Ben Goldacre is back with a follow up to his great book Bad Science. It’s called Bad Pharma and I can’t wait to read it.
He recently spoke on the subject at TEDMED. Check it out here:
He talks about the publication bias in favour of positive trials – such that ‘only freaks get published’. Highlighting examples such as reboxetine and oseltamivir (tamiflu) he shows that publication bias is a cancer eating at the heart of evidence-based medicine. Goldacre asks all to call for the mandatory publication of all drug trials ever performed to fix this disastrous situation.
Count me in.
Hat tip to @amcunningham for the link.
Learn more:
- Ben Goldacre in the Guardian — The drugs don’t work: a modern medical scandal
About Chris Nickson
Great stuff. He’s also good to follow on twitter @bengoldacre
“…positive finding are 50% more likely to be published than negative findings … publication bias is a ‘systematic flaw in the core of medicine’….it is the ‘cancer at the core of evidence based medicine’….
What a legendary talk -- well done Ben Goldacre for bring to the forefront this significant issue in academia.
Makes you think of lysis for acute stroke???