The Quackometer

Yes, a deliberately provocative title for this blog entry. The distressing and puzzling illness of anorexia is very real. We see people convinced that their body is repulsive and overweight and they diet their way into oblivion. We feel helpless in the face of the strength of their conviction that something is wrong with their bodies. From the outside of the illness, it is clear that their beliefs are an integral and delusional part of the illness. If someone was to exploit the illness by selling diet pills, slimming aids or by setting up pro-anorexia web sites, we would be naturally alarmed, concerned and condemning.


Now, electrosensitivity, the belief that radio waves are harming your health, looks like it is also one of these rather strange illnesses that may well start in the brain. If it does not start in the brain, then it shows how many symptoms from various illnesses can be greatly affected by your beliefs about the causes of those illnesses. The placebo and nocebo effects work solely on this principle. The people who describe themselves as electrosensitive obviously suffer from quite debilitating symptoms and their lives are quite devastated by their illness, whatever the cause. However, the best evidence to date suggests that the symptoms have little to do with the real presence of radio-waves, but only by the belief that radio-waves are causing their symptoms. Multiple, repeated studies show this to be true.

With anorexics, the obviousness of their central delusion is plain for all to see. With electrosensitives, a little more thought and experiment is required. After all, many of us suffer from debilitating symptoms from invisible influences in our environments. Ask a hay fever sufferer what it is like to be struck down by your next door neighbour mowing their lawn. But, there are good reasons to believe that radio-waves just cannot cause anything like the symptoms described. Even the advocates of electrosensitivity admit that the energies involved are just too small for direct effects, and so have to rely on 'subtle' and very controversial alternative mechanisms from 'pulsed' radio emitters. There is scant evidence so far that such emissions are harmful to humans.

Meanwhile, the media friendly story that normal domestic appliances are harming us is giving quacks a whole new marketing opportunity. There is a rising exploitation of this condition in the media, as it sells good copy. The quackometer news analysis project was started after a batty story in the Independent on Sunday a year ago. The last fortnight has seen a crescendo of noise with the derisory Panorama on the BBC. But the Independent has now just about topped it.

A story today tells how electrosensitivity sufferer, and Independent reporter, Julia Stephenson, has had her symptoms diagnosed and treated by a range of quacks. It reads like a spoof, but the story is deadly serious. Whatever Julia is suffering from, the result is a terrible story of exploitation by a range of quacks and charlatans. We ought to be alarmed and appalled. The editors of the Independent ought to be ashamed of themselves.

Julia was diagnosed by a naturopath, and has subsequently been sold a whole load of quack junk to 'help' the condition. The Independent tells us that "many doctors are now convinced that this powerful technology is storing up huge problems for our future health." However, the only doctor quoted in the article is a Dr Nicole de Canha.

Unfortunately, it appears that Dr Canha is not a medical doctor, as you might expect, but has a 'PhD' in Homoeopathy. Now, I am not aware of any accredited university in the UK that would have the cheek to offer such an award. (I am sure we shall find out where that came from in due course). It would appear from her list of qualifications that she is a fully paid up quack and her score of 5 Canards is probably an underestimate. This is not the sort of person you would want to diagnose a rather new and difficult new illness, let alone be a quoted authority on such matters.

The Independent article gets worse in that it pretty much endorses the fraudulent qlink pendant and introduces us to new and emerging quack products. Worst, is the advertisement for www.subtlefieldtechnologies.com, a company that sells wall warts that supposedly cancel out all the bad EMF in your room. There is no physical way these devices could help human health and no evidence that they do. What a big boost they have got from the newspaper! The subtle field technologies devices are made by a Gary Johnson who calls himself an engineer and a homeopath. His web page also says he is an acupuncturist. The boxes claim to be,

programmed harmonising units that produce a holograph field, that is amplified through an internal aerial system. This protection field protects the human system from the negative effects of electro magnetic radiation/pulsed transmissions/EMF's emanating from man made, or natural sources.

This is of course nonsense. The boxes look more like Maplins hobby electronics boxes with some stickers on. Somehow, this homeopathist has created a whole new world of holographic electronics.

Organisations to help anorexics exist and do good work. Electrosensitives also have their 'support' organisations too, like Powerwatch and Electrosensitives-UK. However, these organisations vehemently deny the possibility of the illness being unphysical in nature. Protecting their supporters and members from quacks ought to be top priority. If they care about getting their members better, they ought to be giving clear and unequivocal advice to avoid quack product manufacturers to help them from being exploited in their time of need.

Do we hear such a cry? Will the Independent story and the products it recommends be condemned by such campaigners as Rod of ES-UK? I'm not holding my breath.

Labels: electromagnetic quackery, qlink

 

So, with all this hot air blowing around about the inevitability of our imminent deaths due to mobiles and Wi-Fi, it is no surprise that nutrient supplement salesman Patrick Holford starts using his extensive physics knowledge to keep us safe from the evils of the 'New Big Pharma', the mobile-wifi-EMR conspiracy of 'Vested Interests'. Patrick rids his home of Wi-Fi and in doing so starts a new experiment in the dangers of EMR - but that is to come.

Patrick has sent his latest missive from 100% Health e-news, entitled 'Wi-Fi Health Warnings: Is Your Broadband Harming Your Health?'. The short answer ought to be of course, 'No', but instead Patrick subjects his subscribers to his flaky knowledge of electromagnetic theory. Let's pull his email apart...

Read the rest of this article at HolfordWatch.info.

Labels: electromagnetic quackery, Patrick Holford

 

Well, today's news has had lots of Wi-Fi scares being reported. Tonight's Panorama is going to look at the 'dangers' of bringing Wi-Fi into schools. Let's wait to see what they have to say, but early reports do not bode well as they are claiming that their 'independent tests' showed WiFi produces EM levels three times higher than mobile phone masts. It is difficult to think up a more meaningless statement. But such is the quality of debate at the moment in the hysteria being whipped up about the dangers of all things electrical. Will Panorama fuel or dampen the flames? We shall see.

But the news has prompted me to do a little more looking at the subject, and in particular, one campaign group that I have not looked at before, the EM-Radiation Research Trust. Campaign groups, like this one, crop up regularly and appear to be behind the spread of fears around mobile phones and radiation. The quackometer has already looked at Powerwatch and how it is selective in its use of evidence, and Electrosensitivity-UK and its rather shrill condemnation of anyone who dares to suggest that electrosensitivity symptoms might not be caused by radiation

The Radiation Research Trust is an interesting one though, in that it appears to have the support of several members of parliament and an MEP. The trustees of the charity include Andrew Mitchell, Conservative MP for Sutton Coldfield, Mark Oaten, MP for Winchester, Dr Ian Gibson, Labour MP for Norwich North and MEP Dr Caroline Lucas, of the Green Party. Its nice to know from the start that I cannot be accused of political bias for showing how this rabble of politicians has got itself involved with quackery. An organisation that has such cross-party support has surely has mustered some important clout and so it is worth delving a little deeper in Radiation Research to see what they are up to.

So, who are the other trustees and movers within the charity?

We have an Eileen O'Connor who contracted breast cancer whilst living close to a phone mast. How she knows the mast was the cause of her illness is not clear. But it looks like one of those modern equivalents of the village witch hunts. Everything from villagers' nose bleeds, headaches to cancer is blamed on the mast. Now, cancer clusters do happen, even just by chance. When clusters are spotted it is natural to look for a cause, whether it be the nuclear power station, mobile mast or old woman living with a black cat. It is easy to jump to the wrong conclusion here and personal testimony, although heartfelt, should be taken with a pinch of salt.

Next, we have Brian Stein, Chief Executive of Samworth Brothers Ltd., manufacturer of motorway service station staple, the truly miraculous Ginsters range of pasties. Brian suffers from electro-hypersensitivity and, as we have seen, by the very nature of the problem, the last people to have broad opinions about the causes of the condition are the suffers themselves. I wonder if Mr Stein refuses to microwave his pasties?

Mike Bell is the chairman of the organisation and is often seen reporting the groups views to HPA committees and the media. The only scientist in the group is Dr. Gerard Hyland, honorary associate fellow of Warwick University. Having a scientist is undoubtedly good as it gives credibility to the charity and a voice of authority.

Now, Dr Hyland is the poster pin-up boy of the electrosensitivity lobby as he is doing something most important for them. The problem with showing that Wi-Fi and mobile phones are dangerous is two-fold: first, the evidence for the range of problems associated with EM-fields is in many areas non-existent, and in others circumstantial and incoherent; the second, that there is little plausibility of non-ionising radiation causing the range of problems reported at the levels found in domestic settings. The 'plausibility problem' causes many scientists to dismiss the claims of the lobby out of hand. It places a strong burden of evidence on those making the claims and the evidence is not convincing.

So, Dr Hyland is working on the plausibility problem. Solving this plausibility gap is essential if the anti-Wi-Fi lobby is to make a convincing case. However, the idea that radiation from a Wi-Fi transmitter can cause damaging localised heating in brains and bodies is easily discounted - the emitted powers are usually far too small to have any meaningful effect. Hyland, is working on so-called 'non-thermal' explanations. An example of a non-thermal effect of a mobile phone is the stuttering interference you hear on your car radio. This 'pulsed' radiation does not heat the radio, but interferes with the electronic signals inside. If it can do this to a radio, can it do the same to the 'electrical' parts of the human body? That is essentially the non-thermal pulsed effect theory and it has been leaped upon by the anti-mobile, anti-wi-fi, anti-hi-fi lobby.

But, EM simply interfering with your neurons is not enough for plausibility. It is quite clear that mobiles do not induce something like epileptic fits, so a simplistic radio-interference type model is not enough. No, Dr Hyland, and similar researchers, propose that something much more subtle is going on at the cellular level, causing problems at the microscopic scale. And this is where it all starts to get a little strange.

One starts to get a sense of unease when Dr Hyland insists that his research is looking at 'aliveness', somehow implying that the fact that cells are alive is overlooked by other researchers. To the quackometer, this missing 'aliveness' starts looking like the talk of new-agers or energy quacks with their bonkers 'subtle energies', not that of a serious researcher. Dr Hyland comes from a theoretical physics background so we might forgive for strange biological language. However, a little more delving adds to the concerns. Dr Hyland is now retired from Warwick and has been for a while. But, his effort appears to be focused with a group called the International Institute of Biophysics based in Neuss-Holzheim, Germany.

The institute is researching into something called biophoton emission. This effect is supposedly different from bioluminescence, where bright light is created by living cells in creatures like fireflies and deep sea creatures. Biophotons are 'ultraweak photon emission[s] from living systems'. These photons somehow transmit information 'within and between' cells. And so, here we start to see the necessity of biophotonics to the anti-mobile lobby - a tentative but plausible mechanism of how non-thermal radiation effects can interfere with cellular processes. Can Emsignals of the right frequency interfere with the 'coherence' of inter-cellular biophotonic emission? Only, the problem is that the whole concept of biophotonics is extremely controversial and is treated as 'fringe' by most researchers. Indeed, biophotonics carries the many tell-tale signs of classic pseudoscience and pathological science. It pits itself against well established science such as the 'central dogma of genetics', that cellular communication occurs through the DNA-RNA-protein transcription and translation mechanism. It suggests that 'Russian science' has been aware of this for many decades, and we in the West have not woken up to it yet. (Look up Lysenkoism to see the problem with this.) Its 'subtlety' and 'ultraweakness' means that it deals with effects at the limits of detectability, where noise and poor experimental set-up can wreak havoc with results and interpretations. (Look up N-rays for a comparison).

Worryingly, the research interests of people associated with the Institute starts to make the quackometer get a little jumpy. They include:

• holistic concepts and the understanding of consciousness


• schrödinger's definition of food quality


• biophoton field reflecting biological rhythms


• molecular basis of stress and the concept of self-healing


• self-healing and the principles in homeopathy


• studies and medical applications of biophotons especially in connection with acupuncture and cancer


• anatomical structure of acupuncture meridians and its physiological significance

and so on...

In fact, the whole concept of biophotons is used by all sorts of quacks, from Professor Dame Mossop's Phytobiophysics, to homeopaths and energy healers to add a veneer of (pseudo)science to their musings. Biophotonics is used as a one-size-fits-all, off the shelf explanation for all sorts of outlandish quackery. It is so 'subtle' and ill-defined that it can be moulded to explain any freakish health theory. Is this really the sort of company that the Radiation Research Trust wants to keep? Is this what the 'research' in their name refers to? If plausibility is what you are after, then surely mechanisms that share explanatory powers for homeopathy and cancer-busting acupuncture may well end up back-firing on you?

But the Radiation Research Trust's associations get a little worse.

The group makes a big play of thanking their Cornish sponsor, a company called Ecoflow, for their generous financial support. In a mind boggling twist of irony, the company that campaigns against the harmful effects of electromagnetic fields is supported by a company that manufactures and distributes magnetic healing products.

Amongst their products are the full range of quack and crank magnetic devices including magnetic bracelets, pet collars, water softeners, wine conditioners, car fuel conditioners, gas pipe energy enhancers and (of course) mobile phone protectors. In a satisfying inversion of the nutri-pill-peddler turned EM-crank (see Patrick Holford and his QLink pendants), these EM cranks also sell vitamin food supplements to help the magnets work better. No, its true. Follow the link.
Ecoflow reassure us that their products work though their patented 'Central Reverse Polarity' technology, which is not available elsewhere. I am reminded of the famous Doctor Who line, '"reverse the polarity of the neutron flow". Can you physicists reading this please stop laughing now? You are annoying the rest of us.

The company works through recruited independent sales agents who are given training in their products. One little insight is how they sell their fuel enhancer magnets. According to one report, they get their mark to see how long they can hold their hand over a gas lighter flame, with and without the magnet applied to the gas lighter. This is a fairly straightforward con. Pain is highly suggestible and as a result is very placebo responsive. Give someone the idea that a flame will hurt more than before and it will. A much more objective and easy way to demonstrate that a flame is hotter when a magnet is attached is by using a thermometer. But this company chooses Derren Brown style conjuring tricks.

As you might expect, Ecoflow has been slapped hard by the Advertising Standards Authority for its unsupported claims and sales approach.

So, why do MPs and MEPs lend their support to this charity? Maybe, if you live in their constituencies you could write to them and ask why they are wasting their parliamentary time on such matters. Maybe our politicians like dealing with frightening things that can't be detected like harmful wi-fi rays and Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. It saves having to deal with real and pressing problems like poverty, poor education and how to organise access to health care without destroying it in continuous re-organisations.

Email addresses below:

Mr Andrew Mitchell Sutton Coldfield

Mark Oaten Winchester

Dr Ian Gibson Norwich North

Dr Caroline Lucas MEP South East

Let me know what they say.

Labels: electromagnetic quackery, magnets, pseudoscience

 

Here is an odd one. Why would Patrick Holford's Food for the Brain charity have associations with a Scientology linked organisation? His charity is working with schools to improve the 'mental health' of children. Should we be alarmed by this? What on earth has Scientology and Patrick got in common?

My last rather large post concentrated on the philosophy of Patrick Holford, Optimum Nutrition and Nutritional Therapy. I made a comment that "Optimum Nutrition has more in common with Scientology than science." I want to explore that thought a little more, because it highlights the similarities between the strange cult of L Ron Hubbard and the thinking of Nutritional Therapists. More worryingly, is how the Scientologists appear to have taken a significant interest in Patrick and his disciples, and how the two worlds overlap.

Now, most people know Scientology as a rather strange cult that appears successful in attracting Hollywood megastars to its fold. However, its religious status is disputed in many countries (it is not recognised it the UK) because it has a number of peculiarities that appear rather odd for a religion. It does not really have a concept of 'god' and has been described as a 'pay-as-you-go religion'. The more you give to the 'Church', the more it will reveal to you of its teachings about psychology, aliens and other sci-fi stuff. $100,000 gets you quite high up in the church hierarchy. It is as if the Church of England did not tell you about the resurrection until you had pretty much re-mortgaged your home. A tenner in the collection plate will give you teaser stories about talking snakes and whales swallowing people.

This wierdness is much more understandable when one looks at the history of the cult. Scientology did not really appear to start off as a religion at all, more of an alternative psychology. In the late forties, L Ron Hubbard, the founder and former science-fiction writer, published a book called "Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health". Hubbard, like many people of the time, was shocked at what appeared to be the brutal practices of the psychiatric profession. The care of people who suffered from severe mental illnesses, such as schizophrenia, was at best, basic. Locked in asylums, rarely seen by a doctor, sufferers from mental illness were left in often appalling and inhumane conditions. Their desperate carers often turned to desperate measures to try to help, such as lobotomy and electric shock treatment, and often with terrible results. Abhorrence at such tragedy led Hubbard to conclude it was the psychiatrists themselves who were to blame and that mental illness was a product of other physical causes, rather than brain malfunctions. Dianetics is very much a product of the time with its emphasis on psychometric-like testing, 'scientific electropsychometers' with dials and flashing lights, psychoanalysis-like thinking, and a preference for lifestyle explanatory factors in illness, such as exercise and (importantly for us) nutrition. Dianetics was claimed as a cure for all sort of 'problems', such as schizophrenia, depression, atheism and homosexuality. Not only could these 'illnesses' be cured, but IQ could be raised by 50 points too. Only later did Dianetics start taking on religious qualities, and Scientology was born. By then the 'science' of Dianetics had turned into the unchanging and unchallengeable dogma of a new religion.

Now, as we have seen, Patrick also started out studying psychology, and also quickly became interested in how nutrition could help solve mental health problems. This conviction led Holford to set up his own Institute where he could train his followers and also set up his vitamin supplement businesses. L Ron Hubbard also got into the supplement business too, selling his own multivitamin which he called Dianazene, a mixture of iron and Vitamins C and large quantities of niacin. This concoction was supposed to drive out radiation from bodies and cure cancer. (The Cold War was setting in, and radiation was the scare; now we have mobile phones and Wi-Fi). Hubbard used the technique of a questionnaire to diagnose 'problems' that Dianetics could cure, an approach that survives as a major recruiting tool today for Scientologists. Patrick is also keen on the use of questionnaires to diagnose mental health problems and the required vitamin regime to solve problems on sites like Food for the Brain and its daughter site, the Brain Bio Centre.

Now, despite the philosophical similarities, it would be silly to say that there are not big differences between Holford and Hubbard. In particular, Hubbard went on to declare Dianetics a religion and to set up the Church of Scientology. It was a very profitable move; religions have certain tax-exempt statuses around the world. But, still at the core of the religion was a rabid hatred of psychiatrists and their methods. A principle recruitment technique was the promise of clearing psychological problems for recruits, to give them a higher IQ and a better life. The Church houses a museum of 'psychiatric crime' in L.A. called the Museum of Psychiatry: an Industry of Death. The Church preaches that allergies and vitamin deficiencies are a major component of causing mental health and that drugs are an evil inflicted upon patients.

Patrick has not set up a religion, but he does write books with titles like, 'Food is Better Medicine than Drugs', 'Optimum Nutrition for the Mind' and 'Mental Illness - Not All In The Mind'. He goes into schools to improve IQ's, rid children of mental health issues through providing allergy testing and food supplements, and betrays his dislike of mental health professionals by describing medication as 'mental straitjackets' in his emails to parents. This is not surprising as both Holford and Scientology rely on ideas from Orthomolecular Therapy and the research of people like Dr Carl Pfeiffer. Where Patrick differs most markedly is that he does not tell his followers that psychiatrists are aliens that were present at the dawn of time and have piloted space ships throughout the cosmos to destroy our souls. At least, I can't find reference to this on his website.

Now, if one is familiar with the techniques of Scientologists, you might think that nutritional therapists, who have been trained by Patrick's Institute of Optimum Nutrition, or people who have just bought into his books and ideas, might make rich pickings for church recruits. After all, no need to convince them that psychological problems can be cured by vitamins and that doctor's should be distrusted. There is at least one interesting documented case of this happening.

Melanie Herff was a German from Hamburg who studied Nutritional Therapy in London. She returned home to Germany, fresh with her diploma in hand, only to contacted by a group called Safe Harbor. This organisation runs a web site called alternativementalhealth.com which claims to be the 'world's largest site on non-drug approaches for mental health'. Its approach rang true for Melanie, and being so well qualified, she was quickly elected to the position of chairwoman of the local group.

However, Melanie started doing some research and 'became alarmed' at a few things. Melanie became worried that Safe Harbor was nothing but a front for Scientologists. Funding and supporting front organisations is a technique used to full extent by the Church. There are web sites out there dedicated to exposing suspect organisations. The approach is good for the Church, in that it can it expose people to its ideas without frightening them about evil spirits trapped in volcanoes, or something. Safe Harbor was set up by a very prominent Scientologist called Dan Stradford who apparently has reached the level of Operating Thetan - Level VIII. This is as high as it gets (unless you believe there are secret levels...) You have to have paid a lot of money to get that high up. It is archbishop level for Scientologists. You get to read the last part of Hubbard's science fiction. (Imagine if you had to pay over $100,000 to read the last Harry Potter book?)

So, Melanie left the group, a bit frightened by what she thought was going on. Scientology in Germany is very controversial. There have been lots of attempts to curtail their activity and limit their status. The Germans are understandably cautious, given their history, of semi-religious, irrational and secretive organisations. In the UK we appear to care a little less.

Now, what is not understandable is that Melanie has been back in the UK and has worked for an organisation with links to Safe Harbor. That organisation is none other than Patrick's charity, Food for the Brain. Melanie has been involved with the schools project, the initiative that Patrick has been promoting on Trevor MacDonald's TV programme. The Food for the Brain web site links to Safe Harbor and describes it as part of its Global Affiliations network. It is not clear what 'Global Affiliations' means. Is it just a link for further information, or is the affiliation deeper? Maybe Patrick and the charity trustees do not know about Safe Harbor's links with prominent Scientologists, even if one of his colleagues was so alarmed by this she apparently left the organisation.

But, what is even less understandable is that Patrick appears to have deeper ties to the organisation. On the Advisory Board page of the Safe Harbor site, the first name that appears is that of Patrick Holford. Maybe it is just the similarity of opinions on mental health that has lead him here, but one would have thought that a schools charity would not want to be associated with such a controversial organisation and that the charity would have done its homework.

It is maybe not surprising that Scientologists would endorse Patrick's thinking on vitamins, and even, he, theirs. Whilst avoiding the venomous hatred that Scientologists display towards mental health workers, Patrick's advice on sites like Food for the Brain is not exactly a ringing endorsement of the medical profession. His advice for conditions such as schizophrenia would be strongly disputed by doctors and has more in common with Scientologist 'Dr' Tom Cruise's advice to Brooke Shields over her depression. To talk about such a dangerous and destroying condition with advice about niacin and Vitamin B, without prominent and unequivocal instruction to follow the advice of your GP and other qualified medical professionals is an action that should be condemned. Mental illness kills. Even moderate problems can be very dangerous and make lives a misery. The teachers and governors who allow these messages to be taken into schools need to know that this advice is, at the very least, widely disputed.

Some Scientology front organisations are particularly violent in their hatred of psychiatrists. One in particular stands out, the bizarrely named Citizens Commission for Human Rights. The message of this group, explicitly funded and run by the Scientologists, is that giving drugs to people for mental health problems is a denial of their 'human rights'. The group spreads misinformation about the nature of psychiatric drugs, highlighting their side-effects and denying the benefits of such treatments. It promotes a Holford-like approach to recovery through exercise and nutrition and it accuses a whole profession of dastardly crimes including fraud and murder. The CCHR gives awards to people who are promoting its message, for example, to singer Isaac Hayes, the scientologist who quit South Park for their piss-taking about the cult.

It is therefore no surprise that the CCHR also says it has given an award to 'GMTV's nutrition expert Patrick Holford'.

So, should we be alarmed? Of course, Patrick does not appear to be a paid-up Zenu-loving OT-VIII Scientologist. But the messages he gives out are highly similar to the cult, and it does look like there is some mutual appreciation going on. As I commented previously, the message that mental health problems should be addressed through the wishful thinking of vitamin therapy is dangerous, and that badly behaved school children can be turned into little-angels though fish oil supplements is disputed and unproven. More worryingly, the idea that science and medicine should not be trusted and might even be malevolent forces in this world will lead to kids growing up with dangerous health delusions, and may even lead them into the arms of cult organisations.

The overall aims of the Food for the Brain charity should be encouraged - improve kids' school experiences and health through good nutrition. However, it appears to be seriously letting its mission down through failing to stick to sound science. The web site HolfordWatch is documenting many concerns. The charity has decisions to make. It should drop its links to questionable organisations and philosophies, give unequivocal support for mental health professionals, restart unscientific schools trials, forego needless and expensive supplements, abandon misleading allergy tests, and embrace mainstream diatary advice.

In short, make the choice: science or Scientology?

Labels: Patrick Holford

 

Patrick Holford has built up a very impressive and comprehensive empire; networks of web sites, charities, a college, educational trusts and of course, books, TV shows, supplements sales, and licensing deals. It is a very impressive achievement and it would be hard to argue that Patrick, and his philosophies, did not pretty much dominate the UK nutritionist scene. Some nutritionists might outsell him in book sales, but none have created such influence. Patrick has had his set-backs over the past 30 years, but now, mention ‘nutritional therapy’ in the UK and you will soon come across the name of Patrick Holford. The energy and drive required make this happen over the years is indeed remarkable.

It is a far reaching network. Even the bodies that set themselves up to govern the profession of 'nutritional therapist' are indebted to him. A list of the people involved with the British Association of Nutritional Therapists (BANT) will reveal many names whose qualifications are given as DipION, from the London college that Patrick set up many years ago. Patrick, himself, was awarded an honoury Fellowship of BANT. (One has to hypothetically wonder what would happen if one had cause to complain to BANT about something you felt was not right about Patrick. )

There are other celebrity media nutritionists out there too, but again, most stand in the shadow of Patrick. Columnist Dr John Briffa has attended training courses at the Institute of Optimum Nutrition (ION), and now gives lectures there; the Food Doctor, Ian Marber MBant Dip ION (not a real doctor) gained his qualification at ION; and so did the Channel 4 Diet Doctors, Vicki Edgson Dip ION (not a real doctor) and Dr Wendy Denning (this time, a real doctor). Perhaps, the only major name missing is 'Dr' Gillian McKeith.

The feat of building this nutritionist world is even more remarkable when one remembers that Patrick does not have a degree in nutrition, or indeed any statutorily recognised qualification in such matters. Patrick comes from a psychology background, but at some point, according to his own biography, he became interested in the nutritional impact on mental health. He then says that he studied the ideas of Linus Pauling and became fascinated with Pauling's ideas on 'molecular nutrition'.

Now, Pauling has a unique and outstanding position in science in that he is the only person ever to receive two unshared Nobel prizes. One is for quantum chemistry and the other, the Peace prize, was awarded for campaigning against atmospheric nuclear testing. Towards the latter part of Pauling’s career, he became convinced that Vitamin C was a miraculous substance that could transform our health. Out of these ideas came the concept of Orthomolecular Medicine and Orthomolecular Therapy. The core of this idea is that you can treat disease with large quantities of nutrients, far beyond that which you would find in the best of diets. Supplementation with gram level quantities of vitamins is what is required to achieve this health boost. Somehow, these large doses are seen as 'optimum' for the human body. Patrick calls this the medicine of tomorrow. It has been the medicine of tomorrow for quite a while now.

When one criticises the concepts of Orthomolecular Therapy, one is almost immediately reminded of Pauling’s god like status in science by its advocates. Who am I to question a double-Nobel laureate? However, it is equally as easy to be told that Pauling's nutritional convictions should be a warning to us all not to take scientific authority as proof of a proposition. More than that, Pauling shows us that when an accomplished scientist talks about areas outside of the domain in which they have excelled, we should be just as suspicious of the claims made as of claims made by anyone else. Nobel Prizes do not infer omnipotence and infallibility.

Despite the allure of believing that mega-vitamin doses can help alleviate all sorts of health problems, the scientific research to back this up has been rather weak, an idea regularly now explored on HolfordWatch. This is not just because, as Patrick would claim, that vitamins are unpatentable and so of no interest to ‘Big Pharma’, rather that when the research is done, the results are invariably disappointing. This is a big shame. It was such a good idea.

In retrospect, there is no real surprise to this lack of success. Just because a mineral or chemical acts as an essential part of a diet at low concentrations, does not mean that it will take on therapeutic qualities at very high doses. It may just as well take on toxic qualities. Many vitamins and minerals are now well known to give nasty side-effects and even cause cancer at doses higher than the recommended allowances. This is because 'naturalness' and a continual low-level presence in the body does not guarantee tolerance at excessive 'unnatural' levels. Each mineral or vitamin has to be taken on its own merit, along with every other possible chemical, in the chance of becoming the next wonder drug or treatment. There is no magic in minerals, no panacea in Vitamin C, no matter how bewitching the idea.

Orthomolecular medicine has not died with Pauling. But, first it is right to note that Linus had every right to dream up fanciful new ideas. The creativity of science depends on wild hunches, dreams, flashes of insight and sometimes what is even seen as madness. But just because an idea is persuasive, alluring or even unconventional, does not mean that it is right. Science must discard those ideas that fail experimental tests, no matter how much we would wish them to be true. Starting out as a promising idea, orthomolecular medicine must now join the others in the 'good ideas that failed' cupboard, including the flat earth idea, n-rays and cold fusion.

It is maybe the simple attractiveness of orthomolecular medicine that has meant it has survived beyond its natural lifetime. One can see the core of the syllabus of ION coming from the ideas of Pauling and his followers. Those that call themselves orthomolecular therapists follow the patterns of providing health questionnaires, hair mineral analysis, optimum target levels, and then prescribing many vitamin and mineral supplements, sometimes way beyond RDA levels, as well as large dietary changes. But, the science behind this methodology is heavily disputed. For example, I have written about the problems of Hair Mineral Analysis previously, a subject Patrick studied at postgraduate level, but failed to complete.

Patrick is the UK representative of the International Society for Orthomolecular Medicine. The Institute of Optimum Nutrition and its philosophy may be seen, at least in part, as a re-branding of these ideas for a British audience. But by clinging to these ideas, Patrick has cut the nutritionist industry he has created off from mainstream dietary thought. There is now a chasm between scientific nutritional studies, as typified by the work carried out largely by Registered Dieticians, and the work carried out by ‘alternative medicine’ nutritionists, as typified by your ION educated therapists. This is a conscious act; Patrick and BANT make it quite clear that Nutritional Therapy is a ‘complementary and alternative medicine’, and so is more aligned with homeopathy, reiki, magnet therapy and angel healing than science. By clinging to alluring ideas in the face of contrary evidence, nutritionist science has become more like a pseudoscience and their health claims and practice, quackery.

The whole concept of 'optimum nutrition' appears to be rather intellectually and philosophically lacking. We are all rather special apes. We have evolved from common ancestors with chimps, and our furry cousins appear to have quite broad diets of mostly plants, supplemented with occasional meat, not unlike what dieticians tell us we ought to be eating. But homo has taken this basic food pattern and exploited it to its full potential. Various waves of our ancestors spread out from Africa, through forests, grasslands, deserts, coasts, mountains and frozen wastelands. Our diets changed as our ancestors moved, with the diet changing must faster than our bodies evolved. The success of humans appears to be in some major part due the fact that we can cope with huge changes in dietary inputs and still maybe live to 40 or 50 years or so without medical intervention. We exist on a broad nutritional plateau of possibilities, not a supplement sustained 'optimum'. Many species must exist within narrow nutritional windows; we, most obviously, do not. It would appear highly improbable that our current generation should suddenly be susceptible to small variations away from the nutritionists' 'optimum'. Of course, we can stray off that plateau into the McDiet lowlands - but Patrick is preaching to many of us most firmly rooted on top of it.

The whole concept of '100% health for life' appears to deny how we can choose our level of health (to some extent) and that anything less than 100% is 'bad'. A rugby player ends up battered at the end of the season, but willingly enters the next season for the life-enhancing benefits that the game brings. Parents may accept the inevitability of exhaustion of looking after a newborn, and many accept stressful jobs for the rewards that it may bring later in life. We trade health for other things we value. But more importantly, our bodies go through natural cycles of renewal and regeneration and our rhythms of health are a natural part of our lives. And when we do succumb to a virus, it is not because of some moral shortcoming in not keeping ourselves on that pinnacle of nutritional perfection, but rather because our immune systems have not encountered this particular cold virus before, and our body's evolved defence mechanisms are kicking in. '100% health' promises and ideal that is not meaningful, possible or even desirable for many of us.

As you might then expect, Nutritional Therapists have a strong streak of anti-science in their creed; the rejection of ‘the other lot’, the dieticians who are more cautious in their interpretation of data and a huge distrust of mainstream medicine, their drugs and practitioners. As with almost all people who call themselves complementary therapists, there is the inevitable tendency to disparage those they say they complement. Nutritionists also do tend to embrace the much quackier side of medicine, with many practitioners also offering highly dubious techniques from reflexology, homeopathy to naturopathy.

Moreover, I would contend that Nutritional Therapy is more than just another alternative medicine. In order to understand it, it is worth looking at its cult-like qualities as well. Whereas an alternative medicine like homeopathy is diffuse and widespread in its allegiances, Nutritional Therapy still very much has its recent founders and living gurus. With its god-like revealer, Pauling, and his messenger in Britain, Patrick, its special college, somewhat outside of the main education establishments, its rather closed synod, BANT, and not forgetting its holy scriptures, the New Optimum Nutrition Bible. Optimum Nutrition has more in common with scientology than science. And I mean this in more than just in a metaphorical way.

As the prophet of nutritional healing, Patrick is reaching out to the people of Britain, bringing them a message of hope that society's ills can be cured by dietary changes and vitamin pills. The evils of the drug industry, the misery of disease and the side-effects of Big Pharma's drugs can be side-stepped by just eating better and popping pills. He calls the children to come to him through the Food for the Brain programme, and then offers to rid them of the evils of ADHD and underachievement, by banning their loaves and feeding them fish transubstantiated into thousands of miraculous supplements.

The Food for the Brain charity is on a messianic message to liberate the sub-optimally nourished children of Britain and to transform their brains into supplement-popping nutritionist consumers. Although Patrick talks quite rightly about the need for good diet, supplements are very much there at the front of their schools projects, being promoted and dished out for free, getting you hooked. The Orthomolecular programme is influencing thoughts here. My message is not one of impropriety as people can buy supplements anywhere, but when Patrick has so comprehensively covered the nutritionist space in the UK, and if the schools programme is successful, then many more fish oil pills will be popped, books will be bought, hair analyses performed and nutritionists consulted. That web of business will invariably fall back into the walled garden of BANT practitioners and so naturally help Patrick's disciples.

It is not the messages around eating well that is wrong. If Patrick helps kids eat their greens then great. It is the message that 'Food is better medicine than drugs' (the name of a book he has co-authored) and the implication that supplements are even better than food is the one we should be critical of. It medicalises the food we eat. It turns eating into a health obsession. It confounds nutrition with medicine, the healthy with the sick, and drugs with profit motives. It adds to the neuroses we have about food, rather than diminishing them. Rather than being taught to enjoy food and celebrate its diversity and its pleasures, we are being taught to fetishise what we put in our mouths.

So, we have two worlds in the UK. Worlds with very different views on how food and diet affects our health and how we can manipulate diet to improve our health.

The first world is typically populated by scientists and dieticians. They take an evidence-based approach to understanding food and are cautious in coming to conclusion where there is insufficient data. They work in clinical practice, in hospitals, universities and on an NHS wage. They advise on good, affordable and understandable diets, and treat patients who are sick and need careful advice on their road back to health. They concentrate on the overall diet and not on an obsession with nutrients. They are regulated under law, have transparent and meaningful governing bodies. They are accountable for their actions and can be struck off if they fail in their duties. They promote their work in science journals. They share their canteens with nurses, surgeons, medical students and doctors.

The second world is populated by lawyers, accountants and journalists that have undertaken a career change. Younger students enter independent nutrition colleges and need little scientific training to do so. If they don't get training, they add 'Dr' to their name anyway and get a contact with Channel 4. They selectively pick evidence that suits their alternative philosophies and learn to be suspicious, if not downright hostile, to science and medicine. They work in private practice and sell food supplements, questionable allergy tests and hair mineral analyses. They confuse allergy and intolerance, and fetish on vitamins and minerals, whilst advising clients to remove whole food groups from their diets. They sell their business to the worried well and poke around in their poo. They are not statutorily regulated and so lack that accountability. They promote their work in newspapers and magazines. They share their Richmond bistro with reflexologists, personal trainers, homeopaths and TV producers.

Does this divide matter? Surely, if the end result is that people eat better, then who cares how we got there? It is important to ask though if we do end up at the same point. Does Nutritional Therapy provide health benefits? Having stepped outside of the scientific mainstream then this is more difficult to answer than it should be. People like Patrick complain that as vitamins are not patentable then the incentives to do the research are not there. This rather sidesteps the moral incentives to be sure that what you preach is true. Much science is done for its own sake if it is felt to be worthwhile. What more worthwhile cause is there than easy routes to health through nutrition? The sale of food supplements in Britain is worth over £200 million annually. Some of Britain's biggest companies are involved, such as Boots. Holland and Barret is owned by one the largest pharmaceutical companies in the US. Surely 1% of these sales would provide a very good start to a research fund. This would be much less, pound for pound, than 'Big Pharma' spends on research. Patrick could be instrumental in corralling 'Big Nutripharma' into similar activities.

But I think it it gets worse. With the Nutritional Therapists emphasis on cutting out whole food groups and on cramming useless supplements, diets could indeed worsen under their advice. Patrick has been recently criticised for Food for the Brain approaches that could have damaged an autistic child. Furthermore, with Patrick's interest in mental health there is the a real risk of harm if such advice leads to sub-optimum control of the illness. Mental health problems wreck lives, destroy families and kill. There is no scope for wishful thinking not backed up by sound evidence. The very nature of mental health problems means that it can be difficult to carefully manage a therapy with a patient. Adding groundless nutritional advice into the mix, and instilling distrust of mental health professionals, cannot be good for patients.

So, could we have imagined a different history, where Patrick came back from his Paulingian epiphany and put his undeniable talents and energy into a more science-based programme on nutritional health? Would we have a more unified and positive approach to dietary information in the UK? Somehow, I doubt it. There may always be a tempting hole for someone to fill, where people will believe that a multivitamin is a shortcut to eternal health. Parallels with Holford exist in other countries. Germany has Matthias Rath who claims to have also been inspired by Pauling, who has rebranded Orthomolecular medicine as 'cellular medicine', sells loads of supplements, but, whereas Patrick tends to focus on mental health, Rath focuses on HIV and cancer for his nutrient panaceas. His advocacy of vitamin C as an AIDS cure in South Africa has met with, what can I say, severe criticism. Tens of millions of people have the HIV virus in South Africa and there is a large HIV denialist movement that extends up the highest reaches of government. There is no room for equivocation here and Patrick's own mixed messages on Vitamin C being better than AZT, could have the most serious consequences.

Modern medicine is founded on the depersonalisation of illness. It rejects the subjective and seeks dispassionate views. Its undeniable success in doubling life expectancy, eradicating diseases, transplanting organs, and showing us that smoking is bad has been achieved by what looks like treating people as numbers, data and, at times, test subjects. By an ironic twist, this apparent scientific coldness allows us to strikingly transcend the inhumanity of sickness and disease. However, the perception of indifference and distance may be the very thing that makes Patrick's message of nutritional health answers so alluring, and allows the nutritional therapy business to survive. People want to feel their health fears have personal meaning and are controllable.

The impact of Patrick's nutritional army is a confused public that hear contradictory evidence daily in the newspapers. It results in unnecessary worry, in meaningless expense, and forms a distrust of authorities that could actually offer sound advice.

We are being dis-served at our dinner table by the nutrionist dogma.

Labels: nutritionist, Patrick Holford, vitamins

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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UPDATE 5th May

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

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

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

What do you say?

Labels: daily mail

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Labels: daily mail, electromagnetic quackery