Martin Stabe » health

Guardian: Cancer jab fantasy closes down a debate

Martin Stabe — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 07:25:25 +0000

Ben Goldacre on the Express "Jab as deadlin as the cancer" story: "The article has now gone from the Express website, and Harper has complained to the Press Complaints Commission. 'I fully support the HPV vaccines,' she says. 'I believe that in general they are safe in most women. I told the Express all of this.'"

Independent: Media and publishing staff are worst binge-drinkers

Martin Stabe — Tue, 26 May 2009 06:30:41 +0000

"People working in media, publishing and entertainment sectors are the heaviest drinkers, according to the Department of Health. They consume an average of 44 units a week, almost twice the recommended maximum amount of three-to-four units a day for men, and two-to-three for women."

Guardian: Man flu and the difference between mice and men

Martin Stabe — Sat, 23 May 2009 11:52:59 +0000

Ben Goldacre: "what if the media was no longer the public's key source of information on health? The NHS Choices website gets about 6 million unique visitors a month, with no publicity. There you will find Behind the Headlines (around 200,000 visitors), a service I played a tiny role in helping set up: they take the biggest health news stories each day, find the real scientific evidence behind them, and precis it, clearly, for a lay audience. What's amazing is that there is a need for this service."

Jeni Barnett: MMR and Me (updated)

Martin Stabe — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 10:25:33 +0000

Jeni Barnett's defense of the MMR programme that is the focus of a legal dispute between LBC and Dr Ben Goldacre. To her credit, she allows those who disagree with her to comment.

Update 9/2: It seems my pleasant surprise at Barnett's willingness to engage with her critics was premature. As Holford Watch points out, the critical comments have now been removed from her site.

Barnett also added second, more snarky post condemning Ben Goldacre as a "Bad Scientist". The (quite reasonable) comments on that post have also been removed.

If you publish non-fiction in any public medium — be it a blog or something with a considerably larger audience like a radio programme — you must expect people to question the factual veracity of your reporting and the logical consistency of your analysis. If this happens, you should be willing to take it on the chin, defend your position, or even honourably withdraw claims that don't stand up to the critique.

This is the standard that scientists hold themselves to, and it would be nice if those with the power to disseminate ideas to mass audiences would hold themselves to the same standard.

Alone In The Dark: Strange Ontology: Week Beginning 8th October 2008

Martin Stabe — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 06:06:37 +0000

A Daily Mail watch-blog looks at Ben Goldacre's observation that the Mail is "engaged in a philosophical project of mythic proportions: for many years now it has diligently been sifting through all the inanimate objects in the world, soberly dividing them into the ones which either cause - or cure - cancer."

Alone In The Dark: Strange Ontology: Week Beginning 8th October 2008

Martin Stabe — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 06:06:37 +0000

Press Gazette: Doctor’s warning: ‘Poor quality of British journalism is a serious public health issue’

Martin Stabe — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 08:29:22 +0000

"In an interview for this month’s print edition of Press Gazette, [Ben] Goldacre has condemned journalists for fueling what he calls the “MMR hoax” by giving widespread coverage to Doctor Andrew Wakefield’s claims that MMR jabs caused autism. He points out that vaccination rates have dropped from 92 per cent to 73 per cent prompting serious disease outbreaks since Wakefield’s research was first reported in 1998."

Guardian: Editorial: Libel battles can make and break reputations, but only rarely do they bear on questions of life and death

Martin Stabe — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 07:50:34 +0000

"Libel battles can make and break reputations, but only rarely do they bear on questions of life and death. The legal case against the Guardian which Matthias Rath abandoned this week is an exception. The vitamin campaigner - who has long proffered his pills as a panacea in defiance of all evidence - objected to remarks our columnist Ben Goldacre made about his South African activities."

Guardian: Comment is Free: The media’s addiction to controversy can seriously damage your health

Martin Stabe — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 07:17:40 +0000

Peter Wilby: "A coincidence of events does not prove a causal connection. Nevertheless, an excellent book by Tammy Boyce of Cardiff University - Health, Risk and News - shows British press stories about MMR and its dangers climbed steeply from 1998 and peaked in 2002."

NHS Choices: Behind the Headlines: No evidence chocolate ‘beats cancer’

Martin Stabe — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 19:25:46 +0000

NHS Behind the Headlines calls BS on the Star and Express: "This study cannot be taken as evidence that eating chocolate, and specifically Mars bars, will reduce your risk of bowel cancer, or any other type of cancer, or that it is 'good for you'."

E-Media Tidbits: Google-mapping vulnerability to disease

Martin Stabe — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 12:29:04 +0000

"The Toronto Star's new Map of the Week project has published a set of school vaccination maps which illuminates an ongoing measles outbreak in the Toronto metro area -- the worst in more than a decade."