Equazen and the ASA – Again

Visiting Professor Patrick Holford is Head of Science and Education at Biocare and has an unerring sense for his endorsements (see, e.g., the qLink with the unconnected coil and the dLan that may enhance your exposure to EMR and YorkTest, source of the IgG food intolerance tests criticised by both the House of Lords and the ASA). Holford managed to procure some useful backing for the Food for the Brain project. One of the companies is Equazen. Equazen donated essential fat supplements to school projects. With an astonishing sense of inevitability, although the ASA criticised Equazen in 2007 for being unable to substantiate some of its advertising claims, it has just issued an adjudication against more unjustified claims by Equazen, this time for indirectly implying that fish oils are a treatment for ADHD.

Post #350: “If you think I have been overly critical, I would invite you to notice that they win”

This is our 350th post on HolfordWatch. Over the course of these posts, we have found a number of inaccuracies in Holford’s self-presentation and many serious errors in his work. These errors overwhelmingly remain uncorrected or inadequately corrected, and Holford has failed to respond to almost all of the issues raised (what responses we have had from Holford are not at all convincing). However, we would like to take this opportunity to congratulate Patrick Holford: despite embarrassingly poor-quality work, an inaccurate CV and very public demolitions of his research, Patrick Holford has achieved a great deal in his career, in academia and in the media.

While we have been running this blog, Holford managed to sell his Health Products for Life business to Biocare (owned by Neutrahealth, who 30% owned by Elder Pharmaceuticals) for £464,000, and currently works as Head of Science and Education at Biocare. We have ethical quibbles about taking money from the pharmaceutical industry – we don’t do it – but careers in this industry are competitive, and Holford should be congratulated for getting so much money from Biocare (and thus, indirectly, from Elder Pharmaceuticals).

Holford should also be congratulated for having his application to be a visiting professor at Teesside University approved

FOIA reply: it’s a good job that Teesside University didn’t offer Holford a visiting professorship for financial reasons…

…because, if they did, they would be feeling pretty silly now.

We have recently received a response to a FOIA request to Teesside University, which included some interesting information about Visiting Professor Patrick Holford’s time at the University. Teesside’s Case for Patrick Holford as a Visiting Professor [PDF] referred to Food for the Brain funding a £12,500/year PhD bursary – something that would have cost a good £37,500. However, when Teesside were asked about any Holford-related income, they responded that:

No income has been received by the University from Mr Holford, Biocare, the Brain Bio Centre or Food for the Brain. Expenses have been paid by Food for the Brain for attendance by University staff in connection with a Schools project.

The total amount of money coming into Teesside from all these sources was therefore…wait for it…

Visiting Professor Patrick Holford, Not Even for a Thousand Days

So, it’s farewell to the Visiting Professorship (please click that link to demonstrate the fabulousness that is JKN) for Former Visiting Professor Patrick Holford but still Head of Science and Education at Biocare.

Holford and Teesside had a relationship that saw him enjoying the fruits of his professorship for far short of a 1000 days. But it was probably enough for both parties to have had a lasting impact on each other and to have parted with mutual regret.

No flowers by request. Champagne donations probably gratefully received by the noted scholars and researchers who were being linked to him by association.

My (Paid) Friend Says This Product Is Really Good: FFTB and Cherry-Picking

Visiting Professor Patrick Holford of Teesside University and the Food for the Brain Foundation (FFTB) are promoting a very well-thought plan whereby food and supplement manufacturers will give them money in exchange for the endorsement of their products. Now, charities have to get their money from somewhere, so isn’t that all very sensible?

Patrick Holford Responds to Radio 4 Programme and Misses the Point: Part 2b

We are going to look at something interesting about the relationship between Food Is Better Medicine Than Drugs (FIBMTD) and the Food for the Brain Child Survey 2007. The former was written by Holford & Burne, and the latter by Holford & Fobbester.

The Food for the Brain Child Survey 2007 (pdf) is irredeemable. There is nothing to be done to salvage the report because the data collection and analyses are seriously flawed. There are serious issues concerning the survey questions and this is yet another object lesson in why research must be conducted using standardised and validated questionnaires. The data were farcical even before the revelation that Professors Holford, Philip Cowen and David Smith (amongst others) want us to believe that something of statistical significance can emerge from a comparison of 2 outlier groups from an unrepresentative survey of 10,222 children. Outlier groups of 32 and 42 children which, when added together, make up 0.72% of the children (or 2.36% or so if you are just looking at the SAT group, but the point holds that these 74 children are the entire prop for the dietary recommendations).

Patrick Holford Responds to Radio 4 Programme and Misses the Point: Part 2a

Back in January we wrote to Professor Patrick Holford of Teesside University, Head of Science and Education at Biocare and CEO of Food for the Brain: we asked some questions about the survey to help us perform a robust review. We waited for three weeks but did not receive any responses and, thus hampered, continued to review the survey and uncovered about as grisly a work of ineptitude with statistics as has ever come our way.

The FFTB Child Survey literature review was irrelevant and incompetent. But the number-crunching and display of summary data were breathtakingly, unbelievably bad. Office-neighbours-should-have-been-pounding-on-the-wall-and-calling-the-statistics-authorities-and-reporting-a-hazard-to-health bad. The-guilty-parties-should-be-having-their-keyboard-privileges-revoked bad.

Our Original Questions to Patrick Holford About the Food for the Brain Child Survey 2007

You may remember that we contacted Professor Patrick Holford on January 11 to ask him some questions about the Food for the Brain Child Survey 2007. We did not receive any response. Enquiries to Professors Philip Cowen and David Smith from the FFTB’s Scientific Advisory Board did not provide any useful response to questions about the report but did produce some useful comments.

We still do not have a direct response but they have just posted some Q&A about this report.

Disappointingly, in their response to some simple questions, FFTB has already erred in simple arithmetic, reporting only 3130 children in the SAT group rather than the 3139 mentioned in the report (pg. 6).

BBC put Holford’s science to the test. It fails.

The second part of the BBC Radio 4 show The Rise of the Lifestyle Nutritionists (listen again here, later tonight) starts by noting that “Everybody wants to be healthy, but how do you know who to trust?” Ben Goldacre then spends a considerable amount of time speaking to a number of eminent professors, in order to demonstrate that one cannot trust Holford’s science: Holford’s science fails in numerous ways.

The interviewees are extremely critical about the quality of Holford’s work, and Holford has predictably claimed that the programme was unfair. However, this programme is actually an accurate and balanced assessment of Holford’s work. If Holford finds such assessments harsh, we would argue that he should look to improve the quality of his own work and offer a meaningful response to some of the criticisms raised, along with correcting his numerous errors. His current (non)responses to the serious questions raised are woefully inadequate.

Holford tries to respond to questions raised by BBC documentary. He fails.

Having just posted about Professor Patrick Holford of Teesside University’s curious relationship with the mainstream media, we were fascinated to see Patrick Holford responding to the Radio 4 programme: The Rise of the Lifestyle Nutritionists. From what he writes, it sounds like he does feature in Part 2 of the series. I haven’t heard Part 2 yet – it’s scheduled to be broadcast on March 31 at 8pm – but it’s already clear that Holford fails to offer an adequate response to the questions raised. His responses range from dodging the questions asked, to answering while giving a clearly incorrect answer, and so gobsmackingly wrong that they even fail to qualify as wrong. Now I’m really looking forward to the radio programme: Holford digs himself in deep enough without having heard the programme, but I’m sure that the BBC’s research skills will allow them to provide a JCB or two to join Holford in his hole.