“I suppose MSD’s suspension from ABPI for dodgy marketing tactics www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-2385569,00.html is out of your remit (this is the company that, promoting the same drug, modified the British Hypertension Society guidance to suggest that BHS endorsed it). That’s the sort of thing that makes me cross!”

I doubt it will get much play, Apothecary.

As Private Eye’s MD column reported this week, when Abbott Labs was suspended from the ABPI for “at least six months” for taking doctors to, inter alia, the dogs (racing) and to a lapdancing bar, hardly anyone noticed, and the ABPI let them back in after five months anyway. I am not desperately convinced being sanctioned by the ABPI amounts to anything apart from a token dressing-down.

At least the MSD suspension got one write-up in the national press.

The excellent Mike Fitzpatrick has written about this, contrasting the abundant coverage of other Pharma-related issues (e.g. the TGN trial and its aftermath) with the lack of interest (at least in the mainstream media) in the industry’s marketing tactics:

www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/article/262/

In this connection, Darrell Huff’s “How to lie with statistics”

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darrell_Huff

published more than half a century ago in 1954, includes in its 100-odd pages all the standard dodges that politicians are still using.

“How to lie with statistics”, is apparently the best-settling stats book ever, but this doesn’t seem to have made people much more knowledgeable about how sundry people use bogus stats to con us.

But I don’t think that anyone selling magic algae pills *believes* the stuff really works, and so I wonder if he wears it to give himself extra credibility in the eyes of his customers.

Still, as the good doctor says, this is more pseudoscience than bad science.

I would agree with others that it’s time to rest the fish, or it might seem at best monomaniacal or at worst like you have a personal grudge/vendetta going.

I suppose MSD’s suspension from ABPI for dodgy marketing tactics www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-2385569,00.html is out of your remit (this is the company that, promoting the same drug, modified the British Hypertension Society guidance to suggest that BHS endorsed it). That’s the sort of thing that makes me cross!

There are a lot of overweight people on cruise ships, and it seemed they were being preyed upon by this guy. He kept running “seminars” in order to tell the passengers that they weren’t fat and ill because they ate too much: oh, no, it’s the *toxins* that are making them fat and ill. And the cure? Magic algae tablets, yours at a mere $600 for six months’ supply. You can throw your statins and blood pressure drugs away and stop dieting. Maybe the Q-link pendant gives off special rays that enhance gullibility.

www.badscience.net/?p=37

The dangers, uses and potential threats posed by this chemical, Dihydrogen Monoxide, are widespread, and some feel, terrifying. Here is just a small taste of what Dihydrogen Monoxide (DHMO) is:
Some call Dihydrogen Monoxide the “Invisible Killer”
Others think dihydrogen monoxide should be Banned
Dihydrogen Monoxide is linked to gun violence
Dihydrogen monoxide was found at every recent school shooting
Athletes use DIHYDROGEN MONOXIDE, or DHMO, to enhance performance
Dihydrogen Monoxide has been found in our rivers, lakes, oceans and streams
Dihydrogen Monoxide is a major component of acid rain
Thousands die each year after inhaling dihydrogen monoxide
Dihydrogen Monoxide can be deadly

and it goes on to relate how surveys have shown that high proportions of the (US) population support a ban on DHMO.

Might be illustrative of a recurring theme. It might be a crap idea for an article as well, but I enjoyed the DHMO website

(BTW, I did do undergraduate chemistry so, though no expert, I am familiar with DHMO. I have also to admit I have a beaker of the stuff, with added cognitive enhancer on my desk right now. Only hope the natural origins of the cognitive enhancer – hand-picked in the Andes, roasted and ground by age-old traditional methods and comparable in price, gram for gram, with gold – outweighs the harm from the DHMO)

Is there an observational study?

Try to keep some variation going, us cheerleaders may not mind a third Fishy story in a row, but the Great Unwashed might. Give it a week with something different and hit them again next week, is my advice.

Even better the fish oil peddelers may think they are off the hook, only to be hit again the next week.

www.badscience.net/?p=309#comment-8259