Cowards at University College London

From The Guardian's reliable and irreplaceable Ben Goldacre, who writes the "Bad Science" column, we learn the sad news that the ivory-tower types running University College London have no spines. Such a shame. It was such a good school. The offense? Asking one of their own to stop attacking alternative medicine.

Prof. David Colquhoun, "one of the most eminent scientists in the UK" according to Goldacre, has been taking on the merchants of woo, whether they be posing as homeopathists, acupuncturists, or faith healers, for six years "in attempt to improve public understanding of science." The posts on his website/blog are offered in an HTML style that is is decidedly 1994, but the content is concise, pithy and spares no fools.

For a taste of Colquhoun's reality medicine, check out this post from a couple of years back, denouncing Florida State University's plans for a chiropractic school. There's a great fictional campus map depicting what happens to schools that wander down such paths. My favorite is the "Crop Circle Simulation Laboratory."

Until this May, all he got was kudos from the scientific community, and a faithful audience of laypersons. But then he dared challenge the medical value of something called Red Clover (Trifolium pratense). And the proverbial excrement hit the blades.

All he did was quote from the online database Medline Plus (a service of the US National Library of Medicine and National Institutes of Health), which has this to say about the medicinal value of T. pratense:

...it remains unclear whether there is truly any benefit from elder for this condition. Additional research is needed in this area before a firm conclusion can be reached. Elder should not be used in the place of other more proven therapies, and patients are advised to discuss influenza vaccination with their primary healthcare provider. It should be noted that the berries must be cooked to prevent nausea or cyanide toxicity.

The husband of one Ann Walker, a herbalist who runs an organization called New Vitality that touts the "anti-viral" and "blood-cleansing" benefits of the same plant, complained to the provost of the university, who then asked Colquhoun, to take his blog off the UCL server.

Which he did.

But wait. Yesterday, after much teeth-gnashing teeth and lawyer-consultating, Coulquoun and his UCL overlords agreed to allow the "Improbable Science" blog back on the school's computers. Phew. Their joint statement, which dances around what exactly the problem was, from a legal point of view, concludes with

To this end, the Provost and Professor Colquhoun, have taken advice from a senior defamation Queen's Counsel, and we are pleased to announce that Professor Colquhoun's website - with some modifications effected by him on counsel's advice - will shortly be restored to UCL's servers. UCL will not allow staff to use its website for the making of personal attacks on individuals, but continues strongly to support and uphold Professor Colquhoun's expression of uncompromising opinions as to the claims made for the effectiveness of treatments by the health supplements industry or other similar bodies.

Goldacre, who was very disappointed with the whole affair, wrote

This episode reveals some unfortunate contrasts. Firstly, in a world where most orthodox "public engagement with science" activity consists of smug, faux-radical "science meets art" projects, Colquhoun - a world expert on single ion channels - was showing the world what science really does. He took dodgy scientific claims, or "hypotheses" as we call them in the trade, and examined the experimental evidence for them, in everyday language, with humour and verve. I would say his blog is a treat for the wider public, and arguably a rather good use of the time and resources of a public servant who has devoted his entire life to academia, on its relatively low wages, never once working for industry.

Sounds exactly like the kind of faculty I'd want in my university. I hope this will prove to be an anomalous episode in UCL's otherwise distinquished history.