Perhaps saying that the following medical conditions “don’t exist” is a bit overly simplistic, but I needed something short for the title.   There are a number of conditions which large numbers of people claim to have but which the scientific  consensus and the weight of evidence indicates do not exist as an actual discrete condition with an organic cause.   That’s not to say that people don’t actually suffer the symptoms of these conditions, because some clearly do, but for those who do suffer the symptoms, their symptoms are either entirely psychosomatic or may be other disorders that have been misdiagnosed.

The umbrella term for physical symptoms reported as the result of a mental disorder or delusion is somatoform disorder.   Somatoform disorders can be difficult to treat when the person is insistent that their condition is “real” in the physical sense.   The most effective treatments for somatoform disorders are cognitive behavioral therapy and antipathetic medications, but some may be very unreceptive to the very suggestion that such measures be taken, even becoming hostile.

Those who present the symptoms of somatoform disorders are commonly prone to delusional hypochondriasis.  Anyone who has interacted with a hypochondriac knows that it’s a very tough thing to deal with.  In many cases, it can be hard to figure out to draw the line between hypochondria simply being a personality trait of a self-absorbed individual versus when it becomes a real mental illness.

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders make it clear that a somatoform condition is not the same as malingering.   Malingering is defined as “fabricating or exaggerating the symptoms of mental or physical disorders,” and is usually done for a secondary gain, often for sympathy or attention.   In reality, however, the line between somatoform and malingering is not always as well defined.   Many with somatoform disorders manifest a need for attention or sympathy which may result in a self-delusional condition that fulfills the desire to be a victim.  The line between what is conscious and subconscious is also prone to being blurred, especially when a person has a great deal riding on a delusion.

There are also circumstances where the condition and the symptoms seen in patients are very real, but the condition they are attributed to is false. For example the condition “shell shock” was believed to be cause the symptoms seen in World War I veterans, when really the symptoms were not related to the shock of shelling at all.

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The “Christian Science” movement and its standard-bearer, the “Church of Christ, Scientist” have been around since the late 1800’s.  Having been founded by Mary Baker Eddy, the movement is based on American Protestantism, but specifically claims that mankind and the universe are inherently spiritual and not physical entities.   It shouldn’t be confused with the Church of Scientology.

Despite the name of the Church, it’s about one of the most anti-science organizations around, especially when it comes to medical science. This tradition is one of the hallmarks of Christian Science and the one that it has become the most associated with. Traditionally, followers of the teachings of Christian Science reject any science or medicine that is not derived directly from “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures,” which claims that health and disease are metaphysical, with disease being a spiritual state which is to be treated through prayer and religion. The root of all disease, according to Christian Science, is fear, sin, lack of faith or ignorance.

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Irrational fear of radiation:  first it was nuclear power plants, then it was medical reactors and then it was medical imaging.   There’s an extra measure of jackassery when you go after life saving imaging procedures, but now it’s gone one worse.   Thyroid cancer patients are the latest scary radioactive monster.

Now imagine the following situation:  you’ve been diagnosed with thyroid cancer.   Your doctor tells you that the odds are good that you’ll beat it, but your thyroid gland needs to be removed.  After removal, you’re dosed with some iodine-131 to kill any remaining tissue from the cancerous organ.    You’ll be taking synthetic hormones for the rest of your life to replace the function of the thyroid, but thankfully, the procedures are basically over.

Now what do you want to do?   Probably go home and try to relax.   That’s what most people would want to do after that kind of ordeal, and in general they are allowed to do so.   But some now say that needs to change.

Via USA Today:
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This is actually a topic that was covered here some time ago. A hologram is a specialized image recording which allows for photon distribution to be replicated from a 3D source, thus allowing a two-dimensional surface to appear to show a three dimensional object or scene.   High quality holograms, which produce realistic depth and high resolution are expensive and fairly limited.   Cheaper holograms are smaller and often don’t produce much a a 3D illusion, but rather just have a shine pattern that varies depending on angle.  You probably have one of these on your bank card or credit card.  They work as a security feature since they’re hard to replicate.

Cheap little holograms are also used as reflectors or on stickers.   There has been research into holographic media for storing digital data, but thus far, it has had only limited commercial use.

One thing that a little hologram sticker will not do is cure any disease or relieve any symptom of disease.

The topic came up recently on Chron.com

Does it make some feel better?  Perhaps, but this should not be seen as a justification for its sale.   The placebo effect is well known to exist, but modern medicine universally considers dispensing of a placebo-based treatment in mass to be unethical.   It destroys the trust relationship between doctor and patient and prevents informed consent.   They’re also not necessarily that effective – sure, they may be effective for some, but the effect varies.

Finally, feeling better is not the same as being better.   If you have arthritis and your joints hurt, that’s because there is a real problem going on in your body.   Cartilage is damaged and joint tissue has become inflamed.  Putting a sticker on the area might convince you that the pain is not as bad, but there’s really no change in the condition.  The tissue is still damaged and inflamed, even if you think it feels a bit better.  Of course, placebos will never cure cancer or an infectious disease.

In the end these kind of products are universally the same: someone is trying to make a buck by being dishonest, and that’s never acceptable.

…. Smith, that is. It’s Dick Smith’s 66th birthday and so this site wishes a happy birthday to Mr. Smith with hopes that there will be many many more.

Dick Smith, for those who don’t know, is an Australian businessman and aviator. He’s best known for Dick Smith Foods and Dick Smith Electronics. He’s also apparently quite confident, because not only does he put his face on everything, but he doesn’t seem to mind using the name “Dick” even-though it makes people giggle. Sure, he could call himself Rich Smith or even Rick Smith, but he’s Dick Smith and he had that name first!

So why am I wishing a happy birthday to an Australian businessman?   I’m not even Australian, after all.

It’s because Dick Smith went out of his way and beyond any call of duty to donate money to buy ad space and help in the fight against the AVN and the harm they cause to public health.

That is something that deserves more thanks than I can probably express. Dick Smith didn’t step forward and pony up the cash to help out because he had to or because he had a stake in it any more than anyone else. He’s not a pharmaceutical exec and not even a doctor. He did it because he didn’t like children dying of preventable disease and he wanted to do something about it and had the funds to do so.

For that I know that many of us in the anti-bad science movement and the skeptical activism community are eternally grateful. It’s helped as a big hit to one of the most prolific national anti-vaccine movements. I can only hope that the effort the Aussies have put into crushing this monstrous and dishonest group will be an inspiration to more around the world to fight against quackery and misinformation. In the internet age, these groups don’t do damage to just their own country, but can do damage worldwide. The successful efforts to root out the AVN have not only been a victory for Australia, but a victory for science, medicine and humanity.

No person of means is required to step up and contribute to this kind of effort, so when they do, they deserve gratitude for what is really a gift to the greater good.

Happy Birthday Dick Smith!

If there’s one thing this world really needs, it’s more Dicks!

Via Reuters:

US court rules again against vaccine-autism claims

WASHINGTON, March 12 (Reuters) – Vaccines that contain a mercury-based preservative called thimerosal cannot cause autism on their own, a special U.S. court ruled on Friday, dealing one more blow to parents seeking to blame vaccines for their children’s illness.

The special U.S. Court of Federal Claims ruled that vaccines could not have caused the autism of an Oregon boy, William Mead, ending his family’s quest for reimbursement.

“The Meads believe that thimerosal-containing vaccines caused William’s regressive autism. As explained below, the undersigned finds that the Meads have not presented a scientifically sound theory,” Special Master George Hastings, a former tax claims expert at the Department of Justice, wrote in his ruling.

In February 2009, the court ruled against three families who claimed vaccines caused their children’s autism, saying they had been “misled by physicians who are guilty, in my view, of gross medical misjudgment”.

The families sought payment under the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, a no-fault system that has a $2.5 billion fund built up from a 75-cent-per-dose tax on vaccines.

Instead of judges, three “special masters” heard the three test cases representing thousands of other petitioners.

They asked whether a combination vaccine for measles, mumps and rubella, or MMR, plus a mercury-containing preservative called thimerosal, caused the children’s symptoms.

Well this is certainly good, if not expected news. While courts don’t always make the right decision on issues of health and science (witness the breast implant fiasco for example), in this case, the data is so compelling, so one-sided and the claims so baseless that it’s all but impossible to imagine any sane judge or jury would find for the anti-vaccine movement, which has so strongly backed this bunk idea.

Interestingly, the whole anti-vaccine movement also seems to be incapable of figuring out exactly what they’re complaining about. Is it the thimerosal containing vaccines? Is it the MMR vaccine? Is it all vaccines in general? All of thee? Such inability to even express a consistent and logical argument is very typical of such baseless claims.

Indeed, this is the fourth time a US federal court has ruled on the issue and the fourth time that a US federal court has completely dismissed the claims.

It should be noted that the court was specially created to deal with vaccine-related issues as part of The National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986. It’s possible that the litigants will appeal this decision and attempt to get a hearing at a higher US federal court, possibly even the Supreme Court. If the courts do consider their appeal (which they very well may not even bother hearing) then it’s hard to imagine a favorable ruling for the litigants.

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In recent times, medical imaging procedures that utilize x-rays have come under increased scrutiny as numerous media outlets and even peer-reviewed studies have reported that these procedures are putting patients at risk of cancer and causing tens of thousands of new cases of cancer per year, with many of those resulting in death.   These reports are leading to not only increased fear of medical imaging, but also to calls for policy changes and reduced use of x-ray medical imaging.

The CT scan has become on of the biggest targets.   CT scans are rapidly becoming one of the most common forms of medical imaging.  They’re relatively quick, painless and provide excellent diagnostic data for a wide number of conditions.   The technology of CT scanning and imaging processing has improved dramatically in recent years, making the procedures both more economical and increasing data quality and resolution.    There’s no doubt that these procedures save lives and improve the quality of life by giving doctors a look inside the human body at both bone and soft tissue.

CT scans do subject patients to some radiation exposure, however.   The levels of radiation which a patient receives from a CT scan (or even several of them) has never been shown to actually cause any long term harm, but the long-standing and many times debunked linear non-threshold model presumes that it will.  LNT was conceived as a “worst case scenario” for the effect that ionizing radiation might have on the human body in the earliest days of radiation research, when data was scarce.

LNT holds that radiation effect is directly proportional to dose, all the way down to zero and therefore assumes that the human body is incapable of repairing damage caused by radiation, recovering from radiation-induced cellular damage or in any way mitigating the effects of radiation.   It further assumes that the effect of a few atoms in a human cell being ionized is smaller, but otherwise no different than an enormous amount of ionization of the cells.

There’s no doubt that cancer risk is increased by radiation if the dose is high enough.   Radiation can damage the body on both a macroscopic and cellular level.   A high enough dose of radiation can cause tissue damage, internal bleeding and even death.  Those who do recover from multiple incidence of near-fatal acute radiation poisoning may face life-long complications and health issues relating to the damage caused by radiation.   At high enough levels, the dangers appear to be relatively linear in relation to radiation dose.  In other words, a person exposed to 1000 rems has approximately twice the risk of complications like cancer as someone exposed to 500.

By this logic, one rem should result in .1% the likelihood of developing cancer as 1000 rems.   This has been likened to observing that when a person is thrown off a ten story building they die 100% of the time, when thrown off of a 5 story building, they die 50% of the time and therefore assuming that 10% will die from a one story fall and 1% will die after falling 12 inches.  Furthermore, the implication is that the optimal living situation is zero radiation exposure (something which is effectively impossible) and the higher the exposure is over zero, the worse off you are for cancer risk.

Needless to say, many have pointed out that there’s a flaw in this logic and as knowledge of radiation has increased, LNT has begun to look less and less likely.  Unfortunately for the promoters of LNT, examination of the cancer rates in populations living in high radiation background areas shows no increase in cancer and in fact, has produced some evidence of a decreased risk of cancer.

Yet what these reports on the dangers of medical imaging really are is nothing more than a combination of the LNT hypothysis and fifth grade level mathematics.

In the media:
SF Gate: CT scan cancer warnings worry patients
WEB MD: Multiple CT Scans Raise Cancer Risk
Daily Mail: CAT scan cancer fear: Radiation ‘could trigger the disease in one in 80 patients’
US News and World Report: Too Many CT Scans Pose Cancer Risk, Studies Say
Wall Street Journal: Radiation Risks Prompt Push to Curb CT Scans

The math:
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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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