COVID19 Misinformation: Joe Rogan, Dr. John Campbell and… The Reptile Lighting Facebook Group?
By now surely everyone is familiar with the struggles of Joe Rogan and his ill fated podcast that featured more than a few tidbits of misleading information. Dr. John Campbell has also had a proverbial shot across-the-bow by the BBC on distributing information that could considered less than accurate and even damaging. With peak audience engagement in information (and misinformation) about vaccines, viruses, and the associated best practices it is interesting to take the popular route and honestly compare “reptile science” to what is happening in the rest of the world today. Groups like Reptile Lighting, featuring Dr. Frances Baines, are expected to be the pinnacle of science where we separate folklore from real science —but they’re telling us deaths in the pandemic could have been minimized with vitamin D and to expose snakes to viruses. Is it another source of information like Dr. John Campbell?
Misinformation, Disinformation, or Conversation?
Because of our currently emerging topics in understanding what we are learning about the natural world, including reptiles, sometimes fringe theories get a little undeserved attention. In some instances we may learn that those fringe theories are more possible than we previously thought, requiring further scientific review, and this is how we develop. Unfortunately for those hidden gems that may have been glossed over there are often even more theories that continue to find themselves in the spotlight even though we cannot make clear and repeatable (that is, scientific) evidence for them.
As an update to this article please see the published post on Resolve Reptiles.
Joe Rogan
As a quick recap of what is happening with Joe Rogan, we see artists threatening to leave the streaming platform Spotify because of comments made about a few podcasts that were quickly labeled as misinformation about covid19. In these podcasts Joe was able to find qualified individuals with significant credentials however the information they shared was quickly questioned and found particularly lacking evidence.
Joe, in a response delivered via video, has lamented that he was simply presenting neutral information and that the same information would be treated differently in earlier stages of the current pandemic. Opponents have their own experts that can weigh in equally with why they may not share the same view as Joe’s experts.
Joe, as quoted in the video response above, has said he supports that “[they] put a disclaimer that you should speak to your physician and that these people and the opinions they express are contrary to the opinions to the consensus of experts.” Joe says he doesn’t want to present simply contrarian examples but rather an equal field for, supposedly, all opinions.
Even peer Howard Stern brings in an opinion that Joe should simply state that he is a comedian and to support the current medical guidance we have.
In one particularly hot-button “conversation” about myocarditis it appears Joe was completely wrong and may have misrepresented data to his viewers. You can see the World Health Organization’s October address of that specific topic.
Dr. John Campbell
Dr. John Campbell is a retiree that has spent most of the pandemic creating video content that, while often promotes reasonable hygiene and quarantine, also presents ideas from various scientific journals that may be considered alternative paths to navigate the current pandemic.
Dr. John Campbell has proposed ventilation, ivermectin, and Vitamin D. In one such video you can see Dr. John Campbell present some published information regarding Vitamin D while sitting in front of a banner suggesting to take appropriate steps to wash your hands (hygiene), keep distance (quarantine, isolate), and wear a mask (hygiene). The rest of the video is full of support for the idea that vitamin D may not only prevent disease entirely but may also be used as a therapy to prevent serious illness.
Dr. John Campbell has been accused by the BBC of misinformation. This has been widely covered publicly by other more qualified individuals. Dr. John Campbell’s content is often compared to bait for the more fringe theory conspiratorial audience members and he is often blamed for leaning further into fringe theories than he should without indicating his own mistakes.
If you are interested in further exploring where Dr. John Campbell gets some topics very skewed you may be interested in The Problem with Dr. John Campbell by Debunk the Funk with Dr. Wilson.
Dr. John Campbell has gone relatively unchecked with what he labels as “firm” or similar suggestive qualifiers that bolster ideas that may not be as strong as he seems to think. The audience creates a perfect storm of views and likes to create the desire for Dr. John Campbell to repeatedly dive into some rather odd theories.
Dr. John Campbell, at the time of this article, recently did his own myocarditis video — with the same conclusion that Joe Rogan is currently under fire for.
A Quick Side Trek into Vitamin D
It is worth taking a moment to remind readers that the idea that vitamin D is linked to health immune function and could be a remedy or preventative for a wide variety of diseases is not at all by any stretch a new occurrence.
Like previous studies on other diseases and vitamin D, of which there have been many, researchers struggle to make a solid link to a consistently effective dosage of vitamin D to accomplish what they may see in labs. This is part of the supposed controversy with vitamin D and what brings people to adopt a certain tinfoil hat conspiracy perspective that information is simply being suppressed on the sun’s natural disease destroyer (obviously bananas).
Lack of vitamin D has often been a suggestion as a contributing factor for diseases ranging from Tuberculosis to even being credited for preventing HIV infections. From daytime TV at-home cures to the widely publicized arguments about the vitamin D deficiency epidemic (or lack of) there seems to be no lack of debate about vitamin D.
Regardless of if you believe vitamin D to be effective at preventing a certain disease (or ineffectiveness) we consistently see the same results: other more consistently effective methods (hygiene, screening, early isolation, mechanical prophylaxis, etc, etc) are all more recommended because of their effectiveness over a vitamin D supplement.
Other uses often have the connotation of folk medicine, homeopathic remedies, and are often given other pseudoscience or fringe science treatment.
Current Vitamin D Guidance
As of this time the guidance for Vitamin D, as it stands in the United States today, is only present for preventing one disease: Rickets.
Rickets is a developmental disease in children that can be permanently life altering with deformities in bones that were unable to form correctly. Many parallels can be drawn to “MBD” (metabolic bone disease) or, more accurately, hyperparathyroidism we see in captive reptiles.
Other uses often have the connotation of folk medicine, homeopathic remedies, and are often given other pseudoscience or fringe science treatment.
As a human there is little that stops the consumption of vitamin D — this is available supplemented to many foods in the United States from cereals to dairy products. You can also find this vitamin in abundance in mushrooms. You can, of course, stand out in the sunlight or even get your own artificial source of ultraviolet radiation to help you synthesize ultraviolet light. Science, as in real science and not folklore science, says you will inevitably suffer early onset aging, conjunctivitis, potential possibly temporary eye injury, melanomas, and an assortment of other possible ailments if you were to expose yourself to solar radiation every single day (and you would still get colds).
You can pick and choose from an assortment of papers that link vitamin D and disease prevention with nearly all of them concluding in the same way: vitamin D is a hopeful peace of the puzzle but there is not conclusive evidence of any specific dosage of vitamin D having broad benefits.
We live in modern times where washing your hands is better than standing out in the sun.
Vitamin D Supplementation in Animals
For some animals, such as reptiles, we see significant disease caused by a lack of vitamin D. It takes very little research to confirm that species like Pogona Vitticeps can suffer debilitating disease without vitamin D.
This is also true in mammals where we can see that dogs and cats, without vitamin D, develop bone disease. It is well established that dogs provably do have an increase of serum levels concentrations when exposed to sunlight, however, it is simply not enough to sustain required levels to prevent bone disease.
On the negative aspect of vitamin D it is well known that exposure to radiation from the sun can lead to melanoma and other diseases.
Vitamin D is a registered organic rodenticide. In 2018 Purdue University details how d-CON moved to using the vitamin to cause toxicity in rodents.
Vitamin D Hypervitaminosis can be fatal in many animals and there is no reason to believe that reptiles are different. We are prevented from simply supplementing them with large amounts of vitamin D the way we would humans (see: humans in covid19 studies)— the ability to cause injury and death with over-supplementation of vitamin D is significant. This often leads people to rely on UV lamps to leverage the animal’s own physiology to regulate their uptake of vitamin D.
Unfortunately uptake of vitamin D through UV can be inconsistent, is relatively unstudied for most species, and (like humans) can very between individuals. There is certainly a question of under-dosing but over-dosing may cause injury.
Over-supplementation and incorrect supplementation can cause severe injury and death. This is a strategy used by pest control companies as a registered organic rodenticide.
This is a very critical piece of information that you will see again later.
Guidance for artificial UV generally come in the form of Ferguson Zone recommendations and can be looked up using the excellent UVTool, where you’ll recognize Dr. Frances Baines, with many species still unlisted. You are invited to check the UV recommendation for a species you are familiar with. You’ll find that these values are significantly low.
Example: heterodon nassicus, or plains hog-nosed snake, lists a maximum UVI of 3.0. You are invited to check the UV index index for Illinois where the UVI can reach 9 in the summer while a good portion of the year involves these snakes taking shelter from freezing weather (effectively zero). It is unlikely the low levels of light in captivity are equivalent to bolus vitamin D in any human trials.
An Introduction to Reptile Lighting
Reptile Lighting is a Facebook Group featuring Dr. Frances Baines and Roman Muryn as Admins. The group is private, most likely to shield it from being flagged as misinformation by Facebook, and features a rule: Be prepared to back up your view with peer-reviewed evidence, not folklore husbandry. Before joining users are being told that disagreeing evidence is folklore which is somethings its members pervade throughout other areas of the internet.
Refusal of Information
Individuals are invited to have their own experiences. As this is a private Facebook group not only is information censored and hidden but it is difficult to get access to past incidences. For this section I will be recalling what I consider to be an average interaction.
The humble leopard gecko found itself featured in a study including Dr. Frances Baines. This paper is often used as “proof” that leopard geckos require UVB light but the conclusion is quite the opposite.
[…] a lack of UVb exposure does not seem to hinder normal development of juvenile leopard geckos, when provided with sufficient dietary calcium and vitamin D.
The nocturnal leopard gecko (Eublepharis macularius) uses UVb radiation for vitamin D3 synthesis DOI: 10.1016/j.cbpb.2020.110506
Like humans, the paper proves that we can supplement the diet of these animals safely and that it will match the development of animals exposed to solar radiation. The introduction includes the mention that we do not have an understanding of health and welfare impacts of vitamin D levels for this species. This paper, and the material it builds on, is opposite to advice given in the forum to provide animals with a consistent 12 hour day cycle because they require UVB light.
Bring this paper up for discussion in the group and you will be told they need UV for other reasons that often go unqualified (or worse, feature very odd model species).
The Model Species Problem
“Reptiles” is a collection of species that all are very unique. From the leopard gecko (e. macularius) in the previous section to bearded dragons (p. vitticeps) we have already visited two species with two very unique requirements. Dr. Frances Baines herself has proven vitamin D supplementation works equally as well as exposure to UV radiation for leopard geckos, however there is no research suggesting the same for bearded dragons.
Because of the disparity of evidence, and general lack of research of each different species, there is often a clear attempt to use humans as model species for reptiles. The group will state that vitamin D has benefits for reptile digestion (because it does in humans), that vitamin D will improve their mood and cognition (because it does it in humans), and that wound closure rates are accelerated after plastic surgery procedures (just like in humans). The group will gladly substitute species as it benefits their arguments and will not accept the irrelevance or ridiculousness of this strategy.
“Peer Reviewed”
The group maintains a list of “Reptile Husbandry Peer Reviewed Videos” and will claim their members are “experts”.
This group promotes not only lighting videos but videos about disease (cryptosporidium) and even spiders. Neither of these topics really have any tangential relationship to reptile lighting. The reviewers weight individuals like Dr. Zac Loughman next to a young Liam Sinclair with absolutely no credentials.
You can see JTB Reptiles, a member of the group and YouTube presenter, praising the groups Dr. Frances Baines is associated to as featuring higher quality information and research than other sources: “[…] from those who can give satisfying answers when questioned, can back up their opinions with peer-reviewed papers, or (most importantly of all) just make sense.
With regards my own videos, peer-review is something that I’ve recently become involved with. Two Facebook groups, Advancing Herpetological Husbandry and Reptile Lighting (which are ran, I should think, by some of the Rolls-Royce in herp keeping) are now offering a (free) peer-review service to anyone making videos about herps.”
JTB conflates peer reviewed published papers with amateur reviewed YouTube videos with a Facebook group seal of approval. There is a healthy amount of flippant “makes sense” qualifiers, much like the use of folklore by the group, to suggest that knowledge from outside of the group carries no merit. It shouldn’t surprise you that the “service” they offer is little used by anyone outside of their own echo chambers much in the same way you would see Flat Earth or AntiVaxxer groups circulate content that they all agree with.
How Diseases Are Introduced To Reptiles
It has to be pointed out exactly how reptiles are exposed to disease since this is a sticking point for the misinformation the members of Reptile Lighting promote.
Reptiles are captive animals that are most often kept in solitary conditions. There are only very few instances where communities are kept together, or animals are exposed to each other, with the majority of animals being kept completely alone.
On example of animals sometimes kept in communities are young bearded dragons (pogona vitticeps). As mentioned earlier, these animals are dependent on UV light and difficult to supplement successfully. They still transmit Atadenovirus (note the article linked is from 2012) to each other in spite of having UV coverage increasing their vitamin D levels and supposedly eradicating viruses in their environment.
Ball pythons can contract a virus that causes significant respiratory diseases that is commonly simply called “nidovirus” or, more modernly, serpentovirus. It is believed that this virus is transmitted by fomites. It is unlikely the animals are forcefully ejecting viral particles cross a room — snakes don’t cough or sneeze after all. The current recommendations are:
To date, effective strategies that have successfully prevented infection rates rising in a captive snake collection include quarantine of new or infected individuals and a separate caretaker, clothes, equipment, and separate ventilation for infected snakes. Additional measures included shower-out procedures, one-way flow of food and bedding, changing of disposable gloves between groups or species, hand sanitizer disinfection of gloves between breed rotations in racks, and disinfection of all surfaces and instruments following use.
This strategy is effective because these animals are not like humans: they do not need to go to school or the grocery store. They live in enclosures isolated from each other. While there are fringe possibilities of flies tracking in viral particles the obvious conclusions here are hygiene.
Reptiles do not recover from diseases like Ball Python Nidovirus or Atadenovirus. These are permanent and are lifelong debilitating illnesses that they may succumb to early in their lives.
Disinformation
With the basics out of the way, let’s jump directly into very clear smoking gun obvious disinformation “facts” from The Reptile Lighting group.
Vitamin D “Manages” Disease (Roman Muryn)
If Vitamin D has been proven to be statistically significant in the management of the disease in humans then we would be foolish in ignoring the evidence when dealing with reptiles and respiratory diseases. — Roman Muryn, Admin of Reptile Lighting
It should be obvious how ridiculous and dangerous this is. You should not, and cannot, use humans as a model species for reptiles. You cannot use human diseases as model diseases for reptiles. Even though viruses causing respiratory disease in humans are similar (same family, in fact) the manner that we contract them and our requirements are completely different.
It must also be noted that Roman is suggesting that a lamp is equivalent to large value supplementation of vitamin D in humans. Any of the supposedly evidence that may prove to be statistically significant will use supplementation for humans and certainly not lamps.
The World Health Organization lists this in their covid19 Mythbusters. Journals were written covering folklore medicine which included vitamin D with the “usual suspects” of elderberry and silver.
To this day we still do not have guidance on the effective daily amount of vitamin D that should be taken to prevent viruses effectively — because each study comes to the conclusion that vitamin D is a small piece of a complex puzzle.
The WHO Is Wrong About Masks (Roman Muryn)
The advice from the WHO and NICE has evolved, it will be remembered that they did not, at first, recommend the use of face masks. Yet here we are now a year later with a requirement that everybody entering a government facility should wear a face mask. — Roman Muryn
This is Roman Muryn rejecting the conflicts that vitamin D cures, treats, or prevents the virus that causes the current pandemic (and supposedly will act exactly the same way in reptiles) by suggesting the WHO (and NICE) are inevitably wrong about vitamin D.
There is a shockingly bad take on our evolving standards of care. Regardless, there has been advice that has never changed: quarantine, isolate, and, as they became available, consider using diagnostic methods (PCR and antibody tests).
Vitamin D Research is New (Dr. Frances Baines)
[…] regarding the use of Vitamin D in disease prevention in both humans and reptiles; the subject is relatively new and people seem to find it very difficult to explain properly, which leads to confusion. — Dr. Frances Baines
This is patently false. The research into vitamin D’s possible role in preventing disease is not new at all. It’s quite literally a pop-science reference in every homeopathic or naturopath approach to disease management (right next to silver, for example).
Vitamin D Prevents covid19 (Dr. Frances Baines)
In humans, studies have shown that good vitamin D status appears to confer resistance to several respiratory infections, including respiratory syncytial virus and influenza, as well as CoVid19. — Dr. Frances Baines
Dr. Frances Baines is intentionally conflating these studies. There are a multitude of studies, which have been mentioned previously and are trivial to find, which all conclude that vitamin D may be a promising piece of a large puzzle in immune system function.
However, it is once again worth reminding everyone that snakes do not go shopping or go to school. Even if you were to decide an exact supplement dosage for snakes to supposedly prevent viral infection it would still be more consistently effective to simply avoid exposing them to the virus.
Vitamin D Could Have Prevented Deaths But Was Ignored(Dr. Frances Baines)
I believe he was making the cynical point that the WHO (and all but a very few other organisations) have refused to take on board the extremely compelling evidence that high dose vitamin D supplementation could have been used right from the start, as one more measure towards saving the lives of a large number of CoVid sufferers and preventing severe disease in countless others. — Dr. Frances Baines
This is Dr. Frances Baines backing up Roman’s claim that the WHO was “wrong about masks” and therefore wrong about vitamin D.
We have very little to suggest this is true. Once again, this is on the covid19 Mythbusters from the WHO. NICE has responded to these claims. The JAMA Network has responded to these claims.
Fitness Prevents Infection, Anecdotal Evidence Snakes Recover from Viruses With UVB (Liam Sinclair)
Some of the issues we see in captive snakes are viral infections like respiratory issues or bacterial issues like mouth rot or scale rot. This is most commonly caused by incorrect husbandry conditions. In recent decades, folklore husbandry myths perpetuating a simplistic style of husbandry that does not offer the opportunity for overhead heating and lighting leaves a lot of snakes without a certain beneficial preventative care. […] So there’s anecdotal evidence of improved recovery from respiratory infections after snakes have been given UVB, of course the provision of UVB normally coincides with a more elaborate environment and better ventilation. So in truth its probably a combination of factors. But lets just talk about the affect UVB may be having. — Liam Sinclair, Reptiles and Research
This video has been covered repeatedly and to this day the Reptile Lighting group and Liam Sinclair are in denial about what was said.
In the rambling writing taken from the video description here (this is not a transcript) and repeated in the video, Liam Sinclair rattles off a host of possible ailments for reptiles, specifically identifying viral infections like respiratory issues, and then makes a specific statement that improved recovery from respiratory infections after snakes have been given UVB.
Liam has just claimed that respiratory infections caused by viral infections are cured with UVB. This is untrue. This is very dangerous. These snakes do not recover from these diseases.
Viruses enter a reptile’s enclosure via the keeper. There is no mention of hygiene, quarantine, and screening. Even Dr. John Campbell covers these topics in parallel to the claims he has made.
Roman Muryn, JTB, and Dr. Frances Baines will rush to defend the video as being completely correct. Roman Muryn actually references a Dr. John Campbell on vitamin D to defend the video.
This is literally a Dr. John Campbell video that was probably knocked off by Liam Sinclair to make a video for the Reptile Lighting Group that was then supported by Roman Muryn linking the same video.
This is a circle, an echo chamber, and a disinformation loudspeaker.
We Should Induce Viral Disease in Reptiles To Prove Vitamin D Effectiveness (Liam Sinclair)
[…] you know, willingly induce respiratory infections in snakes to test this and obviously this isn’t going to make it out of ethical review […] — Liam Sinclair, Reptiles and Research
This is quite literally insane.
The Reptile Lighting group will undoubtedly defend this as completely rational science. It is not. There is no way to defend this.
Screenshot Evidence for Doubt
Inevitably someone will say that none of what is quoted above was ever said, even though it is present across the internet, so I will include a screenshot of Dr. Frances Baines directly addressing misinformation by providing misinformation as quoted above.
Conclusion
The circle of supposed “peer review” (amateur review by field adjacent retirees and individuals with no degree) is nothing more than marketing for the Reptile Lighting group featuring Dr. Frances Baines (surgeon) and Roman Muryn (unrelated credentials) where Liam Sinclair (no credentials) stands shoulder-to-shoulder with Dr. Zac Loughman on a soapbox claiming we should intentionally infect snakes with viruses.
Dr. Frances Baines has defended this behavior before by saying the group is only about lighting — yet they feature videos about spiders and cryptosporidium. The “answer” is UVB and vitamin D while the “question” is whatever they can hock much like your average proverbial snake oil salesman.
They have used their group to further ideas that are often pop-science, fringe, naturopathic, and/or homeopathic including the idea that vitamin D is an ignored vitamin that will prevent disease and death in reptiles and humans. In one instance they have very clearly used Dr. John Campbell videos as evidence for their claims regarding reptiles and then later used the same video to support their claims.
Like Joe Rogan and Dr. John Campbell it will undoubtedly be defended as “conversation” and those involved will not admit, much like their source, it is not science at all. They have repeated covid19 myths as “reptile science” and labelled everything else folklore.
