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Lancet MMR Autism Fraud
On 28 February 1998, a fraudulent research paper by physician Andrew Wakefield and twelve coauthors, titled "Ileal-lymphoid-nodular hyperplasia, non-specific colitis, and pervasive developmental disorder in children", was published in the British medical journal ''The Lancet''. The paper falsely claimed causative links between the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine and colitis and between colitis and autism. The fraud involved data selection, data manipulation, and two undisclosed conflicts of interest. It was exposed in a lengthy ''Sunday Times'' investigation by reporter Brian Deer, resulting in the paper's retraction in February 2010 and Wakefield’s being discredited and struck off the UK medical register three months later. Wakefield reportedly stood to earn up to US$43 million per year selling diagnostic kits for a non-existent syndrome he claimed to have discovered. He also held a patent to a rival vaccine at the time, and he had been employed by a lawyer ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Andrew Wakefield
Andrew Jeremy Wakefield (born 3 September 1956) is a British fraudster, anti-vaccine activist, and disgraced former physician. He was struck off the medical register for "serious professional misconduct" due to his involvement in the fraudulent 1998 ''Lancet'' MMR autism study that falsely claimed a link between the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine and autism. The publicity surrounding the study caused a sharp decline in vaccination uptake, leading to a number of outbreaks of measles around the world and many deaths therefrom. He was a surgeon on the liver transplant programme at the Royal Free Hospital in London, and became a senior lecturer and honorary consultant in experimental gastroenterology at the Royal Free and University College School of Medicine. He resigned from his positions there in 2001 "by mutual agreement", then moved to the United States. In 2004, Wakefield co-founded and began working at the Thoughtful House research centre (later renamed the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Science By Press Conference
Science by press conference or science by press release is the practice by which scientists put an unusual focus on publicizing results of research in the news media via press conferences or press releases. The term is usually used disparagingly, to suggest that the seekers of publicity are promoting claims of questionable scientific merit, using the media for attention as they are unlikely to win the approval of the scientific community. Premature publicity violates a cultural value of most of the scientific community, which is that findings should be subjected to independent review with a "thorough examination by the scientific community" before they are widely publicized. The standard practice is to publish a paper in a peer-reviewed scientific journal. This idea has many merits, including that the scientific community has a responsibility to conduct itself in a deliberative, non-attention seeking way; and that its members should be oriented more towards the pursuit of insight ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
National Health Service
The National Health Service (NHS) is the term for the publicly funded health care, publicly funded healthcare systems of the United Kingdom: the National Health Service (England), NHS Scotland, NHS Wales, and Health and Social Care (Northern Ireland) which was created separately and is often referred to locally as "the NHS". The original three systems were established in 1948 (NHS Wales/GIG Cymru was founded in 1969) as part of major social reforms following the Second World War. The founding principles were that services should be comprehensive, universal and free at the point of delivery. Each service provides a comprehensive range of health services, provided without charge for residents of the United Kingdom apart from dental treatment and optical care. In England, NHS patients have to pay prescription charges; some, such as those aged over 60, or those on certain state benefits, are exempt. Taken together, the four services in 2015–16 employed around 1.6 million people ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
HarperCollins Music Entertainment
HarperCollins Publishers LLC is a British–American publishing company that is considered to be one of the " Big Five" English-language publishers, along with Penguin Random House, Hachette, Macmillan, and Simon & Schuster. HarperCollins is headquartered in New York City and London and is a subsidiary of News Corp. The company's name is derived from a combination of the firm's predecessors. Harper & Brothers, founded in 1817 in New York, merged with Row, Peterson & Company in 1962 to form Harper & Row, which was acquired by News Corp in 1987. The Scottish publishing company William Collins, Sons, founded in 1819 in Glasgow, was acquired by News Corp in 1987 and merged with Harper & Row to form HarperCollins. The logo for the firm combines the fire from Harper's torch and the water from Collins' fountain. HarperCollins operates publishing groups in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, India, and China, and publishes under various imp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus Aureus
Methicillin-resistant ''Staphylococcus aureus'' (MRSA) is a group of gram-positive bacteria that are genetically distinct from other strains of ''Staphylococcus aureus''. MRSA is responsible for several difficult-to-treat infections in humans. It caused more than 100,000 deaths worldwide attributable to antimicrobial resistance in 2019. MRSA is any strain of ''S. aureus'' that has developed (through mutation) or acquired (through horizontal gene transfer) a multiple drug resistance to beta-lactam antibiotics. Beta-lactam (β-lactam) antibiotics are a broad-spectrum group that include some penams (penicillin derivatives such as methicillin and oxacillin) and cephems such as the cephalosporins. Strains unable to resist these antibiotics are classified as methicillin-susceptible ''S. aureus'', or MSSA. MRSA infection is common in hospitals, prisons, and nursing homes, where people with open wounds, invasive devices such as catheters, and weakened immune systems are at greate ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Genetically Modified Crops
Genetically modified crops (GM crops) are plants used in agriculture, the DNA of which has been modified using genetic engineering methods. Plant genomes can be engineered by physical methods or by use of '' Agrobacterium'' for the delivery of sequences hosted in T-DNA binary vectors. In most cases, the aim is to introduce a new trait to the plant which does not occur naturally in the species. Examples in food crops include resistance to certain pests, diseases, environmental conditions, reduction of spoilage, resistance to chemical treatments (e.g. resistance to a herbicide), or improving the nutrient profile of the crop. Examples in non-food crops include production of pharmaceutical agents, biofuels, and other industrially useful goods, as well as for bioremediation. Farmers have widely adopted GM technology. Acreage increased from 1.7 million hectares in 1996 to 185.1 million hectares in 2016, some 12% of global cropland. As of 2016, major crop (soybean, maize, canola and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Pusztai Affair
The Pusztai affair is a controversy that began in 1998. The protein scientist Árpád Pusztai went public with the initial results of unpublished research he was conducting at the Rowett Institute in Aberdeen, Scotland, investigating the possible effects of genetically modified potatoes upon rats. Pusztai claimed that the genetically modified potatoes had stunted growth and repressed the rats' immune systems while thickening their gut mucosa. Initially supported by the Rowett Institute, his comments on a British television programme caused a storm of controversy, and the Rowett Institute withdrew its support. Pusztai was suspended and misconduct procedures were used to seize his data and ban him from speaking publicly. The institute did not renew his annual contract and Pusztai was criticized by the Royal Society and some other scientists for making an announcement before his experiment was complete or peer-reviewed and for the experiment's design, methodology and analysis. Some ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Ben Goldacre
Ben Michael Goldacre (born 20 May 1974) is a British physician, academic and science writer. He is the first Bennett Professor of Evidence-Based Medicine and director of the Bennett Institute for Applied Data Science at the University of Oxford. He is a founder of the AllTrials campaign and OpenTrials, aiming to require open science practices in clinical trials. Goldacre is known in particular for his ''Bad Science'' column in ''The Guardian'', which he wrote between 2003 and 2011, and is the author of four books: '' Bad Science'' (2008), a critique of irrationality and certain forms of alternative medicine; '' Bad Pharma'' (2012), an examination of the pharmaceutical industry, its publishing and marketing practices, and its relationship with the medical profession; ''I Think You'll Find It's a Bit More Complicated Than That'', a collection of his journalism; and ''Statins'', about evidence-based medicine. Goldacre frequently delivers free talks about bad science; he describes h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Bad Science (Goldacre Book)
''Bad Science'' is a book written by Ben Goldacre which criticises certain physicians and the media for a lack of critical thinking and misunderstanding of evidence and statistics which is detrimental to the public understanding of science. In ''Bad Science'', Goldacre explains basic scientific principles to demonstrate the importance of robust research methods, experimental design, and analysis to make informed judgements and conclusions of evidence-based medicine. ''Bad Science'' is described as an engaging and inspirational book, written in simple language and occasional humour, to effectively explain academic concepts to the reader. ''Bad Science'' was originally published in the UK by Fourth Estate in September 2008 and later editions have since been published through HarperCollins Publishers. The book has generally been well-received with positive reviews by the ''British Medical Journal and the Daily Telegraph.'' Bad Science reached the Top 10 bestseller list for Amazon ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Health Scare
A health scare can be broadly defined as a social phenomenon whereby the public at large comes to fear some threat to health, based on suppositions which are nearly always not well-founded. In 2009, an ABC News article listed "The Top 10 Health Scares of the Decade": "Some of these threats turned out to be almost nonexistent. Others were arguably overblown. Some caused widespread harm." They listed the following scares: * Swine flu (H1N1) * Bisphenol A (BPA) * Lead paint on toys from China * Trans fats * Bird flu (H5N1) * Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) * Methicillin-resistant ''Staphylococcus aureus'' (MRSA) * Hormone replacement therapy (HRT) * Anthrax * Cell phones. See also * List of health scares * Health crisis * Aspartame controversy * Dental amalgam controversy * Thiomersal and vaccines * Water fluoridation controversy * COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2. In January 2020, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Tony Blair
Sir Anthony Charles Lynton Blair (born 6 May 1953) is a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1997 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party (UK), Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007. He was Leader of the Opposition (United Kingdom), Leader of the Opposition from 1994 to 1997 and held various shadow cabinet posts from 1987 to 1994. Blair was Member of Parliament (United Kingdom), Member of Parliament (MP) for Sedgefield (UK Parliament constituency), Sedgefield from 1983 to 2007, and was special envoy of the Quartet on the Middle East from 2007 to 2015. He is the second-List of prime ministers of the United Kingdom by length of tenure, longest-serving prime minister in post-war British history after Margaret Thatcher, the longest-serving Labour Party (UK), Labour politician to have held the office, and the first and only person to date to lead the party to three consecutive general election victories. Blair attended the independent s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Measles Morbillivirus
The measles virus (MV), with scientific name ''Morbillivirus hominis'', is a single-stranded, negative-sense, enveloped, non-segmented RNA virus of the genus ''Morbillivirus'' within the family ''Paramyxoviridae''. It is the cause of measles. Humans are the natural hosts of the virus; no animal reservoirs are known to exist. Disease The virus causes measles, a highly contagious disease transmitted by respiratory aerosols that triggers a temporary but severe immunosuppression. Symptoms include fever, cough, runny nose, inflamed eyes and a generalized, maculopapular, erythematous rash and a pathognomonic Koplik spot seen on buccal mucosa opposite to lower 1st and 2nd molars. The virus is spread by coughing and sneezing via close personal contact or direct contact with secretions. Replication cycle Entry The measles virus has two envelope glycoproteins on the viral surface – hemagglutinin (H) and membrane fusion protein (F). These proteins are responsible for host ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
