“A little checking goes a long way”

So says Ellen Raphael, UK director of Sense About Science, regarding the “bad science tips” made by various celebrities and public figures (from Tom Cruise on psychiatry to, yes, President-Elect Barack Obama on vaccines and autism).

Here’s hoping that they’ll all take a New Year’s resolution to do a little fact-checking, or at least web-surfing, before offering those tips in 2009.