Gary Andrews

Rather glad that Ben Goldacre chose to write about the “Facebook can give you syphilis” non-story from last week. It seems everybody’s got it in for Facebook at the moment and while there’s a lot you can complain about, some of the ridiculous stories written about the site take bad reporting to a whole new level.

When somebody who struggles with most forms of maths and science at the best of times (ie me) can spot huge flaws in the science and maths and correlations, then chances are the facts behind said story are pretty poor.

It takes a huge leap from a public health official stating that social networking sites are making it easier for people to have casual sex, and thereby increase their chances of catching an STI, to saying that Facebook causes syphillis because Sunderland has one of the highest useages of the site. But linking them together requires such a huge leap of faith and doesn’t take into account the possibility that you have a random cluster.

What annoys me on this, though, isn’t so much the reporting (although bolting on an unrelated report isn’t great), it’s the press release in the first place. These are PR professionals working with public health professionals. You’d have thought one of them might just pick up that the social networking line would be the one that the media would leap on. Or perhaps they intended it to be that way (“Go on doctor, sex it up a bit. Throw in a reference to social networking. That’ll get the buggers biting.”).

Either way, you’d have thought some kind of facts to back up the claim, even if the form of a few notes to the editor, backing up or explaining the statement would have been good. Or, if you can’t, let the professor throw out the idea in interviews, as his own opinion. At least you’re then separating opinion from fact.

As somebody who has, in the past, probably been guilty of spewing out some bad science stories (busy newsroom, no science background, easy press release for a quick bit of copy), it’s not helpful when press releases like this are thrown in our direction. If you decide not to run with the social networking angle, your editor sure as hell will.

I’ve long said that there’s no much thing as adding too much information on science and health press releases, even if you do this as notes and let the release itself be eye-catching.

Going from past experience, the best science or health stories I did was when the press release was clear, explicit and assumed you were a science-idiot (which I was; still am) and laid everything out in as simple a way as possible. And were then very good at explaining and expanding, quickly but clearly, when I rang. Those that didn’t probably led to misunderstandings and undid any work the press release may have done in the first place.

It’s easy to chide journalists for getting science stories badly wrong (and the other stats-bolt on does no favours for this story). But if you’re going to throw garbage into the news system, in the form of a poorly-thought through science-related press release then you’re inevitably going to get garbage.

written by Gary \\ tags: acebook, bad science, science reporting, social networking

Science reporting is in rude health in Britain, and also in a poor state, often getting basic science wrong and misleading the public. So (roughly) said Lord Paul Drayson, Science Minister for the government, and Dr Ben Goldacre, writer of the Bad Science column in the Guardian in a highly entertaining debate at the Royal Institution last night.

Ok, so I’ve somewhat condensed the argument, but, strangely, they’re probably both right (a reflection, perhaps, of how well they both argued). Lord Drayson made good points as to why science journalism has improved and why we need to celebrate it, and Ben Goldacre was entertaining as ever with his points and examples of very bad science reporting, many of which were still worryingly recent.

The most telling comment, though, came from Michael Hanlon, the Daily Mail’s science editor, who was in the audience. Taking the example of the Mail saying that coffee could both cause and cure cancer, Hanlon pointed out the [1] number of studies done on coffee actually reflected this, with half saying coffee was beneficial and half saying  it was harmful.

Now, short of going into the lab and watching each experiment, the only way you’re going to be able to say if this is significant or not is by doing a systematic review of all these papers – one paper alone is not necessarily an indicator in itself one way or the other – and coming up with a conclusion.

But therein lies the problem. Individual papers make good news, and the Mail is not necessarily wrong when it reports that coffee both causes and cures cancer. There’s a good chance both reports are accurate with regards to the source material.

These both make good headlines. A review that concludes that it’s difficult to say whether coffee is indeed good or bad for you doesn’t have quite the same level of attention-grabbing.

What, Hanlon asked, would you have me do?

It’s easy to feel sympathy for both sides here. Goldacre is right to despair at some science reporting. When you read some of his clinical dissections of poor science journalism (for example, ‘Exercise Makes You Fat‘) you shudder and feel ashamed for your profession.

But then, the journalist has space to fill, deadlines to meet, and papers to sell. And science isn’t quite like your political scandals or natural disasters. There’s no clear narrative. One paper may be produced, peer reviewed and shown to be not all that. How does a journalist get something exciting, sexy, reader-grabbing AND accurate out of all this.

A lot of Ben’s suggestions – features, encouraging bloggers, getting the public to be more discerning readers, getting scientists to write columns – are great intentions. Not all of them are without problems, and my worry would be if you did this, you may start to lose science from the news pages, which would not be a good thing.

On a slight tangent, I’d like to bring in my brief experience as one of those arts and humanities graduates, mentioned occasionally in the debate, who’ve ended up in journalism and isn’t overly scientific (which is to say I understand science methodology and the philosophies behind it a hell of a lot better than I do the science itself. Which I often definitely don’t understand).

In my reporting days, I’d tend to shy away from science stories (other than the fact they often weren’t things that our target audience were meant to be interested in) because I didn’t feel confident enough in handling them, or handling them accurately. I struggled with basic GCSE biology. I really wasn’t the best person to critique or summarise an academic’s work.

When I did cover science, the interviewee tended to get a relatively easy ride, again, due to my own lack of knowledge. And, yes, all too often I’d end up relying on a press release, especially if they were well-written and clear. It’s perhaps not something I can say I’m overly proud of, but hopefully you can understand why (especially given how understaffed we were). Give me a football or local government story on the other hand…. No need for press releases there.

[This isn't to do I'd do this for all science or health stories. Lifestyle stuff, like your miracle cancer cures or food x causes y usually tended to get my bullshit alarm ringing].

Again, the question: what would you have me do?

Also, a secondary anecdote from my time editing the student paper.

Coming into the editor’s chair, I was painfully aware how under-represented the science and medicine students were in the paper, especially given their bulk around campus, so we launched science and health pages – the first time, to my knowledge, the paper had ever included such sections.

I put out appeals to all science and medicine students, via email, asking them to get in touch if they were interested in editing or writing. I’ve no idea exactly how many students that went to, but it would have been in its thousands.

I got four responses. One ended up becoming our science editor, the other wrote a brilliantly vivid piece about his time on placement in hospital in Pakistan, and I never heard from him again, despite several emails almost begging for more articles. The other two never followed through. Ok, we got a couple more throughout the year, but that was still less than ten students (roughly).

I’m not quite sure what conclusions you can draw from that.

But back to the debate. It would be hard to say either side won, although that wasn’t really the point. Both are right – it’s good to praise good journalism and encourage it, and Ben Goldacre’s right to bang the drum against poor science reporting which, at best is embarrassing and, at worst, dangerous.

The main thing was the debate was taking place in the first place. Just discussing whether science journalism is done well probably indicates both sides are right in their own way.

There’s a more coherent write-up here and here from people who probably, unlike me, took notes. You can watch the debate here. I’d highly recommend it if you have a spare 90 minutes.

[And if anybody's wondering about the title of this blog post, it's a reference to a particularly demented and brilliant episode of South Park where Cartman freezes himself to get a Nintendo Wii but ends up in the future where Richard Dawkins' teachings reign supreme and there's a war between mankind and otters. It makes sense, honest.]

[1] It’s late at night and I’m going by memory here.

written by Gary \\ tags: bad science, Ben Goldacre, Lord Drayson, science in the media, science journalism, South Park

Water is, I think we’re all in general agreement, a good thing for our bodies. You don’t drink it and you become dehydrated, which leads to a variety of problems. It helps rehydrate and, without getting too technical, helps keep our bodies ticking over. Given that we’re largely made of water, drinking a decent amount of water every day is largely considered A Good Thing.

There are many things I use water for. Losing weight isn’t one of them.

But then I don’t drink Skinny Water.

Given that there’s not a lot to choose between different bottles of water, other than packaging and price, it’s not surprising that the brand marketing people are looking for new angles to sell their water, and we shouldn’t begrudge them that. It’s their job. But this one really is really something special.

Right now there’s somebody, somewhere, laughing all the way to the bank because they’ve essentially sold ice cubes to a bunch of Eskimos: the idea that you can lose weight by drinking a specific brand of water.

Skinny Water describes itself as “a low-calorie water”. Which is impressive as water doesn’t actually have any calories. Water’s good for many things, but calories aren’t one of them.

However, flavoured water does contain calories, and most likely sugar. Skinny Water’s website says it has a hint of pomegranate in it, so it’s a good bet that there’s a bit of sugar and flavourings in here. These may compare well to other flavoured waters on the market but not as well as standard water. Because standard, non-flavoured water has no calories.

It’s highly dubious that drinking water, or Skinny Water, will actually make you slimmer. It’s not going to hurt to keep yourself well hydrated and to swap your Coca-Cola for a jug of tap water. But just drinking water alone won’t change a great deal.

Drinking water, regular exercise and eating a healthy diet are probably your best bets if you want to lose weight. Running’s a good start. You can refresh yourself with tap water. And that’ll be just as good for you AND will cost less than a bottle of Skinny Water.

But then normal water doesn’t have special science behind it, namely a special blend of chromium and L-Carnitine, which Skinny Water has. According to the blurb on the website these “assists natural fat burning and helps reduce sugar cravings”.

If Skinny Water contains sugar (and I can’t find a list of ingredients on their website) then it’s hardly surprising if it reduces sugar cravings.

The fat burning issue is slightly more complex, and sounds impressive but that’s about all it is, really. If you click on the Now Magazine coverage in their press section, you’ll see that the ‘expert view’ says Chromium Deficiency can cause poor glucose tolerance, which in turn can lead to obesity.

Except chromium deficiency is incredibly rare. There have been three clear cases (PDF) in hospital patients who were fed a very specific diet over a period of time. Other than that, it’s highly unlikely the average person would develop deficiency, although it’s possible it may help with type two diabetes and that’s still under debate. It does appear as a trace element in the human body and we do need it, although nobody’s exactly sure why.

L-Carnitine is used to transport fatty acids when your body breaks down the fats, so yes, it well help. But if you’re eating a varied diet you’re going to get plenty of it anyway.  Beef, pork, chicken, dairy, and bread all contain L-Carnitine.

But after a certain level of L-Carnitine, it stops being effective and slows down the breakup of fats. So, in basic terms, you’ll probably put on weight if you have it in excess as the fats won’t get broken down as quickly.

It’s also sold as a weight-loss supplement although there’s no conclusive evidence that it has any effect in this regard. There’s been plenty of studies into L-Carnitine’s and athletic performance. Again, there’s nothing conclusive to say it has any effect during exercise.

But then it also stops you feeling hungry. In all honesty, if I drank the ten bottles in recommends, I’d probably feel a bit bloated.

The website says there are plenty of scientific studies around L-Carnitine and chromium, which is true. It doesn’t say what results these studies came up with. It also says they’re FDA approved. Given that neither are going to do you much damage (unless you accidentally take the toxic kind of chromium) that’s hardly surprising either. It doesn’t make it that special.

Like I say, I’ve nothing against the marketing people who sell bottled water. It’s when you start to move into making some rather ridiculous claims about weight loss that I start getting a bit more irritated.

Somewhere out there there’s going to be impressionable teenagers who’ll think that because Jennifer Aniston drinks Skinny Water to keep slim, that drinking water will be the way to stay slim. Or there’ll be some idiot who’ll view it as a way to lose weight.

Yes, if you drink nothing but water, Skinny or otherwise, you’ll lose weight. There’s also a chance you’ll kill yourself.

Water’s good for you, yes. But you can rehydrate a lot easier and cheaper than Skinny Water with tap water and the effects will, I’d wager, be roughly the same.

My favourite bit about Skinny Water is the endorsement from pop singer Fergie, from the Black Eyed Peas:

“At the moment I’m drinking Skinny Water. With a name like that it has to be good, right?”

You really wonder why nobody else has cottoned onto this. Just add Skinny to the name and hey-presto, it’s good for you, especially the McSkinny Big Mac Burger. Still, if Fergie wants to waste her money on this, that’s fine by me.

I’m going to try and make my fortune through a bit of reverse psychology though. I’m calling something Skinny works so well, I’m going to market the Fat Bastard Banana. It’s like a normal banana, except we only sell the biggest bananas we can find. It’ll be sold to far people who hate diets, so they can scoff bananas in the knowledge that it’s sticking one to the system.

(If you’re wondering, there’s no real reason why I’ve decided to post this, other than I saw Sian had blogged about it and it got me a bit irritated)

written by Gary \\ tags: bad science, Skinny water

You may have noticed a small phenomena pop up in most newspapers, national and local, around this time of year: namely that day x in January is the most depress day of the year. Today, January 21st 2008, happened to be that day.

Journalists around the country must be praising Dr. Cliff Arnall, the man who devised the formula, for helping them to fill another meaningless column inch.

So, on this day, I feel it’s only fair to dig out my old colleague Andrew Mickel’s column from two years ago from the student newspaper at Cardiff University where Dr. Arnall practices his trade. Except he’s not actually a member of the psychology department. In fact, it seems he’s not even a doctor. Ben Goldacre, I’d imagine, would nod his head in approval at Mickel’s writing.

Three years on from when the formula first made it into the news, it is somewhat depressing that it’s regurgitated by journalists who really should know better.

written by Gary Andrews \\ tags: Andrew Mickel, bad science, Cliff Arnall, cod-science, most depressing day of the year