Straight jabs

January 13th, 2005 by Ben Goldacre in bad science, independent, magnets, mail, MMR | 2 Comments »

Ben Goldacre
Thursday January 13, 2005
The Guardian

People sometimes say to me, “I enjoy Bad Science, but often the jokes go right over my head, which makes me worry that I must be ignorant.” To which I always reply: “Good.” Over to reader Anne Pickard: “Unable to get a copy of our Saturday Guardian, my husband bought the Independent, which included a feature on ‘The 50 best spa treatments’. You may be interested to learn that in seventh place comes “Magnetic Massage”, where your torso “is shrouded in an infrared-heated blanket that warms up your kidneys to help speed up the detoxification process in your internal organs”. Brilliant. Is there anything else I can do to warm my kidneys up? “Do something unexpectedly kind for one person every day,” says the careers development section of www.telecomsjobsource.co.uk, “this tends to warm your kidneys.”

Meanwhile, it’s good to see some of you have been keeping an eye on the Daily Mail, particularly the story of a new “triple jab” as the paper called it. The vaccination they are talking about is the conjugate pneumococcal vaccine that the Joint Committee on Immunisation and Vaccination recommended at its last meeting. Most people had expected the Mail to get its knickers in a twist, but where did it pull the idea of a triple vaccine from? The pneumococcal vaccine currently licensed in the UK (given to children at high risk of complications from pneumococcal infection) is a 7-valent conjugate vaccine which protects against seven of the most common serotypes of pneumococcus. Shut up. Nobody complains about the Books section being too “Booky”. So anyway, it’s not a “triple” vaccine, that great Daily Mail bogeyman, because it only confers protection against one organism (Streptococcus pneumoniae), just like the Hib vaccine confers immunity to Haemophilius influenzae type B, and the conjugate Men C vaccine protects against Neisseria meningitidis.

Presumably, and this is the best explanation I can offer, the Mail journalist took the Department of Health’s suggestion that the vaccine would protect children against bacterial meningitis, pneumonia and septicaemia, and assumed this meant three separate diseases, like MMR protects against measles, mumps and rubella. But bacterial meningitis, pneumonia, and septicaemia are three – potentially fatal – outcomes of a pneumococcal infection. As our spotter says: “It’s a good job they hadn’t picked up on the 7-valent bit. They would have got even more excited about a septuple vaccine.”

That floaty feeling

June 3rd, 2004 by Ben Goldacre in bad science, magnets | 2 Comments »

That floaty feeling

Ben Goldacre
Thursday June 3, 2004
The Guardian

Talk about bad science here

· You won’t be surprised that I get a lot of critical email. This is very embarrassing, but it’s best that I put my hands up and admit it: last week, I was wrong. In my defence, I am a very angry man, but that’s no excuse for getting in a huff and throwing out pejorative statements like “blood is not magnetic” because, as reader Mark van Ments – who may be the pickiest scientist in the world – points out, blood does, like all objects, exhibit diamagnetism (see Letters, page 10). Thanks Mark. What I meant to say is: blood is not ferro-magnetic. Diamagnetism was first thought through 150 years ago: the electrons orbiting an atom, being charged, are going to readjust their orbits when you stick them in a strong magnetic field, as you might expect. But in doing so, they then create their own magnetic field. To be fair [coughs] the effect is so weak that the rest of the world is roughly one billion times less magnetic than a lump of iron but yes, hands up, that doesn’t mean it’s not significant. And, let’s not be in any doubt, the most significant application of diamagnetism research is to allow mankind, and specifically me, to fly, unaided, like Superman.

· People have been levitating chunks of diamagnetic superconductor for years: that’s a bit easier, what with superconductors (unlike me) being specifically designed to let electrons roam around in them unhindered. But I don’t want to fly like Superman through liquid nitrogen; I want to do it where it’s safe to wear my Y-fronts over my corduroy trousers. Objects other than superconductors proved marginally trickier, but in 1991 Beaugnon and Tournier levitated water, and were soon followed by others who levitated liquid hydrogen and frogs’ eggs.

· But most promising is the work of Berry and Geim, who in 1997 levitated practically everything they could get their hands on, from hazelnuts and pieces of pizza to frogs and a mouse. Watching the video of a frog hovering in mid-air is a humbling and weirdly tranquil experience. For the anti-vivisectionists among you there is a film of a levitating strawberry. The basic small levitation set-up, of superconducting magnet with room temperature core, only costs about $100,000. To levitate yourself, you will need a special racetrack magnet of about 40 Tesla in the back garden, a socket in your home capable of providing around 1GW of continuous power consumption, and an extension cable with a 5 million amp fuse. Don’t forget it’s my birthday soon.

That floaty feeling

June 3rd, 2004 by Ben Goldacre in bad science, letters, magnets | 2 Comments »

Ben Goldacre
Thursday June 3, 2004
The Guardian

· You won’t be surprised that I get a lot of critical email. This is very embarrassing, but it’s best that I put my hands up and admit it: last week, I was wrong. In my defence, I am a very angry man, but that’s no excuse for getting in a huff and throwing out pejorative statements like “blood is not magnetic” because, as reader Mark van Ments – who may be the pickiest scientist in the world – points out, blood does, like all objects, exhibit diamagnetism (see Letters, page 10). Thanks Mark. What I meant to say is: blood is not ferro-magnetic. Diamagnetism was first thought through 150 years ago: the electrons orbiting an atom, being charged, are going to readjust their orbits when you stick them in a strong magnetic field, as you might expect. But in doing so, they then create their own magnetic field. To be fair [coughs] the effect is so weak that the rest of the world is roughly one billion times less magnetic than a lump of iron but yes, hands up, that doesn’t mean it’s not significant. And, let’s not be in any doubt, the most significant application of diamagnetism research is to allow mankind, and specifically me, to fly, unaided, like Superman.

· People have been levitating chunks of diamagnetic superconductor for years: that’s a bit easier, what with superconductors (unlike me) being specifically designed to let electrons roam around in them unhindered. But I don’t want to fly like Superman through liquid nitrogen; I want to do it where it’s safe to wear my Y-fronts over my corduroy trousers. Objects other than superconductors proved marginally trickier, but in 1991 Beaugnon and Tournier levitated water, and were soon followed by others who levitated liquid hydrogen and frogs’ eggs.

· But most promising is the work of Berry and Geim, who in 1997 levitated practically everything they could get their hands on, from hazelnuts and pieces of pizza to frogs and a mouse. Watching the video of a frog hovering in mid-air is a humbling and weirdly tranquil experience. For the anti-vivisectionists among you there is a film of a levitating strawberry. The basic small levitation set-up, of superconducting magnet with room temperature core, only costs about $100,000. To levitate yourself, you will need a special racetrack magnet of about 40 Tesla in the back garden, a socket in your home capable of providing around 1GW of continuous power consumption, and an extension cable with a 5 million amp fuse. Don’t forget it’s my birthday soon.

Letters

June 3rd, 2004 by Ben Goldacre in bad science, letters, magnets | 4 Comments »

Strong magnets can affect blood

Thursday June 3, 2004
The Guardian

Although blood does not appear to be magnetic at common levels of magnetism, I believe you are wrong to say it is not affected by magnetism at all (Bad Science, May 27). With a sufficient magnetic field it is possible to levitate any material, including blood, or even an entire frog using magnetism.

As to the medical benefits of using magnetism in this way, apparently the frog suffered no ill effects.
Mark van Ments
By email

Blood’s a bad science magnet

May 27th, 2004 by Ben Goldacre in bad science, dna, magnets, mail | 3 Comments »

Blood’s a bad science magnet

Ben Goldacre
Thursday May 27, 2004
The Guardian

Talk about bad science here

· No bad science this week: the world has changed. Only kidding. David Pack sends me a fabulous leaflet he picked up in a Cambridge library recently on Energy Interference Patterning of DNA. “If you find yourself in situations that cause irritated or defensive reactions…” That’s me. “Research confirms that emotions, feelings and belief systems alter DNA… the EIP technique unlocks the mystery of healing quickly and easily … access cellular DNA memory and create a new regenerated and rejuvenated DNA… remove old belief systems permanently.”

· Luckily there was a voice of sanity in the wilderness: Carole Caplin in the Mail on Sunday. “Adidas shoe designer Christian DiBendetto has come up with a computerised running shoe, complete with buttons, magnet and electric motor.” For £170. Sounds right up her street. But no. “Can you imagine anything worse? The foot contains important energy meridians that a magnet and electric motor could seriously interfere with. “Gosh. How dangerous is that, Carole? “DiBendetto says that a shoe that changes shape to suit a hard or soft surface was a fantasy until now. Soon, it will be a nightmare.”

· Meanwhile reader David Bradbury sends us in The Eye Zone Massager, another classic piece of pseudoscience from those folks at the Science Museum gift shop. “At the end of a stressful day, use this special mask for a few minutes. It massages the temples and eye area, reducing stress and energising muscles. Very refreshing, it helps prevent bags and dark rings. Gentle magnets also enhance circulation. Battery included.” No. Again, no. Gentle magnets do not enhance circulation. Blood is not magnetic: and why not try these fun demonstrations at home to prove it. Bleed yourself on to a dish and wave a magnet over it: observe your blood not moving. Hold a magnet over your skin, and watch it not go red. Put yourself in an MRI scanner with a massive magnetic field, and carefully note that you are not hovering, in a dramatic living demonstration of the non-magneticness of your blood. Get a job on a scrapyard, hang out under that big electromagnet they use to pick up the cars, and notice that you do not fly up into the sky, and do not smash your skull into lots of tiny pieces. Regardless of what the Science Museum’s merchandise tells you, kids, blood is not magnetic. Unless, of course, the shop is aware of this and an interactive demonstration of the more cynical commercial applications of science.

Blood’s a bad science magnet

May 27th, 2004 by Ben Goldacre in adverts, bad science, dna, magnets, mail | 2 Comments »

Ben Goldacre
Thursday May 27, 2004
The Guardian

· No bad science this week: the world has changed. Only kidding. David Pack sends me a fabulous leaflet he picked up in a Cambridge library recently on Energy Interference Patterning of DNA. “If you find yourself in situations that cause irritated or defensive reactions…” That’s me. “Research confirms that emotions, feelings and belief systems alter DNA… the EIP technique unlocks the mystery of healing quickly and easily … access cellular DNA memory and create a new regenerated and rejuvenated DNA… remove old belief systems permanently.”

· Luckily there was a voice of sanity in the wilderness: Carole Caplin in the Mail on Sunday. “Adidas shoe designer Christian DiBendetto has come up with a computerised running shoe, complete with buttons, magnet and electric motor.” For £170. Sounds right up her street. But no. “Can you imagine anything worse? The foot contains important energy meridians that a magnet and electric motor could seriously interfere with. “Gosh. How dangerous is that, Carole? “DiBendetto says that a shoe that changes shape to suit a hard or soft surface was a fantasy until now. Soon, it will be a nightmare.”

· Meanwhile reader David Bradbury sends us in The Eye Zone Massager, another classic piece of pseudoscience from those folks at the Science Museum gift shop. “At the end of a stressful day, use this special mask for a few minutes. It massages the temples and eye area, reducing stress and energising muscles. Very refreshing, it helps prevent bags and dark rings. Gentle magnets also enhance circulation. Battery included.” No. Again, no. Gentle magnets do not enhance circulation. Blood is not magnetic: and why not try these fun demonstrations at home to prove it. Bleed yourself on to a dish and wave a magnet over it: observe your blood not moving. Hold a magnet over your skin, and watch it not go red. Put yourself in an MRI scanner with a massive magnetic field, and carefully note that you are not hovering, in a dramatic living demonstration of the non-magneticness of your blood. Get a job on a scrapyard, hang out under that big electromagnet they use to pick up the cars, and notice that you do not fly up into the sky, and do not smash your skull into lots of tiny pieces. Regardless of what the Science Museum’s merchandise tells you, kids, blood is not magnetic. Unless, of course, the shop is aware of this and an interactive demonstration of the more cynical commercial applications of science.

Christmas presents to avoid

December 18th, 2003 by Ben Goldacre in alternative medicine, bad science, death, express, ions, magnets | 3 Comments »

Christmas presents to avoid

Ben Goldacre
Thursday December 18, 2003
The Guardian

· Our spies are everywhere and it seems last week’s ludicrous “salt crystal lamp” is also being sold, of all places, in the Science Museum gift catalogue. Call me a pedant if you will, but I’m not sure it’s entirely to the good of the scientific education of the nation for the the museum to be peddling made-up nonsense that advertises itself thus: “Crystals … cleanse the air by absorbing humidity. The process releases negative ions which neutralise positively charged particles of air pollution, creating the fresh air found by the sea or in the mountains.”

· And so, inevitably, to the Daily Express, this week raving about the Norstar Magnetic Coaster (price £23) on its health pages. “Try putting a glass of water on it,” says the Express, “to expose the water to a magnetic field that helps your body to flush away toxins, or stick the coaster on the side of your bath to improve circulation.” Now, someone mentioned to me at a party the other day that sometimes they didn’t quite understand why the pseudoscience in the products I write about is so wrong, but had always been too embarrassed to say so. Well, OK then, here goes. Blood’s not magnetic: prove it by bleeding yourself onto a plate and waving a magnet around. Magnets don’t affect circulation: prove it by holding one on your skin and looking. And as for this unending nonsense about fields and toxins, I’m afraid that’s so made-up and magical that I wouldn’t even know how to go about designing a kitchen experiment to disprove it.

· I’m sure you all read last week about the case of Reginald Gill, the alternative therapist who fleeced several thousand pounds out of a man who was dying of pancreatic cancer, telling him that cancer was a metabolic disease, and that he could “reverse” it by using his “high frequency therapy” machine. A familiar sounding story. “If you have chemotherapy, you’ll go home in a box,” Gill warned the 43-year-old man. Ten weeks later, the man was indeed dead. And rather more painfully than necessary, having been convinced to stop taking his nasty mainstream morphine painkillers. Was Gill, as has been reported, “one bad apple”? Did this fraudster “give the world of alternative therapy a bad name”? No. Alternative medicine is defined by being a set of practices that cannot be tested, refuse to be tested, or have consistently failed tests. Gill wasn’t one bad apple: he was at the pinnacle of his profession.

The homeopaths strike back

October 2nd, 2003 by Ben Goldacre in bad science, celebs, dna, homeopathy, magnets, placebo, very basic science | 5 Comments »

The homeopaths strike back

Ben Goldacre
Thursday October 2, 2003
The Guardian

· You probably don’t have to be a physics expert like bad science spotter Professor Donald Simanek to spot that the new £2 coin, celebrating our scientific heritage, has an odd number of gears interlocking around the edge, creating a system that could not possibly turn.

· Down at Tower Bridge, illusionist David Blaine has genetically modified supermen working on his security team. They only got worried about people shining laser pointers at Blaine because, as one of them told the Daily Mirror: “In America a dot of light means someone’s aiming a gun at you using an infrared sight.” That’s “infrared” as in below the range of human vision.

· Meanwhile, according to Jack Straw, speaking in parliament last week, Iraq is a difficult place to find weapons of mass destruction in because it’s twice the size of France. That’s presumably the same Iraq that is 437,072 sq km, as opposed to France, which is (according to the, er, CIA World Factbook) 547,030 sq km.

· But there’s more. Writing about the unbelievably excellent Henry Wellcome artefacts exhibition at the British Museum, Time Out tells us about “a lock of George III’s hair that is undergoing DNA analysis to determine whether the king was, in fact, mad”. Looks like psychiatrists are out of a job, then: perhaps his DNA could tell us if he was bad and dangerous to know too?

· And just in case you thought I was going to give complementary therapy bashing a rest this week, may I proudly offer you the fantastic randomised control study from this week’s Journal of the American Medical Association which shows that magnet therapy does not work for heel pain. That’s one quack cure down, only 5,363,672 to go.

· One last thing. I have received, from the director of the Society of Homeopaths, what is possibly the longest letter ever written to any newspaper on any subject. How any alternative therapist who has ever read a newspaper in Britain could possibly claim that they get a bad deal, considering that dark ages superstition has now become the contractually-enforced journalistic norm, baffles me, but in the spirit in which this epic letter was clearly intended I present it here diluted one part in one hundred thousand, in the vain hope that it has more impact on you than it does on me: “Placeb…”

Neutral whites

September 4th, 2003 by Ben Goldacre in alternative medicine, bad science, cosmetics, herbal remedies, magnets | 5 Comments »

Neutral whites

Ben Goldacre
Thursday September 4, 2003
The Guardian

Talk bad science

· When I was a lad, washing powder adverts were all about men in white coats on housewives’ doorsteps; now international biotech firms have to wear a kaftan and beads just to get your attention. New Persil Aloe Vera contains “Aloe Vera extract, well known to be gentle on skin … a touch of nature for all the family wash”. If I can be the man in the white coat for a moment: aloe vera has been shown “in tests” to accelerate wound healing, which might count as gentle, but [turns earnestly to camera ignoring baffled housewife] “a touch” of nature is just about all you’ll get once it’s been through two rinse cycles and a drum spinning at 1200rpm.

· And while I’m still in anally retentive mode: Bach’s Flower Remedies were not, as the unendingly credulous Times stated last week, “discovered” by Dr Bach in the 1930s. Species and laws are “discovered”; esoteric moneyspinners, no matter how well-meaning and fluffy they may be, are “concocted”.

· And now to our star bad science activist from Birmingham, who, sadly, wishes to remain anonymous. A firm called Neutralec is apparently on to something big. That funny shading you sometimes get on your carpets, where the weave points in different directions? Electromagnetic waves, apparently. I turn to the website (www.field-free.co.uk). I start to worry when I see the pictures of big dark rectangles in fitted shagpile that were apparently caused by a broken video recorder that was 2m away in the loft and wasn’t even plugged in. The website says I can get rid of this sort of thing by plugging a little ceramic sphere (that costs £60) into my earth loop through the three-pin plug on the wall, and this will also protect me from electromagnetic radiation. Or will it? In among the testimonials (“Neither I or anyone else has experienced a headache since … Twelve months later … her husband had not experienced any fits whatsoever!”) they seem to be hedging their bets: “We are not in any way suggesting that the Neutraliser will cure any specific illness or prevent disease.” Well, as the Guardian legal department often say, as they rap my sarcastic little knuckles: that’s certainly what you’re implying. Where others would have held their heads in disbelief, our masked crusader wrote to Solihull trading standards, asking: “How many gullible souls have to part with £60 before someone makes a stand?” So far, no response. If you need any help, trading standards, a nation of scientists is at your disposal.

The blatant blanket blag

August 28th, 2003 by Ben Goldacre in alternative medicine, bad science, magnets | 3 Comments »

The blatant blanket blag

Ben Goldacre
Thursday August 28, 2003
The Guardian

Talk bad science

· My informants send news of the new Magneto-Tex blankets, available for only £399. They have set themselves apart from other magnet therapies (many of which have been successfully prosecuted for fraud in the US) by offering “patented alternating magnets” that, remarkably, don’t seem to require an alternating electrical current. But how do we know it works? Fortunately bad science spotter GJ Pitt sent me the company’s leaflet, featuring diagrams of “the healthy cell” in which the positive and negative ions defy brownian motion and all congregate at opposite ends of the cell. Not so in unhealthy cells, where the ions are all over the shop. You can also prove it to yourself: “You will feel the effects right away because the body becomes pleasantly warm.” Please remember, this is a blanket we’re talking about.

· But it’s a lot more technical than that. Apparently, “The magnets in the underblanket influence the iron atoms in your blood each time they are passing the magnetic foils.” It takes a 1.5 Tesla magnet in an enormous MRI scanner to make water molecules line up, and they’re at least slightly bipolar, but if you want to have a go at home, why not bleed yourself on to a plate and wave a magnet around over the top of it. You’ll notice that when the four iron atoms in a haemoglobin molecule are spread out, rather than lined up nicely in your magnet, they’re not terribly magnetic.

· Even better than the dodgy science are the “experts” recommending the therapy. Chasing these guys around the internet is the best fun I have, in my sad little world. Professor Johan Schulze apparently performed a double blind placebo trial on Magneto-Tex, which is reported in the leaflet but not on the Medline archive, and he completely ignores the placebo group in the results. Good work. There is, unusually for any professor, no trace of his work anywhere on Google.

· But here is “Dr Jean Monro MB BS MRCS LRCP” of Breakspear Hospital in Hemel Hempstead, apparently in a nice white coat, recommending the therapy. Breakspear is a private day centre offering alternative therapies; the publications section of their website is empty. They offer Chelation Therapy, which “corrects the major underlying cause of the blood vessel blockage by dissolving the plaques.” A Cochrane Library systematic review found that there was insufficient evidence for this claim last year.