Deborah Cohen
@deb_cohen
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Journalist | Escapee medic | Ex science ed @ITVNews ; health and UK corr @BBCNewsnight and investigations ed @bmj_latest | Scouse deb @beyondmedia .uk
London/Liverpool on match days
Joined December 2010
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A few people have described those of us who have reported on the Tavistock as “brave’ (which is kind) But it shouldn’t take bravery to point out there’s a lack of good evidence for a drug; little long term follow up for surgery; and to say we should listen to whistleblowers
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Back in 2019
@hannahsbee
and I broke a story questioning how puberty blockers were being studied and used at the Tavistock’s gender clinic.
It was a purely medical investigation, yet there was backlash for even asking scientific questions. Now they’re not to be prescribed.
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For several years the indefatigable
@hannahsbee
and I reported on the care of young people with gender dysphoria - against a backdrop of complaints and allegations about us. Today an independent review set up by NHSE largely vindicates our work: 1/
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I’m chuffed to say I’m joining
@itvnews
as their Science Editor taking on an exciting and important brief that includes climate change, medicine & tech. I want to thank the hugely talented
@BBCNewsnight
team for their work and creativity &
@esmewren
for giving me so much support
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The NHS gender identity service is closing following safety concerns. Amid toxicity
@hannahsbee
and I investigated allegations other mental health issues were overshadowed at the clinic for
@BBCNewsnight
with
@esmewren
. Let’s hope the NHS offers a more holistic approach in future
🔺 BREAKING: The NHS is shutting down its gender identity clinic for children after a damning review found that it failed vulnerable under-18s
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Gahhh!! I got a b*llocking from Devi for questioning her assertion that zero Covid was possible when I interviewed her for a film on it for
@BBCNewsnight
in July 2020. I remember it made me look like some oddball Covid denier
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When people can’t get a hospital appointment the view seems to be it’s because of pressure on the system and waiting lists. When people can’t get an on person GP appointment it seems to be that the GP is to blame. Why is that?
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I remember trying to tell some of these stories— the indirect covid challenges of the pandemic—and was called all the names under the sun for doing so. We lost compassion for others at times
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Who doesn’t love a story needing dozens of right of reply pages, being yelled at by press officers, threats of GMC & COPE referral, Twitter suspension, press hatchet jobs, entry on block lists…
@hannahsbee
said if story not on red list not worth doing. (Same applies to Covid too)
What bothers me is that so many national science and health reporters and correspondents - other than a selected few like
@deb_cohen
@hannahsbee
- absented themselves from one of the biggest medical science stories in decades. Something to discuss at the upcoming AGM
@absw
?
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-Also with respect to GIDS it found:
- safeguarding concerns
- variation in clinical practice
- a lack of evidence base
It said the UK will build global evidence base. But crucially these children should be able to access same level of support as any other child in distress END
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- having a single centre (GIDS) for young people is not sustainable
- lack of data on long term outcomes including those who regret
- a lack of open discussion and consensus about what gender dysphoria is so hard to know right clinical response 2/
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Watching twitter go 🤯 at the apparent difference in case rates between different data sources. And noting once again that some high profile commentariat don’t seem to understand what different methodologies can and can’t tell us
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Stuck in car trying to explain to my mum what the debate around gender is about. We didn’t get much beyond chromosomes. She keeps asking if she’s gender neutral. So looking forward to explaining phalloplasty
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Asked a while back if reporting on puberty blockers and the Tavistock was difficult. My response: Aside from toxicity and lack of support at times, it wasn’t. I’ve been working in evidence based medicine for 20 years…this was no different. It’s good to see Cass highlight this
A few stand-out sections from the summary for me below but I encourage anyone who has any interest in this to read the report in full.
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Patently untrue. I and my colleagues have done nothing but report on it for yearly two years. I did my first piece on Europe last night in 18 months. Other stuff is happening in health beyond covid and this needs reporting on too
Why is the UK media far more interested in covid in Europe than covid in the UK?
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Far too much news journalism is to be first at the scene; first to break a line; fill the absence of evidence with conjecture and speculation; join ill fitting data points to come up with a narrative. It happened in Covid and it seems to be happening now
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Maybe the female numerate science journalists were accidentally cropped out of the picture?
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Urgh…another one to add to the list of hot takes on omicron. How is this helpful?
Favourite description of Omicron so far (from a UK govt science adviser): It's "like Beta on acid"
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It’s clinicians who took the risks. Us journalists are merely the conduits for their stories. And it’s always a privilege to help them get their stories out irrespective of specialty
Actually
@deb_cohen
was the journalist who broke the Tavistock story and faced the flack and risk.
@hannahsbee
was the producer on the story and went on to write the book Time to Think. 👍👉
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As I pointed out to a very high profile journalist and managed to get an official complaint on the back of it…but that’s reporting on covid for you
Previous ONS statistics have been widely misused, and difficult to interpret due to unavailable methods
This is all put to bed now. Excellent, transparent comparisons with a suitable control group.
Importantly, it includes COVID cases which would be missed by NHS testing
2/
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Hmmm….as I seem to recall whenever anyone came on Newsnight saying this back in the day they were accused of putting money before health….
Sir Chris Whitty is now giving evidence to the
#CovidInquiry
. As I reveal here
@theipaper
, he and his predecessor Dame Sally Davies have said there should have been more consideration of economic as well as scientific advice during the pandemic
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@freddiesayers
I remember getting quite a dressing down from Devi (in DMs of course…) for having a debate about the possiblity of eliminating covid in July 2020–this was after NZ had published in NEJM that they had. In the piece she argued that we could. Another academic said not possible.
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Sigh…I do not book guests for Newsnight and nor was I working that day. But hey why let facts get in the way…
10/ Cohen had booked Dingwall, but it didn't feel like normal BBC behaviour for Cohen to then go out and defend Dingwall being on,
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It’s hard to know what to be most frustrated about in the what’s app messages but the ramping up of fear and scare tactics is up there. It was amazing the number of scientists who were Hancock’s unwitting helpers. Reporting against this backdrop was brutal
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I can’t think of a better way to retain GPs…
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Personal news..I'm stepping aside as Science Ed of
@ITVNews
to focus on my own projects-exclusives, investigations & analyses. I've learnt loads from the amazing team here. Thanks
@andrewdagnell
@dridleyitv
@PhilipSime
@emilypringlee
for your support. Ideas? deb
@beyondmedia
.uk
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Ignore the headlines. It seems like the NHS actually has a surplus of doctors. A consultant anaesthetist I know has been asked to help out with the “national shortage of HGV drivers”.
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@DrSdeG
@mgtmccartney
It’s for these reasons I’ve hated reporting on covid—the questions I’d been programmed to ask about level of evidence; benefits and harms; uncertainty and unknowns: cost effectiveness etc were suddenly off limits.
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Last year an investigation by
@itvnews
&
@bmj_latest
questioned the evidence for claims that "microclots" caused long covid symptoms and the use of apheresis and anticoagulants to treat them . A newly published
@cochranecollab
review on this is damning 1/
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I don’t know about other journalists but I’m feeling a bit 🤯 at the moment…
#ESPID2022
John Edmunds suggests models had too much weight in public policy making during the pandemic. Didn’t address the catastrophic, devastating impact that public miscommunication of modelling had on global school closures, child education and mental health.
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Surely some viruses that cause the common cold in healthy people can be devastating in vulnerable people?
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Liverpool end at Stade de France barely half full with 10 minutes until kick off. It’s hardly changed in the last 30 mins. Total chaos
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@PaulNuki
I’m mega confused. Ivermectin was rightly dismissed as lacking evidence of effectiveness because it was such low quality. The report has fairly strong conclusions but reading it it has “low quality evidence” caveats all over it. Can you explain the difference? I’m struggling!
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Not sure this is entirely fair…some of us at the BBC did try to present benefits, harms and uncertainties around covid interventions. But it wasn’t easy…
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A lesson to us all who report on pharmaceutical and non-pharmacological interventions—especially when data are still emerging about their effectiveness
I suspect those overhyping the efficacy of covid19 vaccines, in particularly against transmission, and dismissing any rare side-effect, may have done as much to fuel vaccine hesitancy than ideological vaccine opponents spouting bizarre nonsense (5G, syncitin-1 or whatnot).
1/
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@JaneSymons1
@Appleina
@hannahsbee
@FayeKirklandGP
@jo_bartosch
@NUJofficial
@mjauk
@WIJ_UK
The irony is when I was asked to work on the stories I started with the premise that health is often riven with inequality—particularly for marginalised groups. But I’m not sure how offering poorly evidenced interventions remedies that
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I’m inviting a pile on here but…even handed interpretation of evidence is critical. If policies rely on lower quality or levels of evidence it’s best to explain why that’s the case and what’s being done to plug knowledge gaps. Just saying something ‘works’ doesn’t always cut it
If you review the evidence for Ivermectin and find it wanting, then review the evidence for community masking and conclude masking 5 year olds in perpetuity is the way to go, you could be the next
@CDCDirector
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I made an earlier error. Molunpiravir was claimed to reduce at-risk non-hospitalised adults with COVID-19 by 50%. We spent £1billion on antivirals. Now a preliminary analysis PANORAMIC trial done here finds it didn't reduce hospitalisations/deaths among high risk vaxxed gp.
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Now there’s a surprise…
@djnicholl
helped me break a story showing NHS concerns about 5 years ago. To say it went down like a bucket of cold sick was an understatement. Ears are still ringing from being yelled at by press officers
Brexit has made UK medicine shortages worse, research suggests
Who knew
@Jacob_Rees_Mogg
who knew? 🤷♂️
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Who benefits from plans to expand the definition of Alzheimer’s disease? Drug and testing companies, for sure. For people—who risk becoming patients—it’s less clear
The plan to diagnose Alzheimer’s in people with no memory problems - Los Angeles Times
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My nan took my baby uncle who had intussusception on a bus to hospital. He died in her arms on the way there. The doctor took her last pennies. She walked home bereaved. It was before the NHS was established. That a parent could experience something similar now is unconscionable
Tonight in my daughters ward I met a mum who had to get her unconscious limp baby to A&E on the bus because an ambulance was going to be 6 hours. By the time they got there his oxygen sat was 69% and he now has brain damage and seizures. She had to take her limp baby on the bus.
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@apsmunro
Am seeing rather too much of people getting their hands on publicly available datasets and linking them together to create a narrative to explain what’s going on rather than thinking what might be missing from my understanding
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This inquiry is turning into a willy waving contest. There’s either evidence about where the UK ended up in relation to excess deaths or there’s not. It’s like two blokes arguing where their football team finished in the league
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You’ve probably seen the bright yellow ZOE glucose monitoring labels. But what’s the evidence for it all? It’s great to be back examining claims and evidence after a brief hiatus. And to be working with
@mgtmccartney
.
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Before I get lynched we will be talking about both absolute and relative risks
TONIGHT: Could we soon see the first oral antiviral medication for Covid-19?
Studies suggest the experimental drug, molnupiravir, cuts the risk of hospitalisation or death by about half.
🎥 Health correspondent
@deb_cohen
reports at 2230 on
@BBCTwo
#Newsnight
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The timeline of our reporting for
@BBCNewsnight
about the interventions being offered to young people with gender dysphoria and the problems at GIDS. Expertly put together by
@hannahsbee
(as you’d expect). Thanks to
@esmewren
for supporting us
Many people have sent kind messages over the last 24 hours about mine and others’ reporting of GIDS. Thank you. To echo the sentiments of my former colleague Deb, though, our coverage has really just been about asking the same questions of GIDS as other NHS services…
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@hannahsbee
@esmewren
@stewartmaclean
It was definitely a bumpy ride. I managed to get a GMC referral, suspended and investigated by Twitter as well as usual hatchet jobs. So big big congrats for your tenacity and keeping going H x
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Overwhelmed by the response to my and
@mgtmccartney
recent reporting. After several years of having to report on Covid every day it’s great to be back doing longer investigative work
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I’ve been saying this for a while about “misinformation” reporting. How do you decide what is? And also what you cover? Am not a fan. Nor of labelling people as pro or anti. The wonderful
@helenlewis
puts it so well
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Brave woman speaking about how publication bias affects what we know about gender dysphoria…but how often are medical journals culpable for distorting the evidence base more generally?
"What this issue has revealed is a crisis in the published medical research"
Jillian Spencer, a brave child psychiatrist, has connected the dots between problems within gender clinics & a system-level failure that begins with the academic publishing process. 1/4
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Argh! The photos on my phone are now just a collection of other people’s LFT results and Wordle attempts
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Trolls are really unpleasant…but bad stuff happens when you investigate & ruffle feathers. I’ve been hacked, stalked, referred to the GMC, had global crisis comms onto me, sources been subject to discovery to get info, hit jobs in MSM the list goes on…
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On the same day some are alleging a stitch up on Russell Brand because he called out drug company behaviour,
@cazjwheeler
from the same paper questions the role of drug companies in the infected blood scandal in a fantastic piece of journalism
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Learned via a mate who works in health care PR that my nickname in her circles is “Bloody Debs” Cohen. Ask too many awkward questions apparently….good to know i’m a reliable source of employment
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@MAbsoud
@jakemorristw
and I reported on concerns about this several times and from quite early on. I remember chatting to
@sunilbhop
in about April 2020 to say he was worried - I think someone likened him to a tobacco industry denialist.
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@sunilbhop
@MAbsoud
@jakemorristw
What I didn't understand from the outset was the notion that institutions that we've deemed essential to the functioning of society could be shut down without ramifications. If that were the case then by definition they weren't necessary in the first place
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The rise is seen across the board with over 90s worst affected. One in five under 2s now waiting more than four hours. It’s not much better for older kids. Experts told us kids have gone under the radar with thanks to
@NuffieldTrust
and
@Damian_Roland
There's been a rise in children aged under two waiting for more than four hours to be seen in A&E, as
@deb_cohen
writes
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Why does reporting from a phase 2/3 trial when I’ve only got a press release fill me with dread?
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@PaulNuki
You might want to take action…that’s one thing. But pretending there’s good evidence of benefit for that action is another I think
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A cutout and keep guide on buck passing
It’s all v complex. Luckily Mr Keith, the KC for the inquiry, has provided visual aids to help us understand UK gov bureaucracy.
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Last month,
@mgtmccartney
& I revealed government interference over NICE for inclisiran. Now we reveal how the post Brexit policy to fast track “innovative” drugs into the NHS has been described as “a pretty spectacular failure” by insiders 1/
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This isn’t a dig at
@RMCunliffe
(who’s fab)…but if anyone could have recognised it why did those of us who raised it early in the pandemic get called minimisers and slated? As I said repeatedly throughout if services are so easy to close how crucial are they in the first place?
"Anyone could have recognised that, if school and nursery closures really were crucial, they needed to be accompanied by a long-term strategy to minimise the damage."
My column on the horrors of school closures, in this week's
@NewStatesman
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Featuring a graphic shamelessly stolen (and credited to)
@BallouxFrancois
TONIGHT: What's behind the continued fall in Covid cases across the UK?
Health correspondent
@deb_cohen
reports at 2230 on
@BBCTwo
#Newsnight
|
@maitlis
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@drsimonwilliams
@royalsociety
Perhaps you can help…I’m teaching on a course for journalists explaining why you should avoid making strong claims when evidence for them is low quality. Help!
@PaulNuki
I’m mega confused. Ivermectin was rightly dismissed as lacking evidence of effectiveness because it was such low quality. The report has fairly strong conclusions but reading it it has “low quality evidence” caveats all over it. Can you explain the difference? I’m struggling!
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@michaelsheen
I just watched your poignant performance in Nye. One uncle died pre-NHS because grandparents couldn’t afford an ambulance. The other uncle was saved by NHS for same illness. It’s why I studied medicine
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My latest with
@mgtmccartney
Celebrity campaigners are spinning are feminist narrative about HRT.
“If you don’t do something, you’re not taking control of your body…
But “they don’t talk about harms…only about benefits…”
Concealed info is not empowerment
@brooke_nickel
‘Are we pathologising a normal part of the female life cycle?’
@deb_cohen
and
@mgtmccartney
: 👇
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Ahh…the Covid is like measles chestnut. I think I exploded in the newsroom a few times when unnamed “experts” came on and said that 🤯
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As exposed by
@mgtmccartney
and I last October in
@unherd
There's been a boom in personalised diets based on measuring stuff like your blood sugar or gut bacteria. But leading docs and scientiststs tell me they're concerned some elements of these programmes are not based in good evidence - and could risk harm
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@itvnews
Such devastating news.
@emilymorganitv
was such a talented, compassionate journalist and a kind, thoughtful human. My thoughts are with the whole team and her family x
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2/ It looked at available studies concluding 'microclots' is incorrect term it's amyloid and fibrin(ogen) & they're seen in healthy people; no evidence they cause LC symptoms; and there is no rationale for plasmapheresis. Patients should only get in RCT.
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@mrstevenjones1
@hannahsbee
You can’t simply transfer the evidence for one particular intervention to another.
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Thread on failure of ‘scicomm industry’ to ask questions about GIDS at the Tavistock. FWIW I’m not a fan of term ‘scicomm’. It smacks of science PR—which does have a place. Surely one of jobs of a science journalist is to hold scientists and science to account when needed?
The sad story of the GIDS and the Tavistock should lead us all to seriously reflect on how a dysfunctional organisation was allowed to carry on for so long. Many should hang their heads in shame but it's my own sector - the science comms industry - that bears particular guilt...
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A reminder that there was more than one person behind the
@BBCNewsnight
Tavistock investigations..,
Cutting the investigative team at
@BBCNewsnight
is a huge loss.
Where else would we have seen
@hannahsbee
@deb_cohen
groundbreaking exposure of the Tavistock scandal?
Certainly not anywhere else on the BBC, where Dr Who is latest vehicle for gender nonsense promotion to kids.
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In 2017 David Cameron said we should “accelerate progress towards disease modifying therapy, and ultimately a cure by 2025” for Alzheimer’s Disease.
With two new drugs set to be approved are we on track?
@mgtmccartney
and I examine the evidence
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@rob_aldridge
It’s kind of a good idea to check the accuracy of these briefings out before tweeting them to a million or so followers. But hey, welcome to pandemic health reporting
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“If you torture the data long enough, it will confess to anything” thanks
@AnniceMukherjee
for reminding me of this quote
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Why do posh people you don’t know think it’s acceptable to poke you? Imagine a scouser doing that to a posh person?!
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@PaulNuki
But that’s not what the report says. It litters it with comments about low quality evidence and then makes claims about interventions being effective. Is the story “xxx works based on low quality evidence”? I’m lost!
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Le Gare du Nord sounding more like Liverpool Lime Street this morning 🔴
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👇
@d_spiegel
Yeah I've got to agree
Many scientists have given the media a difficult job by speaking with a lot of certainty on highly uncertain issues, clouding complexity, and speaking in strong, moralistic rhetoric about difficult policy issues
Not to mention personal attacks on SoMe
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How much should industrial policy dictate what treatments are used in the NHS?
“Having a group whose raison’ d’etre is to negotiate discounts to enable the adoption of technologies that’s divorced from the question: ‘Is this a good technology?’ is a problem” Prof Chris McCabe
A year-long investigation by
@deb_cohen
and
@mgtmccartney
has raised questions over the influence of the UK government and NHS England on NICE’s approval of cholesterol-lowering drug inclisiran
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“This is a classic playbook. X doesn’t work; the experts are wrong; read my book and find out the truth. Then buy my product which FINALLY fixes everything,” says one critic about Bug Diet. ZOE says their personalised nutrition app is based on science
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Added to this top explainer by
@jburnmurdoch
is the apparent difference with the Zoe app
@Metadoc
explains this is syndromic surveillance which may be limited by low specificity ie it may be hard to distinguish covid symps from other respiratory infections which are increasing
NEW: lots of attention on ONS Infection Survey today, but some confusion over how it should (and should not) be used to asses whether England’s fall in cases is "real"
Quick thread:
Most attention has gone on ONS “% of people testing positive” metric showing a continued rise
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@Davewwest
@R_Hughes1
@whippletom
@d_spiegel
I know who did hatchet jobs on me and accused me of being a government agent/right wing activist/vacuous etc etc for mentioning indirect effects/harms of interventions (which is what I thought we were meant to do in science/health reporting and CW always said). It wasn’t No 10.
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Similar just happened on way out. Open gate incomprehensibly slammed shut
Liverpool fan Nick has told me four of the five gates they were walking towards were then shut and they were all forced to funnel through just one gate. This is incomprehensible.
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@PaulNuki
Really? In all my years of working on a medical journal—other than in investigations— the legal standard wasn’t used. We have GRADE in medicine don’t we?
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@LucyGoBag
I was thinking the same today about growing up in and around Liverpool when talking about Anne and Hillsborough. I was brought up to never assume authority is correct and always listen to those who are worried or have questions. Don’t dismiss them. Scousers, eh?!
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@hannahsbee
@BBCNewsnight
@esmewren
@djoeclarke
Thanks, H. I’m sure you’ve done an amazing job of turning what is an incredibly difficult issue into a thoughtful and compelling book.
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I remember doing a piece about why we need to be cautious about comparing Covid cases and deaths across countries for
@BBCNewsnight
in 2020…well it turns out….
Thinking about how at start of pandemic UK had more deaths per capita compared to other countries
But it turned out we just counted them accurately in real-time, and eventually the rest of the world’s data came in and UK was average.
Excellent surveillance is bittersweet.
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Yup all conspiracy…Lest we forget
@thetimes
was instrumental in exposing thalidomide—probably one of the most important health stories of our time. And on a personal level I’ve worked with
@C4Dispatches
covering both the drug and device industry.
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