The UK’s ‘Sense about Science’ organization announced the two winners of its 2014 John Maddox (aka, the ‘standing up for science’) Prize in late October 2014 (from the Oct. 28, 2014 announcement),
I am delighted to share that last night [Oct. 27, 2014] Dr Emily Willingham and Dr David Robert Grimes were announced as the winners of the 2014 John Maddox Prize, at our annual reception held with the Royal Pharmaceutical Society.
After lengthy deliberation, this year’s judges (Tracey Brown, Philip Campbell, Colin Blakemore and Martin Rees) awarded the prize to these two people who embody the spirit of the prize, showing courage in promoting science and evidence on a matter of public interest, despite facing difficulty and hostility in doing so.
The call for 2014 nominations was mentioned in an Aug. 18, 2014 post. Here’s more about each of the winners (from the 2014 John Maddox Prize webpage on the Sense about Science website),
The judges awarded the prize to freelance journalist Dr Emily Willingham and early career scientist Dr David Robert Grimes for courage in promoting science and evidence on a matter of public interest, despite facing difficulty and hostility in doing so. …
David Grimes writes bravely on challenging and controversial issues, including nuclear power and climate change. He has persevered despite hostility and threats, such as on his writing about the evidence in the debate on abortion in Ireland. He does so while sustaining his career as a scientist at the University of Oxford.
Emily Willingham, a US writer, has brought discussion about evidence, from school shootings to home birth, to large audiences through her writing. She has continued to reach across conflict and disputes about evidence to the people trying to make sense of them. She is facing a lawsuit for an article about the purported link between vaccines and autism.
A Nov. 1, 2014 post by Nick Cohen for the Guardian newspaper discusses one of the 2014 winners in the context of a post about standing up to science ignorance and Ebola in the US, scroll down abut 15% of the way),
The joint winners confronted beliefs that are as prevalent in Britain as America: that vaccination causes autism, that homeopathic medicines work, that manmade climate change does not exist and that adding fluoride to the water supply is a threat to health. (I didn’t know it until the prize jury told me but Sinn Féin is leading a vigorous anti-fluoride campaign in Dublin – well, I suppose it’s progress for the IRA to go from blowing off peoples’ heads to merely rotting their teeth.)
David Robert Grimes, one of the winners, said that, contrary to the myth of the scientific bully, most of his colleagues wanted to keep out of public debate, presumably because they did not wish to receive the threats of violence fanatics and quacks have directed at him. If we are to improve public policy in areas as diverse as the fight against Ebola to the treatment of drug addicts, they need to be a braver, and more willing to tell the public, which so often funds their research, what they have learned.
Grimes makes a useful distinction. Most people just want more information and scientists should be prepared to make their case clearly and concisely. Then there are the rest – Ukip, the Tea Party, governors of Maine, Sinn Féin, David Cameron, climate change deniers – who will block out any evidence that contradicts their beliefs. They confirm the truth of Paul Simon’s line: “All lies and jest, still the man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest.”
Lydia Lepage (a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Edinburgh and a member of the Voice of Young Science, which is run by Sense About Science) over on the Conversation writes about both winners in an Oct. 28, 2014 post (Note: Links have been removed),
Willingham is a freelance science journalist whose evidence-based article: “Blame Wakefield for missed autism-gut connection” drew intense criticism and a lawsuit from Andrew Wakefield, the discredited scientist known for his now-retracted 1998 Lancet paper on the alleged link between vaccines and autism. She criticised the “red herring and the subsequent noxious cloud that his fraud left over any research examining autism and the gut”.
Willingham’s self-declared passion is “presenting accurate, evidence-based information”. She says:
Standing up for science and public health in the face of not only unyielding but also sometimes threatening opposition can be tiring and demoralising.
Grimes is a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Oxford in the UK, working on modelling oxygen distribution in tumours. He has been awarded the Maddox Prize for reaching out to the public through his writing on a range of challenging and controversial issues, including nuclear power and climate change.
Grimes continues to present the evidence, despite receiving threats, particularly surrounding discussion on abortion in Ireland. Following his article on six myths about cancer, in which he addressed the “dubious and outlandish” information that can be found on the internet, he received physical and digital hate-mail.
Sense about Science next announced an ‘Ask for Evidence’ website, from a Nov. 2, 2014 announcement,
We are excited to announce that Ask for Evidence online is now live! And people are already using it to ask for the evidence behind claims they’ve come across. Check out www.askforevidence.org
It’s our new interactive website that makes asking for evidence and getting help understanding that evidence as easy as possible. You can use it to ask politicians, companies, NGOs and anyone else for evidence behind their claims, while you’re on the train, walking down the street or sitting in front of the TV. And if you need help understanding the evidence you’ve been sent, that’s there too. With the help of partners and friends we’ve built a help centre that has captured what we’ve learnt over the past 12 years answering thousands of requests for help in understanding evidence.
Finally,. there’s the latest announcement about an effort to influence the World Health Organization’s (WHO) new policy on reporting the results of clinical trials, from the Nov. 11, 2014 announcement,
Following our pressure, the World Health Organization is drafting a policy on reporting the results of clinical trials.
We have to grab this fantastic opportunity with both hands and make sure that the most influential health body in the world comes out with a statement that strongly supports clinical trials transparency.
But you only have until Saturday 15th November 2014 to add your voice.
The draft WHO policy does not call for the disclosure of the results of past trials, only future ones. The vast majority of medicines we use every day were approved by regulators a decade or more ago and so were tested in clinical trials over the past decades.
So email the WHO to tell them their policy should:
- Call for the results of all past clinical trials to be reported, as well as all future clinical trials.
- Require results to be reported within 12 months, rather than permitting delays of 18-30 months. The USA’s FDA Amendment Act, the newly adopted EU Clinical Trials Regulation and pharmaceutical companies including GSK and LEO Pharma all agree that 12 months is enough time to report results.
- Encourage researchers to put results on publicly accessible registers, in useful, standardised formats.
Email ictrpinfo@who.int today.
Be sure to include your name and contact details as the WHO will not consider anonymous comments.
I am encouraged to see a move towards more transparency in reporting the results of clinical trials whether or not this bid to include past clinical trials is successful, although that would certainly be excellent news.
* (a letter writing campaign) was added to the head and ‘sense about science’ was changed to ‘Sense about Science’ on Nov. 14, 2014 1015 hundred hours PDT.