According to this all us bloggers who decided to defend another’s freedom of speech are shills for the GMC. We are sponsored by them apparently, as were the journalists who wrote the articles referenced by Quackometer, and others, about Obi previously.

When I was told that the Enemies of Alternative Medicine had recruited 5000 (Five Thousand) Bloggers to write rubbish about me 24 hours a day , ( every single day of the year ) , I said OK . . . Let’s wait and see precisely what they will say . . . (Because in my view , it is a perfectly Good Military Tactic to sit back and watch them all come creeping out of the woodwork , so that I know precisely what their capabilities are).

…Now , after speedreading almost everything that they have written , and also carefully analyzing their strategies , I have reached the simple conclusion that their plan has massively backfired ; as all that their 5000 Blogposts have done is provide me with even more ammunition for my Multiple Lawsuits . . . both against the Hosting Company of the Defamatory Blog Itself and the General Medical Council.

Maybe Obi should go and read up about libel and defamation. If those earlier articles are defamatory as stated he’s had several years to take legal action; and should have won if they were. British libel law is renowned for putting the emphasis on the defendant to prove their innocence rather than the complainant to prove their guilt. All the Quackometer and other commentators have done is take those articles in good faith, backed up with information provided on Obi’s own websites. He appears to have provided himself with no ammunition at all, particularly against the GMC who seem completely unrelated other than be the target of one of his campaigns. Being struck off obviously makes you bitter.

I have absolutely no criminal record or criminal convictions whatsover . . . and anyone who implies otherwise should be firmly made to pay the supreme price for their actions. . . and that is why they are all so worried that my Legal Team is going after them all ; because they know that when we do eventually catch them , they will certainly not escape their due punishment.

When has anyone implied that Obi had any prior convictions? To reiterate, Quackometer wrote:

He was being investigated by the police for taking thousands of pounds of a 58 year old woman to in order to cure a long standing illness.

This does not imply that Obi has any criminal convictions.

All Obi appears to have done with this article is further defame those who have criticised him as well as the GMC. Luckily my fellow bloggers and I don’t tend to go in for legal suits and prefer to respond to criticisms rather than try and silence them. For the record I have never had any dealings with the GMC. I am not in the medical profession. I am a research scientist and PhD student in chemistry, but as a scientist I know the difference between quackery and medicine. And I think that anyone will agree that throwing allegations of of racism and corruption can hardly be described as ethical.

Filed under: Barking, Libel, Medicine and Health by badchemist
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I’m sure I’m not alone in thinking that all celebrity `nutritionists’ walk hand in hand with quackery. Whilst perusing my RSS feeds earlier I came across some useful detox advice in the Torygraph. To be honest the article isn’t that bad, just some helpful advice for when you need feel like detoxing. Although, as any medical professional worth their salt could tell you, detoxing isn’t necessary as long as you eat a healthy balanced diet (read “eat less, mainly vegetables, exercise more”). All this article does is make the middle classes feel better about themselves if they spend a few weeks eating healthily every 6 months or so.

What interested me more was the link to the authors website Farm Living. This is a company that want to charge you extortionate amounts of money to give you basic nutritional advice and some other psuedoscientific BS.

Combining nutritional therapy and lifestyle coaching with a more holistic approach, she [Linzi Boyd] includes practices such as Yoga, Chi Gong, Meditation, Positive affirmations, Chakra clearing, Vision boards, Emotion Freedom Technic (E.F.T.) and Emo trance

Some of these practices are not without merit, especially if you ignore the crap about `energy’ and what have you, but some I’d never even heard of so I thought a little investigation was in order.

Emotional Freedom Technique

Only one hit in PubMed for this one, under the pseudonym Emotional Acupuncture (Jebus!) unfortunately it’s in Nursing Standard which I have no access to but google leads us to the exciting emofree.com* that tells us it can help with pretty much everything.

For proof, here is a sampling of our actual cases. They are written for you by everyday citizens, physicians and therapists: Pain Management, Addictions, Weight loss, Allergies, Children’s Issues, Animals, Vision, Headaches, Panic/Anxiety, Asthma, Trauma, PTSD, Abuse, Depression, Dyslexia, Carpal Tunnel, Anger, ADD-ADHD, Fears/phobias, Eating disorders, OCD, Blood Pressure, Diabetes, Neuropathy, Fear of Flying, Claustrophobia, Agoraphobia, Anorexia/Bulimia, Sports and other Performance

Not what you’d call evidence, more a list of anecdotes. A quick read of the What is EFT? page tells me all I need to know.

The cause of all negative emotions is a disruption in the body’s energy system.

There’s also mention of meridians and I really can’t be bothered with that, the final nail is hammered in when you see who the first testimonial comes from the legendary Deepak Chopra.

*Is it me or does emofree just sound like someone trying to get rid of kids wearing eyeliner and black.

Vision boards
This appears to be great for people with more money than sense. Visit their website and you too can learn from their truly awful video. For only $39 dollars you could own a piece of software that makes slideshows from pictures and add words to them as well. Apparently by watching this slideshow your life will improve beyond your wildest dreams. Seriously who buys this crap?

Emotrance

More energy healing, possibly crazier than EFT.

I really can’t take any more of this shit.

---

On a different note I would like to point out that although Linzi Boyd seems to want to help people, albeit for a princely sum, she obviously doesn’t care about those who have disabilities that require the use of screen readers etc. All of the text on her site is within image files with alt tags that are wholly inadequate and only give the name of the page. This really pisses me off – it is not hard write a compliant website and consider accessibility issues. Short alt tags are fine for images that don’t effect the overall meaning of the page, they are useless if all the information is contained within the image. Use the longdesc tag as well if need be. If everyone used compliant code the internets would be a better place, that also goes for people writing sites specifically for IE. Sorry, rant over.

Filed under: Barking, Energy Healing, Geek Stuff, Medicine and Health, Nutribollocks by badchemist
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I realise that I seem to be posting a lot tonight but boredom, beer and thesis avoidance has led to me following some interesting links. Thanks to the comments on DC’s latest post of homeopathy I’m come across this gem from Peter Chappell.

Those of you who read Bad Science will already have heard of this chap and his supposed ability to cure AIDS with iTunes. Not only can he do that but he cure H5N1 bird flu in humans with it too. You can download a free version of his resonance recordings from that site or you can download it here.*

Now to my, admittedly untrained, ear this just sounds a bit like rather mediocre jazz. Consequently I propose that if we take the Miles Davis back catalogue and use it to cure all ills. Although, as Peter Chappell is a homeopath, we may need to dilute it infinitesimally – Robbie Williams’ swing album should suffice.

Disclaimer

*According to the original download site:

In the event of Bird Flu (avian influenza – H5N1), we will endeavour to sustain pressure on our servers due to any increase in traffic however we are unable to guarantee uptime. Not only failure of the servers that support our site but electricity might fail, other unforseen factors may come in to play. For this reason, it is much wiser if you get supplied now.

Therefore I am mirroring the file here to reduce load on their servers in the event of a H5N1 break out. If the owners of the file wish for me to remove this file contact me at the email address here.

Filed under: Badscience, Barking, Medicine and Health, Resonance, Society of Homeopaths, homeopathy by badchemist
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In the media today there have been several reports of the increased risk of cervical cancer for women taking the contraceptive pill. All these reports relate to a Lancet article that has been published this week – unfortunately I won’t get access until next week when it hits “Pill cancer risk soars”. This seems a little strong for a headline considering the story continues thus:

The rate of cervical cancer for women up to 50 who have not used the Pill is 3.8 per thousand.

This increases to 4.0 per thousand in women on the Pill for five years and to 4.5 per thousand on the popular combined contraceptive pills for 10 years.

So, even if you want to reduce to simple percentages, women who have been on the pill for 5 years they have increased their risk from 0.38 % to 0.4 %. That’s just over a 5 % increase if you want to use the typical tabloid method of mishandling such figures. For 10 year users the increase is ~18% using the same rather dubious methodology.

What really matters is that the actual change in risk is actually rather small, 0.38 % to 0.45 % is probably not much to worry about considering the huge number of other factors that influence a persons well-being.

The other thing I want to comment about on this is an avenue that may or may not have been raised in the Lancet article – I’ll update when I know. One of the known causes of cervical cancer are certain forms of Human papillomavirus (HPV). HPV is a sexually transmitted disease. Is it not possible that, due to the use of the contraceptive pill, some women may be less meticulous with the use of barrier contraceptives thus leaving themselves open (that wasn’t supposed to be an innuendo) to infection with HPV and therefore an increased chance of cervical cancer?

Obviously this is all speculation so if anyone out there has more information on the subject please comment below or email me (address on the about page).

Filed under: Good Science, Media, Medicine and Health, Science Communication, Statistics by badchemist
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Recently the Observer has made a few scientific faux pas. In July we had the old MMR-autism chestnut and then we had thoroughly debunked at badscience.

Despite this inability to understand basic science there is an article in today’s Observer that is remarkably sensible – The cranks who swear by citronella oil. The article is a scathing attack on homeopathy, particularly in its use for the treatment of HIV-AIDS. Read it and understand that sometimes science journalism is good.

Unfortunately not everyone at the Observer is as well accustomed with the idea of scientific evidence as Nick Cohen. Dr Deborah McManners, a naturopathic physician and GP at the Hale Clinic, suggests, as a treatment for potentially stress induced hairloss.

Homeopathy could be another option – gelsemium is good for anticipatory anxiety, and arsenicum album is ideal for tense, ambitious perfectionists. A medical homeopath would be able to advise you (www.trusthomeopathy.org).

Looking at the Hale Clinic website it’s hardly surprising, they seem to offer all many of pseudoscientific bullshit.

Filed under: Good Science, Medicine and Health, Nutribollocks, Science Communication, homeopathy by badchemist
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In Mail today, there is a surprisingly sensible article on alternative health screening with a road test to boot.

Prior to trying out this “screenings” the author, Charlotte Dovey, rather more sensibly paid BUPA to screen using conventional methods – blood tests and the like. According to the BUPA Wellwoman Health Assessment (£265 a go):

After the £265 test (okay, that’s not cheap either – but it includes blood checks, lung function and smear tests) I’m told I’m in fine fettle and there is nothing ominous on the horizon. But what will the alternative diagnosticians say?

Ms. Dovey then visited three clinics for three different screenings using the Quantum Xerox machine, the AMI machine and the NES machine. A quick google for these results in very little information apart from the NES machine but I assume that Mario and Yoshi will not be doing the diagnosis.

All these machines seem to work only the principal of measuring electrical fields/energies and there are several mentions of “quantum physics”, “biophysics” and even “yin and yang”. All methods conveniently found that, despite the clean bill of health from BUPA, Ms. Dovey had a rather miserable future ahead with health problems ranging from relatively minor (IBS and anaemia) to some life-threatening and devastating diseases (Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, heart and kidney disease).

This is incredibly irresponsible and unethical “health care” and, thankfully, the Mail has reported this rather well with an expert opinion from Dr Graham Archard, vice chairman of the Royal College of General Practitioners, following each “diagnosis” and pointing out the flaws in the diagnoses. Conveniently all of these practitioners also had something to sell to cure these ills from homeopathic remedies and food supplements to acupuncture.

I presume that, unfortunately, such bullshit as these tests are unregulated and, as such, any snake oil selling charlatan or quack can “measure your bodyfield”, concoct a diagnosis and sell you an ineffective cure. Stay well clear.

Filed under: Badscience, KKKly Mail, Medicine and Health by badchemist
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Andrew at Apathy Sketchpad has posted on the topic of Nurofen, its dubious advertising and the incredible bullshit they feature on their website. Go have a read there’s some interesting stuff.

I only have one slight problem with the piece – the sense of surprise that quackery would be pushed by a brand like Nurofen. Nurofen is not made by Big Pharma. It’s owned by Reckitt Benckiser, the same company that introduced the world to Barry Scott and “Limescale is just calcium that sticks”. The company are not Big Pharma, they make general consumer products particularly in the lifestyle and home markets. There business is not at threat from homeopathy and the other bull they have on their website.

Filed under: Household Products, Medicine and Health by badchemist
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There’s a story in in the Mail regarding obesity and sugar consumption. The content in itself is rather dubious, Professor Glenn Gaesser of Univ. of Virginia is claiming that carbohydrates are not fattening but he is part funded by the baking industry. Conflict of interests may arise here I feel.

In the comments we also have some great confusion about what is and isn’t a complex carbohydrate. One comment says:

I’ve limited my carbohydrate intake to complex carbs only (veg and such) and all but eliminated simple carbs (breads, pasta etc) and in the past 6 weeks have lost over 2 stone. Not only that, but I’m less tired, and have had more motivation to exercise and be healthy.

- T. Wolf, Manchester

<pedant>

Complex carbohydrates are things like starch, i.e. polysaccharides, which are found in abundance in bread and pasta. Simple sugars (glucose, fructose) on the other hand are found in “veg and such”.

</pedant>

Most amazingly in this piece is some actually rather sane words everyones favourite pill-peddling media nutritionist Mr Prof. Patrick Holford.

His findings were questioned by British nutritionist Patrick Holford, who said animal studies had shown high-carbohydrate diets “convert rapidly into fat”.

He added: “The old idea was that the way to lose weight was to eat less calories, which is what Gaesser is advocating.

“Gaesser is supporting what has been done for the last 20 years and clearly it’s not working.

“The human body is much more complicated and blood sugar is much more important.”

(emphasis mine)

Yes Patrick, the human is much more complicated which is why some of us would wish you’d leave the health advice to those who are qualified.

Filed under: Badscience, KKKly Mail, Medicine and Health, Nutribollocks, Pilltrick Healthfraud by badchemist
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The BBC reports that “Stem Cells ‘Prompt cancer spread’”. This is a fantastically misleading headline. Although the story does concern the increased rate metastasis of tumours in the presence of stem cells the point of the research is “if stem cells increase metastasis then blocking stem cell action could reduce metastasis”.*

I’m just waiting for the pro-life/anti-stem cell brigade to jump on that head line and claim that stem cell treatments are all evil and ungodly and the direct cause of all that is bad in society.

*I can’t be overly sure of details of the research as 1) the Beeb haven’t referenced it, 2) they haven’t even given a name of one of the researchers and 3) I can’t find it on the Nature website anywhere suggesting this is all press release

Update: the paper has now been published and can be found here

Filed under: Medicine and Health, Press, Science Communication by badchemist
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The Daily Hate is running a story on a future trial on food supplement pills for the prevention of cancer. I have no problem with this research in principle, assuming it is well-designed (blinded, placebo-controlled, randomised) and meaningful but the thing I don’t understand is why we need to make everything into a simple “cure-all” type pill?

From the article:

The four compounds are tricin, found in Thai sticky rice, resveratrol, from red wine, curcumin, found in turmeric, and anthocyanins, groups of antioxidants derived from bilberries.

Why can we not just get these from our diets? If you give people pills saying they’ll prevent cancer a lot of them will consider that to be the end of it and not bother adjusting the rest of their otherwise unhealthy lifestyle.

Filed under: Medicine and Health, Press by badchemist
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