After a hearing lasting two and a half years, the General Medical Council has decided that Andrew Wakefield acted unethically in his study which proposed a link between the MMR vaccine and autism. It’s now twelve years since his paper was published. During all of that time there has never been more of a tiny… Continue reading Andrew Wakefield
Month: January 2010
PCC: An Important Update
Last week I pointed you at a petition that you could sign to support our suggestions for reforming the PCC. Things went fine for a day or so and the number of signatures easily sailed past 500. Then, for reasons we still haven’t understood, the petition vanished from the site where it was hosted. Despite… Continue reading PCC: An Important Update
Press Complaints Commission
One of the major topics on this blog is the nonsense that is printed by a significant proportion of the British press. The press in this country is “controlled” by the Press Complaints Commission, but in the majority of cases the PCC either can’t or won’t adjudicate effectively. Every year the PCC invites interested parties… Continue reading Press Complaints Commission
Customer Relationship Failure
I generally don’t like getting marketing email. Whenever I buy something online or sign up to a new web site, I always make sure that the “please send me email” is not checked. This doesn’t, of course, stop me getting marketing email but it does give me the moral high ground if I choose to… Continue reading Customer Relationship Failure
Binary Dates
There’s a strange meme going round that today is the last “binary date” for a hundred years. I’m not sure where it came from but a couple of people have repeated it on Twitter over the last couple of days. A binary date is one which is made up completely of ones and zeroes. So… Continue reading Binary Dates
Snow and Global Warming
I’m reading reports that Tory MP Ann Winterton has made a complete fool of herself in today’s Prime Minister’s Questions. She has suggested that the government should cancel “wasteful expenditure” on wind farms as the current weather clearly demonstrates that global warming is nonsense. Despite being complete nonsense, this is an argument that I hear… Continue reading Snow and Global Warming
Mid-Life Crisis Nostalgia Project
Whilst sorting through some paperwork over the last few days I found this photograph. It was taken almost thirty years ago at my secondary school. The picture shows just under fifty eighteen-year-olds who were just about to take their A levels. I’m in the back row, fifth from the right. The one with far more… Continue reading Mid-Life Crisis Nostalgia Project
Review of 2009: Favourite Posts
Following on from my earlier list of the most popular posts on this site over the last year, here is a list of my favourite posts. As last year, I’ve chosen one from each month. HopeNot many posts to choose from in January so I’ve chosen one where I tried to sum up the hope… Continue reading Review of 2009: Favourite Posts
Review of 2009: Most Popular Posts
Last year I experimented with writing a couple of posts that summarised the year on davblog. It was interesting (if only because it gave me some useful perspective on what I’d been doing over the year) so I’m going to do the same for 2009. In this post I’ll look at the ten most read… Continue reading Review of 2009: Most Popular Posts