fallacy
In the realm of so-called alternative medicine (SCAM), “chemical” has long been a dirty word. This phenomenon, known as chemophobia – an irrational fear of synthetic substances – drives a multi-billion-dollar industry obsessed with the “all-natural.” While it stems from an understandable desire for safety (and for making money out of the fear of the public), the chemophobia of SCAM relies on a fundamental misunderstanding of basic chemistry and toxicology, building a false dichotomy between wholesome nature and malicious chemistry.
To truly dismantle this anxiety, one needs to look no further than a perfect example from nature: the humble apple. If an organic, all-natural apple were required to carry an ingredient label written by a chemist, it would look far more intimidating than any processed food label. A single bite of an apple delivers a complex cocktail of chemical compounds. Beyond its bulk structure of water, dietary pectin, and sugars like fructose and sucrose, an apple is a dense matrix of amino acids—including glutamic acid, aspartic acid, and tyrosine—and fatty acids like linoleic and palmitic acid. It is enriched with vitamins and minerals, from ascorbic acid and alpha-tocopherol to potassium and magnesium. Even its delightful aromas and flavors are synthesized by nature using a mixture of volatile organic compounds: esters like butyl acetate, alcohols like hexan-1-ol, aldehydes like trans-2-hexenal, and a sharp dose of malic acid. More surprisingly perhaps, this wholesome fruit features nature’s own “toxins.” Apples naturally contain trace amounts of formaldehyde, and their seeds contain amygdalin, a cyanogenic glycoside that degrades into deadly hydrogen cyanide when digested.
The chemical reality of this simple apple highlights the core fallacy of chemophobia: the belief that natural compounds are inherently safe, while synthetic ones are unavoidably toxic. In reality, nature is a master chemist, and the foundational rule of toxicology dictates that it is mostly the dose that makes the poison. Anything can be toxic in excess—even water—and many synthetic molecules are identical to, or safer than, their natural counterparts. Aspirin, for instance, has less side-effects that an extract of willow bark!
The chemophobia of SCAM proponents strips away all nuance and treats the mere presence of a complicated chemical name as an absolute hazard. By fostering a deep-seated distrust of science, it steers ill-informed individuals away from life-saving conventional treatments towards unproven quackery. True health literacy requires moving past misleading branding and recognising that everything in our universe, from a crisp apple to a synthetic antibiotic, is made of chemicals.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the U.S. Health and Human Services secretary, is demanding that the journal Toxicology Reports explain in detail why it removed a 2021 paper he has cited in support of his anti-vaccine stance. The study had concluded that “While the findings in this paper are not proof of an association between infant vaccines and infant deaths, they are highly suggestive of a causal relationship.”
In his letter to the editors, Kennedy accuses the journal of suppressing research linking vaccines to sudden infant death. However, the evidence reveals quite clearly that Kennedy is not seeking transparency but rather attempting to bully a peer-reviewed journal that correctly identified fatal methodological flaws in a paper Kennedy continues to promote.
The removed study claimed to link vaccines to infant deaths using data from the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS). The journal removed the paper because VAERS is a passive reporting system that cannot establish causality. Any conclusion claiming vaccines cause deaths from such data is therefore not valid. The editors determined the methodology was seriously flawed and that the author’s responses to critiques were unsatisfactory. Consequently, the paper would mislead readers and harm the public. In this situation, it would have been unethical NOT to retract!
Kennedy’s demand for a “full explanation” ignores that the journal had already provided a clear, evidence-based removal notice. He wants to know who reviewed the paper and what standards were applied, yet these are standard peer-review procedures. Framing a legitimate scientific correction as censorship reveals Kennedy’s disregard for science and evidence-based medicine. As HHS secretary, he is responsible for protecting public health, yet he continues to cite fraudulent research that contradicts established scientific consensus on vaccine safety.
The story is reminiscent of the ongoing conflict over the landmark Danish vaccine study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine. It tracked over 1.2 million children born in Denmark between 1997 and 2018. Exploiting a natural experiment created by evolving national immunization schedules, researchers analyzed the dose-response relationship of aluminum adjuvants. The study found no evidence linking increased cumulative exposure to an elevated risk of 50 chronic pediatric conditions, including neurodevelopmental, autoimmune, and allergic disorders.
Despite its massive scale and rigorous design, Kennedy labeled the research a “deceitful propaganda stunt” and demanded its retraction. However, Kennedy’s criticisms rely on data misrepresentation and a fundamental misunderstanding of epidemiological methodology. First, Kennedy cherry-picked non-significant supplementary data, falsely claiming a 67% increased risk of Asperger’s syndrome. In reality, the finding had a wide confidence interval, lacked statistical significance, and completely vanished when researchers analyzed the full follow-up data. Second, Kennedy objected to the lack of a completely unvaccinated control group. Experts counter that the unvaccinated cohort (1.2%) was too small to measure rare outcomes accurately and would introduce severe confounding bias due to differing family lifestyles. Finally, Kennedy levelled inaccurate claims of financial corruption against Denmark’s Statens Serum Institut, a public research body that had long since divested its vaccine manufacturing arm.
The medical community has firmly rejected Kennedy’s attacks. The journal refused his retraction demand, and independent experts have defended the study as the strongest available evidence of vaccine aluminum safety. After all, aluminum salts have been used safely for a century, and vaccine-derived amounts are eclipsed by daily environmental and dietary intake.
The inescapable conclusion is that Kennedy’s campaigns are not about accountability or about promoting scientific rigor; they are about promoting his dangerous type of misinformation. His continued advocacy of pseudoscience exposes his commitment to ideology over evidence, a truly dangerous stance for anyone leading the nation’s health agency. It is high time, I feel, that he gets sacked before he does any more lasting damage to public health in the US and beyond!
When I look at the pictures from major meetings of national or international meetings of SKEPTICS, or attend such gargerings in person, I often ask myself:
Why are there so few Black or Asian skeptics?*
Trying to research the answer, one finds several possible explanations:
Science, racism, trust
For many Black communities, the history of medicine and science includes Tuskegee, Henrietta Lacks, forced sterilization, and other abuses that were justified in “scientific” language. This legacy can understandably foster suspicion toward institutions that present themselves as guardians of “science” or “rationality”. When skeptical organisations then look very white and middle‑class, they can be perceived as aligned with the same institutions that historically harmed these communities.
In that context, a Black person may be personally critical of superstition and pseudoscience but not feel that joining a mainly white skeptical association is in their interest or aligned with their primary struggles, which may centre on racism, policing, or economic inequality rather than homeopathy or ghost busting.
Different priorities and “linked fate”
Many Black Americans report a strong sense of “linked fate”: what happens to Black people as a group is perceived as happening to them personally. That tends to channel activism toward civil-rights–oriented movements, churches, or community organisations rather than abstract “science advocacy” or secular-skeptic clubs.
So, the issue is not necessarily a lack of skeptical thinking, but that energies are directed towards challenges that feel more existentially pressing: discrimination, policing, housing, schooling, and health inequities. From inside those struggles, debunking astrology or acupuncture may seem like a luxury concern, or even a distraction pushed by people who do not share the same views.
Asian “model minority” and conformity pressures
For many Asian communities, there is a different but related dynamic. In North America and parts of Europe, Asians are often cast as hardworking, quiet, technically competent, and apolitical. This stereotype rewards conformity and discourages public confrontation, especially with majority institutions. Publicly criticizing religious traditions, so-called alternative medicine, or family elders’ beliefs can thus carry a significant social cost.
At the same time, Asian-origin populations also experience racism, but often in a way that minimizes their grievances: they are told that they are doing “better” and therefore should not complain. In such a setting, aligning oneself with explicitly “white-coded” skeptical organisations can risk being used as a wedge against other minorities or being seen as rejecting one’s own culture.
Culture of skeptical movements
Organized skeptical and secular movements historically emerged from highly educated, often male, often white, often middle‑class networks in Europe and North America. Their imagery, leadership, and priorities reflect that origin: emphasis on evolution vs. creationism, New Atheism, and critiques of Christian fundamentalism, rather than, say, the intersection of racism, religion, and health.
Such movements can appear:
- Culturally narrow (little attention to non‑Western religions or folk practices except as “targets”)
- Blind to racial power structures (e.g., defending “science” without acknowledging racist uses of science)
- Hostile to religion in general, even when churches serve as important community centres for marginalized groups
The above-mentioned phenomena (Iam sure theree are more, and I would be gratedful, if readers could list more) might generate a sense amongst black and Asian communities that the organised skeptics are “not for us” – even amongst individuals who are personally secular, tational, and critical of pseudoscience.
But, of course, there are many Black and Asian skeptics. The ability to think critically is by no means a white monopoly. These guys form their own networks (e.g., Black humanist groups, Secular Buddhists) or they remain more locally embedded rather than visible in mainstream skeptical conferences. Personally, I would welcome, if Black and Asian people would join mainstream skeptics in greater number, and if mainstream skepic organisations would realise that they must make a greater effort to attract them.
*To be honest, I have no figures to back up my impression, and I was unable to find reliable statistics. But I do think that my impression is nonetheless correct.
So-called alternative medicine (SCAM) likes to present itself as a champion of disease prevention. Its advocates routinely claim to promote health before disease develops, to strengthen the body’s defences, and to address root causes rather than symptoms. This rhetoric is highly attractive, because prevention sounds proactive, humane, and economical. Crucially, it is also good for the SCAM practitioner’s bank account. Yet there is a snag: almost none of the preventive claims made for SCAM are supported by reliable evidence, whereas the prevention that works comes overwhelmingly from conventional medicine and science.
To show preventive benefit, an intervention must demonstrably reduce the incidence of symptom, disease, complication, or mortality in properly designed studies. That may require randomised trials, epidemiological studies, large cohorts, reproducible findings, and enough follow-up to show that fewer people actually experienced the given endpoint. Mainstream medicine has repeatedly met this standard. Immunization, blood pressure control, smoking cessation, lipid lowering, cancer screening, and risk-factor modification are all products of biomedical research, not of alternative healing traditions.
SCAM, by contrast, tends to use prevention in a loose, impressionistic, and unfalsifiable way. A practitioner may claim that a treatment “balances energy,” “supports immunity,” or “keeps the body in harmony,” but such phrases do not establish a preventive effect. They are placeholders for evidence, not evidence itself. In practice, the absence of disease after treatment is treated as proof that the treatment worked, even though the same outcome occurs every day without any intervention at all.
Acupuncture is a good example. Its defenders portray it as a preventive system capable of preserving general health or warding off illness, but the evidence base does not support that claim. Some reviews do suggest that acupuncture may help with some pain-related and symptom-focused conditions, yet its preventive value is largely unproven. I am not aware of solid evidence to show that acupuncture prevents anything – but, if I am wrong, please do correct me.
Chiropractic care is even more revealing because preventive claims are often tied to the doctrine of spinal “subluxation” and nervous system dysfunction. Yet the literature on prevention is thin and methodologically weak. I am not aware of solid evidence to show that chiropractic prevents anything – but, if I am wrong, please do correct me.
Herbalism benefits from the romantic appeal of “natural” remedies, but that appeal should not be confused with demonstrated preventive efficacy. Individual plant compounds have certainly inspired real drugs, yet that is a triumph of pharmacology, not of herbalism as a system. When herbal medicines are tested for prevention, results are usually weak, inconsistent, or insufficient to support recommendation. I am not aware of solid evidence to show that herbal medicine prevents anything – but, if I am wrong, please do correct me.
Homeopathy is one of the most extreme cases within SCAM. It is often sold as gentle, individualized, and even preventive, but its basic principles are scientifically implausible, and its clinical evidence is either flawed or negative. Preventive homeopathy, including ideas such as “homeoprophylaxis,” is particularly problematic because it can give people a false sense of security while displacing interventions that genuinely prevent disease, such as vaccination. I am not aware of solid evidence to show that homeopathy prevents anything – but, if I am wrong, please do correct me.
SCAM speaks almost constantly about prevention, but the evidence for actual preventive benefit is close to non-existent. What we know about prevention, what truly reduces disease incidence and improves population health, comes from conventional medicine, epidemiology, public health, and biological science. SCAM will no doubt continue to borrow the language of medicine and prevention, but – as far as I can see – it has failed to supply the proof.
For several decades, eggs were commonly portrayed as a major cause of raised cholesterol and cardiovascular disease. That position has been substantially revised: current evidence suggests that dietary cholesterol has a relatively modest effect on blood cholesterol in most people, whereas saturated and trans fats are more important determinants of LDL cholesterol and cardiovascular risk.
The physiology is more nuanced than the older “cholesterol-in, cholesterol-out” model implied. The liver does synthesise cholesterol endogenously, and many people compensate for increased dietary cholesterol by reducing hepatic production, but the degree of compensation varies considerably between individuals. For that reason, eggs are not best understood as “heart-healthy” in all circumstances, but rather as a food whose impact depends on the wider dietary pattern and the individual’s metabolic risk profile.
There is stronger support for improving lipid profiles by changing the quality of dietary fat and increasing fibre intake. Replacing saturated fats with unsaturated fats, particularly polyunsaturated fats, is associated with lower LDL cholesterol and a reduced risk of cardiovascular events, while soluble fibre helps lower LDL cholesterol by interrupting enterohepatic bile acid recycling. In practical terms, this means that foods such as olive oil, nuts, seeds, legumes, oats, vegetables, and oily fish are more consistently supported than a narrow focus on single items such as eggs.
Low-carbohydrate and ketogenic diets are more complex. Many people lose weight on them, which may improve some cardiometabolic markers, but a subset of lean individuals show pronounced rises in LDL cholesterol and related atherogenic markers during carbohydrate restriction. Emerging evidence also indicates that gut microbial changes may contribute to altered lipid metabolism, although this area is still developing and should not be overstated.
Highly restrictive “detox” or “alternative” dietary programs are unsupported by clinical evidence and may be nutritionally unbalanced and thus harmful. They might be claimed to “purify” the body or reset metabolism, but heart health is better served by sustainable patterns that improve LDL cholesterol, support fibre intake, and minimise excess saturated fat.
What does all that mean in practice? Here are a few simple rules that follow from the new insights:
- Do not over-emphasize dietary cholesterol (e.g., eggs) as a primary driver of cardiovascular risk.
- Focus instead on reducing saturated and trans fat intake.
- Replace saturated fats with unsaturated fats, especially polyunsaturated fats (e.g., use olive oil, eat nuts and seeds).
- Increase intake of soluble fibre (e.g., oats, legumes, vegetables) to help lower LDL cholesterol.
- Consider overall dietary patterns rather than judging single foods in isolation.
- Recognize that individual responses to dietary cholesterol vary; tailor intake accordingly if lipid levels are a concern.
- Include foods with consistent cardiovascular benefit, such as oily fish, plant-based foods, and whole grains.
- Be cautious with low-carbohydrate or ketogenic diets, particularly if lean, and monitor lipid profiles if following such diets.
- Prioritize sustainable, balanced eating patterns over restrictive or extreme diets.
- Avoid “detox” or alternative dietary regimens lacking clinical evidence, as they are ineffective or harmful.
Key references
- Carson JAS, Lichtenstein AH, Anderson CAM, et al. Dietary cholesterol and cardiovascular risk: a science advisory from the American Heart Association. Circulation. 2020;141:e39–e53.
- Estruch R, Ros E, Salas-Salvadó J, et al. Primary prevention of cardiovascular disease with a Mediterranean diet. N Engl J Med. 2013;368:1279–1290.
- Hooper L, Martin N, Jimoh OF, et al. Reduction in saturated fat intake for cardiovascular disease. Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2020;(5):CD011730.
- British Heart Foundation. Healthy eating – reduce your risk of developing heart disease. 2023. – Search
- NHS. Facts about fat. 2022. – Search
- Ketogenic Diet reduces friendly gut bacteria and raises cholesterol levels
- Gut bacteria can break down cholesterol | Nature Reviews Cardiology
- Healthy eating: applying All Our Health – GOV.UK
The US resurgence of measles in 2026 serves as a stark, data-driven refutation of the anti-vaccine rhetoric championed by quacks like Robert F. Kennedy Jr. For years, vaccine antagonists have framed immunisations as a matter of personal autonomy, minimizing the societal dangers of declining rates. Yet, public health is not governed by ideology, but by biology. The realities of 2026 – marked by over 2,000 confirmed measles cases across 40 US jurisdictions – demonstrate that when charlatans undermine trust in medical science, the real-world consequence is the return of preventable, highly contagious and dangerous diseases.
The core flaw in RFK Jr.’s rhetoric, it seems to me, is the failure to understand that vaccine protection is a collective barrier, not just an individual shield. Measles is one of the most infectious viruses known to humanity, requiring a high community vaccination threshold of 95% to maintain herd immunity. When coverage drops below this line, the virus easily finds pathways to spread. Because of sustained anti-vaccine sentiment, US kindergarten MMR coverage dropped from 95.2% in 2019–2020 to a dangerous 92.5% by the 2024–2025 school year. This decline left roughly 286,000 children unprotected, effectively dismantling the wall that kept measles at bay for decades.
Furthermore, public health crises thrive on localized vulnerability. While national averages can mask the severity of the issue, anti-vaccine messaging often clusters within specific communities, creating relatively dense pockets of under-vaccinated populations. When measles enters these communities, it does not remain isolated; it triggers rapid, localized outbreaks where almost all of cases are tied directly to these transmission clusters.
Beyond its well-known immediate dangers, a measles infection inflicts severe, long-term damage on the human body by causing a phenomenon known as immune amnesia. The measles virus actively targets and destroys memory T and B cells, the specialized white blood cells responsible for remembering past pathogens. A single measles infection can wipe out 11% to 73% of a person’s preexisting antibodies, effectively erasing the body’s immunological memory. While the patient develops immunity to measles itself, their defense system is left “flying blind” against other entirely unrelated viruses and bacteria they had previously beaten or been vaccinated against. This induced state of generalized immunosuppression typically lasts from two to five years, leaving recovered individuals dramatically more vulnerable to secondary, life-threatening infections long after the initial measles rash has cleared.
Ultimately, the current measles spikein the US illustrates that US public health control is being sabotaged. When prominent morons like RFK Jr. weaponize anti-vax delusions and distort clinical data, they do not simply foster debate, they actively erode the herd immunity threshold. The current US outbreak proves that the protection wall has thinned below the critical margin of safety. Far from being under control, measles has found a resurgence precisely because the rhetoric of figures like RFK Jr. has opened the door for a dangerous, preventable virus to reclaim its ground in and beyond the US.
When – about 14 years ago – it was my turn, I looked forward to retirement: endless sleep-ins, zero airport security lines for lectures at distant places, no more struggling to keep awake at boring meeting, and a calendar so beautifully blank it belongs in a modern art museum. I looked forward to the complete absence of so-called peers – mostly people who had no idea about my research – criticising or trying to influence my work. And even more I rejoiced in the prospect of having no university administrators needlessly complicating my life, while taking a big chunk of my research funding for the benefit.
When you retire as an academic, you genuinely believe you’ve escaped the university rat race – only to soon realize you’ve just been traded to a different league with much worse perks. Suddenly, your mornings are dictated not by an alarm clock, but by a relentless, self-imposed to-do list. You’re busier than ever, while operating alone and on a budget that makes your old expense-account days feel like the reign of Louis XIV.
Of course, not all academics keep on working after retirement. Some manage to just drop everything from one day to the next thinking they will now look after the garden, trimm roses, walk the dog, etc. I know many who have chosen this type of approach to retirement. For a few months, it all seems to go fine. Then they realise the increaingly painful emptiness and lack of purpose. More often than not, a low mood creeps in, followed by depression and/or taking to the bottle (perhaps this is why the Exeter medical school gave me a set of huge [and apparently expensive] wine glasses as a leaving present?).
No, staying active and doing what one likes must be the secret of remaining sane after retirement – at least for me. So, I rolled up my sleeves and got on with it. I started this blog (thanks Alan) where I have now published well over 3000 posts. I also began writing colums for newspapers – in English, German and French, to make it a bit more interesting. And then I got into books; this turned out to be more fun (and far less money) than expected. Since retiring I so far managed an average of about one per year – 16 to be precise, and currently three more in the pipeline.
Yes, I do keep myself busy, but this approach does unquestionably have its surprises. The real shocker, is the devastating loss of infrastructure. Yesterday you were a visionary leader; today, you are your own secretary, IT department, mailroom clerk, travel agent, and administrative assistant – and frankly, your staff is frightfully incompetent! There is nobody to filter out annoying requests, meaning you are fully exposed to every crank on the planet. Your former co-workers no longer do the knuckle work of the research, so things get slower and slower. Technical assistance is nowhere to be found; when the printer jams or the Wi-Fi malfunctions, you are on your utterly incompetent own. Every little task takes hours or days. You’ve traded business casual for sweatpants or shorts, but the “hassle” didn’t disappear; if anything, it becomes bigger and bigger. It just rebranded itself as a full-time, unpaid internship where you are both the demanding boss and the disgruntled employee.
But am I not supposed to enjoy life during retirement?
I promise you, I do that too!
Some friends keep asking me whether I don’t want to finally retire for real, relax and be happy.
“What do you mean?”, I respond.
“Well, you know, do what you really like.”
“But that’s what I am doing!”
It is true – honestly.
I am productive because I am content – and not the other way round.
I remember it well: when I was a kid, I went every day in the evening to a nearby farm to fetch a litre of luke warm raw milk. I was lucky; I never caught tuberculosis or any other infection that is transmitted in this way.
Today, raw milk has become the centrepiece of a heated debate. Once only on rural homesteads, unpasteurized milk is now being championed by a powerful coalition of political figures like Robert F. Kennedy Jr., promoters of so-called alternative medicine (SCAM), and “trad wife” influencers. This movement frames raw milk as a “magical health secret” suppressed by a corrupt establishment. However, beneath the veneer of “food freedom” and nostalgic aesthetics lies a complex interplay of populism, nutritional misinformation, outright BS, and significant public health risks.
The issue is largely fuelled by RFK Jr. and his “Make America Healthy Again” (MAHA) idiocy. For him, raw milk is less of a dietary preference and more of a symbol of resistance against federal overreach. He frequently characterizes the FDA’s restrictions on raw milk as a “war on farmers” and an example of “regulatory capture.” In his worm-eaten mind, federal agencies are not protecting the public from pathogens but are instead protecting the profits of “Big Dairy” by criminalising traditional foodways. By pushing for the legalisation of raw milk, Kennedy taps into a deep-seated distrust of institutions that has intensified in the post-pandemic US. He frames the choice to drink unpasteurized milk as a fundamental civil liberty, positioning himself as a defender of the individual against a nasty “nanny state.”
Simultaneously, the “trad wife” and SCAM movements are providing the lifestyle framework for raw milk promotion. On social media, influencers portray a return to traditional domesticity, featuring sourdough starters, hand-churned butter, and glass jars of creamy, raw milk. In this context, raw milk provides a “moral signal” for those who have little else to worry about. What counts is the willingness to go to great lengths to bypass industrial food systems and provide “pure” and “natural” nourishment for the whole family – because pasteurisation “kills” the milk, destroying vital enzymes and probiotics that could cure everything from asthma to lactose intolerance.
As soon as these claims are held up to scientific scrutiny, the “magic” begins to dissipate. The core argument – namely that raw milk is nutritionally superior – is largely unsupported by sound evidence. Modern pasteurisation is as non-invasive as possible. While heat slightly reduces levels of Vitamin C, milk is not a primary source of that vitamin anyway. Moreover, the levels of protein, calcium, and essential minerals remain virtually identical to the raw product. Furthermore, the valuable “enzymes” touted by advocates are enzymes that the human stomach acid neutralizes before they can be absorbed.
On top of all this, there is potential for serious harm. The most dangerous aspect of the raw milk nonsense is the dismissal of microbial risk. Before pasteurisation became standard in the early 20th century, milk was a leading cause of tuberculosis, typhoid, and scarlet fever. Today, even on the most meticulously managed farms, cows can naturally shed E. coli, Salmonella, and Listeria and contamination can occur in a split second during the milking process. The rise of the H5N1 (Bird Flu) virus in dairy cattle in recent years has added a lethal new variable; while pasteurisation effectively inactivates the virus, raw milk remains a potential vector for human infection. A recent study showed, for instance, that unpasteurized milk, consumed by only 3.2% of the population, and cheese, consumed by only 1.6% of the population, caused 96% of illnesses caused by contaminated dairy products.
So, the current raw milk frenzy puts a spotlight on the ignorance of those who support it. While raw milk is marketed as a health-conscious return to nature, it is primarily a brainless and unnecessary revival of long-forgotten risks. Pasteurization is – after immunisation (that is also rejected by these clowns) – one the most successful public health interventions in history. Advocates are not just embracing “food freedom”; they are embracing a level of risk that modern medicine spent a century eliminating.
Recent statements concerning US pharmaceutical pricing have drawn renewed attention to an entirely new horizon in mathematics. The method, associated with remarks by Donald Trump and repeated by several of his sycophants, departs from standard arithmetic in a manner that is rhetorically vigorous but mathematically ridiculous.
Percentage change is defined relative to a single, clearly specified baseline. A decrease from $600 to $100 is therefore calculated as (600-100)/600×100 = 83.3%. In other words, the price falls by 83.3% relative to the original $600 price. This is the method used in economics, finance, accounting, retail pricing, and presumably even by the secondary-school mathematics teachers who attempted to educate Trump.
However, the new alternative math proceeds differently. It implicitly combines two distinct operations: first, the increase from $100 to $600, correctly described as a 500% rise when measured against the initial $100; and second, the subsequent decrease from $600 back to $100. Rather than evaluating this decrease against the higher price, however, the method appears to retain the earlier, lower baseline, thereby generating a claim of a “600% saving.” The arithmetic equivalent of moving the goalposts and then declaring victory by an even larger margin.
Within standard mathematics, this shift in baseline is not permissible. Percentage changes are inherently asymmetric because they depend entirely on the reference point selected. The same absolute difference – in this case, $500 – produces different percentage values depending on whether it is measured relative to $100 or $600. This is not a technical loophole but the entire point of percentages.
The problem with this approach becomes clearer if one follows it to its logical conclusion. Under standard arithmetic, a 100% price reduction means the price has fallen all the way to zero: a $100 product reduced by 100% costs nothing. A reduction greater than 100% would therefore produce a negative price, meaning the seller would have to pay the customer to accept the product. If one claims that a fall from $600 to $100 represents a 600% decrease, the numbers cease to correspond to any coherent pricing system. The calculation implies that prices can fall not merely to zero, but to values several times smaller than zero.
The attraction of the Trump method is easy to understand. By selecting whichever baseline produces the largest possible percentage, the resulting figure acquires an air of spectacular achievement. It transforms an already substantial price reduction into something approaching numerical performance art.
Trump’s alternative arithmetic therefore succeeds in generating impressively large numbers by abandoning the one feature percentages require most: consistency. The result is as unsound as most things about Trump. Yet it seems rhetorically effective – particularly with “low IQ people”, as Trump likes to call his followers.
In other words, by cherry-picking the baseline for maximum impact, the Trump method turns an already solid 83% cut into a sensational “600% savings”. It sacrifices precision for hype – effective populism perhaps, poor math for sure!
None of this would be worth mentioning, of course, if it were the only incident where Trump misleads his public. Sadly, he is telling multiple and often much more consequential untruths on a daily basis.
When a top journal like PNAS (Procedings of the Nationsl Academy of Science) publishes an article entitled “What’s the science behind acupuncture?“, I must take notice. Here is my take on the (sadly disappointing) effort:
My very short summary of the paper (I do encourange my readers to read it in full)
The article starts from the premise that acupuncture is proven to work, an assumption that – as we will see in a minute – is not based on sound evidence. It describes the evolution of acupuncture from a traditional practice rooted in ancient concepts like “qi” and “meridians” to a modern medical treatment increasingly validated by science. It argues that practitioners like Min Chen are today able to provide evidence-based explanations for their work. While early clinical trials were plagued by the “sham” acupuncture paradox, the text argues that more recent, rigorous studies and technological projects are bridging the gap between Eastern philosophy and evidence-based medicine, suggesting that acupuncture’s effects are physiological realities rather than mere placebo.
My concerns of the paper
The article attempts to bridge the gap between Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) and conventional medicine suggesting that several anatomical discoveries “correspond” to ancient meridians. This, however, is a post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy. Finding a morphological structure (e.g. fascia) and claiming it represents the meridian system ignores that meridians were conceptualized as functional energetic conduits, not anatomical vessels. Citing an 80% overlap between acupoints and connective tissue planes lacks specificity. Given the ubiquity of connective tissue in the human frame, any randomized point on the body would likely “overlap” with a tissue plane, rendering the “meridian” map a possible exercise in pattern-seeking rather than anatomical discovery.
The paper acknowledges the “most puzzling” finding that sham acupuncture often produces results comparable to “true” acupuncture. This, it would seem to me, invalidates the foundational TCM theory of specific “acupoints” and “meridians” is invalidated. Yet, the article suggests that sham acupuncture is “not a true placebo” because it also triggers biological pathways. If needling anywhere produces an effect, acupuncture is merely a generalized, non-specific neuro-modulatory stimulus.
The article quotes Chen on “harmonizing organ functions” and “regulating qi” as well as researchers referring to “fibroblast activation” and “vagus nerve stimulation”. The author seems to consider both to be true; yet they seem mutually exclusive. Translating metaphysical concepts into physical phenomena does not “validate” the original theory but merely replaces it.
The article employs the opioid crisis to justify the rise of acupuncture. Yes, the need for non-pharmacological pain management is urgent, but clinical necessity does not equate to scientific validity. The text quotes the “lasting benefits” observed in some meta-analyses without discussing the often fatal flaws in these papers. Furthermore, it fails to cite the substantial body of evidence suggesting that acupuncture is not effective. Moreover, it hardly mentions the small effect sizes and hence limited clinical usefulness found in the positive studies.
The final section of the paper essentially rebrands acupuncture as “bioelectronic medicine”. If its mechanism of action is purely the electrical stimulation of the vagus nerve or the release of endogenous opioids, then the TCM concepts are all but superfluous. If a cheap and wearable TENS unit is more or less equivalent, the “meridian” and “qi” myths are obsolete.
In summary, the paper reads, I fear, only marginally better than a Chinese government promotional text – most disappointing for an article published in a journal of high standing. It attempts to preserve the cultural prestige of TCM while stripping it of its internal logic in order to make it compatible with science. For acupuncture to gain a true “scientific footing”, research must, in my view, move beyond finding “tantalizing” correlations. It should address fundamental problems, e.g.:
- As long as we have no convincing proof that acupuncture works beyond placebo, discussions about its mechanisms are futile.
- If qi, acupoints and meridians are illusions and irrelevant for the clinical outcome, then the science is not validating acupuncture but merely re-discovering a well-known non-specific form of peripheral nerve stimulation.
