Sex, Drugs and BureaucratsThis post accompanies a Health Canada Warns post on RxISK. The Health Canada statement is classic bureaucratise. They “could not confirm, nor rule out, a causal link between stopping SSRI or SNRI treatment and persistent sexual dysfunction“ because “the available studies were not designed to assess this effect” Exactly – deliberately designed not to detect. […]
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Shifting Vaccine ConfidenceBefore 1980 Roughly through to 1980, vaccines were public goods. They were mostly made by national bodies who were publicly funded, although pharmaceutical companies were dipping their toes in the water. They were used for diseases that a national community thought were serious and worth getting vaccinated against – like polio. Few national communities would […]
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Religion, Technology and ManagementReligion Mention religion and the links between individuals and their creator, if they think they have one, come to mind. We imagine an individual fasting, meditating, or kneeling in prayer. It was more common in the past however to think of a people, like the People of Israel and their God. Our rulers, whether Kings […]
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The Fault Lies in Our StarsThe Fault lies in our Stars not in Ourselves: Randomized Controlled Trials & Clinical Knowledge In the Beginning In 1947, a trial of streptomycin introduced RCTs to medicine. From then, through to their incorporation into the 1962 amendments to the Food, Drugs and Cosmetics Act, occasioned by the thalidomide tragedy, there were questions about the […]
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Fawlty StarsThe argument in The Fault Lies in our Stars features in Chapter 6 of the forthcoming Shipwreck of the Singular. It was sent out for comment to the following, who were chosen mostly by Mark Wilson. The responses received are below: Corrado Barbui, Lisa Bero, Alan Cassels, Angus Deaton, Jean-Francois Dreyfus, Andrew Leigh (author of […]
