medicine
oracknows | February 14, 2010A couple of months ago, I wrote about a case that demonstrated conclusively just how easily even respected researchers can be taken in by psuedoscience. Of course, I was not alone. A number of others, including Steve Novella, James Randi, bioethicist Art Caplan, Hank Schlinger, and myself, recognized the reports that a Belgian man named Rom Houben, who had been in a coma for 23 years, was actually conscious and could communicate with the help of a "facilitator" named Linda Wouters was in fact nothing more than the example of the quackery known as facilitated communication. This is a…
palmd | February 13, 2010What constitutes quackery depends very much on how quackery is defined. If part of that definition is making false or unsubstantiated claims about a medical product you are selling, then Dr. Rolando Arifiles is a quack.
Dr Arafiles and his cronies in the Winkler County government may not realize is that this "internet" thing works both ways. It may increase your ability to sell fake cures, but it also opens you up to being discovered. Of course, increasing your profile by abusing the legal system to quiet critics doesn't help.
The FDA and FTC aren't too happy about the proliferation of…
oracknows | February 13, 2010The silliness about Morgellons and Marc Neumann continues. This time around, it's someone sending me e-mail from Dr. Rolando Arafile's website. In my e-mail last night I found this gem:
From: "Health2Fit" health@health2fit.net
Subject: Violation
Date: February 12, 2010 3:54:59 PM EST
To: "Orac" orac@scienceblogs.com
Please remove our videos that you have on your blog. There are not there with any permissions.
I will not get into the politics of all this, everyone has an opinion, just remove the videos.
Webmaster
H2F
My response follows:
Dr. Arafiles (or is it Mr. Neumann?):
Three points:
1.…
oracknows | February 13, 2010The utter discrediting and disgrace of Andrew Wakefield, first by the judgment of the General Medical Council against him and then by the retraction of the crown jewel of his respectability his 1998 Lancet paper that sparked the modern anti-vaccine movement and launched a thousand autism quacks. The reaction of the anti-vaccine loons was very predictable, with Jenny McCarthy and Jim Carrey producing a hilariously paranoid conspiracy theory and J.B. Handley following suit with more monkey business. Truly, the downfall of their hero, which has been a long time in coming but has finally arrived…
palmd | February 12, 2010Human papillomavirus (HPV) is a fascinating little bugger. Certain strains can interfere with tumor suppressor genes leading to cancer, especially cervical, anal, and some mouth cancers. Other strains cause genital warts. The vaccine offered in the U.S. (Gardasil) protects against the two strains that cause most cancers and against two strains causing warts. The vaccine has the potential to change the way our population is affected by these diseases.
But we are still learning more about this virus. We know that HPV can be transmitted even without visible lesions. But where are these…
oracknows | February 12, 2010Kim Wombles over at Countering Age of Autism pointed this out:
Why, you ask, is this whole 13 monkeys, 14 monkeys irrelevant? Well, see, here's where it gets really interesting. If you want to read this study, you go here: the 14 studies site by Handley. Thoughtful House has a press release on how it was published online in Septermber 2009. I went to the journal itself, though, straight to Neurotoxicology to look for the article since it's getting all this attention from the anti-vaxers as proof that it is proof of mercury causing autism. Guess what? It isn't there! Don't believe me? It's…
oracknows | February 12, 2010It's been a busy week between blogging about Andrew Wakefield and covering the Winkler County Nurse trial, which ended with the jury's acquitting Anne Mitchell, RN after less than an hour of deliberation. Consequently, I'm a bit tired today. Fortunately, there's the mail bag, the perfect lazy blogging tool that will allow me to generate an amusing post in mere minutes, given the sheer hilarity of the "feedback" I'm about to show you. While it may be true that PZ gets the best crank mail, I do get my share.
Remember how I blogged about Dr. Arafiles, the doctor whose chummy relationship with…
tqa | February 11, 2010
The title on this one pretty much says it all - after less than an hour of deliberation, the jury in the trial of Anne Mitchell came back with a not guilty verdict. The civil suit against the doctor, hospital, sheriff, district attorney, and county will presumably now come out of the holding pattern it's been in while the criminal case was pending.
oracknows | February 11, 2010Well, that didn't take long, at least not once the trial ended.
It's good to see the jury act with such alacrity to find Anne Mitchell not guilty and send a strong message to the hapless Dr. Rolando Arafiles and his errand boy Sheriff Robert L. Roberts, who spent more effort tracking down a nurse doing her duty than I bet he spends tracking down thieves and murderers, as well as the equally clueless County Attorney Scott Tidwell. It's good to see that justice was finally done in the end, but it's absolutely horrifying that it took so many months for it to happen. This is a prosecution that…
oracknows | February 11, 2010
"Would you like to touch my monkey? Touch him! Love him!"
J. B. Handley wants to touch see Andrew Wakefield's monkeys.
How do I know this? Well, there's just the little matter of his entitling his most recent excretion of flaming stupidity Show me the monkeys! and repeating "Show me the monkeys!" eleven times in the course of his post. My guess is that J.B. was trying to get a vibe going, perhaps like a preacher giving a sermon with cadences leading up to repeating the same phrase over and over again, with the intended effect of getting the audence to repeat the phrase when he says it, with…
oracknows | February 10, 2010Well, well, well, well.
I should have know that sooner or later a certain group would weigh in on the trial of Anne Mitchell, RN, whose malicious prosecution is a result of a doctor who peddles woo using his connection with Boss Hogg Winkler County Sheriff Robert L. Roberts to find out who had complained against him and prosecute her criminally, trying to throw her in jail for up to ten years for doing her duty and reporting this doctor's questionable activities. Before I reveal what crank group has weighed in, given that its identity will not come as much, if any, of a surprise, let's just…
tqa | February 10, 2010
The more I look at the circumstances that lead up to the criminal prosecution of a nurse in Texas for informing the State Medical Board of her concerns with a local physician, the more I wind up wondering just how things wound up where they are. It's easy - and far from inaccurate - to view this as a case of the good ol' boy network gone bad, or as an example of a quack doctor twisting the system to turn the accusers into the accused. The more I think about it, though, the more I'm starting to think that we've really been looking at part of the picture. We've been missing something that's…
palmd | February 10, 2010I get a lot of email asking me about various alternative therapies and supplements. A recurring theme on this blog has been the hyperbolic claims of alternative practitioners and supplement makers, and while I can't answer every email, I can at least address some of them in the blog. Supplements are often marketed using unsupported health claims to which is appended the Quack Miranda Warning, essentially allowing the makers to say that the pill will have such and such a benefit, while simultaneously denying any responsibility for the claim. Since the FDA isn't examining these claims, it's…
palmd | February 10, 2010There have been some disturbing rumors circulating about Dr. Rolando Arafiles, the Texas doctor who enlisted a local sheriff to harass and ultimately prosecute local nurses. The nurses filed anonymous complaints with the state medical board about Arafiles' practices, and one of them is now in court facing felony charges for doing her job.
One of the complaints that nurse Anne Mitchell registered was regarding Dr. Arafiles alleged that he was hawking supplements to patients. While this is not necessarily illegal, it is ethically questionable, and if the patients were in the ER and not under…
oracknows | February 10, 2010While I'm at it blogging about the trial of Anne Mitchell, the nurse who is being maliciously prosecuted for having reported a doctor who hawks serious woo in the form of colloidal silver for H1N1 and who also happens to be buddies with the County Sheriff, I thought it would be worthwhile to post this update from ABC News:
I also want to report report on the latest update I've received from the Texas Nurses Association, which is covering the trial every day:
THANK YOU to everyone who has contributed to the TNA Legal Defense Fund in support of Anne Mitchell. A number of donations have come…
oracknows | February 9, 2010Remember how I've been following the story of two Texas nurses who were fired and prosecuted on trumped up charges, first in September and then a couple of days ago as the case went to trial? Of course you do. I made it very, very plain that I view this malicious prosecution to be a horrific miscarriage of justice that will have a potentially grave chilling effect on nurses who witness physician misconduct and want to report it. After all, Anne Mitchell, RN and Vickilyn Galle, RN found themselves facing jail for doing nothing more than living up to their professional code of ethics when they…
tqa | February 9, 2010
As some of you might know, there is a very scary criminal case currently underway out in West Texas. A registered nurse named Anne Mitchell is currently standing trial. She's been charged with misuse of official information, which is a felony carrying a 10-year maximum sentence. She allegedly committed this crime by sending a complaint to the State Medical Board, because she was concerned about what she believed to be a pattern of sub-standard care and ethics on the part of Dr. Rolando Arafiles, a physician at the hospital where she worked.
Dr. Arafiles, according to the complaint filed by…
clock | February 9, 2010At Pizza Lunch talks, we hear a lot about efforts to decipher the physical world. But what about psychological realms? How do you measure them, especially on a large scale among people scarred by trauma? At noon on Thursday, Feb. 18, come hear Dr. Jeffrey Sonis discuss "Cambodian Attitudes and Mental Health on the Eve of the Khmer Rouge Trials." The UNC-Chapel Hill physician and public health researcher is studying how Cambodians are responding to the genocide trials.
American Scientist Pizza Lunch is free and open to science journalists and science communicators of all stripes. Feel free to…
oracknows | February 9, 2010About a month ago I wrote about how the grande dame of the anti-vaccine movement, Barbara Loe Fisher, is using the legal system to try to silence and intimidate Dr. Paul Offit. In it, I described an earlier lawsuit in which Dear Leader J.B. Handley sued Dr. Offit, and Dr. Offit ended up settling. Unfortunately, I made the mistake of taking Dear Leader's word for what the settlement was, and Dr. Offit has corrected me:
Thanks to Respectful Insolence for the support in the upcoming lawsuit filed against me by Ms. Fisher. I would point out only that the details of the "settlement" with Mr.…
oracknows | February 9, 2010If there is one aspect of "complementary and alternative" medicine (CAM) that can puzzle advocates of science-based medicine, it's why, given how nonsensical much of it is given that some of it actually goes against the laws of physics (think homeopathy or distance healing), CAM is so popular. Obviously one reason is that there are conditions for which SBM does not have any "magic bullet" treatments. Diabetes, heart disease, other chronic illnesses, SBM can manage them quite well, but it can't cure them. Then there are conditions that science doesn't understand very well, conditions like, for…