Reading between the lines

April 22nd, 2004 by Ben Goldacre in bad science, celebs, homeopathy, ions | 2 Comments »

Reading between the lines

Talk about Bad science here

Ben Goldacre
Thursday April 22, 2004
The Guardian

· There are times when a boy can feel terribly alone. Like when you’re standing in the medical section of the academic Waterstone’s in London, and you suddenly realise that you’re surrounded by people earnestly browsing 100ft of shelf space devoted to made-up alternative therapies, sandwiched between the orthopaedics and physiology sections. Reader Mark Lorch was there in spirit. “I was horrified by what the Heathrow Terminal One WH Smith considered popular science. While browsing the pop science section I found The Stargate Conspiracy by Lynn Picknett and Clive Prince alongside Matt Ridley’s fantastic Genome. And it got worse. Nostrodamus: The Final Prophecies by Luciano Sampietro was perched next to the gripping Fermat’s Last Theorem by Simon Singh. And the final irony, Richard Dawkins’s The Blind Watchmaker sharing a shelf with The Bible Code by Michael Dronsin.” Particularly appropriate, given Dawkins’s attitude to religion. “I ask you, how the hell are people going to tell the difference between real and bad science when that claptrap is peddled next to excellent science books?”

· It’s enough to get you thinking about the nature of science. Critical self-appraisal and careful examination of new ideas might be high on your list of ways in which to develop meaningful theories; alternative therapists, meanwhile, are cheerfully enshrining their inflexible opposition to both in their codes of practice. I give you the code of ethics of the International Society of Professional Homeopaths: “Members must present a united front to the public and should not imply criticism of colleagues, either in writing or before clients or the general public.” Cosy. And the World Chiropractic Alliance’s “guidelines for straight chiropractic” leave little room for discussion: a practitioner’s clinical assessment is “inviolable” and their judgment is “the final authority”.

· Some things are beyond criticism, such as the new Jinlida JLD-2000 Negative Ioniser from China. Breathe in, and feel the words waft over you: “Our all know rub can give birth to electricity … airy molecule rub as well as can electrify … At air minus ion few, is able to gas-bored, feel ill, in a bad skin, easy issue sickness. Air minus ion reply cast iron advantage …” Breathe in again: “Boost up resistance, along with minus ion deepness add, blood serum globin is able to distinctness add; antibody add.” Breathe out deeply; feel the healing poetry of pseudoscience, and repeat: “I believe.”

Christmas presents to avoid

December 18th, 2003 by Ben Goldacre in alternative medicine, bad science, death, express, ions, magnets | 3 Comments »

Christmas presents to avoid

Ben Goldacre
Thursday December 18, 2003
The Guardian

· Our spies are everywhere and it seems last week’s ludicrous “salt crystal lamp” is also being sold, of all places, in the Science Museum gift catalogue. Call me a pedant if you will, but I’m not sure it’s entirely to the good of the scientific education of the nation for the the museum to be peddling made-up nonsense that advertises itself thus: “Crystals … cleanse the air by absorbing humidity. The process releases negative ions which neutralise positively charged particles of air pollution, creating the fresh air found by the sea or in the mountains.”

· And so, inevitably, to the Daily Express, this week raving about the Norstar Magnetic Coaster (price £23) on its health pages. “Try putting a glass of water on it,” says the Express, “to expose the water to a magnetic field that helps your body to flush away toxins, or stick the coaster on the side of your bath to improve circulation.” Now, someone mentioned to me at a party the other day that sometimes they didn’t quite understand why the pseudoscience in the products I write about is so wrong, but had always been too embarrassed to say so. Well, OK then, here goes. Blood’s not magnetic: prove it by bleeding yourself onto a plate and waving a magnet around. Magnets don’t affect circulation: prove it by holding one on your skin and looking. And as for this unending nonsense about fields and toxins, I’m afraid that’s so made-up and magical that I wouldn’t even know how to go about designing a kitchen experiment to disprove it.

· I’m sure you all read last week about the case of Reginald Gill, the alternative therapist who fleeced several thousand pounds out of a man who was dying of pancreatic cancer, telling him that cancer was a metabolic disease, and that he could “reverse” it by using his “high frequency therapy” machine. A familiar sounding story. “If you have chemotherapy, you’ll go home in a box,” Gill warned the 43-year-old man. Ten weeks later, the man was indeed dead. And rather more painfully than necessary, having been convinced to stop taking his nasty mainstream morphine painkillers. Was Gill, as has been reported, “one bad apple”? Did this fraudster “give the world of alternative therapy a bad name”? No. Alternative medicine is defined by being a set of practices that cannot be tested, refuse to be tested, or have consistently failed tests. Gill wasn’t one bad apple: he was at the pinnacle of his profession.

It feels like crystal

December 11th, 2003 by Ben Goldacre in bad science, express, ions, nutritionists, references, statistics | 5 Comments »

It feels like crystal

Ben Goldacre
Thursday December 11, 2003
The Guardian

· As a Guardian-reading science bunny, there’s something slightly galling about the way that right-on beliefs so often seem to cluster together. For example, what’s the connection between torturing political dissidents and crystal magic? Over to the Amnesty Christmas catalogue, and its magnificent Salt Crystal Lamp. “Crystals are one of nature’s most effective purifying minerals. They cleanse the air by absorbing humidity. The process releases negative ions which neutralise positively charged particles of air pollution, creating the fresh air found by the sea or in the mountains.”

· Is Amnesty doing this to give us some small window of experience into what it’s like to be persecuted for your beliefs? Crystals do not absorb water, or at least, if salt crystals did, they would dissolve away pretty quickly, and you’d be left wondering which puddle to stick in the post to demand your money back with. Nor do they work as air fresheners. And you don’t need to spend £34.95 to find that out for yourself.

· And now to Michael van Straten, the Daily Express’s “nutritionist”. “Recent research,” he says, has shown that turmeric is “highly protective against many forms of cancer, especially of the prostate”. Every single day of every single week, you can be sure that a pseudoscientist somewhere is extra- polating merrily away from obscure lab findings to pretend that something is proven and effective. Ridiculous. There are, for turmeric and prostate cancer, speculative lab studies of cells growing or not growing under microscopes, and usually from rats. That’s not enough. Forty years ago this guy called Bradford-Hill knocked out a set of criteria for assessing causality. Read them once: it will only take 20 seconds of your life, and it is the cornerstone of evidence-based medicine, after all, which is what these guys are always pretending to call on. It needs to be a strong association, which is consistent and specific to the thing you are studying, with a temporal association between cause and effect; ideally there should be a biological gradient, such as a dose-response effect; it should be consistent, or at least not completely at odds with, what is already known (because extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence); and it should be biologically plausible. The Daily Express’s nutritionist has got biological plausibility, and nothing else. Well, that and 20 seconds’ reading to change the habit of a lifetime.

Because you’re worth it

November 27th, 2003 by Ben Goldacre in bad science, cosmetics, homeopathy, ions, MMR, quantum physics | 8 Comments »

Because you’re worth it

Ben Goldacre
Thursday November 27, 2003
The Guardian

· Reader Helen Porter writes in to tell me about the Ion-Conditioning Hairdryer, which uses “Patented Trionic Action” to “micronize” water molecules and, impressively for a hairdryer, magically hydrate your hair. The Journal of Trionic Physics, for those of you who thought they made those long words up, was the name of a Jefferson Airplane fanzine. But I digress: the manufacturer, Bioionic, is also the inventor of Ionic Hair Retexturising (IHR). And it’s not just a new way to straighten your hair, it’s a whole new branch of physics.

· Colour Nation, hairdressers to the stars in Soho, London, offers Bioionic’s IHR. Its public relations material explains how it works: “Positive ions have lost an electron, and are considered unhealthy,” whereas negative ions “have gained an electron, and greatly assist in a body’s mood, energy level, and overall health”. When these benevolent negative ions encounter water, “the water molecules are broken down to a fraction of their previous size . . . diminutive enough to penetrate through the cuticle, and eventually into the core of each hair”.

· I might be wrong, but surely shrinking water molecules must cost more than the £230 Colour Nation charges for IHR? The only other groups who have managed to create that kind of superdense quark-gluon plasma used a relativistic heavy ion collider, and if Colour Nation has got one of those at the back of the salon then I’m glad I don’t live in the flat upstairs. Although a Mirror reporter who had the compressed molecule treatment did say her hair “itched and smelled of chemicals” afterwards. Maybe there is something more potent than negative ions in there after all.

· Meanwhile a tip from a friend who, may I just point out, doused for the sex of her baby. She was delighted, at her antenatal yoga class, after being told how immunisations would kill her baby, to be handed Homeopathy News. The pamphlet mentions a study from the Royal London Homeopathic Hospital in which 80% of 25 children reported an improvement in their asthma after homeopathy. Which sounds impressive. But there was no placebo control group, and it doesn’t seem to have actually been published anywhere (or not anywhere peer reviewed). Which doesn’t mean it’s not true. Just remember that in a recent review of all the evidence on homeopathy – I’ll say it again – it was shown, overall, to be no more effective than a placebo …

The truth about oxygen

July 17th, 2003 by Ben Goldacre in alternative medicine, bad science, ions, mail, oxygen | 6 Comments »

The truth about oxygen

Ben Goldacre
Thursday July 17, 2003
The Guardian

Talk bad science

· There’s nothing more amusing than a battle for truth between competing schools of New Age bunkum. See how the Daily Mail gushed over the Elanra ioniser from Equilibra. It is, apparently, “the first ioniser that creates negative ions small enough to be inhaled”. So, smaller than your mouth then. Apparently it could be “a huge breakthrough in treating a range of illnesses from asthma and depression to migraine, insomnia and sinusitis”. Not content with its share of the gullible punter market, Equilibra undermines its competitors, claiming on its website to have invented “the world’s only patented technology for reproducing ions of oxygen that are small enough to be ingested”. And that: “Other ion generators can claim to produce negative ions, but they are NOT small or ingestible, and cannot enter your body.” Helpfully Equilibra provides a table of the other ionisers on the market. Snortingly we laugh with it at the large negative oxygen ions of its competitors.

· I looked up the claims on Medline, home of all medical papers. But I found no mention of “small negative ions”, nor does Equilibra give any real explanation, though a nice diagram explains they move at 1.9 cm2/Vs in a 1 V/cm electrical field. “Research conducted at La Trobe University in Australia demonstrated that these ions cause an increase in the body’s production of immunoglobulin A, implicated in enhancing the human immune system,” says Equilibra. I couldn’t find this on Medline or La Trobe’s site either. Bear in mind an Elanra costs £400. Equilibra’s other products include what seem to be laminated playing cards with nice patterns on, or Universal Harmonisers should I say, which for £40 will increase the levels of biophotons in your water. Special photographs with wavy lines on show how they can protect you from the radiowaves generated by your mobile phone. The Daily Mail didn’t cover those, though “all our energy products have been scientifically tested and proven to increase the biophoton levels in water which when consumed enhances the ATP response in the body and therefore they work very effectively”. Biophoton is an obscure phrase for the light emitted by living cells. God knows how they get into water.

· I was surprised not to find a disclaimer on the site, though Equilibra does suggest: “If you do not wish to work through your fears and energy blockages, and clear and balance your energy fields, do not order the energy products for use upon the body.”