Its a funny old world

In the course of reading and responding to posts in various general interest forums, I have been struck, again, by the way in which events are viewed by different individuals.To give an example.Recently, on a current affairs forum, Poster A made various comments about how upset the whole MPs expenses saga still made them, following the recent additional revelations about things like 55p Horlicks claims, £48 for 3(?) Garlic Presses,and £5,000 for roof and/or belltower repairs. Not an unreasonable attitude to take, I would have thought. I posted, basically saying cheer up, because measures had been taken to ensure greater transparency and less room for fiddling. Poster B then weighed in, saying Poster A and I were reacting out of all proportion, and that this sort of thing was inevitable in a group of 600 or so individuals. Well, I was amazed at this attitude, to be honest.

When the Telegraph broke the news concerning MPs abuse of the expenses system I, like many, was outraged.Bust a blood vessel outraged, in fact! I am less so now,partly because sustaining that level of anger is, frankly,tiring, but secondly because, as a consequence of the whistle blowing ( and it should be remembered that we simply would not have known about the extent of the fraud had we relied on their own data release) some may face a criminal prosecution, others are standing down, and we have much more transparency in the system, so they are less able to claim for stuff at our expense.I can still understand why Poster A, from above, could still feel frustrated, helpless and angry over this issue however.

What I struggle to understand is the attitude of those, like Poster B in the example above, who decry those of us who have expressed outrage, equating what the MPs have done with what any employees of a private company might do given the opportunity, or that those of us who have expressed outrage somehow have a naive world -view. I beg to differ. For years, this insular band of pampered individuals have casually stuffed their hand into your pocket, and mine, and everyone elses, without even asking nicely first, rummaged around and withdrawn some cash. Not even a thankyou. Highway Robbery, sanctioned by successive Governments who turn a blind eye to all the fiddling because it is politically expedient to do so.Heaven forfend that they have a public debate on MP salary! Unlike our entrepeneurial individual, the Highwayman,They don't even have to bear the cost of buying a horse, a gun and a mask, (And if by some miracle they did, i have no doubt they would attempt to claim that back on expenses!) or face the tedium of interacting with their victims with the time -honoured phrase "Stand and Deliver"!

Every company I have ever worked for has come down hard on expenses abuse - It has been one of the few offences which carry the penalty of immediate dismissal - and rightly so, because however you attempt to dress it up, however you try to downplay it - its still theft. Its worse when MPs do it though, because that is taxpayers money, the publics money, not the profits from a privately run enterprise.

It doesn't even matter that the amounts are trivial, in comparison to the GDP - it is, above all else, the principle of the thing. MPs are the ultimate public servant, elected by their constituents to represent them in parliament - not to rob them blind on exes. At the bottom of each allowance claim form, they sign to say that the expenses were wholly and exclusively part of their duties as an MP, when anyone with half an eye can see that for many, they just shovelled any and all receipts they could find onto their claim. How else is it we have seen claims of 55p for a cup of Horlicks, or £48 for 3 garlic presses, or £40,000 over a 3 year period to tart up a flat?

Some have attempted to justify these actions by claiming we don't pay them enough. If you pay peanuts, these people say, you get monkeys. Except that, in addition to receiving a base salary at least 2x greater than the national average, and around an additional £100,000 a year to employ PAs,secretaries and cover office expenses ( and for many, the salaries this covered went straight into their own pockets anyway when they employed their spouse or offspring), we then go on to subsidise their lavish lifestyle, paying for any incidental expense they feel like claiming for. And we should be calm and understanding about this? Nor, for a substantial proportion of them, is this their only means of income. How many of them, do you think, benefit from additional income to be a non- executive director of not one but several companies, or to write a newspaper column, simply because they are an MP? These money-making opportunities, this kind of salary and expenses is just "mere peanuts" is it? I think not. And in any event, the recent global banking crisis which will cost every UK family at least £2,500 would also indicate that lavish remuneration is no guarantee of quality of personnel.Heck, for all we know, Monkeys receiving peanuts could very likely have done a better job and averted the crash!

MPs have furnished both their primary and second homes at the public expense - and when they leave office, all those flat screen TVs, those silk cushions, the expensive solid silver ball-point pens, the designer sofas remain the propoerty of the MP. We tarted up both their family and second home, again at the public expense, inevitably adding value to the properties, so we are effectively subsidising their property empire when they come to sell those homes. And then, to add insult to injury, some even avoid paying Capital Gains Tax by flipping their designated primary home!

So, are we right to still be angered over the venality of our public servants, or are we just being precious and overreacting?

Don't thow away the condoms just yet......

Talking of vaccines, the vaccine topic de jour yesterday, more so than even the progress of the swine flu vaccines through the various regulatory hurdles, was that of the new HIV vaccine. And how the media lapped it up!

"New Vaccine reduces the risk of contracting HIV by 31%!!" trumpet the media! "Up yours, all you naysayers," you who said a vaccine against HIV could never be produced!

Eye - catching coverage, I am sure you will agree, but was it justified? Lets look at some of the background.

1. This was a blend of 2 previous vaccines (ALVAC and AIDSVAX), neither of which had been shown to work on their own. The vaccine manufacturers themselves appeared surprised at the seeming success of this latest trial.
2. Even should the figure of 31% prove reproducible, it is worth bearing in mind that this still falls significantly short of the widely accepted minimum target efficacy for vaccines of 50% population protection.So the figures, if confirmed, signal cautious optimism, but would still require much work.
3. The articles and reports so prominently featuring the relative success of this vaccine trial have been released in advance of publication of the actual data - never a good sign, in my opinion. In some instances, the absolute figures have not even been offered!
4. 31% is a great, eye catching, memorable headline figure, but do the absolute figures justify the optimism? This is where it starts to get interesting - Total volunteers for the trial, 16,000 or so, test period between 2003 - 2006. 8,197 randomised to vaccine arm and 8,198 to placebo arm. Number of confirmed infected individuals in the placebo arm - 74; in the vaccine cohort - 51.

So this relative protection of 31% is based upon the difference between only 74 and 51 individuals - and only just qualifies as being statistically significant. Should one less individual have become seropostive in the placebo cohort, then the result would have been classed as statistically insignificant.

What I find interesting is the triumphalist tone adopted by some of the media. Again,as with swine flu coverage, I found the BBC article factual in tone with little opinion colouring it. Compare and contrast with, yet again to my disappointment,The Independent article , which doesn't even provide the absolute numbers!

Over the last few decades, there has been a massive investment in the development of an HIV vaccine, probably in the billions of dollars. Such a vaccine has been imbued with the hope of being the best method of HIV prevention. The failure of the various trials to date has lead to increasing pessimism amongst the majority of researchers that a successful vaccine could ever be manufactured. So the cynic in me asks this - Was all the hype surrounding the news of this trial more to do with justifying the cost of the existing trial and procuring future funding?

I am also curious as to why the health editor at The Independent is so upbeat about reports of as yet unpublished data from this latest HIV vaccine trial despite the small absolute numbers and the borderline statistical significance? Why didn't the article mention the absolute numbers at all? How do they justify such an optimistic tone over this one trial, with such small numbers and borderline statistical significance, and on the other hand have such an alarmist tone over the negligible risk posed by adjuvants present in the swine flu vaccines?

I am rapidly going off The Independent, especially when it comes to health stories.And another example of why it is important that you look at more than one news outlet.

Just the facts Ma'am

Always check the facts, always check the source, always get a second opinion. Following this virtuous approach can lead to headaches though, as it was for me reading various articles yesterday over the upcoming licencing and release of swine flu vaccines from various favoured news outlets. This is the BBC version. Nothing controversial here, sticking firmly to established facts,with no editorial opinion colouring the article, and with some useful elaboration.
From the article, you would come away with the following facts;
Fact 1. European Drugs regulator has given the go ahead to one of the UKs swine flu vaccines.
Fact2. The vaccine given the green light is Pandemrix, from GlaxoSmithKline.
Fact3. The UK has bought 60 million doses of this vaccine.
Fact4. The UK has also ordered a second vaccine, as yet unapproved, called Celvapan, being produced by Baxter.
Fact6. This will give the UK provision for up to 132 million doses
Fact7. A second vaccine, Focetria, manufactured by Novartis, has also been approved by the european drugs regulator - but this is not planned for use in the UK.

The article then goes on to give additional detail about the accelerated approval process, especially relevant given that swine flu numbers are now rising rapidly again.They even go on to explain why we have contracts with 2 different vaccine manufacturers;

1. Having 2 contracts increases the number of doses available, and ensures we are not totally reliant on one manufacturer.
2. Pandemrix, from GSK, is made in eggs. Celvapan, from Baxter, is manufactured in a mammalian cell culture, meaning it can be offered to those individuals with an egg allergy. An interesting point, although I am not sure how important it is.
3.Then they point out another difference between the 2 vaccines, noting that Pandemrix contains an adjuvant, whereas Celvapan does not.

So far, so good, I would have said. Factual article, no axe to grind or bias that I noted.

On to the second article, in the Guardian . Again, nothing too controversial here - a briefer article, sticking closely to published fact. I was midly irritated that anyone not reading it carefully might go away with the impression that the 2 vaccines destined for the UK were Pandemrix from GSK, and Focetria, from Novartis, which is incorrect.

It was the 3rd article i read on this issue that gave me the headache though, from The Independent, here. This article differed markedly in tone from the other 2 articles,being coloured much more by an editorial mindset which i found particularly irritating, since it is from a favoured paper of mine, one I value because of its impartiality.

Given the level of hysteria amongst a small but vocal subset of the population over vaccine safety, which was ignited over a decade ago by the truly abysmal, thoroughly ill informed, wildly speculative and unduly sensalionalist coverage of the "MMR causes Autism" controversy, and further fuelled over the years by rabid speculation, conspiracy theorising, and latterly celebrity endorsement of the view that Autism is caused by toxins contained within vaccines ( intially thimerosal, a bacteriostatic, and latterly aluminium salt adjuvants,there to amplify the immune response and increase efficacy of the vaccine), The impression I came away with was that the Jeremy Laurance article was unduly alarmist.

From the very first line, the article raises the spectre of vaccine safety.

"The first swine flu vaccine was approved for use in the UK today - but it would not pass muster in America."

That line sets the tenor of the whole article.The inference is that we in the UK are being "fobbed off" with an inferior and possibly dangerous product,good enough for us, but not good enough for our more discerning american cousins. This is all because the vaccine contains, shock horror! adjuvants, the latest of the allegedly deadly toxins contained within vaccines, according to some of the more fervent anti-vaxxers. The author then goes on to explain that US regulators have ruled out adjuvants in vaccines destined for the US market.

One can argue about that decision all day, but one thing it isn't, and it isn't anything to do with evidence, as the regulators themselves admit.Rather,it has everything to do with political expediency,attempting to maximise vaccine uptake amongst a population sensitised to the "toxins" of western medicine in general and vaccines in particular,through generally anti-vaccine populist media coverage.

What this decision is then, is an example of the precautionary principle in action - Worthy of debate on its own perhaps, but not a reason to adopt such a cautionary tone in the article.
Many responsible commentators would claim that this is an unduly cautious and unneccesary approach given the safety information we have on the adjuvants. This position has been adopted by US regulators before - over the use of thimerosal in childhood vaccines. One could argue their use of the precautionary principle then achieved precisely the opposite of what they intended. Rather than giving additional reassurance to the general population, so hopefully increasing public uptake, it could be argued that it backfired instead, handing a propaganda victory to the anti-vaccine lobby and their unscientific,evidence - free, biologically implausible and conspiracy fuelled agenda, increasing public concern over vaccine safety and reducing public uptake.

The article also flatly contradicts the BBC report in at least one, important factual detail, given the focus of the The Independents article, stating that both of the vaccines destined for the UK market contain an adjuvant. According the the BBC report, Celvapan from Baxter does not. So which one is correct?

So here is the thing. Who do i believe, the BBC or the Independent? My own research suggests the BBC has the right of it, but I would appreciate additional clarification.One can expect factual inaccuracies, sensationalism and bias in red tops and other populist outlets, but broadsheets should do better - And the alarmist tone adopted in The Independent does little to aid public uptake of the vaccine in the UK when it is finally released.

Men can't be trusted ....

Ahh, good old Harriet. No sooner has she started warming the seat of power with her bum, she looks for ways to get 50% of the population on her side, by saying "“Men cannot be left to run things on their own,” she explains. “I think it’s a thoroughly bad thing to have a men-only leadership."
This sort of comment, coupled with the instigation, by Labour, of women -only MP selection lists cannot fail to alienate many males of the general public. The women only lists will inevitably lead to charges that the successful candidate didnt get the gig on merit, and is therefore a less than able candidate. It is sexism, however you dress it up.
It is true that the House of Parliament is massively underrepresented when it comes to women, ( even Rwanda has a more representative parliament) who after all represent 50% of the electorate - but resorting to unfair sexist practice such as women only lists, and making this sort of comment is not the right way to change the balance.
The right way to change this balance is as part of a radical, long overdue overhaul of the whole political system, to make politics more transparent, less confrontational, and more representative so that more of the general public become engaged with, and part of, the political process.
Be inclusive, Harriet, not exclusive. Full text of her interview can be found at http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article6735934.ece

Fundamentalist religious belief destroys brain cells?

What else explains this? Stupid, because even people of strong faith I have heard talking about this rationalise by saying that God put Doctors on the earth so we could use them. This guy plainly exhibits a complete lack of faith in humanity, and his poor daughter has died as a consequence.

Creationism endorsed by UK education agency?

This article in The Guardian caught my eye this week.
The UK, in common with other countries, has an agency that attempts to assign uncommon or international educational qualifications a UK equivalence. This is obviously a useful and sensible thing - until, that is, you equate an exam which contains questions blatantly at odds with established scientific fact. Then, you give credence to the qualification and the underlying beliefs, both at home and abroad. More worryingly, this curriculum is being taught to kids in Britain, taught outside of the state system, either at private christian academies or through home schooled initiatives. This got me thinking - what controls are there on the quality and nature of education for the home schooled? We have a loophole in our educational system at present which allows for parents to withdraw them from state education and warp minds with absurd propaganda. Its time we changed this. Germany outlaws home education - we should do the same.