This article was first published in The Montreal Gazette.
“Just the facts, ma’am” is a catchphrase attributed to detective Joe Friday in the classic television police drama Dragnet. If all science communicators took that message to heart, we would not be exposed to the diarrhea of misinformation that plagues our lives today.
That, though, brings up the question of what is meant by “fact.”
A fact is defined as anything that can be proven to be true. Water is composed of hydrogen and oxygen. That can be proved and is incontestable. However, when it comes to matters of health, facts are harder to come by because absolute proof is elusive.
We cannot point a finger at a smoker and declare that they will be stricken with lung cancer. Because of mountains of published epidemiological evidence, we can say it is a fact that their likelihood of having cancer is greater than if they were a non-smoker. However, when questions such as a prostate-specific antigen (PSA) blood test for prostate cancer arise, the data accumulated by numerous scientific studies does not allow for incontestable facts. The best we can do is rely on experts to interpret the massive amount of data and tease out recommendations that are destined to be qualified by nuances.
The extensive publicity generated by former U.S. president Joe Biden’s prostate cancer diagnosis has led to an eruption of questions about testing for prostate-specific antigen, a protein produced by the prostate gland. Elevated levels in the blood can be caused by various conditions that include a benign enlarged prostate, prostatitis or cancer. Who should be tested and when is the subject of much debate, but there is agreement in medical circles that in the absence of urinary symptoms, there is not much point in testing after age 70 because even if prostate cancer is detected, it will progress so slowly that it will not affect life expectancy.
I will leave the debate about whether Biden’s cancer should have been detected earlier to those much more qualified to address the question, but I do want to target the unqualified individuals who have been stirred by Biden’s diagnosis into polluting social media with dangerous nonsense.
One of these is Shane Ellison, who calls himself “The People’s Chemist,” and has declared that “neither Joe Biden nor another average fool should be using the PSA test to screen for cancer.” According to Ellison, “prostate screening is a ploy to hook you on meds and is used to make lies about your health that instil fear so that you become a willing victim to meds.”
He promotes a “chemical-free life,” which is an absurd statement coming from someone who has studied chemistry and once worked for a pharmaceutical company. He urges everyone to “ditch their meds,” but sells a “PreWorkout” dietary supplement that promises the make one “faster, higher, stronger in 59 minutes without chemicals.” Not 58 or 60 minutes: 59! What does it contain? Citrulline, tyrosine, hawthorn extract, yerba mate and huperzine A.
Never mind the lack of evidence of efficacy; according to Ellison, these are not chemicals.
Ellison quickly piggybacked on Biden’s diagnosis to hawk a supplement. Not only does it allow men to avoid prostate cancer, he says, it can also cure it. This “miracle” is a dietary supplement composed of a mixture of plant extracts, namely saw palmetto, pygeum africanum and ginseng. There is some controversial evidence that saw palmetto and pygeum africanum can improve urinary symptoms in men diagnosed with benign prostate hypertrophy, but there is zero evidence that it can help with prostate cancer. All Ellison provides are anecdotes from unnamed characters about CT scans showing that prostate cancer has disappeared and enlarged lymph nodes shrunk back to normal after taking his supplement. One wonders how many people will take his advice to never test for PSA or rely on his advice to treat prostate cancer in his “non-chemical” fashion.
He is not the only one who taints science with claptrap. Dr. Casey Means, the prospective surgeon-general of the United States, left a residency in head and neck surgery, claiming she was disappointed with modern medicine and planned to forge a career in “functional medicine,” a vague discipline that claims to address disease by looking at root causes that can be found in imbalances in the gut microbiome, hormonal dysfunction, environmental toxins or nutritional deficiencies. Functional medicine often involves questionable blood tests, treatment of such non-existent diseases as “adrenal fatigue,” and posits that most people suffer from heavy-metal poisoning and are in need of detoxification.
Means did not have a career in functional medicine and no longer has a medical license. She has become a “wellness influencer,” peddling supplements and spewing out newsletters and books that are speckled with such Deepak Chopra-ish wisdoms as: “We are a swirl of energy and matter in constant exchange with everything in the cosmos.” She claims that all health problems can be traced to “bad metabolic health.”
Metabolism is a complex process that involves both the conversion of energy stored in food to energy needed to run cellular processes and the use of food components to build the proteins, fats and nucleic acids the body needs. Metabolism is important and can be influenced by diet, age, physical activity, hormones and some environmental factors, but to suggest that all disease can be traced to bad metabolic health or “bad energy” is nonsense.
When it comes to vaccination, the medical intervention that — save perhaps for the chlorination of water — has saved more lives than any other, Means has admitted that it is not her area of expertise (it is hard to know what is). Nevertheless, she has questioned the schedule for children’s vaccines. She has long been allied with the scientifically challenged Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Like RFK, her limited knowledge about genetic modification and seed oils has not stopped her from pontificating on such issues.
On the positive side, Means promotes cutting down on highly processed foods and refined sugar, a recommendation that is supported by facts. But hitting a target once after missing with a quiver full of arrows hardly qualifies one to become surgeon-general.
One last comment: It is a fact that Joe Friday never said “Just the facts ma’am.” What he did say was: “All we want are the facts ma’am.” Dr. Casey Means should take note.
