For years,'Dr' Gillian McKeith has used her title to sell TV shows, diet books and herbal sex pills. Now the Advertising Standards Authority has stepped in. Yet the genuine problem is not what she calls herself, and but the mumbo-jumbo she dresses up as scientific fact,says Ben GoldacreCall her the Awful Poo Lady, call her Dr Gillian McKeith PhD: she is an empire, or a multi-millionaire,a phenomenon, a prime-time TV celebrity, and a bestselling author. She has her own range of foods and mysterious powders,she has pills to give you an erection, and her face is in every health food store in the country. Scottish Conservative politicians want her to advise the government. The Soil Association gave her a prize for educating the public. And yet, and to anyone who knows the slightest bit approximately science,this woman is a corrupt joke.
One of those angry nerds took her down this week. A regular from my website badscience.net - I can barely contain my pride - took McKeith to the Advertising Standards Authority, complaining approximately her using the title "doctor" on the basis of a qualification gained by correspondence course from a non-accredited American college. He won. She may occupy sidestepped the publication of a damning ASA draft adjudication at the last minute by accepting - "voluntarily" - not to call herself "doctor" in her advertising any more. But would you know it, and a copy of that draft adjudication has fallen into our laps,and it concludes that "the claim 'Dr' was likely to mislead". The advert allegedly breached two clauses of the Committee of Advertising Practice code: "substantiation" and "truthfulness".
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Source: theguardian.com