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The price of ignorance: the Durham study and research ethics
Ben Goldacre (who seems to be one of this blog’s favorite sources) tears into the Durham fish oil trial. A while ago Durham County together with the company Equazen decided to test whether giving omega-3 supplements would improve the GCSE scores of children. Unfortunately there were clear problems with the trial design. In the face…
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Why object to improving prenatal tests?
The Daily Mail reports this week on a new blood test to detect conditions such as Down syndrome or cystic fibrosis in fetuses. The article raises concerns about ‘designer babies’. Yet given the recent concern about the risk of miscarrying normal fetuses with current screening procedures for Down syndrome why isn’t the Daily Mail welcoming…
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Publishing Negative Research Results
Ben Goldacre, in the Guardian this weekend, noticed the range of headlines on health and health risks that are to be found in the media. He mentions, among others, the rise of ‘manorexia’, the failure of water to induce weight loss and the dangers of antibiotics to prevent premature birth. I found a couple more:…
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DON’T PANIC
It has been an extraordinary week in the financial markets of the world. With the collapse of major international financial institutions, and governments forced to intervene by propping up ailing insurers or authorising the merger of banks, newspapers headlines have competed to convey the scale and significance of the crisis. But there is a difficult…
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Cognitive Science Advice for Republicans and Democrats?
The upcoming US elections have revived the culture wars but so far controversy about science and biotechnology has not taken centre stage, as both candidates support stem cell research. But science is still playing a minor role in the discussion. Writing in the New York Times, the influential conservative pundit David Brooks recently gave advice…
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I suggest it was Professor Plum, in the library, with the arsenic: the unreliability of brain experience detection
A woman has been convicted in Mumbai for murder, based on a new brain-based experience detection technology. As can be predicted, many regard this as Orwellian while others hope technologies like this could transform the courtroom "as much as DNA evidence has". But there are big problems. The most obvious one is the question of…
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Testing choices: weighing up risks of death and Down syndrome for fetuses
In the Observer yesterday, researchers from a major disability charity have claimed that the risks of screening for Down syndrome during pregnancy have been underestimated. The researchers suggest that for every 3 fetuses with Down syndrome that are detected by screening 2 unaffected fetuses miscarry as a complication of the testing process. Should screening be…
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Needles in Haystacks and Individuals in DNA Pools
An article recently published on PLOS Genetics showing that (and how) individuals can be identified by their DNA within large publicly accessible pools DNA has led to genetic data being removed from publicly accessible websites by the NIH and the Wellcome Trust. As one geneticist quoted in Science put it “We have a false sense…
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National Borders
An eight-year-old Iranian boy has been released after spending nearly two months in Yarl’s Wood immigration removal centre (http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/sep/06/immigration.humanrights). Child M, as he’s known, has been given body searches and now, unsurprisingly, seems to have various physical and psychiatric problems. His case is an especially clear example of the effects of national borders, and border…