Ben Goldacre

Ben Goldacre MRCPsych
Speaking at TAM London, October 2009
Born	1974
Alma mater	Magdalen College, Oxford (BA), UCL Medical School (MB, BS), King's College London (MA)
Occupation	Psychiatrist and science writer
Known for	Bad Science
Parents	Michael Goldacre Noosha Fox

Ben Michael Goldacre born 1974 is a British science writer, doctor and psychiatrist. He is the author of The Guardian newspaper's Bad Science column and a book of the same title, published by Fourth Estate in September 2008.

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, the nephew of science journalist Robyn Williams, and the great-great-grandson of Sir Henry Parkes.

Academic career

Goldacre was educated at Magdalen College School, Oxford then studied medicine at Magdalen College, Oxford where he obtained a first class degree in his preclinical studies in 1995. While at Oxford he also edited the student magazine Isis. He was a visiting researcher in cognitive neuroscience at the University of Milan, working on fMRI brain scans of language and executive function, and then he went on to study clinical medicine at UCL Medical School and qualified as a medical doctor in 2000. He received a master's degree in philosophy (funded by the British Academy) from King's College London. He passed the MRCPsych Part II examinations in December 2005 and became a member of the Royal College of Psychiatrists. In 2008 he was a research fellow at the Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London. As of November 2009, Goldacre is a psychiatric registrar and Guardian research fellow at Nuffield College, Oxford.

Bad Science column

Until a hiatus in November 2011, Goldacre wrote a weekly column, Bad Science, in the Saturday edition of The Guardian newspaper, and published expanded versions of the columns with reader comments on his website badscience.net. Devoted to criticism of scientific inaccuracy, health scares, pseudoscience and quackery, the column focuses especially on examples from the mass media, consumer product marketing, problems with the pharmaceutical industry and its relationship to medical journals, and complementary and alternative medicine in Britain.

He has been a particular critic of the claims of television nutritionist Gillian McKeith, anti-immunisation campaigners (particularly followers of Andrew Wakefield such as Melanie Phillips and Jeni Barnett), Brain Gym, bogus positive MRSA swab stories in tabloids, SSRI antidepressants, publication bias, and the makers of the product Penta Water. 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. 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.

In 2008, vitamin entrepreneur Matthias Rath sued Goldacre and The Guardian over three articles 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. 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. The chapter was reinstated in a later edition of the book, and also published online.

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

Books

Goldacre's book Bad Science was published by Fourth Estate in September 2008. The book contains extended and revised versions of many of his Guardian columns. It has been positively reviewed by the BMJ and Daily Telegraph and has reached the Top 10 bestseller list for Amazon Books. In an interview in 2008, Goldacre stated 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".

Goldacre has also contributed to The Atheist's Guide to Christmas, a charity book featuring essays and anecdotes from 42 well-known atheists, on the subject of "the power of ideas." 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, science journalism and related topics.

He is writing The Drug Pushers, a book about "the misuse of evidence by the pharmaceutical industry", due for publication in 2012.

Awards

Goldacre has won several awards for his journalism, including:

• Association of British Science Writers award for Best Feature 2003 for his article "Never mind the facts"
• Association of British Science Writers award for Best Feature 2005 for his article "Don't dumb me down"
• Freelance of 2006 at the Medical Journalism Awards
• The inaugural Statistical Excellence In Journalism Award of the Royal Statistical Society for his article "When the facts get in the way of a story"
• the HealthWatch Award for "significant steps in improving the public's understanding of health issues"
• 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."
• Honorary Doctor of Science at Loughborough University (July 2010) "in recognition of his outstanding contribution to science and journalism"

External links

• Bad Science - Goldacre's website (main blog, with Guardian columns and forum)
  • bengoldacre.posterous.com - Goldacre's additional blog
  • @bengoldacre - Goldacre's Twitter page
• Radio interviews and podcasts:
  • 23 December 2005, Resonance FM's Little Atoms
  • 3 October 2008, Resonance FM's Little Atoms
  • 1 November 2008, ABC Radio National's The Science Show
  • Pulse Project podcast, 12 May 2009, Skeptics in the Pub Oxford
• Video
  • Standup on the placebo effect at Nerdstock, December 2009