Live Chemical Free Now

I did a quick Google image search for chemical free. Here are some products that advertise themselves as chemical-free.

And if you want somewhere where your children can play free of chemicals, there is this park.

This is all simple fear mongering. Chemicals are BAAAAAAAD. Except the good ones. Here's an image that has popped up on the internet showing all the chemicals that naturally occur in a banana; no evil corporate chemist needed.

I came across a scientific paper entitled A comprehensive overview of chemical-free consumer products available from Nature Chemistry.* The abstract for the paper states

Manufacturers of consumer products, in particular edibles and cosmetics, have broadly employed the term ‘Chemical free’ in marketing campaigns and on product labels. Such characterization is often incorrectly used to imply — and interpreted to mean — that the product in question is healthy, derived from natural sources, or otherwise free from synthetic components. We have examined and subjected to rudimentary analysis an exhaustive number of such products, including but not limited to lotions and cosmetics, herbal supplements, household cleaners, food items, and beverages. Herein are described all those consumer products, to our knowledge, that are appropriately labelled as ‘Chemical free’. 

This paper is incredibly easy to read. No prior knowledge of chemistry is needed. I encourage everyone to download a copy here.**

*In the interest of full disclosure, the paper comes from the blog The Skeptical Chymist published by Nature Chemistry.

**If you don't wish to download the paper, I'll let you in on the joke. It consists off two blank pages.

Can Water Cure Cancer?

No.

But here's a fellow who seems to think he can cure cancer with water.  A. U. Ramakrishnans is a homeopath.  

Homeopathy was based on the belief that "like cures like," that a substance that causes symptoms similar to a disease can cure that disease.  Many homeopathic remedies are diluted, and herein lies the problem I am addressing.

CREDIT: Welsh Conference of Homeopathy

In this sample of Ramakrishnans' book, A Homeopathic Approach to Cancer, he provides three case studies.  One thing these cases have in common is that they were treated with the remedy carsinosin diluted to 200C. Carsinosin was supposedly derived from the discharge from cancerous breast tumor.  I spent about an hour trying to find a source that told me what this stuff was, but not one homeopathic web site has a description as to its chemical makeup or its biological or chemical source.

For the mathematically inclined, the dilution scale is logarithmic.  For those not so inclined, an increase of 1C is hundred times more diluted.  Let's examine this in more detail.

A 1C dilution means that for every molecule of active ingredient there is 100 molecules of dilutant, usually water or alcohol, but sometimes it's sugar.  A shorthand way of writing this is 1 part per 100, 1/100, or 10^-2. So let's say we have 100 milliliters (3.4 oz) of remedy.  I picked this size since this is the size of a typical travel size liquid container.  The mass of water in this container is 100 grams.  The molecular mass of H2O is 18 grams/ml, so there will be 3.3 X 10^24 molecules of water.  At 1C, there are then 3.3 X 10^22 molecules of remedy.  Now if carcinosin happens to be a fairly typical protein, then there's probably about 2 grams of it in the mixture.

If we now make a 2C dilution there will be 1/100/100 = 10^-4 = 1 part in 10,000.  Now there's 3.3 X 10^22 molecules of remedy. How about 10C?  

Then 1/100/100/100/100/100/100/100/100/100/100 = 10^-20.  In this dilution, there is about 30,000 molecules of remedy, or an amount too small to bother to tell you the mass, but if you have to know, it's 2 billionth billionths of a gram.  Another way to look at this is if we took the original 2 grams of remedy and added water until the same concentration was reached, we would have to add 100,000 trillion liters of water.  That's approximately 1% of all the water in the world's lakes.

If we continue the dilution process to the 12C level, we would only expect just a couple of molecules to be present in the 100 ml of water. Dilute to 13C, and there will be on average no molecules in the remedy.

Now examine Ramakrishnans' book.  In each case study, he prescribes carsinosin diluted to 200C. For there to be a single molecule in a 200C remedy, it would take… Well it's just ridiculous.  We would need a spherical container of water with a radius 10^124 meter.  The observable universe is only 10^27 meters.

Homeopaths contend that water has a memory. I know of no known laws of physics or chemistry that would allow for such an effect.  Besides if water has a memory, then every glass of water you drink has the memory of nearly every human that has ever pissed.

One final note: in 2007, noted magician and skeptic, James Randi attempted suicide by swallowing thirty-two pills, a bottle, of Calm Forte, a homeopathic sleeping aid. Read The Amazing Randi's account of this event and the challenge that grew from it.

Billion with B! Santa Monica Sued for $1.7 Billion.

CREDIT: POM 

Before I get to the plaintiff's claim, let's think what $1.7 billion is.  It's $1,700 million.  $1,700,000,000.   Consider spending $1000 a day.  It would take 4,657 and 1/2 years to spend it all.  Santa Monica's total expenditures for fiscal year 2010-2011 was $521.7 million, one-third of what the plaintiff is asking. 

On to the claim.  The plaintiff, Denise Barton, alleges that the city's new parking meters are "causing ringing in her ears, ear infections and tightness on the back, left side of her neck."

Hmmm. Maybe Bob Dylan was right in his Subterranean Homesick Blues, "…watch your parking meters."

What could a parking meter do to cause these ailments?  She asserts it's the wireless signals from these new advanced parking meters the city has installed.

It's the old power lines cause cancer that was updated to cell phones cause cancer a few years ago.  Now it's parking meters.  On September 11, 2011, I dealt with the physics of electromagnetic radiation (light) and how it cannot cause chemical changes.  Microwaves cannot cause atoms and molecules to ionize.

Furthermore, these parking meters are about 1000 times less powerful than your cell phone.  Your cell phone must communicate with a cell tower that can be miles away.  These parking meters send signals to a sensor 5 to 8 feet away according to a city official.

So I'll repeat what I wrote last November:

The World Health Organization (WHO) reports that "[a] large number of studies have been performed over the last two decades to assess whether mobile phones pose a potential health risk. To date, no adverse health effects have been established as being caused by mobile phone use."

The National Cancer Institute at the National Institutes of Health says "there is no evidence from studies of cells, animals, or humans that radiofrequency energy can cause cancer."
 

Thanks to Josh Hibbard for tipping me off to the Santa Monica Daily Press article.

Is Your Cell Phone Killing You?

It could, if you're texting while driving.

My least favorite TV physician, Dr. Oz, says on his website that "experts have grown concerned about the health implications of heavy exposure—specifically, the radiation that the devices emit." Dr. Oz often offers misleading advice, but this is just plain wrong. Experts know that there is no danger from cell phones.

 The World Health Organization (WHO) reports that "[a} large number of studies have been performed over the last two decades to assess whether mobile phones pose a potential health risk. To date, no adverse health effects have been established as being caused by mobile phone use."

 The National Cancer Institute at the National Institutes of Health says "there is no evidence from studies of cells, animals, or humans that radiofrequency energy can cause cancer."

 What is it about cell phones? Cell phones use microwaves - a form of electromagnetic radiation. The history of this issue goes back at least to an article in the New Yorker in 1989. Paul Brodeur alarmed the country when some epidemiological studies supposedly showed an increase in cancer in homes near power lines. [More about epidemiology later.] The power lines as all electrical currents generate magnetic fields - extremely low frequency radiowaves. Scientists never found any causal link. In fact, when more careful epidemiological studies were conducted, the correlation between exposure to electromagnetic fields and cancer disappeared.

Now for the science lesson. Cancer is an example of a biochemical reaction gone horribly wrong. While not well understood in many types of cancer, whatever happens causes the uncontrolled growth of abnormal cells. Documented cancer-causing agents are perchloroethylene (used in dry cleaning), tobacco smoke, ultraviolet light, viruses, and environmental toxins like aflatoxin in peanut butter.

How can light (electromagnetic radiation) cause these biochemical changes? Each particle of light called a photon has an energy that depends on the color of the light. As one can see from the diagram, light comes in more colors than just red. orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. The photon can be absorbed by an atom or molecule. The energy then is used to excite an electron. If the energy is large enough, the electron can be stripped from the atom.

Now I like to tell my physics students that chemistry is the science of electrons. When chemical bonds are rearranged or broken in a chemical reaction, it's the electrons that are being exchanged between the atoms. So when the photon is absorbed, this can cause a chemical reaction - if the energy is large enough.

What colors of light have enough energy and can cause biochemical effects? Roughly speaking, you need ultraviolet light. This is why I wear sunscreen when I golf. What about microwaves? A microwave photon has about 1/100,000 the energy of a UV photon. No chemical reactions here.

You may be wondering about your microwave oven. That certainly cause some chemical reactions, right? Yes, but not through the mechanism described above. In this case, the microwave photon is absorbed by a water molecule, and this makes the water molecule rotate. This added motion translate as added energy to the water making the water hotter.

So can a cell phone cook your brain? No. Through evolution, mammals have a wonderful mechanism for ridding the body of excess heat - the circulatory system. However, we can calculate how much cooking is going on. A typical cell phone emits about 1 Watt of power. In a five minute phone call, this could cause an increase in temperature of 0.1ºC in the brain tissues near your ear.

Yak away. 


A Note Regarding Epidemiology: This is an important field in science-based medicine. Epidemiology aims to find relationships between exposure to agents and mortality (death) and morbidity (disease). The link between cigarette smoking and lung cancer was first found by epidemiologists, long before any understanding of the physical causes.

A good study is difficult. The most serious threat to a good study is bias. Bias comes in three forms: 1. Selection bias in which subjects are taking part because of an unknown factor that happens to be associated with the exposure and the effect. 2. Information bias where the information gathered is flawed. A typical source of information bias example is when subjects are asked to remember information. 3. Confounders are variables that correlate with both the exposure and the effect. For example , a confounder in the power line study may have been the neighborhoods where the subjects lived.