full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Ben Goldacre: What doctors don't know about the drugs they prescribe

Unscramble the Blue Letters


Now these are stoeirs from basic science. These are stories from 20, 30 years ago. The academic pisbhnliug environment is very different now. There are academic journals like "Trials," the open ascecs journal, which will publish any tairl conducted in humans regardless of whether it has a positive or a negative result. But this problem of negative results that go missing in action is still very prevalent. In fact it's so prevalent that it cuts to the core of evidence-based medicine. So this is a drug called reboxetine, and this is a drug that I myself have prescribed. It's an aitnpsneeradst. And I'm a very nerdy doctor, so I read all of the studies that I could on this drug. I read the one study that was phleusbid that showed that reboxetine was better than placebo, and I read the other three studies that were published that showed that reboxetine was just as good as any other antidepressant, and because this peatnit hadn't done well on those other antidepressants, I thought, well, reboxetine is just as good. It's one to try. But it turned out that I was misled. In fact, seven trials were conducted comparing renoxbiete against a dummy placebo suagr pill. One of them was pisotive and that was published, but six of them were negative and they were left ulhupisebnd. Three trials were published crnpmoaig reboxetine against other atrpadtneensiss in which reboxetine was just as good, and they were published, but three times as many patients' worth of data was collected which showed that reboxetine was worse than those other treatments, and those trials were not published. I felt misled.

Open Cloze


Now these are _______ from basic science. These are stories from 20, 30 years ago. The academic __________ environment is very different now. There are academic journals like "Trials," the open ______ journal, which will publish any _____ conducted in humans regardless of whether it has a positive or a negative result. But this problem of negative results that go missing in action is still very prevalent. In fact it's so prevalent that it cuts to the core of evidence-based medicine. So this is a drug called reboxetine, and this is a drug that I myself have prescribed. It's an ______________. And I'm a very nerdy doctor, so I read all of the studies that I could on this drug. I read the one study that was _________ that showed that reboxetine was better than placebo, and I read the other three studies that were published that showed that reboxetine was just as good as any other antidepressant, and because this _______ hadn't done well on those other antidepressants, I thought, well, reboxetine is just as good. It's one to try. But it turned out that I was misled. In fact, seven trials were conducted comparing __________ against a dummy placebo _____ pill. One of them was ________ and that was published, but six of them were negative and they were left ___________. Three trials were published _________ reboxetine against other _______________ in which reboxetine was just as good, and they were published, but three times as many patients' worth of data was collected which showed that reboxetine was worse than those other treatments, and those trials were not published. I felt misled.

Solution


  1. positive
  2. published
  3. access
  4. sugar
  5. reboxetine
  6. comparing
  7. antidepressant
  8. stories
  9. trial
  10. patient
  11. antidepressants
  12. unpublished
  13. publishing

Original Text


Now these are stories from basic science. These are stories from 20, 30 years ago. The academic publishing environment is very different now. There are academic journals like "Trials," the open access journal, which will publish any trial conducted in humans regardless of whether it has a positive or a negative result. But this problem of negative results that go missing in action is still very prevalent. In fact it's so prevalent that it cuts to the core of evidence-based medicine. So this is a drug called reboxetine, and this is a drug that I myself have prescribed. It's an antidepressant. And I'm a very nerdy doctor, so I read all of the studies that I could on this drug. I read the one study that was published that showed that reboxetine was better than placebo, and I read the other three studies that were published that showed that reboxetine was just as good as any other antidepressant, and because this patient hadn't done well on those other antidepressants, I thought, well, reboxetine is just as good. It's one to try. But it turned out that I was misled. In fact, seven trials were conducted comparing reboxetine against a dummy placebo sugar pill. One of them was positive and that was published, but six of them were negative and they were left unpublished. Three trials were published comparing reboxetine against other antidepressants in which reboxetine was just as good, and they were published, but three times as many patients' worth of data was collected which showed that reboxetine was worse than those other treatments, and those trials were not published. I felt misled.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
publication bias 5
basic science 3
negative results 3
drug called 3
abnormal heart 3
academic literature 3
cancer research 2
suppresses abnormal 2
dummy placebo 2
placebo sugar 2
sugar pill 2
commercial development 2
heart attacks 2
comparing reboxetine 2
research misconduct 2
fda amendment 2
amendment act 2
trials conducted 2

ngrams of length 3

collocation frequency
suppresses abnormal heart 2
dummy placebo sugar 2
placebo sugar pill 2
fda amendment act 2

Important Words


  1. academic
  2. access
  3. action
  4. antidepressant
  5. antidepressants
  6. basic
  7. called
  8. collected
  9. comparing
  10. conducted
  11. core
  12. cuts
  13. data
  14. doctor
  15. drug
  16. dummy
  17. environment
  18. fact
  19. felt
  20. good
  21. humans
  22. journal
  23. journals
  24. left
  25. medicine
  26. misled
  27. missing
  28. negative
  29. nerdy
  30. open
  31. patient
  32. pill
  33. placebo
  34. positive
  35. prescribed
  36. prevalent
  37. problem
  38. publish
  39. published
  40. publishing
  41. read
  42. reboxetine
  43. result
  44. results
  45. science
  46. showed
  47. stories
  48. studies
  49. study
  50. sugar
  51. thought
  52. times
  53. treatments
  54. trial
  55. trials
  56. turned
  57. unpublished
  58. worse
  59. worth
  60. years