The Thamesmead Grump

not only..................

Gwyneth Paltrow is advising women to get their vaginas steam cleaned. According to her latest essential lifestyle newsletter, the barmpot actress and self styled health adviser is recommending a treatment where, in her own words "You sit on what is essentially a mini-throne, and a combination of infrared and mugwort steam cleanses your uterus."

Needless to say, proper doctors are advising against this treatment. A full response by a qualified expert can be read here 

Normally, Gwyneth restricts her advice to cranky "detox" diets and exercise regimes so this is a move in a new direction for her.

To be fair to her, she is not the only celebrity to offer advice on diet and health they are not qualified to give so we might be forgiven for wondering why this sort of stuff is so popular. An article in Live Science give an explanation as to why we accept health advice based on the fame of the adviser rather than on their qualification to give it.

Apparently, it is known as the "herding effect" where people are naturally predisposed to follow popular advice but it doesn't explain why this almost always applies to medical advice. After all, we wouldn't follow Gwyneth's advice on how to defuse a bomb or fix a broken gas boiler and if anyone did, you would call them a fool (although you would have to be quick about it).

Film and TV celebrities are not the only ones who think they know more that the experts when it comes to medical advice. How many times do we hear Government Ministers arguing in favour of some health policy against the advice of the whole of the medical profession.

Recently, a report by experts about the ineffectiveness of drug policies was met with hostility by the government when it contradicted accepted dogma. Scientist in the nineteenth century had the same problem when they said that diseases were caused by germs and not gasses in the air.

If you are still keen to trust your health to people who know nothing about it, here are a few more tips to follow - https://www.accountablescience.com/you-vote-worst-celebrity-advice-of-2014/

but also................

Another dangerous myth doing the rounds is the one about vaccination and how it causes autism; poisons your children; injects microchips so the government/Illuminati/New World Order can control your minds, etc., etc.

If you Google "vaccine" and "chemicals" this message shown in the yellow box will appear at the top of the list. Here is your chance to do something useful. First, share it on your Facebook page so more people are aware of it and second, click the feedback button and let Google know what you think of it.

accident blackspot

The idiotic bus lane fiasco in Thamesmead seems to have claimed it's first victim. I noticed Police signs up at the roundabout by the shopping centre asking for witnesses to a traffic incident on Tuesday. I don't know the details but given that Greenwich Council's decision to force buses turning right, into using the nearside lane of the dual carriageway was always going to end in tears, I'm not surprised to see it.