When Scientific News Reporting is no longer based on facts

Or rather the facts are not examined in the spirit of ‘neutrality’.

Forgive me, but when I read news and research articles I do expect the media agency to have done at least some basic fact checking, especially if they put themselves forward as a scientific or medical media agency. I am aware that you cannot believe everything you read, but I always assumed that there was at least a sliding scale of responsibility of the agency publishing a story to check the validity of claims and results; from scientific publications all the way down to say the Daily Mail or Sun/Mirror.

So what has wound me up? Well after reading a weak article and making a complaint about it basically been an advert for $cientology’s Narconon program based on unverified results and unpublished research I got the following response;

“If we take down the scientology article we would immediately be taking a non-neutral stance regardin[g] reporting and medical news.

We receive hundreds of emails each day saying how many people have been killed as a result of receiving traditional medicine, going to a traditional medicine hospital, using such and such alternative therapies, belonging to this and that religion, being vegan, being meat-eaters, seeing a psychiatrist, not seeing a psychiatrist, etc. Literally hundreds each day. And we are pointed in each case to dozens of web sites claiming that many people have died as a result of taking different therapy routes.

As a neutral publication we cannot refuse with[out] justification.”

I can’t say I remember reading an article that promoted going to a voodoo shaman over other scientifically based and tested treatment programs. It’s bad enough that $cientology is getting to our kids through the Narconon program by preaching against all forms of drug use (Including NHS prescriptions).

So to be a ‘neutral publication’ now means that everything should be posted and reported irrespective of their claims or evidence (not) shown. Reporters for ’scientific’ publications are now free to copy and paste company press releases without the need for critical thought or enquiry?

While this is obviously not true for all, I will be more likely in future to complain to editors when they print ’scientific’ dribble and would encourage others to do the same.

Abuse,rape and torture: the future of UK faith based services

Faith-based welfare was the norm in Ireland up until only a few short years ago. The Catholic Church, in all its compassion, ran schools, orphanages, children’s homes, hospitals – just about everything.

The result? A catalogue of cruelty and abuse that has left the state with a compensation bill that could run into billions of euros – not to mention thousands of damaged and traumatised individuals who will never properly recover from the physical, mental and sexual torture they suffered at the hands of priests and nuns. In 2002, the Catholic Church agreed to pay over €128m in cash and property to the State as part of a deal to prevent bankruptcy – the actual total is more likely to be between €1bn and €1.3bn.

The congregations had managed orphanages and schools in which abuse took place. Under their 2002 deal, religious orders were granted indemnity against future legal actions by former residents at the residential institutions. To date, the average award has been €66,845. Some 23 victims received the maximum award of €300,000.

More than 14,500 compensation applications for sexual, emotional or physical abuse were received by the board by the 2005 deadline.

How a child prodigy at Oxford became a £130-an-hour prostitute

With the intellect to win a place at Oxford at the age of 13, Sufiah Yusof should, by now, be carving out a high-flying career for herself.

But a decade after hitting the headlines thanks to her remarkable aptitude for mathematics – and days after her father was jailed for sexually assaulting two teenagers – Miss Yusof has been exposed as a £130-an-hour prostitute.

The revelation completes a sad fall from grace for the family who were hailed the brightest in Britain after Miss Yusof and two of her siblings won university places by the time they were 16.

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1997: Sufiah on her first day at Oxford with her father and sister Aisha

Calling herself Shilpa Lee, 23-year-old Miss Yusof advertises her body on an internet sex site and operates out of a back street flat in Salford. Yesterday, a friend of the former child prodigy said of her downfall: “It is all desperately heartbreaking.

“With her amazing brain she should be able to make money any way she wants. But instead her life spiralled completely out of control.

“Sufiah has suffered so many knocks in her life. I just hope she can drag herself out of this life she has got herself into.

“She is such a good person and deserves a much better life than this. Her gift really has been a curse.”

On the website, she describes herself as a ‘”very pretty size 8, 32D bust and 5ft 5in tall – available for booking every day from 11am to 8pm”.

2004: She marries Jonathan Marshall

She adds that she is a “sexy, smart student” who prefers “older gentlemen”. When an undercover reporter visited her at the flat, Miss Yusof stripped naked and gyrated on a bed as she reeled off her list of services.

Miss Yusof was pictured as a child smiling innocently outside St Hilda’s College, Oxford, after winning her place to study maths in 1997. But she ran away three years later, aged 15, claiming her parents had placed her under intolerable pressure to succeed.

She was found by police 12 days later working as a waitress at a Bournemouth internet cafe but refused to return to her parents, who had given up their jobs to educate their five children at home.

Miss Yusof was taken in by a foster family and shortly afterwards sent a searing email to her parents, documenting the “living hell” she said her father – a private tutor – had created.

She wrote: “I’ve finally had enough of 15 years of physical and emotional abuse.”

She accused her “controlling and bullying” father of forcing her to work in the cold to aid concentration and added that she never wanted to see him again.

In 2004, she married trainee lawyer Jonathan Marshall, but the couple divorced 13 months later.

In January, the Daily Mail revealed that her father Farooq had been remanded in custody after admitting sexually assaulting two girls, both aged 15.

Appearing under his real surname of Khan, he was jailed for 18 months at Coventry Crown Court last week after a judge heard how he had groped the two girls when he was home tutoring them at maths.

He had previously been jailed for three years in 1992 for his part in a £1.5million mortgage swindle involving several family members.

Yesterday the News of the World described how Miss Yusof was armed with three mobile phones as she welcomed an undercover reporter who was posing as a client at her flat.

The once strict Muslim stripped out of her tiny skirt, leather boots, tight T- shirt and red matching underwear as she detailed her £130-an-hour rate.

She claimed to be studying for a masters degree in economics on a part-time two-year course in London and added: “I’ve got exams coming up and I’m thinking, ‘Oh my God!’.”

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Sufiah advertised her services on the internet (picture posed by model)

Yesterday, her mother, Halimahton, 51, a scientist, said she had no idea her daughter was working as a prostitute.

Speaking from her home in Coventry, Mrs Yusof said: “I didn’t know anything about that. I am not in touch with Sufiah any more. I have got no comment.”

Miss Yusof’s brother, Iskander, aged 12, and sister Aisha, 16, started at Warwick University in 1998, making them the youngest brother and sister to study together at university at the time.

Losing Virginity Later Linked to Sexual Problems

from ABC

While past research has linked early sexual activity to health problems, a new study suggests that waiting too long to start having sex carries risks of its own.

Those who lose their virginity at a later age — around 21 to 23 years of age — tend to be more likely to experience sexual dysfunction problems later, say researchers at Columbia University and the New York State Psychiatric Institute’s HIV Center for Clinical and Behavioral Studies.

The study will appear in the January 2008 issue of the American Journal of Public Health.

Men who lose their virginity in their 20s, in particular, seemed to be more likely to experience sexual problems that include difficulty becoming sexually aroused and reaching orgasm.

The increase in sexual problems was also seen in those who had a comparably earlier sexual debut. And the researchers were quick to point out that there isn’t enough evidence to say for sure whether waiting to have sex necessarily leads to sexual dysfunction down the road.

“Our results do not allow for causal interpretations,” the study authors write.

Rather, they note in the study, there may be factors common to both the delay of sexual activity and the onset of sexual dysfunction — for example, they write, “[M]en with sexual problems may avoid sexual interactions and consequently start later.”

The researchers, who looked at data from the 1996 National Sexual Health Survey, conducted by the Center for AIDS Prevention Studies (CAPS) at the University of California, San Francisco, also found that men and women who begin having sex in their early teens had their share of problems. They were more likely to have risky sexual partners, to contract a sexually transmitted infection (STI) and to have sex while under the influence of drugs or alcohol.

While sexuality experts not affiliated with the study agree that it is too early to draw a direct causal link about those who have sex later in life, they say the research offers some interesting new avenues for learning more about certain sexual problems that may be devastating to long-term relationships.

“Clinically, we see many individuals who marry late and who have had little or no sexual experience have great difficulty with developing a rich and satisfying sexual experience within their relationship,” said Eli Coleman, academic chair in sexual health at the University of Minnesota Medical School Program in Human Sexuality.

Sexual dysfunction is common. Difficulty in consummating the marriage is also a frequent problem,” he added.

Sexual Hang-Ups May Have Physiological Effects

Even though the research stops short of indicating a causal relationship between the age at which one loses his or her virginity and sexual problems they may experience later, Coleman said a number of possible factors could contribute to both of these things.

“From a clinical standpoint, there are often dynamics other than the desire to be abstinent until marriage, such as fear of intimacy, body image problems, alcohol and drug abuse, and sexual dysfunction,” he said. He adds that these factors “might influence the delay of sexual debut as a means of avoiding sexual issues.”

Conditioning that results in shame over sexual expression may also be a factor, said Gina Ogden, a Boston-based sexuality expert and author of “The Heart and Soul of Sex.”

“In my sex therapy office I see countless women and men who have received messages about sex that shame them about their sexual feelings and also terrify them about their sexual behavior.”

These messages, she said, can differ between men and women.

For women, she said, the message that “good girls” should not engage in or enjoy sex may cause women to shut down sexually, leading to dysfunction.

“One of the many dysfunctions that arises is that women never develop the ability to ask for what they want, which leaves them open for life-long disappointment, desire disorders, orgasmic dysfunction, and worse — they’re ripe for abuse and violence,” she said.

For men, the opposite message — that “real men score” — may lead to negative mindsets both among those who lose their virginity early and those who become sexually active only later — mindsets that impact their ability to perform sexually.

Because of the intimate link between the psyche and sexual performance, some sexuality experts say the results of these conditions most likely bring about sexual dysfunction through their psychological impacts.

“There are mostly, if not exclusively, psychological factors at play here, based on poor sexual skills that lead to a poor sexual debut, with lasting negative effects,” said Patti Britton, president of the American Association of Sexuality Educators, Counselors and Therapists and Los Angeles-based author of books including “The Art of Sex Coaching.”

Coleman, however, said that biological factors may also be involved.

“There are probably both biological and psychological factors at play — which cannot be elucidated from this study — but suggests that further research needs to be conducted to explore those factors,” he said.

The Role of Abstinence-Only Education

The researchers say this preliminary evidence may point up detrimental effects of abstinence-only education.

The authors write that the study “lends credence to research showing that abstinence-only education may actually increase health risks,” adding that other approaches may better equip young people to avoid both short- and long-term sexual health consequences.

Many sexuality experts agree.

“In my view as a sexuality therapist since the 1970s, the abstinence-only approach is a public health hazard,” Ogden said. “Sexual relationship is complex, and the moment of marriage is not a magic marker.

“Instead of making young people pledge ‘no’ until marriage, we need to be encouraging them to understand their own sexual responses and orientations, learn how to engage in sexual practices that are safe, and acquire intimacy skills that will lead them into caring relationships.”

Said Coleman, “While abstinence only programs seem to be helpful in delaying onset of sexual activity, there have been suggestions that this approach could cause more problems when sexual debut takes place due to insufficient preparation and knowledge of responsible sexual behavior.

“This study is interesting because it suggests that sexual experimentation is a normal developmental process, and when this process is inhibited or not guided, there can be poor sexual health outcomes.”

Only 38% of Britons believe in God

The new edition of Social Trends gives some revealing new statistics about religion the UK and Europe. Social Trends is described by its publisher, the Office for National Statistics, as “An established reference source”, drawing together “social and economic data from a wide range of government departments and other organisations; it paints a broad picture of UK society today, and how it has been changing.”

This year’s edition should give the Government — with its obsession with the needs and opinions of “faith groups” — something to think about. To start with, we discover that only 38% of British respondents to a Eurobarometer Survey said they believed in God.

Other figures then give an indication of just how confused the nation is about religion. In reply to the question “Do you regard yourself as belonging to any particular religion?” 45.8% said they didn’t. The most astonishing figure of all is that those belonging to the CofE/Anglicans have dropped from 29.3% to 22.2% in just a decade. That this has not been national news can only be because it is no surprise and/or people want to keep it quiet. Obviously some of the drop can be attributed to deaths, but not when the drop is so massive. So where have the rest of them migrated to? The figures suggest that it is to “Christian – no denomination” and no religion, both of which showed 3% – 5% increases. It seems plausible that “Christian – no denomination” is a half way house for the cultural Christians who bolstered the 72% figure in the 2001 Census before they join those of “no religion”.

With the exception of the Roman Catholics, presumably because of Eastern European immigration, all other Christian denominations are much reduced, as are Buddhists. There are large proportional increases for Hindus and (surprisingly) Jews and above all Muslims (from 1.8% to 3.3%), and in some communities they may well be in the majority.

Incredibly, 13% of men and 15% of women claimed that they attended a religious service once a week or more. Even the churches own figures don’t support that.

So, how are we to reconcile the disparity between those claiming to belong to a religion while at the same time saying they don’t believe in God? Or those who claim to go to church when they quite plainly don’t?

The fact is that when people are questioned by opinion pollsters about their religion, they still, for some reason (residual guilt, perhaps?), feel the need to exaggerate and even lie about their beliefs and activities. Taking this into account, the figures must be even more alarming for religious leaders who try to give the impression that they are important figures in the life of the nation.

This research shows once more that Britain is one of the most irreligious nations on the face of the earth. So, what is it with this Government and “the faith communities”? When is the majority non-faith community going to get a look in?

Read the research in full

Local Council spies on family for three weeks

A family were spied on for three weeks by a council to check whether they lived in the catchment area of their child’s school.

An undercover official made a detailed log of the family’s daily activities without their knowledge, tailing the morning and afternoon school runs and returning in the evening to watch their £350,000 house.

He made notes including one that reads: “Female and three children enter target vehicle and drive off.” Another states: “Curtains open and all lights on in premises.”

Yesterday the family at the centre of the investigation into their private lives said they were furious their local authority had “stalked” them.

Poole Borough Council in Dorset acted under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) which was introduced by Labour in 2000, partly on the grounds of improving national security. Any evidence obtained under the Act may be used in a criminal prosecution.

The mother who was watched with her partner and three children aged three, six and ten, said: “I can’t bear to think about those people watching my family, it sends a chill down my spine.

“I’m incensed that legislation to combat terrorism can be turned on a three-year-old.”

The 39-year-old businesswoman, who asked not to be named, said the discovery her family had been spied on had left her feeling on edge.

She continued: “My partner is often away on business and when someone parks outside we wonder who they are.

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Oversubscribed: The Lilliput First School, in Poole. Council workers spied on a family who were suspected of living outside the catchment area

“The council won’t tell us if the people watching us were police checked or whether they were taking photographs.”

The surveillance operation began after the couple applied for their youngest child to go to the same school as her sibling, Lilliput First School in Poole.

They were planning to move further away from the school, but asked the council for advice on its admissions policy to ensure their daughter would not be denied a place.

The parents were told that as long as they did not move before the end of January, their daughter would qualify to start at the school in September.

Several weeks after the deadline, they moved two miles away. Then a member of the public incorrectly told the council that the family were living at the new house but registering themselves for school admission at their previous address.

Such tactics are becoming widespread as parents take increasingly desperate measures to ensure their child is admitted to the school of their choice.

The couple were later summoned to a meeting with the council’s schools admissions manager, when it emerged they had been subject to the surveillance operation.

The mother said the council began investigating on February 13 and concluded on March 3.

The log made by the council surveillance officer states that in that period, daily visits were made to both properties.

On entry says: “Female driver with children as passengers”, then lists ten roads their car drove along.

The mother and her partner of 16 years, a 37-year-old computer programmer, want to warn other parents what councils are capable of doing.

She said: “We followed the council’s advice and moved after the date they gave us. But still they stalked us.

“We even turned down an offer on the house in October because we knew we couldn’t move until after January.

“I can’t imagine a greater invasion of our privacy. I’ll admit that we have played the system, but it’s no worse than moving into an area to get your children into a particular school.”

The child has been admitted to the school and is due to start in September.

Yesterday Tim Martin, head of legal and democratic services at the council, said: “RIPA procedures have been used to investigate potentially fraudulent applications for school places.

“In such circumstances, we have considered it appropriate to treat the matter as a potential criminal matter.

“An investigation may actually satisfy the council that the application is valid, as happened in this case.”

High price of launching ID cards as Labour consultants cost us £150m

Spending on consultants by the Home Office has rocketed by 2,000 per cent under Labour to almost £150m a year.

The total amount lavished on management consultants and other so-called experts over the past decade is £545m.

One of the major reasons for the expenditure is trying to get the controversial ID cards project of the ground.

The cash could otherwise have been spent putting 10,900 extra police on streets for a year.

Shadow Home Secretary David Davis, who unearthed the figures, said: “The Home Office has had its worst period in its 200-year history, stumbling from crisis to crisis.

“Despite spending £150m last year on consultants – things are getting worse.

“Violent Crime has doubled, immigration has tripled and police now spend more time on paper work than patrol.

“After 10 years of failure, its time for the Government to ditch the spin and bluster. The public deserve better.”

In 1997/98, the Home Office’s total spending on consultants was £7.6m. By last year, it had rocketed to £147.9m.

Spending by the Identity and Passport Service – the arm of the department in charge of the ID cards project – has gone up in the same period from £237,000 to £30m.

Matthew Elliott, chief executive of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said: “Mismanagement, political meddling and poor organisation have resulted in chaos across our public services – trying to patch up the holes with expensive consultants clearly isn’t the solution.

“Too often ministers and civil servants turn to consultants in a panic when things are going wrong and effectively sign a blank cheque, paid for by the taxpayer.

“Even the best consultant can’t do more than tinker around the edges of a system which is fundamentally flawed.

“If we really want to solve the high costs and poor performance of public services then we need radical reform to eliminate political meddling, involve people with management experience in service delivery and give the public choice in how their money is spent.”

Last week, it emerged the Home Office has paid out nearly £22m in staff bonuses in the last five years.

The figures, unearthed by the Liberal Democrats, showed the amount paid out each year has doubled since 2002, despite a string of serious failures by the department.

The total amount being spent across Whitehall on consultants is more than £2 billion a year – the equivalent of 1p on income tax.

The influential Public Accounts Committee (PAC) last year found that around £500 million-a-year of the money was being wasted and that Whitehall departments often hire advisers without checking if they are suitable for the job.

Some of the consultants charge £2,000 a day for a bewildering range of services. They include advising departments on how to “manage change”, buying new computer systems and carrying out surveys.

Edward Leigh, chairman of the PAC, said: “It is impossible to believe that the public are receiving anything like full value for money from this expenditure.

“In fact, a good proportion of it looks like sheer profligacy. The consultancy firms are truly on to a good thing.”

Men arrested under religious law in Canterbury

Two men who were protesting about the Archbishop of Canterbury’s comments on Sharia law were arrested in Canterbury Cathedral on Sunday. They held up placards just as Rowan Williams was about to deliver his sermon.

The men, aged 26 and 56 and from Yorkshire, waved banners and shouted protests about the Archbishop’s comments. They were arrested and taken away by police who are considering charging them under the Ecclesiastical Courts Jurisdiction Act, 1860 (ECJA), which forbids interruption of church services and carried a potential penalty of seven years in prison.

People present at the event said it was a low-key affair and the men were led away peacefully by the police seconds after the protest began. However, the Archbishop then changed his sermon to speak of the persecution of Christians. (Seems he equates this fairly gentle protest with the jailing and murder of Christians in Muslim countries).

The NSS has had reason to protest about the ECJA in the past, when Peter Tatchell was arrested in Canterbury Cathedral for protesting at the previous Archbishop’s silence on gay rights (Read details here). In that instance, the NSS raised a petition calling for the law to be scrapped. In the end, Peter Tatchell was fined £18.60 – which was regarded as a message of contempt for the law by the magistrate who imposed it.

In the recent debate about blasphemy in the House of Lords, Lord Avebury tried to introduce an amendment abolishing the ECJA, but it was rejected by the Government, which was not in the mood for a further confrontation with the Church of England, who see it as one of their privileges.