tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-59193405164680220012024-03-05T03:23:24.543-08:00David Robert Grimes - debunked? Yoda Knighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04047960739788432970noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5919340516468022001.post-28926761534221626342018-01-14T05:25:00.020-08:002022-02-05T22:45:02.838-08:00The Ugly Face of Science - David Robert Grimes, Steven Novella, David Gorski<div align="center" style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px; text-align: center;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;">THE UGLY AND
UNACCEPTABLE FACE OF SCIENCE</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: calibri;">David Robert Grimes /
Steven Novella / David Gorski</span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: calibri;">The long read: an in-depth analysis of the problem</span></b></div>
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<b><span style="color: #757575; font-family: arial;">Author biography: </span></b><b style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent; color: #757575; font-family: roboto, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">I studied Biological Sciences at Oxford University, and I live in Vancouver, Canada</b><span face="roboto, sans-serif" style="background-color: transparent; color: #757575; display: inline; float: none; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">. </span></div><div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px; text-align: justify;"><span face="roboto, sans-serif" style="background-color: transparent; color: #757575; display: inline; float: none; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">NOTE: this article used to rank first page (under relevant search terms) on Bing (Microsoft). However, it has now been censored from this search engine. As for so much of the censorship that has undermined freedom of speech during the past few years, no explanation or legitimate reason was given. It is unclear whether the censorship was due to algorithmic suppression or because it was demanded by “THE SCIENCE” cult that I hold to account in this article. </span></div><div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px; text-align: justify;">Please donate to support my efforts to protect public health and good science at: <a href="https://www.patreon.com/yodaknight" style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 16px;">https://www.patreon.com/yodaknight</a></div><div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px; text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="background-color: white; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 16px; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: justify;"><br /></div></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10.66px; orphans: 2; text-align: justify; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><b style="font-family: roboto, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; mso-bidi-font-weight: normal; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: calibri;"><u>CONTENTS OF ARTICLE</u></span></b></div><div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; display: inline; float: none; font-family: calibri; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: justify; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">Summary</span><br />
<span face="roboto, sans-serif"><span style="color: black;"><span style="background-color: transparent; display: inline; float: none; font-size: 15px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: calibri;">Prologue</span></b></span></span></span><br />
<span face="roboto, sans-serif"><span style="color: black;"><span style="background-color: transparent; display: inline; float: none; font-size: 15px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: calibri;">Part 1 – Introduction</span></b></span></span></span><br />
<span face="roboto, sans-serif"><span style="color: black;"><span style="background-color: transparent; display: inline; float: none; font-size: 15px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: calibri;">Part 2 – Introduction to DRG and Cancer Research</span></b></span></span></span><br />
<span face="roboto, sans-serif"><span style="color: black;"><span style="background-color: transparent; display: inline; float: none; font-size: 15px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: calibri;">Part 3 – ‘Six Stubborn myths about Cancer’, revisited</span></b></span></span></span><br />
<span face="roboto, sans-serif"><span style="color: black;"><span style="background-color: transparent; display: inline; float: none; font-size: 15px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: calibri;">Part 4 – Critique of DRG’s follow-up article on Cancer</span></b></span></span></span><br />
<span face="roboto, sans-serif"><span style="color: black;"><span style="background-color: transparent; display: inline; float: none; font-size: 15px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: calibri;">Part 5 – Summary of inaccuracies and logical errors of Grimes, Novella,
and Gorski</span></b></span></span></span></div><br />
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<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10.66px; orphans: 2; text-align: justify; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">
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<span face="roboto, sans-serif"><span style="color: black;"><span style="background-color: transparent; display: inline; float: none; font-size: 15px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; color: black; display: inline; float: none; font-family: calibri; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><u>Summary</u></span><b></b><i></i><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike></span></span></span></div>
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<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px; text-align: justify;">David Robert Grimes receives funding from <b>Wellcome Trust</b>, and is endorsed by "<b>Sense About Science</b>". He is also a "consultant" to undisclosed "private companies" and "charitable" organizations. Wellcome Trust has deep connections to the pharmaceutical industry - both in its origins and today - as reported by the BMJ [see: <a href="https://www.bmj.com/content/372/bmj.n556">https://www.bmj.com/content/372/bmj.n556</a>]. "Sense About Science" has been funded by the pharmaceutical industry and by Coca-Cola - yet fails to disclose these conflicts of interest, as reported in <i>The Times</i>. David Gorski has received funding from <b>Bayer Pharmaceuticals</b>. </div><div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px; text-align: justify;">They are an ominous new breed of <b>SPIN DOCTORS</b>, carrying the baton forward for the biomedical model and helping to usher in the dystopian technocratic age. They are reductionist - <u>not</u> deep systems thinkers - and their reasoning is infantile. Unable to see the wood for the trees, rarely do their ramblings on complexity and statistics denote systems thinking. On the contrary, it sucks people into a shady vortex of obfuscation and red herrings which distracts them from realizing deeper truths. </div><div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px; text-align: justify;">These characters are biased and ideologically possessed - making their writing propagandistic, toxic, divisive, and supercilious rhetoric - not true science. Even though they claim to be guided by "the evidence and nothing but the evidence", this is patently false. They are biased by their ideological leaning and allegiance to the biomedical model. They are guided by what they <i>want</i> to be true - rather than what <u>is</u> true - as evidenced by the fact that they continuously shape-shift their standards of evidence, and level of analysis, to fit their narrative - amplifying data which bolsters their position, and relentlessly muddying any data and reasoning which goes against the story they are trying to push. If it weren't for double standards, they'd have no standards at all. They are both passengers and captains on the <b>narrative juggernaut</b> - unable to slow down or to change their minds and turn around - deeply falling foul of the sunk costs fallacy. </div></div><div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px; text-align: justify;">
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Grimes, Gorski, and Novella are what <i>The Ethical Skeptic </i>would call <b>fake skeptics </b>and <b>authority credulists</b>. <u><b>They represent an Orwellian inversion of true science and real skepticism</b></u> - part of what Nassim Taleb terms the 'intellectual yet idiot' (IYI) class of the establishment elite. They are endorsed by - and beholden to - corporate and industry interests (whilst proclaiming and virtue signalling the exact opposite), lodged within - and incentivized by - what Eric Weinstein calls the <i>Gated Institutional Narrative</i>.<br />
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They enact a weaponized type of skepticism that - whether or not they are cognizant of it - has been exploited by the propaganda arm of corporations, industry lobby groups, and astroturfing think tanks. <br />
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This has amplified their voice and outreach in a way that is incommensurate with their overall contribution to deep and sustainable public health strategy - and they pollute the <i><b>Information Ecosystem</b></i> by parroting the flagrant <b>representation bias </b>of the biomedical / corporate model of medicine (i.e. perpetrating the distortion that absence of evidence is evidence of absence - which is easy to do because patentable drugs and interventions are far more likely to receive the funding necessary to achieve the threshold for clinical evidence) - and by failing to balance their skepticism by seriously addressing the glaring flaws and systemic corruption / collusion in mainstream medicine. This creates what Daniel Schmachtenberger calls <b><i>distortion bubbles </i></b>that, over time, corrode public trust in science whilst having made people increasingly dependent on biomedical solutions to chronic health issues rather than being encouraged to take responsibility - and to feel empowered - to optimize their own health. <br />
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Together with representation bias, they misappropriate both the origin <i>and</i> meaning of the dictum "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" - first derived from Pierre-Simon de Laplace - and then adopted by Marcello Truzzi - before Carl Sagan popularized it. This dictum was <i>supposed</i> to be used to guard against the fantastical and unfalsifiable, as analogized by Bertrand Russell's teapot. <b>There's nothing extraordinary about the idea that diet and lifestyle changes could prevent, manage, or even reverse disease. In fact, what <u>is</u> extraordinary is the suggestion that they couldn't</b>. <br />
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They are <b>masters in sophistry</b> - pumping out clever-<i>sounding</i> arguments yet which, ultimately, turn out to be epistemologically false, misleading, or dumb rhetoric. This includes their fixed-false belief that "burden of proof always lies with the person making a claim". This is erroneous because burden of proof depends on the scientific plausibility of a claim - not on who makes it. So, for example, the onus is on the Agrochemical Industry to prove that the long-term, systemic and synergistic effects of chemicals used are safe. The onus is <u>not</u> on those who doubt the safety of such products. And, of course, in law, industries and corporations must be at least <i>implicitly</i> stating products as safe when brought to market - so these skeptics wrongly place the onus even according to their very own conception of burden of proof. <br />
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Sophistry has <u><i>no</i></u> place in medicine or public health journalism. <br />
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This isn't just an affront to true science and real skepticism -- it is a danger to public health, social harmony, the spirit of free society, and to finding pragmatic and <i>genuinely</i> sustainable solutions to the problems facing people and the Earth. </div><div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px; text-align: center;"><u>Quick Examples</u>:</div><div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px; text-align: justify;">On <b>March 8th <u>2019</u></b>, David Robert Grimes wrote an article for the Irish Times in which he states:<br />''Fish oil too remains popular, despite the Cochrane Collaboration last year finding NO EVIDENCE of benefit associated with it''. (See article: <a href="https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/most-health-supplements-have-no-health-value-and-should-be-taxed-1.3817879">https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/most-health-supplements-have-no-health-value-and-should-be-taxed-1.3817879</a>)<br /><br />However, on <b>November 15th, <u>2018</u></b>, the Cochrane Collaboration had released a statement saying, ''New research finds omega-3 fatty acids (i.e. fish oil!) reduce the risk of premature birth'', going on to say how ''premature birth is the leading cause of death for children under 5 years old worldwide, accounting for close to one million deaths annually''.<br />(see article: <a href="https://www.cochrane.org/news/new-research-finds-omega-3-fatty-acids-reduce-risk-premature-birth">https://www.cochrane.org/news/new-research-finds-omega-3-fatty-acids-reduce-risk-premature-birth</a>).<br /><br />So, Dr Grimes, is there really ''no evidence'' of benefit associated with fish oil?<br /><br />This claim by Grimes was false - and false health claims endanger public health. To date, Grimes hasn't corrected or retracted his false statement. He rarely questions the antics of Big Pharma, yet - if he does - there always seems to be an ulterior motive at work. For example, a jab at drug companies came in his article on libertarian ideology for <i>The Guardian</i> - but here, it was simply a ploy to justify greater and greater state power. In this same article he says: </div><div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #121212; font-family: GuardianTextEgyptian, "Guardian Text Egyptian Web", Georgia, serif; font-size: 17px; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures; text-align: left;">"It is far more profitable to develop long-term medication for chronic conditions, and unsurprisingly this is </span><a data-link-name="in body link" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2095020/" style="background-color: white; border-bottom-color: rgb(220, 220, 220); border-bottom-style: solid; border-image: initial; border-left-color: initial; border-left-style: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-top-style: initial; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; box-sizing: inherit; color: #c70000; font-family: GuardianTextEgyptian, "Guardian Text Egyptian Web", Georgia, serif; font-size: 17px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: left; text-decoration-line: none; vertical-align: baseline;">what drug companies prefer to do</a><span style="color: #121212; font-family: GuardianTextEgyptian, Guardian Text Egyptian Web, Georgia, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 17px; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">". </span></span></div><div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px; text-align: justify;">But, in his other article debunking 'spurious' cancer claims, he explicitly states how drug companies would stand to make far more money if they had - and provided - an immediate cancer cure. He has totally contradicted himself. <br />
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<br /><div style="text-align: center;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="font-family: calibri;">Prologue</span></u></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: calibri;">It has been said that ‘tyranny is
the deliberate removal of nuance’. I would go a step further and say that it is
both: (1) the deliberate removal of nuance when nuance is sorely needed; and
(2) the deliberate piling on of nuance to obfuscate and distract from the ratification
of a likely truth, a simple fact, or a simple principle. Scientists who use nuance
to keep society trapped in endless, pointless, and unhelpful rounds of ‘proof-seeking’
are playing ‘God of the Gaps’. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">To illustrate the danger to
society of drawing things out <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Ad nauseam</i>,
consider the reticence of Grimes, Novella, and Gorski to promulgate on the
importance of good food for health – and their absolute denialism when
considering the specific role nutrition can have in preventing and treating
serious diseases like cancer. They would say, ‘’we are just holding out for
solid evidence’’. But, when will we get unequivocal evidence, if ever? 20 years?
30 years? </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: calibri;">Whilst we wait for solid experimental
evidence, we can use evidence from logic and first principles in biology to
reach provisional – yet plausible – conclusions, and these can be used to
inform public health policy. This approach is what’s known as the <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Precautionary Principle</b>, and it would
be adopted by any sane and intelligent person who <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">genuinely</i> cares about peoples’ health – not just how many glossy
academic papers they can publish, or how they can advance their careers, on the
back of sickness and misery. <span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: calibri;">Tragically, the thinking of
public scientists and journalists like Grimes, Novella, and Gorski doesn’t abide
by the <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Precautionary Principle</b>. It
is for this reason – a deceptively simple yet catastrophically profound
difference in how they approach medicine – that they are a danger to public
health. They don't understand a basic aspect of logic, and ethics, which implores us to place the burden of proof according to the scientific plausibility of a claim. If something is scientifically plausible - e.g. that chronic exposure to pesticides and other agrochemicals (and their synergistic effect) is harmful to humans - the burden of proof is NOT on the claimant, but on the manufacturers and scientists who champion the use of such chemicals. Erroneously, and incredulously, Grimes, Novella, and Gorski think in the opposite direction. It's irresponsible, and grossly negligent. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: calibri;">Whether such dogmatic skeptics
appeal to nuance within a given topic, or whether they appeal to the simplicity
in said topic, depends on the argument they’re trying to support or negate.
They are forever virtue-signalling reason, logic and evidence – but their
actions reveal an obvious inconsistency and bias which renders them
untrustworthy and intellectually-deceitful. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: calibri;">Dogmatists like Grimes, Novella,
and Gorski are <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u>Merchants of Doubt</u></b>,
rather than harbingers of truth. They obfuscate, rather than clarify. Instead
of seeking solutions, they waste inordinate amounts of time, and their
privileged media platforms, on intellectual one-upmanship, which, given their
paucity of intellectual rigour, can only be achieved by picking the low-hanging
fruit and by focusing on fringe topics – the proponents of which are <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">already</i> castigated and ridiculed by the
masses in society. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: calibri;">Dogmatic skeptics are loath to
risk being exposed for their shoddy reasoning skills, and so they simply avoid
debating bright people. And, they also stay clear of challenging orthodox
positions in science, e.g. the deeply troubling problems within mainstream
medicine and Big Pharma. They stay clear of these issues, even though they
deserve orders of magnitude more scrutiny and overhaul than anything swirling
around in the alt-med camp. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: calibri;">Yes, the erroneous logic and
quackery surrounding homeopathy is a problem. But the hundreds of thousands of
people dying from iatrogenic medicine and the correct use of pharmaceutical
drugs is a much, much, bigger problem.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: calibri;">Grimes has spent vast amounts of
time, and media space, on homeopathy. But he hasn’t touched the tragic issues within
mainstream medicine. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: calibri;">To reiterate, <i>dogmatic</i> skepticism is insidsuous
and dangerous to public health because it stalls the implementation of reasonable
health measures - i.e., the frivolity of intellectualising ‘’skepticism’’ becomes seen as more important than the much-needed and <b>down-to-earth</b> pragmatism of the precautionary principle. Also, and ironically, it paves the way for scientists
to become lazy thinkers, even unscientific. This is because the knee-jerk and incessant
‘call for evidence’ encourages skeptics to focus on whether something is true or
not, rather than <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">how it could be true</i>.
<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>It inculcates a lack of critical thinking
and, more importantly, it works against fostering a systems-thinking approach
to complex epidemiological questions in medicine. Grimes, Novella and Gorski are
stuck in immature black-and-white thinking, in part due to their aversion to
logical evidence and first principles and their compulsive, unquestioning, appeal to an intransigent and limiting definition of 'evidence' - and due to their obsequious worshipping of the high priesthood of science at the altar of the orthodoxy. They accept pro-industry consensus positions in medicine uncritically, even though many of those consensus positions have a relatively poor evidence base, and even though they have been reached on the back of decades of wrangling, corruption, and propagandising [via media 'Astroturfing' (see main article)] by Big Industry interests - as highlighted by Peter Gotzsche of the Nordic Cochrane Collaboration. In other words, they accept consensus positions as best evidence, even when they are repudiated by higher authorities in science, such as the Cochrane Collaboration. Yes, believe it or not, ''consensus'' in medicine, and the views of the Cochrane Collaboration, are often at odds. As I discuss in the main article, ''consensus'' in mainstream medicine / academia is regularly conflated with <b><u>best practice</u></b> - whereas, in truth, and often, ''consensus'' positions in medicine reflect the <b>monopolisation of treatment</b> - as prescribed and lobbied for (using tyrannical authority) by the <b>Medical-Industrial-Complex</b> (see main article) - rather than what <i>really</i> constitutes the best overall systems-approach for treating (and preventing) chronic disease. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: calibri;">These skeptics will tell you they’re
in it for the public good and – bizarrely – they will use their lauds and
prizes received from Big Industry interests to try to convince you of this!
Gorski has been funded by Bayer (a major pharmaceutical company), and Grimes’s John
Maddox award for ‘standing up for science’ came from <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Sense About Science (SAS)</b> – which receives funding from pharmaceutical
interests. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">The prize would more accurately
be called ‘standing up for corporate science’. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">Given that Grimes, Novella and
Gorski tirelessly slogan ‘’evidence’’, it’s deeply ironic that they have <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">zero</b> evidence that their promulgations
help society, or science for that matter. Grimes was awarded the prize by SAS on
the back of <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">zero</b> evidence that his style
of journalism actually helps anyone other than pro-industry interests. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">We must all be skeptical of dogmatic skeptics. What are their true motivations for behaving in the way they do? It
can be argued that dogmatic skepticsm (as exhibited by Grimes, Novella and
Gorski) is just as pathological as conspiratorial ideation (which is,
ironically, Grimes’s hobbyhorse). </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">As will become clear in this article, Grimes, Novella, and Gorski are
an affront to good medicine. <span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
</div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px; text-align: justify;">
<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike><br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u>PART 1</u></b> <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">INTRODUCTION</b></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">I was heartened to see John
Horgan – a well-respected figure within the scientific establishment – take on
the absurdity of the dogmatic skeptics of science in his 2016 article for the
Scientific American: <i><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Dear ‘’Skeptics’’, Bash Homeopathy and
Bigfoot Less, Mammograms and War More</b>.</i> It should be noted here at the beginning of this article that this call for action for ''skeptics'' to focus on critical issues - rather than relatively trivial and clickbait topics - has been around for at least a decade. For example, Dan Hind for <i>The Guardian </i>wrote this brilliant piece back in 2007, titled <b><i>The Real Enemies of Reason</i></b>. <i> </i> </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px; text-align: justify;">
Link: [https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2007/aug/23/therealenemiesofreason]. </div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">Horgan and Hind were speaking out against
the implicit bias of supposed ‘’skeptics’’ in science (the quotation marks are
his) who are highly <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">selectively</i>
critical of certain ideas (e.g. alternative approaches to standard medicine)
but who remain bizarrely uncritical of other ideas - ideas which deserve a lot
more attention and scrutiny (e.g. iatrogenic death or injury as a direct result
of medical practice – as highlighted by Peter Gotzsche of the Nordic Cochrane Centre
– and the paradoxically poor evidence base for a lot of modern medicine, as
also documented by the Cochrane Collaboration). </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">Skepticism has become one big
STRAW MAN. Following the publication of Richard Dawkin’s The God Delusion, many
people in academia gleefully jumped on the skepticism bandwagon – and it can be
understood why, because skepticism makes one feel intelligent, rational, immune
to delusion and able to levy some control over the world. All this is true for
true skepticism, but for dogmatic skepticism is certainly not. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">Two scientists who fall foul of
Horgan’s criticisms are doctors Steven Novella and David Gorski – because they
exhibit false balance and severe bias in their scepticism; to the extent that
their ‘’scepticism’’ is very much at odds with the true scepticism of a good
scientist. This type of rabid scepticism could be called dogmatic scepticism,
false scepticism, or – as Nobel Laureate Brian Josephson refers to it –
pathological scepticism. If Horgan had lived in the UK, another scientist would
stand out for his bias and unbalanced polemics: Irish scientist <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">David Robert Grimes</b>, who has - in terms
of medicine - built his writing career on selectively debunking ideas such as:
homeopathy, diet and alternative approaches to medicine, the health controversy
surrounding Wi-Fi, and the ghosts and spirits of s<span style="margin: 0px;">é</span>ance. Dogmatic sceptics pick
the low-hanging fruit, but exhibit an avoidant and obsequious blind-spot to the
major problems within mainstream medicine. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">The core message of this article can be summarised by this nuanced and
intelligent TED talk on the topic of ‘’Astroturf and manipulation of media
messages’’ by Sharyl Attkisson – see<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bYAQ-ZZtEU"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #0563c1;">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bYAQ-ZZtEU</span></b></a><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">. I encourage readers of this article to watch this short video clip
first. Grimes, Novella, and Gorski epitomize the harmful ‘Astroturfers’’ which
Attkisson speaks of in this video, in part due to their incessant use of –
often oxymoronic – <span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>doublespeak, and
inflammatory and propagandising language, such as ‘’false hope’’,
‘’pseudoscience’’, ‘’anti-science’’, ‘’quack’’, ‘’cost lives’’, ‘’charlatan’’,
‘’fraud’’, ‘’no evidence’’… the list goes on. When reading this article, you’ll
understand why these slogans are so misguided and damaging to public discourse
on health; and you’ll see why the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Modus
operandi</i> of Grimes, Novella, and Gorski is characterised by these 5 key
traits</b>:</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 61px; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: calibri;">1.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; font: 7pt "times new roman"; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> </span></span></span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: calibri;">False balance</span></b></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 61px; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: calibri;">2.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; font: 7pt "times new roman"; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> </span></span></span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: calibri;">Confirmation bias</span></b></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 61px; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: calibri;">3.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; font: 7pt "times new roman"; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> </span></span></span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: calibri;">Errors attributable to the Dunning-Kruger
effect</span></b></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 61px; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: calibri;">4.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; font: 7pt "times new roman"; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> </span></span></span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: calibri;">Straw Man arguments</span></b></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px 61px; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: calibri;">5.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; font: 7pt "times new roman"; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> </span></span></span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: calibri;">Splitter black/white thinking – causing
harmful, artificially-constructed, division and polarisation on health topics. <span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></b></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">Furthermore – and this is one of
the most important points of all – Grimes, Novella, and Gorski fail to
differentiate between CONSENSUS and MONOPILIZATION OF IDEAS. In other words, ‘consensus’
positions in some branches of science, especially medicine, can be formed and
perpetuated by the systematic monopolization of ideas (e.g. thought-policing
which ideas are deemed ‘reasonable’), and this becomes more fully engrained by
the simple and seemingly inescapable rules of economics which incentivize
patent medicine and intellectual property rights. Thus, ‘consensus’ in medicine
is not always the same thing as <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">best
practice</b> – something dogmatists fail to understand. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">In medicine, we are now faced
with a culture of scientific scepticism which, as Horgan alludes to, is dogged
by ideological bias (and cyber-tribalistic virtue-signalling of ‘logic’ and
‘reason’) – and this manifests itself as the paradoxical disparity between
demands for evidence; - demanding exceptional levels of evidence for claims
that are reasonable and logically plausible (e.g. chronic, low level pesticide
exposure is bad for your health), but relaxing standards for ideas which are,
in truth, far more contentious and logically dubious, e.g. the biomedical
approach of treating diseases of lifestyle with drugs and the exceptionalism of
many of these drugs to strict evidence thresholds (e.g. many chemotherapy drugs
are exempt from placebo control in clinical trials). Apparently, placebo
control is far too ‘ethically dubious’ in chemotherapy trials, as is the
head-to-head testing of chemotherapy drugs with alternative treatments in
outcome-based trials. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">And, given their utter lack of
scepticism and scrutiny on the topic of iatrogenic death in medicine,
apparently the fact that hundreds of thousands of people die annually from
correctly-prescribed pharmaceutical drugs is undeserving of criticism. This
pandemic of collateral damage from orthodox medicine is given a free pass by
dogmatic sceptics – who, like I have alluded to, almost without exception are
aligned with the biomedical approach to healthcare. <span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Basically, scientists like Grimes, Gorski and Novella fundamentally
misunderstand the relationship between burden of proof and scientific
plausibility</b>. As the plausibility of a claim increases, at some point this
switches the side where burden of proof should rest. For example, dogmatic
sceptics demand evidence for the effect of chronic exposure of pesticides on
health - but this is a logically erroneous position. Because the plausibility
is high, the burden of proof rests on them to prove pesticides are safe – not
the other way around. What public health needs is less dogmatism and more
pragmatism. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">Given their poor understanding of
the how burden of proof relates to scientific plausibility, these authors often
show a reckless indifference to the precautionary principle. This is compounded
by their seeming inability to spot <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">logical evidence</i></b> alongside
narratives of epidemiological complexity. For example, they would concede that
lung cancer can be directly caused by lifestyle, i.e. smoking. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">But, what is the reason we can be so sure
smoking causes lung cancer</b>? Is it because smoking is an especially nasty
lifestyle habit and because smoke is carcinogenic? Surprisingly, the answer is
no – remember that there are many carcinogenic compounds in the environment. The
reason we can be so sure that smoking causes lung cancer is because smokers and
non-smokers are reliably distinguishable by only <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u>1</u></b> outstanding variable: smoking. This makes the
epidemiological analysis to disentangle the effects of smoking on cancer
relatively straightforward – even if many other factors contribute to lung
cancer. How about cancers where there isn’t an outstanding variable, but
hundreds of even thousands of contributory variables of lifestyle? Here, as
these authors would claim, we can’t be so sure that cancer is driven by
lifestyle – but this is a <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u>false</u></b>
conclusion rooted in bad logic. Other cancers can be caused by factors of
lifestyle just as much as smoking is, but the key difference is that for most
cancers there are thousands of variables – not one. <span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">Thus, it would be closer to the
truth to say – for most cancers – ‘’we know we can be confident cancer is
caused by lifestyle and environmental factors, even if we couldn’t ever
precisely know what those factors are’’, rather than to say (as dogmatic
sceptics do), ‘’we can’t ever be sure that cancer is caused by lifestyle and
environmental factors because the confounding variables are too complex’’.
Complexity of variables does <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">NOT</b>
affect the likelihood that cancer, in general, is driven by factors of
lifestyles and environment – just as being hit by a bullet and having the
smoking gun is no more evidence that a gun was used than if you had a bullet wound
but no smoking gun. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">For whatever reason, dogmatic
sceptics seem to subscribe to the ‘bad-luck’ theory of cancer causation – which
resurfaced again in a paper in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Science</i>
in 2017 after having been robustly debunked by a paper in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Nature</i> in 2015 showing that cells are naturally highly resistant to
becoming cancerous and need environmental triggers to turn cancerous in at
least 70-90% of cases (see: <span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><a href="http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v529/n7584/full/nature16166.html"><span style="color: #0563c1;">http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v529/n7584/full/nature16166.html</span></a>).
In a way, the fact that many people – even <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">most</i>
people – can catastrophically abuse their lungs for decades with smoking and
still not get lung cancer provides strong circumstantial evidence that cells
are naturally highly resistance to becoming cancerous. <span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">The paper in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Science</i>, like its predecessor, was misleading and flawed, and some
of the criticisms are mentioned in this article by Scientific American - <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/most-cancer-cases-arise-from-bad-luck/"><span style="color: #0563c1;">https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/most-cancer-cases-arise-from-bad-luck/</span></a>.
And, for a summary of the debate, see this article in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Nature</i>: <a href="http://www.nature.com/news/cancer-studies-clash-over-mechanisms-of-malignancy-1.19026"><span style="color: #0563c1;">http://www.nature.com/news/cancer-studies-clash-over-mechanisms-of-malignancy-1.19026</span></a>.
Dr Rhonda Patrick debunks the falsehoods and dangerous portrayal, by both the
media and authors of the ‘bad-luck’ hypothesis study - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iiH4m7NvV98&t=116s"><span style="color: #0563c1;">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iiH4m7NvV98&t=116s</span></a>.
Similarly, the WHO’s International Agency for Research on Cancer sent out a
press release condemning the way the 2015 Science article was conveyed by the
authors and promulgated by the media to the public - <a href="https://www.iarc.fr/en/media-centre/pr/2015/pdfs/pr231_E.pdf"><span style="color: #0563c1;">https://www.iarc.fr/en/media-centre/pr/2015/pdfs/pr231_E.pdf</span></a>.
Even <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><u>if</u></i> mutations are random
and non-deterministic, extrinsic factors are still needed to ensure that enough
mutations take place in a cell to push the cell ‘over the edge’ to become
cancerous. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">Even IF it were true that cancer
is mainly due to bad luck – and it certainly isn’t true – the uncritical
fervour with which journalists like Grimes promulgate this idea (but <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">not</i></b>
the idea that cancer is driven by environmental and lifestyle factors) betrays
their bias for a position. Not only is this bias unscientific, it’s also
dangerous to public health because it reinforces the notion that we aren’t
largely responsible for our own health. Perhaps this is why Grimes feels it’s
OK to so-frequently share his passion for drinking alcohol on Twitter, even
though alcohol has been proved to be a causative agent in at least 7 types of
cancer. Odd behaviour, given Grimes is ostensibly interested in protecting the
public from the scourge of cancer. This is clearly irresponsible – and this
irresponsibility arises in part from his acquiescence to the flawed notion of
cancer being bad luck or genetically determined. Regardless of the nature of
the link between lifestyle and cancer, the benefit of a healthy lifestyle
should, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">surely</i></b>, never be trivialised, simply because it’s an
unequivocal fact that bad lifestyle is responsible for the surge in myriad
other diseases at the population level – diseases which are just as deadly as
cancer. </span></div>
<div align="center" style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9YbCI9V4udgi87GU5jqRbMxj0678L9vGXx7PUxakqquA4BRLfjqQ89DenTp0qAnYriuLw_5qO0UFpcs0kBw2mI6pjPLgPsTxHnXJoOXS6rw1DduxfDZe_mBDN0yCt19RQxsz2R96lC4xq/s1600/knob.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="1024" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9YbCI9V4udgi87GU5jqRbMxj0678L9vGXx7PUxakqquA4BRLfjqQ89DenTp0qAnYriuLw_5qO0UFpcs0kBw2mI6pjPLgPsTxHnXJoOXS6rw1DduxfDZe_mBDN0yCt19RQxsz2R96lC4xq/s320/knob.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div align="center" style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">The cat is out of the bag
regarding the direct link between heart disease and lifestyle, meaning that Big
Pharma and the medical-industrial-complex can’t justly continue to persuade
patients to turn to drugs when healthy lifestyle is a far better option for
preventing, and even reversing, heart disease. It’s simply an economic reality
that Big Pharma wants to keep a monopoly on cancer treatment, and ways to do
this have become normalised within our medical system – right the way up from
medical school – from university selection to syllabuses being influenced by
industry money, which is especially true in the USA. The attempt of the
medical-industrial-complex to have a monopoly grip on cancer treatment dates to
the <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Cancer Act of 1939</b>, which,
ostensibly, sought to protect the public from bogus cancer treatments. However,
famous cases in law from the time revealed a darker side to the story, where
agents of mainstream medicine actively tried to eliminate and suppress
competition from alternative practitioners, regardless of their efficacy.
Modern medicine has a long and ignoble history of such power games. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">The realisation and acceptance
that cancer is a preventable disease would be a <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">deathblow</b> to Big Industry’s monopoly of cancer treatment – <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">not</i> because cancer incidence would go
down necessarily, but because the aversion of medicine to emphasise prevention
would become ethically untenable. Perhaps this is one reason why the ‘bad luck’
theory is so popular with Big Pharma (and, as <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Scientific American </i>alludes to, with giant chemical companies who
don’t want to face further restrictions on their ability to pour billions of
pounds of toxic waste into the environment daily). </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">See this article about the bioaccumulation
of toxins in Orcas - <span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/may/02/uk-killer-whale-died-extreme-levels-toxic-pollutants"><span style="color: #0563c1;">https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/may/02/uk-killer-whale-died-extreme-levels-toxic-pollutants</span></a>. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">The call for evidence is <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><u>usually</u> </i>the hallmark of good
science but, for dogmatic sceptics, the demand for evidence is often used to
obfuscate and deflect claims. The demand for evidence can be cast <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Ad infinitum</i> in myriad and
ever-increasingly stringent ways – e.g. ‘’more studies needed’’, ‘’problems
with this study’’, ‘’not conducted on humans’’ – or, when a study unequivocally
shows positive effect, there’s always the ‘’it’s significant but has a small
effect size’’. These criticisms would be fine if they were apportioned in a
balanced way across <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">all</i></b> studies – both from mainstream medicine and alternative
approaches – but they’re not. You can spot a dogmatic sceptic by the way they
apply their scepticism in a highly selective (i.e. biased) manner – thus
contributing to the poorly balanced nature of media reporting – and they use
the ‘call for evidence’ in a manipulative and coercive way to safeguard their
own ideological beliefs. Furthermore, dogmatic sceptics are prone to use the
‘conspiracy theorist’ label in an <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Ad
hominin</i> pejorative and dismissive way to unfairly taint the credibility of
those with a different point of view, with the aim to obfuscate their
scientific counterarguments being made. David Robert Grimes even published a
paper on conspiracy theories in the pay-to-publish journal PLOSone. This paper
was deeply flawed on many levels, and was widely and independently debunked by
many scientists. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">Why engage with someone’s
arguments when it’s easier to pathologize them and banish them to the
conspiratorial fringe? Such is an example of the type of vitriolic thinking
that has grown out of dogmatic scepticism. And, besides, it isn’t obvious to me
that conspiratorial ideation is any more of an indication of psychological
pathology than dogmatic scepticism – since both extremes represent a lack of
footing in reality. Dogmatic scepticism in science is, however, useful to the
corporate model of the medical-industrial-complex, and it is perhaps for this
principle reason why people like Novella, Grimes, and Gorski are not only
tolerated, but actively welcomed, within the pro-establishment sanctum.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">[Grimes has never shown due
scepticism toward the failings and inadequacies of modern medicine in any
robust way. But this is not the only reason to lump Grimes in with Novella and
Gorski. Another reason is the fact that these 3 scientists are familiar with
one another, and actually support and regularly reference each other’s work
like peas in an echo chamber pod of confirmation bias]. <span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">The falsely-balanced nature of Grimes’s
scepticism can, by way of principle, be encapsulated in this example: he has
written 2 articles debunking the quackery surrounding autism treatment, but in
neither of those articles did he mention natural approaches which <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">do</i> work, e.g. sulforaphane from broccoli
sprouts has been shown in clinical trial to have a significant, positive effect
on symptoms for some individuals with autism. This study even appears on the
NHS website, but Grimes didn’t mention it – and if he’s ignorant of it, he
shouldn’t be. Similarly, Novella has debunked the potential benefit of
antioxidant supplements in health, making the wild claim that ‘’there’s not a
lick of evidence to show that antioxidant (supplements) are good for anything…
not a lick of scientific evidence to support any claims for any antioxidant
product’’ [Source: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6kRRq3GWwtg"><span style="color: #0563c1;">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6kRRq3GWwtg</span></a>].
Firstly, this statement is demonstrably false, as a look on Google Scholar will
reveal. Secondly, Novella conveniently fails to distinguish between
antioxidants and hormetic compounds (such as sulforaphane) - which have a
strong and growing evidence base of efficacy for myriad conditions. Thirdly,
Novella makes a logical oversight when saying that increased exogenous
antioxidants could do harm – because, whilst this as a standalone statement
might be true, it’s also true that there is a need to compensate for the highly
elevated pro-oxidant effect of pollutants in our modern lifestyle, as compared
to pre-industrial eras. Dr Rhonda Patrick discusses the fallacious nature of
the anti-vitamin diatribe -<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0u8UdZeOhc"><span style="color: #0563c1;">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0u8UdZeOhc</span></a>.
And - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SgiZufI0oS8&t=332s"><span style="color: #0563c1;">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SgiZufI0oS8&t=332s</span></a>. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">It's easy to see how many people
believe that, by the way Grimes, Novella, and Gorski act, these characters are
funded by Big Pharma. But, paradoxically, what makes their breed of scepticism
so pernicious and insidious is precisely the fact that – to the best of my
knowledge – they are <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u>NOT</u></b>
funded by Big Industry, at least not directly. Big Industry must love
scientists like Novella, Grimes and Gorski, since they have a cloak of
credibility. Since they cannot fund them directly – because that would be a
conflict of interest – Big Industry must find other ways to validate and affirm
the position of public scientists who stand in support of their model of
medicine. For example, they award prizes such as <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Sense About Science’s</b> ‘<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Standing
up for Science</i>’. SAS is funded by pharmaceutical companies and other Big
Industry interests – and so the prize should more accurately be called ‘<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Standing up for Corporate Science and Big
Industry</b>’. If you look at the list of past winners of SAS’s prize, you will
see that<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> not</i> one of them says
anything to ruffle the feathers of Big Industry or the Medical-Industrial
Complex – not even David Nutt (who I admire greatly) was saying anything that
Big Pharma wouldn’t want to hear when he spoke out against the absurdity of
drug laws in the UK. Big Pharma’s biggest dream would be to monopolise the
recreational drug market if laws were changed to legalise drugs. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">[In short, Grimes is happy to
‘stand up for science’ unless what he’s standing up for is: un-PC; or against
‘consensus’; or if it risks his funding or his career; or if it goes against
Big Industry or the pro-establishment view; or if it grates against the
prevailing bias and ideology of the scientific orthodoxy. In fact, it doesn’t
sound like he risks anything at all. It sounds like the diametric-opposite to
bravery. He gets lauded for ‘’shooting up’’, but in reality he spends his
journalistic space shooting <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">down</i> on
the lay public, and on fringe and relatively small and disempowered
organisations]. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">When I say that such scientists
are not <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">directly</i></b> funded, this must not obfuscate the fact that the
deepest and most powerful influences on people can come through <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">indirect</i></b>
means. For example, the aversion to anything ‘alternative’ and the implicit
bias toward orthodoxy is instilled in medical training, and this is obviously
true when we consider how Big Industry interests fund medical school programs
(including shaping syllabuses) and, of course, most of the academic research
which constructs and buttresses up narratives and the knowledge base in
medicine. Thus, paradigms of thinking and implicit bias have become cemented
and institutionalised in medicine – they have become normalised. As George
Orwell understood all too well, nothing is as dangerous as ideas which have
become normalised. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">Big Pharma must be counting their
lucky stars that an era of dogmatic scepticism has ‘’independently’’ emerged at
the same time that they have become the biggest industry on earth – bigger now
than even Big Oil. The medical industrial complex is <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">a trillion-dollar industry</b>. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">But, is it purely coincidental,
or are public scientists like Novella, Grimes and Gorski examples of
brainwashed puppets – whose brand of dogmatic scepticism is inevitably to be
rewarded and validated by a corporately-driven medical system and mainstream
media. In other words, it’s easy to build up a career when standing on the
shoulders of corporate giants. And, of course highly-qualified scientists are going
to be awarded recognition and prizes when they write articles promoting a
strict adherence to the biomedical approach, whilst instilling in the public
imagination a severe suspicion of anything alternative. I wonder whether
someone like Grimes realises that the lauds he receives for journalism are in
direct proportion to the servile nature of his ‘opinions’ to the interests of
Big Industry. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">Contrary to what they say,
characters like Novella, Gorski and Grimes are an <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">affront</i></b> to science and
reason, not ambassadors for it, and even though notions of the perniciousness
and insidiousness of false balance and dogmatic scepticism have been around for
some time (e.g. see below the Guardian piece <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Real Enemies of Reason</i>) it obviously hasn’t been enough to help
modify their ideological biases. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Novella, Grimes and Gorski all suffer the delusion of thinking that
they receive hostility from members of the dissenting public because those
individuals who dissent are ‘anti-science’. This is largely a false conclusion
to reach and, as I explain in more detail later, this false conclusion is the
very premise on which these scientists themselves justify their hostility,
condescension and bullish attitude toward people who strongly resist their
worldview</b>. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">In this way, scepticism of the
sort exhibited by these 3 scientists is divisive and toxic to scientific
discourse. As previous editor-in-chief of Skeptic Magazine said, true
scientific scepticism is NOT the knee-jerk dismissal of claims in a haughty and
cynical manner. True sceptics are moderate and humble, and are more likely to
welcome something being true than hoping it isn’t. For example, a medical claim
that ‘herb ‘x’ can help to treat condition ‘y’’ would invoke interest in a true
skeptic – they would say something like, ‘’that’s interesting. It would be
great if such herb ‘x’ could do that in place of pharmaceutical drugs because
it would mean patients wouldn’t have to suffer invasive treatments or
significant side effects. Let’s look at the best studies to weigh up the
evidence’’. Such a sentiment is the hallmark of a true skeptic – it doesn’t
represent a proclivity for confirmation bias, but rather, it represents an
openness to evidence and the more nuanced position of counterbalancing drug
benefits with side effects. Dogmatic skeptics, on the other hand – who almost
always have an aversion to any type of medicine which isn’t part of the
biomedical model of the <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Medical-Industrial-Complex</b>
– they would be dismissive of claims, and would immediately raise the ‘where’s
the evidence’’ meme as a dismission, instead of as a precaution. In this way,
dogmatic skeptics fall prey to confirmation bias, and this effects their
ability to think in nuanced ways. For example, they seemingly find it
impossible to view specific remedies and the accompanying overarching
philosophy of medicine as things to be considered independently. For example,
specific treatments in Ayurvedic medicine or Chinese medicine might well prove <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><u>in</u></i>effective in clinical trial –
but this would not justify the derision of entire philosophical principles –
principles which might be invaluable to preventative medicine, though difficult
to prove in an RCT, such as the notion in Chinese medicine that disease in the
body can be present and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">asymptomatic</i>
for a long time, i.e. what western medicine considers the start of a disease
(e.g. cancer detection), traditional medicine practitioners might consider very
late stage disease. This notion is logically-solid, especially when we consider
the linguistic root of the word disease (i.e. not at ease). It is both
logically-solid and a very helpful and mature way of looking at disease. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">Western medicine fails because it
wins the battles but loses the war, and traditional medicine can teach us a
great deal because it much better understands the multi-factorial nature of
chronic, lifestyle disease. To use a chess analogy, modern medicine has great<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> iterative</b> power, but philosophies in
traditional medicine and healing practices have far greater <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">depth</b> of vision. <span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">[<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2007/aug/23/therealenemiesofreason"><span style="color: #0563c1;">https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2007/aug/23/therealenemiesofreason</span></a>].
<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px; text-align: center;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: calibri;"><u>PART 2</u> INTRODUCTION TO DRG AND CANCER RESEARCH<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></b></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">It’s been over 3 years since I
wrote my rebuttal to David Robert Grimes’s (DRG) article in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Guardian</i> ‘six stubborn myths about
cancer’. Sadly, even though I robustly outlined the myriad inaccuracies and
logical flaws of his article, his ignorance of first principles of evolutionary
biology, and plague of Straw Man arguments – which I suggest misleads and
polarises the reader on the topic of cancer and is therefore a significant danger
to public health – DRG has failed to participate in the self-correcting process
at the core of science, i.e. the ability to say, ‘I was wrong’. Instead of
engaging with the arguments presented in my article, he chose to publicly
ridicule my rebuttal to his article in the lazy and distorting way which has
come to characterise much of his online rhetoric – <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Ad hominin</i>, bullying and obfuscating.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">DRG’s article from 2013 is still
available online, and thus is still able to be viewed by <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">billions</i> of people. It must be a responsibility of scientists –
both legally and ethically – to update their articles to correct errors
whenever new information emerges which falsifies their view, and/or when their
scientific understanding of a topic matures. Apparently, some scientists seem
incapable or unwilling to broaden and deepen their understanding of critical
societal issues such as cancer – and, because DRG is a mainstream journalist
promulgating health information to millions of readers – such intransigence is,
in my opinion, a serious threat to public safety. DRG constantly suggests that
alternative narratives in medicine ‘costs lives’. But, it could be equally true
that the effect of dogmatic sceptics (such as DRG) of polarising debate and
public opinion – and of engaging with the dissenting public in a hostile,
condescending and toxic manner – also costs lives and turns people away from
science. As if this wasn’t bad enough, DRG also feels entitled to play armchair
psychiatrist and diagnose total strangers with mental health problems.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">DRG ostensibly seeks to promote
and facilitate public engagement with science – and he perhaps he genuinely
believes that his approach to science journalism does just that. However,
judging from public reaction to him – which is, in substantiation, highly
polarised – something else is going here which should be a warning sign to the
scientific community and a wakeup call to science journalists to act more
responsibly. Science journalists have <u>orders of magnitude more impact</u> on
both science promulgation and on fostering public trust in science than a
typical scientist who is disconnected within their own research world. As such,
science journalism is a great responsibility, and it is the opinion of many
that DRG isn’t a good ambassador for science. To me, DRG is a fascinating case
study of how <u>not</u> to do science journalism. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">My interest has zero to do with
him as a person (I don’t know him from Adam) but <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">solely</i> to do with him as a public figure who affects science. He
has (as he himself often alludes to) been called everything under the sun –
‘arrogant’, ‘abusive’, ‘disgusting’, ‘condescending’, ‘bullyish’. I don’t
really care whether these accusations are true or not. The only reason I refer
to this name-calling is for this critical reason: DRG reaches an erroneous
conclusion when he assumes that people call him these things because they are
‘anti-science’. In truth, the hundreds or even thousands of people who have
independently expressed outrage at DRG have done so primarily because of the
inflammatory and hostile way DRG goes about writing and engaging with the
public. If you think about it – <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">really</i>
think about it – the notion that someone could be ‘anti-science’ is absurd in
the same way it would be absurd to think someone is ‘anti-tools’. Science is
the tool, whereas scientists are those who use the tool – be it skilfully or
misguidedly. For sure, someone could be ignorant of science, or misguided, or
even deluded – but none of these positions should be construed as
‘anti-science’. Indeed, in large part, the people who DRG mistakenly derides as
‘anti-scientific’ are those who simply hold a difference of scientific
opinion.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">Of course, DRG’s first delusion –
that the dissenting public are angry at him because they are ‘anti-science’ –
feeds into and reinforces his second delusion, that, by shooting down those
that express outrage, he’s ‘standing up for science’. DRG’s public identity and
role is a false narrative based upon one logical non-sequitur piled on top of
another which, unfortunately, makes him feel self-entitled to act out the
narcissistic dysfunction of seeing oneself as both victim and hero – a
dysfunction which today increasingly erupts forth from the toxic epicentre at
the intersection of twitter, Facebook and the corporately-owned online media. Out
of hundreds or even thousands of criticisms from the public, DRG fails to
develop an internal witness or ‘Daemon’ to self-reflect on his behaviour and
errors in scientific thinking. Simultaneously, he accepts praise for being open
to criticism and self-correction. Bizarre behaviour. It is the grandiosity of a
psychopath, and this personality disorder is of heightened prevalence in some
professions - such as media. <span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">This delusion was irrevocably
cemented in place when DRG was awarded the Sense About Science (SAS) award ‘Standing
Up for Science’. It’s bizarre that any serious scientist could accept this
award, or the validity of what it denotes, given that SAS historically was (and
still is) substantially <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">funded by
pharmaceutical companies</b>. Perhaps this is why author of <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Bad
Pharma</i></b> Ben Goldacre has never been awarded the ‘Standing Up for
Science’ accolade, even though he has done more to defend science, promote
science, and get the public engaged with science, than all of the SAS winners
combined. Note that in the past, I have been critical of Ben Goldacre too – and
have written an article about him – because Goldacre is critical of Big Pharma <u>not</u>
because he’s against pharmaceutical drugs per se, but rather, because he’s
against the way Big Pharma spin and corrupt data. Thus, he’s saying ‘’let’s get
the medicalisation of medicine right’’ – rather than arguing for a lessening of
a reliance on drugs in medicine, as he should if he stayed true to the
Hippocratic philosophy of modern medicine to revere the healing power of
nature. Havin said that, I respect Ben Goldacre overall, and I think he’s a
thousand times a better scientist than DRG. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">I struggle to see how someone
like DRG could feel entitled to spin the narrative that he has shown ‘courage’
and ‘bravery’ in standing up for science. His views are safely
pro-establishment – he stands on the shoulders of the giants of corporate
science and big industry, barking at those in the fringe minority who are <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">already</i> marginalised and socially castigated,
and whose opinions are <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">already</i>
defeated by mainstream consensus. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">What’s brave about that? As far
as I can tell, and as others have noted, DRG’s approach risks nothing and, in
fact, he has built his writing career on debunking. He isn’t an investigative
journalist, but instead just lazily and uncritically regurgitates consensus
positions. His bravery is the kind of <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Sir Robin The Brave</i></b> as satirised in
Monty Python. In a diametrically opposite way to Galileo – who was persecuted
by the church state, DRG is supported by the entire establishment, and he
writes from behind this shield, barking like a little terrier dog from atop the
giant immovable pillars of Big Industry. It’s easy to be brave when you’re
miles from the front line. When DRG has been interviewed, it’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">never</i> in a head-to-head debate format,
and the questions interviewers pose seem scripted and sterile. Even when given
the chance to engage in serious debate when interrogating Andrew Wakefield on
radio, DRG seemed to act childishly and ran scared after rattling off a
scripted diatribe, failing to engage Wakefield in a proper dialogue and debate.
If you don’t believe me, listen for yourself (DRG makes an entrance at 13.50)
-<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sVzMcZzqC5E"><span style="color: #0563c1;">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sVzMcZzqC5E</span></a>. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">His SAS prize was predicated on
the notion that he is standing up for science, and this accolade only makes
pragmatic sense <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><u>if</u></i> DRG actually
improves and fosters the public’s understanding and engagement with science. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">But, where’s the evidence he has done this</b>?
Given the hostility with which he derides people who don’t agree with him, and
given that the people who agree with him would agree regardless, I would
suggest that – if anything – DRG has had a net negative effect in developing
peoples’ trust in science. So, here we have a scientist who is awarded a prize
for writing articles which are in the interests of Big Industry, yet who actually
erodes and toxifies public engagement with science. As a public citizen, I
demand to see the evidence that DRG has had a positive effect. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Where’s the evidence</b>?<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">For more criticism of SAS, see
this article from The Guardian: <span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2010/jan/05/sense-about-science-celebrity-observations"><span style="color: #0563c1;">https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2010/jan/05/sense-about-science-celebrity-observations</span></a>.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">Being given an award by a Big
Pharma-funded institution is a clear conflict of interest, and therefore it’s
surprising why DRG doesn’t reveal it. I couldn’t care less about the
contradictions and incongruities in the personal lives of people who are
complete strangers to me. It’s none of my business. But when the behaviour of a
science journalist has a toxic and polarising effect on public scientific
discourse, and therefore on public health, that is my business. I am the
public, and I speak on behalf of the public who are fed up with clumsy and
facile science journalism. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- <span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">DRG’s article ‘six stubborn myths
about cancer’ got off on the wrong foot and got worse. It got off on the wrong
foot because it began with an emotive reference to a cancer patient who had died
after shunning conventional treatment in favour of alternative treatment
modalities - the polarising meme propagated being (and consistently
regurgitated by the author in subsequent writings), ‘’beware! - this person
tried the alternative route and died’’, as if that’s proof-positive of anything
at all. In fact, the reason this cherry-picked example and emergent meme is so
utterly facile, unscientific and misleading is because it’s <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u>not</u></b> proof-positive of anything
at all. It’s a sample of 1. Can we be <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">sure</i>
that the girl would have survived with conventional treatment? No. Did DRG
provide nuance and context by reminding the reader that tens of thousands of
people die of cancer <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">even after</i> they
receive the prescribed course of chemotherapy, radiotherapy, or surgery? No.
Did DRG alert the reader to the fact that thousands of people die as a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">direct result</i> of chemotherapy treatment?
No. Am<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><u> I</u></i> saying that all conventional
treatment should be ditched in favour of alternative therapies? NO! Absolutely
not. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">What I am calling for is a
rational debate, and I’m calling for an end to clumsy and dogmatic science
journalism which polarises those topics - which have infinite shades of grey -
into impervious black or white categories. As I’ve said before, cancer
treatment (including cancer <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">prevention</i>)
needs an <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">integrated approach</b>.
Integrative medicine – which can be defined as the intelligent combination of
conventional medicine and alternative therapies, with an overarching emphasis
on facilitating the intrinsic healing mechanisms of the body – is the only
rational and scientifically-robust approach to cancer. The need for integrative
cancer care is based on the revolutionary(!), but logical, realisation that,
for the most part, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u>people get cancer
because of poor-health</u></b>. This is in stark contrast to the immature and
dangerous idea in mainstream medicine that people get cancer and only then are
sick. Given that cancer is an intrinsic disease caused by your own body – your
own DNA – not functioning properly, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to
realise that cancer is, in principle, the end stage of poor health and not the
beginning. This is the new paradigm of understanding. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">Given that DRG’s articles on
cancer are so distorted, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that he is highly <u>un</u>critical
and undiscerning of consensus positions in medicine – even though it is an
obvious fact that: </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">(1) the prevailing narratives in
medicine are heavily and systemically influenced by Big Pharma and corporate
lobbyists, even at the foundational level of training in medical schools(!),
and by selectively shaping research and development through funding streams –
all of which have created a normalised, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">institutionalised</b>
implicit bias and aversion to the Hippocratic ethos of the founding father of
modern medicine who taught that <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">all</i>
the factors of lifestyle and environment which help optimise the intrinsic
ability of the body to heal are vital in disease prevention <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">and</b> disease treatment. <span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">(2) As reported by the BMJ, peer
review is a ‘flawed process at the heart of science and journals’. <span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">Bizarrely, but in substantiation,
DRG has been shown to clutch at consensus positions even though they have been called
into question by scientific authorities which demand higher evidence
thresholds. For example, DRG has steadfastly stuck by his belief that the use
of water fluoridation in dental health is based on evidence which is unequivocally
positive – even though the Cochrane Collaboration has called into serious
question the data which was used to help shape that consensus position, and
even though Sense About Science’s director Tracy Brown has publicly shared her
doubts as to the benefits of water fluoridation. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- <span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">My question once <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">was</i> - how do you engage with people who
are unconscionably and blindly irrational and ideologically-driven and
seemingly incapable of dialectical learning, such as Grimes, Novella and Gorski?
My answer now <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">is</i> - sadly, you can’t
and so you don’t. <span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">DRG calls himself a ‘cancer
researcher’ – but given that cancer as a field of study is enormously broad and
complex, and given that DRG’s expertise and interest is incredibly specialised
– for someone like DRG to be considered a ‘cancer researcher’ would be as
misleading and absurd as the following analogy: someone who works in a boatyard
painting boats calling himself an ‘ocean researcher’. Indeed, in one question
in an interview for <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The</i> <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Freethink Tank</i> DRG was given the chance
to let his hair down for a moment and let his imagination run wild to envisage
the state of cancer treatment modalities and research in a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><u>hundred</u></i> years from now. DRG replied: </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">‘’<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">… I don’t think we’ll ever cure cancer,
but I would hope in the future we’ve developed methods to make it a chronic and
treatable condition, where those afflicted can have their condition managed by
improved surgery, chemotherapy, radiotherapy and immunotherapy to live long and
relatively healthy lives</i></b>!’’ </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">Unbelievable. DRG believes that,
in 100 years from now, research and treatment modalities for cancer will be, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">essentially</i>, exactly the same – just
tweaks and improvements of the existing (and many would say, demonstrably <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">failing</i>) paradigm of cancer care –
towing the line of the monopolistic and exclusionary attitude of Big Pharma and
the Medical Industrial Complex. DRG espouses the type of promissory materialism
Karl Popper warned against, and it reveals his lack of originality and
imagination, especially given that we only need look at the past 100 years to
see how far medicine has come, and this perhaps betrays his allegiance to the
old-fashioned hey-day and paradigm of medicine of treating infectious diseases.
If sceptics like DRG could only grasp the reality that medicine is just as much
about prevention as it is about treatment, they would realise that medicine has
a job on its hands every bit as huge and important as the eradication of
infectious diseases which characterised the earlier triumph of modern medicine.
Ironically, DRG quotes the deeply original thinker Richard Feynman, and advises
scientists to ‘’ask lots of questions, read far and wide’’ and to not be afraid
to ‘’prod away at received wisdom’’. And yet, DRG himself seems so afraid or
incapable of challenging the status quo, or to come up with any original ideas,
and seems to revile any kind of heretical stance in medicine – even though
‘heresy’ is exactly the thing encouraged by the best scientists such as Nobel
Laureate Freeman Dyson. <span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">DRG didn’t mention any of the
present revolutions and seismic shifts taking place in our understanding of
cancer treatment. And, he didn’t (and never does) mention the <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u>absolute</u></b><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> </i>most important topic in cancer – prevention. Even the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">hyper-conservative</i> charity Cancer
Research UK states that at least 40% of cancers are preventable. This estimate
is at the extreme low end – a study published in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Nature</i> in 2015 showed that cells are naturally highly resistant to
tipping into a cancerous state [as would be expected according to <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">evidence from logic</b> arising from first
principles of natural selection/evolutionary biology] and need environmental
triggers to become cancerous in 70-90% of cases. This was one of the most
important papers to be published on cancer in the past 50 years, and yet, I
didn’t see DRG reference it anywhere – not even in his subsequent articles on
cancer. Bizarre, given he is a ‘cancer researcher’. Some scientists estimate
the environmental root for cancer to be even higher than the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Nature</i> estimate, citing studies on
diaspora populations and separated twins.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">DRG’s interest in understanding
cancer seems superficial, and his knowledge of cancer is a working-knowledge at
best, i.e. his grasp of deeper systems theory (and his willingness to understand
it) is piss-poor. In this sense, he is no more a cancer researcher than a
boatyard attendant is an ocean researcher – and I will go on to make similar
criticisms against Steven Novella and David Gorski in this article. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">I am continually perplexed by the
poor standard of science journalism today. Furthermore, I find the lack of
ethical responsibility troubling. This sentiment is shared by many real and
genuine scientists, such as Samuel Epstein – professor emeritus of
environmental and occupational health – who labels as <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u>criminally negligent</u></b> those institutions which discuss cancer
without promulgating <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">prevention</i> as a
key strategy. Epstein is a strong critic of institutions which (ostensibly)
seek to help with the ‘war on cancer’ but do little or nothing to prioritise a
system of prevention. Likewise, I call anyone who talks about cancer without
emphasising prevention – be it science journalists or institutions – as being
criminally negligent. Not only does DRG <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">not</i>
emphasise prevention – in his polemical writings he actively and consistently
trivialises, marginalises, and obfuscates the debate being held by serious
scientists on how we can prevent and even treat cancer by optimising factors of
lifestyle and environment – and by using novel therapeutic approaches such as
principles of orthomolecular medicine and the ketogenic diet (as discussed
later in this article). Even if I didn’t present any further evidence of DRG’s
dogmatic close-mindedness, you already know from <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Freethink Tank</i> interview that he firmly believes that, even in <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u>one hundred years time</u></b>, cancer
could still only be managed by the same modalities in use by orthodox medicine
today – modalities which are about as sophisticated as Fred Flintstone bashing
himself over the head with a club to relieve himself of a headache, and about
as logically sound as spending hundreds of billions of dollars mopping up the
water around an overflowing sink instead of turning off the tap. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">As I write this article, my uncle
is dying of cancer. I recently asked him if his oncologists or palliative care
doctors had offered him any advice on how he could modify his lifestyle to
improve his prognosis. No. Nothing. ‘’Just keep following doctor’s orders’’.
This is by no means an anomalous situation. My uncle before him, and my
grandfather, my grandmother, a good friend – all of whom died of cancer –
received the same advice, i.e. <u>no</u> advice. And my Swedish aunty, now on
her 18<sup><span style="font-size: x-small;">th</span></sup> round of chemotherapy, has received the same none-advice. To
reiterate, doctors gave <u>no</u> lifestyle or palliative care advice to my
friend or any of my 5 relatives who died or are dying of cancer – even though
there is solid evidence for the positive role of many natural compounds and
lifestyle changes to, at the very least, mitigate against the destructive
effects of conventional treatment. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">I remember visiting my
grandmother when she was receiving cancer treatment in hospital in the UK. I
was appalled that the hospital food given was sliced cheese on white bread with
a packet of crisps. And now, my uncle – whose skin has withered and greyed from
the chemotherapy treatment, and whose immune system is shot (from the
chemotherapy) and whose brain is foggy and depressed (from the chemotherapy) is
now a shadow of his former self who – on doctor’s orders – does nothing to
modify his lifestyle. Thus, he eats shit food, and sits in front of the TV for
10 hours a day, afraid to go outside because he’s afraid that his withered skin
couldn’t take the sunlight. <span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">The reduction in quality of life
due to chemotherapy – the withering of a human being into a Gollum-esq creature
retching and reeling in agony and misery – and all so that he gets a slim
chance of adding a few more months to his life. I’m not questioning whether the
‘few more months’ are worth it – of course they are. But, at what cost? And,
more importantly, due to what ignorance? Cancer patients have to endure this
miserable shit-show just because the <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Medical-Industrial-Complex</b>
(as Harvard professor Arnold S.Relman refers to it) has not – and will not –
put money into researching other treatment modalities for cancer. If you
understand one word you understand the entire economic foundation for the Medical-Industrial-Complex:
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">PATENT</b>.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">One of the most disingenuous and
misleading phrases you hear from people like DRG is the slogan ‘’there’s no
evidence that ‘x’ or ‘y’ is effective for the treatment of cancer’’. It’s a
false and dishonest statement when it leaves out the reason for there being no
evidence – which is often that there isn’t any evidence simply because no
clinical trials have been conducted on the efficacy of ‘x’ or ‘y’. Absence of
evidence is not evidence of absence. To say that ‘evidence is lacking’ - without
also conceding that the right trials haven’t been conducted - is intellectually
dishonest. <span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">Thus, it’s possible – even
probable – that treatment modalities for cancer which don’t feed into the Medical-Industrial-Complex
could exist. And these alternative treatment modalities would be integrated
strategies to include several interventions at the same time – e.g. strict food
regime, targeted orthomolecular medicine, stress reduction techniques, oxygen
therapy, psychological work, exercise and sunlight exposure protocols, fasting,
and even the use of psychedelic drugs to treat stubborn psychological traumas
and nourish spiritual development [N.B. the use of psychedelic drugs in
psychotherapy is a serious and respected research branch – see Yale Psychedelic
Science Group of the Yale School of Medicine and the special edition of The
British Psychological Society magazine: <span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><a href="https://thepsychologist.bps.org.uk/volume-27/edition-9/special-issue-brave-new-world-psychology"><span style="color: #0563c1;">https://thepsychologist.bps.org.uk/volume-27/edition-9/special-issue-brave-new-world-psychology</span></a>]. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">Even in the treatment and
prevention of cancer, our psychological and emotional state has a significant
impact, and any serious scientist would realise this. Cancer likelihood is also
related to cross-generational factors, as can be confidently inferred from a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Nature</i> study showing that trauma can
passed on down generations of mice in the DNA due to epigenetic alterations.
Indeed, genetic expression in humans is influenced by ancestral environments –
be it the physical, emotional or social environment. The <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Dutch Hunger Winter</i> is a popular example of how persistent hunger
in pregnant mothers causes epigenetic alteration of their offspring to become
better at preserving energy – which subsequently predisposes those individuals
to a higher risk of obesity-related health problems in normal, food-abundant
society. Dr Gabor Mate, a well-respected addiction specialist, believes that
psycho-emotional trauma (both ancestrally and in someone’s own life) plays a
significant role in diseases such as cancer. [Source: <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/sep/07/epigenetics-heredity-diabetes-obesity-increased-cancer-risk"><span style="color: #0563c1;">https://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/sep/07/epigenetics-heredity-diabetes-obesity-increased-cancer-risk</span></a>].<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">The medical era of genetic
determinism is outdated, and anyone who remains ignorant of the potential for
epigenetic factors to play a role in cancer is an intellectual luddite and a poor
scientist. The meme ‘’it’s genetic’’ has become a dangerous one, because it
fosters in scientists, doctors, and us as individuals, a diminished sense of
responsibility – whilst simultaneously playing into the hands of the Medical-Industrial-Complex.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">Sadly, when journalists like DRG
criticise alternative approaches to cancer treatment, it’s usually in spats of
debunking which are facile, misguided and misleading. For example, in his most
recent attack on anything alternative, he said ‘’there is absolutely no
evidence that cannabis has any curative impact on cancers’’. His article is
predicated upon the review he links by <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine</i>. If you read up on
this reference, however, it’s very difficult to see how DRG comes to his
impregnable conclusion. What DRG says is <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">not</b>
what the review says, at least not specifically. The review highlights a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">lack of evidence</i> to show efficacy of
cannabis – whereas DRG <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">implies</i> that
cannabis has been exhaustively tested to the maximum possible extent of
clinical testing in humans and has come up short. As you can see, this is a
very different statement, and this sort of dishonesty and semantic trickery is
a mainstay of many dogmatic sceptics. Furthermore, DRG has explicitly stated
that he doesn’t think cancer will ever be cured – so, if he believes that
nothing can cure cancer, what can the public even infer if he berates the idea
of something having curative impact? <span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">DRG is a master at picking the
low-hanging fruit. Even if it’s true that cannabis compounds have no positive
effect on cancer treatment (note: yet again, he didn’t mention anything to do
with how cannabis extracts could be used in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">prevention</i>),
this is a very weak – and quite frankly irrelevant – attack on the strongly
developing ethos in science of an alternative approach to cancer treatment. Firstly,
keep in mind that DRG has <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">explicitly</i>
stated that he thinks that conventional treatments are absolutely the only option,
and will remain so for ever, and this reveals that he has an <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">implicit bias</b> against certain avenues
of research. <span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Secondly, when he picks out
<u>one</u> natural substance, pits it against a Pharma drug, concludes it to
ineffective in treating cancer and then uses this single example as a proxy to
dismiss altogether the possibility of an alternative paradigm in cancer care,
he is missing the point totally. <u>No</u> respected doctor who’s interested in
alternative medical approaches to cancer would consider administrating cannabis
oil alone as a complete treatment modality. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">A good example is Dr Andrew Weil
and his guidebook to <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Integrative Oncology</i></b> – published by
Oxford University Press. Here, it can be seen that an alternative paradigm to
treating cancer would include all the myriad interventions aforementioned.
Furthermore, I don’t see how natural compounds could even be compared to pharmaceutical
chemotherapy drugs – because many pharma chemo drugs are spared having to be
tested against placebo(!), whereas natural compounds (if ever tested at all)
would almost certainly be placebo-controlled. As if putting someone on a £90,000
regime of chemotherapy with all its accompanying protocols couldn’t possibly
elicit a placebo response! Excuse the sarcasm here, but it’s absurd to suggest
otherwise. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">Further still, when DRG
‘debunked’ claims for the cancer-fighting properties of marijuana, he
conveniently forgot to mention (and always does forget to mention) the myriad
natural compounds and therapies for which there <u>is</u> robust evidence for
efficacy. For example, both the compounds <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">curcumin</b>
from turmeric and <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">sulforaphane</b> from
broccoli sprouts have shown positive effect on cancer in human clinical trials.
See BBC’s Dr Michael Mosley’s reporting on human studies on Turmeric and Dr
Rhonda Patrick’s analyses of Sulforaphane, e.g. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Sulforaphane and Its Effects on Cancer, Mortality, Aging, Brain and
Behaviour, Heart Disease & More</i> -<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zz4YVJ4aRfg"><span style="color: #0563c1;">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zz4YVJ4aRfg</span></a>.
Of course, as a scientist, I would be the first to declare the ‘more trials are
needed’ slogan. What’s disheartening is that ‘cancer researchers’ such as DRG
show an indifference and disinterest in any research on natural breakthroughs. Such
lopsided interest could be called the <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Tumbleweed
Effect</b> – i.e. when natural compounds are shown<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> <u>not</u></i> to work there’s a fervent uproar from dogmatic sceptics;
but when studies <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u>do</u></b> show
robust evidence for the efficacy of natural compounds and therapies … an eerie
radio silence … like tumbleweed blowing across the desert. <span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">DRG’s articles to debunk
alternative cancer treatments only find friction with the lunatic fringe, because
no serious scientist in support of a revolution in cancer care could even begin
to relate to DRG’s inept and misguided grasp of what constitutes an alternative
paradigm of oncology. DRG constructs and burns down so many Straw Man arguments
that serious scientists would use the analogy that he’s barking up the wrong
tree. And, of course, he is. Or, it would be more apt to say that he’s barking
up a tiny rotten plant sprout, whilst serious scientists in integrative
oncology are considering the therapeutic potential of integrating the multifaceted
branches of a giant oak tree. <span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">And, because those people on the
fringes are as ideologically-driven and impervious to changing their beliefs as
the dogmatic sceptics who berate them, such clumsy journalism is, in the end, just
clickbait. It’s a travesty that journalistic space could be given to someone
who genuinely wants to affect positive change in society rather than to someone
using their privileged position as a journalist to selfishly indulge in
egotistic ranting to fulfil a psychological void which - deep down - probably
has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with science – i.e. where ‘science’ is
abused as a prop, controversial topics used as bait, and the dissenting public
become the scapegoat for one man’s anger. <span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px; text-align: center;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: calibri;"><u>PART 3</u> ‘SIX STUBBORN MYTHS ABOUT CANCER’ REVISTED</span></b></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">To view my original rebuttal, see
here: <a href="http://objectiveskeptic.blogspot.co.uk/"><span style="color: #0563c1;">http://objectiveskeptic.blogspot.co.uk/</span></a>. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">It isn’t my purpose here to over
the argument made in that article again here. However, to give you a taster of
why DRG’s 2013 article was so logically flawed, just consider his first claim
that the idea that ‘cancer rates are rising’ is a myth. He says, ‘age is the
biggest single risk factor associated with developing cancer and as we’re
living longer it’s hardly surprising that rates are rising’. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">Here, DRG makes the classic error
of mistaking correlation for causation, which is ironic given that one of DRG’s
favourite slogans to belittle people with is ‘correlation is not the same as
causation’.</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">To say that age is the single
biggest risk factor associated with developing cancer is equally as wrong as
saying that, for example<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">, altitude is
the single biggest risk factor associated with developing altitude sickness</b>.
Can you spot the logical error in this statement? Oxygen depletion is the <u>cause</u>,
and altitude is simply the <u>correlate</u>. As long as you have sufficient
oxygen (e.g. oxygen tanks), altitude won’t cause altitude sickness. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">Similarly, DNA damage and
cellular dysfunction is the cause, age is simply the correlate. Of course, some
DNA damage might be inevitable with age, but a lot of DNA damage is caused by
environmental factors. So, if humans <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">minimise</i>
DNA damage during their lifetime by living the healthiest life possible, cancer
is<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> not</i> inevitable, and age would
cease to be the ‘single biggest factor’. <span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>DRG has made a profound error by confusing
correlation with causation. <span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">By using semantic trickery, DRG
makes false arguments, which are, nevertheless, difficult to argue against –
especially since DRG uses language in a way which is unclear and misleading
(e.g. age isn’t the risk factor; the risk factor is increased DNA damage with
age). By associating cancer with age, DRG has effectively just posited the lazy
and unhelpful argument ‘<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">age is the
single biggest risk factor in dying</b>’! This doesn’t really help anyone. It’s
almost convenient that people are living longer, since people like DRG can just
blame the epidemic rises in cancer as a natural by-product of people living
longer. But, the evidence speaks to something different, e.g. to use an
illustration – if everyone human was exterminated at the age of 30 like in the
movie Logan’s Run, humans in industrialised countries would still exhibit an
increased cancer rate. For example, in the US, childhood cancers are the second
leading cause of death in children under the age of 5. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">Furthermore, DRG makes the absurd
assumption – stated as fact – that we are living longer today than ever before.
He failed to elucidate the distinction between <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">life span</b> and <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">life
expectancy</b>. Life <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Span</i> is the
inherent genetic capability of human longevity – which has basically remained
unchanged for 200,000 years – whereas life <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">expectancy</i>
(which is given as an average to include infant mortality, which skews
perception of longevity once adulthood is reached) is the expectant longevity
in any given human group given the prevailing environmental and social
conditions. Of course, we’re living longer than our recent ancestors who slaved
away during the industrial revolution or who battled against the plague of the
Medieval ages. But that still leaves about 200,000 years of human history that
DRG hasn’t accounted for. DRG’s idea that humans are living long today because
of the absence of ancestral hardships and diseases is misleading (note his
tacit tribute to the heyday of modern medicine in finding solutions to
infectious disease). It’s misleading because human longevity today is <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">not</i></b>
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">enabled</i> due to the absence of plagues
and other infectious diseases – humans are intrinsically able to live long
because human longevity is natural! It’s important to keep this distinction in
mind. DRG’s conception of ‘natural forces’ arises, seemingly, from his
ignorance of anthropology and evolutionary biology. Plagues, war, disease,
starvation – all these things are actually <u>un</u>natural and would have been
very <u>un</u>common in human groups for most of our human history. It was only
when humans became settled following the agricultural revolution when these
problems became a key and systemic feature of human history. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">It’s quite possible, even
probable, that human populations could have existed which exhibited life
expectancies as long as humans today in the developed world. Indeed, untouched
present-day hunter-gatherer societies exhibit longevities to rival those in the
western world, and the oldest-lived person in recorded history was a man from
Bolivia – an undeveloped country – who was reported in 2013 to be 123 years
old. This has since been disputed, but he was certainly older than 100. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">In summary, I posit two points
which contradict DRG’s assumptions on longevity and disease: </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18pt;">
<span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: calibri;">1.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; font: 7pt "times new roman"; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: calibri;">Human
beings have the evolved the genetic capacity to live long (80+), possibly due
social factors of evolutionary theory such as Kin Selection – i.e. in social
groups the knowledge, wisdom and caretaking ability of grandparents would have
been key to improving the survivability and reproductive success of younger
generations of relatives. Therefore, along with longevity, humans would have
co-evolved DNA and cellular systems resistant to damage. Regardless, cells are
billions of years old, and so would have evolved to be naturally highly
resistant to becoming cancerous, as shown in the<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> Nature</i> study which revealed that cells need environmental triggers
to be tipped into a cancerous state in 70-90% cases. Indeed, because cells are
highly resistant to cancer, and because cancer is so prolific, this <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u>is</u></b> proof positive that the world
has become more carcinogenic, which is a fact that DRG is reluctant to accept. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px 48px; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18pt;">
<span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: calibri;">2.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; font: 7pt "times new roman"; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: calibri;">Human
longevity is driven mostly by healthy living (both socially and
environmentally) – not by being propped up by medical interventions. This is
important to realise because it reiterates the fact that human longevity is an <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u>intrinsic</u></b> genetic potential, and
modern medicine has done nothing to change the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">biology</i> of longevity. Indeed, the longest-lived peoples in the
world – such as those living in the <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Blue
Zones</b> (pockets of human populations around the world who show exceptional
longevity) – are often people who have the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">least</i>
medical intervention during their lives. It’s probable that the aforementioned
man from Bolivia never visited a doctor in his life. In fact, I wouldn’t be
surprised if there is an <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">inverse correlation</i></b> between use of
medical intervention and longevity around the world. <span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px; text-align: center;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: calibri;"><u>PART 4</u> – CRITIQUE OF DRG’S FOLLOW-UP ARTICLE ON CANCER <span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></b></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">In 2017, DRG wrote a follow-up
article which touched on some of the key themes of his 2013 article. It’s
called ‘<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Tackling cancer treatment myths,
from clean eating to cannabis</i>’. I will discuss the inaccuracies and logical
flaws in this article before going on to summarise the key criticisms of the
triumvirate – Novella, Grimes and Gorski – in part 5. I will be as concise as
possible, but some points need examination and careful elaboration. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">DRG’s article was replete with factual
errors, logical inconsistencies and misleading statements, including: </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18pt;">
<span style="font-family: symbol; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;">·<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; font: 7pt "times new roman"; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: calibri;">His reference to cancer as a ‘’complex family of
diseases’’. Whilst it is true that cancer is a complex family of diseases, this
statement obfuscates the fact that all cancers are united by one thing – DNA
mutation and cell dysfunction, which can be affected by environmental factors,
to include epigenetic influences. Even the ‘genetic roulette’ theory of cancer
– which was resoundingly debunked by the 2105 paper in Nature – cannot distance
itself from the fact that, even if this theory was true, epigenetics means that
even a genetic propensity for cancer is significantly influenced by
environmental factors. Even Wikipedia – in the ‘causes’ section of ‘cancer’ –
gives an estimate for cancer being 90-95% environmentally driven. When DRG says
that ‘’cancer is still widely misunderstood’’, this is also true within
consensus medicine itself. Importantly, the ‘complexity’ of cancer is a red
herring in an analogous way to saying that ‘the causes and effects of
inequality are so complex’ – as this is a convenient way that politicians and
big business can avoid having to do anything to implement the obvious solution
to remedy it, i.e. equality. As I suggest elsewhere, complex problems can have
simple, overarching solutions. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18pt;">
<span style="font-family: symbol; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;">·<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; font: 7pt "times new roman"; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: calibri;">DRG suggests it’s a myth that cancer can be
beaten or <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">avoided</i> with special diets.
‘’The idea that one can directly influence cancer through something as simple
as diet is an alluring one’’, he says. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">Firstly, for
most cancers, you can influence both the likelihood of you getting cancer, and
your prognosis if you have it, by eating a good diet. When I say ‘good diet’
I’m not referring to the ‘balanced diet’ promoted by silly dieticians who have
the erroneous belief that a mixture of good food and bad food equates to
balance. No – by ‘good diet’ I mean a consistently healthy diet, like the one
prescribed by people like Dr Colin Campbell. The fact that good food is
protective against cancer is just that – a fact – an obvious fact that should
need no proof whatsoever, but for which there is actually a mass of evidence to
back it up. Demanding that proof be given that good food confers a protective
effect against cancer would be as idiotic as suggesting we can’t recommend using
parachutes when jumping out of a plane due to a lack of RCT evidence – as
eloquently put in the satirical BMJ article on parachutes which cautioned
against advising the use of parachutes because no RCT trials have been
conducted to show their efficacy.</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">Not only is good
food protective against cancers, it could also play a chemotherapeutic role in
treatment, as highlighted in this TED talk: <span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjkzfeJz66o"><span style="color: #0563c1;">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjkzfeJz66o</span></a>.
</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">Secondly, diet
is not simple in the dismissive and trivialising way DRG has often spoke about
the connection between diet and health. Diet and its effect on health is
infinitely complex, and it takes dedicated and intelligent research scientists
like Dr Rhonda Patrick to explore and disentangle it. But, paradoxically, even
though the basic science of diet and health (e.g. metabolic pathways) is
complex, the principles for eating right are simple. As the ecologist Bill
Mollison once said, whilst the world becomes more complex, the solutions remain
embarrassingly simple. In appropriating this quote to how we look at cancer –
the ‘world’ is cancer epidemiology and the ‘solutions’ are prevention. <span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">True to style,
DRG flips these two concepts to make a dog’s dinner out of promulgating health
information. How? Because, on the one hand he trivialises and debases the link
between diet and cancer whilst simultaneously (as in his <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Irish Times</i> piece) saying that epidemiological link between diet
and disease is so complex that we can’t really be sure that any diet can be
recommended. Conveniently to DRG’s indifference and disinterest in diet, the
link between diet and disease will always be epidemiologically complex. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18pt;">
<span style="font-family: symbol; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;">·<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; font: 7pt "times new roman"; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: calibri;">DRG says, in reference to diet and lifestyle,
‘’the thought of being able to take some personal control is comforting’’. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">This is a
troubling statement. Is DRG really suggesting that people <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">can’t</i> take some personal control? – control of a disease which is
perhaps only 5% genetically determined? If so, this is a grossly misleading
statement and would fall foul of Samuel Epstein’s definition of criminal
negligence in failing to advocate for prevention. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">Like the 2017
BBC documentary by Dr Giles Yeo called <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Clean Eating – the Dirty Truth</i></b>,
which looked at special ‘fad’ diets, Yeo (like DRG) sets up these extreme
approaches as a Straw Man argument to be attacked, whilst failing to give
mention to the vast and more reasonable middle ground. Both Dr Yeo and DRG are
guilty of polarising debate by using poorly though-out Straw Man arguments.
This clumsy BBC documentary ignores and obfuscates key points, such as the fact
that major diseases such as heart disease and type-2 diabetes can be prevented
and even reversed by following a good diet, as emphasised by respected doctors
in the UK such as Dr Michael Mosley. For some reason, discussing heart disease
has become unfashionable, even though it is still the biggest killer – bigger
than cancer. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">The documentary
featured the work of Dr Colin Campbell and presented it in a biased and
misleading way, to which Campbell took objection in this letter to the BBC: <span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><a href="http://nutritionstudies.org/british-broadcasting-corporation-bbc-your-credibility-is-tarnished/"><span style="color: #0563c1;">http://nutritionstudies.org/british-broadcasting-corporation-bbc-your-credibility-is-tarnished/</span></a>.
Dr Colin Campbell also criticised Dr Yeo and the BBC for excluding the
interviews conducted with Campbell’s colleague which revealed the amazing
potential for nutritional intervention to treat heart disease. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">For sure, the
‘anti-cancer’ diets that DRG alludes to likely are fads and lacking in
evidence. But this does not mean that healthy diets aren’t effective as a
significant contributory factor in the prevention and treatment in many
different types of cancer. DRG consistently fails to mention that (a)
prevention is better than cure; (b) whilst ‘anti-cancer’ diets might not cure
cancer, they play an important role in preventing it in the first place. Cure
and prevention are essentially the same thing, in the same sense that
scientists talk about vaccines curing the world of various diseases. This is
technically incorrect, because vaccines prevent diseases developing, they don’t
cure them. But, even if a specific lifestyle can’t cure cancer- if it prevented
it in the first place, it’s essentially saved you from the curse of cancer.
Prevention is as powerful as cure, but it’s difficult for us to grasp this fact
because the absence of something isn’t as tangible as the removal of something
which has manifested; (c) there are many permutations and ideas of what
constitutes an anti-cancer diet. Some of these are fads, but some of them
certainly aren’t. Naturally, the better the diet generally, the more
anti-cancer it will be; (d) diets which are anti-cancer can be so either
because they are promote general health and wellbeing, or because more
specifically because they contain compounds with shown anti-cancer effect; (e)
and that he has explicitly stated that he doesn’t believe that the word ‘cure’
should be used in the same breath as ‘cancer’, even for mainstream treatment –
thus all of his arguments about cancer have this get-out clause. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18pt;">
<span style="font-family: symbol; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;">·<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; font: 7pt "times new roman"; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: calibri;">To get technical – the author goes on to discuss
energy consumption, the Warburg Effect, and the Ketogenic diet. From the
outset, it’s patently clear that DRG isn’t an expert in biochemistry, and he
references Gorski – another non-expert. NOTE: if you really want to get to
grips with this topic, I suggest putting your trust in scientists who are actually
qualified in this field, such as the biochemist Dr Rhonda Patrick, who is
published in top peer-reviewed journals. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">Whilst it’s true
that the metabolic switch to glycolysis ‘’stems from the mutations that give
rise to cancer’’, DRG makes the mistake of failing to mention that diet can,
through the mechanism of epigenetics, influence the probability that these very
mutations arise in the first place. In other words, even if diet doesn’t<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> directly</i> cause the metabolic switch to
glycolysis, diet influences the likelihood that DNA will mutate and instruct a
cell to inefficiently generate energy from glycolysis in the cell cytosol,
rather than in the mitochondria as for normal, healthy cells. Basically, DRG is
protesting that ‘’diet doesn’t cause the metabolic switch – cancer does!’’ It’s
as if he can’t bring himself to concede (if he’s even aware of it at all) that
diet influences the rate of cancer-causing mutations in the first place. We
have solid evidence that several common herbs protect DNA from damage, and as
Dr Rhonda Patrick explains in this video, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">magnesium</b>
protects DNA from mutation during replication and is associated with a
decreased all-cause mortality, including a significant reduction in cancer
risk. Many people are deficient in magnesium. See<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iiH4m7NvV98&t=116s"><span style="color: #0563c1;">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iiH4m7NvV98&t=116s</span></a>.</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18pt;">
<span style="font-family: symbol; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;">·<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; font: 7pt "times new roman"; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: calibri;">I agree that the whole ‘acid/alkaline’ diet
debate is over-simplified and beside the point, because, as DRG correctly says,
blood and tissue acidity is tightly regulated by homeostatic mechanisms in the
body. A constant blood PH is vital for life. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">But, even if the
benefits of an alkaline diet for cancer lacks a solid evidence base, we can
nevertheless use the terms ‘acid’ and ‘alkaline’ as proxies or signposts for
what is good or bad food, e.g. red meat<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">
is</i> acidic in nature (even if it doesn’t lead to acidic blood), whereas all
the good stuff (such as green vegetables) tend to be of an alkaline nature.
Eating alkaline foods won’t turn your blood alkaline, but it will confer a
protective effect against cancer. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">Furthermore, the
blood is regulated to be a constant PH of around 7.4 (which is alkaline) so it
makes sense that it would be easier and resource-sparing for the body to
maintain this vital alkaline PH if it isn’t being constantly bombarded with
acidic foods which must be neutralised. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">I apologise to
readers if I go into a lot of detail, but these are the nuances which must be
understood to get a rational grasp of the topic – nuances which DRG
consistently omits or doesn’t understand as being relevant. Even if it’s true
that diet can’t affect cancerous cells, an alkaline diet could stop them
becoming cancerous in the first place! As it happens, and as Dr Rhonda Patrick
points out, alkaline foods such as magnesium-rich green leafy vegetables have
been shown to enhance DNA repair mechanisms in cells and to enhance the
functioning of mitochondria – both of which are critical to cancer prevention
and treatment. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">In talking about
the effect of cancer on energy production in a cell, it’s mind boggling how DRG
fails to give any mention to mitochondria – the cells’ powerhouses which are
normally responsible for producing energy, and at a much higher glucose
efficiency than cancerous cells. Since mitochondria are dysfunctional in cancerous
cells, and since Reactive Oxygen Species (ROS) produced from normal
mitochondrial respiration are used to mediate programmed cell death in healthy
cells (which goes awry in cancer), it is absolutely vital to include
mitochondria in the discussion if we are to get a good understanding of the
role of diet and energy metabolism in cancer.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">New avenues of
research suggest that optimising mitochondrial function in <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u>all</u></b> cells (including in cancerous cells) could play both a
preventative and a therapeutic role in cancer, because:</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 72px; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18pt;">
<span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: calibri;">(a)</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; font: 7pt "times new roman"; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: calibri;">Mitochondrial-driven cells use glucose far more
efficiently – up to 20 times more efficiently – than cancer cells, and thus
theoretically the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">intercellular space</i>
surrounding those healthy cells which use mitochondrial respiration will be
itself be healthier and less acidic, and so less prone to facilitating negative
epigenetic effects of DNA.</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 72px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 72px; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18pt;">
<span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: calibri;">(b)</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; font: 7pt "times new roman"; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: calibri;">More ROS are produced in normal mitochondrial
respiration, because the process is aerobic, using oxygen, compared to
glycolysis in cancerous cells which is largely <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">anaerobic</i></b>. These ROS aid
in normal cell apoptosis and even in the targeted killing of cancerous cells by
the body. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 72px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 72px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">For more information on lifestyle factors (inc.
supplements and food) which optimize mitochondrial functioning, view videos by
Dr Rhonda Patrick and this talk on TED called ‘Minding your Mitochondria’: <span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLjgBLwH3Wc"><span style="color: #0563c1;">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLjgBLwH3Wc</span></a>.
In Germany, for example, they are more open to trying alternative therapies,
such as oxygen therapy – which has the potential to drive mitochondria and fat
metabolism and to produce ROS to arm the body to naturally combat cancerous
cells. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 72px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 72px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">DRG goes on to make the absurd assumption that,
because glucose is required by every cell in the body, and because all
carbohydrates from food – whether vegetables or chocolate – ultimately break
down to glucose, this means that, basically, whether you eat sugary junk food
or vegetables doesn’t affect cancer risk because the glucose will still find
its way to the cancer cell. DRG’s writing is sloppy here – what he really means
is that diet cannot affect the ‘end-of-line’ uptake of glucose by cells because
all carbohydrate is broken down into glucose. This is such an erroneous way of
understanding things because it’s akin to saying – if we replace ‘glucose’ with
‘water’ – that the water in Coca-Cola and the water in vegetable juice is the
same water and therefore, because cancer cells have no greater preference for
either water, Coca-Cola is no more likely to feed cancer than vegetable juice! <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">DRG has the unique ability to draw false
conclusions from established facts</b>. There is empirical proof that diabetics
can tolerate vegetables but not sugary junk food – even though the sugar is the
same. Try telling a diabetic that the effect of sugar from vegetables and
Coca-Cola is the same. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 72px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 72px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">DRG’s argument is absurdly reductionist, if for no
other reason than for the fact that higher concentrations of sugary
carbohydrates in the diet will translate into more glucose being available to
cancer cells and less impetus for the body to metabolize fat – not to mention
the fact that when nutritionists talk about sugar they are fully aware that
complex carbohydrates break down into simple sugars. It is a simple fact that
cancer needs more glucose than healthy cells, and this is because glycolysis is
up to 20 times less efficient – and this glucose is used mainly for cell
replication, not metabolism, hence why it's especially dangerous in cancer
cells. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 72px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 72px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">DRG’s argument also completely ignores the fact that
the vitamins, minerals, protein and fats ingested alongside carbohydrates will
regulate the impact of glucose on the body – not just at the cancer cell
interface, but also on how sugar affects hormone levels, blood biochemistry,
and epigenetics – all of which are known to affect the development and
proliferation of cancer cells. [Dr Rhonda Patrick video on SUGAR - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWIpHO6cXHk"><span style="color: #0563c1;">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWIpHO6cXHk</span></a>].
Yet again, sugar load is an invaluable proxy for bad diet! When people talk
about sugar and cancer, they’re not talking about sugar per se, but the sugar
that is obtained from processed / artificial foods. <span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 72px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 72px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">This idiotic misunderstanding is shared by the biggest
cancer charity in the world – <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Cancer
Research UK</b> – who have a bunch of erroneous and misleading videos about
cancer, including this one on sugar – <span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CrPTa64gFsg"><span style="color: #0563c1;">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CrPTa64gFsg</span></a>.
</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 72px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 72px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">In another round of semantic dumb-foolery, the author
says the idea that sugar specifically feeds cancer is ‘wrong’ – whilst at the
same time conceding that obesity is linked with cancer risk. Can you spot the
absurdity of putting these two statements in the same sentence? We know with
absolute scientific certainty that obesity is associated with intake of sugary
processed foods. Naturally then, intake of sugary processed food is associated
(to a lesser or greater degree) to overall cancer risk. Grimes would no doubt
contest this extrapolation – but it would be to no avail if you dig down into
the logic. It’s analogous to saying, ‘’A drives B and B drives C, but A cannot
be linked to C’’. It’s as absurd as saying that obesity (B) is linked with
heart disease (C), and obesity (B) is linked to bad diet (A), but we can’t link
bad diet (A) with heart disease (C). Ridiculous. It’s ridiculous from a logical
standpoint and an evidential one, since we know, to take just one example, that
obesity causes insulin problems which is a direct causative factor in kidney
cancer. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 72px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 72px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">Next, the author tries to debunk the idea that the
ketogenic diet could be used as a therapeutic tool in cancer treatment.
Unsurprisingly, he has a clumsy understanding of why the ketogenic diet is
thought to be helpful. He says, the ketogenic diet is the ‘’cutting out (of)
carbohydrates to throttle glucose production and starve cancer’’. Firstly, the
phrase ‘glucose production’ is misleading. He is referring to the ingestion of
carbohydrates which break down into glucose (i.e. glucose <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">provision</i>, not production), or the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">endogenous</i> release of glucose via metabolism in the liver? Whatever
he actually means, it’s a bland point, because the ketogenic diet is far more
profound than this – it is more to do with optimising mitochondrial function,
as discussed before, and of optimising the endocrine (i.e. hormone) system of
the body (e.g. obesity increases risk of kidney cancer partly due to insulin
disruption). Mitochondrial cells are vital to facilitate the healthy
functioning of the cell cycle (including cell death), but are dysfunctional in
cancer cells. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 72px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 72px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">Furthermore, the ketogenic diet is also strongly
related to the idea of fasting and caloric restriction, which have been found
to have profound and widespread benefits for the body, including the optimising
immune system functioning – which is key for preventing and treating cancer.
See - <span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2016/03/12/fasting-for-three-days-can-regenerate-entire-immune-system-study/"><span style="color: #0563c1;">http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2016/03/12/fasting-for-three-days-can-regenerate-entire-immune-system-study/</span></a>.
See also BBC’s Michael Mosley research on the benefits of fasting. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 72px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 72px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">For more insights into the errors promulgated by DRG,
see these rebuttals (part 1 and 2) by molecular biologist Travis Christofferson
(in which he offers DRG $1,000 if he can provide evidence for something he says
in his Guardian article):<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 72px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 72px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 96px; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18pt;">
<span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: calibri;">(1)</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; font: 7pt "times new roman"; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
</span></span></span><span style="font-family: calibri;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><a href="http://healthinsightuk.org/2017/02/14/the-real-myth-is-that-eating-sugar-doesnt-feed-your-cancer/"><span style="color: #0563c1;">http://healthinsightuk.org/2017/02/14/the-real-myth-is-that-eating-sugar-doesnt-feed-your-cancer/</span></a>.
</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px 96px; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18pt;">
<span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: calibri;">(2)</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; font: 7pt "times new roman"; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
</span></span></span><span style="font-family: calibri;"><a href="http://healthinsightuk.org/2017/02/20/how-the-ketogenic-diet-starves-a-tumour-then-genetically-engineers-the-cancer-cells/"><span style="color: #0563c1;">http://healthinsightuk.org/2017/02/20/how-the-ketogenic-diet-starves-a-tumour-then-genetically-engineers-the-cancer-cells/</span></a>.
</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px 72px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px 72px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">In trying to
debunk the ketogenic diet, DRG references David Gorski to, ostensibly, back up
his claims. But Gorski is an<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> unreliable</i>
source (as will be expounded upon in the final part), but DRG calls upon him
precisely because he already knows Gorski will be sympathetic to his position –
a very unscientific way to go about things. Novella, Grimes and Gorski
reference each other in an eco-chamber, and as such have become an unholy
triumvirate – passing the buck onto one another knowing full well that they are
aligned with each other’s biases and ideologies. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px 72px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">DRG continues…
‘’<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">the bottom line is that while good
nutrition is important in cancer, and indeed to health in general, the reality
is that no diet can cure cancer – no matter how glossy the pictures might look
in a diet book or on Pin interest</b>’’. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px 72px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">Firstly, when
DRG says that ‘’no diet can cure cancer’’, what he forgets to mention is that
he believes that nothing can cure cancer. He operates from the principle that
the words ‘cure’ and ‘cancer’ shouldn’t be spoken in the same breath. The
critical omission of this fact means that anything he says related to ‘cure’
and ‘cancer’ is misleading, and must be seen within the context that DRG
doesn’t think anything can cure cancer. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px 72px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">Remember that
in the interview for the FreeThinkTank in 2016, when asked what he thought
would be the state of cancer research in a hundred years from now, he his
response by saying, ‘’I DON’T THNK WE’LL EVER CURE CANCER…’’. So, there you
have it folks – DRG categorically stated that he believes that cancer cannot be
cured, so when he says ‘’diet can’t cure cancer’’ is a meaningless and
misleading point, because, according to his understanding, nothing can. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px 72px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">And, in his
usual polarising style, DRG gives no mention to the fact that diet can play a
profound role in<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> preventing</b> cancer. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px 72px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">Paradoxically,
the most misleading line of all in the entire article in this one where he says
that, ‘’while nutrition is important in cancer, and indeed to health in
general…’’. DRG, in order to pass as someone who is even remotely credible, at
some point must concede that diet is important in cancer. This acknowledgment,
however, never seems anything more than a vague, passing remark – a get-out
clause to rebuke anyone who accuses him of negligence toward prevention.
Indeed, an argument or an article by DRG is never complete without a get-out
clause or some type of plausible-deniability cunningly encrypted amongst his
arguments. It appears that DRG uses words to conceal and obfuscate meaning,
rather than to clarify – and this is a danger to public health. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px 72px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">DRG dedicates <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">a third of a sentence</i> in the entire
article to diet being ‘important’, but he has never spoken about the
relationship between lifestyle and cancer in a serious and mature way. Even in
his <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Irish Times </i>piece on fad diets
not being the answer to the obesity epidemic, he omits stating cancer as one of
the diseases linked to obesity. Cancer is glaringly conspicuous on the list, by
its absence. [<a href="http://www.irishtimes.com/news/health/why-diet-fads-will-not-stop-obesity-epidemic-1.1911783"><span style="color: #0563c1;">http://www.irishtimes.com/news/health/why-diet-fads-will-not-stop-obesity-epidemic-1.1911783</span></a>]. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px 72px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">In my opinion,
and as I stated before, this is the type of criminal negligence professor
Samuel Epstein refers to when lamenting how prevention is not prioritised in
cancer research. Even though DRG is in the privileged position of being able to
promulgate health information, he never actually uses his platform in a
balanced way to suggest ways to help prevent lifestyle diseases such as cancer.
On the contrary, it would appear that DRG actually shoots down public attempts
to develop the dialogue on the link between diet and cancer. For example, he
derided Dr John Kelly’s book <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Eating for Cancer</i></b> as belonging to
the ‘fiction section’ of book stores. Furthermore, he falsely stated that Dr
Kelly was suggesting a cure, when Dr Kelly was patently NOT saying any such
thing. Then Steven Novella got on board to attack the book in his article ‘<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Doctor who is not solving cancer</i>’. It is
my speculation that DRG informed Novella of the book with the intention that
Novella would critique it, and this speculation is based on the fact that the
interview and book review appeared in the Irish Times. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px 72px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">Further still,
DRG fails to elucidate or even just to realise the difference between ‘good
diets’ – i.e. diets which are good for you overall – and diets / foods that are
specifically anti-cancer. We have robust scientific evidence that such natural
compounds exist, e.g. clinical trials in humans as reported by Michael Mosely
on the BBC’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Trust me, I’m a Doctor</i>
show, and Dr Rhonda Patrick’s analysis of efficacy of sulforaphane from
broccoli in human studies. Also, see the TED talk by William Li o the
chemo-therapeutic potential of certain food compounds, which rival the efficacy
of pharmaceutical drugs - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9bDZ5-zPtY"><span style="color: #0563c1;">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9bDZ5-zPtY</span></a>.
</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px 72px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px 72px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">Good books DO
exist which scientifically address the link between lifestyle and cancer – </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 120px; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18pt;">
<span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: calibri;">1.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; font: 7pt "times new roman"; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
</span></span></span><span style="font-family: calibri;"><a href="https://agreatread.co.uk/anticancer-a-new-way-of-life-9780718156848/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIzf7--urV2AIVxpkbCh0jEAcKEAQYBSABEgIPC_D_BwE"><span style="color: #0563c1;">https://agreatread.co.uk/anticancer-a-new-way-of-life-9780718156848/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIzf7--urV2AIVxpkbCh0jEAcKEAQYBSABEgIPC_D_BwE</span></a>.
</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px 120px; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18pt;">
<span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: calibri;">2.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; font: 7pt "times new roman"; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
</span></span></span><span style="font-family: calibri;"><a href="http://thinkeatbehealthy.com/2015/06/10/the-anti-cancer-diet-book-review/"><span style="color: #0563c1;">http://thinkeatbehealthy.com/2015/06/10/the-anti-cancer-diet-book-review/</span></a>.
</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px 72px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px 72px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">In short, my
advice is to ignore DRG’s ignorant and clumsy ramblings about diet and cancer, and
consult people who are actually qualified to talk about it. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px 72px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">Next, DRG
rails against the idea of ‘natural remedies’. Firstly – no – the natural
approach to cancer care (as advised by practitioners of integrative medicine)
is NOT reducible to a single compound or supplement; rather, it is the
combination of many approaches in a holistic, integrated way as done at the
Hippocrates Institute or the Arizona Institute for Integrative Medicine. It’s
wildly ignorant of DRG to assume that professionals in alternative approaches
to cancer would take this reductionist approach (e.g. ‘one supplement cures
cancer’). We can leave that type of reductionism to DRG – he is very adept at
it, and this is undoubtedly born out of his academic training in physics, which
unfortunately denies him the instilled level of nuance and intuitive
understanding of biological systems which he would have gained with a
qualification in biology. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px 72px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">Secondly,
there is good evidence that natural treatments could, in the very least, be
used alongside conventional treatments to mitigate against their harmful
effects. For example, it has been shown that cannabis and fasting are both
helpful. In deriding cannabis, for example, DRG is – yet again – wilfully
ignorant of the wider context, a context which in this case includes
socio-political, economic and ideological forces, as mapped out in the US by
the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937, the removal of cannabis from the Pharmacopeia in
1942, and placing in the Controlled Substances Act of 1972 under Nixon, since
it was deemed to have ‘no safe, effective medical use, and a high abuse
potential, so it can’t be used in medical settings’. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px 72px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">The
consideration of cannabis as a medicine has been driven as much by political
and ideological forces as by evidence-based medicine, but DRG seems ignorant to
this nuance. This systemic bias against marijuana is patently true – just
consider the devastating effect of synthetic opioids such as Oxycontin.
Oxycontin is <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">orders of magnitude</b>
more dangerous than marijuana, and has caused widescale social collapse. DRG’s
rebuttal of cannabis claims is <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">predicated
upon</i> this institutional bias against marijuana – a bias DRG propagates
while remaining ignorant of it, like a robot. And, he makes the mistake he
consistently makes of failing to mention that cannabis hasn’t been tested to
the same extent in phase-3 clinical trials as other drugs; thus, his remarks
about it being ineffective are shallow and misleading. But, note the
idiosyncratic get-out clause when he qualifies his rebuttal by adding ‘’weight
of evidence <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">to date</i></b>’’. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px 72px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">DRG
conveniently forgets to mention reviews such as the Cochrane Collaboration
review which reveals that much of orthodox medicine has a poor evidence base. <span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>There is the unfair approach that alternative
medicine requires greater evidence for efficacy, and this greater stringency
for alternative remedies is predicated upon the misguided assumption that
synthetic compounds intrinsically have a greater potency of effect. In reality,
the <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u>only</u></b> fundamental
difference between natural and pharmaceutical compounds is that the latter can
be patented. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px 72px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">[In
referencing the NCI and Cancer Research UK, DRG makes the uncritical assumption
that these agencies are totally independent, as he did in his first article on
cancer regarding the FDA (see the Wikipedia entry for the FDA which highlights
its inherent conflicts of interest). Cancer Research UK is a charity, but this
doesn’t mean it can’t be influenced by industry interests, and this possibility
is evidenced by the fact that CRUK funnels most of its charity donations into
biomedical research – not into prevention, where any sane, rational person with
an eye for epidemiology would focus the money].</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px 72px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">In his customary
black and white mentality, DRG says, ‘’cannabis may not have an impact on
cancer…’’, does he really mean zero effect? He is either lying or is being
wilfully ignorant. Given the mass of basic science on cannabis, to suggest that
cannabis has zero effect is an absurd claim. His dismissal of claims for
natural compounds usually amounts to nothing more than the facile and entirely
predictable ‘just because it works in a petri dish doesn’t mean it works for
real’ or ‘just because it works in animals doesn’t mean it works in humans’.
This is the type of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Ad infinitum</i>
evasion employed by Novella and Gorski. It seems reasonable, until you realise
that their position on whether something works or not is fixed before even
considering the evidence, in a classic case of confirmation bias. As stated, for
such dogmatic sceptics, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u>evidence
hierarchies</u></b> serve to perpetually evade and distort, rather than to
objectively look at the veracity of a claim. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px 72px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">In general,
wherever a natural compound or therapy has reasonable evidence for efficacy
(for any health condition) <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">and is safe</b>,
it is <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">irresponsible</i> to caution
against its use. Dogmatic sceptics’ protocol, however, is to reserve admitting
something is beneficial until strict studies such as meta-analyses and
systematic trials have proved it beyond any doubt – effectively allowing for a
type of idiocy which can be summed up as ‘’food or compound ‘x’ has many health
benefits with reasonable evidence for efficacy, and is safe to use with no
contraindications, but don’t bother using it until the scientific community is
100% sure it is useful – it’s better to wait 20 years just to make sure it
passes all the thresholds of evidence’’. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px 72px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">In this way,
people who rely solely on consensus are missing out on 20 years’ worth of
health-promoting foods and natural supplements, when the substance in question
doesn’t have any negative effects anyway, and is likely positive, and at the
absolute worst has a neutral net effect. With this cautious approach, can you
spot the principle which dogmatic skeptics get back-to-front? <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">The precautionary principle – they get the
precautionary principle back-to-front. They are cautious in accepting the
efficacy of safe, natural substances, and yet don’t see the value in suggesting
a precautionary approach to the question of whether the daily ingestion of
thousands of synthetic chemicals in our environment could be bad for us</b>.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px 72px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px 72px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">Regarding
DRG’s reference to homeopathy – I covered homeopathy in previous article which
rebutted DRG’s ‘<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">six stubborn myths about
cancer</i>’, so I won’t waste time on that here. In short, whilst I agree that
homeopaths can steer people away from treatment that could help them (inc.
alternative treatments that work), homeopathy is used here, yet again(!) as a
Straw Man. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u>No</u></b> serious
practitioner of alternative or integrative cancer therapies would use
homeopathy, other than as a placebo medicine. Funnily, DRG never tackles the
far-bigger placebo scam of antidepressant medication, even though some types
have been shown to cause suicidal ideation and, all things considered, have an
incredibly poor benefit/harm ratio – much, much worse than homeopathy. <span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px 72px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">DRG says,
‘’there are <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">certain</i> things we do know
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">contribute</i> to cancer’’ (emphasis
added). If he wanted to be more scientifically accurate, he would have said,
‘’there are <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">many</i> things we do know <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">cause</i> (i.e. are carcinogenic) cancer’’. <span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>He goes on, ‘’yet cancer often arises in
individuals with no obvious risk factors, giving it a seemingly capricious
nature and leaving people struggling to find an explanation’’. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px 72px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">Sadly, yet
predictably, a very misleading statement. This is further evidence that DRG is
an apologist for the debunked genetic roulette view of cancer. As I expounded
upon before, dogmatic sceptics hide behind epidemiological complexity to
protect the narrative they are trying to safeguard. Just because there are ‘no
obvious causes’ doesn’t mean that environmental factors aren’t just as
important. As mentioned, smoking is easy to link to cancer because people are
reliably distinguishable by 1 factor – smoking. For other cancers, the factors
are more numerous and thus harder to extricate from epidemiological complexity.
It’s true that different tissues have a varying susceptibility to becoming
cancerous (due in part to different intrinsic stem cell division rates), and
also differentially according to different external factors, but this does not
negate the fact that cancer is largely environmentally-driven. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px 72px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">For example,
just because brain tissue might be 10x less resistant to becoming cancerous
than, say, lung tissue, it doesn’t logically follow that brain tissue is 10x
less likely to be driven by environmental factors. It could just mean that
brain tissue is 10x more sensitive to damage from environmental sources, e.g.
lifestyle, environmental toxins, and psycho-mental-emotional stressors. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px 72px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">DRG goes on,
‘’in lieu of a clear villain…’’. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px 72px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">This is a
pathologically dishonest statement, since we know the <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">constellation of factors</b> which synergise to cause cancer in 70-90%
of cases. On ridiculing the supposed link between deodorants and cancer, DRG is
– yet again! – missing the point. It’s about the <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">compound</b> effect, and the <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">synergistic</b>
effect, of thousands of factors and chemicals – the possible synergy of which
we don’t understand and will never fully understand. That’s why we adopt the
precautionary principle. The precautionary principle is adopted precisely
because our knowledge base is in lieu of a clear villain! Concern about synergy
is also the reason why the more reasonable members of the public are concerned
about vaccines (which I discuss later) – not because they distrust the safety
profile of individual vaccines, but they are justly concerned that adequate
safety studies haven’t been conducted on the <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">synergistic effect</i></b> of
giving babies 10 vaccine injections at a time, or enforcing a vaccine schedule
which can include 50 or 60 vaccines during childhood. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px 72px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">In a similar
vein, DRG says, regarding the conjectural link between sweeteners and cancer,
that there’s ‘’no evidence of a link’’. Firstly, as mentioned, this indicates
DRG’s contrarian grip on the precautionary principle – i.e. things must be
proved safe if there is a plausible mechanism for harm (which there is in this
case, i.e. novel compounds). Secondly, there might not be a direct link, but
anything that influences hormones or impacts general health will affect cancer
risk. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px 72px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">The rebuttal
of the supposed link between cell phone use and brain tumours is an odd one –
because, after the headline, DRG doesn’t directly mention cell phones. Cell
phones held <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">next to the head</i> have
been shown to be detrimental to health, but the vagueness with which DRG refers
to cell phones makes it difficult to ascertain what’s he trying to convey.
Regardless, this point is a red herring – a classic case of DRG using a red
herring to avoid discussing the real issues at hand. For example, we know that
pollution raises the risk of cancers in general, including breast cancer, as
documented by <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Telegraph</i>. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px 72px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">And that old
chestnut – the Pharma cure cover-up conspiracy. Yet again (how many times?!)
DRG presents his readers with a Straw Man argument. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px 72px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">Firstly, it’s
an obvious fact – though obviously invisible to DRG – that Big Pharma would
make (and does make) a lot more money from long-term chronic sickness (which
requires recurring treatment, often over the course of many years, if not
decades) than they would from dishing out cures. This is obviously true, and it
is an economic fact. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px 72px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">It’s a Straw
Man argument because, in reality, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">most
people <u>don’t</u> think that Big Pharma is surprising a cure</b> – they are
simply suspicious and troubled by the fact that (a) the pharmaceutical industry
is driven by profit (it is the biggest industry on earth); (b) that profit,
ultimately, depends on people being sick; (c) Big Pharma already have a proven
collective track-record of being corrupt and dishonest – you just have look at
all the major law suits and fines levied against pharmaceutical giants (and the
dumbfounding reasons for them) and the work of Peter Gotzsche from the Nordic
Cochrane Collaboration who equates Big Pharma to organised crime – see:</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px 72px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dozpAshvtsA"><span style="color: #0563c1;">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dozpAshvtsA</span></a>.
</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px 72px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px 72px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">So, when DRG
says there is ‘’sheer force of evidence’’ against the claim that Big Pharma is
hiding a cure, this is a misleading statement. Furthermore, what evidence does
DRG present to categorically refute this idea? He doesn’t produce any. Not only
does he <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">not</i></b> produce any evidence to back up his claim of there being a
‘sheer force of evidence’, the thing that further weakens his position is the <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">self-referencing</i></b>
of his own thesis on the theoretical longevity of conspiracy theories. This
paper was published in the pay-to-publish journal PLOSone and was subsequently
widely debunked by many scientists, and independently. It was debunked for its
flawed mathematics and erroneous logic. For example, DRG’s paper is predicated
upon the assumption that conspiracies (e.g. there is a cure for cancer) would
need to be kept secret by <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">all members</i>
of an organisation. So, for example, the secret would have to maintained by all
400,000 people who work in the NHS in the UK. This assumption is patently
nonsense. Organisations are hierarchical and compartmentalised by nature and
design, and so, by way of comparison, only a small handful of people within a
banking system would be aware of the arms deals being done with despotic
leaders or the fixing of libor lending rates. In a banking organisation of
10,000 people, perhaps only 10 are even aware of the dealing at the top. The
exposition of arms dealing or libor fixing wasn’t done from within the
organisation, but from without through investigative journalism. In other
words, these haven’t come to light because an entire organisation of 10,000
people finally broke under the strain of keeping a secret. And, if the secret
is exposed from within, it is exposed within that band or level, since the
hierarchical structure of an organisation purposefully limits power downward in
an inversely exponential manner. This fact directly contradicts the very
assumption DRG bases his theory on. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px 72px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">DRG’s biggest
oversight, however, stems from having a childish, Hollywood-style, conception
of conspiracy theories. In truth, the worst type of conspiracy – and yet the
most likely to happen – is the one that has become normalised to the point
where it ceases to be a conspiracy, and it can hide in plain sight. This is the
normalised conspiracy. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px 72px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">Normalised
conspiracies are simply paradigms or narratives which emerge through standard,
legal, economic and political forces, and which are beneficial to those in
power. The biomedical (i.e. drug and technology) approach to medicine is one
such normalised conspiracy, and there are very obvious ways by which this
paradigm of health care has become cemented in medicine – e.g. funding streams,
streamlining through licencing, editorial bias in journals, the shaping of
medical syllabuses by pharmaceutical interests, the demonization of anything
alternative in culture and intellectual circles, and the use of language
itself. These are just a few examples which has led to the normalised
conspiracy which is the medical orthodoxy. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px 72px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">DRG would no
doubt compulsively shout the ‘’conspiracy theorist’’ attack for this
suggestion, but he would be an utter fool to do so. You would have to be a fool
to deny the interplay of powerful forces at work shaping medicine. Peter
Gotzsche of the Nordic Cochrane Collaboration understands the situation, as does
Harvard University professor of medicine Arnold S. Relman, who stated, ‘’<span lang="EN" style="margin: 0px;">The medical profession is being bought by
the pharmaceutical industry, not only in terms of the practice of medicine, but
also in terms of teaching and research. The academic institutions of this
country are allowing themselves to be the paid agents of the pharmaceutical
industry. I think it’s disgraceful’’. </span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px 72px; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN" style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: calibri;">DRG goes on to say, ‘’it’s unsurprising that a
disease feared by many would become a focus for conspiracy theories’’. Again,
DRG displays back-to-front thinking. What IS <u>un</u>surprising is that a
disease feared by many (and which is consistently reinforced as something which
is frightening and scary by DRG) would be monopolized by Big Pharma and
dogmatic skeptics alike. Whilst heart disease has become unfashionable to
discuss (DRG hasn’t written an article on it even though it’s still the biggest
killer, ahead of cancer) – partly because the cat is out the bag that it’s
preventable through living a healthy lifestyle and thus is of no interest to
Big Pharma – cancer, on the other hand, is the ‘new kid on the block’ in terms
of profit. The last thing Big Pharma wants is for journalists to promulgate
that cancer is largely preventable disease, and fear serves a vital function in
keeping people held obsequiously hostage to the ‘best advice’ of the
pharma-sponsored orthodoxy in medicine. If you think this sounds hyperbolic,
just listen to interviews with Peter Gotzsche of the Nordic Cochrane
Collaboration. </span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px 72px; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN" style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: calibri;">The Medical-Industrial-Complex has been eager to
hold a complete monopoly on cancer care and advice, and this can be traced back
to the Cancer Act of 1939. Around this period, there are legal cases which show
the unfair persecution of alternative medical practices by agents in Big
Industry – <span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px 72px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;"><span lang="EN" style="margin: 0px;">[e.g. see </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilk_v._American_Medical_Ass%27n"><span lang="EN" style="margin: 0px;"><span style="color: #0563c1;">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilk_v._American_Medical_Ass%27n</span></span></a><span lang="EN" style="margin: 0px;">]. </span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px 72px; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN" style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: calibri;">Of course, dogmatic skeptics would do anything to
rubbish the article above, and the implications it raises. But, lest we forget,
at around the same time that the America Medical Association was calling
chiropractors ‘’quacks’’, they were endorsing and being sponsored by Big
Tobacco. Like on so many aspects of medicine, Grimes, Novella and Gorski are
ignorant, and this includes context and the history of medicine. For example,
for at least 100 years before modern medicine even had a solid evidence base
(and it still doesn’t in many areas), ‘’quack’’ was being used as a pejorative
term, showing how – for a long time and as an emerging systemic tactic in mainstream
medicine – <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Astroturf</i></b> slogans have been used to propagandize against ideas
which don’t align with the ideological and political narrative – rather than as
an objective characterization of things which don’t work. People like Grimes
stand on the shoulders of a long and ignoble line of commercial and
socio-political engineering. But, of course, he’s not cognizant of it.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px 72px; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN" style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: calibri;">And, on it goes… DRG says, ‘’these myths center on
the idea that there is a simple cause or cure for cancer’’. DRG keeps
regurgitating the idea that cancer is complex, complex, complex <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Ad infinitum</i>, saying cancers have
‘’wildly differing characteristics’’. It’s a red herring and clearly in his
interest to keep doing the Houdini trick of hiding behind epidemiological
complexity when it suits his argument. The truth is that cancer is, in the most
important sense, simple. All cancer can be reduced to the same fundamental
baseline of causation - it is driven by environmental factors and thus the best
way to protect yourself is to lead the healthiest life possible. As Harvard professor
David Hunter says, we could prevent millions of cancer deaths with the
knowledge we already have. But, DRG never promulgates that emphasis should be
on prevention, and this is gross negligence and journalistic misconduct.</span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px 72px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;"><span lang="EN" style="margin: 0px;">See: </span><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/oct/17/prevent-millions-of-cancer-deaths-with-knowledge-already-have"><span lang="EN" style="margin: 0px;"><span style="color: #0563c1;">https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/oct/17/prevent-millions-of-cancer-deaths-with-knowledge-already-have</span></span></a><span lang="EN" style="margin: 0px;">. </span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px 72px; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN" style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: calibri;">‘’There’s no magic bullet’’, DRG says. But with
conventional cancer treatment, that’s precisely what we have. It’s about as ‘magic
a bullet’ as possible. </span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px 72px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span lang="EN" style="margin: 0px;">The magic bullet is prevention</span></u></b><span lang="EN" style="margin: 0px;">. Just as the magic bullet for smallpox was
preventing people from getting in it the first place. As I have said before, if
you prevent someone getting a deadly illness which they would have gotten had
they not taken preventative action, then prevention is essentially the same as
a cure – even better. </span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px 72px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px; text-align: center;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="font-family: calibri;">PART 5</span></u></b></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">In this final part I will
summarise, as concisely as possible, the key ways in which the writings of
Grimes, Novella and Gorski are logically erroneous and scientifically
inaccurate – and thus how they mislead the public on health issues. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: calibri;">1.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; font: 7pt "times new roman"; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
</span></span></span></b><span style="font-family: calibri;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Selective
(i.e. biased) scepticism, and thus false balance</b>. There are many medical
issues which they could raise awareness about which have a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">far more</i> damaging impact on people and society than the fringe
topics they so fervently focus upon. For example, you never hear Grimes,
Novella and Gorski devoting column inches or debating energy into discussing
the devastating effect that Oxycontin (and other prescription drugs) is having
across the world – even though it destroys <u>orders of magnitude</u> more
lives compared to the alt-med practices they rail against so vehemently. No,
they don’t talk about this. They don’t talk about the hundreds of thousands of
people who die every year from iatrogenic deaths in mainstream medicine, or
from correctly prescribed pharmaceutical drugs, or from side-effects in cancer
treatment. They don’t mention the criminal undertakings of Big Pharma (which
have been noted by Peter Gotzsche in his book <i>Deadly medicines and organised
crime: how big pharma has corrupted healthcare</i><span style="margin: 0px;">), or how one of the most widely used medications in the world – SSRIs
– has a very poor scientific basis, or how most new cancer drugs don’t work: </span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;"><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/oct/05/over-half-of-new-cancer-drugs-show-no-benefits-for-survival-or-wellbeing"><span style="color: #0563c1;">https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/oct/05/over-half-of-new-cancer-drugs-show-no-benefits-for-survival-or-wellbeing</span></a>.
</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">Instead, Grimes
squanders his privileged platform to harp on about clairvoyance and homeopathy.
Like idiot savants, Grimes, Novella and Gorski seem exceptional at one thing
(ridicule) but impaired in everything else. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: calibri;">2.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; font: 7pt "times new roman"; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
</span></span></span></b><span style="font-family: calibri;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">The
cult of SBM or ‘’science based medicine’’</b>. If evidence based medicine (EBM)
has been called Orwellian and Fascist (see: <a href="http://www.ucl.ac.uk/Pharmacology/dc-bits/holmes-deconstruction-ebhc-06.pdf"><span style="color: #0563c1;">http://www.ucl.ac.uk/Pharmacology/dc-bits/holmes-deconstruction-ebhc-06.pdf</span></a>),
then where does this leave SBM? </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"></b></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">To clarify, EBM
has been criticised as being fascist, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u>not</u></b>
because evidence-based-medicine isn’t a good thing (it is, and it’s the gold
standard in science) but because of how the very title and accolade itself
lends itself to be appropriated by those power structures which can afford to
conduct expensive trials (e.g. Big Pharma and government orgs) and to be used
as an exclusionary force to those who cannot (e.g. independent orgs, and trials
for compounds which cannot be patented). Thus, a treatment that is branded and
lauded as ‘’evidence-based’’ is not necessarily more efficacious than one that
isn’t – simply because for many non-mainstream approaches to healthcare,
neither the will nor the money is there to pass it through the various clinical
trials to become recognised as being ‘’evidence-based’’. The call for evidence,
whilst ostensibly a good thing, all too readily can become misappropriated by
dogmatic skeptics to avoid having a rational conversation about how something
could potentially work, thus stifling both the development of nuanced argument
and the encouragement of systems-thinking in medicine.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">Thus, EBM is
perfect in theory, but in practice can become a tool to exclude and
propagandise. If this is true for EBM, how about SBM – where people like
Grimes, Novella and Gorski propose that scientists and doctors should be able
to decide <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">a priori </i>what treatments
should and should not be studied? At least with EBM, everything is on the table
(in theory) and all that ultimately matters is what works. With SBM, potential
treatment modalities can be dismissed out of hand. That sounds like a
disastrous idea, given the fact that the Medical-Industrial-Complex blatantly
doesn’t want economic competition from a market of alternative / non-patentable
medicine. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">In SBM,
ideologues like Grimes, Novella and Gorski would get to speculate on the <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">prior plausibility</b> of various
treatments being efficacious. This is a scary prospect, given that (a) we know
they’re strongly biased in favour of the biomedical model and against
alternative approaches to healthcare (b) they clearly misunderstand how prior
plausibility shifts markedly depending on the cause and epidemiology of a
disease; e.g. is it a disease due to an infectious vector, a genetic condition,
or due to poor lifestyle? </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">At least with
EBM, it must be put to the test. Paradoxically, dogmatic skeptics feel at home
with the logically-erroneous position ‘’I<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">
know it’s false, now I just have to figure out why</b>’’. But, critically, they
could only prove it by putting it to the test. With SBM, on the other hand,
there would be no need to investigate further, and the caption here to
illustrate the point would be akin to ‘’<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">it
doesn’t work because I don’t believe it could, end of story</b>’’. Clearly, to
anyone with a rational mind, this is an extremely dangerous place for medicine
to head. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">Apart from the
likelihood of being appropriated and abused by the power structures which <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">already dominate</b> medicine, SBM also
fails upon closer scrutiny when we consider that gauging prior plausibility is
compounded by the fact that much of health is counter-intuitive. For example,
fasting is good for us; some stress is good for us (e.g. the health benefits
from <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">hormetic</i> compounds in foods stem
from the fact that our bodies overcompensate to the physiological stress or
damage they produce); and swapping between hot and cold environments has been
shown to be good for key markers of health such as insulin sensitivity. As an
emblematic example, Grimes – with his black and white physicist’s way of seeing
the world – has stated that the energy impact on the body of 100 calories of
fat equals 100 calories of carbohydrate. This sounds intuitive and logical –
but it’s not. And, in this case, it only takes a little bit of nuance and
understanding of physiology to grasp why – namely, that fat and carbohydrate have
markedly different influences on the hormone response of the body. What sounds
intuitive and logical can be wrong. For aeons, parents have been telling their
kids to put ice on bumps and burns to keep the swelling down. Sounds logical,
right? In fact, it’s the wrong thing to do because inflammation here – or
‘swelling’ – is a healing response by the body. For people like Grimes – who
promulgate on health matters but are ignorant of biology – this is potentially
dangerous to public health. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">Indeed, some of
the greatest scientific truths of all time were overlooked for decades because
they seemed too counterintuitive to possibly be true, e.g. the debate between
Niels Bohr and Albert Einstein about the nature of reality, which Einstein
eventually lost. To Einstein, the possibility that reality is unknowable at the
fundamental level – and that reality itself is ‘brought into existence’ by the
observer – seemed totally unacceptable. Using an analogy from physics to
explain a principle in medicine is far from perfect, for which I apologise,
though I use this profound example to prove a point. As John Bell (who designed
the equation to prove whether Bohr or Einstein was correct) said, ‘’Bohr was
inconsistent, unclear, wilfully obscure and right. Einstein was consistent,
clear, down-to-earth and wrong’’. And, even in biology, quantum effects have
been shown to be important, as discussed by professor Jim Al-Khalili in his
episode <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Quantum Biology</i> in the BBC
series <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Secrets of Quantum Physics</i>.
I’m <u>not</u> going to invoke quantum physics to give credence to esoteric
healing techniques (as many ‘’quacks’’ do and have been admonished for).
Suffice it to say that reality (which includes medicine and human health) is
more mysterious than we understand at the moment, and we need to distinguish
between people in the alternative sphere who are visionaries and deep thinkers
from those who are quite obviously quacks. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: calibri;">3.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; font: 7pt "times new roman"; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
</span></span></span></b><span style="font-family: calibri;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">They
polarise the debate</b>. Grimes, Novella and Gorski are king of the Straw Man
fallacy. Whilst sensible and rational people spend their time in the vast
middle ground, these scientists focus their attack on the fringe and the
outliers – which becomes the Straw Man <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">du
jour</i> to obfuscate and divert peoples’ attention away from more robust and
salient ideas. </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"></b></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">For almost every
issue Grimes rails against, his protestations distort (wilfully or otherwise)
the truth… Grimes writes about ‘’anti-vaxxers’’, whereas in reality most of the
people who question vaccines are pro-vaccine but simply concerned about vaccine
safety… Grimes writes about ‘’cancer cure conspiracists’’, whereas in reality
most people who distrust Big Pharma are simply concerned by the economic
reality that chronic disease is highly profitable; that they have an economic
imperative to dismiss medicine that cannot be patented; and that their
indifference to prevention aligns with Samuel Epstein’s conception of criminal
negligence… Grimes mocks people who claim cancer is a new disease, whereas in
reality most people think (rightly) that the cancer epidemic is a modern
phenomenon… Grimes lambasts homeopathy because some practitioners advise
against vaccinations, but it is Grimes who shoulders the burden of proof to
show if this is common or rare among homeopaths (which he provides zero
evidence for) and he red-herrings from the actual question of whether
homeopathy can be useful therapeutically as a placebo. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">Grimes, Novella
and Gorski believe steadfastly in one extreme in medicine (the biomedical
approach) whilst lambasting the other extreme (the smorgasbord of Straw Men
distractions they imagine up in their writings pertaining to alt / fringe
medicine). Yet, in truth, both extremes are idiotic, short-sighted and
logically unsound. Integrated medicine – which Dr Andrew Weil describes as the
intelligent combination of conventional and unconventional approaches to
healthcare – is the future of medicine. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">Dogmatic
skeptics like Grimes, Novella and Gorski are intellectually frozen in the
biomedical ‘golden age’ of medicine when people were saved from infectious
diseases, where vaccines and antibiotics were true heroes. They still are, of
course, but today most people in developed countries die from conditions
related to poor lifestyle. As such, these skeptics will increasingly be seen as
clinging on to Stone-Age medicine, stubbornly refusing to step into the new
paradigm – of integrative medicine – which focuses on myriad and interconnected
aspects of health and wellbeing including diet, epigenetic effects,
bio-psycho-social-spiritual influences, and orthomolecular medicine. Of course,
in their intransigence and naivety, Grimes, Novella and Gorski will continue to
dismiss, out of hand, any approach to medicine which doesn’t fit their
ideological worldview – and therefore they will slowly but surely slip into the
wrong side of history. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">Sadly, and even
though dogmatic skeptics aren’t cognizant of it, their bullish and polemical
style of constructing and burning down Straw Men – and of engaging with the
public in hostile and condescending ways – could paradoxically cause a ‘swing
vote’ of the undecided toward the <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">unscientific</i></b>. For those at either
extreme – i.e. those who are rigorously schooled and beholden to mainstream
medicine and those who erroneously believe in implausible fringe medicine –
nothing will change their mind; not Grimes, not Novella, not Gorski. People in
the huge middle ground, however, might be put-off and become distrustful of
science and mainstream medicine when they encounter vitriolic and toxic
characters like Grimes, Novell and Gorski. Steven Pinker recently did a talk on
this in reference to political persuasion being determined as much, if not
more, by how people are made to feel. Pinker argues that, whether or not the
political right is good or bad, many swing voters have settled there because conservatives
(as compared to leftists) seem much more rational, grounded, and open to
criticism without resorting to the outrage antics of political correctness.
See: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTiRnbNT5uE"><span style="color: #0563c1;">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTiRnbNT5uE</span></a>.
</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">Many have
already publicly stated that they find Grimes arrogant, condescending and
bullish – and the same goes for Novella and Gorski. Imagine how many people
think this privately, and who’ve come to that conclusion independently, and we
have a major problem on our hands – namely, that these science journalists and
self-appointed gatekeepers of truth (who have been afforded the important
position of informing the public on science) are actually causing the public to
distrust science and become more cynical of mainstream medicine. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: calibri;">4.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; font: 7pt "times new roman"; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
</span></span></span></b><span style="font-family: calibri;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">The
Mystery of Sulforaphane</b>. Sulforaphane – a compound found naturally in high
concentrations in broccoli sprouts – is a fascinating compound. It has been
shown efficacious (by the strict standards of EBM) to have a preventative
effect in several cancers, and to help alleviate some of the symptoms of
autism. </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"></b></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">Remarkably,
Grimes doesn’t mention Sulforaphane in either of his articles about cancer for <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Guardian</i>; nor does he mention
Sulforaphane in his autism article for <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
Guardian</i> – even though the <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u>NHS</u></b>
in the UK mentions that Sulforaphane has been shown efficacious by clinical
trial, and thus a promising natural treatment for manage the symptoms of
autism. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">Perhaps more
than anything else in this entire article, this wilful omission betrays
Grimes’s bias, corruption and implicit utter disdain for the idea of treating
disease with alternative / natural approaches. ‘’If it works it ceases to be
called alternative medicine and is just called medicine’’, Grimes would
protest. But, alas, he is wrong even here. A compound isolated from broccoli,
then synthesised, and then patented, could be called medicine – broccoli sports
wouldn’t (even if they had therapeutic value), just as the foods in a good diet
which cured type-2 diabetes wouldn’t be called medicine, or the yoga which
cured insomnia wouldn’t be called medicine. You get the point.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">Here, like on
many aspects of healthcare, Grimes, Novella and Gorski are denialists, and they
evade the truth that <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">silence</b> – the
‘’tumbleweed effect’’ alluded to earlier – is a killer. Ironically, Grimes
often regurgitates the slogan ‘’costs lives’’ when referring to unproven
alternative approaches to healthcare, whilst being too dumb to realise that his
total lack of emphasis on prevention (<u>even though he has ample opportunity
to mention it in his articles</u>) <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">costs
lives</b>; that his silence on the topic of iatrogenic death in medicine <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">costs lives</b>. He has a dodgy sense of
ethics – feeling compelled to exclusively highlight things which don’t work in
alt-med, rather than those which do. Conversely, they wilfully ignore all the
things (and there’s a lot) that don’t work in mainstream medicine. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">Grimes’s wilful
ignorance and deceit is mirrored by several mainstream institutions of
‘’knowledge’’. For example, the Wikipedia page on Sulforaphane keeps deleting
edits which add the reference to autism research. Who are these editors who are
cloaked in anonymity? And, who do they serve? Clearly, they are not being
objective, nor scientific. The book <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Wikipedia
Wars</i> goes into this is detail, and there have been several articles written
about the ‘Guerrilla Skeptics’ who plague Wikipedia with their bias and dogma
to uphold the status quo. And, where references to Sulforaphane do manage to
make it through the editorial firing squad (e.g. in other Wikipedia articles),
the editors feel compelled to state that synthetic analogues are better, as if
they couldn’t tolerate the idea that natural substances – in their natural
state – could have substantial medicinal value. These editors are clearly
obsequious to the puppet masters of the Medical-Industrial-Complex. Who knows
how such censorship structures are organised in the first place. What’s for
certain is that if you can control the information, you can control the
public’s perception (and therefore, support of) mainstream medicine. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">Along with
Sulforaphane, there are other major and telling anomalies in how dogmatists
like Grimes – and his army of Guerrilla Wikipedia Skeptics – report (or don’t)
on important matters. For example, even though <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Sodium Valproate</i> has been unequivocally shown to increase rates of
autism in children – Grimes omitted this in his article on autism for <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Guardian</i>. This is negligent because,
in his article, Grimes specifically addressed the question of whether autism is
caused by genetic or environmental factors. He stated that the evidence for it
being caused by environmental factors is shaky – even though we have solid
proof that chemicals in the environment <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">can</i>
cause it. In other words, the principle of extrinsic causality is there. It is,
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><u>in principle</u></i>, possible.
Needless to say, Sodium Valproate isn’t discussed on Wikipedia on the autism
page.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: calibri;"> </span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: calibri;">5.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; font: 7pt "times new roman"; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
</span></span></span></b><span style="font-family: calibri;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">The
one-variable effect</b> <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">(aka the appeal
to ignorance)</b>. As stated before in this article, Grimes, Novella and Gorski
reveal their poor grasp of logic and epidemiological statistics when they
feverishly subscribe to the (commonly-misunderstood) notion that the
smoking/lung cancer link is one of the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">rare
cases</i> where we can be certain cancer is environmentally-driven – and that
for other cancers we cannot be confident they’re driven by environmental
factors. </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"></b></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">At first glance,
this seems logical and like common sense but, as I explained before, upon
closer inspection it becomes clear it’s a lazy and erroneous conclusion. For
smoking, it’s simple from an epidemiological standpoint to separate
experimental groups by 1 key factor – i.e. whether they smoke or not. If you
factor out other variable (which is possible with large population sizes, i.e.
millions of people smoke), it becomes relatively straightforward to
statistically prove the causative effect of smoking on lung cancer. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">For other
cancers, the statistics are far, far, messier due to far greater epidemiological
complexity and ignorance of the interplay and synergy of carcinogenic factors
in the environment. But – and this is the point – for other cancers it’s <u>not</u>
that we can’t be sure they aren’t caused by environmental factors, its just
that we can’t be sure what those factors are, and the effect each of those
factors has on cancer risk. In short, just because we can’t be sure what the
factors are, doesn’t mean we can’t be just as confident they arise from an
external source, since we already know from the paper in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Nature</i> that cells need environmental triggers to become cancerous
in 70-90% of cases. In the analogy I used before, if we have a bullet wound but
no bullet, we can be almost as certain that a gun was used as when we had the
physical proof of the bullet. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">For lung cancer,
smoking is such a constant and invasive insult to an organ that it’s clearly
the biggest environmental factor (along with pollution in extremely polluted
cities). But for other cancers, it is possible, even probable, that they result
from the cumulative load of all extrinsic factors in the environment. So, when
Grimes preaches that deodorants don’t cause cancer, he’s right. But what he
doesn’t understand is that there are thousands upon thousands of toxic
pollutants in our environment – many of them carcinogenic and many of which
interact synergistically to magnify the effect of any single one by orders of
magnitude in some cases. When thousands of things in our environment contribute
to the cancer in one way or another (whether through being actively
carcinogenic, or passively contributory to cancer by disrupting our hormonal
and immune systems) it’s extremely lazy and erroneous to suggest that, either
(a) any one of those chemicals doesn’t cause cancer, or (b) we can’t be sure
the cancer isn’t driven by environmental factors just because we don’t know
what those factors are. Here, the ‘’no evidence’’ meme Grimes uses so often is
obfuscating and dishonest. We can use evidence from logic – as psychologist Ken
Wilbur suggests – to reach many robust provisional conclusions which would
likely be reached anyway by exhaustive clinical experimentation. Evidence from
logic is thus another way which we can operate in society <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">now</i></b> according to the
precautionary principle, rather than waiting for 20 years for absolute proof
that (for example) chronic exposure to pesticides is bad for us. We can be
confident of this already. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">In short, when
dogmatists like Grimes, Novella and Gorski talk about ‘’the complexity of
cancer’’ they do so in an underhanded and obfuscating way. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u>They co-opt this complexity to add doubt</u></b> into the mix
regarding the urgency many feel to emphasise and prioritise prevention over
treatment; and of the urgency many feel to rid our societies and ecosystems of
as many carcinogens and toxic chemicals as possible. This, ladies and
gentlemen, is criminally negligent. It’s criminally negligent because it
mitigates against the only sensible approach – i.e. the precautionary
principle.</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: calibri;">6.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; font: 7pt "times new roman"; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
</span></span></span></b><span style="font-family: calibri;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">The
Precautionary Principle! </b>Following on from the previous point, it is absurd
to wait indefinitely to know categorically whether something is true or not –
given that we have other means to make accurate predictions. </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"></b></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">For example, we
might never know for absolute sure whether chronic exposure to pesticides is
bad for us (actually, we <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">do</i> know,
just not to the artificially high standards of evidence levied by dogmatic
skeptics) but this doesn’t mean we can’t be fairly certain they are… and
besides, we know they have catastrophic effects on the environment (and we rely
on a healthy environment for our health), therefore, in logical corollary,
pesticides are definitely bad for our health. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">The resistance
to accepting likelihoods such as this is as absurd as saying that, because we
don’t know all the reasons which contribute to psychological wellbeing, we
can’t be sure there’s even such a thing as psychological wellbeing. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">It’s the paradox of the unprovable truth</b>
– whereby we can know something is true without being able to prove it.
Dogmatic skeptics seize on this to <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">add doubt</i></b>, whereas most reasonable
and rational people don’t use such manipulative tactics. To provide a dramatic
example, there’s been a feud raging for at least a decade between Deepak Chopra
and Richard Dawkins – Dawkins saying that a lot of what Chopra says is hogwash.
Some of it might well be, but other things Chopra says might just be visionary
ideas, yet to be studied or evidenced. Dawkins recently had a stroke – which he
thankfully recovered from. The sad irony, however, is that Dawkins would quite
likely have benefited from Chopra’s teachings on lifestyle practices, even
without knowing if they were true or not, and they might even have helped
prevent his stroke in the first place. Richard Dawkins is infamous for
declaring ‘’what matters is if it’s true’’. But sometimes, that approach can be
harmful to health if it delays you taking positive action because you’re
waiting for solid evidence for something which is logically plausible anyway. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: calibri;">7.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; font: 7pt "times new roman"; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
</span></span></span></b><span style="font-family: calibri;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Appeal
to Nuance vs Appeal to Simplicity</b>. As alluded to before, Grimes uses words
like ‘’complexity’’ (e.g. cancer is ‘’complex’’, or diet is ‘’complex’’) in
ways which can mislead and obfuscate the issues at hand – Novella and Gorski
also juggle with semantics in almost everything they write about and
promulgate. </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"></b></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">For example, the
topic of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">organic food</i> is seemingly
universally hated by dogmatic skeptics. They claim there’s no good evidence
that organic food is better (either because it is more nutritionally-dense or
because it contains fewer contaminants such as pesticide residues). If, for a
moment, we accept this to be the case, we can still put forward the cast-iron
case that organic food is much better for the environment, and thus, due to the
indefatigable fact that we need a healthy environment to be healthy ourselves,
we can say that organic food = healthier people. On this point I’ve heard
dogmatic skeptics protest vehemently that ‘’the point is being confused’’ –
i.e. they appeal to simplicity to <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">keep separate</i></b> the benefit of organic
(a) for our bodies and (b) for the environment – as independent variables. It’s
analogous to a defence lawyer trying desperately to keep evidence from being
admitted into court – evidence which he or she knows will be damming for their
defendant’s case. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">On the equally
hated topic of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">detox</i>, they use the
same trickery, only in reverse. Here, they appeal to nuance to say things like
‘’living a consistently healthy lifestyle is better than buying those quack
detox-fixes’’. I would say, true! Of course, that’s right – but <u>the question</u>
is whether certain substances can, or can’t, aid in the body’s ability to detox
itself. They’re avoiding the question by smudging it out of context with
(seemingly intelligent) nuance. It sounds like they’re being reasonable and
rational – but in this case, they’re actually displaying an inability to stay
focused on the question, and that’s the mark of a poor scientist. By the way,
yes, there are compounds which have been shown through clinical trial to aid
the body in detoxication – so the<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">
principle</i> of ’’detox’’ is plausible, and evidenced.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">On the benefits
of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">meditation</i> – another topic
dogmatic skeptics seem to hate with pathological fury (Grimes especially); they
exhibit the same shape-shifting between nuance and simplicity, depending on
whichever approach best suits their ideological bias. More likely than not, on
the topic of meditation they will err on the side of simplicity – regurgitating
studies such as the 6-week trial comparing new meditators to a control group
who watched a TV documentary they enjoyed (– which found no significant
differences between the groups). </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">Here, a good
scientist would realise that it is, in fact, deep and nuanced thinking which is
required here to best understand what was going on in this type of meditation
study. For a start, new meditators aren’t the same as experienced meditators,
and some of the benefits of the meditation would have been negated by the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">withdrawal symptoms</i> from <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">thinking</b> and <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">doing</b> which the participants might have suffered. Indeed, for
someone who is new to meditation, they might at first experience some
unpleasant and unsettling feelings. But, to use this fact to levy caution about
meditation would be as absurd as saying that an alcoholic shouldn’t stop
drinking because they’d experience withdrawal symptoms! In truth, many people
are addicted to their thinking habits and doing habits, and the negative
symptoms at the beginning of a meditation course is testament to this (and shouldn’t
be used to impugn the long-term benefit). Other relevant nuance would include
the obvious fact that watching a good quality documentary can be <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">meditative</i> in itself – not only because
it’s relaxing but also because it encourages the viewer to deepen and broaden
their perspective on life, to experience transcendent feelings, and to enliven
aspects of the mind such as curiosity and imagination. All of those things are
facets which are thought important to living a more mindful and peaceful life.
Thus, on another level, we can appreciate that the definition of meditation
itself must be a nuanced one – i.e. there are many types, and some people might
respond better to walking meditation, others to more classical types. Thus, to
say meditation isn’t effective because 1 study didn’t show it to be is – even
if we ignore for a moment the other factors I mentioned above – ludicrous,
because mediation isn’t one practice, just as exercise isn’t. It would be as
absurd as saying ‘’John can’t tolerate lemons all that well, therefore fruit is
bad for you’’.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">Grimes, in a
similar vein but slightly differently to the nuance/simplicity point,
shape-shifts between notions of psycho-somatic effects being strong, or weak,
depending on the point he’s trying to make. For example, Grimes’s pet-hate is
homeopathy [<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Note: he’s spent infinitely
more time criticising homeopathy than he has questioning iatrogenic deaths from
mainstream medicine or the corruption within the pharmaceutical industry</b>]
and even though he has to concede that homeopathy could have an effect due to
the <u>Placebo effect</u>, he’s adamant that the placebo effect would be
trivial and insignificant. Yet, when it comes to debunking the popular health
claims that gluten is bad for you, Grimes insists it’s due to the <u>Nocebo
effect</u> – and here (you guessed it) the nocebo effect is strong enough to
produce pronounced physiological effects. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">Grimes’s
thinking is too clumsy to twig that both the placebo effect and nocebo effect
are driven by the same underlying mechanism. If one is strong, it proves the
other can be. Predictably, Grimes insists on keeping the placebo effect and
nocebo effect artificially distinct. He calls the nocebo the ‘’evil cousin’’ of
the placebo. To the discerning reader, you would question why Grimes didn’t
call it the evil <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u>twin</u></b> of the
placebo. Semantic trickery and deception is Grimes’s mainstay. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: calibri;">8.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; font: 7pt "times new roman"; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
</span></span></span></b><span style="font-family: calibri;">In logical progression from the previous
point, another criticism against Grimes, Novella and Gorski is the way <b>they use
language in a deceptive and propagandising manner</b>, something some people refer
to as ‘’astroturfing’’ (for e.g. see TED talk: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bYAQ-ZZtEU"><span style="color: #0563c1;">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bYAQ-ZZtEU</span></a>).
</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">Above all,
perhaps, is their constant use of the slogan ‘’anti-science’’ to people who
don’t adhere to the consensus view. From the outset, this is slogan is a
logically-inept one, for the simple reason that – if science is a tool –
someone couldn’t be anti-science in the same way they couldn’t be anti-tool.
They <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">could</i> be anti-scientist, or
anti-scientism, but not anti-science. The fact that they consistently spout the
illogical slogan ‘’anti-science’’ subtly betrays the fact that, for dogmatists
like Grimes, Novella and Gorski, they fail to differentiate between science,
scientist, and scientism. This is a fundamental error. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">Calling someone
‘’anti-science’’ because they don’t believe in a consensus position would be
like (as Noam Chomsky pointed out to be totally absurd) calling someone
‘’anti-American’’ because they didn’t believe in the consensus position of the
state. What a bigot like Grimes actually means when he calls them
‘’anti-science’’ is, at best, that they have a difference of scientific opinion
or, at worst, that they’re being unscientific. Both these are wildly different
to being ‘’anti-science’’. The term ‘’anti-science’’ is meant to portray a
fascistic resistance – but that type of totalitarianism would much better
describe the likes of Grimes himself, and Novella, and Gorski – the triumvirate
cult. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">It gets worse.
These 3 characters are obsessed with lambasting doctors and authors who
promulgate and campaign for a more integrated approach to medicine. In their
rabid pursuit, they recklessly and sloppily use mean-spirited words like ‘’fraud’’.
Indeed, Grimes has called Deepak Chopra a fraud, Dr. Mercola a fraud, Rupert
Sheldrake a fraud… the list goes on. But, on what grounds could these people be
considered fraudulent? </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">In short, they <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">couldn’t</i></b>
reasonably be considered frauds just because their views go against the
consensus, or because they occasionally have outlandish theories, or even
because they make money from selling books and products. Moreover, many of
their ideas could just as equally be seen as being visionary and revolutionary
(even in lieu of evidence) rather than as quackery. Ironically, Grimes loves to
associate himself with the values of free-thinking and brilliant visionaries
like Freeman Dyson – <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">who wished and
encouraged there to be more heretics in science</b> – but, in reality, Grimes’s
thinking is as far from visionary and as far from original as it is possible to
be. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">Freeman Dyson
also hated arrogance, and another great scientist chimed with this when he said
‘’condemnation without investigation is the height of arrogance’’. Yet, Grimes
feels entitled to condemn without investigating. His sort of investigation is
looking up consensus positions on Wikipedia – it’s lazy, unscientific, and
totally unoriginal. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">One of dogmatic
skeptics’ favourite slogans is the Carl Sagan quote ‘’extraordinary claims
require extraordinary evidence’’. Sadly, they misappropriate and corrupt the
original sentiment behind Sagan’s expression and use it to negate ideas which
are far from extraordinary. And, of course, being the self-appointed gatekeepers
of truth and high priests of evidence and logic which they claim to be,
dogmatists like Grimes, Novella and Gorski get to choose which ideas are
extraordinary, and which aren’t. Not a good set-up for objective science.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">Novella and
Gorski are obsessed with trying to downplay the growing interest in <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">integrative medicine</b> – and both authors
obsessively attack Dr. Andrew Weil – who heads the Arizona School of
Integrative Medicine and who is considered the world-leader and visionary on
integrative medicine. What Dr. Weil says is reasonable, rational, and
evidence-based – and his book series on integrative medicine has even published
by Oxford University Press. This includes a book on integrative oncology. Dr.
Weil’s research into the effect of lifestyle interventions is excellent – but
his philosophical insights are just as important, e.g. he highlights how modern
medicine is a ‘’disease management system’’ rather than a ‘’health promoting
system with an emphasis on prevention’’. This difference is absolutely
key.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">That we would
benefit from taking an integrative approach to cancer care (i.e. emphasising
prevention and treating it with the intelligent combination of conventional and
unconventional treatment modalities – e.g. nutritional and psycho-somatic
interventions) seems like the most obvious thing in the world. And it is to
many mainstream doctors around the world whose training hasn’t been as hijacked
by pharmaceutical interests as in the USA. Germany, for example, is leading the
way for the integration of alternative treatment modalities in cancer care. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">Novella and
Gorski utterly despise the vision of medicine that Dr. Weil is advocating – and
their ineptitude in understanding the core principles of integrative medicine
is betrayed by the immature and logically erroneous articles they write to try
to rebut Weil’s case. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">Novella has even
gone after Dr. Rhonda Patrick -<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>a highly
respected biochemist who has been published in the world’s top science
journals. Novella was criticising Patrick’s suggestion that cryotherapy (i.e.
cold therapy and the switching between hot and cold environments) has a growing
evidence base for efficacy. Predictably, Novella’s case rested on semantics and
the hierarchy of evidence levels – claiming that Patrick had been referring to
basic science studies rather than full scale human clinical trials. It sounds
like a reasonable criticism, until you realise that – for claims which Novella
don’t want to be true – there would <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><u>never</u></i></b> be enough evidence to
substantiate it in his eyes. This approach is fundamentally different to being
open to a claim, but simply seeking out more evidence. Novella makes the absurd
(and false) statement that studies from basic science hardly ever make it
through to show significance at clinical trial. For a start, you know this is a
misleading statement because <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">every</i>
drug approved by clinical trial was first observed in basic science (e.g.
metabolism pathways). Furthermore, Patrick was also discussing the evolutionary
precedent for why cryotherapy could work – thus she was using evidence from
logic, which, as I have explained before in this article, can be just as
powerful an investigatory tool to work out how – or if – something could work.
Of course, Novella never discusses any of these points which would allow the
reader to make an informed decision. For example, hormesis stress from thermal
variation has been shown to improve insulin sensitivity, and increased insulin
sensitivity has been shown to lower the risk of obesity, and obesity raises your
risk of cancer. A is causatively linked to B, and B is causatively linked to C,
so therefore A is linked to C because A, B and C are all logical corollaries of
one another. But, Novella and Gorski seem incapable of making these connections
– unless, of course, it suits their agenda. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">Of course, even
though Grimes, Novella and Gorski rant on <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Ad
Nauseum</i> about the need for evidence and scepticism, their standards seem to
swing wildly depending on the topic at hand. When is comes to vaccines, for
instance, they don’t seem at all critical or concerned about the extremely lax
standards of safety testing for vaccines – e.g. vaccines are tested by the
manufacturer (obvious conflicts of interest there) and the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">synergistic effect</i> of the 20-60 vaccines children are injected with
has never been adequately tested. Vaccines are exempt from stringent and
exhaustive evidence standards. And, of course, Grimes, Novella and Gorski call
anyone concerned about vaccine safety ‘’anti-vaxxers’’ or ‘’anti-science’’ even
though, in truth, these people simply concerned about vaccine safety. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">Another example
which betrays the fraudulent bias of these 3 characters is their gleeful and
unquestioning acceptance of bogus claims like ‘’antioxidants from supplements
increases the risk of cancer’’. They accept it outright, as the blanket
statement that it is, rather than scrutinising it with the
microscopically-pedantic nuance they would use for claims their ideological
position dictates <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">cannot</i> be true. Dr.
Rhonda Patrick has already debunked as bogus the claim about antioxidants and
cancer. Here, of course, dogmatic skeptics would levy far more scepticism
against the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">rebuttal of the study</i>
than they ever did against the original study itself.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">And, of course,
dogmatists <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">love</i> berating famous
nutritionists such as David Wolfe (again, note how they could spend this time
berating the fact that hundreds of thousands of people die every year from
iatrogenic medicine and irresponsibly-prescribed pharmaceutical drugs, but they
never do). Grimes, in particular, has lashed out against David Wolfe for,
ostensibly, promoting anti-vaccine narratives. If you listen carefully to what
Wolfe says, however, you’ll learn that Wolfe is pro-safe vaccine, just deeply
concerned about the lack of adequate safety testing of vaccines and how they
could interact together synergistically and with other factors in the
environment. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">Aside from that,
Grimes pours vitriol on the ‘’pseudo-scientific’’ claims Wolfe makes about diet
and health. As in so many other cases, Grimes even uses the word ‘’fraud’’ to
dismiss Wolfe. Now, I have no doubt that a lot of what Wolfe says <u>isn’t</u>
scientifically-robust. In fact, perhaps most of what Wolfe says isn’t
scientifically robust. However, there’s one thing I can be sure of is that –
along with death and taxes – David Wolfe is deeply passionate about food,
health and wellbeing. And this is where dogmatists miss the point entirely.
Most disease in the developed world today is chronic illness driven by poor
lifestyle. One of the most important archetypal figures in society today,
therefore, is the person who can instil and inculcate in people a deep and
abiding passion for health and wellbeing. Someone<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> wanting</i></b> to be healthy is
the most important thing – and people who inspire this have a profound effect
on peoples’ health, regardless of whether everything they say is
scientifically-rigorous or not. By way of analogy, a Yoga teacher with a PhD in
science is <u>not</u> necessarily going to be a better instructor than a Yoga
teacher with no qualifications at all. The passion and attitude of the teacher
is key to whether they impart enthusiasm (and thus a commitment to a healthy
lifestyle) to their students. In this way, a nutritionist or a counsellor could
have a bigger effect on societal health than a doctor. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">As a striking
example, it has been estimated that loneliness can have as negative effect on
our health as smoking 15 cigarettes a day, see – </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;"><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2017/01/18/loneliness-might-be-a-bigger-health-risk-than-smoking-or-obesity/#63121db725d1"><span style="color: #0563c1;">https://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2017/01/18/loneliness-might-be-a-bigger-health-risk-than-smoking-or-obesity/#63121db725d1</span></a>.
</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">The need for
doctors is a function of the causality of a disease – and if, for example, a
disease was found to be 100% stress-related, then counsellors would be the best
healers in our society, not doctors. As Dr. Andrew Weil says, the best we can
hope for is that GPs are good ‘’therapeutic marriage brokers’’ – given the fact
that most disease today is caused by environmental stressors and poor
lifestyle. A person wishing to prevent or reverse heart disease or type-2
diabetes needs to eat a good diet – and a passionate nutritionist could be a
life-saver, in spite of their lack of academic and/or medical qualifications. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: calibri;">9.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; font: 7pt "times new roman"; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
</span></span></span></b><span style="font-family: calibri;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Medical
Idolatry and credentialism / appeal to authority</b>. The power of life or
death is in the tongue, as they say, referring to the inordinate amount of
power doctors have over their patients. Just because doctors are experts on
diagnosis and treatment options, doesn’t mean they’re as knowledgeable about
prevention or integrative medicine. Countless times, I have witnessed people in
my life failing to adopt healthy lifestyles, optimum preventative strategies or
post-operation lifestyle changes to aid their recovery – simply because a
doctor didn’t recommend that they do so. The same is especially true for cancer
– most patients are obsequious to their doctors – hanging on their every word –
whilst the doctors themselves are obsequious and beholden to the wishes of the
Medical-Industrial-Complex. Doctors do save lives, of course, but their
inaction in providing good advice also costs lives and/or allows for more
suffering than is necessary. </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"></b></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">Grimes, Novella
and Gorski are totally beholden and servile to the consensus positions endorsed
by the Medical-Industrial-Complex. There is a lot of quackery in mainstream
medicine, but dogmatists are blind to it, and wilfully so. Whether they’re even
aware of it or not (!) these 3 are agents of the propaganda machine of the
Medical-Industrial-Complex. SAS – or ‘’Sense About Science’’ – as already
mentioned, is funded by pharmaceutical interests. Grimes was awarded a prize by
SAS, but he’s clearly too brainwashed to understand why this represents a huge
conflict of interest. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">EBM might very
well ‘democratise’ medicine (as former editor of the BMJ Richard Smith points
out) but that’s largely irrelevant if the EBM knowledge base is selectively
comprised of expensive clinical studies which have been funded (and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">can</i> only be funded) by the wealthy
pharmaceutical industry and establishment forces. In other words, ‘’anyone’’
can do studies and publish papers, but only specific bodies in society can
afford to do so, thus making the ‘’democracy of medicine’’ a moot point. And,
even if studies were published which grated up against the status quo, the
process of peer review in itself has been shown to be flawed and biased. It’s
like saying <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">anyone</i> is free to go to
the moon – but in truth, of course, only a select few realistically can. Money
in medicine leads to patents, and to the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">monopolisation
of ideas</i> (which gets confused with ‘’consensus’’). </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">Both pose a
grave danger to public health. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">In concurrence
with the above point on appeal to authority, dogmatists tend to have a bias
toward technology – i.e. ‘’nature is inferior to what can be produced by man’’.
But, for many conditions including the biggest killers in our society (e.g.
heart disease and type-2 diabetes) nothing works better than natural dietary
intervention. This is just a simple fact. If you ignore the power of food as
medicine for heart disease and type-2 diabetes, you’re either ignorant, stupid,
or insane. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: calibri;">10.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; font: 7pt "times new roman"; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
</span></span></span></b><span style="font-family: calibri;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Erroneous
assumptions</b>. For example, when a patient dies from following a ‘’quack’’
diet, dogmatists are quick to assume that they died because they neglected
conventional treatment. Even if you pointed out their assumption, they’d feel
entitled to it because – in their minds and due to their implicit biases – the
a priori probability of a claim is whatever they want it to be.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"></b></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">Yet, if someone
with the same condition got better following the ‘’quack’’ diet, the automatic
assumption would be that it couldn’t possibly have anything to do with the
diet, and a whole raft of arguments will be presented to evidence this position
– regression to the mean, placebo effect, misdiagnosis etc.</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: calibri;">Bizarrely – and
just to illustrate how cunning and devious Grimes, Novella and Gorski are –
this can also be appropriated by them in reverse. For example, when it turned
out that Black children are more likely to get autism, Gorksi couldn’t possibly
entertain the idea that an increased susceptibility to adverse reaction to the
MMR vaccine had anything to do with it (and I don’t know whether it does) – so
he invoked an argument normally <u>strictly</u> in the realm of the
alternative… he proposed that Black children had lower levels of vitamin D,
thus are more susceptible to autism. This sounds reasonable – and is backed up
by evidence – but the point is that Gorski was really clutching at straws here.
He normally avoids speaking of diet and health in the same breath – avoids it
like the plague –<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>but he has no problem
invoking this line of reasoning as a last-ditch effort to rebut a claim he
finds even more unpalatable. Novella went to even more disturbing lengths in
the Hannah Poling case – desperately trying to eradicate any speculation or
suggestion that her autism could in any way be related to her vaccination
schedule [ <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Poling"><span style="color: #0563c1;">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Poling</span></a>
]. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">UPDATE: Critique of book '<b>Trick or Treatment?: Alternative Medicine on Trial</b>’ (see link below).</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">This short critique begins by referencing the fact that ''<b>Sense About Science</b>'' <b>-</b> the group which champions the likes of David Robert Grimes, Edzard Ernst, and Simon Singh <b>-</b> is a lobby group, with shown links to Big Industry:</span></div>
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<a href="https://yodaknight2020.blogspot.com/2020/01/edzard-ernst-and-simon-singh.html"><span style="background-color: black; color: white;">https://yodaknight2020.blogspot.com/2020/01/edzard-ernst-and-simon-singh.html</span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: calibri;"></span>Yoda Knighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04047960739788432970noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5919340516468022001.post-25333348269663011982014-02-05T16:20:00.003-08:002020-08-01T00:36:13.354-07:00In support of Integrated Medicine<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 18.4px;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="color: #333333;"><b>Author biography: </b></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #333333;"><b></b><br /></span>
<span style="color: #333333;"><b>I studied Biological Sciences at Oxford University, and I live in Vancouver, Canada</b>.</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 18.4px;"><span style="color: #333333;"><br /></span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 18.4px;"><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #757575; font-family: roboto, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: 24px; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #241e12; font-size: 16px;">Dear visitor,</span><br style="color: #241e12; font-size: 16px;" /><span style="color: #241e12; font-size: 16px;">Please support my work by donating at my Patreon page. I receive </span><strong style="color: #241e12; font-size: 16px;">ZERO</strong><span style="color: #241e12; font-size: 16px;"> support for writing my articles. I have spent many hundreds of hours - possibly thousands - researching and writing articles to ensure public health, and to uphold good, honest, scientific progress in the field of health and well-being. </span><br style="color: #241e12; font-size: 16px;" /><span style="color: #241e12; font-size: 16px;">Thank You. </span><br style="color: #241e12; font-size: 16px;" /><span style="color: #241e12; font-size: 16px;">Yoda Knight</span></span><br style="color: #757575; font-family: roboto, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;" /><a href="https://www.patreon.com/yodaknight">https://www.patreon.com/yodaknight</a></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: rgb(255, 249, 238); margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><font color="#333333" face="times new roman, serif"><br /></font></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: rgb(255, 249, 238); margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">Bonus link: Fitnazz 60+ Benefits of Exercise - <a href="https://fitnazz.com/benefits-exercise-list/">https://fitnazz.com/benefits-exercise-list/</a><font color="#333333" face="times new roman, serif"><br /></font>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 18.4px;"> </span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">This is primarily a critique of the article by David Robert Grimes (DRG)
entitled `six stubborn myths about cancer` (published in The Guardian on
30/08/2013 - see link below). It also explores articles and/or ideas
promulgated by DRG in recent years and it takes a critical look at how
dogmatic-scepticism is being confused with true scepticism in our society. <br />
<br />
<b><a href="http://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/aug/30/six-stubborn-myths-cancer"><span style="color: #888888;">http://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/aug/30/six-stubborn-myths-cancer</span></a>.
</b><br />
<b><br />
</b><b><br />[NOTE: if you would like to read my critique entitled 'Dogmatic Skeptics and
Medicine' about the writings of David Robert Grimes and Ben Goldacre, this is
the link: http://objectiveskeptic20.blogspot.co.uk/] </b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><br />
</span></b><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><u><br /></u><b><u></u></b></span><br />
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><b><u>CONTENTS OF CRITIQUE</u>:</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<ul>
<li><b style="text-indent: 0cm;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Introduction</span></b></li>
<li><b style="text-indent: 0cm;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Myths 1-6</span></b></li>
<li><b style="text-indent: 0cm;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Part 2 - a
note on scepticism</span></b></li>
<li><b style="text-indent: 0cm;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Part 3 - David
Robert Grimes' ideas on vegetarianism, organic food, GM / Monsanto, and water
fluoridation</span></b></li>
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<b><br />
</b></span><b><u><span style="color: #660000; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">INTRODUCTION</span></u></b><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">The article `six
stubborn myths about cancer` exhibited inaccurate information, un-balanced
scepticism, logical inconsistencies and deep errors in critical thinking. More
importantly, this article promulgated ideas about cancer that are misleading,
strengthening the polarisation that exists between conventional and
`alternative ` medicine. Not only is this at odds with present scientific
thinking; it is also highly irresponsible regarding topics as important as the
public understanding of cancer. Current scientific understanding, as well as
robust logical and objective thinking, leads to the emerging realisation that
the future for health care is <i>integrated</i> medicine. Integrated
medicine takes the best of both worlds – treatments (that have been
scientifically validated) and ideas (that are logically robust) from
conventional <u>and</u> un-conventional sectors of the medical community.
The future for cancer care is in integrated medicine. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">I will discuss each
of the six ‘myths’ in turn. Before I do, it is important to highlight that the
article by DRG gets off to a bad start even before any of the science is
discussed, for 2 reasons. <u>Firstly</u>, the use of the term `myth` in
the title is deceptive, akin to semantic trickery, whether DRG is aware of it
or not. What is the definition of a `myth`? The article doesn`t say, and no
doubt the public understanding of this word varies widely. If `myth` is taken
to mean something that only a small minority believe to be true (and it clearly
isn`t), then this article will hold little relevance for improving the public
understanding of cancer. Here, the `myth` becomes the perfect Straw Man – and
it distracts us from more urgent questions. On the other hand – if `myth` is
taken to mean a false idea or assumption that holds a prevalent sway in the
public imagination; then this is different - and I would argue that this
is a misappropriation of the word `myth`. The point is that DRG has chosen a
term that is undefined and unclear. <u>Secondly</u>, the article begins
with an emotive reference to an individual cancer patient. This is emotionally
coercive and very much at odds with scientific inquiry. This opening act sets
the tone that conventional medicine is the <i>only</i> responsible
approach, therefore burdening readers into feeling one way even before the
arguments are presented. This suggests that DRG`s scepticism is un-balanced. He
could just have easily presented the facts that 15,000 people die every year on
average in the UK as a direct result of chemotherapy treatment
(<b>http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/05/21/health-dangers-cancer-treatments-lord-saatchi_n_3310806.html</b>)
or that, in the USA, 100,000 people die every year on average as a direct
result of <i>correctly prescribed</i> pharmaceutical drugs (American
Medical Association). This would be an example of un-balanced scepticism from
the `other side` and is used here to illustrate the point that DRG`s anecdote
at the start of the article does nothing more than cloud the objective eye. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">The Guardian can do
better than this. It is important to red flag this article because it is absolutely vital that the promulgation of information on
topics such as cancer is accurate, logically consistent and, above all,
helpful. An <u>un</u>-biased analysis of the data, together with reason
and logic, would arrive at the conclusion that cancer – a diverse and
epidemiologically complex disease – needs an integrated approach in
medicine. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">I am writing this
article also to raise awareness about the need for <u>true</u> scepticism
and critical thinking to be encouraged in our society. The article is a
case study for the dangers of automatically believing in `authority`,
especially when those `authorities` are self-proclaimed. The credentials of David
Robert Grimes - `physicist`, `researcher`, `Oxford` - do not necessarily
guarantee a reasonable and logically coherent argument. By writing his article
– <b>which is now in circulation on the web and available to hundreds of
millions of people to read – DRG has the <u>life-long</u> responsibility
to participate in the self-correcting process of science and update his article
as and when valid suggestions and counter-arguments emerge</b>. The onus is on
David Robert Grimes to engage in honest scientific debate to self-correct the
information he promulgates in the public domain. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Sadly, instead of
welcoming criticism like a scientist, some skeptics seems to channel their energy into
developing more and more sophisticated but dishonest ways to thwart criticism,
even when that criticism is intelligent and constructive, and therefore
conducive to the dialectical process – the cornerstone of science. DRG often picks
the `low hanging fruit`, and so, you wouldn´t know from his public reflections
(on his blog and twitter site) that his articles actually receive some very
intelligent – and valid – criticism. Sometimes, even peer reviewed evidence is
presented in direct rebuttal to his articles, but it seems to be ignored. As an
example, this was a rather brilliant public comment in response to the article
`six stubborn myths about cancer`: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">As soon as I read
this article and saw the first comment, I thought of this important article:</span></b><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Husting, G. Orr, M.
'Dangerous Machinery: ‘Conspiracy Theorist’ as a Transpersonal Strategy of
Exclusion' Symbolic Interaction Vol. 30, No. 2 (Spring 2007), pp. 127-150</span></b><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Abstract:</span></b><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">"In a culture
of fear, we should expect the rise of new mechanisms of social control to
deflect distrust, anxiety, and threat. Relying on the analysis of popular and
academic texts, we examine one such mechanism, the label conspiracy theory, and
explore how it works in public discourse to “go meta” by sidestepping the
examination of evidence. Our findings suggest that authors use the conspiracy
theorist label as (1) a routinized strategy of exclusion; (2) a reframing
mechanism that deflects questions or concerns about power, corruption, and
motive; and (3) an attack upon the personhood and competence of the questioner.
This label becomes dangerous machinery at the transpersonal levels of media and
academic discourse, symbolically stripping the claimant of the status of
reasonable interlocutor—often to avoid the need to account for one's own action
or speech. We argue that this and similar mechanisms simultaneously control the
flow of information and symbolically demobilize certain voices and issues in
public discourse."</span></b><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">The paper also
mentions the insult of the 'tin foil hat brigade' as a strategy of basically ad
hominem. How can there be rational discussion when even the journalist
concerned is using the above strategies to preclude such, let alone the
commentators? :(</span></b><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">David Robert Grimes
replied; <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">I'm not sure how
exactly I'm precluding discussion, as the journalist concerned - nor did I
reference the paper you mentioned. Rational discussion does not mean that all
assertions are treated equally - claims backed up by evidence should have far
more clout than those devoid of any veracity, or wouldn't you agree?</span></b><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">The commentator
retorted; <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">You are precluding
RATIONAL discussion by using such strategies. The paper I cited shows the
problems in these - it's quite clear from the abstract. I'm rather dismayed
that you've chosen to imply I don't agree with evidence based claims (itself
constituting an ad hominem fallacy) rather than engage with the actual problem
- your use of the term 'conspiracy' in order to discredit, in advance, anyone
who might not agree with your views, or who would question some of the
assertions you've made.</span></b><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">That was the end of
the dialogue between this person and DRG. The point made by this member of the
public was profound, nuanced and highly relevant to the broader question of how
rational debate might actually be being thwarted by social mores in the
academic and scientific community. This person clearly wants to see <u>rational</u> debate
encouraged. DRG not only side-steps the comment by throwing in a red-herring
(ironically re-enforcing the reader´s point); he doesn´t seem to understand its relevance.
As I discuss later, the reliance on `scientific evidence` does not necessarily
ensure that the inquiry into important questions is balanced, reasonable and
objective - and free from powerful socio-cultural and economic forces. A
complex social question calls for critical thinking that is deep and nuanced.
It is at just this moment that the objectivity of `dyed-in-the-wool` sceptics
and academics seems to abandon them, and they become simply unable to engage in
intelligent debate. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">The article is symbolic for the rising tide of pseudo-scepticism in the intellectual and
scientific community and the need for us to remain grounded and objective about
what scepticism truly is (and isn`t) and what role it plays in getting to the
truth. In a desperate dash to win recognition in the intellectual community, this author has shot himself in the foot and wasted a privileged and
golden opportunity to champion critical thinking and promulgate helpful and
nuanced information in The Guardian. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><u><span style="color: #660000; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">MTYH 1</span></u></b><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">The implication
here - that the demographic factor of ageing population is the <i>main</i> driver
for the proliferation in cancer rates - <b><u>is incredibly misleading</u></b>. <i>Age
standardised</i> global cancer rates provided by the World Cancer Research
Fund (WCRF) show that cancer rates vary significantly between nations (for
example; Denmark´s cancer incidence is 30% higher than Austria). Age
standardisation <u>factors out</u> the influence of age; to show how
cancer rates vary between countries, regardless of variation in demographic
structure. Japan, which has the longest lived people on earth, doesn´t even
make it onto the top 50 list of nations with highest cancer rates. This could
be partly due to a discrepancy in detection and diagnosis rates between Japan
and other countries – but, overall, it can be seen that substantial differences
in <i>age standardised</i> cancer rates exist across the world. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Of course, <i>age standardised</i> rates do not tell us what
the causes for the differences are – and it doesn`t even imply that age is not
an important correlate with cancer incidence. It simply tells us that there are
differences in cancer rates between countries and those differences are driven
by factors other than age. DRG doesn´t provide cancer statistics for different
age groups, and so when he says that age is the single biggest risk factor in
getting cancer this is misleading, and about as helpful as saying that age is
the biggest rick factor in dying! This is because we can confidently expect
that, for health conditions such as cancer where degenerative processes play a
role (such as problems with cell replication and DNA repair), incidence will
naturally become higher with age, regardless of other factors. But by not
highlighting <b>changes in cancer rate and type <u>within</u> specific
age brackets</b>, David Robert Grimes confuses the point, and so therefore
misinforms the public. There is <u>plenty</u> of evidence that cancer
rates are becoming more prevalent in younger age categories – i.e. in the
opposite direction that DRG draws our attention to.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #c00000; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">For example, cancer
is the leading cause of death among Americans aged</span></b><b><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"> <u>35-64</u></span></b><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">. Here´s the source: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="" style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-ansi-language: ES-CL; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1410056"><span style="color: #888888;">http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1410056</span></a>. </span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><br />
</span><span lang="" style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-ansi-language: ES-CL; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><br />
</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Essentially, DRG is
able to justify his claim that cancer rates are NOT rising because he <u>doesn't
specify any time frame</u>. For sure, cancer incidence 'over time' would <u>not</u> follow
a 'hockey stick' shape - because there might have been cancer 'spikes' during
other periods in history - such as the Medieval Ages when viruses were abundant
or during the Industrial Revolution when pollution and poor working
conditions were rife. But for all intents and purposes, when people believe
that cancer rates are rising, the unspoken idea is that this is against a
'background level' when humans weren't subject to the unnatural conditions
and forces that have arisen due to human cultural development. Simply, the
logic statement I propose is: (a) cancer rate is driven largely by
environmental factors (an accepted fact); (b) environmental factors have got
much worse compared to background levels (fact); (c) therefore, cancer rates
are rising. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">There is a danger that people reading DRG’s article will be distracted
form the urgent need to confront the fact that cancer probability is <u>significantly
related to our lifestyle choices</u>. Indeed, this is what the evidence is
showing. In 2008 an article was published in the journal Pharmaceutical
Research stating that `cancer is a preventable disease that requires major
lifestyle changes`. Here`s the link: </span><span lang="" style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-ansi-language: ES-CL; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2515569/"><span lang="" style="color: #888888; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2515569/</span></a></span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">. More recently, an article in the
British Medical Journal links alcohol consumption with cancer. Here´s the link: </span><span lang="" style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-ansi-language: ES-CL; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><a href="http://www.bmj.com/content/342/bmj.d1584"><span lang="" style="color: #888888; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">http://www.bmj.com/content/342/bmj.d1584</span></a></span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">.<br />
<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><br />
<!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><br />
It is important to stress that – regarding a public health topic - it should <u>not</u> be
the readers’ job to wade through the semantic gymnastics of an author in order
to decipher what is really being said. At the end of the day, what the majority
walk away thinking about cancer after reading DRG`s article <b><i><u>is</u></i></b> what
the article is promulgating. This is why journalism on health topics carries a
huge responsibility. I feel that David Robert Grimes makes the mistake here of
treating the `dispelling of cancer myths` as an intellectual exercise. Cancer is not just an academic question; it is a complex
socio-cultural question and information pertaining to it must be clear, honest
and helpful. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">An important but simple truth that <u>must</u> be made clear
to the public is that poor lifestyle choices increase your risk of getting
most, if not all, types of cancer.</span></b><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">The Guardian
recently published an article on the proliferation of cancer and the link to
poor lifestyle. It says: ``These so-called "non-communicable
diseases", which have all taken off as sedentary lifestyles, junk food,
smoking and drinking have spread around the planet, are already a massive
burden on rich countries and are steadily becoming one in poorer countries,
too``. Here´s the link:</span><span lang="" style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-ansi-language: ES-CL; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/sep/19/world-cancer-toll-research"><span lang="" style="color: #888888; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">http://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/sep/19/world-cancer-toll-research</span></a></span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">The World Health
Organisation (WHO) mirrors this view. The WHO says:<b> </b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">`Risk factors for cancers: Tobacco use, alcohol
use, unhealthy diet and physical inactivity are the main cancer risk factors
worldwide. Chronic infections from hepatitis B (HBV), hepatitis C virus (HCV)
and some types of Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) are leading risk factors for
cancer in low- and middle-income countries. Cervical cancer, which is caused by
HPV, is a leading cause of cancer death among women in low-income
countries`. <o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">And<b>, `Cancer
prevention is an essential component of all cancer control plans because about
40% of all cancer deaths can be prevented´. </b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Here´s the link for the WHO cancer information website<b>: </b></span><span lang="" style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-ansi-language: ES-CL; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><a href="http://www.who.int/topics/cancer/en/"><span lang="" style="color: #888888; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">http://www.who.int/topics/cancer/en/</span></a></span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">For children in the
US, cancer is the second biggest killer (after accidents) and cancer incidence
in children younger than 15 is increasing at about 1% per year. Half of these
are leukaemia and brain cancers – aggressive cancers and so statistics for
these much less likely to compound detection biases. Breast cancer rates in
Europe between 1990 and 2008 had also been rising at about 1% per year, with
the <u>greatest rise in woman under 35</u>. Here, detection bias is a
possible <i>contributory</i> explanation, but the ´mammography
effect` (where rates increased by 3-4% due to widespread introduction of
screening) occurred 1982-1987,<i>before</i> the study. Interestingly, a
meta-analysis of studies shows a significant link between diet and risk of
breast cancer. Here´s the study: </span><span lang="" style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-ansi-language: ES-CL; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><a href="http://www.ejcancer.com/article/S0959-8049%2800%2900022-8/abstract"><span lang="" style="color: #888888; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">http://www.ejcancer.com/article/S0959-8049%2800%2900022-8/abstract</span></a></span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">An article
published in The Lancet which explores the incidence of childhood cancer in
Europe since the 1970s concludes: `<b>Our results are clear evidence of an
increase of cancer incidence in childhood and adolescence during the past
decades, and of an acceleration of this trend. Geographical and temporal
patterns suggest areas for further study into causes of these neoplasms, as
well as providing an indicator of progress of public-health policy in Europe</b>`. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Here´s the link: </span><span lang="" style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-ansi-language: ES-CL; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><a href="http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736%2804%2917550-8/fulltext"><span lang="" style="color: #888888; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736%2804%2917550-8/fulltext</span></a></span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Lastly, <u>analysis
of cancer rates between identical twins</u> for a study published in the
New England Journal of Medicine showed that `environment has the principal role
in causing sporadic cancer`. Identical twin studies are the `gold standard` for
analysing the relative influence of `nature` versus `nurture`. This study
suggests that, overall, 65% of cancer risk is attributable to environmental
factors. Some academics suggest an even higher influence of environmental
factors: Dr. Mel Greaves, Director of Leukaemia Research at the Institute of
Cancer Research, suggests that environmental factors could account for as much
as 90% of cancers. Concurrently, studies on Diaspora groups - populations of
migrants who settle in another country - suggest that environmental factors
present, overall, the most important risk , as found by the study in the
NEJM. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Here´s the link: </span><span lang="" style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-ansi-language: ES-CL; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10891514"><span lang="" style="color: #888888; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10891514</span></a></span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Wikipedia says:
`Cancers are primarily an environmental disease with 90–95% of cases attributed
to environmental factors and 5–10% due to genetics.</span><span lang="" style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-ansi-language: ES-CL; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cancer#cite_note-Enviro2008-2"><sup><span lang="" style="color: #888888; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">[2]</span></sup></a></span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"> </span><span lang="" style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-ansi-language: ES-CL; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environment_%28biophysical%29" title="Environment (biophysical)"><span lang="" style="color: #888888; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Environmental</span></a></span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">, as used by cancer researchers, means any cause
that is not </span><span lang="" style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-ansi-language: ES-CL; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heredity" title="Heredity"><span lang="" style="color: #888888; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">inherited
genetically</span></a></span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">, not merely pollution.</span><span lang="" style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-ansi-language: ES-CL; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cancer#cite_note-isbn0-387-78192-7-14"><sup><span lang="" style="color: #888888; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">[14]</span></sup></a></span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"> Common environmental factors
that contribute to cancer death include </span><span lang="" style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-ansi-language: ES-CL; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tobacco" title="Tobacco"><span lang="" style="color: #888888; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">tobacco</span></a></span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"> (25–30%), diet and </span><span lang="" style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-ansi-language: ES-CL; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obesity" title="Obesity"><span lang="" style="color: #888888; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">obesity</span></a></span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"> (30–35%), </span><span lang="" style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-ansi-language: ES-CL; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infection" title="Infection"><span lang="" style="color: #888888; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">infections</span></a></span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"> (15–20%),</span><span lang="" style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-ansi-language: ES-CL; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiation" title="Radiation"><span lang="" style="color: #888888; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">radiation</span></a></span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"> (both ionizing and
non-ionizing, up to 10%), stress, lack of </span><span lang="" style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-ansi-language: ES-CL; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physical_exercise" title="Physical exercise"><span lang="" style="color: #888888; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">physical activity</span></a></span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">, and </span><span lang="" style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-ansi-language: ES-CL; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_pollutants" title="Environmental pollutants"><span lang="" style="color: #888888; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">environmental pollutants</span></a></span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">.`<sup><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cancer#cite_note-Enviro2008-2"><span style="color: #888888;">[2]</span></a></sup><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Furthermore, DRG
makes the <b><u>assumption</u></b> that humans are living longer
today than ever. That is highly questionable. Which epoch in human history is
he comparing to? To ancient ancestral populations of humans, or Palaeolithic,
or present day indigenous groups, or humans that lived during the industrial
revolution in Britain? That people should be living longer today compared to
the industrial revolution, for example, is hardly surprising. But the
bombardment of pollution and general squalor characteristic of this time – and
the concurrent proliferation of disease - is not representative of an
environment that <i>Homo sapiens</i> are adapted to. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">In fact, most
ancestral societies – from relatively recent industrial aggregations to
Palaeolithic hunter-gatherers – present a rather artificial construct when
trying to compare variation in life expectancy for human populations over
time. This is because the unique set of factors that kept life expectancy
down - disease pandemics, work-related illness and death, war, malnutrition –
is a peculiar aspect of human cultural development and is largely at odds with
the natural factors shaping the demographic structure of all other
species. One factor that human societies <b>do</b> share with
other species is high infant mortality, and it should be noted that infant
mortality rates are usually included to produce life expectancy models. Thus,
statistics given for life expectancy for any given epoch will be highly skewed
if they include infant mortality in the average. Taking all this into account,
figures on life expectancy in the past do <u>not</u> indicate how
long a human could have been expected to live if they survived childhood and
were not exposed to `human forces` - war, malnutrition, work, pollution and
dieses pandemics. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Basically, DRG does
not point out the important difference between <u>life span</u> and <u>life
expectancy</u>. This is a critical omission – because <u>life span</u> has
NOT changed for humans, perhaps not even in the past 100,000 years. This is
because there has been no fundamental change in human genetics and the rate of
ageing in this period. </span><span lang="" style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-ansi-language: ES-CL; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_expectancy" target="_blank"><span lang="" style="color: #888888; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_expectancy</span></a></span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Why is this important?
It`s important because, essentially, there is nothing ‘unusual’ about human
beings living long today. The biological potential to live long depends on
genetics and, in this sense; humans are fundamentally the same now as ever. An
aspect of evolutionary biology called kin selection theory would suggest that
there`s even an adaptive reason why we should live long – to contribute to the
reproductive success of our children and grandchildren. Because they contain
our genes, helping them survive actually contributes to the success of <i>our </i>genes.
Kin selection theory is often relevant in highly social species such as <i>Homo
sapiens</i>. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Essentially - if
cancer is mainly a factor of age in the genetic sense (i.e. DNA damage
increases with age) and old age has an adaptive function - then we might expect
DNA repair mechanisms to have co-evolved with adaptations for long life. Or
conversely, DNA repair efficiency enables long life span, as noted in studies
on mammals: </span><span lang="" style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-ansi-language: ES-CL; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maximum_life_span" target="_blank"><span lang="" style="color: #888888; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maximum_life_span</span></a></span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Furthermore,
regular food scarcity would have been common for most of our human ancestors,
and we know from scientific studies that periodic fasting is very beneficial
for health, as long as <i>nutritional </i>requirements are met. Indeed,
caloric restriction has been correlated with <b><i>increase</i></b> in
life expectancy and with <b><i>decrease</i></b> in cancer
probability. Wikipedia says: `Currently, the only (non-</span><span lang="" style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-ansi-language: ES-CL; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetically_modified_organisms" title="Genetically modified organisms"><span lang="" style="color: #888888; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">transgenic</span></a></span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">) method of increasing maximum life span that is
recognized by </span><span lang="" style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-ansi-language: ES-CL; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerontology" title="Gerontology"><span lang="" style="color: #888888; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">biogerontologists</span></a></span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"> is </span><span lang="" style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-ansi-language: ES-CL; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calorie_restriction" title="Calorie restriction"><span lang="" style="color: #888888; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">calorie restriction</span></a></span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"> with adequate nutrition`. Source: </span><span lang="" style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-ansi-language: ES-CL; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maximum_life_span"><span lang="" style="color: #888888; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maximum_life_span</span></a></span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><u><span style="color: #660000; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">MYTH 2</span></u></b><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">As much as I am
appalled by the decimation of shark populations for `shark fin soup` and other
shark products - (I`m a vegetarian, wildlife campaigner and I wholeheartedly
support the banning of these abhorrent practices) - DRG here presents us with a
Red Herring. The contention is whether sharks do – or do not – get cancer.
Incidentally, scientists at the University of Aberdeen have found that there
are, in fact, compounds unique to sharks that have anti-cancer properties.
These can be produced synthetically. Here´s the link: </span><span lang="" style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-ansi-language: ES-CL; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/news/shark-blood-antibodies-may-hold-potential-treatment-for-breast-cancer/"><span lang="" style="color: #888888; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">http://www.cbsnews.com/news/shark-blood-antibodies-may-hold-potential-treatment-for-breast-cancer/</span></a></span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">David Robert Grimes
is right when he asserts that all multi-cellular organisms can get cancer. The
problem here, from a logical perspective, is that DRG makes the implicit
assumption that we have the paleo-cellular evidence to show that the animals he
mentions – sharks, elephants and dogs (or wolves – the common ancestor of all
dogs) – exhibited cancer pathologies and/or frequencies in their populations <i>before</i> human
industrialisation. This is important because today, almost all species on earth
are exposed to some type of man-made pollution. Sharks are a particularly bad
control group to be presented as proof that animals in natural
ecosystems get cancer. It is well known in biology that pollution and toxins
are concentrated up the food chain by a process called bio-magnification, such
that animals like sharks become laden with much higher concatenations of
carcinogens than other animals. Dogs and elephants, for that matter, are also
bad control groups to explore the natural phenomenon of cancer in other
species. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><u><span style="color: #660000; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">MYTH 3</span></u></b><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Straw Man argument presented here. This is
analogous to contriving the myth that obesity is a modern disease. There is a
prevalent, more nuanced - and altogether different notion in society - that the
e<i>pidemic</i> of cancer is a modern phenomenon. If DRG insists on
contriving and debunking his own idea of a `myth`, let it be said that - the
fewer the people his article educates, the less relevance his article holds in
the first place for the promulgation of important health information. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><u><span style="color: #660000; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">MYTH 4</span></u></b><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Firstly, spot the
oxymoron when DRG writes: `<i><u>Fact</u></i> that cancer treatment
without side effects is <i><u>unlikely</u></i> to be killing any
cancer cells`. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">In my opinion, this is where the
confusion and unhelpfulness promulgated by David Robert Grime`s article really
begins to take shape. He says: `... one must also consider that each cancer is
unique to that patient because it arises from mutations in their own cells`.
This (true) assertion - that cancer is an intrinsic disease that arises due to <u>mutations
in one`s own DNA and unregulated cell division</u><i> </i>– is the basis
upon which I build my subsequent arguments. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Firstly, to clear
up a possible misunderstanding – the intrinsic nature of cancer does <b><u>not</u></b> necessarily
mean `genetic` in the sense that it is `destined`. This is because we know that
lots of <i>extrinsic </i>environmental factors can damage DNA and
lead to mutations and dysfunction in the cell division cycle, leading to
cancer. However, the intrinsic <i>genetically programmed</i> ability
to protect DNA from damage, and repair it when damaged – or to respond <i><u>epi</u></i>-genetically
to environmental factors – <u>does</u><b> </b>vary from person to
person. In other words, if you could consider a hypothetical (age standardised)
population of people all exposed to <i>exactly</i> the same environmental
conditions (physical and psychological), some people would get cancer and
others wouldn´t, simply as a factor of genetic variability. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">It is important to
understand that the <u>intrinsic</u> nature of cancer suggests that
all those factors which can affect DNA replication, DNA repair and epi-genetic
expression, will influence the probability and incidence of cancer for any
given person. These factors are both genetic and environmental. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><u><span style="color: #660000; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">MYTH 5</span></u></b><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Here, DRG builds up
another Straw Man argument to knock down. Regardless of whether this `myth` is
true or not (and I strongly <u>doubt</u> it is true), the author distracts the readers from the seemingly similar - but much more nuanced
– idea emerging in society that the actions of the pharmaceutical industry are
highly questionable and need to be treated with scepticism. Given the known
corruption that exists within the pharmaceutical industry – corruption which
endangers lives and has no doubt cost lives – I invite DRG to provide a cogent
reason why suppressing a `cure` for cancer would represent a fundamental
ethical shift - a `step too far` - for the pharmaceutical industry. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Read Ben Goldacre`s
critically acclaimed book `Bad Pharma` for more information on the topic.
The Drug Industry <i>clearly</i> is motivated by money. As one
psychiatrist succinctly summed up their <i>Modus operandi</i>: `The first
disaster is that you kill them; the second disaster is that you cure them`.
Only recently, GlaxoSmithKline was fined 3 <i>billion</i> dollars
`after admitting bribing doctors and encouraging the prescription of unsuitable
antidepressants to children´ ... and for `failing to report safety problems
with the diabetes drug Avandia`. Here´s the article published in The Guardian: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><a href="http://www.theguardian.com/business/2012/jul/03/glaxosmithkline-fined-bribing-doctors-pharmaceuticals"><span style="color: #888888;">http://www.theguardian.com/business/2012/jul/03/glaxosmithkline-fined-bribing-doctors-pharmaceuticals</span></a>. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Personally, I do <u>not</u> believe
that `Big Pharma` is suppressing a `cure`, but not because I think this would
truly represent a `step too far` for the industry. To begin with, `cure` is an
inappropriate and misleading word when it comes to an intrinsic disease such as
cancer (as I explore in more detail later). Furthermore – and related to
this point – is that science is showing us that the prevention <i>and</i> treatment
of cancer is best tackled using an integrated approach – an <b>approach
which cannot be patented</b>! <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Furthermore, <i>specific</i> natural
substances cannot be patented by the pharmaceutical company and they have no
economic incentive to promulgate health information they won’t benefit from
financially. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Strong indications
of this are when we consider 2 drugs sold and recommended by the industry: a
drug for the regulation of blood sugar level and, recently, the suggestion that
the drug aspirin could help treat aggression indirectly via the regulation of
inflammation in the body. If the pharmaceutical industry truly had any
humanitarian ambitions, they would make available the knowledge that various
pyhto-chemicals (plant substances) have been <b>clinically proven</b> to
be just as effective as synthetic drugs for the regulation of inflammation and
blood sugar level. In this specific case, natural substances might be better
because they not have dangerous side-effects. Also, they contribute to
adjusting the cause rather than just treating the symptoms – an inherent
problem with most, if not all, drugs. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">The author is scathing, even libellous, about the information site `Natural News` calling
it a `bastion of misinformation`. I don`t know if this is true or not - but the
evidence <u>is</u> clear that the pharmaceutical industry certainly
is a bastion of <u>mis</u>information. What´s worse, Big Pharma <i>knows</i> it´s
misinforming the public but still does it anyway. Truly corrupt, truly
criminal, and truly needs to stop. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">DRG says: `idea of
a single magic bullet to treat all these forms (of cancer) with different
causes, pathologies and responses is extremely far-fetched and should be
treated with scepticism`. Yes, I agree. <b>But isn´t that precisely what
chemotherapy and radiotherapy essentially are – a magic bullet</b>? He goes on
to say: `Because cancer can arise from potentially any type of cell mutation,
there is a huge range of malignancies – some respond well to surgery, others to
radiotherapy, others to chemotherapy. ` Are these really the only options? No.
Science is showing us that cancer treatment can be far more sophisticated and
should embody aspects of `alternative medicine` - that have been scientifically
validated - in an integrated approach. DRG seems to show a <i>biased</i> interest,
and a poor knowledge and understanding of the scientific and medical
literature. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b><u><span style="color: #660000; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">MYTH 6</span></u></b><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">In one statement,
David Robert Grimes expedites a common misunderstanding of the alternative medicine
movement when he says (in a different article): `alternative medicines fall
into two categories – treatments that have not been proved to work, and
treatments that have been proved not to work. Treatments that have been proved
to work are simply called medicine`. In one fell swoop, David Robert Grimes
trips over his condescending lyrical witticism to exhibit not only his
misunderstanding of the fundamental premise of alternative medicine, but also
the founding ethos of modern medicine itself. Indeed, it was Hippocrates, the <b><u>father
of modern medicine</u></b>, who said: ``<b>Let food be thy medicine and
medicine be thy food</b>``.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Hippocrates also
said: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">· ``<b>The natural
healing force within each of us is the greatest force in getting well</b>``<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">· ``<b>It´s more
important to know what sort of person has a disease than to know what sort of
disease a person has`</b>`<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">· ``<b>Wherever</b> <b>the
art of medicine is loved, there is also a love of humanity`</b>`<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">· ``<b>Natural
forces within us are the true healers of disease</b>``<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">· ``<b>Whenever a
doctor cannot do good, he must be kept from doing harm`</b>`<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">· ``<b>Cure
sometimes, treat often, comfort always`</b>`<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">· ``<b>Nature
itself is the best physician`</b>` <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">· ``<b><i>If you
are not your own doctor, you are a fool</i>`</b>` <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">The wisdom and
insight of Hippocrates is embodied (as a fundamental way of thinking about
health and disease) within the paradigm of `alternative` and integrated
medicine. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">DRG fails to give a definition of `alternative medicine` and, indeed, fails to play
fair and concede the distinctions and vast range of ideas and levels of
critical thinking exhibited within the alternative medicine community. What is
alternative medicine? Put simply, it is medicine alternative to that which is
conventional – in this case, chemotherapy, radiotherapy, and surgery. It
is a knowledge base and method of addressing a health issue as a complex
interplay of different factors; psychological, socio-cultural, mental-emotional
and physical. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Yoga and meditation
are very much associated with alternative medicine. Even though these
techniques have been <u>clinically proved</u> to be helpful and
efficacious for a whole range of health conditions (including cancer) I very
much doubt that the orthodoxy of medicine will be calling it `medicine` anytime
soon. This goes for other types of alternative medicine – massage, sauna,
nutritional therapies, emotional and psychological therapy, exercise, aspects
of Chinese medicine, herbalist wisdom, aspects of indigenous or ethnic medicine
– aspects of all of these have been <i>scientifically validated</i> as
being efficacious for health and well-being. <b>But they are not regarded
as medicine</b>! <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Would someone with
a connection to the ethos of alternative medicine be against conventional
treatment such as chemotherapy, radiotherapy or surgery? No, not necessarily.
Would someone with an allegiance to conventional medicine be against
alternative therapies? I don´t know, but David Robert Grimes seems to show his
scepticism in only one direction. By clumping together all of alternative
medicine as an incoherent paradigm, DRG polarises the health debate in a most
unhelpful way and distracts us from the reality that <u>un</u>conventional or
alternative medicine has some valuable insights to share. It is as untrue as
clumping religion with spirituality, or simply, what`s false with what`s true. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">There is no
rationale in assuming that people who support the ethos of alternative medicine
are any less logical or objective in their thinking than those who swear by
conventional medicine. This is highlighted by DRG`s erroneous use of Carl
Sagan´s quote `extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence` in the
context of natural substances providing cures or magnetic therapy being
efficacious for cancer. If chemotherapy drugs can treat cancer - then there is
no <i>fundamental</i> reason why natural substances or compounds
couldn´t do the same. This is <i>precisely</i> because natural <u>and</u> synthetic
compounds abide by the <u>same</u> laws of physics and chemistry; it is
the outcome of the interaction of a compound (natural or synthetic) with the
cancer cells and/or biochemical environment of the cancer cells that is
important. Only recently, a compound naturally found in Chamomile tea has been
discovered to possess chemotherapeutic properties. Here is the link: </span><span lang="" style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-ansi-language: ES-CL; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><a href="http://www.spandidos-publications.com/ijo/30/1/233"><span lang="" style="color: #888888; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">http://www.spandidos-publications.com/ijo/30/1/233</span></a></span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">. Also, look at this clinical study
on the anti-tumour potential of ginger for hematologic malignancies: </span><span lang="" style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-ansi-language: ES-CL; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24215632"><span lang="" style="color: #888888; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24215632</span></a></span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Similarly, the
knee-jerk dismissal of `magnetic wave therapy` is logically unsound – `magnetic
waves` and the radiation from radiology treatment inhabit different spots on
the electromagnetic spectrum. It is only a matter of magnitude. We would expect
radiology to work because it is much more powerful. Conversely, `magnetic`
waves might be too weak to exert a significant biological effect. The same goes
for sunlight - UVA is more damaging than UVB because it´s more powerful. But
the <i>fundamental mechanism</i> is the same – radiation to exert a
biological effect. This is why the claim that magnetic therapy could be
efficacious is actually so <b><i><u>un</u></i></b>-extraordinary. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Even when debunking
homeopathy - (quite rightly so, according to the conclusive evidence that
homeopathy works no better than the placebo effect (I will discuss the placebo
effect later)) – David Robert Grimes takes his
assumptions a step too far. Consider the <u>hypothetical</u> situation
that homeopathy did work – it wouldn´t necessarily be because the laws of
physics had been broken. It could simply mean that we don`t yet know all the
laws of physics. Ironically, DRG is inciting magic for that which we don`t
know. Objective sceptics might urge caution about what we are able state we
know for absolute. To think we know all the laws physics, surely, is magical
thinking. (NOTE: I am <b><u>NOT</u></b> defending homeopathy). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Ostensibly,
homeopathy is a ‘cut and dried’ case – because we can be as sure as anything
that it is 100% placebo. So when DRG says that ‘homeopathy is useless’, surely
he’s right? Actually, no. Just because something works solely due to the
placebo effect doesn’t make it useless. We know that the placebo effect is one
of the most important aspects of healing, and therefore, of medicine. For
relatively minor health conditions – and particularly those that are
predominantly psychosomatic, placebo treatments have potential value. DRG’s
un-nuanced and prejudiced position, mirrored by large swathes of the medical
establishment, only serves to polarise opinion and preclude any honest and
rational debate in this field. Their trump card is the ethical standpoint – i.e.
it is simply wrong to ‘lie’ to patients by giving them homeopathy treatment.
Well, research has shown that a whole host of conventional drugs work either
partially, or substantially, due to the placebo effect. Should a doctor
prescribing Prozac to a patient with mild to moderate depression tell him or
her that the drug they are taking is at least 80% placebo? If not, why not?
This is an ethical quagmire which needs to be addressed in the medical
community, honestly and rationally. By throwing in their obvious biases, some sceptics muddle this process in a selfish and most unhelpful
way. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Suggesting the use of homeopathy for things like cancer could quite
rightly be described as irresponsible and a ‘bad idea’. Having said that,
cancer is a diverse and epidemiologically complex disease – and it is not
beyond the realm of possibility that certain cases could response well to
placebo treatments. Ultimately, the only honest approach to considering the
role of placebo treatments in medicine is to use <u>outcome based models</u>.
This means you consider a condition – let’s call it condition ‘x’- and you
apply different treatments to it and look at the outcome. Drug ‘y’ might have a
combined effect of 35% reduction in condition ‘x’. I say ‘combined’ because the
placebo effect <u>always</u> plays a role, even for drugs with an
established biological effect. So, let us say, in this example, that drug ‘y’
has a combined effect of 35% (10% placebo and 25% pure physical effect). Now,
let us consider a homeopathy treatment ‘z’. Is it possible that homeopathy
could result in a reduction in condition ‘x’ of, say, 45%, solely due to the
placebo effect? Yes, it’s possible. For certain health conditions, it’s even
likely. Homeopathy treatments are usually prescribed in nurturing and friendly
settings, with kind and caring practitioners who spend a relatively long time
with their patients and offer on-going support. These are all features of
palliative care that exaggerate the placebo effect. In this regard, it is the <u>outcome</u> that
is important. You might argue that the outcome could be maximised by giving the <i>drug</i> in
a more caring and nurturing environment. In principle, yes, but in practice,
no. Conventional doctors aren’t really even trained to nurture the emotional
state of the patient, nor to encourage innate healing potential. Even if some
doctors do realise the importance of this, they simply don’t have the time to
do this effectively.<br />
<br />
</span><b><span style="color: blue; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">HYPOTHETICAL LOGIC
ARGUMENT</span></b><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">: In a randomised, double blind, placebo controlled trial, drug 'X' is
found to work <u>no</u> better than the placebo control for curing
condition 'Y'. However, for whatever reason, the placebo effect was so strong
in this trial that all patients were cured of condition 'Y'. Now, imagine drug
'X' was actually a homeopathic remedy. It worked no better than the placebo
effect but, in this example, the placebo effect was so powerful that all
patients were cured. For this condition, should we use the placebo effect to
help patients? If not, why not?<b> </b></span><b><span style="color: blue; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Evidence Based Medicine</span></b><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"> (EBM) factors out the
placebo effect such that this 'drug' would be deemed useless. </span><b><span style="color: blue; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Outcome Based Medicine </span></b><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">is only interested in the outcome. In
this specific example, a homeopathic remedy would be deemed useful and
medicinal. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Importantly, words
like `cure` and `alterative` will increasingly become redundant as science
provides more and more evidence for the benefits of integrated medicine. If you
use the word `cure` and `cancer` in the same breath (without providing
qualifiers), it is likely that you have a poor, or at least undeveloped,
understanding of the principles underlying the science of cancer - given it´s
intrinsic nature and epidemiological complexity. Something that is intrinsic
can be `cured` only to return – unless the body is healed of underlying
factors. `Healing` is a word much more symbolic for the truth of the situation,
and integrated medicine is mostly interested in `healing` rather than `curing`.
This is a fundamental difference of the <i>Modus operandi</i> of the
two paradigms; conventional medicine is a <i>disease</i> care system,
integrative medicine is essentially a <i>health </i>care (and health
- promoting) system. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">An integrated
approach in medicine for cancer would include the use of natural substances
that have been proved to be efficacious by clinical trial. It would also include
the whole range of aforementioned techniques to reduce the stress load of the
patient and encourage the intrinsic healing mechanisms of the body. Stress has
been shown to have a negative effect on immune function and the regulation of
blood sugar level, and causes inflammation – all linked to cancer. <b>In a
very real sense, therapies that reduce stress are <u>medicinal</u></b>.
Recent research published in the journal <i>Psychoneuroendocrinology</i> suggests
that meditation can induce beneficial epigenetic effects on our genome. Here´s
the link: </span><span lang="" style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-ansi-language: ES-CL; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306453013004071"><span lang="" style="color: #888888; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306453013004071</span></a></span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">. This article indicates that
meditation can exert the same mechanism of action as proposed anti-inflammatory
and analgesic drugs. Furthermore, evidence is emerging to suggest that even the
psychological experiences of your <b>ancestors</b> could influence
your genetics and therefore your experience in life. Here´s the link: </span><span lang="" style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-ansi-language: ES-CL; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><a href="http://discovermagazine.com/2013/may/13-grandmas-experiences-leave-epigenetic-mark-on-your-genes#.UshBTH-iKNa"><span lang="" style="color: #888888; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">http://discovermagazine.com/2013/may/13-grandmas-experiences-leave-epigenetic-mark-on-your-genes#.UshBTH-iKNa</span></a></span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Integrative
medicine would incorporate the <u>best</u> that wisdom traditions
such as Chinese medicine and indigenous or ethnic healing traditions have to
offer and, of course, it would include the <u>best</u> from
conventional medicine. It would integrate the latest research on the science of
caloric restriction and fasting, and it would also consider the science of
supplementation and orthomolecular medicine. As an example, it would give
honest consideration to topics such as vitamin D supplementation. </span><br />
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif;">'Vitamin` D is somewhat of a misnomer – since
Vitamin D acts more like a hormone in the body – having estrogenic regulating
properties and epi-genetic effects on up to 10,000 genes. Problems with
Estrogenic regulation have been correlated to cancer prevalence (</span><span lang="" style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif;"><a href="http://www.cumc.columbia.edu/publications/in-vivo/Vol2_Iss10_may26_03/"><span lang="" style="color: #888888;">http://www.cumc.columbia.edu/publications/in-vivo/Vol2_Iss10_may26_03/</span></a></span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif;">). Integrative medicine would <u>not</u> ignore
these research findings – and it certainly wouldn´t ignore the potential value
of procedures such as chemotherapy and radiotherapy. Vitamin D article: </span><span lang="" style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif;"><a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2290997/"><span lang="" style="color: #888888;">http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2290997/</span></a></span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif;">. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Furthermore, it
would <i>not</i> dismiss (in a knee-jerk fashion) substances and
methods <i><u>un</u></i>proven in a clinical setting – as long as they
aren´t harmful or don´t have contraindications with other drugs a patient might
be taking. This is because scientific proof is <i>not</i> synonymous
with truth. Science <i>unveils the truth</i> (e.g. gravity existed
and the earth was round <i>before</i> these facts were discovered by
the scientific process). Consider the myriad indigenous herbs and plant
substances of folk medicine that have been used for millennia but only very
recently verified by science as having therapeutic effects above and beyond the
placebo effect. Some things that spring to mind are Chaga mushroom, Green Tea
and Pomegranate extract. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">This is, in fact, a scientific process – an <u>evidence-based
system</u> - that has been employed by indigenous groups in the past to
produce a body of knowledge of folk medicine (the double-blind, randomised and
placebo controlled trial is a recent addition in the evolution of the
scientific method). How is it possible that ancient cultures could have `known`
that foods and substances like this had therapeutic value? Through a process of
c<i>ultural</i> natural selection over thousands of years - truths gauged
by paying attention to subjective experiences over the course of millennia, and
by a process of trial and error. Also, by an intuitive connection with nature
that modern medicine has all but lost.<br />
<br />
An interesting critique of EBM - Evidence Based Medicine - was published in the
British Medical Journal in 2003. It is an ingenious and brilliant satirical
piece which questions the logic of structuring public health policy solely
around that which has been proved by the randomised, double blind and placebo
controlled trial. It is a call for common sense based on good science. Here it
is: <a href="http://www.bmj.com/content/327/7429/1459"><span style="color: #888888;">http://www.bmj.com/content/327/7429/1459</span></a>. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">As long as a
product is safe, with no contraindications and does not result in a patient
substituting it for something that has been proved to work by clinical trial;
then there is no problem. However, evidence is <u>always</u> a top
priority in integrative medicine, and the evidence is mounting at an
astonishing rate on the therapeutic potential of natural substances. For
example, see this recent study by Cambridge University Hospitals on the
anti-cancer potential of broccoli, pomegranate and turmeric:<a href="http://www.cuh.org.uk/cms/news/cancer-services/uk-scientists-show-super-foods-proven-beat-prostate-cancer"><span style="color: #888888;">http://www.cuh.org.uk/cms/news/cancer-services/uk-scientists-show-super-foods-proven-beat-prostate-cancer</span></a>. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Facts are facts, as
the saying goes. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">An excellent
introduction to the shifting paradigm in cancer treatment is provided by this
TED talk by Dr. William Li on the role that nutrition can play in cancer
treatment - by encouraging a process called angiogenesis: This talk discusses
the logical idea that cancer cells – like all cells – have specific biological
needs. Mutant cells (i.e. cancer) have epi-genetic drivers, just like healthy
cells. By altering the surrounding biochemical environment of cancer cells by
changing our food choices, the voracity of cancer cells can be weakened. Here,
as Hippocrates stated, <b><u>food really is medicine</u></b>. A useful
analogy I heard for this therapeutic model is to consider mould growth in a
house. You can either kill the mould or you can remove the conditions for its
proliferation. This, in a nutshell, is another fundamental difference between
the logic of conventional and integrative medicine. Here´s the link for
the talk on TED: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="" style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-ansi-language: ES-CL; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><a href="http://www.ted.com/talks/william_li.html"><span lang="" style="color: #888888; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">http://www.ted.com/talks/william_li.html</span></a></span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Taking all this
into account, an integrated approach to cancer treatment is actually far <u>more</u> logical,
reasonable and sophisticated than the approach of conventional medicine at
present. It is also cheaper – which is a strong incentive for governments at a
time when the health care systems in the UK and the USA are at breaking point. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Integrated medicine
is a far more sophisticated, nuanced and scientifically honest method for the
prevention and management of disease. Dr. Andrew Weil of the Arizona Centre for
Integrated Medicine tells of the outrage he felt when his father was given a `pastrami
sandwich and vanilla ice-cream` in hospital after heart bi-pass surgery.
Orthodox medicine might see this as irrelevant. Integrated medicine would see
this as ridiculous, even medically negligent. Given the established link
between certain cancers and poor diet, giving junk food to any cancer patient
is, in principle, not much better than giving cigarettes to a lung cancer
patient. <b>Really, it is incredible that the best food possible isn`t
automatically given to cancer patients - to exercise the precautionary
principle in the very least</b>. Good food is not likely to have any more
contraindications than bad food. Indeed, good food is likely to help protect
the patient from the damaging effects of chemotherapy and radiotherapy and, as
discussed, will improve the general health of the patient. Indeed, the fact
that cancer patients aren`t automatically put on the best diet possible shows
how cancer care is, at present, stuck in the Dark Ages. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Doctors of
Integrative medicine would also pay very close attention to the subjective
experiences of the patient, something DRG snubs as `patient-experience`. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">The beneficial <i>physiological</i> effects
of positive <i>psychological</i> states are well known to science.
The potential healing effect of the mind-body connection (i.e. the placebo
effect) is one of the most important phenomena that must be encouraged in any
health condition. Hippocrates knew this when he said `<b>Natural forces
within us are the true healers of disease</b> `. Studies of people with
split or multiple personality psychological disorders show that, in certain
cases, acute allergic responses to specific foods can be present when the
individual is in one personality state, but absent when he or she is in another
personality state. Such is the power of the subconscious mind. I encourage people to listen to the discussion between Nicholas Humphrey and
Richard Dawkins when they discuss the mind-body connection. The placebo effect
is powerful - truly `Darwinian medicine`. Indeed, if it wasn´t for the placebo
effect, the pharmaceutical industry would make far less profit – such is the
profound irony inherent in any un-nuanced defence of Big Pharma. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Here’s the
interview between Dawkins and Humphrey: </span><span lang="" style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-ansi-language: ES-CL; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZ2YpIKsXBE"><span lang="" style="color: #888888; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZ2YpIKsXBE</span></a></span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">David Robert Grimes says `cancer is scary, but it should not be
forgotten that treatment options and outcomes have never been better and
continue to improve`. Really? How many treatment options has he suggested and
how could the number of possible outcomes possibly change? Yes, cancer is
scary but people will be even more scared after reading DRG´s article which tells people that the chance of getting cancer is mainly a function
of age (<i>catch-22</i>!) and that side effects are nearly always a necessary
part of cancer treatment. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">There´s <u>no</u> need
to be scared by cancer. I encourage readers to (a) develop their ability to
think critically, with nuance and objectivity; (b) to do their own research
about cancer; and (c) to discover more about how the body works and what type
of lifestyle is conducive to best health. <u>There ARE plenty of
reasonable organisations</u> which provide a more integrated and holistic
approach to cancer treatment. Two examples are</span></b><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">1. <u>Arizona Centre for
Integrated Medicine</u> <a href="http://integrativemedicine.arizona.edu/"><span style="color: #888888;">http://integrativemedicine.arizona.edu/</span></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">2. <u>Hippocrates Health
Institute</u> </span><span lang="" style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-ansi-language: ES-CL; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><a href="http://hippocratesinst.org/"><span lang="" style="color: #888888; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">http://hippocratesinst.org/</span></a></span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Lastly, David
Robert Grimes references the FDA as a source of information on fake cancer
treatments. Readers should be made aware that the FDA is definitely <b><u>NOT</u></b> an
independent source! For more information on controversies surrounding the FDA,
look at this link from Wikipedia (DRG is himself an advocate for the
credibility of Wikipedia as a source of reliable information): <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="" style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-ansi-language: ES-CL; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_the_Food_and_Drug_Administration"><span lang="" style="color: #888888; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_the_Food_and_Drug_Administration</span></a></span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><u><span style="color: #660000; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">PART 2</span></u></b><b><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"> - a</span></b><b><span style="color: #660000; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"> note on scepticism</span></b><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">DRG`s articles and
public comments seem to attract public outrage – and not just from people who
are illogical, reactionary or quite obviously quacks. No – criticism stems from
other ranks too – people who are interested in science, the use of logic, appropriate
scepticism and the pursuit of honest and open scientific debate to solve
problems in our society. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Reading the
article, I had a deep intuition (like many others) that DRG wasn`t being
neutral - wasn`t being fair. In this sense, his article is the opposite of
science. I feel that DRG`s articles are symbolic for the rising tide of an unholy alliance
between pseudo-scepticism and science that has emerged in the academic and
intellectual community. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">The value of true
scepticism as a powerful tool for understanding the world is being debased by
both sides: it is often conflated with cynicism by the `alternative movement
camp` - thus grossly devaluing it, and it is apparently misappropriated by
people who have not fully grasped the difference between biased (i.e.
pseudo) scepticism and true scepticism. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Two hallmarks of
pseudo-sceptics are: </span><br />
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<ul>
<li><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif;">Confusion between the need to think
reductively and need to think objectively. </span><i style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif;">Objectivity</i><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif;"> is the
foundation of science – and thinking reductively is </span><u style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif;">not</u><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif;"> necessarily
always the most logical. </span></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif;">Holding the default position that
truth is equated with scientific evidence. </span><u style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif;">But - the lack of evidence
for something is not necessarily evidence against it</u><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif;">. </span></li>
</ul>
<br /></div>
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<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=5919340516468022001" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">For example, this
is true for health products that have not been tested by clinical trial. Often,
even perfectly honest scientific research depends on grant money – and, rather
logically, this money is provided much more readily by agencies with money - often,
agencies of power and interest within our socio-economic and political
structures. Understandably, there is no economic incentive for private
companies to fund research for products that cannot be patented. Subsequently –
if only by sheer economic force - natural substances and techniques (i.e.
non-patentable) for cancer treatment may not have had the privilege of being
tested to the same extent – they might not have had the benefit of scientific
scrutiny. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Interestingly, DRG
seems to automatically dismiss claims or science articles which have not been
peer-reviewed. Although peer-review is a valuable process at the core of
science, an uncritical acceptance of peer-review is unhealthy, and certainly
wouldn’t be adopted by a true sceptic. According to this article published in
the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, there are plenty of reasons to
sceptical about the peer-review process in science: </span><span lang="" style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-ansi-language: ES-CL; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1420798/"><span lang="" style="color: #888888; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1420798/</span></a></span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">David Robert Grimes
says `science doesn´t make value judgements` and, in a sense, he`s right.
Scientists and academic institutions are often just the innocent bystanders –
unsurprisingly at the mercy of economic forces. But <i>what </i>science
is incentivised to study <u>is</u> an economic (and socio-cultural)
value judgement, by those that pull the strings. Even when grant money has `no
strings attached` - i.e. is neutral and independent and scientists are
free to study what they wish – <u>scientists still chose to study what
they value</u>! This choice might be shaped by a desire to adhere to
intellectual boundaries to gain the respect of academic and scientific peers. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">In this sense,
science definitely <i>is</i> a value judgment. At all research levels
of academic institution – PhD, post-doc, professorship – scientific research is
rarely <i>truly</i> independent. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">If we commit to the
notion that `the facts and truth about cancer` can <i>only</i> be
gauged by scientific trial, then whoever funds research becomes the `keeper of
the truth`. For this simple reason, we should be sceptical when clinical
evidence is posited as a default requirement when trying to understand what is
`true` for a complex health topic such as cancer - a topic guarded to academic
discourse and driven by economic forces. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">For this reason,
the notion that `evidence is the benchmark of scepticism` is, actually,
logically unsound. It would even be logically dubious to say that `evidence is
the benchmark of <i>scientific</i> scepticism` because - as we have
seen – objective assertions cannot always be tested reductively, for complex
socio-cultural reasons. In effect, I am saying that we need to reserve some
scepticism for the <i>nature</i> of scepticism itself. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Pseudo-scepticism
is to scepticism what scientism is to science</span></b><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">. The problem with pseudo-scepticism is <u>not</u> that
it´s a weaker form of scepticism – the problem is that it`s not scepticism at
all. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Scepticism is an
attitude that is a vital and intrinsic aspect of the scientific method. But it
depends on logic and reason, not scientific training. To put it another way - <b>being
a sceptic makes you a good scientist</b> - not the other way around. True
sceptics are open-minded. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">I argue that the
word `sceptic` or `sceptical` should be abolished, because it is being abused
and is not helpful to scientific discourse. Certainly, in my opinion, articles by people like
DRG don`t embody the true essence of the word. `Scepticism` has become an
intellectual `crack cocaine` for some members of the scientific and
intellectual community. The word `sceptic` should be replaced with `objective`
or `logical` or `reasonable` - because this is, essentially, what scepticism is
at it`s root.<br />
<br />
<br />
</span><b><u><span style="color: #660000; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">PART 3</span></u></b><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"> - </span><b><span style="color: #660000; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">David Robert Grimes' ideas on
vegetarianism, organic food, GM / Monsanto, and water fluoridation</span></b><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><u><span style="color: #660000; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Meat Consumption
and Vegetarian Debate</span></u></b><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">David Robert Grimes
has said (publicly):<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">1. In reply to suggestion that a vegetarian
diet can provide all nutrients humans need: ``<b>Hmm... The evidence on
that is still kinda ropey. We *ARE* omnivores, and meat large part of our diet</b>``. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">2. In reply to a request for a good argument
that justifies meat consumption: `` <b>Canine incisors and a good reason
:o) Meat isn`t so much problem as massive population requiring HUGE amounts of
it</b>``. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">3. In reply to suggestion that the global meat industry
is akin to genocide: ``<b>You`ve compared food product to genocide. If you had
a point, you`ve smothered it with hyperbole</b>``.<br />
<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><br />
<!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">4.</span></b><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"> On vegetarian`s moral sentiment: <b>``You`re not
the arbiter of what is or isn`t moral – subjective value judgments don`t
interest me much``. </b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">I feel that these comments are objectionable on these grounds: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Saying that the
fact that human beings are omnivorous (<u>and it</u> <i><u>is</u></i> <u>a
fact</u>) means that meat is a ``large part of our diet`` is not logically
coherent. This is analogous to stating that agnosticism is the only logical
position to take on the question of the existence of God (a fact) without
providing the absolutely vital logical auxiliary that this does <u>not</u> mean
the existence is likely in a 50/50 sense. In a logical argument about God`s
existence, the two points of agnosticism and probability are inseparable. In
the vegetarian debate, the 2 points that we are omnivorous but we do <u>not
need</u> to eat much meat are equally inseparable - especially given the
ecological, socio-cultural, ethical, animal welfare and humanitarian
consequences of meat consumption. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">In an earlier draft
to this section, I took an in depth look at our two closest Ape cousins – the
Bonobo, and the Common, Chimpanzee. It suffices to say that, according to the
canine argument, <i>Homo sapiens</i> should eat a largely vegetarian
diet – since Chimpanzees (and Bonobos in particular) eat, overall, a largely
vegetarian diet and yet have <u>much larger</u> canines. <b>Gorillas
and Orang-utans</b> – our other closest primate cousins – <b>eat an
almost exclusively vegetarian diet</b>. And guess what – <u>they have huge
canines</u>! Clearly, the canine argument doesn`t make sense. This is what a
Gorilla skull looks like: (Source: Wikipedia). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><br />Evidence and counter-arguments can be avoided at one's own convenience, but
this can lead to false assumptions which (in this case) can have negative
consequences for animals and the environment. I suggest you watch the
documentary `Earthlings` for a look at the plight of animals all across the
world. Somehow in his public comments, DRG seems to transcend the need to
consider not only the bigger picture, but also the bigger question. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=5919340516468022001" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><br /></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">The fact that DRG
labels animals – sentient and intelligent beings – as ‘food product’ speaks
volumes. Truly, civilised generations in the future will come to look back on
how animals were treated in the 20<sup>th</sup> and 21<sup>st</sup> centuries
as a horrific episode in human history. And yes, as ethically debased as
genocide. As Mahatma Gandhi said, <span style="background: white;">the
greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its
animals are treated. </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif;">Intellectual
enlightenment really is a pauper’s game compared to the enlightenment of the
heart. </span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Albert Einstein
understood the deeper question when he said: `Nothing will benefit human health
and increase chances for survival of life on Earth as much as the evolution to
a vegetarian diet`. Indeed, if you watch the discussion between Richard Dawkins
and Peter Singer about animal welfare and vegetarianism they raise the novel
idea that the adoption of vegetarianism is a hallmark of an evolving culture,
both in a metaphoric and Darwinian sense. Here´s the discussion: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="" style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-ansi-language: ES-CL; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYYNY2oKVWU"><span lang="" style="color: #888888; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYYNY2oKVWU</span></a></span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Vegetarianism is
one of the best ways to directly contribute to a more compassionate and
sustainable planet. Richard Dawkins values the ideas behind vegetarianism.
Einstein realised the value of vegetarianism. </span></div>
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<b><u><span style="color: #660000; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Organic food</span></u></b><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">David Robert Grimes
has said (publicly): <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">· <b>``Indeed –
naturalistic fallacy galore – organic food is never *healthier* and requires
more intensive farming! ``</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Organic food is <u>always</u> healthier.
This is because our health and the health of the environment is <i>inextricably</i> linked.
What is bad for the environment is bad for us. It really is as simple as that. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Arguments for
organic food generally fall into 2 categories: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">1. Organic food is healthier because it
contains more nutrients.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">2. Organic food is healthier because it
contains fewer pesticides and synthetic chemicals. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Even if point 1 is
false, point 2 is correct – and has been proved by scientific analysis. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Recently,
scientists have attributed Bee Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) to the use of </span></b><i><span lang="" style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-ansi-language: ES-CL; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Neonicotinoid </span></i><b><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">pesticides</span></b><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">I feel that DRG
uses the precautionary principle wrongly here. By saying organic food is `never
healthier`, I am assuming that - unless he is ignorant of the pesticide
argument for organic food – DRG is urging caution against the idea of organic
food on the grounds of a lack of peer-reviewed evidence. Even if this were true
(and it`s not), the precautionary principle is usually always adopted from the
opposite direction by people with common sense – the way it is meant. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">In my opinion, the way DRG doesn`t seem to provide this broader context and relevance of organic food displays the irony
of his thinking. Given the dire status of bee colonies (a critical pollinator
for our food crops), - whether organic food is, or is not, more healthy for
humans is a debate akin in relevance to rearranging the furniture on the
Titanic. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b><u><span style="color: #660000; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Monsanto and GM
food</span></u></b><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">David Robert Grimes
has said (publicly):<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">· ``<b>Oddly, Monsanto get a fairly bed
rep based largely on misunderstanding of the tech. But I think GM is important</b>``.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">· ‘’<b>Rice is dreadful for
micro-nutrients though; kills/blinds lots of children hence the golden rice GM
project’’</b>. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">DRG appears to believe that
Monsanto has a bad reputation mainly because the public misunderstands the
technology. This comment alludes to the fact that he is grotesquely ignorant
(or in denial) of the real reasons for the ubiquitous and growing antagonism
toward companies like Monsanto. Political allying, bullying of farmers,
undermining of sovereignty over agriculture of people in developing countries (masquerading
as `investment` in developing countries which is, quick frankly, total
bullshit), ecological destruction – these are some of the reasons that
companies like Monsanto are so hated around the world. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Watch this BBC Hard
Talk discussion between Stephen Sackur and Mike Mack, the CEO of Syngenta (one
of the world`s big agribusinesses and a contemporary of Monsanto). In this
interview, Mike Mack reveals that companies like his are still using </span><i><span lang="" style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-ansi-language: ES-CL; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Neonicotinoid </span></i><b><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">pesticides </span></b><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">even in light of evidence that such pesticides have been strongly linked
to Colony Collapse Disorder. Here´s the interview: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="" style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-ansi-language: ES-CL; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><a href="http://youtu.be/B0gjkHT0rpY"><span lang="" style="color: #888888; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">http://youtu.be/B0gjkHT0rpY</span></a></span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">The truth is, the
actions of `Big Agri` are no less deplorable than `Big Pharma`. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Regarding the
‘Golden Rice’ project – even if we assume for a moment that the intention is
entirely honourable (e.g. the project is publicly funded as claimed) – this
still leaves us with a deeper question. Does providing a mono-crop get to the
source of the problem? Undoubtedly, the answer is no. Ostensibly, the reason
for the invention of ‘Golden Rice’ is to provide the vitamin A lacking in
indigenous rice cultivars. But this nutritional deficiency could be met by
other, more ‘grass-roots’ ways such as encouraging communities to grow and
develop poly-cultural agricultural systems. The land is there, and communities
could be given access to a rich seed diversity. Ultimately, technological
endeavours like the ‘Golden Rice’ project try to solve complex socio-cultural
and economic/political problems with quick techno-fixes instead of encouraging
communities (and giving them the tools/knowledge) to reclaim sovereignty over
their own lives. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Yet again, David
Robert Grimes seems to look at the symptoms rather than the cause.<br />
<br />
Watch this interesting talk by Professor Brian Wynne where he mentions the
reason GM is <u>not</u> just a scientific question. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="color: blue; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDWZYeldnQw"><span style="color: #888888;">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDWZYeldnQw</span></a>. </span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b><u><span style="color: #660000; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Fluoridation</span></u></b><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">David Robert Grimes
wrote an article on water fluoridation. Here it is:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="" style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-ansi-language: ES-CL; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><a href="http://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/anti-fluoride-lobby-can-t-get-its-teeth-into-the-truth-1.1520290"><span lang="" style="color: #888888; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">http://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/anti-fluoride-lobby-can-t-get-its-teeth-into-the-truth-1.1520290</span></a></span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Another poor
article by David Robert Grimes. Whether or not fluoridated water is bad for
you, his article does not even raise the relevant broader question. This
question is, of course, why tooth decay is so prevalent in our society. Tooth
decay is almost certainly linked to poor diet, poor lifestyle choices and poor dental hygiene. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif;">Tooth decay, left
untreated, is dangerous to health. It can even be fatal. It is for this reason
why, under natural conditions, tooth decay is relatively rare in nature. </span><u style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif;">Tooth
decay is relatively rare in nature</u><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif;">. It`s rare, </span><b style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif;"><u>not</u> because
animals drink fluoridated water or because animals brush their teeth twice a
day</b><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif;">. It`s rare because animals under natural conditions do not lead
unhealthy lifestyles and eat processed junk food. Yet again, by thinking
reductively, David Robert Grimes has produced an article which is largely
irrelevant. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Also – his
philanthropic claim for fluoridated water – that <i>un</i>fluoridated
water would discriminate against poor people who don`t have money to buy
toothbrushes and pay for dental care – is a truly erroneous comment. The deeper
social problems have not been addressed and, regardless, fluoridated water
provides <i>relatively</i> little preventative value. For example,
governments around the developing world allow – even <i>actively encourage</i> –
corporations like Coca Cola to sell their acidic sugar laden drink to people in
the farthest most reaches of the planet. Travel through almost any developing
country (and developed country, for that matter) and you will become aware of
the epic scale of the real problem – junk food is everywhere. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Except, that is,
for Bolivia – which has taken steps to ban Coca Cola and McDonald`s. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">In face of this
deeper problem, whether water should be fluoridated, or not, is such a
ridiculous argument. Given it`s <b><u>contextual irrelevance</u></b>,
what`s the point of it even being put in water in the first place? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Even <i>if</i> fluoridated
did have a substantial effect, a cogent argument could be given to show how
such measures are actually counter-productive - the supposed benefit of
fluoridation might allow people to avoid the deeper problem - that is, poor
diet and lifestyle choices cause health problems. DRG`s article is symbolic for
the problem with our governments and medical institutions – they address the
symptoms but not the cause. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">As it is, the
evidence for the substantial benefit of fluoridation is, at best, spurious.
Mark Dissendorf of the Human Sciences Program at the National University of
Australia says: ''Large temporal reduction in tooth decay, which <u>cannot</u> be
attributed to fluoridation, have been observed in <i>both</i> un-fluoridated
and fluoridated areas of at last eight developed countries over the past thirty
years. It is now time for a scientific re-examination of the alleged enormous
benefits of fluoridation.''<br />
<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><br />
<!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: red; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Furthermore,
there is good evidence that an indirect result of fluoridating water is a
negative synergistic effect with lead - such that people become more
susceptible to the bad effects of lead in areas where water has been
fluoridated. </span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Here are the articles:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00207239908711215#.Uvt8w_l_sy5"><span style="color: #888888;">http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00207239908711215#.Uvt8w_l_sy5</span></a>
<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.keepers-of-the-well.org/product_pdfs/dartmouth_2001.pdf"><span style="color: #888888;">http://www.keepers-of-the-well.org/product_pdfs/dartmouth_2001.pdf</span></a><br />
</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><br />
<br />
</span><span style="color: red; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Also, there is an
interesting discussion on the history of water fluoridation in the USA</span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">-</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><br />
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Y8Jc0nZJJI"><span style="color: #888888;">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Y8Jc0nZJJI</span></a> </span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><br />
<br />
Readers interested in the fluoride debate might want to read these articles: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="" style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-ansi-language: ES-CL; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><a href="http://www.actionpa.org/fluoride/countries.pdf"><span lang="" style="color: #888888; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">http://www.actionpa.org/fluoride/countries.pdf</span></a></span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="" style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-ansi-language: ES-CL; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><a href="http://bingweb.binghamton.edu/~isaacson/fluoride.html"><span lang="" style="color: #888888; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">http://bingweb.binghamton.edu/~isaacson/fluoride.html</span></a></span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="" style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-ansi-language: ES-CL; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><a href="http://www.bmartin.cc/pubs/99rsppp.html"><span lang="" style="color: #888888; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">http://www.bmartin.cc/pubs/99rsppp.html</span></a></span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span lang="" style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-ansi-language: ES-CL; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><a href="http://www.fluorideresearch.org/364/files/FJ2003_v36_n4_p271-279.pdf"><span lang="" style="color: #888888; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">http://www.fluorideresearch.org/364/files/FJ2003_v36_n4_p271-279.pdf</span></a></span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Yoda Knighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04047960739788432970noreply@blogger.com19