Gillian McKeith "PhD": join the party

Yesterday I took my own institution to task for offering disgraceful, unjustifiable 'degrees' in 'Complementary Health' - fraud at its worst.

So I should point you in the direction of Shitwoman, aka "Dr" Gillian McKeith "PhD". I worked hard for my PhD. In return for several years of pain and misery, I get to inflict the same on my students until I'm sacked. McKeith, on the other hand, bought her PhD from an unaccredited correspondence course woo-monger in the US (now closed) with a piece of work which references only weirdo magazines rather than, y'know, scientific research: Ben Goldacre bought the same membership for his dead cat.

She claims, amongst other things, that you can have "too little" DNA which can be fixed with dietary changes, and that eating chlorophyll will oxygenate your guts (chlorophyll produces oxygen in leaves when light strikes them). Not much light up my bottom, and any leaves I've eaten are definitely dead.

Shitty Gill's "PhD" got her a range of nonsense food products and a disgusting Channel 4 program in which she shouted at fat poor people.

that’s the most sinister feature of the whole nutritionist project, graphically exemplified by McKeith: it’s a manifesto of rightwing individualism – you are what you eat, and people die young because they deserve it. They choose death, through ignorance and laziness, but you choose life, fresh fish, olive oil, and that’s why you’re healthy. You’re going to see 78. You deserve it. Not like them.

But genuine public health interventions to address the real social and lifestyle causes of disease are far less lucrative, and far less of a spectacle, than anything a food crank or a TV producer would ever dream of dipping into. What prime-time TV series looks at food deserts created by giant supermarket chains, the very companies with which stellar media nutritionists so often have lucrative commercial contracts? What show deals with social inequality driving health inequality? Where’s the human interest in prohibiting the promotion of bad foods; facilitating access to nutrient-rich foods with taxation; or maintaining a clear labelling system? Where is the spectacle in “enabling environments” that naturally promote exercise, or urban planning that prioritises cyclists, pedestrians and public transport over the car? Or reducing the ever-increasing inequality between senior executive and shop-floor pay?

Then the Advertising Standards Authority told her to drop "Dr" from her products, and the Medicines and Healthcare Regulatory Authority made her withdraw her 'sex pills' as illegal. She lied about the reasons for their withdrawal (no pun intended) in the press. Read the whole hilariously depressing story (including the cat) here.

Why am I bothering with her now? Because she's been bullying someone on Twitter and calling Ben Goldacre a liar. I hope he sees her in court and I'll donate to his legal fees gladly.

So, how's the book diet coming along?

Not bad, comrades, not bad at all. I've bought 3 books in the last ten days, all for work: Motion's biography of Philip Larkin, a book on masculinity in contemporary literature, and Almanac 14, the annual of the Association for Welsh Writing in English, which came with my yearly membership. It's very good. You should all join.

Meanwhile, in Utterly Insane and A Disgrace To The Public Sphere News, the Tory Scum government has displayed its contempt for science and rationality once more. Who've they appointed to the important and influential Health Select Committee? Only David Tredinnick and Nadine Dorries.

This pair are among the more gruesome and dumber Tories. Highlights include claiming that 'unborn children can punch their way out of the womb' (Dorries - they can't - apart from anything else, there's no room to get a good swing); corrupt Tredinnick tried to charge the taxpayer for astrology kit, and thinks that blood doesn't clot when there's a full moon (it does).

" Surgeons will not operate because blood clotting is not effective."

Er… they do. Ever had an appointment cancelled because of the moon? Me neither. Though perhaps this explains why I've never had one scheduled for midnight either.

He also demands that homeopathy be funded by the NHS despite it being an evil and charlatan way to separate the rich and stupid from their money and despite a complete lack of understanding about the scientific method.

Dorries is also pretty lazy (and here) - at least she won't turn up to the committee meetings to spread the insanity. She relies on pseudo-science to support her views and appears not to believe in democracy. She also, as the article points out, has a history of distorting facts to make her sound better. Additionally, she's got a well-deserved reputation as an expenses leech and leading weirdo (famously claiming that the House of Commons was packed with potential suicides following the Telegraph's revelation that she and plenty of other hogs had their snouts deep in the trough - Dorries behaved dubiously over her housing and gave her daughters cushy jobs at the taxpayer's expense because they might struggle to find employment elsewhere. She also channels taxpayers' money to her friends.

Despite this, perhaps these two fully deserve their places on the committee. After all, they've been elected by the great British people. Tens of thousands of voters decided that they didn't want honest, hardworking, sane and rational representatives making law on their behalf. So perhaps they should be allowed to carry on - we'll get the kind of country we voted for. Idiots like me should stand aside or even welcome the kind of legislature and health service we'd get - after all, democracy should rule.

God and woo in one!

Ben Goldacre directs our attention to a magical confluence of Republican politics, bigotry, Christianity and the worst of junk science.

Finally a 100% effective cure for homosexuality!

Friends,

Do you know somebody who is suffering from homosexuality? Leading psychologists such as James Dobson agree that homosexuality is a sick diseased perversion which must be cured. However until now ex-gay therapies have been expensive and hard to obtain. Despite our prayers and best lobbying efforts most insurance companies will not pay for treatment to cure homosexuality. That may all soon change thanks to the re-discovery of a 200 year old remedy: Homeopathy.

Thanks to the homeopathic treatment’s high water content they can actually provide much needed moisture. This has been proved to help maintain your body’s fluid balance.

According to Dana Ullman, America’s leading Homoeopath there is a 100% natural cure for homosexuality: Natrum Bromatum. This medical wonder can stop all homosexual urges after only one week of use. Dana has used Natrum Bromatum to cure more than ten homosexuals of their deadly perversion. Thanks to his innovative treatment these men are now living healthy and productive lives. Three of them are married with children. How many people has standard medicine cured? Not one I will bet. 

It's glorious. I'd love to see the peer-reviewed evidence for that '100% effective', and I now realise that drinking fluids is a useless method of 'hydrating' myself compared with homeopathy. That explains why I look like a prune.

Be sure not to miss the link to 'God's Hitlist'. That's loving of him.

Everybody's free to feel…bad!

I'm a grumpy, Eeyoreish chap, with a lot to be grumpy and Eeyoreish about. One of my pet hates is the group of people who ascribe any sort of physical or emotional problems to 'negative thinking' or 'negative energy' and other associated lunacies. I want to beat them to death with a bust of Einstein, or lock them in a room with Ben Goldacre. Forever.

But I thought this was just me being grumpy. Then I read Barbara Ehrenreich's piece in the Guardian a couple of days ago. Barbara (a wonderful writer), contracted breast cancer. She entered a world in which charlatans from established religions and other weirdo groups encouraged her to embrace cancer. If she wasn't enjoying it, they seemed to feel, she was missing out on some kind of spiritual adventure.

It's a particularly twisted form of emotional bullying and imperialism. Developing potentially-fatal cancer isn't an opportunity to acquire lunatic spiritual values. It shouldn't be a come-hither to charlatans. We shouldn't be forced to adopt the values of kooks and purveyors of 'woo' when we're ill or miserable. It's time to resist these dubious, ideologically -motivated tricksters. It's OK to be sad, unhappy or sick.

Not all our politicians are corrupt. Some are weirdo nutters too.

As evidence, here's Ben Goldacre's latest Bad Science column from the Guardian. It's a joy. Some are just ignorant (yes, Brooks Newmark, we're looking at you), prompting this reply from cleverclogs MP Dr. Evan Harris:

“The honourable Member for Braintree cited evidence from The Sun, so I want to refer to a recent edition of the British Medical Journal”).

Others are pretty much certifiable, which has never been a bar to high office in the UK:

“It is no good people saying that just because we cannot prove something, it does not work… I believe that the Department needs to be very open to the idea of energy transfers…

“In 2001 I raised in the House the influence of the moon, on the basis of the evidence then that at certain phases of the moon there are more accidents. Surgeons will not operate because blood clotting is not effective and the police have to put more people on the street.” 

 “I am talking about a long-standing discipline—an art and a science—that has been with us since ancient Egyptian, Roman, Babylonian and Assyrian times. It is part of the Chinese, Muslim and Hindu cultures… Criticism is deeply offensive to those cultures,” says Tredinnnick: “and I have a Muslim college in my constituency.” 

Any attempts to challenge Tredinnick’s ideas are based, he explains, on “superstition, ignorance and prejudice” by scientists who are “deeply prejudiced, and racially prejudiced too, which is troubling.”

Well done, David Tredinnick. See, not all Tory MPs are selfish, baby-eating arms dealers. Some of them are mentally unwell.

Not that the government's any better. They have a Drugs Advisory Council which recommends how we should regulate recreational drugs. Their chairman, Professor Nutt, pointed out that having Ecstasy in the same division of harm/illegality as crack cocaine, is a bit silly - it just persuades potential drug users that the state doesn't know what it's doing. The government ignored all the council's sound advice, and sacked Nutt for pointing out (quite calmly) that they seem to prefer the Daily Mail's moral judgments over actual medical fact. I know this is hardly a surprise, but it's still depressing.

Ben Goldacre - secular saint

Ben Goldacre, as those of you who read Bad Science know, is a genius and he's on our side.

He's feeling a little grumpy, this time about politics. Now I'm a little more optimistic: British politics is a mess of petty-minded careerists, but there are selfless types out there. Ben puts his case better than I could, however:

I view politics as a tedious and impenetrable world of soul-destroying compromise populated by individuals too ambitious to speak clearly on issues of any importance, while generally defending the interests of the new wealthy friends they make while in power.

Cut and dried (in another sense)

The Guardian reported the other day that circumcision (much more common in the US than in the UK) reduces the risk of contracting AIDS, according to double-blind trials.

Ben Goldacre, who writes a column in the Guardian about the media's reporting of science, amongst other things, takes issue with this report most amusingly:

Dear Editor,

your reporter Alex Renton claims there are double-blind trials to show that circumcision reduces the transmission of HIV. In a double-blind trial, neither the researcher nor the participant know whether they have had the intervention, in this case “circumcision”. However distracted I am by the lack of basic scientific literacy in British news media, I feel certain that if somebody cut the skin at the end of my penis off, I would notice, if not immediately, then at some stage in the years that followed.

Yours

Ben Goldacre
(Bad Science)

If you believe… they put a man on the moon

Sorry for the REM reference

Today, as the Guardian's special section reminds me, is the fortieth anniversary of the moon landings. How do you feel about it? Ten years ago, I had nothing but awe for such an amazing achievement - and I still feel that way for the most part. However, in between, I've done a lot of reading. I've learned how the space programme was motivated solely by a need to dominate the Soviets, about how it was manned by pretty unrepentant Nazi rocket scientists drawing on the skills developed in the 1940s, about how it cost a massive chunk of the US GNP, and how its scientific benefits have been massively overexaggerated by NASA spinners.

The Soviets took a pragmatic approach: near earth orbits are great for science, there's nothing on the moon. So did the Europeans for that matter - manned space flight is like getting a taxi down to the shops. We might make Mars but that's as far as it goes, so let's put our energy into satellites, telescopes and probes.

And yet - the romance lingers, perhaps even intensified by the failure of our space race. Once the cold war ended, it turned out that the motivation (and money) dissipated. Instead, we're in the post-space age. Will our grandchildren remember that men walked on the moon? Will they have the energy to care, inbetween long treks for water and trying to eke out a subsistence living on a ruined earth? Perhaps the dominant mode will be anger, at the waste of multiple billions on a giant penis when millions of people starved.

Perhaps, though, the dominant mood will be melancholy. J. G. Ballard's Hello America and Myths of the Near Future depict a California and Florida of abandoned space centres, emptied pools, men and women spiritually hollowed out by the loss of technological purpose.

Boo! Hiss!

Commiserations to Ben Goldacre, whose Bad Science book was pipped to the Samuel Johnson Prize by Leviathan, a book about whales. I'm sure it's very good, but can't help feeling that a panel containing an editor of the Telegraph was never going to vote for a book which excoriates poor science journalism - that paper is particularly guilty (and that's only one example).

Well done, Wolverhampton University mathematician

Crappy formulae for 'most romantic day of the year' or whatever is bullshit which gives science a bad name.

So you can guess that I'm particularly pleased by news that one of my own colleagues has put her name to this modern branch of publicity-seeking charlatanry, as noted by Frank Swain (h/t to Ben Goldacre). Apparently the best pancake is defined mathematically, not by taste. Aaaaarrrrrgggghhh.

Some good news now: I'm keeping my English teaching job for another 2 years, despite this blog! Hurrah!

If it quacks like a duck, it's not science

The Daily Telegraph has done democracy a massive favour by publishing all the MPs expenses claims.

But you can't keep a mentally-ill publication down. If you know even the slightest thing about science or journalism, I urge you not to click on this link (hat-tip to Ben Goldacre) because you'll start to self-harm, so great will be the anguish. If you meet Christopher Middleton, feel free to beat him to a bloody pulp. After all, he can be healed by sending a hair sample to a radionics specialist…

What are little Christopher's scientific qualifications? Well, he was Property Writer of the Year 2005, and describes himself as a 'modern manners journalist'. It would be very wrong of you to email him at CMidton@aol.com to question him further, or to leave skeptical questions on his website.

Vaccines = good. Celebrities = gaping cultural void

Mindless celebs who think that being able to wave at photographers qualifies them as doctors, scientists and theologians actually kill people because morons (or ordinary people lost in the echo chamber of postmodern existence) listen to them. Marina Hyde, of whom I'm no fan, makes this point wittily in the Guardian.

Meanwhile, a somewhat angrier American has founded the Jenny McCarthy Bodycount, which logs the number of vaccine-preventable deaths for whom he blames this woman, who went from stripping for Playboy and dating film stars to 'writing' anti-vaccine books seemingly unhindered by shame, self-consciousness, scientific training or any of the other qualities we should admire in human beings.

Garlic cures AIDS - yeah, right.

I've banged on about Ben Goldacre and Badscience.net relentlessly. Fearless exposing the small dishonesties and major frauds of pharmaceutical companies, media outlets, universities for hire, 'alternative therapists' and 'Dr' Gillian McKeith alike, he performs a public service.

Ben's book, Bad Science is a must-read because it gives all the tools required to challenge any of the 'wonder-drug' / X causes or cures cancer / scientific shampoo bollocks shovelled at us.

Now, he's making available the chapter on Mathias Rath which was dropped from the book because the dangerous charlatan was suing Ben and The Guardian. Now the case is over (Rath lost), you can read how a man claimed that cancer sufferers should drop their medication in favour of vitamin pills, because the pharmaceutical companies were deliberately poisoning them for profit.

However, this was just the start. South Africa has 6.3 million AIDS sufferers, and 25% of the population has HIV. Along comes Rath, with adverts reading 'Multivitamin treatment is more effective than any toxic AIDS drug' and 'Multivitamins cut the risk of developing AIDS', with clinics dispensing these 'vitamins'.

Needless to say, these are lies from start to finish. Yes, major pharmaceutical companies are capitalist whores, but there is a serious legal framework which demands drug testing before a product is licensed. Rath's rubbish isn't licensed or tested, and he lied and lied and lied about his 'research'. In tandem with Thabo Mbeki's conspiracy-theorist approach to AIDS, the death toll in South Africa rose by 330,000. Millions of South Africans believed Rath and his denialist friends, leading to mass deaths.

So when you whinge on about not trusting doctors or pharmaceutical companies, remember this: that your sophisticated scepticism round dinner tables might sound terribly clever, but it's killing people on a huge scale. Pharmaceutical companies are deceitful, capitalist liars, but they have to operate within a strong regulatory and legal system which makes them behave… in the West, at least. Your doctor IS on your side. S/he's trained and the drugs are the end-product of years of experimentation. Kneejerk rejection of rationalist science kills people - kooks here and poor, uneducated, oppressed people 'there'. Read the chapter: the extent of the lies, shenanigans and plain stupidity will horrify you.

O Frabjous Day

My favourite scientist, Pharyngula, is joining my favourite newspaper for a monthly column. With Bad Science on board, it's swiftly becoming lefty-rationalist central!

Also, it has a sense of humour. Its nickname is The Grauniad because of its formerly awful proofing - look up grauniad.co.uk

I'm doomed…

Over on Bad Science and on Newsnight, Ben Goldacre is ripping Susan Greenfield and another 'researcher' to shreds for the ludicrous claim, as the Daily Mail puts it, that 'Facebook = Cancer'. She says 'there's no evidence for this but…' - which echoes the infamous Chris Morris paedophilia episode in which Dr Fox makes the same claim about crabs and paedophiles sharing genes (can't embed this one, but it's at 1.15).

The basic idea behind this ludicrous story is that use of Facebook etc. = loneliness = susceptibility to disease. Fair enough. In that case, holding tutorials yesterday made me very susceptible, and my daily routine (read books, teach, read books) means that I'm a high-priority case. I demand screening! Compensation! That bastard Gutenberg and his pushers Waterstones, Bangor University, Wolverhampton University, Amazon, ABE and all the other backstreet book dealers should be strung up for this. My entire life has been predicated on George Eliot's maxim: 'the world outside books is not a happy one' - and now I discover that hiding myself away with one will kill me.

The people have spoken - the bastards

I've had an anonymous vote (from a Blueyonder subscriber in the region of Wolverhampton and Telford) against more discussion of media studies - so an addition to the rules: identify yourself in some way (a link to your own blog is enough) if you want an opinion! As to the substance: half my job is media studies and it's more complex than you might think. 

Surely everybody should know, for instance, what Baudrillard or Bourdieu or Bauman (see, three very serious philosophers and I'm only up to B) have to say about our increasingly mediatized, simulated societies? Or who owns the webosphere? Or how online 'communities' relate (if they are communities)? Or how audiences process and understand Jeremy Kyle? If we don't know about, the bastards who MAKE Jeremy Kyle win without a fight… But seriously, there's a large dollop of philosophy, cultural studies and sociology in media studies, and none of it helps the kids get onto Big Brother (thankfully). 

I received my Bad Science 'I Think You'll Find It's A Bit More Complicated Than That' T-shirt the other day and wore it for my economics lecture/seminar. I think they got what I was saying…

Jeni Barnett is a complete loon and a danger to the public - 2

Since Jeni Barnett is so ashamed of her own words that her lawyers have forced Bad Science to take down its excerpt from the show, lots of bloggers are posting it elsewhere. I'll put it up here when I work out how to do audio.

Jeni Barnett is an ill-informed loon and a danger to the public

She is, needless to say, a radio presenter on LBC, which apparently qualifies her to bullshit away about medical matters and shout down actually qualified people. Now she's harassing Ben Goldacre over at Bad Science. Not because he's distorted her ill-informed ravings, but because he posted an audio clip of her so that he couldn't be accused of misquoting her insane and dangerous rambling - encouraging people to believe that MMR vaccination is damaging to children (short answer - it isn't and all the science proves it). 

This malicious no-talent whinger isn't challenging Ben on medical or factual grounds - but on copyright: 'fair use' is apparently an unknown concept to her - or perhaps she doesn't want her inane rambling to be subjected to sober assessment. What a coward, and what a desperate, bandwagon jumping pathetic excuse for a public figure. Send her a message!

Why Paul Dacre should commit hara-kiri, pt. 93

Headline in today's Daily Nazi: 'Coffee May Raise Child Cancer Risk: New Evidence that Caffeine Could Damage Babies' DNA'. 

Incredibly irresponsible (though packed with conditionals) and unscientific headline anyway (which is why BadScience.net sells a t-shirt reading 'I think you'll find it's a bit more complicated than that' - I've bought one), but if you steel yourself and plunge deeper into the cesspool, you find in the third paragraph that the research hasn't actually been done! There's a lot of 'doctors believe' and 'scientists think', but Dr. Marcus Cooke thinks that he might find a link when the study starts - hardly 'evidence' (and he's careful to say that ruling it out is equally plausible). The poor lamb seems a bit confused though: 'Although there's no evidence at all of a link between caffeine and cancer…' he says - which somehow translates as "Coffee May Cause Child Cancer risk". I wonder exactly how much caffeine might 'raise the risk' and how much may 'damage babies' DNA'. A shovelful? A truckful? Let's not be picky - it's a great scare story. Back to water for you, mums.

A dose of common sense

Like most people, I'm sceptical of Big Pharma, commercial scientific organisations and the like (how's the Malaria cure coming on boys? Coming up after yet another treatment for 'erectile dysfunction' or halitosis?) because let's face it, their motivation is profit and that, you'll be amazed to hear, distorts their priorities. 

However, I am fascinated by scientific research - and horrified by supposedly intelligent people who put their faith in quacks (who are also naked capitalists). So I thought I'd point you to two great science communicators, both linked to from my blog list. Ben Goldacre is the acerbic nerd who writes Bad Science in the Guardian every Saturday, patiently explaining to us how and why dodgy corporations, rip-off merchants and the media conspire, through greed, malice or incompetence, to mislead us about pretty much every science story which reaches us. Buy his book.

The other author I'd like to direct you towards is someone whose blog I discovered only recently. Pharyngula is a practising scientist who has a great gift for direct, outspoken communication and the great joy of living in a country seemingly run by obscurantist medievalist cranks, on whom he practises his scorn - like this:

I wrote about the Kara Neumann case last year — it was the tragic story of an 11 year old girl in Wisconsin who died of treatable juvenile diabetes because her parents were faith-healing morons. Morons who still claim they did no wrong by neglecting their daughter when she lapsed into unconsciousness, choosing to call on the congregation of their wackaloon church to pray harder, instead of calling a doctor.

The parents are finally going to trial this spring, and it could be an interesting case. They are clearly and self-admittedly guilty of lethal negligence, but Wisconsin law actually has an exemption for people who choose to treat their children with prayer. It's an evil law, but it is on the books, and that makes this a case where justice and reason are on one side, and narrow legalism and superstition are on the other. I'm not betting on which side will win out, not in America

All hail P Z Myers.