All excerpted posts are © the original author. Please consult their blog for the full story and to comment.

rampant

Saturday 30 September 2017

2017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #39

A chronological listing of news articles posted on the Skeptical Science Facebook page during the past week. 

Editor's Pick

People Are Dying’: Puerto Rico Faces Daunting Humanitarian Crisis
As the full scope of Hurricane Maria's devastation emerges, leaders are calling for urgent help. Many of the risks were spelled out in a 2013 climate assessment.
Puerto Rico Aftermath of Hurricane Maria
Hurricane Maria swept mud and debris down streets and into homes across the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico, home to 3.4 million people, about 44 percent of whom live below the poverty line. Credit: Hector Retamal/AFP/Getty Images
A public health crisis is unfolding in Puerto Rico following Hurricane Maria, as millions of people face a frightening array of urgent dangers, some of which may drag on for weeks or months.
Nearly one week after the storm hit, federal emergency response personnel struggled to make contact with remote communities and restore critical medical infrastructure.
As of Monday, the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), already stretched thin by continuing recovery efforts from Hurricanes Harvey in Texas and Irma in Florida, had yet to reach six communities in Puerto Rico and was just sending its first shipment of water to the remote islands of Vieques and Culebra.
"We are in response mode, and our main priority is saving lives, getting generators to the hospitals, and making sure that there is enough fuel for those generators to run," FEMA spokesperson Jose Davila said.
"It is very bad down there right now," said Sven Rodenbeck, chief science officer for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's 2017 hurricane response. "For the vast majority of the island, there is no power. They have had flooding, and the health care system—many of the clinics and hospitals are closed. A lot of the drinking water systems are not operational, along with the waste water systems."
Carmen Yulín Cruz, the mayor of San Juan, the capital of Puerto Rico, gave a blunt assessment of the situation.
"People are dying," Cruz told CBS news on Tuesday. "This is the reality that we live in, the crude aftermath of a storm, a hurricane that has left us practically paralyzed."
‘People Are Dying’: Puerto Rico Faces Daunting Humanitarian Crisis by Phil Mckenna, Inside Climate News, Sep 27, 2017

Links posted on Facebook

Sun Sep 24, 2017
Mon Sep 25, 2017
Tue Sep 26, 2017
Wed Sep 27, 2017
Thu Sep 28, 2017
Fri Sep 29, 2017
Sat Sep 30, 2017


from Skeptical Science via IFTTT

Lung cancer patients live longer with Chinese herbal medicine… or don’t they?

The claims that are being made for the health benefits of Chinese herbal medicine are impressive. I am not sure that there is even a single human disease that is not alleged to be curable with the use of some Chinese herbal mixture. I find this worrying because some patients might actually believe such outrageous […]

Read the rest here: Lung cancer patients live longer with Chinese herbal medicine… or don’t they?

Friday 29 September 2017

Antivaxers on Twitter: Fake news and Twitter bots – Respectful Insolence

... It turns out that bots are everywhere. It turns out that there is evidence that Twitter is using them too. I shouldn’t be surprised, and I wasn’t really that surprised, but I was disturbed. Earlier this week I came across an article, SocialBots are Pouring the Pseudo into Science. #Vaccines. It was the product of Mentionmapp Analytics, a company that runs a website called Mentionmapp, which is a tool that looks at connections between accounts and advertises itself as making “finding Twitter’s great stuff easier.” It begins... Antivaxers on Twitter: Fake news and Twitter bots – Respectful Insolence

Thursday 28 September 2017

(Site info) Merger with WWDDTYDTY

Owing to circumstances beyond our collective control, ranging from illness to too much work via “Oh look, real people who aren’t spouting dangerous nonsense for money all day long. I want to spend more time with them”, the WWDDTYDTY blog has come to an end...

(Site info) Merger with WWDDTYDTY by Anarchic Teapot first appeared on Plague of Mice.

Dietary supplements: US consumers waste billions of $s

I have often remarked on the fact that, in alternative medicine, more surveys get published than in any other medical field. Typically these surveys are not just useless but overtly counter-productive:

  • they tend to be of very poor quality; 
  • their results are not generalizable and thus meaningless; 
  • they show that a sizable proportion of the […]

Read the rest here: Dietary supplements: US consumers waste billions of $s

Tuesday 26 September 2017

Homeopathy is effective for anxiety and depression disorders!!! Or isn’t it?

The purpose of the study was to compare utilization of conventional psychotropic drugs among patients seeking care for anxiety and depression disorders (ADDs) from general practitioners (GPs) who

  • strictly prescribe conventional medicines (GP-CM), 
  • regularly prescribe homeopathy in a mixed practice (GP-Mx), 
  • or are certified homeopathic GPs (GP-Ho). 
The investigation was an epidemiological cohort study of […]

Read the rest here: Homeopathy is effective for anxiety and depression disorders!!! Or isn’t it?

Sunday 24 September 2017

Encyclopedia of American Loons: #173: Louise Hay

... Louise Hay herself made her success with this kind of bullshit, of course (strongly influenced by “researcher” Ernest Holmes, the delusional Florence Scovel Shinn and snowflake Maharishi Mahesh Yogi) most famously with “You Can Heal Your Life”, from 1984. She is a certified practitioner of “religious science”, mixing Christian fundamentalism with the flakiest ideas from oriental spiritualism, such as reiki. The central tenet of “You Can Heal Your Life” is that those who are sick have themselves to blame for it, and if they are unable to cure themselves, it is because of their psychological shortcomings...

Read the full horror here: Encyclopedia of American Loons: #173: Louise Hay

Bovine mastitis: are homeopathic remedies truly ‘as effective as antibiotics’?

Mastitis is a common disease in dairies. Numerous non-antimicrobial drugs and treatment strategies have been recommended for this condition. Homeopaths in particular have long claimed that their highly diluted remedies are an effective option, and I have reported repeatedly about the evidence – see here, here, and here, for instance. Even though it is far […]

Read the rest here: Bovine mastitis: are homeopathic remedies truly ‘as effective as antibiotics’?

Saturday 23 September 2017

2017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #38

A chronological listing of news articles posted on the Skeptical Science Facebook page during the past week. 

Editor's Pick

August 2017 was second warmest on record
From NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies
GISTEMP LOTI Anomaly Aug 2017
A global map of the August 2017 LOTI (land-ocean temperature index) anomaly, relative to the 1951-1980 August average. Part of Antarctica is gray because data from some stations there were not yet available at the time of this posting. View larger image.
August 2017 was the second warmest August in 137 years of modern record-keeping, according to a monthly analysis of global temperatures by scientists at NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York.
The measured value is consistent with the trend in global average surface temperatures that has been observed during the past few decades. Last month was +0.85 degrees Celsius warmer than the mean August temperature from 1951-1980.
GISTEMP Seasonal Cycle thru Aug 2017
The GISTEMP monthly temperature anomalies superimposed on a 1980-2015 mean seasonal cycle. View larger image
It was surpassed by August 2016, which was still affected by the 2015-2016 El Niño and was 0.99 degrees Celsius warmer than normal. However, August 2017 was about +0.2 degrees warmer than the August following the last large El Niño event in 1997-1998.
The monthly analysis by the GISS team is assembled from publicly available data acquired by about 6,300 meteorological stations around the world, ship- and buoy-based instruments measuring sea surface temperature, and Antarctic research stations.
The modern global temperature record begins around 1880 because previous observations didn't cover enough of the planet. Monthly analyses are sometimes updated when additional data becomes available, and the results are subject to change.

Links posted on Facebook

Sun Sep 17, 2017
Mon Sep 18, 2017
Tue Sep 19, 2017
Wed Sep 20, 2017
Thu Sep 21, 2017
Fri Sep 22, 2017
Sat Sep 23, 2017


from Skeptical Science via IFTTT

Friday 22 September 2017

The European Academies’ Science Advisory Council’s verdict on homeopathy

The European Academies Science Advisory Council (EASAC) is an umbrella organization representing 29 national and international scientific academies in Europe, including the Royal Society (UK) and Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. One of its aims is to influence policy and regulations across the European Union. Now, the EASAC has issued an important and long-awaited verdict on homeopathy […]

Read the rest here: The European Academies’ Science Advisory Council’s verdict on homeopathy

Wednesday 20 September 2017

A $ 200 million donation to medical research is a good thing… or isn’t it?

It has been announced that Susan and Henry Samueli have given US$ 200 million to medical research at the University of California, Irvine (UCI). Surely this is a generous and most laudable gift! How could anyone doubt it?

As with any gift, one ought to ask what precisely it is for. If someone made a […]

Read the rest here: A $ 200 million donation to medical research is a good thing… or isn’t it?

Tuesday 19 September 2017

Gwyneth Paltrow and GOOP are empowering women with psychic vampire repellent | Dr. Jen Gunter

Gwyneth Paltrow and the team at GOOP launched their artisanal, coffee table paywall today.  In the magazine we are treated to GP’s view on health, meaning nasty old doctors with board certifications should stop asking questions and women should just empower themselves with cleanses and detoxes. It doesn’t matter, you see, that science says these things are at best worthless and at worst harmful. I mean bowel perforation? Whatever. Gwyneth wants us to know that she has even studied up and is ready for smart aleck retorts about the liver and kidneys from doctors, biologists, and anyone who has completed 5th grade science because yes, yes my precious that was before we had flame retardants. You see flame retardants and PCBS and heavy metals can only be removed with expensive ingredients, special doctors, and a tube up the ass irrigating your colon. Why would you go to a board certified toxicologist if you suspected some kind of chemical poisoning when there is lemon juice, cayenne pepper, silicone tubing, foam rolling, and infrared saunas?

Read the full post, magnificently laced with Olympic-grade snark: Gwyneth Paltrow and GOOP are empowering women with psychic vampire repellent | Dr. Jen Gunter

Probiotics reverse colon cancer… no, no, no! … I was just kidding

Researchers from Texas have recently shown that the administration of hdc+Lactobacillus reuteri in the gut resulted in luminal hdc gene expression and histamine production in the intestines of Hdc-/- mice. 

Would you conclude from this result that human colon cancer can be reversed or prevented by consuming probiotics?

Probably not!

You would need to be […]

Read the rest here: Probiotics reverse colon cancer… no, no, no! … I was just kidding

Monday 18 September 2017

AVN now trying to access private information about nursing home deaths | reasonable hank

Stop the Australian (Anti)Vaccination Network was basically founded because of the callous antivax opportunism of Australian Vaccination-skeptics Network founder and current committee member, Meryl Dorey.

Back in March 2009, Dorey contacted the then-head of North Coast Area Health Service’s public health unit, Paul Corben, contending that baby Dana McCaffery did not die from whooping cough – she did – and sought access to confidential medical information surrounding Dana’s death. From Toni McCaffery (Dana’s mum)...

Read on: AVN now trying to access private information about nursing home deaths | reasonable hank

Gwyneth Paltrow versus true autonomy

The term autonomy in relation to health care decision-making has recently been used by Gwyneth Paltrow as a defense for the wellness advice offered on her website goop. Paltrow says when doctors, scientists and reporters point out that her claims are biologically implausible, untested and potentially harmful that they are robbing women of their autonomy. That assertion couldn’t be more wrong...

Gwyneth Paltrow versus true autonomy

Insomnia? Avoid alternative therapies!

Insomnia is a ‘gold standard’ indication for alternative therapies of all types. In fact, it is difficult to find a single of these treatments that are not being touted for this indication. Consequently, it has become a nice little earner for alternative therapists (hence ‘gold standard’).

But how good is the evidence suggesting that any […]

Read the rest here: Insomnia? Avoid alternative therapies!

Sunday 17 September 2017

2017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #37

Story of the Week... El Niño/La Niña Update... Toon of the Week... Quote of the Week... SkS in the News... Coming Soon on SkS... Poster of the Week... Climate Feedback Reviews... SkS Week in Review... 97 Hours of Consensus...

Story of the Week...

The Window Is Closing to Avoid Dangerous Global Warming

Climate Change 

Credit: David McNew Getty Images 

Deadly climate change could threaten most of the world's human population by the end of this century without efforts well beyond those captured in the Paris Agreement.

That's the finding of a pair of related reports released yesterday by an international group of climate science and policy luminaries who warned that the window is closing to avert dangerous warming. They say carbon dioxide might have to be removed from the atmosphere.

Scientists Yangyang Xu and Veerabhadran Ramanathan found in a paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) that there already exists a 1 in 20 chance that the 2.2 trillion tons of carbon dioxide in the Earth's atmosphere could cause an existential warming threat. This "fat tail" scenario would mean the world experiences "existential/unknown" warming by 2100 — defined in the report as more than 5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels.

The Window Is Closing to Avoid Dangerous Global Warming by Jean Chemnick, ClimateWire/Scientific American, Sep 15, 2017


El Niño/La Niña Update

La Niña is now increasingly possible in the next few months, according to a new reportreleased by NOAA, and may have some impacts on weather in the United States in the fall and winter.

La Niña May Develop By Fall or Winter, NOAA Says; Here's What That Could Mean by Jonathan Erdman, Sep 13, 2017 


Toon of the Week...

2017 Toon 37 


Quote of the Week...

That is one reason many scientists maintain it is critical to use the megaphone that the dual devastation of Hurricane Harvey and Hurricane Irma has provided. People, they note, are finally paying attention.

“We know that as humans, we are all too good at pretending like a risk, even one we know is real, doesn’t matter to us,” Katharine Hayhoe, an atmospheric scientist at Texas Tech University, wrote in an email as Harvey lashed the Texas coast.

“When we try to warn people about the risks, there’s no ‘news’ hook. No one wants to listen. That’s why the time to talk about it is now,” Dr. Hayhoe said. “The most pernicious and dangerous myth we’ve bought into when it comes to climate change is not the myth that it isn’t real or humans aren’t responsible. It’s the myth that it doesn’t matter to me. And that is exactly the myth that Harvey shatters.”

Hurricane Irma Linked to Climate Change? For Some, a Very ‘Insensitive’ Question. by Lisa Friedman, Climate, New York Times, Sep 11, 2017 


SkS in the News...

In her Washington Post Right Turn Op-ed, Will Harvey and Irma be a wake-up call?, Jennifer Rubin wrote:

And yet Republicans from Texas (both U.S. senators and a slew of congressmen), Florida (most especially Gov. Rick Scott and Sen. Marco Rubio), Alabama and Louisiana, among other locales, refuse to acknowledge the clear cause of rising sea levels and temperatures that add to the destructiveness of hurricanes that devastate their states. The GOP pols like to dodge the question by saying they are not climate scientists — and then refuse to accept the findings of 97 percent of the scientific community. Bluntly put, they’d rather cling to their know-nothingism than take steps to abate a known danger to their states. How is that any different from refusing to build levees and pumps or update building standards? (Of course, the climate-change denier in chief did cancel a flood regulation that took account of global warming, something he should be asked about when he goes for his next photo op.) 


Coming Soon on SkS...

  • Scientific models saved lives from Harvey and Irma. They can from climate change too (Dana)
  • Australia's Transition to Renewable Energy (Agnostic)
  • New research, September 4-10, 2017 (Ari Jokimäki)
  • Guest Post (John Abraham)
  • Why the 97% climate consensus is important (Dana, John Cook, Sander van der Linden, Ed Maibach, Tony Lieserowitz)
  • 2017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #38 (John Hartz)
  • 2017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Waming Digest #38 (John Hartz)

Poster of the Week...

2017 Poster 37 


Climate Feedback Reviews...

Climate Feedback asked its network of scientists to review the article, Has Climate Change Intensified 2017’s Western Wildfires? by Robinson Meyer, The Atlantic, Sep 7, 2017.

Three scientists analyzed the article and estimate its overall scientific credibility to be ‘very high’.

A majority of reviewers tagged the article as: Accurate, Insightful, Sound reasoning

Review Summary

This story in The Atlantic describes the conditions that have contributed to this year’s widespread wildfires in the western United States, including the influence of a changing climate.

Scientists who reviewed the story found that it was an accurate summary of the factors involved in this fire season—warm temperatures as well as past fire-suppression practices that have increased the density of fuel available for fires to burn. 


SkS Week in Review... 


97 Hours of Consensus...

Julienne Stroeve 

 

Julienne Stroeve's bio page & Quote source 

High resolution JPEG (1024 pixels wide)



from Skeptical Science http://www.skepticalscience.com/news.php?n=3877
via IFTTT

Saturday 16 September 2017

2017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #37

A chronological listing of news articles posted on the Skeptical Science Facebook page during the past week. 

Editor's Pick

Asia's glaciers to shrink by a third by 2100, threatening water supply of millions
High mountains of Asia hold biggest store of frozen water outside the poles and feed many of the world’s great rivers, including the Ganges
Asian Mountains
The Asian high mountains are already warming more rapidly than the global average. Photograph: Alamy Stock Photo
Asia’s mountain glaciers will lose at least a third of their mass through global warming by the century’s end, with dire consequences for millions of people who rely on them for fresh water, researchers have said.
This is a best-case scenario, based on the assumption that the world manages to limit average global warming to 1.5C (2.7F) over pre-industrial levels, a team wrote in the journal Nature.
“To meet the 1.5C target will be a task of unprecedented difficulty,” the researchers said, “and even then, 36% (give or take 7%) of the ice mass in the high mountains of Asia is projected to be lost” by 2100.
With warming of 3.5C, 4C and 6C respectively, Asian glacier losses could amount to 49%, 51% or 65% by the end of the century, according to the team’s modelling study.
Asia's glaciers to shrink by a third by 2100, threatening water supply of millions, Agence France-Presse/Guardian, Sep 13, 2017

Links posted on Facebook

Sun Sep 10, 2017
Mon Sep 11, 2017
Tue Sep 13, 2017
Wed Sep 14, 2017
Thu Sep 15, 2017
Fri Sep 16, 2017
Sat Sep 17, 2017


from Skeptical Science via IFTTT

Acupuncture-promotion masquarading as research

The goal of this study was to assess clinical outcomes observed among adult patients who received acupuncture treatments at a United States Air Force medical center. 

This retrospective chart review was performed at the Nellis Family Medicine Residency in the Mike O’Callaghan Military Medical Center at Nellis Air Force Base in Las Vegas, NV. The […]

Read the rest here: Acupuncture-promotion masquarading as research

Thursday 14 September 2017

Lynne McTaggart and world peace – something to worry about!!!

Yesterday, I received this email from my favourite source of misleading information.

Here it is:  

Dear Friend,   
We wanted to tell you about an unprecedented event that you won’t want to miss: the world’s largest Peace Intention Experiment that’s ever been conducted, webcast FREE on GAIA TV from September 30-October 5. It’s being hosted […]

Read the rest here: Lynne McTaggart and world peace – something to worry about!!!

Wednesday 13 September 2017

Do moon phases affect our health?

A sizable proportion of the general population is convinced that certain moon phases and moon signs may impact their health as well as the onset and clinical course of diseases. Those who believe in alternative medicine tend, I guess, to belong to this group. Here is a quote from one of the many websites making […]

Read the rest here: Do moon phases affect our health?

Monday 11 September 2017

Homeopathy: who needs science when we have the wisdom of politicians?

Politics, politicians and medicine has always been an intriguing mix, particularly when it comes to homeopathy (see for instance here and here).

A recent article in the ‘Navhind Times’ is an excellent reminder of this fact.

Here are a few excerpts:
… Town and Country Planning Minister Vijai Sardesai, on Saturday, appealed to the homeopaths  […]

Read the rest here: Homeopathy: who needs science when we have the wisdom of politicians?

Sunday 10 September 2017

American Loon #1894: G. Gordon Liddy

Although he is mostly a ridiculous and toothless source of hilarity these days, George Gordon Battle Liddy is something of a legend, and certainly deserves an entry. Liddy is a conservative talk radio host, ex-convict and disbarred lawyer, but used to be a an FBI agent, operative in Nixon’s 1972 election campaign, and was one of the Watergate “plumbers”...

Read the full lunacy: #1894: G. Gordon Liddy Encyclopedia of American Loons

Saturday 9 September 2017

2017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #36

A chronological listing of news articles posted on the Skeptical Science Facebook page during the past week. 

Editor's Pick

6 Questions on Hurricane Irma, Harvey and Climate Change
Hurricane Irma
Hurricane Irma, a Category 5 storm, barrels toward the Florida coast on Sept. 7, 2017. 
Credit: NOAA GOES Project via Getty Images
A third of the way into the 2017 Atlantic hurricane season, NOAA looked at the ocean and air temperatures and issued an ominous new forecast: the region would likely experience "an above normal hurricane season" that "could be extremely active," with more named storms than previously expected—14 to 19 this season—and two to five major hurricanes.

Now, halfway through the season, Hurricane Harvey's destruction stretches along the Texas coast, and Hurricane Irma looks likely to make landfall in Florida after causing mass destruction in the Caribbean. Just a few days behind Irma, Hurricane Jose appears to be following the same deadly path, while Hurricane Katia churns off Mexico's eastern coast.

As global temperatures continue to rise, climate scientists have said this is what we should expect—more huge storms, with drastic impacts.

Though scientists are still wrestling with some of the specifics of how climate change is impacting hurricanes, a lot is known, including the fact that hurricane seasons like this one could be the new norm.

6 Questions About Hurricane Irma, Harvey and Climate Change by Sabrina Shankman, InsideClimate News, Sep 6, 2017

Links posted on Facebook

Sun Sep 3, 2017
Mon Sep 4, 2017
Tue Sep 5, 2017
Wed Sep 6, 2017
Thu Sep 7, 2017
Fri Sep 9, 2017
Sat Sep 10, 2017
from Skeptical Science via IFTTT