Jump to follow-up This is a very important book. Buy it now (that link is to Waterstone’s Amazon don’t pay tax in the UK, so don’t use them). When you’ve read it, do something about it. The book has lots of suggestions about what to do. Stolen from badscience.net Peter Medawar, the eminent biologist, [...]
Tags: Academia · badscience · Big Pharma · BMJ · CAM · Clinical trials · Continuing med education · corruption · Freedom of Information Act · randomisation · RCT · Universities
Jump to follow-up I have in the past, taken an occasional interest in the philosophy of science. But in a lifetime doing science, I have hardly ever heard a scientist mention the subject. It is, on the whole, a subject that is of interest only to philosophers. It’s true that some philosophers have had interesting [...]
Tags: Academia · philosophy · randomisation · randomization · RCT
Jump to follow-up One wonders about the standards of peer review at the British Journal of General Practice. The June issue has a paper, "Acupuncture for ‘frequent attenders’ with medically unexplained symptoms: a randomised controlled trial (CACTUS study)". It has lots of numbers, but the result is very easy to see. Just look at their [...]
Tags: acupuncture · CAM · randomisation · randomization · RCT · TCM · Traditional Chinese medicine · Uncategorized
Jump to follow-up The King’s Fund recently published Assessing complementary practice Building consensus on appropriate research methods [or download pdf]. It is described as being the “Report of an independent advisory group”. I guess everyone knows by now that an “expert report” can be produced to back any view whatsoever simply by choosing the right [...]
Tags: Academia · acupuncture · Adrian Eddleston · antiscience · badscience · CAM · Chinese medicine · chiropractic · CHRE · Cyril Chantler · Department of Health · Fair trading · Foundation for Integrated Health · General Chiropractic Council · George Lewith · Harry Cayton · herbal medicine · homeopathy · HR bollocks · HRH · Human resources · King's Fund · National Institutes of Health · NIH · Prince Charles · Prince of Wales · Prince's Foundation · randomization · RCT · regulation · Richard Lilford · Stephen Holgate
Jump to follow-up This post is not about quackery, nor university politics. It is about inference, How do we know what we should eat? The question interests everyone, but what do we actually know? Not as much as you might think from the number of column-inches devoted to the topic. The discussion below is a [...]
Tags: CAM · cancer · causality · cohort · Michael Marmot · nutribollocks · nutrition · randomisation · randomization · RCT · WCRF