Simon Singh is appealing - he's also fighting for justice and freedom of speech

I like Simon Singh. Not in a I-stalk-him-and-his-wife-Anita-Anand-off-Radio-5-wherever-they-go kind of way (honest, guv...). No, I like his brilliantly insightful books, his quirky yet informative style of presenting the most complex principle in physics so that even an ignoramus like me can grasp them, and his more recent contribution to the sceptical literature that includes the fabulous Trick or Treatment, co-written with Prof. Edzard Ernst.

I do not like the really rather shameful treatment (no pun intended) that Singh has been subjected to by the British Association of Chiropractors (BCA) in response to an article he penned in The Guardian last year. It isn't for me to re-cap the whole story here - for more on the background visit Jack of Kent's extraordinary blog - but suffice to say that the BCA took offence at Singh's criticism of their profession, and in particular his contention that their claims for efficacy in cases for all sorts of diseases are in fact bogus (the original article has long since disappeared but Andy Lewis of the Quackometer blog has excerpts here...). They sued, and as is now being widely reported, Mr. Justice Eady ruled in a pre-trial hearing that Singh would have to defend his use of the word 'bogus' as in Eady's judgement this imputed fraudulent malice to practitioners of chiropractic.

Singh is not the first to be threatened with legal action for expressing a scientifically valid opinion backed up by peer-reviewed evidence - the likes of the Quackometer, Ben Goldacre and many many others have suffered the chill from various sources. But what sets this case apart is that it's ended up in court, with astronomical (again, no pun intended) costs incurred already, and more in prospect. Moreover, the potential implication of Judge Eady's ruling extends to virtually all critical commentary on scientific issues.

As Nick Cohen eloquently wrote in last week's Observer,

The consequences of letting the libel law loose on scientific debate are horrendous.

If bloggers, journalists and writers fear the wrath of a scandalously bad libel law every time they dispute scientific findings, if critical thought is to be silenced without any deference to scientific fact (which in this case is squarely behind Singh, hence the furore), then what price debate and enquiry?

And so to yesterday's news that Simon is to appeal against Justice Eady's ruling after all, which comes to this blogger via The Quackometer, Professor Colquhon's DCScience and Dr* T of thinking is dangerous. A brave decision, one that may cost Simon considerable personal effort and of course more funds, and yet the right decision. Not only because it shows that in the face of bullying and legal chill, scientific debate and free speech as a whole must be defended to the bitter end; not only because the right to question practices that have potentially grave consequences for public health is an essential prerogative of a free and independent press. As well as these reasons, Simon's decision to appeal is right because he has the support of hundreds of academics, journalists, lawyers and others who believe in the right to criticise that which is in the public domain and falsifiable, who believe that scientific criticism should not be answered with a bullying use of libel law but with considered debate surrounding the evidence, and who are prepared to lend their weight to a campain not only to support Simon in his commendable fight but to reform the libel laws of this country such that they become fit for purpose.

So sign up to the Facebook groupd supporting Simon, sign the Sense about Science statement of support, get the word out to all and sundry that the sceptical community will not stand by in silence while one of its most prominent and respected members is put through the mill.

Campaign to stop quackery for 'treating' AIDS and malaria

Following on from some serious discussions with such legends of the blogosphere as Ben Goldacre, gimpy, jaycueaitch and others (aka after a chat over some beers in a London inn...), I decided to write the following 'open letter' that I intend to forward to charities, NGOs, United Nations, anyone that may have an interest in preventing the use of 'alternative medicine' in the 'treatment' of AIDS and malaria. This arises from recent exposes of dangerous practices in Africa, detailed in the letter below. Before you read on, please note that the idea is that you, kind blogger/reader, also take a copy of the letter, edited as deemed appropriate, and pass in on to an organisation of your choice. And then blog about it, write comments here, and generally feel smug about trying to make a difference etc. Anyway, here's the letter:

Dear [name of NGO/Charity/organisation, better still a named Officer thereof],

I am writing to raise the issue of so-called ‘alternative medicine’ in [Africa/India/region of interest], and in particular the potentially fatal marketing strategies employed by practitioners of homeopathy, nutritionism and related therapies.

As covered comprehensively in recent issues of The Guardian newspaper (for example here and here), the notorious pill salesman Matthias Rath has been exposed as a charlatan selling vitamin tablets to those suffering with terminal illnesses including malaria and AIDS. He is not alone; as covered in detail in several investigative weblogs (for instance, see here , here , and here), there are many clinics offering homeopathy and vitamin supplementation to desperate patients in Botswana, Ghana and elsewhere in Africa. It is worth clarifying that although there is some (albeit disputed) evidence that multivitamins may slow disease progression in AIDS (1), there is no evidence to support the use of such supplements as large-scale interventions (2) and there is even less cause to revert to homeopathy. Note that homeopathic ‘remedies,’ which contain no active ingredient , simply do not work any better than placebo; arguably harmless when administered to treat a cold, but potentially lethal when given in place of proven anti-retroviral drugs and/or effective malarial prophylaxis.

It is this latter phenomenon that is most concerning; specifically, the advice to use alternative therapies instead of, and not as well as, proven evidence-based interventions may be costing lives. In [my/our] opinion your vital organisation is in a very strong position to counter these dangerous practices by ensuring that the public in the regions in which you operate are fully informed.

[I/we] would like to know if your organisation has encountered purveyors of such ‘alternative medicines,’ and if so, what action you have taken to ensure that sugar pills and vitamin supplements do not replace proven treatments. It is in the communities mentioned above that direct action is required. There is a very real possibility that lives are being needlessly lost today as a result of unproven, effectively empty pills being promoted ahead of proven drugs. This tragic scenario must be averted immediately, which is why [I/we] are asking for your help.

[I/we] acknowledge that many anti-retrovirals are expensive, hard to obtain and may have significant side-effects; nonetheless they remain the most effective barrier to AIDS disease progression. Ditto malarial prophylactics; unpleasant side effects aside, together with mosquito nets they form a vital defence against a disease that still kills one million people a year [http://www.cdc.gov/malaria/impact/index.htm]. Please try and respond to the questions below where possible; the reputation and presence of your organisation is of utmost importance in spreading the message that vitamins and homeopathy cannot treat life-threatening conditions.

1) Has your organisation had to deal with clinics/services selling/prescribing homeopathic remedies targeting either malaria or AIDS?

a. If yes, please give details

2) Does your organisation have a policy designed to prevent such services from spreading, or to educate members of the public against the use of unproven remedies for life-threatening disease?

a. Again, please provide details

3) Are there any governmental, non-governmental or local authorities or individuals that may benefit from being better informed about the dangers of using homeopathy and.or vitamin supplements in malaria and AIDS?

a. If yes, please either pass on their contact details to [me/us], or pass on this letter to them and send [me/us] a copy of any subsequent correspondence.

[I/we] appreciate you taking the time to read this letter, and I hope that you share in my/our concern over the serious danger the use of homeopathy and vitamin pills, particularly in place of conventional treatment, represents. I look forward to hearing you response on this matter of urgency.

With warm regards,

Yours etc,

References:

1) Fawzi WW, Msamanga GI, Spiegelman D, et al. A randomized trial of multivitamin supplements and HIV disease progression and mortality. N Engl J Med 2004;351:23-32

2) Marston B, De Cock KM, Multivitamins, nutrition, and antiretroviral therapy for HIV disease in Africa. N Engl J Med. 2004 Jul 1;351(1):78-80

Tips on sendiing the letter? Obviously, delete the red text as needed - the "we" is included mainly if you wish to gather many signatures, say from faculty or just from other people, and send the letter as a collective. I'd also suggest removing the hyperlinks if you plan to send the letter by snail-mail, which is something I'd strongly urge - perhaps in tandem with an electronic copy, for maximum impact.

Please send the letter to any and all charities, NGOs, medical organisations, professors, bin men, AIDS patients... basically anyone who you think would be an appropriate recipient. And please, just to fuel my ego, please leave a comment here once you have - you don't have to acknowledge in the letter where it came from (I'd rather you didn't actually, to avoid accusations of a vexatious campaign), but I'd like to know whether this lands on the desk of even one influential organisation.

Malaria and AIDS cannot be treated with sugar pills - we must, must do our utmost to prevent the loss of life this practice could cause. Join in, send the letter, do your bit!

EDITED: letter shortened (2nd edit, link to guardian stories altered too) according to suggestions on badscience forum, please let me know any other changes you think need to be made!!

How to write a scare story. Or, how to mis-report science

Penis. There, I said it. Now that I have your attention, I'd like to write about, er, penises. More accurately, I want to point you in the direction of some stories which appeared in the press over the weekend and today (Monday, 1st September-not-April, 2008).

From the Daily Mail:

How perfumes and scented creams could make your unborn baby boy suffer infertility or even cancer

From the Metro (London edition of the freesheet):

Perfumes linked to infertility

From Scotland on Sunday:

Women warned not to wear perfume during pregnancy

Strong stuff, and all of the stories cite work carried out by Professor Richard Sharpe, a serious academic in a serious institution who publishes in serious academic journals. So it must be true - cosmetics cause infertility and cancer, right?


Perhaps not.

Reading Prof. Sharpe's recent publications, I found out many interesting things. Firstly, that he and his group measure penile length and testicle descent in rats. But let's get the sniggering out of the way (apologies to the Prof, 'cos as you'll soon see this is no laughing matter), because doing this enables him to pinpoint the time window when genital development is most sensitive to going awry. Embryology 101: male foetuses can develop abnormal genitalia (ranging from small to overtly female) if they're not exposed to enough testosterone (an androgen, or 'male-making-hormone) early on in pregnancy. If there's too little androgen around in this window, Sharpe's (and other labs') data reveal, many reproductive disorders can occur, and in some cases these are predictive of developing prostate cancer.

The latest studies, published in very respected peer-reviewed journals, show that blocking androgen signalling during pregnancy, in rats, causes testicular dysfunction, and the rats have very small penises. Fair enough. That is pretty much as far as his work goes, that is all he claims thus far. No mention of cosmetics. Not one. Now here's the intrigue.

Other studies have shown (and Prof. Sharpe's publications discuss the possibility) that compounds present in the air, largely as a result of chemical processes used in industrial production of plastics (such as some phthalates), can block androgen signalling. So, did we get a series of headlines decrying industrial plastic production? No. Instead, we got the above scaremongering about moisturisers and perfumes. There's no evidence (yet) to suggest that any chemical in creams and perfumes, applied topically, could get to a foetus in sufficient doses to cause the required damage. Still, to find out more, I did what many journalists that covered the story (Scotland on Sunday excepted) failed/couldn't be bothered to do - I got in touch with Prof. Sharpe.

He was not best pleased with the media's handling of his work. For a start, the stories make out that the findings are to be presented at a conference - whilst this is true, they are also peer-reviewed and published. More importantly, they really did get the wrong end of the stick. In Prof. Sharpe's own words (the following is taken from a statement he provided to me as an News-of-the-World stlye EXCLUSIVE!!!!!!111!!111ONE!!1ELEVEN1!)

Common environmental chemicals can affect the processes described above in experimental studies in animals, which raises concerns as to whether they might also ... contribute to these disorders in humans. At present we do not know whether or not this is true and obtaining conclusive evidence one way or another ... will take several years. This 'uncertainty' ... often begs the question, especially from pregnant mums, "but what can I do to avoid these chemicals, just in case...?" My answer is that for much of our environmental exposure (e.g. via air, food, fabrics of our house etc) there is not a lot one can do, but you can avoid exposing your baby to ... chemicals present in personal care products (cosmetics, body creams, perfumes) simply by stopping using them - at least for the first 3 months of pregnancy... I would not dream of 'warning' a woman to do this as we have no conclusive evidence that these chemicals harm the baby in any way. My suggestion is purely precautionary - it cannot do any the baby any harm and may do it good. I always place this advice in context - by far and away the most important thing is to not smoke, not to drink alcohol and to eat a sensible well balanced diet.

(Bold emphasis mine, italics original). Eminently sensible, I would have thought. But from data showing that there's an early-pregnancy window where male reproductive organs can be disrupted, the newspapers chose to speculate that, well, creams and sprays do the disrupting. I managed, with no credentials to back me up, to contact Prof. Sharpe and speak to him about his work, get him to explain in simple terms (I am no fertility/developmental biology expert) the central take-home messages from his work - literally in fact, as he gave me some key facts he'll be presenting at the conference. The journalists concerned did not go to that rather simple effort, so very good science gets reported very badly. Not just annoying for the academic in question - it could happen to anyone, as they say - but clearly not responsible reporting, as it causes unjustified alarm amongst prospective mothers and belittles and future finding of culpable causative agents or, more likely, combinations thereof. Or perhaps Prof. Sharpe can put it better:

I would like to distance myself from 'scare story' journalism such as that triggered by the headline in the article in Scotland on Sunday which lead to a succession of similar headlines in other newspapers. It does not accurately reflect the science on which it is based (which, as always, has uncertainties). It insults the commonsense of the public and does them a disservice because it desensitizes them ... so that, if and when we have a health recommendation to make based on strong scientific evidence, it may mean the public do not take it seriously when they actually need to.

Quite.

Why woo? or, how does one of the most beautiful places on Earth get smothered in pseudoscience?

At the risk of sounding like a primary school kid recounting his summer holiday stories, here's an account of, err, my summer holiday that you might find amusing.

Last week I visited the state of Arizona in the US, to marvel at the stunning natural beauty arising (or indeed quite the opposite) from what are IMHO some of the most bizarre geological formations on Earth.

I came away astonished not only at the Grand Canyon's vastness, not only at the hauntingly colourful Painted Desert, not only at the frankly daunting Red Rock State Park or the extraordinary Petrified Forest; I came away absolutely stunned at the sheer volume and outlandishness of Arizona's woo community.

Previously I was sure that pseudoscience thrived in societies where there was a perceived disconnect between a 'natural' lifestyle (whatever that may constitute) and our 'modern, hectic' way of life. That the desire to 'get back to nature' drove urbanites towards credulous beliefs in the healing power of crystals or sugar pills or some such bollocks du jour. In other words, that the heart of woo would be, well, Islington. Not so, at least not once I'd been to Arizona.

Maybe it's the way I was brought up, maybe it was the school I went to or the folk I work with or the food I eat, but when confronted by a 1-mile deep, 270-odd mile long Canyon with rocks as old as 2 billion years on view, or by crystallised silicate deposits that preserve millenia-old trees with spectacular and bewitching results, I'm left in awe at the sheer power of nature, physics, chemistry, call it what you will. You could even claim that one goes to such places in search of inner peace, in search of a sense of calm and belonging - you'd almost certainly find it just by standing amongst these features and taking it all in. Why then, with evidence of the Earth being at least 2 billion years old staring you plain in the face, do the good folks at the Creation, Evolution and Science Ministries, run by a Mr. Russ Miller, insist that the Canyon was created in three days? Due to a lack of time (and more pertinently because there's no chance I could have kept a straight face) I didn't go on the tour they offer, but according to their website, they

provide folks with overwhelming evidences of the Truth of God's Word.

How I wish I had gone on that tour.

And Lo, there was more. And it was Good (at least if you're looking for mumbo-jumbo). I stayed in Sedona, a tourist-tastic town in the midst of Red Rock State Park, famous for, err, its Red Rocks. And here I found people selling tours to Sedona's famed Vortexes (sic). Now, to me, a vortex is a whirlpool, caused by water spiralling around rocks creating a nice place to relax and bathe. To New Age Arizonians, however, vortexes

are swirling centers of subtle energy coming out from the surface of the earth. This energy is not exactly electricity or magnetism, although it does leave a slight measurable residual magnetism in the places where it is strongest. There are four main energy vortexes in Sedona. The subtle energy that exists at these locations interacts with that which is inside every person. It resonates with and strengthens the Inner Being of each person that comes within about a quarter to a half mile of it.

Take a look here for more on how vortexes are supposed to work. Anyone else's woo-dar going way off the scale right now? Well, this town's full of such energy-balance stuff. As well as

Sedona Energy Crystals [which] are tuned by our Reiki Master to attract what you want into your life using profound Sedona vortex energy

Too. Much. Woo. Can't. Breathe. Need. Crystal Healing...

I am not attempting to pick on individual healers/creationists/vortex mongers/Reiki masters here, I'm just using the above examples because they were the most visible during my trip. There are literally hundreds of other insitutions I could mention here, but in the interests of time I'll sum up thusly:

WHY CAN'T WE BE LEFT ALONE TO ENJOY THE INCREDIBLE NATURAL BEAUTY OF ARIZONA WITHOUT BEING TOLD ABOUT VORTEXES, CRYSTALS AND THE THREE-DAY FORMATION OF THE GRAND CANYON? WHY CAN'T WE LOOK AT WHAT'S AROUND US AND, FOR ONCE, SAY 'WOW, NATURE'S AMAZING!'

Ahem.

In other words, why, at the very place where one should feel closest to nature and all the extraordinary geological and biological phenomena on show, why here of all places is there a veritable profusion of bullshit?!

[\rant]

Embryos and Parliament - Part One

My thanks first and foremost to Ben Goldacre for advertising the second reading of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill in the House of Commons. And more importantly, my thanks to Evan Harris MP and his team for organising a demonstration of support on the lawns across from Parliament House, which I attended today.

See, Parliament was today debating whether to pass this important Bill, and Dr. Harris rightly thought it was about time the scientific and medical community voiced its support for the research that would be permitted by said legislation, in a regulated and tightly controlled framework, using human embryonic stem cells and so-called 'human-animal hybrid embryos.' The afternoon began with a gathering at Old Palace Yard of scientists, clinicians, charities representing patients with debilitating and fatal conditions such as Parkinson's disease, and Members of Parliament. In keeping with organisations such as Pro-Test, this group aimed to show MPs and the press that it isn't just pro-life Christian groups that can voice their position on the issues raised by the Bill.

I won't go into the details of what the Bill itself entails - that you can read about in excellent detail here or here. The point of this blog post is rather to applaud the efforts of the 'pro-science lobby' that turned up to support a vote in favour of extending the repertoire of scientific research over precluding avenues of investigation purely on the basis of minority objections.

Whether the small gathering (I guess there were around fifty people present) will influence the vote, or the shape the final legislation takes, is hard to tell. But let that take nothing away from the message the demonstration was intended to give: based on current scientific understanding, human embryonic stem cells provide a good potential source of therapies and model systems for testing novel therapies, and so this new framework is required and supported by the scientific community as 'necessary, ethical and right' to quote Dr. Harris.

As the gathering moved out of the sun and into the House of Commons, I was amongst the lucky few that watched the beginning of the debate surrounding the Bill. Alan Johnson MP eloquently moved for the Bill, and during his speech interesting interjections from various Members showed the current debate for what it is. We heard MPs from either side speak in favour of supporting science, whilst some raised objections - the difference was that those in favour cited peer-reviewed, scientific studies to support their argument, those against were only able to prop themselves up on a queasiness expressed by religious groups, pro-lifers and their supporters. What today's debate boiled down to was, quite simply, whether we want to live in a country where evidence-based policy permits tightly regulated and ethically sound research into treatments for life-threatening disease, or in a country which falls foul of the vocal and at times intimidating minority that would prefer to see potential advances in medical science fade as long as their religious sensibilities are not disturbed.

I'll share my other experiences of the day when time permits - for now, suffice to say that as science progresses, as our country forms the vanguard of world-class biomedical research, us scientists ought to be prepared to come out of the woodwork more often to support the Parliamentary ratification of our evidence-based approach to health and disease.

A double-blind approach to restoring vision

After a much regretted hiatus, I was driven to write this blog post by the frankly extraordinary experiences I’ve had in recent weeks regarding ‘alternative’ therapies for disorders that cause blindness. Apologies for the long post that follows - if you follow it all the way to the end I promise it'll be worth it...

Firstly, a disclaimer: I am a molecular biologist, working on gene therapy for retinal disorders. You may be familiar with our work via the recent media interest surrounding the publication of results from our Phase I/II clinical trial for gene therapy for a form of early-onset sever retinal degeneration called LCA (I don't think the full article is behind a paywall so you should be able to access it, any probs please le me know!). Indeed I'm writing this from the USA where our research group has just presented the findings to a major conference.

I say this not to gloat about how fantastic our work is (although of course it is...), but rather to make a point. That is, there are many academic research groups working on several well-researched treatment options for the several forms of retinal disease that lead to blindness - indeed a group in the USA published the results from their trial at the same time as us. These potential therapies are based on research into how the various diseases are inherited, how mutated genes can be replaced or modified, and how such potential therapies can be translated from cells to animals to people. This is, after all, how science works - progress through peer-reviewed publication and controlled studies that lead to careful use in clinical trials.

Of course patients with retinal degeneration don't really care about how a treatment for their condition is developed, as long as it restores vision. But that makes it all the more important to ensure that developments such as the trials I just described are handled well by the media, that people understand how we've arrived at the stage of restoring vision to people losing their sight, how we may proceed to widen this type of therapy to other conditions. So, this is where the fun begins.

Last week I went to Madrid, to speak at a meeting organised by the Spanish Retina Foundation. They had one day of talks for a clinical and scientific audience, and one day of talks by the same speakers, to patients, relatives and carers of those with retinal degeneration (it was truly a novel experience to attend a conference in Spain without knowing a word of Spanish, although the United Nations-style live translation of lectures was amazing). I spoke on both days, describing our group's work on gene and cell therapy for blindness, describing the ins and outs of the work leading up to the trial. The patient audience was really engaged in the talk, and took a great deal of interest in our work - of course they did, they're hoping that such treatments may one day help them or their children see.

I shared the stage with a Spanish scientist who told the audience about other therapies for retinal disease, describing amongst other things some work published last year where specific anti-oxidant compounds were given to mice that suffered retinal degeneration, and there was some protective effect. This is one study, in mice, and although it's quite robust, needs repeating and refining before we tell LCA patients to rush out to Holland and Barrett to stock up on vitamin pills. But at least one member of the audience seemed to understand it as "oral anti-oxidants improve sight," because at the end of my talk he asked the following question:

As you mentioned, alternative therapies such as vitamins may improve sight. What role do you think Ayurvedic Medicine may have to play in retinal degeneration?

?!

I took a deep breath before answering - here I was representing my lab, in front of hundreds of people, and the last thing I wanted to do was lose it. My answer consisted of phrases like "we believe that therapies for such severe diseases need to be properly researched" and "should there be any evidence for efficacy of a treatment, then and only then can in be recommended" and "as the whole point of this conference was to inform you of the scientific process involved in gathering evidence for a therapy based on genetic research, I would advise that any therapies without a basis in evidence are not pursued." How else to deal with such an enquiry? Of course I don't want to be dismissive of the situation my audience was in - any therapy, any treatment, anything at all that could work would be so useful, but the use of "alternative therapies" to treat disorders in which cells in the retina die is, err, somewhat misguided. I emphasise here that I hold nothing against the chap that asked the question - being blind is unimaginable for those of use fortunate enough to read these words, and if someone tells you that X, Y or Z might work, you'd trust them. But how did we get to the stage where such "alternative" approaches are seen as being just as valid as the scientific approaches...?!

Turns out that he wasn't alone in wanting to apply woo-woo for blindness. As someone with a PhD in gene therapy for retinal degeneration, websites like this one peddling a compound called Tostitin make me cry. Classic woo tactics are used - testimonials asserting that the stuff works, guarantees of safety and efficacy, and of course a link to a site where you can pay for this compound by credit card.

The amazing 100% guaranteed treatment for Retinitis Pigmentosa that is bound to leave you amazed!

No matter how long you have suffered from Retinitis Pigmentosa we assure you that with use of Tostitin you will regain your condition faster than any other solution currently available.

Tostitin is an established treatment and produces time tested results.

Tostitin's composition is 100% safe and all its ingredients are purely natural and free from any side effects.

Not only is this dangerous, in that patients surfing t'internet could well believe that there are homoeopathic remedies for their conditions, but it totally undermines the entire research effort into remedies and treatments that are legitimate, safe, and could actually work.

Together with the Ayurvedic question from Madrid, this last week has been a strange one - on the one had, members of the research team I'm part of have been heaped with praise for their diligent, well-controlled, scientifically sound, superbly presented and ultimately successful clinical trial of gene therapy in the eye. And on the other, we have a public willing to ignore all this and jump into the unknown using so-called alternative therapies.

Sometimes I just despair...

Money for an old helix?

Where there's money to be made, you can bet your bottom dollar that in an unregulated market people will exploit ignorance, peddle half-truths and spin-doctor evidence in order to sell their "miracle pills" or some such.

And there's definitely gold in them thar genes. According to this article in the New Scientist (the full article is behind a paywall, sorry...) there is great concern about over-the-counter genetic tests which claim to find out whether you are at risk of killer diseases such as heart disease and cancer. Concern based on the fact that by reducing complex conditions which have several associated risk factors down to a black-and-white test (which costs hundreds of pounds), the public is being duped into a false sense of heightened expectation from medicine and science.

There are thousands of scientific studies dedicated to unearthing genetic variants which increase the risk of contracting serious illnesses (just put the words "gene variant disease" into the PubMed search engine and see for yourself). The majority of these controlled, well executed, peer-reviewed studies are of course invaluable, but it's how companies and individuals exploit the findings which is of concern.

The recent explosion in genetic data has lead to myriad gene variants - often single base differences between your gene that encodes protein X and my sequence - being linked with increased susceptibility to disease Y. Note my use of language here - we're talking about how having a particular variant of gene X makes it n% more likely that you will develop disease Y. This is not, repeat, not, the same as discovering the gene defect that causes an inherited condition. In the popular press, however, this process gets boiled down to "bad version of gene X causes heart disease/diabetes/hair loss/etc." In other words, people are often lead to believe that if there was a way of finding out which version of gene X you had, you could put yourself of high alert of developing Y, perhaps even alter your diet or take a prophylactic drug to avoid the fate seemingly hard-wired into you DNA.

This of course is the ultimate dream in "personalised medicine" - screen people for particular gene variants, tell them to eat less fat, smoke less, or even better, take a pill, and they'll avoid ill health. Not as simple as that, I'm afraid.

New tests recently available over the counter are developed based on peer-reviewed published studies which link a particular gene variant - allele - to a given disease. But let's say such a test looks for whether you have the "bad version" of ApoE4, a gene linked with overproduction of cholesterol. Everyone knows cholesterol leads to heart disease, so if I have myself tested for the bad ApoE4 variant I can prepare for the worst, right? Nope, because the jury's still out on whether this biochemical variation in cholesterol production causes an overall increase in the clinical incidence of heart disease. Think about it - just because a version of the gene X causes me to make lots of cholesterol, doesn't mean I'll necessarily develop heart disease, as there are dozens of steps in between. Mere details don't stop companies such as Genetic Health UK from selling an £825 kit that tests for "bad versions" of ApoE4. What do you do with the information once you've tested positive for the bad variant? eat more sensibly? exercise more? drink less? guess what, save yourself eight hundred quid and do those things anyway, 'cos according to most studies knowing which variant of one gene you carry isn't nearly as important as these lifestyle factors are in preventing what are essentially diseases of affluence.

Much worse still may be the cynical "double play" some companies offer, whereby they test your DNA for particular variants associated with elevated risk of disease Y, and then offer ludicrously over-priced combinations of nutrients, vitamins, minerals and the like to counter the effect of said "bad gene." According to Bijal Trivedi's account of such practices in the New Scientist (again, article behind a paywall I'm afraid...),

An investigation conducted by the US Government Accountability Office in July
suggested that the type of nutrigenetic testing offered by four companies -
Sciona, Genelex, Market America and Suracell - "misled consumers by making
predictions that are medically unproven and so ambiguous that they do not
provide meaningful information". The GAO report also criticised some companies
for selling supplements supposedly tailored to a customer's genetic needs. These
"nutraceuticals" cost anywhere from $1200 to $1800 per year, yet according to
the report they differed little from multivitamins available at the local
pharmacy

Cynical, exploitative, extortionate.

As a scientist, you are trained to interpret data in a particular context. In the case of genetic studies looking at which gene variants are associated with disease - so called "linkage studies" - we interpret the occurrence of variants of gene X in terms of odds ratios. This means that if you think about such studies, you're able to judge that whilst having a given genetic variant may increase your odds of developing (e.g.) lung cancer by two-fold, you can't carry on smoking 40-a-day and blame your genes, as the smoking increases your chances of lung cancer by (e.g.) ten-fold. The public at large, however, are taught by a reductionist press and clever marketing that "variant of X causes disease Y," and moreover that taking $2000-worth of pills can counter that effect.

Is this symptomatic of a black-and-white view of science and medicine, where the public expect easy answers to complex, multi-faceted conditions in the form of pills off the shelf? Maybe. One thing's for sure - until over-the-counter tests for genetic variants are subjected to regulation by an independent authority like the MHRA, people will continue to believe that a drop of blood and a simple test can reveal the deadly future awaiting them.

Truly a 21st century crystal ball.

Ig Nobel Prizes - such fun!

Oh how I love this time of year. The leaves are yellowing, the mornings are crisp and clear, but above all, it's silly season.

That's right, it's the time of year when strange, bewildering, baffling science gets acknowledged, nay, celebrated, with the handing out of the 'prestigious' Ig Noble Prizes.

For the uninitiated - the Ig Nobels are handed out every year by folks at Harvard University - well, the awards ceremony is held there at any rate, the prizes themselves are granted by the humorous bunch who publish the Annals of Improbable Research. A parody of the Nobel Prize, an Ig Nobel is given in categories that mirror the actual Nobels, plus a few more thrown in for fun.

As ever, this year the winners' list makes good reading. As reported in the Guardian, the Ig for Medicine was awarded jointly to Brian Witcombe and Dan Meyer, for their groundbreaking meta-analysis study (published in the BMJ, although admittedly in the Christmas special edition which is worth reading itself...!) of the dangers of sword swallowing. The thing with the Ig Nobels is that some of the work is deliberately toungue-in-cheek, almost as if it was carried out with an Ig in mind (a bit like those contrived Oscar-driven movies that seem to have been shot with the sole purpose of picking up an Academy Award), much like the work of Mayu Yamamoto, winner of the Ig for Chemistry. He has developed a method for extracting vanilla flavour, for use in food, from cow dung. Mmmm, nice.

Or how about Glenda Browne's Ig-for-literature-winning research into how the word "the" causes problems for people compiling an index? Ever wondered why your rat just doesn't understand you? Try not speaking backwards, and avoiding Japanese - the winners of the linguistics prize figured out that rats cannot understand these complex aspects of language variation.

Much of the work for which these spoofs are handed out is peer-reviewed and published, some in surprisingly prestigious journals - how about Nature, Physical Review Letters and PNAS for a CV? The physics prize went to investigators whose body of work helps us understand why sheets wrinkle.

From the study of how Viagra lessens the impact of jet-lag in hamsters (I kid you not, this is a genuine study published, again, in PNAS), to a proposal for developing a weapon designed to make enemy soldiers sexually attracted to each other (the so-called "Gay Bomb" won The Air Force Wright Laboratory in Ohio the Ig Nobel for Peace), via a census of the bugs, ferns, crustaceans and fungi that inhabit our beds - the Ig Nobels truly do make the autumn chill that much more fun.

Upcoming Lectures

For those of you that are (un)lucky enough to be in and and around central London during the working day, here's news of two excellent lectures that form part of the Lunchtime Lecture series:

Thursday 11 October 2007 A Lousy Tale of the Naked Ape, Professor Robin
Weiss, (UCL Immunology & Molecular Pathology) Although human DNA is
98 per cent similar to that of the chimpanzee, the infections we catch are 80
per cent different. Most are new acquisitions that we have picked up as humans
spread across the world. In fact, pandemic infections like smallpox and
influenza only date from the last 12,000 years or so after we formed settled
farming communities and later developed large colonies known as cities. Does the
history of infectious diseases help to predict future epidemics?

and:

Tuesday 16 October 2007 Science in an Age of Delusions: Some Examples from Scientific Fraud, Quackery, Religion and University Politics Professor David Colquhoun (UCL Pharmacology) We have seen a progressive erosion of the enlightenment values which form the very basis of science. The fashion for delusional thinking is already widespread among the general public and
politicians. It has penetrated even into universities as power inexorably moves
from academics to managers. Francis Wheen has suggested that this step backward
towards the dark ages started to become fashionable in about 1979. The more
interesting question is, when will it end?

Robin Weiss is undoubtedly one of the greatest scientists alive, revered and rewarded for his outstanding contributions to the field of HIV research - in particular his elucidation of how the virus docks with T-cells (white blood cells) of the immune sytem using the CD4 protein, and his subsequent work on AIDS-related malignant disease such as Kaposi's sarcoma. This blogger was fortunate enough to be have lectures from Prof. Weiss as a third year undergrad, believe me it'll be worth coming along to this.

As for Prof. Colquhoun, what can I add to what members of the badscience.net community already know? This Fellow of the Royal Society (no less) is a heroic campaigner against all things woo and all things quacky, as readers of his Improbable Science blog will testify. His lecture promises to be a triumphant call-to-arms for us sceptics in the battle against bad science!!

so come along, although as space is usually criminally limited, come along early!!

Stirring up a solution to climate change

Recent media coverage (see here also) of a proposal to remove carbon dioxide from the Earth's atmosphere facinated this blogger (sad life that I live...). Not just because I began to wonder just how much carbon you would generate making pipes that are

100 to 200 metres long, 10 metres in diameter

(btw we'd need over 100 million of them to have a significant impact on carbon levels...). Nor simply because it comes in the form of a letter to the Editor of Nature penned by Gaia theorist James Lovelock, but also from the perspective of how the media jumps on such stories from time to time. For now, let's leave somewhat aside the question of whether or not such pumps/stirrers/giant tubes would actually work - there seems to be some doubt, even amongst those who subscribe to Lovelock's Gaia world-view - as I'm hardly a qualified climate chemist who could pass judgment either way. What interests me more is the extraordinary media excitement at the mere possibility that technology may provide relief from the impact of rising carbon emissions.



Taking a step back, we can see that the ocean pipes are an idea, a concept. True, an American firm is developing similar pipes which could, eventually, be used as stirrers to bring colder water from the ocean floor to the surface to enhance the ocean's ability to act as a 'carbon sink.' But Lovelock, and his co-correspondent to Nature,

Professor Rapley... head [of] the Science Museum... said the two men
developed the ocean pipes concept during country walks in James Lovelock's
beloved Devon.

Nice. I'm not belittling blue-sky thinking when it comes to arguably the greatest challenge ever to face our planet, not at all. Indeed, ocean stirrers may well work. But how is it that an untested, highly speculative idea, when expressed by climatologists as a letter to the Editor of a scientific journal (without references or any primary data, as opposed to a Letter, which is generally a shortened version of an Article in such a journal and therefore is peer-reviewed), makes it as front page news?



Perhaps it's because quick-fix technological solutions to climate change are so attractive. In a surprisingly in-depth (relatively speaking anyway) article on Lovelock's proposals, Fox News (stay with me folks, this piece goes as far as to acknowledge that temperatures may be affected by man's activities, and that this may be a bad thing... ;-)) takes a look at other seemingly technological "solutions" recently reported, including:

— Constructing a "sun shade" by creating an artificial ring of small particles
or spacecraft that would block some of the sun's rays from hitting the Earth,
thereby reducing heating
— Shooting sulfur into the air to reflect incoming
solar radiation back to space (volcanoes do this naturally when they erupt)
— Making airplane flights longer by requiring planes to fly at lower altitudes,
which could reduce the formation of heat-trapping contrails
— Injecting carbon dioxide into wet, porous rocks deep underground to store it there for thousands of years, a process known as carbon sequestration
— Or dumping iron into the ocean, also to stimulate the growth of algae, in the hopes the blooms will act as a major carbon sink.

Again, I don't wish to disparage any of the above, far from it - perhaps a combination of these approaches could indeed slow the progress of climate change. However, media outlets are generally quick to seize upon easy solutions involving space mirrors or ocean stirrers or the like. Is this because newspapers are reluctant to delve into the possibility that the best way to avoid climate change, really, comes down to a reduction in consumption of resources, particularly fossil fuels, particularly by the West and Indo-China? Discuss.



One thing's for sure, there are parallells here between the media's salivating phwoaar response to such technological fixes for climate change (endorsed by that champion of environmental thinking, President George W. Bush, no less), and the medicalisation of common conditions and ailments, through which we as a society increasingly seek biochemical cures and fixes. The search for a "pill that cures obesity," a "supplement that makes you clever" or indeed a "diluted herb extract that prevents depression" surely originates in our avoidance of the root causes of these complex issues, in preference to quick-fix E-Z-Cure biochemical solutions. This isn't an original theory, it's been well discussed elsewhere. But what of our propensity to avoid tough choices in terms of climate change, prefering instead as we do to look towards market-based buck-passing exercises and technology to save us? Is this also a symptom of finger-in-ears-la-la-la syndrome, where a childlike urge to wishfully imagine an easy solution to an inherently complex situation takes over? To me, certainly.

As I said above, discuss...

Victory for science and rational thought

Having blogged recently about the parliamentary campaign to retain NHS funding for homeopathic hospitals, this blogger was pleased beyond words to read that

Health bosses have recommended that NHS funding for a homeopathic hospital in
Kent should be stopped.

Particularly as the decision seems to have been taken on the basis of scientific evidence, not some populist, politically convenient pandering to woo-ism:

Spokeswoman Emma Burns said the move was because "the NHS has to decide the best
use of money on the evidence of clinical effectiveness".

Quite. This is how the NHS ought be run throughout, surely? Funding should be allocated to those areas which have proven therapeutic efficacy. Under the current government's regime, the absurd elevation of "choice" when it comes to patient care has resulted in significant funds being spent on the likes of sugar pills.

Having said this, I acknowledge that many folks feel ambivalent about the allocation of public funds to provide placebo, as shown by the interesting discussion developing following Prof. David Colquhoun's post on this very issue (Ben Goldacre, no less, feels that there's nothing wrong with issuing placebos to those who seek them). Fair enough point, but it's more about the principle in a sense. Even if the medical establishment permits the prescription of sugar pills, it does so acknowledging the lack of clinical efficacy thereof - so should the NHS provide other alternative therapies that only work on placebo effect, simply because they're apparently popular? Besides, if people want sugar pills, considering there really are no side effects, feel free - just don't use taxpayers' money to get them!

This sideline aside, the withdrawal of public funds for a homeopathic hospital is a real feather in the cap for scientific rigour and for evidence-based medicine - one hospital down, four to go...!

When Bad Science costs lives

Exposing bad science, quackery, pill-peddling and the like isn't just fun, it's an important part of ensuring that rational thought and evidence-based policy prevails over all forms of woo.




Nonetheless, every so often the rejection of scientific rigour becomes more than a matter of promoting sugar pills as a cure for the common cold. Every so often ignoring science in favour of wishful thinking actually costs lives. And we're not even talking about promoting Vitamin C as an alternative (superior alternative, no less) to AZT anti-retroviral treatment, dangerous thought that is. No, this goes deeper than that.





Welcome to Virodene.




According to some first-rate investigative journalism you can (nay, should) read here (which is a shameful redirect from Ben Goldacre's MiniBlog) in January 1997, Thabo Mbeki's ANC entertained a presentation on a novel approach to treat patients with AIDS. AIDS, lest we forget, was and is ravaging South Africa's population. The presentation was given by researchers who claimed to have developed an effective anti-HIV treatment, and claimed that

"[Virodene P058]"destroyed the virus in a test tube"; when given to humans
"appeared to reverse full blown AIDS to HIV positive"; fought "HIV in areas
other drugs cannot reach it, such as in the lymph glands and the brain"; had
"minimal side effects"

Naturally, Mbeki and his associates were impressed - they were looking at saving millions of dollars and millions of lives, who wouldn't be? But the story darkens...



In most countries, procedure dictates that any novel drug treatment must be approved for human use by an independent authority, usually recognisable by their acronyms (the MHRA in the UK,the FDA in the USA, the YMCA in... sorry, this is not the time to be facile). In South Africa, the relevant authority is the Medicines Control Council (MCC). Did Virodene's manufacturers have the appropriate approval? Err, no, not according to the then chief of the MCC, Prof. Peter Folb, nor according to a subsequent enquiry into the researchers' conduct carried out by the University of Pretoria, as highlighted at the time by the British Medical Journal, no less. Indeed, not only was approval not obtained,before Mbeki's cabinet heard about the results from this "trial," the MCC hadn't even known that patients had recieved Virodene, nor indeed what Virodene was. Immediate suspension of the trial followed, with no further patients to receive the drug, which was administered in the form of a sub-dermal slow-release patch. In the absence of official approval for the drug implant, how did the small-scale patient trial get off the ground? With the implicit support and permission of the Minister of Health, Nkosazana Zuma is how.




Following the MCC's decision to suspend the administration of Virodene, the researchers, headed by husband and wife combination Zigi and Olga Visser, submitted several altered versions of their trial protocol to the MCC, all of which were rejected. Meanwhile, the Vissers lobbied both Health Minister Zuma and Mbeki for support, to the extent that Mbeki intervened to ensure that research into Virodene could continue, despite a previous Pretoria High Court judgment banning dispensation of Virodene for any purpose. Just to make the point clear here - the Prime Minister knew about, and was directly involved in, the unapproved and illegal use of Virodene, a drug for which no reliable toxiological or efficacy data were available.



Throughout the following months, political pressure was applied to the Medicines Control Council, with the ruling ANC party being dragged into a partisan showdown over Virodene by the opposition Democratic Party. The ANC appealed to

"the MCC to expedite the process that will allow for clinical tests to be
conducted on Virodene to determine once and for all the efficacy of the drug
against the AIDS epidemic."

This political pressure - applied, lest we forget, in the absolute absence of any reliable data suggesting Virodene actually had any anti-viral properties that could combat HIV - was ramped up, with senior ANC figures questioning the MCC's impartiality and independence from the pharmaceutical industry. Bear in mind here the heavy political gain to be made from a potential home-grown, cheap AIDS treatment that surpassed a Big Pharma treatment. This pressure resulted in a coup d'etat at the MCC, with all senior officials being replaced by close political allies of Mbeki and Zuma. Perhaps not the worst thing, however, as the new MCC comprehesively dismissed Virodene following an audit of all available in vitro data, throwing out the case for a clinical trial for the fifth time.



This should have ended the clamour for provision of Virodene, either in a full-vlown clinical trial, or as a so-called 'mercy treatment' to those with nothing to lose, but that was far from what happened.



Murky financial dealings aside, which appear to involve the ANC indirectly bailing out Virodene's manufacturers, Mbeki's government continued to ignore accepted scientific procedure when it came to AIDS treatments. Mbeki's opposition to AZT (azidothymidine, made by Glaxo Wellcome) is well-publicised. It is, however, always placed in the context of "HIV denialism," whereby supporters of this position claim not to believe that HIV causes AIDS, and that anti-retroviral drugs are not necessary to cure AIDS. Indeed, despite Glaxo cutting the price of AZT to prevent mother-foetus transmission of HIV, Zuma refused to approve AZT for such use - at the time outrage was focussed on HIV denialism charge, but is it possible that the ANC had too much invested, if not financially then surely politically, in the development of Virodene as an alternative? It certainly seems that way, as the decision to deny AZT to HIV+ mothers was taken just as a Phase I trial for Virodene eventually got under way - not in S.A, where it was stull illegal, but in... Guy's Drug Research Unit, London. To this blogger's knowledge, the results of this trial have never been published. Another trial was carried out on AIDS patients, this time in Tanzania. After treating AIDS patients with Virodene in a double-blind trial, this Phase II study yeilded

statistical analysis [that] revealed that Virodene was no cure for HIV/AIDS. It
had no effect on the HI virus, although some marginal improvement in the CD4+
count seems to have been recorded. For those invested in Virodene these results
were, quite obviously, a massive disappointment

Again, no published data are available from this trial.

As soon as it became clear the Virodene had no proven efficacy, that there was no hope for this "novel treatment," Mbeki's goverment permitted the distribution of AZT and other anti-retrovirals to pregnant women and victims of rape. No doubt too late for the hundreds, perhaps hundreds of thousands, of children born in the four preceding years who unnecessarily contracted AIDS through maternal transmission.

-------------------

AIDS continues to be a deadly scourge, and it is of course overly simplistic to view AZT as some magic bullet that will eradicate this killer disease. Nonetheless, where solid evidence existed for AZT's efficacy, ignoring it in favour of an unproven but potentially politically convenient alternative, has surely cost lives. Policy making really does have an impact on the lives of millions of people, and where lives and livelihoods are at stake, scientific rigour, evidence-based decisions and a strict detachment of political parties from pharmaceutical research are all critically important, as this tragic story goes a long way to showing.

Clear and present danger - homeo-pathetic

Homeopathy. Enough has been written on this subject to fill an entire interweb (e.g. here, here, and here), so I won't go into details - suffice to say that the only way in which patients benefit from homeopathic treatment is through the much-discussed placebo effect.




As intrepid Guardian Bad Science columnist (and general woo-bashing meister) Ben Goldacre wrote recently, by and large there is nothing wrong with people seeking reassurance, a kind word or two and a sugar pill, provided homeopathic practitioners stick to giving out "remedies" for the self-limiting, transient and we-don't-know-what's-causing-your-symptoms-but-this-will-make-you-feel-better type of condition they traditionally stick to. Leaving aside for a moment the issue of whether or not the NHS should fund the prescription of sugar pills, many in the medical and scientific establishment see homeopathy as a largely harmless side-show.





Not so in all cases, it seems. It seems the Society for Homeopaths is organising a symposium on the role of homeopathy in AIDS. Here, we are told, we will learn about the

Maun Homeopathy Project in ... This innovative project offers free homeopathy outreach clinics in an area where over 35% of the people are infected with HIV or AIDS (emphasis added)

and about

a completely different and controversial treatment for AIDS in Africa using a new
set of healing remedies created by Peter Chappell (emphasis added).

let's be clear. The Society for Homeopaths is endorsing free clinics in an abjectly poor country, where anything seen as free healthcare provision is likely to be snapped up in the face of unaffordable "conventional" treatment. They also endorse healing remedies from a certain Peter Chappell. Goldacre covered Chappell's eccentric leanings as part of last week's Bad Science column, and Chappell's response revealed plenty about the man himself and the profession he belongs to. Or perhaps, the story of what happened next is more intriguing...



The response has been removed from Chappelll's website, as reported by Blue Wode on the Bad Science forum. Meanwhile, adamcreen unearthed more dangerous, unsubstantiated crackpot-ery (comment 27 here). according to vitalremedies.com (Chappell's company, founded by names familiar to those of you that read the SoH flier above), which now links to a "new" response to Ben's criticisms (just as laughable), there are several "cancer-related remedies in pill form" available.



In summary then, homeopaths, with apparent backing of their "professional body," are promoting homeopathic remedies for AIDS and cancer. Dangerous as this is at the best of times, doing so to ill-educated and desperately poor folks in Africa is nothing short of immoral IMHO. vitalremedies.com attempts to skirt around the clear legal impediment to advertising cures for cancer by placing the catalogue of cancer remedies behind a login requirement aimed at professional homeopaths, thereby presumably taking advantage of amendments to the Cancer Act - NB i am not a lawyer, thought on whether this constitutes a likely contravention on the law are very, very welcome.



Let us hope that very few vulnerable sufferers of either cancer or AIDS allow themselves to be taken in by all this, although sadly many more than we may think may already have done so.

Scare-stories R Us

Not that I would ever, ever admit to reading the Torygraph, but "a friend" read this story in this morning's edition. From said story:

Just five minutes of exposure to mobile phone emissions can trigger changes that
occur during cancer development, according to new research.

Read on, I thought, for this quality daily newspaper must only report genuine findings, objectively, in an appropriate context and without hyperbole. Err...

Firstly, the Telegraph appear to be re-hashing a similar story from New Scientist (apologies if you can't access this version, apart from the abstract it's subscription only but available from me if you'd like it by e-mail...). They in turn are talking about a peer-reviewed article published in a serious academic journal (again, if you have difficulties accessing the paper, read the abstract via PubMed). So far, so good.

The researchers tested rat cells and human cells in a tissue culture dish (NOTE: this isn't the same as testing actual rats and humans), by exposing them to radiation from a signal generator at a similar frequency (but lower intensity) to that used by a GSM mobile phone (NOTE: this is not necessarily the same as exposing it to radiation from an actual mobile phone). Five minutes after exposure to said radiation, the researchers found that a signalling molecule, known as ERK1/2, is modified (phosphorylated) into its active form.

Phosphorylated, or activated, ERK1/2 is found in many canncerous tumour cells, and blocking this activation even forms the basis of some anti-cancer drugs. So, the authors conclude, they have evidence that GSM-frequency radiation induces some of the molecular changes found in cancer, suggesting a possible mechanism by which mobiles could cause cancer. Err...

Not so fast... The modification of ERK1/2 was found to be transient, in that about half an hour after exposure to radiation the ERK1/2 was back to its inactive state. It is true that phosphorylated ERK1/2 can cause cells to eventually divide, but its also true that for this the ERK needs to be activated over a prolonged period, days, weeks, even months. This normally only happens when one of the molecules that activates ERK is mutated. All of these points are made in a comment article that accompanies the research paper in the same edition of the journal.

Worse, the authors show no evidence that this ERK activation actually leads to abnormal cell division - they don't even look at cell division. They did some neat experiments to show how the ERK could become acitvated in response to radiation, invoking free radical formation in the pathway - but at no point do they show that ERK activation following irradiation leads to any effects on the overall health of the cell.

Let's put it this way. Babies are made when a man's sperm fertilises a woman's egg (bear with me...). Before this happens, the man and woman often remove their clothes for a (sometimes) prolonged period. Men and women remove their clothes transiently in the gym changing room. Do gyms cause babies to be made? No. The removal of clothes is an intermediate step, common to many pathways (getting ready for bed, trying on a dress, making babies), and just because Person/Factor/Event X causes the removal of clothes, there's no need to buy Pampers and re-paint the spare room.

Anyway.

My point isn't that the authors of the publication drew the tenuous link between a transient, reversible molecular event in cell culture to the formation of cancer - that's what the discussion section of papers are for, to put you work in a context. My point is that New Scientist, the Telegraph, perhaps other publications, wrote scare-mongering headline-grabbing stories about how phones cause the same cellular changes as seen in cancer, therefore HANG UP NOW OR FACE CERTAIN DEATH (I paraphrase, but you get the picture).

This isn't the first badly reported science story ever. It isn't the most damaging either. But it just goes to show that if you want to push an angle (i.e. phones/wifi/mmr/cannabis causes cancer/autism/schizophrenia), you're more than entitled to take someone's findings and blow their conclusions way out of proportion to sell a few copies of your rag.

[/rant]

politics and science, or not...

kudos and smarties are the prize for blogger angmoh, who shared the news of this spectacularly asinine Early Day Motion in the House of Commons with the Bad Science forum. In a nutshell, the morose statement expresses support for NHS-funded homeopathic hospitals.



For the uninitiated, instead of referring to the bowel movements of our esteemed Parliamentarians (b'dum tsh...), Early Day Motions are a vehicle for individual MPs to drum up support for or publicise a particular cause - they rarely see the light of day in the debating chamber, but are a neat way of nailing one's colours to the mast on X, Y or even Z.



Many, far too many, MPs have signed up to support this Motion.



As the merits, or otherwise, of homeopathic hospitals have been covered elsewhere (for instance see Ben Goldacre's musings on this subject, or Prof. David Colquhoun's ongoing efforts), I won't go into details. suffice to say that this EDM is a clear statement of intent from those who run the country: to hell with rational, evidence-based, scientific reasoning, let's run Britain like a greasy spoon cafe - order what you like and you'll get it with a side of chips, whether it's good for you or not.



as angmoh suggests, you can find out if your own MP is, technically, a numbskull, by checking the EDM link above and scrolling through the names for your elected eedji. If they're a signatory, writetothem.com is the place to go to register your discontent. here's my effort. will it make a difference? who knows? still, a good way to vent your spleen!