BMJ Reveals Money Trail Behind MMR-Autism Claim (Medpage Today)
Second installment of Brian Deer’s investigation. Patent filings, startup companies, relationship with law firm – all before Wakefield published study. Investors promised millions
You Might Already Know This … (NYT)
Recent brouhaha over publication of study showing the existence of ESP. Does this support the claim that many published studies in science and medicine that are based on the widely used statistical technique of significance testing are worthless?
Depth of the Kindness Hormone Appears to Know Some Bounds (NYT)
The downside of oxytocin: ethnocentrism. “Oxytocin creates intergroup bias primarily because it motivates in-group favoritism and because it motivates out-group derogation.”
The Great Food Crisis of 2011 (Foreign Policy)
The price of food is going up relentlessly. Problems on both demand and supply side
China: From Famine to Oslo (NY Review)
Why the Chinese government needs to spend 514 billion yuan ($77.6 billion) monitoring its population to stop trouble before it starts. Beautiful description of Nobel Peace Prize ceremony honoring Liu Xiaobo
The Giffords Tragedy: Is the Media Partly at Fault? (Rolling Stone)
Media has huge disincentive for restraint. Audiences trained “to have their prejudices validated and their sense of Superiority Over the Other stroked.” Otherwise they check out, just as they do when House MD becomes a sappy relationship drama.
Image: BrianDeer.com
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