What A Surprise – Not

[BPSDB]The Press Complaints Commission has rejected my complaint about the Daily Mail’s HPV scare story. Text of decision (with my comments interjected) follows:

The Pills of Rath

[BPSDB]The vitamin-peddlar Matthias Rath tried sueing Ben Goldacre and the Guardian newspaper when Ben reported on his activities. As a result, a chapter on Rath had to be cut from the trade paperback edition of his book. It shows what happens when nutritionistas who pander to the Western worried well apply their notions to the Third World. The activities of Rath and his acolytes and the fact that not one alternative practitioner condemned Rath’s activities shows the rotten-ness at the heart of CAM. Ben and his publishers have made the chapter freely available so if you’ve not read it yet you can here if you wish to

UCKG – Still Demon Hunting

The Universal Church of the Kingdom of God (UCKG) has not abandoned its professed belief that children are possessed by demons, it would appear.

An Inspector Calls

During the course of this Bad Science thread I took the initiator to task for trotting out what I called “the tired old canard” about health and safety issues restricting science teaching. While there is no truth to the urban myths about the Health and Safety Executive banning all kinds of things, I sometimes wonder if the bureaucracy and over-interpretation of legislation is contributing to the view that science (and technology for that matter) are too much hassle.