Mixed Martial Arts: The Staph Infection Conspiracy Theory

My article on pets and inheritance wasn't as well received as I'd hoped, but I with this post I'll get back to my bread and butter, skepticism. I'm going to have to bring in a topic that I haven't talked about much, but does take up quite a few nights of my life. I'm Steve and I'm an MMA junkie. The bustling blog audience, 'Hi Steve'. I haven't missed watching a UFC or Strikeforce event in quite a while and try to watch the big fights from both Dream and Bellator. So when I learned about the Matt Hamill vs Keith Jardine conspiracy I knew that it would be something I would blog about.

Now for those of you unlucky enough to have missed the fight it can be viewed from this link. It's pretty long, 23 minutes, so if your of a more genteel nature you can just look at the picture at the top. I am the first to admit that I am not a medical doctor, and spent most of the fight wondering what the heck that red spot Matt Hamill's back was. After reading the reports and listening to the post fight conference, I learned that it was a hardened red boil that resulted from having a staph infection. This is what Medicine.net had to say about staph infections, staph infection is a potentially very bad, but it can also be mild and require no treatment. It goes on to say that there are,

"Over 30 different types of Staphylococci can infect humans, but most infections are caused by Staphylococcus aureus. Staphylococci can be found normally in the nose and on the skin (and less commonly in other locations) of 25%-30% of healthy adults. In the majority of cases, the bacteria do not cause disease. However, damage to the skin or other injury may allow the bacteria to overcome the natural protective mechanisms of the body, leading to infection."

So that's a brief general overview of what staph infection is, and that boil was looked at by 3 doctors. Kevin Iole noted in his mailbag that those three doctors were, "Matt Hamill's personal doctor, Dr. Vicki Mazzorana of the NSAC and Dr. Jeff Davidson, who works for the UFC. All three cleared him to fight and said he posed no risk. The scab was hard and the doctors said that even if it had come off during the fight, there was no chance of it affecting Jardine."

Which is fairly consistent with Medicine.net saying that, "In cases of minor skin infections, Staphylococcal infections are commonly diagnosed by their appearance without the need for laboratory testing." So I don't get the impression that staph is terribly hard to diagnose, and three doctors confirmed that Matt had a non-infectious staff infection that posed no threat to anyone.

Yet there is a growing opinion on the internet from MMA Junkie, MMA Convert, and Fight Opinion that allowing Matt Hamil to fight was a poor Medical decision. Fight opinion starts right off by noting that after the fight Matt Hamil was going to start taking antibiotics for treatment of the staph and asking why does Matt need antibiotics if the staff is healed. Well the implication may not be as bad as it seems. Medicine.net says that, "Minor skin infections are usually treated with an antibiotic ointment such as a nonprescription triple-antibiotic mixture. In some cases, oral antibiotics may be given for skin infections. Additionally, if abscesses are present, they are surgically drained." So it could be just a minor infection that was going to get some nonprescription cream on it.

Then Fight Opinion spends a long time talking about Vicki Mazzorana, and how she had a clinic temporary closed for violations, a violation of no sterilizing a machine in particular. From this the Zack Arnold of fight opinion seems to imply that because she once was guilty of providing a realm for infection, that she would do so again. Although he could just be saying that she has been guilty of poor decisions and practice in the past, if so then fine, but Matt Hamil was also looked at by two other doctors that confirmed her opinion.

To argue that letting Matt Hamil fight was a poor medical decision is an understandable position, understandable, but I think wrong. It is hard to diagnose people from afar, and three doctors that were able to form a real diagnoses all agreed that the staph infection posed no threat to anyone. To say that Matt should have been sent to a dermatologist is reasonable, and it would have added some comfort to the decision, but it wasn't deemed necessary by everyone who had the most information about what was going on.

I'll take those 3 confirmed opinions over the speculation of people Dr. Johnny 'The Fight Doc' Benjamin.  Yet, the semi-reasonable opinions of questioning the medical decision has lead to some people like Eddie Goldman on his radio show saying that, "Fighter safety is being thrown out the window by these crazy commissions who are working to please the promoters rather than protect the fighters." and people asking questions like this to Kevin Iole, "It was obvious that Matt “The Hammer” Hamill had a staph infection on Saturday when he fought Keith Jardine on 'The Ultimate Fighter Finale' in Las Vegas, yet he was still allowed to fight. Why did the Nevada Athletic Commission allow Matt to fight? Do you think the UFC had anything to do with it? Having Matt pull out of the fight would’ve been a huge blow. I really think this is unprofessional and dangerous to everyone who was in the cage or around it. This staph infection is really contagious. I don’t see why this issue isn’t getting a lot more attention. Everyone should be tested after the finale because of this screw-up."

Now these are the more untenable positions. That not only was there a poor medical decision being made, the poor medical decision was being made because the UFC wanted the co-main event of The Ultimate Fighter Final to go on. There is no evidence of this at all.

Not only is there no evidence, and it doesn't even make sense. If the staph was infectious the UFC would have came out looking horrible, because a UFC doctor also cleared Hamill. The UFC might have gotten 3 of its fighter infected with staph (2 now that Jardine has been cut), and one of those would have been The Ultimate Fighter Court Maggee, which is a pretty big loss. Also with the way blood was flying around in that fight, someone ringside could have been infected and that could have turned out to be a minor PR nightmare.On top of that all three doctors would be in risk of losing their medical licenses.

Also the UFC would have to count on no one it paid off coming out agianst them and stating what had happened. It just all adds up to having no value to anyone involved, the doctors or the UFC and there is no evidence for it. This conspiracy just lacks any plausibility.

Thanks for reading,
the moral skeptic

A Natural Arrogance

I've been thinking of a number of topics to write about and have came up with quite a few good topics for posting, but I think this one might be the topic that I see flaunted around the most without it even being analyzed. This one refers to the common belief and appeal to something being natural is akin to something good for human consumption, or something non-harmful to people. This belief has a counter-belief that goes with it as well, the belief that something that is artificial is bad for people in some way.

It may be at first obvious that most absolutes like this are wrong in some way. There could be an artificial 'black swan' substance out there that isn't bad for people, or there could be a small minority natural things that would be harmful to people. I'm not stating that there are some exceptions to the rule, I'm saying that the rule is broken, it doesn't work.

I think this mistaken belief has came from the sheer arrogance of people and can be traced back at least to Thomas Aquinas. He created a purposeful world where, if it rained it was to water the grass and in this world people were at the center of its purpose (look at his natural law and how man alone was endowed with reason). Even natural evils have their purpose. That being said the idea that everything natural has a purpose, is meant for humans and has existed for a long time along with people are mistaken and arrogant beliefs.

It is extraordinarily arrogant to believe that the world was put here for us and that everything in the world has a purpose. It is a step further than that to say that everything that is natural is good for people. The world is abrasive.  To demonstrate this a person could just go outside, where-ever they are, and eat any random leaves or animals they run into, it wouldn't take very long before this natural world makes you extremely sick at the minimum. Natural things aren't necessarily good for people, and in many cases they are hazardous. Mold, Cyanide, Arsenic, Lead.... are all natural and all not safe at some level. The claim all natural is supposed to make it seem like the product is safer, less harmful to the environment, but that is not the case.

Eric Schlossen, in his book Fast Food Nation (pages 120-130), points out that the differences between natural and artificial flavors isn't very great, and that in fact many 'natural' flavors have to go through more processing than the artificial flavors. In fact often they use the same chemicals derived by different means. The key to food safety is not whether something is natural or not, it has to do with its testing and track record.
So when you see something that say's 'all-natural' it doesn't mean anything outside of a marketing ploy. Make choices based on food studies, not the distinction between what is natural and what is artificial. 

I was going to end with that, but I just want to make a comment of Genetically Modified Food and labeling. Many people who have fallen for the 'all natural' belief want the GMF's to have a label to say that they have been genetically modified. I actually agree with them in theory, but I disagree with them for a different reason. It is great to know what you are eating and where it comes from, but labeling something as a GMF would create a non-rational fear of that product that would bias what is really a safe and well tested food. Genetically modified foods have to go through a bunch of tests and get approved, you don't get that same level of guarantee with some natural products. If you want to know more on this issue just watch the Bullshit episode on it and look into the issue.

Looking into those food issues will change how you view 'all natural' and GMF's and you'll probably even gain a deeper understanding of the world around you, even if it doesn't have a purpose.

Thanks for reading,

The Moral Skeptic

The Rawlsian Agreement for Health Care

I guess I haven't been drinking often enough to keep posting, but I thought I'd get back to it and try to give a few weekly words of attempted wisdom. One thing I have been doing lately is listening to a lot of The Skeptics Guide to the Universe , and I have become completely enamored with and recommend to everyone....or at least the few people who will read this. I mean where else can you find out about stories of somewhat reputable scientists saying that the universe is stopping the large hadron collider by it being sabotaged through time travel.

Now that I have plugged my favorite podcast, I guess I'll start my blog by creating the idea of the Rawlsian agreement. John Rawls came up with an idea that he thinks would be universally usable to create justice. I'm going to skip the rest of the importance parts of his theory of justice and concentrate on the two principles of justice as fairness, but if your interested you can find them here under the heading of number 4.These principles govern inequalities in a system and say that 1. For any inequality there has to be a fair an equal chance to obtain that inequality for everyone, what is call the fair equality of opportunity. 2. That any inequality be to the advantage of the 'least' members of society, the difference principle. Justice as fairness seems unfeasible at a social level, but I think it would work well for a setting up a system of health care.

      It may seem that this would only work with a public system but it doesn't mean I'm totally against a private option in some cases, all cases in fact, with the exception of cases where people would refuse to let someone ahead of them even if would be for the betterment of society, kind of a Rawlsian agreement for making things unequal. For example most people with a minor injury would let someone go ahead of them in the hospital line for 100 dollars or so, but no one would move back in the waiting list for a new heart or kidney for that amount of money. It might be argued that, that person may move back for 1 000 000 dollars, even if it did put them at a much greater risk of death or serious debilitation. That may be true the money may be too good to turn down, but I find that the 1 000 000 dollar situation would be unethical in a way that society in Canada at least agrees with. No one can pay 1 000 000 dollars to kill someone else, but they could pay 100 dollars to move ahead of them in line. I hope that example makes the idea consistent with societies ethics and understandable.

A whole medical system could be set up like this, made up with Rawlsian agreements with limits. This system would be two tiered, but set up for all the inequalities to be to the advantage to those in the second tier. I understand this would take a lot of work to set up, but it would end up being universal health care that was helped by the rich subsidizing the care for the poor, a real trickle down effect.

I'm interested in what people think of the Rawlsian agreement and what problems this system would have, hope to get some response with this and I'll try to continue to blog more often.

Thanks for reading,

The Moral Skeptic