Recently it seems that there’s a new scam out there.   For years, there have been various quacks out there saying that we need to “energize,” “detoxify” or “rebalanced” our bodies, but now there are many who think the answer is to “alkalize” the body. To this end, a number of products have been pushed which claim to do the trick when it comes to making your body “more alkaline.”

As you probably know from basic chemistry, an alkaline, or base is the opposite of an acid and the level of acidity or alkalinity of a substance is measured by pH.   Seven represents neutral and lower pH values represent a more acidic substance while higher pH represents a more basic substance.   Acids and bases, of course, will react with each other and, if equal, result in a neutral solution of water an an ionic salt.

There’s not a lot you can do to change the pH of your body by very much.   You can take antacids to neutralize some of the acid in your stomach, and if you have heartburn, that might be desirable, but the effect is temporary.   The pH of urine may also be altered by what you consume, but that’s also temporary.

The above graphic comes from an actual “alkalize your body” website.    It appears to indicate that it’s preferable for your body to have a pH similar to that of bleach or lithium hydroxide than one closer to lemon juice or stomach acid. I don’t think I’d want to be either one of those levels, but given the choice between the two, I’d rather be acidic.

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Since the earthquake in Haiti last month, the country has been receiving a lot of foreign aid, including food, clothing, medical supplies and other things the country sorely needs.   It has also received its share of items with little or no worth, which only take up valuable space on transports and cause unnecessary logistical strain.   One thing that the country definitely does not need is quacks.   The medical system of the country was lacking even before the quake and now, with many injured and the danger of disease in the country, real medical personnel are in short supply, but quacks are something they really don’t need more of.

Sadly, it seems that at least a few first-world quacks are seeing this as a great opportunity to gain some publicity by pushing their snakeoil on some of the most desperate in the world.

Via the Globe and Mail (Canada):
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As you probably now know, the Australian Vaccine Network is in its death-throws, as a wave of well deserved bad PR and greater awareness of their lies has hit them a bit too hard.  Meryl Dorey, the head of the AVN has posted a long, rambling and absolutely ridiculous article over at “Age of Autism,” a website which is well known for pushing completely false and harmful information about vaccines along with other lies about autism.

Some might say that calling Dorey an idiot is an ad-hom attack, but what else can you possibly call someone who makes the following statements? Assclown perhaps?

This attitude has been sorely tried over the last 17 years. Tried by the media that only wants to protect its advertising revenue regardless of the cost to truth and justice; tried by the medical community whose roots and income are linked with an unshakable, almost religious belief in vaccination and the germ theory;

Yes, that’s right. They just won’t let go of that damn “germ theory.”  Germ theory states that infectious disease is caused by pathogenic microbes or “germs” which include bacteria, viruses and occasionally parasitic protozoa or other micro organisms.   It was pioneered by researchers like Louis Pasteur, Robert Koch and Joseph Lister in the late 1800’s and today is considered to be about as proven as a fact of science can be.   After all, we can see germs under the microscope, culture them, detect them in infected subjects, kill them on surfaces with antiseptic and in the body with antibiotics.    It’s not an issue of religion, it’s one of overwhelming and indisputable evidence.

Yes, she is challenging the very notion that germs cause disease.   The idiocy of this is absolutely breathtaking.   Before germ theory it was not uncommon for surgery to be carried out with no sanitary procedures at all.  Doctors didn’t even bother to wash their hands and there were no efforts to disinfect drinking water or remove waste that provides a breeding ground for bacteria.

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Natural News… GROAN.    It’s that site that seems to put all the quackery, scaremongering and bad medical and enviornmental advice in one place.   However one of the authors there thinks he has got skeptics all figured out, and knows exactly what we “skeptics” believe.   Well, as a one who would generally consider myself a skeptic, I have some bad news for this guy:  We don’t actually all believe the same things.   Sure, amongst skeptics, there are some thing we tend to agree on, for example homeopathy – you’d have to be a complete nut job not to realize that bullshit stinks.   Yet, on other things, I have found myself in disagreement with other skeptics quite frequently.

Thus I can only speak for myself, but I felt compelled to answer what this guy is telling me that I believe, because I believe that what he believes I believe is a bit unbelievable.

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Why would you kick someone when they’re down? Simple – because you don’t want them to get back up again. While that may sound a bit cruel, if the one you’re kicking happens to be fond of spreading disease and death across your country, it’s actually about the most merciful thing you can possibly do for the health and well-being of everyone.

In Australia, the AVN, or Australian Vaccine Network – a major anti-vaccine and anti-science advocacy group got some extremely bad press not long ago when a newborn baby died of whooping cough – a disease that can be kept in check by vaccination and which has been spreading in the country due to low vaccine rates as a result of misinformation.   Recognizing that this was a big blow to the AVN, an impromptu effort was made by skeptics, medical professionals, rational thinkers and others in Australia and elsewhere to keep the pressure on the organization and put them on the defensive when it comes to their lies and the concequences.

A number of forces helped in the PR assault.   The Australian Skeptics lead the charge, while individuals and groups helped by donating the funds to run ads in several Australian papers.  Bloggers and podcasters helped spread the word and when the Australian media ran stories slanted in favor of the AVN, readers and viewers deluged them with complaints. Groups like “STOP AVN” used social networks like Facebook to gain support and members.

Well it seems to have worked.   This ran on the primary blog of the Australian Vaccine network:

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We’ve reported before over the professional disgrace of Andrew Wakefield. Wakefield is one of the worst cases of everything a researcher and a physician should not be.   With complete disregard for the safety and welfare of others and his own professional obligations Doctor Mister Wakefield has not simply cherry-picked or spun data in favor of his claims:  he just plain lied.   Let me make this clear again:  he didn’t take improper measurements or use the data in an improper way, he simply made up facts that were not true.   And if that’s not bad enough he did it in regards to a matter of extreme consequence to public health and to the state of medical research.

Sadly, he’s gotten quite a lot of support and many have even seen his disgrace by British and other national medical bodies as more proof that he’s being persecuted by a big conspiracy.

No surprise, the GMC (General Medical Council) – the British body responsible for investigating things of this nature has returned its verdict:  guilty of professional misconduct, violations of ethics and other infractions against professional standards.

Via the Times Online:

Doctor in disgrace

The consultant who sparked the MMR vaccine scare now faces being struck off

The descent into professional disgrace of Andrew Wakefield is now almost complete. The doctor who fanned an unwarranted panic by suggesting a link between the three-in-one measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine and autism — prompting a fall in vaccination rates that spawned a startling rise in cases of measles — was condemned yesterday by the General Medical Council for acting “dishonestly and irresponsibly” in conducting his research. He now faces the possibility of being struck off the medical register.

Nobody can doubt the GMC’s diligence. After conducting hearings over a period of two and a half years, it ruled that Wakefield had carried out invasive and unnecessary tests on children that were against their best clinical interests: he paid children £5 for blood samples at his son’s birthday party, acting, said the GMC, “with callous disregard” for the suffering of children.

The Lancet long ago regretted having published Wakefield’s initial study 12 years ago. No respected research has ever supported the findings that led Wakefield to brand his studies a “moral issue” that made him unable to support the continued use of the MMR jab. Indeed, a landmark study in Japan found that, on using single vaccines instead of the MMR, the number of diagnosed cases of autism actually rose sharply.

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Vaccines are one of the greatest advances in medical science and their safety and effectiveness has never been better.  Still, many refuse them due to inflated (or just plain false) claims of dangers.   Because of this, it’s all the more important that vaccine producers and dispensers work to assure they don’t do anything that could add fuel to the fire.

And really, this just does not help.

Via the Associated Press:

School staff get insulin instead of swine flu shot

WELLESLEY, Mass. (AP) – Wellesley school officials said several staff members at an elementary school had to be taken to the hospital after being injected with insulin rather than the swine flu vaccine. Superintendent Bella Wong said no students were ever in danger at Friday’s vaccine clinic for staff at Schofield Elementary School and all the people who got the wrong shot have recovered.

Wong, in a letter to staff and parents Monday, said the insulin belonged to students with diabetes and was provided by their parents.

Wong said in the letter that the school nurse who administered the insulin to staff has been placed on paid administrative leave pending an investigation. She did not give the nurse’s name.

Obviously, making the vaccines ultra-safe is only going to go so far when the person giving the injections uses the wrong thing. I am quite astonished that this could even happen. When administering any medication a doctor, nurse or pharmacist should know to read the label and identify the medication, as opposed to just grabbing the bottle and assuming it contains what they think it does. This would seem all the more true with something that’s injected.

It may be that the school had insulin on hand in case it was needed by a diabetic student or staff member, but that still doesn’t explain how it was injected rather than vaccine. Doing this can be quite dangerous. Even a small dose of insulin in a healthy individual can cause shock coma and seizures. It was once even used this way to intentionally induce seizures, but has been abandoned as too dangerous.   It can also be deadly.  Luckily in this case, everyone seems to have gotten to a hospital relatively quickly.   However, if someone had gotten in their car afterward and started to drive away, this could have turned into a much worse situation.

A:  The same way it causes rashes and headaches when its turned on – entirely due to psychogenics.

Or to put it another way, the tower does not cause any health effects at all, people just believe it does and their belief is so pervasive that it makes them believe they have an illness that they don’t.   Worse still, this kind of self-suggestion has a nasty tendency to compound when more than one person in an area becomes convinced that something is making them ill, creating a mass panic over something that isn’t even there.

Yes, this kind of a mass panic has happened many times in human history, but with more and more dishonest parties trying to convince everyone that the condition “electro sensitivity” is not complete fiction, it seems that radio towers are now responsible for just about every symptom you can imagine, even at distances that make the power density roughly the same as normal ambient levels.

This would seem to be exactly what is happening around one tower in South Africa.

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Cancer treatment and especially chemotherapy seem to draw quacks like few other things.   Various misinformed and dishonest parties will have made any number of claims about cancer therapy and have pushed their own forms of snake-oil as an alternative.

Of course, forgoing effective science-based treatment can result in unnecessary loss of life, but to those suckered the deadly lies can be very attractive.  What makes things like chemotherapy such easy targets is that despite being lifesaving in the long run, the individual treatment sessions don’t make patients feel better and the side effects are well known for being unpleasant.   This aids in perpetuating the myth that it makes things worse.

James Randi has just finished up a course of chemotherapy which he was on for a few months.   Last time I saw him he had just finished some major abdominal surgery and was wheelchair bound (or rather, he was supposed to be, but he kept getting up out of the wheelchair despite being reminded that he shouldn’t do that so much.)    Now that he’s done with his chemo he relates his experience in this video.   Of course, we all wish him the best.  His prognosis is excellent for two reasons:  the cancer was detected early on and was treated immediately with the best that good, science-based medicine can provide.

Have you ever met someone who just keeps saying things so dumb that you can barely contain your disdain?   Sure, you might try to be polite, but after hearing someone state, with authority enough bullshit about astrology, homeopathy, conspiracy theories and other bullshit, you just can’t bite your tongue anymore.

That’s the story of Tim Michin’s “Storn,” a nine-minute spoken word piece about a dinner party in which a stereotypical empty-headed woman named “storm” spouts out enough bull to set off a storm inside any skeptic.   Michin does a great job of painting a picture of the events with his words, but now there’s one better, because out very good friend Tracy King and a dedicated staff of animators is preparing to release the “Storm Movie,” which, as the name implies, turns the piece into a film – an animated one.

At the moment only the trailer is out, as the finishing touches are being put on the full version.   Here’s a taste of it:

Perhaps it’s a bit early to critique something that’s only being shown as a preview, but if the rest of the film lives up to this then expect greatness.   In addition to being a great story, they’ve managed to achieve a very unique, yet at the same time classic style to the visuals.   It combines smooth motion and text with a kind of planned roughness and an excellent psuedo-3d layering effect.    Most who watch this kind of a thing probably won’t stop to think about how much effort goes into it, because when done properly, it just flows and you don’t even notice how well the text bounces and how the angular momentum transfers when a pill is swallowed.    However, I did, and props to all those involved!

I’m told that this was done primarily in Adobe After Effects and that most of the animation is actually individually edited frames.  Wow!   It must have taken a real lot of tweaking to make it so smooth.    I especially love how the camera shakes with a little elasticity.

But before I pick it apart any further, I’ll just stop and say that the style and flow rocks and I’m looking very forward to seeing the whole thing. After all, the Mona Lisa is best appreciated as a masterpiece and not by analyzing all the chemical components of the paint.