Ben Goldacre
472,218 followers
LazerEYES 
Abdul Noormohamed 
Mike Shell 
The transformation of people's lives when through-traffic is kept off the streets is astonishing. Low traffic neighbourhoods bring communities back to life.
But the new barbarism is waging war on them. theguardian.com/commentisfree/…
Retweeted by Ben Goldacre 
Any time I need to pull out of a meeting because of a childcare difficulty, other professionals my age (mostly men) email to tell me they're pleased I said so and I am "brave" to be open about it. Childcare in the UK is dire, blocks social mobility, hurts the economy. No shame!
As a driver I find pavement parking, and bike lane parking, extraordinary. ALL that space and priority given to cars. But STILL you dangerously drive onto the space for pushchairs, wheelchairs, bikes. Want to park? Fine. Park in the middle of the car lane. Have some confidence. twitter.com/BadlyParkedOx/…
Thanks to @jessRmorley and @bengoldacre for an amazingly concise summary of a very complex topic�#dataa#healthdataatwitter.com/BennettOxford/…o
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'GPs hold the crown jewels of health data': Thoughts on the Goldacre Review healthcareleadernews.com/views/gps-hold… < some pearls of wisdom from @andrzeio - well worth a read
Retweeted by Ben Goldacre A great meeting, 150 NHS analysts, and it ended with... an open collaborative google doc collecting people, email addresses, and project proposals! Bravo and on @apha_analysts @andrzeio and all! twitter.com/BennettOxford/…
Pancreatic enzyme replacement therapy is critical for some people with unresectable pancreatic cancer. Was this service disrupted during COVID? No. A good news story. BUT under-use persists? Another great paper only shipped thru our OpenSAFELY platform.
medrxiv.org/content/10.110…
281 people came to this webinar today. Now you can read and watch it online. Many more webinars on data, platforms, curation, ethics, people, open and policy next term from @BennettOxford ! twitter.com/jessRmorley/st…
This is tomorrow. 350 people have signed up. Come! twitter.com/bengoldacre/st…
I would do anything for love. But I'm not wild about making packed lunches.
In a meeting about uses and pitfalls of real world health data with the (heroic) CMDU teams giving covid treatments across the NHS, organised by @NHSEngland Some great discussions, and reminded of this thread, about when you shld and shldn't use NHS data to evaluate effectiveness twitter.com/bengoldacre/st…
Just finished the Legend of Luther Arkwright. Glorious English nonsense. Not as good as Adventures Of - because I'm not 14 buying the Valkyrie Press comic editions from Alison in Rainbow's End comic shop on the Cowley Rd in 1988 - but hey, time is a dick. amzn.eu/d/7yo3r9M
@veggiesosage @bengoldacre Have you seen a baby? Hard to understand how anyone doubts that birds are basically dinosaurs.
Retweeted by Ben Goldacre Also, "did you know": everybody is born with one heron; and it's the same one you see, over and again, throughout your life. (This isn't true, but it sometimes feels that way). They do live to be about 20 years old tho. I really love grey herons.
Other good heron facts: they strike suddenly, like a snake (worth seeing); they are an apex predator (tall, thin, classy lion); they do fish, sure, but also mice and birds, including ducklings and bigger; sometimes they overdo it (pic) and cough a lot (also worth seeing).
As someone who spends a lot of time with grey herons on the waterways of Oxford it's nice to know they spend the other part of their life surfing hippos. twitter.com/LatestKruger/s…
The most important thing about this amazing Paris transformation is how fast it happened — how fast people on bikes “appeared” — once streets were transformed. You can’t write this off as “Paris was always this way,” because it wasn’t. It took leadership.
Retweeted by Ben Goldacre Our director @bengoldacre discussed the comparative effectiveness paper when it was in pre-print here: twitter.com/bengoldacre/st… Of course it's now been through peer review, so do read the published paper, but the highlights of how & why we did the study remain the same.
Retweeted by Ben Goldacre TWO major papers on vaccine effectiveness using our @OpenSAFELY NHS data platform out today in t'BMJ @bmj_latest Building Trusted Research Environments isn't JUST about security. It's also about PRODUCTIVITY: reusable code from mixed teams who design modular platforms well! twitter.com/BennettOxford/…
Heroic new paper from Bristol friends on how vaccine effectiveness wanes over time after you've had it: only possible in our mighty OpenSAFELY.org platform with @TPP_SystmOne, giving secure and transparently logged access to GP records. twitter.com/jonathanastern…
Over 150 signups for this webinar already: turns out summarising the government's data policy documents is a massive crowd pleaser. Life as it should be! Come see mighty @jessRmorley next week, sign-up below! twitter.com/bengoldacre/st…
The government has published EIGHT policy documents on data in the past 3 months. What do they all say? What are these documents used for, in the NHS, and the wider system? Come hear the fab @jessRmorley from @BennettOxford summarise them ALL next week! eventbrite.co.uk/e/an-overview-…
Retweeted by Ben Goldacre The government has published EIGHT policy documents on data in the past 3 months. What do they all say? What are these documents used for, in the NHS, and the wider system? Come hear the fab @jessRmorley from @BennettOxford summarise them ALL next week! eventbrite.co.uk/e/an-overview-…
The govt has published EIGHT policy documents on data in the past three months. What do they say? What are these documents used for, in the NHS and the wider system? Come and hear the amazing @jessRmorley from @BennettOxford summarise them all next week! eventbrite.co.uk/e/an-overview-…
Retweeted by Ben Goldacre The govt has published EIGHT policy documents on data in the past three months. What do they say? What are these documents used for, in the NHS and the wider system? Come and hear the amazing @jessRmorley from @BennettOxford summarise them all next week! eventbrite.co.uk/e/an-overview-…
Retweeted by Ben Goldacre Got lost trying to keep up with the MANY data policy documents published by the UK gov in the past 3 months? Not sure what they say or how they're used? Then come to our @BennettOxford Webinar on the topic next week. I'll present, @bengoldacre will chair, & we'll do a Q&A 😅.twitter.com/bengoldacre/st…2
Retweeted by Ben Goldacre The govt has published EIGHT policy documents on data in the past three months. What do they say? What are these documents used for, in the NHS and the wider system? Come and hear the amazing @jessRmorley from @BennettOxford summarise them all next week! eventbrite.co.uk/e/an-overview-…
If you like cinema in appropriate settings then this 40ºC heatwave is perfect for Wake In Fright: "Withnail and I" meets "Picnic at Hanging Rock", a big night's drinking that goes horribly (and, weirdly, relatably) wrong in the burning Australian outback.. youtube.com/watch?v=uLUIi0…
@bengoldacre I think about this a lot: twitter.com/tomscocca/stat…
Retweeted by Ben Goldacre @bengoldacre The one massive oversight all doomsday/post apocalypse movies and TV shows miss is cycling. Within a week of the big event, all survivors will all be on bikes. Don't need petrol,EMP-proof, etc...
Retweeted by Ben Goldacre iT's tHe SouND of SumMeR!!
Let's get COOL in ZER pool
i do feel a bit wonkaloid tho
youtube.com/watch?v=PBg-uk…
GO TO THIS EVENT
June Raine is great, Adrian Root was mighty, and LSHTM team are fab.
(I did the last one) twitter.com/Roxytonin/stat…
This is amazingly true. The pro car, anti bike, anti LTN (low traffic neighborhood) guard, snobs about public transport, are an antiquated historic hangover. twitter.com/AstroKatie/sta…
Looking forward to talking with some fantastic medical communicators including @doctor_oxford @bengoldacre @xandvt @theAliceRoberts @dgurdasani1 (& even an acting one @StephenMcGann) over the next year twitter.com/TheBMA/status/…
Retweeted by Ben Goldacre This is why cyclists go in the middle of the lane. twitter.com/cyclegaz/statu…
Come on @TVP_WestOxon, you really must do better than the crass victim blaming in this tweet.
You've implied the cyclist was at fault, suggested a useless remedy (helmet), and given no agency to the driver by using 'car'.
Read rc-rg.com
@matthew_barber @tvprp twitter.com/TVP_WestOxon/s…
Retweeted by Ben Goldacre We have a huge full size old fashioned dustbin in the kitchen for recycling waste. This morning I have lost the lid of this bin, somewhere on the ten yard journey to the outdoor bin. The lid is about a metre wide. It's my triumphant pinnacle from a lifetime of losing things.
There are 150 drivers that @DVSAgovuk know fraudulently obtained a license but never passed a test. Why are they not all being prosecuted and banned for driving without a license? Why do we treat driving tons of killer metal like a right not a privilege?
bbc.com/news/uk-wales-…
Just watched Sound It Out by @JeanieFinlay about the last record shop in Teesside and and and... Really great, rent it like you're in Blockbusters here:
youtu.be/Q8RkLfJEHIE
"Large data sets can be de-anonymised with ease
This fact is as screamingly obvious to #DataScience professionals as it is surprising to the layman"
But @bengoldacre has proposals for #BigData research that respects individual #Privacy
ft.com/content/fa2683…
Retweeted by Ben Goldacre Currently we are neither protecting people’s data privacy nor effectively using the data for public good. There is a way we could do both better. @TimHarford on the recent @bengoldacre review
on.ft.com/3OW1acQ
Retweeted by Ben Goldacre A truly magnificent piece. We *can* grant access to health data, but we *must* build secure and transparent platforms that manage privacy properly. On! To the future! twitter.com/TimHarford/sta…
Retweeted by Ben Goldacre A key aim of ours in writing the @bengoldacre review was to challenge the false dichotomy that you can EITHER protect privacy OR you can have broad access to data for lifesaving research. IRL you can have privacy AND access. This sums it up brilliantly ft.com/content/fa2683…
Retweeted by Ben Goldacre One of the main arguments we make in the @bengoldacre Review is that you *can* have privacy AND use data to save lives, provided you're using performant, well-designed, secure TREs. @TimHarford sums up the argument excellently in this: ft.com/content/fa2683… article in @FT
Retweeted by Ben Goldacre If you find this stuff interesting you are probably already following @bengoldacre but the medium-sized summary of his report is worth a look: assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/upl…
Retweeted by Ben Goldacre All the code is observable, sharable, adaptable and reusable. Bad Actors have a lot of eyes on them, and limited ability to do Bad Actor Stuff.
Retweeted by Ben Goldacre Meanwhile leaks are inevitable because oversight of the data is patchy. Worst of both worlds.
So a possible solution: a trusted research environment. A secure data warehouse where approved researchers submit analytical code requests, and receive results, not raw data.
Retweeted by Ben Goldacre The NHS has particularly good data. It could save lives, spot side-effects, produce fine-grained assessments of treatment effectiveness, highlight poor care, etc. etc. etc.
But: privacy concerns mean researchers are often unable to get at the data.
Retweeted by Ben Goldacre ...because if the data are detailed, deanonymisation is trivial. Professor @LatanyaSweeney famously once mailed the Governor of Massachusetts his own medical records after consulting an "anonymous" database of medical data.
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