A visitor from outer space might be forgiven for concluding that the most important part of the human body is the foreskin. It is, after all, the only part of the body that has multiple organizations devoted to its preservation in the natural state. The visitor might get the impression that the choice of circumcision is a fateful choice with profound implications for the rest of life. Therefore, it would probably come as a shock to our visitor to learn that circumcision is a religious, cosmetic and medical decision with essentially no impact beyond the benefit of reducing the risk of transmission of serious sexually transmitted diseases including AIDS.

That’s why it would be extraordinarily difficult to find a logical explanation for the anti-circ community’s involvement in a vicious divorce case, beyond a cynical attempt to hold a child hostage in an effort to drum up publicity for themselves.

As Mark Joseph Stern explains in Circumcision Armageddon:

Heather Hironimus and Dennis Nebus are fixated on their son’s foreskin. It is an obsession that has bound them together long beyond the end of their relationship. Nebus believes their 4 1/2-year-old son, Chase Ryan Nebus-Hironimus, should be circumcised for medical reasons. Hironimus believes circumcision is barbaric genital mutilation. Nebus has gone to court to get his son circumcised. Hironimus has gone to jail to prevent it. Their dispute is easily the weirdest, saddest, most disturbing battle yet in the war over circumcision.

It is profoundly disturbing on a number of different levels. First, that a mother, any mother would deprive a child of a needed medical procedure, using her child in a battle to wound a hated ex-spouse. Second, it is disturbing that an activist group would insert themselves into a bitter divorce. Third, it is disturbing that an anti-circumcision organization would acknowledge that it doesn’t merely oppose circumcision for religious or cosmetic reason, but it actually opposed circumcision for medical reasons.

Why is this an issue, let alone an issue that has drawn in outsiders:

…As part of their separation, both Hironimus and Nebus signed a formal “parenting plan” approved by a judge. One portion of this plan specified that Nebus would take Chase to be circumcised and cover the costs. At the time, Hironimus agreed to this stipulation.

Nebus put off the circumcision until December of 2013—when he saw Chase, then 3, urinating on his leg. A pediatrician suggested Chase’s foreskin was too tight and should be removed. Later, a urologist questioned that diagnosis, but agreed that Chase would benefit generally from a circumcision. When Nebus informed Hironimus of the impending procedure, however, Hironimus balked. Since signing the parenting plan two years earlier, Hironimus had become an intactivist—an anti-circumcision activist who believes the removal of a child’s foreskin constitutes child abuse and a human rights violation.

And what about those outsiders?

How did a local parenting dispute become the stuff of tabloid headlines? The answer lies in the tenacious community of intactivists who seized upon Hironimus’ plight as both a crusade and a publicity stunt. A group that calls itself Chase’s Guardians has sponsored a legal fund for Hironimus … They have quietly spread anti-circumcision literature throughout local libraries and strange, graphic, scaremongering memes across the Internet…

I reached out to the person who runs the Chase’s Guardians Facebook page, hoping to interview him for this story. He promptly sent back a link to a retort to my 2013 article on intactivists and wrote: “Sorry about your semi-functional penis remnant Marky.”

In other words, the Chase’s Guardians couldn’t care less about Chase and his medical issues. They are committed to what they believe to be the inherent sanctity of the intact penis no matter who is hurt in the process even if it is the owner of the foreskin in question. And therefore, they inserted themselves into a vicious parenting dispute, a dispute that cannot benefit Chase in any way.

The real issue here is two parents who despise each other using the body of their son to fight their battles. According to an AP story on the CBS News website:

Hironimus and her 4-year-old-son’s father, Dennis Nebus, have been warring for years over whether to have the boy’s foreskin removed. She initially agreed in a parenting agreement filed in court, then changed her mind, giving way to a long legal fight. Circuit and appellate judges have sided with the father.

With her legal options dwindling, Hironimus went missing in February, and ignored a judge’s order that she appear in court and give her consent for the surgery to be performed. A warrant was issued, but she wasn’t located until May 14 at a Broward County shelter where she was staying with her son.

Brought before Judge Jeffrey Gillen on Friday, Hironimus again declined to sign a consent form for the surgery, and she was advised she would remain jailed indefinitely. After the hearing recessed and she reconsidered, she reluctantly agreed to sign, sobbing as she put pen to paper.

That, of course, is not the end of it:

The woman’s mother, Mary Hironimus, said “intactivists” – anti-circumcision activists – planned to reach out to doctors around the country to urge them not to perform the circumcision.

Georganne Chapin, executive director of Intact America, which advocates against circumcision, said the images of a distraught Heather Hironimus signing the form to allow the surgery show how she was “bullied” into it and that she doesn’t truly give her consent.

“If anyone finds out the circumstances under which she signed, a doctor would be insane to carry out that surgery,” she said.

But the issue here is not, and has never been, parental consent. The issue is whether a circumcision has medical benefits for this specific child, benefits that outweigh the risk of performing the surgery on a child, risks that are greater than when he was a newborn. And that question can only be answered by medical professionals, not by a band of self-appointed foreskin fetishists whose cynicism is exceeded only by their self-absorption.

The Duggars are hypocrites.

I’m referring of course the extraordinarily fecund fundamentalist family who starred in the TLC reality TV show 19 Kids and Counting, and leveraged their fame to conduct an ongoing political hate campaign against those whose sexuality differs from theirs.

This is hardly a new development. I’ve always enjoyed the irony of a family that claimed to follow the prophet whose message was “let he who has not sinned cast the first stone” figuratively stoning just about everyone in sight.

The revelation that as a teenager their eldest son Josh Duggar sexually molested young girls including his sisters shines a harsh light on that hypocrisy. We have learned that a family of “faith” chose to protect one of their own children from punishment for a crime, repeatedly exposed their other children to the criminal, and violated the law. I have a certain amount of sympathy for them; it must be agonizing to learn that one of your children is molesting another and they would hardly be the first family who struggled to do the right thing or even figure out what is the right thing to do.

It seems to me, though, that the lesson here is not the trivial lesson that the most righteous are often hypocrites, or even the lesson that Duggar partisans prefer, that everyone is a sinner. The lesson here is one that has profound implications for American society: religious fundamentalism’s campaign to conflate sexuality and sinfulness is not merely a spectacular failure in its execution, but it is profoundly morally and ethically wrong.

The Duggars restrictive lifestyle, as well as their political efforts, are based on two assumptions that have been smashed. Their first assumption is that there is a “correct” sexuality and that those who have a different sexuality are sinners. The second assumption is that sexual sinners were led to their sin by a permissive culture; hence the cult like effort to isolate their children from the wider world and condemn them (particularly the girls and women) to a repressive, regressive and profoundly sexist existence.

But the truth, which the Duggars will probably never acknowledge, is that sexuality is an innate human need like hunger, the need for sleep or the need to eliminate waste. Human beings can no more control their sexual orientation or identity than they control their hunger in the absence of food. It has absolutely, positively nothing to do with culture. Culture doesn’t cause it and culture can’t prevent it. Society should not be involved in or concerned with the expression of a person’s sexual identity or urges UNLESS, and ONLY UNLESS other people are hurt by the expression of those urges.

Gay marriage and transgender individuals harm no one. Sexual molestation, in contrast, has real victims who are profoundly harmed. That’s why society has a legitimate interest in preventing and treating molesters, but it has no legitimate interest in preventing gay marriage or “treating” homosexuality.

It’s difficult to imagine that any family could have outdone the Duggars in creating a repressive regime, conflating sexuality with sinfulness, with the express purpose of isolating their children from modern culture. Despite that, their eldest son didn’t merely develop aberrant urges, but he actually acted upon them. That’s because contrary to the beliefs of religious fundamentalists, culture doesn’t cause sexual deviation, and isolation from the larger culture doesn’t do anything to prevent it.

Sexual identity, orientation and urges are purely personal, the result of genetics and personal experience. All are innate to that individual. Gay people are not gay because they are sinners; they are gay because they are born that way, and there’s nothing sinful about it.

If God doesn’t create junk, then gay people are not junk. They are no more able to change their identity and orientation than they are able to change their foot size. Laws that criminalize gay sex or gay marriage are as senseless and cruel as laws that would criminalize large feet. So why do fundamentalists persist in ascribing sexuality to sin in the larger culture? Because it satisfies another human need, the need to hate those who are different.

Religion is first and foremost about social cohesion and there’s nothing that is more likely to generate social cohesion within a group than hatred of others that is both shared and sanctified by the group. Religious fundamentalists love to hate those whose sexuality is different than theirs, and to justify that hate they insist that sexual orientation is controllable, and inherently sinful if it is different than the norm.

Apparently, the Duggars chose to approach Josh’s sexual molestation of others by viewing him as afflicted with sin in the same way that he might be afflicted with pneumonia. They chose to “treat” it with prayer and hard work, just as they might choose to treat pneumonia with antibiotics. They wouldn’t, indeed they couldn’t see that the real problem was that he expressed his sexuality in ways that hurt others, that his sexual urges might reflect the fact that he had been molested or had other psychological problems, and that both he and the girls he molested needed psychological therapy as well as access to the criminal justice system.

To acknowledge that would have meant to acknowledge that sexuality has nothing to do with inherent sinfulness or modern culture.

But then whom would they hate?

Another day, another piece of lacto-porn, another super-model kidding herself that she’s “normalizing” breastfeeding.

Nicole Trunfio, commenting on the above cover photo for Australian Elle Magazine, tells E! Online:

“There is nothing more powerful and beautiful than motherhood. The last thing I want to do is be controversial, so please take this for what it is, let us #normalizebreastfeeding there is nothing worse than a mother that is judged for feeding her hungry child in public,” she writes.

“#weareonlyhuman I’m so proud of this cover and for what it’s stands for. I obviously don’t look like this while I am breastfeeding but this stands for all women out there, whether you breastfeed or not, we gave birth, we are women, we are mothers. Thank you to ELLE for being so bold and making such an encouraging, positive and healthy statement.

Sure Nicole, just like this photo normalizes vaccines:

And like this photo normalizes policewomen:

We recognize these photos as pornography and Trunfio’s cover photo resembles them in all the details: exposure of breasts, come hither look, sexy outfit. The only difference is the props. Instead of using a hypodermic or crime tape as a prop, Trunfio uses her son.

Some commentors are thrilled.

According to Alessandra Dubin at Today.com Style:

Model Nicole Trunfio graces the June cover of Elle Australia, in a photo shot by Georges Antoni, in which she nurses her 4-month-old son. The model and first-time mom wears an open suede coat while her babe, Zion, is in the buff.

In addition to making a gorgeous image, it also makes a powerful statement, given the uniqueness of such a scene on a highly visible piece of media.

Sara Bliss, writing for Yahoo Beauty says:

The image has struck a cord on social media, with the hashtag #normalizebreastfeeding taking off. It’s especially powerful at a time when women publicly breastfeeding their children is sometimes seen as something that should be hidden away. Trunfio looks radiant, happy, relaxed. The image captures a beautiful, everyday motherhood moment (except of course the ultra-glamorous aspect, breastfeeding can be painful, exhausting, and messy).

I disagree that it normalizes breastfeeding. It does exactly what those who promote breastfeeding should be trying to avoid. It sexualizes breastfeeding instead of portraying it as what it is: a mother nourishing her child with no effort to titillate (the use of the word is not coincidental) the others around her.

If we want to normalize breastfeeding, we shouldn’t be making breastfeeding pornography. Yes, it sells magazines, and it undoubtedly gets people talking, but it hardly sending the message that should be sent:

Babies need to eat; mothers need to feed them; and they should be able to do so publicly without being harassed by sexual prudes.

If we want to normalize breastfeeding, we shouldn’t be posting lacto-porn on magazine covers. We should be providing every woman with the opportunity to breastfeed wherever and whenever her baby needs to be fed.

Using breasts to sell magazines doesn’t normalize breastfeeding; it normalizes the sexism of using breasts to sell magazines.

Forget organic vegetables. Forget raw milk. Scientists have made a revolutionary new discovery of an amazing miracle cure: raw communication!

That’s right, folks, raw communication reduces death rates from cancer, heart disease, immune disorders and pregnancy! But wait, there’s more! Raw communication prevents pertussis, measles and a host of other diseases! And — this is the best part — it even prevents autism!

What is raw communication?

According to Professor Cy N. Tist, raw communication is communication as nature intended.

Tist explains that human beings were designed to communicate by speech, face to face. Communication over long distances, especially using technology is unnatural and demonstrably dangerous.

The chief health risks come from blogs, Facebook pages and message boards, 3 profoundly unnatural ways to receive information. The technology itself is implicated with easy access to computers, hand held devices and wi-fi being the biggest risk factors. Studies show that diseases like autism have increased dramatically, in direct proportion to the equally dramatic increase in alternative health bloggers.

Don’t believe me? Check out the three graphs below:

In each case — autism caused by vaccines, pertussis and homebirth deaths — the incidence of the health complication rises in direct correlation with the number of alternative health blogs found on the internet.

If that isn’t proof, I don’t know what is!

Prof. Tist has shown that both producers and consumers of artificial communication are harmed. That’s a critical point. Not only do those who blog, message and Facebook post about alternative health experience an increase in these diseases, but those who read the blogs, messages and Facebook posts do too.

Big Business knows all about the close association between artificial communication and deadly health problems, but they profit from charging huge fees for internet access so there’s no way they will be honest about the connection. Think of the amount of money they would lose if consumers of alternative health learned about the dangers of blogs, message boards, and Facebook posts. It’s hardly surprising that Big Business does not want you to know about the benefits of raw communication.

But you don’t have to be one of the unfortunate sheeple who get their health information from artificial communication.

Here’s an example:

How should you decide whether to vaccinate your children?

You could rely on alternative health bloggers and B-movie starlets like Jenny McCarthy, but that’s artificial communication and leads to an increase in cases of pertussis, measles and other vaccine preventable illness. OR, you could engage in raw communication, direct face to face communication with a doctor. It’s pretty obvious that raw communication is far safer than highly processed, high tech internet communication.

If you want to see a dramatic increase in your health and longevity, resolve to consume only raw communication. Raw communication is 100% natural, from their lips to your ears communication. Of course, if you need to communicate over long distances, you can shout or, for really long distances you can use a low tech alternative: two paper cups connected by a string.

Try raw communication for one month. You will save hundreds of dollars on internet fees, computers and mobile devices AND your health will improve.

Forget homeopathy. Forget chiropractic. Switch to all natural raw communication and start improving your health today!

They say that everything old is new again and that is certainly true in the world of alternative health. One of the axiomatic premises of contemporary alternative health puts its believers behind the times … by approximately 500 years.

A fundamental premise held by believers in alternative health is that we are swimming in a world of toxins and those toxins are causing disease. Like most premises in alternative health it has no basis in scientific fact; makes intuitive sense only if you are ignorant of medicine, science and statistics; and speaks to primitive fears and impulses.

The preoccupation with “toxins” is a direct lineal descendant of the obsession with evil humours and miasmas as causes of disease. It is hardly surprising that prior to the invention of the microscope the real causes of disease went undiscovered. The idea that disease is caused by tiny organisms that invade the body is not amenable to discovery in the absence of scientific instruments and scientific reasoning. And it goes without saying that the same people who were unaware that bacteria and viruses cause disease could not possibly imagine chromosomal defects, inborn errors of metabolism or genetic predispositions to disease.

Instead, people imagined that diseases were caused by excess evil humours, substances that were named, but never seen or identified in any way accessible to the senses. It was recognized that some diseases were contagious, and in that case, people invoked the idea of “miasmas” that somehow transmitted disease.

Even religion got into the act. Rather than attributing disease to evil humors of miasmas, religious authorities often claimed that disease was attributable to evil demons or to sin itself.

These theories shared several important features. The evil humours, miasmas, etc. were invisible, but all around us. They constantly threatened people, and those people had no way of fending off the threat. Indeed, they were often completely unaware of the threat that was actively harming them.

Evil humours, miasmas, demons, etc. were put to rest by the germ theory of disease. That was the first big breakthrough in our understanding that each disease was separate and has its own specific cause. The search for causes has taken us beyond bacteria and viruses, through errors of metabolism and chromosomal aberrations, right down to the level of the gene itself. We now understand that tiny defects in individual genes can cause disease or can increase the propensity to a specific disease.

But fear and superstition never die and the alternative health community has used that fear and superstition to resurrected primitive beliefs. It is axiomatic in the alternative health community that disease is caused by evil humours and miasmas. They just don’t call it that anymore; they call it “toxins.”

Toxins serve the same explanatory purpose as evil humours and miasmas. They are invisible, but all around us. They constantly threaten people, often people who unaware of their very existence. They are no longer viewed as evil in themselves, but it is axiomatic that they have be released into our environment by “evil” corporations.

There’s just one problem. “Toxins” are a figment of the imagination, in the exact same way that evil humours and miasmas were figments of the imagination.

Poisons exist, of course, but their existence is hardly a secret, and their actions are well known. Most poisons are naturally based, derived from plants or animals. Indeed, the chemicals responsible for more diseases than any others are nicotine (tobacco), alcohol (yeast) and opiates (poppies).

Nonetheless, alternative health advocates persist in subscribing to primitive theories of disease. For those who have limited understanding of science, primitive theories apparently make more sense.

Hence the obsession with “toxins” in foods, in vaccines, even “toxins” arising in the body itself. The height of idiocy is the belief in “detoxifying” diets and colon cleansing. The human body does not produce “toxins.” That’s just a superstition of the alternative health community. The waste products produced by the human body are easily metabolized by organs such as the liver, and excreted by organs specifically evolved for that purpose such as the kidneys and liver.

Alternative health practitioners are nothing more than quacks and charlatans and their “remedies” are nothing more than snake oil. The fact that anyone in this day and age still believes in such crackpot theories is a tribute to the power of ignorance and superstition.

Evil humours and miasmas have not died, they’ve simply been reincarnated as “toxins.”

Adapted from a piece that first appeared in August 2009.

What if I told you that if an individual fish hatching from one of a billion eggs in the ocean simply ate right, exercised and practiced situational awareness, he or she could reliably live out a full natural lifespan?

You’d laugh, right?

You’d laugh because fish, like every living thing — animal, plant or protist — is subject to complex forces over which it has no control. It is subject to the whims of genetics, the results of mutations, the appetites of the other fish around it, the weather, the list is nearly endless. The idea that eating right and exercising, or any other simple plan, could ensure a long life free of disease or disability for a fish is nothing short of absurd.

It’s nothing short of absurd for human beings, too. That’s because they are subject to the same forces as all other living things. That’s why you should beware anyone who offers simple solutions to living out a natural lifespan. Human health is extremely complex, because human beings are extremely complex, and any simple solutions are reliably guaranteed to be wrong.

True, human beings have technology that can keep us from being prey for wild animals, can protect us in large part from freezing to death, and in first world countries our luck and technology protect us from starving to death. Our technology protects us from those central realities of the life of our ancient and not so ancient ancestors. We even have antibiotics that can keep us from being prey to wild bacteria and viruses, anesthesia and surgery that can keep us from being felled by routine internal failings like appendicitis, and the preventive technology of modern obstetrics that can reduce the naturally high death toll of childbirth. But although technology, through routine use has come to be seen as simple, it is quite complex in reality.

That’s why any time anyone offers you a simple solution for staying healthy and living out a full natural lifespan, you should run in the opposite direction. They may mean well; they may believe (desperately!) what they are saying, but they are inevitably wrong.

Eating right (“nutrition”) is the key to long life, safe childbirth, and freedom from viral and bacterial disease? If only! It can no more guarantee long healthy life to us than to a fish.

Popping vitamins and supplements, boosting your microbiome, avoiding GMOs and non-organic food is the key to long life, safe childbirth and freedom from viral and bacterial disease? If only. Those things can no more guarntee long healthy life to us than to a fish.

Essential oils, cranio-sacral therapy and homeopathy is the key to long life, safe childbirth and freedom from viral and bacterial disease? If only. Those things can no more guarntee long healthy life to us than to a fish.

Why? Because we, like fish, and all living things, are products of evolution and evolution leads to the survival of the fittest, NOT the survival of everyone.

In contrast, the central conceit of all pseudoscientific health movements, from anti-vax to homebirth, from organic food to demonizing sugar, from restriction diets to essential oils, from raw milk to fear of GMOs, is the belief that everyone who is currently alive is perfectly adapted to avoid all health dangers and live to be 80 or older.

The sad, incontrovertible, unavoidable truth is that we are not perfectly adapted for our current environment or for ANY environment. There is literally no such thing as a living thing that is perfectly adapted, and, in any case, there is no such thing as an environment that is static. The environment is constantly changing offering better or worse odds of survival depending on the organism’s genetic legacy.

So why do people persist in believing that there are simple ways to guarantee health? For the exact same reason they continue to believe in life after death; because the alternative is too scary. Just as it is too frightening to contemplate our demise, it is too frightening to contemplate that we are subject to the vagaries of genetics, bacterial and viral predation, and simple bad luck.

The fish swimming amid the school who ends up eaten by the predator could not have averted his fate by eating better, exercising more, gobbling supplements, using essential oils or getting “adjusted” by a cranio-sacral therapist. He got eaten because he wasn’t the fittest fish in the school.

Similarly, the human being who dies in childbirth, gets cancer or succumbs to tetanus could not have averted his fate by eating better, exercising more, gobbling supplements, using essential oils or getting “adjusted” by a cranio-sacral therapist. Those things happened because he or she wasn’t the fittest individual in the specific situation in which he or she ended up.

The reason people are diseased, disabled or die prematurely is not because we have used technology to fool and anger Mother Nature and we can eat and exercise our way back. The real reason is we are living things subject to the same evolutionary laws as every other animal, plant or protist. We can’t all be the fittest and even those who are the fittest in one environment can turn out to be unfit in a different environment.

Yes, complex, sophisticated technology can and does avert the evolutionary decree, but simple solutions are utterly useless. Indeed simple solutions may be worse than useless, since their very ease and simplicity can fool us into rejecting the highly technological measures that actually work.

Alternative health is nothing more than glorified wishful thinking and it has as much chance of preventing disease, saving your life or guaranteeing a full lifespan for you as it does for a fish; none at all. Beware of those who claim that there is an easy way to avoid disease disability and death. They are lying to themselves first and foremost, and therefore they are lying to you.

Wife bonuses? Really?

That was my thought after reading Wednesday Martin’s brilliant New York Times plug, Poor Little Rich Women, for her forthcoming book, Primates of Park Avenue.

And then there were the wife bonuses.

I was thunderstruck when I heard mention of a “bonus” over coffee. Later I overheard someone who didn’t work say she would buy a table at an event once her bonus was set. A woman with a business degree but no job mentioned waiting for her “year-end” to shop for clothing. Further probing revealed that the annual wife bonus was not an uncommon practice in this tribe.

A wife bonus, I was told, might be hammered out in a pre-nup or post-nup, and distributed on the basis of not only how well her husband’s fund had done but her own performance — how well she managed the home budget, whether the kids got into a “good” school — the same way their husbands were rewarded at investment banks…

I initially read the piece with the clinical interest of someone who also has a forthcoming book and will be publicizing it in the months ahead. My first thought was that Martin had stumbled upon and skillfully exploited publicity gold; could there be anything more fraught then the idea of paying sophisticated, highly educated, wealthy stay at home mothers a wife bonus for services rendered? Sure enough, today’s papers and blogs are filled with commentary on wife bonuses, and, therefore, even more publicity for Martin and her book.

There’s just one problem. I can’t find any evidence that Martin’s claim is real.

I happen to be a member of the demographic that Martin is describing, women with advanced degrees who stay home while their husbands are remunerated at high powered jobs. Admittedly I’ve never lived on Park Avenue, nor do I hobnob with the ultra-rich, but I’m acquainted with bankers and fund managers and I’ve never heard of a wife bonus or anything that could be construed as a wife bonus.

Apparently no one else has ever heard of wife bonuses, either. I can’t find any reference to them on the internet prior to 48 hours ago. According to Danielle Pacquette of The Washington Post Wonk Blog notes that there is no credible research or data that supports the existence of wife bonuses:

The wealthiest couples often foster staggeringly unequal partnerships, said Jacqueline Newman, managing partner at Berkman, Bottger, Newman & Rodd…

The “Wall Street wives,” as Newman calls them, have prenuptial agreements that ensure, say, generous bank accounts funded for living expenses. But they’ve never mentioned a wife bonus, or any contractual reward for the domestic achievements Martin describes.

“The clients I have would be thoroughly offended by that phrase,” Newman said. “They pour so much work into raising their families. They’re in charge of managing the household, all the players involved. Often their husbands travel and don’t want them to work.”

And:

Raoul Lionel Felder, a divorce attorney who has practiced in New York for 50 years … has never encountered a legal version of the wife bonus — and, he said,”Upper East Side women are a specialty.”

Moreover, this is not the first difficult to prove publicity bombshell that Martin has dropped while promoting her book. Back in August 2013, Martin claimed that the wealthy families that she was studying hired disabled people as tour guides to help them cut the famously long lines at Disney World.

insider knowledge that very few have and share carefully,” said social anthropologist Dr. Wednesday Martin, who caught wind of the underground network while doing research for her upcoming book “Primates of Park Avenue.”

“Who wants a speed pass when you can use your black-market handicapped guide to circumvent the lines all together?” she said.

“So when you’re doing it, you’re affirming that you are one of the privileged insiders who has and shares this information.”

Other news outlets found ads on Craigslist for disabled people offering to accompany families to help them cut the lines, but most were freelancers charging far less than the $1000/day claimed by Martin. Moreover, answering ads on Craiglist hardly marks anyone as an insider, let alone a privileged insider as Martin described.

How curious that Martin has claimed to discover not one, but two separate publicity bombshells that aren’t confirmed by other evidence.

I’m a cynical person. I can believe just about anything, including the existence of wife bonuses IF someone presents real evidence, not what they supposedly observed among anonymous friends. Without actual evidence, and no one seems to have any, my cynicism leads me to suspect that Martin may made it up to sell books.

The discussion we should be having is not about wife bonuses among the wealthy, since they don’t exist, but about real and pressing inequities in relationships of everyone else. The real problem is that women who work don’t get paid the same as men who work, not that extraordinarily wealthy women who don’t work might (or might not) get a bonus for staying home.

Extraordinarily wealthy women who stay home are not “poor little rich women,” no matter how many books Martin might sell by pretending they are.

I wrote yesterday that I am thrilled to be on the Anti-Vax Enemies List, but proud as I am, the truth is that I am far more thrilled that the list exists in the first place.

We can learn so much from it!

The most important thing about the list is not the identities of the people on it, but the mere fact that it exists. Its existence, its size, and its uses tell us a great deal about the vulnerabilities not merely of the anti-vax movement, but of all pseudoscience movements. By understanding those vulnerabilities we can be ever more effective in marginalizing, ridiculing and ultimately destroying those movements.

Simply put, the Anti-Vax Enemies List is a sign of weakness, not of strength.

How? Let me count the ways:

1. An enemies list is an implicit acknowledgement that the facts are not on their side.

When you know that you have scientific evidence in your corner, as everyone fighting pseudoscience does, from the luminaries down to individual bloggers, you need not worry about enemies since they are powerless to change the scientific evidence. They can lie about it, suppress it, and deny it but those are always failing strategies. The truth inevitably rises up to bite them.

When you are promoting lies, those who know the truth are naturally your enemies. Those who know the scientific evidence about vaccination don’t just demonstrate that anti-vaxxers are wrong, they humiliate them by pointing out their ignorance, illogical arguments, and, most devastatingly, their vastly overinflated egos. Those who know the scientific evidence about childbirth don’t just demonstrate that homebirth advocates (like Modern Alternative Mama Katie Tietje) are wrong, they humiliate them by pointing out their ignorance, illogical arguments, and, most devastatingly, their vastly overinflated egos. Those who know the scientific evidence about nutrtion and toxicology don’t just demonstrate that food-fools like Vani Hari (Food Babe) are wrong, they humiliate them by pointing out their ignorance, illogical arguments, and, most devastatingly, their vastly overinflated egos.

2. The size of the Anti-Vax Enemies List (30,000 names!) starkly reflects the weakness of the anti-vax movement.

For anti-vaxxers to assemble a list of 30,000 “enemies” means that the number of those arguing against pseudoscience dwarfs the number of those promoting pseudoscience. As others have noted, it would have taken far less time for the anti-vax crowd to assemble a list of their friends. There really aren’t that many “friends” of consequence.

The anti-vax crowd is in retreat. Reality has dealt them devastating blows, from the resurgence of diseases like pertussis and measles, to the willingness of legislatures like that in California to force them to pay a price for clinging to ignorance.

3. The purpose of the Anti-Vax Enemies List is perhaps the most revealing vulnerability of all.

The purpose of the list is to preemptively exclude list members from the echo chambers that are so vital to the propagation of pseudoscience. The information that the 30,000 list members post on Facebook, blogs and message boards is so incredibly compelling that banning it within moments does not fully obliterate its harm to anti-vax beliefs. Even the briefest exposure to scientific evidence fills anti-vaxxers with doubt. That ability to induce doubt of anti-vax propaganda is even more powerful among those who are in the process of being recruited by the anti-vax movement.

Anti-vaxxers, like most purveyors of pseudoscience, recognize that their most powerful weapon is the echo chambers that they create. Only by tricking each other into believing that they represent the majority can they sustain their nonsensical beliefs. Even the briefest intrusion of actual scientific evidence or logical argument can be fatal to maintaining the fiction that they are anything other than crackpots and conspiracists.

That’s why it is crucial for opponents of pseudoscience to breach those echo chambers and introduce truth and logic. Anti-vax, like all of pseudoscience, is rotten, weak and crumbling at its core. Its continued existence depends on hiding the rot within groups of ideologically committed believers. Even the brief entry of a single individual wielding the truth can be fatal to the group’s legitimacy. No one understands that better than the anti-vaxxers themselves. That’s why a list is needed; waiting to ban and delete the truth after it is written is too late. It must be banned preemptively.

It is equally critical for the opponents of pseudoscience to create alternative Facebook pages, blogs and message boards that don’t simply offer actual scientific evidence, but also host open debate of the issues. Open discussions, where anyone can post any information and argue about it with others, sends a powerful message to those flirting with pseudoscience, whether it is anti-vax pseudoscience, homebirth pseudoscience or any other variety: proponents of science and logic have nothing to fear because the truth is on their side. In contrast, proponents of pseudoscience are deeply afraid because they recognize, at a most fundamental level, that the truth undermines their cherished beliefs.

Those who wield the ban hammer (you know who you are!) may feel a temporary frisson of power by obliterating the truth from your Facebook pages, blogs and message boards, but you’ve actually advertised the weakness at the heart of your beliefs. You are acknowledging that those beliefs are so fragile that even the merest wisp of scientific evidence can overpower them.

I’m thrilled that the Anti-Vax movement has drawn up an Enemies List. I’m even more thrilled that it won’t help them in the least.

You hate me! You really hate me!

I stand before you honored and deeply humbled that you have chosen to recognize my contributions to the world of science advocacy. It’s difficult to imagine a more meaningful affirmation of my body of writing than to find myself named to the Anti-Vax Enemies List.

It is such an honor because it shows that you really fear me, and you should. But this is not my victory alone. There are so many I must thank for without them I would never have reached this glorious day.

I’d like to thank my parents for valuing learning and condemning superstition and conspiracy theories. My parents did not have the luxury of an advanced education (my father was the first in his family to attend college, and he did so at night while he worked full time during the day to provide for his family). My parents showed me that education is the key to successfully avoiding the profound ignorance that is the bedrock of anti-vax advocacy.

I’d like to thank my teachers, from kindergarten on up through college and medical school. They truly gave me the world when they gave me basic knowledge of science, math and logical thinking. So many anti-vaxxers never received that and it is frightfully obvious.

Thank you to my college thesis adviser who let me work in his lab at the Shriner’s Burn Institute in Boston and taught me both how to conduct research and how to read and analyze the scientific literature.

Thank you to my science heroes whose example motivated me and my anti-pseudoscience heroes who showed me how to use the internet and social media to combat the ignorance, conspiracy theories, and unmerited sense of superiority so beloved of anti-vaxxers

My deepest thanks, though, belong the the patients that I had the privilege to care for. Sadly, while saving many lives, I saw first hand how belief in pseudoscience can kill people; ironically it killed people who turned to it because they desperately wanted to live.

And finally, I must thank the anti-vaxxers who created the list of 30,000 individuals who threaten the echo chambers that are critical to the dissemination of the collective paranoia and idiocy of the anti-vax brigade. Anti-vaxxers have created an alternative world of internal legitimacy complete with “experts,” books and products. It is a dark and deadly world deeply threatened by the sunlight of science and rational argument; hence the need for an enemies list in the first place.

Real science values open discussion as a critical component of scientific literacy; quacks, cranks and charlatans are afraid of open discussion and well they should be. When subject to science based, logical open discussion, anti-vax claims wither and anti-vaxxers are exposed as the fools that they are.

I am pleased, proud, and honored by their fear. I am thrilled to be recognized as an Anti-Vax Enemy and I pledge that going forward I will do everything possible to merit that distinction.

I admit I was wrong. I thought Sarah Pope, whose nom de quack is The Healthy Home Economist, had reached the apogee of idiocy with her advice to lie to your child’s pediatrician about raw milk. But Pope has now outdone her previous efforts in her new piece Toxic Effects of Water Birth on Mom and Baby. Strap on your tin foil hat and prepare for a hilarious ride.

What’s the problem with waterbirth? According to Pope:

A concern rarely if ever mentioned about water birth is the significant chlorine exposure that both mother and baby experience during the labor and delivery process. Many mothers who are careful to filter their drinking water during pregnancy to remove chlorine and other toxins seem to give little to no thought about soaking for hours in the very same water or giving birth to their precious newborn in it.

Bathing or showering in treated water is known to expose a person to a significant amount of outgassed chlorine that is absorbed via inhalation and the skin.

Really? Says who? Says Joe Mercola, quack shill extraordinaire.

But wait! There’s more:

The most insidious result of exposure to treated water during the water birth process is the adverse effect on gut flora… The compromise to bodily flora comes at a time when baby’s gut needs to be seeded properly with the beneficial microbes that will guard health and bolster immunity for a lifetime. Any beneficial microbes present in Mom’s birth canal will be either weakened, destroyed, or severely damaged by exposure to the chlorinated water by the time baby passes through.

Pope references herself for this claim.

It’s a sobering thought:

Think about it … all that work you have done with your diet for 9 months limiting sugar, consuming fermented foods and taking probiotic supplements to optimally prepare the birth canal for baby’s entrance into the world potentially wiped out by the decision to have a water birth.

And that’s not all:

In addition, exposure of the baby’s skin to the treated water in the birth pool destroys the healthy biofilm on the baby’s skin called the vernix caseosa. The vernix is protective of baby’s delicate skin and has anti-infective and antioxidant properties. It should never be wiped or washed off until it comes off naturally some days after birth.

Moreover, the warm moist air in the delivery room from the birthing tub water is the first air that baby breathes, and it is contaminated with chloroform, disinfection byproducts, and VOCs like trihalomethanes. Not exactly the optimal air to be filling baby’s lungs with at birth, don’t you think?

The horror!

Vernix is not a biofilm, and much of the rest of this is utter nonsense, but who cares about accuracy when fabricating fear-mongering for the gullible? Not Sarah, that’s for sure.

At the risk of gilding the lily, Pope goes all out and adds the real dangers of waterbirth:

… A study in 2004 of the water in a birth pool that had been filtered and thoroughly cleaned found high concentrations of the pathogens E. coli, coliform, staph, and P. aeruginosa.

Just recently, a baby in Texas died from contracting Legionnaires’ Disease from a contaminated birthing pool. The infant was born in a tub full of well water that hadn’t been chemically disinfected and died after 19 days in the hospital…

In addition, a 2004 review of the medical literature found 74 articles and 16 citations of infants who experienced serious complications from water birthing. These included death, drowning, near-drowning, waterborne bacterial infections, cord rupture and fever (11).

What’s going on here? Why has Pope attacked a practice beloved of the alternative birth crowd?

Remember that alternative health is almost entirely reflexive defiance of standard practice and authority figures. It is a testament to the popularity of both waterbirth and midwives that Pope see waterbirth as “standard” practice and views midwives as authority figures.

Moreover, popularity in the alternative health blogosphere depends on finding and railing against ever more ridiculous “risks.” Food Babe complains that there is no pumpkin in pumpkin spice lattes (Duh! It contains pumpkin spice, a mixture of spices typically found in pumpkin pie). And she was horrified to discover that airlines pump less than 100% oxygen into airplane cabins. She was apparently unaware that the air we breathe contains only 21% oxygen. The Health Home Economist is similarly trying to garner attention by making ever more outrageous claims.

Even a clock that is stopped is right twice a day. Coincidentally, she’s correct that waterbirth is dangerous but it has nothing to do with outgassing of chlorine, the microbiome or vernix. The danger is that babies do breathe as their heads emerge and can aspirate fecally contaminated water into their lungs.

In general, when it comes to health advice, Sarah Pope is an ignorant amateur. But when it comes to creating comedy gold from blithering nonsense, Pope is a real pro.