The Quackometer

Paul McKenna, hypnotist, has fallen foul of the Advertising Standards Authority by claiming in print that his methods are " ... the most effective weight loss system available. Lose weight and keep it off ... ".

Today, the ASA upheld a complaint and told him not to repeat this claim as he had failed to produce satisfactory evidence to support his marketing. His claims were unsubstantiated.

All this is pretty standard stuff for the ASA. Today's rulings also slapped The Body Shop, for over the top health claims for various products, and an organisation called Ultimate Balance Ltd that offer hydrotherapy, a form of quackery that Charles Darwin was using 150 years a go.

Now, what struck me as interesting about this was that there is a school of thought that believes hypnotism depends totally on telling lies. Without the lies, hypnotism does not work. To understand this, we can look at the various opinions of what actually happens under hypnosis. In short, there are roughly two camps: the first contends that hypnosis induces some special state of mind in the subject that unleashes powers and capabilities that the normal mind state cannot tap into; the second camp contends that hypnosis is about inducing the belief that a special state of mind is being induced and that the subject acts out a role suggest by the hypnotist and the cultural expectations of hypnosis. With this second view, when therapeutic hypnosis is being employed, as with McKenna, hypnosis can be viewed as nothing other than a placebo, where the subjects' expectations of an effect are sufficient to create an effect. As such, and as with all placebos, a lie must be implicitly or explicitly told and believed, and the lie is that the hypnotists can unlock special mental powers within you.

It gets a little bit stranger than that, in that subjects may well be aware that they are acting out a role or, alternatively, may genuinely feel they have been in a different mental state. The comedy Little Britain lampoons this knowing complicity of subjects with the hypnotist with the sketch character Kenny Craig. Craig is an "obnoxious, charmless man, ...[who] has no worries about using his skills to get his own way". His victims act as if they are hypnotised so as to not offend Kenny, for their own ends, or out of sheer bemusement. Of course, in reality, it is very difficult to know what is really going on within the minds of individual hypnotised subjects. Can we trust anything subjects say about their beliefs under hypnosis as their whole experience is layered with play acting, expectations and suggestibility?

The hypnotist Derren Brown gives a very insightful view of what his experiences are with stage hypnotism and what we can reliable say about what is going on in peoples' minds. His scepticism makes refreshing and entertaining reading and is rare in this field. If this sort of thing interests you, I urge you to read his book Tricks of the Mind.

And so this ASA ruling presents a rather paradoxical and interesting view of how we should look at the claims of hypnotists. Maybe McKenna's courses do allow people to lose weight. But to do so, it is likely that this is because his clients believe hypnotism will really help, whether or not it actually does - if you see what I mean. Telling people that his course is "the most effective weight loss system available" can be viewed as part of the hypnotic act, as setting the required expectations and as the paradoxical lie that must be told in any placebo based therapy.

Now, I know that Paul McKenna is not afraid of using his legal routes if he feels that defamatory things are being said about him, so I would like to be quite clear that I have no idea if McKenna believes he is telling lies or not. He could really believe that hypnosis is inducing a special state of mind in people and that placebo-like effects have nothing to do with his results. McKenna was at fault, remember, for not being able to substantiate his claims, not for lying or being untruthful.

But, if there is no such thing as 'real' hypnosis, then 'sham' hypnotherapy can be viewed as just one more placebo based alternative therapy that is essentially based on a delusion. It works (to some degree) if you believe in it. And just as with pretty much all homeopaths, the best alternative therapists are those that have fooled themselves into thinking that they have special powers, potions and incantations. It is so much easier then to tell the required lies to your customers if you don't believe you are lying yourself.

Maybe many hypnotists really believe that what they are doing is nothing more than a placebo-based shamanistic ritual, and the required lies are justified to obtain a result. But within that stance is a whole other ethical minefield. Hypnotism presents the same dilemmas, as pointed out by David Colquhoun, regarding today's reporting of 'real' acupunture being no more effective than 'sham' acupuncture. The fact that 'sham' acupunture (or 'sham' hypnotherapy) has an effect does not mean that its use is justified as both requre a lie to be told.

Labels: ASA, celebrity quackery

 

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.

Labels: Patrick Holford

 

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.

Labels: Patrick Holford

 

You may have noticed on several news sites yesterday that Tangerine peel 'kills cancer' as reported by the BBC, the Sun, Sky News and others. Apparently, the
British Pharmaceutical Conference (BPC) in Manchester has been shown results by a Dr Hoon Tan of the Leicester School of Pharmacy (de Montfort University) that eating fruit peel might kill cancer cells in your body.

The Quackometer was jumpy. We have seen how Leicester researchers have previously been using the media to promote their food supplement products through a privately set up company, Natures Defence. The Quackometer line has been that creating a company producing food supplements where there is no evidence that they will have any effect on people taking the pills is just quackery. And it is quackery apparently supported by the staff of de Montfort University.

So, does this press release contain the long awaited evidence that we should be popping a salvestrol pill? Er, no. The press release just creates a variation on the spin on the salvestrol story. This story has been that salvestrols are vital to stop or kill cancer in your body and you can never eat enough. This press release tells us that tangerine peel contains the right amount, but who in their right mind is going to eat lots of peel? Better pop some pills. There is no announcement of any peer reviewed papers that are to be published. There is no detail whatsoever of where we can find out more about the evidence that Dr Tan supposedly has. However, there is an announcement that:

The researchers have formed a private company, Nature’s Defence Investments, to protect and promote their research, with the potential of designing a natural anti-cancer alternative based on this new technology.

Forgive me for being old fashioned, but I though Universities were there to provide environments for academics to freely research and discover new truths, publish their results and teach the next generation of future researchers and students. Not allow their employees to set up private companies to exploit unpublished hunches by selling quack nutrition pills.

This press release from the BPC is not trying to inform the world about the latest research going on in our Universities, it is a private company advertisement. And the good boys and girls of the press, such as Emma Morton of the Sun, have published this advert for free. Now, all the subsidiary companies of Natures Defense (Fruit Force, Salvestrol), and other nutri-pill stores selling salvestrols, have nice endorsements and news stories from the BBC to say how good their products are.

We should not be too surprised. Universities are dumbing down to get the funding and students in. Leiceter School of Pharmacy was recently investigated for passing MPharm students who did not reach the required standards of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society. Could these events be linked?

Labels: salvestrols

 

Amanda Hamilton, the Queen of Detox, is the emerging, good looking face of daytime, lifestyle, detox TV. She is a self described homeopath and expert in nutritional therapy, iridology, yoga and Ayurveda. If we were playing quack bingo, I would be shouting 'house!' Amanda has appeared regularly on the BBC, GMTV and UKTV, runs a number of detox spas in Spain and Turkey, writes books and sells home detox kits.

And now, she starts a new TV series on UKTV. Entitled The Spa of Embarrassing Illnesses, the show will take a group of people off to Amanda's Spanish Detox Spa and,

detoxify, rejuvenate and deal with the root cause of their ailments, rather than simply masking them with quick and easy remedies.

Each will receive a specially tailored programme that Amanda and her team of specialists, who range from homoeopathists to a yoga guru, have created for them. These individual plans will combine nutrition, therapy, detox, meditation, counselling yoga and massage together with specialist therapies as and when required.

What is going on here? Why is TV about people with psoriasis going on holiday to Spain such compelling viewing to so many? And more generally, what is it about detox that allows Amanda to carve out a lucrative and glamorous business empire and spearhead an industry based around the detox myth?

But first, let's get that myth out of the way. All this talk of ridding your body of accumulated toxins is nonsense. The human body is a remarkable machine that has evolved a large number of perfectly good mechanisms for getting rid of waste and unwanted substances. The thought that a few pills, a lie down and some fruit juice make much difference is rubbish. Professor John Henry, Clinical Toxicologist at St Mary’s Hospital, London says,

If you party to excess it is more than likely that you won’t be feeling your best. The cure? A good night’s sleep, your normal diet and plenty of water. Immoderation can only be repaid by moderation. Special detox diets and products are not going to do anything to hasten this process. Chemical scientists get fed up with debunking all these detox claims.

Catherine Collins, Chief Dietician at St George’s Hospital Medical School says,

The concept of ‘detox’ is a marketing myth rather than a physiological entity. The idea that an avalanche of vitamins, minerals, and laxatives taken over a 2 to 7 day period can have a long-lasting benefit for the body is also a marketing myth.

You can see more quotes on the Sense About Science web site. I don't want to go into this further: it has been written about at huge length. The Quackometer Search Engine will provide a good reading list.

Now popping off to a nice spa somewhere exotic may well indeed be what it takes to rest and feel better about yourself. It's what doctors technically call 'taking a holiday'. What's more, is that if you have an 'embarrassing illness', the associated relaxation of a break and the undoubted improvement in regular sleep and meals may well help to see some improvement in your condition. So there is no surprise that people report benefits from such spas. These detox holidays are no more than was practiced by the likes of Dr James Gully on Charles Darwin as we saw in my recent post. A break away from work in the spa town of Malvern enabled Charles, in the modern vernacular, to re-charge his batteries. What is questionable is whether you have to pay for actual detox or whether a renting a villa with a pool with some friends would be just as good but for a third of the price. You might even be able to indulge in the odd glass of vino without too much undue effect.

Maybe Amanda is just talking about 'detox' in some sort of metaphorical sense? Maybe all these talk of toxins is just a poetic way of describing a healthy rest? You might be able to swallow that but Amanda does not talk like it is a metaphor. She really appears to believe that our bodies accumulate toxins that only magic herbs and enemas can sort out. The proof that she is not talking metaphorically is that she sells 'home detox kits'. These consist of a set of useless pills to provide 'colon support', 'detox support', 'priobiotic support' and the 'assimilation of toxins'(?) - plus (I kid you not) a scrubbing brush. It all sounds rather Victorian and it is just plain old fashioned quackery, despite the claims that this is "cutting edge techniques and technical knowledge [that] has been the talk of the industry". This little kit will set you back nearly a hundred quid for fortnight's worth of pills. (What is odd is that a week's supply only costs £40.)

So, back to the question - what is going on here and why is detox so popular and such compelling TV? It strikes me that in out post-religious world, where we no longer believe in hell and sins and the authority of priests, that toxins are the new wages of 'sin', and they build up through our consumerist hedonism and hectic 'lifestyles'. Detox is our penance for our toxic sins and enemas and restricted diets are our contrition. Amanda Hamilton is not the 'Queen of Detox' but the 'High Priestess of Detox' and she sells us indulgences to cleanse us of our ills. The Spa of Embarrassing Illnesses is our modern day Pardoner's Tale. And just as Chaucer's medieval priest preached against greed and excess whilst pocketing money extorted from his penitents by selling fake relics, we see today's priests of detox selling expensive but worthless pills and extolling the benefits of flagellation with a scrubbing brush. The sins of our everyday life can be magically transformed away with the right incantations and trinkets.

And this is what I find most objectionable about this high profile TV detox machine. It is trading in blatant falsehoods. Despite Amanda's claim that her detox regime deals 'with the root cause of their ailments, rather than simply masking them with quick and easy remedies', the exact opposite is true. Detox is a token penance and a quick escape from reality. The underlying stresses, illnesses and dissatisfaction are still there. Just as buying a saintly relic was a shortcut to absolution, so there there is a strong, alluring belief that paying for a detox indulgence will give us a quick consumerist answer to life's complex problems. And Amanda Hamilton trades off that wishful thinking.

The Medieval Pardoners were venal hypocrites. But somehow I get the impression that Amanda really does appear to believe in what she does. Nonetheless, our televisions and magazines wallow in these dark age myths. Professor David Colquhoun wrote in the Guardian recently about the encroaching 'endarkenment'. Amanda Hamilton is one of the temple elite of the new age - dark age ignorance. And I find it embarrassing.

 

There are many laws in the UK that ought to make trading in quackery difficult. In practice though, the laws are often skirted around or side-stepped by careful wording of claims and marketing tactics. Those of us who prefer to pop off a complaint to Trading Standards rather than watch Eastenders find it quite a frustrating business.

One of the main problems in the UK is that there is no joined up approach to dealing with the type of fraud and issues posed by quackery. If a claim is made in print media then you can complain to the Advertising Standards Authority. But if it is on the web then you may have a little more difficulty. Trading Standards operate within local councils are are primarily set up to deal with dodgy builders and fly-by-night tour operators. The web crosses these boundaries and finding a trading address may be hard. If you are worried about multi-national operations then you really have problems. Respectable companies like Google or e-Bay flout anti-quackery laws in the UK with impunity.

Take Bionetics: a company run from Camberley in Surrey. The company sells a hair testing process and claims to be able to diagnose and treat the underlying causes of many illnesses from a few strands of hair. We have seen Patrick Holford, with his Food for the Brain 'charity', make similar claims, but Bionetics take it one stage further into deep quack land by claiming they are measuring the 'energies' in the hair follicles and can measure 'toxins', pathogens, food allergies, and nutritional needs. It is the same scam as Hair Mineral Analysis but 'new-aged' up a bit with talk of applied kiniesiology and that old black box of nonsense, radionics.

The American Medical Association condemn similar practices as just a fraudulent way of selling mineral supplements. And so we see Bionetics offering a load of food supplements to correct your imbalances with some magic herbal and homeopathy pills. Customers using the service get doubly fleeced: first, on the test fee (£48-£78); and then on the subsequent course of useless pills you are supposed to take. If you are unfortunate enough to be 'diagnosed' with a food intolerance or allergy then you may be advised to take unnecessary and potentially harmful dietary changes.

Last year, someone complained to the ASA about Bionetics and they were found to be making untruthful and unsubstantiated claims,

The ASA noted the positive customer testimonials and the training undertaken by the supervising practitioner. Nevertheless, we considered that, without robust clinical evidence to support them, the claims that Bionetics methods of hair testing could "establish whether or not your body has become intolerant to 123 of the most common problem foods and ingredients" and "report on ... accumulations of toxins, problem pathogens and nutritional deficiencies" were not justified. We concluded that testimonials alone were not sufficient to substantiate the efficacy of the testing methods and told Bionetics to consult the CAP Copy Advice team before advertising the test again.

Well, that told them. The action that had to be taken by Bionetics was that 'the ad should not be repeated in its current form.' Whilst this is obviously the right finding, the decision makes essentially no difference to what Bionetics can do with their business. They can still advertise in print, but just have to be little more careful with their wording in the future, and of course the ruling makes no difference to what they can claim online. In short, Bionetics are free to carry on trading with a untruthful and unsubstantiated business that sells gobbledygook and nonsense to the public.

If you want an idea of the nonsense that Bionetics are peddling then their 'science' page is a good start,

The birth of Newtonian physics heralded a change in conventional medical thinking. Newton’s laws related only to physical matter, and ignored the “energy” factor. Opinion of the day backed Newton’s theories and modern medicine as we know it was born.

Therapies that could not easily be explained by reference to Newton became portrayed as quackery.
...
First, is the now generally held view that the cause of many of today’s most common medical problems can not be explained by conventional Newtonian theories.

So, Newton had nothing to say about energy? That will be news to physicists. And medical therapies that do not use F=ma are quackery? Utter gobbledygook.

And, the best bit,

First fact – scientists have now proved that the basic component of the universe is energy, and not physical matter. Quantum physics has replaced the Newtonian belief that the smallest building blocks of all matter are physical objects - protons and neutrons, and proved that spinning energy vortices are actually at the source. Everything is based on energy.

Second fact - scientists have proved that collections of atoms (molecules) all radiate their own energy patterns or vibrations. Everything, living or not, including our bodies and everything in them, radiates a unique energy pattern.

Third fact - scientists have proved that the body constantly communicates both internally and with the outside world through the interaction of these energy patterns. Experiments have shown that protein receptors on the cell membrane pass signals to the nucleus (DNA) when stimulated by external energy signals.

I wonder who wrote all of that? Its only intention can be to bamboozle since it is just comic book physics, innacurate and unrelated to anything medical whatsoever.

Since trading in nutritional supplements, homeopathy and herbal remedies is legal, the problem with this site revolves around the claims made regarding their diagnostic techniques and their ability to tell you which of these 'remedies' you 'need'. (Answer: none). Most trading standards officers find this whole area totally alien to them. They are much more likely to be clued up on the ins and outs of extended warranty or the return of faulty goods. A ripped off pensioner with a badly tarmaced drive is an obvious injustice. Quackery is a more insidious form of harm and more difficult to pin down.

If someone was to pay me to police the quacks of the world (where are you Big Pharma and World Government when I need you?) I would set up a Minority Report style control room and I would wear a techno-glove to move quackometer screens around my transparent display wall. I would mash up my quackometer scan results with Google Earth and direct black helicopters full of elite troops into the homes of quacks, arrest them and force them to work as orderlies in the laundry rooms of large hospitals for the rest of their natural lives. Mwa ha ha ha.


In the meantime, we must rely on Consumer Direct.

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Labels: quantum quackery, the law, vitamins

 

or, The Curious Case of Patrick Holford's CV

Labels: Patrick Holford