“If healthcare professionals who have been aggressively attacked are not given the right to respond, and present their case, who will be?” – Richard Seah, Guest Writer (www.theonlinecitizen.com)
It has been close to a month since the publication of his article, entitled “A Straits Times campaign against alternative therapies?” and it is about time to review how peddlers of pseudoscience scream for the right of reply and when confronted with the cold, hard facts, shirk away slowly into oblivion.
Mr. Richard Seah, describes himself as an ex journalist with the Buisness Times from 1980 to 1989 and claims to have published a newsletter on natural health called The Good Life from 1989 to 96. He claims to be a free-lance writer and web-builder and has worked closely with several alternative/complementary health practitioners, including a Mr. John Yeo, nuritionist at The Autism Recovery Centre, Biomedical practitioner and a parent of an autistic teenage daughter.
The stage is set when Mr. Seah accuses our national newspaper, The Straits Times of “waging a vociferous campaign against alternative therapies for autism - and singling out biomedical treatment”. In a series of articles, the daily paper detailed in an easy to understand yet scientifically accurate analysis of the “complementary / alternative medicine” (CAM) field, one of which includes the scientific sounding “biomedical treatment”. He goes on to explain that at least two letters have been rejected for publication to the Straits Times Forum page and hence he accuses the newspaper of denying him and his fellow advocates of CAM the right to respond to the allegations.
As such, TheOnlineCitizen, a local website whose aims are to tell “the stories about Singapore and Singaporeans that weren’t being told in the mainstream press”, published Mr. Seah’s highly misinformed and irresponsibly misleading article. Subsequently replies in the form of comments came quick and furious on the website from both sensible people who are versed in the scientific process and those who are blind supporters of unproven, baseless and potentially dangerous therapies.
Mr. Seah and Mr. Yeo were first challenged to produce research to support their claims for their alternative therapies. Mr. Seah responded that anyone interested should visit their website which covers “studies” on chelation, probiotics, vitamin B12, HBOT, neurofeedback and chelation therapies. Some of which are published by Mark Geier, of the Mercury-Vaccine-Autism link fame.
A fellow commenter, hansolo had the patience to peruse through the references but found them lacking, details of which are found on the original post. Leng Hiong of Freshbrainz together with Angrydoc roundly disproved all of the claims, from why anecdotal evidence cannot be used to providing specifically why the few studies quoted were either of flawed experimental design or just randomly quoted to support a flawed treatment modality.
What follows is highly indicative of the typical CAM-monger. Mr. Seah and Mr. Yeo, out of excuses, vanished and relinquished the right of reply they have so desperately sought and out of nowhere, various commenters such as “Energetic Believer” and “Just a mom of 2” started appearing to support Mr. Seah and Mr. Yeo with anecdotal evidence and verbal support.
This whole incident is highly unfortunate for several reasons.
Firstly, it is very sad that people like Mr. Seah and Mr. Yeo are unable to read and assess the evidence available. They not only dismiss the scientific method, like CAMongers around the globe, they also attempt to make a mockery out of the educated audience by postulating deceiving and misleading information vaguely disguised as evidence.
Secondly, Mr. Seah who proclaims that he deserves a right to reply simply gives it up upon facing opposition to his lofty ideas about treatment modalities for Autism. This is not the kind of engagement befitting of neither someone who has strong beliefs in his methods nor someone who rails at the mainstream media for not publishing his preposterous claims. This is a disappointing reversal of his indignant stand which he took at the start of his article.
Thirdly, whilst the intention of TheOnlineCitizen to give air to views that are rejected by the mainstream media, it has not acted responsibly in helping its readers filter out potentially dangerous content, such as the information published by Mr. Seah. While it is fortunate that there are many responsible people who take time to respond to the article, people who are desperate for treatment who happen to stumble upon the article may be tempted to try out Mr. Seah’s dangerous suggestions without reading the comments below. If a website wishes to join the ranks of a responsible and reliable media outlet, it must be able to filter objectively the positively flawed and misrepresented views, especially in the scientific arena where a competent science editor would be a useful addition to the theme. Otherwise, it is most prudent that if the website does not have the expertise to evaluate such content, it should refrain from publishing such material.
Lastly, the publication of such a letter marks the start of the spread of pseudoscientific beliefs here in Singapore, a place which has been relatively sheltered from the onslaught of pseudoscience.
Oh well, at least there is Clearthought around to help dispel such pseudoscience and promote rational thinking but for how long to what extent we are able to rally enough supporters and people to join Clearthought to counter such pseudoscience remains to be seen.
Reading all the things I’ve been wanting to read but didn’t have the time to.