SLAMBOARD

I had never heard of Gillian McKeith until this morning. She is a Scottish TV star - here is a quote from her own website:

Gillian McKeith is the internationally acclaimed Holistic Nutritionist and presenter of You Are What You Eat hit Channel 4 series that took the nation by storm

She is a little bit extra famous, at least for today, because she had a weird hissy fit on Twitter.

There is no evidence of the debacle on her twitter account except for an easily refutable tweet implicitly denying that it is her twitter account. There is, of course, ample screen caps and links to cached pages.

Here is what happened in chronological order:

• Gillian tells a follower that the account in question is her official twitter account.
• A twitter user named Rachel tweets about an upcoming TV show that is critical of Gillian.
• Gillian finds this tweet, presumably by searching for her name on twitter search. She then proceeds to attack the user for her supposed biases and also to accuse the host of Bad Science of lying.
• The host of Bad Science replies to Gillian with a roundabout accusation of libel.
• Gillian publishes a series of tweets outlining and defending her educational credentials.
• Gillian removes all the potentially embarrassing tweets and adds a tweet suggesting that the account is not actually hers.

As an aside to the drama, the school that granted Gillian a “PhD” is now closed and is the subject of a page on Quackwatch.

Check out the Guardian for more…

When Huey Lewis released that catchy song back in 1984, people didn’t take him seriously. I think it’s time to take a long hard look at the idea. The United States Government professes to be in the middle of a War on Drugs. The enemies in this war are drugs that cause citizens to act in ways that have a negative impact on society and, by extension, the government.

Some drugs are considered allies. Caffeine is a drug and I can only imagine that it gets to sit in on strategy sessions at the White House. I have a favorite anecdote that involves the King of England shutting down coffee houses for a while back in the 1700s. The stimulating effect of this drug was making people think a lot and they were meeting in the places where it was prepared and discussing a lot of ideas that ran counter to the interests of the King. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think people gather together in crack houses to share revolutionary ideas.

Caffeine catalyzed the industrial revolution. I feel like we need some other kind of revolution at this point and maybe part of the process could be help with a new drug of choice for society. I don’t know what it should do and I don’t know how it would do it. It just seems to me that the people who ruin themselves and their surroundings because of a drug are using the wrong one.

This makes my head spin, and itch. An About.com expert recently advised people to consider using veterinary products to treat head lice. At least one commentator begged the author to take the post down.

The author has been a chemistry expert since 2001. This kind of bad advice makes me question the reliability of About.com and it has me wondering whether the site itself would be liable if some harm resulted from people following bad advice. The site has a medical review board that reviews any advice that is categorized as medical. The bad advice coming from a chemistry expert is very much medical in nature but is apparently not in the purview of this board.

EDIT: Here is the meaty part of the user agreement on About.com, I guess they are pretty much off the hook…

THE SERVICE AND THE SITES ARE PROVIDED ON AN “AS IS” BASIS WITHOUT WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF TITLE OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, OTHER THAN THOSE WARRANTIES WHICH ARE IMPOSED BY AND INCAPABLE OF EXCLUSION, RESTRICTION OR MODIFICATION UNDER THE LAWS APPLICABLE TO THIS AGREEMENT. NEITHER ABOUT.COM NOR ITS AFFILIATES ENDORSE OR ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR THE ACCURACY OR RELIABILITY OF ANY OPINION, ADVICE OR STATEMENT ON THE SERVICE OR THE SITES.

UPDATE: I emailed a few people about this issue on the day that I found out about it. Once my concern came to the attention of some doctors on the medical review board it was dealt with quickly. The article is gone.

First, three very basic facts about head lice…

• Head lice have been around since the dawn of Man
• Man has been trying to get rid of lice with increasingly sophisticated methods throughout history.
• We still have lice.

Some schools are run by smart people. These days, some school boards are voting to rescind the No Nits policies that have caused more trouble than they are worth. Many other school boards are standing firm with draconian policies.

It doesn’t matter which school of thought your local board ascribes to, if your child has live head lice crawling around on his or her head you are going to have to deal with it at home. I suggest that you do not even bother trying any toxic shampoos. These days, super lice have developed resistance to most popular insecticides. Putting a toxic chemical on your child’s head is not a job that any parent relishes. Finding out that it didn’t work feels horrible. Click on the image below to find out about an effective way to get rid of super lice. It is chemical free and it was tested in my own home a few years ago with excellent results.

Can a super strict school policy stop Super Lice? No Nits Policies at schools have tended to result in more missed days of school and in more missed days of work for parents. The policies have been around long enough for some people to say with authority that they don’t work. Here is a rundown of what concerned parties have to say about No Nits Policies

PEDIATRICIANS:

Although having 5 or more nits within one fourth inch of the scalp was a risk factor for conversion, most children with nits alone did not become infested. Policies requiring exclusion from school and treatment for all children with nits alone are likely excessive. Instead, these children may benefit from repeated examination to exclude the presence of crawling lice.*

*PEDIATRICS Vol. 107 No. 5 May 2001, pp. 1011-1015
Lice, Nits, and School Policy

NURSES:

It is the position of the National Association of School Nurses that the management of pediculosis should not disrupt the education process. Children found with live head lice should be referred to parents for treatment. Data does not support school exclusion for nits.*

*From position statement of the National Association of School Nurses

The National Pediculosus Association (they wrote the policy):

The No Nit Policy encourages each family to do its part at home with routine screening, early detection, accurate identification and thorough removal of lice and nits. Establishing consistent guidelines and educating the public about procedures in advance of outbreaks helps minimize inappropriate responses.

Parents are likely to have to deal with lice at least once regardless of what kind of policies their schools choose to implement. To learn how to get rid of Super Lice go to Super-Lice.com