Apologies for cross posting
The Royal Statistical Society through its General Applications and Medical
Sections
is organising a topical meeting at the University of Bristol on:
Media reporting of medical research - public service or public menace?
Making sense of what we read about risks to our health, new drugs and
therapies
The media love medicine and health. Every year they devote vast numbers of
column inches
and broadcast minutes to reporting the latest research results.
But is their reporting distorting the science behind the stories?
And how can we tell?
This open meeting looks at how medical research goes from scientific
papers to the stories we read every day and asks whether there is a better
way
for scientists and journalists to work together so that they can help
the public make decisions about their health.
Directions to the venue and information on how to book a place
can be found at http://www.bristol-cteu.co.uk/news.shtml
There are still some places left
Programme
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Registration 2.00 - 2.30 pm
2.30 - 3.20 pm Professor Andy Grieve
(Health and Social Care Research, School of Medicine, King's College)
Standing-Up for Statisticians in Pharmaceutical R&D:
Recent attacks against the pharmaceutical industry have implicitly
challenged the integrity of statisticians.
Are these attacks justified? What can statisticians working in pharmaceutical
R&S do to help themselves.
3.20 - 4.10 pm Professor David Spiegelhalter
(Medical Research Council Biostatistics Unit and University of Cambridge)
Communicating the possible benefits and harms of pharmaceutical and
lifestyle drugs: The choice of words, numbers, and images can all affect the
message taken from medical research. We will show how presentations have
been used to manipulate impressions, and suggest a somewhat more
balanced framework.
4.10 - 4.30 pm Break
4.30 - 5.30 pm Dr Ben Goldacre (author, broadcaster, doctor and blogger)
Drug Company Bull****: How academics and the pharmaceutical industry
design trials to generate the evidence they want; report those trials to tell
the
story they want; and promote those stories to sell the services they have.
And why this is bad, and what we can do about it.
5.30 - 6.00 pm Discussion on the issues raised by the speakers
will then be led by:
Professor Jonathan Sterne (Social Medicine, University of Bristol)
Professor George Davey-Smith (Social Medicine, University of Bristol)
Dr Charlie Davison (Medical Anthropologist, Fellow in Health
and Human Sciences, University of Essex)
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