With billions to be made on the back of ill health and notable scandals and cover-ups in its history, it’s fair to say that many see the public face of the pharmaceutical industry as a mask for darker…
2013 was an auspicious year for medical research. A new vaccine for malaria was developed, there was a revolution in DNA analysis, and there was a major advance in human cloning when stem cells were produced…
It seems that every week a major breakthrough in the understanding of cancer is announced in the media. So where are all the drugs that should flow from these discoveries? Unfortunately, the road from…
Placebos have a longer history than medicine as we know it, and have a huge effect on all kinds of diseases and health conditions. But it may now be time to rethink their role. The placebo made its debut…
In 2010, the European Ombudsman ruled that the European Medicines Agency should open access to clinical trials data when companies applied to get their drugs on the market. The ombudsman decided public…
Universities are being shaken up by a new mode of learning. The world’s elite institutions are opening up courses so thousands of people can learn for free via their laptops, mobiles or tablets. And these…
Clinical trials provide the unbiased evidence essential for improving treatments in all areas of medicine. For children with cancer the development of safe treatments that work has relied on high quality…
CLINICAL TRIALS – Human clinical trials are an important last hurdle in the development of new drugs and therapies. Today, The Conversation takes a closer look at this vital scientific endeavour with three…
CLINICAL TRIALS – Human clinical trials are an important last hurdle in the development of new drugs and therapies. Today, The Conversation takes a closer look at this vital scientific endeavour with three…
CLINICAL TRIALS – Human clinical trials are an important last hurdle in the development of new drugs and therapies. Today, The Conversation takes a closer look at this vital scientific endeavour with three…
From the time the Scottish physician James Lind showed citrus cured scurvy in 1747, clinical trials have had a reputation for being gold-standard evidence about the safety and effectiveness of medical…
Clinical trials of an experimental cancer drug being undertaken by the University of New South Wales were suspended this week, after questions about the accuracy of some preliminary results were made public…
Over the past 25 years we have seen an explosion in top-level clinical trials in China. But only a tiny proportion of that research is available on the main databases used by doctors and researchers in…
As a doctor it’s my job to prescribe lotions and potions. To do so, I read information about drug trials in books and medical journals to keep me up to speed on the latest drugs, dangers and side effects…
In 2001 I met David Graham, an official from the US Food and Drug Administration, in a car park in Washington. I wanted him to shed light on why the diabetes drug troglitazone, or Rezulin, had been available…
The liver is a special organ. Mature liver cells - or hepatocytes - have the capacity to continually divide and repair damage. But only so far. Excessive drinking and chronic liver disease, for example…
Are you worried about how decisions involving public money are made? You should be. Last week, the National Audit Office disclosed that the Department of Health spent £424 million on the anti-flu drug…
If researchers go to the effort of getting funds, recruiting patients, and following them up, you would think that they would be keen to publish the results. So it’s surprising that our best estimates…
Professor of Bioethics & Medicine, Sydney Health Ethics, Haematologist/BMT Physician, Royal North Shore Hospital and Director, Praxis Australia, University of Sydney