The article referred to says that Foster contract aims "at making better use of medical records". So who exactly has stated that the aim "is to establish a market, so other people can offer alternatives"? Is use of the phrase "establish a market" intended to be a red flag − as waved to bulls?
And why focus on statistical analysis? Is Dr Foster making available new statistics from medical records? If not why not? Should not the content of these statistics be appraised? And should not Dr Fosters also be appraised in terms of statistics based on medical records that they are NOT making available for public scrutiny?
Surely the RSS is rather better equipped than Radstats in assessing the quality of statistical analysis? The RSS represent a whole profession concerned with quality of statistical analysis. But Radstats is the only body could be said to represent the public interest in such matters as Dr Fosters statistics.
Ray Thomas
-----Original Message-----
From: email list for Radical Statistics [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Macfarlane, Alison
Sent: 30 January 2006 09:56
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: More about Dr Foster deal
http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/332/7535/197-a?etoc
This is from the BMJ in which DrFoster has had a regular unrefereed page
for some time.
There is considerable concern in health statistics circles about the
quality of DrFoster's work. It has been stated that the aim of this deal
is to establish a market, so other people can offer alternatives, but
given the amount of bureaucracy the rest of us are shackled with dealing
withg the needs of ethics committees, R&D committees, Caldicott
guardians and microdata release panles, this gives us very little time
left for statistical analysis.
Despite this, on behalf of the Health Statistics Users Group, I still
asking for volunteers to take part in an initiative to review such of
DrFoster's work as is available for public scrutiny. The idea is to do
this in the same way you would peer review anything else. If you replied
before, no need to reply again.
Alison
Alison Macfarlane
Department of Midwifery
City University
24 Chiswell Street
London EC1Y 4TY
Phone (0) (44) 207 040 5832
Fax (0) (44) 207 040 5866
Email [log in to unmask]
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