Consumer Health Digest #24-43 October 27, 2024

Consumer Health Digest is a free weekly e-mail newsletter edited by William M. London, Ed.D., M.P.H., with help from Stephen Barrett, M.D., It summarizes scientific reports; legislative developments; enforcement actions; other news items; Web site evaluations; recommended and nonrecommended books; research tips; and other information relevant to consumer protection and consumer decision-making. The Digest’s primary focus is on health, but occasionally it includes non-health scams and practical tips. Items posted to this archive may be updated when relevant information becomes available. To subscribe, click here.

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Misleading cancer books abound on Amazon

Researchers from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, the University of Alberta’s Health Law Institute, and the University of Edinburgh’s Global Health Policy Unit searched for “cancer cure” on Amazon.com and reviewed the titles and descriptions of the top 1,000 English-language books from search results to determine whether the books provided cancer misinformation. Nearly half—494 books—were found to contain misleading cancer treatment or cure information. Of those:

• 97.3% of the misleading books were found to promote a treatment it claims can or has cured cancer
• 39.3% oversimplify cancer and cancer treatment
• 38.33% falsely justify ineffective treatments as science-based
• 34.2% attempt to discredit conventional cancer treatments
• 26.9% promote one treatment as curing all types of cancer and/or other diseases
• 26.7% present one treatment to cure all types of cancer
• 24.1% feature people with cancer, their families, or health practitioners finding new cancer cures and treatment options
• 16.6% claim cancer cures already exist but are hidden or banned because of financial interests from the pharmaceutical industry, legal battles with regulators or medical associations, and conspiracies to ruin reputations

The researchers concluded:

These results demonstrate that misleading cancer cure and treatment books are for sale, visible, and seemingly prevalent on Amazon.com. Nearly half of the “cancer cure” books for sale offered misleading and potentially harmful cancer treatment misinformation. Misleading books directly claimed to have efficacious cures for cancer, undermined scientifically supported treatments, misapplied scientific reasoning, oversimplified cancer and cancer treatments, and promoted conspiracy theories. Books offered information that may delay or encourage patients to opt out of best-standard treatments and create false hope.

Our study contributes to the increasing research documenting the presence, spread, and mechanisms of medical misinformation on Amazon. Notably, Amazon’s algorithm has been reported to amplify books with vaccine misinformation. In other cases, Amazon has been found to host products selling fake autism cures and promote COVID-19 misinformation. Amazon’s search results have been found to rank products with misinformation higher than sources debunking misinformation. Concerningly, misinformation in Amazon-hosted products may be amplified by fake product reviews, which are associated with a causal increase in product sales.

[Zenone M, and others. Selling misleading “cancer cure” books on Amazon: Systematic search on Amazon.com and thematic analysis. Journal of Medical Internet Research, e56354, 2024]

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FDA warns consumers not to use potentially contaminated homeopathic nasal spray

 The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is warning consumers and health care professionals not to use SnoreStop Nasal Spray, distributed by Green Pharmaceuticals Inc. of Camarillo, California. The product may have microbial contamination that can potentially lead to infection, which can be life-threatening in certain patient populations such as immune-compromised individuals. SnoreStop Nasal Spray, an unapproved product, was previously sold on the company’s website and other sites and marketed for children beginning at age 5 and adults with unproven claims it opens air passages and relieves congestion.

FDA inspected the Green Pharmaceuticals facility in April 2024 and uncovered laboratory test results that reported significant microbial contamination in SnoreStop Nasal Spray lot number 2460. FDA investigators found evidence some products in this lot had been repackaged and distributed to customers for use as single units and in kits. On August 8, 2024, Green Pharmaceutical destroyed the remaining SnoreStop Nasal Spray from lot 2460 and other products the company had on-hand. FDA recommended Green Pharmaceuticals recall their SnoreStop Nasal Spray product on Aug. 13 and Sept. 12, 2024. The agency repeated its recall recommendation multiple times during this time, but as of September 18, the company did not recall the product from the market.

FDA issued a warning letter to Green Pharmaceuticals on December16, 2022, for distributing unapproved drugs and lacking quality controls over the products they sell. Additionally, the company voluntarily recalled one lot of SnoreStop NasoSpray on June 9, 2022, after FDA testing found the product contained microbial contamination identified as Providencia rettgeri. SnoreStop NasoSpray was renamed SnoreStop Nasal Spray following this recall. [FDA warns consumers not to use SnoreStop Nasal Spray by Green Pharmaceuticals due to potential contamination. FDA Drug Safety Communication, Sept 18, 2024]

According to the FDA’s announcement, the company subsequently stopped selling nasal spray products on its website. When the webpage to order the product was active, it indicated it was a homeopathic preparation with seven ingredients, five of which were diluted 6X or one part per million, one diluted 4X, and one diluted 12X. A blog post that remains on the SnoreStop website describes the nasal spray as “the best quality natural nasal spray to reduce snoring.” The website still has a page for ordering SnoreStop for Pets, described as a “homeopathic anti-snoring oral spray” and “the only natural anti-snoring solution for your pet’s snoring.” The FDA’s announcement said nothing about SnoreStop for Pets even though it has the same ingredient list as the potentially contaminated nasal spray.

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Acupuncture paper in JAMA Internal Medicine denounced

 Steven Novella, M.D., an associate professor of neurology at Yale School of Medicine, has described the paper “Acupuncture vs, Sham Acupuncture for Chronic Sciatica from Herniated Disk: A Randomized Clinical Trial,” as “scientifically worthless.” The paper was published October 14, 2024, in JAMA Internal Medicine. He noted:

. . .the study was not double-blinded, the sham treatment used was inappropriate, the measured outcome was subjective, acupuncture is of implausible value, and the study came out of China where such studies have a near 100% bias toward positive results.

An Editor’s Note in JAMA Internal Medicine asserted the acupuncture study was “methodologically rigorous” and acupuncture is “an effective, evidence-based, non-pharmacological treatment” for chronic sciatica. In contrast, Dr. Novella concluded: “Doctors, other clinical professionals, and medical scientists need to maintain the highest levels of skepticism toward any claims or treatments in medicine. Otherwise, we will slide into pseudoscience. History is very clear on this fact.”

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Circuit court backs FDA’s authority to regulate adipose cell therapy as a drug

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that stromal vascular fraction (SVF)—a mixture of stem cells, other cells, and cell debris spun down from patients’ own fat cells—is a drug that can be regulated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and is not exempt under the FDA’s “same surgical procedure” exception. In 2018, FDA sued the California Stem Cell Treatment Center and the related Cell Surgical Network over its SVF treatments. In 2022, a federal judge in California sided with the center, ruling that those treatments weren’t subject to regulation. But the FDA appealed and won. In a similar lawsuit brought by the FDA against Florida-based U.S. Stem Cell Clinic over its SVF treatments, the clinic lost its case in 2019 and its appeal was subsequently denied. [Fiore K. Judge rules against stem cell clinic. MedPage Today, Oct 2, 2024]

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Stephen Barrett, M.D.

Consumer Advocate

7 Birchtree Circle

Chapel Hill, NC 27517

Telephone: (919) 533-6009 

http://www.quackwatch.org (health fraud and quackery)

http://www.acuwatch.org (skeptical guide to acupuncture history, theories, and practices)

http://www.allergywatch.org (guide to questionable theories and practices)

http://www.autism-watch.org (guide to autism)

http://www.cancertreatmentwatch.org (guide to intelligent treatment)

http://www.casewatch.net (legal archive)

http://www.chelationwatch.org (chelation therapy)

http://www.chirobase.org (skeptical guide to chiropractic history, theories, and practices)

http://www.credentialwatch.org (guide to health-related education and training)

http://www.dentalwatch.org (guide to dental care)

http://www.devicewatch.org (guide to questionable medical devices)

http://www.dietscam.org (guide to weight-control schemes and ripoffs)

http://www.fibrowatch.org (guide to the fibromyalgia marketplace)

http://www.homeowatch.org (guide to homeopathy)

http://www.ihealthpilot.org (guide to trustworthy health information)

http://www.infomercialwatch.org (guide to infomercials)

http://www.mentalhealthwatch.org (guide to the mental help marketplace)

http://www.mlmwatch.org (multi-level marketing)

http://www.naturowatch.org (skeptical guide to naturopathic history, theories, and practices)

http://www.nccamwatch.org (activities of the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health)

http://www.ncahf.org (National Council Against Health Fraud archive

http://www.nutriwatch.org (nutrition facts and fallacies)

http://www.pharmwatch.org (guide to the drug marketplace and lower prices)

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Glyphosate: The Public Still Is Ignorant About it

"Agricultural advances have made farming and our foods safer and more abundant than at any other time in history. Everyone wants safe food and sustainable farming. But modern technologies are victims of their own success, and media ecosystems exacerbate confusion. And while everything is a chemical—and chemicals enable food production—the word evokes fear and anxiety. Well-funded disinformation campaigns exploit this chemophobia to sow fear about the dangers of specific technologies, which undermine consumer confidence in agriculture and our food.

"Few chemicals are more vilified than the herbicide glyphosate (Jun et al. 2023). Glyphosate, the active ingredient in weed control brands such as Roundup, has been used for decades, mostly without controversy (Duke 2018). Many farmers attribute their farms’ survival to glyphosate. Scientific consensus and fifty years of regulatory scrutiny continue to conclude that glyphosate is a relatively benign chemical, safe for use as directed, and poses next-to-no risk to humans (Solomon 2020). Yet media outlets repeat claims that glyphosate causes everything from autism to cancer to bee extinction. Recently, an article in the prominent medical journal Pediatrics recommended that trace dietary exposures should be avoided by children (Abrams et al. 2024).

"Why does a disparity exist between evidence and perception and between experts and 'experts'? How do we assess the benefits and any potential risks of glyphosate?"

I have posted on this subject several times and ignorance and disinformation persist. Click on the link below for the latest:

A Skeptical Guide to Glyphosate

A Reminder: "Wellness" Is Bait Used By Pseudoscience

"The world of mental healthcare is very much caveat emptor: buyer beware. Today, people looking to care for their mental health face a market with at least 600 “brands” of psychotherapy—and counting. Most are ineffective, and many could be harmful. The $5.6 trillion dollar wellness industry includes countless unregulated providers of mental health services looking to exploit people’s financial and emotional vulnerabilities. 

"Jonathan Stea, a clinical psychologist who regularly deals with some of society’s most vulnerable people. Having seen so many of his patients hurt by pseudoscience, Stea is on a mission to expose its harm and protect the public from mental health misinformation. He’ll discuss and debunk the predatory pseudoscience and grift of the multi-trillion-dollar wellness industry and point us toward a better way to take care of our mental health."

Click on the link below for an expose of the poorly regulated mental health industry:

Saving Your Mental Health from the Wellness Industry

RFKJr: Outside of Trump, The Most Dangerous Politician

"John Oliver discusses RFK Jr.’s potential to sway the presidential election, who his views are impacting on and off the campaign trail, and most importantly: what surprising little treat helps John get through the work week."

Click on this link for an expose of the many dangers of RFKJr. 

Adrenal Fatigue: Just Another Quack Diagnosis

"Adrenal fatigue is the false belief that our adrenal glands become 'worn out' as a result of prolonged, repetitive stress – and the output of key regulatory hormones, like the 'master stress hormone' cortisol, is diminished. Let’s be clear: adrenal fatigue is not a true medical condition.

"Just like many pseudoscience claims and diagnoses, the notion of adrenal fatigue is based on a nugget of truth. That nugget? There are legitimate medical issues related to adrenal gland and cortisol dysfunction. These including Cushing’s syndrome and Adrenal insufficiency (including Addison’s disease). Contrary to what wellness influencers claim. though, adrenal fatigue is NOT a ‘mild’ version of adrenal dysfunction."

Click on this link for the full story.

GMOs: An Update

"Few topics in science, health and food elicit more fear and misconceptions than the phrase GMO, and most of it is based on intentional disinformation." 

Click on the link below for a fresh look at perceptions that will not go away on this matter:

GMOs and genetic engineering are widely misunderstood

Mental Health Quackery

"Dr. Stea is a clinical psychologist and an adjunct assistant professor at the University of Calgary. He’s also spent years fighting pseudoscience and mental health misinformation on social media. 

"In his book 'Mind the Science: Saving Your Mental Health from the Wellness Industry', Dr. Stea helps readers make better decisions about their mental health."

Click on the link below for a one-hour video delving into the shady goings-on within the "Wellness" industry:

A clinical psychologist takes on mental health pseudoscience

Republicans: "Kissing The Ring" Gone Amok

Kissing the Ring: To make a gesture of deference, fealty, or genuflection to a person of power or authority. (link)

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"MeidasTouch host Ben Meiselas reports on the disastrous hearing by the Republicans today where they called Dr. Anthony Fauci to try and  read lies but Fauci and the Dems went on the offense."

If you are STILL supporting the Republicans after all they have done or failed to do, I challenge you to watch this 20-minute video with an open mind. Their actions and words during Dr. Fauci's "show hearing" today are an excellent summary of the anti-science, dangerous, and general poor character of that once-respectable US political party:

GOP Gets RUDE AWAKENING

PTSD And Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR): Quackery

"Today we're going to unravel a specific type of psychotherapy, and it's one that presents the researcher with formidable walls to scale of both support and criticism. Some psychotherapists are firm believers; some are firm detractors. The therapy is called EMDR, Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing. It is controversial as the day is long, and yet it enjoys broad recommendations in most of the world's major guidelines. It also has plenty of criticism of its effectiveness. And it has a wildly unscientific origin story, which never bodes well for any kind of treatment. So now let's dive in and find out if EMDR is for real or phony.

"EMDR is one of a number of treatments for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), a potentially serious and debilitating condition in which certain traumatic memories can trigger anything from nightmares and anxiety to an uncontrollable emotional breakdown to a complete dissociative episode. The idea is to reduce the emotional distress associated with traumatic memories, and when used as an adjunct to other therapies, EMDR does this by attempting to get the brain to reprocess those memories via bilateral stimulation. Whether bilateral stimulation can actually do that is mainly where the controversy around EMDR lies. The stimulation is usually guided eye movements back and forth, but can also be tactile or auditory: tapping or holding a buzzer in each hand, or hearing tones played through headphones alternating between left and right. A typical EMDR session would include the patient recalling and talking about their traumatic memory while the therapist moves a pointer from side to side in front of them, for the patient to follow with their eyes. If you were uninitiated and saw this happening, you might well be inclined to wonder what kind of freaky woo you had just walked into."

Click on the link below for more:

EMDR: Looking Past the Pain

Enneagrams: Another Failure Of A Horoscope Wannabe

"Today we're going to open a drawer in our cabinet of New Age psychometric modalities — as one does — and flip to the folder for enneagrams. For years, this has been growing in popularity as a way to understand our own personalities, and the personalities of those around us, and how we might interact. Some would argue that it's like a blending of Myers-Briggs, numerology, and horoscopes; others would claim that it has solid science behind it. What is the truth of enneagrams? Do we each have an enneagram number that tells us useful things about ourselves, or can it be dismissed as glorified numerology?"

Click on the link below for an analysis of an ancient pseudoscience that just will not go away:

The Conspirituality of Enneagrams

Red Lights, Cold Lasers, And Other Light For Medical Treatment

" - - - Photobiomodulation is a technique by which light is used to stimulate living things into healing themselves. It has taken the form of handheld lasers, helmets full of LED lights, futuristic tanning beds, and even strange nose clips that shine a light inside the nostril to reach the brain.

"Reviewing the literature on each application of photobiomodulation—from smoking cessation to spinal cord injury, from wound healing to age-related degenerative conditions—would be laborious. Instead, I want to take a bird’s-eye view of the hype around photobiomodulation and point out the sobering context in which it exists: exciting findings in cells and animal models rarely lead to applications in humans, and it is all too easy for overeager scientists to fantasize about how an intervention might work before it has even been shown to work."

Click on the link below for more:

The Hype Around Photobiomodulation

Sacred Frequencies: The Worst Of Quackery?

I was watching one of my favorite YouTube channels and came across this advertisement. It's so bad, it could pass as a parody. I reported it to YouTube.

In my efforts to find out more about it, I found a similar one, here, almost as bad. 

"Sacred Frequencies", my arse. That said, much music is calming and therapeutic, just not in the category of working miracles!!

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Some reading this may have heard the term "Solfeggio Frequencies." The term was new to me. It was found in researching "Sacred Frequencies" and appears to be similar to such (maybe the same thing?). In any event, below are some links describing it as quackery:

https://skeptoid.com/episodes/4474

https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Solfeggio_frequencies

https://glasgowguardian.co.uk/2023/03/29/solfeggio-frequencies-and-making-a-quick-buck/

https://healthfeedback.org/claimreview/no-evidence-support-claim-solfeggio-frequencies-remove-toxins-from-body/

The Horrors Of A Scientist Doing Pseudoscience

"Few scientists have caused more death and suffering than Trofim Lysenko. He was a Soviet botanist whose ideas around genetics (i.e., he didn’t believe in it) led to massive famines across multiple decades when Josef Stalin promoted his ideas across the country. And yet… He’s becoming popular again. Why? Let’s look at it."

Click on the link below for a video presenting an example of the consequences of even scientists not understanding the scientific method, with horrible consequences:

The Absolute Worst Scientist Of All Time - And Why He’s Popular Again

Can Sanjay Gupta Be Trusted?

"Gupta is known for his many TV appearances on health-related issues. During the 2020 coronavirus pandemic, he has been a frequent contributor to numerous CNN shows covering the crisis, as well as hosting a weekly town hall with Anderson Cooper.[3] Gupta was the host of the CNN show Sanjay Gupta MD for which he has won multiple Emmy Awards. Gupta also hosted the 6-part miniseries Chasing Life. He is a frequent contributor to other CNN programs such as American Morning, Larry King Live, CNN Tonight, and Anderson Cooper 360°. His reports from Charity Hospital, New Orleans, Louisiana, in the wake of Hurricane Katrina led to his winning a 2006 Emmy Award for Outstanding Feature Story in a Regularly Scheduled Newscast. He is also a special correspondent for CBS News." (Wikipedia)

What most folks who have been exposed to him in the media do not know about him is that his advice is not always consistent with the consensus of medical experts on some subjects. Click on the link below for a science-based look at him:

Where Does Sanjay Gupta Register On The Quackometer?

"Big Pharma": The Bad And The GOOD

"Valid criticism of the pharmaceutical industry often snowballs into demonization, leading conspiracy theorists to promote an alternative that is simply hypocritical."

Click on the link below for a balanced presentation of the drug industry, with its warts, but also its tremendous good works:

What the "Big Pharma" Accusation Gets Right (And Wrong) About The Drug Industry

Sex/Gender: The Science, Not The Pseudoscience

 "As with most things in science, the concept of boy versus girl is more complicated than it appears at first glance. It’s not a simple dichotomy. We, humans, like to classify everything into neat pigeonholes, but Nature’s inventiveness outsmarts us at every step.":

Many factors combine to determine sex and gender, and not one of them is simply black and white.

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"Antiscientific sentiment bombards our politics, or so says the Intellectual Dark Web (IDW). Chief among these antiscientific sentiments, the IDW cites the rising visibility of transgender civil rights demands. To the IDW, trans people and their advocates are destroying the pillars of our society with such free-speech–suppressing, postmodern concepts as: “trans women are women,” “gender-neutral pronouns,” or “there are more than two genders.” Asserting “basic biology” will not be ignored, the IDW proclaims. “Facts don’t care about your feelings.”

"The irony in all this is that these “protectors of enlightenment” are guilty of the very behavior this phrase derides. Though often dismissed as just a fringe internet movement, they espouse unscientific claims that have infected our politics and culture. Especially alarming is that these “intellectual” assertions are used by nonscientists to claim a scientific basis for the dehumanization of trans people. The real-world consequences are stacking up: the trans military ban, bathroom bills, removal of workplace and medical discrimination protections, a 41-51 percent suicide attempt rate, and targeted fatal violence. It’s not just internet trolling anymore.

"Contrary to popular belief, scientific research helps us better understand the unique and real transgender experience. Specifically, through three subjects: (1) genetics, (2) neurobiology, and (3) endocrinology. So, hold onto your parts, whatever they may be. It’s time for 'the talk'":

Stop Using Phony Science to Justify Transphobia