http://www.badscience.net/?p=179#comment-370

but here it is again:

J Hosp Infect. 2004 Mar;56(3):250-1.
Isolation of MRSA from communal areas in a teaching hospital.
Manning N, Wilson AP, Ridgway GL.

Dr BENigale Goldacre…. that ought to do it!

I want to hear Dr BEliNda Goldacre.

http://www.scienceawards.org/science/past/2003/gallery/cat2-L.htm

As in Utopia Limited:

As a Company you’ve come to utter sorrow–
But the Liquidators say,
“Never mind–you needn’t pay,”
So you start another company to-morrow!

To answer the question you raised there. It is possible for a business to have existed since 1986, but only be registered as a company more recently. It is not obligatory to register a business as a company. However, not doing so means that you would personally be liable for all the business’s debts and so on, and would not benefit from the limitation of liability that company law can offer.

Update on Ben’s voice: we think he sounds a bit like….one whois search later…yep, that explains everything…

Beat you to it: http://www.badscience.net/?p=179#comment-371

Checking Companies House is always a good idea when buying stuff off Ebay. Along with checking the website. Chemsol’s website is particularly funny. If a company website doesn’t contain any contact information, the name and address of the person owning the domain name can usually be found with a WHOIS search.

Which, for chemsolconsultancy.com, reveals it is also called “Chemical Solutions Consultancy” in addition to the Chemsol {Group | Labs | Research} Limited already mentioned.

Perhaps some of the teachers who post comments here might like to use the questionaire on the site as an example of how to write loaded questions:

Q1: Are We Being Led Into a False Sense of Security By Insincere Chemical Manufacturers?

Q2: Is Information provided by Product Suppliers Always Correct?

Q3: Are the Public Always Provided With The Truth about Products they buy?

Q4: Is Advertising about Fact, or a vehicle to promote sales at the expense of the Public’s ignorance?

http://www.chemsolconsultancy.com/research.htm (scroll to the bottom)

As we see it, Chemsol manufactures chemicals (it sells anti-MRSA disinfectant kits) and on the same page as the questionaire says a whole lot of things that are clearly wrong (antibiotics kill viruses etc). It advertises its products by doing the MRSA testing for various tabloids. It appears the questionnaire is referring to its own way of doing business.

We didn’t think Ben’s voice sounded girly.

On Y&Y: “MRSA is something I was bludgeoned or pushed into..”

On the web: “…it was my work over 4.5 years ago that brought this whole issue to media attention, otherwise this would not probably be here today as it is…”

Turning to the Australian connection, he admits in the web posting that his lab was visited by “the Government” in July 2004. (I’m afraid I have an image of Blair, Brown, Prescott, Blunkett, Clarke, et al blundering around in his garden shed.) It is not clear from the Y&Y discussion when his samples were tested.

On Y&Y, in response to a question about working for an Australian company and the risk of cross-contamination: “…I don’t work for an Australian company, no. We have only ever done one run — for Sydney which was prior to that anyway and those isolates were autoclaved prior to any work being sent to Colindale.”

On the web: “At present I am culturing Strains from California USA and Melbourne, Australia.”

Perhaps Geography is not his strong point.

So… a quick trip to the Companies House website (www.companieshouse.gov.uk). Check the Chemsol companies. Hmm.

The companies called Chemsol {Group | Labs | Research} Limited, with a registered address in Northamptonshire, have all failed to submit their accounts for the last year. Incidentally, they have only been registered since July 2004, so this isn’t a particularly good start.

Keep up the good work, Ben.

Cheers,
Mark.