Author: Seth Roberts

Assorted Links

Seth Roberts2 Comments
  • The corruption of science by research grants. This reminds me of a BBC documentary called something like Science Under Attack. It was hosted by a Nobel Prize winner (Biology) named Paul Nurse. Part of it was about “climate change denialism”. If you don’t believe that humans are dangerously warming the planet, Nurse implied, you are somehow attacking science. When people who win Nobel Prizes cannot see that AGW is a crock, something curious has happened.
  • Edward Jay Epstein interviews DSK. “”Thank you so much for your interest in this case,” he says.”
  • Researcher discovers new treatment for her own vertigo. ” A University of Colorado School of Medicine researcher who suffers from benign paroxysmal positional vertigo (BPPV) and had to “fix it” before she could go to work one day was using a maneuver to treat herself [the usual treatment] that only made her sicker. “So I sat down and thought about it and figured out an alternate way to do it. Then I fixed myself and went in to work” and [thereby] discovered a new treatment for this type of vertigo.”

Thanks to Melissa Francis.

Assorted Links

Seth Roberts4 Comments

Thanks to Alex Chernavsky.

Merck’s Vioxx and the American Death Rate

Seth Roberts8 Comments

Ron Unz makes a very good point — that just one awful drug (Vioxx) sold by just one awful drug company (Merck) appear to have caused hundreds of thousands of deaths:

The headline of the short article that ran in the April 19, 2005 edition of USA Today was typical: “USA Records Largest Drop in Annual Deaths in at Least 60 Years.” During that one year, American deaths had fallen by 50,000 despite the growth in both the size and the age of the nation’s population. Government health experts were quoted as being greatly “surprised” and “scratching [their] heads” over this strange anomaly, which was led by a sharp drop in fatal heart attacks. . . .

On April 24, 2005, the New York Times ran another of its long stories about the continuing Vioxx controversy, disclosing that Merck officials had knowingly concealed evidence that their drug greatly increased the risk of heart-related fatalities. . . .

A cursory examination of the most recent 15 years worth of national mortality data provided on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website offers some intriguing clues to this mystery. We find the largest rise in American mortality rates occurred in 1999, the year Vioxx was introduced, while the largest drop occurred in 2004, the year it was withdrawn. Vioxx was almost entirely marketed to the elderly, and these substantial changes in national death-rate were completely concentrated within the 65-plus population. The FDA studies had proven that use of Vioxx led to deaths from cardiovascular diseases such as heart attacks and strokes, and these were exactly the factors driving the changes in national mortality rates.

The impact of these shifts was not small. After a decade of remaining roughly constant, the overall American death rate began a substantial decline in 2004, soon falling by approximately 5 percent, despite the continued aging of the population. This drop corresponds to roughly 100,000 fewer deaths per year. The age-adjusted decline in death rates was considerably greater.

This illustrates how Merck company executives got away with mass murder on a scale that the Khmer Rouge would be proud of. It also illustrates why I find “evidence-based medicine” as currently practiced so awful. Evidence-based medicine tells doctors to be evidence snobs. As I showed in my Boing Boing article about tonsillectomies, it causes them to ignore evidence of harm — such as heart attacks and strokes caused by Vioxx — because the first evidence of harm does not come from randomized controlled studies, the only evidence they accept. It delays the detection of monumental tragedies like this one.

What Motivates Scientists? Evidence From Cancer Research

Seth Roberts4 Comments

A friend of mine who worked in a biology lab said the grad students and post-docs joked about the clinical-relevance statements included at the end of papers and grant proposals: how the research would help cure cancer, retard aging, and so on. It was nonsense, they knew, but had to be included to help funding agencies justify their spending.

Principal investigators never say such things. Are they wiser than grad students and post-docs? Fortunately for the rest of us, actions speak louder than words. An action — actually, a lack of action — that suggests that P.I.’s know their research has little connection to curing cancer, etc., is 50 years of widespread indifference by cancer researchers to the possibility that their research uses a mislabeled cell line. For example, you think you are studying breast cancer cells but you are actually studying melanoma cells. A recent WSJ article says that the problem was brought to the attention of cancer researchers in 1966 but they have been “slow” to do anything about it:

University of Washington scientist Stanley Gartler warned about the practice [of using mislabelled cells] in 1966. He had developed a pioneering technique using genetic markers that would distinguish one person’s cells from another. Using the process, he tested 20 of the most widely used cancer cell lines of the era. He found 18 of the lines weren’t unique: They were Ms. Lacks’ cervical cancer. . . . A decade after publication of his findings Gartler attended a conference and introduced himself to a scientist. Dr. Gartler recalled the man told him, “‘I heard your talk on contamination. I didn’t believe what you said then and I don’t believe what you said now.’ “

What he meant was: I ignored what you said. Yet it costs only $200 to check your cell line. Fifty-plus years later, mislabeled cell lines remain a big problem. “Cell repositories in the U.S., U.K., Germany and Japan have estimated that 18% to 36% of cancer cell lines are incorrectly identified,” says the article. This indicates considerable indifference to the possibility of mislabeling.

If you truly wanted to cure breast cancer, would you spend $200 (out of a grant that might be $100,000/year) to make sure you were using a relevant cell line? Of course. If you were trying to cure your daughter’s breast cancer or your mother’s melanoma, would you make absolutely sure you were using the most relevant cell line? Of course. I conclude that a large fraction of cancer researchers care little about the practical value of their research.

I believe that one reason my personal science found new solutions to common problems (obesity, insomnia, etc.) is that my overwhelming goal was to find something of practical value. I wasn’t trying to publish papers, impress my colleagues, renew a grant, win awards, and so on. No doubt many cancer researchers want to cure cancer. But this 50-year-and-not-over chapter in the history of their field suggests that many of them have other more powerful motivations that conflict with curing cancer.

Thanks to Hal Pashler. Hal’s work on “ voodoo neuroscience” is another instance where the guilty parties, I believe, knew they might be doing something wrong but didn’t care.

Assorted Links

Seth Roberts1 Comment

Thanks to Peter Spero and Hal Pashler.

Why We Touch Our Mouths So Much: Evidence From Ants

Seth Roberts2 Comments

In a recent post I proposed that we touch our mouths so much to transfer germs from our hands to our immune system. It’s an early warning system. The full sequence is: 1. Hands. 2. Skin around mouth. 3. Tongue (lick lips). 4. Tonsils (immune system). Forewarned is forearmed: exposure to a tiny amount of Germ X makes you much more likely to survive exposure to a large amount of Germ X.

Ants have a similar early-warning system, says a new study described here.

Cremer and her colleagues began by investigating how nestmates encountering an infected ant acted. They infected Lasius neglectus ants with Metarhizium anisopliae, a fungus that sticks to the insects’ outer cuticles and causes infection only after it has worked its way into the body, which takes a day or more. The researchers then placed infected or non-infected ants in a box with five nestmates, and watched what happened. . . . Ants without the spores were groomed at a constant rate over 5 days, while Cremer saw a spike in grooming of the fungus-infected ants in the first day or two of infection, suggesting that the pathogen was prompting a behavior change in the nestmates.

The grooming was protective:

But even though they’d been exposed, only 2 percent of nestmates died from fungal infections, even though half of the initially infected ants, which had been dipped in solvent with M. anisopliae spores, died within 5 days. When ants were exposed to a dose of fungus expected to cause a 2 percent death rate, Cremer’s group saw an increase in antifungal activity, suggesting that this low level of infection was indeed enough to stimulate a protective immune response.

Earlier studies had shown what is called “social immunization” (“a protection of naive individuals of a colony after social contact to exposed individuals”) among insects. This study was about how social immunization happens.

After I thought of this explanation of mouth touching, I became much less concerned about contact with sick people. I hadn’t known about social immunization.

Do Sonograms Cause Autism? A New Study

Seth Roberts7 Comments

A new paper (“Are Prenatal Ultrasound Scans Associated with the Autism Phenotype? Follow-up of a Randomised Controlled Trial” by Yonit K. Stoch, Cori J. Williams, Joanna Granich, Anna M. Hunt, Lou I. Landau, John P. Newnham and Andrew J. O. Whitehouse) takes another look at the results of a randomized trial started in 1989. Half the mothers were given one ultrasound during their pregnancy, the rest got five. This study gave a questionnaire sensitive to autism-like traits to the now-grown-up children. This is potentially more sensitive than binary (yes/no) assessment because the questionnaire has about 50 questions.

Here is the entire abstract:

An existing randomised controlled trial was used to investigate whether multiple ultrasound scans may be associated with the autism phenotype. From 2,834 single pregnancies, 1,415 were selected at random to receive ultrasound imaging and continuous wave Doppler flow studies at five points throughout pregnancy (Intensive) and 1,419 to receive a single imaging scan at 18 weeks (Regular), with further scans only as indicated on clinical grounds. There was no significant difference in the rate of Autism Spectrum Disorder between the Regular (9/1,125, 0.8 %) and Intensive (7/1,167, 0.6 %) groups, nor a difference between groups in the level of autistic-like traits in early adulthood. There is no clear link between the frequency and timing of prenatal ultrasound scans and the autism phenotype.

Parrish Hirasaki pointed out to me that when the study was done the intensity of ultrasounds was eight-fold less than now. Here’s what the paper says about this:

Technological advancements over the past two decades have led to considerable improvements in ultrasonographic capabilities, with corresponding increases in acoustic output.

Did you read that and realize the intensities have increased by a factor of eight? Neither did I. Such a big difference in intensity means the results are not serious evidence — contrary to what the abstract implies — against the idea that sonograms are now causing autism.

More Asked about the failure to make clear the difference in intensity, the corresponding author, Andrew Whitehouse, replied:

The parameters of the ultrasound scans were reported clearly in the Methods section, and we refer to several other articles that include a description of the USS administered in this cohort. We are also very clear in the Discussion when we state that “the current study was not designed to investigate the use of [modern] instruments”.

I disagree. So what if the parameters of the ultrasound scans were reported clearly in the Methods section? That’s not the issue. The issue is failure to make clear the huge intensity difference between the ultrasounds they studied and modern ultrasounds. Saying that “the current study was not designed to investigate the use of [modern] instruments” does not make clear at all (much less “very clear”) how much modern ultrasounds differ from the ultrasounds actually studied. Any study can put caveats like that at the end. Yet few studies are as irrelevant as this one to the question they claim (in the title, abstract and introduction) to help answer.

Cod Liver Oil Best Taken in Morning?

Seth RobertsLeave a comment

Is it better to take cod liver oil in the morning than at other times of day? Kim Øyhus’s experience suggests that:

Each mid winter and summer I tend to lose my feeling of when it is day or night, especially if I am in the northern parts of Norway, or if the weather is dark clouds for a long time, which often happens. So sorry, no statistics, just my sense of being unhinged from the diurnal cycle.
Taking 1-2 spoons of cod liver oil in the morning got me back to this rhythm in about 3-5 hours. It even works for fixing my diurnal rhythm after partying to sunrise, but only after a day’s rest.

I have posted many times about the value of taking Vitamin D3 in the morning.

The Feeding Tube Diet

Seth Roberts18 Comments

In The Shangri-La Diet I noted that hospital patients given intravenous feeding often lose a lot of weight without hunger. I said this supported my theory that the body fat set point is raised by the smell of food. Without smell, the set point goes down. When your set point goes down you lose weight without becoming hungry.

You should be able achieve the same effect by nose-clipping all your food. A new diet, however, makes smell avoidance considerably more difficult and expensive.

The K-E diet, which boasts promises of shedding 20 pounds in 10 days, is an increasingly popular alternative to ordinary calorie-counting programs. The program has dieters inserting a feeding tube into their nose that runs to the stomach. They’re fed a constant slow drip of protein and fat, mixed with water, which contains zero carbohydrates and totals 800 calories a day. Body fat is burned off through a process called ketosis, which leaves muscle intact, Dr. Oliver Di Pietro of Bay Harbor Islands, Fla., said.

It is a hunger-free, effective way of dieting,” Di Pietro said. “Within a few hours and your hunger and appetite go away completely, so patients are actually not hungry at all for the whole 10 days. That’s what is so amazing about this diet.”

Di Pietro says patients are under a doctor’s supervision, although they’re not hospitalized during the dieting process. Instead, they carry the food solution with them, in a bag, like a purse, keeping the tube in their nose for 10 days straight. . . .

Schnaider said she was never hungry throughout the 10 days she was on the K-E diet, but admits that it still wasn’t easy. “It was emotionally difficult, the 10 days of not eating,” Schnaider said. . . . Although the K-E diet is new to the United States, it has been around for years in Europe. Dr. Di Pietro charges $1,500 for the 10-day plan, and says the before-and-after pictures sell themselves.

I sympathize with the “emotionally difficult.” When I lost 30 pounds in 3 months drinking sugar water, I ate maybe 50% of my usual calorie intake. I was never hungry and that too was bad. The world seemed drab without hunger.

Thanks to Tom George.

Coconut Oil/Foot Fungus Update

Seth Roberts19 Comments

A month ago I wrote about Chuck Currie’s discovery that coconut oil cured his foot fungus and seems to be curing his toenail fungus. He put coconut oil on his foot, put it in a plastic bag, and put a sock on it. Then he could walk around or whatever — vastly more convenient than the soaking remedies (e.g., soak your feet in vinegar) many people recommend (which I tried) and incomparably better than the foot fungus and toenail fungus remedies you find in a drugstore (which I tried many times).

For some strange reason I had foot fungus on one foot but not the other — for ten years. I have been doing Chuck’s remedy for a month. Within a few days it was clear it worked. Now the “good” and “bad” foot are indistinguishable. I am writing this post because I discovered that the plastic bag is unnecessary, making it even more convenient. I put the coconut oil on my feet and then put on socks. It still works. Nothing bad happens to the socks, which I think are a cotton/polyester blend.

I’ve been using Whole Foods house brand (“365″) food grade (‘expeller pressed virgin organic”) coconut oil. A 16-oz jar cost about $8. Maybe it will last 4 months with daily application. (For toenail fungus. My foot fungus is completely gone.) All other commercial foot fungus remedies should quietly disappear…