NHS Choices puts special interest groups ahead of accurate information

This is going to be a very brief post, because this story has been told in full elsewhere. But it's an important story, and I wanted to draw your attention to it.

The NHS Choices website is supposed to give impartial information on health that consumers can trust. There is a real need for such a site: the internet is littered with downright dangerous health information from people pushing various quack remedies. Where is the average person supposed to go to get good quality, unbiased advice?

Sadly, not to NHS Choices. Rather than base the information they provide on the best scientific and medical advice, it turns out that they are basing it on lobbying from special interest groups. The information is dangerous and misleading as a result.

I strongly encourage you to read the full story on David Colquhoun's blog. David is to be thoroughly congratulated for the excellent detective work he has done in bringing this story to light.

This story seems to me to be utterly scandalous, and I can't really understand why it doesn't appear on the front pages of every newspaper today. Could it be that the special interest group who have been lobbying NHS Choices to publish misleading information is linked with Prince Charles, and the mainstream media are afraid of criticising the monarchy?

An honourable mention must go to Sarah Boseley of the Guardian, who as far as I can tell is the only mainstream journalist to cover this story at the time I write this.