Mad medicine, bad advice, bad reporting - Part 2: Taking the time to chew on the bull****

"Come and enjoy the view" they said, "Enjoy our colonic irrigation" said no-one ever.
This man, seated at the Viva Mayr clinic is probably still recovering from his morning of blood-letting and laxative induced-diarrhoea. (Okay, I have no idea what he is doing or recovering from, but I could be spot on.)

In my previous post, I introduced my topic for discussion.

In this post I shall begin my overly-elaborate criticism of the both Green's article and the Mayr clinic: 

“Take time to chill and chew the fat” by Harriet Green is a disturbing entry in the Health section of the Mail and Guardian. (1)  A short while back, another article (2) cited the excellent book, “Bad Science”, by Dr. Ben Goldacre.  

The tome systematically analyzes and picks apart bad science and errors of scientific interpretation made, most commonly, by journalists.  (It should be noted that Goldacre, an actual medical doctor, is an esteemed journalist himself, having been the author of a similarly titled column in the UK Guardian since 2003, as well as another book, “Bad Pharma” in 2012).  

It is woefully ironic that an article such as, “Take time” has found itself published in the same section which quoted such a work of necessary genius.

In a Health section which contains sensible stories on statins, exercise programs, cancer screening, HIV and TB, this article seems horribly out of place.  Someone else seems to agree, as “Take time” is classified under Scitech on the MG.co.za website.  This is bending the term science beyond breaking point. 

Acclaim

“The acclaimed, hardcore detox at the Viva Mayr Clinic is easier to digest than one would think” reads the subheading for the article.  

The only acclaim one seems to find for the Viva Mayr spa is that found on its own website and the unreliable reel of articles similar to “Take time”.  Not one objective scientific outlet has acclaimed this centre and it is clear why.  

We will analyze the issue of “detox” towards the end to show that it is a term born from the mouths of marketing gurus, not scientists.

The piece reads more like an advertorial testimonial rather than any form of legitimate health journalism.  “The Viva Mayr is a magnet for celebrities and the rich, but there are plenty of “ordinary” people here too.”  It is good to know that the money of the average reader will be just as welcome as a celebrity’s at this haven for ritualistic bad health advice.  

The Viva Mayr website is even given at the end “for more information”.  I think “for marketing purposes”, would be more appropriate. 

(http://www.viva-mayr.com/en.html)

It is curious that a previous Health section article entitled “Seven days, seven diets” (3) took a very humoristic tone towards fad-dieting and seemed to be pointing out how silly each of them were.  Harriet Green’s piece arrived just as I was recovering from an outrageous article “Light at night sets off alarm bells” (4) which made the incomprehensible conclusion that, as a recent study had made a link between artificial light and breast cancer, reading your children bedtime stories would increase their risk of developing breast cancer.  

These alarmist, misleading and sensationalist articles are a completely different kettle of fish and deserve to be scrutinized on their own merit (or lack thereof).

Although this may take some time, I intend to systematically analyze most of the article to show that it is not worthy of being published by the Mail & Guardian.  Many readers will have been misled, and they must be exposed to the facts and armed with the necessary tools to defend themselves against such deception.