Barriers to the Acceptance of Science

 Steve Novella has a great blog entry titled Barriers to the Acceptance of Science

Take a look.

Dr. Sears and ex-Doctor Wakefield

May 29, 2010
Dr. Sears, Dr. Wakefield and TACA at Autism One
Here's Dr. Bob Sears, Dr. Andy Wakefield and TACA's Lisa Ackerman at the TACA booth at Autism One.

Dr. Sears and ex-Doctor Wakefield
At the end of January 2010, a fact finding panel of doctors and non-doctors determined, beyond a reasonable doubt, that Andrew Wakefield had failed in his responsibilities as a licensed UK doctor. He broke the rule of medical research, he was unethical in causing children in distress to undergo medical procedures that were not clinically indicated. He was dishonest, misleading and inaccurate when it came to his 1998 paper in The Lancet .A few days ago, the licensing body, the GMC,  decided that Wakefield should lose his status a a registered UK doctor.

Shill or Employee Gambit

I've got the time and the interest to comment a lot on the topics I'm interested in at Huffington-Post.  So I seem to get accused of being an employee of the company or industry I seem to be supporting.  Sometimes I'm doing this on my own time, sometimes I'm supposed to get paid for this by Big Pharma or Big Vaccine or whatever.

I'm not. But if I was an employee or contractor paid to do this job or even an employee volunteering to do this ---- why should you believe me?  At Huffington-Post, only Huff-Po knows my IP Address. No one else can find my IP address and use it to try to learn more about me.  And on sites of those who disagree with me, I just have to make sure to use an IP address that goes back to a residential DSL or Cable Account.

The above is just a preamble to what's below --- which is my reply to questions asked of me  in comments at Huff-Po in the last 24 hours.

Here are our featured players.

Monsanto and Haiti

Added June 20, 2010.
Via daysmp at Huffington-Post, there's a great article to read Hybrids in Haiti.

The following is a response to Monsanto's Poison Pills for Haiti at Huffington-Post, which argues that Monsanto is evil, non-organic seeds are evil, hybrids are evil and anybody who doesn't support organic agriculture is evil.

It is adapted from comments by myself and others at  Huffington-Post blog entry Haitian Farmers Commit to Burning Monsanto Hybrid Seeds.

Monsanto offered 475 tons of carefully selected seed to Haiti. Some of it is open pollination vegetable seed. The rest is hybrid maize (corn) seed. If you have open pollination seed, when you harvest your crop, you keep some and use it to grow the next crop. The seed you use for the next crop will be the same as used for the previous crop.

With hybrid seed, you get one good harvest because of hybrid vigor. I don't understand it. Maybe you can do better. The seed from that harvest isn't the same as the hybrid seed. It won't give the same results if you use it for the next crop. Farmers understand this. Monsanto understands this. The NGOs Monsanto is working with know this.  Hybrids are used worldwide.

Insulin, Salk and Connaught Laboratories

One of the more amusing aspects of commenting at Huffington-Post is the accusation that I'm a shill for Big Pharma.

One problem is that I'm Canadian and live in Toronto. So it isn't likely that I'm working for any American group. If I worked for anybody, it would probably be Aventis Pasteur. They have a complex less than 20 miles from where I live that does Research, Development and Production of vaccines (not the flu vaccine).

The original company was Connaught Laboratories. owned by the University of Toronto. Connaught Labs was the beneficiary of the Canadian inventors of insulin Banting, Best, McLeod and Collip** selling the patent to the university for one dollar. Let the Dr. Offit cracks begin.

Connaught was instrumental in the Salk vaccine trials.  They invented medium 199 which was used to grow the polio virus. They also supplied the polio virus used in the Salk trials. See http://www.healthheritageresearch.com/Polio-Conntact9606.html It was only after reading that article did I drive around the outside of the complex. It is in the center of the map. http://tinyurl.com/connaught-camus

**The traditional view is Banting and Best invented insulin.The Nobel prize went to Banting and McLeod. Banting gave half his prize money to Best. McLeod gave half his to Collip. I took one course in history from Michael Bliss, a great historian, who gets lost when it comes to recent politics. Bliss argues that McLeod did not get the credit he deserve.

Wakefield - Not Dr. Wakefield

I haven't been able to stomach the idea of watching Wakefield on the May 24th, 2010 Today show. According to Kwombles:

The first question Matt [Lauer] asked was if he could still call him doctor. Of course, he can, says Wakefield. You can't take the medical degree away, after all. 

Wakefield is no longer a licensed doctor anywhere. He is Andrew Wakefield, MB, BS, FRCS, FRCPath. He does not have a MD (medical doctor) degree. He has a Bachelor of Medicine degree which is a degree that you can start directly from 'high school' in the UK.

So Wakefield lies with his very answer. Expect his other professional designations of FRCS and FRCPath to be taken from him in the future.  So he ends up as Andy Wakefield MB BS. And nothing makes more sense than to have him keep the BS as he uses it every time he talks.

GMC Lets Murch Gets Away With It

In a travesty of justice, the GMC panel determined that no sanctions at all be applied to Professor Murch.  

 I predicted that Wakefield, Walker-Smith and Murch would all have their names erased from the register of UK medical doctors.  See the decisions for Wakefield and Professor Walker-Smith. But their decision for Professor Murch lets him completely off the hook.

I'm flabbergasted.  This is a case where the outcome is decided  and then the reasons for  reaching that outcome have to be worked out.  To make this even more bizarre, the panel discusses what was left out of the January 2010 fact-finding decision --- Murch was on the Ethics Committee at the relevant times.

The Panel also accepted the expert evidence that Responsible Consultants who sign up to research are individually responsible and have a duty to ensure such research governance. The principles of research ethics and governance and in particular, the guiding principles with regard to children, require a doctor to conduct research within ethical constraints. An ethics committee, in performing its regulatory function, has a right to expect probity from applicant doctors. The Panel is aware of Professor Murch’s membership of the Ethics Committee at the material time. It noted that he had only been a committee member for a few months and had not received any formal training but nonetheless concluded that he would have been aware of such responsibility.

Alternative Medicine - Bono and Harm

I'm a 'fan' of Dana at Huffington-Post and I've set the notifications so that I get to see every comment he makes.  He posted a rah-rah homeopathy comment  regarding the emergency back surgery Bono underwent in Germany.

Bono's being treated by  a Dr. Hans-Wilhelm Mueller-Wohlfahrt who has an unorthodox treatment for some  joint conditions --- and those treatments aren't homeopathic. This is the homeopath that  Dana did his rah-rah number on.   The other  doctor treating Bono is the neurosurgeon who did the surgery.

This is not the time for going rah-rah homeopathy when the condition is serious and delay matters. I've poked around a bit and doctors are saying what I thought to be the case --- the only reason aside from an accident  for emergency back surgery is cauda equina syndrome.  For this comment  ---- I will assume--- that this is the case and Bono developed CES.

In CES,  there is sudden pressure on the spinal nerves that look like a horse's mane (hence the name) at the end of the spinal cord.  That's caused by a very bad herniation of the disks around the L4-L5 area.

There is only solution.  Back surgery as soon as possible to relieve the pressure.  Even  with back surgery very quickly, there may be permanent damage that can range from none to minor to very severe.  Delays in getting surgery make a full recovery less likely.

Formal Complainant Against Wakefield – Ignore One Side

Sometimes it is useful to write and then post a comment at Age of Autism that is polite, on-topic and rationally explains there may be difficulties with a specific article posted there.  Then it gets refused and you can post it at the Silenced by Age of Autism blog.
But sometimes, when the nuttiness at Age of Autism goes too far, a less polite approach may be called for.

John Stone’s writing for Age of Autism isn’t the worst of what they peddle – that honour goes to Martin Walker.

But Stone does deserve a medal for producing the most one sided set of articles on a minor point:  Was journalist Brian Deer the formal complainant to the GMC against Wakefield, Walker-Smith and Murch?  John Stone says yes in a May 18 article at Age of Autism  BMJ Editor Refuses to Acknowledge Brian Deer’s Role as Complainant in GMC Case.
When he doesn’t get the result he likes from the BMJ, he throws a hissy fit and posts another article at Age of Autism on May 22, 2010. Godlee Must Go: BMJ Fails To Answer Question on Deer's Competing Interests

Stone is not a complete and utter ignoramus.  I refuse to believe that he hasn’t stumbled across explanations that contradict what he writes.  Yet, he doesn’t have a problem with leaving out explanations from the people you would think know best, the GMC itself. In 2004, Dr. Horton after promising to wait until Brian Deer’s story was published on a Sunday, announced on the preceding Friday the allegations that Deer made against Wakefield.  This lead to politicians asking for a GMC investigation and Wakefield himself asking for an investigation.

According to Deer, on the following Monday, the GMC called and asked him for his information.  A couple days later he supplied what he had to them along with a letter where he said he was complaining about Wakefield. 

The position taken by the GMC has been repeated over and over. They learned of the issue from the newspapers and decided on their own to launch an investigation.   Deciding to start an investigation based on news media accounts isn’t unusual for the GMC.

I’m not supplying any links to this because it is ridiculously easy to find on the internet that this is the position that has been put forward consistently by the GMC.

Nutty Comments Allowed But the Truth is Censored

Not only will Age of Autism censor any opinions they don't like.  They censor facts that are irrefutable. For example, there are no peanut products, including peanut oil, used in any vaccine used in the US.
Age of Autism merely copies a story about peanut allergies, The article reports that a survey found the rate of peanut allergies has tripled in a little over a decade. It says absolutely nothing about vaccines.
AoA lets commenters go wild and blame vaccines somehow or another. Some comments argue that there is something peanutty in US vaccines That's nuts. When I posted a comment to them that explains why it is nuts, it got censored.  
Here is the comment, with minor changes, followed by a screen print showing the comment was successfully sent to AoA.

Start of Comment at Age of Autism
Until the fall of 2009, only aluminum based adjuvants have ever been approved for vaccines distributed in the United States. The US has never approved any vaccine with a squalene adjuvant.In the fall of 2009, the adjuvant AS04 was approved for use in the HPV Vaccine cervarix See page 12  

Urabe MMR - No Indemnity

Martin Walker, in his essay, The Urabe factor incorrectly interprets a clause in an MMR supply contract as an indemnification for the manufacturer for the qualify of the vaccine or damage caused by the vaccine.  That is wrong.  The clause protects the vaccine makers from claims against them which are caused by  actions or omissions of the vaccine distributor.  For any such claims, the NHS (the UK National Health Service) will indemnify the vaccine maker.

That makes sense.  Assume SK&F delivers vaccine in pertect condition to the distributor, who is acting upon behalf of the NHS. The distributor mishandles the vaccine so it is contaminated and a child dies from the contamination. The parents sue SK&F. Provided SK&F tells the NHS immediately, the NHS agrees that it will pay the legal fees and damages awarded against SK&F.

In his essay downloadable here ,Mr. Walker, at page 54, has this quote from a vaccine supply contract:

NHS shall indemnify SK&F against any proven loss which SK&F shall suffer as a result of any act or omission of the Nominated Distributor in connection with the performance or non performance of this Agreement where such act or omission appears to be within the scope of the Nominated Distributor's authority as agent of NHS provided that SK&F shall immediately notify NHS of any claim under the provisions of this clause."

Martin Walker continues:

This indemnity is an 'all cause' indemnity. Clearly the JCVI and the UK government understood at least one of the MMR manufacturers to be indemnified when marketing their MMR product. This is confirmed in the unambiguous JCVI minutes of May 7th 1993: ‘SKB continued to sell the Urabe strain vaccine without liability."

That's wrong. The indemnity is not an 'all cause' indemnity. It provides reasonable protection when the vaccine maker is sued because of problems that the distributor,not the vaccine maker, caused.

As added evidence, a google search using  nhs "nominated distributor" returns 48 results. They deal with delivering goods from the seller to a distribution company.   For example, the tendering requirements  for supplying HPV vaccine to the UK states:

Offerors should include a proposed delivery schedule detailing how they would deliver the consignments necessary to complete the delivery of the first 820,000 doses to the Authority’s nominated distributor...."

11 Pounds of Mercury A Year

Correction September 20, 2010
This blog entry is in error.  I used 200 million as the US population.  That's way too low. A current number is 307 million.  That means I've underestimated the ethylmercury burden from vaccines by a vast amount.  Using 300 million, it isn't 11 pounds but 17.5 pounds. But let us round it up to 20 pounds. 

Disposing of vaccine that contains thimerosal has to be done as a hazardous material. That has nothing to do with the safety of using vaccines with thimerosal.  An even more ridiculous concern is that thimerosal is bad because except for a very, very, very small amount all the ethylmercury is excreted and ends up in the water waste stream.

Assume 25mcg per flu shot dose. A million doses is 25 grams. Assume half the US population (200 million is close enough) is vaccinated that's 5000g or about 11 pounds that is widely dispersed into sewage systems all over the US. In 2004, US coal plants are estimated to have given off about 105,000 pounds of mercury. These are point sources.
Of course, there are many other ways that mercury from man made processes gets into the air, the water and the soil, which makes the contribution from excreted ethylmercury even less of a concern.

No Vaccination No School and No Exemptions

Vaccination opponents in the United States have the strange idea that state laws that require vaccination as a condition of enrollment in public schools have to have some exemptions.

They don't. In West Virginia and one other state, the only exemption from vaccination is for medical reasons.  The line of case law on this point is very strong.  In the fall of 2009, a Federal District Court judge stated this view one more time.

Much of the decision deal with sovereign immunity and can be ignored. A claim that autism was grounds for vaccination exemption was rejected.  Start reading at page 13 of WORKMAN v. MINGO COUNTY SCHOOLS CIVIL ACTION NO.  2:09-cv-00325

Closed MInds -- No Food or Drink for Decades

At Huff-Po, someone argued for the veracity of an Indian holy man who claims that he hasn't eaten or drank liquids for decades. He has recently been tested. Here's one story. At the end of this entry, there's a link to a very different newspaper story. I pointed out to the Huff-Po commenter that no one  has tested him for as long as it took the longest known hunger striker to die. I was thinking of Bobby Sands. It took 66 days for him to die of starvation. The sadhu has only been observed for a few weeks.

I wrote: 

Take a read of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inedia and discover that the story is not as simple as you would like. David Blaine has done some endurance gimmicks. Why should this be any different? The wikepedia article has him having his testing done in a very friendly environment. I wonder why the sadhu didn't go for the million dollars offered by Jame Randi? Could it be that to do so would require his claims to be tested by experts in the art of fakery? 

As to the testing by the Indian Defense officials, the Americans and their remote viewing nonsense shows that woo woo can crop up just about anywhere."

I got a pretty typical response, "You have mastered the art of closing your eyes at what you do not want to see."

My response: 

"Sandalwood, I assume you have a decent education and you know that there are people who want to fool you. You know that giving someone $10,000 in advance will not get you millions from some involved story of money tied up somewhere. Your next questions should be about the people who tested him and the environment where he was tested. Were they people he knew? Did they have any expertise in detecting this type of cheating? Was the environment specially constructed? The answers should be enough for you to conclude that there wasn't evidence that a scientific impossibility hadn't occurred.

 Johnny Carson was a skilled magician. But he still called James Randi and took his advice on setting up the environment in which to test the spoon bender Uri Geller. Unlike almost everywhere else, Geller had no success on the Tonight show.

Irradiating Trypsin Not Good Enough

Usually when I write a blog entry, I know how the story ends. Here I don't.

The likely culprit for the PCV virus in the rotavirus vaccines is trypsin, which comes from pig pancreas.  What's unusual is that the production process irradiates the trypsin, at least for Rotateq.  Did it fail to kill the PCV virus?  Or was the problem that the trypsin used at the very start was not irradiated?  I don't know.

"The applicant has put adequate measures (EVCP for pre-master seeds, gamma irradiation of bovine serum and porcine pancreatic trypsin) in place to ensure absence of adventitious agents for the above materials and the virus removal or inactivation steps have been validated."  Page 10 of the pdf file.

John Stone 100 Percent Accurate and 100 Percent Wrong

Those who write for Age of Autism sometimes can write a story that is 100% accurate and 100% wrong. Ok, maybe not 100% accurate. John Stone in BMJ Editor Refuses to Acknowledge Brian Deer’s Role as Complainant in GMC Case provides a great example.

But first, why does it matter who complained to the GMC about Dr. Wakefield?After the story that Brian Deer published in 2004, the GMC had to do some investigation. What's wrong with Brian Deer sending a letter to the GMC the same day that his article appears in the newspaper? Nothing. But he didn't.

At least not the way it happened according to the GMC, the people you think would know. But Stone manages to leave out what they had to say. It must have been hard to leave them out because a search for GMC brian deer complainant returns this first  Was Dr. Wakefield the complainant in his own GMC case? in  2010 and this second Brian Deer Not a Complainant in 2009.

There's no requirement that Stone believe that the GMC is telling the truth. But surely he has the obligation to put forward that they have to say. I would post this as a reasonable, polite comment at Age of Autism, except that it is futile. Age of Autism takes its role as Big Brother very seriously and will not allow any information to appear that contradicts the party line.

Just another reason that after reading anything at Age of Autism or other vaccines cause everything to go wrong websites and think they might be correct, make sure to do a few minutes searching and find out what was deliberately left out.

Factoids Rule Age of Autism

David Burd did a statistical analysis of the flu vaccine results in Canada. It was published at Age of Autism. It is supposed to show that the H1N1 vaccine when combined with the seasonal flu vaccine raised the flu infection rate. This was a concern raised by Canadian studies in 2009. I read this at AofA. Burd didn't do a statistical analysis. He simply reports some factoids. In previous years the province of New Brunswick reported flu rate was this. For 2009-2010 it was this rate. And NB was the only province that recommended seasonal flu shots as well as the 2009 H1N1 shot.  We know that the only flu viruses infecting Canadians in 2009-2010 were the 2009 H1N1 strains.

Off the top of my head, why isn't there a rate of vaccination for 2009 H1N1, province by province and age group by age group? Was it lower, higher or the same as in other provinces. Toronto had a big scare when healthy kids started dying and the rate of vaccination for kids went up (I believe). And since kids are the source for infection, more than others, an increases in the vaccination rate for kids would impact, favorably, others.

I don't know the answers.  If Mr. Burd knows the answers, he doesn't report them. That's hilarious when you consider the paragraph after paragraph recitation of his accomplishments and how obvious the need to actually do some statistical analysis.Too bad there isn't anything about epidemiology or statistics .