The Quackometer

A few weeks ago, I pointed out that some of the science on the Powerwatch site appeared to be significantly less than convincing about the link between mobiles, WiFi and ill health. I also pointed out that Powerwatch had a very close relationship with another company called EMFields.org. Basically, both companies domains were registered to Alistair Philips of Powerwatch. I was concerned that the commercial interests of selling anti-EMR gear may be making it hard for the organisation(s) to fairly appraise the available evidence on harm from EMR. For example, there is still little discussion of the large number of provocation studies that appear to suggest that electrosensitivity has nothing to do with EMR exposure.

It met with a lot of combative criticism from Powerwatch.

For example, Graham Philips said on my blog...

Powerwatch and EMFields have been linked by many, and it's not something we've (on either side) ever denied. I wasn't aware that it was supposed to be a secret?

That appears to be somewhat contradicted by what they say on their own website now...

Products previously available from Powerwatch are now available from http://www.emfields.org/, and they have kindly agreed to process our subscriptions.

Powerwatch has, for some considerable time, been accused by people from offical [sic] and unofficial bodies of deliberately scare-mongering in order to make money selling things to the public. Making money has never been a motive behind Powerwatch, although we obviously have to cover overheads including staff time even though much of that is freely given.

As a result, Powerwatch is now concentrating on the EMF and health science debate and the science and politics behind the relevant media news reports which are often misleading. Powerwatch will be extending its new website comment columns and will be inviting contributions from various people. Its basic information will continue to be free of charge and the topics and detail in the subscription service documents will be greatly extended. The small subscription helps towards our costs which are considerable. Some of the profit from the EMFields trading is donated to Powerwatch in the form of staff time. Donations towards the work of Powerwatch are welcome.

Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience this change may cause you.

It was so kind of them to process the subscriptions, wasn't it? And so generous to put some money and time back into Powerwatch for marketing education purposes.

Still no mention of the link between the two companies?

Labels: electromagnetic quackery

 

Right, let's get serious. It's the end of Homeopathy Awareness Week and enough of the jokes. You might be surprised, but actually, I don't have too big a thing against homeopathy. If people want to pop into Boots the Quack and buy a tub of sugar pills and give one to little Timmy when he falls off his bike with a 'there, there' and a kiss on the forehead, then I would be really Mr Grumpy Spoil-Sport to object. If someone with a longstanding health complaint wants to spend an hour chatting to a homeopath and get lots of fuss and attention in a way that the NHS could never provide then I hope it turns out to be a valuable talking therapy session. After all, its just sugar pills and the placebo effect and, as we are constantly reminded, there are no side-effects. But mainly because there are no effects too. Fine. All good and dandy.

It's not the pills that upset me. Its the dangerously deluded thinking that goes with it, the rejection of rational ways of understanding health, and the refusal to hold any sort of meaningful debate about what role complementary treatment might really play. Head in the sand. Three Wise Monkeys. It is this lack of self-appraisal and the refusal to draw boundaries that is scary. We saw this earlier with the Sense-About-Science and Simon Singh sting on homeopaths where the researchers asked several homeopaths for anti-malarial advice and without exception, got appalling, negligent and dangerous nonsense back. The homeopaths were quite prepared to send their 'patients' into high-risk malarial areas without protection and sensible precautionary advice. That sort of consultation could easily kill. The Society of Homeopaths initial response to this situation was bizarre and frightening, essentially denying that there was an issue that needed addressing. It responded in a confusingly contradictory way later on, with a little better advice.

It is not homeopathy necessarily that is quackery. It is the homeopathists' lack of awareness of the boundaries and limits to what they do that constitutes quackery. And dangerous quackery too. Here is another way that this recklessness has manifested itself and follows on from my earlier posting on homeopathic first-aid kits.

Homeopathic First Aid kits appear to drag homeopathy into an area that is far from its origins. Homeopathy has survived because it is a mostly harmless intervention for non-life threatening, self-limiting conditions, e.g. tiredness, headaches and minor aches and pains. Thus, the standard tricks of the mind, such as post hoc reasoning, misattributed placebo responses, regression to the mean, and so on, are systematically interpreted as proof of the effectiveness of the intervention.


But get into a First Aid situation and, by definition, you are dealing with medical emergencies where the immediate course of action can have far reaching consequences. It is life or death stuff. Homeopathic First Aid kits are manufactured by 'Big Alt.Pharma' companies like Helios in the UK. I first spotted the kit being sold through a distributor that was also selling the fraudulent Q-Link pendant. Their web site said the following:

An essential first-aid remedy kit for the home, car and workplace specifically formulated to be used in even the most severe emergency and accident situations.

I was somewhat alarmed that there was serious suggestion that homeopathy was a suggested course of action in the 'most severe emergency and accident situations'. First Aiders are trained to save lives by establishing airways and circulation and preventing shock. Sugar pills have no part here. So, I wrote off to a few people to see what I could do about it.

First, the manufacturers, Helios, responded as follows:

Thank you for your e-mail and comments. We have amended the information on our web site to clarify the intended use of this kit.

Please note it is well within the scope of homoeopathy to prescribe routinely for acute injury situations as they have have well defined similar symptom pictures in most cases. Within the range of remedies in the kit there is room for differentiation for the knowledgeable prescriber, paramedic or first aider for whom this kit is designed.

As a matter of precaution we have amended the wording on our site to include:“An essential first-aid remedy kit for the home, car and workplace specifically formulated to be used by first aiders and the more experienced user of homeopathy, for accident and emergency situations that require higher potencies.” The kit also comes with a comprehensive leaflet which in the introduction clearly states the following under the title of ‘Safety First’:"Serious injuries and illnesses should never be treated without seeking expert advice. Use your instincts and common sense; if you are worried call for help first then give the appropriate remedy whilst you are waiting for help to arrive. In cases which are less serious or urgent, if symptoms show no improvement or return always seek professional help."

I hope this allays you concerns.

Allay them? Partially. At least their web site, and their distributors' web sites, appear to have a less aggressive statement about their product. But, their belief is still that sugar pills have a role in "acute injury situations". I wonder what evidence there is for this? How do they avoid the homeopathic healing crisis that is talked about in an already critical situation? And aren't remedies supposed to 'take time to work'? Importantly, someone fiddling around in their little green box for the right 'remedy' is abdicating the prime responsibilities of the first aider. It is absurd to think there is a role in life critical situations for delusional healing fantasies.

So, I also wrote to the Society of Homeopaths. This body likes to think of itself as a professional regulatory body and surely, it would not endorse any practices within its remit that could injure patients. Surely, this is about as serious as it gets in he misuse of homeopathy.

I wrote,

Does the society endorse such products? If not, would a suitable announcement be important to alert the public that these products may not be in the best interests of injured people?

The response I got back was,

As to whether The Society of Homeopaths endorses these or any other products, the simple answer is that we do not. Our Code of Ethics &Practice states that 'no member may use their Society membership in the commercialisation of any product or remedy". We do have long standing relationships with all the homeopathic pharmacies, with a link to them from our own website. However, this does not extend to endorsing their products.

I hope this clarifies this situation for you.

With kind regards

Yours sincerely

Paula Ross

Chief Executive

So, my question about warning the public was ignored and they appear to be quite happy linking to the sites and saying you can buy first aid kits there. I found this quite alarming, so I wrote back to Paula Ross,

Application of homeopathy, or any other unnecessary intervention in 'severe emergency and accident situations', would be strictly counter to the immediate needs of the situation and could even be harmful.

So questions,

1. Is this a statement you would agree with?

2. By linking to the Helios and stating you can buy first aid kits there, are you not implicitly endorsing these products?

3. Should you agree with statement 1, should the Society be taking steps to ensure that it distances itself from such products and alerts its own members, and the public who may visit your site, that this is a dangerous and irresponsible use of homeopathy?

Surely as a recognised complementary therapy, users of homeopathy should be well aware of the boundaries of its complementarity and an emergency situation is one that should be left to trained paramedics and first-aiders?

I look forward to your response,

The response I got back was...

nothing.

It would look like the Society of Homeopaths does not give damn if the public or its member are under the impression that homeopathy can be used in critical situations.

This does not surprise me in the slightest. When you are immersed in a subject that is impervious to critical debate, evidence and reason then the boundaries around what might be good practice and what might be poor practice become totally arbitrary. There are no standards that you might apply to decide where to draw the limits. If you accept the ability for homeopathy to treat hayfever on very poor standard of evidence, why not accept that it can treat malaria, cancer and road traffic accident victims too? Indeed, the easiest path of all is to draw no boundaries whatsoever. Why get embroiled in a debate with your delusional members? It could only reduce membership levels after all.

The Society of Homeopaths would like to see itself as a regulatory body for the profession. Indeed, some members believe it is. But it is no more a regulatory body than a golf club is a regulatory body for golfers. It is a members club, a registrar of the delusional, and a cosy members club too. How many members ever get struck off? What would they have to do to earn the society's wrath?

So, does this sort of quack belief in the ability to treat acute situations ever really do any harm? There was case recently of a midwife that allegedly got in the way of paramedics to apply olive oil to the feet and herbal remedies to a baby in urgent need of resuscitation. The baby survived, but with severe brain damage. Yes, not homeopathy, but a person with the same bonkers belief that magic can be used to cure in life critical situations.

Homeopathy, with its ridiculous pseudo-scientific explanations, is not a complementary therapy. Its belief system is in direct opposition to evidence based medicine and rational approaches to treatment. It instills a distrust in the medical profession and their 'allopathic ways' and their iatrogenic deaths. It is only a small step towards thinking that trained first aiders and paramedics need to step aside for their caring, more gentle homeopath.


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Labels: homeopathy, Society of Homeopaths, SoH

 

I have just installed a new tool on this site called Snap Shots that enhances links with visual previews of the destination site. There is no need to leave the quackometer to see the web sites I am talking about. You can see excerpts of Wikipedia articles, if I can't find real references for what I am talking about, and quickly see any videos I link too.

Sometimes Snap Shots bring you the information you need, without your having to leave the site, while other times it lets you “look ahead,” before deciding if you want to follow a link or not.
Should you decide this is not for you, just click “Disable” in the upper right corner of the Snap Shots bubble and opt-out.

Labels: quackometer

 

As my own personal tribute to Homeopathy Awareness Week, and as promised in my last post, I would like to critique a paper that has appeared in this Summer's edition of the journal, Homeopathy in Practice.

The article is entitled "Hormesis, epitaxy, the structure of liquid water, and the science of homeopathy" and is by Domenico Mastrangelo. The paper has appeared elsewhere but is obviously so important that HiP sees fit to republish it. You can view the text here.

Mastrangelo's thesis is that homeopathy is a real science based on sound scientific principles and should not be derided as 'unscientific' and 'implausible' by the 'western medical establishment'. Now if Mastrangelo can really do this, then it would indeed be a major scientific breakthrough of unprecedented scale. The reason the 'establishment' has a problem with homeopathy is that it beliefs are in direct contradiction to most of chemistry, physics and biology. The abstract closes with the hope that

this hurdle will be overcome by opening academic institutions to homeopathy to enlarge the horizons of medical practice, recover the value of the human relationship with the patient, and through all this, offer the sick a real alternative and the concrete perspective of an improved quality of life.

Has Mastrangelo made the break through? Let's look at each section in turn.

What is Science?

Mastrangelo begins by reviewing what science is. And tells us the following,

The “scientific” method encompasses the following phases:

1. Observing and describing a phenomenon or group of phenomena.
2. Formulating a hypothesis to explain the phenomena.
3. Using the hypothesis to predict the existence of other phenomena, or to predict quantitatively the results of new observations.
4. Performing experimental tests of the predictions by several independent and properly conducted experiments

Now of course a full philosophy of science would take up much space more than this, but Mastrangelo quickly dismissed these points by saying that 'archaeology, psychology and geology' could not be considered sciences under this definition. Domenico does not say why or give references. It must come as a bit of a shock to people working in these professions. Are they not capable of doing experiments to collect data, forming hypotheses, testing the predictions of the hypotheses against observations?

This sort of distortion of science is seen in creationism where we are told that evolution cannot be a science because you cannot observe evolution in a laboratory. This is a very narrow view of what an experiment is. Geologists, and so on, are quite capable of the systematic and controlled collection of data (an experiment) although this may take place in the field rather than the lab.

Fortunately, Mastrangelo invites the geologists and psychologists back in by offering his own definition of science,

the field of study which attempts to describe and understand the nature of the universe in whole or part.

Now, this definition will definitely include geology and so on, and it will also include homeopathy within its fold. Homeopathists do say they are trying to understand 'healing' - that is a part of the universe worth understanding. However, under this definition we can just about let in anything that attempts to describe the universe and the we have to call it a science: creationism, Scientology, Greek mythology, literature, pastafarianism, voodoo, astrology, mithrasism, Christianity and just about any alternative medicine.

So, by adopting a ridiculously weak definition of science, Mastrangelo is begging the question. His premises for the paper make it inevitable that he will succeed in poving that homeopathy is a 'science', but only under his owen terms. What is of course missing from his definition is all the rigour that allows us to exclude astrology and reiki from science: observation, evidence, hypothesis, experiment.

Not a good start to the paper.

Homeopathy as a Medical Science

Next, the task is to show how Hahnemann founded homeopathy on firm scientific principles. We are treated to a biography of the founder of the practice and a history of the discovery. The argument of the paper is that because Hahnemann formed hypotheses (like cures like) and performed drug testing-like experimental practices (provings) that homeopathy is 'scientific'. Mastrangelo appears to be slipping around on his own definition of science here.

Hahnemann’s way of proceeding through hypothesis, observations, testing, validation, and formulation of principles leaves no room for doubt: he was using the “scientific method” to explore an entirely new medical and biological world…

However, this only works if one takes, again, a rather limited view of what science is.

If we were to take this at face value then we could also argue that phlogiston, the bodily humours and the ether are all scientific. All were part of scientific hypothesis at some point in the past and experiments were performed to detect these phenomena. But advances in observation and theory all show that these things are not real. To continue to say that fire is caused by phlogiston is not scientific, even though it might once have been. In the same way, to say that just because Hahnemann's techniques once appeared to be scientific does not mean that they are now. If you keep calling them scientific, and ignore subsequent findings, you are practicing bad science or even pseudoscience.

One needs to be careful with the word 'proving' when homeopathists use it. Their use does not have the same everyday use. A proving is the process by which homeopathists discover which substances create similar symptoms in suffers to those caused by illness. In this sense, Provings are only proving anything if the principle of like-cures-like holds. This is one of homeopathy's central weaknesses and Mastrangelo returns to this point.

In retrospect, it is easy to see where Hahnemann went wrong. At the time, most doctors may well have been doing more harm than good with their blood letting and quack remedies. Hahnemann was no different in administering poisons in the hope that like cures like. Hahnemann noticed that the more dilute the poison, the better his patients appeared to do (not surprising really). If he diluted his poisons into pure water then his patients did best of all because at least no harm was being done and perhaps a placebo response was being gained. What homeopathy is is a therapeutic placebo and this has been demonstrated many times in experiment. To cling to ideas of 'like cures like' and 'dilutions and succussions' is unscientific in the same way that clinging to ideas of alchemy is unscientific. Hahnemann mistook minimal intervention, a placebo response and allowing disease to take its course for a genuine therapeutic effect. Homepathists have been making the same mistake for over 200 years.

Hormesis

The next part of the paper tries to convince us that 'like-cures-like' has a sound scientific basis. It introduces the concept of hormesis; the idea that favorable biological responses can be gained from low exposures to toxins. Mastrangelo presents this as something that western science has a problem with and avoids using the term. At one level, the concept is trivial and accepted by all. Paracetamol is a rather deadly toxin that can destroy the liver. In small doses it acts as a analgesic and the body can readily deal with processing it so that it does not become a danger.

However, Mastrangelo wants us to take a strict view of hormesis where in low doses substances have the opposite effect of that at high doses. In this world, paracetamol would not be a cure for headaches but for liver disease - like cures like. Substances may well have different physiological effect at different doses, but there is no mechanism that supposes they have the direct opposite effect and so support the like cures like hypothesis. Vitamins can have greatly beneficial effects a low doses, but can become highly toxic at high doses. The biological mechanisms for benefit and harm need not be the same and indeed most often are not.

There are several things wrong with taking the hormesis view of homeopathy. Firstly, it presupposes that the poison is the cause of the illness. Low doses somehow stimulate the body to respond better to high doses. Real biological mechanisms may well exist for some types of hormesis. Radiation has been studied with some interesting, if not controversial, ideas that somehow the immune system may become 'hardened' after exposes to low levels of gamma rays and so better cope with higher levels. However, for illnesses that are not caused by toxins (most) hormesis can play no part whatsoever. (It is worth noting that many homeopathists deny the discoveries of medicine that illnesses can have viral, bacterial, parasitical and genetic origin.)

Secondly, all this talk of hormesis can only really have any value if a low dose is actually administered to the ill person. But with homeopathy, all but the very 'weakest' doses have been diluted to the point where no dose is present and so no hormesis can take place. Mastrangelo notes this and tells us that his theories are applying to doses 'below Avogadros number' I think he is confused in his terminology here and I believe he is saying that most homeopathic preparations are not diluted beyond the Avogadro limit.

The Structure and Behaviour of Water

Next, rather confusingly, and despite saying in the previous section that homeopathy can be explained in terms of low doses and hormesis, Mastrangelo goes on to discuss the idea that somehow water contains a 'memory' of the active ingredient once it has been diluted beyond the Avogadro limit. So now, homeopathy needs two mechanisms - one for when the poison is present in the dose and one for when it is not.

The idea that water can maintain the physical properties of water through adopting some sort of semi permanent crystalline structure is very old. And the lack of any evidence for this hypothesis is very old too. The arguments in favour of structured water appear to rest on analogies and special pleading. Mastrangelo is no different here.

First, Mastrangelo creates a straw man where he paints scientists as ignorant of the special nature of water and how it can have unusual structural properties and be very important in many biological structural mechanisms in proteins and DNA. Of course, science is not ignorant of these fascinating properties as it was scientists who discovered them in the first place and they are now part of mainstream science. Of course, water is a vital ingredient of biological processes and of course water has interesting structural properties.

Mastrangelo then creates false analogies by saying that carbon can have different properties depending on its structure; diamond, graphite etc. Of course! What has this got to do with homeopathy? Then, epitaxy is introduced where crystals are grown on substrates and the crystal takes on structural properties of the substrate. All standard stuff. Semiconductor electronics depends on this phenomenon. However, Mastrangelo makes the extraordinary claim that epitaxial properties can have effects below the Avogadro limit. It is not explained what this means, but two references are given. The first to wikipedia (!) and the second to a paper entitled “The structure of liquid water; novel insights from material research; potential relevance to homeopathy”. This paper introduces 'subtle energies' pretty early on and looks like it is homeopathists in support of homeopathy.

All the pleading in this section to say that "to deny their value would be very inappropriate for official science: inappropriate and totally “unscientific". Well, most of what is presented is not in dispute at all. What is in dispute is if structural properties of water have any bearing on explaining homeopathy. Mastrangelo has failed to do this. Instead, the paper is just pleading to say 'there must be something in in it!' To really do a convincing job, there are real and significant questions about the structured water hypothesis that are unanswered:

1. Water does indeed appear to support stable micro structures. But these last for a microsmidgen of a second. How are these structures maintained for long enough to produce products with a reasonable shelf life, i.e. weeks?
2. Many homeopathic products are given in sugar pills or alcohol. Do these substances have the same properties of water that you claim prove the theory? The answer is of course no.
3. If stable structures are formed, what reason is there to suppose that these structures have the same physical properties as the agent that caused them. Remember, like cures like.
4. How does repeated shaking and dilution actually amplify these structures, rather than just dilute them like the original active ingredient?
5. What role for hormesis if structured water can explain everything?

The point here is that the structured water theory is not an explanation for homeopathy. It is clutching at straws in an attempt to maintain some sort of credible physical explanation for homeopathy without recourse to 'supernatural' explanations, like so many homeopathists do.

The Placebo Effect

Up next, is a bunch of relativism where 'western medicine' is supposedly blind to alternative philosophies. It gives an example where Chinese medicine has discovered a network of channels in the body called the meridians. This is given as an example of how no one has a 'global view'. This is of course nonsense. The key differentiator is of course evidence (something left out of Mastrangelo' s definition of science). There is not a shred of evidence for meridians whereas there is an inundation of evidence for say, nerves or blood vessels.

This argument is an attempt to place homeopathy on an equal metaphysical footing with 'western allopathy'. It is confusing as to whether Mastrangelo wants to see homeopathy as within science or as an 'equally valid' alternative to it. It looks like Mastrangelo is trying to have his cake and eat it.

And so on to the placebo effect. Mastrangelo again wants to paint mainstream science as ignorant of the true nature of the placebo. This is true to a certain extent in that the action of the placebo is not yet fully understood. However, Mastrangelo appears to be saying that because a placebo has no molecules of active ingredient present, then isn't that the same as homeopathy?

This is just bizarre. Does Mastrangelo want us to believe that homeopathy and the placebo are the same? What then for Hahnemann's like-cures-like and so on? However, he says that the placebo is 'less plausible' than homeopathy because 'no molecules are involved at all.' He appears to be ignoring the current scientific understanding that the placebo effect is a psychological response to the ritual of healing. He accuses the pharmaceutical companies of using 'the placebo effect of marketing' to fraudulently increase prices (?). He notes that many analgesics may well have a high placebo-like component of their action, but fails to note that in trials such drugs score over and above placebo in effectiveness.

In short, Mastrangelo appears to be pretty confused about the placebo and why drug companies compare their products against a placebo. It is true that the placebo is not well understood. It is not completely clear what sort of conditions are susceptible to a placebo and under what conditions. However, in a drug trial it is not too important if a placebo effect for the condition is real or not as the trial is looking for a response in excess of that given by a potential placebo effect. Perhaps, more trials ought to be three way(drug, placebo, no intervention) to see how the placebo differs from doing nothing, but this all costs.

If Mastrangelo wants homeopathy to be seen as scientific then the standards of evidence for it ought to be consistent with scientific medicine. Testing against a placebo is a key component of this. Without such commitment to such tests, homeopathy must remain outside of science.

Matter and Mind

The final section delves into a mish-mash of quantum quackery and semi-understood astrophysical developments. Quantum physics has many mysterious and counter-intuitive elements to it. But Mastrangelo appears to fall for the old fallacy that just because quantum physics is mysterious then any mystery can be explained by it.

The problem with trying to appeal to the mystery of quantum physics is that it is a horribly exact science. It is first and foremost a mathematical theory. Non mathematical descriptions of quantum theory are only an approximation to the true theory. Quantum theory is extremely good at predicting experimental results. One can use the mathematics to predict the structure and interaction of atoms, particles and light with mind-boggling degrees of accuracy. There is no room in quantum theory to slip in mysterious forces and energies. They would be spotted. Quacks use quantum theory to impress their ignorant adherents. Those that have really studied quantum theory have no truck with such mysticism hitching a ride on the incredible success of the theory. Physicists may use mysterious and quasi-religious metaphors to describe their wonder at this world, but we should not confuse their metaphors with their science.

After all of Mastrangelo's talk of quantum astrophysics, dark matter and vortices of energy, he utterly fails to show how any of this has any relevance to homeopathy. His argument is a hollow appeal - "Modern physics is strange and mysterious, surely there is some room in there for the mystery of homeopathy?'. This is not science, this is mysticism masquerading as profoundness. It is homeopathy knocking on the door of the frontiers of physics. Mastrangelo should be showing us why he should be let in.

Mastrangelo's Conclusion

In the final section Mastrangelo submits us to an appeal from 'popularity'. So many people use it, it must be true. Then, an appeal to the failings of modern medicine and its lack of personalized care. Yes, your GP may be busy. What does that prove about homeopathy? Then onto Big Bad Pharma. Yes, these companies make profits and do bad things. What does that prove about homeopathy's effectiveness? Next onto the side effects of conventional medicines. Yes, potent medicines can have side effects. They have benefits too. It is up to the doctor and the patient, in mutual agreement, to decide if the benefits outweigh any potential side-effects. What does this prove about homeopathy? Then some more misunderstandings of quantum physics and the uncertainty principle.

And then finally the conspiracy theories that science and the pharmaceutocal companies are preventing research into homeopathy. The contradiction here is obvious. If 500 million people are really using homeopathy, how come a tiny fraction of the money gained from these people cannot be used to do the research an stick it in the eye of the scientists?

Homeopathy is an outdated mode of thinking about the body. It may have had a smidgeon of scientific credibility in the early 1800's. But now the only interesting scientific question left is a sociological one - why does such quackery persists in the face of overwhelming evidence?

One way of course is through the publishing of scientific-looking papers like Mastrangelo's. It allows homeopathists to believe that what they are doing is truly supported by science and that its detractors are shortsighted or conspiratorial. This paper is preaching to the choir. No scientist will be swayed by such a collection of appeals. But the scientificaly illiterate homeopathist will undoubtely be impressed with lots of the long words here.

Journals, such as Homeopathy in Practice, look like they do not apply the same standards of refereeing as might be found in real scientific journals. Mastrangelo's paper contains elements of pharmacology, surface and solid-state physics, cosmology, quantum physics and the philosophy of science. Surely the best test of whether Mastrangelo had succeeded in showing homeopathy was a part of science would be to have real scientists in appropriate fields peer review this paper. What I would like to know is how many of the referees for the paper (if it was peer reviewed at all) were suitably qualified in the above subjects.

My guess is none. I shall be writing to find out.

Labels: homeopathy, pseudoscience

 

Sue Young, homeopath, writer, historian, mother and a daughter, had a bit of a shock last week when a 'murder' of quack-busters descended on what used to be her quiet blog about her homeopathy practice. The reason was that she had written a rather topsy turvy piece about how nasty old scientist David Colquhoun FRS had picked on a little herbalist and used a QC to silence her. We know the reality is the other way around.

The comments exchange was rather fast and furious, with people asking Sue to justify what she had written about Professor Colquhoun and, off topic, justify her acceptance of homeopathy. I am not sure if Sue had ever been exposed to anything like this before; homeopathists are not renowned for seeking and engaging in real scientific debate. She resorted to taking offence, not answering questions and justifying legal action. Ironically, this is pretty much the same sort of behaviour that Dr Ann Walker displayed against Professor Colquhoun. As Richard Dawkins so perfectly put it recently, 'Offence is what people take when they can't take argument'.

To be fair to Sue, although the comments were moderated on her blog, she allowed them to stand, which is much more than can be said for most other alt.med sites which either do not allow comments or mod critical comments into oblivion. Although now, Sue has closed this thread and allowed herself the last word. Something I guess she is entitled to given she is the blog's author. However, she is bound to leave all her tormentors pretty frustrated as her closing statement is riddled with yet more fallacies. But what interests me is her final call to the array of skeptics to 'do their homework' by following a list of links. Presumably, she thinks that her haranguers are just prejudiced, narrow minded, ideologists who would never threaten their world view (or their alleged paymasters) by doing research. Well, I bet most readers actually did follow those links.

I know I did.

The first couple are just bloggers wondering why governments are not pouring money into quackery as part of their health services. Nothing enlightening there. The next was an article in the Daily Mail. Who on earth bases their worldview on articles in the Daily Mail? Next, a news wire report on how pharmaceuticals are poisoning the lakes and the sea. What do the homeopaths think happens to their waste? The compulsory anecdote about homeopathy 'cured' a kid with autism is followed by a humdrum rant against vaccines. But what stands out is a PubMed ref that claim to show how homeopathy is real science and not the pseudoscience claimed by its detractors.

Now, this is quite ironic. Sue, like many supporters of alternative medicine, likes to claim how their worldview is not 'limited' by science and how even that science is a terrible thing, suppressing natural healing alternatives, killing people in their millions in hospitals and denying more personal ways of 'knowing'. And yet, given half a chance, they always want to validate their beliefs with something that looks like science. This behaviour has parallels with the Creationists who profess the importance of faith but leap on any tiny problem in the biological understanding of the world and cling desperately to their own pseudoscience. It is, of course an unspoken testimony to the power of science in finding truth.

So, is this 2006 paper the big validation that homeopathy needs? It is by a Domenico Mastrangelo of the Department of Ophthalmology in the University of Siena and is entitled "Hormesis, epitaxy, the structure of liquid water, and the science of homeopathy." You can find the full text here. Mastrangelo states in the abstract that,

According to the western medical establishment, homeopathy is both “unscientific” and “implausible”. A short overview of its history and the methods it uses, however, easily reveals that homeopathy is a true science, fully grounded on the scientific method and on principles, such as, among others, the Arndt-Schultz law, hormesis, and epitaxy, whose plausibility has been clearly and definitely demonstrated in a number of scientific publications and reports.

The term 'western' is somewhat annoying. Universal would be a better description. It is as if there is no commitment to evidence in medicine east of Istanbul. But a minor point. The whole paper is nothing new but just the same tired old canards trotted out. It appeals to quantum physics, creates straw men, presents the humdrum as profound and invokes the conspiracy of "Big Pharma".

The whole paper is obviously designed to appeal to people like Sue. It legitimises what they do by offering a facade of scientific respectability. By having an 'academic' point out that homeopathy is grounded in sound reason, it reinforces other homeopathy beliefs that the 'suppression' that goes on by people like me must be due to the money-grabbing influences of drug companies. Why else do I ignore the science as put forth by people like Mastrangelo? Sue, by her own admission, has no clue about science. But undoubtedly she swallows Mastrangelo's paper, not because of its sounds scientific reasoning, but because it reinforces what she wants to believe. This is the central conceit of alternative medicine: that evidence is sought to justify belief rather than to discover the truth.

And so, your typical homeopath will venerate, not critique, such papers. It will become one more brick to throw in debates when arguing by URL. The advantage that such papers gives the homeopath is that citing them takes seconds, whereas explaining why they are nonsense takes careful words, especially to someone who appears to wear their ignorance of science as a badge of honour.

It is a salutary point to realise that a paper, so obviously flawed and unscientific, can still be published and appear in medical publication databased suh as PubMed. But of course, Journals have different editorial approaches and standards in refereeing. But even so, when published in the most prestigious journals, science does not stop at the publication of a paper. Results need to be confirmed in independent experiments and conclusions need to be debated and criticised. For completeness, I think it will be worth explicitly showing why this paper is nothing more than the usual homeopathic gobbledygook.


My next post will do just that.

(PS What is the collective noun for a group of quackbusters?)

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Labels: homeopathy

 

Originally posted for World Homeopathy Awareness Week, I thought this would be worth bumping up for Homeopathy Awareness Week 2007 (14-21st June), organised by the Society of Homeopaths.

So much awareness! You would have thought someone has actually proved there was something in it. Anyway...

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This blog entry is really for all you homeopathists taking part in the big event of the year. Starting on the 1oth of April, World Homeopathy Awareness Week (WHAW) kicks off. So, what is this awareness week all about and why should I care?

WHAW was created to promote homeopathic awareness all around the world. During this week homeopaths and friends of homeopathy will come together to share with the world the miracles of homeopathy.

Labels: homeopathy

 

As promised, the first of a number of small improvements to the site.

If you are one of those few people that actually read my musings in the blog, you can now subscribe to an email alert. You will receive an email when something is updated on the blog. Better than watching girls squabble on Big Brother. Just about.

To subscribe, just type your email address into the box on on the left hand column of the page.

Its powered by Feed-burner. You can unsubscribe at anytime if the rate of blogging gets too much for you.

Labels: quackometer

 

In this story, a supplement industry spokesperson resorts to Creationist 'Science' for their evidence to support the 'crucial' nature of supplement pills, shows how we should eat like Inuits, without the messy business of catching fish (or dying young), and has a pop at one of the UK's most respected academics when he dares to point out some herbal gobbledegook.

A quackometer refrain is that where you find people saying that you cannot get the nutrients you need through diet, you will find a supplement pill pusher. And a new pill pusher has come to light this week: Dr Ann Walker, spokesperson for the Health Supplements Information Service (HSIS), a body set up to be an,

educational programme to present facts about health supplementation in a simple, a straightforward way. We aim to empower consumers with knowledge about nutrients and their crucial role for a healthy living.

Crucial, eh? Given that the HSIS is made up of many large and small business that try to flog nutripills to us, then we might expect strong marketing language. Why take those disgusting little pills if they were not crucial?

So what evidence are we given for the 'crucial' nature of supplements? How does the science stack up and should we rely on such evidence? Let's see what Dr Walker has to say on the subject.

But first a bit of background: Dr Ann Walker looks like a busy person. As well as work with the HSIS, she runs a herbalist training school with her husband, has her own herbalist private practice open twice a week, and still finds time to supervise studies in Human Nutrition in the Hugh Sinclair Unit of Human Nutrition at The University of Reading.

However, the one of Britain's most eminent scientists, Professor David Colquhoun FRS, has pointed out that Dr Walker's association with the University counts as about one tenth of a full time job. He also commented that she signs herself as a Senior Lecturer at Reading when trying to comment on the negative effects of supplements without declaring her interests as a spokesperson for the industry. The straw on the camel's back was exposing her herbalist web site as touting 'gobbledygook' when it suggests that Red Clover is a 'blood cleanser'. The term has no scientific meaning. All this resulted in Dr Walker's husband complaining to the Provost of University College London about Professor Colquhoun and his web site. The complaint alleged defamation and breach of copyright. Ann and her husband had not complained to Professor Colquhoun directly and had not answered his request for them to explain what a 'blood cleanser' was and why this was not gobbledygook.

Threatening legal action and complaining to the University without addressing David directly is a bit unsporting. Why would you do this if your views on herbal treatments stood up to examination? A simple email to David, pointing out his errors, would surely suffice? The fact that this has not happened rings alarm bells. And so, I felt it worthwhile looking at some of the other claims that Dr Ann Walker makes to see if they too support the popping of supplement pills.

Dr Walker writes articles for the Healthspan web site, which claims to be the 'largest home shopping supplier of vitamins and supplements in the UK. Tax free prices. Free P&P (UK)'. Her articles for the site are linked to various supplements and give reasons why purchasing such products are 'crucial'. I am going to pick on the first article in her list and see if it contains good reasons to buy a supplement or two.

The article is entitled 'Did cavemen get arthritis?' and is an attempt to explain why we should be buying Omega-3 and Vitamin D pills. It starts off,

We often hear that the ideal diet to prevent all chronic diseases, including arthritis, is the Stone-Age Diet, which was believed to be based on the meat of hunted animals and the leaves, roots, seeds and fruits of gathered wild plants. Did the ancient Stone-Age diet really combine the best features of what we now call healthy eating? In this article, the links between evolution, nutrition, dietary change and arthritis are explored in relation to archaeological evidence.

It is not clear where we can hear that diet can prevent all chronic diseases. This sort of claim is typical of nutritional therapists and is highly controversial, mainly because there is little evidence for it.

Dr Walker continues,

The earliest known case of human arthritis was found in a cave at La Chapelle-aux-Saints, France in 1908. It was the bent-over frame of a Neanderthal Old Man, who lived 60,000 years ago. His ape-like spine was responsible for the myth that the Neanderthals were one of the missing links in human evolution. But subsequent finds suggest that they were regular humans who just looked a little different from us and that their skeletal deformities were due to diet.

The specifics of the dietary problems are explained as follows:

During the Ice Age, Neanderthals lived in dark caves and probably suffered from vitamin D deficiency due to a lack of sunlight. Hence, if their diet was low in fish, they not only missed out on its rich vitamin D content, but also on its omega 3 fatty acids, with consequent risk of the development of soft, deformed bones and arthritic joints.

The first word that springs out here is 'myth'. Now, the question of whether Neanderthals are our evolutionary ancestors, or our cousins, or even hybrids, has been the subject of much debate and research, But to call it a 'myth' is a bit odd. The next bit is even stranger. Dr Walker claims that subsequent finds now prove that Neanderthals were just plain old humans, maybe a little odd looking, but with dietary problems. Specifically, a lack of Vitamin D would have caused rickets and deformed their bones.

These sorts of arguments about Neanderthals are quite common on the web. However, you will not find them on science web sites but on web sites displaying the rantings of creationists and so-called Intelligent Design advocates. These arguments are important to the creationists. The existence of Neanderthal bones, along with fossils from other homo species, are excellent evidence that archaic forms of humans existed, quite distinct from ourselves, and that evolution can explain their development from earlier, more ape-like ancestors. This is bad news for creationists who like to pretend that no such 'missing links' exist. And so the dissemblers on such sites paint these bones as those of diseased normal humans. A good example of the type of argument can be found on the All About Creation web site. The phrasing and style of argument displayed here is remarkably similar to Dr Walker's site.

The idea that Neanderthals were deformed and diseased ordinary humans has a long heritage, going as far back as the 19th Century German Anatomist Rudolf Virchow, who examined the skeleton of a Neanderthal and pronounced it a victim of rickets and a good bludgeoning around the head. By the beginning of the 20th Century, such ideas had been proved to be nonsense and now they are only to be found on christian literalist web sites (and the odd vitamin sales site).

We now have a much better view of what the Neanderthals were. Far from being backward, diseased and brutish, our cousins were in fact highly successful colonisers of Europe and the Near East. They thrived for hundreds of thousands of years and their remains have been associated with complex hunting and tool making, control of fire and cultural artifcats. Whereas the later arriving sapiens adapted to the harsher environments of Europe though technology, Neanderthals survived through physical adaptions. Their bodies were not diseased but strong and stocky in order to conserve heat and hunt effectively. Their bodies show no signs of rickets. Rather than having the grossly weakened and twisted bones of a rickets victim, their bones are 50% stronger than ours and show none of the usual symptoms of the disease. Why they finally died out, and our own ancestors survived, is still being hotly debated as more evidence comes to light. However, it might be worth noting that the natural assumption that modern humans were far superior in their adaptions for the modern world may yet turn out to be hubris. Neandethals may yet turn out to have a longer dominion over their world than we do.

To further the idea that we will become more Neanderthal like if we don't take our Vitamin D and Omega-3 pills, Dr Walker goes on to more theories about fish oil in the diet of earlier humans. She says that intakes of "vitamins, minerals and phyto-chemicals, such as flavonoids, would have been much higher than today" and this may have made possible brain growth. It is not clear why she believes this.

But, in support of at least part of this, she cites the work of Professor Michael Crawford who published a theory in a 1989 book that early humans would have had to eat large quantities of seafood in order to get enough omega-3 for brain growth. This idea has been incorporated into what is known as the aquatic ape theory, an interesting but controversial idea that early human evolution must have gone through a phase where our ancestors lived in water. The theory is supposed to explain various odd human features such as our ability to hold our breath and swim and our nakedness. The aquatic ape theory has not gained acceptance as so many of the features the theory tries to explain can be explained in other ways. In similar ways, the fish-eating ape theory of Michael Crawford has been argued to be unlikely. John Langdon recently published a paper in the British Journal of Nutrition that reviewed the literature to see what support there may be for the theory and found that there was probably no need for an extreme fishy diet.

Dr Walker goes on,

There seems to be little doubt that many current health problems result from a mismatch between our genetically determined nutritional requirements and our modern diet. According to numerous studies, the Stone-Age diet, high in fruit, vegetables and fish, is still the best for modern humans to reduce their risk of
chronic diseases

So, far Dr Walker has given us little to convince us of the idea that chronic problems such as arthritis are due to our deviation from a stone age diet. Indeed, the leap to the 'crucialness' of taking supplement pills is even more absent. Why not just advise people to have a diet high in the food stuffs our ancestors ate?

Finally, Dr Walker says,

Interestingly, glucosamine and chondroitin (now widely used as supplements to reduce the symptoms of arthritis) are both sourced from marine life. The health benefits of seafood may explain why Greenland Inuits have one of the lowest rates of arthritis in the world.

This article is getting far too long now to look into the glucosamine and chondroitin claim, so I am happy to pass over to Coracle on Science and Progress to see what weight this bears. However, Dr Walker tries to convince us that Inuits have low levels of arthritis and this may be caused by a high fish diet. However, others think that such disparities, if they truly exist, may well have genetic components. It is also worth noting that Canadian Inuits have a life expectancy 10-15 years lower than the average Canadian. Whilst there are many factors that will play a role in this, it has been noted that the Inuit diet must have one the lowest intakes of fresh fruit and vegetables in the world.

The whole hypothesis that our caveman ancestors had superb diets that we can only emulate by buying supplements from Dr Walker's sponsors must be ridiculous. Today's western consumer has access to year round fresh fruit and vegetables, a constant and predictable supply of grains, meat, fish, dairy products and jaffa cakes, and almost never goes through periods of shortages or restrictions. Diets do go wrong, with people eating too much, or eating in an unbalanced way. But, supplements are not the answer, in most cases. Daft tabloid dietary advice, nonsense from media nutritionists, fads and scare stories all confuse people into believing organisations like Dr Walker's marketing firm. Articles, like this Neanderthal one, are not helping.

Ironically, Dr Walker might be nearer the truth of advocating a Neanderthal lifestyle when she is promoting her herbal remedies. Human beings have a long tradition of using plants in therapeutic ways and this undoubtedly goes back into our prehistory. As our ancestors evolved, so their brains got better at fathoming causal relationships in the world. Tools and technology are the consequence of brains that can accurately model cause and effect relationships. To those emerging human minds, the instinct to find causal reasons for disease and to take action to cure must have been strong. After all, humans can influence and manipulate so much of their world, why not their bodies and their illnesses? It is interesting to speculate how humans' love of quackery comes from those primitive instincts and how our minds still seek patterns and explanations in illness. Is herbalism deeply rooted in our evolutionary past?

Did Neanderthals use herbs to heal? Tantalisingly, there is some evidence from a grave in Iraq. Maybe, our relationship with plants is even deeper than the Neanderthals. Last Christmas, I had the pleasure of meeting a researcher who was off to Borneo to study how Orang-Utans maybe self-medicated with various plants. She was going to be collecting Orang pooh for six months and studying it, and was obviously destined to become the Gillian McKeith of the Orang-Utan world. But with an accredited PhD. And even more matted ginger hair.

But to fall for the alluring idea of the 'wisdom of the ancients' and their 'natural' healing powers would be missing what was going on here. Maybe, some plants had a therapeutic effect. Maybe, the action of a social group using plants gave a strong placebo response in the ill. As we find today, many illnesses would be fought off by an immune response or be self-limiting in some other way. The act of healing rituals cemented social bonds and the plants used formed part of the groups' defining cultures. There is evidence that Neanderthals cared for their sick and elderly, however, the value of using plants in healing was probably more cultural and social than pharmaceutical.

We scientific humans, however, have developed skills that allow us to work out which plants really have beneficial effect, and we have technologies that allow us to refine the chemicals that cause the effect, how to minimize risks and side-effects and how to standardise doses. It's called modern, scientific medicine. Dr Walker's herbalism has more in common with our ancestors shamanic rituals than with what goes on in hospitals. If there is good evidence for the beneficial effect of a herb then it ceases to be herbalism and becomes part of the tools of real medicine. This does happen, of course. The majority of drugs now used have their origins in plants and other natural substances.

However, Dr Walker appears to be more rooted in our Neanderthal past using mystical and non-scientific explanations for herbal remedies. Professor Colquhoun was quite right to point out that using terms like 'blood cleanser' is just gobbledegook. Fortunately, I have just heard that his web site will be re-instated on the UCL servers and that the university consider the meat of the complaint groundless. So much for legalistic threats. Can we get back to the science now please?

So, why did Neanderthals not get arthritis? Was it fish oil? Is this the answer?

Perhaps, it had something to do with the probable life expectancy of a Neanderthal being just 20 years.


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Labels: diets, nutritionist, pseudoscience, vitamins

 

As you can see, the Quackometer has had a makeover. This is the first in a series of improvements I hope to make in the next few months.

Please bear with me as I iron out the problems. I do not have access to hoards of testing monkeys to get this site right. Don't hesitate to get in contact if you spot a problem or can think of a way of improving the Quackometer.

I appreciate that there are significant problems with the site displaying correctly in Firefox. I hope to get these ironed out over the coming days. The evil Internet Explorer appears to be working about right at the moment.

Things you might want to note:

• You can now use the QuackSafe Search facility from any page. Just type your query into the box below the banner.
• The email address for getting in contact has changed. (An attempt to reduce spam!)
• The Shop is coming soon.
• You can leave general comments about the site here.

Regards

le Canard Noir

Labels: quackometer

 

Le Canard Noir is currently working on a site revamp and this will now include a shopping area for all your favourite quackometer products. You have already had a sneak preview of the t-shirt range.


Now, I can give you a teaser for the range of compulsory site mugs....

Labels: quackometer

 

I've been writing rather a lot recently about the quackery that surrounds the whole question of whether electromagnetic emissions are harming our health. Apologies. But it is quite interesting to witness a new form of quackery being born. What has been interesting so far is how the alternative medicine camp have been jumping in on the scare and offering all sorts of bonkers products, along with their potty theories about the harm caused and pet theories of how to 'heal'.

Most of these quacks have been fairly small business affairs, but quackery is by no means limited to cottage traders. Big money is just as keen to fleece money from the unwary. Look at some of the biggest UK companies like Boots the Chemist and their range of quack products. Clarins, the huge French cosmetics company, is already trying to make money from the fear of radio waves with daft, pseudoscientific products.

So, the ever more bonkers Independent introduces us to Exradia - a new company start up, offering patented ways of protecting us from the 'harm' that is caused by mobile phones. They have a product called the Wi-Guard. Nice. Unlike, some of the other outfits involved in this scam, Exradia are doing a 'proper job', with lots of money spent on their web site, graphic design and product marketing.

The company has been set up by people with apparent City credentials. Their chairman, Asher Gratt, sold a telecoms business to British Gas for many millions. Their CEO, James Fintain Lawler, was CFO at Xerox EMEA. Other executives brought in represent a team ready for large scale global logistics, distribution and partner channel sales. They mean business.

The basic premise behind the business is that they have developed a mobile phone battery that is allegedly capable of making the electromagnetic emissions from a mobile 'harmless'. I will explain a little more about how the battery supposedly works in a moment, but it is worth reflecting on their business model first. Exradia, although making a nod to retail sales, are much more interested in striking deals with mobile phone manufacturers and operators. The reason for this is obvious. There are more mobile phones in the UK than people now (many people have more than one phone) and they replace their phones every 12-18 months. New phones need new batteries and if that battery is an Exradia magic battery then the total annual revenues would be approaching a billion pounds (assuming the battery sold at full retail value of about £30). Scale that business across Europe and you are talking serious wonga.

The trick is of course to persuade the Nokias, Sony Ericssons, and LGs to use your magic battery. And this is where Exradia are laying on the fear. Their corporate presentation compares the dangers of mobile phones to the dangers of smoking. "Look what has happened to the tobacco companies with all their law suits. Do you want the same thing to happen to you?". If the handset manufacturers take the precaution of installing 'protective' batteries then they can be seen to be taking their customers' concerns seriously and so mitigate the risk of future potential claims.

Guy Kewney in the Register writes that this might be the mobile phone industry equivalent of the airlines' life jacket. Guy points out that the life jacket has not saved a single life, but an airline would be mad not to push them under the seat. Think of the law suits again. However, life jackets have the potential to really save lives and no one doubts that. But does this battery save lives? Should the mobile phone manufacturers put one in just to be on the safe side? Or, is this more akin to putting a flying carpet under the seat of every passenger?

However, this is not your typical vitamin pill sales person selling the odd fraudulent qlink pendant. This is a business being done by people who know the value of a scalable and leveraged business model, who understand the value of a patent and are prepared to take a risk. Unfortunately, I have a feeling that this is also a business being run by people who don't understand science. None of the executives on the web site appear keen to flaunt any science credentials.

The big question is then is how this new technology is supposed to work? There is nothing quite so crass as the qlink's appeal to quantum theory, or Subtle Field Technologies clueless flaunting of its 'holograph field'. Instead their web site leads to lots of dense explanations and sciencey looking research papers explaining how we are being harmed and how we can be saved. The only problem is that its a pretty incoherent set of explanations.

Let's do a one minute reminder of what we are supposedly trying to protect ourselves from. First, there are the people who claim to be electrosensitive, that is they suffer a range of symptoms, including headaches, lethargy and concentration problems, when they are in proximity to Wi-Fi routers and mobile phones. But it is almost certain now, due to the large numbers of studies done, that the radio waves from these devices have nothing to do with their symptoms. More alarmingly are reports of electromagnetic waves causing cancer. The best evidence to date shows that there may be a slight risk from overhead power cables of causing leukemia in children. The evidence is not conclusive and there may well be evidence that the extra cancers have nothing to do with magnetic fields. But if these findings are confirmed, then it would still only correspond to an extra death per year.

So, what do Exradia say they are doing science wise? Apparently, their sister company in the US explains that the harm does not come from the radio emissions from the handset, but the background low frequency (ELF) emissions from the battery and electronics. This would explain why all the studies flaunted by the company appear to be of mains frequency emissions, i.e. 50 or 60 Hz. This is far below the frequency range of Wi-Fi and mobiles. The company explains how our bodies are used to being in noisy background ELF. Electronic devices introduce 'coherent' signals that can apparently jiggle around with our cells mechanics. Introduce another random field and the coherence is lost and our cells are safe. The magic battery does just this - allegedly.

It all sounds very technical and scientific but this is fringe science stuff. We have previously seen how this sort of 'subtle effect' is attracting all sort of quack devotees. The company are keen to show how the US military developed this technology (always produces loud clanging sounds on the quackometer) and how many studies are backing this up. Unfortunately, as far as I can see the studies appear to be the usual array of irrelevant, incoherent and surrogate studies that litter this space. What is more, one of the names that appears very frequently, Theodore Litowitz, also appears to be a patent holder in this technology. It all raises so many questions. If the main radio frequencies are not doing the harm, then what are all the anti-mobile campaigners banging on about? If is is the 50Hz emissions that muck around with our cells, why concentrate on phones when the mains is dumping out this stuff? The problem is that the 'coherence' theory of electromagnetic harm is only matched by the incoherence of their explanations. Having people write papers is one thing. Getting it all to fit into consilient science is another.

I hope the due diligence the Exradia investors did on the business model was better than the due diligence done on the science. I just cannot see how a company like Nokia would want to get involved. Producing mobile phones is all about cramming as many features as possible into a trendy shell with a small bill of materials and then flogging this as cheaply as possible to the mobile phone operators like Vodafone. Locking yourself into a quirky battery company makes no sense. Licensing the technology from them just adds cost to manufacturing. This is going to be a hard sell, especially when the Nokia engineers start scratching their heads over it. Battery life is a pressing limitation on the development of mobile technology and features. Will manufacturers and their customers really accept diminished battery life in return for nebulous benefits? Exradia are betting they will. Their site videos suggest their customers will. But asking people on the street if they want to be safer is a bit like asking them if they want free beer. Reality may well be different.

My guess is that Exradia executives will spend a futile Summer camped in Sweden and Finland and, when it starts getting cold, the push into retail sales will begin. Even then, flogging magic batteries to the public is going to be hard work. It is not like the qlink people who can glue any old electronic component into a pretty resin case and make a mint. Making mobile phone batteries in itself is complex technical business without the bother of the 'special incoherence chip'. There are hundreds of variants and the top sellers change on a quarterly basis. You are going to have to run hard to keep up and will have to flog hundreds of thousands to make the whole effort worthwhile.

Maybe, a lower key and even profitable strategy will be producing commercial and domestic 'incoherence spreader' boxes for the office and home. Tackle your Wi-Fi, mobile and mains all in one go. I think it will be fun watching this one.

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Update

Yes, it has been fun watching this one and I have written a follow up here: Exradia: Angels or Demons?

Labels: electromagnetic quackery