The European Research Council (ERC) unanimously elected Prof. Helga Nowotny, an eminent social scientist, as the new ERC President on February 19th, 2010. Helga Nowotny is currently the ERC’s vice-President. She is Professor emeritus of Social Studies of Science, ETH Zurich, and Chair of the Scientific Advisory Board of Vienna University. She is also a […]
Douglas Noble on checklists
I remember as a medical student when the Rockall score for GI bleeding came into common practice. As with all checklists and tick box style scoring systems, well thumbed photocopies of ever decreasing quality slowly surfaced in emergency departments and acute medical units. The first time I ‘scored’ a patient I was surprised that their […]
Behrooz Astaneh: the culture of compliments
In a recent blog about guest authorship I mentioned that training plays a crucial role in persuading researchers to follow ethical guidelines in medical publishing. It is true that many researchers do not know the exact meaning of plagiarism. This is especially the case for many non-native English language researchers who do not have sufficient English writing capabilities. But can […]
Birte Twisselmann: Learning to tweet
I have never thought of social networking tools as something that might be terribly relevant for me. I cancelled my Facebook account because the number of ensuing emails annoyed me. And while I use Wikipedia all the time, and enjoy doing so, I always thought that Twitter, for example, is clearly for “over-sharers”—why would I […]
Richard Smith: What to say to a food company
What should you say to a major food company if asked to speak to its senior managers? A friend of mine, a cardiovascular epidemiologist, received such an invitation and emailed friends asking for advice on what to say. The context is that some people consider food companies to be like tobacco companies. They are making […]
Olivia Roberts: Somaliland: no aid, no problem?
Somaliland doesn’t exist, officially. But a new paper suggests that there is still a lot for the international development community to learn. Somaliland has been unrecognised under international law since its secession from Somalia in 1991. And the ex-British colony isn’t just subject to the ire of cartographers, as its status as a country-in-waiting means that […]
K M Venkat Narayan: Genetic Markers for Cardiovascular Disease and the Myth of Sisyphus
The massive global hunt for genes for common diseases, such as cardiovascular diseases (CVD) and type 2 diabetes, has raised huge expectations. The idea that knowledge of disease genes can remarkably improve prediction of risk, and lead to better ways of prevention and targeted treatment has excited the world, and resulted in a pouring of […]
Julian Sheather on placebos
Earlier this week, the fairly formidable Commons Science and Technology Committee published its report on homeopathy. For anyone who likes a bit of evidence with their medicine, the results were some distance from surprising. The NHS, it concluded, should stop funding homoeopathy. In addition the Medicines and Health Care products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) should not […]
Siddhartha Yadav: Suicide due to healthcare costs
The Oli family had already borrowed a hundred thousand Nepalese rupees (around 800 Pounds) for the treatment of their daughter with epilepsy. They needed more to continue the treatment. Unable to get this money, the parents and the epileptic daughter committed suicide. Health care has to be paid for by patients or their family in Nepal. Health […]
Behrooz Astaneh: Guest authorship – a vicious cycle
The ethics of guest authorship in biomedical publishing have been discussed for many years. A recent blog on this topic by Dr Barbour on the COPE website says that in dissertations by Swedish medical students, there are names of authors that did not have any significant contribution to the study. […]