Holford Watch: Patrick Holford, nutritionism and bad science

A long time ago, MythBusters tested a scenario that recreated the classic vandalised police car scene from American Graffiti (it involved a chain being passed round the rear axle and being attached to a post). Adam Savage was brought to book by the camera crew for misremembering his predictions of the probability of the axle being ripped out of the car. When Savage was confronted with the video evidence of his errors and his revised estimates of the probability, he famously riposted: “I reject your reality and substitute my own”.

Professor Patrick Holford seems to be pursuing a similar line of defence (JKN as previous version on Holford site has disappeared). The University of Teesside must be delighted to have one of their flagship attention-generators espousing his somewhat odd take on reality so publicly.

[Dr Goldacre] spends most of his time trying to persuade people that nutritional therapy, and most complementary medicine is a sham, that MMR vaccines, EMRadiation, GM foods etc are all safe and that vaccine damage is a myth. He rides a high horse flying the banner of ‘science’ in his Bad Science column while carefully avoiding any of the real prescribing scandals, despite having them pointed out to him.

Does he really? That must be rather depressing for Goldacre’s NHS patients and colleagues. Not to mention his academic colleagues and fellow researchers. Holford is showing as much familiarity with Goldacre’s corpus of work as he does with the average body of literature that he claims to know intimately. E.g., just flicking through the Bad Science site, we refer you to the fine collection of posts on regulating research; a selection of individual posts on Testing Treatments, the harmful effects of a desire for miracle pill stories rather than rigorous examination of complex problems with complex solutions, the unaffordability of protease inhibitors for poor countries with high rates of HIV infection, and a warning about medicalisation, direct-to-consumer advertising, and the influence of these on prescription habits. There are probably more, but, unlike Holford we make no pronouncements on the comprehensive nature of Goldacre’s corpus of work nor our familiarity with it.

As far as we can tell after a quick search of Bad Science, Holford also reframes and mis-characterises Goldacre’s writing on GM foods. E.g., Scary Potatoes: it is quite clear that Goldacre is criticising the media frenzy about Pusztai and, later, the supposedly cancer-causing potatoes.

I’m no friend of big biotech. I think GM has created a dangerous powershift in agriculture in the favour of multinational biotechnology corporations, and “terminator seeds”, which die at the end of the season, are a venal way to increase farmers’ dependency. Monsanto are clearly a nasty company (apart from anything else they made Agent Orange).

So I’m cautious about GM, and each crop needs to be assessed on a case by case basis, but they seem safe overall. If there’s something new and frightening, then I want to see it published, in full, so we can all sit down and get frightened by it together, on the basis of well conducted research that we can see and read.

And, by the by, where is Holford’s high quality evidence that would prove his implicit assertions that MMR is not safe? [1]

So, we are loth to appear distrustful, but Holford’s track record means that Holford Watch would look out of the window to check first before following a Holford recommendation that we need an umbrella. You mileage may vary.

On the subject of nutritional medicine, [Goldacre] has never engaged me in any debate that could be deemed scientific or remotely objective. As you will see if you read the e-book he usually gets the science wrong. When he has implied that something I have said is wrong, and been corrected by the author of the paper I’ve quoted, he has refused to acknowledge his mistake.

Well, we don’t know what Goldacre thinks, but Holford Watch is not sanguine that Holford is a reliable witness to the relevance or significance of scientific evidence. Holford regularly mis-cites references or errs in his interpretation of science or journal articles. And, we do wonder if Holford shares a common understanding of the normal discourse of scientific debate or the exchange of ideas.

To be blunt, there are times when Holford plays semantic games with his corrections that are meaningful to him and nobody else. Here, we have in mind something like the nonsense over his claims relating to the relative merits of AZT and vitamin C for the treatment of HIV. Holford admits that he cites the wrong paper, corrects the citation in the reference section of the book when it is re-printed but fails to amend the text in the chapter where he makes a particularly egregious assertion that AZT “is proving less effective than vitamin C”. He also fails to emphasise, in situ, that he is discussing in vitro studies, rather than trials in people. And then, like a supremely sulky Achilles who has been abstaining from the skirmish, Holford starts issuing combat challenges about how he is really right and other people are wrong for failing to acknowledge this pale simulacra of a correction. Seriously, if Holford is unable to grasp this point, his publishers need to point out that he should re-write the text in the body of the book.

It seems that some gullible types, who may have some partial reading comprehension problems, are taken in by this nonsense; e.g., ‘Hickory’ who claims to use high-dose vitamin C with HIV+ clients. Astonishingly, Hickory, like Holford, mistakenly reframes Goldacre’s criticism of the Holford interpretation of Jariwalla’s study as a criticism of Jariwalla’s work. Goldacre has consistently and repeatedly stated that he criticises the Holford interpretation of Jariwalla’s work. As far back as January 2005, Goldacre wrote:

But is the Jariwalla paper Bad Science? No. I don’t think a paper ever can be. The meat of a paper is the methods and results section. In the discussion at the end, granted, things sometimes go a bit weird. But the meat of a paper honestly and accurately describes an experiment and its results…

Jariwalla’s paper is useless as supporting evidence to Holford’s statement. It is excellent evidence for lots of other statements. [Emphasis added.]

In general, it seems unedifying and unhelpful to debate someone who believes in their own rhetorical brilliance (aka, shifting goal-posts and failures of understanding) and takes it upon himself to question other people’s scholarship while manifestly displaying poor scholarship that has been documented in detail. Being upbraided by Holford on such matters is the approximate equivalent to being lectured by Jordan on the need for decorum and bodily modesty. Holford’s recent tantrums have revealed much about Holford’s typical strategies. More than ever, it seems incomprehensible that Holford should have any standing with mainstream media.

If you will indulge us by reading one more remark from Holford’s account of why he did not participate in the Radio 4 programme:

The approach from Radio 4 was quite aggressive and suggested a preconceived agenda to trash nutritional therapy with a highly-biased presenter, who has won numerous awards funded by the big pharmaceuticals. [1]

We strongly suggest that Holford should have a chat with Jerome Burne, his co-author on Food Is Better Medicine Than Drugs. You see, one of those Science Writer awards, one of the ones that is “funded by the big pharmaceuticals”, it turns out that Burne wanted one. In 2005 (oddly, at the time when Burne was collaborating with Holford) both Burne and Goldacre were shortlisted for the award and Goldacre won.

Apparently, Adam Savage printed up a T-shirt with “I reject your reality and substitute my own” and wore it on subsequent instalments of Mythbusters. Those T-shirts could become very popular, very soon…

Update July 15: It seems that the original of the page has disappeared or been modified so we have replaced it with the JKN version. Original link.
We should mention that Holford is now a former Visiting Professor at the University of Teesside, following his resignation.

Notes

[1] We are familiar with what passes for “hard evidence” on this topic with Holford but it really does not stand up to any scrutiny: MMR and What Passes for Hard Evidence. Holford’s spirited defence of Andrew Wakefield reveals less about Wakefield’s work and more about Holford’s lack of understanding of that research or subsequent developments (Parts 1 and 2).

[2] Holford makes more intemperate comments along the same lines but, for reasons of decorum, that page really is unquotable. It does, however, go into amusing length about that award. One must wonder how the compiler of that screed feels about Holford’s collaboration with Burne.