Skeptico

Skeptico wins four tiaras

It is with great pleasure that Skeptico accepts this award from Autism Diva – her highest award. It’s so unexpected, it’s the first award Skeptico (the blog anyway) has won. I had nothing prepared and don’t know what to say except a very big thank you and you’re welcome.

I will display them here for all to see and pine for.

Oh and checkout three reasons not to believe in an autism epidemic, and other recent posts, at Autism Diva.

Lies, damned lies, and quote mining

OK, I’ve just read a second lengthy document that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his fellow travelers say is proof of a CDC/IOM cover-up, and I’ve found it is nothing of the kind. In fact it quite strongly shows the opposite.

First, a refresher. Kennedy wrote a scare piece linking thimerosal to autism, stating that a CDC meeting had spent days covering up a supposed link. I wrote a piece showing how Kennedy’s article was totally dishonest, and my conclusion was later confirmed and expanded upon by Majikthise. Kennedy also claimed in his article that the Institute of Medicine (IOM) had been paid by the CDC to further bury this so-called link, and presented several (un-sourced) quotes to support this claim. The IOM’s president replied that the quotes were taken out of context, and denied that they were part of any cover up. I reported on this, stating that Kennedy should offer evidence (with cites) of the original quotes (in context) and evidence of the “paid cover-up” that he so scandalously alleged. He hasn’t done so, as far as I am aware.

My post generated several comments, including several from a poster calling himself “Critical Thinker”, who did manage to find the transcript that contained the Kennedy IOM quotes. He challenged me:

Here is a link to the full IOM report. Read this document. Then tell me how I can possibly believe that the CDC did not want the IOM to find a link (Note by Skeptico: presumably he means “find no link”) and that the IOM had not already made up their mind BEFORE the study started that they would find no link between thimerosal and autism. Explain to me how these quotes are taken out of context as the IOM president would like us to believe. Here are some specific quotes that I find most concerning:

Page 32 Dr. Kaback:

"We have got a dragon by the tail here. At the end of the line, what we know is -- and I agree -- that the more negative that presentation is, the less likely people are to use vaccination, immunization, and we know what the results of that will be.

We are kind of caught in a trap. How we work out way out of the trap, I think, is the charge."

Page 34 (Note: actually page 33) Dr. McCormick:

"I am wondering, if we take this dual perspective, we may address more of the parent concerns, perhaps developing a better message if we think about what comes down the stream as opposed to CDC, which wants us to declare, well, these things are pretty safe on a population basis."

Page 72 (Note: actually page 74) Dr. Stratton:

"We said this before you got here, and I think we said this yesterday. The point of no return, the line we will not cross in public policy is pull the vaccine, change the schedule.

We could say it is time to revisit this, but we would never recommend that level. Even recommending research is recommendations for policy.

We wouldn't say compensate, we wouldn't say pull the vaccine, we wouldn't say stop the program."

Page 95 (Note: actually page 97) Dr. McCormick:

"What I am trying to get at is, do we want to simply, on our gut, say looking at the significance of the wild disease that you are protecting, and the seriousness and potential association with the vaccine - because we are not ever going to come down that it is a true side effect - is that going to be sufficient for you to judge public health impact?"

These did appear to be the quotes Kennedy was using. So I read the full transcript and the following is what I find those quotes to really mean, in context.

NOTE: I have shown the portion of the quotes that Kennedy included, highlighted in yellow. I believe that makes it clearer which bits Kennedy included and which bits he left out.  It should be easier this way, for you to make your own mind up as to whether the bits Kennedy missed out (ie the non-highlighted text), alters the meaning.  All additional bold is mine.

Page 32 Dr. Kaback:

The first quote is preceded by a lengthy discussion on how most people are bad at understanding statistics and determining relative risks (several anecdotes are recounted). There is a discussion about how there are always risks to anything, and that sometimes one risk trades off against another, and that people have to make decisions about these trade-offs. Finally, there is the recognition that, in reality, doctors only have a little time (1.6 or 1.7 minutes are quoted), to explain these factors to their patients. Then we have this:

It (the doctors’ explanation) all has to be done in 1.6 minutes in a way that they can make a – I will come back another time and give you a nice anecdote about informed decision making.

That, of course, is threaded through all our vocabularies, this great notion of informed choices that patients make.

We need to think a lot about that. We have got a dragon by the tail here. At the end of the line, what we know is -- and I agree -- that the more negative that presentation is, the less likely people are to use vaccination, immunization, and we know what the results of that will be.

We are kind of caught in a trap. How we work out way out of the trap, I think, is the charge. It does have a kinetic component.

That’s why I think we can’t sit two years to do it. (Snip)

Of course, we live in a 24-hour-a-day seven-day-a-week media blitz on our public. They are always looking for things to fill up the time and the newspapers with. This makes a great story. So, we have a big job.

They are talking about how people don’t understand statistics, and how it might be difficult to explain certain findings, and how difficult this job will be.

Page 33: Dr. McCormick

Following immediately from the above is:

I took away actually an issue that we may have to confront, and that is actually the definition of what we mean by safety.

It is safety on a population basis, but it is also safety for the individual child.

I am wondering, if we take this dual perspective, we may address more of the parent concerns, perhaps developing a better message if we think about what comes down the stream as opposed to CDC, which wants us to declare, well, these things are pretty safe on a population basis.

This is a discussion of the need of parents to know if a vaccine is safe for their individual child compared with the CDC’s requirement to know safety for the whole population.  McCormick is proposing the committee additionally considers the parents’ concerns about the health of their individual children, instead of just safety for the whole population.

The whole flap around this quote is the wording “wants us to declare, well, these things are pretty safe”. She means, the CDC wants to know if they are safe. Seriously, the conspiracy believers need to grow up a little – it’s obvious what she means when you read the whole transcript.

Page 73: Dr. Stratton:

There is a discussion about just what the CDC wants to know from the IOM, with the conclusion being that the CDC primarily wants to know if there really is a causative link (ie doesn’t want to “whitewash” anything).

Dr. Stratton

I think there are two things we absolutely have to do and there is no doubt about it. We have to give them your best judgment of the causality assessment.

Exactly how you define that… you can decide.

This committee has to make a causality assessment. That is clear, and they have to recommend action, inaction, you know, how much action in some sense.

How you get from one to the other is your judgment. They have made suggestions for the things that you might want to consider. But we must give them a causality assessment.

Dr. Goodman:

… when you say action, how are you defining action? How far down the line are you defining actions?

(Snip)

Dr. Stratton:

We said this before you got here, and I think we said this yesterday. The point of no return, the line we will not cross in public policy is pull the vaccine, change the schedule.

We could say it is time to revisit this, but we would never recommend that level. Even recommending research is recommendations for policy.

We wouldn't say compensate, we wouldn't say pull the vaccine, we wouldn't say stop the program.

It really is very clear from the above that nothing is being buried. In fact, the key piece of information the CDC wants is, is there a causative relationship?  Stratton is saying that they must say if the vaccine is dangerous – they must “make a causality assessment”. But Stratton is saying this committee draws the line at policy – whether or not the vaccine must be pulled. And this is confirmed by an earlier quote (that Kennedy ignored), from page 16:

Ms. Davis: So our recommendations can then influence public policy, but we will not be specifically recommending that they follow them.

Dr. Stratton: Right. When CDC and I talked about sort of how far we would go, and the president of the IOM and I spoke about the project, it is clear that it is not the purview of this committee

(Snip)

We would never say that something should be covered, something should be pulled, some schedule should be changed, but just suggest the evidence is sufficient that they themselves take a look at it.

“Suggest the evidence is sufficient” – hardly a group who had “already made up their mind BEFORE the study started that they would find no link”. Anyone who concentrates on “the line we will not cross in public policy is pull the vaccine” and ignores “they must say if the vaccine is dangerous “is just not reading the transcript with an honest desire to ascertain the intent of the committee.

Page 97 Dr. McCormick

What I am trying to get at is, do we want to simply, on our gut, say looking at the significance of the wild disease that you are protecting, and the seriousness and potential association with the vaccine - because we are not ever going to come down that it is a true side effect - is that going to be sufficient for you to judge public health impact?

This quote comes in the middle of a long discussion about risks of disease verses possible risks of vaccines, and severity of symptoms, and how you would grade such things. It’s hard to be sure exactly what McCormick  means, but I think she is saying that it is unlikely they will be able to prove a causative link with 100% certainty.  Then she says, remembering that the disease and autism are both serious conditions, would being less than 100% sure of a link be sufficient to make a public health judgment. In other words, she is not whitewashing a potential bad outcome; she is suggesting that a less than 100% certainty of a link could still be reported as a bad outcome: the opposite of what the conspiracy believers want to think. I’ve read this section about 20 times now and that’s the only explanation that makes sense. None of the other discussion even hints that a decision has been made by the committee; in fact, they are discussing how to quantify their results. It’s probably just a bit of careless language (in a meeting lasting a whole day, remember – did you ever have a bunch of conspiracy nuts with preconceived beliefs analyzing your every word for a whole day?), and in any case, even if I am wrong, taking this one quote out of 199 pages and suggesting it means the decision had already been made, is frankly absurd.

The rest of the transcript shows a group of people discussing: how to do the studies; how to prioritize; who would be the best people to get involved; how to educate the public about the outcome; how to define association v. causality; the difficulty of diagnosing autism; how to evaluate data. Nothing on how to “whitewash” anything, as Kennedy alleges.

But that’ not it. In fact, I saved the best for last.

Walt Wants

I found the “Walt wants” quote. In the Salon article, Kennedy writes:

According to transcripts of the meeting, the committee's chief staffer, Kathleen Stratton, predicted that the IOM would conclude that the evidence was "inadequate to accept or reject a causal relation" between thimerosal and autism. That, she added, was the result "Walt wants" -- a reference to Dr. Walter Orenstein, director of the National Immunization Program for the CDC.

This is probably the most disgraceful piece of out-of-context quote mining of the whole sorry piece. The following is the actual quote from Dr. Stratton, starting on page 123, with the only actual words quoted by Kennedy in yellow highlighter as before, and my bold:

What Walt said to us, and I know they are worried about, I mean, he said to us, saying something is category two, which means what Mike is calling category four, vaccine safety called category two inadequate to accept or reject a causal relation.

What he said is, telling me that it is still a category two isn’t enough to tell me what to do.

(Snip)

What Walt has said is, just telling me it is here isn’t enough. That is where he started to call what he wants, what everybody wants in the vaccine safety field is, break this one out for me. I am just telling you that is what they say.

First, you may notice that “Walt wants” doesn’t appear at all – that is a manufactured quote.  For the sake of this discussion though, I'll accept "what he wants".  ("He" being Walt.)  More to the point, it is very clear from reading the whole thing that what Walt “wants” is to know if there is a causal relationship.  Sheesh - it's right there in the actual words actually used by Stratton: “inadequate to accept or reject a causal relation [...] isn't enough..”  Isn't enough!  "He wants the IOM to “tell [him] what to do”. So, very clearly, Walt is not dictating to the IOM what the conclusion should be, as Kennedy alleges. It is the exact opposite. Walt clearly “wants” the IOM to break it out so it is clear if the vaccine is dangerous or not. He says: “inadequate to accept or reject” "isn't enough."  He wants to know yes or no if it is dangerous or not.

Some In Context Quotes

Having said all that, now it’s time for some representative, not out of context quotes, that demonstrate the integrity of this committee:

Page 15 Dr. McCormick

…we could potentially come up with , there isn’t evidence for this one way or another, keep going full court press, or there is so much evidence to support this adverse reaction, pull the vaccine.

Page 73 Dr. Stratton

I think there are two things that we absolutely have to do and there is no doubt about it. We have to give them your best judgment of the causality assessment.

Page 83 Dr. Shaywitz

I wonder if we are just over-complicating the question that CDC is asking us. They really want to know – it is a complicated enough question for us scientifically.

They really want to know the causality of – they want to know about adverse effects.

Page 84 Dr. Kaback

…the real goal of this thing is to provide the public – not the CDC and not the congress, but the public – with a reasonable basis upon which to make decisions about immunization.

Hardly people covering anything up is it? Or, to paraphrase, read those quotes and tell me how I can possibly believe that the CDC wanted the IOM to whitewash a link and that the IOM had already made up their mind BEFORE the study started. Do tell.

OK, that’s it. Enough! The conspiracy believers have taken their best shot – and that was your best shot – and neither document quoted by Kennedy shows any conspiracy or cover-up. And frankly, taking a few out-of-context quotes from a 199 page transcript as proof of a conspiracy is pretty stupid anyway, but when the transcript reveals a group of honest scientists trying, with integrity, to grapple a difficult problem, it gets beyond stupid and is just thoroughly dishonest. It’s pathetic, frankly. If there really was a cover up, wouldn’t they have something better than this?

No more. Don’t bother throwing down a url linking to a huge .pdf with a couple of dodgy quotes in it and expecting me to read it. That’s over now.

Lack critical thinking, go to jail

“When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth” - Sherlock Holmes.

Wrong! - You can never know all other options, and you can never know they are impossible. 

In 1999, Sally Clark was convicted of murdering her two sons and was jailed for life. She served three years before being released on appeal in 2003. The expert testimony of Pediatrician Professor Sir Roy Meadow was instrumental in this conviction, as it was in the conviction of Angela Cannings, Donna Anthony and Trupti Patel for murdering their two, two and three children respectively. These three women were also eventually freed on appeal.

The children died due to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS), known as cot death in the UK. But Meadow testified for the prosecution that the odds of a child dying from SIDS were 1 in 8,543, and so the odds of two children from the same family dying from SIDS were 8,843 squared – or 1 in 72 million. The jury bought the idea that these odds were so astronomical the mothers must have murdered their children.

Anyone with a basic knowledge of logical fallacies would recognize this as a false dilemma – a limited number of options (usually two) are given, while in reality there are more options. Let’s suppose the odds of two children dying from SIDS by pure chance really are 1 in 72 million. Meadow and the jury made the mistake of assuming there were only two choices – chance or murder. They ruled out chance so it must be murder, right? Wrong, because there are at least two other options, for example: a genetic pre-disposition; or something in their home. There are probably others we don’t know about because you can never know all other options. It wasn’t chance that these children died, but that didn’t mean it was murder.

Critical thinkers would also note that no positive evidence was offered for murder, just negative evidence against SIDS. If you want to prove something true you must actually prove it true, not just claim that all alternatives are impossible, because you can never know all other options are impossible. This reversal of the burden of proof is a fallacy known as argument from ignorance - unless something (murder, in this case) has not been proven false, it must be true.

It’s mind-blowing that a jury didn’t see these logical errors, unbelievable that the defense attorney didn’t make the case for them and disgraceful that a prosecution could even be brought with such flimsy evidence. It gets worse - Meadow testified in the Patel trial after the law lords had already called his same evidence in the case of Cannings and Clark, “grossly misleading”. How did this happen? Meadow, with his long list of qualifications, was considered an authority on the subject, and prosecutors and jurors were in awe of him. And this neatly illustrates a third fallacy, argument from authority - even experts can be wrong; what counts are the data not the qualifications of the person presenting them.

Meadow is currently facing a General Medical Council hearing into charges of serious professional misconduct. Last week it heard he gave "misleading and flawed" evidence in Clark’s trial. He could be struck off if found guilty. 

A key tool of critical thinking is to know and understand logical fallacies: don’t rely on them yourself and recognize them in opposing arguments. It seems to me the application of critical thinking and recognition of fallacious reasoning in these cases could have prevented these innocent women from going to jail.

As for Sherlock Holmes, despite his reputation he really wasn’t much of a critical thinker. But that shouldn’t be too surprising: his creator believed in fairies at the bottom of the garden.

Orac Thunders

Today Orac delivers another thundering rebuke to the Huffington Post and the rest of the thimerosal conspiracy believers. Interestingly, Orac compares the believers to creationists, a link that had occurred to me too. Orac notes their similar methods, for example challenging opponents to public “debates” (and writing popular books), instead of publishing in peer-reviewed science journals the way real scientists do.

And this really astonished me (although perhaps it shouldn’t have): Orac finds Kennedy in discussion with Scarborough continuing to lie about what transpired at the Simpsonwood conference:

There are scientists there from the government who are saying—who are reading the reports and saying, this is undeniable. There's no way we can ever deny this.  I am not going to give this to my children, but now let's hide this from the American people.  And it's that clear. 

And this is what I write about.  It's this language that I write about in the “Rolling Stone” and the “Salon” piece that is so shocking, where we have the guys who are supposed to be protecting Americans' health who are actually conspiring to keep this stuff in the vaccines. 

Kennedy is a liar. A liar. There can be no doubt about this now, no possibility that he just didn’t read the whole transcript. I can’t help but think if he had any real evidence he wouldn’t have to lie.

Thimerosal update

I thought I would link and summarize some other bloggers’ posts and other feedback on Robert F. Kennedy Junior’s ridiculous thimerosal scare piece that I commented on unfavorably last Monday.

My original thread attracted a lot of comment, and much of what follows here is relevant to those comments. For example, one commenter who (sometimes) refers to himself as “Critical Thinker” keeps referring to a paper entitled Tobacco Science and the Thimerosal Scandal that has been posted on Kennedy’s website. Apparently this is supposed to be evidence of the dangers of thimerosal, or of a cover up or something, certainly not a dishonest, inaccurate or sensationalist article like his Salon piece, oh no.

Autism Diva

Anyway, Autism Diva points out a rather interesting conclusion (via Michelle Dawson) from this paper. On page 40, Kennedy writes that American children received much higher doses of thimerosal than UK children, and especially, more in one day than UK children, with the conclusion that American children are at a much higher risk of autism than children from the UK (since thimerosal causes autism, you see). Okey dokey, keep that in mind and read on.

Ten pages later, Kennedy approvingly cites a paper by Marc Blaxill entitled, What's going on? The question of time trends in autism. Blaxill states that autism rates in the UK and the US rose by the same amounts, as these graphs show:

 

(Note: the graphs are easier to read at Autism Diva.)

The UK and the US both clearly underwent the same increase in autism at the same time, and both now have the 1 in 166 rate, despite the much lower thimerosal doses in the UK. Autism Diva summarizes:

Kennedy says that there's no comparison between the usage of thimerosal in the U.S. and the U.K., and if the Brits say they can't see thimerosal as a cause of autism it's because they have used so much less of it –

and Blaxill says that the increase of autism has been the same in the two countries.

(Snip)

The conclusion is: thimerosal usage has no effect on autism diagnosis rates.

That conclusion would seem to be entirely consistent with the data, although perhaps any critical thinker(s) reading could explain why this conclusion could be wrong.

(Of course, the conspiracy theorists in the UK blame autism on the MMR shot, since thimerosal is so low in the UK, but that’s another story.)

Majikthise

Moving on, I find that Majikthise has also read the full Simpsonwood transcript (I’m not the only one without a life, apparently). Like me, she concluded Kennedy had been dishonest about the meeting, or as she puts it:

Nothing said at Simpsonwood suggests an attempt to whitewash or cover up anything. The study got some interesting results, which later failed to withstand verification at the third HMO. Vaccine experts said some nasty things about anti-vaccine activists. That was about it.

She also makes some interesting comments on the actual data they were examining, and explains why no firm conclusions could be drawn:

Of course, there are confounds upon confounds. Care-seeking may be related to socioeconomic status, socioeconomic status to maternal mercury intake and breast feeding, and therefore to prenatal and postnatal mercury exposure, and so on. You can generate any number of alternative scenarios.

It is difficult to interpret the Simpsonwood data because the diagnoses of interest are so fuzzy. The study is trying to capture small differences in the relative risk for relatively rare conditions. As we learned from the recent JAMA obesity study, if you're studying a relatively rare phenomenon, like death at age forty (or infantile autism), small numerical differences between groups translate into huge increases in relative risk. Under these circumstances, it's especially important to be mindful of confounds that could account for small differences between the groups, e.g. local variation in diagnosis rates and diagnostic criteria in the case of relatively subtle and fluid diagnoses like "speech delay" or "attention deficit disorder."

As one of the pediatric neurologists at Simpsonwood pointed out, most of the kids in the study were too young to be diagnosed as speech delayed or attention deficit disordered with any degree of rigor. There's just too much overlap between the "normal" and the "pathological" curves at that age. Of course, once someone gets diagnosed with something, it's pretty rare for them to get undiagnosed, especially in the eyes of an administrative database. So, it's unclear how many kids with early diagnoses actually had a pathological problem to begin with.

All in all a very good write-up – worth reading the whole thing.

The Institute of Medicine

You’ll recall Kennedy accused the Institute of Medicine (IOM) of being part of the cover up. There were also some (un-sourced) IOM quotes that I had questioned. The IOM’s President replies:

Mr. Kennedy sought to buttress his misrepresentation of the purpose of the IOM studies by selectively using and fabricating quotations from the transcript of an organizational meeting held by the committee. He took words and phrases out of context, combined them and misrepresented them as direct quotes.

Hum, taking words and phrases out of context, combined them and misrepresented them as direct quotes – yep that sounds like Kennedy. The IOM president goes on to defend the IOM’s integrity, especially with reference to its studies being peer reviewed, unlike the work of many of the thimerosal activists:

Mr. Kennedy's piece does not mention that the IOM's studies on vaccines and autism -- like all IOM studies -- were peer reviewed (the equivalent of fact checking in the scientific community) by a group of outside experts before being approved for publication. The IOM, a branch of the National Academies, also follows stringent policies for reviewing the potential conflicts of interest or biases of individuals who are chosen to serve on its study committees. The members selected for the committee that reviewed vaccine safety issues had no links to the CDC, vaccine manufacturers, vaccine-related litigation or advocacy groups, and they had received no recent funding from the sponsors of the study. They received no remuneration for their work on the committee. The reputation of the National Academies for objectivity, integrity, independence and competence has been earned through numerous studies, and it is one of our most important assets.

Salon allowed Kennedy to reply. Amusingly, Kennedy pouts that the IOM President “offers no evidence of "fabricated" quotes”, as if Kennedy is all about evidence now. Of course, if Kennedy could offer evidence (with cites) of the original quotes (in context) and evidence of the “paid cover-up” that he so scandalously alleged, I might concede that the IOM President should back up his claim; but as I see it, Kennedy is the one unable to back up his claims, not the IOM President. Kennedy continues with more of the “conflict of interest” ad Hominem fallacious reasoning Orac and I have debunked before.

Michael Fumento

Finally, Michael Fumento writes in the Wall Street Journal online:

…Mr. Kennedy isn't to be relied upon for facts. He told Mr. Scarborough in a June 21 interview: "We are injecting our children with 400 times the amount of mercury that FDA or EPA considers safe." Yet four days earlier this correction to his piece appeared: "The article also misstated the level of [mercury that infants have received]." It was "40 percent, not 187 times, greater than the EPA's limit for daily exposure to methyl mercury." Mr. Kennedy not only ignored this correction on Mr. Scarborough's show; he overstated it even further.

(My bold.)

Kennedy being loose with the facts. Wow! And Fumento comments on how Kennedy relies on people who will agree with him, rather than on people with expertise who don’t:

…Mr. Kennedy quotes from vaccine conspirators like Boyd Haley, "one of the world's authorities on mercury toxicity." Actually, Mr. Haley has co-authored, since 1993, a total of five mercury-related publications listed on the medical data base Medline--not exactly what you'd expect from a world authority. By contrast, Frank DeStefano, an epidemiologist at the CDC who does not believe that vaccines cause autism, has co-authored 49 vaccine papers.

Finally, Fumento debunks the conspiracy to hide the data:

Mr. Kennedy had claimed that "to thwart the Freedom of Information Act," the government "handed its giant database of vaccine records over to a private company, declaring it off-limits to researchers." But this practice, Dr. DeStefano noted, was required by federal regulations to protect the privacy of autistic children and their parents. It still allowed access by external researchers but not to any Joe Blow with a FOIA application.

Nicely put.

Edited to add:

See the pretty good article in yesterday's New York Times which included this quote from David Kirby, the author of "Evidence of Harm" that premotes the link between thimerosal and autism:

Because autism is usually diagnosed sometime between a child's third and fourth birthdays and thimerosal was largely removed from childhood vaccines in 2001, the incidence of autism should fall this year

Yes it should, David, if you are right.

Tom Cruise's version of a first date

(Aka an excuse to post a picture of Scarlet Johansson.)

It seems Tom Cruise's version of getting to first base is when a potential girlfriend is willing to sit through a Scientology presentation. As Be Lambic or Green reported, Katie Holmes passed this test (er, shouldn’t that be “failed”?) and is joining the cult, but apparently she wasn’t his first choice. Scarlet Johansson was given the treatment first:

[Cruise] took me into this room, which was stifling hot, and was showing me all kinds of info about joining the church

(Snip)

After two hours of proselytizing… Cruise opened a door to reveal a second room full of upper-level Scientologists who had been waiting to dine with the pair, at which point the cool-headed ingénue politely excused herself.

How reliable is the story? Impossible to say, but it fits with Cruise’s obsession with the cult. If true it also shows Johansson to be a cut above the average celebrity.  Smarter than Katie Holmes anyway.

11th Skeptics’ Circle

The eleventh Skeptics’ Circle is now up at Anne's Anti-Quackery & Science Blog. Check it out for some of the best recent skeptical blogging.

RFK Jr. gets the RFK Jr. treatment

I refer to my piece on Monday: Robert F. Kennedy Junior’s completely dishonest thimerosal article.

Remember how Kennedy’s article starts off with emotive language – the meeting is at an “isolated” conference center “nestled in wooded farmland… to ensure complete secrecy”, etc.?

Well, according to MSNBC News, Cult News and others, earlier this year Robert F. Kennedy Jr. spoke at the headquarters of the Ramtha School of Enlightenment – that’s the cult of the 35,000 warrior chief channeled by Judy Z. Knight. (I wrote about this group in my review of the film What The (Bleep) Do We Know!? (sic).)

Kennedy spoke at Ramtha? Hum. If I take the information on Kennedy’s talk to Ramtha and give it the same treatment as Kennedy does in the first paragraph of his article, I could write something that starts:

In March 2005, a restricted audience composed only of Ramtha’s current students, gathered for a meeting with Robert F. Kennedy Junior at the isolated Ramtha compound in Yelm, WA.  Convened by a 35,000 year old warrior spirit from Atlantis, the meeting was held at JZ Knight’s ranch, a place of special beauty nestled in deep serenity at the foothills of Mount Rainier, to ensure complete secrecy.

Sounds suspicious, doncha think? Perhaps I’ll write an article for Salon and Rolling Stone. All I need is a long boring transcript of the meeting that no one will read and I’m off to the races. Anyone?

Robert F. Kennedy Junior’s completely dishonest thimerosal article

Edited January 16, 2011

5½ years after the fact, Salon have decided to withdraw the RFK Jr. article that this post is about. When you click the “Salon” link below you will be taken to a Salon page headed Correcting our record, where they explain that they have now removed the post in its entirety. Salon's reasoning includes:

"…continued revelations of the flaws and even fraud tainting the science behind the connection make taking down the story the right thing to do." The story's original URL now links to our autism topics page, which we believe now offers a strong record of clear thinking and skeptical coverage we're proud of -- including the critical pursuit of others who continue to propagate the debunked, and dangerous, autism-vaccine link.

I’m glad Salon have finally caught up to where the rest of us were over five years ago.  Better late than never. I’m fairly sure that RFK Jr. hasn’t revised his absurd position though (it's still on Kennedy's own website, without even any of the corrections that Salon made to their article), and so I believe this post is as relevant as it was in June 2005 in demonstrating how cluelsss RFK Jr. actually is.

The original 2005 post continues below.

Robert F. Kennedy Junior’s completely dishonest thimerosal article

I’m referring to his scare piece in Salon and Rolling Stone, linking Autism to the Thimerosal (mercury) preservative used in vaccines. Kennedy’s article has been roundly criticized by Orac (also here), Autism Diva, Blendor, Soapgun and no doubt others. I decided to hold off a detailed post until I had read the report in question. Even so, I felt Kennedy’s article had gotten off to a rather inauspicious start:

In June 2000, a group of top government scientists and health officials gathered for a meeting at the isolated Simpsonwood conference center in Norcross, Ga. Convened by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the meeting was held at this Methodist retreat center, nestled in wooded farmland next to the Chattahoochee River, to ensure complete secrecy.

Note the emotive language – an “isolated” conference center “nestled in wooded farmland… to ensure complete secrecy”. Sounds suspicious, yes? Well, not really. Perhaps Kennedy should have read the actual full 286 page transcript of the meeting because then he would have learned (page 257) that it was only held there because there had been a Super Comp Computer Conference at the same time and that the Simpsonwood center was the only place available in Atlanta at such short notice. He might also have noted the closeted location had “created a spirit that (the meeting) benefited from”. But that would have robbed Kennedy of his sensationalist opening, I guess.

And the conspiracy mongering didn’t stop there. At the end of Kennedy’s first paragraph is:

All of the scientific data under discussion, CDC officials repeatedly reminded the participants, was strictly "embargoed." There would be no making photocopies of documents, no taking papers with them when they left.

Sounds shady, right? Wrong. Again, if you read the transcript you’ll find the participants were actually told:

…consider it embargoed and protected until it is made public on June 21 and 22 at the ACIP. There is a plan to do that. (Page 256)

Completely different: it was only embargoed until official release later that same month. Kennedy seems intellectually dishonest in taking these non-issues and writing them up to make it sound as though there is something fishy going on.

Anyway, having set the scene to his satisfaction he launches into his sensationalist story.

The “Secret” Meeting

The experts were meeting to discuss a CDC study to evaluate if there were health risks from mercury in vaccines. Kennedy quotes scientists at the meeting agreeing that Thimerosal was responsible for a dramatic increase in autism and a host of other neurological disorders among children. He goes on to state:

But instead of taking immediate steps to alert the public and rid the vaccine supply of thimerosal, the officials and executives at Simpsonwood spent most of the next two days discussing how to cover up the damaging data. According to transcripts obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, many at the meeting were concerned about how the damaging revelations about thimerosal would affect the vaccine industry's bottom line.

(My bold.)

Wow! Serious charges that appeared to be supported by the selected quotes linked from the article. (And you’ll note, he only has these thanks to the Freedom of Information Act – we should be grateful to relentless investigative reporters like Kennedy, right?) However, having read the full 286 page transcript I am honestly at a loss to understand how anyone could possibly come to that conclusion. In fact, the meeting did not conclude that thimerosal was responsible for an increase in autism and did not discuss any cover up. It did discuss possible future studies.

The actual transcript shows this was phase one of a two phase study. The second phase would be carried out if phase one gave “any hint of an association” (page 30) that needed investigating. The first day of the meeting (pages 1 to 167), consisted of presentations of the data with much questioning and discussion of: the meaning of the results; what evidence there might be (or not) for a causal link; confounding factors (ie other things that might have caused the results). This is an honest group of scientists interested in getting to the truth, not a group “discussing how to cover up the damaging data”. Not even close.

Then it gets interesting. On day two, the experts each get a turn giving their view on whether there is a causal link between thimerosal and autism. The participants were asked to rate the possibility of a causal link on a scale of one to six: one being a weak causal link, six strong. From page 189 to 222 you can read of one attendee after another (with just one exception) grading the likelihood of a causal relationship as being either a one or a two out of six. The mean value given by the group (page 253) was 1.8 - very little evidence for a causal link.

There was only one exception (Dr. Weil) who gave it a four. Guess which one Kennedy quoted? (No prizes.) Here are some more representative quotes I pulled from the transcript:

Part one, is there a causal association between ethylmercury and neurological effects noted in the Vaccine Study Datalink project? The answer is no. Why not? From a toxicologists (sic) viewpoint there is no dose response relationship (Page 191)

To me the increasing mercury levels in your population at one month… is so small that it would suggest to me that you have a confounder here. That this is not due to mercury. (page 213)

I gave it a value as 1. I think the strength of the associations are mostly weak and the weaker the associations, the more likely bias might explain some of this. (Page 217)

This is not designed as a study to look at the effects of these vaccines on the different outcomes, but it is using data collected for other reasons, so it is not a carefully controlled prospective cohort study to study. We are using data that was collected for other purposes. (Page 218)

Kennedy’s version is totally inconsistent with the transcript. Quite honestly, only someone with a preconceived belief in a causative relationship and who was fixed in that view no matter what the evidence, would view this meeting as “discussing how to cover up the damaging data”.

The “Paid” Cover-up

But it gets worse. Kennedy continues:

The CDC paid the Institute of Medicine to conduct a new study to whitewash the risks of thimerosal, ordering researchers to "rule out" the chemical's link to autism. It withheld Verstraeten's findings, even though they had been slated for immediate publication, and told other scientists that his original data had been "lost" and could not be replicated.

(My bold.)

I have searched Kennedy’s article including the “Thimerosal resource guide” page provided by Salon and I have not found one shred of evidence that the CDC paid the Institute of Medicine to “whitewash” any thimerosal / autism link. It’s certainly a very serious accusation that I am not prepared to take on Kennedy’s say-so (especially considering the dishonesty in the bits of his article I have been able to check).

I presume he’s referring to Institute of Medicine reports of 2001 or 2004 that stated that there is no link between mercury and autism. I guess it would be too much for Kennedy to show what is actually wrong with these studies, rather than making wild accusations of a cover-up. And too much to show what is wrong with this comprehensive review of the literature in 2004 that also failed to find a link. I guess so.

Old Fallacies

The article goes on to repeat the old “links to vaccine industry” ad Hominem that both Orac and I have debunked before, and also quotes the (flawed) studies by the Geiers (ditto). I won’t labor the point – you know Kennedy is using fallacious reasoning.

When I first read Kennedy’s piece, I was shocked that there had apparently been some kind of cover up about thimerosal. It seemed I would have to re-examine my previous views on the subject as all good skeptics should when new evidence appears. And that was even though I have full knowledge of studies in Denmark and Canada that show autism rates increasing even though thimerosal has been banned in those countries for years. Even though I knew this, the article still sounded convincing. So I can well understand people reading this article and believing it and being livid with the vaccination industry, the CDC and everyone else involved.

But I now know Kennedy’s article is a shockingly dishonest piece of crap from beginning to end. Dishonest and manipulative. He starts with sensationalist language to imply there is something wrong going on, softening up his readers for what comes next. The scene set he, frankly, lies about what happened at the meeting. (Either that or he didn’t read the transcript – your call.) And in the absence of evidence to back up his claim, I suggest Kennedy also made up the bit about the Institute of Medicine whitewashing any embarrassing results. Kennedy wrote his alarmist piece in the knowledge that very few people (in reality – virtually zero) would bother to read the lengthy transcript to find out what actually happened.  It’s nothing short of shameful from someone who I had previously believed to have the highest integrity. My only question is, why? Perhaps he’s just losing it, I don’t know.

So does thimerosal in vaccines cause autism? Honestly, I have no idea although I doubt it – the increasing incidence of autism in Canada and Denmark despite bans of thimerosal would appear to falsify a causative link. But I do know that this piece of garbage from Kennedy has not advanced our knowledge. In fact it has probably put us back, as focus will be placed back on thimerosal rather than on looking for what really causes autism.

Update June 29, 2005:

Read the follow up article: Lies, damn lies, and quote mining – an expose of how Kennedy quote mined the IOM report to make it seem that it said the exact opposite of what it really said.

An even more remote possibility

Well, no reply from the President of Psi Tech to the email I sent her. As I reported on Tuesday, I asked if they could help “remote view” the whereabouts of a missing girl:

Joni:
I wondered if anyone had tried to remote view the location and fate of Natalee Holloway, the teen who recently went missing in Aruba.

Perhaps they’re too busy trying to find the missing girl to reply. Must be that. Couldn’t be because remote viewing doesn’t work. No, couldn’t be. Mind you, inquiring minds could always send their own emails to Joni to find out, I suppose.

Psi Tech has a sterling history of success in addition to the Elizabeth Smart debacle. For example, they remote viewed Flight 587 that crashed in New York on November 12th 2001, fingering terrorism as the cause:

The cause of the crash was a series of explosions caused by an intentionally damaged fuel injection pump. During take-off procedures, the engines of a jet aircraft are operated at full throttle. The fuel boost pump on Flight 587 was tampered with so that during take-off, the extreme vibration would create a rupture and a fuel spill that would cause the engine to explode. Massive fuel spilled into the engines while at full throttle. The left engine exploded breaking off from the wing and hitting the tail section shearing it off and causing the plane to spiral into the ground.
The most disturbing aspects of the data suggests "mechanical infiltration". The aircraft was tampered with by someone with sufficient mechanical knowledge knowing the specific stress caused by the vibration during take-off would result in rupturing the fuel pump system causing a fuel spill and resulting explosion.

(My bold.)

Wow, a month after 9/11 and they guessed terrorism. Who would have thought?

Unfortunately, a report from the National Transportation Safety Board concluded it was poor rudder design and co-pilot error:

American Airlines Flight 587 lost its tail and plummeted into a New York City neighborhood in November 2001, killing 265 people, because the co-pilot improperly used the rudder to try to steady the plane, federal safety investigators ruled Tuesday.

The National Transportation Safety Board also said a poorly designed rudder system on the Airbus A300-600 and inadequate pilot training by American were contributing factors.

(My bold.)

Funny thing - I also emailed them when that report came out, asking for an explanation then. No reply that time either. No hint of these failures on their site, nor any explanation for why remote viewing doesn’t work.

They won’t touch that $Million

The people at Healing Touch clearly have more important things to do than collect an easy $1 Million. As I reported last Monday, I emailed the Executive Director/Hospital Based Program Lisa Anselme, and the Research Director Diane Wardell with the following:

I note you are giving certification in Healing Touch. 

Could you please point me to some independent tests showing that HT works, and what its benefits are?  You may be aware that the James Randi Educational Foundation (http://www.randi.org/research/index.html), has offered $1 million to any Therapeutic Touch practitioner who can validate TT using scientific principles and methodology.  Such a test would be independently administered, of course.  Would be interested in applying?  I’m sure the money would be useful for further research funding, and the publicity would encourage more people to get involved.

Thanks and regards

No reply from either of them. Strange, you’d think a million dollars would be useful to fund more treatments, if nothing else. Perhaps they’re too busy, or already have enough money. Must be something like that. Couldn’t be because they know they would fail any proper scientific test because it’s all nonsense. Certainly not that.

Pity. 

Of course, if an inquisitive person wanted to press them on why they didn’t reply, they could still email Lisa and Diane. Post your replies here.

Salon and Rolling Stone go to the Dark Side

You may have seen Robert F. Kennedy Junior’s thimerosal/autism scare piece in Salon and Rolling Stone that is no doubt going to be quoted ad Nauseam by anti-vax nuts. I haven’t had time yet to read the 286 page report RFK cites, and I won’t comment in full until I have. However Orac today flushes RFK’s credibility down the toilet in a superb piece of writing.

Skeptico’s earlier writings

In the rather egotistical belief that you might be interested in my earlier (ie pre-Skeptico) articles, I have added a list of “Skeptico’s earlier writing”, in the column on the left. There are four items:

A book review of Gregg Braden’s “Awakening to Zero Point” – Braden’s rather bizarre attempt to link the Schumann Resonance, Fibonacci Numbers and the Book of Revelation to show a huge change is coming to planet Earth. This book really is the Sewage of Newage.

A book review of Ian Stevenson’s "Children Who Remember Previous Lives, A Question of Reincarnation", in two parts. Part one discusses the cases presented by Stevenson, examines their weaknesses and provides alternative explanations. Part two examines Stevenson’s apparent pre-conceived beliefs and exposes the logical flaws in his arguments. Stevenson’s work is often quoted as some of the best evidence there is for reincarnation. I argue that if this is the best evidence there is, we have no reason to believe in reincarnation.

Finally, a brief piece explaining Occam’s Razor – a key tool for critical thinking.

I hope you enjoy them. They all appeared in Skeptic Report – a monthly publication well worth a visit in its own right.

Stressed by Scientology

According to The Washington Post, Scientology recruiters have been offering stress exams and a Scientology pitch on a DC sidewalk:

The sign advertising "Free Stress Test" beckoned Marian Prescott as she crossed Farragut Square, and she found herself settling into a chair beneath a yellow tent and taking hold of two metal poles hooked up to a device that the tester said could detect psychic strain.

Then Turrisi handed Prescott a paperback book, "Dianetics" by Church of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard, the back of which promised advice for living without "insecurity, negative thoughts, depression and irrational behavior." All Prescott needed to own this trove of wisdom was to fork over the "suggested" donation of $8.

And so the bait and switch begins. 

The “free stress test” is the hook to get them to purchase (excuse me – it’s just a “suggested” donation) the Scientology book. The book will suggest Scientology training courses. These are free until it is revealed you need more advanced courses that have to be paid for and… er, you get the idea. I wrote about Scientology’s bait and switch before.

It gets better. Here is the famous Scientology “technology” you hear the likes of Tom Cruise blathering about:

Among those tools are the electrometers, which come with an array of dials and a roving needle. Taylor described the device as a "religious artifact used as a spiritual guide," not a "psychological or scientific instrument."

This “electrometer” (E-Meter for short) Scientologists use in their “auditing” is just a Wheatstone Bridge – a device to measure electrical resistance. How can such a device measure “psychic stress” (or any kind of stress for that matter)? It can’t. From What The Meter Does we learn that although Scientologists believe the E-Meter can measure an individual's emotional state and thoughts, the idea is just L. Ron Hubbard’s pseudo-religious science-fiction, supported by zero evidence:

In other words, ``This stuff is not supposed to be factual; it may well be rubbish. Don't try to hold us responsible. Hubbard wrote it; we publish it.'' From the same page:

The Hubbard Electrometer, or E-meter, is a device which is sometimes used in Dianetics and Scientology. In itself, the E-meter does nothing. It is not intended or effective for the diagnosis, treatment, or prevention of any disease, or for the improvement of health or any bodily function.

And yet “auditing” with the E-Meter is a fundamental part of Scientology’s Dianetics “technology”. 

Did you know members of Scientology’s elite Sea Organization sign billion-year contracts with the organization? Thus their future reincarnations are also obliged to be Scientologists. How do they enforce these contracts, I wonder? More to the point, where is El-Ron’s reincarnated entity? It should be held accountable for “Battlefield Earth”, if nothing else.

Remote possibility

The Two Percent Company today have put out a call for all psychics to help in the search for Natalee Holloway, the young girl who has sadly gone missing in Aruba. Of course – this is the ideal opportunity for Allison Dubois, Sylvia Browne et al to prove their powers to the world and do some good to boot, although I won’t be holding my breath.

This article made me think of Psi Tech. They are the people who supposedly purchased Remote Viewing technology from the US government. (I’m referring to project Star Gate, the US government’s multi-million dollar attempt to harness psychic powers for spying operations that was so successful the project was cancelled.) Sounds like just the ticket to find a missing girl, wouldn’t you think? Psi Tech used to do this kind of thing although their enthusiasm for remote viewing guessing the locations of missing girls waned following their spectacular failure to “remote view” the location of Elizabeth Smart’s dead body, and the identity of her killer. (Smart was found very much alive some months later.)

Unsurprisingly, Psi Tech took the Elizabeth Smart report off their website, but you can still see what they said, thanks to The Wayback Machine. This is the page they want to forget, the hilariously entitled Solving (sic) The Elizabeth Smart Case:

At the request of Elizabeth Smart's Uncle last July 2002, PSI TECH directed its team of professional Technical Remote Viewers to gather information to assist the Smart family and law enforcement in solving the mystery of Elizabeth's disappearance. The investigation had three goals from the outset: 1) Find out if Elizabeth was alive 2) Pinpoint her location 3) Identify the abductor.

Since the commencement of this project, PSI TECH has worked diligently on the first objective; to find Elizabeth. It was determined within the first few hours that she was deceased.

(Snip)

On September 17th we identified the perpetrator as a Caucasian male in his 20's or early 30's about 5'6 in height who works on cars and is either a mechanic and/or operates heavy machinery like a tow truck or a front-loader. He wears a uniform in his current employment. The ground search team led by chief investigators Jeff Lewis (a former bounty hunter) Greg Chase (a former Information Intelligence Specialist from the Salt Lake City P.D.) and Clive Peterson (from Utah PI) identified a person who perfectly matched our description. They provided us with an actual photograph of the suspect

(My bold.)

Not only did they incorrectly state she was dead and waste the time of officials searching for the body in the location they had “viewed”, they also incorrectly fingered an innocent (of that crime) man. Above are the sketches they drew, and a photograph (obscured), of the actual man they accused of the crime.

FYI, this is Elizabeth’s actual abductor.  Spot the similarities? Me neither.

At the time I emailed Psi Tech to ask them to explain this blunder, and to suggest that maybe remote viewing is just a load of old nonsense.

This was the reply I received from the President of Psi Tech:

This is is (sic) the first time we have been wrong about "dead or alive". The mistake was made in the analysis of the data not the data itself. This is still a young technology and the analysis of the data is even younger. So, people can wait another twenty years until we prefect (sic) it or they can be pioneer's (sic) to help perfect it but be cautious because pioneers need backbones. It doesn't make this technology any less valid - it only makes we, (sic) human beings fallible but we knew that already.

You might think “dead or alive” is a pretty major difference. You might also think that if this is “the first time we have been wrong about ‘dead or alive’", maybe that’s because such girls are rarely found alive, and that Psi Tech just play the odds and prey on grieving families. You might also think the choice is not to “wait another twenty years until we prefect (sic) it”, but rather to determine if there is anything in it at all. There is no point in “perfecting” something that is a load of nonsense to start with. 

Anyway, perhaps we should let them try again. So I just emailed the President of Psi Tech Joni Dourif, to see if they can find out what happened to this girl. Feel free to do the same. I’ll report back with any replies.

Someone's touched

Registered Nurse Kelly from Time To Lean tells us her work mailbox contains an invitation to a “Healing Touch” seminar for $250 paid by the hospital. Funny, I didn’t think hospitals had money to waste.

Perhaps someone should email the Executive Director/Hospital Based Program Lisa Anselme, or the Research Director Diane Wardell (Phone 713-500-2056) (from here) and ask them for evidence that healing touch works. Or get them to explain why no TT practitioners have been able to even detect the energy field they claim to be able to manipulate.

Or perhaps they would like to apply for Randi’s $Million.

The Gift

I just watched the movie “The Gift”, starring Cate Blanchett as a small town psychic. I just love Roger Ebert’s writing sometimes:

She lives in a swamp of melodrama; that's really the only way to describe her hometown of Brixton, Ga., which has been issued with one example of every standard Southern gothic type. There's the battered wife and her redneck husband; the country club sexpot; the handsome school principal; the weepy mama's boy who is afeared he might do something real bad; the cheatin' attorney; the salt-of-the-earth sheriff, and various weeping willows, pickup trucks, rail fences, country clubs, shotguns, voodoo dolls, courtrooms, etc. When you see a pond in a movie like this, you know that sooner or later, it is going to be dredged.

It hadn’t occurred to me until I read that review that it was that stereotypical – a tribute to the high quality acting talent (Blanchett in particular). It was rather unrealistic in that here we had a psychic who really could tell where the body was hidden (she took the police straight to it), and who eventually used her psychic powers to learn exactly how the girl had died. In reality, no psychic has ever helped police in this way. (In fact, they hinder more than they help.) No matter, I can suspend belief for a movie (as long as they’re not pretending it’s “based on a real story”), and it was a pretty good film, with a couple of things to make you jump. I’d recommend it.

The thing that puzzled me though, was how she did her predictions. She would use a pack of Zener cards and deal out nine cards in three rows of three – the resulting configuration would apparently tell her something. Of course, we’re all heard of Tarot cards, but I’ve never heard of Zener cards being used in this way. In fact, I’m sure they’re not.

Zener cards consist of five symbols, namely a: star, circle, square, cross and wavy lines (see above). They are used to test psychic ability, not by psychics, per se. They’re used in forced choice experiments: where the participant chooses the target from a set of known possible targets. For example, when testing for telepathic ability, the cards are shuffled and viewed by a remote person (the sender) who attempts to transmit the information to the receiver using psychic ability. The advantages of this type of forced choice experiment are that:

1. It is obvious if the receiver gets a hit or a miss. (If the card is a star and the receiver calls “wavy lines”, there is no doubt that is a miss – no wiggle room.)
2. The exact probability of getting a certain result can be calculated. (If you get 20 hits out of 100 tries you know this is due to chance. If you get 40 hits out of 100 tries you can be pretty sure it is not, and you can calculate the exact probability of getting that result by chance alone.)

Of course, for phony psychics (some redundancy there?), these advantages are disadvantages. When it was found that no one could beat the odds with Zener cards (without cheating), parapsychologists stopped using them, instead opting for tests that required judging, for example this type of thing:

The receiver… is "presented with several stimuli (usually four) and, without knowing which stimulus was the target, is asked to rate the degree to which each matches the imagery and mentation experienced during the ganzfeld period. If the receiver assigns the highest rating to the target stimulus, it is scored as a "hit." Thus, if the experiment uses judging sets containing four stimuli (the target and three decoys or control stimuli), the hit rate expected by chance is .25" (Bem and Honorton 1994).

If the hit rate is significantly above chance (25%), the researchers take this as evidence of psi. If not, they take it as evidence of what you’d expect from just guessing.

The subjective element makes it easier to prompt the receiver (deliberately or otherwise). In addition, because this method often requires an interpretation of the subject's verbal description, it's possible to get a hit without really picking an image specifically, just because it happens to be the one the experimenter thinks is closest. It certainly introduces a level of subjectivity into the experiment so that you can never really be sure of the true probability of getting that result by chance. I can’t help thinking that if anyone really did have psychic powers they would be able to do this with Zener cards and beat the odds.

Anyway, I just thought it was odd that they would have their psychic in the film using Zener cards. Didn’t anyone connected with the film know what they really are? Why not just have her use Tarot? Doesn’t really matter I guess, just puzzling.

EBay here we come

Jesus Christ on a tortilla they’re at it again. This time a woman in Florida has found an image of Jesus on a crisp (potato chip to the Americans), according to Ananova.  "Oh my goodness", she is reported to have said. (Wouldn’t “Jesus Christ” have been more appropriate?) Presumably the next thing she did was log in to eBay: recently someone sold a toasted cheese sandwich with an image of the Virgin Mary for $28,000. Seems to me Jesus is worth more than Mary, but then I’m not religious. (Why don’t I ever find valuable snacks like this?)

I’m reminded of the old Johnny Carson interview with the potato chip lady. She had a plate full of potato chips she had collected over several years, each with some kind of image in them. Johnny’s sidekick Ed McMahon distracted the lady for a second, and Johnny picked up a chip from a bowl he had hidden under his desk and noisily ate it. The woman’s expression when she thought Johnny had eaten one of her chips, was priceless.

The 10th Skeptics’ Circle

Welcome to the tenth Skeptics’ Circle.

It has been my privilege to receive contributions of the best skeptical blogging of the last two weeks, and it has been awesome to read the variety of posts submitted on different subjects. Some were serious, some funny, all skeptical. And I’ve certainly been grateful for Firefox – I wouldn’t want to attempt this task without tabbed browsing. (At the start I had 32 tabs open – a personal record!)

So here they are. Each post has two links – the first is the general link to the blog, the second to the specific post being presented.

Critical thinking

I have to start with Nickie Goomba, with US Describes Even More Cases Of Koran Mishandling - his hilarious take on the recent “mishandling of the Koran” stories. This post literally made me laugh out loud. Just read and try to keep a straight face (and I love the picture). Nuff said.

Here’s an exercise for you. Chronicles of a Medical Mad House gives us Skeptical Agnostic – a post about a book he was given that “attempts to use a rational scientific argument to prove the existence of God”. (Apparently Skeptico is not the only one whose friends tell him about books he just has to read. It’s the burden of being the skeptic in the group.) The book tries to make the case that it is unreasonable to be an atheist, and Mad House Madman thought he’d post the argument in the hope of getting some counter-arguments. Hum. I think I can spot the flaw in the book’s logic, but I’ll leave it open for you guys. Read the post. If you can see the error(s), post a comment. (I’ll be reading the post later and grading the comments. Just kidding.)

Ron writes the enigmatically titled, Ron’s Blog (however did he choose that blog name?) – “Just whatever random crap I feel like posting”. No crap this time though. In his Trust me, I’m a doctor – of Philosophy, he writes that “most ‘science’ reporters are twits”. I can certainly sympathize with that view: it has been a theme of many of Skeptico’s reviews of science reporting (especially from the BBC). It seems reporters are often more interested in the headline grabbing sensation rather than the often more sober truth in the actual scientific study. Understandable but irritating. Anyway, one thing Skeptico has learned is that if you want the truth you need to read the actual study, not the report of the study.

And to show what he means, Skeptico sneaks one of his own posts into the carnival (an advantage of being the host) - Power cables reduce brain tumor risk. I comment on how the study reported under attention grabbing headline, “Power cables linked to cancer”, actually showed very minimal risk of cancer, and concluded even that small risk might be due to chance. Universal Acid writes a short but to the point piece called Biological and genetic causes, on the conflation of "biological" and "genetic/innate" when discussing the causes of behavior. Here’s a short item from Butterflies and Wheels called First Things, debunking the claim that religion improves social cohesion. She points out that the first question you should ask about religion is whether or not its claims are true or not, before you make claims about its benefits.  And finally The Walloper is also looking for some answers from his readers. In a post entitled Understanding the non-reality based world, he asks why it is that educated, intelligent people can be taken in by arguments full of blatant errors of fact and logic. Again, I have some thoughts on this. Go ahead – post your thoughts to The Walloper blog. (I’ll be checking back later.)

Urban Legends

I’m shocked, SHOCKED I tell you! From Idler Yet, I learn in Things You know That Ain’t So 1: J. Edgar’s Dresses, that J. Edgar Hoover was not a transvestite. Is nothing sacred?
Then Saint Nate in Laws Too Strange To Be True debunks the many strange laws people claim are on the statute books, but aren’t. For example, did you know in Arizona it’s illegal to hunt camels? No? That’s because it isn’t. (So watch out all you Arizonian camels – Nate’s gunning for you. And he hates camels. HATES them.)

The paranormal

The Bad Astronomer sees a ghost – or does he? Can you guess what he really saw in Ghostly Spectacles? (Incidentally, Skeptico is constantly being awakened by bumps in the night, although he is pretty sure the culprit in this case is his cat, not the spirits of deceased insomniacs. DAMN CAT.)

Justin is compiling data on cold readers into what he calls AURA - the 'Archive of mediUm and cold Reader dAta'. He is recording data from all the cold readers featured on Larry King Live (an onerous task to be sure), in an attempt to analyze what they are doing. So far he’s looked at 18 transcripts containing 258 readings. (Watching that much Larry King alone must have been a struggle.)

Quackery

What do you call alternative medicine that works? Medicine. An old joke, but a relevant point highlighted by our anti-quackery bloggers. Confessions of a Quackbuster sounds like the sort of blog that knows a lot about exposing quackery, and sure enough has two items for us today.  The first is a lighthearted look at that old canard The Memory of Water quacks will not forget (haha - had to get that one in). He considers where water from your tap has actually been and speculates on what it might remember. Not for the squeamish! The second is Effectiveness & Evidence: The Cornerstones of Modern Medicine. Here he criticizes the recent bmj “ABC of complementary medicine” that attempts to define sCAM, and that claims “There is a growing body of evidence that certain complementary therapies are effective in certain clinical conditions”. Well, that was news to me too. Blurring the difference between evidence based medicine (EBM – aka medicine), and sCAM, can aid the general acceptance of therapies that don’t work. A comprehensive read.

First time Skeptics’ Circle contributor night nurse Kelly writes in Time to Lean “It's my job to keep you from dying in your sleep”. Well, her article about the practice of Therapeutic Touch (TT), Pardon me whilst I treat my energy field disturbance, should wake you up. I thought TT had been debunked years ago by the nine year old Emily Rosa, but Kelly tells us not only is it still being taught, but nursing staff are required to attend a laboratory seminar on it (plus reflexology, and other pseudoscientific practices), and they are required to know the basics of it for a written exam! Wow! I mean, WOW! (Btw I loved the caution not to perform this procedure on patients with contraindications – ie those "sensitive to energy repatterning". Bwaahahaha.) Anyway it’s good to know not all nurses buy into this nonsense: if I’m sick I want a nurse like Kelly, not some TT quack. (Although TT might give me a good laugh if I wasn’t too sick.)

And The Two Percent Company gives us one of its rants, this time We Repeat: Aromatherapy is Bullshit (hey stop messing around – tell us what you REALLY think). They analyze a comment on their site from someone who claimed to be an atheist biologist and who agrees with most of what the 2% Co. write, but who disagreed with their stance (er, that would be it’s bullshit), on aromatherapy. They take the arguments apart it their comprehensive and typically amusing way. (As an aside, Skeptico remembers that a couple of years ago he was at a party where some girl was trying to persuade him of the benefits of aromatherapy. She said it could cure "anything". Really, said Skeptico (just joking). Can it cure a broken leg? She said yes. Oh well.)

Saint Nate celebrates a 43 year jail sentence handed out to a quack (YES!), and examines various quack claims about “special” water, and the healing properties of gold, in All That Glitters Isn't Good. And I thought the only gold connected with quackery was the money the quacks extract from wallets of the gullible. And with a blog called Anne’s Anti Quackery and Science Blog, you would expect some posts exposing quackery. You would not be disappointed – there are two, both on homeopathy. First in What is the paranormal in homeopathy? (Skeptico says, nothing – it doesn’t work!), she gives six reasons why homeopathic claims are paranormal claims. And in How long will it take to become a (un)qualified homeopath? She tells us it takes no longer than 5 days to become a (un)qualified homeopath in the U.S. Actually I’m surprised it takes that long to train people how to prescribe pure water, but that’s just me.

Pseudoscience - Creation and ID

No More Mr. Nice Guy highlights The Missing Sock Problem – a parody of cretinist (not a typo) so-called arguments against evolution. He points out that people lose socks every week, and that if the earth really is 4.6 billion years old as scientists claim, there should by now be enough socks to form a layer 10 high completely surrounding the earth.  (Hum. I think he’s forgotten about the sock fairies who remove the missing socks nightly. Ha! Good try though.) More shocking news! Thoughts From Kansas in Inspiration considers a quote from Sir Isaac Newton that calls into question the whole basis of Newtonism! He concludes, “Newtonism is in crisis, and our children should be taught the controversy”. Well said! Then in The Postmodern Assault on Science, TFK slaps down an ID waffler philosopher who claims that all ideas are equal. He concludes that in fact, science is the best method we have for determining which ideas are good and which bad. As he says, “some ideas suck”. Yes they do. Orac demonstrates the gentle way to debunk in his Reply to a 14 year old creationist. It is a very thoughtful and non-confrontational (as possible) reply in the “you attract more bees with honey than vinegar” vein. Get em while they’re young, Orac. Good job.

At Pharyngula, PZ examines the strange arguments of Jim Pinkoski in Pinkoski Part 1: Danged know-it-alls. In particular, PZ is astonished (as we all should be) that Pinkoski (is that really his name?) bases a large part of his case on the myth that we only use 10% of our brains. Even PZ’s 14 year old daughter knows that is not true, although I suspect it is possible Pinkoski only uses 10% of his brain. (Btw, checkout the "evolution monument" drawing in the post. Skeptico thinks the third figure from the left appears to be rather well endowed. In any case, he wouldn't like to be the guy on the far right, especially dressed only in what appears to be a miniskirt!)

First time Skeptics’ Circle contributor Naked Writing Dot Com, describes in It helps to go to the source how she tried to take a history professor up on his challenge to donate one hundred dollars to charity if, by the end of ten years anyone can produce an example of evolution in the animal world. (One hundred dollars! What, is this guy a millionaire or something?) Anyway, she decided to email him with some evidence. His reply is pretty mind bending, considering the guy is supposedly a professor. (We also learn from this post that Naked Writing Dot Com watches porn! Is that why she writes naked? Inquiring minds want to know.)

Finally, over at Anti Quackery and Science Blog, Anne reports on the debate between Michael Shermer and Kent Hovind. Anne thinks that no one takes creationism seriously, but then she doesn’t live in the USA.  She points out that the debate between a creationist and an evolutionist is harder on the evolutionists because they have a lot to explain (all that evidence), while ID proponents just have “goddidit”. Goddidit is much easier to explain, of course. It’s not science, it’s nonsense, but it is easy to explain. Got me there.

Pseudoscience - General

Ryan the Rockstar at Rockstar’s Ramblings should be renamed Ryan the Rottweiler for his take no prisoners style of skepticism. Don’t mess with this guy. In his sympathetically entitled A Paranoid Idiot Teaches a Valuable Lesson, he debunks Joseph Skipper’s interpretations of some of NASA’s Mars photos. No, NASA are not keeping secret the truth about ancient civilizations on Mars. Nice try, though.

Be Lambic or Green in Another Clueless Celeb (is there some redundancy there?) slams celebrities for following and publicizing the dangerous cult/scam of Scientology. He advises Katie Holmes to have fun with Tom Cruise but to stay clear of Scientology. I fear they may be mutually exclusive.

From the food economist US Food Policy we have Study: More Milk Means More Weight Gain, a commentary on a Washington Post story that milk makes you gain weight. According to this blogger, even though the article is fairly strongly worded, it's still not as harsh as it should be.

And finally Darrel Plant writes in The Murderous Gene. And Bob, Joe, and Albert about how the Wall Street Journal’s Sharon Begley takes apart David Buss’s rather strange (that’s being kind) ideas about how evolution works. Buss, who apparently is a psychology professor at the University of Texas, Austin, has a theory that men evolved trough natural selection to kill their mates (presumably after they had given birth). The idea is patently absurd, and Begley takes it apart pretty well, but Darrel notes one point she missed, namely that successful evolutionary adaptations are usually shared by the majority of a species. Good point.

Historical revisionism

Finally, followers of the recent Kansas evolution kangaroo trials should be familiar with the excellent coverage of the proceedings from Red State Rabble. Here he offers a slightly different and disturbing aspect of ID in his Little Kansas Nazis. RSR comments on the Discovery Institute’s “Wedge Strategy” to demonize science, scientists, and evolution. One way they do this is to brand evolutionists as atheists. (Of course, some are, but some aren’t.) A more insidious way explored in this post is to compare evolutionists, via association with eugenics, to the Nazis. Ridiculous? Of course, but it needs to be called out and RSR certainly exposes the intellectual dishonesty and glaring flaws in the arguments presented. For further reading on this, take a look at the exchanges between Red State Rabble and the author of the attempted evolution-Nazi link in Richard Weikart: Workin’ in a Quote Mine. RSR certainly sticks it to Weikart, ending with:

You also remind me that you’ve read extensively in the primary sources. I would say extensively, but not deeply. As a university professor, you have had the rare privilege of reading, thinking and writing for a living. I think it’s a shame you’ve wasted the opportunity to come to a deeper more rounded understanding of all the factors involved in the rise of Nazi ideology, and allowed yourself to become a mere propagandist instead.

Oh yeah! As an aside, critical thinkers will know that according to Godwin’s Law, during any debate, whoever mentions the Nazis first can be considered to have automatically lost whatever argument was in progress.

Well that’s it. I hope you enjoyed this Circle. Check the Skeptics’ Circle page for guidelines to posting, and a list of previous circles and contributors. And please look in again in two weeks when the Skeptics’ Circle will be hosted by Anne's Anti-Quackery & Science Blog.

Detox diets don’t work

Finally a BBC article on alternative medicine I can agree with. Detox diets don’t work – a new report in “Food Technology” says the body's own natural detox system works fine:

"Our lungs, kidneys, liver, gastrointestinal tract and immune system are effective in removing or neutralising toxic substances within hours of consumption."

…detoxing can be dangerous for groups such as teenagers or pregnant women, who cannot afford to deprive themselves of food groups.

Ursula Arens, a registered dietician and spokeswoman for the British Dietetic Association said: "'Detox' is a meaningless term that is used all the time.

"And because it hasn't been defined, it's impossible to say if it's worked or if it hasn't."

She added: "All food is made up of chemicals, and all our body does with food is a chemical reaction.

"The body is set up to deal with the chemicals it doesn't want, and excrete them."

Well, of course it is. Detoxing is a useless fad promoted by Naturopaths. Quackwatch calls detoxing “an irrational concept” and an “elaborate, manipulative hoax”. And they give examples of Detox diets, such as the "Inches Away plan," where the client:

…eats no solid food for three days, drinks only water with lemon juice and honey added, and takes three kinds of herbal capsules. This is claimed to cleanse the digestive tract of accumulated waste and putrefied bacteria, clean out the major organs and blood, and give mental clarity because it stops the mind's bombardment by chemicals and food additives. After three days of detox, the client takes four kinds of diet pills in combination, up to 30 a day, and visits the diet center for weekly body wraps and daily simulated action on 10 passive exercise tables.

And people pay money for this.

Obviously, depriving your body of solid food and fasting in this way is not good for you. The body will get rid of toxins by itself if you (a) stop putting toxins in (admittedly not always easy for some of us), and (b) drink water and wait. Anything else is likely to slow down the natural detox process. Quackwatch concludes:

They have to invent the idea of toxins… because that gives them something to pretend they can fix.

It can be terrifying to believe that one's body is being poisoned by toxins from within. But if this were true, the human race would not have survived... A person who retained wastes and toxins would be very ill and could die if not treated. The whole concept is irrational and unscientific.

As the researchers say, a balanced diet is best. Faddish detox fasting is likely to make you worse, not better.

Power cables reduce brain tumor risk

OK I was a bit naughty with the headline. The headline in the normally reliable Guardian Unlimited Life was “Power cables linked to cancer”, but I think mine describes the results of the study equally well. First, the sensationalist story:

Children living near high-voltage power lines are substantially more likely to develop leukaemia, researchers from Oxford University and the national electricity grid report today in the British Medical Journal.

Those living within 200 metres of the overhead cables were 70% more likely to develop the disease than similar children living more than 600 metres away.

Wow! 70% more likely to develop the disease! Predictably the chairman of Children with Leukaemia weighed in with the not really hysterical:

There is now a clear case for immediate government action. Planning controls must be introduced to stop houses and schools being built close to high-voltage overhead power lines.

“Immediate government action”? Really?  Of course, it helps if you read the actual study, which concludes:

The annual incidence of childhood leukaemia in England and Wales is about 42 per million; the excess relative risks at distances of 0-199 m and 200-599 m are about 0.69 and 0.23, respectively, giving excess rates of 28 and 10 per million.

By my calculation that puts the normal risk of getting leukemia at 0.0042%, rising to a whopping 0.007% if the child lives within 199m of power lines. That’s a pretty small risk not really conveyed by the “70% increase” headline. (Although I do agree that if you’re one of the five extra cases a year it’s 100% for you.)

The figures can be found in this table under the “leukaemia” column that shows 64 cases of leukemia in the 0-199 meter range compared with 39 in the control group. If you look under the CNS (central nervous system)/brain tumors column you will see the equivalent figures are 33 cases against 45 for the control – a reduction of 17% (hence my headline). Take just the figure for 0-49 meters and the headline could just as easily have been “Power cables linked to 56% reduction in central nervous system and brain tumors” – although that would have been equally misleading. There is no causal link for either statement and so it seems absurd to be calling for “immediate government action”.  As we know, correlation is not causation. That doesn’t mean there is definitely no link but it should give us pause.

If there is a link, could it be due to the magnetic fields created by the power lines? The researchers measured magnetic fields near the power lines, but noted that although the increased risk seemed to extend to at least 200 meters, at that distance the magnetic fields from the power lines were less than fields from other sources (appliances, house wiring etc), in the homes. Also, the increased incidence of the disease was noted right up to the 600 meter limit – much more than previous studies had found and way beyond any electromagnetic field from the lines. The study doesn’t support the view that increased risk is due to electromagnetic fields.

It may not be the power lines, but something about areas where power lines are located, or something about the people who live in these areas. It’s hard to know what, since the researchers did control for socioeconomic status, and found that had no effect on the relative risks.

The study concluded:

While few children in England and Wales live close to high voltage power lines at birth, there is a slight tendency for the birth addresses of children with leukaemia to be closer to these lines than those of matched controls. An association between childhood leukaemia and power lines has been reported in several studies, but it is nevertheless surprising to find the effect extending so far from the lines. We have no satisfactory explanation for our results in terms of causation by magnetic fields or association with other factors. Neither the association reported here nor previous findings relating to level of exposure to magnetic fields are supported by convincing laboratory data or any accepted biological mechanism.

(My bold.)

There is no accepted biological mechanism to explain the results. The results could be due to chance (for example, if the controls were not representative) or confounding. Even if the link is causal, only about 1% of childhood leukemia in England and Wales would be attributable to the power lines and even this figure has considerable statistical uncertainty.

The study does arrive at a result that can’t be explained, and so it is reasonable to call for more work to be done. Nevertheless, the headline and article seem a little scare-mongering.

Irony Alert!

The irony award this week goes to… Dr Jay Gordon who writes in the Huffington Post blog:

When medical research manipulates data to prove what you suspect is false, doubt the research, not your original impression.

Um, perhaps Gordon will apply that method to this post by (er) Dr Jay Gordon that refers to the “excellent research” by the likes of Geier and Geier. That shouldn’t be too much of a stretch: their research has been shown to be full of methodological errors.

Or perhaps he should look at the work of Geier and Geier and apply the method used in this post by (er) Dr Jay Gordon where he states a pro-vaccine study “borders on being worthless” because its lead author conducts trials sponsored by vaccine manufacturers. He concludes:

…the appearance of impropriety is strong enough to make me ignore the study. You should, too.

As Orac has noted, Geier and Geier make a living as expert witnesses against the vaccine companies:

David A. Geier, his son, is president of MedCon, a medical–legal consulting firm that helps vaccine injury claimants to obtain money from both the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program and through civil litigation.

(My bold.)  MedCon - now there’s an appropriately named firm.

Dr Gordon, allow me to present these two guys:

Mr. Pot, meet Mr. Kettle.

PS: Orac has just posted a much more detailed rebuttal of Dr. Gordon’s piece.

Call for Skeptics’ Circle articles

Skeptico will be hosting the Skeptics’ Circle next Thursday June 9^th, and I need your articles.

If you haven’t read a Skeptics’ Circle before, check out the previous ones to get a feel for what we’re looking for. Briefly, you need to have blogged about a skeptical subject, and you need to send me the permalink for that post, ideally with an interesting summary of your post that might persuade someone to click on the link and read it. It’s a great way to attract more traffic to your blog, and to get your words of wisdom out to a wider audience.

You may be aware that Nate (the founder), tightened up the guidelines for submissions, as explained here and here. Briefly, we are looking for apolitical posts (not a political post, haha), under one of the following broad headings, as explained by Nate:

Appropriate Subjects

Here are the ideal topics for a Skeptics’ Circle submission:

Urban legends. Heard a story about a friend-of-a-friend repeated from other friends and want to find out whether or not it’s true? See a hoax you want to warn people about? Have a strange looking picture forwarded to your e-mail? Don’t leave it all to Snopes, do a little digging and see for yourself whether or not it’s true.

The paranormal. Want to prove how silly astrologists, psychics, ghosts, UFOs, or Bigfoots (Bigfeet?) are? You better believe we’ve got a place for you. All I ask is we keep it more scientific-based than snarky, although there’s nothing wrong with some sarcasm to keep it funny.

Quackery. Of all the subjects included in the Circle, this may be the most likely to save someone's life. There is a lot of potentially harmful questionable medical advice out there being pushed faster than researchers can debunk it.

Pseudoscience. You don’t need to be a professor to know something flat-out doesn’t make sense. If you hear a theory that makes everything you learned from your high school laboratory experiments sound wrong, odds are it’s wrong. Intelligent design fits into this category, because it’s less of a political issue than it is an attempt to superimpose beliefs over facts and the political connotations are side-issues at best.

Historical revision. If someone’s promoting a crooked timeline to try to deny or ignore a major event in history or forcing an incorrect view of the past, prove them wrong. Ideological reinterpretations have done too much harm to the world already.

Critical thinking. Posts dealing with the meta-analytical process behind sorting out the reason from the misinformation fit in this catch-all category.

Please click on the email link at the bottom of the column on the left, and send me the details of your post. Please put "Skeptics' Circle" in the subject line of your email.  I will accept submissions up to midnight Pacific Time on Wednesday June 8, although I would be grateful if you didn’t all leave it that late: send them as soon as you have posted. There is no limit to the number of submissions you can make.

So what are you waiting for? Get writing!  I'm looking forward to receiving them.

If it has any ingredient in it, is it homeopathic?

James Randi was asking if the Cold-Eeze cold remedy could really be homeopathic as claimed, since it obviously has some active ingredient in it. Homeopathic remedies are typically diluted beyond Avogadro’s number so that there isn’t even one molecule of active ingredient left. (So how do they work? - They don’t!) Anyway, Randi wrote to the makers of Cold-Eeze to ask them how an X1 concentration (which means diluted by 10), could be homeopathic. Click the link for the full exchange.

This reminded me of an email exchange I had back in 2002 with the makers of Zicam, a seemingly identical product. I sent them this email:

Zicam is marketed as a homeopathic remedy.  Is this strictly true?  It seems to me that it is based on zinc, and (I could be wrong), but I don't think zinc gives the symptoms of a cold.  Homeopathic remedies supposedly work on the principle of "like cures like".  Also, Zicam has some active ingredient in it, which would also mean it differs from homeopathic remedies which are usually diluted so there is nothing left.

Their “consumer services” department replied:

The foundation of homeopathy is the Law of Similars.  The theory is basically like cures like...a compound that produces a particular symptom (similar to that produced by the illness)in a healthy person should also facilitate the body's healing processes.

Zincum Gluconicum was approved by the Homoepathic Pharmacopoeia Convention and became a monographed item included in the HPUS in May 1997.  Zincum Gluconicum was proven to produce "cold-like" symptoms in healthy individuals.

Zicam has only one active ingredient--zinc gluconate (Zincum Gluconicum). It is true that some homeopathic dilutions are very dilute.  The HPUS dictates the maximum strength a compound can be for OTC use.  In the case of zinc gluconate, it is a 1X dilution.  This means that 1 part of zinc gluconate is diluted with 9 parts water.  In Zicam we use a 2X dilution.  This takes the above dilution and further dilutes it by adding 1 part of it to 9 parts water.  This produces a final 1:100 dilution.

Zicam is a homeopathic remedy manufactured, packaged and distributed in full accordance with the HPUS.

I have no idea if zinc does produce the symptoms of a cold in a healthy person, although it doesn’t really matter since the Law of Similars is made-up nonsense anyway. Still, I had my answer on the dilution. It is homeopathic because they are using homeopathic nomenclature (1X, 2X etc). But why would they want to call it homeopathic? Perhaps because the makers of homeopathic remedies (like most alternative “medicines”), are not required to show that their products are either (1)safe or (2) effective. So maybe I have the answer to my question, if it has any ingredient in it, is it homeopathic? The answer is, yes, if it can’t be shown to be safe or effective.

Admittedly though, you might be better off with a real homeopathic remedy. Both Zicam and Cold-Eeze are apparently facing lawsuits * alleging harm their products have caused. And as one of Randi’s readers notes, you do know a real homeopathic medicine is safe since it contains nothing but water. Useless, of course, but certainly safe.

* January 27, 2008 – updated Zicam lawsuits link.