Busted
Invasion of the Goldacre Groupies
I believe the dust is finally settling on what they're all calling The Nutrition/Homeopathy/Gillian McKeith Controversy - by which I don't mean the matter is closed in a wider sense, but the comments have pretty much dried up under that particular entry. However, over the weekend, I checked the software that monitors the traffic on my blog and got to the bottom of what was an unprecedented invasion by people who don't normally lurk around what is, essentially, "lots of poorly written TV reviews" (that's a quote from someone on the 6 Music message boards called Stella, who clearly wasn't impressed, but I have grown to love her summary of the blog for its simplicity).
Here are the scientific facts (and forgive me if I am misreading them): for the period spanning February 14-19, during which the bulk of the heated debate took place, the site received 12,594 page hits, of which 2,954 were "referred" hits, in other words referred to the site from other sites. Of these, at the top of the stats, I had 990 "referrals" from netvibes.com, which is about usual from this widely-used feed subscription site. In second place, I had 547 in five days from badscience.net (I haven't made that a direct link, for good reason - I don't want anyone accusing me of directing traffic the other way). In other words, much of the assault on my "controversial" and "irrational" beliefs about complementary medicine came directly from Ben Goldacre's website forum, where his fans cheer him on every time he spears a nutritionist using his doctor's brain. Under the reprint of his G2 cover story, one of his acolytes posted a comment about my blog entry at 10.31am on Feb 14, and provided a handy link, even advising people who might wish to come and have a go at me to do so with civility. (And, to be fair, they did.) Well, that link certainly got a hammering over the next couple of days, as Dr Ben's disciples came to sort me out, with some of them sniggeringly reporting back to the rest of the faithful at badscience.net, or just simply expressing dismay at my "non-science-based" views. In some ways, I feel better about the whole thing now. I didn't expect everyone to agree with me (I don't actually write my blog entries for that reason, even the poorly-written TV reviews), but I was pretty stupid not to expect an orchestrated assault from the believers. It reminds me of when I casually insulted Robbie Williams on here sometime last year, and I was suddenly rounded on by Robbie Williams fans, directed here no doubt by one of his fan forums. There's no arguing with Robbie Williams fans. And there's no arguing with Ben Goldacre fans. (I started to read the debate about McKeith on his site but quickly realised it wasn't one. More of a rally. The first "comment" posted was a humorous animation of McKeith eating shit.)
I'm still glad the debate took place in public. It certainly kept me on my toes and stopped me doing much useful work for a couple of days that I could ill afford. Having been forced to take down a couple of CBB threads of late due to actual abuse from one rogue element, I had no reason not to publish a single response to the McKeith entry. I took out a couple of my own later comments because I had drunk red wine and I try to make it a rule never to post in that altered state.
Interestingly, back in the regulated, inky old world of print, the Guardian published not a single response, good or bad, to the McKeith piece. They printed one letter from Patrick Holford relating back to an old Goldacre accusation in one of his Bad Science columns, which he referred back to in Saturday's sermon, but there was nothing explicit. They don't like it up 'em.
posted by Andrew Collins @ 3:51 PM
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19 Comments:
Was that a wise blog entry? Will it all kick off again? Was it too soon? I hope not. There certainly was a lot of traffic, and a lot of new names posting. However there where some regulars in there as well and they weren’t really any more sympathetic where they? I would have weighed in myself but for the volume of traffic from people saying all the same things I would have said (and the fact I didn’t want to make a Google account a restriction which seems to have gone today, hence this comment). So I’m not sure you would ever have got much in the way of agreement even without all the extra posts; just a bit of a quieter time.
We have certainly learned more about the nature of blogs than alternative medicine. If you stick your head over the parapet it gets shot at - and you did make an easy target - but in the main only by interested parties. The interconnected nature of the web means one person can attract many more. It’s like the bread I put out for the birds; no pigeons for hours, then one, then suddenly a dozen. Pigeon telegraph.
But you did want to stick your head over the parapet didn’t you?
And glass of two of red does you no harm - I saw that fact on a science based documentary on the BBC with an actual doctor or two on it so it must be true. It’s a belief I take very seriously every weekend (and Wednesdays, and …)
I don't wish to re-start the debate Andrew, but describing Goldacre's Saturday Guardian piece from this w/e as a "sermon" is a bit of a cheap shot. I think we know you don't particularly like the cut of Goldacre's jib, but the point of Saturday's piece was that Holford's crusade to convince the world that Vitamin C is a better alternative to anti-retroviral therapy for AIDS treatment before it has been proven effective is a dangerous thing.
Surely you must agree with this? There is a chance Holford may be right, but his work is a long way from being clinically proven (some sketchy in vitro studies seem to be the extent of it so far). If such work was done and it did turn out that Vitamin C was the wonder-cure he claims (and, while I'm personally sceptical, if he does have some data I'd say it's worth following up), we'd all be in his debt. But in the interim, while we don't know, it's grossly irresponsible to broadcast claims that he cannot substantiate. This isn't about one person's choice to cure their asthma or allergy or even their own personal cancer therapy - AIDS is a communicable disease which is already a huge humanitarian disaster, and one person's decision to take a specific treatment (or not) has health implications not just for themselves but for everyone they have intimate contact with. If Holford is wrong, and Vitamin C is ineffective (or even effective but much less effective than the available treatments), then that's a lot of blood on his hands (and of those that champion him). The fact that he is about to tour South Africa, where AIDS-denial reaches all the way to the top of the government, is just chilling.
BTW, I've not been redirected from another site, I'm a regular reader of this blog, though not a regular poster. I'll also happily own up to being a scientist, if that makes any difference.
Hmmm I think there might be a conspiracy here. I clicked on the link to netvibes.com - ie referred from this site and my PC crashed. It never normally crashes. A co-incidence??:)
For someone who doesn't want to re-start the debate, Steve, you've done a good job of restarting it. I have had enough of going over the same ground, and I'm sure my enemies have had enough too. I appreciate your measured post, but I'm not doing for Patrick Holford what I attempted to do for Gillian McKeith. If anyone else wants to weigh in, be my guest. It might be a cheap shot to call Goldacre's column a sermon, but that is how his columns are received, and that's how they appear to me. Tablets of stone handed down from the mount of science-based certainty. I'm not anti-science, incidentally. Only yesterday I was remarking to some friends of mine who have kids what a fantastic development that spongy tarmac at playgrounds is. And it really is.
It might be a cheap shot to call Goldacre's column a sermon, but that is how his columns are received, and that's how they appear to me. Tablets of stone handed down from the mount of science-based certainty
But Andrew, aren't you yourself proof that this is not the case? And I'm sure you're far from alone.
It does seem a tad unfair to describe him in such withering terms, he does go out of his way (within the tight confines of his allotted column inches) to actually back up the statements he makes. Someone like Gillian McKeith, on the other hand, can make her claims about fish oil making children smarter or whatever, to a far greater audience, with no reference to the supporting literature (because there isn't very much of it, a lot of the time).
Fair enough that you don't agree with what Ben Goldacre says, but it does seem slightly cheap to dismiss him by patronising his readers (some of whom may disagree with him as vehemently as you).
PS I'm sure my enemies have had enough too
I'm not your enemy - I'm a regular reader of your blog - I just don't agree with you in this case!
If it's any consolation, Andrew, this time last week I wasn't really bothered about the whole pharmaceuticals industry thing. A week of watching some NBC feeds on satellite (huge volumes of ads for medicines no one needs) and the heated debate here have "crystallised my thoughts", as one poster put it. I know the original posting wasn't really about that issue directly, but I guess this should still count as a minor own-goal for the Goldacre fans.
Toby, I have seen the Bad Science forums. There is no debate there. There is nothing to actually debate among these people. They know what they know, and no nutty complementary medicine quackpot idiot hippy non-science-based airy-fairy fool is going to convince them otherwise. Which is why I described Goldacre's columns as sermons. I repeat: that is how they appear to me. This is not supposed to patronise his readers. They are not frightened of me because they know more than me.
Here's an interesting one. All the scientific tests thus far conducted on the effects of mobile phones on the brain tell us that they are safe and do not cause cancer. However, deep down inside, I don't believe this to be the case. I believe that they are having detrimental long-term effects right now, which can only get worse. It's a gut feeling. That means I am going against all the available data with my crazy, baseless view. But it's an instinct. Let's wait another five or ten years and see who's right and who's wrong. I hope I'm wrong.
I'll debate you Andrew. If you would guarantee to publish, I'll fisk your original article and the follow ups. You can re-fisk. Otherwise you'll see the irony in your last statement.
There is loads of debate on the badscience site, see the 'bickering' section of the forum.
Dear Andrew~
(1) Here is where I agree with you, and agree with you strongly: It is a well recognised problem in evidence-based medicine that, while pharmacological interventions will always have the impetus and bottomless-pit funding provided by vested interests, more down-to-earth interventions - such as dietary manipulation - have no such... ahem... generous sponsors (see, e.g., Lancet 2000;355:2037. This is the - absolutely incontrovertible - point you make when describing your experience with asthma meds, and it’s also the point you made about statins a few weeks ago: prevention is not only more clinically efficacious than cure, it is invariably cheaper and results in greater quality-of-life impacts. (Though there’s an interesting argument to be had about whether we can really discard statins, etc., on this basis, given the very clear evidence that a substantial proportion of individuals will not make important lifestyle changes, but will swallow the pills. If you’re happy to write such folk off as idiots deserving of their imminent death, then we can bin the statins - or, at least, reduce their reasonable market by many orders of magnitude - and I wouldn’t necessarily disagree with you. But we probably should be explicit that that’s what we’re doing.)
(2) You can infer, from the foregoing, my very strong suspicion that, if we could get someone to fund some well designed, long-term, large-scale research that took a particular population with any one of many health care challenges, and compared the specific benefits of pill-popping to those of getting your diet right (yes, on an individual, one-size-fits-one basis), it'd prove large chunks of what you - and Ms McKeith - have to say absolutely right. But that wouldn't be a victory over science; it'd be a victory for science. Properly conducted research of that type would breeze into the kind of peer-reviewed literature at which you look down your nose. Bad-mouthing those who are keen to test your arguments as "groupies", "acolytes", "disciples", etc., of a bogeyman you've invented does no credit to your position. Worse: it's a really bad case of the pot calling the kettle potty. It is ridiculous to portray the scientific paradigm - the truly sceptical drive to test hypotheses rigorously against objective standards of proof - as somehow more closed-minded than the unsubstantiated anecdotes of the dogmatic. Look at the responses to your posting: you'll find them littered with examples of your "enemies" identifying and accepting the truth in portions of what you've said. These contributors are not the ones who are humming loudly with their fingers in their ears.
(3) The science re your site traffic works out as follows: 547/12,594 = 4.3%. Does this really amount to an "unprecedented invasion", or an "orchestrated assault" on your piece? I suspect that, if you were to delete every comment by anyone who hadn't posted here at least a dozen times previously, you'd still be facing the same chorus thereof.
(4) The mobile phone thing is interesting. But you are wrong to say that "the scientific tests thus far conducted... tell us that they are safe and do not cause cancer". It is true that scientific tests have not, so far, demonstrated any link between mobiles and cancer, but that's not the same thing. Not least because - as is recognised by every serious researcher on the subject - mobile phones haven't been around for long enough to test the effects of long-term exposure properly (see BMJ 2006;332:864). To use a phrase that we used to love before it got co-opted by Colin Powell and his nasty pals: absence of evidence is not evidence of absence (see BMJ 1995;311:485 ). This is why there's loads of active, ongoing research into the topic. This is categorically not the same thing as the repeated, documented failure of scientific methods to demonstrate any efficacy for, e.g., homeopathy(see Lancet 2005;366:726). If it could be assumed that homeopathic interventions were likely to have their effect over a period of decades, or that the conditions under which they have been examined do not reflect their true efficacy profile, then there would be merit in pursuing further research. Neither of these arguments is remotely supportable, however, so we have to conclude that homeopathy does not work. We've tested it, under circumstances that would be guaranteed to show an effect if there were one. There wasn't one. Ergo: homeopathy does not work.
(5) The Guardian’s health care coverage deserves a certain degree of defence against your accusation of systematic bias. How about the very example you invoke: Sarah Boseley’s admirable deconstruction of the Herceptin furore is about as far from the kind of uncritical pro-pharma bobbins you invoke as could be imagined.
(6) Enough with the self-deprecation: whatever criticism one might sling at your television reviews, they are never poorly written.
DECLARATION OF INTERESTS: I've been lurking here since you started (your software will doubtless recognise my IP address, if you'd like to check). In the days when I could, I also made the occasional an-/pseud- onymous comment (a goodly proportion of which were extremely complimentary). As you may have inferred from the above, I have a day-job in evidence-based medicine. This means I have training in balance, above all. But it also means I have more numerous and various reasons to hate the pharma-twats than you could ever imagine.
Peace,
--The Bishop
Seany: there is no further debate to be had. You and your pals have been given the forum to lay out, in great detail, your arguments against complementary medicine. I attempted to counter some of them, but I realise that my "arguments" just come across as blind faith in something unknowable. These work for me, as I go about my life, but they don't work on the page, clearly. I don't even know what "fisk" and "re-fisk" mean, but I don't fancy either very much. Why don't you go back to a forum where you can have the kind of debate you require? I dipped my toe in your waters, and it was bitten off. As for the "irony" in my last statement - I assume you mean "I hope I am wrong"? If so, I repeat: I hope I am wrong. In other words, I do not wish everybody who uses a mobile phone to get brain cancer. I just have a bad feeling about it, which is why I keep mine turned off for most of the time and do everything I can to return calls on a land line. What I meant was, I have no scientific reason for doing this. I may aswell avoid the cracks in the pavement. But it gets me through the day.
Thank you for your very long post, The Bishop. It's good to see someone who's interested in all sides of the argument. I described the Goldacre clan as "groupies", "fans" etc. not to reinforce my argument, but to have a humorous pop. It felt good. I'm not a po-faced writer by nature, although I do have serious views for which I've never had an outlet. (Part of me wonders if I should have kept my mouth shut about this one! But the constant assault on complementary medicine from the newspaper I read every day does grind me down. I see Edzard Ernst is back in G2 today in a piece about the efficacy of complementary treatment on babies.) I'll call the increase in traffic from a specific link on another website an "invasion" if I wish, as the 547 badscience.net "referrals" is taken from a total of 2,954 referrals according to my software, from which, for comparison, I had 59 from the 6 Music site in the same period, and 12 from my Wikipedia entry. As someone from the Arts, rather than science, this still strikes me as a lot. Anyway, the fact that they've pretty much stopped since Sunday (9 referrals yesterday) supports my observation. I never claimed that the regular readers of this blog agreed with me. In fact, apart from Alice, who opened up a new avenue about childbirth that nobody responded to, most of them disagree, and expressed disappointment that I had in some way blotted my copybook. I can take this on the chin.
I mention the "poorly written TV reviews" comment because it struck me as incredibly powerful. We can all be written off at the flick of a return key.
Hey Andrew, I'm glad you didn't keep your mouth shut on this one, it's been very interesting!
It's very difficult to have this sort of discussion online, amongst strangers, without it becoming very nasty, very quickly. It's surely testament to the good nature of all concerned that on this occasion things have remained civilised. We don't all have to agree with each other all of the time, but that doesn't mean we can't be friends!
Toby
PS Sorry, didn't get the target of the 'sermon' jibe before - you didn't actually mention the forums in that paragraph, so I thought you were referring to the column as received by Guardian readers.
Toby, I did describe Goldacre's latest print column as a sermon, as he was preaching to the converted once again about Public Enemy No.2 - Patrick Holford. Again, it was intended as a dig, but one based on my own interpretation of what's going on. I am a Guardian reader and I read Bad Science, so by definition, we're not all followers. I take your point.
I actually don't want to debate him any more. I'm sure he doesn't give a monkey's what I think!
Interestingly, in today's paper, George Monbiot refers to what amounts to an invasion, concerted or otherwise, on the Guardian's website, against his dismissal of 9/11 conspiracy theorists as "gibbering idiots" (which appeared in the paper a couple of weeks ago). He lambasts them again today, clearly spoiling for a fight, and compares the volume of online traffic he received after his 9/11 column (it was something like 700 responses) with the relatively paltry response to a less sexy column he'd written. His point seemed to be that certain subjects draw a lot of counter-argument, while others don't. Something to take home there.
"I'm sure my enemies have had enough too"
People who broadly support your work, buy your books, watch your shows, read your blog, agree with you on most things, and then debate with you on one subject aren't your enemies.
I can't see the problem in what Andrew writes in his blog as it is just his view on things. He never insists that he is right or wrong about things he cannot prove. He merely states his thoughts.
He wrote -
"All the scientific tests thus far conducted on the effects of mobile phones on the brain tell us that they are safe and do not cause cancer. However, deep down inside, I don't believe this to be the case... It's a gut feeling...But it's an instinct."
There's nothing wrong with that. I had a gut feeling that West Ham would beat Manchester United back in December despite all the statistics pointing to the fact that Man United would win. Especially as Man United were top of the league and West Ham were close to the bottom of the table and on the verge of one of their worst runs ever. But West Ham won 1-0.
My gut feeling was right. I didn't say to anyone that they would definitely win - how could I ever know! The same is true with Andrew's comments. He will never know whether he is right or not until we see some conclusive results. Until then, let him have his views and thoughts.
Mike, you say, "People who broadly support your work, buy your books, watch your shows, read your blog, agree with you on most things, and then debate with you on one subject aren't your enemies." Of course not. I hoped it was perfectly clear that I was referring to those sent here to duff me up. Keep your friends close, and your enemies not as close, as I always say. People who do all those nice things you mention are more than just friends, they are saints.
fisking? re-fisking? sounds faintly saucy. Mmm...maybe I'll indulge in a bit of that kind of wholesome fun rather than go the pancake route!
Andrew, I'm pretty sure that those sent "to duff" you up would not have even posted a single comment had they not seen you as reasonable, rational and interesting person with a blog that's worth reading. If they thought you were some nutter they probably would not have bothered - just like I don't bother going to neo-nazi websites to ask them to see the error of their ways. You should see it as is a back-handed compliment.
I've read quite a bit of your stuff, I know where you are coming from. Music, literature, film, laughs, love, ... these are the things that make life such an intense pleasure. But while I was with you on Lily Allen being robbed at the Brits, it isn't actually a question of life or death, and I didn't feel compelled to comment the subject. On the other hand, Patrick Holford and his support of Vitamin C against AIDS is a very real question of life or death for possibly for thousands, maybe millions. That is some very serious shit.
I've just learned what Netvibes is and I think it's going to improve the quality of my web-surfing. So at least something good has come of this debate.
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