Informed Health Choices Podcasts
Each episode includes a short story with an example of a treatment claim and a simple explanation of a Key Concept used to assess that claim
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Informed Health Choices Primary School Resources
A textbook and a teachers’ guide for 10 to 12-year-olds. The textbook includes a comic, exercises and classroom activities.
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Know Your Chances
This book has been shown in two randomized trials to improve peoples' understanding of risk in the context of health care choices.
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DRUG TOO
James McCormick with another parody/spoof of the Cee Lo Green song ‘Forget You’ to prompt scepticism about many drug treatments.
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Tom Hanks and Type 2 Diabetes
A 50-minute illustrated talk by James McCormack prompted by Tom Hanks’ announcement that he had been diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes.
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Choosing Wisely
James McCormack using song and dance to warn about the negative effects of overtreatment.
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‘Tricks to help you get the result you want from your study (S4BE)
Inspired by a chapter in Ben Goldacre’s ‘Bad Science’, medical student Sam Marks shows you how to fiddle research results.
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It’s just a phase
A resource explaining the differences between different trial phases.
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How do you regulate Wu?
Ben Goldacre finds that students of Chinese medicine are taught (on a science degree) that the spleen is “the root of post-heaven essence”.
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Science is about embracing your knockers
Ben Goldacre: “I don’t trust claims without evidence, especially not unlikely ones about a magic cream that makes your breasts expand.”
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Balancing Benefits and harms
A blog explaining what is meant by ‘benefits’ and ‘harms’ in the context of healthcare interventions, and the importance of balancing them.
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Why treatment comparisons must be fair
Fair treatment comparisons avoid biases and reduce the effects of the play of chance.
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Reducing biases in judging unanticipated effects of treatments
As with anticipated effects of treatments, biases and the play of chance must be reduced in assessing suspected unanticipated effects.
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Why treatment uncertainties should be addressed
Ignoring uncertainties about the effects of treatments has led to avoidable suffering and deaths.
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Interactive PowerPoint Presentation about Clinical Trials
An interactive Powerpoint presentation for people thinking about participating in a clinical trial or interested in learning about them.
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Annals Graphic Medicine: How screening is portrayed in the media
A cartoon series addressing the theme "Earlier is not necessarily better".
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Smart Health Choices: making sense of health advice
The Smart Health Choices e-book explains how to make informed health decisions.
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Evidence Based Medicine Matters: Examples of where EBM has benefitted patients
Booklet containing 15 examples submitted by Royal Colleges where Evidence-Based Medicine has benefited clinical practice.
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Manipulating doctors: testimony from an ex-drug rep
In this 10-min video, Gwen Olsen, a former pharmaceutical sales representative, talks about manipulating doctors to sell more drugs.
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On being sucked into a maelstrom
In 2006, a patient in the UK, who happened to be medically trained, found herself swept along by the Herceptin […]
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A tragic epidemic of blindness in babies
‘In the period immediately after World War II, many new treatments were introduced to improve the outlook for prematurely-born babies. […]
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A new treatment for strawberry birthmarks
Treatments with dramatic effects are occasionally discovered by accident. Take the example of a condition that occurs in infants called […]
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Lung cancer screening: early but not early enough?
Screening may detect disease earlier, but not always early enoughto make a difference (see Figure). Some cancers, for example lung […]
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Could checking the evidence first have prevented a death?
‘In a tragic situation that could have been averted, Ellen Roche, a healthy, 24-year-old volunteer in an asthma study at […]
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The Yellow Card Scheme
The Yellow Card Scheme was launched in Britain in 1964 after the thalidomide tragedy highlighted the importance of following up […]
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Generating and investigating hunches about unanticipated adverse effects of treatments
Generating hunches about unanticipated effects of treatments Unanticipated effects of treatments, whether bad or good, are often first suspected by […]
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Treatments with dramatic effects
Sometimes patients experience responses to treatments which differ so dramatically from their own past experiences, and from the natural history […]
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The need to go beyond impressions
If patients believe that something helps them, isn’t that enough? Why is it important to go to the trouble and […]
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Facing up to uncertainties: a matter of life and death
‘Failure to face up to uncertainties about the effects of treatments can result in avoidable suffering and death on a […]
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When practitioners disagree
In this sub-section Introduction (this page) Caffeine for breathing problems in premature babies Antibiotics in pre-term labour Breast cancer Introduction […]
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Moderate treatments effects: usual and not so obvious
Most treatments do not have dramatic effects and fair tests are needed to assess them. And sometimes a treatment may […]
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The classical (Halstead) radical mastectomy
The radical mastectomy, devised in the late 19th century by William Halsted, was the most commonly performed operation for breast […]
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Drastic treatment is not always the best
‘It is very easy for those of us treating cancer to imagine that better results are due to a more […]
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Intensive treatments for breast cancer
The therapies advocated for breast cancer – so often in the news – provide some especially valuable lessons about the […]
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No wonder she was confused
In January 2004, a hysterectomy patient wrote this letter to The Lancet: ‘In 1986 I had a hysterectomy because of […]
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Evening primrose oil for eczema
Even if inadequately assessed treatments do not kill or harm, they can waste money. Eczema is a distressing skin complaint […]
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Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT)
In women going through the menopause, hormone replacement therapy (HRT) is very effective in reducing the distressing hot flushes that […]
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Diethylstilboestrol
At one time, doctors were uncertain whether pregnant women who had previously had miscarriages and stillbirths could be helped by […]
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Mechanical heart valves
Drugs are not the only treatments that can have unexpected bad effects: non-drug treatments can pose serious risks too. Mechanical […]
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Avandia
2010 saw another drug – rosiglitazone, better known by the trade name Avandia – hitting the headlines because of unwanted […]
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Vioxx
Although drug-testing regulations have been tightened up considerably, even with the very best drug-testing practices there can be no absolute […]
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Thalidomide
Thalidomide is an especially chilling example of a new medical treatment that did more harm than good. [1] This sleeping […]
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GET-IT provides plain language definitions of health research terms