Unnecessary Dog and Cat Killing in S. Korea

Okay, this is absolutely awful: South Korea has just announced that they're going to begin slaughtering about 600 dogs and "an unspecified number of cats" because of fears over bird flu. There's a big outbreak of it there in chickens, so the South Korean government has been slaughtering those the thousands to prevent the virus's spread, which is what they're supposed to do, according to the WHO. Fine. But now they're going to slaughter all the dogs and cats in the area?! This is insane. There has never been a single case of dogs or cats catching bird flu and passing it on to humans. There is, in fact, no scientific evidence that such a thing is possible. Several Asian countries have been criticized for not taking the risk of avian flu seriously, so it's good South Korea isn't doing that ... but this is ridiculous.

Six Degrees of Fabricated Research Findings

At this point, pretty much everyone knows the theory of Six Degrees of Separation: That everyone in the world somehow connected through a chain of six people. Well, it turns out, the results from the study that supposedly proved the theory were actually fabricated.

The phrase "Six Degrees of Separation" was coined by Stanley Milgram -- the famous and largely controversial social psychologist who conducted studies examining people's obedience to authority by testing how many would administer potentially lethal electric shocks to screaming victims. As the official Milgram website explains it, "He found, surprisingly, that 65% of his subjects, ordinary residents of New Haven, were willing to give apparently harmful electric shocks-up to 450 volts-to a pitifully protesting victim, simply because a scientific authority commanded them to, and in spite of the fact that the victim did not do anything to deserve such punishment. The victim was, in reality, a good actor who did not actually receive shocks, and this fact was revealed to the subjects at the end of the experiment. But, during the experiment itself, the experience was a powerfully real and gripping one for most participants."

For his famous Six Degrees of Separation study, Milgram asked people to give a letter to other people they knew by name, then he tracked how long it took for each letter to end up in the hands of a person the original sender didn't know in another city. He reported that the average number of people it took to get from the sender to an unknown person was six. Hence, the phrase "six degrees of separation." But apparently no one ever bothered to look into his data, until now:

Judith Kleinfeld, a professor psychology at Alaska Fairbanks University, went back to Milgram's original research notes and found something surprising. It turned out, she told us, that 95% of the letters sent out had failed to reach the target. Not only did they fail to get there in six steps, they failed to get there at all. Milgram was a giant figure in his world of research, but here was evidence that the claim he was famously associated with was not supported by his experiments.

Which means the whole Six Degrees of Separation thing is more science-fiction than actual statistics, much to the dismay of the many the films, plays and books written using Six Degrees as their driving force.

Kleinfeld wasn't exactly happy to discover this: "I was shocked. I was horrified." Apparently other studies were done after his that claimed to find similar results:

none of those matched up to the claim either. In the most recent, two years ago, only 3% of letters reached their target. "If 95 or 97 letters out of 100 never reached their target, would you say it was proof of six degrees of separation? So why do we want to believe this?" "The pleasing idea that we live in a 'small world' where people are connected by 'six degrees of separation' may be the academic equivalent of an urban myth," she says.

Bogus Rabbit Flu Spreading Fast

The bogusness of the deadly Rabbit Flu I reported on earlier today is getting worse as misinformation spreads to more species: Media outlets are now warning people that "Pet owners bitten by cats or dogs could be at risk of contracting a fatal animal flu strain." But it's totally bogus -- there is no new fatal animal flu. Somebody stop them before they cause mass hysteria!

Rabbit Flu and Bogus Headlines

Today papers around the world reported that a young British man named John Freeman died suddenly after contracting the rare and terrifying Rabbit Flu, which he got from handling an infected rabbit. They called it the "First Case of Rabbit Flu," as if this marked the beginning of a long-feared epidemic. But, um, it wasn't Rabbit Flu: Freeman died from pasteurella, a bacterium that infects many different animals, and has been causing rarely-deadly problems in humans for centuries (think cat scratch fever). No big new epidemic, no cause for alarm, just bad headlines. I hate it when that happens.

Totally Nailed: Home DNA Tests Ruled a Scam

The senate hearing I posted about recently turned out to be quite interesting: The Government Accountability Office released the results of a year long investigation into at-home DNA test kits, which have minimal federal oversight or quality control, but offer actual medical advice to consumers. Their investigation showed -- beyond any doubt in my book -- that these companies are bogus:

"GAO investigators bought tests from four genetic testing Web sites, including Market America, Genelex, Sciona and Suracell. After collecting cheek swabs from an unrelated man and woman, they used the DNA samples to create profiles of 12 fictitious consumers with different age and lifestyle descriptions.

But the Web sites found different results for each profile.

'If the recommendations were truly based on genetic analysis, then the nine fictitious consumers that GAO created for these sites using the female DNA should have received the same recommendations because their DNA came from the same source. Instead, they received a variety of different recommendations, depending on their fictitious lifestyles,' the GAO report said."

These companies sent massive packets (like, 75-pages worth) of detailed information showing extensive genetic differences between each of the 12 people they thought they tested
(though there actually only tested 2), including diseases they'd be pre-disposed to, custom vitamin regimens they should take (which the companies happen to sell). The results claimed to have found "damaged genes" that would cause heart disease, diabetes, etc. Of course, at this point, there are no such gene defects: Scientists have isolated certain genes that may be connected to these diseases, but they don't know if and how these genes actually cause these problems.

You can read all the statements and see a video of the hearing here; the committee's entire massive report is here; Kathy Hudson's testimony is here, and you can check out the Federal Trade Commission's advisory against these tests here.

Since this investigation was done by a committee with no actual enforcement power, the end result of all this is a recommendation to the federal government that they require oversight of DNA testing, and a warning to consumers saying "a healthy dose of skepticism may be the best prescription," when dealing with these test results. May be? They've essentially been caught falsifying DNA results -- I'd say that warrants more than potential skepticism. I'm thinking that's grounds for full-fledged rejection. Good to keep in mind, since the companies are still operating in full force.

At Home DNA Tests: Marketing Scam or Medical Breakthrough?

For those who are into this sort of thing (like me), here's some interesting news: This Thursday, July 27th, there's going to be a Senate hearing on the lack of oversight of genetic testing. It comes at the end of a year-long investigation into the safety and reliability of genetic tests offered to consumers via the Internet. The hearing is called: “At Home DNA Tests: Marketing Scam or Medical Breakthrough?” It will be at 10 a.m., July 27, in 106 Dirksen Senate Office Building. I encourage all to go (especially you journalists out there -- this is a great story I'd be all over if I weren't on a writing retreat in the middle of nowhere).

Kathy Huson, director of The Genetics and Public Policy Center at Johns Hopkins, who's been a source for several of my stories, will be testifying that a lack of oversight of genetic testing has created a situation where, “there is no way for a consumer to distinguish between the dubious and the decent” when it comes to the tests, and the labs offering them. “At best," she says, "consumers may be wasting their money” At worst, “they may be foregoing medically appropriate treatment or undertaking medically dubious treatment.”

The event will also include testimony from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and the Food and Drug Administration. And the Government Accountability Office will be releasing the results of their year-long investigation at the hearing. Should be a good time. I'll post details when they're available.

DNA Testing and Racial Profiling

A while ago, I posted about my wariness of using DNA testing for genealogy research --– specifically my frustration with the fact that these tests are over-hyped by the media and sold as being able to say things like, you are or aren't African-American, which simply isn't scientifically possible at this point. It's just not that simple.

Well, I just read an interesting article by Sheri Fink --a physician and journalist -- in the current issue of Discover: "“Reasonable Doubt: Questions about the forensic infallibility of DNA emerge even as police begin to use it to profile suspects by race."” Toward the end of the article, she mentions that police departments are now using the exact tests (and companies) I wrote about in my earlier post and my Popular Science article to predict the race of potential suspects based on DNA samples.

One company, DNAPrint, takes DNA samples from crime scenes and creates a hereditary profile: 60% sub-Saharan African, 37% European, and 3% Native American, for example, then sends photos of people with similar genetic makeups, so the police can have something to go by when it comes to, among other things, skin-color. Fink writes:

"DNAPrint's senior scientist Matthew Thomas rejects the charge that the company'’s test, known as DNAWitness, is itself a form of racial profiling. '‘DNAWitness will hold up to scientific scrutiny whereas personal feelings and biases won't,'’ he said."”

DNA stands up to scientific scrutiny when comparing a crime-scene sample to the DNA of an actual suspect, but using it to predict a suspect's skin color is a different story (the genetics of skin color, and the genetics of race, are far more complex than that). Apparently this doesn't matter:

"“The company has handled about 100 criminal and victim identification cases. '‘The technology can aid pretty much any case where you don'’t have a suspect but you have a biological sample,'’ Thomas says. DNAPrint has received a $50,000 subcontract to provide raw data to a National Institute of Justice grantee. "

Here's what I'm interested in (of course): When they send out those profiles of people with genetic makeups similar to the criminals, they'’re using information they've collected in a database from testing many people. I wonder if this includes the DNAPrint database, which houses genetic information from thousands of people who submitted their samples for genealogy testing. I'’d like to see the consent forms they're using for whatever databases are involved in DNAWitness: My bet is they don'’t say anything that resembles, "“Can we use your genetic information for racial profiling?"” Which is an important point: Many people wouldn't want their DNA contributing to this project, whether the science were questionable or not.

Imagine all the African Americans who've submitted DNA to the database: How would they feel about their samples being used to get black men into a line up?

The Bogus-ness of DNA Testing for Genealogy Research

At this point, pretty much everyone knows, there are many companies out there promising to unlock the secrets of your ancestry and heredity through DNA analysis (a.k.a. genetealogy). If you send them some DNA from a simple swab of your cheek -- and a good-sized chunk of money -- they'll test your DNA and tell you, among other things, what stock you came from: European, East Asian, African, etc.

Several years ago, when these companies first started surfacing, I looked at some of their claims and thought, That sounds sketchy. From what I knew about DNA testing, it seemed like these tests were a scam. So I wrote an article for Popular Science investigating whether this technology, and therefore the companies offering it, were legit. I put together a panel of experts in genealogy and DNA testing, including one of the scientists who first discovered some of the technology many of these companies base their tests on. I had my DNA tested along with the DNA of six of my family members to see if the tests could uncover something you'd never know from looking at me: My grandfather's great great grandmother was black. The companies offering the tests assured me, if that were true, their tests would find it. So I ran the tests. I had my panel of experts investigate the results, then wrote the story, explaining the science of these tests, what they did and didn't find in my family tree, and what the experts say about the legitimacy of it all.

Their conclusion and mine: These tests can be fun, and they have some definite use in medical research, but they simply can't tell you anything definitive about your heredity unless you're testing your DNA and comparing it to someone else's to find out if you're related. These tests most certainly can't tell you what you're not -- as in, you're not African-American.

But the general public doesn't know this, and no one seems to be telling them. More and more of these companies are popping up, the popularity of these tests has soared, and every month or so, a journalist (like this guy today) writes yet another story about how people are using this technology to unlock family secrets and "debunk family tales," even though it simply doesn't work that way. The upshot of so many of these stories is that people are being confused or traumatized by results from these tests. People with dark skin who came from black families and identified themselves as African-American are suddenly being told that they aren't African-American at all. People have sought psychotherapy over these results and questioned their families. But this is all based on a science that can't actually say you're not African American, (and most certainly can't say you're not Caucasian and therefore should qualify for minority scholarships and affirmative action).

There have been a few good stories about the realities of DNA testing for genealogy research, but unfortunately, the ones people see (and hold on to) are the ones that tell them what they want to hear. It's maddening.

Don't get me wrong, I'm completely in favor of DNA tests showing that deep down, we're all the same -- that black, white or tan, we're all a mish-mash of genes and race is a "social construct," not a genetic one. What I'm not in favor of is this: Companies using that fact -- along with the public's undying curiosity about ancestry -- to make promises they can't keep (like, we'll help you find long-lost relatives), while turning a good-sized profit off delivering results that cause mass confusion. And journalists helping them do it.

On Science: The Faulty Logic of Religious Meningitis

According to a new study, teenagers who French kiss multiple partners nearly quadruple their risk of getting meningitis. Fine. This makes scientific sense: You can get meningitis by kissing people, you kiss more people, you increase you risk of getting it. But they also found that attending religious ceremonies decreases the risk of getting meningitis. Come now: Religious ceremonies don't protect them. What protects them is (a) meningitis vaccines and (b) kissing fewer (or healthier) people. Saying church has anything to do with it reads like a perfectly incorrect answer on an SAT test: Bacterium is to Brain Infection as Atheism is to ... Meningitis?? I don't think so.

Of Note: Pig Fever and Killing With Censorship

The recent outbreak of what was first simply called "swine fever" has been loosely traced to a bacteria found in pigs. The Chinese government says the bacteria, streptococcus suis, has killed 32 people and infected about 140 others, but there are some questions about whether that's true (which I'll get to in a minute). The Chinese government has finally started warning farmers about the disease -- saying they shouldn't eat sick pigs -- but they've been very slow to admit they have a problem on their hands. And they still swear pig fever is no big deal: China's Health Minister, Gao Qiang, insists that the outbreak is "under control," despite an increasing death toll and number of cases (the World Health Organization disagrees with him -- as spokesperson Bob Dietz says, "This is a disconcertingly high mortality rate”).

This kind of denial is a nasty habit with China -- their denial of SARS led to increased death rates and global panic. The Chinese government fears bad press, damage to the tourism industry, and the impact those things might have on their control over citizens, so they drag their feet and deny problems. Meanwhile, the disease gets worse: This swine fever has now spread to 100 villages, maybe more. No one knows for sure. Because the truth is, since the government controls the press in China, no one actually knows what's going on. And to me, that's the scariest part of this:

"State media says the pig disease is under control, but the authorities have banned independent reporting on the outbreak. The BBC's Nick Mackie in neighbouring Chongqing says foreign journalists found speaking to people are detained, and their notes and recordings erased; no official interviews are granted."

That's scary stuff. Reports about a government repeatedly letting its people die simply because said-government fears bad press ... that's something that could make a person question their rulers. And the Chinese government can't have that. So instead of allowing dissemination of information in order to save their citizens, they "detain" journalists and destroy their notes. They censor websites and filter out any news they don't want to their people to read (they'll surely be censoring this site any minute now). The effect this kind of censorship could have on the world is no joke: As everyone knows, the much-feared next flu pandemic will probably start exactly this way. People in China or a similar country will get the disease from chickens or pigs, the disease won't be properly contained in time, and it will spread to kill thousands, maybe millions worldwide.

Some reports are already calling this a swine flu, though as far as anyone knows, this is being caused by strep suis, not a flu virus. But the Chinese government hasn't allowed any independent laboratories to verify that diagnosis by looking at the samples, and the WHO and many experts doubt that a problem of this scale could be caused by strep suis, which has never killed so many or spread so fast, and which doesn't usually cause a key symptom seen in this outbreak: Bleeding under the skin. Unfortunately, the Chinese government has a bad track record in this department too: They originally claimed SARS was caused by a harmless infection too. So all of this means either strep suis has suddenly become more aggressive than ever, or the problem is being caused by something else.

"WHO spokesman Bob Dietz said it was too soon to say the bacteria was the cause or the only cause of the outbreak, adding that more laboratory tests were needed to see if other factors may be at work.'We can't discount the possibility there could be other bacteria, virus or something else active in here,' Dietz said."

Whatever turns out to be causing this, I'd be nice if countries that shun freedom of the press saw this as a test run and realized that their censoring ways could actually help cause a pandemic. But they're clearly not going to do that. I just hope that, as technology continues to move forward and information spreads online, restricting information will become a losing battle for everyone.