|
|
| Line 46: |
Line 46: |
|
| |
|
| {{5X5 Navigation}} | | {{5X5 Navigation}} |
|
| |
| {{5X5 editing required <!-- for an explanation, see [[Template:5X5_editing_required]] -->
| |
| |proof-reading = y <!-- please only include when some transcription is present. -->
| |
| |formatting = y
| |
| |links = y
| |
| |categories = y
| |
| |redirect = y <!-- categorized redirect page with head-line type title -->
| |
| |}}
| |
| {{5X5 infobox
| |
| |episodeID = 5X5 Episode 18
| |
| |Contents = Man Regenerates Finger - Bad Science News Reporting
| |
| |episodeDate = 4<sup>th</sup> May 2008
| |
| |previous = 17
| |
| |next = 19
| |
| |verified =
| |
| |rebecca = y
| |
| |bob = y
| |
| |jay = y
| |
| |evan = y
| |
| |downloadLink = http://www.theskepticsguide.org/archive/podcast.aspx?mid=2
| |
| |notesLink = http://www.theskepticsguide.org/archive/podcastinfo.aspx?mid=2&pid=18
| |
| |forumLink =
| |
| |}}
| |
|
| |
| == [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7354458.stm Man Regenerates Finger - Bad Science News Reporting] ==
| |
| {{5x5intro}}
| |
|
| |
| S: This is the SGU 5X5 and today's topic is: man regrows missing finger. This is a report of a man Lee Spievak who reportedly cut off the end of one of his fingers. The injury actually occurred in 2005, and he was given a powder, so called "pixie dust" by his older brother who runs a biotech company called 'Acel' (?), and this is a powder made from the extra cellular matrix taken from pig bladders. They put this powder on the end of his finger and, by reports, the end of his finger regenerated or regrew. Of course, there are a lot of problems with this story as it is reported. The most important detail, of course, is how much of the actual finger was injured or was cut off, and how much of it actually regrew.
| |
|
| |
| R: Yeah, if you look at the photos… the before photo has his finger, the angle of it is the finger pointing right at the camera?
| |
|
| |
| S: That's right ! You're not seeing the nail bed, which is an important detail. But you can see that every joint is present. You can actually tell from the picture that no significant portion of the finger was actually cut off. It was just the very tip of the finger is injured, which contradicts the actual reports that are being given. The doctor who treated him who is a doctor Badylak, and the interviews with Spievak, with the patient, claims that more than the last joint was cut off. He indicated that somewhere in the middle joint of his finger was the piece that was cut off , completely below the nail bed, and that is simply not true. You can tell that by looking at the pictures, but if you take a quick glance at those pictures it is very deceptive. It makes it very difficult to tell how much of the finger was actually cut off.
| |
|
| |
| E: And Steve, the original article on this quotes doctor Badylak as saying this: "I think that within 10 years we will have strategies that will regrow the bones and promote the growth of functional tissue around those bones, and that's a major step towards eventually doing the entire limb."
| |
|
| |
| S: That may be true , but it has absolutely nothing to do with this specific case. This is a guy who cut his finger and it healed. This is perfectly normal healing. There was nothing unusual about this. There was no regeneration. There was nothing. I mean, maybe that powder formed a good bandage and allowed the finger to heal well. The ends of fingers sometimes can heal very very well all by themselves, so this is 0 new or unusual about this. All this talk in the media, spinning off of this story about regrowing limbs and what not… Sure , this is research that is ongoing, but this so called 'pixie dust' doesn't appear to do anything as far as we can tell from the evidence given so far.
| |
|
| |
| E: Plus, the part of his finger that grew back which we're assuming is like what? The last eighth of an inch?
| |
|
| |
| S: Something like that, yeah.
| |
|
| |
| E: If you look at the picture of it after it grew back, the skin doesn't look brand new to me. I mean, it actually looks like the guy's hands are really worn and old. As a matter of fact, if you compare that to the earlier picture the guy's hand looks…
| |
|
| |
| S: Mmmhim…
| |
|
| |
| E: ...like a different piece of hand…
| |
|
| |
| S: I don't know. The thing that you have to keep in mind is that this story is 2 years old, and that it has resurfaced. So the after picture could be 2 years later, in which case it wouldn't look like new skin, it would look perfectly normal. Which, of course, brings up the question of why did this story resurface 2 years down the road.
| |
|
| |
| B: Well, for a little extra perspective, the most doctors I have ever seen in terms of regrowing digits is the … actually the full last digit of a child's small finger that has been seen. It was beyond the nail bed and it did grow naturally. It's believed that kids just have this natural ability that they lose soon after leaving childhood. No adult has ever shown that kind of regrowth in the finger ever, and it's believed it can't be done naturally.
| |
|
| |
| J: So, Steve… what do you think is going on here? I mean, is there a sham involved?
| |
|
| |
| S: What I think is going on here is just horrific news reporting. There may be a little self promotion going on on the part of the company. They've gotten 2 years of media out of this 1 story, this 1 dubious story. What happened, and Ben Goldacre writes very well on this, and he points out that when these type of stories come out recently, typically what's happening is that the journalist is a general journalist, they are not part of the science or health news reporting. The science reporters knew that this story was crap, that it smelled and they wouldn't touch it, and they told their editors this is BS, don't go with it. But the BBC correspondent to… you know… broke the story in this latest round, Matthew Price… you know… was gushing, was uncritical, was un-skeptical and is not a science or health reporter. He doesn't know what he's talking about and he didn't have the experience to realize that there was something very fishy about this story. And then to make matters worse, the BBC news when they reported it, they showed this animation of somebody's regrowing more than half of their finger… completely misleading animation tagged on to this story. And those same details that Price got wrong were uncritically propagated throughout the media. The same story was told over and over with the details shuffled around, and with nobody doing any actual science journalism to give the public a real understanding of what was going on. So they basically just completely misled the public on this story.
| |
|
| |
| {{5x5outro}}
| |
|
| |
| {{5X5 Navigation}}
| |
|
| |
| {{5X5 categories
| |
| |Bad Science reporting = y
| |
| }}
| |
Revision as of 13:15, 18 October 2012
|
|
|
This episode needs: proof-reading, categories, categorized redirect.
|
How to Contribute
|
Faith-healing cult leads to child death from medical neglect.
Voice-over: You're listening to the Skeptics' Guide 5x5, five minutes with five skeptics, with Steve, Jay, Rebecca, Bob and Evan.
S: This is the SGU 5X5. The topic for this evening is the death of a 15-month-old Oregon City girl Ava Worthington. The 15-month-old girl was sick with pneumonia. Her parents, who were members of a local pentecostal cult called The Followers of Christ Church believe in faith healing and did not seek medical attention for their daughter, and as a result, unfortunately, the little girl did die. The parents are now under investigation because in 1999 a new law was passed in Oregon.. umm… removed some of the protections for parents who seek protection under their religious beliefs for this kind of medical neglect.
E: The Followers of Christ Church… this is nothing new to them… umm… unfortunately, they've been relying on faith healing for pretty much their entire existence, since late in the 19th or early 20th century. The followers believe in a literal translation of the scripture which states that the sick shall be anointed by elders and the faith will heal all. Death comes if its God's will - they believe. Child deaths have plagued this church for a long time; at least 21 of 78 children who have died at the Church since 1955…umm… likely could have been saved with routine medical care. This is all part of an ongoing series of reports and investigations into this… well, cult as far as I'm concerned, for quite a long time now.
J: Also, it started with one guy; his name is Walter White so called "fire and brimstone" preacher who brought the church to Oregon in the 30s. His followers believed that God appeared to this guy in a dream, and chose him to be the leader of their group.
S: His definitely a cult figure.
E: Absolutely!
R: It's pretty much how most religions start: angel appeared to me in a dream, told me I have God's blessing, blah blah blah, and it's sad though when it has this sort of result. You look at Christian scientists it's the same kind of thing where there's a focus on faith healing and God will heal us if it's meant to be. And because of that, we have for instance mumps outbreaks and measles outbreaks in Boston, and it affects the most innocent member of the family like the little kid who can't even make decisions for themselves.
S: Yeah, obviously, when you're trying to balance the freedom of religion and the rights of a parent over their children with the duty to protect a child and to give at least the basic necessities of life, it's a very thorny issue. But I think that there is a general consensus that children should not be neglected to the point of permanent harm or death, regardless of what the views of their parents are. The primary promoters in this country of the rights of parents to rely entirely upon faith healing are the Christian scientists and even in this… the recent Oregon law that was passed largely in reaction to this cult or this church… the Christian scientists mobilized and tried to prevent this new law from passing to weaken the protections for faith healing parents.
J: It's good to see that the states are starting to notice this and pass laws that are going to protect the children … but really, when does it step on freedom of speech or those people's rights to, you know, worship their religion? What do you guys think about that?
R: Well yeah, I mean we can never… it's a fine line and obviously I don't think that we should ever pass a law that infringes upon a person to make their own independent choice about what they believe in just as long as we protect the people who can't decide what they do or don't believe in. And that's the little kids, so any law that's gonna protect children without affecting someone's own personal belief and how they conduct themselves, I'm gonna be o.k. with. But it is definitely a fine line there.
S: But once kids are involved, let's then say it's a different story. I did come across, while researching for this piece, a group called CHILD which stands for Children's Health Care is a Legal Duty and they are a child advocacy group that try to act to have more of these Oregon type laws passed to protect children from medical neglect because their parents follow a faith healing belief system. This was started by Rita and Doug Swan who were in the Christian Science Church and their 15-month-old son Matthew died of an untreated meningitis because at the time they were believers and than later came to realize , you know, how misguided they were and are now, in his memory, trying to undo the damage that they did, started this group called CHILD. So hopefully this is the start of a trend and we're gonna see more laws in the direction of protecting children in cases like this.
E: And fully prosecuting the parents whose responsibility it is to make sure their children get the treatment they need.
S:That's right!
S: SGU 5x5 is a companion podcast to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe, a weekly science podcast brought to you by the New England Skeptical Society in association with skepchick.org. For more information on this and other episodes, visit our website at www.theskepticsguide.org. Music is provided by Jake Wilson.
