It’s kind of become a tradition (can I claim tradition after just three years?) that I do my Top 10 science stories of the year in this column in the Christmas and New Year’s editions. For 2015, though, I thought I might give it a bit of a twist, so, here are, in no particular order, the first five of my Top 10 pseudoscience newsmakers of 2015.
Donald Trump and Ben Carson
Just when it looked like Jenny McCarthy and her cadre of anti-vaccination kooks were losing steam, along came the Republican presidential nomination campaign.
At one of the debates, front-runner Donald Trump reiterated his long-standing ignorance about a link between vaccines and autism. He even claimed to know a two-year-old who recently contracted autism from a vaccination.
Co-candidate Ben Carson (a medical doctor, no less) appeared, at first, to try to set the record straight downplaying the erroneous vaccine-autism link.
He then went on to spout just as much nonsense about vaccines seemingly taking a page directly out of the McCarthy playbook advocating that as a society we give too many vaccines to children too soon.
Dr. Emmet Oz
Speaking of physicians who ought to be stripped of their medical licences, Dr. Oz has been abusing his for years promoting everything from homeopathy to faith healing on his TV show.
In 2014, “America’s Quack” promised to change his ways, but didn’t, after being dressed down by Senator Claire McCaskill in public hearings for his unscrupulous promotion of dubious weight loss supplements.
This year, a group of fellow physicians, petitioned Columbia University’s Dean of the Faculties of Health Sciences to have Oz removed as a member in good standing of Colubmia’s faculty.
That got the bad doctor’s attention apparently, when he promised again in September to cease and desist and actually issued a release saying his show would now use medical and other experts whose advice is based in research. It may also have something to do with the fact his audience has declined by half (maybe there is hope for America, and Canada, yet).
Time will tell. Unfortunately, the fact he is saying the show “will focus on the mind-body connection” does not bode well. That is not to say there is no connection between the mind and body and health, but that kind of new age language is a red flag.
Gwyneth Paltrow
We are all familiar with the ridiculous pseudoscientific health advice of celebrities and their positive impact on the bank accounts of snake oil salesmen.
In February, Gwyneth Paltrow, by virtue of her expert position as an Academy Award-winning actor, took the ludicrousness to new extremes with vagina steaming.
In her own words: “You sit on what is essentially a mini-throne, and a combination of infrared and mugwort steam cleanses your uterus, et al. It is an energetic release, not just a steam douche, that balances female hormone levels.”
Okay, in the first place... um, nevermind. With the permission of the publisher, I am simply going to call this what it is, bullshit.
Real experts also say it could be really dangerous.
Vani Hari (aka “The Food Babe”)
Speaking of celebrity nonsense, over the past few years, “The Food Babe” has gained a great deal of fame or notoreity depending on your point of view for her attack of the food industry.
She is very influential, but, unfortunately, her scientific knowledge can’t be measured because there is no test for negative knowledge.
Hari’s foundation for finding food offensive is basically an inability to pronounce ingredients, her logic being if it sounds icky it must be bad for you. Her logic is so juvenile, she actually is on record as saying “there is just no acceptable level of any chemical to ingest, ever.”
Apparently she never got the memo that everything we ingest is chemical.
This year, in addition to having an award-winning blog, she became a best-selling author. Ugh. Is there no end to consumer gullibility?
Rona Ambrose
Rona Ambrose proved time and again just how void of talent and ideologically-driven Stephen Harper’s front bench was in the end.
She was patently unqualified to be the minister of health.
She routinely and absurdly opposed good ideas such as changes to medical marijuana regulations that would have allowed legitimate users to eat rather than smoke the drug.
She also allowed good legislation, such as Vanessa’s Law--which introduced improvements to patient safety in prescription drugs--to be watered down and not cover “Natural Health Products” (i.e., snake oil).
I probably would have overlooked Ambrose for this Top 10 if she had not assumed the position of interim leader of the Official Opposition after the October 19 federal election. The good news for the Liberals is that if she is as ineffective in that role as she was as health minister, they will basically face no opposition at all.
