Holford Watch: Patrick Holford, nutritionism and bad science

Here at HolfordWatch, we are a bit puzzled as to Holford’s position at Teesside: it is no longer clear whether or not he is visiting professor of nutrition at the University. As far was we know, Holford’s appointment was in Teesside’s school of Social Sciences and law. As HolfordMyths notes, Teesside previously told Holford that he should “not use the title of “Visiting Professor in Mental Health & Nutrition”. (more…)

Dear Vice-Chancellor Terence Kealey,

Your comment piece in The Times triggered some tristesse: The limitations of peer review. If Eddie ‘The Eagle’ Edwards had been capable of making leaps on a similar scale to yours then Britain’s medal haul in the Winter Olympics would be a cause for celebration rather than derision. (more…)

Skeptical Alchemist Steppen W is on the lookout for hosts for the new Molecular and Cell Biology Carnival. This is a compilation of the best posts on molecular and cell biology and is just finding its feet as one of the latest special-interest carnivals.

It is well worth supporting. Take a look at the criteria and contact Steppen. In these early stages, Steppen is interested in rotating the carnival round a number of different, non-specialised blogs to spread awareness of it. Hosting a carnival is a good way of attracting new traffic to your blog. The next edition is May 11 and Steppen would like to hear from potential hosts.

Read all about it: science carnival looking for hosts.

In yesterday’s Telegraph, Damian Thompson asks whether we’re seeing “The last rites for alternative medicine?” For Thomson

CAM’s [Complementary and Alternative Medicine's] real problem…is shortage of proof. The information technology brilliantly exploited by unorthodox therapies is now being harnessed to spread the inconvenient truth that most of them don’t work. Sceptics in the blogosphere have assembled a global daisy-chain of links exposing the falsehoods of alternative practitioners.

Interestingly, Thompson believes that media nutritionists such as Prof Patrick Holford of Teesside University (and - in particular - Holford’s unjustified support for Wakefield’s bad science) have played an important role in CAM’s problems (more…)

You may remember that Miriam Barry of the Irish Association of Nutritional Therapy (IANT) offers a Response to the recent media coverage regarding antioxidants. She opens her response with these words:

As nutritional therapists we feel compelled to give the public the facts of this case. Please click here to inform yourself of the facts regarding this study.

(more…)

Despite the general low standard of responses to the recent Cochrane review on antioxidants and mortality, Holford characteristically manages to stand out from the crowd. Aside from errors already discussed on this site, Professor Patrick Holford of Teesside University makes a very striking error about antioxidant side effects: he claims that

“there are no known or reported short-term side effects of antioxidants”.

This is simply wrong, at a very basic level. (more…)

Miriam Barry of the Irish Association of Nutritional Therapy (IANT) offers a Response to the recent media coverage regarding antioxidants. She opens her response with these words:

As nutritional therapists we feel compelled to give the public the facts of this case. Please click here to inform yourself of the facts regarding this study.

All of which is rather promising but quickly falls into something more akin to something Jonathan Aitken would have said, although the rhetoric is less stirring than the memorable “sword of truth and trusty shield of fair play”. Barry’s piece is short but contains so many distortions that it would be both tedious and unreadable to deal with them all. (more…)

Kathleen Seidel prevails. She has successfully quashed the absurd Shoemaker subpoena that triggered an outpouring of support for neurodiversity.com and its own I’m Kathleen movement. (more…)

BANT has a sufficiently flexible code of ethics that nutritional therapists are allowed to earn commission from selling tests and pills. That in itself is not particularly striking. What is unusual is that the therapist is under no obligation to declare this commission to the client (pdf):

In addition to supplying supplements as an integral part of a consultation, the Member may also act as a supplier of laboratory tests, or any other products related to Nutritional Therapy. The member may choose to benefit from trade discounts and commission payments when offered by the supplier on products purchased by him for such use. The member decides whether such payments, in whole or in part, are retained in his Nutritional Therapy business, or passed onto the client. [pg. 9; S 7.3 a); emphasis added.]

(more…)

Occasionally, we are accused of mocking industry claims for their supplement pills. However, we could never do that: the supplement pill industry has moved far beyond any kind of satire. Today, the Health Food Manufacturers Association (HFMA) proudly responded to a Cochrane review on antioxidants and mortality [PDF] by announcing that

Sir Cliff Richard, Gloria Hunniford…and Carole Caplin have joined health industry experts in rejecting the widely publicised antioxidant review and reassuring consumers that concerns over these supplements are unfounded… (more…)