Are sugar pills effective substitutes for vaccines? That’s what some are asking about Health Canada’s decision to approve 82 homeopathic “nosodes” which are sold by homeopaths as vaccine alternatives. Homeopathy is an elaborate placebo system of sugar pills. Of all alternative medicine, homeopathy is the most implausible of them all.  Based on the absurd notion of “like cures like” (which is sympathetic magic, not science), proponents of homeopathy believe that any substance can be an effective remedy if it’s diluted enough: cancer, boar testicles, crude oil, oxygen, skim milk even pieces of the Berlin Wall are all homeopathic remedies. In the case of nosodes, it’s infectious material. But this isn’t attenuated viruses, or anything you’d find in a real vaccine. This is simply raw infectious material that’s diluted. And when I say dilute, I mean dilute. The 30C “potency” is common – that’s a dilution of 10^-60.  You would have to give two billion doses per second, to six billion people, for 4 billion years, to deliver a single molecule of the original material. So nosodes are effectively and mathematically inert – they are pure placebo. Not surprisingly, there is no persuasive medical evidence that homeopathy has medicinal effects.

The Natural Health Product regulations, under Canada’s Food and Drugs Act, regulate homeopathic products as well as products like nutritional supplements, probiotics, traditional Chinese medicine, vitamins, and herbal remedies. They are a deliberate shadow of the regulations that govern drug products — requiring some manufacturing quality and safety standards, while effectively removing the standards for product efficacy claims. Yet Health Canada insists that this doesn’t compromise quality, safety, or efficacy:

Through the Natural Health Products Directorate, Health Canada ensures that all Canadians have ready access to natural health products that are safe, effective and of high quality, while respecting freedom of choice and philosophical and cultural diversity.

When used for self-limiting conditions, the risk of harm from homeopathy may be slight. But not if it makes people think they’re using medicine, when they’re actually doing nothing at all. And a framework that gives even a veneer of credibility to sugar pills increases the perception that homeopathy has legitimate medical uses. We’ve seen this worldwide with homeopaths descending on Haiti or treating HIV in Africa, illustrating that proponents lack any insight into the fact that these products are inert. You even get one one ethicist has called “one of the worst charities in the world“, Homeopaths Without Borders:

Homeopaths Without Borders (HWB) has provided homeopathic care and education in Guatemala, El Salvador, the Dominican Republic and Sri Lanka. Since the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, it has focused efforts there, too. Besides minor ailments, HWB also treats malaria, typhoid, cholera, dengue fever, advanced diabetes, and educates about the “beneficial effects” of these treatments.

Laugh or cry? I can’t decide. There’s something really wrong with a company that deludes the barely educated global poor with the false hope of a malaria treatment–when they could have been seeking assistance that might actually save their life. It’s even more wrong that it can get the tax exemption status known as 501(c)3 in the US.

What Health Canada does has very real consequences in the rest of the world. Just this week I noticed the following at the UK website, What Doctors Don’t Tell You:

Health Canada’s approval is being treated internationally as a stamp of legitimacy for these products.  From the BC Medical Journal, Health Canada licenses homeopathic vaccines:

Remarkably, at the same time as Health Canada focuses on influenza education, flu shots, and other proven prevention measures, that same body has licensed 10 products with a homeopathic preparation called “influenzinum.”[8] According to providers, in­fluenzinum is for “preventing the flu and its related symptoms.”[9] Homeopathic vaccines are available for other infectious diseases as well. Health Canada licenses homeopathic preparations purported to prevent polio,[10] measles,[11] and pertussis.[12] Health Canada continues to assure Canadians that it tests products for safety and efficacy before allowing them to enter the market. All approved homeopathic products are given a DIN-HM number. The website states, “A NPN or DIN-HM means that the product has been authorized for sale in Canada and is safe and effective when used according the instructions on the label.”[13]

Homeopathic vaccines are available for other infectious diseases as well. Health Canada licenses homeopathic preparations purported to prevent polio,[10] measles,[11] and pertussis.[12]

This week, Carly Weeks, writing in the Globe and Mail, gave her take on Health Canada’s actions:

Health Canada is responsible for protecting Canadians from unsafe or ineffective products. So why hasn’t the department done anything to stop the sale of nosodes, dubious homeopathic concoctions promoted by many naturopathic and homeopathic practitioners as being superior to traditional vaccines?

It’s a question a growing number of medical professionals are asking. As vaccination rates continue to fall and outbreaks of preventable illnesses, such as measles and whooping cough, are becoming increasingly common, doctors are worried that nosodes could divert more people from legitimate immunization campaigns and lead them to an alternative therapy that doesn’t work.

There are no shortage of proponents, she found:

Many naturopathic practitioners say nosodes are equally or more effective than regular vaccines and that the added bonus is they contain no additives or preservatives, which may be found in trace amounts in some vaccines.

Anna Sienicka, a homeopathic practitioner in Toronto, says she and her family use nosodes and believes they offer protection.

“There are no side effects,” she said. “There are no chemicals or anything else.”

She said that ample research has backed the immunizing power of nosodes. One of the most cited studies, published in the journal Homeopathy, looked at the use of nosodes to prevent leptospirosis, a bacterial disease common in Cuba. After cases of the disease fell, the researchers attributed it to the use of nosodes. However, it’s worth noting that a sizable portion of the high-risk population had already received traditional vaccines, which would help reduce transmission. The study has several other flaws, such as the fact the homeopathic treatment was administered right before the peak of the disease outbreak, after which it would be expected that rates of infection would fall.

Weeks is correct. Contrary to what the homeopath says, nosodes haven’t been shown to prevent leptospirosis. There’s an extensive review of the study over at Science-Based Medicine, and also at Respectful Insolence which points out the numerous flaws in the paper.

Concern about the sale of nosodes has driven the launch of the Stop Nosodes campaign from Bad Science Watch. The campaign has been launched to accomplish a single goal:

Bad Science Watch is calling on Health Canada to stop approving nosodes for sale in Canada and revoke the licenses of all currently approved nosode products. This would include a mandatory recall of all existing nosode products.

Health Canada has essentially eliminated the scientific requirements for approving homeopathic remedies, so we should not be surprised to see products emerge that are promoted as vaccine alternatives. Homeopathic nosodes that are deemed “safe and effective” provides yet another example of the consequence of regulating pseudoscientific practices. This is a regulatory failure, not just for Canadians, but for public health endeavors worldwide. The minimum we should expect from a regulator is that when we’re told a product is “safe and effective” is that we have some assurance it actually works. There’s no societal or individual benefit by licensing homeopathic nosodes for sale. Bad Science Watch is inviting you to take action against nosodes. Join the campaign here.

Follow Skeptic North on Facebook and Twitter for daily updates of Canadian skepticism.

A few weeks ago, my post on the anti-vaccination bias in the alternative medical community raised the ire of some readers when I suggested that chiropractors have been culpable in the spread of dangourous anti-vax rhetoric.  Some were incredulous at the suggestion that chiropractic as a practice originally included a denial of the germ-theory of disease and as such was poised to be biased against vaccination as a preventative therapy for deadly childhood diseases

In Canada, at least, it appears we were both right.

Chiropractic was born out of a curious, apocryphal experience by the magnetic healer D.D. Palmer on September 17^th, 1885, when he supposedly cured the long-standing deafness of a Davenport, Iowa janitor by manipulating the vertebrae in his neck.  D.D. went on to develop his ideas that he said were nothing else but a result of his training in “animal magnetism” by postulating the presence of a force that flowed through the nerves of the body called “innate intelligence;” a force that, if disrupted, was the cause of all disease in the body. By resetting the subluxations, or misaligned joints, of the vertebrae, this force could be restored, with the health of the patient along with it.

The second half of the 19^th century was a monumental time for the development of modern science. The periodic table of elements was being filled in quickly, discoveries that would underpin a relativistic universe were being uncovered, and a human physiology based in biochemistry was rapidly displacing the vitalistic idea of an animating force, like innate intelligence.  It was not surprising then that a rift soon developed between the “straight” chiropractors like D.D. and later his son B.J. and those “mixers” who had a more mechanical view and adopted other therapies as well.  As Ted Kaptchuk and David Eisenberg detail in their article Chiropractic: Origins, Controversies and Contributions, at the beginning of the 20^th century innate intelligence was considered more religion than science by the Palmer’s detractors and other schools of chiropractic sprang up that took a mechanical point of view.

Jump ahead to the 1940’s and the wide spread use of penicillin and soon other antibiotics, and the germ-theory of disease, once anathema to many chiropractors, was gradually accepted by the “mixer” crowd.  However these ideas, that were at its lowest in the 1970’s (see link above), have been on the increase given the public’s growing dissatisfaction with the quick and alienating culture in medicine along with the concerted efforts of several factions to raise the specter of “big pharma” and corporate greed and cast doubt of the use of vaccines as safe and effective.  Chiropractors in all parts of the world, save for Canada, have failed to include in their efforts to become primary care doctors support for vaccination as an essential public health measure, and have even continued to argue against its use.

All we have to do is look at the myriad organizations that represent chiropractors the world over to see what they recommend as essential preventative measures to avoid illness and injury for children.  In his 2002 paper in the Journal of the Canadian Chiropractic Association, Dr. R.J. Ferrence argues that in many cases worldwide, including in organizations like the American Chiropractic Assn., the International Chiropractic Assn., and the World Chiropractic Assn., support for childhood vaccinations is non-existent and anti-vax rhetoric like a focus on the dangers of vaccines and not the benefits, is normal practice.  The sole dissenter from this is the Canadian Chiropractic Association which states unequivocally on its website:

“The CCA accepts vaccination as a cost-effective and clinically efficient public health preventative procedure for certain viral and microbial diseases, as demonstrated by the scientific community.”

So, despite a traditional aversion to the idea that germs cause disease, as well as growing anti-vax sentiment in the chiropractic community, the CCA defends the importance of vaccination as an important public health measure.  Curiously, the Ontario College of Chiropractic developed a standard for vaccination (S-015) in 2004 but it was later revoked in 2011.  What is clear is that while the leading advocate for chiropractic in Canada states clearly that it supports childhood vaccination, the chiropractic community is not fully behind these efforts.

Many chiropractors continue to cling to the chiropractic subluxation theory of disease, that the spine is the mediator of all disease and through its manipulation better health can be achieved.  This has been thoroughly discredited in the literature and even the British Chiropractic Association has called it an historic artifact.  Recently, an update of a Cochrane Review on spinal manipulation for low back pain, the mainstay of chiropractic business, found it “…no more effective for acute low back pain than inert interventions”.  With the last bastion of credibility of chiropractic care slipping from their fingers, we should be cautious when turning to chiropractors for advice on childhood infectious disease.

Is there any evidence for the claim?

The short story: very little. Many skeptical of the claim have a very hard time believing a person can forget to speak English. Oddly this is the most believable and easy to verify of all the claims made by the movie. First language attrition is a real phenomenon. Anecdotally, my mother’s first language is French but she has completely lost the ability to carry on a conversation in French. The man in the movie is described as only having a “pidgin” English ability. In my travels through East Asia (Korea, China, Japan), most people I encountered had a pidgin English ability.

Language experts point out if you return to your native speaking country, the language does slowly come back. Some believe the film captures initial stages of that phenomenon when the man in the film is in the pure English environment of Canada.

Did he?

French and Korean are most certainly not my first languages. The former I learned in French immersion in Quebec and the latter I acquired to a “pidgin” level when living in Seoul for four years (2003-2008). Pressed, I could probably not cobble together a coherent sentence in either language today. However, during a trip to Paris back in March 2013, I noticed some of my second language abilities in French bounced back more and more. When I holiday in Korea, again, my Korean skills start to bounce back. It’s surprising how much of the local language you start to recall (and, tellingly, absorb) when you discover you need to eat and find bathrooms. Was the man in the film exhibiting signs of rebounding first language skills or rebounding second language skills that happen when “in country”.

Curiously, in the Stars and Stripes comment section, Green Beret Don Bendell alleges the man in the film “speaks fluent French”. I can find no source on this other than Bendell’s claim. But if true, it’s evidence against the man being JHR. Remember, the DPMO claims the man is a Frenchman. French was certainly not a language the Vietnamese would have taught widely after the fall of their much hated colonial rulers. You would certainly keep it under your hat in a country under the thumb of the Viet Cong and not teach to your Green Beret husband you’re trying to pass off as a Viet citizen. But it would be a language you would speak fluently if you were, as the DPMO claims, a former Frenchman who lived in Vietnam before the fall.

The man in the film could easily be tested for an ability to read French. You might wonder how you can test a person who might deny they know a language. “Speak Korean!” “I can’t!” “Speak it!” “I really can’t!” Approached that way you could go around in circles for hours, if not days.

There is, however, an interesting test of a knowledge of a language you might deny you can understand. It’s called the Stroop Effect. If I showed you a Korean word that was printed with red ink but the Korean word was the word for green, as a non Korean you could very quickly say “those characters are red”. It would be trivial to look at meaningless lines and circles and tell me what color they are. However, if you were reasonably fluent in Korean, it would take you a bit more time to say “red”, because your first impulse is to read “green” aloud. The delay can be measured and obvious. And it would be clear evidence such a person has reading fluency.

But scammers ask for money, right?

Brian Johnson in his follow on Maclean’s article tries to cast doubt upon the notion the man in the film is running a scam or perpetuating a hoax.

“Finally, if this 74-year-old enigma is a scam artist, it’s one strange scam. ‘A scam implies you’re out to get something,’ Jorgensen told me….She said to him ‘What do you need? Do you need money?’ And he said, ‘Nothing. I just wanted to see my family one last time.’”

The implied claim seems to be scammers only want money, and since he doesn’t want money, the only reasonable option left to us is he is telling the truth. Johnson and the filmmaker advance a classic “argument from ignorance”. Simply because Jorgensen can’t think of any possible scam, therefore there is none and the safe money bet is he is who he claims to be.

It is known the man in the movie has two children (or more) by his Viet wife. People in Asia (and pretty much the rest of the world) will go to great lengths to get their kids American citizenship. They will arrange holidays in the USA shortly before giving birth, have the child on US soil, and procure the baby citizenship that way. Koreans will even pay retired couples in the USA to adopt their kids for the educational opportunities. (I don’t want to make it seem like I’m picking on Asians or trying to paint them as dishonest. Heck, I would go out of my way to have a child born on US soil. Having lived in Asia, I simply have a much better familiarity with some of the local news.)

We see possible hints about this in Faunce’s own blog:

“John told us over and over he wanted to return to America, that he was an American Soldier. He also pointed to his son and daughter in regard to their safety and possibility of them going with him.”

According to the Fake Warriors page, the man in the film was first paraded around by a heroin smuggler. If true, it’s possible there are drug smugglers behind him who think they could benefit from American citizenship for him or his children.

In the minds of drug smugglers, with him or his kids as mules, it would make for much easier passage across SE Asian borders. Having traveled a lot in Asia, I can tell you how quickly you are waved through South Korean and Chinese customs when you have a Canadian passport. My American friends in Korea report similar hands off treatment flashing their American passports. Don’t get me wrong. I don’t place much credence in that scenario. I merely mention it to show the vast range of possibilities Jorgensen and the Maclean’s writer didn’t even begin to consider. Curiously, the filmmaker, in no news report I’ve read, ever mentions the man in the film has been controlled and shopped around for years by some dark characters.

Others suggest he simply thinks there’s a big pay day involved: 44 years of back pay and retirement benefits. There are some that claim he would not be owed such benefits. He might even be prosecuted as a deserter. Even if true, the man in the film might be simply unaware there is no payday waiting for him. Heck, forget the shadowy drug lords. Maybe there’s a whole village pulling for him to hit payday. After all, the pensions the British military pays to their retired Gurkha warriors help keep whole villages afloat.

In the CBC As It Happens interview (opens an mp3) the filmmaker and the niece underscore the point that they kept pressing the JHR claimant to take money if he needed it. He kept refusing. He never asked for money. This simply can’t be about money. Right? Has the filmmaker has never heard of the “long con”?

The Sister recognizes him

The emotional climax of Unclaimed is the meeting between JHR’s sole remaining sister (80-years old) and the man claiming to be her brother. From all reports this is a powerful, emotional scene. If this truly is JHR, one would have to be more than heartless not to be moved to tears by such a scene. These are two old people, in the final years of their lives, and this is likely their last meeting ever.

The sister is adamant the man she met is her brother. According to the Star she commented:

“There’s no question. I was certain it was him in the video, but when I held his head in my hands and looked in his eyes, there was no question that was my brother.”

Would a sister not be able to recognize her own brother? For many that believe in the film, the sister’s confirmation is enough. As (heartless) skeptics we’re all too aware of the power of wishful thinking, the power of suggestion, and the effect great passages of time (44 years) have on memory. You’re told, or it’s intimated, a good Christian missionary (a term I do not use sarcastically), a fellow brother-in-arms, and an award-winning filmmaker have found your brother after making heroic efforts.

If you still have your doubts, consider the real life story of Frédéric Bourdin. My friend Richard Murray quickly noticed the similarities and pointed it out to me. This French scammer was able to convince a family in Texas he was their long, lost son. Remarkably the US government even issued him a passport based solely on his “sister” swearing an oath that it was her brother. Note my earlier comment about maybe the man in the film simply wants to get a passport for him and citizenship for his children. It is, or was, apparently this easy. (I found it curious Maclean’s film critic after making so much hay about the sister making a positive ID, didn’t see parallels with 2010′s The Chameleon, a film based on Bourdin. He also missed 1982′s The Return of Martin Guerre. Another true story about a man claiming to be soldier and fooling the wife and kids.)

It’s comforting to see that many people who have not seen the movie and not influenced by the documentary’s emotionally compelling structure, quickly see what’s missing in this story and are quick to voice the plot hole on various comment boards. No DNA test. The filmmaker does not open the box and show you, indeed, there is a dragon in the box. If we take Jorgensen’s word for it, and I have no reason not to, the choice was with the sister and the sister was confident. She didn’t feel like she had to prove anything.

That’s, of course, her right. For my part, if I had a niece and nephew in Vietnam and taking a simple test could put them on the road to American citizenship and the benefits that would come (Vietnam, despite some people’s perceptions, has excellent relations with the USA and a passport would give any resident a leg up in this rollicking nation of international traders) I would do this in an instant.

Since the film’s Hot Docs release and the story hitting International news, the word is the family is now looking at getting a DNA test. The box may be opened eventually. Just in time for the DVD release?

Plot Holes

As you dig into this story, you find, curiously, JHR’s supposed survival story changes from newspaper to newspaper. Aren’t they working from the same press packet?

The Star says he was released after being tortured for a year:

“Robertson says he was confined to a bamboo cage in the jungle by North Vietnamese captors and, accused of being a CIA spy, was tortured for a year. Confused and badly injured, he was released and married the Vietnamese nurse who helped care for him.”

We’re somehow asked to believe the North Vietnamese would torture the captured Green Beret for a year and then release him (a man trained in unconventional, behind-the-lines warfare) to wander Vietnam during war time? Barnard never stopped for a minute to question this utterly unbelievable plot element? I remind you, she is a movie reviewer. Why did such a plot hole miss her attention?

Stars and Stripes changes the story. He was tortured for “years”, sent to work in the fields, and then escaped:

“He recalls being taken prisoner by communist forces and tortured for years in a series of prisons, both above and under ground. The man says after four or five years in captivity, he was put to work in the fields where a local nurse helped him escape and start over under a false identity. They later married and have children, who also looked like westerners.”

Maclean’s sticks with the escape story but seems to change the field element to a place where he was found after hiding in the woods, not a place where he was put to work:

“He says he escaped after four years, hid in the woods and was found in a field by a woman who nursed him back to health and would become his wife.”

The New York Daily News switches out the North Vietnamese for the Viet Cong:

“Now 76, the onetime Green Beret’s American family says that he does not remember English, his birthday or American children’s names — all he recalls is that he had an American family before the Viet Cong captured him. The man believed to be Sgt. John Hartley Robertson was locked in a bamboo cage mid-1968 and tortured for a year until his release.”

SFgate goes with the “released” angle but adds he was tortured not just for a year, like Barnard claims but, “years”:

“How the North Vietnamese captured him after his helicopter crash, how they trapped him in a bamboo cage and tortured him for years. Eventually, his captors released him, physically and mentally broken. A widowed woman found him lost in the jungle, nursed him back to health and eventually married him.”

In Faunce’s blog he adds a Buddhist sanctuary in Laos. He makes no mention of him being captured and tortured in a cage. JHR supposedly battled his way out of Laos, into Vietnam, and met the nurse. No paper makes mention of this or the dramatic battle and river boat escape:

“I do not know how he escaped, except that somehow he was found and stayed in some Buddhist sanctuary for a while in Lao. What we gathered is that he had tried to escape back into Vietnam to reach a US military outpost to try and return home. They informed us that he and some other Vietnamese encountered a battle. They were on a river in a boat and again had to escape for their lives. It is at this time how he met his now wife. They have been up in the hills ever since.”

Jorgensen himself, in the CBC As It Happens interview (opens an mp3), settles on the JHR claimant being tortured for a year (not years) and spent four more years in prison. In the interview the filmmaker does not clear up if he was released or escaped. Oddly the filmmaker admits the man claiming to be JHR gets the number of men on his own helicopter incorrect.

If you go with the escape from imprisonment story, one does wonder, how a man imprisoned for four years, tortured for a year, and requiring nursing care, manages to escape and avoids being re-captured by better fed men familiar with the terrain? Oh yeah, he also found a village the North Vietnamese or the Viet Cong did not think to search for an escaped POW. One also wonders why villagers would not suddenly notice the nurse’s husband returning from the dead with a distinctly American appearance. Finally, given the utterly brutal treatment the Viet Cong gave to villages they believed were collaborating, why anyone in the village would remain silent and not turn the escaped POW in?

But you never saw the movie!

The story discrepancy is likely explained by different reporters watching the movie and cobbling together the survival story from their own memory. The movie might present an “official” story. Many people have been critical of skeptics of Unclaimed (me, the raft of Green Berets cited above, POW/MIA NGOs) because we have not seen the movie. The point is moot, however. The filmmaker has made it clear the intent of the film was not to establish the factual identity of the man. In Jorgensen’s CBC As It Happens interview (opens an mp3) he states he’s “not set out to prove that this was John Hartley Robertson.”

The film’s PR people agree:

“In producing Unclaimed, Myth Merchant Films’ intent was to chronicle the story of Tom Faunce, whose determination to uncover the true identity of the man claiming to be John H. Robertson was inspiring, very moving and met with roadblocks at every turn. The film was not produced to help perpetrate fraud of any kind or misrepresent anyone’s identity, but merely follows one man’s struggle to help another. It is the filmmaker’s hope that after watching the film, viewers will perhaps be inspired by Tom’s actions to help others in even small ways.”

So, Jorgensen has clearly stated he and the film do not set out to establish who the man is. If the filmmaker tells me that is not the point of the film, it sure seems like seeing the film will bring one no closer to the truth. I’m more than happy to take his word for it and not see his movie. I have no interest in arriving at truth via emotional manipulation. I’m interested in arriving at the truth of a claim via the scientific evidence.

The film’s PR statement (quoted above) followed reports by the UK press that the man in the film was a fraud. Some saw the caveat as the filmmaker backing off claims they found JHR. I have no desire to guess at motivations. As Penn Jillette notes, the difference between a skeptic and a cynic is cynics question your motivations for arriving at your conclusions, skeptics look at what facts you used to arrive at your conclusions. I believe Jorgensen did not set out to make a documentary about a scientific investigation. I believe Faunce has risked a lot to bring out a man he truly thinks is a brother-in-arms. I believe all concerned (Jorgensen and Faunce) have had noble intent. But even those with the most noble of intentions can arrive at the wrong conclusions.

Although, admittedly, if the filmmaker opened the box and found there was no dragon in it, he wouldn’t have much of a film. Would he?

Tooth evidence

The film does, as far as I know, offer one line of scientific evidence. In, apparently, a rather visually uncomfortable scene the man in the film has a molar extracted by a Vietnamese dentist. The tooth is sent to a forensics lab to test isotopes in the tooth enamel. And this is where being a skeptic pays off. You learn a lot. Who knew about tooth enamel testing? It’s actually a fairly new science, used both by archeologists and forensic scientists. It works like this. As your adult teeth are formed (around ages 3-12), the tooth enamel preserves oxygen and strontium isotopes found in the drinking water and food you consume. These isotopes remain fixed and constant in your enamel for your entire life. They are a good indication of where you grew up. Your baby teeth also preserve these isotopes but we, of course, lose these teeth. Baby teeth could, theoretically, point to where you were born (versus where you grew up).

Scientists have two methods for determining where you grew up from the isotopes in your teeth. They can compare your tooth isotopes to drinking water reference samples. (“Karl says he grew up in Montreal.” YANK! “Yep, his tooth tests the same as Montreal tap water.”) Scientists are also creating isotope maps (isoscapes) for North America, Europe, and probably the rest of the world. You don’t have to drive to Montreal to get a sample. These isoscapes are not only important as a tool in crime fighting but also figuring out the provenance of things like milk and champagne. (Does the water in the champagne come from the water in the Champagne region?)

The filmmaker says the tooth analysis has established the man in the movie grew up in the USA based on isotope testing. However, the filmmaker has not published the analysis for peer review. One poster on the Unclaimed Facebook page ridiculed this suggestion, noting forensic evidence at trial is not subjected to peer review. Though true that in a court it’s not subjected to peer review in the “I want this published in Nature” sense, it is subjected to peer review in the sense I was using it. The technical experts for the opposing side can examine the full analysis and can argue the conclusions being put forward are not supported by the science in the report.

As skeptics, we frequently see lay people miss the important caveats and nuances of a scientific analysis and claim firm conclusions that simply are not present in the full analysis, conclusions the original scientist would not make. Creationists are brilliant examples of this.

Of course, as a lay person, even if Jorgensen did publish the full report, I’m unable to properly interpret such a document myself. However, there are certainly many peers quite capable of rendering opinion.

My immediate suspicion about the positive tooth test was we have no idea what question Jorgensen asked the lab to answer. Did they ask “could this be a tooth from an American?” Or did they ask “could this tooth ONLY have come from an American?” They are very different questions. As noted above, the DPMO claims the man is a Frenchman. Is it possible a person growing up some place in France could have a match within error bars? (I have no reason or desire to question the tooth’s chain of custody.)

The filmmaker has posted a brief clip from the movie. The researcher notes it is very unlikely JHR was from France and very likely he lived his young childhood in the United States. I was struck by the lack of specificity. Like someplace in the USA but nothing more specific? We should have a good idea where JHR spent his childhood. If they got a match on that region, that would be highly compelling. Why hand wave to all of the USA? And how do you eliminate all of France?

I contacted a researcher at the University of Calgary who has written several peer reviewed papers on this science. I sent her known details and a link to the video. I reproduce her full email to me here:

Dear Mr. Mamer:

Since the man is alive, the best evidence of identification is DNA and fingerprints.  MtDNA is not as specific as nuclear DNA however if the fingerprints match and the mtDNA matches maternal relatives then I would not be skeptical about the determination that the man is JHR.  The Ehrlinger lab is very reputable and they indeed have isotope maps (isoscapes) of the U.S.  Oxygen isotopes are indicative of local surface waters and there are probably some similarities in oxygen isotopes between some parts of the U.S. and some parts of France. I would have to look at maps, which can be found on-line.  Strontium isotopes are specific to underlying bedrock and diet.  It does seem vague to say someone is from the U.S. but not from France, given the size and complex geology of both countries.  I suspect the lab could be more specific if asked, but the more important point is that isotopes give a range of possible locations and can rule out some locations, but fingerprints are specific to an individual and mtDNA is specific to maternal lineages. 

It might also be possible to match up points on the photos of the two men where there are bony landmarks – chin, angle of the jaw, cheek bones – which will not change much with age, but this is also much less specific than fingerprints and DNA.  Photographic superposition (matching up these landmarks) is normally used to rule out possible matches of photos and missing persons.

Thanks for the diversion.

The bold emphasis is mine. My understanding of what she emailed me is the oxygen isotope test is less specific (allowing for more false positives) and the strontium isotopes are more specific. My guess is if you look at the intersection of oxygen and strontium, there might be only one area in the world with the geography and geology that could produce both measures.

One major assumption of this test is the person grew up in the same location. A way to test this is you compare two different teeth (one that formed earlier and one that formed later). If they both have similar isotope ratios you can assume the person remained in the same location while forming his/her adult teeth. However, the filmmaker tested only one tooth (the subject apparently did not have many teeth left).  I have no idea if the researcher controlled for the possibility that man in the film might have moved a lot as a child. Possibly his parents were diplomats, merchants, or his dad was a soldier. Moving  to different regions would contribute different amounts of both isotopes and confound the reading.

Whatever, the case, we can’t determine anything from this belief clip. The test has some degree of specificity but none related in the clip. Why?

I emailed the researcher in the clip for comment. She politely responded but noted she couldn’t reveal specifics about any particular case. Understandable. I have no doubt, however, about the researcher’s honesty and skill. She seems to have an impressive publication record.

No, I am not a paid stooge

I spent considerable amount of time on the Unclaimed film’s Facebook page trying to balance arguments for authenticity. Most commenters siding with the film based their assessment on what we skeptics would quickly realize as the alt med “consumer testimonial” gambit. But so many found it emotionally compelling!

Members of what appear to be the missionary’s family (a Joe Faunce who I gather is the cousin who aided Tom Faunce in Cambodia and a Stephen Faunce whose relationship is unknown) quickly joined the Facebook discussion. Both questioned my motivations for my skepticism. Stephen claimed “[Karl Mamer] is out for his own gain he could care less about the real Truth.” Joe Faunce assessed I was “probably hired to write these posts by we know who”.

To both I responded:

“I’ve stated quite clearly in several places that I’m a skeptic, not a cynic. I have no desire to question the motives of the film makers or Faunce. I assume only the best motivations, the one the film maker has labored to elucidate. I do question the evidence that Faunce’s claim is more likely true than false. One can be of the purest heart and still come to the wrong conclusions from fallacious reasoning.

You’re free to question my motives. My own gain is I learn a lot about MIA issues and the science behind it. You’re entirely free to, without evidence, attribute any motivation you wish to me, of course. I’m happy to take Faunce’s motivation (but not his facts) at face value. I’d only ask you (a professed Christian?) to do the same. But it’s not required.”

To each of their credit, they admitted they had a better picture of where I was coming from and have not returned to the old “paid stooge” argument. I should, at this point, give a nod to the PR people handling the movie’s Facebook page. They have been extremely patient and open in allowing debate like the above to take place. One might think, with an expensive movie on the line and headlines in major papers singing “fraud”, they would be inclined to shut down dissenting opinions and facts. They have, however, handled the debate quite masterfully. I can’t say Jorgensen picked his topic well, but he picked his social media people well.

Conclusion

For the record I would LOVE if this man is JHR or even an American left behind. I would never be so happy to be wrong. I also appreciate the good work the Faunce family has done in SE Asia, helping the poor and digging wells. You won’t find my lazy ass digging wells, and keyboard jockeys like me benefit from the charitable works and sacrifice of people like Faunce.

The man in Unclaimed could be JHR. The DPMO could be incompetent, lying, or simply missed something important. Many who believe the man is JHR, discount the DPMO’s analysis simply because it comes to a conclusion they do not like. Despite repeated requests of those who discount the DPMO’s analysis, no one has volunteered specific reasons why the DPMO should not be trusted, beyond “the government lied before, so they are probably lying now”. (Oddly, no one ever seems to assume the government is lying when it issues you a tax refund check. We’re happy to take a check and assume it’s an honest monetary instrument.) On the contrary, I think I’ve shown the DPMO, the Green Berets, and MIA groups who have worked this mystery have been fair and extremely knowledgeable actors. We are to believe, and I do, that Faunce (former military) has sacrificed a lot to bring who he believes is a brother-in-arms home. However, when the military people who staff the DPMO also espouse the same “no man left behind” ethic, those moved by Unclaimed see the DPMO’s words as hollow?

My position, which I’ve labored to cover in what might be the longest series of blog posts in Skeptic North history, is when I see lots of Green Berets and on-the-ground journalists saying “whoa whoa! scam!” I feel we should give them voice and reserve judgment until a DNA test. In science, many times two camps form. Both look at the same data and come to very different conclusions. Eventually both sides agree to run an experiment that will decide the issue either way and then live with results. I feel those on both sides of Unclaimed could benefit from this tried and tested approach. A DNA test by a lab without a dog in the fight would settle the matter.

The Toronto media itself was both credulous and failed to properly balance this story and challenge Jorgensen’s seeming low level conspiracy mongering. To be fair, Jorgensen may not be conspiracy mongering and merely highlighting what he thinks is governmental incompetence. As they say, a man with a hammer sees every problem as a nail to be pounded down. As the host of the Conspiracy Skeptic podcast, I see conspiracy mongering when the filmmaker states the military is lying and he underscores MIA conspiracy themes like “We don’t want them to come back”. Whatever Jorgensen’s interpretation is, the media has certainly platformed it in a conspiratorial way. The Toronto media failed to recognize there is a factual claim about who the man is wrapped up in the story. They failed to recognize this claim is independent of the film yet perpetuated by the film and the media. The Toronto media should have questioned the story more, especially knowing the ramifications of headlines like “Unclaimed finds a Vietnam veteran left behind for 44 years” and not qualified headlines like “Unclaimed film alleges…”.

There are most certainly people, who have given sons/daughters/husbands/wives to war, who will never be able to see this film and understand the nuance of the filmmaker’s expressed intent. Canadian documentaries rarely get shown in places like Kentucky and Arkansas. They do not have the luxury of subscribing to Netflix.  But these people may well see  recklessly unqualified hope-inducing headlines like:

“Unclaimed finds a Vietnam veteran left behind for 44 years”

“Canadian doc ‘Unclaimed’, premiering this week at Hot Docs, finds a lost American soldier with almost no memory of his past”

“Unclaimed: Mystery of a lost – and found – Vietnam vet”

The bit after the final credits

To double check that someone like me (not at all a professional journalist) was seeing an angle to this story that wasn’t there, I asked Time/The Economist journalist Cain for his assessment on the Toronto media’s reporting on the film and the issues surrounding it. I reproduce Cain’s assessment below in full. I also sent his assessment to the Star reporter who broke the story Linda Barnard for comments. Her comments will follow. (And please let me say, despite the criticism I heap upon Barnard’s approach, she has been extremely patient with me the last few weeks via email. I have zero personal issues with her and would be happy to buy her a beer anytime. As I’ve noted, good people with good intentions can arrive at different conclusions. And I’ve had the benefit of weeks to research. Real journalists work under real time constraints.)

From Cain:

Yes, I lived in Vietnam and Cambodia for a while and speak some Vietnamese. Basically, I’ve been following war-legacy topics like these as a reporter — the MIA remains issue, the Khmer Rouge genocide tribunal, etc.

Here’s the problem with the reporting on Robertson. At first the Star and several other papers just published this allegation as fact — with no corroboration outside the filmmaker’s personal supporters, and no clarifiers such as the word “claimed” to leave open the possibility that the documentary couldn’t be fully verified.

A quick Google search would have revealed to all these reporters that, since the end of the Vietnam War, there have been hundreds of similar conspiracy theories about live MIAs left behind. They all have a similar story: mysterious sightings of Caucasians eking out livings as rice farmers and villagers. Some of these people are half-French Vietnamese. The Pentagon and several independent organizations have investigated these claims over and over and have found no evidence to support them. The newspaper articles didn’t mention a shred of this backdrop.

If these journalists and investigators wanted to go further with their research, a phone call to the DPMO or the private non-profits working on this issue would have cleared up a lot of misinformation.

What’s also interesting is that, after the DPMO published its statement on this documentary, most newspapers published follow-up stories with the angle “MIA documentary causes controversy.”

This statement too is highly misleading and has stirred up even more poor journalism. In this case, the media’s concept of “balance” is interfering with its ability to investigate and publish truth. One side is bringing forward extraordinary claims with minuscule evidence — and none that would pass scientific scrutiny. The other side can back up its debunking of the documentary with a decade of investigations. Yet both sides are getting equal weight?

Barnard’s response:

I stand by my story, which is about a documentary film, Unclaimed, that you and the others commenting here have not yet seen – and please correct me if I am wrong in that you have indeed seen Unclaimed since we last emailed.

Not as of this writing. But as I noted, I’m concerned with establishing the factual claim Jorgensen admits his film does not resolve. But he probably should have, given so many people are desperate to believe in dragons.

The known facts: John Hartley Robertson went down in a chopper crash in Laos. Over flight suggested no one could survive the crash and burn. Over flight by other Green Berets saw no survivors and the crash did not look survivable. JHR was declared MIA, presumed KIA. His name is on the memorial wall as MIA.

From the DPMO May 1 press release

The government agency the Defense Prisoner of War/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) is charged with finding MIAs, which normally means finding bones and other remains. They investigate and test remains from Nam, the Korean war, et al. The DPMO’s 2009 report and the 2013 press release by PAO Jessica Pierno states the man in the movie was fingerprinted and his hair was tested for a mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) match with mtDNA reference samples on file. The DPMO states the samples were provided by JHR’s only brother (deceased) and an unnamed sister (JHR had three sisters, two sisters are deceased, one died in 2006, and one remains alive and was pictured in the film being reunited with her “brother”). The sister in the film has stated she believes it is her brother and does not need a DNA test to confirm, although one had been done a few years previous and it proved negative.

So you would think it’s a slam dunk. Prints don’t match. Mitochondrial DNA a big negative.

People who believe the man in the film is JHR and the filmmaker dispute the DPMO claims.

From a Huff Po article getting Jorgensen’s comments on the DPMO claims:

Jorgensen also took issue with the conclusiveness of the fingerprinting. The filmmaker said that Robertson’s last surviving sister claims no one from the family ever submitted DNA. If officials did extract DNA from Ngoc, how could they compare it to any family member? And why didn’t officials alert the family that DNA tests were being done on a man who may or may not be Robertson?

Jorgensen seems to hand wave away the FBI fingerprint analysis, giving no specifics. In a CBC As It Happens interview (opens an mp3) the filmmaker is directly asked about the fingerprint evidence and he avoids commenting. This is pretty slam dunk evidence. If you had very specific reasons to doubt the fingerprint evidence, why not take it on directly?

In comments on the HuffPo article someone named “snowbunnykat” (sounds legit) claimed the prints did not make a 10 point match. The commenter never returned to document the source of that claim. As far as I can tell, coroners are required to make a ten point match to identify a dead body with prints on record. Criminal courts require a higher fourteen point match. However, even this claim, if true, makes zero sense. If there was no ten point match then the person clearly couldn’t even come close to being JHR! Some of the film’s supporters make the claim no fingerprint match could have been possible as, we’re told with all the authority of someone who read something once on Infowars, that special forces members are not fingerprinted. Again, no one seems to back that claim up with a source. As well, why wouldn’t you fingerprint Green Berets? It’s not like the Viet Cong are going to fight their way into your fingerprint office stateside and capture the prints of special forces soldiers. And you don’t become a Green Beret (real Green Berets like to note you earn your Green Beret) right out of basic. Would not all recruits be fingerprinted?

Where did the DNA come from?

The woman in the film, who is 80-years old, and other surviving members of the matrilineal family (sister, nieces) report they have never been asked by the military for a reference sample. Maclean’s, the Star, and the filmmaker himself like to highlight this apparent contradiction.

The military started collecting mtDNA as far back as 1992. The brother (unknown date of death) and one of the sister could have provided DNA any time over a period of fourteen years. According to the HuffPo article, if accurate, the DNA definitely came from one of the deceased sisters.

“The DNA provided no link with two of Robertson’s siblings (now dead).”

So. Yes. The sister is correct in saying the family (her and her daughters) has never been asked for DNA. Because the military did not ask her. It is also believable an 80-year-old woman might not have perfect memory or knowledge about what her brother and sister did the last fourteen years. If the mtDNA was collected as far back as 1992, the surviving sister might not have been even aware of the significance of DNA and not filed it away as something significant. DNA first made its appearance as evidence in court trials in 1987. One of the nieces admits in the CBC As It Happens interview (opens an mp3) that the family lives in different states and have lost touch over the years.

Another niece pointed out it seems like a life event that would have been known. A follow-on user tries to buttress the point by suggesting if some military man came knocking on their door for DNA that would have been memorable. However, the collection process is not quite so dramatic. Much of the collection work is done by amateur volunteers. The military does not have a perfect record of the locations of surviving families, notably those that aren’t the legal next of kin. Even the filmmaker himself reported having a hard time finding JHR’s surviving family. The military conducts open informational meetings across the country. It is clear families have to have some continuing interest and opt themselves in. If a family member wants to contribute mtDNA, the person is mailed a swab kit. So, it’s not two men in black knocking on a door demanding DNA as some might imagine it.

It would seem if the family doubts the truth of the claim that the military collected reference samples, the military would have, on file, some kind of release form signed by the donor. Further, families can obtain typing results by simply filling out a form. It should not be difficult to establish the truth of the donation claim if you so doubted it.

Jorgensen also seems to see subterfuge by claiming the family was never told about the DNA testing of the man in the film or the various investigations going on in Vietnam about the man claiming to be JHR. A little investigative work by me demonstrates this claim is simply not true. Everyone kept referencing a “2.pdf” on the Library of Congress site, the 2009 DPMO document that mentions the fingerprinting. However, no one ever seemed to see what was in the root directory. Visiting http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/pwmia/S134_4/ revealed 7 PDFs related to the JHR case. The first pdf reveals quite clearly the wife was informed about the man claiming to be her husband and stated she wanted nothing to do with it. (See point 2 in the 1.pdf. It’s highly redacted and a bit hard to read but the wife’s wishes are clear).

It seems to me that the wife is JHR’s legal next of kin. She has the express right to speak for the family. If the wife tells the military, in no uncertain terms, she does not want to be bothered by this matter, the military has no right to bother the rest of the family. I emailed Steve Maxner, the head of the Vietnam Center and Archive at Texas Tech and asked him about procedure. He kindly wrote back:

“The one thing I can confirm for you is your conclusion about DOD [Department of Defense] being legally bound to obey the wishes of the NoK [Next of Kin]. The procedures used regarding that as well as the handling of information about current MIA cases has received Congressional scrutiny and attention. It is my understanding that this is not simply procedure but is something that has been codified by federal legislation.”

I informed the spokespeople for Unclaimed, Maclean’s Johnson, the Star‘s Bernard of this document regarding the wife’s wishes, noting the reported contradiction is easily explained. But I’ve not heard back from any of them on this. The Unclaimed spokespeople keep on making the “the family wasn’t informed” claim.

Why mtDNA? Only mtDNA?

It’s notable that the wife and JHR’s surviving daughter (or daughters) refused to deal with the filmmaker and the missionary Faunce. From reports, the wife and daughter are of the firm belief the man in the movie is a fraud. Barnard reported to me in email that the wife and children, at some point, refused all further contact with Faunce. On the Unclaimed Facebook page I asked Faunce directly if this was true and if true why? Faunce never responded.

The movie’s representatives on the Unclaimed Facebook page do not seem to understand DNA testing and seem to be under the impression that only mtDNA from those in the matrilineal line (who have mtDNA shared with JHR) can be used to establish the identity of the man in the movie. The filmmaker repeats the same point on the CBC As It Happens interview (opens an mp3).

This is not quite accurate. Nuclear DNA between father and daughter can be used. Nuclear DNA is actually more accurate than mtDNA for determining parentage. The military likes to collect mtDNA reference samples because mtDNA is more robust. The military is in the business of recovering old remains. Bones from the Korean war and the Vietnam war. It is more likely they can get mtDNA samples from such remains versus nuclear DNA samples.

Of the wife’s refusal to have anything to do with Faunce and the man in the movie, the MIA support/advocacy group National Alliance of Families makes this point:

“Over the years, we met with many POW/MIA family members. We never met one who would not do anything for the opportunity to meet with their loved one.”

One would think the wife would have to been presented with very compelling evidence to take a position against the claims of Faunce. The National Alliance of Families themselves take the stance there are POWs “left behind” in Vietnam. And yet this organization has not been swayed. Like so many other MIA groups, they’ve been urging deep skepticism for years.

In-Country Journalists Deeply Skeptical

“Along the way, people tried to sell us bones and tales of missing Americans living in the jungles of Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam.”

As I’ve noted, some of the earliest critics of the Unclaimed claim were Western journalists who were familiar with the JHR story and MIA/POW issues. Two days after the Star‘s Barnard wrote her first piece about Unclaimed, journalist Geoffrey Cain alerted the Star writer about helping peddle the JHR hoax without checking some basic facts. Reviewing Cain’s writing for Time and The Economist, it is pretty clear he has valuable insight into MIA issues in Vietnam. In writing this blog post, I had the good sense to contact Cain to dig for information. Cain pointed me to a google group called Vietnam Old Hacks. It’s a closed group for, primarily, journalists who covered the Vietnam War. Non members can still read it.

A day after the Star‘s April 25 Unclaimed article, journalist Richard Linnett commented on the group about the unfortunate direction Jorgensen took with Unclaimed:

“It’s unfortunate that the filmmakers behind ‘Unclaimed’ felt compelled to cave and create fiction out of reality.”

Linnett is not some keyboard jockey taking pot shots from the sidelines (a charge you could probably make of me). Linnett was involved in making The Disappearance of McKinley Nolan, a 2010 documentary about another Vietnam-era MIA claim.

Here’s a description of that 2010 film

The search for missing Vietnam foot soldier McKinley Nolan takes many unexpected turns in this moving documentary. After retired Army Lieutenant Dan Smith thinks he sees McKinley (who disappeared nearly 40 years prior) in a small Vietnamese town, devoted younger brother Michael travels from rural Texas to Vietnam to try to unravel the story. He meets the Vietnamese family McKinley married into as well as members of the Khmer Rouge who knew him. Though the search does not resolve all of the family’s questions, deeper issues of family ties, military cover-ups and remarkable personal histories are revealed.

Compare to Unclaimed‘s description:

No one left behind. No one left unloved. These mantras have guided war-worn Vietnam veteran Tom Faunce through the better part of his life as a missionary devoted to the less fortunate. The work takes him back to Vietnam, where he hears of an elderly man claiming to be John Hartley Robertson, an American listed as killed in action after a covert mission in Laos, who has spent the past 40 years in Vietnam. Their meeting begins an unbelievable sequence of events as Faunce works to repatriate an aging soldier with a failing memory against the wishes of the American government. A masterfully crafted story of two men whose lives intersect through the burdens of war, Unclaimed is emotionally riveting and an inspirational example of what strangers will do when bound by loyalty, duty and faith.

Kind of familiar?

In a group post two days later Linnett further comments:

“Why weren’t the filmmakers content with exploring that incredibly inscrutable, almost pathological need to find closure, instead of imposing an artificial closure? That’s what annoys me.”

Linnett himself lived those words in exploring his own investigation into Nolan. He took a hard-nosed approach to his story.

Linnett also posted a document that brings some interesting clarity. The document is unattributed although Linnett notes it’s from “a reliable, informed source just shared with me.”

First, it notes

On 20 May 1968, SFC John H. Robertson was the only American aboard a Vietnamese Air Force H-34 helicopter, which was attempting to re-supply an American Special Forces unit that had been under heavy enemy fire. As the helicopter approached its landing zone near the unit (Kalum District, XekongProvince, Laos), it received heavy enemy ground fire. The pilot attempted to pull away and, losing power, turned the aircraft toward the northeast. The helicopter then struck a row of trees, exploded into flames, and crashed on a hillside. American witnesses, both on the ground and onboard nearby aircraft, saw the helicopter crash and burn. According to these witnesses, there was no indication that anyone survived.

An important take away here is American witnesses (that is to say fellow special forces) in the air and on the ground had good reason to believe there were no survivors. As many Green Berets have given to comment about this film, it is wholly unbelievable any Green Beret would have not risked life and limb to rescue a fellow soldier if they thought there was any chance the crash was survivable. According to Unclaimed, we’re to believe JHR was able to jump out of the crashing helicopter and failed to be noticed by his fellow American searchers. Outside of a Hollywood movie, has anyone ever survived a helicopter crash by leaping out of the chopper before it crashed and burned?

The document also adds some information about the details of the DNA test:

The DNA sequences from hair samples obtained were compared to family reference samples held by the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory (AFDIL). Lab technicians determined the sequences did not match. Moreover, biological material provided to a known scam artist by Mr. Ngoc and eventually confiscated by FBI agents in 2010 was determined to be from a haplogroup most commonly associated with Asian individuals.

Keen observers of the document will note it was prepared February 8, 2013 and mentions the film. That might strike some as odd given the film did not come to public attention until shortly before Hot Docs in April. However, the film was actually first screened January 7, 2013. The document also seems to have been emailed by the head of the Vietnam Center and Archive Steve Maxner (see his comments above regarding obeying the wishes of the next of kin). Maxner has been active in collecting the oral histories of vets. He seems like a person who might get early wind of a project like Unclaimed.

MIA/POW NGO Groups Warnings

As I noted, early on in researching the truth of the claim, I kept finding MIA/POW groups who had been warning about a JHR scam for several years. As already noted, the National Alliance of Families has been documenting JHR claims for years. The less hardcore National League of Families themselves released a statement about Unclaimed on their Facebook page the day after Barnard’s original April 25 article. In it they stated “Sadly, as noted in the official report, claims made by Mr. Dang Than Ngoc and the film’s producer are false as substantiated by DNA testing and FBI fingerprint analysis.”

The National League of Families reproduced the Feb 8, 2013 document Linnett linked to in his Old Hacks Vietnam Google group comment. If you’re curious about the credibility of this group, consider the group’s POW/MIA flag was given official status by Congress.

“The League’s POW/MIA flag is the only flag ever displayed in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda where it will stand as a powerful symbol of national commitment to America’s POW/MIAs until the fullest possible accounting has been achieved for U.S. personnel still missing and unaccounted for from the Vietnam War.

On August 10, 1990, the 101st Congress passed U.S. Public Law 101-355, which recognized the League’s POW/MIA flag and designated it ‘as the symbol of our Nation’s concern and commitment to resolving as fully as possible the fates of Americans still prisoner, missing and unaccounted for in Southeast Asia, thus ending the uncertainty for their families and the Nation’.”

In an email conversation, I directed Barnard to their official statement on April 29 (before Barnard’s May 2 “mostly harmless” follow up story). I cautioned Barnard about the consequences of her original article:

“The implications are huge. But the fall out from a fraud are equally as huge. The movie injects lifeblood into scam claims and, potentially, more families are going to be victimized.”

Her May 2 “mostly harmless” article, alas, failed to reference the pattern of skepticism coming out of notable MIA/POW groups. Barnard merely suggested in her article there was active debate. Barnard seems to imply (or her words can be taken as meaning) there is a legitimate controversy regarding JHR’s status. Yet no such controversy, in fact, exists. Skeptics will recognize this as a classic creationist tactic, suggesting that among actual experts there’s a legitimate controversy regarding evolution, when none actually exists.

Green Berets and Fake Warrior Busters

Before Google searches for “John Hartley Robertson” just turn up articles about the film, some of the first hits to come up on “John Hartley Robertson” were pages put up by former Green Berets and other military veterans warning of JHR-related hoaxes. One page was found on the MACV-SOG site, a site devoted to former members of a group called MACV-SOG. It is run by Captain Robert Noe. Part of the MACV-SOG mission was to rescue downed pilots and rescue POWs. These are some tough hombres. As one can see from the page devoted to JHR, this site has been compiling information about the hoax since at least 2009. I will freely admit, web design skills are not one of the strong suits of vets and MIA groups. Their pages can be a bit hard to read and do not always present themselves as authoritative.

MACV-SOG site had some of the pre-Unclaimed info on the JHR hoax

The Fake Warriors page devoted to JHR came up a lot in early Google searches. The Fake Warriors site is devoted to exposing scammers who claim military honors they’ve not earned. It has a page devoted to POW/MIA Scams. It mentioned JHR before the movie came out and linked to a longer discussion. Its earliest warning about the JHR hoax was from 2011. The Fake Warriors page seems to be the project of a former United States Army Intelligence man who served in Korea.

Garnett “Bill” Bell is a vet who, sadly, lost his wife and children during the horrendous Operation Babylift in 1975. He would later head up the U.S. POW/MIA office in Hanoi and is fluent in various regional dialects. Bell, in an email sent to Soldier of Fortune a day after Barnard’s original Star article, has a bit more “out there” stance on the fraud. He sees it as a commie plot. He reminds me a bit of my friend’s dad who survived the Blitz in London. My friend mentioned he bought a Volkswagen. His dad commented angrily “you know we fought a war against the Germans!” Some old soldiers can’t let go. Having been born into a time and place where, as The Who sings, “I’ve known no war”, I have zero right to speak about what real war fighters should and should not let go of.

Within his comments, Bell does give us an important take away about the ethic of those involved in MIA issues when such reports are filed:

“This is especially true when we consider the long-held concept that ‘the benefit of the doubt always goes to the missing man.’”

John Stryker Meyer is a former member of MACV-SOG and told Soldier of Fortune “The real Robertson was MIA/KIA in May ’68. This guy in [the] movie is a phony.” Meyer, in an unsoured email apparently written to the GI Film festival (which exhibited the film on May 12, a couple weeks after Toronto Hot Docs) notes:

“I served with fellow Green Beret John Hartley Robertson at FOB 1, Phu Bai, S.Vietnam… The service members who witnessed that crash said it was highly improbable, if not impossible to survive it. By showing this documentary, you are enabling individuals to inflict great harm on the family of SFC Robertson, families of MIAs, and the legacy of the special operators in general who serve our country daily running high-risk operations far behind enemy lines without fanfare or publicity. Promos for this film feature photos of SFC Robertson and trade on his professional prowess and tragic story for commercial gain.”

Former Green Beret Don Bendell is also no stranger to scammers and has little fear of those with political power. He exposed Atlantic City Mayor Bob Levy as a “fake warrior”. In the comments section to a Stars & Stripes article on the controversy. Bendell comments:

“We (POWNetwork, Fake Warriors dot org, former POW MAJ Zippo Smith, DSC, Tsk Force Omega, and others) exposed this guy (Dang Tan Ngoc) years ago as a fraud. In 1976, the Army Review Board ruled SFC Robertson;s status was changed from MIA to ‘Presumptive Finding of Death,’ because although his body could not be recovered fellow Special Forces operators witnessed his CH-34 helicopter go down in a ball of flame and explode. They knew he was dead and we (USA Speclal Forces) do not leave our wounded behind as long as we have breath. The documentary is a complete sham which answers zero question about the MIA issue.”

Bendell also wrote an email (un-sourced) to the GI Film fest protesting showing Unclaimed. He comments here:

“Besides those openly copied, I have blind-copied this to Billy Waugh, Rudi Gresham, Gary Sinise, and Robert Noe, who works like me with the POW Network exposing MAC-V/SOG “wannabes,” and I expose Green Beret phonies with the POWNetwork. You are dealing with the elite of the elite warriors of the world who are each and every one men of tremendous principle and honor. You have been presented with rock solid evidence that this man is a sham…”

Next up, we have Billy Waugh (mentioned above by Bendell). Waugh is yet another Green Beret with issues about the man in the Unclaimed documentary. Waugh helped capture Carlos the Jackal. He is also the actual man (according to The Independent) who got the DNA from the man in the Unclaimed documentary. Waugh over on the Macvsog web site was warning about the JHR scam. This was the original source of the DNA scuttlebutt and posted back in 2009 (according to the Wayback Machine):

“Sorry that the information concerning John Hartley Robertson (JHR) flying around the net for the past days, has become confusing.

According to persons in the USG [US Government], working in Phnom Phen, the Caucasian depicted in the photo has been proven not to be JHR, but to be a French citizen, long time in Cambodia, with a Vietnamese wife, and several children. Proof was produced by a DNA sample, more than one year back.

On receiving a message via email, for a solid contact, from the USG, with this info, who received this from his USG organization in Cambodia, I have become convinced that the brothers Faunce (Joseph and Thomas) are being duped by this Caucasian, whose language is pidgin English and Viet.

I did speak to Joseph Faunce on 25 Feb, prior to his departure / return to Cambodia that very day. These Faunce lads seem thoroughly convinced (that) they have JHR, but those USG personnel on the ground, who have taken DNA from this same man (according to the info I received) are certain this man is a fraud. I wish this was not true; however, it surely seems to be true.”

Major Mark Smith (Zippo) comments in another email (un-sourced) and posted to the Macvsog web site:

“I finally met the individual, in the latest pictures, being then shopped as ‘Colonel John L. Robertson, USAF’ … I sat next to this individual and talked to him in Vietnamese and by his features alone It was obvious that he was not Colonel Robertson. He had no trouble speaking Vietnamese and when I told him that he was a fraud, his response and that of Cambodian General Minh was that ethnic Lao Khambang (bailiff of Judge Hamilton Gayden in Nashville) thought he was indeed Colonel Robertson. I then threatened to shoot him if he ever tried this again. This then led to the rumor that my ‘real job’ was that of an assassin to kill POWS (that I had been one myself seemed lost on all).”

Astute readers will note the name change (Col. John L. Robertson vs JHR). At the time, the scammers were shopping him around (as far back as 1991!) under that name and then for whatever reasons re-branded him JHR. The threat by Smith to shoot the man seems to have given believers in Unclaimed an out regarding the man’s confession at the embassy that he is not JHR. He had to claim to be a Vietnamese man or else he would be shot.

Tomorrow: Toronto Media falls for “false balance” and ignores the evidence

Would you buy a dragon from this woman?

A man approaches you and claims he has a box with a dragon in it. He offers to sell you the box with the dragon. There is one caveat. You cannot open the box to see if there’s an actual dragon in it. You can hold the box. Shake the box. Smell the box. Weigh the box. Listen to the box. He’ll give you testimony of people who have looked in the box and sworn there is a dragon in the box. But, any time you ask for the one simple test that will resolve all questions about the content of the box, you’re given various hand-waving explanations why the box simply can’t be opened.

Would you buy the dragon in the box? What if others have approached you with similar dragon-in-the-box claims? In your earlier, more innocent days, you paid cash for the box. Upon opening it, you discovered the box was just filled with old socks and a bunch of Mexican jumping beans.

Further, what if the Ministry of Dragon Affairs has stated they’ve met the man with the box several times and have actually opened the box and the box did, indeed, contain some old socks and a bunch of Mexican jumping beans?

Would you buy the box? Would you pay to see a movie about people looking at the box but never opening the box? How would you feel if people started writing newspaper headlines claiming dragons are real based merely on a movie about an unopened box?

Hot Docs

In April, Toronto’s Hot Docs film festival premiered a documentary by Canadian filmmaker Michael Jorgensen that made a claim as amazing as a saying you have a dragon in a box. Jorgensen’s film Unclaimed follows a missionary named Tom Faunce who thinks he has stumbled upon an MIA Vietnam vet named John Hartley Robertson. The real Master Sgt. John Hartley Robertson (member of the elite Green Beret MACV-SOG unit) was declared MIA after his helicopter was shot down over Laos in 1968. Back then, the US was not supposed to be in Laos. Robertson (heretofore known as JHR) was eventually declared KIA (or more accurately “Presumptive Finding of Death”).

The Green Beret’s supposed survival story gets a little murkier (we’ll deal with the “plot holes” later). It is claimed JHR was captured by either the North Vietnamese or the Viet Cong. These are two “slightly” different groups, the North Vietnamese were a regular army based in the country of North Vietnam. The Viet Cong was a guerilla force in the nation of South Vietnam. He was tortured and either escaped or was released. He met a Vietnamese village nurse, married her, and she gave him the identity of her deceased husband (of French-Vietnamese origin).

Moral Panic

The Vietnam war was televised with very little censorship. The daily horrors were such that there was a public backlash against all things military. Jane Fonda called returning POWs “hypocrites and liars”. Through much of the 1970s, war was not cool. Americans wanted to forget the war and, sadly, forget their veterans. Americans, however, began to realize wanting to forget was doing a disservice to the men who served, died, and went missing in Vietnam.

In the 1980s and 1990s, there began to emerge a moral panic in the States. This manifested itself in the notion that Vietnam vets had been left behind, alive, in Vietnam. Eventually Hollywood capitalized and profited on the moral panic and turned out movies like Rambo: First Blood Part II (a movie even vets who believe there are still MIAs in Vietnam utterly cringe at). By the 1990s 70 percent of the US public believed there were still POWs alive in Vietnam.

Bone Sellers

It was not just Hollywood rushing to cash in on the moral panic. Unscrupulous individuals (both in North America and in SE Asia) proffered “evidence” there were living MIAs. Part of America’s healing process was the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall. The wall featured the names of not only those known killed in action but those listed as MIA. The wall, unfortunately, gave scammers a mailing list of families that could be contacted and told their son or husband, presumed dead, was still alive. Just a little bit of money is needed to help with the paper work/bribes/rescue mission to get your husband out of ‘nam. It was a confidence scam. Many will recognize it, today, as the Nigerian Bank Scam. “I have x and you can have it for a bit of money.”

As James Randi likes to point out all woo is ultimately an unsinkable rubber ducky. The ghouls who preyed upon MIA families persist today. Sometimes it involves “bone sellers“, people who claim they have found the remains of service men and demand cash before giving up the bones. The US Military is quite clear that it does not pay for remains.

But there are still people trying to peddle live MIAs. Scammers have, for decades, been claiming they can provide access to the actual living JHR. The scam goes back to at least 1991/1992.

Tom Faunce thinks he’s found JHR

A missionary by the name of Tom Faunce, working in Cambodia, was told by some Cambodian Christians there was an MIA veteran living in Vietnam. Faunce himself is a veteran of the war and, according to people reporting on the film, quite shaken by his experiences. He pledged his life to trying to make the lives of SE Asians better. As far as I can tell, he has truly dedicated his life to that. For example, he helps dig wells in Cambodia. One has no problem understanding why Faunce would do anything to confirm a report about a living MIA.

According to the missionary’s own blog, he had to navigate around several obvious scam attempts before he finally met up with the man in the film, the man claiming to be JHR. Faunce claims he took the man to the US embassy and was quickly turned away, demanding ID. Faunce, on his blog, muses in some obvious frustration a man 40+ years MIA might not still have his driver’s license on him.

The military tells a slightly different version of that story, but we’ll get to it later.

Faunce wrote to his member of congress and eventually made contact with Canadian filmmaker Jorgensen. Jorgensen claims he was initially skeptical but, we’re told, decided to simply make a movie about Faunce’s quest to find the man and have him meet members of his surviving “family” back in North America. The surviving family consists of JHR’s wife and children (at least one daughter), one sister, and the sister’s nieces. JRH has a deceased brother and two deceased sisters.

And, well, Jorgensen made a film.

The Toronto Star Breaks the Story

Linda Barnard ‘s April 25 article

On April 25, 2013Toronto Star movie critic Linda Barnard broke the story about Unclaimed. I stumbled on the story scanning the Star web site. I’m a child of the Vietnam era (born 1966). I saw live news coverage of Vietnam POWs coming home. I was a huge fan of Bob Barker’s Truth or Consequences and it frequently featured female contestants being re-united with their husbands or sons returning from military duty in Vietnam. I also followed the MIA claims in the ’80s and ’90s. So when I ran across this news item, it struck me as a most incredible claim, like someone claiming they had a dragon in a box. Hadn’t they investigated the living MIA claim six ways to Sunday? We saw with “Blackhawk Down” the huge sacrifice American military personnel will make to bring home one of their own. This is certainly not a modern military ethic taught in basic since the 1990s. Do military men and women in charge of MIA issues suddenly lose that ethic when given investigative jobs? Would a tough cuss Green Beret like JHR not do everything to make his way back to America, using every bit of his training? He’d rather just marry his Vietnamese nurse and have kids with her? Did Scott O’Grady strip off his uniform and marry the first Bosnian woman he saw?

A tale of two Johns

The moral panic over MIA claims eventually culminated in the US government convening the United States Senate Select Committee on POW/MIA Affairs. The committee (which included John Kerry and John McCain) concluded unanimously there is “no compelling evidence that proves that any American remains alive in captivity in Southeast Asia”. Although the committee did admit they had some evidence suggesting POWs may have survived. But, as noted, no compelling evidence was found.

You can clearly see why, to me at least, this is a dragon-in-the-box claim. (I do not find it difficult to believe the Soviet Union had their own version of Project Paperclip running and might have absconded with a few airmen it thought might be able to reveal air defense secrets. But the notion of Rambo-style camps with MIAs sitting around in them for a decade or more is an incredible claim.) The implications of finding an MIA are tremendous. Political careers (notably that of Kerry and McCain) would be on the line. Surely, there must be news of this magnitude online. Beyond a Toronto Star movie review?

Google Says “Maybe not”

After reading the article, a quick Google immediately turned up a number of web pages that had been warning about the JHR scam for several years. Nothing looked official. They were mostly poorly done web pages put up by Vietnam veterans and various MIA groups. Many had not been touched since 2009, the last time major JHR scuttle butt emerged within vet and MIA circles. Some of the pages spoke of failed DNA and fingerprint tests as well as un-sourced emails from vets saying they had met the man claiming to be JHR and had determined quite quickly he was a hoaxster.

One thing that struck me as odd. Many of these skeptics were actually groups that professed POWs were still alive in Vietnam. If they were skeptical, it seemed reasonable reporters like Barnard should be as well. Further, journalist Geoffrey Cain (who has written about MIA and Vietnam war-legacy issues for Time and The Economist) immediately informed Barnard via Twitter that it was known DNA and fingerprints had been taken and there was no match.

A picture was quickly emerging that reporters with knowledge and experience in the region, MIA organizations who represent the interest of families, and vets with on-the-ground knowledge of JHR were uniformly skeptical. They were, unfortunately, all but ignored by Toronto media, despite being a quick Google away. In email I pointed Barnard to these sources. She noted she had found them herself and asked the filmmaker about them. She seemed content to take the filmmaker (the guy trying to sell a film) at his word that he followed those up and found these Green Beret and MIA NGOs were just repeating rumors. Hmmm.

As it would later develop the rumors of fingerprints and DNA tests were not rumors but easily verified as fact if Barnard had simply made a phone call.

Maclean’s film critic Brian D. Johnson also largely took Jorgensen’s word for it and offered no balance from these freely available skeptical sources. Much of what Jorgensen was saying was low-level conspiracy mongering. Somewhat disturbing such claims were turning up unchallenged in the Toronto Star and Maclean’s magazine. Much of the conspiracy mongering (like so much classic conspiracy mongering) rests upon apparent contradictions: contradictions between what the military was saying how they operate regarding MIA issues and how the military was really operating as regards the JHR case.

I directed Barnard via email to both the spokesperson for the US Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) and the National League of POW/MIA Families which quickly issued a skeptical Facebook post regarding Unclaimed and the JHR reports. What is particular relevant about the National League of POW/MIA Families is this group created the famous POW/MIA flag. Congress itself gave the official nod to the group’s flag. Surely, someone at a real news org like the Toronto Star or Maclean’s magazine would want to contact them.

The Star ups the credulity

Barnard’s second article, day after DPMO “leak”

Barnard followed up her original story with a second article that still largely ignored skeptical sources. The MIA groups, vets, and in-country journalists issuing specifics that contradicted Jorgensen’s claims, Barnard compressed into the single quip that Unclaimed was “spurring passionate debate among PoW/MIA groups and veterans.” It was the equivalent of Arthur Dent finding out the second edition of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy had revised Earth from “harmless” to “mostly harmless”.

About a day after Barnard’s much shared April 25 Star article came out, someone on Reddit had found the DPMO’s 2009 report about the case. It was sitting, publically available, on the Library of Congress’s web site. The report was quite damning to the claim expressed in the movie. The DPMO report noted the man in the film had been fingerprinted by the FBI and no match was found when compared to the prints in JRH’s official records.

Maclean’s Magazine Doubles Down on the Conspiracy Angle

That should wrap it up, no?

Two days after Maclean’s film critic Brian Johnson published his own conspiracy mongering story, the UK’s Daily Mail and The Independent both ran stories headlining the man in the movie was a fraud, citing the DPMO. Johnson, seeming stung, tweeted “knee jerk” media orgs like the Mail were buying the “fraud” angle. Johnson seems to have missed the Mail and Independent were merely telling both sides of the story, giving proper weight to the 2009 DPMO report. The Daily Mail is usually a suspect source among skeptics, frequently called the Daily Fail. If the Mail told me the sun comes up every day, I would not take the Mail’s word for it and I would spend every single day for the rest of my life verifying the veracity of that claim. However, The Independent, which is certainly no friend to the US Military-Industrial complex and given to knee-jerk apologetics, was also calling it fraud. Johnson seemed so miffed he showed up in the comment section of The Independent to scold them for daring to give proper weight to objective evidence, versus building a story around eminently fallible human perception. Johnson, whose magazine is part of the massive Rogers media empire, seems to hint The Independent is a less-than-independent news source:

“The Independent (sic) might listen to Robertson’s family members…”

Johnson wrote a follow up article taking the Mail to task for such “knee jerk” reporting. Johnson, hilariously, accused the Mail of running a document “leaked” to them by the US military. In the comment section of Johnson’s article, I took pains to point out to him this so-called leaked document had been freely available since May 2009, was found several days before the Mail article by Reddit users, and (most astounding) I myself had alerted him to the document’s existence on the Library of Congress site several days before the Mail article. He simply had no evidence the freely available document was leaked to the Mail. It was an invention of his own making. It was as likely a reader of the Mail simply sent them the Reddit link.

Johnson has subsequently edited the online article and removed the charges of a military leak. His words have been preserved in my comments to him. Curiously, his updated article makes no note about changes and corrections. What was at first “leaked” to the Mail, we are now told “surfaced in a British tabloid”. Again, it “surfaced” days before in the comment section of Johnson’s first article.

Real Balance

Not every journalist “rolled over”. The National Post properly balanced the filmmaker’s claims with the 2009 DPMO document that indicated the man in the film was Dang Tan Ngoc, a Frenchman and long-time Vietnamese citizen with a long history of making false claims, and his fingerprints simply didn’t match those in Robertson’s records. The National Post‘s more skeptical treatment (“Man claiming to be missing Vietnam vet in new documentary is actually a well-known con man, U.S. says”) highlighted several damning facts (beyond the failed prints). Post journalists Tristin Hopper and Jon Swaine noted the man in the film “gave a non-existent high school and bogus U.S. home address for Master Sgt. Robertson, whose name was even rendered incorrectly.” In contrast, Barnard’s less skeptical follow-up article (“Unclaimed: Controversy erupts over man claiming to be missing Vietnam veteran: But documentary filmmaker Michael Jorgensen stands by his film, as does the American family of John Hartley Robertson.”) devoted very little text to the DPMO report’s pages and pages of utterly damning analysis. She gave a one sentence treatment to the DPMO 2009 report and the DPMO May 1 press release regarding a DNA test that failed. Barnard then introduced a seeming inconsistency: the family claims they never gave a DNA test. This is, as we’ll see, a claim the filmmaker keeps trying to reinforce.

Business Insider‘s Military and Defense editor Robert Johnson (a former U.S. Army non-commissioned officer) offered the most detailed investigation on May 1. Robert Johnson had the good sense, which apparently escaped the Star‘s Barnard and Maclean’s Johnson, to contact real sources in the military and get their word before running with a story. Johnson contacted DPMO public affairs officer Jessica Pierno and Lieutenant Colonel Todd Emoto (Ret.), who commanded (2008-2010) the Joint Prisoner of War Accounting Command in Hanoi. Emoto’s words are quite telling:

“I mean this guy was a frequent flier at our office,” the colonel said, his voice rising. “It totally blows my mind that he’s gotten this far. He forgot how to speak English and his kid’s names? Who falls for that?”

(Oh, and if Maclean’s Brian Johnson is still scratching his head wondering how the Mail got a hold of the DPMO document, Business Insider’s Robert Johnson cleared that up for me in an email. Right after Barnard’s April 25 Star piece came out, Robert Johnson made some calls and got the DPMO document. He passed it on to his associate Jonn Lilyea. Robert Johnson wanted to not go public until after the movie premier at Hot Docs. Lilyea didn’t get the memo and shared Robert Johnson’s findings and the Mail scooped him!)

Tomorrow: Who wasn’t fooled

About a year ago, I had my first attack of gout.

It sucked.

It came on during the weekend we were moving into our house, and I was convinced I’d somehow broken my big toe in the move. I’d dropped a box on it or rolled a dolly over it or something — I must have, because that’s the only way I could possibly be in so much pain. By Monday, when I went to the local clinic to get it looked at, I could barely walk.

The doctor took little time arriving at the diagnosis, which left me in disbelief. I only had a vague idea of what gout was, and it sounded positively medieval. Clearly this was something that should have been cured long ago — in fact, wasn’t iodized salt supposed to have taken care of it?

I was, of course, confusing my condition with goiter, a swelling of the thyroid caused primarily by iodine deficiency. Gout was something different entirely — an acute arthritis brought on when excess uric acid crystallizes and settles in a joint, typically the big toe. The immune system kicks in and inflames the area, causing debilitating pain for about a week unless treated.

I was treated, fortunately, with a strong anti-inflammatory, and about 4 hours later my pain started to subside, though it would be 36 hours before it was gone entirely and nearly a week before the swelling went down and I could fit back into my shoes.

I resolved never to have another gout attack, whatever it took.

Seeking the cure

As I experienced, the first line of defence for gout is symptomatic treatment — reducing the inflammation with anti-inflammatories. Since the condition is typically self-correcting, this is often enough for sufferers of occasional acute attacks. For chronic gout sufferers, there are several prescription products that work by reducing uric acid levels directly.

Fortunately, I was not a chronic sufferer yet, and I was determined not to become one. Surely, I thought, there must be lifestyle changes that could keep my uric acid levels in check without medication. After all, gout is known as the “rich man’s disease” because of its association with obesity and a meat-rich diet. I unfortunately could check both boxes, so clearly all I had to do was uncheck them.

Being a skeptic, I knew I needed some hard data to support my efforts, and I found it in the 2004 study “Purine-Rich Foods, Dairy and Protein Intake, and the Risk of Gout in Men”, a 12-year prospective study of 47,000 men, over 700 of whom developed gout during the study period. Large scale and apparently well designed, it continues to be a well cited and influential study, so I cracked into it with gusto.

The take-aways were fairly straightforward: red meat (pork, beef, lamb), seafood (white fish, red fish, and shellfish), and alcohol (beer, spirits) are all positively correlated with gout. Poultry, beans, fruits and vegetables are uncorrelated. Wine and low-fat dairy are negatively correlated — though several secondary sources suggested that this might be due to confounding variables (wine drinkers & low-fat dairy eaters tend to be fitter generally), so it’s best to treat them as neutral and not expect them to counteract the effects of red meat & seafood.

It didn’t take too much to rework my diet around these recommendation. Substitute ground turkey for ground beef & pork, find a decent turkey sausage, add in the odd vegetarian night, and keep portions of red meat modest and infrequent. As a first step, I decided to see if I could get away with not cutting back on seafood because of its other health benefits. This seemed not to limit the effect of the treatment, and a year later — with not a single repeat attack — I can confidently declare this science-based intervention a success!

Or can I?

Though if I’m being completely honest, there might be a few problems with this conclusion.

Like how my dietary changes resulted in some modest weight loss, which I decided was a good excuse to kickstart a more formalized weight loss effort. In all, I’ve lost about 60 lbs in the last year, as I’ve described in other posts.  I mention this only because the above study showed that gout is positively correlated with obesity and that weight loss lowers that risk. So perhaps it was the weight loss and not the specifics of the diet that cured my gout. Yeah, I guess that might be a confounder here.

And now that I think about it, some of the sources I read did say that gout doesn’t typically respond well to dietary interventions at all, and that without medication, even the most extreme gout diets only lower uric acid levels 15-20%. So all this time I’ve been eating turkey burgers for no reason? Well, maybe.

There was one other thing as well. What was it? Oh yeah, now I remember: the intercritical period. That’s the time in between gout attacks, and after the first attack it’s typically up to two years.  As I’m only a year in, it’s perfectly possible that I’ve cured nothing and another attack is just around the corner.

Which would suck.

Take-Aways

I know I’ve taken a long time getting to the point, so let me bring this back to skepticism by leaving you with three thoughts I’ve kept coming back to throughout this experience:

1) Food is not medicine. The idea that diet can cure disease is extremely attractive, and of course promoted aggressively by alternative medicine practitioners and other charlatans. But even in cases like gout where legitimate science says that the cause is diet, that still doesn’t mean that diet is the cure.

2) Confounders abound. Human interaction with food is monstrously complex, and I expect we’ll still be teasing out those complexities long after I shuffle off this mortal coil. The idea that I can run an n=1 reflexive study and glean anything meaningful from it may be comforting, but it’s also bollocks.

3) Occam’s Razor. Even in diet, the simplest answer is usually the best. My radical home intervention amounted to losing weight and adopting a more Mediterranean-style diet. It’s a simple, science-based “best practices” approach that addresses multiple health concerns at once without significant risk. Maybe it cured my gout and maybe it didn’t — given the confounders it’s hard to tell — but any further dietary fiddling was simply not supported by the evidence.

It’s National Immunization Awareness Week in Canada and across the world, and UNICEF is reporting the failure of Canada to achieve the 95% immunization rate required to protect the community from resurgences of deadly and debilitating infectious disease.  At 84%, we are even below the UK, which is experiencing a severe measles outbreak, and we are at risk for an outbreak of whooping cough, measles or the dreaded childhood paralysis also known as polio.  All it takes is one infected person to travel from an area where the disease is rampant to an area at risk in Canada, and we will have an outbreak.

This is no one organization’s fault.  I have spoken to concerned parents about their misgivings about vaccines and most site a distrust of the medical system or unwillingness or lack of time on the part of their doctor to discuss the side-effects or risks associated with vaccines.  If the doctor does not want to discuss this, they feel, then the risks must be more dangerous than we thought, or physicians are in the pocket of drug reps and the pharmaceutical industry and just want to sell more vaccines.  It is also no wonder that  in the wake of actual conspiracies on the part of industry to hide the dangers of smoking, and acid rain or other environmental pollutants, we have a rise of a belief in phantasmal conspiracies from other big corporations.

If this was just a grass roots problem then education would be the answer, I think.  Outreach to patients and parents groups concerned about these problems would be easier and a little time set aside for education or frank discussion at the doctor’s office would go a long way.  This is not the case, however, and there is a concerted effort on the part of those left out of the medical establishment to twist, misinterpret or out make up facts about immunizations and vaccines.  The alternative medical community – naturopaths, homeopaths, chiropractors – has made a considerable effort over the past 3 decades to spread fear and mistrust about vaccines and we have to recognize that they are part of the problem, no matter how well-intentioned.

We have solid evidence that naturopathic students become less supportive of vaccines as they progress through their training.  They receive more training in homeopathy than in pharmacology and now naturopaths want to become primary care providers, the first point of contact for Canadians seeking medical advice.  Chiropractors, many of whom deny the idea that germs cause disease, have been shown to spread anti-vaccination ideas, and some Canadian homeopaths are even offering bogus alternatives to vaccines, called nosodes that Health Canada has deemed efficacious but that have no scientific evidence to support their use.

Wales, in the UK, is currently under the thumb of a measles outbreak, with over 800 cases so far, and one 25 year old dead because of it.  This is the result of a severe decrease in the immunization rate in that country after a bogus paper rife with conflicts of interest and bad science was published by Andrew Wakefield in the late 1990’s, connecting vaccines with autism.  This was picked up by the alternative medical community because it already spoke their prior beliefs, that mainstream medicine kills people and “natural medicine” can offer better solutions.

This is a gross oversimplification.  Immunization by vaccine has been one of the most successful public health campaigns in the modern era, right up there with water and waste treatment.  There are risks, to be sure, and vaccines are not 100% effective, but the benefits far outweigh the risks. To achieve the level of immunity in the community we need to ensure that childhood infectious diseases do not take hold we need to have everyone immunized.   If someone only speaks to you about the risks of vaccines, then you are not getting the whole story; any medical treatment has risks and benefits, and when the proven benefits outweigh the risks, then they should be considered as effective treatments.

Time and again we see alt-med practitioners comparing the risks of standard medicine with the risks of alternative medicine, the unspoken premise being that they both work.  This is disingenuous and unethical.  Not only should you be including the benefits in this equation, but most of the time the alternative treatments have NO proven benefits and are the result of a non-scientific world view based on a fantasy. Informed consent, the cornerstone of modern medicine, means you give all of the facts, not just the ones that are convenient.

The solution is clear here.  We have a disenfranchised public driven into the arms of alternative medical practitioners because the public doesn’t trust or lacks access to physicians and nurses that can help.  Mainstream medicine needs not only to make a concerted effort to have frank discussions with their patients, but needs to speak out against the fake treatments and bad science of alt-med.  Provincial and Federal governments need to recognize that alt-med and natural health product industries are working at cross-purposes with public health agencies and we need a national vaccination registry to track rates and identify problem areas.  Finally, parents and patients need to be wary of false promises and charismatic spin and seek out unbiased and scientific sources for their information.  Together we can all keep Canadians safe and eliminate the need for vaccines altogether: by eliminating the diseases themselves through proper immunization.

Campbell, J., Busse, J., & Injeyan, H. (2000). Chiropractors and Vaccination: A Historical Perspective PEDIATRICS, 105 (4) DOI: 10.1542/peds.105.4.e43

Lee AC, & Kemper KJ (2000). Homeopathy and naturopathy: practice characteristics and pediatric care. Archives of pediatrics & adolescent medicine, 154 (1), 75-80 PMID: 10632255

Busse JW, Walji R, & Wilson K (2011). Parents’ experiences discussing pediatric vaccination with healthcare providers: a survey of Canadian naturopathic patients. PloS one, 6 (8) PMID: 21829648

Update! – Victoria is now on-board!

Update! – Winnipeg is now on-board!

Update! – Halifax is now on-board!

The time has finally come. It is time to figure out who are the biggest skeptical know-it-alls in Canada. That’s right, it’s time for the Cross-Canada Skeptical Smackdown Pub Quiz!!

This year I have the honour of creating said quiz and I’m very pleased that several of my friends within CFI Canada are taking part!

But first, what is the Cross-Canada Skeptical Smackdown Pub Quiz? The CCSS is a pub quiz started four years ago by a friend of mine named Kennedy Goodkey, who is a local skeptic in Vancouver. The idea was to create a pub quiz that tested competitors’ knowledge of skepticism and critical thinking. Furthermore, the quiz would be national, meaning various cities would host the same quiz around the same time and the smartest team of 4 would be crowned the biggest know-it-alls.

So how does one participate? First, be in a hosting city. Second, assemble a team of four, you can have your team ready in advance or find one at the event. Third, do the quiz, of course!

So! Which cities are participating?

Vancouver – April 16th – The Railway Club at 7:30pm (event link)

Saskatoon – April 20th – Venue TBA

Halifax – April 21st – Venue TBA (event link can be found here)

Victoria – April 26th – James Bay Inn Pub at 6pm

Winnipeg – April 26th – Norwood Hotel at 7pm (event link here)

Ottawa – April 26th – Venue TBA

I’m hoping that more cities will come on board within the next couple of days.

If you want to take the reins as a Quizmaster (you might also want an assistant quizmaster) give me a shout! You can email me at eclow at cficanada dot ca. I’ll send you the relevant information!

After months of research and hard work from all of our volunteers at Bad Science Watch, we have launched the public phase of our campaign to stop the sale of homeopathic nosodes sold as “vaccine alternatives” in Canada.  The website www.stopnosodes.org explains the position of Bad Science Watch and lays out the total lack of evidence for most of the products.  Despite this, as I spoke about in my SN article about these dangerous products, Health Canada’s Natural Health Products Directorate approves around 82 of these products for sale and several Canadian Homeopaths are promoting these products to prevent influenza and other dangerous infectious disease.

The concerned public has several options to engage with the Government of Canada to force them to de-register these products.  Our website urges the public to send a letter to the Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq, or if you are a member of an academic institution, a scientist, or a public health professional, to sign our petition.

One of the more exciting developments is the updates made by a Bad Science Watch volunteer to Simon Perry’s FishBarrel plug-in for Google’s Chrome browser.  The plug-in streamlines the complaint process so when the user finds a dubious scientific claim on a website, they can snap a screen shot, enter their complaint and automatically send it to Canada’s Competition Bureau.  As well, we have added functionality to send the same complaint to Advertising Standards Canada.  Users are urged to copy info@badsciencewatch.ca with the complaint so we can understand how both agencies are doing in their efforts to combat bad advertising on the internet.

The Stop Nosodes campaign is the first attempt in Canadian science advocacy to attempt systemic change in order to combat bad science in public policy.  Please visit www.badsciencewatch.ca or www.stopnosodes.org for more information.

Cross-posted from Huffington Post Canada

On April 1^st 2013, Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) doctors and acupuncturists in Ontario will need a license to practice their unique brand of healing.  This is the first of three vitalistic and unscientific healing practices to start accepting members in Ontario; the naturopaths will be next, followed by the homeopaths.  This kind of “legislative alchemy” as described by Jann Bellamy from Science Based Medicine is spreading across jurisdictions all over North America in the under the auspices of protecting the public from substandard care.

Without a licence on April 1^st 2013, you will not be able to diagnose heat stagnation by looking at the tongue.  Without a licence on April 1^st 2013 you will not be able to discern the state of the organs through the pulse in patient’s wrist.  Without a licence on April 1^st 2013, you will not be able to diagnose a fever caused by the wind, or needle the meridians of the body to unblock stagnant Qi, or, if all else fails, set alight a bundle of mugwort atop those same needles and let it burn until a small scar forms on the skin, to strengthen the blood.  No foolin’.

I feel safer already.

The Ontario government is following in the footsteps of British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan,  Quebec and Newfoundland and Labrador,  to license acupuncture and TCM.  It doesn’t seem to matter that in the years since the original report on the college of TCM acupuncture has shown to be nothing more than an  placebo.  It does not matter where you insert the needles, or even if you insert the needles, all you get are “non-specific therapeutic effects”. In the absence of any efficacy beyond placebo, it is not ethical to expose the patient to the small but real risks of acupuncture, but soon you will have the overt permission of the province of Ontario to do so.

TCM relies on ideas of physiology and anatomy that were left behind by science over a hundred years ago.  Qi or Chi is a magical energy field that has never been shown to exist, and “meridians” that are supposed to carry Qi do not correspond to any physical structures of the body, including the nerves or facia.  There are plenty of studies on the herbal remedies offered by TCM doctors and herbalists, and this is probably the only promising part of the entire venture, although it is telling that most do not use the traditional TCM diagnosis, like a blockage of Qi, and instead use modern medical problems.  However, in the light of the extreme detail we have about how the body works, the idea that discrete areas on the tongue correspond to the condition of the stomach, or the liver, or that the tongue is a continuation of the heart is about as absurd as the idea that the pulse can tell you anything other than the rate, rhythm and output of the heart.  We have moved beyond these magical ideas.

We are faced with one striking dilemma, however:  people are continuing to seek help from these professions, so what responsibility does the state have to its citizens when they seek help from non-traditional sources?  After failing to win the scientific debate, professions like TCM, acupuncture, naturopathy and homeopathy in the past 10 years have turned to the government to gain legitimacy. This is the point that Ballamy makes above.  The public see government regulation as a stamp of approval, when outsiders are brought into the mainstream, and professional associations know this. However, while acupuncture and TCM are used by many people, this argument from popularity does not make it true.  The government should be focused on treatments known to work ; we have the tools to test their claims, and to ignore these tools in favour of ideology is to deliver the public into the hands of the charlatans.

That word has a lot of baggage, and I don’t use it offhandedly.  I use it with the caveat that I don’t think that most TCM or acupuncture practitioners are willingly deceiving the public, but are instead deceiving themselves.  Their earnest belief in a system that is much closer to religion than science also leaves us with no recourse when our pleadings for science go ignored or brushed off; you cannot reason someone out of something they did not first reason themselves into.

One note on the question of harm.  Most jurisdictions in Canada that have a council that develop recommendations on which professions should be regulated take into account any possible harms offered by the trade.  One harm that is continually ignored, to all our peril, is the harm of misdirected care.  Turing to alternative medicine for a cure when mainstream medicine has an effective medicine already in place puts the public at risk.  Many cry that mainstream medicine results in many deaths through its use, but they forget also to factor in the benefits.  Both risk and benefit should always be included in this equation.  Most mainstream medicines have risks, to be sure, but so does TCM and acupuncture.  With no demonstrable benefit, any risk becomes too much, whether economic or physical: this cannot be forgotten when choosing who to turn to for help.

Come April 1^st, choose wisely.