Category archive: Dreadful science reporting in the media

Burzynski Clinic in the Observer: PCC response

Posted on January 27, 2012 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 Dreadful science reporting in the media Medical ethics Pseudoscience 5 Comments

You may remember that last month I blogged about a hideously irresponsible article in the Observer. To refresh your memory, I said I’d reported them to the Press Complaints Commission and that I’d let you know of any developments. Well, I now have a development to report. The PCC have considered my complaint, and have ruled that the Observer article, while it was indeed misleading, did not breach the code, because it was somebody’s opinion rather than a factual article. … Continue reading →

The Burzynski Clinic part 2

Posted on December 5, 2011 by

Adam

and filed under Dreadful science reporting in the media Medical ethics 5 Comments

A few years ago, a man called Bernie Madoff was running an investment company. You’ve probably heard of him. He was offering wonderful rates of return on investments, far in excess of what any other investment companies were offering. Of course, the rates of return he was offering couldn’t really be delivered. The whole thing was a scam. Eventually, the FBI came and arrested him and put a stop to his little schemes. You might argue that the FBI therefore … Continue reading →

Making NHS health records available to private companies

Posted on December 5, 2011 by

Adam

and filed under Dreadful science reporting in the media Medical ethics Leave a comment

There has been a flurry of activity in the media in recent hours about a proposed plan to make anonymised NHS health records available to private companies. I am completely and utterly baffled by this. It is being presented as if it is something new. It isn’t. The General Practice Research Database (GPRD) already contains vast amounts of anonymised data from NHS patients, and can be made available to private companies who are prepared to pay the appropriate fee. This … Continue reading →

The Burzynski Clinic

Posted on November 25, 2011 by

Adam

and filed under Clinical research Dreadful science reporting in the media Medical ethics Pseudoscience 7 Comments

I have seen a number of very sad stories over the last few months that all have something in common. The most recent was printed in the Observer last Sunday. It is an utterly heart-rending story of a little girl who is dying of brain cancer. It is hard to imagine anything more terrible for any parents to have to face. It is understandable that when you find yourself in that situation, you will be prepared to clutch at straws. … Continue reading →

Duration of exclusive breastfeeding and risk of anaemia

Posted on January 14, 2011 by

Adam

and filed under Dreadful science reporting in the media Statistics 13 Comments

There’s been a lot of stuff in the news today about a paper that’s just been published in the BMJ by Mary Fewtrell and colleagues, which questions the current recommendation that infants should be exclusively breastfed for 6 months. There are many issues here, and I don’t have time to look at all of them, but one thing that I found interesting is that the paper raises the possibility that exclusive breastfeeding for 6 months may increase the risk of iron-deficiency … Continue reading →

Implanon and contraceptive failures

Posted on January 5, 2011 by

Adam

and filed under Dreadful science reporting in the media Statistics 1 Comment

Today a story has been in the news about the “scandalous” contraceptive failures reported with Implanon, a long-term hormonal contraceptive which is implanted under the skin. See here and here for examples from some of our most respected broadcasters. And see here for an example from possibly our least respected “news” source, the Daily Mail. OK, given that I’m quoting the Daily Mail, you’ve probably guessed by now that I’m not entirely happy with the way this story has been … Continue reading →

It’s life Jim, but not as we know it…

Posted on December 3, 2010 by

Adam

and filed under Dreadful science reporting in the media 5 Comments

NASA’s astrobiology unit held a press conference yesterday, in which they made the eagerly-awaited announcement about their latest piece of research. Now, given that an announcement from NASA’s astrobiology unit was eagerly awaited, it’s not surprising that there had been a lot of speculation that they’d discovered aliens. No serious commentators were expecting little green men, of course, but there was some quite serious speculation that they might have discovered some microbes, perhaps from an asteroid, of non-terrestrial origin. Of … Continue reading →

The R word

Posted on November 5, 2010 by

Adam

and filed under Dreadful science reporting in the media Medical ethics Leave a comment

Earlier this week, we learned that NICE is going to lose its powers to decide whether drugs should be funded on the NHS. This is one of the most spectacular triumphs of political fuckwittery over common sense that I’ve seen for a long time. Now I’m not going to claim that NICE was perfect in everything it did. But it did some groundbreaking work in assessing whether drugs represented good value for money. Assessing the cost effectiveness of drugs is not … Continue reading →

Last week’s big news story

Posted on October 21, 2010 by

Adam

and filed under Dreadful science reporting in the media Leave a comment

There was an absolutely huge story in the news last week. Can you guess which one I mean? It wasn’t the Chilean miners. That was a big story, of course, and utterly heartwarming to see it have such a happy ending, but the story I’m thinking of is of much greater significance. And it certainly wasn’t Margaret Thatcher’s 85th birthday, although you may have missed that. In a beautiful little piece of irony, it was knocked off the news by … Continue reading →

Plagiarism hurts

Posted on July 22, 2010 by

Adam

and filed under Dreadful science reporting in the media Medical ethics Medical writing 5 Comments

First of all, for blindingly obvious reasons, I should acknowledge that the title of this blog post is not original. “Plagiarism hurts” was the title of an article in EMWA‘s journal The Write Stuff by Elise Langdon-Neuner, its editor-in-chief (page 13 of this issue, 1.6 MB pdf). I’m sure that Elise won’t mind me re-using her title, with proper attribution. Elise was kind enough to show me her article before she published it, and we had some interesting discussions about … Continue reading →