Taking Dr Twink's advice with a mine of Siberian salt
It has been a catastrophic week for the nation's physical, mental and spiritual well-being. TV3's deferral of plans for a phone-in advice clinic featuring Twink, the cabaret artiste formerly known as Adele King, is a sickening blow to the cause of medical science.
Provisionally entitled Give Adele A Bell, the series was to have seen the sometime panto queen and would-be Earth Mother dispense words of healing wisdom to the weak, the disturbed and the befuddled.
According to TV3, a broadcasting organisation that takes the welfare of its viewers as seriously as it takes their intelligence, the programme has been postponed for logistical reasons, and will proceed later this year.
As luck would have it, however, last week also brought us an insight into the quality of therapeutic guidance we can expect when Twink eventually dons her stethoscope and scrubs.
On Wednesday, Dr Tamas Bakonyi was found guilty of poor professional performance by the Medical Council. Dr Bakonyi, who describes himself as an entrepreneur, is a zealous promoter of "salt cave climate therapy", a system of purported treatment based on the notion that salty air has a remedial effect on respiratory problems.
In press interviews, he promoted the therapy as a groundbreaking method of alleviating a range of grievous ailments including asthma, pneumonia, bronchitis and cystic fibrosis.
In 2009, Bakonyi opened a clinic in a retail unit at Maynooth's Glenroyal shopping centre wherein he sought to recreate the conditions of a Siberian salt mine, albeit with the notably un-Siberian enhancements of new-age music, soothing lighting and comfy chairs.
Bakonyi's supposed breakthrough in respiratory medicine -- retailing at €30 a session -- was afforded generous publicity by the Irish Times and RTÉ radio's Mooney Show.
One of the most enthusiastic evangelists for his work was Twink who claimed to have experienced "amazing" results after attending Bakonyi's clinic for treatment of her chronic asthma.
Last February, Twink fronted a public relations event celebrating the Maynooth operation's second birthday, during which she was photographed inside and outside the salt mine, her thumbs aloft in what fellow medical professionals would recognise as effusive peer review.
However, there is one slight problem with Bakonyi's programme of salt cave therapy -- it's scientifically unproven. Last week's Medical Council inquiry heard detailed testimony from Stephen Lane, clinical professor of respiratory medicine at Trinity College, who said there was "no evidence" for most of Bakonyi's claims. What's more, the professor added, some of the sentences featured on the clinic's website make no medical sense.
The extent of the unquestioning media coverage lavished on Bakonyi's saline 'treatment' reveals much about the illiteracy of scientific discourse in this country, not to mention the inordinate value placed on celebrity endorsement.
Nobody doubts the sincerity of Twink's conviction that her asthma was relieved by Bakonyi's ministrations, but one would have to question her judgment in becoming such an impassioned cheerleader for what is, at best, an experimental form of therapy.
In fairness, some of us take just about everything Twink says with a large Siberian salt mine so we were unlikely to be rushing to Bakonyi's door on her say-so alone.
Nevertheless, there are others who might be more easily swayed by the loudly expressed opinion of an entertainer who Bakonyi reminds us is a "much-loved Irish star".
The importance of fact-based science has long been one of our national blind spots, and there is no evidence to suggest we are any closer to seeing the light. At times, it seems, we will heed the prognostications, prescriptions and remedies of just about anybody.
Relentless publicity hounds like Twink know no shame. However, this is just one among their many areas of ignorance.
The idea that showbusiness personalities possess any superior insight into medical matters is a grotesque travesty that could only be deemed unremarkable in a culture that has been terminally infected by the noxious virus of celebrity worship.
Originally published in
