Tag: Ben Goldacre

Reporting results from clinical trials is vital for science-based medicine

Clinical trials must report on their outcomes, irrespective their results. Doctors and their patients need all the information, not just the good news stories, to make informed decisions.

/ February 28, 2016

How not to report about vaccine safety issues, Toronto Star edition

I remember it well, because several of my readers forwarded it to me not long after it appeared on the website of the Toronto Star: An eye-catching headline proclaiming a “wonder drug’s dark side,” that “wonder drug” being Gardasil, one of two vaccines against the human papilloma virus (HPV) designed to prevent cervical cancer by preventing infection with the HPV virus. The...

/ February 16, 2015

Bad Pharma: A Manifesto to Fix the Pharmaceutical Industry

“There is no medicine without medicines” write Ben Goldacre in his new book Bad Pharma. To Goldacre, an author, journalist and physician, this cause is personal. The title, a reference to both his first book, Bad Science, as well as the pharmaceutical industry’s nickname Big Pharma, is a bit of a misnomer. While the focus is pharmaceutical companies and their actions, there are...

/ November 22, 2012

The 2010 Lorne Trottier Public Science Symposium

I really have to give those guys at McGill University’s Office for Science and Society credit. They’re fast. Remember how I pointed out that I’ve been away at the Lorne Trottier Public Science Symposium? This year, the theme was Confronting Pseudoscience: A Call to Action, and I got to share the stage with Michael Shermer, Ben Goldacre, and, of course, our host,...

/ October 20, 2010