Bias, bias everywhere


  • Headache…..toxic colon
  • Anxiety…toxic colon
  • Stomach pain…toxic colon… obviously
  • Cramps…toxic colon, etc. etc.








To quote from the New York Times:





The shortest summary of his research is, as follows:









The decline of honesty in science




Bruce Charlton: Professor of Theoretical Medicine

So, what can be done?

23 thoughts on “Bias, bias everywhere

  1. tess

    Sackett and those like him need to remember that when sincere seekers after truth withdraw from the arena, the only ones left will be the manipulative, egotistical liars — how will that help the state of Science?

    1. Dr. Malcolm Kendrick Post author

      It won’t. However, the truth is like a Cathedral, it takes many generations to build. We may never see it completed in our lifetime, but that doesn’t matter. We have a duty to the generations as yet unborn to build it for them. Let the liars lie, and smile.

  2. Catherine Reynolds

    My grandmother had all her teeth removed when she was in her 50s. This was because she had arthritis. Apparently, this was a common thing to do then, but how the teeth might possibly have been the cause of her arthritis is a difficult one! I remember, even as a very young child, thinking that this was bizarre. I am constantly horrified at the trumpeting headlines on the news almost every day, stating some hideous-sounding figures regarding this cancer, or that heart condition, and how such and such a food, alone, is responsible for so many people contracting it. Still, we have the cholesterol lie thrust at us, despite new evidence emerging all the time showing up the myth for what it is. People are led to believe that if their blood cholesterol figure is shown to be above 5, they are likely to drop dead within weeks. It seems to me that anything that debunks something that has been touted as truth is shouted down as loudly as possible, and what bothers me is that it often seems to be members of the medical profession (your goodself excepted, of course). My husband was prescribed Atorvastatin, even though his cholesterol levels had been shown to be below 4, following a minor heart attack 18 months ago. They were below 4 before he had the heart attack, so I think that makes the point that “high” cholesterol is not necessarily a pointer to heart disease. The statins made him feel ill, full of aches and pains, no energy, general feeling of malaise, so he stopped taking them. Within 48 hours, he was back to his normal self. We should be told the truth, not what “scientists” feel we ought to know, and scientific studies should be truly independent, and the results clearly presented.

  3. Sue Richardson

    I sincerely hope that there are others like you, Dr K who are willing to speak up and hopefully expose this deception. I also hope there are others to whom you can pass the baton when you shuffle off this mortal coil (frightening thought, but it has to be faced!). The future for science looks bleak unless there are new young scientists who will think for themselves rather than idol-worshipping an older generation of men and women who would rather uphold their dubious ‘reputations’ than the truth.

  4. Wendy

    It is a David and Goliath situation. Thanks to you, Dr Malcolm and brave young scientists like you for taking up a sling shot on our behalf.

      1. celia

        Well, you’re a lot younger than Uffe Ravnskov, Kilmer McCully and Duane Graveline. Their persistence is wonderful. We need you, and we also need younger doctors who ask questions and seek the truth, which seems well hidden. I stopped statins 2 months ago following memory problems and muscle problems. More power to your elbow!

  5. amieres

    Can there be “independent science”?
    It seems like control by big institutions and big money is what warps the incentive structure for scientists or potential scientists who have nowhere else to go and have to conform.

  6. Bill Tutte

    Great follower of yours and other websites like it. A thought, is Bariatric Surgery, the new Toxic Colon removal?

  7. eddie watts
    on bariatric surgery, turns out if you follow the post operation diet without having the operation itself.
    2000 calories over 10 days though would make you feel extremely hungry, but if you’re going to die otherwise…maybe they’ll manage it.

    of course i wonder if 1000 calories a day with zero carbs beyond leafy greens, low protein of say 100g and the rest fat might make this more achievable

    1. eddie watts

      sorry poor writing comprehension there at the start
      “turns out if you follow the post operation diet with no operation the results are the same”

    1. Dr. Malcolm Kendrick Post author

      It sounds, unfortunately, like all ‘crowds’ Once a bunch of experts get together, unanimity of opinion is demanded. If you do you agree, you are history. Money is not the only driver of this behaviour, it is hard-wired into our primitive little brains.

  8. Richard Gibbs

    So “toxic colon” still exists; just Google it to find all the sites willing to sell you a “colon cleanse”! So I wonder what caused surgeons to stop performing toxic colon surgery. Did someone show the “emperor had no clothes”, or did surgeons just discover a new lucrative surgery to perform?

    I can understand the objection to CABG based on it being too risky relative to its benefits, but can the same be said about stenting a partially blocked artery. I understand the argument that new arteries will form around the blockage, but how much discomfort is there waiting for this to happen and is it worth a stent to relieve the discomfort? I ask this question on the basis of my recent experience where I had an angioplasty following a mild heart attack. An 80-90% block of the circumflex artery was also discovered and stented. Days before the heart attack people had started to comment on my appearance, i.e. looking gray, and I had felt tired. I was less tired and “pinker” after treatment. I had also been suffering from depression prior to the heart attack but have been much less depressed since.

  9. brucecharlton


    You might be interested by one of my tussles with Prof Sackett!

    I wasted about a decade trying to engage the EBM establishment in substantive discussions about the limitations of epidemiological evidence – but they never would engage – instead working behind the scenes to sabotage their critics efforts.

    Thus it is that I put EBM into the category of Zombie science!

    1. Dr. Malcolm Kendrick Post author

      Bruce, my hero, I am honoured. You are mentioned widely in my next book (not yet published), especially your view on Zombie science and the madness of try to peer review Medical Hypotheses. I like Sackett, and respect him too, but he may beeen too certain that EBM was the one true belief. ‘But what if the evidence you are using is a crock?’

  10. niki

    Dr.Kendrick, thank you for your always informative and starkly clear posts, as well as for bringing forward others worth hearing/reading. The name of one such doctor/scientist however is misspelled above and so may prove difficult for anyone to look-up. The spelling is John Ioannidis (not Ionnadis, nor Lonnadis) 😉
    There are some good youtube videos of his presentations and debates at Stanford and elsewhere which give an overview of the problems in research ethics that his team studies.


Leave a Reply to tess Cancel reply


You are commenting using your account. Log Out /  Change )

Google photo


Twitter picture


Facebook photo


Connecting to %s