the quackometer

Chinese Whispers - MMR and the Press

Monday, July 09, 2007

Just a few days before Andrew Wakefield appears before the GMC disciplinary body on charges of misconduct, a front page article in the Observer makes fresh claims of links between the MMR vaccine and autism. In a separate interview in the same newspaper, Dr Wakefield says that he 'told the truth all along'.

He rather remarkably compares himself with Vaclav Havel,

'As Vaclav Havel once said: "Follow the man who seeks the truth; run from the man who has found it." I can't tell you that we know that the MMR vaccine causes autism. But the Department of Health can tell you with 100 per cent certainty that it doesn't, and they believe that, and that concerns me greatly.'

Rather ironic really as the vast majority of scientists working on the causes of autism would quite readily admit that they have not really got a good grasp at all on the truth behind the causes of autism. It is Wakefield, who nearly alone in the scientific community, appears to have the answer in the face of a 'reluctant' medical community and 'political establishment'.

He predicts that 'the truth' about MMR will eventually come from America, not the UK.

The truth is apparently out there, just waiting for the vested interests and the government conspiracies to fold.

The problem is that there is not a shred of evidence to support that MMR may have anything to do with autism, despite a lot of work having now been done in this area. The newspaper article reports a new study that may show a link. But this is unpublished and so we have no idea at all what it will say. It supposedly shows that 1 in 58 kids now show signs of the condition. The papers says that,

Two of the academics, leaders in their field, privately believe that the surprisingly high figure may be linked to the use of the controversial MMR vaccine.

But even these two controversial doctors freely admit that MMR cannot explain the huge rise in reported numbers.

Dr Fiona Scott and Dr Carol Stott both say it could be a factor in small numbers of children.

So, even if there was a link then it must be a minor player in the overall story.

So, why am I bothering with this? It is not quackery as such, but anti-MMR campaigners get a lot of support from quack corners. The anti-vaccination brigade are more than welcomed and supported by homeopaths and other quacks as this whole story adds to their delusions that the medical 'establishment' is blind to their own failings and tries to suppress dissenting voices. Their own perceived persecution is made real by the perceived persecution of other dissenters. Andrew Wakefield is being judged by the GMC not in an attempt to silence to him but to see if he has acted with misconduct and unprofessionalism in making his claims, exposing children to unnecessary procedures and not declaring his interests.

This newspaper article appears to have done its trick though. The story has been picked up by many other newspapers now, e.g.

New fear over MMR link with rising autism - The Telegraph, UK
One in 58 British children is autistic, new figures reveal - the Daily Mail, UK
One in 58 British children is autistic, new figures reveal - China Daily, China

So quickly this story has got to China! But like Chinese whispers, these stories get passed around, confused and their sources forgotten. We have MMR being something to do with measels virus, or is it mercury in vaccines? It accounts for the huge rise, or is it just a 'small number if children'? It is an incoherent mess, but the large number of stories, albeit not independent, give the impression that 'there must be something in it'. There is no smoke without fire.

More stories will follow, I am sure. Dr Wakefield will be going into his hearing with a background of 'fresh revelations' when in reality there is absolutely nothing new to report. The Observer, normally a fairly sensible paper, has been duped into a PR campaign for Wakefield. I doubt the GMC will be swayed by this, but the press will be in there reporting the trial in the next few weeks, and will undoubtedly be putting the story in the context of these new revelations. All good grist to the quackery mill.

Well done, Dr Wakefield, on a very impressive PR campaign.

Labels: MMR, newspapers

2 Comments Links to this post View blog reactions

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.

Labels: daily mail, homeopathy, journalists, newspapers, pseudoscience

3 Comments Links to this post View blog reactions

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 salvestrols^TM.

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

Labels: awards, daily mail, homeopathy, journalists, mckeith, minerals, newspapers, pseudoscience, quackometer, quacks, vitamins

0 Comments Links to this post View blog reactions

A Pantomime of Science

Thursday, December 07, 2006

A criticism often levied at the quackometer is that it is very broad brush. Fair enough. It is often quite general in what it says, but it is only a bit a web script after all. The quackometer is intended to be a spring board into the exploration of health claims. Improvements in the new year should make this easier. However, the central premise behind the quackometer is that when someone uses words like 'vibration', 'energy' or 'quantum' in the context of a health claim, then almost invariably pseudoscience is being used. And, as the black duck would say,

...it is full of scientific jargon that is out of place and probably doesn't know the meaning of any of the terms.

So, is this a reasonable statement to make? Let's explore a recent example, picking up from my recent blog entry on Professor Dame Diana Mossop.

Quick Recap: The Mossop Philosophy is that she can make stronger and more effective homeopathy/Bach remedy pills by using flowers picked under a full moon and utilising copious amounts of vodka. This captures the 'vibrational energies' of the flowers so well that even viruses can be killed, allegedly.

So let's look at some of her science explanation behind this healing practice and see if it really is science and if she understands anything about what she is writing.

To start...

Light is vital for the survival of all forms of life force. Without light life cannot be sustained. Light varies in colour, depending upon the frequency and wavelength...

The last word of the first sentence is a bit of giveaway. Omit the word 'force' and you might stand a chance of defending this sentence (almost), but by invoking a 'life force', the Dame shows that she is a true believer in the élan vital, or the life essence, or cosmic soul. The life force is supposedly the non-physical essence that turns the inanimate into the animate. And of course it is completely unscientific. There is no evidence to suggest that such a thing exists at all. Science has been doing a perfectly good, parsimonious job of explaining life through chemistry. Julian Huxley compared the belief in the élan vital to believing that trains run by an élan locomotif.

Let's do Diana a favour and drop the last word and see if we can do any better. So, is light vital for the survival of all forms of life? Quick experiment. 1) Switch off room light. 2) Wait one minute 3) If the blog stops here, then you know the Prof is right. OK. Starting now...

... Right, I am back. No ill effects noted. I do this experiment most nights, so I am not too surprised. Then again, many creatures live in dark caves or at the bottom of the sea and never see any light. Bats navigate without light. Blind people cope very well. Maybe we are missing something here. All I can say is that the Prof is not very clear here.

Next, "Without light life cannot be sustained." Does the Dame mean that life is dependent on the energy gained during photosynthesis by plants? If so, why not say that? But even that is not true with discoveries of ecosystems at the bottom of the ocean where volcanic vents provide the energy source to drive the living systems there. So again, either wrong or just plain confused.

Light varies in colour. Well ,that is a very human centric view of light. Light has 'colour' in just that tiny strip from the electromagnetic spectrum that our eyes are sensitive too. Outside of that strip we have the infrared, ultraviolet, radio, x-ray and gamma-ray regions. When we usually talk about light, it is just our (quite literally) narrow interpretation of electromagnetic radiation. That radiation is defined by its wavelength, or its frequency. Note, how Mossop says 'wavelength and frequency' betraying no knowledge of the mathematical relationship between the two. One or the other will suffice to define colour.

So, from the silly misunderstandings and howlers to the positively batshit:

When white light enters the body through the eyes it is split into the different frequencies of colour by the pineal gland which acts as a prism. This colour rainbow travels through the body, from the hot, low frequencies of infra red and red , which relate to the earth based, or chakra, parts of the body, to the cool, high frequencies of ultra violet and violet, which relate to the crown chakra of the mind and soul.

Now this gets a bit depressing. I would not mind, but supposedly serious health writers have told me to read about Mossop's work before denouncing it as quackery. Can a seriously educated person really believe that 'light enters the body through the eyes'? Did they not draw a diagram of the eye in biology classes with retinas and optic nerves? Do they think the inside of the head is glowing with light that came in through the eyes? Can they really believe that the pineal gland 'acts as a prism? I can't imagine its optical properties are any different from chopped liver. Has Mossop ever obtained a pineal gland, put it next to a glass prism and then compare and contrasted the results? I severely doubt it.

How does Mossop believe the different colours then travel through the body? Installed fibre-optic cable? Wouldn't these light beams be obvious when the body got opened up? And is she not aware that cooler objects glow red whereas hotter ones glow blue? Blue is a higher energy colour than red. Her lack of understanding of optics, physics and biology is staggering considering the gall she has in trotting out this nonsense.

The 'explanation' goes on to mention lots of stuff about vibrations and colours, all without cited evidence of course and with many more basic clangers. Read the stuff about proteins and weep.

The observation is then, that apparently educated people, who can write for newspapers and be considered health experts, can be taken in by this stuff. I would have thought that some basic high school science knowledge would be sufficient. Not all of us are fortunate enough to have a postgraduate science education. The quackometer recognises this and is really just using 'rules of thumb' to spot quacks. Can we not do this in everyday life too? Maybe people just don't believe me when I assert that using 'vibrations' in a health context is nonsense. After all, we would have to start talking real physics - not made up Mossop Physics.

Well, there are other ways of spotting quacks that are not just about use of language. The emerging badscience wiki lists a number of factors that one can look for based around the claims being made, the presented evidence and the character of the person making the claims.

Let's look at some of the badscience quackospotter checklist criteria and see how Mossop stacks up...

Claims

A wide range of ailments can be treated with the same product
Couched in vague terms, “detoxify” “re-balance”
Promise cures will be rapid, dramatic, free from side effects
Marketed to essentially healthy people
Emphasise risks of conventional medicine
Lack of direct claims of efficacy
Use of the terms "can help" or "will aid"

Well, from ridiculous claims about viruses to just general 'imbalance' phytobiophysics has a cure for you. 'Electrical rebalancing' is the vague term of choice. Having said that, the actual product selector does not list viral diseases, but just contains vague 'illnesses' such as fatigue and puberty(?). So, the claims made look like quackery. Claiming a product can treat a virus is obviously illegal unless it is a registered medicine. Quacks are often quite good at separating their wild healing fantasies from their actual product claims.

Evidence

The available evidence is - at best - contentious or controversial within the medical community.
Unpublished research
Dodgy tests (e.g. "hair analysis," etc)
Anecdotes or testimonials
Endorsement by celebrity, “scientist” or prominent CAM therapist.
That the treatment has been well recognised in other countries, or times.

The most hilarious claim made on the site is about having written seven unpublished books. Mossop uses a 'Galvanometer' to do her tests. Although I had no idea a galvanometer measured frequencies. I thought it measured electrical currents? As for anecdotes - yep, a supermodel and an athlete are used to show how damn effective these things are. No doubt Jodie March is fully trained to conduct medical trials and be careful to avoid placebo effects, wishful thinking, confirmation biases and other traps. African tribesmen, no less, taught Mossop about the healing properties of plants. No doubt the same people whose life expectancies are being severely shortened by the avoidable tragedy of HIV in Africa.

Character

Using titles that may be confused with mainstream ones, such as Dr or PhD, “Fellow of”, list of letters after name.
Dresses simple ideas up as complex / mysterious / requiring special knowledge (available to you for price of book) - baffling with bullshit rather than dazzling with clarity
Background in self help industry, or commerce, but not science.

Could Professor Dame Dianna Mossop really be trying to use her titles to make us think she is mainstream?

What is quite clear is that the Mossop Philosophy is nothing more than straightforward pseudo-science. It is a pantomime of science complete with its magical worlds, wishful thinking, stereotyped language and funny dames. But just as theatre critic would not mistake Jack-and-the-Beanstalk for real theatre, why should a health journalist mistake phytobiophysics for real medicine? A sports writer that thought quiddich needed to be covered on the back page would be thought to be insane, or had too many trebles. A financial journalist who puffed up fraudulent stocks would be imprisoned. A political hack who believed Blair about weapons of mass destruction.. Let's stop there.

The sad reality is that one way quackery thrives is by newspapers giving it uncritical column inches. It is not as simple as saying that journalists write this stuff because people want to read it, as I am sure is the case with the horoscopes. Conversations with several journalists now have convinced me that it is not just the usual cynical hack writing what the readers want to hear and buy. No, it is often the case that the health writers cannot tell their healthy arses from their diseased elbows. Their sub-editors are no better and just don't care Their readers end up confused about science, deluded by quackery and swindled by fraudsters.

It looks like there is very little understanding of common science terms from quack healer through to journalist. I feel like screaming at Diana Mossop, 'Just what is it that is vibrating in your vibrational medicine????'. The quackometer is quite justified in being broad brush about the use of jargon when confronted with such nonsense.

So, coming soon: the first annual quackometer awards, where I will announce the winners of the quackiest newspaper, quackiest article and quackiest journalist as discovered by the quackomter's automatic newspaper trawl. Can't wait.

Labels: journalists, newspapers, phytobiophysics, pseudoscience, quackometer

2 Comments Links to this post View blog reactions

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.

Labels: daily mail, electromagnetic quackery, journalists, newspapers, qlink

0 Comments Links to this post View blog reactions