A company called Rodial have threatened a doctor with a lawsuit after she raised doubts about a “boob job cream”. While Rodial’s lawyers letter states that Rodial would have provided information on “clinical assessment and product ingredients” on request, they failed to do so when contacted by Ben Goldacre. Read the rest of this entry »
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Some fields seem to attract quackery. Energy production is an obvious one (I predict that the idea of perpetual motion machines will never die – the idea is too attractive and there will probably always be sufficiently gullible/ignorant people in the world), but there are certain fields which seem to attract medical quackery more than others. I thought I’d list a few of the apparent similarities between some of the areas that I see as attracting quackery or, at best, dubious claims. Read the rest of this entry »
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I emailed one of several websites carrying a claim that Ulrich Abel had a paper published in the Lancet around 1991* on the subject of chemotherapy. They were good enough to reply to me and I discovered that the citation had come from a second source who was an advisor to the website. That advisor turned out to be, startlingly, Matthias Rath. Read the rest of this entry »
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Here, I have some examples of the, fairly limited, debate between sceptics and proponents of Alternative Medicine – and a couple of examples of how scientists generally respond to criticism. The most recent example of a supporter of Alternative Medicine (anti-vaccinationism, with a smidge of homeopathy) responding to criticism is Jeni Barnett. She referred on her blog to incandescently stupid comments she made about MMR during a radio broadcast on LBC, and the fuss that followed the broadcast. The comments section soon included critics explaining why Jeni was so dangerously wrong. Jeni’s response to the criticism? To remove the blog post and the comments. Thankfully, it’s been preserved and is available at The Quackometer website. Further discussion at Holford Watch. LBC’s response to the original criticisms? Legal chill tactics – a pretty disgusting way to tackle legitimate criticism. Other examples of legal chill (and other threats) come from nutritionists, chiropractors, homeopaths, herbalists, and an American Christian organisation. Read the rest of this entry »
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Yeah, I know – I’m boring you with this stuff now. I’m sorry, but I can’t let it lie. I really can’t understand why not one member of the $50bn Nutritional Therapy industry has come out and said what so clearly needs saying: “Matthias Rath’s actions in South Africa were unacceptable and his use of legal means to stifle debate inappropriate”. Read the rest of this entry »
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I’ve received a response from the British Association of Nutritional Therapists to the email I sent regarding the actions of Matthias Rath in South Africa. Read the rest of this entry »
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Stuff And Nonsense 