Yearly Archives: 2012

EMWA conference in Cyprus

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Adam
Adam Adam set up Dianthus Medical in 1999. He is an experienced medical writer and statistician, has a PhD in organic chemistry from the University of Cambridge and an MSc in medical statistics from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
and filed under Medical writing News   2 Comments

As I write this, it’s now less than a week until the next EMWA conference, which will be in Cyprus on 14-18 May. I’m hugely looking forward to it (not least as a chance to escape all the dismal weather we’ve been having lately) and the opportunity to catch up with my many friends in the medical writing world. I’ll be teaching 2 workshops this time round: one on ANOVA and regression analysis, and the other on critical reading of … Continue reading →

Lucentis, Avastin, and the role of licensing

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Adam
Adam Adam set up Dianthus Medical in 1999. He is an experienced medical writer and statistician, has a PhD in organic chemistry from the University of Cambridge and an MSc in medical statistics from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
and filed under Clinical research Economics Healthcare   2 Comments

Two drugs for treating age-related macular degeneration (AMD), a disease that can lead to important loss of vision, have recently been much in the news. The drugs are Lucentis (generic name ranibizumab), which is expensive and is licensed for the treatment of AMD, and Avastin (generic name bevacizumab), which is much cheaper, but not licensed for the treatment of AMD. Both drugs are inhibitors of vascular endothelial growth factor A. In other words, they have the same mechanism of action. … Continue reading →

Epigenetics for breast cancer screening

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Adam
Adam Adam set up Dianthus Medical in 1999. He is an experienced medical writer and statistician, has a PhD in organic chemistry from the University of Cambridge and an MSc in medical statistics from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
and filed under General science Healthcare   Leave a comment

A few weeks ago I was at a cancer research seminar, and was chatting to a consultant oncologist over coffee. He explained to me his view that the important advances in cancer over the next decade or so are likely to be in better diagnosis, rather than better treatment. I don’t know if he’s right, of course, but what he said certainly makes sense. Cancer is incredibly difficult to treat once it’s at an advanced stage, and the sad fact … Continue reading →

Cancer quackery at the snooker update

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Adam
Adam Adam set up Dianthus Medical in 1999. He is an experienced medical writer and statistician, has a PhD in organic chemistry from the University of Cambridge and an MSc in medical statistics from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
and filed under Pseudoscience   Leave a comment

I wrote yesterday about my disappointment that former world snooker champion Peter Ebdon was advertising Gerson Therapy at the current world snooker championships. Since then, there have been developments. I saw a lot of activity on Twitter when Ebdon’s choice of sponsor first emerged, most of it critical. Some of this was directed at the BBC, who televise the event, and some at World Snooker, who organise it. It appears that this criticism had an effect, because World Snooker acted … Continue reading →

Cancer quackery infests snooker

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Adam
Adam Adam set up Dianthus Medical in 1999. He is an experienced medical writer and statistician, has a PhD in organic chemistry from the University of Cambridge and an MSc in medical statistics from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
and filed under Pseudoscience   1 Comment

I don’t have a great deal of interest in watching sport, on the whole. The only sport that I would ever willingly watch is snooker. So it is with great dismay that I have discovered that the former world champion, Peter Ebdon, is being sponsored by Gerson Therapy in the world snooker championship that’s currently being played in Sheffield. Gerson Therapy, in case you’re not familiar with it, is dangerous quackery, offering fake cures for cancer despite no evidence of … Continue reading →

Externalities in vaccination

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Adam
Adam Adam set up Dianthus Medical in 1999. He is an experienced medical writer and statistician, has a PhD in organic chemistry from the University of Cambridge and an MSc in medical statistics from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
and filed under Economics Healthcare Politics   4 Comments

As you may or may not know, I’m studying economics with the Open University in my spare time. It’s a fascinating subject, and I’m enjoying it very much. The latest thing I’ve been reading about as part of the course is why free market mechanisms generally fail in healthcare, and one of the reasons is an interesting little economic feature of vaccinations that’s never occurred to me before. So in case it hadn’t occurred to you either, I thought I’d share … Continue reading →

The harm of homeopathy

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Adam
Adam Adam set up Dianthus Medical in 1999. He is an experienced medical writer and statistician, has a PhD in organic chemistry from the University of Cambridge and an MSc in medical statistics from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
and filed under Pseudoscience   3 Comments

I wrote about a year ago about how some homeopaths, rather than living up to the nice friendly all-natural image they like to present, are actually hugely irresponsible and act in bad faith. I’ve seen a shocking example of the behaviour of a homeopath today. But first, some background. Penelope Dingle died of cancer in 2005, after being treated by a homeopath, Francine Scrayen. Dingle’s cancer was probably curable with appropriate treatment, but Scrayen convinced her to opt for homeopathic … Continue reading →

Why hasn’t Burzynski published his trials?

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Adam
Adam Adam set up Dianthus Medical in 1999. He is an experienced medical writer and statistician, has a PhD in organic chemistry from the University of Cambridge and an MSc in medical statistics from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
and filed under Medical ethics Pseudoscience Publications   7 Comments

I’ve written before about the Burzynski Clinic. Just to refresh your memory, it’s a clinic based in Texas that claims to have a remarkably effective treatment for cancer, antineoplastons. The marketing of the clinic is based on the idea that Burzynski is a maverick lone researcher who has discovered the cure for cancer, but the medical establishment don’t want you to know about it because it would threaten their business model. I’m never entirely clear whether the medical establishment are … Continue reading →

The importance of attending the ethics committee meeting

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Adam
Adam Adam set up Dianthus Medical in 1999. He is an experienced medical writer and statistician, has a PhD in organic chemistry from the University of Cambridge and an MSc in medical statistics from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
and filed under Medical ethics   Leave a comment

As regular readers of this blog will know, I sit on an NHS research ethics committee. It’s a fascinating experience. I’d like to share with you something that happened at the meeting I attended yesterday evening. One of the applications had some rather odd things about it. It was really not clear to us why the applicants had designed the study in the way they had, rather than in a way that would be far more usual and ethical for … Continue reading →

Clinical data manager vacancy

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Adam
Adam Adam set up Dianthus Medical in 1999. He is an experienced medical writer and statistician, has a PhD in organic chemistry from the University of Cambridge and an MSc in medical statistics from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
and filed under News Recruitment   4 Comments

Dianthus Medical currently has an immediate vacancy for a Clinical Data Manager to join our friendly team. Job Description: The selected candidate will be required to assist the senior clinical data manager in all required data management activities. The role will involve managing clinical trial data by designing, building, and validating clinical trial databases in accordance with standard operating procedures and to clean data in preparation for statistical analysis. The ideal candidate will have a cooperative spirit and enthusiasm for … Continue reading →