I find this one very interesting and compared the press release at http://www.durham.gov.uk/durhamcc%5Cpressrel.nsf/Web+Releases/6BA0B5675DBD5671802571E20033B592?OpenDocument with your quotes, and discovered that ‘trial’ has been replaced with ‘initiative’ at least twice. I suspect your writing hasn’t gone unnoticed!

Thanks for your critical articles.

I am a sufferer of Bipolar disorder, 4 attempted suicides, and negative effects from Zoloft, Effexor, Lithium, and Prozac.

I started taking Omega 3 fish oil 6 months ago, not knowing it can affect your thinking and behaviour through Amway, they sent me a trial of their vitamin product when I signed up to their business.

Two months ago I wondered why I had been in MUCH better moods, able to control my temper, better memory, feel like I had more energy, wasn’t getting depressed anymore, no suicidal thoughts and genuinely a better person to be around. I was no longer feeling irritable during hypomania or had anger outbursts, excessive impulses to drink alcohol ceased, impulse to gamble decreased and have been a very happy person.

I looked up Omega 3 fish oil on the internet and came across many different studies on the effects it’s had on mood and violence decrease etc and was amazed at how nothing I tried was working for me but this one simple thing, fish oil, that is natural, no side effects, no withdrawal effects, no doctor visits, no prescriptions could change my life so soon.

OMEGA 3 NIH WORKSHOP VIDEOS

http://videocast.nih.gov/ram/omega1.ram (introduction)

http://videocast.nih.gov/ram/omega2.ram

http://videocast.nih.gov/ram/omega3.ram

http://videocast.nih.gov/ram/omega4.ram

http://videocast.nih.gov/ram/omega5.ram

http://videocast.nih.gov/ram/omega6.ram

http://videocast.nih.gov/ram/omega7.ram

Best
Stratty

It may be witty word association to pick up on “this is not a trial” and make the Magritte connection, but it misses Magritte’s point … about the distinction between an object and its image. I don’t believe it helps your cause of being pro-good-science to ridicule art by association. (A picture paints a thousand words, only after the thousand words have been understood.)

Regards
Ian

Parents who are convinced their child’s ADHD is caused by “additives” could be in a quandary: will the fish oil and vitamins improve the hyperactivity, or make it worse because of the added ingredients?

Alternatively they could just give their kid a proper diet and plenty of exercise…

Therowans, if you go to http://www.controlled-trials.com/mrct/ and put fish AND oil% in the search box, making sure the ‘all registers’ box is selected, you will get 103 hits. There is bound to be duplication of records as results are not duplicate checked, and studies can be reported in more than one register, but it’s an attempt at having prospective registers of trials.

If you go to http://www.nelh.nhs.uk/, select The Cochrane Library, and enter The Cochrane Library through the Wiley site, and try fish AND oil* in the search box there, you will find several systematic reviews which mention fish and oil, and there is a hyper link to a clinical trials section of the library. Here you will find over 800 hits of reports of past trials which mention fish and oil. Some relevant, some not.

Why tar one snake oil vendor with the the failings of another? Did I do that? I think not, though I undoubtedly should have done so. I believe I was questioning the integrity of the LEAs that fall for this tripe. How incompetent can they be? Next thing you know there will be astrology readings at assembly and the first-aid kit will consist of homeopathic remedies (sugar pills and water).

nomede plume also wrote in an earlier post:
“Boots are pro-active in the pre-school area and have recently launched a ‘Child Development Programme’ to encourage parents to work with their children and develop their skills”
Boots also sell homeopathic remedies and other snake oil.

Basically there are rather too many commercial interests interfering with child development and education in the UK. And frankly its naiive to think they are doing it out of the goodness of their hearts. Children have always been a sought after target or cover for unscrupulous companies, because of the emotional baggage attached to that section of society. Now another way has been found to get at children in order to generate big profits…

1) Durham LEA have all the data collected for our trial, so if they wanted to publish any further papers, they’re very free to do so. (By contrast, some questionnaire data was never provided to the Oxford researchers; and the final data on motor skills – a primary outcome measure – only came across in summer 2004). To suggest that my well-known dislike of Equazen’s promotional activities makes it ‘unlikely that other papers will be released’ is thus misleading in the extreme. I do wonder why Durham LEA haven’t got on with this themselves – but presumably they’re too busy. Or maybe it’s because they know we’d insist on checking their sums.

2) Unfortunately, media attention dogged our study from early 2002 when data collection first began. The Oxford researchers repeatedly asked Durham LEA to desist from such activities until this trial was completed, analysed and published – but to no apparent avail. This constant premature leakage of information to the media, and its apparent exploitation for commercial purposes, was the reason why our previously good relations with Durham LEA broke down.

3) In recent years, I’ve given lectures and/or acted as scientific advisor for many different companies who produce and/or sell omega-3 supplements. This is duly noted in my ‘conflict of interest’ disclosure as required on my academic publications on this subject – including the Pediatrics paper. I’ve given many more talks at health or education conferences (where real science actually goes down better than the hype or waffle that often fills ‘training’ days – quite encouraging). And I give almost all my fees to charity – see http://www.fabresearch.org/. All my research is independent of commercial influences, and most has been funded by charities. Read my recent book for parents and professionals (trying to stop them falling for the ‘hype’ surrounding both nutrition and child behaviour – all royalties to charity again) and you’ll see that it doesn’t name any supplements; because I don’t ‘work for’ any companies, nor is it my role to advertise their products for them.

4) As for why I’ve not produced more papers from this particular study myself? Give me a break. Getting the last data mid-2004 and having main results peer-reviewed and published in a major journal by May 2005 was no mean feat. I’ve many other research projects ongoing; and this one was never fully funded in the first place, even before it overran its supposed timescale. (I’ve also had a rather major bereavement recently – as well as writing my book – but what’s that to you?) And if you’d like to ask me about any comments you think I’ve made, why not contact me directly? My e-address isn’t hard to find, but please keep correspondence brief and to the point. I share your apparent desire to ‘help the children’ – but in my view that’s best done by finding out what really works – which means doing proper trials. (Any potential donors out there – please get in touch, as I’d far rather hear from you, actually).

Finally, I knew absolutely nothing about Ben’s article here until after this appeared. Some people seem to think I helped him write it. Not remotely the case (and I’m not sure which of us should feel more insulted at the suggestion). But he’s done a great job of flagging the real issue – which is that we need more good evidence, not more advertisements.

Comment number 9 deeply troubles me too. This is just a backhanded dismissal of scientific research and the need for peer review publishing as well as a massive dig at the published research that has gone before.

Experimenting on such a large group of children without a solid scientific case built on publicly accessable, peer-reviewed literature is very unethical to say the least. As a parent I am deeply concerned that not all the facts are available here, should the ‘trial’, sorry, ‘initiative’ become national without such disclosure I would certainly be making a fuss.

What evidence does Mr Ford base this expectation on? And why this distinction between science journals and “real life”? Science journals don’t allow contributors to just make things up. In contrast, this “initiative” seems to be based on, at best, wishful thinking.

I notice on the press release the claim “This year, the percentage of pupils gaining five or more A*-C grades topped 56 per cent , 5.5% up on last year and the biggest increase ever in a single year in the County. It is likely to bring the County’s pass rate very close to – or even on a par with – the national average pass rate.” so what kind of increase in pass rate do we reckon DCC and Equazen would call a ‘significant’ improvement due to eye q fish oil then?

I wonder if the backers of this trial, making arguments about how unfair it would be on students to have a proper trial, have actually considered what the financial implications for education are in the long run? Equazen are not going to fund supplements for Durham students forever, and without real scientific evidence one way or the other how can DCC make an informed decision about whether to plough huge sums of money into fish oil supplements or alternative educational initiatives? This seems like short-termism of the worst kind, and has repurcussions outside of Durham when Equazen start to spin their results and pressure other authorities (and parents) to spend a considerable sum on their product.

Why is this being hyped all over the place as a trial, which is what the COMPANY wants, when it clearly ISN’T a trial as medical science would understand it?

I completely agree with Ben’s points above in post (Room?) 101.

I can accept (just about) that the Durham education and ed psychology people have “pure” motives; they want the kids to do better, no argument that kids w behavioural problems are a major challenge to the education system, here’s something that MIGHT help with all of this, they’re getting it for nothing. THink Gift Horse.

..That said, they have allowed it to be PRd / publicized / talked-up hyped as a TRIAL, which it evidently isn’t. This is dishonest.

And note that the response Chris got (post 85) came from a “Press and Publicity” Officer – I trust them about as far as I can… well no, I don’t trust them at all. Press Officer = hired liar. Let’s hear Durham’s psychologists, the scientists, defend it, not press flacks or politician-alike positivity-speak Chief Execs or Dept Directors.

Assuming the Durham Education peoples’ motives are pure, I think they have not looked the gift horse hard enough in the mouth.

THE DURHAM “INITIATIVE” AS CURRENTLY CONSTITUTED PLAYS RIGHT INTO THE HANDS OF THE COMMERCIAL PARTNER.

Equazen will probably get a positive result – see e.g. post 45 – and all the subsequent marketing benefit, without the “risk” of a proper controlled trial At the end of it they will be selling loads more of the stuff, citing the Durham “evidence”, even though we will be no nearer knowing if it works.

you will understand that as the admin i see a slightly different version of the page from you, for example i can see that a great many of the people here are posting from academic servers and email addresses, and i guess you can also understand that when i see a very long and rather hostile comment, in a public forum, making personal comments about people involved in this research (which i find frankly a little distasteful) from an email address that looks a little like it might be from someone called lynn portwood, from a company in county durham, naturally i might think to ask whether you are related to the madelaine portwood from county durham. frankly i don’t believe you’re not, but everyone can make their own mind up.

i havent disclosed your email address to total strangers, nor would i, if only to protect from spambots. if you’re suggesting i should have checked whether someone typing their work email address in to my webpage whilst making personal comments about academics was trying to be discrete then i will very happily bear that in mind next time.

Maybe you would like to ask the ‘main author’ of the original work why they have not produced any more reports in the last three years? Whilst you’re at it you might ask her about certain comments she made in Inverness about Madeline & Adam.

I would also point out that it is unprofessional to release e-mail addresses – if you wanted to contact me you should have sent the request direct to the e-mail address.

Of the 97 previous commenst

1: not related to children
2: uninformed – education authorities have already got teacher estimates of potential grades throughout primary and secondary school.
3: Personal attack on Horrobin – not related to children
4: Personal attack on Kelliher defending his father in law – not related to children
5: Link to durhamtrial.org – which DOES refer to a double-blind placebo-controlled one-way crossover trial.
6:Comment about linseed oil – not related to children
7: Confuses marine fish oil and cod liver oil. Production is different. Ben confirms Equazen use high quality materials
8: immature sarcastic comment – not related to children
9: Mr Ford expects the initiative will help children in real life not in a scientific journal
10: Number of children 5000: should be a good normal distribution with low error compared to scientists doing research on 5, 10 or 15 children!
11: Another link to http://www.durhamtrial.org
12: Does not refer to Durham initiative.
13:misinformed – Durham approached Equazen I understand – not vice versa
14:a sensible factual comment
15:libellous attack on Mr Ford – not related to children
16:misinformed – all children offered (not compelled) supplement
17:naive – results can take into account overall increase in pass grades in Nation
18:attack on Kelliher – no relevance to children. Mr Kelliher has supplied supplements to Durham free – as well as other countries and has declared on this website that if a bona-fide research group come along he will be only too willing to provide supplement/ placebo.
19:a sensible factual comment
20:a sensible factual comment
21:comment about Brain Gym. I cannot comment on this but why tar one company with the failings of another?
22: misinformed – there is no placebo. Parents have to give permission for their kids to be enrolled. Children won’t be ‘forced’ to have capsules. Capsules will be offered and consumption recorded.
23:Confirms above statement
24:facteious comment about linseed oil – not related to children.
25:see 24
26:fair comment – but since Durham have been using EFAs for 5 years I think that they may have some idea of the benefits having observed the children.
27: Facetious comment – not related to children
28: ditto
29: YOu wil have to ask Durham but they are presumably of the opinion that there is no equipoise based on their previous clinically controlled trials.
30: I belive that a tablet of Eye-Q has about 6 calories in it! Weight gain will be minimal. Also – if you are recommending Ritalin then you are well behind the times – suggest you research ritalin-cancer in google.
31:irrelevant comment
32:irrelevant comment
33:Good idea – if you can find one – it is a free country after all.
34:Why don’t you do just that – and then report their comments – if you dare. Not related to children.
35:will await your findings.
36:As mentoined repeatedly by Durham – this is an intiative – the fact that the organisers were misquoted is neither here or their.
37: I’m sure if you contact Adam Kelliher and say who you are he will be only too pleased to supply you with his supplement. (not related to children)
38:not relavant to children
39:An interesting comment
40:not relavnt to children
41:silly comment abnout linseed oil – nor relevant to children
42:ditto – not relavant tochildren
43:ditto – not releavnt to children
44:ditto – not relevant to children
45:conspiracy theory i’m afraid – what if durham did get the average result up to the average (or above) ‘by fair means or fish oil’. It’s results that count and the beneficiaries are going to be the children with better grades.
46:comment on 45: not relevant to children. Personally I agree that setting targets in public services may not be the best way forward – but how else could government measure any improvement?
47: silly comments about ‘sabotaging system’ – not relevant tochildren
48: ditto
49:valid concerns about children and taking exams – however can anyone find any evidence that taking fish oils can reduce grades? All trials in Durham have been positive – especially on child concentration so that will surely help them revise.
50:The original Oxford-Durham trial WAS a randomised double blind one way crossover placebo trial.
51:interesting story – but not related to this forum: not relevant to children
52:Comment on another ‘trial’ – not Durham
53:valid point if this was a trial to investigate improvement in children and print results in a peer reviewed journal – but it is not. The sole reason for this initiative is to offer all children the opprotunity to benefit by taking supplements – whether they take them or not is a free choice.
54:Calories in Eye-Q – negligable. Evidence of bad effects on taking supplements – none. Evidence on taking benefits – plenty.
55:Linseed oil again – irrelevant to children.
56:We can hope that children obtain improved grades. I understand Equzen is privately owned so shares cannot be bought.
57:comments on Mr Holford: not relevant to Durham initiative
58:Valid but irrelevant: no placebos being given in this initiative.
59:All secondary schools 36 in Durham will be offered the chance to join in. Please feel free to select 36 schools in another deprived area.
60:comments based on mistaken thought that this is a clinical trial
61:unlikely that result swill be published in a peer reviewed journal. However you can look at the school league tables for GCSE results when they come out next year.
62:Parents are asked about child medical conditions before being given product. Of course having anticoagulents will reduce the risk of heart attacks/ thrombosis etc but as that is a benefit I suppose you don’t want to mention it.
63:no financial commitment undrtaken by Durham. Of course according to this site there will be no discernable advantages in taking the supplement. . .
64:I would much rather have children eating sensible food with a balance of all nutrients rather than relying on supplements. Regrettably this is not happening and the education system is in such straights trying to cope with all these children with poor concentration that they are having to take steps. If you don’t feed your child correctly would you prefer a) ritalin or b) fish oil – the effect on concentration is similar?
65:Genuine concerns. As before you can see the results in August next year and then decide.
66:An agreement to a valid concern.
67:comment on 66
68:ditto
69For the original durham trial all the capsules in term time were handed out by teachers. It is a measure of their dedication in county durham to the wellbeing of the children that they achieved a compliance rate of 75%.
70:silly comment – not relevant to children
71:general comment- not relevant to childen
72:a posting quoting research
73:Irrelevant: Eye-Q was used in the Oxford Durham Trial, The Middlesbroug hTrial, The Sure Start Trial, The Autism Trial and the Greenfield study so: yes it was used in the Durham trials.
74:an addendum
75:Good luck – not relevfant to Children. Ben you haven’t been in a dispute with Equazen have you in the past?
76:Refers to my reply to 73: Durham obviously belive so much in the benfits of fish oil that they don’t wnat to disadvantage children by offering placebos.
77: Agree: changes in diet (+ exercise) would be much more benficial – a pro-active treatment is better than a reactive one – but that is the situation at the moment.
78:Irrelevant to the discussion
79:Agreement with 78: not relevant to discussion on Durham initiative
80:Why not ask Mr Kelliher direct? – Oh you did didn’t you – why not publish his reply.
81:So?
82:Should the moderator report you to the anti-terrorism police for the comment about poisening children with radioactive materials.? In fact if i remember correctly it is a criminal offence if he doesn’t. Otherwise I’ll treat this with the contempt it deserves.
83:A sensible comment
84:A sensible comment
85:Factual but misinterpreted
86:Comment on 82: not relevant tochildren (at least not fish-oil ways)
87:Dr Richardson knows the reason why Durham distanced itself from her. Also as she is in the pay of another company (MorEPA) she is unlikely to want to promote research done by another company is she.
88:irrelevant comment.
89: This e-mail was sent under the users work e-mail at the centre for tropical diseases. It is interesting that her employer would allow the use of their computers during office hours.
90: comments on 89:irrelevant to children
91: comments on 90-irrelevant to children
92:toy poodle rather than spanish inquisition: irrelevant to children
93:shows power of celebrities – you all seem to be eulogising about Jamie when there certainly wasn’t any science in his methods. Although I agree with his aims and applaud his efforts the sad fact is that giving a child 5 good meals a week is not going to have as good an effect as we would like if the remaining 16 are full of ****.
94:Valid concerns about omega-3. The problem is that reasearch has shown that in adults higher levels of DHA produce much lower (if any) benefits anbd that it is EPA that is important. Highest levels of EPA are found in fish. Regrettably, of course, many foodstocks, not just fish, are being depleted.
95: Alreaday commented on this – useful for people to read.
96:Not my field
97:A suggestion – not related to children
98: agree with every word said.
99: unprofessional
100:From the above you can see that of coments 1 – 97 most are off topic, many are filled with ignorance, antipathy and prejudice and many are just a load of ****.

A couple of other things:
- so far as I know, all the trials which generated positive results have been in kids with ‘learning difficulties’. Even if these trials are conclusive, it doesn’t seem to follow that all kids will benefit from the pills. Wouldn’t this be something we’d need, um, a trial to check…
- couldn’t this be integrated with attempts to improve school meals in Durham: basically, feed kids more fish at lunch time. If the pills really cost 90p/kid/day, you can buy a lot of good food for that… This would let you improve kids’ diets further, and if you get kids used to eating fish this might be a habit that sticks after they leave school…
- if this isn’t a trial – and the evidence is there that kids need this type of pill – what is the Equazen hoping to gain from this? If Durham decides to spend so much money on pills year after year, I’d expect them to put this out to tender – is Equazen hoping to gain an advantage by giving some free-bees first?

Given that their parents are likely to have been seriously misled (e.g. is it or isn’t it a trial? Is there evidence or isn’t their evidence that the drug works? Is this or isn’t this a way to see if “oils = grades”?), any consent to participate they may have given on behalf of their children is meaningless.

This sort of manipulation of children is horrifying. The whole “it wouldn’t be fair to give them placebo” stuff is disingenuous at best. You might as well use leeches to improve school performance, or branding with hot irons, if you can’t even be bothered to see what happens when you don’t intervene. I’ve heard a bit of caning never hurt anyone.

Actually I’ve got a failsafe new business plan. It involves some unpublished experiments, a great deal of hyperbole, and a special new vitamin formula. Who’s in?