Here is my grant rant. It is very, very simple. Last night I was talking to a colleague who just heard he missed the funding cutoff for his NIH grant by a single point – a score of 19 and under was funded, and his grant was a 20 (Edited 1/27 8pm CST to fix [...]

  This series uses the story of Dan Markingson’s participation in a clinical trial of anti-psychotic drugs at the University of Minnesota, his suicide 2004 while participating on the study, and subsequent events as a case study in which to explore various aspects of clinical trial conduct. In previous posts, I’ve looked at issues of [...]

This series uses the story of Dan Markingson’s participation in a clinical trial of anti-psychotics at the University of Minnesota, his ultimate suicide while participating on the study, and subsequent events as a case study in which to explore various aspects of clinical trial conduct. In previous posts, we’ve looked at issues of “good clinical [...]

In earlier posts, we’ve looked at issues of consent, investigator responsibilities, and conflicts of interest on the case of Dan Markingson’s suicide while participating in a clinical trial of anti-psychotics at the University of Minnesota. This time, we turn to the University’s response. Not surprisingly, the University has claimed it has no responsibility for any [...]

Until recently, my formal education in statistics was largely Darryl Huff’s “How to Lie with Statistics” and, more recently, Marya Zilberberg’s “Between the Lines” (reviewed here). I find that stats, with difficult concepts to retain, requires repetition. The difficulty is compounded by the overwhelming amount of information and difficulty keeping up with medical literature, let [...]

Considerable attention has been given to this week’s news about hospital (healthcare) acquired infections (HAI) at NIH with a “superbug.” * There has been probably misplaced criticism of NIH for not making its finding of transmission of a bacteria between patients public, as well as wonder at the high-tech tools that enabled NIH to track [...]