Archive for 'EBM' Category

Electronic Prescribing

Last September the NHS’s flagship IT project was finally allowed to sink into the Davy Jones locker of the last government’s IT failures, after warnings from Private Eye , the BMA, and even contractors associated with it. It cost over £12 billion. Even now, some companies may be sucked into the depths with it. NHS [...]

Daily Mail on exenatide

Here is the key part of the NICE appraisal document on prolonged release exenatide: Exenatide prolonged-release suspension for injection in triple therapy regimens (in combination with metformin and a sulphonylurea, or metformin and a thiazolidinedione) is recommended as a treatment option for people with type 2 diabetes, when control of blood glucose remains or becomes [...]

Homeopathy 0 Reality 1

This week I was at the British Science Festival speaking to the motion that “This house believes that the same level of evidence should be applied to CAM as applies to conventional treatment”. Although the debate was about CAM, the fact we had two homeopaths opposing the motion did mean the focus was on homeopathy. [...]

Should quackery be allowed a double standard?

The title of this post is a slightly inflammatory shortened version of a motion I’ll be debating at the British Science Festival in Bradford next week. The actual motion will be: “This house believes that the same level of evidence should be applied to CAM as applies to conventional treatment”. Sile Lane from Sense About [...]

Safety in second place?

The safety of newly marketed drugs is always provisional, based on the relatively limited population the drugs are used in prior to marketing. The number of subjects who take a drug in clinical trials is large enough to detect efficacy, but too small to detect rare, but serious, adverse events. In addition, the patients are [...]

Bleeding in soldiers – An update

Over 4 years ago I posted on the use of NovoSeven (recombinant activated Factor VIIa [rFVIIa]) when used for the treatment of trauma injuries in soldiers. At the time, the accusation was made that the soldiers were being given an experimental drug, despite the efficacy and safety of the drug not being proven in battlefield [...]

Patient groups and NICE

When writing a scientific paper, one task during the process of submitting the paper is to gather up the conflicts of interest so that readers can judge if they may have introduced bias into your paper. They may not have, but all the same it is the general view that providing such information is important. [...]

Right wing attacks on healthcare reform

Right wing attacks on Obama’s healthcare reform are an echo of previous attacks in the UK during Bevan’s creation of the NHS. For UK citizens it is hard to imagine a time when the NHS was perceived as a threat. Today the NHS is a sacred object in British politics, and those who wish to [...]

Long-acting beta agonists in asthma under scrutiny

The Washington Post reports on an FDA decision on long-acting beta agonists (LABAs) in asthma: The risks of two widely used asthma drugs outweigh their benefits for both children and adults, a U.S. Food and Drug Administration advisory panel said Thursday. The health panel targeted GlaxoSmithKline’s Serevent [salmeterol] and Foradil [formoterol], made jointly by Novartis [...]