to be a little in love with Ben Goldacre?

[entropyglitter]

Just read 'bad science' (finally) and I think I am in love.....

my favourite bit was Gillian McKeith thinking that oxygen (generated by chlorophyll) in your gut is not only plausible, but at all a good idea....

presumably this is at the same time as main lining anti-oxidants (which had been shown to increase your risk of disease rather than decrease it).

And as for Fing MW's dont get me started. I actually kept referring to myself as Dr. during pregnancy - something I had never done before, just because I was sick of being told I couldnt count or use a fetal heart monitor or take my blood pressure, or observe using their kit the effect that morphine was having on my dd's heart rate.

Seeker we already looked at it I believe.

I said Deer's story was the stuff of not very good films.

If there was a COI regarding the patents, it would be a matter concerning the Royal Free Hospital as the applications were in their name.

I already said that we were in the realms of making serious allegations against the Royal Free Hospital (on a subject I suspect not many of us have solid information on). You are welcome to do that on a public forum if you so wish.

I'm not too sure why that doesn't answer your rather rudely put question. If you need more information you will need to address an expert who could tell you what the industry rules are with regards to hospitals holding patents.

beach I think you misunderstand the relationship between patents and researchers. If I put in a patent it would be in the name of my current Uni who would finance the application. But if it was successful I would get material benefit to my research activities via the funds generated. Although my name might not appear I would still benefit. It would still be a classic financial CoI.

If it was rudely put that is because you have been ignoring it. As you have been ignoring my requests for clarification of your accusation that I have been offensive and rude to you.

However. Any patent applied for by a researcher would be applied for in the name of tihe institution concerned. As this one was. It does not mean that Wakefield was not financially conflicted by it.

But Dr Wakefield was perfectly clear that any finances generated from any potential products would, as you say, benefit continuing research into ASD/gut issues at the Royal Free Hospital.

Can you outline clearly how this (standard) arrangement was a COI, and with regards to what?

seeker the problem is that beach thinks that the fact the patent is not directly in Wakefields name (ie' he didnt pay for it to go in) means that there is no CoI. As such she possibly feels she has answered the question several times already.

I am guessing that we collectively believe that to be a crock. Similar to the idea that Wakefield isn't responsible for the biopsies that were not cleared ethically because he wasn't holding the knife. Also a crock.

Everytime I look at the paper the line 'Investigations were approved by the Ethical Practices Committee of the Royal Free Hospital NHS Trust, and parents gave informed consent. ' jumps out at me. Well half of that was true....

Seeker you posted this;

Answer the point about the patent and Wakefield's conflict of interest and show that you aren't disgracefully using ill children as a smokescreen.

In my book that is a sneaky personal attack. You have implied things about my mental health on this thread too.

Not cricket.

Why is Wakefield getting the credit for the diet stuff? From what I can see from the Lancet paper, all he does is mention other people's research on the topic.

These guys seem to be the ones linking diet to an improvement in behaviour symptoms.

gah - I have to go and I think this will be a dead thread by this evening when I get back on MN.

If so then thanks for keeping it mostly civilised.....it may not have been perfect but it went a whole lot better than most threads of this type....hmmm just remembered we lost half the comments...oh well anyway. It has opened my eyes on a number of topics, although Im not sure it has had the same effect on everyone else....

Ben's favourite 'Nutritionist' has a new show on Sky called something like 'Eat yourself sexy with Gillian' ( Mc Keith - her wot kept fainting in the jungle).

She's been glammed up and isn't quite so unpleasant.

She didn't examine poo but she did tell her victim client how to poo !

Nutritionally still a bit bonkers - apparently nettle tea is a good source of iron

Finally, I haven't seen her new show, but I have watched her old one. I must admit that her 'diet' was always far better than the people's own diet - the week's worth of food - chip butties and junk usually - on the table always made me want to heave. Then her table of food would be a work of art with beautiful colourful veg and healthy stuff. Always the poo though - perhaps she was the poo troll?

Ben was right about her 'science' though, she used to come out with some nonsense.

NG we are not saying the Royal Free discovered the opioid connection to autism.

That hypothesis has been around since the late 70s, although I don't think it was something the public were aware of or the average doctor knew about until much much later. IMO it was the notoriety of the Lancet paper that made that happen.

What the Lancet paper did was start to join up the dots. They took previous knowledge of the opioid theory and added information as to the state of the children's guts. They demonstrated that lack of neurological abnormality in the children's examinations. They listened to the parent's testimony that was that both the gut issues and the behaviour issues began following vaccination with a MCV (some of the children also reacted at the time of vaccination with convulsions or other symptoms).

They took what we know about how measles encephalitis can affect both the gut and the brain in disintegrative psychosis cases.

(They did of course also find out about the Urabe vaccine and the inadequate safety studies of MMR vaccines in general.)

And they had a whole bunch of questions on their hands. The main one being what would be the results of virology tests for the presence of persistent measles infection.

I imagine one of the other ones was, when was the shit going to hit the fan.

You really know how to make 1+1=3 beach

I think the small remainder of the thread should be devoted to discussing the subject of the OP - 'Bad Science' - obviously only by people who've actually read it.

On quacks today

t.co/oa6i43sj

t.co/3bK5v9GR

laptop holy shit! Thats horrendous. It's so bad I am having trouble believing it. Try eating lest sugar for 3-6 months while your cancer progresses??????

I realise I have probably used more than my fair share of ? for this thread...but there has been significant provocation.

Yes, shocking reading Laptopdancer.

I generally snort and laugh at general quackery, but this just shows how deadly serious the results can be. For a nutritional therapist to advise a cancer sufferer to delay radiotherapy, well, words fail me.

There's too many 'generallys' in my post

Beachcomber, it wasn't a sneaky personal attack. It was a righteously indignant response to your outrageous suggestion that anyone who doesn't buy the whole Wakefield deal is saying that they don't believe that ill children are actually ill.You said -

""So come on, let's call a spade a spade - if you agree with the GMC and Deer you are claiming that the Lancet children were not ill. Admit it. You must do because there is no other way to reconcile things otherwise."

Which is a pretty shabby thing to say, in my book. And I'm pretty sure I said nothing about your mental health.

A mate of mine went round sainsbos with a marker pen and scribbled out the Dr. on all the Dr. Gillian McKeith products....

Of course she wont have to now that ASA have kicked her fake phd into touch.

I agree, seeker, it wasn't a personal attack against beach. It was perfectly justified in view of her posts.

Ben rocks!

And for good measure: