Holford Watch: Patrick Holford, nutritionism and bad science

South Africa’s wonderful Treatment Action Campaign has published a statement by the Coalition Against Fraudulent Claims about Medicine on its website. I’ll quote this at length - they respond to Holford better than I could:

HIV/AIDS
Mr Holford has written that “AZT, the first prescribable
anti-HIV drug, is potentially harmful and proving less effective than vitamin
C”. This is false. A trial on HIV-positive pregnant women showed that vitamin C
combined with other nutrients helped slow progression to AIDS, although only
marginally. Numerous trials have shown that combination antiretroviral
treatment, including AZT, restores the health of people with HIV.
Antiretrovirals have side effects but so too do the large doses of vitamin C
recommended by Holford.

AVIAN INFLUENZA (BIRD FLU)
No recorded human cases of Bird Flu have
occurred to date in South Africa. Nevertheless, an outbreak of this disease
would probably cause many deaths. Mr Holford states that it is highly likely
that vitamin C would be effective against bird flu if the dose is high enough.
The World Health Organisation recommends oseltamivir phosphate (Tamiflu) as the
most likely effective treatment for Burd Flu. There is no evidence that Vitamin
C will be effective.

CANCER
Mr Holford claims that Vitamin C supplementation can prolong the lives of
cancer patients four-fold. There is no credible evidence to support this
claim.

Mr Holford appears to base the above claims on in vitro (laboratory
tests outside the human body) or disreputable research. We respectfully ask Mr
Holford to stop making these claims which have the potential to cause people
with life-threatening illnesses to make medically unsound decisions.

One other thing worth noting is Holford’s attempts to qualify his statements re. vitamin C vs AZT. He argues that, while he is claimed to have argued that “vitamin C was more effective in treating Aids than the ARV medication, AZT…This is not true…I have never made this claim…What I have said in the latest edition of my book, the New Optimum Nutrition Bible… is that ‘AZT, the first prescribable anti-HIV drug, is potentially harmful and proving less effective than vitamin C’.”

So Holford does not say that vitamin C is a better treatment than AZT; instead, he says that AZT is proving less effective than vitamin C. This could easily be interpreted as meaning the same thing. If Holford means something different, he really should clarify what he’s saying - this is a very sensitive area of debate in South Africa, and people are currently dying unneccesarily from HIV/AIDs because they do not have access to effective treatment.