DIA Clinical Forum 2011

We'll be exhibiting at the DIA Clinical Forum in Basel on 12-14 October. If you're going to be at the conference, please come and see us on stand 25.

If you're not going to be there, we'll do our best to keep you up to date with all the fun if you follow us on Twitter (@dianthusmed).

Always read the full paper

My attention has just been drawn to a paper which reviews basic research in homeopathy. It's bollocks, of course, as is most research in homeopathy, but it does provide a useful little lesson in the importance of reading the full paper and not relying on the abstract.

The medical ethics of an 80 mph speed limit

Can you put a price on a human life?

The instinctive answer of many people to that question is "no", but most health economists would say that not only can you put a price on a human life, you absolutely need to do so. Certainly when running a health service, the only rational way to decide whether interventions make economic sense is to do exactly that.

Strategic MedComms Forum 2011 part 2: guidelines and transparency

This is the second in a 2-part blog post. If you missed part 1, you can read it here.

So, on to the 3rd session of the day, “Good Practice Guidelines. A Triumph of Hope over Experience?”, which was led by Charlie Buckwell from Complete Medical Group. There are many guidelines which define good practice in pharma industry publications (which for the most part are remarkably consistent with each other), and yet there is still a widespread perception that pharma industry publications are thoroughly evil. Charlie showed us a YouTube clip which gave a good idea of how some journalists, either because they are seriously uninformed or because they think conspiracy theories always sell, continue to tell untruths about how the pharma publishes its research.

Strategic MedComms Forum 2011 part 1: marketing and data sharing

Last week, I spent a fascinating day at the Strategic MedComms Forum 2011. This event, subtitled “Trust and Transparency - Myth and Reality” and expertly organised by Peter Llewellyn of Network Pharma brought together a range of people working in medical communications for the pharma industry, as well as others with an interest in the field, to discuss the issues of trust and transparency in the way that the pharma industry communicates with the wider world.

Exciting development in antiviral research

I recently heard, via the BBC's excellent Science in Action programme, about an exciting new development in the fight against viral diseases.

The research, published in PLoS One, describes a radical new approach to antiviral treatment.  It relies on the fact that most viruses produce long sequences of double-stranded RNA, which is rare in mammalian cells: our cells generally only produce short sequences of double-stranded RNA. In an ingenious technique, the researchers have found a way of killing cells with long sequences of double-stranded RNA.

Student tuition fees

Forgive me for writing 2 non-medical posts in a row, but this morning's Today programme on Radio 4 contained such an egregious schoolboy error in statistics that I just couldn't resist.

They were discussing student tuition fees, and some new estimates that students starting university next year will graduate with about £50,000 worth of debts. UK readers will doubtless be familiar with the background to this, but for those of you from further afield, this results from a decision to increase student tuition fees from their current £3000 per year to £9000 per year, in what represents one of the most dramatic broken promises from some members of the government for quite a while. And as we're talking broken promises from politicians here, that's saying something. Astute readers will notice that that still amounts to only £27,000 for a 3-year degree course, but the figure also includes the amount students need to borrow for their cost of living.

London riots

London is under attack. Last night’s scenes of violence and destruction are worse than anything I remember in my lifetime. What I think was most scary was that the police were simply overwhelmed, and did not have the resources to deal with the rampant criminality.

I got to see some of this first hand. I happened to be in Colliers Wood yesterday evening. One shop had been set on fire, and other shops had had windows smashed and were being looted. The police were present, but were not able to intervene in the looting. I saw police in riot gear guarding a petrol station. They had presumably taken the (no doubt very wise) decision that preventing a petrol station being set on fire was the most important use of their limited resources.

Should pharmaceutical companies publish all their data?

I'm currently involved in a survey, designed to find out more about attitudes to pharmaceutical companies publishing all of their clinical data.

The objective of this short survey is to gain feedback as to how much trial data pharmaceutical companies should make public. The types of questions asked within the survey include, "Should pharma make all their data public, and if so, how where should they publish their data", and "What are the limitations on publishing all data?". The survey is aimed at professionals involved in the development, publishing or planning of medical publications.

Medical writing training, October 2011

We are pleased to announce that our 1-day introduction to medical writing training course will next run on 7 October 2011. Places are limited, so book early to avoid disappointment.

Details here.