Ben Goldacre's Blog, page 4

Statins have no side effects? What our study really found, its fixable flaws, and why trials transparency matters (again).

Hi there, sorry to be absent (dayjob!). I was surprised to see a study I’m a co-author on getting some front page media play today, under the headline “Statins ‘have no side effects’”. That’s not what our paper found. But it was an interesting piece of work, with an odd result, looking at side effects […]

Blue Monday is churnalism. Again.

I have two problems with Blue Monday. One is that there isn’t really any good evidence for seasonal variation in mood: www.badscience.net/2009/01/part-432-i... The other is that serious mental health charities have been getting involved in using it, when they should be holding a line, advocating for patients based on good scientific evidence. When these charities […]

Blue Monday is churnalism. Here’s me shouting about it, at NPR On The Media

It’s that time of the year, when journalists flush their credibility down the toilet by rewriting press releases on Blue Monday into their newspapers: keep a list, and remember to ignore their other output. Here’s me on NPR On The Media discussing it, there are some funny new bits: www.wnyc.org/radio/#/ondemand/341007 More on Blue Monday going […]

My BMJ editorial: we need routine audit of missing clinical trials

I wrote this editorial in the British Medical Journal with the magnificent Carl Heneghan, director of the Centre for Evidence Based Medicine at Oxford. It’s about the Public Accounts Committee, progress on publication bias, and a suggestion for routine ongoing audit to give actionable information for decision-makers on how much information is missing. … While […]

I wrote this in the Guardian: denialism over clinical trial results being withheld

I wrote this piece in the Guardian on clinical trial results being withheld, and the staggering denialism from diverse players including industry, the Royal Colleges, the MHRA, David Cameron, and more. This denialism has slowed progress on the issue, and cost lives. It’s my view, frankly, that people should be sacked – and presidents dismissed […]

Public Accounts Committee issues damning report on clinical trial results being withheld

MPs on the UK parliament’s Public Accounts Committee today issued one of the most damning reports ever seen on the problem of clinical trial results being withheld. Their amazement at the extent of the problem is palpable. This is a fantastic result for the campaign that started with Iain Chalmers et al many years ago, […]

Here’s my… foreword to the Romney Hythe and Dymchurch Railway guidebook

I often tweet about my love for the RH&D narrow gauge railway, and this year they asked me to write an introduction for their guidebook. Some of the staff were worried by what I sent. But they were wrong. I love this railway. Here’s the piece. Foreword The Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch Railway has a strange, […]

FREE! Here is the new “What Happened Next?” update chapter from Bad Pharma 2013

Here is the extra update chapter from the new 2013 paperback edition of Bad Pharma. It’s a fun romp through the changes that have happened over the past year or so, starring the many ethical professionals in pharma and medicine who have tried to push things forward, and some very shameful denialism from people in positions […]

Here’s our letter to the GMC, about addressing systemic failures in the medical profession

The GMC are focused mainly on the narrow issue of an individual doctor’s competence when seeing individual patients. But there are broader issues that have an equally important impact on patient care and public trust: failure to publish clinical trials, failure to participate in research, and imperfectly declared conflicts of interest, for example. The Health […]

The very strange saga of the “Ethical Standards in Health and Life Sciences Group”

Still catching up on posting things from this year. Here’s a piece I wrote in the BMJ with medical student colleagues about an extraordinary, influential, and rather depressing organisation called the “Ethical Standards in Health and Life Sciences Group”. This was a committee of the great and good in medicine, co-chaired by Sir Richard Thompson […]