Category: Medicine
In the fight against Corona, learning from Botswana means learning to win!
As long as the majority of the population is not immune to SARS-COV2, the health care system must be protected from collapse due to overload with COVID patients. Therefore, for the past year, we have been testing measures ranging from increased hand washing to total lockdown with some success. Measures are introduced, tightened, relaxed, or abolished, only to be reintroduced, … and so it goes. Politicians justify their actions with incidence values, utilization of hospitals, model calculations and the advice of experts (see also here in my blog). Undeniably, many of these (anti)Corona measures have enormous plausibility. It is also trivial to realize that a total lockdown can severely limit the spread of a virus. However, this cannot be sustained forever. Therefore, the question of which of the measures from the black box lockdown have an effect, and for which the harm outweighs the benefit, is immensely relevant. With this knowledge, one might put together an evidence-based package of Corona measures that is less drastic than a lockdown, but just as effective. And perhaps in this way persuade some skeptics to participate. This is why the question of which evidence is available for the effectiveness of individual measures is so important. But beware. Continue reading
Jugdging science by proxies: A short and incomplete history
In this post I’ll be looking at the question of why scientific careers today depend so much on the Journal Impact Factor (JIF). And the acquisition of as much third-party funding as possible. Or, more generally, why the content, originality and reliability of research results are often a secondary matter when commissions talk their heads off about who to include in their own ranks. And who not. Or which grant applications deserve to be funded. In short, follow me on a brief and incomplete history of how and why we ended up judging the quality of science through proxies such as JIF and amount of third party funding. Perhaps a historical perspective will also yield clues as to how we can overcome this mess. But I am getting ahead of myself. Let’s start where it all began, with the founding fathers of modern science. Continue reading
Peer review is dead, long live peer review!
We all have been there: After a long wait and increasing tension, an email arrives from the editotial office. With an increasing heart rate we open the email. “Thank you for submitting your manuscript to our Journal. Your manuscript was sent for external peer review, which is now complete. Based on our evaluation and the comments of external reviewers, your manuscript did not achieve a sufficient priority for further consideration, and we have decided not to pursue your manuscript for publication. While we understand you may be disappointed with this decision, we hope the reviewer comments will help you revise your manuscript and submit it to another journal. Thank you for the privilege of reviewing your work.’ After the initial shock, we take a look at the reviews in the attachment. Reviewer 1 found the work quite good, some minor issues, all fixable, with well-meaning suggestions. But Reviewer 2! Has he even read the article? Did he confuse it with another paper on his desk? In any case, this unknown ‘expert’ was totally incompetent, but still dared to pour several pages of slurry over 3 years of our hard work and its highly relevant results.
From mouse to man through the valley of death?
‘Translation’ – from mouse to human and back – the mantra and eternal quest of university medicine! Where else than in academic medical centers can you find all this under one roof: basic biomedical and clinical research, the patients necessary for clinical trials, government funding, as well as motivated and excellently trained personnel! ‘Translation’ is as old as academic medicine itself – but the term for it was only coined in the 1980s and since then it has adorned the websites and mission statements of all university hospitals worldwide. Translation has certainly been a model of success – just think of, treatment of chronic neurological disorders like epilepsy, Parkinson’or multiple sklerosis, therapies of some forms of cancer, or HIV. Continue reading
Podcast mania
In letzter Zeit war ich zu Gast in einigen Podcasts und längeren Interviews, für Audiophile hier die links:
(Update August 2020)
“The Ioannidis Affair”
On March 17th, just as many countries were taking draconian measures to contain the SARS-COV-2 pandemic, the Greek-American meta-researcher and epidemiologist John Ioannidis, whom I often quote in my posts proclaimed a “fiasco in the making‘! With strong language and a few ad hoc estimations of COVID fatality rates he warned that based on poor data or no evidence at all politicians might inflict incalculable damage on society, possibly much worse than what a virus, putatatively as dangerous as influenza, could cause. As one of the most highly cited researchers in the world and a vocal critic of quality problems in biomedicine, his COVID related interviews, opinion pieces and articles since then have received a great deal of attention, in the scientific community, in the lay press, and especially among his worldwide fan base. Continue reading
We don’t need animal experiments! We get our drugs from the pharmacy!
Research using animals is a sensitive issue. Anyone who does animal experiments, like myself, is reluctant to talk about it, at least outside our natural habitat, the laboratory or scientific conventions. Institutions where animal experiments are carried out are also quite shy about the topic. Recently, the Max Planck Society left Nikos Logothetis (MPI Tübingen) standing in the rain when he was targeted by a media campaign. Now he and some of his laboratory staff are off to Shanghai… The websites of prominent research institutes feature all kinds of colorful illustrations showing immunohistochemistry slides, doctors and students in white coats with pipettes in their hands, sitting at computers or their microscopes. But rats or mice are conspicuously missing! They proudly display their research activities, and enthusiastically advertise (future) research breakthroughs towards completely new and effective therapies. But no reference is made to animal experiments on campus!
Diet: Is nutrition science a more reliable source of advice than your grandmother?
Meat consumption is bad for your health. It gives you cancer, heart attacks, stroke, you name it. Says nutrition science. And they must know. After all, it’s a science. Is it, really?
A few years ago, Jonathan Schoenfeld and John Ioannidis took a standard cookbook and randomly selected 50 frequently occurring ingredients (sugar, coffee, salt, etc.). They then carried out a systematic literature search, asking whether there were epidemiologicial studies that had investigated the cancer risk of these ingredients. And they found what they were looking for. For 80% of the ingredients at least one study existed, for many even several. Of 264 of these studies, 103 found that the ingredient investigated increased the risk of cancer, while 88 reduced the risk! So after all Joe Jackson was right: ‘Everything gives you cancer’! But wait a minute: Milk? Veal? Orange juice? Continue reading
When carmakers hack brains
You got to see this youtube video! Hectically cut sequences of busy young scientists in high-tech laboratories wearing lab coats, nerdy looking guys are soldering electronic circuits and stare into oscilloscopes, we are taken on a roller coaster ride through an animated brain chockful of tangled nerve cells. And in between all this, on stage at the California Academy of Sciences, car and rocket manufacturer Elon Musk announces his latest vision in a messianic pose: The symbiosis of the human brain with artificial intelligence (AI)! This time his plan to save mankind does not involve mass evacuation to Mars, but will be realized by a revolutionary Brain Machine Interface (BMI), designed and manufactured by his company Neuralink. You may have guessed it, this has caused a tremendous media hype all over the world. The verdict in the press and on the net was: “Musk at his best, a bit over the edge, but if HE announces a breakthrough like that there must be something to it”. The more cautious asked: “But couldn’t this be dangerous for mankind? Do we need a new ethic for stuff like this?” Continue reading
Microbe Mania with Melancholic Microbes
Recently in a train station book shop I stood gaping in astonishment in front of a thematically highly specialized book display. It was the bowels-brain table. The books piled up on it promised enlightenment about how the bowel and in particular its contents influence us – yes – how, they verily steer our emotions. A selection of book titles: “Shit-Wise – How a Healthy Intestinal Flora Keeps us fit”; “Bowels heal brain heal body”; “Happiness begins in the bowels”, or “The second brain – How the bowels influence our mood, our decisions and our feeling of wellbeing”. Newspapers, magazines and the internet can also tell us this. The wrong bowel bacteria make us depressive – but the right ones make us happy … which is why yogurt helps against depression. Continue reading
To infinity, and beyond! 