Snake oil, anyone?

During the 19th century there was a growth industry of so called 'patent medicines', that is, substances produced in various forms- pills, powders, liquids- pre-mixed and sold direct to the public as cures for many and multiple diseases. Many of these products were originally under 'Royal patent', hence the name. Stuff like this has been around forever, but the birth of the advertising industry really created awareness, and the newspapers of the times earned a lot of revenue by running these ads for Doctor So-and-so's miracle cure for everything from pimples to TB and cancer. The good doctor was usually fictitious, but a well-moustached face usually illustrated the label, looking most distinguished. Or the remedy was attributed to some Indian tribe or some exotic ingredient from faraway lands. Some of these medicines did in fact contain bio active ingredients such as opium or mercury or cocaine (hello, Coca-cola!) and good old ethanol, and many patients poisoned themselves. But many felt better; most of their ailments were self-diagnosed in the first place, so it was a neat fit, the 'cure' for the 'illness'. 

The traveling medicine shows of the US marketed to small towns across America into the 20th century, and people bought all manner of medicines hawked by dubious 'Doctors' with many a fake testimonial from a shill planted in the audience. They were such simple, uneducated, unsophisticated folk, weren't they? Not like us today, right?

What's amazing is how little has changed. Except now, instead of a horse and cart and hoopla of a traveling show, or unsubstantiated ads in newspapers, we have the power of the Internet. Yet people don't change. 

Not long ago a friend forwarded me a video on Facebook claiming that a product called MMS has cured Malaria. 157 out of 157 patients in a Ugandan trial, under the auspices of the Ugandan Red Cross, were cured of malaria. Wow! I thought. Bring out the Nobel Prizes! Ring the bells! Hallelujah! The scourge of malaria, which kills more people annually worldwide than just about every other disease combined, is defeated! Except I didn't, because MMS is a bullshit substance and the 'study' was a bullshit study. The only thing that amazed me was that the Red Cross allowed its name to be used at all in conjunction with this bullshit clinical trial. 

Why was this trial absurd? Here's what was done. 

All the villagers in a rural area of Uganda were rounded up.  They were tested with a malaria field testing kit where a drop of blood is put on the little stick which records the presence of malarial  antigen in the blood. One stripe appears if the patient is clear; that's a control strip. If 2 or 3 stripes appear, then the person has been infected with one or other strain of malaria. 157 villagers tested positive. These were then given the Marvellous Mineral Solution MMS, which is sodium chlorite- ie bleach- several drops in water which is then 'activated' with citric acid- releasing chlorine gas- and the patients drank the solution. The next day they fronted up for a repeat test with the test kit and all but 2 showed negative! The rogue 2 had apparently spat it out- couldn't blame them, really- but they were re-dosed and the next day, they were also cured! Wow! And many villagers jumped with joy and praised The Lord. 

So let us analyze this 'trial'. 

Firstly the test kits do not show who is sick with malaria but who had had malaria exposure several weeks or longer, before. It is notorious for showing false positives. The only way to really diagnose active malaria is to do a blood film exam under microscope, looking for the parasite in the blood. 

Secondly, the video seemed to infer that a cure was shown by no lines appearing in the kit; but this really means an invalid test. 

Thirdly, even when a person has recovered from malaria, the antigen is not cleared from the blood for weeks, so no way is it possible for the field test kit to become negative overnight. 

But the main thing is that this is not how a scientific test is conducted. The only way to evaluate any treatment is by a randomized  clinical trial. A double blinded placebo controlled trial, with enough participants to make the study valid. This means that 2 or more groups are randomly allotted to be treated with either the drug being tested or with an inactive substance; the patient doesn't know which he is getting; the health worker doesn't know which he is giving. This is vital because of the power of the placebo effect, which is always present to some degree in every kind of medical treatment.

In the case of malaria, a real trial would need blood films, not field test kits, to see who had active malaria and who merely had antibodies from previous infection.  

These simple folk were lining up to take big medicine to heal them and all of them, 'sick' with malaria, according to the field test kits, them 'cured' according the the kits, were riding the wings of the placebo effect. The rest is flimflam and incompetence. 

But it's a nice video with a pleasant voice over and earnest good people wearing tshirts emblazoned with the Ugandan Red Cross insignia (!) documenting everything, and if you didn't have a clue about how proper trials were conducted, you would be taken in, as was my friend, who is not a stupid person. 

So here I am, droning on about science, but I bet you know someone who took some modern version of a patent medicine and they were cured. And if you look up MMS you will see a cult-like following of people who swear that it has cured their cancer, their depression, their Crohns disease, their halitosis and their HIV and cleared their skin up too. And it's all bullshit. 

It's not a conspiracy by Big Pharma and all the doctors who would be put out of a job by a cure like this. It's lies and anecdotes and placebo effect, and it's meaningless because if the FDA or the CDC does a RCT and it comes up with zilch then them's the facts, and no amount of snake oil can massage away the facts. 

Here's another one: ZYTO, a system of diagnosis and treatment where GSR (galvanic skin response) is analyzed by a computer, the patient's health state is mapped and a treatment system involving supplements bought from the company, is prescribed by the computer, resulting in not only cures of physical maladies but also emotional and spiritual.

WOW. I mean, wow, computer age stuff.  

I found out about this from a very good friend who lives in the US , who has developed some health problems related to life long obesity, and who consulted a chiropractor (don't get me started) who in turn applied the ZYTO system. She emailed me a copy of the charts the computer created and the suggested remedies (basically a mish mash of homeopathy, naturopathy and traditional Chinese Medicine). After I looked this all over and them went to the websites and looked at all the testimonials, I delivered my studied opinion; bullshit. Every testimonial was from a person with no real diagnosed medical issues except for the fact that most of them were fat Americans, some with conditions like fibromyalgia or chronic fatigue, or just plain old didn't feel well. All praised Dr Chiropractor, who healed them with his hands, or marveled at ZYTO, which knew them better than they knew themselves. 

I mean, how different is this from the old Faradisation machines and Orgone boxes of the late 19th century? Or Mesmerism. Or colectomies or dental clearances done to remove the suspected disease focus in the body. Or Radon treatments, which were thought to be healing until it turned out that radon exposure caused cancer. Or a hundred other treatments which were miraculous until they were eventually ditched because they were either dangerous or ineffective. 

I'm not saying that doctors don't also use unproven treatments.  How many courses of antibiotics have been prescribed for viral infections which would have responded just as well to Panadol and hot drinks and rest and time? But they really help, doctor! I'll tell you what's helping: time plus placebo effect plus the healing presence of a trusted health practitioner. 

I'm not discounting the therapeutic effects of herbs or supplements or whatnot, but if it can't pass muster under a RCT, then you're on very shaky ground. And definitely I do not scoff at the mind-body continuum; I would be a fool if I did. 

But people are on the whole, simple folk, even if they are smart and educated, and the mind and the body are amazing and powerful, and people will believe what they want. 

Yet we see enormous controversy over one of the most powerful, well tested, safe and effective products in human history: vaccines. The same people who swear by MMS and happily ingest dilute bleach 'activated' into chlorine gas, are likely to refuse to vaccinate their children because vaccines are 'too dangerous'. Go figure. 

To be continued.