BCS BULL: AN ANGRY CALL TO BOYCOTT
I won’t list a bunch of reasons to justify the need for a playoff system in college football because I’d be preaching to the choir, but I will illustrate how absurd the BCS system is. Imagine the NFL skipping the wild card, divisional, and conference playoff weekends. Imagine them going straight from the regular season directly to the Super Bowl with the best team in the AFC and the best team in the NFC. To hell with all those “lesser” teams who deserve a chance to get to the Super Bowl. How stupid would that be? So if we see the utter stupidity of going directly to a two-team playoff (Super Bowl) after the regular season in a league with only 32 teams, then why would we go directly to 2 teams to play in the BCS Championship in a league with over 100 teams? To further illustrate how dumb this is, imagine that the NFL does have wild card, divisional, and conference post-season games, but they are only consolation games. They can’t play in the Super Bowl—even though many are outstanding teams and capable of beating the two best teams. Would you watch those games? That’s exactly what currently happens with the college football bowl season, excluding the BCS championship game. The magnitude of this stupidity is off the charts. The great majority of teams know they cannot win the national championship at mid-season. For the past several years, I’ve watched the BCS Championship game, and very few of the other bowl games. I don’t like to watch consolation games. But what can we do about it? Boycott.
I’m uncertain if the true source of the problem lies in the BCS committee, the college presidents, the television networks (or some combination), but I do know a solution. I don’t accept the idea that the fans are powerless. In fact, the fans can be almost entirely responsible for the BCS structure changing to a playoff system of 4 or more teams. How? Hit ‘em where it hurts—it the wallet. I’m not calling for a total boycott of all future games. Few of us would do that. Rather, I’m calling for a TV boycott of the first week of the 2012 season. I’m asking all fans in the USA to avoid watching televised games in week one. The sponsors will likely apply enough pressure to get us results. The lost revenue of this one week would send the message that the fans are taking control if they don’t cough up a playoff system. This BCS bull must end and the fans are the suckers if they don’t act.
VIOXX, HEART ATTACKS, OPIODS & FALLS
A Tale of Technology, Risks, and Unintended Consequences
Invited Post by John Nail, Ph.D.
Modern pharmaceutical drugs, along with other medical technologies, have doubled life expectancies during the past 100 years. There is a real possibility that the news media, politicians, lawyers and gullible jurors will put an end to these advances. The news media appears to enjoy reports of ‘dangerous products’ that the politicians embrace as it gives them a way of diverting attention from their own lack of competence. Trial lawyers earn their living by convincing gullible jurors that the ‘big companies’ are to blame for anything adverse that occurs when someone uses their product. Often, the result of the media and political orgy is that useful products are removed from the market. This is the story of a drug that was removed due to safety reasons and the possible unintended consequences of its removal. Before we proceed, we should note that 1) ALL technologies have unintended adverse consequences, 2) It is not possible to know what these consequences will be until large numbers of people start using (and abusing) the product, and 3) Decisions have unintended consequences, including often making a situation worse when trying to make it better.
Vioxx (generic name rofecoxib) was a prescription drug for the treatment of pain from osteoarthritis (this is the type of arthritis that occurs when bones are rubbing against each other). Vioxx was approved for use by the US Food and Drug Administration on May 20, 1999; it was discontinued on September 30, 2004, due to concerns regarding cardiovascular problems (heart attacks and strokes) in patients that used the drug.
A considerable amount of testing is required before the FDA will approve the use of a new prescription drug. One of the pre-approval tests involving Vioxx was the ‘VIGOR’ study – a double-blind test in which one group of participants (the study group) was given Vioxx and the other, (the control group) naproxen, a non-prescription pain reliever. This trial found that the Vioxx group members who had pre-existing heart attack risk factors were four times more likely to have a heart attack than were the participants of the naproxen group with pre-existing heart heart attack risk factors. One interpretation of this result is that Vioxx causes heart attacks in people with heart disease risk factors; the other interpretation is that naproxen prevents heart attacks in people with heart disease risk factors. We know that aspirin prevents heart attacks, so it is reasonable to assume that naproxen prevents heart attacks. Interestingly, there was no difference between the two groups in regards to deaths from heart attacks, nor was there a difference between heart attack rates between the two groups in people who did not have heart attack risk factors. Thus, if a person has heart attack risk factors and should be taking a ‘baby’ aspirin each day, that person’s chance of a heart attack is four times higher if the person is taking Vioxx instead of naproxen.
APPROVe was another Vioxx clinical study in which the ‘control’ group was given a placebo (sugar pill). During this study, it was found that, after 18 months, the participants who were being given Vioxx were almost twice as likely to have a heart attack than were the participants who were being given sugar pills. However, the heart attack deaths (mortalities) were equivalent between the two groups. Thus, as in the VIGOR study, the rate of heart attacks were greater in the Vioxx group, but the rate of heart attack deaths were identical between the two groups. The APPROVe results and the resulting media uproar resulted in Vioxx being withdrawn from sale.
Bextra and Celebrix were Vioxx’s competitors. Bextra was withdrawn due to increased heart attack and stroke risks in patients who were taking Bextra while recovering from heart surgery. Celebrix is still being marketed, however, it has a ‘black box warning’ that it should be used only as a last resort on patients who have heart disease or a risk of developing heart disease.
One of the arguments for why Vioxx and Bextra should no longer be sold was that “osteoarthritis patients have other options for relieving their pain” – these other options are over the counter pain relievers (aspirin, naproxen, acetaminophen, ibuprofen, etc.), and opioids such as codeine, demerol and morphine. While opioids are among the most effective of all pain relievers, they have unintended effects such as narcosis (sleep inducement) and physical and psychological addition. Rush Limbaugh allegedly became psychologically addicted to opioids.
Recently, a study determined that switching osteoarthritis patients from Vioxx or Bextra to opioids has resulted in a fourfold increase in falls and broken bones in elderly osteoarthritis patients. A quote from an article in The Journal of Higher Education that discussed this increase in falls and broken bones,
“Somebody should have thought more carefully about the elderly before making these recommendations” (switching elderly osteoarthritis patients from drugs such as Vioxx to drugs such as codeine to control their pain), says Bruce N. Cronstein, a professor of medicine at New York University’s Langone Medical Center. “Falls in an elderly population can be very dangerous, leading to long hospitalizations and even death.” ….”We don’t have wonderful alternatives for treating chronic pain”… Long treatment with aspirin or ibuprofen, for instance, often irritates and damages the digestive system…Falling down seems like one of the most obvious adverse effects, says Dr. Cronstein. “That’s not rocket science,” he notes. “The elderly are more frail. They have a host of factors that could lead to falls. If you add something that makes you a little unsteady, it increases the risk”
Thus, the choices for people with osteoarthritis are (and were) over the counter drugs such as aspirin and ibuprofen, that can cause digestive damage from long-term use, prescription narcotics that increase a person’s risk of falling by fourfold, or prescription drugs such as Vioxx that, in people with heart attack risks, increased their risk of heart attacks, however, these did not increase their risk of dying from a heart attack. The media and political storm that resulted in Vioxx and Bextra being removed from the market appears to have resulted in either more pain in osteoarthritis sufferers due to their not treating the pain, or the possibility / reality of digestive system damage, or increased use of opioid drugs which has produced an increase in falls and broken bones.
Elderly patients also don’t have the best of memories. This sometimes leads to accidental overdoes of opioid (and other drugs) due to a patient’s forgetting that they had already taken their pain pill for that day. It is also known that people often develop tolerances to opioid drugs, making these increasingly less effective.
I leave you with a comment uploaded to the discussion section from The Journal of Higher Education article:
‘“In addition to the danger of increased falls, the removal of Vioxx and Bextra from the market meant increased arthritis pain for millions of people (including me). The possibility of heart problems for some won out over the reality of pain for millions. I hope that not all medical decisions are made this way” John C.’
Unfortunately, this is how medical decisions are made during a media generated crisis. The next time that there is a media uproar about ‘dangerous medical products’, remember that the unintended consequences from the product’s alternatives may be worse than the product’s unintended consequences.
DR. NAIL is Chair of the Chemistry Department at Oklahoma City University
Ding, Dong, Another Scare, Another Scare*
[*sing to the tune of The Witch is Dead]
Invited Post by John Nail, Ph.D.
On his September 14 show, Dr. Oz apparently claimed that apple juice contains large amounts of arsenic, making it unsafe for consumption, particularly for children. Previously, Dr. Oz has made claims about ‘unsafe’ amounts of contaminates in drinking water. While making claims of ‘____ (fill in the blank) is dangerous, we must protect the children from ____ (fill in the blank)’ may make for good daytime television, these claims are lousy science. Unfortunately, the typically American combination of poor thinking skills, pathetically poor science understanding and the ‘evil big business’ news story template make many people susceptible to accepting the scientifically unsupported, sensational claims made by entertainers such as Dr. Oz. Physicians such as Dr. Oz, a heart surgeon, rarely are scientists.
Yes, chemists can detect arsenic in apple juice; we can also detect arsenic in drinking water (both tap and bottled) and virtually every food, both ‘organic’ and conventional, in any supermarket, including Whole Foods. This ability to detect arsenic isn’t due to wide-spread arsenic contamination, it is more due to the incredible technology that allows Analytical Chemists to detect increasingly minute levels of chemical substances. Nowadays, we can almost always find any of the ‘bad’ substances in almost every food. The real issue is that minute amounts of bad substances are not necessarily harmful.
Decades ago, (real) scientists argued over the competing ‘Linear’ vs ‘Threshold’ hypotheses regarding exposure to toxic substances and exposure to radiation. Today, now that we can find almost every naturally-occurring toxic substance in everything, we’ve learned that the body has natural mechanisms for removing toxic substances and repairing damage from toxic substances. The ‘Threshold’ model, the assumption that permanent damage only occurs when the exposure happens faster than the body can fix things, is now widely supported. The ‘Linear’ model, in which it is assumed that any amount of exposure to a bad substance will cause some permanent damage, is only supported by government regulatory agencies, activist scientists and scientists whose scientific careers have been based on researching the effects of very low exposures. We’ve known for five centuries that ‘the dose makes the poison’, which means that everything (including water) is toxic in high enough amounts and nontoxic in low enough amounts.
Small amounts of arsenic (and other ‘bad’ substances, including radiation) are in our food and water because nature put them there. As an example, much of the soil in central Oklahoma contains naturally high amounts of arsenic.
Consider someone who lives in central Oklahoma and has high arsenic soil in their backyard. If an apple tree grows in the high arsenic soil, the apples produced by the tree will contain high amounts of arsenic, even if the tree is grown using ‘organic’ techniques (only chemicals produced by nature are used for fertilizer or pest control). The person who consumes the apples from the tree will be exposed to arsenic.
The Federal Government (EPA) set a limit of no more than 10 ppb (parts per billion) of arsenic for drinking water and mandates that the water in every municiple water distribution system be tested at least once every calendar quarter to measure the levels of ‘bad’ substances such as arsenic and chloroform. Operationally, no water distribution system would let water with an arsenic level of above 9 ppb go into the system; this ensures that the water stays below the 10 ppb level. One part per billion of arsenic in water (or apple juice) is 0.000001 gram of arsenic in one liter (effectively one quart) of water or apple juice. Water with the federally allowable limit of 10 ppb of arsenic contains 0.00001 gram of arsenic in each liter of water.
Dr. Oz claimed to have found as much as 23 ppb of arsenic in apple juice. The Federal Government (USDA and FDA) also monitors the amounts of ‘bad’ substances, such as arsenic in food. While the USDA and FDA don’t set absolute limits as does the EPA, they would be ‘concerned’ about apple juice that contained 23 ppb of arsenic; when the FDA test food products, they rarely find arsenic levels higher than 13 ppb. (http://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=149396 ).
The USDA classifies a ‘serving’ of apple juice as one cup. Consider a child who drinks four cups of apple juice every day for ten years and that all of the apple juice that she drinks contains 23 ppb of arsenic. During this ten years, she would ingest a total of 0.083 grams of arsenic and 1,708,200 calories from the apple juice; 14,600 juice boxes would go to the landfill.
Some of our ancestors had to hunt wild animals and gather wild plants to keep from starving. Occasionally, instead of eating the wild animals, the wild animals ate them. Other ancestors had the relative comfort of being able to sometimes grow some of their own food. If the crop didn’t make, they often didn’t eat. Today, food more abundant and safe less expensive as it every has been during the history of mankind.
It appears that some people need something to worry about and Dr. Oz, as well as other entertainers, make a living by making mountains out of anthills.
DR. NAIL is Chair of the Chemistry Department at Oklahoma City University
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Dr. Richard Wiseman
IN 2004 SYLVIA BROWNE PREDICTED OSAMA BIN LADEN DEAD–WRONG AGAIN
On December 28, 2005, on CNN’s Larry King Live I had this exchange with alleged psychic Sylvia Browne after another guest asked Sylvia the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden: (from the CNN transcript):
KING: All right, Dr. Farha what’s your complaint? I know you took on Sylvia in an article but what’s your complaint about the overall concept here?
FARHA: Well, first of all, let’s put this in perspective here. Last year on the Montel Williams Show, Sylvia predicted that Osama bin Laden is dead. I don’t know if Sylvia still thinks that or not but I’d sure like to know.
BROWNE: Yes, I do.
FARHA: My whole take on this is — OK, very good, well we’ll find out sometime Sylvia. We’ll find out.
Well, Sylvia—we found out. Of course we now know that he was clearly alive at the time of her 2004 prediction and he lived until early May of 2011. Add this to her recent idotic failed prediction that aliens would visit Earth by 2010. Another in the growing list of failed predictions by Sylvia Browne….
FOR MORE ON THE REAL SYLVIA CLICK HERE
ALIENS: THE SCIENTIFIC APPROACH
WATCH OETA INTERVIEW WITH YOURS TRULY
CRISS ANGEL REVEALS SECRET TO LEVITATION TRICK
[I give Criss Angel credit for showing us how this is done]
CLICK HERE FOR HIS SECRET
PSYCHIC SYLVIA BROWNE FAILS ON THE BIGGEST PREDICTION OF HER CAREER
“Aliens will begin to show themselves in the year 2010, they will not harm us, they simply want to see what we are doing to this planet. They will teach us how to use anti-gravity devices again, such as they did for the pyramids”
(ALLEGED PSYCHIC SYLVIA BROWNE–FROM SYLVIA BROWNE.COM)
World renowned and self-proclaimed psychic Sylvia Browne probably thought we would forget about this nutty prediction she made on “Montel” in 2006. The world has watched the biggest prediction of her career go unrealized–a prediction I would have loved to come true.
