NHS England chief criticises Gwyneth Paltrow's Goop products and Netflix series

April

April

Established Member (Voting Rights)
NHS England CEO Simon Stevens has accused, quite rightly, Gwyneth Paltrow's 'dubious wellness products and dodgy procedures' of being potentially damaging to health, as well as her Netflix series spreading misinformation and pseudoscience. Maybe he should take a look at his own organisation - plenty of quacks and charlatans operating there!
 
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https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-51312441

BBC news item on this:

Gwyneth Paltrow's Goop series on Netflix slammed by NHS chief
Gwyneth Paltrow's new Netflix series poses a "considerable health risk" to the public, NHS England chief executive Simon Stevens has said.

The Goop Lab, filmed at the headquarters of the actress's wellness brand, Goop, explores the effectiveness of alternative therapies for physical and mental illnesses.

Netflix says the series is "designed to entertain, not provide medical advice".

Mr Stevens accused it of spreading "misinformation".

A spokeswoman for Goop said it was "transparent when we cover emerging topics that may be unsupported by science or may be in early stages of review".

The controversial health and wellness series debuted on the streaming platform on Friday 24 January.
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Mr Stevens took aim at the "dubious wellness products and dodgy procedures" featured in the series, while speaking at an academic event in Oxford on Thursday.
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I mean, sure, but right back at ya. Clean up your own quacks if you're gonna call out competing quacks. Pseudoscience legitimized is still pseudoscience. How about no pseudoscience instead?

Just find a STOP mat, jump on it and don't let it affect you. That's it goes, right?
 
You have to wonder at Netflix. They do some really horrid stuff on health related issues. Someone in charge of production must be very clueless there.

At least though the IMDb page gives 'The Goop Lab' a 2.1 rating which is at least something.
The comments are scathing of both Goop and Netflix.

I hold out no particular hope that Netflix will learn from this debacle.
 
Snowdrop said:
You have to wonder at Netflix. They do some really horrid stuff on health related issues. Someone in charge of production must be very clueless there.

At least though the IMDb page gives 'The Goop Lab' a 2.1 rating which is at least something.
The comments are scathing of both Goop and Netflix.

I hold out no particular hope that Netflix will learn from this debacle.
Click to expand...

the controversy probably just increased viewing numbers. Season 2 is likely......
 
Paywalled but important article: Gwyneth Paltrow’s ‘Goop Lab’ is horrible. The medical industry is partly to blame.

Bit too much emphasis on the women side, which is correct but not the whole thing, rather than chronic health issues, but overall this is an important point. And there are few medical institutions with more to blame for this than the NHS, a bastion of psychosomatic pseudoscience currently trying to both fight pseudoscience while actively promoting its own brand.
In the past few years, as a surgeon, I have become increasingly aware of the scourge of the wellness industry. I am seeing patients who opt for diets, supplements or magical therapies instead of the less seductive — though scientifically grounded — medicine I have to offer. Like everyone else, I, too, am constantly bombarded with messages in advertisements and from well-meaning friends as to how this diet or that vitamin is the key to health, longevity, beauty and status.
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For doctors such as myself, the rise of this brand of wellness is distressing. However, medicine as a profession and a science has no doubt played a part in the genesis and growth of big wellness. For virtually the whole of its existence, medicine has disenfranchised women and, to varying degrees, continues to do so. Even as medicine has modernized with an emphasis on autonomy and resolving bias, it remains, at times, paternalistic and patriarchal. It comes as no surprise then that women are overrepresented in the wellness industry, both as consumers and providers.
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If you feel excluded by medicine, why wouldn’t you look elsewhere? The wellness industry has filled a gap in health and well-being that the practice and science of medicine have left wide open. The wellness industry purports to be everything that conventional medicine is not; egalitarian, hopeful and accessible. Even though it is elitist, privileged and full of falsehoods, it does not matter to those who seek its comfort. It’s offering something that my profession, despite advances and improvements, has not been able to deliver consistently.
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Last month, the head of Britain’s National Health Service delivered a stinging assessment of the growth of the wellness industry and the harms that the willful ignorance of science is bringing. Although it is entirely appropriate that health-care professionals fight the rising tide of medical misinformation, if we do not recognize and address our own role in its creation, the fight will be futile. Medicine needs to understand that we have contributed to the Goops of the world. The elevation of expensive and even harmful remedies is in part our own doing.
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To truly ensure people’s safety, medicine must of course denounce dangerous, unnecessary and expensive snake oil, but it must also turn our attention inward and provide care that people need and want, communicated with compassion and supporting their autonomy. If we are to ensure that people are protected against medical half-truths and harmful remedies, my profession must move far away from the patriarchal practices that have alienated so many. Medicine has helped create this problem, and we must do better to be its solution.
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Snowdrop said:
You have to wonder at Netflix. They do some really horrid stuff on health related issues. Someone in charge of production must be very clueless there.

At least though the IMDb page gives 'The Goop Lab' a 2.1 rating which is at least something.
The comments are scathing of both Goop and Netflix.

I hold out no particular hope that Netflix will learn from this debacle.
Click to expand...

They’re not clueless, they’re Hollywood. That’s a long way below clueless.
 
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