Policy: twenty tips for interpreting scientific claims
This list will help non-scientists to interrogate advisers and to grasp the limitations of evidence.
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It’s just a phase
A resource explaining the differences between different trial phases.
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How do you regulate Wu?
Ben Goldacre finds that students of Chinese medicine are taught (on a science degree) that the spleen is “the root of post-heaven essence”.
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Science is about embracing your knockers
Ben Goldacre: “I don’t trust claims without evidence, especially not unlikely ones about a magic cream that makes your breasts expand.”
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Interactive PowerPoint Presentation about Clinical Trials
An interactive Powerpoint presentation for people thinking about participating in a clinical trial or interested in learning about them.
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Thousand dollar placebo
People with vested interests may take advantage of peoples' fears or hopes..
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Promising treatments
'Promising' treatments greatly outnumber actual advances in treatment.
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Gertrud
Exaggeration and hopes or fears can lead to unrealistic expectations about treatment effects.
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John Ioannidis, the scourge of sloppy science
A 8 min podcast interview with John Ioannidis explaining how research claims can be misleading.
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Smart Health Choices: making sense of health advice
The Smart Health Choices e-book explains how to make informed health decisions.
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Surgery for the treatment of psychiatric illness: the need to test untested theories
Simon Wessely describes the untested theory of autointoxication, which arose in the 1890s and caused substantial harm to patients.
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The placebo effect
A video by NHS Choices explaining what the placebo effect is, and describing its role in medical research and the pharmaceutical industry.
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Therapeutic Touch: a schoolgirl shows how to test it
This 5-minute video provides an example of applying scientific method to dodgy treatment claims.
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On being sucked into a maelstrom
In 2006, a patient in the UK, who happened to be medically trained, found herself swept along by the Herceptin […]
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Antibiotics in pre-term labour
Fair tests of treatments with hoped-for beneficial effects, and which are assumed to be harmless, can show that neither is […]
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Selling screening
‘Selling screening can be easy. Induce fear by exaggerating risk. Offer hope by exaggerating the benefit of screening. And don’t […]
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The struggle for unbiased evidence
Researchers expected it would take about three years to enrol about 1,000 women in the two studies. Instead it took […]
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Bone marrow transplantation
However, the demise of mutilating surgery did not spell the end of the ‘more is better’ mindset – far from […]
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Evening primrose oil for eczema
Even if inadequately assessed treatments do not kill or harm, they can waste money. Eczema is a distressing skin complaint […]
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Drugs to correct heart rhythm abnormalities in patients having a heart attack
Dr Spock’s advice may have seemed logical, but it was based on untested theory. Other examples of the dangers of […]
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