Posts Tagged ‘Michael Fumento’
Michael Fumento Takes on Anti-ADHD Claims
Michael Fumento has a long piece in the February 2, 2003 issue of The New Republic taking on conservatives who have labeled Attention Deficit Disorder and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder as hoaxes.
According to Fumento,
Many conservative writers, myself included, have criticized the growing tendency to pathologize every undesirable behavior — especially where children are concerned. But, when it comes to ADHD, this skepticism is misplaced. As even a cursory examination of the existing literature or, for that matter, simply talking to the parents and children with ADHD reveals, the condition is real, and it is treatable.
Fumento debunks several myths about ADHD that have appeared in conservative publications, including Francis Fukuyama’s bizarre claim that Prozac is being used to create a more androgynous society, and the nonsense that children on Ritalin and other drugs are “zombies.”
One thing Fumento doesn’t mention in his survey of conservative opinion, is that there is plenty of pseudoscience to go around among people who accept the ADD/ADHD diagnosis. For example, despite any scientific evidence that it actually works, many folks swear up and down by special diets which eliminate sugar or food dyes or any of a number of “food additives of the month.”
Source:
Trick Question: A Liberal Hoax Turns Out to Be True. Michael Fumento, The New Republic, February 2, 2003.
Tags: Michael Fumento
Michael Fumento on the Atkins Diet Study
Michael Fumento has an interesting analysis of the much-publicized Duke University Medical Center study of the Atkins Diet which is being trumpeted as proof that the diet works. The small study of 120 people found that patients on the Atkins Diet both lost more weight and had lower levels of cholesterol and triglycerides. Well, at least the did if you don’t look too closely at the study.
The Atkins Diet, of course, is a high-fat, low-carbohydrate diet that involves eating lots of meat while eschewing carbohydrate-rich foods such as potatoes.
There are a number of problems with the Duke University study that followed two groups of 60 dieters — one group on the Atkins Diet and the other group on a high carbohydrate diet. The biggest one is the extremely high dropout rate among the Atkins Dieters. According to Fumento, fully 43 percent of the group on the Atkins Diet dropped out before completing the six month study, compared to just 25 percent of those on the high carbohydrate diet. As Fumento puts it,
Moreover, it’s generally accepted that drop-out rates anywhere near this level completely invalidate a study because you don’t know how all those drop-outs would have affected the result. Maybe those Atkins dieters were quitting not only because of carbohydrate cravings but also because they weren’t losing weight or losing it fast enough to satisfy them.
As for the decline in cholesterol and triglycerides, Fumento points out that this is likely explained simply by virtue of the fact that those who remained on the Atkins Diet for six months did lose more weight, on average, than those on the high-carbohydrate diet. Weight loss in and of itself seems capable of lowering cholesterol and triglycerides levels.
Interestingly, Fumento cites a study similar to the Duke study that is slated for publication soon. Gary Foster, the University of Pennsylvania research behind that study, tells Fumento that people on the Atkins Diet lose weight for one simple reason: they eat less calories. Foster told Fumento that the Atkins Diet, “gives people a framework to eat fewer calories, since most of the choices in this culture are carbohydrate driven.”
But the high dropout rate of the six month Duke study highlights the question of whether or not people on the Atkins Diet can stick with it (and how do the cholesterol and triglycerides of people on this diet for a long period of time compare to people on high-carbohydrate diets with similar BMIs?)
So far, though, there doesn’t seem to be any evidence that the Atkins Diet has anything to recommend it over a balanced, low calorie diet combined with regular exercise.
Source:
Hold the Lard! The Atkins Diet still doesn’t work. Michael Fumento, Reason, December 5, 2002.
Tags: Michael Fumento
Michael Fumento Skewers Claims about Accutane and Suicide
After 15-year-old Charles Bishop smashed a plane into the 28th floor of a Tampa, Florida building, the news media highlighted the fact that Bishop may have been taking Accutane — a drug prescribed for acne which has been dogged by false claims that it is causally associated with suicide. In a story for Reason, Michael Fumento dispensed with such claims in pretty short order.
The thing about the latest Accutane incident is that an autopsy found that Bishop had no trace at all of Accutane in his system. Of course, although the news media was more than willing to suggest the drug may have caused Bishop to start on his suicidal path, few media outlets could be bothered to follow-up with news that exonerated the drug. The fact that there is no crisis is hardly newsworthy after all.
But the most obvious thing to ask is whether or not Accutane is indeed linked to an excess of suicides. And of course, it is not. Fumento notes that while the suicide rate of the general population is 11.1 suicides per 100,000 people, the suicide rate of those taking Accutane is only 1.8 per 100,000. Or to put it in raw numbers, since 1982 there have been a total of 167 suicides that have been reported to the FDA because the deceased was taking Accutane. In that same period, there were a total of 90,000 suicides in the United States.
Which will not, of course, prevent people from claiming that Accutane caused their child’s suicide, but does show that if the media actually cared about getting at the truth rather than simply promoting sensationalism, the data is out there to debunk the Accutane-suicide link.
Source:
Bumps in the Night: The Accutane story is all scare, and no science. Michael Fumento, Reason, January 23, 2002.
Tags: Michael Fumento