The Ponease Scam #3: We Scienced the Science 💪

Back in primary school, my best friend and I were always in trouble.

We’d get these epic lectures from from her Mum…and just when we thought it was all over, her Mum would stomp back up the hallway, fling the door open and yell:

“…AND ANOTHER THING!”

And that, Dear Reader, is a little how I feel right now.

Because I know I said that the last article was the final instalment on the Ponease dumpster fire.

But in my defence, it’s hard to wrap up a story when it’s still unfolding in real time…. and also, we found the missing study 😎

That’s right people.

You know.. the ‘scientific study’, the ‘official research’… The Fight Clubby paper that one no one’s allowed to speak about?

Well, we unearthed it on the Belgian distributor’s website…

But then suddenly and suspiciously it was gone…

Fear not, though people!

We managed to snare a screen recording you can watch below… or you can download the full ‘paper’ here if you’d like to follow along with today’s study group 🤓

But before we get into it, I need to come clean with a couple of things.

Firstly, I was terrible at school and even terrible-er at science.

For me, science class was either a chance for a nap (which was challenging but entirely possible on those hard wooden stools) or a great opportunity to burn my brows with the bunsen burner.

The point is.. I didn’t listen to Mrs Matthews in the 90s and as a result, I’m waaaaay out of my depth here.

So despite the fact that I sometimes strap on an enormous helmet and yell “FOR SCIENCE!💪” – when it comes down to it, I’ve actually got no idea how it works.

Which brings me to my second point…

I have not been working alone.

Uh uh….🙅‍♀️

Right from the start of this investigation, there’s been a serious sciencer in this corner. Her name is Dr BriAnne Addison and she has half the alphabet behind her name.

And now it’s time for her to adjust her helmet, step into the spotlight and share her thoughts with us…

A critical analysis of the Ponease clinical testing report

Dr BriAnne Addison, BSc (hons), MSc, MTeach, PhD

This is my review of the Ponease ULC Fix Study, conducted from 2018 – 2020.

I found the report on the Belgian distributor’s website on a page titled ‘Reports and Tests’. The report has since been removed from the website, however I was able to save the document a provide a brief peer-review of their science.  

Over my career, I have peer-reviewed for more scientific journals than I can count on my hands… so I have some practice at this.

A scientist’s perspective

At the outset; studies of supplements, medicines and potential medicines are usually documented through a report that is either:

1) Submitted to a scientific journal for peer review and subsequent publication, or

2) Becomes part of company documents and are eventually evaluated through the patent process which requires a mountain of evidence and technical detail to complete.

To begin this report, I started with a thorough search of the peer-reviewed literature for publications on Ponease and came up with nothing. I did a more cursory search of patents and still came up with nothing.

Upon reviewing the document, my initial impression is that the layout is… unconventional.

For this sort of report I would expect a cover page that includes

• the title of the report,
• the authors’ names and contact information and
• a date of completion or filing.

We’ve not been given a cover page, but at least the authors and their contact address are listed at the top. This point is interesting – and I’ll get back to it shortly.

There is no sign of a summary or abstract, which is considered to be an important part of a scientific paper and the first real bit of information is a list of the Ponease batches used in the study.

I would normally expect to see batch numbers in an appendix, but it seems the authors thought it of prime importance and so wrote it first.

Enough about the layout, let’s get into the analysis of the science as they have reported it.

Analysis

There’s no introduction here so I don’t get to understand the context of the study or product. I don’t know the ingredients of Ponease or on what scientific basis they have been chosen.

Further, I don’t know how they have identified appropriate dose rates – or if they have identified criteria for inclusion or exclusion in the study cohort.

This gives the introductory information a big fail, however I’ll offer the benefit of the doubt and assume all this sort of information is not necessary for the company’s own records.

Description

The description of the protocol is short and lacking in sufficient detail.

It is not sufficient for publication, it is very far from sufficient for patent, and would not pass muster with most company R&D departments either.

If you are to test and potentially improve or patent a product, the report needs to include details like the formula for the product being tested, the dose rate and frequency and what criteria were used to select animals for the study.

In addition, those who paid attention to high school science will also notice a major flaw in the design of their study: the total absence of a control group.

What should a control group look like in this study?

Well, that depends on whether you are hoping to market your product as a supplement or as a medicine.

If you are looking to market as a supplement, you might treat all the animals in the study with the gold-standard veterinary treatment for ulcers – with omeprazole and sucralfate.

Your control group would only get this treatment, while your Ponease test group would get this treatment PLUS Ponease.

This would allow us to evaluate if Ponease really supplemented the recovery from ulcers, or if it was not better than standard treatment alone.

If you were hoping to market as a medicine, you would include both a positive and negative control.

Your positive control would be treatment with omeprazole and sucralfate, so that you can determine whether your Ponease treatment is better or worse than the current gold-standard treatment.

Your negative control of no treatment at all would show whether Ponease was genuinely working, or whether changes in season, diet, or other husbandry practice were responsible for any changes seen.

On the basis of a lack of control group alone, this study would not pass peer-review.

Study Results

In relation to the study’s results, again I am concerned about the unconventional layout.

It would be useful to have the raw data in an appendix but I would much prefer it to be in a proper table rather than this strange space-delimited text.

There is no attempt to summarise the data or perform any sort of statistical test. I would expect at least to see mean, median, and some measure of variation presented.

A graph of the changes in score would nicely demonstrate an effect (if the study design had included a control group).

Gastroscope images would also be useful in understanding the results, but we don’t have any supporting images at all for this study.

In the following section 👆, the authors claim their results are a ‘correlation’ of body scores and gastroscopy scores.

However, a correlation is a type of statistical test and no statistical test is presented. There is no data presented to assess any sort of correlation with feeding or behavioural habits.

Further, the report makes statements on gut flora and clinical pathology. However, there was no information about how these samples were collected or measured in the protocol, nor is the data really presented.

Conclusion

In my opinion, no conclusions can be drawn without a control group. Except perhaps that there were no adverse effects of the treatment and adverse effects are not reported.

Furthermore, the reported conclusion makes claims that can’t be substantiated by the presented data.

Basic Fact Checking

Remember when I said I’d get back to you with the information about the report authors?

Here’s the thing: a Google search reveals that the listed vet clinic responsible for the study went dormant in 2010 and was officially dissolved as a business in 2015.

This is three years before the start of the study (conducted 2018 – 2020).

And a further look through Google and the vet register will reveal that the first study author, Bruce Steele died in 2021 and didn’t appear to be practicing for around 10 years prior to that.

The second study author, Dr James Murphy is not named on the vet register in either the UK, Northern Ireland or The Republic of Ireland.

In addition, I’ve been unable to verify the existence of the following stables who were all listed as participating in the study.

• Smyths Down
• Oak Stables Armagh
• RC Equestrian Fermanagh
• JS Racing Louth
• Lards Racing Meath
• Dillons Race Yard Westmeath

I did however, locate Breen Equestrian but it’s located in West Sussex, not Dungannon.

It’s worth pointing out that on social media, The Breen Team advocate for the use of a competing supplement.

This would indicate they either they didn’t participate in the study (because it didn’t happen), or they weren’t all that impressed with the outcome 🤷‍♀️

In my opinion, the timeline of the study raises other red-flags, but I’ll leave that for readers to discover.

From a peer-review perspective, my scientific opinion is that the study is poorly designed, poorly presented and suspect of falsified data.

My recommendation to a journal editor would be to reject the submission.

Dr. BriAnne Addison

PhD, Zoology and Animal Science

*****************

Hmmmmmm okay then…

It seems this might raise even more awkward questions for Ponease.

However, credit where credit’s due.. They are nothing, if not persistent.

Even when the second admin of the ‘Ponease Fan Club’ was outed earlier this week for using photos pinched from a Russian dating site – they have barely drawn a breath…

Except to change ‘Sarah Hughes’‘ stolen profile photo to that of a cat… Which was a genius move and one sure to throw us all off the scent 🕵️‍♀️

Anyhoo – the reviews must go on! 💪

First Edwards Stephen was debunked…Now Sarah Hughes has been found in Russia. The management of ‘Ponease Fan Club’ must be in turmoil…

Anyway… that just about pulls us up for this week’s instalment of the Con Artist Chronicles… And I unlike last week this time I wont pretend it’s over 🙄

We have more information to share soon – so stay tuned.

As always, I welcome your comments and questions below.

Yours Sincerely,

Deteggtive Jemima & Chief Science Inspeggtor BriAnne