Ben Goldacre

At a glance

• Ben Goldacre is a British physician, epidemiologist and science writer. He is Bennett Professor of Evidence-Based Medicine and director of the Bennett Institute for Applied Data Science at the University of Oxford.
• He became known for his Bad Science column in The Guardian and the book of the same name (2008), dissecting misleading health claims, quackery and poor science journalism.
• In Bad Pharma (2012) he described how unfavourable drug-trial results often go unpublished.
• He co-founded the AllTrials campaign, which calls for all clinical trials to be registered and reported.
• His team built open-data tools such as OpenPrescribing and, during the pandemic, the secure OpenSAFELY platform for UK patient data. In 2022 he led a UK government review on the use of health data for research.
• For longevity, his work teaches you how to judge health claims, studies and supplement marketing critically.
• Takeaway: for any striking claim, ask what type of study is behind it, how large it was and whether other studies found the same.