The Secret Life of Dr Chandra

doi:10.1136/bmj.332.7537.369

BMJ 2006;332:369 (11 February), doi:10.1136/bmj.332.7537.369

reviews

TV

The Secret Life of Dr Chandra

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

The colourful career of Dr Ranjit Chandra may be old news toBMJ readers. In the spring of 2000 he sent to the BMJ a paperthat claimed that a mixture of vitamins and minerals could reversedementia in elderly people. The then BMJ editor, Richard Smith,thought that it was just too good to be true and one reviewertold him that it had all the hallmarks of having being completelyinvented. The full story can be read at BMJ 2005;331: 288-91[Free Full Text].

Applying the old adage that a thing isn't true until it's beenon television, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation has puttogether a documentary on Chandra made by Chris O'Neill-Yates,and broadcast it over three successive nights last week.

The programme made for compulsive viewing. Here was an eminentacademic physician, an officer of the Order of Canada, holderof five honorary . . . [Full text of this article]

Terry Hamblin, consultant haematologist

Bournemouth TERJOHA@aol.com