I had high hopes for the government’s Science: So What? So Everything campaign – a good science communication initiative would be very welcome. However, its recent Shape of Jobs to Come PR splash has heavily promoted strikingly poor research – even quoting Gordon Brown and Lord Drayson in support of this research! Most worryingly, the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) – who run Science: So What? – continue to insist that this research is ‘rigorous and credible’, even after major flaws in the research have been made clear to them. This raises serious questions about whether BIS understand what constitutes good research and/or whether they care about this. Promoting bad research in the name of science communication is likely to be counterproductive. Keep reading →
January 21, 2010
Patrick Holford: Why Did BBC Oxford Radio Give Him Free Advertising?
BBC Radio Oxford broadcast an infomercial for Patrick Holford’s books and his commercial diet programme (transcript below). BBC i) did not invite any experts to discuss Holford’s diet or claims, ii) question whether the ‘free diet trial’ involved purchasing supplements or blood tests iii) ask for details of the ’science’ that he claims supports his advice. Keep reading →
January 14, 2010
Not-so-super Times article on Holford and superfoods
We were disappointed to see Peta Bee in the Times with an article on “Anti-ageing superfoods”: giving an article over to the uncritical discussion of some of Holford’s dietary beliefs. It’s worth quickly going through some of the problems with the article here. Keep reading →
January 9, 2010
Thomas Lodi, An Oasis of Healing, cancer and threats of legal action
Apparently the company ‘An Oasis of Healing‘ has written to the excellent My Malignant Melanoma blog – asking that a blog about Thomas Lodi is removed and saying they will be “forced to take legal action” if the post is not removed. It therefore seems like a good time to look at some of the claims made by An Oasis of Healing (founded by Lodi).
The company claims to help “cancer patients and their families learn to re-establish health”. The first of the ‘three pillars’ of this is to “Stop Making Cancer“. On a fairly random basis, I’ll look at the evidence-base for their first five “Treatments that we use to help you Stop Making Cancer” Keep reading →
December 28, 2009
Paul Flynn MP on Dore and the ASA
It has been nice to see a lot ofgood coverage of the recent Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) upholding of my complaint against Dore. One more forum to add to the list is Paul Flynn MP’s excellent blog: Flynn discusses how Dore “has been resurrected” and reminds readers of last year’s Early Day Motion about Dore.
December 26, 2009
Holford: “Research has shown that women in particular tend to put on 7 pounds a year”
In the holiday season, people often worry about weight gain. I’m not sure that things quite add up with Holford’s blog’s contribution to the discussion, though. A contributor has blogged that
Research has shown that women in particular tend to put on 7 pounds a year. This steady weight gain is often linked to the excesses of the festive season, which are not discontinued come January, so more weight piles on year after year.
Assuming that a women starts out at 150lb at 18, a steady weight gain of 7lb/year would mean that she reached 500lb by her 68th birthday. This type of sustained weight gain is – clearly – unusual. While I am not sure on what research ‘has shown’ this level of weight gain, I suspect that things may be rather more complicated than the blog post suggests.
December 17, 2009
Dore media and blog coverage
After Wednesday’s ASA ruling, it’s great to see Dore starting to get some critical publicity. The Sun’s Jane Symons reports that
Professor Maggie Snowling, a literacy expert based at York University, has analysed the trial most often used by promoters of the programme. She said: “There were no significant improvements on the key tasks of reading and writing. The improvements were in things like threading beads.”
Shirley Cramer of the charity Dyslexia Action welcomed the ruling. “The ASA have looked carefully at the evidence, which is what we have done. Scientists have said you cannot make claims on the basis of this flimsy evidence.”
She said that parents found paid-for internet links particularly confusing as many did not realise they were in effect advertisements.
“A lot of parents use the internet to research these problems, but one of the worrying things with this sort of commercial stuff is that parents often find it difficult to tell what is legitimate and what’s not.”
In the past she says the charity has been “innundated” with calls from people who felt let down after spending thousands on the controversial courses.
She added that personalised exercises can help some people with dyspraxia – but these are available on the NHS.
The Mirror reports that
the Advertising Standards Authority has asked Dynevor to stand up its claims.
The firm sent two studies but the ASA ruled both flawed and said the online plugs were misleading.
December 17, 2009
ASA: Dore advert is “misleading” and breaches rules on “truthfullness” and “substantiation”
I was delighted to see that the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has upheld a complaint of mine about Dore’s advertising. I complained about an advert referring to “help with Dyslexia, ADHD, Dyspraxia or Asperger’s”. The ASA has reviewed the evidence Dore submitted to support their claims, and found that:
the evidence was inadequate to support claims to treat those [Aspergers Syndrome and dyspraxia]. With regards to dyslexia and ADHD, we did not consider that the studies were sufficiently robust to support the treatment claims for those conditions, and we therefore concluded that the claim was misleading.
The ad breached CAP Code clauses 3.1 (Substantiation), 7.1 (Truthfulness) and 50.1 (Health and beauty products and therapies).
I am delighted that the ASA has made such a firm ruling. Keep reading →
December 11, 2009
Steiner Academy Hereford and access to computers
Catherine Payer’s TES article on Steiner education providing “ethos that fosters humanity” prompted me to take a quick look at the Steiner Academy Hereford (the UK’s only state-funded Steiner school). I was disappointed to find some rather misguided ideas about human-computer interaction. Their Home-School Agreement asks parents to commit to
Protecting my/our child from unsuitable and unwarranted access to some of the concerns and worries of the adult world and from unmonitored exposure and un-mediated access to media such as television and DVD, computer games, internet chat-rooms and so on. Medical research shows that screen-based activity such as TV, videos, films and computer games can have a negative effect on children (brain activity, concentration, heart-beat, emotional balance and well-being). The younger the child, the greater the effect. For the well-being of your child and their ability to access the education and programme of teaching and learning, please allow no regular screen-based activity/watching for under 8s, no more than 3 hours a week for 9 to 14s and moderate and selective use for young people aged 15 and over. Please try to make sure TVs and computers are not kept in your child’s room so that his/her bedroom is free to be a place of rest and comfort. (Further reading ‘Remote Controlled’ by Dr Aric Sigman & ‘Toxic Childhood’ by Sue Palmer, amongst others)
This is troubling for a number of reasons Keep reading →
November 29, 2009
Science So What? So disappointing
We have previously blogged about some of the problems with the government’s Science So What? So Everything campaign, and were pleased to see plans to revise the campaign in response to some of the criticisms. The site has now relaunched and – while it looks rather slicker and functions better in many ways – a number of aspects of the site remain disappointing. Lord Drayson has asked for feedback on the site, and 2020 Science have raised some interesting questions. This therefore seems a good time to look at the new site.
I have a number of concerns about the site: including accessibility, some poor quality content, and poor use of social media. I will discuss some specific issues here, to illustrate some of the broader problems with the site Keep reading →
