Annual Review 2017/18
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Integrative Oncology — Strong Science Worthy a Goal As Shrinking the Tumour
CORRESPONDENCE LINK TO ORIGINAL ARTICLE LINK TO AUTHOR’S REPLY oncology programmes is to ease the suf- fering of patients with cancer, which is as Integrative oncology — strong science worthy a goal as shrinking the tumour. The SIO breast cancer clinical guidelines6 pro- is needed for better patient care vide evidence that there is a large enough body of literature to systematically evaluate Heather Greenlee, Suzanna M. Zick, David Rosenthal, Lorenzo Cohen, what works, what does not work, and where more research is needed; the evidence can Barrie Cassileth and Debu Tripathy then help guide clinical decisions. In the cases where there is an absence of clear We read David Gorski’s Opinion article on patients to control chemotherapy-induced clinical research data providing guidance, integrative oncology (Integrative oncology: nausea and vomiting. More than 30 interven- patients and clinicians need to engage in really the best of both worlds? Nature Rev. tions received a Grade C recommendation shared decision-making when assessing the Cancer 14, 692–700 (2014))1 with both inter- that suggested weaker evidence of benefit due risk–benefit ratio for each therapy. est and dismay. We firmly agree with Gorski to either conflicting study results or small Heather Greenlee is at the Department of that all forms of medical practice should be sample sizes. Seven therapies are not recom- Epidemiology, Mailman School of Public Health, based on evidence supporting safety and mended due to lack of effect, and one was Columbia University, New York, New York 10032, USA. efficacy. In addition, we concur that the field found to be harmful. -
Download Our Annual Review 2018-19
ANNUAL REVIEW 2018/19 Because evidence matters A MESSAGE FROM OUR DIRECTOR “We held the first ever Evidence Week in the UK parliament, opened by community groups from across the country. They joined researchers to brief members of parliament on the evidence relevant to planned policy changes.” EVIDENCE MATTERS, AND WE SHOULD ASK FOR IT, MAKE SENSE OF IT AND EXPECT DECISION MAKERS TO BE ACCOUNTABLE FOR IT. Evidence, in the form of research results, statistics parliaments now want to take this on and we and reasoning, is not some esoteric concern. It is will be working with them over the next year the currency of public life and accountability. to make that happen. We have seen similar international demand for our Transparency Sense about Science’s purpose is to promote of Evidence framework, which pushes government the public interest in sound science and evidence. departments to make available the evidence These are demanding times — equipping behind government proposals. communities, encouraging researchers and pushing bodies that would rather ignore Our Voice of Young Science network — early the evidence to engage with it — and in the career researchers who want to train themselves 12-month round up that follows you will see and help each other to participate in public just how much its realisation depends on the discussion about research — has appeared involvement of different communities and research in new cities around Europe. The Maddox prize, partners, donors and people with a sense of public which we award with Nature in the autumn, service. With their commitment, systems and now includes an early career award. -
Orac (Alias David Gorski) December 31, 2014 She’S Baa-Aack
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2014/12/31/oh-no-gmos-are-going-to-make-everyone-autistic/ nearly 500 comments Orac (alias David Gorski) December 31, 2014 She’s baa-aack. Remember Stephanie Seneff? When last Orac discussed her, she had been caught dumpster diving into the VAERS database in order to torture the data to make it confess a “link” between aluminum adjuvants in vaccines and acetaminophen and—you guessed it!—autism. It was a bad paper in a bad journal known as Entropy that I deconstructed in detail around two years ago. As I said at the time, I hadn’t seen a “review” article that long and that badly done since the even more horrible article by Helen Ratajczak entitled Theoretical aspects of autism: Causes–A review (which, not surprisingly, was cited approvingly by Seneff et al). Seneff, it turns out, is an MIT scientist, but she is not a scientist with any expertise in autism, epidemiology, or, for that matter, any relevant scientific discipline that would give her the background knowledge and skill set to take on analyzing the epidemiological literature regarding autism. Indeed, she is in the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at MIT, and her web page theredescribes her thusly: Stephanie Seneff is a Senior Research Scientist at the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. She received the B.S. degree in Biophysics in 1968, the M.S. and E.E. degrees in Electrical Engineering in 1980, and the Ph.D degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science in 1985, all from MIT. -
Chemical Stories
sense about science making sense of chemical stories A guide for the lifestyle sector and anybody with questions about chemical stories The Disconnection Between Lifestyle Commentary and Chemical Realities Scientists are worried about the growing there are so many misconceptions that people disconnection between the lifestyle view of are often scared and anxious when they needn’t chemicals and the chemical realities of the be, and complacent when they shouldn’t be. world. So why is there such a disconnection between perception and reality? It seems partly to be the They are worried not just because people are result of intensive merchandising of ‘alternative’ likely to misunderstand what chemicals are products, lifestyle ideas and campaigns that and do, but because of the consequences for play on misconceptions about chemicals and decisions about lifestyle choices, family health about how the body works. It is also notable and social policies. that lifestyle commentators are excluded In lifestyle commentary, chemicals are presented from science-related briefings, and have few as something that can be avoided, or eliminated opportunities to make relevant scientific using special socks, soaps or diets, and that contacts. So, something needs to be done by the cause only harm to health and damage to the scientists in a way that is genuinely helpful to environment. The chemical realities of the people writing quick copy for a lifestyle audience. world, by contrast, are that everything is made This briefing document flags up the more serious of chemicals, that synthetic chemicals are often misconceptions that exist around chemicals much safer for human health than so-called and suggests straightforward ways for writers ‘natural’ ones, and that unfounded anxiety about and presenters in the lifestyle media to evaluate chemicals is encouraging people to buy into them. -
The Engaged University: Providing a Platform for Research That Transforms Society
The University of Maine DigitalCommons@UMaine Senator George J. Mitchell Center for Sustainability Publications Solutions 8-2010 The ne gaged university: Providing a platform for research that transforms society Ali Whitmer Georgetown University Laura Ogden Florida International University John Lawton Pam Sturner Stanford University Peter M. Groffman Boston University See next page for additional authors Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/ mitchellcenter_pubs Part of the Sustainability Commons Repository Citation Whitmer, A., Ogden, L., Lawton, J., Sturner, P., Groffman, P.M., Schneider, L., Hart, D., Halpern, B., Schlesinger, W., Raciti, S., Bettez, M., Ortega, S., Rustad, L., Pickett, S.T.A., & Killelea, M. 2010. The ne gaged university: Providing a platform for research that transforms society. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment 6: 314-321. This Article is brought to you for free and open access by DigitalCommons@UMaine. It has been accepted for inclusion in Publications by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@UMaine. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Authors Ali Whitmer, Laura Ogden, John Lawton, Pam Sturner, Peter M. Groffman, Laura Schneider, David Hart, Benjamin Halpern, William Schlesinger, Steve Raciti, Neil Bettez, Sonia Ortega, Lindsey Rustad, Steward TA Pickett, and Mary Killilea This article is available at DigitalCommons@UMaine: https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/mitchellcenter_pubs/4 SCIENCE, COMMUNICATION, AND CONTROVERSIES -
Hippocrates Now
Hippocrates Now 35999.indb 1 11/07/2019 14:48 Bloomsbury Studies in Classical Reception Bloomsbury Studies in Classical Reception presents scholarly monographs offering new and innovative research and debate to students and scholars in the reception of Classical Studies. Each volume will explore the appropriation, reconceptualization and recontextualization of various aspects of the Graeco- Roman world and its culture, looking at the impact of the ancient world on modernity. Research will also cover reception within antiquity, the theory and practice of translation, and reception theory. Also available in the Series: Ancient Magic and the Supernatural in the Modern Visual and Performing Arts, edited by Filippo Carlà & Irene Berti Ancient Greek Myth in World Fiction since 1989, edited by Justine McConnell & Edith Hall Antipodean Antiquities, edited by Marguerite Johnson Classics in Extremis, edited by Edmund Richardson Frankenstein and its Classics, edited by Jesse Weiner, Benjamin Eldon Stevens & Brett M. Rogers Greek and Roman Classics in the British Struggle for Social Reform, edited by Henry Stead & Edith Hall Homer’s Iliad and the Trojan War: Dialogues on Tradition, Jan Haywood & Naoíse Mac Sweeney Imagining Xerxes, Emma Bridges Julius Caesar’s Self-Created Image and Its Dramatic Afterlife, Miryana Dimitrova Once and Future Antiquities in Science Fiction and Fantasy, edited by Brett M. Rogers & Benjamin Eldon Stevens Ovid’s Myth of Pygmalion on Screen, Paula James Reading Poetry, Writing Genre, edited by Silvio Bär & Emily Hauser -
The Rise of Acupuncture in the Opioid Epidemic
Patients in Pain: The Rise of Acupuncture in the Opioid Epidemic Eana Meng Abstract Many pain patients and patients in recovering from substance use disorders seek alternative methods of care, either because they feel isolated from the biomedical establishment or because current pain management approaches do not fully address their suffering. One particular alternative medicine that has become popular is acupuncture. With a long history in this nation, the practice is currently in its third wave of popularity and growing concurrently with the rise of the opioid epidemic. This paper explores the dynamic between biomedicine and acupuncture by focusing in on the patients’ stories of pain and how physicians and acupuncturists have responded to them. It looks at patient narratives and includes interviews from acupuncture schools to recovery centers. This paper is also historical in nature, by briefly looking at the previous rises of acupuncture in the United States, and delving deeper into the Community Acupuncture movement that began in the 1970s. Then, it looks at biomedicine’s response to these historical events, especially in light of the opioid crisis. Questions around therapeutic efficacy and evidence arise throughout, as the paper navigates through the worlds of biomedicine and alternatives. Ultimately, this paper wants the reader to ask themselves: what counts as medicine, and who gets to decide? Biography Eana Meng is recent graduate of Harvard College, where she majored in History of Science. She studies the history of alternative medicines, with a focus on traditional Chinese medicine. Citing This Work We are committed to sharing our work as widely and effectively as possible while protecting our students’ scholarship. -
Why Anti-Vaccine Claims About NVICP Cases Are Wrong
Minnesota Journal of Law, Science & Technology Volume 20 Issue 1 Article 11 8-7-2019 Using and Misusing Legal Decisions: Why Anti-Vaccine Claims about NVICP Cases Are Wrong Dorit Rubinstein Reiss UC Hastings College of Law Rachel Heap Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarship.law.umn.edu/mjlst Part of the Administrative Law Commons, Health Law and Policy Commons, and the Other Medicine and Health Sciences Commons Recommended Citation Dorit Rubinstein Reiss & Rachel Heap, Using and Misusing Legal Decisions: Why Anti-Vaccine Claims about NVICP Cases Are Wrong, 20 MINN. J.L. SCI. & TECH. 191 (2018). Available at: https://scholarship.law.umn.edu/mjlst/vol20/iss1/11 The Minnesota Journal of Law, Science & Technology is published by the University of Minnesota Libraries Publishing. Using and Misusing Legal Decisions: Why Anti-Vaccine Claims about NVICP Cases Are Wrong Dorit Rubinstein Reiss*and Rachel Heap† Abstract The question of whether vaccines cause autism spectrum disorder (autism, or ASD) has been extensively studied. Studies from different countries around the world, looking at millions of children in total, examined it and found no link. Despite this powerful evidence, the actions of a small group who fervently believe that vaccines cause autism may lead people to question the data. One tactic used to argue that vaccines cause autism is the use of compensation decisions from the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program to claim such a link. This article demonstrates that not only does the nature of proof in the program make its decisions ill-suited to challenging the science but also that the cases used do not, in their content, support that conclusion. -
College? No, 'Quackery', Say CAM Critics
CAM NEWS SPECIAL NEWS FEATURE College? No, ‘quackery’, say CAM critics A short report in the British Medical Journal on the fund-raising activities of the new College of Medicine, which aims to promote integrated health care in the NHS, has been followed by a storm of feedback in the BMJ. * This has included a comment from Dr Edzard Ernst headed “College of Quackery” and the statement “this is not ‘excellence’ but outright quackery which has the potential to kill patients”. Michael Ash, BSc, DO, ND, F DipION, responds to the commentary. lternative and integrative The pressure comes from self-styled rhetoric and scientific racialism. practitioners must feel at times skeptics and vocal opponents of CAM, as Integrative and alternative therapies as though their career choice well as a plethora of EU legislation. Finding (CAM) are most effective for patients who is suddenly less than ideal in a way forward can be daunting, and even have already developed chronic illness, or Athe face of relentless attempts to diminish significant organisations such as the who have risk profiles suggesting they will. their role in assisting and improving the recently formed College of Medicine are Despite efforts in the BMJ to health status of their clients and patients. seeing their mission mired in ego-driven inappropriately compare homeopathy with acute medicine interventions, emergency medicine is not the ground on which CAM’s allegedly unsubstantiated and evidence- deficient therapies predominately operate and deliver most benefit. Mainstream medicine development Mainstream medicine (dominated by drugs and surgery) has in the main continued to evolve by remaining heavily reliant on its early 20th century model and its success in attacking infectious diseases, rather than in the resolution and prevention of chronic, complex diseases. -
Key Legislative Points Pertaining to the Licensing and Regulation of Practitioners of Naturopathic Medicine in North America
Key legislative points pertaining to the licensing and regulation of practitioners of naturopathic medicine in North America January 2018 Britt Marie Hermes, ND (ret.) [email protected] Let me get straight to the point: Naturopathic education is rich in pseudoscience and fake medicine, and it is devoid of legitimate medical training. Naturopaths are not trained in the rigors of medical science, and this leads to a severe lack of competency and a huge risk of patient harm. NDs seem nice and charismatic, but they do not posses medial competency, especially to prescribe drugs. I organized this letter into sections of eight key points that illustrate why legislatures and physicians should worry that naturopaths want to be licensed to practice a “distinct form of primary health care.”1 (Note: I refer to naturopathic doctors as naturopaths for convenience.) KEY POINT #1: Naturopaths graduating from Bastyr University receive 561 hours in “primary care” training, but which is not real primary care medicine. Naturopathic clinical training takes place in a naturopathic teaching clinic, which is an outpatient clinic that caters to a small subset of typically healthy patients. No clinical training takes place in a hospital setting, like it does for medical providers. Clinical training at naturopathic teaching clinics encompasses the diagnosis and treatment of fake medical conditions, such as adrenal fatigue and systemic yeast overgrowth.2,3 Typical naturopathic treatments include supplement and diet based “detox” programs, energy medicine like homeopathy, hydrotherapy like colon irrigation, botanical medicines, intravenous injections of vitamins, and very little conventional medicine.4,5 In other words, naturopaths are trained to treat the “worried well.” Based on how I, and my colleagues, earned our naturopathic degrees from Bastyr University, I can attest that naturopathic graduates tend to exaggerate or miscalculate their training hours. -
Worlds Apart: How the Distance Between Science and Journalism Threatens America's Future
Worlds Apart Worlds Apart HOW THE DISTANCE BETWEEN SCIENCE AND JOURNALISM THREATENS AMERICA’S FUTURE JIM HARTZ AND RICK CHAPPELL, PH.D. iv Worlds Apart: How the Distance Between Science and Journalism Threatens America’s Future By Jim Hartz and Rick Chappell, Ph.D. ©1997 First Amendment Center 1207 18th Avenue South Nashville, TN 37212 (615) 321-9588 www.freedomforum.org Editor: Natilee Duning Designer: David Smith Publication: #98-F02 To order: 1-800-830-3733 Contents Foreword vii Scientists Needn’t Take Themselves Seriously To Do Serious Science 39 Introduction ix Concise writing 40 Talk to the customers 41 Overview xi An end to infighting 42 The incremental nature of science 43 The Unscientific Americans 1 Scientific Publishing 44 Serious omissions 2 Science and the Fourth Estate 47 The U.S. science establishment 4 Public disillusionment 48 Looking ahead at falling behind 5 Spreading tabloidization 48 Out of sight, out of money 7 v Is anybody there? 8 Unprepared but interested 50 The regional press 50 The 7 Percent Solution 10 The good science reporter 51 Common Denominators 13 Hooked on science 52 Gauging the Importance of Science 53 Unfriendly assessments 13 When tortoise meets hare 14 Media Gatekeepers 55 Language barriers 15 Margin of error 16 The current agenda 55 Objective vs. subjective 17 Not enough interest 57 Gatekeepers as obstacles 58 Changing times, concurrent threats 17 What does the public want? 19 Nothing Succeeds Like Substance 60 A new interest in interaction 20 Running Scared 61 Dams, Diversions & Bottlenecks 21 Meanwhile, -
Science and the Public Interest
Science and the public interest Communicating the results of new scientific research to the public Contents Page Foreword Lord Rees of Ludlow, President of the Royal Society ......2 Sir Patrick Bateson, Chair of the working group ............3 Summary............................................................................4 Science and the public interest 1. Introduction ..........................................................6 2. Conflicts with the public interest ........................7 3. Intellectual property ............................................8 4. Corporate social responsibility ............................9 5. Disclosure requirements ....................................10 6. Negative results ..................................................10 7. Responsibilities of researchers ..........................10 8. Quality control and review ................................11 9. New forms of communication ..........................13 10. Conferences ........................................................13 11. Lay summaries and media releases ..................13 12. Conclusion ..........................................................14 References ......................................................................16 Annex Annex 1 ......................................................................18 Annex 2 ......................................................................19 Annex 3 ......................................................................19 Annex 4 ......................................................................20