The Quacktitioner Royal is a threat to constitutional government and to the health of the nation
This article has appeared, in nearly identical form, on the UK Conversation . You can leave comments there or here.
The modern major-general
A constitutional monarch is purely ceremonial and plays no part in politics. Well actually in the UK it isn’t quite as simple as that. The first problem is that we have no constitution. Things haven’t changed much since the 19th century when Walter Bagehot said "the Sovereign has, under a constitutional monarchy… three rights—the right to be consulted, the right to encourage, the right to warn."
These are not inconsiderable power...
Source: DC's goodscience - July 30, 2013 Category: Professors and Educators Authors: David Colquhoun Tags: British Chiropractic Association CAM College of Medicine craniosacral Department of Health General Chiropractic Council herbal medicine herbalism homeopathy HRH Michael Pittilo Prince Charles Prince of Wales Prince's Foundation Source Type: blogs
Blogs lead in critical thinking, but newspapers still matter
Jump to follow-up
Here is a record of a couple of recent newspaper pieces. Who says the mainstream media don’t matter any longer? Blogs may be in the lead now when it comes to critical analysis, but the mainstream media get the message to a different, and much larger, audience.
The Observer ran a whole page interview with me as part of their “Rational Heroes” series. I rather liked their subtitle [pdf of article]
“Professor of pharmacology David Colquhoun is the take-no-prisoners debunker of pseudoscience on his unmissable blog”
It was pretty accurate apart from the fact that the picture was...
Source: DC's goodscience - June 10, 2013 Category: Professors and Educators Authors: David Colquhoun Tags: Academia anti-oxidant Anti-science antioxidant antiscience Bait and switch blogs communication conflict of interest intimidation management bollocks nutribollocks public engagement Public relations Public understanding publis Source Type: blogs
Acupuncture is a theatrical placebo: the end of a myth
Conclusions
It is clear from meta-analyses that results of acupuncture trials are variable and inconsistent, even for single conditions. After thousands of trials of acupuncture, and hundreds of systematic reviews (Ernst et al., 2011), arguments continue unabated. In 2011, Pain carried an editorial which summed up the present situation well.
“Is there really any need for more studies? Ernst et al. (2011) point out that the positive studies conclude that acupuncture relieves pain in some conditions but not in other very similar conditions. What would you think if a new pain pill was shown to reliev...
Source: DC's goodscience - May 30, 2013 Category: Professors and Educators Authors: David Colquhoun Tags: Academia acupuncture badscience Bait and switch quackademia CAM quackery Source Type: blogs
The election of Prince Andrew to the Royal Society. What Fellows think.
Jump to follow-up
A recent post, A right royal cock-up, got a lot more press attention than I’d expected. Perhaps I should have realised that the mainstream media are fascinated with anything that involves royalty. Here is my last word on that topic.
My reasons for writing about it had very little to do with royalty. I was elected to the Royal Society in 1985 and I’ve tolerated the odd voting forms, and the election of Royal Fellows, in silence for the last 27 years. What made me speak out this time was almost entirely to do with Andrew’s record of dubious behaviour. For me, it was a moral question, not ...
Source: DC's goodscience - May 25, 2013 Category: Professors and Educators Authors: David Colquhoun Tags: Duke of York Prince Andrew Prince Charles Prince of Wales Royal Society Academia Source Type: blogs
A curious letter from David Tredinnick MP, the government’s resident medical loon
It’s hard to know what to make of David Tredinnick MP (Cons, Bosworth). He is certainly an extreme example of the scientific ignorance of our parliamentary representatives, but he isn’t alone in that. Our present minister of Education, Michael Gove, memorably referred to Newton’s Laws of Thermodynamics, blissfully unaware that thermodynamics was a 19th century development. And our present Minister of Health seems to think that magic water cures diseases.
But Mr Treddinick breaks every record for anti-scientific nonsense. That, no doubt, is why he was upset by the recent revision of come NHS Choices ...
Source: DC's goodscience - May 15, 2013 Category: Professors and Educators Authors: David Colquhoun Tags: Andrew Lansely Anti-science antiscience badscience Bait and switch Department of Health Health Professions Council herbal medicine herbalism homeopathy NCCAM NHS Pittilo Prince Charles Prince of Wales Prince's Foundation TC Source Type: blogs
A right Royal cock-up. Prince Andrew elected to the Royal Society
Today the Royal Society elected Andrew, Duke of York, as a “Royal Fellow”. Well, to be exact. 11% of them did. The numbers, which the Society has not made public, were as follows (as fraction of the electorate, 1300 Fellows)
Yes 147 (11%)
No &...
Source: DC's goodscience - May 3, 2013 Category: Professors and Educators Authors: David Colquhoun Tags: Duke of York Prince Andrew Royal fellows Royal Society Source Type: blogs
Another update. Red meat doesn’t kill you, but the spin is fascinating
Conclusions: The results of our analysis support a moderate positive association between processed meat consumption and mortality, in particular due to cardiovascular diseases, but also to cancer.
To find the result you have to dig into Table 3.
So, by both methods of calculation, the relative risk from eating red meat is negligible (except possibly in the top group, eating more than 160 g (7 oz) per day).
There is still an association between intake of processed meat and all-cause mortality, as in previous studies, though the association of processed meat with all-cause mortality, 1.09, or 1.18 depending on assumptions...
Source: DC's goodscience - April 13, 2013 Category: Professors and Educators Authors: David Colquhoun Tags: Uncategorized Source Type: blogs
The exploitation of cancer patients is wicked. Carrot juice for lunch, then die destitute
Jump to follow-up
The time when I lose patience with quacks is when they make unjustified claims about serious diseases. Giving false hope to the desperate (often at a high price) is plain wicked. If the patient stops more effective treatment, it’s homicide. Homeopaths have been jailed for that. Sometimes it’s a result of wishful thinking. Sometimes it’s to make money. The latter is morally more despicable. Both are culpable.
One example was the Totnes (aka Narnia) to “offer real alternatives to the conventional approach to cancer health care“.
Another case, the Dove Clinic, was investig...
Source: DC's goodscience - March 25, 2013 Category: Professors and Educators Authors: David Colquhoun Tags: Barbara Wren Cancer act Cancer Options Carctol College of Natural Nutrition Karol Sikora Patricia Peat Rosy Daniel University of Buckingham alternative medicine CancerActive College of medicine Source Type: blogs
The British Pharmacological Society and the MHRA don’t help the cause of honest science. They hinder it.
Jump to follow-up
The bulletin of the British Pharmacological Society, Pharmacology Matters, declined to publish the following article. Sadly the Society seems to be more interested in "reputation management" than in truth. Luckily, it is not easy to suppress criticism these days. A version of the article has appeared in Research Fortnight where it will be seen by far more people than it would have been in Pharmacology Matters. This is the original version that I submitted to them. They would not allow me to quote Lewis’s comment (apropos of the sale of homeopathic meningitis vaccine)
“Children wil...
Source: DC's goodscience - February 27, 2013 Category: Professors and Educators Authors: David Colquhoun Tags: Academia Adrian Eddleston Big Pharma British Pharmacological Society CAM MHRA arnica badscience BPS Kent Woods Medicines and Health Regulatory Authority Phillip Routledge regulation Richard Eastell Source Type: blogs
Policy-based evidence. Department of Health and Prince’s Foundation censor accurate information about magic medicines
This report is really quite contentious and we may well be subject to quite a lot of challenge from the Homeopathic community if published.
What on earth? The DH seems to think that that its job is not to present the evidence, but to avoid challenges from the homeopathic community! And true enough, this piece is missing from the final version.
A bit later, the NHS Choices draft was censored again
“A 2010 Science and Technology Committee report said that scientific tests had shown that homeopathic treatments don’t work”
But again this doesn’t appear in the final version. The comment, apparently fr...
Source: DC's goodscience - February 13, 2013 Category: Professors and Educators Authors: David Colquhoun Tags: CAM CNHC College of Medicine Department of Health George Lewith homeopathy Michael Dixon National Health Service Prince of Wales Prince's Foundation Academia alternative medicine badscience David Mattin Sunjai Gupta Source Type: blogs
