Ben Goldacre Explained
Ben Michael Goldacre (born 20 May 1974)[1] is a British physician, academic and science writer. He is the first Bennett Professor of Evidence-Based Medicine and director of the Bennett Institute for Applied Data Science at the University of Oxford.[2] He is a founder of the AllTrials campaign and OpenTrials, aiming to require open science practices in clinical trials.[3] [4]
Goldacre is known in particular for his Bad Science column in The Guardian, which he wrote between 2003 and 2011, and is the author of four books: Bad Science (2008), a critique of irrationality and certain forms of alternative medicine; Bad Pharma (2012), an examination of the pharmaceutical industry, its publishing and marketing practices, and its relationship with the medical profession;[5] I Think You'll Find It's a Bit More Complicated Than That, a collection of his journalism; and Statins, about evidence-based medicine.[6] Goldacre frequently delivers free talks about bad science; he describes himself as a "nerd evangelist".[7]
Early life and education
Goldacre is the son of Michael Goldacre, a professor of public health at the University of Oxford, and Susan Traynor (stage name Noosha Fox), lead singer of 1970s pop band Fox, both of whom are Australian.[8] [9] He is the nephew of Robyn Williams, a science journalist, and the great-great-grandson of Henry Parkes, politician and journalist who is considered the father of the Australian Federation.[10] He has three children.[11]
Goldacre was educated at Magdalen College School, Oxford.[12] He studied medicine at the University of Oxford as a student of Magdalen College, Oxford, where he obtained a first-class Bachelor of Arts honours degree during his preclinical studies in 1995 in Physiological Sciences.[13] He edited the Oxford student magazine, Isis.[14]
Goldacre was a visiting researcher in cognitive neuroscience at the University of Milan, working on functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) brain scans of language and executive function. Following his studies at the Universities of Oxford and Milan, Goldacre studied clinical medicine at UCL Medical School, qualifying as a medical doctor in 2000 with a Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery (MB, BS) degree.[15] He also received a Master of Arts degree in philosophy from King's College London in 1997.[16] [17]
Career and research
Scientific career
Goldacre passed the Member of the Royal College of Psychiatrists (MRCPsych) Part II examinations in December 2005 and became a member of the Royal College of Psychiatrists.[18] He was made a research fellow at the Institute of Psychiatry in London in 2008,[19] and a Guardian research fellow at Nuffield College, Oxford, in 2009.[20]
In 2012, Goldacre was appointed a Wellcome Trust research fellow in Epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine.[21] [22] [23] [24]
In 2015, Goldacre moved to the Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences's Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine at the University of Oxford, joining a project funded by a grant from the Laura and John Arnold Foundation.[25] In 2022, he became the first Bennett Professor of Evidence-Based Medicine and director of Oxford's newly-established Bennett Institute for Applied Data Science.
As of 2016, according to Scopus and Google Scholar his most cited articles[26] have been published in NeuroReport,[27] the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology, the British Medical Journal,[28] The Lancet,[29] and PLOS ONE.[30]
In 2020, Goldacre was, with Liam Smeeth, the principal investigator of the OpenSAFELY collaboration which created a software platform to analyse the records of 24 million NHS patients to provide detailed risk factors for hospital deaths from COVID-19.
"Bad Science" Guardian column and blog
Goldacre was known for his weekly column, "Bad Science", which ran in the Saturday edition of The Guardian from 2003[31] until November 2011.[32] The column largely concerned pseudoscience and the misuse of science. Topics discussed included marketing, the media, quackery, problems with the pharmaceutical industry, and its relationship with medical journals.[33] [34] [35]
Goldacre has criticised anti-immunisation campaigners (particularly followers of Andrew Wakefield such as Melanie Phillips[36] and Jeni Barnett),[37] Brain Gym,[38] bogus positive MRSA swab stories in tabloid newspapers,[39] publication bias,[40] and the makers of the product Penta Water.[41]
He has been a particularly harsh critic of the nutritionist Gillian McKeith.[42] While investigating McKeith's membership of the American Association of Nutritional Consultants, Goldacre obtained a professional membership on behalf of his late cat, Henrietta, from the same institution for $60.[43] In February 2007, McKeith agreed to stop using the title "Doctor" in her advertising, following a complaint to the Advertising Standards Authority by a "Bad Science" reader.[44] In an interview with Richard Saunders of the podcast Skeptic Zone, Goldacre said, "Nutritionists are particularly toxic because they are the alternative therapists who, more than any other, misrepresent themselves as being men and women of science."[45]
In 2008, Matthias Rath, a vitamin entrepreneur, sued Goldacre and The Guardian over three articles,[46] [47] [48] in which Goldacre criticised Rath's promotion of vitamin pills to AIDS sufferers in South African townships. Rath dropped his action in September 2008 and was ordered to pay initial costs of £220,000 to The Guardian.[49] As of September 2008, the paper was seeking full costs of £500,000, and Goldacre had expressed an interest in writing a book about Rath and South Africa, as a chapter on the subject had to be cut from his book while the litigation proceeded.[50] The chapter was reinstated in a later edition of the book, and also published online in 2009.[51] Goldacre continues to cite Rath as a proponent of harmful pseudoscience.[52]
Andrew Wakefield
See main article: Lancet MMR autism fraud. Although challenging Andrew Wakefield's views about immunisation, Goldacre repeatedly defended Wakefield against an investigation by The Sunday Times into Wakefield's fraudulent 1998 paper in The Lancet, prompting criticism from the newspaper's reporter Brian Deer.[53]
Writing in The Guardian in September 2005, Goldacre argued:
The paper always was and still remains a perfectly good small case series report, but it was systematically misrepresented as being more than that, by media that are incapable of interpreting and reporting scientific data.[54]
After Wakefield's falsifications of the data came to light, Goldacre continued to lambast journalists for credulity and sensationalism:
Even if it had been immaculately well conducted - and it certainly wasn’t – Wakefield’s "case series report" of 12 children’s clinical anecdotes would never have justified the conclusion that MMR causes autism, despite what journalists claimed: it simply didn’t have big enough numbers to do so.[55]
Bad Science (2008)
See main article: Bad Science (Goldacre book). Goldacre's first book, Bad Science, was published by Fourth Estate in September 2008.[56] The book contains extended and revised versions of many of his Guardian columns. It was positively reviewed by the British Medical Journal (BMJ) and The Daily Telegraph, and reached the Top 10 bestseller list for Amazon Books.[57] It was nominated for the 2009 Samuel Johnson Prize.[58] [59] In an interview in 2008, Goldacre said that "one of the central themes" of his book [''Bad Science''] was "that there are no real differences between the $600 billion pharmaceutical industry and the $50 billion food supplement pill industry."[60]
Bad Pharma (2012)
His second book, Bad Pharma: How Drug Companies Mislead Doctors and Harm Patients, was published in the UK in September 2012 and in the United States and Canada in February 2013.[61] In the book he argues that:
Drugs are tested by the people who manufacture them, in poorly designed trials, on hopelessly small numbers of weird, unrepresentative patients, and analysed using techniques which are flawed by design, in such a way that they exaggerate the benefits of treatments. Unsurprisingly, these trials tend to produce results that favour the manufacturer. When trials throw up results that companies don't like, they are perfectly entitled to hide them from doctors and patients, so we only ever see a distorted picture of any drug's true effects. Regulators see most of the trial data, but only from early on in a drug's life, and even then they don't give this data to doctors or patients, or even to other parts of government. This distorted evidence is then communicated and applied in a distorted fashion. In their forty years of practice after leaving medical school, doctors hear about what works through ad hoc oral traditions, from sales reps, colleagues or journals. But those colleagues can be in the pay of drug companies – often undisclosed – and the journals are too. And so are the patient groups. And finally, academic papers, which everyone thinks of as objective, are often covertly planned and written by people who work directly for the companies, without disclosure.[62]
Other journalism, writing and appearances
Goldacre contributed to The Atheist's Guide to Christmas (2009), a charity book featuring essays and anecdotes from 42 well-known atheists and apatheists, on the subject of "the power of ideas".[63] He describes himself as an apatheist.[64] He also wrote the foreword to a reissue of Testing Treatments: Better Research for Better Healthcare by Imogen Evans, Hazel Thornton, Iain Chalmers and Paul Glasziou, published by Pinter & Martin in March 2010. He has had several articles published in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) on the MMR vaccine,[65] science journalism,[66] [67] and related topics.[68] [69]
In June 2012, he collaborated with the Behavioural Insights Team of the UK government on a policy paper on the use of randomised controlled trials,[70] and in May 2013, he wrote the foreword to the 'Official Guidebook' of the Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch Railway.[71] In March 2014, he worked on a systematic review of the side effects of statins compared with placebos, published in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology.[72] Although many newspapers that covered the review said that it found that statins have "virtually no side effects",[73] Goldacre criticized this coverage as inaccurate. For example, he noted that the study relied on data from trial reports, which are likely to be incomplete.[74]
Several of Goldacre's articles were assembled into the October 2014 release I Think You'll Find It's a Bit More Complicated Than That.[75] [76]
He was appointed Chair of the NHS HealthTech Advisory Board by Matt Hancock in September 2018.[77]
Goldacre has also appeared on Geoff Marshall's YouTube channel expressing his love for railways during an episode about the least used station in Oxfordshire, Finstock.
Awards and honours
Goldacre has won several awards including:
External links
Notes and References
- Web site: Anon. 2016. Ben Michael Goldacre, Date of birth May 1974. https://web.archive.org/web/20160811053309/https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/officers/8Wh57v8uUiBlJAR4JAYhIWrAGxg/appointments. 11 August 2016. Companies House. London.
- News: Oxford launches new Bennett Institute for Applied Data Science and Ben Goldacre announced as the first Bennett Professor of Evidence-Based Medicine . Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences . . 23 March 2022 . 23 March 2022.
- Goldacre. Ben. Make journals report clinical trials properly. Nature. 530. 7588. 2016. 7. 10.1038/530007a. 26842021. 2016Natur.530....7G. free.
- Slade. Eirion. Drysdale. Henry. Goldacre. Ben. Discrepancies Between Prespecified and Reported Outcomes. Annals of Internal Medicine. 164. 5. 2015. 374. 10.7326/L15-0614. 26720309. 207537735.
- http://www.economist.com/node/21563689 "Pick your pill out of a hat"
- Web site: Statins Ben Goldacre Macmillan. US Macmillan. en-US. 4 April 2019.
- Web site: Event – Ben Goldacre: I Think You'll Find it's a Bit More Complicated Than That.
- Book Reviews: Bad Science, by Ben Goldacre. Ian Fairlie. Medicine, Conflict and Survival . 25 . 3 . 255–257. 2009 . 10.1080/13623690902943552. 220378364.
- News: Was 1976 pop's worst year? Yes – and this singer was one of the culprits. Petridis. Alexis. 29 May 2011. The Guardian.
- Web site: The Science Show. ABC Radio National. 3 November 2008. 28 October 2008.
- Web site: We blew a car tire in remote bit of Cheddar Gorge last week when a drongo drove at us on the wrong side of the road. Couldn't repair. No phone signal. 3 young kids. Covid. Lovely family stopped and spent an hour driving to signal, phoning AA for us, etc. Lovely people are lovely.. 2020-08-21. Twitter. en.
- Web site: Famous Old Waynfletes. 2009. Magdalen College School. 21 February 2011. dead. https://web.archive.org/web/20110306133617/http://www.oldwaynfletes.org/page/FJ. 6 March 2011.
- Web site: Ben Goldacre profile at. https://web.archive.org/web/20070208152026/http://www.pfd.co.uk/clients/goldben/a-pre.html. 8 February 2007. Peters Fraser Dunlop.
- Web site: About Dr Ben Goldacre. https://web.archive.org/web/20080925151700/http://www.badscience.net/?page_id=4. 25 September 2008. Goldacre. Ben. 14 August 2008.
- Web site: List of Registered Medical Practitioners (The online Register). General Medical Council. 4 October 2011.
- Web site: Ben Goldacre profile. https://web.archive.org/web/20070208152026/http://www.pfd.co.uk/clients/goldben/a-pre.html. 8 February 2007. Peters Fraser Dunlop.
- Web site: My philosophy: Ben Goldacre. https://web.archive.org/web/20100522101326/http://www.philosophypress.co.uk/?p=1255. 22 May 2010. Baggini. Julian. Julian Baggini. 19 May 2010. TPM: The Philosophers’ Magazine.
- Web site: MRCPsych part II examination – Autumn 2005 . https://web.archive.org/web/20110609002815/http://www.rcpsych.ac.uk/exams/results/partii-autumn2005.aspx . 9 June 2011 . . 15 December 2005.
- Web site: Staff list . 14 August 2008 . . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20110525002254/http://www.iop.kcl.ac.uk/staff/profile/default.aspx?go=11920 . 25 May 2011 .
- Nuffield College Annual Report: Academic Report 2008–2009 . 2009 . Nuffield College, Oxford . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20110719072142/http://www.nuffield.ox.ac.uk/general/report/2009/AnnualReport%200809.pdf . 19 July 2011 .
- Web site: About Dr Ben Goldacre. badscience.net.
- Kmietowicz. Z.. Health minister agrees to meet academics to discuss access to clinical trial data. BMJ. 345. oct23 4. 2012. e7168. 10.1136/bmj.e7168. 23093027. 32288096.
- 22315246. 3934788. 2012. Staa. T. P.. Pragmatic randomised trials using routine electronic health records: Putting them to the test. BMJ (Clinical Research Ed.). 344. e55. Goldacre. B. Gulliford. M. Cassell. J. Pirmohamed. M. Taweel. A. Delaney. B. Smeeth. L. 10.1136/bmj.e55.
- Haynes, Laura; Service, Owain; Goldacre, Ben; Torgerson, David. "Test, Learn, Adapt: Developing Public Policy with Randomised Controlled Trials", cabinetoffice.gov.uk, Cabinet Office Behavioural Insights Team (UK), June 2012.
- News: Ben Goldacre joins Oxford University. https://web.archive.org/web/20160324051610/http://www.phc.ox.ac.uk/news/ben-goldacre-joins-oxford-university/. 24 March 2016. ox.ac.uk. Anon. 2015.
- Ben Goldacre's
- Paulesu. Eraldo. Goldacre. Ben. Scifo. Paola. Cappa. Stefano F.. Gilardi. Maria Carla. Castiglioni. Isabella. Perani. Daniela. Fazio. Ferruccio. Functional heterogeneity of left inferior frontal cortex as revealed by fMRI. NeuroReport. 8. 8. 1997. 2011–2016. 10.1097/00001756-199705260-00042. 9223094. 36743764.
- Staa. T.-P. v.. Goldacre. B.. Gulliford. M.. Cassell. J.. Pirmohamed. M.. Taweel. A.. Delaney. B.. Smeeth. L.. Pragmatic randomised trials using routine electronic health records: putting them to the test. BMJ. 344. feb07 1. 2012. e55. 0959-8138. 10.1136/bmj.e55. 22315246. 3934788.
- Goldacre. Ben. Benefits and risks of homoeopathy. The Lancet. 370. 9600. 2007. 1672–1673. 0140-6736. 10.1016/S0140-6736(07)61706-1. 18022024. 43588927.
- van der Brug. Marcel P.. Rooney. James. Byrne. Susan. Heverin. Mark. Corr. Bernie. Elamin. Marwa. Staines. Anthony. Goldacre. Ben. Hardiman. Orla. Survival Analysis of Irish Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis Patients Diagnosed from 1995–2010. PLOS ONE. 8. 9. 2013. e74733. 10.1371/journal.pone.0074733. 24098664. 3786977. 2013PLoSO...874733R. free.
- News: Bad Science (weekly column). Goldacre, Ben . The Guardian . 27 July 2007.
- News: What eight years of writing the Bad Science column have taught me. Goldacre, Ben. The Guardian. 24 February 2015.
- Goldacre, Ben. (2008). A quick fix would stop drug firms bending the truth, The Guardian.
- Goldacre, Ben. (2008). The danger of drugs … and data. The Guardian.
- News: Don't dumb me down. Goldacre. Ben. The Guardian. 8 September 2005.
- Web site: The MMR sceptic who just doesn't understand science. Badscience.net. 2 November 2005. 17 October 2013.
- Web site: Goldacre. Ben. Bad Science Bingo, with Jeni Barnett. Bad Science. 3 February 2009.
- News: Exercise the brain without this transparent nonsense. Goldacre. Ben. The Guardian. 25 March 2006.
- News: How many microbiologists does it take to change a tabloid story?. Goldacre. Ben. The Guardian . 19 November 2005.
- Goldacre, Ben (2008). Missing in action: the trials that did not make the news. The Guardian.
- News: Troubled water. Goldacre. Ben. The Guardian. 10 February 2005.
- News: Brought to book: the poo lady's PhD. Goldacre. Ben. The Guardian. 7 February 2007.
- News: Dr Gillian McKeith (PhD) continued. Goldacre. Ben. The Guardian. 30 September 2004. 27 July 2015.
- News: TV dietician to stop using title "Dr" in adverts. Gibson. Owen. The Guardian. 12 February 2007.
- Web site: Saunders. Richard. Richard Saunders (skeptic). The Skeptic Zone #16. 6 February 2009. The Skeptic Zone. 14 May 2014.
- https://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/jan/20/southafrica.aids No way to treat an Aids hero
- https://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/jan/27/aids.badscience 'Gambia's president may be weird, but Aids superstitions strike closer to home’
- https://www.theguardian.com/science/2007/feb/17/badscience.uknews 'How money is not the only barrier to Aids patients getting hold of drugs’
- News: Fall of the doctor who said his vitamins would cure Aids. Sarah. Boseley . The Guardian. 13 September 2008.
- Web site: Matthias Rath drops his million pound legal case against me and the Guardian. Goldacre. Ben. 12 September 2008. badscience.net. 13 September 2008.
- Goldacre, Ben. Matthias Rath – steal this chapter, badscience.net, 9 April 2009.
- Web site: Saunders. Richard. Richard Saunders (skeptic). The Skeptic Zone #16 – 06.Feb.2009. The Skeptic Zone. 14 May 2014. There are bad things happening in medicine and academia but people talk about them, people criticize them, you know, and in the world of alternative therapies, you can be as far out as Matthias Rath and nobody will say a word..
- News: The medical establishment shielded Andrew Wakefield from fraud claims . The Guardian . Deer B . 12 January 2011 . 2021-08-05.
- News: Don't dumb me down . The Guardian (reprinted at badscience.net) . Goldacre B . 8 September 2005 . 2021-08-05.
- Web site: The Wakefield MMR verdict. Goldacre B. 2022-11-01.
- Book: Goldacre, Ben. Bad Science. 2008. Fourth Estate. 978-0-00-724019-7. 259713114.
- Smith. Richard. 1 October 2008. Becoming Ben. BMJ. 337. 337. a1856. 10.1136/bmj.a1856. 220115523.
- Web site: Goldacre. Ben. Bad Science (Fourth Estate). Samuel Johnson Prize. 24 June 2013. https://web.archive.org/web/20150716114351/http://www.thesamueljohnsonprize.co.uk/node/33. 16 July 2015. dead.
- News: Review: Bad Science by Ben Goldacre. Lake. Ed. 26 September 2008. The Daily Telegraph.
- http://www.abc.net.au/rn/scienceshow/stories/2008/2413704.htm Ben Goldacre interviewed
- https://www.theguardian.com/business/2012/sep/21/drugs-industry-scandal-ben-goldacre "The drugs don't work: a modern medical scandal"
- Bad Pharma, p. xi.
- http://www.atheistbus.org.uk/the-atheists-guide-to-christmas-aka-the-atheist-book-campaign Atheist Bus – Official Website » The Atheist's Guide To Christmas (AKA The Atheist Book Campaign)
- Five Minutes With: Ben Goldacre. BBC. 8 September 2012.
- Goldacre . B.. MMR: The scare stories are back. 10.1136/bmj.39280.447419.59. BMJ. 335. 7611. 126–127. 2007. 17634177. 1925159.
- Goldacre . B.. How doctors can get behind the headlines. 10.1136/bmj.39160.566285.47. BMJ. 334. 7594. 613. 2007. 17379907. 1832019.
- Goldacre . B.. Journalists: Anything to declare?. 10.1136/bmj.39328.450000.59. BMJ. 335. 7618. 480. 2007. 17823189. 1971144.
- Goldacre . B.. Behold the Christmas miracle of antioxidants. 10.1136/bmj.39413.403750.59. BMJ. 335. 7630. 1124. 2007. 18048537. 2099529.
- Goldacre . B.. Beware of mentioning psychosocial factors. 10.1136/bmj.39370.657130.59. BMJ. 335. 7624. 801. 2007. 17947783. 2034685.
- https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/test-learn-adapt-developing-public-policy-with-randomised-controlled-trials Test, Learn, Adapt: Developing Public Policy with Randomised Controlled Trials
- Web site: Here's my… foreword to the Romney Hythe and Dymchurch Railway guidebook – Bad Science.
- Finegold. J. A.. Manisty, C.H.. Goldacre, B.. Barron, A.J.. Francis, D.P.. What proportion of symptomatic side effects in patients taking statins are genuinely caused by the drug? Systematic review of randomized placebo-controlled trials to aid individual patient choice. European Journal of Preventive Cardiology. 12 March 2014. 21. 4 . 464–474. 10.1177/2047487314525531. 24623264. 21064267. free.
- News: Statins have virtually no side-effects, study finds. https://web.archive.org/web/20140313045929/http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/10693895/Statins-have-virtually-no-side-effects-study-finds.html. dead. 13 March 2014. The Daily Telegraph. 13 March 2014. 27 March 2014. Sarah. Knapton.
- Web site: Goldacre. Ben. Statins have no side effects? What our study really found, its fixable flaws, and why trials transparency matters (again). Badscience.net. 13 March 2014. 27 March 2014.
- Book: Goldacre, Ben. I Think You'll Find It's a Bit More Complicated Than That. 978-0007462483. 2014. Fourth Estate .
- Web site: Meet the anti-Dr. Oz: Ben Goldacre. vox.com. Julia. Belluz. 2014 .
- News: Hancock sets up multiskilled HealthTech Advisory Board chaired by Ben Goldacre . 11 January 2019 . National Health Executive . 7 September 2018.
- News: Never mind the facts. Goldacre. Ben. The Guardian. 11 December 2003.
- News: Don't dumb me down. Goldacre. Ben. The Guardian. 8 September 2005.
- Web site: MJA News October/November 2006. Medical Journalists Association. 2006. 14 August 2008.
- CSI's Robert P. Balles Award Goes to 'Guardian 'Bad Science' Columnist Ben Goldacre. Skeptical Inquirer. 2007. 31. 5. 13.
- Web site: Anon. 2007. 2007 Award for statistical excellence in journalism. Royal Statistical Society. 14 August 2008. https://web.archive.org/web/20120424042757/http://www.rss.org.uk/site/cms/contentviewarticle.asp?article=522. 24 April 2012. rss.org.uk.
- News: When the facts get in the way of a story. Goldacre. Ben. The Guardian. 1 April 2006.
- http://www.news.hw.ac.uk/news/4586-Heriot_Watt_University_Graduations_Honorary_Graduates Heriot-Watt University Graduations: Honorary Graduates
- http://www.lboro.ac.uk/service/publicity/news-releases/2010/109_Hon-Degs-Summer.html Loughborough University News and Events: Honorary Graduates
- Web site: New Year 2018 – Queens List – Final . gov.uk . UK Government. 30 December 2017 .