If you saw the severed finger story on TV this will make you angry

The recent stories in the press about high-tech dust that helped grow a severed finger back are nonsense. Furthermore they’re old nonsense. It will make you angry but today’s Bad Science column is essential reading and worth sharing. The stories of the ‘pixie dust’ were bad, in many ways, and on a very simple human level - there’s going to be people who, in desperation, will badger doctors for something that doesn’t work as well as the stories they’d seen in the press implied. When I saw the story this week I took a minute, and did a Google Archive search, it’s a little like LexisNexis (something many journalists have access to), and it turned up the following results:

Click here to lose a little more faith in humanity.

And, was somewhat perplexed that the story didn’t appear to be new, given the widespread coverage it was receiving, and that, furthermore, the finger didn’t appear to be severed in any sense of the word. I think Ben Goldacre is right to draw attention to such risible coverage from people we rely on for news. See also.