Cultural Dwarfs and Junk Journalism, investigates Dr Ben Goldacre’s role in industry lobby groups and puts another point of view in defense of some of the people whom he has attacked, belittled, satirized, castigated, vilified, maligned and opined against in his junk journalism.
For a thought-provoking read, the entire book can be viewed at this website using the links opposite, or alternatively download a copy for FREE.
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Broadly speaking, the essay that follows is the latest addition to my
ongoing analysis of the British corporate science lobby and its popular
campaigning arms, skeptics and quackbusters.5 Specifically, the
essay focuses on attacks on Patrick Holford, the independent nutritionist,
while trying to place the quackbusting journalist Ben
Goldacre, who began this round of attacks, in a social and political
context.
“Ok, hands up. I hate nutritionists and phony diet marketers. I hate
them because they confuse evidence and theory. I hate them because
they make sweeping assertions that something will work in the real
world on the basis of tenuous laboratory data. And they either do not
understand that, or they do and they are being dishonest.
In mid-2006, Patrick Holford, one of Britain’s leading independent
nutritionists, had his 24th book published. Written with Jerome Burne,
a notable health journalist, the title of the book could not have been
more explicit, Food is Better Medicine than Drugs: Your prescription
for drug-free health.
Following the Gillian McKeith article by Goldacre, I was sufficiently
irritated by it to contact the Guardian to write some
sort of response. I first spoke to their blog section, who
asked me to write something (Appendix Eleven). However,
they said that it didn’t fit with their style and I was passed on
to the comment page editor, who said he was interested.
The row which developed over the work of Arpad Pusztai at the
Rowett Institute, brought to light, the beginnings of the organised
Dirty Tricks which New Labour and the DTI were willing to use in
order to defend the corporation with whom they were in bed. The
Royal Society had taken in large amounts.
At the time that Campbell worked with its people, they were almost solely
responsible for putting together professional misconduct cases of their
choosing forthe GMC. These cases were, on the whole, ones that somehow
threatened the pharmaceutical companies, not ones that were built
upon patient complaints against doctors. More recently, the agency
has given advice to Brian Deer, the sole complainant in the case of Dr
Andrew Wakefield, who began an appearance before the GMC, with
two other doctors, in July of 2007.30
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Quack Ben Goldacre, Patrick Holford & Gillian McKeith 