Left Brain/Right Brain is a blog run by Kevin Leitch.
Left Brain/Right Brain is about two things – autism and web design. Sometimes the two things combine but mostly they’re distinct.
Why Autism?Mostly because my daughter is autistic. I want people to know that autism is not a ‘life sentence’ or ‘worse than death’ or an [...]
The start of the MMR controversy was born when Wakefield argued that that measles/MMR vaccination was linked to the development of autism in some children, and that there was a persistence of measles virus in autism. Afzal et al have recently published a paper which undermines the virological case for a link between MMR and [...]
Some of the TGN1412 volunteers have been released home and have been talking about their ordeal. Here’s Nav Modi, he is understandably less than impressed with his experience:
“An hour after the drug entered my body I was suddenly gripped by pain,” he said. “I felt my head swelling up like an elephant’s. I thought my [...]
Sarah Boseley has an article in The Guardian today entitled The selling of a wonder drug. She describes how a patient was approached after making a comment about Herceptin in a newspaper.
Jardine, who had had breast cancer, was asked in a newspaper interview what she thought about Herceptin, she responded that although she was confident [...]
Mark Henderson, science correspondent of The Times, argues that scientists have been too weedy in the wake of the TGN1412 story:
When news broke of the appalling outcome of the TGN1412 drug trial at Northwick Park Hospital, the [pharma] industry’s publicity machine fell mysteriously silent. Corporate PRs who days before had been pushing stories about [...]
A colleague draws my attention to this series of informative pages about alcohol blackouts. Of course, many people will have experienced such instances at one time or another, but these two root beer commercials about alcohol blackouts should act as salutary warnings to us all.
If you do a search at Google for the drug TGN1412 you will obtain 79,700 pages. Of the links on the first page, two are to the developers own site, seven are to blogs (two to this site), and one to a good New Scientist article. There is also a link to an extensive Wikipedia [...]
Then:
“In honour of over 2100 men & women volunteers who left these shores to fight side by side with the Spanish people in their heroic struggle against facism 1936-1939. Many were wounded and maimed 526 were killed and their example inspired the world.
They went because their open eyes could see no other way.””
and now:
“Wherever people live [...]
Thomas Hunig, the German professor who founded the company which invented TGN1412, has stated he hoped his drug would one day still have a place in an almost Strangelovian interview. The man’s well of optimism is titanic in nature.
“I do hope TGN1412 can come to the market. This tragic incident does not exclude the theoretical [...]