Trauma!

Short version: Our son Callan fell and broke his arm, Monday night. Pompiers, hospital, operation, tension.

Long Version:
You may have seen the video of Callan doing wall flips. He's very keen on gymnastics and free running and parcour. He's a fan of David Belle and he often practices his moves on the steps and walls of the village.
It was abut 6:30 in the evening, I was on the computer when I heard the strange, loud shouting from outside. I leapt up and opened the door, there was Callan holding his arm, face as white as a sheet.
"I don't believe it!" he shouted, "I've broken my arm, I don't believe it. Is this a dream?"
His forarm was bent down and hanging and looked wrong. It just looked WRONG.
Fiona sat him on her lap in the kitchen and held him still. He was moaning and saying "ow, ow", but not crying. I asked Fi if we should take him direct to the hospital ourselves or call the pompiers. She wanted to call the pompiers, because she didn't think it would be a good idea to drive the 40 minutes to the hospital trying not to bounce his arm around in the car.
I dialled 18 and the phone was answered immediately. I told them what had happened and where we were. They sent the ambulance out immediately and then transfered me to SAMU. The SAMU guy asked for more detail - how high had the fall been, did he hit his head, had he always been conscious, was there an open wound?
What he'd done, the silly bugger, was a vault over a rail, on top of a wall. It was a vault he'd done often before, but this time his foot caught the rail, he fell the three feet onto the wall, which broke his arm, and then a further four feet to the ground. He then had to walk the 50 yards back to the house, holding his floppy arm.
Sitting on Fi's lap, waiting for the ambulance, I told Callan he was going to have to be brave. I told him he was going to have to show true courage, the kind where you know that pain and bad times are ahead and you have to just take it. I told him the ambulance ride was going to be uncomfortable, and it was going to hurt when they immobilise his arm and get him into the ambulance.
I phoned a neighbour to take care of Briony while we went to the hospital. Alexandra and Didier Quichaud have three little boys and they are the best of people. They kept Briony overnight, and the next morning I picked her up and got her sorted out for school. Briony was an angel, and took all this mayhem without any fuss.
The pompiers arrived in about ten minutes, sirens on the go. Four of them, plus Fi and me made for a crowded kitchen. They put an inflatable sling around his arm with an ice pack. Once they had him in the ambulance, they were messing about with oxygen levels and pulse meters, so I left Fiona to go with them in the ambulance while I went ahead to the hospital.
It worked well, because I got the Emergency guys to fill out all the info on computer before they arrived. They took him straight in and slapped in a drip with paracetemol and saline. Being the evening there was no chance of getting it reset until the next day. They x-rayed and the pictures showed both radius and ulna broken, in a splintery sort of long break, and the two bones were displaced and overlapping a bit. I thought to myself that it would be tricky resetting it.
This whole time the little soul hadn't shed a tear. He was writhing when the pain surged, or when he had to be moved and gritting his teeth, but he took it better than I would have. If it had been me the air would have been blue.
The nurses put his arm in plaster to stop it moving during the night. He was put in a room in the pediatric wing and Fiona stayed with him overnight. They have fold out beds for the accompanying parent in the room. Fiona had a rough night, as Callan slept fitfully, and each time either of them got to sleep it seemed the nurses had to come in to change drips or take temperatures or something. I slept badly too, and couldn't get the image of his arm all bent out of shape out of my head.
He went in to have the arm reset under anaesthetic at 11:00 am. They said he'd be back after an hour. It was over three hours before he returned. The break was comlicated and they had to put two metal rods, INSIDE each bone, the full length of the forearm. Post-op x-rays show that he'll be setting off metal detectors for a while. I told him he was like Wolverine from X-men.
He then had a crap day, in pain as the anaesthetic wore off, but slowly improving as the immobilised arm settled down. The nurses kept him topped up with paracetemol and anti-inflamatories.
He had to stay another night and I took over from Fi so she could go home and sleep. The next day (that's today) another x-ray to check that nothing had shifted during the night. The surgeon said the metal bars will stay for six months and then another operation to take them out. He came home at 6:00 this evening and is a lot better for being at home and having the drip removed from his arm. How crap must it be to try and sleep, in pain, with one arm broken and immobilised and the other arm trailing plastic pipe that gets tangled on the bed ironware every time you move?
So, there it is. Could have been worse. Much gratitude to friend and neighbours, people who step up in a crisis - Alexandra and Didier for looking after Briony, and to our friend Bernadette Helou who brought them home from the hospital, pompiers, nurses, doctors, and surgeons, cleaners and cooks, Carte Vitale and mutuelle.

The Society of Homeopaths

via Skeptico and Orac (See blogroll on right)

The Society of Homeopaths successfully forced The Quackometer to drop an article titled The Gentle Art of Homeopathic Killing – an expose of how homeopaths falsely claim that homeopathy can prevent and cure malaria.
They threatened his ISP with legal action, and the ISP gave way.

In order to make sure that the article is always available, I reproduce it here.

The Gentle Art of Homeopathic Killing

By The Quackometer

The Society of Homeopaths (SoH) are a shambles and a bad joke. It is now over a year since Sense about Science, Simon Singh and the BBC Newsnight programme exposed how it is common practice for high street homeopaths to tell customers that their magic pills can prevent malaria. The Society of Homeopaths have done diddly-squat to stamp out this dangerous practice apart from issue a few ambiguously weasel-worded press statements.

The SoH has a code of practice, but my feeling is that this is just a smokescreen and is widely flouted and that the Society do not care about this. If this is true, then the code of practice is nothing more than a thin veneer used to give authority and credibility to its deluded members. It does nothing more than fool the public into thinking they are dealing with a regulated professional.

As a quick test, I picked a random homeopath with a web site from the SoH register to see if they flouted a couple of important rules:

48: • Advertising shall not contain claims of superiority. • No advertising may be used which expressly or implicitly claims to cure named diseases.

72: To avoid making claims (whether explicit or implied; orally or in writing) implying cure of any named disease.

The homeopath I picked on is called Julia Wilson and runs a practice from the Leicestershire town of Market Harborough. What I found rather shocked and angered me.

Straight away, we find that Julia M Wilson LCHE, RSHom specialises in asthma and works at a clinic that says,

Many illnesses and disease can be successfully treated using homeopathy, including arthritis, asthma, digestive disorders, emotional and behavioural difficulties, headaches, infertility, skin and sleep problems.

Well, there are a number of named diseases there to start off. She also gives a leaflet that advertises her asthma clinic. The advertising leaflet says,

Conventional medicine is at a loss when it comes to understanding the origin of allergies. ... The best that medical research can do is try to keep the symptoms under control. Homeopathy is different, it seeks to address the triggers for asthma and eczema. It is a safe, drug free approach that helps alleviate the flaring of skin and tightening of lungs...

Now, despite the usual homeopathic contradiction of claiming to treat causes not symptoms and then in the next breath saying it can alleviate symptoms, the advert is clearly in breach of the above rule 47 on advertising as it implicitly claims superiority over real medicine and names a disease.

Asthma is estimated to be responsible for 1,500 deaths and 74,000 emergency hospital admissions in the UK each year. It is not a trivial illness that sugar pills ought to be anywhere near. The Cochrane Review says the following about the evidence for asthma and homeopathy,

The review of trials found that the type of homeopathy varied between the studies, that the study designs used in the trials were varied and that no strong evidence existed that usual forms of homeopathy for asthma are effective.

This is not a surprise given that homeopathy is just a ritualised placebo. Hopefully, most parents attending this clinic will have the good sense to go to a real accident and emergency unit in the event of a severe attack and consult their GP about real management of the illness. I would hope that Julia does little harm here.

However, a little more research on her site reveals much more serious concerns. She says on her site that 'she worked in Kenya teaching homeopathy at a college in Nairobi and supporting graduates to set up their own clinics'. Now, we have seen what homeopaths do in Kenya before. It is not treating a little stress and the odd headache. Free from strong UK legislation, these missionary homeopaths make the boldest claims about the deadliest diseases.

A bit of web research shows where Julia was working (picture above). The Abha Light Foundation is a registered NGO in Kenya. It takes mobile homeopathy clinics through the slums of Nairobi and surrounding villages. Its stated aim is to,

introduce Homeopathy and natural medicines as a method of managing HIV/AIDS, TB and malaria in Kenya.

I must admit, I had to pause for breath after reading that. The clinic sells its own homeopathic remedies for 'treating' various lethal diseases. Its MalariaX potion,

is a homeopathic preparation for prevention of malaria and treatment of malaria. Suitable for children. For prevention. Only 1 pill each week before entering, during and after leaving malaria risk areas. For treatment. Take 1 pill every 1-3 hours during a malaria attack.

This is nothing short of being totally outrageous. It is a murderous delusion. David Colquhoun has been writing about this wicked scam recently and it is well worth following his blog on the issue.

Let's remind ourselves what one of the most senior and respected homeopaths in the UK, Dr Peter Fisher of the London Homeopathic Hospital, has to say on this matter.

there is absolutely no reason to think that homeopathy works to prevent malaria and you won't find that in any textbook or journal of homeopathy so people will get malaria, people may even die of malaria if they follow this advice.

Malaria is a huge killer in Kenya. It is the biggest killer of children under five. The problem is so huge that the reintroduction of DDT is considered as a proven way of reducing deaths. Magic sugar pills and water drops will do nothing. Many of the poorest in Kenya cannot afford real anti-malaria medicine, but offering them insane nonsense as a substitute will not help anyone.

Ironically, the WHO has issued a press release today on cheap ways of reducing child and adult mortality due to malaria. Their trials, conducted in Kenya, of using cheap mosquito nets soaked in insecticide have reduced child deaths by 44% over two years. It says that issuing these nets be the 'immediate priority' to governments with a malaria problem. No mention of homeopathy. These results were arrived at by careful trials and observation. Science. We now know that nets work. A lifesaving net costs $5. A bottle of useless homeopathic crap costs $4.50. Both are large amounts for a poor Kenyan, but is their life really worth the 50c saving?

I am sure we are going to hear the usual homeopath bleat that this is just a campaign by Big Pharma to discredit unpatentable homeopathic remedies. Are we to add to the conspiracy Big Net manufacturers too?

It amazes me that to add to all the list of ills and injustices that our rich nations impose on the poor of the world, we have to add the widespread export of our bourgeois and lethal healing fantasies. To make a strong point: if we can introduce laws that allow the arrest of sex tourists on their return to the UK, can we not charge people who travel to Africa to indulge their dangerous healing delusions?

At the very least, we could expect the Society of Homeopaths to try to stamp out this wicked practice? Could we?

Science kicks ass!

Diabetics cured by stem-cell treatment

From the Times (London)

Diabetics using stem-cell therapy have been able to stop taking insulin injections for the first time, after their bodies started to produce the hormone naturally again.

This is the kind of story that makes me punch the air and shout "YES!"
A trial involving 15 young type 1 diabetics. They were given immune supressing drugs and then stem cell transfusions taken from their own blood.
As a result, their bodies have satrted producing their own insulin. 13 of the 15 "guinea pigs" no longer need to inject themselves with synthetic insulin, and have been indipendent of insulin suppliments for 3 years.

It's early days, but what a break-through! Type 1 diabetics have to inject themselves up to 4 times a day from childhood. Type 2 diabetes is the kind that appears later in adulthood and is linked to environmental factors like diet.

There are still question marks about exactly how the treatment works, and further studies will be required to fully evaluate it’s safety and efficacy.
“As a research scientist I am always hesitant to speak of a cure, but the initial results have been good and show the importance of conducting more trials,” Dr Burt said.

This caution, and that the trial took place 3 years ago, and is only now hitting the news, make me feel that this is science and medicine at its best. Slow, methodical, peer-reviewed, cautious, but at the same time an unstoppable force.
In one of my favourite books "Zen and the Art of Mororcycle maintenance" Robert Pirsig says of the Scientific Method:

When I think of formal scientific method, an image sometimes comes to mind of an enormous juggernaut. A huge bulldozer--slow, tedious, lumbering, laborious, but invincible. It takes twice as long, five times as long, maybe a dozen times as long as informal mechanic's techniques, but you know in the end you are going to get it. There is no fault isolation problem in motorcycle maintenance that can stand up to it. When you've hit a really tough one, tried everything, racked your brains and nothing works, and you know that Nature this time has really decided to be difficult, you say, "Okay, Nature, that's the end of the nice guy," and you crank up the formal scientific method.