Patrick Holford’s Advertising Standards

19th September, 2007 7

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 [read more…]

Patrick Holford – No Comment

14th September, 2007 7

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, [read more…]

As Swallowed by the Media

13th September, 2007 5

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, theBritish 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 [read more…]

The Spa of Embarrassing Ignorance

11th September, 2007 46

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. [read more…]

Bionetics: Untruthful Quacks, But Still Trading

7th September, 2007 52

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 [read more…]

York Shambles

4th September, 2007 2

or, The Curious Case of Patrick Holford’s CV It was funny when ‘Dr’ Gillian McKeith got slapped for using unaccredited qualifications to promote her quackery. However, it is now looking as if Patrick Holford’s CV is far more interesting. Patrick has been criticised for a while now for having no formal qualifications in any nutritional subject. He claims to have a BSc in psychology and his Honorary Diploma in Nutritional [read more…]

The Future of Homeopathy in the UK

31st August, 2007 24

After several decades of increasing popularity, the homeopathic community is finding itself under growing pressure. There is an increasing level of criticism of the practice coming from many quarters, including Richard Dawkins recent Channel 4 programme, lots of bloggers and academics too. Importantly, homeopathy is not being seen as as benign as its adherents’ propaganda suggests and that there are real dangers in the belief in magic water and sugar [read more…]

Charles Darwin and Homeopathy

26th August, 2007 76

The Internet is a wonderful thing. It allows you check stuff, like the claims of quacks, in a way that was not possible just a few years ago. This blog entry would have taken many months of library work and correspondence without the web and some of its amazing content, and now I can do it between mowing the lawn and popping down the pub for a pint. Dana Ullman [read more…]

State Sponsored Quackery

25th August, 2007 20

Homeopathy is under threat within the NHS. A good thing too. But homeopaths are mounting a campaign to help ensure our health service spends its money on voodoo. Some MPs are calling for a debate in parliament in support of homeopathy. You can find out if your MP is on the ‘deluded list’ here. The Early Day Motion being signed by MPs says the following, That this House welcomes the [read more…]

Will Homeopathy and iTunes Cure AIDS?

19th August, 2007 15

Peter Chappell (10 Canards) is a founder member of the Society of Homeopaths, he is a Fellow of the Society and has written several influential books on homeopathy. He describes himself as an inventor and a visionary, a charity worker and teacher. He also appears to be dangerously deluded. Chappell makes his name by producing his own homeopathic preparations. His idea is to produce specific remedies to cure named diseases, [read more…]

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