Giuliani’s single biggest weakness right now is his support for the occupation in Iraq and his continued support for neo-imperialist wars. This is almost certainly calculated to draw as many fundamentalists and industrialists to the primary polls as possible, but it’s a bit like shortening a baseball bat so you can swing it faster. By taking a position opposed by a good two-thirds of voters, he might as well give up now.

While anyone still supporting the occupation of Iraq is nearly as boneheaded as a Pachycephalosaurus, his main weakness right now is the fact that he is certifiably insane. While Giuliani was speaking about (read: lying about) the Democratic candidates’ foreign policies, he said: “Hillary and Obama are kind of debating whether to invite [Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Osama bin Laden] to the inauguration or the inaugural ball.” Uh-huh.

To review, we have a paranoid-delusional Baptist minister, a “dumb as hell” actor, a senator with clear signs of senile dementia, and a simply idiotic serial monogamist running for the Republican nomination. So, Mitt, it’s up to you to make it a perfecta: might I suggest schizophrenia? Who knows, maybe receiving campaign advice straight from God will help.

Although federal policy is, officially, that forest fires are essential for healthy forests (which is what scientists have known for decades), almost no fires are allowed to burn. Fires are necessary for several reasons. First, it helps thin forests of smaller, weaker trees so that mature ones, which can survive fire, can grow without being crowded. This helps prevent diseases that can decimate forests, and, since disease can leave millions of dead, dry trees, makes them more vulnerable to the massive sorts of fires that forests have difficulty recovering from.

Second, older desert forests and chaparral are unproductive—that is, they do not provide the same habitat as ones that are cleaned by fire regularly. Sage brush, for example, is an essential food for several species, such as the sage grouse. However, after a couple years it becomes woody and inedible. After a fire, however, the brush burns down to the root, which then puts up new, green, edible growth.

Finally, many species of trees are incapable of reproducing without fires. Here in Oregon, we have enormous tracts of land in the high desert covered in ponderosa pine. Poderosas’ cones will only become active after a fire, so if fire is prevented for long enough, the desert forest becomes a desert.

So why don’t we let fires burn? Loggers are allowed a certain amount of timber from public lands (and with the current administration, that amount has increased), and they don’t want to lose the revenue. Where most people see a beautiful vista, they see dollar signs and strip mines. A sort of disgusting parasitism has arisen between logging companies and the Forest Service. Contrary to popular myth, loggers do not pay for the chance to log public lands. The Forest Service pays them. And then pays again to replant. This exploitation is largely foisted upon the Forest Service by congress (bought and paid for by loggers and strip miners).

There is also the issue of public pressure. Aside from the geniuses who build houses in fire prone areas, and then don’t bother to protect their homes from fires with rather simple steps (most “victims” of forest fires), there is a great deal of pressure from average people who see forest fires as destroying the land. This was made much worse by the fire that consumed Yellowstone in 1988, and the misinformation spread by much of the media at the time of wildlife death (very few animals actually died).

So, no, the Marines aren’t to blame for the fire. Even the arsonists (if it does turn out to be arson) only sped up the inevitable. Forests burn.

Before I begin my (highly disciplined and organized) rant, let’s have some definitions (courtesy of Wiktionary):

Science
noun
The collective discipline of study or learning acquired through the scientific method; the sum of knowledge gained from such methods and discipline.

Scientific method
noun
A method of discovering knowledge about the natural world based in making falsifiable predictions (hypotheses), testing them empirically, and developing peer-reviewed theories that best explain the known data.

Pseudoscience
noun
Any body of knowledge purported to be scientific or supported by science but which fails to comply with the scientific method.

With that out of the way, let’s look at the various aspects that make ACT pseudoscientific:

Demonstrably false and inconsistent statements.
“Doctors can’t prescribe plant based medicines”
This is an interesting claim, considering that Taxol, one of the drugs used in chemotherapy, was originally* derived from the Pacific Yew, which is, quite definitely, a plant. Of course, ACT means that doctors can’t prescribe the “pure” and “natural” supplements that his ilk sells. Which is, of course, rubbish. My doctor prescribed flax seed oil for a skin condition when I was in middle school, and I know other doctors that will prescribe remedies such as St. John’s wort, chamomile, and licorice for colds, minor depression, and ulcers. What doctors won’t prescribe is unproven “plant based medicines,” and they don’t do it out of fear of losing their licenses; they refuse because they know that herbs can kill (a subject I will talk about in the final piece).

“[T]he percentage of Americans who die each year from cancer has remained pretty much the same since 1970.”
Once again, absolutely false. The number of Americans who die from cancer has gone up, but the number who are living with it has gone up much faster; hence, the percentage has fallen. In fact, since 1993, the death rate has fallen by more than 1% each year.

There are many treatments and clinics claiming to fight cancer by boosting the immune system. This does not seem like a good idea. Tumor cells are made by your body, they are not foreign. Your immune system is designed to attack foreign organisms. There is something wrong here. Much more is needed than immune strengthening to beat cancer.”
I love this one. First of all, there are several kinds of white blood cells that attack tumors. But there’s more. Recall last time when I talked about MGN-3, the “wonder drug” made from rice bran? Turns out that ACT claims that MGN-3 functions by stimulating the same immune cells that ACT wants you to believe don’t exist.

They’re Out To Get Us Because We’re Right
This is scattered all over the website, but here are a few of the more laughable claims:
“Hospitals will administer any drug they want with or without your permission. They will take your child away if you disagree with their treatment even if it makes your child worse.“

“Your doctor can only prescribe treatments that are FDA approved. If your doctor prescribes treatments that are not FDA approved, he or she can be sued or lose their license.“

Claims that “alternative doctors” have been “persecuted.” Two of the three mentioned, Carley and Corsello, had their licenses revoked for (respectively) , practicing while having a “delusional disorder with the presence of narcissistic and borderline personality traits” (she claimed to be “Gandhi with breasts”), and “negligence, incompetence;practicing fraudulently;ordering excessive testing and/or treatment; filing false reports; improper delegating of professional responsibilities;failing to exercise appropriate supervision;aiding and abetting the unlicensed practice of medicine;abandoning a patient;engaging in conduct which evidences moral unfitness and failing to maintain accurate patient records,” which I would say are rather good reasons for revoking medical licenses.

No Citations or Actual, Repeatable Studies
Sorry, no quotes for this one; the entire site is one mass of unverifiable information.

Violating Basic Laws of Physics
Boy is this one a doozy. Turns out that the kit that they sell to help cancer patients determine which “alternative” treatment is right for them is based on “applied kinesiology,” (itself a pseudoscience) and two “proven facts”: “Every food or medicine has a unique energy signature,” and “our bodies respond to this energy signature in testable ways.” (Both of those are false, by the way.) Here’s how it works: you put the “treatment” in one hand, and use a strength meter in the other. Whichever is strongest is the best one for you. So, you’re basically doing self-diagnosis by psychic powers. Another method of choice: dowsing.

The other one is even more interesting: “quantum touch,” a reincarnation of “therapeutic touch,” neither of which actually involve touching the patient. Apparently the practitioner glides their hands over the patient’s “life force” and smooths out the wrinkles that cause disease.

That’s pseudoscience for you.

*It is now synthesized in the lab to prevent deforestation.

Chance at Nomination: 7. Barring a serious upset, like a major evangelical group endorsing Romney, his only competition is the oh-so-charismatic Fred Thomson. I’ve yet to figure out exactly why, but I suspect it has something to do with a sort of mass hysteria on the part of Republicans. He’s been branded “America’s Mayor,” and since Bush & co. are leaving them with more baggage than Nixon did, they’ll grasp onto anything that looks like it’ll float, even if it is obviously less seaworthy than the Titanic.

Electability: 1. I’m more inclined to give him a “0,” but I’ll be generous. Rudy is perhaps the worst choice for the Republicans since they tried to re-elect Hoover in 1932. In 2004, Kerry was an easy target for sliming because he didn’t fight back. Giuliani is an easy target because he’s already so slimy. Let’s take one instance that I just found out about: the case of Alan Placa, better known as “Priest F” from the Suffolk County, NY clergy abuse case. Mr. Placa has “consistently protected predators, shrewdly deceived victims, covered up horrific clergy sex crimes,” and been suspended from the Catholic Church, and, were it not for the statute of limitations, would almost certainly a convicted sex offender and on his way to prison for several years. Turns out that Giuliani is friends with Priest F, employs Priest F, and has refused to fire Priest F. Perhaps because it was Priest F that helped Giuliani get his first marriage (to his cousin) annulled, over the objections of his wife, and despite the fact that they knew that they were cousins when they married.

Main Strength: To explain the phenomenon that drives Republicans need to deify Rudy, one needs to understand the tragedy of HUAS, or Head-Up-Ass Syndrome. The truth is that, in a reality based world, Giuliani has no strengths (other than that he’s a white male, so he’s a shoe-in for the bigot vote). I’ve heard victims of HUAS explain that Rudy Giuliani cleaned up New York, has experience fighting terrorism, and can compete for the moderate vote on social issues. #1 is absolutely false. Although it is true that (as Giuliani supporters say) that crime rates fell in NYC during his tenure, they started falling in 1989, so Giuliani’s “tough on crime” policies weren’t responsible, unless there’s some weird space-time continuum thing I’m missing. #2 is true, if you count putting the Office of Emergency Management (OEM) in a known terrorist target as “experience.” And what about social issues? True, he does have a much more “moderate” record on social issues than the rest of the Republican candidates, but this will hurt him in the primaries, and won’t help him much in the general election. Why? Because what politicians call “moderate” is actually far to the right of what most Americans believe. And while Hilary might not be the left’s savior, she’s certainly better than Giuliani

Main Weakness: Giuliani’s single biggest weakness right now is his support for the occupation in Iraq and his continued support for neo-imperialist wars. This is almost certainly calculated to draw as many fundamentalists and industrialists to the primary polls as possible, but it’s a bit like shortening a baseball bat so you can swing it faster. By taking a position opposed by a good two-thirds of voters, he might as well give up now.

Good or Bad: 0. And that’s charitable. Here’s what we can expect from a Giuliani presidency: reduced public health care, a return to J. Edgar Hoover-style law enforcement, national security compromised because he wants to hide an affair (which is why he put the OEM in WTC7), curtailed freedom of speech, even worse cronyism than in the current administration, and more and more troops in the grinder. Scratch the 0; I’m going to have to delve into negative numbers to describe this.

Yesterday, I woke up to the news that Al Gore had won the Nobel Prize. Since I can’t add anything to his speech and Stockholm’s decision other than “Yay!”, “Take that, Bush!”, and “Damn, I wish he’d run!”, this post is not about him. Instead, I’m ranting about something a little less time-sensitive.

Our debate team prepares briefs on probable topics in advance, since it’s a pain to try to look up information on, say, the inner workings of Myanmar’s government in the 10 minutes we have to prepare. We generally send these to each other on the listserve, and I got one just yesterday. The topic: “The FDA should approve MGN-3 for use by cancer patients as a treatment of their cancer.” Since I’d never heard of MGN-3 and I’m a little skeptical of “alternative medicines” to begin with, I decided to do a little checking. Since the only source she had (other than the ACS for some background statistics) was a site called Alternative Cancer Treatments Comparison and Testing. I pulled it up, and, voilà, the most perfect example of snake-oil salesmanship since Karl Rove brought us the Compassionate Conservative.

This site purports to give information on “alternative” cancer treatments, including MGN-3, shark cartilage/oil, megavitamin therapy, Cancell, Pawpaw, and an “alkalizing diet,” along with polemics against the FDA, AMA, and sane people in general. Since the absurdity of AlternaiveCancer.us (AC from now on) is so vast, I will deal with it in three posts. Today’s is about a couple of the treatments it recommends, and I’ll follow up with a larger analysis of the site (and the product it sells) and a piece on alternative medicine in general.

First up, MGN-3:
MGN-3 is, to quote my debate colleague, “made from Rice Bran, enzymatically treated with polysaccharides from Shitake, Kawaratake, and Surehrotake mushrooms.” So far, a little unconventional and New-Agey, but nothing particularly suspicious yet. AC claims that “MGN-3 increases the production of NK cells and continues to keep the NK cell level elevated until use is halted. It also enhances B-cell and T-cell activity.”* Once again, nothing particularly suspicious. “MGN-3…increases gamma interferon and tumor necrosis factor-alpha.” Here we run into problems. Interferon therapy is part of conventional medicine, so no problem there. TNF, however is not. In fact, increased TNF has been linked to an increased risk of many diseases. Including cancer. Strike one.

What about some studies? Well, there was one. That showed that mice and a few cancer pacients given MGN had increased NK levels. However, no one has successfully repeated the experiment (strike two, and enough to ditch it in science), and there are a few problems with the researcher. Aside from the fact that he has a direct financial stake in the compound (he patented it), he has a tendency to overstate the data, to put it mildly. Recall that the only thing his published study showed was increased NK levels in mice and a few humans. Well, on the website of the company that manufactures MGN-3, he said that “MGN-3 will boost natural killer cell activity to destroy any remaining abnormal cells after surgery or adjuvant treatments.” Neither he nor anyone else has conducted studies to determine whether MGN-3 is actually effective against tumors. Strike three, and MGN’s out.

Next up, megavitamin therapy:
Megavitamin therapy, also called “orthomolecular therapy,” is not your average multivitamin. Megavitamin gurus insist that we somehow need many times more vitamins than the FDA recommends (and, crucially, so much that we have to buy supplements from them rather than just eating more healthy foods). Megavitamins’ purported benefits are quickly dismissed; every (peer-reviewed) study has found that such enormous doses give no benefits, and, contrary to the gurus’ claims, very few people in America are deficient in any vitamin other than D**. Strikes one and two. Now, this would be relatively benign (if you can call fraud “benign”), except for the particular vitamins that proponents recommend.

There is, of course, the “panacea” hawked by so many, vitamin C. Taking too much of this will give you an upset stomach. The others recommended by AC, vitamins A and D,  however, are extremely toxic in such high amounts. A and D are both fat-soluble vitamins, meaning that they will not be excreted in urine when you consume a large dose. Rather, they are stored in the liver, and slowly released. When large amounts of fat-soluble vitamins are taken over a period of time, the vitamins build up, causing problems such as fever, insomnia, fatigue, weight loss, bone fractures, and anemia (vitamin A), and bone loss and renal failure (vitamin D)***.

“Vitamin” B17 is an entirely different matter. Not only is it not a vitamin (its proper name is laevo-mandelonitrile-beta-glucuronoside) certain enzymes break it down into glucose, benzaldehyde (the chemical that gives almonds their distinct smell), and cyanide. In fact, before the FDA started prosecuting manufacturers and vendors of B17, at least one young man died from it, suffering classic signs of cyanide poisoning.

The final treatment I’ll look at is shark cartilage:
The use of shark cartilage in the treatment of cancer goes back centuries to the Polynesian of the small island Krackpotatoa…okay, that was complete fantasy (and a very bad pun). In fact, it goes back to 1992, to a book by William Lane called Sharks Don’t Get Cancer. Except, sharks do get cancer. Thirty-four kinds. Including in their cartilage. There’s also the small problem that eating something that doesn’t get cancer to cure cancer is somewhat like eating goat testicles to become more sexually potent.****

As a final note, every thing here that isn’t cited is either from Wikipedia (and backtracked sources) or Quackwatch (which is an interesting read, by the way).

*NK cells, or natural killer cells, are specialized white blood cells that are cytotoxic, that is, they attack tumors and cells infected by viruses so that the cancer or infection does not spread. B cells produce antibodies, and T cells do many things in the immune system, including secreting proteins, preserving immunity, and attacking infected cells like NK cells. It has not been established that NK cells, B cells, or T cells actually prevent or attack cancer in vivo.

**This is because Vitamin D does not absorb well into the digestive system, and we cannot produce it ourselves without sunlight. So those of us who live in temperate zones and don’t drink much milk (guilty) may need supplements.

***Yes, the same vitamin D that helps you “maintain healthy bones.” Too much of anything is toxic.

****It is true that shark cartilage has been shown to have a small antiangiogenesis effect in vitro. However, when you eat shark cartilage, it is broken down into individual amino acids, completely obliterating any effect that the cartilage might have on a tumor.

With that out of the way, I have this little bit of news I heard last night listening to my local Air America/Nova M/Mother Jones radio station. Oregon is now the seventh state to protect student journalists in high school and college from censorship, even from their parents. If a student-run paper is censored by the administration, they can now sue for relief (a provision that would allow for recovery of attorney fees was stricken from the bill, unfortunately). A small victory, yes, but a sweet one.

• Hedy Lamar. She invented radio control for torpedoes that used frequency hopping.
• Madame C. J. Walker. She invented a special soap and brush used for straightening hair.
• Maria Telkes. She invented a solar heated house, a solar oven, and a distiller for life rafts.
• Hypatia. She invented the astrolabe and hydrometer, and was murdered by monks who believed math and science to be immoral.
• Ada Lovelace. She invented the binary system used in modern computers, and developed the programming code used in Charles Babbage’s computer.
• Mary Walton. She invented one of the first systems for scrubbing pollution out of exhaust (essentially an enormous bong).
• Beulah Louise Henry. She invented, among other things, a vacuum ice cream freezer, a typewriter that made four copies of whatever was typed on it, and the first bobbinless sewing machine.
• Gertrude B. Elion. She invented many different medicines, including Purinethol, the first leukemia treatment; Imuran, an immuno-supressent used in organ transplants; the antibiotic Septra; and Zovirax, a treatment for viral herpes.
• Erna Schneider Hoover. She invented a computerized telephone switching system that eliminated system overload.
• Stephanie Kwoek. She invented Kevlar.
• Katharine Blodgett. She invented, among other things, invisible glass, poison gas absorbents, the color gauge (an amazingly accurate ruler inspired by soap bubbles), and a method for deicing aircraft. She was also the first woman to get a Ph.D. from Cambridge.
• Mary Anderson. She invented the windshield wiper.
• Helen Blanchard. She invented several different sewing machines (including the first zigzag sewer) and different types of surgical needles.

And if you want to see more things that “she invented” go to this partial list of patents awarded to women in the US.

BTW, I’m going to be contacting Google, asking them to fix their algorithm so that it doesn’t suggest “he” for “she.” If you want to do the same, their contact info is:

Google Inc.
1600 Amphitheatre Parkway
Mountain View, CA 94043
phone: (650) 253-0000
fax: (650) 253-000

I’ve yet to find a support e-mail address, but if I find one, I’ll update this page.

Update: Due to the large numbers of searches for “she invented,” on Google, “she invented” no longer triggers a recommendation for “he invented.” I’ve been out of touch, but it doesn’t look like Google made any changes to their algorithm. Score one for the wisdom of the masses.