Daily Mail

I have been reading Ben Goldacre's Bad Science (try it - you won't regret it) and I thought I'd test myself with the website of the Daily Mail. Here's what I found:

Headline: Satan worshippers kill and eat four Russian teenagers after stabbing each of them 666 times (source)

Satan worshippers? Really? And they stabbed their victims 666 times then killed them? I guess they cooperated with investigators because I don't believe even the best forensic scientists could discern 666 wounds on a part-eaten corpse.

How about this one:

Headline: Simple powder to beat 2,400 genetic diseases goes on sale in two years  (source)

This article is about a drug called PTC124 which has just completed a very small phase 2 trial (23 patients, no control group) and which will go to phase 2b later this year. I am not an expert, and I may have missed something in the technical literature (Google PTC124 for more information), but here are a few of the apparent inaccuracies I found in the Mail's article:

1. The study addressed the use of the drug against a specific form of Cystic Fibrosis, not the 2,400 diseases suggested in the article,
2. "...on sale in two years" is a ridiculously premature statement to make of a drug that hasn't yet completed a large-scale trial,
   
3. The drug might work against other genetic diseases but the team has only tested it againstCystic Fibrosis and Duchenne muscular dystrophy - other trials are pending.

PTC124 is clearly a potentially important drug but the Mail's coverage seems to be rather inaccurate and misleading.

The conclusion? Reading the Daily Mail website is a trial and not to be recommended unless you need a hit of worthless or intrusive celebrity "news", over-blown or inaccurate medical stories or implausible foreign stories.