badscienceblogs

One of the staples of the Alt Health world is to convince people that all sorts of rather commonplace things are, in fact, bad for you.
The scariest is if something “increase your risk of cancer”. Although heart disease kills more people, cancer tops the list of the diseases people are most scared of, and [...]

I was sleeping, hence I lost. Well, not so much sleeping as working and not so much losing as watching excellent stories appear hither and thither that would have been the bread & butter of blog entries here, being blogged more clearly, more cleverly a…

• Kazimierz Jodkowski, “Spór ewolucjonizmu z kreacjonizmem. Podstawowe pojęcia i poglądy”
• Karl W. Giberson i Donald A. Yerxa, “O gatunkach powstawania. W poszukiwaniu opowieści o stworzeniu”.

Via the badscience forums I was reminded of this video (warning - contains references to paedophilia and the music of James Blunt):Check out some of their others, sad and offensive joke medic songs, nice.

Club Littlegun has a wonderful collection of minature (and some not-so-minature) guns that have been incorporated into every conceivable object. Two of my favourite are below.
This one brings a whole new meaning to the term “pistol whipped”.

And the power of Christ compels just about anyone on the wrong end of this awesome crucifix gun! I [...]

You know, I do not believe that most of the people that feature on this site are fraudsters. No, the truth is far worse than that - most homeopaths, reiki practitioners and herbalists actually believe what they say and that makes then particularly dangerous. But there are people whose motives are particularly hard to believe are just plain deluded. I fear 2008 is going to feature quite a number

Rather busy at the mo, what with the final year of my Phd an all, but I’ve a few things in the pipe line, For instance I’ve been meaning to talk about the whole Scientology thing that’s happening at the minute, but I’ve no time.So during this period I’…

In late October last year I complained to the BBC about a ridiculous advertorial piece that it ran on a pseudoscientific treatment for SAD, or ‘the winter blues’ as the BBC called it.
This puff-piece ran as part of BBC One’s Breakfast News programme; rather conspicuous billing.
The therapy, Lightwave Stimulation (LWS), is obvious nonsense with absolutely [...]

According to a study by Pulse, homeopathy is the highest profile victim of Primary Care Trusts (PCTs) cost effective approach to NHS resources. According to Pulse only 37% of NHS PCTs still have contracts for homeopathic services while a quarter have stopped or reduced funding over the past two years. Pulse suggest that [...]

It seems homeopathy is undergoing a bit of a ‘crisis’ at the moment as NHS Primary Care Trusts move funding away from witchcraft and into evidence-based treatments. From healthcare magazine Pulse:
Homeopathy is becoming the highest profile victim of the Government’s drive to promote cost-effective use of NHS resources, with PCTs across the country stopping [...]

Today, the ASA have ruled against Health Products for Life (HPFL): a supplement company that Patrick Holford (Head of Science and Education at Biocare) sold to Biocare, and which has a website - and sells pills - with a picture of Holford’s face on. Responding to a complaints about a Health Products for Life [...]

Today’s media oulets all seem to be carrying the story that McDonalds is going to be offering A-level equivalent courses. See here, for example.

Dore, the dubious dyslexia people, have recently come under criticism from brainduck and holfordwatch for publishing their research claiming to successfully treat Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASDs) in the mighty Leamington Courier rather than a peer reviewed journal. Holfordwatch and Brainduck are very critical of the research methodology, the sample size and the ethics of [...]

Prof Patrick Holford of Teesside University presents himself as an expert in mental health and nutrition, and a number of bona fide mental health charities - including Mind - are affiliated
with his Food for the Brain charity. I was therefore surprised to hear Holford on BBC London, referring to a schizophrenic client as “crazy”. [...]

Dear Moderators,
Someone posted on your forum last week asking for advice. Their child had been seen by a doctor, who had diagnosed an ear-and-throat infection and prescribed antibiotics. The first response to this post is reproduced below. I’m saddened that moderators of this forum allowed such an ignorant and potentially dangerous response to be posted without making any kind of comment.
We have [...]

Miscellanea: DRM and Your Computer. This design is also available in the store.

You’ve all seen someone blow smoke rings, even if it was only in a movie. Well, the same physics seem to apply underwater. This video appears to show dolphins blowing bubbles underwater, and then using a jet of water to turn them into bubble rings - donut shaped bubbles (or torus-shaped, if you [...]

A quick break from your usual Holford coverage, to note how excited I was when I saw Wynford Dore claiming a number of breakthroughs in understanding and treating of Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASDs). However, when I followed the link he gave - expecting to find an article in a journal like Nature Neuroscience or [...]

Professor Patrick Holford of Teesside University frequently upbraids professionals and researchers for what he perceives as their lack of up-to-date research. Yet, he reaffirms that he has concerns about the MMR vaccine-he raises scientific concerns that have been comprehensively debunked for some time.

Holford recommends that you should consult a nutritional therapist before vaccinating children and should consider a recovery programme based on supplements and tests for which there is no scientific support.

It’s a bit old now, but it’s something I’ve been meaning to blog as part of my apparently ongoing project to document and mock everything the new, crazy Pope says and does wrong from the moment of his appointment to shortly after the moment of his death, after which (much as he thinks otherwise) he [...]

It’s not just bad clinical CAM trials that can mislead; it’s also the positive spin put on good ones with negative outcomes.
In some recent correspondence R. Barker Bausell, author of the compelling “Snake Oil Science - The Truth About Complementary and Alternative Medicine“, provides an instructive example.
It’s a bit of a retrospective: this study and the [...]

Professor Patrick Holford of Teesside University frequently upbraids professionals and researchers for what he perceives as their lack of up-to-date research. Yet, he reaffirms that he has concerns about the MMR vaccine-he raises scientific concerns that have been comprehensively debunked for some time.

Holford recommends that you should consult a nutritional therapist before vaccinating children and should consider a recovery programme based on supplements and tests for which there is no scientific support.

Former director of the University of Maryland’s alternative medicine centre, R Barker Bausell (featured in the Baltimore Sun on 24th January) has a book out called Snake Oil Science.

Joseph Chikelue Obi MD MPH FRIPH FRCAM FACAM MICR is very obviously a fantasist quack who has been sacked for professional misconduct and suspended by the GMC, taken advantage of a poor widow and is in charge of an imaginary college amongst other misdeeds. So why bother with such an obvious charlatan? [...]

Holford Watch makes a critical appraisal of the literature review in the Food for the Brain Child Survey September 2007. Holford and Fobbester claim that there are studies that indicate that food and chemical sensitvities are more common among children with ADHD or behavioural difficulties. However, the references that they give can not support these assertions. There are presently no grounds to justify the generalisation of research findings for very specific groups of children to the wider population.

The results of this FFTB report and its literature overview do not put forward a robust scientific case for a change in public policy or dietary recommendations that affect the general population of children.

So, another vague and preposterous legal threat and my web hosts have caved like bullied ginger children. Pages have been taken down and then immediately duplicated to over 30 (at last count) web sites all over the world. The web tends to react like that.

This situation will not last. The Society of Homeopaths did not get away with it and nor will more minor bullies. To be told to remove a web

‘Professor’ Obi is, in my book, amazing for two reasons: first the extensive claims he makes for himself; second that he thought it was a good idea to threaten the quackometer blog when it made some wholly legitimate critical comments.
So, what does this man claim?  Here is a selection of the ‘information’ available on the web.

He [...]

Andy Lewis at the Quackometer clearly seems to be skilled at infuriating dodgy ‘doctors’. His ISP, Netcetera, has caved in to ridiculous threats to sue to the tune of $1 million dollars a day(!) from one Mr Joseph Chikelue Obi, a fraudulent, disgraced ex-doctor. In the spirit of freedom of speech on [...]

You may recall, some time ago, a blog called Quackometer had to remove a page about the Society of Homeopaths because the Society of Homeopaths* threatened his hosting company with legal action. Well, he’s in trouble again. Just the other day, his godawful web hosts, Netcetera (you may have noticed some more Google- than user-oriented [...]