Regretfully, due to work commitments, I was not able to listen to the programme. But on his website he is slagging off Sue McGinty from BANT who courageously stood up to him and defended nutritional therapy.
I wish to say thank you Sue on behalf of all nutritional therapists and please do not allow individuals like Dr Goldacre to upset you - he is determined to discredit all complementary therapies. Surely there are bad apples everywhere, but why does he need to concentrate on the negative issues only?
Had he been balanced in his views, most of us would thank him for exposing the ''bad science'.
This is from his website http://www.badscience.net/
8pm BBC Radio 4 - The Rise of the Lifestyle Nutritionists - Part II
Busy bee today, sorry for the late link, the second part of the BBC Radio 4 two-part series “The Rise of the Lifestyle Nutritionists” is going out at
Once the listen again link Read the rest of this entry »
6 comments:
I was interested to note that you had stated on your blog that Ben Goldacre is "slagging off Sue McGinty from BANT" on his website. I've read the piece you refer to and I don't think that Dr Goldacre is slagging anyone off. In this comment he actually says that he wouldn't like anyone to be mean about Ms McGinty - http://www.badscience.net/?p=650#comment-20266
With regards to your comment that "regretfully, due to work commitments, I was not able to listen to the programme", I would recommend you use the BBC's listen again facilty and check out the actual radio broadcast (if it's still available) - www.bbc.co.uk/radio/aod/radio4_aod.shtml?radio4/lifestylenutritionists - I have to say, I found it very interesting and the guests were excellent (in particular, David Colquhoun).
Cheers,
jdc
I think it’s pretty astonishing that the BCNH should make these kinds of comments and simultaneously admit not listening to the programme.
"on his website he is slagging off Sue McGinty from BANT who courageously stood up to him and defended nutritional therapy."
sue mcginty was excellent, i think it's a real tragedy that you're not able to engage in a sensible discussion as well as she was. i have not "slagged her off" (how old is the person writing this…) in fact far from it, we had a very engaging discussion, we got on very well, i certainly liked her a lot, and i have said as much on my site.
in fact these are all my comments about sue from the page where you say I “slag her off”:
"i actually thought sue mcginty from BANT was very nice, and although our discussion was very revealing about the culture within the profession, i wouldn’t want anyone to be mean about her as an individual. don’t mean to be sanctimonious, but i guess it’s just rare to find anyone from this kind of world who is at least willing to engage in a sensible discussion. and she was actually nice, and we did have a really interesting longer chat about all kinds of stuff in the field of nutritionism."
"yeah it’s interesting, i think the sensible stuff is the obvious lifestyle advice, and then there’s a layer of pills and odd diets and tests all justified with pseudoscience. i think it’s fascinating that this industry has completely changed our perception of our bodies, diets, and ranking of the importance of lifestyle risk factors for ill health. it’s brilliant and inspiring, really, that they’ve achieved such prominence. it’s also funny how intolerant they can be when presented with a mere 27 minutes of some academics questioning their ideas. (i wouldnt include sue mcginty in that)."
For the BCNH, an educational institution, to describe this as “slagged her off” really only suggests how difficult you find it to engage in a sensible discussion.
every other healthcare profession from nursing through medicine to physiotherapy engages in thoughtful critical appraisal of its own practise. it seems to me that your industry is so open to criticism because you do not, and so ludicrous ideas go unchallenged.
sue mcginty was robust, charming, and ready to try and engage sensibly on the issues. you do her a great disservice, and since you speak on behalf of an educational institution this can only raise concerns that the lack of critical self reflection in your industry will continue. as i have repeatedly said, diet and lifestyle are important factors in ill health, and it is possible to do a great deal of good here without resorting to dubious health claims.
after our discussion sue and i discussed organising a meeting where i could talk to some nutritionists, perhaps through BANT/NTC, to explain why people have concerns about many aspects of the industry's practices. i felt rather optimistic about that. it seems that not all of you are as capable of engaging in a sensible discussion as she is.
Ben Goldacre
www.badscience.net
Perhaps you'd like to get back to us after taking the time to listen to the show or at least reading the blog more carefully, rather than taking offence and the clip art?
It's ok, this was posted on April 1st, it's obviously an April Fools gag.
What a well researched and informative piece... Ben Goldacre's documentary turned out to be. Have you heard it yet? Or do you prefer to avoid anything which might show you to be wrong?
Regretfully, due to work commitments, I was not able to read this page. But I really think you ought not to slag off Ben Kingsley. He is one of our finest screen actors and has little to do with Nutritional 'medicine'.
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