SGU Episode 102

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SGU Episode 102
3rd July 2007
(brief caption for the episode icon)
SGU 1                      SGU 300
Skeptical Rogues
S: Steven Novella
B: Bob Novella
R: Rebecca Watson
J: Jay Novella
E: Evan Bernstein
P: Perry DeAngelis
Quote of the Week
The primary tool of science is skepticism, whose light shrivels unquestioning faith.
Mike Huben
Links
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SGU Podcast archive
Forum Discussion

Introduction

You're listening to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe, your escape to reality.

S: Hello and welcome to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe, and today is Tuesday July 3^rd 2007, and this is your host Steven Novella, president of the New England Skeptical Society. Joining me this evening are Bob Novella -

B: Hey everybody.

S: Rebecca Watson -

R: Hello everyone.

S: Perry DeAngelis -

P: (mumbling) Good evening

S: Jay Novella -

J: Hey guys.

S: And Evan Bernstein.

This Day in Skepticism (0.33)

E: Welcome to the dog days of summer everyone.

R: That's the best you've got?

E: Well, today's the official first dog day of summer.

R: The, what, that's not even a thing, you made that up.

E: No it's not, I'm looking at it right now on the internet, it must be true.

J: Rebecca, you've never heard of that?

R: I've heard of the dog days of summer, I -

S: You don't think it's real?

R: I don't think there's an official dog day.

E: According to this website.

S: And tomorrow is a very special day as everybody knows. Tomorrow July 4^th is Bob's birthday.

B: Yeah.

R: Ohhhhh.

J/R/E: Happy birthday, Bob

B: Thank you. Also Independence Day.

J: Bob, how old are you?

B: Ah, according to that carny, 32, the blind carny.

J: Do you smell like cabbage, Bob?

S: You don't have to tell us how old you are in reality Bob if you don't want to.

E: You're younger than the country.

S: And of course happy Independence Day out there to all of our fellow Americans.

J: Yeah, that too.

News Items

Barry L. Beyerstein 1947-2007 (1.24)

S: Unfortunately we have to start this show with some very sad news. Barry Beyerstein who we SGU_Episode_94 interviewed actually just a couple of months ago, a very nice guy, passed away last week very unexpectedly. From what I hear he had a massive heart attack. Apparently, the story that I have so far is that he passed out the week before, was admitted to the hospital, was evaluated, was essentially cleared. But because of the episode a cardiac work-up was planned, but before it could be completed he then had a massive heart attack and died.

J: Steve, what would have happened if they gave him the exam before the heart attack?

S: Well, it depends, they could have had either a by-pass or angioplasty and it could have prevented it. If the work-up was done quicker of if he just didn't have a heart attack so quickly after his initial symptoms.

P: Do you know if an autopsy is performed?

S: I have not heard either way but I doubt it. Unless the family requests it, it's not something that would be done routinely.

P: It's another kick in the teeth for the skeptical movement, that's for sure.

S: Yeah, it stinks to lose good people so young, he was only 60, so it was definitely a premature and unexpected death. Of course our sympathies go out to his family and his daughter. His daughter actually blogged about her father. We'll have the link to that, it was very nice. Barry was a fellow of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry and they're putting out a retrospective and tribute to him as well.

P: Well you sound in your blog Steve, when you peel it all away, the sort of core of the skeptical movement really isn't all that big.

S: Yeah.

P: And we get to know these people. You in particular with Barry. It's a real loss, when we lose some of these people.

S: Yeah, it's a close circle, the inner circle of the skeptical movement, it isn't that many people really. You do get to know everybody and you do feel -

E: 4 or 5 of us. Some days it feels like that.

S: It hurts, it really is a big loss when you lose somebody like Barry. And I also said, he was, again without exaggeration, the single nicest guy I've met in the skeptical movement. He was just a really nice guy. I think if you listen to the interview that we did with him, it really comes across, he's just very very upbeat, cheery guy.

J: Yeah, he definitely was one of those people that everything was a good mood, everything was positive.

S: Mmm hmm.

J: And he just made me feel good just talking to him on and off the air.

S: Yeah.

P: He was surprisingly lively.

R: That's one of the people we most need in the skeptic movement because it shows people that we're not just all cynics, there are people out there who are enjoyable to be around

S: Yeah, we certainly don't do that.

(laughter)

R: I mean no, yeah, we do the opposite of that. He's definitely going to be missed though.

S: So this is our Skeptics' Guide tribute to Barry Beyerstein, he definitely will be missed.

P: So long Barry.

Herbal Link to Liver Failure (4.22)

S: The next news item is actually two herbal remedy-related news items. The first one has to do with black cohosh which is an herb that is used for women to treat the symptoms of menopause. The article discusses the fact that there have actually been quite a number of cases world-wide of sudden and total liver failure related to use of this herb, of the herb black cohosh.

P: Liver's one of those important organs, right?

S: Yeah, it's kind of an important organ. So this discusses four new cases in Australia of complete liver failure requiring liver transplant. That's complete - basically they would have died without a liver transplant. We point this out because yet again it makes the point that herbs are drugs, there is nothing magical or different about them, they're not somehow not drugs just because they're dried from plants. They're drugs - they can have the same risks as drugs, they can have organ toxicity just like drugs do, and they really should be researched, marketed and regulated like drugs. I think -

R: The thing is, I think at this point, correct me if I'm wrong, we're not positive that the black cohosh caused the liver damage, right, because from what I've read it seems like it just hasn't been studied enough at this point and we don't even know the extent of what it will do to a person's liver, and there are a lot of other possible side effects it might have, but because it's not studied in depth in the way that your regular medicine would be, we just don't know.

S: Well, that's sort of true, we don't have the kind of clinical trials that we would do prior to a drug being on the market. But even when drugs get out on the market, there is still the "after market" research that is done, and this kind of information that we have on black cohosh is exactly the same as the kind of information we would have after the market for drugs.

R: Right.

S: If the same number people taking a prescription drug had liver failure and had to get liver transplants, the drug would be pulled from the market or at the very least the data would be reviewed, it wold probably get a black, what we call a "black box warning" in the United States where the FDA puts a black box warning on the drug. They might include the requirement for monitoring of liver function tests while on the medication. But none of those safety precautions are now in place with black cohosh because it's not a drug, it's a "supplement."

R: Yeah, I think that the worst that's happened is that Australia's put some kind of warning on the label saying that the product might contain black cohosh which might cause harm to the liver.

J: Steve, do they know what the doses were? Because almost anything can damage your liver if you take too much of it.

S: Yeah, that's a good point, and in general we don't really have a good idea of what the dose is in the herbal preparations because they're not controlled well enough to know what the actual dose is in an individual pill or preparation or water or whatever. So the answer to that is "no," though generally the amounts of active ingredients tend to be on the low side because they're not purified. It tends to be lower than prescription drugs. But the bottom line is you don't know, and it could be that this is cropping up in those products that may have a higher than average concentration of certain constituents in the black cohosh, certain chemicals. Again, lots of questions we don't have the answer to because research is not required prior to marketing these things.

P: Because our laws are insane when it comes to supplements, that's why.

S: They're not in line with the science.

P: No. The Supplemental Safety Bill's been languishing in Congress since '03, you can't get anything passed. It really has created an insane environment.

J: Unfortunately it will probably take a lot of deaths before people really start seriously considering regulating these supplements.

S: Yeah, we joked about the fact that it will take probably a celebrity death to really bring the issue to the forefront. Just regular deaths may no be enough unless it's actually a large number. Actually didn't it, there were about a hundred or so deaths linked to ephedra and that didn't really change the market at all -

B: Wow.

S: - but it was enough evidence for the FDA to pull it from the market, so the FDA can't block herbs from getting to the market but if the FDA meets a burden of proof that it's harmful, then they can use that to pull something from the market and since 1994, ephedra is the only thing the FDA's been able to pull from the market because of evidence that it wasn't safe. And that's being challenged, that's being challenged by some of the companies who make ephedra. So, we'll see if the FDA, I mean 6 deaths or a dozen deaths probably are not enough evidence for the FDA to pull black cohosh from the market in the United States. Again, they have a pretty high burden of proof to prove something is unsafe before they can take it off the market. Again, it is completely backwards to what would really make sense based upon a scientific approach.

P: Maybe Paris Hilton can do something useful with her life. Just a thought, just a thought.

(laughter)

Echinacea Meta-analysis (9.40)

S: Alrighty. The other herbal news has to do with echinacea. There is a recent meta-analysis, ooh, it's almost a bad word on this podcast -

R: You know how we feel about those.

S: - published, looking at 14 studies, looking at the efficacy of echinacea as an herbal extract or herbal supplement in the treatment of the common cold. And the researchers concluded from the meta-analysis that the research supports the use of echinacea for the treatment of the common cold, that it reduces both the risk of getting the cold and the duration of the cold if you do get it. Of course this has been now widely touted in the media and of course by people who sell echinacea and promote herbs in general as the vindication or evidence that echinacea actually works. But the lay media has basically missed the point that this is not new evidence - this is just a re-analysis of old evidence, and it's not a particularly good analysis or re-analysis of this data because all of the weaknesses of meta-analysis are in play: these are different studies with different preparations, different outcomes. They did try to use reasonable selection criteria, (only the abstract has been published at this point, I could't find the entire article at the time we're recording this, this was sort of a pre-online publication, press release with the abstract, so the full paper's not available yet,) but from what I can find, they made the reasonable attempts to do a decent meta-analysis but the problem is in the data itself - that these 14 studies have serious problems. A meta-analysis is just the wrong way to look at this complex set of data. This is the kind of thing that's generally missed outside of epidemiologists or researchers or medical experts, that when you have a question such as this, such as "do preparations of echinacea treat the common cold?" and the research evolves over many years with different kinds of studies getting done and then those studies get criticized, better studies are designed and then hopefully eventually you have some large, well-designed consensus trials where the results are robust and fairly definitive. Those kinds of trials, those placebo-controlled, what we call "Class 1 Trials" have been done with echinacea and they were all negative - all of the recent studies that have the best design were in fact negative. A couple years ago the New England Journal of Medicine published an excellent study looking at three different preparations of echinacea with an experimental form of rhinovirus (that's a common virus causing the cold) and showed absolutely no effect in any outcome measure of the echinacea.

B: To that point, Dr. Craig Coleman of the University of Connecticut, regarding that point he said that that study only looked at part of the picture.

S: Yeah, they always say that.

B: Well, yeah.

S: Reading some of the sites, what they say is "you can use extracts from different parts of the plant, different ways of preparing it." Any negative study you can always criticize by saying "well, they looked at the root and not the flower", whatever, "they looked at this kind of species" (there's actually 3 species) - "they looked at this species and not the other two species." So you're never going to be able to look at every possible preparation of echinacea, so any negative study you can always say it's only looking at part of the picture.

B: Yeah, what he, but what he's saying regarding this New England Journal of Medicine result was that this doctor was saying that there're more than 200 kinds of viruses that cause colds and the team that did this particular study only looked at a rhinovirus. That's what he says at this point.

S: Right, again. Again, you can't study absolutely every permutation of echinacea with every permutation of the common cold. So the best studies that were done in a very reasonable representation of the common cold, a common virus that causes it with various preparations of echinacea showed no effect. I don't think it's really a valid criticism. That actually comes around to bite them in the behind too because whenever they use that argument to say that the negative studies are not definitive, it also means that well, if you have a cold and you get some random echinacea product off the shelf, the probability that you're getting the right matchup of the right preparation with the right virus is also pretty minimal too. And yet most of the evidence is anecdotal but by their same argument, that anecdotal evidence has to be unreliable. I think that a better way to analyze this data is with what is called a systematic review, because that takes into consideration things like the consistency of different studies, the way the research evolves over time, the quality of the studies and how that relates to the chance of it being positive or negative, and there has been a systematic review of the same data that they're now publishing the meta-analysis on plus more studies, again that's so-called systematic by so-called Cochrane Review which is linked to evidence-based standards. And they basically found that the evidence does not support the use of echinacea for the common cold.

R: Surprise!

S: The data is inconsistent and not sufficient to say that it works.

R: Once again we demonstrate that the word "meta-analysis" is just there to send big sirens off in your head every time you read it, that's like your little skeptic alarm.

J: Steve, I have a question for you.

S: Yeah.

J: A lot of times when you hear the drugs like this, where there's a very good indication that they don't work, like echinacea's a perfect example, if a real pharmaceutical company did real testing, as if they were going to create a brand-new drug out of it, wouldn't, you know, if you think of it that way, wouldn't it be blazingly obvious that it doesn't work? Instead of it being like "well, you know, we're not really sure and there's all this meta-analysis and they re-did this and that." If it was done the right way the first time the way that drug companies do it to get ready for FDA approval, it would be 100% unequivocally it doesn't work.

S: Well nothing's 100% unequivocal, but what you're saying is if they went through the FDA process where they had to have trials that were monitored, that had to have a rigorous design, that were multi-center, that were statistically large trials, then yes, you're going to get a much better result out of those and much more likely the results are going to reflect the underlying reality.

J: You see my point though?

S: Yeah, and this is where the waters are muddied because there are a lot of crappy studies.

J: But all of these types of drugs are, it's always like the waters are muddy situation.

S: Yeah.

J: Why don't they just do one definitive study, spend the money and that's it, and be done with it.

E: Because you've got to find someone willing to invest hundreds of millions of dollars into something that probably isn't going to work.

J: The onus should be on the people who are selling it, who are making the hundreds of millions of dollars feeding the world this crap.

E: That's a fair point.

P: Wait a minute, you're saying we should have better supplemental laws?

E: That's a great idea, Perry, that's a great point.

R: That's a new one.

P: Stick it in Congress and let it rot.

R: Somebody going to write that down.

E: Tell the FDA that.

S: The research is generally not going to get done if the industry's not required to do it. The NIH does fund some of this research, and the research that is being done that's of any quality is largely government-funded. So that's how we get what information we do have. It's enough that if you are an unbiased scientist you can look at the data and say "yeah, this is not supported by the evidence." It's not enough to completely silence the proponents. I don't know that anything would be.

E: That's right.

Study: 1 in 6 Juries Get the Verdict Wrong (17.33)

S: The next news item also involves a similar kind of interpretation of similar types of study. This one however looking in the legal realm. "US Juries Get Verdict Wrong in 1 in 6 Cases" is the title of the study. This study was done out of Northwestern University and they looked at a number of criminal trials, not capital cases, from four different major cities between the years 2000 and 2001, and they found that when judges handed down a verdict that they were mistaken in 12% of the cases and that jury verdicts were wrong in 17% of the cases. So again, pretty similar numbers, a little bit higher in the jury, about 1 in 6 cases. Also very interestingly, they found that the mistake was more often in the direction of convicting an innocent person than setting the guilty free, which is contradictory to the philosophy of our American judicial system which is to basically favor the error the other way, to -

R: Yeah -

S: Rather setting guilty people free than imprisoning the innocent.

R: In the article that we'll probably link to from the news page I thought it was really interesting that it actually says "the good news is that the guilty didn't have a great chance of getting off.

(laughter)

R: Are you actually reading what you're writing? It's not good news, this isn't good news at all.

S: Yeah, there are some systems where the error's supposed to be biased in one direction. In the judicial system it's supposed to be biased towards not convicting innocent people, so this is the opposite of what it's supposed to be. What I found really interesting about this whole approach is, first of all it showed that it's plausible to look at outcome-measures of the system, of jury and judge decisions. And I do think that systems like this do need to have the same kind of quality control feedback that science in general has, so that we can see how well is it actually working and then take steps to improve it and then see how those steps work and then that way the system can evolve and become better and better, just like science does.

R: And just to clarify, Steve, so people know the way they figured out -

B: Right, what's right and wrong.

R: They did that by comparing the amount of times that judges and juries disagreed on a verdict. And I think that figure was something like 77%.

S: The agreement rate was 77%.

R: Yeah, they agreed, that's a huge amount of times that they're disagreeing, so figuring that one party must be wrong, that's how they came to their conclusions.

S: Yeah, although I couldn't figure out from the information that we have - because this is a yet-to-be-published study so we don't have the full details - is when they disagreed, they knew that one of them had to be wrong, but how did they figure out which one was wrong?

R: I'm assuming that they went with the last one -

S: The more recent one they assumed was the correct one?

R: Yeah.

P: Since we know there are errors because someone confesses later or there is DNA evidence.

S: Yeah, but did they use those criteria in this study, that's what I -

B: No, I don't think so.

R: No, I don't think that they would have that as a tool to use every time.

B: Yeah, I think the only criterium was the fact that there was discrepancy between what the judge said and what the jury said.

S: That's what it sounds like.

P: It's a tough thing to study. They did this with 290 cases and it's impressive that they even tried. 'Cos it is a tough thing to study and then really again at the end of just this piece they said "ok, assume this is all correct and it's happening, what's the fix?"

S: Mmm hmm.

P: And they said that's a lot tougher.

E: Oh yeah.

P: And they think it's mostly because if you have gone this far in a trial, people assume that you're probably guilty.

J: Yeah, you're right Perry, I mean just think about it. I would think I'd have to do something so heinous to get that far.

S: The other factor is that it's probably true, and certainly I've heard this as the "conventional wisdom," that most people who get arrested and find themselves in front of a jury or a judge probably have committed other crimes, and their criminal behavior's probably not isolated to that incident that got them into the courtroom in the first place. And some juries or judges may convict people because they figure they're probably guilty of something.

E: Pre-conceived notion.

S: Even though the evidence may not support their guilt on this particular crime, but, I'm not defending this, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying this is appropriate, but I'm saying this is probably one of the biases that is shifting the system in this direction. But how do you fix that? I don't know.

R: Robo-cop.

(laughter)

S: Robo-cop? Judge Dredd? I don't know.

R: I'm pretty sure he was never wrong.

E: Judge, jury and executioner.

Floods Are Judgment on Society, Say Bishops (22.31)

S: One more news item. This one comes from the UK. This is funny.

(laughter)

S: The Church of England bishops have been warning society that "immorality and greed of modern society is what has brought floods as the judgement of God down upon us."

J: I love this article.

R: It's 100% true. There's no other explanation.

S: So they said "this is a strong and definite judgement because the world has been arrogant in going its own way. We are reaping the consequences of our moral degradation as well as the environmental damage that we have caused." That's interesting. So God's mad at us for causing environmental damage so he sends floods?

(laughter)

S: "I'll show you environmental damage!"

P: And then he compares society to ancient Rome. What are you talking about?

S: I found that funny because the Roman Empire actually survived much longer -

P: Right!

S: - than the average empire, so that means that God must have really liked Rome.

J: Why?

S: To let it survive as long as it did.

J: I never understand the whole "God will take his revenge, God will show us" and he kills all of these innocent people and kids and old people. It's like, if God's going to do something like that, the innocent end up getting punished.

S: Yeah. And they say, they make some comment about that, he said that the problem with environmental judgement is that it is indiscriminate.

E: Aha.

R: Yeah, that is a problem. Maybe you should take that up with your god. Just a thought.

S: Yeah, how about some more precise bolts of lightning striking individuals or something.

R: Yeah, those were the good old days.

E: Or some really big solar flares would be cool.

J: I noticed that God didn't get even with the church for having sex with all those little boys though. So he's inconsistent as well.

E: No.

S: Ah, the tolerance of homosexuality is high on their list of why God is pissed off at us.

P: That is in here. But Jay, that of course was the Roman Catholics, okay, this is the Anglicans, so let's not mix our people up.

J: What are they -

E: Get your Roman popery out of this.

P: This is a quote from the Right Reverend Jim Jones, interesting name.

(laughter)

P: "People no longer see natural disasters as an act of God." He says "We are now reaping what we have sown. If we live in a profligate way, then we there are going to be consequences." It's good to know. That was from the Reverend Jim Jones. (laughs)

J: St Peter's coming!

E: Before or after everyone drank the Kool-Aid?

J: I've got a couple good quotes here. The Gay and Lesbian Humanist Association's chairman Jim Herrick came out with a couple good zingers. He said "the bishop's comments reveal a primitive superstitious mind that belongs in the Bronze Age." And he said "No wonder people are abandoning the Church of England in such huge numbers when it is led by silly people like him."

R: See that's how God is punishing the church for all that pedophilia, he's converting everybody to unbelievers. Take that!

P: That's right!

R: Makes about as much sense as anything else they claim he does.

S: Obviously the logic behind all of this is terrible. It's like "whatever happens, it was God's will, and God did it." If there's a flood, if there's no flood or whatever. Of course they can draw any correlation they want and rationalize it any way that they please, which is of course why it's utterly meaningless. But it is medieval superstition. Fire and brimstone kind of, beware of the wrath of God.

J: It's riddled with that fear thing. Fear of God.

E: God-fearing.

P: And the end of the piece they shove Katrina in here too, you know.

S: Of course.

R: Wasn't that what Jerry Falwell was all about.

E: Ubiquitous.

P: Billy Graham actually. Franklin Graham, Billy Graham's son: "there's been satanic worship in New Orleans. There's been sexual perversion. God is going to use that storm to bring revival. God has a plan. God has a purpose."

S: It's a regular Sodom and Gomorrah down there.

R: Yeah.

Questions and Emails (26.36)

HIV and Condoms (26.36)

S: Well let's move on to your emails. The first email comes from Christopher who insists that we do not shorten his name to Chris. And Christopher writes "Hello my skeptic warriors. I am Christopher from Chicago Illinois."

J: I like that!

E: I do too.

S: He gets points for that.

P: I'm like a comic book guy.

E: I have a +1 mace of reason!

R: Oh my God. I knew that was coming. (moaning)

J: Rebecca! You never play D&D?

R: No I've never played D&D.

J: Give me a break, of course you have.

P: She's a vegetarian hippy. She's not allowed to play D&D.

R: Oh my god.

S: "Anyways, I have been listening since this May and finally caught up with all your podcasts. I am sure you get enough thanks, but, thank you for your show." Actually we never get enough, so. "It really does bring hope into my life, as I am sure it brings hope to all your other listeners." Here's the question. Actually it's a very long question in two parts, but I'm going to just read part of it.

(laughter, moans)

E: Condense it.

P: I've only one question in 47 parts.

(laughter)

S: I hear from my only friend that latex condoms has little tiny holes that the HIV virus can travel through. Therefore, he chooses not to ever have sex, ever! This frustrates me" - I'm sure it frustrates him too - "since I took the time to look up this information on the internet and pretty much found nothing. The only thing I found that said condoms do not protect was religious websites."

So that's his basic question: does a latest condom protect against the transmission of HIV. He had trouble finding reliable data on the internet. All he found were religious websites saying that it doesn't work. Well, the CDC has information on this, with actual scientific information.

E: That's the Center for Disease Control.

S: Yeah, the CDC is the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta, Georgia. Actually I recently was reading an article where I discovered why the CDC was created in the first place and why it was located in Atlanta Georgia. Does anybody know?

All: Ah, um.

S: Science trivia question.

J: They like jambalaya?

E: To protect people against social diseases?

B: Was it the Spanish Flu, Steve?

E: Coca cola?

S: No, malaria. It was formed as a part of the war on malaria in the southern United States, which actually worked quite well because we eradicated malaria from the southern USA. It is the center for all infectious and transmissible diseases, including HIV. On their website they have some pretty good information that shows that latex condoms are actually quite effective in preventing transmission of HIV. Of course, nothing is 100% effective.

R: Yeah. The idea that latex condoms don't prevent HIV is extremist religious propaganda and it's one of those things that just does so much more harm than good, especially in places like Africa where they're telling people that not only does it not help but they're saying that it's actually causing the spread of HIV and AIDS.

S: Mmm hmm.

R: So people are not using condoms and it's just so stupidly misguided that it makes me want to -

J: It's criminal

R: - throttle someone.

S: Deliberate misinformation and it kills.

R: Condoms save lives.

S: The body count attached with this nonsense. So It is true that nothing is 100% except total abstinence but using latex condoms is a highly effective method for preventing the transmission of HIV so that is utter misinformation.

R: Yes, so give your friend this website and if he still doesn't want to have sex, then you're just going to have to find someone else. Give it up.

J: I think that guy's using it as an excuse 'cos he can't get any ladies. I'm afraid of AIDS so I won't have sex.

S: I don't think that's it.

J: You just can't find a woman, Jack.

S: Does that excuse work for you Jay?

J: Anyone who knows me knows that that's not even funny.

(laughter)

R: He had no comeback. Burn.

Chiropractic and Colic (30.46)

S: The next email comes from Adam Finley in Minneapolis, Minnesota. And Adam writes "My sister, after dealing with a crying and screaming baby for several long days and nights, decided to take the baby girl to a chiropractor. I'm not a medical expert, but I've read enough to be skeptical, so I questioned her about it. We had a long discussion, but here's the main point I don't entirely understand: My sister says all the nerves coming off the spine control different parts of the body, so if a nerve is pinched and causing pain somewhere, a chiro can "unpinch" that nerve and relieve the pain. I know some chiros claim that they can affect, say, things like asthma by manipulating the part of the spine connected to the lungs, which I'm fairly certain is nonsense." I'm fairly certain about that too. (laughter) "However, if the baby does have a pinched nerve, can the chiro actually unpinch that nerve and kill the pain (which may or may not be causing the baby to cry)?"

R: Without killing the baby.

S: Yeah without killing the baby. "My sister claims this is true because her husband suffered a brain injury a few years ago, and during his recovery they stimulated various parts of his spine to see if he could feel in other parts of his body."

P: A little lower baby.

(laughter)

S: "I'm just trying to wrap my head around all of this, and I'd like to know what, if anything, a chiro can offer in this instance. Also, I was concerned about a chiro handling a two-month old, but my sister claims he's very gentle."

E: Oh God.

S: "I'm still not convinced it's a good idea, though."

P: A two-month old!

S: Yeah.

E: I hate this stuff.

S: There's a lot of safety data on manipulation of two-months old. So obviously we've talked about chiropractic before. I think this is one of the worst aspects of unscientific chiropractors - the manipulation of infants and the treatment of colic. Colic is basically -

E: What is colic?

S: It's a very vague nonspecific syndrome which is basically a fussy crying baby when you can't figure out what's causing it.

E: Right.

S: Lumped in, it's just called colic. It's not really a specific medical entity. It's thought that it's like abdominal discomfort.

E: It's just how the baby's behaving?

S: Yeah, basically a colicy baby is just a fussy baby that cries all the time. And the suspicion is that it's mainly gastrointestinal discomfort but that's not really proven. Babies obviously can't tell us what they're really feeling, they just experience discomfort and cry, so it can be a very frustrating situation for the parents and for the baby. Some parents may struggle for a very long time to get their baby to be happy and quiet and it can be a serious problem in some cases. But there's no reason to assume that it's a pinched nerve. In fact it's very unlikely. Babies' spinal columns and their bones in general are very flexible. The haven't had enough time to form any degenerative changes or any boney kinds of changes. It would have to be some very specific pathology to be causing an actual pinched nerve in the spine. There's no evidence that manipulating the spine can un-pinch a nerve. In fact, an actual pinched nerve is a contra-indication to back manipulation.

R: Can you, what's a contra-indication?

S: It means you shouldn't do it.

R: Okay.

(laughter)

S: You're likely to make it worse.

R: I was trying to clarify.

S: You'll cause more damage to the nerve by doing that. Before we give physical therapy or any kind of manipulation you always have to clear a patient to prove they don't have nerve compression at the spine before you do that. To emphasize, there's no evidence that chiropractic manipulation can un-pinch nerves. And there's also no evidence that what they treat is due to pinched nerves.

J: Can I read something for you from this website called colichelp.com? "As your child is being born, the neck and back vertebrate can go out of alignment due to the stretching and compressing of the body as it emerges into the world. If your delivery included a prolonged pushing stage, forceps or vacuum extraction or other forms of assisted delivery, the chances of a misalignment are great." What do you think of that?

S: Yeah.

P: That's a chiro website obviously.

S: Yeah, they just make that up out of whole cloth. So because colic is a frustrating poorly understood entity, it becomes a lightning rod for quackery. Anybody with something to sell can sell can claim it treats colic, just like arthritis, asthma -

J: Fatigue

R: In this case even more so because your'e combining something that is not well-known and well-studied, or maybe well-studied but not well-known, with the fact that it's parents who are freaking out about the baby.

S: Yeah, right.

R: That's what parents do, they're highly protective and they're going to do anything they can to treat the baby as well as they can.

P: But why take it to a freaking chiropractor? This woman's dragging her 2-month-old to a chiropractor.

S: Desperation.

R: Because, Perry, they're going online and they're reading things like what Jay just read and they're saying "oh, well, yeah, that kinda makes sense and that must be it."

J: You know, Adam's sister, she just doesn't have the information. She doesn't know. Most people out there don't know.

S: So there are a lot of desperate parents out there who are looking for alternatives and they find that kind of nonsense online and they'll try it out of desperation and eventually something's going to work because eventually it stops.

R: And when they see a chiropractor, they're not thinking quack, they're thinking it's a doctor -

J: They're thinking medical doctor.

S: Yeah.

R: "This is somebody who is not going to do something dangerous to my child." So they're probably thinking that worst case scenario, they take it to the chiropractor and whatever is wrong with the baby is not fixed. That's worst case scenario. They don't really imagine the worst worst case scenario which is that the chiropractor could serious mess up this baby.

S: Yeah, well fortunately babies are pretty flexible and they're not as easily injured as adults are, so they probably weather it ok. The other thing is if the chiropractors are gentle then they're probably not doing anything. Not that if they do something it actually works, but at least, I'd rather have them do nothing than do something harmful.

E: But gee, to trust your 2-month-old baby in the hands of a non-physician.

J: Well, you basically, Evan, say it like it is - in the hands of most-likely a person who believes in magic.

S: Who has a very bizarre belief system that is not based upon science or reason.

Sagittarius Dwarf galaxy and us (37.15)

S: The next email comes from Petrucio.

This link: viewzone.com/milkyway.html tells us that the Solar System actually came from the Sagittarius Dwarf galaxy, currently orbiting and being eaten by the Milky Way. I've researched on the Sagittarius Dwarf galaxy and found out that it is true that the galaxy is currently interacting with the MilkyWay, and it is true that it is actually raining down stars in the area where Solar System is now, which I found surprising and very interesting: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sagittarius_Dwarf_Elliptical_Galaxy http://www.solstation.com/x-objects/sag-deg.htm

What I don't buy is the conclusion taken that the Solar System was actually a son of this galaxy and not the Milky Way, apparently explaining why our System is not aligned with the Milky Way, and the Milky Way is seen sideways to us in the sky.

I then reached a paragraph at the end that concludes that this interaction between the two galaxies is raising the 'energy levels' of the Milky Way, causing the Sun to burn hotter. Ahh, the Plot thickens. Parry is now probably liking this guy.

It seems to me that this is the result of one more attempt to explain away Global Warming as not caused by human action, now that the latest IPCC report has left less room for the Global Warming Skeptics (I think Parry is one of them) to maneuver.

I definitely do not have enough astronomical knowledge to argument with most of the stuff these guys are saying, but it looks like crap to me. I would love to hear your take on this, maybe an astronomer guest could also shed more light in the subject and tell us more about the very interesting story about the SagDEG and our other close neighbors.

Late congratulations on the 100th episode, I'm holding my breath for the 1000th, 17.3 years from now.

Petrucio Brazil

Bad Astronomy Blog entry on this topic: http://www.badastronomy.com/bablog/2007/06/28/alien-sun-followup/

Sickesz Followup ()

Dear Skeptics,

Thank you for a good podcast and in the latest edition drawing my attention to a case that happened in my old country the Netherlands (I have been living in Israel for nearly 10 years). The case of Sickesz vs. the Vereniging tegen de Kwakzalverij is indeed a terrible miscreant of Dutch justice. I very much hope the VtdK will appeal to the supreme court.

I have blogged about this at: anneisaman.blogspot.com/2007/07/perry-deangelis-is-right-sgu-podcast.html anneisaman.blogspot.com/2007/07/perry-deangelis-is-right-sgu-podcast.html

Cheers, Anne Frid de Vries

Name That Logical Fallacy ()

Hello guys!

Thank you for a very entertaining podcast. I tune in every week only because of its entertainment value. And you are doing a great job....

To assume the role of arbiters as to whether it is science or pseudo-science, on almost everything under the sun... it is simply arrogance...

You are using very simplistic arguments, which you call "logical reasoning", when in many cases things are much more complex...

You are acting as if you know everything... every subject matter. Come on guys a little humility...

The fact that you do not grasp certain concepts does not make them wrong and candidates to ridicule... Couldn't this be a measure of your own intrinsic limitations? Just a question...

Best regards,

Athanasios Zacharakopoulos

Athens, Greece

Skeptical Puzzle ()

This Week's Puzzle:

In 1967, a famous building was attacked. The attackers attempted to use supernatural abilities to drive out its evil spirits, and to disfigure and displace the building with its occupants inside. The attack failed.

Name the building.

Last Week's puzzle:

Identify the 6th number in this sequence:

.426
.424
.420
.420
.409
????

Answer: .408 (highest batting average of baseball hitters since 1900) Winner: Kanuck

Skeptical Quote of the Week ()

The primary tool of science is skepticism, whose light shrivels unquestioning faith.

Mike Huben, an American educator of some note.

S: The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe is produced by the New England Skeptical Society in association with the James Randi Educational Foundation. For more information on this and other episodes, please visit our website at www.theskepticsguide.org. Please send us your questions, suggestions, and other feedback; you can use the "Contact Us" page on our website, or you can send us an email to info@theskepticsguide.org'. 'Theorem' is produced by Kineto and is used with permission.

References