January 9, 1997. "Junk Science", an ABC special hosted by John Stossel
of
the news magazine 20/20 was exceptional television journalism. Not only
were
skeptical viewpoints allowed; they were featured. There was no catering
to
paranormal prurience. There wasn't much distinction made between
pseudoscience and inept, faulty, incompetent or fraudulent science, but
on the
whole the program was a refreshing alternative to the junk journalism we
usually
get with features on Virgin Mary apparitions, UFO sightings, and tearful
testimonies taken as proof of causal connections.
The show began with a listen-in on various cosmetologists (i.e., "beauticians"
or
"esthetic technicians") babbling on as if they were nuclear physicists,
while
extolling the wondrous virtues of their products to prospective or actual
clients.
But the cosmetic industry was not analyzed or evaluated. A cynic might
think
that to do so would risk losing advertising dollars. Better to go after
those who
don't advertise, like the government. The government took two big hits
from
Stossel: for its program on salt and for the EPA's destruction of an entire
community because of dioxin contamination.
I did not know before watching "Junk Science" that my government has a
bureaucracy devoted to informing the public of the dangers of salt. Dr.
Jeffrey
Cutler heads the government's salt propaganda campaign. The idea is to
persuade us that we should not take in more than 2,400 milligrams of salt
a day.
Stossel lined up about a dozen experts from places like Harvard and Stanford,
including Dr. Michael Alderman of the American Society of Hypertension,
to
argue that there is no evidence that reducing salt intake is good advice
for the
general public. There are some individuals who should limit their salt
intake, but
the evidence is lacking which would suggest that all of us should do so.
In fact,
one study of heart attack victims found that those with the lowest salt
intake
suffered a significantly greater number of attacks (about 4 times as many)
than
the rest of the group.
Our government came in for another attack when Stossel took us to a town
in
Italy that had had a major dioxin catastrophe twenty years ago: a plant
blew up
or something like that and there was major contamination of the town and
the
people. There is evidence that dioxin does all kinds of bad things to rats
and
mice and other animals. There is not much evidence that it does the same
kinds
of things to humans. For example, no studies have shown that workers who
were in contact with dioxin for years run any greater risks for disease
or death
than comparable groups not working with dioxin. The Italians buried the
debris,
including the remains of the plant, and built a park over the buried contaminated
debris. They don't seem to be any the worse for their action. On the contrary,
when dioxin contamination entered the town of Times Beach, Missouri, the
EPA destroyed and buried the whole town and displaced the 2,000 residents,
forbidding them to re-enter their homes. The cost has run to over $100
million
for the exercise in environmental destruction by the EPA. The Italian
contamination was 10,000 times greater than the one in Missouri, yet William
Farland, Ph.D., of the EPA defends the operation and appeals to scientific
studies which indicate the dangers of dioxin to humans. There is no doubt
he
could line up "experts" to back up his claim. [update: May 17, 2000. Dioxin
danger may be greater than originally thought.]
Stossel spent a good part of "Junk Science" dealing with "scientific experts"
who
testify before the government and in court. Some of these experts and the
lawyers who hire them are of dubious integrity. Some of them seem to be
on a
crusade. All of them are making money. The most egregious case Stossel
uncovered was that of Dr. Michael West, a Mississippi dentist who claims
to be
an expert in "bite marks." His testimony has sent a dozen people to jail,
two of
whom are on death row. Because of his incompetence and fraudulent practice,
Dr. West has been kicked out of and condemned by the professional
organizations he had belonged to. One of his convictions involved exhuming
a
murder victim's body which had been in the ground for over a year, using
some
sort of special light as he examined the remains, and claiming to identify
bite
marks on her shoulder which were "invisible to the naked eye." He also
claimed
that the bite marks were put there by her husband, who was arrested, convicted
and spent two years in jail before being freed after Dr. West's dubious
credentials were uncovered. (Tony Kekko, the accused, may be completely
innocent, or he may well have killed his wife or hired someone to do it.
The
point is that the only evidence used to arrest and convict him was the
junk
science testimony of a quack. I wonder how jurors would respond to such
testimony if they realized that the same thing could happen to them!)
The problem of junk science in the courtroom is a significant social problem
and
needs to be addressed. Stossel has made a major contribution to making
the
public aware of the problem. One aspect of the problem involves people
like
Dr. West who claim to be experts in something for which there are no
established social criteria. That is, some so-called experts are not really
experts
because what they claim to be experts in is controversial or dubious. Stossel
showed the hire-an-expert advertisements which appeared in a magazine which
caters to lawyers. Very few, if any of them, could honestly claim to be
scientists.
On the other hand, many of the experts called to testify in court have
very good
scientific credentials. The two experts who testified for the lawyers who
sued
Dow Corning over breast implants were seemingly reputable scientists. They
testified to the causal connection between breast implants and such things
as
connective tissue disease, Dow paid off millions and filed for bankruptcy.
Jenny
Jones and Oprah had programs featuring women who'd had breast implants
and
were suffering from painful disorders. The general public would reasonably
conclude from such behavior that there must be strong evidence that breast
implants caused these disorders. Yet, the rest of the medical scientific
community maintains that given the more than one million women who have
had
breast implants, it would be expected by chance, if there were no causal
connection between the implants and disease, that about 1% or 10,000 women
would be ill, because that is the percent of women in the general population
who
suffer from these problems. That is what the studies have found. If there
were a
causal connection, the percentage of women who'd had breast implants
suffering from diseases such as connective tissue disease should be significantly
higher than that for women who do not have breast implants. It isn't.
It is hard not to be moved by anyone's suffering, but lawyers, scientists
and
jurors have a responsibility to get at the truth. Unfortunately, all too
often
interest in the whole truth, necessary to achieve justice, is suppressed
in favor of
finding a perpetrator, guilty or not, who can be blamed for causing such
pain
and suffering. The only suggestion Stoffel had to remedy the situation
is that
scientific consensus should carry more weight than the opinion of a few
experts,
no matter what their credentials. He also clearly implied that some judicial
criteria are needed to prevent quack disciplines from being able to provide
"scientific experts" in the courtroom.
Journalists and the mass media were criticized for their role in promoting
junk
science, but not nearly as severely as they should have been. About 15
or 20
years ago there was a major media flurry on "crack babies". Cocaine was
said
to doom a baby to a lifetime of moronic existence. Experts made strong
claims
about the inability of crack babies to ever lead normal lives. Such babies
can't
respond to a human voice, one expert claimed. The media jumped on the
bandwagon and so did the government (it fit the government's war on drugs
scorched earth policy). Rolling Stone magazine came in for special criticism.
The studies on crack babies, it turns out, were done on samples as few
as 23,
and no controls were made for the effects of alcohol or other potential
causal
factors. In short, crack babies are not necessarily doomed. Cocaine in
a baby's
body at birth has not been established as causing brain damage. Where were
the media and the government when better studies undermined the claims
of the
doomsayers? As usual, they were nowhere to be found.
Stossel also reported on Pons and Fleishman whose fame was as ephemeral
as
the cold fusion they claimed to have harnessed. The lesson here may be
that this
is what happens when scientists skip peer review and go right to the media
and
the court of public opinion before begging for dollars before Congress.
By the
way, it was reported that Toyota has built these guys a research plant
in the
south of France. Not bad for a couple of bumblers whose best data was most
likely due to either fraud or faulty equipment.
Other scientists were called to task by Stossel, including Linus Pauling
and his
campaign on behalf of vitamin C. At least a dozen studies have shown that
there
is no demonstrable cold-preventative effect in vitamin C. Stossel had nothing
to
say about the fad to take zinc supplements to prevent colds. But he did
bring up
the fact that spinach is overrated as a source of iron because of a decimal
placement error by a scientist years ago.
"Junk Science" was a rare program and I would like to see much more similar
programming. ABC is to be commended for the program and for 20/20.
reader comments
20 Dec 1999
I've learned to take Stossel's claims with a huge grain of salt,
especially when he's attacking government programs, and this
was certainly no exception. I presume that he's talking about
the Seveso accident of 1976-- it's the one item that kept
turning up when I did a MEDLINE search on "dioxin" and
"Italy." If Stossel claimed that the Seveso-area residents are
doing just fine, he didn't do his research: I found several
papers which noted higher rates of cardiovascular disease
and CVD-related deaths (Pesatori 1998), higher rates of
mortality for several kinds of digestive canal cancers (Bertazzi
1997), and increases in Hodgkin's lymphoma and thyroid
cancer (Pesatori 1993). A 1989 review noted that "An
increased mortality, from chronic ischemic heart disease
(males) and hypertensive disease (females), which could not
be explained in terms of chance, confounding, or bias, was
noted in the exposed population. The stressful experience of
the population in the aftermath of the disaster was deemed
relevant to the interpretation of these findings. Overall,
cancer mortality was not increased. Suggestive increases,
however, were seen for melanoma, brain cancer, soft tissue
sarcomas and certain hematologic neoplasms, whereas
mortality from breast cancer and cancer of the liver was
noticeably decreased." (Bertazzi 1989)
No, no one study can really be the final word on a medical
controversy, and no paper is immune to criticism. But it
sounds as though Stossel's dismissal of the Seveso incident
was far from accurate.
references
Pesatori AC. Zocchetti C. Guercilena S. Consonni D. Turrini D.
Bertazzi PA. Dioxin exposure and non-malignant health effects: a
mortality study. Occupational & Environmental Medicine.
55(2):126-31, 1998 Feb.
Bertazzi PA. Zocchetti C. Guercilena S. Consonni D. Tironi A.
Landi MT. Pesatori AC. Dioxin exposure and cancer risk: a
15-year mortality study after the "Seveso accident".
Epidemiology. 8(6):646-52, 1997 Nov.
Pesatori AC. Consonni D. Tironi A. Zocchetti C. Fini A. Bertazzi
PA. Cancer in a young population in a dioxin-contaminated area.
International Journal of Epidemiology. 22(6):1010-3, 1993
Dec.
Bertazzi PA. Zocchetti C. Pesatori AC. Guercilena S. Sanarico
M. Radice L. Mortality in an area contaminated by TCDD
following an industrial incident. Medicina del Lavoro.
80(4):316-29, 1989 Jul-Aug.
--Brian Siano