Poll: "Do you think 'The Daily Mail - UK' is a genuine newspaper?"

[sproggle]

:Sign Good one:

Nice one CBS LMAO!!

As for Kati voting yes by mistake equally as funny

The things we get wrong thanks to brain fog....

 

[xanadu]

Guardian?

Sadly the Guardian appears to be nowhere on any of these issues - I'm told the relevant journalist at the Guardian is a mate of SW's but I've seen no evidence of that, but in any case its coverage of at least this broad area of health lets down the expectations of what we can usually rely on from the Guardian.

I agree with your analysis, Mark. As for The Guardian, Martin J. Walker is worth a read.
http://www.slingshotpublications.com/dwarfs.html
http://www.slingshotpublications.com/guardian1.html

Walker also wrote Skewed: Psychiatric hegemony and the manufacture of mental illness in Multiple Chemical Sensitivity, Gulf War Syndrome, Myalgic Encephalomyelitis and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.
http://www.slingshotpublications.com/skewed.html

Some have called it the British Osler's Web, although its remit is much wider.

He says the Guardian was left-wing under Thatcher but it's been taken over by the corporate science lobby since 2003.

Dr Ben Goldacre has written the Guardian's Bad Science column every week since then. He is a psychiatrist doing research at the Instute of Psychiatry. His supervisor is Simon Wessely.

Proving Walker's point, The Guardian did not report the WPI/Science study in October, although it was mentioned in yet another anti-ME rant in the Guardian's Dr Crippen blog.

But in January they did report the Plos One study as a clear refutation of the original study.

I've been waiting for Goldacre to devote his column to XMRV. I guess he saw the way the wind was blowing in the reader comments at Plos One and decided against.

Then, yesterday he featured another Plos One paper. The quality of the science is about as good as McClure/Wessely. It's supposed to be about how well animal research is reported, but Goldacre used it as a peg to attack animal rights activists.

 

[MEKoan]

Speaking of Animal Rights Activists, viruses, scientists, journalists...

I watched The Origins of AIDS last night online. It's a doc about the possibility that AIDS was "created" inadvertently when chimpanzee kidneys were used in the Congo by Hilary Whatshisname (sorry) from Wistar to make Polio vaccine which was then given to everyone in the surrounding area. This area is probably the epicentre of the leap from SIV to HIV and the beginning of the AIDS pandemic.

It is a very interesting documentary for many reasons including what it reveals about squabbles, infighting and attitudes in the scientific community. Journalists are not looked upon kindly and ego is everything - almost.

I was also horrified by what it revealed re the torment of the primates used. I could not look at most of the images of the chimps. Animal research sickens me.

It's a very interesting film but very contentious. For instance, it may not yet have been shown in the UK although it is several years old.

 

[starryeyes]

Koan - that's amazing! I've read some things similar to that on the web but never saw that show. It's cool you just happened upon it. I like when that happens.

I have heard that AIDS came out of the Congo. You know a lot of people there eat chimps too which is another possibility but what you saw sounds the most likely.

People are dying of AIDS in Africa in the opening scenes of And the Band Played On too. That was how the scientist discovered it but they showed him coming across a scene in a village with a lot of dead and dying people. It seems the documentary you saw shows how they got that way.

 

[MEKoan]

Hi Tee,

It's fascinating on so many levels. Just google "the origins of aids documentary" and you find it streaming online. That's how I found it. I had seen it before when it aired here so knew to look. I don't want to start a rush to any particular site hosting it as it is a real hot button and sites have to move hosts to keep it up. It's in a lot of places now.

It is fascinating stuff.

 

[thefreeprisoner]

He says the Guardian was left-wing under Thatcher but it's been taken over by the corporate science lobby since 2003.

Dr Ben Goldacre has written the Guardian's Bad Science column every week since then. He is a psychiatrist doing research at the Instute of Psychiatry. His supervisor is Simon Wessely.

Proving Walker's point, The Guardian did not report the WPI/Science study in October, although it was mentioned in yet another anti-ME rant in the Guardian's Dr Crippen blog.

BLIMEY. I didn't know Ben Goldacre was a psychatrist.
That qualified him to know about Bad Science, I guess, but not Good Science... :Retro tongue:

I spoke to my sister who is a psychologist studying for a PhD and she said that psychologists tend to take a dim view of psychiatrists because they don't get any proper scientific training (just general medical training - no experimental design, no statistics) and then they don't actually get any teaching about mental illness - just rounds on psych wards. She did say things might have changed recently, but Goldacre's training would have been a wee while back.



Shocked. Glad I stopped reading the Guardian a while back, when I realised that you can't believe anything you read in any paper - you have to corroborate things with the experts yourself or do your own research. Thank God for the internet, eh?

Rachel xx