Holford Watch: Patrick Holford, nutritionism and bad science

Prof. David Colquhoun FRS Vs. Patrick Holford DipION (Hon)

September 17, 2007 · 2 Comments

Prof. Colquhoun has recently posted about a “threatening letter” from Holford. Holford also wrote to Holford Watch, alleging the Prof. Colquhoun made “false claims”, and referring to the possibility that Holford might make a future complaint against us. With this in mind, we wouldn’t dream of reproducing these controversial claims here. Instead, we’ll just link to where Prof Colquhoun discusses the issue on his blog: Colquhoun’s response to Patrick Holford. In the interests of balance, we would also link to any discussion of this issue on Holford’s site - but as far as I can tell there isn’t any.

When deciding who to trust, it might be useful to know a few facts about both parties. David Colquhoun is an emeritus professor at UCL, a Fellow of the Royal Society, and does not have competing interests in the drug industry. Patrick Holford has an honorary DipION (awarded from an Institute that he founded, while he was director), is an honorary fellow of BANT, and has recently signed a £400k+ deal with Biocare. Although Holford has had some serious problems with statistics, maths and interpreting scientific research, we believe that he did graduate with a BSc from York (receiving a 2:2 for his efforts) notwithstanding some confusion over dates.

Naturally, we would encourage readers to consider all ideas critically - regardless of how well-respected the source. We will therefore leave readers to judge for themselves whether Prof Colquhoun or Mr Holford offers more reliable information on this issue.

Categories: David Colquhoun · patrick holford

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