Category: health

Bret Weinstein denies that AIDS is caused by HIV

March 11, 2024 • 9:30 am

A high-up worker in the pharma industry sent me a video from last month  showing biologist Bret Weinstein apparently denying to Joe Rogan that AIDS is cause by infection with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). (That claim starts about three minutes in, but watch the whole video below.)

Apparently Weinstein subscribes to Rogan’s “competing hypothesis” that AIDS is simply group of symptoms caused not by a virus, but by taking “party drugs” (3:53). Weinstein finds that explanation “surprisingly compelling.”  He also suggests darkly that Nobel laureate Kary Mullis—also an HIV denialist—died “strangely” (there were conspiracy theories about Mullis’s death).  Then the video stops, but you can hear the whole 3½-hour episode here.

The first several minutes of the video below, which you’ll have to scroll back to see, show Weinstein expressing doubt that a virus also causes Covid-19.

You may remember that Weinstein and his partner, biologist Heather Heying, touted the antiparasitic drug ivermectin as a treatment and preventive for the “syndrome” known as Covid-19, even though there was no evidence that the drug was effective (see also here).  In other words, Weinstein seems fond of heterodox and discredited causes of and treatments for diseases: he’s a medical conspiracy theorist.

The pharma guy who wrote me said this:

I don’t mean to obsess about BW, but after the Evergreen debacle and getting a modicum of credibility, he went crazy about COVID and the efficacy of ivermectin so much so that Sam Harris ripped him for conspiratorial thinking and now they’re enemies.  I was livid because people like him were giving horrible medical advice to the public as a biologist-who-claims-to-be-an-authority and may have really harmed people who were listening to his claptrap.  3 weeks ago, he was on Joe Rogan’s show (which I don’t watch but saw a link) wherein he’s now giving airtime to the ‘AIDS is not caused by HIV’ conspiracy theory.

As a member of Pharma industry who watched colleagues like myself craft thousands of molecules to become specific drugs tailored to fit and inhibit the active sites of HIV protease, reverse transcriptase, integrase, and to antagonize HIV binding to the chemokine receptor CCR5 that the virus uses to enter T-cells, I know for a fact that these drugs prevent AIDS by stopping HIV viral replication and entry.  All were approved in Phase 3 with data and are used in various combinations to make drugs like the Quad pill that have suppressed HIV to undetectable levels, allowing HIV-infected individuals to lead pretty normal lives.  Ergo, AIDS IS caused by HIV!  QED.

There were then some words not suitable for a family-friendly site, but among them were the claims that Weinstein is “a conspicuous troll who is hurting people.”

VICE News has a summary of Weinstein’s appearance on Rogan and on their shared and bogus theory of AIDS. An excerpt:

Weinstein’s “evidence,” he made clear, is partially drawn from reading about this theory as outlined by Robert F. Kennedy in his book The Real Anthony Fauci, published in 2021. (One review of the book noted that Kennedy managed to misrepresent numerous scientific studies he cites, which does not make a strong case for its scientific rigor; nor does the fact that it was written by Robert F. Kennedy.)

“I came to understand later, after I looked at what Luke Montagnier had said and I read Bobby Kennedy’s book on Fauci, was that actually the argument against HIV being causal was a lot higher quality than I had understood, right?” Weinstein told Rogan. “That it being a real virus, a fellow traveler of a disease that was chemically triggered, that is at least a highly plausible hypothesis. And with Anthony Fauci playing his role, that was inconvenient for what he was trying to accomplish.”

. . .The conversation generated substantial outcry from scientists and public health researchers on Twitter; David Gorski, an oncologist who frequently writes about the anti-vaccine world and pseudoscience, identified the conversation as an example of “crank magnetism,” writing, “Once you go down the rabbit hole of pseudoscience, quackery, and conspiracy theories in one area (e.g., #COVID19), it is nearly inevitable that you will embrace fractal wrongness in the form of multiple kinds of pseudoscience (e.g., antivax, AIDS denial, etc.).”

And this is, of course, indisputably part of a larger pattern. Rogan and Weinstein regularly repeat discredited scientific ideas, mainly around their promotion of ivermectin as a treatment for COVID and Rogan’s constant promotion of anti-vaccine ideas. The AIDS conversation makes clear that COVID denialists are branching out, using their forms of pseudo-inquiry to draw other bad ideas back into the public discussion.

And from Wikipedia:

Appearing on a Joe Rogan podcast in February 2024, Weinstein erroneously stated that some people with AIDS were not infected with HIV and that he found the idea that AIDS was caused by a gay lifestyle, rather than the HIV virus, “surprisingly compelling”. The American Foundation for AIDS Research reacted to the podcast, saying “It is disappointing to see platforms being used to spout old, baseless theories about HIV. … The fact is that the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), untreated, causes AIDS. … Mr. Rogan and Mr. Weinstein do their listeners a disservice in disseminating false information …”.

As for Weinstein’s implication that Karry Mullis’s death may have involved his “maverick” view that HIV didn’t cause AIDs (shades of Karen Silkwood!), Michael Shermer responded on February 16 with a tweet:

I’m especially distressed by this kind of quackery, which in the end can cost lives, by a man who started out in my own field, evolutionary biology.  Now, having left Evergreen State far behind him, Weinstein appears to be trying to make a name for himself by being medically heterodox. It’s fine to question untested theories, but the evidence is now very, very strong that HIV causes AIDs and that Covid-19 is caused by a coronavirus.

People often say that “pseudoscience” isn’t that harmful. After all, what’s the danger in reading the astrology column or tarot cards? But that’s just the thin edge of the wedge that opens up medical pseudoscience like that given above. And that can kill people.

Israeli hospital saves Gazan child using a stem-cell transplant

February 29, 2024 • 11:00 am

It’s not widely known that Israeli hospitals will treat any Palestinian who’s sick or injured, given that a few conditions are met. First, the patient must not be a terrorist, though children of terrorists will be and have been treated so long as they’re accompanied by a relative (mother or grandparent) who is not suspected of terrorism.

Further, the patient must have a condition that is not treatable in a Palestinian hospital.  Finally, the patient must have permission from the Palestinian Authority (PA) to go to an Israeli hospital (the PA is supposed to cover the expenses but often doesn’t), and, if the patient is from Gaza, permission from the Gazan authorities.  Since the PA sometimes doesn’t pay up, often the treatment winds up being free, which means it’s paid for by Israel.

This has been going on forever, and yet it’s rarely publicized.  If Israel is an “apartheid state”—even with respect to Palestinians—this treatment wouldn’t be dispensed. It is, pure and simple, a case of humanitarianism and altruism.  And remember, this is not a one-off: it happens all the time.  It involves the Israelis helping people regarded as their antagonists, but they do it anyway, for they value life.  Remember that when you hear that the IDF is deliberately killing civilians for the sake of taking life.

How many people are treated in this way? The American Journal of Public Health answers this in a 2018 article:

Undoubtedly, the short- and long-term suffering of an ill Palestinian delayed at a checkpoint is always unfortunate, and occasionally even tragic. [JAC: delays for sick people passing through checkpoints into Israel sometimes occur to allow ambulances and the like to be checked for terrorists, bombs, or weapons, which have been found in ambulances and other vehicles.] However, despite ongoing terror threats, and even during unrest and wars, many Palestinians do pass daily into Israel for medical care. Israeli hospitals have long provided Palestinians with extensive medical services. For example, during the research period (in 2005 alone), approximately 123,000 Palestinians were treated at just one institution, Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem, which included 15000 admissions as well as 32,000 visits to the emergency department.

In general, special entry permits are issued in humanitarian cases for ill people, their chaperones, and for Palestinian medical teams. For example, more recently, in 2016, 93,890 such authorizations were issued for patients (plus 100,722 for accompanying family) to be treated at hospitals throughout Israel. At the two West Jerusalem Hadassah hospitals alone, 15,743 patients, comprising more than one third of the total, came through checkpoints and were cared for there. Another 16% (6,577 patients) crossed into Israel and were treated in hospitals in East Jerusalem.

During the same year, 9,832 Palestinian children with birth defects and chronic diseases were treated in Israeli hospitals. During the first half of 2017, 46,132 such permits have been issued and a further 2,163 authorized Palestinian medical personnel to work or be trained in Israel or East Jerusalem (written personal communication, October 4, 2017, Ido D. Dechtman and Yuval Ran, Medical Corps, Tel Aviv, Israel Defense Forces). Another noteworthy example of Israeli compassion for the suffering of her Arab neighbors is the treatment of more than 4,000 victims of the Syrian Civil War in civilian hospitals at Israeli government expense.

Do people realize this? If they do, do they even care, or do they manage to write it off as some kind of “sickwashing”?  I find it a heartening example of humans at their finest.

So here’s the story of one Gazan child whose life was saved by a complex procedure in an Israeli hospital. This is a report from the Elder of Ziyon site.

Click to read; I’ve reproduced the whole short post below:

There’s an intro from the EoZ, and then the details from the Sheba Medical Center (further indented). Bolding comes from the EoZ’s post:

I received this from Sheba Medical Center:

Among Sheba’s values are “peace through health” – treating all patients from the region and Middle East and seeing healthcare as a path to peaceful coexistence.

At the outbreak of the war there were sixty-one Palestinian patients being treated at Sheba and housed on the campus with sixty-eight family members.

Sheba has continued to receive Palestinian patients from the West Bank throughout the war, as well as providing food, shelter and any needed treatments to the forty families from Gaza that were being treated at Sheba and cannot return at this point.

One story in particular is stunning.

W—–, who has asked that her identity and photo be obscured, came to Sheba from Gaza, with a toddler son S—- who has a serious and fatal immune system deficiency disorder. What was needed was a stem cell transplant, but he had no bone marrow match with his younger brother or other family members.

Sheba staff told W—- and her husband that if she had another baby, there was a possibility that child could be a match and a donor. They decided to try. She became pregnant and a test revealed that the fetus would indeed be a match for her sick son. So, Sheba put them up on the campus and treated her for the duration of her pregnancy and delivery.

The baby boy, G——, was born on Oct. 17.

While Sheba was receiving a flood of those injured and traumatized by the war, and with 200 doctors and nurses mobilized into the army, they proceeded with taking extraordinary steps to save the life of one Palestinian child.

The newborn’s cord blood was sufficient for the needed stem cell transplant. The procedure has been performed and the now-four-year-old son is expected to regain full health and live a normal life. When it is possible to do so, his family will return to Gaza with him and his new baby brother.

Hamas fired machine guns into cribs and then raped the mothers of the babies before murdering them, and Sheba is going to great lengths to save the life of a single toddler from Gaza.

You unfortunately will not read this story anywhere else. But our values will continue to define us, and we will continue to hold them high.

They are right – this story will not be published in the media. Stories of Israeli Jews being a light unto nations are not very popular right now for those who want to push the opposite message.

There is nothing inconsistent between this story from Sheba and what the IDF is doing in Gaza.  In both cases they are doing everything they can to save lives – both Israeli and Arab.

I wanted to reproduce this in the hopes of showing the humanitarian of Israelis, which in cases like this I consider both tear-inducing and reassuring. But it also shows what humans of any nationality are capable of if they can set aside fear and hatred of The Other.

New tendentious and possibly dangerous APA book on “gender-affirming care”

February 19, 2024 • 12:30 pm

From the Washington Monthly we hear of a brand-new book published by the prestigious American Psychiatric Association (APA), a book dealing with (and all gung ho for) “gender-affirming” care. You know what that is: it’s the care that goes to a child with gender dysphoria, taking him or her directly to a therapist or doctor who affirms the child’s feelings of being born in the “wrong” body, then to prescribing puberty blockers and other hormones, and, then if the patient wants it, to excision of body parts: operations on genitalia and removal of breasts, along with hormone treatment that eliminates a patient’s ability to have an orgasm.

Click below see the book on Amazon. It’s $58 and, as you see below it, the 18 ratings on Amazon so far aren’t very laudatory. But according to Amazon it came out only on January 7, and the gender activists haven’t yet weighed in. But they will after they read psychiatrist Sally Satel‘s critical take.

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Why such poor reviews? Perhaps, as Sally notes in her description of the book in Washington Monthly, because it’s written by gender-affirming advocates and is woefully short on warnings about possible dangers of this kind of medical and psychiatric care. Nor does it appear to offer any alternative care that doesn’t wind up with hormone therapy.

Click to read:

Although the book is published by the APA, it doesn’t constitute “official APA guidance.” But here’s psychiatrist Sally Satel’s take (excerpts indented, bolding is mine):

Last fall, the APA’s publishing arm issued a textbook called Gender-Affirming Psychiatric Care. Described in accompanying promotional material as an “indispensable” resource, the book is written for mental health and primary care clinicians. The publisher, American Psychiatric Association Publishing, APPI, hails it as “the first textbook in the field to provide an affirming, intersectional, and evidence-informed approach to caring for transgender, non-binary, and/or gender-expansive (TNG) people.”

The “affirming, intersectional” textbook is not official APA guidance. Still, APA Publishing describes it as “rigorous” and “an expert view from fields that include psychiatry, psychology, social work, nursing, pharmacy, public health, law, business, community activism, and more. And because each of the 26 chapters features at least one TNG author, wisdom gleaned from lived experience bolsters the professional perspective provided throughout the book.” One would hope that “lived experience” might enhance the scholarship, but that is not the case here.

Affirming care for children with gender dysphoria, a condition that, according to the APA, refers to individuals who suffer from “a marked incongruence between one’s experienced/expressed gender and assigned gender [at birth],” is a major subject of the book. Unfortunately, though billed as a compendium of “best practices,” Gender-Affirming Psychiatric Care, instead of providing even-handed analyses of the controversies within a still-evolving topic of great clinical and social importance regarding the science of treating gender dysphoric youth, the volume approaches it as a settled matter when it is not.

The textbook’s treatment philosophy is that if a child or teen desires transitional steps, then the physicians should proceed, taking the patient’s request on its face. According to the authors, “Clinicians should … always allow patients autonomy in their care.” The authors further advocate for puberty blockers (chemicals that suppress the natural hormonal development and the appearance of secondary sexual traits) and then cross-sex hormones (estrogen or testosterone) to produce the physical characteristics aligned with the patient’s gender identity.

When it comes to gender-affirming surgery (which, for natal girls, can entail the removal of breasts, uterus, and ovaries, as well as penile construction; and for natal boys, involves the genital removal and the creation of a vaginal canal), patients first require a psychiatric evaluation before surgical consultation. In this evaluation, the authors say that “the [mental health] clinician should never place barriers to surgery, only identify those that exist and assist with overcoming them.” (Emphasis added.) While the final decision to operate ultimately lies with the surgeon, who is tasked with obtaining informed consent from the patient and guardian, a psychiatric greenlight is also necessary. Surely, there are times when a yellow or red light is appropriate. It’s telling that a book of 420 pages only mentions guardians once and in the context of saying that guardians and parents (who get five mentions) should not be part of decisions concerning their transitioning kids’ medical data. Parents are referenced only in the context of being unsupportive to their children’s desire to transition.

Satel has other beef. The book doesn’t cover the fate of youths who aren’t given this kind of care, many of whom become gay or no longer gender-dysphoric without affirmative treatments; the book doesn’t cover those who de-transition or reverse the process when it’s going on before medical treatment (“desisters”); the book doesn’t describe alternative treatments in which therapists don’t automatically buy into the patient’s wishes and narratives; and, most important, and, most important, the book doesn’t warn of the potential dangers of some of the medical treatments—dangers recognized by other Western countries.

First is the need for more objective care:

As a practicing psychiatrist, I would expect this volume to probe how to conduct productive interviews with all patients, especially children and young teens, who consider themselves candidates for a gender-affirming approach. After all, this is a book from the American Psychiatric Association’s publishing arm. As such, it should advise clinicians to examine, over many sessions, patients’ experiences and developmental struggles (such as emerging sexuality and identity formation), to learn about their home lives and social worlds, as well as to treat them for the frequent co-occurring issues, such as depression, anxiety, and posttraumatic stress disorder, which sometimes manifest as gender dysphoria in youth.

This would seem to be at the heart of any responsible psychiatric assessment of whether chemical intervention (which can be irreversible) and procedures as life-altering as “confirmation surgery” should be recommended. However, oddly, such foundational steps are ignored.

Here’s Satel on the lack of discussion of the dangers of affirmative therapy (again, we’re talking about young people who may not be mature enough to make such important decisions). To me, this almost verges on academic malpractice:

Finally, a reader gets no sense that gender-affirming care is the subject of vigorous international scientific debate. Remarkably, the textbook does not mention that in 2020, the United Kingdom’s National Health Service commissioned a comprehensive review of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones and concluded that “the available evidence was not deemed strong enough to form the basis of a policy position” on their use.  Similarly, in 2022, Sweden’s National Board of Health and Welfare suspended hormone therapy for minors except in very rare cases and limited mastectomies to research settings. Likewise, the Norwegian Healthcare Investigation Board now defines all medical and surgical interventions for youth as “experimental treatment,” and the French National Academy of Medicine advises caution in pediatric gender transition.

Regardless of the authors’ personal views, a textbook that is advertised as “rigorous—and timely” as well as “informative” should, at the very least, acknowledge, and ideally explore, the tension between the European and American approaches and elucidate the concerns raised by European medical authorities.

Why the lacunae? As Satel notes, every chapter has at least one likely gender-activist author (“TNG”), and this has resulted in the sorry situation where the APA gives its imprimatur to treatment that might be dangerous or, at best, ineffective. Do note, however, that Satel also opposes state-imposed bans or limits on treatment for adults.

Gender activism is one thing, but when it comes with the imprimatur of the APA and without mention of either alternative therapies nor warnings about the dangers of medical care that have been recognized by other countries, that activism is irresponsible.

The worst thing one can say about this book is that it’s probably going to be highly recommended by ACLU lawyer Chase Strangio.

King Charles, cancer, and homeopathy

February 6, 2024 • 11:00 am

This morning I received an email from a colleague that said this about the New York Times‘s article on King Charles’s cancer diagnosis:

In the NY Times report there is one sentence mentioning that he is using homeopathy as part of his suite of treatments.

UPDATE: My colleague, who is reliable, swears he saw this in the NYT yesterday, and is baffled that the sentence is gone today.  Readers with a bent for sleuthing might try finding the original article at an archived site.

Well, I can’t find that sentence in the NYT article this morning, nor in the archived version posted right after midnight. Yet we know the King is an advocate of homeopathy. The Guardian of December 17 last year noted that the King had appointed an advocated of woo, including homeopathy, as head of the “royal medical household”:

Yet last week we heard that the head of the royal medical household is an advocate of homeopathy. Dr Michael Dixon has championed such things as “thought field therapy”, “Christian healing” and an Indian herbal cure “ultra-diluted” with alcohol, which claims to kill breast cancer cells. Methods like these might be “unfashionable”, he once wrote in an article submitted to the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, but they should not be ignored.

The link above goes to an earlier Guardian article, noting that the head of the royal medical household is not the same thing as thje king’s doctor:

Dr Michael Dixon, who has championed faith healing and herbalism in his work as a GP, has quietly held the senior position for the last year, the Sunday Times reported.

While Dixon, 71, is head of the royal medical household, for the first time the role is not combined with being the monarch’s physician. Duties include having overall responsibility for the health of the king and the wider royal family – and even representing them in talks with government.

There are a lot of people online who are somewhat gleeful about this diagnosis, saying that they’re hoping that King Charles puts the rubber to the road and uses alternative therapies, like homeopathy, but the Daily Fail and other sites note that even Dixon doesn’t think that homeopathy can cure cancer:

[Dixon]  thrown his support behind offering treatments such as aromatherapy and reflexology on the NHS.

In one paper he authored, he referenced an experiment suggesting Indian herbal remedies which had been ‘ultra-diluted’ with alcohol might be able to cure cancer, although Buckingham Palace has staunchly denied Dr Dixon himself believes this can work.

A statement from the palace at the time of his appointment read: ‘Dr Dixon does not believe homeopathy can cure cancer.

‘His position is that complementary therapies can sit alongside conventional treatments, provided they are safe, appropriate and evidence based.’

Dr Dixon, who has reportedly prescribed plants to patients such as devil’s claw and horny goat weed, has also written papers suggesting Christian healers may be able to help people who are chronically ill.

He has a kindred spirit and staunch supporter in the shape of King Charles, who has himself been outspoken on how he believes alternative medicine can help people with illnesses, and was appointed patron of the Faculty of Homeopathy in 2017.

As for me, I have no beef with King Charles, and my first thought when I heard he had cancer was that it was a shame, as he’d waited so long to become King and if he died from this, it would have been a long wait for a short reign. I hope he gets well. What kind of person would want the King to die because he advocates medical woo?

But he should never have promoted that woo, and I’m sure he won’t be using it in his new course of treatment.

Doctors Without Borders accused of complicity with Hamas

December 20, 2023 • 10:15 am

When Kelly Houle and I sold a copy of Why Evolution is True that had been autographed by many in the science/atheist/skeptic community (including several Nobel Laureates), and which had been illuminated with Kelly’s artistic flair, we decided to donate the proceeds to Doctors Without Borders (DWB, founded as Médecins Sans Frontières), an NGO that goes around the world with its doctors and nurses helping people in distress, particularly during tragic events like hurricanes and civil wars. It even won a Nobel Peace Prize.

All this sounded great to us, and we donated the $10,500 the book brought on eBay to DWB. (Have a look at the book here.) We thought it would do a lot of good, which was the sole object of our auction.

Later, however, I heard a rumor that DWB was somewhat anti-Israel and didn’t use Israeli doctors, although it does use doctors and nurses from many other countries. I emailed the organization asking about this, and never got a reply. I found accusations of DWB being antisemitic and anti-Israel (and pushing pro-Palestinian propaganda) on the internet (see here, here, here, and here, for example), and was distressed, as such an organization should not be taking political stands or engaging in political advocacy, which it was reported as doing. If they really don’t use Israeli doctors, and those doctors are willing to be used, then it’s guilty of antisemitism, for help is help, regardless of where it comes from or the religion of the medic.

You can find other and similar accusations on the web, but here’s a new one, written by Alain Destexhe, who used to be a big shot in the organization. He’s identified this way:

Alain Destexhe, Medical Doctor (MD), a Gatestone Institute distinguished senior fellow, is an Honorary Senator in Belgium, former secretary general of Médecins sans Frontières (Doctors without Borders) and former president of the International Crisis Group. Author of Rwanda and Genocide in the Twentieth Century.

I think that gives his words sufficient credibility! And the Gatestone Institute has published an article by Destexhe article that accuses DWB of complicity with Hamas. Click the headline to read, and judge for yourself:

The piece is based on a new investigation of the organization, a group is loosely organized so that members can say what they want on social media. Check out the link to the report as well as the accusations given in the excerpt below:

The public statements since October 7 of Doctors Without Borders (Médecins Sans Frontières, MSF) and its employees, on the ground in Gaza, show a systematic bias in favor of Hamas and hostility to Israel. MSF has failed in its humanitarian purpose and violated its own charter, which proclaims “assistance… irrespective of race, religion, creed or political convictions.”

MSF has been present in the Gaza Strip since 1989. It now plays a leading role there, with at least 300 staff members, and works closely with local hospitals on a number of projects, either directly or indirectly with the Hamas “Ministry of Health”.

MSF is often quoted by the international media and is seen by public opinion as an objective, neutral and independent observer of the conflict in the region. Because of the history of the organization, which in 1999 was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, the French and international media have blind faith in MSF when it comes to reporting what it states.

However, a new investigative report on the social media posts of MSF and its employees has seriously called this reputation into question. The tweets and the Facebook posts of MSF and around 100 of its employees in Gaza were scrutinized.

Despite being subject to the MSF Charter, a significant proportion of its staff seem to share the Hamas point of view and support the terrorist attacks of October 7. For example, from October 7:

  • “Always remember that Gaza has done what all Arab armies have not done… !! It dug tunnels with its own hands. It built its weapons with its own hands…!! She sacrificed her sons, her women, her youth, her elderly, her homes and her mosques for the dignity of this land…!!” — MSF nurse (see Appendix 1).
  • “oh my God, we love you” — MSF doctor (see Appendix 1).\

. . . MSF’s biased analysis of events can also be found among MSF’s official spokespeople, who — usually quick to communicate — are completely silent on the atrocities of October 7.

. . .MSF repeated the false claim that Israel bombed Al Ahli Hospital in Gaza. In a tweet dated October 17, MSF France wrote in French:

“We are horrified by the Israeli bombing of the Ahli Arab hospital in Gaza, which treated patients and housed displaced people. Hundreds of people were killed according to local authorities. This is an unacceptable massacre.”

MSF did not specify that these “local authorities” are part of Hamas.

Here’s the DWB Twitter (“X”) site logo, followed by a couple of tweets:

This is their pinned tweet, and there are repeated calls for a ceasefire.  Their concern for healthcare “on both sides of the conflict” rings hollow in the face of their complete lack of concern for what happened in Israel.

A DWB Facebook post decrying the US’s veto of a ceasefire in the Security Council, which accuses the US of giving “diplomatic cover for the ongoing atrocities in Gaza”.  Surely not an institutionally neutral pronouncement, and misguided as well. One could just as easily say that “the U.S. is trying to allow Israel to defend itself so that the tiny country can continue to exist.”

DWB picketing for a ceasefire at the UN:

Much of the article above was taken from the 47-page report, which gives examples of DWB and MSF’s tweets and other comments on social media supporting  also this from the investigation report, written by Destexhe; it’s 47 pages long and gives lots of examples.  Some quotes are blow, bolding is theirs:

MSF has had a large presence in Gaza for a long time. Moreover, in a series of tweets, MSF provides precise information on the situation at the Al Shifa hospital, showing its perfect knowledge of the premises and the staff. Is it possible and credible that MSF and its employees knew nothing and saw nothing of Hamas’s violations of humanitarian law?3

To date, MSF has not once denounced the violation of these “sanctuaries” by the Hamas belligerents, even though on 7 October it asked: Health facilities must not be targets. MSF calls on all parties to respect health facilities, which must remain sanctuaries for people in need of care.\

. . .MSF has had a large presence in Gaza for a long time. Moreover, in a series of tweets, MSF provides precise information on the situation at the Al Shifa hospital, showing its perfect knowledge of the premises and the staff. Is it possible and credible that MSF and its employees knew nothing and saw nothing of Hamas’s violations of humanitarian law?3

To date, MSF has not once denounced the violation of these “sanctuaries” by the Hamas belligerents, even though on 7 October it asked: Health facilities must not be targets. MSF calls on all parties to respect health facilities, which must remain sanctuaries for people in need of care.\

And the report’s conclusion:

Since 7 October, MSF, which is very active on X, has not tweeted a single word denouncing the crimes against humanity and war crimes committed by Hamas on 7 October, the hostage-taking of dozens of civilians and the use of hospitals as barracks or human shields. MSF has denounced Israel on numerous occasions, but never these violations of humanitarian law committed by Hamas.

Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) regularly refers to international humanitarian law, but its interpretation of this law varies widely. MSF has seriously failed in its humanitarian purpose.MSF’s Charter asserts the organisation’s neutrality, impartiality and independence from any political, economic or religious power. MSF must be irreproachable and neutral in its work. This is clearly not the case in Gaza.

The proximity of some MSF staff to Hamas raises questions about possible links between MSF and extremist groups.

Now one could argue that the humanitarian crisis in Gaza is worse than Israel, and DWB is simply reflecting different levels of crisis. But in the face of their long history of pro-Palestinian and anti-Israeli propaganda, and apparent failure to use Israeli doctors (I still haven’t found out whether they do, but suspect not), I think DWB is guilty of injecting political and anti-Israel bias into their actions. Plus there’s their complete silence on the activities of October 7, and of course don’t mention that Hamas and IJ are still firing rockets at civilians in Israel. Apparently Israeli lives simply aren’t worth mentioning. No call to stop firing rockets?

One thing is for sure: I deeply regret having given this organization $10,500 a while back, and they’re not going to get dime one from me any more. I put them in my will as getting a substantial amount of money, but I struck them out. There are organizations that aren’t reported to be allied with terrorism that deserve my money more.  Read not just the report above, but the linked article, and perhaps google “Doctors Without Borders” Israel to see more.  Then judge for yourself.

Two examples of wokeness: cancer care and moccasins

September 3, 2023 • 9:30 am

CANCER CARE

This first link below was sent by my partner in crime Luana, and is from John Lucas’s Substack site “Bravo Blue”. (Lucas was any Army ranger who became an attorney.)

Lucas is decrying the “woke propaganda” to which he was exposed when he checked into the hospital for cancer care. Click below to read, and subscribe if you read often:

An excerpt:

I recently experienced my own personal encounter with this propaganda when filling out a pre-surgery questionnaire at my hospital. This is the story.

I am a cancer patient. Since last January I have been diagnosed with two types of cancer that have necessitated three surgeries so far. For my most recent surgery, I was referred to an oncological surgeon at the VCU Medical Center, which is associated with Virginia Commonwealth University.

At this point, I must add a personal advisory note: The VCU Medical Center enjoys a superb national reputation. Other members of my family have been treated there and have received superb care. Nothing I say here is intended to disparage any of the individual care-givers at the hospital in any way. All, from my surgeon to the kind lady who escorted me to my car after my overnight stay, were uniformly kind and professional. Any criticism I may have is directed at the government-sponsored infection of the medical system with the WOKE virus, not at any individual physician or other medical or support staff.

The forms:

When I checked in at the hospital for my pre-surgery consultation, because I was a new patient for them, they gave me the usual medical history form to complete. After completing it, I turned to a second two-page form. I printed my name at the top and, rather unthinkingly, began to fill it out. I was in a bit of a hurry to complete it before I was called back to see my surgeon, so at first I did not pay a great deal of attention to it. So, I dutifully answered the first question, which asked, “What is your “Sexual Orientation?” That should, however, have been an immediate red flag, causing me to wonder, “What on earth does this have to do with cancer surgery?” But out of habit and without thinking, I checked the block for “Straight (Not lesbian or gay).” Had I read it closer and given it a moment’s thought, I would have been nonplussed by the other answers on the menu: “Lesbian,” “Gay,” “Bisexual,” “Something else,” or “Don’t know.”

The first page:

The next question roused me out of my inattentiveness: “How do you describe your gender?” It then gave a menu of six possible answers: “Male,” “Female,” “Transgender male,” “Transgender female,” “Other” and – again – “Unknown.” Like the other questions it also included an option “not to disclose.” My surgeon’s notes from our consult include the notation that I was a “79 year old male.” In view of that rather obvious observation, how or why I was given an option to refuse to disclose my gender is unclear.

At that point I knew something was very wrong.

For me, the final straw was the third question: “What was your sex assigned at birth?” The options were “Male,” “Female,” “Unknown” (again), or “X.  I was left to guess what “X” is; it was not defined.

The woke questions, avers Lucas, are irrelevant to cancer care, though they could have been relevant if, say, he was there for treatment in urology or gynecology. “Sex assigned at birth”, of course, is a phrase that really angers me, because it’s not accurate. Even if doctors use secondary sexual characteristics like genitalia to diagnose sex, sex is not “assigned at birth”, as if it were something arbitrary that doctors decide. It is observed at birth, even if what you really want to observe is whether a newborn has the biological equipment that evolved to make either small and mobile or large and immobile gametes. But genitalia show an almost perfect correlation with biological sex, so they’re a useful surrogate way to determine it.

But “sex assigned at birth” is becoming more frequent despite its inaccuracy. Why? Because it plays right into gender activism. One’s gender is, of course, often self-assigned, though the vast majority of people bear a social role of gender that corresponds to their biological sex.  But you don’t have to distort the biological definition of sex to placate gender activists. And it also misleads people about science. The gender activists answer: “Forget the science; we’re making sex conform to gender.”

But I digress; here’s page 1 of the form:

But wait! There’s more!

The questions continued on a second page with more inanities.

It asked, for example, what pronouns I use, and – again – the option to say that I what pronouns I use is “unknown.” It occurred to me that a person who is unaware of what pronouns they use may belong in a hospital ward other than the cancer ward. A separate question inquired whether I “presently have” breasts, a vagina, a penis and “prostate/testes,” (They apparently think a man cannot have one without the other.) with instructions to check off all that you have. The most unintentionally hilarious part of the form was the instruction to “write in the space beside the organs listed if there is another word you would like your healthcare provider to use to refer to that body part.” Had I been thinking more clearly at the time, I could have had a lot of fun with that one.

I answered all the questions after the first one by only a single printed “I am a man.” Enough said.

Lucas found that these forms are widespread, and are apparently pushed by the government: the Centers for Disease Control:

Later when I had returned home to complete my recovery, I began to investigate the origins of this form. I quickly found that a very large number of hospitals and medical schools use this or a similar form. For example, the University of Utah health care system has a similar set of questions that it says it will ask each patient every six months.

After all, you may be genderfluid and your pronouns could change.

I discovered that this agenda is being pushed by the federal government. The CDC’s web site lists the questions that medical providers should ask. Its recommended questions are substantially the same as those on the VCU Medical’s questionnaire. However, there are some differences. In addition to the options provided by VCU Medical for “Gender identity,” the CDC recommends an option to specify “Genderqueer/gender nonconforming neither exclusively male nor female.” For “Sexual orientation” it adds, “Queer, pansexual, and/or questioning.” The CDC also suggests other possible pronouns such as “Ze,” “Zim,” and “Zirs.”

But they left out “leaf”!

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MOCCASIN ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Reader Gregory called my attention to this Eddie Bauer ad:

Here’s another view. These look just like the work boots that were de rigueur when I was in college, along with Army fatigue jackets and jeans. (It was the proletarian look.)

Although to me this looks like a conventional work boot, Eddie Bauer claims that it incorporates features of the moccasin, a form of Native American footwear.  I swear I can’t see any resemblance (see below to compare) but Eddie Bauer apparently feels it has to acknowledge it to show its commitment to social justice.

The blue link in the box goes to this site, where Eddie Bauer promises to investigate which products have features that have been appropriated from indigenous peoples.

Here, however, are three pair of genuine Native American moccasins shown on Wikipedia. (They were often beaded.) They bear NO resemblance to the Eddie Bauer “Moc Toe boots,” even in the toes:

Osage:

Kiowa:

Cheyenne:

But why stop at Native Americans? I’m sure there are many products with features adopted from cultures throughout the world.  Below is an Eddie Bauer woman’s dress that is clearly culturally appropriated from the culture of Rajasthan in India, known for its block prints very similar to the ones on this dress. This is blatant and unacknowledged appropriation from people of color:.

To be fair, the Eddie Bauer site also notes they’re starting a partnership with a Native American collective, which is great, but do they have to flaunt this? Of course they do, or they’ll get slammed on social media: the kiss of death for a company.

That said, at least the partnership accomplishes something.

Celebrities and influencers call on social media to remove anti-trans “hatred”

June 28, 2023 • 10:00 am

GLAAD was founded in 1985, with the acronym standing for Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation. As Wikipedia notes, the organization has now extended its coverage to transsexual and bisexual people.  That’s presumably why the organization will remain “GLAAD” without the full name being used.

GLAAD (/ɡlæd/[1]) is an American non-governmental media monitoring organization. Originally founded as a protest against defamatory coverage of gay and lesbian demographics and their portrayals in the media and entertainment industries, it has since included bisexual and transgender people.

Yesterday, a whole pile of celebrities and “influencers”, as well as “allies,” posted a demand on the GLAAD site for social media moguls (Zuckerberg, Musk, etc.) to stop allowing disinformation and “hate speech” against trans people on their sites. I wholeheartedly agree with nearly everything on the list of demands, which you can read by clicking below). But I have two significant objections. First, read the statement (you’ll be impressed by the list of supporters):

Here’s the content that the signers want censored by companies like Facebook and Twitter:

  • Content that spreads malicious lies and disinformation about medically necessary healthcare for transgender youth. As described above, such harmful content from high-follower hate-based accounts has resulted in extraordinary real-world harms.13 Specific mitigations on such disinformation must be developed (for instance akin to election and COVID-19 mitigations and rules).
  • Accounts and postings that perpetuate anti-LGBTQ extremist hate14 and disinformation,15 in violation of platform policies, and which target trans and LGBTQ people, including baseless and malicious disinformation of LGBTQ people being threats to children (e.g. the anti-LGBTQ “groomer” conspiracy theory16). Such harmful and dangerous lies must be more effectively moderated and mitigated.
  • Dehumanizing, hateful attacks on prominent transgender public figures and influencers. Online attacks against LGBTQ organizations and individuals are on the rise.17 A recent report from GLAAD, UltraViolet, Kairos, and the Women’s March shows that 60% of LGBTQ people feel harmed not only from direct harassment and hate, but from witnessing harassment against other LGBTQ community members such as celebrities and public figures.18 Directing hate against LGBTQ public figures is a common vehicle for expressing general anti-LGBTQ bigotry. When your companies maintain policy loopholes that allow such hate, this perpetuates harm against entire communities.
  • Anti-transgender hate speech, including targeted misgendering, deadnaming, and hate-driven tropes.19 For example, Media Matters, GLAAD and others have identified multiple YouTube videos — which have accumulated millions of views — that bully, harass, and misgender trans people. In each video, prominent anti-trans pundits use YouTube to demean, target, and misgender young people, their parents, and public figures20 in videos saturated with blatant anti-trans rhetoric. These videos remain active despite these violations having been reported by Media Matters, GLAAD, and other organizations to YouTube.

My first qualification is about “hate speech.”  My view is that, as far as possible, social-media outlets should adhere to the First Amendment principles of free speech, while recognizing that, as private companies, they don’t have to.  But I’m in favor of the open discourse that the First Amendment provides.

Note, though, that the Amendment does not protect all speech: it disallows threats to people, speech intended to promote imminent lawless action , false advertising, fraud, and defamation.  FIRE gives a list of exceptions, noting that “hate speech” and online “harassment” (but not harassment in the workplace) are protected categories of speech.  I’m not sure why, if you take the First Amendment view, transgender people should be protected from legal speech while other groups like Jews, Muslims, or any minority, are not.  (As a First-Amendment hard-liner, and a secular Jew, I am perfectly happy to have people make anti-Semitic remarks on social media, including denying the Holocaust or even, like the Scottish dog, raise their paw when the owner says “gas the Jews”.) But of course I reserve the right to answer that nonsense on the same social media.

Given the tremendous variation in what people think of as “hate speech” which is also legal speech, nobody should be immune on social media from “hate speech”—except the form that violates the First Amendment. For crying out loud, P. Z. Myers called me an “asshole” on his blog the other day, and I’m fine with that, though I won’t engage in the kind of puerile name-calling that occurs during his daily Two Minutes Hate.

But what worries me about this particular issue is that some justifiable discussion of trans matters might fall under the nature of “hate speech” or “disinformation about medically necessary healthcare for transgender youth”, and it this discussion should not be censored on the grounds that it engenders hate.  I’m thinking in particular of criticism of “affirmative care”, which to me includes not just a therapeutic rush to confirm whatever gender identity a young person claims, but also the rush to give gender-dysphoric children puberty-blocking hormones.  This is because the efficacy of “gender affirming therapy” (henceforth GAT), as contrasted with conventional therapy with an objective and empathic counselor has not been demonstrated, and GAT almost invariably leads to hormones: first blockers and then either testosterone or estrogen. (And sometimes surgery.) We know that most gender dysphoric children who aren’t given GAT will resolve their issues, most often either resuming their original gender or becoming gay. In both cases. the possibly damaging effects of hormone therapy and surgery are avoided. Of course some of those children will go on to become transgender, and assuming that they are of age (say 16 or 18) when they decide to take hormones, that is their decision.

But the manifesto above assumes that GAT is always the way to go. At least that’s what I take from the desire to ban “Content that spreads malicious lies and disinformation about medically necessary healthcare for transgender youth.”  Who determines what is “medically necessary” for youth? The assumption here is that transgender youth (including those who are gender dysphoric and feel “trapped in the wrong body”) require medical healthcare. Yet there’s a lot of debate about that, and that debate should not be censored, even if you think social media needn’t adhere to the First Amendment. These issues are ongoing throughout the West, and Europe has dealt with them differently from the U.S., taking a more wait-and-see approach.  Calling for caution about these matters until the data are is is not transphobia.

And there is this claim in the text leading up to the list of demands given above. The bolding is mine.

This disinformation and hate, inadequately moderated on your platforms, plays an outsized role in the sharp increase in real-world anti-transgender targeting and violence.9 As documented by the Human Rights Campaign Foundation in 2022,10 this is particularly the case when it comes to the online extremists leading proactive coordinated campaigns of hate and lies about gender affirming healthcare for trans youth.11 Despite the fact that every leading medical and psychological association affirms the safety and necessity of gender affirming healthcare for trans people, including youth, inflammatory disinformation falsely asserting that this healthcare is dangerous is allowed to fester on your platforms because it drives clicks and profit. Trans youth and their families and care providers are being endangered by your negligence, causing many families to flee their homes.

It may well be that all the American associations assert that gender-affirming healthcare is “safe and necessary”, but there are many physicians who dissent. More important, entire European countries have not embraced that affirmation, but are worried about the hormonal aspects of GAT as possibly harmful in the long term, and are using things like puberty blockers only in clinical trials. This is now the case in the UK and Sweden,  while puberty blockers are being strictly limited in places like Finland, Norway, and France.  And just yesterday Ireland’s national health service board (the HSE) ordered a review of puberty blockers in children with gender dysphoria.

As the Atlantic noted,

But doctors do not agree [with American claims that GAT is necessary] , particularly in Europe, where no treatments have been banned but a genuine debate is unfurling in this field. In Finland, for example, new treatment guidelines put out in 2020 advised against the use of puberty-blocking drugs and other medical interventions as a first line of care for teens with adolescent-onset dysphoria. Sweden’s National Board of Health and Welfare followed suit in 2022, announcing that such treatments should be given only under exceptional circumstances or in a research context. Shortly after that, the National Academy of Medicine in France recommended la plus grande réserve in the use of puberty blockers. Just last month, a national investigatory board in Norway expressed concerns about the treatment. And the U.K.’s only national gender clinic for children, the Tavistock, has been ordered to close its doors after a government-commissioned report found, among other problems, that its Dutch-protocol-based approach to treatment lacked sufficient evidence.

Last November, the NYT reviewed the evidence for the harms vs. the value of puberty blockers, concluding that we just don’t have enough data to pronounce them safe and irreversible. Another NYT article by Emily Bazelon last June highlighted the “deep divisions” in America’s medical community about gender-affirming healthcare.  Here’s an excerpt from Bazelon’s piece.

Taking puberty suppressants (or hormones) for gender affirmation is “off-label,” meaning this specific use of the medications is not approved by the Food and Drug Administration. Off-label prescriptions are common and don’t imply anything improper, but there may be less research about the drug’s effects. If young people continue on to hormone treatments, puberty suppressants “probably” compromise fertility, especially for trans girls, Stephen M. Rosenthal, a pediatric endocrinologist at the gender center at U.C.S.F. who is on the group for the SOC8 chapter on hormone treatments, explained in a review last year for Nature Reviews Endocrinology. The medication can also prevent bone density from increasing as it typically would, and while levels returned to normal in trans boys who went on to hormone therapy, they remained low in trans girls who did the same, according to a 2020 study from the Amsterdam clinic. Little is known about the impact on brain development. “The relative paucity of outcomes data raises notable concerns,” Rosenthal wrote in his review. But he has no hesitation about prescribing puberty suppressants to kids who are deemed ready for them at his clinic. “The observed benefits greatly outweigh the potential adverse effects,” he said.

The problem is that we don’t have a good handle on the “potential adverse effects.” That’s why they’re “potential.”

(See my post on her article and the ACLU’s enraged reaction to Bazelon’s piece).

I’ll draw to a close by saying that the two NYT pieces alone would be considered “hate speech” by the GLAAD manifesto above, yet they’re objective discussions of GAT, both affirming the need for more data before we start a widespread practice of prescribing hormones to kids with gender dysphoria. This is not transphobia, but a necessary and essential debate that has to take place, along with acquiring data, before making GAT any kind of gold standard or requirement for treating gender-dysphoric children. Calling for bans on such discussion is not only misguided, but potentially harmful.

Finally, Jesse Singal has tweeted his take on the manifesto above:

In the response from GLAAD, two physicians are mentioned, and you might want to look up their records. They—especially Turban—are known for being wholehearted advocates of GAT.