Search results

Yes, as with everything, shocking but not surprising.

This is not really a big barrier. It shouldn't be hard for top executives at a major health agency to understand the background knowledge. You don't need to be a patient or have a medical/biological background to grasp the issues.

wow, I haven't looked through them all yet, but that's good to know!

In recent years, the SMC has also made sure to include a "dissenter" among the people it will release statements from, perhaps because it has realized to present just cronies and enablers of researchers to say nice things is no longer credible. Kate Kelland is no longer serving as a publicist...

Any guideline would be open to abuse by people willing to abuse it and misinterpret it or apply it in bad faith. I haven't seen anything in the versions of this guideline that would specifically make these things more likely. is there something specific you're thinking of that's in the guideline...

The CDC made no effort to mention any change when they did it. It was in the stealth of night. Then someone noticed it and mentioned it on a forum, and then I asked about it. This is obviously a very different and public situation. I assume it will get significant press coverage. Unfortunately I...

Also, if the evidence of benefits is of low or very low quality, presumably the evidence about possible harms is similarly hard to take seriously. So that would seem to balance out any idea of a weak recommendation.

Exactly. I assume that in their experience as eminent professors, they have generally been able to control the terms of the debate without much question. They're still shell-shocked to find out that things have changed a bit.

Yes, what I was really wondering was why they weren't making their first auhoritative statement in The Lancet or BMJ--that would have seemed the most impactful if they actually had anything to say. Had I been specific about those two, it wouldn't have raised the same questions. I agreed with...

good point about the journal. I meant the most recent authoritative UK one, but also a good point.

The difference is that we can't be sure there are any nice people living in Palm Beach. Certainly not of the quality of Emma Thompson!

This is so terrible. How did you find out finally? And what is the legal status of requests to access your own NHS records?

Hey! Emma Thompson and Glenda Jackson live or lived there. George Michael too, didn't he? Although he drove into storefronts, I guess. So that could be a mitigating factor and work in Hampstead's favor.

We will see many papers in progress that will be immediately out-of-date the minute they're published because of their references to "evidence-based" treatments (ie GET and CBT). Peer reviewers should immediately flag this issue, although most of them won't because they all mostly believe the...

That's ok--it always stalls for a while mid-way through and at different points. I've trained myself not to fret about the ups and downs.

Hi, sorry about this! The software Berkeley uses--called ScaleFunder--is inadequate in many ways. One big way is that there is not a system for extracting e-mails of past donors and sending them a new message. The only way is to send an update from a previous campaign--which makes no sense...

Yeah I'm not the best at marketing. This is a good idea.

yes, amazing--"We had null results from our primary outcome, which we have agreed was the primary outcome for more than a decade, and so have now decided that quality of life is more important to patients anyway and that reduction of seizures is not the appropriate primary outcome." It's...

I keep bugging them to add this. Apparently, the ScaleFunder program that Berkeley uses doesn't include that or seem to allow them to add that. It is really mind-boggling. Every Berkeley campaign would get 7.5% more if they added that, since almost everyone who sees that button clicks it because...

excellent find! I had just glanced over the text. the difference in cannabis use is the most striking. but it's not clear from the table what period of time is being discussed. 7g of cannabis is a lot.