Anyone who listened to Radio 4 will miss this lady:
Comic Linda Smith, a regular panellist on BBC Radio 4’s The News Quiz, has died of cancer at the age of 48.
The writer and broadcaster was a staple of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and BBC Radio, whose listeners voted her “Wittiest Person” in 2002.
She made frequent [...]
Here’s a bit of local religious quackery:
An exorcist has carried out a ritual on a Sandwell school where seven members of staff have been struck down by a mystery illness.
The exorcist came forward after being alerted to sickness problems affecting staff at The Meadows Special School in Oldbury.
Sandwell Council education spokesman Coun Ian Jones revealed [...]
At least two of the people who read this blog, you know who you are, will enjoy this video. (via CT)
Here’s a letter a colleague had published in The Independent on Sunday at the weekend:
In her piece about Herceptin (19 February) Joan Smith fails to mention that trastuzumab (Herceptin) has side-effects.
If she had read the New England Journal of Medicine further she would have found that almost 10 per cent of patients develop cardiac [...]
A while back there was some concern about the reporting of adverse effects in the VIGOR trial (rofecoxib). The concern was that some cardiovascular events had been deleted. The NEJM have published an editorial called Expression of Concern Reaffirmed [PDF]
As part of our expression of concern, we also pointed out that three myocardial infarctions [...]
Over two years ago Eve Garrard left a comment on this blog about the Nazi Euthanasia programme. Last night, she delivered a lecture on the moral philosophy underpinning the debate on euthanasia to a professional meeting which I had organised for my local branch of The Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain. Those of you [...]
Walking on mountains is risky. In winter the risk increases. The layers of snow and ice that give the mountains their beauty make conditions underfoot treacherous, blizzards can make navigation difficult and the low temperatures can induce hypothermia in the poorly equiped. Even if well prepared, incidents like this can occur:
Members of Llanberis mountain [...]
On stern Blencathra’s perilous height
The winds are tyrannous and strong;
And flashing forth unsteady light
From stern Blencathra’s skiey height,
As loud the torrents throng!
Beneath the moon, in gentle weather,
They bind the earth and sky together.
But oh! the sky and all its forms, how quiet!
The things that seek the earth, how full of noise and riot!
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, [...]
Here’s a heads up for a programme about the drugs industry:
You and Yours : BBC Radio Four
Date: Thursday 23rd February 2006
Time: 12:00 to 12:57
Science for Sale? Can we trust drug companies to test their own drugs?
Vivienne Parry talks to a researcher whose experience suggests we can’t.
The case they will be talking about concerns Procter & [...]