BPSDB - The Skeptics' Aggregator

The Journal of Health Services Research and Policy has just published a ‘perspective’ piece by Professor Alan Breen of the Anglo-European College of Chiropractic in which he, unsurprisingly, praises Chiropractic (Breen, 2009).  The concluding paragraph is quite amazing:  “To portray only part of the relevant information in a critique is itself pseudoscience, yet strong ontological commitment to only part of the knowledge base seems often to be the stance taken to contest the scienti?c basis of Chiropractic. Rather like psychiatry, debates about musculoskeletal practice need to go beyond ...
Read more [A canna’ change the laws of physics] 

[BPSDB] Steven Connor, Science Editor of the Independent, spectacularly missed the point with this opinion piece, not to mention confirming many peoples suspicions as to the state of science journalism today. Many bloggers have criticised print journalists for their lack of fact checking. Let us see how well Connor does in this piece: 1. He refers to the organisers of a fringe event as “Lofty Medics”. In fact only Ben Goldacre is a medical doctor. 2. In the piece (dated 30 June 2009) he says that the “medics met in a pub last night”. In fact the event was due to ...
Read more [Letting Off Steam] 

[BPSDB] You might think that if creationists want to criticise the theory of evolution by natural selection, as understood and used by the overwhelming majority of biologists, then they would try to understand the theory. Especially as the series of meetings in Shrewsbury, Darwin’s birthplace, was billed as “an assessment of the evidence for [...]
Read more [Evening Person] 

.... by deleting it from your website, indeed.Previous posts on this site have demonstrated that evidence-free claims about the ability of chiropractors to cure/treat period pains, carpal tunnel syndrome and asthma are routinely appearing on chiropractor's websites - in the blogposts above, I linked to Glasgow Chiropractic as an example.[Many other bloggers are carrying out similar investigations into chiropractic claims, in light of the British Chiropractic Association's spectacularly bad decision to sue Simon Singh for stating there was no evidence for many of Chiropractic's claims of ...
Read more [Thinking is Dangerous] 

[BPSDB] The H1N1 pandemic seems to have caused over-reaction in some quarters. A colleague on a training course was greeted with all the enthusiasm one would expect for a leper turning up at a society wedding. Background: two students and one member of staff at my workplace have swine flu. My colleague was attending a residential training course this week. Another trainee (employed by a different school) learned that swine flu had been confirmed at our school and decided he did not want my colleague to remain on the course. He organised a kangaroo court meeting of the trainees to discuss ...
Read more [Letting Off Steam] 

BPSDB There's a plethora of a letter at A Case of Chiropractic Manipulation Immediately Relieving Depression with Chronic Pain: Patient A, a 41-year-old Taiwanese male, suffered from intermittent dysthymia which presented with minor low mood, insomnia, anxiety, chest tightness, back pain, and subjectively mild occupational difficulty... patient A received a single chiropractic spinal manipulation. The chiropractor noticed a minor deformity in the thoracic spine, and a traction technique was administered. He experienced immediate relief from back pain. The following day he reported ...
Read more [SHPalman's Blog] 

[BPSDB] There was no follow-up to the letter published prominently in the Guardian on 13 June 2009, on which I have commented before. I have followed this up with a letter to the paper’s Readers’ Editor. I actually wrote on two different issues, so this is an extract from the letter. On Saturday 13 June you [...]
Read more [Evening Person] 

You'll probably have heard about the "outing" of formerly anonymous blogger Night Jack, a British policeman. Night Jack went to court in an attempt to prevent The Times newspaper from publishing his identity, but the judge ruled against him. His award-winning blog, http://nightjack.wordpress.com/, has been taken down; I don't know if this is going to be permanent.Lawyer Jack of Kent has a typically lucid and detailed legal commentary on the case, but as a fellow anonymous blogger, I believe that this is an issue which goes beyond British law.I write anonymously because it allows me to ...
Read more [Neuroskeptic] 

Over at Crispian Jago's blog, with this work of genius (based on this older work of genius). Geek humour doesn't get much geekier.[BPSDB]
Read more [Neuroskeptic] 

Suppose you were a drug company, and you've invented a new drug. It's OK, but it's no better than the competition. How do you convince people to buy it?You need a selling point - something that sets your product apart. Fortunately, with drugs, you have plenty of options. You could look into the pharmacology - the chemistry of how your drug works in the body - and find something unique there. Then, all you need to do is to spin a nice story to explain how the pharmacological properties of your drug make it brilliant.On an entirely unrelated note, aripiprazole (Abilify) is an antipsychotic ...
Read more [Neuroskeptic] 

It was about this time two years ago that my faith in the British media died. It had never been in the best of health, but up until then I believed that the (non-tabloid) newspapers were written by professionals trying to find out and communicate the truth as best they could.Journalists might be wrong, I thought, but they did their best to ensure that they weren't. And they might have a bad habit of focussing on sensational stories that "sold papers", but such stories would at least be accurate. A career in journalism was something that strongly appealed to me.What happened on July 8th ...
Read more [Neuroskeptic] 

Via the quackometer’s twitterfeed, a story on the allAfrica news aggregation site suggests that the government of Mozambique are responding in a thoroughly sensible manner to alternative medicine practitioners, including homeopaths. Health Minister Ivo Garrido argues that practitioners were operating in a ‘legal vacuum’ and thus it was necessary to regulate them by law.  One possible effect of this law is that: Any practitioner of “alternative” medicine could be regarded as “professionally incompetent” since the remedies he prescribes have no ...
Read more [Gimpy's Blog] 

[BPSDB] I gather that last week was “Homeopathy Awareness Week“. Doesn’t seem to have made much of an impact which is a shame because people really need to be informed about homeopathy and be aware of what it actually is. Potential users of homeopathy should be aware of the following: Homeopathy is not herbalism. A lot of people are confused on this issue, possibly becauase homeopaths like to bang on about natural remedies and skate over homeopathy’s strange notions. Such as:- Like cures like. That is, something that causes a symptom in a healthy person will cure ...
Read more [Letting Off Steam] 

Spiked presents itself as “an independent online phenomenon dedicated to raising the horizons of humanity by waging a culture war of words against misanthropy, priggishness, prejudice, luddism, illiberalism and irrationalism in all their ancient and modern forms.” – a statement of intent that in this wordy form oozes smirking superiority and arrogance but is attractive in principle. I am a firm believer in robust debate, wide ranging freedoms of speech and expression, including the right to be wrong, offensive and offensively wrong. I also believe that evidence is ...
Read more [Gimpy's Blog] 

From his letter published in this week’s New Scientist it is clear that Professor George Lewith doesn’t like Edzard Ernst’s recent opinion piece on Chiropractic.  However, it is just as clear that Lewith is prepared to use fallacious reasoning and debunked statistics, among other things, to support his argument.* It’s not as though he even manages to properly engage with Ernst’s criticisms.  Through cherry picking and a meticulous avoidance of published evidence he first constructs then attacks a straw man.  His opening accusation is that, “[…] Ernst fails to give a balanced view of ...
Read more [A canna’ change the laws of physics] 

[BPSDB] I thought I had finished with Lousie Mcleans “Facts About Homeopathy” but I see from this that the number of facts now stands at 55.  Here are the additional five facts with my comments. Homeopathy works FAST in acute illnesses, slower in chronic illnesses. Acute illnesses by definition are short term and the patient recovers fairly quickly (at least that is the case now. In the days before modern medicine sometimes the patient died quickly.) Confirmation bias would suggest that any kind of medicine would work fast. Many acute illnesses are self-limiting i.e. the ...
Read more [Letting Off Steam] 

Last week I tried to get a modestly sized letter published in the New Scientist, to highlight just one of the very poor pieces of argumentation displayed by BCA vice-president Richard Brown in an opinion piece.  Unfortunately, I failed.  Space is very limited and I guess that they just had to make room for another error-strewn contribution from the indefatigable George Lewith*. So, I’ve published it here to make at least some use of it. Letters to the Editor New Scientist 84 Theobald’s Road London WC1X 8NS There is good evidence that Richard Brown’s assessment of the ...
Read more [A canna’ change the laws of physics] 

[BPSDB] Spinning numbers in more ways than one. The explanation of the science is correct, and the purpose of the counter seems admirable. But of course, the supposed precision of the numbers is spurious.  (It grates on this former science lecturer, who used to have to explain why all the digits output on a calculator [...]
Read more [Evening Person] 

[BPSDB] It seems a good idea to run a proxy like Squid or (perhaps better) an anonymizer like Tor (because Squid is not anonymous) to give internet access to users in other countries where the internet is not free.  It’s something you can easily do with a small investment of time and some of your [...]
Read more [Evening Person] 

The BCA have, at last, released their much heralded “plethora” of evidence.  They preface this with an incredible statement, which includes the following gems:  “In the spirit of a wider scientific debate, and having taken appropriate professional advice, the BCA has decided that free speech would be best facilitated by releasing details of research that exists to support the claims which Dr. Singh stated were bogus. This proves that far from there being “not a jot of evidence” to support the BCA’s position, there is actually a significant amount.  It has never been the BCA’s case that ...
Read more [A canna’ change the laws of physics] 

... which aren't actually there at all [BPSDB] It's Homeopathy Awareness Week, and I can think of no better way of stopping people wasting time and money on homeopathy than by making them aware of exactly what homeopathy thinks it is. To this end, we have jdc325, Zeno, APGaylard, AndyD, Zygoma, The Quackometer, David Colquhoun, Orac, and Steven Novella (Homeopathy Awareness Week, Homeopathy Awareness Week, Homeopathy Awareness Week, Homeopathy Awareness Week, Homeopathy Awareness Week, Homeopathy Awareness Week, Homeopathy Awareness Week, Homeopathy Awareness Week, Homeopathy ...
Read more [SHPalman's Blog] 

Based on this quote from Simon Singh the British Chiropractic Association (BCA) decided to sue him for libel: “the British Chiropractic Association claims that their members can help treat children with colic, sleeping and feeding problems, frequent ear infections, asthma and prolonged crying, even though there is not a jot of evidence. This organisation is the respectable face of the chiropractic profession and yet it happily promotes bogus treatments.” The BCA claimed that there was a ‘plethora of evidence’ supporting their position and disproving Simon Singh’s, the BCA ...
Read more [Gimpy's Blog] 

[BPSDB] Here’s a description of the process for producing a homeopathic remedy, as described on Wikipedia: …homeopaths use a process called “dynamisation” or “potentisation” whereby the remedy is diluted with alcohol or distilled water and then vigorously shaken by ten hard strikes against an elastic body in a process called “succussion”. … During the process of [...]
Read more [Evening Person] 

Link - Part 2, Part 3One in four people suffer mental illness at some point in their lives.Everyone knows that. But where does that number come from? The answer may surprise. Join me, if you will, as I explore the biography of a statistic."1 in 4" is ubiquitous, at least in the English-speaking world. I can't think of another such number which is better known, except perhaps the fact that 1 in 3 people will suffer from cancer.Anyone who's used the London Underground or watched British TV recently will be familiar with the Time to Change anti-stigma advertising drive. This £18 million ...
Read more [Neuroskeptic] 

[BPSDB] Some – what I consider outrageous – spinning of homeopathy in the Guardian,  by three committed homeopathy-friendly physicians (Professor George Lewith, Professor of health research at the University of Southampton, Dr Michael Dixon, Medical director at the Prince’s Foundation for Integrated Health and Dr Peter Fisher, the Clinical director, Royal London Homoeopathic [...]
Read more [Evening Person] 

George Lewith, Michael Dixon and Peter Fisher had a puzzling letter in The Guardian yesterday, defending homeopathy.  One of the odd things in the letter was the contention that, “out of six reviews of the scientific evidence carried out by the independent and respected Cochrane Collaboration, two are cautiously positive and four inconclusive.”  This description bears little resemblance to what they actually say.  As you read these excerpts from their plain language summaries just remember that these gents are not appealing for more research, but for ongoing funding to treat patients at ...
Read more [A canna’ change the laws of physics] 

[BPSDB] I don't want to spend too much time picking apart Lionel R. Milgrom's1 reading of Sir Michael Rawlins's speech in his J. Alt. Complement. Med. editorial which has very little to do with Otto Weingärtner's2 recent defence of the attempts of Shang et al. and Maddox et al. to teach homeopaths about doing experiments properly3,4 instead of craply.5,6 Holfordwatch have already taken apart Patrick Holford's attempt at quote mining it, and Badly Shaved Monkey introduced the subject at JREF and badscience.net, and I've tried to explain how the DBRCT is just the most reliable way ...
Read more [SHPalman's Blog] 

The Great Chiropractic Debate rumbles on in the pages of the New Scientist.  This week Richard Brown, a Chiropractor and vice-president of the BCA, has a comment piece entitled, “Defending chiropractic”.  It is worth looking at it as an exemplar of fallacious argument and claims about Chiropractic practise that do not stand scrutiny.  For instance, he uses a typical quack defence: critics claim that chiropractic lacks evidence, but they overlook, “the fact that many accepted medical interventions have little or no research evidence to support them.”  This is just indulging in plain old tu ...
Read more [A canna’ change the laws of physics] 

[BPSDB]There is this piece of flimflam on the web site of Neal’s Yard (the unethical selling company): In more severe, acute situations the 200th potency (200C) may be administered once – this should not be repeated. Unless you have some knowledge and experience of Homoeopathy it is best to leave administration of 200th potency remedies to [...]
Read more [Evening Person] 

[BPSDB] The final tranche of Louise Mclean’s “Facts about Homeopathy” discusses the ‘popularity’ of homeopathy. As I have said previously, scientific reality is not determined by voting – and even if it were, homeopathy would be trumped by evidence based medicine, known to homeopaths as ‘allopathy’. In Fact 44 she claims that homeopathy has grown in popularity over the last 30 years and “estimated to be growing at more than 20% a year” globally. She does not say from where she gets this data which in any case is somewhat ...
Read more [Letting Off Steam] 

[BPSDB] I haven't really been able to keep up with all the stuff going on with Simon Singh and the British Chiropractic Association... has anyone linked to youtube.com/watch?v=jZG10g2HOw0 yet?
Read more [SHPalman's Blog] 

So said Alfred A Montapert. The full quote is:Before every action ask yourself - will this bring more monkeys on my back? Will the result of my action be a blessing or a heavy burden?His words seem extremely relevant in light of the recent chiropractic debacle. In short, the British Chiropractic Association is suing science writer Simon Singh for remarks made about the lack of evidence for chiropractic. This has led to the searchlight of skepticism being shone in every corner of the chiro world. Their actions have lead to many more monkeys on their back and the result is a heavy burden for ...
Read more [Thinking is Dangerous] 

Previous blogposts on this site have demonstrated how a collation of published research, gathered by the independent body, The Cochrane Collaboration, has shown that there is no evidence that chiropractic can relieve menstrual pains or is any better than placebo or control at relieving carpal tunnel syndrome.Another common claim by chiropractors is that chiropractic can relieve asthma. Asthma is a complex chronic clinical condition - airway inflammation contributes to airway hyperresponsiveness, airflow limitation,respiratory symptoms, and disease chronicity. (National Heart, Lung and ...
Read more [Thinking is Dangerous] 

Welcome to the third and final post examining the idea that one in four of us suffer mental illness at some point in our lives.As I explained in parts 1 and 2, "one in four" has no basis in the scientific literature, although given how dubious the literature is, this is not necessarily a bad thing. It's not clear where the one in four meme originally came from, although most of the recent uses probably trace back to a 2001 WHO report which quoted it.But why has one in four proven so popular? The simple answer is that it's high, but not too high. Were someone to say that one in every two ...
Read more [Neuroskeptic] 

This is the second post in a series examining the idea that one in four people suffer from mental illness at some point in their lives. Those who read the first, and the comments below it, will know that this much-quoted statistic has no apparant basis in the scientific literature. In fact, I'm still not sure where it came from.But there's more. One in four is a strikingly high figure. That's surely a large part of why it's so widely cited. Yet those studies which have attempted to estimate the lifetime prevalence of mental illness have all arrived at even higher numbers, from 1-in-3 to ...
Read more [Neuroskeptic] 

[BPSDB]More of Louise Mclean’s ‘Facts’ about Homeopathy , this time on homeopathic practitioners. In Fact 40 she tells us the subjects homeopaths study in training. Interesting she is so open with this infomation. Quackademic institutes are usually very reluctant to discuss course materials with those outside the club. David Colquhoun had to resort to the Freedom of Information Act to get hold of teaching materials for university homeopathy courses. When he did it turned out they were teaching about miasms – in the twenty-first century. Fact 41 seems to be about ...
Read more [Letting Off Steam] 

As part of my brief survey of the claims Chiropractors make for the treatment of bedwetting (nocturnal enuresis) in children I contacted Martineau Chiropractic (Cached URL).  They claim that “research has shown chiropractic to be an effective treatment” for “bed wetting”.  Of course, it has shown no such thing.  I have had a brief and interesting reply*:  “Thankyou for looking at our website, I hope you enjoyed it. I shall be taking advice from my professional association regarding the content of the website […]”  I do hope that Chiropractors are discussing the issue of what they claim ...
Read more [A canna’ change the laws of physics] 

George Lewith has an interesting letter in the New Scientist this week, in which he criticises David Allen Green’s* excellent article “Don’t criticise, or we’ll sue“.  One of his objections is that he is, “unaware of anybody prior to the chiropractors” threatening critics with libel in the UK.  He seems to have missed Drs Alan Lakin and Ann Walker threatening defamation proceedings against University College London and Professor David Colquhoun over the latter’s criticism** of, herbal medicine practitioner, Dr Walker’s views on the ‘blood cleansing’ properties of ...
Read more [A canna’ change the laws of physics] 

Via BlueWode I have come across the text of this letter, posted on ex- General Chiropractic Council (GCC) board member Richard Lanigan’s blog*, sent out by the British Chiropractic Association (BCA) on the 4th June. The BCA would remind members of their obligations under the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) section 50 (relating to Health & Beauty Products and Therapies: see Members are strongly encouraged to review their current marketing materials (whether they are paper- or web-based to ensure that they are compliant with both ASA and GCC requirements. Note that the ASA ...
Read more [Gimpy's Blog] 

I have come across this wonderful comment about chiropractic from the California State Journal of Medicine, 1913 [1]. I’m afraid I don’t have time today but if anybody fancies taking on a project to compare the claims made in this clipping with the first date research on them was published in a PubMed indexed journal then post your findings in the comments and I’ll transpose them to the article.  I suspect that the research to validate the claims was made some considerable time after the claims were found to be profitable. [1] Cal State J Med. 1913 June; 11(6): ...
Read more [Gimpy's Blog] 

Simon Singh has decided to appeal the illiberal ruling of Justice Eady, in the nonsensical libel case brought by the British Chiropractic Association, over his use of the word 'bogus'.David Colquhoun's blog DC Science and Andy Lewis' Quackometer are leading the charge, along with science charity Sense About Science, who have launched the "Keep Libel Laws Out of Science" campaign. Click here to get the SaS button for your website.Simon's Facebook page is here and Simon writes in his own words here. Jack of Kent has been following this story in full here.Anyone in the midlands area free on ...
Read more [Thinking is Dangerous] 

[BPSDB] You may recall my recent correspondence with Bassett Chiropractic Clinics (the chiropractors whose website claims to be able to help with whiplash, contrary to the guidance given by the ASA – their clinics include St Albans Chiropractic Clinic, The Hertford Chiropractic Clinic, Watford Chiropractic Clinic, and Kings Langley Chiropractic Clinic). My most recent post [...]
Read more [JDC325] 

Simon Singh is being sued for libel by the British Chiropractic Association (BCA) and has generated substantial levels of support for his predicament as many see this as an issue of free speech.  Sadly the Homeopathy Worked For Me organisation are not so fond of SImon’s freedom of speech despite being very much in favour of their own freedom to launch unsubstantiated criticism and personal attacks in a lenghty critique of Simon Singh’s and Edzard Ernst’s ‘Trick or Treatment’, of which Andy Lewis of the Quackometer comments Its clumsy rhetoric and lengthy ...
Read more [Gimpy's Blog] 

[bpsdb] The following is the introduction to a recent BBC piece titled "'Glass hold' reveals personality." I've highlighted the crucial phrase: The way you hold your glass can reveal much more than you might realise, a psychologist has warned. Dr Glenn Wilson, a consultant psychologist, observed the body language of 500 drinkers and divided them into eight personality types. These were the flirt, the gossip, fun lover, wallflower, the ice-queen, the playboy, Jack-the-lad and browbeater. Dr Wilson, who carried out the work for the Walkabout bar chain, said glass hold "reflected the person ...
Read more [The Lay Scientist] 

Science bloggers Frank Swain and Martin Robbins, of Sciencepunk and Layscience respectively, have an article on The Guardian website and in depth reportage on their own sites analysing the science policies of the various UK political parties standing in the forthcoming EU elections on 6th June. The Green Party, one of the parties analysed by Frank and Martin, are expected to pick up protest votes from voters disillusioned with the Labour Party in particular.   I have concerns with Green Party policy in one area in particular, genetic modification (GM).  For those readers who do not know I ...
Read more [Gimpy's Blog] 

The Voice of Young Science (VoYS) have published a letter condemning a homeopathy conference, ‘Homeopathy for Developing Countries’, organised by Harry van der Zee and featuring blog regular Jeremy Sherr, in the Netherlands on the 6th June.  VoYS point out that: Many people in developing countries urgently need access to evidence-based medical information and to the most effective means of treating these dangerous diseases. The promotion of homeopathy as effective or cheaper makes this difficult task even harder. It puts lives at risk, undermines conventional medicine and ...
Read more [Gimpy's Blog] 

I'm talking about Carpal Tunnel Syndrome(CTS) of course. CTS is a relatively common ailment, which causes a pins and needles sensation in the fingers and hands. The NHS website linked to above, estimates that almost 5% of women and 3% of men have CTS. Most cases of CTS develop in people who are between 45-64 years of age. People with mild to moderate symptoms usually respond well to non-surgical treatment, such as wrist splints and corticosteroids injections. However, more severe cases usually require surgery to reduce the pressure on the median nerve. Left untreated, CTS may lead to ...
Read more [Thinking is Dangerous] 

I was pretty surprised to find that many Chiropractors claim to treat bedwetting (nocturnal enuresis) in children.  They often cite studies published in their own ‘academic’ journal to back up this claim.  After finding that even these studies do not really support the chiropractic treatment of this condition, I wondered how Chiropractors justify offering this treatment: so I decided to contact an un-scientifically chosen** sample of chiropractic clinics, pointing out the weakness of the evidence and asking them to consider correcting any errors in the way that they were representing it. ...
Read more [A canna’ change the laws of physics] 

[BPSDB] More of Louise Mcleans ‘facts’ about homeopathy , this time about scientific studies of homeopathy. This is an area where the homeopaths want to have their cake and eat it. On the one hand they say, as Mclean does in Fact 36, that homeopathy can never be properly tested in double blind randomised trials because each prescription is individualised to the patient and on the other hand they claim that there have been successful clinical trials. In fact, individualised homeopathy can be trialled. The trial subjects all go to a homeopath who prescribes individualised ...
Read more [Letting Off Steam] 

[bpsdb] Thanks to my sharp-eyed colleague at Thinking Is Dangerous, it's come to my attention that the Complementary and Natural Healthcare Council (aka "Ofquack") have finally posted some of the board minutes they promised to make available, from their May 2009 quarterly board meeting. As expected, they appear to have learned from the debacle surrounding the original release of their minutes from November, choosing to keep those and the February minutes hidden away. The May minutes have been sanitised, and frankly contain very little in the way of interesting or useful ...
Read more [The Lay Scientist] 

This is how the CNHC website looked on May 21st 2009 and here's how it looks now - see the difference?I had previously written to Ben Bradshaw MP regarding CNHC, got a largely unsatisfactory reply and have to-ed and fro-ed again since then.One of my main issues was that the quack health lobby group, Prince Charles' Foundation for Integrated Health, had received £900,000 of Dept of Health funding (my and your taxes) to set up CNHC and yet, they were being opaque as to their operations. Seemingly by mistake, a CNHC staff member put the minutes of the Nov 08 meeting on the web, which ...
Read more [Thinking is Dangerous] 

With apologies to Kelis, and it doesn't even scan. Anyway, not even a badly constructed blog title could take away from a funny little PR-disaster which happened today to Neal's Yard, courtesy of the Guardian and an internetful of geeks (that's the collective noun, surely? - feel free to provide suggestions below).Neal's Yard Remedies, the super-ethical, eco-aware health and cosmetics company, had agreed to take part in a Guardian series called "You ask, they answer". In this feature, in the Ethical Living section of the Guardian, internetians were offered the chance to ask Neal's Yard ...
Read more [Thinking is Dangerous] 

[BPSDB] Neal’s Yard were nice enough to agree to feature on the Guardian’s Ethical Living Blog: to answer reader questions. Guardian readers donated thiee time in order to contribute plenty of interesting questions (the comments page on this story runs to five pages) on issues such as what level of evidence they demand before selling [...]
Read more [Holford Watch] 

[BPSDB]The Guardian invited online readers to ask questions of Neal’s Yard, the self-described “ethical” skin and body care products firm. You can imagine the sort of questions people would want to ask. The comments thread is funny (and not at all insulting, unless you think that questioning someone’s assertions is in itself offensive). I expect [...]
Read more [Evening Person] 

I'll hopefully convince you by the end of this blogpost, that there are bogus chiropractors in the UK. Menstrual pain (or to give it its posh name, dysmenorrhoea) is estimated to affect between 45 - 95% of women at some point. (Bit of a rubbish estimation, if you ask me, but it gives an idea of its occurrence).Here we have a condition which is widespread, can be debilitating, can be chronic, and the main respite from which is through painkillers. A perfect combination for a theatrical placebo. (And a cynic would add it was a regular monthly income).It takes a leap and jump in the logic to ...
Read more [Thinking is Dangerous] 

[BPSDB]There seems not to have been much comment on the press statement by the British Chiropractic Association on 7 May about the libel case against Simon Singh. This appears to be highly misleading. It reads in part: In April 2008 Simon Singh published an article in the Guardian newspaper and on Guardian Online in the course [...]
Read more [Evening Person] 

[BPSDB] I emailed Bassett Chiropractic to ask on what evidence they based their claims to be able to treat certain conditions. In this blog post, I discussed the evidence for chiropractic in treating headaches and whiplash. Here’s my email to Bassett: Dear Sirs/Mesdames, I note that on your website it is claimed that your chiropractors can help [...]
Read more [JDC325] 

[BPSDB] With their shiny redesigned website, Dore have added some discussion of the symptoms of various learning difficulties. Their discussion of the problems posed by poor coordination is especially…well, I’m struggling to think of a descriptor that’s suitable for a family blog. Dore argue that: When you’ve got problems with coordination and balance, some people might accuse [...]
Read more [Holford Watch] 

[bpsdb] So I'd better put my money where my mouth is. I happen to walk past a chiropractic centre, "Remedy Centres Windsor" on my way back from the railway station every evening, and they have a website on which they promote the use of chiropractic for a wide range of conditions covered by previous rulings by the Advertising Standards Authority, everything from colic to ear infections(!). This would appear to be in breach of the GCC guidelines, as I discussed in that article. So I'm going to train my guns on them. For me is a bit of a test. I may not get anywhere, but I want to see where ...
Read more [The Lay Scientist] 

[bpsdb] Recently, the Advertising Standards Agency adjudicated against Dr. Carl Irwin and associates, noting that their claims that chiropractic was an effective treatment for colic could not be substantiated. Thanks to some excellent work by Alan Henness of Think Humanism, we now know that the General Chiropractic Council (GCC) guidelines, which every UK practitioner must apply by, state that: [Chiropractors] may publicise their practices or permit another person to do so consistent with the law and the guidance issued by the Advertising Standards Authority. In this post, I'm going to ...
Read more [The Lay Scientist] 

[BPSDB] *Deliberate deception not implied In light of other bloggers looking at chiropractic treatment I thought I’d have a look from my perspective. According to the BCA chiropractic can be used to treat many conditions beyond back pain but does not appear to mention mental health symptoms specifically. I thought I would find out if individual chiropracters did [...]
Read more [Musings of a Phenomenologist] 

[BPSDB] Back in February I did a piece coverning the medical claims made by the distributers of xocai chocolate. The conclusion I came to was that it was a load of bull, which obviously did not go down well in certain quarters as the post was trolled by a horde of marketting trolls, one of whom made claims of approval by Health Canada which turned out to be provably false. A gentleman calling himself Rob Provenzano had this to say:- So, you know more than Health Canada?? Great news, Raw cold pressed chocolate made by MXI Corp has been classed as a Health Food and approved by Health Canada ...
Read more [Letting Off Steam] 

A wide variety of claims are made for chiropractic treatment.  One that really surprised me is that it can be used to treat bedwetting (nocturnal enuresis) in children.  I really struggle with the basic plausibility of this claim.  I mean, how can spinal manipulation control whether a child pees in their sleep, or not?  So I decided to see whether this is a bogus* treatment, or not.  Some Basic Facts Although this complaint can cause stress** and social isolation for a child, the UK NHS Choices website says that bedwetting is very common in children.  It usually affects those under six or ...
Read more [A canna’ change the laws of physics] 

[bpsdb] I haven't picked on the BBC for a while, but today their department of "and finally..." stories came up with this little gem: "Wind farm 'kills Taiwanese goats'." Now, I've not no axe to grind regarding wind farms, but the story is more tenuous than a fart in a hurricane, and smells about as bad. The story comes from a small island near Taiwan, on which the imaginatively-named Taiwanese power company TaiPower (who curiously fail to mention collateral goat damage on their website) decided to plant a number of fancy new wind turbines. At the time the eight turbines were installed, ...
Read more [The Lay Scientist] 

Much of science, and especially neuroscience, consists of the search for "positive results". A positive result is simply a correlation or a causal relationship between one thing and another. It could be an association between a genetic variant and some personality trait. It could be a brain area which gets activated when you think about something.It's only natural that "positive results" are especially interesting. But "negative" results are still results. If you find that one thing is not correlated with another, you've found a correlation. It just happens to have a value of zero.For ...
Read more [Neuroskeptic] 

[BPSDB] Following some discussion of the Science So What? campaign, they have helpfully e-mailed us their web stats – in response to a question that we raised. The stats for the campaign from its 27th January start through to 20th May are therefore reproduced below: Science So What main site These are from the site launch [...]
Read more [Holford Watch] 

The Advertising Standards Agency (ASA) have passed judgement on an advertising claim by chiropractor business Dr Carl Irwin and Associates.  Dr Carl made the following claim in his advertising: Dr Carl Irwin and Associates CHIROPRACTORS. Back, Neck, Shoulder, Arm and Leg Pain, Sports Injury, Joint Problems, IBS, Colic, Learning Difficulties, Cranial Treatment for Mothers and Babies. To discuss any area of your health with our Doctors, call for a FREE Consultation. This claim was challenged on two points: 1. Dr. Carl Irwin and Associates could substantiate the implied claim that their ...
Read more [Gimpy's Blog] 

[bpsdb] Guest blogger "Blue Wode" has produced a definitive review of the science and evidence (or lack of) behind claims made by the BCA, GCC and other chiropractic advocates. [Written by Blue Wode, edited by Martin Robbins] - - - - - - - - - - - It has become apparent that the Achilles’ heel of chiropractic - promoted as an effective, cost-effective, and safe alternative to drugs and surgery for a range of health conditions - is negative publicity. One wonders whether this insecurity is behind the chiropractic industry’s frequent failure to cite the more robust, but unfavourable, ...
Read more [The Lay Scientist] 

You may be aware that Simon Singh, the science writer and broadcaster, has been a victim of Britain’s odd libel laws and Judge Eady’s creative interpretation of the word bogus over an article he wrote for The Guardian.  Outstanding legal pillar of the sceptical community and blogger JackofKent describes Eady’s interpretation of bogus as follows: The word “bogus” meant deliberate and targeted dishonesty. So it did not mean that chiropractic for the six named children’s ailments (including asthma) was simply wrong, or that it was contrary to established ...
Read more [Gimpy's Blog] 

The word 'bogus' is back in vogue - and not before time. It's been 18 years since Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey hit the big screen and had all teh kidz talking like west coast surfer dudes.The word 'bogus' has been thrust back into the limelight for a much more serious reason - just over a year ago, Simon Singh wrote a piece for the Guardian entitled "Beware of the Spinal Trap" (you can read the full article on Gimpy's excellent website here) which contained the line:The British Chiropractic Association claims that their members can help treat children with colic, sleeping and feeding ...
Read more [Thinking is Dangerous] 

[BPSDB]At the Quackometer, Andy Lewis is organising a Carnival of B**** Chiropractic (insert your own B-word there). This is an opportunity, I think, not only to do some serious investigation and make some serious points about the validity of chiropractic and the claims that are made for it, but  also to make fun of the [...]
Read more [Evening Person] 

[bpsdb] Recently, Nadine Dorries is emerging as a prominent figure in Tory politics, and since the Conservatives are almost certain to be in power by this time next year that’s bad for people who support evidence-based policy, because her relationship with science and rational thinking has been rather fraught. Continue reading at Liberal Conspiracy! Find me on Twitter! @mjrobbins digg_url = 'http://www.layscience.net/node/564'; digg_title = 'Nadine Dorries: an enemy of science?'; digg_bodytext = "[bpsdb] Recently, Nadine Dorries is emerging as a prominent figure in Tory politics, and ...
Read more [The Lay Scientist] 

[bpsdb] "Witnesses have described watching entire families being put in glass chambers and gassed. They are left to an agonising death while scientists take notes." Welcome to North Korea. This is a post of two halves: on the fun side, I'll be looking at some of North Korea's bizarre science propaganda; but on the dark side are stories of scientific experiments - indistinguishable from the most nightmarish tortures imaginable - being conducted on humans in a modern-day equivalent of Auschwitz. Continue reading at WorldIsMyCountry.org Follow me on Twitter! @mjrobbins digg_url = ...
Read more [The Lay Scientist] 

[BPSDB]This is a constant refrain from the homeopaths: that orthodox doctors are in some sort of conspiracy against them. This supposes that doctors would prefer their patients to not recover rather than prescribe homeopathy. I know doctors have a bit of a reputation for arrogance but the belief that they would prefer patients to die rather than prescribe a treatment that works just because they don’t understand how it works seems to be going a bit far. In fact, the evidence in support of this thesis is thin even by homeopathic standards. Firstly, the exact way that anaesthetics work ...
Read more [Letting Off Steam] 

I love honey.In fact, I love it so much, I became a beekeeper (which, even when things go wrong and honey levels are low, is still an amazing, rewarding and worthwhile pursuit). I met the Honey Monster once, but it turned out to be an actor in a honey monster outfit. Gutted.Nonetheless, honey ticks all the boxes for being hijacked by quacks as a cure-all - it is natural, available and has historical & religious provenance;And thy LORD taught the bee to build its cells in hills, on tree and in men’s habitations, then to eat of all the produce of the earth and find with skill the ...
Read more [Thinking is Dangerous] 

[BPSDB]The “Shrewsbury Deep Waters Trust” were not the only creationists to take advantage of the Darwin celebrations in Shrewsbury. During March/April the Christadelphians sent leaflets throughout the town and set up a stall in the town centre advertising meetings – although they were not very efficient about it, as the leaflet came through my own [...]
Read more [Evening Person] 

[bpsdb] Looking at the culture-bound syndrome Grisi Siknis recently, I was reminded of Morgellons - a subject I've been meaning to look at for many months. Sufferers report strange organic and artificial fibers erupting from lesions, sensations of bugs crawling under the skin, and tentacled "starfish" crawling inside flesh. The problem is that while sufferers insist they are suffering from some new and exotic disease, both the medical establishment and the weight of evidence so far suggest that the the condition is largely psychosomatic in nature. <!--break--> In other words, while ...
Read more [The Lay Scientist] 

In which Dr Aust considers the plight of Simon Singh, the Alice in Wonderland world of defamation law English-style, and the implications of Mr Justice Eady’s ruling. ———————————————————— Stop Press 18/05/09 9.30 pm: Simon Singh “hopes to appeal but cannot confirm yet” Simon says he hopes to make the final decision on whether to appeal Mr Justice Eady’s preliminary ruling by the end of next week. You can read more in a hot-off-the-press account of ...
Read more [Dr Aust's Spleen] 

[BPSDB] Totally Nourish sells supplements and other ‘health’ products, and has Patrick Holford as one of its two ‘experts’. We were therefore interested to see that they were mentioned on the Advertising Standards Authority website earlier this month (click on the “Informally Resolved Complaints” button”. According to the ASA, “After consideration by the ASA [...]
Read more [Holford Watch] 

[BPSDB]Rather late, this is my comment on the lecture given in Shrewsbury (Darwin’s birthplace) in late February 2009 by Dr Stephen Meyer from the Discovery Institute. This was billed as reviewing “Darwin’s life and theories from a new perspective – an assessment of the evidence for design which has emerged through the advances in science [...]
Read more [Evening Person] 

This year Homeopathy Awareness Week (14th to 24th June) will focus on hay fever.  The event is being promoted by the British Homeopathic Foundation, a charity closely connected with the Faculty of Homeopathy, the UK’s organisation for medical doctors who also practise homeopathy.  Their website encourages people to “trust homeopathy”.  So, decided to improve my personal awareness of the evidence that homeopathy will do anything to help this unpleasant seasonal complaint.  After all, given that this event has the backing of actual doctors – albeit homeopaths – I would expect this campaign ...
Read more [A canna’ change the laws of physics] 

[BPSDB] Science So What? So Everything respond to our FOIA request. They make some interesting - but problematic - points.
Read more [Holford Watch] 

A real new post to come soon – honest EDIT: Up! At last! Rumours of my disappearance have been much exaggerated. I’ve just been very busy – no time to finish things, which for a slow writer is the kiss of death. And then there’s the knackered 5 yr-old home computer on the fritz. And the existential despair. And Easter. Now, one of my regular correspondents has been emailing me to ask me why I have not yet had anything to say on the deeply depressing ruling by Mr Justice Eady in the BCA vs. Simon Singh case. The main reason is that everything I could think of to ...
Read more [Dr Aust's Spleen] 

[BPSDB]You might think that this is one of those rhetorical “Do bears shit in the woods?” style questions but I’m a little puzzled by his evidence to the seventh session of the Culture Media and Sport Parliamentary Select Committee’s inquiry into Press Standards, Privacy and Libel. When asked about the Daily Mail’s coverage of the MMR issue and demands to know whether or not Leo Blair had had the MMR vaccination, Paul Dacre says: Well, there is a bit of an urban myth grown up that the Daily Mail was against the triple jab. All newspapers at the time had deep ...
Read more [Letting Off Steam] 

In recent weeks I have become aware of the beginings of a popular movement asserting that obesity is not a healthcare problem.  This article will be the first in a likely irregular series looking at some aspects of this movement. Last week the Guardian ran an opinion piece by a dietician by the name of Lucy Aphramor.  Ms Aphramor was promoting the Health At Every Size (HAES) philosophy; HAES promotes tested and achievable ways to optimise health for individuals and populations. It does this at an individual level by focusing on eating, activity and body acceptance. Of course, food and ...
Read more [Gimpy's Blog] 

[BPSDB] We have previously posted some criticisms of aspects of the Science So What? So Everything? campaign. Elliot from the campaign has now responded to our guest post on Science: So What and science communication. We are grateful to him for getting back to us. However, we do have a number of [...]
Read more [Holford Watch] 

[BPSDB]I’d like to support Simon Singh in his current legal difficulties but I have no intention to join Facebook. (I did start signing up once but I read the terms and conditions and changed my mind.) If there are some who don’t know what this is about, Dr Singh is a victim of the broken libel [...]
Read more [Evening Person] 

[BPSDB] Wired’s science and health coverage is normally pretty good. We were therefore disappointed to see an article by Susan Greenfield: presenting some badly thought out hypothesising, and suggesting an inadequate understanding of a number of complex factors. Greenfield chooses to start with a bold hypothesis…What if the recent wave of recklessness among bankers was [...]
Read more [Holford Watch] 

Interesting little comparison this.According to the Natural Products Insider, The American Herbal Products Association (AHPA), the Consumer Healthcare Products Association (CHPA), the Council for Responsible Nutrition (CRN), the Natural Products Association (NPA) and the United Natural Products Alliance (UNPA) are endorsing the following unified advisory for marketers and retailers of dietary supplements: * Marketers and retailers of dietary supplements are urged to refuse to stock or sell any supplements that are presented as treating or curing swine flu, and * Marketers and ...
Read more [Thinking is Dangerous] 

[bpsdb] Recently a Twitterer made me aware of the blog of a young woman named Amy Roberts. Apropos of nothing she relates the story of her recent attempts to lose weight. Previously she had to slouch around the house wearing big baggy jumpers and trousers, but now she can wear her bikini at all times, even when she's getting her tummy fat measured by the local doctor. Better yet, she no longer needs her glasses! <!--break--> Clearly whatever Amy is doing has worked wonders for her. She explains: "Yep, that was me at my heaviest and right before my life changed when I started using ...
Read more [The Lay Scientist] 

[bpsdb] The headline of the latest sorry excuse for health journalism in the Daily Mail (where else) says it all: "GCSE pupils 'brainwashed to support the MMR vaccine'". The article gives a platform to the disgraced Andrew Wakefield and the sadly misguided members of JABS that still follow him, in which they claim that an exam question about the MMR hoax is being used by the government to "indoctrinate" children with pro-vaccine propaganda. Exam papers are of course not available online, so I'll have to rely on the description of the questions concerned presented by Beezy Marsh, the ...
Read more [The Lay Scientist] 

[BPSDB] More of Louise Mcleans homeopathic facts this time about homeopathic hospitals. It will surprise absolutely nobody to discover that she thinks they are wonderful and I disagree. In Fact 23 she says there are 5 homeopathic hospitals in the UK and contrasts their total £10 million p.a. running costs to the £100 billion 2008 NHS budget. Firstly, if the money is wasted by providing ineffective treatments, then it is immaterial that it is only a tiny fraction of the total budget, much effective treatment could be provided for that money. Secondly, under the NHS internal market, when ...
Read more [Letting Off Steam] 

By any rational measure, betting on the effectiveness of homeopathy is not a good bet.  However, many thousands of people take this chance: homeopaths stake their livelihood on it; patients bet their money, hopes and sometimes health.  Medical professionals and researchers have effectively staked their careers and reputations on homeopathy working, or at least looking like it does.  Of course, confirmation bias, the self-limiting nature of many commonly treated ailments and the placebo effect all help improve the odds.  Add to that a general lack of awareness of scientific methods and ...
Read more [A canna’ change the laws of physics] 

[BPSDB] Continued from here–There’s a link on the Biblical Dragons page which takes the reader to a page where we find a list of ancient art so fake that even many creationists have abandon them the moment they finally got it in their heads that all these so-called evidence for dinosaurs living with humans thousands of years ago are nothing more than fakes.But other creationists, especially the JDM webmaster, who are real strict in their false beliefs, are too hard-headed to abandon them even when these rock carvings are clearly shown to be frauds made by hoaxers to deceive ...
Read more [Stupid Dinosaur Lies] 

Jeremy Sherr, the homeopath conducting unethical treatments in Tanzania, made the claim on his blog that: When I was in South Africa 5 years ago, we had designed a very complex trial together with the Nelson Mandela hospital in Durban. Well blogger Warhelmet, whose comments here are always appreciated, has contacted the Nelson Mandela hospital and obtained this reply: Please note that Mr Jeremy Sherr has no association with the University of KwaZulu-Natal and that its Nelson R Mandela School of Medicine has not conducted any research with Mr Sherr. Looks like another lie to add to the ...
Read more [Gimpy's Blog] 

[BPSDB] We were surprised to see Jerome Burne’s article in the Mail, reporting that Daniel G. Amen’s work: explains how behaviour such as anxiety, anger or impulsiveness could be related to the way specific areas in your brain work. For the past 15 years he has been using [SPECT (photon emission computerised tomography)] scanning technology to assess brain [...]
Read more [Holford Watch] 

[bpsdb] As I write this, science writer Simon Singh is at the Royal Courts of Justice in London fighting his corner in the preliminary hearing of the British Chiropractic Association's libel case against him. Legal blogger Jack of Kent has been providing expert analysis of the case, and is at the court providing regular updates via his Twitter feed, @JackOfKent. The BCA sued in response to allegations made in Singh's book, "Trick or Treatment" and in a Guardian article (since removed, but available on a Russian mirror) called "Beware the spinal trap". Singh criticised Chiropractors - and ...
Read more [The Lay Scientist] 

What an exciting title, eh? It's always fun wading through UK and EU legislation, and many happy hours can be wiled away reading the Shakesperean prose of statutes.This posting is brought to you by Nelson's Arnica ClikPak, the first homeopathic product to receive approval by the MHRA to be labelled with therapeutic indications (i.e. is allowed to put on the labelling the symptoms that the sugar pill is supposedly to aid). It really is *that* exciting.Let me give a potted history of homeopathic labelling:1971: The Medicines Act (1968) comes into force, issuing a Product Right of License ...
Read more [Thinking is Dangerous] 

[BPSDB]Analysis of more factoids from Louise Mclean’s “50 Facts About Homeopathy” . This time I’m going to look at the second section, “Homeopathic Medicines”. Fact 12 is an observation that homeopathic remedies are cheap. This is perhaps not surprising; the manufacturing process consists of dilutions, shaking and banging the container of solution against a leather covered board. These days this process is done by machine. Drops of the final solution are placed on cheap placebo pills (usually made from lactose) and allowed to evaporate. No expensive ...
Read more [Letting Off Steam] 

Update 06 05 2009: Time readers may find this other post interesting!Antidepressants are some of the most-prescribed drugs in the world. Yet they are also amongst the least well understood. We know little about how effective antidepressants are in the people who take them. Some antidepressants may work fantastically for most people. On the other hand some of them, perhaps all of them, may be useless or even worse. The truth is unclear.This is a minority view. Opinions about antidepressants are polarized - most people either firmly believe that they do work, or firmly believe that they ...
Read more [Neuroskeptic] 

When is a disease not a disease? Among the Miskito People of eastern Central America, the condition known as "Grisi Siknis" has afflicted dozens, spreading like an epidemic through the population - especially the young. But no medical cause can be established, and no medical treatment has been demonstrated to work reliably. Indeed, the only people who can successfully treat the disease are Miskito herbalists and witch-doctors. The disease shares many common features with a number of mysterious conditions affecting people in the developed world: are these examples of a class of disease ...
Read more [The Lay Scientist] 

[BPSDB] Part Two in an occasional series (I’ve already done a guide to chiropractic) focuses on acupuncture. The origin of acupuncture is difficult to ascertain. It is alleged that acupuncture needles dating back to 3000 B.C. have been found by archeologists in Inner Mongolia. According to Wikipedia: The earliest Chinese medical text that first describes acupuncture is the [...]
Read more [JDC325] 

[bpsdb] The news that the human beings who first arrived in Europe 40,000 years ago were most likely Black with some Asian and African features has been met with alarm and panic among Daily Mail readers, who believe that archeology and anthropology have been caught up in some sort of dark EU funded Ministry of Truth project to force people to accept liberal values and ban wholesome pursuits like gay-hunts and suchlike. The outrage was triggered by an article that appeared yesterday ahead of Dr. Alice Roberts' brilliant-looking new program ("The Incredible Human Journey", BBC2) about the ...
Read more [The Lay Scientist] 

[bpsdb] So "The Amazing Meeting" is coming to London, and I hate to be cynical about it, but the only thing I can see that's particularly amazing is the price. JREF are charging £175 for the privilege of attending, plus a further £25 for the Saturday night events, bringing the total cost to a whopping £200. And it's too much, as the folks over at Bad Science have complained. <!--break--> Now I would happily bet next month's rent that the response to this criticism will be that this is the sort of money that you need to bring in to secure the quality speakers invited, or to get hold ...
Read more [The Lay Scientist] 

So I haven't been blogging as much recently, give a guy a break. As it happens, I've been back on the slab having an open hip debridement to remove 'cam' lesions - basically opening up the hip, dislocating the femur, and removing all the osteophytes (bony growths) on it that were causing pain and restricted movement. Hopefully this will greatly slow the progression of osteoarthritis already apparent in the hip joint.All of which means I have plenty of blogging time to make up for the past month or so, as well as an extremely bruised arse. A friend wryly offered me some arnica ("everyone ...
Read more [Thinking is Dangerous] 

[BPSDB] I was reading some stuff on homeopathy and followed a link to this, Louise Mclean’s “Fifty Facts About Homeopathy”. I’m going to look at the first eleven factoids, subtitled “How Homeopathy Works”. In Fact 1 she states that homeopathy treats the patient using Hippocrates Law of Similars, or like cures like. Two things wrong with this; no evidence in support of the Law of Similars, and Hippocrates never mentioned serial dilutions and succusions. Indeed, Hahnemann only decided that dilutions were the way to go when full strength remedies killed his ...
Read more [Letting Off Steam] 

[bpsdb] Can the use of homeopathy in place of conventional method to treat your kid be a form of child abuse? Yes, as the tragic case of baby Gloria Thomas, another victim of of the delusions of homeopathists will hopefully show. In the last months of her life, baby Gloria Thomas suffered such terrible eczema her skin would weep and peel, sticking to her clothing when she was changed. Despite her bleeding, crying and malnutrition, her mother and homeopath father failed to get conventional medical help before she died a painful death, a Sydney jury has been told. The parents, Thomas Sam ...
Read more [The Lay Scientist] 

Back in March I wrote about a study on the homeoapthic prophylaxis and treatment of dengue fever in Macaé (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil)  It appeared in a re-branded open-access homeopathy journal grandly called the  International Journal of High Dilution Research . It really wasn’t very good and I sent some questions to its author.  He has responded a number of times and seems to be a decent sort.  He cleared up a number of reporting problems with the paper (I’ve put some explanatory notes in the original piece).  Some interesting things have come out of our dialogue.  He confirmed ...
Read more [A canna’ change the laws of physics] 

In my last-post-but-one I slammed the claim that the British are suffering from an epidemic of anxiety disorders. I declared it a myth pushed by the Mental Health Foundation and echoed uncritically by British newspapers (although The Economist has since run a kind-of skeptical piece on it.) But I also promised that there are important lessons to be learned here. So, here we go:The Mental Health Foundation produced a report, In The Face of Fear, which contains various interesting thoughts about the role of fear in public debates. Here's just one:Individually we experience both rational and ...
Read more [Neuroskeptic] 

This article represents an attempt to write something for a general lay audience who might not have an interest in science as such, but who read opinions presented in the press.  Let me know your thoughts… Simon Jenkins is rather missing the point in his criticisms of the WHO and scientists.  It is only because of the vast amounts of public and private funds spent on science and engineering that we can understand the causes of and the cures for influenza. We now have at our fingertips a huge array of tools and technology that allow us to track and follow this outbreak of swine flu as ...
Read more [Gimpy's Blog] 

pj laments that he is one of the few people left who cannot diagnose mental illness in others without the relevant expertise.  Now, according to Guido, diagnosing mental health issues is within the remit of the shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer. Either George Osborne is an exceptionally talented politician with the appropriate diagnostic skills in psychology or a cunt who thinks mental health is an acceptable smear to use when attacking ones political opponents. PS It should be pointed out that Osborne’s wife was the subject of unjustified mental health smears by Damien McBride and ...
Read more [Gimpy's Blog] 

[BPSDB] Patrick Holford has broken his (unaccountable) silence about pandemic fears around Mexico City flu (aka, swine flu). Take vitamin C. Jab more vitamin C into your veins. Black elderberry makes it harder for viruses to enter your cells. Roll up.
Read more [Holford Watch] 

[BPSDB] Men's Health advises its readers to eat vegetables with resistant starch because it is a good dieting aid. Unfortunately, the recipe that they give neglects to mention the important fact that, for potatoes, it is essential that the vegetable should be cooled in order for the resistant starch to form as heating destroys the crystals. Simple dietary messages are easily garbled in the media but journalists and readers blame scientists for any resulting confusion.
Read more [Holford Watch] 

All British journalists are psychotic. Pathologically obsessed with "mental health issues", and suffering from grandiose delusions of their competence to discuss them, these demented maniacs...Sorry. I got a bit carried away there. But you'll forgive me, because I was just following the example of seemingly everyone in the British media these past couple of weeks. If you believe the headlines, we're in the grip of an epidemic of anxiety: BBC: UK society 'increasingly fearful' The Telegraph: Britons 'living in fear' as record numbers suffer from anxiety The Independent: ...
Read more [Neuroskeptic] 

[bpsdb] It's close to becoming a truism now that every unusual event is immediately greeted with a chorus of conspiracy theories, and Swine Flu is no exception. If you want to see some extremely impressive analysis of the situation, then you should head on over to the guys at Effect Measure, who are putting the mainstream media to shame. But the people I'm about to present to you have a rather different take. As an example of just how different this take is, the title of the piece I'm about to quote is "It is Time to Shoot Back." <!--break--> When they start coming for you this time ...
Read more [The Lay Scientist] 

[bpsdb] A little while ago, Jeremy Sherr was interviewed on an online video-cast about homeopathy. Viewers - all seventy of them - were invited to ask questions, posing them in a forum that had been set up for the event. Since I've been following Sherr's activities recently, I thought I'd take the opportunity to ask a couple, but they weren't answered, and after a while I forgot about them. Then Gimpy e-mailed me to say that @lecanardnoir had spotted some answers being posted, and the answers are rather amusing, and more than a little disturbing. The first question I asked referred to a ...
Read more [The Lay Scientist] 

[BPSDB] Science: So What mounts the clown car and shows us what their social media strategy is made of by commenting on one of our previous criticisms and somewhat magnificently failing to understand the point.
Read more [Holford Watch] 

[BPSDB]The Press Complaints Commission has rejected my complaint about the Daily Mail’s HPV scare story. Text of decision (with my comments interjected) follows: The Commission noted the complainant’s concern that the headline “Concerns over safety of cervical cancer vaccine after 1,300 girls experience adverse side effects” was misleading as it gave the false impression that the vaccine had serious side-effects. It also noted his concern that the newspaper had failed to distinguish between conjecture and fact when it had linked the vaccine to severe adverse side ...
Read more [Letting Off Steam] 

[bpsdb] Accounts filed with the Charities Commission and noticed by the Republic blog show that Prince Charles' alternative medicine charity, the Foundation for Integrated Health (from which the problem child OfQuack was spawned) has over a million pounds' worth of investments, including shares in Shell, GlaxoSmithKline and BAE Systems (via the "Artemis UK Special Situations" fund). (HT: @lecanardnoir). read more
Read more [The Lay Scientist] 

[bpsdb] The Independent has a http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/fertility-expert-i-can-clone-a-human-being-1672095.html">rather interesting exclusive today, leading with claims - that the paper believes are backed up - that the controversial fertility doctor Panayiotis Zavos has implanted eleven cloned human embryos (of 14 created) into host wombs. Apparently this took place in a "secret laboratory" in the Middle East. The Indie are reporting this as fact, claiming that: "The cloning was recorded by an independent documentary film-maker who has testified to The Independent that ...
Read more [The Lay Scientist] 

[BPSDB] Lloyds Pharmacy is selling Alli online. Bricks and Mortars pharmacists are encouraged to weigh customers and estimate their BMI: for some people online might seem less embarrassing. However, online drug purchasing is open to abuse.
Read more [Holford Watch] 

[BPSDB] Patrick Holford cites the wrong study in a discussion of antioxidants and asthma which gives rise to the suspicion that he has not read the correct paper. However, he rapidly moves to eulogising the advantages of York Test and supplements for controlling asthma although there is no trial or case-series to support such optimism.
Read more [Holford Watch] 

[bpsdb] You won't hear practitioners say it - it would spoil their underdog, anti-establishment vibe - but alternative medicine is big business, pulling in over US$60billion a year. In many countries, alt med is primary healthcare. Unsurprisingly, those tend not to be the healthiest countries. The thing is, as Tim Minchin astutely observes in his poem 'Storm': "By definition, alternative medicine has either not been proved to work, or been proved not to work. Do you know what they call alternative medicine that's been proved to work? ... Medicine" So why do such lousy treatments remain so ...
Read more [The Lay Scientist] 

[BPSDB] In response to a reader comment, I looked to see whether Durham’s fish oil trial initiative report had been published. When we got a copy of this report through a Freedom of Information request (in October 2008) we were told that this had been passed to Durham’s web team. However, I cannot find [...]
Read more [Holford Watch] 

As promised, I emailed the authors of that Cochrane Review of homeopathy for reducing the side effects of cancer treatment. I asked them to clarify why they had included the Pommier et al trial of Calendula ointment - a decision which attracted some criticism. Their (very prompt) response included this statement:"...We contacted the manufacturer of the calendula ointment and they confirmed that it had been prepared in accordance with the German Homeopathic Pharmacopoeia, therefore the trial met our inclusion criteria..."Which is a reference to the inclusion criteria as set out in their ...
Read more [Neuroskeptic] 

[bpsdb] One of the more fascinating feeds I've found since plunging deeper into Twitters incessant deluge of information and increasing my own presence there, is that of the Pew Research Center. So far this month alone they've published several studies on beliefs that are worth reporting, but for now I'll just deal with one, on Religion and Climate Change read more
Read more [The Lay Scientist] 

[bpsdb] I intended to publish this two months ago and didn't get around to it, but given the recent kerfuffle about the Daily Mail's stance on HPV, I thought I'd drag it out of the archives. It's about fundamentalist "group" Christian Voice, the HPV vaccine, and freedom of speech, and it touches so many of the recurring crank themes out there. The story starts with an innocent, inoffensive little advert in the New Statesman, and includes probably the funniest ever smackdown by the Advertising Standards Agency. read more
Read more [The Lay Scientist] 

According to a BBC headline today, the Cochrane Collaboration says that: Homeopathy 'eases cancer therapy' Wow. The Cochrane Collaboration, the very embodiment of evidence-based medicine, says that homeopathy works! That would really be something to write home about. If it were true. What a recent Cochrane Review, Homeopathic medicines for adverse effects of cancer treatments, in fact concluded was that:This review found preliminary data in support of the efficacy of topical calendula for prophylaxis of acute dermatitis during radiotherapy and Traumeel S mouthwash ...
Read more [Neuroskeptic] 

[BPSDB] Recently I have been mostly reading “Homeopathic Pathogenetic Trials Produce Specific Symptoms Different from Placebo”1 and at first sight the result looks very interesting: homeopathic remedies or placebo were given to healthy volunteers in a double-blinded manner, “proving symptoms” were assigned to their remedies by a materia medica expert, and it turned out that the symptoms matched the remedies the participants were taking. In fact they matched very well: out of the 165 symptoms experienced by the 25 participants during the four day trial, on average ...
Read more [SHPalman's Blog] 

[bpsdb] (For the Ofquack story so far see here.) Back in November 2008, the CNHC - the alternative medicine 'regulators' unaffectionately known to rational folk as 'Ofquack' - had their first quarterly meeting, and published the minutes of it on the internet as part of their continuing commitment to transparency. Then, for reasons no doubt entirely unconnected to the savaging they received, the link to the November minutes was removed from their website (although the actual file is still there). The minutes of the next meeting - on February 19th - failed to materialise, so with the third ...
Read more [The Lay Scientist] 

[BPSDB]The vitamin-peddlar Matthias Rath tried sueing Ben Goldacre and the Guardian newspaper when Ben reported on his activities. As a result, a chapter on Rath had to be cut from the trade paperback edition of his book. It shows what happens when nutritionistas who pander to the Western worried well apply their notions to the Third World. The activities of Rath and his acolytes and the fact that not one alternative practitioner condemned Rath’s activities shows the rotten-ness at the heart of CAM. Ben and his publishers have made the chapter freely available so if you’ve not ...
Read more [Letting Off Steam] 

[BPSDB] Dr Anton Emmanuel sounds an appropriate note of caution about people wasting their money on IgG blood tests for the diagnosis of food intolerance. So, why is he on the expert panel of a charity that promotes those tests?
Read more [Holford Watch] 

[bpsdb] When I blogged about the adventures of homeopath Jeremy Sherr recently, a couple of people leapt to the defense of his dubious trade. In particular, one poster called "Prolix" made the following challenge: "...skeptics fail to report the studies and meta-analyses which report positive outcome The National Center for Homeopathy has compiled a list of them. It's important to look at the evidence BOTH sides of an argument, not just the side you favor." I'm grateful to Prolix, because the resource he cited neatly demonstrates why scientists have so little time for homeopathy, and ...
Read more [The Lay Scientist] 

[BPSDB] Last year, the Dore – which claimed to be able to treat dyslexia and other specific learning difficulties – went into administration in the UK and Australia. Dore UK failed to refund all the money that families had spent on what was promoted – without a good evidence-base – as a miracle cure. [...]
Read more [Holford Watch] 

[BPSDB] Former Visiting Professor Patrick Holford is Head of Science and Education at Biocare so he has a substantial and understandable interest in selling supplements. Creating a large-scale market for supplements depends upon several factors. The factors include convincing people that: they have clinical or ’sub-clinical’ vitamin or mineral deficiencies the food that is commonly available and forms [...]
Read more [Holford Watch] 

[BPSDB] In spite of people saying that the so-called “Biblical Dragon” is an imaginary creature (which it is), Part 6 of Jesus, Dinosaurs, and More boldly asserts that “the Biblical Dragon is a real animal with a firm foundation in reality” while completely ignoring the lack of evidence confirming the dragon to be a real monster. Dragons are mythical, fantastic animals that have captivated people for thousands of years. Every dragon pictured in ancient literature have resembles a snake or a lizard with bat or bird-like wings, two, four, or no limbs, poison or fiery ...
Read more [Stupid Dinosaur Lies] 

[BPSDB] In spite of people saying that the so-called “Biblical Dragon” is an imaginary creature (which it is), Part 6 of Jesus, Dinosaurs, and More boldly asserts that “the Biblical Dragon is a real animal with a firm foundation in reality” while completely ignoring the lack of evidence confirming the dragon to be a real monster. Dragons are mythical, fantastic animals that have captivated people for thousands of years. Every dragon pictured in ancient literature have resembles a snake or a lizard with bat or bird-like wings, two, four, or no limbs, poison or fiery ...
Read more [Stupid Dinosaur Lies] 

[BPSDB] In spite of people saying that the so-called “Biblical Dragon” is an imaginary creature (which it is), Part 6 of Jesus, Dinosaurs, and More boldly asserts that “the Biblical Dragon is a real animal with a firm foundation in reality” while completely ignoring the lack of evidence confirming the dragon to be a real monster. Dragons are mythical, fantastic animals that have captivated people for thousands of years. Every dragon pictured in ancient literature have resembles a snake or a lizard with bat or bird-like wings, two, four, or no limbs, poison or fiery ...
Read more [Stupid Dinosaur Lies] 

[bpsdb] Following the launch of Derek Bartholomaus' Jenny McCarthy Body Count project, The Lay Scientist is proud to announce the release of the Jenny McCarthy / Anti-Vax Body Count Widget. With a few clicks, you can add this to your blog or website, and display the number of deaths and illnesses caused by vaccine-preventable diseases in the United States since June 2007, when McCarthy begame the face of the U.S. anti-vaccine movement. In this manner, we hope to bring home to people in the starkest terms the fact that vaccine preventable diseases like Measles are dangerous. read more
Read more [The Lay Scientist] 

[BPSDB] Otto Weingärtner explains, in the latest issue of J. Alt. Complement. Med.,1 that in clinical trials more accurate results come from those trials which have larger numbers of participants, supporting the methodology of Shang et al..2 Shang et al. ranked trials of both homeopathy and proper medicine according to the “quality” and number of participants, and found that better quality trials of homeopathy with larger numbers of participants tended to show smaller differences between homeopathy and placebo. This is in accordance with Bernoulli's “weak law of ...
Read more [SHPalman's Blog] 

[bpsdb] This is just incredible. The same newspaper that is currently attacking the HPV vaccine in Britain, with stories such as: "How safe is the cervical cancer jab?", is astonishingly campaigning FOR the HPV vaccine in its Irish edition under the following banner: read more
Read more [The Lay Scientist] 

[BPSDB] It really is starting to look like the Daily Mail are actively campaigning against vaccination. This piece, written by Beezy Marsh and Jo McFarlane*, is the first time I’ve heard of these new vaccination fears. Perhaps because (unlike Beezy, I would guess) I don’t call Richard Halvorsen and JABS every time there is a discussion [...]
Read more [JDC325] 

[BPSDB] Moving on to Part 5 of crap-filled one liners this webmaster makes in his Jesus, Dinosaurs, and More site where we find another page of one-liner statements that argues in favor of vegetarianism before the Fall of man, claiming there was no death among animals and people before the Fall. But that’s not all. This whole page seems to be all about a supposed lovey dovey God who never made animals and plants to harm and kill and never waste anything other than all the features so many animals needed to kill and eat, defend themselves against attack, and attract a mate. Then, when ...
Read more [Stupid Dinosaur Lies] 

[bpsdb] In 2007, new blogger Dr*T of the "Thinking is Dangerous" blog suggested the following rule with regard to tabloid headlines: "Any tabloid heading that starts 'Is this....', 'Could this be...' etc. can be safely answered 'No'." This rule has rapidly become accepted by the skeptical community in Britain - a nation terribly afflicted by the tabloid disease - but is it actually accurate? In this special blog edition, I get my nerd hat on and do actual science to test the theory for the special case of the one-time Nazi-supporting Daily Mail. Foundation: read more
Read more [The Lay Scientist] 

Doctored CV (www.DoctoredCV.org.uk) is a new blog created to pull together reports from around the blogosphere which expose the falsehoods and aggrandised CVs of self-proclaimed experts in the public eye. It seemed more than suitable to publicise this new blog in the same week that Dr Joseph Chikelue Obi (for past history of litigious and absurd behaviour see here, here, here and newspaper report here)claims he has beenformally elevated to the Hereditary Scottish Gentry. Professor Obi is to henceforth be formally styled as : The Rt Hon Laird Obi of Kincavel. And many congratulations indeed ...
Read more [Thinking is Dangerous] 

Derek Draper, educationally diminished psychotherapist, is all over the political blogosphere and Sunday papers today (Times and NoTW have all the detail) for his involvement in a campaign, organised by a government official – Damian McBride to smear several opposition politicians over allegations of sexual health problems, drugs and prostitutes, affairs, outing a homosexual, and the mental health of a politicians wife. This blog isn’t particularly interested in the prurient details of the allegations, nor the politics that gave rise to a planned campaign to use them – ...
Read more [Gimpy's Blog] 

[BPSDB] We were fascinated to see that Dr Roy Rutherford (who helped found Dore and is listed as a Medical Consultant there) has now set up the Autism Treatment and Prevention Centre (AUTAP). Given that there is currently very little in the way of proven autism treatments/prevention techniques, we were fascinated to see what they [...]
Read more [Holford Watch] 

[BPSDB] Mumps features in several news reports of the last few days. Measles has had a couple of mentions too. They are in the news because there has been a rise in cases of these preventable diseases recently and further outbreaks are feared. A search of Google News for MMR brings up an article from Pulse [...]
Read more [JDC325] 

Over the past few months the Society of Homeopaths (SoH) have been pitiful in their condemnation of Jeremy Sherr, refusing to condemn the unauthorised experimentation on terminally ill AIDS patients in Tanzania, merely offering up a dishonest press release in response to a Private Eye article. Now I understand why – the Society of Homeopaths and their members control Sherr’s funders, the Homeopathic Action Trust (HAT). HAT was formed from an amalgamation of The Society of Homeopaths Trust Company Limited and Friends of Homeopathy. Both of these organisations were part of the ...
Read more [Gimpy's Blog] 

A friend of mine sent me an advert that appeared in the Daily Mail (don't worry, I used gloves) a few weeks back for Osteo Bi-flex - the number one US joint care brand of placebo pills. You'll be glad to know that it is now available in a "highly innovative, special UK formulation". In fact, they put so much effort into the product, they didn't have time to do the website. I've written many times before about the weird and wonderful product ranges of nonsense for vulnerable arthritis sufferers, desperate to get their hands on something that will relieve the pain without side effect. ...
Read more [Thinking is Dangerous]