I’m at the 6th preventing overdiagnosis conference chairing a session on Overdiagnosis 2.0 (Technology) by Henrik Vogt, Claus Ekstrøm & Johnny Kung. So I thought I’d share some insights. Carl Heneghan at Preventing Overdiagnosis Henrik Vogt from the GP research unit at Trondheim talked about the impact of new technology ‘that is heavily geared to […]
Tag: Featured List
David Sackett’s four worries about observational evidence
EBM students, if you haven’t already seen this paper then it’s a must-read: Why Did the Randomized Clinical Trial Become the Primary Focus of My Career? Carl Heneghan The late David Sackett, the first Director of CEBM, undertook, wrote about and researched the methods of randomized controlled trials for most of his career. Why? […]
NHS Health Check appears neither equitable nor cost-effective
NHS health checks may be missing the point when it comes to offering the optimal interventions and preventing cardiovascular disease. Carl Heneghan Since 2009 the NHS Health Check programme in England has added considerably to GP workload and has proved to be controversial given the uncertainty about whether it adds value. A Cochrane review found […]
A Word About Evidence: 8. Data—usage and who owns them
In the second of two blogs, Jeff Aronson considers how the word “data” is used in bioscience publications and discusses who owns data and collections of data. Usage Whether we can use etymology or grammar to settle the question of the singularity or plurality of “data” (it appears to be both), we can determine […]
Too much medicine: Oxygen not for acute stroke
Oxygen and stroke is an example of too much medicine that has been shown from the results of a randomised trial Carl Heneghan There seem to be a plethora of trials recently on Oxygen. I blogged about its use here in MI, and we published in BMJ EBM in patients without hypoxia in ST elevation MI […]
Weight loss drugs effects on CVD remains unproven.
Approved weight-loss medications have only modest effects on cardiovascular risk. Igho Onakpoya One rationale for the development and marketing of weight loss drugs is that their use will improve cardiac risk factors. In a recent systematic review and network meta-analysis [1] of 28 randomised controlled trials (29,018 participants), the authors concluded that the effects […]
Falls and fractures with Z drugs
Z-drugs might be associated with an increased risk of fractures, falls, and injuries and their use should be considered in the context of overall risk of falls in an individual Carl Heneghan Zolpidem, zopiclone, eszopiclone and zaleplon, are known as the ‘Z-drugs’. They even have their own Wikipedia page. They are a group of […]
Evidence of Absence
This is what is meant when referring to ABSENCE OF EVIDENCE IS NOT EVIDENCE OF ABSENCE. Rafael Perera In science, it is difficult to show that something is so – to prove something. Instead, we deal with hypotheses and theories. We gather evidence and compare our hypotheses to the data collected to decide which […]
Prostate cancer now kills more people than breast cancer: cause for alarm?
‘As epidemiologists, we are not alarmed by the apparent ‘increase’ in deaths from prostate cancer,’ here’s why Jason Oke For the first time in the UK, the number of deaths from prostate cancer has exceeded the numbers of deaths from breast cancer. According to figures from the UK’s Office for National Statistics (ONS), more […]
Evidence Watch: uncertainties with the evidence for influenza vaccination
This week’s Evidence Watch highlights serious uncertainties with the current evidence-base for influenza vaccination Carl Heneghan, Editor in Chief A systematic review of vaccines in the elderly [1] highlights the difference vaccination makes in a single season (lowers risk of influenza from 6% to 2.4%); but adds caution, in that we have very little […]