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Monthly Archives: October 2008
BBC Churnalism
25-Oct-08APGaylard has won a complaint against the online BBC news service. Go and have a read, but this is the story that started his complaint:
In August, the BBC ran a story claiming that research had determined that some places in Britain were ‘happier’ than others. You can see the nature of the claims in [...]
The EMEA’s Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP) have pulled the marketing authorisation for rimonabant (Acomplia) [PDF]. This isn’t much of a surprise. What is interesting in this case is the reasoning, which not only addresses safety concerns, but also concerns about effectiveness in clinical practice (as opposed to clinical trials). Effectiveness, rather [...]
Important product withdrawal
19-Oct-08You may wish to check your pantry.
The Food Standards Agency has today issued a food alert about novelty food products from China, including chocolate-flavoured ‘willy spread’, containing melamine.
Melamine is an industrial chemical that should not be present in food. Milk products containing melamine have been at the centre of a major food incident in China.
An [...]
How bizarre.
Someone has decided to complain to the GMC about a group of doctors involved in the decision-making process over MMR vaccine. The complainant is Bill Walsh, the author of a particularly dumb letter about the Hornig study. Sadly he is also the President of the Autism Treatment Trust, which just shows you how some [...]
In the eye of a vaccine scare
18-Oct-08I recently attended the 8th International Society of Pharmacovigilance Conference in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Vaccine safety has been a growing component of this conference, it was addressed in Bournemouth last year, and this year had several sessions on how to improve the detection of real adverse events caused by vaccines, and how to address the [...]
The underbelly of science
14-Oct-08Kevin Leitch has an interesting post which documents Andrew Wakefield’s mistakes, although that’s probably too kind a word to use, over the years. Here is the conclusion, but you should read the whole thing.
A review of the career of Andrew Wakefield is a trawl through the underbelly of science. Wakefield did not do experiments to [...]
Wakefield on McBride
12-Oct-08In today’s Sunday Express a puff piece about Andrew Wakefield [not yet online] and his celeb fans has the following interesting comparison raised by Andrew Wakefield:
He cites parallels between his story and that of Dr. William McBride, the Australian gynaecologist who first alerted the world to the danger of thalidomide, the morning sickness drug that [...]