research

Hype in science: It’s not just the media’s fault

Ground-breaking. Life-saving. Revolutionary. Health journalists like André Picard of The Globe and Mail and Julia Belluz of Vox.com often see such words splashed on press releases about new studies in medicine. “When I see those words,” says Belluz, “my little alarm bells go off.” Journalists have come under fire for sensationalizing health science. But research

How do we deliver on the promise of personalized medicine?

Aled Edwards

In his State of the Union address, Barack Obama announced the intent to invest in personalized or “precision” medicine – the tailoring of treatments to an individual’s genetic code.  Canadian funding agencies have also enthusiastically supported this idea, and all University of Toronto-affiliated hospitals promote their institutions’ forays into personalized or precision medicine. Collectively, these

Outdated consent rules a barrier to improving children’s health care

Peter J Gill & Jonathon Maguire

The evidence to support much of children’s healthcare is limited.Ten years ago, randomized controlled trials in adults were increasing ten times faster than pediatric ones. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem like the trend has changed and the gap in evidence between adult and children’s healthcare continues to widen. Randomized controlled trials are the best ‘fair tests’ we

Did a conflict over intellectual property delay the Ebola vaccine?

Matthew Herder

Friday, October 3, 2014: A CBC headline read, “Could Ebola vaccine delay be due to an intellectual property spat?” By the next morning a colleague, Richard Gold of McGill, and I had figured out that the “IP” (intellectual property) was in fact a non-story. Whatever was delaying the start of a research trial to test