How to win in Vaccine Court

In 1988 the US Health and Human Services set up the "National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program" (VICP) to compensate those people and families who were injured through the use of childhood vaccines.

Between 1989 and July 1, 2014, 3,645 compensation awards have been made by VICP, totaling over $2.7 billion dollars in awards, and $113.2 million in legal costs. Another 9,786 claims were dismissed by the courts. So out of a total of 13,431 claimants, a little over 27% won awards.

In the mid-1980s British researchers found a possible link between the pertussis portion of the diphtheria-pertussis-tetanus (DPT) vaccine and neurological harm to children. This claim was later discredited by better studies, but British families were so alarmed that they refused the pertussis vaccine - resulting in a dramatic incidence of whooping cough which directly led to the death of 70 children.

In the United States, several parents sued the manufacturers of the DPT vaccines. And even though scientists and public health officials believed the claims of neurological side effects were unfounded due to lack of evidence, many of these parents won substantial awards through sympathetic juries who were convinced otherwise during trial.

As a result, most companies who made the DPT vaccine ceased production. Only a few major manufacturers remained in the business of producing this vaccine, and they were planning to exit the business too.

One of the benefits of a well-vaccinated community is an effect known as "Herd Immunity". This form of immunity happens when enough of a community is immune to infection that it breaks chains of infections therefore preventing the spread of infection. When a larger portion of the community is resistant, there is a smaller probability that someone susceptible to infection will come into contact with disease. As community resistance to infection decreases it becomes more probable, and even likely, that susceptible individuals will succumb to disease.

Health officials in the USA feared the loss of herd immunity, and Congress responded by creating VICP to remove the burden of lawsuits against vaccine manufacturers.

The VICP program provides for compensation to children who have severe adverse effects from any childhood vaccine. Compensation includes medical expenses, loss of future income, and up to $250,000 in “pain and suffering”. Claims paid on vaccines received before 1988 came directly from the U.S. Treasury, and later claims are paid by a VICP trust fund of over $2 billion dollars, created by a $0.75 per-vaccine patient fee. It takes the VICP about 2 years to process and resolve a petition.

In order to win an award through VICP, the claimant is not required to provide proof of causation to the extent of scientific certainty.

Instead the VICP uses the civil-law standard of, “the preponderance of the evidence”. According to the legal definition this standard is met if the proposition is “likely to be true” - it is satisfied if there is a greater than 50 percent chance that the proposition is true.

The VICP standard of certainty is far from the scientific standards of error. In science, propositions are said to be “statistically significant” if the percent of error is less than 5%, and “statistically likely” if the percentage of error is 1% or less. A drug with a significance level of 50% would never make it through FDA approval, and may get the lead scientists fired for even trying!

Even in criminal law, “the preponderance of the evidence” is not enough to convict. Instead, clear and convincing evidence is required to judge a person “guilty.” So it is very obvious that the VICP sets a very low bar for payout of compensation claims.

Before 1998, there were few claims in VICP against autism-related adverse effects from immunization. In 1998, Andrew Wakefield published a fraudulently created research paper in support of a link between the MMR vaccine and the appearance of Autism and bowel disease. No scientist since then has been able to reproduce his results. Britain's “The Sunday Times” was able to reveal that Wakefield had changed and misreported the results in his research in order to create the appearance of a link between autism and the MMR vaccine. It showed that Wakefield had falsified data, and the paper also showed that Wakefield had plans to sell home diagnostic kits for the condition he posited in his study, “autistic enterocolitis”. Wakefield predicted that he could make more than $43 million a year selling these kits.

As a result of this paper, the reporting of the “Sunday Times”, and investigation by medical, scientific, and legal officials, “The Lancet” retracted the paper, Wakefield's co-researchers withdrew their names from the paper, and Wakefield was stripped of his license to practice medicine.

A more unfortunate result was reduced vaccination of children due to the general public being scared of a non-existent link between vaccines and autism. For some reason, bowel disease has not made it to general public awareness in this vaccine scare.

In the early 2000's, the VICP started receiving claims of autism as an adverse effect of immunization. The first payout of an autism-related claim happened in 2008, and the largest payouts happened in 2013, in two separate cases that resulted in the award of tens of millions of dollars.

But these cases were not rewarded on the basis of autism.

The VICP has a list of possible injuries and conditions that are presumed by science to be caused by vaccines. This list is known as the “Vaccine Injury Table”, and it not only lists symptoms, but the time period in which these symptoms are supposed to occur.

Since there is no scientific evidence that autism can be caused by vaccination, the VICP does not list it as a possibility on this table.  

There is a range neurodevelopmental disorders in the autism spectrum, and although these disorders share symptoms, they may have unrelated causes. Little is known for sure - that autism is highly heritable, and likely to be triggered by both environmental factors and genetics.

The hypothesis that vaccines cause autism has been well tested in many scientific studies, none of which show a link.  Therefore, they are not on the VICP's “Vaccine Injury Table.”

So how does a claimant with autism win at vaccine court? They claim encephalopathy, which can occur within 5-15 days after a MMR vaccine. Encephalopathy is another way of saying, “a disease of the brain” - which doesn't refer to a single disease, but refers to a brain disorder that could have different causes. Encephalopathy is a broad term, and therefore it could refer to disorder that is curable, or permanent, or degenerative.

Encephalopathy is medical shorthand for saying, “We don't know what happened”.

The two largest payouts in 2013 were fought in the VICP court for years, with the first hearings happening in 2005. The government finally agreed to settle, and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services offered to pay millions over the life of the two claimants, whose families accepted the offers.

During this settlement, HHS did not admit that vaccines caused autism, or even encephalopathy. They merely decided not to dedicate any more resources to defend the case. In other words, it was cheaper for them to settle the case than it was to fight it.

HHS has never concluded in any case that autism was caused by vaccination. This is in-line with scientific studies that show no link between autism and vaccines.

How do you win at vaccine court for a condition that time and again can NOT be linked to vaccines?

You wear them down until it is cheaper for them to just give you what you want.

Free Energy

I've been reading a recent comment thread on "Fuelless (sic) Engine Plans" at the Above Top Secret website. I found the website after a skeptic on the thread linked to my postings on the Steorn perpetual motion machine fiasco.

The thread starts with a question about the company, "Creative Science and Research" that claims to offer the plans for "fuelless (sic) Engines". I've never heard of the company before. A brief glance at the website does cause me to be suspicious. Lots of big promises of new technology that you can make from junkyard scrap according to their plans. Of course their plans are all for sale. They have testimonials in the form of customer letters, but no real mention or even links to the science behind the technology.

The whole pitch smells like snake oil, but hey, I could be wrong. Perhaps it is possible, for a mere $70.00, to build a 350 Horsepower (260 Kilowatt) Free Energy Motor that can be slaved to an AC Generator ($70 for plans) and then used to run your house. (They don't say how to do AC / AC conversion to get the correct frequency - but they do sell plans for a DC / AC 60 Hertz inverter for $25.00)


The Above Top Secret forum thread continues with plugs for Tom Beardon's MEG device. (James Randi has handily tore the MEG to pieces.) It mentions a couple of other bits of pseudoscientific crud, and there some discussion about a guy who claims to make a cell phone interceptor out of a television remote control, an electret microphone, and a steel salad bowl. (I had to look that one up - there's a Youtube video of this supposed feat that is gut-splittingly funny to anyone who has a clue about modern cellphone compression and modulation methods - the idea that the guts of a standard television infrared remote control have any bearing whatsoever is hilarious.)

But I'm not really interested in these various bits of woo, no matter how entertaining.

The reason why I'm writing is that one skeptic seemed to go a bit overboard in poo-pooing everything that forum members brought up. And I think what was triggering his skepticism was the insistance of others in the forum in using the words, "Free Energy" in place of the words "Ambient Energy".

There is a such a thing as "Ambient Energy", and it can be tapped for use. It is both "Free" in that you can get this energy without paying for it, and it is also NOT free, in that the energy has to come from somewhere.

When I was young I lived in a trailer park with my mom, my sister, and some other guy. Through the magic of Google Street View you can see where I lived here. Not far from me were some high tension, high power lines. The kids in the neighborhood figured out that on a dry day (unusual in Houston) you could hold a fluorescent bulb under the the high power lines and watch it light up. One artist has actually made a display out of this, using hundreds of fluorescent bulbs. You can see that project here.

So, if you lived near some high power lines, wouldn't it be possible to create some sort of antenna system to pick up the radiated energy, and use it to power your home? This would be "Free Energy", right? Not quite.

The energy that you could pick up from your antenna goes through a load (your home appliences and such) and then to Earth ground. This would act as the secondary "coil" of a transformer where the high power lines act as the primary "coil". The power to your home would be created by induced EMF from the power lines, and attaching your antenna to a load would oppose this flow of power through counter-EMF. The high power lines would experience a "load" in your location from having to drive your antenna, and the power company might have to increase the amount of electricity generated to compensate. The power company could detect the additional load, and depending on the size of the load they might investigate. If they find your antenna system, you could be charged with theft of power.

The forum also talks about using an onion as a battery - which is very possible. Lemon batteries are a standard demonstration in many science classes. This is also not "free" energy. Lemon trees get their energy from the sun in order to produce lemons, so a lemon battery is very indirectly (and inefficiently!) tapping energy from the sun.

Another battery discussed is the "Earth Battery". I had to investigate that. Earth Batteries work off of Telluric Current, which are caused by differences in electrical potential in the Earth's crust, allowing an electrical current to flow from point to point. Telluric currents are powered by the interaction of the Earth's magnetic field and the solar wind. Telluric currents were not discussed in my physics or electronics classes - I'm guessing that they would discussed under soil science. However, ground loops are a big problem in electronics, and they are somewhat similar.

The big problem in harnessing telluric currents is that they are unstable. They waver in position, and fluctuate in intensity. Sometimes they disappear entirely, especially during drought.

Although there is "free" ambient energy here, it also ultimately comes from the sun. It is not easy to harvest it either. And I have to wonder what effect there would be on the Earth's magnetic field if a couple billion humans were tapping the Telluric current? Lenz's Law would work here too - eventually damping the magnetic field (and maybe affecting the Earth's rotation? I dunno. "Dammit Jim, I'm an Engineer, not a Scientist!")

And this is what I wonder about when people start talking about "free" (meaning "ambient") energy. We can harvest energy from the oceans, from the wind, from heat chimneys, but there is a price to pay in our environment. In most cases, that price is very small, even unnoticeable.

But what happens when several billion people are harvesting energy from their environment? I certainly don't know, but perhaps it should be investigated.

Science Fiction writer Larry Niven talks about the problems on the other end of free energy - that civilizations may have to deal with the waste heat that is the primary by-product of abundant cheap (or "free") energy. This isn't just a greenhouse effect, this is actually adding heat to the planet as a byproduct.


As a skeptic, it is really easy to be overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of snake oil salesmen, some of which are merely cons, and others who actually believe in their own products. The knee-jerk denial is something that we all have to guard against, and I'm just as guilty as anyone else.

Still, there are ways of rating claims to see if they stink of pseudoscience. Carl Sagan's "Baloney Detection Kit" and Dr. Robert Park's "Seven Warning Signs of Bogus Science" are good starters. Richard Feynman's lecture on "Cargo Cult Science" is also good to help determine the difference between science and woo.

I also think that those people who enjoy poking around in the "Borderlands of Science" must also be careful in their terminology. It is too easy to slip into language that isn't based upon reality, and from there slide a little bit further into the realm of magical thinking.

I think it fair that skeptics demand more precise language in these fuzzy areas, that greater evidence must be demanded than for more mainstream claims, and that in these areas experiments must have unequivocal, repeatable results.

The Amazing James Randi to lecture in Fresno on October 2nd!

The "Amazing" James Randi will appear in Fresno as part of the University Lecture Series, hosted at California State University, Fresno.

Randi will give his lecture on "Pseudo-Technology in the New Millennium" on Thursday, October 2nd 2008 at the Satellite Student Union on the California State University, Fresno campus. (map)

From the description of this lecture:

The average citizen is suspicious of science and technology. James Randi addresses this unfortunate misunderstanding in an effective and entertaining fashion by asking the right questions — and then answering them.

From satellite television to the Internet, society is bombarded with carefully designed misinformation. Much of it is simply age-old cons repackaged for the new millennium. From U.S. patents issued for devices that control your computer with ESP to multi-million dollar studies funded by federal agencies to study imaginary "E-Rays;" from new age dowsing rods designed to detect drugs, to magnets designed to relieve pain, our society continues to be susceptible to "snake oil" claims that drain corporations and our government of millions, if not billions, of dollars annually.

Mr. Randi will also describe something interesting to myself, the use of the "Counterfeit Detection Pen", a technology based upon the starch / iodine reaction. I wrote about this in my personal blog, and showed that through experiment that counterfeit detection based solely upon this pen would in fact pass things like coffee filters as "genuine currency".

If you've never heard this fascinating gentleman speak before, now is an excellent time to change that. I've listened and watched him speak in podcasts and in videos online, and I have to say that he really deserves the label, "Amazing".

Finally! Data on the supernatural!

From the wonderful webcomic XKCD.

This says so much about the supernatural.

The denial of climate change

Al Gore won the Nobel Peace Prize today for his work on climate change. His film, “An Inconvenient Truth” won an academy award. Good for Al.

There is some disagreement among the scientifically knowledgeable that Mr. Gore should have received the Nobel. It is thought to be a political statement by the Nobel committee, and the film is known to have a few errors in it, even though the science it is based upon is valid.

But according to the second annual “America’s Report Card on the Environment” survey, most Americans accept the fact of global climate change, and want Bush to do something about it. This survey (PDF link), conducted by the Woods Institute for the Environment at Stanford University in collaboration with the Associated Press, states that:

A striking 84% want a great deal or a lot to be done to help the environment during the next year, by President Bush, the U.S. Congress, American businesses, and/or the American public.

This report says that Americans blame American businesses and Bush’s policies for the declining environment, and that a large majority of Americans are sure that global warming has been, and is currently happening, and that the consequences are likely to be serious.


But there are a few very loud deniers of climate change. I know a couple of religious deniers personally, and if my small sampling of deniers is any indication of the majority, they deny climate change due to religious and/or dogmatic reasons instead of scientific reasons.

The dogmatic, instead of reviewing the science and coming to a conclusion instead start with the conclusion and poke holes in the ongoing climate change science. But even these dogmatic types of skeptic are being overwhelmed with evidence, and are starting to come around.

Christians are having a harder time with climate change, and even though some religious leaders have come around to accepting the evidence, many have not.

The religious group Answers in Genesis advises caution over Global Warming. They lay the majority of the blame on natural events, such as a natural cycle of fluctuating solar output. The belief that nothing happens outside of God’s plan is strong in AIG, and so any talk of climate change that hints at a future global disaster is immediately downplayed, and the blame put on those who are against the “Christian Worldview.” From their article in Answers Magazine, “Human-Caused Global Warming is Slight so far”:

Christians especially need to be cautious when it comes to the issue of global warming and other environmental issues. One of the reasons is that these issues have been hijacked by individuals who desire to change our way of life, and in particular, the Christian worldview that has guided the Western Hemisphere.

I can understand why AIG is wary about this - if they admit the scientific validity of climate change, then how close do they come to admitting the scientific validity of other disciplines - such as evolution?

The problem with overcoming arguments with deniers is that there is not one single “killer” piece of evidence for climate change that will knock their socks off, demonstrate simply and clearly that climate change is happening, and that it is an Earth-based, rather than Sun initiated phenomenon. Deniers point to past warming, to solar radiation changes, to the Maunder Minimum and the Modern Maximum number of sunspots, and claim that even “if” climate change is happening we can’t prove that it is humankind’s fault. And if it isn’t our fault, then there is nothing we can, or should, do about it.

There would be an easy way to find out if climate change is caused by the sun, or by humans. It is a simple experiment that most freshmen who took physics or chemistry would find familiar. To discover the temperature trends of a substance without actually placing a thermometer in the substance, you instead measure the amount of energy being radiated by that substance. That’s the basic principle behind infrared thermometers.

It is easy to measure the amount of energy that is received by our Earth. We know what the solar energy density is when it reaches the Earth so it is simple to calculate how much of it strikes our planet.

It is also possible to measure how much energy is radiated from the Earth. It would require a satellite aimed at our planet to take a measurement of that radiation, but the tools and science to do so are amazingly simple.

So in a simple experiment, using a satellite, it would be easy to calculate how much energy is radiated, as opposed to how much energy is absorbed by our planet. We could prove, or exclude our Sun as a source of climate change during the first week of this satellite’s operation.

If only we had that satellite.

But we do have that satellite! The Deep Space Climate Observatory, (which was originally named Triana), was proposed in 1988 by Vice President Al Gore. How about that?

The DSCVR was designed to sit at that neutral point between the Earth and the Sun called the L1 Lagrange Point. It contains a radiometer that would take measurements of the sunlight absorbed and reflected by the Earth, and would confirm or deny the Sun’s influence on climate change. It would also be able to measure Earth’s temperature, and show its change.

Here is a wonderful tool that could potentially shut up climate change deniers – or shut up those scientists who are offering proof of climate change. In this game of conflicting talking heads, Triana is the referee and judge who could take a big step toward determining the rightful winner. And it is a tool we might never use. Although NASA built this satellite, it was never launched.

Even though he has a somewhat stilted public persona, I think that Al Gore is at heart a romantic. Although Triana could do real and valuable science, Gore instead emphasized that it would be able to provide real-time video of the Earth to everyone, in the hopes it would draw us Earthlings together in a similar fashion to Apollo 17’s “Blue Marble” photograph. This was derided by Republicans who tried to kill the project and called the satellite a “75 million dollar screen saver”. Scientists and Democrats fought against the satellite’s death, and instead of being killed, the satellite was mothballed.

It is still in storage, at a cost of a million dollars a year. The original team that put it together was disbanded and directed to other projects. It would cost a couple of hundred million dollars to put together a new team, to possibly upgrade the satellite, and to launch it. And that money is a mere pittance when compared to the billions we spend each month in Iraq. Yet we don’t spend that money, and now there are those who deride the satellite and deny its usefulness. A rational person would question this sort of resistance.


When denial becomes this blatant – you have to question motive.

Udaya's daughter lived, therefore Homeopathy works!

Just a little over two years ago I posted a blog entry over why Homeopathy does NOT work, that it is based upon the magical principle of the "Law of Similarity", and I mentioned the problem with "water memory" that Homeopathy has.

This entry still gets a lot of traffic, and every now and then I get a comment from someone who tries, and fails, to refute it. (I keep asking for evidence, darn it!)

One commenter has asked for a more serious reply, and since I didn't wish to bury it as a comment to that article I'll bring it forward for everyone to see.

I'd like my readers to meet Udaya, from India: (You can read his original comment here)

I hope you know that in India there is a nature based system of medicine called ayurveda which follows principles that look common to those of homeopathy.

I was a skeptic of both these systems, in fact I used to be so sarcastic about ayurveda's long treatment period, that I used to say that ayurveda makes the treatment schedule so long so that you can forget what your problem was in the first place.

I dislike the alcohol smelling homeo sugar pills and had a bad image of it too.

I stumbled into homeo when my daughter who had some kind of cold and fever that just would not go away. I did try all the new medicines that allopathy based doctors suggested for her. They did not work beyond a certain point.

Then my father-in-law, less a skeptic than I was took her to a homeopathic doctor, who prescribed her a course of medicines, slightly tweaking it, or so he said, until he got it right.

I am sorry to tell you that it did work. In fact we started to keep it with us and give it to her at the first symptoms of cold. It would simply go away.

It so happened that once we did not have such medicines with us and the girl ran a high fever and cold.

The allopaths could do little, so I had to go back to the homeopath again. The problem got resolved and as she grew older the problem almost disappeared. She is seven years old now.

It's too bad that your daughter was sick, Udaya. I know the fear and frustration that occurs when someone close to you is ill or dying, especially when there is nothing you can do about it. It is enough to make a person grasp for the faintest of straws, and to consider every possible hope – no matter how unlikely. It is how our minds work – we do not like “No” for an answer.

I have seen others who have loved ones who have recovered spontaneously from illness. “Spontaneous Remission” is doctor language for, “I have no clue why he got better.” It is an honest evaluation of the situation, and an admission that no doctor, no person, completely understands human physiology. Perhaps with work that will change someday.

The problem with “spontaneous remission” is that no one can identify exactly what happened. Usually so many different treatments have been thrown at the patient that it becomes difficult to tell exactly what was effective. Was it the antibiotic the doctor gave the patient last week? Was it the enforced rest in the quiet hospital room under a morphine drip to keep the pain down that allowed the patient's body to rally? In some cases, even a placebo will allow a patient to fight the pain or to gain the confidence needed so that they don't lose the will to live.

But that does not mean that a sugar pill is the best, or right treatment.

As for Allopathy, that's a loaded word isn't it? A word loaded with scorn, given by Homeopaths toward scientific practitioners of medicine - these are the same people who call what they do, "Alternative Medicine" - like you have a choice between two good things that actually work.

In reality, there is no such thing as “Alternative Medicine” - there is either medicine, or not-medicine.

Medicine either works, again and again in the majority of patients under clinical trials – or it does not. What use is a “medicine” that works only sometimes, in shadowy and mysterious ways with only a magical explanation of why it does anything? If it does anything? It is worse than useless because you can never be sure if you are fooling yourself or not – you can't trust it.

I did try some other medicines in homeopathy; like medicines for gastritis and small problems like that and found that many a time they work better than antacids and equivalent allopathy medicines.

I have seen these ans similar arguments against homeopathy earlier in science mags and blogs and always wondered about how these medicines worked.

I finally got it down to the placebo effect. As you say the placebo effect is extremely powerful.

The only problem was that my daughter when she started on homeopathic medicines was little more than a year old. I am not sure if placebo effects work on tiny infants like that.

If they really do then why did the same effect not work when other allopathic medicines were given?

Can you please put your thinkig cap on Or do you want to refer to some FDA literature.

I would love to see some peer-reviewed literature on why Homeopathic medicine works, Udaya – but you won't find any in any mainstream medical journal. And the FDA does not give a darn about Homeopathy as long as it is no more effective than a sugar pill and as long as it does not contain harmful substances – which would of course be absent if made in accordance to Homeopathic methods!

The Federal Trade Commission in the United States regulates the labeling on the packaging, requiring that labeling cannot falsely advertise or misrepresent the product. This means that substantiating evidence is required, which Homeopathic companies never provide. That is why in the United States the packaging for a Homeopathic sleeping pill says something like, “May reduce the effect of Insomnia”, or some other weaselly words. All homeopathic packaging I've seen contains such weasel words – which could easily be removed if the manufacturer came up with evidence!

Speaking of evidence, I have found Homeopathic “medical” journals before. They all seem to start with the same premise – that Homeopathic medicines work. I have yet to see one of these journals host an article that demonstrates the effectiveness of Homeopathy in a double-blind test over a statistically significant population using rigorous and scientifically sound testing methods that are observed and agreed upon by trusted biologists and / or medical scientists.

But maybe I haven't looked hard enough. I'd appreciate it if you helped me out here.

The only observation that I can make Udaya is that Homeopathy works, if it works, by the placebo effect. Any other time that it seems to work – well, humans are good at finding patterns – even where a pattern doesn't really exist. We remember the times that something seems to work, and forget all the times that it does not. We have a profound misunderstanding of coincidence, and we tend to think that coincidence is statistically significant. This basic failure to understand math and science can unfortunately be deadly to some people.

Have you ever tried homeopathic medicines for yourself? Have you talked to people who have used such medicines?

Yes, Udaya, I did try homeopathic medicine. There is a popular sleeping pill sold in pharmacies near my house – (Calms Forte, I believe).

After reading about James Randi's "Homeopathic Suicide" stunt a couple of years ago, I decided to try it myself. I bought a bottle of 50 Homeopathic sleeping pills and took half of them about an hour before my calculus class. Surely this would have been a bad idea since I needed all of my attention focused! However, I did not feel any sleepiness during or after class. I did notice some gurgling from my stomach, but that went away with time. Perhaps I got a bad batch?

Are you aware that animals are also treated with such medicines? Is there literature that justifies not using them on animals and children?

Yes, there is plenty of literature that justifies using real medicine over Homeopathic treatments. You can start with the medical journal “Lancet” and continue reading the scientific journal “Nature”. At best, Homeopathy is found to work as good as a sugar pill.

How do you know what is the medicinal effect of Trilobite piss, Whale, Walrus, Worms or Wart Hogs without testing them yourself or having them tested?

Udaya! I can't believe you have missed my point so completely! In my entry on Homeopathy I pointed out that Homeopaths claim that “water has memory” - this is why a 30C potentization is supposed to work when statistically not even a single molecule of the original Mother Tincture still exists in the dilution!

But Homeopaths never seem concerned about clearing the memory of the water that they use in their brews! So who knows what other substances that water actually remembers? It is completely unscientific and irrational! In fact, there is no reason why water, if it remembers, can't remember everything it ever encountered over the last billion years of going through the Earth's water cycle! This includes water that “remembers” being ingested, and urinated out of Trilobites, Fish, Frogs, bugs, cows, and that old homeless guy that you encountered last year on the street!

Until Homeopaths answer how they “clear” water memory during the making of their treatments, and I mean clear it of the influence of the stainless steel mixing bowl and the glass vial it is stored in too, then there is no way to prove that drinking a Homeopathic solution is any more effective than drinking tap water! The vast majority of what both liquids “remember” is identical!

Do you know that Western scientists are trawling the forests of India and Latin America and their folklore for medicines from sources more exotic than these?

Western medicines with their double blind trials have I believe created as many and more seriosu problems for humanity then other medicines. Can I remind you of thalidomide. You must be aware of many others.

Udaya, again you reveal that you yourself have failed to adequately read the available literature. Yes, it is quite true that scientists look for unique organic chemistry throughout the world's biosphere. Scientists are the first to point out that there is a wealth of things that they don't know!

I'm surprised that you hold up thalidomide as proof that double-blind trials do not work, where in fact it was the lack of adequate testing and the rush to market by the German company Chemie Grünenthal that led to tragic births. The tragedy of thalidomide introduced in 1938 forced the FDA to change its rules regarding new medications – which is why it takes years now for a new medicine to make it to market.

I am not sure as to what you are, a doctor or just another blogger who consumes and propagates memes. Please allow yourself to be unstupid for some time.

Science is what we know. Not opinions on what we do not know. Please keep that in mind.

What you have done is to interpret based on what you know. Who do you think knows homeopathy better, half witted guys like you or others who have benefited from such quack based sciences?

So much of Indian medicine and Chinese medicine was dismissed as quackery in the fifties and sixties, yet plane loads of your people arrive in India today for Panchkarma and similar things.

Do you know that sometimes they are fed cows urine? Thinking about it is enough to give you a placebo.

This is a call for less stupidity and more consideration of the evidence. Such evidence need not always arrive in double blind trials.

I dont think that homeo or any eastern system claims that it will do well in a double blind or triple blind trial.

They have been curing people based on what is known. What Western Science can do is not to trash them but to find if something in them works.

Like say for Rauwolfia, the insanity herb, which was used by Western medicine earlier to combat hypertension...

Stick to what you know, and do not spread opinions until you have tested them yourself.

regards,

Udaya

PS: I would like to watch this response on your blog and for any comments that follow.

You can always write to me at my mail id at udayapg@rediffmail.com. take your time...

Yes, Udaya, there is stupid all over isn't there? Sure plane loads of Americans fly overseas to drink your cow's urine – remember what I said about grasping at straws? Dying people tend to do that.

And I would have thought that the election of George W. Bush to a second term in office sort of knocked a dent into the idea that Americans are infallible. No matter where you go, there are stupid people.

But perhaps you can un-stupid me, Udaya. Just explain why you believe a double-blind test is a poor way to test Homeopathic medicine, or any medicine.

Science actually works – and the methods of science can be proven again and again without the need to resort to the mystical or the supernatural. I hope you remember this the next time you get a flu shot, receive antibiotics, or type out your next attack on me on a machine that couldn't even exist if some scientist didn't have a basic understanding of Quantum Mechanics.

I'm glad your daughter got better, Udaya. Sometimes shit happens. Even good shit.

More support for Abstinence Plus sex education

Remember Linda Klepacki, the analyst for sexual health at Focus on the Family Action? She's been having a bad time of it lately. I just got another Citizen Link alert from her trying desperately to spin the latest blow to funding the Federally supported Abstinence Only sex education program. The Title V block grant program that supplies almost 88 million dollars a year toward Abstinence Only education is due to expire at the end of June, and the many recent setbacks to Abstinence Only education seem to indicate that the possibility of renewal is doomed.

Abstinence Only sex eduction, as you may recall, promotes abstaining from sex until marriage, and discourages the use of contraceptives – either by not mentioning them at all, or by exaggerating their risks and failure rates. Abstinence Only sex education teaches that sex outside of marriage is not only immoral, but that severe emotional and physical costs may also result. Proponents of Abstinence Only sex education claim that Abstinence Plus sex education (which stresses abstinence, but includes information about safe sex and contraceptives) actually encourages teenage premarital sexual activity.

No one denies that abstinence is the most effective way to prevent pregnancy and the spread of sexually transmitted disease. It is clear, however, that teaching abstinence does not seem to result in increasing the practice of abstinence among teens.

The latest blow against Abstinence Only sex education is a new study to be published Thursday in the American Journal of Sociology. This study, released by the University of Minnesota sociology department, strikes down the claim that premarital sex always results in severe emotional trauma. From the Minnesota Daily:

... while some girls who became sexually active without being in a committed relationship before the age of 15 suffer from depression in their lives, a majority did not. Researchers found the same for boys under the age of 14.

From USA Today:

The latest analysis by Ann Meier, an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Minnesota, found that those who are most vulnerable to depression or low self-esteem are girls who had their first sex before 15 and boys under 14.

Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health of 8,563 students in grades seven through 12 during the mid-1990s, Meier compared mental health measures of teens who were virgins during the study with teens who lost their virginity during the study.

"Among those who had sex, only about 14% experienced increases in depression or decreases in self-esteem," she says. "In terms of depression, these are relatively modest increases. For 86%, it had no big effect."

Meier points out that this study does not, by any means, give a “green light” to premarital / teen sex. From the Minnesota Daily:

[Meier] said there are no positive effects from losing virginity early, and although the section of people who have mental problems is lower than once expected, it is still a relatively large number of young people.

... the broader implications of the study are that early sex can have a negative psychological effect on girls, and schools should have more comprehensive sexual education.

Linda Klepacki spins the study in this way:

For this study to state that teens 15 and younger tend to be less committed in sexual relationships demonstrates its incredible disconnect from reality. Research shows us that young girls are much more likely to be pressured into sex by much older boys than older teen girls. The term 'statutory rape' is more apropos for 14-year-olds having sex than the term 'committed.'

The Citizen Link alert then states:

According to the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy, 63 percent of sexually experienced 12- to 19-year-olds wish they had waited longer before having sexual intercourse.

To which Klepacki responds, "Is this statement not a direct result of an emotional response?”


There are a couple of odd things here. Klepacki and Citizen Link are willing to identify the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy, but they don't identify who did the “research” that young girls are pressured into sex by older boys. Instead she goes straight on to use the emotionally laden word “rape”. It took me almost a minute to realize that she didn't back up her assertion of the likelihood of rape.


I can almost feel sorry for religious conservatives on this issue. They've suffered a lot of setbacks lately. The 8 year study by the Mathematica Policy Research corporation which was commissioned by Congress to find the effectiveness of Abstinence Only education showed that:

... youth in the four evaluated programs were no more likely than youth not in the programs to have abstained from sex in the four to six years after they began participating in the study. Youth in both groups who reported having had sex also had similar numbers of sexual partners and had initiated sex at the same average age.

After the report was released, Democratic leaders in Congress indicated that they would probably drop funding for Abstinence Only sex education, labeling it a “colossal failure.”

I've already blogged that on May 24th, the San Jose Mercury News reported that the overwhelming majority of Californians prefer that comprehensive sex education be taught to their kids in school.

However, that shouldn't be surprising since a January 2004 survey of the general public and of parents by the Kaiser Foundation over the subject of Sex Education in America found that the 94% of parents thought it was appropriate to teach school age kids about methods of birth control. The same study indicated overwhelming agreement by parents that it was appropriate to teach about abortion, how to use a condom, masturbation, homosexuality, and oral sex. (link to PDF)

To add insult to injury, a new book written by Mark Regnerus, a professor of sociology at the University of Texas at Austin, shows that teens that profess evangelical beliefs and who have pledged to remain virgins until marriage manage to delay sex for only a period of 18 months, on average. Slate's article on the professor's book states:

Evangelical teens are actually more likely to have lost their virginity than either mainline Protestants or Catholics. They tend to lose their virginity at a slightly younger age—16.3, compared with 16.7 for the other two faiths. And they are much more likely to have had three or more sexual partners by age 17: Regnerus reports that 13.7 percent of evangelicals have, compared with 8.9 percent for mainline Protestants.

Focus on the Family, the Family Research Council, and other proponents of Abstinence Only are clearly out of touch here. They are out of touch with scientific reality and with popular parental opinion. Most parents remember what it was like to be a teen, and so they do the smart thing of taking a “belt and suspenders” approach toward teaching their children about sex. They want to teach their kids to abstain, and at the same time they want to reduce and control the possible consequences of sex.

The Abstinence Only crowd keeps telling the parents that they don't need the suspenders – but that just doesn't make any sense.

Comprehensive Sex Education Wins in California

Teaching 'Abstinence Only' education is like teaching 'Just Hold It' potty training.
- Roy Zimmerman

Yesterday the San Jose Mercury News reported that the overwhelming majority of Californians prefer that comprehensive sex education be taught to their kids in school. Also known as “Abstinence-Plus” or the ABC strategy, comprehensive sex education is based on reducing the likelihood of harm to young people by educating them about the risks of sexual intercourse and how to avoid those risks. This is at odds with Abstinence Only education, which is often combined with quickly ignored Virginity Pledges and is noted for misstating the health risks of contracting sexually transmitted diseases while wearing a condom.

From the article:

Almost 90 percent of California parents - no matter their politics, religion, location or level of education - want comprehensive sex education for their children, according to a first-ever statewide survey on the subject.

The results of the poll from the Bay Area's Public Health Institute, funded by the California Wellness Foundation, and to be released today , show that 89percent of parents support a sex education program that includes information about contraception and protection from sexually transmitted diseases, as well as abstinence.

What's more, widespread support for such a program crossed all sorts of cultural fault lines. Among evangelical Christians, 86percent said they support comprehensive sex education. The subgroup with the lowest support, at 71percent, were the "very conservative."

The “Focus on the Family” group have been having fits over Abstinence-only funding at a Federal level. I receive their “Citizen Link” alerts, and have noticed an increase in urgency about Abstinence-only. In their May 23rd “Daily Update” they urge their followers to reauthorize this funding, blaming liberals and Democrats for not immediately reauthorizing it. From the alert:

Linda Klepacki, analyst for sexual health at Focus on the Family Action, said liberals want to protect Planned Parenthood’s monopoly on federal sex-education funding. She cited a study by Robert Rector of The Heritage Foundation, that showed for every dollar abstinence education receives, Planned Parenthood receives $12.

So, it's the evil liberals fault again, with their evil family planning and belief that adults should have the tools required to take charge of their own reproductive organs.

Further from the email alert:

Sex education that encourages premarital sexual activity has proven effective in helping to spread disease, Klepacki said, including:

* 18.9 million new cases of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) each year.

* 15- to 24-year-olds representing nearly half of all new STD cases in 2000.

* 822,000 pregnancies among 15- to 19-year-olds in 2000.

“These numbers haven’t changed since I began teaching abstinence in 1979,” Klepacki said. “How many government studies do we have to have to know that being sexually active in your teen years is not safe?"

Notice the loaded wording? Abstinence-plus education in no way encourages premarital sexual activity. This is just pure bullshit. Comprehensive sex education promotes abstinence as the ideal, but recognizes that many young people will not be able to achieve that goal, as studies have proven. So, in order to reduce the possibility of harm, comprehensive sex education includes teaching safer-sex practices, and teaching about the risks involved with sex, which include pregnancy, disease, psychological trauma, and potential socioeconomic consequences.

Also notice the misrepresentation of data. First, Klepacki says that the numbers haven't changed in 28 years, which I would call progress, considering that America has increased its population by over a third during that time period. Second, the US Department of Health and Human Services study on Abstinence Education programs clearly indicates that: (PDF link)

[Abstinence-only] and control group youth were equally likely to have remained abstinent. About half of both groups of youth reported remaining sexually abstinent, and a slightly higher proportion reported having been abstinent within the 12 months prior to the final follow-up survey (Executive Summary pg xvii)

So clearly the Abstinence-only crowd must share blame (if any) for sexually promiscuous young adults.

I'm proud of California for rejecting Federal funding for Abstinence-only education in favor of comprehensive sex education. And this poll goes a long way toward drowning out the few very loud voices from those with a religious agenda. These people teach a form of sex education based on fallacious reasoning and poor analogies and they advocate unworkable Virginity Pledges. And then organizations like the Family Research Council and Focus on the Family go on to quote pure pseudo scientific “peer reviewed” reports that support their beliefs.

The truth is that young people will do their own thing, regardless of Abstinence-only vs Abstinence-plus education. The difference between the two is that Abstinence-plus education is more likely to better inform a young person about the risks of sexual intimacy so that they may better protect themselves against the consequences.

Let's examine the proof that Abstinence Only education programs actually work

I have a long post today that was spurred by the article that Abstinence Only education doesn't work. How odd - religious conservatives keep saying that it DOES work - so I wanted to find out why they would say such a thing. I decided to see if my favorite religious fundamentalist lobbying organization could shed some light.

Tony Perkins, President of James Dobson’s Christian lobbying organization “Family Research Council”, is a big advocate of Abstinence Only education programs for teens and pre-teens in public schools. On 23 March ’07 he wrote on FRC.com:

… stacks of peer-reviewed research are showing the direct impact of abstinence education, including a peer-reviewed study on America's largest and oldest abstinence program, Best Friends.

In Adolescent and Family Health, Dr. Robert Lerner's analysis of urban D.C. participants found that, "Despite the fact that [these students come from schools that]... are located in Wards that have higher rates of out-of-wedlock births, girls who attended the program are substantially less likely to...have sex than a comparable sample... The relative odds of 120 to 1 of a [high school] Diamond Girl abstaining from sex is a result so strong that it is unheard of in practically any empirical research."

“Stacks of peer-reviewed research” validate Abstinence Only education according to Mr. Perkins. This is the opposite of what is reported in March 8th’s edition of CitizenLink.com, a news publication of James Dobson’s “Focus on the Family”. This edition of CitizenLink quotes Linda Klepacki, R.N., M.P.H., who is an analyst for sexual health at Focus on the Family Action:

What they are saying is that, in order to be medically and scientifically accurate, you must be verified and supported in your research by peer review," she said. "Abstinence education cannot get into peer-review journals because the journals are controlled by far-left liberal organizations that do not allow us to publish. That automatically eliminates abstinence-only education, from their standpoint.

How odd. Is it just me, or does it seem like Dobson’s left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing? Are there really stacks of peer-review proof that Abstinence Only education really works, or are all the evil secular progressives using their Black Helicopters to prevent the overwhelming evidence from being reviewed in Lancet or Science?

And what about the peer-review journal, Adolescent and Family Health? I decided to do a little research on the AFH journal. It would seem to me that a good way to make sure that a peer-reviewed journal is unbiased is to check on who runs it, who supports it, and how long the journal has been in business. So I started with the AFH ethics policy which states that:

A conflict of interest may arise when an individual, organization, or other entity has the opportunity to benefit either by monetary gain, employment, or policy position, from an article published through the Journal.

There is no mention of conflicts of interest due to religious idealism. This journal doesn’t seem to care that research may be accepted or rejected due to purely religious preconceptions.

The Editor in Chief of the AFH journal is Doctor Alma L. Golden. In order to hold this position Dr. Golden should have no political bias or scientific preconceptions so that she may evaluate all research with an open mind. Unfortunately Dr. Golden has a history of bias and preconception. Dr. Golden developed a taste for politics as an advocate for children’s health insurance in Texas. She then became a founder of the abstinence advocacy group, S.A.G.E. Advice. As the medical director and presenter of S.A.G.E. Advice, Dr. Golden not only advocated Abstinence Only, but also discouraged teaching the use of condoms. (Powerpoint link to S.A.G.E. presentation by Dr. Golden.)

S.A.G.E. Advice incorporated in 2001 as a non-profit group and started receiving large grants from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. It is suspiciously odd that in October 2002, Dr. Golden was appointed to serve as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Population Affairs (DASPA). According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services:

Dr. Golden [will oversee] the Office of Population Affairs (OPA) within [the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services] Office of Public Health and Science. OPA advises the Secretary and Assistant Secretary for Health on a wide range of reproductive health topics, including adolescent pregnancy, family planning and other population issues. OPA also provides policy and administrative direction for the Title X Family Planning Program and the Title XX Adolescent Family Life Program.

Is this a conflict of interest? Louise Witt, in an article in the April 14th edition of Salon points out the conflict of allowing an Abstinence Only advocate to oversee the OPA:

The Office of Population Affairs oversees Title X, which provides federal funds for family planning and reproductive health services, and Title XX, which funds research and projects on teens' sexual issues. In Bush's 2003 fiscal budget, the administration requested a 33 percent increase, or a total of $135 million, for the office's community-based abstinence-until-marriage programs. As one lobbyist for a women's health group put it: "It's the fox guarding the chicken coop."

Well, the person who runs the journal of Adolescent and Family Health certainly seems biased to me. How about the people who support it? According to their website, AFH is a journal for the Institute for Youth Development (IYD), which was founded by Shepherd Smith and his wife Anita. Mr. Smith testified before the House of Representatives in March of 2003 in order to advocate Faith-Based Abstinence Only education and to discourage the promotion of condoms.

According to the IYD overview:

Since its inception, the Institute for Youth Development has been dedicated to ensuring the best possible future for America’s youth through the promotion of a risk avoidance message regarding five unhealthy risk behaviors: drugs, alcohol, sex, violence and tobacco.

“Risk avoidance” seems to be another way of saying “abstinence” to me. And the IYD agrees on its FAQ page:

IYD supports a comprehensive approach to sexual abstinence. In fact, we believe that the abstinence approach should apply to all risk behaviors associated with the use of alcohol, drugs, tobacco and violence.

The IYD FAQ page even has a blurb on the effectiveness of Abstinence education:

IYD believes that abstinence is indeed an effective approach to addressing adolescent sexuality. This message is being embraced by teens throughout the nation as evidenced by the 2001 Centers for Disease Control Youth Surveillance Survey. This survey indicated that 54% of teens have not had sex as compared to 45% in 1990. So, the survey indicates that teens are choosing to abstain from sexual activity. This year, the CDC reported that birth rates for unmarried teenagers continued to decline. Teens that choose abstinence are totally protected from the consequences that can dramatically alter their lives and their futures.

This blurb is very misleading. The IYD is quoting from the CDC’s “Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report” a survey of trends in America. The survey they quote from is the “Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance” survey. By comparing two of these surveys the IYD notices that sexual activity among adolescents declined, which resulted in fewer births. There is no indication of why there was a reduction of sexual activity – but Abstinence Only advocates are quick to take credit for it, and the IYD quotes it as an “effective approach.” This seems circular to me.

The people who run the journal, Adolescent and Family Health seem biased to me, as does the organization that supports it. So how long has the journal been in business? The journal’s welcome letter is dated January 2nd, 2001 and is published twice a year. After 2003 publishing of the journal becomes erratic. The last dated issue was in 2005. There is one undated issue after that. You can see the issues here, but you'll need a free registration to read their abstracts.

So what about the “Stacks of peer-reviewed research” that Tony Perkins writes about? Well, there seems to be only one. In Volume 3, Number 4 of the AFH journal, a submission by Dr. Robert Lerner is titled, “Can Abstinence Work? An Analysis of the Best Friends Program.” The full text of this particular article can be read under a free registration, even thought the other articles must be read under a paid subscription. How odd - this feels like a magician's force to me.

I’m not a statistician, nor am I a psychologist or medical doctor. I am somewhat familiar with peer-reviewed articles and basic laboratory procedures. So perhaps I’m being arrogant when I say that this submission reeks of poor science. Perhaps someone could check me on this.

A good way to judge that the results are sound is to examine the methodology, here is what I've found. The Best Friends program for girls was founded in 1987 and runs in over a hundred schools across the USA. Instead of analyzing the program in all of these schools, Dr. Lerner restricts his analysis to those in Washington DC only. Dr. Lerner doesn’t randomly pick test subjects and control subjects, instead he picks schools that have more or less comprehensive data. The Best Friends program requires students to fill out data sheets at the beginning of the program and the end of the year. Dr. Lerner compares this data to the state’s Youth Risk Behavior Surveys (YRBS) for the District of Columbia; this seems to be his control group’s data. Dr. Lerner never indicates how many students are in his study at any point. The Best Friends program data is self-reported by the students, there is no discussion about adjusting that data for reporting bias, and there was never even the thought of an attempt to gather original, neutral data for the purpose of analysis.

At this point, I can see that Dr. Lerner’s data is nothing more than the purest shit, absolutely useless for science. But Dr. Lerner goes off on several pages of text and tables, performing statistical masturbation. With this sort of scholarship, it is no wonder that Dr. Lerner's article didn't make it into a more mainstream publication like Lancet or Science. This article would have rightly been rejected out of hand as substandard by any of my laboratory professors.


And this is it. This is the often cited but never discussed peer-reviewed killer study that shows that Abstinence Only education works, that Abstinence Only is the only way to educate adolescents. This is nothing more than junk science in a biased journal supported by religious flunkies with a religious and political agenda.

The amount of dishonesty here should be astonishing, if it were not so common among religious conservatives.

The false dilemma of the "Gum Game" - Abstinence and sex education.

I’m getting so tired of conservative religious black and white thinking. I have friends and strangers both tell me that what I call a system of rational thinking will inevitably lead to horrors. The popular belief is that if anyone gives immorality an inch, it will take a yard. And then they define what is or is not immoral.

Recently a county in Maryland halted a faith-based abstinence only education program that was taught in high schools there. They halted the program because part of the lesson contained the “gum game”, where students were asked to chew the same piece of gum. This was in an attempt to show that students would succumb to peer pressure, even when they were sharing mouth germs in gum. The sharing was strictly voluntary, and I assume that students with bleeding gums were excluded. The germs were no different than those you get while kissing.

One of the parents of a Montgomery County student was overcome by the ‘ick’ factor and complained, resulting in the halting of all abstinence only education from groups who used this game. Of course the religious crowd who believes they have a divine right to tell you and me how to live has bemoaned throwing the baby out with the bathwater – they acknowledge the game is unsanitary and shouldn’t be used, (even though it didn’t bother them for the last 9 years) but say they should still be allowed to teach abstinence.

The gum game analogy shows the weakness of black and white religious thinking. The message is supposed to be, “You wouldn’t share gum germs with everyone in the class, so why would you share sex with everyone in the class?”

The gum game analogy doesn’t follow the analogy to other possible, equally valid conclusions. Perhaps an individual could vigorously chew his or her own gum – as Dr. Joycelyn Elders famously suggested. Perhaps we could share gum when it is wrapped inside a protective, disposable plastic envelope. Yes, it won’t taste the same, and won’t be quite as fun, but it is sure better than sharing germs with an unknown person. Besides, I'm sure someone would invent flavored plastic envelopes with intriguing shapes and textures.

Perhaps we should get to know the person we are sharing the gum with, wait a while, learn to ask detailed background questions, talk to their friends and family, until you feel you can trust they haven’t been sharing gum with other people. Perhaps we can start a program of voluntarily and frequently testing the gum for germs.

You can see that I don’t have a very high opinion of this analogy. And my opinion of religious based sex education is also pretty low – it is a sort of oxymoron in the same vein as “jumbo shrimp” or “military intelligence”. Faith-based sex education teaches nothing about sex, instead sex is defined as a boogeyman and students are warned away. Everyone is supposed to grow up to become the mythical Television married couple. Loving, devoted mother and father who sleep in separate beds and never ever mention sex. Kids are supposed to find out about sex the old fashioned way – on the street or behind the shed with the bra section of the JC Penney catalog.


I have no problem telling kids to wait to have sex. A lot of young adults, even high school graduates, are not emotionally mature enough to handle a sexual relationship without the risk of incurring emotional, psychological damage. Some of the most vulnerable young adults don’t realize that they are vulnerable – and they need the strength and the encouragement of being told that it is okay to wait.

But the urge to mate is hormonal, and it is a formidable force for young people. The reality is that many will not be able to wait. The opportunity will present itself. Young people are likely to make poor decisions and to not foresee consequences to their actions. We can lay the foundations to protect young people even in these situations, by giving them the tools to evaluate their partners, by providing ways to protect themselves when they are awash in a tidal wave of hormones.

Carrying a condom isn’t a license to have sex anymore than wearing a seatbelt is a license to crash. You give a young person a helmet; you don’t forbid him to skateboard.

And speaking from experience, under the right conditions sharing gum is not only okay, it’s a lot of fun.

The science of making a buck from Ghost hunting.

When I was growing up I and some of my friends used a tape recorder to try to capture ghostly voices. We left the tape deck in abandoned houses and on gravestones in order to capture voices from “beyond”.

And we got some stuff we couldn’t explain too. We got a heartbeat sound from a recording in an abandoned house; we got ghostly whispers that were just on the edge of being understandable from the graveyard.

We were seriously, and happily creeped out.

This is what is known in ghost hunting circles as Electronic Voice Phenomena, or EVP. Today's ghost hunters can still use a cheap tape deck to chase ghostly voices, or they can lay out a lot of money for the privilege of being known as a "Certified EVP Researcher!"



Wikipedia has this to say about the possible supernatural origin of EVP:

Most commonly it is believed that EVP are the voices of discarnate entities such as spirits, inaudible to the human ear but able to be picked up with electronic equipment. Some believe this suggests the voices or sounds may have been produced directly on the recording device via psychokinesis. Others believe the sounds may have been outside the range of human hearing, possibly produced by psychokinetic manipulation of sound waves. Additionally, some believe certain EVP may be psychic projections from the researchers themselves, or possibly communications from alien entities.

So I wanted to know more about EVP – and started reading up on it. I haven’t been too successful – there doesn’t seem to be much in the way of free information regarding the theory of EVP.

But my! If I had a few hundred dollars I could easily spend it all in minutes ordering books and CDs online that are described by praise such as: “Home Study Course” “Certified EVP researcher” and “Certified Ghost Hunter.” I can also order correspondence courses, or attend adult education or community college courses that are taught by “Chief Investigators” or Reverends with shaky or meaningless doctorates.

The Reverend “Doctor” Dave Oester and Reverend Doctor Sharon Gill seem to be the kings of generating income from would-be ghost hunters. Owners of the ghostweb.com website, the reverend doctors sell everything from books to CDs to jewelry, and in doing so make enough money to support their endless vacation (now in their 6th year!) of driving around the country in their RV and investigating hauntings in quaint towns and interesting cities.

Reverend Dave, as he calls himself, is ordained through the Universal Life Church – which is interestingly enough where I myself am ordained. And you can be ordained too, in minutes at the Universal Life Church Monastery website, for free! You could legally perform weddings! (Personally I like to sneak up behind a cute couple on a date and yell, “Surprise! You’re Married!" Hilarity ensues!)

Go ahead, go get ordained! It only takes a few minutes, and unlike the ghost hunting courses offered by Reverend Dave, it’s free!

Here are some other ghostly items from various sites, with some not-so-ghostly prices!

• Paranormal Studies 101 - A course on Ghosts and Hauntings from my own city of Fresno
• Bluegrass Commmunity and Technical College - several Ghost hunting courses.
  
• Ghost-Mart - A discounted paranormal equipment supplier. Why pay retail? Get their best Digital Voice Recorder for a mere $80!
• Technica - lots of real honest to goodness scientific equipment that you can use to find Casper. These tools are normally used for such mundane things as precise temperature readings, sound level metering, and radiation detection. Very expensive, but hey, you get quality ghost tools!
• Ghosthunter - get the 3-axis digital AC Gaussmeter for only $260! What this has to do with ghosts escapes me - and I've got to wonder if the average ghosthunter could tell the difference between gauss and gauze.
  

My guess is that Freddy Jones would need an extensive trust fund to keep The Mystery Machine filled with these ghost-hunting goodies.

So far these ghost hunting tools are expensive, but at least you get value for value. I might not agree that a downloadable PDF is worth twenty dollars, but the writer actually went through some time and effort to produce it.

But The Ghost hunting Store goes so far as to sell you what you can download for free. They offer Audacity, a very nice multiple track digital audio editor, on CD for a mere $9.50. Of course this program is open source, and can be downloaded for free from the Audacity homepage.

The Ghost hunting Store also offers a 70 minute CD of “Pure White Noise” for a mere fifteen dollars. I think this is especially interesting since Audacity also offers the ability to generate white noise, which can then be directly recorded to an audio CD for a ghost hunter.

Okay, I don’t think this is fraud, because value is being traded for value. I do believe that the people at the ghost hunting store are being immoral for neglecting to mention the free, open source nature of their product.


I lamented in my entry on the Star Registry that I’m just too darned honest to get rich. I could easily design a gee-wiz EVP recorder that would generate impressive and meaningless results, and sell it under the “Reverend Calladus” name-brand. I bet it could become a tidy income for me. Unfortunately I’d have to throw away the bathroom mirror because I wouldn’t be able to look at myself in the face afterwards.

I have managed to learn about a couple different EVP theories, and I latched onto the schematics of an EVP device from the 90’s. I’ll explain the theory of operation of that device, and in so doing I’ll explain why no ghosts are actually being detected with it.

I'll also use these schematics to raise that vexing question of, "At what frequency in the electromagnetic spectrum are ghosts located, exactly?"

I also want to speak on the various EVP theories that I’ve so far uncovered – and why they are either incorrect, or meaningless. Here’s a hint – one theory suggests that upon death we will gain understanding of the advanced mathematics and information theory required for the Digital age!