While preparing for a debate on evolution vs. creation scheduled for next week, I stumbled upon this post or, to be precise, upon a comment on it directing me to a Hugh Hewitt's interview with Richard Dawkins. Below is a quote from the interview - enjoy!
"RD: Okay, do you believe Jesus turned water into wine?
HH: Yes.
RD: You seriously do?
HH: Yes.
RD: You actually think that Jesus got water, and made all those molecules turn into wine?
HH: Yes.
RD: My God.
HH: Yes. My God, actually, not yours. But let me…
RD: I’ve realized the kind of person I’m dealing with now...
HH: It’s Hugh Hewitt with Richard Dawkins. Professor Dawkins’ brand new book is The Greatest Show On Earth: The Evidence For Evolution. It’s linked at Hughhewitt.com. Professor, I have one last question, it’s very important for me to ask this, because I just kept coming back to it. You argue in the book at one point that the retina is so poorly designed, that it argues against the idea of a designer, because it’s such a messed up job. Conversely, though, if the object of the designer was to create a world in which faith was possible, but also disbelief, in order to make faith a choice and not an obligation, wouldn’t then you have to say that the world was wondrously constructed to that end, to preserve free will and the choosing?
RD: You mean that God deliberately made mistakes so as to deceive us?
HH: Not mistakes, that God created a world in which faith was possible by an order of its complexity, to allow for the Richard Dawkins of the world to exist, and be completely, absolutely convinced that He did not, that that’s the only situation in which faith is real.
RD: So in order to make that the case, God said well, now let’s make the eye look like a botched up job so that…are you saying…
HH: I think you understand what I’m saying, and you’re saying no, you don’t believe that, that it would not in fact fit that, a giant…for example, have you read the Harry Potter novels?
RD: No.
HH: Do you read any fiction at all?
RD: Of course.
HH: What’s the most complicated bit of fiction you’ve read? Like War and Peace?
RD: Yeah, what’s your point? What point are you making?
HH: That complexity in design, and counterintuitive steps, et cetera, don’t disprove the idea of genius at work. Genius at work often works through complexity and through misdirection.
RD: I think that what you’re kind of saying is that God made the world look as though it had evolved in order to test our faith, when it didn’t evolve.
HH: No, not test our faith. I’m saying that the world has been made as it is to allow for faith, because if it was made too easy for the simple-minded, it would simply be routine, and everyone would believe, and then there would be no faith.
RD: That would be a pretty unpleasant sort of God. I think, I would say you’re welcome to believe in a kind of God who would do that, but it’s not the kind of God that would appeal to me.
HH: Well, it’s not about what appeals to us, it’s about what is. And you also write that a beneficent designer might, you’d idealistically think, minimize suffering. But not if the soul was infinite, and suffering was necessary for its wisdom."
Showing posts with label science. Show all posts
Showing posts with label science. Show all posts
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
Friday, April 29, 2011
I support EU ban on non-evidence-based medicine
Avaaz.org is an international organization which mounts civil pressure for causes regarded by its leadership as good. Some of them are good indeed, such as the no-fly zone in Libya. However, as often happens with activists, they also advocate things that anyone of the meanest understanding would call foolish at best. See what I found in my Inbox today:
"EU: 3 days to save herbal medicine!
Dear friends,
In 3 days, a new EU directive will ban much of herbal medicine, denying us safe remedies and feeding the profits of big pharma. Let's raise a massive outcry to push the Commission to fix the Directive, and our national governments to refuse to implement it. Let's get to 1 million voices to save herbal medicine:
In 3 days, the EU will ban much of herbal medicine, pressing more of us to take pharmaceutical drugs that drive the profits of big Pharma.
The EU Directive erects high barriers to any herbal remedy that hasn't been on the market for 30 years -- including virtually all Chinese, Ayurvedic, and African traditional medicine. It's a draconian move that helps drug companies and ignores thousands of years of medical knowledge...
It's hard to believe, but if a child is sick, and there is a safe and natural herbal remedy for that illness, it may be impossible to find that remedy.
On May 1st the Directive will create major barriers to manufactured herbal remedies, requiring enormous costs, years of effort, and endless expert processes to get each and every product approved. Pharmaceutical companies have the resources to jump through these hoops but hundreds of small- and medium-sized herbal medicine businesses, across Europe and worldwide, will go bust...
There are arguments for better regulation of natural medicine, but this draconian directive harms the ability of Europeans to make safe and healthy choices. Let's stand up for our health, and our right to choose safe herbal medicine."
I am omitting the lines directing the reader to the online petition. If you want to sign it, you can easily find it by a Web search.
I have bashed the EU bureaucracy on numeral occasions on this blog and elsewhere, but I support it whole-heartedly in this case. It is high time to stand for evidence-based medicine and to ban all snake oils being sold us under the label of "traditional medicine" in pharmacies. There is no such thing as "thousands of years of medical knowledge" - the threshold when medical knowledge advanced enough to bring more good than harm is probably the turn of the 20th century, and it was passed only in the West. If someone thinks that a particular "traditional" remedy works for a certain condition, he has to prove his case to the appropriate drug administration, as with any other proposed remedy. I do not care that the "small and medium-sized herbal medicine businesses" may not have the resources for this, and I do not think their lack of resources is an excuse to let them sell whatever snake oil they wish without proving its efficacy and even safety. If they cannot do their business properly, let them file for bankruptcy, the sooner the better. And please, if you want me to hate Big Pharma which has saved my life more than once, give me at least one rational reason why Big Pharma must be hated, except that it works for profit (as if the snake oil salesmen work pro bono publico).
There is a myth among foolish people that traditional, "natural" and particularly herbal medicine is both effective and safe. To begin with, a remedy that is both effective and safe is a Holy Grail. There are a number of placebos that are safe but not effective, plus a number of effective drugs that are generally not quite safe but, if properly used, have benefits far exceeding the risk. Traditional medicine generally relies on placebos. However, we should not assume that it is always safe. Numerous plants contain potent toxins (take just the fact that Socrates was executed by herbal poison). Some of these toxins have found their application in evidence-based medicine and are being sold by Big Pharma; for the rest, you have only the toxic effect without any proven therapeutic effect. To make things worse, for many traditional Eastern remedies the natural toxicity of plants is not enough and they contain also well-known chemical toxins such as heavy metals (Orac and Skeptico have blogged about this).
Some hardline supporter of individual freedom may argue that consumers should have the right to make choices, even if they are not "safe and healthy". I disagree. A consumer should not be forced to be on a permanent alert in order to avoid buying useless and dangerous things - at least not in civilized Europe. Moreover, while responsible adults could at least in theory make their choices, there is no way to prevent parents from pushing placebos and poisons down the throats of their poor defenceless children. The Avaaz letter particularly stresses the need to keep "safe and natural herbal remedies" available for sick children. I even know parents who treat their own illnesses by effective evidence-based drugs but, when their children are ill, give them traditional medicine because of concern about the side-effects of drugs.
So let's hope that the ban will be enforced and EU pharmacies in the future will sell us only remedies that actually help, according to the best available knowledge.
"EU: 3 days to save herbal medicine!
Dear friends,
In 3 days, a new EU directive will ban much of herbal medicine, denying us safe remedies and feeding the profits of big pharma. Let's raise a massive outcry to push the Commission to fix the Directive, and our national governments to refuse to implement it. Let's get to 1 million voices to save herbal medicine:
In 3 days, the EU will ban much of herbal medicine, pressing more of us to take pharmaceutical drugs that drive the profits of big Pharma.
The EU Directive erects high barriers to any herbal remedy that hasn't been on the market for 30 years -- including virtually all Chinese, Ayurvedic, and African traditional medicine. It's a draconian move that helps drug companies and ignores thousands of years of medical knowledge...
It's hard to believe, but if a child is sick, and there is a safe and natural herbal remedy for that illness, it may be impossible to find that remedy.
On May 1st the Directive will create major barriers to manufactured herbal remedies, requiring enormous costs, years of effort, and endless expert processes to get each and every product approved. Pharmaceutical companies have the resources to jump through these hoops but hundreds of small- and medium-sized herbal medicine businesses, across Europe and worldwide, will go bust...
There are arguments for better regulation of natural medicine, but this draconian directive harms the ability of Europeans to make safe and healthy choices. Let's stand up for our health, and our right to choose safe herbal medicine."
I am omitting the lines directing the reader to the online petition. If you want to sign it, you can easily find it by a Web search.
I have bashed the EU bureaucracy on numeral occasions on this blog and elsewhere, but I support it whole-heartedly in this case. It is high time to stand for evidence-based medicine and to ban all snake oils being sold us under the label of "traditional medicine" in pharmacies. There is no such thing as "thousands of years of medical knowledge" - the threshold when medical knowledge advanced enough to bring more good than harm is probably the turn of the 20th century, and it was passed only in the West. If someone thinks that a particular "traditional" remedy works for a certain condition, he has to prove his case to the appropriate drug administration, as with any other proposed remedy. I do not care that the "small and medium-sized herbal medicine businesses" may not have the resources for this, and I do not think their lack of resources is an excuse to let them sell whatever snake oil they wish without proving its efficacy and even safety. If they cannot do their business properly, let them file for bankruptcy, the sooner the better. And please, if you want me to hate Big Pharma which has saved my life more than once, give me at least one rational reason why Big Pharma must be hated, except that it works for profit (as if the snake oil salesmen work pro bono publico).
There is a myth among foolish people that traditional, "natural" and particularly herbal medicine is both effective and safe. To begin with, a remedy that is both effective and safe is a Holy Grail. There are a number of placebos that are safe but not effective, plus a number of effective drugs that are generally not quite safe but, if properly used, have benefits far exceeding the risk. Traditional medicine generally relies on placebos. However, we should not assume that it is always safe. Numerous plants contain potent toxins (take just the fact that Socrates was executed by herbal poison). Some of these toxins have found their application in evidence-based medicine and are being sold by Big Pharma; for the rest, you have only the toxic effect without any proven therapeutic effect. To make things worse, for many traditional Eastern remedies the natural toxicity of plants is not enough and they contain also well-known chemical toxins such as heavy metals (Orac and Skeptico have blogged about this).
Some hardline supporter of individual freedom may argue that consumers should have the right to make choices, even if they are not "safe and healthy". I disagree. A consumer should not be forced to be on a permanent alert in order to avoid buying useless and dangerous things - at least not in civilized Europe. Moreover, while responsible adults could at least in theory make their choices, there is no way to prevent parents from pushing placebos and poisons down the throats of their poor defenceless children. The Avaaz letter particularly stresses the need to keep "safe and natural herbal remedies" available for sick children. I even know parents who treat their own illnesses by effective evidence-based drugs but, when their children are ill, give them traditional medicine because of concern about the side-effects of drugs.
So let's hope that the ban will be enforced and EU pharmacies in the future will sell us only remedies that actually help, according to the best available knowledge.
Saturday, April 02, 2011
ADHD quackery in scientific journal, again
I was not intending to blog on scientific themes these days, but sometimes duty calls. Carelessly browsing the Web, I suddenly found a link that switched all my alarms on. Briefly, it refers the reader to an article by Pelsser et al. titled Effects of a restricted elimination diet on the behaviour of children with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (INCA study): a randomised controlled trial and published in the February issue of the Lancet. I have no access to the full text, but the abstract tells us that from 100 children with ADHD aged 4-8, a randomly chosen half were left as controls and the other half were put for 5 weeks on a restricted elimination diet. There is no mention what this diet was, and the results are described in such a messy way that it is impossible to understand exactly what is claimed. Happily, the same Web site directs the reader also to a LA Times article by Jill Adams discussing the study. It informs us that the restricted diet consisted of "short list of ingredients that included water, rice, turkey, lamb, lettuce, carrots, pears and other hypoallergenic foods". "At the end of the study, 64% of the kids on the limited diet showed significant improvement on a variety of standard rating scales. Though the initial scores for all of the kids in this group put their ADHD symptoms in the moderate-to-severe range, after the diet intervention their symptoms were classified as either mild or nonclinical."
Three years ago, I wrote a post titled I am skeptical about food additives - hyperactivity link. It questioned another publication in the Lancet claiming that "artificial food colous and additives" were causing ADHD symptoms. If you are interested in the subject, you can read that old post, too. In the present post, I will not try to keep the same line of composed argumentation. I am furious and not going to hide it.
Are you worried about the quality of the food you consume? Are you anxious to obtain healthy food and to give it also to your family members? And if so, what are you thinking of yourself? Perhaps you think you are a responsible person and everybody should be like you. Unfortunately, this has nothing to do with the truth. You are victim of a disorder which turns your life into hell and endangers your physical health - and that of any child with the poor luck to be under your care. The obsession with healthy foods is a disorder called orthorexia by some psychiatrists. It is not an official diagnosis but is easily accommodated under the umbrellas of eating disorders and obsessive-compulsive disorder. My observations show that many people with real or imagined health problems, and particularly parents of chronically ill and disabled children, develop orthorexia. They swear that their or their child's condition has been caused by unhealthy eating and is currently ameliorated by some particular "healthy" diet. Here, "healthy" diet typically means one that, if given to convicted felons, will lead to prison riots and charges with inhumane treatment. The list of publications of the first author of the study in question - Dr. Pelsser, is not too impressive but clearly shows that she has orthorexic obsession about ADHD.
People of science have a saying that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Any claims for successful treatment of a socially important condition are extraordinary, and so are any claims based on an insane working hypothesis. If you ask me what hypothesis I call insane, I'll answer that I cannot give a definition but the hypothesis of foods causing abnormal behaviour is a brilliant example.
I would ask again, as I did in my old post, why wasn't the study done first on animal models? And if someone thinks animal models of ADHD are not satisfactory (i.e. fail to produce the crazy results wanted and expected by the researcher), why wasn't the experiment done first on adult volunteers with ADHD? Maybe because no adult, except some patients with much more severe diagnoses than ADHD, would agree to participate in such a study; but parents eager to streamline their disabled or just different children easily fall into the trap of wanting the child "either cured or dead". In the LA Times article, Dr. Pelsser says, "The children said they felt so different, as if some mad thing in their head wasn't there anymore". Eh well, if your 5-yr-old experimental subject talks of "some mad thing in his head", you should bury your own head in your hands, then abort the study and pray that your institution's ethical committee never hears of this. Has the whole world gone crazy?
The Lancet is a top scientific journal with an impact factor of 30 (for lay people - this is sky high). Such a journal, especially if specialized in clinical medicine, is expected to have a take-no-prisoners peer review that would not let any crap sneak in. However, this journal 13 years ago published the disastrous (now retracted) study linking the MMR vaccine to autism, it published the mentioned article linking food additives to ADHD 4 years ago, and has now published another nonsense about ADHD. When will the respectable Lancet raise its bar for quacks and stop shouting "Fire!" in crowded theaters?
Three years ago, I wrote a post titled I am skeptical about food additives - hyperactivity link. It questioned another publication in the Lancet claiming that "artificial food colous and additives" were causing ADHD symptoms. If you are interested in the subject, you can read that old post, too. In the present post, I will not try to keep the same line of composed argumentation. I am furious and not going to hide it.
Are you worried about the quality of the food you consume? Are you anxious to obtain healthy food and to give it also to your family members? And if so, what are you thinking of yourself? Perhaps you think you are a responsible person and everybody should be like you. Unfortunately, this has nothing to do with the truth. You are victim of a disorder which turns your life into hell and endangers your physical health - and that of any child with the poor luck to be under your care. The obsession with healthy foods is a disorder called orthorexia by some psychiatrists. It is not an official diagnosis but is easily accommodated under the umbrellas of eating disorders and obsessive-compulsive disorder. My observations show that many people with real or imagined health problems, and particularly parents of chronically ill and disabled children, develop orthorexia. They swear that their or their child's condition has been caused by unhealthy eating and is currently ameliorated by some particular "healthy" diet. Here, "healthy" diet typically means one that, if given to convicted felons, will lead to prison riots and charges with inhumane treatment. The list of publications of the first author of the study in question - Dr. Pelsser, is not too impressive but clearly shows that she has orthorexic obsession about ADHD.
People of science have a saying that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Any claims for successful treatment of a socially important condition are extraordinary, and so are any claims based on an insane working hypothesis. If you ask me what hypothesis I call insane, I'll answer that I cannot give a definition but the hypothesis of foods causing abnormal behaviour is a brilliant example.
I would ask again, as I did in my old post, why wasn't the study done first on animal models? And if someone thinks animal models of ADHD are not satisfactory (i.e. fail to produce the crazy results wanted and expected by the researcher), why wasn't the experiment done first on adult volunteers with ADHD? Maybe because no adult, except some patients with much more severe diagnoses than ADHD, would agree to participate in such a study; but parents eager to streamline their disabled or just different children easily fall into the trap of wanting the child "either cured or dead". In the LA Times article, Dr. Pelsser says, "The children said they felt so different, as if some mad thing in their head wasn't there anymore". Eh well, if your 5-yr-old experimental subject talks of "some mad thing in his head", you should bury your own head in your hands, then abort the study and pray that your institution's ethical committee never hears of this. Has the whole world gone crazy?
The Lancet is a top scientific journal with an impact factor of 30 (for lay people - this is sky high). Such a journal, especially if specialized in clinical medicine, is expected to have a take-no-prisoners peer review that would not let any crap sneak in. However, this journal 13 years ago published the disastrous (now retracted) study linking the MMR vaccine to autism, it published the mentioned article linking food additives to ADHD 4 years ago, and has now published another nonsense about ADHD. When will the respectable Lancet raise its bar for quacks and stop shouting "Fire!" in crowded theaters?
Tuesday, March 01, 2011
Why call "dominant" traits that are not?
(Readers without interest and background in biology or medicine are advised to skip this post.)
I am now preparing a lecture about Mendelian genetics and I included there the hereditary disorder achondroplasia as an example. All textbooks known to me describe it as a "dominant" condition, so I automatically put it under the headline "complete dominance". Then I started thinking on the subject and finally moved the slide below, to "incomplete dominance".
Why did I change my mind? Because, by definition, an allele is dominant when homozygous and heterozygous individuals having it are indistinguishable. However, in the case of achondroplasia, they are very much distinguishable: homozygous achondroplasia brings early death caused by "breathing failure due to constriction by a tiny chest cage and neurologic problems from hydrocephalus". So the surviving heterozygotes have a phenotype intermediate between that of the two homozygotes - the classical situation of incomplete dominance.
It is clear that, to determine whether we are dealing with complete or incomplete dominance, we must know the phenotype of both heterozygotes. However, in medical genetics, "dominant" is often used to designate any condition caused by a single allele, even if nobody has an idea what the mutant homozygotes would look like. In fact, medical geneticists have a working definition of "dominant" as "a pattern of inheritance in which an affected individual has one copy of a mutant allele and one normal allele". This is understandable in the context of past decades, when there was little chance to study the mutant homozygotes. However, with today's vast database of cases from all over the globe and the opportunity to create transgenic animal models, studying them has become quite realistic. So I think it is high time to sort out this matter.
I am now preparing a lecture about Mendelian genetics and I included there the hereditary disorder achondroplasia as an example. All textbooks known to me describe it as a "dominant" condition, so I automatically put it under the headline "complete dominance". Then I started thinking on the subject and finally moved the slide below, to "incomplete dominance".
Why did I change my mind? Because, by definition, an allele is dominant when homozygous and heterozygous individuals having it are indistinguishable. However, in the case of achondroplasia, they are very much distinguishable: homozygous achondroplasia brings early death caused by "breathing failure due to constriction by a tiny chest cage and neurologic problems from hydrocephalus". So the surviving heterozygotes have a phenotype intermediate between that of the two homozygotes - the classical situation of incomplete dominance.
It is clear that, to determine whether we are dealing with complete or incomplete dominance, we must know the phenotype of both heterozygotes. However, in medical genetics, "dominant" is often used to designate any condition caused by a single allele, even if nobody has an idea what the mutant homozygotes would look like. In fact, medical geneticists have a working definition of "dominant" as "a pattern of inheritance in which an affected individual has one copy of a mutant allele and one normal allele". This is understandable in the context of past decades, when there was little chance to study the mutant homozygotes. However, with today's vast database of cases from all over the globe and the opportunity to create transgenic animal models, studying them has become quite realistic. So I think it is high time to sort out this matter.
Saturday, January 15, 2011
Quacks of the world, keep your dirty paws off autism!
The text below is a translation (omitting some minor parts) of what I posted on my Bulgarian blog on Jan. 11 as a reaction to the dangerous export of autism quackery to Bulgaria.
The problem of children with autism is that they look quite like the others. When there is inborn malformation, chromosomal disease, sensory disability or another quite obvious problem, parents and society eventually accept the fact that this child is different and will remain so. But the inpredictable time course of autism, its still mysterious nature and the normal appearence of autistics mislead parents to hope that they will somehow be able to bring their child to norm. In fact, today the diagnosis of autism is handed around like candy, often by people who are not competent to diagnose but know well how to "cure" the incurable condition of autism (you ask how? - by relieving parents of their too abundant money). Many of the alleged autistic children actually have only speech delay and eventually catch up spontaneously. But pronounced autism is another thing. In the framework of an unaccepting society, it is perceived by parents not as a part of their child's personality but as an enemy to be faught. And then the quacks wishing to separate them from their money lure them easily and catch them on a hook without even a bait.
The last "achievement" of this sort belongs to Tokuda Hospital in (the city of) Sofia... They organized a conference on autism on Jan. 8-9. A special guest who presented a lecture on this conference was Dr. Arthur Krigsman, (advertised as) "a world-renowned gastroenterologist" from the USA...
A minute's Google check shows that he is indeed world-renowned. Have you a page in Wikipedia? Has your child's doctor or the hospital's director such a page? No? Eh well, Dr. Krigsman has one. You can read in it that he is known for his controversial and widely-criticized research in which he attempted to prove that the MMR vaccine caused autism. I love this little English word "controversial". It is used e.g. for Jeremiah Wright - the US president's favourite minister known for his statement that the USA deserved the Sept. 11 attacks. When a doctor is called "controversial" by a restrained source like Wikipedia, you can be sure that he is a top quack already fired from everywhere and awaiting only the prosecutor's subpoena, if not having received it already. I guess the coming of such a high guest to Bulgaria must be a reaction to some call "Quacks of the world, unite!".
From the conference at Tokuda Hospital Dr. Krigsman went to the At a cup of coffee TV show aired on the Nova TV Channel, so that the entire Bulgarian nation could enjoy his blessings. I owe thanks to my mother in-law who heroically watched the program and then retold it to me (I could not see it personally). To sum up, Dr. Krigsman explained for an hour how the neurological disability known as autism is due either to the digestive system or to the immune system or to heavy metal poisoning, how vaccines are to blame, how autistic children must be subjected to colonoscopy and biopsy (an invasive and not quite safe procedure) and how his method provides a cure for autism, described in all medical textbooks as incurable. And at the end of this hour, the gentleman said, "We are not curing autism, we are curing gastrointestinal diseases!" Ha-ha-ha. Western quacks always include such a disclaimer in order to avoid the heavy grip of law. Dr. Krigsman was unaware that in our part of the world, rule of law is a bit sickly and everybody can lie as he wishes without any disclaimers at all.
Unfortunately, (TV show host) Gala - this pride of Bulgarian journalism, really succeeded in advertising the US quack doctor. You can see the discussion in BG-Mamma (the major Web forum of Bulgarian mothers). I could endure only a brief glance on the first page. It looks to me like a chorus from the circles of Hell where gullibility is reinforced by positive feedback as it is handed from one desperate soul to another. But those who are really in the circles of Hell are the children (and adults) with autism. Not because of the autism itself but because of our attitude.
What do I mean? Imagine that you have a disability - let's say, you are blind or your legs are paralyzed. Imagine that society does not wish to accommodate to your disability, refuses to give you Braille books or a wheelchair and instead wants you to start seeing or walking. It suggests to you that if you fail to achieve this, you have no value, you are not a complete human, it is not clear whether you are human at all. Now imagine that your family members, on whom you have to rely because of your disability and your tender age, are not interested in your real needs but instead wonder how to cure you. They put you on a diet without bread, dairy products and everything you like, and they swear that, thanks to this diet, you already distinguish light from darkness or have slightly moved your left toe. (I am referring to the notorious gluten-free casein-free diet that not only does not lessen autism traits a bit except for the placebo effect, but deprives children of calcium and so makes their bones thinner.) Moreover, your relations bring you to some quack to poison you allegedly to detoxicate you from heavy metals, endangering your life. They also bring you to another quack to puncture your intestines, again endangering your life. They subject you to all sorts of experiments that are not even included in a legal experimental medicine study. They repent for the vaccines that have allegedly contributed to your condition, and swear not to vaccinate your little sister - which you take as a message that they'd prefer her to die of measles than be like you.
Unfortunately, right now I have no time to write a serious text about autism, which seems to be necessary. For those who can read English, I recommend the sincere tale of Dr. James Laidler how he himself got involved in quackery because of his desperation after his two children were diagnosed with autism, and then the blog of "Prometheus" - a molecular biologist and father of an autistic child. Meanwhile, to all who care for children or adults with autism, I wish high spirit, health, physical and emotional strength - and act cleverly!
(In an update, I added that Gala's guest was not only Dr. Krigsman but also his pal Dr. Anju Usman, who has direct responsibility for the death of 5-yr-old Abubakar Nadama by referring him to Dr. Kerry to be "treated" with the poison EDTA that killed him.)
The problem of children with autism is that they look quite like the others. When there is inborn malformation, chromosomal disease, sensory disability or another quite obvious problem, parents and society eventually accept the fact that this child is different and will remain so. But the inpredictable time course of autism, its still mysterious nature and the normal appearence of autistics mislead parents to hope that they will somehow be able to bring their child to norm. In fact, today the diagnosis of autism is handed around like candy, often by people who are not competent to diagnose but know well how to "cure" the incurable condition of autism (you ask how? - by relieving parents of their too abundant money). Many of the alleged autistic children actually have only speech delay and eventually catch up spontaneously. But pronounced autism is another thing. In the framework of an unaccepting society, it is perceived by parents not as a part of their child's personality but as an enemy to be faught. And then the quacks wishing to separate them from their money lure them easily and catch them on a hook without even a bait.
The last "achievement" of this sort belongs to Tokuda Hospital in (the city of) Sofia... They organized a conference on autism on Jan. 8-9. A special guest who presented a lecture on this conference was Dr. Arthur Krigsman, (advertised as) "a world-renowned gastroenterologist" from the USA...
A minute's Google check shows that he is indeed world-renowned. Have you a page in Wikipedia? Has your child's doctor or the hospital's director such a page? No? Eh well, Dr. Krigsman has one. You can read in it that he is known for his controversial and widely-criticized research in which he attempted to prove that the MMR vaccine caused autism. I love this little English word "controversial". It is used e.g. for Jeremiah Wright - the US president's favourite minister known for his statement that the USA deserved the Sept. 11 attacks. When a doctor is called "controversial" by a restrained source like Wikipedia, you can be sure that he is a top quack already fired from everywhere and awaiting only the prosecutor's subpoena, if not having received it already. I guess the coming of such a high guest to Bulgaria must be a reaction to some call "Quacks of the world, unite!".
From the conference at Tokuda Hospital Dr. Krigsman went to the At a cup of coffee TV show aired on the Nova TV Channel, so that the entire Bulgarian nation could enjoy his blessings. I owe thanks to my mother in-law who heroically watched the program and then retold it to me (I could not see it personally). To sum up, Dr. Krigsman explained for an hour how the neurological disability known as autism is due either to the digestive system or to the immune system or to heavy metal poisoning, how vaccines are to blame, how autistic children must be subjected to colonoscopy and biopsy (an invasive and not quite safe procedure) and how his method provides a cure for autism, described in all medical textbooks as incurable. And at the end of this hour, the gentleman said, "We are not curing autism, we are curing gastrointestinal diseases!" Ha-ha-ha. Western quacks always include such a disclaimer in order to avoid the heavy grip of law. Dr. Krigsman was unaware that in our part of the world, rule of law is a bit sickly and everybody can lie as he wishes without any disclaimers at all.
Unfortunately, (TV show host) Gala - this pride of Bulgarian journalism, really succeeded in advertising the US quack doctor. You can see the discussion in BG-Mamma (the major Web forum of Bulgarian mothers). I could endure only a brief glance on the first page. It looks to me like a chorus from the circles of Hell where gullibility is reinforced by positive feedback as it is handed from one desperate soul to another. But those who are really in the circles of Hell are the children (and adults) with autism. Not because of the autism itself but because of our attitude.
What do I mean? Imagine that you have a disability - let's say, you are blind or your legs are paralyzed. Imagine that society does not wish to accommodate to your disability, refuses to give you Braille books or a wheelchair and instead wants you to start seeing or walking. It suggests to you that if you fail to achieve this, you have no value, you are not a complete human, it is not clear whether you are human at all. Now imagine that your family members, on whom you have to rely because of your disability and your tender age, are not interested in your real needs but instead wonder how to cure you. They put you on a diet without bread, dairy products and everything you like, and they swear that, thanks to this diet, you already distinguish light from darkness or have slightly moved your left toe. (I am referring to the notorious gluten-free casein-free diet that not only does not lessen autism traits a bit except for the placebo effect, but deprives children of calcium and so makes their bones thinner.) Moreover, your relations bring you to some quack to poison you allegedly to detoxicate you from heavy metals, endangering your life. They also bring you to another quack to puncture your intestines, again endangering your life. They subject you to all sorts of experiments that are not even included in a legal experimental medicine study. They repent for the vaccines that have allegedly contributed to your condition, and swear not to vaccinate your little sister - which you take as a message that they'd prefer her to die of measles than be like you.
Unfortunately, right now I have no time to write a serious text about autism, which seems to be necessary. For those who can read English, I recommend the sincere tale of Dr. James Laidler how he himself got involved in quackery because of his desperation after his two children were diagnosed with autism, and then the blog of "Prometheus" - a molecular biologist and father of an autistic child. Meanwhile, to all who care for children or adults with autism, I wish high spirit, health, physical and emotional strength - and act cleverly!
(In an update, I added that Gala's guest was not only Dr. Krigsman but also his pal Dr. Anju Usman, who has direct responsibility for the death of 5-yr-old Abubakar Nadama by referring him to Dr. Kerry to be "treated" with the poison EDTA that killed him.)
Friday, October 29, 2010
Confession
(Warning - long post.)
Photo shows Tiber river at evening.
From June 6 to 11, I attended the Cell Model Systems Summer school at Tor Vergata Research Establishment, Rome. It was great experience and I learned a lot about liposomes and other membrane models, cytotoxic membrane-permeabilizing peptides, new materials based on plasma technology as well as current concepts about the origin of life - all this quite interesting and useful for a teacher in a broad-spectrum biology course like me. I saw first-hand how liposomes and nanomaterials are prepared, and how the atomic force microscope works, about which I had only read in articles. I am very thankful to my professor who recommended me for the summer school, to the organizers who approved my application, to the lecturers, and to my fellow participants. I whole-heartedly recommend CMS to every young researcher or teacher in life sciences. I also keep warm memories of our late-afternoon tours in Rome and in the beautiful nearby town of Frascati where we were accomodated, at the excellent hotel Cacciani.
But this is just an introduction - the post, unfortunately, is centered on something else.
Back in the 1990s, Bulgaria was even more miserable than it is today. And even more depressing than the crude reality was the feeling of hopelessness, of a lacking future. The ability to see future where it actually isn't, to see open spaces and blue skies while looking at a brick wall, was a vital skill. Those who hadn't it had to emigrate or let misery crush their souls. Among them was my brother. He had a rare gift in math that he later developed into computing, he was a good musician (though this was not his favourite occupation), but he was completely unable to see dungeon walls as open spaces. So he wished to emigrate to a country with a future.
From the European countries, three were considered seriously as prospective new homes - Germany and Switzerland, where we had relatives, and Italy, where my brother (sometimes accompanied by my sister in-law) traveled several times for temporary work with a student orchestra. Switzerland was most hostile to Eastern Europeans and was soon cancelled as a realistic possibility. My brother travelled to Germany to apply for a job, but without success. We had there a first cousin married to a German who owned small but successful business. This man said, "If you had a permit to work in Germany, I could give you a job at my shop. But I cannot obtain this permit for you - according to our laws, I have to prove that I cannot find a German to do the job, and this is impossible."
My brother actually liked Italy most because, as he said, the Southern temperament of Italians was making them similar to Bulgarians. A short Italian dictionary and a booklet titled Buon giorno - How to learn Italian in 10 days are still kept somewhere at my mother's library. But there, again, the attempt was unsuccessful. What to do - Western Europeans in those years were shutting us Eastern Europeans out as if we were leprosy-infected.
At the end of 1990s, my sister in-law and my brother obtained immigrant visas for the USA and settled there. He worked at days and learned English and computer science at night, then enrolled to study at a local college, then became computer programmer at the same college. He fulfilled the American dream... as more than one person said at his funeral ceremony.
You have surely read about parallel worlds - that when reality faces an alternative, it goes both ways, splitting into two. As a description of the physical world, parallel worlds are bullshit, but they excellently reflect the attempts of our mind to protect itself by shielding itself from unacceptable reality. The "what if" magical thinking. I still have a strong feeling about parallel worlds, and the impression that I have wandered into the wrong one that is not truly real. On Monday, March 22 I met my mother and we discussed the menu for the Friday dinner, when my family had to visit her. I asked her to fry meatballs, and we were very happy. This last happy day was in fact undeserved, because my brother was already dead - we just did not know it yet. Then on Friday, I felt trapped in a parallel world, in a wrong reality. Why was I in my home, when I had to be at my mother's apartment, eating meatballs? My mother of course had not cooked meatballs - she had flown to America the previous day to attend her son's funeral.
I had a similar feeling the night of June 6th when I arrived to Rome. The organizers of the summer school had sent a shuttle car to pick me and an Italian participant from the airport. As we travelled, my Italian colleague chatted with the driver. I was silently watching the landscape and I imagined that the shuttle car was actually sent by my brother and sister in-law, who were living in Italy. At one moment, the driver asked me in English whether I spoke any Italian. I said no, he jokingly asked why not, and I answered that I had no relations in Italy. As if reading my thoughts, he said, "Now is a very nice time to have relations."
In the next days, the summer school and the majesty of this great city distracted me and helped my recovery, well described by some psychologist as "adaptation to a world from which one's loved one is missing." Rome, Frascati, Italy are names that evoke good memories in me. Yet at the same time Italy, Germany, Switzerland and the entire "old Europe" carry for me the cold touch of the rejection. Because they did not accept my brother, that is, they were not here when I truly needed them. If he had gone to Italy or Germany, his life would not have ended so early. Or, at the very least, I would have seen him more often during these last years, and I would attend his funeral.
I have never want to emigrate myself - in fact, I spent most of my adult life struggling against other people urging me to emigrate, for my own good. But the visa refusals obtained by my loved ones scarred me with a rejection trauma without which I would be another (and almost certainly better) person. In particular, it made me more xenophobic than I would have been otherwise. Of course many immigrants are wonderful people and gain to old Europe, as would be my brother if he had been accepted. However, there are also the other kind of immigrants (let's not start a topic about freedom of speech, films, cartoons and so on). And I think I would not rant so much against multicultural Europe if I were not asking myself why such and such people have been allowed into Europe and my brother was rejected.
It is no use to try and explain down the world to me by reason. You need not mention that many immigrants are such and such because "old Europeans" wanted illiterate guest workers to clean their toilets for no money, rather than educated immigrants with Western mentality to join them as equals. My reason knows it perfectly but the irrational core of me refuses to come to terms with it. It is also of no use to mention that today Bulgarians, or at least white Christian Bulgarians, can move to any European country of their choice. In my world, now is just too late. This is my experience, and I give it absolute importance. For other people, especially for younger people who do not clearly remember the 1990s, my experience will be irrelevant. So, with rare exceptions such as this post, I'll keep it to myself, like a gem too precious to be appreciated by the populace. Value your experience, even if nobody else does. For good or for bad, it makes you who you are.
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Blaming America by junk science
I have just read the March 4 BBC report Fallujah doctors report rise in birth defects, after following a link from the WIP site. I am quoting a part of it below:
"Doctors in the Iraqi city of Fallujah are reporting a high level of birth defects, with some blaming weapons used by the US after the Iraq invasion.
The city witnessed fierce fighting in 2004 as US forces carried out a major offensive against insurgents...
Doctors and parents believe the problem is the highly sophisticated weapons the US troops used in Fallujah six years ago.
British-based Iraqi researcher Malik Hamdan told the BBC's World Today programme that doctors in Fallujah were witnessing a "massive unprecedented number" of heart defects, and an increase in the number of nervous system defects.
She said that one doctor in the city had compared data about birth defects from before 2003 - when she saw about one case every two months - with the situation now, when, she saw cases every day.
Ms Hamdan said that based on data from January this year, the rate of congenital heart defects was 95 per 1,000 births - 13 times the rate found in Europe..."
A commenter has left the following remark at the WIP site: "Bloody warmongering U.S. commits war crimes with impunity. I am disgusted and ashamed. Sincerely."
I wrote, "Comparing the congenital heart defects incidence in Fallujah to that in Europe, rather than to that in the same city in earlier years, in other Iraqi cities or in other Mideast countries, should immediately raise the red flag. Hoffman et al. (2002) in their article "The incidence of congenital heart disease" (J Am Coll Cardiol, 2002; 39:1890-1900) point out that this incidence varies greatly depending on which defects you count, and that including all of them gives a rate of 75/1,000 live births - only a little less than reported here for Fallujah. Of course there may be true increase in birth defects causally linked to the US weapons; but so far, the data presented remind me the infamous "vaccines cause autism" speculation."
In fact, the 95/1,000 heart defects statistics is the only number cited in the BBC report. All other data are anecdotal, such as how many defects a doctor "saw" before and now (which could be due simply to her now seeing a larger total number of babies, or to her hospital acquiring better diagnostic equipment).
According to Hoffman et al., "there is no evidence for differences in incidence in different countries or times". I would add that even if there are significantly more birth defects in Fallujah than in Europe, the cause could be selective abortion of malformed fetuses after ultrasound diagnosis in Europe, higher prevalence of consanguineous marriages in Iraq, other genetic factors or environmental factors unrelated to the US-led war. Identifying correlation, let alone causation, is serious business. So far, the presented "data" seem to show only that the war has had psychological impact on Fallujah doctors and their patients.
Of course, we cannot exclude true increase in birth defects in Fallujah caused by the 2004 US operation. Weapons are not presumed or expected to be healthy. However, such an increase can be revealed only by research worth this name, preferably followed by publication(s) in peer-reviewed journal(s). I find it unfortunate that the BBC is so happy to embrace any piece of junk science (if not plain propaganda) as long as it makes the USA look bloody and warmongering.
"Doctors in the Iraqi city of Fallujah are reporting a high level of birth defects, with some blaming weapons used by the US after the Iraq invasion.
The city witnessed fierce fighting in 2004 as US forces carried out a major offensive against insurgents...
Doctors and parents believe the problem is the highly sophisticated weapons the US troops used in Fallujah six years ago.
British-based Iraqi researcher Malik Hamdan told the BBC's World Today programme that doctors in Fallujah were witnessing a "massive unprecedented number" of heart defects, and an increase in the number of nervous system defects.
She said that one doctor in the city had compared data about birth defects from before 2003 - when she saw about one case every two months - with the situation now, when, she saw cases every day.
Ms Hamdan said that based on data from January this year, the rate of congenital heart defects was 95 per 1,000 births - 13 times the rate found in Europe..."
A commenter has left the following remark at the WIP site: "Bloody warmongering U.S. commits war crimes with impunity. I am disgusted and ashamed. Sincerely."
I wrote, "Comparing the congenital heart defects incidence in Fallujah to that in Europe, rather than to that in the same city in earlier years, in other Iraqi cities or in other Mideast countries, should immediately raise the red flag. Hoffman et al. (2002) in their article "The incidence of congenital heart disease" (J Am Coll Cardiol, 2002; 39:1890-1900) point out that this incidence varies greatly depending on which defects you count, and that including all of them gives a rate of 75/1,000 live births - only a little less than reported here for Fallujah. Of course there may be true increase in birth defects causally linked to the US weapons; but so far, the data presented remind me the infamous "vaccines cause autism" speculation."
In fact, the 95/1,000 heart defects statistics is the only number cited in the BBC report. All other data are anecdotal, such as how many defects a doctor "saw" before and now (which could be due simply to her now seeing a larger total number of babies, or to her hospital acquiring better diagnostic equipment).
According to Hoffman et al., "there is no evidence for differences in incidence in different countries or times". I would add that even if there are significantly more birth defects in Fallujah than in Europe, the cause could be selective abortion of malformed fetuses after ultrasound diagnosis in Europe, higher prevalence of consanguineous marriages in Iraq, other genetic factors or environmental factors unrelated to the US-led war. Identifying correlation, let alone causation, is serious business. So far, the presented "data" seem to show only that the war has had psychological impact on Fallujah doctors and their patients.
Of course, we cannot exclude true increase in birth defects in Fallujah caused by the 2004 US operation. Weapons are not presumed or expected to be healthy. However, such an increase can be revealed only by research worth this name, preferably followed by publication(s) in peer-reviewed journal(s). I find it unfortunate that the BBC is so happy to embrace any piece of junk science (if not plain propaganda) as long as it makes the USA look bloody and warmongering.
Thursday, December 10, 2009
Manuscript troubles
Why is it that the demands and problems presented by a co-author are always inversely proportional to his actual contribution to the work?
(Don't ask me about the events behind this post.)
(Don't ask me about the events behind this post.)
Friday, October 09, 2009
Playing the guilt game
A year ago, Prometheus published a post titled How they do the voodoo that they do so well - Part 2 ("they" are the alternative medicine practitioners). I am quoting it below:
"Eventually, even the most successful, charismatic “alternative” practitioner will have a patient who doesn’t improve enough... For those situations, there are a number of strategies that are typically used. (The first one is,) Did you follow my instructions to the letter? One of the oldest dodges in the “alternative” medicine “biz” is to prescribe a regimen of treatment that is too complicated for most patients to follow. If they get better (by chance), then it was due to the “treatment” – if they don’t get better….well, they didn’t follow all of the instructions exactly, did they?"
I wish to add that, unfortunately, some real doctors also like playing the guilt game and blaming any unfortunate outcome on the patient's non-compliance. Even when - especially when - the neglected bit of medical advice has been backed by about as much evidence as the typical alt-med "treatment".
(The events that inspired this post are too personal to be revealed here.)
"Eventually, even the most successful, charismatic “alternative” practitioner will have a patient who doesn’t improve enough... For those situations, there are a number of strategies that are typically used. (The first one is,) Did you follow my instructions to the letter? One of the oldest dodges in the “alternative” medicine “biz” is to prescribe a regimen of treatment that is too complicated for most patients to follow. If they get better (by chance), then it was due to the “treatment” – if they don’t get better….well, they didn’t follow all of the instructions exactly, did they?"
I wish to add that, unfortunately, some real doctors also like playing the guilt game and blaming any unfortunate outcome on the patient's non-compliance. Even when - especially when - the neglected bit of medical advice has been backed by about as much evidence as the typical alt-med "treatment".
(The events that inspired this post are too personal to be revealed here.)
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Kinship
This post is essentially composed of a quote from the preface of Your Inner Fish by Neil Shubin (Pantheon Books, New York, 2008), a book I can recommend to everybody with interest in biology. By posting this text, I am greeting a colleague and friend who is right now struggling with comparative anatomy. I am also celebrating the year of Darwin, which had not yet been marked on this blog.
"This book grew out of an extraordinary circumstance in my life. On account of faculty departures, I ended up directing the human anatomy course at the medical school of the University of Chicago. Anatomy is the course during which nervous first-year medical students dissect human cadavers... This is their grand entrance to the world of medicine, a formative experience on their path to becoming physicians. At first glance, you couldn't have imagined a worse candidate for the job of training the next generation of doctors: I'm a paleontologist who has spent most of his career working on fish.
It turns out that being a paleontologist is a huge advantage in teaching human anatomy. Why? The best road maps to human bodies lie in the bodies of other animals. The simplest way to teach students the nerves in the human head is to show them the state of affairs in sharks. The easiest road maps to their limbs lies in fish. Reptiles are a real help with the structure of the brain. The reason is that the bodies of these creatures are often simpler versions of ours.
During the summer of my second year leading the course... my colleagues and I discovered fossil fish that gave us powerful new insights... That discovery and my foray into teaching human anatomy led me to explore a profound connection. That exploration became this book."
"This book grew out of an extraordinary circumstance in my life. On account of faculty departures, I ended up directing the human anatomy course at the medical school of the University of Chicago. Anatomy is the course during which nervous first-year medical students dissect human cadavers... This is their grand entrance to the world of medicine, a formative experience on their path to becoming physicians. At first glance, you couldn't have imagined a worse candidate for the job of training the next generation of doctors: I'm a paleontologist who has spent most of his career working on fish.
It turns out that being a paleontologist is a huge advantage in teaching human anatomy. Why? The best road maps to human bodies lie in the bodies of other animals. The simplest way to teach students the nerves in the human head is to show them the state of affairs in sharks. The easiest road maps to their limbs lies in fish. Reptiles are a real help with the structure of the brain. The reason is that the bodies of these creatures are often simpler versions of ours.
During the summer of my second year leading the course... my colleagues and I discovered fossil fish that gave us powerful new insights... That discovery and my foray into teaching human anatomy led me to explore a profound connection. That exploration became this book."
Wednesday, April 08, 2009
Be careful with dates
In a follow-up to my March 12 post, I am copy-pasting a yesterday report from the Cambridge News site without any modification or comment.
"Trial moved due to anniversary
A STUDENT accused of throwing a shoe at the Chinese prime minister has had the date of his trial moved because it clashed with the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre.
Martin Jahnke, a 27-year-old Cambridge University student, was due to stand trial between June 2 and June 4, on charges of causing harassment, alarm, or distress to Wen Jiabao.
But magistrates in Cambridge today agreed to change the date of the trial after hearing that June 4 is the anniversary of the massacre, when Chinese soldiers killed hundreds of pro-democracy demonstrators in Beijing.
The trial will be held from June 1-3."
"Trial moved due to anniversary
A STUDENT accused of throwing a shoe at the Chinese prime minister has had the date of his trial moved because it clashed with the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre.
Martin Jahnke, a 27-year-old Cambridge University student, was due to stand trial between June 2 and June 4, on charges of causing harassment, alarm, or distress to Wen Jiabao.
But magistrates in Cambridge today agreed to change the date of the trial after hearing that June 4 is the anniversary of the massacre, when Chinese soldiers killed hundreds of pro-democracy demonstrators in Beijing.
The trial will be held from June 1-3."
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Prostituting with dictators and prosecuting people of science: Reflections on Martin Jahnke's case
On Feb. 3, I wrote a post about the personality cult that formed around Iraqi journalist Muntadhar al-Zaidi after the latter threw his shoes at then-US Pres. Bush. At the end of the post, I mentioned that the previous day, "as Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao was delivering a lecture at the Cambridge University, an unidentified 27-year-old man called him a "dictator" and threw at him a shoe, which landed a meter away."
The protester was soon identified as German postgraduate life sciences student Martin Jahnke. He is listed on the Cambridge Department of Pathology page as a member of Prof. John Trowsdale's group researching genetic and functional relationships between immune receptors. He is a co-author of a very recent article on HLA-DR polyubiquitination published in the Journal of Biological Chemistry. The quote below is from the Feb. 7 Telegraph report Cambridge shoe protester is German pathology research student, by Richard Edwards:
"Martin Jahnke.. has been at the university for several years, tutoring undergraduates and presenting lunchtime seminars... The "out of character" stunt has left the quiet and diligent student in deep trouble – facing the prospect of a criminal record and possible suspension or rustication from the university... Gordon Brown expressed his personal regret to Mr Wen in a letter. Cambridge's vice chancellor, Professor Alison Richard, also "sincerely apologised" for the episode. The university attracts more than 600 Chinese students a year and are currently engaged in a recruitment drive from Hong Kong. Officials said that they are taking the matter "very, very seriously". A formal, internal complaint is expected will be heard by the Cambridge University Advocate, Professor Christopher Forsyth, who is a crown court judge, barrister and chair of Public Law and Private International Law at Cambridge. Sanctions include a fine, suspension or rustication from Cambridge. As part of a study group of graduates under Professor John Trowsdale, which includes two Chinese students, Mr Jahnke carries out important genetic research into debilitating diseases such as diabetes, multiple sclerosis and arthritis. He has had his work published in the Journal of Biochemistry (the author seems to mean the Journal of Biological Chemistry - M.M.) and has delivered lunchtime seminars to other graduate students. The 27-year-old is also a leading member of the university caving club and takes part in regular expeditions in Wales, the south west and north of England... The (Chinese) prime minister had spoken for 40 minutes and was five minutes from finishing his speech when the protester stood and shouted: "How can the University prostitute itself with this dictator here?" and "How can you listen to the lies he's telling?" He threw the shoe as he was bundled out of the lecture hall and missed the prime minister by ten feet."
Of course Jahnke's act did not trigger a massive wave of sympathy as we saw earlier in al-Zaidi's case. The only statement of support I found is on the Countdown for China blog by dissident Chinese expatriot Shao Jiang. In his Open Letter to European Parliament on the Case of Martin Jahnke, Jiang writes, "Jahnke did nothing but criticize a dictator, using no violence whatsoever. How can he be accused of any crime? We are appalled to see that an EU country is on its way to carrying out a political trial against an EU citizen... We admire his courage and owe him a debt of gratitude for speaking out for those in China who have never had the chance to express their despair. His action has greatly inspired an oppressed people to continue their fight for freedom, democracy and human rights.We urge an independent body to investigate the University of Cambridge for its breach of academic freedom and suppression of dissident opinions during Wen Jiabao’s visit. We would urge the same body to investigate some European governments for their abuse of police powers, out of shameful deference to the CCP, and for violating the rights of peaceful demonstrators during Wen’s visit to the EU.China is still a totalitarian state... We wish to draw the attention of the Committee on Human Rights to the fact that in this period of economic crisis, some European governments are abandoning the sanctity of human rights for the sake of doing business with the Chinese Communist regime. In so doing, they have not only given up on human rights in China, but also betrayed human rights in the EU..." A number of people, among whom Chinese prevail, have signed the letter.
I must state in the beginning that I, personally, do not find throwing objects at people an acceptable way of expressing one's opinion. I suggest leaving acts of this sort to members of the enemy camp, such as the above mentioned al-Zaidi or the terrorism supporters who on Feb. 4 threw a shoe and other objects at Israeli ambassador to Sweden Benny Dagan. And if some "Western hotheads" (as Highlander would call them) are still tempted to follow Jahnke's example, I wish to point to them that the damn bastard (I mean Wen of course) seems to have benefited from the incident. Indeed, immediately after it he showed his true colours and no sense of humour, calling the protester's behaviour "despicable". However, after receiving a letter of apology from Jahnke (and possibly also after consulting some PR experts), Wen called for leniency , appealing to the University of Cambridge to let the young man continue his study. So now, to the unsophisticated observer, the Chinese dictator came out of this affair victorious on a white horse.
Disclaimer in place, now I can proceed. I wish to share my thoughts about Jahnke's case and try to defend him, because I sympathize with him very much. We both share the belief that all people are important and should live in freedom, democracy and prosperity. Also, we both belong to the community of university students, teachers and researchers that I'll call "people of science". We have even shared a research topic - my Master thesis was about immune phenomena in diabetes, on which Jahnke is working now (with incomparably higher quality of work, of course).
While I agree that the shoe-throwing was a mistake, I don't think Jahnke alone should be blamed for this mistake. If I go to visit a synagogue with a swastica attached to my coat, my behaviour would be characterized as provocation and I would receive most of the blame for any unfortunate turn that might follow. I think inviting a dictator to deliver a speech at a university is a similar provocation. Most university students and employees are expected to be freedom-loving people with utter dislike to dictators; and all university students and employees are expected to value the realm of human thought, which is another reason for them not to give an ear to dictators. After all, the quest for knowledge is based on free discussion and comparing the merits of different opinions. If somebody insists on installing his opinion by force and suppressing all other opinions, as dictators do, this automatically brings to zero the intellectual value of whatever this person has to say. Hence, dictators have nothing to do in university lecture halls. What is this modern fashion of inviting dictators to universities of free countries? What on Earth was Iran's president Ahmadinejad doing at Columbia University, and what was Wen doing at Cambridge? Inviting a dictator to speak at a university adds undue authority to the dictator and, respectively, diminishes the authority of the university. Why was Putin made honorary doctor of the University of Veliko Tarnovo in Bulgaria, reportedly after a plan of his friend Schroeder to make him honorary doctor of the Hamburg University failed? I think that university officials who flirt with dictators for dubious purposes (or, as Jahnke put it more bluntly, prostitute themselves with dictators), are largely responsible for resulting unpleasant incidents. I hope that the Cambridge shoe-throwing will lead to reconsidering the policy of prostituting with dictators by some universities, even if nobody admits this in public.
By the way, let me quote again a sentence from the Telegraph report: "The university attracts more than 600 Chinese students a year and are currently engaged in a recruitment drive from Hong Kong." Frankly, I thought that university officials trote the globe to lure students for the sake of their precious tuition fees only in backward countries like Bulgaria, where public moral is completely eroded by chronic poverty and absence of hope for a brighter future. Besides, doesn't anybody figure out that, while some young Chinese may adore their dictatorship in a sheep-like fashion, others may dislike it, and the latter ones are likely to make better Cambridge students?
Unfortunately, Jahnke is not in a position to invite kindly as co-defendants the Cambridge University officials who brought Wen to desacrate the campus land. On the contrary, they seem eager to use/abuse all the power they have in order to portray Jahnke guilty of all mortal sins, and themselves free of any wrongdoing. More often than not, universities and research institutes are headed by unscrupulous people with negative moral virtues and mediocre (at best) intellect - a fact that can surprise only those infamiliar with the rigid hierarchy of science and university education. For a very mild illustration how little respect officials have toward those below them in the hierarchy, see my previous post How scientists are viewed today (BTW the institute described in this post has some, although indirect, relation to Cambridge). I fear that only massive pressure by the academic community in Cambridge and elsewhere (which isn't visible for the moment) can prevent the university authorities from acting as miniature versions of Chinese dictators.
Let's return to the legal aspect of the case. I hope that nobody will interpret my text as implying that people of science must be granted immunity when they break the law. However, the reality as we know it is that people of science, when they break the law, are punished more severely than almost anybody else. Under Bulgarian laws, people convicted for intentional crimes lose the right to study at a university or, if they have already graduated, to work as university teachers and researchers. (The term "intentional crime" here is quite interesting; it apparently covers Jahnke's shoe-throwing but will leave off the hook any dean who kills a person by drunken driving.) I admit that, when I have taken part in half-allowed or banned street protests, I have always feared that I might end up with some sentence that, however small, would be for an "intentional" crime and so would make me uneligible for my university. (To those thinking that one could avoid this risk by keeping his offences strictly in the misdemeanor range, I'll say that nothing is easier for police than lying that you have attacked them, as once happened to my online friend Jane Meyerding. Also, the demise of free speech by criminalizing more and more topics of criticism as "hate speech" makes it fairly easy for anybody to acquire a criminal record.) I don't know whether British laws are similar, but even if they aren't, Cambridge University authorities could expel Jahnke by their own decision.
I wish to add that expelling a science student or firing a researcher or university teacher means much more than the loss of money and work invested over years. Restarting a carrier can be very difficult for young people of science. One must keep in mind that public universities and research institutes in every country form interconnected networks where people are careful not to anger other people on which they may depend some day. Therefore, if a graduate student or employee has quarreled with his superior and has left his institution (or has been expelled from it), then the absence of proper recommendations by the boss will make it almost impossible for the victim to find another suitable position in the same country. My friend once was systematically abused by her mentally ill PhD advisor and managed to find another advisor only after intervention by a professor who knew her personally. Another young researcher known to me emigrated to escape emotional abuse by her PhD advisor. I also knew a PhD student who was harassed after her colleague and boyfriend accused a superior in incompetence - a careless though perfectly true statement. I later lost touch with that couple and don't know what happened to him and whether she ever finished her PhD thesis. I also don't know what happened to my fellow student fired from his research position because of criticizing the institute; he intended to struggle for his rights in court, though he hardly had the resources for this. I'd wish to give more examples with people from my own extended family living in the USA, but I fear that they might disapprove this, even if I keep their anonymity.
I hope that you already understand that even in democratic countries people of science can find themselves in the situation described by Nadezhda Mandelstam as "government monopolizing all jobs and keeping inconvenient people unemployed". The private sector has very few positions suitable for people trained in science and often can give them only the last refuge of unskilled labour. In my country's Neofit Rilski Southwestern University, an assistant named Petar Doshkov was fired and put to trial after exposing corruption practices in a TV interview. He was eventually acquitted and restored to his position by court, but the process took more than 3 years. During this time, finding himself unemployed in a region with sky high unemployment rate, he had to work on his father's small subsistence farm.
The worst aspect of the situation actually isn't the material one - after all, wages of people of science are often comparable to those of unskilled workers. The worst aspect, to my opinion, is losing the occupation one likes and in fact needs. Most people cannot understand this because they don't care much what work they will do, as long as it isn't too hard or unpleasant or poorly paid. However, people of science (even mediocre ones) express themselves in their work. Their craft is integrated in their personality and without doing it they cannot have not only happiness but even a reasonably normal life. To ban a person of science from doing his work, or to abuse him until he quits "voluntarily", can have severe and unpredictable consequences for the victim. During my undergraduate study, I twice feared that I'd be expelled because of serious disagreements with teachers; and I admit I was totally freaked out in both cases, because they dragged for monghs before eventually coming to a quasi-happy ending. I prefer not to mention here how I felt during the later troubles with my PhD thesis - I still don't feel strong enough for this. Unfortunately, people of science have to rely only on themselves when in trouble, because there is little solidarity between them and no support by the rest of the society. The only exception are courts restoring illegally fired teachers and researchers to their positions, as mentioned above; in most Western countries, this chance is taken away by keeping people of science on temporary contracts, so that no specific reasons need to be given for not renewing the employee's contract.
I am afraid this post spontaneously grew into a too ambitious attempt to explain why we are having "hard days on the endless frontier". Let me return to Jahnke's case. If he by chance is reading this, I'd advise him not to quit Cambridge voluntarily (as my colleagues and friends have always told me when I have considered this step, "the enemy will be very happy if you leave - don't give them such a pleasure"). And also not to sign without consulting a lawyer any papers tossed in his direction by the bosses (a doctor I know lost her job this way). He is welcome to e-mail me (mayamarkov at gmail dot com) - and also any person connected to him who wishes. One need not necessarily be himself subjected to prosecution, disciplinary proceesings, forced apology and gag orders for calling a dictator a dictator - just being around when such things happen may make a person need emotional support.
I hope that Jahnke's advisor Prof. Trowsdale, who looks like a nice person on photos, will support his student and help Jahnke's PhD thesis to be live-born. The scientific community in Cambridge and elsewhere also can help. We know our craft and its rules, so I need not give tips about citations and peer-reviewing and other things, need I :-) ? What a pity that my own research topics are so many miles away.
The protester was soon identified as German postgraduate life sciences student Martin Jahnke. He is listed on the Cambridge Department of Pathology page as a member of Prof. John Trowsdale's group researching genetic and functional relationships between immune receptors. He is a co-author of a very recent article on HLA-DR polyubiquitination published in the Journal of Biological Chemistry. The quote below is from the Feb. 7 Telegraph report Cambridge shoe protester is German pathology research student, by Richard Edwards:
"Martin Jahnke.. has been at the university for several years, tutoring undergraduates and presenting lunchtime seminars... The "out of character" stunt has left the quiet and diligent student in deep trouble – facing the prospect of a criminal record and possible suspension or rustication from the university... Gordon Brown expressed his personal regret to Mr Wen in a letter. Cambridge's vice chancellor, Professor Alison Richard, also "sincerely apologised" for the episode. The university attracts more than 600 Chinese students a year and are currently engaged in a recruitment drive from Hong Kong. Officials said that they are taking the matter "very, very seriously". A formal, internal complaint is expected will be heard by the Cambridge University Advocate, Professor Christopher Forsyth, who is a crown court judge, barrister and chair of Public Law and Private International Law at Cambridge. Sanctions include a fine, suspension or rustication from Cambridge. As part of a study group of graduates under Professor John Trowsdale, which includes two Chinese students, Mr Jahnke carries out important genetic research into debilitating diseases such as diabetes, multiple sclerosis and arthritis. He has had his work published in the Journal of Biochemistry (the author seems to mean the Journal of Biological Chemistry - M.M.) and has delivered lunchtime seminars to other graduate students. The 27-year-old is also a leading member of the university caving club and takes part in regular expeditions in Wales, the south west and north of England... The (Chinese) prime minister had spoken for 40 minutes and was five minutes from finishing his speech when the protester stood and shouted: "How can the University prostitute itself with this dictator here?" and "How can you listen to the lies he's telling?" He threw the shoe as he was bundled out of the lecture hall and missed the prime minister by ten feet."
Of course Jahnke's act did not trigger a massive wave of sympathy as we saw earlier in al-Zaidi's case. The only statement of support I found is on the Countdown for China blog by dissident Chinese expatriot Shao Jiang. In his Open Letter to European Parliament on the Case of Martin Jahnke, Jiang writes, "Jahnke did nothing but criticize a dictator, using no violence whatsoever. How can he be accused of any crime? We are appalled to see that an EU country is on its way to carrying out a political trial against an EU citizen... We admire his courage and owe him a debt of gratitude for speaking out for those in China who have never had the chance to express their despair. His action has greatly inspired an oppressed people to continue their fight for freedom, democracy and human rights.We urge an independent body to investigate the University of Cambridge for its breach of academic freedom and suppression of dissident opinions during Wen Jiabao’s visit. We would urge the same body to investigate some European governments for their abuse of police powers, out of shameful deference to the CCP, and for violating the rights of peaceful demonstrators during Wen’s visit to the EU.China is still a totalitarian state... We wish to draw the attention of the Committee on Human Rights to the fact that in this period of economic crisis, some European governments are abandoning the sanctity of human rights for the sake of doing business with the Chinese Communist regime. In so doing, they have not only given up on human rights in China, but also betrayed human rights in the EU..." A number of people, among whom Chinese prevail, have signed the letter.
I must state in the beginning that I, personally, do not find throwing objects at people an acceptable way of expressing one's opinion. I suggest leaving acts of this sort to members of the enemy camp, such as the above mentioned al-Zaidi or the terrorism supporters who on Feb. 4 threw a shoe and other objects at Israeli ambassador to Sweden Benny Dagan. And if some "Western hotheads" (as Highlander would call them) are still tempted to follow Jahnke's example, I wish to point to them that the damn bastard (I mean Wen of course) seems to have benefited from the incident. Indeed, immediately after it he showed his true colours and no sense of humour, calling the protester's behaviour "despicable". However, after receiving a letter of apology from Jahnke (and possibly also after consulting some PR experts), Wen called for leniency , appealing to the University of Cambridge to let the young man continue his study. So now, to the unsophisticated observer, the Chinese dictator came out of this affair victorious on a white horse.
Disclaimer in place, now I can proceed. I wish to share my thoughts about Jahnke's case and try to defend him, because I sympathize with him very much. We both share the belief that all people are important and should live in freedom, democracy and prosperity. Also, we both belong to the community of university students, teachers and researchers that I'll call "people of science". We have even shared a research topic - my Master thesis was about immune phenomena in diabetes, on which Jahnke is working now (with incomparably higher quality of work, of course).
While I agree that the shoe-throwing was a mistake, I don't think Jahnke alone should be blamed for this mistake. If I go to visit a synagogue with a swastica attached to my coat, my behaviour would be characterized as provocation and I would receive most of the blame for any unfortunate turn that might follow. I think inviting a dictator to deliver a speech at a university is a similar provocation. Most university students and employees are expected to be freedom-loving people with utter dislike to dictators; and all university students and employees are expected to value the realm of human thought, which is another reason for them not to give an ear to dictators. After all, the quest for knowledge is based on free discussion and comparing the merits of different opinions. If somebody insists on installing his opinion by force and suppressing all other opinions, as dictators do, this automatically brings to zero the intellectual value of whatever this person has to say. Hence, dictators have nothing to do in university lecture halls. What is this modern fashion of inviting dictators to universities of free countries? What on Earth was Iran's president Ahmadinejad doing at Columbia University, and what was Wen doing at Cambridge? Inviting a dictator to speak at a university adds undue authority to the dictator and, respectively, diminishes the authority of the university. Why was Putin made honorary doctor of the University of Veliko Tarnovo in Bulgaria, reportedly after a plan of his friend Schroeder to make him honorary doctor of the Hamburg University failed? I think that university officials who flirt with dictators for dubious purposes (or, as Jahnke put it more bluntly, prostitute themselves with dictators), are largely responsible for resulting unpleasant incidents. I hope that the Cambridge shoe-throwing will lead to reconsidering the policy of prostituting with dictators by some universities, even if nobody admits this in public.
By the way, let me quote again a sentence from the Telegraph report: "The university attracts more than 600 Chinese students a year and are currently engaged in a recruitment drive from Hong Kong." Frankly, I thought that university officials trote the globe to lure students for the sake of their precious tuition fees only in backward countries like Bulgaria, where public moral is completely eroded by chronic poverty and absence of hope for a brighter future. Besides, doesn't anybody figure out that, while some young Chinese may adore their dictatorship in a sheep-like fashion, others may dislike it, and the latter ones are likely to make better Cambridge students?
Unfortunately, Jahnke is not in a position to invite kindly as co-defendants the Cambridge University officials who brought Wen to desacrate the campus land. On the contrary, they seem eager to use/abuse all the power they have in order to portray Jahnke guilty of all mortal sins, and themselves free of any wrongdoing. More often than not, universities and research institutes are headed by unscrupulous people with negative moral virtues and mediocre (at best) intellect - a fact that can surprise only those infamiliar with the rigid hierarchy of science and university education. For a very mild illustration how little respect officials have toward those below them in the hierarchy, see my previous post How scientists are viewed today (BTW the institute described in this post has some, although indirect, relation to Cambridge). I fear that only massive pressure by the academic community in Cambridge and elsewhere (which isn't visible for the moment) can prevent the university authorities from acting as miniature versions of Chinese dictators.
Let's return to the legal aspect of the case. I hope that nobody will interpret my text as implying that people of science must be granted immunity when they break the law. However, the reality as we know it is that people of science, when they break the law, are punished more severely than almost anybody else. Under Bulgarian laws, people convicted for intentional crimes lose the right to study at a university or, if they have already graduated, to work as university teachers and researchers. (The term "intentional crime" here is quite interesting; it apparently covers Jahnke's shoe-throwing but will leave off the hook any dean who kills a person by drunken driving.) I admit that, when I have taken part in half-allowed or banned street protests, I have always feared that I might end up with some sentence that, however small, would be for an "intentional" crime and so would make me uneligible for my university. (To those thinking that one could avoid this risk by keeping his offences strictly in the misdemeanor range, I'll say that nothing is easier for police than lying that you have attacked them, as once happened to my online friend Jane Meyerding. Also, the demise of free speech by criminalizing more and more topics of criticism as "hate speech" makes it fairly easy for anybody to acquire a criminal record.) I don't know whether British laws are similar, but even if they aren't, Cambridge University authorities could expel Jahnke by their own decision.
I wish to add that expelling a science student or firing a researcher or university teacher means much more than the loss of money and work invested over years. Restarting a carrier can be very difficult for young people of science. One must keep in mind that public universities and research institutes in every country form interconnected networks where people are careful not to anger other people on which they may depend some day. Therefore, if a graduate student or employee has quarreled with his superior and has left his institution (or has been expelled from it), then the absence of proper recommendations by the boss will make it almost impossible for the victim to find another suitable position in the same country. My friend once was systematically abused by her mentally ill PhD advisor and managed to find another advisor only after intervention by a professor who knew her personally. Another young researcher known to me emigrated to escape emotional abuse by her PhD advisor. I also knew a PhD student who was harassed after her colleague and boyfriend accused a superior in incompetence - a careless though perfectly true statement. I later lost touch with that couple and don't know what happened to him and whether she ever finished her PhD thesis. I also don't know what happened to my fellow student fired from his research position because of criticizing the institute; he intended to struggle for his rights in court, though he hardly had the resources for this. I'd wish to give more examples with people from my own extended family living in the USA, but I fear that they might disapprove this, even if I keep their anonymity.
I hope that you already understand that even in democratic countries people of science can find themselves in the situation described by Nadezhda Mandelstam as "government monopolizing all jobs and keeping inconvenient people unemployed". The private sector has very few positions suitable for people trained in science and often can give them only the last refuge of unskilled labour. In my country's Neofit Rilski Southwestern University, an assistant named Petar Doshkov was fired and put to trial after exposing corruption practices in a TV interview. He was eventually acquitted and restored to his position by court, but the process took more than 3 years. During this time, finding himself unemployed in a region with sky high unemployment rate, he had to work on his father's small subsistence farm.
The worst aspect of the situation actually isn't the material one - after all, wages of people of science are often comparable to those of unskilled workers. The worst aspect, to my opinion, is losing the occupation one likes and in fact needs. Most people cannot understand this because they don't care much what work they will do, as long as it isn't too hard or unpleasant or poorly paid. However, people of science (even mediocre ones) express themselves in their work. Their craft is integrated in their personality and without doing it they cannot have not only happiness but even a reasonably normal life. To ban a person of science from doing his work, or to abuse him until he quits "voluntarily", can have severe and unpredictable consequences for the victim. During my undergraduate study, I twice feared that I'd be expelled because of serious disagreements with teachers; and I admit I was totally freaked out in both cases, because they dragged for monghs before eventually coming to a quasi-happy ending. I prefer not to mention here how I felt during the later troubles with my PhD thesis - I still don't feel strong enough for this. Unfortunately, people of science have to rely only on themselves when in trouble, because there is little solidarity between them and no support by the rest of the society. The only exception are courts restoring illegally fired teachers and researchers to their positions, as mentioned above; in most Western countries, this chance is taken away by keeping people of science on temporary contracts, so that no specific reasons need to be given for not renewing the employee's contract.
I am afraid this post spontaneously grew into a too ambitious attempt to explain why we are having "hard days on the endless frontier". Let me return to Jahnke's case. If he by chance is reading this, I'd advise him not to quit Cambridge voluntarily (as my colleagues and friends have always told me when I have considered this step, "the enemy will be very happy if you leave - don't give them such a pleasure"). And also not to sign without consulting a lawyer any papers tossed in his direction by the bosses (a doctor I know lost her job this way). He is welcome to e-mail me (mayamarkov at gmail dot com) - and also any person connected to him who wishes. One need not necessarily be himself subjected to prosecution, disciplinary proceesings, forced apology and gag orders for calling a dictator a dictator - just being around when such things happen may make a person need emotional support.
I hope that Jahnke's advisor Prof. Trowsdale, who looks like a nice person on photos, will support his student and help Jahnke's PhD thesis to be live-born. The scientific community in Cambridge and elsewhere also can help. We know our craft and its rules, so I need not give tips about citations and peer-reviewing and other things, need I :-) ? What a pity that my own research topics are so many miles away.
Monday, March 09, 2009
How scientists are viewed today
Back in the 1930s, in his Revolt of the Masses, Ortega y Gasset lamented that scientists had become pariahs of the modern world. I think today this is exactly as true, if not even more. Let me first quote an e-mail received a month ago by employees at a respectful research institute in Britain:
"Subject: Institute Closure
Due to the obvious adverse weather conditions I have decided to close the Institute for today.
Staff should finish up what they are doing as soon as possible, leaving their work safe and in a position to minimise loss, particularly of experimental material. Before leaving you should consult with your line manager or next available senior manager so they are fully aware of how you have left things.
If you decide to stay at work then you should follow working procedures as they are at weekends, i.e. contacting Security to tell them that you are lone working, and not undertaking any work that is not risk assessed as suitable for a lone worker.
Staff leaving now are expected, where possible, to take some form of work home with them, especially if the worsening conditions mean it might be impossible to come into work tomorrow. This could involve catching up on paperwork, reading guidance notes or scientific literature, or catching up on those things that you don’t usually have time for. Similarly, staff already at home are also expected to do some work, even if they have nothing with them. For example, they could take this opportunity to think about PPDRs and forward job plans...
Safe journey home!"
Below I am giving the comment of the institute employee who re-sent me the e-mail, violating the rules of the institute:
"Maya, see what e-mails we receive at the archistupid (the name of the institute). I am not going now to comment the fact that the entire country is paralyzed by several centimeters of snow. I am writing because I am afraid that if I die suddenly, there will be nobody to tell future generations why the archistupid (the name of the institute) deserves this adjective! Here is an illustration of the attitude of the "high" administration to ordinary scientists. The administration takes for granted that at the first opportunity we all will abandon our experiments and leave the laboratories with satanic smiles on our faces, and only fear from punishment prevents this from happening. Moreover, we must seek permission from our superiors before abandoning our test tubes because, goodness knows, we may be too ignorant in the experimental procedures and, being cunning too, we cannot be trusted when the institute is in the danger of suffering Losses! Also, they are giving us valuable help by supplying a list of tasks on which we can work at home. It must be kept in mind that we have started our jobs with a single purpose - to cheat and enrich ourselves at the expense of the institute. So we must be prevented by any means from using the disaster in order to live a whole day at the expense of the institute. I wonder why they didn't promise to quiz us about the work done at home, after the snow melts..."
"Subject: Institute Closure
Due to the obvious adverse weather conditions I have decided to close the Institute for today.
Staff should finish up what they are doing as soon as possible, leaving their work safe and in a position to minimise loss, particularly of experimental material. Before leaving you should consult with your line manager or next available senior manager so they are fully aware of how you have left things.
If you decide to stay at work then you should follow working procedures as they are at weekends, i.e. contacting Security to tell them that you are lone working, and not undertaking any work that is not risk assessed as suitable for a lone worker.
Staff leaving now are expected, where possible, to take some form of work home with them, especially if the worsening conditions mean it might be impossible to come into work tomorrow. This could involve catching up on paperwork, reading guidance notes or scientific literature, or catching up on those things that you don’t usually have time for. Similarly, staff already at home are also expected to do some work, even if they have nothing with them. For example, they could take this opportunity to think about PPDRs and forward job plans...
Safe journey home!"
Below I am giving the comment of the institute employee who re-sent me the e-mail, violating the rules of the institute:
"Maya, see what e-mails we receive at the archistupid (the name of the institute). I am not going now to comment the fact that the entire country is paralyzed by several centimeters of snow. I am writing because I am afraid that if I die suddenly, there will be nobody to tell future generations why the archistupid (the name of the institute) deserves this adjective! Here is an illustration of the attitude of the "high" administration to ordinary scientists. The administration takes for granted that at the first opportunity we all will abandon our experiments and leave the laboratories with satanic smiles on our faces, and only fear from punishment prevents this from happening. Moreover, we must seek permission from our superiors before abandoning our test tubes because, goodness knows, we may be too ignorant in the experimental procedures and, being cunning too, we cannot be trusted when the institute is in the danger of suffering Losses! Also, they are giving us valuable help by supplying a list of tasks on which we can work at home. It must be kept in mind that we have started our jobs with a single purpose - to cheat and enrich ourselves at the expense of the institute. So we must be prevented by any means from using the disaster in order to live a whole day at the expense of the institute. I wonder why they didn't promise to quiz us about the work done at home, after the snow melts..."
Tuesday, February 03, 2009
I prefer "cyclosome" to "anaphase-promoting complex"
I have spent much of the recent weeks updating and preparing for publication my texts about the cell division cycle.
The original version was written in January and early February 1997, so I had the gloomy feeling of having done too little for too long time that is natural for anyone resuming a 12 year old project. It was made only stronger by another similarity: early 1997 was also marked by anti-government protests. Every afternoon I was leaving work to join the rally beginning at 4 PM in front of the Palace of Culture, conveniently close to my workplace. After the end of the demonstration, by about 6 PM, I was returning to resume work. I was single, so my evenings were free from other duties. The current protests against the government led by the Socialists (like the one 12 years ago) make me feel like trapped in a circle, though this time I have left the struggle to others.
Nevertheless, the work is now finished and uploaded. The original text is now divided in two chapters devoted, respectively, to the cell cycle in purely descriptive terms and to its control. And here I want to touch a question regarding the terminology used to describe the cell cycle, though I am no expert in this field.
One of the key components of cell cycle engine is a multisubunit enzyme called anaphase-promoting complex or cyclosome. The former name is used far more often and is usually abbreviated to APC. However, I prefer the name "cyclosome" and would appeal to colleagues to use it more often, if possible.
As Orwell noted, modern language is plagued by abbreviations. They are especially popular in science, possibly because preoccupation of scientists with their objects often leads to neglecting the language used to describe these objects. Still, some linguistic sense can be traced because most of the abbreviations are composed of three letters. It is clear that we shall never get rid of the basic ones such as DNA, RNA, ATP and so on. But why not make an effort towards their non-proliferation? I was glad to see such good new-coined terms as "condensin", "cohesin", "securin", "separase", "geminin". All of them came across as I was refreshing my cell cycle knowledge, and the first two (to my delight) will partially replace the abbreviation SMC (structural maintenance of chromosomes) which I admit I always confuse with MCM (mini-chromosome maintenance), another group of proteins needed for cell cycle progression. Isn't it enough that in this subject we already are forever stuck with CDC (cell division cycle) and CDK (cyclin-dependent kinase), both abbreviations relating to multiple proteins? Not to mention that an important Cdk is, for historical reasons, known as MPF (maturation-, mitosis- or M-phase-promoting factor).
Besides, there is a finite number of three-letter abbreviations, so the problem of disambiguation soon appears. Years ago, searching PubMed for the enzyme nitric oxide synthase (abbr. NOS), I obtained also many entries about Not Otherwise Specified (NOS) carcinomas. And, coming back to the cyclosome/anaphase-promoting complex, there already is one important abbreviation APC in life sciences - Antigen-Presenting Cell, a term too fundamental for any freshman to go without.
The original version was written in January and early February 1997, so I had the gloomy feeling of having done too little for too long time that is natural for anyone resuming a 12 year old project. It was made only stronger by another similarity: early 1997 was also marked by anti-government protests. Every afternoon I was leaving work to join the rally beginning at 4 PM in front of the Palace of Culture, conveniently close to my workplace. After the end of the demonstration, by about 6 PM, I was returning to resume work. I was single, so my evenings were free from other duties. The current protests against the government led by the Socialists (like the one 12 years ago) make me feel like trapped in a circle, though this time I have left the struggle to others.
Nevertheless, the work is now finished and uploaded. The original text is now divided in two chapters devoted, respectively, to the cell cycle in purely descriptive terms and to its control. And here I want to touch a question regarding the terminology used to describe the cell cycle, though I am no expert in this field.
One of the key components of cell cycle engine is a multisubunit enzyme called anaphase-promoting complex or cyclosome. The former name is used far more often and is usually abbreviated to APC. However, I prefer the name "cyclosome" and would appeal to colleagues to use it more often, if possible.
As Orwell noted, modern language is plagued by abbreviations. They are especially popular in science, possibly because preoccupation of scientists with their objects often leads to neglecting the language used to describe these objects. Still, some linguistic sense can be traced because most of the abbreviations are composed of three letters. It is clear that we shall never get rid of the basic ones such as DNA, RNA, ATP and so on. But why not make an effort towards their non-proliferation? I was glad to see such good new-coined terms as "condensin", "cohesin", "securin", "separase", "geminin". All of them came across as I was refreshing my cell cycle knowledge, and the first two (to my delight) will partially replace the abbreviation SMC (structural maintenance of chromosomes) which I admit I always confuse with MCM (mini-chromosome maintenance), another group of proteins needed for cell cycle progression. Isn't it enough that in this subject we already are forever stuck with CDC (cell division cycle) and CDK (cyclin-dependent kinase), both abbreviations relating to multiple proteins? Not to mention that an important Cdk is, for historical reasons, known as MPF (maturation-, mitosis- or M-phase-promoting factor).
Besides, there is a finite number of three-letter abbreviations, so the problem of disambiguation soon appears. Years ago, searching PubMed for the enzyme nitric oxide synthase (abbr. NOS), I obtained also many entries about Not Otherwise Specified (NOS) carcinomas. And, coming back to the cyclosome/anaphase-promoting complex, there already is one important abbreviation APC in life sciences - Antigen-Presenting Cell, a term too fundamental for any freshman to go without.
Monday, December 15, 2008
AIDS is caused by HIV
When in the late 1990s an intrahospital epidemic in Benghazi, Libya resulted in infection of about 400 children with AIDS, I thought that I'd wish to popularize what we know about this disease and to devote these texts to the Benghazi victims. Since I started this blog, I have written many times to defend the Bulgarian medics accused in spreading the virus (see my posts with label "HIV trial in Libya", the latest of them here), but never to educate. I even thought that I need not write educational texts about AIDS because there are already many of them written by other, more competent authors. Now, however, I am going to write at least one such post.
These days, Indian journalist Rupa Chinai wrote on the WIP site a series of three articles about the AIDS situation in India. Intelectual honesty requires that I link directly to my opponent's writings, but I am unwilling, because I find their contradiction to the best available AIDS knowledge too dangerous if used by somebody as medical advice. Rupa has talent and compassion and presents real problems, such as the massive supply of bogus AIDS diagnostic tests giving false results and the inability of Indian health care system to control (and even monitor) properly the spread and progression of AIDS. However, she is also highly critical to science (which she calls "Western" science) and particularly to current scientific consensus about AIDS and the so-called by her "AIDS lobby" - a loose association of researchers, pharmaceutical companies and Western government agencies as well as international ones such as UNAIDS. Taken together, these convictions lead her to AIDS (HIV) denialism. Actually Rupa claims only to be unbiased observer of the debate between mainstream scientists and "the dissidents" (as denialists prefer to call themselves), but her preferences to the latter seem clear to me; and even if she was truly standing in the middle, this would be enough to me to regard her as belonging to the other camp, exactly as I regard Sarah Palin's wish to teach both creationism and Darwinism as indicative of her being a creationist, though she doesn't insist Darwinism to be thrown away from school.
Thinking what arguments to put forward in favour of the HIV causation of AIDS, I first wanted to point out that anti-retroviral drugs significantly increase the life span of infected patients. However, after reading Rupa's third (last) article, I was happy that I hadn't talked about the drugs, because it featured a group of HIV positive women who had lost their husbands to AIDS but remained in a reasonably good condition for many years by adhering to a healthy lifestyle, adequate (to their opinion) nutrition and "traditional" medicine. While I am glad that these women do so well, I think that they would do even better (and longer) on anti-retroviral drugs, and hope that nobody follows their example. Contrary to what these women, their so-called doctors and Rupa think, it is easy for the "AIDS lobby" to explain their cases: the "bright" period between encountering HIV and developing an AIDS-defining illness varies much between individuals and is 10 years on average. For the women in the report, this period has been so far 12-14 years, which doesn't differ dramatically from 10 years. So they seem just to have longer than average "bright" periods. I bet that other HIV-infected Indians have followed the same strategy but have had shorter than average bright periods, as the elementary calculus of mean values requires. These people, similarly to many Africans, have paid with their lives for the decision to be natural, traditional and non-Western and now aren't around to tell Rupa their stories.
I also wanted to refer Rupa to the Layperson's Guide to the Scientific Literature, published by Prometheus in three parts (1, 2, 3). However, it would hardly be of any use to her in this particular case, because AIDS denialists (similarly to other knights of anti-science and pseudo-science) are characterized by persistent absence of any works published in the peer-reviewed scientific literature; instead, they talk directly to the science-doubting lay public. I am sure that members of the public regard the poor scientific record of "dissidents" as proving not their incompetence but suppression of these good guys by the conspiring big bad "AIDS lobby". Turning one's own incompetence and professional impotence into virtue - what a feat! Why don't these people make careers as PR experts?
So let me return back to basics in my search for arguments. 19th century German microbiologist Robert Koch established four postulates for proving causal relationship between a particular microbe and a disease. Namely, the microbe must (1) be found in all organisms suffering from the disease, (2) be isolated from a diseased organism and grown in a pure culture, (3) cause disease when introduced from this culture to a healthy organism (typically an experimental animal) and (4) be isolated from the inoculated, diseased new host.
In the early years of AIDS research, scientists had problems with the 3rd and 4th postulate because HIV is highly host-specific and common experimental animals are resistant to it. In the late 1980s, three lab workers were infected with a pure, defined HIV strain by accident. They became HIV+ and developed AIDS. As Jon Cohen writes in top scientific journal Science in 1994, this incident alone means fulfilling Koch's postulates for HIV causation of AIDS. However, as noted in the same article, it failed to convince HIV denialists. Is anybody surprised? And can we expect any anti-scientist to change his theories when confronted by contradicting empirical data? After all, if anti-science people would allow their opinions to be influenced by facts, they wouldn't be anti-science, they would be pro-science.
Also in the 1990s, Koch's postulates were also proven using as experimental animal the chimpanzee, which is the natural host of HIV-1 (see Tim Teeter's article HIV Causes AIDS: Proof Derived from Koch's Postulates). Another animal model are immunodeficient mice "humanized" by grafting human immune cells. These mice are susceptible to HIV infection and special measures are needed to prevent them from dying within 1.5 months (Watanabe et al., 2007).
In his post Age of Unreason Prometheus wrote, "Much of “alternative” medicine encourages people to abandon scientific principles that have brought us in the West to a level of health and longevity that are unrivalled in human history. If we want to see what happens (when science is abandoned), we only have to look to those parts of the world where – for economic or philosophical reasons – scientific medicine is unavailable." Like Prometheus (and unlike Rupa), I think that "Western" science cannot be blamed for the poor life quality and short life span of people who are either prevented from accessing its fruits or, alas, reject them by deliberate choice.
These days, Indian journalist Rupa Chinai wrote on the WIP site a series of three articles about the AIDS situation in India. Intelectual honesty requires that I link directly to my opponent's writings, but I am unwilling, because I find their contradiction to the best available AIDS knowledge too dangerous if used by somebody as medical advice. Rupa has talent and compassion and presents real problems, such as the massive supply of bogus AIDS diagnostic tests giving false results and the inability of Indian health care system to control (and even monitor) properly the spread and progression of AIDS. However, she is also highly critical to science (which she calls "Western" science) and particularly to current scientific consensus about AIDS and the so-called by her "AIDS lobby" - a loose association of researchers, pharmaceutical companies and Western government agencies as well as international ones such as UNAIDS. Taken together, these convictions lead her to AIDS (HIV) denialism. Actually Rupa claims only to be unbiased observer of the debate between mainstream scientists and "the dissidents" (as denialists prefer to call themselves), but her preferences to the latter seem clear to me; and even if she was truly standing in the middle, this would be enough to me to regard her as belonging to the other camp, exactly as I regard Sarah Palin's wish to teach both creationism and Darwinism as indicative of her being a creationist, though she doesn't insist Darwinism to be thrown away from school.
Thinking what arguments to put forward in favour of the HIV causation of AIDS, I first wanted to point out that anti-retroviral drugs significantly increase the life span of infected patients. However, after reading Rupa's third (last) article, I was happy that I hadn't talked about the drugs, because it featured a group of HIV positive women who had lost their husbands to AIDS but remained in a reasonably good condition for many years by adhering to a healthy lifestyle, adequate (to their opinion) nutrition and "traditional" medicine. While I am glad that these women do so well, I think that they would do even better (and longer) on anti-retroviral drugs, and hope that nobody follows their example. Contrary to what these women, their so-called doctors and Rupa think, it is easy for the "AIDS lobby" to explain their cases: the "bright" period between encountering HIV and developing an AIDS-defining illness varies much between individuals and is 10 years on average. For the women in the report, this period has been so far 12-14 years, which doesn't differ dramatically from 10 years. So they seem just to have longer than average "bright" periods. I bet that other HIV-infected Indians have followed the same strategy but have had shorter than average bright periods, as the elementary calculus of mean values requires. These people, similarly to many Africans, have paid with their lives for the decision to be natural, traditional and non-Western and now aren't around to tell Rupa their stories.
I also wanted to refer Rupa to the Layperson's Guide to the Scientific Literature, published by Prometheus in three parts (1, 2, 3). However, it would hardly be of any use to her in this particular case, because AIDS denialists (similarly to other knights of anti-science and pseudo-science) are characterized by persistent absence of any works published in the peer-reviewed scientific literature; instead, they talk directly to the science-doubting lay public. I am sure that members of the public regard the poor scientific record of "dissidents" as proving not their incompetence but suppression of these good guys by the conspiring big bad "AIDS lobby". Turning one's own incompetence and professional impotence into virtue - what a feat! Why don't these people make careers as PR experts?
So let me return back to basics in my search for arguments. 19th century German microbiologist Robert Koch established four postulates for proving causal relationship between a particular microbe and a disease. Namely, the microbe must (1) be found in all organisms suffering from the disease, (2) be isolated from a diseased organism and grown in a pure culture, (3) cause disease when introduced from this culture to a healthy organism (typically an experimental animal) and (4) be isolated from the inoculated, diseased new host.
In the early years of AIDS research, scientists had problems with the 3rd and 4th postulate because HIV is highly host-specific and common experimental animals are resistant to it. In the late 1980s, three lab workers were infected with a pure, defined HIV strain by accident. They became HIV+ and developed AIDS. As Jon Cohen writes in top scientific journal Science in 1994, this incident alone means fulfilling Koch's postulates for HIV causation of AIDS. However, as noted in the same article, it failed to convince HIV denialists. Is anybody surprised? And can we expect any anti-scientist to change his theories when confronted by contradicting empirical data? After all, if anti-science people would allow their opinions to be influenced by facts, they wouldn't be anti-science, they would be pro-science.
Also in the 1990s, Koch's postulates were also proven using as experimental animal the chimpanzee, which is the natural host of HIV-1 (see Tim Teeter's article HIV Causes AIDS: Proof Derived from Koch's Postulates). Another animal model are immunodeficient mice "humanized" by grafting human immune cells. These mice are susceptible to HIV infection and special measures are needed to prevent them from dying within 1.5 months (Watanabe et al., 2007).
In his post Age of Unreason Prometheus wrote, "Much of “alternative” medicine encourages people to abandon scientific principles that have brought us in the West to a level of health and longevity that are unrivalled in human history. If we want to see what happens (when science is abandoned), we only have to look to those parts of the world where – for economic or philosophical reasons – scientific medicine is unavailable." Like Prometheus (and unlike Rupa), I think that "Western" science cannot be blamed for the poor life quality and short life span of people who are either prevented from accessing its fruits or, alas, reject them by deliberate choice.
Friday, November 07, 2008
On the stem cell controversy
Let me begin with a quote from Maria Rossbauer's report Unproven stem-cell therapy ban published in Nature journal on Aug. 20:
"The Bulgarian deputy minister for health has resigned over the country's decision to ban the use of a controversial stem-cell therapy to treat neurological disorders. The therapy, which since 2005 has been carried out on around 250 patients at St Ivan Rilski Hospital in Sofia, contravenes European Union regulations and is of unproven value, the Bulgarian health ministry ruled on 8 August."
Subscribers to Nature can read the whole text here.
I wasn't going to blog about the stem cell controversy, after it had a relatively happy ending, but on Oct. 3 our Faculty Board decided to "condemn the unethical and unscientific statements of members of our community (Prof. Bobev, Prof. Svinarov, Prof. Kremenski) in the campaign against the (Department of) Neurosurgery on the occasion of stem cells". Bulgarian readers can find the protocol of the Faculty Board session here. The three condemned professors apparently blew the whistle and this led to banning the therapy.
I am not a doctor, let alone a neurosurgeon, but let me share my thoughts on the subject.
First, bone marrow contains hematopoietic and mesenchymal stem cells. Both belong to the connective tissue, which isn't close to the nervous tissue, so I think it isn't very likely for these stem cells to "convert" and differentiate into neurons. Therefore, to my opinion, this low probability hardly justifies injecting bone marrow stem cells into the brain or the spinal cord, which is invasive and (I guess) not 100% safe procedure. At least not until the treatment has been shown to work in an animal model.
Second, after this experimental treatment has still been given a try, I think that after a reasonable number of treated patients (much fewer than 250) the results must have been submitted to a peer-reviewed journal for publication, no matter whether they have been negative or positive. The team claims positive results - improvement in as many as 50% of patients. However, without a publication it is unclear whether this improvement has been detected in a "blind" manner (i.e. by people unaware of the treatment) or by the treating doctors or even by the patients themselves. In the latter cases of course we cannot distinguish real improvement from placebo effect.
Third, what I disapprove most in the story is that the patients have paid for the therapy. I think that people undergoing experimental medical procedures must never pay (in some cases they may ever receive payments).
Still, I wouldn't like to condemn anybody because I want to believe in the good intentions of all people involved. However, I don't understand why the Faculty members haven't given such a benefit of the doubt to their opponents. So I wish to express solidarity with the three condemned professors.
Thanks to the colleague who informed me about the above cited documents (you know who you are).
"The Bulgarian deputy minister for health has resigned over the country's decision to ban the use of a controversial stem-cell therapy to treat neurological disorders. The therapy, which since 2005 has been carried out on around 250 patients at St Ivan Rilski Hospital in Sofia, contravenes European Union regulations and is of unproven value, the Bulgarian health ministry ruled on 8 August."
Subscribers to Nature can read the whole text here.
I wasn't going to blog about the stem cell controversy, after it had a relatively happy ending, but on Oct. 3 our Faculty Board decided to "condemn the unethical and unscientific statements of members of our community (Prof. Bobev, Prof. Svinarov, Prof. Kremenski) in the campaign against the (Department of) Neurosurgery on the occasion of stem cells". Bulgarian readers can find the protocol of the Faculty Board session here. The three condemned professors apparently blew the whistle and this led to banning the therapy.
I am not a doctor, let alone a neurosurgeon, but let me share my thoughts on the subject.
First, bone marrow contains hematopoietic and mesenchymal stem cells. Both belong to the connective tissue, which isn't close to the nervous tissue, so I think it isn't very likely for these stem cells to "convert" and differentiate into neurons. Therefore, to my opinion, this low probability hardly justifies injecting bone marrow stem cells into the brain or the spinal cord, which is invasive and (I guess) not 100% safe procedure. At least not until the treatment has been shown to work in an animal model.
Second, after this experimental treatment has still been given a try, I think that after a reasonable number of treated patients (much fewer than 250) the results must have been submitted to a peer-reviewed journal for publication, no matter whether they have been negative or positive. The team claims positive results - improvement in as many as 50% of patients. However, without a publication it is unclear whether this improvement has been detected in a "blind" manner (i.e. by people unaware of the treatment) or by the treating doctors or even by the patients themselves. In the latter cases of course we cannot distinguish real improvement from placebo effect.
Third, what I disapprove most in the story is that the patients have paid for the therapy. I think that people undergoing experimental medical procedures must never pay (in some cases they may ever receive payments).
Still, I wouldn't like to condemn anybody because I want to believe in the good intentions of all people involved. However, I don't understand why the Faculty members haven't given such a benefit of the doubt to their opponents. So I wish to express solidarity with the three condemned professors.
Thanks to the colleague who informed me about the above cited documents (you know who you are).
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Concept for unity of life, kindergarten-level
At the beach, I collected a handful of seaweed and showed them to my son.
"Do you know what this is?" I asked.
"Fish," was the answer.
"Do you know what this is?" I asked.
"Fish," was the answer.
Thursday, April 10, 2008
I am skeptical about food additives - hyperactivity link
I've just read in Yahoo News that EU is urged to ban food additives over child hyperactivity fears. Quoting: "main consumer watchdog called Thursday for an EU-wide ban on six food colourings which a scientific study has linked to hyperactivity in children... A study published in September in the British science review, The Lancet, found that a cocktail of artificial colours and the commonly-used preservative sodium benzoate are linked to hyperactivity in children." The study mentioned is apparently the one by McCann et al., 2007, though the publication date given in PubMed is November, not September.
I am nobody to judge the study, but still I would like to recomment utmost caution about its results and any actions based on them. (And if you are not happy about what I am writing here, please keep in mind that this is my blog and I can write whatever I want.)
It is so tempting to pick an ubiquitous environmental factor that can be avoided only at an incredibly high cost (if at all) and blame on it some public health problem. Or a presumed problem - because I suspect that with today's unnatural child raising methods and paradigms, much of what is inside the normal range of childhood behaviour is stigmatized as hyperactivity.
Children's hyperactivity is sometimes blamed on another ubiquitous environmental factor - television. Not so far ago, a team led by an anti-television crusader published a study showing that television viewing in toddlers was associated with attention deficit at age 7. A skeptic immediately commented that "the message resonates in a society seemingly obsessed with public health villains", critisized the authors' methods and, with a language unusually sharp for a scientific journal, concluded that "the statistics are being used, in the words of Andrew Lang, "... as a drunken man uses lampposts—for support rather than illumination." " Later studies, e.g. this one, did not confirm the TV - attention deficit correlation. However, the jin had been let out of the bottle. The initial message reached the public while its disprovals, as usual, didn't. Just search the Google University and you'll find numerous pages warning you that you'll make your toddler ADHD if you let him in the same room with a TV. (Disclaimer: I am not saying that the best for a toddler is to let the TV babysit him.)
Returning to the main subject of this post, I ask myself - isn't it a bit suspicious that so many unrelated chemical substances in small doses are reported to have the same effect on behaviour?
Why didn't anybody try to conduct a study on animal models? At least, I cannot find such an article in PubMed. Animal studies are generally more standardized and hence more reliable than human ones. I know that in many countries it is easier to obtain a permit to experiment on humans than on animals, but still, why not get to the work seriously and do first the paperwork required and then the animal study itself?
Why was the study done only on children, after hyperactivity problems, when present, are thought to persist for life? Is it because adults are generally happy with their own flawed selves but demand perfection from their children, relentlessly drawing the little ones to some superhuman standards of intelligence and behaviour?
What are we going to do now? Consumers demand the culprit substances to be removed from food. While I don't like the presence in our food of so many chemical substances, often with unknown effects on human health, shall we now have to pay more for food protected from deterioration by methods more expensive than a preservative? Or we'll accept greenish food products and bacteria-caused food poisoning as a part of our lives?
Is it a minor issue to deprive kids of junk food? A person on the receiving end of this treatment testifies that it isn't. In conclusion: The sky won't fall on us if we postpone any action for several more years, so let's wait until independent research teams in other facilities confirm the study's findings, as the scientific method requires.
10 years ago, the same Lancet journal published an article (subsequently retracted by almost all of its authors) claiming that MMR vaccine caused regressive autism in children. Although subsequent studies disproved this work in entirety, the world still cannot recover from the enormous damage done by it. Why not learn from our past mistakes?
Update: At Quackwatch, there is a page titled Twenty-Five Ways to Spot Quacks and Vitamin Pushers, by S. Barrett and V. Herbert. Item No. 6 is: "They Claim That Diet Is a Major Factor in Behavior. Food quacks relate diet not only to disease but to behavior. Some claim that adverse reactions to additives and/or common foods cause hyperactivity in children and even criminal behavior in adolescents and adults. These claims are based on a combination of delusions, anecdotal evidence, and poorly designed research."
Update 2: Interverbal blogged about Feingold diet in 2007.
I am nobody to judge the study, but still I would like to recomment utmost caution about its results and any actions based on them. (And if you are not happy about what I am writing here, please keep in mind that this is my blog and I can write whatever I want.)
It is so tempting to pick an ubiquitous environmental factor that can be avoided only at an incredibly high cost (if at all) and blame on it some public health problem. Or a presumed problem - because I suspect that with today's unnatural child raising methods and paradigms, much of what is inside the normal range of childhood behaviour is stigmatized as hyperactivity.
Children's hyperactivity is sometimes blamed on another ubiquitous environmental factor - television. Not so far ago, a team led by an anti-television crusader published a study showing that television viewing in toddlers was associated with attention deficit at age 7. A skeptic immediately commented that "the message resonates in a society seemingly obsessed with public health villains", critisized the authors' methods and, with a language unusually sharp for a scientific journal, concluded that "the statistics are being used, in the words of Andrew Lang, "... as a drunken man uses lampposts—for support rather than illumination." " Later studies, e.g. this one, did not confirm the TV - attention deficit correlation. However, the jin had been let out of the bottle. The initial message reached the public while its disprovals, as usual, didn't. Just search the Google University and you'll find numerous pages warning you that you'll make your toddler ADHD if you let him in the same room with a TV. (Disclaimer: I am not saying that the best for a toddler is to let the TV babysit him.)
Returning to the main subject of this post, I ask myself - isn't it a bit suspicious that so many unrelated chemical substances in small doses are reported to have the same effect on behaviour?
Why didn't anybody try to conduct a study on animal models? At least, I cannot find such an article in PubMed. Animal studies are generally more standardized and hence more reliable than human ones. I know that in many countries it is easier to obtain a permit to experiment on humans than on animals, but still, why not get to the work seriously and do first the paperwork required and then the animal study itself?
Why was the study done only on children, after hyperactivity problems, when present, are thought to persist for life? Is it because adults are generally happy with their own flawed selves but demand perfection from their children, relentlessly drawing the little ones to some superhuman standards of intelligence and behaviour?
What are we going to do now? Consumers demand the culprit substances to be removed from food. While I don't like the presence in our food of so many chemical substances, often with unknown effects on human health, shall we now have to pay more for food protected from deterioration by methods more expensive than a preservative? Or we'll accept greenish food products and bacteria-caused food poisoning as a part of our lives?
Is it a minor issue to deprive kids of junk food? A person on the receiving end of this treatment testifies that it isn't. In conclusion: The sky won't fall on us if we postpone any action for several more years, so let's wait until independent research teams in other facilities confirm the study's findings, as the scientific method requires.
10 years ago, the same Lancet journal published an article (subsequently retracted by almost all of its authors) claiming that MMR vaccine caused regressive autism in children. Although subsequent studies disproved this work in entirety, the world still cannot recover from the enormous damage done by it. Why not learn from our past mistakes?
Update: At Quackwatch, there is a page titled Twenty-Five Ways to Spot Quacks and Vitamin Pushers, by S. Barrett and V. Herbert. Item No. 6 is: "They Claim That Diet Is a Major Factor in Behavior. Food quacks relate diet not only to disease but to behavior. Some claim that adverse reactions to additives and/or common foods cause hyperactivity in children and even criminal behavior in adolescents and adults. These claims are based on a combination of delusions, anecdotal evidence, and poorly designed research."
Update 2: Interverbal blogged about Feingold diet in 2007.
US blogger subpoenated for writing against quackery
On Feb. 1, I wrote that quacks want freedom of speech for themselves but deny it to opponents. Now, we have a fresh example of this phenomenon. Kathleen Seidel who blogs against the vaccines-cause-autism quackery reported on Apr. 3 that she was subpoenated by Clifford Shoemaker, a lawyer representing Rev. Lisa Sykes and Seth Sykes in their $20,000,000 personal injury lawsuit against Bayer company. The Sykes think that vaccines have caused their son's autism and want big money from vaccine manufacturer Bayer as compensation. (The vaccines-cause-autism urban legend is discussed in my Jan. 14 post.)
I am surprised that the event described above happened in the USA. You expect such things in places described by the broad term "east of Belgrade", e.g. here in Bulgaria. In fact, the story reminded me of Bulgarian blogger Michel who was subpoenated and warned by police last summer because of his writings about the Strandja protests (see my July 19, 2007 post).
I guess, US legislature allows laywers to directly subpoenate people thought to have information useful for their clients' cases. However, Kathleen Seidel had no such information; in fact, she had more than once written against the Sykes' claims. So the only explanation is that Mr. Shoemaker abused his right to subpoenate in order to harass and intimidate Kathleen. In fact, the subpoena came shortly after Kathleen's post The Commerce in Causation, describing how Mr. Shoemaker uses the disproved vaccines-cause-autism theory to nicely fill his pockets via never-ending litigations. So it clearly looks like a revenge: you blog against me - I intrude into your life by a subpoena. Although not compatible to a lawsuit, a subpoena such as this one is, to say the least, unpleasant for those on the receiving end. Bulgarian blogger Michel reported the experience to be traumatizing.
One of the absurd aspects of the overall absurd subpoena is the demand that Kathleen should provide copies of "all her communications with... religious groups (Muslim or otherwise), or individuals with religious affiliations". Kathleen has written Serving the Guest, a cookbook with essays and anecdotes about the role of food in Sufism. I do not know whether she has actually converted to Islam, but even if she has, whose damn business is this? Has Mr. Shoemaker ever heard about freedom of religion?
It is important to defend rights and freedoms of everybody, including our opponents and even enemies. A Russian writer once said that freedom isn't like a blanket - take it from your neighbour and you'll have more of it. It is rather like air - take it from anybody and there will be less of it for everyone, including you. In this respect, I (like many others) was delighted and surprised to see that two distinguished quackery-promoting journalists have expressed their support for Kathleen Seidel.
Let me now say a few words about Mr. Shoemaker's clients (who are unlikely to be unaware about their lawyer's methods) and particularly about Rev. Lisa Sykes. For those who don't know what "Rev." (abbr. from reverend) means, it is a title of a clergy member (Bulg. prepodoben). Generally, religious people earn my respect by their attitude to disabled children. They think that there must be a reason for God to send children with disabilities to this world, so their parents must feel honoured and meet their extra responsibilities with dignity and compassion. This is e.g. the view of Jenny, mother of 3 children (2 with special needs) and, let me remind, seller of a wonderful home in the city of Anniston. However, Rev. Sykes (shown here with her son) has a different attitude. She apparently thinks than nothing can be "wrong" with her or her husband's genes, and that God couldn't be so cruel or stupid to dump a non-perfect child on such a wonderful person as her. So she blames vaccines for her son's autism, sues a pharma company to rob it of its honestly earned money and, by her own admission, does on her son a quack "treatment" which castrates him chemically. I ask, why is this pompous person, greedy gold digger and abusive mother still a pastor? What is the human resources policy (if any) of today's churches and what do they think they are doing by employing people such as Lisa Sykes, Jeremiah Wright and Rowan Williams, to name just a few? Thank God I am an atheist :-). Read also the excellent Janna's post on this subject.
I am surprised that the event described above happened in the USA. You expect such things in places described by the broad term "east of Belgrade", e.g. here in Bulgaria. In fact, the story reminded me of Bulgarian blogger Michel who was subpoenated and warned by police last summer because of his writings about the Strandja protests (see my July 19, 2007 post).
I guess, US legislature allows laywers to directly subpoenate people thought to have information useful for their clients' cases. However, Kathleen Seidel had no such information; in fact, she had more than once written against the Sykes' claims. So the only explanation is that Mr. Shoemaker abused his right to subpoenate in order to harass and intimidate Kathleen. In fact, the subpoena came shortly after Kathleen's post The Commerce in Causation, describing how Mr. Shoemaker uses the disproved vaccines-cause-autism theory to nicely fill his pockets via never-ending litigations. So it clearly looks like a revenge: you blog against me - I intrude into your life by a subpoena. Although not compatible to a lawsuit, a subpoena such as this one is, to say the least, unpleasant for those on the receiving end. Bulgarian blogger Michel reported the experience to be traumatizing.
One of the absurd aspects of the overall absurd subpoena is the demand that Kathleen should provide copies of "all her communications with... religious groups (Muslim or otherwise), or individuals with religious affiliations". Kathleen has written Serving the Guest, a cookbook with essays and anecdotes about the role of food in Sufism. I do not know whether she has actually converted to Islam, but even if she has, whose damn business is this? Has Mr. Shoemaker ever heard about freedom of religion?
It is important to defend rights and freedoms of everybody, including our opponents and even enemies. A Russian writer once said that freedom isn't like a blanket - take it from your neighbour and you'll have more of it. It is rather like air - take it from anybody and there will be less of it for everyone, including you. In this respect, I (like many others) was delighted and surprised to see that two distinguished quackery-promoting journalists have expressed their support for Kathleen Seidel.
Let me now say a few words about Mr. Shoemaker's clients (who are unlikely to be unaware about their lawyer's methods) and particularly about Rev. Lisa Sykes. For those who don't know what "Rev." (abbr. from reverend) means, it is a title of a clergy member (Bulg. prepodoben). Generally, religious people earn my respect by their attitude to disabled children. They think that there must be a reason for God to send children with disabilities to this world, so their parents must feel honoured and meet their extra responsibilities with dignity and compassion. This is e.g. the view of Jenny, mother of 3 children (2 with special needs) and, let me remind, seller of a wonderful home in the city of Anniston. However, Rev. Sykes (shown here with her son) has a different attitude. She apparently thinks than nothing can be "wrong" with her or her husband's genes, and that God couldn't be so cruel or stupid to dump a non-perfect child on such a wonderful person as her. So she blames vaccines for her son's autism, sues a pharma company to rob it of its honestly earned money and, by her own admission, does on her son a quack "treatment" which castrates him chemically. I ask, why is this pompous person, greedy gold digger and abusive mother still a pastor? What is the human resources policy (if any) of today's churches and what do they think they are doing by employing people such as Lisa Sykes, Jeremiah Wright and Rowan Williams, to name just a few? Thank God I am an atheist :-). Read also the excellent Janna's post on this subject.
Friday, April 04, 2008
Our genetic hardware
More than a century after Mendel's laws of inheritance were rediscovered, it is ridiculous to remind educated people that our traits are determined by - surprise, surprise - our genes.
However, it seems necessary because some folks just refuse to ackkowledge the limitations of our genetic hardware. So they overestimate the environmental factors or, to put it more bluntly, seek whom to blame when children don't turn out to be exactly what society and their loving parents want.
Yesterday, April 2, was World Autism Awareness day and CNN viewers received a median lethal dose of Jenny McCarthy (if you don't know who she is, then (1) you are lucky and (2) see my Jan. 14 post). However, CNN managed to present some good stuff as well. The quote below is from their story Autistic children linked to same sperm donor, by Randi Kaye. It is a must-read for the above mentioned Ms. McCarthy, for Sen. John McCain and all others who blame autism on vaccines, TV, the hole in the ozone layer or alien abductions. I learned about the story from Aspergian, who feels (to say the least) offended because children with his phenotype are not wanted.
"Dylan loves Italian music and draws pictures... He also happens to be autistic.
Gwenyth Jackaway, Dylan's mother, is a professor at New York's Fordham University. She's single but had always wanted to have a child. So she contacted California Cryobank, one of the largest sperm donor banks in the country.
Cryobank doesn't reveal the identities of donors but allows people to choose based on the traits they'd like their child to have. Jackaway decided on "Donor X" because he appeared philosophical and intelligent on paper...
What she couldn't know then is that her son would have autism. So she started to wonder whether Donor X might carry a gene that could have contributed.
The cause or causes of autism are not known and are hotly debated. Most experts believe that genetics are a component...
Researchers have found some genetic areas associated with autism, but it could take years before the gene or genes that cause autism or contribute to it will be determined.
Until then... there's no way to screen for those genes and prevent them from being passed to a child...
Jackaway says she went into a period of mourning when Dylan's autism was diagnosed at age 2.
"When you're handed a diagnosis of some sort of developmental disorder, you have to let go of the child you thought you were going to have," Jackaway said. "There's a sense of loss of the child, a grieving process. There's denial, there's rage, and then there's the tremendous sadness, and hopefully you get to a place of accepting."
Jackaway says she had to accept that "I don't have that child I thought I was going to have. But I have this child instead, who's right here in front of me."
Through a Web site called Donor Sibling Registry, she reached out to other women who used Donor X. She found six families who had used the same donor.
Two years ago, she visited Theresa Pergola in the New York area; she had given birth to triplets using sperm from Donor X. Just minutes into their meeting, Jackaway noticed Pergola's son, Joseph, 2, exhibiting some of the same behavior as her son...
"She told me that she saw characteristics of autism, and it was very upsetting to me at that time," Pergola said... She was afraid because she had an image of autism in her head and believed her son would be "in the corner and rocking and not talking."
She says Jackaway reassured her that wouldn't be the case.
One month later, a test confirmed what Pergola already knew: Joseph was autistic. The diagnosis brought her to tears, and now these two women whose sons share a father were immediately connected by another bond: autism...
In six families Jackaway contacted that had used Donor X, three of the children are autistic, and one is showing signs of autism.
But would Jackaway be happier today if there had been a way to screen Donor X for an autism gene?
"I've done a lot of thinking about this, and to say yes to that is to say that I wish Dylan isn't Dylan," Jackaway said. "I love my son and everything about him, and that means loving his autism also. Loving your children means loving everything about them. Our children don't have autism; they are autistic. It's part of who they are."...
Since the discovery of autism in some of the families that used Donor X, Cryobank had this to say about his samples:
"... per CCB policy, the donor's samples were removed from the general catalog. These vials may only be sold to a client who has previously used specimens of this donor and is interested in ordering additional specimens. In this case the client is made aware of the new medical information and potential issues ..."
The families don't blame the sperm bank. In fact, Theresa Pergola says she's still uncertain about an autism screening process, if and when it ever becomes available..."
However, it seems necessary because some folks just refuse to ackkowledge the limitations of our genetic hardware. So they overestimate the environmental factors or, to put it more bluntly, seek whom to blame when children don't turn out to be exactly what society and their loving parents want.
Yesterday, April 2, was World Autism Awareness day and CNN viewers received a median lethal dose of Jenny McCarthy (if you don't know who she is, then (1) you are lucky and (2) see my Jan. 14 post). However, CNN managed to present some good stuff as well. The quote below is from their story Autistic children linked to same sperm donor, by Randi Kaye. It is a must-read for the above mentioned Ms. McCarthy, for Sen. John McCain and all others who blame autism on vaccines, TV, the hole in the ozone layer or alien abductions. I learned about the story from Aspergian, who feels (to say the least) offended because children with his phenotype are not wanted.
"Dylan loves Italian music and draws pictures... He also happens to be autistic.
Gwenyth Jackaway, Dylan's mother, is a professor at New York's Fordham University. She's single but had always wanted to have a child. So she contacted California Cryobank, one of the largest sperm donor banks in the country.
Cryobank doesn't reveal the identities of donors but allows people to choose based on the traits they'd like their child to have. Jackaway decided on "Donor X" because he appeared philosophical and intelligent on paper...
What she couldn't know then is that her son would have autism. So she started to wonder whether Donor X might carry a gene that could have contributed.
The cause or causes of autism are not known and are hotly debated. Most experts believe that genetics are a component...
Researchers have found some genetic areas associated with autism, but it could take years before the gene or genes that cause autism or contribute to it will be determined.
Until then... there's no way to screen for those genes and prevent them from being passed to a child...
Jackaway says she went into a period of mourning when Dylan's autism was diagnosed at age 2.
"When you're handed a diagnosis of some sort of developmental disorder, you have to let go of the child you thought you were going to have," Jackaway said. "There's a sense of loss of the child, a grieving process. There's denial, there's rage, and then there's the tremendous sadness, and hopefully you get to a place of accepting."
Jackaway says she had to accept that "I don't have that child I thought I was going to have. But I have this child instead, who's right here in front of me."
Through a Web site called Donor Sibling Registry, she reached out to other women who used Donor X. She found six families who had used the same donor.
Two years ago, she visited Theresa Pergola in the New York area; she had given birth to triplets using sperm from Donor X. Just minutes into their meeting, Jackaway noticed Pergola's son, Joseph, 2, exhibiting some of the same behavior as her son...
"She told me that she saw characteristics of autism, and it was very upsetting to me at that time," Pergola said... She was afraid because she had an image of autism in her head and believed her son would be "in the corner and rocking and not talking."
She says Jackaway reassured her that wouldn't be the case.
One month later, a test confirmed what Pergola already knew: Joseph was autistic. The diagnosis brought her to tears, and now these two women whose sons share a father were immediately connected by another bond: autism...
In six families Jackaway contacted that had used Donor X, three of the children are autistic, and one is showing signs of autism.
But would Jackaway be happier today if there had been a way to screen Donor X for an autism gene?
"I've done a lot of thinking about this, and to say yes to that is to say that I wish Dylan isn't Dylan," Jackaway said. "I love my son and everything about him, and that means loving his autism also. Loving your children means loving everything about them. Our children don't have autism; they are autistic. It's part of who they are."...
Since the discovery of autism in some of the families that used Donor X, Cryobank had this to say about his samples:
"... per CCB policy, the donor's samples were removed from the general catalog. These vials may only be sold to a client who has previously used specimens of this donor and is interested in ordering additional specimens. In this case the client is made aware of the new medical information and potential issues ..."
The families don't blame the sperm bank. In fact, Theresa Pergola says she's still uncertain about an autism screening process, if and when it ever becomes available..."
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