Meta tags:
description=Looking at weird, misleading and just plain stupid reporting of science;

Headings (most frequently used words):

media, social, things, the, and, is, gm, not, of, nonsense, tested, on, humans, atomic, spin, about, contact, accolades, topics, blogroll, friends, science, atomic_spin, organic, farming, times, better, than, so, fast, sun, 20, mph, speed, limits, lot, telegraph, depraved, sexual, fantasies, no, drug, except, all, drugs, 50, shades, babies, did, soy, cause, allergies, to, soar, probably, mitochondria, donation, blowing, in, wind, eu, prunes, problem, with, patent, truth, kraken, yeti, sceptical, mail, journalist, three, mythical, beasts,

Text of the page (most frequently used words):
the (298), and (124), that (102), not (62), this (57), are (51), for (43), with (40), but (37), about (36), there (35), new (32), opens (30), window (30), have (29), like (26), more (25), you (24), all (23), email (22), from (22), research (22), they (22), than (22), facebook (21), will (20), share (20), one (20), people (20), was (19), just (19), being (18), has (18), were (18), #science (17), things (17), which (17), donation (17), article (16), out (16), mail (15), farming (15), comment (14), media (14), drugs (14), their (14), some (14), any (14), would (14), other (14), organic (14), what (13), prunes (13), how (13), did (12), link (12), them (12), mitochondrial (12), far (12), mph (12), loading (11), friend (11), telegraph (11), too (11), atomicspin (11), social (11), been (11), can (11), doesn (11), these (11), shades (10), read (10), saunders (10), daily (10), food (10), posted (10), women (10), humans (10), mitochondria (10), soy (10), free (9), guardian (9), book (9), scientific (9), health (9), studies (9), find (9), claim (9), found (9), first (9), also (9), much (9), piece (9), speed (9), website (8), already (8), grey (8), today (8), time (8), safe (8), does (8), sex (8), study (8), even (8), let (8), when (8), see (8), 2012 (8), most (8), technique (8), had (8), same (8), data (8), fifty (8), sexual (8), drug (8), tested (8), yields (8), get (7), only (7), world (7), times (7), news (7), true (7), medicine (7), who (7), lot (7), based (7), claims (7), could (7), two (7), laxative (7), before (7), paid (7), says (7), power (7), wind (7), may (7), baby (7), egg (7), animals (7), reactions (7), fantasies (7), roads (7), agriculture (7), report (6), spin (6), paper (6), sun (6), change (6), leave (6), yeti (6), evidence (6), year (6), after (6), because (6), 2011 (6), last (6), dried (6), better (6), simply (6), effects (6), between (6), men (6), cause (6), those (6), payments (6), per (6), seems (6), farms (6), procedure (6), limited (6), against (6), many (6), isn (6), number (6), born (6), allergies (6), looking (6), com (5), atomic (5), now (5), bad (5), reason (5), opposing (5), know (5), say (5), misleading (5), then (5), babies (5), statistics (5), story (5), someone (5), hair (5), don (5), start (5), enough (5), disease (5), written (5), body (5), effect (5), yet (5), while (5), good (5), point (5), constraint (5), actually (5), argument (5), always (5), 2010 (5), never (5), rise (5), looks (5), didn (5), reasons (5), still (5), human (5), each (5), really (5), group (5), having (5), well (5), into (5), papers (5), nonsense (5), review (5), testing (5), adverse (5), depraved (5), limits (5), injuries (5), conventional (5), site (4), wordpress (4), close (4), nothing (4), five (4), roger (4), helmer (4), views (4), unpublished (4), gone (4), churnalism (4), damned (4), lies (4), totally (4), proof (4), called (4), fact (4), articles (4), possible (4), three (4), water (4), rather (4), work (4), regular (4), sort (4), significant (4), highly (4), right (4), certainly (4), since (4), wednesday (4), unfortunately (4), except (4), cent (4), place (4), medical (4), least (4), cell (4), way (4), resources (4), researchers (4), though (4), techniques (4), wrong (4), case (4), standard (4), conceived (4), less (4), where (4), eggs (4), use (4), passed (4), genetic (4), cloning (4), stem (4), trials (4), cybrids (4), especially (4), look (4), animal (4), course (4), thousands (4), deaths (4), seem (4), professor (4), side (4), luxury (4), injured (4), started (3), comments (3), view (3), atomic_spin (3), scientist (3), press (3), wales (3), sunday (3), peter (3), books (3), sport (3), stupid (3), children (3), next (3), correctness (3), politically (3), interest (3), maths (3), nuclear (3), climate (3), psychology (3), biology (3), topics (3), mythical (3), neither (3), kraken (3), prove (3), knows (3), incidentally (3), burtsev (3), branches (3), dna (3), single (3), ridiculous (3), tuesday (3), dehydration (3), claiming (3), talking (3), fluids (3), something (3), reasonable (3), california (3), probably (3), title (3), why (3), juice (3), difference (3), changes (3), carried (3), here (3), ago (3), suggest (3), perhaps (3), truth (3), companies (3), long (3), back (3), involving (3), down (3), either (3), stations (3), need (3), again (3), figures (3), own (3), university (3), vested (3), involved (3), difficult (3), finding (3), impossible (3), cells (3), want (3), unethical (3), deliver (3), debate (3), said (3), should (3), parents (3), slightly (3), diseases (3), tell (3), areas (3), large (3), thing (3), future (3), dangerous (3), thus (3), making (3), controversial (3), potentially (3), uses (3), used (3), field (3), rats (3), developing (3), cytoplasmic (3), hybrids (3), similar (3), come (3), preventing (3), mitrochondrial (3), words (3), plenty (3), modern (3), chemical (3), culture (3), might (3), quite (3), department (3), going (3), decades (3), safety (3), knight (3), carefully (3), itself (3), hard (3), ever (3), over (3), tests (3), fairly (3), fast (3), terms (3), road (3), fewer (3), limit (3), pesticides (3), permaculture (3), developed (3), required (2), write (2), log (2), sign (2), subscribed (2), subscribe (2), create (2), blog (2), exactly (2), astronomy (2), special (2), thought (2), day (2), harm (2), online (2), james (2), delingpole (2), record (2), channel (2), bbc (2), uncategorized (2), end (2), aliens (2), cryptids (2), politicians (2), darndest (2), nonexistent (2), war (2), motorists (2), europe (2), disability (2), total (2), remotely (2), headlines (2), your (2), hypocrisy (2), our (2), conflicts (2), lack (2), anonymous (2), sources (2), forgive (2), transport (2), technology (2), quantum (2), history (2), twitter (2), anything (2), else (2), british (2), bias (2), information (2), form (2), version (2), short (2), little (2), second (2), apart (2), whose (2), american (2), discoveries (2), broken (2), sounds (2), previous (2), footprint (2), finally (2), exists (2), remember (2), team (2), cave (2), third (2), sound (2), paragraph (2), 11th (2), october (2), journalist (2), edit (2), drinking (2), very (2), caused (2), trying (2), actual (2), funded (2), plum (2), appear (2), relieving (2), accurate (2), available (2), recent (2), looked (2), prune (2), mild (2), lucas (2), tinker (2), stool (2), bulk (2), consistency (2), frequency (2), consumption (2), effectiveness (2), euro (2), patently (2), years (2), help (2), headline (2), magically (2), suddenly (2), blogged (2), anyway (2), 14th (2), problem (2), buried (2), generation (2), generate (2), doing (2), electricity (2), balance (2), admitted (2), national (2), grid (2), public (2), company (2), getting (2), staggering (2), 733 (2), according (2), trial (2), run (2), took (2), until (2), later (2), comparing (2), full (2), nutshell (2), transmission (2), demand (2), low (2), shut (2), hand (2), fuel (2), produce (2), windy (2), thanks (2), mark (2), henderson (2), interests (2), fair (2), cure (2), contains (2), often (2), tens (2), replacing (2), spending (2), linked (2), support (2), affected (2), individuals (2), risky (2), likely (2), think (2), continue (2), dependent (2), handled (2), responsibly (2), nor (2), religious (2), makes (2), arguments (2), real (2), embryo (2), sell (2), affects (2), comes (2), donor (2), identity (2), confusion (2), worthy (2), choice (2), naturally (2), his (2), happen (2), modified (2), others (2), draw (2), line (2), require (2), extra (2), its (2), success (2), rate (2), experimental (2), ivf (2), concerns (2), donate (2), donors (2), ethical (2), treatment (2), 100 (2), reduce (2), mutations (2), problems (2), noted (2), week (2), completely (2), engineering (2), both (2), transfer (2), proved (2), ineffective (2), unsafe (2), suffering (2), irrelevant (2), embryonic (2), successful (2), hardly (2), failed (2), 2008 (2), decided (2), google (2), scholar (2), farcical (2), footnote (2), made (2), using (2), therapeutic (2), almost (2), few (2), dog (2), lately (2), came (2), 12th (2), june (2), high (2), killed (2), ones (2), soybeans (2), risk (2), allergy (2), links (2), bit (2), statistic (2), particular (2), although (2), opinion (2), ultimately (2), everything (2), multiple (2), leapt (2), referendum (2), genetically (2), thursday (2), traffic (2), cashmore (2), expect (2), sometimes (2), give (2), popular (2), organised (2), invent (2), best (2), somehow (2), july (2), sadly (2), regardless (2), whether (2), computers (2), author (2), andrew (2), analysed (2), column (2), try (2), test (2), replace (2), known (2), every (2), remaining (2), hospital (2), considered (2), effective (2), importantly (2), through (2), patients (2), admits (2), knowing (2), species (2), brother (2), emergency (2), life (2), another (2), loose (2), common (2), attitude (2), towards (2), granada (2), release (2), differences (2), titled (2), shows (2), august (2), consistently (2), accidents (2), decrease (2), zones (2), official (2), casualties (2), built (2), 20mph (2), show (2), subsistence (2), methods (2), traditional (2), peasant (2), crop (2), gives (2), lower (2), intensive (2), local (2), numerous (2), variables (2), constant (2), weird (2), plain (2), reporting (2), design, name, collapse, bar, manage, subscriptions, reader, content, privacy, account, tweets, tom, chivers, lay, historian, respectful, insolence, quackometer, rocket, thunderer, tabloid, watch, roy, greenslade, quotes, sorry, monitor, minority, forty, chinese, crackers, enemies, dick, mandrake, angry, mob, uke, nagashi, wicked, ice, cream, noodles, friends, word, digested, speak, branes, slacktivist, photoshop, disasters, pass, notes, sir, blogroll, cup, echo, chamber, taxpayers, alliance, supermoon, stephen, fry, star, sky, richard, littlejohn, polls, phillip, hammond, philip, davies, observer, newsweek, msn, mirror, metro, lancet, ipcc, independent, hindustan, gwpf, gmtv, fox, express, economist, david, cameron, crusade, cravendale, cnn, christopher, booker, cbs, apple, abc, football, cricket, weather, balloons, magnet, therapy, homeopathy, astrology, antivaxxers, pseudoscience, lgbt, rights, economy, immigration, feminism, education, crime, politics, recommendations, meta, stuff, 135, perspective, vortex, internet, expert, pedantic, tolerate, hate, competitors, astonishing, taste, pure, graphs, everywhere, formula, compute, 129, space, flux, physics, metric, measurement, linguistics, meteorology, biodiversity, environment, chemistry, evolution, sanctimonious, hypocritical, accolades, hotmail, dot, contact, blogging, coverage, catches, eye, fundamental, property, elementary, particles, slant, propaganda, older, entries, bigfeet, hominology, psuedoscientific, primatology, basically, apes, bigfoot, sasquatch, exist, gullible, squids, cephalopods, ilk, taken, handily, myers, president, organisation, carries, ranch, supposedly, housed, bigfoots, sum, footprints, shelter, familiar, detailed, description, expeditions, cryptosphere, bed, mysteriously, summarized, wiener, law, journalism, however, doubt, cast, convincing, photographic, appears, bent, unclear, small, sample, hominologist, igor, him, convinced, judging, fourth, lair, existence, 100ft, sea, monster, ate, ocean, biggest, predators, breakfast, abominable, snowman, caught, coarse, remote, russian, wasn, cryptozoological, beasties, sceptical, beasts, excellent, post, martin, robbins, banned, prevent, reveals, clincal, normally, imply, bottled, albeit, board, psyllium, constipation, keeping, fruit, showed, guess, hence, talk, plums, adults, certain, gastrointestinal, symptoms, edmund, lesley, apples, pain, weight, grape, source, dietary, fiber, hypercholesterolemia, postmenopausal, undesirable, bowel, function, specifically, ignoring, mid, 2009, crisis, kicked, off, interesting, definition, burning, falling, pensioned, officials, worrying, obvious, qualities, deny, everyone, mep, frequent, head, agrees, suggested, endowing, frankly, godlike, powers, brussels, snap, fingers, ceased, laxatives, rules, hey, hopefully, haven, missed, december, patent, ofgem, office, regulates, energy, points, themselves, set, rates, tender, currently, megawatt, perfectly, attacking, idea, system, needs, transmit, aren, necessary, seen, spent, secondly, represents, initial, shutting, hour, scheme, properly, operation, agreements, types, turbines, easier, apply, brakes, coal, gas, easily, keep, hot, returns, wastes, agreement, turbine, operators, ordered, shutdown, avoid, produced, during, gales, 25million, revealed, days, paywall, direct, investigation, yay, luckily, 18th, january, blowing, pointing, newcastle, wellcome, trust, council, business, entirely, publicly, intended, inaccuracies, response, nuffield, bioethicist, arguing, pretty, sensible, quelle, surprise, matter, disorders, harder, current, knowledge, genetics, billions, containing, hundreds, fixing, efficient, funding, directly, nhs, surely, route, take, concentrate, treatments, providing, uncertain, tech, solutions, counts, pretending, allowed, genuinely, wonder, prefer, explains, speaking, handling, debates, speaks, variety, grounds, transplants, omitting, opposes, religion, admit, convince, ceo, christian, fellowship, scientists, financial, regulatory, grants, extend, able, funders, decision, makers, explanation, goes, wider, outside, closer, mother, concern, odd, endorse, adoption, mean, unless, referring, conceive, grosser, conception, issues, biological, serious, once, judged, necessarily, suppose, depends, destruction, paying, parts, hotly, discussed, bioethics, travel, accommodation, expenses, 750, room, kind, exploitation, worries, earlier, alternative, deft, sleight, needed, invasive, harvesting, debt, laden, students, infertile, exploited, offer, money, return, embryos, destroyed, woman, condition, conceives, child, guarantee, defect, whole, method, unpredicted, generations, sentence, pointless, scaremongering, involves, reproductive, germline, genes, mammals, cloned, spontaneously, aborting, physical, abnormalities, lifespans, telling, fields, dead, ends, vegetarians, evil, hitler, vegetarian, mature, clinical, showing, promising, results, paralysis, legalised, slow, term, conditions, alzheimers, parkinsons, including, exploring, ethics, awful, detailing, breakthroughs, 114, half, 362, worked, ironically, act, parliament, provision, bear, mind, removing, mutation, dodgy, tempted, call, donations, moving, phrase, changed, factual, statement, non, sequitur, abortion, whistle, begin, technologies, various, largely, uninteresting, across, veers, flat, bunch, hanging, major, dying, eating, originally, expresses, grave, unusually, numbers, control, care, nature, biotechnology, peer, responsible, allergenicity, pose, four, referenced, digging, dealing, takedown, refers, marketing, york, nutritional, laboratories, kits, antibody, reported, connection, happened, introduction, became, mainstream, academics, controversy, academy, environmental, decidedly, quackish, fluoridation, vaccines, scientifically, unfounded, belief, society, toxins, outlandish, ideas, ring, alarm, bells, sensitivity, smoking, gun, foods, class, troubling, signs, factor, epidemic, soon, introduced, example, escalated, mostly, planning, labelling, covered, pages, section, under, america, eats, soar, seriously, meant, solely, drive, boost, profile, 723, 165, england, statistically, lead, births, planned, sold, million, copies, intro, video, sure, smart, guy, demography, predictions, birth, grounded, disconnected, stories, past, month, alone, explained, wary, juicy, particularly, madame, tussauds, wimbledon, homosexuality, meanings, footballers, tattoos, behind, penalty, shootouts, ellis, led, posting, reading, mumsnet, materialise, houses, buy, presumably, bought, spice, bedroom, credited, inspiring, tend, controlled, focus, heavily, contracts, partners, stands, contraception, acting, scenes, twilight, fanfic, quoting, poll, dating, porn, erotic, along, sellers, authors, inspire, booms, jilly, cooper, thedaily, such, quick, rundown, boom, predicted, 4th, pharmaceutical, tried, hide, stand, glaxosmithkline, fined, billion, subject, apparently, focuses, usually, admittedly, accused, knowledgeable, defends, viewpoint, ways, petri, dishes, live, recommends, managed, simulations, reducing, wouldn, rebuttal, scholarly, vast, majority, weren, picked, cases, thalidomide, knew, pregnant, exception, norm, measured, doctor, measure, risks, versus, benefits, prescribing, severe, dose, rest, allergic, due, unavoidably, toxicity, closely, scrutinised, compounds, planet, forgiven, therefore, assuming, ranked, important, heart, cancer, stroke, reliably, lethal, studied, lengthy, enter, weeded, deemed, dogs, susceptible, strong, implication, obviously, blindingly, untrue, stages, healthy, volunteers, laboratory, huge, randomised, lasting, stage, process, observed, theory, indeed, paragraphs, works, resident, thoroughly, provide, level, comfort, tragedies, pharmaceuticals, avoidable, threatening, uterine, infection, recently, veterinary, practice, confident, save, her, following, rapid, infusion, intravenous, antibiotics, performed, surgery, partly, she, given, annie, recovered, unlikely, inadvertently, plays, calling, improve, favors, aspects, desire, arousal, presence, patient, depravity, worst, saying, tended, fantasizing, frequently, fantasized, submission, racy, thoughts, subtle, sexes, scenarios, imagined, despite, published, precisely, opposite, couple, weeks, ran, clearly, big, networks, top, hits, sorts, myths, memes, pervs, innocent, maidens, revolutionary, shame, 1st, surveys, around, favour, stretch, decreases, enforced, bumps, calming, measures, compare, sense, increase, expected, springing, drop, corresponds, 2000, 400, net, 1448, died, 127, 377, 125, 494, easy, compares, reduction, 30mph, 262, fatalities, 827, recorded, designed, cut, working, saturday, state, art, basic, bringing, crops, disproves, fertilizers, commonplace, present, countries, generally, exhibit, access, farmers, natural, purchased, inputs, extension, services, production, compared, resource, poor, picture, different, miraculous, twofold, appearing, clearer, typically, search, eventually, trace, global, supply, helpfully, pdf, clicked, collection, brochure, holding, wheat, treated, herbicides, fertilisers, hold, adapts, unique, characteristics, soil, biome, practised, bring, double, triple, intercropping, mixed, myth, mechanised, gmo, maximises, yield, hectare, higher, standards, cif, playing, facts, broad, turn, sorta, modifying, patenting, seeds, answer, 9th, commenting, home,

Text of the page (random words):
ce poor methods of subsistence farming which may exhibit low yields because of limited access by farmers to natural resources purchased inputs or extension services in other words this paper isn t comparing organic food against state of the art pesticides and genetic engineering it s organic vs the most basic sort of subsistence farming bringing any sort of organised scientific methods into farming will give you more crops regardless of whether the science is based on organic farming or conventional farming incidentally this actually disproves the author s own claim that permaculture and traditional peasant agriculture are the best this doesn t prove that organic farming is better than conventional farming at all in terms of crop yields in the developed world where pesticides and fertilizers are commonplace it gives lower yields there may be other reasons to replace conventional farming with organic but crop yields are not one social media things share on x opens in new window x share on facebook opens in new window facebook email a link to a friend opens in new window email like loading 1 comment the sun 20 mph speed limits and a lot of nonsense posted by atomicspin in damned lies and statistics health and correctness gone politically safe nonexistent war on motorists not remotely true on saturday 11th august 2012 controversial 20mph speed limits designed to cut road casualties are not working official figures show so says the sun anyway so what s the problem a report from the department for transport shows there were 2 262 fatalities and injuries in 2011 on 20mph roads in built up areas 24 per cent more than in 2010 when 1 827 were recorded that compares to a one per cent reduction in casualties on 30mph roads in built up areas how many people died or were injured on roads with a 30 mph speed limit then the sun doesn t say but the official data is easy enough to find in 2010 127 377 people were killed or injured on a road with a 30 mph speed limit in 2011 it was 125 494 in other words that 1 drop corresponds to almost 2000 fewer people were injured on 30 mph roads while 400 more people were injured on 20 mph roads that is a net decrease of 1448 injuries deaths just looking at the number of injuries on 20 mph roads is not going to tell you about how effective 20 mph speed limits are you have to compare them with other speed limits data about how many 20 mph zones there are is hard to find which makes making sense of the sun s data difficult but it certainly looks like a lot of them have been springing up lately so an increase in injuries is to be expected if there are more roads there will always be more accidents studies of 20 mph zones consistently find that the same stretch of road will see fewer accidents and fewer injuries if the speed limit decreases from 30 mph to 20 mph especially if this decrease is enforced by speed bumps and other traffic calming measures incidentally far from being controversial surveys consistently find around 74 in favour of 20 mph speed limits and just 12 against them social media things share on x opens in new window x share on facebook opens in new window facebook email a link to a friend opens in new window email like loading sun 5 comments the telegraph s depraved sexual fantasies posted by atomicspin in misleading headlines psychology sex too scientific did not read unpublished research on wednesday 1st august 2012 a couple of weeks ago the telegraph ran an article titled women s sexual fantasies less depraved than men s i didn t see the article at the time but it s clearly gone on to have a big second life on social networks remaining in the top five most read articles on the site and with a title like that it s not hard to see why after all it hits all sorts of popular myths and memes men are pervs women are innocent maidens fifty shades of grey is somehow revolutionary it s just a shame that the article itself doesn t back it up first of all despite what the article claims this research doesn t seem to have been published yet the only record i can find of it is a press release on the university of granada website titled a study shows that men and women have the same sexual fantasies that s well that s precisely the opposite of what the headline says even the telegraph admits in the article itself that the team said there were not significant differences between men s and women s racy thoughts but that there were subtle differences between the sexes in the scenarios that they imagined just as importantly there s no way of saying what s depraved and what isn t and a telegraph journalist would hardly be my first choice to draw the line men tended to report fantasizing more frequently about group sex while women said they fantasized more about submission why is one more depraved than the other in fact talking about what sound like safe fairly common sexual fantasies in terms like depravity is probably just about the worst way you could report on them as the press release says the university of granada researchers point out that having sexual fantasies favors some aspects as sexual desire and arousal in therapeutic terms researchers think that it is not only the presence of lack of sexual fantasies what should be considered but also the patient s attitude towards them if the telegraph is calling people depraved for having what seem to be fairly common fantasies is that really going to improve their attitude towards them social media things share on x opens in new window x share on facebook opens in new window facebook email a link to a friend opens in new window email like loading leave a comment no drug is tested on humans except all the drugs tested on humans posted by atomicspin in biology too scientific did not read on thursday 12th july 2012 another day another science piece on comment is free that plays fast and loose with the science let s get this over with when a dog with a life threatening uterine infection was recently carried into my veterinary practice i was confident we could save her following a rapid infusion of intravenous fluids and antibiotics i performed emergency surgery partly because of the drugs she was given annie recovered well i had the luxury of knowing they had all been tested on other animals of the same species and were unlikely to inadvertently cause any harm unfortunately my brother does not have that luxury he works as a resident in a hospital emergency department and although the drugs he uses have also been thoroughly tested on animals this doesn t provide quite the same level of comfort it is one of the tragedies of modern medicine that adverse reactions to pharmaceuticals cause thousands of potentially avoidable deaths sadly dogs are just as susceptible to drug side effects as humans are but more importantly i had the luxury of knowing they had all been tested on other animals of the same species my brother does not have that luxury that sounds to me like a fairly strong implication that drugs are never tested on humans this is obviously blindingly untrue any drug has to go through multiple stages of human testing from safety tests in healthy volunteers to short laboratory tests to huge randomised trials involving thousands of patients sometimes lasting decades at every stage of the process the patients are carefully observed and in theory any side effects are noted and analysed indeed andrew knight admits this in the next two paragraphs modern drugs are more carefully studied than ever before after lengthy tests on animals those considered safe and potentially effective enter very limited human trials about 92 are then weeded out and deemed unsafe or ineffective the remaining 8 are some of the most closely scrutinised compounds on the planet you might be forgiven therefore for assuming they are safe but at least 39 studies over three decades have ranked adverse drug reactions as an important cause of hospital deaths only heart disease cancer and stroke are more reliably lethal no drug is ever tested on humans except for every single drug ever all of which are tested on humans adverse drug reactions are always something drugs companies should try to reduce but for the vast majority it s not the case that they weren t picked up in testing cases like thalidomide where no one knew the risk until pregnant women started using it are the exception not the norm most adverse side effects that are known about and carefully measured and the doctor will have had to measure up the risks versus the benefits for each before prescribing the drugs if you look at the study he links to 75 of severe reactions to drugs are known side effects caused by dose and a lot of the rest are allergic reactions as the paper itself says this may suggest that many adverse drug reactions are due to the use of drugs with unavoidably high toxicity we could test as hard as possible but there would always be drugs that could never be 100 safe the author of the piece andrew knight has written a book on the subject linked to in the piece it also apparently focuses more on data than debate which is usually good though admittedly the only scholarly review i could find accused the book of bias in the way it analysed this data knight s rebuttal is here and he does seem to be someone knowledgeable in the field but that doesn t change the fact that this particular column is bad it defends a reasonable viewpoint let s try to find ways to test drugs on computers or in petri dishes rather than having to use live animals with nonsense even if we did everything this column recommends and managed to completely replace animal testing with simulations i don t see how it d cause a significant change in the number of reactions to drugs it might plenty of other good effects not least reducing the number of animals used of course but that wouldn t be one of them sadly some pharmaceutical companies have tried to hide the safety data for their drugs just last week glaxosmithkline was fined 3 billion for doing so but as things stand this would happen regardless of whether the safety data was from animals humans or computers social media things share on x opens in new window x share on facebook opens in new window facebook email a link to a friend opens in new window email like loading guardian leave a comment 50 shades of babies posted by atomicspin in churnalism damned lies and statistics sex unpublished research on wednesday 4th july 2012 baby boom predicted next year thanks to success of fifty shades of grey books says thedaily mail today it s such nonsense that i don t really know where to be being let s have a quick rundown of the problems fifty shades of grey did not invent sex nor did it invent porn there have been plenty of erotic books written for women before fifty shades came along people like jilly cooper were best sellers decades ago and somehow these authors didn t inspire baby booms of their own the sort of sex fifty shades of grey is credited with inspiring again according to the daily mail quoting a poll by a dating website is going to tend to be controlled and organised the twilight fanfic book does after all focus heavily on contracts between sexual partners it stands to reason that people would be more likely to use contraception if acting out scenes from the book there s no real evidence that fifty shades of grey has led to people having more sex a few people posting i had so much sex after reading this on mumsnet isn t really enough fifty shades of grey didn t just magically materialise in people s houses they had to go out and buy it presumably most of these people would have bought a similar book if fifty shades was not available especially if they were looking to spice things up in the bedroom the story comes ultimately from one professor ellis cashmore the only professor i know of whose website has an intro video i m sure he s a smart guy but he s professor of culture media and sport not demography or statistics or anything else that you might expect someone making predictions about the birth rate to be grounded in he s in the papers quite a lot too for sometimes quite disconnected stories in the past month alone he s explained the psychology behind penalty shootouts the meanings of footballers tattoos homosexuality in sport the place of wimbledon in british culture and the reasons madame tussauds is so successful it s not proof he s wrong of course just a reason to be a bit wary that he s suddenly leapt out of his department to give the daily mail a juicy story about a particularly popular book come on seriously this story is nonsense meant solely to drive traffic to the daily mail and boost professor cashmore s profile in 2010 723 165 babies were born in england wales to be statistically significant you d need the book to lead to tens of thousands of extra births i e ones that were not planned even for a book that s sold a million or so copies that s a lot of babies social media things share on x opens in new window x share on facebook opens in new window facebook email a link to a friend opens in new window email like loading leave a comment did gm soy cause allergies to soar probably not posted by atomicspin in anonymous sources do not forgive damned lies and statistics food is totally science health medicine too scientific did not read unpublished research on thursday 14th june 2012 so california s planning a referendum on the labelling of genetically modified food the guardian has covered this not in it s regular news pages but in its comment is free section under the title how california s gm food referendum may change what america eats the article is mostly an opinion piece fair enough but there s one statistic buried in there that leapt out at me while researchers have not yet found a smoking gun which would prove that gm foods as a class are dangerous there are troubling signs that they may be a factor in the recent epidemic of food allergies soon after gm soy was introduced to the uk for example soy allergies escalated by 50 the link there doesn t go to a scientific paper but to a piece on news controversy opinion site opposing views and their figures seem to come ultimately from american academy of environmental medicine a group that has some decidedly quackish views on topics like water fluoridation vaccines and multiple chemical sensitivity a scientifically unfounded belief that everything in modern society contains toxins it s not impossible to support some outlandish ideas while being right about things of course but it does ring some alarm bells neither article links to any of the studies it referenced but with a bit of digging i found this piece at academics review which seems to be dealing with the same statistic go there if you want the full takedown but in a nutshell it refers to marketing information from a group called york nutritional laboratories which sell food allergy testing kits the rise was in people with a particular antibody not those who re...