RFK Jr. Was Wrong About Vaccines - Owes Apology!

Here’s a blast from the past for you - Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Scarborough Country spreading myths about vaccines and autism.  The claim that the increase in the number of vaccines in 1989 influenced the rise in autism is disingenuous.  Even Amanda Peet knows that, despite the number of vaccines, the number of antigens are far less today than before, and that mercury is found in much higher quantities in an average glass of tap water and fish.  It is now common knowledge that autism rates have continued to rise, despite the fact that thimerosal has been removed from new childhood vaccines for seven years now.   At the time of the above video, RFK Jr. put together a slick little article that was based on cherry picked data, misleading language, and blatant fabrications.  And yet, his Scarborough interview is still taking up a waste of cyberspace and raising the vaccine threat level to orange because people trust the Kennedy name.

RFK Jr. says that there are “hundreds and hundreds” of studies proving that thimerosal causes autism.  I’m interested to see these “hundreds and hundreds” of quality studies.  Where are they?  He said that he’d post them on his web site, but I couldn’t find them.  He also dismisses any study that disproves the link between thimerosal and autism as “junk science” without proving his accusation.  Then he completely lies to say that the case against thimerosal is based on “hundreds and hundreds” of studies when I doubt that he could provide even one study that doesn’t have the sullied names of father and son amateurs Mark and David Geier.  And where, pray tell, are these quality studies now that thimerosal exposure has decreased significantly in the face of rising autism diagnoses? 

I’m sure that we’ve all noticed how RFK Jr. has dropped off the vaccine-activism map.  Or at the least, he hasn’t published any nonsense since the Rolling Stone article that smeared the truth.  I plan to ask him where he stands now that he has been proven wrong when he visits the Cincinnati Zoo this fall.  He will be giving a presentation, and I’m hoping that the audience will have a chance to question him on his honesty and ethics.  Maybe I’ll ask him for the apology he owes to America.

In the meantime, take a look at Amanda Peet’s interview on Good Morning America.  Now that’s one celebrity who deserves our full attention:  the type of pro-vaccine celebrity who says… “don’t pay attention to celebrities”.  Instead, she urges the public to trust the peer reviewed doctors and scientists who have done the research and studied the facts.  And those Anti-Vaccine activists who want to stain the reputations of these respected doctors and scientists by pointing to their disclosed conflicts of interest, should also point out that their favorite poorly done studies rely on undisclosed conflicts of interest, which are much more suspect, in my opinion.

9/11 “Truth”: Beating a Bloated Montauk Corpse

 

I just finished reading Matt Taibbi’s excellent book The Great Derangement, which chronicles his undercover experience at Pastor Hagee’s church of nonsense, as well as his confrontation with the 9/11 conspiracy fringe.  Only Taibbi could manage to seamlessly intertwine the hopeless naivete of fundamentalist christians and the illogical passion of the fundamentalist “truthers”.

The Great Derangement reminded me that I once cared enough to challenge these conspiracy theorists in public forums.  I watched Loose Change, the 9/11 conspiracy “documentary” slapped together by Dylan Avery, a teenager with Michael Moore envy.  Though the entirely inaccurate webdoc had zero proof that our government masterminded the terrorist attack on 9/11, I found it compelling and persuasive.  The difference between me and the average “truther” is that I took the time to google “debunk 9/11 conspiracy” where I found logical and scientific arguments against the conspiracy and videos that crushed the pitiful lies in Loose Change.

There are some common fallacious arguments that I want to address here because I see them come up again and again when “truthers” argue their points.  I kind of hate that I’m reduced to pointing out logical fallacies since that seems to be a dickish move.  I don’t care.  As arrogant as using debate rhetoric might be, my patience with this conspiracy is paper thin.  So, forgive me as I delve into the world of “truth” and look at some of the arguments that I’ve come across.

Argument From Personal Incredulity- 

• How can 12 arabs with boxcutters plan such an attack from their caves in Afghanistan?   I find this argument to be racist and a simplistic underestimation of the abilities of the Al Qaeda terrorist network.
• How can two skyscrapers collapse so perfectly from a jet crash?  I would argue that the collapse of the second trade center tower was the control that verified that, yes, a plane colliding at such a high velocity with a tall building could in fact bring it down.  If not for the second tower, the event would have been unprecedented.  Your inability to grasp the dynamics of the unique event of planes being used as missiles on skyscrapers, doesn’t mean it was faked.

    Poisoning The Well/ Slippery Slope

• Evidence of past false flag operations proves that the U.S. is capable of starting a war under false pretenses.  Actually, no that is not a fair statement.  First, the accused false flag of Pearl Harbor doesn’t make sense (why allow our entire naval fleet to be wiped out to start a naval war?).  Second, you can’t just randomly connect the events (possible mistakes) of our previous elected governments with the current elected government.  They are two seperate entities, and should be treated as such.
• A plan, Operation Northwoods, was proposed to stage a terrorist hijacking that we would blame on Cuba in 1962, so it must follow that our government planned and executed the events of 9/11.   First, this plan was rejected.  Second, the existence of this rejected plan does not prove that our government would massacre it’s own citizens and needlessly attack it’s own defense headquarters.    

Questionable Cause

• The CIA helped the muhajideen fight the Russians.  Osama Bin Laden was a muhajideen.  Therefore, the CIA planned 9/11.  Of course this line of reasoning is fallacious, but it is often used as a carrot to lure people into the “truther” line of thinking.
• President Bush and VP Cheney are friendly with Saudi royals.  Osama Bin Laden is an heir to a wealthy Saudi family.  Therefore, Bush and Cheny planned 9/11.  Nobody is going to argue that Bush and Cheney have been neutral to the the Saudis and the oil industry.  But, this connection does not prove anything.

Moving the goalposts

• The scientists and experts at the History Channel, the National Institute of Standards and Technology and Popular Mechanics can’t have valid arguments against my conspiracy theory because they are part of the conspiracy.  OK, if you won’t listen to their arguments, then you are clearly not going to ever change your mind.  Understandably so, because you’ve painted yourself into such a corner that if you were to acknowledge your mistake, you would have to admit that you crapped all over the memories of innocent airline passengers, firemen, office workers, pentagon employees, and all their families.
• Loose Change was wrong about laser guided missiles under the fuselage of the crashing planes, and it was wrong about the skyscrapers being professionally demolished, but the third incarnation of the webdoc is correct because it will focus on WTC7.  I would think that if they were sloppy enough with their errors and assumptions in the first two versions of Loose Change, then it would follow that they are probably starting with a premise and searching for facts to prove that premise.  Not a good way to establish credibility, in my opinion. 

There are a few questions that you can ask any “Truther” that they can’t answer in an honest or rational way.  These are simple questions that will expose their assumptions, their arrogance, and their ignorance.  I’m assuming that they are monitoring any mention of 9/11 conspiracy through google alerts, so let them answer here in the comments without tripping into the common above logical fallacies that they so often abuse.

What actual concrete proof do you have of any of  your claims?  Do you have the thermate bomb that was planted, a witness who saw it, evidence that it would even be used to demolish a skyscraper?  Do you have any witnesses who actually saw a cruise missile hit the pentagon?  Do you have any whistle blowers from the ever-widening conspiracy who have come forward to testify? 

If the actual planes did not fly into the World Trade Towers, then where are the planes and the passengers?  This is a very simple question that you can’t answer.  Fundamentalist “truthers” should spend the rest of their years apologizing to those families of the 9/11 passenger victims.  To make such a hideous accusation against our own government, it is only common decency that you prove how four planes full of passengers can disappear, and it might be nice to prove how their desperate phone calls could be faked. 

How do you explain the secrecy of such a horrible conspiracy wide enough to possibly include:  Bush, Cheney, CIA, FAA, the media, Larry Silverstein, the firemen who “pulled” the building, Marvin Bush, Securacom employees, people who faked plane wreckage, people who faked cell phone calls, people who killed innocent airline passengers and covered up the missing planes, fake terrorists who worked for the CIA, NORAD, 9/11 Commission, etc…  It’s times like this that Ockham’s Razor starts to make sense.  The old razor argument isn’t a universal law, but it is the common sense idea that the simplest answer is more logical than the needlessly complex answer.

Why would we attack our own defense headquarters when even just one World Trade Center collapse would have been enough to spark a war?  Not to mention, WHY WOULD WE ATTACK OUR OWN DEFENSE HEADQUARTERS?  There is no logical answer to this question.

Why is it so hard to believe that Al Qaeda, a terrorist organization who hates America, sent operatives to the U.S., had them train at flight schools, bought them tickets for four different planes departing on the same day, had them hijack the planes, and fly them into their targets?  It’s not like they hadn’t done this sort of thing before.  They even bombed the World Trade Tower in the 90s.  We even have evidence of them continuing their attacks in England and Spain, among other places.  WE FOUGHT A WAR WITH THEM.  What does it take to prove that a terrorist organization is far more likely to attack us than we are to attack ourselves?

How can the most documented terrorist attack in history be ridiculed as a fraud perpetrated by our government?  Holographic planes?  Actors staging reactions?  Cruise missiles?  Planted thermate bombs?  Faked wreckage?  Some of these arguments border on insanity. 

Confronting 9/11 conspiracies isn’t fun anymore.  There never were any good arguments, just misleading anomalies, half-baked speculations, and a whole bunch of lousy circumstantial cherry picking.  The “truther” arguments are like that mysterious bloated animal corpse that floated to the shores at Montauk.  Sure, it seems like a fascinating bio-engineered monster, part of some elaborate genetic testing cover-up, but then you just realize that the thing isn’t anything special, just the over-hyped waterlogged carcass of a raccoon.  Maybe I’m reaching for an analogy, but you get my point… right?

 

Crunchy Parenting: The “Natural” Birth Top Ten

 

My wife and I were recently accused of being “crunchy” by her boss.  We don’t really think of ourselves as crunchy, which I guess is one grade lower than hippie.  But then again, we do have a very alternative lifestyle:  a father who stays home, a natural-birth mother who pumps at work, and of course, we’re crunchy enough to have Obama stickers on our bumpers.  Well, imagine my surprise when I checked out Esther’s blog at Mainstream Parenting; she had a link to a crunchy parent survey.  At the end of the survey, I found that my wife and I are 69 on the crunchy scale, which means that we are only halfway to being captain crunch.  I’m fine with that rating… just crunchy enough not to believe all the hype and woo from the people at Mothering magazine, but also alternative enough to use cloth diapers.

I, of course, tip the scales to less crunchy as I become further immersed into the world of science and skepticism.  Indeed, I’ve adopted some of the crunchy issues that are important to my wife because I care about her.  On those issues, we make important compromises; for instance, the subject of this post is “natural” childbirth, and I supported her decision to have a drug-free birth, but I asked that it be done in a hospital and not at home. 

I understand that how you choose to give birth is a sensitive personal issue.  Some people interpret the decision to have a natural birth as a judgement upon other mothers who had an epidural or c-section.  Speaking from my experience, my wife and I try not to judge the experiences of other mothers, but we do judge the interventions and procedures of the birthing business.  As I said over at Babble’s blog, we don’t hate the grocer or the shoppers, we just don’t like grocery stores. 

If you’re interested, take a look below at our top 10 tips for parents considering a drug-free birth.   Feel free to add your own tips or opinions in the comments section.

Top Ten Tips for Parents Considering a Drug-Free “Natural” Birth

1. Choose a midwife or obstetrician who shares your opinions and will respect your birth plan.  Doctors are seldom used to deviating from their typical procedures, so it’s important to find midwives, birthing centers, and crunchy obstetricians who are comfortable with your plan to have a natural birth.  According to my wife, birth plans are a hot topic among mothers on the forums, but we both feel that a clear and concise birth plan helped us communicate our wishes.  Something simple like having the baby immediately placed on your chest for bonding is a simple request that can be overlooked.
2. Educate yourself about the physiological process of labor.  There are going to be some uncomfortable, awkward, and downright painful feelings that will occur at every stage of labor.  To be able to speak the doctor’s medical jargon is extremely important, as is the knowledge of the normal birth sensations that one might expect in labor.  We took Bradley Method classes, which can have accurate medical and historical information (do watch out for the infiltration of woo) that made us feel one step ahead the whole time.
3. Know the typical hopsital procedures and your rights as a patient to make safe choices that deviate from that procedure.  It might not be fair to cast a wide net here, but many hospitals get into habits that are not compatible with alternative birthing.  Just know that you have the right to turn down unnecessary interventions, no matter how hard they are trying to persuade you.  A good question to ask to gauge the seriousness of the intervention is whether you or the child is in danger.  You might be surprised how many habitual interventions can be avoided, such as breaking the water, which we turned down during our first daughter’s birth.
4. Allow yourself the freedom of mobility.  Don’t stay prone on the bed during the entire labor.  One of the understandable conventions of modern hospital birth is the idea that a pregnant mother must lie down during labor.  Not true, actually.  In fact, walking around makes it easier to push and far more comfortable physically.  So, allow yourself to bounce on a birthing ball, to take a shower, and to do whatever feels less painful to you.
5. Don’t go to the hospital too early.  One of the sad truths of giving birth at a hospital is that they often need to turn and burn your birthing room so that they can make room for the next Mom.  The doctor doesn’t want to sit around all day and night waiting for your kid to pop, either.  He or she understandably has appointments, other birthing Moms, and a home life.  Those pressures will subtly (or unsubtly) affect the doctor’s persuasion toward intervention.  We were in the hospital all night for our 1st girl, even though we waited to go in until contractions were long and close together.  Had we not waited, our hospital experience would have been even longer.
6. Be aware of the “ripple effect” of hospital interventions that lead to c-section surgery such as:  breaking your water, administering pitocin, getting an epidural.  This is where I expect to get the most debate out of my top ten.  The idea of an intervention “ripple effect” is not meant to attack the medical establishment, but just to acknowledge that it happens.  Pitocin puts you on a timeline that increases your chances of having abdominal surgery.  And you, the alternative parent, are specifically trying to avoid said surgery.
7. Take solace that evolution has developed women’s bodies to give birth, and that the pain is something women have experienced for generations.  You are not sick.  Having a natural birth is a choice to experience the pain that our bodies have biologically evolved to manage.  It isn’t for everybody, but those who choose it are not crazy, nor are they sick. 
8. Push in the position in which you’re most comfortable.  Both my daughters were born on the hospital floor as my wife squatted at the edge of the bed between my legs.  Such a position is nearly unheard of in hospitals today, but squatting was the preferred method at one time.
9. Have a supportive partner (that’s me).  Basically, I acted as my wife’s advocate.  Sometimes that meant that I had to defend her wishes and convictions against her own temprorary desires to “GET ME DRUGS NOW!”  Of course, had she actually insisted on drugs, I would have respected her, but I also knew that she needed me to keep her strong during the pain.  I also defended her birth plan when she was too vulnerable to advocate for herself.
10. Know the post-partum procedures.  This might seem stupid, but some hospitals just come and take your baby out of the room in the middle of the night while you’re sleeping.  Of course, they don’t do anything sinister, just measurements and shots, but still… how many times in your life after that day would you let anyone sneak your infant to another room without asking?  Never.  We also left the hospital as soon as possible after both our daughters’ births.  There is no reason why a perfectly healthy mother and child should stay two days in a hospital room.

Toxins in the News: August 1st Edition

 

I’ve given up and decided to give “toxins” their own special recurring segment here at Skeptic Dad.  There seems to be no end to the debate on different toxic ingredients, so I might as well succumb and highlight such news as it begins to aggregate.

Phthalates - Rule #1 of toxins is that if you can’t pronounce it, then it is probably a toxin.  Who comes up with these names anyway?  Phthalates are used as a way to turn a hard plastic into a soft plastic, like the kind of plastic in your kid’s rubber duck or, on the opposite end of the spectrum, in your average dildo.  Though not a human carcinogen, phthalates are like many toxins in that they mess with hormones and, I kid you not, may cause undescended testicles and a smaller taint size.  BWAHAHAHAHA! 

I’m sorry, it’s very hard to take this toxin seriously if those are the primary complaints.  Moving on…

It should come as no surprise that congress is moving to ban the use of pthalates in children’s toys and products.  It should also not be a shocker that our president may veto any phthalate law that reaches him.  This toxin is so hard to weasel into a political talking point that they’re actually trying to argue that banning the ingredient will only cause more harmful ingredients.  The stupid is sizzling hot in the white house lately.  While I do understand that the jury is still out on phthalates, I can’t see a good reason to continue to include the ingredient in toys that routinely go into the mouths of children.

Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) - These extremely toxic carcinogens have not been produced since 1977, and yet, they persist in the environment to this day as one of those “oops, my bad!” chemistry debacles that perpetually screw things up ad infinitum.  Not only is this multi-use chemical fluid contaminating our rivers, lakes, and soil, but you can also find it abundantly floating around in our atmosphere.  You may suspect that you have PCB poisoning if you develop a strange skin problems, compromised immunity, liver damage, and a disrupted endocrine gland.  And what will happen with a dirupted endocrine?  Glad you asked… it means that PCB-poisoned offspring could have gender issues, such as a possible increase in… hermaphrodites, or in the case of the indigenous population of Greenland, female offspring at the rate of 2:1.  I don’t think anyone can argue with a toxin that produces more ladies.  Yowza! 

Lead - According to recent tests, we can safely send our kids back onto football and soccer fields with artificial turf.  The Consumer Products Safety Commission has been testing whether artificial turf is contaminated with high amounts of lead, as previously declared by environmental watchdog group, The Center for Environmental Health.  There is truth that lead is in artificial turf, but extensive testing of multiple fields has shown that the toxin is in no danger of being absorbed at dangerous levels into the athlete’s body. 

Good grief!  I think parents of football players have more serious dangers to worry about than lead-filled turf.  Although I think CEH is blowing this issue way out of proportion, they make a good case that the government study had multiple flaws.

Bisphenol-A: Cleared of All Charges?

 

The good news is that Bisphenol-A is likely not the health risk that we once thought. 

The bad news is that I bought all new BPA-Free bottles and sippie cups.

Oh well.  One of the benefits of trusting the scientific process is that I can take measured precautions to alarming science-based health warnings  (such as the cell phone scare of 08), and I still have the opportunity to stay flexible and change my mind when those risky products are given the “all clear”.   I stand by my advice for families to avoid unnecessary and potentially toxic products that are in the process of being vetted by scientists; certainly, when there are options that objectively pose fewer hypothetical health risks.

The European Food Safety Authority has issued a statement that the plastic ingredient Bisphenol-A is safe for humans after all.  (Glad it’s the Europeans, or nobody would believe it.)  The reason for the drastic change in opinion?  It turns out that new information proves that humans (even newborns) are much better able to metabolize BPA than rats , which means that instead of it junking up our hormones, we fire it all out in a stream of warm urine.  I knew those kidneys were good for something!

Something tells me that this news is going to take a while to filter out to the population, and even when it does, few will believe it.  Granted, this does not completely end the debate on BPA, but it does swing the evidence strongly in favor of it’s safety.  I’m glad that we have one less toxin to panic about.

Born Secular!

 

Oxford psychologist Olivia Petrovich thinks that it may be a possibility that belief in God is inherent, that humans are born with faith.  Hogwash!

I don’t doubt the sincerity of Ms. Petrovich’s research, nor do I think she shows a philosophical bias, but I do think her study is deeply flawed and misleading.  Her recent cross-cultural scientific study on spirituality engaged three-and-a-half-year-old children on questions of origin and primary origin of natural and manmade objects.  When asked about the primary origin or genesis of each object, the children were provided with three potential answers:  God, Don’t Know, or Human origin.  Inevitably, despite the differences in British and Japanese cultures, the children chose “God” as their answer, which seemed surprising since the Japanese are essentially raised agnostic.

Right away we can see a huge problem… forced options that are limited and unfair.  “OK, Tomohiro, who made this tree?  Your options are… an all powerful creator, you don’t know, or a man?”  Hmm, I wonder which answer an imaginative and creative child, who regularly converses with cartoon characters on Nick Junior, is going to choose.  It really isn’t hard to imagine that the more interesting and stimulating answer would be the one most chosen.  I wonder what would happen if Flying Spaghetti Monster was one of the options.

There’s also another problem with the options, the likely accurate answer isn’t among them.  Ms. Petrovich omitted the answer that is most plausible, requires the least amount of faith, and has the most evidence.  Of course, I’m talking about natural selection, or more broadly, evolution.  Well, evolution might seem to be too complex for a child, but if you showed a series of images for the origin of a horse, and you included in the options a picture of a horse ancestor, you might find that children would be more likely to pick that than a picture of nothing (God).

Of course, religious organizations will surely pounce on this poorly designed study as proof that religion is instinctual.  But why would they open themselves up to the obvious rejoinder that this study only reminds us that children are naturally easily fooled, relatively ignorant, and overly imaginative?  We are talking about the types of minds that trust in the concept of a jolly elf flying from rooftop to rooftop on a magic sleigh pulled by gravity-defying reindeer.

Lastly, the Japanese children who chose God used the word “Kami“, which does not translate strictly to “Deity”.  Kami is seen as spiritual beings of energy unique to different objects rather than as an ultimate creator.  I hate to quibble over details, but it’s really a stretch to compare Kami with Intelligent Design.

Already blogs are reporting that infants have a natural belief in God.  Theage.com goes so far as to lead their article with this misleading nugget…

“INFANTS are hard-wired to believe in God, and atheism has to be learned, according to an Oxford University psychologist.”

They then end with a quote from Ms. Petrovich that…

“Atheism is definitely an acquired position,”

I think of the term “atheism” as meaning ‘without a faith in God’.  Under those terms, atheism is most certainly NOT an acquired position.  We must be taught to believe in metaphysical entities, and even asking children to choose God as an option, is a form of teaching them.  One must know what a God is before one can choose God as an answer, and I’m assuming that the children were guided about the meaning of the possible answers.  And if so, then how does that prove a natural belief in God or that secular thought is unnatural?

What do you think?

Ominous Warnings: Cell Phones and Children?

 

Oh man!  It’s hard to be a science-based skeptic when even the scientists are hitting the panic button.  This week, the alarm bells are ringing for cell phone risks to human health; specifically, the dangers of electromagnetic radiofrequencies (RF) on the brains of children. 

The director of the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute, Dr. Ronald B. Herberman, issued a precautionary warning to faculty and staff about the potential harm caused by cell phones.  Though he described the evidence as “controversial”, he believes that there is sufficient data to indicate that people take appropriate precautions with cell phone use, especially children.  He is basing his opinion on preliminary unpublished data from the 13-country “Interphone Study“, which has had a publishing delay of two years.  Other bloggers have suggested, and I agree, that Dr. Herberman’s alarmist memo was highly irresponsible given the number of studies showing no harm from cell phones, but it gives me a good chance to dive head-first into the topic…

As I’ve said before, cell phones emit radiation at frequencies that are much lower than is known to heat tissue or cause cancer.  The differences in radiation frequencies can be seen in the electromagnetic spectrum itself, from powerful gamma rays on one side to visible light waves in the middle, and radio waves on the other end.  Each frequency has different uses, different effects, and completely different levels of potential harm.  For instance, cell phones are required to be on a non-ionizing radiofrequency, which are specifically chosen because they are too low to cause cancer or do the type of damage typical of higher frequencies such as those in microwave ovens and nuclear material. 

The big question is whether the lower radiofrequencies can cause biological problems like wandering neurons in the brain.  Some studies have shown a biological effect, but efforts to replicate the effect have been inconsistent.  The brain is a complex electrical computer and holding up any radiation to the delicate network of neurons can potentially do some damage in the long run, but the science is still out.  We’re in a holding pattern until the infancy of cell phone use ages a few more decades.  Of course, by then, it may be too late…

As you can see on the graph model ^ above from the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute’s warning, the amount of cell phone radiation entering a child’s brain may be significant.  This is speculative because it is generally thought that a child’s skull may not be a thick enough EM shield; also, the small developing brain has softer tissue, which make it hard to absorb the radiation.  I think parents would be well served to eliminate cell phone use for their young children.  Ultimately, a child’s safety and brain development must take precedence over the slow process of scientific research. 

The actual studies on cell phone risk are mixed according to skeptic neurologist Dr. Novella, the FCC and the FDA; the dividing line between a correlation of harm and no harm seems to be duration of use.  Studies on cell phone users of a duration less than 10 years have shown a trend toward a negative correlation of harm.  On the other hand, studies of cell phone users for a duration longer than 10 years has shown a positive trend.   This would indicate that cell phone dangers take a while to manifest, as described by Dr. Vini Khurana.  Either way, the data is preliminary and very little can be interpreted from it.  One thing can be said for sure, we are not seeing the flurry of brain tumors that one would expect from something as ubiquitous as cell phone use.  However, the incidences of brain cancer might change in 35 years when the radiation from mobile phones has had time to accumulate.  The good news is that the early data doesn’t suggest a strong connection.

I think it might be nice to reprint the advice given by UPCI director Ronald Herberman in the controversial memo.  It certainly can’t do any harm to change a few cell phone habits, such as one’s I’m guilty of like letting the kids have casual conversations with the grandparents.  Anyway, here you go…

Do not allow children to use a cell phone, except for emergencies. The developing organs of a fetus or child are the most likely to be sensitive to any possible effects of exposure to electromagnetic fields.

While communicating using your cell phone, try to keep the cell phone away from the body as much as possible. The amplitude of the electromagnetic field is one fourth the strength at a distance of two inches and fifty times lower at three feet. Whenever possible, use the speaker-phone mode or a wireless Bluetooth headset, which has less than 1/100th of the electromagnetic emission of a normal cell phone. Use of a hands-free ear piece attachment may also reduce exposures.

Avoid using your cell phone in places, like a bus, where you can passively expose others to your phone’s electromagnetic fields.

Avoid carrying your cell phone on your body at all times. Do not keep it near your body at night such as under the pillow or on a bedside table, particularly if pregnant. You can also put it on “flight” or “off-line” mode, which stops electromagnetic emissions.

If you must carry your cell phone on you, make sure that the keypad is positioned toward your body and the back is positioned toward the outside so that the transmitted electromagnetic fields move away from your rather than through you.

Only use your cell phone to establish contact or for conversations lasting a few minutes, as the biological effects are directly related to the duration of exposure.
For longer conversations, use a land line with a corded phone, not a cordless phone, which uses electromagnetic emitting technology similar to that of cell phones.

Switch sides regularly while communicating on your cell phone to spread out your exposure. Before putting your cell phone to the ear, wait until your correspondent has picked up. This limits the power of the electromagnetic field emitted near your ear and the duration of your exposure.

Avoid using your cell phone when the signal is weak or when moving at high speed, such as in a car or train, as this automatically increases power to a maximum as the phone repeatedly attempts to connect to a new relay antenna.

When possible, communicate via text messaging rather than making a call, limiting the duration of exposure and the proximity to the body.

Choose a device with the lowest SAR possible (SAR = Specific Absorption Rate, which is a measure of the strength of the magnetic field absorbed by the body). SAR ratings of contemporary phones by different manufacturers are available by searching for “sar ratings cell phones” on the internet.

The Autism Royal Rumble!

You may have heard by now that X-Files beauty Amanda Peet called anti-vaccine activists “parasites” in her interview with the esteemed Cookie Magazine.  I would have went for “toxic liars”, “delusional fanatics”, and/or “crap-based denialists”, but oh well, it’s nice to have an anti-McCarthy celebrity fighting on the side of science and reason.  Too bad Amanda (I like to call her Amanda) had to apologize for being so rude; it turns out that irrational parents don’t like to be called out on their irrationality.  But, take a look at her apology, and you might see similar arguments that I lay down in my own page about vaccines.

Peet didn’t need to apologize.  Her tiny remarks are nothing to this week’s resident dumbass- radio host Michael Savage.  This chucklehead thinks he’s a skeptic, but he’s clearly a dim bulb with a big mouth.  According to Savage, children with autism are either a fraud or a bunch of pussies who aren’t pushed hard enough by their pansy Dads…

“In 99 percent of the cases, it’s a brat who hasn’t been told to cut the act out.  What do you mean they scream and they’re silent? They don’t have a father around to tell them, Don’t act like a moron. You’ll get nowhere in life. Stop acting like a putz. Straighten up. Act like a man. Don’t sit there crying and screaming, you idiot.’”

This guy is an Asshat of the highest order, who is in love with his own voice.  Of course, he backtracks on CNN a bit, but he still makes the arrogant accusation that many parents of autistic children are lying about their child for purposes of fraud.  Well, Mr. Asshat (can I call you that?), you have to prove your B.S. before you start broadcasting it.  Or guess what?  You stop being a skeptic as you claim to be, and you become a certified prick who sadly gets off on slandering special needs children and their parents. 

Meanwhile…

Steven Novella, a neurologist and podcast host for The Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe, has recently been debating with the Jon Poling, the neurologist father of Hannah Poling.  You might remember Hannah Poling as the little girl awarded money from the vaccine court because her pre-existing mitochondrial disorder was aggravated by vaccines.  Also in the mix is David Kirby, idiot author of Evidence of Harm, who blogs at Huffington Post. 

Both Kirby and Jon Poling attacked Novella for his science-based insistance that vaccines do not cause autism.  Kirby reminds me of the little toadie that stands behind the bully in the movie A Christmas Story.  David Kirby has failed to effectively counter any argument against him so many times that he may as well sit this one out.  But to see the two dueling neurologists, Poling and Novella, go head to head on the manufactured autism-vaccine debate is a truly inspiring battle.  I can’t do the argument justice, so you’ll have to check out Novella’s blog and Poling’s open letter for what I hope turns out to be an epic anti-vaccine ass whooping.

Keys Solar RX Sunscreen Product Review

 

Environmental Working Group, a watchdog group for skincare products, recently dropped the bomb that four out of five sunscreens they tested failed to meet their standards of safety and effectiveness.  Some have protested that the standards were arbitrary and unfair, but EWG insists that the sunscreen ingredients were tested and analyzed by scientists using peer-reviewed literature.  One can be fairly certain that at least some of the standards were based on junk science, but as I’ve repeatedly stated here, informed science-based speculation deserves consideration from parent skeptics who would ordinarily require more evidence before deciding.  Why not choose a sunscreen that is known to be safer? 

My last post about sunscreen dangers addressed some of the details of EWG’s sunscreen press release, so I won’t be going into particulars about it.  This is dedicated to a review of Keys Solar RX Sunscreen, the favored sunscreen product in all three EWG categories:  safety, effectiveness, and customer ratings.  I felt it was hypocritical of me to recommend a product without trying it, so I wrote to the company and asked for a sample.  Unfortunately, they sent me the smallest sample they could provide, a small tube barely good enough for one serving.  I guess this did the trick of providing a sample and making me want to buy more, but it also made me want to discover what they had to hide.

Obviously a small sample wouldn’t work, so I forked over $33 dollars to buy the holy grail of sunscreens.  The price is uncomfortably high for a primary caregiver in a lower middle class household.  You can see why I was searching for an actual free can of the product (given my unsolicited advertisement of it) and not the one-serving tube they sent me.  So, when the actual can came in the mail I felt… duped.  Keys had roped me in with their high scores at EWG, but the actual product is smaller than a toilet paper tube. 

They were off to a bad start, but things got worse.  I thought the product was a spray because of the nano-particles, but it is not a spray.  The can itself gives the illusion that it’s a spray.  When I opened the cap, the top of the product also came off.  When I tried to fix the top, I wasted about $5 worth of precious sunscreen in a messy display of anger (hint: take out the insert first and then connect the top).  Eventually, I figured it out, but I was pretty annoyed.

The actual product smells quite nice, a happy beach-like smell that one would typically associate with sunscreen.  Very comforting.  The lotion went on thicker than I expected, since I was expecting a nano-spray, but it wasn’t too bad. 

Keys sunscreen is not waterproof.  The first time I tried it on, I swam in the pool and earned the first sunburn of the summer.  I knew very well that it wasn’t waterproof, but I wanted to go swimming.  That’s one of the pitfalls of a non-waterproof sunscreen.  Totally my fault, so I won’t hold that against the manufacturer of my tiny product.  One other disadvantage to a non-waterproof sunscreen is that sweat will wash it off.  I was at the zoo with the kids today and the sweat at my hairline made the sunscreen seem to melt.  Clearly, a sunscreen stick would be better for the face area.

I want to recommend Keys Solar RX to my millionaire friends, who can afford such extravagances.  Although I can’t personally afford it, I do want to find something equally safe and effective.  So, I may go back to EWG for other products that might be cheaper and…ahem…bigger. 

Read here to see what Scientific American has to say about sunscreens.

Read here to see what LiveScience has to say about sunscreens.

Read here to see a Q & A about sunscreens on WebMD.

Yellowcake Journalism

 

The AP reported a few weeks ago that 550 tons of yellowcake material was shipped out of Iraq to a company in Canada that would use it for peaceful energy programs.  People are still writing letters about this event insisting that it validates the excuses given by neo-cons for their invasion of Iraq.  Is it true?  Did Iraq have WMD after all?  NO!!! 

Yellowcake is a natural form of uranium that takes years to process into nuclear material.  The stockpiles of yellowcake uranium recently sent to Canada were from before Desert Storm.  Even then, Saddam didn’t have the ability to process the yellowcake because Israel had bombed their facilities in the 80s, and we did so again during the first Gulf War.  After our victory in Iraq in 1992, the IAEA discovered the stockpile of yellowcake and continued to guard it and protect it until we invaded again. 

This stockpile wasn’t controlled by Saddam, but even if it was it wouldn’t have mattered.  Yellowcake uranium is merely a building block to nuclear weapons.  You can’t drop a ton of yellowcake on a country and cause a mushroom bomb.  Iraq didn’t have the money, the equipment, nor the ability to create WMD, despite what the world was told by our president and his war cabinet.

Everyone might remember the term “yellowcake” when it was bandied about in accusations that Saddam was trying to buy the material from Niger.  Bush even went so far as to insert the blatant lie that Saddam bought yellowcake from Niger into his State of the Union speech, even though he knew the intelligence was bad from information gathered by former ambassador Joe Wilson.  He was sent to Niger to investigate the Niger yellowcake sale to Iraq, but his investigation concluded that the intelligence was not valid. 

As punishment for the reality of Wilson’s honest discovery, Vice President Cheney and Carl Rove schemed a plan to “out” the identity of Wilson’s wife, Valerie Plame, who was an undercover CIA agent.  We all remember “Scooter” Libby who was sentenced to jail and then given a pardon by our president.  All of this happened, and yet still people want to insist that the secured yellowcake recently sent to Canada was a huge WMD discovery?  If Saddam had access to yellowcake the whole time, why would Bush think that he bought it from Niger?  Conservative apologists are on fire with all kinds of stupid!

We never found any WMD after our invasion.  We never found nuclear material that we didn’t know about.  The U.S. was tricked into an unjust war.  We’re the bad guys here.  Of course, I don’t blame the soldiers; many of them are doing their best under conditions of failed leadership.  But, anybody who says that we have a right to occupy Iraq and force feed them democracy is wrong on many levels.  We should leave Iraq, and if the country erupts into civil war or if Al Qaeda takes over, there will be only one person to blame:  George W. Bush. 

He claimed in his victory in 2004 that he planned to spend his political capital.  Well, he spent it, used it up, and borrowed more from future republicans.  Now, democrats deserve a chance to lead this country without constant filibusters and presidential vetoes.   Regardless of political affiliation, we all have a right to be mad that our federal budget is knee-deep in debt because of this war based on deceit.