Experiment on disabled children first, then maybe on animals, if you wish

I am up to my ears in work and I really shouldn't be blogging now, but...

In early January, I wrote a post titled I am skeptical about bumetanide treatment of autism. It addressed a 2012 clinical trial using the diuretic bumetanide to improve the condition of autistic children, published with much fanfare in a peer-reviewed journal.

The idea behind this trial contradicted my gut feeling that you cannot rearrange the unusually wired brain of autistics by giving them some pill. However, in that post, I put more serious objections than a gut feeling: that the study had been done on children and that it had not been preceded by a similar study on an animal model. I wrote: "Explaining their hypothesis in the Introduction chapter, the authors wrote, "GABAergic signals are altered in autism as evidenced by the following: The excitation/inhibition ratio is modified in experimental models..." (5 references cited). However, to my best knowledge, the researchers never tried to test their working hypothesis on these models that so wonderfully provided argumentation to start an experiment on human beings." I had earlier complained about the worrying tendency of modern scientists to test all sorts of treatments on vulnerable human patients without trying them on animals first.

Today, I googled bumetanide autism just so, to see any sequel to the story. And what do you think came out? An article by Virginia Hughes titled Controversial study touts blood pressure drug for autism published on the Simons Foundation Autism Research Initiative site. Quoting from this article: "Several experts are puzzled because the study used diagnostic measures of autism in unusual ways. They also say that the sample size is too small to know whether the effects are real" (27 children in the test group and 27 controls - M.M.)... "Bumetanide treatment was associated with statistically significant improvements on total ADOS scores only when the researchers removed the nine most severely affected children from the group. Seven of the nine were in the placebo group, suggesting that the placebo group was skewed toward the more severe end of the spectrum." What then remains of the claim "placebo-controlled", eh?

But, for me, the most intriguing bit comes last: "Ben-Ari’s team is trying to confirm his theory by looking at intracellular chloride levels in two animal models of autism" (emphasis mine - M.M.). In other words, we first experiment on defenceless disabled children whose parents are dying to see them normalized, and then, when the scientific community starts to ask inconvenient questions, we resort to an animal study! Bravo, bravo, bravo.

An commenter wrote on my previous post: "I too am a huge skeptic, but a double-blind, placebo-controlled trial was good enough for me. So I have tried bumetanide for 3 weeks with my 9 year old autistic son. The results are great..." This is what I feared - that parents would immediately start administering the drug to their children. At that time, I didn't know what to answer to that father. But now, if he is still here, I would ask him (and everybody else in the same situation) to reconsider. Contrary to the initial claims of researchers that bumetanide produces "no side effects" on autistic children, Hughes reports, "Some researchers say they worry that the drug’s side effects may have effectively unblinded some of the participants. Of the 27 children treated with bumetanide, 6 developed a potassium deficiency that had to be treated with a potassium syrup" (emphasis mine - M.M.).

My guess: Newer studies on bumetanide and autism are likely to find less (down to zero) improvement and more side effects.

The problem with Islam

On April 15 during the annual marathon in Boston, two bombs exploded, killing 3 people. More than 280 were injured, some of them severely. The alleged perpetrators turned out to be two brothers - Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, US residents of Chechen origin. Tamerlan was killed and Dzhokhar was injured and captured. News agencies report that the two brothers, who practised Islam, were motivated by their religious views. The elder brother, Tamerlan (26), who was blindly followed by Dzhokhar in everything, allegedly expressed "increasing disaffection and disgust with things Christian and American" and "anger about America and Christianity". (The usual story about an anti-Western immigrant spitting hatred against his host country where nobody is keeping him by force.)

  

Below, I am copying a text from www.faithfreedom.org as blog action against Islamism. I think it is great, but I must warn Muslim readers that if they continue to read, they may feel offended.

  

"Why can't Islam be reformed

   

By Ali Sina

  

Dear Mr. Sina,   

I am a Muslim woman living in the USA I read some of your articles and totally agree with you on many points.   

I am still a Muslim but at the same time I hold rather peculiar positions on many points.   

There are five pillars of Islam and six pillars of faith that cannot be modified. That's all. The rest can be negotiated and must be modernized... Let me comment on some points.   

1. Polygamy is indeed permitted in Islam. But I have got a great example. Tunisia has a constitution based on Shari’a law but polygamy is prohibited. I object to implementing Shari’a in any countries. Shari’a is outdated and as a matter of fact I am sure Allah understands it. Nobody is now burning witches in Great Britain but nobody said Jesus Christ doesn’t exist or anything. Islam has to be on the background and the secular laws have to be on the foreground.   

2. Hijab is not a must for Muslim women. I don’t wear hijab and have never worn it. My daughter is not wearing hijab either... If you feel comfortable wearing hijab, it’s OK, wear it. I have an opinion that hijab is outdated... That is my opinion.   

3. Disbelievers will not go to Heaven. Virgins in Heaven? I have nothing to say about it. Who knows? As a modern person, I don’t believe Mohammed (pbuh) knew any of these things. Human beings cannot comprehend such things and we have to just leave it alone and move on with our life on Earth.   

4. Killing of disbelievers if they don’t embrace Islam. It is outdated. In the modern world such things should not be tolerated. It was the case in the 7th century but thanks to Allah we are living in the 21st century!   

5. What is the problem with Islam? The problem is that people perceive religion as divine; therefore it must not be criticized. But we have to adopt the way westerners treated their religions. The example of the Church of England is a good one.   

6. Killing of apostates. Again it is outdated. It should not be practiced in the 21st century. 

7. Men are breadwinners, women are housewives. Men are heads of the family. I earn more than my husband. My Arab husband is a stay‑at‑home dad. Women should be able to choose... I don’t want to repeat myself but Islam has to be modernized.   

Dear Ali, I appreciate your work. But I think we have to modernize Islam because I have serious doubts that you and other wonderful people can eradicate Islam completely. Modernization is something that is more likely to happen. What is going on in the Middle Eastern countries is awful. The West has to help with stopping this insanity and modernizing these countries. I am fully aware of the fact that my beliefs would be “attacked” in the Middle East and I would be stoned to death. That is why we in the West have something to do with that. We ought to do it for our sake. And I thank America for the opportunity to air my opinions freely. God bless America. I believe in Allah and hope for the afterlife. But I reject any authorities and communicate with God without imams or mullahs, whom I consider to be a threat to humanity...   

Finally, at the time of the prophet, the principles perhaps were suitable, but is it really so now? Therefore, let's evaluate, reread. Let's pick the suitable ones. Religion is made for the benefit of humans.   

Best regards,  

Haifa

A Modernized Muslim

 ______________

  

This is the position of many modern Muslims, including Irshad Manji the author of “What Is Wrong with Islam, Today”. A great number of Muslims realize there is something wrong with Islam, but they erroneously believe the problem can be solved through the miracle of reinterpretation; and that they can keep the Quran and believe in Muhammad but somehow do the opposite of what he did and said and still call themselves Muslims. The following was my response to Haifa.  

   

Dear Haifa,   

Thank you for your poignant comments. I am happy to say it is YOU who are not Muslim. You sound very much like me, years ago. As a matter of fact most of the Iranians prior to the revolution of 1979 were like you. My mother never wore chador unless she wanted to go to the grocery store around the corner and did not want to dress for the occasion. This was, of course, before the Revolution. But things changed overnight. The moderate Muslims became hardcore Islamists, rallied around Khomeini and foaming at the mouth poured into the streets shouting “death to America, death to Israel.”  

   

You say Christians modernized; why can’t Muslims? There is a simple answer to that. The New Testament does not contain so much violence and terror as does the Quran. I don’t say the Bible is factual. It sounds more like myths and legends. Nonetheless, the Jesus of the Bible is a saintly figure. He is the embodiment of goodness. So if you don’t mind believing in fairytales, Christianity can make you a good person. Of course, fanatics are everywhere but the message of Christ is not fanatical. Recall when the Pharisees brought a prostitute to him, asking him what to do with her? His response was “Let the one who has not sinned throw the first stone.” If you really practice just this teaching alone, you will become a good human being. Isn't this the purported goal of religions to make us good people, forgiving and mindful of our own sins?   

    

Islam is different. The author of Islam was a vile man. He is not a mythological figure. He really existed, and his acts are recorded. Many ludicrous miracles are attributed to him, but once you put aside all those as nonsense and study his life, the portrait of a psychopath emerges. Muhammad was anything but saintly. There is not an act of goodness in his life. Even his kindness and generosity were manipulative and politically motivated. Take the example of his largesse to the Meccans. He raided the big tribe of Hawazin, killed many of them, took away all their belongings and captured their wives and children. Their elders came to him supplicating for mercy. They brought along Shima, his milk‑sister, the daughter of Halima, who had nursed him for five years when he was a child to tell him about his childhood among them and to soften his heart. She reminded him how she used to carry him on her back, and how tenderly her people took care of him. He told them if they convert to Islam they could choose between their loved ones and their property. Is that a choice? They chose their loved ones. Then Muhammad gave all the booty stolen from these nomads to the potentates of Mecca. Those higher in rank received more. Other tribes who had taken part in the war, and had helped him win, protested. They asked for their share, and were about to start a mutiny.  He made a “moving” speech saying, "I want to soften the hearts of the Meccans toward Islam” and told those who had received nothing “You take the Prophet of God with you instead. Which do you prefer: the wealth of this world or the messenger of Allah?”  

    

This cunning man was a master of deception and manipulation. He ruined the lives of thousands of Hawazin, killed them and stole all their herds, camels, and property and gave them to the wealthy Meccans to “soften their hearts toward Islam.”  There is not a single episode in his life that was done out of the goodness of his heart. Every act he performed was calculated and manipulative. He was a psychopathic narcissist worse than Hitler.   

    

The difference between Christianity and Islam lies in the difference between Jesus and Muhammad...  

    

You ask: “Can Islam be reformed?” No, it can’t! To reform Islam you have to first get rid of Muhammad and second get rid of the Quran. You have to take out a great portion of that book which is violent. The rest is nonsense and absurdity. But this you can’t do, because you have no authority to do such a thing. Muhammad said that he has perfected his religion (Q. 5:3). How can you improve something, which is perfect? You can’t change the Quran. You can’t reform it. All you can do is to reinterpret and, for example pretend, “slay the unbelievers wherever you find them” means something else.  

    

Or you can say these parts of the Quran are no longer applicable. The problem is: who gets to decide which parts of the Quran are applicable and which parts are obsolete? Who has such authority to make this decision? If you rely on your own conscience and say the verses that call for murder are outdated, someone else, like Khomeini could protest and say: 

Why do you Mullahs only go after the ordinances of prayer and fasting? Why do you only read the Quranic verses of mercy and do not read the verses of killing? Quran says; kill, imprison!  Why are you only clinging to the parts that talk about mercy?  Mercy is against God. [Khomeini’s speech 1981 Commemoration of the Birth of Muhammad]  

    

Who can say you are right and he is not? Finally if it is left to you to winnow the good teachings from the bad ones, why do you need to follow this or any other religion at all? If you can discern this much to know the difference between right and wrong, you don’t need any guidance; you are mature enough to find your own way using your own inner compass. In that case, can’t you look into other religions and philosophies and pick the good things from them too? If so, you are a freethinker. You don’t need a religion. You are a guide and a prophet unto yourself.  

    

A book of guidance that sometimes guides and sometimes misleads is not a book of guidance. If you are lost and ask for directions from a passerby and he points in all directions, can that person be trusted? Is his guidance of any value? Of course one of those directions he is pointing at is the right one. But if you have to rely on your own resources to find that out, what good is it asking such an untrustworthy person for directions?  What about those who did not have your sagacity and went the wrong way after being misled by this charlatan? That is exactly what the Quran does. It tells you something good, but it also teaches you a myriad of bad things. Why do we need these religions at all? They do not guide anyone. They only give you a vacuous promise of an afterlife, which is good only for suckers. How can we trust that promise when everything else they said is proven to be false?  

    

You say that the Christians have managed to sieve through the Bible and choose only the good teachings. This is true for most of them but not for all of them. There are also many fanatics among the Christians and some of them are very hateful people.  Fortunately their number is relatively low, but nonetheless it shows that being a Christian is not a ticket to the Land of Enlightenment.  

    

However, Islam can’t be reformed. You need to have an authority with a rank similar or superior to the one claimed by Muhammad to be able to reform Islam. But that can’t be done, because Muhammad said he was the last prophet.  

    

Fortuitously, today I received an email from a reader, (Father Lev) who suggested we should “Support Ahmadiyya Islam to check the expansion of Islamo‑Fascism!” He argued:   

There are two key points in Ahmadiyya that make it into a practical solution to the problem of Islamism. Moslems claim that nothing can be added to the Quran  while the Ahmadiyya Moslems do not! And the Ahmadiyya Moslems have officially condemned militant jihad. (Jihad against the kuffar (unbelievers) has been declared haram (sin) by Mirza Ghulam Ahmed! The FIRST is especially important, because, since it holds that nothing can be added to the Quran , mainstream Islam can't be reformed, and is bound to stay forever a barbarous ideology. Ahmadiyya Islam CAN be reformed. The difference is subtle, but absolutely crucial. If civilized nations invest in Ahmadiyya Islam, it may save the world! This is because Moslems will not convert to a religion that is too different from what they are used to practicing. The most effective way to stop Islamism in its tracks is to help strengthen the posture of Ahmadiyya Islam in the Moslem world.  

The problem with Ahmadiyya and all other offshoots of Islam is that they are offshoots of Islam. Although the followers of these religions have distanced themselves from the violence in the Quran, they are rooted in Islam, and they acknowledge Muhammad as a prophet of God.   

   

You can’t build too high without a solid foundation. The foundation of these religions is Islam, and Islam is a lie. Muhammad was not a prophet of any god. I don’t know whether these words are from Christ or they are attributed to him, but whoever said them must have had a good understanding of the Principle underlying the creation. These words are: “Only truth will set us free.”  I believe this is the ultimate wisdom. ONLY TRUTH WILL SET US FREE.  

    

Like you, the followers of religions that are offshoots of Islam say Muhammad belonged to another time. This is moral relativism. At what time was raiding innocent populations, slaying unarmed people and raping and enslaving their wives and children okay?...

    

The atrocities perpetrated by Muhammad exceeded anything that anyone had experienced before. Amazingly, his followers, taken aback by his utter lack of conscience and his monstrous inhumanity, thought he must be supported by some invisible force for they could not understand how a human being could be so ruthless and kill so many people with such conviction while praising God at the same time and inviting people to be pious. Criminals do not talk about God. They often have a trace of conscience left in them and are often overtaken by remorse. But not the psychopaths! Psychopaths do not have a conscience. They feel entitled to kill, and they believe they are doing God’s work. This is what Hitler said:  

Hence today I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord. [Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, Ralph Mannheim, ed., New York : Mariner Books, 1999, p. 65]

Muhammad offset his follower's balance of right and wrong. He overloaded it with so much evil that it broke.     

We humans have an inner balance with which we weigh good and evil. This balance, in Muslims stopped working. The indicator is stuck on zero. Muhammad's companions could no longer register right and wrong. Because it's hard to envision how a human being could be this ruthless, they persuaded themselves that he must be from God. As for why this god is so demonic, they fooled themselves with the lies that he told them. He told them that it is not up to man to question God. This absurd explanation satisfied his benighted followers. They resorted to fideism and argued that reason is irrelevant to religious belief. The great Imam Ghazali (1058 – 1111) said: “Where the claims of reason come into conflict with revelation, reason must yield to revelation.” A similar thesis in defense of foolishness is presented by Paul in 1 Cor. 1:20-25 where he argues “the foolishness of God is wiser than (the wisdom of) men”. The statement “Credo quia absurdum” (I believe because it is absurd), often attributed to Tertullian, is based on this passage of Paul. In DCC 5 he said: “The Son of God died; it is by all means to be believed, because it is absurd.” Upon this belief in absurdity fideism is founded and it is the position that has been adopted by Muslims. This fideistic attitude allowed the early believers to abandon reason and accept whatever Muhammad did, even his blatant crimes, without questioning him.

    

However, mostly they WANTED to believe because they had no other choice. Muhammad had become their only source of sustenance and survival.  

    

The city of Yathreb (Medina) was devastated by the Muslims. Its original inhabitants - those who ran the businesses and provided employment, who were artisans, tradesmen and farmers - the Jews, were either banished or killed. The Arabs had been working for the Jews. Now, with the Jews gone or massacred, they were out of work and depended on Muhammad and his raids for their sustenance. It was not convenient to think critically about what they were doing. They let themselves go with the flow and kept themselves fooled. They got their confirmation by watching the zealotry of their coreligionists. Each follower encouraged others, and among them they created a mass hysteria that has lasted up to this day. “How can all these people be wrong?” was their rationale. This is the same rationale Muslims use today to keep their faith alive. This is what happens in cult compounds. The members lose their identity and surrender their rational faculty to the guru. They become an extension of the group and a reflection of the cult leader. The cultish nature of Islam has not changed a bit. Fourteen hundred years later, if you join Islam, you are received with cheers and hugs, but if you decide to leave, you’ll be chased down and killed.  

    

You say that violence was the norm in those days. Even if this were true, which it is not, did Muhammad come to follow the bad practices of his people or set new standards?  

     

Now, the most important question is WHY: Why keep Islam and honor Muhammad? Can we do the same thing with Nazism? Can we reform Nazism - pretend that Hitler was an innocent product of his time, and pick and choose, only the good parts of his Mein Kampf? How much must we fool ourselves, and WHY?  

What we have to understand is that Muhammad, like Hitler, Mao, Stalin, Attila the Hun, Genghis Khan, Saddam Hussein, Pol Pot, Jim Jones, David Koresh, Charles Manson, and millions of other less known monsters, was a pathological narcissist. These celebrated men were not normal. They were sick in the mind.      

Dr. Sam Vaknin wrote: 

Narcissism is contagious. The narcissist creates a "bubble universe,” similar to a cult. In this bubble, special rules apply.  These rules do not always correspond to outer reality. Using complex defence mechanisms, such as projective identification, the narcissist forces his victims ‑ spouse, mate, friend, colleague ‑ to “play a role” assigned to him by “God” ‑ the narcissist.  

The narcissist rewards compliance with his script and punishes any deviation from it with severe abuse. In other words, the narcissist CONDITIONS people around him, using intimidation, positive and negative reinforcements and feedback, ambient abuse (“gaslighting”), covert, or controlling abuse, and overt, classical abuse. Thus conditioned, the narcissist's victims gradually come to assimilate the narcissist's way of thinking (follies a‑deux) and his modus operandi ‑ his methods. You can abandon the narcissist ‑ but the narcissist never abandons you. He is there, deep inside your traumatic memories, lurking, waiting to act out. You have been modified, very much like an alien snatching bodies.   

    

Dear Haifa, the Umma is not only misguided, but it is also sick. The pathology of Muhammad is reflected in every one of his followers. We are dealing with a community of psychopaths. A billion narcissists! A billion insane people!  All the Muslims are hiding in this psychotic “bubble universe” created by Muhammad. We are all playing the role that this mentally sick man has assigned to us. We all follow his script. These rituals of prayers and the pillars of faith that you mentioned are only scripts of a psychotic man to keep us hooked. We are conditioned by the fear of a boogie-man deity, the punishment of an insane hellfire and the greed of a sensual and even orgiastic paradise that this madman has instilled in us.  

     

Fear and greed are the tools of the narcissist through which he manipulates his victims. We have all come to assimilate Muhammad’s narcissistic way of thinking and his modus operandi. I have received thousands of emails from Muslims, and the common theme in all of them is fear. FEAR is the only motivator of these poor souls. They can’t think, they can’t reason, they have lost their rational faculty. Their brain is paralyzed by this fear that Muhammad so masterfully implanted in them.  When they fail to refute any of my arguments with reason, they resort to fear and remind me of hellfire. This is their ultimate weapon. This fear has shackled their brains and they cannot think anymore. They dismiss all doubts because of this paralyzing fear.  

    

So there are two answers to your question. The first is that Islam can’t be reformed, and the second is why: Why bother reforming a cult created by a psychopath and keep his memory alive?   

     

Now to answer Father Lev who suggested we should “Support Ahmadiyya Islam to check the expansion of Islamofascism.” I would like to say this is far more difficult than weaning Muslims from Islam altogether. What Father Lev is suggesting is fighting one lie with another lie. But I give my word to you that truth is more powerful than all lies combined. The Ahmadiyya sect has been around for over a century and half. Its teachings are far better than Muhammad’s Islam. But it has not garnered more than a few million followers. On the other hand, the “movement” of ex‑Muslims is growing by leaps and bounds. We are millions already. We are spreading all across the world. We have no leaders and no organization. You don’t have to believe in anything. All you need to do is to see that Islam is false. This is really a grassroots movement. In the span of few short years, we have grown much bigger than Ahmadiyyah or any offshoot of Islam. If you want to know which is the fastest growing “religion” it’s apostasy! (Assuming you can call apostasy a religion). Why are we so successful? It is because we stick to the truth.

    

Islam cannot be reformed. But it can be eradicated. Reforming Islam means adding more lies to lies. For how long this huge edifice of lies can support itself?... The only thing that keeps Islam alive is the emotional attachment of Muslims to it.  They are addicted. This is Stockholm syndrome. Muslims must be weaned from Islam, and Islam must be razed to the ground... Some religions can be reformed. There might be something of value in them for those who “inhabit” them, and with a little bit of reinforcement and remodelling they can become good religions. I believe Christianity is one such religion, which along with Zoroastrianism, Buddhism, Hinduism, and Judaism can be reformed, updated and modernized... This is not the case with Islam. Islam is falling apart and it is not only endangering its inhabitants, it is a peril to everyone else. You can’t reform Islam and you can’t build another structure on top of it. Islam must be bulldozed. It must be eradicated. We have to alert its inhabitants and get them out as soon as possible. Get them out as many as we can - and demolish it before it takes more lives.   

At no time in history has Mankind faced such horrendous prospects of doom and gloom. We are at the most crucial juncture in the existance of our species. Why? Because over a billion people are possessed by the ghost of a psychopath! They are reduced to zombies! Their souls are snatched away from them. They have lost their thinking power. They follow this dead man’s scripts, and they will not relent until they destroy the world.  

Don’t let that happen Haifa! Leave this psychopath and help others too. 

 _______________

In a follow-up letter Haifa wrote:  

Maybe I am already an apostate but I am not courageous enough to admit it. Probably I am just trying to blindly stick to my religion. Can we resuscitate Islam? That's the question for me today.   

I responded:   

Dear Haifa,  

Why do you want to resuscitate this monster? Our problem today is that there are some Muslims who try to resuscitate Islam. That is why we are experiencing so much terror and murder. You and I must not attempt resuscitating Islam. On the contrary, we must hammer a stake into its heart and make sure it never raises its head again. This beast was a bloodsucking monster from the start. What is there to resuscitate? What you probably meant is reform, but we already talked about that too.    

Finally good news from Haifa:  

Dear Ali.  

After fierce discussions my husband and I decided to leave Islam and stop helping this monster. It's useless and a total waste of time. My daughter said she already left Islam and just waited for her parents to do the same.  

Thanks a lot for your time and attention.  

Keep up your work

Best regards,

Haifa.

 

There are millions of Haifas among Muslims. Islam can’t be reformed. But it can be eradicated. Once the truth is said, this massive edifice of lies called Islam will crumble like a house of cards. Islam is based on lies. The best way to demolish lies is to tell the truth."

Age reversal

One of the most striking features of death is that it reverses age differences.

My brother was 2.5 years older than me. In childhood, this is a serious difference. My brother was always so much taller, stronger, more clever and informed than me, bigger than life. He was an authority, more human and understandable than the divine authority of our parents. I could entrust him things I would never tell my father or even mother. Throughout our early and teenage years, he introduced me to life, helped me discover the world we were living in.

After his death, our age difference slowly diminished. Last year, I reached his age, as if we were twins. Now, I am already 42 while he stays at age 41 forever.

I still cannot really believe it.

Unwelcome visit by Hamas to Bulgaria

(Bulgarian readers can read this post on my Bulgarian blog.)

Last month, three Palestinians, MP from the terrorist organization of Hamas which passes as political party in those far-away places, visited Bulgaria following an invitation by our Center for Middle East Studies. As dnes.dir.bg reported, "the Center's head Mohd Abuasi explained that the purpose of the visit was, after Bulgaria connected the military wing of the Lebanese faction of Hezbollah to the Burgas bombing, to show that our country has a balanced political attitude." In other words, because we have "too little" troubles with Hezbollah, let's invite a few terrorists from Hamas in order to perplex the world nicely.

Finally, the scandal that ensued forced the people from our National Security Agency to earn several cents of their inflated budged and to escort the dear guests to the airport prematurely.

What is actually this Center for Middle East Studies? From its site Bulgarian readers can understand that it is a non-government organization but I cannot see any mention of its funding sources. Random headlines from the site: Will Bulgaria after US and Israeli pressure accuse Hezbollah for the Bulgas bombing?, Palestinian resistance against occupation, Ethnic cleansing of Palestine - chapter 2, Dr. Mohd Abuasi: The terrorists' foreign passports and the Moroccan SIM card exclude Hezbollah. Do you need any more proof that this so-called "center for studies" is a nest of devoted supporters of Islamic fundamentalism and terrorism? I wonder what more is needed to happen - a new bomb or what - to make the security agents investigate this nest and its sponsors and so earn another cent of taxpayers' money.

Anyway, this is unlikely to happen soon because meanwhile protests caused our government to resign. While I was no fan of this government, I am unhappy that it was forced down after it resisted Moscow's pressure to build a nuclear power plant at Belene, and now people around the world are commenting that "this is the result of keeping a balanced budget and low debt".

Burgas bus bombing update: Hezbollah after all

Seven months after the July 18, 2012 bombing of a bus with Israeli tourists which killed five young Israelis (including a pregnant woman) and the Bulgarian Muslim driver, authorities announced news about the perpetrators: Hezbollah, as had been suspected right from the beginning.

Actually, back in July the Israeli prime minister Netanyahu blamed Hezbollah immediately after he heard of the terror act - which was, to my opinion as well to that of many others, irresponsible and unwise. However, at the same time all serious people were 97% sure that, indeed, Hezbollah was behind the attack. The reason: while we have become accustomed to living in a global war, in the months preceding the Burgas bombing all had been quiet except the killing of several Iranian nuclear scientists by Israel. Hence, the gang currently "ruling" Iran was strongly motivated to order its proxy Hezbollah to kill some innocent Israelis in revenge, and did it - on Bulgarian land.

Relatives of the Israeli victims and disabled survivors of the bombing expressed hope that Europe and the world will finally see the truth about Hezbollah. However, EU is still unwilling to call the "God's army" a terrorist organization because of fears that this would complicate relationships with Iran and Lebanon (the latter seems to be, for all intents and purposes, under Hezbollah's full control).

Let me end this post with an amusing detail: Sergei Stanishev, the leader of the Bulgarian Socialist Party since 2001 and the leader of the Party of European Socialists, the second-largest party in the European Parliament since 2011, was so eager to defend Hezbollah that he was featured on Hezbollah's Web site! The image above is a screenshot from the page in question. If you doubt the moral degradation of socialists and their unholy alliance with Islamists, just look at this small piece of evidence.

Disability and disability advocacy in Greek mythology

 

Engravements show Thetis anointing little Achilles with ambrosia and then preparing to put him into the fire. Do not try this at home! Copied from the blog Finitor, the author is unknown to me.
(Bulgarian readers can read the post in Bulgarian here.)

I am now re-reading Greek mythology and I thought about how disability is represented in it. The most obvious example is the god of fire Hephaestos. When his mother Hera saw him after birth, she disliked him because he was weak and bad-looking. She reacted knee-jerk (but apparently with Zeus's consent) by grabbing the infant and throwing him down from Olympus into the sea.

If Hephaestos were mortal, he would share the fate of many weak Spartan babies and his story would have ended here. However, he could not die, no matter how much his parents wished to get rid of him. The fall resulted only in additional disability, making him lame. The sea goddess Thetis (more about her below) found him and took care of him. Hephaestos became a talented artisan, which allowed him to fit the stereotype of the “able disabled” and eventually to return to Olympus. As far as we know, none of his parents ever said "Sorry!".

More interesting is to look at humans in comparison to the anthropomorphic gods. The two population have similar appearance and behaviour and mate freely, hence belong to one species. There is, however, a minor difference: humans are mortal, while gods are not. It is small wonder that gods regard mortality as a disability and wish to cure of it the humans they love, mainly their children. (The child of a mortal and immortal is generally mortal; sometimes, for unspecified reasons, both parents are immortal but have a mortal child - the typical situation with disability in a family.) Zeus can confer immortality to mortals but uses this privilege exclusively for his own children, which motivates other gods to seek "alternative" methods to cure mortality.

One such method is to anoint the mortal child with ambrosia and to put him into a fire so that "to burn away his mortal spirit". If repeated again and again, the procedure allegedly confers immortality. In fact, two application of this treatment have been described - by Thetis and Demeter, and neither was successful. The goddesses claimed that the lack of success was due to interruption of the treatment by surprise intervention of a stupid mortal parent. If you wish, you may believe them :-). We know, however, how real-life alternative medicine practitioners just love to treat incurable conditions and when fail to cure the patient, attribute the non-success to other people's malice and to the hole in the ozone layer.

Thetis, the saviour and foster mother of Hephaestos, later married the mortal Peleus for reasons varying in different versions of the myth but certainly not based on love. The couple had a son - Achilles, the future hero of the Troyan War. The mother who had before shown so much selfless understanding and common sense to her disabled foster child, coped much worse when disability came home. She could not accept her child's mortality, dooming herself to spectacular parenting failure. To begin with, she began the fire-and-ambrosia procedure without telling the father. However, one night Peleus saw little Achilles in the fire and drew his sword against Thetis. Offended, she left the family home forever.

So far, the story seems to develop generally OK. Unfortunately, Thetis didn't sever ties with her son altogether but paid him regular visits that frustrated the formation of his personality. The boy imbibed from his mother the impression of being defective and ill-fated and grew up deeply unhappy (his very name means  “greef of the tribe“). When recruitment for the Troyan War began, Thetis tried to save her son by dressing him in female clothes and hiding him among young women (a situation bringing to mind the movie Tea with Mussolini). Finally, Achilles was found out and sent to the front but there again failed to cut his umbilical cord. Even the briefest summaries of the Iliad describe him as an infantile, egocentric, cruel and unrestrained mama's boy who thinks only of himself and reacts to every problem by going to Mommy, crying in her lap and asking for help. This is in apparent contrast with the noble personality of his antagonist Hector who was spared the poor luck to have a god in the family.

Long before these events, the goddess of harvest Demeter, while wandering incognito in search of her missing daughter, settled in the home of a mortal family and got attached to them. Wishing to do them some good, she secretly started to immortalize by ambrosia and fire the family's baby son Demophon. One night, the boy's mother saw her and reacted fiercely. Demeter stopped the treatment and the child remained mortal. In a more sinister version of the myth, the surprised goddess failed to take the little boy out of the fire in time and he burned to death.

In these two cases, we can see a pattern of traits known to us from the approach of present-day alternative medicine to disability: the treatment is applied exclusively to young children; it is considered efficient by those applying it, although there is not a single documented case of success; the treated condition is perceived by those having it as their trait, rather than a defect; it seems incurable and, moreover, if a cure was possible at all, it would mean replacement of the treated personality by another one (what exactly will remain of a mortal if you burn away "his mortal spirit"?); the treatment horrifies and shocks every unbiased observer; and not only doesn't it bring the desired result but also harms the patient and can even endanger his life.

Finally, Demeter found another way to help the hospitable family and the whole mankind. She gave wheat grains to Demophon's brother Triptolemus and sent him to teach people agriculture. The plant in question is usually translated as "wheat" or "corn" but most likely was barley - the main wheat culture in ancient Greece. The fact that Triptolemus rather than Demophon was chosen for the mission makes us think that the alternative treatment must really have been lethal. However, some good finally came out of Demeter's too-late wisdom.

By giving barley to mankind, Demeter didn't get in trouble because by this time Zeus and other gods had already recognized the right of humans to adequate nutrition and new technologies. However, when Prometheus gave fire to humans, the dominant ideology was very different. The Greek myth of Prometheus was assembled from three parts: the first sacrifice (most likely original Greek contribution), the theft of fire (borrowed from Caucasian mythology) and the flood (borrowed later from Sumerian-Akkadian epic). Reading the most popular second part, we can ask why Prometheus took fire either from the Sun's chariot or from the hearth of Zeus of Hephaestos, rather than using his own hearth (which he presumably had) or, even better, teaching humans on the spot how to light a fire. The answer is that his Caucasian prototype stole fire from gods for his own community and, hence, controlled fire as poorly as those to whom he was bringing it. In this version, the myth has psychological plausibility - self-sacrifice for one's own community is not rare and is encouraged in all cultures, especially early ones.

The Greek myth changes the culture hero's affiliation: he is a god, although second-class, and "steals" the fire from his community to give it to another one - the humans. Self-sacrifice for another community is much less common than for one's own and is not encouraged; in fact, many cultures, especially early ones, appreciate their members by the damage they inflict on other communities. Prometheus, however, had a personal reason to help humans, though this is never pointed out: while he and his wife were immortal, their son Deucalion was mortal. There are no data that the child was ever subjected to alternative-medical experiments. Instead, Prometheus addressed the real problem: that the community to which his son belonged was in a miserable plight and authorities insisted to keep things that way.

Humans, however, managed to start some animal husbandry. Zeus reacted to this by calling a "conference" to regulate the relations between mortals and gods. His idea was to force humans to make sacrifices (which had never before been done). This way, the meat would be offered to the gods, while humans would remain on vegetarian diet, plus the horns and hooves. However, when somebody had to show how to do the sacrifice, Zeus made a very poor decision, entrusting the task to Prometheus. The latter divided the sacrificed animal into two parts and offered Zeus to choose the better one for the gods. The first part included the nutritional stuff (meat and organs) covered by the unpleasant-looking stomach, while the second one was bones masked by fat. Zeus failed to see the trick in time and grabbed the bones, setting a precedent for future sacrifices. Angry, he declared that humans would never have fire. Prometheus, however, gave them fire and (in most versions of the myth) also other technologies. This time, he didn't get away with a suspended sentence.

The story has a sequel in next generation. Decades later, Zeus decided to make a flood with the usual excuse that humans were sinners. This was, by conservative estimates, his third genocide against mankind. Warned by Prometheus, Deucalion and his wife prepared a wooden chest and survived. After that, Zeus offered to fulfil a wish of them. His intention apparently was that they would wish immortality and this way he would get rid of the last couple potential founders of human population without staining his hands with their blood. From the viewpoint of a divine non-disabled individual, what else could be the dream of disabled people if not being cured from their disabilities and becoming like him? Zeus, however, should have learned his lesson from other similar cases that it is risky to promise someone to grant his wish because he may not wish what you wish him to wish. This was exactly what happened with Deucalion: he wished the Earth to be populated by humans again. Strangely, this act of self-advocacy made Zeus acquiesce and concede. While he continued to treat individual humans nastily, he never again tried to exterminate mankind or hinder its progress.

Pakistani heroes fighting polio murdered by the Taliban

Photo: People carry the coffin of Lubna Mahmood (26), an aid worker. Copied from 3news, original source Reuters

About this outrageous crime, let me first quote the Jan. 3 3news report Pakistanis bury slain teachers, aid workers, by Inam Ur Rehman:

"Hundreds of villagers in northwest Pakistan turned out Wednesday to bury five female teachers and two health workers who were gunned down a day earlier by militants in what may have been the latest in a series of attacks targeting anti-polio efforts in the country.

The seven had worked at a community centre in the town of Swabi that included a primary school and a medical clinic that vaccinated children against polio. Some militants oppose the vaccination campaigns, accusing health workers of acting as spies for the US and alleging the vaccine is intended to make Muslim children sterile.

As mourners carried the coffins through the town for burial Wednesday, family and friends expressed horror that such an attack had struck their community.

"I told her many times at home `be careful as we are poor people and take care of yourself all the time,'" said Fazal Dad, whose daughter was among the seven killed. "And always in response she said: `Father, if I am not guilty, no one can harm me.'"

The group was on their way home from the community centre where they were employed by a non-governmental organisation when their vehicle was attacked Tuesday. The four militants on motorcycles spared the young son of one of the women who was riding in the van, pulling him from the vehicle before spraying it with bullets. The driver survived and was being treated at a Peshawar hospital..."

Below - the viewpoint of the world medical community, from the Jan. 5 Lancet editorial Global polio eradication: not there yet

"...Recently, the global effort to eradicate polio has suffered devastating setbacks. In mid-December, nine health workers were shot dead while travelling from house to house to administer polio vaccine to children during the national anti-polio campaign in Pakistan. And on Jan 1, six female Pakistani aid workers and a male doctor were shot dead... Owing to the safety concerns, the UN was forced to halt its participation in the vaccination campaign, and the campaign itself has been suspended temporarily by the Government of Pakistan and the affected provinces.

...Most of the health workers who were killed were women, and the youngest was a schoolgirl aged 17 years. Female health workers are standing fearlessly and selflessly on the frontline of Pakistan's war against polio, because culturally only women are allowed to enter into houses to talk to mothers and vaccinate their children. Last June, in Federally Administered Tribal Areas, the Pakistani Taliban banned polio vaccination in retaliation for the use of unmanned drones by the USA. It is of deep concern that women who stand for something big have become the Pakistani Taliban's target. Female polio health workers are one example; the schoolgirl Malala Yousafzai, whom the Taliban shot in the head in October for campaigning for access to education—another essential ingredient in promoting children's health—is another...

 

Heidi Larson, an anthropologist who studies public trust in vaccines and immunisation at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, pointed out that the killings of health workers in Pakistan could be a “game changer”... She compared it with the 2003-04 immunisation boycott in northern Nigeria, led by religious and political leaders, who claimed that the oral polio vaccine could cause sterility. This boycott led to poliovirus not only rebounding in Nigeria, but also spreading to 15 African countries and to Indonesia...

 

To eradicate polio, the work that the brave polio health workers died for must be continued in 2013..."

I am skeptical about bumetanide treatment of autism

Let me first disclaim that, while I can publish enough scientific articles to match my job description, I do not consider myself really worth the honorary qualification of a "scientist". Nevertheless, I often use the opportunity to give my twopence on scientific subjects and on the use of science to make life better.

In the December 2012 issue of Translational Psychiatry, E. Lemonnier et al. published an article titled A randomised controlled trial of bumetanide in the treatment of autism in children. The team claims to have tested the diuretic bumetanide by a double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trial on a group of 60 autistic children aged 3-11 and to have achieved significant improvements. The presumed mechanism of action involves GABA-ergic neurons.

My intuition says simple stuff given orally is, to say the least, highly unlikely to bring improvement in autism spectrum disorders or other conditions based on fundamentally different wiring of the nervous system. Any study reporting such improvement immediately switches my alarms on. And when I read the actual report, I typically find more alarm-switchers.

In previous years, I have written two posts on what I consider quackery concerning another condition - attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). My 2008 post I am skeptical about food additives - hyperactivity link featured the theories that ADHD was caused by "food additives" (?!) or TV watching. My 2011 post ADHD quackery in scientific journal, again addressed the idea to treat ADHD with restricted elimination diets. The stidies I criticized in these posts, similarly to the bumetanide treatment mentioned above, were all published in respected peer-reviewed scientific journals. Unfortunately, this doesn't automatically guarantee good science, let alone good ethics.

Let me cite these older texts. From the 2008 post: "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?"

From the 2011 post: "People of science have a saying that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Any claims for successful treatment of a socially important condition are extraordinary... 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"."

For the record, while none of the crazy hypotheses criticized in these two posts of mine has been specifically and inequivocally disproven, they have not been confirmed, either. The 2011 review by T. E. Froehlich et al. Update on Environmental Risk Factors for Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder discusses a total of 26 (!) environmental factors seriously considered as contributing to ADHD. Most of these factors are ubiquitous, e.g. "Prenatal Caffeine Exposure" and "“Western” Dietary Patterns". Anybody with even rudimentary background and understanding of scientific research will immediately figure out that we are still deep in the woods. I would add that the only useful information in the cited review is the brief mentioning of "ADHD heritability estimates of 60% to 80%".

Double-blind, placebo-controlled trials are rightly considered the gold standard of clinical research. However, I am putting the bar for the gold standard higher. To satisfy my requirements, a study must also:

1) Be done on animals first, unless suitable animal models don't exist, and
2) For life-long conditions, include adult subjects, unless there are very strong reasons to believe that the proposed methods would not work for adults.

These two requirements were not met by the recent study on bumetanide treatment of autism. Explaining their hypothesis in the Introduction chapter, the authors wrote, "GABAergic signals are altered in autism as evidenced by the following: The excitation/inhibition ratio is modified in experimental models..." (5 references cited). However, to my best knowledge, the researchers never tried to test their working hypothesis on these models that so wonderfully provided argumentation to start an experiment on human beings. Also, the authors did not recruit autistic adults for their study. They recruited children aged 3-11. If their idea was to interfere with the full development of the autism spectrum disorder, they should have taken children between 1.5 and 4 years. At the age of 11, autism is considered as fully established as at age 20. Why, then, not recruit adults? I'll tell you why. Because it would be difficult to convince adults to volunteer for such a study, while many parents are happy to put their children through it. In other words, the study was based on the worrying tendency of parents of disabled children to make for their children choices that nobody ever makes for himself.

Are we still in the Dark Ages of scientific ethics?

On animals first!

(Bulgarian readers can read the same post in my Bulgarian blog.)

During the Socialist era, there was rich folklore of political jokes in Bulgaria. One of them was about an old woman who went to the dictator Todor Zhivkov with a personal request but, because of age-related cognitive decline, couldn't immediately remember what it was. Zhivkov tried to help:


"Is your pension too small?"

"Oh no, it is quite OK. I buy bread and yoghurt every day and sausages "Dog's joy" every week."

"Then perhaps you have a housing problem?"

"Oh no, I own a one-bedroom flat. I share it with my son and daughter in-law and my grandson, and we are very happy together. I wanted just to ask you something, Comrade Zhivkov, but what was it? Oh, I remembered. Who has invented socialism as a system - politicians like you or scientists?"

"We, the politicians, have invented it."

"Thank you! This is exactly what I had guessed."

"How did you guess it?"

"Because, if it were the scientists, they would test it on animals first."

I remembered this joke today after talking with a young man who claimed to have been successfully treated with stem cells after a backbone injury. (The experimental treatment of neurological conditions with stem cells was subject of my 2008 post On the stem cell controversy. For more in-depth discussion, see Prometheus's post Stem cell therapy for autism.)

The former patient claimed that his arms, completely immobilized by the trauma, recovered fully after the "treatment". (I am calling him patient, although some more suitable words are crossing my mind, such as "survivor" or "victim".)

I pointed out that, although I had searched the scientific literature for stem cell treatment of neurological conditions, I had never found any such papers. Moreover, I had not found even reports of successful animal experiments of this sort.




The young man's reply was amazing. He didn't deny that nobody has so far done successfully on animals what had been done on him, but gave a good reason for this fact - there was allegedly no way to test the treatment on rats and mice because they had a different nervous system!

I said that it is not so different. I added that there is a the general rule: to be taken seriously, any experimental treatment must be first tested successfully on animal models.

My God, I would never guess that in the 21st century I'd have to explain time and again to intelligent and educated people what even the demented grannie from the old joke had understood! Namely, that before starting an experiment on humans, the same experiment must have been done on animals and must have produced excellent results that must be shown to the entire scientific community by publication in a peer-reviewed journal.

National pride

The image is a painting by present-day Bulgarian artist Ognian Kouzmanov. As far as I know, it has not been inspired by actual people or events.



Bulgaria is infamous for violating the most basic human rights of foreigners seeking refuge or immigration. It still keeps the detention facility featured in my post Prison by any other name published in 2010. In the same year, an innocent pregnant young woman from Armenia was released from the said prison only after a hunger strike, plus a nationwide solidarity campaign.

A year later, in August 2011, I learned from other Bulgarian bloggers about the outrageous treatment of a mixed family by Bulgarian authorities. The case became widely known in Bulgarian public space, but because I am not sure the family would want international publicity, I shall keep them anonymous in this post and have used an artwork instead of their photos for illustration.

A young Nigerian Christian man, after coming to Bulgaria with the intention to seek refuge, found love and married to a Bulgarian woman. His record was clear, so you could think that he would easily become a legal immigrant. However, Bulgarian bureaucrats had a different opinion and refused to legalize his stay in Bulgaria for no apparent reason. So they forced the man to return to Nigeria, separating the young couple.

This absurd situation lasted more than a year. The wife, pregnant by the time of her husband's expulsion, gave birth to a girl which the father could not touch. Finally, she decided to reunite the family by moving to Nigeria with her daughter. There was another little problem - the young mother could not afford the plane tickets. At this point, her blogger friends started a fundraising campaign.

I contributed something which my family budget could bear and wrote a post on Aug. 22, 2011 to alert the readers of my Bulgarian blog. As days were passing, blogger Svetla Encheva, who knew the family personally and had initiated the campaign, wrote that concerned people would do well to donate urgently because plane tickets were expected to double their prices in late September. Thinking of some other couples which all the gold on Earth could not reunite, I decided that our family budget could bear another small donation. Svetla with other activists and friends organized  a fundraising party, an event still uncommon in Bulgaria.

For all this time, not a word about this story appeared in my English blog which you are reading. While I generally avoid appeals for donations here, I have made some exceptions. For example, in early 2010 I wrote a post about how to support Haitian earthquake survivors (though I actually have heavy doubts that money is what Haitians need). However, I decided that the separated family would not be one of these exceptions. The reason was a strange feeling of national pride. I thought that we Bulgarian citizens had been unable to force our government respect the basic rights of people like  this father and his loved ones. If we had proven unable also to collect about 2000 leva (EUR 1000) in real time to reunite the family in exile, this would be eternal shame and solid proof that Bulgarian civil society is nonexistent and the country is just a spot on the map to be avoided at any cost.

The money finally were collected and the mother flew to Nigeria with her baby. Svetla wrote in her post, "First, I miss ... (the mother's name)... Second, I am not sure whether I did the right thing by advising her to depart to Nigeria, instead of encouraging her to continue the struggle here. It was easier for me to raise funds for her travel expenses than to watch her literally collapsing... The fact that we succeeded in reuniting a Bulgarian family outside Bulgaria does not mean that the problem has been solved. Because Bulgarian government continues to separate with impunity families that include Bulgarian citizens..."


I felt proud that we had collected the money. However, similarly to Svetla, I didn't feel quite well about this dubious happy end because it did not solve the principal problem, neither for mixed families in general nor for this family in particular. I was also unhappy that the young mother had been forced to choose between her husband and her country. I was unhappy that the little girl, a EU citizen by birth, had to go to a place like Nigeria, the homeland of murder victim "Adam", in order to be with her dad. Though in this case Nigeria turned out to be more civilized than Bulgaria - it allowed the foreign-born spouse to stay with the native partner. I wondered, what happens to mixed families if bureaucrats of both countries refuse to let the foreigner stay? Where should such families live - on Mars? With an effort to be optimistic, I wrote, "Let's hope that we shall have an occasion to help the family return to Bulgaria one day!"

After that, I often wondered what was happening to them. The mother's e-mail had become known to me during the fundraising, but I didn't want to invade her privacy and preferred to check Svetla's blog for updates. Finally, in July, I saw what I wanted: a post reporting that the family was finally back in Bulgaria and the father had obtained a legal status. Of course they are likely to have further troubles with bureaucracy. Moreover, people like this father and his daughter are in the role of trailblazers forced to endure and fight the racism of our backward society. But for now, we have a true happy end and I hope that after all they will have a good life in Bulgaria.

The Dark Ages of scientific ethics

In modern scientific research, a lot of time, efforts and money is used to satisfy ethical requirements. Much of it seems to me pure waste, especially concerning the humane treatment of animals. However, when we feel annoyed by the unreasonable obstacles and neverending paperwork, it helps to remember the dawn of modern science when ethical constraints were nonexistent and realize that today's situation is progress after all.

The best-known example of ethics violation is Edward Jenner's work with smallpox vaccination. I remember how at university, hearing that Jenner deliberately innoculated first his baby son and then another man's child with smallpox in order to prove that they were immune, and was later awarded a life pension, a friend commented that he should have been given life imprisonment instead. Now, for the purpose of this post, I have learned some ghastly details about Jenner's work on his baby. Quoting from Tom Kerns's article Jenner on Trial, part 2:

"In 1789, when Jenner was 40 years old and married only a little more than a year, there was in Gloucestershire an outbreak of swinepox, a disease very like cowpox except that it attacked pigs rather than cows. Jenner decided (just after he had been elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society) to try immunizing his ten month old son, Edward, Jr, and two of his neighbor's servants, by inoculating them with swinepox. He had learned well from his famous teacher, Dr John Hunter, that one will learn more by "trying the experiment" rather than by just speculating about it. So Jenner performed the experiment by making a small scratch on the servants' and the baby's arms with a lancet and then infecting the scratch "with matter from a pustule of the baby's nurse, who had caught the swinepox infection." Eight days later baby Edward took sick and developed sores, but then (as anticipated) later recovered. Some months after that his father attempted to deliberately infect him (and the nurse also) with smallpox itself, not just once, but five times, in order to test the efficacy of the immunization. No smallpox symptoms of any sort ever developed. The porcination - dare we call it - "took." The protection was effective. Then, two years later, Jenner again challenged his son with smallpox, this time, however, with unhappy results.

This time there was a reaction, and a severe one, but not [probably] from the smallpox. The inoculation material turned out to be contaminated - a constant danger that later threatened to undermine Jenner's work altogether. Young Edward contracted a fever and his arm swelled all the way to the armpit. But he quickly recovered, and a year later Jenner inoculated him with smallpox once again. And once more there was no reaction. Apparently, the Swine-pox protected against smallpox.

Unfortunately, however, in the years following these experiments, young Edward "became a sickly child and exhibited signs of mild mental retardation," though there is no direct evidence that these sequelae were related to the inoculation experiments. Young Edward unfortunately died at the age of 21 from tuberculosis. His father's grief was severe."

I think no comment is needed.

Jenner's Wikipedia page gives a little known detail about the later experiment on 8-yr-old James Phipps: Phipps was the son of Jenner's gardener. So we have all reasons to think that Jenner abused his position of employer to press his gardener into surrendering the boy for dangerous experimentation.

Another example of ethics violation (or plain nonexistence) is the story of "closing" the life cycle of pork tapeworm Taenia solium. The quote below is from Hunter's Tropical Medicine (ed. G. T. Strickland), 7th edition (1988), p. 843, chapter 101. Larval cestode infections (by P. B. McGreevy and G. S. Nelson):

"In 1850, Von Siebold suggested that "bladder worms," which were found frequently in animals and occasionally in humans, were the larval stages of adult tapeworms. He confirmed this in 1852 by feeding hydatid cysts to dogs and recovering adult Echinococcus. The most dramatic demonstration of this alteration of generations was provided by Friedrick Kuchenmeister in 1853 when he fed bladder worms from a pig to a convict who was "scheduled to be dispatched from this life to death by the Guillotine." At autopsy, the adult tapeworm Taenia solium was recovered from the intestine."

While the prisoner's fate was hardly much worsened by forcing him to eat tapeworm larvae, my gut feeling is that it is deeply wrong to do this.

Moreover, in the described form, the experiment doesn't prove much. It is quite possible that the poor man had been host of the adult tapeworm all along. To prove anything, you must feed bladder worms to a group of convicts and later to compare their autopsies to those of a control group. In fact, Kuchenmeister's Wikipedia page reports that he did the experiment on a group of convicts on death row, but again, no controls are mentioned.

How do you think, did Kuchenmeister try to obtain any sort of informed consent from his subject(s)?

Justice for Amir Jennings

Amir Jennings shortly before his disappearance, photo copied from wltx.com



Almost a year ago, I wrote about the disappearance of then 18-month-old Amir Jennings from South Carolina. His mother Zinah did not report him missing and when questioned, refused to reveal what had happened to him. To me, and not only to me, the entire case chillingly resembled the story of Casey Anthony, unreasonably acquitted for the murder of her 2-yr-old daughter Caylee. This was what I, and not only I, had feared: another mother wishing to get rid of her unwanted toddler had been encouraged by Anthony's "not guilty" verdict and emulated her, hoping to get away with her child's "disappearance".

This post is a tribute to Amir Jennings and therefore shows his picture. My first post did not include such an image. Even if my blog was popular among Americans, I knew the photo would be of little use for the search, because by the time Amir would be found, he would have lost all resemblance to it. He hasn't been discovered yet, and most likely will never be. Caylee's remains were miraculously spotted months after her disappearance, in a swamp - a bag of bones carrying marks of gnawing by wild animals. Just try to look at the world through the eyes of a detective and you will see vast and unaccessible spaces hiding bodies of victims and weapons of crime.

As months were passing, I periodically checked the Web for updates. And the autumn brought them. While everybody was sure that little Amir was no longer among us, prosecutors didn't dare to press murder charges in the absence of a body. So Zinah Jennings was charged with "unlawful conduct toward a child", an expression in US law apparently used for parents allowing or making their children disappear. On Sept. 7, the jury agreed on "guilty" after less than three hours of deliberation, and the judge gave Zinah the maximum sentence of 10 years in prison.

Let me praise the jurors who kept their duty and made the right decision. Of course, a decade behind bars is too little for a monstrous crime like this. Still, the sentence will serve a purpose. Zinah Jennings was pregnant when arrested and later gave birth to a girl. I don't know what will happen to this baby, but at least she will be spared her brother's fate. And at least, as long as Zinah is imprisoned, she won't be able to deliver and kill more babies. Most importantly, other potential child murderesses may be taught a lesson: precedents may be precedents, but Casey Anthony's acquittal does not necessarily mean open season on US children. If you follow her footsteps, you may get a different verdict at the end of the day.

Rest in peace, Amir. On behalf of all who cherish human life, and all who have suffered from evil: We miss you.