the quackometer

The Depths of Ms McKeith's Anti-Science

Wednesday, February 14, 2007

It's been a bad week for Gillian. The anti-quackery blogging brigade have been partaking in bouts of the great British pastime of uncontrolled Schadenfreude (why did we leave it to the Germans to coin that term?) after the Advertising Standards Authority stopped Gillian McKeith as advertising herself as 'Dr Gillian'. The Guardian printed a huge article by Ben Goldacre about how she is a 'Menace to Science' and how her particular brand of nutrionism is deeply anti-science and harmful.

Is there anything else left to say on the subject? One thing that Ben and Gillian's defenders have in common is their belief that, in many ways, it is immaterial by what title she calls herself. Obviously, her use of the title offends the many hardworking PhDs who have sweated and slaved to use their title in order to try to secure upgrades at airport check-ins. But if her advice leads to people eating more sensible diets then surely 'all's well that end's well'? That would be fine. But Gillian just speaks nonsense at people. Her thoughts on chlorophyll and food colour have been well addressed as non-scientific silliness. If people take her seriously, then how do they know what is good advice and what is rubbish? Therein lies the problem.

My contribution to the debate is going to be to show just how deep her embrace of anti-science is. I don't think even Ben has described just how far she is prepared to go. She does not just embrace the language of science in a pseudoscientific way, but is also quite prepared to get into bed with a deep anti-science agri-woo in order to sell her products. Let's just look at one of her products for sale on her web site: Veggie Vitality, available in 200ml quantities for £1.79. Her description reads...

My Veggie Vitality is produced to BioDynamic and Organic principles. BioDynamic is the highest standard for food excellence in the World today. These dedicated farmers grow their vegetables holistically according to the rhythms of the earth, sun, moon and stars. Using mineral-rich composted soil, natural homeopathics, soft music, happy conversation and meditation for the enjoyment of the crops, BioDynamicfarmers garner the perfect vibrational energy to help me create the most delicious vegetable juice ever made.

In itself, this description is pretty scary - holistic, organic, homeopathic, happy conversations - but the really kooky stuff is a little under the covers. Apparently, this drink is made to BioDynamic standards, which is supposed to be some sort of pinnacle of food excellence. Let's look at what this actually means.

Biodynamics is a farming method that was the precursor of the now popular organic food movement. Supporters of Biodynamics still stick to the founding fathers' original ideals of how farming should be done. If you are easily frightened, do not read on. This stuff is off with the fairies.

First the easy bit. Biodymanics believes that you should re-use stuff from the farm as fertilizer and not import chemicals and so on. Treating pests should also be done with readily available and local materials. There ends the fairly sane stuff.

Using any old horse shit as fertilizer is not good enough though. You have to 'activate' it using a number of formulated preparations. Let me describe a few to you...

Filling a cow horn with crushed quartz and burying it in the field you wish to help.
Yarrow flowers are stuffed into the bladder of a Red Deer and then buried over-winter before digging up in Spring
Oak bark is stuffed into the skull of a dead cat, or other domestic animal, and then also buried in peat
Chamomile flowers are stuffed into cattle intestines and buried in Autumn.

Once retrieved, the resultant gunge is used in teaspoon sized quantities on the whole dung heap to add special 'life-forces'. Other flower preparations, similar to Dame Mossop's Phytobiophysics, in near homeopathic concentrations, can also be used for the same effect.

It gets better. If you have an infestation of field mice, then catch a few, ceremoniously burn the little buggers, and then sprinkle the ashes around, but do this only when Venus is in Scorpio. (I am serious.)

What is quite clear is that Gillian's 'highest standard for food excellence' is little more than a mystical collection of nostalgic wishful thinking, voodoo, astrology and quackery. Her carrot and cucumber juice has to be that expensive as the farm workers are spending significant amounts of their time killing cats, stuffing stinging nettles into cow's squelchy bits, digging holes in peat bogs to bury this stuff, consulting astrological charts, succussing homeopathic preparations, and not forgetting to run around catching mice and the burning them at the stake. And she wants to be called Doctor.

Unless you wear purple a lot, I doubt I have to convince you that Biodynamics is at the nuttier end of the organic food movement (but not that far off in my opinion). Nonetheless, the issues that the organic farmers are trying to address, such as land use and animal care, are serious and need good answers. However, they do not get these answers by clinging to magical thinking. How do we make best use of our land, without cutting down more forest, and still produce the yields to feed everyone? How do we ensure our crops reliably grow every year so that disease, climate change and flooding do not produce regular shortages? How do we ensure that our soils can grow the yield of crops we need, year on year? How do we make sure that crop growing is energy effiecient and that the food on our table is not producing ridiculous amounts of greenhouse gasses in the field-to-table process?

Whilst mincing around with astrological charts, skulls and quartz crystals is going to be fun at Glastonbury Festival this year (my prediction - the Police will headline), it is not going to produce a reliable and sufficient amount of food, year on year, in the challenging times ahead. Only science can tell us the right and wrong paths to take. Superstition, nonsense and wishful thinking will only cloud our judgements and add to the confusion. Only serious enquiry and hard choices will steer us around the problems. Does GM have a role? How do we protect seed stocks? What energy sources should we use? These are serious questions that will affect the health of millions, if not billions, of people over the coming decades. This is for real and is a long way removed from the middle-class shit-poking, superfood obsessing, bullying and nonsense-promotion of the TV and Sunday Supplement nutriquacks.

Ms McKeith's anti-science is not helping us on this most critical journey.

Labels: Ben Goldacre, diets, Gillian McKeith, homeopathy, nutritionist, organic quackery

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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

Labels: daily mail, organic quackery

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Quack Word #12: 'Organic'

Friday, August 25, 2006

I believe that organic food is a con, is not necessarily more healthy for you, tastes no different, and is damaging to the environment.

There, I have got that off my chest, but unfortunately I now feel like I have just admitted to being a child murderer, a racist or even a supporter of George Bush's foreign policy.

Let me explain...

The word organic is now synonymous with everything good, healthy and caring. To be against organic is to be seen to be almost evil. Organic food has huge sections devoted to it in our supermarkets, and its not just food - our shampoos, clothing and beer can all be marketed as 'organic'.

What does the word mean? Its original meaning was a scientific one. The chemistry of carbon-based molecules is described as organic chemistry. As such organic chemistry is the chemistry of life. In this definition, everything alive, and everything we eat, drink or wear (as long as it is natural fibres) is organic. In science, all apples are organic. Indeed all crops are organic. But that is not what the supermarkets mean when the flog us expensive 'organic' veg.

In this context, organic is used to denote crops that have been grown according to certain standards. Those standards are certified by the Soil Association. This body was set up in the forties by a group of people who wanted to turn away from the growing industrialisation of agriculture which they saw as damaging in various ways, environmentally, bodily and spiritually. Their philosophy had been heavily influenced by Rudolph Steiner who had a lot of mystical beliefs about the nature of soil. The basis of the philosophy was that farming should make use of local materials and maximise the use of manures and local grown animal feeds. Other beliefs involved planting at certain phases of the moon and encouraging 'elemental forces' into animals and seeking the help of 'non-physical beings'.

Now it does not really matter if some of the more unhinged ideas were clearly batshit. The Soil Association has continued with the ideas about using manure rather than fertiliser, limited pesticides and limited drugs. The reason for this is so that we have healthier food, more sustainable farming and other benefits like better tasting food and less impact on wildlife.

Great. But the big question is to ask if this is actually true. What evidence is there that organic farming is healthier, tastier, more environmentally friendly and more sustainable?

Now the Quackometer Project is about exposing exaggerated health claims and so I would like to focus on the health claims for organic farming methods. Dick Tavern in his excellent book, The March of Unreason – science, democracy and the new fundamentalism, devotes a chapter to exposing the myths of organic methods and points out things like:

Tests conducted by independent consumer organisations show that people cannot taste the difference between organic and non-organic foods.
The rules for pesticides and fungicides use have no 'rhyme or reason'. Older, more damaging chemicals like copper sulphate are allowed, but more modern and specific ones are not.
If most farming became organic then we would have returned to a time when crops were vulnerable to large scale blights, high labour costs were required and low yields the norm. The poorest in the world would suffer enormously.
Low yield crops need more land and that is damaging to the environment with more forest clearing and less land set aside.

So what about health? The main issue tends to focus on the 'evils' of pesticide residues. The problem here is that although pesticides can harm in large doses, there is no evidence that they harm at the minute quantities left on foods. As Dick Tavern points out in his book,

In fact every mouthful of food contains some poison, as does every sip of water. Carcinogenic' substances are routinely consumed by all of us in the form of natural chemicals made by plants to repel predators, but at amounts so low they do not harm us. ... There are some dioxons in every breath of air we take

It's all in the dose. Only homeopathists believe that insignificant doses have huge effects. Sir John Krebbs in Nature noted that a cup of [even organic] coffee contains natural carcinogens equal to a year's ingestion of synthetic carcinogenic substances found in the diet. Part of the problem is that our analytical measurement techniques can spot the tiniest traces of substances. But just because we can detect something does not mean that we need worry about it. Plants produce their own natural pesticides and we consume far more of that than the trace residues of the artificial stuff sprayed on. Concern about pesticide residue is just a modern phobia with no basis in evidence.

If there is little basis in fact for the claims made by the organic movement then it looks like the word organic is just one more advertising word used to push expensive, unnecessary products on us. Furthermore, and more damning, by focusing on organic production, our society pays less attention to farming methods and technology advances that really could improve health, protect wildlife and ensure a consistent quality and quantity of food supply. Rather than securing our health, the illogical worship of the word 'organic' could be damaging us all.

As such, I have no reservation in including the word 'organic' in the Quackometer Project. Promoting food that is grown according to 'organic' principles because it is supposed to be healthier for us is just one more form of quackery.

Labels: organic quackery, Quack Words

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