#1773: Joe Imbriano

Though he is the founder of the American Open University (AOU), which has trained most of the members of the North American Imams Federation, fundamentalist Muslim theocrat Jaafar Sheikh Idris doesn’t appear to count as American – he needs a brief mention, though, for his apparent influence among certain crazier Muslim groups in the US.

Joe Imbriano, on the other hand, claims to have identified the true cause of autism. His contribution is in fact a tiny bit original since the main culprit for Imbriano isn’t vaccines – the by far most popular perceived villain among deranged anti-scientist non-experts – but … [facepalm] … EMF. Which is emphatically no less stupid than blaming vaccines. Imbriano relates his ravings to the public on the website thecauseofautism, which is concerned with two topics: That “WiFi in the schools is dangerous to young children,” and “that Microwave Electro-Magnetic Frequency Emissions acting upon metals in the child’s brain in and out of the womb is the cause of autism.” Imbriano ostensibly got the idea when he tried to microwave a tinfoil-wrapped burger in the 80s, which showed him that microwaving metal is dangerous. On the other hand, according to Imbriano, carbonyl iron powder, which is often used as an iron supplement, does not create a spectacle when microwaved but instead absorbs the radiation. This shows that EMF microwave emissions are “creating electrical discharges and voltage spikes on certain metals,” allowing “metals and toxins to get in the brain by opening the BBB [blood-brain barrier] channels” and producing a “fireworks show at the cellular level”, which is “destroying the myelin sheathing” of neurons in the brain and thereby causing autism in vulnerable populations. It’s rather painfully clear when reading his rants that Imbriano doesn’t really have more than a cursory misunderstanding of the topics he is writing about, but that hasn’t stopped anyone before (and don’t even think about evidence – this is abject pseudoscience; it is confirmation by a priori speculation by someone who has not the faintest idea what he is speculating about).

In any case, certain iron supplements make developing fetus vulnerable to WiFi, and the idea is supported by the claim that anemia “shows up in almost all autistic children”. Then there is something about cord clamping, and … well, let’s just let Imbriano fit all the pieces together himself:

“In summation, we believe that the WSJ article anectdotally confirms [whee] the implication of microwave emissions in having a causative effect on Autism. It is my belief that microwave EMF emissions acting on metals are the elusive missing link. We also believe that if all of the iron supplementation of the women was with carbonyl iron, instead of ferrous sulfate or ferrous gluconate, and, in term deliveries, cord clamping was delayed until pulsation ceases, or C sections were avoided when if at all possible, we could quite possibly, see virtually no autism if my assumptions are correct. If we removed EMF exposure entirely, we may just see the same results as well. The study didn’t specify which form of iron was taken. I would venture to say that carbonyl iron and ferrous sulfate are about 40%/50% ratio in terms of use by pregnant women and the other 10% being ferrous gluconate and other plant based forms which all differ in terms of their EMF absorption and permittivity.”

Calling this crazy speculation would be an insult to crazy speculation. Oh, and he cannot help himself: the “battery of immunizations are simply the straw that breaks the camel’s back of the already anemic, microwave EMF damaged, electrosensitive, immunocompromised infant.” So yes, it is vaccines. I’ll be darned.

Diagnosis: Tinfoil hat-style, frothing madman and Dunning-Kruger victim. His influence seems fortunately to be limited.

Hat tip: Respectful Insolence

#1772: Michael Hyatt

Remember the Y2K scare? We’re not sure Michael Hyatt wants you to. Hyatt authored a fairly typical dystopian survivalist guide for the event back in the nineties: The Millennium Bug: How to Survive the Coming Chaos. The book was a characteristic exercise in fear-mongering and dubious arguments from authority (his own: Hyatt’s qualifications in anything related to information technology – the putative source of the Armageddon – seems to have been pretty rudimentary). It described three possible outcomes of the fact that some old computers could conceivably struggle to update their calendar functions without negligible flaws at the date rollover since they recorded years in a two-digit format: brownout (major inconvenience), blackout (life-threatening economic failure), and meltdown (complete societal collapse). Of course Hyatt took the last two scenarios to be the most likely ones – the scenario “no significant consequences” wasn’t even considered. There is a review here.

Hyatt’s target group was evidently rightwing survivalist types, to whom he offered advice like stocking up on guns and non-perishable foods, something the target audience would have done a long time ago anyways. After the date rollover came and went Hyatt has turned to writing books on how to protect yourself from terrorism.

Diagnosis: Ok, there’s a fairly significant chance that Hyatt himself doesn’t believe a word of the bullshit he is engaged in, but who knows? At least those who listen to him are loons, and some of them are probably not entirely harmless either.

#1771: Jennifer Hutchinson

Jennifer Hutchinson is the author of Unlocking Jake: The Story of a Rabies Vaccine, Autism & Recovery and a typically clueless anti-vaccine loon with a poor grasp of reasoning and evidence and an even worse grasp of how vaccines actually work. Hutchinson is the kind of person who, apparently with a straight face, can say things like “[v]accines create artificial immunity, which damages the natural immune system and leaves children more susceptible to diseases of all kinds. Diseases strengthen the immune system and leads to natural immunity.” Yes, it is an appeal to the quasi-religious entity “nature” to draw a bogus distinction. It also overlooks the kind of obvious point that to get your “immune system strengthened” by a disease means suffering from the disease, which – especially in the case of potentially fatal diseases – the whole point was to avoid in the first place. It’s also rather interesting that Hutchinson, in her book, is targeting the rabies vaccine as a cause for autism; it is interesting to read the above passage in light of that. Vaccines do not cause autism. 

Hat-tip: RtAVM. Yeah, we've used it before, and
will probably have to use it again. It's not like
anti-vaxxers and conspiracy theorists will discard
refuted talking points.

Hutchinson, however, doesn’t think vaccines really work at all: “Many diseases were eradicated or almost eradicated before vaccines were available, mostly due to better hygiene and nutrition and clean water.” Yes, it’s the “vaccines didn’t really save us” gambit. Moreover, argues Hutchinson, “[r]ecent disease outbreaks, such as measles and whooping cough, are mostly among vaccinated children,” which is technically true since vaccinated kinds vastly outnumber unvaccinated ones; unvaccinated kids are still 23 times more likely to contract pertussis. But that’s math, logic and evidence, and Hutchinson has little time for such. She’s got conspiracy theories.

In her article entitled “We’re ‘Anti-Vaxers’ Because We Don’t Have a Choice” she also complains that antivaxxers like herself are called “ignorant”, even though she is rather obviously pretty ignorant about science and medicine and is antivaccine precisely because she is ignorant about such matters. Of course, it really is hard when you don’t have the faintest clue about how to use evidence to guide your credences. In “We’ve Shown Them the Proof” Hutchinson is complaining that the other side is refusing to recognize “proof” of the dangers of vaccines, which she got from Jenny McCarthy, no less. It’s worth quoting her at some length:

“Most of all, I remember Jenny’s words: Their proof. Those are powerful words. If you’re the parent of a child with autism, you have your proof that vaccines can cause or trigger autism. There’s a lot of proof out there. For anyone who is willing to see it. Unfortunately, that doesn’t include our government and most of our doctors. I’m not saying they will admit that there could be a problem with vaccines–far too much money tied up in the vaccine program. Way too much to lose. But I have to wonder, what would they consider proof?”

Hat-tip: RtAVM

Yeah, f**ing proof. How does it work? She does admit that the Institute of Medicine, for instance, has concluded that vaccines don’t cause autism, but reminds us that “thousands of parents of vaccine-injured children have spoken,” too, and that it’s really mean not to take their claims as evidence (here is a good rejoinder to that observation). “So what if it’s ‘anecdotal evidence’? Anecdotal evidence can be a start, right?” asks Hutchinson, apparently unaware of the whole point being that it would at best be a start and that scientists and the Institute of Medicine aren’t satisfied with just a start and has therefore studied the issue extensively. Such details don’t matter to Hutchinson: “What could qualify more as a personal experience–and a more reliable one – than a mother who carries her baby inside her body for nine months, gives birth to him, and then watches him around the clock, catering to his every need?” Yup. The spirit of motherhood provides immunity to confusing correlation with causation and trumps carefully conducted studies anytime in the deranged mind of Jennifer Hutchinson.

Diagnosis: Exasperating ignorance. Even after all these entries it is hard to wrap one’s mind around the abysmal lack of even basic critical thinking or reasoning skills proudly exhibited by Jennifer Hutchinson.

#1770: Warner Todd Huston

Warner Todd Huston is a wingnut and occasional writer for Breitbart.com, who at least used to be part of the Stop the ACLU group. Huston is the kind of guy who would blame the Santa Barbara shootings on hippies and universities since colleges are now all about gay rights and frivolous sex and have completely stopped being places of learning and education and are thus contributing to … well, if the connection between porn and radical Islamism isn’t entirely clear to you then you are probably already lost to the “moral corruption” of contemporary higher education. That kind of guy. Here is Huston on the Christmas tree tax. And yes, he is a complete moron.

Huston is actually probably most famous for his 2014 article for Breitbart where he reported that Loretta Lynch, Obama’s nominee for attorney general, had been part of Bill Clinton’s defense team during the Whitewater scandal. Apparently college didn’t teach Huston to do his homework. He also has a long history of arguing that kwanzaa is a fake holiday with a racist goal that is completely made-up, unlike other holidays which apparently weren’t made up, and we have no idea what the distinction amounts to.

He has written for RenewAmerica, too, no less, for instance arguing for the criminalization of Islam long before it became mainstream (not really, though).

Diagnosis: We could continue, but you get the gist. Angry, delusional zealot.

#1769: Scott Huse

More creationists. Scott Huse is the author of The Collapse of Evolution, a book that has apparently achieved some popularity in certain circles. Huse’s book, which describes the crisis in and imminent collapse of the theory of evolution, was first published in 1983. A book with the same title was published by one Luther Tracy Townsend in 1905. Apparently the collapse of evolution is as imminent as the end times.

Anyways, the book consists of more or less every anti-evolution PRATT you can think of, such as the claim that evolution violates the second law of thermodynamics (the scientific illiteracy required to run that argument is pretty staggering, and it is telling that it is still so popular among the more delusional creationist segments), that there are no transitional fossils, that radiometric dating cannot be trusted, and that human and dinosaur fossils have been found alongside each other. Indeed, when reading Huse claiming that according to evolutionary theory humans descended from birds or that the platypus is the evolutionary link between birds and mammals, one almost starts wondering whether the whole thing is a poe. It isn’t. Huse is just dense.

Diagnosis: Completely delusional. One almost feels sorry for him.