The Real Olympic Legacy
The Wellcome Trust has made a bid to run the Olympic Park and the Village after the 2012 Games finishes. Read about it here.
It seems to me that this could be a real lasting legacy for East London, especially if they eventually create a science and technology park, as they are indicating.
Gossip About Polythene
I’m putting in this post, as it was just office gossip with a guy I shared an office with at ICI Mond Division in Runcorn, but feel it ought to be recorded before I forget it again.
Bert Cross was ICI Mond’s infra-red analysis expert and he was a man who’d worked for the company from well before the Second World War. I remember one classic tale about the visit of the then Lord Melchett to the laboratories, where Bert then worked in Northwich and the Lord’s meeting with a researcher, who let’s say didn’t like the idea of capitalism. Whenever, I hear the current Lord Melchett mentioned, I chuckle at Bert’s tale.
Bert also told how when polythene was discovered at ICI’s laboratories by accident, when they were applying high pressures to ethylene gas. They found this waxy substance in the experiments. but they had no idea what to do with it. One idea that was current, was that it might be added to candles to stop them bending. In the end it was polythene’s excellent electrical insulation properties combined with the need to develop better radar systems in the Second World War, that were to prove polythene’s earliest substantial use.
In the early days, it was thought that polythene was a perfect polymer, with no cross linking or imperfections. Bert disproved this using infra-red analysis and always claimed he was nearly fired for his work.
Later when I worked at ICI Plastics Division, I didn’t actually work on polythene, but I worked with others who did.
At the time, ICI made low-density polythene and this was an amazing process with high-pressures, whirling shafts to mix it all and bearings that were lubricated by molten polythene. It was engineering at its most difficult and best. The section I worked for, had actually applied computer control to two plants, using IBM 1800 computers.
At the time, one of ICI’s products was a high-grade cable-grade polythene used where a high-degree of electrical insulation was required. A lot of this product went to Tupperware, as it made the containers look perfect.
Donal MacIntyre
I like Donal and was interested to hear his piece on MS last night on Radio 5 Live. All good stuff that made you think.
I would feel that the project he discussed, on the use of beta-interferon could have been better handled and researched by the NHS and the other parties involved. It can’t be that sound, if some of those who originally proposed the use have now changed their views.
Research should always be impeccable.
Fraud in Medical Research
Whilst thinking about homeopathy in the last post, the story of Andrew Wakefield was also in the news. If you type “Andrew Wakefield fraud” into Google, you get this story from Science-Based Medicine. Here is the first paragraph.
Pity poor Andrew Wakefield.
Actually, on second thought, Wakefield deserves no pity at all. After all, he is the man who almost single-handedly launched the scare over the MMR vaccine in Britain when he published his infamous Lancet paper in 1998 in which he claimed to have linked the MMR vaccine to regressive autism and inflammation of the colon, a study that was followed up four years later with a paper that claimed to have found the strain of attenuated measles virus in the MMR in the colons of autistic children by polymerase chain reaction (PCR). It would be one thing if these studies were sound science. If that were the case, then Wakefield’s work would have been very important and would have correctly cast doubt on the safety of the MMR. Unfortunately, they were not, and, indeed, most of the authors of the 1998 Lancet paper later withdrew their names from it.
Over the next decade, aided and abetted by useful idiots in the media, by British newspapers and other media that sensationalized the story, and the antivaccine movement, which hailed Wakefield as a hero, Wakefield managed to drive MMR vaccination rates in the U.K. below the level of herd immunity, from 93% to 75% (and as low as 50% in some parts of London). As a result Wakefield has been frequently sarcastically “thanked” for his leadership role in bringing the measles back to the U.K. to the point where, fourteen years after measles had been declared under control in the U.K., it was in 2008 declared endemic again.
David Gorski then goes on to show how badly Wakefield conducted his research. Read the whole article and the comments that follow it.
I am of an age, where it seemed in every class at school, there was a someone who had suffered the effects of polio. So to all of these antivaccine Fascists, I ask if they want to go back to those times. I also have friends and relatives, who were damaged by measles and/or mumps, who would have been saved by the MMR vaccine.
Wakefield’s badly conducted research and the fact that it was not properly checked before publishing in the Lancet has left a terrible legacy.
But there are two troubles with medical research!
Suppose, a doctor notices a link between symptom A and disease B, which is outside the normal scheme of things. If he publishes honestly, saying that this might be correct and can anybody shed light on what he has seen, many sufferers will accept what he says has gospel. Tabloid headlines will proclaim a new cure for cancer, when the doctor was just postulating something that might be useful. We see this all the time.
On the other hand, suppose this link goes totally against the established thinking. His research may well destroy the reputations of the great and good in the field. Would they allow his research to be published? Of course not. Horizon, made a programme about the messenger of the body, which turned out to be completely different to established thinking, some years ago. A lot of the programme was taken up discussing the problems of the researcher getting his ideas published.
To return to Wakefield. He definitely was helped by the bandwagon that developed after his research was published. But supposing he had been refused the publication, as his results were against established thinking. I’m with him there as I really hate censorship. But then his research was flawed and shouldn’t have been published.
Was it fraud?
Probably not in the established sense, but I feel Wakefield might have suffered from a fault very common in doctors. They have a theory and try and prove it. I am an engineer and if have a problem then I try and solve it. So if he was guilty of anything, I suspect it was not being honest with himself, his patients and his research. But we’ve all done that. I know I’ve made mistakes by using information in the wrong way. But my research hasn’t been nearly so important.
If fraud was just an isolated event in medical research, we should not be seriously worried, provided that research is properly reviewed and published.
But I have written a piece of software called Daisy.
One of the things it can do is to check the integrity of a set of numbers. A medical professor, showed me how to check a set of observations were consistent. All you do is look at the last digit and plot them as a simple histogram. If they are genuine numbers they will have one pattern and if they are some that have been made up, then they will have a different one.
The professor showed me some research where it was obvious that the numbers had been made to fit the theory.
Another isolated case?
No! A relative of someone I know was struck off for doing something similar.
So it goes on.
To avoid other cases like Wakefield, we need to make sure that all papers, and not just in the medical field, are thoroughly reviewed before publishing. This alone would make sure that researchers used the best methods and the most exacting standards. We should also have a system in place, that would not allow the suppressing of controversial research that would upset the status quo.
Keeping Your Brain Healthy
Look at any list of symptoms for coeliac disease and you’ll find a lot of them are concerned with brain or mental problems.
- Mild Depression
- Feelings of Inadequacy
- Gait Ataxia/Apraxia
- Lightheadness and Fainting
- Migraine or Persistent Headaches
- Mood Swings
- Sleep Disturbance
I used to suffer from most of these except for sleep disturbance.
Once I went on a gluten-free diet all of these symptoms cleared up. Now I know that I am a special case in that I’m a coeliac, but once the B12 levels were back up to normal, all of the symptoms disappeared. Research at Oxford University has indicated that higher B12 levels may help brain health.
It would be interesting to repeat their experiments with coeliacs. When a hospital diagnoses a coeliac, they should immediately undergo the tests before starting a gluten-free diet. And then they should be tested at intervals after starting the diet. My body actually reacted quite quickly in that my dandruff cleared up after about two weeks.
Now I know several people who have MS. One has sent me a link to an article about a new treatment for the disease called The Liberation Treatment. Here are the first couple of paragraphs.
Amid the centuries-old castles of the ancient city of Ferrara is a doctor who has come upon an entirely new idea about how to treat multiple sclerosis, one that may profoundly change the lives of patients.
Dr. Paolo Zamboni, a former vascular surgeon and professor at the University of Ferrara in northern Italy, began asking questions about the debilitating condition a decade ago, when his wife Elena, now 51, was diagnosed with MS.
He found that in some patients, the blood flow to the head was restricted and by improving this using standard surgical procedures, their health improved. Here’s a couple of paragraphs from the article.
One of those patients was Buffalo resident Kevin Lipp. Lipp had MS for over a decade, and as part of the study, discovered he had five blocked veins in his neck. After undergoing the Liberation Treatment 10 months ago, he says he hasn’t had a single new MS attack.
Zamboni emphasizes that the Liberation Treatment does not make people in wheelchairs walk again. Rather, it seems to stop the development of further MS attacks, and in some cases, improves movement and decreases the debilitating fatigue that are the hallmarks of MS.
It may not cure MS, but it is all very interesting.
I tend to look on the body, as an engineer would look on a machine or a car. Machines don’t work well if they don’t have all of the things they need like fuel, electric power, oil, water and all the other necessities.
Is the body any different to my car in that respect?
And now today, it has been reported that those who develop Alzheimer’s are less likely to get cancer.
This would appear to push things in another direction, as research at Nottingham University has shown that coeliacs are less likely to get breast cancer. Diagnosed coeliacs have on the whole healthy brains because they eat well, so this research might show the opposite.
We need to do a lot more research to find all of these links.
Widowhood Research
Kate Bennett of the School of Psychology at Liverpool University is recruiting volunteers for studies into widowhood.
This is Kate’s description of the first study.
One is a two week study looking at a model of bereavement called the Dual Process Model. This study takes part over two weeks. At the beginning we will interview participants about their general experiences of bereavement, and they will complete a questionnaire. Then over the next week they will complete a daily diary about their experiences – they can write as much or as little as they like. At the end of the first week, there is a short interview and a questionnaire. In the next week they complete the diary everyday, and then are interviewed and have a questionnaire at the end. This study is being run by myself and my student Lizzie Evans.
And the second.
The second study is an interview study which focuses on changes in social relationships, activities and support before and after the loss. This forms part of my student Laura’s PhD.
There are more details, including how to join, at this web page.
Blood Test for IVF Success
The Times today reports that a blood test has been developed that helps to predict IVF success.
I hope that the blood test looks for problems of coeliac disease.
Here’s why!
I am a coeliac and used to suffer from very low vitamin-b12 levels until I was diagnosed as a coeliac at 54 or so. Now on a gluten-free diet, my b12 levels are fine.
As a man, that doesn’t matter, but I can trace my coeliac ancestors back through my family tree. The men died young and the women never had any children. My sister didn’t and was never diagnosed as a coeliac, whilst of child-bearing age.
I also moderate a list on the Internet for coeliacs. Over the last few years, three women have joined in their mid-thirties who have just been diagnosed. All were childless, but wanted children and within months they became pregnant and successfully gave birth.
Are questions about coeliac symptoms asked when people are looking to conceive with IVF? After all, amenorrhea is a common coeliac symptom.
As an engineer/scientist these notes are not good research, as they are personal and a rather small sample, but serious research needs to be done in this area.
The Anonymous Widower 