Often when climbing or walking up a mountain the last few meters are the most tiring, but the elation you feel as you reach the top makes the physical effort worth it.
Still, you can slip on the way back down the hill…
Just published:
Graphs have been used in attempts to show a relationship between the measles, mumps and rubella virus (MMR) vaccine and autism. We examine the topic of graphical representation of data in general, and one of these graphs in particular: the one that appeared in a 1999 letter to The Lancet. That graph combined data [...]
The above work outing is of the SS staff from Auschwitz. The photograph comes from a new photograph album, recently donated to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM), which depicts a rare view of Auschwitz from the SS side of the wire. They compare the album with another depicting the arrival of people at [...]
Here’s a piece of history, I believe this is the first drug safety signal detected by the Yellow Card scheme published in the BMJ in 1964.
Cahal, DA. Jaundice and Cardivix. British Medical Journal 1964; 2(5413): 882
In Indiana they have a rather unconventional “cure” for autism:
IU student Edward Uyesugi II, of Paoli, Ind., the man who performed an unauthorized exorcism on a 14-year-old autistic boy in May, will have his initial hearing Friday, Aug. 10.
Uyesugi, 22, was arrested Aug. 1 after turning himself in to authorities, police said. Uyesugi was charged [...]
Things are pretty busy at the moment, so no posts. One of the reasons it has been quiet is because I was speaking at the British Pharmaceutical Conference. Sadly, I missed the first day of the conference, and missed Ben Goldacre and David Colquhoun’s appearances. Ben Goldacre recorded David Colquhoun’s discussion (which everybody was talking [...]
The NPSA has issued an advisory bulletin about the risks associated with confusion between amphotericin formulations, after the deaths of two patients (via adr.org.uk). The deaths may have been the ones noted in this news article.
The BBC report on an insulin overdose given by a junior doctor, who cites a lack of training as mitigation.
A [...]
Michael Fitzpatrick on MMR vaccine and other health confusions he comes across:
As doctors, we are grappling in our surgeries with fear and confusion, exacerbated by an apparently endless series of health scares and panics. A campaigner came to me convinced that a local mobile phone mast was causing her breathing difficulties; later she admitted that [...]