It is a cliché that certain generations and demographics in the UK are obsessed by their bowel movements. However, for what probably seem like tremendously good reasons of public health, Times Educational Supplement has revealed that Japan Toilet Institute has successfully introduced a campaign about their special interest into schools in Japan. (more…)
Entries categorized as ‘children’
When Constipation Becomes a National Pastime or Why Japan Is An Awful Warning to Us All
November 15, 2008 · 2 Comments
Categories: Holford · children · patrick holford
Tagged: BPSDB, children, constipation, food intolerance, IgG, Japan, patrick holford, school
Equazen and the ASA - Again
October 15, 2008 · 13 Comments
Visiting Professor Patrick Holford is Head of Science and Education at Biocare and has an unerring sense for his endorsements (see, e.g., the qLink with the unconnected coil and the dLan that may enhance your exposure to EMR and YorkTest, source of the IgG food intolerance tests criticised by both the House of Lords and the ASA). Holford managed to procure some useful backing for the Food for the Brain project. One of the companies is Equazen. Equazen donated essential fat supplements to school projects. With an astonishing sense of inevitability, although the ASA criticised Equazen in 2007 for being unable to substantiate some of its advertising claims, it has just issued an adjudication against more unjustified claims by Equazen, this time for indirectly implying that fish oils are a treatment for ADHD. (more…)
Categories: Food for the brain · children · patrick holford · supplements
Tagged: patrick holford, supplements, Equazen, ASA, Food for the brain, children, fish oil, durham, ADHD, BPSDB, Advertising Standards Authority
The Durham Fish Oil Zombie Rises Again
September 25, 2008 · 15 Comments
Dr Ben Goldacre of badscience.net has posted a summary of the Durham Fish Oil Trials Initiative and the latest update to the saga in which Durham Council has released the data showing spectacularly successful outcomes. Except, it hasn’t. Enquiring minds want to know if the data are being held over to be released with a fanfare at the Food for the Brain conference and the session where Dr Madeleine Portwood is scheduled to announce the outcome of the trials initiative. (more…)
Categories: Ben Goldacre · Food for the brain · children
Tagged: omega 3, Ben Goldacre, school, children, fish oil, durham, durham trial, essential fatty acids, BPSDB, Durham Fish Oil Initiative, Madeleine Portwood
Ben Goldacre and Placebo (Part 2) Radio 4: Lacking In Cheese or Missing An Eye
August 26, 2008 · 20 Comments
Bad Science’s Dr Ben Goldacre has collaborated with Radio 4 to produce a 2-part exploration of the potent, intriguing power of placebo. Both Part 1 and Part 2 discussed the history, science and theatre of this fascinating phenomenon and it has been notable that the examples spanned from Perkins Tractors, Mesmer and animal magnetism, to work that was published only this year. Placebo has such an extensive and rich history and encompasses so many issues aside from medicine such as social influence and trust that it isn’t practical to present more than a tasting menu of it in 2 half-hour programes. Nonetheless, at the risk of sounding like Brillat-Savarin, it was strangely unsatisfying that neither of the programmes addressed the issue that some researchers argue that the placebo is both over-rated and ineffective and that there is no role for it in medicine, outside the context of a clinical trial. (more…)
Categories: Ben Goldacre · children · placebo
Tagged: ADHD, Ben Goldacre, Bodfish, CAM, children, clinical trials, Cochrane Review, doctor patient relationship, epilepsy, ethics, Gøtzsche, Hickner, homeopathy, Houston, Hróbjartsson, Kirsch, Lewith, Moerman, placebo, R4, Radio 4, Sandler, Shapiro, Sherman, trust, Walter Brown
Patrick Holford and Aluminium in Vaccines
July 23, 2008 · 5 Comments
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. We are taking a multi-part look at Holford’s advice in “Vaccinations: what every parent needs to know” in 100%health Newsletter, No. 46, July 2008, pp. 5-8. We focus on Holford’s description of toxins in vaccines. (more…)
Categories: Holford · children · immunization · patrick holford · thiomersal · vaccination · vaccines
Tagged: patrick holford, Holford, vaccines, vaccinations, immunisation, aluminium, green our vaccines, mercury, thimerosal, thiomersal, BPSDB
A Paediatrician’s Series on Vaccinations
July 19, 2008 · 12 Comments
Orac has issued a real challenge for science communication that is asking for ideas from framers on how to address the public health issue of anti-vaccination propaganda. Commenter DLC has suggested that bloggers should go through the vaccination schedule and discuss the rationale for each one in plain language. (more…)
Categories: children · vaccination · vaccines
Tagged: children, vaccines, vaccinations, immunisation, whooping cough, pertussis, chicken pox, varicella, Haemophilus influenzae type b, Hib, hepatitis B, smallpox, polio, diphtheria, tetanus
Patrick Holford Claims There Is No Need to Vaccinate for Whooping Cough
July 16, 2008 · 14 Comments
Former Visiting Professor Patrick Holford is still Head of Science and Education at Biocare. We look at Holford’s advice in “Vaccinations: what every parent needs to know” in 100%health Newsletter, No. 46, July 2008, pp. 5-8.[a] We focus on his recommendation for whooping cough vaccination. (more…)
Categories: Holford · children · patrick holford · vaccination · vaccines
Tagged: patrick holford, Holford, children, vaccination, vaccines, immunisation, whooping cough, pertussis, Hertzler, Horse and Buggy Doctor, BPSDB
Patrick Holford and His Recommendations for Vaccines: As Canard-Stuffed As We Feared
July 14, 2008 · 15 Comments
Former Visiting Professor Patrick Holford is still, unaccountably, Head of Science and Education at Biocare although Biocare prides itself on the appropriate credentials of its scientific staff. We offer an illustrative example of the validity of Holford’s claim to understand evidence appropriately or interpret it for others: we shall focus on “Vaccinations: what every parent needs to know” in 100%health Newsletter, No. 46, July 2008, pp. 5-8.[a] (more…)
Categories: Holford · children · patrick holford · supplements · vaccination · vaccines · vitamins
Tagged: patrick holford, Holford, measles, MMR, vaccination, vaccines, vitamin A, immunisation, BPSDB
My (Paid) Friend Says This Product Is Really Good: FFTB and Cherry-Picking
May 2, 2008 · 10 Comments
Visiting Professor Patrick Holford of Teesside University and the Food for the Brain Foundation (FFTB) are promoting a very well-thought plan whereby food and supplement manufacturers will give them money in exchange for the endorsement of their products. Now, charities have to get their money from somewhere, so isn’t that all very sensible? (more…)
Categories: Food for the brain · Food for the brain foundation · Holford · University of Teesside · children · patrick holford
Tagged: allergy, allergy test, Allergy UK, antioxidants, Anton Emmanuel, Cherry Active, dried cherries, Food for the brain, food intolerance, Holford, patrick holford, Peter Whorwell, yorktest
Patrick Holford Responds to Radio 4 Programme and Misses the Point: Part 2a
April 2, 2008 · 1 Comment
Back in January we wrote to Professor Patrick Holford of Teesside University, Head of Science and Education at Biocare and CEO of Food for the Brain: we asked some questions about the survey to help us perform a robust review. We waited for three weeks but did not receive any responses and, thus hampered, continued to review the survey and uncovered about as grisly a work of ineptitude with statistics as has ever come our way.
The FFTB Child Survey literature review was irrelevant and incompetent. But the number-crunching and display of summary data were breathtakingly, unbelievably bad. Office-neighbours-should-have-been-pounding-on-the-wall-and-calling-the-statistics-authorities-and-reporting-a-hazard-to-health bad. The-guilty-parties-should-be-having-their-keyboard-privileges-revoked bad. (more…)
Categories: Food for the brain · Holford · University of Teesside · children · omega 3 · patrick holford · referenciness · scienciness · supplements
Tagged: BBC, Child Survey, Food for the brain, Holford, patrick holford, Radio 4, Scientific Advisory Board, supplements, University of Teesside
