Medical trials receive scrutiny

Exciting developments were reported in the New Scientist this week concerning medical trials. It seems that the placebo effect is even stronger than anyone realised until a few months ago. The implications for medical trials and drugs are considerable.

The New Scientist from last week reported several medical investigations where participants experienced placebo effects in a pervasive manner than previously had considered possible. People engaged in a study into anti-depressant only received benefit from the drugs when they were told that the drugs were anti-depressants. By contrast people who were given the same drugs, but not told they were anti-depressants received only chance, or below, levels of recovery.

The findings have considerable implications for future trials into drugs. Since participants may well be able to discern when drugs are medically active or simply neutral, the famous sugar pill may have to be ditched in favour of more sophisticated deceptions. In the future, studies may have more layers of participation in which those taking part are possibly given medication, but are not in fact given medication. By contrast, a further condition where depressives are not given the drug, but told that they are and are given a convincing substitute would also be required to do the test properly. Such a procedure naturally raises the question “is this level of deception necessary and justified pursuing a possibly beneficial drug?”

The thought occurs that almost no research is conducted into ways of harnessing and directing the healing powers of the mind that produces the placebo effect – presumably because there is no money in healing yourself. In the mean time, watch out for odd tasting pills.

The Great British Van Industry (really): an electric revolution.

When it comes to vehicles with four wheels and an internal combustion engine, Britain has not had much luck since the heady days of the 1960s. During the 1970s and 1980s industrial action, strikes, state subsidised competitors and poor designs had the inevitable effect of destroying all but a very few British car and van businesses.
Recently, however, a remarkable company called Modec has bucked that trend. The Coventry based van company is unusual in many respects. It is British owned; it is a new company; it is growing. However, the most unusual feature about it must be what they produces – electric vans.
Unlike its larger competitors who are still ramming the internal combustion down peoples’ throats, Modec is producing electric vehicles right now!
There are obvious environmental and cost benefits to what they do. The electricity used to charge these vehicles is at most half as polluting as the equivalent power needed to shift the same load with an diesel or petrol engine. What is more, charging can be done with turbines or solar panels, making transportation carbon neutral.
Savings on fuel costs can also be considerable. Given the recent hike in petrol and diesel prices, would n’t it be nice to buy electricity which s about 10 times cheaper than petrol or diesel. Even when the cost of renting the batteries is taken into account, users save on the cost of diesel and know their costs are fixed – which is more than can be said for the OPEC dependents.
Let’s put it this way, which do you prefer: paying large sums of money to OPEC leaders, based on the assumption that a very small group of wealthy land owners deserve millions of pounds each year; or running your car on electricity for less money?
Modec is one of the first companies to produce a vehicle which is practical, cost effective, environmental stronger than the opposition, quieter. Some forward thinking groups are already using MODEC vehicles, including Bedfordshire county council, TESCO and UPS. I am currently in the process of writing to my MP and asking why the government is not more coherent in supporting these vehicles by ordering them for each local authority in the country. Maybe you would like to do the same.
I am confident that more people will start using them as they become known and as OPEC become ever more greedy and undependable. Modec is one of the few companies who present a genuine solution to the problems of burning petrol - as opposed to many others who simply try to reduce the amount they burn. I see the future and it is a MODEC van – coming to a road near you.

You can also find out more details of the company by clicking on this web link.

http://www.modeczev.com/uk/home

Personality of the month

For those of you who have read this blog for a while, you will remember the section entitled - Personality of the Week. Unfortunately for the category's title, my time is in even scarcer amounts than it was when I set up the section. Consequently, I think a little remarking is in order.

Hence forward, the section formally known as Personality of the week or Personality of the Fortnight will become Personality of the Month.

And who better to kick off the re-branding than Ruth Dudley Edwards....

This fine woman is both an academic and a crime writer. It is for her contribution to the Crime writing and comedy genres that I wish to nominate her the prize of... a free cup of coffee.

Amongst her works are "Murder at St. Margaret's" and "corridors of death". I especially enjoyed reading corridors of death because of its comic references to the Civil Service. In particular, I enjoyed the creation of character who was so universally disliked (and disagreeable) that every character had a good reason to kill the victim.

I admire Dudbley Edwards for two reasons. Firstly, she makes light work of the seemingly impossible task of combining comedy and crime writing. Secondly, she is an all-rounder. She has an academic career, she writes regularly in the British press, and still manages to write crime books for fun.

Three cheers for Ruth Dudley Edwards!!