Who is to blame for all the measles? | The Poxes Blog

There’s a massive outbreak of measles underway in China. It’s big, really big:

“In the first five months of 2014, China has reported nearly 36,000 cases of measles, well over the 27,646 cases reported for all of 2013 and almost six times the number reported in 2012.”

In a country with that many people (over 1.3 billion at last count), 36 thousand cases may not seem like a lot. It’s 0.003%, but remember that we don’t do math that way in epidemiology. We divide 36,000 by the number at risk, and the number at risk is indicated by the number who are not vaccinated or have lost their immunity due to disease (e.g. cancer) or treatment for a disease (e.g. cancer, again). That number, the number at risk, is pretty much uncertain because the public health infrastructure in China is, well, lacking.

But this post is not about China. It’s about the good ol’ US of A. We have a somewhat robust public health system that, in my humble opinion and when it comes to immunization, is probably up there with the best in the world. There is no child in this country that does not have access to immunizations. If you have a child in the most remote corners of this country, you can get them vaccinated at little to no cost, especially against the killers like whooping cough and measles. So why do we have measles making a comeback here in the US? Is it just the anti-vaccine crew that have done this to us? (Don’t be fooled, it is us, you and me, that will be affected if vaccine-preventable diseases make a comeback.)...

Read the full story by Reuben on Who is to blame for all the measles? | The Poxes Blog

What really annoys scientists about the state of the climate change debate?

“Don’t shoot the messenger,” so the saying goes.

But what if that message warns we might want to rethink that whole fossil fuel burning thing pretty quick because it could seriously alter civilization and the natural world for centuries to come, and not in a good way?

Time to get the bullets out and start firing, obviously.

Climate scientists have been trying to dodge, catch or deflect those bullets for decades.

They are now all too used to being shot at, kicked and maligned as their findings are misunderstood, misrepresented, trivialised or booted around like footballs between politicians and other warring ideological factions and self-interested industry groups.

But if they had to pick one thing, what is it that really gets them annoyed?

When the public tries to understand the implications of their scientific findings – or just understand the findings themselves – what’s the most common mistake they see?

When the media gets hold of their findings, what makes climate scientists chuck a shoe, ice core or physics textbook at the screen in frustration?

 I decided to ask a few leading climate scientists from around the globe to articulate that one thing that leaves them totally tacked off.

Some struggled to pick only a single bugbear (one even called to apologise for taking too long, so spoilt for choice were they), others took the chance to uncompromisingly unload their frustrations.

Here’s what they had to say...

Read the rest on Skeptical Science: What really annoys scientists about the state of the climate change debate?

Water memory tests all wet: A reassessment of the Benveniste experiments by a D.V.M. | Association for Science and Reason

An issue of Ontario Skeptic contained a letter from Paul Greenwood, (“Science is open to radical, new ideas”) reporting on the “water memory” experiments of Dr. J. Benveniste, and offering the publication of these experiments as evidence of the willingness of the scientific community to examine new and unconventional ideas.


As most skeptics will realize, the claim that solutions can retain their effect when diluted many times, and indeed that the effect increases with dilution, is one of the fundamental tenets of the fringe medicine of homeopathy, but runs contrary to current knowledge in chemistry and biology. The results of this experiment, if validated, would therefore have lent credence to the claims of homeopaths.

However, additional information has come to light which forces us to reassess this research and its publication.
The initial report appeared in the June 30, 1988 issue of the British journal Nature, Vol. 333. Its results were sufficiently unusual that the editor of Nature began that issue with an editorial titled, “When to believe the unbelievable”. It is worth quoting extensively from that editorial...

Water memory tests all wet: A reassessment of the Benveniste experiments by a D.V.M. | Association for Science and Reason

Laurie J Willberg exposes the skeptic agenda

It’s looking remarkably like the brains – if you’ll excuse the expression – behind the Extraordinary Medicine webshite is none other than Laurie J Willberg. She certainly writes a helluva lot for it: long rambling posts that any other blogger would split up into several separate ones. An extreme example of this is the would-be satirical exposé entitled Media Skeptics : A Popcorn Gallery, which would provide enough material for 3 or 4 normal posts, even for Orac. It’s got her name on the byline in the middle of it, so I assume the whole purulent screed is hers.

Now, remember: Ms Willberg claims to be a journalist. Therefore, the quality of her research and writing are both very much under scrutiny. Feel free to snigger in the comments, as there’s so much literary incompetence there’s no way I can encompass it all. To compound this, the meta info on the site boasts the keywords “literature, author, writing, entertainment, book, stories, narration, novel”. No, seriously. Go see for yourselves. Meanwhile, I’m … Continue reading →

The post Laurie J Willberg exposes the skeptic agenda by Anarchic Teapot first appeared on Plague of Mice .

Laurie J Willberg on the rebound effect

Homeopaths are great ones for a complete lack of self-awareness. Recently, a couple of notorious yapping dogs on Twitter gave us their considered legal opinions on this post about Ellen Kramer and her College for Practical Homeopathy: @BrownBagPantry @anarchic_teapot @JeromeJB It's the vile and libellous rant on his blog that's even more outrageous and slimy. — Laurie J. Willberg (@LaurieJWillberg) June 18, 2014 Hermann-Courtney, you’ll recall, is the unpleasant bit of work who tweets that homeopathy can cure rabies and cancer, and then complains bitterly about nasty bullying sceptics asking for evidence. Laurie J Willberg crawled out of the woodwork a few months ago. As I recall, her first tweet to me was an insult. Not complaining, you understand; I don’t give a used anal condom over the opinion of the likes of them. Just setting the scene. That’s Laurie J Willberg there, from her Homeopathy World Community profile (HWC … Continue reading →

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Meet the people who would dictate your health care - WWDDTYDTY

It’s time for the double-barrelled WDDTY-McTaggart spam shoot again. Seriously, what idiot imagined that sending subscribers to one list exactly the same emails from a second list they never signed up for was a smart marketing move? Oh, right, McTaggart. Who else?

McTaggart’s clearly getting jittery, and it’s everybody’s fault but hers that her precious monthly bundle of lies is under  attack. This is just in:

Meet the people who would dictate your health care

Dictate health care? Isn’t that a bit over the top? I haven’t seen anybody in Parliament sponsoring a Bill to prevent people refusing treatment, even for serious conditions, and opting for dumbfuckery.

Meet the people who would dictate your health care � WWDDTYDTY

Nancy Malik isn't even trying to feign good faith - Plague of Mice

While the Blessed McTaggart shrieks “VICTIMISATION” and publishes the names and addresses of random people, because Tesco have reportedly stopped stocking her monthly ill-spelt and worse-written compendium of criminal Stupid – not so much because of skeptic complaints, but because it wasn’t selling – other quacks are also quietly telling large porkies. Take that old favourite Nancy Malik, for example. She’s in fine form right now.

To recap: Nancy Malik claims to be a medical professional and proudly displays her qualifications here. Unfortunately, all her qualifications are in witch-doctoring, aka homeopathy, and therefore not only is she not a medical professional, her diplomas aren’t worth a monkey’s. Her blog is entitled Science-based Homeopathy, a clear attempt to ape the far more prestigious and reputable Science-based Medicine. The latter is a group blog, with a number of contributors who are internationally respected for being bloody good at what they do in …Continue reading→

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WDDTY goes “the full Errol” @ Guy Chapman's Blahg

They do say that one should always walk a mile in the other man’s shoes, but this is best not done when the other man is Error “Errol” Denton. WDDTY have, however, chosen to follow the convicted cancer quack down the road of declaring that any scrutiny of thier bogus claims is a personal vendetta, and to retaliate in kind. They don’t seem terribly happy that their rather obvious straw man was summarily demolished yesterday, and their response has been spectacularly vitriolic, not to say batshit insane.

MEET THE PEOPLE WHO WOULD DICTATE YOUR HEALTH CARE

Bzzzzt! Wrong. Our agenda is simple and straightforward...

Read the rest here: WDDTY goes “the full Errol” @ Guy Chapman's Blahg

It's official: WDDTY have lost - WWDDTYDTY

We have arrived at a turning point. Tesco have dropped WDDTY, and the editors know that this is the beginning of the end of their attempt to appear to be a legitimate magazine.he Facebook post captured at right, from WDDTY’s wall, where all dissenting views are ruthlessly excised because free speech. Notice two things:...

Read the full post here: It's official: WDDTY have lost - WWDDTYDTY

Lynne McTaggart and the botched smear campaign

It’s no secret that those who turn a dishonest buck by peddling fuckwittery to the bewildered masses are not above the ad hominem attack, sometimes coming close to outright libel. However, it takes a special kind of Stupid to smear people using doctored copies of images that are not in the public domain. WDDTY, get your arses up here to the front of the class. Do you deny that you recently produced this little gem of puerile whingeing?
Here is the only health information you’d be able to get if Simon Singh & co. http://t.co/7g0nEImESi #supportus pic.twitter.com/kYQcAiOsbc — Lynne McTaggart (@LynneMcTaggart) June 25, 2014
Which is a clumsy ‘shop of the photo here. You will notice that the photographer has reserved full copyright and has not activated licensing. Did you even try to contact him before using his work in a manner I suspect he would not have approved? I … Continue reading →

The post Lynne McTaggart and the botched smear campaign by Anarchic Teapot first appeared on Plague of Mice .

Cancer Sell - People & Power - Al Jazeera English

People & Power goes undercover to investigate the clinics offering cancer patients little but false hope.
By Sarah Macdonald, a reporter on People & Power’s film Cancer Sell.
Last Modified: 12 Jan 2012 15:01

Taking an electric shaver, I ploughed through my hair until it was all gone. I then punched a hole in the side of my handbag, stuck a tiny lens through it, securing it with gaffer tape and drove to the medical clinic in Tijuana, Mexico. The doctor was not expecting me. He emerged from the building in a T-shirt, but sensing a potential client, welcomed me into his office and began explaining how he could save my life.

Last year I was diagnosed with breast cancer. It turned out I had a 13cm tumour in my left breast that seemed to come from nowhere. I underwent chemotherapy, a mastectomy and then intensive radiotherapy that left me drained and exhausted. Fortunately it worked and my condition went into remission, but throughout it all I spent hours on the internet searching for websites that could give me my statistical chances of survival. They always came out at 50/50.

Alongside the cancer chat rooms and online supplements stores I came across a plethora of websites promoting alternative cancer therapy clinics, many based in Tijuana, Mexico...

Read the rest here Cancer Sell - People & Power - Al Jazeera English

The questionable marketing of the Saatchi bill

There’s been a lot of noise on Twitter and elsewhere about the so-called “Saatchi bill”, reportedly a backdoor into legalising quackery on the NHS. There’s a big campaign to get the whole thing voted out on its arse, just click on the link in the image to the left, and you’ll have access to a lot of info, including the reactions of many of the professional organisations and cancer charities likely to be affected by the Bill if ever it passes into law as-is.

Not having the right to vote in the UK, I hadn’t been paying too much attention, as I have plenty of my own troubles at the moment, mostly in big cardboard boxes waiting to be unpacked. Yesterday, someone tweeted a link to Saatchi’s speech to the House of Lords starting off the second reading of the bill in that House. I started to read it, then …

Continue reading →

The post The questionable marketing of the Saatchi bill by Anarchic Teapot first appeared on Plague of Mice .

The campaign against WDDTY continues, says McTaggart

(Also appears in a slightly shorter and less profane version on WWDDTYDTY) Pause, if you will, and drop a piteous tear for poor Lynne McTaggart, Saint and Martyr. She feels Put Upon. She considers she is being Bullied. Her Great Life’s Work is under attack from what sounds like a small group of anti-homeopathy terrorists who will stop at nothing to destroy her. There is a Campaign against WDDTY. For the Blessed McTaggart alone knows the Truth and fears not to speak it. This is why the baying hordes of reason… She’s not fooling anyone, is she? Anyway, this is the rant she just posted on her blog and later sent out by email, via both her personal subscription list and that of WDDTY. Subscribe to one, you get the other anyway. Not very smart, quite possibly not very legal. Also, it calls into question some of her later claims, …
Continue reading →

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The campaign against What Doctors Don’t Tell You Continues

Pause, if you will, and drop a piteous tear for poor Lynne McTaggart, Saint and Martyr. She feels Put Upon. She considers she is being Bullied. Her Great Life’s Work is under attack from what sounds like a small group of anti-homeopathy terrorists who will stop at nothing to destroy her. There is a Campaign against WDDTY. For the Blessed McTaggart alone knows the Truth and fears not to speak it. This is why the baying hordes of reason…She’s not fooling anyone, is she? Anyway, this is the rant she just posted on her blog.

A concerted letter-writing campaign by a handful of very vociferous self-styled ‘skeptics’ has managed to convince Tesco that customers are complaining about What Doctors Don’t Tell You, and the store chain has just agreed to withdraw the magazine from the shelves...

Read the whole story here: The campaign against What Doctors Don’t Tell You Continues

The Burzynski stock buzz

It’s been slightly more than two and a half years since I reviewed the shameless rip-off that is Burzynski Research Institute stock, at that time traded as BZYR.OB, here: Should you invest in Burzynski stock? Recently, I found I had to update the links for that stock, as it had switched from BZYR.OB to BZYR. Putting it down to the stock markets’ secret plan to drive us all bloody mad by doing complete revamps of its nomenclature on a regular basis, I thought no more of it at the time. As an aside, yes: the stock markets really do change that fast. If you work in one, you can come back after your summer break to find the jargon has evolved into something totally unrecognisable during your absence. Translating that shit for expat investors is hellish. Then the news came: the FDA had cravenly given in to pressure. Exactly what … Continue reading →

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