Goldacre cont. : [ Skeptics against natural health care exposed]

[Sara Klein Ridgley, Ph.D.]

------ Forwarded Message

The UK Alliance for Health just sent out this information: -

US citizens and others have had to deal for many years with Stephen Barrett
MD, the now discredited, self-appointed quackbuster that has had the
majority of leading protagonists of alternative medicine in his sights at
one time or another.

The UK has its own variant of Stephen Barrett. His name is Ben Goldacre and
he has yet to be sidelined. Who better to take him on than award-winning
journalist and author, Martin Walker, author of classics such as his 1993
exposée"Dirty medicine: Science, big business and the assault on natural
health care."

Martin has released, free of charge, for download from today at
www.slingshotpublications.com , his
assault on Ben Goldacre. Download all 280 pages of it today!! Also available
from the same website is Martin Walker's last book, with foreword by ANH's
Dr Robert Verkerk, "The Fate of a Good Man", which details the
criminalisation of Jim Wright following his sale of vitamins after being set
up by the UK's drug regulator and public broadcaster.

Following is some more detail direct from the publisher about these two
pieces of essential reading for all those concerned about some of the most
salient challenges to natural health. Please get the word out as widely as
you can - forward this email to anyone you know who might be interested.
Thank you.

Cultural Dwarfs and Junk Journalism is Martin Walker‚s fourth book charting
the development of the corporate science lobby that has grown rapidly since
New Labour came to power in 1997. One of the most recent exponents of the
Lobby is Dr Ben Goldacre who has regurgitated a bad ŒScience‚ column in the
Guardian newspaper since 2003.

Like other quackbusters Goldacre claims to write factually based and
scientifically accurate articles about health, medicine and science either
supporting scientists and doctors or criticising individuals involved in
alternative or nutritional health care. Goldacre‚s writing, however,
actually reflects the ideology of powerful industrial, technological and
political vested interests.

Goldacre who it is claimed is a Junior doctor working in a London NHS
hospital is actually a clinical researcher working at the centre of New
Labour‚s Orwellian spin operation that puts a sympathetic gloss on anything
shown to create adverse reactions from MMR to Wi-Fi, while at the same time
undermining cost-effective and long tried alternative therapies such as
acupuncture and homoeopathy. Goldacre is involved with public health
researchers well known for trying to prove that those who claim to be
adversely affected by pollutants in our modern high-technology society,
suffer from Œfalse illness beliefs‚.

Cultural Dwarfs and Junk Journalism, investigates Goldacre‚s role in
industry lobby groups and puts another point of view in defense of some of
the people whom he has attacked, belittled, satirized, castigated, vilified,
maligned and opined against in his junk journalism.
* * *
Cultural Dwarfs and Junk Journalism: Ben Goldacre, quackbusting and
corporate science, is available from the Slingshot Publications web site as
a free download, from mid-day on Wednesday January 2nd.

To be effective as a campaigning document, it is important that this book is
distributed far and wide as quickly as possible. Please forward this
publication information together with the Slingshot Publications web site
address. Another thing that will help with the book‚s distribution is the
writing of even very short reviews for different web sites, this helps get
the book onto Google listings.

This book is free and can be downloaded from the Slingshot Publications
site: www.slingshotpublications.com
. Please distribute it as widely as possible and if you think that the work
is worth it, consider making a small donation. Also on the Slingshot site,
is Martin Walker‚s last book, The Fate of a Good Man. The book tells the
story of Jim Wright, the investigation into him, his prosecution and trial
by the Big Pharma regulatory agency, the MHRA. A good read at £5.00.
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