This page links my special research posts on the subject of that “Devil detail”. You all know the sort of thing? Your immediate reaction to a subject, or proposition, is perhaps is not always the proper and right conclusion?

Sadly the world of social media, Facebook and Twitter for example, and of course traditional media, produce sound bites, ‘chosen and selected’ messages and often out of context stories etc. Some of these are deliberate attempts to mislead and some biased, whether deliberate or accidental. Confirmation bias, or put more simply the choosing of selective data to fit a message, can even hit scientists. One very common result of such sound bites is that facts get distorted and even changed just in a few transmissions between people, and one may get amplified virally that is a complete rearrangement of the original context.

This is very common in the advocacy world where desperate people often spread only the words that they wish to hear. It is quite frightening to watch, and often innocent people are lured into spreading.

This series of posts examines some of the subjects in research and advocacy that affect our disease. The initial subjects in this series focus on the following key subjects; placebo trials, stratification, statistics of trials, early drug access, new trial approaches and drug approval processes.

Here they are so far, enjoy….