A few years ago, a friend sent me what I would later learn was a typically bizarre tweet by @njohncamm, asking if I knew who he was. No idea, but something bothered me – he almost shared a name with a very famous cardiologist, Professor John Camm
Coincidence?
No...much stranger
He went viral yesterday, but within cardiology circles we've known about him for a while and, while his lack of filter could occasionally be quite entertaining, he is routinely misogynistic, anti LGBTQ, racist & antivax. So I went to look him up.
His personal website, full of typos, states he spent some time at St George's Hospital in London, my alma mater, where the real Prof John Camm works. It also reads very strangely if you know the bodies/journals he's referring to.
A bit more digging unearthed these pics from India, which are astonishingly bad photoshops. Look how his knee disappears!
The building on his profile banner is apparently the planned N John Camm Institute in Rajasthan, opening 2027
It's actually a stock image of a non-existent residential complex
The name was still bothering me. N John Camm? Of course there are millions of Christians in India but it didn't seem like a typical name. So I started looking through some of the cardiology journals he mentioned and found a case report by Narendra John Camm
Looking up that name brought several dissolved UK-based companies listing Narendra John Camm as a director, with the job title 'cardiologist'
Two companies went by the name 'Braunwald'
Eugene Braunwald is considered one of the fathers of modern cardiology
"N John Camm" from twitter's original name appears to be Narendra Vikramaditya Yadav
Professor John Camm (the original) and Eugene Braunwald (below) are household names in cardiology
Could the (fake) N John Camm have changed his name to bask in reflected glory of a well known name in cardiology? And chosen a company name for the exact same reason??
But that's not even the most interesting part. When you search for his real name, things get spicier
Our crusading truth telling cardiologist was suspended for several years (perhaps necessitating the name change?) and arrested in India, with charges including kidnapping!
lol of course
I've got no doubt he's a cardiologist. I know cardiology has an image problem. We seem to play an outsized role in supplying bellends to twitter. And hey, sometimes I find that kind of funny. But then I read some replies to his tweets.
I'm blocked but I think the tweet might be deleted anyway. He mocked the closest thing medtwitter has to a royal couple, but more importantly mocked the families of cardiac arrest survivors
Further addenda: several replies from ppl whose work he’s stolen, academic articles he’s faked or used ppl’s names without permission, but I’ve also now been contacted by a former employer. They mention things that make me nervous to even share without a lawyer involved.
!!!
More emails coming in. Starting to think I need a team to do this justice 😮💨
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I’ve recently realised how enormous a market there is for exogenous ketones
Do you actually produce ketones by carefully choosing the food you eat?! Wow grandpa get with the program, no one produces endogenous ketones these days, just ingest & go!
lol of course
Have taken a look at all the half decent clinical research on exogenous ketones, it didn’t take me long. The marketing preys on people’s misunderstanding of science using a classic surrogate marker.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but most people do the keto diet to burn fat, right?
I think it's important that responsible healthcare professionals call a spade a spade.
'Integrative', 'holistic', 'functional', 'lifestyle' medicine, or whatever its latest rebranding is, is a gateway to complete and utter quackery. It is not a field of medicine.
Of course, a statement like that brings out the sea lions who say "why do you have a problem with treating the patient as a whole?" which is to expertly miss the point. I am not defending modern medicine, I am a frequent critic of it & all the problems it has.
Many doctors brand themselves along the above lines and say entirely sensible things. But to use the terminology is to want to signpost that you are 'different'. If you are a GP that has an interest in the importance of lifestyle measures to improve health, you are...a good GP!
If you watch similar kinds of youtube channels to me, you might've noticed quite a lot of people being sponsored by something called 'Established Titles', who have clearly really been splashing the cash on influencers lately. But...is it just a scam?
Many of my friends have been approached as well, but been put off by the concept. I wasn't sure a lowly channel like mine would be on their radar, but sure enough I found some emails in the bin.
They offer the opportunity to buy a square foot of Scottish Highlands, so that you can "officially" call yourself a Lord or Lady, based on an apparent historical custom.
I missed Aseem Malhotra’s big reveal yesterday. I know you still follow me Aseem so I hope you see this. Please know, what you’re saying isn’t just whipping up your base and putting you on TV, it is having real, awful effects on real people
You suffered a terrible loss. My father in law also died very suddenly this year. Same age as your dad. Also had no PMHx except high blood pressure, went to gym daily. I am genuinely at a loss how you can conclude either death was due to the vaccine
You mentioned a PM that showed two severely narrowed coronary arteries. You are a cardiologist. You know better than anyone that a man in his 70s can very commonly have severe asymptomatic coronary disease. There is no evidence the vaccine causes coronary atherosclerosis
I have interrupted my weekend DIY because I am so stunned by how appalling the latest episode of Instant Genius by BBC @sciencefocus is. Truly staggering lack of even the most basic fact-checking, regarding the new cult of blood glucose monitoring. sciencefocus.com/the-human-body…
I hope the BBC are aware they've just aired a long advert for Glucose Goddess Jessie Inchauspé's book. She introduces her background - mathematician, biochemist, Silicon Valley entrepreneur. Great to hear ideas, but the host just bought every single unevidenced claim
Should a science podcast be this unwilling to ask for some scientific evidence? Where is the evidence that non-diabetics should be tracking their glucose? Where is the evidence that a transient spike after eating an apple is bad? Why are these assumed as true & just shrugged off?
My friend is attending a Prader-Willi syndrome (a rare genetic disorder) meeting and has found himself sharing event space with people who can lead a horse to water
Yes vet homeopaths really are a thing. Sounds hilarious but actually could be really sad, like when parents give their kids homeopathy. For minor stuff nbd but I hate to think animals are getting f*&£ing homeopathy for serious ailments. The website is about what you’d expect
The BAHVS has a page on vaccinations which says most should be given but sometimes a ‘nosode’ is preferable and that animals get too many vaccinations. Full disclosure: I don’t know anything about animal vaccination but the nosode nonsense features in human homeopathy too