The articles are currently available for free on the Journal’s homepage, here. Get them while you can! They are: 

Special Section: Small Arms and Light Weapons in Africa – A Major Challenge to Public Health and Development 

Maria Valenti, Phyllis Freeman and Anthony Robbins

J Public Health Pol 28: 387-388; doi:10.1057/palgrave.jphp.3200151

Armed Violence: A Health Problem, a Public Health Approach 

Leaders of a special project of the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War describe a public health crisis in many African countries caused by small arms and light weapons. These weapons kill hundreds of thousands of people each year, leaving millions more maimed, injured, disabled, and traumatized. They summarize efforts to reduce the adverse health effects, beginning with public health surveillance and actions to influence policy.

Maria Valenti, Christin M Ormhaug, Robert E Mtonga and John Loretz

J Public Health Pol 28: 389-400; doi:10.1057/palgrave.jphp.3200150

Taming the Tools of Violence 

A Norway-based scholar who organizes conferences for African and European researchers discusses the lethality of guns, gaps in African data, and international agreements that can be used to mobilize support for public health approaches to curbing small arms injuries and deaths in Africa.

Nicholas Marsh

J Public Health Pol 28: 401-409; doi:10.1057/palgrave.jphp.3200153

Firearm Injuries in Nairobi, Kenya: Who Pays the Price? 

The Kenyan affiliate of International Physicans for the Prevention of Nuclear War studied firearm injured patients who reached Kenyatta National Hospital in Nairobi during a six month period in 2006 to learn incidence, prevalence, and costs charged to patients for hospital care.

Florian Hugenberg, Walter Odhiambo Anjango, Angela Mwita and Dedan Opondo

J Public Health Pol 28: 410-419; doi:10.1057/palgrave.jphp.3200152

Gun Violence in Nigeria: A Focus on Ethno-Religious Conflict in Kano 

The Nigerian affiliate of the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War sponsored a study of small arms and light weapons in northern Nigeria to learn about the relationship of these weapons to ethno-religious tensions. They found firearm injuries to be linked to riots between Christians and Muslims.

Ime A John, Aminu Z Mohammed, Andrew D Pinto and Celestine A Nkanta

J Public Health Pol 28: 420-431; doi:10.1057/palgrave.jphp.3200155

A Multinational Injury Surveillance System Pilot Project in Africa 

These authors discuss their pilot of an epidemiological surveillance system at emergency departments for intentional, violent injuries in selected hospitals in Zambia, Uganda, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Nigeria, and Kenya. Their goal is to organize an ongoing system to gather reliable data on injuries for comparisons across countries and analyses to generate better evidence-based recommendations to public health authorities.

Diego E Zavala, Simon Bokongo, Ime A John, Senoga Ismail Mpanga, Robert E Mtonga, Zakari Mohammed Aminu, Walter Odhiambo and Peter Olupot-Olupot

J Public Health Pol 28: 432-441; doi:10.1057/palgrave.jphp.3200154

Unfortunately, the article inadvertently reveals something much more disturbing – the cynical exploitation of the case by a shyster given credibility by The Observer (and other UK newspapers). The ‘forensic tests’ were carried out by a crank using a secret ‘quantum’ device with a secret energy source. It’s the sort of thing you would expect to find in a science fiction novel,  and has no relationship to science. But the Observer reported this gobbldigook as news, and in doing so relied upon  multiple untruths and distortions, which are outlined below.

Let’s start off with the headline. Certainly ‘reveal traces of Madeline’s body on resort beach’ was in speech marks. But “Forensic DNA tests” was not. This is the first distortion. In this context ‘forensic DNA tests’ would normally be understood to mean scientific tests undertaken by people involved in a criminal investigation or legal case. As will be shown below, these ‘tests’ were not in any way scientific, and were carried out by a shyster with no official connection to the investigation. The term ‘forensic tests’ provides a wholly distorting credibility to the story.

The body of the article starts off by stating that:

Traces of Madeleine McCann’s body were found on a Portuguese beach weeks after she was reported missing, during tests by a former detective renowned for locating abducted children.

There are two untruths in this sentence. No traces of Madeleine McCann were found at all. There aren’t any qualifying speech marks here – the Observer makes a statement of fact which is palpably false. Next, the former detective isn’t renowned for locating abducted children. As is shown below, what he is renowned for is making unsubstantiated claims to locate people. There is a big difference.

The next paragraph states that:

Forensic analysis by retired South African police superintendent Danie Krugel claimed to reveal Madeleine’s body had either been temporarily buried or was still beneath the beach at Praia da Luz, the resort from where she disappeared on 3 May.

The news reported above has now become a ‘claim’. Mark Townsend and Ned Temko don’t seem to be able to make up their minds, and they just uncritically report such extraordinary claims. 

The third paragraph elaborates:

Based on a combination of Madeleine’s DNA sample and GPS satellite technology, Krugel’s findings were taken so seriously by Portuguese detectives that officers twice searched the beach.

Not only is Krugel exploiting Madeleine McCann’s death, he also appears to be wasting police time (don’t worry, there is more about the tests below). This revelation is even more striking as the article later states that:

Reports in the Portuguese press claim that the original team of more than 200 police who were involved in the frantic early days of the investigation has now been whittled down to a small core who have been working without holidays and are ‘completely exhausted’.

I expect that one reason why the Portuguese police are so exhausted is having to deal with a stream of cranks like Krugel. Their work isn’t going to be made any easier if the cranks are given credibility through fawning commentary in national newspapers.

The fourth paragraph states that:

Krugel, of the University of Bloemfontein, claims that his technique is able to locate a missing person anywhere in the world using only a single strand of hair. He became famous in South Africa after helping a television crew locate the whereabouts of five South African girls who went missing during the Eighties. Last July the retired detective spent four days in Praia da Luz following a request for assistance from Madeleine’s parents, Kate and Gerry McCann.

So, lets look into Danie Krugel. First, the article is disingenuous about his origins. Normally if someone who had invented a revolutionary new device is described as being ‘of the University’ one would assume that they are an academic. In fact Krugel works for the University’s ‘Protection Services’, see the staff list here, and various sources describe him as being  ‘Director of Security Services’ or a ‘security officer’.

Krugel claims to have invented the Matter Orientation System (MOS). While he has presented the MOS on South African TV the exact details remain a closely guarded secret. His extraordinary claims were made on TV before protecting his ‘discovery’ with a patent or publishing the details in a scientific journal. This is a tactic generally employed by frauds or deluded believers who want investment income but don’t want to risk any scrutiny of their ‘discovery’.

From the sketchy details of the MOS that are available, it appears that Krugel requires a sample containing DNA of the missing person (such as a strand of hair). Krugel then uses his machine and a GPS device to find the location of the person (living or dead). However, the location isn’t exact, it just provides a general area.

Now, location is information, and he claims that this information can be transferred to him from human tissue. There is no known means by which that information could be transferred. We know that information can be transferred via a variety of media – such as via radio, light, sound or wires. But no possible mechanism exists with the people Krugel claims to find – unless they had previously been given radio transmitters. 

So how does this miraculous machine work? He was featured on an uncritical South African TV documentary, the transcript of which (available here) states that:

The invention is thought to be based on quantum physics and a global positioning system, or GPS, is used to define the search area. […] Danie Krugel (Inventor): “I put it clearly, this is science. This is science. That is what is fantastic about it, it is tied to science we have but people just didn’t link it.”

When we first met him Danie was reluctant to publicly put his invention to the test or to divulge exactly how it works, apart from saying that his most precious secret is the energy source he uses.

The secret energy source is strange enough. If he had invented such a new energy source why hasn’t he patented it, shared it with the world, and made a fortune? Are we really to believe that he would do the oil producers of the world such a favour and keep his secret energy source to himself and only use it in his MOS.

But the biggest red flag is the mention of ‘quantum physics’. Very exciting work is being done in that field, but by people with years of training in very well equipped labs. And they have, via ‘entanglement’, been able to transfer information between two quantum particles. But this transfer only occurs in lab conditions, when both particles have been prepared by scientists, and just concerns binary information – a 0 or a 1. Claiming that information such as the location of human tissue on a beach could be discerned by just obtaining a DNA sample is science fiction.

Now sometimes scifi does come true, but we are being asked to believe that this staggering revolution has been carried out by a university security officer. It is much more likely that, as in many other occasions, the term ‘quantum physics’ is used because most people, including journalists, don’t really understand what it is. ‘Quantum’ means never having to explain yourself.

That paragraph contains a further untruth when it states that he helped “a television crew locate the whereabouts of five South African girls who went missing during the Eighties.” He did lead a television crew to a spot where he claimed that his MOS had located the bodies of the girls. However, the transcript of the TV show (available here) states that Krugel lead the crew to a site where they excavated some bones which turned out to come from six individuals, two of which were male. Moreover, according to the transcript:

the DNA from the bones was simply too degraded and incomplete to make a conclusive match with the DNA of the mothers.

In direct contrast to the text of the Observer article, Danie Krugel did not help a TV crew to find the five girls.

The Daily Mirror, in an article (available here) entitled ‘Don’t Trust the Bodyfinder’, reported on 8 October 2007 that a South African couple looking for their son had been led on a wild goose chase across South Africa for months as Krugel kept providing them with new ‘locations’. Eight months after his disappearance his badly decomposed body was found – it was assumed that he had died after a snake bite. The Mirror article also suggested a financial motive for Krugel’s activities, that he is “said to have sold the rights to the machine for almost £1million”, and that while Krugel insists that he never asks for payment from people looking for lost relatives:

he has a contract with a TV company and was filmed while working on the Madeleine case. He says the footage can only be released once Madeleine is found.

The one million pounds may well be a bluff. But as he has appeared on fawning documentaries already is it very plausible that he is being paid to make his claims (and in doing so interfere with a police investigation). By looking into Krugel’s track record the Daily Mirror displays far superior journalistic standards than does The Observer.

A Google search for the term “Danie Krugel” produces over 400 hits, and the top twenty contain many links to pages that are critical of him. All the information presented here, apart from the Mirror article, would have been available to Mark Townsend and Ned Temko as they wrote their article for The Observer. But they just reported Krugel’s frankly bizarre claims as fact. Are they just staggeringly incompetent, or guilty of cynically printing nonsense because they assumed that anything to do with Madeleine McCann sells papers? My guess is the latter. 

P.S. excellent commentary on the whole Krugel affair can be found on Moonflake’s blog, here; and the South African Sceptics board has an interesting discussion here; Krugel is mentioned in the JREF newsletter here; and the Observer article is also featured on the BadScience page here, SciencePunk’s blog here, and by the Poor Pothecary here.

Edit: An interesting newspaper article can be found here (thanks to MJ Simpson).

The story in the Mail is typical. It states that “the latest research” has shown that people who use their phones for longer than an hour per day found it hard to distinguish high frequency sounds – particularly “words starting with the letters s, f, h, t and z”. This wouldn’t be a very remarkable story if it hadn’t reported that:

“Researcher Dr Naresh Panda said it is possible radiation from longterm mobile use damages the inner ear.”

Such is his concern that he urged people to cut down on their phone use – “We should educate the public only to use them when necessary.”  For once the link to harmful effects from mobile phone radiation wasn’t just a bit of journalistic fluff. Dr Panda explicitly made that claim in the conference paper that was the source of the articles.

The paper in question is entitled Audiological disturbances in long term mobile phone users and it’s by Naresh Panda, Rishabh Jain, Jaimanti Bakshi and Sanjay Munjal. It was presented at a conference organised by the  American Academy of Otolaryngology Head and Neck Surgery (AAOHNS). They were so excited that the conference organisers wrote a press release entitled ‘Cell Phone Use Causes High Frequency Hearing Loss’ which is available here. 

Unfortunately, Panda et al don’t appear to have done very much research at all. The study only examined 100 people (fifty phone users, and a control of fifty people who had never used a mobile phone). Panda et al find some weak evidence for hearing loss, and inexplicably decide that the cause is radiation from mobile phones. Indeed, they do not speculate how phone radiation could damage hearing, whether such a link is plausible, or whether any other explanations are more likely. Instead they just presume that radiation is the only cause. The introduction states that:

“There is a general concern on the possible hazardous health effects of radiofrequency electromagnetic radiation (RFR) emitted from wireless communication devices, especially following the enormous increase in the use of wireless mobile technology throughout the world. The biological electrical activities that are vulnerable to interference from GSM radiation include highly organized electrical activities at a cellular level whose frequency happens to lie in the microwaves region, and which are a consequence of metabolism.”

Panda et al then hypothesise a special susceptibility of the ear: “Anatomically, the ear is in closest proximity to mobile telephones during use. So, theoretically its use should affect the ear most, although it is well covered inside a bony cage.” They return to this theme in the discussion section at the end of the paper: 

“The widespread use of mobile telephones has also given rise to concern about the potential influence of electromagnetic field on hearing of users, as ear is in closest proximity to mobile telephones during their use. […] Our study […] had patients who had symptoms of ear fullness, sensation of warmth around the ear and tinnitus while using mobile phones.”

To sum up, causality was presumed from the start of the paper. Panda et al did not discuss any alternative causes for the observed hearing loss. And they made no attempt to explain why they believe that electromagnetic radiation was the most likely cause. This is, to say the least, surprising for several reasons. First, scientists have consistently failed to find any evidence of electro-magnetic radiation from mobile phones harming the human body. For example, a Summary of research published by the World Health Organisation (available here) states that: “Scientists have reported other effects of using mobile phones including changes in brain activity, reaction times, and sleep patterns. These effects are small and have no apparent health significance.”

More importantly, there are other explanations for any observed hearing loss which are more likely then any revolutionary new radiation effect. For example, if they are loud enough, prolonged use of mobile pones may cause hearing loss, in the same way that any long term exposure to sound would. In addition, it has also been suggested that extensive mobile phone use could cause temporary fatigue in a person’s ability to discriminate between certain mid-range sounds. (See for example here, and the discussion  here). But such plausible alternative hypotheses weren’t considered in the paper. Occam’s Razor certainly needs to be sharpened in this case. 

But presupposing causality isn’t the worst problem with the paper - the authors admit in the abstract that:

“There was no significant difference for audiological abnormalities between users and controls.”

In fact, the only evidence for their conclusions was variations in hearing loss among the mobile phone users. There is no shame in reporting a null, or very weak result. Unfortunately, Panda et al don’t let the lack of any significant difference between the phone users and the control get in the way of a radical conclusion. They conclude that: 

“The possible explanation for presence of high frequency hearing loss amongst the control group is a matter of conjecture. It can probably be speculated that these control subjects may be residing in the vicinity of base stations or TV towers.”

This isn’t just another example of presupposing causality, it directly contradicts their earlier assertion that the ear should be most affected by mobile phone radiation (due to the proximity of the phone). Moreover, this is the second time that Panda et al ‘discover’ a completely new medical consequence of electromagnetic radiation that was previously unknown to science – from studying just 100 people.

So, there is a very small sample, no significant difference in the control group, and the authors make wild statements about causality. The only reason why Dr Panda is quoted across the world’s media as an expert scientist is that he made the eye-catching claim that mobile phones cause hearing loss.

One glaring question remains – why did the American Academy of Otolaryngology Head and Neck Surgery (AAOHNS) hype the story? We are used to journalists, either through incompetence or cynicism, writing fluff about the latest implausible discovery. But this story was hyped by an august professional association (which claims to represent over 12,000 otolaryngologists – “head and neck surgeons who diagnose and treat disorders of the ears, nose, throat, and related structures of the head and neck.”)

It’s bad enough encouraging journalists to write articles on preliminary and unpublished research presented in conference papers, but this paper is so flawed that writing a press release about it is positively negligent. I assume that they hyped this paper because anything on the dangers of mobile phones is bound to get press coverage. And press coverage, about anything, is more important than good research. Too bad that Panda et al will from now on be associated with a piece of nonsense.

 Edit: the original paper is available here.

But what happens when people make extraordinary claims – their new pill will prevent ageing, big pharma and governments are conspiring to make people ill, they can generate free energy, or 9/11 was an inside job – but are uninterested, unwilling or unable to engage in reasoned debate? The problem is that when people resolutely deny the relevance of evidence or logic, or insist that what ever theory they believe in has replaced all we know about physics, chemistry, biology etc. we will ultimately be left with a choice between relativism, or criticising their integrity or mental faculties.

I’m not writing about people who read horoscopes, think that there might be something in homeopathy, or once saw a ghost in the moonlight. Of course we all understand the world through our subjective experience and from learnt knowledge (which can be pretty unreliable). We all have cognitive biases which mean that we interpret the world differently. I’m concerned with people who actively propagate the wildly improbable on a full-time basis. Such people don’t just accept received wisdom or misinterpret some ambiguity. They are actively engaged in developing, maintaining and propagating some very extraordinary claims, it’s very difficult to explain their actions through normal cognitive biases.

For example, look at this video by ‘Psychic John Green’. It’s of him sitting in a dark room describing the spirits that he can ‘sense’ around him. He also invites viewers to see ‘orbs’ on the video. John Green teaches ‘psychic development’ classes, claims to be able to heal strokes, and according to his website has appeared on the stage and on TV as a psychic. Unfortunately, no one can sense spirits, because they don’t exist. To reiterate, John routinely claims to sense things that can’t possibly exist. How do we engage with John and his ilk?

Relativism is the easy way out – they have their epistemology and I have mine. But that leaves a very bad feeling in my gut. We have two other responses. Either they are lying or they sincerely believe in the impossible. People making extraordinary claims have been caught lying: sceptic James Randi and colleagues discovered that faith healer the Reverand Peter Popov was not receiving his miraculous information from god, but from radio broadcasts. People have a strong financial incentive to exaggerate or invent their powers, or the benefits of whatever pill they happen to be selling, because they can create a market and enrich themselves. If we ignore such bogus claims, or routinely assume that they are due to incompetence rather than duplicity, we risk being over lenient or even complicit in the deceit.

It’s more difficult to find cast iron evidence that people who make such claims are deluded. Unlike frauds we don’t have any court judgements to draw upon. A delusion is a false belief held in contradiction to the evidence, and can be a symptom of mental illness. Dawkins entitled his most recent book The God Delusion, and delusions can clearly be held by many people and be generally accepted in society. They are often very much in contradiction with a mountain of evidence. To take the example of Psychic John Green, I’m prepared to accept that he sincerely believes that he can sense spirits, and that he believes that they produce the ‘orbs’ he claims are apparent on the videos. But then we have little choice but to describe him as being deluded – unless we want to relativistically accept that his belief in the supernatural is just as plausible as our disbelief.

However, explicitly or implicitly suggesting that people are liars, frauds or deluded without proof is at the very least considered uncool. Ad hominem attacks are a low form of argumentation. It isn’t very ethical to criticise people by implying, or explicitly stating, that they are mentally ill – and terms like loon, nutter, fruitcake, nutjob etc really are just popular euphemisms for poor mental health. More importantly, attacking someone’s integrity or mental health risks undermining the open discussion that one wishes to defend – you aren’t going to win many converts by calling people frauds, mad, or both.

We can try to limit criticism to ideas and not the person. Most academics are used to rarefied discussions, but even their discussions (especially in the blogosphere) can get very personal and abusive. More importantly, the identities of the practitioners and ardent believers of the extraordinary are often tied strongly to their beliefs – in the same way that many people’s identities are closely linked to their jobs. If someone criticises the ideas behind their belief, they are going to take it personally. Moreover, one can’t really separate the idea from the person. It was the person that created and nurtured the belief. If we say that their cherished idea is based on gobbledygook and shoddy research, we are directly criticising their competence.

I would like to believe that we can create a space where we can discuss various aspects of the extraordinary in a polite and rational manner. But the question is – how do play a game with people who reject the rules? If someone’s whole belief system is based upon a rejection of normal standards of evidence and logic then it becomes difficult not to accuse them of being either liars or deluded. Ben Goldacre called for some new ethics of bullshit. Can there be a language of bullshit? How do we criticise people ardently making extraordinary claims without ultimately suggesting that they are either liars or lack the ability to reason?