The Quackometer » Patrick Holford

Neutrahealth in Trouble

Le Canard Noir — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 18:22:00 +0000

In the last few days, vitamin pill company Neutrahealth (NUT.L), has seen a precipitous drop in its share price. Its investors look like they believe the company is going to have a difficult time weathering the credit crunch.

Neutrahealth is known to us through its involvement with Patrick Holford. He sold his online pill company to them for £464,000. He then joined their team as Head of Science and Education at Biocare as they believed he was “a leading figure in the industry with wide recognition amongst informed consumers”. Readers of this blog, badscience and HolfordWatch will be well aware of the many doubtful aspects of Holford’s science and just how well informed those consumers must be.

When Neutrahealth floated on the stock market in 2005 its shares were sold at 10p. This year, pharmaceutical company Elder invested heavily in the company at 16p per share, already a significant premium over their then current price. Now the stock is trading at about 2p after collapsing last week.

The reasons for this are twofold. The company has a stated dual strategy of growth through increased sales of its pills to consumers and by acquisition of other companies to add to its market share. So, firstly, the subsidiary companies of Neutrahealth are struggling to increase sales for a number of reasons. Even before the current financial turmoil, it was becoming obvious to them that consumers were not going to nutritionists to buy expensive pills from the ‘Practitioner channel’. Despite rule changes to the code of ‘ethics’ at BANT that allowed registered nutritional therapists to take kick backs on pills they sold to their customers without disclosing them, it would appear that consumers of vitamins would prefer to take their advice from the Internet than pay for a consultation. Neutrahealth have then been hoping for a pick up in their ‘direct to consumer channels’, principally Patrick Holford’s ‘Health Products for Life’ website. We shall come on to the very simple reasons why this will be a vain hope.

Neutrahealth issued a profits warning on the 25th of September, saying that it will fall short of the market’s expectations. The market has not taken kindly to this news. It cites consumer spending as a problem and the raised cost of raw materials, such as fish oil. But this situation has lead to a more serious threat to the business.

The second part of the ‘double whammy’ is that Neutrahealth can no longer execute their desire to grow through acquisition. Investors have bought into the company on the basis that their capital will grow through the value created from ’synergies’ between acquired companies. Companies were bought on the strength of their share price by, effectively, buying companies through the value of their own equity. That, pretty much, does not exist now. And, it is unlikely they will be able to raise cash through loans in the current climate. By pushing the company into the penny shares bracket, it would prove near impossible to raise cash from investors as they might have done twelve months ago.

In their annual report last year, they noted a principle risk to their business: Access to Capital.

We reported last year that we viewed access to finance as a principal risk. The challenges this year are more significant. We remain an acquisitive company with an objective of increasing our size to become more visible for investors and to be more dominant in our industry. The former requires a higher market apitalisation through either a higher share price, increased equity, or a combination of both.

That risk has now materialised.

The company has significant debts to service this year – it looks like they will need to find nearly a million pounds to service their loans. They have cash in the bank, but with sales falling, this may not last too long. Challenging times for the management.

So, why are sales falling? The answer is obvious: there are so few people who need their products. And of those who buy them, the benefit they get from them is marginal at best. Selling vitamins trades off the myth that people need them to achieve a healthy diet. Furthermore, Holford is excellent at promoting doubtful ideas that vitamin pills can prevent and treat illnesses. But belief in this is soft. When the shopper is looking to save a few pounds each week, they will not be cutting back on fruit and vegetables – the pills will go. Harder for Neutrahealth will be that once a consumer has got out of the habit of buying pills, it will take a large effort to get them back on board. They may well notice that they do perfectly will without them. Shoppers are changing their habits as prices are increasing and are spotting the superfluous in their spending habits.

But the woes of Neutrahealth may well point to a more general tale of hardship within the world of alternative medicine. The credit crunch is going to have a harsh effect on those who trade off quackery. The problems at Neutrahealth are visible as they have obligations under public company rules to inform the market of pertinent information. But for most private quackery, the problems are going to be acute but silent.

When people see their fuel bills this winter struggling against toxins in a spa is going to seem rather redundant. Balancing their chequebook is going to be more important than balancing their chakras. Worries about jobs will mean that people will be conservative in their spending and may not worry so much about the continuous demand of quacks to achieve ‘optimum health’ and ‘lifetime wellness’. Homeopaths, struggling to see more than a few customers per week, may well decide to devote their vast intellects to more mundane matters, such as gardening for a few quid. Chiropractors’ subluxations will just have to be lived with. Your chi flow through your meridians may well have to remain blocked for a short while as your acupuncturist is just a tad too expensive now.

Quackery has boomed over the credit years because it has nothing to do with health. It is an indulgence of the comfortable who wish to use it to make a certain sort of identity for themselves. The worried well define themselves as ‘people who take care of their health’. It creates a sense of independence and control that might otherwise be lacking. Buying vitamin pills is a act of personal expression, not an act of prudent healthcare. The worried well are now the worried working, and they have some good reasons to focus on more tangible and immediate concerns.

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It’s a Stitch Up

Le Canard Noir — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 23:17:00 +0000

It’s the big story this morning all over the British papers – the new killer in our midst – vitamin pills.

Today, a new Cochrane review tells us that guzzling antioxidant vitamin pills ‘do us no good and may be harmful’. The Independent tell us that,

We swallow them by the bucketload at great expense but there is no evidence vitamin supplements do us any good, and they may even be doing us harm, scientists have concluded. In a blow to the multimillion pound dietary supplement industry, a review of 67 randomised trials of vitamin pills has found that far from prolonging life, they may actually shorten it.

This conclusion was the result of a meta-analysis of 232,000 people and confirms earlier findings that taking certain vitamins in high doses may kill us earlier rather than do us good.

The Scotsman quotes the researchers,

Goran Bjelakovic, a visiting researcher who carried out the review at Copenhagen University Hospital in Denmark, added: “We could find no evidence to support taking antioxidant supplements to reduce the risk of dying earlier.” If anything, people given the antioxidants beta-carotene, vitamin A, and vitamin E showed increased rates of mortality.”"The bottom line is that current evidence does not support the use of antioxidant supplements in the general healthy population or in patients with certain diseases.”

The Herald tells us that “some popular pills might kill you.”

The Daily Telegraph leads with the story in its front page. Vitamin pills are no substitute for healthy diet,

[the researchers] warn healthy people who take antioxidant supplements, including vitamins A and E, to try to keep diseases such as cancer at bay that they are interfering with their natural body defences and may be increasing their risk of an early death by up to 16 per cent.

Not surprisingly the food pill pushers have reacted angrily.

In the Daily Mail we learn that,

Pamela Mason, of the industry-backed Health Supplements Information Service, said: ‘Antioxidant vitamins, like any other vitamins, were never intended for the prevention of chronic disease and mortality.

‘They are intended for health maintenance on the basis of their various physiological roles in the body and in the case of antioxidant vitamins, this does, in appropriate amounts, include a protective antioxidant effect in the body’s tissues.

So, the vitamin industry has been telling us that their pills are not to prevent disease and death? That is news. But somehow without preventing disease and death they assist ‘health maintenance’? Does that mean I could die but still be in ‘optimum health’?

Patrick Holford, vitamin pill entrepreneur responds.

But Patrick Holford, a nutritionist who has formulated some [sic] supplements for the firm Biocare, said the Cochrane review was a “stitch-up”. He added: “Antioxidants are not meant to be magic bullets and should not be expected to undo a lifetime of unhealthy habits. But used properly, in combination with eating a healthy diet, getting plenty of exercise and not smoking, antioxidant supplements can play an important role in maintaining and promoting overall health.”

In the Daily Mail, Holford is reported as saying,

there is a campaign by the medical establishment to discredit their products and their role in optimising health.

and

Mr Holford said the review was ‘a stitch-up’ because all the studies were chosen strictly for reducing mortality, and not for the many advantages reported in other studies.

The quackometer would like see his evidence for any of his remarks. Just why a secretive cabal of the ‘medical establishment’ wants to discredit vitamin pills is not explained. It is paranoia and conspiratorial thinking. And isn’t it a perfectly legitimate exercise to ask if chomping pills allows us to live longer? What is Holford saying? That we might lives shorter lives while scoffing his wares, but at least we will be in ‘optimum health’?

But there may well be good reasons to try to discredit vitamin pill salespeople like Holford. Guzzling pills has more insidious effects that a possible reduction in lifespan. Vitamin pills are seen as a shortcut to health – a quick fix to make up for shortcomings or excesses elsewhere. Spending a fortune on pills and focusing on supplementation means that the importance of good diet is marginalised. The quackometer has long supported the view that we should ‘eat food’.

What is somewhat frustrating about all of this is that the original Cochrane paper is not yet up for reading on their web site. All we have is press reports from press releases. This has not stopped Patrick Holford reviewing and rubbishing the work on his web site.

I am sure we get a detailed response from HolfordWatch in due course.

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

9am : The paper is now available here.

Listen to the Victoria Derbyshire show on BBC Radio 5 live where Mr Holford transforms himself into an industry spokesman.

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Natural Disasters, Corporate Nutrition and the Confusopoly of Diet

Le Canard Noir — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 18:41:00 +0000

The louder a food screams ‘natural’ or ‘healthy’ at you, the further you should run. That is the somewhat counter-intuitive message of Michael Pollan’s essay, Unhappy Meals. Pollan tells us to avoid those food products that come bearing loud health claims.

They’re apt to be heavily processed, and the claims are often dubious at best. Don’t forget that margarine, one of the first industrial foods to claim that it was more healthful than the traditional food it replaced, turned out to give people heart attacks. When Kellogg’s can boast about its Healthy Heart Strawberry Vanilla cereal bars, health claims have become hopelessly compromised. (The American Heart Association charges food makers for their endorsement.) Don’t take the silence of the yams as a sign that they have nothing valuable to say about health.

Indeed, as you push your trolley around the supermarket, the silent spring onions and the mute mangos are made to look positively unhealthy in the din of competing yells of naturalness and healthiness of the more processed products deeper in the store. We even have Diet Coke Plus Antioxidant now with a “hint of real green tea and antioxidant Vitamin C.”

Of course the loudest of the health screaming foods are the most processed of them all – the food supplements. Pollan argues that our obsession with health removes an important sense of joy from food. Vitamins and supplements take this to an extreme. Supplements are food stripped naked, hosed down and dressed in orange jump suits. Their salesmen, like Patrick Holford, promise huge life optimising benefits from this reductionist and sciencey attitude to food. Michael Pollan argues against this self-centred and irrational approach and implores us to reject ‘dietary nutrients’ and embrace instead good ‘dietary habits’. His manifesto is to return to communal meals, to take “serious pleasure in eating”, to eat traditional diets as found in France, Japan or the Mediteranean, and to have “small portions, no seconds or snacking”. In short, “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants. “

The antithesis of this approach is best found in health shops like Holland and Barrett. These shops scream their caring, green, healthy credentials at you. But when you step inside you are confronted with joyless superfood ingredients and huge rows of tubs of chemicals in pill form that imply all sorts of health enhancements. Their claims are not made in store – that might prove problematic. Health food shops rely on the ‘health food’ books and web sites that are little more than infomercials for this strange business. But people want to ‘take control of their health’ and flock to these stores on a promise of longer, better and thinner lives. And more than this, if you do have a health problem, then people like Patrick Holford are telling you that food can be better medicine than drugs. (Or rather, more likely, a food supplement can be better.) The supplement pill is a simple answer to complex problems. One of the biggest lures for a healing pill is slimming aids where a natural and healthy food supplement can lead to a slimmer you without the unnecessary inconvenience of actually thinking about your diet and your relationship with eating.

Pollan blames the corporate lobbies for this state of affairs. Rather than governments issuing simple health messages like ‘eat less meat’, the corporate lobbies have made sure this message has become ‘reduce saturated-fat intake’. The meat producers are more happy with this message as they can market their meat pies with healthy messages of ‘lower saturated fat’. And of course, the emphasis of nutrients rather than food now allows the vitamin pill entrepreneurs to complete the severance of health from food and sell you nutrients in little white tubs.

And so, a happy money-making informal collaboration now exists between food manufacturers and nutritional therapists that has created an artificial industry in ‘health food’ using the confusion of pseudoscience. This ‘confusopoly’ of businesses and their dietary health claims is not there to improve your health but to sell products that you would not otherwise buy. Sometimes this alliance is not so informal but carefully put together through marketing endorsements and product tie-ins. You need to buy the books of Patrick Holford, attend one of his seminars, subscribe to his newsletters and buy his specially formulated nutrient concoctions. Attempts by the government to reverse this trend, such as the ‘five a day’ message, are undermined by the vitamin sellers telling us that we can never get enough from mere food.

But the harm of this is not just the creation of a society confused about health and diet. We learn from the BBC today that many species of plants with potential pharmaceutical uses are endangered from over-collection and deforestation. It talks of one species,

Hoodia, which originally comes from Namibia and is attracting interest from drug firms looking into developing weight loss drugs, is on the verge of extinction.

Hoodia is a massive slimming supplement fad. Type it into google and see the adverts scream at you. What the BBC fails to really highlight is that the threat does not come from pharmaceutical companies over exploiting this resource in an attempt to find new drugs, but from your friendly, green and healthy high street health food shop. Hoodia Gordonii is a CITES protected species and yet it is on sale in shops like Holland and Barrett. I have written before about how Holland and Barrett sells shark-derived products that have no health benefits at all. The evidence base for Hoodia is equally as lean. People are buying empty promises in pill form rather than eating less.

We live in a world where truth has been inverted in the interests of corporate nutrition. The real food that we should be eating struggles to be heard over the cacophony of health claims from vested interests. We have been taught to think in terms of nutrients rather than diets and to leap on sciencey sounding easy fixes for our problems in pill form. Not only have we been divorced from the simple pleasures of eating well but our desires for faddish health fixes endangers not only ourselves and our wallets but our natural environment too.

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The Myths of Patrick Holford

Le Canard Noir — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 22:56:00 +0000

Bertrand Russel said,

What a man believes upon grossly insufficient evidence is an index into his desires — desires of which he himself is often unconscious. If a man is offered a fact which goes against his instincts, he will scrutinize it closely, and unless the evidence is overwhelming, he will refuse to believe it. If, on the other hand, he is offered something which affords a reason for acting in accordance to his instincts, he will accept it even on the slightest evidence. The origin of myths is explained in this way.

Myths are at the heart of what this site is about. Why do people prefer myths to reality? Why do myths persist in the face of obvious alternatives? It is therefore with great delight that I discovered two new sites about myths last week.

In a cosmic coincidence that would even make the hairs on the back of the neck of Rupert Sheldrake stand up, the first site to appear was called holfordmyths.org, and the a day or two later another site called holfordmyths.com. Spooky.

The first site appears to cover much the same ground as HolfordWatch but is not so much a blog but a brief description of problems seen in Holfords work. The second site is far more interesting. It points to one of Patrick Holford’s sites and looks like it is attempting to correct the myths that he sees are out there about him.

But what is immediately obvious, is that the myths Patrick is trying to dispel bear no resemblance to any of the criticisms made against him – with the odd exception. Let’s look at them in turn…

Myth: Patrick Holford has no qualifications
No one has ever accused Patrick of having no qualifications. What critics have said is that he has no relevant qualifications. Patrick has a 2:2 in Psychology and failed to complete a Masters degree. Upon this he has built a nutritionist empire.

Myth: Patrick awarded his own qualification in nutrition
It is well known that Patrick’s only Nutrition qualification came from the very institution he set up – the Institute of Optimum Nutrition. On Patrick’s site, he says, “Patrick was awarded his Diploma in Nutrition in 1998 by the Board of Trustees”. Patrick says he ran ION from 1984 to 1998, so this award looks very much like a goodbye thank-you gift. All OK. But thanks to DCScience, we can see Patrick’s recent CV says that he gained his DipION in 1995. DCScience points out more discrepancies on the CV.

UPADTE (16/1/08): I have just realised that it is not just the CV that says that the DipION was awarded in 1995. Patrick’s online ‘About Me’ page says it too. It looks like the myths page is out of step with the rest of the story. What is even more intruiging is that HolfordWatch report that a book called ‘Dirty Medicine’ by Martin Walker reports that Patrick’s DipION was being talked about as far back as 1989. Now, by the look of Walker’s book, you might want to take anything in there with a pinch of salt. More myths just could well be created.

Myth: Anyone can call themselves a nutritional therapist
Patrick says that “The term ‘nutritional therapist’ is regulated by the voluntary professional organisation the British Association of Nutritional Therapy (BANT).” However, he fails to make clear that BANT are not a statutory body and have no authority to stop anyone calling themselves a nutritional therapist. You can read more about this on HolfordWatch.

Myth: Only dieticians and doctors are qualified to give diet advice
Again, he says, “The DipION foundation degree is a three year course which provides considerably more qualification to advise an individual about their nutritional needs than either a medical training or a dietetic training.” This would be a hard claim to justify. Much of the DipION training is based on highly disputed views on nutrition that HolfordWatch explores regularly. If you are ill in hospital, it is the advice of dietician you will be given, not someone with a diploma from Patrick’s college. Unlike a nutritional therapist, you can also be sure that a dietician will be struck off and loose their job if they give bad advice. They will not be able to practice again. Nutritional Therapists do not come with such a guarantee.

Myth: Patrick Holford is Dr Patrick Holford
No critic has accused Patrick of misusing the title ‘Dr’. Some fawning journalist might have given him this title. However, this little bit of ‘mythbusting’ allows Patrick to remind us that he is now Professor Patrick Holford. This was quite a controversial appointment by the University of Teesside due to his mundane academic qualifications and minor published academic record. He has been asked by the University to describe himself as a Visiting Professor at the University of Teesside, in the School of Social Sciences and Law and to make sure he does not associate himself with nutrition or mental health, like he does here. You can read what the real Professor of Nutrition at Teesside has to think about this at DCScience.

Myth: Patrick Holford owns a vitamin company and/or is a vitamin salesman
This is quite an extraordinary one. He says, “Patrick Holford neither owns, nor has shares in any vitamin company”, but fails to mention some huge facts. Patrick has always been associated with Vitamin sales. This year Patrick saw the entire issued share capital of Health Products for Life sold to NeutraHealth (BioCare) for £464,000. £200,000 of this is deferred until later this year depending on performance, no doubt. Patrick was appointed Head of Science and Education for the vitamin sales company. Patrick has failed to disclose interests before about his interests in vitamin sales. Patrick may not work at the check out of Holland and Barrett, but just about everything he does is promoting in some way supplements and vitamins, whether it is books, web sites, talks and TV appearances. Have a look at Bioharmony, a South African vitamin company, and see how Patrick Holford is definately not a vitamin salesman.

Myth: Patrick believes that vitamin C cures AIDS
Patrick claims he has never said this and this has been done to death. See Bad Science for the gory details. But just to remind you what Patrick really said, ‘AZT, the first prescribable anti-HIV drug, is proving less effective than vitamin C’.

Myth: Patrick recommends eating oily fish three times a day!
Well, I have never claimed he does. It would be a rather dull diet.

True: Patrick opposes fortification of food with folic acid
That may well be. But his companies have sold much higher doses of folic acid in supplement form. It took a HolfordWatch post to ensure Health Products for Life provided appropriate warnings on their web site.

True: Two ASA rulings were upheld against 100% Health
Absolutely true. Patrick claims this is a blow against his freedom of speech. The ASA thought it was because he was making untruthful and unsubstantiated claims.

Myth: Pharmaceutical companies are looking after your health
This is perhaps the one area where Patrick’s critics might find some common ground, but probably not in the way he thinks. Pharmaceutical companies are like all other companies. They are obliged by legislation to maximise a return to their shareholders above all other considerations. This may create unpleasant side effects in some of their activities. But in this, they are no different from any other publicly listed company. It is just that somehow we hold them to unreasonable higher standards because they are involved in health. It is our democratic laws that create these so called monsters. However, within such companies, I am sure there are thousands of people who do care deeply about creating better drugs for people that will improve and even save their lives, and will be working on modest wages with little recognition. Patrick, like many alternative medicine advocates, likes to conflate the misdeeds of pharmaceutical corporations with the programme of evidence-based medicine. In this he is spreading the biggest myths that we cannot trust our health care workers and the drugs that have proven to be effective. Patrick has co-authored a book called “Food Is Better Medicine Than Drugs”. He is wrong and this is a myth. Food is food and drugs are drugs. Yes, diet can contribute to health, but vitamin pills and supplements are a very minor part of the answer to a good, long and healthy life.

Here we see Patrick’s greatest mythologising: a reductionist and nutritional answer to life’s most difficult issues. Poverty cannot be corrected with fish oil pills. Mental health issues need good medical care, not just a bag of vitamins. HIV is not going to be tackled with Vitamin C, no matter how much we wish this to be true.

I think I shall end with another Bertrand Russell quote about myths,

There is something feeble and a little contemptible about a man who cannot face the perils of life without the help of comfortable myths.

Nutritionism is the comforting myth of our age. I wish Patrick would help dispel that myth.

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Equazen eye q™ and their Fishy Adverts

Le Canard Noir — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 00:01:00 +0000

Today, the Advertising Standards Authority have upheld complaints against Equazen and their eye q™ products, finding them to have made untruthful and unsubstantiated advertising claims. This is about time. Their antics in promoting fish oil pills to school children have been well documented.

Equazen (now owned by Swiss pharmaceutical company Galenica) have been using local authorities to promote the idea that taking a daily fish oil supplement can boost children’s’ school performance. They call it the ‘Clever Capsule’ for your child. However, their evidence that could substantiate this has been hard to come by. Claims that the pills have been independently and scientifically tested in schools looked very weak with the only trials on record appearing to lack basic scientific controls, size or applicability. Nonetheless, the charge to sell loads of these pills to concerned parents has taken place in earnest.

Vitamin pill entrepreneur Patrick Holford has been pushing the pills on TV and through his Food for the Brain charity. Boots the Chemists have had displays extolling the virtues of the pills and their PR agencies have ensured that the credulous media, such as the Daily Mail, copy out the press releases as if it they were news.

All in all the message has been: you are an irresponsible parent if you are not shoving fish pills down your kids necks.

The ASA investigated whether the claim “A Hi-EPA fish oil formula that may help maintain concentration levels and healthy brain development” could be substantiated. Also they looked at the independence of the tests, the rigour of the test and whether the concentration and learning of all children would improve following supplementation. Equazen produced a huge amount of evidence to support their adverts but the ASA found that their claims could not be substantiated and they were misleading. The ASA instructed Equazen as follows:

We told Equazen to remove the claims “… may help maintain concentration levels and healthy brain development”, “the Clever Capsule”Scientifically tested in schools”, “proven in schools” and “proven by Science” from future advertising for eye q. We also told them to avoid implying in future that the advertised product could benefit the general population or that a trials results related to a product with exactly the same composition and dosage as the advertised product if that was not the case.

Now, I for one am mightily impressed by the ASA. This was quite a complex issue involving a lot of evidence and weighing of scientific viewpoints. This is something that many bodies wish to shy away from. We have seen the Guardian readers’ editor this week talking about the difficulty of arbitrating readers disputes over scientific evidence. Some of the evidence was easy to dismiss, such as Equazen trying to pass off their adherence to the Food Labelling and Food Supplements Regulations as some sort of endorsement of the efficacy of their product. Other evidence required careful dissection of trial methodology to determine the applicability to their claims.

There is a problem in the UK of finding the right authorities to help in tackling the claims of quacks. If someone is making dangerous or misleading claims about a quack product then it is quite difficult to know who can help. Trading standards were set up to deal with dodgy plumbers and are run from local councils. The ASA is an industry run organisation with limited sanctions. The ASA deals with adverts only, but not web adverts. Trading standards are based in regional offices and may or may not have the experience to deal with more complex scientific issues. It is a bit of a mess.

The harm that the ASA ruling will have on Equazen is not a monetary one in the form of a fine. It is not the threat of legal action – it is rather a smack on the wrist from their peers. What they undoubtedly really fear is bad publicity and that is what an ASA ruling often leads to.

Far from perfect, and limited in scope and powers, the ASA appears to be remarkably willing to take on difficult issues and act on complex issues. I just wish that this approach could be applied more uniformly to challenge the problems society faces from quackery.

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An Allergy to Truth

Le Canard Noir — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 18:15:00 +0000

According to Allergy UK, they are “a national medical charity established to represent the views and needs of people with allergy, food intolerance and chemical sensitivity.” Amongst their aims they say they are there to

Enabl[e] people with allergy, food intolerance and chemical sensitivity to receive appropriate diagnosis and treatment through education of healthcare professionals and the provision of dedicated services.

Allergy UK give awards to services they feel help promote their aims and “will generally benefit allergy sufferers and improve their state of health and wellbeing.” They have given an award to YorkTest who are ’specialists in food intolerance testing’. They say,

The clinically validated York Test foodscan range represents a breakthrough in food intolerance testing. Using the Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay (elisa) method, the tests provide a rapid, accurate and reproducible way of determining food intolerance and identify which foods your body is and isn’t coping with properly from a pin-prick blood sample.

Patrick Holford gives similar endorsements to YorkTest,

My favourite laboratory is Yorktest Laboratories whose tests are clinically validated. Not only do they use this technology but they are the only lab to offer a home test kit for food and chemical allergies that requires a pinprick blood sample. This is sent back to YorkTest laboratories who then test you for sensitivity to all foods including gluten, gliadin, wheat and yeast. They send you a home test kit that enables you to take a pinprick of blood, so you don’t have to go to your doctor.

Yorktest have also carried out a number of ‘double-blind’ trials on their IgG test and have solid science to back up their claims of effectiveness.

His schools food charity “Food for the Brain” is supported by YorkTest.

Now what is funny is that the Advertising Standards Authority disagree with all this. Some mischievous member of the public complained about their adverts. The issues considered were:

The complainant challenged whether:

1. the claim “clinically validated” could be substantiated; and

2. the advertisers could substantiate the efficacy of the test

The ASA challenged whether:

3. the ads made claims that could lead to a mistaken diagnosis

All three complaints were upheld. YorkTest were found to be in breach for unsubstantiated claims, untruthfulness and for claims about Health and Beauty and Therapies.

This is about time. Misdiagnosis of allergies caused people to drastically and unnecessarily alter their diets in ways that may be harmful. It causes distress and may prevent them from seeking proper medical help. There is a huge industry out there preying on peoples concerns about allergies and food intolerances and it needs reigning in.

How long will it be do you think before Allergy-UK take away their award to YorkTest? And how long before Patrick Holford amends his web pages?

My personal guess is never. I may be wrong.

UPDATE:

A little dickie bird has just pointed out that a trustee of the charity Allergy-UK is a DR MICHAEL CHARLES MATTHEWS.

A Dr Michael C Matthews MB, BS, FHS was also a medical director of YorkTest.

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Pulling My Hair Out or, The Role of Mineral Hair Analysis in the Sale of Food Supplements initially posted on Holford Watch. Patrick Holford has set up a charity. Not poorly, fluffy kittens or...
The Breakspear Hospital and Electromagnetic Therapy The development of new forms of quackery continues with the publication of the latest research from the University of Essex showing yet again that mobile mast radiation was unlikely...

Patrick Holford’s Advertising Standards

Le Canard Noir — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 05:10:00 +0000

Poor Patrick Holford. Doing business has its ups and downs and, alternative nutritionist and pill salesman Patrick, has his own fair share of business successes and failures at the moment. He has recently sold himself to NeutraHealth for £464,000. Quite an achievement; maybe not so poor Patrick. But he is also increasing coming under more and more criticism for his ideas on nutrition. A Google search of ‘Patrick Holford’ shows many critical web sites in the top ten search results, and more encroaching on that all important first page of results. Whereas once Patrick might have been quite proud of having the epithet ‘controversial’ pinned to his name, meaning that he is at the forefront of unorthodox new ideas, it now takes on much more appropriate and negative associations.

In the online business world, your Google profile is a reflection on the value of your brand. It has monetary value. And when big business wants to pay lots of money for the Patrick Holford brand, prominent criticism is not good news.

And now, the Advertising Standards Authority site will undoubtedly be joining the Google list of critical web sites. This morning, the ASA have issued a judgement on a complaint about an advertising mail that Patrick sent out to his potential fans. They have ruled that Patrick was untruthful and was making unsubstantiated claims about the law and making statments about the ability for nutrients to cure specific conditions and for saying that a balanced diet does not provide the vitamins and minerals you require.

But what is fascinating here is that the ASA appear to have decided that Patrick was not in the business of selling supplements, but only marketing publications. That is a somewhat strange pronouncement. As part of the deal with NeutraHealth he was made Head of Science and Education for the pill pushing company. He is on a huge deferred consideration from the sale of his nutrition company and the sale of lots supplements will undoubtedly be part of the way Holford will receive that money. His face appears on many bottles of supplements; he formulates his own multi-vitamin supplement concoctions and endorses various brands. How does the ASA manage to make such a statement?

The skill with which many people in the alternative medicine scene manage to side step the law and regulations surrounding medicinal claims, has always amazed me. With Patrick, the answer has been quite simple: separate your medical claims from your sales channels; do not make any specific claims on web sites selling your pills and potions. Instead, build your brand around your name through various media channels and get your messages out that way. Patrick has been a master at this and why he has been able to sell himself for so much. He has published many best selling books, he maintains websites that pump out his messages, he pushes to appear on television as much as possible and even, like many businesses, sets up and gets involved with charities that help boost the brand. Most spectacularly, Patrick has set up his own training school, the Institute of Optimum Nutrition, where he has with his successors, been feeding new recruits the Patrick Holford message for several decades. Whilst amazingly being academically endorsed by the University of Bedfordshire, the ION could just be viewed as a highly successful field sales training school, getting the marketing messages out to eager young disciples’ minds and turning them into a formidable sales force.

All this works, of course, because there is no direct link between any of these statements and claims and the sales operation, no laws are being broken. Patrick can say in his books that Vitamin C is doing better than AZT in killing HIV without attracting the wrath of regulators. He can make claims on charity web sites about vitamin pills being a good way of treating serious mental illness, like schizophrenia, without breaking the law. When Patrick sends out his mailshots, or writes books, or appears on GMTV, he is not at that time selling food supplements. There is no compulsion to buy, or direct endorsement, of Holford branded food supplements. However, all boats float up on a rising tide. The public are more and more used to nutritionists’ distorted messages of the ‘need’ to take supplements, even though this is not a concept endorsed by dietitians, doctors and scientists. And like most people in the nutritionist business (c.f. ‘Dr’ Gillian McKeith), the complex dietary messages they give out make it difficult to walk into a high street health shop and self-select your own ‘optimum’ mix of pills. It is much easier to go with the ‘brand’ behind the message with their pre-formulated mixes and regimes, with the ‘right’ concentrations and combinations, ‘just for you’.

In this media soaked world, advertising does not need to take traditional and obvious routes. Content providers, like newspapers and TV channels, are desperate for quick, cheap and attractive stories. All Patrick and his like have to do is issue a press release in the right way and you can guarantee that a newspaper or two will pick it up and print it almost word for word. A large fraction of Daily Mail health stories are little more than press releases from commercial sources. This week we have seen the Mail and the Express print what was basically an advert for YorkTest allergy testing, endorsed by Patrick Holford, completely uncritically. There is no need to pay for adverts in the papers and also no need to come under the watchful eye of the Advertising Standards Authority. The claims made in the Daily Mail would almost undoubtedly have resulted in complaints to the ASA had the same claims been made as paid for adverts.

And so in some ways, it is quite remarkable that the ASA have been able to make a ruling at all. Patrick has been caught out this time. In these times of multimedia, multi-channel branding and messaging, the rules governing how medical claims can be made look rather out of date. The various regulatory agencies involved that arbitrarily separate print media claims from product packaging claims (and so on) make it harder to ensure that businesses obey not just the letter of the law but also the spirit. The Internet almost makes that impossible.

But maybe new forms of ‘regulation’ are forming and they are the democratic army of bloggers that manage to challenge the claims of quacks in highly accessible forms and at very low cost. These people are not competitors and mostly do not care what pills such people sell. The motivation appears to come from what is perceived to be an abuse of science and the distortion and obfuscation of genuine, simple health messages. There can be few fans of Patrick, who have tried to research him on the web, who now cannot now be aware of many of the legitimate challenges and criticisms of his philosophy and businesses. What is needed is a few more authorities like the Universities of Teesside and Bedfordshire, and media channels like GMTV, to do a bit more Googling too.

Watch Holford Watch Just to let you know that I am proud to be able to contibute a little to a new blog, “Holford Watch”, a site about ‘top media nutritionist’ Patrick Holford....
The Myths of Patrick Holford Bertrand Russel said, What a man believes upon grossly insufficient evidence is an index into his desires — desires of which he himself is often unconscious. If a man is...
Patrick Holford – No Comment I sometimes get emails from people offended by the quackometer asking me to remove all traces of them from my web site. I usually politely respond by asking exactly...

Patrick Holford – No Comment

Le Canard Noir — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 16:01:00 +0000

I sometimes get emails from people offended by the quackometer asking me to remove all traces of them from my web site. I usually politely respond by asking exactly what I have written that is wrong and I will be glad to remove it. I never hear back.

This week I had an email from Patrick Holford telling me that I should not have posted on Professor David Colquhoun’s blog, Improbable Science. Patrick is upset that David wrote an article in the Guardian newspaper about ‘the resurgence in magical and superstitious ideas about medicine’ and other delusions. Patrick was mentioned for his statements made in his books that say that Vitamin C does better than AZT as an anti-HIV drug. Mr Holford thinks Professor Colquhoun is wrong to point this out and people like me should not be encouraging him, or something. Patrick appears to argue that what he is really saying is much more complex – that trials on Vitamin C should be done. But anyone reading his New Optimum Nutrition Bible would not see such comment, just the snippet posted above. Obviously, professor Colquhoun goes into much more detail about this subject in a recent post.

Now I wouldn’t mind. But why does Patrick complain about a rather silly comment I posted on the article? I have written lots of things about Patrick and never received any other sort of complaint. I feel rather miffed. Here are some things he might like to complain about…

A long article on how Patrick’s views of nutrition has diverged away from science and how ‘Optimum Nutrition’ has become just one more alternative medicine.
An examination of how Holford’s view of psychiatry and medicine is convergent with scientology, and how he is involved with a scientologist’s anti-psychiatry organisation, and how he has been mentioned as receiving awards from UK scientologists.
An investigation into how Patrick Holford uses questionable diagnostic techniques that have been widely associated with fraud.
An look at Patrick’s shaky grasp of physics as he tries to sell anti-EMR gadgets.
And more shaky physics as he helps the Wi-Fi scare mongers.
A critique of the Food for The Brain schools charity and how it places too much evidence on food supplements and not enough emphasis on science.
A puzzled look at how Patrick can get basic personal facts wrong on his own CV.
My anagram of ‘Institute of Optimum Nutrition’ – ‘Nut Into Tummies Tuition Profit’

Professor Colquhoun is quite right to be very worried about many aspects of what Patrick Holford advocates. As one of Britain’s most prominent pharmacologists, the Professor has every right to question the Patrick’s recent appointment as a visiting professor at Teesside university when he has so few academic credentials, and the facts of some of those credentials were wrong on his CV. Also, playing with ideas that Vitamin C might be better for HIV than scientific medicine is playing with people’s lives. In Africa, millions of people are denied access to proper treatment and one of the reasons for this is that senior politicians are in the sway of people with similar views to Patrick about nutrition and so advocate the use of potatoes and lemons to cure AIDS. Remember, Patrick is a man who wrote a book called, “Food is Better Medicine than Drugs’.

This is truly scary.

If Patrick believes that Professor Colquhoun has truly misrepresented his views, then instead of telling me and others not to comment on blog sites, he should use his forthcoming tours of South Africa to join with an AIDS charity, like the Treatment Action Campaign, to fight the nonsense about nutrition that is being officially touted by government ministers and campaign for South Africans to be able to get access to effective, affordable and real medicine.

The Myths of Patrick Holford Bertrand Russel said, What a man believes upon grossly insufficient evidence is an index into his desires — desires of which he himself is often unconscious. If a man is...
Broccoli for Brains Last Friday, saw Trevor McDonut’s ‘Tonight with’ programme showcase Patrick Holford’s ‘Food for the Brain’ charity and its involvement with a school. The school apparently saw lots of improvements with...
Watch Holford Watch Just to let you know that I am proud to be able to contibute a little to a new blog, “Holford Watch”, a site about ‘top media nutritionist’ Patrick Holford....

York Shambles

Le Canard Noir — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 13:03:00 +0000

or, The Curious Case of Patrick Holford’s CV

It was funny when ‘Dr’ Gillian McKeith got slapped for using unaccredited qualifications to promote her quackery. However, it is now looking as if Patrick Holford’s CV is far more interesting.

Patrick has been criticised for a while now for having no formal qualifications in any nutritional subject. He claims to have a BSc in psychology and his Honorary Diploma in Nutritional Therapy was awarded by the institution he himself founded. But scrutiny of his CV took on a higher profile after the University of Teesside (formally World of Leather) bizarrely awarded him a visiting Professorship. Professor David Colquhoun wrote to the University, under the Freedom of Information Act, to find out just what scrutiny had taken place in the making of this award.

Other Teesside academics were quick to disown the appointment by pointing out that it was the School of Social Sciences and Law that made the appointment and not the School of Health & Social Care and their Professor in Nutrition, Carolyn Summerbell.

Colquhoun went on to note that his CV contained an endorsement by a Dr John Marks that was made several decades ago. When contacted, the retired Dr Marks was quick to disown any endorsement of Holford. Those sticklers for detail, HolfordWatch, have now noted that the details about Holford’s psychology degree cannot be right. On his CV, he claims to have have studied between 1973 and 1976. But York University did not have a psychology course then.

HolfordWatch have checked the dates and it would appear that Holford graduated in 1979. Why the discrepancy? This is not a one off. The same ‘error’ appears on both his own profile and his self-edited Wikipedia page. Other sites record this too.

Holford claims to have started treating mental health patients in 1980 on his CV with his nutritional theories. If he did graduate the year before, that did not leave him a lot of time to get any training in this area. Most of the CV is very vague about dates and early experiences.

What is now funny, is that within 20 minutes of the HolfordWatch findings appearing online, Holford’s own profile was updated. Compare the Google cache with what his page says now.

I think this story might have some legs…

The Myths of Patrick Holford Bertrand Russel said, What a man believes upon grossly insufficient evidence is an index into his desires — desires of which he himself is often unconscious. If a man is...
Patrick Holford – No Comment I sometimes get emails from people offended by the quackometer asking me to remove all traces of them from my web site. I usually politely respond by asking exactly...
Watch Holford Watch Just to let you know that I am proud to be able to contibute a little to a new blog, “Holford Watch”, a site about ‘top media nutritionist’ Patrick Holford....

Broccoli for Brains

Le Canard Noir — Tue, 17 Jul 2007 20:37:00 +0000

Last Friday, saw Trevor McDonut’s ‘Tonight with’ programme showcase Patrick Holford’s ‘Food for the Brain’ charity and its involvement with a school. The school apparently saw lots of improvements with their children and so will obviously boost the standing of the Food for the Brain charity.

And today, we see that Food for the Brain is starting to see itself as an accrediting authority now as it gives its first award to Ashridge Business School.

But regular quackometer visitors will know what I think about the science of Patrick Holford and some of his more worrying associations.

As for Food for the Brain, I have collated a number of specific concerns I have about the charity:

The ‘trials’ being undertaken are unscientific and produce ambiguous results.
There is an over-emphasis on giving and selling supplements to children, which is not justified by science.
The influence of the nutritional ideas of Patrick Holford’s Optimum Nutrition Programme may be disproportionately influencing thinking.
The charity use inaccurate techniques to determine the need for children to take mineral supplements.
There is inadequate regulation of the nutritional therapists in the UK.
The costs of taking the Food for the Brain’s approach of nutritional testing and taking supplements would be prohibitively expensive for most parents.
The charity recommends inaccurate techniques to look for ‘allergies and intolerances’ in children.
The charity has given out dangerous advice regarding autism and elimination diets.
Food for the Brain lists among its affiliations an American organization that holds strong anti-psychiatry views and has links with Scientology.

I have given a more detailed appraisal of these concerns and this can be found on HolfordWatch.

Pulling My Hair Out or, The Role of Mineral Hair Analysis in the Sale of Food Supplements initially posted on Holford Watch. Patrick Holford has set up a charity. Not poorly, fluffy kittens or...
The Myths of Patrick Holford Bertrand Russel said, What a man believes upon grossly insufficient evidence is an index into his desires — desires of which he himself is often unconscious. If a man is...
Equazen eye q™ and their Fishy Adverts Today, the Advertising Standards Authority have upheld complaints against Equazen and their eye q™ products, finding them to have made untruthful and unsubstantiated advertising claims. This is about time. Their...