Tuesday, March 26 2019

07:30 My birthday - I turn 73 today, but I can't stay in bed - Lois has an important appointment at 9 am at the local St Paul's clinic, where one of the clinic's specialists is to "vacuum" Lois’s left ear, to remove a massive accumulation of earwax - yikes!

08:00 We see a little television. The fifth episode of a new chat-show series, starring Steve Coogan, as the television host Alan Partridge. Alan's co-host is Jennie Gresham, played by the charming Susannah Fielding.

A moving and game-changing edition: Partridge and his co-host Jennie Gresham have never been afraid to tackle sensitive issues, and today the subject is the so-called "#metoo" movement and women's rights in general.

Partridge and Gresham have invited as their main guest the famous radio host and feminist, Dee Gilhooley, to discuss her radio series about  female scientists in the scientific world, women who are often ignored or downplayed, and treated as less influential than their male counterparts.

But the debate takes a different direction than expected.

Right from the start Partridge seems to be trying to sabotage the discussion by withdrawing from it emotionally - he seems to be contemptuous of the show's guest Dee Gilhooley and her praise of female scientists. And he looks as though he isn’t even listening to the discussion, and is immersed in his own thoughts.

Finally, Partridge comes clean and admits that he has not been listening to the discussion at all and has been immersed in his own thoughts about  car engines, one of his private obsessions.

Partridge’s co-host Jennie Gresham tries to steer the discussion back to female scientists, but once again Partridge turns the focus on to himself, which is a bit of a shame. Lois and I were looking forward to hearing about female researchers such as Ada Lovelace or Rosalind Franklin.

And unfortunately, Partridge chooses this moment to reveal the bombshell news that he was sexually harassed when working as  a young DJ at a commercial radio station.

Although this experience must have been very traumatic for the young Partridge, it is a little unfortunate that the press, needless to say, will be focusing  tomorrow on Alan's bombshell revelations, rather than on the show's guest Dee Gilhooley and her insights about female physicists, chemists etc, but I’m going to let that one slide.

Apparently Partridge’s female boss at the radio station asked Alan to brush her lavish hair, which took one hell of time, he says - over an hour. The next time she asked him to do it, he refused, and after that he was ignored every time there was an opportunity to meet celebrities (Princess Anne for example), and he was also excluded from any chances of promotion or bonuses and the  like.

I feel sincerely sorry for Alan, but it would have been better for him to be quiet for 15 minutes, so we could hear a little more from the show's principal guest, Dee Gilhooley – that’s what I think anyway! Alan's experience with his female boss and her hairbrush does not seem to have damaged him irrevocably - perhaps that's a little harsh of me.  But I’m going to let that one slide.

 08:30 We drive over to the local St Paul's ear clinic. The treatment begins, only 10 minutes later than promised, and it only takes 10 minutes, which is nice. We drive home and relax with a cup of coffee on the sofa. Lois is overwhelmed by all the sounds she can now hear - I suggest she had better get some earplugs, but she guesses (correctly) that I'm only joking. What a wag I am! But in all honesty, it will be nice not to have to shout when Lois is sitting to my right,  to put it mildly.

10:00 I open some of my birthday presents. Lois has given me a box of Turkish delight, 8 mini-bottles of tonic, 12 gin infusion bags (4 x passion fruit and rose, 4 x lavender and rosemary, and 4 x grapefruit and elderflower), and Alison, our elder daughter, has given me a kind of a Indo-European dictionary, and a book explaining the mysteries of DNA - "A short history of everyone who has ever lived". What a lucky man I am today!

me and some of my birthday presents -

what a lucky man I am !

10:45 I jump up on my exercise bike and ride 6 miles (10 km). Meanwhile, Lois goes for a short walk around the village. On her way she swings by the local post office to pick up our 2 copies of the monthly Peter Rabbit children’s magazine, which we regularly send to our 5-year-old twin grandchildren, Lily and Jessie, in Perth, Australia.

11:45 We drive to the local Wyevale garden centre to have my birthday lunch in the garden centre's café-restaurant: fish'n'chips with a cup of coffee - yum yum! We are not hungry after the main course, so instead of dessert we opt for two take-away fruit scones, which we can eat later - at 5 pm or so.

We drive home and go to bed for a couple of hours, for the second day in a row - yikes! We get up at 4 pm and relax with a cup of tea and a fruit scone on the sofa.

18:00 We have to go out. Lois wants to take part in her sect’s weekly Bible seminar, taking place tonight in Brockworth library. I drive her over to Mari-Ann and Alf's house. They are going to drive her over to Brockworth, where all 3 of them will take part in the seminar.

Seminar schedule for this semester.

A recent session: Mari-Ann on the left, Alf sitting at the back, Lois on the right

19:00 I have a little alone time, and I listen to the radio, an interesting edition in the series "Inside Health". The host of the program is the charming Dr Mark Porter.

I hear an interesting feature all about defective or misleading clinical trials, reported in a recent study by Ben Goldacre of Oxford University.

Goldacre and his academic team looked at 6 weeks of clinical trials, published in the top 5 UK and US medical journals, to determine if any of the trials were guilty of "switching outcomes" without any admission of this.

[Switching outcomes means changing the statistics measured from the statistics originally promised for measurement before the trial began, which, unless admitted, goes against the internationally accepted guidelines – the so-called  Consort Trial Reporting Standards - Ed.]

If Goldberg's team discovered an "outcome switch", they wrote a "very very polite" letter to that journal to point out the switch.

Of the 67 clinical trials that Goldberg's team examined, 58 included some non-admitted "outcome switches". However only 23 of his team's 58 corrective letters were actually published by the scientific journals concerned. And when Goldberg’s team talked to the editors of the journals, they realised that the editors in many cases either did not understand the international guidelines or disapproved of them.

But the guidelines are important. If researchers start with one basic set of outcomes but then add more and more additional outcomes and then choose only what they consider to be the more advantageous statistics in their final report, there is more and more of a possibility for a totally random "good" result.

A clinical trial in 2001 for the anti-depressant drug paroxetine claimed that the drug was very effective in treating depression in young people. And doctors around the world prescribed paroxetine for hundreds of thousands of young patients over the next 14 years, until it was conclusively shown that paroxetine had very serious side effects. The original clinical trial was actually guilty of a lot of outcome switches. The researchers had added 19 new outcomes during the trial - 4 of these outcomes led to the "advantageous" results that the researchers wanted, and only these figures were used in their final report. My god, what madness !!!!!

The anti-depressant medicine Paroxetine, the result of

a clinical trial in 2001 which has now been discredited

Good grief, what a crazy world we live in, when you can't trust the big 5 medical journals!

22:00 Lois comes back and I go to bed. But Lois needs to relax and unwind after the evening's stimulating Bible seminar, and she stays up and sees a bit of television.

Zzzzzzzzz !!!!

Danish translation

07:30 Min fødseldag – jeg fylder 73 i dag, men jeg kan ikke blive liggende inde i sengen – Lois har en vigtig aftale kl 9 hos den lokale St Pauls øreklinik, hvor en af klinikkens specialister skal ”støvsuge” Lois’ venstre øre, for at fjerne en massiv ansamling af ørevoks – yikes!

08:00 Jeg ser lidt fjernsyn. De viser det 2. afsnit af en ny chatshowserie, stjernespækket Steve Coogan, som tv-værten Alan Partridge.  Alans co-vært er Jennie Gresham, spillet af den charmerende Susannah Fielding.

Et rørende og spilskiftende afsnit:  Partridge og hans co-vært Jennie Gresham har aldrig været bange for at takle følsomme emner, og i dag er emnet den såkaldte  ”#metoo-bevægelsen” og kvinders rettigheder generelt.

Partridge og Gresham har inviteret den berømte radiovært og feminist, Dee Gilhooley, for at diskutere hendes radioserie, der handler om kvindelige forskere i den videnskabelige verden, der ofte blive ignoreret eller nedsat, og behandlet som mindre indflydelsesrige, end deres mandlige kollegaer.

Men debatten tager en anderledes retning, end det forventede. I begyndelsen virker Partridge at prøve ar sabotere diskussionen ved ikke at deltage i den – han virker at være foragtelig overfor showets gæst Dee Gilhooley og hendes ros af kvindelige forskere. Han ser ud som om han engang ikke lytter til diskussionen, og er fordybet i sine egne tanker.

Endelig indrømmer Partridge, at han overhovedet ikke har lyttet til diskussionen og  har blevet fordybet i sine egne tanker om bilmotorer, en af sine private besættelser.

Partridges co-vært Jennie prøver at styre diskussionen tilbage til kvindelige forskere, men endnu en gang vender Partridge fokusset på sig selv, hvilket er lidt af en skam. Lois og jeg havde glædet os til at høre om forskere såsom for eksempel Ada Lovelace eller Rosalind Franklin.

Desværre vælger Partridge dette øjeblik til at afsløre den jordrystende nyhed, at han selv blev seksuelt krænket, da han var en ung dj på en kommercie radiostation.

Selvom denne oplevelse må have været meget traumatisk for den unge Partridge, er det lidt uheldigt, at, unødvendigt at sige, vil pressen i morgen fokusere på Alans chokerende afsløringer, snarere, end på showets gæst Dee Gilhooley og hendes indsigter om kvindelige fysikere, kemikere osv, men det springer jeg over.

Det lader til, at radiostationens kvindelige chef bad Alan om at børste hendes overdådige hår, hvilket tog en helvedes tid – over en time. Næste gang hun bad ham om at gøre det, afviste han, og derefter blev han ignoreret, hver gang der var en mulighed for at møde kendisser (prinsesse Anne for eksempel), eller chancerne for forfremmelse og den slags.

Jeg har oprigtigt ondt af Alan, men det ville have været bedre at han tier for engangs skyld, så vi kunne høre lidt mere fra showets hovedgæst, Dee Gilhooley, eller det synes jeg alligevel !  Alans oplevelse med hans kvindelige chef og hendes hårbørste synes ikke til at have beskadiget ham uomstødeligt, men det springer jeg over.

08:30 Vi kører over til den lokale St Pauls øreklinik. Behandlingen begynder, kun 10 minutter forsinket, og det tager kun 10 minutter, hvilket er  rart. Vi kører hjem og slapper af med en kop kaffe i sofaen. Lois er overvældet af alle de lyder, hun nu kan høre – jeg foreslår, at hun må hellere få et par ørepropper, men hun gætter (korrekt), at jeg spøger kun. Hvor er jeg dog en sjov fyr. Men ærligt talt vil det være rart ikke at blive nødt til at råbe, når Lois sidder på min højre hånd, for at sige mildt.

10:00 Jeg åbner nogle af mine fødselsdagsgaver op. Lois har givet mig en æske tyrkisk delight, 8 mini-flasker tonic, 12 gin-infusionsposer (4 x  passionsfrugt og rose, 4 x lavendel og rosmarin, og 4 x grapefrugt og hyldeblomst), og Alison, vores ældste datter, har givet mig en slags indoeuropæisk ordbog, og en bog, der forklarer mysterierne af dna – ”En kort historie af alle, der nogensinde har levet”. Hvor er jeg dog en heldig mand!

mig og nogle af mine fødselsdagsgaver –

hvor er jeg dog en heldig mand!

10:45 Jeg hopper op på min kondicykel og cykler 6 miles (10 km). I mellemtiden går Lois en kort tur rundt omkring i landsbyen. På vej  smutter hun ind i det lokale postkontor for at hente vores 2 eksemplarer af den månedlige Peter Rabbit-bønemagasin, som vi regelmæssigt afsender til vores 5-årige tvillingebørnebørn, Lily og Jessie, i Perth, Australien.

11:45 Vi kører over til det lokale Wyevale-havecenter, for at spise min fødselsdagsfrokost på havecentrets café-restaurant: fish’n’chips med en kop kaffe – yum yum! Vi er ikke sultne efter hovedretten, så vi opter for to takeaway frugtscones, som vi kan spiser kl 17 eller deromkring.

Vi kører hjem og går i seng i et par timer, den 2. gang i træk – yikes! Vi står op kl 16 og slapper af med en kop te og en frugtscone.

18:00 Vi skal ud. Lois ønsker at deltage i sin sekts ugentlige bibelseminar, der finder sted i aften i byen Brockworths bibliotek. Jeg kører hende over til Mari-Ann og Alfs hus. De skal køre hende over til Brockworth, hvor de alle tre skal deltage i seminaret.

 Seminarets skema til semesteren.

En nylig session: Mari-Ann til venstre, Alf i baggrunden, Lois til højre

19:00 Jeg har lidt alenetid, og jeg lytter lidt til radio, et interessant afsnit i serien ”Inside Health”. Programmets vært er den charmerende Mark Porter.

Jeg hører et interessant indslag, der handler om mangelfulde eller vildledende kliniske forsøg. En nylig undersøgelse af Ben Goldacre af Oxford University. Goldacre og hans akademiske hold kiggede på 6 ugers kliniske forsøg, offentliggjort i de store 5 britiske og amerikanske medicinske tidsskrifter, for at afgøre, om forsøget havde været skyldig for at ”skifte outcomes” (dvs skifte de aspekter målt, som forskerne oprindeligt havde lovet at basere deres forsøg på ifølge de internationalt acceptederede regler til forsøger uden at indrømme dette). [Disse internationalt accepterede retningslinjer er kendt som Consort Trial Reporting Standards – red.]

Hvis Goldbergs hold opdagede en ”outcome-skift”, skrev de et ”meget meget høligt” brev til det pågældende tidsskrift for at påpege skiftet.  

Ud af de 67 kliniske forsøg, som Goldbergs hold undersøgte, 58 inkluderede en eller anden ”outcome-skift”, men kun 23 og hans holds 58 brev, blev offentliggjort af de pågældende videnskabelige tidsskrifter. Og da de talte med redaktørerne af tidsskrifterne, indså Goldbergs hold, at redaktørerne enten ikke forstod de internationale retningslinjer, eller misbilligede dem.

Men retningslinjer er vigtige. Hvis forskere starter med et basalt sæt af outcomes, men derefter tlføje flere og flere andre outcomes, og vælge kun de mest fordelagtige statistikker i deres sidste rapport, er der mere og mere mulighed for et tilfældigt ”godt” resultat, hvilket er ikke meget behjælpeligt for at sige mildt.

Et kliniske forsøg i 2001 til den anti-depressiv medicin paroxetine påstod, at medicinen var meget effektiv i at behandle depression i unge mennesker. Og lægerne verden over ordinerede paroxetine til hundredetusindvis af unge patienter over de efterfølgende 14 år, indtil det blev bevist konklusivt, at paroxetine havde meget alvorlige bivirkninger. Det oprindelige kliniske forsøg var faktisk skyldigt for en masse outcome-skifter. Forskerne tilføjede 19 nye outcomes i løbet af forsøget – 4 af disse outcomes førte til ”fordelagtige” resultater, og kun disse blev brugt i forskernes definitive rapport. Du godeste, sikke et vanvid!!!!!

Den anti-depressive medicin Paroxetine, resultatet af et kliniske forsøg i 2001,

der nu er blevet bragt i miskredit

Du godeste, sikke en skør verden vi lever i, når man ikke kan stole på de store 5 medicinske tidsskrifter!

22:00 Lois kommer tilbage og jeg går i seng. Men Lois trænger til at slappe af og geare ned efter aftenens stimulerende bibelseminar, og hun ser lidt fjernsyn.

Zzzzzzzzz!!!!