Quis Custodiet Ipsos Custodes?

Posted on June 17, 2011 by

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 Medical writing Publications 1 Comment

I have waited a long time to write this blog. Since early in 2010, to be precise. In January 2010, a paper was published in a peer-reviewed journal that made some outrageous, untrue, and defamatory remarks about Dianthus Medical. I have not blogged about it before, because such things are better dealt with in private. This is particularly true if legal action is pending, although in the end, despite the fact that the journal refused to correct the untrue statements … Continue reading →

Rearranging the deckchairs in the NHS

Posted on June 13, 2011 by

Adam

and filed under Medical ethics Leave a comment

Today, we find out what changes are likely to be made to the Health and Social Care Bill that is currently making its way through Parliament. Much of the Bill as currently written, particularly the proposal to give GPs greater commissioning powers, including powers to commission from the private sector, has been controversial. It is therefore not surprising that a certain amount of negotiation is going to happen before the Bill becomes law. However, it strikes me that none of … Continue reading →

Destruction of smallpox vaccine

Posted on May 16, 2011 by

Adam

and filed under General science Medical ethics 1 Comment

This week, the World Health Organisation will be making a decision about whether to destroy remaining stocks of smallpox vaccine. As I’m sure you know, smallpox was eradicated more than 3 decades ago, thanks to the success of a global vaccination campaign. Given that smallpox used to kill so many people, its eradication is in my opinion perhaps the greatest achievement of medical science ever. Even those who don’t rate it quite that highly would probably put it in their … Continue reading →

EMWA conference 2011

Posted on April 28, 2011 by

Adam

and filed under Medical writing News Leave a comment

The EMWA conference in Berlin is nearly upon us, and I’m thoroughly looking forward to it. I’ve rather foolishly agreed to teach 3 workshops this time round (mainly about statistics), so I shall be working hard, but I’m sure it will be fun nonetheless. Always great to catch up with fellow medical writers from around Europe over a beer or two! Do come and say hello if you’re going to be there.

ICR conference 2011

Posted on April 25, 2011 by

Adam

and filed under News Leave a comment

We’ll be exhibiting at the ICR conference in Brighton on 21-22 March. Come and see us on stand 40! If you can’t make it, you can follow our news from the conference on Twitter. Follow us at @dianthusmed, or follow the hashtag #ICR2011.

World Homeopathy Awareness Week 2011

Posted on April 13, 2011 by

Adam

and filed under Medical ethics Pseudoscience 21 Comments

This week has been designated as “World Homeopathy Awareness Week” (WHAW). This is a rather odd title, as we shall see later, but the gist of it is that it is a PR exercise by the homeopathy community, designed to increase sales of their treatments. There’s a hashtag for it on Twitter: #WHAW. The amusing thing is that the vast majority of tweets using that hashtag are from non-homeopaths, pointing out how utterly bogus homeopathy is. Anyway, in the spirit … Continue reading →

Bias in papers about bias

Posted on March 4, 2011 by

Adam

and filed under Medical ethics Medical writing Statistics 1 Comment

I have just read a paper describing how Evil Big Pharma manipulates the medical literature so that they can make more money from selling their drugs, no matter what the science says. That paper made me grumpy. Why? Well, if you are going to write a scientific paper criticising someone for introducing bias into the scientific literature, would it be too much to ask that you should do it in an unbiased way? What makes me grumpy is when people … Continue reading →

Appropriately intolerant reporting of quack allergy testing

Posted on February 23, 2011 by

Adam

and filed under Pseudoscience 3 Comments

Last week, the government’s Chief Scientific Adviser, John Beddington, caused a bit of a stir when he called for scientists to be more intolerant towards pseudoscience. Surely intolerance is a bad thing, right? Well, the point Beddington was making was that pseudoscience can be dangerous, and it’s not OK to simply accept it as a valid system of alternative beliefs. Pseudoscientific treatments can indeed be dangerous. I read a particularly harrowing account recently of extreme distress and suffering caused by … Continue reading →

Zinc and the common cold

Posted on February 16, 2011 by

Adam

and filed under Clinical research Statistics 1 Comment

Today’s big health news story is a new Cochrane review that looked at zinc as a treatment for the common cold. The conclusion of the review is that taking zinc supplements within 24 hours of the onset of a cold can reduce the duration and severity of symptoms. However, I’m not convinced. The finding is based on a relatively small number of studies. Only 6 studies were used in the meta-analysis of the duration of symptoms. 4 of those studies were … Continue reading →

New podcast from the Institute of Clinical Research

Posted on February 10, 2011 by

Adam

and filed under Clinical research News 1 Comment

The Institute of Clinical Research (ICR) have today launched a new monthly podcast, which looks at news from the world of clinical research, and I’m delighted to say that I was a co-presenter of the first episode, along with Andrew Smith from the ICR. The podcast is not intended as a comprehensive news roundup (the ICR website does that job nicely), but a chance to have a more in-depth look and a bit of a chat about a few of … Continue reading →