“The gap between comfort and chaos in modern civilization is alarmingly narrow and defined by a four-letter word: fuel,” writes Jane Orient, M.D., President of Doctors for Disaster Preparedness, quoting The Sunday Times from the UK. http://www.ddponline.org/2012/01/01/gaps-gigatonnes-and-megawatts/#more-90

Thousands of British and Scottish families live in “fuel poverty,” and many American families suffer from the severe economic recession and rising prices.

Abundant oil and natural gas, a hopeful development for ordinary people of the world, is an existential threat to special interests: those who want to keep the world dependent on their oil or gas supplies (such as the Middle East or Russia), and those who want sky-high prices for natural gas so that windmills or solar panels look “affordable” by comparison. http://www.physiciansforcivildefense.org/2012/03/01/salvation-or-existential-threat/

Britain’s “second energy revolution”—its “dash for gas”—is seen as a threat to its “carbon dioxide goals.” Some want the UK to follow the example of France in imposing a moratorium on hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”)—or Pennsylvania to follow the example of New York in blocking this technology pending further “study.”

Horizontal drilling with hydraulic fracturing has been used by petroleum engineers since the 1950s to extract both petroleum and natural gas. After a well is drilled, a wire with explosive charges is dropped into it to create fissures in the rock. Water, chemicals, and sand are pumped in under pressure to open channels and keep them open, so gas can flow out when the fluid is pumped out.

Opponents cite fears of groundwater pollution, which has not been observed, or earthquakes. Slight earth tremors can and do occur; the seismicity of fracking is quite similar to that of coal mining. The really destructive upheaval is the one to the billion-dollar subsidies flowing to economically nonviable wind and solar industries, states Dr. Orient.

Fears of “climate disruption” from burning hydrocarbon fuels are increasingly falling into disrepute, Orient notes. Canada has become the first nation to withdraw from the Kyoto Protocol, stating that to meet the target for reduction in carbon dioxide emissions would require either removing all vehicles from Canadian roads or shutting down its agricultural sector and cutting off winter heat to all buildings. http://www.physiciansforcivildefense.org/2012/01/01/is-kyoto-dead/

Issues concerning energy technology and the effects of atmospheric carbon dioxide will be featured at the 30^th annual meeting of Doctors for Disaster Preparedness, to be held on Long Island July 27-29. www.ddponline.org.

CLICK HERE TO RESERVE YOUR HOTEL ROOM

CLICK HERE TO REGISTER FOR MEETING & TOUR

Tour Info
We will have a group tour of Brookhaven National Labs on Friday, July 27.  Group size is limited to 20 people, and is filling up quickly.  Please call (520) 270-0761 for availability.

The Brookhaven tour will most likely be filled, so we are making an alternate activity available for those who wish to participate.  This will be a trip to the Cradle of Aviation – Long Island’s Air & Space Museum.

Stay tuned for more details!

Speakers include:

Willie Soon: Mercury Air Toxics Standards and the Extreme Punishment Agency (EPA)

Richard Lindzen: Alarming Global Warming: What happens to science in the public square

Gordon Claycomb, who worked at Skunk Works for 20 years: “Inside an ICBM Squadron During the Cuban Missile Crisis”

Paul Driessen: Sustainability Realities—with Update from Rio

Howard Maccabee: Health Effects of Medical Radiation

Steven Hatfill: Myths and Facts Concerning Biological Agents in Warfare

S. Fred Singer: Obama “Skins the Cat” to Achieve Energy Rationing

Arthur Robinson, candidate for US Congress, Oregon District 4: Common Sense 2012

Jerry Cuttler: Appropriate Radiation Level for Evacuations

Rael Jean Isaac: Why “Climate Science” Isn’t About Science

Howard Hayden: Using Data Noise to Combat Political Noise

Matt Briggs: Statistical Follies and Epidemiology

Andrew Schlafly: Using the Freedom of Information Act and Federal Open Data Laws

John Droz: Does Offshore Wind Energy Make Sense?

Bonner Cohen: Energy Independence for the United States

Like clean water and clean air, a low incidence of infectious disease is a very good thing. But removing smaller and smaller traces of pollution, or the last cases of measles, becomes increasingly difficult and costly. Zealotry is a problem in and of itself. And at some point, efforts become counterproductive. “Clean” technology such as wind turbines may lead to more net pollution. What if more vaccines produce more net sickness?

Doctors may be hesitant even to ask this question. And families can be punished for failure to vaccinate. In Australia, for example, children must be fully immunized to receive the Child Care Benefit or the Child Care Rebate. In July, the Family Tax Benefit end-of–year supplement will also be tied to full immunization, which will soon include meningococcal C, pneumococcal, and chickenpox vaccines (ABC News [Australia] 12/5/11). In the U.S., such punitive actions are uncommon although children may be excluded from school or from many physicians’ offices.

The leading edge of compulsion is for annual influenza vaccination of health care workers (see November 2011 issue), even those who do not participate in patient care. The rhetorical temperature is rising; refusal is being portrayed as antisocial behavior.

“Newborn babies, the elderly, and the immunocompromised have a powerful interest in not being killed by those caring for them and in having a healthy workforce available to treat them,” writes bioethicist Arthur Caplan (Lancet 7/23/11, http://tinyurl.com/88jzze5). Moreover, he writes, “by not vaccinating themselves, health-care workers feed vaccine fears, reinforce anti-vaccine sentiment, and set a dismally poor example for the public.”

“Vaccination is a duty that one assumes in becoming a healthcare provider,” he concludes, “despite the loss of personal freedom entailed.” His assumptions are: that workers are “a powerful disease vector in a hospital” and that the efficacy of vaccination is a “proven fact,” as is “overwhelming safety.” Those who disagree are “delusional.”

“Herd immunity” is critical to protect those who cannot be adequately immunized” (Diekema DS, NEJM 2/2/12).

The policy of the American College of Physicians (ACP) states that discussion of immunization of medical personnel must begin with four “undisputed facts,” including that influenza vaccines are safe and effective. This is not undisputed: see November 2006 and September 2009 issues (http://tinyurl.com/6umvmxb and ddponline.org/2009).

Obviously, nosocomial infections occur, and there have been influenza outbreaks in hospitals that could be traced to unvaccinated staff members. Relevant facts cited by ACP: (1) 70% of health workers go to work when ill with influenza; (2) serologic studies suggest that up to 25% of health workers have evidence of influenza infection each season; (3) 50% of these infections are asymptomatic or have only minor symptoms.

Actual evidence for significant patient protection by immunizing medical personnel is scant. SHEA (Society for Healthcare Epidemiology in America) bases its 2010 recommendation for mandatory immunizations (http://tinyurl.com/6npvhwk) on four studies in long-term care facilities. A Cochrane review (http://tinyurl.com/cbsztrt) of “influenza immunization for heatthcare workers who work with the elderly” concluded that “there are no accurate data on rates of laboratory-proven influenza in healthcare workers” and that the studies they identified “are all at high risk of bias.” The effects they showed were for “outcomes with a non-specific relationship to influenza, namely influenza-like illness (which includes many other viruses and bacteria…)” and the overall mortality of the elderly. Winter influenza is responsible for less than 10% of the deaths of individuals over the age of 60, and overall mortality thus reflects many other causes.

Though citing this review, SHEA essentially dismisses it. SHEA acknowledges the criticism that results from long-term care might not apply to the acute-care setting, but states that a similar study there would be costly and challenging.

A review of nearly 6,000 studies of the efficacy of influenza vaccine found only 31 that met its eligibility criteria. It showed that influenza vaccines could provide moderate protection against serologically confirmed influenza, but this protection is greatly reduced or absent in some seasons, and that evidence for protection in adults over the age of 65 was lacking. The pooled effect in adults age 18 to 65 was reportedly 57% effectiveness (Lancet Infect Dis, January 2012, http://tinyurl.com/78mvlan).

While most adverse reactions to influenza vaccine are mild, severe effects can occur. “The worst nightmare for both the pharmaceutical industry and the health authorities,” stated Richard Bergström, Director-General of the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations, EFPIA, “is an illness that turns out to be mild, while the vaccine that was supposed to prevent a severe epidemic causes a severe side effect that was previously unknown.” The 2009 novel H1N1 “swine flu” vaccine Pandemrix was used in mass vaccination programs in Sweden, Finland, Norway, and Iceland, with heavy social pressure: “Be vaccinated to protect your fellow citizens.” The governments of these countries signed a contract protecting Glaxo Smith Kline from any financial claims if the vaccine had side effects.

In September 2010, Finland stopped all vaccinations with Pandemrix when cases of narcolepsy in children began to be reported. In Finland about 100 children were affected, and in Sweden at least 150. The incidence was about 6 per 100,000 persons between the ages of 4 and 19 who were vaccinated, a 12.7-fold increase over background.

The death rate from swine flu was 0.31 per 100,000 in both Germany, with a vaccination rate of 8%, and Sweden, with 60% vaccinated (Orthomolecular Medicine News Service 3/20/12, http://tinyurl.com/7ca62qb).

Although annual influenza vaccine is recommended for children, the inactivated vaccine does not appear to be effective for reducing influenza-related hospitalizations in children. In a cohort study performed at the Mayo Clinic, children who had received the flu vaccine had three times as many hospitalizations as those who did not, although the vaccine itself was not implicated as the cause of hospitalization (Science Daily 5/20/09).

A strategy called “cocooning” is now promoted by the American Academy of Pediatrics, especially to protect babies from pertussis before they can be immunized themselves—even though 10,000 to 20,000 people need to be vaccinated against pertussis to prevent one infant hospitalization. The American Council on Science and Health (ACSH) approvingly quotes Steven Weinreb: “We should not get vaccinated for ourselves alone; we should do it for one another. After all, we’re in the same herd” (NY Times 12/27/11, http://tinyurl.com/73jqfx2).

Previously, a 75% immunization rate was said to be adequate to protect the herd. Now, some claim 95% or more is necessary to prevent epidemics. The case for mandatory vaccination depends on this concept—but is it true? Because few people now have natural immunity to most vaccine-preventable diseases, the U.S. has been without a herd effect for 30 to 40 years, writes Russell Blaylock, M.D. Vaccine-induced immunity lasts for perhaps 10 years at the most, and “boosters” may be protective for only two (National Health Federation 12/2/09, http://tinyurl.com/7nfhvhc).

Immunization policy apparently is largely based on authoritative opinion, not evidence. On Apr 7, the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with the CDC seeking documentation pertaining to vaccine safety and efficacy on which its policy recommendations are based. Transparency is needed to dispel growing public distrust.

After the UN climate conference in Durban, South Africa, the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) issued a report on the “gigatonne gap” between current emission reduction pledges and the actual emission reductions needed to maintain a good chance of keeping global warming to two degrees Celsius, as estimated by IPCC models.

In November 2011, the gap was as big as it has ever been, growing from 5‑9 gigatonnes of CO₂ equivalent in 2010 to 6‑11 gigatonnes in 2011. This gap, UNEP said, can still be closed at a cost of $25–$54/gigatonne. It would cost Japan, however, $1,000/gigatonne to meet its pre-Fukushima pledge of a 25% emissions reduction without nuclear power. The UNFCCC (UN Framework Convention on Climate Change) wants all countries to close the “ambition gap” before 2020.

Narrowing this artificial gap between UN bureaucrats’ ambitions and reduction in CO₂ emissions, only a small fraction of which are caused by humans, requires widening the gap between human needs and the availability of energy.

It is still widely assumed that the West is rich and can easily afford “semi-religious plans of environmental self-sanctification,” writes Dominic Lawson. However, “the gap between comfort and chaos in modern civilization is alarmingly narrow and defined by a four-letter word: fuel” (CCNet 4/3/12, citing Sunday Times 4/1/12).

Now that western economies are no longer “booming on a tide of apparently limitless credit,” EU climate policy is in freefall. Massive subsidies for economically non-viable energy substitutes are coming to an end.

Germany, where almost half the world’s solar energy is produced, is drastically cutting back, after already spending 100 billion euros on subsidies and committing to 20 years of future obligations. Since it has an average one hour of sunlight a day in December, its effort has been compared to “trying to grow pineapples in Alaska.”

Q-Cells, once the world’s largest maker of solar cells, lost $1.1 billion last year, and is filing for bankruptcy. This is not the only foundering German company, and Solyndra is not the only casualty in the U.S. Solar Trust of America, which claimed to be carrying out the world’s largest solar project, in sunny California, also filed for bankruptcy. Remarkably, it had turned down a $2.1 billion loan guarantee from Obama’s Department of Energy because it would not have been able to switch processes from parabolic mirrors to flat panels in response to market changes. Then its German parent companies refused to continue funding (http://tinyurl.com/7qfydft).

The unreliable energy supply is now “the top risk for Germany as a location for business, says Hans Heinrich Driftmann, president of the Association of German Chambers of Industry and Commerce (DIHK). All industrial sectors are threatened. The metal industry is already migrating to countries with cheaper electricity (Spiegel Online 2/24/12). In an attempt to fill the gap created by the post-Fukushima shutdown of eight nuclear power stations, Germany is developing its lignite resources (Impulse 3/6/12). That is “brown coal,” the most carbon-intensive fuel known (Lawson, op. cit.). It also imports large amounts of power generated at nuclear stations in France and the Czech Republic, and had to fire up an old oil-fired plant in Graz, Austria, when solar panels were generating virtually no energy last December (Spiegel Online 1/18/12).

Because of its “green” policies, the UK faces an energy shortfall by 2015 if not before. In a cold winter, factories would be closing, and elderly people swathing themselves in blankets (Alex Brummer, Daily Mail 3/27/12). The economy as a whole is flat-lined. Business-wrecking energy policy includes a 20% “stealth tax” on the electricity bills of business consumers, which could rise to 70% by 2020. Green policies threaten some 30,000 existing British jobs; there is no net job creation, and the subsidy for “new” jobs averaged £54,000 per worker in 2009-2010 (Conservative Home 9/18/11).

            A growing backlash against the £400 million annual subsidies for wind technology is causing many companies to place wind investments on hold (Daily Telegraph 2/27/12, cited by CCNet 2/27/12). Yet a vast expansion of wind power, bankrolled by taxpayers, is required to meet the pledges in the Climate Change Act, in which Britain signs up for emissions cuts by 2050—the only country in the world to do so. Even the site heralded as “the birthplace of democracy in England”—the battlefield on which Oliver Cromwell defeated King Charles I in 1645—is slated for devastation by a wind farm.

“It is unbelievable that one planning inspector can overrule all elements of democracy,” stated MP Heaton-Harris (Sunday Express 1/22/12, CCNet 1/23/12).

In Scotland, mandated wind energy will cost consumers £120 billion by 2020; the same amount of electricity from gas would cost £13 bn. Carbon emissions might drop 2.8% with wind—or they might increase owing to the need for inefficient back-up power. Household energy costs now take an average of 14% of household income, up from 8% in 2005; 900,000 families are now in “energy poverty” (Scotland on Sunday 3/11/12).

Placing the needs of their people above the EU’s carbon allowance, Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Lithuania, and Romania challenged the European Commission’s ceilings on greenhouse gas emissions. In 2009, the European Court of First Instance ruled that the ceilings should be scrapped, but the Commission appealed.

Poland may be “riding to the defense of Europe again” (TWTW 3/10/12, www.sepp.org). In 1683, King Jan Sobieski led a cavalry attack on Ottoman forces that were assaulting Vienna, saving European civilization. On Mar 9, Poland was the sole holdout against the EU demand in “Energy Roadmap 2050” for reducing CO₂ emissions to 80%–95% of 1990 levels. Coal is used to generate 90% of Poland’s electricity.

FUEL DENSITY

            The domestic biofuel craze began in 1976 with Amory Lovins, who promoted the idea of running the U.S. transport sector on fuels made from agricultural, forest, and urban waste. But replacing one-tenth of U.S. oil consumption with fuel derived from cellulosic ethanol from switch grass would require cultivating 37 million acres, an area the size of Illinois, in switch grass. The power density of biofuels is less than 1 watt/m²; for corn ethanol, as low as .05 watt/m². For comparison, the power density of wind turbines is about 1 watt/m²; of a small natural-gas well, 28 watt/m²; a nuclear power plant, >2,000 watt/m² (Robert Bryce, WSJ 1/18/12, cited in TWTW 1/21/12, www.sepp.org).

2012 ANNUAL MEETING

            The 30^th annual meeting of DDP will be held July 27-29 at the Marriott Long Island, in Uniondale, NY. See www.ddponline.org for updates and online registration. Friday, July 27, will feature of tour of Brookhaven National Laboratory.

Many of our most popular speakers will be back for an encore. Energy-related topics include the EPA’s assault on energy production (Fred Singer and Willie Soon); offshore wind energy (John Droz); and energy independence for the U.S., including the role of fracking to recover shale oil (Bonner Cohen). “Climate change” discussions feature Richard Lindzen and Rael Jean Isaac. Talks also cover biological warfare (Steven Hatfill), low-dose radiation (Jerry Cuttler and Howard Maccabee) and much more!

Public health officials are concerned that more parents are requesting exemptions from childhood vaccines. In some states, as many as 1 in 20 public school kindergartners have skipped one or more of the required immunizations (AP 11/29/11).             The percentage of Arizona parents claiming a personal/religious exemption has increased from around 1% in 2000 to nearly 4% in 2011, according to a report by Karen Lewis, M.D., Medical Director, Arizona Immunization Program Office, at a Dec 8 meeting  of the Maternal and Child Health Committee of the Arizona Medical Association (ArMA). Vaccine refusers tend to cluster geographically, increasing the likelihood of outbreaks. They tend to be more highly educated and in more affluent socioeconomic groups.

“They think they’re cable of doing research!” lamented a committee member.

After one safety concern is addressed, another tends to surface. “First it was pertussis, then measles, then thimerosal, and now it must be the adjuvants since thimerosal has been removed.”

Some advocate more restrictive laws, but Dr. Lewis thinks education is preferable. It was noted that after the Wakefield furor (see below), the message seems to be that “parents may have the right to refuse, but we have the right to protect ourselves against them.” This is the tactic exemplified in vaccine advocate Paul Offit’s book Deadly Choices: How the Anti-Vaccine Movement Threatens Us All. Parents of children affected by a vaccine-preventable disease give programs entitled “Ruining It for the Rest of Us.” They suggest sending the unvaccinated to “their own infectious diseases island.” [My review of this book is available at: http://www.jpands.org/vol16no3/bookreviews.pdf.]

“Education” or promotional efforts have not been particularly effective in increasing influenza immunization in health care workers. In one study, uptake was only 21.9% in the intervention group versus 21.0% in controls (J Pub Health Med 2001;23:346-3438). Generally rates hover at less than 50%. Based on CDC recommendations, some facilities or states are mandating flu vaccine for all workers, sometimes on pain of being fired. In Colorado, proposed rules permit only limited medical exemptions. As with second-hand smoke laws, the rationale is that people have the constitutional right to risk their own health, but not to impose risk on others.

VACCINES AND HEALTH

             “A lot of people…should be held responsible” for four (4) measles deaths and hundreds of hospitalizations in the UK, Offit thinks, since an article in the Lancet by Andrew Wakefield M.D., and a dozen others suggested a possible link between MMR (measles-mumps-rubella) vaccine and autism, causing parents to decline the vaccine. The “bombshell” withdrawal of the allegedly fraudulent 1998 article might, Offit hopes, “ [end] the [autism] debate once-and-for-all” (CBSNews 2/4/10). [Wakefield’s presentation at the 2011 meeting of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) may be viewed at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l67fWVrw8xU.]

Without mandates, advocates argue, U.S. chickenpox-related deaths, for example, might skyrocket from 66/y [1999–2001] back to the pre-vaccine level of 145/y.

As discussed in the January 2011 issue, an increasing number of vaccines has not been associated with overall good health. About 43% of U.S. children are said to have at least one of 20 chronic health conditions, not counting obesity, and 24% have some type of environmental or skin allergy (Acad Ped 2011;11:S22-S33). Food allergies affect about 6% of young children and 3% to 4% of adults. These result in some 317,000 visits each year to emergency rooms or physicians, and 9,500 hospital admissions (3.6 times as many in 2004-2006 as in 1998-2000). Food allergies cause 150 to 200 deaths per year, more than half caused by peanuts (www.AAAAI.org).

Peanut dust, like viruses, travels in the air, so sensitive persons can experience an anaphylactic response without actually eating a peanut. Schools are banning peanuts because of a problem that was virtually unheard of 50 years ago. Since vaccines, after all, stimulate the immune system, could we have exchanged the risk of infection during an outbreak for a need for constant vigilance against a ubiquitous antigen?

The CDC has never conducted a study of health outcomes in vaccinated versus unvaccinated persons. It has the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS, www.vaers.hhs.gov), but it is likely that fewer than 10% of reactions are reported. Conditions developing months after a vaccine would not be noted. An internet survey, begun 10 years ago by a German homeopath Andreas Bachmair, contains more than 10,000 self-reports on the health of unvaccinated persons, compared with statistics from the German Health Interview and Examination Survey for Children and Adolescents (KiGGS). The site began as www.impfschaden.info and has been translated into English www.vaccineinjury.info. Allergies are reported in 10.6% of unvaccinated persons vs. 22.9% in KiGGS; asthma/chronic bronchitis in 2.4% vs. 18%.

ABOUT THOSE ADJUVANTS

             An adjuvant is a substance added to a vaccine to increase immunogenicity, and perhaps to decrease cost by reducing the amount of antigen needed. The classic Freund’s adjuvant (antigen immersed in mineral oil) is far too toxic to use in human vaccines. The only adjuvant approved for human use is alum, aluminum salts or gel, present in hepatitis A and B, diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis, Haemophilus influenzae b (Hib), human papilloma virus (HPV), and pneumococcal vaccines. The major use of oil-in-water emulsions has been in therapeutic cancer and HIV vaccines. Vaccines, may, however, use oils as “carriers.” Also, vaccine components—or contaminants—may act as adjuvants even if not intended to be such. Dr. Lewis told ArMA that one reason for pertussis outbreaks may be that the cleaner, safer acellular (DTaP) vaccine is less effective than the older, “dirty”  whole-cell DTP that contained lots of bacterial fragments.

Vaccines can induce immunity to any vaccine component. To protect trade secrets, these may not all be listed on the label. They could include peanut oil (and trace bits of peanut protein), casein (milk protein), egg protein, soy peptone broth, calf serum, gelatin, neomycin, and other components of culture medium.

A speculation that I have not seen addressed is the induction of allergy to a substance that is not in the vaccine but to which the patient is simultaneously exposed. A friend reported that while mowing a field, his tractor ruptured a hydraulic line, and squirted oily fluid into his eyes. For years after that, he had severe hayfever on exposure to grass, which he had never before experienced. Mice were sensitized to peanuts by either intranasal or intragastric introduction of peanut protein together with cholera toxin as an adjuvant. A logical follow-up would be to feed common food allergens to animals on a day they were receiving a regular vaccine. Animals do have food allergies, and they get a lot of vaccines; are these connected? Should patients be on a hypoallergenic diet for a period of time while being immunized, especially with adjuvanted vaccine (and for how long)?

Instead of shaming parents—or firing health care workers—who raise vaccine safety concerns, physicians should be insisting on better safety studies and full disclosure.

The official faith of America is in Science. This idol is an erroneous construct of what the scientific quest for truth really is. When officials say that “the Science has spoken,” these days they generally mean that white-coated priests are interpreting the oracular conclusions derived from a mathematical model or a computer program.Mathematics is a beautiful, powerful, indispensable tool. It is, however, an abstraction. Science requires actual measurements and observations of Nature. If the data do not agree with the predictions of the model, the model must be questioned. Data that are validated and replicated cannot simply be ignored or discarded to save the reputation of a model, however beautiful or politically expedient.

The whole basis of the U.S. regulatory regime rests on models that have become powerful ideologies: linear risk models, and climate models. The models are wrong.

“To claim that the scientific discipline of medicine got the dose-response wrong and with this error damaged our health, environment, and economy sounds wrong, irresponsible, and unfair to such a dignified and life-serving profession,” writes Edward Calabrese (“Toxicology rewrites its history and rethinks its future: giving equal focus to both harmful and beneficial effects,” Environ Toxicol Chem 2011;30:2658-2673. doi: 10.1002/etc.687). Calabrese defends this claim in a historical detective adventure.

The fundamental principle of toxicology and pharmacology—the dose-response relationship—arose from a bitter political dispute, a power struggle between homeopathy and traditional medicine. The latter arose from the “heroic” medicine of the 18^th and 19^th centuries, which often, though with the best of intentions, tortured patients before sending them to an early grave. The impact of Samuel Hahnemann’s establishment of homeopathy was compared to that of Martin Luther’s posting the 95 Theses. While it may never have cured anybody, and any apparent benefit might have been a placebo effect, homeopathy was unlikely to harm or kill patients, and was gaining market share.

Homeopaths claimed that the dose-response is biphasic. The paradoxic stimulatory effect of low doses was called hormesis. Physician/pharmacologist Hugo Schulz proposed it in 1884 to explain the effects of varying doses of disinfectants on yeast metabolism. He also suggested it as an explanation for a striking series of clinical observations by Bloeudau, in which a homeopathic preparation (veratrine) was successfully used to treat gastroenteritis. Schulz did not subscribe to the homeopathic belief in extreme dilutions (which result in zero concentration of the agent), but he was unfairly linked to it, derided as the Greifswald Homeopath, and ostracized for the rest of his 50-year academic career.

The threshold dose-response model was accepted by traditional medicine, largely through the work of pharmacology professor Alfred J. Clark. Though an outstanding scholar, researcher, and mathematician, Clark failed to present or discuss Schulz’s  dose-response model, or even to try to refute the substantial body of widely published research that supported it. He relied on the monotonic probit dose-response model, which mathematically constrains responses to asymptotically approach the control response, and never drop below it. This biostatistical model denies the existence of a biphasic response. Measurements that didn’t fit were disregarded (censored).

Although never experimentally proven, the threshold dose-response model became the gold standard for regulating exposure to chemical carcinogens, accepted by the scientific elite, “leaving no room for confusion, debate, or compromise.”

Calabrese and associates found that over a 70-year period, no attempt to assess the capacity of the threshold dose-response to make predictions in the low-dose zone had ever been published. Hence, they undertook their own review of published data. If the threshold model is correct, the ratio of responses above and below the control value should be very close to 1; in fact, it exceeded this value by 250%. Responses displayed a consistent pattern, closely paralleling the hormetic model.

In the second half of the 20^th century, a group of detractors arose, who supported the linear no-threshold model (see July issue), which became dogma, despite the evidence. For example, the largest rodent study ever conducted, involving some 24,000 mice, provided strong evidence that low doses of a chemical carcinogen are beneficial.

The hormesis concept is becoming central in the fields of anti-aging medicine, performance enhancement, and biogerontology. It is likely, however, in Calabrese’s view, that government research funding will continue to ignore hormesis, lest it challenge environmental exposure standards.

Calabrese notes that hormetic effects are not necessarily beneficial. Harmful ones might include endocrine disruption (e.g. early puberty) or the capacity of numerous anti-tumor drugs to stimulate proliferation of tumor cells.

Substituting ideologically appealing models for data can cause harm either from costly regulatory overkill, or from missing unexpected effects.

CLIMATE MODELS CAN’T BE VALIDATED

In defending its “Endangerment Finding” that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases are a threat to public health and welfare, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) declares that “climate models have been properly validated.” IPCC expert reviewer Vincent Gray, however, states that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change cannot call the results of its models predictions —because the models have never been validated. Hence, results are referred to as “projections” (The Week That Was 10/8/11).

Current climate models cannot be validated at all, writes Fred Singer, because they are nonlinear chaotic models that produce different results each time they are run. In efforts to show consistency between results and observations, error bars have been extended so far as to be almost meaningless. While at least 10 runs are needed to establish a mean, the model with the greatest number of published runs is one from Japan, which had five, showing widely varying results.

Table 2.11 in an appendix of the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report assesses the level of understanding of 16 Forcing Factors found in the models: in 11, the level is “low” or “very low.” The Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO), among other possibly important factors, is not considered at all. For the EPA to claim models are validated is the equivalent of a “government agency certifying that a passenger aircraft is reliable after the engineers state that the reliability of 69% of the components is low to very low, and some important components may be missing” (ibid., available at www.sepp.org).

Another missing component, now coming to attention, is the effect of cosmic rays on clouds. According to scientists at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), cosmic rays may enhance the formation of pre-cloud seeds as much as ten-fold. The results might have been available 10 years ago had the research been funded. Based on satellite data since 1979, Danish physicist Henrik Svensmark found a correlation between solar activity, cloud cover, and cosmic rays. But when he reported possible climatic implications at a 1996 space conference, the sitting IPCC chair called him “scientifically…irresponsible”; it was a “really bad career move” (TWTW 9/10/11).

Climate models were supported by $32 billion in U.S. government spending alone between 1989 and 2009, writes Paul Driessen—without finding a single piece of evidence that human-caused CO₂ emissions significantly affect climate (http://tinyurl.com/kqx4pe).

Suppose that we had a readily available, affordable, broad-spectrum, extensively researched, well-tolerated modality that could treat serious disease and also prevent future problems such as cancer, at very low risk, by stimulating the body’s own defenses? Should we want to have these facilities in shopping malls and pharmacies, as vaccines are now?

Not if it’s a demon—like ionizing radiation.

In 1902, low-dose radiation was a popular treatment for infections and cancer, writes Don Luckey (Radiat Prot Management 2004;21(5):21-26). It was used in all types of infectious disease for nearly 50 years, as described in the 1942 book Roentgen Treatment of Infections by JF Kelly and DA Dowell. Studies done at that time are reviewed by LB Berk and PJ Hodes (Yale J Biol Med 1991;64:155-165, http://tinyurl.com/3guff6m),  who write that effective antibiotics supplanted radiation, and the current proscription against its use in benign conditions is “no doubt based mainly on [its] well-known tumorigenic effects.”

Since bactericidal doses are in the range of 100,000 roentgens, the therapeutic benefit of low doses (e.g. five treatments of 100 cGy each locally) must have been from indirect effects. Luckey notes that anaerobic bacteria such as those causing gas gangrene die because the oxygen species generated by irradiation disrupt their metabolism. Irradiation also works in tissues with poor blood supply that antibiotics cannot reach.

Luckey states that irradiation stimulates both the cellular and biochemical immune system. It increases the number of circulating lymphocytes, selectively destroying T-repressor cells and increasing the effectiveness of other types of T cells. It also increases the concentration of many enzymes and cytokines.

Cancers are observed of course after high doses of ionizing radiation, especially at high dose-rates. But the concern about low, even negligible doses is wholly dependent on the linear no-threshold (LNT) hypothesis (see Civil Defense Perspectives, May 1994, January 2000, July 2000, May 2004; DDP Newsletter, March 2010).

The disarmament movement’s campaign to stop atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons exploited the LNT hypothesis. But the intellectual foundation was Hermann J. Muller’s Nobel Prize lecture of 1946, citing conclusions later incorporated into what Edward Calabrese calls “the most important publication in the history of risk assessment”: the 1956 report of the Biological Effects of Atomic Radiation (BEAR) Committee of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences (NAS) (Environ Mol Mutagen 2011. doi 10.1002/2m.20662).

Muller won the Nobel Prize for demonstrating that X-rays cause mutations in male fruit fly germ cells. He argued that the dose-response was linear and that there was “no escape from the conclusion that there was no threshold.” He warned the medical community about indiscriminate use of X-rays.

Even at the time of his lecture, however, Muller knew of concerns among his peers about his data, including inadequate reporting of research methods, small sample size, lack of data on quality control parameters, known problems with temperature control, lack of data on lethal clusters, sterility/fecundity, and selection criteria. Moreover the “very low dose” tested was many thousand fold greater than human exposures to background radiation. More seriously, Muller failed to temper his remarks even though he knew about a very large study by Ernst Caspari and Curt Stern, using the lowest dose rate ever tested (2.5 r/day), that supported a threshold interpretation. Calabrese suggests that the lecture was more ideological than scientific (Arch Toxicol 2011. doi 10.1007/s00204-011-0728-8).

Stern never followed up on his commitment to provide more detail, but rather made the “problems” of data contradicting linearity disappear in a 1949 version of a meta-analysis. Calabrese writes that Stern got the LNT model accepted through “multiple manipulations and obfuscations” that reinforced biases within the genetics community. A trans-science concept now known as the precautionary principle acted as an “intellectual virus,” undercutting the integrity of data-driven processes, with a profound effect on policy that persists 60 years later.

As Bobby Scott points out, the deterministic effects of high-dose radiation do have a threshold because a large number of cells need to be killed simultaneously to produce them. These include effects on the central nervous system, gastrointestinal system, and blood-forming system. Scott uses a standard hazard model to show that the likelihood of life-threatening radiation effects on Fukushima recovery workers is very low. He states that the invalid LNT model should not be used for predicting future excess cancers (J Am Phys Surg 2011;16:71-77, www.jpands.org/vol16no3/scott.pdf).

Linearity wipes out the biphasic dose-response curve that applies to nearly everything in nature, for example vitamins. Low doses are beneficial—as by activating repair or immune mechanisms. The ideology of the precautionary principle blinds people to the potential for this effect, called hormesis.

CAN COMPUTED TOMOGRAPHY DETECT AND PREVENT CANCER?

             But for the LNT bias, headlines about the National Lung Screening Study (NLST) might read “CT Scans May Protect against Lung Cancer” and cause one to rethink the “Radiation from CT Scans Linked to Cancers, Deaths” article that appeared in USA Today in December 2009. This article quoted studies from the Archives of Internal Medicine stating that CT scans “may contribute to 29,000 new cancers each year, along with 14,500 deaths.” These numbers are derived solely from calculations using dose delivered and the LNT hypothesis. As with global climate change, models supersede data.

The NLST enrolled about 53,000 smokers. Half were screened three times at one-year intervals with “low-dose” (0.15 cSv compared with the more usual 0.8 cSv) spiral CT scan and half with chest radiographs. Subjects were enrolled from August 2002 through April 2004, and data collected on lung cancer diagnosis and death through the end of 2009. In the CT group, a total of 1,060 (645/10⁵ person-years) lung cancers were diagnosed, and in chest x-ray group, 951 (572/10⁵ person-years). Of these, 367 and 525 cancers were found, respectively, in persons who either missed a screening or were diagnosed after the screening period was complete

Patients screened with CT had a 20% lower rate of death from lung cancer than those screened with chest x-rays: 356 (247/10⁵ person-years) vs. 443 (309/10⁵ person-years), P=0.004. It is likely that at the outset, the two groups had about the same number of incipient cancers, but more were uncovered by the CT screening, and in an earlier stage. Of the cancers picked up by the CT scan, 415 were in stage IA or IB, compared with only 160 of those found by the chest x-ray (NEJM 2011;365:395-409). It is assumed that the benefit comes from early detection and treatment.

“Researchers did not consider the possibility that CT-related radiation also stimulated the body’s natural defenses,” writes Dr. Scott. “Doses appear to be in the range that stimulates anticancer immunity and epigenetic pathways to the elimination of pre-cancer cells via apoptosis.” Researchers did, however, worry about long-term radiation-induced cancers and suggest future analysis to detect that.

The CT screening dose is far lower than the dose of whole-body irradiation used by Sakamoto et al. in the successful treatment of cancers: 10-15 cGy twice a week for 5 weeks (see Luckey op cit. and Cuttler and Pollycove, “Can Cancer Be Treated with Low Doses of Radiation, J Am Phys Surg, winter 2003, jpands.org/vol8no4/cuttler.pdf).

The human body is constantly besieged by pathogenic organisms, environmental as well as internally generated toxins, and trauma. To survive, it must have robust, highly adaptable immune and repair mechanisms. But they must be discriminating—they must be able to distinguish self from not-self, and know when to stop growing new tissue.

The superiority of “prevention” is taken as axiomatic in public health, as well as in world affairs—even when it hardly involves an “ounce,” but billions of dollars, which may be sunk into defenses as misdirected as the Maginot Line.

Among the ideas one is not supposed to question in politically correct America is the holy vaccination schedule. It’s possibly even worse than questioning the anthropogenic CO2-induced catastrophic global warming hypothesis. It is taken to mean that you are “anti-vaccination,” and indeed “anti-science.”

Unlike other medical treatments, childhood vaccines are meant to be given to the entire healthy population, not just to sick or high-risk individuals. While there are some exceptions in the name of constitutional rights, most vaccines are in effect compulsory for school attendance. Increasingly, physicians are refusing to care for children whose parents refuse one or more vaccines. Such parents may also be subjected to accusations of child abuse or neglect. While skeptics are accused of scaremongering about potential vaccine adverse effects, vaccine zealots trumpet dire threats of nationwide outbreaks of lethal measles, pertussis, and meningitis caused by unvaccinated children.

Seeing what has happened to Andrew Wakefield in the UK and now David Geier in the U.S., physicians are well advised to keep silent on this issue. Wakefield not only lost his license to practice medicine, but has been pilloried worldwide—for publishing, in collaboration with a dozen colleagues, a small case series of observations more than 10 years ago, with a mere suggestion to investigate a possible link between autism and measles-mumps-rubella vaccine. (The story is told in his book Callous Disregard, now banned in Britain, which reporters ought to read before piling abuse on Dr. Wakefield.) Dr. David Geier had his license summarily suspended in Maryland in sealed proceedings that denied him any right to answer the allegations. With his son Mark Geier, he has done extensive research on the possible role of thimerosal in vaccine adverse effects.

Vaccines are touted as one of the most important public health breakthroughs. Campaigns aimed at the Third World, such as the Global Measles & Polio Initiative, are highly publicized, as millions die quietly from contaminated water supplies. A partially effective malaria vaccine has been unsuccessfully sought at enormous expense for decades, while billions die because of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency ban on inexpensive, nontoxic, highly effective DDT (www.3billionandcounting.com).

Since the vast majority of children in the U.S. are fully vaccinated, we should expect that outside of 100–200 cases of measles, population health should be excellent, right?

In fact, children in the industrialized world are singularly unhealthy, with an alarming rate of neurodevelopment disorders and chronic diseases: facts that public health authorities acknowledge but do not explain or publicize. Just a few statistics:

Between 1980 and 2009, asthma prevalence in the U.S. grew by 265%—while the pollutants that the EPA tries to blame fell by two-thirds (TWTW 9/3/11). Life-threatening allergies of various types are increasing. In the UK, which keeps precise records, prescriptions for emergency allergy autoinjectors (Epi-pens) increased from 19,400 in 1995 to 230,442 in 2010. Food allergy admissions to hospital in the UK rose more than five-fold. Rates were highest in children, and increased seven-fold from 16 to 107 per million. Prevalence continues to increase in a broadly linear fashion, writes Clifford Miller to the UK Dept of Health, “consistent with a uniform annual exposure by birth cohort to vaccines.”

The rate of neurodevelopment and behavioral disorders is also rising worldwide, without an accepted explanation. In Israel, the incidence of autism spectrum disorders (ASD) was 0 in 1982-1984, 1.2 per million per capita under age 18 in 1985, and 190 per million in 2004 (Isr Med Assoc J 2009;11(1):30-33). In the UK, prevalence in boys is reported to be as high as one in 40. The explanation is possibly “environmental factors not yet identified,” write Jick et al. (BMJ 2001;322:460-463). Their data show autism risk by birth year, and others point out that increases followed the introduction of MMR in 1988, the accelerated DTP program in 1990, and the introduction of Hib vaccine in 1992.

Some claim that unvaccinated children are healthier, and rarely have ASD. I am not aware of rigorous studies. A 1992 survey by the Immunisation Awareness Society in New Zealand of 226 vaccinated and 269 unvaccinated children showed that vaccinated children reportedly had 4 times the rate of ear infections or “hyperactivity,” 5 times the rate of asthma, and 10 times the rate of tonsillitis. No measures were better with vaccination.

Potential mechanisms of adverse vaccine effects include heavy metal toxicity and immune effects. (On mercury toxicity, see this newsletter, March 2004, and Civil Defense Perspectives, Nov 2000 and July 2004). Thimerosal was removed from U.S. childhood vaccines around 2001, but then thimerosal-containing influenza vaccine was added to the immunization schedule. Around the same time, the amount of aluminum salts, which can also be toxic in parts per billion, was increased in some vaccines. The British 5-in-1 vaccine Pediacel delivered all at once a maximum dose of 120 mcg Al/kg; 20 mcg Al/kg/day in intravenous feedings had demonstrable neurotoxicity if continued longer than 10 days.

Aluminum salts are used as adjuvants to deliberately increase the immunogenic effect of killed vaccines. They also have the potential to induce serious complications: autoimmunity, long-term brain inflammation, and widespread health consequences (Current Medical Chemistry 2011;18:2630-2637). Thimerosal, though used as preservative and not as an adjuvant, has sensitizing effects. Lymphocytes from 7% of 650 human subjects showed immune reactivity to thimerosal (Drug Info J 1997;31:1379-1382). Because the immune effect of thimerosal is “largely unknown,” Havarinasab et al. studied mice, finding “strong immunostimulation and autoimmunity” in genetically susceptible mice (Toxicol Appl Pharmacol 2005;204;109-121).

Collateral damage from pre-emptive war can be enormous.

TARGETED DEFENSE

            Mandatory vaccination is not the only reason we no longer have millions of deaths from measles. The U.S. measles death rate dropped 95% between 1915 and 1958, before the vaccine (http://tinyurl.com/3rf4u4o). Moreover, by directing all our efforts into vaccination, we may have neglected many avenues for better treatment.

A very promising new approach is DRACO: Double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) Activated Caspase Oligomerizer. The acronym is, appropriately, the name of the author of Athens’s first constitution, known for harsh (draconian) punishments. DRACOs penetrate cells and cause those infected with viral dsRNA to self-destruct by apoptosis. In cell culture they have been effective against many viruses, including dengue and H1N1 influenza (Rider TH et al., PLoS 7/27/11, http://tinyurl.com/3gagnpe).

Internationally known for his work on environmental issues, Dr. Singer pioneered rocket and satellite technology. From DDP 28th Annual Meeting, June 12, 2010 – Orlando, FL