Comments on: “My right to be called a nutritionist” – Patrick Holford

By: diudiu

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By: Mojo

Mojo — Wed, 28 Feb 2007 14:19:00 +0000

Re #61: “Sorry to keep banging on about the bloke, but it looks like the Guardian cut his letter a bit. The last paragraph is on his website and he challenges Ben Goldacre to a debate. ”

Looks like he’s removed the offending paragraph from his website. It now has the same text as the letter as published in the Grauniad:

hxxp://ww w.pat rickholford.co m/con tent.asp?id_Content=1751

By: j

Tue, 20 Feb 2007 17:24:27 +0000

And of course Holford takes (at least, says he takes) a range of supplements, and helpfully publishes his regime on his website. OK, so it’s an unblinded trial with only 1 subject but, in the spirit of high quality nutritional research, we could see what inferences can be drawn from this about the effects of supplements

By: gadgeezer

gadgeezer — Tue, 20 Feb 2007 15:49:08 +0000

Presumably, most of H’s followers are taking fish oil supplements. If BG is getting abusive emails, does this mean that they *don’t* soothe the temper or even out emotional peaks and troughs? At the very least, I hope that all of the emails display immaculate spelling and grammar (as implied by the Food for Brains work).

By: Ben Goldacre

Ben Goldacre — Mon, 19 Feb 2007 18:49:36 +0000

he is mr showbiz. with some papers off pubmed, that he doesnt understand, as props.

By: pv

pv — Mon, 19 Feb 2007 18:42:07 +0000

Ben, seriously, Mr Holford’s actions/inactions here smack of a bit of showbiz manipulation, not someone interested in the science of anything. I would avoid a public debate with him like the plague because, unless one is permitted to stick solely to the facts of the matter, it would be a disaster.
I think one has to remember that Mr Holford has got to where he is because he has remained largely unchallenged. To the media (newspapers, tv et al) people like him bring in the audiences, which pleases the advertisers. But in all likelihood he, like TAPL, doesn’t have an answer to any scientific criticism because the “science” such as it is is something to invent where necessary, to hide behind and to impress his scientifically illiterate public.
Now he has been challenged. His credibility is on the line, and his credibility is his route to extracting dollars from clients. So what does he do? He can’t defend the science so he does what every showbiz person does, he gets his lawyers onto the case. In fact, the more I think about it the more his offer of a debate seems like a smokescreen and he probably never had any intention of debating in the first place. Maybe the plan all along has been to make a drama out of it and to try and make Dr Goldacre look bad without ever debating anything. Why else would he ignore your emails? It all fits.

By: Tristan

Tristan — Mon, 19 Feb 2007 17:13:40 +0000

I’ve just noticed his website has the slogan: “100% health for life”

Now, surely that would only work if you were perfectly healthy, then died suddenly in a car crash or something. I mean, how else are you going to die whilst avoiding ill health?

By: Tristan

Tristan — Mon, 19 Feb 2007 17:10:03 +0000

Just wait for the email from Holford saying: “My dad’s harder than your dad”.

That would just about match the maturity of his behaviour so far.

By: j

Mon, 19 Feb 2007 17:04:08 +0000

Nah, it’s great. Holford’s insistance on his serious authority as a health professional is accompanied by accusations that you’re a chicken. I mean, what better way is there to ensure that Holford’s taken seriously

By: Ben Goldacre

Ben Goldacre — Mon, 19 Feb 2007 14:04:55 +0000

i’ve had abusive mails from his supporters calling me a chicken. it’s incredibly bizarre. i started out here in all good faith to address the science but my opinion of this man is plummeting, i tell you. plummeting.

By: j

Mon, 19 Feb 2007 14:03:05 +0000

you mean when you accepted the offer of a debate Holford didn’t even have any excuses about how the dog ate his debating notes he just didn’t answer your e-mails? Anyway, as Mojo said, I guess that factually false allegations will be enough to convince Holford’s supporters that he ‘won’ this debate which hasn’t took place.

I guess if the allegations are demonstrably factually false, that’d be libel wouldn’t it (though I’m not a lawyer). Again, though, people don’t exactly tend to come out of libel cases looking dignified…

By: Ben Goldacre

Ben Goldacre — Mon, 19 Feb 2007 13:42:53 +0000

i’ve written to him very politely again.

i have to say i find this completely baffling, i have no personal beef with patrick holford. it’s a very unpleasant way to distract attention from discussing the science of HIV AIDS and vitamins.

By: Tristan

Tristan — Mon, 19 Feb 2007 13:39:46 +0000

undignified it may be, but that doesn’t stop it being fun!

By: Ben Goldacre

Ben Goldacre — Mon, 19 Feb 2007 12:23:17 +0000

i might have to think seriously about what to do about this. patrick’s style is clearly to have public and presonal spats, which i think is rather undignified, as is the law. it is very bizarre behaviour though.

By: Mojo

Mojo — Mon, 19 Feb 2007 10:41:47 +0000

The factually false allegations will be enough to convince his followers that he has somehow “won”.

By: Ben Goldacre

Ben Goldacre — Sun, 18 Feb 2007 23:32:17 +0000

hahahahaaaa

his thing about the debate is absurd, he asked, i accepted. i’ve written to remind him, suggesting he takes this pathetic ad hominem slur down, forwarded the whole email correspondence, he just ignores it, like a child, in my opinion.

if he doesnt take it down in the next couple of days i’m going to post the whole email correspondence, i dont think he comes out of it looking too good frankly. again. i mean really.

just written to him again.

with the best will in the world i see absolutely no value in him making factually false allegations.

By: Mojo

Mojo — Sun, 18 Feb 2007 23:21:16 +0000

Debates are not necessarily the appropriate forum for this sort of debate. A glib opponent can make a good impression despite the facts being against them by using what are effectively “soundbites”, and if they do introduce pieces of “research” into the debate it is impossible to check their facts before responding. In addition to which they can bring in large numbers of supporters who are unlikely to be swayed by whatever evidence is presented by the other side.

Hovind got away with this sort of thing for years.

By: j

Sun, 18 Feb 2007 13:58:50 +0000

Sorry to keep banging on about the bloke, but it looks like the Guardian cut his letter a bit. The last paragraph is on his website and he challenges Ben Goldacre to a debate.

“Both ION and I have previously invited Goldacre to debate the science behind any nutritional claims he wants to take issue with. So far he has not accepted the challenge, seeming to prefer to use his column to defame health professionals with a non-drug approach, rather than expose the numerous examples of distorted and poor quality research used to support the use of drugs whose side effects kill more than 10,000 people a year in the UK.”

By: evidencebasedeating

evidencebasedeating — Sat, 17 Feb 2007 18:01:21 +0000

drbunny – you forgot to add his constant reference back to the book ‘Food is Better than Medicine’ , alluded to on the BMJ letters page, but not mentioned as a conflict of interest. Guess it doesn’t count if he didn’t put the Amazon reference page alongside, or offered a ‘money off coupon’.

Funny that Jerome Burns, co-author, who submitted a similar letter virtually simultaneously to the BMJ referred to his authorship in the same book.

Perhaps Patrick has problems with selective memory loss. Not a good advert for the pill-for-every-ill Optimum Nutrition approach.

By: drbunny

drbunny — Sat, 17 Feb 2007 14:25:42 +0000

Im amused that Patrick Holford states in his BMJ response he has “no conflicts of interest” while describing himself as a ‘media nutritionist’ and mentioning he is founder of the Institute for Optimum Nutrition

Obiously the same shoddy approach to veracity as to science…