by Salman Hameed

I have posted stories about the rise of polio cases in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Nigeria. Several vaccination workers have been shot at and killed in these countries. Many of these regions are ravaged by war and there is a mistrust of any outsiders. The use of a fake vaccination program in Pakistan by the CIA did not exactly help the matters either.

But then we have this Texas megachurch, where measles are starting to appear again. Is there any excuse for this in a first world country? In addition, this non-vaccination jeopardizes the health of infants who haven't had MMR vaccine yet, and those who haven't had the vaccine for other health issues. This is disappointing, unethical, and tragic. Here is the story from NPR:

Measles was declared eliminated in the U.S. more than a decade ago. But in recent years, the highly infectious disease has cropped up in communities with low vaccination rates,

most recently in North Texas. 

There, 21 people — the majority of whom have not been immunized — have gotten the disease, which began at a vaccine-skeptical megachurch. 

The outbreak began when a man who contracted the virus on a recent trip to Indonesia visited the Eagle Mountain International Church in Newark, about an hour and a half northwest of Dallas. 

Earlier this week, crowds flooded in for regular services. Rose Mwangi had her Bible in hand and said she's not worried "because I know Jesus is a healer, so I know he's covered us with the blood...There's no place for fear."

And yes, those who came down with measles were not vaccinated. This is not magic. There are some diseases that we can control, and this is one of them:

Most of the Eagle Mountain parishioners — and all of the children — who came down with measles had never been vaccinated. 

Dr. Jason Terk, an infectious disease specialist in North Texas, says such communities can spread a disease quickly. 

"This is a good example, unfortunately, of how birds of a feather flock together," Terk says. "If you have individuals who are vaccine-hesitant or vaccine-hostile, they congregate together, and that creates its own unique situation where a population of individuals is susceptible to getting the very disease that they decided they don't want to protect themselves from." 

Measles is spread by sneezing, coughing and close personal contact. It's one of the most contagious diseases. 

The vaccine is extremely effective. Before it was introduced in the 1960s, nearly everyone got the red rash. Today, most doctors have never even seen a case of the measles.
But in the last few years, there have been pockets of those who choose not to vaccinate their children. 

"When that decision's been made, it's been made on bad information," says Dr. Paul Offit, one of the country's leading vaccine researchers at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.
"Typically, it's the fear that the combination measles-mumps-rubella, or MMR vaccine may have in some way contributed to the epidemic of autism — which has clearly been shown not to be true in study after study," Offit says. He says those who choose to skip vaccines cause serious ripple effects. 

There are hundreds of thousands of people in the United States who can't get vaccinated because they're undergoing medical treatment or are too young, for example.
"They depend on those around them to be vaccinated, and I think when you make a choice not to vaccinate yourself or your children it is a selfish, ill-founded choice that only can possibly hurt you or those who come in contact with you." 

Already this year, the U.S. has had more than twice as many reports of measles than in all of 2012, when there were only 55 cases — and none in Texas, according to the Texas Department of State Health Services.

Listen to the full story here.

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by Salman Hameed

It is pretty cool that Noah Gordon's historical novel, The Physician, is being turned into a film. And Ben Kingsley will be playing Ibn-Sina. Too bad Anthony Quinn isn't alive. For a long time, he used to be the go-to ethnic guy in Hollywood. In particular, he played a fascinating historical trilogy of Muslim characters in Lawrence of Arabia (a hot-headed tribal leader Auda Abu Tayi), The Message (Hamza - uncle of the Prophet) and Lion of the Desert (Omar Mukhtar - the Libyan rebel who fought against the Italians in the early 20th century).

Ben Kingsley has played a number of "ethnic characters" in his long acting career. Of course, his most famous role is of playing Gandhi, but he also played an Iranian in a pretty decent film, House of Sand and Fog. But more recently, he played Al Jazari in a short film (about 13 minutes) for the exhibit 1001 Inventions.



So I guess, the transition to Ibn Sina may not be that difficult. Here is the news item:

Ben Kingsley, Stellan Skarsgard and Tom Payne have signed up for "The Physician," UFA Cinema's adaptation of Noah Gordon's bestseller about a medieval healer who travels from England to Persia to study medicine. 

Directed by Philipp Stoelzl ("Young Goethe in Love") from a script by Jan Berger, the film begins production in June in Morocco and Germany. 

"The Physician" tells the story of Rob Cole, a penniless orphan in an 11th-century English mining town who journeys to Persia to study medicine under Ibn Sina, the philosopher-scientist known as the "doctor of all doctors." 

Payne, the young English actor who most recently appeared in HBO's "Luck," plays the titular protagonist, while Kingsley stars as Ibn Sina. Skarsgard, who currently appears in "The Avengers," plays Barber, Rob's first mentor. The pic also features French thesp Olivier Martinez as the Persian shah. 

"The novel is not only a great adventure revealing the fascinating world of medieval medicine," said Stoelzl, "it also explores some of life's big questions -- about the meaning of death, whether religion is a liberating force or a prison of the mind, and the culture clash between East and West -- all topics that concern us more than ever today."
Published in 1986, "The Physician" has sold more than 21 million copies worldwide.

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This is a weekly post by Nidhal Guessoum (see his earlier posts here). Nidhal is an astrophysicist and Professor of Physics at American University of Sharjah and is the author of Islam's Quantum Question: Reconciling Muslim Tradition and Modern Science.

‘Roqia’, which I’ve translated above as “Islamic healing”, is the tradition of having some Qur’anic verses read over a sick person in order to achieve some betterment, most people assuming it to be medical. There are hadiths relating that Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) practiced it, and it is still widespread in many Muslim communities around the world, including ones in the west (more on that below).

I do not intend to get into the controversy of whether one should believe (or accept) that prayers do produce healing of some sort. First, it depends on whether we’re talking about a spiritual or a medical effect. Secondly, it makes much difference (in my view) whether the praying is done by the sick person himself/herself or whether someone is praying for them. Thirdly, it comes down to whether one believes that spiritual effects within a person can and do lead to a physiological effect or not. I will leave all these issues hanging, although if people want to debate them in the comments section, I’ll gladly oblige.

The problem today is that this practice has turned into a widespread scam. First, there is a social phenomenon to be investigated, namely the strong return of tradition “Islamic” medicine, including bloodletting, “Prophetic”/herbal medicine, and ‘Roqia’/healing through prayers performed by a sheikh. A year ago, I had written a post on this effect, focusing on Muslims’ (and to some extent other peoples’) current infatuation with herbal medicine. Indeed, there is today a huge social trend toward old, medieval medical procedures, such as bloodletting. For Muslims, it is on the one hand because the Prophet practiced that and sometimes recommended it (what else could he have recommended?), and on the other hand, because modern medicine is western and suspect with all its secondary effects and (perceived) disregard for human “wholeness”.

More importantly, however, this social shift toward traditional medicine has been noticed and taken advantage of by the charlatans. There are now “roqia clinics”, both in the Muslim world and in Europe, where charlatans administer “roqia treatments” to ignorant and gullible patients who suffer from anything ranging from “evil eye” to cancer, not to mention sexual problems, which are easier to explain (through allusions) to a sheikh than to a physician. They charge anywhere between $2 for a quick consultation and prayer (in poor places in Algeria) to 100 euros in France, and oftentimes the “healers” ask their patients to undergo regular treatment sessions (weekly or 2-3 times weekly), and to pay for the “medicine” (often in the form of a bottle of mineral water which has been “infused” with the proper verses), hence increasing their scammy wealth… Oh, and some have come up with “group roqia” procedures to multiply the income in each session.

Some of these charlatans have even opened up satellite TV stations, taking international orders for their medicines, which usually consist of herbs, oils, and honeys, and cost up to $150. Others have set up 900-type phone systems, making money just through the calls.

Finally, and most shockingly, a series of cases have recently appeared (at least in Algeria and in Saudi Arabia), where charlatan “raqis” were charged with raping innocent and naïve young women, in one case as many as 30 (sorry, the links are in Arabic and French)!

This is turning into a social catastrophe, combining ignorance, abuse of religious tradition, and multiple frauds and crimes. This needs to be denounced and exposed. Educators and sincere and clear-minded religious scholars need to speak up and address this, in the classrooms and in the mosques. It is truly painful and depressing to see Muslim communities even in the west succumb to this kind of socio-cultural corruption. We must, however, remain steadfast and hardworking in our ongoing efforts to educate everyone at various levels and from many perspectives.

We have a long way to go…

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by Salman Hameed

On Friday, Dalai Lama was awarded the $1.7 million Templeton Prize in recognition of his work on religion and its interactions with science. The Templeton prize has become a lightening rod amongst many scientists and the annual announcement is usually followed by stinging commentary on many blogs. The choice of Dalai Lama, however, seems to be safer choice. After all, no one is really taking an issue with his spirituality. The annual controversy erupts because of the perception that the Templeton Foundation is trying to bring religion into science. But Dalai Lama is not a scientist and I think that makes it a more appropriate choice for the Prize.

Here is a bit from the Templeton Foundation website:

The Dalai Lama, the Tibetan Buddhist spiritual leader whose long-standing engagement with multiple dimensions of science and with people far beyond his own religious traditions has made him an incomparable global voice for universal ethics, nonviolence, and harmony among world religions, has won the 2012 Templeton Prize. 

For decades, Tenzin Gyatso, 76, the 14th Dalai Lama - a lineage believed by followers to be the reincarnation of an ancient Buddhist leader who epitomized compassion - has vigorously focused on the connections between the investigative traditions of science and Buddhism as a way to better understand and advance what both disciplines might offer the world. 

Specifically, he encourages serious scientific investigative reviews of the power of compassion and its broad potential to address the world's fundamental problems - a theme at the core of his teachings and a cornerstone of his immense popularity.

Seems reasonable after skipping the bit on reincarnation. But it is true that Dalai Lama is genuinely interested in science. He has hosted world class scientists to talk about physics and biology, and is has a relatively progressive attitude towards science. So kudos on this choice.

But to balance out the good deed, here is a $2.6 million Templeton funded program for the "spiritual renewal" of the medical profession...at University of Chicago!

A $2.6-million, three-year grant from the John Templeton Foundation will allow Farr Curlin, MD, and Daniel Sulmasy, MD, co-directors of the Program on Medicine and Religion at the University of Chicago, to create a Clinical Scholars Program designed to provide the essential infrastructure for the spiritual renewal of the medical profession. 

The Program will begin by recruiting eight University of Chicago faculty to help take the spiritual “pulse” of medicine by researching the relationship between professional satisfaction and the spiritual lives of physicians. 

“Medicine is a sacred practice,” says Curlin, associate professor of medicine and associate director of the MacLean Center for Clinical Medical Ethics. “We’ll probe how physicians relate their work to the religious traditions they hold and how they could see their work as having moral and spiritual meaning.”

Note - that this is not simply about understanding how physicians might relate their profession to religion and/or spirituality (whatever it is and however it is defined). Instead, it is also about the "spiritual renewal". Now I know one can potentially argue that this is a very broad term and that there really is no religious agenda behind such a program and that the Foundation is simply funding the best programs out there related to science and religion. Well, if you believe that, I have a perfect plot of land for you on the Moon.

One step forward, two steps back.

Also see earlier posts:
The Templeton Foundation Dilemma
Some Thoughts on the Templeton Foundation
Thoughts on Martin Rees and the Templeton Prize
Templeton Prize for a priest-cosmologist

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I have written several times about the problem of polio eradication in Pakistan (for example, see here, here, here, and here). There are many reasons for problems with full vaccination programs: war, opposition to western medicine, and the inaccessibility of some parts of the northern Pakistan. But here is a reminder, that this is not a local problem. It looks like polio has reappeared in China after complete eradication. And it seems that it jumped from Pakistan. From last week's Science:

After more than a decade without a case, China is grappling with an outbreak of wild poliovirus. The Chinese Ministry of Health confirmed the disease in four young children in Hotan Prefecture, Xinjiang province, in western China, who became paralyzed between 3 and 19 July. It's another major blow to the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI), which had hoped to stop wild transmission of the crippling virus by the end of next year. 

Genetic analyses have confirmed that the newly detected type 1 virus jumped the border from Pakistan, where conflict and inhospitable terrain have hampered efforts to vaccinate children. Cases in Pakistan have soared to 72 this year, up from 39 this time last year. Just 2 months ago, GPEI's Independent Monitoring Board warned that Pakistan's epidemic could jeopardize the entire global effort. China will launch an emergency campaign to vaccinate 4.5 million children in the immediate area in early September, according to GPEI.

Hope it gets contained. 

On a related note, I just saw Contagion. It is quite good and apparently, quite realistic. An epidemiologist, Ian Lipkin, was their science advisor, and he spent 20 days on the set, making sure that things are portrayed in a realistic sense. Even the virus they concocted for the film has some roots in an actual virus that killed about a 100 people. In fact, check out his recent oped in NYT, The Real Threat of 'Contagion', about the movie and a very real threat of a global pandemic. It is not an amazing film, but quite decent. Go check it out.                        

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by Salman Hameed

Here is a review of a book on history of blood transfusion experiments: Blood Work: A Tale of Medicine and Murder in the Scientific Revolution (you may need a subscription to access the full article). It is amazing how much science we take for granted. I think it is safe to say that I'm happy that I'm living in the 21st century and not in any past century (though the 24th century promises to be quite amazing). At least we are now sure about the major human blood groups and their compatibilities. But the path to finding this was paved with a lot of unhappy transfusion victims - in particular those getting blood from animals. From the review in Nature:

In Blood Work, medical historian Holly Tucker looks at the beginnings of transfusion in the seventeenth century. Adding material from her own archival research to the standard historical account, she fleshes out the start of physiological experimentation and examines historical attitudes to blood. The result is a page-turning insight into early scientific attitudes and disputes over priority.

In the 1660s, she explains, the fellows of the newly established Royal Society of London began to transfer blood from one animal to another. This was part of investigations into the heart, blood, circulation and respiration, following William Harvey's seminal description of the circulatory system in 1628. The British group included Christopher Wren, Robert Hooke, Robert Boyle and Richard Lower, and their experiments were communicated throughout Europe by the secretary of the Royal Society, Henry Oldenburg, and published in the society's Philosophical Transactions.

But then here is a fascinating angle that even brings in religion into the debate:

Meanwhile, the French Academy of Sciences opposed transfusion, so the main innovator in France was a marginal but ambitious physician, Jean-Baptiste Denis. He, too, began with animal-to-animal work, but quickly moved on to transferring blood between animals and humans. At stake was more than whether foreign blood was curative — people believed that the characteristics of the chosen animal might alter human personality.

The docile lamb was the donor species most often used, with its religious overtones (Agnus Dei, or Lamb of God). “The blood is the life,” the Bible tells us, and seventeenth-century natural philosophers endowed that phrase with its full theological significance. Consequently, these were not simply experiments of curiosity; they were aimed at uncovering deeper meanings. That said, one of Denis's early subjects, a butcher, apparently took away his exsanguinated donor to roast.

Ha! Okay there is even a clergy connection:

The early human transfusion patients in both countries were generally treated for what was perceived to be lunacy or other psychiatric disabilities. The first English subject was an eccentric clergyman who liked to converse in Latin. He survived an infusion of about a third of a litre of lamb's blood. Although it did not cure his language preference, he was less agitated afterwards. So the procedure was thought to hold enough promise to be repeated a couple of weeks later.

Hopes were dashed when Denis transfused an agitated servant, Antoine Mauroy, with some calf's blood. The first two transfusions seemed to calm him. A third, insisted on by Mauroy's wife, was abandoned when the patient had a series of seizures. The next morning, Mauroy was dead, and was taken away for burial before Denis could perform an autopsy.

Apropos of the earlier post about Toby Huff's new book on the scientific revolution, this book also places the rivalry between France and England in the context of the scientific revolution:

Tucker uses the competition between the French and English scientific societies as a window onto international rivalries during the scientific revolution. Claims over priority were at stake — being the first to successfully carry out a procedure mattered a great deal. In Paris, there was the additional tension between the Academy of Sciences, sanctioned by King Louis XIV, and the private groups that it effectively replaced. The fact that the French and English were at war during the 1660s adds spice to the story, as do London's 1665 plague outbreak and the Great Fire in 1666, which disrupted the early meetings of the Royal Society.

Read the full review here.

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This is a weekly post by Nidhal Guessoum (see his earlier posts here). Nidhal is an astrophysicist and Professor of Physics at American University of Sharjah and is the author of Islam's Quantum Question: Reconciling Muslim Tradition and Modern Science.

About a year and a half ago, I sent an article I had titled ‘The Placebo Secret: why alternative medical “treatments” work’ to The National; the editors published it but changed its title to “A case for alternative medicine in the mind”. In the article, I started by stressing how worldwide the belief in alternative/complementary medicine is, including but far from limited to the Arab-Muslim world. I then went on to report on studies regarding the effectiveness (to what extent and how) of alternative treatments.

Here’s a short excerpt from the article:

Today, more than yesterday, millions if not billions of humans everywhere resort to “alternative” medical treatments, which range from drinking special infusions to acupuncture, bloodletting, homeopathy, yoga, zen meditations, and of course chicken and other soups. Most people who use these treatments swear (honestly) that they work. And they do.

What? A hard-core scientist who says that “alternative” treatments like bloodletting, homeopathy, and chicken soups work for curing illnesses ranging from anemia and migraine to ulcers and high blood pressure? That is going to get me cited (approvingly and disapprovingly) in many places! But before I explain my views, I should add an important caveat: these treatments work for a while and only when one really believes they will work.

I then highlighted the research work and the excellent book pubished by R. Barker Bausell in 2007 by Oxford University Press: ‘Snake Oil Science: the truth about complementary and alternative medicine’. Bausell, a professor at the University of Maryland (UM), who for several years served as the director of research at the UM’s Center for Integrative Medicine, rigorously analyzed hundreds of experiments and reports on various alternative and “complementary” treatments, some of them published in international journals. Such treatments are used for practically every existing illness: asthma, depression, smoking and drug addictions, high cholesterol and heart disease, strokes, epilepsy, back pain, and many more. He looked at various factors (“trial size”, “statistical bias”, “induction” by the therapist, etc.) influencing the results of those treatments. Bausell then patiently and meticulously showed why researchers are now confident that what is at work here is the placebo effect. (The Medical Dictionary defines the placebo effect as: “A remarkable phenomenon in which a placebo -- a fake treatment, an inactive substance like sugar, distilled water, or saline solution -- can sometimes improve a patient's condition simply because the person has the expectation that it will be helpful.”)

In this post, I would like to highlight another phenomenon which is also worldwide, but it is largely prevalent in the Arab-Muslim world. I am referring to the strong preference shown by many people for herbal remedies, ranging from simplistic (“the black seed can heal from any disease”, more on this below) to quasi-scientific (“Bruise cardamom pods until partially open; remove cardamom seeds from their pods; gently bruise seeds or dry-fry over gentle heat to release their flavor [to] help relieve indigestion and gas”).

There is a huge tradition of “Islamic” herbal medicine, going back to Prophet Muhammad himself, to whom the above prescription about the “black seed” (al-habba al-sawda’ in Arabic, Fennel Flower or Black Cumin in English) is attributed. In fact there is a whole branch of folk medicine, and various books have been published, under the title “Prophetic Medicine” (Al-Tibb al-Nabawiy). And needless to say, there are countless websites dedicated to “Islamic herbal medicine”. A few years ago, the Aramco magazine (the beautiful National-Geographic-like magazine I had mentioned before) published a 10-page, lavish article titled “Natural Remedies of Arabia” in which twenty plants, vegetables, or fruits were presented along the following plan: “general description”, “how to use”, “remedies across Arabia”, and “did you know?”

What is one to make of such a social phenomenon, touching on science, at least some folk-style and traditional version of it, religion (a large collection of hadiths are brought to bear, and sometimes even the mere mention of a plant or fruit in the Qur’an is discussed at length), culture, and modernity/anti-modernity?

As far as the Arab-Muslim culture is concerned, I think there are here at least two major trends at play: a) the strong will to go back to “our original identity and tradition”, including in the field of medicine (and science in general, as in the case of I`jaz, the “miraculous scientific content of the Qur’an”); and b) the wish to break away from modern (read: western) ways of life, which are seen as artificial (medicines are manufactured chemicals, not natural herbs).

Let’s focus on the second trend, since the first one is a purely socio-religious one and is thus much more general than the present issue. It is difficult to argue strongly with people on this point because: first it is quite true that many (certainly not all, and perhaps not even the majority) of those herbs and fruits have tried-and-true medicinal value, and secondly we all know that most of our modern medicines have side effects and some of them even addictive characteristics.

Ah, but one must be careful with generalizations and selective emphasis, and that’s where I think the problem lies with the above traditionalist views. Indeed, one must first stress that herbs and fruits can be good for the treatment of this or that ailment, but they rarely if ever have the wide spectrum of benefits that they are often given (recall the blanket statement about the black seed); secondly, many of those (natural) plants have side effects too, sometimes very negative effects, especially when combined without care; and thirdly, modern medicines are often merely extracts from herbs, where the scientific methods (systematic trials, rigorous experiments) have been applied to distill (literally and figuratively) the plant into its essential (molecular) beneficial nugget.

Let me insist on the fact that “natural remedies” often produce negative effects, a point which is rarely realized or appreciated by the naturalists. A few months ago, newspapers reported that Europe [is going] to ban hundreds of herbal remedies, on the basis of safety concerns. Indeed, starting May 1, 2011, hundreds of herbal medicinal products will be banned unless licensed or prescribed by “a registered herbal practitioner to comply with an EU directive passed in 2004” ; opponents have stated that such directives will be near-impossible and very costly to satisfy, which points to the wide gap between traditional and scientific standards.

To sum up, I believe this is a very interesting topic because it raises various issues connecting science (systematic studies) with tradition, sociology, trends and attitudes regarding modernity, western products and lifestyles, etc. I’ll be interested to hear people’s views on all these aspects of the subject.

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This is a fantastic display of how life expectancy and income levels for countries have changed over the past 200 years. Global health levels have noticeably improved for all nations - thanks to scientific developments - and the, in fact, ends on quite a positive mode. For reference, Pakistan is mentioned couple of times in the segment. This clip (about 5 minutes long) is taken from “The Joy of Stats” (tip from Open Culture). Enjoy!


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There is an interesting conference at Hofstra later this week. I would have attended it, but I'm in Pakistan right now. The details below:

The Islamic Medical Association of North America (IMANA) and the Muslim Chaplain’s Office of Hofstra University invite you to attend the 2010 IMANA-Hofstra Ethics Symposium, September 17-18, 2010. The symposium’s theme is End of Life Issues: Ethical and Religious Perspectives.

Intended audience are physicians, especially those in critical care medicine, emergency medicine, maternal fetal medicine and neonatology, medical bioethicists, chaplains, students in these fields and interested individuals.

Contact the conference co-director Dr. Hossam E. Fadel.

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Last week's Science has a review of an interesting book: Miracle Cures - Saints, Pilgrimage, and the Healing Powers of Belief by Robert A Scott. Instead of simply debunking them, the author takes a sociological approach to the topic and traces the reasons why people sought these cures, and, perhaps more importantly, why did they often feel cured. Yes, of course, the placebo effect is one of the reasons, but the books appears to go deeper than that:

Scott (Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University) does not set out to debunk or substantiate these claims of miracle cures, but rather analyzes them from a sociological point of view. In this he succeeds. The book's first chapters set the stage in Christian Europe with detailed descriptions of medieval life, conditions of poverty, malnutrition, poor hygiene, and crowding. He suggests that these could have led to and fostered the many ills rampant in the population, which he surveys. Once the stage has been set, Scott introduces the characters in the drama: the saints to whom medieval people turned for help and salvation. There are several ah-ha moments in the book when these characters are seen through a sociologist's eyes. Thus, it appears that medieval Christians accepted as fact that there were certain things that saints could do and other actions that lay beyond their powers. For example, they could cure blindness but could not reattach a limb. Scott also deconstructs the system by which miracle cures and sightings of apparitions were disseminated. He likens that to a modern public relations campaign, in which it is always humans who do the disseminating. In comparing the process to our modern publicity machines, Scott does not disparage the system or the event, but simply analyzes the methods involved.

I think it is great that he places these in a historical context. And here is a bit about the reasons why people went on pilgrimages. I like all the range of motivations, and ultimately, it is of no surprise that people have diverse reasons for embarking on such a long journey:

The author similarly analyzes the why and what of pilgrimages: why would an individual undertake such a daunting task, when in those times going on a pilgrimage was no small feat, involving extensive preparation and considerable risk? Scott suggests a variety of motivations, which range from the serious (seeking cures for illness, escaping dire circumstances, the draw of the supernatural, and devotion to their faith) to the mundane: "an excuse to travel" or "the prospect of a partially subsidized vacation!" Such insights allow the reader to relate to the material and understand it in more personal terms.

After discussing the placebo effect, the author also looks at other reasons that may be responsible for a person feeling better:

This is not to say that Scott dismisses all such miracle cures as just the placebo effect. He devotes three chapters to discussing the effects of stress on illness, belief on healing, and the social world on both. These provide an excellent summary of the modern body of work that in recent years has elucidated not only that the mind and emotions have a very powerful effect on health and illness but also how this effect occurs.

Taken together, the structure Scott provides—outlining exactly how medieval pilgrims left oppressing situations and were then exposed during their journey to social support, clean water, and fresh, healthy food—makes a strong case for the effectiveness of the simple act of going on a pilgrimage as a healthy endeavor, which could have begun the course of healing. The added power of belief in healing, through the placebo effect and the many nerve chemicals and brain hormones released in such states, almost ensures that people who engaged in such activities would feel much better, if not be cured from illnesses that would today be considered "self-limiting" under the right circumstances.

Implicitly, Miracle Cures suggests that a parallel situation might be propelling some of the resurgence of modern-day seeking of spiritual solutions for physical ills. Although the physical conditions fostering illness in the developed world today are a far cry from those in medieval times, we are certainly exposed to a vast array of emotional stresses, which may trigger or worsen many illnesses. The power of belief and the lifestyle and social changes that go along with it may indeed assist many in their search for healing.

Okay, this books sounds very interesting. However, I hope the book also devotes some space to modern pilgrimages, where people get sick from exposure to germs and other diseases that their bodies are not used to. Some of the rituals associated with holy sites involve drinking water - sometimes sharing the pool with hundreds of people at the same time. Or a gathering like the Hajj, where each year 2 million people gather together from countries around the world. In modern times, are we also looking at pilgrimages as "anti-cure"?

Read the full review here (you may need subscription to access it). Also, if you are interested in these issues, you should definitely check out Tom Rees' blog, Epiphenom. 

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When will we ever learn? Because of the US history, scientists here have to be extra careful when dealing with culturally sensitive issues involving native tribes. Trust should be the center-piece in all cases. It seems that this very trust was breached in the DNA research involving the Havasupai Indians who live in the Grand Canyon:

At issue in the Havasupai case was whether an Arizona State geneticist had obtained permission from tribal members to use their DNA for anything other than finding clues to Type 2 diabetes. More than 200 of the 650-member tribe signed a consent form stating that their blood could be used to “study the causes of behavioral/medical disorders,” but many said they had believed they were donating it only for the study of diabetes, which tribal members suffer from at extraordinarily high rates. When they learned years later that the DNA samples had been used to investigate things they found objectionable, they felt betrayed.

There are couple of issues embedded here: First, can scientists use blood for research purposes other than the reasons stated at the time of collection? This is a bit complicated as sometimes research can end up taking a different direction. But then the donors, perhaps, should be informed of the new direction and asked for a new permission. And this was the basis of the settlement reached between Arizona State University and Havasupai Indians. But this can also become quite cumbersome - and problematic, especially when anonymity of specific donors is also being protected.

Some have proposed an international tribunal akin to the Helsinki human rights agreement, which would lay out the ethical obligations to research participants. Others suggest staying in touch with subjects so they can be consulted on new projects — and because under current practices they tend to learn of breakthroughs based on their own DNA only if they become close readers of scientific journals.

Courts have ruled that individuals do not have a property right to their cells once they are taken in the course of medical care, but they do, under federal guidelines, have a right to know how they will be used. Complicating matters is the increasing impossibility of ensuring that DNA data can remain anonymous. Do participants need to be told that their privacy cannot be guaranteed? Can “blanket” consent up front do the trick, or is even that misleading because researchers can’t adequately describe the scope of studies they have yet to design? Is it O.K. to use DNA collected for heart research to look for genetic associations with intelligence, mental illness, racial differences?

For one thing, “we have to communicate a hell of a lot better to the public what is going on when we put their specimens in our biobanks,” said Stephen J. O’Brien, a geneticist who runs the Laboratory of Genomic Diversity at the National Institutes of Health.

But what caught my attention here was a larger issue. The DNA research showed that the ancestors of the Havasupai originated in Asia, contradicting the origin story of the tribe originating in the canyon and, thus, being assigned as its guardians. What if the Havasupai did not want to subject their DNA for migration studies? What if their origin story plays an important role in their identity and they want to protect that? Well, I guess this should be their right. This got me thinking about young earth creationists or Muslim creationists who reject evolution. Can they argue for a similar protection from a scientific view of the origin of humans? I guess this would be okay (though suicidal for development) in their own private schools - which they can still do. This demand would also be reasonable if crucial evidence for evolution dependent on the cooperation of these creationists (say if their DNA was really unique). Phew! I'm glad there is sufficient evidence without that.

Back to the Havasupai case:

Another article, suggesting that the tribe’s ancestors had crossed the frozen Bering Sea to arrive in North America, flew in the face of the tribe’s traditional stories that it had originated in the canyon and was assigned to be its guardian.

Listening to the investigators, Ms. Tilousi felt a surge of anger, she recalled. But in Supai, the initial reaction was more of hurt. Though some Havasupai knew already that their ancestors most likely came from Asia, “when people tell us, ‘No, this is not where you are from,’ and your own blood says so — it is confusing to us,” Rex Tilousi said. “It hurts the elders who have been telling these stories to our grandchildren.”

Others questioned whether they could have unwittingly contributed to research that could threaten the tribe’s rights to its land. “Our coming from the canyon, that is the basis of our sovereign rights,” said Edmond Tilousi, the tribe’s vice chairman.

Oh boy - the last issue adds a whole other layer of political complications. Combine it all together and we return to the basic issue of trust. My fellow scientists - lets be careful and open about how we present our research.

Read the full article here and another one here. Also see this earlier post on Science, tissue-ethics, and faith-healers.

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This is a guest post by Nidhal Guessoum (see his earlier posts here). Nidhal is an astrophysicist and Professor of Physics at American University of Sharjah.

A few days ago (April 20, 2010), the Algerian daily Echorouk (with the largest circulation in the country, and some say in the Arab world: over a million copies sold each day), published a story titled “An Algerian (female) researcher discovers a plant-based cure for cancer”. This in itself was a stunning announcement, though it would not have shocked me so much, did it not come just three days after a Lebanese media outlet published a story titled “Obstruction to the Invention of the Century: a gift from Lebanon to the whole world – discovery of a cure for cancer”. All of this reminded me that other Arabs/Muslims have also been making the greatest of medical breakthroughs, with, in particular, the announcement by Sheikh Al-Zindani (not an obscure figure by any measure) a few years ago of the discovery of a cure for AIDS Sheikh Al-Zindani, along (as a bonus) that for Hepatitis B and C…

Let’s look at these claims in a bit more detail now, just to make clear that we are not talking about some obscure assertions by fringe crackpots somewhere in the wilderness of the web.

The Algerian researcher, Echorouk tells us, received a B.Sc. in Biology in 1982 (in Algeria, it is implied) and then went to the UK and the US (we are not told whether she received Master’s or Doctorate degrees) where “she trained in the largest labs and worked with the greatest European biologists”. As the story goes, she went back home where, after 20 years of work at the Pasteur Institute in Algiers (the most renowned medical center in Algeria), she was able to “decode cancer in all its forms”, and she has now “helped cure hundreds of Algerians from various cancers, including leukemia, breast cancer, and stomach cancer”… She adds that in addition to producing a cancer-preventing potion, she successfully treats patients of various infections, neurological disorders, etc.

The newspaper tells us that she has filed a patent in Switzerland and in Algeria for her plants-based cure, which has made her “the focus of strong interests and requests of many European pharmaceutical labs, not to mention offers from the most important hospitals in France and Belgium to have her participate in the treatment of cancer patients”. But she insists that she is only interested in helping the poor and the stricken, and so she will remain in Algeria and do her humanitarian medical work there.

The Lebanese case is even more startling. First, the claimant is not a medical doctor or even a biologist; he is a chemical engineer, albeit with a Ph. D. degree. He too has come up with a potion, which, he tells us, “in 2005 he registered in the USA according to the norms, then had it ‘corrected’ by American experts and published in final form in Switzerland in 2007”… We are given no reference to such “expert corrections” and “publications”; in fact, the claimant refuses to divulge his formula or have it examined by the community at large. Instead, he has called for an “in-camera” (private) debate with Lebanese cancer doctors before he makes public his discovery/invention as a gift to humanity…

But the biggest such story has got to be Sheikh Al-Zindani, the Yemeni fundamentalist leader, who is both a politician and head of a militia and a proponent of I`jaz (“miraculous scientific content of the Qur’an”), the president of the Al-Eman University, and whose two years of pharmaceutical studies many years ago have allowed him to claim some “expertise” on science issues, both conceptual and practical.

A few years ago he stunned the world by announcing that his team of researchers at Al-Eman University had discovered the cure for AIDS... by correctly interpreting a hadith (a statement by Prophet Muhammad)! In fact he runs a “Prophetic Medicine Center” at his university - “prophetic medicine” referring to the belief by many Muslims that some of statements made by the Prophet (over 1400 years ago) contain much important and still useful medical information; Al-Zindani’s center is thus dedicated to doing medical research by analyzing… statements!

Like the other two “discoverers”, Al-Zindani has refused to divulge his cure formula, stating only that it is from “floral extracts”. (Most Muslims, including many highly educated people, strongly believe that plants and flowers are much better bases of medicines than chemical compounds…)

I remember watching – totally dazed –Al-Zindani being interviewed at length on Al-Jazeera, hearing him claim that his team had “completely cured” at least 13 AIDS patients and that he would not even submit his formula for examination for fear of having it stolen through some back-door legal procedures by the big pharmaceutical companies. (Here is an English-subtitled excerpt of one of the Al-Jazeera interviews he gave on the subject.) It has been a few years now, and he has yet to divulge any further information on his historic claim…

What conclusions can we draw from these stunning stories? That there are some crackpots, charlatans, or at least self-deluded people in the Arab-Muslim world? That would hardly be worth reporting on; there are impostors and fools everywhere in the world, including – perhaps particularly – on medical and serious-illness “discoveries”. No, two things shock me most in these stories: (a) the fact these are matter-of-factly reported on by the mainstream media with no attempt to critically examine the claims (not one bona fide expert was interviewed or cited on the above stories); (b) that such claims are coming from both influential leaders and (presumed) members of the scientific community… Clearly we still have much work to do in the field of science education and in promoting and ingraining critical thinking even among educated people…

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