www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-20025626 incredible 6 scientists who gave an inaccurate account of the likelihood of an Earthquake in Italy have been sent to prison. I bet Michael Fish is glad he does not live in Italy.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-20025626 incredible 6 scientists who gave an inaccurate account of the likelihood of an Earthquake in Italy have been sent to prison. I bet Michael Fish is glad he does not live in Italy.

Farcical decision. If not reversed then all that will happen is that nobody will issue any warnings or risk assessments whatsoever in the future.

I'd hate to be Michael Fish right now ...

Heard this on radio 4 on the way home.

Worrying.......

Weather forecasters (the clue is in the second word) ...

The politicians involved in the levee's in New Orleans. Anti-global warming scientists who are heavily funded by oil companies.

My first thought was that the trial was a ridiculous joke. It might be, but it could be that the scientists did downplay the risks because of political and financial reasons.

I think the rush to judgement to mock this is wrong. The data will either free them or convict them.

...I'd say the record of environmental 'doomsday' predictions is worse if anything - and easily as biased as paid research by corporations. The idea that all research that doesn't support global warming is paid for by oil companies is ridiculous. Some predictions are repeated here: www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/12/ ... forecasts/

...I'd say the record of environmental 'doomsday' predictions is worse if anything - and easily as biased as paid research by corporations. The idea that all research that doesn't support global warming is paid for by oil companies is ridiculous. Some predictions are repeated here: www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/12/ ... forecasts/

Next up, the pharmaceutical companies that hide data on trials so as to give misleading impressions of the efficacy and safety of drugs.

Come on Minty! Everything is better when done by private enterprise. Market forces compel them to be completely truthful in everything they do.....

I didn't predict that earthquake either. Waiting for the extradition order...

If you read the article and look at who has been convicted, what their jobs and positions were, it is impossible to see what motive they could possibly have for downplaying the risks.

If what the article says is true as mentioned by David Rothery, that the best estimates at the time was that the low-level seismicity was not likely to herald a bigger quake and that is what these scientists communicated, it is purely a subjective judgement if that was down playing the danger - which is what they have been convicted of doing.



What do you mean? They were convicted because the prosecution said they were too reassuring. The data is what it is and as I said its a subjective call if they were too reassuring. The prosecution are saying it is not about prediction but about the reassurances given. I doubt any seismologist would ever give unequivocal assurances and I bet these people didn't either. Not when the areas in question has such high seismic activity.

[urlhttp://www.earthmagazine.org/article/hazardous-living-italian-seismologists-tragically-convicted-manslaughter[/url

from reading around there seem to have been four main factors:

1. Earlier, smaller shocks - and the question whether or not these should have been interpreted as precursors to a big quake. The answer, the world over, is a firm and unequivocal "NO" - the indisputable fact is that smaller shocks are NO predictor. There may be more, there may be bigger, or there may be none.

2. A local nutter who had been driving round telling people to evacuate as a quake was on the way. (He has a quack method of "prediction" by measuring escaping radon gas). The authorities were it seems wanting to pour cold water on his claims and "re-assure" residents. As an aside, it is said that if the people in the specific areas he was warning had evacuated, they would have left what turned out to be a safe area and into what turned out to be the quake damaged area.

3. The statement that statement that ongoing tremors didn’t indicate that a larger quake was imminent. Which they didn't. But obviously when ther then was a quake, people are saying if they had said there might be a quake, we'd have got the hell out. Well, there might be a quake, Any day. Anywhere. The statement was 100% accurate.

4. A remark made to the press by a local official which was positively wrong - he for some reason after the meeting of scientists pronounced an opinion to the media that the smaller shocks were a good sign, as these were releasing energy, and thus suggesting that reduced the risk of a big quake. Which was bollox. But never left the lips of a scientist. The same official suggested everyone went home and had a glass of wine.

Perhaps the soundest advice would be to say, sometimes a big quake does follow smaller shock, sometimes it doesn't, there's no way of knowing. Make your own assessment as to whether you want to sit it out.

There was clearly NO indicator as far as I can see that the scientists could or should have advised immediate evacuation. Had they done so, they would of course have been hailed as heroes, but entirely by accident. You may as well have tossed a coin. Had they caused a mass evacuation, but there had been no quake, they would no doubt be being sued for millions for having advised an evacuation when there was no scientific basis so to do.

The convictions are thus appalling, but nowhere near as ludicrous as that they were even considered in the first place. With the possible exception of the town official who does seem to have spoken with reckless bravura. But the conviction of the scientists is truly mad.

Plate tectonics is a relatively new science and as such still requires a lot of work to get to the stage where earthquakes can be accurately predicted. It does not have defined laws as e.g. physics. What we can do is measure seismic activity and use this as a guide to whether a quake may occur. To find these men guilty of manslaughter is ridiculous. I am guessing they won't have many applicants to fill the positions they vacated. And all this in a country where they have a crook as President.

I find it somewhat ironic that a nation can jail scientists for not accurately predicting a phenomenon that is by its very nature unpredictable. Yet allow bankers, who having controls over the vast majority of the world's money, still failed to predict and guard against a catastrophe that was entirely within their remit, to award themselves multi-million $ bonuses.

Given that virtually every breakthrough in medical drug development is funded by private enterprises I would suggest they have done a pretty good job over the past 50 years.

Most would accept all drugs have side effects - steroids - for example - are truly terrible drugs but their pluses outweigh the negatives so consumption continues.

We could have left medical drug development to the public sector - and then where would we be!! The old adage "Mother is the necessity of invention" come to mind - driving profits has yielded huge positive externalities in this area.

So the universities, where much of the research into new medicines and technologies take place, are all funded by private enterprise? I suppose private enterprise also funded the education and welfare of the participants too, not to mention the infrastructure required?

Much as it pains me to say this, but as someone who works in the chemical industry I have to agree with Sal on this matter. Very few new drug candidates come out of the universities. It doesn't however have to be this way.

Personally I would like the NHS to fund it's own state run pharma company. This would allow long term research into ailments that the pharma companies would not find profitable and the manufacture of cheap generic drugs. Before any of the Thatcherite numpties complain, I would like to point out that the US military has one of the highest funded medical research programmes in the world, all paid for by the good old US tax payer!

In my personal opinion novel blue sky research by universities in this country is held back by the need to attract industrial funding. The universities should be doing govt funded research pushing the boundaries of science, not research for big business on the cheap. This work should then be patented. If a company then picks up on the technology developed it then has pay the govt or university a royalty or license fee for the commercial exploitation of their work.

Where do you think the money comes from? Big drug companies pump millions into educational establishments to fund research - most of it very speculative. The real nitty gritty of drug development is done in house - this stuff is very commercially sensitive you would not let this data out for your rivals.

Big drug companies also fail to pass on much of their trail data to doctors, regulators etc. Except for the results from the most positive trials of course.

If anyone wants to know more, read [url=http://www.amazon.co.uk/Bad-Pharma-companies-mislead-patients/dp/0007350740/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1351590552&sr=8-1this[/url.

It leaves you with one conclusion: in 'the real world', profits matter far more than people.

Interview with the author [url=http://audio.theguardian.tv/audio/kip/science/series/science/1350653685662/7287/gnl.sci.120122.jp.science_weekly_goldacrefull.mp3here[/url

And well worth listening.

From your book - how much on average does it cost to bring a new drug to market? What is the hit rate? Profit is crucial how else is R&D to be funded - there are current >200 potential alzheimer's drugs in development.

How many drugs actually get to market with real negative side effects? How many drugs get through the independent testing, get a licence and then get pulled due to adverse side effects?

Perhaps you think drug development should be undertaken solely within the public sector - maybe we should still be using leeches!!

It's not 'my' book.

But if you need the answer to these questions - and more - I suggest you read it. It is written by a doctor and scientist. It will, no doubt, have absolutely been legaled into the ground before publication.

But then again, one could quote another doctor, Dr Phil Hammond (also the health columnist for [iPrivate Eye[/i) that we are "medicalising" (his word) the populace and that pharmaceutical companies are inventing drugs - and then a condition to 'cure'. The example he uses is companies creating a female need for Viagra.

You could also read Dr Malcolm Kendrick on the con of cholesterol as a disease and cholesterol drugs in particular (this is also covered in Goldacre's book).

There's Dr John Briffa too, who uses science to show why the diet advice of the past 30 odd years has been counterproductive in terms of rising obesity. He also covered the cholesterol issue - scientifically but for a lay reader.

There is no shortage of material out there if you wish to educate yourself.

Indeed. Seems clear there is potentially much more cash in not finding a cure for anything than in finding one. The golden goose of drugs would presumably be something that didn't cure you, but would keep you alive for as long as you took the drug. Now that's what I'd call profit.


Sadly for the medically illiterate and the knee-jerkers searching for a [ibon mot[/i, [url=http://www.yalemedlaw.com/2011/08/medicinal-leeches-natures-finest-surgical-tool-from-the-swamps/we still do[/url.