Science-Based Medicine

I was a bit torn when trying to figure out how to approach this piece.  A reader emailed me about an article in the Huffington Post, and there is so much wrong with it that I felt overwhelmed.  My solution is to focus on a few of the problems that can help illuminate broader points.

There is a small but vocal movement of people who refuse to believe that skin cancer caused by sunlight is a significant health risk.  These people tend to also believe that the risk is being purposely hyped by others, and that our current approach to skin cancer prevention is causing an epidemic of vitamin D deficiency. Leaving aside the seemingly insane denialism regarding sunlight and cancer, there are two broad problems with this article.  The first is pretty bad.

With the summer months upon us I wanted to find out firsthand what exactly the mantra is that dermatologists are telling patients. So I went undercover to several San Francisco dermatologists in order to see if there is legitimate concern about the sun-scare media hype. Are these doctors being sensible or going overboard when it comes to advice on sunscreen use and skin cancer prevention? Is the sky falling with dangerous UV rays or are we being induced into a media panic?

He goes on to give links to recorded conversations, and prints out partial transcripts.  He does not specify whether or not he received permission to record these conversations, as required by California law.  Whether or not the law requires it, the writer should have disclosed to his readers whether or not he had received permission.  This information is important in interpreting the conversations he reports to us.

The next problem is broader, and deals with physicians’ willingness to lie on behalf of patients.  The author’s presumably-clandestine recordings of his deceptive visits to dermatologists (catching my breath—this is striking and requires a digression.  The act of deceiving these doctors is not only unethical, but can influence the outcome of the visit.  Doctors make the assumption that most patients are interacting with them out of good faith, and are not intentionally deceiving them.) Continue Reading »

Mark Hyman, a proponent of so-called “functional medicine” promoting himself over at the Huffington Post (an online news source that essentially allows dubious medical infomercials to pass as news) has posted a particularly egregious article on personalized medicine for dementia. In the article Hyman distorts the modern practice of medicine, the current state of genetic science, and the very notion of “disease.” It is, as usual, a fine piece of medical propaganda sure to confuse many a reader.

Hyman starts with some standard epidemiology of dementia – it is a common and growing disorder – but then descends quickly into distortion and pseudoscience.

Conventional Medicine Strawman.

Hyman creates what readers are likely to recognize by now as the standard straw man of conventional or science-based medicine, and then uses that caricature to create a false dichotomy with his “functional” medicine. He writes:
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Mark Crislip is always a hard act to follow, particularly when he’s firing on all cylinders, as he was last Friday. Although I can sometimes match him (and, on rare occasions, even surpass him) for amusing snark, this time around I’m going to remain mostly serious because that’s what the subject matter requires. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I’m a bit of an odd bird in the world of cancer in that I’m both a surgeon and I run a lab. Sadly, there just aren’t very many surgeons doing basic and translational research these days, thanks to declining NIH funding, increasing clinical burden necessitated by declining reimbursements, and the increasing complexity of laboratory-based research. That’s not to say that there aren’t some surgeons out there doing excellent laboratory research, but sometimes I feel as though I’m part of an endangered species, particularly years like this when grants are running out and I need to renew my funding or secure new funding, the consequence of failure being the dissolution of my laboratory. It’s a tough world out there in biomedical research.

As tough as biomedical research is in cancer, to my mind far tougher is research trying to tease out the relationship between environmental exposures and cancer risk. If you want complicated, that’s complicated. For one thing, obtaining epidemiological data is incredibly labor- and cost-intensive, and rarely are the data clear cut. There’s always ambiguity, not to mention numerous confounding factors that conspire to exaggerate on the one hand or hide on the other hand correlations between environmental exposures and cancer. As a result, studies are often conflicting, and making sense of the morass of often contradictory studies can tax even the most skillful scientists and epidemiologists. Communicating the science and epidemiology linking environment and cancer to the public is even harder. What the lay person often sees is that one day a study is in the news telling him that X causes cancer and then a month later another study says that X doesn’t cause cancer. Is it any wonder that people are often confused over what is and is not dangerous? Add to this a distinct inability on the part of most people, even highly educated people, to weigh small risks against one another (an inability that has led to phenomena such as the anti-vaccine movement), and the task of trying to decide what is dangerous, what is not, how policy is formulated based on this science, and how to communicate the science and the policy derived from it to the public is truly Herculean.
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There is a trend in the media when presenting a contentious topic to provide balance.  For topics not founded upon objective facts this serves the media well; provide both sides of the argument, and let the viewer decide.  The problem is that not every issue is evenly balanced, particularly in science.  Covering the discovery of a new extra-solar planet by giving equal airtime to astronomers and astrologers, for example, would be the height of absurdity, yet this is precisely how the media approaches scientific topics with frightening regularity.  You need look no further than the coverage of evolution, or 2012, or global climate change (that list should derail the comments nicely) for excellent examples of the same type of false balance in mainstream media outlets.

It was with trepidation, then, that I waited to see how PBS’s Frontline handled the topic of vaccination.  I was pleasantly surprised.  “The Vaccine War” introduced the most common concerns expressed about vaccination, and then presented the evidence addressing each concern in turn clearly and concisely.  It gave airtime to some rather prominent anti-vaccine personalities, but the bulk of the program was dedicated to the data, the science, the evidence, and where answers are available it did not hesitate to present them baldly and clearly. “The Vaccine War” was not a comprehensive review of every perspective, every theory, every vaccine and study, but it did provide a fair discussion balanced by the science.

My first clue that Frontline had acquitted itself well was when Dr. Jay Gordon, pediatrician to Jenny McCarthy’s son, tweeted his opinion of the show:

PBS show about vaccines. Don’t bother to watch it.” Continue Reading »

April is National Autism Awareness Month, and as of today April is nearly half over. Do you notice anything different compared to the last couple of years? I do. Can you guess what it is?

The anti-vaccine movement’s usual suspects haven’t been all over the mainstream media, as they usually are this time every year, often as early as April 1 or even March 31. In fact, over the last couple of years I had come to dread April 1, not because it’s April Fools’ Day (although the things that made me dread that particular day were often indistinguishable from an April Fools’ Day prank, so full of idiocy were they), but rather the expected carpet bombing of the media by the likes of Jenny McCarthy, J. B. Handley, and their ilk, some or all of whom would show up on various talk shows to spread their propaganda that vaccines cause autism. For instance, last year Jenny McCarthy and her former boyfriend Jim Carrey showed up on Larry King Live! with Dr. Jerry Kartzinel (her co-author on her latest book of autism quackery) and J. B. Handley, the last of whom even contributed a guest post on Larry King’s blog, in which he touted an incredibly bad, pseudoscientific “study” commissioned by Generation Rescue. The “study” (and calling it a “study” is way too generous) was no more than cherry-picked random bits of data twisted together into a pretzel of nonsense, as I described. Around the same time, Jenny McCarthy was interviewed by TIME Magazine, an interview in which she uttered these infamous words:

I do believe sadly it’s going to take some diseases coming back to realize that we need to change and develop vaccines that are safe. If the vaccine companies are not listening to us, it’s their fucking fault that the diseases are coming back. They’re making a product that’s shit. If you give us a safe vaccine, we’ll use it. It shouldn’t be polio versus autism.

Soon after, Generation Rescue created a website called Fourteen Studies, which they promoted hither, thither, and yon. The idea of the website was to attack the main studies that failed to find a link between vaccines and autism and to promote the pseudoscientific studies that anti-vaccinationists like. In 2008, it was pretty much the same — well, worse, even. When she appeared on Larry King Live! with our old “friend,” anti-vaccine pediatrician to the stars, Dr. Jay Gordon, McCarthy shouted down real experts by yelling, “Bullshit!” (behavior trumpeted by Rachel Sklar of the Huffington Post).

This year? Oddly enough (and to me unexpectedly), there’s been almost nothing. J.B. Handley seems to be the man who wasn’t there. Well, not quite. It turns out that J. B. Handley has managed to get a little bit of fawning media attention, but just a little bit, in the form of an interview in The Bloomington Alternative entitled J. B. Handley: It’s unequivocal; vaccines hurt some kids. Apparently Mr. Handley has come down quite a bit in the world. Where’s his appearance with Jenny on Larry King Live! this year? Maybe it’s coming in the second half of the month. Or maybe the mainstream media, in the wake of the fall of Andrew Wakefield, have finally figured out how disreputable Generation Rescue is when it comes to vaccines. In the meantime Steven Higgs will have to do as a new mouthpiece for the anti-vaccine movement.

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It has been alleged by Great Minds such as Jenny McCarthy that the US recommends far more vaccinations than other countries.  Her precise statement was, “How come many other countries give their kids one-third as many shots as we do?” She put this into the context of wondering if our current vaccine schedule should be less rigid.  The entire piece was filled with what could charitably called less-than-truthful assertions, but examining simply this one assertion might be useful.  Dr. John Snyder has an excellent analysis of the most important assertion, that of the possible benefits of an “alternative vaccination schedule”  which I would encourage you to read.

First, we need to parse out this “more shots than everyone else” statement.  Some countries–Haiti, for example–give far fewer vaccines due not to fewer recommendations but to adverse economic conditions. Because of this, they have very high rates of vaccine-preventable diseases.  They want to vaccinate more, but can’t.  Then there are countries who can afford to vaccinate. Let’s look at what three industrialized nations recommend before six years of age.

Vaccinations, by disease and country, 0-6 years of age

The chart, as I’ve presented it, is somewhat imprecise.  Some vaccinations are given in a single shot, others in multiple shots, but these generally represent the childhood vaccinations in each country, and the links provided will take you to the more detailed information.

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I must admit, I never saw it coming.

At least, I never saw it coming this fast and this dramatically. After all, this is a saga that has been going on for twelve solid years now, and it’s an investigation that has been going on at least since 2004. Yes, I’m referring to that (possibly former) hero of the anti-vaccine movement, the man who is arguably the most responsible for suffering and death due to the resurgence of measles in the U.K. because of his role in frightening parents about the MMR vaccine.

I’m referring to the fall of Andrew Wakefield
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Kudos to Lindsay Beyerstein of Majikthise for coining a new appellation “Big Placebo.” Big Placebo is the alternative health counterpart to Big Pharma. Both are special interest groups designed to promote their products, whether they are worthy of promotion or not. There is one big difference between them: Big Pharma makes products that usually work (though not always, and sometimes not safely). Big Placebo hawks books and products that never work.

Big Placebo is unsatisfied with the $40 billion it takes in every year on treatments that don’t even work. They’re aiming for a much larger piece of the healthcare pie and to do so they are criticizing modern medicine.

To hear Big Placebo tell it, virtually all illness can be prevented and anyone who gets sick deserves it because of poor lifestyle choices. If only that were so. Unfortunately, most illness and disease is caused by factors beyond people’s control, including infectious agents, genetic defects and inherited predispositions.
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A “Double Standard”?

Last week I had planned to write a comprehensive critique of a recent comment by Larry Dossey. He had posted it on Val Jones’s betterhealth website in response to Dr. Val’s essay, “The Decade’s Top 5 Threats To Science In Medicine,” originally posted here on SBM. Much of what Dr. Val had identified as the top threats involved recent dalliances, by government, medical schools, and the media, with the collection of implausible and mostly nonsensical health claims that advocates have dubbed “CAM.” As uncontroversial as Dr. Val’s assertions ought to have been—similar to suggesting that closing one’s eyes and “using the force” would be a threat to safe driving (even if some might quibble over the top threats to science in medicine)—Dr. Dossey demurred by distraction:

Your article implies that conventional medicine is grounded in evidence-based research and that CAM is not. This is grossly overstated, and suggests that a double standard is being applied to these fields.

Dossey trotted out familiar arguments: “Much, if not most, of contemporary medical practice still lacks a scientific foundation”; “the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) found that only an estimated 10 to 20% of the techniques that physicians use are empirically proven”; hospital care is “the third leading cause of death in the United States,” accounting for hundreds of thousands of deaths each year.

He concluded with an appeal to fairness, rationality, and collegiality:

Overwhelming evidence reveals that conventional medicine is, on the whole, woefully unscientific. It’s fashionable and easy to deny this, but the facts say otherwise. So, by all means, Dr. Val, be critical of CAM – but do not fall into a double standard. Let us ruthlessly apply science to ALL we do as physicians. Let us challenge ALL areas of medicine to a higher standard. On that, I’m pretty sure we can agree.

Keep up the good work.

Sincerely yours,
Larry Dossey, MD

I procrastinated with my own rebuttal, and in the meantime David Gorski responded to similar language found in an article by Dossey (and two other magical thinkers) titled “The Mythology of Science-Based Medicine,” published by the Huffington Post. I’ll not repeat Dr. Gorski’s able rebuttal in any detail, and I’ve already written about much of what this matter brings to mind. Examples are here, here, and here on the perils of conflating science-based medicine and Evidence-Based Medicine (EBM); here on the false dichotomy of modern medicine vs. “CAM”; here on a concise definition of “CAM”; here and here on the mischief spawned by demands to “ruthlessly apply science,” in the narrow, EBM sense of the word, to implausible health claims; here (point #7) and here regarding the tu quoque fallacy, the “10-20% empirically proven” claim, and the risks of modern health care; here (scroll down to “this week’s entry”) and here, regarding some of Dossey’s own opinions about science and the future of medicine.

For now I’ll elaborate on a few points. These pertain not only to Dr. Dossey but also to myths common to the advocacy of pseudomedicine, so I hope to provide some useful information.

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If there’s one thing about the so-called “complementary and alternative medicine” (CAM) movement that I’ve emphasized time and time again, it’s that its adherents have a definite love-hate relationship with science. They hate it because it is the single greatest threat to their beliefs system and the pseudoscience that underlies it. At the same time, they crave the legitimacy that science confers. They crave it not because they have any great love for science. Quite the contrary. It is simply that they recognize that science actually delivers the goods. Of course, they believe that they deliver the goods too, but they come to this belief not through science but rather through all the cognitive shortcomings and biases to which humans are prone, such as confusing correlation with causation, confirmation bias, not recognizing regression to the mean, and being fooled by the placebo effect. Whether it’s through a misunderstanding of science or less innocent reasons, they go to great lengths to torture it into superficially appearing to support their claims through a combination of cherry-picking of studies that seem to support them and misrepresenting ones that don’t, discussions of which abound right here in this very blog.

The other thing I’ve emphasized about the CAM movement is that, even more than scientific credibility, they crave legitimacy. To them, however, science is but one pathway to legitimacy, because, unlike practitioners of science-based medicine, they are more than willing to bypass science to obtain the legitimacy–or at least the appearance of the legitimacy–they so crave. If it means doing an end run around science by trying to hijack the Obama health insurance reform bill that is currently being negotiated to resolve the differences between the Senate and House versions, so be it. Indeed, earlier this year, I described how Senator Tom Harkin has tried to promote CAM through the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) and trying to insert provisions into the bill that would mandate that government-subsidized insurance exchanges pay for CAM. Meanwhile, prominent CAM advocates have been carpet-bombing the media with dubious arguments in support of CAM, as in when Deepak Chopra, Rustum Roy, Dean Ornish, and Andrew Weil teamed up in different combinations to promote the idea that CAM is all about “prevention” and that science-based medicine, in all its reductionistic evil, is nothing more than pushing pills.

They’re at it again.
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