However, you might say they don’t make them like they used to – while bullshit inevitably still bobs to the surface and the desperate and willing are still taken for their money by sham products, the claims have tended towards a more reserved, vague, wishy-washy and intangible nature. No longer will a smiling charlatan claim to cure you, instead they’ll ‘boost your immune system’ or ‘increase your energy’ or something equally weasel-worded, to avoid making solid and testable claims, and mitigate the potential for angry customers – after all, while the hucksters of yore could back up their medicine cabinet and hop on the first stage coach out of town before their victims smelt a rat, in today’s world it’s far harder to disappear without a trace, and far more lucrative not to have to. Quackery got marketing savvy, you might say. As such, snake oil – with it’s extravagant names and bold claims – has fallen to the wayside.

Or so I thought. However, I was given cause to reassess this line of rationale – if not nostalgia for a time when pseudoscience was so potentially transparent – when I first encountered Jim Humble, and his ‘Miracle Mineral Solution‘. With a name most Wild-Western-novelists would shun for being somewhat lazily ironic, and a product whose miraculous monicker is matched only by it’s catalogue of cures, it seemed to me like we had a genuine snake oil salesman on our hands. Initial reports of MMS and Jim’s activities did nothing to dissuade me – while we’re now well-acquainted with the experiences of Rhys Morgan when highlighting the dangers of the solution in ‘treating’ Crohn’s disease, it was reports from Martin Robbins (not least in the Guardian) and the blogger Noodlemaz which most solidified my preconception of our Humble salesman.

It’s also what convinced me I had to try and get an interview with him.

For readers who don’t know, and I can perfectly understand that there may be plenty, I co-host the Righteous Indignation podcast. On the show, we’ve often had guests who are themselves proponents of a belief traditionally considered pseudoscientific, and we give them the space and open forum to put across their case, which we debate in polite but often firm tones. It was this offer I emailed to Jim – a friendly-yet-firm forum, and the chance to put forward the case for MMS. I must admit, I submitted the interview request half in jest, so it was an enormous surprise to me when he agreed to speak to us.

Up until this point, my knowledge of Jim was reasonably superficial, so I set about getting to know more about him and my research turned up nothing to disavow me of the belief that Jim may well be a knowing conman. Aside from having claimed to treat hundreds of thousands, with notable claims to cure cancer in a matter of weeks, reverse and eradicate AIDS in hours, and to protect from malaria so efficiently as to render mosquito nets and repellent useless.

Other areas of Jim’s beliefs stood out to me just as much – like the clichéd conman in Cher’s song, Jim too was not averse to ‘preaching a little Gospel’: earlier this year, Jim set up the Genesis II church, with himself as head. Explaining the church in April, Jim was clear as to the purpose:

“Another purpose of this church is to protect our members from vaccinations and other governmental oppression such as forced insurance.”

Using the Church to primarily train practitioners and administers of MMS, Jim clarified the value of this new religion:

“Completed Students (Ministers of Health) can add MH to the end of their names and if they join the Church they can also put Rev in front of their names. The two additions to your name may not mean much now, but someday it will command a great deal of respect… If you become a member you will have the protection of a world wide church. Governments will be a great deal less prone to bother you as a Minister of Health. When you finish our MMS course (one week of intense training) you can legally call yourself a Reverend and use Rev. in front of your name.  I guarantee that within a couple of years Ministers of Health from our Church will be the most respected ministers in the world.”

Not content with implications that his church exists primarily to side-step tricky governmental interference, Jim explains a second role of the establishment:

“The next important thing we will do is to immediately start a protection fund in the church foundation in such a way that no agency can get to it. That has already been done. For the time being until we can get a better setup, the money will come in from sales, or from healing people, or just donations into my PayPal account and I will deposit it where no one knows and where it is and it will be divided out among a number of banks across the world where there is no way to trace it. This protection fund is meant for one purpose, to stand between our church members and those who would suppress them. This fund is to hire super lawyers, and marchers when needed, other experts to bring suits against those who would suppress our members. This fund will be use to bring suits and class action suits against anyone who is doing things that might impact the health of the people of earth in a negative manner or anyone who is interfering with our pastors.”

In what is a surprising move, Jim makes his reasoning for starting the Genesis II church even more transparent:

“Consider the power of the Catholic Church. They haven’t given their power up. They pay no taxes. Their priests have been molesting women and children for hundreds of years and the governments have never been able to stop it. That’s raw power! Don’t you agree?” (a claim Jim repeated in his monthly newsletter in April)

From my research before speaking to Jim, nothing had served to shake my preconceived view of Humble the snake oil salesman – I went into the interview prepared to dual with a slick, catchphrase-spouting snake-oil salesman with a polished and perfected sales pitch and a razor-sharp defence.

In reality, I couldn’t have been more wrong.

From his first few words to me, it was clear that Jim was a frail-sounding, almost sweet and slightly confused old man. Alternatively struggling for breath to speak and struggling to explain himself, pretty much everything Jim says in the interview – and I won’t spoil too much of it because I think it’s worth listening to Jim in full for this very reason – is either misleading, muddled or just plain wrong. Jim’s explanation of treating burns with MMS was a case in point – while, I’m no expert on burn injuries, it strikes me as beyond unlikely that the majority of the pain encountered is caused primarily by acid leaking from the wound (rather than the wound itself, the exposed flesh, and the involvement of nerves in the burn). It seems more unlikely still that the Sodium Chlorite of MMS would neutralise this acid completely, removing all pain, in just two applications over a 10 minute window. When I pointed out the edges of these doubts in the interview, Jim’s response was to suggest that there are things we’re not told about burn injuries – presumably a nod to a conspiracy, but a conspiracy I couldn’t begin to see the motivation behind.

What’s more, statements (some not included in this section of the interview) Jim makes about antiretrovirals, malaria prophylaxis, aspirin, the pharmaceutical industry, the FDA and other public health issues are downright dangerous. He spoke of diarrhoea - one of the common side-effects of extended use of MMS, and yet one of the biggest killers of children according to the World Health Organisation – as something MMS can be used to cure, claiming a 100% success rate, even in areas of the world where infant diarrhoea is a severe problem. Further, Jim told me he was able to cure HIV in just 3 weeks of hourly MMS use, and he’d personally treated around 800 people in Malawi alone. Follow-up sessions to ensure ongoing health of those treated were, of course, too expensive for Jim to maintain.

As amiable and friendly as Jim seemed to me, at a personal level, I couldn’t shake the feeling that if even a fraction of Jim’s numbers were correct, he could be responsible for a lot of suffering, and potentially a lot of deaths.

However, in speaking to Jim, I got the impression that he genuinely believes in what he sells. His tone throughout the interview isn’t the angry, offended, self-righteous voice of the knowing swindler (like, for example, Glenn Beck). Instead it was the frustration of the overlooked, the genuine inability to understand why his help was being thwarted and his cures ignored. In short, he’s wrong, but doesn’t know it.

Once the interview was finished, I sent the tape to Martin Robbins, and he was genuinely shocked by the way Jim came across – to his surprise, this nemesis figure, this dangerous quack spoke not with a bang, but with a whimper. Martin’s reaction, and my own confused feelings towards Jim, made me wonder - how often do we leap to the conclusion that someone is knowingly fraudulent, a genuine huckster, when in fact it’s perfectly possible that they’re utterly misguided and wrong, but honestly and well-meaningly so?  When the figures of the potentially-harmed – not to mention the possibly-killed – could be so incredibly high, we tend to first assume that the man in the middle is a criminal mastermind or emotionless fraud. In a way, I think I almost would have preferred Jim to have been slick, unscrupulous, and hateful. It’s so much more comfortable when the bad things are being done by bad people. For one thing, it stops us having to ask the uneasy question – does intent REALLY matter? If Humble’s MMS has led to the premature deaths of 100 cancer patients, 1000 malaria sufferers, or even 10,000 AIDS victims, does the benevolence of his motivation change anything?

I’d argue it does – but the change is within us: if Humble was out simply to make money, we’d feel much more comfortable with painting him as the hate figure. Bad things by bad people. As it is, I’m merely left a little saddened.

Get your QED ticket now!

Many readers of this site will be familiar with Joseph Mercola. He’s the shiny-toothed, perma-tanned quack who spat out his dummy in spectacular fashion when people decided Dr Rachie of the Australian Skeptics knew more about genuine health advice than he did, culminating in her Shorty Award win back in March. Full details, including Mercola’s spectacular meltdown, can be found at Skepticsbook.com. (Spoiler: Mercola describes Rachie as ‘Big Pharma’s wet dream’. No comment necessary from me I think).

Mercola is an odd figure, it’s fair to say, and one not above our ridicule, not least for having a website which looks like it’s set up by someone satirising the persona of a snake oil salesman. I mean, his white-toothed grin shines out from every inch of the site, with an expression which screams: ‘I was in an accident which wasn’t my fault, and Shyster & Shyster got me over £10 000 compensation for my imaginary whiplash!’ What’s more, his ‘Meet Dr Mercola’ page is actually titled ‘Why trust me?’. I defy anyone to beat that.

Still, not content with spitting out the dummy at awesome Australians, Mercola also appears to do a sideline in strawmen, as this wonderful cartoon ‘The Town Of Allopath‘ (original story by Mike ‘Health Danger’ Adams) attests. The less I say about it, the less I’ll spoil the surprise (for ‘surprise‘ read ‘mind-boggling, face-palming incomprehension‘) so all I’ll say is that the Youtube blurb inaccurately describes it as:

The video parodies the drug companies and conventional healthcare system and many are furious about the truth being exposed. Hopefully the humour will open some eyes.

Oh, and that Mercola – so enraged at those greedy doctors who keep you ill just so they can make all of their lurid profits – lives in a mansion with a pool and it’s own private island (sourced from public records). Enjoy!

However, alongside the honest, up-front, god-fearing quacks and charlatans, we’ve had to fight the homeo-forces on another front: the media. Almost universally, when homeopathy is discussed in the media, they ask a homeopath. At best, they also ask a healthcare professional, or (failing that) me, to represent the other side, while leaning the conversation in the favour of the water-wizard. The homeopath gets the first and last word, and the balance of the debate is very firmly on terra homeo. That’s when they’re not just outright selling homeopathic treatments, or allowing homeopaths to wax lyrical about how ‘it worked for me’ and ‘it can’t be placebo as it works on my baby/animal/etc’. This is the battle ground, and it’s this fight we choose to fight – so be it.

But it still pisses me off when it’s the BBC drinking the homeopathic Kool-Aid.

I mean, I love the BBC – they’re meant to be fair, unbiased by commercial concerns, free to investigate and report, educate and entertain, and all that good stuff. Sure, they may spend a little too much money giving Graham Norton a career, or padding out Saturday night’s with Dr Who and fancy dancing (neither of which I particularly care for), but they’re still ace. Except, when they do this:

The view of the regulatory body for pharmacists, who are consulting their members about how the products are currently marketed, is that people who buy homeopathic products should be advised that they do not work and only have a placebo effect.

But according to homeopaths, the real issue behind the consultation is the threat complementary medicine is posing to the highly lucrative relationship between the drug companies and the Health Service.

Face – meet palm.

The Newsline report featured here is really one of the most shockingly-biased, intellectually-dishonest and factually-bereft pieces of reporting I’ve ever seen. In 2 minutes, it manages to squeeze more logical fallacies, outright and long-debunked inaccuracies (the placebo effect DOES work on babies) and Big Pharma innuendo than I thought possible, and serves it up with a huge helping of the kind of smug-snark that only comes with CAM. If you want a summary of what I felt was utterly unprofessional about the report, check out below, where I’ve included the full text of the complaint letter I sent to the BBC yesterday (if you’re equally offended by the report, please feel free to complain to them too, and you can use my complaint as a template if you like. Please do, I urge you, the actually listen to these). Needless to say, the report followed the classic media pattern of interviewing homeopaths, rather than healthcare experts, and allowing their countless statements and facts to go unchecked – with the added bonus of backing their claims of Big Pharma conspiracy to keep the poor homeopath down, and topping off with an appeal by the ‘Health correspondent’ to find a way of accepting homeopathy into the bosom of actual healthcare. Based on nothing more than anecdote, rumour and conjecture, naturally. What do you want – proof? Evidence? Journalistic integrity?!

The BBC should not be behaving like we’d expect the Daily Mail to behave – they’re meant to be better than this. This is the organisation who gave us Brian Cox, Simon Singh and David Attenborough, yet – as was pointed out to me on Twitter yesterday – for insiders in the corporation, anti-science is rife:

“Producer on BBC series on alternative medicine told me he enjoyed “taking scientists down a peg or two”, hence his pro-woo film”

“…Full stand up row in the office with him. But scientist who presented show also at fault”

‘Taking scientists down a peg or two’ – I couldn’t have summed up the feel of the Newsline piece any better myself. We expect this of the Daily Fail, and we expect it of crackpots and quacks like Dana, Nancy and Greg. We don’t expect this of our BBC. You’re better than this. Start acting like it.

Dear BBC

The article entitled ‘Health Focus: Homeopathy’ contains a large number of issues which are great cause for concern:

• The tone and bias of the article leaves a clear impression that homeopathy is effective, given that the case for ineffectiveness is not stated (it’s merely stated that the regulatory body advise it be considered ineffective), whereas the counterarguments to this position are detailed, with language leading the reader towards believing the claim as being likely correct (‘real issue‘, ‘threat to the highly lucrative relationship‘)
• The videos are clearly supportve of homeopathy, starting with ‘it’s an alternative way of treating and illness, but more and more people are turning to homeopathy‘. This lacks both balance and scientific/factual insight.
• The interview puts forward that babies do not experience the placebo effect – this is factually inaccurate, but goes uncorrected – leaving the viewer under the false misapprehension that this statement is true, and that placebos really are not active on babies.
• ‘It has worked for my family for years‘ – again, this is a factually unproven statement that the viewer is not encouraged to question, despite being demonstrably implausible
• ‘Once frowned upon by conventional doctors‘ implies it’s now accepted – it is not, and conventional doctors are still aware that the evidence proves homeopathy does not work
• ‘here, there are only 5 (homeopathically) registered doctors‘ – clearly the implication from the journalist is that there should be more homeopathy in Northern Ireland – this is blatant editorialising, and is not supported in the views of healthcare experts
• ‘house of commons reports raised questions about its effectiveness‘ – in fact, the report examined the evidence and concluded homeopathy was not effect – no questions were raised, they were demonstrably answered
• ‘…unreliable… cannot for the basis of any NHS treatment‘ – this is a cynically-selected quote – in actual fact, the report concluded comprehensively that homeopathy can be reliably shown not to be effective, as the authors will gladly attest to (please contact me if you’d like me to demonstrate this)
• The balance of the whole piece is entirely lop-sided, interviewing a pharmacist for 15 seconds on the issue of labelling, before returning to a pro-homeopathy stance with an interview with a homeopath
• ‘some feel there’s more behind this current debate…’ – here, the journalist (and by extension, the BBC) are clearly and implicitly adding weight to the unfounded accusations of collusion and conspiracy between doctors and pharmaceutical companies. This is disappointing in the extreme, and in my view is deeply irresponsible journalism.
• ‘In Europe, there are over 100million people for whom homeopathic medicine is their first choice of treatment‘ – an unproven claim, not supported by the data in the video, and disproven by even a cursory level of research
• The statment regarding the growing ‘success’ of homeopathy is misleading – this success is not clinical success, nor scientific success, nor is it a growth in usage; the clear implication is that the opposition to homeopathy is financially based, rather than based on the paucity of evidence for this unproven treatment. This goes unchecked, again, by the report.
• ‘Where the real challenge lies is for the homeopaths and the pharmacists to work together, to provide a service that’s safe, productive, and cost-effective‘ – again, this is biased and baseless. There is no challenge in getting homeopaths to work with pharmacists – the challenge is in proving homeopathy has a place in healthcare, and it has failed this challenge consistently. Further, the implication from the reporter is clearly that only homeopathy is ‘safe, productive and cost-effective‘ – again, this is baseless and irresponsible editorialising, and is not supported by data.

Having watched this video, and the supporting extended pro-homeopathy interview, a number of times, I must conclude that it’s one of the most biased, one-sided and evidence-free pieces of reporting I’ve witnessed by the BBC. Not once is the lack of evidence for homeopathy addressed, indeed there’s not even a qualified medical professional involved in the whole report. Facts supporting homeopathy are not questioned (if they were addressed even in passing it would be clear that those presented here are simply false), and no facts regarding the continual failure of homeopaths to show any efficacy of their pills and tinctures are presented.

In short, I find this to be an irresponsible, biased and potentially very misleading article, which does nothing to add clarity to the public understanding of healthcare.

Yours dissapointedly
Michael

PS – it’s not all bad news on the homeopathy front, of course: not with the closure of the Price of Wales quackfest FIH; the BMA Young Doctors going on record with ‘Homeopathy is akin to withcraft; and a little-birdy-style rumour regarding some pretty interesting developments with NHS Primary Care Trusts here in our very own Liverpool… more of which to follow soon I’m sure…

“We are music, health and education audio and book publishers. We specialize in music medicine, music instruction, weight loss , alternative therapies and film scoring“

An eclectic mix there, I’m sure you’ll agree. I’m sure you’ll also allow me to skip over the film scoring and piano lessons, and get right down to the good stuff – taking a look at the alternative therapies on offer, this film-scoring-music-guru will merrily peddle you products for ‘Internal Cleansing‘, weight loss products and books, as well as – amazingly – a weight loss photo. Which is literally just a photoshopped photo of the current-sized-You, adjusted in order to make you look slimmer. And black and white. Apparently, this is a great motivational technique. Yeah.

On top of all that, the good maestro advises on a dangerous-sounding 10-Point Colon Cleanse – because, I don’t know about you, but I always take digestive advice from someone with a B.A. degree in piano performance (from UCLA, no less).Surprisingly, Howard’s not a doctor, or any kind of science-acquainted person. In fact, one of the few things I particularly like about the site is that his bio describes him as being an ‘unlikely “expert” in the field of weight loss.’

You can say that again.

Still, his weight loss ideas are nothing compared to his other field of expertise – music medicine. Music. Medicine. It’s these claims that I particularly took interest in, and I’m quoting the website here:

Music Therapy for Transformation

Sound Feelings music therapy for transformation offers drug-free audio products for specific illnesses and conditions. Our recordings provide a music therapy alternative to traditional expressive arts therapy. Self-help entrainment music resolves stress and blocks which encourages a relaxing recovery. The following medical music titles are piano instrumentals geared for mind/body self-reflection, cellular release and self-improvement. See also: homeopathic music, designer music, therapeutic music, energy medicine.

Yikes.

As you can imagine, I had a lot of questions regarding the information on the site, and the health credentials of a man who describes himself as having use of music to heal. I mean, who wouldn’t have questions about that? Fortunately, I found the following:

Sound Feelings frequently asked questions (FAQS) about our alternative medicine and music instruction products. Hopefully you will find answers to your questions about our self-help stress management and music training tools

Excellent, an FAQ! And what’s the only question in the FAQ?

Why is your company spamming me?

Yikes! Things are not always as they seem. It may appear as if Sound Feelings is spamming you or that we are sending you viruses! But we are not. We have NEVER done anything like that and we are very angry that other people are implicating us and we are very, very sorry for any inconvenience that you may have experienced due to this fiasco.

So it’s a site which offers miraculous, magic music, who’s main and most-asked question is regarding their spamming practices. No, no, that’s entirely normal, that’s how all health advice tends to work…

At this juncture, you’re doubtlessly curious as to how these miracle-melodies sound, right? How about a sample?

• Feeling stressed? Not a problem! Simply listen to this clip and feel your stress melt away!
• Feeling fat? Not a problem! Simply listen to this clip and feel that fat melt away!
• Suffering from AIDS or Cancer? Not a problem! Simply listen to these clips and feel your AIDS and/or Cancer melt away!

Unbelievable. Fortunately, the website does offer instruction on how to best use the tapes to fight cancer:

“The listener should be process-oriented rather than goal-oriented to appreciate this music for cancer”

I guess this makes total sense, after all if you go around being goal-oriented you might expect your cancer to be cured by the music…

For the pedants amongst you, the full list of illnesses and ailments the Music Man Who Comes From Down The Way can cure (What Can He Cu-re?) reads:

The following information gives you guidelines on creating your own healing music sequence, even if you do not play an instrument! However, for your convenience, you may wish to use music that has already been created for this purpose.

If so, you may purchase our music for specific illnesses and conditions, including: stress, chronic pain, insomnia, addictions, smoking, cardiovascular illnesses, post-traumatic-stress syndrome, TMJ, panic disorder/anxiety, overweight, anorexia, bulimia, depression, low self-esteem, stress, creative or emotional blocks, anger, fear, sadness, hyperactivity, attention deficit disorder, inner child processing (adults), stress and insomnia for the pregnant woman, anxiety and pain during birth, colic and anxiety in the newborn infant, breastfeeding, emotional armor, conflicts, infertility, cancer, anger, AIDS, infection, fear, lack of self-respect, immune system suppression, scleroderma, dementia anxiety, death and dying, frustration, individual transformational music, self-reflection, heightened awareness, relaxation, and inspiration.

Excellent. Some deeper digging around the site produced an extended FAQ, with the following

Has the music been tested anywhere?

We have letters from people from all over the world praising the benefits of the tapes for various situations. However, because we have not yet acquired clinical documentation, no cures or claims are implied. Since 1984, we have actually invited over 150 agencies and universities to become involved in testing our music. Unfortunately, funding always seems to be the issue.

In short – no, it’s not been tested.

Even if we were to come up with the huge funding required ourselves, would this self-funded research satisfy the hardened skeptic? Probably not. Our suggestion is to try the music and to take advantage of our 90-day, no-risk guarantee.

No-risk? Take this music CD to cure your AIDS/Cancer, and if it doesn’t work you get your money back?!

Another Frequently Asked Question reads:

Why do certain parts of the music seem irritating to me?

Well, I can answer that one – because it’s dangerous pseudoscientific bullshit. And it doesn’t even sound nice to listen to.

Often, the contents of a MBWBS event tend to vary from the silly, to the deceptive, to the outright ridiculous and offensive – that’s relatively standard fare, really. Sometimes, however, an exhibitor is thrown up that’s simply and utterly dangerous – and it was the charming practitioners from Innersound that filled the role at the last festival I visited. (Listeners to our Skeptics With A K podcast will already know all about Innersound and their needle-free ‘Qi’ therapy).

Before you all dash off to Google Innersound and check out their woo-filled website (don’t worry, I’ll be doing that for you in a bit anyway), let me first explain to you how I came across them initially. Wandering around said MBWBS event, checking out the various stalls, I got chatting to an elderly Korean woman with a massage table. She explained to me that, due to fear in the West over the use of needles, she was giving people the chance to try needle-free acupuncture. Or ‘acu’, you might call it. Obviously, I was intrigued, I was mystified, and above all I was skeptical. “How do you do acupuncture without needles?”, I thought.

“How do you do acupuncture without needles?” I asked her.

“Oh, it’s simple – we use sound vibrations applied along acupressure points, which resonate with the frequencies of our own bodies, so that they interact with the healing centre of our inner core and unlock the healing energy within”, she replied (or words to that effect – her knowledge of English was relatively poor. Although, relative to her knowledge of medicine, she was Stephen Fry-fluent).

Following that *slight* hint of bullshit, I inevitably asked her a few questions, the usual go-to skeptical questions when faced with nonsense pseudo-medicine: Can you cure cancer? (Answer: “We can, but we usually don’t, but if you came to us with cancer we would”). What’s your greatest success to date? (Answer: “We’re a charity, and we’ve sent people around Africa to help with HIV AIDS”).

At this point, you might be wondering what Innersound actually is – I know I was. The wishy-washy descriptions of needle-free Qi and sound vibrations sounded… well, far from sound. So I stuck around, visited a few stalls, and waited until the next poor sucker got taken in by her, so I could witness it for myself. It was around 15 minutes later when I heard the practitioner at work…

Pssht. Pssst. Pssssssht.

“Excellent”, I thought, “They’re using some kind of mechanical device to make the noise. Perhaps it’s like a little motor, pressing against the skin, making that noise as it spins.”

Oh no. No, no no. I was wrong.

I walked over to the table, to see the masseuse feeling a woman’s back for acupressure points, before pushing his thumb into the acupressure point hard… and saying ‘Psssht’. With his mouth. And his lips. Psssht.

Now, just to be clear, this isn’t a valid therapy. In case I needed to point it out – it’s bullshit. Where’s the harm? Insomnia. Cancer. AIDS. Pssht! Pssht! Pssht!

Unsurprisingly, the company’s website stays clear backing up the claims made in person to help cure cancer. Instead, we’re offered standard, vague case studies, such as:

My name is Patricia and I am 50 years of age.

I was diagnosed and underwent lumpectomy and axilor limph removal. I had 6 months of chemotherapy treatment.During this period I started to receive Qi Treatments which I found really helpful. I felt more energetic and more at peace. I was really surprised at how easy the rest of chemotherapy went and I did not have any side effects. Even my back pains went away completely.

I am now going through radiotherapy treatments and I am receiving Ki Treatments again once a week. It is helping me a lot. I have no side effects and I am feeling happy and full of energy.

Patricia  50 – London

The best we’re given is the idea that the treatments offer ‘peace’ and ‘energy’ – all very nebulous and unquantifiable. Not so for the HIV claim, where we’re offered quantifiable proof that the Pssshting is beneficial:

Has been HIV+ for 12 years.  Normal CD4 count for the last 12 years has been 320 3 weeks ago after a blood test it was 590.

This result is after 8 Qi Treatments and 7 training classes. It is incredible!

Physically I feel more energised, happier and content with life. I would like to carry on further treatments and training class to improve my health and avoid infections to my body in the future.

- Anonymous

Needle-free acupuncture and magic-breathing increases CD4 levels dramatically, it seems! If only there were something more than a badly-written 3 paragraph testimonial attributed to an anonymous source to back that up, before this ‘charity’ started taking their show on the road. Like, for example, science? Plausibility? Proof?

Looking through the other areas where Innersound can help, we see a rag-tag mix of the nonsensical, dangerous and downright baffling. I can understand how the mind-over-matter elements of a mystical placebo-activator could help with Back Pain, Asthma and Tired(ness), but it’s dangerous to believe this mystical-thinking can help prevent allergic reactions, and it’s shockingly exploitative to promote it for help with Grief (really fucking disturbing stuff), Hepatitis (see first anecdote) and severe Heart Conditions in an 8-month old baby. Digest that – an 8-month old baby with severe heart conditions. Pssht. Sickening.

As for the supporting evidence for preventing Strokes, we’re told:

I visited the Mind Body and Spirit exhibition where I met Innersound.  On that day I knew that I had raised blood pressure because I was feeling very dazed.  I was very sure that I was having a stroke.

Since joining Innersound I have not had a raised blood pressure episode.  I would like to say my job is now more stressful than it ever was, but I am convinced that the reason I have not gone under is because of the treatment, training classes and support I get from the masters at the centre.

So, essentially, her story is: “I thought I was going to have a stroke, and then I didn’t have a stroke, and I put that down to the magic man and his pssshting.”

As for the outright baffling, how do they suggest needle-free acupuncture will help cure Broken Bones, Fractures, Eyesight problems, old age, Outstanding Performance (?!) and Pregnancy. What’s more, I don’t want to know where they press to help deal with Infertility.

What theory is Innersound Qi based on? You’ll not be surprised to hear it’s based on the usual unscientific nonsense. Specifically:

A healthy human body has an abundant and continuous flow of energy which supports all the physical functions. This energy is pumped through a network of energy channels similar to the way that blood is pumped by the heart and flows through the veins. Energy is pumped by the human battery, located just beneath the navel, and flows through energy meridians to all organs and cells.

Suffice to say, nothing has ever suggested there’s a ‘human battery’ located beneath the navel. That’s gibberish of the highest, most unscientific order.

From an eastern point of view, there are only two causes of ill-health – a shortage of energy and energy blockages. When we are short of energy, our body doesn’t have the energy it needs to function effectively bringing fatigue, pain and stress and leading to increasing imbalances and symptoms of ill-health.

Note – neither of the ‘only’ causes of ill-health include disease, germs, bacteria, viruses, genetic defects and predispositions, bad diet, lack of exercise, environmental factors, radiation or the million other ways we know ill-health comes about. This is ancient, disproven, childish gibberish. That they’re exporting to Africa to cure AIDS, and that they’re using here in the UK to offer alternatives to people generally desperate for help.

This might all sound like grumpy, curmudgeonly banging on a drum against something harmless, or silly. Perhaps you’re right. However, I witnessed people being Pssshted, falling for this ludicrous claptrappery, and if even one person with cancer, HIV, hepatitis or something similarly serious is convinced to believe in this Qi, then it’s one person too many.

Speaking of the Daily Mail and my own relative silence of late, here’s something uber-old-hat by now (news these days moves so fast) but I felt I had to write it up partly because a) it’s batshit insane, b) it’s a good example of how fallacious arguments are entirely interchangeably applicable to a whole range of topics and c) it gives me a chance to make some cheap gags:

Vaccines ‘are making our dogs sick as vets cash in’ - Source: Daily Mail (obviously).

See what I mean? Replace ‘dogs’ for ‘babies’ and ‘vets’ for ‘doctors’, and you’ve got a textbook anti-vaccination statement, a la Miss McCarthy. And it doesn’t stop there:

“Vaccines given to dogs are making them ill, a pet charity claimed yesterday. Profit-hungry drug companies and vets are ‘frightening’ dog owners into inoculating their pets more often than necessary, according to Canine Health Concern.”

If this isn’t PR for the Canine Health Concern charity, I don’t know what is. And it doesn’t stop there, either:

“Some puppies have developed conditions including autism and epilepsy after a raft of injections, it warns”

Yep – doggie autism. Doggie vaccines cause doggie autism, or so says the Canine Health Concern charity. Now, a few things to bear in mind:

• Vaccines don’t cause autism. That’s established fact.
• Dogs don’t have autism, or at least if they do it’s not caused by vaccines.
• Canine Health Concern is not a very large charity, and does not often get national news coverage the size their ‘Vaccines cause autism’ story has.

Those facts established, let’s continue in the Mail:

“Catherine O’Driscoll, from the charity, said: ‘We are not anti-vaccination. What we are saying is that currently our pets are receiving far too many. The latest scientific research shows that after the first course of injections as a puppy most dogs are immune against these diseases for at least seven years, if not for life. Every year pet vaccination companies hold National Vaccination Month, a national campaign when pet owners whose boosters have lapsed by 18 months or more are terrified into having their pet jabbed.”

Well, I’m sorry, Catherine, but that sounds pretty anti-vaccine to me. And it’s surely easy to see just how pot/kettle/black it is to speak of animal owners who are being terrified by Big Pharma into having their pet jabbed… with stuff that will give them AUTISM!!!!1!!11!!

This, of course, is the same non-anti-vaccination Catherine O’Driscoll who has written two anti-vaccination and anti-medicine books (‘What Vets Don’t Tell You about Vaccines‘ and ‘Shock to the System: The Facts about Animal Vaccination, Pet Food and How to Keep Your Pets Healthy‘) - the first page of one mentions going to a homeopathic vet who opened her eyes to how things really are; page two of the other book has Catherine admit she was a ‘science virgin’ and that ‘most of us – even the scientists – are science virgins’. Not to mention this beauty on page three:

“What nobody understands, and nobody seems to know, is how great the vaccination risk is. Will my dog die if I give him a vaccine? Will my child have brain damage if I give her a vaccine?” – Source: Shock to the System

Answer: No, Catherine, he won’t, and she won’t, and thanks for equating your dog’s life to that of your child’s.

So it’s hard to take Catherine seriously as a genuine source of unbiased, educated information. Well, it’s hard, unless you’re the Mail I mean. But then again, the Mail also ran with the back-up, super-proof tale of Charlie the Autistic Spaniel, whose owner told of his personality post-vaccination:

“Shutting a door or moving the washing basket terrified him. Then sometimes, despite calling his name, he wouldn’t even come to you… I simply cannot think of another explanation for the sudden change in his personality”

I can: He’s a fucking dog.

Elsewhere in the article, the Mail merrily quotes the letter produced by the crazy CHC and signed by ’17 vets and other pet experts’. Note that’s 17 total, not 17 vets AND other pet experts. And Catherine counts as a pet expert, remember. I wonder how many vets would sign a letter backing the use of vaccines… Fortunately, I know a vet, who I got straight onto the phone to – MSS member and sometime-blogger ‘Redwinelover‘, who quickly put paid to the notion that, as O’Driscoll suggests, a simple blood test would determine whether an animal needed a booster shot:

“It would actually be much more expensive to pay for the blood test to see if the dog is covered for the various diseases than it is to give one booster, as the booster shot can cover all the necessary vaccinations. There’s a certain percentage of dogs that will need the vaccination each time, so the best practice is to vaccinate yearly – after an extra 6 months past the booster date, 5-10%” of dogs are no longer immune; after an extra 12 months past the booster date that rises to 10-20%.

Also, vets are culpable if they were to forego vaccinating an animal and it develop the illness.”

What’s more, she confirmed to me that dogs don’t develop autism - or at least that there’s nowhere near enough personality work done on dogs to determine what robust diagnostic criteria would be for doggie autism.

So, I’ve been pretty disparaging of the CHC and O’Driscoll so far, and perhaps that seems harsh or ad-hom-y. Well, let’s take a brief look at the CHC website, and see if the criticism is justified.

“CHC advocates real food for dogs.  That is, food that Mother Nature has designed, over millions of years, and which has made the species thrive for millions of years.”

Ooh, an appeal-to-nature fallacy, combined with the sheer idiocy to overlook that ‘Mother Nature’ isn’t the one responsible for how food and vegetables are today – instead millenia of selective breeding by humans have moulded crops into the food we know today.

“Emotional Freedom Techniques - Based on impressive new discoveries involving the body’s subtle energies, Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) has been clinically effective in thousands of cases for Trauma & Abuse, Stress & Anxiety, Fears & Phobias, Depression, Addictive Cravings, Children’s Issues and hundreds of physical symptoms including headaches, body pains and breathing difficulties.”

Ooh, some mystical reference to ‘subtle energies’ and a healing system so completely bonkers in adults that we’ve featured it several times.

And what’s this in their ‘Complementary Healthcare’ list?

Animal Life and Death:

So, when your animals don’t heal, despite what you see as your best efforts, it is not that you are failing in your duty, or seeming not to be capable of healing anyone or keeping anyone safe, it is just that they see their going as the next best step, their own path to healing of the spirit rather than of the physical body.

Back Flower Remedies:

There are 38 Flower Remedies, developed by Dr Bach with the aim of raising our vibrations so that we can hear our Spiritual Selves and fulfil our life purposes… If the dog becomes fixated on something that happened – for example, he heard a loud bang outside and now refuses to go into the garden, then White Chestnut can help him get the distressing event out of his mind and carry on with life.

Contacts – including details for:

I think it’s fair to say O’Driscoll and the Canine Health Concern charity aren’t the most reliable, sensible, sane sources of animal health information. Quick, someone call the Mail and tell them they’ve made a mistake, I’m positive they’ll issue a correction…

In 1995, another phone call from Russel introduced me to Westwood Studios new RTS game – Command & Conquer – which I came to love more than I loved Warcraft.  One of its distinguishing features, setting it apart from the Warcraft series was the inclusion of full-motion video sequences (with real actors!) introducing each mission.  After making free with Russel’s copy of C&C, I bought my own copy in early 1996, followed by its sequels as they were released, including the games from the C&C spin-off series Red Alert.

That was until 2008, and the publication of Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3.  By then Westwood Studios had been bought up by gaming giants Electronic Arts, and with more money behind them (and much more money in the video game market than in 1995), EA were able to cast Hollywood stars for Red Alert 3‘s full motion video segments.  The cast included Tim Curry as Soviet Premier Antony Cherdenko;  J. K. Simmons as US President Howard T. Ackerman; Jonathan Pryce as Field Marshall Robert Bingham; George Takei as Japanese Emperor Yoshiro; and one Jenny McCarthy as Special Agent Tanya.

Yeah, that Jenny McCarthy.

My heart sank as I read her name on the back of the box in the Rock Ferry branch of PC World, prompting a brief email to EA:

Dear EA,

Although I’m a fan of the RTS genre in general and of the “Command & Conquer” series in particular, the involvement of Jenny McCarthy in “Red Alert 3″ means that it will be the first C&C game I won’t be buying.

McCarthy’s anti-scientific propaganda war against vaccination is endangering the lives of children around the world and I can’t bring myself to put money toward any project in which she is involved.

I appreciate my message is unlikely to affect casting decisions at EA, I’m sure there are wider issues, but I live in hope that you will consider re-casting Tanya in time for Red Alert 4.

Thanks for taking the time to read my email.

Best wishes to you all

Mike Hall

I never received a reply, nor did I really expect to.  So why am I boring you with this, over a year later?

In the dying weeks of 2009, the French video game studio Ubisoft released a new fitness title for Wii and PC entitled Your Shape featuring Jenny McCarthy.

Yes, that Jenny McCarthy.

Fortunately, 14 months is a long time in skepticism and we have a much tighter knit community in 2010 than we had when Red Alert 3 was published in October 2008.  An excellent post on the Depleted Cranium blog has been hurtling around Twitter for the last few days, urging those of us who feel strongly about the damage McCarthy is doing to boycott Ubisoft products.  Not only that, we should let Ubisoft know what we’re doing and why.

When a company selects a person to endorse a product, they try to avoid anyone who cast their product in a bad light or might be seen in a negative way to the consumer.  The absolute last thing they want is to find someone who is going to hurt their image or sales.  By refusing to patronize this company you can send them a message indicating you are dissatisfied with their choice of spokesperson and feel strongly that Jenny McCarthy is not someone who you associate with a good product or company.

Your Shape featuring Jenny McCarthy has yet to be released in the UK, but when it is I urge you not to buy it.  Or anything produced by Ubisoft.  Yes, I’m sorry, even the new Tom Clancy game.

We can do something about this.  Sure, Ubisoft are unlikely to withdraw, recast, reshoot and re-release the game they’re already published.  But maybe, just maybe, we can make enough noise so that Ubisoft, EA and any other games developer paying enough attention will more carefully consider their casting decisions in the future.

Still, it got me wondering – how many people actually know anything about ear candles? How many people know what they are, what they’re meant to do, what they actually do, and why they’re crazy crazy crazy? Canvassing opinion around colleagues and friends, it seemed to my (entirely un-scientifically-small) survey that the number of people who’d even heard of them was pretty low, and amongst those it was a mixed response on whether ear candles are any good or not. Which is a bit disturbing, because – as I mentioned – they’re actually crazy crazy crazy. So I found myself trying to explain to these lovely folk what an ear candle is, and the potential for harm that it can do. ‘If only’, thought I at the time, ‘I had some kind of video where a well-known yet annoying-enough-not-to-mind-seeing-them-in-discomfort celebrity had filmed themselves using an ear candle, so I could show people how woo this crap really is (and how crap this woo really is), and they could be in equal parts informed and grossed-out’.

Well, this is Christmas after all – the time of the year that wishes really do come true. They do. Ask anyone that’s been on Noel’s Christmas Presents and they’ll tell you. Oh, plus I can tell you they do, because lo and indeed behold what the intertubes have presented us with:

If you ask me it entirely kicks the arse off Gold, Frankinsense or Myrrh – if the little baby Jebus had been given a video of irritating blondelette Jessica Simpson sticking a burning candle in her ear in pursuit of some quack treatment, I’d wager he’d have kicked the three wise men to the curb, and history (by which I only mean the Bible, not actual history in terms of things that actually happened of course) would have been so much different. Then again, Jebus was but a tiny infant, so already he wouldn’t have been trusted to be smart enough to know not to put burning things in your ear because it’s ludicruously dangerous. How would a baby – even a messiah-baby – be able to figure out that putting a burning roll of waxed cotton into a very delicate area such as your ear could result in a perforated eardrum, or that the hot wax dripping from the quack-candle could very easily burn your face, drip into your ear and cause major damage, or even that the flame could set alight to your hair or surroundings?

I’d imagine the little baby Jebus would also be too young to be trusted to work out that the ear candle doesn’t really create a vortex that sucks the ear wax out of your ear, forming a residue at the bottom of the candle by way of proof. He’s also be too naive to realise that the real reason for the waxy residue at the bottom of the candle isn’t anything to do with ear wax, but it’s to do with the fact that you’re burning a candle. Made of wax. Which melts when burnt. Into a waxy residue. Around the bottom.

Thank Christ then the tiny baby Christ wasn’t given an ear candle, or he could have very easily caused permanent damage to his hearing, suffered severe burns to his skin, or even set alight to his surroundings resulting in death by smoke inhalation (he was, after all, in a wooden manger filled with straw, in a wooden shack, thousands of years before the invention of the emergency services).

I suppose, then, it’s a good job that the littlebabyJesus didn’t get given a dangerous and unproven quack therapy to play with then, and an equally good job that Jessica Simpson has did – she’s done something really stupid and dangerous, so you don’t have to. I suppose you could say this one’s her very own sacrifice for the good of mankind…

With a drip-of-the-wax to Skepchick and Bad Astronomy for the video.

“South Africa’s former health minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, who gained notoriety for her dogged promotion of lemons, garlic and olive oil to treat AIDS, has died. She was 69.” - Source: AP

This woman leaves a mixed legacy. Despite being applauded for driving reform to get basic healthcare out to rural townships and her involvement in global anti-tobacco actions, she also was derided for her attitudes toward HIV/AIDS.

She denied the link between HIV and AIDS also resisting the use of antiretrovirals, famously culminating in the following quote at a 2005 media conference

“All I am bombarded about is antiretrovirals, antiretrovirals. There are other things we can be assisted in doing to respond to HIV/AIDS in this country.”

So what did she have in mind when referring to “other things”? Well due to her support of Lemons, garlic and olive oil it is estimated by a Harvard University study that together with President Mbeki she contributed to 300,000 deaths.

She said:

“Raw garlic and a skin of the lemon — not only do they give you a beautiful face and skin but they also protect you from disease”

It is worthy of ridicule, is it not, that these superstitious and out dated beliefs persist? Even in a developing country. Perhaps even our friends who are supporters of homeopathy must shudder at these preposterous claims. I wonder if in reading of these claims they will shine a light on their own, equally ridiculous views?

When I think of homeopathy, I see it in exactly the terms above. I can’t see how anyone in a right mind would fall for such a cheap parlour trick. “There’s nothing in it” you hear me cry.

Consider the claims:

• Shaking water imbues it with an unheard of energetic quality
• Water forgets other substances that have been in it
• It is perfectly alright for different homeopaths to prescribe differently
• It is fine that the potentisation happens differently at each manufacturer,
• 84 tiny lumps of sugar are worth £5.00 or so.

Perhaps in our society we should reflect on the similarities we have with the developing nations. The fact that a large number of our population believe in something superstitious. That superstition is ingrained in our children form a very early age, that the state sponsors superstition and actively encourages it, that detractors are branded as naysayers, that truth and accuracy are optional elements of society.

Perhaps those who believe in homeopathy can see that their position is the same as that of Tshabalala-Msimang above. The only reason why hers seems absurd to them is…well you decide. How could they rationlise on the one hand deriding her views yet on the other sustaining their own.

Maybe you could ask one and let us know.

10:23

Robin Van Persie - Placenta Forward

Footballers, by and large, and by largely stereotypically-derived reputation, are not widely perceived to be among humanity’s great critical thinkers. Arsenal player Kolo Toure was yellow carded last season for refusing to enter the field of play before every other member of his team had crossed the line ahead of him. In the 1998 World Cup, Fabian Barthez iconically received a good-luck kiss on his bald head from compatriot Laurent Blanc. To this day French manager Raymond Domenech adheres strictly to horoscopes, stating his distrust of Leos: “When I have got a Leo in defence, I’ve always got my gun ready, as I know he’s going to want to show off at one moment or another and cost us.” It’s fair to say, they can be a somewhat credulous bunch.

And it’s not just superstition that the players of the beautiful game have been guilty of – with the pressure to get fit and back to action increasing as stakes (not to mention financial factors) continue to rise, a whole range of alternative therapies have been trialled over the years, from the unusual-but-plausible to the downright quackish. Florent Malouda and Robert Pires have both found the cure for aching muscles can lie not in his limbs, but in the teeth – turning to a dentist to fix their fatiguing fangs. Michael Owen, Arjen Robben and Jurgen Klinsmann have all had goats’ blood and cockerel extract injected into troublesome hamstrings. Cristiano ‘pretty boy’ Ronaldo even tried turning to a local wizard when he was sidelined last month. It seems like almost anything goes. Which leads me on to Robin Van Persie – centre-forward for Arsenal and the Netherlands, and now poster-boy for a new treatment that’s causing a stir in treatment rooms, newspapers and quite likely stables across the country: horse placenta therapy.

The injury-prone Dutchman, who tore his ankle ligaments in a match against Italy, flew out to Serbia to meet with the proponent of the horse placenta therapy – Marijana Kovacevic – in order to trim his recovery time down from six weeks out of action. Van Persie, who has inevitably become the butt of a load of ‘Pla-Centa Forward’ gags, isn’t the first footballer to go in for the equine rub – with fellow Premiership stars Yossi Benayoun, Glen Johnson and Frank Lampard all putting their faith in Kovacevic’s hands.Quoting an article on the BBC site, Van Persie said:

“She is vague about her methods but I know she massages you using fluid from a placenta. I am going to try. It cannot hurt and, if it helps, it helps.” – Source: BBC News

Oh, she’s vague about her methods? But you’re still going to go along to see her? Very wise! Because vagueness is often a great signifier of trustworthyness when it comes to bizarre and unlikely healing techniques. What’s more, quite how a liquid applied to the skin might repair torn material within the ligament, I’m not sure. Presumably the placenta, being chock-full of natural goodness, is able to penetrate the skin, seep through the regular fat and tissue, locate the ligament tissue, locate the tear in that ligament tissue, and then repair the tear?

This, to me, sounded deeply unlikely, so I thought I’d take a look at the medical literature and the clinical trial data to see if they could shed any light on the methodology and proposed mechanism of the treatment. So, I took a quick glance at that excellent and vital research tool – PubMed. And then, when a quick glance wasn’t adequate, I took another look. And then I looked for a more sustained, in-depth stare. Still, my findings didn’t really change:

• Articles mentioning ‘Horse Placenta’: 513. Of which weren’t actually about horse pregnancy or horse health: 0, in the first few pages at least. Time to refine the search…
• Articles mentioning ‘Horse + Placenta + Ligament’: 0
• Articles mentioning ‘Horse + Placenta + Massage’: 0
• Articles mentioning ‘Placenta + Massage + Ligament’: 0

With PubMed offering no help, I resorted to a cautious Googling – somewhere, I’m sure, Kovacevic will have published her papers, her research, and her evidence? Well, no – at least not that I could find. I’d be happy to be proven wrong – there’s space in the comments for links. What I did find, however, was a little more detail on how the massage is applied – courtesy of former patient and Serbian player Dusan Petrovic:

“Marijana is amazing, she saved the careers of several (players). … She uses a combination of electricity and the miracle gel that is her exclusive product. The electric current goes through a stick holding the gel, which is applied to the injured spot.” – Source: San Francisco Chronicle

‘Dubiouser and dubiouser and dubiouser’, said Alice. Sort of. I’d always be wary of any practitioner selling a ‘miracle gel’ – especially when that miracle gel is exclusive to that particular practitioner. On top of that, we now have the presence of an electric current – presumably the electric activates the horse placenta juice? Again, my searches find nothing of the sort. However, a quick search for Kovacevic does provide a rather interesting twist, as explained by Miljko Ristic, the president of the Serbian FA’s Health Commission:

“The healer who has helped foreign players does possess some kind of medical licence, but the procedure has not yet been approved, and its application would effectively be illegal. I agree anything that helps players should not be discarded that easily, but I say again – only once it has been scrutinised by experts.

I assume the healer hasn’t registered the remedy she uses, just like numerous other healers and quacks when they use their creams, herbs and teas. Until it’s officially registered and approved it should be considered quackery.” – Source: Blic Online

It seems the Serbian FA aren’t the only ones to question Kovacevic’s credentials, too – reports emerged on Monday that the Serbian police visited her clinic, in order to question her with suspicion of practising medicine without a license. Unfortunately, when officials arrived, the purveyor of equine quackery was nowhere to be found.