Ben Goldacre comprehensively fisks Gillian McKeith…
In fact, I don’t care what kind of squabbles McKeith wants to engage in over the technicalities of whether a non-accredited correspondence-course PhD from the US entitles you, by the strictest letter of the law, to call yourself “doctor”: to me, nobody can be said to have a meaningful qualification in any biology-related subject if they make the same kind of basic mistakes made by McKeith.
Not an article by McKeith, but her entire career.
Just read and enjoy…
(via Mr Eugenides)
UPDATE: More detail here – http://www.badscience.net/?p=362
Oh dear.
Looks interesting, I’ll follow the link.
In a way, I understand her wanting to use the ‘Dr’ title, as PhD holders are entitled, anyway. But surely she should have realised that when she’s giving health-reated advice, people are bound to be misled into thinking that she is a medical doctor.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. If people are stupid enough to fall for something, they deserve to be ripped off.
A cynical view: people in general don’t really listen to what their doctors tell them, anyway, so perhaps there’s not much to worry about in that regard.
Mr Goldacre has considerably enlightened me: i, like the rest of the general public, was always under the impression that Mrs McKeith actually knew what she was talking about.
Thank god some papers are reporting on worthwhile matters such as this, rather than what David Cameron did when he was 15. I mean, which one has greater consequences for public health??
In common with Doctor Reid, she sees her job as scaring the shit out of people.