Category Archives: Health

Facebook, cancer, miracle cure

By take21 | Published: February 26, 2009
Update on the social-networking-causes-health-risks story. Previous post here Ben Goldacre and Dr Aric Sigman on BBC Newsnight discuss Sigman’s paper with Jeremy Paxman. Also featured, the views of Professor Susan Greenfield, source of The Daily Mail story: Social websites harm children’s brains: Chilling warning to parents from top neuroscientist ‘Social networking websites are causing alarming [...]
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Facebook, cancer, Daily Mail

By take21 | Published: February 22, 2009
How using Facebook could raise your risk of cancer The Daily Mail This is so bad I thought it was a parody, but I guess the Daily Mail’s science and medicine coverage is beyond parody. For example: “* Yes, loneliness is bad for your health – but only YOU can cure yourself * Drinking just [...]
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Dore on R4, transcripts available

By take21 | Published: August 22, 2008
Face the Facts: The Dore Programme: controversial treatment for dyslexia has gone bust.’ Broadcast on Friday 15th August. In which we learned that: Dorothy Bishop, Professor of Developmental Neuropsychology at Oxford University has a colleague who uses the Dore Balsall Common study as a training exercise for undergraduate students. This was also the primary purpose [...]
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Dore on R4

By take21 | Published: August 14, 2008
‘Fri 15th August You and Yours, 12.00-1.00pm 12.30: Face the Facts: The Dore Programme: controversial treatment for dyslexia has gone bust.’ On BBC Radio 4 and listen again for 7 days via Brainduck Given  their previous reporting on Dore, which was just embarrassing for an investigative consumer affairs programme, it’s to be hoped You and [...]
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Mapping, GIS, disease

By take21 | Published: July 21, 2008
“A system of electronic mapping which allows many different types of data to be layered onto a single image is being used to improve healthcare across Rwanda. The digital maps, called Geographic Information Systems (GIS), are designed to compile information from numerous databases and use it to both track and predict outbreaks of disease. This [...]
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Time Management

By take21 | Published: July 6, 2008
Randy Pausch on time management. Lecture at University of Virginia November 2007. Video 1hour 16 mins. Why? Time management is vital to study, especially part-time study. What do I get for over an hour of my time? Enough tips to save hours a week of wasted time, for the rest of your life. Some important [...]
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Meta science reporting

By take21 | Published: June 24, 2008
Ben Goldacre has a piece on media coverage of health and medical research. 1. Mostly, press coverage is pretty poor. He cites a US study “After almost two years and 500 stories, the project has found that journalists usually fail to discuss costs, the quality of the evidence, the existence of alternative options, and the [...]
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Dore, bloggers and Bad Science

By take21 | Published: June 9, 2008
It would be gratifying to report that the recent suspension of activities by the Dore company was the direct result of a better public understanding of research methods. Unfortunately, it is not quite as clear cut as that. The direct cause of Dore’s demise seems to be financial. First Australian, then UK and USA operations [...]
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from the Annals of Improbable Research

By take21 | Published: June 9, 2008
The Relative Price of Nothing “Commercial Features of Placebo and Therapeutic Efficacy,” Rebecca L. Waber, Baba Shiv, Ziv Carmon and Dan Ariely, Journal of the American Medical Association, vol. 299, March 5, 2008, pp. 1016–7. (Thanks to Mark Dionne for bringing this to our attention.) The authors, who variously are at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, [...]
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Compare and contrast

By take21 | Published: May 27, 2008
Compare the use of research in a commercially marketed treatment programme with a critique using standard methods for evaluating research evidence. Research links from the Dore website A page of selected results showing improvements in pupil’s scores for reading, SATs and attention symptoms. University and Education Authority studies are cited. In particular, papers published in [...]
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