Potty Paper and the Tower of Doom and the Magic Hair Dryer

Tuesday, August 07, 2007

Two classics from the Daily Mail today. An example of two types of quack story perpetuated by the media. Firstly, a good old scare story. Secondly, an unquestioning promotion of a quack remedy after a press release has been issued.

But first, the paper reports that Orange have removed a mobile phone mast from a tower block in Staple Hill, Bristol, after pressure has been put on by local residents. Apparently, over ten years seven people in the block have had cancer. Three have died. The block is now called the 'Tower of Doom'. It just has to be the mast. The rate of cancer is 10 times the average, whatever that means.

It is of course impossible that the cause has anything to do with the fact that, by the look of things, the tower is occupied by a fairly elderly and not too wealthy population. The tower block could also just be unlucky. The elderly residents also complain of headaches and 'other ailments'. Most unusual for old folk. Out with the pitchforks! Burn the mobile masts now!

What ever happened to the 'mustn't grumble' mentality that we expect of good old British grannies and granddads?

Next up, Israeli firm Brainsway are promoting their new magnetic hair dryer that can cure depression.

The patient sits with the machine attached to their head for up to 20 minutes as magnetic pulses are fired through the skull.

These pulses stimulate parts of the brain thought to be dormant in those affected by depression. The treatment is based on a technique called transcranial magnetic stimulation, or TMS, which has been investigated as a drug-free alternative in mental illness for the past ten years.

What is a pity is that the journalist Pat Hagan failed to spend five minutes on the web investigating just what the result of that ten years of investigation has shown.

This is what the Cochrane Library says,

The information in this review suggests that there is no strong evidence for benefit from using transcranial magnetic stimulation to treat depression, although the small sample sizes do not exclude the possibility of benefit.
Brainsway do not look as if they are doing anything to fill that research gap any time soon with their own research on a small number of patients without controls or peer review or publication. The story appears to be just a way of knocking the government again as NICE have also decided that there is not enough evidence to pay for this treatment. Nasty government quango.

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posted by Le Canard Noir at 9:30 PM

 

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Home Pregnancy Gender Testing - Pink or Blue or Con?

Friday, May 04, 2007

One of my repeated gripes is that the Daily Mail Health editorial policy is little more than to be a shill for quacks. Like most of the paper, you have to read it with deep suspicion. Here is the latest piece of questionable reporting on a new home pregnancy test that purports to tell you the sex on your baby only a few weeks into pregnancy.

The £189 mail-order kit works by testing a single drop of a pregnant woman's blood.

The home kit - being offered for sale online by DNA Worldwide - will give women the chance of finding out the sex of their baby regardless of their genetic history.

Mothers-to-be need only prick a finger to give a small blood sample. They then place this on a special filter paper and send it off to a lab for testing.

The Daily Mail is of course most worried that this will lead to a rise in abortions. What they ought to worried about is if the test works at all. Scams based on sex prediction have been around for a while. The thing to look for that might indicate that the test is a fake is to look and see if the company offers a money back guarantee if they get it the prediction wrong.

Why should that be? Surely this should give peace of mind? Exactly. This is how the scam works:

As the scammer, you do not need to do any test at all, or you can do any sort of unreliable test you like. Send back your result to the customer - boy or girl. This could be random or as a result of your dodgy test. If the test is right, you keep your fee. If the test is wrong, and the customer complains, send the money back. Even with a completely random prediction, you will get to keep at least half your money. At nearly £200 per test you will make over £100 per test, even if you are rubbish! The money-back scheme, far from providing peace of mind, lures you into the scam.

So, is DNA Worldwide one of these scammers or have they made a breakthrough?

Looking at their web site reveals they offer a MONEY BACK GUARANTEE!!!

They provide a reference to a published article in Science Journal no less. But on inspection, this is not a paper on this laboratory's results, but comment on this sort of test. Now, I do not have a subscription to the article, (and nor will most customers of DNA Worldwide) but the article has been cited by other scientists and the title of a paper by Bianchi is At-Home Fetal DNA Gender Testing: Caveat Emptor. This really says it all. Why would they provide evidence that their customers cannot access?

One article that we can get hold of, from the American Society of Reproductive Medicine, discusses this test in some detail. It notes that this sort of testing promises the scientific credibility of a DNA test, but without the published evidence to give us reassurance. The legal position of such testing may be in a grey area as the company claims this is not a 'medical test'. They may be right, being a boy or a girl is not a 'medical condition.'

Until such time that companies like these publish their success rates in independently reviewed journals, we should be very wary. Buyer Beware indeed.





UPDATE 5th May

Thanks to the kind reader who has allowed me to look at the Science article used as proof of the results for this lab. And as suspected, the article is not a paper but a discussion of the lack of good data to show how accurate home testing is and what a dodgy ethical minefield the whole thing is.

Now DNA Worldwide. I do not know if you are just one more quack laboratory or not. I was going to ask you to publish your data to show that you really are better than 99% accurate. But there is a much easier way for all of us to feel reassured that at least your tests are good.

Instead of offering a money back guarantee, like all the scammers in the past, offer ten times your fee back if you get the result wrong. It should not cost you much if you are as accurate as you claim you are. You will only loose money if you are less than 90% accurate. Resonable? A small price for real confidence in your result. But if you are not as good as you say you are, you will be out of business in 9 months.

What do you say?

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posted by Le Canard Noir at 8:30 AM

 

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My Sparrow Dead and Cold

Wednesday, May 02, 2007

I have recently been rather drawn into the world of electrosenstivity and found that passions run high. But loudness of voices and strength of convictions rarely match closely to soundness of argument. Indeed, high voices, closed minds and poor debate are a good indicator that quackery might be at work.

I have been quite critical of those that support electrosensitivity suffers for being so hostile to the idea that people who believe that their ill health is due to Wi-Fi and mobiles may be suffering from psychological problems, or just be plain wrong in their self-diagnosis. Roderick, who runs Eletrosensitivity UK, is particularly shrill at those who put forward psychological explanations of some of the symptoms. He appears to believe that such possibilities somehow diminish his supporters even though their illness would be just as real, no matter what the cause.

Even if some people were found to really be affected by electromagnetic radiation (the possibility is there) does that mean that all people reporting symptoms are suffering because of this? It is a good bet that some, if not all, may well be suffering from some sort of neurosis. Does Roderick want to write these people off? Compassion alone, requires a more open minded approach.

Powerwatch, the other main site dealing with this issue, has a similar, if not quite so hysterical, approach. There is a characteristic clinging to any evidence, no matter how circumstantial, to support the idea that electromagnetic radiation is very bad for us. Little balance or careful analysis appears to take place. A hundred pieces of research with flawed conclusions, unrepeatable results, or out-of-context data, does not add up to a strong case.

Let's look at just one example from a screaming headline in the Daily Mail: Mobile phone masts blamed over the vanishing sparrows. It reports a Belgian study that shows a correlation between the number of sparrows in an area and the proximity to mobile phone masts. The closer to mast the lower the number of sparrows. And of course, there is instant blame from all quarters that mobile masts are killing our lovely garden sparrows.

But there is a big problem. According to the British Trust for Ornithology, sparrows have been in decline for many years. Here is a graph of their numbers...


Now, the sharp eyed amongst you will notice a few things. The decline started well before the mobile was invented and then appears to level off as mobile take-up was becoming near exponential. For completeness, here is another graph, showing growth in mobile phone usage, which undoubtedly correlates with environmental exposure to mast emissions.




Not a good correlation then. Something else is affecting the sparrows. The RSPB believe the decline is due to tidier gardens and better maintained housing which reduces nesting sites and availability of food. This is, at least, a plausible hypothesis.

But even when there is correlation we have to be cautious. Looking at the graph below, we can see that Buzzards have increased dramatically in the UK and the increase is a much closer fit to the growth of mobile phones?

Do mobile phone masts give buzzards super breeding powers? Is the correlation real? Maybe there are other factors at work, like masts providing ideal nesting places, or supplying dozens of dead sparrows for food, or maybe there is no real cause and effect at all. It could just be chance and unrelated.

So, what can explain the Belgian study? Well, one thing stands out is that the researchers do not appear to have considered other confounding factors.

A confounding factor in a study is a variable which is related to one or more of the variables defined in a study. A confounding factor may mask an actual association or falsely demonstrate an apparent association between the study variables where no real association between them exists. If confounding factors are not measured and considered, bias may result in the conclusion of the study.

So what confounding factors might there be? Maybe sites where mobile phones are put are not liked by sparrows. They may lack trees, nesting spaces, food or have higher human activity. The places carefully chosen to erect masts, may just not be good sparrow hanging-out places. Masts could be associated with problems for sparrows that have nothing to do with electric field strength. The conclusions from the research should be to look at more detail at some of these factors, not jump to conclusions about the harmful effects of electric fields from masts.

Sir Austin Bradford Hill wrote a paper 40 years ago that sets out the standards for looking at how to interpret such correlations. This must count as one of the most influential essays in medical history and is probably responsible for saving more lives than many of the drugs on the market today. Such is the power of pure reason. From the thoughts in this essay came the ability to discover real cause and effect relationships between environmental effects (such as mobile phone emissions) and health. It uncovered the dangers of smoking, the causes of many cancers and many occupational hazards.

The paper describes the tests you should apply to discover real relationships, and avoid drawing wrong conclusions from confounded or chance correlations. These tests include looking for the strength of the correlation, its consistency with other data, a clear dose-response relationship, plausibility, coherence and experimental confirmation. Ignore these tests and you will be led up the garden path.

The sparrow study does not have these things yet. More work could provide them. An experiment might help, such as setting up phone masts, with some operational and some not, and see the effect on local sparrow populations. This would be expensive, but would provide good confirming evidence. Should we be calling for more research?

It depends what your motives are. Do you want to find out why sparrows are declining? Or do you want to cling to any piece of evidence, no matter how poor and circumstantial, that might just support your convictions that mobile phones are killing us?

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posted by Le Canard Noir at 7:37 AM

 

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Electrosensitivity: Caused by Wi-Fi and Mobiles?

Friday, April 27, 2007

The Daily Mail brings us the story of Sarah Dacre who suffers terribly from a range of symptoms including "hair loss, sickness, high blood-pressure, digestive and memory problems, severe headaches and dizziness. " Sarah believes the symptoms are caused by the effects of the 'electrosmog' in our environment, the electromagnetic radiation (EMR) given out by mobile phones and Wi-Fi networks. She is so troubled by these devices that she resorts to wearing a metallic shield over her head. She covers her rooms with tin foil and avoids electrical equipment at all costs.

Sarah is not the only person in this position. More and more people report suffering as a result of electrosmog. The comment section in the Mail article testifies to this. Support groups have been set up and campaigning groups, such a Powerwatch, are on the case. Alasdair Philips of Powerwatch is a regular commentator on the effects of EMR. The newspapers are full of alarming reports about the problem and Alistair is there to offer his views.

As you might expect, some people are eager to cash in on the problem, selling useless devices to cure the problem, such as the QLink, and alternative 'gurus' like Patrick Holford selling devices to detect EMR. This could all be quackery as no-one really understands the nature of the illness yet. It may be one illness really caused by EMR exposure, but it could also be a group of unrelated problems where people just believe that it is the EMR causing their symptoms.

People do get upset though if you call an illness psychosomatic. They equate the word with 'not real' and see it as a threat. That could not be further from the truth. No-one is doubting that the eletrosensitives are suffering and need help, it is just that we do not need take their explanation of their illness at face value. Part of the problem is that lots is known about EMR and its effects on matter and people, and it is difficult to think up plausible explanations that could account for the wide range of symptoms and types of exposure being reported. Conversely it is quite easy to see how people could falsely believe that EMR was the cause - and be quite passionate about it.

People like explanations in their life. If you are suffering from debilitating symptoms and your doctor, or even your high street quack of choice, has no explanation, then it is easy to see how you might latch onto a ready-made explanation. We are very good at deceiving ourselves, and in particular applying post hoc logic to explain events. "I felt terrible today. It was the neighbours with their Wi-Fi on", "Big headache came on after all those mobiles around me in town". And so on. This self-deception may well be part of the psychosomatic illness.

Now, helping these people will depend very much on understanding the nature of the problem. Are they really being hurt by mobiles? Or, is a more subtle psychological problem at the root? Is there another problem that is being masked by their insistence on being electrosenstive? These are answerable questions where we can use science, experiment and observation to help come to some conclusions.

However, for many of the campaigners and the sufferers, there is already and answer - and it is mobile phones, it is WiFi, it is kettles and computers and modern life. No debate.

Powerwatch are already convinced it is EMR that causes these symptoms and they campaign and advise in accordance with that belief. The problem is, that if they are wrong, then they will not help their supporters get better and they will expose them to the quacks that wish to exploit the situation. If the illness is psychosomatic in nature, then it is likely that some form of talking therapy may be more beneficial than calling on governments to ban mobile phone masts and Wi-Fi hotspots.

The Powerwatch position can be seen on its 'Dispelling the Wireless Myths' page. It tackles the supposed myth that 'People only got affected when the scare stories started, it must be psychosomatic'. The page counters this myth by saying,
this is a quickly dispelled myth (often also referred to as a 'nocebo' effect -- basically a negative 'placebo' effect). A quick look at some of the science:
and then goes on to list four papers that we are supposed to take as evidence that the psychosomatic answer is wrong. The trouble is that all four papers appear to have nothing to do with determining if electrosensitivity is caused by EMR or if it is psychosomatic. There are papers on fruit fly eggs, sperm mobility, test-tube cells and stork nesting habits. But none on looking at humans and their exposure to EMR.

This is strange because there are plenty of papers written on the subject. So why do not Alasdair Philips and his team mention them? In fact there are well over thirty published studies looking into this question. The studies typically ask electrosensitive volunteers to record their symptoms in the presence of suspect devices like mobile phones. The trick is though that the researchers and the subjects are not told if the devices are really on or not, i.e. the trial is blinded. The thirty or so studies all do things a bit differently, but around this general theme.

Now of the studies, only seven so far have shown there is a difference between on and off, that is, that the mobile phone had some sort of affect. However, five of these positive results could not be repeated by the same researchers and the other two are thought to be statistical flukes. In other words, the vast majority of the experiments have shown that electrosensitivity has not been demonstrated to be due to exposure to EMR emitting devices.

A systematic review of most of the studies that have been done concluded,

The symptoms described by “electromagnetic hypersensitivity” sufferers can be severe and are sometimes disabling. However, it has proved difficult to show under blind conditions that exposure to EMF can trigger these symptoms. This suggests that “electromagnetic hypersensitivity” is unrelated to the presence of EMF, although more research into this phenomenon is required.
Why does Powerwatch not discuss this? Its a shame. If the people who care and campaign most on behalf of electrosensitive people are selective in their evidence, blind to alternatives and hold strong convictions, then people like Sarah Dacre in the Mail article may go on suffering. Rather than wearing that chain mail hood, perhaps Sarah may benefit from some other sort of therapy.

One thing I do on stories like this, is look for possible conflicting interests that may sway judgments. More often than not, it turns up interesting little facts that need a bit of thinking about.

In this case, I noted that Powerwatch recommend various products to help people like Sarah shield their house from EMR. Powerwatch provide a link to EMFields, a company that supplies all sorts of anti-EMR products. EMFields, also kindly provides a link to 'consumer interest group Powerwatch that give good, practical advice'.

Now, doing a whois look up on both 'consumer interest group' Powerwatch and commercial trading business EMFields, shows that both domains are registered to an Alasdair Philips of Ely. Are they by chance related?

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posted by Le Canard Noir at 7:00 PM

 

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Tiny Magnets, Tiny Minds

Thursday, March 22, 2007

Just when I thought the Daily Mail was reducing the number of stupid health stories that it was publishing, it comes up with a classic. Once again, the Daily Mail has been duped into advertising quack products.

The story entitled, "Tiny magnet that soothes the misery of menopause" is a full on bit of brainless reporting of a marketing press release issued by a company that makes questionable magnet healing products.

Magnopulse has been recently criticised by the Office of Fair Trading for making baseless claims for its magnet products. It is obviously finding its routes to market a little more difficult now, but who cares if the Daily Mail will uncritically publish stories about you, complete with sales telephone numbers and web addresses.

The article reports how our old friend Nyjon Eccles, a 'Harley Street physician' conducted the 'study' by asking 508 women to stick one of the company's magnets down their pants and then asked them how they felt about it. Avoiding the obvious jokes, the study is obviously flawed, being unpublished, un-peer-reviewed, uncontrolled and basically designed to give a positive result to Magnepulse.

The menopause is a self-limiting condition. It doesn't last forever. The women in the test looked like they were self-selecting and they probably responded to an advert for the help of the company when their symptoms were particularly bad. You wouldn't do this sort of thing when you are OK. Over the months of the test, it is unlikely that symptoms would get dramatically worse since they were already bad. By far the most likely outcome is that you will feel some improvement - whether the magnet works or not. This is called 'regression to the mean' and is a common way that people can be tricked into thinking that quackery works - you seek help at the height of your discomfort. That is why you need to control this sort of test with some sort of placebo and without such a control the results are meaningless and misleading. This is basic stuff and any Harley Street physician ought to know this

The journalist who wrote the article is not named, but here is a quick checklist for future journalistic adventures of this sort, if they want to refrain from being a simple quack's shill:
  • magnet + health = quackery

  • a study like this without adequate controls will undoubtedly give a positive result to the quack

  • Google is great tool for finding out about a company's history

  • products that claim to treat all sorts of symptoms are usually quack products

  • unpublished trials, that are announced to the press, are usually fishing for favourable write-ups by journalists who wouldn't know whether to stick the magnet down their pants or attach it to their elbow.

  • when 'many doctors remain sceptical' there is probably a good reason for it. Finding out why might make your article a little more balanced.

On the other hand, the journalist could be a knowing shill.


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posted by Le Canard Noir at 1:15 AM

 

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Luv a Duck - it's Magnetic Holisitic Slippers!

Monday, February 12, 2007

It's that time of year again when a young male duck's thoughts turn to the browner sex. Yes, its St Valentine's Day, and gift buying is mandatory if you wish to maintain the affections of your fair-feathered ducky-love.

So what to buy? A few suggestions out there from the world of Quackland. Sarah Stacey, and her cosy tie-in with Victoria Health, had plenty of suggestions in last week's You magazine - the colour supplement of the Mail on Sunday. Let's start with the first and best...


Holistic Silk magnetic slippers, £65: these adorable brocade slippers are simply addictive; they’re not only gorgeously sexy but the magnets implanted in the inner soles had me skipping around the house at bedtime, doing all sorts of unlikely things such as the washing up and putting the rubbish out.
Now, personally, if Ms Canard Noir bought me a pair of holistic magnetic healing slippers, I too would be skipping as I put the rubbish out, but the slippers would be inside the black bin liner. There would then follow a traditional Valentine's day row about wasting money and 'you don't understand me' and tears and tantrums. Ho Hum.

I find it incredible that a grown adult could actually fall for this. Getting confused about the benefits of eating goji berries is understandable. Even herbal remedies have a chance that there might be something in them, but sticking fridge magnets in tacky slippers and then pretending you are getting a foot massage to improve circulation? And even the capability to improve the desire to wash up? I hope there is a tongue firmly lodged in cheek. Somehow, as there is a commercial interest here with the sellers, then I doubt it.

What is even more wonderful about these slippers is that Vicky Health sternly warn us not to wear these slippers if we are pregnant or have a pace-maker. Do pregnant women need to steer clear of magnets? Should we be removing that fridge magnet sexy-poem words set that is still spelling out 'clean me you slow lazy fat fruit head' on the door? Does my magnetic GB sticker on the back of my car risk harming my unborn ducklings? What about the Earth's magnetic field, which would have more effect on my inner organs that some cheap magnets stuck to the bottom of my feet? We live in a dangerous world.

Moving on. we have much more quackery to offer our loved one...

  • Arms of Love flower essence (also available from Vicky Health) has the power to soothe, relax and turn around failing businesses. (No not, VH, I think they are doing rather well. read the article)
  • An Aroma Pen that can 'lift the spirits and create feelings of love'
  • Love Rose tea that can 'seduce the inner him (or her)'
  • 'Pure Alchemy Passion Body Therapy' - with libido lifting 'essential' oils. (I have always wondered just how essential these oils are.)
  • 'Female Balancing' Nourish Chocolate, £1.99 for 50g bar: Um, woudn't a sneaky Mars bar be cheaper?
  • If you are feeling flush, why not treat your loved one to a trip to the 'Ayush Wellness Spa, the first Ayurvedic destination spa newly opened at the Hotel de France on the shores of St Helier in Jersey'. Here you can get a 'four-handed abbyanga massage'. Fortunately, we are told this involves two 'therapists', and is not some freaky mutant massage nightmare.
We are told that Dr Kerur, who runs the Jersey Spa, is also involved in a "study evaluating how India’s 5000 year old ‘science of life’ might be incorporated into the NHS." Great, that should improve the NHS. Would that be the 5000 year old 'science of life' that left most babies to die before before their fifth birthday and the survivors to die by their late thirties? 5000 years ago, magnets had not been invented, let alone slippers to contain them. How did they cope? Were women always 'unbalanced' without their 'Nourish Chocolate'. And as for Aroma Pens, were they lying idle just waiting for someone to invent a script to write "Roses are red..."? My guess is that any study will be much more about researching marketing techniques than science. Please prove me wrong.

There are a number of things in all this that I find rather alarming. First, supporters of alt-med are quick to chastise allopathic (i.e. real) medical practitioners for being too closely tied in with 'Big Pharma' and other forms of money grabbing, and yet this article is just a blatant plug for one or two retailers that the author has a clear relationship with. (Go visit the VH site, I won't link as it will increase its Google rating!)

Secondly, I find it distasteful that so much of quack journalism is directed at women. I don't for one moment think that women are more prone to delusional thinking than men. Maybe, its just that there is more scope for money making from toiletries and other pampering products. Men might be more prone to buying very expensive quantum-induced single-crystal copper with gold plated connectors, uni-directional hifi speaker cable - but I would not like to stereotype further.

For my part, I will be looking at treating Mrs Noir with silk slippers, bath oils, chocolates and maybe even a spa weekend, but I will not be insulting her intelligence with promises of mumbo-jumbo.

Then again, I might just get a set of speakers for her iPod. Always the best present - one you can use yourself. Am I doomed to have a row?

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posted by Le Canard Noir at 6:08 PM

 

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The Daily Mail: An Apology

Tuesday, December 12, 2006

Those of you who have read my last blog entry might be under the impression that I believe the Daily Mail is a deeply ignorant and offensive paper that panders to its bigoted readers' prejudices and does nothing but promote its right wing individualistic nonsense. Furthermore, I may have left the impression that the Daily Mail is little more than a conduit for alternative medicine fraudsters who use the rag to promote their deluded and dangerous wares through a credulous and uncritical science editorial policy. I may have given the impression that I was gloating about how the paper picked up all three Quackometer Awards for Quackiest News Source, News Story and Journalist.

Well, today, the paper disproves any of these slurs by printing a rather enlightening piece about Professor Edzard Ernst, entitled, "Complementary medicines are useless and dangerous, says Britain's foremost expert".

The Professor is a real Professor, with a chair at a real, accredited higher education institution, with real academic degrees and a long list of research publications in real peer-reviewed journals. He has, however, trained in many complementary therapies, but is now embarked on a thorough evidence-based evaluation of the techniques and their claims. His summary is basically that a bit of acupuncture may work for some pain (but not through woo meridians), massage is good and some herbal stuff may be effective. Everything else is pretty much useless and even dangerous.

Not surprisingly, his approach and conclusions do not go down too well in the woo community. Evidence is to the homeopathist, reflexologist and reiki master as kryptonite is to Superman. Reason is to the crystal therapist, chiropractor and nutritionist as water is to the the Wicked Witch of the West.

So it is no surprise that Professor Ernst is attacked, or more commonly, totally ignored by CAM practitioners. If mentioned at all, the Professor's work is condemned as being irrelevant to the sorts of 'holistic' treatments that health charlatans engage in. It is a widely held belief in homeopathic circles that double blind, randomised, placebo controlled trials cannot be used to test the efficacy of their sugar pills. No substitute is offered as an alternative test measure - the homeopathist is quite happy to sit in the dark, in an anecdote rich smog and an evidence free vacuum, and use this canard to deflect away the negative results that come out of good, controlled trails. And a canard it is. As Professor Ernst is reported to say in the article, "You need to think a bit more - it's a challenge".

The sad thing is that not much thinking is really required. For a trial to be effective, all you need to do is blind both the practitioner and patient as to whether the 'real' sugar pill or a dummy pill is being taken. Let the homeopathist do whatever they like in their 'complex intervention' (long expensive chat), let them prescribe whatever combination of identical sugar pills is required to create the 'individualized treatment'. Just make sure that the dispensing of the actual pills is done through some sort of randomised, coded and blind procedure. This is surely not beyond even the wit of a homeopathist. In order to believe that such a trial would be ineffective, you would have to believe that the critical part of the homeopathy magic is in the actual physical handing over, from therapist to patient, of the content-free tablets - nothing to do with tinctures, succussions, dilutions and like-cures-like.

So, anyway. Why did the Mail publish this? If I was to get all conspiratorial, I would say that the Mail publishes such stuff knowing exactly how its readers will respond. The Mail tends to dislike experts and authorities, people who can dispute their nonsense with well reasoned debate. Maybe the Mail knows that its readers will just see Prof Edzard as just another out-of-touch, ivory tower elitist idiot. The readers 'know' that their woo-of-choice works and so the only conclusion is that this guy must be just out to spoil their fun. It is a pity that this article is not allowing comments on it at the moment as we could test out if this near the truth. Or maybe it is much simpler in that there is no real science editorial policy and that they will just publish anything that makes a good story regardless of its origin, accuracy or reliability.

Anyway, one thing I am quite proud of is that the Quackometer News Scanner did not pick up this story, despite is being riddled with alt med terms. This is what that the quackometer has to say about the piece,

0 Canards.

This web site has more quackery than my village pond. It is full of scientific jargon that is out of place and probably doesn't know the meaning of any of the terms. However, the black duck can spot a fellow sceptic!. The site is highly sceptical in language and is debunking. It also looks like this site is trying to sell stuff. Buyer Beware!


I am not going to argue.

Update - 13/12/06

Looks like my prediction is correct. The readers backlash has started in the comments section of the article.

Some highlights so far:
  • Individuals should be free to judge for themselves the effectiveness or non-effectivenss of any therapy. We do not want or need authorities 'protecting us' at every turn.
  • what we need is to preserve our freedom to choose what works for us.People have to become aware that our rights are eroding and refuse to accept it. Debate about the safety of natural medicine is ridiculous in light of the large number of people who die from drug side-effects.
  • Often times prescription and non-prescription medicines do more harm than good.
  • The popularity of homeopathy and other natural remedies is pretty strong 'evidence' in itself
  • I'm not quite sure what this man hopes to achieve by such arrant nonsense. Indeed it is he who is irresponsible. Why, I wonder does he feel the need to make such a controversial public announcement?
  • However, from my own experience, it would appear to me that there is absolutely no doubt that alternative medicine, along with the appropriate lifestyle changes, can make a major impact upon the health of those who choose to follow that path.
  • Why is it that Professor Ernst et al never make any mention of thousands of allopathic (scientifically formulated) drugs that poison, kill and destroy many peoples lives every day?
  • Wonder if something's happening in the allopathic world that the heat has to be taken off them and placed onto complementary medicine?

Blah blah blah.

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posted by Le Canard Noir at 6:00 PM

 

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The First Annual Quackometer Awards and Year Review

Friday, December 08, 2006

The Quackometer has been up and running for just about a year and has seen some serious traffic increases over the past six months. Starting off with just a few hits per day, the daily unique visits now stand in the many hundreds, with a peak recently of several thousand. Cripes! What started off as a bit of a bored joke has now grown into a proper web site.

So, a quick, tearful thanks to all the people who keep coming back. Thanks for all the correspondence, both encouraging and threatening. I hope 2007 will throw up richer, funnier and more useful functionality and content. Plus a few more innevitable threats.

So, to the main business. The quackometer scans various news sites twice a day on the look out for quack stories. I thought is would be good to review what has been found, where the stories are coming from and who is writing them. Awards will be made.

But first, an apology and admission. This is going to be very UK-centric - my time has very much concentrated on the UK press at the expense of many sources of potential quackery around the world. Maybe, I can get this working better next year for overseas news sources. I must say though, that the UK does look like its newspapers are particularly prone to printing quack nonsense. More research is needed to see if this true. Also, I must point out that the Quack News Scanner was only working from August - so not a full year yet in review.

And now for he disclaimers. This is not a scientific study! I make no bold claims to have conducted a comprehensive review of all the papers and I have not done extensive validity checking on all the spotted articles. Life is short and it is just for fun. Also, not all papers are represented. The Independent and Express are the big omissions (for technical reasons) and this is a shame since the indie spurred me on with a silly piece about electrosmog earlier in the year. Nor do I include the red-tops (bar the Mirror) partially for technical reasons, but mainly because they are different sort of beast where their readers engage with the paper in different ways than other more self-important titles. (My feeling is that papers like the Sun are not quite so credulous as one might naively suppose - I will be looking into this further). Finally, all the stories listed below, may not be quackery. As always, read and research and make up your own mind.

So, straight into the first award...

Quackiest News Source

The summary of scores for stories since the beginning of August 2006 is...

1) The Daily Mail with 38 stories and a total of 157 Canards
2) The Times with 30 stories and a total of 132 Canards
3) The Guardian with 15 stories and a total of 67 Canards
4) BBC with 8 stories and a total of 29 Canards
5) The Mirror with 6 stories and a total of 21 Canards
6) The Telegraph with 1 stories and a total of 3 Canards

(All papers include their Sunday equivalents)

So, hardly a surprise that the Mail (and Mail on Sunday) lead with 38 stories that scored over 3 Canards. The Times is not far behind. However, analysis of the data reveals a few interesting points. The Times score predominantly comes from its "Health alternatives" column. This is clearly flagging the stories as being 'alternative', or as we like to say here, 'not real'. The Mail on the other hand makes no such gesture to alerting its readers that bollocks may follow.

It is interesting to note, that the Guardian has the highest Canards per story ratio. Maybe this is because the Mail tends to let a bit of quackery slip into lots of stories rather than just concentrate on the big quack scoop. The Mirror's stories can be pretty much put down to one columnist, a Ms Gillian McKeith. No more to say there then - she has aggressive lawyers. And congratulations to the telegraph for only scoring 3 Canards for one story promoting osteopathy - but at least in an area where this technique has a chance of working.

So the winner of Quackiest News Source really has to be - The Daily Mail - Congratulations!!

A well deserved win. Its continuous commitment to publish rubbish health stories coupled with very few warnings to its readers that what is going to follow is complete nonsense mean that it was hard to beat this year. Furthermore, its commitment to give telephone numbers and web addresses of quack suppliers will undoubtedly result in many of its moderately wealthy, middle-class readers handing over their hard-earned dosh to the fraudulent and deluded. Despite the Mail's aversion to tax of all forms, this is undoubtedly the Mail's facilitated tax on the gullible.

Quackiest News Story

At the end of this blog, I have given a list of all stories the quackometer found that scored over 5 Canards.

A couple of smashing stories really stand out. Dr Danny Penman's remarkable story about the healing properties of prayer was quite special. Also, the Times mindless plug for that rather silly technique Bi-Aura stood out from the crowd. But, by a country mile, the most ridiculous and credulous story of the last four months has to go to Sarah Stacey for that outstanding piece of work Good vibrations in the Daily Mail. The Quackometer spotted it, gave it 10 Canards, and it is difficult to niggle with that analysis.

The story plugs several different 'therapies' - all for a made-up illness and, at least in the case of the QLink pendant, it is difficult to conclude anything other than it is fraudulent. The QLink is a classic piece of pseudoscience, invoking quantum theory to explain its non-existent properties. There is a cast of thousands in the story, all offering testimonials for the QLink trinket, including Dr Wendy Denning (who still cannot spell complementary), Professor Jobst and Dr Mark Atkinson. Oh, how I love titles.

The winner of Quackiest News Story is - Sarah Stacy with 'Good vibrations'.

I think Sarah would also deserve...

Quack Journalist of the Year

for her unwavering commitment to writing and promoting all manner of quackery in the Health Notes section of the You supplement of the the Mail on Sunday. She has written a string on quacktastic stories, always with a good plug for the source, most often, Victoria Health. (If you join the VH Club, you can get a free Sarah Stacey book!)

So, the Mail has done remarkably well this year. Any surprise? Not really. As was recently well put on the badscience blog, nutritionism (or nutriquackery) is a particularly right-wing pastime with an obsession for personal responsibility for your health rather than looking to the wider society for causes and solutions. Thus, it is only your own fault if you are fat and poor, unhealthy or have badly behaved and underachieving kids. Pop a supplement pill to improve kids GSCE results rather than support and send your kids to the local school. The Mail's whole point of view is based around a distrust of any authority that could challenge its small minded world view. Science and scepticism are direct challenges to the myths and delusions of its approaches to the problems of health, government, immigration and economics. No wonder quackery thrives.

Oooh. The little black duck got on his soap box for a moment. Back to a few more quick awards...

Most Blatant Piece of Dodgy Science Acting as a Marketing Press Release...

Dr David Thomas and the Mineral Depleted Food Scandal.

Jumping the Gun Award...

Gerry Potter, Professor of Medicinal Chemistry [de Montfort], and Dan Burke, Emeritus Professor of Pharmaceutical Metabolism for their work on salvestrolsTM.

Dodgiest Hawaiian Shirt...

Paul Pearsall for his work on Cellular Memory

Most Shameless High Street Quackery Supplier

Boots the Alchemist for their faithful pushing of homeopathic products to the public. Given that they publicly state, 'integrity in the community, environment, marketplace and workplace govern all our activities', pushing sugar pills as medicine is just not acceptable.

Most Distinguished and Ethical Quack...

has to be the Distinguished Provost of the Royal College of Alternative Medicine, Professor Joseph Chikelue Obi - although those are his words, not mine.


Finally, another plug for Sense About Science - a charity that I will urge you to make a small donation to. Their goal is to provide a source of contacts and information that the media can use to validate and research the science behind the headlines. I hope their work puts the quackometer out of business. It's not a homeless charity, or one for poorly puppies, but I think this is a cause well worth popping a few quid via paypal to.

********************************************************************************

those quack stories in full...

10 Good vibrations Daily Mail
8 Ear acupuncture is the latest celebrity fad but does it work? Daily Mail
8 The English patient The Times
7 Can you feel the force? The Times
7 Health panel: How can I cope with crippling migraines Guardian
7 Osteoporosis; human papilloma virus; boosting your immune system The Times
7 The facts about prebiotics Daily Mail
6 Anxiety; back pain; green tea The Times
6 Back-pain acupuncture 'effective' BBC
6 Carol Barnes: How alternative remedies helped me beat the menopause Daily Mail
6 Erectile dysfunction and low libido; ginseng; irritable bowel syndrome The Times
6 How toxic is your body Daily Mail
6 It works for me: McTimoney chiropractic The Times
6 Natural household cleaning products; eczema; using homeopathic arnica during childbirth The Times
6 Organic milk better for a healthy diet Daily Mail
5 A feeling for healing The Times
5 Cereal offenders Daily Mail
5 Could spiritual healing actually work Daily Mail
5 'Downward dog, Dad?' Guardian
5 Fairley and the chocolate factory The Times
5 Health shops give bad advice on depression Guardian
5 Health stores offer a cocktail of unproven depression drugs Daily Mail
5 Lesley sings the praises of osteopathy Daily Mail
5 Max H Pittler: Boosting your immunity Guardian
5 Max H Pittler: Exercise fatigue Guardian
5 Max Pittler: Natural remedy for gastro-oesophageal reflux disease The Times
5 Over-sixties advised to boost daily diet with 'good' bacteria The Times
5 Sitting straight bad for backs BBC
5 Speedy recovery Guardian
5 Warm milk and garlic It might sound vile - but itll beat the bugs Daily Mail

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posted by Le Canard Noir at 6:41 PM

 

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Kryotherapy - Freezing the Balls off a Brazen Quack

Tuesday, November 14, 2006

The Quackometer is far from perfect. Sometimes quackery slips though its little webbed feet and I need to update it. Often a story in the paper requires a little more dissection to reveal its inner quackery.

So, today we hear that standing in a freezer can improve your health. Daily Mail reporter, Barney Calman, freezes his bits off as a piece of investigative journalism into whole-body cryotherapy. This is a technique that claims to cure a whole host of problems by allowing yourself to stand in a freezer at -120C for a few minutes. Funny, the chickens I put in the freezer never appear to get any better.

As is often the case in the Daily Lunacy, the article is a thinly veiled piece of advertorial for a new business in Battersea, the London Kriotherapy Centre, which charges £300 pounds for the benefit of sticking you in its deep freeze.

The newspaper article looses all credibility when it describes how the technique works.

Cryotherapy apparently shrinks the molecules in the body and then, when you emerge from the cold, the molecules then expand, increasing the blood flow which then helps ease pain and swelling, as well as fighting inflammation.
Obviously, the science editor was having a day off. For that matter, anyone with a science GCSE was probably down the pub or at the dentists too, as this is just plain bollocks. Its possible to see where the confusion has slipped in here, confusing the thermoregulatory response to cold of vasoconstriction with some imagined molecular physics.

Anyway, poor reporting does not mean that there is no merit in the claims that getting your extremities cold very quickly can help with:

rheumatism and osteoporosis to multiple sclerosis, chronic fatigue syndrome and depression, and even ... as an anti-cellulite and skin-firming treatment.
The Kriotherapy Centre even suggests that low libido can be helped by a short, sharp cold shock!
However, the cryotherapy bandwagon is fully rolling with sports injuries. The Guardian can be just as quacky as the Mail at times. They have already reported on crytherapy treatments as part of a healthy holiday in Poland. The Poles treat injured athletes in this way and, aparently, it has nothing do with former Soviet times when failed athletes were sent to Siberia.

So, what evidence is there that this is an effective treatment for illness and injury? Well, pubmed is the place to look. A search for crotherapy and sports injury reveals a study entitled "Does Cryotherapy Hasten Return to Participation? A Systematic Review." This concludes, that whilst the technique may work, the studies that show an effect are of "low methodological quality" and,
Despite the general acceptance of cryotherapy as an effective intervention, evidence on which to base these conclusions is limited. Only with strong randomized, controlled clinical trials will we know the true efficacy of cryotherapy.
So, those that do promote such techniques right now, may well be guilty of quackery. Without evidence, you stand the risk of severely overstating your case. However, we should be careful here. Cryotherapy is a broad term that implies the use of cold temperatures for many therapeutic ends. Warts have been frozen off with extreme cold for long time. Some cancers use similar techniques to kill the cancerous cells. But standing in your grundies in a very cold room? Can this really be a miracle cure for multiple sclerosis and osteoporosis?

People report pain relief for this sort of activity. Studies show that this may indeed be true, but that there is no evidence that this has any long term benefit. It is easy to see how endorphins released during the process of freezing your skin off may temporarily take your mind of your back pain or arthritis. People report similar effects from saunas or even having needles sticking in them. This does not mean that the technique is cost effective (would a locally applied ice pack do just as well?) or have any lasting effect beyond the immediate relief. People who report long term effects may just be confusing a general remission with treatment effectiveness or be suffering from plain old wishful thinking. That is why controlled and blinded trials are so important.

Of course, the Daily Wail backs up its claims with anecdotes (why trust any authorities?) and so acts as a good free advertisement for the Kriothrapy clinic. (Why am I thinking of Krusty the Klown?) I bet they were popping the ice-cold bubbly there today.

Depressingly, and despite showing a few signs of critical thinking, Barney ends his article on a completely credulous note:

I have suffered from eczema around my eyes for four years; I use a medicated cream daily to stop flare ups, but remarkably, since having cryotherapy it’s been itch and pain free. I’ve not needed to use my medication for the first time in a year and a half.

As bizarre as whole body cryotherapy sounds it’s worth remembering that commonplace alternative treatments such as reflexology, acupuncture, massage and osteopathy, now available on the NHS, were once considered ‘loony’ and ineffectual.

A future blog entry will be on the NHS and their State Sponsored Quackery. Just because they have a web site about so-called alternative medicine (SCAM) does not mean that these techniques are not loony and ineffectual.

In the meantime, I fully recommend a Finnish sauna and ice plunge pool if you want to see various external bits of you shrink back into the body cavity. Cheaper, communal and the vodka is good.

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posted by Le Canard Noir at 4:26 PM

 

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The Scent of a Quack...

Friday, October 20, 2006

At last, what appears to be some reasonable criticism of high street quackery in the Daily Mail...

Well, it sort of starts out OK with a report as follows:

... according to a report in Psychiatric Bulletin, health shops give out bad advice on depression and they offer a range of useless stuff, including the cruel-sounding cat's claw, when only one of their products, St John's Wort, is scientifically proved to have any antidepressant effect.


Great - an expose of the nonsense dished out in heath food shops. Our intrepid investigative journalist, Jill Parkin, then sets out to do her own research and pops into her own local health food shop with the following hilarious observation...

Inside, what an aroma! It's licorice stick, ageing raspberry leaf tea and, most distinctive of all, people who use natural deodorants. They're about as effective on sweat as cat's claw on depression.
Unfortunately, whilst amusing, this is about as far as the article goes in criticising the herb dealers. The overall impression from this article is that what is wrong with these shops is not that they are bordering on the fraudulent and dangerous with unsupported and dubious claims for all sorts of shit, but that these shops are not commercial enough with smart staff, good lighting and proper consumer-orientated goods. The article implies that all staff in places like Holland and Barrett are miserable, unwashed, butch lesbians and so have little to offer good-old Middle-England Daily Hate readers.

By trying to be funny and mocking the cardboard-eating hippy end of the health fraud industry, a really important story slips by - that going to these shops to treat depression is likely to end with the customer being ripped-off and with a potentially dangerous illness left untreated. The good old Daily Mail readers' comments at the end show how the story has gone down, and it is not as intended...
I've been a regular at health food shops for years, and have never come across anything like the above. These shops serve a purpose while the supermarkets slowly catch up. Long may they thrive.- Loveday , Oxford
The story is more of a call to make quackery more commercialised than an expose on the utter lack of credibility that these 'tofu-pushers' have. By providing and 'alternative' for people with depression and by not being honest about the efficacy of what they offer, the Health Food scammers are causing misery. Still, I must remember the 'people who use natural deodorants' gag.

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posted by Le Canard Noir at 1:08 PM

 

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"Once Dismissed as Hokum..." A Guide to Writing About Quackery in the Mail

Wednesday, October 04, 2006

"Once Dismissed as Hokum" is how Dr Danny Penman begins with a less-than-half-truth in his quacktasticly exceptional article about Spiritual Healing in the Daily Mail, "Could spiritual healing actually work?"

This article ought to serve as a case study in how to write about nonsense quackery for the madder end of the British Press. I thought it worthwhile to dissect this piece to show how you can write supportively about completely batshit ideas without telling too many porkies.

1. Ensure the Title has a question mark at the end. Give the impression of honest enquiry and an open mind - an appeal to be "Open Minded".

2. As a journalist, flaunt your qualifications, awards and titles. Danny Penman signs the article with his title, 'Dr'. Note that Dr Danny Penman got his PhD in Biochemisty studying fungus on cocoa crops, not a medical subject. This is a blatant appeal to authority as we have previously discussed.

3. Start off with some dodgy anecdotes. Personal experience is always convincing for some reason. Testimonials can make up for a complete lack of evidence if required. In this case, an anecdote about ME is particularly unconvincing. ME is a chronic disease that is cyclical in its nature and is subject to spontaneous remission. How do we know spiritual healing caused the improvement? Of course, we do not. This is commiting the 'Pragmatic Falacy' - it works for me!

4. Talk about how 'scientists' or 'experts' are being swayed by the evidence. No need to mention any names, and if you do, no need to mention that these a fringe characters not in the mainstream of the profession. Even better, count people with 'para-' or 'alternative' prefixes as if they were real academics. Note the inclusion of a 'parapsychologist' in this article as if this genuine discipline without controversy.

5. Give no references to research. No one will check them anyway. Talk about unpublished research as if it was of the same rigour as independently, peer-reviewed published papers.

6. Talk about discredited or retracted work as if it was still important. No one is going to check. The work about cardiac patients is old now and has been discredited and superseded by better studies that showed that prayer had no effect (or, if it did, prayer made things worse for patients.)

7. Do not mention any work that may contradict what you are trying to say. There is no need to be balanced for this type of story, nor is there any reason to weight evidence according to its merit. Remember, you are after a good story. You are not making an enquiry into the truth - the truth does not sell.

8 . Appeal to peoples' prejudices and beg the question. Remember, Mail readers want their prejudices confirmed - never challenged. That is why they read the paper to ensure their views on race, immigrants, lefties and Europe are always on the front page and routinely confirmed. For quackery, those prejudices include a distrust of any authority, academics, atheists, foreigners and the (nannying) government.

9. Make sure you have a good comments section. Your good readers will supply the bits even you are embarrassed to write and they can get away with spectacular nonsense that even you might wince at.

Dr Penman sticks well to all of these rules. I emailed him to ask if he really believes what he has written. I did not get an answer to this, but he kindly sent me papers and articles that backed up his story, but surprisingly, also articles that shot holes in it. Why no mention of them in the article? Seriously, if this story had any merit, it would be the most groundbreaking medical story in a millennium.

I will leave the final word to the brave persons who left comments for this story on the Mail web site. Perhaps these comments slipped passed the usually diligent Mail moderators by being slyly flattering in their opening words...

The most wondrous thing about these miracle cures is the ease with which patients can become practitioners. Imagine a patient whose life is saved by, say, neurosurgery becoming a neurosurgeon herself. Of course, that probably doesn't happen too often, what with all those years of study and self-denial. But in the amazing world of "alternative" medicine, all one needs to become a "master" is willingness, an open mind, and faith. Oh, also mind-boggling credulity, the ability to wave one's hands around a "patient" with an appearance of purpose, and a modest sum of cash.

- Mick Houlahan, Chicago, USA

Yes, what a wonderful article, and beautifully referenced with comments from many doctors who are completely unbiased and who have absolutely no preconceptions about spirituality and complementary medicine. Of course nature will cure us all, as it has done for centuries, particularly when spiritualism and Christianity were at their height (you know, when life expectancy was 35 and 3 in 5 kids died before their 5th birthday).

- Deetee, Blackpool, UK

It's incredible the power of our own mind, apart from that it's poppycock.

- Steve Webster, Amsterdam, Netherlands (exiled)


PS Danny - seriously, if you read this - hope the broken bones are OK and I'm glad you didn't resort to healing them spiritually!

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posted by Le Canard Noir at 10:51 AM

 

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Organic Milk Is/Is Not Healthier

Tuesday, October 03, 2006

Those of you paying attention will have seen the quackometer spot these two stories from the past few weeks in the Daily Mail:

Organic milk 'better for a healthy diet'
29th August 2006

Organic milk is not healthier, says food watchdog
21st September 2006

So, just a few weeks apart and completely different slants. As an act of kindness, to save you from the pain of reading these articles and deciding between them, I have condensed them into one easy-to-read organic milk heath scare/health promotion story...

'Experts' say Organic Milk Is/Is Not Healthier
The Daily Mail
Organic milk has more/fewer benefits than standard milk and official advice should reflect this, 'experts' have said. A succession of studies in Britain and around the world have found higher levels/the same level of vital nutrients, particularly omega-3.

They want the FSA to change/keep its stance on organic milk, and "recognise that there are differences/no differences between organic and non-organic milk". The decision is a body blow/boost to organic dairy farmers, who have seen a boom/drop in sales on the back of a belief that it is healthier/more expensive, particularly for children/cats.

Such a pronouncement would have been a huge promotion/blow to the standing of organic agriculture and, particularly, organic milk. A spokeswoman for the Government said she could not say whether the research would alter their position as they needed time to examine the evidence, unlike the reporters of this newspaper.

The findings have pleased/upset organic farming supporters as well as the scientists involved in the study. The Soil Association, which promotes organic farming, praised/challenged the conclusions whilst talking its usual pseudo-scientific mumbo-jumbo.

Publicity for this research has driven a remarkable boost/nose-dive in sales, with consumption up/down a staggering 50per cent in the past year. Some supermarkets, such as Tesco, have resorted to importing/exporting supplies from/to Europe/deep-sea dumps.

Lord Melchett, at the Soil Association, said: "The scientists never/always suggested that organic milk was a substitute for eating oily/battered fish. It is not, but there are significant/no nutritional differences. "Knowing that, we believe that people are bright/gullible enough to make up their own minds on whether organic milk is better/more expensive for them.


Reader comments (8)
8 people have commented on this story so far. Tell us what you think below.

I completely disagree with all these so called experts findings. I buy organic milk and many other products because I do not want plutonium in my system. We all know farmers spray dangerous radioactive waste on their crops and I don't want my family mutating.
- Anne, Cambridge

I am forced to drink non-organic milk as it is cheaper and it is all I can afford after loosing my job to an invasion of polish plumbers.
- Dave (ex Heart Surgeon), Nuneaton

Its common sense that organic milk is healthier. Non-organic cows are made of concrete with very low milk productivity.
- Simon, Milton Keynes

Since drinking only organic milk, I have seen a remarkable improvement in my childrens' IQs and school marks. Unfortunately, they are now so clever, they can now see their parents are half-witted morons for buying this deeply offensive and ignorant newspaper.
- Mathilde, Hounslow

Another plot by Tony and his Euro-cronies to make us drink immigrant organic milk. The cost of organic milk is just another of Gordon's stealth taxes designed to punish us for being English.
- Bartholemew, Barking

Top Tip. Save money by buying non-organic milk and then performing inexpensive Reiki over your fridge each morning. Reiki has been proven to 'energetically' remove pesticides from milk as well as any sane thoughts in your head.
- Karen, Manchester

I have recently started buying organic milk because I find it makes a better cup of tea - and a creamier bowl of porridge - than supermarket-sold 'fresh' milk. Of course, I have proven this under strict randomized, double-blind procedures because I am fully aware of my own capacity for wishful thinking, confirmation bias and self-delusion.
- Ray B, Stockport

Drinking organic milk does not produce mucus and allergies - as long as it is organic monkey milk.
- Spikey, Glastonbury



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posted by Le Canard Noir at 10:50 PM

 

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The Guild of the Gullible?

Friday, August 18, 2006

I think that this may be a story of despair. It may be a story about the mountain that has to be climbed if we are to live a society where quacks find it hard to profit from their lies, misinformation and delusions. At present it is a story about how newspapers contribute significantly and fundamentally to the environment in which people are swindled out of their money by quacks and how illness and suffering may be prolonged by irrational thinking. The story is not over yet, but let me tell the first part.

The story starts with my newspaper quack story alert engine that I have been working on recently. It is beginning to settle down now, and has spotted some interesting departures from reality in our esteemed organs. One of the first stories to emerge from the scans appeared in the Sunday Mail You supplement (where else?) and scored a maximum 10 Canards. The article was entitled Good Vibrations and was a completely typical, uncritical and bonkers, piece of quack reporting on some outlandindish pseudoscientific ideas, where someone was hoping to make money out of the credulous by selling some worthless piece of Christmas cracker trash for lots of money. Blatant quack advertorial. Nothing really unusual; we've seen this sort of thing recently in the Daily Junk Mail with that sorry story about the migraine zapper.

I thought it would a shame for the first 10 Canard story to go uninvestigated by the little black duck, so off I went...

The article was as mad as a box of frogs. Completely hatstand. And well deserved of its 10 Canards. The article is full of the usual rubbish about bodies having energy fields and how illness is caused by imbalances in our 'biofield'. Furthermore, the nonsense continues with how electrical items can disturb our - damn, I'm tired of writing this rubbish, let me quote...

Holistic physician Dr Mark Atkinson explains: 'the body’s electro-magnetic field provides a template for the physical body; any imbalance in this field gets reflected by the body as a disturbance in cell structure and function, which is the precursor state to illness.'
Yep, it starts off with that giveaway word 'holistic' and then gets worse. As an aside, let's just run Dr Mark Atkinson through the Quackometer. - Ahh, 7 Canards. Thought as much.

Moving on. The article then goes on to do two things. First, it gives an endorsement for Dr Atkinson's Bi-Aura nonsense philosophy. Bi Aura appears to be similar to that fount of sanity, Reiki, but

Bi-Aura therapy uses both cosmic and earth energy to energise and balance the body.
I see. The addition of cosmic energy, over and above mundane earth energy, is bound to make Bi-Aura the energy healing methodology of choice for the more discerning individual.

Secondly, the article goes on to give another glowing testimonial for a cheap piece of tat called a QLink pendant. This trinket was introduced to the author by Dr Wendy Denning (2 Canards) and Professor Kim Jobst (7 Canards) as employing "Sympathetic Resonance Technology which, the makers claim, ‘repairs and tunes your biofield’ so it functions optimally". Marvelous. You can buy one for £70.

The QLink has cropped up on a number of quack busting sites. I won't bother to go into details here - I have more interesting things to say. If you wondering, why not try the excellent Skepticality podcast that covers this subject. There is loads more on the web. James Randi has also offered anyone (not just the makers) $1,000,000 if they show that the QLink works as claimed. Ought to be easy - spend about $100, make a million. No one has even tried yet.

But I can't help it a little more digging. Let's look at the end of the article in a bit more detail...

Dr Atkinson says: ‘it made a lot of difference to me when I was working hard at the computer, in terms of sustained energy and clarity of thinking.’

Are you sure about that Dr Atkinson? Clarity of thinking?

As with pharmaceutical drugs, there may be a placebo effect although Professor Jobst points out that the ‘remarkable’ effects seen in race horses and other animals sporting a Qlink mean there is something more, which merits serious research. One thing I know: neither technology carries a risk of side effects.

The Prof Jobst obviously deserves some more attention - but not now.

Let's just say for now that the idea that electrical 'smog' from appliances in our home can somehow disrupt 'energy fields' in our bodies is speculative at best. Also, that a small pendant could be 'treated' with the latest 'quantum mechanic' technology to remove this danger has absolutely no basis in theory or experimental validity. It's utter bunkum and it is hard to believe that the makers believe this themselves. I could say more about this - but others have done a fine job.

The thing that spurred me into writing this blog was when I had a look into the background of the author of this piece. The writer is a Sarah Stacey (2 Canards). Googling reveals that Sarah has written a number of health and beauty books, won some awards for health writing and "was elected the first Honorary Chair of the Guild of Health Writers". Now that caught my attention.

Why should that be? Well, Guilds are an ancient tradition where people with similar business interests and skills can get together, organise themselves, uphold morals, standards and conduct within the trade, and generally make sure the cheats, charlatans and the incompetent do not tar the good names of the profession. Surely, a Guild of Health Writers should be very concerned if people are writing utter nonsense under their banner? Surely a Guild would wish to ensure that high standards are upheld and that health writers do not become simple conduits of quackery? Maybe we have found allies in the quest to get good health advice to people?

Who are the Guild of Health Writers? Their web page describes them as

a group of journalists dedicated to providing accurate, broad-based information about health and related subjects to the public.

That's fantastic. Do they know that one of their members is uncritically promoting quackery to their readership? Do they realise that it is none other than their first 'Honorary Chair'? Surely, they must be concerned that their principles are not being upheld? Do they have a complaints procedure? Do they take sanctions against their members who abuse the trust the public put in them to be be accurate? Their web site is not clear on these matters. Obviously, an email was in order.

Now, I would not have written this until I got a reply back. But it has been a little while now without even an acknowledgement. I also, have found out that Sarah Stacey has been the Vice President of the Guild. If true, then I fear a rather depressing outcome. Looking into the Guild a bit reveals founding members with interests in 'integrative medicine', that favourite word combination of Prince Charles, which is just another way of saying that quackery is being slipped in the back door of real medicine.

So, I would like to open this up and ask some more general questions. I fully understand that the Guild wishes to be 'broad-based' and this may well include writing about non-conventional medical approaches, which I have no quarrels with (as long as any claims made are properly caveated). However, what I would really like to know is answers to the following questions:

  • Does the Guild take a stance on whether its members only write things that are properly backed up by sound evidence and if not, make it very clear that what they are writing about is controversial, speculative and unproven?
  • Does the Guild care if its members are just simple advertising conduits for those wishing to defraud the public, and if a member acts as such, what sanctions they would take?
  • How does the Guild help its members find out if medical claims can be properly backed up, such as the skill of reading a scientific paper or doing publication searches?
  • Do the Guild encourage its members to seek out broad training in health and science matters, such as how trials are conducted, the nature of evidence and statistics etc?

These things are important. The public get huge amounts of health information from the press. People do tend to think that reporters would not publish something if it was completely groundless. A political story that had no basis in truth would be rightly hammered and could even result in legal action. Why not health matters? I worry that so many of these journalists have English Literature degrees. Not in itself a bad thing, but we would not expect an economics journalist not to have a good foundational understanding of economics. We would not expect a political writer to have no appreciation of our constitution and political systems. Why should we not expect our health writers to be equally well informed?

The current president of the Guild is Simon Crompton. His web site is very informative, he looks like a very decent chap, has written on lots of interesting things, and does not appear to be obsessed with the darker medicinal arts. I will forward my email onto him to see if he has a view on these things.

I hope the responses to my enquiries are encouraging. As I have said, such a Guild could play a great role in keeping the health fraud industry out of the papers. I worry that, like the medieval Guilds, their original laudable aims have become corrupted, and that the Guild of Health Writers has become nothing more than a Guild of the Gullible.

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posted by Le Canard Noir at 12:00 AM

 

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Trademarked Science Trade-Offs

Monday, July 10, 2006

I have written before about my assertion that if you find someone saying that you cannot get all the nutrients you need through food, then you have also found someone selling food supplements. This is the basic scam behind so many nutritionists - they make the process of eating a healthy diet look so formidable and fraught that you had better hedge your bets and scoff a lot of pills - that they can provide for you for a small(ish) fee.

I wish I could automate this rule in the quackometer. It is proving to be a sure rule in identifying quackery. Let's look at a recent health story in the Daily Mail:


You're eating the WRONG fruit and veg!
We've known for some time that eating five portions of fruit and vegetables a day can help protect you against cancer, but now research suggests that if we're not eating the right sort, it could be a waste of time and money. British researchers believe that most of the produce we eat is low in important cancer-fighting compounds called salvestrols. A typical five-a-day diet would give you only 10 per cent of the beneficial compounds you need to keep cancer at bay.

In research published in the British Naturopathic Journal, Gerry Potter, Professor of Medicinal Chemistry [de Montfort], and Dan Burke, Emeritus Professor of Pharmaceutical Metabolism, explain how salvestrols work.

Have a look to see what the Quakometer makes of this article.

A couple of alarm bells ring here, such as the statement that you are unable to get enough of this through a normal diet, but also the words "naturopathic" and "emeritus". (More of that later.)

Later in the article, advice is given:


To boost your salvestrol intake you could take a supplement (available from health food stores). Or, simply increase your intake of the following foods...

... and then goes on to give a long list of foods that are hard to remember. But the seed has now been planted. Salvestrols, cancer-fighting, you are never going to get enough, supplements available.

But surely, we have the names of the researchers, they are associated with a UK University (de Montfort) and they are publishing papers. Surely, there must be something in this?

Well, one doesn't need to dig a lot further to find a few worrying things.

Now 'salvestrol' turns up on the UK patents register as a registered trade mark. What would a chemical name be doing there? Well, the registrant is a company called Nature's Defence Investments Ltd and they are based in Leicester. Now isn't de Monotfort University based in Leicester?

Let's have a look at Nature's Defence. Searching reveals a lot of related web sites, all using the Nature's Defence, or a fruitforce name, but operating in different countries. All promote the health benefits of salvestrols. All the sites appear to extol the benefits of salvestrols, and may offer training for health care professionals, and offer to sell supplements containing this 'super-vitamin'. Funnily enough, all the sites appear to involve our Profs Burke and Potter and point back to an address in Leicester.

Now what is the harm in trying to raise money from research you are doing, even to make a lot of money and become rich? Nothing in principle. But in doing so, we the consumer then have the right to question if there is a likely conflict of interest. Scientists have a duty to present all their evidence, good and bad, to give their best unbiased opinions on the nature of their work and to be seen as being objective as possible.

My worry is now that Profs Burke and Potter, having done some interesting work on some unusual chemicals, are heading down the path to the dark side of quackery.

Worrying is the lack of evidence that Salvestrols have any effect on reduction of cancer in humans. Most of the work so far has been done in vitro. That is, some cancer cells have been squirted with the stuff in a dish and, lo and behold, the cells don't do too well afterwards. Lots of chemicals have this effect on cells, it does not mean that we are looking at the next big cancer cure. The work done in humans has been looking at how salvestrols may be absorbed by digestion and what the metabolism pathways may be like. Results to date suggest there are concerns over how much would actual end up usefully in the body. At this stage, the selling of food supplements as a way of reducing cancer risk looks like it could be overpromotion - quackery.

To be fair, the jury is out. We do not know enough to give clear answers. But as for Burke and Potter, they have acted as if the firing gun has gone and the marketing campaign to the public has begun in earnest. Expect to see SalvestrolsTM in your health food shop before too long.

For me the most worrying aspect is where the latest research on this has been published. We see the latest paper is published in the British Naturopathic Journal. Now naturopathy is something that really get's the black duck's quackometer going. Naturopathy appears to be a mish-mash of philosophies of alternative medicine and pseudo-religious beliefs. Not somewhere you would expect the latest best thing in cancer prevention to get serious attention - apart from the health food adicts, the gullible and the desperate.

The publishing of this paper looks more like marketing than science then. Has science lost out here?

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posted by Le Canard Noir at 1:25 PM

 

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Magnetic Migraine Miracle Madness?

Thursday, June 22, 2006

In today's Daily Mail, Brendan Montague brings us the sensational story that Migraine suffers need not suffer much longer thanks to a wonder device about to be launched in the US and available for a paltry £1,000 (with a further £15 for each treatment).

Millions of migraine sufferers have been given hope of a cure with the invention of a magnetic pain "zapper"... The handheld device is placed at the back of the head and uses a gentle pulse to disrupt the "electrical storm" which is believed to lead to migraines.
Now the black duck's beak tingles like mad whenever the words 'magnetic' and 'cure' are found in the same sentence. Quackery is sure to follow.

Let's look a little more. How does the device work?

Gary Stroy, the president of California-based Neuralieve, said last night: "The device is about the size of a hairdryer and is held at the back of the head. "It releases electrical energy through a magnet, and this magnetic field then passes into the brain. This then interrupts the nerve signalingling process which would otherwise result in a migraine.

Well, I hope it only interrupts the nerve signals responsible for the migraine and not other ones for say, controlling my bladder, or worse, breathing.

But a reputable paper like the Mail reporting a plain old quack puff marketing story as truth? Surely not. So is this device quackery? What are the tell-tale signs of it being quackery? Well, you decide. Let's show you my thoughts...

First, lets go to Neuralie