HuckleB
HuckleB's JournalBook Review of Ben Goldacre's "Bad Pharma"
Lies, damn lies and drug trials: Bad Pharma: How drug companies mislead doctors and harm patients
http://www.newstatesman.com/sci-tech/sci-tech/2012/10/lies-damn-lies-and-drug-trials
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Goldacre made his name with the Guardian’s “Bad Science” column but it’s been clear for a while that statistics are what really energise him. Most politicians and journalists notoriously find numbers baffling; very clever and influential people get away with epic innumeracy where a slight verbal stumble would be ruthlessly derided. Contrast the sniggering over David Cameron not knowing the translation of “Magna Carta” with the finding from the Royal Statistical Society that 77 per cent of Labour MPs could not correctly answer the question: “If you spin a coin twice, what is the probability of getting two heads?” (It’s 25 per cent, by the way.)
Doctors do at least have some training in appraising evidence but as Goldacre shows, there are so many ways you can skew a clinical trial that it’s unrealistic to expect a GP or consultant to spot any dodgy data. For example, you could recruit patients to your trial who have no other medical conditions or drug prescriptions, making them more likely to get better. You can test a drug against a sugar-pill placebo, instead of the best current competitor. You can stop a trial early if it looks like it’s going well, or prolong it in the hope that the results will even out. You can find a fluke “clump” of encouraging results about one minor symptom and pretend that’s what the trial was going to measure all along.
Running alongside all of these practices – for which the researchers involved must take some responsibility – is the simple fact that the whole architecture of research publication is tilted towards new, exciting and positive results. There is currently no requirement for the results of every trial to be made public, so naturally academics only want to bother when they’ve found something interesting. Journal editors also worry that research which discovers a treatment has no benefit, or replicates a previous study, is boring. This flatters the drugs and helps their manufacturers reap billions from them.
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But the real strength of Goldacre’s book is that he has answers. If poorly funded and easily swayed regulators can’t police the industry, then make the data available to everyone. Replace bewildering consent forms with shorter ones in plain English. Scrap the endless drug information labels that list every conceivable side effect (from heart attacks to bad breath) with simple checklists that show how common they are.
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Alas, the book is not available in the US until January. Still, Goldacre is a very legitimate source. I can't wait to dig into this one.
Do We Want Obama To Win? If So, Then Let's Move Onward.
Let's spend our time pointing out Romney's lies, his bizarre behavior and his inconsistencies.
Let's spend our time pointing out Obama's plans, the fact that he has plans and specifics, etc...
And for an example, one can start by pointing out that Romney's attempt to scoot to the center is BS:
Romney on ‘Same Page’ With Ryan Budget Plan
http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2012/08/13/romney-on-same-page-with-ryan-budget-plan/
A very good piece about GE crops.
Genetically Engineered Crops—What, How and Why
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/2011/08/11/genetically-engineered-crops/
The Skeptical Vegan On GMO Labeling
http://skepticalvegan.com/2011/10/29/food-labeling/And one more:
http://www.science20.com/agricultural_realism/gmo_foods_label_or_not_label-93203
Inside the Mind of Worry: Why Our Fears Don’t Always Match the Facts
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/30/opinion/sunday/why-smart-brains-make-dumb-decisions-about-danger.html?src=rechp"...
Researchers in neuroscience, psychology, economics and other disciplines have made a range of discoveries about why human beings sometimes fear more than the evidence warrants, and sometimes less than the evidence warns. That science is worth reviewing at length. But one current issue offers a crash course in the most significant of these findings: the fear of vaccines, particularly vaccines for children.
In a 2011 Thomson Reuters/NPR poll, nearly one parent in three with a child under 18 was worried about vaccines, and roughly one American in four was concerned about the value and safety of vaccines in general. In the same poll, roughly one out of every five college-educated respondents worried that childhood vaccination was connected with autism; 7 percent said they feared a link with Type 1 diabetes.
Based on the evidence, these and most other concerns about vaccines are unfounded. A comprehensive report last year from the Institute of Medicine is just one of many studies to report that vaccines do not cause autism, diabetes, asthma or other major afflictions listed by the anti-vaccination movement.
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In this remarkable era of discovery about how our brains operate, we have discovered a great deal about why the gap occurs, and we can — and should — put our detailed knowledge of risk perception to use in narrowing the risk-perception gap and reducing its dangers. As the Italian philosopher Nicola Abbagnano advised, “Reason itself is fallible, and this fallibility must find a place in our logic.” Accepting that risk perception is not so much a process of pure reason, but rather a subjective combination of the facts and how those facts feel, might be just the step in the human learning curve we need to make. Then, maybe, we’ll start making smarter decisions about vaccines and other health matters."
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A gentle read about fear.
Bzzt. Wrong.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/01/120124140103.htmhttp://science.slashdot.org/story/11/12/23/1440223/new-study-confirms-safety-of-gm-crops
http://ec.europa.eu/research/biosociety/pdf/a_decade_of_eu-funded_gmo_research.pdf
Now, I could go on and on, but there is no point. You have a belief. It is not a rational belief. You will not let go of it, no matter what. We both know this.
Good day.
You're not waiting for anything.
You're choosing to ignore the reality.
Here's some more for you to ignore:
Joe Schwarcz: Debate over genetically modified food lacks reasoned arguments
Read more: http://www.montrealgazette.com/life/Schwarcz+Debate+over+genetically+modified+food+lacks+reasoned+arguments/7309263/story.html#ixzz28G9SaREC
The same anti-science routines are being used by the majority of the "GMO is evil" crowd.
That was explained in this piece, and has been explained in other pieces, as well.
For example, there is this well-linked piece: http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2012/09/are_gmo_foods_safe_opponents_are_skewing_the_science_to_scare_people_.html
It's not that simple.
This piece, and this researcher, explains these "problems" quite well.
http://scienceblogs.com/tomorrowstable/2012/09/24/rachel-carsons-dream-of-a-science-based-agriculture-may-come-as-a-surprise-to-those-who-believe-that-sustainability-and-technology-are-incompatible/
Antivaccine versus anti-GMO: Different goals, same methods
http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/antivaccine-versus-anti-gmo-different-goals-same-methods/#more-23012"...
There’s a lot in common between anti-GMO activists and antivaccine activists. Perhaps the most prominent similarity is philosophical. Both groups fetishize the naturalistic fallacy, otherwise known as the belief that if it’s “natural” it must be good (or at least better than anything man-made or “artificial”). In the case of antivaccine activists, the immune response caused by vaccines is somehow “unnatural” and therefore harmful and evil, even though the mechanisms by which the immune system responds to vaccines are the same or similar to how it responds to “natural” antigens. That’s the whole idea, to stimulate the immune system to think that you’ve had the disease without actually giving you the disease, thus stimulating long term immunity to the actual disease! In the case of anti-GMO activists, the same idea appears to prevail, namely that, because GMOS are somehow “unnatural,” they must be harmful and evil. That’s not to say that they might not have problems and issues that need to be dealt with, but the apocalyptic language used by many of the anti-GMO activists like Mike Adams and Joe Mercola is so far over-the-top that it is very much like the language of the antivaccine movement. In fact, not surprisingly, antivaccinationists are often anti-GMO as well, and vice-versa, an example of crank magnetism in action. Indeed, Joe Mercola himself is one of the biggest backers of California Proposition 37, which would require the labeling of GMO-based food, having donated $1.1 million so far.
The particular study that has been reverberating through out the anti-GMO community over the last couple of weeks was done by a group in France led by Gilles-Eric Séralini at the University of Caen with a history of opposition to GMOs. Also, as Steve pointed out, Séralini et al did not allow reporters to seek outside comment on their paper before its publication. If there’s a red flag that a study is ideologically motivated crap and that the authors know it’s ideologically motivated crap, I can’t think of one. Even if Séralini et al didn’t know their study was weak and were somehow afraid that the nefarious Monsanto scientists would plant negative sound bites into news stories about the study, I’m sorry, but trying to control initial news reports like this is just not how scientific results should be announced, period. It’s cowardice and an unseemly attempt at spin.
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So why should we care? As I said before, I detest ideologically-motivated pseudoscience and bad science. It’s the same reason I come down so hard on antivaccine “researchers” like Andrew Wakefield, Mark and David Geier, and various other “researchers” who pump out bad studies that support the long-discredited hypothesis that vaccines cause autism or that vaccines cause a whole host of problems. This bad science has real implications, both politically and in policy. Already, Séralini’s risibly bad study has motivated the French government to order a probe into the results of the study, which could result in the suspension of this strain of genetically modified corn. Moreover, one can’t help but wonder a little bit about the timing of the release of this study, given that Proposal 37, which would require the labeling of GMO-based food, is a big issue in California right now, and a study like this might just influence the election.
When it comes to GMO, I don’t really have a dog in the hunt, so to speak, but brain dead studies like this one certainly prod me towards the view that much of the “science” behind anti-GMO activism just doesn’t hold water, and the easy acceptance of such nonsensical results as valid by those who should know better but apparently don’t is just plain depressing. There might be valid reasons to be wary of the proliferation of GMO-based foods, such as concern over the control that large multinational corporations like Monsanto might exercise over the food supply, but the studies purporting to find horrific dangers of GMO-based food strike me as having the methodological rigor of a typical Andrew Wakefield or Mark Geier study—or an acupuncture study. Perhaps that’s why I wasn’t too surprised when one of my readers pointed out that one of the authors of the study is also a homeopath and acupuncturist; so maybe the better comparison to make to this paper would be papers by homeopaths trying to show that homeopathy works. Either way, this is bad, bad science, and it’s sad to see how many people who should know better (but apparently do not) lap it up so credulously while applying much greater skepticism to science that doesn’t damn GMOs as pure poison.
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The "problems" with the latest GMO rat study are so numerous it would be laughable if the propaganda pushing it as legitimate wasn't so loud. Science needs to be the way this is evaluated and discussed, not bad hyperbole "about the end of the world."
Cheers!
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