Over the past couple of weeks Josh Eveleth [2] and I have answered journalists’ enquiries from many different pockets of the United States about the recently published paper by Majid Ezzati and colleagues [3]. The research, which analyzes mortality data for every county in every US state over four decades, finds a steady increase in mortality inequality across counties between 1983 and 1999.
County by County Life Expectancy: How Many Americas are There? [1]
Submitted by Andrew Hyde on Thu, 2008-05-15 11:24.
MSF launches new website of all its research [6]
Submitted by Virginia Barbour on Thu, 2008-05-15 01:46.
Médecins Sans Frontières [7] today launches a new website MSF Field Research [8] that will be a tremendous resource for everyone interested in the research that they do as part of their humanitarian work with vulnerable populations.
( categories: PLoS Medicine [9] )
Prozac and Placebos: Review of a Media Maelstrom [10]
Submitted by Andrew Hyde on Thu, 2008-03-06 13:08.
Last week we had the interesting experience of watching how a PLoS Medicine meta-analysis [11] of anti-depressant drug trials generated a furore in the media. It featured on the front page of four UK national newspapers (the Guardian [12], the Telegraph [13], the Independent [14] and the Times [15]), was the leading item on the BBC News [16] and prompted stories in Time [17], the Wall Street Journal [18] and the Economist [19].
The paper not only posed questions about the benefits of antidepressants, it revealed how many clinical trial results do not see the light of day. But whilst the issues relating to it continue to be debated – a discussion leads the Guardian Science Weekly Podcast [20] this week– some of the headlines in the media maelstrom misrepresented the study.
No Such Thing as a Free Lunch (or Gift or Sample) [23]
Submitted by Andrew Hyde on Mon, 2008-02-11 10:45.
Are the staggering amounts spent by drug companies on marketing justified by their innovation in drug development? Not according to a Policy Forum [24] in PLoS Medicine which stimulated a great deal of debate across blogs and news sites over the past couple of weeks.
Guest Blog: Fostering Research Ethics Infrastructure in the Developing World/Transition Societies [27]
Submitted by Gavin Yamey on Fri, 2008-01-18 16:23.
PLoS Medicine invited Joseph Millum [28] of the Department of Bioethics [29], National Institutes of Health, USA, and Sandra Realpe [30] of the Council on Health Research for Development [31] to report on the Eighth Global Forum on Bioethics in Research [32].
( categories: PLoS Medicine [33] )
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