Denialism Blog

Denialism Blog

  • What's health care like in Australia?

    i-bc336997bdf722901ec33d273409d3b9-Flag_of_Australia.jpg

    To start off some balanced discussions of what universal health care looks like around the world, I thought I would begin with Australia, a system that we could learn a great deal from.

    In the US system, we do not have universal healthcare, we have mostly employer-subsidized healthcare, private insurance and medicare covering people’s health expense. We also lack a universal electronic medical record, our main recourse for responding to poor care is lawsuits, and we have a high disparity in services available to those with money and those who do not. We still manage to spend more on health care per capita than any country in the world, while being ranked 37th in the world by the WHO, 72nd in the world for healthiness of its citizens, and 19th among industrialized countries (last) by the Commonwealth fund. We have a very poor infant mortality rate, which is only partially explained by our willingness to treat more premature infants than other countries, and is mostly a result of poor health care infrastructure in several of the poorer, Southern states.

    Australia’s system is not too fundamentally different from the mixture of employer and public based funding found here in the US. An outline of the health system is available from the Australian government and the Wikipedia entry is here. It’s spends about 8.8% of GDP on health care, compared to the US at 15.3% based on 2007 OECD data (or 9% and 16% respectively according to the Commonwealth fund data). Of that, about two-thirds is public, one third private expenditure. Let’s take a closer look…

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  • NHS has broken the cycle!

    A few days ago I asked how do we break this cycle of news reports based on terrible misreading of the scientific literature literature. All these reports do is spread misinformation and undermine trust in scientific research.

    Well, the British National Health System has the answer! Via Ben Goldacre, I’ve found my new, favorite website, Behind the Headlines at NHS. It’s the Snopes.com equivalent for shoddy science journalism. Every day they examine what health news is making the headlines, share it with scientific and clinical experts, and they report on the science in a way that’s actually accurate.

    So, ignoring the question of why don’t journalists do their job correctly in the first place so we don’t need this service, I’m thrilled to hear of its existence. It seems inefficient though. First university PR departments and journalists have to mangle the science, then we need to have scientists put it back together again. We should just have scientists report on the literature, like at scienceblogs! Instead we have a bunch of incompetent boobs spoon-feeding the public total garbage without anyone writing in to complain when they turn in stories that are essentially complete fiction.

    For instance read about Man Flu story at Behind the Headlines, then look at the Daily Mail article or BBC reporting that started this mess.

    The authors of this dreck should be fired for journalistic incompetence, and the scientist she quoted (if indeed she was quoted correctly) should consider never talking to a journalist again as they make it appear that she doesn’t even understand her own research. The scientists too in this instance appear culpable as it seems they were happy to help spread completely simplistic, and I think frankly false interpretations of their data.

    Luckily, the NHS is providing a public service to the citizens of the UK, and indeed the world, by replacing such nonsense reporting with thoughtful, considered articles that actually explain the science and inform the public.

  • Are Patients in Universal Healthcare Countries Less Satisfied?

    ResearchBlogging.orgA dishonest campaign has started against healthcare reform in this country and the first shot has come from Conservatives for Patients Rights (CPR), a group purporting to show that patients in universal health systems suffer from government interference in health care. To bolster their argument, they have a pile of anecdotes from people around the world who have suffered at the hands of evil government-run systems. The problem, of course, is that anecdotes are not data, it is impossible to determine the veracity or reasonableness of these claims, and there is no way, ethically or practically, to respond to claims against doctors in these systems.

    And should we be surprised? Every other country in the industrialized world has universal healthcare. Some are government run, single payer systems, others are mixtures of private and public funding to guarantee universal coverage. I would be shocked if you couldn’t find a few people to provide testimonials about how they’re angry at their coverage. After all, Michael Moore made an entire movie about such testimonials against our system.

    So what do we do? How do we find out the truth when the ideologues and financially interested parties have started a campaign to muddy the water with anecdotal attacks?

    We look at the data of course. And surprise, surprise it doesn’t support CPR’s assertions that our system couldn’t stand some improvement.

    During the next couple of weeks, I think we should talk about what healthcare looks like here in the US and around the world. Rather than a few horror stories, let’s take an in-depth look at what’s happening in universal systems, and whether or not we should consider a change.

    Let’s start with an examination of some data from the literature on different experiences people have with these healthcare systems.
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  • The 111th Skeptics' circle, featuring that creepy Sham-Wow guy

    I have no idea what possessed Action Skeptics to use the Sham Wow guy to present this week’s entries, but it’s amusing. Check it!

    In particular I like ICBS everywhere on this thermography nonsense, and Living better skeptically on yet another cancer quack. It’s very upsetting when quack modalities defraud people of hard-earned money. It’s even more upsetting when people encourage quackery to replace an legitimate and important screening procedure such as mammography or effective treatments for cancer. These people are the most dangerous kind of quack, if they continue unchallenged they will be responsible for the death of their victims.

    I was also interested to see Tech Skeptics’ discussion of lazy journalism exposed. Apparently, journalism these days begins and ends at Wikipedia.

    So stop by and say high to ShamWow Vince over at Action Skeptics.

  • How do we break this cycle?

    I’m open to suggestions. Do we just need to kick our PR departments in the pants? To be fair, often the internets skips that step.

    H/T TR

  • Taxing Cigarette Butts and the Buttheads Who Flick Them

    San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom has proposed a $0.33 tax on cigarettes to address the problem of cleaning up butts! This follows an audit (PDF) of litter in the city that found cigarette butts to be a major problem (along with chewing gum, and unbranded napkins).

    The cigarette companies are against it:

    “Obviously we think people should follow the littering laws, in California and elsewhere,” said Frank Lester, a spokesman for Reynolds American Inc., the nation’s second-largest manufacturer of cigarettes. “But we oppose any additional taxation on smokers to pay for that.”

    But, isn’t this a rational response to the problem? The city performed an audit of a costly problem and found that smoking was a major contributor to the problem. A tax on smokers (so long as proportionate) seems like a good way to address the problem. The alternative proposed by Frank Lester would be to use our police resources on enforcement of a minor criminal law, and thus subject his own customers to citation and possible arrest!

    Anyway, our culture has become much more sensitive to littering. None of us would throw a Coke can out the car window. But so many of us would flick a cigarette butt, even when there is a receptacle for butts nearby. Why?

  • Denialism in the Literature

    ResearchBlogging.orgIt’s good news though! A description of the tactics and appropriate response to denialism was published in the European Journal of Public Health by authors Pascal Diethelm and Martin McKee. It’s entitled “Denialism: what is it and how should scientists respond?” and I think it does an excellent job explaining the harms of deniailsm, critical elements of denialism, as well as providing interesting historical examples of corporate denialism on the part of tobacco companies.

    HIV does not cause AIDS. The world was created in 4004 BCE. Smoking does not cause cancer. And if climate change is happening, it is nothing to do with man-made CO2 emissions. Few, if any, of the readers of this journal will believe any of these statements. Yet each can be found easily in the mass media.

    The consequences of policies based on views such as these can be fatal. Thabo Mbeki’s denial that that HIV caused AIDS prevented thousands of HIV positive mothers in South Africa receiving anti-retrovirals so that they, unnecessarily, transmitted the disease to their children.1 His health minister, Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, famously rejected evidence of the efficacy of these drugs, instead advocating treatment with garlic, beetroot and African potato. It was ironic that their departure from office coincided with the award of the Nobel Prize to Luc Montagnier and Françoise Barré-Sinoussi for their discovery that HIV is indeed the case of AIDS. The rejection of scientific evidence is also apparent in the popularity of creationism, with an estimated 45% of Americans in 2004 believing that God created man in his present form within the past 10 000 years.2 While successive judgements of the US Supreme Court have rejected the teaching of creationism as science, many American schools are cautious about discussing evolution. In the United Kingdom, some faith-based schools teach evolution and creationism as equally valid ‘faith positions’. It remains unclear how they explain the emergence of antibiotic resistance.

    In particular I found their inclusion of a tactic of inversionism interesting:
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  • The Good and Fragile Egos

    Following up on my earlier post about Beyond Google and Evil, I just came across this article from the Wall Street Journal on one of Google’s detractors, Consumer Watchdog. Believe it or not, Google went after their funding!

    …In January, Consumer Watchdog circulated a press release alleging a “rumored” lobbying effort by Google to enable it to sell personal medical data stored on its Google Health service. Simpson said the organization merely wanted to examine whether Google was trying to avoid new regulation under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, or HIPAA, which guards the confidentiality of patient data.

    But Google was incensed. “That’s when Bob Boorstin went ballistic,” Simpson said, referring to Google’s director of corporate and policy communications in Washington.

    Simpson defended the use of hearsay to make public allegations, arguing that it was appropriate for an advocate. “I don’t see any obligation in particular to call up the other guy and get his side of the story,” he said, adding, “We don’t lie, but we put out the facts we think are interesting.”

    Google, however, was prompted to take the unusual step of asking the Rose Foundation to reassess its funding for Consumer Watchdog.

    “In 17 years as a grant maker, that’s never happened to me before,” the Rose Foundation’s Little said. “Nothing Google has done has discouraged us from follow-up funding” for Consumer Watchdog, Little said, though no decisions have yet been made. He added, “Google would be much better off engaging with them.”

    If you are proposing products that would put individuals’ health records online, you have to be ready for some criticism. But Google responded by trying to shut down Watchdog, and by trying to link Watchdog to Microsoft! (Microsoft is not linked to Watchdog.) Way to go, Google. That’s a standard PR tactic. I wonder whether it is good or evil.

    In a sense, Watchdog did have the right intuition about Google. Google health is all about capturing the DTC drug advertising market away from the TV networks. Just imagine the types of targeting that will be possible when you’ve decided to upload your health information to Google!

  • Beyond Google and Evil

    I apologize for the infrequent blogging. A tough semester. I did have time, however, to publish an essay about Google’s rhetoric that might be of interest to Denialism readers.

    No, I’m not calling Google denialist, but am trying to explain what Google means when the company talks about privacy (most companies interpret information privacy to mean security). And it’s not all bad for Google–the company’s rhetoric has created confusion, and clarifying it would help Google communicate why search advertising might be better for the consumer than other forms of targeting.

  • Nature Reviews "Denying AIDS: Conspiracy Theories, Pseudoscience, and Human Tragedy"

    Seth Kalichman has written a book on HIV AIDS denial and Nature has a book review that’s got me excited to get my copy. From the review:

    Inadequate health policies in South Africa have reportedly led to some 330,000 unnecessary AIDS deaths and a spike in infant mortality, according to estimates by South African and US researchers. This carnage exceeds the death toll in Darfur, yet it has received far less attention. Seth Kalichman, a US clinical psychologist, shows in Denying AIDS how words can kill. His marvellous book should be read alongside Nicoli Nattrass’s Mortal Combat, covering similar ground but from the perspective of a South African.

    The tragic events in South Africa have been exacerbated by AIDS ‘denialists’ who, Kalichman alleges, assert that HIV is harmless and that antiretroviral drugs are toxic. The author discusses the psychology of denialism, which he says is “the outright rejection of science and medicine”.
    …
    These attitudes are not unique to HIV. Denialism, notes Kalichman, is “partly an outgrowth of a more general anti-science and anti-medicine movement”. Groups that support intelligent design, doubt global warming, claim that vaccines cause autism, argue that cigarettes are safe, believe that the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001 were an intelligence-agency plot or deny the Holocaust all use similar tactics.
    …
    As Kalichman says, denialism “will not break until the public is educated to differentiate science from pseudoscience, facts from fraud”.

    Excellent! These are the points we’ve been trying to get across for years and I’m excited to see others catching on and emphasizing this point. It’s not about differing opinions it’s about different tactics. The tactics of the pseudoscientists are easy to spot, and don’t require expert knowledge of science. If people know about them, and recognize them, then fighting against insidious ideas like HIV/AIDS denial or evolution denial gets that much easier.

    Get yourself a copy!