From the Western Morning News (and I'm sure we'll see more of it elsewhere): Scientist sums up perfect Christmas: "A university mathematician has calculated a formula for the perfect Christmas - and it includes plenty of food and drink. Professor Rudi Dallos, from the University of Plymouth, has analysed what makes Christmas swing and produced the above equation".
You can see the formula at the original press release from the Cake Group. It's in aid of promoting a booklet from the Children's Society, Batteries Not Included, giving hints and tips for celebrating Christmas economically. It's in a good cause and can be defended as being lighthearted in intent.
Even so, this is a standard news story format - Google scientists formula perfect and see Formula for the perfect formula - based on the discovery, usually in some promotional context, of a claimed formula (often, as in this case, mathematically malformed) for some commonplace situation. It trivialises mathematics in the popular eye, and academics really ought to consider its effect on the reputation of their field before they sell out to this kind of fluff.
It's usually enlightening, when you see these formula stories in the press, to check out of the background and see who is trying to sell you what. This story is at least open about its agenda, but this is not always the case. For example, for the much-publicised "perfect bacon butty" story that appeared earlier this year, it's easy to find that this isn't some kind of blue-sky food science research at the University of Liverpool (as you might naively expect from the BBC's Scientists' 'perfect' bacon butty). The bacon research was conducted at the Food Chain Centre of Industrial Collaboration ("delivering the power of science to food and drink companies since 2004") and unsurprisingly commissioned by Danish Bacon.
Such checks are general good advice with "scientific discovery" stories. They can be genuine academic interest stories, but often they hide situations where even the researchers turn out to be selling the product the story reports. News reportage is lax if it fails to identify such a conflict of interest.
Showing posts with label bad science. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bad science. Show all posts
Friday, 14 December 2007
Thursday, 29 November 2007
L-Arginine: dubious supplement marketing
It's a recurring theme that once some biochemical is shown to have a useful or even vital role in the body, someone will produce a supplement and market it on the woo logic that if something is good for you, lots of it will be even better. This is patently nonsense: vitamins, for instance, are crucial to health but are toxic in high doses (as, famously, the explorer Douglas Mawson found out afer eating husky liver). It's even more nonsense in the case of the body's neurotransmitters and other signalling chemicals, which work on specific concentrations. Get the wrong level of dopamine, say, and you'll get radical neurological problems (again famously, as documented by Olive Sacks in Awakenings) But this doesn't matter to supplement promoters: the more you take, the merrier.
I noticed this syndrome recently in the marketing of L-Arginine. The 1998 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to Furchgott, Ignarro and Murad "for their discoveries concerning nitric oxide as a signalling molecule in the cardiovascular system". Nitric oxide, they discovered, turns out to have a crucial role in various functions: blood pressure control, heart action, neurosignalling in relation to the gastronintestinal tract and memory formation,, as a biocide in the immune system, and in penis erection. It's synthesised in the body by an enzyme, nitric oxide synthase, acting on a common amino acid L-arginine, which is actually nonessential, as it's synthesised in the body.
Given this role, it can easily be imagined that levels are critical. The vascular damage seen in diabetes appears to be down to low levels; conversely, the lethal shock seen in severe infections is down to overproduction of nitric oxide. The precursor to the nitric oxide, L-arginine, may itself be a double-edged sword: one study at Johns Hopkins had to be brought to a halt on safety concerns after L-arginine supplements appeared to worsen the risk of death in patients recovering from heart attack (see L-arginine Supplements Linked to Increased Risk of Death in MI Patients). What's the response of supplement vendors to this complex situation? Take moar L-arginine!
Bearing that in mind, about a week back I saw in the Exeter Express & Echo featured a story, Firm promotes body products: "A company specialising in offering a new dietary supplement range has a promotion in Exeter tomorrow.The founders of Arkworld claim their products can reverse biological age and repair, restore and rejuvenate the body through circulation". Arkworld is fairly ghastly in four respects. One, it's a multi-level marketing scheme. Two, it's designed around some laboured Biblical metaphor: "Everything we do as a company is going to be built around the Ark Story". Three, bad puns on the word Ark ("The Marketing Plan or should we say, Arketing Plan"). Four, the simplistic assumption that guzzling L-arginine is automatically good for you.
Needless to say, their ADNO – Arginine Derived Nitric Oxide page doesn't tell you we synthesise our own ("Your body uses Arginine an Amino Acid we absorb from food") and simply asserts that more of it makes everything work better in all the systems where nitric oxide is involved. And that, of course, is achieved via two arginine supplements, Ark1 and Ark2, as well as the PINKDrink.
The PINKDrink website makes a number of grandiose claims. "Nitric Oxide is referred to by scientists as the 'Miracle Molecule'" (nope: only on sites selling L-arginine supplements such as miraclemolecule.co.uk - and it needs to join the queue behind phosphatidylcholine, water, P57, DMT, melatonin, omega-3 and no doubt many more). "Arkworld's products have been created by leading scientists and product formulators, including the legendary Jeff Golini who cracked the Creatine Code". Legendary where? Apparently only on sites selling his body-building product Kre-Alkalyn, and for some reason this groundbreaking work doesn't appear in PubMed. Golini is one of the group behind Arkworld, listed as doctors though rather than medical doctors the group appears to be a mix of technical and marketing people headed by a dentist and a naturopath. As leading scientists, it's remarkable how few Google hits they get.
The site also mentions the PINKDrink appeared on the BBC's Inside Out, which may be true but if you watch the clip from this episode about CADASIL sufferer Jack Shields, its role is fairly subliminal, as a brief glimpse of some powder said to be L-arginine. There's also an interesting factoid that "Columbia University refers to L-arginine as the 'magic bullet' for the cardiovascular system. Over 10,000 L-arginine citations were compiled by Columbia University researchers in their quest to document the clinical benefits of this simple amino acid". I have been unable to find a citation for this claim.
Addendum: if you want to comment, read the comments policy first. If you have actual evidence that I'm wrong - peer-reviewed research - by all means comment. But I will bin any comments that just tell me I'm wrong and link to some promotional/sales website.
I noticed this syndrome recently in the marketing of L-Arginine. The 1998 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to Furchgott, Ignarro and Murad "for their discoveries concerning nitric oxide as a signalling molecule in the cardiovascular system". Nitric oxide, they discovered, turns out to have a crucial role in various functions: blood pressure control, heart action, neurosignalling in relation to the gastronintestinal tract and memory formation,, as a biocide in the immune system, and in penis erection. It's synthesised in the body by an enzyme, nitric oxide synthase, acting on a common amino acid L-arginine, which is actually nonessential, as it's synthesised in the body.
Given this role, it can easily be imagined that levels are critical. The vascular damage seen in diabetes appears to be down to low levels; conversely, the lethal shock seen in severe infections is down to overproduction of nitric oxide. The precursor to the nitric oxide, L-arginine, may itself be a double-edged sword: one study at Johns Hopkins had to be brought to a halt on safety concerns after L-arginine supplements appeared to worsen the risk of death in patients recovering from heart attack (see L-arginine Supplements Linked to Increased Risk of Death in MI Patients). What's the response of supplement vendors to this complex situation? Take moar L-arginine!
Bearing that in mind, about a week back I saw in the Exeter Express & Echo featured a story, Firm promotes body products: "A company specialising in offering a new dietary supplement range has a promotion in Exeter tomorrow.The founders of Arkworld claim their products can reverse biological age and repair, restore and rejuvenate the body through circulation". Arkworld is fairly ghastly in four respects. One, it's a multi-level marketing scheme. Two, it's designed around some laboured Biblical metaphor: "Everything we do as a company is going to be built around the Ark Story". Three, bad puns on the word Ark ("The Marketing Plan or should we say, Arketing Plan"). Four, the simplistic assumption that guzzling L-arginine is automatically good for you.
Needless to say, their ADNO – Arginine Derived Nitric Oxide page doesn't tell you we synthesise our own ("Your body uses Arginine an Amino Acid we absorb from food") and simply asserts that more of it makes everything work better in all the systems where nitric oxide is involved. And that, of course, is achieved via two arginine supplements, Ark1 and Ark2, as well as the PINKDrink.
The PINKDrink website makes a number of grandiose claims. "Nitric Oxide is referred to by scientists as the 'Miracle Molecule'" (nope: only on sites selling L-arginine supplements such as miraclemolecule.co.uk - and it needs to join the queue behind phosphatidylcholine, water, P57, DMT, melatonin, omega-3 and no doubt many more). "Arkworld's products have been created by leading scientists and product formulators, including the legendary Jeff Golini who cracked the Creatine Code". Legendary where? Apparently only on sites selling his body-building product Kre-Alkalyn, and for some reason this groundbreaking work doesn't appear in PubMed. Golini is one of the group behind Arkworld, listed as doctors though rather than medical doctors the group appears to be a mix of technical and marketing people headed by a dentist and a naturopath. As leading scientists, it's remarkable how few Google hits they get.
The site also mentions the PINKDrink appeared on the BBC's Inside Out, which may be true but if you watch the clip from this episode about CADASIL sufferer Jack Shields, its role is fairly subliminal, as a brief glimpse of some powder said to be L-arginine. There's also an interesting factoid that "Columbia University refers to L-arginine as the 'magic bullet' for the cardiovascular system. Over 10,000 L-arginine citations were compiled by Columbia University researchers in their quest to document the clinical benefits of this simple amino acid". I have been unable to find a citation for this claim.
Addendum: if you want to comment, read the comments policy first. If you have actual evidence that I'm wrong - peer-reviewed research - by all means comment. But I will bin any comments that just tell me I'm wrong and link to some promotional/sales website.
Thursday, 8 November 2007
Polish Sokal-style hoax
Via Modne Bzdury via Bad Science, this looks interesting. A psychologist in Poland, Tomasz Witkowski, has announced how he conned Charaktery (a scientific monthly focusing on popularising psychology) with a Sokal-style hoax article about a fake psychotherapeutic method. Here's his original article, Wiedza prosto z pola (Knowledge straight from the field), written under the pseudonym Renata Aulagnier.
I don't know Polish, so have had to get the drift by machine translation. Knowledge straight from the field leads with a postulated scenario: that a patient could be MRI-scanned to measure their morphogenetic field. If the morphogenetic resonance is out of kilter, the patient can be exposed to appropriate influences to correct it, such as listening to different kinds of music in various proportions, or going into a large crowd of people with the correct vibes (e.g. a theatre or a football stadium) to get into tune with their field. Thus psychotherapy could be achieved without lengthy analysis, issues of resistance, disclosure of embarrassing sexual secrets, etc.
But this is not science fiction, the article says, and goes on to describe a "Strasbourg experiment" in which such a technology has been developed (the idea inspired by Carl Jung and Henri Bergson, the mathematics from Lacan - who "first discovered the possibility of employing mathematical topology in the analysis of the structures of intellectual diseases", and the mechanism from Sheldrake).
Witkowski's motivation appears to have been disillusionment at the quality of peer review - despite Charaktery having various professorial-level academics on the editorial board, he argues that it's been playing to the popular market by publishing articles about topics like neuro-linguistic programming and morphogenetic resonance. And as he describes here on his explanatory page, Witkowski's particular indictment of Charaktery is that not merely did the piece get past the editorial system, but the editors actually collaborated in expanding it with uncredited material from writings elsewhere about Rupert Sheldrake.
This is currently all over the Polish blogosphere. As I said, I don't know Polish, but if anyone who does would care to translate properly, it looks rather an excellent sting.
I don't know Polish, so have had to get the drift by machine translation. Knowledge straight from the field leads with a postulated scenario: that a patient could be MRI-scanned to measure their morphogenetic field. If the morphogenetic resonance is out of kilter, the patient can be exposed to appropriate influences to correct it, such as listening to different kinds of music in various proportions, or going into a large crowd of people with the correct vibes (e.g. a theatre or a football stadium) to get into tune with their field. Thus psychotherapy could be achieved without lengthy analysis, issues of resistance, disclosure of embarrassing sexual secrets, etc.
But this is not science fiction, the article says, and goes on to describe a "Strasbourg experiment" in which such a technology has been developed (the idea inspired by Carl Jung and Henri Bergson, the mathematics from Lacan - who "first discovered the possibility of employing mathematical topology in the analysis of the structures of intellectual diseases", and the mechanism from Sheldrake).
Witkowski's motivation appears to have been disillusionment at the quality of peer review - despite Charaktery having various professorial-level academics on the editorial board, he argues that it's been playing to the popular market by publishing articles about topics like neuro-linguistic programming and morphogenetic resonance. And as he describes here on his explanatory page, Witkowski's particular indictment of Charaktery is that not merely did the piece get past the editorial system, but the editors actually collaborated in expanding it with uncredited material from writings elsewhere about Rupert Sheldrake.
This is currently all over the Polish blogosphere. As I said, I don't know Polish, but if anyone who does would care to translate properly, it looks rather an excellent sting.
Sunday, 4 November 2007
Poor reportage fires up Rife supporters
Via a Bad Science thread - Garage Invention Alternative for Chemo? - this ABC News piece, Cancer Victim Invents Possible Chemo Alternative, which tells the story of John Kanzius, a radio entrepreneur, engineer and cancer-sufferer, who has "invented the first generation of what would become a machine that uses radio waves -- not radioactivity -- to fight cancer". It goes on to mention the work of Dr. Steven Curley of the MD Anderson Cancer Center at the University of Texas. "Curley and his colleagues at the center took Kanzius' made-in-the-garage invention very seriously. They began testing the radio-wave technology on animals, and say they completely destroyed liver cancer tumors in rabbits".
As the comments page and Google show, this has brought out of the woodwork fans of Royal Rife, who see this as vindication of Rife's pseudoscientific radio-based therapy machines. Wrong. A look at the original news release, Radio Waves Fire Up Nanotubes Embedded in Tumors, Destroying Liver Cancer, shows that the ABC News story has omitted a critical detail: the radio waves alone don't do anything. The method works only when the cancerous cells are primed with a radio-absorbing substance, in this current work carbon nanotubes, which heats up and kills them. Kanzius' patent is readable online - Canadian Patents Database CA 2562625 - and makes perfectly clear that heat generation by an RF-absorbing target material is intrinsic to the method. This does not support claims for Rife machines to destroy cancerous cells by targeting purported frequencies of the cells themselves.
As the comments page and Google show, this has brought out of the woodwork fans of Royal Rife, who see this as vindication of Rife's pseudoscientific radio-based therapy machines. Wrong. A look at the original news release, Radio Waves Fire Up Nanotubes Embedded in Tumors, Destroying Liver Cancer, shows that the ABC News story has omitted a critical detail: the radio waves alone don't do anything. The method works only when the cancerous cells are primed with a radio-absorbing substance, in this current work carbon nanotubes, which heats up and kills them. Kanzius' patent is readable online - Canadian Patents Database CA 2562625 - and makes perfectly clear that heat generation by an RF-absorbing target material is intrinsic to the method. This does not support claims for Rife machines to destroy cancerous cells by targeting purported frequencies of the cells themselves.
Thursday, 1 November 2007
Gnawing doubts: JML Pest Shield
Recently British TV has featured ads for a product called the JML Pest Shield, a plug-in device which purportedly "creates a digital forcefield that helps drive away rats, mice and cockroaches from your home". The advert is here at tellyads.com.
There was another version of the ad - gone now, see below - at JML's own sales page for Pest Shield, which expanded the claim, saying thay it "transforms the wiring in your home into a giant digital pest repellent. This digital pulsing forcefield drives away mice, rats and crawling insects from your home by interfering with their nervous system". Interestingly, its online press release (PDF) has an entirely different explanation for the mode of operation, saying "It irritates them by emitting a sound that fluctuates from high to low frequency. This change in sound irritates insects and ruffles rodents". So which is it? You'd think at least they could agree on a consistent story. Also interestingly, "because the Pest Shield attacks the rodent-based nervous system, it's important you don't use it around hamsters, gerbils, guinea pigs, tarantulas or chinchillas".
Such devices are widespread, but it doesn't take much research to find that there is little or no evidence for their effectiveness. Electronic Rodent Repellent Devices: A Review of Efficacy Test Protocols and Regulatory Actions looks at the history of such claims, particularly a fad in the 1970s for devices "advertized as capable of generating their own magnetic fields or distorting the earth's magnetic fields in such a manner that animal pest species (but not beneficial species) stopped eating, drinking, and reproducing". Thes devices were marketed without efficacy data, because there wasn't any. For instance, Commensal rodents from the Utah State University wildlife management series concludes: "many devices which produce electromagnetic fields have been marketed as an effective rodent repellent. Again, however, scientific evidence clearly shows that these devices are not useful in repelling rats or mice".
A recent article, People And Rodent Pests in PCT Online, a rodent control trade magazine, likewise concludes "Ultrasonic and electromagnetic rodent repellent devices are available on the consumer market but good data supporting their effectiveness is lacking. Controlled studies with commensal rodents have been generally negative". In the USA, at least one manufacturer has been charged by the Federal Trade Commission - see FTC Swats Lentek's Claims - as making false and unsubstantiated claims for electromagnetic pest repellent devices, And in Australia, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission obtained a punitive undertaking, including customers' right to refund, after judging that a direct marketing firm, Danoz, had made misleading claims of efficacy for devices of this type. See the undertaking register for Danoz Direct Pty Ltd - now that is consumer legislation with the teeth the ASA here ought to have.
In short, even if you hadn't guessed from the pseudoscientific description that the makers aren't even consistent about (and thinking a tarantula is a rodent isn't a good sign either) in my opinion Pest Shield is almost certainly a total crock. I've shopped it to the ASA, but unfortunately a quick Google on electromagnetic pest repeller shows it's far from alone.
Addendum, Nov 6th: I just had a letter from the ASA saying they're already investigating this issue, and have added my comments to the portfolio.
Addendum, Nov 29th 2007: the ASA has just published its adjudication on the JML TV ad for Pest Shield - see JML Direct Ltd t/a Shop Now TV, 28th Nov - upholding all complaints on grounds of Evidence (efficacy being unproven) and being misleading, as well as falsely denigrating other products. Although this ruling has no jurisdiction over video ads published on their own website, I notice that Pest Shield has been removed from the JML Direct shopping site.
Addendum: I'm sorry; I don't normally redact comments, but I'm nervous about the legality of hosting anecdotes that might be read as allegations of criminal negligence. So no stories of e.g. how a Pest Shield exploded and took out half of a city block. If something like this did happen to you, best move is to take it up with your Local Trading Standards people, who handle product safety issues.
There was another version of the ad - gone now, see below - at JML's own sales page for Pest Shield, which expanded the claim, saying thay it "transforms the wiring in your home into a giant digital pest repellent. This digital pulsing forcefield drives away mice, rats and crawling insects from your home by interfering with their nervous system". Interestingly, its online press release (PDF) has an entirely different explanation for the mode of operation, saying "It irritates them by emitting a sound that fluctuates from high to low frequency. This change in sound irritates insects and ruffles rodents". So which is it? You'd think at least they could agree on a consistent story. Also interestingly, "because the Pest Shield attacks the rodent-based nervous system, it's important you don't use it around hamsters, gerbils, guinea pigs, tarantulas or chinchillas".
Such devices are widespread, but it doesn't take much research to find that there is little or no evidence for their effectiveness. Electronic Rodent Repellent Devices: A Review of Efficacy Test Protocols and Regulatory Actions looks at the history of such claims, particularly a fad in the 1970s for devices "advertized as capable of generating their own magnetic fields or distorting the earth's magnetic fields in such a manner that animal pest species (but not beneficial species) stopped eating, drinking, and reproducing". Thes devices were marketed without efficacy data, because there wasn't any. For instance, Commensal rodents from the Utah State University wildlife management series concludes: "many devices which produce electromagnetic fields have been marketed as an effective rodent repellent. Again, however, scientific evidence clearly shows that these devices are not useful in repelling rats or mice".
A recent article, People And Rodent Pests in PCT Online, a rodent control trade magazine, likewise concludes "Ultrasonic and electromagnetic rodent repellent devices are available on the consumer market but good data supporting their effectiveness is lacking. Controlled studies with commensal rodents have been generally negative". In the USA, at least one manufacturer has been charged by the Federal Trade Commission - see FTC Swats Lentek's Claims - as making false and unsubstantiated claims for electromagnetic pest repellent devices, And in Australia, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission obtained a punitive undertaking, including customers' right to refund, after judging that a direct marketing firm, Danoz, had made misleading claims of efficacy for devices of this type. See the undertaking register for Danoz Direct Pty Ltd - now that is consumer legislation with the teeth the ASA here ought to have.
In short, even if you hadn't guessed from the pseudoscientific description that the makers aren't even consistent about (and thinking a tarantula is a rodent isn't a good sign either) in my opinion Pest Shield is almost certainly a total crock. I've shopped it to the ASA, but unfortunately a quick Google on electromagnetic pest repeller shows it's far from alone.
Addendum, Nov 6th: I just had a letter from the ASA saying they're already investigating this issue, and have added my comments to the portfolio.
Addendum, Nov 29th 2007: the ASA has just published its adjudication on the JML TV ad for Pest Shield - see JML Direct Ltd t/a Shop Now TV, 28th Nov - upholding all complaints on grounds of Evidence (efficacy being unproven) and being misleading, as well as falsely denigrating other products. Although this ruling has no jurisdiction over video ads published on their own website, I notice that Pest Shield has been removed from the JML Direct shopping site.
Addendum: I'm sorry; I don't normally redact comments, but I'm nervous about the legality of hosting anecdotes that might be read as allegations of criminal negligence. So no stories of e.g. how a Pest Shield exploded and took out half of a city block. If something like this did happen to you, best move is to take it up with your Local Trading Standards people, who handle product safety issues.
Sunday, 28 October 2007
Hippotherapy
In Bad Science circles, a regular gripe is the BBC providing what is in effect advertorial for unproven therapies via news items with little or no balance. For instance, A canna' change the laws of physics just posted See The Light, a critique of unquestioning TV coverage of a dubious light therapy for Seasonal; Affective Depression.
Along those lines, BBC's online health section just featured 'Horse therapy helped my daughter', an account of a child with cerebral palsy being treated with "hippotherapy", a physio technique in which "Treatment involves putting patients on horseback in a variety of positions and adapting to the horse's movements and working on co-ordination and posture". This is not the well-established Riding for the disabled, an activity of clear benefits in terms of enjoyment, fitness and independence. In hippotherapy, the rider doesn't control the horse (and indeed might sit facing backwards). A therapist leads the horse around, and the claim is that keeping balance in relation to the specific 3D movement of the horse provides neurological benefits.
While I suppose the intention is to provide a harmless human interest story, the BBC coverage is largely uncritical. In the token criticism section at the end, a spokesperson for Scope (the cerebral palsy charity) comments that while horse-riding is relaxing, hippotherapy shouldn't be viewed as a cure for cerebral palsy. Nevertheless, the piece completely fails to analyse the problems of proving claims made for hippotherapy.
Compare and contrast, then, Horse Power: When Riding Turns Into Treatment, hosted at the American Hippotherapy Association's own website, and Hippotherapy explained at the American Equestrian Alliance website. Both of these are reasonably-balanced articles that describe the claims for hippotherapy, but also are very clear about the lack of evidence-based research and the problems of measuring any benefits objectively.
The Research and Training Center (RTC) on Early Childhood Development, which focuses on evidence-based practice in the childhood development field, has a review paper, Influences of Hippotherapy on the Motor and Social-Emotional Behavior of Young Children with Disabilities (PDF) by Pamela S. Rolandelli and Carl J. Dunst, analysing the general faultiness of studies into hippotherapy. Its findings, summarised in a terser article, Saddle up, but... (PDF), are that "Most studies reported some positive physical, language, or social-emotional effects for hippotherapy study participants. As a whole, however, the RTC researchers found that the studies were not conducted with the kind of scientific rigor needed to conclude that hippotherapy was responsible for the observed improvements".
You won't find any link to such counterevidence at the BBC story.
Along those lines, BBC's online health section just featured 'Horse therapy helped my daughter', an account of a child with cerebral palsy being treated with "hippotherapy", a physio technique in which "Treatment involves putting patients on horseback in a variety of positions and adapting to the horse's movements and working on co-ordination and posture". This is not the well-established Riding for the disabled, an activity of clear benefits in terms of enjoyment, fitness and independence. In hippotherapy, the rider doesn't control the horse (and indeed might sit facing backwards). A therapist leads the horse around, and the claim is that keeping balance in relation to the specific 3D movement of the horse provides neurological benefits.
While I suppose the intention is to provide a harmless human interest story, the BBC coverage is largely uncritical. In the token criticism section at the end, a spokesperson for Scope (the cerebral palsy charity) comments that while horse-riding is relaxing, hippotherapy shouldn't be viewed as a cure for cerebral palsy. Nevertheless, the piece completely fails to analyse the problems of proving claims made for hippotherapy.
Compare and contrast, then, Horse Power: When Riding Turns Into Treatment, hosted at the American Hippotherapy Association's own website, and Hippotherapy explained at the American Equestrian Alliance website. Both of these are reasonably-balanced articles that describe the claims for hippotherapy, but also are very clear about the lack of evidence-based research and the problems of measuring any benefits objectively.
The Research and Training Center (RTC) on Early Childhood Development, which focuses on evidence-based practice in the childhood development field, has a review paper, Influences of Hippotherapy on the Motor and Social-Emotional Behavior of Young Children with Disabilities (PDF) by Pamela S. Rolandelli and Carl J. Dunst, analysing the general faultiness of studies into hippotherapy. Its findings, summarised in a terser article, Saddle up, but... (PDF), are that "Most studies reported some positive physical, language, or social-emotional effects for hippotherapy study participants. As a whole, however, the RTC researchers found that the studies were not conducted with the kind of scientific rigor needed to conclude that hippotherapy was responsible for the observed improvements".
You won't find any link to such counterevidence at the BBC story.
Sunday, 14 October 2007
Anti-Gore case - anti-environmentalist backing confirmed
Following from the previous post, see Revealed: the man behind court attack on Gore film: today's Observer caught up with a connection that various bloggers made days ago, in one case - the Guerilla News Network's Dimmock and Dimmer - since October 3, when the story first hit the papers.
"Stewart Dimmock's high-profile fight to ban the film being shown in schools was depicted as a David and Goliath battle ... The Observer has established that Dimmock's case was supported by a powerful network of business interests with close links to the fuel and mining lobbies".
Addendum, Oct 17:The current alert from medialens summarises the story so far, particularly focusing on the BBC's failure to explore in any depth the credentials and affiliations of interviewees; the archive will be here.
"Stewart Dimmock's high-profile fight to ban the film being shown in schools was depicted as a David and Goliath battle ... The Observer has established that Dimmock's case was supported by a powerful network of business interests with close links to the fuel and mining lobbies".
Addendum, Oct 17:The current alert from medialens summarises the story so far, particularly focusing on the BBC's failure to explore in any depth the credentials and affiliations of interviewees; the archive will be here.
Wednesday, 10 October 2007
There Goes the Science Bit
From the Guardian: Food and health firms taken to task over sales pitches by science's 'warriors against claptrap' reports on the release of There Goes the Science Bit..., Sense About Science's dossier of scientists' experience in demanding scientific evidence for product claims.
Products include a Nutridirect Parasite Cleanse (which plays to users' parasite fears); Activ8 yogurt (for the claim of "proven to optimise the release of energy from our diet"); Computer Clear (which purports to use "bioresonance patterns" to protect computer users against electromagnetism); Champney's Detox Patches (one of the many incarnations of foot detox patches - see More pseudoscience afoot); Pret a Manger (a sandwich firm playing the "natural" card); the Co-op and Sainsbury's, for removing some additives on the basis of consumer concern rather than scientific evidence of risk; Q-Link (a pseudoscientific device said to protect the wearer against electromagnetic radiation); Aerobic Oxygen, a liquid with alleged purifying properties; Salt Lamps (allegedly healthful rock salt lamps); and Clarins Magnetic Defence Complex (recently slugged by the Advertising Standards Authority).
The dossier is available as a PDF download here. It's a good model for how to make life difficult for promoters of pseudoscience. Other ways you might consider are the ASA, which regularly upholds complaints on such grounds, though it unfortunately doesn't cover companies' own websites; and local Trading Standards offices. An area where they take an interest, for instance, is companies making statements in breach of the 1939 Cancer Act, which states "No person shall take any part in the publication of any advertisement ... containing an offer to treat any person for cancer, or to prescribe any remedy therefor, or to give any advice in connection with the treatment thereof. This BMJ letter mentions successfully invoking it, as does British company fined for falling foul of Cancer Act.
Products include a Nutridirect Parasite Cleanse (which plays to users' parasite fears); Activ8 yogurt (for the claim of "proven to optimise the release of energy from our diet"); Computer Clear (which purports to use "bioresonance patterns" to protect computer users against electromagnetism); Champney's Detox Patches (one of the many incarnations of foot detox patches - see More pseudoscience afoot); Pret a Manger (a sandwich firm playing the "natural" card); the Co-op and Sainsbury's, for removing some additives on the basis of consumer concern rather than scientific evidence of risk; Q-Link (a pseudoscientific device said to protect the wearer against electromagnetic radiation); Aerobic Oxygen, a liquid with alleged purifying properties; Salt Lamps (allegedly healthful rock salt lamps); and Clarins Magnetic Defence Complex (recently slugged by the Advertising Standards Authority).
The dossier is available as a PDF download here. It's a good model for how to make life difficult for promoters of pseudoscience. Other ways you might consider are the ASA, which regularly upholds complaints on such grounds, though it unfortunately doesn't cover companies' own websites; and local Trading Standards offices. An area where they take an interest, for instance, is companies making statements in breach of the 1939 Cancer Act, which states "No person shall take any part in the publication of any advertisement ... containing an offer to treat any person for cancer, or to prescribe any remedy therefor, or to give any advice in connection with the treatment thereof. This BMJ letter mentions successfully invoking it, as does British company fined for falling foul of Cancer Act.
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