Bad Science

by Ben Goldacre

Dr McKeith’s PhD is from Clayton College of Natural Health, a non-accredited correspondence course college, which unusually for an academic institution also sells its own range of vitamin pills through its website. Her masters degree is from the same august institution. At current Clayton prices, it’s $6,400 in fees for the PhD, and less for the masters, but if you pay for both at once you get a $300 discount (and if you really want to push the boat out, they have a package deal: two doctorates and a masters for $12,100 all in). On her CV, posted on her management website, McKeith claimed to have a PhD from the rather good American College of Nutrition. When this was pointed out, her representative explained that this was merely a mistake, made by a Spanish work experience kid who posted the wrong CV. The attentive reader may have noticed that the very same claim about the American College of Nutrition was also in one of her books from several years previously.