Wondering if that latest study finding is too good to be true, or whether it’s as bad as we’re told? Here are five questions to ask to help you assess the evidence.
Industry funders can go to great lengths to suppress the findings of academic research when it’s not favourable to the company.
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Most medical research is funded by industry, not public sources. And industry puts pressure on researchers in many ways, from guiding the research question to suppressing unfavourable findings.
Low blood pressure may cause problems for many older people.
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Kenneth McLeod, Binghamton University, State University of New York
Researchers are looking for ways to determine who’s most at risk for dementia and also ways to detect it early. A scientist who has studied low blood pressure makes a case for a link between the two.
The Eureka Prizes are often nicknamed Australia’s “science Oscars”.
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From cutting-edge research, to public education, journalism and even schoolkid scientists, Australia’s best science was on display at the annual Eureka Prizes.
Taking the pill as a teenager may lead to an increased risk for depression, even years after stopping.
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Long-term or historical use of oral contraceptives may lead to an increased risk of depression in later years; understanding the risk will better inform the decision whether or not to take the pill.
Thomas Durcan’s lab is using pluripotent stem cells to grow human brain neurons in a dish, in search of a cure for Parkinson’s disease.
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Thomas Durcan’s lab is growing 3D mini-brains in the search for a cure for Parkinson’s disease. Over the next year he is giving all his lab’s protocols, methods and results away.
Human challenge studies can be useful to test new vaccines and are increasingly being used internationally. Yet there are several ethical issues to consider.
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Deliberately infecting people with a disease-causing agent as part of carefully considered medical research can be ethically acceptable or even necessary.
Nazi leadership saw medical and pharmaceutical research as a front-line tool to contribute to the war effort.
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Questions abound about whether the scientist who created the first gene edited human beings took shortcuts in the ethical oversight process. But pedantically focusing on protocol misses the point.
Reconstructive surgery carried out between 1916 and 1918.
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Once associated with mind-control experiments and counter-cultural defiance, psychedelics now show great promise for mental health treatments and may prompt a re-evaluation of the scientific method.
Big data research could improve medical outcomes and reduce the waste of resources.
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If we want My Health Record data to be made available for medical research we need to make it opt in, not opt out. We’ll have a smaller dataset, but at least it will be ethically defensible.
In the medical culture of the Bugis and Makassar peoples in Indonesia the word koroq
means that the penis is actually shrinking, or retracting, but the Dutch in the 19th-century East Indies did not believe it was real.
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Koro is widely believed to be a culturally localised delusion. But a theory that it’s a fight-or-flight reflex might be corroborated by studying traditional healing treatments in Indonesia.
The journal initially only published articles by European physicians. But in the 20th century a number of Indonesians, who became founders of respected medical institutions, published there too.
Director, Walter and Eliza Hall Institute & Professor of Medical Biology, and an honorary principal fellow in the Department of Zoology at the University of Melbourne, WEHI (Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research)