Join me in pledging to send a copy of #GeekManifesto to every MP

I just sent this note to friends and colleagues - please feel free to do so yourself, and spread the word.

Dear Friend,

I’m writing to ask for your support – wait, no money needs to change hands! – in getting our members of Parliament to take science more seriously.

Former Times science correspondent Mark Henderson has written an excellent book called The Geek Manifesto, which outlines the ways in which science matters to politics – and how it matters to various other fields, such as journalism, the environmental movement and so on. The overriding message of the book is that, as demonstrated by several embarrassing episodes that you’ll no doubt be familiar with, most politicians neither understand scientific evidence, nor do they appreciate the value of the scientific methods deployed to arrive at said evidence. Hence, says Mark (and I concur!), policy-making suffers from a vacuum of evidence. I heartily recommend reading the book itself of course (http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Geek-Manifesto-science-matters/dp/0593068238), but we want to go further.

There is a movement to get every MP to read the book, to emphasise that as geeks we want our politicians to respect science and to better understand how it works. I’ve signed a pledge stating that I’ll buy a copy of the book to send to an MP – if 325 people sign (there are around 200 so far), the publisher has promised to match our pledge so that all 650 MPs will receive a copy.

Please sign the pledge below, so that we can achieve this target – it’s vital that every politician realises that there is a likely electoral cost to ignoring scientific evidence when making policy.

http://www.pledgebank.com/geekmanifesto4mp

Please spread the word too – the bigger the show of support we can muster the better!

Many thanks in anticipation of your support.

Best,

Teekblog

Green Party support for anti-science activism is troubling - don't destroy research

Mark Henderson's outstanding book The Geek Manifesto urges professional scientists and those who want to promote a scientific approach to public policy to unite and to make our presence felt in medicine, in journalism, in the environmental movement and above all in politics. The risks of not doing so have been laid bare all to clearly in the ongoing battle to defend a scientific experiment from thoughtless vandalism in the form of an anti-GM protest.

'Take the flour back' is a protest that aims to (in their words) 'decontaminate' a field trial this coming weekend that is planted with genetically modified wheat. More troubling than the protest itself is the apparent support for such an approach from political figures such as Jenny Jones from the Green Party. The Telegraph's excellent blogger Tom Chiver picks up the story, saying that Jones' support for the protests - an act of 'ugly, idiotic Luddism,' means that we shouldn't vote Green until they drop the anti-science zealotry:

How can a serious political party back acts of vandalism against scientific research? Until Jenny Jones and the rest of the Green Party drop this awful, damaging, stupid behaviour, no serious environmentalist should be able to vote for them.

Interestingly, Jones asked for the right of reply and Chivers obliged - a lesson for those who resort all to often to bullying libel claims to silence their critics - but Jones' reply is an object lesson in the art of cognitive dissonance.

Extolling the virtues of 'non-violent protest' (and comparing the anti-GM cause to protests against unjust war or in favour of universal suffrage) whilst disowning damage to property, Jones fails to justify her support for a movement that has as its specific aim the destruction of property.

Furthermore, she claims that the Green Party "think more research is needed [into GM crops] and are happy to see research go ahead where it is safe." So happy, in fact, that a leading member - recently laying claim to the Mayoralty of London - lends credibility to the violation of precisely the kind of research they're supposedly in favour of. Quite strange positions to hold to say the least.

Here and now is neither the place nor the time to rehearse the arguments in favour or against the genetic modification of crops, but it is appropriate to explain why it's important to defend the scientific method through which the merits or otherwise of GM technology can be decided.

Sense about Science has as usual been at the forefront of that defence, with a well-supported petition and plenty of work debunking the myths peddled by anti-GM vandals. Mark Henderson also reminded us of how the anti-GM movement is full of anti-science rubbish on his Geek Manifesto blog - and a group of scientists is meeting near where the trial is due to be destroyed to make a stance defending the advancement of knowledge against the forces of darkness.

All this may not change the hearts and minds of those who are planning to tear up the Rothamstead experiment - but it does show that they cannot, no matter how hard they try or how many politicians offer their ill-judged support, tear up the scientific approach. 

Teekblog is now a SCIENCE COMMUNICATOR

[Note: the title of this post is to be read in the style of a classic 1980s science fiction movie]


[warning - this post contains self-indulgent reflection...]


I started a new job yesterday (as my handful of Twitter followers will recall) - here are a few thoughts.

I spent nine mostly successful and hugely fulfilling years as a research scientist in a world-class academic institute, completing a PhD and a programme of post-doctoral research in a laboratory whose focus is on developing gene therapy for disorders that cause blindness.

When my funding came to an end towards the end of last year, I joined the legions of scientists who face a difficult choice at similar stages in their careers: as fellowships are hard to come by, we can either scrabble around for the few positions that are available on short-term contracts, or we can leave the world of scientific research for pastures new.

I chose the latter, with regret and not a little trepidation, in the hope that a break from lab life (and from the daily commute) would help me decide how to put my experience and what little knowledge I have to good use. I also wanted to take the opportunity to pursue other interests of mine for a while, not least in policy and politics.

Shortly (very shortly, in fact!) after I left, however, an opportunity arose for me to return to my old group but in a very different capacity.

I will be responsible for public engagement - which means everything from ensuring our website is full of helpful and interesting content about the lab's research, to delivering patient engagement days, patient newsletters and a more rounded online communication strategy through various social media. In other words...

I AM SCIENCE COMMUNICATOR...

[more details in due course - for now I have to tell my 'new employees' which year I was born in, which is apparently not a straightforward task...]

Campaigners to tell Parliament "Now is the time to reform our libel law" as further evidence of the law's chilling effect emerges

Campaigners seeking to refine the Government's Defamation Bill will tell MPs and Peers why English and Welsh libel laws are in urgent need of reform - on the day that yet more evidence of the law's chilling effect is revealed and a separate case reaches the High Court. Having cautiously welcomed the draft Defamation Bill, and backed the recommendations of Parliament's Joint Scrutiny Committee that called for key clauses to be strengthened, the libel reform campaign will once again press upon key Parliamentarians the need for radical changes to the law to protect free debate.

They will be joined by many victims of the chill that our illiberal and outdated libel laws, including representatives of the Citizens Advice Bureaux who will share their experience of libel threats - discussed for the first time today, the what the CAB has had to endure illustrates how voluntary organisations can be silenced from discussing information that is in the public interest by powerful interests.

Citizens Advice has produced two reports into the practices of agents, some of them law firms, who chase those accused of shoplifting for compensation through so-called 'civil recovery demands' and threaten civil litigation in the event they don't pay. The two reports published to date have been incomplete because of threats of legal action against Citizens Advice, and in 2009 the CAB spent its entire campaign and research contingency budget on libel-proofing their limited reports leaving no money to investigate other matters.

Given that over 750,000 civil recovery demands have been issued and the Law Commission believes that in many instances consumer rights may have been violated by the practices of the agents involved, there is a clear public interest in reports such as those written by Citizens Advice containing full disclosure. If the public is to be kept informed about the bullying, possibly illegal activities of those pursuing alleged (not always proven) shoplifters, it is vital that those wishing to discuss this matter can do so without fear of libel action. This isn't the first instance of consumer advice being subject to threats of libel action by powerful vested interests, as Which? magazine's editor will tell MPs tonight - but it is yet another reason that a robust public interest defence must be incorporated into the Defamation Bill as the campaign has long stipulated.

Today also sees the scientific journal Nature defending itself in the High Court against a libel claim by the editor of a journal that they criticised. Nature reported that the editor of the journal Chaos, Solitons and Fractals had retired and highlighted controversies during his tenure. Nature has been preparing for this case for two years meaning hundreds of hours of staff time have gone into this instead of carrying out other investigations. Andrew Caldecott QC described the case last week as a “fundamental issue of freedom of scientific expression.” This case demonstrates the need for another one of the libel reform campaign's key demands - that genuinely peer reviewed scientific publications, and hence discussions about such publications, be subject to qualified privilege and thus ineligible for libel action.

The meeting in Parliament tonight, which will take place at 18.00, will see many more scientists, journalists, writers, bloggers, website hosts and NGOs demonstrate the importance of reforming our libel laws.

The timing of this meeting is designed to impress upon Parliamentarians that a re-drafted and strengthened Defamation Bill should be included in the next Queen's Speech and form a key part of the legislative platform of the next Parliamentary session. Failing to achieve this will kick this vital set of reforms into the long grass and see an excellent opportunity to defend free expression missed - those present will set out how crucial it is that the Bill isn't just improved upon but is brought before Parliament as soon as possible.

*I'll update this post with more info on the meeting tomorrow.*

Libel reform campaign welcomes Parliament's call to strengthendraft Defamation Bill, calls for Bill to be in Queen's Speech

A Joint Scrutiny Committee of both Houses of Parliament has reviewed the Government's draft Defamation Bill and recommended it be strengthened in key areas to provide a more robust defence of free speech. Campaigners seeking to reform the illiberal English and Welsh libel laws have welcomed the Joint Committee's findings as the changes they put forward would bring the Bill's provisions further into lines with the aims of the Libel Reform Campaign. The Campaign previously welcomed the draft Bill as 'a step in the right direction;' in welcoming the Joint Committee's report is as a significant positive development en route to new laws to protect free speech being passed, the Campaign has called on the Government to bring forward a revised Bill for inclusion in the next Queen's Speech, set to take place in Spring 2012.

The Joint Committee considered several ways in which the draft Bill could be improved, echoing many of the submissions made to the Ministry of Justice during the Bill's consultation:

• On corporations' ability to sue for libel, the committee accepted the Libel Reform Campaign’s concerns over the imbalance of resources between individuals and well-resourced corporations in libel and the “chilling effect” that libel claims from companies have on free speech. The Committee's proposals aim to introduce a new hurdle making it more difficult for companies to use their financial muscle and the threat of court action to silence critics, which the Campaign says may reduce the problem. Tracey Brown, Managing Director of Sense about Science, welcomed measures that would redress the "equality of arms in the courtroom," particularly important when "scientists are being dragged through the courts for discussing evidence. This report adds to the case that our libel laws are stifling open science."
• On the need for claimants to show serious and substantial harm had been caused, the Committee accepted that by revising Clause 1 of the Draft Bill the Government would: “ensure that trivial cases are weeded out at an early stage by introducing a stricter test for determining whether a case is serious enough to go to court.” The provision of an early strikeout clause would give authors more confidence that bullying libel threats would be dismissed before they incurred unmanageable costs.
• On the need for a separate and robust public interest defence, the Committee noted there was “universal support” for a dedicated defence. The proposals tabled would go some way to strengthening the draft Bill's provisions on a public interest defence, but campaigners said there was more work to be done in this area. In particular, Dr Evan Harris, free speech activist and advisor to the Hacked Off campaign, said, “The lack of proper public interest defence in the draft bill and this report, is a real barrier to necessary reform. All sides in the Leveson Inquiry into the phone-hacking scandal have accepted that a new public interest defence for investigative and other public interest publications is needed to nurture the best of British journalism, but the draft bill merely codifies the existing inadequate defence and the Joint Committee recommends complicating it further.”
• On the need for fairer procedures to deal with libel claims against online comments, a variant of the Court-based system of take-down notices proposed by the Libel Reform Coalition, aimed at  preventing extra-judicial censorship by threats to ISPs and web hosts, was adopted by the Committee. Regarding libel claims against online comments, Justine Roberts, CEO of Mumsnet, said, "Websites and hosts of user-generated comment risk becoming tactical targets for those who wish to clamp down on criticism or investigation of their activities. For the health of public debate in this country, it’s crucial that the government continues to pursue this issue actively, rather than kicking it into the long grass. We hope that the committee’s report will provide an opportunity for the serious attention that this issue deserves.”

The Libel Reform Campaign is keen to stress that to protect the freedom of speech in this country, the Government should act urgently to pass a revised Defamation Bill, reflecting the Joint Committee's recommendations, in the next Parliamentary session. According to John Kampfner, Chief Executive of Index on Censorship: “In the last decade, journalists have been hampered from exposing those with power because of our restrictive libel laws. With media reform high on the agenda, the government must include the defamation bill in the next Queen’s speech.” Simon Singh, science writer and defendant in BCA v Singh, added, “Many doctors, scientists, academics and journalists (like myself) have suffered at the hands of English libel law. The Government not only needs to heed the Joint Committee report, but it also needs to act urgently and pass an effective defamation bill at the first available opportunity, as promised in their manifestos. We urgently need a libel law that balances the right to reputation with the right to free speech.”

The Coalition Agreement committed the Government to reforming our libel laws, and following the Joint Scrutiny Committee's findings the Bill is almost ready to present to Parliament - the sooner it gets implemented the sooner scientists, journalists, authors and web hosts can rest assured that their freedom to engage in genuine debate in the public interest is assured.

Lib Dems affirm that drug law reform should be based on reliable, independent scientific evidence

Cowardice has prevented successive governments from reforming the UK's illiberal and malfunctioning drugs laws - this was the theme of Ewan Hoyle's outstanding speech to the Liberal Democrat conference last Sunday, in which he moved a motion committing the party to an independent review of current drugs law and policy. Ewan's speech and entire debate - conducted in a heart-warming and mature manner without hysteria and hyperbole - is available here and is well worth watching.

Ewan's motion (full text here) exemplified the sort of calm and rational approach to the harms cause by drugs that is required if any government is to even consider reforming its stance. Usually the national discourse on the matter is far more polarised and nasty; pro-prohibitionists argue for ever-tougher punishments for those who use drugs, painting those who back a more evidence-based approach as crazy crack-pushing pot-smoking lunatics.

Citing evidence from well-regarded international studies on drug harms, Ewan's motion began by dispelling the widely-held belief that push for decriminalisation is a mechanism to extend the availability of currently illicit drugs as they are 'a good thing.' On the contrary, by stating clearly that drug use is in itself harmful to both the individual user and the community they live in, the motion sets up a welcome premise - that it is precisely because of the harms that drugs cause that far-reaching policy reform is required.

This is because alongside the incontrovertible evidence that drug use causes health-related, economic and societal harms, there is also robust evidence that the very policies and laws in place to tackle these harms are themselves harmful. This is the argument I began my own speech with, in moving an amendment to the motion that sought to emphasise the importance of independent scientific advice when formulating drugs policy (you can see my speech, following on from Adam Corlett's contribution, here and read the text here).

The disgraceful sacking of Prof. David Nutt as head of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) by the previous Labour government marked the nadir in the relationship between that administration and its scientific advisers in relation to drugs policy. Labour, and the Conservatives before them, had for decades summarily ignored robust scientific evidence on drug harms in favour of populist appeasement of tabloid headline-writers. They also systematically ignored evidence of the harms that the failed prohibitionist 'War on Drugs' was causing, including the needless fostering of a gang culture that manifested itself so violently on British streets this summer. This has lead to the absurd situation where drugs are classified according to the arbitrary whims of Ministers, not to mention those of the fear-mongering press that continues to moralise about the harms of drugs whilst undermining any evidence-based attempts at curbing those same harms.

My amendment called for the restoration of the link between government drugs policy and clinical, scientific and social scientific evidence of the harms caused by drugs and by current drugs policy. This should be achieved, I argued, by ensuring that the ACMD

retain a majority of independent scientific and social scientific experts in its membership and no changes to drug laws be made without receiving its advice as per the 1971 Misuse of Drugs Act. 

A simple enough call, but one that previous administrations failed to uphold, with frankly disastrous consequences. It is a damning indictment of the way that drugs have been discussed in our society over the past 30 years or so that Ewan's call for a full impact assessment of current policy, coupled with an insistence on a solid evidence base, could be considered radical at all - and yet here we are, the first and possibly only party of government to commit to such.

It's crucial that if we are to leave behind the failed drugs policies of the past we must learn from established examples abroad and from clear-cut scientific studies - and there's little doubt that both are only feasible if they're assessed and implemented using reliable and independent advice from those who 'know their onions,' so to speak. For any clinician, scientist or social scientist to be confident that their advice will be taken seriously, that policy will be based on their recommendations and that they won't be silenced, sidelined or sacked for communicating inconvenient truths, it's vital that the Coalition agrees to the evidence-based review of drugs law that this motion as amended calls for - the debate the Lib Dems had is a huge step along the way, here's hoping we see such a review sooner rather than later.

Legal threats against carer-support forum shows need for #libelreform and dangers of outsourcing public services

Index on Censorship reports that an internet forum for providers of care has been forced to shut down following a threat of legal action from a healthcare company. Although it now appears that the dispute has been resolved, this episode clearly demonstrates the need for wide-ranging reforms to English and Welsh libel law, as well as some of the dangers inherent to outsourcing and/or privatisation of public services.

The forum in question, CarerWatch, was suspended by its hosting company after they - the hosting company that is, not the owners of the forum - were sent a letter threatening legal action relating to an allegedly defamatory posting. The letter was sent on behalf of Atos Healthcare, a private company that is contracted to the Government's Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) to carry out work capability assessments. This is the latest in a series of similar incidents, where supposedly defamed individuals and corporations sue, or threaten to sue, internet hosting companies for libel. Rather than simply asking the author of the offending post to retract the content that is objected to, libel-happy lawyers target website hosts by threatening to hold them responsible for the content on their servers. Facing potentially ruinous costs of defending their clients, hosts feel they have little choice but to suspend the blog, forum or site under attack - thereby extending the chill cast over free expression by bullying legal threats of this nature.

As it happens, on this occasion, the company concerned did contact the forum owners with details of the offending post, albeit after the threat of legal action had forced the closure of the site. The forum owners then consented to removing the post in question, even though it wasn't defamatory in itself but rather linked to an external website that was deemed libellous. The forum has now been reinstated. So if a simple email exchange was sufficient for the allegedly defamatory content to be removed, why did Atos, a multi-billion corporation with a £100 million contract with the UK Government, resort to sending legal threats? I'd suggest that it's because of the ease with which such threats can chill free debate - knowing the pro-plaintiff bias in English libel law, and the extortionate cost that comes with even successfully defending a libel case, recipients of such threats nearly always back down and shut up rather than risk being ruined.

The Atos threat illustrates the need for many of the vital reforms that the libel reform campaign has sought for nearly two years now. Firstly, at a time when internet hosts give a home to billions of comments and opinions, it is vital that the law regarding their liability is updated. It's unsustainable for the likes of CarerWatch's hosts, or any other Internet Service Providers, to be held responsible for the ocean of content they host. The Government acknowledged that ISPs' legal status in libel law needed looking at, but short of including a clause addressing the problem in their draft Defamation Bill, they chose to kick the issue into the long grass via a consultation; as we await the Government's response to the consultation, it's vital we keep up the pressure to amend the law with respect to ISPs and bring defamation law into the 21st century.

In addition, those seeking redress should be required to approach the authors of the allegedly offending material directly and have the matter resolved without recourse to heavy-handed threats of legal action. It's been proposed that for a libel action to proceed plaintiffs should prove that all reasonable steps had been taken to resolve the matter, including asking for the allegedly defamatory material to be removed by the authors. Had this requirement been in place, CarerWatch's hosts could have safely ignored the threat knowing that this hadn't occurred.

Finally, the fact that a multi-billion pound corporation was able to issue such a threat to a small voluntary organisation at all is a great concern, not least as the company in question provides a public service for which it ought to be held accountable. Activists within the libel reform coalition have called for the law to be changed, such that non-natural persons are no longer able to sue for libel. This stems from the fact that  Articles 8 and 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights, relating to privacy and free expression, should only apply to actual individuals and not to corporations who in other respects are regarded as persons under the ECHR. A technical legal argument it may be, but it's crucial here. Libel is intended as a form of redress for those whose reputation has been damaged - the libel reform movement's contention is that corporate bodies don't enjoy a reputation in the same way as natural persons do, and hence should be prevented from suing in libel. Should their financial position be damaged they could always sue for malicious falsehood, but libel should be out-of-bounds for corporations.

Here is where we see a real danger in the outsourcing of previously public functions to private entities.

Public bodies cannot sue for libel following a ruling in Derbyshire County Council vs The Times in 1993. The reasoning behind this ruling was that public bodies carrying out public functions should remain accountable at all levels and should not be able to wield libel law as a tool to silence criticism. A grey area opens up, however, when private companies are contracted to carry out governmental functions. Not only is criticism of said function now subject to silencing through the libel system, the remit of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 also suggests that these companies are immune from FoI requests as to their actions. As I reported in January this year, Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg acknowledges that if more and more public functions are carried out by private companies, we may need to extend the FoI Act to ensure that these companies can be held to account.

Until and unless both the libel laws and FoI legislation of this country are radically reformed, we will continue to see unaccountable private corporations effectively silencing free debate; an overhaul of both is crucial if we are to prevent further episodes like Atos vs CarerWatch and countless other instances where free expression is suppressed.

Boris bungles bus crime stats

"There are lies, dammed lies and statistics," Benjamin Disraeli is supposed to have said. Perhaps years from now the citation will be modified - "there are lies, dammed, lies, statistics and Boris Johnson," for the Mayor of London has once again demonstrated a poor grasp* of numbers relating to crime.

In his campaign literature for next year's Mayoral election, Boris claims that under his watch crime on buses has fallen 30% - an impressive statistic, but one that doesn't stand up to all that much scrutiny.

According to figures from Transport for London, analysed by Liberal Democrat Chair of the London Assembly Transport Committee Caroline Pidgeon, any drop in the aggregate number of crimes on buses masks significant variation between boroughs - with 11 out of 32 London Boroughs reporting an increase in bus crimes.

Many of these boroughs experienced significant increases - bus crime in Southwark went up by 5.2%, in Merton by 9.4%, Tower Hamlets by 11.5% and Barking and Dagenham by a staggering 17.8%. You can take a look at the full statistics here, which include borough-by-borough and crime-type breakdowns as well as comparisons with previous years.

These stats show, of course, that in many places bus crime has dropped significantly - by over 20% year-on-year in some cases - but that it remains a serious and increasing problem for many passengers.

Boris has been in trouble before for his use of crime statistics - earlier in the year the the UK Statistical Authority felt moved to write to the Mayor, chastising him for making political use of crime statistics and warning that he risks eroding 'public trust in Government statistics.' Boris was asked by the UKSA's chairman Sir Michael Scholar to comply with their Code of Practice (he has refused) which says that official statistics should be presented without spin or political colour, and that Boris' press release trumpeting the drop in crime "was poor practice, and was damaging to public trust in the statistics produced by Transport for London."

There's another way in which Boris' use of the bus crime stats are a little naughty - as Guardian blogger Dave Hill points out, there had been a long-term trend towards a reduction in bus crime since before Boris took over the Mayoralty from Ken Livingstone, and that Boris' time in power is likely to have had little effect on that trend either way. For Boris to take credit for the fall in bus crime - where there has even been a fall - is stretching things somewhat.

Why am I blogging about the use of bus crime stats - why should this matter?

The public rightly pays a lot of attention to crime statistics - rightly or wrongly they give us a handle on how safe our neighbourhoods are, how likely we are to fall victim to a crime, how we decide to go home at night in some cases. Although we might not have a crime ready-reckoner to hand every time we board the Number 55, publication and reporting of crime statistics does impact on our behaviour, our psyche - it would be remiss of any politician or journalist to claim that our buses (or streets) were safer than they are just as it is for them to stoke our fear of crime by claiming the opposite.

For a geek like me (not a stats geek admittedly, I hardly know the difference between a Bonferoni post-hoc correction and a Mann Witney U...), the use of science and statistics in politics matters because I'd like to see public policy based on evidence - reliable, honestly presented evidence, not stats that are spun to make a particular case. I accept that politics and governance aren't as straightforward as mechanically implementing that which is statistically significant, but if we can't trust the numbers we read, whether or bus crime, drug use or the NHS, we can't evaluate whether public policy is based on anything other than dogma.

So this is why we need more transparent, honest reporting of crime stats from Boris and other politicians - because as things stand, all we have are lies, dammed lies and manipulated statistics.

The People of Ecuador have something in common with the People of Dorking, Surrey - oil, natural beauty and solidarity

Johann Hari, Independent journalist extraordinaire, has written extensively about the chilling impacts of man's disregard for his natural environment - impacts that range from disappearing polar ice caps to scrambles to capture scarce water and more. Yet we must hope that we can reverse the suicidal tendency of modern man to exploit every last resource no matter what the cost, and Johann writes about one such example from Ecuador - what's striking is the resemblance of Ecuador's stance to that seen closer to home - in leafy Surrey to be exact.

Johann reports that in a bid to fight the economic pressures to drill for $7bn worth of oil under the Ecuadorian Amazon rainforest, the rest of the world has been made an offer - pay half that much and the nation of Ecuador will resist the temptation to cash in on the oil and gas lying under one of the most diverse areas of life on Earth. Johann's account of this laudable struggle against the dominant economic narrative of our times - that short-term profit trumps sustainable development - is well worth a read - in particular if you read it alongside a related tale from Surrey.

Earlier this week planners at Surrey County Council considered whether to permit Europa Oil and Gas to drill for oil in a region of the County designated as an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. They refused the planning application, which in itself represents a victory for protecting our environment over the headlong rush to squeeze every last drop of oil from the planet no matter what the consequences.

What makes the Surrey decision all the more impressive is that just a week ago, the Council's own report recommended that the application for an exploratory drill site be allowed - but following impassioned interventions from concerned citizens the planning committee voted 6-4 against the drilling - and in favour of protecting the land.

The drilling would have been for a matter of weeks, in order to determine whether further extraction was economically viable - allowing such drilling wouldn't have been unique, given that onshore exploratory drilling has been permitted in Sussex despite objections. Unless demand for fossil fuels, at home and abroad, abates significantly, such battles between oil companies and the people will become more frequent.

But Surrey County Council sided, whether knowingly or otherwise, with their Ecuadorian counterparts, in deciding that the environmental impact of economic activity cannot always be treated as an externality to be disregarded.

These seemingly unrelated stories, at opposite ends of the world, might just show the rest of the world how to resist the tempting call to 'Drill baby, drill,' - here's hoping!

#NHSreform, it's emphasis on 'patient choice' and testing unproven remedies

It's been a while (alright, it's been ages) since I blogged on anything vaguely bad-science related or scientific here, for which I apologise given that it was my original (self-appointed) remit to do so. Well, here goes...

Simon Singh raises an interesting question via Twitter - Why waste limited research funds on proven pseudoscience? The proven pseudoscience in question here is homeopathy, and Simon's enquiry stems from an Early Day Motion (EDM) tabled by every skeptic's favourite MP David Tredinnick. Tredinnick's Motion calls for public funding to facilitate research into this important area to ascertain the effectiveness of homeopathy. The Motion has since been amended by the intrepid Liberal Democrat MP for Cambridge Julian Huppert - Amendment 1820A1 in the previous link comprehensively refutes Mr. Tredinnick's premise and I hold out hope that more MPs will emerge as signatories to Julian's amendment than the 13 (to date) that support the Bulls$*t from Bosworth...

As it happens the funding of research into alternative therapies, homeopathy amongst them, was raised recently when I spoke at a political event (no wait, don't go...!) where I discussed the Government's reforms to the NHS - I was sharing the platform (or rather patio as we were in a beautiful garden in Hackney) with Liberal Democrat Health Minister Paul Burstow MP.

I've written about the political side of the discussion over on Liberal Democrat Voice, but it was in the Question and Answer session that followed our discussion that alternative therapies, and research into their efficacy, was raised.

We were asked about whether there was any enthusiasm to run publicly-funded, properly controlled clinical trials into alternative therapies, given that in his talk Paul had intimated that with greater choice and freedom for commissioning General Practitioners (GPs), they would be more flexibility to prescribe a variety of interventions that 'the patient felt would help them recover.'

Turns out the questioner was posing an interesting variation on the theme of 'should we pay to find out whether sugar pills/sticking needles into meridians etc works, and should they be available on the NHS,' intimating that if critics of alternative therapies were so certain that things that have been used for aeons don't work, why not fund large-scale high-quality trials to sort the wheat from the chaff - to show what works and what doesn't?

Paul responded by reassuring us that whilst GP commissioners would be free to procure whatever services they saw fit, they would still face guidelines from NICE and the MHRA on what they could offer the patient - he also suggested that if healthcare was to become more outcomes-focussed, then there would be more scope for prescribing interventions that patients themselves reported as being beneficial.

This has been the standard Government line for some time now, which leaves much room for interpretation to say the least. What if a patient reports they feel better following a nice foot massage? Or by having hands waved over them? Perhaps patients would like to have wax candles stuck in various orifices? If they say it makes them feel better, who are we to argue? Roll-up, roll-up, for the great Alt-Med giveaway - Department of Health funding for anyone who can convince a patient with a self-limiting condition to fill in a questionnaire favourably...

Flippant jokes aside, the question about publicly funding research into homeopathy needs answering - or rather, the answers that exist need to be articulated more forcefully. I'd recommend reading Andy Lewis' take on such matters, who's written extensively about testing alternative therapies in patients - particularly with regards the ethical problems involved.

My answer to our interlocutor was two-fold. Firstly I said that in times of plenty, we would love to study as many therapies as possible as extensively as we could, so that the best treatment options were available to patients - indeed that's how evidence-based medicine proceeds - but that such studies must, above all else, pass elementary criteria for plausibility, prior evidence of efficacy (perhaps in animal studies), and be demonstrably safe - not only in themselves, but taken within the context of discouraging the use of established treatments. As many (if not most) so-called alternative therapies fall at these hurdles, it's hard to justify stufying them further at public expense.

Of course, I said, at a time when public funds are constrained - with the NHS facing its toughest financial settlement since its inception - it is deeply unethical to divert scarce funding to enquiries into questionable practices. Secondly, I suggested that contrary to opinion - expressed most strongly amongst proponents of quackery - that because there's little or no profit to to be made from alternative therapies, Big Pharma refuses to do good clinical studies and that therefore the government should do so instead. This simply isn't true on two fronts - the Alt Med industry is worth hundreds of millions of dollars a year and can be very profitable, and some good evidence does exist regarding the use of such therapies as homeopathy, aromatherapy, acupuncture and so on - it's just that when the studies are of good quality, they inevitably give an answer that quacktitioners would rather not hear.

Indeed the gentleman interested in studies of alternative therapies was surprised to hear that enough evidence as to their efficacy exists to allow systematic meta-analyses - mostly by the Cochrane Collaboration, and mostly showing that Alt Med therapies simply don't work better than placebo. This suggests to me that although the scientific method has been used to investigate whether homeopathy and its like are effective, the results haven't trickled down into the vernacular.

In sum, then, I think I managed to argue against public funding of research into 'proven psuedoscience,' partly because it's already been shown to be rubbish and partly because further studies would be expensive and unethical.

I could go on for ever - I could emphasise that for journalists and bloggers to adequately inform the public about the lack of efficacy and outright dangers of some alternative medicine we need to have our libel laws radically reformed so we can write without fear of being silenced; I could lament the seemingly forcible retirement of the inestimable Professor Edzard Ernst, he who has dedicated an entire career to systematically evaluating the evidence for or against alternative therapies; I could even harp on about the tyranny of choice, whereby when confronted by a smorgarsboard of options we often fail to choose wisely based on what's good for us...

But I think it's best to leave the last word to musical genius Tim Minchin and his exposition of alternative medicine in the form of his beat poem Storm - where he rightly says, "You know what they call “alternative medicine”That’s been proved to work? Medicine.”

Libel Reform Coalition welcomes Government's draft Defamation bill as 'good step in the right direction,' calls on 'Parliament to go further in key areas.'

Yesterday saw the long-awaited publication of the Government's draft Defamation Bill, with the Justice Secretary Kenneth Clarke MP recognising that

the increased threat of costly libel actions has begun to have a chilling effect on scientific and academic debate, and investigative journalism.

The Bill, which includes many of the substantial provisions called for by the Libel Reform Coalition last week, was welcomed by free speech campaigners as 'a great starting point’ to ensure the first overhaul of our archaic libel laws.'

Amongst the provisions successfully campaigned for are:

· Easier ‘strike out’ of trivial or inappropriate claims by raising the threshold of harm before a libel action can proceed

· A curtailment of ‘libel tourism’ with a stronger requirement to justify bringing a claim in this jurisdiction for claimants domiciled abroad

· A more effective and clearer defence of truth (justification)

· New clearer and wider statutory defence of honest opinion (fair comment)

· Extension of statutory qualified privilege to benefit NGOs and scientific conferences

· The introduction of a single publication rule with a one year cut

The Ministry of Justice also announced a major consultation exercise to complement the Bill, running from today until June 10th 2011, to canvass opinion on several key issues not tackled in the draft legislation. These include vital issues relating to whether corporations should be allowed to sue for libel, , and whether internet service providers will continue to be held liable for comments made through them.

The consultation exercise serves to demonstrate that although the draft legislation is an excellent start on the path towards a truly liberal defamation law, there remains work to be done before English and Welsh libel law is up to date, fair and capable of fostering open discourse. The Libel Reform Coalition will continue to press for the law, when eventually passed in a years' time, to be just that.

What do we want? Libel reform! When do we want it? Now! (or, as soon as the applicable Parliamentary procedures have been observed...)

Later today, scientists, authors, comedians and journalists will gather in Parliament to lend their support to the Libel Reform Coalition's blueprint for the protection of free speech, setting out their priorities for libel laws that no longer stifle debate. I set out below a summary of how we've reached this stage.

The campaign to reform our unjust and illiberal libel laws has achieved a great deal to date; in just under two years, we've gone from raising awareness of cases such as Simon Singh's, which demonstrate all to clearly the need to defend fair comment, to seeing manifesto commitments on libel reform from all three major political parties at the last election.

As the evidence builds that our libel laws really do threaten legitimate public discourse on matters of public interest, the momentum behind the campaign has increased significantly in recent months, with a number of significant developments - not least of which was the publication of Lord Lester's draft Defamation Bill. The Coalition Government responded to Lord Lester's Bill by committing to publishing its draft legislation to be put before Parliament - a significant achievement, showing that Lord McNally and others in government truly are committed to reforming our libel laws for the better.

We understand that after a significant consultation the Government is due to publish its legislation at some point next week - in anticipation of that publication, the Libel Reform Coalition will later today release a blueprint for libel reform, setting out our priorities for reform. At the launch of this blueprint, entitled What should a defamation bill contain?, supporters of the Campaign will tell MPs that "public interest should be at the heart of the new defamation bill," and that, in the words of Sense about Science Director Tracey Brown, "The current laws work best for bullies. The new law must work best for the citizen."

The blueprint is designed to set out what the Libel Reform Coalition wishes to see in the Government's legislation; as Dr. Evan Harris from the Campaign said,

"From writers to scientists and from journalists to editors, those who love free speech want next week's Government's draft defamation bill to match the contents of our blue-print and if fails to do so will be urging MPs and peers to amend it".

The Parliamentary launch of the blueprint will be followed by an opportunity for supporters to put their concerns to MPs.

Commenting on the blueprint's release, Director of English PEN said, "PEN's members have been calling for reform for more than 70 years. It's time to finish the job that EM Forster began in 1938."

As I'm lucky enough to be attending the launch, I'll update this post with photos and news later.

Health Secretary Lansley appears to have U-turned on price competition in NHS

According to the Health Service Journal, the Government has performed a significant volte face regarding its reform to the National Health Service - it appears healthcare providers will not be able to compete with NHS services on price.

Under the original proposals, outlined in the Equity and Excellence White Paper, independent sector providers would have been permitted to compete for business with NHS Trusts on the basis of price (they are currently restricted to competing on quality). According to the HSJ, the reforms have been watered down to prevent price competition. The following is from the HSJ article:

The government has performed a significant U-turn on allowing price competition between NHS trusts and independent providers.

A letter to senior staff from NHS chief executive David Nicholson today said there was “no question of introducing price competition” – contradicting the Health Bill which refers to the tariff being only “a maximum price for that service”. 

Ministers have spoken about encouraging competition on price. But a senior Department of Health source told HSJ ministers had “changed their minds” on its dangers, although they added the real test was whether or not they changed the wording in the Health Bill. 

Last month Sir David told the Commons Public Accounts Committee price competition would be “extremely dangerous” without strong safeguards to protect quality. 

The DH now plans to develop guidance which will make clear offering NHS services below the national tariff will only be permitted in exceptional circumstances and subject to approval by strategic health authorities or their sucessor bodies.

Whilst the turnaround would be a welcome recognition of the dangers of sparking a 'race-to-the-bottom' with private providers cutting costs to secure commissioning contracts, the details remain to be determined - crucially, we await the Department of Health's definition of the 'exceptional circumstances' under which services may be offered at rates below the national tariff.


[Hat-tip to Alex Marsh (SodanAlexM on Twitter) who alerted me to this story].

Got a spare £50m? Fernando Torres or regenerative medicine - your choice...!

I'm more than aware that in writing a blogpost comparing extravagant expenditure by football clubs to the money needed to support vital medical research I may make comparing apples and oranges feel like, well comparing apples and apples, but here goes nonetheless - forgive my rather tortured premise if you may...

As the January transfer market in football players came to a close, two dramatic signings caught the spotlight - firstly, Andy Carroll moved from Newcastle United to Liverpool for a (then) British record transfer fee of £35 million - not to be out-done, Chelsea promptly smashed that record by signing Liverpool's Fernando Torres for £50 million.

I don't plan to discuss the merits of the player transfers themselves - much... I can't resist the temptation to question the pricing of the two Carroll and Torres; the former is injured, is talented but surely isn't more valuable to his new owners than the explosive David Villa is to Barcelona, and has a chequered off-field temperament; and the latter has had a terrible 12 months, failing to impress in Spain's World Cup triumph and scoring just nine goals in this lacklustre season thus far.

Regardless of whether Liverpool and Chelsea overpaid for their particular new acquisitions, the question that occurs to me is whether any footballer can truly be "worth" £50 million (or £50,000,000 - writing it out makes it hurt more...). Undoubtedly they "cost" that much, it's a question of whether they're worth it...

I ask because the £50 million figure also made another appearance in the news this week, albeit in a different context. The Twittersphere informed me that the British Heart Foundation has launched a new appeal, in support of research into encouraging regeneration of heart muscle following injury from heart attack.

The appeal aims to raise £50 million so the BHF can fund ground-breaking research into why the human heart fails to regenerate muscle cells following ischaemic injury (i.e. cell death after being starved of oxygen), whereas the heart muscle of lower animals such as the zebrafish does its own repair job.

Clearly the aim is to understand the mechanisms behind regeneration of heart muscle in organisms like zebrafish, and to try and devise treatments for oxygen-starved human heart tissue using either by activating repair pathways which we may have but don't use, or by delivering stem cells to the heart and hoping they develop into mature, functioning muscle cells that replace the injured tissue.

The latter is a much-explored option, with encouraging reports from early clinical studies using adult-derived bone-marrow stem cells - and more recent trials have shown that not only is the injection of such stem cells well-tolerated, but that it can lead to improvements in clinically relevant outcome measures such as the volume of blood pumped by the heart at each beat (ejection fraction).

Exploring mechanisms of tissue regeneration in lower animals is not exactly a surefire way of developing new treatments for human diseases that involve cell death - it has been known for decades that salamanders regenerate limbs following injury, but little progress has been made in translating that knowledge into treatments for patients - to date at least.

And yet the BHF's appeal strikes a chord not only with its undoubted ambition, but with its solid scientific basis too - there is little doubt that an increased knowledge of the developmental and regenerative pathways in zebrafish, pufferfish (Fugu), salamanders and all sorts of other organisms will shed light on whether humans retains a capacity to repair our own heart muscles, and if so then how we can tap into said capacity.

As the recent Science is Vital campaign showed so successfully, even blue-skies research with little predictable benefit is of immense value - which is even more true of research of the sort that the BHF aims to back with their new campaign as it could well lead to a much-needed treatment for conditions that are both life-threatening and increasing in prevalence. Such research needs to be backed by public and private funding, as it has the potential not only to push back the boundaries of human understanding but to improve the quality of lives of millions of people.

Which brings us back neatly to Fernando Torres. I'm not suggesting that Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich should have spent his oligarchical spoils on fulfilling the BHF's appeal in full (well, perhaps I am after all...), it's just that his extravagance on the Spanish striker throws the appeal into sharp relief -  I wonder if those fortunate enough to have hearts healthy enough to power a top career in professional football appreciate just how little of their collective 'net worth' in the transfer market would adequately fund leading-edge research for those suffering from the burden of disease.

The two lots of £50 million - one spent on a footballer, the other needed to pay for medical research -   demonstrates neatly that we as a society have the wherewithal to fund quality research into matters of life and death, but sometimes our priorities can be somewhat muddled...

Stem cell therapies, visual disorders and dangerous clinical practice

Yesterday I blogged about the story of Izabelle Evans, a girl who received a stem cell transplant to treat septo-optic dysplasia. Following comments on that piece by Prof. Stephen Moss, Prof. David Colquhoun and Suirauqa, I've done a little more digging around the use of stem cells for treating visual and other disorders - here I try to separate the maverick from the marvellous.

As I've mentioned before on this blog, my research centres around inherited visual disorders - I'm interested in the mechanisms that lead from genetic mutations to disease, and in developing gene therapy treatments. I am fortunate enough to work in one of the very best research groups in one of the very best institutions in vision research in the world - fortunate because I can see first hand (if not always produce myself!) scientific research of the highest order.

Much of that research hints at the enormous potential that stem cells hold for the treatment for an assortment of disorders - not least those affecting the nervous system - by replacing cells lost due to disease.

But, to coin a phrase, I think you'll find it's a bit more complicated than that...

Genuine stem cells originate from the inner cell mass of the early blastocyst-stage embryo - that is to say, they are the small group of cells which can give rise to all the different cell types of the body, from stomach and lung cells (derived from the endoderm), to muscle, skin and blood cells (which derive from the mesoderm) and neurones in the brain and eye (originating in the ectoderm). For a more detailed description of stem cells and their properties, I'd recommend the National Institutes of Health resource for stem cell research, brought to you by the folks behind the scientific publications gateway PubMed.

Aside from these 'true' stem cells, many adult tissues contain cells that are partly developed into 'progenitor cells;' these are often referred to as adult stem cells, and can give rise to most if not all cell types of that particular tissue.

A key development in the last few years has been the creation of induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells - adult cells, usually take from skin, that are reprogrammed in a dish to behave like actual embryonic stem cells that can give rise to any cells type in the body, even whole organisms in the case of mice.

Stem cells display key behaviours that make them of real interest as potential treatments; they can divide indefinitely (at least on paper), giving a potentially endless source of cells from very few original cells; depending on the environment they are placed in, they can differentiate into any cell type you require; and because they mature in the same way as normal human tissue, when transplanted the differentiated mature cells that arise from can form connections with host tissue and restore function to a diseased tissue. At least, this is what the latest peer-reviewed, scientific literature intimates.

So picture a disease such as Parkinson's, where dopamine-secreting cells in the brain's subsantia nigra degenerate; or muscular dystrophy; or any of the myriad inherited retinal degenerations, where mutations in hundreds of different genes lead to the death of the light-sensitive cells of the retina. These are all diseases where cells die for various reasons, and potentially could be replaced either by stem cell transplantation - in the hope that the undifferentiated cells mature by virtue of finding themselves surrounded by mature brain/muscle/eye cells - or by coaxing stem cells to develop into the mature cells in a dish and transplanting those. And my list of diseases is hardly comprehensive - common conditions such as stroke, heart disease and diabetes could all benefit from stem cell-derived technology.

Little wonder then that there is a great drive towards developing stem cell-based therapies. And real progress is being made, at what is a remarkable rate in terms of medical research. Just taking my own field of eye research as an example, it is now possible to take fibroblasts (a general-purpose cell type) from the skin of a mouse, reprogramme it into an iPS cell in a dish by expressing a few key genes, add in a cocktail of factors known to encourage development into many of the cell types found in the eye (see this excellent review from a current and a former colleague for details), and isolate cells from the resultant mix that look remarkably like mature photoreceptors. On the other hand, progenitor cells from a newborn mouse retina can be transplanted into a degenerating recipient retina and restore - to some extent - sensitivity to light - it's nothing like a complete cure as yet, but proof-of-concept studies show that cleverly manipulating both the donor cell and the recipient retina can allow thousands of these stem cells to integrate and form connections with host cells. Combining the two techniques - generating induced pluripotent stem cells and developing them in a dish to resemble adult retinal stem cells for effective transplantation - remains the elusive goal.

Thousands of such studies show that stem cells of all flavours have great potential as treatment - but they also show how difficult they are to work with, how little we understand of how they work, and the dangers they represent.

Which is why careful, rigorous, scientifically robust studies are needed before stem cells are widely applied to patients in the clinic. There are hundreds of official clinical trials using stem cells underway, for many diseases - partly the number is inflated due to a loose definition of stem cells - and these vital studies will provide answers to many important questions over safety and efficacy. Without systematic trials of this nature we really can't say with any confidence that stem cell therapy is safe for humans, let alone effective.

This is what makes the behaviour of certain clinics and doctors, seemingly more so in China than anywhere else, disturbing. As I wrote about yesterday, a Chinese clinic is offering spinal injections of stem cells from the umbilical cord as a treatment for a host of diseases. Commenting on that piece, Prof. Moss said he found nothing on PubMed suggesting the clinic has a publication track record to speak of. Looking for more details, I found this website which is an astonishing mixture of anecdote, patient testimonials and extraordinary claims - and not one mention of a properly conducted, peer-reviewed and published study.

To quote the great Carl Sagan, "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" - and I see lots of the former and virtually none of the latter.

The blogger Suirauqa (whose own latest blog post links to another scientific study  linked to a story on NPR which cast a somewhat skeptical eye on the claims of efficacy for Chinese stem cell treatment in the case of Laylah Teague. The story is still on the credulous side for my liking, but at least discusses the possibility that any treatment effect may be placebo-driven (patients tend to receive massages and other 'alternative' or palliative care alongside their stem cells), and/or short-lived - as well as the spectre of dangerous side-effects.

I despair at this sort of thing - along with the enormous potential as therapies, stem cells carry with them unknown dangers which could easily be fatal. Medicine is not perfect and even the safest looking treatments can turn out to be fatal - let's hope that the irresponsible, cavalier by-passing of the scientific method and lack of respect for due process on display at these clinics doesn't harm the patients desperate enough to pay massive sums demanded.

Stemming the tide of cell therapy stories, or, Where are the Methods and Materials in this journal?

Thanks and hat-tip to the outstanding blogger @gimpyblog, who Tweeted the story in the Sun on which this post is based; thanks also to the brilliant @stephenemoss for encouraging me to write this post; and apologies for the headline...

Time after time bloggers criticise newspapers - mostly but not exclusively the red-top tabloids - for their coverage of science stories. Ranging from the baseless scaremongering around MMR to the PR fluff of wacky equations and bogus (careful...) 'trials' of dietary supplements, the media's inability to report on scientific material accurately or fairly is not news in itself - just take a look over at badscienceblogs.net and you'll see dozens of press articles pwned for indulging in bias, statistical error or just plain idiocy.

To the roll-call of infamy in science journalism we may add stories from earlier in the week (in The Sun and The Mirror amongst others) regarding four-year-old girl Izabelle Evans, some stem cells, and China.

The Sun reported that 

LITTLE Izabelle Evans who was born blind has seen her mum and dad for the first time at the age of FOUR — thanks to a miracle procedure carried out on the other side of the world.

Brave Izabelle can now see up to three feet and recognise her parents' faces following groundbreaking stem cell treatment 

(emphasis original).

Curious, I read on in hope of finding out what cell type was used in the treatment, what the mode of delivery and dosage were, how efficacy was determined - alas, no luck.

Helpfully, The Mirror went into more detail, describing how septo-optic dysplasia caused Izzy's visual impairment:

[Izzy] only has a few hundred optic nerves (sic) sending information to her brain. A person needs millions to be able to see. Her family heard about the stem cell treatment which involves injecting the spinal canal with cells taken from umbilical cords of healthy babies. The cells are then used to rebuild optic nerves.

Leaving aside the technicalities - we only have one optic nerve per eye, made up of the axons of millions of neurones - several questions arise. Was the injection of umbilical stem cells carried out under a clinical trial protocol or offered as a commercial service? What precautions were taken to ensure that Izabelle's immune system did not react adversely to receiving cells from another person - or were Izzy's own cells, perhaps frozen down at birth, used? How was the patient's vision tested before and after treatment?

Of course, had we been reading about Izabelle's case in a peer-reviewed article in a scientific journal, we may well have had the answers. As it is we're left with the tantalising story of a little girl (cue pictures of her with family in front of seasonal decor) and her anecdote of 'improved vision' following 'stem cell therapy.'

Having seen at close quarters how a genuine clinical trial is carried out - with rigorous pre-clinical testing of the treatment lasting years, massive regulatory hurdles to be overcome (rightly) and the thorough post-treatment reporting that is required to qualify for publication in a high-flying journal - I feel the need to express my disappointment. Not only does The Sun put in jeopardy it's otherwise decent record on reporting health issues (not least the waste of money that is NHS-funded homeopathy), stories like Izzy's unjustifiably raise people's expectations of what medical science can deliver.

Another aspect of both the Sun and Mirror's reporting concerned me - the focus on the non-availability of such treatment - whatever it constituted - in the UK, and the fundraising that allowed the Evans family to head to China where she was treated. There may well be good reasons why direct injections of stem cells into the spinal canal are not carried out in the UK - it may be for lack of the very safety and efficacy data missing from Izzy's story. What we don't need is for families of patients with rare disorders - despite being understandably desperate for anything that might help - to jet off to jurisdictions with lax controls over clinical protocols and less regard for patient safety - which may well be the case here.

By reporting an isolated anecdote such as this, without corroborating evidence on safety or efficacy, journalists do science and medicine a huge disservice. There's nothing wrong with reporting genuinely exciting advances in medical science in the lay press - in fact it's a vital part of making scientific progress for the population at large to understand the likes of gene and cell therapy - it's just that this kind of reporting distracts from the real deal - and makes it that much harder for properly conducted trials and their outcomes to get the recognition they deserve.

Extrapolation in extremis, or, How the Daily Mail went all Homer Simpson and claimed that 'purple is a fruit.'

A big thank you to @Evidencematters on Twitter for pointing out this story...

'Remember to eat your purples: Fruit can 'ward off Alzheimer's, heart problems and cancer,' or so the People's Medical Journal (aka the Daily FMail) tells us.

So, I won't bother writing the rest of this post - instead I'll just head off to buy shares in growers of purple fruits...

Oh, wait...

The Mail story is an object lesson in how to take seemingly sound science and extrapolate its findings to the logical (or illogical) extreme; a picture-perfect example of the art of insinuation, conjecture and wishful thinking. Oh, and it's also an addition to the honourable Oncological Ontological Project (the mammoth classification of which has been completed by Paul Battley) whereby, according to Bad Science maestro Ben Goldacre, 

The Daily Mail, as you know, is engaged in a philosophical project of mythic proportions: for many years now it has diligently been sifting through all the inanimate objects in the world, soberly dividing them into the ones which either cause – or cure – cancer

This time, it's purple fruits which may 'cure' cancer, and help 'ward off' diseases such as multiple sclerosis and Parkinson's - and according to Mail reporter Fiona Macrae it's all there in black and white, written by a scientist no less. No ordinary scientist either - Prof, Kell is a prolific scientist interested in the biochemistry of metabolism, and serves as the Chief Executive of the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council. The article cites a paper by Prof. Kell from the University of Manchester, and says that the polyphenols contained within purple fruits (and green tea, curcumin and chocolate, although sadly not the Mail's favourite anti-cancer compound, red wine) may help

fight the harmful effects of iron, which can damage cells if it makes its way through the digestive system in the wrong form.

We've been here before on this blog, with a Mail story that linked perfumes to male infertility - again based in some way on studies by Professor Richard Sharpe but that bear no resemblance to the science contained therein.

So I did a little digging - I emphasise the little, as it doesn't take too long to dig for the absurdities in Ms. Macrae's article.

Prof. Kell recently published a review article in the journal Archives of Toxicology, to which I assume (given the Mail's insistence on not linking to original sources...) Ms. Macrae's article refers. If you're interested you can read the full article here, or just the abstract via PubMed here.

Prof. Kell draws on extensive evidence (his review is one of the most thorough and heavily-referenced I've ever seen with over 1,700 references...) regarding the role of iron - specifically, iron that is 'poorly liganded' - in the progression of many seemingly disparate diseases. Poorly liganded iron? Qu'est-ce que c'est?

Iron, as Mrs. Teekblog the chemistry teacher had to remind me, is a transition metal that can exist in several valencies - in other words, it can choose to make bonds with any number of ligands (other atoms/ions/molecules) up to six. Iron is said to be fully liganded when it's bound to its full complement of six ligands - according to Prof. Kell's review, iron within cells that is bound to fewer than six ligands can cause the production of highly reactive hydroxyl radicals (free radicals) through the Fenton reaction, which are well known to cause damage to DNA and proteins and play a significant role in cell death during disease.

Prof. Kell goes on to take a 'systems biology' approach to the role of poorly-liganded iron in disease, postulating that the build-up of the incompletely-bound form of iron may be the 'nexus' that links diseases with apparently unrelated causative factors with seemingly disparate outcomes - that poorly-liganded iron and the free radicals it creates may be the gatekeepers channel various insults to cells - whether genetic or environmental - to causing cell death by myriad mechanisms.

As ever, pictures say much more than words ever could, and this elegant diagram may help you in understanding Prof. Kell's view of the importance of iron's valency in disease:



The review article meticulously trawls through data regarding poorly-liganded iron and its potential contribution various disease processes - and yes, at one point Prof. Kell does indeed mention that

the only way to stop the damaging activity of free or partially liganded ‘iron’ is to ensure that all of its six possible liganding sites are satisfied, whether by endogenous chelators or those added from the diet or as pharmaceuticals

Prof. Kell then lists a sizeable chunk of literature that points to the positive effect that many polyphenols (rings of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen of varying properties found in plants) may have on the chelation of iron - largely these studies are in cells in culture or in animal models that recreate aspects of human disease, using purified dosage of the polyphenol under consideration. The theory is that dietary intake of such compounds may boost the body's anti-oxidant capacity, negating the creation of excess free radicals by poorly-liganded iron - but it remains just that, a theory, and there's already evidence that anti-oxidant supplementation is of little or no benefit when taken in the forms cited in the Mail.

At no stage that I could tell does Prof. Kell mention studies looking at the effect that purple fruits, or green tea, or curcumin (all of which do indeed contain polyphenols) have on the pathology of any disease that may have poorly liganded iron as a contributory factor - presumably because no such studies exist.

To go from Prof. Kell's position to the suggestion in the Mail that purple fruit may be protective is, err, somewhat ambitious. What's clear from the studies Prof. Kell reviews is that when iron is poorly liganded it creates high levels of free radicals, which may be a link between lots of different diseases - but that's about it. I'd say that the evidence to date regarding the use of polyphenols as iron chelators suggests it might be worthwhile conducting prospective trials to determine the effect of fruit-derived anti-oxidant on disease progression - but then how's a sub-editor ever going to boil that down to a catchy populist headline?

A letter to my MP Iain Duncan Smith regarding scientific advisers and drugs policy

I have written this letter to Mr. Iain Duncan Smith, my constituency MP and Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, regarding the proposed shake-up of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs and the relegation of scientific advice in the formulation of drugs policy. I decided to write the letter following the publication of an Early Day Motion tabled by Julian Huppert MP (Lib Dem, Cambridge); should you feel inspired (!) by what you read, please copy/paste the letter, alter as appropriate and send on to your MP using the funny little box below courtesy of MySociety.org as well - I know Mr. Duncan Smith will not sign given that he is a Minister of State, but the more signatories this EDM gets the clearer the message to the Government - it is not acceptable to pursue a drugs policy based on whimsical populism, nor to relegate scientific evidence to the background. If you do send a letter to your MP regarding this issue, please do come back to the comments below and let me know how it goes - you could even link to the text of your letter...

Contact Your Politician

Enter your Postcode below:

Dear Iain Duncan Smith,

I write as a constituent concerned about the Coalition government's plans to downgrade the status of scientific advice when formulating policy on drugs.

The previous government had a strained relationship with the scientific community, exemplified by the summary dismissal of Prof. David Nutt, Chair of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD), for speaking in favour of an evidence-based approach to drugs policy. The advent of the Coalition brought with it renewed hopes for evidence-based policy formulation, not least with respect to drugs where we've seen decades of failed policies based on little more than populism and a desire to appear 'tough on drugs,' policies which ignore the core aim of harm reduction.

Sadly those hopes appear dashed with the news that the Police Reform Bill seeks to amend the 1971 Misuse of Drugs Act (which established the ACMD and its terms of reference) such that the statutory requirement for six scientific experts to be appointed to the Council is to be removed - leaving the Home Secretary to decide its makeup as they see fit.

The Minister for Crime Prevention James Brokenshire MP claims this is necessary " to add greater flexibility to the provision of advice given to government, in order to ensure that we are able to get more effective policies, given the changing nature of the drugs threat" I fear that this is little more than a cover story for the removal of expert scientific advice from the process of formulating drugs policy; and Paul Flynn MP agrees, as his question to Mr. Brokenshire in Parliament clearly demonstrates (http://bit.ly/hnqpKo).

Moreover, the proposed Bill creates new powers for the Home Secretary to impose seemingly arbitrary temporary bans on substances they chose in the absence of evidence that they cause harm; last year saw a fiasco when the Government rushed to ban Mephedrone in a knee-jerk reaction to exaggerated media reports of its lethality, and these new powers make such baseless bans more likely.

I would therefore urge you to signal the government's support for a rational, evidence-based drugs policy with science at its heart - many people are asking their MPs to sign Dr. Julian Huppert MP's Early Day Motion 1148, the text of which is as follows:

That this House expresses its concern that the proposed changes in the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill to the membership of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs remove the requirement to have any members on the Council with specific scientific knowledge; recognises the importance of evidence-based policy making, especially in the area of drugs policy; and requests that the Government brings forward amendments to the Bill to ensure that a reasonable proportion of the members of the Council have relevant scientific experience.

I am aware that Members of the Cabinet do not usually sign EDMs, but would request that you indicate your support regardless by return of post. It is vital that Parliament passes legislation on matters of public interest based on sound scientific evidence, and these measures undermine that goal; I request that you seek a way for the ACMD, and other advisory committees, to retain their integrity and scientific rigour.

I eagerly await your reply - for your information, this letter will be posted on my blog (teekblog.blogspot.com), as will - pending your permission - any reply you send.

Yours sincerely,

Teekblog