Why Do People Challange Salient Scientific Concepts

Has Social Media Destroyed Scientific Communication?

It is my belief that scientific education takes a back seat in this world of social media. I am getting a little bored of being told I am wrong based on other peoples’ opinions, mostly which are based of anecdotal evidence and not actual scientific foundations. I've made my feelings (as has an entire scientific community) on the subject of anecdotal evidence extremely clear; it has absolutely no place in science.

People, like I study for degrees. We work hard to learn the foundations of science and explore subjects around that, we are taught the skills to analyse and critique any science put before us, which is a fundamental of science. That is everything we need. Now, this isn't easy, a scientific education does not teach you everything. Nobody leaves university ready to take on every bit of the scientific world, it's very tough. Then there are people who didn't study any aspect of science since high school (in which you learn some ridiculously basic concepts that will help you out in many of these arguments), whom of which haven’t learned any kind of critical analysis, how to read scientific studies, statistics, where to find them, verify them and the ability to just know if a scientific concept is just built upon something that isn't true. That is fine, not everyone wants to enter that world, I have no problem with that. However, my problem begins and ends when you try to weigh in on massively sound scientific concepts that are agreed upon the scientific community. For example, I am fed up of being called a 'shill' or the end all of an argument being 'big pharma'. Big pharma is not out to get you. Pharmacology has a lot of sub-branches within it, all of which are explored when a drug is developed. It is well established that all drugs can have an adverse effect within some individuals. We call these 'side effects'. For example, if one drug didn't work for you because of the side effects, then don't go telling people they didn't work at all. They're useless. They're not, they're useless for you. Whilst we are at it; chemtrails aren’t real, GMO’s are safe, homeopathy doesn't work and the earth isn’t flat (that last one is a genuine thing, this is how far science denialism has come).

 Scientists work hard to develop careers, just like everyone else, and they get the hardest pushback for it. People dedicate their lives to things like drug research to be told by someone without any concept of science that they are just paid by big pharma. At this point I feel I should ask who else is going to pay them? Institutions like universities don't have the money to fund a drug trial, it is beyond millions of pounds to do. Scientists come up with the concepts and drug companies fund them, sometimes they fail, sometimes they pass. It is most definitely not without faults and it has certain caveats. But the idea of every scientist being involved in some form of cover up for something like big pharma is idiotic. Scientists have integrity, and yeah, some don't, and they are a disgrace. That doesn't change the view of the profession, some people are just wrong. To paint that they're all in companies’ pockets is disheartening, discouraging to younger scientists and just plain disgusting.

I sincerely enjoy being challenged on an intellectual level and I am always up for discussing scientific articles that I have read, but don't bring your opinions to a scientific discussion. I will, and rightly so, dismiss you. This appears on every blog I post, I get pushback from people who have differing opinions of what the science actually states, telling me I'm in the pockets of people because they don't believe in the theory of gravity. I can assure you, no one is paying me to plug gravity to people.I do this all off of my own back, I use my education and training to carefully research everything I post, write and subsequently have to defend to people who couldn't tell me the difference between cohort and review study. Empirical evidence is actual evidence that we can work with, anecdotes are and mean nothing to the scientific community. I don't care what you saw, heard or felt, as blunt as this article is, I (like many others) simply do not care. If you want to argue science, use science to do it, that is how we move forward. 

   

I've been told that what I am doing is holding the world back of scientific discovery in the world of holistic treatments and that helping big pharma by commenting of accuracy of statistics in studies, which only correlate with their view, is 'sickening'. I shouldn't question paucity of studies and I shouldn't decrypt scientific nonsense. I know I am not alone in this and people get this crap far worse than me every single day. If we don't question data and studies that's how cretins like Andrew Wakefield created a world where anti-vaxxers are basically allowed to murder their children based on pseudoscientific claims. Which is apparently okay to do as we have just all lost our freaking minds.

We have too many people, without knowledge of what goes on in studies, clinical trials, cohorts or any of it, weighing in and having opinions on scientific principles they know absolutely nothing about. You may see this article as me saying 'scientists are smarter than you' – if that's how you read it, then that is your decision. I will state that it is most definitely not, I am saying I am a scientist and I am saying that you are destroying intellect and holding us back when you say idiotic, baseless claims that destroy scientists reputations and livelihoods all because you have a jumped up, preconceived notion that doesn't fit the scientific consensus. You don’t need a formal education to critically analyse, I am stating that the path I have chosen for my degree has taught me that, as with many scientific disciplines. There are some phenomenal books, websites, videos and podcasts aimed at people who would like to be more critically minded and be able to disseminate studies, I encourage you to do so, especially you people who will no doubt e-mail me hurling abuse, again.

 

So to sum up: stop questioning the fundamentals of science; stop calling people shills; the government isn’t poisoning you; big pharma isn’t poisoning you and let scientists do their damn job. I do what I do because I would love for the world to be a much more rational, critical thinking place and if I have made just one person think more, question more and research more then I have achieved that.

Plastic Bottles Will Not Give You Cancer

Plastics and Cancer - Myth

Surely, if you have not received information saying that you shouldn’t use plastic bottles, microwave plastics (that are suitable) and/or been told not to drink out of a slightly warmed up plastic bottle; you have been living on an isolated island and I am exceptionally jealous. This story appeared a good few years ago warning you not to drink from bottles that have been left in your car as they warm up and chemikillz leach out into the water and cause cancer. This appeared to die down, however, it was pretty much still being propagated. 

Freezing and/or reusing of plastic bottles

According to an article written last year by Richa Ahuja for lifeunfold plastic can cause cancer. That is the genuine title of the article. Pretty much blunt and to the point. In the article she states that she clearly has no formal chemistry education:

"All plastic products are leaching chemicals into their food, especially if they’re using grade 3 or grade 7 plastics, or any hard plastic. These plastics contain dangerous chemicals which are very risky for pregnant women, infants and children…When hot food is packed in plastic, there is exchange of chemicals between plastic and food, which is maximized by high temperature, and the nature of the food. The more you heat and cool, more chemicals start to break down and leach into food. As a result, serious health issues can arise."

She isn’t alone in this ‘thinking’. There are tonnes of articles, blog posts and videos out there about how people don’t understand science plastics. Many claim that heating or cooling of plastic causes a release of ‘dioxin’. Dioxins are toxic organic pollutants known as POPs (Persistent Organic Pollutants), are they dangerous? Very much so! Are they in plastics? No, they’re not. This appears to be nothing more than an urban legend. I remember a few years ago reading one of those stupid facebook ‘info graphs’ about this (shown below) and having a quick look and couldn’t find a source to say that any of this is true. The same stands now, like five years later. 

Dioxins don’t really appear to be used at all in the manufacturing process of anything. The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) say that it is a common by-product of pesticide manufacturing and waste destruction. Only one form of dioxin is known to cause cancer in humans and is called TCDD. 

Un-shockingly, Natural News: Your one stop for pure pseudoscientific bullshit and a cheap laugh, jumped on the story with their fearmongering tactics and recommendation of coffee enemas to remove dioxins. For those of you that believe that will work, a bullet lodged into the temporal lobe at high speed will also have the same effect. 

Origin

Where does this all come from, nobody seems to know. It appears to have just started as an urban legend. I have read stories of chain e-mails apparently being the first place to start circulating. Some of the e-mails apparently state that a study out of John Hopkins University shows that these chemicals cause cancer from leaching out of plastics; but John Hopkins university press release denies that they have conducted such a study. You genuinely cannot get any clearer than stating:

The Internet is flooded with messages warning against freezing water in plastic bottles or cooking with plastics in the microwave oven. These messages, frequently titled “Johns Hopkins Cancer News” or “Johns Hopkins Cancer Update,” are falsely attributed to Johns Hopkins and we do not endorse their content.

Freezing water does not cause the release of chemicals from plastic bottles.

In general, it is best to follow the manufacturer’s recommendations when using any plastic products. When cooking with plastics, only use those plastic containers, wraps, bags and utensils for their intended purposes."

So, it wasn’t them, who was it? No one. That’s who. This is genuinely a myth that has got ridiculously out of hand and propagated to a point beyond belief. Bisphenol A is a chemical known as BPA which is used in to make rigid plastics, for example plastic bottles such as those intended for reuse (e.g.; sports bottles, baby bottles etc.) is probably a reason for this propagation. Tests showed concerning results with cancer and reproduction in animals, making BPA a possible carcinogen. This was removed from baby bottles in 2012, a move branded as ‘Purely Cosmetic’. Over here in the UK we have a legislation from the Food Standards Agency (FSA) that regulates the materials that are used in the processes and packaging of foods. Andrew Wadge is a chief scientist for the FSA and revised the studies on BPA stating that a study in 2011:

“…Corroborates other independent studies and adds to the evidence that BPA is rapidly absorbed, detoxified, and eliminated from humans – therefore is not a health concern."

Daily F**king Mail

Last year the Daily Mail had its own fear campaign set up with an article urging people not to reuse plastic bottles. In the article, Anethea Gerrie asks for you to not use lunchboxes, don’t use plastic in the dishwasher, don’t use cling film and use natural packaging. She doesn’t suggest what natural packaging to use but keep just randomly labelling chemicals. She calls for you to use cans for fizzy drinks as formaldehyde is added to bottles and is it ‘potentially a carcinogen’ – oh contraire my uneducated friend, it is a carcinogen. Before you lose your mind and go ‘THEN WHY IS IT ALLOWED’; Dose makes the poison, and it is really unclear whether they are in there or not, all I can find is articles saying that it is there, not actual evidence. ‘New evidence’, ‘Evidence suggests’ and ‘a published study’ is written over and over– which ones? Just saying these things is not enough to be classed as evidence. Does the Daily Mail not a have a proof reader? Anyway, at the end of that post is a post on how Yoga cured insomnia and plugs a particular spar and loads of plastic free bottles. Funny that, didn’t see any sales reps on the published journals I read, must be in the wrong area.

Conclusion

The baseline here is; there is literally no evidence for plastics causing cancer. This is simply not true. Not even slightly. Scientific information does not come from e-mails that were spread around in 2005, it comes from peer reviewed studies – none of which state that leaving a bottle in the car and then drinking out of it will cause breast cancer. This myth has been debunked time and time again, the next time you hear someone say it – just pour carcinogenic water over them, safe in the knowledge they think they will get cancer and you have done nothing wrong because that is ridiculous. 

So, once again, I will leave you with the words I put in almost of my posts; because it is written down, doesn’t make it true. 

Research and critique

Paracetamol and Pregnancy

Is Paracetamol the Cause for ADHD and Autism?

If you have picked up a newspaper or watched the daytime news, at some point, you will have seen this article on how the risk of hyperactivity disorders and autism is increased when paracetamol (acetominophen) is consumed post-birth. The media jump on the fearmongering wholeheartedly, but, thankfully, much of this is met with a slight amount of scepticism.

“Mothers-to-be who take paracetamol are more likely to have children with behavioural problems, new research suggests. Scientists have found an association between mothers who took the drug in the first and third trimester of pregnancy and hyperactivity and emotional problems in their seven-year-old children. Paracetamol is the world’s most popular painkiller and is the only one deemed safe to take during pregnancy. But there is a growing body of research suggesting it could affect the development of children in the womb, with studies linking it with conditions as diverse as asthma, infertility and autism.”

This section was taken directly from the Daily Mail and contains quite the loaded gun, paracetamol causes hyperactivity, emotional problems, infertility and autism – at least it’s not vaccines this time, eh?

Study time

So, why did this bull come about? Researchers at the University of Bristol published a study showing collaborated the records of 7796 between 1991 and 1992 along with their children and partners. They asked the mothers if and how much paracetamol they had consumed at 18 and 32 weeks of pregnancy. They’re conclusions go:

"In this study, we have demonstrated that children exposed prenatally to acetaminophen in the second and third trimesters are at increased risk of multiple behavioural difficulties, including hyperactivity and conduct problems."

So, they asked them on a questionnaire, which we all know isn’t renowned for its accuracy. We are already starting with somewhat skewed results. We have 7796 records, but how many children? Well, we had a grand total of 14062 children.  That’s quite a good number for a study. Paracetamol use was reported by 6916 mothers, 5% of the children in this went on to have behavioural problems. I can’t see an actual figure of how many children went on to have ‘behavioural problems’, and I don’t have enough information to work that out. But, let’s say that each of the people who didn’t take paracetamol had one child. This would leave us with a study group of 13182 – leaving us with 659 children with behavioural problems. Which, in the grand scheme of the study, is not very much. They then talk about a relative risk (I’ll discuss later on what this is) of a rate of 5.6% chance of behavioural problems in mothers consuming paracetamol and 4.8% in those who didn’t. So we are comparing two groups, 880 mothers against 6916 and we have a result to conclude that, relatively, paracetamol causes ADHD…I think not. 

Autism

A study released earlier in the year entitled: Acetaminophen use in pregnancy and neurodevelopment: attention function and autism spectrum symptoms published in the International Journal of epidemiology followed a similar sort of layout for the above study. They found that of the 2544 subjects, only 43% of those children who had exposure to paracetamol whilst in the womb, giving a total figure of 1093 subjects. They conclude that there is a causational link between paracetamol and autism, just from those 1093 subjects.

 

Again we have another study in the JAMA Paediatrics linking paracetamol use and ADHD or hyperkinetic disorders in children. They asked 64322 pregnant women which painkillers they had used and a result of 56% (n=36020) admitting to consuming paracetamol. They conclude that 29% of children were more likely to be taking ADHD medications and 7% were more likely to show ‘observed ADHD symptoms’. This study also, like the others only talks about relative risk. Now, this is quite tricky to explain and there is an excellent video here. Basically; absolute risk is the risk of a disease developing and relative is the comparison from two groups of people (this is broken down a lot). In the results they sat that ADHD behaviour was observed (however broad that may be) at the age of seven in 2.5% of the mothers who didn’t consume paracetamol and 3.4% for those that did consume paracetamol. Is that a huge difference? The answer is no, which is not a statistically significant difference to make a conclusion on. We, as I mentioned, are talking about ‘observed behaviours’ of ADHD, how about an actual diagnosis to base some actual statistics off of?

Asthma

This appears to be one that is ‘proven’ to be settled, that consuming paracetamol whilst pregnant increases the risk of asthma in the child. However, this is far from settled. I am lucky enough to have located a meta-analysis on this particular subject. In the review of the literature they state that the weight of the studies collected strongly suggests various forms of bias, including cofounding by indication. This is a whole issue in these kinds of studies. This means that a variable is a risk factor and they are looking for something to pin that on whilst they haven’t looked at any intermediate steps or causal pathway to say that this proves this. To make that clear, they are saying paracetamol (the variable) is causing autism (the associated exposure). They could just as easily say ‘it’s the water they have drunk whilst pregnant’ – why and how?

 

Conclusion

Let’s think about this for a few moments. Many associational studies, the evidence is riddled with methodological bias – they’re basing their answers on a questionnaire, this carries a massive risk, even the systematic review on asthma says so. The studies show positive trends between paracetamol and development problems in children – but did these people not do anything else? What about sugar, other medications, drugs, alcohol, socio-economic status and the crux of it, genetic factors? There are so many variables here that you cannot make such baseless claims on the back of questionnaires. There could be a link, then again, maybe not. Lets not forget, these are few and far between studies, the only one that has had a systematic review carried out on it is the one an asthma, and the jury is still out on that one. The general consensus here is to not be scared to take paracetamol as needed when pregnant.