Despicable.
Source: Australian skeptics
Fundamentalists Exploit Catastrophe
Australia has been in shock since the Victorian bushfires in early February, resulting in the destruction of almost one thousand homes and the deaths of hundreds of people.
While some offer practical relief in the form of food and clothing donations, others look for someone to blame.
Catch the Fire Ministries (CTFM) in Dandenong, Victoria, published a media release today, blaming a new Australian law for the devastating bushfires, and further claim that the fires were foretold in a spiritual vision.
The CTFM leader, Pastor Danny Nalliah, announced that he had predicted the bushfires in a dream he had in October 2008. In this dream, he had a prophesy that the fires would occur, as divine retribution for an abortion decriminalisation bill that passed in Victoria in 2008. Nalliah calls Victoria the “baby killing state of Australia.”
Danny Nalliah
The Ministry’s response is to petition God for forgiveness, and to commence a seven day prayer and fasting campaign. “In our prayer and fasting campaign, we are particularly repenting for the passing of the “Decriminalization of Abortion Laws of Victoria” in addition to other unrighteous, ungodly, and unjust laws and practices which have seen a holocaust of some of the most helpless members of the human race, the unborn.”
“Can we stop the fires? Yes we can! But it will take God’s children to rally together and repent and cry unto Him as in 2 Chronicles 7:14 (The Holy Bible). We at CTFM have seen this happen several times in the past in Australia, which was also covered by many mainstream media outlets.”
The CTFM website calls upon the “Australian Bible-believing God-fearing Christians to repent and call upon the Lord Jesus Christ for His mercy and protection over Australia once again.”
Visitors to the CTFM website can comment on the media release. However, skeptical replies are immediately deleted.
Representatives of the Australian Skeptics condemn the Catch the Fire Ministry for their uncritical, discriminatory beliefs and exploitation of the tragic events to promote their ministry.
Footnote: Pastor Danny Nalliah claims he had this dream on October 21st. Any reason why he didn’t warn us?
The entire Jeni schemozzle has caught the attention of The Times and Stephen Fry.
Things have gone from bad to worse for Jeni Barnett.
Reports drifting around the internet say she has now deleted derogatory comments from her blog. Also the entire debacle has recently caught the attention of Mr Stephen Fry who twittered about the fuss this morning.
IMHO this chap needs out support http://tinyurl.com/btokam Vaccination scares are SO bloody irresponsible, espesh this sort. Kids have died.
These comments also from Stephen appear on Ben Goldacre’s Bad Science site.
The fatuity of the Jeni Barnett woman’s manner – her blend of self-righteousness and stupidity, her simply quite staggering inability to grasp, pursue or appreciate a sequence of logical steps – all these are signature characteristics of Britain these days. The lamentable truth is that most of the population wouldn’t really understand why we get so angry at this assault on reason, logic and sense. But we have to keep hammering away at these people and their superstitious inanities. We have to. Well done you and well done all you supporting. I’ve tweeted this site to my followers. I hope they all do their best to support you. Publish and be damned. We’ll fight them and fight them and fight them in the name of empricism, reason, double blind random testing and all that matters.
LoveStephen xxx
Plus a new article appears in the Times today.
I don’t have time to blog this properly now, but fortunately my fellow-bloggers already have.
Please visit Podblack to see the most recent happenings, Quackometer and Holford watch for a concise summary of everything that has happened so far.
AIDS “cure” scammer on the prowl in Sydney
There’s nothing I despise more than quacks who prey on the sick and vulnerable for their own financial gain.
For example, hair analysis (see here and here) proponents who claim to able to cure all manner of incurable illnesses by identifying food allergies with magic machines are particularly offensive to me. Advice such as, “Just cut out tomatoes and walnuts, drink gin but not wine and your terminal cancer will magically go away” are just about the lowest of lows in my opinion.
Today I heard about a new scam artist on the prowl in Sydney. His name is (name removed for legal reasons), a man with no medical or scientific training but who claims to have invented or discovered an organic formula to cure AIDS, cancer, diabetes and high blood pressure. A report by Harley Dennett detailing these claims appeared in the Sydney Star Observer on Thursday February 5 th.
The report states the man, who runs a skylight installation business on the Northern beaches “produced magnified pictures of blood cells to justify his cure claim” (which sounds suspiciously like live blood analysis to me..). According to the report, he would not let the Star Observer retain the photos for examination claiming;
“I’ve got the negatives but I’d rather keep those in a top secret facility”.
“The pharmaceuticals don’t want this getting out, so I’m trying to keep it low profile with like-minded people I can trust”.
The Star Observer reports the man has previously been investigated by the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA). On this occasion, the man has allegedly been soliciting for donations to fund a backyard trial for his top secret cure-all.
Professor Sean Emery from the National Centre in HIV Epidemiology and Clinical Research said anyone claiming a cure or asking for money should set off alarm bells. “Often people who peddle these things say there’s a conspiracy against them, that the drug companies don’t want you to know about their treatments”.
Soliciting donations for a dubious clinical trial is not illegal in Australia but the government’s SCAMwatch website advises victims to report cases to authorities via SCAMwatch or directly to the TGA.
What more do the MMR/anti-vaccers want?
New allegations against Dr Andrew Wakefield made by the UK Times newspaper have recently emerged, further throwing into disrepute his controversial 1998 Lancet publication.
Considering the recent resurgence of this debate, sparked by the ramblings of LBCs 97.3FM’s Jeni Barnett last week, I thought it appropriate to make you aware of the “retraction of interpretation” published in the Lancet in 2004 and written by 10 of the 12 authors of the original paper. This includes Murch and Walker-Smith who, along with Wakefield, are currently being investigated by the General Medical Council of the UK for serious professional misconduct relating to the Lancet publication. Conspicuous by his absence from this retraction is Dr Wakefield. The authors explain that they
“wish to make it clear, that in this paper no causal link was established between the MMR vaccine and autism as the data were insufficient”
The entire retraction is reproduced below, please click on the image to see it in high resolution.
Lancet, 2004 Mar 6;363(9411):750.
I want to emphasise this was published in 2004. Almost FIVE years ago. Yet the anti-vaccers, including the likes of the toxic Jeni Barnett still insist there is a link between MMR and autism. Just to make sure I didn’t get it wrong, here is the important part, enlarged.
This seems pretty clear to me.
So why is this debate still on-going? If the authors have admitted they may have got the interpretation of their own data wrong, why is it the anti-vacc crowd think they know better?
And when will they realise the Wakefield paper was never a definitive finding on MMR and autism?
Especially when you look at the conflict of interest issues also clouding this publication which constitutes part of the reason why Wakefield is currently being investigated for serious professional misconduct.
For the anti-vacc crowd it seems like this might be a case of Saunders’* law in action;
The more bizzare the premise, the more entrenched the belief.
*Richard E. Saunders
You can read the entire 1998 Lancet paper, for free reproduced here on Brian Deer’s blog.
Allegations emerge that Andrew Wakefield “faked” the data in his Lancet paper.
UK newspaper The Sunday Times claims they have evidence that Dr Andrew Wakefield, the doctor who sparked the scare over the safety of the MMR vaccine, changed and misreported results in his research.
The 1998 paper which was published in the Lancet signalled the beginning of the anti-vacc movement and is considered responsible for a 12% decrease in the vaccination rate in the UK. Wakefield is being investigated for serious professional misconduct along with John Walker-Smith and Simon Murch, two professors who contributed to the research. All three have denied any wrongdoing.
Andrew Wakefield attends the hearing in 2008, flanked by his wife and supporters displaying placards.
An investigation, begun in July 2008 by the General Medical Council in the UK accused the three of acting dishonestly and unethically in compiling the research, which suggested there could be a link between the triple jab, bowel disease and autism. However, it has since been revealed that Dr Wakefield allegedly paid children £5 to take their blood at his son’s fifth birthday party.
One of the key claims is that Dr Wakefield accepted £50,000 for research to support parents’ attempts to fight for compensation. Among the 46 allegations, Dr Wakefield was accused of allowing one patient – Child 10 – to be given an experimental drug, “Transfer Factor”, with a view to it becoming a measles vaccine. Further, he admitted being involved in proposals in 1998 to set up a company – Immunospecifics Biotechnologies Ltd – to manufacture the drug, with the intention that the father of Child 10 become its managing director.
He also admitted proposing that the equity in the company would be split between himself, as its research director, the father and other parties.
The Sunday Times investigation by Brian Deer, claims to have confirmed evidence presented to the General Medical Council (GMC), which states that:
“In most of the 12 cases, the children’s ailments as described in The Lancet were different from their hospital and GP records. Although the research paper claimed that problems came on within days of the jab, in only one case did medical records suggest this was true, and in many of the cases medical concerns had been raised before the children were vaccinated. Hospital pathologists, looking for inflammatory bowel disease, reported in the majority of cases that the gut was normal. This was then reviewed and the Lancet paper showed them as abnormal”.
Even if it is revealed that Wakefield faked the data, it is unlikely to end the anti-vacc movement. THe case continues. We wait with baited breath to see the outcome.
Thanks to a group of dedicated bloggers we have it all on record.
The full transcript is available here.
Enjoy, or get really angry, as I did. You have been warned.
Further to the transcript of Jeni Barnett’s diatribe on LBC 97.3FM
This section covers ~ 19 to 24 mins . To see the preceding section head to podblack.com. For the full audio, head to my YouTube channel.
JB: Amanda, talk to me.
Amanda: Hello! Um, I’ve got eight children,
JB: Mazel-tov! Are you still sane?
Amanda: No! Anyway, and I started off, young, about twenty – did all the things you were supposed to do and presented my daughter and she had all her vaccinations and my second daughter had all her vaccinations. Then my son was born and he reacted very badly to the first, and what I think then was the double or triple jab.
Um, so he then didn’t have any more, although he did then have the MMR, well, he did have some more, but he didn’t have any more Whooping Cough. He then had the MMR, um… and then when he was three he was diagnosed with autism. And so I got quite involved in vaccines, because I wasn’t sure, um, my paediatrician was quite sure that it was the cause of the autism, but I mean, I didn’t know.
And from then on, I decided not to have my children vaccinated – I just thought ‘better be on the safe side’ – I mean, my paediatrician thought it was great, my GPs weren’t; they were always very unhappy that I didn’t have them vaccinated.
TIMESTAMP: 1.00
JB: Why, why though, that the GPs won’t take on what the paediatrician did??
Amanda: I don’t know! I mean, my paediatrician is great, she’s a very holistic paediatrician – she was the of big chief consultants at a hospital down on the south coast, so she’s a very good paediatrician, but she very much believed in … in just sort of holistically looking after the child. Um, she didn’t like giving drugs for things if you didn’t need it.
JB: But you know, people do throw ‘guilt things’, at you, don’t they? They must say to you ‘all right, for you, Amanda’.
Amanda: Um…
JB: How do you cope with that?
Amanda: Well, yeah, they probably do, um, … the main thing I found is that my eldest who has everything, she actually had a really bad case of Whooping Cough, about two years ago. And we did get quite a lot of things thrown at us then but she was the one who had been vaccinated. None of my other children picked it up.
TIMESTAMP: 2.00
JB: Now what would you say – I mean, it’s not my job to say to people ‘don’t do it’, it’s not my job to do any of that. But you’re allowed to have your say. What would you say to people as a mum of eight little lives that you’re deeply responsible for? What would you say to people who are in two minds about it?
Amanda: Um. Well, I would never recommend having children vaccinated, and people think I’m very strange. But all my younger children who have never been vaccinated have been very, very healthy. Um, the youngest had measles, um, now three months ago. And he was fine, he wasn’t very well for about a week, ten days – and then he was fine, and none of my others picked it up. So, I think they must have a certain amount of natural immunity – and I’m far, far happier for them to have developed that ‘natural immunity’ – than to be constantly filled with artificial substances.
JB: Well, thank you so much, my darling, that was Amanda in Hayword’s Heath.
“I was just listening to your show, if people took the time to look at what’s in vaccines, they would think twice about giving them to their children. As well as not being a hundred percent effective, they also have cancer-causing agents.
Timestamp: 3.00
“Also a child’s immune system takes approximately two to three months to fully get up and running from birth. Also, if we look at the countries that have the highest population vaccinated, you will notice that they have the most allergies. I’m not totally against immunisations, but we should be giving children at least a year to develop their own immune system to deal with the onslaught.”
I didn’t say that – I wish you’d given me your name? There’s a third way, says somebody else who’s nameless: “Why don’t we allow children to have the jabs individually?” Why not? It’s half-past two!
END 3.35
[STATION IDENTIFICATION – ADVERT FOR HER NEXT GUEST]
RESTARTS 4.00
I’ve just got one or two announcements, and there are many of you who want to talk about this measles thing – I get so impassioned about it, because I think it’s about freedom – and I think that self responsibility for your body and children and health is top of the list! You know, early to bed, early to rise, makes you HEALTHY, wealthy and wise! The four-square of life: health, wealth, love, and perfect surface expression!
Where do you go from there? About being healthy – and YOU have to make a decision, don’t you, on behalf of your children! It’s the WORST decision you’ll have to make – should you / shouldn’t you! It’s alright when you’re making it for yourself – but I want you to tell me, why you think we have to have this measles jab and why I’ve got several things I’m going to read out in a minute, why you think it’s not necessary!
And I’ll be talking to a doctor in a moment, and somebody who is pro-jabs, I just have to make two announcements…
[the audience for Jeni Barnett advert]
What are LBC and Jeni Barnett afraid of?
Following is a re-post of a comment left by Ben Goldacre on Jeni Barnett’s blog today.
You may not be aware that Ben has taken the audio off his site due to legal threats relating to copyright. As Ben points out below, being this is such a controversial topic (and seriously, except for people like Jeni Barnett and “Andy Wakefield” it needn’t be) isn’t it important to debate the issues, openly and publicly? This is not so easy to do without access to the original audio.
Never fear however, bloggers of the world united today, including myself, the Lay Scientist and WikiLeaks where you can find the mp3, linked to a dozen or so servers across the world. Also just added is a torrent.
Here’s what Ben had to say. Unlike Ms Barnett (or ANNE COULTER – see below), he is polite, succinct and informed.
9. At February 6, 2009 12:12 AM Ben Goldacre wrote:
Hi there,
I feel very strongly that patients should be free to decline medical treatment if they wish. Ideally if it was a serious medical problem, and you felt able to listen, a doctor would have made a good attempt to explain what is known about the risks and benefits of each option.
I am however concerned – along with a great many others – that your recent hour-long campaigning broadcast against the MMR vaccine was thoughtless, misleading, ill-informed, and irresponsible.
I also think it’s enormously inappropriate, I’m afraid, that you describe a polite and informed nurse as “vicious” on your website, in your previous blog post, simply because she called into your show and disagreed with you. She does not have your wealth, she is not a TV or radio presenter, she does not have your platform, and she does not have your legal team. She was clearly not “vicious”, as anybody listening to the audio would be able to tell for themselves. I believe you owe this listener an apology.
Most of all I think it’s regrettable that your company, LBC and Global Audio, have now used legal threats to make me take down the audio excerpt in question, so that it can no longer freely be heard. I have spent a great deal of my time, both writing, and in other activities, in supporting free and open access for the public to medical and scientific information and literature. Yours was a broadcast on the public airwaves, and a review of it, and discussion about it, was important and informative.
If you really felt that access to information was important, and that debates were worth having, I think you would encourage your legal team to reconsider, and simply give permission for this clip to be made freely available, in the public domain, in full, as it was broadcast, so that it can be widely heard, understood, and discussed.
all the best,
Ben Goldacre
www.badscience.net
And just for amusement value, see if you can spot whether the following diatribe comes from a supporter or critic of Jeni. Let’s see; misuse of the caps lock key, check; incorrect use of punctuation, check; lack of spaces after full stops, check; lack of paragraphs, check; an inability to spell, check.
32. At February 5, 2009 11:47 PM anne coulter wrote:
HI JENI, PLEASE DO NOT FEEL GUILTY FOR NOT HAVING HAD YOUR CHILD VACCINATED WITH THE MMR/MR VACCINE. WE LOST CHRISTOPHER OUR ONLY SON TEN DAYS AFTER HIS VACCINATION IN 1994.HE WAS A VERY HEALTHY FIFTEEN YEAR OLD WITH NO MEDICAL PROBLEMS AT ALL.THERE WAS NO HISTORY OF SEIZURES OF ANY NATURE IN THE FAMILY.AT THE SAME TIME ANOTHER BOY IN CHRISTOPHERS CLASS IN SCHOOL ALSO SUFFERED A SEVERE SEIZURE BOTH VACCINES WERE OF THE SAME BATCH NUMBER. WE HAVE DONE EVERYTHING POSSIBLE TO ESTABLISH THE TRUTH.SADLY THE TRUTH IS ALWAYS COVERED UP WHEN THESE THINGS HAPPEN.THERE ARE NEVER ANY ANSWERS AVAILABLE. WE NOW KNOW WE PAID THE ULTIMATE PRICE BY HAVING OUR SON VACCINATED WE HAVE NO DOUBT HE WOULD BE ALIVE TODAY IF WE HAD REFUSED IT.WE WOULD VERY MUCH LIKE CLOSEURE AND I BELIEVE WE ARE INTITLED TO THIS INFORMATION.THE ONLY WAY WE ARE GOING TO GET CLOSEURE IS TO HAVE A JUDICAL REVIEW OF THE INQUEST INTO CHRISTOPHERS DEATH. I HAVE KEPT IN TOUCH WITH JACKIE FOR A NUMBER OF YEARS SHE HAS ALWAYS GIVEN US A GREAT DEAL OF SUPPORT.PLEASE FEEL FREE TO SPEAK TO JACKIE ABOUT CHRISTOPHER. ANNE COULTER
Post script: Please join the Defend Ben Goldacre from LBC Facebook group.
Damage control for LBC’s Jeni Barnett MMR rant backfires globally and on a massive scale.
Jeni Barnett made some very irresponsible comments about the safety of MMR recently.
During a rant on her LBC radio show, she spat misinformation and conspiracy theories about the safety of MMR and vaccination. In addition to shouting over the top of nurses and GPs who had called in to politely correct her. But like Jenny McCarthy she has a “Mommy” instinct, so she obviously knows best. No-one can compete with that, least of all science.
When Ben Goldacre was sent a clip of her rant, he did the responsible thing and posted it to his blog so that millions of people could hear the irrational, ill-informed, potentially damaging opinions for themselves.
And believe me, you will not believe how bad this is until you hear it.
The response from LBC was to threaten Ben with legal action for a breach of copyright. This threat has backfired in a major way for LBC. By threatening to slap Ben with a lawsuit unless he remove the offending material (which he subsequently has), they have effectively started a huge Streisand effect which is currently resonating across the globe.
“To all of you Bad scientists, who are SO angry with me, good luck with your research. Should you fall ill I will attend you as best I can with my motherly love. Should I fall ill, as a non paid up member of your club, will you administer to me? And should I refuse your drugs then what?” Jeni Barnett
The mp3 appeared on Wikileaks sometime this morning with 13 servers hosting it from all over the world. People have already begun blogging it, with links to the Wiki page.
My good friend Res posted the entire 40 minutes (the excerpt originally on Ben’s blog) on my YouTube channel. Several people have commented that transcribing the segment is the best way to get around the legal red tape. Time will tell if this is the case, however…
Click here to hear the 40 min rant on YouTube
…I hardly think it matters anymore, following pleas for help on his blog and twitter, Ben has mobilised an army and this thing has gone viral.
As a example of Jeni’s complete lack of scientific understanding she said this gem during her show; “Have you had the flu jab? But still you’ve got the cold?”. The influenza virus is not the same virus that causes colds. FAIL.
Well done LBC for making what could have been an embarrassing stuff-up which may have resulted in a few cranky posts on Jeni’s blog into a world wide scandal. (Interestingly, someone calling themselves Andy Wakefield from Thoughtful House posted a message on Jeni’s blog offering assistance. Well, I guess he would know!)
Thank you Ben for bringing this to our attention. Thank you Res for posting this to YouTube.
Here are some other links worth reading.
Podblack
NHS Blog Doctor
Holford watch
Did you know the sole of your foot is your “second heart”?
Neither did I.
But according to the website Alternet Detox, who are flogging detox foot patches, “The sole of the feet, where acupuncture points are concentrated as a reflected area of the whole body, has a great influence on the circulation of the blood as to be called “a second heart”.
These little pillows of woo are allegedly from Korea, and clearly the people at Alternet Detox didn’t bother to translate the Chinglish (Koringlish??) that came with the product. Here’s an example.
The Sap Patch is originated from a folk remedy. Its spirit of trees absorbs accumulated wastes and toxic materials in the body as ointments in oriental medical science do, and radiates negative ion, promoting the circulation of the blood to make your body refreshed and light.
And there’s more
Human beings are destined to have waste-accumulated feet, which support the body. You can see that by daily experiences like stained socks at night and swollen feet when tired. Accumulated wastes in the body can lead to dropsical legs, fatigue, and even disharmony of the body when metabolism doesn’t work well.
They then go on to contradict themselves by saying you must apply it to the sole of the foot for it to work…
In order to enhance the effect of Sap Patch, it is necessary to apply it on the sole of the feet regardless of symptoms…..Toxic matter often stagnates in the feet, and thus the sole of the foot is the best area to apply to experience the effect.
…but show this picture:
After which, things just get a little confusing…
It is ideal to apply it every night until it doesn’t get wet, but, for those who have a serious symptom or took medicine for a long time in the past, SAP Patch tends to get wet continuously. Although the toxic matter is thought to be eliminated when Sap Patch doesn’t get wet, it is better to use Sap Patch once or twice a month even after it doesn’t get wet because toxic matter keep stagnating
And then, just ridiculous…
Ingredients: Tourmaline. This is natural ore produced in Brazil, which forms anion and improves blood circulation of human body by generating infrared rays.
Right…Infrared rays hey? Hmmm, sounds sciencey (read: bullshit) to me!
I dunno, but if you can’t even be bothered to translate your product information correctly, do you really expect me to spend $22.85 on your credulous product? Sorry Alternet Detox, you’re just not trying hard enough.
By the way, in case you were wondering detox foot pads are a scam. To get a full explanation into why, see my other blog here.
