The curious case of Oscillococcinium and the Montreal Canadiens

Last week CBC marketplace did a fantastic expose on homeopathy.  It was long overdue. I think most people confuse homeopathy with the use of herbs or some other type of naturopathy. My first introduction to homeopathy was when my eldest daughter started teething, some moms that I knew sent emails praising homeopathic teething tablets as a remedy for the pain and discomfort associated with teething.  Now as every new parent knows there is no end to the deluge of advice that parents of babies receive on every aspect of child rearing.  Everyone has their pet theories and methods and some like to pontificate on them more than others.  Teething is one of those things that all children go through and it can be unpleasant for baby and parent alike.  Evey red cheek, cry, snotty nose or bum rash from 6 months to 2 years can be met with "oh she must be teething".  Now I was a new mother and not the complete skeptic that I am now, even still I I did some research onto homeopathy and I had to re-read the wikipedia entry several times before I could wrap my brain around the concept.  Essentially homeopathic products take a substance and dilute it to very low levels (read exponentially large dilutions) in the hopes that a small amount of that substance can cure the ailment.  Now I have worked in labs and have experience with performing serial dilutions.  These were usually done to measure bacterial counts and you get to appreciate just how rapidly you can effectively dilute something until there is no more of the substance (in my case bacteria) left in solution.  The dilutions that homeopaths are performing is beyond anything that I have ever worked with, so extreme in fact that there is likely to be not a single molecule of the original substance left in the product.  The teething tablets as is turns out have some of the least insane dilutions (read: most concentrated) I have seen for homeopathic products.  This is not surprising since homeopaths believe that the more concentrated is less effective than a more dilute product.  There is nothing in nature that operates on this principle so they have concocted an elaborate story to explain their perceived efficacy of the products they sell.  Homeopaths use roman numerals to describe the dilutions X=10 and C=100, so 3X is 3 serial 10-fold dilutions or 1000-fold.  All the ingredients in the teething tablets are present at this dilution:

Calcarea Phosphorica (presumably calcium phosphate) 3X HPUS, Chamomilla (chamomile extract) 3X HPUS, Coffea Cruda (unground coffee beans, presumably to cause sleepiness in the topsy turvy world of homeopathy) 3X HPUS and Belladonna (a plant known as deadly nightshade which is rather toxic but  belladonna sounds really pretty) 3X HPUS.  Now as it turns out the 1000-fold dilution of belladonna is low but not low enough to not poison children leading to the FDA to issue a warning to stop buying the product.  As a curious fact if the homeopaths were making the product for adults they may have used the more common 30C (or 30 serial 100-fold dilutions) which can be expressed like this: 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000

Now onto Oscillococcinium, which I have got to hand it to the homeopaths they have a flair for names.  Its made by a big Big-Homeo corporation called Boiron based out of France.  Their financials are on their web page and as you can see they are very profitable and they also fund the contemptable Homeopaths Without Boarders (hint: if a health care charity has a Shop Online and Track Order icon at the top of their blog, they probably have a profit motive).  Now Oscillococcinium is a propriety product of Boiron and its ingredients are listed as anas barbarie hepatis et cordis extractum 200C which is literally extract of duck liver and heart at a 200C dilutions.  Now I don't want to write the zeros out because I would need to write 400 of them, yes four hundred, its a staggering dilution. That single duck could supply a near infinite amount of Oscillococcinium tablets! interestingly they also supply a kids Oscillococcinium which according to their website is specially formulated for infants and children yet lists  anas barbarie hepatis et cordis extractum 200C as the same ingredient.  In Canada you can buy 3 doses for $6-13 dollars, based on my brief Internet research, given that they recommend dosage at 6 hour intervals one can see how the cost of a week long flu can add up. 

So as if peddling these placebos at outrageous prices were not enough they require sponsors to market the product.  Which is where the Montreal Canadiens come in, apparently they entered into a formal partnership with the hockey team for their 2010-2011 season. At this I can only shake my head and sigh.  My most generous assessment is that the arrangement is pure business, but the product is so outrageous that it is regrettable that anyone, let alone a respected NHL franchise, would chose to partner with them. 

My grandfather and why I cant seem to write about anything else today

I started this blog on Tuesday (after hundreds of "I should start a blog" moments). Tuesday as is turns out was a very sad day for me and my family.  My grandfather Edward passed away after a brief illness. He was in the presence of all five of his children and other close family when he passed, it was by all accounts a beautiful moment and my grandmother, his wife of 62 years, says he must have had the whole event planned. 

My intention with this blog has been to make it my take on science and other matters that interest me. I have always had a love of science and information and learning and this week I pause to think about the role that my grandfather had in shaping and nurturing those tendencies.  That role as it turns out, was significant.  My grandfather graduated with a degree in Engineering from Queens University in 1948.  As a Canadian Engineer he received an Iron Ring, which is  a ring symbolizing the obligations and ethics associated with being an Engineer. He also studied geology and when I took geology in university I teased him about how when he went to school plate tectonics wasn't an accepted theory.  While he may not have made a study of continental drift he assured me that knew a great deal about rocks and gems and minerals.  He worked for Alcan for over thirty years and to this day you will not catch anyone in the family using the words "tin foil" because its aluminum foil, not tin.  I know very little about what my grandfather was like when he was working and while my mom and her siblings were growing up.  I know he traveled many places for his work, and there are two funny anecdotes he related to me about his travels.  First he made an observation that where ever he traveled in the world people would always walk all the way to the end of a pier and walk all the way back again, out and back just because they could.  Second he once mused that even if he was alone in a new place he would go and "take his camera for a walk" as if his camera was his friend or buddy.  It occurs to me as I am writing this that there are probably plenty of photos out there that I have never seen.

When I was younger my grandparents lived in Ontario and my parents would fly myself and my brother out to visit them for the summers. Grandpa loved to take us to museums, really museums of any kind.  He lived in Kingston and there must have been tons of little museums or interpretive centres around.  I cant even think of them all there must have been ones on Upper Canadian history, naval museums, agriculture and of course when the grandparents moved to Manotick, just outside Ottawa he took me to the National Gallery of Canada.  This was a memorable trip because it was the early 1990s and the gallery had just purchased The Voice of Fire a 2.4m x 5.4m canvas with three stripes of colour (blue on the outside red in the middle) for a jaw dropping 1.8 million dollars.  We stood, and stared and shrugged and walked away.  We went on to look at the rest of the modern art exhibit with what I can only describe as a sense of astonishment over the items assembled in the gallery.  There was even a Pollock work in the same room as VoF and I remember laughing at that.  I learned my first lesson about art.  You can call it art but I can also point and laugh at it.  The day ended after grandpa got in trouble from a youthful gallery employee for touching a statue. We left shortly thereafter.

My grandfather was always reading the news and other books, he was what some people may call a consumer of content.Times magazine was a staple reading material, and when the Internet really started to take off he really discovered a new passion in genealogy.  He was very successful at getting information for the family tree and he had success in connecting with distant family.  As he grew older I made him a promise that I would continue with his work, and he was insistent that I be meticulous in checking my sources and to try to get to primary sources wherever possible.  Apparently the genealogy world is rife with misinformation and flat out lies.  I have much of the information on CDs but its almost too overwhelming to go over them.  one day I will keep my promise to continue the work. 

Several years ago he was diagnosed with Alzheimer's, and if you have ever dealt with this disease or other age related dementia then you know how devastating it can be.  For my part I lived in another city and so my experience with my grandfather and this disease are vastly different than those closer to him.  When I saw him in October 2009 he knew me and he remembered that I love calamari.  He made one of the funniest jokes to my cousin who said he hoped to see my grandpa on Thanksgiving, to which my grandpa quipped "I hope to see you too".  Even as he lost more and more of his memories to this disease he carried on with grace and dignity and his pragmatic sense of humour.  Last summer was my last visit and it was very emotional because he cried when he saw me because he knew me but also didn't "know" me.  We held hands and shared a cup of coffee and a piece of chocolate cake.  I showed him pictures of my daughters on my iPhone and told him my youngest was named Matilda.  I loved the name Matilda and it was grandparents who taught me the song. I still have the koala stuffy that winds up and plays the melody for Waltzing Matilda which they bought for me in Australia in the 1980s.  We looked through vintage photo albums showing him doing survey work while he was a student.  I'm thinking about those photos and I have to digitize them so that they can be shared with family.  There was a great photo with my youthful grandfather next to a book that said something to the effect of "Make Canada Great", and that's exactly what he did. 

Love you always Grandpa
Heather

Inaugural post, in which I call out ColdFX and Afexa Life Sciences

I've been meaning to start a blog for some time, I was sitting at the computer nursing my one year old baby when she fell asleep.  So I begin my inaugural post with a sleeping baby on my lap (lets hope that is an auspicious sign of things to come). I'm going to start by airing my concerns over Afexa Life science and their use of  Alberta Health Services logo in their advertisements for clinical trials of their product in children.  Now Afexa life Sciences makes some extraordinary claims on the efficacy of their ginseng-based ColdFX product, backed up by their own clinical trials.  These claims are based on weak data and have been readily dismantled by the folks at Ottawa Skeptics. Now that the market for children's cough and cold remedies has opened up, the folks at ColdFX see an opportunity to market their expensive ginseng to anxious parents.  Given that their previous clinical trials have been underwhelming I have a well formed hypothesis as to the results of the pediatric trials.  Let me be clear I have no problem with the company conducting the pediatric trials with their product, this is how we assess weather a product is effective or not.  I also don't have a problem with Alberta Health Services being involved, as long as they are there to ensure it is a placebo controlled, randomized, double-blind trial and that all the results (whether they support the use of the product or not) are made public.  I also expect that within this role AHS and their members involved ought to be free of profit motive and hold no shares in the company.  What I have a serious problem with is the use of the AHS logo to add legitimacy to their product before the trials have even started.  Given that the company has a history of overselling clinical trial results, and a history of overselling their financial results too (back when they were CV technologies) I am not going to be holding my breath.  I do not think that they will jepoardize their multi-million dollar profits for any amount of data, so my prediction is that we will see a kids ColdFX product on the shelves very shortly, perhaps the bottles will have cute Joannie Rochette or Don Cherry bobble head dolls!
Interesting this company has claims regarding evidence based  natural health products and to do them credit they have identified and are seemingly taking strides to optimize the process of producing quality plant-based health products.  There are individual studies linking their proprietary ginseng to specific cellular responses, but that does not translate into efficacy in a human taking an oral dose.  They have a job posting for a lab technician which has been up for a couple months, I really should apply I would be an ideal candidate I have most of the experience (except working with a flow cytometer, but I am a quick learner!). Alternatively you can hire me as the process scientist as I have experience in plant-based pharmaceutical production so I am very appealing candidate.  So Aflexa let me know, I am listening.