Distinguishing scientific evidence from speculation

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

The MD explains just how dangerous e-cigarettes and GMO foods really are.

It would seem that it is easy to be a strong hindsight and assess the achievements and failures of the dark past of science from a modern standpoint. But let's see what happens if we, through experience gained from the mistakes and successes of previous generations, evaluate some modern inventions and discoveries - say, e-cigarettes, preservatives, chemical resins, autism treatments, cancer screening programs and genetically modified organisms (GMOs). …

1. It's all about data

If different scientists conduct research in different conditions and with different methods, but get the same results, then these results can be considered true. If ignored, the consequences can be dire.

It would seem that everything is very simple: look at the data and act accordingly. But the problem is that there is too much data.

About 4,000 papers are published daily in medical and scientific journals. It is easy to assume that the quality of research is very different, they are described by a bell-shaped Gaussian distribution curve: there are lateral "tails" - excellent work on the one hand and frankly terrible on the other; but most of the materials - more or less suitable - fit in the middle of the distribution. How can we separate the correct information from the unsuitable?

First of all, you can pay attention to the quality of the publication. True, this does not always work adequately. For example, it is in good peer-reviewed scientific journals that information has been published that excessive coffee consumption causes pancreatic cancer; MMR (measles, mumps and rubella) vaccine provokes autism, nuclear fusion (fusion of two nuclei with the release of energy) can occur at room temperature in a glass of water ("cold fusion"). All these observations were later refuted by other researchers. (“The problem with the world is not that people know too little,” wrote Mark Twain, “but that they know too much that is wrong.”)

So if there is no reason to fully trust the observations published in top-notch scientific journals, what to believe?

The answer is as follows: science is based on two pillars, and one of them is more reliable than the other. The first pillar is peer review. Before publication of the work, it is evaluated and reviewed by experts in this field. Unfortunately, there are problems here too: not all experts are equally qualified, so sometimes inaccurate data slip into the journals. The second thing you should definitely pay attention to is the reproducibility of the experiment. If researchers write something out of the realm of fiction (for example, that the MMR vaccine causes autism), then subsequent research either confirms this data or does not.

For example, almost immediately after the publication of information that the MMR vaccine causes autism, hundreds of scientists in Europe, Canada and the United States tried to repeat experiments proving this. Did not work out.

After hundreds of studies costing tens of millions of dollars and involving hundreds of thousands of children, it turned out that those who were vaccinated did not develop autism more often than those who were not vaccinated. Real science has won.

2. Everything has a price; the only question is how big it is

Even the most advanced and significant scientific and medical discoveries that save the most lives and deserve worldwide recognition (for example, antibiotics or sanitation measures) are expensive. As it turned out, there are no exceptions.

Sulfanilamide, the first antibiotic, was invented in the mid-1930s. Then came penicillin, which began to be mass-produced during World War II. Antibiotics saved our lives. Without them, people would continue to die naturally from pneumonia, meningitis, and other potentially fatal bacterial infections. Thanks in part to these drugs, life expectancy is now 30 years longer than it was a century ago. But beyond the problem of the emergence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, one of the consequences of their use was completely unpredictable.

For the past decade or so, researchers have been studying what is called the microbiome - the bacteria that coat the surface of the skin, intestines, nose, and throat. Quite recently, an absolutely amazing property of them was discovered: by their number and type, one can determine whether a person will develop diabetes, asthma, allergies or obesity. What's even more interesting is that if a child's bacteria are treated with antibiotics, the risk of impairment increases. Everything is clear here: if necessary, you need to use antibiotics, but if you overdo it, you can do harm.

The bottom line is that everything has a price. The task is to find out whether it is worth paying such a price for this or that technology. And we shouldn't blindly trust certain methods just because they've been around for decades or even centuries. Any method should be reviewed periodically. Perhaps the best example would be general anesthesia.

Anesthetics have been around for over 150 years, but it has only recently become clear that they can cause attention and memory problems that drag on for years. “No pain reliever can be ruled out,” says Roderick Ekenhoff, professor of anesthesiology at the University of Pennsylvania.

3. Beware of the zeitgeist

In the modern world, three new technologies have been branded: e-cigarettes (because no one likes the image of a teenager smoking, even if he does not actually inhale smoke); GMOs (because trying to change the natural course of things smells like arrogance) and bisphenol A (BPP), as this chemical resin can be released from the plastic from which baby bottles are made. All three technologies have fallen victim to scientific research that has proven to be harmful. And everyone suffered from the media.

But negative press opinion should not blind us and prevent us from looking at the evidence.

For the first time, electronic cigarettes - a kind of battery-powered vapor inhaler that allows you to breathe nicotine without using tobacco - appeared in the United States in 2006. The evaporated liquid also contains propylene glycol, glycerol and some kind of aroma, such as the smell of Belgian waffles or chocolate. Electronic cigarettes are universally condemned by almost all scientists, doctors and government officials responsible for public health. And it's not hard to see why.

First of all, nicotine is highly addictive and potentially dangerous, especially for the developing fetus. In addition, it can provoke headaches, nausea, vomiting, dizziness, nervousness and heart palpitations. But most e-cigarettes do not contain nicotine.

In addition, e-cigarettes are manufactured by major tobacco companies such as Altria, Reynolds and Imperial. Their management insists that such a product is a kind of exit strategy for those who want to quit smoking. But so far, these devices have not yet earned the trust of the Americans. In 2012, e-cigarette makers spent over $ 18 million on magazine and television advertisements. Unlike regular cigarettes, which have been banned from advertising since 1971, electronic cigarettes can be freely promoted. As a result, the turnover of the industry of their production and sale in the United States amounted to 3.5 billion dollars a year, while it was predicted that by the mid-2020s the volume of sales of e-cigarettes will exceed the sales of conventional cigarettes.

And to top it all off, like the Camel advertisement featuring Joe Camel's camel, some of the e-cigarette commercials were designed to grab the attention of young people.

In 2013, about 250,000 teenagers who had never smoked before tried e-cigarettes. In 2014, almost 1.6 million American high and middle school students have already tried them, which is a dramatic increase over the previous year. In fact, over 10% of high school students in the United States have tried to smoke e-cigarettes. At first glance, it seems that it is only a matter of time, and one day a huge wave of children with electronic cigarettes will overwhelm society, and they will become those adults who smoke regular cigarettes and die of lung cancer. So e-cigarettes could lead to 480,000 more deaths in the United States, and $ 300 billion in annual health care costs and productivity gains from cigarette smoking.

For all of these reasons, the American Cancer Society, the American Lung Association, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the World Health Organization and the American Academy of Pediatrics strongly oppose e-cigarettes. And when I first touched on this topic, I was sure that in the end I will wholeheartedly agree with them. But there is one problem - data.

Due to a sharp increase in the use of e-cigarettes over the past five years, conventional smoking has dropped to an unprecedented level in history, including among young people. For example, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, while e-cigarette use has tripled from 2013 to 2014, the use of e-cigarettes has declined significantly. In 2005, 20.9% of adults smoked cigarettes; by 2014, there were 16.8%, therefore, the total number of American smokers decreased by 20%. Moreover, in 2014, the number of Americans who smoke cigarettes fell below 40 million for the first time in 50 years. States that have supported the idea that e-cigarettes are just substitutes for conventional cigarettes and have banned the sale of such options to minors have noted an increase in cigarette smoking in this age group. And there is no question that electronic substitutes are safer; Unlike traditional ones, they do not deposit cancer-causing resins or heart-disease-causing waste products such as carbon monoxide in the body. “People smoke to get nicotine, but they die from tar,” said Michael Russell, one of the first doctors to treat nicotine addiction.

Maybe this is just a coincidence. There are probably other reasons why cigarette smoking is declining, and they have nothing to do with the rise in e-cigarette use. But it is too early to condemn the electronic version, considering it only a bridge to ordinary smoking, when at first glance the opposite seems to be true. Time will show. It doesn't matter that from the point of view of a certain cultural tradition, e-cigarettes are evil; only the data matters.

Like e-cigarettes, GMOs have also fallen prey to the zeitgeist.

GMO refers to any living organism that possesses "a new combination of genetic material obtained through the use of modern biotechnology." The catchphrase is "modern biotechnology" because, in truth, we have genetically altered our habitat since the beginning of chronicle history. Humans began to domesticate plants and domesticate animals using selection, or artificial selection, 12,000 BC, all with the aim of selecting a species for certain genetic traits. That is, this selection was the forerunner of modern genetic modification. Nevertheless, ecologists were horrified by the arrogance of scientists when they decided to rearrange DNA in the laboratory in order to change nature.

Nowadays, genetic bioengineering is most used in food production. Thanks to it, crops have become more resistant to pests, extreme temperatures and environmental conditions, as well as to some diseases. Also, with the help of genetic modification, crops have improved in terms of nutritional value, shelf life and herbicide resistance have increased. In the United States, 94% of soybeans, 96% of cotton, and 93% of corn are genetically modified; in developing countries it is already 54% of crops. The implications, especially for farmers in developing countries, are impressive. Thanks to GMO technologies, the use of chemical pesticides has decreased by 37%, crop yields have increased by 22%, and farmers' profits by 68%. While genetically modified seeds are more expensive, the cost is easily offset by reduced pesticide use and higher yields.

Many people fear that genetically modified foods pose a greater health hazard than other foods, but rigorous scientific research shows there is no cause for concern.

The American Association for the Advancement of Science and the National Academy of Sciences have spoken out in support of the use of GMOs. Even the European Union, which has never particularly supported GMOs, has to reckon with this. In 2010, the European Commission stated: “The main conclusion to be drawn from more than 130 research projects spanning more than 25 years and involving more than 500 independent research groups is that biotechnology, in particular GMOs, is no more dangerous. than traditional plant breeding technologies”.

Despite the fact that everything is clear with science, the public remains concerned. A recent Gallup poll found that 48% of Americans believe genetically modified foods pose a serious threat to consumers. Many of the respondents prefer to see labels on products warning about the presence of GMOs: then they will not be able to buy them. According to the same survey, we are ready to disregard not only science, but also history. Thanks to selection and cultivation, the "natural" crops that we grow now bear very little resemblance to their ancestors. In practical terms, a farmer who uses a random mutation to grow a particular crop is no different from someone who deliberately creates that mutation. Both the first and the second have the same mutation.

In addition, GMO technologies are used to make vital drugs: insulin for diabetics, blood clotting proteins for hemophiliacs, and growth hormone for stunted children.

Previously, these products were obtained from pig pancreas, blood donors and the pituitary gland of deceased people.

However, there are still those who oppose GMOs. More recently, there has been a story on the Web about a tomato containing a fish gene. Frankenstein's portrayal only spurred environmentalists to push for GMO labeling. Stephen Novella, assistant professor at Yale University School of Medicine and creator of the podcast The Skeptics Guide to the Universe, put it best: “The question really isn't whether there is a genetically modified tomato with a fishes. Who cares? - he wrote. - It's not that eating a fish gene is inherently dangerous - people eat real fish. In addition, it is estimated that approximately 70% of the genes are the same in humans and fish. You have fish genes, and all plants you eat have fish genes. Deal with it!"

Paul Offit is a pediatrician specializing in infectious diseases, a specialist in vaccines, immunology and virology. In his new book “Pandora's Box. Seven stories of how science can harm us”he teaches the reader to understand the flow of information and discard pseudoscientific data. Offit debunks myths that are presented under the guise of scientific achievements and urges not to believe everything that is written in the newspapers, especially when it comes to health.