he spate of deaths among young people in Britain’s suicide capital could be linked to radio waves from dozens of mobile phone transmitter masts near the victims’ homes. Dr Roger Coghill, who sits on a Government advisory committee on mobile radiation, has discovered that all 22 youngsters who have killed themselves in Bridgend, South Wales, over the past 18 months lived far closer than average to a mast. Ben Goldacre, a medical doctor and author of the weekly Bad Science column in the Guardian, investigated the claim made by the Sunday Express article and found out the following: I contacted Dr Coghill, since his work is now a matter of great public concern, and it is vital his evidence can be properly assessed. He was unable to give me the data. No paper has been published. He himself would not describe the work as a “study”. There are no statistics presented on it, and I cannot see the raw figures. In fact Dr Coghill tells me he has lost the figures. Despite its potentially massive public health importance, Dr Coghill is sadly unable to make his material assessable. The article about the link between suicides and phone masts is an example of the way in which ‘bad science’ can make it to the headlines. Sometimes, however, science/health stories found in the news are genuinely based on valid studies, but jump to wrong conclusions by failing to consider some important aspects, such as the study design and the level of evidence of the original research. For instance, in July 2008 an article was published on the Daily Mail claiming that there is a link between vegetarian diet and infertility. The article was based on a cross-sectional study on soy food intake and semen quality published in the medical journal Human Reproduction. Behind the Headlines, a NHS service providing an unbiased daily analysis of the science behind the health stories that make the news, issued the following comment: The Daily Mail today reports on, “Why a vegetarian diet may leave a man less fertile.” It said research has found that eating tofu can significantly lower your sperm count. The study behind this news had some limitations: it was small, and mainly looked at overweight or obese men who had presented to a fertility clinic. It focused only on soy (soya) intake, and the Daily Mail’s claim that there is a causal link between eating a ‘vegetarian diet’ and reduced fertility is misleading.