Former Visiting Professor Patrick Holford is still Head of Science and Education at Biocare so presumably they must believe that he enhances their reputation and scientific credibility, particularly with his ready access to the GMTV couch and the producers of Tonight with Sir Trevor McDonald.
I’m realistic enough to know that my weakness for Sachertorte and good bread are two very good reasons that I should never take up residence in Germany. However, in the light of the recent sacking of a nutritionist by a TV station for the appearance of a conflict of interest I might re-consider.
Access to a TV audience is a very valuable commodity: it increases pundit brand equity and can lead to increased book sales and sales of related products. It seems that people trust editorial more than advertising because the perception is that the material overcame close scrutiny to make it into the main part of the paper/broadcast, rather than purchasing advertising space.[a] In Germany, they are so serious about deserving the trust of their viewers that a TV station has sacked its nutritionist because of concerns about the appearance of a conflict of interest and product placement following a disparity between what the nutritionist had told them (in writing) about his relationship with a particular company (former advertising and PR contract that is no longer current or a source of income) and what that company confirmed (current contract for consultancy and they paid him). What would they make of the GMTV pundits?
ARD fires TV-Star Bankhofer
Hademar Bankhofer is popularly known as “Mr. Gesundheit” or “Mr Health” in Germany and has quite a following. He has had a regular slot with ARD/WDR (similar in status to the BBC) as a Health Expert. Hademar Bankhofer has a contract as a consultant with the pharmaceutical firm MCM Klosterfrau that also sells vitamins and supplements. WDR is sensitive to any allegations that they are being used to promote the sales of supplements or plug particular products so they have fired Bankhofer without notice. Mr Health denies the accusations and any impropriety.
There is a stirring account of the story for those who read German: for those who don’t, there is a fabulously poor translation of the page via Google but I have to admit to a sneaking fondness for the rendition of MCM Klosterfrau as “MCM monastery woman”.
GMTV embraces health punditry
Some readers might recall a thorough exploration of Patrick Holford’s sales techniques masquerading as education or health advice and whether they conform to the BANT code of ethics. Highlights of the analysis were that Holford:
- recommended IgG tests; an expensive diagnostic test that has no proven value for diagnosing food intolerance and that has been explicitly deprecated by a House of Lords’ Special Committee and criticised by the ASA
- repeatedly referred questioners to his own books and website
- suggested the use of supplements for which there is no evidence base for the conditions for which he recommended them and for which he has his own range
- advised people to seek the help of one of his nutritionists or to attend the Brain Bio Centre for which he is a director
- repeatedly seemed to breach BANT’s own ethics code, a code that is already notoriously pliable in some matters, such as commission.
You might also recall the segment that Patrick Holford did with Dr Sarah Jarvis in which there was a negligible interval before he started to promote unproven supplements for the management of diabetes type 2.
Watch the entire segment in which Holford and Jarvis discuss diabetes management; read some discussion and analysis, Part 1 and Part2. Plus, the full story of the lack of an appropriate evidence-base to support Holford’s recommended supplements.
Yet, GMTV has no no qualms allowing Holford unfettered access to their sofas to spread mis-information to their audience: access that has the potential to net books sales and commission for him. As per the Jarvis video, Holford is allowed to appear with bottles of supplements on the table in front of him. Whether we like to acknowledge it or not, media exposure does have an impact. As Dr Ben Goldacre highlighted recently, the NYT was the subject of the fascinating Phillips et al study: Importance of the lay press in the transmission of medical knowledge to the scientific community.[1] Goldacre wrote:
Phillips et al showed, in a seminal paper from the New England Journal of Medicine in 1991, that if a study was covered by The New York Times, it was significantly more likely to be cited by other academic papers. Was coverage in the NYT just a surrogate marker for the importance of the research? History provided the researchers with a control: for 3 months, large parts of the NYT went on strike, and while the journalists did produce an “edition of record”, this was never published. They wrote stories about academic research, using the same criteria of importance as ever: the research they wrote about, in articles which never saw the light of day, saw no increase in citations.
People read newspapers. Despite everything we think we know, their contents seep in, we believe them to be true, and we act upon them.
So, whether somebody is seeking to increase their pundit brand equity or to raise the profile of an academic paper, it is significant if something is cited in the NYT. GMTV is not the NYT but it does have access to an audience that GMTV is treating with less respect than ARD/WDR does its audience.
In 2000 Pareek and Pattison assessed The two-dose measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) immunisation schedule: factors affecting maternal intention to vaccinate (pdf).[2] They revealed that:
Mothers consulted a wide variety of sources to obtain general information about the MMR vaccine, including health professionals, friends, family, and the media…In contrast, mothers predominantly acquired their information about the side effects of the MMR vaccine from various sections of the media rather than from health professionals, with television the most commonly cited source of information about side-effects (31.4% in Group 1 and 37.9% in Group 2).
TV is disproportionately powerful in propagating health scares. When GMTV allows Holford and similar pundits the air time to offer unfounded criticisms of systematic reviews or criticise medical management of chronic diseases with only a distorted evidence-base to support him, then they are perpetrating a great disservice to their audience. GMTV shares the blame for allowing self-styled nutritionists to confuse their audience with pseudoscience and inaccurate information. British TV audiences deserve informed health commentary - they deserve better than Patrick Holford or pundits of tat ilk.
Notes
[a] Advertising equivalents are a frequent topic for discussion. Proving the value of public relations gives a good overview of the current state of this discussion: Advertising Value Equivalents Revisited.
References
[1] Phillips DP, Kanter EJ, Bednarczyk B, Tastad PL. Importance of the lay press in the transmission of medical knowledge to the scientific community. N Engl J Med. 1991 Oct 17;325(16):1180-3.
[2] Pareek M, Pattison HM. The two-dose measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) immunisation schedule: factors affecting maternal intention to vaccinate. Br J Gen Pract. 2000 Dec;50(461):969-71.
10 responses so far ↓
Mary Parsons // July 26, 2008 at 5:45 pm
I wish GMTV would take an ethical stand with their pundits. They diseasemonger, mislead and frighten people and it isn’t GMTV that has to pick up the cost of rectifying this. It’s extra GP appointments to reassure people - it’s the time that properly-qualified RDs like Catherine Collins have to spend disabusing people of the nonsense that they have picked up from TV, books and magazines.
I would applaud GMTV if they undertook that they would never again allow an uncredentialled and inappropriate pundit to talk about health. In addition to that, I would like their appropriately-qualified people like Dr Hilary Jones to be upfront about whether they have conflicts of interest or whether they are recommending a product (like the YorkTest food intolerance test) that is criticised by real experts, never mind the additional criticism of the House of Lords, the Advertising Standards Authority and so forth.
UK dietitian // July 26, 2008 at 6:00 pm
It’s not only GMTV that pushes Patrick to the masses. If his promotional staff at Holford HO haven’t managed to secure sufficient media coverage that public attention may slip, Patrick is quite willing to roll up his sleeves and do it himself.
Just note the number of ‘Patrick Holford’ placed YouTube videos of adverts promoting (cough) Patrick in His Big South Africa Pill Pushing Expedition.
Patrick and his vitamins needed on your wedding day, Patrick’s vitamins needed when your kiddy collects the post, Patrick’s vitamins needed when you cuddle a baby, Patrick’s vitamins needed when you walk along the road…..
Not sure which is more nauseating - the adverts, or the Big Yin himself.
Admin edit: we’ve decided to be unkind enough to link to one of those adverts.
Wulfstan // July 26, 2008 at 6:40 pm
Mary, it’s frequently said that papers and TV would rarely try to use someone to comment on finance or football if they knew nothing about the subject. I don’t know why they think that uninformed correspondents are OK for health issues.
UKdietitian, I only know that Patrick Holford’s advertising slots have the sort of music that is popular on Radio 2 but I will take your word that it would not be good for me to investigate any further.
We must all feel for South Africa under the circumstances. But the (admittedly few) South Africans that I’ve known all strike me as so level-headed that I can’t begin to understand his popularity. Or why he would be a suitable person to advertise on the TV (presumably, that is where those videos air?).
jonhw // July 27, 2008 at 12:05 am
That advert. Ugh. Ugh. Ugh.
I think I need a natural remedy after watching that - what’s the nutritional status of fermented organic apple juice?
UK dietitian // July 27, 2008 at 10:11 am
fermented organic apple juice?
thats called ‘cider’ or ‘cyder’, innit?
recommended for its yummy taste (but obviously not to excess). No awful sickly aftertaste.
A ‘perfick’ antidote to too much Holford
Wulfstan // July 27, 2008 at 3:37 pm
Supporting the consumption of cider. That’s just you dietitians to a t isn’t it. Always on the look out to add sensible moderation and enjoyment to people’s lives instead of grabbing the market opportunity for spreading guilt and ’slippery slope to addiction’ panic. [/sarcasm]
Pear juice - fermented or not. Yum.
How should they signal conflicts of interest for pundits? A verbal disclaimer that the interviewer accepts and doesn’t question or a message that stays up on the screen like the small-print in adverts (not that that would help me or anybody with poor sight).
TEP // July 30, 2008 at 10:15 am
I for one will not miss Hademar Bankhofer’s appearances on German TV. It always amazed me that this character could show up week after week on breakfast TV rambling on about nuts and vegetables and essential oils that seemed to cure everything from sunburn and insect bites to Quadraplegia.
Wulfstan // July 30, 2008 at 12:00 pm
TEP wrote:
You would loathe the UK shows, the producers adore that stuff and can’t give the public enough of it. It seems that we adore miracle vegetables and superfoods and like to know that we can cure almost anything with a handful of supplements.
GrumpyPenguin // August 4, 2008 at 6:21 pm
The translation MCM monastery woman for MCM Klosterfrau might be hilarious, but it’s exactly what the name means.
Admin edit: we knew that but it just seemed as if this is the sort of translation that would attempt to render Giuseppe Verdi as Joe Green, as the old joke has it. Years ago there used to be a game-Cupertino-where people would run some text through a spellchecker and would accept whatever substitutions came up. The text was printed and distributed and people had to try and work out what the original text was. This seemed like that.
Wulfstan // August 5, 2008 at 1:42 am
Language Log has just done something like Cupertino involving English to Simplified Chinese (whatever that is, Mandarin-Lite?) and back.
I don’t know what they should do by way of disclosure for mainstream media pundits but we should be told more than we are at present.
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