Holford Watch: Patrick Holford, nutritionism and bad science

Patrick Holford is tremendously proud of what he believes Food for the Brain (FFTB) accomplished during their collaboration with Chineham Park Primary School. So much so that, to the fair-minded, it seems as if he is perilously close to neglecting to acknowledge the tremendous achievements that the Chineham Park Primary School had made prior to the implementation of the project.

Of course, Patrick Holford is a byword for accidental misrepresentation in some parts. E.g., Why IgG Testing for Food Intolerance Is Not As Simple As ABC or Doh Ray Mi
Statins and Why Patrick Holford Is Breaking My Heart: Part 2
Never Mind the Research Quality, Feel the Fear: Justifying Homocysteine Tests
Upbraiding Prof Colquhoun for failing to declare a conflict of interest when Colquhoun didn’t have any. Oops, not that Holford has apologised or retracted or any comparably classy action.

Is playing down the relevant achievements of others a previously-unrecognised aspect of Holfordism and nutritionism? For the Holford Watch take on the achievements of Chineham Park Primary School and the involvement of FFTB, please read:
How much money has Food for the Brain taken from our schools?
Food for the Brain Results on Trevor MacDonald 13 July
Food for the Brain Results on Trevor Macdonald: Part 2
Food for the Brain Results on Trevor Macdonald: Part 3
Should you let a ‘nutrional therapist’ treat your children?

You may be proud of the staff, headmistress, children, parents and the mentors who participated in their reading schemes; you may be interested to learn about just how much they were already achieving before the FFTB project was implemented in Chineham Park Primary. E.g., business and community involvement; a doubling in SATs scores; good participation in the reading schemes with implications for future SAT scores. The school had already moved up from the lowest 50 of 13,562 schools and was out of the bottom 200. Those admirable reading schemes and other interventions were already paying-off in terms of SATs results and gave the school a broader population of pupils who were achieving more than before while students who had benefited from those schemes were ageing-out and moving on to another school.

Further reading on Food for the Brain:

What Is Wrong With Food for the Brain?
Food For The Brain: What Is the Evidence for Allergy or Intolerance Testing in Children
Update on Food for the Brain’s Evidence for Allergy and Intolerance Testing in Children
Food for the Brain promotes an autism-gut seminar that seems to rely heavily upon the discredited findings of Wakefield

Would it be really unkind to mention Patrick Holford’s odd ideas about appropriate vaccination strategies for children? Or Holford’s support for Dr Andrew Wakefield’s discredited findings, Part 1, Part 2 and honorary Part 3? Support that extends to exhorting others to sign a petition in support of Andrew Wakefield (and here) but not actually signing it himself (certainly not the last few times we checked).

After all that heavy reading, you might want to remind yourself of Patrick Holford’s other gifts, such as tap-dancing around the status of his qualification in nutrition during an interview for the Late Late Show; not to mention his undoubted skills as an international bowel-whisperer and vitamin entrepreneur.

Click on the image for I can has cheezburger? detail.