Helpful Poisons

Cancer Research UK run the Race For Life evens, in which thousands of people from all walks of life, young and old, go out and run/walk to collect sponsorship money that’s donated to CRUK.

My boss – known in the building as one of the many PIs (Principal Investigators) who head the lab groups in the Institute we work in – went along with her 6 year-old daughter to go up on stage and thank people for participating.

I spoke to her about it a while ago and she told me how moved she was to see so many people come out to do their best on a Sunday morning, raising what money they can so enthusiastically. That she was very emotional surveying the sea of people in pink who had turned up to support each other and by raising that money, the scientists whose work aims to improve the treatments we have for cancer. That includes our lab. Plus the patients and their families who have to go through all of it.

Her daughter asked “why are all these people getting cancer?” – because they’re ill, she replied. I know I wouldn’t have understood such a concept at that age either so her determination is admirable.

What treatments we currently have are by no means ideal, although curing people of cancer does happen, contrary to popular belief. Sadly, googling that kind of thing will lead to lots of alt-med scam sites trying to tell people if they just eat raw peppers or rub hemp oil on themselves, their tumours will disappear. This is incredibly damaging for hopefully obvious reasons.

Tough Love

Many chemotherapeutic drugs do cause horrific side-effects that make people feel very ill (of course, they are already seriously ill, but often we don’t feel it just from the disease itself). That’s because chemo, generally, is a form of poison. Alt-med proponents will often try to use that fact to make medicine sound bad to people they want to convince to use alternative products instead – sadly, people fall for it sometimes and this of course can have the worst consequence.

It is designed to kill living cells – the cancer cells. Anything that’s capable of doing that is likely to be unpleasant – remember that awful hangover? Your liver cells weren’t happy about that night, certainly. Fortunately most of us drink sensible amounts and don’t end up causing liver cancer when we’re enjoying the effects of alcohol.

Therein lies the important element – sensible amounts. The thing about drugs is that dose is everything – we’re finding this more and more in our research and perhaps I’ll write something about that at a later date.

Chemo drugs are carefully researched so that doctors know how much to give – how much should kill off the cancer most efficiently, while doing as little damage to the rest of the person as possible. The reason it often makes people feel ill is that there will be some damage – off-target effects, as they’re known – to normal tissues.

Much cancer research currently focuses on developing different drugs that will be entirely tumour-specific, eliminating or at least drastically reducing side-effects.

The thing about cancer cells is that they grow too quickly, they’ve gotten around the normal checks and barriers cells have that tell them to stop growing. Most cells don’t grow and divide in adults, they’re stable – with obvious exceptions like the lining of the gut, which is constantly replacing itself, the womb lining during the menstrual cycle, hair follicles…

And this is where the chemo side-effects come in. We target cancer cells’ ability to grow and divide a lot with these drugs, which unfortunately also go for some normal, non-cancerous dividing cells. Hence the hair loss effect that’s commonly seen (not with all drugs) and other painful/unpleasant things.

Now we have other treatments, for example radiotherapy targeted very specifically at the tumour with highly-specialised machines designed to minimise off-target exposure. Since the radiation used is also what can cause cancer (by damaging normal DNA – this is why you need to wear sun cream!), you don’t want to hit normal tissues with it any more than you absolutely have to. This is another alt-med favourite, ‘Cancer treatment gives you cancer! They want you to come back for more!!’ – it’s conspiracy theory at its best. There’s truth in it, but it’s been distorted away from reality.

Cause, simplified

If you can damage cancer cell DNA to the point where controls do kick in to destroy the cells, that’s a good way to kill tumours. But also, as I said, DNA damage is what causes cancer in the first place – it can come from various sources; hereditary cancers are mainly or entirely (example) due to mutations, that are passed down from previous generations, in particular genes that usually control cell growth.

Sporadic cases of cancer occur when there’s too much exposure to environmental carcinogens – be it sunlight (UV), cigarette smoke, alcohol or a combination of many subtle things – in that case the normal DNA is damaged in places that are important for maintaining cells’ in-built anti-cancer controls.

These two distinctions and the explanations are extremely simplified but hopefully making sense (?).

That’s why it’s still a numbers game – you’re not 100% certain to develop cancer even if you do things that do involve carcinogens and they may well have damaged your DNA, the point is that particular damage may not have occurred in places that affect the cells’ anti-cancer controls. Only if it occurs in genes that regulate cell growth in some way will it then possibly lead to cancer. Even then a number of other changes will need to occur in that population of cells that are now growing more for cancer to take hold.

Thing is, once you have some damaged cells that are growing more frequently, there are more chances for further DNA damage to happen as cells replicate. As the population gets bigger, the likelihood of the changes occurring in ‘bad’ places (i.e. further reducing the barriers and promoting growth) only increases.

So it’s a question of risk. It’s a gamble, if you want to smoke, for example. For me it’s absolutely not worth it – why spend money on something that does nothing but make you a drug addict (sorry, but that’s the case, for those who don’t insist it’s just a social thing and I can quit whenever I want) and increases the chance of your lung cells becoming irreparably damaged to the point where you may well lose a lung, or indeed your life? ‘Cool’ is very subjective, and those things don’t fall within my list.

At least the liver has alcohol dehydrogenase – but it’s still a question of dose, and ADH doesn’t apply in oesophageal, pancreatic or other cancer types.

Everything in moderation

Sure, we can’t obsess about everything every minute of the day – but there are sensible and easy things to be done to protect yourself and your family – for me, that’s completely worth it. Once you’ve watched a loved one die of cancer, whatever form, whether they had a hand in its occurrence or not – well, I don’t need to say more.

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The people who get up and raise money for institutes like ours all over the country, and the world, do contribute to the medical establishment’s ability to treat cancer. They deserve all our thanks.

Cancer is immensely complicated, we don’t fully understand it yet, but the more everyone does know, the better we can cope with it.

Maybe one day we’ll look back in wonder that so many lost their lives to such a thing; as we look now at little cuts and grazes when bacteria killed so readily, before we understood their existence and found (relatively) simple ways of dealing with them.

This seems a nice future to hope for.

The 3rd Perspective

In the spheres of skepticism and alternative health there are two main perspectives we encounter:

The ‘good’ and the ‘bad’

1)      That of the incredulous skeptic who insists all is bullshit, gets angry at the quacks and tries to stop them peddling rubbish at gullible people.

2)      The alt med proponents; be they sellers or consumers, they aggressively try to persuade you that it works and big pharma/your doctor are lying to you and the global conspiracy has suppressed all the ‘natural cures’.

Of course there are various severities of those views, stronger and milder, but they’re the most prominent types.

The Ugly?

However, there is a point of view that receives less attention. The sufferers of chronic incurable conditions whose friends and family, often merely out of care and concern, insist on telling them about this or that treatment/remedy/ritual/product that will make them better or even cure them.

Once or twice these suggestions can be laughed off or you can humour the person, but after a while it becomes more difficult to ignore.

One of my best internet friends (we’ve never met but have talked for years) has Ehlers-Danlos syndrome (EDS), a rare genetic disorder that affects connective tissue and causes frequent and painful dislocations and many other complications, depending on the exact mutation involved, that can make life very difficult.

Recently she’s expressed extreme frustration at all the people sending her articles about things that will cure or make her feel better. She suffers from other conditions as well, including Crohn’s disease, which gives the obsessive alt medders even more ammunition. I’m going to use her words (with her permission) because they convey the feeling better than my commentary would.

Here’s your anecdotal evidence

“I now have three people trying to convince me that eating right (read bizarre hippie stuff) will “cure” my EDS. Yes cure the syndrome I have, which is caused by a faulty gene I was born with.

I’ve to boil a chicken for at least 24 hours, until the collagen in its joints breaks down, because consuming that will cure me. To think I’ve wasted all this time going to doctors who’ve only studied the condition for years and know how genes work. I should have been chatting to this woman who read a page on the internet! It had nothing to do with EDS but her logic is sound.

Until this cure kicks in, I’ve to make an “elixir” of grains which have been fermented in raw milk from a pastured cow, raw honey, chillies, vinegar and mixed aromatic spices, which has been left to stand in a dark cupboard. I’ve to make it on the night of a new moon and allow it to brew until the next new moon. I then swallow a few spoonfuls several times a day. This will build up my strength, prevent pain and stop me from catching any viruses. It’s been proven to work. The guy whose website it’s on has posted several testimonies from people who tried it (the ones who didn’t die one assumes).

I’m only in pain though because I take painkillers (amazing how that works, I thought I didn’t start taking them until I was in pain!). Oh and my genetic abnormality (that I was born with) was caused by my being fed that poison called baby milk and getting the rubella vaccine (after I was born).

Another concerned friend enlightened me with the fact that if I consume large quantities of raw milk, raw butter and raw eggs, again from those “pastured” animals, along with “good meat”, more fermented grains and fermented beans, I will cure both my Crohn’s and psoriasis pretty much immediately. She has a friend who did it and cured herself and all her children. Those idiot doctors are just trying to make money so they hide the truth from us. There are several websites that prove this too.

Yet another friend knows of an homeopathic pill which will also cure my psoriasis. Yup, expensive water on sugar pills, plus fermented beans, will cure my autoimmune diseases.”

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(To jump in here myself – my friend is obviously very sensible and intelligent, she knows all this is nonsense. But not everyone has that advantage and there are a lot of vulnerable people looking for advice and support online, including very seriously ill individuals…)

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Dangerous advice

“A woman posted on a forum looking for advice. She has breast cancer and breastfeeds. She’s about to start chemo and radiotherapy so has to stop feeding her baby this way. Her baby refuses to take a bottle though and frequently uses the breast for comfort but won’t take a dummy. What should she do to help him adjust? Well these educated women leapt in to help:

DO NOT go for chemo or radiotherapy, it kills more people than they let you know. Instead, go to this website or that website where they have “proven” you can cure cancer with the right diet. All you need is this combination of supplements and drink lots of vegetable juice. Don’t go back to your doctor, this man has a Facebook page that explains how to cure cancer naturally.

The best one?

You have lots of time before you need to worry, don’t trust your doctor. It’s much safer to use this diet.

Apparently, just by reading some website she trundled across one day, this woman is able to asses the progression and stage of your cancer and determine how much danger you’re in. Since she obviously knows more than any oncologist (well have you ever heard of one with this amazing skill?) I think we should all listen to her. Damn the big pharmaceutical companies and their sinister plot to suppress this life-saving knowledge. All it takes is some fermented grains, the tumor will evaporate and all remaining cancerous cells will reverse-mutate into happy ones again.

Seriously there were so many people claiming this stuff. It was scary. I hope this poor woman has the sense to ignore them. How vile can you get?  They are risking the life of a woman, with very young children, a woman they don’t even know! All because of their paranoia and their hatred of doctors and drug companies.

Oh and don’t get me started on their claims about what chiropractic can do. So many, Americans especially, believe in chiropractic and homeopathy. I wonder if they have ever actually looked at how these “treatments” are supposed to work? It’s the most surreal nonsense ever. Someone did say I should go to a chiropractor for my Crohn’s once. Of course, it’s obvious, cracking my spine is sure to stop my immune system from attacking my gut.

I know people on Facebook who take their newborn babies to chiropractors. It’s madness. Why the hell would you trust some glorified massage therapist to manipulate your baby’s spine? At best it’s painful and scary for them. God knows what they could accidentally do.

Then there are my ‘real life’ friends who keep trying to convince me I should let them do Reiki on me. It’s so logical, have someone hold their hands somewhere near you while they think really hard. I bet I can stop taking my pills after just a couple of sessions.”

I’m not stupid

“I know it comes from them wanting to help but I think it’s also that they want to show how much they “know”. They’re also saying that they know much better than me, the person who has to live with these conditions, and implying that I haven’t bothered to do any research. If I had, then of course I would have come to the same conclusion as them.

If anyone dares challenge their opinions, it’s claimed that you just haven’t done enough research. Apparently doctors do not use evidence based information in their treatments. I had one person tell me that some people want to heal themselves, others just want to treat the symptoms. Basically saying that my choice of conventional medication and therapies is stupid. I actually get pitied for trusting the doctors who have specialised in my disease for most of their lives. Who have seen thousands of people like me and have been able to compare their histories, eating habits and symptoms.

It’s draining and sometimes offensive. I don’t want to upset anyone by asking them to shut up about this stuff, so I bite my tongue but it gets to me after a while. I am not an idiot and I’m not naive. I am doing what I believe is best for me and for my family. I’m sick of the attitude and frustrated that they don’t respect my choices. Especially considering the stuff they choose to believe is based on bizarre, illogical claims.

At best their repeated claims are annoying and frustrating. At worst they’re downright dangerous. I don’t have an annoying cramp or a case of the runs. I have a very serious disease which almost killed me. It will not go away and there is every chance my life will be in danger again. If they hadn’t gotten my immune system under control, it would have destroyed my bowel. Now imagine that I had been determined to not take any of these “toxic” drugs. My body could have been so badly diseased that I couldn’t recover, that’s if I didn’t starve to death.

The only reason I am able to eat now is that I take two different pills, three times every day, which stop me rejecting everything I eat and drink. Trying to digest pulses would be so dangerous for me. Yet these people insist it’s what I need to do to get better. Thank god I know enough about my body and my disease that I haven’t tried it.

What if I didn’t know that? What if that poor women with cancer isn’t smart enough to immediately dismiss everything she was told? It was all presented as fact. “

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She also has issues with the amount of prayers people are offering, something I agree with but not everyone will and not as potentially dangerous as the kinds of things discussed here – so I’ll leave that out for now. Another popular one, especially on Facebook, at the moment is chemtrails. Sigh.

Not only risking yourself

While the stories of people choosing woo to treat their own conditions is sad in itself, worse still is people forcing it upon their children, potentially risking their lives.

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“One of my ‘friends’ daughters developed a severe rash, really nasty. It seemed allergic. She decided not to get it treated at all. Instead she dabbed breast milk on it and left her body to fight it. She actually risked her daughter, not herself. Refused to get it checked even though it was horrendous. She posted photos of it in her blog. It spread over her entire body, which was all swollen. Her face swelled badly, closing her eyes.
She knows better than any doctor though. The breastfeeding, no-vaxing mothers all talk about how amazingly healthy their children are…”

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In addition, not only do these attitudes endanger them and their children, but other people’s as well. Declining herd immunity means we have seen resurgences of whooping cough and measles, for example.

Yet now, people are trying to promote recovery from Andrew Wakefield‘s fraudulent claims in the form of publicly-available written accounts, our libel laws are once again an impediment – fascinating and disturbing that the solicitor who paid Wakefield is also the director of the Society of Homeopaths, considering homeopathic measles ‘vaccines’ have been under scrutiny of late (on Newsnight, for example). Just sayin’.

We’ve a very long way to go.

I consider myself a very tolerant person but it is so so hard sometimes. When I’m repeatedly confronted by this idiocy it weighs me down. The religious nonsense is very hard. Even the ones who are otherwise nice people are tainted by their faith. They’re closed-minded, judgemental, bigoted, condescending and rude. Not to mention completely irrational and illogical, willing to dismiss extremely obvious facts if they even slightly contradict the doctrine.

Noah’s Ark Zoo Farm

Now, I’ve had this in my drafts box for ages.

The zoo/farm is near Bristol and I’ve been kicking around the idea of a field trip for some time – the lack of desire to give them any money being one deterrent.

What is it? It’s a tourist attraction, specialising in school trips, pushing a creationist agenda. It’s the kind of thing I’d expect to see in the Bible Belt of the States but it’s been nestled in South West England for some time now.

You could be forgiven for thinking “that’s a bit harsh” and that they are in fact a decent, educational establishment. The website is fairly innocuous until you reach the far-right tab ‘Evolution and Creation‘, which links to a ‘sister website’, Earth History: A New Approach.

Some gems:

We believe the fossil record does not show one evolutionary tree of life but rather genetically controlled diversification from a number of original forms

As the currently measured value of an element’s decay rate (or half-life) has no theoretical basis, the only way we can test which is true is to compare the results against the primary evidence.

ORLY?!

They keep winning awards – including this year’s Learning Outside the Classroom Quality Badge – and this hasn’t gone unnoticed, at least by the BHA.

Edit: Righteous Indignation ran a report on the zoo back in August from Dr*T (from around 19:00), in which he explores the whole of the bible passage about Noah & the flood; it’s, um, interesting…

James Gray hits the nail on the head (emphasis mine):

‘This is an appalling decision. It is entirely inappropriate that the Council should support an establishment that advances creationism and seeks to discredit a wide variety of established scientific facts that challenge their religious views, such as radio carbon dating, the fossil record and the speed of light.’

‘Teachers and parents look to the Council for assurance that children will experience high quality educational visits that meet the relevant government guidelines. Awarding this particular zoo a Quality Badge risks exposing hundreds of children to anti-scientific dogma.’

‘This is not a freedom of speech or freedom of religion issue. The question is whether the information displayed by this zoo meets the tests of accuracy and truth that parents, teachers and other educational professionals expect.’

I was first made aware of the Zoo through Facebook as some people from one of the Atheist Bus Campaign/Richard Dawkins groups (I forget which) had visited and posted their photos, which included T-Rex models in the ark and shots of the merchandise in the gift shop; mostly books about Christianity’s creation myth. Marketed at school trips, remember.

Do have a look at Paul Sims‘ write-up and particularly the photos at the end. You can see the kind of things they put in their ‘educational’ material; why apes aren’t related to man, proof the ark was real and so on.

Welfare Worries

Aside from its religious fundamentalism and anti-scientific propaganda, the zoo has animal welfare issues too. Last year they had their BIAZA membership revoked because of a failure to disclose information about their acquisition of tigers from circuses. The RSPCA also criticised their plans for an elephant enclosure.

[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMLeqmvxiaM]

There have been (and probably still are) protests there because of alleged animal cruelty. If you look around reviews* of the place, they range from enthusiastic thumbs-up, through it’s-ok-if-you-ignore-the-crazy, all the way to outrage both at the ‘educational’ content and animal welfare.

*…The giraffe had one pole in a field with a empty twig to chew on. One of the tigers looked a little crazy as he just walked around the same route in his little house bashing his head on the glass each time. Most of the animals had cuts on their legs, is this normal?!

They were also accused of killing some of the animals to reduce Winter spending; however, it is difficult to pick out the substantial accusations as there are always plenty brought by ARE groups, which are likely to be full of twisted-truths and exaggerations. There are a few legitimate reasons why this may have happened; to feed the carnivores, to maintain healthy stocks, etc.

Reality Check

This is the 21st century; genetics tells us more every day about our evolutionary past and place in the gigantic web of life on this planet. In an increasingly secular state, why does a place such as this exist? Claiming to be educational yet ignoring much of what we already know.

This is not an alternative theory; it’s ridiculous denialism, likely permitted because religious belief is a handy excuse to push agendas whilst avoiding a lot of the controls placed on non-religiously-motivated activity.

Why is it still open after all this? How much more exposure is necessary?

Shall we go?

 

A “Media Tart” Case Study

I recently went to a course run by some ex-BBC journalists, Media Players International, on how to engage with the media regarding your research. They encouraged us to become the Media Tarts of the future, so here I (vaguely…) recall some of Dr Armand Leroi‘s lecture to my fellow postgrads and I from way back in the Summer, which was on that very topic.

I’ve enjoyed Armand’s telly programmes and was fortunate to have a pint and a chat with him at the very first London Skeptics in the Pub I went to (having been apprehensive about knowing no-one beforehand!).

Probably most famous for his science best-seller, Mutants, Armand has a great passion for his subject – evolutionary biology – which I very nearly pursued after university myself (and still sometimes wish I had!).

My Life As A Media Tart

Guest lecture to School of Medicine & Dentistry, Queen Mary University of London, Postgradute Day.

How I became one and how you can too!

The OMIM database* shows that we are all mutants. This gives us information on development.

[*I love OMIM; Online Mendelian Inheritance in Man, and have done since it was introduced to us at university. You can search any gene you can think of and see if it's been linked to a heritable disease in people, with links to the original papers, follow-up studies, details of other-organism models, big clinical studies, drugs and so on. Very useful & interesting.]

Armand recalled dealings with the “innocent of knowledge” TV people in Soho(!) when Channel 4 had commissioned a series of programmes that should cover science in the form of:

Sex, death and deformity

The Sex was provided by Olivia Judson, the Death by Gunther von Hagens [oh how I did enjoy the Body Worlds exhibition!!], and the Deformity by Armand!

He showed us a timeline of the deadlines set (and missed!) during the writing of Mutants, and its movement to TV serialisation.

Filming is wonderful! But draining.

Having worked on the flatworm C. elegans (one of biology’s favourite genetic models) for many years, Armand noted how human compassion affected the projects – studying mutants can mean ‘treating real people as flies’, with respect to their genes;

I was comfortable with worms!

We scientists are sometimes resistant to being taken out of our comfort zones!

TV is a crass medium

Apparently the BBC even has a ‘walking & talking’ school! They’ll teach you how to move and talk at the same time. Amazing.

Is it worth it?

A common question with regard to any sort of science communication endeavour, especially ones such as writing and presenting that can take a lot of time and effort. Armand replies:

There is a need for science. Lots of TV science!

The situation isn’t quite as dire as many of us tend to think. SciComms is flourishing in many ways; this is the first time in my life, at least, that it’s been cool to be nerdy! Perhaps I’ve just restricted my social bubble so much that that’s inevitable, who knows.

We need scientist-driven content.

Rather than producer-driven; otherwise you fall into the sensationalist traps, don’t actually inform anyone of anything and maintain useless stereotypes.

Prof. Kathy Sykes and notable others have started to take on alternative medicine (close to the skeptics’ hearts of course) and pseudo-skepticism such as the ‘global warming swindle’ (see below).

Science Matters.

There has been a war of sorts, going for >2300 years; if one is going to be overly-dramatic about it, involving (un)truth, light/dark and (un)reason. Perhaps embodied by Aristotle’s movement away from his teacher, Plato, saying

Plato is my friend, but the truth is more my friend.

Something with which I identify very much, in fact.

The value of Scientists in engagement

It needs to be about more than just saying “trust me, I’m a scientist”

TV is run by humanities graduates!

That may well be so, in which case the narrative tends to rank above substance.

Is it true? It is news?

It is of course important that you have a good narrative, though, otherwise people will get bored and wander off! So I wouldn’t be too quick to dismiss their skills or be particularly mean (have loads of humanities grad friends and they’re no less brilliant for it – am a firm believer in the importance of diversity. Hey, all the geneticists should agree with that!) – but it’s probably worth trying to give some input, to steer things in a more fact-based direction.

The example given was of a Channel 4 ‘documentary’ called The Great Global Warming Swindle. It was investigated by Steve Connor who said it:

was based on graphs that were distorted, mislabelled, or just plain wrong…

To which the producer Martin Durkin replied:

The original NASA data was very wiggly and we wanted the simplest line we could find

Given the audience and subject matter this is hugely irresponsible and, understandably, people made various statements against it.

Prof. Carl Wunsch at MIT, who participated in the documentary, said The Great Global Warming Swindle was ‘grossly distorted’ and ‘as close to pure propaganda as anything since World War Two’.

One of Armand’s comments during correspondence with Durkin, that ended up involving Ben Goldacre and Simon Singh as well, was affectionately dubbed the ‘Leroi Conjecture’

Left to their own devices, TV producers simply cannot be trusted to tell the truth

He finished with some advice:

Editing is unavoidable. Seriously engage and keep control. Say ‘It’s this or I walk’

Don’t be pressured into presenting something you don’t agree with or something that’s wrong. Don’t let your message be twisted.

Going back to the journalists I met on the course; apparently there’s no such thing as ‘off the record’. Get your message clear in your mind before you begin, do your best to stick to it. You can learn to direct questions yourself and maintain the agenda – they’re already skilled at doing it.

Use the Press office of your universities – fortunately at Queen Mary we have a very good one. Don’t forget that they exist.

Mythbusting

I’ve talked of it before as a potentially important role for scientists (and anyone, really) and it seems to be a growing phenomenon – that or I’m just more aware of it. All perhaps catalysed somewhat by Nick Davies.

For example, the lovely Mr Marshall, not a scientist by training, has moved into covering Bad PR (or Bad News, as a more pun-tastic title for SitP talks and wotnot) – that includes opinion polls and general PR screw-ups.

These go along the lines of:

Determine the outcome, and then run the study to find it.

It’s rather like Creation ‘science’, if you like. Here’s the conclusion, now let’s go cherry-pick that evidence.
What doesn’t fit, it’s fine – we’ll ignore it, or we’ll design a study that irons that wrinkle out.

If you venture into comms/outreach, as a media tart or otherwise, you can do your own bit in this ‘war’, if you want to call it that – science would probably appreciate it.

Armand gave us a whirlwind tour of his programmes to date:

Alien Worlds

This 2005 programme was seemingly dismissed as a bit silly; indeed we had a bit of a giggle at a screen-grab of some computer-generated space whales.

What Makes Us Human

Armand in his shades there

The programme examined the differences between the chimp (our closest relative, genetically) and human genomes and the idea of a genomic recipe.

He expanded upon one example of how genetic research has used human examples to glean information about the functions of our genes and why we develop the way we do.

In Gujarat, Pakistan, there are shrines to the Rat People;  they have unusually small heads and the mental ability of 2-3 year-old children. The local presumption is that they are cursed (or they believe that beggars or gypsies put pots on their heads to deliberately create a source of income in the family). Infertile people go to the shrine and must ‘donate’ their first child to the shrine, or all their future offspring will be doomed to this fate.

The condition is called microcephaly – a recessive genetic disorder, involving several genes, including microcephalin (involved in brain cell proliferation).

It’s fascinating because when we consider chimps vs. humans, our genes have evolved very fast; one major distinguishing feature being our ‘huge’ brains. One gene important in this feature of ours is clearly microcephalin.

He also recounted attending a very surreal dwarf conference in Reno, US., called Little People of America. Dwarfism is caused by varied bone disorders, achondroplasia being the most common, and there many people come together from all over the world to share their experiences, access support networks, meet up and make friends.

We got an amusing image of the evo bio lab’s shrine to ditto the pig (as a good luck mascot!) – animals with two faces are a striking example of mutants helping our understanding of genes; with this condition being particularly ‘entertaining’, given the gene involved (a favourite amongst us biologist/gamer types) – Sonic Hedgehog (or Shh).

Darwin’s secret notebooks

A National Geographic piece on the formation of Darwin’s thoughts. Tenuous links here being that Darwin was British and bald! They got to go on the National Geographic ship Polaris, I’m insanely jealous of this.

What Darwin Did Not Know

A programme designed to explain the development of evolutionary understanding since the publication of the Origin of Species (in just 90 minutes!! Hardly a simple task).

Armand’s favourite example from this is the Lake Malawi cichlid fish. An absolutely astounding variety of fish species have evolved in that lake and a lot of work is still going on to characterise them.

Aristotle’s Lagoon

Armand’s pet project to date, the title referring to a Lesvos Lagooon visited by “the father of biologists”, Aristotle, who wrote the Historia Animalium as a result – the first in-depth zoological study.

Interesting as the recording of the Infinite Monkey Cage I went to recently involved the question of “Is philosophy dead?” and the seemingly age-old rivalry of scientific vs. philosophical study (not that I separate them that much, personally) – here Aristotle was considered only a philosophical figure, and I thought it was a shame they’d clearly not watched this programme!

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Finally I should probably plug my first foray into the world of scientific telly, brought to you by the excellent Wellcome Trust – have a look at tissue culture in our lab, here!

‘Bleachgate’ and beyond

Hello!

So, I’m having a bit of a blogging holiday due to other things catching up with me at the moment but I hope to get a few posts out soon.

First, a few words on the ongoing MMS story.

Rhys has been notified that the WHO have now been informed of MMS and will be taking steps to warn the public internationally – fantastic! Have a listen to him on the radio today; from 9:10.

He also received an award at TAM last weekend (I encourage you to read some of the fantastic blog-based commentaries on the proceedings if you’re interested in the concept and might attend next year, and also look up QEDcon!) in recognition of his skeptical activism achievements.

So, on to the meat.

‘Bugs’ and Cancer

I was saying to Rhys the other day: the most annoying out of all Humble’s false claims, for me, is that cancer is caused by ‘a bug inside the cancer cells’.

Some cancers can be initiated by viral infections; when parts of the viral genome are incorporated into our own, as is the case with certain types of virus, some disruption of the DNA sequences in that cell can occur. If that disruption is in a particularly important place – like in the middle of a gene that makes a protein important in preventing cancer from developing – then this could initiate pre-cancerous cellular behaviour. However, for the most part, cancer is not to do with ‘bugs’ but with the genetics, damages and behaviours of our cells.

You certainly don’t treat cancer using the rationale that there’s something living inside your cell that needs killing off. The only bug-like things in our cells are the mitochondria, which are absolutely essential for cell survival – you certainly don’t want to kill them!

Anyway, to continue. There is a blog by the Phaelosopher (whom we have affectionately dubbed failosopher) that I found a while ago. This guy attends Humble’s courses and writes about MMS quite a lot.

There is also a regular commenter (a spammer, shall we say) on Rhys’ blog by the supposed name of Maria who today reveals on failosopher’s blog both that Princess Diana is alive and MMS reverses greying hair! We suspect she either is Jim Humble or may somehow be in his pay; she’s very enthusiastic that we take her personal doctor’s records that we can phone up to scrutinise any time as proof of MMS’ efficacy.

The Fungal ‘Hypothesis’

So, to the point – I come across a comment referring to someone’s friend who analyses cancer patient blood samples, finding that they all have candida; a usually fairly harmless yeast that we all have as part of our natural flora, sometimes causing a bit of thrush if you’re healthy, but can be more serious if for example you are immunocompromised (see wiki for more there).

This person therefore concludes that candida always causes cancer and refers to this site on that very ‘hypothesis’.

I just watched some of the video featuring ‘Dr’ Tullio Simoncini below, but have to run and will finish it later – listen to it! It’s clearly just that freaky tactic of chopping up audio and stitching it together to say what you want, much like the clichéd old newspaper-cuttings ransom note.

Ridiculous.

The lumps are always white

As evidence for their claim that cancer is always white and therefore caused by this white fungus (yes, albicans is Latin for white), they show formaldehyde-fixed tissue. Well, that’d be because when you leave things in formaldehyde for ages, the pigment goes. Plus, tumour cells aren’t usually pigmented, no – except for melanoma, which is nice and black because of the melanin. Blood vessels colour them, but tumours come in a variety of hues. As a quick Google Images search or conversation with a surgeon (but not for the feint-hearted) will show.

The standard scary-theory dramatic music is in the background.

I can’t begin to describe the absurdity of this video. Standard correlation/causation mix-up, pathetic scaremongering. If you do watch it, don’t worry – if you’re feeling a bit itchy down there you can just take some clotrimazole and all will be well.

Metastasis Mixup

The latter part of the video, from around 8 minutes, is particularly worrying.

It suggests that metastasis is not cancer cells leaving the primary tumour (which it is and has been repeatedly demonstrated in the lab and in the clinic) but bits of fungus that are dislodged by ‘conventional surgery’ and chemotherapy exacerbates the development of distant metastatic tumours.

This is yet more damaging anti-medicine propaganda.

This Simoncini fellow is bad, bad news. And guess what he’s peddling as his cure-all?

Oh! Sodium Bicarbonate.

Post-script edit:

Via @rbhinkley - Simoncini was prosecuted back in 2006 (yay!). Google translate aids us with the original Italian text:

‘…date back to 2002, three deaths have prompted the prosecutor to accuse the oncologist Tullio Simoncini of manslaughter and aggravated fraud. The first death, February 8, Massimo Civetta, 34, killed by a tumor of the gut. On March 1, adenocarcinoma ended the life of Maria Grazia Canegrati, Milan, and on November 15, Grace Cicciari, Milazzo. The bicarbonate-based care has cost the medical radiation from the Order. [awaiting better translation of that last bit]

and from earlier in the article:

the oncologist, in exchange for 400 euro, tried the ‘miracle’ with a base injection of sodium bicarbonate, mixed with water, piercing the tumor mass. The effect was not as hoped: the following evening, February 8, 2002, the young man died with a perforated bowel, in excruciating pain.

And hopefully we’ll see far more miracle-peddling quacks who prey on gullible and desperate people go the same way.