Since I've been blocked from the "What Doctors Don't Tell You" Facebook page I can't comment there and I doubt they'd publish a letter from me so I'm posting it here. I'm still smarting a little bit from the ban to be honest as I don't think I could have been any more polite while disagreeing with someone - I pointed out that people who are critical of WDDTY might not be 'Big Pharma shills' (after all, I'm not).
Of course my blog is indexed in Google (nothing unique to me, most blogs are and Blogger is owned by Google) so this text may well show up when people search for WDDTY-related material in a way it probably wouldn't if I'd posted it on Facebook. So swings and roundabouts.
I've had a look at the December edition of this magazine and was disappointed though not surprised by the WDDTY Opinion Piece on the Advertising Standards Authority. I think bits of it are wrong, but bits of it are also encouraging people to focus on the wrong battle. In addition to the ASA there's a lot that a knowledgeable, motivated, collaborative and snarky bunch of bloggers can do and have done to try and tackle misleading advertising claims.
If you spot any mistakes in my arguments below please let me know, thanks.
Dear WDDTY
There seems to be some confusion in your opinion piece on the ASA (Advertising Standards Authority) and its role. Since the pharmaceutical industry is not allowed to advertise directly to the public in the UK the ASA does not rule on any of its marketing material. The PMCPA (Prescription Medicines Code of Practice Authority) is the body that makes sure that pharma companies are operating within the ABPI's (Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry) code - if drug advertising (found in the medical not general literature) is misleading then the PMCPA can take action against it. The ASA instead ensures that marketing material is compliant with the CAP (Committee of Advertising Practice) code.
In both cases the two agencies are paid for by the industries that they regulate, so I don't think the ASA is paid for by pharma companies. Undoubtedly some pharma companies have a non-prescription only medicine wing that they might advertise to the public so I'll accept that there might be some money from them.
I am more concerned that the tone of the article suggests to readers that the ASA is getting a bit above itself and can be ignored. I'm not sure that this is helpful to any of your readers who are making health claims without robust evidence because they may not realise what happens if someone reports them to the ASA.
I've probably reported only around 30 adverts or marketing items to the ASA. In one or two cases the ASA disagreed with me and felt there was no case to answer, a few more have been resolved informally but rather a lot have resulted in an adjudication in 'my' favour. To be honest I'd have preferred that the organisations involved just amended their pages when first asked, and saved themselves and the ASA the bother.
Within this relatively small, compared with other skeptic bloggers, number of complaints I have had a pretty high success* rate and this is what I've learned from going through the process several times.
*I think it's important to say that my definition of success is a misleading claim being removed or modified and not just someone getting told off. I'd be lying though if I said I hadn't also enjoyed some of the worst cases being told off.
A complaint is made to the ASA
Initially the ASA will probably contact the organisation / marketer and ask them to amend any misleading claims. Even if they do so promptly the ASA will still list this on their website as an 'informally resolved' case - i.e. the mere act of me reporting a website tends to result in their trading name being listed on the ASA (this is why I'd prefer to have a quiet word with the marketer first but this rarely goes well).
Marketer decides to defend their claims
If they decide to challenge the ASA by providing evidence then the ASA will deliberate further and make an adjudication. Either it will go in the marketer's favour (not upheld) or it won't (upheld) but again in either scenario the case will be listed on the ASA's website on its own separate page and will likely be tweeted.
Marketer told to amend claims, marketer doesn't
If, after an adjudication is upheld, the marketer still doesn't amend the claims then the ASA may add them to its list of non-compliant online advertisers. It can also work with search engines to remove paid-for advertising and take out an advert itself about the misleading claims. In parallel with this there's a high chance that it will be tweeted and blogged about and may even make it to the mainstream press. The ASA has recently (as of 21 November 2013) strengthened its relationship with Trading Standards and if the claims are still problematic then the ASA can refer the marketer to Trading Standards. At that point things could well become rather serious as Trading Standards can bring a case against them to court which is likely to result in a fine or (rarely) a prison sentence.
Bloggers and newspapers might publicise this further
Again, in parallel, there will probably be some blogging and possibly mainstream news articles about this which can damage search results (when people look for information or a company website they will find information pointing out that the company has been making misleading claims).
'Using' the ASA
To say that Simon Singh and the Nightingale Collaboration 'use' the ASA is a bit silly, since that is the body that deals specifically with misleading consumer advertising. Though on a much smaller scale you could also say that I 'use' the ASA to persuade marketers to make their claims more reasonable.
In some cases I report people to Trading Standards, sometimes to the Medicines and Healthcare Regulatory Authority. More recently I have reported some marketers to the CHNC (Complementary and Natural Healthcare Council) for misleading claims, where that marketer is registered with that professional body. The CHNC has suggested that its members should follow ASA / CAP guidelines.
Credit where it's due
Simon Perry devised the Fishbarrel tool which is a plugin for Chrome. However if readers of the Nightingale Collaboration's newsletter want to take part in a particular claim they rarely submit complaints to the ASA precisely for the reason of not swamping them. The Nightingale Collaboration usually asks readers to share relevant examples with them, and then they submit a master complaint - this is more efficient.
Don't get bogged down with just evidence - medical governance is important too
The ASA isn't just interested in evidence (robust evidence please, not these feeble little studies that show a small positive effect) but also what types of conditions people are talking about. There are a number of serious conditions that require the care of appropriately qualified doctors and if a website or leaflet is claiming to treat people with those conditions, but doesn't have a doctor on-site, then this is problematic - irrespective of the quality of any evidence.
Be careful what you wish for
Dismantling the ASA will not stop bloggers from reporting misleading trading claims to Trading Standards or other regulatory agencies. It also won't stop them writing about misleading claims, and in terms of search engine results that may be the bigger problem for those who rely on online reputation. I certainly can't imagine things would be much better for sellers of alternative medicine if the government began regulating it directly.
Saturday, 30 November 2013
Friday, 29 November 2013
David Arnold's introducing You Only Live Twice at BFI in January - need to be a member and apply for free tickets
Edit 10 December 2013
The members' ticket ballot has now finished and the event is sold out / full. Members have until 20.30pm on Friday 13 December 2013 to claim the ticket(s) they've won in the ballot and if they don't claim them then any remaining tickets will be made available from Saturday for other members to buy. If you want a ticket you need to be (a) a BFI member and (b) get ready to buy on Saturday. If that fails then try again a bit nearer the time (and on the day too of course) as someone may return a ticket at the last-minute.
Oh this sounds cool!
BFI Screen epiphanies in partnership with American Express present
David Arnold introduces You Only Live Twice
https://whatson.bfi.org.uk/Online/davidarnoldyouonlylivetwice
Thursday 23 January 2014
8.30pm
NFT1, BFI, Southbank
David Arnold is talking about and introducing You Only Live Twice which is one of the films and film scores (music by John Barry) that inspired him to become a film composer (and he's scored a fair few Bond films himself).
I like David Arnold and have heard him speak at a couple of events. He's funny, thoughtful and knowledgeable and has a really good strategic overview* of what it is that needs to be done in terms of creating music for the screen. Not to mention he's written some lovely music for all sorts of films and television programmes. Highly recommended.
*Yeah I was looking for something a bit less business-speak but I suppose that will do.
To get tickets...
Blow the bloody doors off! An evening of film music from Michael Caine films at Barbican on 6 February 2014, including The Ipcress File (John Barry), Alfie, Get Carter and The Italian Job
See also
The members' ticket ballot has now finished and the event is sold out / full. Members have until 20.30pm on Friday 13 December 2013 to claim the ticket(s) they've won in the ballot and if they don't claim them then any remaining tickets will be made available from Saturday for other members to buy. If you want a ticket you need to be (a) a BFI member and (b) get ready to buy on Saturday. If that fails then try again a bit nearer the time (and on the day too of course) as someone may return a ticket at the last-minute.
Oh this sounds cool!
BFI Screen epiphanies in partnership with American Express present
David Arnold introduces You Only Live Twice
https://whatson.bfi.org.uk/Online/davidarnoldyouonlylivetwice
Thursday 23 January 2014
8.30pm
NFT1, BFI, Southbank
David Arnold is talking about and introducing You Only Live Twice which is one of the films and film scores (music by John Barry) that inspired him to become a film composer (and he's scored a fair few Bond films himself).
I like David Arnold and have heard him speak at a couple of events. He's funny, thoughtful and knowledgeable and has a really good strategic overview* of what it is that needs to be done in terms of creating music for the screen. Not to mention he's written some lovely music for all sorts of films and television programmes. Highly recommended.
*Yeah I was looking for something a bit less business-speak but I suppose that will do.
To get tickets...
- You need to be a BFI member
- You need to apply for a ticket in the ballot (one is free but you pay for a second if you want two).
- Or, if you have an American Express card you might be able to get tickets that way but they don't seem to be listed yet.
Blow the bloody doors off! An evening of film music from Michael Caine films at Barbican on 6 February 2014, including The Ipcress File (John Barry), Alfie, Get Carter and The Italian Job
See also
- Nice things said in an academic journal article about David Arnold's scores for James Bond - quite right too (8 November 2013)
- Is there a Songkick for films? (4 March 2012) - I always feel that I hear about these types of events through good fortune rather than good advertising, think of what I might miss though ;)
Thursday, 28 November 2013
Is there a website that matches student surveys with willing survey fillers-in?
I'm lucky enough to have two academic email accounts at different universities and consequently I get a steady stream of all-users requests from students who ask us to fill in a survey or take part in an experiment etc. These are generally good-will-based although some involve a small payment for time / expense.
Clearly, despite faculty and student diversity, this is still going to a fairly defined 'university population' rather than the wider general public.
There are several ways of getting your survey (or requests for participants) under the eyeballs of more people and they'll have varying degrees of success. I've never tried to do this myself but my top-of-head suggestions might include the suggestions below, but here's my main question.
Is there a website / database to which students can add details of their survey, perhaps categorised by topic and type of help wanted?
It sounds like the sort of thing people like MySociety might build, or a few enterprising university-based nerds. Possibly JISC might help. Maybe not.
I'm thinking of something that would be available for any student at any UK university, so it would need some buy-in from all UK unis. It would - in my fantasy world - be promoted by all public engagement / outreach officers at events and on websites, and members of the public would be able to help out on a student's research project. Possibly people could sign up or get RSS feeds telling them when something to do with a particular topic becomes available. Where appropriate students could post results arising from their work and what this has added to our knowledge of a topic, or validity of a new method etc.
Aeons ago I signed up to Focus Force which lets people hear about focus groups happening for various things. That's a commercial venture but I'm sure something similar could be organised without great cost and it would seem to benefit an awful lot of people in universities.
UCL has a scheme in place for people who want to take part in its lab experiments, possibly other universities have other arrangements - it just seems odd that surveys especially (online, one's location is likely irrelevant unless the survey is about 'living in Bristol') can't get a wider audience.
Anyway here are my suggestions - it's entirely possible they're crap, as I say I don't run surveys and don't recruit anyone to them.
Facebook - ask your friends to do the survey, ask them to share it. You can even pay to promote it to a particular demographic if you wish. Obviously if it's just your friends then there's another risk of biased results.
Post your link more than once a few hours or day(s) apart but intersperse it with other things too. You can also tag a few people and ask them to help out but don't spam people.
Twitter - obviously. Great way to reach people. Best to spend a bit of time getting to know it first though. If you want to reach a particular target audience it's wise to spend some time searching, by keyword, for accounts that talk about what you're interested. See who they're following, see what hashtags they're using, get to know them. Twitter's more about building relationships than spamming people.
I recommend posting the link a few times at different times of day and on different times of day. Make sure you post other things in the interim otherwise your portfolio of tweets will look spammy and dull.
Hopefully other people will retweet your request, here are examples of where I've done that:
Newsagents' windows / supermarket community boards - in among the ads offering a child's bike and three piece suite why not add your request.
Gumtree - do people ever use the site for that sort of thing? It seems to get used for everything else so sounds like it might be worth investigating but I've never used it.
Create a mini site - you can create a really nice free website on Wordpress or even here on Blogger and put up a bit of information about your research, how people can help by taking part and a link to your survey. You can add new bits of information about it but it might be a lot of work for very little return.
Here's an example though by a student at UCL http://www.dbpharrison.com/general/walkerbitrecruitment/
Clearly, despite faculty and student diversity, this is still going to a fairly defined 'university population' rather than the wider general public.
There are several ways of getting your survey (or requests for participants) under the eyeballs of more people and they'll have varying degrees of success. I've never tried to do this myself but my top-of-head suggestions might include the suggestions below, but here's my main question.
Is there a website / database to which students can add details of their survey, perhaps categorised by topic and type of help wanted?
It sounds like the sort of thing people like MySociety might build, or a few enterprising university-based nerds. Possibly JISC might help. Maybe not.
I'm thinking of something that would be available for any student at any UK university, so it would need some buy-in from all UK unis. It would - in my fantasy world - be promoted by all public engagement / outreach officers at events and on websites, and members of the public would be able to help out on a student's research project. Possibly people could sign up or get RSS feeds telling them when something to do with a particular topic becomes available. Where appropriate students could post results arising from their work and what this has added to our knowledge of a topic, or validity of a new method etc.
Aeons ago I signed up to Focus Force which lets people hear about focus groups happening for various things. That's a commercial venture but I'm sure something similar could be organised without great cost and it would seem to benefit an awful lot of people in universities.
UCL has a scheme in place for people who want to take part in its lab experiments, possibly other universities have other arrangements - it just seems odd that surveys especially (online, one's location is likely irrelevant unless the survey is about 'living in Bristol') can't get a wider audience.
Anyway here are my suggestions - it's entirely possible they're crap, as I say I don't run surveys and don't recruit anyone to them.
Facebook - ask your friends to do the survey, ask them to share it. You can even pay to promote it to a particular demographic if you wish. Obviously if it's just your friends then there's another risk of biased results.
Post your link more than once a few hours or day(s) apart but intersperse it with other things too. You can also tag a few people and ask them to help out but don't spam people.
Twitter - obviously. Great way to reach people. Best to spend a bit of time getting to know it first though. If you want to reach a particular target audience it's wise to spend some time searching, by keyword, for accounts that talk about what you're interested. See who they're following, see what hashtags they're using, get to know them. Twitter's more about building relationships than spamming people.
I recommend posting the link a few times at different times of day and on different times of day. Make sure you post other things in the interim otherwise your portfolio of tweets will look spammy and dull.
Hopefully other people will retweet your request, here are examples of where I've done that:
Ppl who like London, pedometers, kittens, smartphones &helping UCL students get data might also like the Fitbit study http://t.co/Xh8FSHShsM
— Jo Brodie (@JoBrodie) April 22, 2013
Got headphones? A kindly disposition? ~10-20min? Combine the 3 of them &help out an MSc student doing audio research :) http://t.co/eX0m9RMg
— Jo Brodie (@JoBrodie) January 11, 2012
Newsagents' windows / supermarket community boards - in among the ads offering a child's bike and three piece suite why not add your request.
Gumtree - do people ever use the site for that sort of thing? It seems to get used for everything else so sounds like it might be worth investigating but I've never used it.
Create a mini site - you can create a really nice free website on Wordpress or even here on Blogger and put up a bit of information about your research, how people can help by taking part and a link to your survey. You can add new bits of information about it but it might be a lot of work for very little return.
Here's an example though by a student at UCL http://www.dbpharrison.com/general/walkerbitrecruitment/
Tuesday, 26 November 2013
If you've received an #askforevidence tweet or email from me it might mean the following
Hello
You might have received a message from me asking for some evidence for a claim you've made in your marketing material. My request might have taken you by surprise and you might be rather annoyed to be challenged in this way. I expect I would be a bit surprised if someone contacted me too, so I've written this post to try and explain what it is that I'm trying to do.
I regularly report what I believe to be misleading marketing claims to the Advertising Standards Authority. Many (by no means all) have resulted in an adjudication being upheld against the marketer with the details listed on the ASA's website. In fact even if the case doesn't get as far as an adjudication (usually because the marketer agrees to the ASA's request to amend the claims) the marketer's trading name will still appear on the ASA's pages in the 'informally resolved' section.
It seemed like a good idea, in terms of saving time and effort and avoiding names being listed, for me to try asking people if they will amend their claims before reporting them to the ASA. If claims are amended then there's nothing to report to the ASA. It may not work of course but I thought I'd give it a go.
The reason I'm asking is that I'm not convinced by the claim(s) that you've made on Twitter or on your website (or leaflet). The claims are possibly in breach of the Advertising Standards Authority's (ASA) and Committe for Advertising Practice's (CAP) advertising codes and it may be advisable for you to think about changing your wording.
Please have a look at the CAP's AdviceOnline database or browse the Advice Index to search for your treatment to find out what you can say about it in your advertising material. You can also browse this alphabetic list of therapies for information.
Don't forget that the ASA aren't just interested in evidence for your claims. If you mention serious conditions or diseases (the sort that anyone would expect to be under the care of a doctor) and you don't have a doctor at your clinic or place of treatment then the ASA may want to know more about this. From previous adjudications they tend to take a dim view of people or companies claiming that they can treat a long 'shopping list' of diseases and they have frequently mentioned their concerns about a website failing to encourage people to visit a doctor for essential treatment. A medical disclaimer is not sufficient to get around this and it is generally inadvisable to say anything that could be understood as you offering to diagnose, treat or cure any disease - unless you have robust evidence.
You may very well think that I am wrong or that your treatment is fantastic, and of course I am easy enough to ignore. But if the evidence doesn't satisfy CAP's requirements for 'robust evidence' then the ASA may well ask you to amend claims made on your website.
If you decide not to amend your advert (and a number of people are standing their ground and defying the ASA) then a number of potentially annoying things can happen -
1. Listed on ASA's informally resolved page
Even if you do amend your ad I think your company will probably still be listed on the 'informally resolved' section of their website. That is what has happened in the past (and precisely why I thought "wouldn't it be great to avoid this by asking people to change their claims before getting the ASA involved?").
2. ASA investigations and adjudications
The ASA might undertake a more formal investigation which can result in an adjudication. These are listed on individual pages on the ASA's website, tweeted by the ASA and usually a few others and occasionally picked up by mainstream media, more frequently by science / skeptic bloggers. The adjudication may be upheld (against you) or not upheld (that is, it's actually in your favour) but either way it's on their website.
3. ASA's list of non-compliant advertisers
If an adjudication is upheld and you still do not amend your website then the ASA may add you to its list of noncompliant online advertisers. These events are tweeted by the ASA and by a number of other people. To be honest it doesn't look good to people who are searching online for information about your company, though some people seem to treat these citations as a sort of 'badge of honour', and as proof that the ASA is oppressing them in some way.
There's also quite a high chance that bloggers will write about the listing and a low to medium chance that it will be picked up by the mainstream press. The ASA also do proactive press work, speaking on radio as well as being invited to comment in written pieces too.
The ASA can take further action against you though. They can take out an advert that is critical of your marketing claims, they can also work with search engines to remove your paid-for advertising. Their adjudications seem to feature prominently in search results too.
Although the ASA has no legal sanction over you itself (that I'm aware of) their activities and the follow-on results of those (including blogging), might damage your reputation online.
4. Trading Standards, courts, fines, trading restrictions
The most annoying thing that the ASA can do though is refer you to Trading Standards. Because there are trading laws and acts in place Trading Standards can use the power of a court to stop you trading, or fine you for continuing to make misleading claims (ie trading unfairly). If you are making claims about curing cancer then you are probably also in breach of the Cancer Act of 1939. It is likely that you will get a fine and nothing more, though if you continue I think the next fine will be larger and I believe that after that (certainly in the case of the Cancer Act) you may be looking at a prison sentence. These are definitely picked up by the mainstream press, bloggers etc.
The ASA recently announced that they'd strengthened the processes involved in working with Trading Standards: Trading Standards becomes ASA’s legal backstop power (21 November 2013).
See also
Disclaimer
It's a bit tedious when people assume that anyone who reports misleading health claims is a secret member of some group of people paid by 'Big Pharma', rather than someone who is simply a bit annoyed to see potentially dangerous claims made on the back of poor quality evidence. However I am happy to state that I do not receive any money or other benefits from the pharmaceutical industry either directly or indirectly, nor do I have any stocks and shares in any of the pharmaceutical industries.
I am not a member of the Nightingale Collaboration (no-one is, they do not have members, though I do read their newsletter and am supportive of their aims and sometimes their campaigns). I am not a member of Sense About Science (don't think they have members either) but I have donated money to them and will happily do so again - not large amounts of money either.
My interest in taking action on misleading claims arose from reading Ben Goldacre's Bad Science Guardian column, his blog and the forum he created and coincided with hearing about crazy adverts for diabetes cures when I used to work at the health charity Diabetes UK. As part of my (then) job I received a number of enquiries from people who'd come across miracle cures and wanted to know more about them. I wanted to know how it was possible that such claims could be made, discovered that they couldn't and began reporting them.
You might also argue that there are more important things to worry about, however I might well be worried about them too, or I might not - it's not actually relevant. I do worry that the pharmaceutical industry has not been transparent about the effects of drugs and I have signed the #AllTrials petition to make it harder for them to keep hidden what they want to keep hidden. It would be great if you did the same. The petition comes from Sense About Science, Ben Goldacre and others that you might not approve of - however the aim of the petition is to make Big Pharma publish ALL of its clinical trial data and not just the bits they like. I think we'd all agree that that's a good idea even if you don't like who's calling for it to happen. Hope so.
You might have received a message from me asking for some evidence for a claim you've made in your marketing material. My request might have taken you by surprise and you might be rather annoyed to be challenged in this way. I expect I would be a bit surprised if someone contacted me too, so I've written this post to try and explain what it is that I'm trying to do.
I regularly report what I believe to be misleading marketing claims to the Advertising Standards Authority. Many (by no means all) have resulted in an adjudication being upheld against the marketer with the details listed on the ASA's website. In fact even if the case doesn't get as far as an adjudication (usually because the marketer agrees to the ASA's request to amend the claims) the marketer's trading name will still appear on the ASA's pages in the 'informally resolved' section.
It seemed like a good idea, in terms of saving time and effort and avoiding names being listed, for me to try asking people if they will amend their claims before reporting them to the ASA. If claims are amended then there's nothing to report to the ASA. It may not work of course but I thought I'd give it a go.
The reason I'm asking is that I'm not convinced by the claim(s) that you've made on Twitter or on your website (or leaflet). The claims are possibly in breach of the Advertising Standards Authority's (ASA) and Committe for Advertising Practice's (CAP) advertising codes and it may be advisable for you to think about changing your wording.
Please have a look at the CAP's AdviceOnline database or browse the Advice Index to search for your treatment to find out what you can say about it in your advertising material. You can also browse this alphabetic list of therapies for information.
Don't forget that the ASA aren't just interested in evidence for your claims. If you mention serious conditions or diseases (the sort that anyone would expect to be under the care of a doctor) and you don't have a doctor at your clinic or place of treatment then the ASA may want to know more about this. From previous adjudications they tend to take a dim view of people or companies claiming that they can treat a long 'shopping list' of diseases and they have frequently mentioned their concerns about a website failing to encourage people to visit a doctor for essential treatment. A medical disclaimer is not sufficient to get around this and it is generally inadvisable to say anything that could be understood as you offering to diagnose, treat or cure any disease - unless you have robust evidence.
You may very well think that I am wrong or that your treatment is fantastic, and of course I am easy enough to ignore. But if the evidence doesn't satisfy CAP's requirements for 'robust evidence' then the ASA may well ask you to amend claims made on your website.
If you decide not to amend your advert (and a number of people are standing their ground and defying the ASA) then a number of potentially annoying things can happen -
1. Listed on ASA's informally resolved page
Even if you do amend your ad I think your company will probably still be listed on the 'informally resolved' section of their website. That is what has happened in the past (and precisely why I thought "wouldn't it be great to avoid this by asking people to change their claims before getting the ASA involved?").
2. ASA investigations and adjudications
The ASA might undertake a more formal investigation which can result in an adjudication. These are listed on individual pages on the ASA's website, tweeted by the ASA and usually a few others and occasionally picked up by mainstream media, more frequently by science / skeptic bloggers. The adjudication may be upheld (against you) or not upheld (that is, it's actually in your favour) but either way it's on their website.
3. ASA's list of non-compliant advertisers
If an adjudication is upheld and you still do not amend your website then the ASA may add you to its list of noncompliant online advertisers. These events are tweeted by the ASA and by a number of other people. To be honest it doesn't look good to people who are searching online for information about your company, though some people seem to treat these citations as a sort of 'badge of honour', and as proof that the ASA is oppressing them in some way.
There's also quite a high chance that bloggers will write about the listing and a low to medium chance that it will be picked up by the mainstream press. The ASA also do proactive press work, speaking on radio as well as being invited to comment in written pieces too.
The ASA can take further action against you though. They can take out an advert that is critical of your marketing claims, they can also work with search engines to remove your paid-for advertising. Their adjudications seem to feature prominently in search results too.
Although the ASA has no legal sanction over you itself (that I'm aware of) their activities and the follow-on results of those (including blogging), might damage your reputation online.
4. Trading Standards, courts, fines, trading restrictions
The most annoying thing that the ASA can do though is refer you to Trading Standards. Because there are trading laws and acts in place Trading Standards can use the power of a court to stop you trading, or fine you for continuing to make misleading claims (ie trading unfairly). If you are making claims about curing cancer then you are probably also in breach of the Cancer Act of 1939. It is likely that you will get a fine and nothing more, though if you continue I think the next fine will be larger and I believe that after that (certainly in the case of the Cancer Act) you may be looking at a prison sentence. These are definitely picked up by the mainstream press, bloggers etc.
The ASA recently announced that they'd strengthened the processes involved in working with Trading Standards: Trading Standards becomes ASA’s legal backstop power (21 November 2013).
See also
- Asking for evidence when companies make misleading claims - but whom should we ask? #askforevidence (22 September 2013)
This post is basically me deciding not to ask people first, because it's never gone down well in the past! However on reflection while there are certainly cases that I'll just report directly I still want to try out a bit of negotiation first.
Here's a bit of what I wrote there -
"A question for fellow skeptic bloggers / activists... and perhaps for 'quacks'
I've always thought that it would seem to be a kindness to give a company an opportunity to avoid a citation on the ASA's website by seeing if it's possible to resolve the misleading claims before snitching on them.
However I'm yet to find the right way to do this - and wondered if anyone had any ideas or if we've all agreed to just get on and report it. I wonder if people who are (let's charitably assume they're doing it unwittingly) making misleading claims would rather skeptics 'had a quiet word' before bringing things to the ASA's attention.
I've tried face to face, telephone conversations and emails but unfortunately there doesn't seem to be a way of communicating to someone that their advert is misleading without getting their hackles up. Or if there is I've not managed it (and I'm always Britishly polite about it even if they aren't).
Worse, I feel that I do have to tell them that if they don't change the advert I'm going to report it to the ASA and that just sounds threatening. So, much as I'd like to, I'm afraid I don't bother with the preliminaries and just report the misleading claims."
Disclaimer
It's a bit tedious when people assume that anyone who reports misleading health claims is a secret member of some group of people paid by 'Big Pharma', rather than someone who is simply a bit annoyed to see potentially dangerous claims made on the back of poor quality evidence. However I am happy to state that I do not receive any money or other benefits from the pharmaceutical industry either directly or indirectly, nor do I have any stocks and shares in any of the pharmaceutical industries.
I am not a member of the Nightingale Collaboration (no-one is, they do not have members, though I do read their newsletter and am supportive of their aims and sometimes their campaigns). I am not a member of Sense About Science (don't think they have members either) but I have donated money to them and will happily do so again - not large amounts of money either.
My interest in taking action on misleading claims arose from reading Ben Goldacre's Bad Science Guardian column, his blog and the forum he created and coincided with hearing about crazy adverts for diabetes cures when I used to work at the health charity Diabetes UK. As part of my (then) job I received a number of enquiries from people who'd come across miracle cures and wanted to know more about them. I wanted to know how it was possible that such claims could be made, discovered that they couldn't and began reporting them.
You might also argue that there are more important things to worry about, however I might well be worried about them too, or I might not - it's not actually relevant. I do worry that the pharmaceutical industry has not been transparent about the effects of drugs and I have signed the #AllTrials petition to make it harder for them to keep hidden what they want to keep hidden. It would be great if you did the same. The petition comes from Sense About Science, Ben Goldacre and others that you might not approve of - however the aim of the petition is to make Big Pharma publish ALL of its clinical trial data and not just the bits they like. I think we'd all agree that that's a good idea even if you don't like who's calling for it to happen. Hope so.
UCL Computer Science opens its doors to the public - 9 Dec 2013
I have basically churnalised and adapted this from an email sent round to people at UCL :)
CS Unveiled
Monday 9 December
2pm-9pm
UCL Computer Science Department
Website: http://www.cs.ucl.ac.uk/events/events_listing/cs_unveiled/
Tickets: http://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/cs-unveiled-tickets-9184688651
Ever wanted to know what goes on in one of the biggest Computer Science departments in the world? What new inventions are emerging? What innovative teaching is taking place? And what Computer Science will be about in the year 2020?
On Monday 9 December, UCL Computer Science Department opens its doors to the general public, giving an exclusive peek at the cutting edge research and teaching facilities that will change the world in the future. You will discover what makes computers tick and people touch. You will learn how Computer Science will continue to underpin every aspect of our lives.
UCL Computer Science has a long and impressive history. For example, we were the first to host the Internet outside the US, we have developed photographic technology that transforms every camera image, we have revolutionized online safety and the privacy of data and we are working on the robots of the future. We’re also developing tools to help teachers in the classroom so Computer Science will become mainstream in all primary and secondary schools.
The event will de-mystify the discipline and showcase the challenges and opportunities. You will have the opportunity to speak with leading researchers, students and innovators in Computer Science. This is your opportunity to see tomorrow's technology today - book now at http://csunveiled.eventbrite.co.uk/ .
For more details about the day see here http://www.cs.ucl.ac.uk/events/events_listing/cs_unveiled/. Please send any questions to stephen.marchant@ucl.ac.uk
What's happening?
2pm Unveiling CS in Industry
Find out more about our collaborations with multinatational companies and tech start-ups and hear from students who have rolled out projects to industry.
3pm CS tours and demos
To include the CAVE: Immersive Virtual Environments Laboratory for 3-D simulations; Human-Computer Interaction Laboratory; Secure Data Laboratory: a new £1m facility launched this year.
5pm Unveiling CS Research Impact
Hear about our cutting edge research through our latest case studies and see the impact it has on society beyond academia. Followed at 6pm with a reception and chance to meet our impact story authors and learn more about their work and how it changes lives.
CS Unveiled
Monday 9 December
2pm-9pm
UCL Computer Science Department
Website: http://www.cs.ucl.ac.uk/events/events_listing/cs_unveiled/
Tickets: http://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/cs-unveiled-tickets-9184688651
Ever wanted to know what goes on in one of the biggest Computer Science departments in the world? What new inventions are emerging? What innovative teaching is taking place? And what Computer Science will be about in the year 2020?
On Monday 9 December, UCL Computer Science Department opens its doors to the general public, giving an exclusive peek at the cutting edge research and teaching facilities that will change the world in the future. You will discover what makes computers tick and people touch. You will learn how Computer Science will continue to underpin every aspect of our lives.
UCL Computer Science has a long and impressive history. For example, we were the first to host the Internet outside the US, we have developed photographic technology that transforms every camera image, we have revolutionized online safety and the privacy of data and we are working on the robots of the future. We’re also developing tools to help teachers in the classroom so Computer Science will become mainstream in all primary and secondary schools.
The event will de-mystify the discipline and showcase the challenges and opportunities. You will have the opportunity to speak with leading researchers, students and innovators in Computer Science. This is your opportunity to see tomorrow's technology today - book now at http://csunveiled.eventbrite.co.uk/ .
For more details about the day see here http://www.cs.ucl.ac.uk/events/events_listing/cs_unveiled/. Please send any questions to stephen.marchant@ucl.ac.uk
What's happening?
2pm Unveiling CS in Industry
Find out more about our collaborations with multinatational companies and tech start-ups and hear from students who have rolled out projects to industry.
3pm CS tours and demos
To include the CAVE: Immersive Virtual Environments Laboratory for 3-D simulations; Human-Computer Interaction Laboratory; Secure Data Laboratory: a new £1m facility launched this year.
5pm Unveiling CS Research Impact
Hear about our cutting edge research through our latest case studies and see the impact it has on society beyond academia. Followed at 6pm with a reception and chance to meet our impact story authors and learn more about their work and how it changes lives.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
