When Jett Travolta died, a great deal of lip service was given to the suggestion that Scientologists were forbidden from taking anti-seizure medication. This was fueled in part from the personal experience of Tory Christman, who was repeatedly told that her anti-epilepsy medication was preventing her spiritual progress. Jett, it was suggested, had been taken off his medication at the suggestion of the Church, which had in turn led to the seizure that killed him. The truth is probably forever out of reach on that one, but the church didn't help matters when it refused to make its position explicitly clear. You'll recall that they stated their policy was to recommend following one's doctor's advice for physical ailments, but never stated whether it considered autism or epilepsy as a phsyical or psychological ailment. This is akin to Tommy Davis saying that the widely reported OT3 story sounds crazy, but never confirming or denying that it is genuine. The truth so often hangs on these points of detail.

I've followed for some time My Scientology Blog, which is a vital source if you're interested in how Scientology chooses to present itself to the world at large. I'm not sure whether its author, Grahame, is fulfilling some kind of OSA detail or whether he is simply a public Scientologist, but either way he tends to present the Church's standard line on most matters. He also responds to questions. I genuinely admire Scientologists, and for that matter people of any faith, that keep the channels open. If they're willing to discuss their ideas and beliefs then they are willing to test them, and are more likely to be in a position to test other people's beliefs. This can only be progressive. It is true, though, that Grahame does have the odd infuriating habits. He will avidly wave about the expansion figures that the Church of Scientology puts out, but will not question them, or even why they were released not to the world media, but publish them in the magazine sold to existing Scientologists; not to convince the world at large that the church is not in trouble, but to convince the "base" of paying and obeying true believers.

But I digress.


Someone recently asked the following of Grahame:

I know Scientology opposes the drugging of society, but I am unclear as to precisely what extent it stands in opposition to drug consumption, i.e. absolute opposition vs. nuanced opposition.

What, if anything, does Scientology have to say, for example, about "moderate" caffeine and/or alcohol consumption? Are Scientologists discouraged from drinking beer and caffeinated soda?

This led to Grahame responding in detail about the difference between illegal drugs, medical drugs, and legal "every day" drugs such as nicotine and alcohol. This all seems fairly reasonable and sensible, despite him lumping in chiropractors and nutritionists with proper doctors, and later on admitting that he entertains the administration of discredited nineteenth century pseudoscience homeopathy. But he goes on to talk about drugs that are legal, but nevertheless "have been proven to be dangerous and to cause harm but are still on the market because the drug manufacturer makes billions from them". Familiar territory in these dark antivax days. To identify these he directs his readers to a Citizens' Campaign for Human Rights site. Avid readers will know that CCHR is a front group of Scientology, integral enough to the Church's grand mission to rid the world of psychiatry that they are mentioned in high management strategy documents.

The site consists of a searchable index of data culled from the FDA's Adverse Event Reporting System as it relates to various "psychiatric drugs" and lists adverse reactions relating to them. It's worth pointing out, and in fact the FDA do so, that these are medical events that have occured to people while taking medication. A reported adverse event does not demonstrate that the event was a reaction to the medication, and the reporting of them is to create sufficient anecdotal evidence to legitimise research into determining whether the drug was the actual cause. The CCHR, however, demonstrate no sense of caution, and are much more likely to leap to the conclusion that it was the meds what done it. As there site states:

The Oxford English Dictionary defines a poison as "a substance that causes death or harm when introduced into or absorbed by a living organism." These psychiatric drugs fit that definition.

That makes the following, perhaps a coincidence, perhaps not, worrying and potentially illuminates the sad fate that befell Jett Travolta. As reported in the LA Times, Jett was taken off anti-seizure medication because it had ceased to work. This may be true - people who suffer from seizures do adapt to their medication and will often have to switch from time to time in order to stay one step ahead of their condition. That would sit more comfortably were it not for the fact that Jett's medication, Depakote, is featured on the CCHR site, along with a long list of adverse events. So is the Church of Scientology for it, or against it? Grahame?

You're Ill! POW! You're Cured!

Something that has recently swum into the Beacon's purview is the use of Digital Infrared Thermal Imaging as a diagnostic tool for breast cancer. Remarkable claims have been made for this technology, the chief one being that it is capable of detecting cancer eight to ten years before traditional mammography.

Here's Healthy Life Essex on the subject. Note that they offer up DITI as a means of avoiding problems inherent with mass screening programs, despite the fact that the problems of mass screening aren't based on the technology as such, but what happens to the numbers of false positive and false negative results when applying the technology to a large number of people.

Here's Whollistic Medicine's penny's worth, too, complete with technical looking thermal pictures of some boobs. Whollistic tell us that "An abnormal infrared thermal image is the single most important marker of high risk for developing breast cancer, much more so than a family history of breast cancer." Pretty serious and useful technology, then?

Well, a search of Pub Med for the terms "digital infrared thermal imaging diagnosis breast cancer" came up with a grand total of four studies. One looked solely at women who had reached the biopsy stage and suggested that DITI is "a valuable adjunct to mammography and ultrasound, especially in women with dense breast parenchyma."

A second dealt with the technology itself. A third looked at the use of DITI in monitoring tumour growth in nude mice. Success with our mammalian cousins led the researchers to conclude that "thermographic imaging might have considerable potential in monitoring human tumor xenografts and their response to anticancer drugs." A fourth, dating back to 1998, discussed technological advances and suggested DITI may be useful. It is rational conjecture, but does not reflect clinical research into the use of DITI as a diagnostic tool.

I was a little over-selective in my search terms, and there exists more research out there, but nothing I've turned up makes the suggestion that DITI can detect cancers a decade before more established methods. Perhaps I have overlooked them; but do keep in mind that DITI only really started making a comeback in the 1990s, which doesn't offer very much possibility of such research existing. One would need to run a trial whereby women were routinely screened (proponents of DITI look for changes over time in scans as a means of detection), the "signature" of breast cancer identified retrospectively, and then for it to be applied in practice on a further trial group to establish the efficacy of the diagnostic procedure.

But the practitioners offering DITI as a diagnostic tool aren't all that bothered about evidence. The Essex article refers to practitioners Billy and Wendy Bradford, who run the Beechwood Clinic, Cambridge. £175 covers your "baseline" scan and 90 day scan. You're then charged a further £175 a year. Annual scans are, of course, advised. Other services on offer are reflexology and Indian Head Massage.

Whollistic Medicine is run by Dr. Shamim Daya and also offers acupuncture, bio-identical hormones, flower therapy, and Electro-lymphatic therapy (which runs on inert gas and quantum mechanics).

Here's a chiropractor offering DITI.

Here's a homeopathist offering DITI.

You get my point.

But what I find most interesting about this is the unique marketing opportunity DITI poses for CAM. We use phsyical examination, mammography and biopsy to detect cancers. Infrared Imaging claims to pre-empt this process by a decade, and it is being sold by people who are willing to make claims about treatments for which there is no evidence of efficacy.

So say someone undergoes DITI scanning and is told that they should see their GP as the scan suggests they have cancer. Note that, strictly speaking, practitioners themselves can't diagnose. The customer goes to their GP who, understandably, cannot detect a cancer. DITI operators trade in "peace of mind". That's why the scans are targeted at younger women (well, that and the Kylie effect) for whom mammography isn't a very good test. DITI offers the comfort of a "certain" negative result.

But if someone tests positive, then they are stuck. No medical doctor will treat a cancer that isn't there. So if the customer is "refused treatment" their first port of call will no doubt be the DITI clinic, who will then be in the choice situation of treating a cancer that isn't there with medicine that doesn't work.

They say the perfect con is one where the mark never realises he's been duped, and maybe even feels better for it. When you allow practitioners to diagnose cancers no-one else can detect, and then allow them to offer treatments for them, and can even have those treatments appear to work, then you have pretty much achieved perfection.

Dear ***********,

The Complementary and Natural Healthcare Council (CNHC) received £900,000 of state funding in order to set up as a voluntary regulatory body for complementary and alternative medicine (CAM).

Their initial 2009 target for membership was 10,000. This was later reduced to 4,000. As it currently stands the Council have attracted little more than a quarter of this (1,029).
It seems that there is a deep philosophical conflict here. The main goal of the CNHC is to create a sense of respectability and legitimacy for alternative medicine. However this can only be achieved if the organisation puts in place a code of conduct that emphasises a level of honesty and openness about its medical claims, and the adoption of disciplinary procedures for practitioners guilty of misconduct.

Much of complementary and alternative medicine not only lacks an evidence base showing efficacy, but has a large body of evidence demonstrating a lack of efficacy. Practitioners are therefore unlikely to sign up to a a code of conduct that may forbid making unproven claims, facing up to the evidence that their treatments are ineffective, or encouraging patients to cease conventional treatments (there is a strong belief in CAM that conventional medicine is damaging). This seems to be borne out by the CNHC's figures, and it is no accident that the organisation has been most popular with massage therapists, a field that makes much more modest claims than chiropractors and acupuncturists.

It's also worth comparing CNHC to organisations such as the British Chiropractic Association. It too offers a veneer of respectability, but its code of practice chiefly concerns not bringing the BCA itself into disrepute; as this is the case, one must ask what the BCA is actualy for, and what it offers its members beyond the use of a logo.

I am writing to ask for some kind of assurance that, should the CNHC fail to meet their targets this year, it will be considered a sign that there is no market for a self-regulatory body for CAM, and that they will not be in a position to receive further funding.

Yours sincerely,

********

The French Verdict

As has been widely reported, the trial earlier in the year of the French chapter of the Church of Scientology has reached a verdict and has found the Church guilty of fraud. They have imposed a fine on the Paris bookshop to the value of €600,000 (£544,000/$901,000) along with fines on individual Church staff members.

There will now inevitably be a washing of hands; we know this, because we have been here before. Karen Pouw or Tommy Davis will explain that the French trial reflects the actions of a few bad apples, inevitable in any organisation, and that they would be rooted out (indeed, routed out) and expelled. If such statements are made, let's recall a couple of points.

Firstly, the actions that led to the trial are not practices that are peculiar to a few malicious church members. As CNN reports,

the plaintiffs focused their complaints on the use of a device that Scientologists say measures spiritual well-being. Members used the electropsychometer, or E-Meter, to "locate areas of spiritual duress or travail so they can be addressed and handled," according to Scientology's Web site.

The plaintiffs said that, after using the device, they were encouraged to pay for vitamins and books. They said that amounted to fraud.

So the fraudulent activities of the Church involved offering personality tests, falsely diagnosing personality defects, and then selling books and vitamins to correct those defects. They invent a problem, and sell a fake remedy to alleviate it. These are the standard business practices of the church, not some Slatkin-esque Ponzi scheme wicked staff members were running on the side.

The second thing to point out is that although society at large has deemed Church staff out ethics, they are not going to be viewed as out ethics within the church (beyond the high crime of getting caught). This echoes Operation Snow White, where a large number of church members were found guilty of breaking into federal buildings with an aim to destroy records. Following the verdict, we were told that those involved, many of whom were high-ranking Church members, would be expelled, but they were not expelled.

The French trial ruled that the Church not be dissolved, but that it could only continue within the law. It will be very interesting to see whether such a restriction, considering how the law has been defined in relation to the Church's commercial practices, will become a de facto order of dissolution any way.

UPDATE

Well I couldn't have been wronger! Tommy Davis has now played the "religious freedom" card instead. I guess the question, then, is whether or not religious freedom should mean "free to break the law".

Being Normal

On Wednesday the ASA upheld a complaint about an ad for Danone's Actimel product. Danone, the multi-billion dollar food giant, couldn't provide sufficient evidence to prove that a child that drinks Actimel daily will have a healthier immune system than a child that doesn't. They supplied the ASA with various studies, but each one was flawed, for instance by looking at much larger servings, or focusing exclusively on Indian children suffering from diarrhea. Danone's view was that although none of the papers proved the benefits existed, they formed some kind of patchwork quilt that added up to proper evidence. Quite rightly, the ASA didn't agree, and the claim can no longer be made. The jury is still out, pretty much, on whether eating live bacteria of the kind that is found in your gut will have a positive impact on those bacteria and, in turn, a positive impact on your health. Danone, perhaps realising that it is easier and cheaper to market their supposition than to seek out the evidence, don't seem concerned enough about the question to fund any quality research into it; there's more profit in "maybe". Which is a shame.

But really I'm not all that concerned either way in gut flora and the reality or otherwise of the healthy benefits of probiotics. What does concern me, and this has been commented on by better brains than mine, is the way these claims and ideas and behaviours are being normalised in the lives of children.

Now, it is fine to teach children of the importance of nutrition, that they will be healthier if they enjoy a varied diet and eat lots of fruit and vegetables. What is not fine, however, is to over-medicalise food. Actimel is a yogurt. Here's how it's marketed.



It's given a small unique portion, and the caveat, which not only manages to conflate any effect it might have with the effect of having a properly balanced diet, is reminiscent of doseage instructions, and most obviously of all there is no information on the actual eating experience. Nothing about flavour, consistency, product colour... I have no idea what Actimel is like beyond that it comes in little white bottles.

But that's all fine, if you're peddling this stuff exclusively to grown adults who ought to know better. It gets a bit more sinister, though, when the target market is children. Kids don't know that we, as a race, have survived in all manner of conditions and environments without the need to specifically target their intestinal flora. If a well-meaning mother turns around and teaches her child that they need a pot of gloop a day then it will be taken on board. It will be normalised. And it's that that is so concerning, that sense that these companies are getting to people when they're young, laying the foundations for future, on-going, relentless, lucrative behaviour.

The Durham fish oil "trials" are another example; little more than a science hoax about the impact of taking a pill on a child's school performance that normalises the taking of supplements; to start each morning with a bowl of all-bran and three pills. That's the consequence, intended or otherwise, of the "smart pill" phenomenon, to teach children that the normal way of living involves popping pills. Goldacre makes the point that in many of these cases, the pill is there not even to solve or benefit the individual in a particular way, but to solve a social ill. If you take this pill three times a day, you'll manage to get your school out of special measures.

And finally, that is the consequence of kiddy chiropractic, and a plausible motivation for chiropractic practitioners to promote spine manipulation as a treatment for colic, sleeping and feeding problems, frequent ear infections, asthma and prolonged crying. Chiropractic treatment, with its belief in interrupted flows of innate intelligence, is a form of alternative medicine; by seeking out children to treat, chiropractics can normalise their treatments, safeguarding future custom.

Underground Updated

I got the following response back from the ASA on the Zhea Clinic ad.

Dear Mr Xxxxxxx

YOUR COMPLAINT ABOUT THE ZHAI CLINIC

Thank you for your continued patience.

We have
visited the Zhai Clinic website which provides further information about Dr
Zhai. It states that she is qualified in both western and Chinese
medicine. It also appears that the Zhai Clinic practises both western and
Chinese medicine. On that basis and without further evidence to suggest
otherwise, I’m afraid we do not have grounds to pursue this matter further.

If you can provide evidence to show that Dr Zhai does not hold a
qualification in western medicine and more detail about why you believe the
clinic does not have a 70% success rate, please forward it to me. In the
meantime however I will close our file.

Our website, www.asa.org.uk, contains further information about the ASA and
the work we do.

To be honest, I am no expert on fertility treatment so I took this opportunity to get more acquainted with the success rates of infertility treatment. Taking figures from the HFEA I found that the 70% figure, if it represents a treatment cycle success rate, is about double the average success rate. And the London Fertility Centre's success rates match those average success rates. The ad does say that over 70% of couples following the Zhea clinic's programs go on to conceive, which might explain the discrepancy; these programs may consist of more than one treatment cycle. This, to me, would nevertheless still be misleading; if the program consists of as many treatment cycles as it takes to conceive (with, presumably, less chance each time), then is it still a single program in any real terms?

Added to that is the fact that these treatments clearly aren't "natural", and the TCM plays little if any part in efficacy. Dot dot dot

Dear Xxxxx,

Seventy percent is a very high success rate for any kind of fertility
treatment. Traditional IVF treatment offers about 30% success if the woman is
under 35, and that figure only decreases with age.

Furthermore the ad is making a claim about conceiving "the
natural way" and is bringing in traditional Chinese medicine as a route to
that natural conception. I don't see how they can say that IVF or related
treatments can be deemed natural methods of conception.

Also I was unable to find Dr Zhai on the GMC database, although
I've since learnt that the Zhai Clinic is a satellite for the London
Fertility Centre.

Kind regards,

Xxxxxxx.

The Parliamentary Question Carter Ruck and Trafigura don’t want you to see

Thanks to the work of Don't Get Fooled Again...

From The Guardian

The Guardian has been prevented from reporting parliamentary proceedings on legal grounds which appear to call into question privileges guaranteeing free speech established under the 1688 Bill of Rights. Today’s published Commons order papers contain a question to be answered by a minister later this week. The Guardian is prevented from identifying the MP who has asked the question, what the question is, which minister might answer it, or where the question is to be found. The Guardian is also forbidden from telling its readers why the paper is prevented – for the first time in memory – from reporting parliament. Legal obstacles, which cannot be identified, involve proceedings, which cannot be mentioned, on behalf of a client who must remain secret. The only fact the Guardian can report is that the case involves the London solicitors Carter-Ruck, who specialise in suing the media for clients, who include individuals or global corporations.

From Parliament.uk,

“Questions for Oral or Written Answer beginning on Tuesday 13 October 2009″
(292409)
61

N Paul Farrelly (Newcastle-under-Lyme): To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment he has made of the effectiveness of legislation to protect (a) whistleblowers and (b) press freedom following the injunctions obtained in the High Court by (i) Barclays and Freshfields solicitors on 19 March 2009 on the publication of internal Barclays reports documenting alleged tax avoidance schemes and (ii) Trafigura and Carter-Ruck solicitors on 11 September 2009 on the publication of the Minton report on the alleged dumping of toxic waste in the Ivory Coast, commissioned by Trafigura.

The question above may or may not be the subject of the gagging order. Who can say?

The Guardian covers the Trafigura case, and why it matters, here. Private Eye have also been making some noise about the gagging laws, and how ridiculously open to abuse they are.

And Twitter is alive with coverage, which raises the question that, if gagging orders are so easy to sidestep, isn't it time we got rid of them all together?