May 15th, 2009 by Ben Goldacre
in adverts, bad science, competing interests, great popularisers of science, scare stories | 70 Comments »
Edit midday Saturday: I’ve just read the Guardian version and it’s been cut a bit, whole chunks missing, and bits rewritten. This is the best reason to have a blog. Anyway, if Baroness Greenfield responds – and naturally I hope she will, as there is a great deal more to say on this topic – I hope she will respond to what I actually wrote, below.
Ben Goldacre
The Guardian
Saturday 16 May 2009
You will be familiar with the work of Professor Baroness Susan Greenfield. She is head of the Royal Institute Institution of Great Britain, where she has charged herself with promoting the public’s understanding of science, of what it means for there to be evidence for a given proposition. This is important work.
You will also doubtless be aware of her more prominent activity on the many terrifying risks of computers, exemplified in the Daily Mail headline “Social websites harm children’s brains: Chilling warning to parents from top neuroscientist”, “Computers could be fuelling obesity crisis, says Baroness Susan Greenfield” in the Telegraph, “Do you have Facebook flab? Computer use could make you eat too much, warns professor” in the Mail again, Read the rest of this entry »
February 14th, 2009 by Ben Goldacre
in MMR, competing interests, regulating research | 46 Comments »
Ben Goldacre
Saturday February 14 2009
The Guardian
This column is about tainted medical research, not MMR. Now don’t get me wrong: it’s still an interesting week to be right about vaccines. On Sunday Read the rest of this entry »
June 28th, 2008 by Ben Goldacre
in PhDs, doctors, and qualifications, bad science, competing interests, electrosensitivity, express, herbal remedies, magnets, roger coghill, statistics | 92 Comments »
Ben Goldacre
The Guardian,
Saturday June 28, 2008
It’s the big stories I enjoy the most. “Suicides linked to phone masts” roared the Sunday Express front-page headline this week. “The spate of deaths among young people in Britain’s suicide capital could be linked to radio waves from dozens of mobile phone transmitter masts near the victims’ homes.”
Read the rest of this entry »
September 19th, 2007 by Ben Goldacre
in adverts, bad science, competing interests, medicalisation, patrick holford | 25 Comments »
Okay, you lot are seriously on a roll. Following a complaint from a badscience reader, the ASA have found that Patrick Holford made untruthful, unsubstantiated claims in a leaflet he was sending out. Pasted below is the full adjudication and also the original advert in question, so that you can decide for yourself about the content, and I’ve also pasted my brief guide to making ASA complaints about dodgy adverts for a rainy afternoon. Read the rest of this entry »
