On the ABC program Catalyst this week, Dr Maryanne Demasi slayed a few dietary myths–like, cholesterol and saturated fat cause heart disease.
She described how medical science was distorted for decades by the influence of money, and how one key researcher networked his way to the top of an influential association, casting ad hom insults at his competitor, ridiculing him, and calling his rival theory about sugar “quackery”. The personal attacks and name-calling worked, and for fifty years people have been paranoid of cholesterol, and scoffing corn syup instead, while study after study showed that that approach was not working.
Everything said about the processes in this tale could be equally well said about climate science: Correlation is not causation. Weak, flawed studies can be cherry picked while good studies are ignored. Associations can be taken over by one activist. Large financial interests distort science.
So the consensus was wrong about cholesterol, but is untouchable on climate? (See Witchcraft on Catalyst — Scary weather is coming, it’s all our fault, be afraid!)
Will it take 50 years for Catalyst to stop repeating the verdict of associations, and start investigating the evidence? The big lesson of the Enlightenment is that data and evidence are the highest authorities, not humans.
How myths in dietary science parallel climate science:
(I’m a hopeless optimist, I thought I’d try to help Catalyst spot the repeated patterns.)
“Dr Michael Eades
Just because there’s a correlation, doesn’t mean that there’s causation.”
- Correlation is the most compelling point IPCC climate scientists have, (after sheer bombast, and “tallies of scientists”). It’s not just weak reasoning, it’s a lousy correlation*. Skeptics have been pointing it out for years. Filed under “correlation is not causation”, see how Global Temperatures have a decent correlation with US postage Stamp Prices.
“Dr Ernest Curtis
The classic study by Ancel Keys is a textbook example of fudging the data to get the result that you want out of a study. And, unfortunately, there’s a lot of that that goes on.”
- The Hockey Stick Graph relied on the wrong type of trees as a proxy. The growth of bristlecone pines, which dominate the graph, is CO2 limited, with little dependence on temperature–which is why the tree rings were collected in the first place. The technique to analyze the data produced a hockeystick shape even if it was fed pure random red noise instead of the tree-rings. Virtually none of the climate scientists who assert CO2 is a problem spoke publicly to condemn these unscientific practices, which tells us all we need to know about standards in the warmer side of the climate imbroglio.
- Several studies later produced similar hockeysticks, but almost all of those studies were not independent, relied on bristlecones or foxtails, or on “Yamal 06” (a single tree in Russia with an 8 sigma growth pattern — the most influential tree in the world.)
———————————–
“NARRATION
Science writer Gary Taubes says it’s all very well to have a theory, but in science you have to prove it. And they tried.”
- The US Government spent $30 billion from 1989 – 2009 trying to prove that CO2 causes catastrophic global warming. So far there are no empirical studies that support major assumptions about upper tropospheric water vapor (the major feedback in the models) and net positive feedback from cloud cover–yet in the climate models, these factors cause about two thirds of the warming.
“Gary Taubes
And over the next 15 years, researchers did trial after trial. There were probably a half a dozen of them between 1960 and 1975. All refuted or failed to confirm the idea that you could live longer by either reducing the saturated fat in your diet or reducing the total fat in your diet.”
- Since 1990 study after study has tried to show the upper troposphere was warming faster than the surface — as predicted by a key model assumption. Steve Sherwood was so keen to find this effect he changed the color of “zero” on the scale from yellow to red to recreate the pattern. The models are wrong, by 400%. The IPCC says “the cause of this bias remains elusive“.
———————————–
“NARRATION
The American Heart Association was also reluctant to lend credence to Keys’ theory. But then he managed to score a position on the Association’s advisory panel, where he pushed for the acceptance of his ideas, and it wasn’t long before they had a change of heart.”
- Climate change advocates were even luckier than anti-cholesterol researchers — by 1992, their major patron was the Vice President of the US.
———————————–
Bad science can only be kept alive by a committee
When the science is really stupid, only a committee report can provide a big enough white-wash.
“Gary Taubes
Instead of the data not being good enough to claim that dietary fat was a cause of heart disease, they concluded that the data were good enough, and, therefore, all Americans over the age of two should go on low-fat diets.”
- Pro-warming Climate scientists didn’t need to infiltrate an association. Right from the start, a special UN body was established specifically to help them. Climate science was so bad, it needed it’s own international (unaccountable) committee. Who audits the IPCC? (Volunteers).
“NARRATION
As the idea gained widespread acceptance with the public, science was left to catch up. Two ambitious trials, costing over $250 million, involving hundreds of thousands of patients, both failed to prove that lowering saturated fat could lower your risk of dying from heart attack.”
- 28 million weatherballoons searched to find support for the missing hot spot (to show models were right). They found no warming at all, and no increase in humidity either (Paltridge 2009), thus condemning the CO2 theory to irrelevance in a rational world. This vast amount of data was called “spurious”.
———————————–
“Gary Taubes
The way the authorities responded to this was to claim that they must have done the study wrong.
- Climate scientists point out there are uncertainties in weather-balloon data (which is true, and also true of all climate data). They don’t point out that there are far larger uncertainties in global models, instead they say that because they are less sure of radiosondes, they are more sure of the models — 95% certain.
“I approached the National Heart Foundation for further evidence. They said the data was complex. They cited one study which showed only certain types of saturated fat could raise bad cholesterol, but it also raised good cholesterol. In the end they concluded – ‘We agree that we are limited by the evidence base, available at this time.’
NARRATION
In the ’60s, British physician John Yudkin challenged Keys’ theory, claiming that sugar was the culprit in heart disease, not saturated fat. But Keys was politically powerful, and publically discredited Yudkin’s theory.
- Whole websites have been set up by specialist marketing teams to discredit senior scientists with decades of experience. (See DeSmog, set up by James Hoggan and Associates). Naomi Oreskes is a specialist at creating and selling “doubt” about expert critics – she is The Merchant of Doubt who resorts to 20 year old misrepresentations. Who knew statistically correct statements about passive smoking could disprove a NASA satellite?
Gary Taubes
By the early 1970s, Ancel Keys was ridiculing John Yudkin and his theory in papers and just on the basis of that sort of personality and political struggle, the nutrition community embraced this idea…
- When skeptics pointed out problems with IPCC statements on the Himalayas (that turned out to be correct) the head of the IPCC said skeptics practice “Voodoo science”.
Dr Maryanne Demasi
This widespread publicity meant that Keys’ theory went from weak hypothesis to medical dogma…
- Dogma? In the world of climate if you ask for evidence, or even just the data, you’re a “denier”. Sometimes you get sacked, or even stripped of email and emeritus status. Psychologists even study the strange phenomenon where independent scientists dare to doubt the conclusions of international committees. They conclude the questioning of gross errors and grand failures must be politically driven, since many of those who doubt, also “strangely” don’t want to vote for the same political parties which call them deniers. How could it be?
“NARRATION
Hundreds of articles refuting the cholesterol hypothesis have been published in the world’s leading medical journals, but they rarely get noticed by mainstream media.”
- 1,100 peer reviewed articles (and counting) support skeptics. Has Catalyst reported any of them? Are Catalyst viewers even aware that assumptions about water vapor, not carbon dioxide, cause two thirds of the projected global warming?
“Gary Taubes
So, what you do in bad science is you ignore any evidence that’s contrary to your beliefs, your hypothesis, and you only focus on the evidence that supports it.”
- Antarctic sea-ice is increasing. Models don’t know why. The ocean heat content figures are not rising fast enough. Models can’t explain that either. The surface temperatures haven’t warmed for 16 years, and 97% of models predicted otherwise. We could go on…
“NARRATION
In 1977, the US government stepped in. Senator George McGovern, an advocate of Ancel Keys’ theory, headed a committee hearing to end the debate once and for all.”
- The IPCC meets every 5 to 6 years and ends the debate every time.
“Dr Michael Eades
“And they are the ones who really have put us in the nutritional mess that we’re in now, because based on virtually zero science, they decided that a low-fat diet was the best thing for us all.”
- If the IPCC favored climate models overestimate global warming by a factor of 6 (as empirical evidence suggests), almost all the money spent trading carbon, sequestering it, and installing wind farms and solar panels has been utterly wasted. $176 billion dollars was drawn out of the productive economy to trade carbon in 2011. $243 billion was invested in “clean energy” in 2010. Is that as influential as the US corn industry? We think it might be. Has it killed as many people? That’s up for debate.
“NARRATION
“Eminent scientists at the time disagreed with the report.”
Eminent scientists disagreed in 1990 and still disagree with the hypothesis of man-made global catastrophe.
- Prof Richard Lindzen — Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology, Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences. Prof. Lindzen is a recipient of the AMS’s Meisinger, and Charney Awards, the AGU’s Macelwane Medal, and the Leo Huss Walin Prize. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, and the Norwegian Academy of Sciences and Letters, and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences, the American Geophysical Union and the American Meteorological Society.
- John Christy — distinguished professor of atmospheric science, and director of the Earth System Science Center at the University of Alabama in Huntsville.
- Roy Spencer — Principal Research Scientist at the University of Alabama in Huntsville in 2001. Formerly he was a Senior Scientist for Climate Studies at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center.
- Christy and Spencer developed the first global temperature data set from satellites and were awarded NASA‘s Medal for Exceptional Scientific Achievement, and the American Meteorological Society‘s “Special Award.”
- Plus 31,000 scientists, including 9,000 PhDs, 4 Apollo Astronauts and 2 Nobel Physics prize winners.
Is that enough?
“Dr Stephen Sinatra
Cholesterol is really not the villain. I mean, we need it to live. The problem is cholesterol is involved in a repair process. Look, cholesterol is found at the scene of the crime, it’s not the perpetrator.”
- CO2 is not really the villain. It is true it is high when temperatures are high (as Al Gore said in An Inconvenient Truth). What Al Gore did not say was that two years before he made his movie, Caillon et al definitively showed CO2 rises 800 years after temperatures. It’s just Henry’s Law at work. The warmer the ocean, the more CO2 it releases. CO2 has scored the blame, but it is not the cause…
Being strictly logical
Naturally, parallels in propaganda, money or politics prove nothing about the climate. This skeptic would never say climate scientists were wrong because they were paid $79 billion dollars to find a crisis. They were wrong because the evidence goes against them, and they reason with logical fallacies.
Comments from readers
Readers have also noticed parallels, Reader Turtle of WA wrote in with a long list, including many above plus these:
- Political interference at the highest level (McGovern). –
- The appearance of the issue on the cover of Time Magazine.
- The sale of certain products based on the theory.
- ‘confirmation bias’ in the research (Dr Johnny Bowden)
- A failure of the establishment to question it
- ‘Far too many exceptions’
- Media mythmaking
As Peter a reader wrote to me:
“As I watched the program I thought that everything they were saying about how the scientific consensus on cholesterol developed and has been promoted could easily be replaced with the consensus on CAGW. Even down to having a senior US politician pushing the consensus line – but in the cholesterol case it was a Republican (Sen. Goldwater). And they had comments from an AMA rep supporting the cholesterol hypothesis – reminding me of CAGW support from many scientific organisations. How the Catalyst Team could have not noticed this delicious juxtaposition of their views on the two topics when it was so obvious to me (and my wife) amazes me. Basically they are saying – consensus A (CAGW) is true because we agree with it, while consensus B (cholesterol artery blockage link) is a crock because we don’t agree with it.”
Ian in comments on Thursday
October 24, 2013 at 11:14 pm ·
“The parallels between the resistance to the debunking of the “cholesterol causes heart disease” mantra and the doubts that “CO2 from human use of fossil fuels causes global warming” are so similar…. those who promote the theory cholesterol causes heart disease refuse to recognise the existence of data that refutes that theory. Now isn’t that just like the climate scientists …
Derek wrote to Catalyst:
“… I have written to “our ABC” pointing out this disparity and suggesting that Dr Demasi be tasked with researching and presenting the evidence for and against on this vexed question in the same admirable and unbiased fashion…. I wonder if she and they will rise to the challenge?”
Too little too late
As for the diet info, almost everything the show revealed was discussed in the new media, or books 15 years ago. That’s why I rarely watch Catalyst. I’ve known about the dangers of oxidized polyunsaturated fat, of raised insulin, of omega 6 imbalances, and the major role of inflammation, disadvantages of the low-fat diet, and trans fats since the late nineties. I was discussing nutritional research online back then. So while I congratulate Dr Demasi for doing a good job of busting myths that still abound, one that will score her criticism from some quarters (predictably, on the site that slavishly follows “authority” more than any other – The Conversation), Catalyst could have been analyzing government and industry PR releases all along. It’s a bit too little, too late.
Doesn’t she see how most of the time, Catalyst simply repeats the press releases and perpetuates problems in science? It’s not the job of reporters to decide who is right on the climate, or in medicine, it’s their job to find the best arguments both sides can make and put them both forward. It’s to facilitate the public debate, and inform the public. On climate, Catalyst is part of the consent-manufacturing media force. It’s part of the problem.
The message for people who were surprised by the Catalyst episode: don’t wait for Catalyst to tell you. Start searching the new media or bookstores now.
(Be aware though that practically any new diet works for a while, it’s the longer studies that matter. The studies on mortality count the most, and the studies on epidemiology the least — they’re the studies that confound 400 factors by saying “people ate more X in fatland, so X makes you fat!” Ignore any site or book that says you should eat something because a committee says so. Cutting calories is the only thing that stands up to scrutiny.)
To see how much Catalyst propagate and protect bad science:
- Witchcraft on Catalyst — Scary weather is coming, it’s all our fault, be afraid!
- Catalyst: climate astrology in your very own backyard
———————————————–
* How weak is that correlation? Pathetic. It’s riddled with mismatches and exceptions. CO2 rose faster after WWII, but temperatures fell for 30 years ( they say it was aerosols). Lately CO2 emissions are “worse than expected” but temperatures are flatter than expected (apparently it could be the ocean this time — but why wasn’t it the ocean before?). A third of human emissions in all history have been from 1998, yet the pause in global warming has reigned since then. The peak decadal rate in the 1980s was not different to the 1870s, though there is a lot more CO2 (the “climate is complex”). Medieval times were just as warm, but CO2 was low. (The Medieval warm period didn’t exist, “see the hockeystick”). There are always excuses, and if reporters are too lazy to question them, who will?
Only unpaid bloggers, apparently.
REFERENCES:
See The Evidence and the links above, plus:
Caillon, N., Severinghaus, J.P., Jouzel, J., Barnola, J.-M., Kang, J. and Lipenkov, V.Y. 2003. Timing of atmospheric CO2 and Antarctic temperature changes across Termination III. Science 299: 1728-1731. [Discussion, CO2science]
Paltridge, G., Arking, A., Pook, M., 2009. Trends in middle- and upper-level tropospheric humidity from NCEP reanalysis data. Theoretical and Applied Climatology, Volume 98, Numbers 3-4, pp. 351-35). [PDF]
This Cholesterol is bad myth has pi%$ed me off greatly since the late 80’s and was a catalyst (no pun intended) in my initial CAGW skepticism, even as a semi professional athlete in prime condition I was always questioned on my belief of the benefits of essential fatty acids from animal foods.
Anthony Bova who wrote the “Spartan Health Regime” covers the cholesterol myth well and back in 1990 was the first person I knew of to alert people of the dangers of “Trans Fats” vegetable oils damaged by high heat, he also exposed Soy as a dangerous food which was then being promoted as a healthy alternative to meat.
The money made on cholesterol lowering drugs is obscene and only eclipsed by the drugs sold to remedy the problems of the cholesterol lowering drugs which should not have been taken in the first place!
I can appreciate a free market to sell goods but when you put a product out that is outright dangerous for people to ingest and then offer kickbacks to medical professionals (who should know better) who the public usually trust, to push this crap, well as it’s been said many times here before “Just follow the money”.
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There are now two countries in the western world who have managed to stop the obesity epidemic: Sweden and Finland. Sweden is actually the only country in the world where people are actually losing weight on average!
Why these two? Because significant portion of the population on both countries have jumped on the Low Carb High Fat (LCHF) diet. Sweden is just a few years ahead of Finland, which means it is more than likely that Finland will start to see the drop too pretty soon.
This radical change in diet has not been supported by the official health care establishment. In fact we see constant demonization of LCHF-diet in the lines of “All the studies say you are going to die!”
We are not. We are losing weight. We are healthy. We feel great.
Butter is my friend. 🙂
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Thank you Yonnie and Hannuko for the clear outline of this issue and the “Higher” issue of what the hell is Government doing?
We basically pay them to pool our resources to get the very best information, and science, on which to make informed decisions.
Instead we seem to be following a path decided on by marketing and business turnover imperatives which are not even neutral, but actually harmful to us.
Questions.
One of the good things about the Global Warming scam is that it is a case study in how public opinion can be subverted and distorted on the basis of a whimsical feeling or intuition rather than science.
KK
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That is not actually correct. We don’t pay taxes as the price of government “pooling resources” or providing any service. We pay them as the price of not being locked up. Payment of one’s tax liabilities, of itself, provides no entitlement to any service whatsoever.
It’s very important to understand this, because it’s the basis of the whole global warming episode.
If we had been able to choose to withhold funding, the whole global warming runaway scam would probably never have happened in the first place, or crumbled as soon as the trenchant criticisms of the skeptics went unanswered.
There is simply no reason why science, in its nature, needs to be funded by government, and there is no reason in support of the assumption, let alone the assertion, that government funding gets “the very best information” or anything like it.
We need to understand the connection between the fact of government funding, and the fact that CAGW is a scam:
1. tax is by definition a coerced not a voluntary payment, and
2. the law against misleading and deceptive conduct only applies “in trade and commerce”. It does not apply to government or politics. We have no legal remedy against this fraudulent behaviour by governments.
So please do not propagate these beliefs, that we pay government to provide services, and that government funding of science provides presumptive social benefits.
Government funding of science should be abolished, along with the ABC.
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Hi Justin,
I appreciate what you are saying about taxes giving us no right of control and the use of Government money to fund science.
On the other hand having been a beneficiary, I think, of government money used to run CSIRO long, long ago I can perhaps look at things differently.
If government could run the CSIRO as an independent body effectively under the control of the Australian people (taxpayers) in the distant past and do it properly, what went wrong to make it the mess it is now.
When science is done by “private enterprise” we find that they can buy and corrupt our politicians to suit their own agendas anyhow.
Look at the many useless and dangerous Pharmaceuticals on the market, supposedly for our benefit.
Take SSRIs, aka Anti-Depressants, for example.
Billions of dollars annually go to big Pharma for what is essentially a placebo like my doctor used to give me when I was four years
old.
The only difference was his medication was free and was a small pink pill.
The only way we can win is to try, at least, to force government to maintain integrity in whichever system is operating.
That is the BASIC problem. Corruption and lack of integrity.
KK
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Hi Keith
How do we know
a) that government ever did in fact run the CSIRO effectively? What does that actually mean? What criteria apply and why?
b) that government funding of CSIRO caused net benefits for society compared with what would have obtained if the funds had been spent as the taxpayers preferred? (We know they preferred something else, otherwise no tax would have been necessary would it?)
Assuming that corruption and lack of integrity is the basic problem then I think we agree that they don’t disappear by the fact of government handling the money.
The original problem of human ignorance and corruption applies on both sides of the equation. But only government has the ability to continue the funding of corrupt behaviour by using its powers of force, which are not available on the market side of the equation. People are perfectly capable of funding science, if they want, all by themselves either directly or indirectly through commercial or philanthropic organisations. The only thing that governmens adds is the ability to fund it if the people don’t want.
Why is that a good thing? Why should we be defending that?
At least with useless and dangerous products on the market, you can withhold funding by not buying it, once you reach the stage of knowing that they are useless and dangerous. But if government provides them, you can’t withhold funding, once you reach the stage of knowing that they are useless and dangerous.
Which is easier: to try to force government to maintain integrity (especially where it has a vested interest in corrupt graspings)? Or to simply not buy a product you don’t want?
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Hi Justin
I did have a rather good image of the CSIRO as an institusion which produced world class vaccines.
Of course we only ever heard the good bits and assumed there was no waste or corruption involved.
Your issue
“once you reach the stage of knowing that they are useless and dangerous. ”
prompts me again because we can only buy these products IF they have been approved by Government.
Unfortunately Government is open to outside influence and if a product is endorsed who are we to know that it is a total waste of time or of only marginal benefit?
We still get caught as it takes time to reveal faults and defects in products, in the meantime people suffer.
KK
20
I find the image that has been pushed of such “venerable” science based organizations having near Saint-like qualities rather disturbing.
The IPCC was stood up to achieve the same effect, however those free thinkers on that pesky internet have exposed the institutionalized lies for what it is.
I was observing people the other day – as people are weaned onto instant everything, people lose the ability to disconnect and truly *think* about stuff. As such it could be argued, the instant everything world we have suits snake oil salesmen who put flod people with information upon time-poor people with rpedictable results – poor descision making and greater than expected imapct by propaganda.
I enjoy asking hard questions that make people stop and think. The half-wits dismiss anyting “out there” that doesnt fit their neat and predicatble view of the world sold them by the mass media, the thinkers however will take ideas to task and make them justify themselves.
In many ways, much of humanity now is like a group of people in a theatre the moment after someone has yelled “FIRE”.
10
Sorry…typo
As such it could be argued, the instant everything world we have suits snake oil salesmen who put flod people with information upon time-poor people with rpedictable results
should read:
As such it could be argued, the instant everything world we have suits snake oil salesmen who flood people with information upon time-poor people with rpedictable results
20
Justin, You say: “the law against misleading and deceptive conduct only applies “in trade and commerce. It does not apply to government or politics. We have no legal remedy against this fraudulent behaviour by governments”.
It is my understanding that they also do not apply to charity and community support groups, which include the green extremist groups such as The Wilderness Society and Greenpeace. We are all disadvantaged by this and it is something that needs to change.
10
No comment on this except to say Someone’s awfully concerned. Yet years ago the Readers Digest suggested they may have had it wrong with cholesterol….
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-10-28/professor-says-abc-catalyst-episode-could-result-in-deaths/5050866
00
Yonnie, my father had a small heart problem and the dc’s found he had “cholesterol” they gave him tablets to take, he lived on his own and went into a coma for two days until some one found him. Nearly died through dehydration. They later discovered that he unlike some has all his cholesterol in his blood stream and no body fat. Idiots. Myself some what the same after a twenty year lapse had a medical check up and a rather alarmed Dr told me to come in urgently. I was told that my cholesterol was about to kill me and to go to the chemist and get anti tablets and to return in two weeks.
I returned in two weeks, having avoided the chemist and a blood test showed my cholesterol to be normal, the Dr said that was impossible, then I told him I had stopped eating a block of Chocolate each evening for the last few days. Science is so wonderful, I just hope one day the Dr’s will catch up to reality.
20
Well on the upside at least, somebody in the ABC understands that bad science exists.
That’s an improvement.
Now let’s see if they can transfer that learning to climate “science”.
Nice article by the way Jo.
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Oh, and the transcript is available here:
http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/3876219.htm
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Sorry to be a bore, but another ABC discussion on fraudulent science was had this week here:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-10-25/scott-selling-science/5043620
Maybe, just maybe, they’re building up to something?
Change of government you know. They can’t continue to “talk through their hat” and expect their funding not to be impacted can they?
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“They can’t continue to “talk through their hat” and expect their funding not to be impacted can they?”
I must admit that I’m highly sceptical that the Libs will do much about the ABC..
More fool them if they don’t, though. !!
120
Sam, the shortest road to that goal (the learning transfer) might be via the hole in the ozone layer.
10
Here’s an interesting paper that suggests the reverse cause and effect for CO2 and temperature from that claimed by the “settled science”:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921818112001658
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Warmy heads will explode. Trolls, all together now, waaaaaah … A very interesting find, thanks Llew.
40
Now I’m all for any evidence that the skeptics were probably right all along in their skepticsm that increasing CO2 was the sole [ ? ] reason as claimed by the CAGW alarmist water melons for the 20 year increase in global temperatures from 1978 or thereabouts to 1998.
Strange how a 15 year hiatus in global temperature increases doesn’t rate at all compared to a mere 5 year longer period, a 20 year period of increasing temperatures on which the entire ideological .CAGW religion and it’s adherents use as evidence to support the chicken entrail prophecies of of the CAGW believers God like climate models.
As my dear departed mother use to say in an admittedly somewhat different context There are none so blind as those who do not wish to see
But referring to the paper on CO2 trailing global temperature increases that llew Jones has directed us to above.
A slight twinge of skepticsm is kicking into gear,
Now if you were a low level or newbie scientist and into climate research as being about the only major bit of science where you will get yourself some mileage from the MSM whatever you say as long as it sounds disastrous even if you are not very convinced about the whole global warming shebang, you might just be coming to the conclusion that
A; You can’t compete with the biggest mouths and non stop, yap, yap egos in the climate alarmist business.
B ; Its all starting to look very sus and now looks like it is about to come apart at the seams and just disintergrate
C ; You decide it might not be a good call for your future employment prospects to be caught in the back wash and stench of a dying belief in CAGW
D You then haven’t any real losses in your prospects for future employment if you try and get aboard the skeptic bandwagon that seems to be starting to roll at last like the Juggernauts of the Ratha-Yatra (Puri) Hindu Festival;
[Wiki quote]
E; There might be some very big advantages for both reputation and employment to be seen to be getting aboard the skeptic’s bandwagon and coming up with a scenario that merely adds more fuel to the fire that is starting to consume the CAGW ideology.
And what better way than to claim and then get into print in a prestigious science publication that against all the supposed previous science, temperature changes actually precede atmospheric CO2 increases just like the ice cores have been telling us for a couple of decades past .
And who is going to check the actual results in any case amongst all the other rubbish that is being passed off as science today ?
Not the alarmists for as above; There are none so blind as those who do not wish to see
My skepticsm about this paper and it’s authors only has a slight twinge but in the world of today’s science where dog eats dog and morality and ethics is in short supply, what better way to stand out from the pack than to throw a real challenge into the alarmists faces and get yourself some significant publicity in the science world as well ??
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That is a great paper which contradicts the recent trend in pro-AGW papers such as by Shakum and Parrenin which have abolished the ‘lag’ between Temperature and CO2.
The lag between temperature movement and CO2 has long been a problem for AGW theory because it shows CO2 is a subordinate factor in the climate system.
30
*yawn*
If your car’s speed shows lagged correlation with the position of the brake pedal, you would not conclude the brakes are driving the car forward.
I reckon correlating derivatives only tells you what is modulating the derivative, it doesn’t tell you what is causing the original absolute amount. In other words, I have no doubt they’ve got all the accurate data and they’ve done the lagged correlation in a standard way, but the analysis is still consistent with industry being the main source of CO2. Their analytical technique cannot discriminate between causes.
It’s no surprise that temperature modulates the rate at which the oceans can absorb our CO2, I’ve noticed that years ago and it’s obvious from looking at dCO2/dt versus dT/dt.
So temperature increases first, the reduction in ocean absorption rate begins immediately, but slowly at first, getting stronger as temperature rises, so CO2 can accumulate in air at a faster rate, and at some point the temperature stops increasing and after a lag the rate of ocean absorption stops decreasing, and so that shows up as lagged correlation of the derivatives. Nothing new here.
At least that was my first impression. This lagged correlation technique is new to me, but I’ve made an air/plants/ocean/industry model in a spreadsheet which confirms my first impression. It is only a qualitative model running over 8 simulation years, but the essential relationships are all there. The delta of 12-month smoothed SST and CO2 for this model shows a correlation between SST and CO2 which is strongest if CO2 lags 8 months behind temperature change, just like in their results, except in my model there’s an anthropogenic CO2 emission constantly pushing up the air CO2 levels. Same analysis result from a different cause, so their attribution conclusions do not necessarily follow from their analysis. For me that’s enough to prove their technique is bogus and cannot be used to identify the CO2 source.
Anyhow, the paper has been responded to already in the literature.
Yes, that’s right, the carbon accounting argument is much simpler, less variables involved, and so its conclusions are still correct.
00
When you sewer pipe blocks you blame the pipe not the sewage. Same with your arteries.
I had a faulty pipe, (hereditary) they fixed the pipe and I’m fine.
The Cholesterol lowering drugs are obscene – I refused to take them as the side effects were horrendous.
My daughter (a doctor) taught me a simple lesson – “I put butter on my bread and I cook with olive oil”
Here in Dubai in the supermarket the butter section is twice the size of the margarine section.
90
Climate alarmists are very keen on saying that ‘climate change is the biggest problem the world faces’, and it suddenly dawned on me why they are so strident with this claim.
It’s nothing to do with the planet, or our children, or our children’s children — that’s simply window-dressing.
But climate change policy offers easily the best opportunity for the Leftist progressives to achieve their real agenda, of ending ‘injustice’ (defined entirely in their own terms, of course) and creating ‘equality’ (unattainable unless everyone’s dead) and pursuing other malleable progressive notions.
In other words, if they lose climate change, they lose the lot. It’s a skirmish which could lose them the whole battle. The progressive agenda, dead in the water.
Which is why every activist worldwide keeps beating the drum about climate change being the most important issue of the time; it is, but not for the reasons they like to claim.
503
Jo, I think Rick nearly deserves a gold star ! 🙂
[I agree] -Fly
160
Well said Rick. You may have just stated the bleedin’ obvious, but people tend to overlook the bleedin’ obvious in the heat of life’s daily battles. You succinctly sum up that which we should keep in mind 24/7.
110
Kevin,
It is interesting you mentioned that. The company I work for, does a lot of scenario planning. One of the techniques used in the “industry”, is Brain Storming. It is a staple.
One of my colleagues recently suggested that we change the process to identify as many “obvious” ideas as we could, before moving on to the real generation of “new” ideas.
It was like magic. By stating the bleedin’ obvious, we generated twice as many “new” ideas in half the time. When it came to doing the “real new idea” exercise, the best we could come up with was “why don’t we go to lunch?” 🙂
It seems that people have a tendency to self-edit suggestions, that appear to them, to be self-evident. You may not know, what you don’t know. But you also may not know, what you do know.
90
One of the problems to be overcome when building an enterprise is the tendency to over- intellectualise management. We live in a world where a glittering academic record is a prerequisite for advancement and the successful completion of a team task comes secondary to the maintainance of individual credibility. Thus folk won’t stick their necks out to say something that they think everyone is aware of. Similarly when tasked with blue sky brainstorming, the first thought is to defend oneself from the scorn and derision of others, hence a nice safe go to lunch idea.
I suggest that what has to happen within the group is that the task must be presented in such a manner that it overrides, or at least subdues, the individuals inclination to be risk- adverse. Furthermore the group must have trust in each other that freeing up their creative sides will not be detrimental to them personally . Which inevitably leads to the personal qualities of the leader and the leadership/management style to be used. If the organisation is top down. The leaders known likes and prejudices will take precedence over the demands of the task. If the organisation is more relaxed,say a matrix. Brain storming is more likely to be successful. You probably know all this, I’m just thinking aloud so you know where I’m coming from.
50
Gotta say, Rick, there’s three obvious counterexamples…
* Legalising civil unions for same-sex couples,
* halting Wall St’s extortion of nations, and
* fine-tuning workplace equality for women.
Therefore the “Leftist progressives” don’t “lose the lot” if they lose “climate change”.
On the above issues the Progressives simply have the earliest and loudest voice on the issue, though by no means are they isolated in their opinions.
I checked the headlines on Marxist Left Review to see what bees are buzzing in the bonnets of the lefties. I had to have a chuckle.
If you want to read the article “Revolutionary unity to meet the capitalist crisis” just click through,
but to read any of the articles older than 3 months you have to… pay for the information.
That doesn’t sound very commie to me. 🙂
70
Maybe they’re not Marxists at all but subversive revisionist Maoists who have joined the running dogs (走狗) of the Chinese capitalist model.
Maybe a purge of these undesirables is needed?
70
They have very little in common with proper left values. I have put up long posts explaining why but suffice to say the environment movement is wrongly confused with left politics, the two things couldn’t be ideologically further apart.
10
Yep. Which is another reason none of the counterexamples I gave were environmental.
Seems feminism has been part of Progressivism since before Progressives called themselves Progressives.
Yet the largest of feminist victories took place in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, and good on `em for that, but “climate change” hadn’t even been fabricated until 1988. Just another Leftist Progressive agenda item that has nothing to do with climate change and has thus far been largely accomplished without it.
And, as Sean pointed out, they’ve got our kids by the brainstem via control of school curriculum.
“Lose the lot”, “dead in the water”, my foot! It’s popular wishful thinking. It’s also ignoring the causes adopted by the Progressives that most libertarian types here would also agree with.
Perhaps only reforms that are exclusively championed by the Progressives are considered a “Progressive” agenda. Semantic quicksand.
00
“the environment movement is wrongly confused with left politics, the two things couldn’t be ideologically further apart.”
you couldn’t say it was any more ideologically in line with right wing politics though. I’l accept you don’t have to be left wing to be an environmentalist of course – I’m not sure that has ever been in doubt.
00
Rick Bradford said:
They might lose but never completely, never checkmate. It’s like getting the Christians, awaiting the regularly postponed Armageddon, to admit they were wrong. It won’t happen. Also, these clown mostly control the information to the public. That includes the schools, Fairfax, the free-to-air TV channels and all of the ABC/SBS empire. The Coalition, is in many respects in caretaker mode awaiting the Labor/Greens return. This might take a long time, but history tells us will happen eventually. They will hit the ground running because the structure will still be in place.
There really needs to be a new and bold treatment to the insidious leftist cancer. The Coalition winning the election isn’t enough. Any ideas?
61
Well, you could join and help fund the IPA for starters.
The leftists are slowly but surely taking our freedoms away and one day in the future we will wake up to no freedom. Then it will be too late to fight.
The IPA is the only working organisation in Australia that I know of that is successfully active in fighting to retain our limited freedoms and restore recent lost freedoms.
Sure, there are others, but on the extreme that has not much clout.
On the other hand…if the leftists could be located in one region instead of inter-dispersed in the general populous then I believe the situation could be remedied.
Here is one example…invite all the leftists to Tasmania with free travel and accommodation thrown in, then sell it to the Chinese to lower our debt. A win, win situation!
I reckon the first thing the Chinese would do is use them picks, shovels and wheelbarrows to construct the Franklin Dam. Bob Brown would make the perfect project manager!
51
Yes Rick, it is Agenda 21 which is at the bottom of this fine mess.
Here’s the proof from IPCC official Ottmar Edenhofer before Cancun:
“… we redistribute de facto the world’s wealth by climate policy. Obviously, the owners of coal and oil will not be enthusiastic about this. One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy. This has almost nothing to do with environmental policy anymore…”
120
Can you supply a link or reference for this quote. I have a daughter doing a sustainability degree and it would be useful for her general background info.
00
Spot on! Its what Michael Crichton described as mankind’s favorite type of problem, “a hand wringer” something you can whine all day about and give your hands a good wring, but you cant measure either success of failure so no one actually has to do anything. You wont hear them talking about particulate matter in industrial emissions for 2 reasons.
1. Its an actual health issue
2. You can measure the results of tackling it
Wastes of space to man these people….
10
See here for an interesting view of climate change.
00
Profound article!
When I’d debate religion and argue with creationists regarding evolution, I used to use the ‘peer review’ argument. Having now observed the corruption in science, I no longer use that argument. Of course certain areas would be less vulnerable than others. The Theory of Relativity probably didn’t lend itself greatly to politics and control (especially of other people’s money). Similarly, I can’t see great political or financial gain in the theory of Evolution. All the same, today peer-review is too blemished to be used as an argument, without feeling discomfort and guilt.
92
I suspect some peer review still works.
So long as money and politics isn’t involved and it can be done dispassionately.
20
isn’t => aren’t…. plural .. doh!
30
Nah you had this right. Money is Politics.
30
Can someone deposit some politics to my bank account then?
10
For a good website that has a science and evidence based approach about diet and nutrition and rejects the saturated fats is bad line have a look at http://www.marksdailyapple.com/ (its not mine), the author does sell supplements but he is low key about it. its in the style of Jonova and WUWT. I was a carb addict thinking i was eating healthily until my blood test revealed i was basically a newly formed diabetic with a bad blood sugar problem. i did a swot on why this was, when i was diagnosed a year ago and found that site and many others that pointed to grains and sugar being the problem. Changed my diet dropped 11 kgs with minimal effort and now my blood sugar problem has gone.
90
I guess you’ll never get to read this Jo as it’ll be a long way down very shortly I’m sure but I do feel rather, well aggrieved is too strong so perhaps marginally miffed, that my effort on this has been overlooked. Here’s what I wrote on Thursday and which is relevant to this blog. I was replying to John Brookes
Ian
October 24, 2013 at 11:14 pm · Reply
Hey John Brookes did you watch the program on Catalyst about the saturated fat/cholesterol story. It seems that the Heart Foundation may well have got it all wrong. The parallels between the resistance to the debunking of the “cholesterol causes heart disease” mantra and the doubts that “CO2 from human use of fossil fuels causes global warming” are so similar. A very cogent remark was that those who promote the theory cholesterol causes heart disease refuse to recognise the existence of data that refutes that theory. Now isn’t that just like the climate scientists and their sycophantic hangers on? I urge everyone to watch it if you can as the evidence against this long held belief is convincing and as I’ve sad it so closely parallels what is now happening with the Climate Change debate
———————-
Thanks Ian. Noted a point added to the post. Thanks! – Jo
170
Yep.
Well said Ian.
I noticed the obvious correlation just listening to the promos on ABC radio.
Excellent article Jo
60
Yeah. I find this stuff confusing. There was one study of statin use that followed 10,000 veterans in the US. They all had raised cholesterol. Half took statins and half didn’t. Over the next 15 or so years, 17% of the statin users died. Of those who didn’t use statins, 27% died.
And yet I’ve seen other studies that say statin use has no effect on mortality. Very confusing.
For what it is worth, I think statins are a good idea if your overall risk of heart disease is high, and you have high cholesterol. I think being fit is more important.
There is no doubt that heart disease is a lifestyle disease. Japanese have a low incidence, but if they move to America and live the American lifestyle, their incidence of heart disease rises to American levels.
00
interesting, I must watch it on iview. Another similar issue appears to be sunscreen and skin cancer. Skin Cancer has actually increased with sunscreen use and there is significant research that suggests that it’s due to dna damage done by the free radicals that are released by absorbance sunscreens when the sunscreen molecule is struck by a photon. That and the fact that sunscreens and fear of sun are causing an epidemic of vitamin D deficiency which is implicated in breast and prostate cancer.
The truth can be a complicated thing.
Have to say I’m not at all surprised though, evolution has prepared humans that are primarily carnivores for the digestion of saturated fat and regular veg oil, but has not done so for hydrolysed vege oil. I would have thought alarm bells would have rung just on that point alone. It’s the same on the sunscreen front. I’d expect humans to have evolved mechanisms to deal with sun exposure given the millions of years of exposure. Natural selection would not generally support the evolution of a race of humans who drop dead at the first exposure to a sunbeam.
120
On the subject of sunscreens I hear that nanoparticles contained within many brands are also a big no no – apparently they can have the same impact as asbestos particles – but what would I know – I am only a geo who fortunately never had the misfortune of working in geological areas riddled with the fibrous amphibole mineral crocidolite (that’s blue asbestos).
30
I agree bonl – there is also a correlation to the increase of the use of sunglasses and skin cancer. The sunglasses tell your body you are in the dark so it doesn’t produce the melatonins to protect the skin.
In my apartment block there a many young girls who are teachers – on their day off they all lounge around the pool and sunbake – the next day the pool is all murky due to the sunscreen washing off into the pool. The pool maintenance guys have to double filter the pool to get rid of it.
50
“In my apartment block there a many young girls who are teachers – on their day off they all lounge around the pool and sunbake “.
I take it you are finding this phenomenon worthy of a detailed study?
140
of course Kevin. As do all the men working on the building site next door.
90
I have avoided wearing sunglasses for many years as a sports Doctor had pointed out the benefits of ultraviolet light absorbed through our eyes for our Endocrine system, it also stimulates the Pineal gland which produces Melatonin and Serotonin that help regulate sleep/wake cycles.
FWIW I’ve worked outdoors and welded most my working life, I’m 46 years old and don’t wear corrective lenses, the last checkup I had the Doctor remarked how healthy my eyes looked and I only wear safety glasses where needed.
100
Not all sun glasses stop uv. Those that don’t, by reducing the overall amount of light hitting the eye, cause the iris to open wider than it would do without sun glasses. One consequence of this is more uv enters the eye possibly leading to an increased risk of cataracts.
30
All sunglasses legally sold in Autralia block at least 99% of UV.
10
Yonniestone
That’s interesting. Only the other day I saw a program on the box about a PHD student’s study into jet lag on long haul flights. He developed and tested a system on changing the light colour in the plane cabins. At the start on the flight the light was red –increases melatonin and helps sleep on the flight. At the end of the flight the light is changed to blue –this helps you “wake up” ready to go. Apparently this is now being installed on some commercial airlines.
30
To add to your comment Ross, there is a lot of pressure being aplied to switch our lighting systems top the expensive LEDs so as to save energy and for most the prime reason is to reduce the cost of their power use. The price of which is being deliberately forced up, once again by the whack jobs of the global warming / climate change catastrophe faith so as to purportedly “save the planet”. An arrogant and a very misplaced and naive belief in their own supreme power over the wiles of Nature.
As pointed out above, the blue light bands of the spectrum at around the 450nm band , reset the biological clock which is why the airlines are now starting to use that blue light spectrum band at a point where the long haul flights are nearing their destination .
LED’s have a sharp spike in the 440 to 460 nm, blue light band of the spectrum, the very part of the spectrum that acts as a stimulus to resetting the biological clock even when that same clock is telling one it is time for rest and sleep.
The use of LEDs through out a dwelling or even at work consequently has some serious consequence regarding the increase in insomnia in some susceptible individuals.
Musings from the Chiefio’s blog by E,M Smith often has some quite informative posts on a wide range of subjects which happen to spike The Chiefio’s interest at the time.
One such post is his Superchiasmatic LED light insomnia
To quote a bit of science from this post;
So those LED bulbs are pumping out a great big peak right on top of the sensitivity peak of the eye for resetting the biological clock.
[ end of quote]
You won’t be told of these problematic characteristics of LEDs for some susceptible individiuals and as the knowledge accumulates from the increasing use of LED’s perhaps it will be found that such adverse biological responses to LED’s might be much more widespread than has been admitted or recognised.
LEDs have many advantages and are well worth considering but as with any technology there are both advantages and drawbacks, some of which are quite drastic in their effects but which we are never told about until it leaks out much later, long after a lot of outfits have made a lot of money selling that particular product to the populace at large.
If you already have an array of LED’s installed or are considering doing so then a read of The Chiefio’s comments on this LED boosted blue light spectrum band characteristic and it’s potential biological impact might be well worth a read.
50
ROM very interesting, as a long term fan of LED’s in automotive applications I only heard parts of the argument against using them for lighting inside buildings, when the idea of Photosensitive Epilepsy was put forward it was scoffed at by many as an overreaction but after personally experiencing such an incident on a Squash court with a person I was coaching any doubts I had were questionable.
I also have questions on the safety or effectiveness of turning signals (indictors) on recent models of cars, they seem hard to detect operating especially on a bright day, I believe the style of clear or “blinged” indicator assemblies actually reflect the sunlight back towards the light globe/source therefore decreasing it’s effective output.
I have asked many different people including a cop this question and 97% (sorry couldn’t resist) or lets say a majority agreed to having the same problems with seeing the cars indicators.
10
Just like the mercury question when the Fluro lighting systems are being discussed.
Not sure which blog i saw this on as i lose track due to the number of blogs I peruse and it may even have been on Jo’s blog here.
The thread post referred to the use of Fluro lighting in the USA and the amounts of mercury contained in the Fluro tubes.
The poster had calculated that the amount of mercury contained in a fluro lighting only system was higher than the amount of that extremely dangerous and must be stopped at all costs mercury released from the burning of the coal required to power the old fashioned non mercury, filament bulb type lighting systems providing the same amount of light [ and a lot more heat ] as that fluro system.
Of such are so many environmental fables, half truths, falsities, dis-information, straight out lies and etc created to try and force some nefarious ill gotten beliefs of the bigoted admirers and pushers of neanderthal living standards adoption across our society in the green water melon and environmental industry of today..
30
Melanin is produced in the skin by melanocytes exposed to UV. Melanin producion has absolutely nothing to do with your eyes.
10
CH10 News Saturday, Labor Tanya P said they will oppose the Coalition on carbon dioxide tax abolition, because Labor is fighting pollution. LOL
60
[SNIP] Tanya Plibersek was the one visiting nursing homes prior to the election and scaring old people out of their wits with BS that the ocean will rise up soon and drown them !!
[SNIP]
————
Two new words added to the automoderation filter. Please don’t be crass – Jo
20
What about Environmental Pollution Act 40 years ago and enforcement?
00
I watched the program. Where did Peter get Goldwater from? It was McGovern from what I saw. I doubt that the libertarian Goldwater would be so gullible.
I was struck by how the idiot ABC presenter missed the connection to climate science.
40
Can’t comment – as I have said before I don’t watch or listen to ABC TV or Radio (unless it’s sport) – I refer to “our ABC” as ATPFSPM [Australian Tax Payer Funded Socialist Propaganda Machine].
40
abc …. Australian BULLSHIT COMMISSION
50
Hi Mike, you are correct of course. The only excuse for my error is that my head was still spinning after watching the program.
30
Excellent article demonstrating how easily real science can be hijacked by the vested interests of dubious politicians and bloated bureaucracies. We should never forget the Global Warming Industry is a multi-tentacled bureaucracy wallowing around in massive troughs routinely filled with billions of dollars,provided by dubious and/or gullible politicians.
Australia is fortunate that it is the first country to commence the culling of these pointless, expensive bureaucracies created by the Global Warming Industry. Examples of this bureaucracy are: the IPCC, the EPA, the ‘Team’, UN Environmental agencies and Australia’s Climate Change Authority. The two things all these organisations have in common are: i) the peddling of bad science, and ii) an overwhelming desire to ensure their own self-preservation. For ‘climate science’, the oft quoted Seven Rules of Bureaucracy explains everything:
The Seven Rules of Bureaucracy
Rule #1: Maintain the problem at all costs! The problem is the basis of power, perks, privileges, and security.
Rule #2: Use crisis and perceived crisis to increase your power and control.
Rule #3: If there are not enough crises, manufacture them, even from nature, where none exist.
Rule #4: Control the flow and release of information while feigning openness.
Rule #5: Maximize public-relations exposure by creating a cover story that appeals to the universal need to help people.
Rule #6: Create vested support groups by distributing concentrated benefits and/or entitlements to these special interests, while distributing the costs broadly to one’s political opponents.
Rule #7: Demonize the truth tellers who have the temerity to say, “The emperor has no clothes.
170
Its an old and descriptive term but it is increasingly being used when referring to much of today’s science in an increasing number of scientific fields as the internet, in it’s all encompassing ability, brings alternative explanations or alternative hypothesis to many science disciplines and starts to incorporate the views of the public into science’s debates and discussions.
It’s called Lysenkoism
Arguably Lysenkoism was the greatest blow to Russian Soviet science of the 1930’s 40’s and into the 1960’s which was world ranked before Trofim Lysenko first convinced and then received Stalin’s backing in imposing his views on soviet science and then rose under Stalin’s protection to control Science in the USSR.
To oppose Lysenko’s beliefs usually meant the Gulag and as a political prisoner in Stalin’s and Beria’s gulags the chances of survival were not high.
History has repeated itself once again in Climate science and it’s adherents, this time fortunately without the deadly Gulags but only just.
Such Lysenko type extremes have been regularly proposed by the alarmists and watermelon Earth savers when castigating the skeptics for their so called denial.
Nevertheless, the Lysenko type denouncements, the attempted exclusions from the science and general community of those who dared question the consensus and the high priests of global warming, the constant harassment of skeptics or those who dare question the Lysenko type forced consensus, the forcing of editors that did not toe the CAGW adherents line to resign or be dismissed, the sickening ingrating actions of the adherents of the CAGW faith towards the high priests of global warming, the preaching down, the contempt, the disparagement of the ordinary people for their failure to unquestionably believe the CAGW word of catastrophes to come unless they mended their ways and believed in and followed the dictates of THOSE WHO KNOW in climate science and their ultimate sinfullness in not acting to save the planet by foregoing the comforts and benefits of energy use and not being prepared to suffer and bear great tribulations in the interest of “saving the planet”,
All this scorn for unbelievers and much more are the full blown hall marks of the Soviet Lysenkoism in it’s most terrible extremes and ultimately most destructive of all Soviet science.
Lysenkoism,
Remember that word and what it means and implies as you will see more and more mentions of it in reference to climate warming science and a subsequent spill over into some other science disciplines
110
Jo, this is a landmark article. 10/10.
Yes!
Yes!
Yes!
Hip, hip, hurrah for the unpaid bloggers!
190
“apparently it (the missing heat) could be the ocean this time — but why wasn’t it the ocean before?”
Trenberth’s Missing Heat FOUND!
Found NOT to be hiding here: Journeys to the bottom of the sea
00
Roy Spencer, who has long lamented the lack of research into natural inputs to the Earth’s climate system, references this article in the Omaha news:
The headline is very telling. It seems Omaha climate scientists are either too scared to move out of their comfort zone or too dumb to research something that requires considerably more brain power than the triviality called human caused climate change:
http://www.omaha.com/article/20131024/NEWS/131029338/1685#state-climate-change-study-may-go-begging-for-scientists
30
Our gracious host, Ms Jo, the eternal optimist.
Three letters warn of the logic required at Catalyst: ABC.
.
This is how their settled climate science works:
1. 2007: Make a scientific statement like, “northern polar waters could be ice-free in summers within just 5-6 years.”.
Quote this whilst receiving your award, “Former US Vice President Al Gore cited Professor Maslowski’s analysis on Monday in his acceptance speech at the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony in Oslo.”
2. In 2011: Admit you are wrong & “move the goal post“-
“Scientists who predicted a few years ago that Arctic summers could be ice-free by 2013 now say summer sea ice will probably be gone in this decade.
The original prediction, made in 2007, gained Wieslaw Maslowski’s team a deal of criticism from some of their peers.
And one of the projections it comes out with is that the summer melt could lead to ice-free Arctic seas by 2016 – “plus or minus three years”.
3. October 4 2013: Deny it ever happened –
“The clamor is being raised over Al Gore’s Nobel Prize acceptance speech quote supposedly saying that Arctic sea ice would be gone by 2013.- 1 What Gore did or didn’t say is beside the point …
Maslowski also did not say “by 2013” in his original research in 2007 or when it was republished in 2009.
This grandstanding about sea ice and Gore, for whatever reason, is a huge and egregious deception.
The actual prediction from Maslowski’s 2009 publication is, “Autumn could become near ice free between 2011 and 2016.”
.
The fact that not one man made co2 global warming consensus has tried to lay claim to the good news that global warming has halted, shows they are not interested in the environment, just the politics.
50
Jo, another comparison that could be mentioned, which I haven’t seen so far, is the unintended side effects of supposed cures for the problem. For example, the EU promotes the production of palm oil for use in diesel fuel, leading to the slaughter of Indonesian orangutans. My personal experience of cholesterol treatment is that my mother was prescribed statins to lower her cholesterol. I only discovered after her death that the statins were the most likely cause of the dementia like symptoms that ruined the last years of her life. I still live with the guilt that not discovering that link sooner caused so much pain.
80
Bloke, My condolences for the loss of your mother. I new the science was bad on Statins and blood pressure meds in the 80 and 90s when blood pressures and cholesterol numbers were changed. The big Pharma companies now have multi billion dollar profit drugs just by adjusting the numbers for needing them!!! FOLLOW THE MONEY!!!
60
very nicely said Sheri.
We do rely on Government to screen available drugs for us so an individual has to trust on this.
KK
00
Maybe the drugs drugs caused the memory loss and maybe not. You can’t know that after the fact. Some people seem to have the dementia-like symptoms while others are unaffected. Feeling guilty over something that may or may not have made a difference is self-defeating. One does what one can with the information available at the time. It’s good to research and learn as much as possible, but bottom line, we make our choices and go with them. Sometimes drug are bad, sometimes they are good. Sometimes they have side effects, sometimes not. If only the world were so black and white we could just draw labels on things and always be right. No need for guilt. You did what you thought was right and it may well have been.
71
February 28, 2012
FDA issues new warning on Lipitor, Zocor, other statins
30
Now is this machiavelian or what”
http://thepointman.wordpress.com/2013/10/25/the-climate-wars-and-agent-deep-woolabra-wonga/#comment-6625
Very nice as it will put some pidgeons in for a lot of flack!!
50
I gave up sugar 8 weeks ago. Lost 8 kgs and pretty much eat what I please as long as less than 4% sugars (that’s a very basic interpretation). Max 2 pieces fruit a day. Highly recommended.
71
Matt,
If you haven’t read it yet, I strongly recommend the book “Sweet Poison” by David Gillespie. A real eye opener with respect to sugar in the diet.
60
that indeed was the book that made me take the plunge Heywood. And thanks Len 🙂
41
Glad it worked for you.
00
Congratulations on your re-election.
10
“Mattb”,
Enjoy your artificial sweeteners.
Hope that aspartame works our for you….
http://www.sweetpoison.com/aspartame-side-effects.html
10
nah I’m not on artificial sweeteners, but if that’s what it takes for a while to get you off sugar i think the positives outweigh the possible negatives.
20
Cholesterol IS bad… but only when it is in your blood in the wrong amounts and that has nothing to do with actually eating cholesterol. It’s the sugar does it.
11
There are TWO types of Cholesterol.
hdl and ldl.
Good vs. Bad Cholesterol:-
http://www.heart.org/HEARTORG/Conditions/Cholesterol/AboutCholesterol/Good-vs-Bad-Cholesterol_UCM_305561_Article.jsp
Surely a mensa candidate like yourself should have known that…
00
for sure, but my word is it is the sugar in your diet that makes the “bad” cholesterol appear in your blood… not the cholesterol you consume.
10
Brilliant piece, Jo! I am coming to know for the first time that the consensus on cholestrol is wrong. 🙂 Thanks!
10
One of the worst ever ‘scientific’ papers published has just been ripped to shreds in public.
The paper in question claimed that you could predict that a social situation would prosper if the ratio of positive/negative sentiments expressed was greater than 2.9013 — human emotions and social interaction computed accurately to 4 decimal places.
This bunkum was widely cited in social science circles, almost becoming received wisdom, until one skeptical observer decided he’d had enough and co-opted two well-known researchers to help him skewer it.
An introduction to the story is here, there is a PDF available somewhere (sorry, lost the link) of the full paper The Complex Dynamics of Wishful Thinking: The Critical Positivity Ratio (Nicholas J. L. Brown, Alan D. Sokal, Harris L. Friedman).
It really is quite a story.
40
set aside the fact that Abbott was referring to the specific bushfires in question if u want to find any logic in the following gotcha:
25 Oct: Guardian: Oliver Milman: Climate change linked to bushfire risk says Environment Department website
Site contradicts Tony Abbott’s statement that link is ‘hogwash’, pointing to ‘growing and robust body of evidence’
A climatechange.gov.au document on the indicators of climate change states there is a “growing and robust body of evidence that climate change will increase the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events”.
“Australia has experienced an increasing number and intensity of heatwaves, bushfires, flooding and droughts in recent decades. For example, weather associated with high fire danger has shown a rapid increase in the late 1990s to early 2000s at many locations in south-eastern Australia.”…
(PARAS FOLLOW WITH MORE OF THE SAME FROM THE WEBSITE, NONE OF IT SAYING ANYTHING THAT WOULD LINK THE CURRENT BUSHFIRES TO CAGW, BEFORE WE ARE FINALLY TOLD)
***The climatechange.gov.au website was used by the Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency, which was wound up by the previous Labor government in March.
The functions and information held by the former department are being transferred over to a revamped Department of Industry, although the website is still branded with Department of Environment insignia…
The government’s own publicly available advice echoes findings released on Friday by the Climate Council, which states there is a “clear link” between bushfires and climate change…
Kevin Hennessy, principal research scientist at CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research, said that fire risks are set to increase in the coming years due to climate change.
“While it’s almost impossible to attribute an individual extreme weather event to climate change, the risk of fire has increased in south-east Australia due to a warming and drying trend that is partly due to increases in greenhouse gases,” he said.
“An increase in fire-weather risk is very likely over future decades..”…
Abbott’s stance on the link between bushfires and climate change has angered Australia’s Pacific island neighbours, as well as domestic political opponents.
“Tony Abbott is making Australia an international laughing stock by continuing to deny the link between climate change and the probability of extreme bushfire conditions,” said Christine Milne, leader of the Greens.
“The biggest sources of climate hogwash in Australia are our prime minister and environment minister. They are an embarrassment. It would be laughable if it were not so serious…
“The weight of scientific evidence is immense, paralleled only by the climate hogwash of our prime minister in conversation with Andrew Bolt.”
Hunt’s office has been contacted for a response.
http://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/oct/25/climate-change-linked-to-bushfire-risk-says-environment-department-website?google_editors_picks=true
the level of journalism in this country can’t get much lower, surely.
50
To me it is worth noting that in the cholesterol story the vested interests of industrial food production have far more in common with the entrenched fossil fuel industries. I wonder how long it will take for the industries to pump out anti-science long enough for Tony abbott to tell us this Catalyst “science” is crap, and that Dr Maryanne Demasi is talking out of her hat.
116
Have you ever noticed how with the side supported by rusted on Green followers it’s always …..
It’s never entrenched renewable industries. Naah! They don’t exist, do they.
You know, those green morons who want to replace something that works with something that doesn’t work.
You can prove to them that they don’t work, and can never be made to work, let alone on the scale required, and their comeback, other than not to believe a word you say, is always ….. You’re just a stooge for the, wait for it, the entrenched fossil fuel industries.
Tony.
251
hey tony… the modern diet is so terrible and so pumping us full of bad fats etc etc… and yet we’re living longer then ever!
45
“and yet we’re living longer then ever!”
at least those who don’t get cancer from eating marg, soy or some other crap touted by the alleged health gurus, or die from big pharma pill poisoning.
10
“and yet we’re living longer then ever!”
Due almost entirely to improved sanitation and antiobotics. However our overall health is actually declining.
00
“Due almost entirely to improved sanitation and antiobotics.”
Just to note that “big pharma” has some benefits then:)
00
“Big Pharma” have no interest in developing antibiotics because they aren’t very profitable.
00
Renewable industries won’t survive for long enough to become entrenched. The few that have managed to ensconce themselves into government policy making are under threat too (or should we say entroughed themselves?) like the Debden/Yeo scenario, as there is growing dissent against Green Taxes that fund them, in the Press in the face of rising energy bills going into another British winter.
50
I liken the renewable energy industry to FAD diet !
Once people find out how bad it is and how much damage its doing,
only the truly sucked in will continue to follow it.
51
MattB said:
Good grief, wake up man! The money in the cholesterol scare is microscopic compared to the money is the climate scare. Even the UN is smart enough to know that its not going to shift the world’s wealth with cholesterol policy. Seriously Matt, try to get some sense of proportion – hard for the Greens, I know.
60
Sorry, two typos on the second line with “is” and “its”.
00
I think you’ll find the industrialised food giants think their $$$ are pretty bloody significant. But look the point is there are a million mainstream positions, and nearly each one has a fringe opinion to the contrary. Some of those are correct, and when they are correct the story of “fringe opinion vs consensus” is pretty much identical, but it does not follow that any other fringe theory is correct simply because it has a mainstream/consensus position it thinks is wrong.
For example, I could put DDT up there and you know some people even think that should not have been controlled in one way or another…
00
Well “MattB”, YOU are the expert on anti science and metaphysics….
22
This makes it sound as if medicine accepts there is no link between (LDL) cholesterol and CVD. There are some ‘deniers’, but not many. What has receded in recent years is the demonisation of saturated fats as a big factor is raising cholesterol.
An article like this could almost make one believe in AGW. However, climatology’s statistical methodology is so bad and its conclusions so obviously tainted, I shall pass.
30
Great piece Jo.
A suggestion for you.
Over the past couple of days I have seen Christiane Amanpour on CNN going on about AGW and the NSW fires. Also she is having a go at Tony Abbott and his comments on AGW. Obviously she is being “feed” by Flannery or someone of similar ilk.
I suggest you send this article AND the article David wrote the other day about the fires to Christiana and challenge her to present the real facts from David and suggest CNN is going down the road you have highlighted in your piece.
I am sure you could present the challenge in better words than I have.
It would be interesting to see if you got a response.
50
Two comments: First, concerning Jo’s statement “Cutting calories is the only thing that stands up to scrutiny”: http://junkfoodscience.blogspot.ca/2008/02/how-weve-came-to-believe-that.html came up in a discussion of weight loss on a different blog. There was insistence that cutting calories in morbidly overweight people was tantamount to starvation. I finally left the blog–it just got too crazy.
Two: The opening article is about invalid studies in nutrition. Commenters then write “sugar” is the way to go, cholesterol medications are evil, butter is better than margarine, etc, etc, etc. Comments on weight loss in Sweden and Finland due to the LCHF diet. Cut out sugar. Statins are bad. Red meat is good. Offering up example after example of exactly what was decried in the article–belief in something that is unproven and probably not universally applicable. “Low-carb” (I’m not picking on this commenter–it’s just an easy example) is the same as low CO2 is to climate change.
We don’t know nearly as much as we think we do and we’re very sure of all things we don’t know.
40
Sheri I agree and your words “universally applicable” are very important to understand where different people and health/weight are concerned.
Even in the health regime I mentioned above the author stresses there is no “one answer” to healthy eating, although processed foods are out there is still a 90% rule where, considering human nature, if you stick to healthy eating 90% of the time you’ll still lose weight and not to worry as your human and have weaknesses like any other.
10
A useful “steadying” comment.
Our bodies have extremely complex bio systems and gross interventions whether through diet or pharmaceuticals needs care and monitoring.
KK
10
Sheri, in this bit…
Are you drawing a distinction between “morbidly overweight” and simply “obese”?
If so, are you then saying that cutting calories will reduce the size of the “morbidly obese” without any starvation-related side-effects?
i.e. that the “set-point” theory is true but that the “morbidly overweight” are above their set-point.
If that is so then it makes a mockery of that web page’s statement that the body regulates energy storage and dissipation with 99.5% accuracy. If that were really true then it should not be possible to get fatter no matter how much you eat, not at any age. Such luxury is certainly afforded to some but reported not all if common wisdom is to be believed, which in itself would boost support for the set-point theory I’d guess.
00
Since you are unable to understand my reasons for posting, as demonstrated by your asking about aren’t I contradicting something on the web page, it’s pointless to address your questions.
12
Bolt includes the following at his blog this morning:
I can only wish them luck, If they do manage to achieve just one of the above it will bring any remaining support for the green mafia and its foot soldiers to disappear over night.
80
Looks like incitement to commit criminal offences to me.
31
I hope that this has been bought to the attention of the POLICE !!
31
Isn’t there some law relating to attacks on essential services?
10
Actually, after further thought it would come under the Federal Police jurisdiction.
George Brandis has been made aware for possible future reference.
10
Yes, they’ll only consider doing that as long as they think they can get away with it Scott free. Let them try it in Russia. Then they can beg for a bit of global warming to warm up their jail cell as they stick to their convictions.
10
Sounds like incitement to TERRORISM to me…
11
Absolutely correct, Sheri.
I have personally removed a 1cm x 1cm cholesterol plaque from a femoral artery. I agree entirely with the low fat diet dictum being bunkum. However it is a long rod to draw that a high fat diet is some panacea and the secret to a long life. All fats are not bad, some are and trimming the visible fat off meat, while avoiding cooking in lard or dripping (especially storing it in its oxidized form and reusing it, is no doubt bad.
The problem strictly is that we have replaced fat in food with sugar, one negative element replaced with a far worse one, hence the obesity epidemic, insulin resistance, and increased artery damage. Add smoking to the mix is undoubtedly bad for vasculopathy, and statins do have evidence in targeted populations, not though for the general population. After 25 years of practice with use of statins I can say I have observed no increase in dementia in my statin treated patients, and I am quite open and alert to that prospect. My experience is those with strong family history or already proven propensity to heart disease have less AMIs and vascular interventions generally if their LDLs are kept low. I fully acknowledge that that does not mean that everyone should aspire to this in the general population, as any benefit may be outweighed by unforeseen negatives.
My diet advice to those on statins is not a low fat diet and never has been. It has been to change their fat intake by using olive oil, butter in small amounts fine as I am not keen on margarines. If margarine used, prefer olive oil based or Proactive, but never advised stopping eggs or seafood given the evidence of the Crete diet which has the field based proof to be the least vasculopathic diet to follow.
None of that is unsound advice, and let’s not throw the baby out with the bath water and revert to equally atherogenic but less diabetogenic dietary habits, as that is merely going from the frying pan to the fire.
41
Thanks for that comment Winston, very useful.
KK
00
Yes, I would echo this. Going wild on any source of calories is probably not going to do you a lot of good. Also useful might be to turn some of that cholesterol into vitamin D by getting enough sunlight.
Still, having said that the unscientific demonisation of saturated fat does have its lesson for us in terms of the way we go about science. Maybe peer review and the attendent entrenchment of peer group pressure into science is not the right model. Perhaps an adversarial system might work better than a friends network ( the scientific equivalent of a like button ).
10
Good dietary advice to your patients, Winston, and yet you are still prescribing statins?
Why not just give the advice and skip the statins? Doesn’t the Hippocratic Oath start with “Do no harm”?
There is a very wise saying that the medical industry could do well to heed:
“The body is designed to win” **
What this means is that if the body is producing extra cholesterol, it is doing so to fight some kind of battle which, if won, will see the body win. Why would you prescribe a drug to LOWER the cholesterol that the body itself is producing for it to win a battle? The statin drug actually fights AGAINST the body’s innate wisdom. How wise is that?
Would it not be better to find out what the battle is that the body is fighting, and help the body win that battle? For many people (not all), the body is naturally elevating its cholesterol levels to help it in a fight with toxic metals, such as mercury from amalgam fillings, aluminium from cooking utensils, and so on.
If you talk to a biological dentist, he or she will tell you that before and after having your amalgams removed, you should go on a very high-fat diet (good fats) plus supplements, to help the body deal with the mercury poisoning stirred up by the removal of the amalgams. A good long detox is hugely beneficial in ridding the body of long-stored heavy metals.
The bottom line for me is this:
You don’t fight the body by prescribing drugs to reduce symptoms,
you help it win its battle. But first you have to discover what the battle is.
Pharmaceutical companies don’t want you to win;
they want you sick, for life.
Let me give you another experience of mine:
I had 8 dental implants drilled into my upper jaw under general anaesthetic about 10 years ago. The surgeon prescribed Panodine Fort whenever the pain came back. The pain came back, in waves, for 3 days. I didn’t take any of the pain killers – instead, I just did deep rhythmic breathing into the gums. The pain would subside after about 10 minutes of this and I would go back to reading or sleeping. I went back to the surgeon on 3 day I think for a check on progress. This surgeon did these ops every morning and saw the recovering patients in the afternoons, so there were lots of similar cases coming through his rooms each day. I opened my mouth for him, and he asked me when I had the op. “3 days ago”. He didn’t believe me. He went and checked his records, got all excited, called in his colleagues from neighbouring rooms and they all had a look in my mouth in amazement. A nurse brought in a Polaroid instant-print camera and started taking photos of my gums. All this because I didn’t fight the body with pain-killing drugs – I joined the healing battle WITH the body, not AGAINST it. Pain killers fight against what the body is trying to do.
If you breathe deeply into a part of the body that is experiencing pain, and you give ALL of your attention to that part of the body, any spare energy that the body has will be directed to that part of the body. More energy = faster healing = less pain. The Taoists have known this for centuries.
The Medical Industry has lots to learn. Sadly, it is a slow learner because the Pharmaceutical Industry has hijacked it and taken it down a very sick path.
** I first heard the quote (The body is designed to win) at Living Valley Springs in Kin Kin, QLD. I’ve been there 3 times in the last 7 years – they have amazing results and really know their stuff.
40
Interesting!!!
00
And we’re back to doing exactly what people criticize the warmists for doing–taking one personal experience and extrapolating to the entire universe from there. It’s really no wonder bad science triumphs. It’s very nice, Crowbar, that your experience with pain was so rewarding. If everyone on the planet were you, we wouldn’t need drug companies. On the other hand, if you develop cluster headaches, you may want those companies back. Or at least to let your friends with cluster headaches or serious injuries whose pain they fail to alleviate with deep breathing have some relief. I can take all the narcotics I want and never get pain relief nor get high–it’s said to be something in the genetic makeup. If everyone were like me, we would not have addicts to opioids, but we do. Science deals with what we have at hand, not what we think should be true.
Winston is right–much of the problem is side-effects and medication is physicians often dismiss problems. Some people have very odd reactions–it’s best to try another drug. Some need split-dosing to get the effect. Physicians should not reach for a prescription pad for everything. My physician would not start hypertensive medications until the patient had three high readings, usually six months apart. He would get frustrated when I would come in and have two and then the third was normal. Finally, the numbers stopped being normal and we worked from there. He didn’t reach for the pad on the first reading. On the other hand, a PA I had wanted to write a script if blood pressure exceeded 140/80 once. Her ex-husband died of a heart attack (he was an alcoholic and she did allow that might have something to do with it–he was also a cardiologist….). Medications are neither good nor bad in general–it’s how they are used. Throwing out the medications because sometimes they are not used appropriately makes little sense. Fix the use problems.
Taking a personal experience and extrapolating to the population at large is one of the things most find problematic in climate science (The Arctic is melting so that means we’re all in trouble). Yet, people routinely apply the same behaviours to phenomena they don’t like (All statins are bad and we should not use them). Neither of these are science. It’s anecdotal evidence.
30
Agreed Sheri,
The body has some wisdom in certain things, and we should strive to work with it than against it. However, cancer is a prime example of where no amount of self regulation can control certain pains which necessitate doing what one can to alleviate it. Autoimmune diseases, like rheumatoid arthritis are another example of the body being rather imperfect at self regulation, and these diseases have large genetic components and are not lifestyle related or a representation of our body fighting modern industrial society where “environmental toxins” invade our system. In fact many of these illness relate to viral infections which disregulate the immune system of genetically susceptible individuals, and so seeing a naturopath to prescribe for various vitamin or mineral deficiencies to “balance the body” is rarely helpful and often an expensive fruitless exercise, as many in my experience find to their chagrin. That is not to say these approaches are not worthy of exploring entirely, but a modicum of skepticism should attend all treatments for all conditions, especially those that lack any evidence at all for their merit.
30
Sheri, I suspect that you may have missed the very important point of my “breathing” experiment… partly my fault I think.
The surgeons were flabbergasted at the amount of healing that had taken place in my gums in 3 days. My result was WAY outside their regular expectations. So this experiment started out as a breathing exercise to lessen the pain (because I had recently done a series of breathwork classes). It ended up with a HUGE healing result.
The only conclusion that I could draw from this experiment was that using pain killers, and trying to carry on with normal life, inhibits healing. Every other patient of that surgeon had average healing in 3 days. I had phenomenal healing in those 3 days. Make of that what you will.
One of the things that frustrates me about the Medical Industry is that it deals in average outcomes. e.g. a person presenting with this level of this cancer has on average 6-8 weeks to live. They essentially apply this average to all patients they see. And yet EVERY ONE OF THOSE PATIENTS IS UNIQUE, and individual ones could be miles away from the average. I am not the average patient. You are not the average patient.
Oh, and by the way, it’s not an anecdote, it is my factual physical experience. And it costs you nothing to try it. Of course, it’s not everybody’s cup of tea. One just needs to keep working at it – because it does work. “Where the attention goes, energy flows.”
PS. I hope you can tell the difference between my potentially helpful revelation about a potential link between pain killers and healing, versus the alarmist rants based on one set of bush fires or a few hot days.
10
Your point is well taken, Crowbar. Don’t take my reply as a criticism by any means. Many western ideas are evidence based and proven, while some, like childbirth (e.g optimal positioning of the mother) are sometimes not always clearly thought through. I agree though that we should work WITH the body where possible. Your experience is an interesting one, and I have a similar breathing method for dealing with intractable migraine, which I suffer from recurrently.
10
I understood that you had a remarkable recovery. Your clarification that it might have been staying home rather than the not taking of painkillers does make more sense. The original statement seemed to be very anti-pain medication.
Anecdote definition: “An anecdote is a short little scene or story taken from a personal experience” I think I used the correct word.
I agree that people are all different and doctors should not rubber-stamp patients. Everyone is unique. Everyone reacts to medications and treatments differently.
The anecdote may not be like the climate change person blaming a warm day for a brush fire, but I was looking at your post in entirety. Claims of mercury fillings, detox and comments on letting the body do it’s own thing and it will be okay–all of these are, so far as I know, not backed by evidence. They are claims made by people selling products and books and lifestyles, the same as “Big Pharma”. I buy mouthwash from a “homeopathic” dentist (not because it’s homeopathic, but because the non-homeopathic ingredients were what I was looking for) who charges as much or more than any pharmaceutical company. He’s not doing this out of the kindness of his heart and he certainly hopes I keep buying the mouthwash for the rest of my life. Everyone in business wants to make money. Otherwise, they have made a huge mistake in career paths. Why trust the homeopath but not the pharmacist? How is that different from what the climate change people do–trust the experts they like?
20
Hello again Sheri,
Staying locked up at home was a part of it. I literally put my normal life on hold. I told friends and family that they wouldn’t see or hear from me for a week; I switched the phone and the internet off. I had plenty of soft mushy foods on hand to eat. I spent 24 hours of every day either sitting on the couch reading or meditating, sitting up in bed reading or meditating, or sleeping. I didn’t care when I slept – it just happened when I felt tired and the pain allowed me to sleep. Of course it was fitful sleep but because I wasn’t still out there trying to do all my normal things, it didn’t matter, and I didn’t get all concerned about the quality of sleep. I’d read in the middle of the night and sleep lots during the day.
But have no doubt – it was the eschewing of pain killers, and the deep breathing into the pain that really allowed the body to do its best healing.
I’m a spiritual person, a qualified breathworker and an emotional therapist. I take a holistic approach to illness and health. This hectic world that we live in distracts us from ourselves. So when a pain, like a migraine, comes along, we wish it wasn’t there because it interferes with our hectic lifestyle. So we mentally and physically attempt to divorce ourselves from that part of the body. We take pain killers which further divorce us from the reality of what the body is trying to tell us. Spiritually, we literally “dislike” and “disown” that part of the body and what is happening.
Now compare that with my earlier quote:
“Where your attention goes, energy flows”.
By disliking, disowning and divorcing ourselves from that part of the body, we literally rob it of healing energy.
THIS is the point that I am making about breathwork, no pain killers, and healing. To do those, you literally have to lock yourself away. We used to call it convalescing, and it’s highly underrated today.
And believe me on this, Sheri – amalgam fillings and root canals are yet other areas where medical science has buried the evidence of the truth, for huge monetary reasons.
20
Okay, Crowbar, but I don’t want to hear you saying that “Big Oil” is not financing skeptics. It’s EXACTLY the same argument. When we dump science, then we are forced to accept ALL the theories, not just the ones we like.
20
Hi Crowbar.
I like your outline of your breathing experience but don’t go much on the mercury amalgam filling thing.
We need to be very careful about dissing things based only on whim?.
In the past I have not been all too excited about the benefits of Antidepressants but still maintain some possibility that “some people” may benefit.
There is another contributor on here who I suspect would disagree with my negative view of them but? who knows.
But Mercury during removal ? Yes, it will be vaporised, It will also be wet and probably suctioned out reasonably quick?
KK
10
Hi KK,
Glad you like the breathing. Remember to send all thought and attention to that part of the body too, and imagine that the air you inhale is going to that part, as if it was an extension of the lungs. There is an easy way to tell if you’re getting the hang of it… you will begin to sense that that part of the body is expanding and contracting with each breath. You may also feel a little tingling sensation – that is the energy (chi) building there. Try it with a shoulder first, because it’s close to the lungs and easy to imagine air going to the lungs and then to the shoulder.
Re-amalgam fillings… believe me, they are potentially a huge problem. Anybody who has a systemic health issue and amalgam fillings should look into having their amalgams removed by a biological dentist (not your run of the mill dentist). There is a very good chance that the mercury is a primary cause of your problems. Check the internet… there is HUGE controversy about amalgams and the damage they do – most Australian dentists don’t put them in any more, but the American Dental Assocn insists, in the face of mounting evidence, that amalgams are OK… a denial almost certainly re-inforced by the massive lawsuits that would ensue were they to admit that they had, indeed, killed many people with mercury poisoning.
I had the teeth containing amalgam removed over many years (not by a modern-day biological dentist) but as I understand it, the removal these days is done while the dental staff are fully protected (masks, air supply) and special extractor fans exhaust as much of the mercury particles and vapour as possible. As I understand it, the removal can stir up “mercury poisoning” symptoms in some people. That’s why the better biological dentists will ask you to go onto a high fat diet and supplements before and after the extraction. After all, you still have to deal with the mercury that is already stored in the body over all those years.
Root canals are notorious as breeding places for infection. Chinese medicine links individual teeth with various organs, just like reflexology, and the infections can affect the related organs.
I’ve been to Living Valley Springs in Kin Kin QLD, 3 times and the information they have on the subjects of amalgam and root canals would blow your mind. The guy who started LVS, Gary Martin, was skin and bones and on his way to certain death many years back, when he learnt about the dangers of amalgams. His recovery started when he had them all taken out. He then investigated diet and supplementation. Great guy. Very down to earth. I highly recommend LVS.
I could talk for hours on what I’ve learnt and experience first hand. e.g. I’m getting towards the end of a major 2-year detox program – what a journey that has been.
PS. to Sheri… I am not dumping science, I am dumping BAD science. What we are all discovering is just how much bad science there is… especially when there are vested interests with huge financial and/or political power behind that science. Our challenge is trying to sift out the good stuff from the bad, before the bad stuff kills us!
10
Thanks Crowbar
That does sound very interesting.
I have amalgams and did hear some years ago about this issue, but to be honest if you followed up ALL of the ISSUES that are floated, many by crazies, you would go crazy.
I understand the dangers of mercury and was introduced to it as a youngster through Alice In Wonderland.
Maybe it’s time to look deeper!
KK
00
Hi Crowbar
Further thoughts on your “gum experience”.
While I am very interested in “breathing” patterns as previously outlined a month ago, there may be some confounding factors in your experiment.
Apart from the breathing and focusing there are other apparent variables in your outline of what happened.
For example, you mentioned just “shutting down” for several days and just sitting and sleeping.
It would seem very likely that others being compared to may not have undergone this post op schedule and may therefore not be useful for comparison.
Just lying down on its own would increase blood pressure and flow in the damaged area and this may have accelerated healing in comparison with other patients.
Many factors, many to be excluded as having inconsequential effect compared to the breathing?
🙂 KK
00
You make a good point Sheri. I also have an anecdote. I broke my arm a couple of years ago. I did take pain killers for a few days, had no time off work (although I did break it on Friday afternoon so got Sunday at home after being released from hospital) and I also have some mercury fillings. Despite all this, I amazed the doctors with how quickly my bones healed. So much so, that the surgeon who, before he operated, told me that I would have to cancel my ski trip which was planned for six weeks later told me I could go. There are always outliers, there are always meaningless correlations and good scientists know to look beyond them.
20
How many of your “statin treated patients” of plus two years, can comfortably hold their arms out, above shoulder height, for any length of time?
How many of your “statin treated patients” of plus two years, have subsequently developed Adhesive Capsulitis, or a similar condition?
Or lower back pain, where no previous history of back pain existed before?
The biggest danger with statins is not dementia, but muscle tissue wastage, and for some reason it almost always starts in the shoulders and/or upper arms.
.
In this I speak from bitter, profound, painful, personal experience.
Having suffered, become enlightened, and subsequently treated myself, I have noted from observation and questioning, that loss of muscular ability, starting usually in the shoulders, then the lower back (with all the pain that entails), and finally the legs, is an almost universal condition of long-term statin users. All that varies from patient to patient is the time frame for symptoms to become apparent.
Medical practitioners, being “experts”, unlike a mere observant, cured sufferer like me, invariably tell their patients that the loss of muscular ability is simply part of the “aging process”. And so their patients, reassured, continue to take their statins, and so happily continue in their long, slow, painful journey to becoming cripples.
70
MV,
There are two myopathies related to statin use. One which >90% of practitioners are aware and most usually patients are warned about, which leads to a rise in Creatine Kinase. This enzyme should be checked six monthly when progress cholesterol blood tests are performed, and affects about 5% of statin users. The other myopathy, which alert practitioners such as myself have observed but few others are even aware of, and apparently you have been victim to, is not taught by academics in medical schools, nor acknowledged by drug companies. This is a progressive muscle soreness, fatigueability, and weakness, and can seemingly prevented by CoQ10 in most cases, but sadly is rarely recognized or understood. It is not however the rule that all patients taking a statin are affected like this.
The problem you have highlighted is that so called experts are sometimes imprisoned by the limitations of what they are taught, and often ignore, or more usually rationalize away, what the patient is telling them. As a medico, you ignore your patient trying to tell you something at your, and their, peril. I apologise, Peter, on behalf of my fellow medicos, for their lack of open- mindedness at times, and any injury you’ve suffered as a consequence.
60
Winston, in light of comments about statins and dementia, what do you think of research done into statins and apoptosis?
Also for MV, because I like to help him out whenever I can, here is a paper:
20
Awww, gee, GA, I didn’t know you cared,
Much obliged.
00
Thank you Winston,for such a frank and open response.
My biggest problem with statins and the medical profession (apart from the damage statins can cause), is the medico’s habit of prescribing them like lollies -“just in case”. I had another “event” last Thursday night and spent Friday and Friday night in the Emergency Ward at the local hospital.
Since such events are becoming commonplace Thumper has a list she carries of my medications. Last Friday, as on similar occasions, I lost track of the number of times medico’s looked at the list, then at me, and asked – “You’re not taking Lipitor”? When I reply, “No, I don’t have a cholesterol problem”, they look back at me blankly, as if they are unaware that the reason statins are prescribed has something to do with cholesterol.
Most Doctors now prescribe statins to anyone with high blood pressure and/or heart issues, as a matter of course, regardless of how healthy their cholesterol levels may be. This is supposed to be “just in case” they might otherwise develop a cholesterol issue sometime in the future.
To me this is akin to doctors prescribing weight loss pills to thin people with blood pressure/heart issues, “just in case” sometime down the track they might otherwise become obese.
.
Apart from the very occasional trip to Macca’s as a treat for the grandkids during school holidays, plus my annual pig-out on KFC, plus a slice of toast with vegemite in the morning, Thumper and I eat no processed foods at all. Thumper doesn’t allow it, and it has been that way for the past 35 years we have been together. My cholesterol levels have always been precisely where they are supposed to be.
Despite that, almost EVERY doctor that I have been to since I first developed high blood pressure over a decade ago (as a result of a throat injury), has wanted to prescribe me statins. When I was discharged from Intensive Care after my initial heart attack and stroke, I was prescribed statins. When I got back to QLD and my GP referred me to a Cardiologist, he refused to treat me unless I went back on statins. So we parted company.
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We all hear stories like yours MV, over and over again.
And with apologies to Sheri in advance, I have to say that when I can listen to somebody’s experience, first hand, it is not an anecdote to me… it is another piece of evidence to add to my collection. If I can then ask further questions of that person, then the evidence I am collecting is worth WAY MORE to me than the published results of some very expensive trials and studies done by the very vested interests that will sell me the drugs that they have just trialled.
Pharmaceuticals is now a free-for-all for the huge companies concerned. Try to get a study on the efficacy of bitter apricot kernels as a cancer treatment off the ground, and you’ll get harassed and black-banned for life. This is why it is so important to take your health into your own hands.
Winston, you sound like you are in the top few percent of medicos – at least you listen with an open mind.
Thank you for that.
10
MV,
If you present to an ED of one of our teaching hospitals, you will be assessed by some bright young thing fresh out of medical
indoctrinationschool, who will happily parrot verbatim what has been presented to them as evidence based medicine. They accept this without question (poor souls) and stare at you in amazement when you present them with something that doesn’t conform to the received wisdom they have had drummed into them.It is only recalcitrants like myself that don’t toe the line, and I have made myself unpopular on more than one occasion with specialist colleagues whose advice I have openly contradicted. That being said there is evidence for statins in certain settings, PROVIDED the patient can tolerate it, and that the situation warrants it. I have some that cannot tolerate them, who would be better on them in my opinion in an ideal world, but we have to live with this divergence from “perfection” and respect the autonomy of the patient. It is their body after all, not ours.
As it happens I have a huge number of over 80 year olds, and the highest number of healthy 90+ year olds anywhere on “the coast”, so my non-textbook approach has served me well, I believe. This is by individualising treatments, tailoring them to patient tolerances and quality of life, and not being tied to a proscriptive formula of uniformity (and hence conformity) when deciding on management. I think my patients know I care for them as individuals and that I respect and consider their differences, and I think that is my “secret” when it comes to successfully negotiating the various diagnostic and clinical dilemmas which routinely form part of an “old-fashioned” medical practice.
40
MV–The blame here lies with the physicians, not the drug (as Winston points out). I would hope we would not blame a medication for the actions of its prescribers.
It is interesting that some physicians write scripts for everything and some do not. I have high blood pressure, but low cholesterol. My physician has never suggested a statin. On the other hand, I am the person who told said physician that the reason I needed him as a physician was that I did not a prescription pad. 🙂 So my anecdotal evidence says that if you have a doctor that will take comments like mine and laugh, you might avoid the unnecessary prescribing of medications!
10
The Cretans studied by Keys ate meat only twice a month, they consumed very lttle dairy and lived mostly on vegetables and wholemeal bread. They were often hungry due to chronic food shortages. The walked long distances and fasted regularly.
10
The Cretans have much in common with the Japanese in their dietary components. The latter also have low heart attack and heart disease rates in spite of being heavy smokers as a population.
The lessons from these cultural differences are worthy of acknowledgement, even though as you say there may have been confounding factors within the same population (and thanks for pointing them out, btw) which may or may not have been relevant. The Scots and some Eastern European countries have much worse data in this area, and no doubt what they eat and their cooking habits are factors in these statistical variances, and it would be worthwhile taking heed of this. The problem however is that a Western low fat diet is often worse because much of what is “fat reduced” is loaded with far higher levels of various sugars for taste (take yoghurts for just one example), which are often worse than their high fat counterparts for cardiovascular health and so you are gaining nothing and possibly worsening your health by jumping out of the frying pan into the naked flame.
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The ramifications of putting sugar in to make lower-fat foods is very problematic to diabetics. Many don’t read the label to see that the fat has been replaced with sugar, basically. One needs to read labels carefully before deciding whether or not the food is what you are needing. “Low fat” or “fat-reduced” does not mean “good for you”.
10
Whether this is true or not is still an open question to me. But the great harm in fat isn’t exactly proven as far as I can see. And as you indirectly point out by mentioning cultural differences, I think genetics has a lot to do with how your body deals with fats, sugars and other things. Some people have a good reason to watch their cholesterol level and their fat or sugar intake. Others have no reason to worry about it. Unfortunately medicine isn’t able to tell us whether we have a risk or not so it’s one size fits all.
It’s a dumb approach to the problem.
00
They were often hungry……..
due to chronic food shortages. The walked long distances……..and fasted regularly.Funny that.
By the way, I have eschewed any butter substitute. My Cholesterol is normal. Sadly, my grandfather died after a long life but suffering from angina (in the early
1980’s ) He was told by the Dr’s of the day that his condition (hardening of the arteries) was caused by eggs and bacon along with all the other standard foods of the day.
Dammit, he lived into his late 70’s! Why did they have to ruin his last years by telling him that his wife did him in with good cooking?????????
Anyway, I eat butter, bacon, eggs, and I drink coffee. All these staples have been maligned by experts over and over yet I still live.
20
My sentiment exactly, Mark.
Life is a fatal disease. I care a lot more that the time I do have means something to me and those I care about than I care about a few extra months or a year while eating stuff I can’t enjoy and worrying every day about something about to kill me.
20
I’m looking forward to part2 of the Heart of the Matter when Big Pharma are asked the hard questions and come back quick as a flash with the appeal to authority, the science is settled mantra and besides what about the precautionary principle so keep swallowing those statins folks.
ABC post-normal/political science numpties can go choke on them all.
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Tour de force, Jo.
00
Tim Lester interviews Steffen for almost 12 minutes of arrogant, sanctimonius, dishonest nonsense. says all was nice and bipartisan til 2009 (HE MEANS TURNBULL). Steffen – we don’t go to Wikipedia (NO, WE SEND WILLIAM CONNOLLY THERE TO DISTORT CAGW ENTRIES).
26 Oct: SMH: Heath Aston: Climate debate must stick to the science: professor
VIDEO: Bushfire risk increasing
Climate change increases the PROBABILITY of more bushfires, more intense fires and longer fire seasons, according to the Climate Council’s Professor Will Steffen
(PAT – YET STEFFEN NEVER ESTABLISHES A LINK)
Professor Will Steffen, who co-authored the soon-to-be-released bushfire report by the Climate Council, was responding to Mr Abbott’s assertion in a newspaper interview with leading climate sceptic Andrew Bolt that drawing a link between the savage fires now plaguing NSW and climate change was ”complete hogwash”
(PAT – STEFFEN ACTUALLY SAYS “IF WE LOOK AT THE EMISSIONS TRAJECTORY)
He (Steffen) said IF the climate keeps warming at the current rate, the number of days of extreme fire danger each year will double by the middle of the century…
But Professor Steffen said it was TOO EARLY to determine whether the NSW fires are ”unprecedented” for their unseasonal ferocity – as has been asserted by the NSW Rural Fire Service…
”We would certainly prefer that this debate be elevated to the real scientific facts as are reported in the scientific literature and as are assessed very competently by the IPCC, the CSIRO and the Bureau [of Meteorology] and the scientists we rely on,” Professor Steffen said…
Professor Steffen said Wikipedia, the crowd-edited online encyclopaedia, was not one of his research tools: ”We never go to secondary sources like that.”
On Friday, the Australian Library and Information Association issued a public letter urging the minister to rely on ”well-researched facts”.
The letter states: ”If the slashing of government libraries continues, we will see more politicians quoting Wikipedia and fewer using high quality scientifically proven facts when making life-changing decisions. Hopefully this gaffe will encourage the minister to use his own specialist library and inspire other ministers to ensure that their libraries are fully funded and resourced.’
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-debate-must-stick-to-the-science-professor-20131025-2w76n.html
IMPORTANT – THE ORIGINAL INTERVIEW:
Tony Abbott was asked does climate change have anything to do with the NSW fires as Christiana Figueres stated. he says “these fires” are not…
remember also it is NOTproven that there is a link between bush fires & CAGW:
23 Oct: SMH: UN official ‘talking out of her hat’ on bushfires and climate change, says Tony Abbott
VIDEO: Climate chief ‘talking through her hat’
United Nations says Australian bushfires and climate change are linked; Prime Minister Tony Abbott says that’s nonsense
Prime Minister Tony Abbott has dismissed the comments of a senior UN official who said there was a clear link between bushfires and climate change, arguing ”fire is a part of the Australian experience”.
***She (Figueres) noted that the World Meteorological Organisation had not yet established a direct link between the NSW fires and climate change.
Greens leader Christine Milne said Mr Abbott had insulted Ms Figueres with his hat comment but that the real losers out of his “science denialism” were future victims of extreme fires, droughts and storms.
“Tony Abbott is the Prime Minister for science denialism. He thinks his opinion on global warming outranks the evidence of the best scientists in the world. It is arrogance in the extreme,” Senator Milne said in a statement.
“The Prime Minister’s hubris on global warming will see Australia swelter and burn, and our people suffer.”..
(PAT – MORE LIES FROM FIGUERES)
The UN negotiator said the new Abbott government had chosen a more difficult and expensive path to emissions reduction than the previous Gillard government – noting that the Coalition had not stepped away from Australia’s commitment to reduce its emissions by 5 per cent by 2020.
”The road that they are choosing to get to the same target that the previous government had could be much more expensive for them and for the population,” Ms Figueres said.http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/un-official-talking-out-of-her-hat-on-bushfires-and-climate-change-says-tony-abbott-20131023-2w0mq.html
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Right on que for a follow the money – good old GE
http://www.news.com.au/business/breaking-news/australia-still-needs-carbon-price-ge/story-e6frfkur-1226747667345
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None of the so-called “experts” on Catalyst have any credibility whatsoever. They are all notorious cherry-pickers who completely distort science to sell books (Taubes) and expensive and unproven supplements (Sinatra and Eades).
Taubes claims that insulin spikes caused by carbohydrates are the only cause of obesity – 100% false.
Sinatra claims that “earthing” nuetralises free radicals – 100% false.
Eades promotes very high protein diets that cause kidney disease and osteoporosis.
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Despite all protestations to the contrary, money buys consensus. Consensus also generates money, so positive feedback develops. But at some point, the other people whose money is being fed into the flow start to object if less value is being added than taken away. With luck, the flow eventually reverses. Absent that, total collapse and mass death ensues.
30
And we’re headed in that death direction as fast as we can. Don’t you just love the government’s little secret agreements with AARP (American Associartion of Retired Persons — pronounce it right, aarp, aarp, aarp and it sounds like a seal barking to get a fish), unions and insurance companies. This is nothing but betrayal of the American public by a government run by… …well, don’t tempt me to say what I’m thinking.
00
meant to re-post this with the two earlier links re bushfires/CAGW because this is how the fake story began..
remember, Abbott was asked if the current bushfires were caused by CAGW. Figueres never said they were. that she even said “this wildfire” when we had maybe 60 bushfires says a lot about how ridiculous the propaganda is. yet the Australian MSM has completely mis-represented every aspect of this story for nearly a week! shame on them. of course, the CNN headline is a lie unto itself:
VIDEO: 21 Oct: CNN: Amanpour: ‘Absolutely’ a link between climate change and wildfires, U.N. climate chief Figueres tells Amanpour
“The World Meteorological Organization has not established a direct link between this wildfire and climate change – yet,” Figueres said…
http://amanpour.blogs.cnn.com/2013/10/21/un-climate-chief-absolutely-link-between-climate-change-and-wildfires/
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Scott –
re your link – (self-serving) GE says Australia still needs carbon price, remember:
21 Oct: Reuters: ‘War on Coal’ May be Good Fight for Some Manufacturers
Some of the winners in this new landscape are more obvious than others. Ann Duignan, an analyst with JP Morgan, said the shift away from coal will “be a big plus” for traditional gas turbine suppliers such as General Electric and Siemens…
http://www.moneynews.com/Markets/coal-gas-energy-fight/2013/10/21/id/532164
still, GE in the article Scott linked to, sure have cheek:
“We still believe that over time there needs to be a price on carbon, there will be a price on carbon,” he told ABC TV.
“Whatever the outcome is, investors are going to want clarity and a long window with which to see the world, otherwise you’re just not going to get the right investments here.”
GE is heavily involved in the wind, solar, nuclear and steam power industries, along with jet engines and household appliances…
http://www.news.com.au/business/breaking-news/australia-still-needs-carbon-price-ge/story-e6frfkur-1226747667345
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the whole figueres/bushfire/abbott beat-up is so like the “did gillard lie about introducing a carbon tax” rubbish the MSM kept up forever. in fact, it continues.
Jonathan Green has a poorly-written (going from what i was able to read on googlebooks) book out, published by Melbourne University Publishing, called “The Year My Politics Broke” (translation: Labor lost). Chapter 10 is titled “climate change” (u would hardly expect it to be headed CAGW, would you?). in it, he goes on about how everyone remembers Gillard saying “there will be no carbon tax under a government i lead” but no-one remembers her saying “I am determined to price carbon”. he gives no reference for the latter statement.
not even obsessive Gillard/Laborite Brian on this blog can find documentation that Gillard ever said the latter (so many have tried & failed to find the proof):
Sept 2013: by Brian: Then I found this post by Kate Ahearne of 26 April 2013. The quote had altered slightly but is essentially the same:
“There will be no carbon tax under a government I lead, but lets be absolutely clear. I am determined to price carbon.”
Shane hurford asserts that the statement was made on Channel 7, later corroborated by Mick Verco, with Gillard responding to badgering from Kochie. Channel 7 was said to have asserted copyright ownership and junked the video.
Heather (@HEB2205) also thinks she saw it.
Ahearne says, ” Mystery solved. Great stuff.” I’m sorry, it isn’t. Memory is suggestible and can pick up bits from the current context. It isn’t laid down like a digital recording…
My verdict is that we just don’t know whether Gillard uttered the words attributed to her.
http://larvatusprodeo.net/archives/2013/09/gillards-carbon-tax-promise/
btw here’s ABC Jonathan Green being interviewed by ABC Richard Fidler (ABC is incestuous) about the book, which pretends to be about politics & journalism, but is really about taxing & pricing carbon dioxide. paraphrasing:
green: central problem i’m trying to get at with the book… the things we confront have existential substance, they are very serious indeed.
fidler: like what?
green..(like what) the existential thing would be climate change…
AUDIO: 23 Oct: ABC Conversations with Richard Fidler
Jonathan Green argues in his new book that politics now thrives on the dispute rather than the solution.
Jonathan sees a system that’s stalling, and failing the voters – and the parties, the players and the media are all responsible.
The Year My Politics Broke, published by MUP.
http://www.abc.net.au/local/stories/2013/10/23/3875140.htm?site=conversations
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This sort of thing happens time and time again. The “AIDS=the result of infection by the deadly HIV virus” is another. Not just in medicine either, but almost the whole of science, Henry H Bauer documents this on his web page and in his books.
It would be nice to have a catchy name for the phenomena outlined above. “Mass Hysteria Science” or “Mass Delusion Science” or something like that. We could have a textbook on this, and then whenever something like this happens again, we could say: “Your claims comprise X, Y, and Z, which feature highly on the checklist of established phenomena associated with mass delusion science, so please tell us how your claims should not be treated as suspicious.
The irony is that my own field of ‘scientific’ research, error and bias in human reasoning, catalogues everything that can and has gone wrong in almost prophetic detail. Unfortunately, the discipline itself began to suffer from the same errors of logic and biases in reasoning that it was accusing other people of, and turned into a parody of itself in which the winners were the people who created the strongest personality cults, and trained up their PhDs to be the best poodles. No surprises from Lewandowsky in this respect, but I knew Oberauer reasonably well, and was shocked at how far he was prepared to descend.
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Artery blockages are the result of cholesterol doing its job of trying to repair inflamed blood vessels caused by excessive cytokenes generated by low fat diets. Low fat diets are also responsible for the explosion in diabetes. Try to avoid anything in a can or a box. Read the labels. Avoid high fructose corn syrup and hydrolized cooking oils, and you will do yourself immeasurable good.
Low cholesteroial diets are another sham. One of the primary purposes of the liver is to produce cholesterol which is a vital building block of the body. The less cholesterol you consume, the more the liver cranks up production to replace it. All harmones are created from cholesterol. Your brain is 50% cholesterol.
As soon as the Medical Establishment comes out of the Dark Ages and gets off this low fat diet rant and acknowledges the vital importance of cholesterol, the quicker people will start enjoying health and not becoming slaves to the revolving-door ME system.
Tell your doctor to shove the statins, say good bye, and eat some fat.
50
Reading through the comments, I really do understand why climate change is a huge seller. Look at the number of people making comments based on anecdotal evidence and personal beliefs. “Don’t eat meat” “Don’t use artificial sweeteners” etc. Then they slam people who say “Too much carbon dioxide will kill the planet”. These are equivalent statements evidence wise. There is evidence that meat might hurt us, sugar might hurt us, CO2 might hurt us. “Might, Might, Might”. Reading this thread, the warmists claim that skeptics are only skeptical in what they don’t like starts to sound credible. If we are talking science, we need to use the evidence, not start giving examples of outcomes we like being the one we believe.
I realize all of this is very emotional in nature and it’s easy to start condemning “Big Pharma”, but condemning “Big Pharma” is not different from condemning “Big Oil”. Riding on emotions is how climate change reached it’s present level. It’s easy to see why it was so effective and will remain so as long as we skip the science and go straight to the “Big X” to blame and using personal beliefs and experience as proof of something. It’s fine to use anecdotes to point out that people are different and it’s fine to keep an eye who makes our meds. As long as we can back up what we say with evidence.
30
Sheri what your saying is to be wary of falling victim to Confirmation Bias regardless of the subject, agreed fine.
WE must also take in all available information to test it in the scientific method and not dismiss that information based on the pretext it might be socially ridiculed when put to the test.
The people who comment here are quite brave sometimes to express personal experiences and I believe would be big enough to accept when they are wrong, that is the big difference between Warmists and Skeptics.
00
Yes, that’s what I’m saying. When putting forth personal opinions and experience we need to be careful not to give the impression it’s based on science (unless it is and we can provide links). Social ridicule shouldn’t affect putting forth a theory that one has sufficient evidence for, though I fully acknowledge that it often does and people who are willing to risk this are commendable. I hope that skeptics would be willing to accept when they are wrong. One certainly does not find that in Warmist camp.
20
I disagree – we deniers have put forth lots of science to clearly dispriove the climate change myth – its the warmists who regualrly try to silence & stifle debate.
Sheri – have you studied any of the science on this site?
00
Steve–I have no idea what your question is asking. Yes, I studied a lot of science on a lot of sites……….
10
Sheri I have been on a quest for knowledge In recent years and have found the JoNova site has been a wealth of information from many different backgrounds, but I never just take someone’s word as gospel and will check for myself as I hope others do if I present something as fact, as Bruce Lee said “Absorb what is useful”.
Funny thing is it was here that someone informed me of the Dialectic and it’s various forms and I appreciate a good healthy exchange with people of like mindedness which happens everyday here, so thanks for the reply I appreciate it.
20
I hope that most on this blog don’t just take things as truth because someone says it’s so. My point was if skeptics engage in the same behaviours as warmists, it’s problematic. When skeptics throw out the tens “Big Pharma” and “Big Agra” and use that as reason to reject certain theories or studies, they must accept the warmists arguments about “Big Oil”. If skeptics throw in pseudoscience, how can they object to the warmists doing the same? If we dismiss ideas because we don’t like them or accept others because we do, how are we different from the warmists?
There’s nothing wrong with discussing ideas that are not mainstream science, so long as they are identified as such and evidence is either provided or an admission that one just likes the theory and does not care if it’s true or not. Others may have evidence that the poster is not aware of. I’m not objecting to a lack of science, only to not labeling the information as lacking in scientific evidence or labeling it incorrectly as science.
(For example, today I blame my typos on a migraine. I have no conclusive evidence that migraines affect typing, but if I blame the headache, I escape responsibility. Plus, maybe I can get a grant to study stuff like this? Okay–it makes a great excuse whether it’s true or not. And I am labeling it as non-scientific so there’s no misunderstanding. At best, it’s an untested hypothesis.)
00
From my understanding one of the first exercises in studying Psychology is to analyze your own mental state, which I can only imagine would be quite confronting at times but it needs to be done, in a way this self analysis happens here daily with people who take the plunge and comment.
As far as I know people have had to deal with the mental effects of physical pain from day one however migraines concern me as I’ve never had one and can only imagine how bad people feel when they get them, besides that with all medical advancement there still is no clear answer on why migraines occur.
Thinking from my view of migraines if I were to develop sharp and constant pain in my head the first thing I would think is Tumor! not wanting to freak you out, just giving an observation from someone who’s never even had a headache.
10
I appreciate your comment. I have found that people do think “tumor” with headaches. Many people with migraines have had MRI’s and stuff to be sure there is not tumor (or at least no life-threatening one). One does adapt, mostly because they have no choice.
I find it very amazing you’ve never even had a headache. That is so cool–and just as far out of my comprehension as migraines are from yours! Thanks for brightening my day! 🙂
10
Ok I’ll top it off with, I’ve never had a blood nose either and that’s including me Boxing and copping a few hits from sport or the odd street fight.
I’ve asked Doctors why this is and I never get a clear answer however they tell me I have extremely ugly Tonsils. 🙂
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[…] Catalyst says consensus wrong on cholesterol – but unquestionable on climate (joannenova.com.au) […]
00
Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me!
Two wrongs dont make a right…about Climate change.
John L. Daly has some great arguments about lack of credibility of climate science “experts” and evidence of a global scam. His book, dating back to 1990 or so, argues these things well before the Gore circus.
His website, still running (supported by his wife and colleagues) after he died gives an insight at what went on and what he forecast as to misinformation happening then. He was ahead of any scientists when it came to ferreting out the truth… So why were they so quiet? Well they follow the money trail…He didn’t.
His most potent argument about tides is shown http://www.john-daly.com/index.htm
20
I have been banging on to family and friends about the parallels between nutritional science and climate science since reading Gary Taube’s book some 18 months ago. In my view there is a third field – economics – which is similarly corrupted by political and vested interest. Real world evidence should have consigned Keynesian economics to history long ago. The theory not only persists but dominates Western government policy and tertiary institution teaching, seemingly for all the same reasons and by the same mechanisms. Some tools for wealth redistribution and spending other peoples money are too good to die.
As an aside, on a (very) low carb, high fat diet (LCHF)- my health improved immediately in many ways including heart risk according to regular blood lipid test results (TG way down, HDL way up) and I have lost 23kg without counting a calorie or exercising. I thoroughly recommend Gary Taube’s book Why We Get Fat.
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Yeah I watched it and sat there thinking, “in 10 years this is how they will describe AGW, one of those WTF were we thinking moments”
Meanwhile those of us few remaining, functional brains on the planet, just sit by in amusement and watch people scare themselves witless over nothing. All the while copping abuse for having the temerity to as a question mind you.
“Being curious may bring you back to the conventional wisdom, or it may not; but at least you’ve arrived there of your own accord and not just followed the crowd. Be a sceptic, a contrarian, an iconoclast even, if you have the where-with-all for it. Most don’t, so it will never be a crowded field.” Neville Kennard 1937-2012
10
Thank you Jo, for bringing up a subject that I have had to deal with through study and action since 1969. It seemed like I hade to learn and then unlearn the “facts”every couple of years. One fact I did learn was that the diet “Triangle” has a great, huge, enormous amount of money and career prestige tied up in it, worldwide. Anybody who challenged this “fact” could expect to be sent broke, being dragged constantly off to court, (Atkins), as an example to others. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
10
I think it should be noted that based upon questionable science either way, it appears that public opinion is shifting towards reducing sugar intake in favour of natural less processed foods. That is there is a growing desire to use highly debatable science in order to detabilise an established and successful industry in favour of a pretty greenie/hippy ideal… an ideal which arguably would struggle to feed the world’s growing population (is there even enough healthy food to feed the masses?).
So would moving from industrial food production back to wholefoods in fact require what is tantamount to saying the poor shall die so the rich can eat according to the limited resources of the planet.
You are on a slippery slippery slope here my friends.
02
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-10-28/rooney-big-sugar/5050114
big sugar/big tobacco/big oil/big coal
those on the anti sugar bandwagon will have some strange bedfellows indeed. Not I… I already enjoy the company of those fellows of course being a warmist hippy luddite.
01
.
You have a reputation for drawing a long bow, MattB, but this time even you have exceeded your reach. Is it really necessary to point out to you that nearly every ounce of “processed” food, started out as healthy whole food? The powdered milk and eggs (very unhealthy) the modern baker uses to make bread, started out as fresh eggs and fresh milk (very healthy). The ONLY reasons the bakery uses the powdered variety are convenience and storage.
“Reduced fat” dairy products such as skim milk, “lo-fat” cheese and “diet” yoghurt do not add to the food value of milk, they subtract from it. People pay more for less in the erroneous belief that somehow it is “good” for them. A myth started by vested medical and scientific interests and perpetrated by the vendors of these products, who see good profits in supplying less and charging more.
Even those “foods” that could be said to add to the overall supply, like margarine, are unnecessary. The EU alone dumps more full cream butter into the North Atlantic each year, than probably the entire world market for margarine. The USA dumps almost as much.
The world currently produces 2.1 kilos of fresh food for every man, woman and child on the planet, EVERY day. Enough to feed nine million comfortably. The problems are distribution and priorities, not production. Africa, for instance, where people starve, produces enough to feed itself. Lack of suitable roads (transport), and refrigeration, mean that 40% goes rotten before it can be marketed and consumed. In Europe (where people also starve), eight million tons of potatoes a year are turned into salted crisps, for people to munch on while they have a beer.
.
Apart from ends, supermarkets allocate shelf space strictly according to sales. Next time you go into a Coles or Woolies, check out how much shelf space is allocated to Coke, Pepsi, and the other carbonated soft drinks. This stuff is bottled sugar. It is also bottled obesity, bottled diabetes, and bottled impaired immune system. I know people who drink upwards of two litres of the stuff every day. Do you really believe they would risk starvation if they cut down?
40
.
Typo – nine million = nine billion.
00
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/24-billion-extra-people-no-more-land-how-will-we-feed-the-world-in-2050-2191260.html
“The report by two leading research institutes, in a project entitled Agrimonde, found that nothing short of a food revolution is needed to avoid mass famine. ”
“However, the French study also suggested there are two possible routes to feeding the world. One involves unsustainable improvements in crop yields which do not take into account the detrimental impact on the environment, while the other is a sustainable route which will involve people in the developed world consuming less and decreasing their average food intake.
“The world can properly feed 9 billion people by 2050, but it will depend on what’s on our plates and what is wasted from our plates,” said Sandrine Paillard, who contributed to the Agrimonde study.
People in the developed world could decrease their food consumption – as measured by daily energy intake – by an average of 25 per cent and still have a healthy diet, she said.”
I await claims this would take us back to the dark ages…
00
Have not read it yet but let me guess that they looked extensively into the amount of cropland presently wasted on growing “biofuel”?
Sounds to me like a build-up for government control of our food supply. It isn’t the dark ages Mattb, it is much scarier than that. I suppose you like the idea since you haven’t seen a government tax or bureaucracy you didn’t like.
How we’ll avoid the pandemic illness that will cause millions of deaths is what is more real than 24 billion people. Too bad we’re wasting research on AGW.
For the record, I’m all for mass sterilization starting with left leaning progressives.
10
even worse Mark… it won’t even be YOUR government in control!
00
I suspect the answer may be in turning certain countries into dedicated food bowls , like you see in futuristic movies. We have technology that we havent even really explored yet that could feed lots of people quite happily. Energy breakthroughs happen al the time and we havent scratched the surface of using hydrogen for fuel because a lot of the alternate tech is shut up by big business.
I think we could have 10 times the current world population and be fine. Considering you can fit the whole worlds 7 billion population into NSW with everyone having a 3m x 3m space, I refuse to swallow the population control/eugenics crowd in crying wolf over population. Its just Socialist nonsense of a different flavour. Create an artificial crisis then use it for control – AGW, global cooling then global warming etc etc – no thanks.
I’d rather think forward and work out how to do it that be a luddite.
00
Jo, UPDATE to this Catalyst story… the backlash from Big Statin is already starting.
|> Professor urges ABC to pull Catalyst episode on cholesterol drugs, says it could result in deaths
The chair of the “Advisory Committee on the Safety of Medicines”, which is more likely to be in the pocket of Big Pharma, is at odds with the Australian Medical Association over whether to raise doubts on TV about statins.
Those of a particularly cynical bent should have predicted it.
The quotes from the Statin gatekeeper are just begging for a climate analogy!
But bravo, bravo ABC! Sticking to their guns to bring the facts to the people and stop the statin scam.
Yeah, again we find the ABC’s highly selective use of honesty and fair reporting to be quite suspicious in comparison to their total absence on the global warming saga.
10
you still seem to think that Big Pharma is equivalent to Big Climate not Big Fossil Fuels. You all seem to forget that 30 odd years ago the first fringe dwellers of climate science started to peck away at the establishment. You guys just don’t see that relative to every other cause you champion, “climate science” is the fringe radical you champion.
It doesn’t make it right or wrong… but it just shows there is no point saying “this is a bit like that so it must be right”
01
In both cases the suspicious one is the group that gets money or power out of solving an exaggerated perceived problem. Big Fossil doesn’t match that pattern because they make money solving the real problems of energy and transportation – problems which genuinely exist and continue to exist in a CAGW world. Under the carbon tax they still sell FF for the same price because it’s only their customers who have to pass on emissions taxes to the end consumer after burning it, while the tax suppression of demand is going to be low on commodities as notoriously inelestic as oil.
And renewables…pfft! Where’s the serious competition? Big Fossil knows they are practically indispensable for the foreseeable future even if CAGW were real. I seem to recall that Shell Australia made no public complaints about profitability impacts of the tax/ETS in their submissions to the CEFC committee, which seems a bit lax for an industry allegedly running a “Climate Denial Machine”. No, looks like they have nothing to lose.
Big Fossil isn’t the one promoting the climate scare and they can’t control what government weather satellites record.
No, it’s the drugs approval board that stands to lose face and custom on this one.
On that basis I thought the analogy worked just fine, even if in the fullness of time it later turns out to be undeservedly cynical.
Besides, Mattb, if Big Fossil did have the ability to change the climate they have clearly used that awesome power to stop global warming from happening for 12+ years and counting. heheh.
It’s the end of Winter. You’ll be able to pick up an extra jumper for real cheap now.
00
I kinda think the “Big Statin” guy you are talking about has a point. Maintaining current diet and current health and just stopping taking the prescribed drugs is to me significantly more likely to cause harm than keeping taking them. I think anyone watching the show and on such drugs would be better taking a very considered approach to diet change and weaning off the drugs.
00
Wellll yes. Nobody is actually suggesting people should impulsively change medications without consideration of medical advice and known risks, which is why the alarm of the approval board is so hysterical, and slightly suss.
The aim of the Catalyst doco, aside from clearing the good names of cholesterol and fat, seems to be to highlight the false indicators and lesser-known contraindicators of use of statins so people won’t take statins if they don’t need to, nor tolerate sideffects that they don’t even know are side-effects of the drug. At most this is going to provoke a change of doctor if people believe their current expert isn’t aware of all the pertinent facts.
I would hope GPs around the country would be hammering PubMed and the statin research this week, at least to keep their patients on the mortal coil, and on their billable patient schedule too.
OTOH, maybe this is a sinister plot by the ABC to hasten the deaths of all the people who are least likely to vote for the Greens (ie the elderly) by scaring them off beneficial medicine. But that theory is even too freaky for me.
00
“Nobody is actually suggesting people should impulsively change medications without consideration of medical advice and known risks,”
You underestimate the ability of people to make instant decisions based upon catching half a program in between ad-breaks. Ideally the program should state that anyone concerned about drug X discuss this with their doctor, or seek advice from some sort of user group (do they exist) to assist people safely get off whatever drug they are using.
00
The other problem is while I have a high cholesterol, my doctor wants me to be tested, which implies going on drugs for a “problem” I dont have. I value this doctor in just about every other area of diagnosis etc, but its funny how everyone has thier blind spots.
There are many well meaning doctors who just do the best they can for their patients, however even doctors seem to fall victim to a form of pack mentaility and most seem to be utterly scared witless of stepping out of step with the “official line” of their local medical association, lest they be jumped on from a great height. I think too once a drug is on the PBS and govt and medical associations are all closely linked, you have a recipe for maintaining the status quo, whether its medically correct or not.
As one doctor on the Catalyst correctly ( IMHO ) put it – basically for a change in how doctors view the whole cholesterol thing, you need to wait for the next batch of younger doctors to come through, who have different ideas. The flip side to this is that the current batch who are in practice now, may not change their ways at all.
Then add in the ammount of cash that pharma are making from it all, and you can see how a cash “cow” that big may well mightily resist being made into “hamburgers”.
That said, maybe now this has broken cover on Catalyst, it may prompt further discussion out in the community which may in turn change how the medical community views it. That said, the medical community is even more conservative and resistant to change than the legal community.
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Yes. The coming down from drug use is very important for a lot of prescribed drugs
I’m currently on my second month of taking my antidepressant each second night–prescribed and used for five years at one per night– and by December will be taking it each third night and may be able to shorten the “run” down somewhat and be “off” them by the end of summer..
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I finally got some time to read this and all I can say is, suspicions confirmed.
When I had heart problems leading to anterior descending artery bypass surgery I finally pinned my cardiologist down about cholesterol. He had to admit that at that time medical science already knew that cholesterol didn’t cause anything. The real problem is inflammation — cause unknown — that simply finds cholesterol a convenient substance to somehow mess around with and cause trouble. My surgery was in February, 2003. I have been symptom free for 10 years, happily eating as I please, including the high fructose corn syrup that is so dangerous according to the food police and scrambled eggs for breakfast.
I do take the Lipitor (statin) that was prescribed from the beginning of the problem. But whether it’s actually doing something for me is an open question. The mere fact that you get sick, your doctor gives you a pill and you get better doesn’t prove that the pill did it, as Jo so aptly points out.
That medicine has become corrupted by money is a great tragedy. But it’s been evident for a long time. In the U.S. it extends to the point of the government shoving Obamacare down everyone’s throat. This will lead directly to the government dictating treatment decisions instead of your doctor. I suspect it will kill people for lack of the correct treatment.
About 99% of all the stay healthy advice floating around is questionable. Dr. Oz, who is now a big TV star, is making money, a lot of money, giving out advice. It’s a nice racket if you can get it. I’ve maintained for a long time that if you want a constituency you have to tell people they have a problems and only you can fix it for them.
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So “Big Oil” is not the same as “Big Pharma”? Sure it is. Exactly. It’s what people use to denigrate an idea without evidence. If the IPCC and the UN were to completely sell their CAGW theory, “Big Oil” most certainly would have something to lose. “Big Coal” is getting crushed right now due to the CAGW movement. Coal plants shutting down, marches against transporting coal, etc. Fracking is being outlawed in many places. There is a huge amount of money and jobs to be lost in “Big Oil” if the CAGW theory is adopted. “Big Fossil” doesn’t need to change the climate–just control the news and journals. Then they can stop all this nonsense about warming and harm from fossil fuels and get back to selling overpriced oil to the entire world and making billions and billions. So if “Big Oil” can finance skeptics and change the public’s opinion, that’s great. Who needs science if you can sow the seeds of doubt? Money is a motivation is both cases.
So what about “embarrassing” the drug companies and drug approval boards? If multiple lawsuits costing billions of dollars did not have any effect on the drug approval boards, I doubt the “truth” about statins would either. If a billion or two in fines is no big deal, why would the “truth” make any difference? People get lied to all the time–politicians, spouses, bosses. Lies really have no meaning anymore, it seems. So I don’t buy that “Big Pharma” has any more to lose than “Big Fossil”.
They just come at it differently–“Big Pharma” loves the science and “Big Oil” wants to suppress the science. Maybe it’s “Big Pharma” suppressing the “real science” just like “Big Oil”–it’s so hard to tell.
It is quite fascinating that somehow the evil “truth” about statins is being hidden and commenters find that completely feasible, but they don’t believe that skeptics are damaging the “truth” about climate change and harming the planet in the process. It does, however, illustrate clearly why science has little effect on people’s beliefs. The climate change people simply took advantage of that reality and ran with it.
00
Coal is getting crushed because of CAGW?? Well OK, Obama is doing that in the USA, but over here the warmists are a minor PR nuisance at the most. I didn’t think they were having much effect on Big Fossil globally.
Not sure what exactly you’re arguing since Big Fossil doesn’t need to make up fake science, they just have to help communicate the facts, because I’m fairly sure the truth is on the skeptics side… or else I wouldn’t be here.
eg, it wouldn’t surprise me if Heartland was pushing the agenda of Big Fossil and Big Industry, but that’s running some web sites, video production, and annual conferences. What convinces us is data that cannot possibly have passed through their hands. So where’s the skullduggery exactly?
Again I’m not seeing the BigFossil:BigPharma matchup for the CAGW:Statins analogy. One is a defender and the other is an attacker, one has the facts and the other has rigged studies. How are they equivalent?
00
Just another example where “consensus” inhibits science, it does not further it.
00
“Rigged studies”–statins are rigged but skeptics are not? Why? What makes the pharma studies rigged and not the skeptics. Maybe if you can produce some “rigged” studies and the data, it might at least show you are correct in one case. However, you’re still applying a broad label where one may not be applicable.
My point is:
Why are you “right” in claiming rigged studies and bad science when it comes to statins, why can you use the term “Big Pharma” while we are supposed to reject the warmists claim that skeptic science is rigged and “Big Oil” is to blame? They are equivalent claims–blaming some kind of behind the scenes people for manipulating science to their own benefit. If I have to reject “Big Oil”, I have to reject “Big Pharma”. If I accept “Big Oil”, I have to accept “Big Pharma”. It’s the same argument.
00
This is exactly my point Sheri.
00
What?? If there’s any vested interest group deceiving the market anywhere about anything then ALL conspiracy theories must be true? Tell me, what is it like inside the Alex Jones Cult?
If you ignore the differences that I pointed out it is no surprise you continue to think the two cases are the same.
Here’s another difference for you to ignore. Weather data is available from multiple sources but drug trial data is only available from Big Pharma. But please ignore that last sentence and continue to believe BigPharma==BigFossil.
And no I don’t think I’m “right” about BigPharma tilting the table of drug approval in Australia, I said it was more likely for them than the AMA, that this was admittedly cynical, and I’m engaging in idle speculation and chitchat.
Correction, was engaging in chitchat, past tense.
00
I don’t know–what’s like living in LaLa land?
Let me try again, very slowly: If you use unfounded conspiracy theories totally lacking in empirical evidence (i.e. definiation of conspiracy theory) you MUST accept all such theories as proof. Got it? That’s because the truth value of an argument with unfounded premises and no evidence is exactly the same as any other such argument.
EG: I argue that the government never landed on the moon. I write a TV show and get on Discovery. I show all kinds of really cool reasons why we did not land on the moon. I completely ignore all scientific evidence to the contrary. My alter ego goes on TV and gets a show on poltergeists and does a really cool write-up and video presentation on poltergeists. Which theory is truth and which is not? People who distrust the government will tell you it’s the first. Ghost lovers will tell you it’s the second. Truly gullible people will tell you it’s both. Neither theory has any significant scientific basis. So how can you accept one and not the other without totally throwing out all science and going with your heart? Which is exactly what climate science does. Scare people, intimidate people and weave a convincing tale. I have no basis to reject climate science if I accept pseudoscience and conspiracy theories. The only way around this is to declare one’s beliefs to be religion, which then means you might get around the science requirement. So, is your belief in “Big Pharma” a religion?
Your statement about trial data being the only thing available–yes, and there’s a lot of it out there. So ALL the trials are faked, FOIA requests produce faked data, and no one can possibly ever know the truth? Now who’s living in Ales Jones cult? How do you know the meteorologists aren’t in with the climate change people and publishing false data everywhere? Seems as likely as all trials faked and all FOIA requests faked. See–I can read what you write. It still doesn’t help.
(Labeling “chitchat” is very helpful on the internet since what you write has to be taken at face value. If you don’t believe there’s a conspiracy to damage people with statins and “hook” them for life, why bring it up in the first place?)
10
Sheri,
You make a powerful argument. And I agree with you. When I stated that medicine had become corrupted I wasn’t putting forth any conspiracy theory. Just as an example of what I was talking about: So-called Big Pharma develops a drug. They get it through the FDA approval cycle which is very costly. And then they have a big problem because they have spent hundreds of millions of dollars getting to that point and now they have to sell that drug or write off all that money. So what do they do? They push that drug to doctors and the public. My bet is that most doctors don’t look into the clinical trials or anything else, they simply adopt that new drug on the basis of the manufacturer’s marketing (what shall I call it?) hype. Well, hype’s a bit of an exaggeration but how much will you bet that all the possible difficulties with that new drug are also pushed in that doctor’s face so he knows the whole picture? Then there’s the real temptation to offer kickbacks to doctors and the possibility that the doctors have stock in the manufacturer.
Then, because they’ve also pushed that drug to the public, doctors come under pressure from patients to prescribe it. Is there a big chance of over use here? I think so.
None of this requires a conspiracy. Drug companies don’t get together and agree to do anything. They aren’t evil. All that’s required is basic human nature. The same can be said — and has been said — about the defense industry.
So do statins work? My bet would be that they do. But then we need a definition of “works” and I don’t know of one. It’s benefit is probably highly dependent on the individual. Then there’s the question of whether everyone on statins actually needs the drug at all. We don’t know that either. My bet is that not nearly everyone on those drugs actually needs them.
Now is this corruption? Yes it is. Money distorts the whole medical profession in the direction of prescribing the latest drug, the latest treatment and adopting the latest goody. Sheri, you must watch TV. Do you not see the drug companies advertising their products? There’s a big push on about shingles and how 1 out of 3 who’ve had chicken pox will get it. The thing that’s missing is that the company behind these ads is selling a vaccine against shingles. So of course they maximize the “danger” of not going to their web site to, “…learn more.” But the vested interest is missing from these ads. I’ve not seen it on my screen even once. The fine print is invisible print. It’s not full disclosure! Any chance this reminds you of CAGW?
00
I do understand your argument and some of this applies to CAGW, yes. I have always said that corruption can occur in any field.
As for drugs, if anyone on the planet should distrust drugs, I’m probably in the top 10 percent. I have had serious allergic reactions to several drugs, one requiring hospitalization. Two years ago a side effect of a drug (an antibiotic) made me deathly ill for over two months. I still have scars. I read through every single possible side effect of a drug before taking it. Sometimes bad reactions happen. I am fully aware of the “down” side of meds.
Do doctors over prescribe? Undoubtedly. That needs to be corrected at the doctor level. Do patients ask for meds far too much? Undoubtedly again. There’s plenty of blame in all of this. And as with CAGW, if one does not address all parts, success in changing minds may be elusive.
The push for the shingles vaccine is annoying, especially since it’s only 60% effective. However, where does patient responsibility come in? How can we tell people to learn about the science and errors in climate change and then not tell them the same for prescription medications. Is this not just a consequence of people buying into the argument from authority in far too many cases? When do people become responsible for their actions and not drug companies or doctors? Let me be clear–I am not blaming patients entirely. There is a whole dysfunctional triad here with pharmaceutical companies, doctors and patients. I would certainly back a law to cut advertising drugs on television. Of course, then you have to remove all those ads telling everyone they have some kind of mental illness that needs fixed (CBS loves these). Maybe we just should not have made medical “winners” the ones who shout the loudest. It does remind me of the old days with the traveling medicine shows, the radioactive toothpaste, Fred’d tonics….wait, this is exactly we’ve always done. Aaaagggghhhh!
00
Sheri,
There’s probably no good solution to what we’re talking about. Legislation seems to just distort things in a different direction. I’ve had a very good incentive to figure out how to tell a good doctor from a not so good one, 31 years of marriage to a childhood onset diabetic. I know you know what that’s like. But I have to confess that it’s not always easy and even the good ones make mistakes.
With all that said I think the best thing we could do for human society would be to teach good old fashioned skepticism — ask questions and demand answers before buying, not after. The state motto of Missouri is a good model.
00
I might add this little trick. I thought of it one day, sort of out of the blue and it’s benefited me several times, both with my stock broker and my doctors.
To the broker: Where do you put your money?
To the doctor: What would you do if faced with my diagnosis?
Just remember that nothing is foolproof.
00
Agreed.
00
I’m glad to hear that a major media organization came out with a piece comparing the cholesterol myth and the CAGW myth. I have long thought of them as cut from the same cloth.
In fact, I have long wondered if the insane CAGW myth gained so much traction because so many people are on cholesterol-lowering drugs that their brain (among other things) is suffering and operating less than optimally. It has been documented that cholesterol-lowering drugs can impair memory, among many other things.
When people I know personally have started taking statins, I have seen the “light” go dim in their eyes. One lady in particular (a retired school teacher) told me she was about to go on statins. I expressed reservations. Once she was on them, she did indeed slow down. I could tell that her mind was processing more slowly than before. Fortunately, the statins caused other side effects that gave her a legitimate reason to go off them, and she was then once again able to resume her role as a leader of children, as a leader of children’s choir in our church.
30
Me–pounding my head on the keyboard……………………………………………………………
00
Steady on, Sheri, pounding your head on the keyboard will cause mental slowdowns and “the light to go dim” in your eyes much quicker than statins will.
😀
No I don’t have any clinical trials to support that statement. The human head bash LD50 in keyboards is only about 3 bashes, and the Computer Peripheral Ethics Committee blocked our trial application.
00
So… …question: What is the solution to the very real problem that cholesterol poses to some people? No hidden agenda or trick question intended. 🙂
00
Genetics? Clearly some are genetically predisposed to higher cholesterol.
00
Hi Phil
There has been a suggestion that the immediate experience of the mother during pregnancy, especially some critical stages, will have an influence on the insulin “settings” of the newborn.
After World War 11 it was noted that no problems with the target group were seen until the calorie intake became much higher than they had experienced during pregnancy via their mothers.
With improved food availability there came increased problems with diabetes.
Obviously this is not Cholesterol, but it does indicate the flexibility of the human organism to make suitable “set points” for control mechanisms to suit immediate conditions rather than longer term genetic imperatives.
KK.
20
What your response tells me is that what we do not know far outweighs what we do. We seem to have found out that phlogiston does not explain the reaction of magnesium, but we still do not know what makes up the stuff around us.
The advances in physiology have really come about in the past 100 years. A baby step on the understanding of all the factors. We see climate as being very complicated due to the inputs. Biology does not appear to be any less complicated.
20
Exactly.
Human Physiology/Biology is extremely complex.
KK
10
KK,
In my neurologist’s exam room there’s a diagram of the brain and the nerve systems of the body. Just the nerves that control everything and get feedback about touch, pain, warmth and most important, position of muscles and joints that allow us to move around, looks like the road map from hell. Billions of little bits of information pass back and forth every second. And this is just one of the body’s systems.
How are we ever going to fully understand it all? Extremely complex looks almost like an understatement.
10
I’d like to declare a conflict of interest. I have over 20 years experience working in the pharmaceutical industry although at the moment I’m working in a different industry. While I was working in the industry, a large part of my job was to review clinical papers, to find information that would be useful in marketing pharmaceuticals. Unless there is falsification of data on as massive scale, the evidence for cholesterol (in the body – not in food) causing heart disease is infinitely stronger than the evidence for CO2 causing catastrophic global warming.
10
Just further to this: I’m astounded that so many people here seem to accept without question the Catalyst report when we know how inaccurate and biased the media is when reporting on climate change.
20
Okay, let’s ignore Catalyst completely. Let’s go straight to the authorities on this issue. Here’s the USA National Institute of Health’s 2004 report entitled
Implications of Recent Clinical Trials for the National Cholesterol Education Program Adult Treatment Panel III Guidelines.
On page 3 we find the reductions in adverse coronary events during the “HPS” study that occurred in statin-treated patients versus placebo for each of 3 pre-trial risk groups.
Whether patients had diabetes or not, the reductions were in the range 24% to 30%.
Translated into a Relative Risk ratio, that is at minimum a 0.7 RR.
The maximum RR for a purported beneficial cause (RR < 1.0) that would be accepted for publication in any other field of science would be 0.5, and an RR of less than 0.33 is usually preferable. (Refer to expert testimony to that effect by quotes in Debunkosaurus and Brignell’s June 2002 Number Of The Month.)
On that basis one can conclude the statin industry subsists on weak results.
00
There is a huge difference between what is significant in an epidemiological study and what is significant in a prospective, double-blind study. You are misinterpreting the expert testimony.
20
As am I.
00
This is to Susie’s first comment concerning surprise about reactions to the Catalyst study. One day I will figure out how to get a comment to land where I want it to I know I will….I will…..I will!
10
you can;t put it closer to Susie’s 1st comment as andrew replied 1st. So all you could do is reply to Susie and end up where you ended up, or reply to susie’s 2nd post and end up way down that chain of posts. Where you put it is the right place.
unless a mod moved it?
00
Okay, I will give up my unrealistic expectation of getting the comment under Susie’s and just go with where it lands. 🙂
(No one moved it–I just wanted it somewhere else. Dreaming….)
00
That’s why the “blockquote” quoted text “/blockquote” brackets were invented. You can copy and paste, yes? 😉
But seriously, I’ve wished the same thing. I don’t beat my head against the keyboard but my language becomes a little less than polite sometimes. 🙂
Computers — and you can take my word on this — are congenitally stupid, steadfastly refusing to do what you want and instead, doing what some programmer actually told them to do. It’s even worse when I’m that programmer and I told them to do the wrong thing. Hmmmm… …could the statins be rotting my mind after all?
00
Yes, I personally found that my blood tests over a number of years. at 6 mthly intervals showed only the treatment brought my cholesterol down under 5–diet helped initially but didn’t help long term,so I combine both and have never felt better in my life.
00
Hi Susie,
I didn’t see the show, so I don’t know the detail of what they were saying… all I’ve read is Jo’s summary. The reason why I can accept what they’re pointing to is because my own investigations and gut feel told me that it was a crock years ago. And this from somebody who religiously followed the Pritikin no-fat diet for 2-3 years. I’m guessing others on this forum had come to much the same conclusion as me.
The book Protein Power by Dr. Michael Eades went a long way to convincing me. In it, he demonstrates that high carbs leading to high insulin leading to high cholesterol is the problem, not cholesterol per se. He shows the effects of various foods on insulin levels (higher number means higher spike in insulin):
Straight Carbs = 5
Straight Protein = 2
Carbs & Fat = 4
Protein & Fat = 2
High Protein & Low Carb = 2
High Carb & Low Protein = 9 !!!!
Fat = 0 !!!!
Fat is invisible as far as insulin is concerned.
The more I learn, the less I trust “mainstream” anything.
“Public Relations Depts” of large corporations have become such huge “$tory-telling machines”… the story they want us to hear, not necessarily the story that is best for us. Sad, yet increasingly true.
I read this today on a finance blog from the USA (nothing surprises me now):
A study published today in the New England Journal of Medicine suggests that profits that urologists make from referring patients to their own radiation facilities play an outsized role in the treatment decisions. One third of men whose doctors own radiation equipment get the therapy at a cost of about $35,000 per treatment course. The same doctors prescribed the therapy for just 13 percent of their patients before they had their own equipment and could profit directly. {snip} The situation may actually harm some patients. The analysis found that doctors who owned the IMRT therapy were treating men aged 80 and older just as aggressively as younger men with early stage prostate cancer.
Stay well, everybody.
00
Sorry I’m a bit of a newbie at using this blog. My reply is below.
00
You’ve made an excellent article of this, Jo. Don’t let the point go! This is a fine wedge against the climate change fraud.
00
Hi Crowbar,
If you enjoy eating the type of food prescribed by Dr Eades and you can maintain a healthy weight by doing so, it’s probably not detrimental to follow such a diet as obesity is the second biggest health risk factor after smoking. Although you’d want to be regularly monitoring your kidney function and bone density.
I personally maintain a healthy weight, low blood pressure, low cholesterol and low blood sugar level following a high carb (but low GI), low fat, moderate protein diet.
Dr Eades explanation for high carbs leading to high insulin leading to high cholesterol is nonsensical and not supported by evidence. It is not possible to assign a unique value to insulin levels based on “carbohydrate” because it is entirely dependent on the glycaemic index of the carbohydrate. A low GI carbohydrate will cause a smaller increase in insulin than a high GI one. Now it is true that pure fat has no effect on insulin but this is only because fat isn’t converted to glucose – that doesn’t mean fat is good – the body is meant to produce insulin. And his suggestion that high carb/low protein produces a greater increase in insulin than straight carbs is simply absurd. There is also zero evidence of a link between high carbohydrates and high cholesterol. It is pure speculation.
With regards to large corporations and story-telling, I can’t answer for overseas but in Australia the pharmaceutical industry is heavily regulated and it is not possible to make misleading claims without being fined and forced to print retractions. Marketing material is formally audited on an ongoing basis plus companies monitor each other and lodge complaints whenever they think the code may have been breached. This regulation does not extend, however, to nutritional products and supplements.
30
Your comments concerning the GI are interesting. First, I had no idea that there are two scales on the ADA listing (which I looked up), one with glucose at 100, one with bread at 100. I guess that might explain the difference in charts found all over the internet and in books. 🙂 Also, I have always found it somewhat frustrating that high GI foods will not stop a serious hypoglycemic episode for me (I’m diabetic–as most who have been here long know). Foods with indexes around 70 often work far better to raise the blood sugar than those nearer 100. People just don’t fit into nice, neat packages, which makes all of this very complicated. I guess we all go with what works for us individually while watching for new studies and so forth that will help us make good decisions.
In the US, there are guidelines for what claims can be made by corporations. Unfortunately, there at times seems to be more questionable claims than people to keep watch. Eventually things catch up and false claims are retracted. The drug industry is very heavily regulated. In fact, I have read that companies have to rename their products (for example, Excedrin Migraine versus Excedrin) if they want to sell it for a purpose it was not originally approved for. Seems like fairly close oversight.
20
The green prince? Or just pushing the agenda for wasting even more money….
The Prince of Wales used his keynote speech at the 9th World Islamic Economic Forum in London this evening to warn of the political and economic dangers of climate change, and used Syria as a “terrifyingly graphic” example of the adverse effects of climate change on vulnerable populations.
The world food problem could be solved if we got rid of tofs like Charly, and put the money wasted on these royal drips like him into transporting food to the poorer countries. Instead we waste money on war, and blame it on global warming!
20
I have familial hypercholesterolaemia with past readings on the UK scale of around 9.3.
With diet I got it down to about 7.5 then with statins down to between 4 and 5.
CT scans show zero arterial calcification so far (age 64) so either I was immune to the effects of high cholesterol in the first place or statins have helped defer a potential problem.
Have been on statins for 15 years or more with no discernible adverse effects. If anything they appear to help blood flow and keep me more alert.
Meanwhile my wife has late onset Type 1 diabetes and injects insulin regularly. We have come to know a lot about the GI of foods and the highly variable response of the same body to food intake over time.
There is no doubt that high GI gives a much faster and larger insulin response but that does vary from person to person.
The question in my mind is whether my own high cholesterol was due at least part to a high GI food intake but in the present confusion I have no means of being sure either way.
Given that my wife prepares low GI food for both of us I think it unlikely.
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Hi Stephen
My knowledge in the area of cholesterol is very basic but found a book called “The Queen of Fats” very interesting and well written.
It was about the experience of Eskimo populations to more “civilized” areas of Northern Europe and the apparent influence of the resulting diet changes on cholesterol.
It was a long time ago but the thing that sticks is that the ratio of the constituents of Total cholesterol is important.
To some extent the higher the ratio of HDL to LDL, the better.
The HDL can be thought of in some sense as a solvent which can help keep the LDL (bad ingredient) keep on moving rather than clogging up the arteries.
This is simplistic and from memory and may be open to revision from someone a bit smarter on this topic, but to some extent total cholesterol is not the only issue.
KK
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The Eskimos of course “moved” from a life on the tundra, sea and ice to town dwelling.
Different diet, different activity levels.
Different health outcomes.
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You are correct, KK. Myself and a friend of mine often have total cholesterol levels over the “recommended” because our HDL levels are very high.
There’s also one more component–Very-low-density lipoprotein (VLDL) cholesterol. It is only reported on the more sophisticated tests. According to the Mayo Clinic, “There’s no simple, direct way to measure VLDL cholesterol, which is why it’s normally not mentioned during a routine cholesterol screening. VLDL cholesterol is usually estimated as a percentage of your triglyceride value. A normal VLDL cholesterol level is between 5 and 30 milligrams per deciliter.”
Some of my blood work has had all three values.
Nothing is ever simple!
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When the GI thing was all the rage, I was very happy to discover that croissants were medium GI!
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I don’t use the term Big Pharma to imply conspiracy, but merely to describe a very large industrial sector meeting consumer needs. However like Education, educators always crying out for more resourcing (ie taxpayer subsidy) tend to couch their demands as only interested in the kiddies’ future. Big Pharma can also believe their own rhetoric and become defensive when there are obvious shortcomings. While thalidomide became obvious rather quickly, some drugs may take a generation to work out costs and benefits much like a particula Education methodology.
That’s what we have here with cholestorol. An initial belief that one size fits all magical silver bullet in a pill will solve much ticker disease, except that as cardios began to increasingly operate on hearts and arteries as a matter of routine, some serious questions arose and prompted a look back at the science and better statistical collection.
That aint conspiracy that’s just evolution of practice and scientific enquiry but for the conventional wisdom, vested reputations and commercial interests, there’s an obvious resort to authority, the science is settled, remember the precautionary primciple, take your statins and let’s have no more of this nonsense Aunty-
http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2013/s3878646.htm
That’s just human nature but if we really want to test human nature I’d suggest taking statins off the PBS pronto and let everyone make up their own mind unfettered by taxpayer incentive. My take is the patient knows best in the long run.
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I didn’t watch this Catalyst,as I don’t trust the ABC with anything other than imported canned entertainment Like New Tricks, Scott and Bailey. Kingdom , MIss Fisher…
As lowering one’s fat intake and that of whole eggs and cheeses and creams etc. is an overall sensible diet strategy–for now I’ll continue with my one tablet of rosuvastatin nightly,as I was one of those people whose “bad” cholesterol couldn’t be contained long term by diet alone..
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