When did "chemical" become a dirty word?

Forty or so years ago, chemistry - which had been recognized as a miracle-making boon to humanity - somehow became associated with warfare, sinister food additives, "toxins" and pollution.

It's a situation that Dr. Joe Schwarcz aims to put into perspective.

Yes, there's a downside to chemistry, he says, but this is dwarfed by its enormous benefits.

Dr. Joe's new collection of commentaries will inspire an appreciation for the science of everyday life, and equip you to spot the muddled thinking, misunderstandings and deceptions in media stories and advertising claims. Does organic food really always equal better food? Are vaccines dangerous? Will the latest health fad make you ill? Do expensive wrinkle creams do the job? What are the best ways to avoid cancer? The answers to such questions often lie in an understanding of the chemistry involved. Ask Dr. Joe.

Science, Sense and Nonsense celebrates chemistry's great achievements, lambastes its charlatans, and explores its essential connections to our wellbeing. And does so in authoritative, highly readable, good humoured style.

 Back to top | e-mail or print this page

A Case for Vaccination
 
AVOID! One of the most common words of advice heard these days. Avoid tap water. Avoid bottled water. Avoid butter. Avoid margarine. Avoid the sun. Avoid sweeteners. Avoid genetically modified foods. Avoid plastic bags. Avoid paper bags. Avoid preservatives. Avoid dairy. Avoid meat. Avoid soy. Avoid— ah, never mind. I could go on and on with a litany of such “avoids.” There are some valid points to be made with some of these, but there is one avoid that I cannot stomach. Advising parents to avoid childhood vaccination is scientifically unjustified and dangerous.
 
Vaccination just may be the most significant medical advance in history. It is difficult to estimate the number of lives saved, but it is in the many millions, to say nothing of the countless number of people who have been spared the misery of mumps, measles, whooping cough and polio. I can vouch for the agony of whooping cough myself. Feeling as if you are going to cough your lungs out is a memory that doesn’t leave you easily. I survived, but one of my classmates in grade two did not. And how often can one say that a disease has been completely wiped off the face of the Earth by a medical intervention? The last case of smallpox was recorded in 1978. The World Health Organization estimates that smallpox killed as many as 500 million people in the twentieth century and that as recently as 1967 it was responsible for two million annual deaths.
 
Other vaccines may not have eradicated diseases, but they have curbed their incidence very significantly. Cases of whooping cough in North America have declined from a pre-vaccination peak rate of about 300,000 per year to 10,000. Measles from a million cases a year to a hundred. Diphtheria and polio are almost nonexistent today in developed countries. The incidence of hepatitis B and tetanus have been reduced by a factor of forty, rubella by two hundred and mumps by four hundred. The effectiveness of immunization is simply beyond argument. How can there be an issue here? How can some parents choose not to vaccinate their children?
 
It really is a conundrum. But the answer likely lies in a growing distrust of the “medical establishment,” a discredited but widely publicized scientific study, inaccurate information being spread on the Internet, and a lack of understanding of the difference between an association and a cause-and-effect relationship. Although we may not think of it in such terms, the decisions we make in life often come down to a risk-benefit analysis. Whether it is flying in airplanes, eating smoked meat, taking cholesterol lowering medication, or vaccination, there are always pluses and minuses to consider. There is no denying that immunization does come with some risk. Rashes, joint pain and fever are well documented, as are occasional lapses in the speed with which safety issues concerning vaccines have been addressed. Oral polio vaccines, which were more convenient to administer than the injected form, were responsible for actually causing the disease in rare cases. Yet some twenty years were allowed to pass before switching back to the safer, injectable form. An infant vaccine against an intestinal infection that struck roughly four million babies a year in North America was found to cause an increase in life-threatening cases of bowel collapse and had to be abandoned. Although there is no scientific evidence linking the mercury-containing preservative thimerosal to any disease, it probably should have been removed from vaccines more speedily when ill effects attributed to mercury in other contexts became apparent.
 
Vaccines, in a sense, are becoming victims of their own success. As memories fade of the horrors of the original diseases that they prevent, more attention is being focused on possible harmful side effects. Indeed, one can judge the progress of society by looking at its worries. Instead of having to be concerned about millions dying from smallpox or coming down with measles or whooping cough, we worry about the possibility of vaccination being linked with some cases of autism. That suggestion was raised in 1998 by a paper published in the British medical journal The Lancet. Andrew Wakefield and twelve colleagues claimed that the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine (MMR) caused a bowel disease that then caused autism.
 
The report received extensive publicity and triggered public demonstrations against mandatory vaccination. Most scientists were skeptical of the Wakefield study, and their skepticism was borne out by the results of an investigation published in 2002 in the New England Journal of Medicine. Danish researchers had examined immunization records and autism diagnoses for all children born between 1991 and 1998 and found that unvaccinated children were just as likely to be diagnosed with autism as those who had received immunizations. The Lancet study was further discredited when it was revealed that Wakefield had failed to disclose he had received a large grant from a group of lawyers who were looking for ammunition in a lawsuit against vaccine manufacturers. In the end, ten of Wakefield’s co-authors retracted their support for the original research, saying that in retrospect the results as reported were not valid.
 
 
Other studies around the world also refuted the link between vaccines and autism, but a vocal group of anti-vaccine advocates maintains that a witch hunt has been organized against Wakefield to protect vaccination interests. Humbug. The fact is that autism commonly shows up at roughly the same age that vaccines are given, and an association can readily be mistaken for a cause-and effect relationship. But even if there really were a link between autism and vaccination, the anti-vaccine movement would still not be justified. The benefits overwhelm the risks.
 
In Britain, the consequences of the vaccine scare are already being seen in rising rates of mumps, rubella and measles. And Britain faces another problem: homeopaths are recommending that tourists travelling to malaria-stricken destinations use homeopathic remedies instead of well-tested prescription prophylaxis. This is ludicrous. Homeopathic products contain no active ingredient of any kind, so it comes as no surprise that a number of travellers have already paid for their folly with their health. Many homeopaths also advise their patients to avoid vaccines in lieu of a cacophony of implausible homeopathic medications. If indeed you are looking for something to avoid, how about this silly and dangerous advice?

 Back to top | e-mail or print this page

Praise for Dr. Joe Schwarcz

"Dr. Schwarcz… has a knack for translating science into a language that anyone can understand and actually enjoy."
-Toronto Sun

"There is a vivacity in pure science that somehow gets lost… Schwarcz is doing his part to bring the joie de vivre back."
-Kansas City Star

 Back to top | e-mail or print this page

Introduction
 
Chapter 1: Nutrition Issues
Chapter 2: Health Issues
Chapter 3: Science with a Dose of Nonsense
Chapter 4: An Overdose of Nonsense
Chapter 5: A Sense of History
Chapter 6: Sense versus Nonsense
 
Afterword: Making Sense of It All
Index

 Back to top | e-mail or print this page

Dr. Joe Schwarcz is director of McGill University's Office for Science and Society, where he teaches courses on nutrition, health, and the applications of chemistry to everyday life. Among his many honours are the Royal Society of Canada's McNeil Award, and the American Chemical Society's renowned Grady-Stack Award, of which he is the only non-American recipient. Schwarcz is the host of a weekly radio show on CJAD in Montreal and CFRB in Toronto, and writes a weekly column for The Gazette (Montreal). He is the author of a number of bestselling books.

 Back to top | e-mail or print this page