Physiology explains it all

That Indian yogi who claims to never eat has a page on EsoWatch, the wiki of irrational belief systems, and it has some interesting content. Some of the actual medical data from observations of crazy yogi have been published — nothing as blatant as catching him in the act of eating, but the signs are all there. Sonograms showed urine in the bladder and feces in the colon that later disappeared, somehow. And the blood work taken by the credulous MD, Sudhir Shah, show changes symptomatic of starvation.

Some (if not all ?) blood parameter of the november 2003 examination are shown on the webpages of Sudhir Shah. The values presented show an increase in serum urea, and a drop three days after the examination. The same is true for serum sodium, serum chloride and serum potassium. The hematocrit is also increasing. This is a clear sign of dehydratation and hemoconcentration, compatible with a period of starvation and thirst. Blood sugar is decreasing, and serum acetone is increasing. This is also a sign of starvation. At the beginning and three days after the test, values are normal.

But, instead discussing such a starvation period (and not a long lasting esoteric inedia) as a very plausible source for the blood values shown, these are explained by neurologist Sudhir Shah to be amazing and to show a sort of medicine wonder. But in fact they show a normal behaviour of a subject, compatible with actual knowledge in physiology and bioenergetics. Examinator Shahs words sound different: “We have reached a hypothesis which confirms that Jani’s body has certainly undergone a biological transformation due to yogic kriyas. And he can control his inner organs’ functions, which itself is intriguing.”

No, it’s not. It’s obvious. I can change my “inner organs’ functions”, too, just by fasting for a day or strolling down to Dairy Queen and pigging out on fats and sugars. It isn’t magic, it’s physiology.

It is rather appalling that this doctor can’t tell the difference, though.

Andrew Wakefield and the great autism fraud

If any one person is responsible for the current anti-vaccination hysteria, it’s Andrew Wakefield, the surgeon who cobbled up a very bad study of vaccination and autism. For a good overview, read this summary of a talk by Brian Deer, a reporter who also has a very thorough summary of the Wakefield affair. It’s amazing how sloppy the work was, and how lavishly Wakefield was paid for perpetrating it. I guess it’s easy and lucrative to carry out medical fraud, as long as your conscience will let you overlook the little matter of dead children.

They aren’t doing the right tests!

Some yogi in India claims that he hasn’t eaten, drunk, or used a bathroom in 70 years.

Yeah, right.

Now the Indian military is studying him because, obviously, soldiers who don’t need to be provisioned would be rather useful…which assumes that this nonsense is even worth studying.

Two cameras have been set up in his room, while a mobile camera films him when he goes outside, guaranteeing round-the-clock observation.

His body will be scanned and his brain and heart activity measured with electrodes.

“The observation from this study may throw light on human survival without food and water,” said Dr G. Ilavazahagan, who is directing the research.

That short description already tells me they’re going at this all wrong. He goes outside? Where? How secure is this test?

And they’re plugging him into electrodes and recording EMGs and EEGs? Why? That’s not interesting at all. The interesting claim is the idea that he doesn’t eat or drink. Those don’t test that in the slightest, but do lend a pseudo-sciencey air to the proceedings.

They claim he has been observed closely for a week, and hasn’t ingested or excreted anything at all. I don’t believe it. I suspect that there have been some very sloppy procedures going on, or that the guy has an accomplice or assistant, or both.

What they really need is a James Randi. If I were in charge, I’d give the yogi a very nice single room with books and a meditation mat and whatever non-edible, non-drinkable luxury items he wanted…and I’d put him in there for four weeks, monitored by video cameras, and lock the door. Just to be nice, I’d also put a couple of bottles of water in the room, in case he breaks. But if he is really able to live without sustenance, that’s the ability we have to test first, and test well.

If he came out after a month, perfectly healthy, the water in the room untouched, the video cameras showing no untoward intervention, then we can talk about fancy-pants physiological testing.

Quack gets dose of his own medicine, nearly dies

A vitamin D overdose is nothing to laugh about — it’s painful and debilitating, can cause kidney damage, and can kill. This is a case where consuming excessive amounts of a vitamin supplement can do more than help you make expensive urine, and can lead to crippling illness and death. Gary Null is a thorough quack who has been raking in the dough with — you guessed it — nearly worthless vitamin supplements. Now this would simply be a tragic story of one of his poor deluded suckers clients had come to harm from his magic crap food, but it’s almost funny that Null nearly killed himself by eating his own supplements.

It’s not his fault, of course: he’s suing the contractor who made his Ultimate Power Meal, claiming it was all their fault for putting too much vitamin D in one batch. The stuff has been yanked from their catalog, but have no fear, there are still plenty of other overpriced, overhyped, random collections of herbs and other gunk still on the shelves. Go ahead, buy one of his magnetic bras, Prostate Pro, or cellulose pills. They probably won’t kill you.

Null is also now claiming that it was nothing too serious, that vitamin D “dissipates quickly in the body”, and that he has returned to complete health. I guess that means we are free to laugh at him, then!

Unless he’s lying. But a quack wouldn’t lie to us, would he?

In the aftermath of Boobquake…

Jen has put up the numbers — this was clearly an effective PR move, doing a good job of bringing an absurdity to the public’s attention. I think it’s important that we use more humor and make more noise to wake people up, because this problem of religious ‘prophets’ using natural events to bolster their superstition has been around for a long time. I was sent this little essay which seems appropriate. Note the date: it’s 9 years old.

NATURAL DISASTERS – UNNATURAL ACTS
Are Natural Disasters Caused by Unnatural Acts?
June 27, 2001
Janis Walworth

Pat Robertson, founder of the Christian Coalition, once warned Orlando, Florida, that it was courting natural disaster by allowing gay pride flags to be flown along its streets. “A condition like this will bring about … earthquakes, tornadoes, and possibly a meteor,” Robertson said.

Apparently he was referring to his belief that the presence of openly gay people incurs divine wrath and that God acts through geological and meteorological events to destroy municipalities that permit gay people the same civil liberties as others.

Before Pat and his Christian cronies get too carried away promulgating the idea that natural disasters are prompted by people who displease God, they should take a hard look at the data.

Tornadoes

Take tornadoes. Every state (except Alaska) has them — some only one or two a year, dozens in others.

Gay people are in every state (even Alaska). According to Pat’s hypothesis, there should be more gay people in states that have more tornadoes. But are there?

Nope. In fact, there’s no correlation at all between the number of gay folks (as estimated by the number of gay political organizations, support groups, bookstores, radio programs, and circuit parties) and the annual tornado count (r = .04, p = .78 for you statisticians).

So much for the “God hates gays” theory.

God seems almost neutral on the subject of sexual orientation. I say “almost” because if we look at the density of gay groups relative to the population as a whole, there is a small but statistically significant (p = .05) correlation with the occurrence of tornadoes. And it’s a negative correlation (r= -.28).

For those of you who haven’t used statistics since 1973, that means that a high concentration of gay organizations actually protects against tornadoes. A state with the population of, say, Alabama could avert two tornadoes a year, merely by doubling the number of gay organizations in the state.

Although God may not care about sexual orientation, the same cannot be said for religious affiliation. If the underlying tenet of Pat’s postulate is true — that God wipes out offensive folks via natural disasters — then perhaps we can find some evidence of who’s on God’s hit list.

Jews are off the hook here: there’s no correlation between numbers of Jews and frequency of tornadoes. Ditto for Catholics. But when it comes to Protestants, there’s a highly significant correlation of .71.

This means that fully half the state-to-state variation in tornado frequency can be accounted for by the presence of Protestants. And the chance that this association is merely coincidental is only one in 10,000.

Tornados Drawn to Baptists

Protestants, of course, come in many flavors — we were able to find statistics for Lutherans, Methodists, Baptists, and others. Lutherans don’t seem to be a problem — no correlation with tornadoes. There’s a modest correlation (r = .52, p= .0001) between Methodists and tornadoes.

But Baptists and others share the prize: both groups show a definite correlation with tornado frequency (r = .68, p = .0001). This means that Texas could cut its average of 139 tornadoes per year in half by sending a few hundred thousand Baptists elsewhere (Alaska maybe?). What, you are probably asking yourself, about gay Protestants? An examination of the numbers of gay religious groups (mostly Protestant) reveals no significant relationship with tornadoes.

Perhaps even Protestants are less repugnant to God if they’re gay.

And that brings up another point — the futility of trying to save the world by getting gay people to accept Jesus. It looks from our numbers as if the frequency of natural disasters might be more effectively reduced by encouraging Protestants to be gay.

Gay people have been falsely blamed for disasters ever since Sodom was destroyed by fire and brimstone. (We have been unable to find any statistics on disasters involving brimstone).

According to a reliable source, the destruction of Sodom was indeed an act of God (see Genesis 19:13). Its destruction was perpetrated because the citizens thereof were, according to the same source (see Ezekiel 16:49-50) “arrogant, overfed and unconcerned [and] did not help the poor and needy” — not because they were gay.

Now Pat would have us believe that gays are the cause of tornadoes (as well as earthquakes, meteors, and even terrorist bombs) in utter disregard for evidence showing that Baptists are much more likely to cause them.

As any statistician will tell you, of course, correlation doesn’t prove causation. Protestants causing tornadoes by angering God isn’t the only explanation for these data. It could be that Baptists and other Protestants purposely flock to states that have lots of tornadoes (no, we haven’t checked for a correlation between IQ and religious affiliation).

But if Pat and his Christian crew insist that natural disasters are brought on by people who offend God, let the data show who those people are.

Sources: Tornado Occurrence by State, 1962-1991 1990 Churches and Church Membership; Population by State, 1990 US Census; Gay & Lesbian Political Organizations, Support Groups, and Religious Groups from Gayellow Pages, National Edition, 1987.

Uh-oh, now you’re in big trouble

I never thought of this, but it’s a real danger: the Homeopathic Bomb.

Homeopathic bombs are comprised of 99.9% water but contain the merest trace element of explosive. The solution is then repeatedly diluted so as to leave only the memory of the explosive in the water molecules. According to the laws of homeopathy, the more that the water is diluted, the more powerful the bomb becomes.

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All I need is a minuscule quantity of octanitrocubane and a couple of liters of bottled water, and *POW*, I’ll have the deadliest water balloon in the universe. Those people who were afraid the LHC was going to destroy the planet when it was switched on had better watch out, because I will tap the POWER of HOMEOPATHY!

As long as I’m criticizing my allies…

Let’s pile on Phil Plait! He’s arguing against the whole “let’s bring the Pope to justice” idea. I will summarize his objections very briefly:

  1. This is not necessarily a skeptical cause, unless they bring a supernatural defense to bear.

  2. Need more tact: “We don’t always need warriors. Sometimes we need diplomats.”

  3. We’re outnumbered and would be pissing off 75 million Catholics.

What do you know…I mostly disagree with all of those points.

  1. It is a skeptical cause. The whole problem arises from the self-righteousness of an organization that believes its authority comes from a supernatural source. There is an assumption of privilege by the Catholic church that they believe justifies a cover-up (not the child rape; that’s deplored as un-Christian, fair enough, but there is a belief that the sanctity of the church must not be questioned.) It should be fair game for a skeptical organization to take on.

    That said, though, there is a ton of crazy out there, everywhere. It is entirely reasonable for a given skeptical organization to excuse themselves from this fight — we don’t expect everyone to fight every scrap of woo out there, all at once. However, do not hinder a group that wants to reasonably engage the Catholics by suggesting that this is not appropriate for skeptics. It is.

  2. Phil gets his modifiers wrong. We always need warriors, and we always need diplomats. Both have to be engaged. This is a conflict that has spurred a strong response by the “warrior” element of the skeptical community, but please note: every step of the way, what is being proposed is principled legal action. Not trial by combat. Not rampaging berserkers charging the Popemobile. Lawyers looking into justifiable legal options to address a great wrong being committed by a fabulously rich and arrogant organization.

  3. We’re outnumbered? Crap, so what else is new, and when did we decide that what is proper and true will be decided by popular vote? The fewer men, the greater share of honor; let him depart who has no stomach for the fight; I would not be one who, in his old age, was unable to say that he’d stood for what was right, because he feared the host of those who defended what was wrong. Even if we lose (and I have no illusions that the Pope will actually be perp-walked back onto an airplane and sent away from England), I’m not afraid to support reasoned efforts for an issue of basic human decency.

It’s fine that Phil wants no part of this particular effort. Not every fight can be everyone’s fight. But I think the best position, the strongest position, the noblest stance, is to declare that no institution, whether it is the Catholic Church or the USA or the Girl Scouts, can declare itself exempt from the common rules that regulate human conduct in our culture, and even if we are overwhelmed by the opposition, we must at the very least speak out against the abuse of power…and that includes the privileges that religion has demanded for itself.

But put crowns for convoy into Phil’s purse — just leave his name off the rolls. There’s no dishonor in that, and no honor, either.

Deep Rifts with the skeptics!

It’s been a long term issue: a lot of vocal skeptics want nothing to do with atheism. They see it as a difficult issue that could sidetrack campaigns to encourage critical thinking, even though a lot of prominent skeptics are also atheists. I’ve never quite seen the logic: they’re going to oppose the use of magic crystals to enhance your aura, but praying to a magical sky-primate to bring you a new bicycle…eh, it doesn’t hurt. It seems a little inconsistent.

Anyway, Rebecca Watson, a godless skeptic if ever there was one, wrote a bit in support of the Hitchens/Dawkins proposal to bring legal action against the perfidious pope, and she caught some flak for it — people claimed that opposing religion, even if it is a baby-raping religion, could ‘harm the cause’ (Oh, those three words…I have heard them so often). Watson has a good reply.

So is this effort going to somehow hurt the “skeptical movement?” You may notice that I use the quotation marks here, because I can’t bring myself to seriously consider a movement supposedly based on the defense of rationality that would turn its back on children who are raped by men they trust because those men claim a supernatural being gives them power, wisdom, and the keys to eternal life with a direct line to God’s ear. If we discovered that a world-famous psychic was leading a secretive cabal that protected child rapists, would we be silent? If a world-famous faith healer was using his heavenly persona to molest kids, would we say that it’s not our fight? You might. I couldn’t.

I would hope, though, that it wouldn’t take molestation of children to stir up a skeptic (although, apparently, even that won’t rouse some of them, if the culprit is a priest). Shouldn’t an organization that claims you’ll go to hell after you’re dead if you don’t give them money while you’re alive also be on every skeptic’s hit list?

More magic DNA snake oil

Klotho (KL) is an interesting gene. It produces an enzyme which seems to be involved in repressing cellular senescence by regulating the p53 pathway, mouse mutations in these genes produce the symptoms of accelerated aging, and there are even a couple of known human alleles correlated with changes in longevity and coronary artery disease. The current research is at the level of basic science, though, asking how this gene product fits into the regulatory web that maintains cell states; it is not ready for any kind of medical work, I don’t even know how we would take advantage of the information to tinker with aging processes, and as far as I know, there are no clinical trials of any kind in the works. So it’s promising and is useful information, but it’s not at all ready or even approachable for medical use, yet.

That doesn’t stop the quacks, though!

A commercial quack operation called Homeovitality is taking advantage of a tiny bit of research (to create pseudo-scientific buzzwords) and people’s ignorance to market fake therapies. One among several is based on a smidgen of truth about the Klotho gene and a lot of fakery.

Homeovitality® is an entirely new concept in health promotion. It is designed to help people achieve and maintain different forms of nature’s “super-health” and stay healthy. For the first time ever, Homeovitality® helps everyone to benefit from new “cutting-edge” genetic and other scientific discoveries right now using a safe, natural non-pharmacological delivery system.

You may be wondering how they are taking advantage of “cutting-edge” research. Here’s how.

Because of Dr. Matsumara’s work and completion of the Human Genome Project, the complete DNA sequence of the KL gene has been worked out. Therefore, to target your KL gene, a DNA molecule was prepared that was identical in sequence to 273 base pairs of an active part of everyone’s KL gene. The sequence of the KL targeting molecule is as follows;

5′- ACTACCGCTT CTCCATCTCG TGGGCGCGAG TGCTCCCCAA TGGCAGCGCG GGCGTCCCCA ACCGCGAGGG GCTGCGCTAC TACCGGCGCC TGCTGGAGCG GCTGCGGGAG CTGGGCGTGC AGCCCGTGGT CACCCTGTAC CACTGGGACC TGCCCCAGCG CCTGCAGGAC GCCTACGGCG GCTGGGCCAA CCGCGCCCTG GCCGACCACT TCAGGGATTA CGCGGAGCTC TGCTTCCGCC ACTTCGGCGG TCAGGTCAAG TACTGGATCA CCA -3′.

The KL targeting molecule, as well as the others was prepared, purified and sequenced by one of Australia’s leading genetics laboratories.

So they get onto the easily accessed NIH site and get the gene sequence, and then they order a vial of the purified DNA from a commercial outfit (this is trivial: the NIH even includes a link to suppliers of cDNA clones).

Now what?

I mean, really, just having a strand of DNA with the sequence of Klotho does nothing — it’s the action of the gene product in the cell that plays a subtle role in aging. What we need for a therapeutic use of this information is a way to regulate the activity of the protein in cells in a predictable way. So what does Homeovitality® have people do?

Drink it.

Drink a DNA solution? Are they insane? That’s just going to get broken down and do nothing, and besides, it’s not as if your body contains some shortage of Klotho genes — every cell in your body has a copy. Of course, even that objection is pointless, because you aren’t actually drinking any DNA. This is a homeopathic solution.

Homeovitality® products have also been succussed at each dilution stage so they will also help to promote desirable forms of hybrid vigour in a “like promotes like” mode of action involving some of the mechanisms (4) described by Dr. Kratz, (http://kulisz.com/how_does_homeopathy_work.htm).

Homeovitality® products are safe because firstly, they are used at similar dilutions to classical homeopathic disease remedies and secondly, hybrid vigour is a completely natural biological process that has been developed by nature over millions of years to enable all creatures to enjoy “super health” and disease resistance.

They’re selling bottles of water and pretending it’s medicine, with a cloud of pseudo-scientific hokum to justify it.

And here’s another sad fact: the creator of this snake-oil, Peter Kay, has a legitimate degree and a good collection of scientific publications to his name, some of them in topics with which I am familiar. None of them justify this homeopathic DNA nonsense. It looks like someone has realized that science doesn’t pay as well as grifting.