Science and Celebrity?

It has been reported (http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2008/jan/03/sciencenews.pseudoscience) that there has been a welcome decline in unfounded science claims in the media but that "gaffes still cause concerns." Perhaps the oddest thing in this story is the backgrounds of the people makings the gaffes. The majority appear to be female 'celebrities' with little or no scientific background but with a large platform by virtue of their status. The gaffes may be moderately amusing to science-orientated folk but, I suspect, are likely to resonate in the general population. Amongst the items recorded are presenter Sarah Beeny's claim in the programme 'How Toxic Are You' that there are "lovely make-up and moisturisers which don't have any chemicals in them." This seems to be a recycling of the older myth about 'chemical-free detergents'. Most of the physical world consists of chemicals. I still get irritated about the other obsession in this area that 'organic materials' (e.g. botulin [http://www.chm.bris.ac.uk/webprojects2002/thomas/botulinum%20toxins.htm], tetrodotoxin [http://www.chm.bris.ac.uk/motm/ttx/ttx.htm] etc?) are good for you whereas 'synthetic chemicals' (e.g. sodium chloride?) will prove fatal. Organically grown vegetables have broadly the same chemical constituents as their 'chemically fed' counterparts. In spite of this, Gwyneth Paltrow (actress) claimed to a cancer conference that she was "challenging these evil genes by natural means. I am convinced that by eating biological foods it is possible to avoid tumours." She had better watch out for melanomas etc whose incidence seems to be little related to diet. I am also not sure what non-biological foods are. Stella McCartney (fashion designer) seems to have claimed that the skin absorbs 60% of what is applied to it (the amount depends on what is applied but the figure is less than 1%). Gillian McKeith (presenter of 'You Are What You Eat') reportedly told a group of schoolchildren in Fife "If a quarter of kids are overweight now then when they grow up and have kids half of them will be overweight. And then if they have kids everybody will be overweight." So to cure the obesity pandemic, all we have to do is to stop the fat ones from breeding! We can forget about food intake, life-style and exercise. It seems that we have a way to go in order to get good scientific advice from our celebrities.