The Huffington Post, a liberal blog/online newspaper, has up until recently been relatively ok.   However, as mentioned over at Bad Astronomy, it has been a haven for Antivaxxer nut jobs.   They have given room to Jim Carrey, the funny guy who’s movies suck unless he is trying not to be funny, RFK Jr, who is related to politicians, and other similarly non-medical/non-science nuts.

There most recent post, is by Dr. Patricia Fitzgerald.  Wow, a doctor, sounds scientific and medical, maybe there is something bad with vacinations…. oh, wait, Huffington Post says:

Patricia Fitzgerald is a licensed acupuncturist, certified clinical nutritionist, and a homeopath. She has a Master’s Degree in Traditional Chinese Medicine and a Doctorate in Homeopathic Medicine.

So, yeah she’s a doctor, but she’s a doctor in a bunch of crazy, made up, potentially health threatening lies. Listening to this lady is like bringing your car to a mechanic who has a doctorate in flying carpets, except she wants to kill or cripple your children.

Someone needs to call out the Huffington Post for supporting the nuts who want you and other people to not vaccinate your children.   I don’t care who it is, liberal, conservative, whatever.  I also think hosts like Keith Olberman need to stop using commentators from Huffington Post, as it has no credibility if it is willing to run this crap.  In fact, Keith should make Huffington Post, or at least these contributors the worst people in the world on an upcomming show.

Remember, these people would rather your kid had measles, mumphs, chicken pox, smallpox, polio, etc, than got a vaccine that has scientifically been shown again and again to not cause autism.

Well, not really, but the news today concerning the presidential candidates and vaccine denialism goes a long way toward that conclusion.

McCain jumped on the band wagon a while back, and we really can’t be surprised considering he had already come out against evolution and loves popular issues like a hyena loves corpses.

However both Democratic candidates have outed themselves as apparently unable to read current scientific conclusions. (see here and here also, check out denialism blog on the issue)

Obama is quoted as saying

“We’ve seen just a skyrocketing autism rate. Some people are suspicious that it’s connected to the vaccines. This person included. The science right now is inconclusive, but we have to research it.” [the 'This person' refers to the individual who asked the question Obama was responding to.]

Maybe I missed the news, but I understood that science, ie that stuff people do in labs or using statistics, was pretty conclusive on the issue right now, and that vaccines were safe and that most of them no longer used thimerosal anyway.

Clinton has pretty much parroted the same missunderstanding

Yes. We don’t know what, if any, kind of link there is between vaccines and autism – but we should find out.

This was in a question regarding her willingness to fund studies of vaccinated and unvaccinated children.  I can tell you the answer now, the second group probably has a higher rate of a variety of viruses, strangely enough the exact same ones they weren’t vaccinated for.

Now, there is every possibility that the candidates are just acting like cranks to get the nut vote, but it’s certainly scary even if this is the case, because it gives support to unscientific and repudiated claims and could potentially lead to the next president wasting our money on this research.

To conclude though, I would like to concede that these autism cranks aren’t always wrong.  The author of the first article linked to above, is himself a nut, and, inadvertently, he provides us with a valid statement on the issue:

So there you have it, our next President will share the views of such radical fringe crazies as, well, me, Democrat Robert Kennedy, Jr., Republican Joe Scarborough, former NIH and Red Cross chief Bernadine Healy, and several researchers at Harvard, Johns Hopkins, the Universities of California and Washington and elsewhere.

First, let me say that I am not a cultural anthropologist or ethnographers, I have taken some classes in cultural anthropology in the past, but I am an archaeologist at present.

This semester, I am assigned to a class on medical anthropology, and in some respects it could be an interesting and productive experience.   I certainly have no problem looking at modern biomedicine as  being comparable to non-western ethnomedicine or cult medicine.  Clearly there are functional and cultural levels of comparison that can be made, it’s simply the methodology (and obviously the success rates) that differ.  I will even sway to postmodernism far enough to say that modern medicine has been and will always be influenced by the biases and culture, though I think it important to point out that unlike religious and mystical beliefs modern science attempts to step past these issues through processes of evaluation, review, testing, and revision.

My problem comes when students are told that non-western medicines “work” or are “effective” in comparable ways to Western medicine.   Looking at pure ethnomedicine, that associated with indigeonous groups etc, it may be all they offer some positive results.  However, such medicine is often of a limited value for simple things like infant diarrhea, which leads to higher infant mortality rates, or infection.  Not only this, but without recognition of such things as the germ theory of disease, ethnomedicine often has no issue with such practices as use of contaminated water or food products exposed to insects.  So, while it might be the best offered in some cases, it is not “effective” in a broad sense, nor is it comparable to even the most basic life saving changes available through Western medicine.

While there are places on earth that have little or no access to Western medicine and subsequently fall back onto traditional practices, there are groups in the developed world which popularize non-Western medicine as well.   One of the first that springs to mind is religious groups.  Obviously, since religion is so important to so many people that it can be a powerful force in determining their health care actions.  Does it work though?  Well, lets have a quick run down of some good examples:

• A 2006 Harvard study showed that third party prayer is not an effective remedy for illness.
• Various religious groups are against a potentially life saving HPV vaccine, because they want sex to have terrible negative consequences.
• Various religious groups are for a completely inept approach to sexual education that ruins peoples’ lives.
• In Ethiopia, a religious cure for AIDS lead many to stop taking their medication and endure unnecessary suffering.
• Some Christians refuse life saving blood transfusions based on a reading of the bible that possesses limited acceptance and seemingly contradicts the belief of other Christians.
• Of course, we must also remember those religious individuals oppose to evolution being taught in schools, and the disastrous effects this might have on science and medicine in the future.

Are any of these, or countless other religious beliefs valid? No, at least not in any way actually or measurable by modern science.  Instead, they mislead people as to the actual workings of the world and expose them to suffering and potential risk that modern medicine and science could easily prevent.  I certainly would not claim this as “working” or being “effective”.

Of course, there is a third stream of non-western medicine, alternative medicine.  This runs a gamut of beliefs and systems, and can often include indigeonous or  religious beliefs, but all share the fact that they are not accepted by scientists because of a lack of evidence.  Obviously, some folk remedies are fine, such as chicken soup for a cold, even if they do no appreciable good, they also do no harm.  In such cases they can serve to remedy stress and provide mental ease, but not necessary physical relief.  In other cases, alternative medicine is simply a method of separating money from the sick or even the healthy.  But perhaps the worst part of alternative medicine’s acceptance and practice is that it can quite often be life threatening.  Chelation, a medical practice used in treatment for exposure to heavy metals, has no proven ability to help with Autism, but it is presented by some as a cure.  It can be quite risky, and potentially deadly.  Additionally, there are those out there that suggest against western treatments, such as inoculations, which of course places those without such treatments in imminent danger that cannot be over stated.  Let’s also not forget  homeopathy, the treatment based on exposure to substances in such low amounts that they do not actually exist any more. Do any of these treatments work?  No, at least not in the ways presented or at any appreciable level that can serve as evidence.

So, why do I bring up all these relatively well known examples and facts in a subject that is very off topic for this blog?   Quite truthfully, because I feel greatly bothered by being involved in a class where students are taught that ethnomedicines are “effective” and that they “work”.  The idea that people don’t do things that do not work is just an adage, with no discernible truth, and quite a few obvious counter examples.  Beyond the fact that such ideas simply trespass against my basis of thought in science and materialism, it bothers me because I have worked in veterinary medicine, and have seen people favor approaches such as homeopathy (even the Humane Society supports it), and because I am human and I have had family that has suffered through terrible sickness and illness, to think of someone offering them false hope is sad, but is what happens to thousands in the western world every day.

I  am certainly not saying modern biomedicine is perfect, it has issues and biases, as do all methods of acquiring knowledge. However, it both attempts to move past such blocks through methodology that works and has a much higher rate of success in dealing with suffering and disease.  I am also not saying that ethnomedicine never works, one must only look at something like aspirin to see a non-western medicine that succeeded.  However, such successes are rare (as they are in western medicine which spends billions developing new treatments), and when they do occur, they are verifiable.  Perhaps a better position that saying that these therapies “work” is to say that people use them, and offer an outlook based in cultural relativism, not jump on the Kon-Tiki and go native.