Strawman on the yellow brick road to Oz

This morning I watched a youtube clip of Steve Novella talking about alternative health on the Dr. Oz show. Steve, a famous skeptic and buster of woo, was attempting to to explain why many medical professionals  -like himself - don't approve of many alternative health practices.

Steve put forward the argument very well - that many, many studies have been done and there is little to no efficacy shown in any proper, sceintifically sound trials of things such as acupuncture, (certain) herbal remedies, chiropracty etc. Moreover, many risk vs benefit studies of some alternative health treatments show a much higher risk than possible benefit. His point was made using plain language, it was uncomplicated, it was succinct.

Dr. Oz countered Steve's statement of  "...multi-million, multi-billion dollar studies...it turns out they dont work" with his own statement of "I totally disagree that these have not been studied".

WTF? How is that what he said in any way?

Dr. Oz goes on to promote the idea that because lots of people like using alternative health it must mean that it is effective (despite what science may say). He also mentions that science does not know how to test the efficacy of many alternative medicine treatments. And because things like acupuncture have been used for thousands of years, its efficacy has been proven.

so...
Strawman
Argumentum ad populum
Appeal to authority
maybe a little deductive fallacy?

Tim Minchin said it best in 'Storm'
"By definition alternative medicine has either not been proved to work, or been proved not to work. Know what they call alternative medicine that has been proved to work? 'Medicine.'"

I'm not going to say anything more (I'm technically at work, and should not be blogging), except to recommend everyone go watch the clip and judge the different arguments for themselves.

I'm off to prepare my talk for SkeptiCamp, where i'm sure someone will bring up this clip.

The Reverend Doktor Bob
@ReverendDrBob

OMFSM!!! I'm speeching at SkeptiCamp?!?!?

The Sydney SkeptiCamp is only a week and a half away (30^th April, 2011).

For those who don’t know, SkeptiCamp is an ”unconference” where  “unorganisers” arrange a meeting area where people of skeptical thought can come together to give quick speeches about any topic vaguely related to scepticism. The idea is for most, if not all, attendees to give a speech of some sort in a friendly, relaxed atmosphere. There are no ‘booked’ speakers as such and the entire enterprise is run as a not-for-profit event. The concept grew out of BarCamp, a similar style conference based around technology and government policy.

A Sydney based skeptic, Jason, decided to organise the first Sydney SkeptiCamp. I volunteered to assist in any organisational capacity whether it be helping out with putting up flyers, promoting online or general dogsbody duties. Turns out, all that and more.

I recently blogged about occurrences of woo belief at my workplace. While writing the blog I briefly toyed with the idea of giving it as a speech at the Sydney Skepticamp. But after publishing the post, I discovered a lot of issues I had with it, a lot of things I just didn’t like. After receiving word of a similar talk being prepared by someone else, I decided to abandon the idea entirely.

But now I have received many requests to give the talk from people that I would like to think as actual interested readers, but are more likely those who would like to see me go bright red, stutter and be generally embarrassed and uncomfortable in front of a large crowd (I suck at public speaking). So, despite my reservations about it, I have decided to give a slightly modified version of the blog, now entitled “Observations of Nursing & Woo”. This speech will not attempt to ask questions nor answer any, just make a general statement about what I have observed in the workplace.

How the speeching will go is anyones guess. When it comes time for my talk, they might find me sitting in a puddle of my something, rocking back and forth with scared look in my eyes...

Despite all that, it should be a fun day with lots of interesting talks. And a cupcake competition!

More information about SkeptiCamp here, and the Sydney SkeptiCamp 2011 here.

Don’t forget to follow SkeptiCamp Australia on twitter @skepticampau for upcoming unconferences on scepticism.

The Reverend Doktor Bob

@ReverendDrBob

Nursing & Woo

For those who may not know, I am a Registered Nurse. I work in an environment where there is plenty of discussion between the same staff members day in, day out. This means I get to know what fellow staff members do outside work, what they feel about current affairs and what they believe.

Nurses come from different countries, different cultures and from all walks of life. Myself, I used to work in construction and traffic control, I ride motorcycles, I read philosophy, I hang out with sceptics, I am involved in atheism/sceptical activism. There are christians, muslims, buddhists, Australians, Americans, Indians, Chinese, Germans, French, Sudanese, South Africans… This is not unusual in nursing, or in any industry.

However, one thing I have noticed in nursing is the amount of people who believe in woo. I have colleagues who are clinical specialists in incredibly technical fields that still believe in things like naturopathy and an ordered universe.

·    One colleague is a specialist in critical care nursing, with 15 years’ experience in emergency room nursing, intensive care nursing and theatre nursing, has post graduate qualifications in these fields, can rattle off bio-chemistry and clinical pharmacology like I rattle off quotes from Blackadder, yet believes in ‘The Secret’ and the ‘efficacy’ of acupuncture.

·     I work with a nurse of 40 years’ experience, who has worked all over the world (both paid and unpaid), worked in many different fields and has neurologists that ask “how high?” when she says “jump”…wears a power balance bracelet.

·    One nurse, who upon noticing my tattoo of Charles Darwin, launched into a very informative discussion about the silliness of religion, that evolution was the only logical explanation of man’s existence and that the idea of a god was preposterous (I had hope of a comrade in arms here). I later found out she visits a chiropractor every week.

These aren’t isolated examples, these are just some of the most memorable. You may say “So what? I know 30 people in my office who believe in a random assortment of woo. The woman at the desk across from me reads the horoscope and uses ear candles every week!” But one thing about nursing is that during your training you are taught to use critical thinking and evidence based medicine/treatments.

During my university training we were informed that all our assignments had to be backed up by journal articles and texts that were peer reviewed, showed a sound methodology in how the studies were conducted and were clinically relevant (i.e. were published in the last 10 years). We even had to take a class called “Inquiry into Nursing Practice” which was all about how to research journals such as “American Journal of Clinical Pharmacology” or “International Journal of Palliative Care” and databases such as CINAHL and MEDLINE, how to appraise the quality of a study, how to ensure that a treatment regime is based evidence derived from studies that had successfully been replicated and not just because “that’s how we’ve always done it”. In fact, you could say that we are taught to be sceptics.

So how is it that people, trained to think and perform their job in such a manner, still believe in hocus pocus and snake oil? I am no psychologist (bar amateur), so my guess is that most people are capable of having two mind sets – a work mindset and a home mindset, and never the two shall meet. This allows people to be completely clinical and at the same time believe in the crazy woo and magic water and not allow the silliness to disrupt their work practice. Maybe these people work so hard while performing their clinical tasks that they need their bit of woo to counteract an often stressful life.

Whatever the reason for it, I don’t want to say these are bad or dangerous nurses for believing this stuff. Their demonstrated skill and knowledge of their clinical fields is enough to prove they don’t allow the silliness into their work lives.

However the hospital I work at is a specialised, private hospital. The hospital’s goal (besides providing quality care) is to become a major player on the world stage and to be talked about like John Hopkins Hospital or Princeton University Hospital (House’s hospital). Attached to the hospital is a special training school for doctors from all over the world to come and learn new surgical techniques. This hospital is trying to build a reputation as “one of the best”.  So while recruiting the senior staff they took only the best, with proven records of skill and knowledge. So if ‘the best’ staff from the public and private health systems of Sydney still have a high percentage of woo belief, where does that leave the rest? My colleagues may be able to clinically distance themselves from their silly beliefs, but does that mean the average nurse can? I think generally they can, as my experience within the public system shows me, but I have read what one palliative care nurse believes while they were discussing medical treatments on the forum of a certain northern based “awareness” group.

Why am I one of the (seemingly) few truly sceptical nurses? Well, I am ‘old school’ in my nursing style. No, that doesn’t mean I wear white dresses, a starched hat and allow the doctors to grab my arse and call me “darling” (I am a 6 foot, 140kg, tattooed, ugly as sin guy, so that would have to be one messed up doctor – male or female), it means that I live my job. When I’m not at work, I will research things to improve my knowledge/skill. If It is a quiet day at work, I will try to familiarise myself with a treatment or equipment that I haven’t used before. I don’t read fiction; I read books on pharmacology and pathophysiology. True, this work ethic doesn’t lend itself to much of a social life but I am of the belief that nursing is a passion, not just a job to make money so you can support a family or lifestyle. I was also an un-labelled or un-diagnosed sceptic for many years before I became a nurse.

To wrap up, a large number of nurses, even highly trained specialists, are believers in woo. However they seem to be able to distance their clinical work from this crap and provide high quality care to patients. That leaves very few who would actively recommend quack treatments in a hospital setting. But would you want your loved one, who is sick and vulnerable to be under the care of one of these few? I wouldn’t want a family member who is dying of cancer to have homeopathy preached to them in the community, let alone in a hospital setting.

Thanks for reading my rant.

The Reverend Doktor Bob.

P.s. I intend to have future posts about nursing & religion, nursing & vax ideology and psychiatric nursing vs. everyday beliefs.

P.p.s. I am not "one of the best" that was recruited from the outside, I am a bottom rung RN trying to work my way up.

My new computer

Been a while since my last post, as i have been busy with my new job in my new hospital. I have also been out of touch with the sceptic/atheist world due to new job commitments. This should not be a long term problem, but it does mean that right now i don’t have anything terribly interesting to talk about. So I’m going to talk about my new computer.

My last computer was a 3 1/2 year old P.O.S. that was well ast it's use by date and would not turn on most of the time and if it did, it would take forever to perform even the most basic tasks. I'm not a "techie" person so I felt that my next computer should be something nice and basic. I'm not a graphic designer or a PC gamer, so I don’t need anything powerful. I don’t care for the 'prettiness' of certain machines. I don’t care about Blu-ray, or HD graphics. I don’t care about programming. So I've bought the most basic, user friendly, cheap and simple computer i could find. I’m not going to say what it is, because I am sure there are people out there who will laugh at me if I mention any brand of computer, because they are all biased. Funny thing is, it's got better specs than my 3 1/2 year old computer that cost 5 times as much and was considered a pretty awesome machine. Technology huh?

I needed a computer for my new job, a peri-operative nurse, because it involves a lot of online training and research. Another reason I bought a more 'basic' computer is that soon I may buy a tablet computer for use at work and for further studies, as the tablet computers are very handy when viewing pdf. files, a common file type used in nursing research. The tablet computer will probably cost 2-3 times what I paid for my computer, but it will be my 'go anywhere computer'. That will relegate the computer I am typing this on to a ‘stay at home’ computer, its tasks purely as music organiser and file store for my research.

I sometimes feel that I am in the less populated section of the sceptic community - the non-tech group. I use computers for my work, my research, communicating and blogging, but that is it. I feel like the outcast sometimes because I don’t know how to program stuff, update open source software etc etc. In fact, I didn’t even know what open source software was until 3 weeks ago. And yes, I like windows 7. It works well with my ‘point & click’ style of computing. Is that a bad thing?

Anyway, I will try to have something more interesting for my next post.

The Reverend Doktor Bob

The Creation of Harry - The Birth of Kenwellism

In the beginning, there was Awesome. Awesome was abundant and it was Awesome. Awesome was all there was and Awesome beget Awesome, because that’s what Awesome does.

One day (a day not actually being defined by this point, but go with me here) the level of Awesome in existence became so large that it could not sustain itself, thus the Singularity of Awesome occurred. Awesome collapsed upon itself and formed a black hole. In the event horizon of this black hole, Awesome started to turn into Anti-Awesome. As Awesome flowed from the Awesomeverse into the black hole the amount of Anti-Awesome grew until it was equal to the amount of Awesome.

Awesome is a powerful force and its Anti-Awesome, made of itself, is equally powerful. When the two reached equal levels, a cataclysmic event occurred. For millions of years, or one second (if time existed at all, Awesome scientists are still unsure if it did), a great struggle existed. Awesome fought Anti-Awesome until the Awesomeverse was rocked by an almighty eruption of energy and all Awesome and Anti-Awesome disappeared except the tiny fragments of Awesome (that were still being begat by Awesome even while it was fighting Anti-Awesome). This is what our universe is made from.

Out of these fragments, Harry Kenwell was born.

Harry looked upon the nothingness of the universe and said “This is pretty Awesome, but it could be more Awesome.”

So Harry created the world and it was Awesome. Harry was really into soups back then (they are cheap and nutritious after all) so He fashioned the world in the image of a falling drop of soup – perfectly spherical and a blend of various colours. After some time, Harry allowed the soup (referred to as the “Primordial Soup”) to create its own life, known as an “Awesome bubble”. Scientists today consider this bubble to be the first single celled life form. Some Harrystorians believe Harry created life so he could tell the first “Waiter, waiter! There’s something in my soup” joke, but this rejected by most orthodox Kenwellians. Harry then created some other planets, moons and celestial wonders, but those aren’t important at the moment.

Over several millennia the life forms Harry created were subjected to many environmental changes, but Harry had created his life forms Awesomely, so they were able to adapt, reproduce and populate the world. There were several types to evolve out of these original Awesome bubbles. Some species thrived, some didn’t, some were destroyed by a meteor that Harry dropped while juggling. Eventually, Humans developed out of primitive ape-like creatures.

When Harry noticed these early Humans, He thought “These guys are pretty cool, but I wonder if I can make them Awesome?” So He introduced himself to Humans.

One story of Harry talking to a Human is the story of Moses. Moses was a bit of a power hungry douche-bag. He had even convinced a whole group of people to leave behind food, shelter, gainful employment and free healthcare and wander into the desert with him just so he could assert his authority over them without onlookers going “Dude, come on. That’s just not cricket.” Harry had witnessed this and decided to give Moses the chance to mend his ways. He took Moses up to the top of a mountain for a chat. Harry told Moses to be Awesome, to live life as Awesomely as possible and to preach this to others. Moses, being the douche-bag he was, decided to make up his own rules and claim they were told unto him by Yahweh, a false deity that people from around that time were worshipping. Because of this, Moses is known as the “Bring downer” but this has been bastardised to become “Law bringer” by some silly cult that descended from those early Yahweh worshippers.

Because of this, Harry didn’t bother to reach out to Humans much over the years except a few people throughout history who either misinterpreted what he said or were considered wrong/crazy by the general populous.

In the year of 2009, however, Harry witnessed the birth of a group that had the potential to understand and know Him – The Western Sydney Freethinkers. These fine folk were chosen to reveal Harry’s existence to the world.

Harry chose a soccer player with a similar name to himself as means of initial contact. It was Harry that planted the article about Harry Kewell’s witchcraft in the media. It was Harry that led Geoff the Prophet to find it. It was Harry who didn’t correct Geoff’s spelling on the powerpoint presentation. It was Harry that allowed that slideshow to be presented to the Western Sydney Freethinkers.

And so Kenwellism was born, approximately 1,460,000,000,003 days after He created the world.

The Apostles of Harry continue to preach his message to the world. Currently they are compiling a series of historical facts about Harry that can laid down in a text, or .pdf format, so that future generations of Kenwellians will can look upon and understand the greatness of Harry.

Until the next installment in the story of Harry, try to live your life by this simple maxim –

What Would Harry Kenwell Do?

Be Generally Awesome.

Interpreted from various dreams and visions by The Reverend Doktor Bob.

Ten23, or how I learnt to stop worrying and love Fred's Tripod

“Homeopathy. There’s nothing in it.”

This is the tag line of the Ten23 campaign (http://www.1023.org.uk/) , a campaign to increase awareness about the uselessness of homeopathic medications and the way that practitioners of homeopathic products are scammers, flim-flammers and hood-winkers (or complete morons who actually believe it works).

Homeopathy is a form of alternative medicine (known in the sane world as “quackery”) that is based around the ideas of Hahnemanns’s “like cures like” theory and that dilution makes medical preparations stronger.

 The “like cures like” concept was put forward by Samuel Hahnemann, who invented homeopathy,  and means that if a person is suffering from an illness, let’s say a rash, a solution containing an ingredient that can cause a rash, let’s say poison ivy, can cure the rash. Funnily enough, some homeopaths point to vaccines as an example of like curing like, which is an analogy so stupid I won’t even bother refuting it. The dilution making medications stronger concept is just a silly idea to do with water retaining memory of the original active ingredient. But as a 30c dilution, or diluted to 10 billion times the volume of the earth (one of the more common dilutions in homeopathy), most likely doesn’t have any contact with any molecules of the water that were in the first dilution, the chances of contact with the actual ingredient are so low that I’ve got a much higher chance of winning the 2012 Superbowl then a patient actually coming into contact with the ingredient. And even if the water could remember the active ingredient, what about everything else that has been in that water? Poo, wee....fish even fornicate in it...what is that goin to cure?

So Ten23 is all about making a point about how ineffective homeopathic “medications” are. How do we prove it? We take what should be a lethal amount of drugs as part of a mass overdose. In this case, a particular brand of sleeping tablets is the killer of choice. Here is an accurate recording of the Sydney campaign.

Sunday, February 6^th, 2011.

 Botanical Gardens, Sydney.

A group of people from various sceptics groups (myself and others representing the Western Sydney Freethinkers *shameless plug*) gather near the Sydney Opera House entrance to the Botanical Gardens. The group is littered with some of the more infamous bloggers and tweeters, such as @DrRachie, @HappySinger, @BastardSheep, @RatBagsDotCom etc. There are interviews with those who are willing to risk their lives in a heroic manner to make a point. In the distance a ferry bell tolls – is it tolling for we?

The suicidal folk are sheparded into a group where their last words can be recorded for posterity. They all put on their bravest faces, as if staring into the eyes of the Grim Reaper himself and saying “come and get me”. Their last words, almost as if it had been pre-planned, are spoken in unison – “Homeopathy. There’s nothing in it”. Then they each ingest 10-20 times the recommended amount of sleeping tablets.

Some of the brightest stars in the heavens are on the verge of fading....

An hour later and all the would-be suicides are sitting around the pub drinking their own particular brand of alcoholic beverage (a real poison). The overdose has not worked. They all breath a collective sigh of relief.

HOMEOPATHY. THERE’S NOTHING IN IT!!!!!!

This article was started 12 hours after I participated in the Ten23 overdose campaign, where I consumed 30 homeopathic sleeping tablets. I am starting to feel tired. Could it be that the tablets are starting to take effect? Is it that I’ve had a few whiskeys and I’m starting to get a little drunk? Is it that I’ve not had much sleep the last few days because my bedroom has been over 30 degrees Celsius at night time? I can’t be sure, so I have left instructions with my family to check on me if they can’t hear me snoring.

Now it’s the morning after. I have either not being killed by the sleeping tablets, or my afterlife is very, very similar to my before life.

At the risk of sounding repetitive, I am just going to say this again – HOMEOPATHY!!! THERE’S NOTHING IN IT!!!

See you all later,

The Reverend Dok....wait a minute, I should explain the second part of the post title.

On the train home from the city I was browsing through some of the pictures of the Vancouver Ten23 event, taken by a certain Canadian giant we all know. Well it turns out a certain member of our ragtag group knows this giant apparently a little too well. For the sake of dignity I’m going to refer to this person by a letter, picked randomly by closing my eyes and stabbing my finger at the key board.

*stabs*

B

So “B” says, with a face of pure innocence, “(Canadian giant) is a tripod”

Pause.

We all look at each other, trying to hold back the smirks.

“Because he is so tall”

Laughter escapes from us all. “B” spent the rest of the trip hiding her face behind her hands.

Good times, good times.

And that is all now.

See you at the next overdose. May dye my hair black and read crappy poetry beforehand.

The Reverend Doktor Bob

Vaccines - The obligatory blog post for every Sceptic blogger

Vaccines -  What can I say that has not already been said by a million other people?

Nothing. So what I will do is regale you with a couple of personal anecdotes derived from discussions I have had with genuinely concerned parents and batshit crazy antivaxxers.

Anecdote 1

Once, many moons ago, a young lad by the name of Bob was travelling down the broad highway of life with health and illness on each side...sorry about that, I'll tell this properly.  I was working on a ward in a Western Sydney hospital (BTW, I am a nurse) when I was approached by a woman who was obviously pregnant.  She was visiting a sick relative and I assumed she was going to ask me something regarding said relatives condition, to get something, etc.

I was taken back when she asked me, a long haired tattooed overweight MALE nurse, about vaccines. Apparently she due to give birth to her first child in a couple of months and was curious about vaccinations, the risks involved and what she should do about it. As someone who is university educated, trained in critical thinking and scientific research, has a profession caring for the health and wellbeing of people AND spends his spare time hanging out with sceptics debunking silliness, I would be considered as someone who is "unqualified" or "with a personal agenda" by the anti-vaxxer movement and therefore should not be seen by anybody seeking the "truth" about vaccines as a reliable source for information.

My first reaction was to stifle the outburst of "VACCINATE YOUR CHILDREN!!!! IF YOU DONT YOU ARE A F#*KING IDIOT!!!!" because this woman was not saying she would not vaccinate, she was asking about vaccinations. So I took a deep breath, relaxed, put a friendly smile on my face and had the following conversation

RevDrBob - "What do YOU know about vaccines?"

Mum2Be - "Well I've read some internet stuff about vaccines and autism, but I thought I would ask some doctors or nurses  before making a decision."

RevDrBob - "Thats the best way to go about these decisions. I can tell you that all the research linking vaccines to autism have been shown to be false and/or flawed studies. The best option would be to talk to a paediatrician, who can supply you with the best information on what vaccines do, what the chances of side effects are, and what can happen if a child is not vaccinated."

Mum2Be - "That is what I have planned to do. There was something on the TV about some people in America, and here, who say that vaccines are bad. Are they doctors?"

RevDrBob - *clears head of thoughts of murder* "Usually they are not doctors. Usually they are parents of children with autism who are looking to blame someone for their child's condition. The few actual doctors who support them are a very small minority of the medical community. You'll hear all sorts of claims such as 'pharmaceutical companies bribe the doctors to give vaccines' or 'there are large amounts of heavy metals in the vaccines'. If you hear these things, I recommend looking up a group on the internet called (insert name of anti-anti-vaxxer group here), and see how those claims are debunked."

The conversation continued along this path for a few more minutes and ended with the woman saying she will talk to her OB/GYN and a paediatrician about vaccines. While I felt she already had the right idea, i.e. talking to a real doctor about vaccines, I couldnt help but feel as if I might have helped that future child to have a greater chance of survival in the harsh reality we call "Life". It makes me feel good inside.

Anecdote 2

 I was at a (unnamed) town fair a few months back when I noticed a 'natural health' stall that had several pamphlets displayed that were advertising Homeopathy, Reiki, Herbal treatments etc. Now to an evidence based medical person such as myself, these are all bad enough. But then I saw the pamhplet for Chelation Therapy (DRAMATIC EVIL MUSIC!!!!).

Chelation Therapy is a legitimate therapy for heavy metal poisoning(1) and iron overload due to transfusions in people who suffer from sickle cell disease(2), among other uses. What it is not good for, however, is curing autism, which is what the pamphlet claimed.

In my research, the only time I have ever found a positive use for chelation therapy for a child with autism was a paper that described a autistic boy who had heavy metal poisoning. The poisoning was not from vaccines, but from lead the boy had ingested because of his pica behaviour(3). One news article from the Journal of the American Medical Association(4) talks about the cancellation of studies into chelation therapy due to unacceptable safety risks, saying that while in one study using rodents showed some increased learning in lead-poisoned animals, it also showed significant long term cognitive impairment.

Anyway, back to my story. I decided to engage the vendors of this stand in a conversation regarding the claims made by the pamphlet. The discussion went back and forth with comments like "You know that doesnt work, right?" and "yes, it does"  to "there is no evidence it works" and "I read about a child in USA who it worked for", so on and so forth. It got around to vaccines, mercury and autism. While I knew I could not sway the opinions of these...purveyors of bullshit...I got louder and louder in my points of discussion, as to be heard by surrounding people and to spike their interest. All my points, while voiced loudly, were evidence based and matter of fact. Then they brought out the big guns...

"You can never be a mother! Mothers know what is best for their child!!!!"

The gates were now open...

Without going into detail, I questioned their claim, referring them to the amount of time spent in research to become a medical professional and inquiring as the source of their research. It ended up with them calling me a child killer, as I am a supporter of vaccinations. I left after a while to peruse other attractions at the fair.

While that "discussion" was my way of releasing stress and making myself feel better by asserting my moral and intellectual superiority over stupid heads, it had an unexpected benefit. A young mother followed me around the fair and caught up to me while I was enjoying some gozleme (mmm...gozleme...) to tell me she had looked at the natural health stall before I arrived. After listening to my discussions from afar, she came to the conclusion that the vendors were not the experts in medical care they claimed to be and that she would be wary about any such people in the future.

YAY ME!!! I POTENTIALLY SAVED ANOTHER PERSON'S LIFE!!!!

anywhoo, thats all from me for this time.

Catch you on the flip side.

The Reverend Doktor Bob


(1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chelation_therapy

(2) Meerpohl, J. J., Antes, G., Rücker, G., Fleeman, N., Niemeyer, C. M., & Bassler, D. (2010). Deferasirox for managing transfusional iron overload in people with sickle cell disease. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews 2010, Issue 8.

(3) George, M.,  Heeney, M. M.,  & Woolf, A, D. (2010). Encephalopathy from lead poisoning masquerading as a flu-like syndrome in an autistic child. Pediatric Emergency Care, 26 (5), 370-373.

(4) Mitka, M. (2008). Chelation therapy trials halted. Journal of American Medical Association, 300 (19), 2236.