Flashback – Coke and Pepsi Warnings

Much as the news media tries to upset us at every turn and on every subject, we don’t have time or the energy to be afraid of everything. That’s where perspective and critical thinking come in.

 

The following entry from 2012 gives a couple of examples of how the news media plays to our emotions, not only to enhance their profits, but often hoping we will take the bait and panic. It’s a power play, pure and simple, to push the public in a desired direction. If enough people back a belief, whether it's true or false, the government steps in with more regulations.

[One day I overheard discussion of a news item about using radiation to kill bacteria on vegetables. A colleague asked the rhetorical question, “Who would buy that?” I told her that I had done some reading on the subject recently and the irradiated vegetables were perfectly safe to eat. In fact, those vegetables had been exposed to radiation for at least half of the time they were growing and couldn’t have grown without it. It’s called sunlight. But people don’t think of sunlight as radiation. They don’t consider cellphone signals as radiation (except when falsely warned about cancer dangers). Radiation is thought to be always bad and dangerous – no distinction is made between harmless and dangerous. That would take some critical thinking.

People also fear carcinogens. If it might cause cancer, regardless of the conditions or dosage level, it’s bad. But so many things have been shown to cause cancer (including good-old sunlight, by the way) that comedians joke about it. There are even substances that were once considered dangerous but have earned a reprieve. It seems you can hardly move without bumping into something that at one time or another wasn’t considered deadly.

Now we get a recent news article about a substance in Coke and Pepsi coloring being banned in California because it caused cancer in lab animals. Later in the article it states that humans would have to drink over one thousand cans per day to reach the dosage level given to the rodents. Of course, if you tried to drink that much in a day the amount of water would kill you long before you reached the danger point for developing cancer. (Yes, you can overdose on water!) 

Perspective is about moderation, understanding that you can keep trying to make your food, your beverages and your environment purer but you reach a point where an extra dollar of effort yields pennies in benefit, and finally a point where an extra dollar of effort yields no benefit at all. Yet there are still those with so little perspective and no understanding of science who insist that the water and the air are never clean enough (and the soda never pure enough). Then it’s left to politicians and judges, not scientists, to sort it out.  And who pays any additional costs? – you guessed it!]

Flashback – Baby Powder

Almost exactly four years ago I wrote about the difference between how the legal system looks at the danger of baby powder vs. how science sees it. Of course, that makes no difference, as just this week I saw another class action lawsuit ad on TV. When it comes to taking money from big rich companies and giving it to poor victims (and their lawyers) juries don’t care about science. They just want to use someone else’s money to dry the tears.

But they still expect the same company to continue to make the Tylenol for their headaches while testing and producing a COVID-19 vaccine. It’s all part of some weird love/hate relationship.

From September 2016: "How Baby Powder Can Harm You?"

[Under the heading of Health, the Fox News headline read: “Research finds talc doesn't cause cancer; juries disagree.” The story tells that two juries awarded a total of $127 million dollars to two women claiming that the Johnson & Johnson baby powder gave them ovarian cancer. A second judge threw out two cases, saying there was no reliable evidence; but another 2000 women have already lined up to sue.

That’s the legal side. What does science say? “Most research finds no link or a weak one between ovarian cancer and using baby powder for feminine hygiene, a practice generations of American mothers have passed on to their daughters. Most major health groups have declared talc harmless.” The rest of the article gives more information about the research and the trials. Here is another conflict between science and the legal process, but that should come as no surprise in light of jury awards given years ago for silicon breast implants when the implants were later found to be safe.

It is very easy to understand how a jury could ignore science and award millions of dollars to a woman with ovarian cancer. They do it out of sympathy, and they do it because they can. To do otherwise seems cold and heartless.  It’s not their money and the company has plenty of money. What’s a few million dollars in the grand scheme of things when it can bring comfort?

What person would stand by and see a toddler fall and skin her knee and not immediately run over to pick her up, dust her off and give her some comfort? It is the human thing to do.

There are several similarities between the one who helps the fallen toddler and the juries who award large sums. It costs them nothing. It gives comfort to the afflicted, although it does nothing to cure the cancer or heal the skinned knee. And it makes the rescuers feel good about themselves.

There are, however a few key differences. When you comfort the toddler it truly costs you nothing, and other toddlers don’t look at the one who fell and line up to also fall down to get sympathy. (Some may independently discover that falling down is an easy way to get attention, and some of them probably grow up to be trial lawyers.)

Also, when a toddler gets sympathy, the costs of that sympathy are not spread to the rest of society.  When a jury finds for the plaintiff in this case, not only does the company (or insurance company) pay, but every other company in that industry is put on notice. They are at risk of losing a large judgment for one of their products that has been on the market for years with no ill effects. They don’t spend the money now, but must keep some in reserve to protect against such a contingency.

Likewise, all insurance companies, seeing that evidence means nothing to some juries, must save for similar outcomes. The companies making personal products slowly raise their prices to adjust for this, and the insurance companies raise their rates to cover the increased risk. This sympathetic redistribution, which is really what it is, ends up costing everyone in society. 

What’s worse is that this activity adds no value. It does not add to the GDP. It does nothing to increase the standard of living for anyone except the few women who win in court (and their lawyers – Remember personal injury lawyers are not paid for justice; they are only paid for winning.)

In the end what can Johnson & Johnson do (besides spend a lot more time and money appealing each decision)? What lesson could they learn? Should they get everyone who buys baby powder to sign a hold-harmless agreement? Why are they more at fault than the “generations of American mothers” referred to in the article? They made a product considered safe for years and suddenly they are on the hook for $127 million; and if the ratios hold true and half the next 2000 win similar amounts, it could be $127 billion! It’s “jackpot justice,” and the cost of all the winning “lottery tickets” is spread among the rest of us, including the people who served on those juries!

So how can baby powder harm you? It harms you in the same way other wasteful legal actions harm you. It takes money out of deep pockets to compensate “victims,” but the costs ultimately come back to each of us, with nothing to show for it but richer lawyers, and juries who, in some misguided way, temporarily feel satisfied that they did something to help.]

Flashback – Fear of Power Lines

Irrational and unsubstantiated fears have been good examples of a lack of critical thinking. People hear a rumor or supposed scientific truth and latch onto it without questioning or doing any research. 

Back on December 5, 2014, I explained one of these unfounded fears, the concern that power lines emitted some kind of dangerous radiation that makes people and animals sick. That was almost six years ago, when Facebook and other social media were in their relative infancy. Today Americans are exposed to this kind of news almost constantly as social media users pass along scary information with no attempt at verification. 

As they did in this case, news organizations will sometimes pick up these stories or interview the believers without any attempt to explain or debunk the beliefs. They merely want to capture “eyeballs.” Fear sells, and fake news is nothing new.

Here is the original post. 

[If you are old enough, you remember the big scare in the late 1980s about power lines causing cancer.  In fact, if you are not old enough to remember the news reports of the time, you have probably heard about this idea from someone who was. There was a great deal of concern, but after over 30 years of further research, it appears to have been a mistaken assumption. Still the fear persists.

The fairly short (7:46) NY Times Retro Report is worth watching.

It begins with replays of news reports from all the major networks from 1987. It was big news at the time, and this review is very informative, showing in retrospect how the news business operates when breaking news has the potential to stir up a lot of fear based on very limited data. A voice-over talks about how power lines may cause cancer while showing the picture of a small bald child, apparently battling cancer (but not from power lines) – sneaky.  When seven children in one Denver school developed cancer and parents blamed it on nearby power lines, one reporter says that it could be a “tragedy of enormous proportions.”

The Times calls the episode “Power of Fear” with the message that once this type of fear is introduced into our society it never really goes away.  

The researcher who first suspected the problem now explains that further research has ruled out any problem.  With the number and density of power lines, this should have developed into a major health problem, but it didn’t.  “That suspicion (of a cancer risk) was simply wrong...The likely impact (of power lines) is zero.”  Scientists in the 1990s conducted hundreds of experiments exposing rats, other animals and human cells to intense EMFs (magnetic fields around the power lines) over long periods of time with no change in the cells.  “In 20 years of looking, no one has found a way that power line fields can do anything at all to cells of animals; unless it can do something to cells, it cannot cause cancer.”  The National Academy of Sciences confirmed this by reviewing 500 studies and releasing their findings in October 1996.  Nothing since then has altered the conclusion of no danger.

The association was always “suggestive, but very faint” but correlation does not prove causation. Yet the idea, the fear, persists and is still spread by some public figures, some advertisers who use the scare tactics to sell real estate service and by word of mouth – now with the added power of social media.

Why do some Americans believe these sources and continue to fear the presence of power lines?  Psychologists tell us that risks that are invisible, that might cause suffering before death or that might affect children have uncanny staying power, even in the face of firm evidence to the contrary. This highlights the need for critical thinking, to put aside emotional responses and listen to the facts. Don’t we have enough stuff to be afraid of without dredging up errors from the past?]

Understanding Experiments

When most people hear the word experiment, they picture a scientist in a lab coat with bubbling beakers and test tubes of mysterious liquids. This is not the real meaning. As a result of this misconception, news of the latest study is usually misleading.

An experiment is a rigorous process of testing an idea with the intention of either solving a problem or of improving a situation. Necessary first steps include defining the problem to be solved or determining how results will be measured. No one can claim improvement without measurements to compare (before and after). In the first case, the experiment is successful if the problem goes away. In the second, success is judged by the measurable amount of improvement.

When a well-designed experiment is successful, the implication is that the same solution can be applied widely to other situations: to solve the same problem elsewhere or to achieve the same amount of improvement. (Usually others replicate the experiment before findings are accepted.)

To achieve satisfactory results, any experiment must be well designed. Sloppy studies lead to problematic conclusions, ones that can’t be counted on to solve anything. Even the best experiments can yield bad information just based on the amount of diversity in the world and the fact that fluky things happen. 

Many experiments or studies the public is exposed to in the media relate to drugs or other remedies, and a strict procedure must be followed to ensure the conclusions are valid, otherwise the drugs or other remedies get on the market without proof that they are safe and effective.

In drug studies researchers try to choose a sufficiently large sample, because the larger the sample, the lower the chances of getting some oddball results just because you happened upon some atypical participants. A bigger sample tends to average out any unusual individual readings. 

The next step is to divide the sample into two parts that look as much alike as possible: same proportion by sex or race or education or income or background or location or any other feature that might affect the results. Sometimes this can only be done by random assignment to one group or the other. It's better if researchers have a good understanding of all the characteristics that might influence results and can make the two groups look as much alike as possible relative to those characteristics.

One group is treated – given the pill or the information or other treatment – the other, the control group, is given a fake pill (placebo) a sham treatment or left alone.

Afterward the groups are compared statistically to see if the change (hopefully an improvement) in the first group is significantly better than the change in the second. (Yes, there is often a change in the control group merely because the know they are participating in the experiment and believe the placebo is a real remedy.)

Ideally the people doing the testing are not aware of who is in which group (double-blind).

We know from the news that even these careful experiments can go wrong. Sometimes drugs are withdrawn from the market due to problems discovered only after they are released, released to a much larger sample size. That is why I have come down so hard and so often on vitamins and other dietary supplements where the law exempts them from the need for any research at all to prove safety and effectiveness. (They rely on endorsement, not proof, and use weasel words to imply effectiveness.)

Many times in the past I have also criticized experiments because they have been sloppy about their design. Sometimes they don’t define the problem until after the test is done and announce the findings with a press release. Sometimes the samples are too small due to budget constraints or laziness. Sometimes they rely on self-reporting so there is no real measurement. 

Finally businesses and educators like to say they are experimenting. In both cases it is rarely true. They don't set up two groups to compare. Then they measure by gut-feel.

Businesses are in too much of a hurry to do it right. They just try things, sometimes multiple things at the same time, so who knows which ones have a positive or negative or neutral influence on the final outcome.

In education they are still arguing about measurement. Teachers don’t want to be paid based on test scores, but haven't suggested a more acceptable criterion to measure their results. Yet school systems continue to try new methods and approaches without ever satisfying the first step – how to objectively measure real improvement.

Without understanding experiments, it’s too easy to be fooled by people who don’t know what they are doing and by people who do but are just trying to sell us a bill of goods. 

Coronavirus Benefits (?)

I thought perhaps one of the few possible benefits of this coronavirus (COVID-19) scare is that people would begin washing their hands more often. Apparently I was wrong. Instead people are hoarding hand sanitizers, leading to price gouging on the Internet and bare shelves at brick-and-mortar locations. Time reports: “Sales of hand sanitizers in the U.S. were up 73% in the four weeks ending Feb. 22 compared to the same period a year ago.”

Further along in this and several other articles we are reminded that washing with soap and water is superior. “If you’re not near a sink, hand sanitizer will do. But keep in mind that it doesn’t kill all germs, the CDC says.”

I reminded readers about this last fall in a piece about how the media insists on presenting old news as the latest discovery. Here is an excerpt from that entry.

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Here is an example of well-known information being presented as a new revelation: a study hitting the Internet and the airways recently revealed that “Washing your hands under running water may be a better way to stop the spread of infections than using a hand sanitizer.” The hand sanitizer can be nearly as effective as washing hands for removing flu viruses, provided both are done properly. It just takes longer.

In laboratory experiments “it took about 30 seconds for the sanitizer to eliminate all the flu virus in the saline samples, but more than 4 minutes for the sanitizer to get rid of flu in the mucus samples.” From the lab tests they moved to a more real-life situation by putting mucus directly on people’s fingertips. When it was given time to dry (for 40 minutes), the hand sanitizer killed the flu virus within 30 seconds. But in a more realistic situation where the mucus was still moist, it took about 4 minutes of rubbing for the flu virus to be completely eliminated.

Proper hand washing removed traces of the virus in both cases in about 30 seconds, whether the participants used soap or not. The benefit is not from the soap, but from the rubbing under running water. 

No one is likely to rub the hand sanitizer for 4 minutes or alternatively to let their hands dry after sneezing for 40 minutes, but neither do many people spend half a minute scrubbing under running water. When a sink is not available the alcohol is a good option. 

That’s what we know today, but we had substantially the same information 10 years ago. From Live Science in October 2009: “Hand washing with ordinary soap and water is the most effective way to remove germs. But when you're on the go, alcohol-based hand sanitizers are tremendously effective in preventing the spread of the seasonal flu.” They gave 20 seconds for washing and 15 for the sanitizer, so the latest study just worked a little on the details. It wasn’t really news.

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Relative to the recent hoarding, CBS News made a good point a few years ago when they asked: “Does hand sanitizer give people a false sense of security?”

Furthermore, earlier this year Fox Business reported that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) sent a warning letter to Purell about claims on their website pages and social media platforms, claims that were either totally erroneous or not supported by evidence.

Others fear that germs accumulating on bar soap negates the benefits or washing and believe that antibacterial soap is the better choice. Both these assumptions are faulty as I explained in “Thinking About Soap” in September 2016.

The question remains: Will Americans use the latest coronavirus outbreak as an opportunity to learn and grow, taking rational precautions and not flying into a panic, or will they continue to react to each intentionally scary news story as if the world is ending? Time will tell.

Flashback - Letting the Media Scare Us Over and Over

[The news and entertainment cycles are so rapid that nostalgia no longer requires a long memory. What was scary or hot just a few years ago has moved on to be replaced by the latest craze, panic or breaking story. It was little more than twenty years ago that the world was stressing over Y2K – what would happen when the computers thought the year was 1900? Since then people have worried about frankenfish, the genetically engineered salmon raised on farms, and the rejection of net neutrality leading to a crisis that never happened, along with many other manufactured fears. 

Every Christmas parents stress about getting access to the “hot new” toy so their kids wouldn’t be disappointed, but where are all the Tickle Me Elmo dolls today? 

Likewise the worldwide epidemics come and go. Just a couple of years ago it was Ebola coming from Africa. Today it’s Coronavirus from China. And don't forget SARS.

One such flash-in-the-pan concern was over a product vilified by some celebrity chef as pink slime, as I wrote back in 2012.]

Now we get the case of “pink slime,” a derogatory term referring to, and gathering support against, the use of beef scraps to supplement ground beef sold in stores, a practice that has been going on for years with no ill effects. Why do people stoop to such name-calling? Either they have no valid arguments or they are trying to catch us up in an emotional reaction to promote their particular cause (or as this news article calls it, a crusade). Who thinks about the jobs lost? Why are people who speak out against waste in other areas silent on this issue? Why would Kroger and the other grocery chains buckle under the pressure of these crusades against a product that is not harmful, less expensive and less fatty, that they have been selling for the last 20 years? This hurts many and helps no one.

The uproar about the coloring ingredient in Coke and Pepsi that I addressed on March 19, [2012] had a similar dynamic - get people all riled up to rally behind a cause or complaint based on poor or sometimes even deceptive evidence. The problem is that with social media it is now far easier to start a crusade or get people fired up about an issue using an emotional appeal. Before you know it governments are banning products or ingredients or the companies that sell them are back-pedaling due to the bad press on Facebook or Twitter. Most consumers have little formal science education in such areas as human biology or experimental design, but they loudly express their “concerns” based on unreliable information on the Internet. The masses are howling, the ringleaders are name calling, and we are moving closer and closer to a kind of mob rule where we end up paying the extra costs, enduring the unintended consequences, and having our choices limited.

In this fast moving society one subject does not stay in the news long, so the following week, "concerns" arose over the use of BPA in food packaging.  At this rate we could be banning or otherwise losing access to 50 products a year based not on science but on public outcry!

Along similar lines a different article tells about how old photos were intentionally used by the press to influence public perception in the Florida shooting case that has sparked so many protests. The article suggests that this type of manipulation by selective presentation of pictures and videos has become common practice in the media. Another article sheds additional doubt on the accuracy and completeness of some news reports.

So my question is, when are we going to stop being influenced, frightened and manipulated, and start thinking for ourselves? One way leads to reasonable outcomes, the other to the consequences of chaotic, knee-jerk reactions to each new manufactured crisis or irresponsible crusade. 

Flashback – Electro-pseudoscience

[In recent news from England “a poster for the charity Electrosensitivity-UK asked, “How safe is 5G?” They oppose the roll out of 5G technology and warned, without any scientific evidence, that it causes a “range of health effects such as ‘reduced male fertility, depression, disturbed sleep and headaches, as well as cancer’”.

This fear mongering is reminiscent of my posting in December 2014 titled “Fear of Power Lines.” This kind of panic based on bad science will keep coming up as long as a gullible public will buy into it.]

If you are old enough, you remember the big scare in the late 1980s about power lines causing cancer. In fact, if you are not old enough to remember the news reports at the time, you have probably heard about this idea from someone who was. There was a great deal of concern, but after over 30 years of further research, it appears to have been a mistaken assumption.  Still the fear persists.

This fairly short (7:46) NY Times Retro Report is worth watching.

It begins with replays of news reports from all the major networks from 1987.  It was big news at the time, and this reminder is very informative showing in retrospect how the news business operates when breaking news has the potential to stir up a lot of fear based on a very limited study.  A voice-over talks about how power lines may cause cancer while showing the picture of a small bald child, apparently battling cancer (but not from power lines) – sneaky.  When seven children in one Denver school developed cancer and parents blamed it on nearby power lines, one reporter said that it could be a “tragedy of enormous proportions.”

The Times calls the episode “Power of Fear” with the message that once this type of fear is introduced into our society it never really goes away.  

The researcher who first suspected the problem now explains that further research has ruled out any problem. With the number and density of power lines, this should have developed into a major health problem, but it didn’t. “That suspicion [of a cancer risk] was simply wrong...The likely impact [of power lines] is zero.”  

Scientists in the 1990s conducted hundreds of experiments exposing rats, other animals and human cells to intense EMFs (magnetic fields around the power lines) over long periods of time with no change in the cells.  “In 20 years of looking, no one has found a way that power line fields can do anything at all to cells of animals; unless it can do something to cells, it cannot cause cancer.” The National Academy of Sciences confirmed this by reviewing 500 studies and releasing their findings in October 1996. Nothing since then has altered the conclusion of no danger.

The association was always “suggestive, but very faint” but correlation does not prove causation. Yet the idea, the fear, persists and is still spread by some public figures, some advertisers who use the scare tactics to sell real estate service and by word of mouth – now enhanced by the reach and power of social media.

Why do some Americans believe these sources and continue to fear the presence of power lines? Psychologists tell us that risks that are invisible, that might cause suffering before death or that might affect children have uncanny staying power, even in the face of firm evidence to the contrary. This highlights the need for critical thinking, to put aside emotional responses and listen to the facts. Don’t we have enough stuff to be afraid of without dredging up errors from the past?

Fluoridation Facts

I stole the above title from a newly released American Dental Association (ADA) pamphlet on the controversy about fluoridation of public drinking water. This is another area where people with little understanding of science have spread falsehoods leading to some resistance to a beneficial practice. A brief review of the executive summary makes it quite clear; fluoride prevents cavities.

Although I have never had doubts about the safety of adding fluoride to drinking water, twice a year I am faced with the question of whether to pay an extra $35 at the dentist for a fluoride treatment. I know there is evidence that these treatments, along with the fluoridation of drinking water and toothpaste, are beneficial for children’s teeth, but I wondered about the effectiveness for adults. 

The fact that my insurance company doesn’t pay for it raises some suspicion. Coverage decisions may be based on cost factors, but one cost factor they must consider is higher future dental bills. Normally they would prefer to pay for prevention than to pay more later.

I began my research on the effectiveness of fluoride treatment for adults at a site billing itself as “the top magazine for dental hygiene professionals.” One hygienist, whose boss wants her to push the treatment to increase business, asks directly whether every patient needs fluoride.

The answer goes to an ADA publication from 2007. (The advisor didn’t know of any more recent updates.) A patient whose risk is low “may not receive additional benefit from professional topical fluoride application.” Low risk is defined as "No incipient or cavitated primary or secondary carious lesions during the last three years and no factors that may increase caries risk." It goes on to say there are other factors to consider, but generally “blanket mandates of fluoride for everyone are not appropriate.”

Consumer Reports gives basically the same answer (with less dentist jargon). “Extra fluoride may be helpful if you’re at increased risk of developing cavities, indicated by frequent tooth decay in recent years, dry mouth caused by medications or disease, or gum recession that exposes the vulnerable tooth roots.” 

They go on to say that home treatments are not effective, and that those in the low risk category should do fine by brushing twice a day with fluoride toothpaste “especially if your water is fluoridated.”

The National Center for Biotechnology Information site reviews a compilation of research on the “effectiveness of fluoride in preventing caries in adults.” They believe that the authors' conclusions favoring the use of fluoride treatments for adults “appear to follow from the results presented, although the paucity of more recent studies and poor quality of the included studies limit their reliability and relevance to current populations.” This vague recommendation (also from 2007) is not very compelling.

A Healthline.com page from 2018 asks: “What Are the Benefits, Side Effects, and Recommendations for Fluoride Treatment?” Again the emphasis was on children and adolescents with some discussions of minor side effects of treatments and real dangers of fluoride supplements. A little new information was that it was “best to get fluoride both topically [gel or toothpaste] and systemically [ingested]” from drinking water.

With several references to the 2007 ADA advice, I went there next. In addition to brushing twice a day, flossing and regular dental examinations, a “key to good oral health is fluoride.” Maximum benefit “is achieved when fluoride is available both topically and systemically.” Treatments from a dentist are recommended for adults with high risk factors such as poor oral hygiene, active caries, eating disorders, drug or alcohol abuse, lack of regular professional dental care, high levels of bacteria in the mouth, exposed root surfaces” and a few others.

In my case it seems I have been correct in saving $35 per visit. I eat most of my meals at home, so I am able to brush three times a day. We use fluoridated tap water for cooking food and drinking. (Bottled water is non-existent in the house.) I have not had a cavity in at least ten years. (Knock on wood.) Nor do I have any of the other critical factors or habits.

It’s interesting what a little research – a factor in critical thinking – can do to help with everyday decisions. 

Climate Change and Real Science

I’ve written recently how promoters of the man-made climate change concern tend to dismiss those who want to continue the debate as being unscientific and deniers. But some of the real impediments to dealing with greenhouse gases don’t come from a lack of science. The solutions are based in science but find stumbling blocks in popular trends and fear mongering.

Two or three current articles lead to this conclusion. 

The latest idea to come out of the UN to reduce our carbon footprint is to eat less meat. If everyone adopted a vegan lifestyle, putting all the cows, pigs, chickens and sheep out of work, they claim we could effect a significant change. But this Reason Magazine article crunches the numbers and the results are disappointing. “In their 2017 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences study, agronomists Robin White and Mary Beth Hall reached a similar conclusion [to several others], calculating that the total elimination of animal husbandry would reduce U.S. emissions by 2.6 percent.” 

In other words, nagging the public to reduce or even completely stop eating meat pursues a negligible effect on climate change. Of course, the facts should not stand in the way of the popular feel-good trend, where the burger giants are playing to the crowd by offering Impossible Whoppers and McVegans. A big pain yields little gain.

On another front, strong arguments in favor of nuclear power as a means of producing electricity without releasing carbon dioxide into the air fall on deaf ears. Increasing the number of nuclear reactors would be the ideal solution to climate change. In addition to the lack of pollution, they have a much smaller physical footprint than other sources such as wind and solar. 

But say the word nuclear and people panic. They start talking about Chernobyl, Fukushima, and Three Mile Island as if they were typical rather than extreme outliers. “These are the only major accidents to have occurred in over 17,000 cumulative reactor-years of commercial nuclear power operation in 33 countries.” The World Nuclear Association summarizes the safety by saying, “The evidence over six decades shows that nuclear power is a safe means of generating electricity. The risk of accidents in nuclear power plants is low and declining. The consequences of an accident or terrorist attack are minimal compared with other commonly accepted risks. Radiological effects on people of any radioactive releases can be avoided.”

To counter these facts the uniformed cite the problem of nuclear waste. The truth is that “all the used fuel ever produced by the commercial nuclear industry since the late 1950s would cover a football field to a depth of less than 10 yards.” That’s one single football field for the entire world. Furthermore, much of it can be processed for reuse as they do in France and “after 7,000 shipments total of used fuel by the worldwide nuclear industry since 1970, there have been no leaks of radioactive material or personal injuries.”

The biggest truth is that people refuse to consider it as an alternative due to unfounded fear. In Germany the anti-nuclear movement kicked into high gear with mass protests after Fukushima promoting a phase out of nuclear energy by 2022 while still moving off fossil fuel-based energy generation. Should America follow this wanting-my-cake-and-eating-it too philosophy?

The final piece came from an interview published at foreignpolicy.com featuring research to growing better vegetation. 

Plants naturally draw CO₂ from the atmosphere. “Every year, humanity emits 37 gigatons of carbon dioxide; photosynthetic life can process and capture nearly half of that amount.” The theory is that plants can be made a little more productive. Since the amount of carbon dioxide released naturally is so much greater, plants operating at only a 2% or 3% increase in efficiency could pick up the other half of human emissions.

One problem is that the effort to “come up with a cost-effective and efficient way of actually pulling carbon dioxide down from the atmosphere and sequestering it down into the soil—where it should be” requires genetic engineering to create this “Ideal Plant.” If breeding could do it, it would take much longer. Many people and governments would have to overcome their irrational fear of GMOs, but that should be much easier than the alternative, the standard of living hardships that would result from severe reductions in energy availability.

The answers to fighting climate change likely come from real science, not a pick and choose kind of science that follows the fear mongering and fashions of the day.

Walk Faster, Live Longer?

A very interesting article in JAMA a number of years ago requires the application of critical thinking to avoid making a misinterpretation.

 A team of scientists put together a summary of nine studies over the years totaling almost 35,000 subjects over the age of 65, residents of various nursing facilities . Each study was trying to find out whether measuring a person’s walking speed could help predict how much longer they would live.

The data came from the various researchers measuring how fast people walked over a short measured course, between 8 and 20 feet long, using a stopwatch and converting the speed to feet or meters per second. They then followed up years later to see how well the measured speed at the time of the test correlated with how much longer the individuals lived. (The authors refer to it as “gait speed.”)

The published conclusion, when they put the information from all the studies together: “In this pooled analysis of individual data from 9 selected cohorts, gait speed was associated with survival in older adults.” The graphs accompanying the article show this quite clearly, and the findings held true for both men and women and for people of different races. The top group walked the course at 1.6 meters per second, which converts to about 3.6 miles per hour. (For a longer distance this would mean a pace at which someone could walk a mile in about 17 minutes.)

How is this useful? “First, gait speed might help identify older adults with a high probability of living for 5 or 10 more years, who may be appropriate targets for preventive interventions that require years for benefit.” It could help assess whether a particular medical procedure would be worth the risk – there is always a risk, especially for older people. “Second, gait speed might be used to identify older adults with increased risk of early mortality, perhaps those with gait speeds slower than 0.6 m/s.” It is a simple and informative way for “assessing expected survival to contribute to tailoring goals of care in older adults.” Furthermore, it is a simple measurement that can be easily done in a nursing home corridor by non-professionals.

How is this not useful? Correlation is not causation. Someone seeing this article and not using critical thinking might conclude that beginning to walk faster was a way to guarantee longer life. After all, the graphs on the page clearly show that those who walked faster lived longer. Except for the fact that exercise is good for anyone, this conclusion is not necessarily so; it’s not what the analysis shows.

The authors theorize that the correlation exists because, walking “requires energy, movement control, and support and places demands on multiple organ systems, including the heart, lungs, circulatory, nervous, and musculoskeletal systems.” A slower walking speed could indicate some damage or a larger than normal energy requirement for other reasons. Both could be a general indicator of lessened vitality. It makes sense that those who were going to live longer were just capable of walking faster, and did so.

Unfortunately, scientists did not prove that increasing our walking speed will increase our life expectancy. (In fact, people walking faster while texting could easily decrease their life expectancies.) Getting more exercise, including walking, and generally taking care of ourselves will. There is rarely one easy answer. The real secret to good health appeared in this space over five years ago and, unfortunately requires some degree of discipline.

Abandoning Critical Thinking

We are faced every day with friends and neighbors who seem to be able to stare logic straight in the face and still make the wrong decision. This can easily be misinterpreted as stupid behavior, except we know that many of these people did well in school. Some even have advanced degrees. How else can we explain this apparent abandonment of critical thinking?

My theory is that, contrary to conventional wisdom, opinion polls and the apparent direction of popular trends, America is still a very religious country and is getting more religious with each passing day. The difference is that I am not talking about standard, organized religions. The new religions involve pseudoscience and are promoted by personal interactions, especially on social media, and by celebrity endorsements, rather than by priests, ministers, rabbis and imams. 

Consider how a traditionally religious person reacts when his faith is challenged. Show someone an obvious contradiction in the Bible or the Koran – and there are many to choose from – and such a person will argue for a while, but eventually fall back on the argument that it's a mystery only God can explain or that it is a matter of faith not subject to logical analysis. End of conversation! No one has changed his mind. He may even feel vindicated because his faith was challenged but endured.

Now have a similar conversation with someone convinced that communication with the dead is not only possible, but that it happens frequently on daytime TV and in private homes where mediums hold séances. No matter how much logical information such a person receives, a change of mind is a rare occurrence. A more likely response is the same quasi-religious reaction, resistance to logic and reliance on a strong belief in the spiritual realm.

But this new-age religious experience is not limited to the customers of séances and tarot card readings. With the help not only of charlatans, but also of marketing departments, industry institutes, lobbyists, interest groups, fund-raising organizations and individual crusaders, it spreads through the entire country creeping into every corner of our lives. It is so much easier to sell to people on the basis of faith than on the basis of logic. So all these forces work in concert to gain converts to particular products, services and ideas. The emotional argument draws them in; then the feeling of embarrassment or of betrayal of one's beliefs, keeps them coming back.

Consider the religious fervor displayed by backers of ideas like: harm from vaccination, danger of GMOs, danger of fluoridated tap water, superiority of bottled water, benefits of a gluten-free diet (except for medical necessity), power of alternative medicines, danger of anything artificial or chemical, dietary supplements, radiation from power lines, food irradiation, sea salt, therapeutic touch or Reiki, refusal to consider nuclear power as a clean electricity source, super foods, unquestioned halo-effect of words like green, natural, sustainable and ancient wisdom, essential oils, and the list goes on and on.

Yes, we are truly a religious nation. The religions of junk science, fads, hype and misinformation are thriving, converting new believers every day!

Getting Smart About Your Health

A recent edition of the Consumer Health Digest in my email was a real eye-opener! It illustrated the primary reason for the need for consumer protection: many Americans are not using the slightest bit of critical thinking or scientific understanding when dealing with personal health issues. They are looking for magic answers and falling for the most outlandish promises with paper-thin backing.

The first article was about a New York University Psychology Department review looking for what they called “drift” from the core mission of social work. It asked: “Should social workers be engaged in these practices?” By systematically searching the Internet for practitioner websites, they identified many offerings that “fall beyond those fuzzy borders” of the defined mission and in fact, “might appear highly questionable.”

Looking at the accompanying table, there is no “might” about it. The long list includes such services as: a course in miracles, angel card reading, Aura-Soma®: Color and Aromas, Auricular Detox, Awakening Your Light Body and Radiance, Biofield Tuning, Certified Cuddle Party Facilitator and Certified Intuitive Healer. And those just brush the surface at the beginning of the alphabet!

These and many others on the list have the distinct color and aroma of pseudoscience, superstition and scams using mysterious-sounding methods to lure in customers. It leads to calls for a “concerted national effort to stamp out pseudoscience in all of healthcare.” But people are wasting their time and money of their own free will. We don’t need a national effort; we need a critical thinking population, because it doesn’t stop there.

Next I read about a former massage therapist explaining, “Why I quit my massage therapy career.” The author tells about disputes with his regulatory body and the hate mail from colleagues as he tried, through his writing, to call attention to all the unproven therapies passed off in that field of practice. He concludes, “Massage therapy has a deeply pseudoscientific character overall, defining itself mostly in opposition to science-based or 'mainstream' health care, where rejection of science is actually celebrated by many practitioners, probably a majority."

Again, the problem is not all the false cures, but that so many people fall for these deceptive practices with the hope that they have found the easy and magical way out of their various health problems.

Finally, in that same newsletter from that week: “The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has announced that – as a result of a settlement – [the company] is mailing 227,995 refund checks totaling more than $6 million and averaging $26.57 to consumers who purchased health products from three individuals and the 19 companies they controlled—collectively known as Tarr, Inc.” Refunds included products for weight loss, muscle building and wrinkle-reduction. The company was accused of marketing their products with “unsupported claims, fake magazine and news sites, bogus celebrity endorsements, phony consumer testimonials, deceptive offers of 'free' and 'risk-free' trials, and enrollments of people without their consent in programs that charged them for additional products each month.”

But for every one the FTC catches, how many others slide by with similar schemes using endorsements in place of evidence, self-conducted so-called clinical trials, weasel words like “results may vary,” and the usual other tricks I warn of frequently? The only way to avoid these traps is to wise up, be skeptical and use critical thinking.

As an added note, not all the people that promote such treatments are charlatans. As I was training as a yoga teacher, I ran into a fair number of serious, devoted practitioners. They have a selective acceptance of science, where they want to pick and choose what to ignore and what counts as medicine, therapy and healthy practices depending on how their aura or chakras are aligned. Arguing the facts isn’t worth the time. (I’m sure many a shaman was equally sincere as he hurled virgins into the volcano.)

GMO Myths Persist

Despite the strong scientific, economic and humanitarian arguments in their favor, some individuals and organizations continue to spread a fear of genetically modified foods. Look up “GMO Warnings” to get a list of websites spreading the gospel.

This one is representative, promoting a book by an anti-GMO author. “In a study in the early 1990's rats were [force-]fed genetically modified (GM) tomatoes…. Several of the rats developed stomach lesions and seven out of forty died within two weeks.” At the time “agency scientists warned that GM foods in general might create unpredicted allergies, toxins, antibiotic resistant diseases, and nutritional problems” (emphasis in the original).

What they fail to mention is that GMO tomatoes were never available to market. A little more than two years ago the Hunt Company was scorned for their “No GMOs in sight” marketing campaign. Hundreds of “consumers, farmers and scientists criticizing the company for fear mongering and pandering to ‘the superstitions of misinformed extremists.’” That Forbes article goes on to explain that all the food we eat is technically genetically modified from their ancestors, either by nature, by human selection, by crossbreeding or by genetic engineering. All such modification is capable of producing favorable or unfavorable, even dangerous characteristics. But we can’t be afraid of all food!

The economic and humanitarian arguments go hand in hand to some extent. As the population of the earth continues to increase, the need for food increases. The amount of land available to raise that food is not increasing. In fact more will be used for other activities like homes and highways for that growing population. For the past hundred years, the ability to keep up with population growth has come not by throwing more resources at it, but by using science and technology. GMO is just another option.

The latest effort comes from the University of Illinois as shown in this headline: “Scientists engineer shortcut for photosynthetic glitch, boost crop growth by 40 percent.” By making the photosynthetic process in plants, their ability to convert sunlight to energy, more efficient, the principal investigator believes, "We could feed up to 200 million additional people with the calories lost to photorespiration in the Midwestern U.S. each year."

But the people promoting their books, their websites and their products don’t seem to care about those 200 million going hungry. They are more than willing to promote and prey upon the fear of science among people who are not starving and who can be easily convinced to be unnecessarily fussy and fearful about food. It’s been going on for some time and has become even more intense using the speed and reach of the Internet along with the growing appetite for movements motivated to save ignorant neighbors by forcing change.

A second economic argument is that some of our favorite foods may be disappearing too rapidly to be saved by any means less efficient than genetic engineering. I wrote in March 2017 about the problems orange growers face with citrus greening.

There is also a concern about bananas. This article explains that the bananas we buy in the store are sterile and produced via cloning. They lack the genetic variation needed to develop immunity to pests or diseases. 

The need is clear; the science is clear. Without constant improvement in farming technology, the world will not be able to support current levels of population growth. Without genetic engineering people will starve. About 90% or more of cotton, corn, soybeans, and sugar beets are currently genetically modified. People die from food contamination, not from genetic engineering. 

 Meanwhile, entities like the Institute for Responsible Technology and several others seem to have teamed up with the marketing departments of major food companies to sustain the fear and to use that fear to sell us products under the false, unfounded and misguided assumption that we are doing what’s healthier and what’s right for our families.

Dangers of Detox Plans

It began with the headline: “The Soy Sauce Colon Cleanse That Left a Woman Brain Dead Shows How Dangerous Viral Internet Trends Can Be.” Looking up “Soy Detox Hoax,” I found an interesting mix of news stories about this tragic event and other sites promoting the practice. On one hand there were serious warnings, but every other entry linked to what appeared to be “How To” information.

The Explore Health site called the practice an “extremely dangerous fad.” A 39-year-old woman tried the soy sauce cleanse and went into cardiac arrest on the way to the hospital. She was revived, but drifted in and out of consciousness for several days. She woke up with severe nerve damage, unable to move, swallow, or speak.

According to Fox News, who gave a similar description of the situation, tests showed extremely high levels of salt in her blood, which can draw water away from the brain.

This was not an isolated incident of a soy sauce overdose. Back in 2013, a 19-year-old man drank a quart of soy sauce on a dare. He began twitching and having seizures, then went into a coma and nearly died from an excess of salt in his body. Too much soy sauce is dangerous; a soy sauce cleanse is a bad idea.

But the problem is not limited to soy sauce. Another search, this time for “Dangers of Detox” yielded numerous articles in the mainstream press and on medical and health-oriented websites warning of the practice in general. They date back more than ten years. The danger is not really news!

Most begin by pointing out that the detox fads come and go, usually driven by one or another Hollywood personality. Here is just a sampling of reliable advice.

NBC News had a story back in May 2007, “Experts Warn of Detox Diet Dangers.” Their expert, a gastroenterologist, concludes: “Your body does a perfectly good job of getting rid of toxins on its own…There’s no evidence that these types of diets are necessary or helpful.” Another expert adds that any attempt to flush the bad stuff from your body, the so-called toxins, also flushes out “good bacteria that keep the intestines healthy.”

 From Live Science in November 2014: “There's no scientific evidence that juice cleanses are a sensible approach to better health.”

 In September 2013 a piece about hidden dangers of detox lists as possible side effects: vitamin deficiency, muscle deterioration, heart palpitations, hair loss, depression, abdominal and digestive pain, reduced immune system, skin problems, anemia, and gallstones. 

Harvard Health discussed it in May 2008. “We tend to forget that the body is equipped with a detoxification system of its own” and “can defend itself very well against most environmental insults and the effects of occasional indulgence.” If you're generally healthy, there is no need. If you are experiencing health problems, “visit your doctor instead of a detox spa.”

Journal of Family Practice in August 2011 published a rather technical document for its members about the dangers of colon cleansing. “Patients may look to colon cleansing as a way to ‘enhance their well-being,’ but in reality they may be doing themselves harm.” They emphasized that there are no proven benefits.

There you have it. Many sources tell the straight facts. Under normal circumstances, bodies are built to detox themselves. Colon cleansing or other detox programs or diets are not beneficial with a high probability of causing serious harm. Your body is not full of toxins. Your colon does not need to be periodically cleansed, and doing so does not support, strengthen or promote any natural processes.

With over 10 years of evidence, warnings and examples of cleansing gone wrong, why would anyone try it? One reason is that it appeals to those low on disciple and critical thinking, looking for easy answers and not necessarily fond of science. They trust Hollywood endorsements more than medical professionals.

Unfortunately, the ads and promotions are so easy to find. Mixed in with the numerous links to stories of the brain-dead woman were such headlines as “Best Colon Cleanses for 2018” and “Best Non-GMO Colon Cleanse,” which has a laughable account of a man who lived for over 150 years and fills the rest of the page with endorsements from satisfied customers.

Children Are Dying Of Parental Ignorance

I had just finished writing a closing comment last time about how science is often ignored in the courtroom. This is especially true in jury trials where each member of the jury arrives with individual prejudices and faulty beliefs. The following day I ran across two recent articles related to that subject.

The first was about an anti-vaccine activist who was hiring himself out as an expert witness in child abuse cases. As he testified about the case the prosecutor began questioning him about his other beliefs in an attempt to undermine his credibility.

Among the ideas he admitted to believing was that “Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, a charity funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to increase vaccination rates in poor countries, was committing genocide” by promoting vaccination of children. He also admitted believing that “Gavi – along with the World Health Organization, the Gates Foundation and UNICEF – were using vaccinations to force sterilization on people in third-world countries.” He likewise blames the rise in autism cases on the increased use of vaccines.

As justification he cited a 1972 report and a 1974 study “warning about the dangers of population growth” saying that it was “ ‘no leap of faith’ to believe that vaccination is being used to carry out this agenda.” But it is a huge leap of faith – in fact it is completely wrong and  unscientific to ignore the benefits of vaccination over the last century. Smallpox, diphtheria and polio, to name just a few, have been all but eliminated. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) states, “studies have shown that there is no link between receiving vaccines and developing ASD” (Autism Spectrum Disorder). The World Health Organization (WHO) agrees.

So his credibility should have been destroyed. Such a stance should be laughable to any educated, well-informed jury. But he has been called as an expert witness in over 80 child abuse cases, despite the fact that he trained as a radiologist, not a pediatrician.

I have posted a complete explanation of why the anti-vaccine activists are wrong, how it is based on faulty and fraudulent science, discussing the risks of such an idea. For a review of the evidence, see here from a year ago and here from 2015.

The second article was from the BBC reporting on the latest data about measles. They call it a devastating, “highly contagious disease that in severe cases can lead to complications such as blindness, pneumonia and infection and swelling of the brain.” WHO saw a 30% increase in cases in 2017 among children from the prior year, including 110,000 deaths. They expect the same for 2018. Some cases even arose in countries where it had been considered wiped out.

According to WHO experts, the primary reason behind this measles increase in developed countries has been that “vaccine hesitancy” is becoming more of a problem. "In some groups, this is driven by religious beliefs but in quite a few populations it is spread by false concerns about the safety of vaccines" often on social media where people like and re-post without any attempt to verify facts. A major challenge facing healthcare providers is how to counter such misinformation.

Many facets of this subject are scary: that superstitious people, led by some superstitious doctors and celebrities, promote this dangerous belief; that lawyers try to pass off as an expert witness someone who has not trained in the field and has demonstrably erroneous beliefs in closely related areas; and that the general public is blinded to scientific facts by social media misinformation. Anyone who really cares about child abuse should shudder at the death of 110,000 from a single preventable disease due to parents’ intentional or negligent inaction.