Nonsense on Stilts 2019

Blimey, it’s been a bugger of a year, hasn’t it? Here we are again with a roundup of the mad, the bad and the dangerous in health, diet, the supernatural and the plain daft.

To whet your appetite, here’s a clever and funny illustration of how 'improper correlation or extrapolation of data can result in dangerously flawed conclusions'. In other words, how to lie with numbers. Sound familiar? This data fandango is called Cigarette smoking: an underused tool in high-performance endurance training

HEALTH & DIET

Let’s ease in with a quick one.

Pink Himalayan sea salt ‘is a triumph of marketing over science and common sense… In fact, its vaunted “84 trace minerals and elements” include several poisons and many radioactive elements’. But it is pretty, like Barbie salt.

Back in the 2017 round-up we looked at Miracle Mineral Solution (MMS) claims to be a cure for autism among other things. And here it is back again. 

A British man who was part of the Global Healing Christian Mission was charged for carrying out illegal medical trials and touting industrial bleach as an MMS cure for HIV, malaria and cancer in Uganda.

And in America, Genesis II Church of Health and Healing promotes a miracle cure for 95% of all diseases. Yes, it’s our old friend industrial bleach, a chemical that cannot be sold for human consumption in the US. The Church is charging $450 or $800 per couple for membership and packages of sacraments. Which are packages of bleach. Very sacred.

The World Health Orginisation has added anti-vaxxers to global health threats along with air pollution and Ebola. Measles cases spiked in 2018 due to a ‘gaps in vaccination coverage’ according to the WHO, and diphtheria is making a comeback.At the end of 2019 the WHO reports serious outbreaks in 33countries worldwide while low trust in vaccines is a global crisis. Samoa has declared a state of emergency it’s that bad.

Meanwhile, middle class parents in the UK who think they know the meaning of ‘evidence’ are still not vaccinating their kids. If they eat enough kale, they’ll be fine.

As if not vaccinating children wasn’t enough, now the anti-vax dementia has spread to pets. “They are sentencing their dog to death from one of the most shocking, horrible viruses you can imagine,” says vet Sam Kovac. “If a disease as contagious, as horrific and with a high mortality rate as parvovirus existed for humans, this conversation would be so different.”

There is no such thing as autism in dogs. No such thing.

Is the third Monday in January the most depressing day of the year? No. Blue Monday is a MADE UP THING. This says it all: 'it's the result of a (...) formula thought up by a psychologist'. Thought up is a polite way of saying  HE MADE IT ALL UP. Mental health charity Mind commented: 'We think [it] is dangerously misleading'.

There’s always someone trying to sell us something to shove up our ladygardens. Now the Goddess Vaginal Detox Pearl will cleanse our wombs of our past sexual partners. Just shove the pearl made of herbs and supplements up your vagina and pray away the ex’s bad energy.  Yes, all you men, there is bad energy coming out of your manhood. You’re meant to leave it in for 24 hours. Can we all say Toxic Shock Syndrome?

It occurred to me that there is no equivalent male product to cleanse them of the vibes of evil ex-girlfriends. Then it occurred to me that there is. It's called beer.

Is your vagina a vegetable? No? Is it a lovely treacle pudding? No? Then don’t steam it. Vaginal steaming involves sitting over a hot water and herb mix to ‘cleanse’ it. Steaming and other treatments, including vulva facials, are now available at some salons and spas. And yes, Gwyneth Paltrow does recommend them. Dr Vanessa Mackay, a consultant and spokeswoman for the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (aka someone who actually knows what she’s talking about), says it is a myth that the vagina requires extensive cleaning or treatment. What’s more, steaming has caused serious burns.

I was reluctant to Google vulva facials but on your behalf I boldly went.

Not surprisingly, “I do not recommend vajacials,” advises Dr. Millheiser, OB-GYN, professor at Stanford University Medical Center. “They are not medically necessary and women should not feel like they need to get them done… Most estheticians who perform vajacials are not trained in vulvar skin… Vajacials always leave you prone to infection, including STIs”.

Never let the truth get in the way of a good scare headline. A study of 300,000 adolescents and parents in the UK and USA shows that only 0.4% of wellbeing in adolescents is associated with technology use. Comparatively, eating potatoes has nearly as negative an effect, and wearing glasses has a more negative effect on adolescent mental health than screen use. And yet this story refuses to die, like a zombie of wrongness.

Is too much screen time bad for children generally, though? Shouldn’t they be outside bouncing a ball or skipping or throwing stones at squirrels or whatever children did in the olden days? Endless media reports say yes, the evidence says – ‘some research suggests that young people who report higher social media use show slightly lower levels of wellbeing, most of these findings are unreliable and their conclusions might amount to little more than statistical noise … results indicated that 99.6% of  the variability in adolescent girls’ satisfaction with life had nothing to do with how much they used social media’. So yes, it’s just another moral panic and the squirrels are safe.  BUT THE INTERNET IS EATING CHILDREN’S BRAINS.  Shh, now.

Of course, technology can very seriously damage your health if you spend your time on alt med sites. An oncologist’s experience of dealing with patients who ditch treatment for ‘alternative’ medicine:

‘But what I have learnt in the last few years is that cancer patients in search of alternative cures are more deeply entrenched than ever in their beliefs. Thanks to the rise of social media, the ability to filter out conflicting viewpoints and a bevy of supporters for every outrageous idea, these people arrive convinced about their theories. Arguing with them is a fool’s errand…. This is despite the fact that patients who solely choose alternative therapies have a greater than twofold risk of mortality, and those with early-stage cancers such as those of the breast and bowel face a four to sixfold increase in mortality compared with those who have standard therapy.’

Do dietary supplements and vitamins boost brain health? No they do not.

According to figures from the US, sales of so-called ‘memory supplements’ doubled between 2006 and 2015 to $643m. More than a quarter of adults over 50 in the US regularly take supplements in an attempt to keep their brain in good health.

But a global panel of experts says there is little evidence that these supplements help healthy older people, and that they could even pose a risk to health. “The big problem is that these things are being marketed to people as if they have evidence,” said Linda Clare, professor of clinical psychology of ageing and dementia at the University of Exeter.

Never mind, just skin up and chill out. Cannabis is turning out to have real medicinal benefits – but also a great potential for exploiting the gullible. Sellers in the UK are careful not to claim any specific medical benefits for their products because of a lack of clinical evidence. Products range from CBD water (sold in clear bottles that mean the sensitive compound swiftly degrades), to cooking or massage oils, pills, chewing gum, transdermal patches, pessaries (oh great, something else to shove up there), gin, beer and lube (I hate to think…). Lab tests analysed high-street offerings and found that more than half of the most popular CBD oils sold do not contain the level of CBD promised on the label.

A wellness company has withdrawn a £250 IV fertility drip after experts said it could "exploit vulnerable women". Get A Drip offers therapies including the slim drip, anti-ageing drip and mood-boost drip at places like Westfield shopping centre in London. The British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS) said there was "no evidence" its treatment could improve fertility.

Products start at £75 for ‘basic hydration’ - using a solution of salt, bicarbonate, potassium and calcium - and rise to £3,000 for a three-stage skin brightening therapy, which adds the antioxidant glutathione and a high dose of vitamin C. Katherine O'Brien, associate director of communications and campaigns at BPAS, said the fertility drip offered an unproven "quick fix at an extortionate cost".

 Even the Daily Mail has finally got on board with both vaccine promotion and the anti-homeopathy campaign. They quote NHS Chief Simon Stevens who ‘accuses practitioners of spreading toxic 'misinformation' about jabs, which poses 'a significant danger to human health'. He also wants the medical watchdog to de-list the Society of Homeopaths from its official register of professional organisations, saying the body's inclusion sends a message to patients that homeopathic remedies are as safe and effective as clinically-tested medicines.  And that is very probably the only time the DM will feature in one of these round-ups in a positive light.

The latest miracle cure-all is celery juice. For this we can thank the Medical Medium aka Anthony William who claims he communicates with the Spirit of Compassion to get ‘extraordinarily accurate health information that’s often far ahead of its time.’

He claims that celery juice reverses inflammation by starving pathogenic bacteria and viruses, and that it provides relief from cancer and diabetes. Also, (randomly) raspberries remove viral debris from the bloodstream.

 And yes, La Paltrow’s website Goop is promoting him. This is not just some minor passing fad. He has more than 2 million Instagram followers and another 3.4 million on Facebook. Although his site claims to ‘reveal truth about chronic illnesses you won't hear anywhere else’ it also says none of the information he provides should be considered ‘a promise of benefits, a claim of cures, a legal warranty or a guarantee of results to be achieved.’ The Spirit of Compassion clearly has a good spirit lawyer making sure it never says anything it could get sued for.

If you’re bored with your current diet, try the werewolf diet. Famous people do it so it must be good. 

ETA: A late entrant in the skeptic Parade of Shame. The steaming pile of dangerous bollix and supplement ads preying on the vulnerable and desperate that is the magazine What Doctors Don't Tell You has rebranded as Get Well. Its current front page is touting a cure for autism involving dietary change, a mercury detox and cranosacral therapy to balance the bones of the head. More red flags there than a communist rally. The National Autistic Society has commented that the claims are 'deeply irresponsible'.

The magazine is on sale in many supermarkets. If it's in yours, let them know how much harm it does - preferably on Twitter as they hate being publicly shamed. If they say it's 'customer choice' ask when they'll start stocking guns.

GENERAL NONSENSE

Uri Geller said he would stop Brexit using the power of his mind over Theresa May. I wrote this first in March and now here we are in December and still no result. 

But he has now claimed that he gave Boris a magic spoon that helped him win the election so it would seem he has switched sides on Brexit. Just when I was about to start taking him seriously …

In April he claimed on Twitter that he caused the burst pipes in the House of Commons that closed it down for the day: ‘Yes I did it @HouseofCommons! I bent the pipes, and I won't apologise, you all deserve it!’. So he’s confessing to vandalism and criminal damage, then?

Some research ‘finds’ that psychopaths like black coffee and other bitter tastes. What is this fascination with telling people they may be a psychopath? Or with telling everyone that you are? It could be quite a handy way for signposting if someone you’ve just met is a twat though. The police are hardly going to be rubbing their hands at this brilliant new way of solving crimes. Forcing suspects to drink black coffee or eat a radish isn’t going to make it into the training manuals any time soon.

Can regular oral sex help prevent miscarriage by boosting the immune system? According to research, ‘questionnaire results showed that the women who hadn't lost any pregnancies were performing more oral sex on their partners than average’. Correlation, as all good little skeptics know, does not equal causation.

The media of course love stories about sex, especially when they can use pictures of women on their knees servicing a man.

Anyone who has had a miscarriage can do without this cruel nonsense and all women can do without being told that their health and happiness depend on cocks.

There’s an excellent and thorough takedown of the ‘research’.

If you speak Italian, why not pop over to Rome and learn how to become an exorcist? The Catholic Church has opened its exorcism course up to all denominations. “Many young people display a certain attraction and interest toward themes tied to esotericism, magic, the occult, Satanism, witchcraft, vampirism and contact with a presumed supernatural world” apparently. Although if it’s just a ‘presumed’ supernatural world rather than a ‘real’ one, what’s the fuss about?

Does practice make perfect? Malcolm Gladwell became a cheerleader for the idea that it takes 10,000 hours of practice to become brilliant at something but research has now proved this wrong because researchers ‘used unusual methods that inflated their chances of finding results deemed statistically significant’.

‘The deliberate practice view and the 10,000-hours rule fall prey to the single-cause fallacy: trying to explain complex human behaviour with a single source. Human skill is complex, and a number of factors, both environmental and genetic, and their interactions, contribute to explaining differences across individuals.’

There are two morals to this story, Firstly, that Gladwell got it wrong. Secondly, the man who came up with the 10,000 hour idea in the first place explained why Gladwell had got the wrong end of the stick back in 2012. From which we learn that so-called revolutionary, breakthrough research may not be. People have short memories. At best, this new research confirms and adds to what we already knew.

A hidden door sealed shut behind a fake wall in Nottingham's most haunted building was opened to reveal a five-pointed pentagram star made from charcoal, a grubby old teddy bear and a collection of white candles burnt to their stubs. "Since we've opened it, a few people have complained of having headaches. My daughter, who never gets headaches, got a really bad pressure behind her eyes," says Marie, who isn't bothered by skeptics or non-believers, according to the article. Good for her. Hail Satan.

For an excellent skeptical look at popular myths about history, you can’t get better than the Going Mediaeval blog. Lazy journos and others get taken to task with wit, swearing and great accuracy. So-called Renaissance art?There’s no such thing as the Dark Ages? Ghengis Khan? Plus lots of sex. 

In other news from the Middle Ages, Cardinal Newman has been made a saint. His two miracles were: ‘In 2000, Jack Sullivan, from Boston, Massachusetts, had just completed the second year of a four-year course to become a deacon when he was struck by crippling back pain. "I certainly needed a divine favour at that moment, so I prayed: 'Please Cardinal Newman help me to walk so that I can return to classes and be ordained'," said Mr Sullivan. When he woke the next morning, the pain had gone, allowing him to complete his third year of classes before the pain returned, on the final day of the academic year.’

…and

‘In May 2013, expectant mother Melissa Villalobos was suffering from unstoppable internal bleeding that threatened the life of her child in the womb, according to the Birmingham Oratory. "In prayer she directly and explicitly invoked Newman's intercession to stop the bleeding," it said. "The miraculous healing was immediate, complete, and permanent."

I thought the Vatican was more cautious about declaring medical miracles now that it’s so easy to debunk the claims, especially anything relating to back pain. Who hasn’t had a bad back that clicked in for a while and then starting hurting again? But then, God does move in mysterious ways which apparently include just suspending pain rather than curing it – which seems a bit mean.

Further proof that psychics are bad for your health. A paranormal psychic blogger from Doncaster has been fined for careless driving after he was caught hosting online sessions while driving. Maybe his spirit guide had both hands on the wheel.

Here’s a ghost that turned up in Exeter.

For a monthly vaccination against nonsense, London Skeptics in the Pub has been running for twenty years. The original and the best. Join us.

NONSENSE ON STILTS 2018

Here we go again, then. The annual round-up of the good, the bad and the ugly in healthcare, nutrition and general daftness.

Let’s start with some good news: this is a great thread by Simon Singh on Skeptic successes in the past few years. 

HEALTH

Following a consultation, the Charity Commission has decided that charities must support their alternative medicine claims with good scientific evidence.

In other good news, homeopathy is no longer publicly funded on the NHS – and about bloody time too - but of course they won’t go down without a fight: homeopaths are going to take the NHS to court. 

Homeopathic vets also had a hissy fit because the RCVS demands its members use evidence-based treatments. Because science doesn’t know everything, right? Even though vets are scientists. 

Cancer patients using alt med rather than conventional treatments have a worse survival rate. And it’s not just people self-treating; research finds that ‘Doctors who are attracted to homeopathy despite a lack of evidence may be generally less good at keeping up to date on treatment guidelines and safety alerts or be less willing to work with colleagues to improve. Doctors who offer it to patients tend to do worst on scores for effective use of conventional medicines.'

Mixing alt med with real meds is like running an unsupervised and potentially deadly experiment.  Natural does not equal better. Or safe. Look at what happened to that great self-doser Dr Jekyll.

Twenty years on, the legacy of the MMR vaccine and autism scare lies continues to take its toll across Europe. Cases of measles have hit a record high, according to the World Health Organization. Experts blame the surge in infections on a drop in the number of people being vaccinated. Although, inevitably, it’s a bit morecomplicated than that.

There has been some interesting research on how anti-vax attitudes correlate with belief in conspiracy theories and how this may affect pro-vax campaigns. It’s not surprising that there would be cross-overs as the same mindset is transferrable from one false belief to another.

It wouldn’t be a Skeptic Round-up without some mention of La Paltrow. Don’t put coffee up your bum even if she tells you to. And don’t use live bee stings either, even if she says ‘I’m open to anything. I’ve been stung by bees. It’s actually pretty incredible if you research it.’ Probably not so incredible for the bees, though.

Paltrow says anyone who challenges the healing powers of her 'wellness' products is against the empowerment of women. As if that passive aggressive act would shut down all debate. Lucky for us, her main challenger is a woman.  The wonderful Dr Jen Gunter attended the GOOP conference and reported from the frontline of 'wellness' where she found that the Goop store is “90% quackatorium, and there was no evidence supporting Gwyneth Paltrow’s claim that Goop does not engage in pseudoscience as a commercial venture."

There is some good news. Goop has agreed to pay a substantial settlement over unproven claims about the health benefits of its infamous vaginal eggs.  ‘Under the settlement Goop is banned from making any claims regarding the efficacy of its products without reliable scientific evidence.’

Enough about her.

Plain packaging doesn’t decrease the number of smokers – quite the opposite. It’s also failed in France and Australia. It certainly wouldn’t have deterred me when I smoked. The intention may be to deter new smokers (children) but it's impossible to determine accurately whether any one factor has an influence on either current or potential smokers.

A naturopath treated a child with rabid dog saliva to cure behavioural problems, claiming he was in a ‘dog state’. She claimed that "The dog that bit him may have recently been vaccinated with the rabies vaccine or the dog bite in and of itself may have affected the boy with the rabies miasm … Either is possible and the phenomenon is well-known in homeopathy. A bite from an animal, with or without rabies vaccination has the potential to imprint an altered state in the person who was bitten, in some ways similar to a rabies infection."

A miasm is a homeopathic term for ‘the ghost of the disease state still rampant in the energy system.’  The non-homeopathic definition of the word is ‘noxious exhalations from putrescent organic matter; poisonous effluvia or germs polluting the atmosphere’. Pretty much sums it up. Just as well it wasn’t a werewolf that bit him.

Another naturopath is promoting peat tampons. Just don’t go there. 

DIET

Weight loss magnets – at last, what we’ve all been waiting for! Oh, wait a minute … This is why magnets don’t work like that.

Taking fish oil supplements for a healthy heart is nonsense says a Cochrane report.

Is sugar the new heroin? Normally everything ‘bad’ is compared with smoking these days. And ‘bad’ has become shorthand for ‘I disapprove of…’ Sugar is not addictive. Repeat. Sugar is not addictive. Sugar is not addictive.

The truth about Public Health England’s sugar reduction scheme: ‘The idea is to reduce sugar content in most foods by 20 per cent by 2020. The first target was a five per cent reduction by 2017 but this has not happened. It was never likely to happen. Instead, there has been a two per cent reduction across the eight categories that PHE is most interested in… Food companies need little incentive to shrink their products while keeping the price the same (Nestlé and Mars were frantically shrinking their products before the sugar reduction plan officially began - and before Brexit). But the government is now encouraging them to do it. Indeed, it is effectively compelling them to do it because that is the only realistic way of cutting sugar content in chocolate, confectionery and biscuits, which are the main sources of sugar.’

In some cases, the sugar content has gone down but overall calories have gone up. If you take the sugar out you have to put something in so that the product doesn’t taste like cardboard smeared in brown fat.

And other research states "We were unable to find evidence that any sugar tax actually implemented anywhere in the world has led to improvements in health." Sorry, Jamie Oliver. 

Water has become a big fad this year. There has been a new raw water craze. Mmm yummy poo and germs and bits of twig and insects and insect poo.

Need a mental boost? Try rosemary water. Only £4 a bottle. Check out the science section: ‘The herb features in Greek mythology, the New Testament, and Shakespearean drama’. Yes, it did say science.

Or there’s alkaline water that has been treated to have a higher pH level than the usual 6.5-7.5. The makers say it provides “better hydration” and is “designed to obtain optimum body balance” because it “uses specialized electronic cells coated with a variety of rare earth minerals to produce scientifically engineered water”.

Science says: “Your body regulates its [blood] pH in a very narrow range because all our enzymes are designed to work at pH 7.4. If our pH varied too much we wouldn’t survive… you’re literally just flushing money down the drain”.

GENERAL NONSENSE

A sceptical look at the long history of Personality Testing – including the bunk that is Myers-Briggs which is basically corporate astrology. 

Exorcism is on the rise. These truly are the Dark Ages.

A Mexican priest claims: ‘The vast majority of people who see him have normal problems or mental illnesses, and he says he has sent people to seek psychiatric help. But he says 2-3% show signs of demonic “vexation” … His subjects, he says, have problems that cannot be explained in normal medical terms. One, who he believes may have been cursed by her mother-in-law, feels an almost constant sensation of daggers entering her legs, knitting needles in her arms, and a clenched hand at her chin. Another was so obsessed by self-gratification that he masturbated 40 times a day. “Normally speaking it is humanly impossible … so that is a satanic thing”.’

I do like the term ‘vexation’ and will attempt to use it in general conversation. How does the woman know what daggers entering her legs actually feel like, or knitting needles in her arms? As a knitter, I can say that it would be bloody hard to stab with a knitting needle, they’re just not sharp enough. I’d use an embroidery needle.

It’s not just Mexico where exorcism is on the rise. A top Irish exorcist called for more exorcists because ‘there has been increasing evidence of the malicious activity of the evil one’. Pope Francis gave formal recognition to the International Association of Exorcists in 2014. According to Fr Collins, ‘it’s only in recent years that the demand has risen exponentially’ and he blames ‘a growing apostasy within the Church’. Scare tactics, then. Come back to Church or the Evil One will get you.

The ‘malicious activities of the evil one’ has a great ring to it. I shall be using it to refer to anyone I don’t like in future.

According to vets, the government is being very economical with the truth about the efficacy of badger culling: “Badger culling has not worked. They are issuing barefaced lies in this matter." The former head of DEFRA’s wildlife epidemiology unit who advised the department on its TB strategy for more than 40 years says: "Defra has been cherry-picking the science since they started culling. The fact that they are rolling it out on such a vast scale is a travesty of the available science." 

The Indian education minister says evolution is ‘scientifically wrong’ because no one has ever seen an ape turn into a man. He seems to be confusing science with shape-shifting. I have however seen a man turn into an ape on several occasions. Generally after the application of alcohol.

This debunks the myth that women talk more than men. Men of course have much more important things to say. At great length. Even when we’re the expert in the subject and they just read an article by Jordan Peterson and shut up or I’ll send you death threats on social media for daring to mention this. 

The ‘psychology’ of the power stance has also been debunked. Politicians should keep on doing it. So much of what comes out of their mouths is inane/terrifying/depressing that they might as well give us a laugh.

So-called ‘healing crystals’ often come from ethically and environmentally dubious sources. So they’re not just pretty shiny things.

Koko the gorilla’s language skills were not at all as we’d been lead to believe, more a mixture of wishful thinking and ignorance about how language actually works. Damn it.  Who doesn’t love a chatty gorilla with a pet kitten? 

There is no evidence that tech is as ‘addictive as cocaine’. Nor are cupcakes, ice cream, power, carbs, World of Warcraft, sugar etc etc. Claims are often based on a misunderstanding of what addiction is and an oversimplified description of what the brain chemical dopamine does, according to clinical psychologist Vaughan Bell.

Hunt’s screen time limits for kids is yet more evidence free policy, yet another moral panic: ‘the recognition of so-called gaming disorder by the World Health Organisation is premature.’.

Andy Przybylski, associate professor and director of research at the Oxford Internet Institute said: “The thing that is very, very important to understand about this is that these correlations are extremely small,” he said. “And 99% of a child’s wellbeing has nothing measurable to do with screens, no matter how you measure them.”

It turns out it’s a myth that Victorian doctors treated hysterical women with vibrators. Damn, that’s another fun one out the window then.

There are times when I so wish magic was real. A coven of New York witches put a hex on US Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh and, just to make the story even more fun, a Catholic priest and exorcist in California countered the spell by saying prayers for the justice at Mass, saying "This is a conjuring of evil - not about free speech."

They claim that similar hexes on Trump have been successful "We feel the rituals were a success as they sought to expose Trump for what he is, and that has happened on many levels; from the Russia probe to the exposé on his finances to Stormy Daniels."

It is of course impossible to tell without an unhexed control Trump whether they worked or not.

A real treat to end with– an archive of occult recordings. Everything from the voice of Alistair Crowley to voices beyond the grave to all manner of spooky shit. Enjoy.

For vaccination against nonsense, dangerous or otherwise, join us at London Skeptics in the Pub  or find your local Skeptics group. London is the original SitP and 2019 sees the twentieth anniversary of our founding. There will be celebrations and they will not be carb-free.

Nonsense on Stilts 2017

Another year, another round-up of the dangerous and the daft. There was so much to choose from this year so this is just the tip of the iceberg of nonsense on stilts. As ever, it’s divided into health, diet and general craziness.

HEALTH

The Queen of Quacks, Gwyneth Paltrow’s Goop business has spewed out some terrible old cobblers this year, some of which is potentially very harmful. Here is her nonsense about toxic tampons debunked by the excellent Dr Jen Gunter.

Advice given at her ‘health’ conference can be fatal and just in case you thought it couldn’t get any more insane, she is now selling psychic vampire repellent. Yes, really. 

Also in America, anti-vaxxers offered $100,000 for proof that vaccines work. Oh dear. The fact that they’re alive to perpetrate such arrant nonsense is proof enough, isn’t it? One word, anti-vaxxers: polio. Ever been in an iron lung? No. Why is that?

If further proof were needed, the tedious and notorious anti-vaxxer Wakefield managed to cause a measles epidemic in the US.

Earlier in the year it looked like homeopathy would escape an NHS prescribing ban despite cutbacks and despite the Chief Medical Officersaying it’s ‘rubbish’. But reason and science have for once prevailed. NHS England has called for homeopathy to be blacklisted as a useless waste of money. Very well done to the Good Thinking Society for their campaigning work on this.

Vets also joined the campaign against homeopathy and then later in the year the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons issued a new position statement on the veterinary use of complementary and alternative medicines, homeopathy in particular, saying that vets must offer treatments that "are underpinned by a recognised evidence base or sound scientific principles." The new position statement makes it very clear that homeopathy falls below this benchmark: "Homeopathy exists without a recognised body of evidence for its use. Furthermore, it is not based on sound scientific principles."

One of the newer health fads is turmeric. Eat it, drink it, medicate with it. Harmless nonsense for people with more money than sense? Not when a naturopath kills a woman with a turmeric injection or when claims are made for it curing cancer.

I had an awkward conversation not so long ago with a woman who swears by turmeric lattes every day and demanded to know how I dare challenge ‘all the thousands of research papers’ that show it works. To her I say: show me this evidence. It could be a long wait.

And while we’re on spices, cinnamon won’t help you magically lose weight either. Sorry. 

The long-enduring myth that women synchronise periods was debunked. There is no ‘dominant super uterus in a group of women that makes everyone adjust their cycles’. So Super Uterus won’t be making an appearance in the next DC movie, damn it. She’d be so much more interesting than Superman, the most boring of all the supers.

As if UKIP wasn’t bad enough, one of their ‘politicians’ now sells industrial strength bleach as a medical cure at £22 for 60ml. David Colquhoun, professor of pharmacology at University College London, said “You don’t absorb oxygen through your stomach. There’s not the slightest reason to think it works for anything.” Assemble your own joke using the words UKIP, toxic, liars and why is Farage constantly on the news when they have zero seats in Parliament?

A wealthy autism charity is risking children’s lives, offering to pay for them to attend clinics offering pseudoscientific treatments and bogus diets, and it appears to endorse links between vaccines and autism. One of the treatments promoted is MMS, which the National Autism Society describes as a “bleach banned for human consumption”. There are claims it has been linked to at least one death. The Food Standards Agency has warned about its use, calling it an “industrial-strength bleach”. Yes, we’re looking at you, Mr UKIP.

There is yet more evidence that chiropractic is harmful and potentially deadly, and now chiropractors trying to scare women about our clothes, saying skinny jeans, handbags and big fluffy hoods are wrecking our backs. Dr Mary O'Keeffe, a back pain expert at the University of Limerick, says their research is "complete scaremongering and there is no scientific evidence to support any of it".

Earlier this year, a quack claiming to cure cancer by Skype (for money, of course) was found guilty under the Cancer Act and is now facing jail.

The spread of fake health ‘news’ is putting lives at risk. Some of the claims may contravene the Cancer Act 1939: you can report any claims that break the law to Advertising Standards.

DIET

I’m happy to report that the backlash against the vile, smug, judgemental and dangerous clean eating movement is gaining momentum. But nature abhors a vacuum so as soon as one diet fad dies, another rises to take its place. But calling them diets is so last year. Now it’s all about Wellness. There are endless books, videos and evangelists promoting their own brands of ‘better living’ which are really just diets wrapped up in very expensive merchandising and ingredients. Because wellness means thinness. There are no overweight Wellness gurus.

Celebrity-endorsed fad diets (sorry, Wellness programmes) are nothing new. Lord Byron’s apple cider vinegar diet was taken up by his many fans in the early nineteenth century and now it’s back. But without the poetry. Which is a blessing.

The low fat versus low carb battle rages on with both sides claiming the other will kill you. Some of the research is very flawed and the screaming headlines don’t help.  There is more and more conspiracy talk about Big Sugar.  The sugar lobby is undeniably powerful but conspiracy theorists have attributed it god-like powers to ensure that we poor fools think saturated fat is the devil. 

As Anthony Warner, aka the Angry Chef, says, this would require ‘paying off the medical establishment, the World Health Organisation, numerous charities, public health bodies and nutrition researchers around the world, and keep producing systematic reviews that show links between consumption of saturated fats and increased risk of heart disease.’ 

The amount of rage generated by daring to question the low carbers should set off the alarm bells that this is not just about food – as Dr Margaret McCartney found out to her cost on Twitter when she dared to write this reasonable piece about the lack of evidence. This is my piece on the cult-like ferocity of the low-carbers.

What no one has pointed out is that if we care about the planet, we should be eating fewer animal products, not more. High protein/high fat means more eggs, fish/seafood, meat and dairy when we should be aiming for a more plant-based diet. And shouldn’t we give at least a moment’s thought to the fact that there are still more underweight 5-19 year olds in the world than obese ones?

There’s a myth doing the rounds that sugar and other carbs ‘feed’ cancer. They don’t.

Do artificial sweeteners cause dementia and strokes? No.  

Does sugar cause or worsen Alzheimer’s? According to the tabloids, yes it does. According to the Alzheimer’s Society “What we don’t know is whether changes in brain glucose metabolism play a role in causing or worsening Alzheimer’s disease or whether the changes are just a by-product of damage already occurring to brain cells.”

Another potentially dangerous diet fad is the Ketogenic diet, which claims to cure everything from cancer to Alzheimer’s to pretty much anything you can name. Here’s a good video explaining what it is and why it is not a miracle (yes, he is a vegan but everything he says about keto stands up).

Yet another bit of dangerous garbage is the idea that everything bad that happens can be cured with an alkaline diet. And while we’re at it, you can’t cure cancer with ‘alkaline’ baking soda either.

Back to the Angry Chef who this time gets quite rightly angry about PETA claiming dairy products cause autism.

The Pioppi diet has gained popularity this year. As the British Dietetic Association commented: “the authors may well be the only people in the history of the planet who have been to Italy and come back with a diet named after an Italian village that excludes pasta, rice and bread – but includes coconuts”. Here’s conclusive proof that coconuts have never been part of a traditional European diet.

Do we need more protein in our diets? Only if you want to make very expensive wee wee.

RANDOM NONSENSE

A Church says starve for three days to cure homosexuality and that people are just claiming to be gay to get attention because they see celebrities doing it. This really doesn’t help when nearly half of lesbian, gay, bi and trans young people are bullied for being LGBT at school and when homophobic attacks in the UK rose by 147% in three months after the Brexit vote.

On a more cheery note there’s the daftness of dopamine dressing – dress yourself happy with bright colours. Unless you’re me and hate them. It’s yet another case of if you believe something you make it true, like wearing lucky pants can make you feel more confident and so perform better.

For a change, a bit of abuse of history instead of science: why lazy journos comparing Trump with Roman emperors are wrong.

Slimming pants! This is hilarious. There is no way that any of these claims stand up – detox, lose cellulite, lose weight, all the usual suspects. Plus, you look like a twat. No wonder they're on offer.

Men are better at understanding projection and therefore physics because they have to learn to pee standing up, according to three 'scientists'. “Playful urination practices – from seeing how high you can pee to games such as Peeball (where men compete using their urine to destroy a ball placed in a urinal) – may give boys an advantage over girls when it comes to physics,” the academics wrote. They said this is significant, since the physics curriculum often uses projectile motion as the starting point for more sophisticated mechanics concepts such as force, energy and momentum.

If only the average man's aim was that good. And I’m not sure about the phrase ‘playful urination practices’. Oh, and correlation, causation, yadda yadda.

Not so funny is this: the United Nations pulled staff out of two districts in southern Malawi where a vampire scare triggered mob violence in which at least five people were killed.

No werewolf sightings this year but belief in ghosts is on the increase in America. Add your own Trump-based joke.

Eight out of ten UK water companies still use dowsing rods to 'find' water. Yes, really. I often consult the spirits of the dead for cooking tips. Who doesn’t? 

A lot of the media and some skeptics have dismissed dowsing as mediaeval. Here’s a good explanation of why that’s a lazy assumption. Have they looked at a cathedral or an illuminated manuscript lately? Mediaeval people were not morons, they just had less access to information than we do – although some of us still choose to ignore it. What’s more, ‘records of dowsing do not begin until the 16th century, and its popularity does not appear to have peaked until the 19th and 20th centuries’.

DNA sampling reveals that nine yeti specimens were in fact eight bears and a dog. Damn. 

Finally, an ancient fairy curse causes dips in the road in Ireland, according to an Irish MP. I love this one and really wish it were true. He said “if someone told me to go out and knock a fairy fort or touch it, I would starve first.” The council’s road department said the dip was due to an “underlying subsoil/geotechnical problem.” They’ll be sorry when their socks go missing and their cows’ milk dries up.

That’s it for another year. To help inoculate yourself against nonsense, this is a very good primer on how to read and understand a scientific paper and this is a handy 12 point guide to spotting bad science. Happy hunting.

Join us at London Skeptics in the Pub for a monthly dose of sanity. 

2016 – Another year of nonsense on stilts

As part of running London Skeptics in the Pub, I like to collect stories for our members. These are some from this year that caught my attention. They cover three main areas: health, diet and random nonsense.

Let’s start with the health-related stories.

HEALTH
Antibacterial soaps are often sold with scare tactics – buy this or your children will be eaten by bacteria and you will be a Bad Parent. But there is mounting evidence that they are no more effective than regular soap and water and they may be driving antibiotic resistance.

Glucosamine has become a popular remedy for joint pain but it looks like it’s no better than placebo. This means that it may work – because placebos work, especially in pain management – but it’s not cheap and you might well be better off using exercise. I wrote about glucosamine six years ago and back in 2001 the BMJ found that it doesn’t work, yet it’s still a huge money-spinner.

Staying with pain management, we’ve all used paracetamol but again there is mounting evidence that it’s no better than placebo.

So-called alternative medicine has had a fair few stories in the news this year as well, some more worrying than others.

Cupping was popular with some athletes at the Olympics. It’s done by setting fire to a flammable liquid in a glass cup. The flame burns away the oxygen, creating a vacuum. Once the flame goes out, the vacuum creates suction that sticks the cup to the body.

Along with the drop in temperature, this sucks the skin up and draws blood to the surface. There is also a version that doesn’t involve fire but it’s much less dramatic and so lacks the theatricality that witchdoctors and quacks often use to convince their ‘patients’ they’re actually doing something other than fleecing them.

The red spots last a few days and are caused by ruptured capillaries beneath the skin. It’s claimed to cure muscle problems and pain, arthritis, insomnia, fertility issues, and cellulite. Needless to say, there is absolutely no evidence for any of these claims and it will make you look like a twat. Stalwart skeptic Dr David Colquhoon was on TV explaining why it doesn’t work.

On the upside, yet more trials find homeopathy doesn’t work and NHS Wirral has stopped funding it.

The US government has ruled that homeopathy treatments will now be held to the same advertising standards as other products claiming health benefits. This means that all homeopathic products will have to include the statements ‘There is no scientific evidence backing homeopathic health claims’ and ‘Homeopathic claims are based only on theories from the 1700s that are not accepted by modern medical experts’ if they are to be stocked in chemist shops. So that’s at least one good thing America has done this year.

Many vets are calling for homeopathy to be banned, too. Of course, some people will see this as a victory for Big Pharma and carry on buying it. Because there’s no cure for stupidity.

Vets have increasingly been offering a range of ‘alternative treatments’ including chiropractic and acupuncture; the cost of them has pushed up pet insurance by 9% according to the Association of British Insurers. Of the 370 policies on the market, 96% include alternative therapies. It’s hard to tell whether vets are offering these treatments because people want them or whether people want them because vets are pushing them. Either way, this cat looks really pissed off its owner is so dumb.

Back to humans and there is no evidence that brain training helps prevent dementia. As the population ages, the various forms of dementia are on the increase and the race is on to find a treatment, especially as the NHS may not be around much longer.

Staying with the brain, the term ‘brain plasticity’ (or neuro-plasticity) gets bandied about a lot but means pretty much nothing. It’s one of those terms that people who don’t know much about science use to make it sound like they do.

It could be argued that it’s up to adults what they do to themselves but it’s different when they force children to take alt med. In October this year, a four year old boy nearly died after being given supplements from a naturopath to treat autism.

DIET FADS
This year has seen the usual crop of diet fads. Our appetite for them is equalled only by our appetite for fat and sugar (well, my appetite for sugar, certainly).

Superfoods are claimed to have all sorts of miracle powers. There is no good evidence that pomegranates have any particular benefits, goji berries are no better than any other fruit, there is little evidence for chia seeds, beetroot juice does seem to lower blood pressure slightly but if you have high pressure, get to the doctor, change your diet and do some exercise rather than looking for a quick fix. Eating too much seaweed can be bad for you and kale has no magic powers. It doesn’t seem to matter how often the antioxidant myth is debunked, people keep buying into it.

The idea that you need to drink eight glasses of water a day just won’t die despite the total lack of evidence.

Another thriving fad is clean eating. Spiralised vegetables, kale and pomegranate (again) and NO EVIL CARBS. Bread and pasta are evil and ‘full of chemicals’. Apparently fruit and veg contain no chemicals at all. That’s because they are made from fairies’ breath. The supermarkets are increasingly stocking cauliflower ‘rice’ and butternut squash or courgette ‘noodles’. And of course they are not cheap.

There’s a serious demonizing of sugar but a lot of the ‘clean’ recipes that claim to avoid sugar are still sweetened with honey, dates, coconut sugar, agave syrup and so on. I’m sorry to tell you that these are all still sugars. Paying a lot more for something with virtuous-looking packaging won’t change that.

Yes, it’s mostly another dumb middle class fad but it has repercussions for people with eating disorders, assigning some foods to the ‘dirty’ category, making food a moral choice and piling on the body shaming if you stray from the straight and narrow. Don’t you want to Get The Glow? Like a lot of cult members, clean eating converts really don’t like it when confronted with evidence.

Another dumb idea from this year was that activity icons on food packaging would help combat obesity by showing how long it would take to exercise off the calories. They won’t. As ever, the truth is boring: eat a balanced diet and get some exercise.

Finally, this story suggests that eating chocolate can make you smarter. I don’t care if it’s good science or not, I just want it to be true.

December 26. A late entry is the protein supplement. Even most athletes don't need extra protein. According to Tom Sanders, professor emeritus of nutrition and dietetics at King’s College London,“There’s been a lot of hype in gyms pushing high-protein shakes, there’s also a need to get rid of a waste product from the dairy industry, which is whey protein,” he said. “It’s a lot of crap, a way of selling a cheap product at a high price.” Excess protein is excreted through urine so you're basically paying for expensive pee pee.



RANDOM NONSENSE
OK, we’ve done the serious stuff, now here’s the fun.

During the run-up to the Brexit referendum, there was much talk about an EU cabbage regulation that runs to 26,911 words. This myth has been around since the 1940s in one guise or another. There are some lengthy British guidelines but EU regulation contains precisely none that are specific to cabbages.

The idea that it takes 10,000 hours to get really good at something has been endlessly repeated. Malcolm Gladwell conveniently or willfully misunderstood the research his claim is based on and made a lot of money from it. But it’s nice and sound-bitey so expect to see more of it.

If you’re tempted to get your DNA checked to find out who your ancestors were, you may well be paying for what scientist Dr Adam Rutherford has described as ‘mostly total bollocks’. What’s more, a general misunderstanding of how genes work has led to some people thinking their ancestors give them some sort of ‘pedigree’ or explain their behaviour. One of my great-grandfathers was a convicted bigamist. What does that say about me? Absolutely bugger all.

This year there was a story that went on far longer than it should have about an eight foot werewolf terrorizing people in Yorkshire. According to one ‘expert’ it’s our ‘collective guilt’ about exterminating wolves that keeps these myths going. So not horror movies, alcohol and attention-seeking, then?

Oh, and apparently Uri Geller predicted that Theresa May would become Prime Minister. Of course he did.

There are three main threads running through all these stories. Firstly, desperately ill people will try anything – and who can blame them? They are often vulnerable to exploitation. There is always money to be made from intractable pain and incurable conditions.

Secondly, many of us want a quick fix to lose weight. With the increasing incidence of obesity, diabetes and other health consequences, the market is ripe for exploitation and there is no money to be made from common sense.

Finally, some people will believe any old nonsense if it makes a good story, suits their prejudices or requires a bit of effort to check out.

Come and join us at London Skeptics and watch us sort crap from Christmas for another year. You can find the stories I collect on our Facebook page and on Twitter @LondonSkeptics. Thanks to my right hand woman Carmen, to all our speakers, our audiences and the Monarch for hosting us.

The truth is out there. Keep ‘em peeled.