Ben Goldacre's Blog, page 13

Pretending that evidence is difficult and complicated

Ben Goldacre, The Guardian, Saturday 19 February 2011 For the past two weeks we've followed the government's misuse of evidence on NHS reforms, remembering that they're perfectly permitted to reform things with no evidence at all, like everyone else does, they just shouldn't pretend to have evidence. On Thursday health minister Simon Burns appeared before [...]

Why is evidence so hard for politicians?

Ben Goldacre, The Guardian, Saturday 12 February 2011 One thing you hope for, with politicians, is that they won't make the same mistakes over and over again. Last week we saw that the government has overstated the problems in the NHS by using dodgy figures (to be precise, they used misleading static figures instead of [...]

Andrew Lansley and his imaginary evidence

Ben Goldacre, The Guardian, Saturday 5 February 2011 I have never heard one politician use the word "evidence" so persistently, and so misleadingly, as Andrew Lansley defending his NHS reforms. Since he repeatedly claims that the evidence supports his plan, let's skim through what we can find on whether GP consortiums work, the benefits of [...]

How to read a paper

Ben Goldacre, The Guardian, Saturday 29 January 2011 If science has any authority, it derives from transparency: you can check the claims against the working. Sometimes you hit a brick wall. Sometimes you might consider a shortcut. Let's look at 3 types of checking. First up, in the Sun, a child has been born at [...]

Tell me now how do I feel

Ben Goldacre, The Guardian, Saturday 22 January 2011 I'm not going to tell the same story once a year, like some kind of journalistic dirty protest, even if it crops up in parliament, every newspaper, and all over Radio 4: there are more interesting things to say than "Blue Monday is bullshit", but before we [...]

"None of your damn business"

Ben Goldacre, The Guardian, Saturday 15 January 2011 Sometimes something will go wrong with an academic paper, and it will need to be retracted: that's entirely expected. What matters is how academic journals deal with problems when they arise. In 2004 the Annals of Thoracic Surgery published a study comparing two heart drugs. This week [...]

Putting a number in its context

Ben Goldacre, The Guardian, Saturday 8th January 2011 "600 pregnancies despite contraceptive implant" said the BBC.  "500 fall pregnant after having contraceptive implant" said the Express. "Contraceptive implant alert" said the Daily Mail: "Hundreds of women fall pregnant after birth control fails". The story first broke on Channel 4, and it's still not entirely clear [...]

I'm doing this awesome massive nerd tour

I'm doing this awesome massive nerd tour with Simon Singh, Brian Cox and Robin Ince. We will talk about science and it will be funny. Also, we will make a Spinal Tap tour video. Come! The first ever national science tour celebrating the universe and many of the wonders that lie within it. Robin Ince, [...]

The year in nonsense

Ben Goldacre, The Guardian, Saturday 17 December 2010 It's been a marvellous year for bullshit. We saw quantitative evidence showing that drug adverts aimed at doctors are routinely factually inaccurate, while pharmaceutical company ghostwriters were the secret hands behind letters to the Times, and a whole series of academic papers. We saw more drug companies [...]

NMT are suing Dr Wilmshurst. So how trustworthy are this company? Let's look at their website…

Ben Goldacre, The Guardian, Saturday 11 December 2010 You will hopefully remember – from the era before Wikileaks – that US medical device company NMT are suing NHS cardiologist Peter Wilmshurst over his comments about the conduct and results of the MIST trial, which sadly for NMT found no evidence that their device prevents migraine. [...]