What should Cochrane do next?
Here’s a talk I did last year that’s just popped up online. The Cochrane Collaboration is a fabulous organisation, producing gold standard “systematic reviews” summarising all the data that’s ever been collected on important questions in medicine. Cochrane have become great by inviting criticism: for example, they run the Silverman Prize, for the best essay or paper pointing […] (Source: badscience)
Source: badscience - November 5, 2014 Category: Science Authors: Ben Goldacre Tags: bad science data structured data systematic reviews video Source Type: blogs
My new book is out today. Here is the introduction. Hooray!
My new book is out today: a collection of columns, journalism and essays, but also some of my more colourful government reports, academic papers, and more. It looks lovely. Here is the introduction. Hooray! …… Amazon ………………….. …………………. Audible ……… ………. Waterstones ………. ….. Kindle …………………….. ………. Local …………………. …….. Harper Collins...
Source: badscience - October 23, 2014 Category: Science Authors: Ben Goldacre Tags: book ITYFIABMCTT onanism Source Type: blogs
Weirdly long and fun Absolute FM radio interview
Taking epidemiology to the streets: here’s a long, long interview I did last week on Absolute FM (lovely Geoff Lloyd’s lovely Hometime Show). Posting here because it’s unusually good and long for pop media. In between the rock classics, we talk about screening, Ebola, government statistics, and good quality sperm. My lovely new book – I […] (Source: badscience)
Source: badscience - October 20, 2014 Category: Science Authors: Ben Goldacre Tags: bad science Source Type: blogs
I totally just touched my new book: Collected Journalism, out next week!
Excitement. My new book is out next week. It’s a collection of journalism, essays, academic papers, government reports (woo!) and other stuff. It’s called “I think you’ll find it’s a bit more complicated than that”. A copy just arrived and it is a beautiful, big, thing. The content is all completely different to Bad Science […] (Source: badscience)
Source: badscience - October 17, 2014 Category: Science Authors: Ben Goldacre Tags: book onanism Source Type: blogs
Teaching science with bad science: resources for teachers
People often wring their hands over how to make science “relevant” to the public, or to young people. For me, this is an open goal: we are constantly barraged with health claims in popular culture, and evidence based medicine is the science of how we know what does good, and what does harm. Every popular claim is an […] (Source: badscience)
Source: badscience - July 24, 2014 Category: Science Authors: Ben Goldacre Tags: teaching resources Source Type: blogs
What statins tell us about the mess in evidence based medicine
Sorry to be absent, I’ve about a zillion big things shortly coming to fruition, at which point expect a deluge. Everyone is having kittens about statins and the BMJ at the moment. Here’s what I wrote as a rabid response on the latest BMJ editorial about it, and a disco soundtrack to keep your attention […] (Source: badscience)
Source: badscience - June 30, 2014 Category: Science Authors: Ben Goldacre Tags: evidence Source Type: blogs
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 […] (Source: badscience)
Source: badscience - March 13, 2014 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Ben Goldacre Tags: alltrials campaign bad science placebo Source Type: blogs
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-in-which-i-get-a-bit-overinterested-and-look-up-waaay-too-many-references/ 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 […] (Source: badscience)
Source: badscience - January 20, 2014 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Ben Goldacre Tags: blue monday cash-for- stories Source Type: blogs
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 […] (Source: badscience)
Source: badscience - January 15, 2014 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Ben Goldacre Tags: alltrials campaign publication bias regulating research Source Type: blogs
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 […] (Source: badscience)
Source: badscience - January 6, 2014 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Ben Goldacre Tags: bad science Source Type: blogs
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, […] (Source: badscience)
Source: badscience - January 3, 2014 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Ben Goldacre Tags: alltrials campaign badpharma Source Type: blogs
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, […] (Source: badscience)
Source: badscience - December 20, 2013 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Ben Goldacre Tags: bad science Source Type: blogs
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 […] (Source: badscience)
Source: badscience - December 19, 2013 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Ben Goldacre Tags: bad science Source Type: blogs
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 […] (Source: badscience)
Source: badscience - December 17, 2013 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Ben Goldacre Tags: badpharma competing interests conflict of interest publication bias regulating research Source Type: blogs
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 […] (Source: badscience)
Source: badscience - December 17, 2013 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Ben Goldacre Tags: ABPI badpharma ESHLSG Source Type: blogs
