Shame Dore Deceivers

Sackcloth punishment

In this bleak grey  winter of political tidings, it is bracing to read a great news story.

Last week I railed against the gullibility of the media in accepting dodgy claims for miracle drugs and treatments. In the cause of cranking up profits, insanely optimistic claims are made for treatments. The technique is to get hold of a beautiful articulate victim of a disease, then parade them through the radio and televison studios.

It’s always the same story. Great cure but the mean Government will not cough the cash. Rarely, if ever, is the story true. The £2,000 Dore "miracle cure" for dyslexia, invented by paint entrepreneur Wynford Dore was personally endorsed by Kenny Logan, who, it turned out, was paid for at least some of his promotional work.

This week the UK arm of Dore went into administration, and US branches are closing too. Parents are out of pocket, and employees are out of work. Will Richard and Judy, You and Yours and dozens of other programme broadcast rebuttal and apologies for acting as snake oil salesmen’s little helpers?

Hope has been falsely raised. A lot of money has been extracted on the basis of very bad science. Guardian journalist Ben Goldacre gives credit to bloggers for undermining the company.

Gimpyblog broke the news internationally of Dore going bust, following up a comment from a Dore employee. Back in January, he published a detailed analysis of the Dore accounts, flagging up serious concerns about their viability even then.

Podblack covered the news of Dore going bust in Australia first and was offering practical rights advice to ex-employees and parents from the start.

Brainduck has been covering Dore's research for a year now, and explaining the methodological flaws.  The Daily Mail, Manchester Evening News, Guardian, Times and Telegraph have all been asked to retract the extravagant claims they made for Dore. None appears to have done so yet.

Dore has gone but a hundred other deceptions linger on. The PR lobbyists are still at it and the lazy third class journalist are eager to swallow self-serving junk science. Broadcasters have apologized and paid fines for fixing their audience votes.

The media collaborators in deceit should be paraded in public clad in sackcloth and ashes. Conning families of the sick out of £2,000 is more serious than fiddling the name of the Blue Peter cat.

Credit due

It was credit unions that offered a safe alternative to the victims of the Farepak scandal. They are the best defence against the loan sharks who mercilessly con people on tiny disposal incomes. Those who have little end up paying the most for credit.

Frequently I get requests from would be volunteers. I know of no better cause that Newport Credit Union.  Perhaps I should declare a financial interest because I deposited  a modest sum with them a few years ago. It was a thank you for the good value credit they are providing for 1,000 of my constituents.

I again applaud their work. Anyone who can spare a few hours to help in this interesting rewarding work should contact the Secretary Val Delahaye on 01633 214913 or drop in at 5 Market Arcade, High Street Newport.

Comments

[bob clarke]

Please send me a personal e mail

i am the ex CEO of Uk who was sacked for gross misconduct. I beliebve it was really to do with disclosures under PIDA.

I am looking to talk to any ex memeber of staff or angry parent.

[bob clarke]

sorry my e mail address is

bobclarke4@hotmail.com

[Podblack]

Question - how can a company be 'undermined' when it was falling apart under its own financial mismanagement? You might want to check the chicken-egg analogy you've got there.

[paulflynn]

Thanks Podluck. Happy to be further informed on this fascinating story.

I rely entirely on Ben Goldacre. I must get some more facts on this. Has the company now collapsed here. My main interest is in the gullibility of the media in swallowing this nonsense on this and other snake oil 'cures.'

[Dr Aust]

Well, for the grand-daddy of all recent sagas of media gullibility and hyping of nonsense, Paul, Look no further than the coverage of the MMR-autism scare over the last decade. There is plenty about this on Ben Goldacre's BadScience site, and I have added my own take on a recent example in the Telegraph (thankfully idiot MMR stories are getting fewer, though the wider tide of rubbish continues) on my blog (post on "Who needs facts?").

Apart from BadScience, other first-rate sources for debunking of nonsense claims are Prof David Colquhoun FRS's Improbable Science site

http://dcscience.net/

- and the Holfordwatch site

http://holfordwatch.info/

- inspired (if that is the word) by the UK's most media-visible celebrity nutrition guru Patrick Holford. Holfordwatch is particularly good on nonsense claims about diets and supplements.

[plh]

It's not just the media. There is gullibility in parliament:

http://edmi.parliament.uk/EDMi/EDMDetails.aspx?EDMID=33006

and in the NHS(TA):

http://www.nhsdirectory.org/default.aspx?page=Homeopathy&t=y

and in some of our universities:

http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?storyCode=401967&sectioncode=26

- all of which are at least as disturbing as stupid and credulous journalism. That NHSTA page on homeopathy is a worryingly official-looking page of lies and the University of Westminster's 'BSc' in homeopathy is an astonishing and outrageous fraud.

[cuervo]

Indeed, personally I regard the Daily Mail as directly culpable for deaths (corporate manslaughter?) after their anti-MMR propaganda.
The U.S. is having quite a time with anti-vaccinationists at the moment (see the recent "Green our Vaccines" demo), and when the US shits, we get a cold. Or something.

[Kess]

Excellent, this has really made my day! It's good to discover there is an MP with an interest in bad science and who shouldn't be fooled by the quacks.

Keep up the good work, Paul. Looking through your blog has restored some of my faith in politicians.

[paulflynn]

Thanks plh. That's entirely fair. There are plenty of gullible MPs and other. Thanks for the link. They are very revealing.

[paulflynn]

Thanks cuervo. I have been following what is going on in the U.S. The demise of Eliot Spitzer was regrettable after his whistle blowing on GSK. Others are turning over some large stones and revealing major deceptions.

[paulflynn]

Thanks Dr Aust. Agree, there is a vast amount of energy wasted chasing the self-serving myths that newspapers have promolgated. In the Commons there is body named POST - Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology. We try to influence MPs and PEERs with reports from an objective scientific viewpoint. This is not always successful as the examples prove.

[Jon]

Thanks for covering this, though - while a number of bloggers have clearly been critical of Dore - I don't think there is evidence that we undermined it.

We try to influence MPs and PEERs with reports from an objective scientific viewpoint. This is not always successful as the examples prove.

In terms of other examples, Christopher Chope's recent discussion of Dore in Parliament might be worth a look?
http://holfordwatch.info/2008/06/03/christopher-chope-mp-con-believes-that-the-government-are-suppressing-information-about-the-dore-programme-which-is-of-proven-benefit-to-a-large-number-of-sufferers/

[Mercantile]

Why aren't you my MP? Apologies for my shock at reading an intelligent reasoned blog by an MP but, you do appear to be 'one of the exceptions that proves the rule'.

Congratulations.