Those of you who follow homoeopathy stories in the blogosphere will be aware that NHS Tayside are currently advertising for a “Specialist Doctor in Homeopathy“. If you are not familiar with this story, and some of the excellent job applications it has generated, you might want to catch up with it here, here, or here (and probably many other excellent blogs as well, apologies to anyone I’ve missed out). I did try applying for the job myself a few days … Continue reading →

For anyone who hasn’t yet read the first 3 parts of this story, they are here, here, and here. Just to recap, my main concern is that the NHS disclosed my confidential data (and the data of about 5 million other people) to the UK Biobank team without my consent. OK, now we’re all up to date, I have just finished reading the documents I received in response to my FOI request from both the Department of Health and the … Continue reading →

Readers with a long memory will recall that I blogged about the UK Biobank project back in January (with an update in May), and that at the time I made a Freedom of Information request to try to receive the ethics application form for the study. By law, public bodies are required to respond to Freedom of Information requests within 20 working days. I finally received the documents I asked for this week. That’s a lot more than 20 working … Continue reading →

There has been much discussion in the blogosphere and the Twittersphere lately about homoeopathy, partly because of some Early Day Motions being put before the British parliament on the subject, and partly because of the BMA’s vote against homoeopathy at their recent conference. Now, this may come as a surprise to anyone who is familiar with my views on homoeopathy, but I’m going to mount a partial defence of it here. Don’t worry, I haven’t completely taken leave of my … Continue reading →

I sit on a research ethics committee, which for the most part is a fascinating experience. It is always interesting to see what research people want to do, and satisfying when we can help it become more ethical. However, sometimes I really despair about the way ethics committees are managed. Today, I have received a letter from NRES, asking me to take part in a consultation. Is this consultation about important ethical issues in clinical research? No. Believe it or not, I … Continue reading →

I blogged about the UK Biobank study back in January. My two main concerns were that the NHS had passed on my personal data without my consent to the UK Biobank team, and that the UK Biobank’s literature described the handling of biological samples as “anonymous”, when in fact it wasn’t. I had other concerns too. In short, I wasn’t very happy. I now have some more to report. At the time I last blogged, I made a Freedom of … Continue reading →

I had a letter from the NHS yesterday, telling me that they would like to create a summary care record (SCR) for me. In fact they wanted to do it so much that they were going to go ahead and create one even if I don’t ask them to. Oh goody. So what does this mean, exactly? Well, it means that my personal medical details would be uploaded onto a giant database that would be available to anyone working in … Continue reading →

I’ve just returned from a 1-day conference organised by the National Research Ethics Service. I can’t say I’ve finished the day with a wonderful sense of optimism about the future of ethical review of clinical research. The day began with a talk that was supposed to be an update about what NRES was doing. In fact it was mainly about NRES’s mission statement, the drafting of which seems to have occupied an outrageously disporportionate amount of NRES’s intellectual efforts. As … Continue reading →