Posts by Michel Accad
Equipoise and its problems
I recently participated in a debate opposing me to Professor Adam Cifu on the topic of “Evidence-based medicine in the age of COVID.” The debate took place on an episode of Dr. Chadi Nabhan’s Outspoken Oncology podcast. Dr. Saurabh Jha was the moderator and he did a great job keeping us on point and asking…
Read Full PostIt’s Not About Tradeoffs
It is tempting to oppose the harmful effects of COVID-related lockdown orders with arguments couched in terms of trade-offs. We may contend that when public authorities promote the benefits of “flattening the curve,” they fail to properly take into account the actual costs of imposing business closures and of forced social distancing: The coming economic…
Read Full PostUnderstanding the “severe error” in the IHME model: a conversation with Magilla Gorilla
We had an enlightening conversation about COVID-19 forecasting models with the anonymous @39magilla. The self-described gorilla detective was the first to identify a severe weakness in the influential Bill Gates-sponsored, University of Washington IHME model. His discovery was subsequently confirmed to be correct by other experts in the field. The conversation is on video only…
Read Full PostThe profit motive is irrelevant
In our most recent podcast episode (Privatizing the NHS: Who Profits?), my co-host Anish Koka reacted to our guest Bob Gill’s wish that the NHS insulated itself from the “profit motive” that is characteristic of the private sector. Anish pointed out that, at least in the US, wait times for oncology or orthopedic appointments are…
Read Full PostHow normal is the normal distribution?
Reflections on the early 19th c. French military hat-shaped curve At some point in our illuminating conversation with Mike Acree (episode 57), I brought up the fact that the normal distribution curve, on which much of statistical inference rests, is open to infinity at both ends. The tails are supposed to hug but never cross the…
Read Full PostMore on sham peer review
Dr. Lawrence Huntoon, who was our guest on Ep. 37, has just returned from Jerusalem where he gave a talk at the UNESCO’s 13th World Conference on Bioethics, Medical Ethics and Health Law. In this talk, Dr. Huntoon relates some of the most outrageous examples of hospital sham peer review. Some of these cases have involved…
Read Full PostSystematic Pushback Against Evidence-Based Medicine
When Gary Klein told us that he had co-authored a paper critical of evidence-based medicine (EBM), it was music to my ears. After we finished taping the show, I quickly dug into his bibliography and found the paper in question, written by Klein and his team: “Can We Trust Best Practices? Six Cognitive Challenges of Evidence-Based…
Read Full PostHe Jian-Kui vs. Christiaan Barnard: A Tale of Two Ethical Transgressions
As I write this post, He Jian-Kui, the Chinese scientist who claimed to have brought about the first gene edited babies in history is reported “missing,” having been seen last at an international meeting of scientists where his experiment was widely criticized on ethical grounds. It is too soon to know if he is being detained (or…
Read Full PostWhen Scientists Know The Answer Ahead of the Experiment
On the day that we taped our podcast episode with Brian Nosek about the replication crisis, the renowned statistician Andrew Gelman published an essay in the New York Times on precisely that topic. Gelman echoes some of the remarks made by Nosek. In particular, he draws attention to the point we discussed regarding what to believe when…
Read Full PostGene testing: another potential medico-legal precedent in the NHS
The NHS may not be a leader in medical innovation but it certainly seems to be breaking new ground in medico-legal precedents every few months (see our previous episodes on the Alfie Evans case and on the Bawa-Garba case). This week, The Guardian announces another medico-legal first: the daughter of a man who committed suicide…
Read Full Post