Thanks for that stuff about RSM and about Dr Glenville, which is mind-blowing. (I did belong to the Food and Nut section of the RSM but a few years back there was some wacky conference proposed so I left it). It looks as if – and I may be wrong here – her Cambridge PhD was in psychology and nothing to do with nutrition. Furthermore she puts ‘Fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine’ in her blurb as if that were conferred as an honour when it simply means being a member of the RSM, having been proposed by an existing fellow. When I joined you had to be a medical doctor or have an interest or work in real medical science, but I fear that, as you point out in relation to conferences etc., the priority appears to be bums on seats and of course once one woo-monger gets in there the sky’s the limit.

In addition it is interesting that Dr G also features big on the website of Vitalia Health, with her very own formulations of nutritional supplements.

Then there is the CAMexpo. Well I hope not too expo, when one of the therapies is ‘colon massage’. Then there seems to be a lot of strange stuff going on: soft tissue release (WHAT)?, Myofascial Release, plus ‘Bio-Aura School of Bio Energy Therapy, Working With Chakras’ (see link to hilarious A & E alternative style on this website) and I rather like Hands Free Chair Massage Techniques – (chairs? why? and hands free?) Gordon bloomin’ Bennett!

The speaker after the said Dr G is a Professor Jane Plant who is, I think, a geologist of some note. However she has co-written a book about diet and cancer which a relative of mine was sent for review. He was horrified that yet another scientist could be hoodwinked by nutritional nonsense that he put it in the paper recylcing bin.

Trouble is how on earth do we stop this infection from spreading further. it is rather like Obama trying to get his sensible and much needed health reforms through: he is up against huge sums of money poured into scaremongering etc.. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

Glad to hear that you will be complaining to the RSM. Unfortunately, I’ve got more bad news for you about the RSM. There is a well-known expert in nutrition – a Dr Marilyn Glenville. This lady is the President of the Food and Health forum at the RSM and she is indeed worthy of holding such an esteemed position, given her valid qualifications – this is for real and not meant to be sarcastic, although it may seem to be. Anyway, her ‘Memberships and Positions’ section of her biography (http://www.naturalhealthpractice.com/Dr_marilyn_glenville_W4.cfm) is the epitome of an oxymoron. As per scientifically-educated nutritionists, she is a member of the Nutrition Society yet she has also previously been the Chair of the governing council for the British Association of Nutritional Therapists! With the nutritional therapists having the backing of a bona fide scientist, the scientific world of nutrition is in real trouble of being close to extinction one day!

I saw Marilyn Glenville give a talk a couple of years ago at a health show in Olympia – it might have been the same one that Holford and the bona fide gastroenterologist I mentioned previously were at, but I can’t say for sure – there are so many of these nutrition shows that I have attended as a member of the public – which also highlights the many opportunities these con artists get at showcasing their “skills” to the public. Anyway, I remember that at the time her talk made good scientific sense. The last talk in the Food and Health forum at the RSM (pregnancy-related) was delivered by worldwide experts and chaired by Marilyn Glenville. She gave no presentation but if you want to catch her presenting, you can go to the CAMexpo show at Earls Court later this month where she will be talking about nutrition and breast cancer.

Now, when I first saw the name ‘CAMexpo’ I genuinely thought it stood for something along the lines of ‘complementary and alternative medicine – exposed!’ rather than the more subdued meaning of CAM exposition. Anyhow, ‘CAMexpo’ is a catchy-sounding word and that’s what all good nutritional therapists are about – they’re experts in PR with their catchy-sounding phrases, buzz words, and seemingly scientific jargon, i.e. words that are at least 10 syllables long that the public don’t understand and neither do the real scientists – only these highly trained and well-qualified therapists.

Now who did you think will be featuring in this expo? – yup, none other than our friend – Holford. The show preview (http://www.camexpo.co.uk/camexpo2009/CUSTOM/images/web/camexpo_preview.pdf) makes me so outraged – not only because I see two pictures of Holford’s devious, smart-arse face on there but because he is touted as being one of Britain’s leading natural health experts, alongside Marilyn Glenville. Irrespective of my thoughts about Marilyn Glenville denigrating herself, the fact that Holford is mentioned first – as if he is more of an expert in nutrition than she is – is absolutely infuriating. She is referred to as Dr Marilyn Glenville, so why don’t they refer to him as Mr Patrick Holford – he doesn’t have a doctorate of any kind, let alone a BSc in nutrition. Furthermore, by juxtaposing these names together, greater authority is given to Holford than otherwise.

How can Marilyn Glenville, with a history of such huge involvement with BANT, not know the true essence of Holford? Can this scientist be for real? Of course she knows – for the essence of Holford would appear to be hers too – money, and therefore, of course she is for real. She is a prime example of what I call a scientist turning to the dark side – the dark side of nutritional therapy – fuelled by the dreams of riches and wealth that it promises. (I really believe that a solution to the credit crunch crisis would be for bankers to become nutritional therapists as opposed to teachers – that way they would return to an equivalent salary in no time at all and also stop wasting their time on education – why bother training young minds?)

Briefly back to the Barbican public health event…

@ M Simpson

You’re right – tickets were very expensive. The public sector rate for one delegate was about £175 and for the private sector about £895 – this I kid you not. If I had paid for a ticket I would have been livid at what I discovered and would have complained in the hope of getting my money back. I saw free tickets advertised in the BMA News and that’s the first time I became aware of this event. I was rather smug with myself to have wangled such a freebie but when I got in to the show my smugness morphed into a state of thankfulness that I’ve never parted with so much cash for a one day conference.

Chatie

That begs the question of why respectable speakers accept the invitations to speak at them. Perhaps they just don’t look carefully at who will be there.

It has often occurred to me that some senior academics need lessons in how to use Google. rather than just looking at official documents. I’m amused that if you Google “”Michael Pittilo”, the second item on the frint page is A very bad report: gamma minus for the vice-chancellor

Public Sector Conferences is just one of many firms whose entire business is organising conferences for public sector managers to attend. It appalled me, during my time in the NHS, that so much public money – NHS, Civil Service, Local Government – is ploughed into attending these endless (and often very expensive) conferences which exist purely to make a profit. But that’s how it is.

A company like that just wants bums on seats, so if they can attract both respectable punters and the loony fringe, they’re doubling their audience and boosting their profits. To expect them to care about what the speakers actually say is naive.

Another example of these pseuds worming their way into the arena of real science was a recent afternoon meeting at the Royal Society of Medicine. It was the section of general practice annual meeting which lasted a week. (I was not able to go to it).

The first afternoon was a session on completmentary therapies. Edzard Ernst was giving the opening talk followed by workshops on various cranky ‘therapies’. I looked up some of the speakers and one of them apparently trained in Reiki (which I understand can heal you from the other side of the world) and had received her qualification at Stonehenge. I’ve known about this ludicrous meeting for many months and my mind is still boggling at the absurdity and, more seriously, puzzling at the fact that a learned institution such as the RSM will even contemplate such stuff.

I will of course be complaining about my subscription to the RSM being used for such events. It is a tragedy when there is so much good science around.

It isn’t at all obvious from the speakers that it would be so permeated by nonsense. I can’t understand how the organisers could allow it.

I’m reviving this issue. I’m interested in public health nutrition and went along to what I thought would be a decent public health conference on Thursday at the Barbican centre. The programme looked good and the likes of Hamish Meldrum (Chairman of BMA Council) and Richard Parish (Chief Exec of Royal Society of Public Health) were presenting, so I thought that this would be a pretty good way of fulfilling some self-education needs. I didn’t know anything about the main sponsor except that it was getting really good publicity by being the main sponsor. Its name, or rather abbreviated name, was literally plastered everywhere – UWIC! This name didn’t mean anything to me at all – and at first. [DC UWIC = University of Wales Institute, Cardiff]

From the time I signed in, I was in utter disbelief at how nutritional therapy was conning its way into public health nutrition. I know that NT has been conning its way into “clinical nutrition” whereby these “practitioners” “practise” on individuals for large sums of money (a more accurate description would be chargeable sums of money in an inverse and strong correlation to the “practitioner’s” skill set), but to see NT infiltrating the domain of public health nutrition was something else. I know of so many nutritional therapists conning their way into the science world of clinical nutrition, pretending to be experts in the science of nutrition, but the concept or in fact the reality that they are now conning their way into the arena of public health nutrition really just stunned me.

Massive alarm bells started ringing when I got my name badge – there was a free copy of “Optimum Nutrition” (the “journal” belonging to ION!) at the desk. At the bottom of the front cover was a picture of Holford and Ian Marber (aka the Food Doctor) which really irked me. What great free publicity for these con artists and their con industry.

I wandered through the displays on show and the first one as I turned the corner from the sign-in desk was none other than that of the UWIC! I picked up a few things from them, including a pamphlet outlining the courses offered in their Centre for Complementary Therapies. I was thoroughly annoyed to see a BSc in Complementary Therapies being offered – a Bachelor of Science degree in therapies such as massage, reflexology and aromatherapy etc ‼! I’ve seen quite a few nutritional therapists offering their “complimentary” therapies, which is probably a more accurate depiction of such therapies – as your masseur is massaging you and treating you like royalty, or more like a fool parting with your money, you are complimenting the masseur on their great technique – a scientific technique I hasten to add…and these are indeed special techniques you learn at the UWIC. Everything is prefixed with wonderful, alluring adjectives, such as …”holistic massage, professional reflexology and clinical aromatherapy”.

Anyway, I digress. Another stall was advertising their fitness programs and nutritional courses, including a DipNT which on successful completion would entitle a person to belonging to BANT – what a privilege! It gets better.

After Dr Meldrum and Prof Parish each gave their inspiring 20 minute spiel to the whole audience, the dean of UWIC gave his – a 20 minute advert detailing the amazing scientific work done at UWIC and the amazingly scientific courses they provide. To prevent me from throwing up in disgust, I thought I’d delve into some of the information sheets provided in the delegate pack…I found a pamphlet advertising ION…at least I found something to throw up into.
What I was and am really annoyed about is the fact that nutrition has become a fantastically lucrative vehicle for non-scientists impersonating scientists (for me that includes dieticians), for scientists in other fields trying to impersonate ratified nutritional scientists or similar, as well as public health nutritionists impersonating dieticians, biochemists impersonating public health nutritionists and all other sorts of other computations – I just am not that clever as all these con artists to figure out all of them and there would be too many. Nutrition is a diverse subject whereby dieticians, public health nutritionists, doctors, biochemists and many other people all contribute to this field but each of these groups has their own remit. Each has their own skill set and it is extremely bad science for people not to know their limitations (and I have had a massive dose of personal experience in such situations) but nutritional therapy is something else…it really is in a league of its own.

My main point is this – by having speakers from distinguished organisations such as the BMA speak alongside those from the likes of UWIC, the former unwittingly endorse the latter. This is what happens at health shows such as those at the Olympia where I’ve seen a bona fide gastroenterologist (from UCL) speak at the same show that Holford speaks at! What can be done and who is accountable for this? – surely it should be the organisers? Yet many state in their brochures that the content of presentations aren’t necessarily congruent with their sentiments. What it comes down to is simple – money really is the root of all evil. With enough money, you can buy your way into places, just like UWIC did. Enough money and enough publicity, and then UWIC will start giving ION a run for their money. However, if people keep on letting the public know about the truth and keep on campaigning against these vile institutes and the vile people perpetuating them, then great things can be accomplished. I’ve seen lots of evidence of this on this site and elsewhere. I think that I’ll write to the organiser of that Barbican show later this week – you never know what could happen as a result of your letter; it could be the start of something or the straw that eventually breaks the camel’s back. Basically, if you feel strongly about something, do something about it and keep on persevering. I think this site is a great example of this.

Thanks,
Chatie

Diolch to that