Good! FDA to crack down on supplements makers

Now, thanks to Congress in general and former Sen. Orrin Hatch in particular, the FDA's power over supplements is limited, but it sounds like it plans to fully use the powers it has, at least on the new claims that supplements can fight Alzheimer's

About time.

I'm sure this will piss off many (other) Greens who think supplements are pure and pristine and natural (they're not, and you're committing the naturalistic fallacy) or else less capitalistic than Big Pharma (also not true; why do you think Orrin Hatch got the industry such a regulatory pass?)

On the capitalism side, the NY Times reported 3 years ago, based on government research, that Merika spends $30 billion a year on supplements. Note to FDA Commish Scott Gottlieb: I partially blame the gummint, including Orrin Hatch, with the founding of the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health — i.e., the alt-med wing of the National Institutes of Health.

It's true that this is only about 1 percent of what we collectively spend on pharmaceuticals. That said, allowing for research replication viability and related issues, pharmaceuticals are prescribed to actually do something that they normally do. Supplements are self-prescribed by people for things they have not been proven to do and, on the deregulation, don't have to try to prove they can do.

And, because they're not regulated, supplements have a lot less overhead than pharmaceuticals.

The NYT piece also adds this. The biggest supplements users are generally the healthiest people already. In short, the supplements world feeds off of, and further feeds, a low-level hypochondria.

Can you smell that smell?

Well, maybe not, and maybe not forever, if you used Zicam Cold Remedy. What’s the harm in homeopathics? Alt-medicine?

Plenty. Besides permanent physical damage, there is the damage to your wallet, and the damage to American regulatory capability.

Thanks, Orrin Hatch. Thanks, Tom Harkin.

An autism gene! ? ! ?

No, there’s not just one, or even close to it, but the discovery of the first autism genetic link is huge, huge, huge!

First, even though it’s only common to about 15 percent of purported autism cases, it will improve diagnosis. That includes lessening MISdiagnosis.

And that, with today’s autism hysteria, is far and away from a small issue.

As I’ve blogged before, it’s quite possible a change in psychiatry’s bible, the DSM, basically “invented” Asperger’s syndrome, by changing “schizoid disorder of childhood” in DSM-III to Asperger’s in DSM-IV. Then, if Asperger’s has been “updiagnosed” to autism, especially by alt/pseudomedical practitioners seeking to sell a cure, there’s part, at least of your “autism” explosion. Finding this gene, if it holds up, and even more, if others are found, will combat such things.

Second, speaking of autism hysteria, an autism gene shoves conspiracy mongering, anti-medicine inanity, etc., right in the face of the anti-vaccine crowd.

Third, as the mutation affects nerve synapses, it would seem to be the “right,” explanatorily speaking, kind of mutation.

Now, that all said, this genetic mutation is not at all exclusive to people with autism.

And, this may be a blind alley. I’m thinking this could be a primo example of why medical research needs to tighten the incredible looseness of its p-values. No, not to the same as physics. Of course not. But, even a p-value of 3 percent, instead of 5 percent, would exclude semi-bad medical research while being highly unlikely to delay any lifesaving findings.

I thought secular recovery groups were more scientific

It’s all right and good for a group like Lifering Secular Recovery to bash Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous for their reliance on a higher power, confession of sins, etc.

But, for Lifering to have the founder of an acupuncture-based addiction clinic as a principal speaker at its annual convention is, at least least, a bit uninformed and at the most, a bit hypocritical.

For the real poop on acupuncture and acupressure, read the Skeptic’s Dictionary.

Paying only for healthcare that works?

Will President Barack Obama really do that as part of modernizing our healthcare system, as Mike Madden notes he claims?

Color me HIGHLY skeptical at this point.

First thing he will have to do to de-skepticize me is get Congress to kill the Office of Complementary and Alternative Medicine inside the National Institutes of Heath.

Right now, to put it bluntly, our government is funding quackery. Until that’s stopped, well, Obama just ain’t that believable.

And, if it means butting heads with Sen.-Supplements, Orrin Hatch, all the better.

On the Dem side of the aisle, Tom Harkin clearly will be bruising for a fight, given that he thinks NICAM already turns down too many alt-med grant requests, especially if Obama gets his way on cutting Big Ag subsidies. Maybe he can be fobbed off somehow.

Second, since Obama promised during the campaign to expand George Bush’s faith-based social initiatives, many of which have already been proven to not work, we have empirical evidence from a parallel field — psychology, in place such as treatment and rehab — that Obama is ready to fund programs that don’t work at all.

So, from where this naturalistic skeptic sits, Obama already has two strikes against him, one of which, in essence, he threw against himself.

More medical quackery from our government

I'm sure battlefield acupuncture will prove to be just as effective as morphine the next time one of our Air Force pilots gets shot up, have to crash land, or whatever.

That said, how often does that happen?

If Dr. Richard Niemtzow had any guts, he'd try his quackery in the Army and Marines.

And, how did he get a bullshit title and gig like "Consultant for complementary and alternative medicine for the Surgeon General of the Air Force"? Is my tax money paying for this?

Vitamin-popping may be of little good – and NOT a magic pill

Alt-medicine and supplements folks spin away

Two long-term trials of more than 50,000 people say Vitamins C and E are of limited effectiveness, when compared with traditional claims about their efficacy, in reducing the risk of various cancers:

“These things are ineffective, and in high doses they can cause harm,” said Edgar Miller, a professor of medicine and epidemiology at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. “People are unhappy with their diets, they’re stressed out, and they think it will help. It's just wishful thinking.”

True, true. Eating the right kinds of foods, and not too much of them, while reducing stresses and getting more exercise, is the key.

But, Dr. Miller is absolutely right; too many people want a magic pill or pills.

Meanwhile, Dr. Jeffrey Blumberg, director of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Antioxidants Research Laboratory, whose studies were partially funded by the supplements industry, engaged in excuse-making, saying maybe the wrong versions of vitamins were used or the wrong people were tested.

Blumberg comes off sounding like an alt-medicine shill. What, were researchers supposed to go shopping for the “right” versions of vitamins, or screen out the “wrong” people.

Hey, Blumberg, have you heard of something called “double-blinded testing”? Apparently not.

Gingko no help on dementia

A large study of more than 3,000 people using a standardized gingko extract shows it offers no help in slowing or arresting the progress of Alzheimer's or other dementia.

Here's the money quote, from Dr. Steven DeKosky of the University of Virginia, a neurologist who led the clinical trial:

"We did show it was fairly safe -- that is of some reassurance," said DeKosky, dean of the University of Virginia Medical School. The only harm that could come from taking ginkgo, he said, is "spending money on something that may not be useful."

When people ask what's the harm in alt medicine, well, there's an example right there.

If you know you have a fatal medical condition, rather than pounding money down an alt-med rathole, you could spend it on things you like.

Is science losing the enlightenment battle with religion?

Let me put it this way. If Richard Dawkins thinks science is losing in the UK, we're really in trouble here.

And, remember, it's not just the Religious Right that falls under the rubric of religion.

It's New Agers pushing alt-med pseudoscience, too.

Politically, we've got little choice offered to us in America.

The Green Party officially pushes alt-med quackery while calling on Bush/Cheney to "follow the science" on environmental issues, global warming above all. The Democrats? Obama has pledged to expand some of Bush' faith-based campaigns.

MMMmercury — the new alt-med ‘cure’

Well, maybe mercury — and lead and arsenic — aren’t intended to be alt-med helps, but they’re present in many ayurvedic medicines in toxic doses.

But, that’s nothing. Mercury by itself is used as a “cure” in some ayurvedic practice, in a practice called rasa shastra.

Nearly half of the rasa shastra remedies tested had dangers levels of metals; several were 10,000 times over the U.S. safety limit.

MMMMercury — it’s what’s for Ayurvedic dinner!

MMMmercury — the new alt-med ‘cure’

Well, maybe mercury — and lead and arsenic — aren’t intended to be alt-med helps, but they’re present in many ayurvedic medicines in toxic doses.

But, that’s nothing. Mercury by itself is used as a “cure” in some ayurvedic practice, in a practice called rasa shastra.

Nearly half of the rasa shastra remedies tested had dangers levels of metals; several were 10,000 times over the U.S. safety limit.

Alt-med quackwatch — brain damage

Promotors of alternative “medicine” programs like to trout out the “what’s the harm” line as the ultimate fallback in touting the most extreme fad diets, supplements and therapies.

Well, sometimes something like this is the harm indeed.

Dawn Page suffered permanent brain damage, including epileptic-like seizures and memory loss, after following a “nutritionist’s” advice to go on a high-water, ultra-low-sodium diet.

(That said, Page is lucky she’s still alive. Hyponatremia kills young male hikers of the Grand Canyon and mid-level marathoners, among others, every year, due to hyponatremia induced by water intoxication. (Yes, there really is such a thing.)

And, the alt-med plank of the Green Party platform is a major reason why I keep my political independence, although I will vote for Green candidates.

Update I’m boosting the following addition from a reply I made in comments to Amy, who said a “trained nutritionist” never would have done something like this.

Ahh, but there’s the rub, Amy... unlike with state medical boards here in the U.S., or the national equivalent in the U.K., what professional body determines who is, or is not, a “trained” nutritionist?

And, I believe the answer to that is ... none. Or, if there allegedly are such bodies, they’re not governmentally-based and governmentally-sanctioned, but rather are “insider” organizations.

Update: Further follow-up thoughts, based on continued comment-box dialogue with Amy:

1. We have an issue of semantics that I believe is often supported, as obfuscating, by “nutritionists.”

I don’t consider a clinical/registered dietitian a “nutritionist,” and I don’t think such persons bill themselves as such.

So, to claim that “nutritionists” are credentialed, or regulated, from where I sit, is simply not true.

For instance, the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation oversees “dietitians,” among occupations, but has no listing among regulated business occupations for “nutritionist.”

That said, here in Texas, state Rep. Bill Zedler has submitted bills for licensure/regulation of nutritionists the last two sessions, but they have both died in committee.

Beyond that, there is of course a difference between mere licensure and regulation.

“Supplements” are licensed, but have little regulation beyond having to put a “not proved by FDA” disclaimer on their outlandish claims, for example.

And, of course, in that same vein, “credentials” is different than licensing and regulation, anyway. Palmer College of Chiropractic, for example, provides “credentials.” Other than funding lobbying in statehouses, though, it has nothing to do with licensing and regulations.


So, no, I don’t believe I painted this issue with too broad a brush.

Measles outbreak – doorknob justice would hit measles parties parents

About six weeks ago, I blogged about the latest nuttery in California: measles parties.

That’s where parents who indulge in various conspiracy theories, either autism-type ones against vaccinations specifically, or broader alt-medicine type ones against the “medical establishment” in general, refuse to get their kids inoculated, and instead take them to a party to deliberately expose them to someone with measles.

(I also added that I’m surprised we don’t have more of this stupidity here in Texas since Tejas, like California, lets parents exempt their children from vaccination on non-religious as well as religious grounds.)

Anyway, maybe the chickens are coming home to roost, courtesy of the biggest measles outbreak in seven years. No deaths yet here, but globally? About 500,000 measles deaths a year, primarily in countries where they can’t get or can’t afford vaccines. (That’s excepting places like the Muslim-majority portion of Nigeria, where you have other conspiracy theory peddlers saying vaccines are created to make people sterile.)

Texas follows bad California law creates public health risks

Child Protective Services is needed instead of this stupid law

Nine of 12 California children who recently got measles did so because their parents refused to vaccinate them, and had the right to do so under a California law that lets parents opt school-age children out of vaccinations.

And, Texas joins California among 20 states that allow personal exemptions, beyond religious-grounds objections:

“I refuse to sacrifice my children for the greater good,” said Sybil Carlson, whose 6-year-old son goes to school with several of the children hit by the measles outbreak here. The boy is immunized against some diseases but not measles, Ms. Carlson said, while his 3-year-old brother has had just one shot, protecting him against meningitis.

And, she does so willingly:

Carlson said she understood what was at stake. “I cannot deny that my child can put someone else at risk,” she said.

Worst of all, she illustrates the dark side of the Internet — too often, it’s about what could at best be called “knowledge” or “information,” but certainly not wisdom, and “information” that fuels preconceptions:

“When I began to read about vaccines and how they work,” she said, “I saw medical studies, not given to use by the mainstream media, connecting them with neurological disorders, asthma and immunology.”

In other words, “they,” whomever “they” are, are blocking us average citizens from knowing the medical truth.
Sybil Carlson isn’t the most nutbar parent in the deck, though:

Some parents of unvaccinated children go to great lengths to expose their children to childhood diseases to help them build natural immunities.

In the wake of last month’s outbreak, Linda Palmer considered sending her son to a measles party to contract the virus. Several years ago, the boy, now 12, contracted chicken pox when Palmer had him attend a gathering of children with that virus.

“It is a very common thing in the natural-health oriented world,” Ms. Palmer said of the parties.

Where is Child Protective Services, or the California equivalent, when you need them? Seriously. I’m not hyperbolizing.