This was such a waste of time and money. I bought this because I was purchasing another book on health by Jillian McKeith and one of the horrible reviews said that basically she is a hack and to buy this book instead. So I bought both.

This book is full of non-information and written so badly a 6th grader could have done better. Long and drawn out. Jillian McKeith’s book is full of useful information and recipes. The author of Bad Medicine simply has a grudge against her because she is a millionaire. Shame on her for trying to make a good living. Does this author hate people who win the lotto too? He brings up money so often. I’m sorry, but isn’t he trying to make a bundle of money too? Oh, but that is okay.

He is jealous of anyone with a lot money. Big deal. Poor and socialist people are like that – jealous and wishing they had money too. That’s what he sounds like in this whole book, if he doesn’t have a lot of money then McKeith shouldn’t either! Stupid book.

Comment 22: Groinhammer? Look out 21!

I don’t remember if the “Eye Trainer” video game initially came with a small print health warning on its television adverts “Does not do your eyesight any good whatsoever” but it showed up pretty quickly. I wonder if there’s been any more trouble about that.

That’s a really bad picture of Ben next to the article, in the picture here. It looks like he’s nearly bald.

As Kat pointed out over here, there already is a competition of this kind – it’s the “Food For The Brain” Raffle. You truly couldn’t make it up.

BTW, the “medicine” Groinhammer pointed out above is another example of why the MHRA should be ashamed of the changes in the rules on advertising / labelling homeopathic remedies a couple of years back – see e.g. David Colquhoun’s blog here, and the earlier posts it links to.

The Alanis Morissette reference occurred to me too, but you beat me to it!

Isn’t this going to induce some serious cognitive dissonance in the Daily Mail-reading public? I can see a sudden rush of confusion-stricken patients to the local homeopa… no, doctor… no, acupuncturist… no, doctor… Argh!

If they *really* want to do the job properly, they should run a competition where the winner receives a signed copy of Bad Science, another of Testing Treatments, a collection of healing crystals, a homeopathic First Aid kit and a Q-Link pendant.

I am a veterinarian, but have decided to teach for a while. I am rather passionate about good science (some Public Health post-grad work got me all hot under the collar over the industry of pseudoscience – alive and well downunder).

I have just spent this year doing a grad. teaching dip. at Uni of Auckland and, while my year group is lovely and interesting, they do not know a thing about critical analysis of scientific literature. I gave our science lecturer your book and she was utterly inspired.

Anyway – my friends are getting a little tired of all my ‘bollocks-spotting’ lectures, so I now look forward to having a captive audience of ten year olds upon which to inflict my tirades against the abuse of science.

For the sake of our children, every teacher should read your book. I will do my part to push it in New Zealand. If you are ever out this way – PLEASE let me rope you on to giving a talk to NZ teachers. They need your help (bribes of good red wine included).

Cheers, Ana

Oh yeah – for a laugh: enhanced external counter pulsation.. www.eecp.co.nz/EECP_Welcome_Page.html

If symptoms persist or worsen, consult your doctor or homeopath.

Consult a medical practitioner or any old bloke over the road.

When you look at the woo nonsense for too long, is their a danger you could be sucked into the sparkly tights and ‘Ta Daaaa!’ world of the credulous? I was looking into the duck hunters Everest that is Scientology recently, and you do start to wonder what all the fuss is about. It initially reads like old school Christianity – giving up your wealth to the ‘church’, admonishing the unbeliever, secretive texts and rituals, persecution of heretics, top dogs penchant for the nubile and hard cash – nothing different to run of the mill historical vatican policy as far as I could tell. The Xenu/Xemu bit reads like a bad Star Trek episode though.

Ben – Have you looked at Nelsons products? I was looking at a pack of their ‘Teetha’ (fast becoming a firm favorite with mums) which lists the active ingredient as 6c homeopathic potency of Chamomilla. ‘As the teething process can go on for up to 18 months you probably want to find a natural remedy that will work in tune with your baby’s body and one that is safe enough to be used every day. Nelsons Teetha is a firm been a favourite (sic) among parents for generations. The natural, sugar-free granules work with the whole body to soothe and calm your baby, and relieve the pain and discomfort of teething. The pleasant tasting powders are ready dosed so they can be taken anytime, anywhere. Just tip into your baby’s mouth or spoon-feed.’ The punchline is the precautions:
‘Keep out of the reach of children. If symptoms persist or worsen, consult your doctor or homeopath.’

One thing that worries me is that it has such unrelenting positive reviews on the Amazon site. Well deserved, of course. But I would have expected some slagging off from various cranks – surely it hasn’t given them pause for thought?

I bought a copy of this book a couple of weeks ago from the Guardian website, read it and decided to buy lots more copies for friends. However, it has now disappeared from the Guardian website – no mention of it anywhere. I contacted them to find out why and just got a short email saying it was no longer held in stock…. given it was written by someone who writes for the Guardian I did find this quite odd. I then noticed that out of all the categories they list of books they do stock “Science” as a category was curiously missing. Does rather fit in with the chapter on the media.

Luckily, Amazon stock it instead.