Dr David Robert Grimes

Bryan Johnson's email blast... futurism.com/future-socie...

I grew up in Saudi Arabia, a country rightly condemned for deploying the death penalty as a ghoulish public spectacle. Pete Hegseth aligning America with a brutal theocracy is a new nadir from an already appalling human being..

theguardian.com‘Self-healing’ coach who was banned from working in Australia to speak in UKBarbara O’Neill has previously claimed that cancer is a fungus that can be treated with bicarbonate soda

It's bizarre how we seem to be ok with charlatans exploiting vulnerable patients - thanks to @theguardian.com for covering our concerns.. www.theguardian.com/society/2026...

icymi.. bsky.app/profile/drg....

Dr David Robert Grimes@drg.bsky.social

Self-described healer Barbara O'Neill is banned from giving health advice in her native Australia, but is booked for lucrative events in UK & Ireland next month. Health misinformation kills: we've written to venues elucidating why O'Neill's health fictions harm vulnerable patients ⏬

And as Instagram constitutes the largest audience for this content, we've shared letter there too, linked below. In case you don't use that, here's the FAQ we added in response to a barrage of trolling. www.instagram.com/p/Dd0pvudCKG...

Also, huge thanks to all who raised head above parapet to sign or support. O'Neill's fan base can be rather aggressive as my 300+ abusive messages over the weekend would attest.. @gorskon.bsky.social @statsepi.bsky.social @lizoriordan.bsky.social @profsanderlinden.bsky.social

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We wrote this initially as a private correspondence to venues. Last Friday, however, O'Neill posted a video to her 3.5 million followers implying (wrongly) that our letter was somehow connected with her detention in Qatar. This is false, as covered here. www.instagram.com/reel/Ddtsa_i...

As a result, we're making the text of the letter public. While ultimately a venue's choice whether to host such events, we hope it's helpful in explaining why there are concerns, and illustrating the life-threatening risks to patients that exposure to such health fictions pose. Here's date / venues

Gentle reminder: unless medically directed, you don't need supplements. They are foodstuffs, not medicines, and are cheap - a month's supply of collagen is ~1 euro wholesale. So how are some Irish doctors justifying charging €250 quid A MONTH for them? That's a good bloody question.. a short🧵..

(Thread posted in full expectation of tumbleweed to ensue, except maybe @statsepi.bsky.social seal of approval)

..I'd also recommend watching the video because it gives an idea of just how hard the hard sell is, lest you think I'm mispresenting. You can view full promotional material on any platform, it's been pretty heavily marketed. They're far from alone, this is just most expensive I've seen

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I know many of you are allergic to Instagram, but since the demise of twitter I've used it primarily, and I explain all this and more in a video here. I honestly have no idea why this is allowed, and I keep getting messages from people asking if they should go on it www.instagram.com/p/DctqJqxoL-t/

Is it ethical? I don't think so. But is it lucrative? Yup.

..well firstly, these mysterious trials have never been done, nor are they to my knowledge even registered. With normal pharma products, you'd have to do a trial BEFORE you sell a product, but in the topsy-turvy world of supplements, you sell first and maybe ask questions later. Maybe!

But, EVEN if these tests were done.. those epigenetic clock testing systems don't tell your biological age. In fact, they often disagree with each other by UP TO 17 BLOODY YEARS. Aging researchers don't even agree on them, so the entire exercise is at best pointless, especially as they ALREADY sell

So in all the promotion of this supplement, the claim it actually reverses aging and that there's clinical trial data to show this features heavily in the media blitz. Like this puff piece from the SBP... where it apparent shaves 5.2 years off your biological age. Where do I sign up?! Except...

theguardian.comIceland rejects EU accession talks after divisive referendum campaignWell-funded no camp prevails, winning 52.8% of votes and gaining plaudits from Eurosceptic figures across Europe

30 Aug

As a misinformation researcher, I wish people understood this part better: Disinformation has outsized impact on low information voters with poor media literacy, disinformation is well-funded, social media companies complicit www.theguardian.com/world/2026/a...

30 Aug

..the net effect is highly corrosive to democracy itself - Iceland's EU membership referendum just latest example. This bit should terrify us..

theguardian.comDolly Parton, country star, actor and philanthropist, dies aged 80Songwriter of I Will Always Love You, Jolene and 9 to 5 also invested millions in child literacy, Covid-19 vaccine development and other causes

25 Aug

Dolly Parton has died at 80. An incredibly talented woman who didn't only give us music, but funded entire libraries and even vaccine research. Her empathy for her fellow humans is an incredible legacy - one conspicuously absent in tech billionaires.. www.theguardian.com/music/2026/a...

25 Aug

Also, wrote Jolene & I will always love you in the same day. Plus, playing decent guitar in acrylic nails - that alone is impressive!

The tragic death of Jason Arday is an awful story. There's been much (often nasty) commentary on Arday's scholarship, with UK redtops pretending now to be concerned bastions of research integrity. Utter nonsense: misconduct in academia is EXTREMELY common, and media rarely cares. Let's review 🧵

nytimes.comProfessor’s Death Leaves Behind Hard Questions for Cambridge on Race and HiringJason Arday, the school’s youngest Black professor, was found dead on Friday. The school ignored a series of warnings about his life story and his work.

Whatever the intention of promoting Arday above his ability or career stage, it was deeply unfair to him and has imploded tragically. It has fuelled racist false narratives that people of colour are less qualified than white academics, and the harms will be enduring www.nytimes.com/2026/08/15/w...

Arday may have been a fabulist and certainly committed plagiarism, but his misconduct was no worse than hundreds of other academics in the UK and beyond. The frenzy of media interest reflects both an ugly racial dimension, and an astounding failure by a prestigious university. And now a man is dead.

I had anti-fluoride / anti-vaccine loons email the VC to fire me, and 10 years ago when my conspiracy theory paper went viral, the fact it was an Oxford publication made cranks across the world extra furious. Even had one scary guy show up at my office. Cambridge link likely made it worse for Arday

Fringe groups try to discredit critics: the racist extremists that went after Arday were unrelenting, and found a weakness. He was evidently fragile, and I cannot understand why Cambridge didn't do their due diligence, instead elevating him to a position he was unqualified for and vulnerable in.

Now, none of this is acceptable and we should demand more from our academics. But the reality is that much of academia is dysfunctional, and jobs unstable: researchers are under immense pressure to perform, which encourages many to nudge their findings or inflate their CV to secure employment.

I also suspect UK fixation with Oxbridge made Arday even more a target. Over the years I've attracted the attention of deeply unpleasant fringe groups: when I was postdoc or visiting researcher at Oxford, that affiliation seemed to just intensify their attacks, increasing their need to discredit..

I also interrogated the @retractionwatch.com database: over the past 5 years, over 400 scientific papers by researchers affiliated with UK institutions alone retracted for reasons of misconduct, few of which registered in public discourse. Stark contrast with 200+ articles in UK media on Arday..

ft.comCambridge professor remains in post despite plagiarismHistory academic published an article containing large parts of essays copied from one of his students

Nor, incidentally, were Arday's academic sins unique, even for Cambridge: Historian William O’Reilly in 2023 made legal attempts to silence reporting over his plagiarism of students, a course of action echoed by Arday to notably greater opprobrium. Only reported in FT. www.ft.com/content/ae7f...

tinyurl.comModelling science trustworthiness under publish or perish pressureAbstract. Scientific publication is immensely important to the scientific endeavour. There is, however, concern that rewarding scientists chiefly on public

This stems from perverse incentives. Most academic jobs are unstable, publish-or-perish makes sloppy research as well rewarded as diligent work. Few consequences for getting caught, dishonest conduct can be serious career boost - a nettle universities have still not grasped. tinyurl.com/mcsda5ck

retractionwatch.comDirector of Cambridge toxicology institute retracts paper for potential image manipulationTwelve years after sleuths flagged problematic images in a 2009 paper, the authors — including the head of a UK research institute — have retracted the article. The paper, published in …

Misconduct rarely garners media interest, even when committed by University presidents. The retraction of a(nother) paper last year by an OBE-holding director of Cambridge toxicology institute for image manipulation received no UK press coverage, for example: retractionwatch.com/2025/07/18/d...

bmj.comResearch waste is still a scandal—an essay by Paul Glasziou and Iain ChalmersProgress has been made towards reducing the 85% of wasted effort in medical research—and the huge amounts of money misspent and harm caused to patients—but there’s still a long way to go, say Paul Gla...

Even in life-or-death realm of bioscience, ~85% of publications are deemed research waste, either too poorly conducted to answer a research question or too poorly described to replicate. Fraud has increased exponentially in last 25 years, retractions at record highs. www.bmj.com/content/363/...

retractionwatch.comBMJ Group retracts paper on COVID-19 vaccines and mortality featured in Senate hearingBMJ Public Health has retracted a paper some — including a witness at a recent U.S. Senate subcommittee hearing — have used to link COVID-19 vaccines to deaths. The action comes more than two years…

12 Aug

Saskia Mostert this year insinuated to US Senate COVID vaccine harms were being suppressed, citing her paper on excess deaths. That paper has just been retracted, over 2 years since Ariel Karlinsky, @gorskon.bsky.social , myself & others raised alarm it was bad retractionwatch.com/2026/08/11/b...

12 Aug

...it was so bloody obvious this paper was garbage. You can see just how bad in our commentary from 2024 in the @retractionwatch.com article, which the journal rejected. Completely unsurprising it was used by authors to try & legitimise an ideological belief the evidence didn't & doesn't support.

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4 Aug

That a dedicated public servant like Anthony Fauci is before a kangaroo court for doing his job is damning indictment of American politics. Lab leak remains a deeply stupid narrative, beloved of the worst people.. www.instagram.com/reel/DbnGj46...

4 Aug

...before anyone complains (and they do) that is an Instagram link, given that's my largest active platform and where I chiefly post these days. Anything I post on a meta platform attracts the kind of guys whose scientific education ended around the same time as their grammar studies 🤨

theguardian.comPlaybooks, plagiarism and a pig’s head: new claims surrounding a star Cambridge professorJason Arday was regarded as an academic superstar, but then questions about his work prompted scrutiny of his backstory and counterclaims of racism

1 Aug

As someone who has been targeted both academically and personally by obsessive fringe groups for my academic work and also as someone who investigates scientific integrity concerns, the Jason Arday case is wild.. www.theguardian.com/education/ng...

1 Aug

Clearly racist extremists are stoking this. But the issues identified are clear violations of academic integrity, egregious enough that they likely demand retraction. Outlets like @retractionwatch.com and the Guardian are not right wing reactionary outlets, the criticism of the work is deserved

nytimes.comTrump Administration Live Updates: Fauci Pleads Fifth in Senate Hearing on Covid Origins (Gift Article)

Anthony Fauci is a national hero. Rand Paul is an international embarrassment. It is bizarre to watch a halfwit kangaroo court in real time, do Republicans think history will look favourably on this pathetic fixation? www.nytimes.com/live/2026/07...

Very sad to hear about tragic death of Glen Hansard. Aside from undeniable musical talent, I've a nice story about his thoughtfulness. In 2017, an anti-fluoride activist got hosts of Irish artistists from Christy Moore to Mary Black to sign a letter demanding the government cease fluoridisation..

I of course didn't know him in any meaningful way, but this positive exchange sticks with me, as no other signatory took the time. RIP, thoughts with his family and friends today.

As a post script to all this, I wasn't initially that familiar with his music, but the year before I'd played guitar and backing vocals for a friend's wedding, including "Falling slowly" - I really liked the guitar line & harmonies, and after that appreciated his talent much more.

To my surprise, I was followed a few hours later by Glen. He'd read my pieces, and had some really considered follow-up questions. After a pleasant back & forth, he thanked me, expressed regret he'd signed without doing due diligence, and would be retracting his support and more careful in future.

He was an Oscar-winning celebrity who could have ignored a nobody like me, or doubled down over perceived criticism. Instead, he took time to do something most of us find difficult: engage honestly & change our mind when evidence implores it. That speaks to an admirable humility & thoughtfulness.