Steven Bartlett’s production company has hit back at the BBC after an investigation by the broadcaster accused the podcast guru of sharing harmful health misinformation.
The Diary of a CEO host has welcomed guests on the podcast that have claimed Covid was an engineered weapon and that autism can be ‘reversed’ with diet.
The Dragon’s Den star, who does not have a background in health, has now come under fire by top experts for failing to question these disproven claims, and creating a distrust of conventional medicine as a result.
The BBC World Service investigation looked at the accuracy of health information featured in 23 episodes of Barlett’s Diary of A CEO podcast and found 15 contained an average of 14 harmful claims that went against scientific evidence.
But Flight Studio, the podcast’s production company, has since called the BBC’s analysis, which included verdicts from top scientists, ‘disappointing and disingenuous’.
It claims that the podcast has had nearly 400 episodes published to date, meaning the BBC reviewed less than four per cent of episodes.
The company claimed that some of the guests featured on the podcast have also featured on the BBC.
A spokesperson for Flight Studio said: ‘The Diary Of A CEO (DOAC), is an open-minded, long-form conversation with world leaders, global experts, CEOs, athletes, authors, actors, and other individuals identified for their distinguished and eminent career and/or consequential life experience.
The Dragon’s Den star, who does not have a background in health, has been slammed by top experts for failing to question disproven claims, and creating a distrust of conventional medicine as a result
‘Each guest episode is thoroughly researched prior to commission. DOAC offers guests freedom of expression and believes that progress, growth and learning comes from hearing a range of voices, not just those Steven and the DOAC team necessarily agree with.
‘The BBC claims to have reviewed 15 specific episodes of nearly 400 published to date. For any reporting of DOAC to focus on less than 4 per cent of episodes with an extremely limited proportion of guests — some of whom have featured on the BBC — to create a broader, and in our opinion, partial narrative is disappointing, misleading and frankly, disingenuous.’
Podcasts in the UK are not regulated by the media regulator Ofcom, which means Mr Bartlett is not breaking any broadcasting rules.
One episode flagged by the BBC as featuring ‘discredited’ views aired in July, and included an interview with Dr Aseem Malhotra, a controversial medic known for voicing his anti-Covid vaccine stance on social media.
In the podcast, Dr Malhotra described the Covid jab — credited as saving at least 1.6million lives in Europe alone — as having a ‘net negative for society’.
At the end of the episode, Bartlett defended his decision to air Malhotra’s outlandish views, saying he aimed to ‘present some of the other side’ as ‘the truth is usually somewhere in the middle’.
Another episode to come under fire is an October installment that featured health advice from Dr Thomas Seyfried, an American Professor of biology and genetics based at Boston college.
Dr Seyfried is a proponent of the ketogenic diet — an eating plan that is high in fat and low in carbohydrates — and insists it can help to treat cancer.
As well as suggesting that eating this way could prevent and even treat the disease, he claimed radiotherapy and chemotherapy only improved patients’ lifespan by one-to-two months, comparing modern cancer treatments to ‘medieval cures’.
Commenting on the BBC’s findings, Prof Heidi Larson said the guests were ‘overstretching’ scientific fact that is known to be true.
‘It sends people away from evidence-based medicine. They stop doing things that might have some side effects, even though it could save their life.’
