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There has been lots of talk recently in the Australian media about CAM in universities. A new lobby group known as Friend of Science in Medicine was recently established to get the discussion going about whether this is a good thing. (Full disclosure, I recently added my name to the 400-long list of doctors, scientists and concerned citizens who are worried about pseudoscience creeping into universities).

The discussion has ruffled some feathers and I think this is a good thing. As I said in a comment on The Conversation, what is wrong with us looking at these courses and determining if what they are teaching is evidence-based? If we find there is nothing wrong, then we can carry on our merry way.

Yet, some CAM peeps don’t seem to see it this way. Some have been behaving as if they are being persecuted. Some are claiming that taking CAM out of unis puts the public at risk as practitioners are more likely exposed to shonky teaching (I haven’t seen any evidence for this, but as usual I’m willing to look at it if it’s true).

But this misses the point that it doesn’t matter where you teach it, if it’s nonsense outside of a university it remains nonsense when taught in one. Teaching homoeopathy or tactile therapy in a university environment won’t make it work. To see how homeopathy works, go here.

The argument got rather heated on Twitter recently with Prof Kerryn Phelps jumping in the mix. I had quite a long conversation with her, which remained mostly civil (if not a little strained) until I suggested we weed out the stuff we know doesn’t work or exist, such as subluxations in chiropractic and homeopathy.

The response I got was odd to say the least and I’m still unsure exactly what she was getting at. See the screen shot below (read from bottom up).

Some people suggested this was an example of the No True Scotsman fallacy, which I kinda agree with. More simply, it appears to say “don’t mention homoeopathy, even we’re embarrassed by that”. If you have another idea, please leave a comment.

Someone else called “SkepNurse” also posed the question to Prof Phelps regarding which CAM she would unequivocally say was not worth pursuing any more, either because it can never work or has been proven not to. She posted these tweets on Jan 26th and is still awaiting a direct answer.

Anyway, I’d been poking around for information on whether homeopathy was taught in universities as a stand alone course, and I hadn’t found any evidence. CAM practitioners had confirmed this as well, pointing out that it was a requirement to enter Bachelor of Health Science (Complementary Medicine) at Charles Sturt University but was not taught as a separate subject.

Well, they were wrong.

Homeopathy is taught as a stand alone course subject at a publicly funded university in NSW as part of Southern Cross University’s Bachelor of Clinical Sciences. They offer introductory homeopathy and clinical homeopathy. It is also offered as a service in the health clinic

There is even a prize offered at SCU.

The Warren Brauer Memorial Prize – Homoeopath Dispensary to the value of $500

Awarded to the Naturopathy award graduate who has exhibited a high level of proficiency in the understanding and application of homeopathy.
Donated by Brauer Natural Medicine Pty Ltd

SCU is a publicly funded university who received $32 million of federal funding in 2011. Thus, public funding is going towards the teaching of nonsense in Australian Universities.

When I’ve previously written about public funding for homeopathy in Australia the most I could do was speculate about how much it might cost the tax payer. It’s complicated because our public health system does not directly fund homeopathy as health care, but it does supplement private health funds (which do cover homoeopathy) and also some doctors/gps will prescribe recommend it.

This is the first evidence I have found that tax payers funds directly fund this nonsense. And what a waste of money it is.

I’ve written to SCU to ask for their course outlines for both classes. Let’s hope I get them so I can get a better idea of exactly what they teach.

With continued pressure from FSM, this conversation will likely continue for some time. I would like to see the first casualty be these courses at SCU.

This comment on The Conversation has really summed up this debate for me so far. It’s from Didier Nave, an ex-herbalist of 25 years and the following excerpt speaks volumes;

Time to face the facts. The data is coming in and its not looking good. It’s clearly showing that what we do is not much better than placebo. So the question is do we have the humility to accept the evidence and dump these theories. I doubt it….Have i seen the industry contest or reject its own stupidities like live blood analysis or “detoxing” when it can’t name one toxin that its methods supposedly detox? No, it embraces them instead.”

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To see how The Dean of the School of Health, Professor Iain Graham, defends woo in his uni, see Mick Vagg’s post here.

There’s more info on woo in public and non-public facilities here.

Thanks to Loretta Marron for assisting with research.

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More interesting reading on the current debate (and for healthy discussion in comments) see two recent articles from The Conversation;

Alternative Medicine Can Be Sientific Say Besieged Academics

Pointing The Bone At Chiropractic Quackery Lessons From the UK

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To see the investigation of woo in universities from The Skeptic magazine (and written by Tim Mendham with research from Jo Benhamu) go here (pdf).

The Wakefield investigation was the longest in the history of the GMC, with the disciplinary panel sitting for a total of 148 days over a period of 2 and a half years at an estimated cost of one million pounds. The results of the investigation were revealed in a 143 page report on 28th January 2010, and found that Wakefield showed a “callous disregard” for childrens’ suffering and “abused his position of trust.”

The GMC “..determined that Dr Wakefield’s name should be erased from the medical register…”.

The decision follows an investigation into Wakefield’s behaviour surrounding the 1998 publication of a scientific paper in The Lancet journal, linking the triple MMR vaccine with gastrointestinal disorders and autism. Although the study itself did not demonstrate the MMR vaccine caused autism, Dr Wakefield urged caution and advised parents to get single injections against measles, mumps and rubella at a subsequent press conference.

Wakefield’s statements resonated world wide, scaring many parents away from vaccinating their children and firmly cementing the anti-vaccination movement. The resulting drop in vaccine compliance, spurred on by a complicit media, continues to contribute to outbreaks of vaccine preventable diseases such as measles, mumps and whooping cough.

Wakefield was found to have brought the medical profession “into disrepute” after he took blood samples for the study from children attending his son’s birthday party in return for 5 pounds “reward”. He later laughed and joked at a conference about the children fainting and vomiting.

(It’s unbelievable that Wakefield would expect this method of collecting samples for a study to be ethical and above board. He is either completely clueless when it comes to the strict procedures instructed by ethics committees or he’s a completely incompetent researcher. Or perhaps his ego got in the way).

In addition Wakefield conducted unnecessary, painful and intrusive diagnostic treatments on children, including colonoscopies and spinal taps, procedures for which he did not have ethics approval to undertake.

In further investigations, Sunday Times journalist Brian Deer revealed that Wakefield did not disclose serious financial conflicts of interest. Deer provided evidence that Wakefield was paid thousands of pounds by lawyers seeking a link between the MMR vaccine and autism. Wakefield also had a patent pending on his own single measles vaccine, similar to the one he urged parents to seek out at the press conference following the publishing of the paper.

In 2004, ten of the thirteen authors on the Lancet paper withdrew their names from the publication stating; “We wish to make it clear that in this paper no causal link established between MMR vaccine and autism as the data were insufficient. However the possibility of such a link was raised and consequent events have had major implications for public health.”

It took a further six years before the editor of the Lancet, Richard Horton, retracted the paper, which effectively means it is now scratched from the scientific record. Another Wakefield paper which was accepted for publication in the journal NeuroToxicology was also subsequently withdrawn.  This study attempted to show a link between thimerosal and impaired neurological development and was nick-named “14 monkeys”.

Wakefield relocated to the US in 2005, where he established and was director of the alternative medicine clinic for children with autism spectrum disorders, known as Thoughtful House. The clinic has come under fire for using questionable treatments such a chelation, a scientifically unproven therapy for autism. He was pressured into resigning his position following the GMC findings in January. (Interestingly, the “Founders” tab on their website is broken, and there is no mention of Wakefield anywhere that I can find. Wakefield has been effectively erased from their records).

Despite recent events, the anti-vaccination movement continue to rally around their “poster boy”. Wakefields’ supporters called the findings “unjust”, a “smear campaign” and “a sad day for our children.” Generation Rescue, a zealous anti-vaccination group in the US, (publicly represented by Jenny McCarthy), issued a statement of support following the GMC findings in January;

“Dr. Andrew Wakefield is perhaps this debate’s greatest hero. He’s a doctor who has held onto the truth, unbowed, through pressure that would break most mortals. Dr. Wakefield’s influence in saving other children from the fate that befell so many children is incalculable.”

Comments left on the Age of Autism website were supporting calls for Wakefield to be knighted. How people can support such a fraudulent and discredited man is completely beyond me.

So let’s summarise the chain of events that led to Wakefield getting struck off

• Wakefield was getting paid by lawyers putting together a class action suit against the manufacturers of MMR for 2 years prior to the publication of the Lancet paper.

• He called for parents to seek out a single vaccine for measles – he had a patent on his own single measles virus.

• The PCR data was found to have come from contaminated samples and could not be independently confirmed.

• Pathology results were fabricated

• No conflicts of interest were declared when the paper was submitted.

• He did not have ethics approval for some of the studies on children.

For such a small study (12 children) that did not even examine a vaccines/autism link, it is incredible to think that it had such a large impact on public health. But of course the blame does not solely lie with Wakefield. The media were highly complicit in spreading the fear about the MMR vaccine. And the result of their misinformation was MMR vaccination rates in the UK fell from over 90% to below 80%. And although the anti-vaccine movement  was well and truly active at this stage, it must be acknowledged that this boosted their cause.

Even after 10 of the 12 authors removed their names from the paper in 2004 for “public health” reasons, Brian Deer exposed the conflicts of interest and fraudulent practices, the Lancet retracted the paper completely in 2010, rapidly followed by NeuroToxicology doing the same, the GMC called Wakefield dishonest and irresponsible, he got shafted from the woo-fest that is Thoughtful House, he was stripped of his license, people continue to rally around him.

No respectable medical journals are gonna touch him again. Although he is on the editorial board of the quack-fest that is Medical Veritas, The Journal of Medical Truth, along with other prestigious anti-vaxers such as Veira Shreibner. Actually itr seems quite a shame really. If you search PubMed for AJ Wakefield, you get 15 reviews and 112 other papers. He was a prolific publisher, especially for a clinician, but it matters not anymore.

Recently he sat down to be interviewed by Mercola in a five part series on YouTube.

Although clearly Wakefield knew what was coming – I mean he wrote it in his book, which was published weeks ago, and entitled “Callous disregard”, that he lost his medical license. Harriet Hall has had the stomach to read the book, you can read her blog about it here.

Speaking prior to the GMC hearing on May 24, Wakefield told the BBC he was not responsible for the resurgence in measles. He has also said he categorically denies suggestions that he had acted dishonestly, or against the best interests of children.

He did not attend the GMC hearing in London, rather choosing to appear on the Today Show in New York City where he was interviewed by Matt Lauer. The interview is a clear illustration of him now believing the rheteoric, as he repeatedly insists that his Lancet findings been repeated in five different countries and that there is a link between vaccines and autism. He also tells Lauer the GMC decision is a PR exercise designed to ruin him.

Despite a flurry of research spurred on by Wakefield’s 1998 study, no link between vaccines and autism has been found and Wakefield’s original findings have not been reliably replicated.

Speaking at an anti-vaccine rally in Washington on Wednesday, Wakefield said he plans to set up a virtual university where he will design studies and recruit researchers to carry out the work.

Wakefield’s colleague, Professor Walker Smith, a senior author on the study has also been struck off the UK medical register. The other doctor under investigation, Professor Simon Murch was found not guilty of professional misconduct.

Smith and Wakefield have 28 days to appeal the decision. Wakefield has indicated that he planned to do so.

Earlier this year, he was forced to resign from the US-located autism clinic Thoughtful House, which he established after leaving the UK in 2005. In the longest investigation in the history of the General Medical Council, surrounding his behaviour during research for his notorious “Lancet” paper he was found to be unethical, callous and irresponsible.

Following this, The Lancet made a complete retraction of the paper, six years after the majority of the authors had already disassociated themselves from it in 2004. Another paper, accepted and due to be published in NeuroToxicology, showing that thimerosal caused impaired neurological development in baby macaques, was withdrawn.

These days he can be seen hanging out with the likes of Dr. Joseph Mercola, the anti-vaxer, anti-pharmaceuticals and lover of all things woo.

Yet, because of the publicity at the time (and subsequently) surrounding the Lancet paper, it is often forgotten that what Wakefield and colleagues actually claimed was not MMR causes autism, but that autism was linked to a new form of gut pathology, dubbed “autistic enterocolitis” (essentially ulceritive colitis in autistic children).

But like much of the data in the now retracted paper, it appears the pathology results purporting to demonstrate this are under suspicion. According to a recent feature in the British Medical Journal from investigative journalist, Brian Deer;

“Two years before the paper was published he (Wakefield) was hired by a solicitor to help launch a speculative lawsuit against drug companies that manufactured MMR vaccine. And the instrument of their attack was to find what he called at the time “a new syndrome” of bowel and brain disease caused by vaccines.”

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Notably, Wakefield was also paid in excess of four hundred thousand pounds of legal aid money by the lawyers to find this link. Some pretty hefty vested interests involved there.

But, despite Wakefield being completely disgraced, his believers have clung on even tighter to his findings in the face of consistently damning evidence.

The comments on the piece from Brian Deer already contain claims that other papers have “vindicated” Wakefield’s 1998 study. What they mean is that the findings of ulceritive colitis in autistic children has since been repeated.

(Interestingly, one piece of supporting evidence they are citing is an abstract which was presented at a conference as a poster on Sunday, May 2, 2010. It’s not indicated if it has been published in the conference proceedings).

I haven’t read the studies cited in the comments, which apparently prove Wakefield was right after all, as there are many. But I have no immediate reason to doubt their validity. As a body of work, they may indeed support the hypothesis that ulceritive colitis exists in autistic children.

But why bring in the discredited and retracted (= scratched from the scientific record) Wakefield study into the mix? Why not let the new work stand on it’s own? Particularly when the pathology slides from the Wakefield study are now lost and the conclusions under suspicion.

From Brian Deer:

“The biopsy slides are no longer available, according to one of the paper’s authors, Professor Amar Dhillon, but the GMC obtained all but one of the hospital pathology reports, and for the missing case I obtained the discharge summary. I passed the summary and reports to specialists for their reaction. They concluded that most of the 11 children reported as having non-specific colitis in the Lancet paper had been reported by the Royal Free as having normal pathology.”

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So how was the diagnosis of non-specific colitis obtained in the paper if the pathology slides were normal? Well it’s not entirely clear but it is known that Wakefield apparently wrote them into the paper.

And recall;

“Two years before the paper was published he (Wakefield) was hired by a solicitor to help launch a speculative lawsuit against drug companies that manufactured MMR vaccine. And the instrument of their attack was to find what he called at the time “a new syndrome” of bowel and brain disease caused by vaccines.”

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Even the editor of the Lancet, Richard Horton, who withdrew the paper, was circumspect about the condition;

“I do believe there was, and remains, validity to the connection between bowel disease and autism, which does need further investigation,” Richard Horton told the BBC in February 2004.

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Wakefield has fallen, hoisted by his own petard. He will not be published in scientific journals again. His latest work is “Callous Disregard“, an account of the GMC enquiry in his own words, with a forward by the poster child of anti-vax, Jenny McCarthy. Any one not wanting to tarnish their reputation or their science, would be advised to stay well away.

This story appeared on SMH online today. It details plans to establish a register for quacks, apparently in an attempt to separate the wheat from the chaff. Sounds a little bit like the register set up in the UK recently and blogged about here.

I read this article with trepidation, firstly because I think putting quacks on a register lends legitimacy to their profession and this is undeserved in my opinion.

“The industry’s reputation was dealt a blow this month after the NSW Supreme Court convicted a homeopath of the manslaughter of his nine-month-old daughter, who died of septicemia caused by chronic eczema.”

Yes, the industry was dealt a blow, but this was not because of a shonky homeopath, this was because homeopathy does not work in the treatment of eczema. Or any other illness in fact. A meta-analysis published in the Lancet in 2005 compared 110 conventional and homeopathy trials and the effect of homeopathy was deemed no greater than placebo (Shang et al., Lancet 2005; 366: 726–32).

An editorial which appeared in the same issue of the Lancet stated; “despite 150 years of unfavourable findings…the more dilute the evidence for homeopathy becomes, the greater seems its popularity.” Why we keep wasting money and good science on testing it, to continually get the same answer is beyond me.

The article continues;
University of Queensland researcher Jon Wardle, who heads a steering committee to set-up a register said; “We are making sure that when the public sees a naturopath they have training, act ethically and if something goes wrong, there is a complaints procedure,” he said. Mr Wardle said the lack of formal accreditation meant people with as little as one week’s training could call themselves naturopaths and it is these people who dispense a large quantity homeopathic remedies.

This is where I get annoyed. Firstly, there is a complaints procedure in NSW. It was established with the new Code of Conduct for Unregistered Practitioners which was introduced in August 2008. Section 17 of the code states that practitioners must display the Code and information about the way in which clients may make a complaint to the HCCC if necessary.

Funny that, I went to Mind Body Wallet a few weeks back armed with my code and saw it displayed nowhere, neither at stalls doing invasive procedures such as live blood analysis, or massage or anywhere.

I have to say, I am not convinced that the relevant regulatory bodies/associations or members of them are particularly concerned about following the rules when it comes to legislation. In NSW at least, they seem to have dutifully ignored conforming to this recent legislation. I am suspicious that the establishment of a nationwide register is really just a sneaky way to add undeserved legitimacy to profession where there is scant evidence for efficacy.

But this is not the worst part about this article. The article was penned by 2 journalists, Rachel Browne and Melissa Singer, neither of whom seem to understand much about what constitutes conventional medicine or doctors. They refer to a British podiatrist and homeopath Tariq Khan, as Dr Khan. This is misleading and infers that Khan is a clinical doctor, naturopaths use the title ND, (and referred to by some as not a doctor). They tell us that Dr Khan recommends homeopathy be used in conjunction with conventional treatment. And of course a homeopath is going to endorse the use of homeopathy.

The man apparently had talks with the head of dermatology at St George Hospital, Dedee Murrell, to discuss using homeopathic remedies for an incurable disease, the rare genetic condition epidermolysis bullosa. Let me state that again. Homeopathy as treatment for an incurable disease. This following the beginning of the article where the journalists discuss the parents of Gloria Thomas being charged with manslaughter for shunning conventional medicine and treating their daughter’s eczema with homeopathy. She subsequently died.

This is very poor journalism. To begin an article with charges of manslaughter for a homeopathy-related death and then discuss using it for incurable diseases is just credulous on the part of Rachel and Melissa.

But then this; “The Royal Australian College of General Practitioners and the Australasian Integrative Medicine Association have given qualified support to the use of complementary medicine where there is research about its outcomes.”

Precisely Rachel and Melissa. There is research. To show it does nought. Take a look at the Lancet article. Visit PubMed for goodness sake. Do some research, please.

So this is what confronted me this arvo, in the prime real estate of the top left hand corner of the page:

Image: Picture Cronulla Sharks CEO Tony Zappia outside Cronulla Leagues Club. Link to story headline: “One club, so many problems: time to call ET?  Mathematicians foxed by the probability of the Sharks’ scandals but astrologer blames Pluto.”  Link to another story called “Star signs.”

(Note: The ET refered to is not the alien, but the nick name of Andrew Ettinghausen, a club legend.)

The headline is “Sharks’ Horror Streak Confounds Maths.”   Confounds maths??? CONFOUNDS MATHS????

The relevant part of the main article is at the start:

What are the chances of one organisation being battered by such a run of appalling scandals as has beset the Cronulla Sharks?

Threat of extinction, sex scandals, players failing drug tests, former players being convicted in court, financial turmoil, a female employee getting a black eye, sex toys being given to the players, and just one win all season.

Mathematicians today could not hazard a guess at the probability of a single club enduring so many scandals in such a short time.

“You might have expected in the life of clubs that each of these sort of things happen every 10 years or so, but the fact that so many things have happened simultaneously is highly unlikely,” said Professor Joe Gani, from Australian National University’s Mathematical Sciences Institute.

But astrologer Dadhichi Toth said the presence of Pluto, the “subversive” planet, explained why the club was in turmoil.

This is truly terrible “journalism” by Arjun Ramachandran.   Even if we ignore the flipping astrologer, it is still facepalmingly lazy.  I do not blame the poor maths prof. You get bailed up by some joker on the phone, you got to say something.  I’ll return to the unsights (as opposed to insights) of Mr Toth later, but let’s look at the “unlikely run of scandals.”

Threat of extinction, sex scandals, players failing drug tests, former players being convicted in court, financial turmoil, a female employee getting a black eye, sex toys being given to the players, and just one win all season.

These are not discrete events, like the tosses of a coin. There is a web of relations between the various facts, the fact one happened made others more likely.   To start with the “sex scandal”, which is really a “sexual assault scandal”, no need to go into the details here.  In short, a major current affairs programme Four Corners did an hour long story on various incidents in rugby league of violence towards women,  the culture which can feed that, and some education efforts to change it. The biggest story concerned allegations against Cronulla Sharks players from 2002.  It’s been THE biggest media story for the last week and a half, at least in league playing areas.  That’s what turned the spotlight on the club, and why these other not-illegal-but-unsavoury stories are in the papers today.

They did not take place this week, they made the papers this week. Big difference.

What are the chances that an organisation embroiled in scandal will attract journalists to dig up other scandals and people with stories to tell about that organisation will come forward knowing someone now wants to listen? I’m no mathematician but the answer is:  100%

What are the chances Reni Maitua (the player who failed the drug test) would get himself in trouble? Maybe not 100% but given the repeated misbehaviour which got him sacked from his last club, getting up there. Dreadful timing PR-wise, I admit.   Only one win all year? Well someone has to lose and their form is down to injuries, a hard working but toothless attack and a defence prone to brainsnaps.  And as famed coach Jack Gibson said years ago, “waiting for Cronulla to win a premiership is like leaving the porch light on for Harold Holt.” (Not really relevant, I just love the quote.)

Not content with this, the SMH give “face-reader” Toth his own article from which to Barnum to his heart’s content. Couched of course in “coulds” and “mays”, he does make a specific short-term prediction about “startling revelations between the May 30 and June 2 when Mercury moves into its forward motion.”  I anxiously await to see what they are.   The “hinting at a merger” at the end is just brazen, since this possibility has been a topic of conversation amongst league-fanciers all year. Head into any pub in Sydney at any time in the last three months and you’ll have heard the same thing.

So yes the Sharks have on their hands what celebrity PR flak Max Markson calls in the article “a category 5 PR disaster”, and I don’t know “what the chances are” in statistics but it is a cluster of mostly cause-and-effect that is hardly beyond the realms of science, or common sense.  But this is an unserious journalist in an increasingly unserious newspaper uninterested in shedding any light on a newsworthy situation.  He rang the maths guy not to get any answers, but to get him to say a few sentences from which he could mine a quote in order to justify the “confounds maths” heading. It’s working backwards, high-concept journalism which fails the most basic standards.   The astrologer is more willing to bullshit off the top of his head, indeed that’s his profession, and so gets his babblings uncritically repeated verbatim.

Please note: This is not a thread for rehashing of the 2002 Sharks allegations or anything to do with it.  Anything opining on motivations, rumours, characters etc will be deleted.  Sorry, but had enough of it elsewhere.

Claims in the ad that “pentapeptides” could reduce the appearance of visible lines and could be used as a substitute for cosmetic surgery were deemed misleading.

In the ad, a voice-over from UK beauty journalist Eve Cameron said: “Women who aren’t ready for cosmetic injections constantly ask me to recommend a skin cream that really works”.

Claims that regenerist cream could substitute for cosmetic surgery were rejected

“So I was excited when this study, revealed at the World Congress of Dermatology, showed that pentapeptides are effective in reducing the appearance of lines and wrinkles.”

The Advertising Standards Authority upheld a complaint challenging the evidence for the effectiveness of pentapeptides in skin care products.

However, this is not the first time expensive “cosmeceuticals” have been declared a rip-off.

In 2007, a consumer organisation in the UK known as Which? Magazine found skin care companies were “blinding consumers with science” using terms like nanoparticles, pentapeptides, lipopeptides and hyaluronic acid. These are all legitimate scientific words, and whilst some have been associated with skin repair, others are just there to sound sciencey.

For example, hyaluronic acid is a component of the extracellular matrix, the “scaffolding” which supports the cells, and has been used to assist in the repair of burns and wound healing.

Some studies also show injections of hyaluronic acid can relieve mild arthritis pain but the literature remains divided and further research is required.

Hyaluronic acid has replaced bovine or human collagen as an injectable soft-tissue filler, and there are several types currently licensed by the FDA in America.

Aarathi Prasad, a biologist from Sense About Science, said that the claims for commercially available creams were: insulting to people’s intelligence. “There may be evidence to justify using some of these chemicals — but not in products claiming to improve the signs of ageing or having an active effect on the skin. The companies are taking the real science out of context so it becomes bad science.”

But as for the use of nanoparticles? Well, not even customer service representatives could explain what the hell these were doing in the moisturising cream. Which? Magazine discovered that the use of scientific jargon by skin care products, had become so widespread and complex that these “cosmeceuticals” could no longer be explained by customer service.

They contacted customer service for Garnier, L’Oreal and Olay to ask for explanations of their sciencey sounding products. For example, when asked what was the hyaluronic acid contained in the L’Oréal moisturising cream, the company’s customer service representative incorrectly stated:

“It’s not an actual acid,” before adding, “The product replumps, tautens and illuminates to give a radiance to the skin.”

Gary Moss, a pharmacist from the University of Hertfordshire, dismissed this explanation as “utter waffle”.

Hyaluronic acid is indeed an acid, and there is no evidence that it plumps the skin when applied topically, only when it is injected ala botox.

“Nanoparticles” on the other hand, included in some products may actually be harmful, and should be avoided, dermatologists suggest.

Adding scientific jargon to a tiny bottle of cream, is just another way manufacturers can get away with charging you an arm and a leg for a tub of sorbolene and water with some nice perfume added.

Buyer beware.

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Thanks podblack for the tip-off to this story