Ben Goldacre
Saturday March 11, 2006
The Guardian
So last week, it was all about the magnetic ulcer bandages that were suddenly officially available on the NHS: they are made by Magnopulse, who also sell a magnet for the ladies that will give you “softer skin, shiny hair and stronger nails”, and a dog bowl magnet: “given the choice, your pet will always choose to drink magnetic water”. This absurdity didn’t seem to worry the NHS Prescription Read the rest of this entry »
Ben Goldacre
Saturday February 11, 2006
The Guardian
Let me take you back to 2005, and one of several Bad Science stories about Susan Clark and her What’s The Alternative column in the Sunday Times. She’s no longer in that post – if you’re lucky we’ll have room to talk about her successor soon – but she stood out on account of her Read the rest of this entry »
Ben Goldacre
Saturday January 14, 2006
The Guardian
Ok, hold on to your girlfriends, because this time we get seriously geeky. Last week we were talking about hi-fi company Russ Andrews, and their £30 power cable, which they reckon will improve the sound of your Read the rest of this entry »
Ben Goldacre
Saturday January 7, 2006
The Guardian
My new year resolution is to have more Johnny Ball home science experiment moments. Which brings me on to reader David Stafford. “Today, I received a catalogue from a UK hi fi company called Russ Andrews,” he begins. You can find their web site at www.russandrews.com. On the front page is a power cable that costs £29.95. “If anyone buys this,” he says, “they will need Read the rest of this entry »
Homeopathy: someone should tell the government that there’s nothing in it
Ben Goldacre
Saturday December 31, 2005
The Guardian
My first new year’s resolution is to write less about homeopaths, partly because teasing them is starting to bore me, and partly because we’ve won. Yes. Won. I’m talking about huge meta-analyses, summing together vast numbers of little trials, adding all Read the rest of this entry »
Ben Goldacre
Saturday December 3, 2005
The Guardian
People often ask me [pulls pensively on pipe] “what is science?” And I reply thusly: science is Read the rest of this entry »
Ben Goldacre
Thursday June 16, 2005
The Guardian
· Do you ever get the feeling that a story is just disappearing before your very eyes? There I was, cheerfully reading about the Opur Oxygen Canister that reader Diana McAllister sent me. Why would anyone want to inhale expensive oxygen from a tin that costs £10, you rightly ask. After all, if you’re the proud owner of two lungs then you already inhale more than the average, and oxygen, like love, is free and all around us. Feel the love. Breathe the oxygen. But no. There is a reason. “Just 300 years ago, the density [sic] of oxygen in the environment on Earth was 30%. Today it is 19-20%.” Breathe into that thought. Feel the bad science washing over you.
· Now I am an innocent soul at heart, with an inquiring mind. Perhaps I’m wrong on this one. I mean, maybe things have moved on since I did A-level chemistry a whole 12 years ago, but I vaguely remember at least 200 years before that some French bloke called Lavoisier burned candles in closed containers and found that only a fifth of the air was consumed, called that bit “oxygen” instead of Phlogiston and then sat wondering what the other 80% of air was all about. The answer is “being nitrogen”, for those of you a few hundred years behind the game.
· But the Opur people have a far higher opinion of your scientific knowledge than I do. Evolution, they think you will be thinking: surely we could evolve to deal with this change in atmospheric oxygen, in a mere 300 years. They have an answer for that too. “Simple living cell creatures [sic] will adapt to such changes in the environment. However, man has not become more efficient at extracting oxygen from the air.” No. Here we are living in a hostile alien environment with a third less oxygen than we evolved for, a whole 300 years after this gigantic change in the composition of the earth’s atmosphere. Now, I’ve got as much respect for an argument deploying comparative physiology as the next man. But this guff appears almost 200 times on Google (www.tinyurl.com/bcuql). So I bravely write to half a dozen sites at random, and they all, all, write back, within 12 hours, to say they’re taking these quotes off their webpages. Check it out. I’m more effective than the ASA. We’re waiting to talk to the distributor, but the man from retailer www.opuruk.co.uk rang me back. “By the time your story comes out we will no longer even sell this product,” he said, which is a shame, since I have no idea if it is any good and rather wanted to try it. Where did my story go? Only another 185 retailers to go.
Ben Goldacre
Thursday March 17, 2005
The Guardian
· You know that scene in the movies where the dorky science teenager tries really hard to be cool at a party? That’s my life. Bad Science reader Frank Swain also proved his mettle on the dancefloor when he was given a can of Shark. “This was a Red Bull clone handed to me by underdressed women at a club. It claims to be derived from ‘traditional Thai Recipes’ and the literature with the samples states: ‘The dextrose in Shark comes entirely from grape sugar, which in turn improves the quality of the other carbohydrates, and rapidly increases your energy levels.’
· “Exactly how it improves the quality of other carbohydrates isn’t explained, and the girls handing out the drink didn’t know either.” Yes! Another victory for the cool scientists. Then the hot chicks gave him another classic opener: “The high quality composition of Shark is supplemented by B complex vitamins and the essential protein Lysine.” Hmm, says Frank. “If they don’t know the difference between proteins and amino acids…” Yes! Take that, hot chicks! Who says scientists don’t rock the ladies?
· Meanwhile, reader Chris Williams sends in an advert from Limited Edition, the “Hertfordshire County Magazine”, for Dr Eggers’s Hypoxi weight loss pod, an egg-shaped capsule with a neoprene vacuum seal around the waist: apparently, pedalling with your legs and bottom in a low-pressure environment is a good thing. “Dr Eggers’ clinical trials show up to a 300% reduction in size on problem areas through Hypoxi Therapy.” I’m seeing large women riding children’s bicycles with stabilisers.
· Little did I realise when I wrote about scary Penta’s ASA battering that there was a whole scene for people hanging out on the ASA website complaining about each other. Ecos Paints had an objection against it by the Green Building Store upheld, for its “100% natural paints” that contained, er, synthetic ingredients. Since then, it has launched into a bitter cycle of accusations resulting in rulings against the Green Building Store, the Good Earth Catalogue Company, and others. Comrades, please, what about the wider struggle? But check out Ecos Paints’s unchallenged EMR/ELF Radiation Shielding Wallpaint: “Brick and concrete walls are no barrier to EMR-ELF radiation and next door’s TV set or microwave oven could be just feet away from your head! Ecos EMR/ELF shielding wallpaint gives up to 99% shielding against ELF/VLF/EMR radiations.” You’d better paint over your windows, too…
Ben Goldacre
Thursday March 10, 2005
The Guardian
· The great thing about Bad Science is the column just writes itself. Like when Penta Water wrote in to say “Sleep well tonight and think about how and why you tried to fuck us over and practice [sic] keeping one eye open.” It may have apologised, but the curse of Bad Science has struck again: this time, through the mighty hand of the Advertising Standards Authority.
· Someone – I like to fantasise it was one of you – wrote to the ASA to complain that Penta’s adverts “misleadingly implied the product had health benefits over and above those of ordinary water” and that “the claims ‘restructured’ and ‘it might be just H2O, but it’s no ordinary water'” were misleading. Here are some of the quotes from Penta that worried them: “Easy to drink – Proven faster, better hydration – No sloshing or fullness Penta is ultra-purified, restructured ‘micro-water’. Groundbreaking science – proven by patent. Just H2O in smaller stable clusters.” Nice. “You too can use Penta (1-4 bottles a day) to enjoy what we call “Bio-hydration” optimal cellular hydration that makes your body come alive … Penta is proven to hydrate more efficiently due to its unique structure.” And the proof? “It’s been shown by researchers at the University of Calif. at San Diego that Penta water hydrates cells faster and more effectively than other waters. Researchers at Moscow University demonstrated that Penta improves the environment within your cells …Unique patented structure … proven at the prestigious General Physic Institute.”
· Now check this. The ASA can be even more patronising than me: “They [Penta] submitted research papers that they believed showed scientific evidence of restructuring… The authority took expert advice and understood that the scientific evidence submitted did not prove that Penta had health benefits over and above those of ordinary water, or had been restructured to form stable smaller clusters. It also understood that hydrogen bonds in ordinary water were a weak type of chemical bonding that allowed the formation and reformation of temporary clusters of water molecules in liquid phase water many times per second.”
· So the ASA has told Penta not to repeat claims that imply its product is chemically unique, has been restructured or molecularly redesigned, or improves physical performance better than tap water. I can’t help wanting to ask, only I’m too scared to phone them again: how is Penta going to flog this water now?
