Hokum Locum

Get in Now While the Getting’s Good

John Welch finds that the sexual abuse industry rolls on unabated.

Sexual Abuse Rort

ACC (aka “Aggrieved Clamouring Claimants”) has thrown the doors wide open for sexual abuse claimants. They have budgeted 60 million dollars for sufferers who can claim up to $175,000 “without having to complain to the Police or name their abuser.” Not surprisingly, a Christchurch Law Firm has shown commendable initiative in touting for business with a leaflet drop because “lawyers had a professional obligation to make the public aware of entitlements.”

It is highly significant that a Christchurch firm has seen fit to profit from this ludicrous state of affairs. Proof of sexual abuse has never been required in Christchurch, the Salem of the South Pacific. Dozens of families pocketed tens of thousands of dollars for sexual abuse that never happened while dedicated and talented Christchurch Civic Creche workers had their lives ruined.

I am not sure that James Randi would approve of my challenge but here it is. I offer my endorsement of any claimant who is prepared to claim for ‘ritual satanic alien abuse’, especially if it occurs in a parallel universe.

Given the refusal of the Minister of Justice to read Lynley Hood’s book on the Christchurch Civic Creche debacle, readers could be forgiven for thinking that he and key members of the legal profession currently inhabit a parallel universe.

Several years ago a man spent $80,000 defending himself against charges of sexual abuse “remembered” by his two daughters. He was acquitted as he was able to prove that the alleged abuse not only did not happen but it was impossible for it to happen. A reporter reasonably asked the question of ACC whether the two daughters would have to repay their compensation. “Oh no,” said the Spokesperson, “they are entitled to it for their suffering.”

The budgeted sum of 60 million dollars will experience a blowout version of “Welch’s Law” which states that claims expand to take up the amount of compensation available.

Marlborough Express 9 Jan 2002

The Vigorex Products – Oat cuisine?

These are homeopathic extracts of ‘avena sativa’ and contain nothing injurious to health. Readers familiar with homeopathic theory will know that such a product description is entirely true. Homeopathic preparations contain precisely nothing and placebo controlled trials of homeopathic preparations are in fact trials of one placebo versus another. This explains why placebo controlled trials of homeopathy will sometimes produce a result favouring the homeopathic wing of the trial. This led one wag to suggest that what was needed were “double-strength” placebos!

Vigorex is a product developed from oats. Readers will be interested in the admission that “skeptics have doubted the existence of an effective sex enhancer.”

Reports indicated that “some fell (sic) an increase in energy within one or two hours and use it instead of coffee to get going in the morning … some say they start taking it on a Thursday or Friday in anticipation of a sexual weekend.”

I decided to rise to the challenge, hopefully in every sense. After extensive product testing I have to say that my wife developed a headache which was not relieved by another homeopathic preparation.

The Scots have eaten porridge for years so there may be more to this than meets the eye.

Pamphlet Supplied

Homeopathy useless against Malaria

Because of conventional drug side effects, a woman decided to rely on homeopathic drugs for malaria protection whilst holidaying in Africa. These homeopathic products were made from “African swamp water containing impurities, algae and plants as well as mosquito slough, larvae and eggs.” Following her return home she became very unwell and was admitted to an intensive care unit with multiple organ system failure due to malaria infection.

There will be no claim for medicolegal liability because “the manufacturer, who has performed no clinical trials on this drug, declines all responsibility regarding its use.”

Homeopathic remedies should only be used for harmless self-limiting disorders that require no treatment, which is precisely what homeopathy is all about.

BMJ Vol 321 18 Nov 2000 p 1288

Kentucky Fried Medicine

The NZ Health Authorities recently had to warn all doctors that two Chinese herbal medicine capsules contained the potent corticosteroid betamethasone. These were Cheng Kum and Shen Loon. The Ministry of Health had earlier removed Cheng Kum from the market when it was shown to contain the antihistamine chlorpheniramine.

Since most Chinese herbal remedies are either useless or dangerous it is hardly surprising that they are incorporating effective Western drugs in a fraudulent attempt to demonstrate effectiveness. The same problem has occurred in the UK where random tests were still finding banned substances such as mercury, arsenic and steroids in traditional Chinese medicine. Some also contained parts from endangered animal species.

Why should we respect medieval beliefs that endanger the continued existence of magnificent animals such as tigers because superstition demands the use of their bones? The criminals responsible for these excesses should be ground up themselves and processed into traditional remedies, and in this spirit I have formed a company marketing a new herbal remedy for cats called Meow Zedung.

BMJ Vol 323 6 Oct 2001 p770; MEDSAFE 14 Dec 2001

Flux for Flux?

While in Ireland recently I kept a watchful eye for useful material and was not disappointed by an article in the Irish Examiner of 14-11-01. A company managed to sell to over 485 schools, a $70 magnetic clip designed to be attached to the underwear and claimed to “banish the misery of painful periods.” The device is the size of a 10p piece and it is claimed “sends out a magnetic field which penetrates up to 7 inches into the body.”

This device is a classic placebo and it is easy to see how successful it would be in a Priest-ridden country where the Catholic religion ensures young women are made to feel bad about their emerging sexuality.

The article goes on to make the following claim “…66 out of 100 painful period sufferers took significantly less medication when wearing the device during their periods.” If these young women received sympathetic advice and explanation about their periods in a climate of healthy acceptance, there would be an equally impressive improvement.

I know of a much better market for this device. Some enterprising person should promote it for male impotence.

Fad Allergies

Around 20 in 100 Britains believe they suffer from allergies and intolerance to dairy foods and wheat-based products. However, nutritional research reveals the true figure is less than 1 per 100.

This is an area rife with quacks conducting all sorts of unscientific tests and giving potentially dangerous advice. People are using food allergies and intolerance as an excuse for weight gain and niggling health problems such as every GP’s fear – TATT (tired all the time) syndrome. The very idea that you can have a food allergy and gain weight is preposterous.

The Daily Telegraph 5 Nov 2001

Forum

More Brocken sightings

I enjoyed Jim Ring’s “the Spectre of Kahurangi” (Autumn 2001). In Kahurangi National Park there is a bridge called “Brocken Bridge”, quite close to Ghost Creek. Could this be an indication of supernatural forces emanating from this enchanting region?

As a NZFS park ranger there for two years, I discovered a more prosaic explanation, at least for the bridge. It seems that someone stampeded a herd of cattle on to the old bridge during a flood, and the cattle – and bridge – were lost in the floodwaters. The name then became “Broken Bridge”. We Forest Service staff were not renowned for our literary skills, and various track junctions started sprouting signs saying “Brocken Bridge”.

Rather disappointing, really.

Piers Maclaren

Homoeopathy test?

As a result of an accident on State Highway One recently a quantity of rat poison was tipped into the sea near Kaikoura. At first sight this seemed to me to be Mother Nature setting up a large-scale test of homoeopathy. My reasoning was as follows: we have a poison diluted with an enormous volume of water (tides are strong and the sea very deep off the Kaikoura coast), and we have succussion (see the surf breaking over the rocks). The rat poison, brodifacoum, like the better known warfarin, is an anti-coagulant, causing death by extensive bleeding. So, by homoeopathic principles, a very high dilution should have the opposite effect, causing strokes and heart failure among the seals, dolphins and whales, brought on by clottability of their blood.

I could see that measuring this effect could be difficult, but I persisted with my calculations. Sadly, I abandoned the project, chiefly because the concentration of rat poison in the sea turned out to be far too high. The amount of material dumped in the sea, 18 tonnes, was quite large, and even allowing for only a low proportion of active ingredient in the bait, and assuming it to have been instantly and uniformly dispersed in deep water of some thousands of square kilometres in area, the final concentration was in the order of one molecule of poison in ten litres of sea. This is, of course, far too high for homoeopathic work, where concentrations of one molecule in a volume equal to that of the Earth are normal. Regretfully, I shall not be issuing an invitation to marine mammals to volunteer for a study of the after-effects of this accident.

Bernard Howard

Sensitive Issues

In the last issue of the Skeptic (Autumn 2001), I quoted the reaction of the Commissioner for Children, Roger McClay, to the news of Liam Williams-Holloways death:

“Whether a different course of action would have been better, there’s not much point in worrying about it now.”

That response troubled me as it seemed so out of character, so I rang the office and asked Mr McClay about it. It seems that news of Liam’s death was sprung on Mr McClay while he was at a conference and he was asked to comment on the spot. The news upset him but he didn’t think it appropriate to take the family to task at that time, and this was the result.

The question now is, having had time to think about the implications of the whole saga, what will the office’s/commissioner’s response be next time? We’ll get a chance to find out at this year’s conference when an advocate from the Office will be speaking, so come to Hamilton with your own questions!

Vicki Hyde

Rebirth of Quackery

G B Shaw once said that the only difference between animals and humans was that humans like taking pills. It’s clear things haven’t changed since his time when you visit a library and see the number of books on how to be healthy.

Many quack medicine producers have made their money here out of our gullibles and have moved on. Bowel cleansers, hair restorers, nail hardeners, bust developers and fat loss treatments to name a few.

As one example, Black strap molasses’s only virtue was that due to insoluble matter it acted as a bowel irritant with laxative results. Now if you have a lot of molasses left over from sugar refining, use it to make rum or stock lick and get rid of the rest as a good health supplement.

When deer lose their antlers in the wild they recycle them, but when farmed the antler is a dangerous weapon so they are removed at the velvet stage. Now because the Chinese have used them for medicine for thousands of years there is money to be made out of this by-product.

Bee keepers and retired politicians are extolling the benefits of pollen, bee venom and propolis. Their claims for vitamin, mineral and amino acid content are way over the top. All the bee venom rubs which claim to be the panacea of all our skeletal and muscular remedies have added counter irritants which give the impression that this wonder of bee venom is being absorbed, which fortunately it is not. Finally, we come to propolis, bee glue, a dark brown resinous substance collected by the bee from trees. This phenolic resin is used to seal the hive and retain warmth, the antispetic properties of the resin will have some effect in keeping the bacterial integrity of the hive intact.

These are but a few of the nonsense claims to which we could add, electrical devices, magnets, emu oil, homeopathics and a plethora of herbals. If proof of efficacy could be established then such items would be added to the orthodox medicinal armoury. Meanwhile remember “ashes to ashes and dust to dust, if the liquor don’t get you the free radicals must”.

Alan Pickmere, retired pharmacist

A considerable easing of international tensions

There has been a considerable easing of international tensions since the dark days of the mid-twentieth century. John Riddell thinks he knows why.

Take Two Dictators and Call Me in the Morning

AT the end of World War II, a man called Adolf Hitler killed himself. His followers then took his body and burnt it. The water in his corpse was heated and turned to steam. Also, the combustion process itself artificially manufactures water by combining some of the hydrogen in his body with oxygen in the atmosphere. The importance of these grisly facts will of course be obvious to anyone familiar with homeopathy.

The water given off by his cremation must have risen into the air and become increasingly diluted with the mass of the rest of the planet. Now the mass of the earth is about 5.98×1024 kilograms. And the mass of Adolf Hitler, pre cremation, about 100 kilograms (plus or minus 50kg). Now if the mass of Adolf was evenly diluted with the whole earth, that becomes a dilution of 1 part Adolf per 5.98×1022. In homeopathic terms this is extremely potent. This is approximately a potency of 22X, that is a 1:10 dilution repeated 22 times. Of course in reality, some parts of Adolf will be much more concentrated than this, but on average it would be reasonable to expect that each glass of water you drink is going to be a very powerful homeopathic Hitler. Now the exact consequences of drinking small amounts of Adolf over a long period of time have not yet been determined. However, we might make some predictions based on homeopathic theory.

The way homeopathy is supposed to work is that by exposing yourself to very dilute amounts of chemicals that produce certain symptoms, you will stimulate your body’s defences and prevent those symptoms from happening. For example, a chemical that produces chest pains might be diluted to produce a homeopathic remedy that protects you against chest pain.

So we might look at some of the things that were caused by Hitler. The effect of people all over the world taking a highly potentised dose of Adolf should, if homeopathy works, be a reduction of those symptoms for which Hitler was famous.

Now Hitler was intolerant of Jews, Poles and Homosexuals. As predicted by this theory there has been a marked improvement in the treatment of these three groups by people around the globe. Similarly, Adolf was also well known for starting and waging wars. While Hitler was in charge of Germany, there was a world war. Since then, there has not been a world war. More confirmation of the hypothesis that a homeopathic Hitler remedy has been of benefit to the world.

But then my brother has just pointed out that perhaps it is a case of a biodynamic effect, as opposed to homeopathic. Rudolf Steiner, bless his tiny wee brain, thought you could get rid of thistles by wandering round the paddock pulling all the flowers off. Actually, that will work, but it was what he did next that was strange. He took the flowers home and burnt them and then sprinkled the ashes around the farm. He never worked out that the reason there were fewer thistles the next year was because somebody kept pulling the flowers off.

Some followers (why do they always have followers?) of Rudolf thought this might work with possums. They caught a few possums and cut off their testicles. I don’t know if the possums were alive at the time. They then burnt the testicles and sprinkled the ashes around the bush. According to them, the remaining possums moved out of the area. I can’t see possums giving up their genitalia without a fight, so I assume they killed them first. After all, they couldn’t have them go back to the bush saying “Watch out for the guy with the knife” But then again, maybe that’s what made the possums move out.

So when they burnt Adolf, it is fair to assume they didn’t remove his testicles first. Which means Hitler’s cremated testicular dust got blown around Berlin. From that day to this, there hasn’t been another fascist megalomaniac in charge of Germany. Perhaps there is something to this Biodynamics business after all?

Skepsis

In the wake of the green-lipped mussel debacle, the Australian Menopause Society (AMS) convened an expert panel of doctors to discuss controversial areas of menopausal medicine. Alternative therapies are a boom industry in Australia and New Zealand (worth in excess of $1 billion in Australia) with menopausal women the highest users.

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Forum

I am sure Jim Ring is correct when he says we are on the winning side of the creationist battle [Forum, Summer 1997], but there is no room for complacency. As he says, the castrated form of biology taught in American schools has resulted in a minority of Americans believing organic evolution has occurred.

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Memory Man Hits Out

Two Nobel prizewinners are being sued for libel by Jacques Benveniste, the controversial French scientist whose research on the “memory of water”, first published in 1988, appeared to provide a scientific basis for homeopathic medicine.

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Forum

Ten or twenty years ago, prominent overseas creationists once toured in a blaze of publicity. They spoke in public schools and received plenty of air time on National Radio and prime time TV. Some of us were out there fighting, and we felt we won most of the major battles.

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Beer and Skittles

John Riddell spends a lot of time in the pub. Ask his wife. Often, over a pint or two, some bloke or blokess spouts forth some new age dogma which naturally requires correction.. Now a seasoned debater, he this month begins a regular series sharing his collection of responses honed to the mental capabilities of your average bar-room intellectual.

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Active Skepticism

Skeptics can take an active stance in their daily lives, according to this abridged version of the Chair-entity’s after-dinner speech from the Conference.

It’s been four years since I stood before a skeptical audience in Nelson and confessed to being a dry skeptic who was a little wet behind the ears. It’s been an interesting four years, not least due to the fact that the following year’s Skeptics conference saw me elevated to the Chair-entityship.

Since then I’ve learnt a lot — in many cases more than I care to know — about the human capacity for self-deception, gullibility and, in some cases, sheer greed. I’ve been asked to make pronouncements on everything from moa sightings to the Maori science curriculum, and have cheerfully done so while attempting to ensure that the Skeptics did not come across as a dogmatic, authoritarian bunch of killjoys. When people ask me who the Skeptics are, I reply “We’re the guys that say the Emperor’s not wearing any clothes and how come no-one else has noticed.”

We do know that the sorts of things that Denis and I and others have done has meant that the Skeptics as an organisation have had an effect. That’s recognised by the number of calls from journalists I get which begin with “We don’t want to get the Bent Spoon so we thought we’d better check with you guys…” It is gratifying to note that such calls have increased over the past four years.

I’ve also been interested to see how the development of international electronic contacts has helped various skeptical causes. The sci.skeptic newsgroup on Usenet is woefully deficient in the apparently mandatory pornographic pictures and pyrotechnical instructions, but it does provide a useful information source for the many and varied idiocies that Man is heir to. It is useful to be able to drop a note on the Net asking for information on the latest visiting loony and to have that information to hand when you’re rung up and asked to comment on everything from flying saucer conspiracies to creationism.

It also means we can be forewarned of forthcoming fads simply by keeping an eye on what’s happening overseas and waiting just a bit. We’ve seen alien abductions, satanic ritual abuse and repressed memory arrive here following their development in the US scene. I am glad to say that it looks like interest in those areas has peaked as the voracious US appetite for sensationalism and voyeurism moves on.

Keep an eye out for millennial sightings — the Holy Virgin appearing in a taro or reports of guardian angels (complete with wings, rather than red berets) helping out the afflicted. That seems to be the latest enthusiasm Stateside.

Practical Skepticism

For those of you who’d like to try something a little more practical in terms of applied skepticism, I have some suggestions for you as to the options that lie open for the skeptic who wishes to be a little more proactive in his or her life.

I believe that there are many ways in which we can make a difference.

Perhaps first and foremost is demanding from our media that they treat us as intelligent, rational beings who are capable of sitting through an hour-long television investigation into a complex subject, who are interested in reading material that is challenging and thought-provoking. It’s a delight each year to be able to select the awards for journalistic excellence — I just wish we had more candidates.

By all means complain to the television people and to the papers if they run stupid stories or totally uncritical puff pieces. If you can, explain why you were annoyed, suggest things that could have been included, useful source people for opinions or interviews. Make the complaint a constructive one.

But also, please, don’t forget to write and praise them when something good comes along. It’s a sneaky strategy but one that can be far more effective — praise is a rare thing these days and tends to be remembered far longer than just another rant.

We shouldn’t be content with just taking on the media, as critical thinking is important in all aspects of our lives.

Informed Boycotting

I stopped using the chemist in our local mall when they started stocking homeopathic first aid kits. I had managed to ignore the expanding shelves of homeopathics, aromatherapy oils, megavitamins and the like, but the promotion of a first aid kit based on homeopathic principles was too much. It makes a mockery of the much-touted phrase “the health professional you see most often”.

It also makes me wonder about the professional ethics of these so-called health professionals that they are able to stock material like this and do in-store promotions pushing pseudo-medicine. I presume that it’s more a matter of ignorance in most cases, but which is more disturbing — a chemist who apparently doesn’t know the difference between tested, regulated medicinal materials and diluted, evaporated water tablets; or the chemist who does know what they’re touting and doesn’t care?

(As an aside, I believe that sloppiness or ignorance in caring for the health of the public affects other areas of the pharmacy involved. On the last three occasions when I went to buy something medicinal there, I noticed that the use-by dates were well and truly over, in one case by three years.)

I make an effort not to buy from Amcal chemists after having read the mix of fact and fantasy in a glossy “Healthcare” advertorial magazine. In amongst some relatively sensible pieces on middle ear infections and coping with thrush, they had an article and advert on aromatherapy, touted as having been a part of our medical history from 2,000 years ago, when Hippocrates spoke of the benefits of an aromatic bath.

Now I like an aromatic bath or a massage as much as anyone, but I find it difficult to believe that a trained pharmacist can tout burning essential oil of lemon for the promotion of clarity, inspiration and to provide excellent antiviral properties. I expect to find these sort of products and claims in a New Age shop of one form or another, between the mung beans and the royal jelly, not from someone who presumably has some modicum of medical acumen.

I’m pleased to say that I now walk down the road to another chemist which doesn’t foist these money-spinners onto an ignorant public. I talked to this pharmacist about why I support his shop — he doesn’t have homeopathics or other dubious items. He does have garlic tablets, vitamin pills and the like but I can live with that because, being realistic, there is market demand for them and there is some use in them. (He also has them tucked down on a bottom shelf for those who want them, rather than spilling over everything else in sight.)

I was waiting for a prescription the other day, idly picked up one of the bottles of vitamins and was startled to find in rather large letters on the side “These vitamins are recommended for use where dietary intake is inadequate for some reason — eg pregnancy, heavy sports training.”

In effect, the label was telling the consumer that if you’re eating properly and your body’s not stressed, don’t bother with these. It’s an odd thing to have on a product you’re trying to sell. Even odder was the fact that this was on a product from Roche, one of the supposedly big nasty chemical companies who are out to poison the planet.

I checked out the labels on vitamins from the friendly, healthy organic companies who are there to make your world a better place to live in. Of the four different manufacturers in stock, only one of these had an equivalent label, though it was less direct, printed in much smaller type and came after all the information on how many tablets you should be swallowing daily.

What does this tell us about the ethics in operation here? It’s certainly counter to all the chemophobic propaganda that masquerades as advertising, articles in the popular press and in the minds of the general public.

Sure we need to keep an eye on what those chemical companies are up to — it’s taken a lot of concerted action over the past 30 years to produce at least some measure of control and consumer safety issues. But we can’t afford to let those other commercial organisations get away with things just because they’re touting a natural, organic, alternative image.

The same goes for other areas where organisations want to take the moral high ground on certain issues. One such area is that of environmental issues. I consider myself a practising environmentalist — though often I prefer to use the term ecologist these days, as the former has gained many connotations which make me uncomfortable.

Some years back, Heather Mackay sent me an environmental magazine that had just started up. The articles were advertorial on one sort or another, spelling out the wonders of guaranteed dolphin-free tuna next to ads from a large seafood provider and so on.

One article in particular which caught my eye was the one which said that all our allergies and modern ills are being caused by the decreasing amount of oxygen in the atmosphere. It went on to recommend that we all consume what it called “oxygen water” to boost our flagging immune systems; oxygen water being defined as “simply water with an extra oxygen atom attached”. It doesn’t take much chemistry to realise that H<W0V>20 plus 0 equals H<W0V>20<W0V>2, or hydrogen peroxide. Some of you may recall the delightful speech we had from Alan Hart a few years ago on the dubious benefits to be gained from this potentially potent hair bleach and rocket fuel. So I took a look at the organisation putting out this publication and found that they were an environmental group who focused on marine issues. Interestingly, neither the people at the local DOC conservancy, nor friends at our local Environment and Peace Centre knew much about the group, beyond the fact that they produced a nice range of T-shirts.

It’s one environment group which won’t get my money or support, and I’m equally distrustful of the advertisers and products in their publication. Much in all as I don’t want to eat tuna which has had a high sidekill of dolphins, I’d rather it came from a company which has put some thought into the sort of marketing it undertakes.

I’m also dubious about another group which had been campaigning heavily against horticultural use of pesticides. A group of orchardists had apparently been spraying their crops and their neighbours in a new subdivision nearby immediately were said to have come down with nausea, coughs, headaches, asthma attacks — everything short of leprosy it seemed.

The environmental group produced a photo as proof that the spraying was at fault. It showed a plane releasing a cloud of noxious looking vapour which was obviously going to pass over the nearby houses.

A chemical safety consultant friend of mine identified the plane and checked things out. He found out that the contractor had released a light smoke bomb to check wind direction and spray drift — no spraying had been undertaken at all during the period claimed. He told the group involved that they’d got things wrong and was told yes they knew that, no it didn’t matter — the protest aims were more important than the truth. He promptly resigned his membership.

I didn’t bother renewing my Consumer subscription after they got the Bent Spoon award a couple of years ago. It was not so much that they got the award (everyone in publishing has the odd “off” issue), it was the injured, rather self-righteous tones with which the appalling article was defended that made me feel the organisation no longer had sufficient credibility in my eyes to keep me a member.

I still read the magazine in the library from time to time, but I’m a lot more skeptical about their pieces than I once was. After all, I do know something about the alternative health scene and could judge for myself how poorly researched the piece was — I don’t know anything about medical insurance or stereo systems, so how do I know what they’re writing on those issues is right?

I remain highly skeptical about acupuncture and its uses, but didn’t have too many problems with it until a mother in my local baby group announced that her acupuncturist had said the best way to treat a baby with a fever was to bleed it.

“That’s positively medieval” I gasped, only to be reassured “oh no, it’s much older than that, the Chinese have been doing it for thousands of years”.

I knew this woman wasn’t going to be interested in a tirade, but I pointed out just how little blood a small baby has to lose before it gets into dire trouble. She could see what I was getting at and even nodded when I added that she might like to consider changing her acupuncturist.

If you can stop and make people think about an issue, explain even briefly why you have problems coming to terms with something which uses pseudoscience or shonky science, then you’ve done a Good Thing. And it isn’t really that hard to make people think.

If you explain homeopathic solutions in terms of a teaspoonful of gin to a Pacific Ocean of tonic, people can immediately grasp what you’re getting at when you’re challenging the idea of potent dilutions.

When people stop and think about it, they know that it doesn’t seem all that likely that a civilisation immeasurably more advanced than ours would want to travel hundreds of thousands of miles across space to stick things up the noses of neurotic Americans. The idea becomes even more ridiculous when you point out that the figures being bandied about for alien abductions mean that one American has been abducted every minute every night for the past 30 years. People know that there are simpler solutions.

One of the loveliest images I have come across in trying to explain the skeptical ideal of seeking the most likely explanation for strange phenomena is the one used on our new Skeptics leaflets and on our Web page:

When you hear the sound of hoofbeats in the night, think first of horses, not zebras.

The image appeals to me, as does the fact that it doesn’t rule out the possibility that it might just be a herd of zebras cantering past your window, depending on your circumstances…

That’s the sign of the thinking skeptic.

Hokum Locum

Sickness and Psychogenic Illness

The Canterbury ME (chronic fatigue syndrome, or CFS) are up in arms over proposed tighter controls on patients receiving both invalid and sickness benefits. CFS patients want funding for “residential detoxification services and “subsidies on natural remedies”. CFS is a classical psychogenic illness and as such it is quite improper for any affected patient to be on any long-term benefit on their own terms. Because of self-denial these patients resist any sensible suggestions on treatment and end up chronically unwell in a fulfilment of Abraham Lincoln’s statement that “most folks are as happy as they make up their mind to be.”

I managed to persuade such a patient to take anti-depressants and the improvement in well-being was amazing. This same person had paid to have all amalgam dental fillings removed and replaced with a predictable lack of improvement. A characteristic of CFS is the almost fanatical belief of the patients that their “illness” has a physical cause. Here is a report from a clinical psychologist about such a patient: “He scored nought on the depression inventory and three on the anxiety inventory. This is a person who does not wish to reveal anything about himself. During the interview he made it clear that he sees his problem in terms of recovery from a physical illness with no concomitant psychological manifestation.”

This fanatical belief in a physical cause of ME is also shared by many doctors whose therapeutic contact with their patients becomes a classic folie a deux.

Cultural variations were found in a WHO study which looked at depression worldwide. Only 5% of patients who were depressed said that they had psychological problems. Such a level of denial is compounded by the useless treatments offered by doctors. For example, antidepressants were prescribed for anxiety as often as for depression. Japan had a low incidence of depression due to the Japanese concept of jibyo signifying a mild chronic illness which a person carries through life and is not considered serious.

It should be mandatory for all patients with a diagnosis of CFS to undergo assessment by a Mental Health team. No person with CFS should be entitled to any long-term benefit unless they have had at least a six month trial of anti-depressant therapy. (Christchurch Press 18/7/95 New Scientist 25/3/95 p10)

Multiple Personality Disorder

This is a typically loony belief of New Age psychiatrists and it has received widespread acceptance in the US. This is hardly surprising in a culture where thousands of people believe that they have been abducted by aliens. Even such an august institution as Harvard Medical School has a psychiatrist who believes that extraterrestrial beings have visited this planet and abducted Earthlings! Striking a blow for academic freedom, the Dean of the Medical School “reaffirmed Dr Mack’s freedom to study what he wishes and to state his opinions without impediment.” In contrast, the British specialists have condemned the idea in scathing terms. Imagine the convenience of being able to blame an alternative personality for some misfortune such as a criminal offence. This absurd concept of MPD fits in to the prevailing “victim” philosophy of life whose adherents view themselves as being subject to forces beyond their control. (New Scientist 17 June 95, GP Weekly 23/8/95)

Continuing OOS Delusions

The occupational health professionals continue to indulge themselves over OOS. ACC is reported as being concerned about the vague nature of OOS and the fact that claims cannot be satisfactorily proved or disproved. Claims against ACC reached $4 million in the year ended 30 June 1994 and are increasing. The huge army of consultants advising on posture are doing just that — posturing.

At least I managed to get my contrary view published in Safeguard. Bernard Howard also sent me a newspaper cutting of a story concerning a musician allegedly suffering from OOS. I will quote his remarks which need no further comment: “After centuries of playing their instruments for hours per day, every day, musicians are only now developing OOS. Come back Paganini…all’s forgiven!” (Safeguard Update Nos 26, 27 1995.)

Medicine Chinoise

15,000 French doctors practise acupuncture and many also use “high-dilution” homeopathic medicines. It is not surprising then that a hospital dedicated to traditional Chinese medicine will open in Paris next year under the joint sponsorship of the Chinese and French Ministries of health. It is promoted as a measure to control spiralling health costs.

This trendy quackery will help the “worried well” but will do nothing to control spiralling health costs which are a feature of unreasonable patient expectation and over-application of medical technology. (British Medical Journal Vol 310 p1285)

Uncontrolled Medical Appetites

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is a radiological technique which is valuable for examining internal organs. In NZ Doctor, an American doctor outlines what he calls MRI madness. Americans are so obsessed with MRI technology that there are 25 times as many machines in California as in Canada, which has about the same population. Patients demand MRI scans for virtually any medical condition and as a third party (ie. insurance company) is paying, they get what they want.

Just about everyone with low back pain gets an MRI scan. However, a new study found that two out of three people without back pain have evidence of a disc protrusion. The authors concluded that anatomical abnormalities are common in normal people.

A skeptical US doctor described the obsession with MRI as “MRI tiger balm”. (GP Weekly 27/7/94, NZ Doctor 23/6/95)

A Reader Writes

In Skeptic 36 I asked how long before magic mushrooms (Kombucha) arrived in New Zealand. John Turner has written from Motueka to tell me that they are here! [See also Forum] I hope I am not compromising his continued existence in Golden Bay by passing on his description of the area as being a “bloated gelatinous pancake of new Ageism.” As John describes it: “the ‘mushroom’ has a baby which is then passed on to someone else.”

One convert claimed he was cured of “toxins” which coloured his urine brown as they left his body. John quite reasonably enquired as to what colour the mushroom brew was. It was brown! Those readers contemplating a visit to Golden Bay will be pleased to know that every quack treatment is available from holistic pulsing to sound healing with “yidaki” or as it is more commonly known, didgeridoo therapy. This may all sound like a lot of didgeridoodoo but in the US a woman died and another was hospitalised due to severe acidosis after drinking Kombucha tea. (John Turner (personal communication), Nelson Evening Mail 8/7/95, NCAHF Vol 18 No.3)

Anti-Immunisation Quacks

I recently complained to the Medical Practioners Disciplinary Committee (MPDC) about a doctor who made a series of ignorant and unproven claims in respect of immunisation. The MPDC is fairly toothless when it comes to dealing with scientific incompetence in medical practitioners and the unrepentant doctor even wrote me a letter declaring he was proud to be a member of the American Quack Association (Quack = Quality, Care and Kindness). I will quote a short passage to show how impossible it is to argue with such people.

I challenged his claim that Vitamin C is an effective treatment for viral diseases (7 placebo controlled trials showed lack of effect for Vit C in the treatment of cold virus infections). Here is his reply: “There is extensive peer-reviewed literature bearing witness to the clinical effectiveness of ascorbic acid in viral diseases. You will not find reference to this in Medline or Index Medicus journals that represent only about 10% of the world’s scientific journals and are controlled by the international pharmaceutical industry.”

This one paragraph contains two of the main quack elements. Firstly the suggestion that some alternative inferior data base is an acceptable alternative to controlled trials, and secondly the familiar old conspiracy bogey that scientific journals are controlled by vested interests.

The President of the Australian Medical Association has come out a lot more strongly than the NZ MPDC, by recommending that doctors who use their scientific standing in the community to support the anti-immunisation movement should be charged with medical negligence. At the time he made this remark Australia came near the bottom of a list of industrialised nations when rates of childhood immunisations were compared.

It is sad that at time of writing Russia is in the grip of an epidemic of diptheria which has killed more than 2000 people. This was a direct result of allowing immunisation levels to drop below the 95% required to prevent epidemics. (Dr Quack (personal communication), British Medical Journal Vol 310, p760. Lancet Vol 345 p715)

Evidence Based Medicine

Although my main interest is alternative medical quackery there are many traditionally accepted medical practices which have never been critically evaluated. I mentioned counselling in Skeptic 36 and this was enlarged on by Jim Ring in the last issue.

In Britain, the BMJ is sponsoring a Journal of Evidence-Based Medicine which is aimed at critically evaluating both new and old treatments. The key element is randomised controlled trials (RCT’s) in which patients must be randomly allocated to either a new treatment group or a control group (may be the existing treatment or no treatment). A survey of RCT’s in pregnancy and childbirth found that out of 100 procedures commonly carried out by obstetricians and midwives, about 20 are actually harmful.

If you go to your doctor complaining of a cough, the chances are that you will come away with a prescription for an antibiotic. This is despite the fact that seven RCT’s have shown no benefit for such treatment. It was also difficult to carry out the trials because in one survey 60% of eligible patients refused to enter a trial because they felt that antibiotics were absolutely necessary to cure their condition. Perhaps this is a good argument for using harmless placebos in such cases? I should mention a note of caution against blindly imposing the results of RCT’s on patients and this point was well expounded by Sir John Scott at our last conference. What will it take to stop physicians from prescribing antibiotics in acute bronchitis? (Lancet Vol 345 p665)

Fat Fraud

Aminophylline-containing cream is a popular quack remedy for reducing the size of large thighs. In a test, researchers studied women who were asked to massage either the cream or a placebo into one thigh and one side of the stomach. 11 out of the 17 women completed the study and, as anyone could have predicted, there was no fat-reducing effect. Despite measurements to the contrary, one woman was convinced that the cream worked. If it is important for people to believe in something, no amount of evidence to the contrary will convince them. (National Council Against Health Fraud (NCAHF) Vol 18 N0.3)

Civic Creche Case

Professor Michael Hill examined some of the issues behind the civic creche case in an article in the Christchurch Press 31/3/95 which I have forwarded to our editor. Hill coins the phrase “culture of complaint” in which disaffected people take little responsibility for their own lives and look instead for someone to blame. The existence of compensation through litigation completes this ‘Americanisation’ of our culture. It is incredible how quickly the false ideas behind ritual sexual abuse spread and were recreated throughout NZ.

I was disgusted with the judiciary over the civic creche case although the whole process was hijacked by the usual cohort of poorly trained quack therapists. The prosecution was able to get away with not presenting evidential material so ridiculous that it would have weakened their case. In a trial of any kind all the evidence should be available to both sides. My heart goes out to the falsely accused women whose lives have been ruined by this evil nonsense. I seriously question whether there was any chance at all of Peter Ellis getting a fair trial in an atmosphere of hysteria reminiscent of the Salem witch hunts.

Homeopathologies

A group of scientists have petitioned the FDA to place tighter restrictions on homeopathic remedies by making them reach the same standards of safety and effectiveness as other OTC drugs. There should not be any problem over safety since such remedies are the pharmacological version of the emperor’s new clothes. The drug exists in the imagination only.

Predictably there has been opposition from the National Centre for Homeopathy because “homeopathy doesn’t treat diseases but treats people who are ill.” The NCH wants a different type of evaluation. This is rather like admitting that homeopathy is scientifically inexplicable so a new science must be created to explain it.

Homeopathy – Witchcraft for the Times

For a host of reasons which the NZ Skeptic will examine further in a later issue, the so-called “natural health” industry is enjoying a remarkable resurgence. One cannot refute the argument that we should take responsibility for our own health and that we should not expect modern medicine to provide on demand pills to cure all our ills, particularly those which are self-induced or the result of old age. Moderation in all things (including moderation) will generally help any of us to lead a vital and active life.

However, a host of charlatans have now hitched their star to this valid need to take some responsibility for our own health, and are busy peddling nostrums which are useless at best and harmful at worst. These new medical and psycho therapists follow the proven pattern of the Greenshirts by promoting fears and frights and then providing the cure to the fancied ills. Read any natural therapy propaganda and you would think that rather than being the best fed, healthiest and longest lived population that has ever lived, we are all being poisoned and driven to untimely deaths by a combination of conspiracy theories and the fruits of civilisation. It’s a dirty trick but it seems to work.

Just as people who don’t believe in astrology believe in it, so homeopathy in particular seems to have crossed the border from fringe medicine into widespread acceptance. A commitment to homeopathic practice is now presented as evidence that some natural healing clinic is legitimate rather than promoting plain quackery.

The best way to deal with this belief is to set down in print the principles of homeopathy as first espoused by its inventor Dr Hahnemann. Readers can then judge for themselves whether they are can seriously subscribe to such a treatment regime as we near the end of the twentieth century or whether they should laugh it off as voodoo magic in modern dress or drag.

Any medical historian will recognise that Dr Hahnemann got off to a good start. He developed his system towards the end of the eighteenth century at a time when a trip to your doctor was almost certain to make your condition worse and probably kill you. All of Louis XV’s brothers and sisters were killed by their doctors. Louis XV survived only because his nanny hid him whenever the doctors made a palace-call. In such dangerous times any system of treatment which genuinely did no harm was bound to look successful by comparison. If Louis XV’s nurse had been really smart she could have promoted a new medical regime called “underbed-therapy” or similar based on forcing the patient to lie under the bed for an hour at a time. After all, it had saved the life of a future king. The royals of Europe were a tight-knit club. Hahnemann’s success with the royal families of 18th century Europe is evidenced by the house of Windsor’s belief in homeopathy to this day.

If any of us had been alive as commoners in those times, we too would have been well advised to visit Dr Hahnemann rather that suffer exposure to the contemporary regimes of bleeding, emetics, enemas and other horrors. (Curiously, enemas, in the form of colonic irrigation, are making a natural therapy comeback. Learning to water-ski is probably just as effective and more fun.) However, modern medicine has made great strides and most of us expect some systematic diagnosis and intervention from the medical profession rather than a programme of benign neglect.

Here are the cardinal principles of homeopathy according to the man himself:

The Psora (Itch) and Vitalism

The psora is the sole, true and fundamental cause that produces all the other countless forms of disease — the long list which follows includes insanity, rickets, cancer and paralysis. Hahnemann believed that diseases represent a disturbance in the body’s ability to heal itself and that only a small stimulus is needed to begin the healing process. As a man of his time, he believed in the principle of vitalism, which held that life is a spiritual non-material process which can be influenced by dynamic forces such as magnetic influences, the moon and the tides, and so on. [Can they really teach this stuff in a Polytech?]

The Law of Similia

Hahnemann was led to the homeopathic principle after he took a dose of quinine and noticed that the effect of the quinine was similar to that of malaria. He was also drawing on the primitive monism of the time which held that “like is like”, (eating the heart for courage) “like makes like” (idolatry) and “like cures like” (snake-root was used for curing snake-bite). Hahnemann revived Paracelsus’s “Doctrine of Signatures” which declared that herbs would cure conditions associated with the anatomical parts they resembled. [Or this stuff too?] Surely any patient today would run out of the waiting room if a GP suggested such nonsense. But if patients buy into homeopathy they are buying into this whole set of beliefs.

The Law of Infinitesimal Potentising

This law holds that the smaller the dose of a medication, the more powerful its healing effects. Hahnemann taught that substances could be potentised (i.e. “their immaterial and spiritual powers released”) by sequential dilution of remedial agents by “succussion”, in which mixtures would be shaken “at least 40 times”, nine parts dumped and nine parts solvent added and shaken again. Hahnemann held that tapping on a leather pad or the heel of the hand would double the dilution — which is patent nonsense. [How do you present this in the class without bursting out laughing?] The laws of chemistry tell us that there is a limit to which a substance can be diluted without losing the original substance altogether. This limit, called Avogadro’s number, corresponds to “homeopathic potencies of 12C” or 1 part in 1024. At this dilution there is less than a 50% chance that even one molecule of the original active material remains. Hahnemann recognised this apparent anomaly but explained it away in metaphysical terms — i.e. by witchcraft.

So we find that Hahnemann’s texts recommended highly diluted coffee as a cure for “sleeplessness, digestive, urinary, respiratory and heart symptoms” and diluted tincture of tarantula (that’s right, the big hairy spider) to treat “mania, hyper-activity, chorea and septic outbreaks”. One suspects he was shrewd enough not to recommend highly diluted alcohol as the rapid route to drunkenness.

What all this means is that if you visit your pharmacist and buy a liquid homeopathic remedy, you are buying “diluted water”. If it comes in crystal form then the diluted water will have been dropped onto sugar crystals, and you are parting with your hard-earned cash for “evaporated diluted water”. We can see why there is a buck in it and why naturopaths are so keen on homeopathic remedies. Selling diluted water beats the hell out of spending millions of dollars on systematic research to find some effective pharmaceutical and then spending hundreds of millions on clinical trials and registration procedures around the world. Of course, such a “medicine” can do no harm and nine times out of ten the body truly does heal itself just as the naturopaths claim. Again the homeopaths keep well away from broken bones, severe bleeding, brain tumours, or raging infections where the patient demands real and immediate results.

The defenders of homeopathy argue that even though the whole system appears to contradict common sense (i.e. that a diluted scotch will be more intoxicating than a neat shot) there is evidence that the system works and that numerous publications endorse this efficacy. (John Eisen of the AIT Press quotes the famous 96 papers at every opportunity)

The most famous recent study which appeared to demonstrate an operative mechanism was a report by a French scientist working at that country’s prestigious INSRM institute. His paper claimed that high dilutions of substances in water left a “memory” which explained their “efficacy”. Subsequent investigations proved that the research, which was funded by a major manufacturer of homeopathic medicine, was “improperly carried out” and the scientist was subsequently suspended.

A 1991 survey of 107 controlled trials appearing in the 96 published reports (the list quoted by John Eisen) found that “the evidence of clinical trials is positive but not sufficient to draw definite conclusions because most trials are of low methodological quality and because of the unknown role of publication bias.” An earlier study (1984) also concluded “It is obvious from this review that despite much experimental and clinical work there is only little evidence to suggest that homeopathy is effective. This is because of bad design, execution, reporting, analysis and particularly the failure to repeat promising experimental work…”

In the tradition of scientific literature this is “damning with faint praise”. We should take of note of Thomas Paine’s famous question “Is it easier to believe that nature has gone out of her course or that a man would tell a lie?”

The NZ Skeptic is not suggesting that homeopathy be banned. But this short essay should encourage readers to ask themselves whether they should be tempted to buy overpriced dilute water — given that homeopathic theory would suggest that a quick dip in a spa pool should cure every disease known to man — or at least those of those who have dipped before you. And we should also ask if such mumbo jumbo can be taught in a tertiary class-room given that it cannot possibly be the subject of informed and critical debate. It is simply not possible to believe in modern physics and chemistry, or even the principles of mathematics, while believing in homeopathy. If the New Zealand Qualifications Authority decides to endorse the establishment of a School of Witchcraft, then homeopathy will have found a home, for that is where it belongs.