Don’t Send Me Woo

kevin dooley, flickr

“Woo,” in scientific and skeptical writing, refers to unfounded or ludicrous beliefs, and the persons who hold said beliefs. It may have come from an abbreviation of “waste of oxygen.” Who knows. But there is a hell of a lot of it out there.

Scientists rail about the proliferation of pseudo-scientific junk on the web, which of course has no peer review process (unlike reputable science writing, which is constantly peer-reviewed, double-checked, confirmed, denied, argued about…you get the point). The word “woo” has certainly made itself a nice niche. It’s an easy way to say a lot of stuff in three letters.

I haven’t made any bones about the fact that I am not a woo-believer. Nor a woo-spreader. And if you try to feed me woo, you will generally get your woo shoved up an unnamed orifice.

So I’m trying to figure out why anyone would send me woo, directly, on Twitter. I mean, it says right there in my 140 character bio that I have a medical degree. Maybe they think I got it at some online, mail-order place, instead of at one of the most prestigious medical colleges in the South.

I try to be a polite Twitter person. I don’t scan the timeline looking for woo attacks. I usually just ignore the junk (and there is a LOT of it). Every once in a while I step in something unseemly, by accident, when I think I’m answering someone’s legitimate question and it turns out to be a set-up. Or someone will respond to one of my tweets with some gargantuan woo.

Generally, I just ignore it. Or at least I have in the past. Maybe I’m getting tired of being a good Twitter neighbor. I think I’ve had it.

Thursday, someone sent me an @ message, directly TO ME, filled with woo:

Prevent cancer. stop THIS: http://bit.ly/15QA8l @tmhmom

I clicked on the link. I mean, he sent it to ME. So he wanted me to read it. Feel free to click on it–it still works. But if you’re too lazy, here’s the crux of the one page screed: Iodized salt causes cancer (specifically breast cancer). Switch to sea salt and save your life. It also claimed that salt was iodized to prevent clumping, using antiquated technology, and it’s just stupid to use iodized salt.

At first, I wasn’t sure if what I was supposed to stop was using iodized salt, or the website that would put up such nonsense. So I checked a few more of his tweets, and realized that I had run into a world-class woo peddler.

I should have ignored it. But I was in a cranky mood. He had wasted a few minutes of my time on this junk.

So I sent a return. And I swear to whatever gods rock your boat, this is the ACTUAL conversation that followed:

Me: Sorry, I don’t do woo. (short and to the point. I mean, there was SO much wrong with this, how do you explain in 140 characters or less?)

HIM: are you in the habit of insulting someone who is sharing with you? (Not so much, but if you’re sharing woo? Maybe)

ME: 140 char isn’t enough to expl that breast ca is mostly genetic, the rest hormonal, and that people DIED before they put I in salt.

HIM: but 140 was enough to insult a human who is working to call to attention ONE of the simplest causal agents

ME: Again, while SALT is possibly deadly in amounts in the American diet, Iodine is absolutely necessary in the doses in that diet.

HIM: I never said Iodine is bad for you. I take it you didnt read the blog post. why are we even conversing.

ME: “And here’s the logical reason why Iodized salt will kill you. ” (Because he did, actually)

HIM: iodizedSALT is not iodine =)

ME: (Because now I know I’m talking to an idiot who doesn’t understand his own logic) Iodized salt is table salt mixed with a minute amount of K iodide, Na iodide or iodate. Which of those supposedly causes cancer?

He hasn’t bothered to answer me back.

If he had, he was going to get an earful about the fact that salt was iodized to prevent hypothyroid goiter, and hypothyroid cretinism, the leading cause of mental retardation in the world. NOT to prevent clumping. It has been one of the most effective public health interventions in history.

And it doesn’t cause cancer.

Now the SALT…

[NB--there has been some editing done. If you actually read the post, now it's claiming that it's the calcium silicate. Not the Iodine. But it still talks about it as "iodized salt." If that was in the original, I totally missed it. Still major woo. Cacium silicate is essentially calcium sand. Totally inert. It's used widely as an anticaking agent, and has been used as an antacid.]

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