papers. It remains odd, however, that so little research appears to have been published given that:

  • In May 2009 bioresonance therapists meet in Germany to celebrate the 49th (ie they have had 48 previous meetings) International Congress for Bicom Therapists. Most congresses and conferences (even those in the complementary and alternative medicine field) publish posters or presentations from their meetings and these are referenced on international databases – yet none of these conference proceedings were located.
  • The therapy is claimed to be so effective.
  • The therapy is claimed to be in widespread use. One website (www.bicom.co.nz) states that “the technique is almost mainstream in Germany, and the German-speaking countries, Austria and Switzerland”, and that the instrument is “widely used in Poland for helping smokers to quit and has over 70 percent success (over 100,000 people have been treated over six years).” And that in China, the therapy is “used exclusively in children’s hospitals mainly to treat eczema and asthma.”

If it truly worked surely you would be doing everything to show the world that it did … and there have been at least 35 years to show the world.

Accepted international criteria for what is regarded as an effective smoking cessation method use the benchmark of six months of continuously not smoking (not even a puff) after quitting. The New Zealand Stop Smoking Clinic website claims that Bicom Bioresonance therapy has “70-90 percent success after one hour” for stopping smoking. Anyone can stop smoking after an hour … it’s a bit like asking you to stop eating for an hour. The issue is when you start smoking again. The Auckland proprietor was unable to provide us with this information.

In conclusion

There is no evidence to support the therapeutic claims made by those promoting bioresonance therapy other than uncontrolled case studies. Any benefits are likely to be due to the placebo effect. A systematic review of 105 NRT trials (involving a total of 39,503 smokers) found that when the quit rates for all the trials were pooled using the longest duration of follow-up available from each trial (6-12 months), 17 percent of smokers allocated to NRT had quit compared to 10 percent in the placebo control/no NRT group2. Clearly the placebo effect plays a significant role in smoking cessation.

Is it therefore wrong to make a claim about a product when simply believing that the product will work makes it effective for some individuals? Does it matter how you try to give up smoking as long as you make an attempt to give up?

In 2002/3, 24.5 percent of New Zealand adults smoked (47.2 percent of Maori), with this figure dropping to 19.7 percent in 2006/7 (38 percent in Maori)18. Despite this recent evidence of change, based on the current rate of progress it is estimated that it will take 100 years before the New Zealand adult smoking rates reach five percent, the level of smoking in New Zealand doctors19. New approaches to assist smokers to quit are still urgently needed, ideally ones with proven efficacy and that are cheap, easily accessible, and acceptable to Maori and people from the lowest socio-economic group (who have a three times higher rate of smoking than people from the highest socio-economic group18). At $450 per treatment (second treatment free if taken within the first month), Bicom Bioresonance therapy is far from accessible to the people that need it most. One could argue that it is designed to generate revenue as quickly as possible, by using pseudoscience to bamboozle the innocent. Are we too cynical? One company (www.bicom2000.com) will gladly send you a detailed profitability calculation form.

For a rather interesting conversation of how another member of the skeptic community views this treatment, see www.sciencepunk.com/2007/03/monadith-bioresonance-smoking-cure/

References

  1. Stead L, Lancaster T, & Perera R. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, The Cochrane Library 2003;1:CD002850.

  2. Silagy C, Lancaster T, Stead L, Mant D, & Fowler G. The Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, The Cochrane Library 2008;1.

  3. Hughes J, Stead L, & Lancaster T. The Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, The Cochrane Library 2008.

  4. Stead L, & Lancaster T. The Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, The Cochrane Library 2008.

  5. Lancaster T, Stead L. The Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, The Cochrane Library 2007(3).

  6. Strecher V, Shiffman S, & West R. Addiction 2005;100(5):682 – 688.

  7. McRobbie H, Hakej P, Bullen C, & Feigin V. . 2006; www.nice.org.uk/nicemedia/pdf/SmokingCessationNon-NHSFullReview.pdf

  8. Papcz, B & Barpvic J. Erfahrungsheilkunde 1999: 48(7): 449 – 450.

  9. Ernst E. Forschende Komplementarmedizin und Klassische Naturheilkunde 2004 Jun;11(3):171 – 173.

  10. Will, RD. Bioresonanz Therapie. Publisher: Jopp Verlag, 2001.

  11. Schumacher, P. Test Sets According to Dr. P. Schumacher. Publisher: dtp Tyrol – Klaus Leitner, Innsbruck, 2000

  12. Schumacher, P. Biophysical Therapy of Allergies. Publisher Thieme Medical Publishers 2005

  13. Jinzhi, Y & Li Z. www.bioresonance.net.au/bicom_therapy.htm#CL Accessed 25 May 2009.

  14. Ze, Y, Jiali, H, Haiyan W & Chunyan Y. www.bioresonance.net.au/bicom_therapy.htm#CL Accessed 25 May 2009.

  15. Jinzhi, Y. www.bioresonance.net.au/bicom_therapy.htm#CL Accessed 25 May 2009.

  16. Oesterle, R. www.bioresonance.net.au/bicom_therapy.htm#CL Accessed 25 May 2009.

  17. Barrie, A & Barrie A. www.bioresonance.net.au/bicom_therapy.htm#CL Accessed 25 May 2009.

  18. Ministry of Health. A portrait of health – Key results of the 2006/7 New Zealand Health Survey. Wellington: Ministry of Health, 2008.

  19. Laugesen M. New Zealand Smokefree enews. Auckland: Health New Zealand, 2004.

The physiology of the placebo effect

Placebos may contain no active ingredients, but they have real effects on the human brain. This article is based on a presentation to the NZ Skeptics 2008 conference in Hamilton, September 26-28.

Earlier this year, Dr Tipu Aamir of the Auckland Pain Management Service drew my attention to something peculiar. In a double-blind, randomised, placebo-controlled trial of morphine after a standard knee operation, 30 percent of those receiving a placebo get pain relief. When those people are given a specific morphine antagonist (‘antidote’), their pain comes back! In the words of a former contributor at an annual conference of this society, this was an epiphany. I needed to know more.

After all, how could something that was ‘all in the mind’ be changed predictably by a substance with a known pharmacological action?

Any study of homeopathy raises the issue of the placebo effect. As a result of a meta-analysis in 2005 of a number of studies comparing homeopathic remedies with orthodox treatment, Shang et al stated in their conclusion that the effect of homeopathic remedies was no greater than that of a placebo. Not that they had no effect, but it was no greater than that of a placebo.

We skeptics are often happy to accept the explanation that if a response to some arcane practice is a placebo response, that settles the issue.

Over the last 30 years there has been a large amount of research into the undoubted effects of placebos. I thought it might be of interest to review this work in the context of our frequent use of ‘placebo effect’ to explain the unscientific.

Placebo is a Latin word for “I shall be pleasing, or acceptable”. It is the first word of the first antiphon of the Roman Rite of the Vespers for the Dead (!), Placebo Domino, dating from the seventh to ninth centuries. Chaucer called one of his characters Placebo in the Merchant’s Tale, because the word had come to mean a flatterer, a sycophant, or a parasite, by the 14th century.

“Placebo seyde: Ful little need had ye, my lord so deare, Council to ask, of any that are here But that ye be so ful of sapience.”

He also uses it in the Parson’s tale: “Flatterers be the Devil’s chaplains, which sing ever ‘Placebo’.”

In the 1811 edition of Hooper’s Medical Dictionary, placebo was defined as “an epithet for any medicine adopted more to please than benefit the patient”. In a recent edition of Collins’ Concise Dictionary of the English Language it is defined as “an inactive substance administered to a patient to compare its effects with those of a real drug, but sometimes for the psychological benefit of the patient through his believing he is receiving treatment”.

However, placebos do benefit patients, and they are certainly not inactive in the context in which they are given.

The most dramatic example of this that I saw in clinical practice involved a young man on artificial kidney treatment. When erythropoietin became available for the treatment of the severe anaemia seen so often in this situation, he was the first patient in our unit to receive it. Erythropoietin is a hormone made in the healthy kidney, which increases the number of red cells in the blood and the amount of the oxygen-carrying haemoglobin. The synthetic version has achieved notoriety as a performance enhancer in sport, for example in the Tour de France. We were all very enthusiastic about this improvement in management for our patient, and he was given his first dose with much interest from all of us. That night he went home, recovered his bicycle from the shed where it had been undisturbed for many months, and rode all around his town with great energy and pleasure. He hadn’t heard the information that the drug took three weeks to act on the anaemia.

We are left with some questions. What was the physiology of his sudden ability to exercise at a ‘normal’ rate, long before there was any change in his blood count? What does ‘it’s all in the mind’ mean? Was he somehow at fault, or was it me and the staff who were lacking in understanding?

I would like to consider:

  • The psychological processes involved in the placebo effect
  • The physiological mechanisms in the brain
  • The site of this activity in the brain
  • Why there is variation in the placebo effect from individual to individual
  • What are the implications for the classical drug trial format?

Psychological mechanisms

Those who study the psychological processes of the placebo effect cite two major mechanisms.

Conditioning. Pavlov (1849-1936) showed that dogs given meals as a bell rang would subsequently salivate when the bell rang despite not being given food. This process has been explored in humans, who will experience pain relief when a placebo is substituted for a pain reliever when a sequence of active analgesia has been associated with an environmental cue. It is an unconscious process. At the nerve cell level, conditioning leads to a stronger and more sustained response.

Expectancy. This effect is seen when the patient has ‘great expectations’ of the substance being given. These are raised by the conscious or unconscious attitude of the therapist. It is a conscious process on the part of the patient.

It is currently suggested that both conditioning and expectancy are active in the placebo effect, and that in fact, as an inert placebo can have no effect per se, what we see is the effect of the context in which the treatment is given.

Neurophysiology of placebo pain relief

Over the last 30 years, there has been much interest in the neuro-physiological mechanisms of the placebo response.

In 1975, Hughes et al identified in the brain two related pentapeptides (a chain of five amino acids linked together) with potent opium-like action. There are many more now identified. These compounds act on specific receptors on the membranes of neurones, and via intracellular metabolic changes increase synaptic transmission. They are made in the pituitary and hypothalamus, and are called endorphins.

A digression

In pharmacology the term agonist denotes a drug with an effect, and antagonist, a drug which specifically blocks the effect of the first substance.

When I spent a year in the pharmacology lab in Dunedin (1959) it was becoming recognised that drugs exerted their effects by way of a specific receptor molecule at the cell surface. The actions of adrenaline, for example, were explained by the presence of two different molecules to which it could attach, which mediated different effects. Noradrenaline would latch on to only one, explaining its more limited range of action. With their usual desire for learned coherency, pharmacologists called them alpha and beta receptors. Antagonist molecules attach to the receptor molecule and block access by the agonist. Hence the term ‘beta-blockers’. These are substances which block the action of adrenaline on its beta receptor. They are widely known for their action in the control of blood pressure, and recently for their unwanted effects when given to protect patients at risk of heart trouble when undergoing operations.

Agonists and antagonists are related by similarities in molecular size, shape, and charge.

Morphine antagonists have been available for some time. In 1961 as a house surgeon in casualty, I was asked to manage an opium addict, brought in because he was deeply unconscious, and breathing perhaps once a minute. He had been without the drug for some weeks, due to market fluctuations. When access was resumed, he used a dose which was the same as his habituated dose. This was much more than he could now tolerate. I had access to nalorphine, a specific morphine antagonist, and 30 seconds after an IV injection, the patient took several deep breaths, sat up, expressed considerable surprise at his surroundings, and then lapsed back into his former state. I was able to repeat this dramatic procedure several times until he recovered!

In 1978 a group of dental surgeons working in California (Levine et al) carried out the following experiment. Patients who had had an impacted wisdom tooth extracted were treated routinely with nitrous oxide, diazepam and a local anaesthetic. At three hours after the procedure they were given either a placebo or naloxone, a specific morphine antagonist. At four hours they were given a placebo or naloxone. Those who had initial pain relief with the first dose of placebo (39 percent), when given naloxone had an increase in pain.

The authors concluded that “this was consistent with the hypothesis that endorphin release mediates placebo analgesia in dental postoperative pain.”

The elegance of this study lies in the unequivocal evidence that a supposedly psychological state (placebo analgesia) was reversed by a specific opioid antagonist. Note that none of the patients was given morphine. There must be a physiological cause for placebo analgesia.

This sort of study has been repeated many times, and always naloxone reverses placebo analgesia.

The site of action of opioids in the brain

The site of this process has been determined. The sites for opioid receptors in the brain can be found by specific cell staining methods and histology on brain tissue. But more exact, ‘real-time’ evidence comes from positron emission tomography (PET) scans.

Another digression

PET utilises short half-life radioactive elements which undergo spontaneous beta decay. In the process, they emit a positron, which collides with an adjacent electron resulting in mutual annihilation, and the generation of two high-energy photons at a near-180 degree angle. These can be detected, and with many, many such events, used to build up a tomographic picture of the source in relation to surrounding tissue. In the studies of the brain, radioactively-labelled glucose is injected, and congregates where activity (utilisation) is greatest. PET scans are used to monitor metabolic activity in specific organs. For example, the extent of heart muscle damage after a heart attack.

In 2002, Petrovic et al were able to show that both opioid and placebo analgesia are associated with increased brain activity in specific regions: the anterior cingulate cortex and the brain stem. There was no increase of activity in these regions with pain only.

Similar localised brain activity has been shown in placebo responses in Parkinsonism (dopamine) and some depressive states (serotonin).

I find these studies exciting and provocative.

Genetic predilection

A further question can be asked in the light of the evidence for a physiological mechanism for the placebo effect. Why does it occur in only 30-40 percent of us for a given situation? It may occur in a greater proportion of a population sample if the context is made more convincing. But why don’t we all have the benefits? Variation in a physiological function begs the question of a genetic predilection.

De Pascalis et al (2002) have shown that individual differences in suggestibility contribute significantly to the magnitude of placebo analgesia. The higher the suggestibility score (there are several tests available) the greater the placebo analgesic effect.

As early as 1970, Morgan et al showed that there was a correlation of suggestibility between monozygotic twins but not dizygotic (fraternal) twins. (Monozygotic twins are the result of the fertilisation of one ovum by one sperm. The resulting zygote splits into two cells which each develop into an individual. These individuals have exactly the same genes.)

Wallace and Persanyi (1989) looked at hypnotic susceptibility and familial handedness. Subjects with close left-handed relatives scored lower in a test for hypnotic susceptibility.

At the 2008 conference, I carried out an experiment with a group of clearly non-suggestible Skeptics. I asked those in the audience to raise their hands if they, or a close relative, were left-handed. If the hypothesis was correct, more than 10 percent of our attendees should have been left-handed. In the event, 22 of 84 attendees indicated they or a close relative were left-handed.

The control study should be done with a church congregation, Protestant or Catholic. In fact, we could do this on both and answer the question as to which is the less suggestible! I haven’t had the nerve to ask. Thomas Bouchard, beginning in 1979, has carried out a number of studies on twins who for a variety of reasons were reared apart. He compared correlations between identical twins and between fraternal twins. The studies from his group (in Minnesota) have shown a large group of correlations in identical twins reared apart, which do not occur in fraternal twins reared apart. The correlations differ very significantly. Table 1 has some examples in twins reared apart:

Similar studies have given similar results in Australia and Western Europe.

Because the nurture of these twins is different, and identical twins have identical genes, the similarities must be genetic. This approach to behaviour has lead to the science of behaviour genetics. (Physical attributes are of course also correlated more between identical twins reared apart, than fraternal twins reared apart.)

Amir Raz (2005, 2008) and his group in New York State have shown that a genetic polymorphism (more than one version of a specific gene) exists for a gene on chromosome 22, which codes for an enzyme active in the breakdown of dopamine, a neurotransmitter. One amino acid substitution (valine for methionine) in the gene alters the enzyme activity by a factor of four times. Since we have a copy of this gene from each parent, we may have val/val, or val/meth, or meth/meth genotypes.

Val/meth heterozygote confers the greater suggestibility. The enzyme is called COMT or catechol-o-methyl transferase.

Brain pathways in which opioid receptors are active are linked to those in which dopamine is the transmitter (nerve to nerve). If there is genetically conferred variation in dopamine activity it is likely that this will influence the result of changes in activity in the opioid pathways.

We must remember that we are talking of a genetic predisposition to be suggestible, and not a gene for suggestibility. It is not that 69 percent of identical twins vote Republican, but that if one does there is a 69 percent probability that the other one does too.

The implications for drug trials

In 2003, Benedetti and his colleagues in Turin examined pain relief in patients after thoracotomy. Patients were allocated to either open infusions of morphine, with information about the efficacy of the drug, or to receive hidden doses of morphine by infusion without any information and without any doctor or nurse present (the open / hidden model for drug trials).

With the same dose, same infusion rate, same timing and same drug, pain relief was less in the ‘hidden’ group.

In the ‘open’ group, the ‘meaning-induced’ expectations had enhanced the drug effect.

This research group has gone on to postulate that in all drug treatment the effect is the sum of actual physiological effect and the effect of expectations. This means that the placebo effect will always cause part of the usual ‘physiological’ response to active drugs. They say that the classical double blind randomised placebo-controlled trial does not allow for expectation effects, and may suggest that a drug has a specific effect gre’open/hidden paradigm’ will give more meaningful results.

Conclusions

  • The analgesic placebo effect is accompanied by a distinct, observable, and locatable physiological event in the brain.
  • Susceptibility to the placebo effect varies in the population at large.
  • This susceptibility is at least in part genetically determined.
  • It may be possible to harness this facet of human behaviour for the benefit of individuals, and to prevent its on-going exploitation by charlatans.
  • Although placebos are inert and cannot have any effect on the healing processes, their meaning and the context in which they are given can.
  • All drug effects include some placebo effect, except when the drug is given surreptitiously. This should alter the classic clinical trial structure.

We have come a long way from the Vespers for the Dead!

Placebos are inert substances but the context in which they are given can alter neurophysiology in such a way as to cause subjective and objective effects.

This is not due to the ‘molecular memory’ of water, nor to strange force-fields as yet unknown to physicists. It is due to our human nature, how we react to our environment, and the relationship, between our minds and our bodies.

Full references available from the editor.

University funds Therapeutic Touch

Why is Canterbury University fostering an alternative therapy at its Health Centre?

Should Canterbury University be funding pseudo-science? It was implied that this was occurring in a recent university press release:

Staff development awards of up to $5000 are available every six months for general staff. They are designed to recognise and assist professional development activities… One of the recipients this year is Wendy Risdon, who works at the UC Health Centre as a practice nurse. She will use her award to fund a trip to the US, where she will attend the 12th Annual Healing Touch International Conference in Milwaukee.

According to the Healing Touch International, Inc. website:

Healing Touch works with your energy field to support your natural ability to heal. It is safe for all ages and works in harmony with standard medical care.

When people start talking about someone’s energy field, especially with respect to medical treatments, alarm bells should start going off in your head. A simple Wikipedia search reveals several critical evaluations of the therapeutic touch practice.

In the press release, Wendy goes on to say: “I will be going to facilities that use complementary therapies such as Healing Touch as part of their mainstream care… Healing Touch is not particularly well-known or used here in New Zealand but I think there is a big role for it. My goal is to incorporate complementary therapies into mainstream medicine.”

It wasn’t clear what was happening down at the Health Centre, so I went to find out for myself. Wendy Risdon is a Registered Nurse at the UC Health Centre and a Level 5 Healing Touch practitioner. She was more than happy to talk about her work.

DM: How does Touch Healing work?

WR: It”s a biofield therapy, that means it”s utilising the magnetic fields of the body of both the person and the practitioner. And it”s helping to move energy around the body. And I guess people are more familiar with things like acupuncture when you talk about moving energy. It involves the energy centres of the body called chakras.

DM: Have you ever considered that the simple act of massaging could act as a placebo effect and that there are no auras involved?

WR: To a certain extent I do think that the simple interaction between two people in a caring environment has positive benefits. There are measurements which have been done on practitioners and the actual frequency or the Hertz of the vibrations that they”re sending out and so we know that different organs of the body vibrate at different frequencies. What I think happens is that the practitioner can influence those frequencies by the energy that they”re sending out.

Looking through the literature suggested by Wendy revealed many complicated scientific terms used in an attempt to explain the mechanisms behind Healing Touch. Terms borrowed from quantum physics, or just the word quantum were used with audacious frequency. To a person who has studied advanced quantum mechanics, it is clear that the words were being misused. This is known as argument by poetic language; the ‘if it sounds good, it must be right’ argument. Unless you’re a scientist, these things are sometimes hard to detect, but the measurements claimed to have been carried out on the auras are obviously junk science.

So who chooses the recipients of these awards? A panel of senior staff from the Human Relations department determines the best applicants and then makes a recommendation to the Vice-chancellor, Roy Sharp, who has the final say. He was ill in this case, so the final decision became that of Paul O’Flaherty, the Director of Human Resources.

DM: Do you know what Healing Touch is and did you do any research into Healing Touch?

PO: In the application, the application was supported by all the general practitioners at the Health Centre and the director of the Health Centre. One of the panelists rang the director and said, “We understand this is an alternative therapy. Just wanted to check that you did in fact support the application.” When they confirmed they did, we worked it on that basis.

DM: Do you believe the university should fund pseudoscience?

PO: I wouldn’t describe it as that. I took the view with this that this was endorsed by mainstream professional health practitioners.

It doesn’t seem like Human Resources are at fault here. They consulted with the on-campus experts in medicine. It also turns out that there were only three applications for the General Staff development awards this year and all three applications were successful.

Dr Joan Allardyce is the Medical Director of the UC Health Centre.

DM: When you first heard about Healing Touch were you at all sceptical and what research did you do regarding Healing Touch?

JA: I was interested to know how it would be applied and what benefits would be derived. Wendy gave a presentation to all the doctors and nurses and all the doctors and nurses were all happy about it. So basically what it is, is massage. She’s applied it when people have severe neck pains or migraines or really stressed. People go away feeling really improved.

DM: If Healing Touch is acceptable in your health centre, can other members of staff also use other alternative medicines such as homeopathy and magnetic therapy?

JA: No, they are not acceptable. I cannot believe in iridology. We’re not going in that direction. We are absolutely not going down the track of opening our doors to any crackpot out there. Definitely not.

DM: The Healing Touch practitioners, including Wendy believe the healing mechanism is manipulation of an aura. As far as you’re aware, does Health Touch vary from normal massage?

JA: Who knows, it probably doesn’t actually matter. It’s the outcome that matters.

And, of course, Joan is right. Massage Therapy is a well established treatment with peer-reviewed research to back up the results. However, when you rename Massage Therapy as ‘Healing Touch’ and try to explain it with auras and the transfer of energy it becomes pseudoscientific. Massage itself should be sold as such; there’s no need to use mystery and make-believe to help relieve someone’s physical manifestations of stress by giving them a massage, especially intelligent young university students who surely are trying to seek truth in their academic pursuits.

If alternative medicines worked beyond a placebo effect then they wouldn’t be alternative anymore, they’d just be medicine. Alternative medicines become dangerous when they are used in place of conventional medicine to treat more serious conditions. Treating a headache/stress or other psychological ailment is different from treating physiological conditions such as infections or cancer. People believe they’re getting a treatment that works, but they’re paying for something that is ineffective. And in many cases they”re not only paying for the treatment with money, but with their lives. There are many examples listed on the website whatstheharm.net In this case, it seems very unlikely that anyone will be harmed by the practice of Healing Touch at the UC Health Centre. All the medical staff are extremely competent. Healing Touch might work for you. But it has nothing to do with manipulating an aura around your body.

Rudolph Steiner’s Advice to Farmers

Bob Brockie considers the enduring influence of the founder of Anthroposophy

Down on the farm, Rudolf Steiner taught that our forbears lived on the continents of Atlantis (which sank beneath the Atlantic) and Lemuria (which we shared with lemurs until it sank beneath the Indian Ocean).

Men were supersensible and god-like in those days, their thoughts soaring among the stars. Unfortunately, Lucifer and pernicious scientists like Sir Isaac Newton took away our innocence and filled our heads with poisonous nonsense. We are now the degenerate descendants of those far-off happy people but, if we follow Steiner’s precepts, we can regain our innocence, learn again how to soar among the stars, and speak to the dead in the forthcoming Age of Aquarius.

Steiner had something profound to say about most things — coffee, architecture, the banking system, dancing, and agriculture. In 1923 Steiner explained to some Silesian farmers: “If you want to know how beetroot grows you must understand not only what happens in the Earth but in the whole cosmos, for the sun the moon and the planets contain an inner principle of life which controls chemicals on Earth.”

Steiner had a poor view of scientists “who deal with only the corpse of chemistry and not the living substance.” He said, “Only spiritually prepared people understand the living spirit of chemistry.” In the soil, Steiner told his farmers, carbon bore creative and cosmic pictures and sublime imaginations; nitrogen sensed whether there is enough water in a district, and limestone was under the power of the moon, Mercury and Venus.

The planets beam astral energies down on the Earth where these forces can be harnessed by cows’ horns buried in the soil. The horns must be filled with quartz crystals to absorb the astro-ethereal energies, which are then rayed out into the living mystical soil.

To get rid of mice, Steiner recommended that farmers catch one when Venus was in Scorpio, burn its skin and sprinkle its ashes over the fields. This will “negate the reproductive power of the mice…”

He explained that farms were like living organisms, where water played the same role as blood in our bodies. If farmers wanted to potentise their water with cosmic energy, they had to pump, pulse and purify it, as did the heart.

You’d think that this claptrap would have died with Steiner, but No! Emigré continentals brought his ideas and practices to New Zealand where they provide the mainspring and scientific underpinning for biodynamic farming!

Originally published in the Dominion, 6 August, 2001

Peppering the Painted Apple Moth

The Painted Apple Moth spraying programme in the western suburbs of Auckland has generated considerable controversy. An alternative programme was evaluated at last year’s Skeptics

The Painted apple moth was first recorded in the Auckland suburb of Glendene on 5 May 1999. Subsequently, it was reported from the Auckland suburb of Mt Wellington. Since this moth species has the potential to seriously impact on New Zealand’s forestry, conservation and horticulture, an eradication attempt was launched.

Following on from a meeting in November, on 14 December 2001, the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry received a formal “Peppering Trial Proposal against the Painted Apple Moth”.

The submission was made by the Painted Apple Moth Community Coalition (CC-PAM), supported by the Community Advisory Group, an advisory group originally convened by Maf. It was prepared by Hana Blackmore (a Green candidate in the Tamaki electorate) with the assistance of Glen Atkinson of Garuda Biodynamics, Glenys Bean, John Clearwater and Meriel Watts (a Green candidate in the Waitakere electorate).

To quote from the proposal:

“Peppering is a biodynamic method of pest control, which aims to inhibit the reproductive potential of the pest being targeted…

The theory holds that the specific preparation methods produce the negative “energy” of the pest’s reproductive force, operating on a vibrational level, not a material one. Used in the field it enters the soil and surrounding vegetation producing an “unfriendly” and inhibiting environment. It is host specific and non-toxic, and does not have a lethal effect. The method has been used commercially in New Zealand for a number of years with verifiable success.”

The proposal consisted of two trials:

Field Broadcast Trial

Proposal – that Garuda install a Field Broadcast pipe containing the biodynamic preparation of the painted apple moth on the infested Traherne Island.

“The trial will aim to produce a statistically significant reduction in the painted apple moth population on the island. [R]ecent innovative developments by Garuda allow the establishment or enhancement of the reproductive inhibiting ‘pattern’ via Field Broadcast pipes. These are simple PVC pipes with internal copper circuits that can ‘radiate’ the biodynamic preparation that is placed within it.”

Peppering Ground Spray Trial

Proposal – that Garuda conduct a peppering ground spray of the biodynamic preparation of the painted apple moth on one hectare of public land in the heavily infested zone, and that a similar control area is sprayed with water.

“The trial will aim to produce a statistically significant drop in the moth catches in the actively sprayed zone, compared to both the control site and the areas surrounding the active site.”

The Technical Advisory Group (TAG), which assessed the proposal, comprised 21 members (16 scientists, 3 operations experts, 2 local council representatives) and six observers, including a representative from the Community Advisory Group. The group was devised to provide advice and make recommendations relating to the campaign against painted apple moth, including containment, control and eradication options.

One TAG member noted the following with regard to the efficacy of peppering:

“Peppering has been used commercially, as indicated in the proposal, but the “verifiable success” must be questioned. The testimonials from growers are data-free, and relate to insects with a naturally patchy distribution over both time and space. There is no numerical data to support the efficacy of peppering.”

Concern was also expressed regarding changes to the predicted outcome of the trial. The original proposal said that the peppering would affect adult dispersal, so that they were dissuaded from entering, or encouraged to leave, the treated zone; and that it would render the F1 generation sterile. As the aim was to eradicate painted apple moth, causing adults to disperse elsewhere was not considered helpful.

The usual claims about peppering relate to deterrent action, but claims of reproductive inhibition have become more common. Ultimately (and one could suggest, as a result of discussions at the meeting), the final proposal only referred to the sterilising effect of peppering – yet no measurement of this supposed effect was incorporated in the proposal.

The claims of repellent or reproductive inhibition made by the biodynamic proponents could have led to them requiring approval under the HSNO (Hazardous Substances and New Organisms) Act or the ACVM (Agricultural Compounds and Veterinary Medicines) Act. However, such registration may have been waived due to the perception of low risk or low residue involved. Ironically, such a registration could have served to legitimise the claims made for this approach.

Further critique of the proposal concerned a number of other flaws in its approach:

“The proposal(s) focus entirely on comparing numbers of males in traps in the peppered areas with those in non-peppered areas. There is no proposal to measure any infertility, nor to target any other insect. Thus, the proposal does not address the key issues discussed and agreed to at the November 14 meeting.

“Furthermore, it is proposed to run the trial over the entire period of Foray (Btk) spraying, so any results will be compromised by a known effective treatment.

“[T]he proposal as written is technically flawed, and is not capable of demonstrating any effect of peppering on painted apple moth.”

At its 15 January 2002 meeting, the Technical Advisory Group recommended that a peppering trial be undertaken on another species where there was no eradication programme in place. On the basis of this recommendation, MAF declined to supply the proponents of the peppering trial with moths.

On reflection, I have not ceased to be amazed at how officialdom has become so PC that at a critical time in an eradication campaign, much time and money can be wasted on unproven and questionable proposals.

While peppering as a pest control method now has a profile that deserves quantitative scrutiny, an eradication campaign is not the appropriate platform on which to evaluate this biodynamic approach – certainly not without compromising our biosecurity.

Jeanette Fitzsimons wins Skeptics 2002 Bent Spoon Award

This is the press release (slightly edited) which announced this year’s Bent Spoon Winner. Most of the reports used only a small proportion, and included a quote from Ms Fitzsimons saying that the Skeptics could “do whatever they like with their silly bent spoon”.

Supporting the concept of “etheralised Cosmic-Astral influences” as a means of ridding New Zealand of possums has won Jeanette Fitzsimons the 2002 Bent Spoon Award from the New Zealand Skeptics. The annual award spotlights the dangers of gullibility or a lack of critical thought.

“In an area as vital to New Zealand’s ecological preservation as pest control, it is imperative to ensure that publicly funded control techniques are demonstrably effective,” says Skeptics head Vicki Hyde. “That’s why it was so disappointing to see support from the Greens for biodynamic possum peppering as a valid approach to this problem. Our environment needs champions who can separate wishful thinking from reality – if we could wish possums out of this country, they’d be gone overnight!”

Hyde said she was even more disappointed to find out later that Fitzsimons knew of the scientific testing possum peppering had undergone ten years ago. The tests had clearly demonstrated that biodynamic claims of being able to provide a potent repellent were false.

In peppering, the bodies of unwanted organisms are burnt at a certain time in the lunar cycle. The ashy remains are then watered down to produce a spray said to repel, some claim sterilise, the pest concerned. The dilution is to the point where no actual substance remains other than water, which is where the “vital life-force” and “planetary influences” of biodynamics’ “spiritual science” are said to take over.

A decade ago, the Forest Research Institute was the first organisation in the world to test these claims scientifically and in “a reasonably rigorous fashion”, according to Hyde who studied them at the time. They involved the Biodynamic Farming & Gardening Association, a biodynamic farmer and a homeopathic company, and proponents predicted that the “possums would not go near the treated areas and they would probably be desperate to get out of the cages”. In fact, the possums showed no discernible reaction to the spray.

Hyde says that the Skeptics support the examination of such proposals in case there is some undiscovered, effective strategy that has not been identified, but says that “peppering has already been closely examined and found wanting.”

Hyde is concerned that ten years on, peppering is still being proposed as a means of pest control, in Auckland with regard to painted apple moth and with the Green support for its use against possums.

“We’d hate to see public time and money spent on this when it has the potential to delay or dilute real, demonstrably effective approaches to such crucial areas as pest control. We can’t afford to do that when we’ve got possums chomping through tonnes of native forest every night and killing endangered hatchlings.”

The Skeptics conference, which opened in Christchurch on Friday the 13th of September included a presentation on the biosecurity hazards associated with this form of alternative agriculture.

The conference also saw the presentation of the society’s Bravo Awards, honouring intelligent reporting and critical thinking.

“We were pleased to see Mark Chrysell of the Assignment team actually walk into the forests allegedly silenced by 1080-based pest control and listen to the sounds of our recovering birdlife. His ‘Hello Possums’ documentary was a well-balanced piece which allowed both sides of the 1080 debate a chance to make their points.”

The Skeptics have also applauded:

Lynley Hood, author of “A City Possessed”

“There is no question that sexual abuse of children occurs, but the Christchurch Civic Creche case has always raised big question marks for those familiar with the social context and the similar cases overseas which preceded it. Lynley’s work has served to help clarify what makes this case so different from the unquestioned abuse cases that are found all-too-often in our court pages.”

Noel O’Hare, Listener Health columnist
O’Hare has been a previous Bravo Award winner, and his work cited in this year’s award includes the columns Silent Spring Fever (January 19, 2002) and Get Your Snake Oil here (August 17, 2002)

“Health columnists can be very influential, so it is good to see that Noel continues to present a level-headed view in this important area.”

Diana Wichtel, New Zealand Herald
Wichtel was nominated for her hard-hitting article A Monstrous, Lethal Arrogance (June 15), which described the death of Caleb Moorhead as the result of a “severe intelligence deficiency” on the part of his parents. Moorhead was the child who died as a result of his parents’ extreme form of dietary restrictions followed as part of their religious beliefs.

“We were interested to see her comment ‘No beliefs, religious or other, should be tolerated if they deny any child adequate medical care’, and wish this statement had been made clearly through the media some years earlier with regard to the Liam Williams-Holloway case and others.”

Joe Bennett, Press columnist

“We all need a little humour in our lives, and Joe Bennett’s pieces have often taken a good-natured look at the foibles of Mankind’s beliefs in odd notions. He can be scathing and make you smile at the same time, which is an admirable characteristic.”

Biodynamic Background

In her response to the award, Ms Fitzsimons said that the tests by FRI had been poorly designed and proven nothing. She also claimed that she had not advocated peppering, although the original television item showed her saying that she thought it was worth testing (which suggested that she did not know that it had already been tested).

Here are copies of the emails exchanged at the time of the broadcast earlier this year.

Vicki Hyde to Jeanette Fitzsimons, 29 March 2002

Greetings,

I was startled by your comment on television last night re the lack of scientific testing of possum peppering and how this might be a good approach to possum control for New Zealand — I guess you are not aware that possum peppering has been tested independently and scientifically in the past and found not to work.

So in the interests of ensuring that you have some background in this area — a vital one for New Zealand’s ecology after all — I thought I’d drop you a line so that next time it comes up (as it does every couple of years), you might have a better understanding of the issue.
The Forest Research Institute back in 1991 tested this thoroughly when this approach was proposed for possum control on Rangitoto Island. If I recall correctly, they were given around $40,000 to undertake a full set of tests courtesy of the Animal Health Board.
The tests involved the assistance of the Biodynamic Farming and Gardening Association, but clearly demonstrated that the peppering solution was no more effective than using plain water. In my role as editor of the NZ Science Monthly at the time, I actually critiqued the FRI methodology, and they were honest and careful enough to repeat their tests more rigorously, with the same non-results, sadly.

I say sadly, because possums are one of the most dangerous threats to our native flora and fauna (humanity being the greatest, of course). It would have been wonderful to have had an effective, safe, cheap means of possum removal or sterilisation, but this was not the case with peppering.

I appreciate that there are many people who claim to have seen peppering work, but their “tests” usually end up being very informal ones, often anecdotal (a friend of a friend said it worked on his property). As far as I am aware, there hasn’t been anything in any peer-reviewed literature since Eason and Hickling did their work for FRI.

There are many people with vested interests in peppering, whether emotional (as is the case of many of the well-intentioned people using it) or commercial (as with companies supplying biodynamic solutions and services). And it sounds like an easy, no-risk fix, which is why I guess it appeals.

It is all too easy to find people who can make a claim, often sincerely, but that doesn’t make them right. After all, millions of people once believed that the Earth was flat! That’s why it is so important to do the tests in as independent and objective a fashion as possible and, ideally, independently repeating “successes” so that we don’t end up fooled by our own errors and illusions. This is the foundation of science, and it serves as a form of consumer protection for the many ideas that are mooted.

I was very pleased to see you mention the importance of doing this but, as noted, surprised that you weren’t aware of the fact that it has been done once already at least. Certainly one might wish for more testing to be absolutely, positively sure, but I’m sure you appreciate the difficulty of getting public funds to repeat results which show that something doesn’t work! And that’s quite apart from the issue of what sort of mechanism would permit the highly diluted ash of an animal scaring or sterilising another animal…

Because of my science connections, not least with heading the Skeptics, I served on Landcare Research’s Possum Bioethics Committee for eight years until it was disbanded. I served alongside representatives from Forest and Bird, the RNZSPCA, tangata whenua, Federated Farmers (and indeed argued strongly for the involvement of environmental groups with the committee).

We all agreed that we wanted to get rid of possums as quickly and effectively (and humanely) as we could. We all recognised that there are very few easy answers in life, particularly when dealing with the full ramifications of pest control in a complex ecological system. That said, we do hold out hopes for some of the approaches being developed, though I suspect that debate will continue as to the right way to go about this.

But the important thing we have to concentrate on is that the possum control approach we choose is one which works – not one we believe will help. Environmental funding in this country is, regrettably, woefully underfunded, so it is vital that we spend those funds on approaches which work and which can be demonstrated to work.

Possum peppering has been demonstrated NOT to work, not at all – about the only way you could deter possums with it is to have a vast amount of the peppering solution (ie water) in a firehose and spray individual possums until they fall off a cliff into the sea! (Not that I am suggesting that that is an effective – or humane – way of dealing with 70 million of the pests… 🙂

It is important that we look at the real merits of each case – and peppering doesn’t have any. 1080 has some merits, with obvious concerns which need addressing, but I think on the whole it is better than doing nothing. I fervently hope the new biologically-based approaches will be much better, though there will be issues to address regarding the involvement of genetic manipulation.

I do hope that you appreciate that any comments re peppering were certainly not off-the-cuff or knee-jerk ones made by those with no understanding of the situation or appreciation of the urgent need to protect our flora and fauna from the ravages of this, and other, introduced pests. As you’d know, it can be hard, in many cases, to get the full details across in the sound-bites which media afford us….

Best regards,
Vicki Hyde

Jeanette Fitzsimons to Vicki Hyde, 2 April 2002

Dear Vicki

Thank you for your message. I am, of course, well aware of the FRI trials. They treated it as a poison and placed it on plastic out of contact with the soil. I’m still puzzled as to why the BD Association went along with this.

When testing the efficacy of something where you don’t understand the mechanism you are working with it is easy to set up a trial that will have no effect. I don’t blame FRI for this – they had little to go on. Most chemical poisons would not work if applied in the wrong way or at the wrong time or in the wrong dilution.

However, it was not in any way a conclusive test. Also, the monitoring was very short term. The fact is a number of farmers are using the technique for weeds, insects and possums and finding some effect. Practising farmers don’t keep doing things that don’t work. The issue is rather just what mechanism are we working with here and how can it be best enhanced and can it be used on a large scale.

The $40,000 spent by FRI is tiny compared with nine years on GE carrots and still nothing to show for it.

What I would like to see is a trial where those who have worked with the method for a decade or more design the experiment and sceptical scientists monitor the results – but over a long enough time to show delayed effects. Not a lot to ask.

If we refused to use technologies where we don’t understand exactly what is going on we’d still be without electricity and anaesthetics – or so my physicist and chemist friends tell me.

Graham Hickling to Jeanette Fitzsimons, cc Vicki Hyde 15 April 2002

Dear Jeanette

I am one of the researchers who undertook the FRI “Possum peppering” trial in the early ’90s. Vicki Hyde and I have been discussing the media coverage of this topic and she has now passed on to me your recent email. I would like to respond briefly to several of the points you made to her.

1) I am, of course, well aware of the FRI trials. They treated it as a poison and placed it on plastic out of contact with the soil.

We were testing for repellent effects. Toxicity effects weren’t being claimed by the biodynamic growers – they believed the “pepper” would be an effective repellent.

There were three trials undertaken – the third of which ran for several weeks under field conditions. In the third trial the pepper was applied directly to the ground, with NO contact with plastic.

The other two trials did involve plastic. As you will be aware, the trials were designed in consultation with senior members of the Biodynamic Farming and Gardening Association. They never expressed any concern with that aspect of the study when it was being designed. Nor was this issue ever mentioned by those who were advocating that Doc use the technique as an alternative to poison on Rangitoto Island. This highlights the difficulty of designing a trial that addresses all possible future criticisms of it.

[extra comment from Vicki: the painted apple moth biodynamic proponents wanted to put their preparation inside a PVC pipe so it could radiate its repelling energy field — lots of plastic there!]

2) The fact is a number of farmers are using the technique for weeds, insects and possums and finding some effect.

They certainly believe it has an effect. Unfortunately, I am not aware of anyone that has yet demonstrated the effect in a manner that would be robust to the same type of scepticism that you are directing at our trial. I would be as happy as anyone to see such a demonstration.

3) The $40,000 spent by FRI is tiny …what I would like to see is a trial where those who have worked with the method for a decade or more design the experiment and sceptical scientists monitor the results – but over a long enough time to show delayed effects. Not a lot to ask.

A longer term trial would certainly address some of the criticisms of our trial, but would inevitably be expensive. Our pilot trial was funded by the levies that cattle farmers pay when their cattle are sold (ie, Animal Health Board funding). If there had been ANY evidence of a peppering effect, our recommendation would have been to investigate further with longer, more extensive trials.

However, since we found NO sign of an effect we felt it inappropriate to recommend that the taxpayer or farming community pay for further expensive work. Rather, we felt a more appropriate course of action would be for the proponents of peppering to fund further trial work to demonstrate the effect(s) they claim for the method.

4) If we refused to use technologies where we don’t understand exactly what is going on we’d still be without electricity and anaesthetics – or so my physicist and chemist friends tell me.

This issue of “what’s the mechanism?” is very much a red herring. If the pepper repels possums – or sterilises them, or whatever – then that EFFECT should be readily measurable. (If the effect is only a subtle one then it won’t be of much practical use for pest control…).

If someone runs a valid trial that produces convincing evidence for a useful peppering effect then I can assure you that this will spur researchers on to try and figure out the underlying mechanism. (This is what happened with GE research…puzzling effects were evident from early trials, which prompted many subsequent research projects to gradually unravel and develop an understanding of the genetic mechanisms).

Unfortunately, researchers and funding agencies have NOT yet seen convincing evidence that a peppering effect exists. It is therefore unsurprising that they are not currently putting any further effort or funds into researching the mechanisms of how it might work.

If I can be of any assistance to you on this or related matters at a later date please contact me – pest management in New Zealand is a vexing issue that we must all struggle with and I certainly agree that wherever possible we must seek to reduce the application of toxins in the fight against possums.

Yours sincerely,
Graham Hickling
Senior lecturer in Wildlife Management, Lincoln University

Green Around the Gills

Within 12 minutes of the press release being sent out to the email alert list, Vicki Hyde had a response from a senior office-holder in the Green Party expressing concern about the award, but acknowledging that it was deserved! These are his comments on how he saw the debate from within the Green Party.

The subject of possum peppering came up on the Green Party internet “Green Views” list. I was critical of the speech made by leader Jeanette Fitzsimons to the Institute of Engineers suggesting that “alternative forms” of dealing with possums were available, including “possum peppering” which needed more testing to prove its effectiveness.

I stated that there had been testing of this “remedy” some time ago, but it had been found to be ineffective and had to be regarded as more a belief than a science. I was attacked by Meriel Watts (Soil and Health) who demanded that I produce the research results or tell her where she could find them. I was unable to, but later understand that Jeanette Fitzsimons knew what they were all about all along, and had been in contact with Vicki Hyde about them.

On at least two occasions I asked Jeanette (through the list) to respond to the criticisms about her speech and/or provide more information to ordinary members of the Green Party through the list. There was no response whatsoever from Jeanette Fitzsimons. Some members posted details of very critical newspaper editorials – one in the Auckland Herald which was critical about the “occult” view of people in the Green Party (as represented by their apparent belief in possum peppering). They made a comparison to Waikato water having magical Maori qualities and that it shouldn’t be piped to Auckland, in the same breath as the apparent green belief in possum peppering. Another editorial was in, I think, a New Plymouth paper.

Another member gave details about a website that paraded new age stuff, even astrology, and offered to take people’s possum skins, incinerate them, and post the ashes back to them for a fee of $350. Also the site revealed that the theory of possum peppering was devised by Rudolph Steiner in 1923 but that it had never entered the practical realm as a remedy in subsequent years, because people found that it didn’t work.

Some members became quite passionate about defending the practice and in the event, tempers flared and a couple of apologies were issued. Certainly, there was a large amount of polarisation on this issue.

My opinion was, having talked to a number of other people about it, that “belief” in this sort of occult practice was not confined to the Green Party but had adherents in equal proportion to sensible people in most of the political parties. Who can forget the United Future MP who said that Mother Mary protected Wellington churches from earthquake damage and deaths and that they didn’t need insuring?

I had a number of supporters in my stance against possum peppering on the Green Views list, but my main disappointment lay with Jeanette Fitzsimons herself, who found herself unable or unwilling to address the criticism of members over this matter. Also I was disappointed at the reaction of Meriel Watts whose refusal to debate the issue resulted in the inference of her support for possum peppering1, and cast some doubt at the veracity of the worthy things she stands for – including alternatives to pesticide and herbicide treatment, and her worthy support for organic farming (which does have a sound scientific basis), and her anti GE/GM stance.

I have to say that there are many Green Party members who are respected scientists in their own right and do not have any truck with new age stuff and possum peppering in particular.

1Meriel Watts was involved in the proposal to use peppering to eradicate the painted apple moth in Auckland, so her support of peppering does not need to be inferred…