Soaraway’s Reviews > Bad Science: Quacks, Hacks, and Big Pharma Flacks > Status Update

In all honesty, I don't know anything about Rath. My research shows that high dose vitamins and antioxidants from natural sources can be strongly beneficial when combined with other medical therapies like chemotherapy. But if what Goldacre says about him is true, then he is really harming millions and that's a shame. I'll have to look into it more.

In short, Goldacre's overly inflated ego and attitude of superiority is really unnecessary and irritating.

Ok Goldacre is being unnecessarily patronizing again, assuming his readers aren't familiar with or involved in any other world-changing lofty causes. But I'm aware of and our local community is involved in all of the causes he mentions. Our house is on a suburban bike path for commuters into the city. We compost. Our labeling laws are more strict than in America. Our minimum wage is nearly $17/hour.

Goldacre points out the exact reason why we DO need nutritionists: people who do studies don't completely and reliably change their diets. Why? If they know it's healthier? It's difficult to alter lifestyle. This is exactly why WE DO NEED NUTRITIONISTS. A good nutritionist doesn't peddle pills - she tells people how to integrate healthier eating into their lifestyle in a way that lasts.

Goldacre cites studies as being reasonable studies of the effects of nutrition on health but then goes on to point out the exact problems with these studies. The women's health initiative, for instance, compares women who eat a lot of meat with women who eat a crazy lot of meat. Not a fair comparison. But the China study (by T Colin Campbell) is notoriously absent... I wonder why...

The entire chapter on nutritionists is focused on just ONE quack. We could say the same about medical doctors if we follow Goldacre's format. Take a quack surgeon with a faked degree and use him to debunk all of medical science and you've done the same thing Goldacre has done to nutritionists.

I am beginning to think that Goldacre is guilty of a bit of "bad science" himself...

As for what he says about vitamin supplement trials... Well I know about those studies he refers to. Did you know the studies done showing positive antioxidant effects were done with natural antioxidants and the ones showing negative antioxidant effects were done with synthetic antioxidants? No? Why not? Oh yeah. Because Goldacre conveniently neglects to tell you this important bit of information.

Holy crap is this the pot calling the kettle black or what?!?!? What a hypocrite!!! Here is Goldacre with a whole section on how nutritionists are guilty of cherry-picking when he has spent this entire damn book cherry-picking!! Am I the only one who sees this? How can people not notice this?!?!?! What a crock of crap this is! I am overwhelmed. I just do not have words. Except one. HYPOCRITE. HYPOCRITE!!!!!!!

There are hundreds, if not thousands, of great nutrition studies out there. Sure, some studies are done on animals and then replicated in humans and some aren't. Same as in any other realm of the science of how things affect the human body. I've read dozens of books on nutrition and dozens of studies and I don't find their presentation nearly as misleading as Goldacre would have you believe.