Today I lurked on a Google Hangout. It worked amazingly - OK there were a couple of glitches (getting booted out but really quick to get back in again) but I was amazed at several aspects of it. Whenever someone spoke the camera switched to them - I didn't know it did this, having two windows open (the camera image and presentation slides) worked very well for the viewer (although a bit fiddly for the presenter) and when finished the completed recording was on Google's site within minutes. Impressive.
I think you'll have to go here to see the video though, I suspect it's not possible to 'embed' a Google Hangout in a blog but I may be wrong (if you know please tell me).
Google in Education: Paul Curzon on 'Inspiring students about computing'
Background information
cs4fn (Computer Science for fun) is the name of the project.
The text below is just lifted from what I wrote about it on the Google pages, with better links.
Today my boss Paul Curzon talked about sharing stories to get across ideas of how to get school children thinking about
computation and human factors in computer science teaching. He used
examples of "I'm thinking of someone, can you guess who it is?" and the types of questions you'd need to ask to work it out.
It
wouldn't help to keep asking "Is it A?", "Is it B?" as you'd be asking
questions forever. Instead it's better to ask 'halving' questions that
reduce, with each question, the number of possibles. So "are they still
alive?" or "is it a man or a woman?" are good questions to ask.
He
gave the example of strategies used by the author of the Diving Bell
and the Butterfly (the author, Jean-Dominique Bauby, had locked-in
syndrome after a stroke and could only communicate by blinking an eye)
and his writing assistant to make transcribing his thoughts easier.
Rather than having to blink once when the relevant letter was read (a,
b, c, d, e, f, g [blink] = g) they used the frequency of letters in the
language to speed up his dictation.
There are other strategies too, eg ask someone to blink if the letter is in the first half of the alphabet, then 'halve' again.
It's
not just about algorithms of course. It's easy to design a system that
does something well but it's important to remember the people who are going to be using it... (nb: wikipedia link)
I really enjoyed hearing my boss tell
stories and I also enjoyed the bit setting things up before. We realised
that the webcam was particularly sensitive to the 50Hz flicker of tube
lighting so went off to source some 'red head' lights which have a nice
warm light. It turns out that we have, at QMUL, the most amazing
resources for filming - thanks to Richard Kelly for helping us with
tripods and whatnot. And thanks to Google for setting this up in the
first place and Jonathan B for roping me in for some geeky fun :)
The
slight irony is that I couldn't participate in the Google Hangout
myself because it would have caused interference and confusion, and I
won't be able to join in much on tomorrow's one either (more coming on
that) because I have the official role of Camera Op Two. It really means
holding the webcam steady but I am rather looking forward to it...
Tuesday, 20 November 2012
Thursday, 15 November 2012
ASA adjudicates on misleading diabetes advert on World Diabetes Day ;)
Fairly often, on a Wednesday, I take a look at the rulings from the Advertising Standards Authority and today I was surprised to see this one - and on World Diabetes Day! It's not one of my complaints (see more after the line).
The advert is available in full at the link above, here's an excerpt - note that the advert talks only about Type 2 diabetes and not Type 1:
The word 'reversal' makes me twitchy though and in their response to the ASA's questions about this the company said that "a reversal of Type 2 diabetes could be defined as a reduction in an individual's blood glucose levels, a reduction in their medication, and in some cases an elimination of the need for medication."
Well... a bit... I suppose. I've always felt that a reversal of diabetes would also include significant improvements in blood fats (cholesterol etc) and blood pressure. Glucose is a big part of diabetes but there's a lot of cardiovascular stuff going on too.
I'm not sure if reversal would also mean an elimination of the threat of future complications too - although we might be getting into the tricky semantics of what is meant by 'reversal' or 'cure' and the company were very clear in their acknowledgement that there's no cure for Type 2 diabetes.
They also said that until recently "the charity Diabetes UK had not used the word "reversal" in relation to Type 2 diabetes, even though it was in common usage in the United States. They explained that that had changed in June 2011 when a small scale study undertaken by Newcastle University, funded by Diabetes UK, showed that Type 2 diabetes was reversible through diet. They stated that as a result of the study Diabetes UK had accepted that a change in diet could lead to a reversal of the symptoms of Type 2 diabetes."
Reversal of symptoms... reversal of Type 2 diabetes - which is it. Many people with Type 2 diabetes have no symptoms or any symptoms they have can easily be explained as 'just getting older'. People with well-controlled diabetes might not have the symptoms of diabetes either, but that's not a reversal of T2 diabetes.
I can't help thinking that companies that make health claims could be keeping skeptic bloggers on some sort of retainer, periodically sending them advertising material to pre-snark at before it goes live. Sort of like testing your prototype to destruction. (No, I am not offering my services).
The statement "a small scale study... showed that T2 diabetes was reversible through diet" was the thing that made me sit up on the bus this morning when I read it. They're referring to a small pilot study - that I wrote about in detail here - in which the trial participants underwent a fairly extreme diet which was very low in calories (600cal), and lasted for probably a bit longer (two months) than you might undertake on a residential healthy holiday. The trial diet and the residential programme seem to be two very different and non-comparable things and although the advert doesn't make any claims linking the two I'm really surprised that this was used in the evidence given to the ASA afterward.
The company also volunteered several satisfied customers who were prepared to offer testimonials about reductions in medication and improvements in their health... oh dear.
Not all negative though - I was pleased to see that if "a guest decided they wanted to reduce or stop taking their diabetes medication, an appointment would be made for them to discuss any changes with the doctor. They also stated that when a guest left the retreat they were given a letter to pass on to their own GP detailing the programme, and were encouraged to make an appointment as soon as possible on their return to discuss their future medication requirements."
I suppose it's also a plus that they're not offering live blood microscopy or live blood analysis or anything like that.
I have previously blogged about the company after putting in a complaint about them myself, however this particular complaint and ruling didn't come from me (and I don't know who it came from). Not long after I blogged about about my complaint the owner of the company got in touch and sent me the world's politest email asking if I wouldn't mind taking the post down. Their reason was that because the previous misleading text had now been removed - I was basically blogging 'after the fact' - my record of it wasn't doing them any favours in google as, for some reason, my blog was coming up in the first few pages.
They were pleasant, agreed that they didn't want to mislead anyone and sounded reasonable so I happily took down the post and the comments with it. Some of the comments had been a bit snarky, but nothing unpleasant, but I said I'd leave the post for another day as I don't think it's fair to take down a post straight after someone's posted a comment disagreeing with me. The post has been down ever since and I've no plans to repost it or mention the company by name although you will easily find it from the link above.
Today's ruling amazed me. The claims were clearly pushing up to the boundaries (I agree it's quite a grey area) and I cannot understand why the company didn't agree to amend things. That way the end result would be 'informally resolved' and the company mentioned on the informally resolved page and that's it. I suppose they were confident that they could provide evidence for the claims and felt that the ASA board would agree, however there's now another page on the internet which highlights misleading claims made and I don't think it's going to be taken down no matter how polite the request. When I googled the company (and bear in mind that Google does personalise stuff) the ASA ruling was on my first page of results.
Since I am feeling kindly disposed towards pleasant people, even if I disagree with their claims, I will remove the company's name from any comments.
The advert is available in full at the link above, here's an excerpt - note that the advert talks only about Type 2 diabetes and not Type 1:
The aim of any reversal programme is to help people to control their condition and, where possible, reduce or eliminate the need for medication.As far as I can tell it's a residential programme with access to properly qualified healthcare professionals (doctor and nurse) and people lose weight on it.
His diabetes was so out of control that he had been told he would need to begin taking insulin ... After following the [redacted] ... his diabetes was totally under control without medication...
The word 'reversal' makes me twitchy though and in their response to the ASA's questions about this the company said that "a reversal of Type 2 diabetes could be defined as a reduction in an individual's blood glucose levels, a reduction in their medication, and in some cases an elimination of the need for medication."
Well... a bit... I suppose. I've always felt that a reversal of diabetes would also include significant improvements in blood fats (cholesterol etc) and blood pressure. Glucose is a big part of diabetes but there's a lot of cardiovascular stuff going on too.
I'm not sure if reversal would also mean an elimination of the threat of future complications too - although we might be getting into the tricky semantics of what is meant by 'reversal' or 'cure' and the company were very clear in their acknowledgement that there's no cure for Type 2 diabetes.
They also said that until recently "the charity Diabetes UK had not used the word "reversal" in relation to Type 2 diabetes, even though it was in common usage in the United States. They explained that that had changed in June 2011 when a small scale study undertaken by Newcastle University, funded by Diabetes UK, showed that Type 2 diabetes was reversible through diet. They stated that as a result of the study Diabetes UK had accepted that a change in diet could lead to a reversal of the symptoms of Type 2 diabetes."
Reversal of symptoms... reversal of Type 2 diabetes - which is it. Many people with Type 2 diabetes have no symptoms or any symptoms they have can easily be explained as 'just getting older'. People with well-controlled diabetes might not have the symptoms of diabetes either, but that's not a reversal of T2 diabetes.
I can't help thinking that companies that make health claims could be keeping skeptic bloggers on some sort of retainer, periodically sending them advertising material to pre-snark at before it goes live. Sort of like testing your prototype to destruction. (No, I am not offering my services).
The statement "a small scale study... showed that T2 diabetes was reversible through diet" was the thing that made me sit up on the bus this morning when I read it. They're referring to a small pilot study - that I wrote about in detail here - in which the trial participants underwent a fairly extreme diet which was very low in calories (600cal), and lasted for probably a bit longer (two months) than you might undertake on a residential healthy holiday. The trial diet and the residential programme seem to be two very different and non-comparable things and although the advert doesn't make any claims linking the two I'm really surprised that this was used in the evidence given to the ASA afterward.
The company also volunteered several satisfied customers who were prepared to offer testimonials about reductions in medication and improvements in their health... oh dear.
Not all negative though - I was pleased to see that if "a guest decided they wanted to reduce or stop taking their diabetes medication, an appointment would be made for them to discuss any changes with the doctor. They also stated that when a guest left the retreat they were given a letter to pass on to their own GP detailing the programme, and were encouraged to make an appointment as soon as possible on their return to discuss their future medication requirements."
I suppose it's also a plus that they're not offering live blood microscopy or live blood analysis or anything like that.
I have previously blogged about the company after putting in a complaint about them myself, however this particular complaint and ruling didn't come from me (and I don't know who it came from). Not long after I blogged about about my complaint the owner of the company got in touch and sent me the world's politest email asking if I wouldn't mind taking the post down. Their reason was that because the previous misleading text had now been removed - I was basically blogging 'after the fact' - my record of it wasn't doing them any favours in google as, for some reason, my blog was coming up in the first few pages.
They were pleasant, agreed that they didn't want to mislead anyone and sounded reasonable so I happily took down the post and the comments with it. Some of the comments had been a bit snarky, but nothing unpleasant, but I said I'd leave the post for another day as I don't think it's fair to take down a post straight after someone's posted a comment disagreeing with me. The post has been down ever since and I've no plans to repost it or mention the company by name although you will easily find it from the link above.
Today's ruling amazed me. The claims were clearly pushing up to the boundaries (I agree it's quite a grey area) and I cannot understand why the company didn't agree to amend things. That way the end result would be 'informally resolved' and the company mentioned on the informally resolved page and that's it. I suppose they were confident that they could provide evidence for the claims and felt that the ASA board would agree, however there's now another page on the internet which highlights misleading claims made and I don't think it's going to be taken down no matter how polite the request. When I googled the company (and bear in mind that Google does personalise stuff) the ASA ruling was on my first page of results.
Since I am feeling kindly disposed towards pleasant people, even if I disagree with their claims, I will remove the company's name from any comments.
Sunday, 11 November 2012
Is there a 'consultation watch' kind of website?
When scrolling through tweets I often favourite for later ones highlighting a petition I might want to sign or a consultation that I might want to comment on - here are a couple of examples of recent tweets that I posted myself. The first came from the ABPI's mailing list which I'm on, the second was flagged up to me on Twitter.
Does one already exist? If not, what sort of tools would help create it? Is there much call for it? I don't feel that I've not heard about any consultations that I'd 'need' to hear about, but difficult to tell cos if I've not heard of them I can't know that I've missed them ;)
Edit 8 January 2014
Thanks to a tweet from @bitoclass I have discovered that Transport for London (TfL) has a page of transport-related consultations here https://consultations.tfl.gov.uk/
The wonderful (to me, others not keen) newish GOV.UK portal showed me this for local consultations https://www.gov.uk/find-local-consultations
Consultation on proposals to amend the ABPI Code of Practice for the Pharmaceutical Industry 2012 pmcpa.org.uk/?q=node/1033
— Jo Brodie (@JoBrodie) May 10, 2012
Consultation closes today, if you want to add your views and try and thwart opt-out default “Adult” blocking openrightsgroup.org/campaigns/defa…At some point I wondered if there is such a thing as a Consultations Watch (and perhaps a Petition Watch) that lets me see what's coming up that I might want to contribute to, and I tweeted this.
— Jo Brodie (@JoBrodie) September 6, 2012
Is there a 'consultations watch' searchable dbase which tells me what things I can bleat abt or 'input on' next in some sort of time-order?Clearly it would be a pretty large unwieldy sort of database and I've no idea how you could go about creating such a thing. It would have to account for great big NICE consultations on some new treatment or other intervention and the two consultations linked above, as well as local consultations (eg Lewisham Hospital's A&E for example). Organisable by date (closing in the next two days, say) and theme (health, politics etc).
— Jo Brodie (@JoBrodie) October 24, 2012
Does one already exist? If not, what sort of tools would help create it? Is there much call for it? I don't feel that I've not heard about any consultations that I'd 'need' to hear about, but difficult to tell cos if I've not heard of them I can't know that I've missed them ;)
Edit 8 January 2014
Thanks to a tweet from @bitoclass I have discovered that Transport for London (TfL) has a page of transport-related consultations here https://consultations.tfl.gov.uk/
The wonderful (to me, others not keen) newish GOV.UK portal showed me this for local consultations https://www.gov.uk/find-local-consultations
How can I fix this (can I fix this?)?: Posterous is duplicating my posts
Note that Posterous is shutting down on 30 April 2013
I use Posterous to host the blog / database where I post information about job vacancies in science communication.
It goes like this - I email a post with an attachment (the job description), it publishes itself at http://scicommjobs.posterous.com and sends a tweet to @ScicommJobs. It's been doing this without incident for just over three years.
Today I realised that for the last couple of days it's been publishing duplicate posts - and sending double tweets as well. I first noticed a problem when I started receiving two 'your post has been published' emails although I didn't think much about it, assuming it to be an email glitch which has happened before.
I've sent a tweet to @Posterous and tried, and failed, to use their online contact form to submit a bug report ('Sorry, we couldn't submit your request' - not sure why).
Googling for info about duplicate Posterous posts isn't particularly illuminating and the problems people have outlined refer to something else entirely.
Is anyone else noticing this with their Posterous blog(s)?
It could well be some setting I've altered in the global 'Spaces' admin bit, although why on earth anyone would want a setting letting them duplicate their posts to the same blog I don't know.
It's also happened on another of my Posterous blogs - http://jodiepedia.posterous.com where I post audio / sound-related information and events.
If anyone has a solution that would be marvellous :) Thanks!
I use Posterous to host the blog / database where I post information about job vacancies in science communication.
It goes like this - I email a post with an attachment (the job description), it publishes itself at http://scicommjobs.posterous.com and sends a tweet to @ScicommJobs. It's been doing this without incident for just over three years.
Today I realised that for the last couple of days it's been publishing duplicate posts - and sending double tweets as well. I first noticed a problem when I started receiving two 'your post has been published' emails although I didn't think much about it, assuming it to be an email glitch which has happened before.
I've sent a tweet to @Posterous and tried, and failed, to use their online contact form to submit a bug report ('Sorry, we couldn't submit your request' - not sure why).
Googling for info about duplicate Posterous posts isn't particularly illuminating and the problems people have outlined refer to something else entirely.
Is anyone else noticing this with their Posterous blog(s)?
It could well be some setting I've altered in the global 'Spaces' admin bit, although why on earth anyone would want a setting letting them duplicate their posts to the same blog I don't know.
It's also happened on another of my Posterous blogs - http://jodiepedia.posterous.com where I post audio / sound-related information and events.
If anyone has a solution that would be marvellous :) Thanks!
Saturday, 10 November 2012
Not the only live blood analyst I've complained about actually
Update 20 April 2018: Today
the subject of this post was fined £2,200, ordered to pay costs of
£15,000 and given a Criminal Behaviour Order (which, if breached, puts
him in contempt of court). The Advertising Standards Authority referred
his protracted case(s) to Camden Trading Standards who brought
proceedings, resulting in a trial at Blackfriars Crown Court which
concluded in March 2018 with sentencing today. The ASA has said that it welcomes the outcome. See also info from Court News.
Update 12 October 2014: On Friday the subject of this post was fined £4,500 and lost his appeal at Southwark Crown Court. I don't know if the £4.5k is an adjusted figure or an addition to the previous fines.
Update 20 March 2014: Today the subject of this post was fined £9,000 for nine counts of the Cancer Act of 1939 at Westminster Magistrates Court and handed a total bill (including costs) of over £19,000. He did not attend this final court hearing and did not represent himself.
Edit 14 January 2013 - since writing this post Mr Denton, or one of his supporters, has undertaken something of a smear campaign against me and another blogger, Josephine Jones. I've recently Storified some tweets from a Twitter account (@FightRacism2) which appears to have been set up specifically to promote a link to Mr Denton's petition against us - that petition that has been shut down by several hosts and miraculously re-opened. It now has 1030 signatures, although around 930 of them were paid 5c to sign it.
So far the Storify has had over 8,800 views. Amusingly, a fake petition has also been set up in return ;)
Recently, in one of his blog posts, Errol Denton complained that he was being singled out from other live blood analysts (also known as live blood testing or nutritional microscopy) for particular attention and criticism by bloggers.
He has attributed this particular attention to racism on the part of the bloggers. As I'm one of the bloggers he's tagged in his posts (a sort of oblique reference) I'm a bit bemused by this because the simple reason he's experiencing attention is that he failed to respond to the Advertising Standards Authority's requests to remove misleading claims from his websites, and consequently found himself on their 'non-compliant online advertisers' page. It has nothing to do with the colour of anyone's skin.
I thought it might cheer him up to know that back in May I also put in a complaint about a live blood microscopist who turns out to be white (and no, I didn't single her out because of her skin colour either) - Katrin Hempel [http://www.londonnaturaltherapies.co.uk/About-me.html]. I've reproduced the complaint in full below.
Normally I prefer not to publish these complaints before there's been an ASA adjudication (which I'd be notified about, I don't remember this one being adjudicated on and I checked a couple of pages and some of the claims are still there). However since Errol is so convinced that I and another blogger, Josephine Jones, are racially motivated I'm quite keen to address that as best I can.
What I need to do next is chase up exactly what happened with this one** - I have a feeling it may have been deprioritised because of the massive workload the Advertising Standards Authority is under, which only increased when they started investigating claims made on websites in addition to television and radio broadcasts, and magazine adverts and leaflet inserts etc.
This complaint was put together with Simon Perry's Fishbarrel tool that saves you having to copy and paste each claim into a separate email.
I would also add that it is surprising to me that Errol has tagged his posts with our names and rac15t accusations alongside tags relating to his own company keywords - this seems an odd business strategy.
**14 January 2013 - the complaint was not adjudicated on (because the ASA has already seen sufficient evidence that live blood analysis is nonsense) and instead was passed to compliance. When that failed Katrin Hempel's London Natural Therapies site was added to the ASA's list of non-compliant advertisers.
Complaint to ASA sent 4 May 2012
Update 12 October 2014: On Friday the subject of this post was fined £4,500 and lost his appeal at Southwark Crown Court. I don't know if the £4.5k is an adjusted figure or an addition to the previous fines.
Update 20 March 2014: Today the subject of this post was fined £9,000 for nine counts of the Cancer Act of 1939 at Westminster Magistrates Court and handed a total bill (including costs) of over £19,000. He did not attend this final court hearing and did not represent himself.
Edit 14 January 2013 - since writing this post Mr Denton, or one of his supporters, has undertaken something of a smear campaign against me and another blogger, Josephine Jones. I've recently Storified some tweets from a Twitter account (@FightRacism2) which appears to have been set up specifically to promote a link to Mr Denton's petition against us - that petition that has been shut down by several hosts and miraculously re-opened. It now has 1030 signatures, although around 930 of them were paid 5c to sign it.
So far the Storify has had over 8,800 views. Amusingly, a fake petition has also been set up in return ;)
Recently, in one of his blog posts, Errol Denton complained that he was being singled out from other live blood analysts (also known as live blood testing or nutritional microscopy) for particular attention and criticism by bloggers.
He has attributed this particular attention to racism on the part of the bloggers. As I'm one of the bloggers he's tagged in his posts (a sort of oblique reference) I'm a bit bemused by this because the simple reason he's experiencing attention is that he failed to respond to the Advertising Standards Authority's requests to remove misleading claims from his websites, and consequently found himself on their 'non-compliant online advertisers' page. It has nothing to do with the colour of anyone's skin.
I thought it might cheer him up to know that back in May I also put in a complaint about a live blood microscopist who turns out to be white (and no, I didn't single her out because of her skin colour either) - Katrin Hempel [http://www.londonnaturaltherapies.co.uk/About-me.html]. I've reproduced the complaint in full below.
Normally I prefer not to publish these complaints before there's been an ASA adjudication (which I'd be notified about, I don't remember this one being adjudicated on and I checked a couple of pages and some of the claims are still there). However since Errol is so convinced that I and another blogger, Josephine Jones, are racially motivated I'm quite keen to address that as best I can.
What I need to do next is chase up exactly what happened with this one** - I have a feeling it may have been deprioritised because of the massive workload the Advertising Standards Authority is under, which only increased when they started investigating claims made on websites in addition to television and radio broadcasts, and magazine adverts and leaflet inserts etc.
This complaint was put together with Simon Perry's Fishbarrel tool that saves you having to copy and paste each claim into a separate email.
I would also add that it is surprising to me that Errol has tagged his posts with our names and rac15t accusations alongside tags relating to his own company keywords - this seems an odd business strategy.
**14 January 2013 - the complaint was not adjudicated on (because the ASA has already seen sufficient evidence that live blood analysis is nonsense) and instead was passed to compliance. When that failed Katrin Hempel's London Natural Therapies site was added to the ASA's list of non-compliant advertisers.
Complaint to ASA sent 4 May 2012
Dear ASA
I am concerned about some of the claims made by Katrin Hempel trading as London Natural Therapies and don't believe there is evidence to suppor them. I first became aware of her treatment clinic through a news item in the Evening Standard which highlighted her live blood analysis treatment.
-----------------------------------------------------
#1. Claim found at http://www.londonnaturaltherapies.co.uk/Live-Blood-Analysis.html
"Live blood analysis can be beneficial for the following conditions:
Arthritis, weakened immune system (recurrent cold - and flu's), gastro-intestinal tract disorders like irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) or inflammatory conditions like Chron's disease or ulcerative colitis, leaky gut, as well as allergies, hormonal imbalances, nutritional deficiencies, anemia and many more!"
Live blood analysis is not a real diagnostic technique and does not give as much information about someone's health as is claimed here. The list of conditions includes some really quite serious conditions that are better managed with the help of a proper doctor.
I understand that some nutritional deficiences CAN be spotted (eg anaemia from vitamin B) by looking at blood under a light microscope - but this would still need to be confirmed with a test of serum levels of the relevant B vitamin - however previous experience of live blood analysis suggests to me that this is used as a way to sell expensive and unnecessary vitamins or dietary supplements.
-----------------------------------------------------
#2. Claim found at http://www.londonnaturaltherapies.co.uk/Live-Blood-Analysis.html
"Live Blood testing can be especially useful in chronic, on-going conditions, that have not responded well to other treatments, as with darkfield microscopy many underlying factors that could be fuelling the condition can be detected, which aren't always evident with other means."
I doubt that live blood testing offers any information that can't be found from a much cheaper (free to the patient) blood test that a proper doctor would order. Again from previously looking into this quite often people are given information that all is not well with their blood based on artefacts that arise during the creation of the slide. Analysts also give incorrect information which is both misleading and worrying to the customer.
-----------------------------------------------------
#3. Claim found at http://www.londonnaturaltherapies.co.uk/Live-Blood-Analysis.html
"It is an excellent preventative and prophylactic measure as usually changes in the blood can be seen long before the symptoms manifest or progress, so disease may be prevented from developing."
While some changes in the blood may well be apparent before symptoms appear live blood analysis is of no use in determining them. To give an example, a standard blood test for 'glycated haemoglobin' (HbA1c) or fasting blood glucose levels can pick up Type 2 diabetes in someone who otherwise does not have very noticeable (or easily ignorable) symptoms but this is not something that's seen under a microscope.
-----------------------------------------------------
#4. Claim found at http://www.londonnaturaltherapies.co.uk/Live-Blood-Analysis.html
"Live Blood analysis is also a fantastic tool to use as a general health check-up. A regular examination of your blood every 6 months ensures you stay healthy and nutritional deficiencies can be found out about and corrected early on before problems arise."
I think it's a very poor tool and this just sounds like a way to keep customers coming back to spend more money.
-----------------------------------------------------
#5. Claim found at http://www.londonnaturaltherapies.co.uk/Iridology.html
"The iris of your eyes is totally individual and can give important insight into overall health status, constitutional tendencies and metabolic status."
Very limited information about a person's overall health can be gleaned from just looking at the eye or iris. The phrase 'constitutional tendencies' doesn't really mean anything and it's not possible to tell much about someone's metabolic status either. There are a couple of conditions where metals, eg copper in the case of Wilson's disease, are taken up by various tissues of the body, including the iris - and this is quite visible - but generally looking at eyes doesn't tell you much.
-----------------------------------------------------
#6. Claim found at http://www.londonnaturaltherapies.co.uk/Iridology.html
"Every organ and tissue of the body is connected to the iris by a vast number of nerve fibres."
This is incorrect.
-----------------------------------------------------
#7. Claim found at http://www.londonnaturaltherapies.co.uk/Iridology.html
"with iridology through reflex association signs and marks relating to certain organs in the body are displayed in the iris."
This is nonsense.
-----------------------------------------------------
#8. Claim found at http://www.londonnaturaltherapies.co.uk/Iridology.html
"Thus it is ideal to use as preventative tool and can be very valuable to assess treatment plans"
Iridology cannot help here.
-----------------------------------------------------
#9. Claim found at http://www.londonnaturaltherapies.co.uk/Sickle-Cell-Anemia.html
"I am using an all natural treatment for sickle cell disease, which has been successfully applied for many years in Germany."
I'm troubled that someone would make claims to be able to help with this serious condition and this statement implies that good evidence for the claims should by now be available.
-----------------------------------------------------
#10. Claim found at http://www.londonnaturaltherapies.co.uk/Sickle-Cell-Anemia.html
"This remarkable therapy produces phenomenal results with 50% of patients showing a complete stop of painful episodes (crisis) and 30% of patients showing a marked improvement overall. The treatment strategy will be exclusive to me and will not be used by any other practitioner in the UK."
Two things concern me about this - the boldness of the claims and the fact that only one practitioner will be offering such a treatment. This is fairly unusual and doesn't offer patients much of a choice, it also prevents information about the use of the treatment from being shared among other practitioners and this is something that benefits patients.
-----------------------------------------------------
I confirm that I have no commercial interest in the outcome of this complaint.
Kind regards,
Jo Brodie
Also known as London Natural Therapies, non-compliant online advertiser
Also known as London Natural Therapies, non-compliant online advertiser
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