Ben Goldacre
Speaking at TAM London, October 2009
Born	1974[1]
Nationality	British
Alma mater	BA, Magdalen College, Oxford MB, BS, UCL Medical School (2000) MA, philosophy, King's College London MRCPsych (2005)
Occupation	Physician, science writer
Known for	Bad Science (2008), Bad Pharma (2012)
Parents	Michael Goldacre Noosha Fox
Awards	Association of British Science Writers award for best feature, 2003 and 2005 Honorary Doctor of Science, Heriot-Watt University (2009) Honorary Doctor of Science, Loughborough University (2010)
Website
badscience.net

Ben Michael Goldacre (born 1974) is a British physician, academic and science writer. As of 2012 he is Wellcome research fellow in epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.^[2]

Goldacre is known in particular for his "Bad Science" column in The Guardian, and is the author of two books, Bad Science (2008), a critique of irrationality and certain forms of alternative medicine, and Bad Pharma (2012), an examination of the pharmaceutical industry, its publishing and marketing practices, and its relationship with the medical profession.^[3]

Background [edit]

Early life and education [edit]

Goldacre is the son of Australians Michael Goldacre, professor of public health at the University of Oxford, and the pop singer Susan Traynor, aka Noosha Fox.^[4] He is the nephew of science journalist Robyn Williams, and the great-great-grandson of Sir Henry Parkes.^[5]

He was educated at Magdalen College School, Oxford.^[6] He studied medicine at Magdalen College, Oxford, where he obtained a first-class honours degree in his preclinical studies in 1995.^[7] He also edited the Oxford student magazine, Isis.^[8] He was a visiting researcher in cognitive neuroscience at the University of Milan, working on fMRI brain scans of language and executive function, and went on to study clinical medicine at University College, London Medical School qualifying as a medical doctor in 2000.^[9] He also received an MA in philosophy from King's College London.^[10]

Medical and academic career [edit]

Goldacre passed the MRCPsych Part II examinations in December 2005 and became a member of the Royal College of Psychiatrists.^[11] He was a research fellow at the Institute of Psychiatry in London in 2008,^{[12][dead link]} and a Guardian research fellow at Nuffield College, Oxford in 2009.^[13] As of 2012 he is Wellcome research fellow in epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.^[2]

Writing [edit]

"Bad Science" column [edit]

Goldacre is known for his weekly column, "Bad Science," in the Saturday edition of The Guardian, which he started in 2003.^[14] Devoted to criticism of scientific inaccuracy, health scares and pseudoscience, the column focuses the media, marketing, problems with the pharmaceutical industry, and its relationship with medical journals and alternative-medicine practitioners.^[15]

He has been a particular critic of the claims of television nutritionist Gillian McKeith,^[16] anti-immunisation campaigners (particularly followers of Andrew Wakefield such as Melanie Phillips^{[citation needed]} and Jeni Barnett),^[17] Brain Gym,^[18] bogus positive MRSA swab stories in tabloid newspapers,^[19] publication bias,^[20] and the makers of the product Penta Water.^[21] While investigating McKeith's membership of the American Association of Nutritional Consultants, Goldacre purchased a "certified professional membership" on behalf of his late cat, Henrietta, from the same institution for $60.^[22] In February 2007 McKeith agreed to stop using the title "Dr" in her advertising, following a complaint to the Advertising Standards Authority by a "Bad Science" reader.^[23]

In 2008, vitamin entrepreneur Matthias Rath sued Goldacre and The Guardian over three articles,^[24] in which Goldacre criticised Rath's promotion of vitamin pills to AIDS sufferers in South African townships.^[25] Rath dropped his action in September 2008 and was ordered to pay initial costs of £220,000 to The Guardian.^[25] The paper is seeking full costs of £500,000, and Goldacre has 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.^[26] The chapter was reinstated in a later edition of the book, and also published online.^[27]

In his spare time, Goldacre frequently delivers free talks about bad science—he describes himself as a "nerd evangelist."^[2]

Bad Science (2008) [edit]

Goldacre's book Bad Science was published by Fourth Estate in September 2008.^[28] 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.^[29] It was nominated for the 2009 Samuel Johnson Prize.^[30][31] In an interview in 2008, Goldacre said that "one of the central themes of my book [Bad Science] is that there are no real differences between the $600 billion pharmaceutical industry and the $50 billion food supplement pill industry."^[32]

Bad Pharma (2012) [edit]

His second book, Bad Pharma: How Drug Companies Mislead Doctors and Harm Patients, was published in the UK in September 2012 and will be published in the United States and Canada in January 2013.^[33] 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.^[34]

Other writing [edit]

Goldacre also 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."^[35] Goldacre describes himself as an apatheist.^[36] He also wrote the foreword to the reprint edition 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,^[37] science journalism,^[38][39] and related topics.^[40][41]

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.^[42]

Awards [edit]

Goldacre has won several awards for his journalism, including:

• Association of British Science Writers award for Best Feature 2003^[43] for his article "Never mind the facts"^[44]
• Association of British Science Writers award for Best Feature 2005^[45] for his article "Don't dumb me down"^[46]
• Freelance of 2006 at the Medical Journalism Awards^[47]
• The inaugural Statistical Excellence In Journalism Award of the Royal Statistical Society^[48] for his article "When the facts get in the way of a story"^[49]
• the HealthWatch Award for "significant steps in improving the public's understanding of health issues"^[50]
• Honorary Doctor of Science at Heriot-Watt University (June 2009) "in recognition of his outstanding contribution to scientific journalism and in the promotion of public engagement with and greater understanding of science."^[51]
• Honorary Doctor of Science at Loughborough University (July 2010) "in recognition of his outstanding contribution to science and journalism"^[52]

References [edit]

External links [edit]

• badscience.net, Goldacre's website.
• "Bad Science", Goldacre's column for The Guardian.
• @bengoldacre, Goldacre's Twitter page
• ABC Radio National's The Science Show, 1 November 2008 (radio show with Goldacre)
• Pulse Project podcast, 12 May 2009, Skeptics in the Pub Oxford (radio show with Goldacre)
• Standup on the placebo effect at Nerdstock, December 2009 (video)